The Future of RuneScape Pt II

(please note this post was written back in early 2008)

Other than graphics, levels and items, there are many things that Jagex could do to monopolise RuneScape.

RuneScape has many fansites and forums made to discuss the gameplay popping up everyday. Of course, most of those websites have a vey low fanbase compared to the established RuneScape fansites like RuneH, Rs Boards, Tip.it and RuneScape Realm, but that fact doesn’t seem to be stopping the more community oriented players from setting up their own websites to discuss RuneScape.

Runescape Knowledge Base

With the setting up of the RuneScape Knowledge Base accesible by everyone on the RuneScape homepage, Jagex is seen as trying to disable those fansites. Even though the basis of the content found on those fansites stated earlier belong to RuneScape, but no other online game that I know of has tried to do the exact same thing that RuneScape has done, set up its own database for everything related to uests, items and area maps.

Runescape Forums

Runescape Forums are the basic form of communication for RuneScape fansites and RuneScape also released its own forums for both members and non-members access, although only members can create and reply to threads. So far, activity on the official RuneScape forums has been rampant with up to 20 threads created every minute. This means that most players who use the official forums get fast replies and most of the deals go through very quickly, much more so than normal RuneScape fansites whose marketplaces get a lot of threads created, but very little amount of deals going through. This feature has been further hindered by the emergence of the Runescape Grand Exchange.

There are ways to improve on the overall efficiency and fun of the official RuneScape forums. Letting users add each other as friends could be fun and improve the camaderie among RuneScape players. A reporting system seen as a default function on commercial forum software like Invision would be much more easier to use and sort through than the current cluttered Forum Emergencies thread, which as its name implies, a thread for reporting rule violations.

Runescape Black Market and Real World Trading

The RuneScape black market is also a thriving community where people break the Terms of Conduct and sell their Runescape accounts, items and gold to other players looking for a easy break-in to RuneScape economy. The recent news announcement might have galvanised RuneScape players into boycotting RuneScape fansites, but is it really the right way to go? So far on the forums I have been to, the legitimately playing community at large isn’t embracing the announcement. Why, because if RuneScape gold ads are filtered out World of Warcraft gold ads and similarly themed ads show up instead, which aren’t any improvement to the websites either.

Webmasters of RuneScape fansites which put advertisements are also taking the brunt of the change in ads with a lower income when they are already struggling with costs of catering to the large traffic flow.

Instead of using scare tactics like this, Jagex could sell their own gold as suggested by a certain innovative member of RuneScape Boards. It costs them nothing to spend a few minutes typing in commands for a few billion more gold pieces, and they stand to make a much bigger fortune than they have from RuneScape membership. This would also shut down black markets as people would be more trusting of the game providers themselves with their money. A cap of buying certain amounts of RuneScape Gold Pieces could be set to limit people buying in bulk and selling it for higher prices in cash. EG. 10 million gold pieces at the most per 24 hours. Gamers could also sell their own gold for real money to Jagex, letting both parties profit at the same time and leaving RuneScape as balanced as possible in terms of money in-game.

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