Bye Bye 12 and Unders
Just read this post on Thinking in a Different Box. Apparently, anyone under 12 years old cannot should not create a Runescape account. Though this probably won’t stop 12 year olds from making an account, hopefully it will cut back on the amount of immature noobs in the game.
Personally, I feel Jagex made the right decision to limit the game to more mature users. I’m not saying that all 12 and unders are immature – but the majority have proven that they are. You can go to some of the more crowded worlds and see for yourself – there are tons of lower level players constantly using profane language and ruining the Runescape experience for the rest of us. Quite frankly, I’m disappointed by the lack of maturity. It shows that kids have no desire to be a member of society and have no respect for the rest of the Runescape community. This comic sums it up quite nicely.
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I would also like to touch on the growing number of Flax bots and bots in general. Flax has become one of the largest “botting enterprises” (for lack of a better term). Take a look at the flax fields next time you’re in Seer’s village, and remember to wear sunglasses – all those green “Level-3s” can hurt your eyes. Yup, level 3’s. I counted a bunch, last time I was there, and the amount has simply grown since. Not only is this highly annoying for those human players who wish to collect flax for money or bowstrings – but it can severely cripple the flax economy. Imagine, hundreds of bots selling massive amounts of flax for cheaper and cheaper prices, and, eventually, the price will go down so far that flax is virtually worthless.
Sieg commented on Marlaine’s post:
Jagex is really trying to sort out the bot problem…it is really getting bad though.
You CAN however stop flax bots yourself, it just takes a lot of time on your part.Equip either of the following:
Frog mask, green dragonhide body, green dragonhide vams, greendragonhide chaps NOTHING ELSE
OR
green fremmenik robes (with cape and hat or frog mask) and again again NOTHING else.
Then what you do you stand outside the flax area and type either “cyan:::” “cyan:.:.” or “cyan:.” a bot might start trying to pick you like flax, then what you do you VERY SLOWLY (as in 1 space at a time) move to le-fays castle slightly north east of the flax field. Eventually you’ll reach the giant bats and they will take care of the rest.
I have tested this and it DOES work it just does take a little bit of time. It’s best done in groups of 2, and if you do manage to get a bot following – please don’t talk, as that may make the bot go back to the flax. Use clan chat instead XD
So, let’s all do something good for the community, not to mention our precious economy, and endeavor to have one flax bot killed per day. Not only would you be helping others, but the flax bots would finally be doing something useful – they’ll entertain you as they are murdered by a level 27 bat. Hopefully, if enough people do this, we can destroy the whole enterprise.
With that said, I’d like to pose a question: Where do people get these bots from anyway? Hopefully, if someone can answer this, Jagex and those responsible players can strike at the heart of the problem.
Scams are the Germs in Runescape…
Scams, the tricks scammers try to use to get our items and cash, are very closely related to the microscopic bacteria that make us sick. They share many similarities, including the ability to make you “sick” – or at least highly annoyed. That is only one of the similarities, however. There are many more.
Scams and bacteria are similar in that they evolve and adapt to fit new situations and fool ever more vigilant players. If a certain scam, previously unknown, is written about, the scams will change to fool players. For example, there is a scam where one person offers an item (always a cheap one) for an expensive item, and tries to accept the trade before the other person can realize the trade is bad. Now, this scam is widely known and, since players understand item values better, it is now easily avoided. In response to this new “immune system” against the scam, the scam changes to fool players yet again. In this case, two or more people will do the trades. One person trades the cheap item for the expensive one, while the other person(s) offer extremely high prices for the cheap item. This fools players into thinking that they will make a profit. The scam has just evolved into a whole new scam that is even more effective than the first.
Another instance of scams adapting to changes in Runescape occurred when the German Servers were released. Since the names for certain items, such as magic logs, are so different, scammers used these servers to trade cheap logs for large amounts of cash. This was highly effective since the majority of players do not speak German.
Finally, there will always be new scams because, like bacteria, scams are invented everyday. Unfortunately, this is somewhat due to the updates we all know and love. Due to these updates, new ways for scams to be used open up and an intelligent player, unfortunately, decides to exploit the new “weakness” to gain money or items. Soon, a new scam has invaded Runescape, one for which we have no defense against, due to the little knowledge we have of it. Unlike in real life, there are no antibiotics for Runescape, which is an excellent reason to make good use of your “Report Abuse” button.
With so much nasty bacteria in Runescape, we must be on the lookout for new scams, so that they can be reported, not just to Jagex, but posted onto forums or blogs such as mine. Leave a comment here. I’ll happily record the new scam to warn other players of the dangers. In this way, we could effectively build up an “immune system” for Runescape. As Francis Bacon once said, “Knowledge is power.” How true.
Real-World Trading
This is just pathetic. I was reading the newest post in the Runescape-Blog when I read this:
“You see a lot of sites selling Runescape gold on the Internet nowadays. It opens up a lot of opportunities for players too, instead of players grinding and using a lot of time making gold pieces in-game to buy the next best weapon, or armour, they could just buy gold online – much quicker, much more efficient.
This also opens up opportunities to players to make some real cash too.
These sites also buy gold pieces of players, so if you find a way of making a lot of gold pieces, then you could sell them to these sites and make some profit. Merchanting is a quick and easy way of making money (check our merchanting guide), but it does require some initial investment.
Runescape gold sites normally buy gold pieces in millions, from around $2.99+ per million. This sounds like rubbish money for a million gold pieces, but it’s actually pretty easy to make a lot of gold once you reach your few hundred thousand gold pieces.
Not only to these Runescape gold sites buy gold pieces, but they also buy characters as well. If you have a character that is of a high level in a lot of skills, then you could probably get a decent price for it on one of these sites. The best thing to do is offer your character for sale, and see which site will offer the most for it.”
It is highly disappointing that a respected player, who has chosen to teach less experienced players how to make money, would be encouraging players to break the rules by buying/selling runescape goals and accounts. This is against Runescape’s Terms of Service and is, in my opinion, possibly the worst offense. Buying/Selling gold and accounts is cheating – you are spending real money to buy gold and accounts that will make your Runescape experience easier. By buying/selling accounts, not only do you put yourself up for being banned, but you also allow yourself to be scammed out of your real-world money. Think about it. The person selling their account has far too many ways to regain their account. They know all their old passwords, they have security questions, and, for members, they have their old membership details. That’s enough to get any account back.
Instead of buying/selling accounts, report any players who are buying/selling accounts and gold. Who knows – you may be made into a player moderator some day. To say the least, being a player mod is far more rewarding than being banned. So, report all players who are selling/buying gold or accounts to Jagex and, if the accounts are being sold on a site like ebay, report the person to ebay as well. Also remember to read the rules carefully to familiarize yourself with them so, should you find a player breaking them, whether in-game or out of the game, you can report them.
Now, I have a suggestion to make. I believe that it is too difficult to report players who are buying/selling items or encouraging others to cheat outside of Runescape. For the Runescape-Blog, the poster, instead of giving a Runescape username, is simply named admin. For that reason it is impossible to report him. That is why Jagex should add a “Report Web Page” form that allows players to enter a URL and tell Jagex which rule is being broken.
You could try telling Runescape through this form.
Here are a couple links to help educate you about scams:
Watch out for scams and scammers, and happy scaping!
