[Informer Article] MMG's Atomic Bond Bomb to Gold Sellers

This month my Informer writing procrastination paid off. As I was sitting here and freaking out about not having anything particularly interesting to write about the day before my article is due - BOOM! Mark Gerhard drops a bombshell out of nowhere in the form of a 3 minute video that changes a major stance on something Jagex has struggled with for a long time. In the war against gold sellers, this may have been the equivalent to an atom bomb. Introducing Runescape Bonds - an in-game item that can be bought with real money to trade for... well, anything really. As an ever blunt yet supportive critic of Jagex, I can tell you that this is a good move and will ultimately, if perhaps after a few hiccups, be the saving grace of the game economy. In a single word, it's genius.

For anyone who doesn't understand fully, let me break it down. A Runescape Bond is an item that you can buy for real cash ($5 American or equivalent for other nation's currency). That Bond can be used to buy 14 days of membership, 8 Squeal spins, or 160 Runecoins for use in Solomon's Store. Because it is an in-game item, it can be traded or gifted to another player, which they can then use to gain either of those three benefits. This also means it is tradable for GP or items as well, meaning it has GP value and can be sold on the GE. If a player chooses, they can buy these bonds and sell them for in game cash. Yes, that means you can buy GP for real money.

Why would Jagex do this, after they spent so much time and effort in trying to prevent this from happening? As MMG explained in his announcement, their research from Botwatch found that nearly 50% of players buy gold with real money from gold sellers. Clearly, the player base still insists on buying gold, despite it being against game rules. Jagex simply had no other choice. In order to stop gold farming and gold selling, they had to give a legitimate option themselves.

Gold farming has plagued every MMO since their existence, and up till now, most developers have invested heavily in preventive measures to try to slow this from taking place in their game. The flaw with this is that you will always be a step behind in trying to stop it from happening. Jagex's only option if they ever wanted to truly stop gold farming bots and gold sellers was to cut out the middle man in the process and sell an item with gold value themselves. This allows Jagex to make the transactions safe, stop any scamming and account hacking that takes place by gold farmers, and most importantly, stops real world crime and credit card fraud going on from third party gold websites.

The best part of Bonds is the safety nets in place, which are twofold. First, seeing that it's an item and not outright gold, the value can fluctuate. Bonds have an intended use: for buying membership or Runecoins or Squeal spins. What that is worth in GP to players is up to them. Secondly, there is a "tax" that has to be paid if the Bond is to be traded again, which keeps hoarding and manipulation to a minimum. The tax to make them tradable - 10% (presently around 1M) ensures that you really only end up with 90% of the value of the bond, so if you used this as a means of buying gold it banks on the fact that it is desired by other players wanting to use it for Runecoins or to pay for membership. As it stands, 20M for roughly just under a month of membership may or may not be worth it to players - but the great part is that players decide. Even if bonds were to ever go down to 1M gp, that's 5 real dollars for 900k after the tax taken out. And that's the genius of it - a bond's value is only worth what an original buyer (the person paying real money) is willing to pay for how much they can sell it for in game (someone buying it in game with GP).

It's all there, upfront and in the light, with checks and balances in place. Undoubtedly, there are many people who think this is a bad idea and will ruin the game - just reading though the topic on the RS forums minutes after the announcement will tell you that. I'd like to address some concerns that I've read in the multitude of topics since Bonds were released.

"Jagex just did this so they can sell gold themselves!"

Yes! That's the best part! Jagex is finally able to "sell gold" and make profit for themselves, while at the same time making it safer than some potential scam/criminal website. Gold sellers have no right to profit from intellectual property owned by Jagex - it's their game. That in itself is criminal, but when you couple that with credit card fraud that knowingly went on, it makes everything safer and stops funding... whatever gold sellers did with it.

And that's not the only reason they did this. There's other benefits as well. The game economy itself benefits because if there's no third party gold selling, there's no bots farming it. All the GP used in trading and selling bonds is already in game and was earned by players. The Trade Tax also creates a money sink, which will further strengthen the economy.

It also allows players more ways to get membership. If you have piles of money you will never spend, you can basically buy yourself membership with your GP alone. Players can also gift membership or Runecoins to someone that otherwise wouldn't be able to get them for whatever reason. Remember, someone had to have paid the real money for that bond, so Jagex already got their money, despite how many times that Bond is traded, gifted, or sold.

"Why not just continue to ban those who buy gold?"

