Night Moth

I feel like a night moth trying to break through the glass. It hurts but I just keep bumping into it. Why do I get this feeling almost every time I communicate with Jagex?! And I can't even blame them. Working for a big corporation myself I know how difficult (if not impossible) for them is to deal with "unknown" entities (well, like me, or other fan sites for that matter), but it still hurts. I wish the world would be simpler, I really do...

Oh maybe I am just too tired these days...

I wish I could share with you "Come, O My Love" song by Carolyn Hester, which shows exactly how I feel now, but I couldn't find it anywhere...

Bob Dylan's "One More Cup of Coffee" from White Stripes will have to do

Paul and Andrew Gower are no longer on Jagex's board of directors

Somewhat old news, but I personally found out about it only about a week ago, while browsing through Stellar Dawn Central forum. Here is the topic. Essentially, both Paul and Andrew stepped down from Jagex's board of directors on Dec 3, 2010 - two weeks before the whole ordeal with return of the Wilderness and Free Trade started. Coincidence? Remembering how Andrew was adamant regarding the crusade against RWT,.. I am not entirely sure...

Mod MMG is still at the helm, though - I'd be much more worried if he decides to leave.

Paying for Runescape accounts

Right... A lot of controversy and outrage about the recent move from Jagex to accept money for un-banning some Runescape accounts. Vast majority of comments about it (at least from what I saw) were very negative (and here is an example from Xela).

However, I don't believe that it is a sign of desperation from Jagex or that they are scrambling for money. Quite on contrary, I think, this move is directly tied to the success of the Wilderness Return update. I bet there are so many old (and yes, previously banned) pkers that want to get back into the game after this update, that Jagex support team has really really hard time trying to deal with it. Offering to take money for unbanning these account is an easy (though not very gracious) way to simplify the process and greatly reduce the load at the same time. That would be my guess anyway.

FourthScape

Another masterpiece from Ren: everything which is currently known/leaked about so called "FourthScape" (new fantasy MMO Jagex is secretly working on). It is amazing me how Ren is able to make complete stories out of bits and pieces inadvertently left by Jagex in the media and various legal documents. Brilliant investigation work.

Return of the Wilderness and Free Trade

Of course, the main news is just that: return of the Wilderness and Free Trade is going to happen on Feb 1.

Jagex managed to surprise everybody again. Feb 1 is very very very early. I don't think anybody expected it to happen that fast, especially taking in account all those necessary changes to the game that should be done in order for the move to take place (quests, minigames, the GE etc.).

What can I say? From one side it is great news, we won't have to wait long. From the other side, it confirms that Jagex made the decision about returning the Wilderness and Free Trade before both polls were released (possibly long before) and polls were just a very smart and successful PR move. I guess it's all good for the game (PR and stuff), and most of the players are happy about it - I shouldn't be complaining. And I don't, it just leaves a bit of sour taste in my mouth, that's all... I'll get over it.

Interviews with Stellar Dawn Fan Sites: Stellar Dawn Central

Today's interview is with Ren, founder and co-owner of Stellar Dawn Central. Stellar Dawn Central has the largest Stellar Dawn community and currently is the only Stellar Dawn fan site officially recognized by Jagex.
There is more to it, though. Stellar Dawn Central is one of the few sites where various Jagex related news are discussed (it is my "go to" place for this kind of information) and, of course, it is the place where Ren publishes his awesome reports (RuneScoop and Tip.it users should be familiar with them). BTW, the latest report about Jagex's finances in 2009-2010 just appeared, check it out here.
And now the interview. Enjoy!

Q: How would you describe your site in a few words?
A: Stellar Dawn Central (formerly MechScape World) is the first Stellar Dawn / MechScape fansite. We have an amazing community and cover all things Jagex.

