17-Jan-2011 - The Wilderness and Free Trade Will Return!

Shane · **Posted:** January 17th, 2011, 2:10 pm

Runescape.com wrote:

Thank you to all those of you who took part in the historic RuneScape Referendum, which ended on Friday. We received an incredible 1.2 million votes, with a united 91% of you voting for the restoration of free trade and the Wilderness. We have heard your call and will be restoring these much loved features to RuneScape on Tuesday 1st February.

The clock is ticking and you have just two weeks to get ready for this monumental update. To help you prepare, we will be releasing a series of guides, FAQs and expert advice about the Wilderness and free trade, so that players both old and new can get ready for this epic release.

Now it is up to you to prepare for battle, level your account, gear up your armour and equip yourself for the ultimate Wilderness experience.

There is just one question left unanswered: are you ready?

Mark Gerhard and the RuneScape Team

Adbot · **Posted:** January 17th, 2011, 2:10 pm

Davo · **Posted:** January 17th, 2011, 2:13 pm

I'm pretty stoked for both, to be completely honest. If I had to pick one though I would definitely say I'm looking forward to free trade the most. However, I have no problem with the wilderness coming back unlike most people. People that are against the wild coming back are either 'new players' (started playing within the past ~3 years) or they have just been spoiled to death with the tame wilderness. I never went into the wild 6 years ago, I never went the past 3 years , and I won't be going much in the future. I never have been an avid 'clue do-er' so it doesn't affect me much.

Another thing people can't seem to understand, is that the return of the wilderness isn't just good for PKers. It's pretty vital to skillers such as myself. Now, there will be a much larger market for runes, food, potions, armor, arrows, and weapons. Who makes a majority of that stuff? Skillers! Finally the market will be fairly balanced again and there will be a bigger demand for supplies that crashed horribly due to the removal of the wilderness. I guess we will see how things play out.

Sadly, I started to really get into runecrafting the summer after free trade was removed. Therefore, all the runecraft exp up to this point (18.6m) that I have earned has been via 'the hard way.' I looked up some of the "famous" rc'ers that I used to run ess for way back when and they have around 22m xp and that was just from hiring mass amounts of essence runners. I can honestly say once free trade comes out, I'll prolly be hiring some runners and possibly go for front page RC ranks.

Overall, I'm happy about both returning. I'm glad the wilderness will be back to normal. For everyone who is complaining about the wild coming back, just do the logical thing: when you go into the wilderness, expect death. So don't go unless absolutely necessary, or unless you're PKing.

PS - I laugh in the face of every merch clan leader. It's time to get back to legit merchanting. As opposed to the corrupt under-the-table manipulation stunts they pull, but tried so desperately to justify as being "fair."

PPS - For all that are concerned and worried about scamming now with free trade: RuneScape is meant for ages 13+. If you have a mentality lower than that and fall victim to stupid noobs, I can honestly say you deserve it. lol

Lisaz · **Posted:** January 17th, 2011, 2:20 pm

Well, like the person above, I did not went to Wilderness much either. Only for clues or for Agility course. But still, I like the game how it is now. I like Grand Exchange, I like the Revenants, and I do not like this update. But it is only my opinion. I did not have many problems back at the days, when Wilderness and Free Trade was still at the game and I'll won't have any of them when they will be back

.

Davo · **Posted:** January 17th, 2011, 2:25 pm

Lisaz wrote:

Well, like the person above, I did not went to Wilderness much either. Only for clues or for Agility course. But still, I like the game how it is now. I like Grand Exchange, I like the Revenants, and I do not like this update. But it is only my opinion. I did not have many problems back at the days, when Wilderness and Free Trade was still at the game and I'll won't have any of them when they will be back

.

I'm not sure about the revenants, but I'm almost positive that the Grand Exchange will not be removed. Just the upper and lower price limits would be removed. I wouldn't be surprised if Jagex 'relocated' the revs to their own special areas where you can still fight them. Sort of the same concept with what they did with the old random monsters (Mining Golem, ENT, Fishing Troll, etc.)

Lisaz · **Posted:** January 17th, 2011, 2:29 pm

I have red a post in other thread about the Grand Exchange. So it would be good, at least for me, if they would leave Grand Exchange as it is. With the limits etc. And people could trade free if they want without limits.

Pennstate315 · Runite Member 5-25-10

I like the entire aspect of this update. First off i always loved to go pking back in the day. Second just like Shane said in one of the episodes the market will collapse eventually if it dosen't become a free market again. Just liek the Soviet Union

Adbot · **Posted:** January 17th, 2011, 3:01 pm

Warren · **Posted:** January 17th, 2011, 4:57 pm

Davo wrote:

Another thing people can't seem to understand, is that the return of the wilderness isn't just good for PKers. It's pretty vital to skillers such as myself. Now, there will be a much larger market for runes, food, potions, armor, arrows, and weapons. Who makes a majority of that stuff? Skillers! Finally the market will be fairly balanced again and there will be a bigger demand for supplies that crashed horribly due to the removal of the wilderness. I guess we will see how things play out.