Botwatch has done an amazing job, especially as of late, in finding and banning bots even within hours of their use. We've already seen the player base shrink due to the amount of bots that existed, which does indeed mean Jagex lost revenue, and they further lose revenue whenever they ban gold farmers. But if you start to ban the real players that just don't want to grind for gold, you start to destroy real players that won't just turn around and shell out another 7 bucks like bots will. It's not conducive to destroy half your player base. If you keep throwing out rotten apples from your barrel, eventually you're not going to have enough apples to survive off of.

"This won't work, buying gold from other websites is a lot cheaper"

True, and this is a genuine concern - one that has been exacerbated by a plummet in Bond value only hours after their release. The facts are that you can pay a third party 5 bucks and get double if not more the amount of gold than selling a Bond. The point here is that there's now a legitimate option that players can use other than giving your credit card number to a random person over the internet. My real life financial security is worth more than the savings in gold. Prices will stabilize once players stop flooding the market in their attempts to get millions in GP quick. This is just like any new item's release in that there's always a crash when released. Bonds are no different and this just shows that the system is working just as intended. The Bond well will dry and prices with go up, possibly to the levels that third parties sell gold for. It all depends on what the Bond buyers are willing to pay for their spins or membership.

Bonds have the best chance to do what Jagex intends while solving so many problems at once. Bonds are a single stone in a sling that slues the giant amount of damage that gold farmers did to the economy, in game resources and value, and overall integrity of the game. At the end of the day, you have to give players what they want and the ability to buy gold is what they wanted. It is a major flop in Jagex's stance, but one where their hands were forced.

This was originally posted as an Informer Runescape article.

I was looking forward to your article, Rickles. Reading posts from both sides in the Official Bonds forum has been amusing and frustrating at the same time because both sides use some of the same hilariously false arguments. They are so absolutely sure of things they don't understand.

I wonder if we may have a conversation about a few points? As you've been playing RS around 10 years, a little longer than myself, you know what I mean when I talk about previous times of Runescape. If you don't want to discuss it then you can say so or we can discuss it in PM.

Below are the points:

"You always have a choice."
It's a quote from the class trailer of the Diablo III Demon Hunter, but it is piercingly true nonetheless. Jagex did not HAVE to go this route, they chose to go this route. There were other options that I have mentioned to some and may mention here.


I do not believe it is an issue for every MMO, though many suffer from it.
It also does not affect them since their beginning. Why? Simply because Gold Farmers don't bother going to a game until it picks up mainstream popularity. No game begins popular(this is referring to the initial game, not subsequent versions like I, II, III). DeviousMUD I'm sure had no Gold Farmers and I highly doubt RSC initially did either. I don't remember Gold Farmers in RS2 until at least 06(I began playing in 04).
So yes, while they have plagued RS for years, they were not there to begin with.


One thing Game Developers - all Game Devs - need to realize is that it is impossible to 100% completely absolutely without a doubt irrevocably eradicate cheating(which includes bots and Gold Farmers/buyers). Why is this? Because someone somewhere will always have a way, even if it is bribing their sibling to cut 1m yew logs.
But this is not an excuse to not work your butt off to destroy and lessen them. Jagex have said they won't ban the offenders, the buyers. WHY?! The buyers are the ones creating the demand. Remove them and the Gold Farmers will slow, but not die. Yes, I said this won't kill them. Why? Because it's true. A: You can't get all the Gold Buyers, B: There will always be a Gold Farmer trying to sell. These things are true, ignoring them doesn't make them false.


Just a clarification here, they begin as tradeable, correct? The tax is only paid if they're traded a second time. If A bought it he could trade it to B without paying, but B would have to pay 10% to trade it to C. Correct? Just making sure.


No one has yet to explain to me how Jagex selling Gold is ultimately good for the integrity of the game. It is an indisputable fact that Gold allows Pay-to-Win on many games, specifically RuneScape.


Jagex has yet to introduce an effective moneysink. They have tried over the years but none of them have worked. What makes this different?


This is the part I like most, it is something Jagex should've done years ago. Quite a few people have friends who are either F2P or became F2P when they lost their job or some other life event but their friends still want to play with them on P2P. The price is unfair though, they should charge the normal rate.