Q: Can you tell us about major milestones of your site? A little bit of a history?
A: We launched the website on the 23rd of October 2007 and the forums on the 10th of November 2007 back when Jagex saw fansites as a threat and wouldn’t even confirm that MechScape existed. However, things quickly changed when Mark Gerhard became CEO and I got a phone call from Jagex on the 13th of February 2009 which featured various Jagex staff including Gerhard himself. I’d been up all night doing coursework and was pretty nervous so probably wasn’t on my best form but it was really great to chat with them about how Jagex wanted to work with fansites.
On the 16th of February 2009 Jagex sent us the first official concept art for the game ever released and later that day we suddenly got a huge spike in traffic. We managed to get 3,000 unique hits and had 347 people using the forum in a 20 minute period and were blown away by this level of attention. At first we feared the site might be under attack, but I asked one of the people who had just signed up to the forum and they told me that they had heard about our site from a tweet by Jagex (the first time Jagex had promoted a fansite through Twitter). After that we became the first fansite in years which Jagex would allow to be discussed on the RuneScape Official forum and on the 13th of May 2009 we became the first MS/SD recognised fansite. PoultryChamp managed to get Jagex’s first face-to-face interview with a fansite on the 24th of March 2009.
We achieved 40,000 posts on the 16th of January 2009; 50,000 on the 23rd of February 2009 and 100,000 on the 18th of July 2009 and are currently approaching 300,000 posts. On the 28th of April 2009 we achieved 8,000 registered members and now the figure is up to over 12,000 (including several Jagex employees who post from time to time). However, the community’s history is perhaps better defined more in terms of the various changes in management such as PoultryChamp joining me to run the site and the various competitions and in-forum events we have had such as the Art Contest, the Pliigi Invasion, the Easter Egg Hunt and the Not-so-Cold War.
Of course one can’t talk about milestones without mentioning the cancellation of MechScape and its rebirth as Stellar Dawn which was announced first on our forums by Mark Gerhard himself on our birthday, the 23rd of October 2009. This led us to change our name from MechScape World to Stellar Dawn Central on the 22nd of July 2010. The change took a while because we didn’t want to change the name before there was Stellar Dawn related content and we wanted to co-ordinate it with an update to our forums. Furthermore we wanted to go for the right name so we spent a long time consulting the community and evaluating the various possibilities to help ensure that our new title would be fit for the future whilst respecting our past.

Q: What inspired you to start a Stellar Dawn fan site?
A: I was inspired to create a MechScape fansite because at the time there weren’t any fansites, I was excited about the game and had research about it I wanted to share. I’ve always been a big fan of the sci-fi genre and have been following Jagex since when I started playing RuneScape in February 2001. As a programmer I have always respected and been interested in Jagex as a company so was really stoked to discover that they were working on a second major MMORPG.

Q: What were your original goals for the site?
A: The original short-term goal was to share my research and convince people that MechScape was real because at the time Jagex hadn’t publicly announced it and many doubted that they were working on a sci-fi MMORPG. I also wanted to establish the site as the premier MechScape fansite, build up a community and ultimately when the game was released to have all the usual fansite offerings such as guides and tools.

Q: Had your goals changed over time? If yes, how and why?
A: The focus changed from MechScape to Stellar Dawn and I no longer have to work hard convincing people that the game exists, especially now that Jagex have launched StellarDawn.com. My current goal is to maintain our position as the #1 Stellar Dawn fansite, keep up with my research and analysis and prepare for the launch of the Stellar Dawn beta (sign up at here)

Q: Was it the first web site you ever created?
A: No, the first website I created was a silly Geocities site which I created in NetScape Composer back in 1997. I’ve created various sites since, but Stellar Dawn Central is my most successful endeavor (thanks of course to the contributions of many people). The website theme was designed by PoultryChamp who has been doing this sort of thing for years.

Q: What technologies were used to create the site? Did you add new technologies into the mix after you created the original version?
A: The original MechScape Central site was hosted on Google Pages so didn't really use any technology. We soon moved to a proper web host and use PHP, MySQL and CSS. Our forums run on IP.Board which I really like, and we've fairly recently upgraded to IPB 3.1 which has more functionality.

Q: Is there a unique feature/service your site provides to Runescape/Stellar Dawn players?
A: Our forum is unique in its blend of an awesome community and a fairly liberal approach to what people can post (so long as it’s suitable for 13+ and isn’t spam, flaming, RWT, etc). We are usually the first to discover new information about Stellar Dawn and are one of the few sites who also focus on news and analysis relating to Jagex as a company. For now we're also the only recognised fansite for Stellar Dawn and have Platinum status, which has meant that Jagex employees post on our forums from time to time and give us exclusives. Oh, and we’re the only fansite with space pie!