Sadly, I started to really get into runecrafting the summer after free trade was removed. Therefore, all the runecraft exp up to this point (18.6m) that I have earned has been via 'the hard way.' I looked up some of the "famous" rc'ers that I used to run ess for way back when and they have around 22m xp and that was just from hiring mass amounts of essence runners. I can honestly say once free trade comes out, I'll prolly be hiring some runners and possibly go for front page RC ranks. :wink:

Not exactly... The current PvP community is at least as large as it used to be. So in terms of skillers benefiting from an increase in the PvP community, I really doubt that will happen because I don't see the pking community increasing. In fact, unless they changed their stance on this, they are planning to remove current forms of PvP which I think, if that does happen, that the PvP community will decline because it's not guaranteed that new pvp is inferior to old pvp... So new pkers might not necessarily like the wilderness as much. And as for old pkers who quit filling their place, well some might come back but imo it's largely too late to appeal to them. Plus if they come back because they hear old wildy is back they're going to come back expecting it like how it was before it was removed... and ugh the rest of the game has changed a lot since then so if they come back expecting the same, they're going to be disappointed.

And that's interesting on Runecrafting training since with no unbalanced trade that's restricted to 30k xp a day... Interesting how it will compare with newer Runecrafting methods. Like you said you trained "the hard way" but there wasn't really a ZMI altar or Graahks or even the abyss when some high ranked RCers did runners over err... the pretty much a lot more hard than the hard way.

Anyways, "epic update", yeah okay there Jagex. The way they are playing this there are going to be a lot of people who weren't around back then disappointed by how mediocre it really is. Again I wonder if they're sticking to their original stupid idea of removing PvP worlds implemented since then... a lot of pkers are probably going to be disappointed of how similar or maybe even worse the wilderness is in their opinion. Since Jagex is kind of taking it like "Hey all PvP is inferior to the wildy even though we're probably blinded by nostalgia!!". Epic indeed.

I hope they decide to take out all non-pvp stuff that anyone does from the wildy. Not that I don't want to defend myself against pkers, it's just that I can't...so why force me into PvP? They said they would take some things out of the wildy but they weren't set on doing it for everything... which they kind of guaranteed that some (or all?) clues would stay in there which is pretty much the only reason I have to go in there besides the KBD. As for free trade, unbalanced trades were not and are not a daily activity for me so maybe the odd time it will make a difference but that wont effect me much either. I really don't think this is an epic update for the average player when you look at how it will affect you on a daily level. Maybe the average player takes part in a lot of unbalanced trade though... not that I really see a reason for it.

Uncle Dano · **12 99's on 12/12/12!**

I am definitely happy about Free Trade returning. It has many benefits. The G.E. will remain as well, which is also good. With respect to how the G.E. will work in light of Free Trade, I think that the G.E. market will still be based only on the transactions that happen within the G.E. I don't think Jagex wants to "contaminate" (for lack of a better word) the G.E. market with FT (on-the-street) market behaviour. There are some of us who want to transfer large amounts of goods, like ores, logs, food, runes, etc. to the RS community. The G.E. allows us to do this efficiently. Even though the street price may get us a few more gp than the G.E., it's not worth the hassle to barter in laggy World 1 or 2 where you are competing with thousands of other sellers and buyers. I'd rather put my goods up for sale on the G.E. even though I may have to work a little harder to make the same amount of money.

The return of the old wilderness, I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I agree that when I want to go somewhere in the wildy, like a clue scroll location or even to make my way to Stealing Creation, I don't really want to run across a Pk'er. But, on the other hand, I kinda like the dynamic that the extra danger adds to the game. I'm not one to go on any PK trips... been there, done that, was pwned so bad... nope, not much fun there for me. But, for those who do find that fun, all the more power to ya! Enjoy! I will adapt and find ways to elude PK'ers to get to my destination in the wildy. That in itself is kinda fun to figure out. Take this as a new opportunity to explore different strategies, not as an annoyance or an encumbrance to your current gameplay. A dynamic ever changing game is much more challenging and more fun than a boring static game.

Wonderful news!

Davo · **Posted:** January 17th, 2011, 8:58 pm

Warren wrote:

Not exactly... The current PvP community is at least as large as it used to be. So in terms of skillers benefiting from an increase in the PvP community, I really doubt that will happen because I don't see the pking community increasing. In fact, unless they changed their stance on this, they are planning to remove current forms of PvP which I think, if that does happen, that the PvP community will decline because it's not guaranteed that new pvp is inferior to old pvp... So new pkers might not necessarily like the wilderness as much. And as for old pkers who quit filling their place, well some might come back but imo it's largely too late to appeal to them. Plus if they come back because they hear old wildy is back they're going to come back expecting it like how it was before it was removed... and ugh the rest of the game has changed a lot since then so if they come back expecting the same, they're going to be disappointed.