People who don't want to earn their gold and levels do not want to play this game, apparently. They are not "real players" they are Highscore jockeys, merely wanting prestige for false accomplishments.
Bans are what is referred to as "Discipline". A player does something they know is wrong and are caught, they get disciplined. They may appeal it and if the CS really thinks the player is honestly sorry about breaking the rules, then they will unban the account, after a week or so.
If we let people break into real life banks because they don't want to grind 8 hours at a desk job or were too lazy to grind 2-4+ years in college it is the same concept. You want it, you earn it, kid.


True dat, it's not conducive to destroy half your player base. You(Jagex) are not the ones destroying it. The players are with bad choices.
If you only eat rotten apples you may live for awhile but you won't be very healthy. You'll be sickly, probably throwing up a lot, not have much energy, and generally not want to do anything, perhaps not even be able to do anything(and will eventually even die!). Throw out the rotten apples! Don't settle for rotten apples. Get some nice fresh, ripe ones. Rotten applies stink and attract mold, mildew, and flies, all of which destroy.
Throw out the rotten apples!


"Your argument is invalid."
Sorry, I just had to use that meme.
Gold Buyers do not care if it is a legal option or not. They knew the rules before - and did it anyways!
While Gold Buyers don't want their Credit Card stolen, they definitely do not think:
"Gee, I wonder if this Gold selling website, THAT I KNOW IS AGAINST RUNESCAPE'S RULES, is safe? Will they steal my credit card?"
Remember, Gold Buyers are lazy.


So even though players never stated on the forums that they wanted P2W(many adamantly protested against this very thing), they got it anyways because a supposed 40-50%(the statistic of which is still widely debated and criticized) were doing it anyways?
"Yea, urhhh, Bob And Bill are gonna jump off a cliff - guess it's the right thang ta do!"
"Yea, duuuude, everyone in the school is doooinggg it mannnn. Here, brroooo, have some of my stash of dooppeee to get you started duuuude."

Becoming the problem is not the solution.
Everyone being evil does not make them good.

If Jagex cannot stand up to backup their own rules then what has RS become?
Is Jagex really a pushover? Controlled by Business Investors and lazy players with money?

No players threatened to quit if this was not added, did they?


As a man without Morals is a harm to society, so a Company without Scruples is worthless.

I want to see these bonds work, I just don't see how they will. The numbers simply don't add up. I understand Economics and I study Game Mechanics & Design, and I still do not see this helping things.

BTW, did you notice how MMG used the phrase "inconvenient truth" in his video? Most people would say "unfortunate truth, sad truth, appalling truth" or any number of other phrases. It was obvious he was reading a script, so I wonder why the writer chose that word or if it is just how British say the phrase.

I'm happy and willing to give my opinion back on some of the issues you raised, Jason.

Forgive my overuse of absolutes, but a vast majority of large MMOs do have a black market with goods being bought with real currency. You're right, gold farmers need a large enough game with a large player base to be profitable, but even on a small scale, someone selling gold can take place even without bots or anything of that nature. What's stopping a rich RS player from selling gold to someone they meet in game via Paypal? Nothing. It surely does take place. The use of bots just facilitates that and makes it more profitable and "farming" more reliable. Bots existed far back in RS classic - remember the Sleeping Bag and fatigue? Those existed to battle bots, and I think it's safe to say that not 100% of those bots were being run just by lazy players.



Assuming Jagex's data from Botwatch is true, there is a massive market full of buyers willing to buy gold via whatever means. MMG said 40-50% of players have bought gold. While I am not completely sold on that percentage, that they track massive amounts of gold being transferred between a multitude of different accounts says either two things: there's a ton of people that are very generous to complete strangers or there's an external factor behind the transactions. Gold is being moved around in massive quantities and that's no matter what the rules say or however many warnings and PSAs they have put out telling people not to buy gold.

It's like prohibition on alcohol or drugs. It's going to take place no matter how strict of rules are in place. Obviously the player base doesn't think buying gold is wrong and are willing to assume all the risks (both from Jagex and with their credit card information) behind buying gold. Players are doing it and they aren't stopping, and I think when Jagex saw how widespread and pervasive it was, they saw they were losing the war. You can't ban thousands of players (not bots or gold farmers, but real players) when you only have a limited number of players and paying members. You ban them and they leave forever. You can't alienate that many people and expect to stay in business for long. It was fiscally necessary to give a viable option and to regulate gold buying. They would kill their company if they didn't.



