IMO I think this update has been dusted polished and is sitting on an external harddrive right now waiting for the big day, LOL. It's just too convenient. I mean of course phase 1 was going to receive more than 1 million votes, that was a sure thing, and stating that maybe not even 1 million would be enough was pretty much showing they expected a big turnout, and wanted to act surprised, as if we havn't been begging for old wilde/free trade back for the last 3 years.
Secondly, the phase 2 with ability to log in and vote, I mean reaching 400k votes within 48 hours is phenominal beings that each and every one of those is a working account with a working password, manually logged in, and tbh it means alot more than 2million spammed votes. Even more so, the no and don't care option was given, but the "yes" vote still dominated 9 to 1, so the overwhelming want for this update is very apparent. And they knew that would happen as well. Let's outline the Jagex process below:
1. Phase 1 initiated
2. over 1 million votes in 24 hour period
3. JaGeX: WHAT??? YOU WANT OLD WILDE??? WHY DIDNT YOU SAY SO?!
***hahaha, made so much money off of `1.5 million page visits to that voting page, all those advertisers on there, owned!***
4. Phase 2: (i.e. well lets make sure everyone wants it with a "yes"/"no")
***everyone will vote again! more advertising money!***
5. JaGeX: WHAT?? EVERYONE WANTS THIS UPDATE??? WE HAD NO IDEA..
6. JaGeX: WELL OK, BAM, HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!!!
***counts money stacks in office, laughs that it's been sitting on the desk for weeks.***
OK, the above may have been dramatized a bit, but you get the picture, yea they play it off as if they want to poll the players first, THEN get started on the coding, but the answers they have given already tend towards the whole "we've already thought this through, we know how it will be, but lets make you think you decided on it and we didn't know you would want it" thing. Whatever, TBH we all have to understand jagex is still a business and If I saw an easy buck to be made off of the passions of my community (or a quick million bucks at that!), I would do it in a heart beat, and you cant blame them for that. As long as they do not try and drag this on too long, dont feel like watching them milk this masquerade dry, they have made there money, generated there publicity, proven everyone wants the update (90% ftw!) so lets just get this updated so we can all start playing Runescape like it was meant to be played!!