Q: Is there a feature/service of the site you are most proud of?
A: I’m most proud of our community. Most people find the site due to MechScape / Stellar Dawn and many are still eagerly awaiting the SD’s release, but considering it’s been three years without a beta the reason people have stayed active is primarily because they enjoy being part of the community.

Q: Did you start the site alone or with friends?
A: I started MechScape Central on my own but MechScape World / Stellar Dawn Central has always been a joint project. At the moment I’m running the site with PoultryChamp (Laura) and she’s in charge of paying the bills and ensuring the website doesn’t go down while I focus more on research and content.

Q: How much time do you normally spend supporting the site? A few hours a day? A few hours a month?
A: Stellar Dawn isn’t out yet so there aren’t the usual activities such as managing guide submissions yet, but I do spend hours a day on the forums and am always keeping an eye out for relevant Stellar Dawn or Jagex related news. Most of my time on the forums is taking part in discussions but I always keep an eye out for potential mod / admin work which needs to get done. Two recent time-consuming projects were the changeover and rebrand from MechScapeWorld.com to StellarDawnCentral.com and the upgrade to the latest version of IP.Board, but PoultryChamp and Max did a lot of the work on the forum upgrade.
Being first for Jagex and Stellar Dawn related news is a time-consuming endeavor as you always have to be on the lookout. Fortunately I don't have to do all the research myself any more as others such as Pliigi do a great job at finding things and posting them to the website. When the game is released we'll be needing our staff to work really hard, but we'll also be depending on submissions from our community.

Q: How many staff members do you have? How did you find/chose them?
A: We have 5 administrators and 6 moderators who pitch in and do plenty of other things that need to be done as well as 7 other members of staff. When the beta is out we’ll need more staff but there’s not that much for people to do at the moment. For the general staff positions we had a formal application process but for the mods/admins we offered people who we knew would be good at the job the position, usually people who had been long-term users of the forum who had proved that they had sound judgment and were active members of the community.

Q: Did you ever have to deal with hostility and/or attacks from other fan sites?
A: We've had sites steal our content which we’ve had to deal with as diplomatically as we can. However, we’ve also had many positive experiences such as the multi-fansite event a couple of months ago.

Q: What do you think about the current Jagex's fan sites support program? Do they do too much, too little? Is there something you'd wish would go differently?
A: I think that it’s great that Jagex have a fan site support programme and that it's certainly not something which ever would have happened back when Iddison was CEO. However, there are plenty of opportunities for the program to be improved. There should be more APIs to allow easy access to relevant data and for Stellar Dawn there should be more fansites supported and more support for those fansites. Hopefully as Stellar Dawn approaches release Jagex will be more willing to share information and concept art with fansites and take part in interviews.

Q: Are there any Runescape fan sites you personally use?
A: I’m sure there are lots of great RuneScape fansites out there but as I’m more focused on Stellar Dawn I don’t spend that much time on my account “me” playing RuneScape these days. However, I’ve been visiting Rune Tips (tip.it) since early 2001 and it has always served me well.

Q: Do you follow/read Runescape blogs and news papers from other sites?
A: The only RuneScape blog I follow is the RuneScape Reader’s Digest which I visit all the time. If I hear about an interesting editorial I’ll check it our but I don’t regularly read RS newspapers.

Q: Is there something you don't mind revealing about your RL (age, country, hobbies etc.)?
A: I am a British guy in my mid-20’s who has BSc in Computing, does volunteer work for environmental causes and works as a self-employed techie. I am a big fan of the authors Sir Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman and George R. R. Martin. I enjoy watching Anime, Sci-fi, House and The Daily Show. Oh, and if the rumours are true I'm actually a robot badger from the future.


Thank you very much, Ren!

Vote for the Wilderness and Free Trade

Well, I wasn't going to post anything until tomorrow, but I guess I have to. Jagex's decision to bring back the "old wilderness" and "free trade" is too important to be ignored. It's not April 1, so I am taking it seriously. The decision, of course, - not the vote. The vote is a bad joke and, IMHO, should never been set up like this. It makes fools out of pkers (who are now frantically voting for other players listed in highscores) and it offends the rest of the players.