It of course depends on your definition of integrity, but consider the reverse perspective. Did having bots farm gold, producing massive amounts of gp, and then sell that gold on a black market improve the integrity of the game? This doesn't farm gold, doesn't ravage resources, doesn't manipulate prices by drops being sold, and ultimately makes the game less seedy by having rule breaking and third party "players" provide a service in the game. The dark side of gold selling added a very negative feeling to the game in that it took away from the real reason we all play the game, which is to have fun rather than use it to make real money. That improves the integrity of the game, in my view.



That's a good question, but I think it's important to realize that a money sink wasn't its intended purpose. Not even the ability to buy gold was really the purpose. Remember that bonds are ultimately used to buy membership or Runecoins. The tax keeps people from manipulating the prices more than anything. It would be easy for a person with 1B gp to buy them for low, and then dump them when the price increased. The tax stabilizes the price without severely penalizing someone that maybe bought a few and then changed their mind. Eliminating gold from the game is really just a bonus.



I personally was in favor of punishing those who bought gold before bonds. If anything, it showed the player that Jagex is indeed tracking trades and they caught them. A few day ban set a message nicely. Outright banning them is no longer discipline or punishment, it is expulsion. It's says that Jagex isn't going to deal with you anymore - you aren't welcome to play this game anymore. Let's be realistic, if someone was outright banned and didn't get reinstated when you tried to appeal, most people would move on and not bother trying again in a few months. It's also a major waste of Jagex's time to keep revisiting these cases, costing them money in labor. Bans should be permanent after a short amount of time. That's the whole point.




You can call them lazy, but in most cases they just can't invest the time - not out of laziness but because of other responsibilities or hardships. Consider someone who maybe can't sit at a computer for a long time or is incapable of boss slaying because they can't react fast enough or their internet is too unstable. What if they can only commit a few 15 minute sessions a day? These people aren't lazy, they are disadvantaged. Maybe if they could buy gold, they could go try a boss because they can afford better armor and will last longer and be able to have time to react before dying. We can't bunch gold buyers into the same apple barrel because some people are genuinely interested and love the game but just aren't able to play how you need to in order to make money.



Jagex has done many things recently that are questionable by some, like the 07 servers. At the end of the day, those who pay you control you. That's the rebel yell of RS, isn't it? "We Pay, We say!" People were paying for gold - just not to Jagex. They were paying and saying to illegal businesses. Not budging with the strong moral stance against something isn't solving the issue; you're turning a blind eye to it if anything. You are putting your players in danger by not providing a safe way of purchasing gold through your company. Where's the morality in that?



Inconvenient in the sense that despite their best efforts in thinking they were solving the problem, it wasn't working after all. I wouldn't read into that too much.
And of course he's reading a script. Anyone giving a presentation of any kind practices beforehand, don't they?

My article will be about A solution, the problem is too wide spread for any single action to have much lasting effect on it.


Banning the offenders cuts out the demand, that's the best way to choke something economically, right? Remove the supply or demand?
Yes, it would cut the amount of active players. There was a day when RS had over 80k players paying only $5 a month. That income was plenty for them and allowed them to expand at a good rate. Then the bots came and raised the average active to 160k at $5. Jagex did some actions against bots and cut it to 120k. Then they had to raise the price to $6. Then bots raised it back to 140k or so I believe and Jagex raised the price to $8. Then came SOF, SGS, and promotional items for membership cards. Then came Bot Watch, BAM down to 80k active players. For some reason RS slowly started losing players after that. They decided to see if 07 servers really were wanted. An overwhelming majority supported them so they brought them back to try to retrieve old subscribers. They got some, raising the average active over 100k again for a time. Again people dwindled away from BOTH games. Now RS usually has around 45k total, 33k EOC and 12k 07.

The question is, why did 100k at $8 not support what 80k at $5 did? $800,000 per month(Plus SOF, SGS, & promo) versus $400,000 per month? Are you telling me costs have really doubled?

Well, it makes sense that costs have raised, after all, they're still running 150+ servers like they were back when there was 160k average active players!
Hmm, is that the problem?
Do the servers cost that much to keep up? It's a no brainer that they don't need so many servers. Barely pulling 50k active now compared to 160k+ a few years ago? Since servers can hold 2k, but no one likes a crowded server, how about we drop the server count to 50? That would lower the upkeep cost by ~60-70%. Makes no financial sense to keep pulling that dead weight. Consolidate to lower costs, side effect is it increases community interaction.

