Why Power to the Players is doomed to fail

The recent Skillcapes update has just shown why Power to the Players is doomed to failure. I had reservations about handing this sort of power over to the players right from the beginning. Unfortunately, as seen in the most recent update, these reservations have come to fruition. Players have been complaining that the skillcapes were old-looking and they wanted a graphical update to them. Jagex put an initial poll out and the decision to update these capes won by an astounding 85% (103,275 votes) to 15% (18,577). That is a massive margin, and we saw 121,852 players vote.
Roll forward 6 months and the official vote was put into the power to the player poll in game. We had the option of
a)Tidy up, using the new skill icons - 16% (12,136 votes)
b)Tidy up, using the old skill icons - 11% (8,592 votes)
c) The new skillcape design - 66% (49,227 votes)
d) I don't mind - 7% (5089 votes)

This equates to 75,044 players voting, with 66% of them voting for the new skillcape design. This is 46,808 less players that voted in the original poll. Now, the skillcape design was shown, albeit in a small format, on the actual voting page. However, the full range of capes was shown on the official site, clearly marked on the front page and listed under the News tab for every player to look at properly.

So, why all of a sudden does an update that had such overwhelming support, suddenly become so despised when it is introduced into the game? I call it the "lemming effect. Or, as King Kulla succinctly put it on the podcast, "it is the hipster movement ". A few people don't like and voice their opinion loudly, and everyone follows suit. It seems to be a popular move lately to hate on anything that seems accepted by the mainstream. However, with so many people following this trend, it reverses the effect.

So, what actually happened here? Why, when 66% of the players voted for the change, were there suddenly riots and everyone began complaining about the capes? I put this to anyone who dislikes the new capes, or prefers the old over the new; did you actually vote in the poll? And if you did, what did you vote for? Because, and this is just my opinion, if you did not vote, or you voted for the new update, then you have no right to complain about it!

In closing, Jagex really needs to show some testicular fortitude here. The need to stand up and say to the players that 66% of you voted this update in. They need to stop mollycoddling the Generation Me crowd and tell them to just suck it up. Those that voted for it, voted I don't mind, or just didn't vote at all do not have the right to suddenly throw tantrums and cry about this update.

It is for this very reason, that the Power to the Player is destined to fail, especially if Jagex continually backtracks and keeps reversing these decisions. What I would love to see is Jagex release figures on how many players actually do toggle back to the old style and how many will keep the new updated version active.

For the record, I did not vote, as I honestly don't really care what a cape looks like. I do have a Max cape, and the main cape I used to where, before I lost it, was my Quest Cape. However, I did check the capes out on the News post and I liked the majority of them.

Please, post your thoughts and if you are comfortable about it, what your vote was regarding these capes. It will be interesting to see what I regard as a sensible group of people have to say about it. I refuse to post on the Runescape forums any more, since half of them cannot string two words together properly and seem to just delight in flaming people and not offering anything constructive. Have to love that about this community. Whether someone agrees or disagrees with your opinions, they do offer constructive and thought provoking arguments!

Well said!

That aside, I like the shade of green for the Farming cape. I'm happy the way the shoulders were updated. Everything else looks more minimal which isn't exactly the best thing for a 99 cape. I voted to tidy up and use the new icons (I think, it was either this or the old icons). The cape still doesn't bend properly and there are also a few clipping issues with some poses that I have seen. While I don't think it's worth offering a toggle back to the old version I think there are issues with this cape. Now that's my opinion on the cape itself.

85% and 66% are overwhelming majorities. Pictures were available for the second vote, there's no reason people who voted for the re-designed cape should be upset. Now speaking a moment on the design, the design of the cape was done in a way that wasn't exactly accessible. The designed cape that we got was based on a survey through their forums. This forum topic was discussed on Update, it was also (if I recall) mentioned at the bottom of a news posting. Before this week I didn't know there was a way to do a multi option poll but there is. Jagex could have devoted a week and ran 3 polls (Dragonstone, diamond, and ruby) to talk about the back, front, and icon with multiple options. They did not, they instead elected to go with a forum topic which requires significantly more user interaction. This results in those who don't really care skipping out on participating, in game polls would have been better.

At this point either leave the capes as is or go back and re-run the design phase using the in game voting system. By choosing to provide a toggle option for these capes Jagex is as you say, "mollycoddling the Generation Me crowd". By doing this they show that when it comes to Player Power and game decisions in general they portray that they have no backbone and are unwilling to divide the community on the simplest of matters. They're not doing themselves any favours for updates in the future whether they be from Player Power or from Jagex's internal design process. There will always, always, be the hope of having a toggle for an update that a minority of the community simply did not like.

Now a question that I want answered: Would the community reaction to the cape design have been the same if Jagex had decided to keep the design of the reworked cape internal rather than using the forums? (Yes / No)
Secondly: If this had been the design of the skill capes when they were first released (ever) would the design have been acceptable? (Yes / No)

I could speak more onto why they're heading off in this direction but I don't think that would be productive in the case of this update.