I actually don't mind having "old wilderness" and "free trade", though I was perfectly fine with the current state of the affairs (as I believe the vast majority of the players). But it'll be sad to see an influx of bots into the member worlds.

As far as links, I like Rafftank's post. It's very close to my opinion on the subject (and more elaborate). Take a look.

Runescape is alive

I don't think there is (or ever will be) a person who will know everything about Runescape world. Not even at Jagex. Not even among players who have played the game since 2001. And I like it this way. It means that despite being "technically static" Runescape is alive and unpredictable. And it really is! If you keep you eyes and mind open you can see new things every day, things that are there for no apparent reason, things that happen - happen simply because Runescape lives.

Alex gives a perfect example in this post. Take a look. Honestly, have you ever noticed it? We all were there, we all saw it, but none of us really saw it.

Jagex Wins $90m Patent Infringement Lawsuit against Paltalk

After a year of struggle and millions spent Jagex was able to defend itself against a ridiculous patent troll's (aka Paltalk) attack. It all started with Microsoft caving out and settling with Paltalk a year or so ago, thus consciously (which is likely) or unconsciously giving Paltalk ammunition to go against other gaming companies, Jagex included. You can read more about the beginning here.

Well, Jagex fought it out in the court and won. Yes, as strange as it sounds the common sense prevailed, yet, unfortunately, the win was very costly - and it's a shame. Still, I can only applaud to Jagex for standing up to the challenge. I wish there could be a way to sue the evil patent trolls back and get them out of business for good. That would be indeed a happy ending, don't you think?

P.S. I am still mostly in Mexico, still working hard and it looks like it's going to stay that way till at least the end of January... The only Runescape related activity I still regularly do is monitoring Runewise's forum at Sal's, so if you need to find me, the easiest way is to send me a PM there.

P.P.S. Speaking of Runewise's forum, if you wish to win a copy of "Betrayal at Falador" and don't mind helping Runewise, check out this announcement.

RuneFest Gallery Wall

Some awesome pictures from RuneFest gallery wall.

Gee, I wish I could be there...

Jagex aquires Undercroft technology and trademark

Another acquisition from Jagex. This time it is Undercroft trademark and technology. Besides being yet another sign of Jagex looking to diversify their revenue streams as well as their like of "good old stuff", could it also be a sign of finally making Runescape available on iPhone and other mobile devices?

Jagex Purchases Planetarion

Interesting find from Stellar Dawn Central: an old game called Planetarion bought by Jagex with an idea to make a sequel for it. Announcement is here and also Xela's thoughts about the whole deal.

I am afraid I won't be even trying this game though. Runescape is quite enough for me at the moment. I made an attempt to play some Legends of War back when it was released, but quickly realized that I can't fit that much gaming into my life. Simply don't know what I am gonna do when Stellar Dawn is finally out...

Sentiment Analysis

I've been playing around with "consumer sentiment" analysis tools and ended up doing some quick research using Socialmention application. Got some interesting results.

Here is a "consumer sentiment" picture for "Runescape" created based on data from a huge amount of social networking web sites (twitter, facebook, youtube, digg etc.)



As you can see very positive!
For comparison here is a sentiment picture for "Jagex".



Very different picture, isn't it. Still mostly positive, but it looks like people are happy with the game but not necessarily with the owner company practices. Of course, it's just one snapshot, but I plan to take a few more in the future and see if the picture states the same or not.

Jagex sues Runescape Botters

Well, not exactly botters, but people who created Nexus and iBot (Runescape bots) and have been selling subscriptions for these illegal software programs. Thanks to Aaron and Topper for the pointer.

I guess that's what Jagex had in mind when they were saying about fighting bots in Runescape.

RunePlanet Blog and Equality in Runescape

An angry post from Aaron (owner of RunePlanet) about Jagex treating fan sites and players unequally. I am afraid there is a lot of truth there. I can't speak about p-mods issue he raised and I don't care that much about bad language topic, but there is definitely some hidden or unspoken extra criteria for fan sites to be accepted.

