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.

Team Penguin

I never realized how organized World 60 penguins hunt is. I knew about clan chats of course and knew that there was a team of dedicated players who ran those clan chats and trapped penguins, but I had no idea that these people are organized in a formal entity. It's not a clan and it's not a fan site, I am not sure how to define their organization. They call themselves Team Penguin, which fits just fine.

They have an active Twitter account and an active YouTube channel and it's the latter I want to point you to. Here is why.

Return of the Wilderness hit the Team Penguin in an unexpected way. We all knew (from Jagex's Q&As) that one of the penguins will remain in the wilderness, but I personally didn't see a problem with that. My thoughts were that it'll just add some spice to the hunt and no-one will be forced to go there anyway. What I didn't realize was that pkers would start using World 60 clan chats for luring players into the wilderness. Basically a new scam appeared and Team Penguin got hit hard by it. They had to stop calling wilderness penguins, but the problem is still far from resolved. Now they are appealing to Jagex for removal of penguins from the wilderness and in a light of this scamming/luring problem, I think, the appeal makes sense. You can find more information about it here.

So what about the YouTube channel? The thing is that they put up a weekly video with penguin locations out there and it's quite easy to use it to find penguins without having to join any of the clan chats, which means no exposure to scamming and luring. I tried it today - worked perfectly.

Wilderness Songs

Great way to welcome the Wilderness back: found a perfect Wilderness song and go about singing it. I'll be forever stuck with this gem, I am sure, I'll be chanting it every time I go up there, to the cold shores of the high level Wilderness:

55 levels in the Wilderness, 55 levels in the Wilderness

A Revenant Ork came to visit me -OH CRAP- so I ran south, and I'm safe for now

But now there's 54 levels of Wilderness left to trek...

Well, I didn't go to the Wilderness today, but I did celebrate the return of Free Trade, yes, I did! I bought a partyhat! A purple one. A long time dream come true :)
It had a side effect of emptying my coffers, but I am glad they are empty. Now I can come back to playing the game the way I did before the GE. No more "skilling" spending sprees - I'll have to work to get my skills up and I like it.

Top Ten Wilderness Tips

Pretty cool (and useful :)) video to help you better equip for tomorrow's return of the Wilderness:

Wilderness and Free Trade Q&A

Essential read for every Runescape player: wilderness and free trade Q&A.

The answers are pretty much all reasonable, no big surprises. Maybe with an exception of handling extreme potions: they are still banned from the wilderness...
Also beware, Chaos tunnels stay where they are, so every time you go in there (of course, including visiting Bork), you'll be at risk of being attacked by pkers. It might stop me from using Bandos and Armadyl armor in there, but we'll see, maybe it won't be that bad.

As far as free trade, the GE stays with suggested medium, max and min prices, as well as buying limits, but you'll be able to make offers for any price. I find it hard to predict how it's going to work. We'll just have to wait and see.

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.

RuneCast

Finally had a chance to listen to to the first RuneCast podcast from silentc0re. It's about returning of the wilderness and free trade, as well as the future of Runescape and Stellar Dawn. And it's good. 19 mins, but well worth the time.

P.S. As far as my disappearance from the game... I am still in Mexico and if not for the interviews, I wouldn't be posting during the last 2 weeks at all. I hope to come back to normal in a few days though.

Mod Mark talks about the Wilderness update

All right, here are some details from Mod Mark about the "new/old" Wilderness (click on the image there to see screenshots in full resolution).

Short summary (as far as understand what is going on):

• A lot of relocation is going to take place. Minigames will be moved as well as quests.
• Clues will be updated, but I don't think they will be removed from wilderness completely. Probably, we will just get less trips there.
• Jagex is confident that they'll keep bots and RWT at bay with new technology (or technologies)
• There will be no special PvP worlds anymore
• A lot of stuff still undecided (gravestones, abyss, potions, weapons etc.)

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.

Ghost Ship in the Wilderness

I knew that revenants were coming from somewhere, but I never thought they actually had a home in the Wilderness. Until yesterday when I inadvertently paid them a visit.

Here is what happened.
I was hunting for revenants in the deep wilderness waiting for the Merch's house party to start and stumbled upon a broken down ship. It was marooned on the shore right by the agility course area. Very spooky. I never knew there was a ship there - but it was. And it was empty. I entered through a hole on the side and proceeded to the top desk - still no one. Went down to the hull and then it happened: four revenants exited the hull through the very hole I was staying by and spurted into the wilderness. Two knights and two orcs. Ouch! For a few seconds I was simply stunned. I took a picture, but when I finally rushed in pursue they were gone - undoubtedly on their different patrolling routes.



Still shaking I went to the party and had fun ;-)

Knights, Orcs, Werewolves, Rufus And Merch Gwyar

Yet another awesome story from Merch Gwyar. Every time I read about her adventures, I literally feel being there, so colorful and realistic the stories are.