If they raise membership prices they will squeeze people away and shun new subscribers. Lowering prices may actually be better. Would you rather have $8 x1 or $5 x2?

The problem is they have let their costs grow too big based on a bloated income. They grew to a 160k subscriber-worth expenses and then took actions that halved their income yet their costs remained the same. The problem is not just insufficient income, it is too many expenses. If they want to keep the same costs then by all means let the bots and RWTs continue! That's how Runescape gets their money - through subscriptions!

But if they want a fun, inviting, thriving, game they need to lower their costs. Restructure. Be humble and say,
"You know, Bots & RWTs screwed up the game so much that we didn't even realize how far reaching their effects were. An unfortunate side affect of removing these rule breakers was a severe loss of income to us. This will not stop us from banning rule breakers - if you break the rules you WILL be punished. What it means is we have to restructure and consolidate our resources. You, our players, will feel this most when we evaluate the game worlds and re-categorize and remove some. We're going to be honest with you, we'll probably have to remove upwards of 60% of the worlds. We won't do this all at once. We're going to do it 10-20 each month so the condensing of players onto more populated worlds will be smooth. We expect each world to have about 800-1,000 players on at any given time. Some will have close to 2,000 and some will have 500. We will keep at least 1 Member and 1 Free world for each language. More popular languages will receive more worlds, of course. The end result of this will be lower operating costs for us which will in turn allow us to operate smoother. As Runescape expands we will joyfully open more worlds again.
We also may have to let go some of our staff. Although we hate to do so because they're all great people, we might need to in order to keep our costs manageable. This will not affect the quality of future content. To be honest it may make content take a week longer than normal, but we'll be able to plan accordingly and you will hardly notice it. We want to recommit to having a reliable release schedule, two quests per month and another update. As we expand we will re-hire previous staff as we are able and is required."

A news post like that would reaffirm my faith in Jagex.
Sure, less worlds would make there be a little competition for some resources, but that's how Runescape was intended. Every world is not supposed to be a ghost town. There should be a few people chopping yews with you, one or two mining coal. And yes, someone might get to the rune rocks before you. These are the things that help regulate and maintain the economy and value of items.
There is such a thing as too much accessibility. If stuff is too easy to acquire, to easy to supply, the value will be diminished.

We're all teens or adults here, some of us have gone to Economics or Business Management. We know that expenses > income = bad. You can't always control all of your finances, so you control what you can. Jagex can't control their income, but they can control their spending. Reduce spending where needed, as needed, to reduce expenses.

It's a proven fact that Word-of-Mouth advertising is the most effective(and cheapest!). How does it work? You make a good product and people tell their friends. You're a lot more likely to try something if your friends play it. I'm sure 90% of BnBers can agree they've played at least one game only because a friend suggested it.
Consequently, if you make a bad product people will not tell their friends. They may even tell their friends specifically NOT to play and they'll state why it's bad.

Make a good game, have good morals and act ethically. You will do better than caving to those with money.

Back in the day the Gowers each owned 33%, Investors owned the other 33%. The Gowers felt it personally when they made bad choices. They also had the authority and ability to make the good but hard decisions, and would feel the rewards from them as well. Now Investors own 55%(or was it more?). Investors want money, nothing else. Investors will drive a game into the ground if it will give them more money than keeping it alive(which is probably the more profitable choice currently considering Jagex is operating at a loss, not that I want it to close).

@Rickles, Thank you. To make things less crowded, I won't always quote all of a paragraph/response, but I have read it and am replying to it as well.


Forgiven And yes, the majority of big ones do have RWT problems.


True. And this will continue, regardless of anything Jagex does. Just on a smaller scale.


Yea, I had forgotten those were added to combat bots. Not all were from lazy, but probably most. RSC is so monotonous a simple Mouse Recording would help players substantially. Fatigue negated those, but then more intelligent bots were made. Yes, bots and RWT have been around a large portion of RS's life.


It's neat they track this. They should also be able to see how many of these people are friends. The trade restrictions they previously had essentially stopped this. Yes, you could junk trade, but other than that you couldn't trade much(if I am forgetting some workaround please mention it). Now, I don't want restricted trade as they had it previously, because that was stupid. But there IS a restricted trade system design that would work wonders against this and barely affect legit players. I plan on talking about this in my article. You can PM me if you want to know beforehand.


Exactly half my point! Stuff will be done regardless of restrictions put in place. That is why it is so crucial that what you add does not affect, destroy, or devalue the legit players' actions.