I might be wrong here, but I think that evaluation of fan sites was done just once in one big sweep, early in 2009 and one of "hidden" evaluation criteria was size of the communities. After that only exception cases were considered such as adding fan sites for non-English speaking markets, removal of RS Boards and Zybez (first one due to RWT and second, well, I'd say competitive ads plus past history of extensive RWT), reviewing (and rejecting, alas) Runescape Wiki and adding Runewise. Yes, Runewise got through via an exception process due to the anti-RWT tool (at least I think that was the main factor - anyway, I am grateful for that).

The problem is that good and legitimate Runescape fan sites which grew rapidly in past year (like RunePlanet) do not indeed have a chance to get accepted, unless Jagex does another big review of Runescape fan sites or makes it truly an "on-going" process.

P.S. I am also extremely happy to see RunePlanet blog starting up with several writers. Yet another fan site driven Runescape newspaper, yummy :-)

Runescape Community Toolbar

I am happy to announce that Runewise and Runescape Reader's Digest got another affiliation partner! It is silentc0re's Runescape Community Toolbar.

Yes, it is a new initiative from Icey Dan1 whom you surely know from YouTube and Runescape Revolutions blog. The toolbar is neat and simple, yet very convenient for quick navigation to various Runescape related news sources, videos, feeds, tools and sites (including Runewise, yay!).

Speaking of Runewise, after almost half a year of procrastination I finally made a major update to one of the services and Jagex was kind enough to promote it on Twitter. "How much to 99" service was updated and Crafting skill added to it. Check it out, if you are thinking about getting a cape in this skill any time soon.

Tour of Jagex's headquarters

Dreaming of working for Jagex? Well... Take a video tour of Jagex's headquarters and don't say that I didn't warn you.

RuneHQ visiting Jagex

Well, apparently, not only Excl got to visit Jagex's headquarters. A group of administrators and players from RuneHQ got invited over as well. Here is the report. Pity it is rather secretive, times are changing, but secrets do remain.

Paltalk sues Jagex

You might have already heard about this lawsuit. If not, full story is here (Paltalk sues a bunch of MMOG companies including Jagex for patent infringement). The patent in question is about distribution of messages within MMOGs. In this context we are not talking about clan chat or players text messages, but about ALL game messages (movements, actions etc.) between player computers, that is about the very core of MMOGs. Unfortunately, from what I can see the threat is very real and dangerous for Jagex (and subsequently to Runescape players). Yes, Paltalk is making an outrageous claim which is infuriating millions of people, but, they are not looking for respect - they are looking for money. And money they may get, just as they already got it from Microsoft in a very similar suit. On a brighter side I do hope that Jagex's motto of developing everything by themselves may help them this time (assuming their way of passing messages between player computers and servers has some unique distinction from the patent's core).

To finish it off, here is an official Jagex's statement about the matter from RSOF. So don't despair. Yet...

Hi Guys,
Just to bring you up to speed, whilst Paltalk is making as much PR capital as they can on this matter, Jagex have yet to be served with any court papers and I expect being a British company it will probably take a few months before that happens.

Jagex respect all 3rd party IP rights and prides itself on developing all of our own technology which has not only made us a leader in this space but also means we are confident having assessed their patents, that there is no merit to their claims and this is all simply the work of ambulance chasers trying to extort money from a successful games studio.

Naturally I can’t speak for Activision or Sony, but it goes without saying that we will vigorously defend ourselves against any claims and whilst it may take a number of months or possibly even years for Jagex to triumph, there is no doubt we will triumph. The accusations will not affect Jagex’s operation in any way nor stop us continuing to create the world’s best online games.

Cheers,
Mark Gerhard

Is it legal to use Runescape screenshots and videos?

Strictly speaking, no. Here is a good article about it (related to Runescape YouTube videos, but it is the same for blogs and fan sites). No matter, what kind of disclaimer you put on your site, Jagex retains full rights to the images/videos and can (if they choose to) ask you to remove these images/videos. However, not to be discouraged, Jagex clearly stated that they don't mind fan sites to use Runescape images unless these are used in abusing, rule breaking or derogatory context. In other words Jagex retains the right to go after sites that use Runescape imagery, but don't really exercises or plan to exercise this right.