Dash through the Wilderness

One ork, one dragon, a few giants, one chaos elemental, three knights and Merch Gwyar. Lovely.

Welcome back, Merch!

Shooting Stars over the Runescape Wilderness

Very inspiring and heartwarming story about players collaborating in Wilderness from G.

A Hunter in the Wilderness

Two things happened yesterday. First, I got myself a new laptop and was able to play in HD full screen mode. Second, I went hunting for revenants into the Wilderness. Wow! It was one of the best experiences I had in Runescape ever.

Enormousness, darkness, emptiness and gloominess of the Wilderness magnified by the HD graphics is something to behold. Now add there a thrill of hunting and joy of battle and you'll get the picture.

I started from Edgeville and wandered in broad curves all the way up to the Axe Hut and back killing several revenant orcs and werewolves along the way. So what can I say? If you like soloing and role playing, try it - you can hardly get more complete experience in the game.

Revenant Hunter

Amazing article called Diary of a Revenant Hunter from Alex. Imagine going into the Wilderness and actually looking for revenants! Or how about escorting defenseless clue seekers in and out of the Wilderness?!

Argh, inspired by Alex's diary, I am going there tonight. Wish me luck...

Can we bring the wilderness and pking back?

Good ideas on how to bring good old pking back into the game. I am not a big fan of pking, but I guess some of you, my dear readers, may want to support this one.

However, I personally don't think the wilderness will be made pking free zone ever - Jagex clearly has chosen a way of adding localized minigames instead.

Honor Pkers

I'd like to point you to two articles from Zybez blog today. Both about being an "honor" pker. The first one talks about the old wilderness and the second about Bounty Hunter. Interestingly enough, the issue is exactly the same in both places. The world changes, but people remain the same.

As to which side I'd take... I think, I would go with revenants. At least they do not verbally abuse their victims :-)

Runescape Luring is DEAD

I was browsing Runescape sites, found this and suddenly realized that Runescape Luring is finally completely officially irreversibly DEAD!!!
I was actually quite shocked by finding this luring guide. I was under impression that the March statement about luring and Wilderness Ditch took care of these despicable activities, but apparently Luring continued its existence. It took the whole Wilderness removal and introduction of the trade restrictions to finally kill it. Good riddance.

P.S. Please, be careful with the site I linked this time. It looks very much like a cheating site and there is some very questionable content posted there. I wouldn't advise to read beyond this particular guide (which I consider being an epitaph on the Runescape Luring Gravestone)

End of Runescape or the new Beginning?

They've done it. You know what I mean... Not entirely unexpected, but sooner then I thought for sure. I expected only taming Wilderness this month and restriction on player to player trades sometime early next year, but we got the whole package at once.

Is it good? Is it bad? No, let's put it this way: is it devastating and will Runescape live after that?

No, it is not devastating. Yes, Runescape will live. Some people will quit (I know, people are quiting right now). OK, many players will quit. But the vast majority will remain, adapt and keep playing. With all these trading limitations and with very limited pking support, but also without RWT and without gold farmers.

Are there issues? You bet. But, in my opinion, not as many as it seems. I personally see only three things that really needs to be addressed for all this to work smoothly:
1. Grand Exchange has to be more flexible with prices in order to serve as the main (and the only) price control mechanism in the game. It should also be able to account for new items, rapid changes in the price demands and, yes, ALL prices must be set correctly there to start with.
2. Gifts and, possibly, loans mechanisms should be added to the game, so honest players could fully interact with each other.
3. Loot share function has to be modified, so it would actually work and give the participants equal shares! There are several ways to do so (mentioned in the Qeltar's article below).

Speaking of which... Take a look at the Qeltar's article from TruthScape with assessment of the situation and valid suggestions.

I also would like to point you to a few other posts of fellow bloggers. Despite an overall angry mood of the Runescape community, I am glad to find somewhat positive thoughts there, which is encouraging. Not all is lost!

Steve's post.
Timoty Gold's post.
Merch Gwyar post (this one is a perfect example why gifts/loans system is important!)

And, finally, a few words about the Wilderness updates. Quite simple, I think they are all steps in the right direction, but new pking areas could have been done much better. I actually tried the Bounty Hunter arena. What can I say, as Steve mentioned, you just get piled up by a clan there. Not much fun in it. I wasn't even able to find my target before 'the piling' happened...

Gravestones in Runescape and Taming Wilderness

Interesting speculation on the coming updates. I actually tend to agree with these predictions - they look very reasonable. And, yes, change to the Wilderness is long due. Note, that taming Wilderness would not only fix a loophole for RWT, but also would be yet another step to make the game more appropriate to the younger audience, which is what we really have in the game despite 13+ requirement.