Of those risks is the BanHammer from Jagex. Either the players are willing to play the wheel and just choose to quit if they're caught, OR they will try it once, and not do it again if they get caught, OR they will just keep doing it with new accounts. If they know the risks then they know the possible outcomes and have thus thought of what they will do. Chances are, they'll come back. If they don't, no one likes a cheater anyways.
Banning players will not kill Runescape, driving players away due to bad choices will. The two are distinctly different. People may come back if they've been banned for blatantly breaking the rules("Dang, I was an idiot, let's try this the right way."). People will not come back if they don't agree with your practices or do not trust your company.


Integrity
"adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty. "
'Tis my meaning of the word. How is Jagex's selling of gold any different? Neither RWTs nor Jagex actually sell gold, they both rely on normal players to amass the gold. Only difference is RWTs handle the cash transaction and now Jagex handles the cash transaction. Yes, Jagex's is safer, but it IS still gold selling which will still add a negative feeling that takes away from the real reason we(BnBers at least) play/played the game.

And for the record, RWTs do exactly the same thing as you and me. They harvest resources for hours on end and then sell them to other players on the GE. The only difference is they then sell that cash for real money. We use the cash to buy equipment or other resources. Except now we can sell that cash for an item worth $5 real money. It is the same thing. Only difference is when we use bonds we buy an item worth $5 that Jagex has already received instead of giving $5 to some RWT company. It's great of course that Jagex gets the money instead of the RWTs, at least it helps pay the expenses then. The problem is not Jagex getting money, I have nothing against them getting money - they should! The problem is Jagex's stark change of stance and choice to support a practice that has been proven to hurt the game. Buying gold has hurt and destroyed many games, not just RS.


I still don't know exactly how the trade tax works. I do agree it helps stabilize the price. No one intelligent would sell a bond at a loss which means they're always going to charge at least 10% more than they paid for it. Which means if tons of bonds are being traded the GE price will rise. If people are constantly buying and reselling at the same price then yes, that will be a money sink. Potentially quite effective if people are dumb enough to not notice their loss.


Aye, aye. I never meant to imply to ban without reason or ability to apologize for their actions. First offense should be 3 day ban and removal of cheated cash. Next offense a month ban and removal of cheated/all cash. Then outright permaban.
You're right, punishment without reason and explanation is not discipline. Discipline is meant to teach, not harm.


I understand these situations. But for some of what you stated I'd say they're playing the wrong game. It's tough but true. Either that or they should do a different activity in RS. Most of RS can be played without tons of cash, if only people were willing to work & earn it. I'm not even talking grinding, I'm talking just go pick up an axe and cut a tree, mine a rock, fish! I fish while writing articles; fun, advancing, and completely in the rules. There is a difference between not being able to do something and not being willing. Most gold buyers are not willing. If something could be designed to allow those who are unable but willing to work to be able to purchase an equilibrium, not an advantage, then I would be happy. The system would have to not allow those who are able but unwilling to work to purchase an advantage.


Correct, not acting at all is the same if not worse than acting in a bad way.
"Not voting, is voting yes."
If they didn't take action then they are essentially saying it's fine and we don't care enough about the players to protect them nor do we care enough for the game to maintain its integrity.

But also, doing SOMETHING is just as bad as doing nothing. One of the stupidest things I hear is, "OMG, Such and such happened, we have to do SOMETHING!"
Doing any action without analyzing its effects fully can be just as bad.

"Oh look, that bad guy over there is going to shoot that hostage in front of him, I'll shoot him and save the hostage!
Blam!
Oh dang, I forgot that at this distance my bullet would go right through the bad guy and kill the hostage."

Not analyzing and realizing the consequences can, and usually will, make things worse than before. Even when something is done with good intentions as these Bonds were, it can still cause unwanted side-effects. It doesn't always, but it can and often does.


Just seemed like an odd word choice to me.
And yea, people should practice beforehand. Which is why it seemed so obvious that he was reading a script. He didn't know where the paragraph breaks were. At one point he stops in the middle of a sentence thinking it's the end. He also didn't feel personal. He was speaking to a wall, not his players.
Just how I felt when watching it.


You're right, Addiv, Jagex is not the Villain, the Gold Farmers & Buyers are. Jagex, unfortunately, has made themselves the Middleman Accountant with the little black book. Not bad thesmselves, but condoning bad practices and actions nonetheless.