Around 7% of the votes were not in favor of this update. In the crazy instance that ALL of those players quit (which is highly unlikely) due to this update, it is almost without a doubt they will be replaced by old players from 3 years ago that are coming back because of this. Plus, I know plenty of people that decided to pick up skilling after the wilderness was originally removed. Therefore, there will be a fairly decent number of players that don't PK now but will start to PK again once the wild returns. So for all the new PKers that quit because of the update, they will EASILY be replaced by old ones and I think it's safe to say there will be more coming back than there will be leaving. Why do you think Jagex spent an entire month collecting votes on such a predictable subject? Alongside shear amusement, it was mainly a PR stunt. Why do you think phase 1 didn't require account login? Why do you think they advertised it on Twitter and Facebook every other day encouraging players to tell their all their friends and enemies? A vast majority of players that are coming back are coming back for the wilderness. Those players will surpass any amount of players that quit because of this update. Seeing as 91% of players want this update in the first place and players that threaten to quit due to an update rarely ever do, Jagex is virtually only gaining players. And I don't think it's very logical for old players to come back expecting it to be how it was 3 years ago. They should be returning for the concept.

If I'm wrong about any of this I really couldn't care less. At least finally I won't be told what price I can and can't buy/sell things for.

Warren · **Posted:** January 17th, 2011, 9:47 pm

Well first of all I never said everyone who voted no was going to quit. And I never said all the pkers were going to quit... I never even said anyone was going to quit as a result, I said I don't see the pking community growing because of this and if any change at all I would more expect it to decline. Because they're replacing one with the other... either they will like it and continue or they don't like it but still enjoy it and continue or don't like it and stop pking. Even further to that, just because you stop pking doesn't mean you quit the game.

But why exactly are players who quit three years ago as a result of the removals going to come back to become active in the pvp community? I'm not exactly sure what is different about pking today vs what it was anyways? I'm an outsider looking in, but to me the experience seems like it would be largely the same. Which is why I think this is hardly a big deal, at least not as much as they're making it out as. Of course I'm not a pker so I don't know though.

Which is why I also think a lot of those people who converted to skilling aren't going to become part of the pking community again if they haven't already.

Again I don't really think there are going to be a lot leaving. But even if did and they were only replaced by those returning, the markets for skilling products wouldn't change. Why did Jagex do the voting instead of just doing it? Well one reason is that they can direct any complaints to the fact it wasn't their decision as well as to create the illusion that the players are involved in shaping the game they enjoy the way they want. But yes I do agree with you, it was to draw players back (and in). But I doubt because they want them to stay for the Wilderness ... There has been so many changes in the three years since... It's not to get people back who left because of the changes, it was to create a announcement large enough and surprising enough to be spread around, hopefully reaching anyone who has ever played Runescape to remind them that they have an account and spark their curiosity to see how RuneScape is again and hopefully hook them in. Not to hook them into the wilderness, Jagex could care less. They're not coming back for the wilderness. They're coming back to check out the wilderness or to check out runescape again because they remember playing it before and haven't for a while. But if they are not charmed by the rest of Runescape and after having fun in the wilderness, I don't think they are going to be like "alright I can come back now. The only reason I haven't yet is because of the Wildy". It was three years ago, you'd expect them to have moved on from the wildy by now... it's too late to get people back on with the reason that they can pk in the wildy again. It's going to be RS that keeps anyone, not the wildy.

I don't know how the total players number will have changed by the end of this. And I suppose I don't know how the total people in the pking community is going to have changed by the end but I do think that it is not going to change enough to have any benefit to skillers.

Duke Juker · RSBandB Donor since 07/01/2010

I'll hold my comments until after it's implemented. Again, I'm somewhat pessimistic about how this actually plays out. I personally think it going to be worse than people believe. For now, I'll wait on "I told ya so..." and just say be ready for the worst.

Kylash · **Posted:** January 21st, 2011, 12:12 pm

Wow looks like my long RuneScape hiatus will finally come to an end (for a day at least)... this was defiantly a long time coming. Great to see Jagex has finally learned how to run a business!

Warren · **Posted:** January 22nd, 2011, 12:25 pm

http://runewire.com/replies/153920

I guess it was all a way to sell merch.

Exia00 riser · **Posted:** January 22nd, 2011, 12:53 pm

To be honest i'm not looking forward to this. I mean yeah its great and all but they tried so hard to stop gold farmers now they are basically saying "hey come back". Well this is just my opinion and im sure it'll just take me some time to get use to.

Kingy · **Posted:** January 27th, 2011, 5:06 am

This update will add an element of danger into the game again, and more enjoyable as a result. I never used to pk, and I never will, but I will enjoy the new danger, and it'll sort out the prices to the more deserved value. It's also hilarious seeing people rage about stupid things on the official forums.