Bots: The Sad Truth About Runescape's Future

There is a certain sad truth about the future of Runescape. The truth is:

Runescape will have to change its gameplay model completely or die.

Why?

Runescape has a huge emphasis on acquiring levels and items through grinding. As long as grinding exists, bots will be there to replace players at those repetitive tasks.

Every year, bot get more advanced, partly because Moore's law, and partly because it's lucrative for the makers of the bots to build better, stealthier, and more efficient bots. There is no way Jagex can effectively stop the influx of bots unless it makes them unnecessary for gameplay.

If Runescape does not get rid of repetitive grinding for items and levels, bots will take over Runescape completely. They will eat it from the inside out.

The only way for Runescape to survive is to change its emphasis from grinding to actual fun gameplay. (Like Guildwars 2).

If Runescape makes gameplay fun (i.e. not chopping a tree for 10 hrs), it will entice players to actually play the game.

In the end, if Runescape is to survive, it must:

• Remove the long leveling process (Or bots will level)
• Remove the need for grinding for items (Or bots will chop trees and fish lobs, etc)
• Remove/make untradeable rares (Or bots will grind GP for them)
• Remove the need for having a lot of GP by making it easy to acquire high value items (Or bots will grind GP)
• Make gameplay fun
• Reward legitimately skilled players (I'm talking about reflexes and knowledge of the game, not level-based skills) by employing a skill-based ranking system of some sort

I know the above isn't the Runescape we grew up with and came to love. Unfortunately, we no longer live in 1998. Bots are here to stay. If Runescape is to survive, it must evolve or get left behind.

 

Luckily, with the EoC they've tried to deter the bots, but there is still room for improvement, so I'm guessing they will release more little 'minigames' that give better xp than grinding.

 

It doesn't really matter how easy something is, cheaters will always cheat.

I'd rather point to the players instead - if you don't want to grind, why do you play a grind based game?

 

Yea they're always adding new ways to gain exp. For those who like grinding , can just keep grinding, and the others have the choice between mini games & regular grinding.

 

Bots will always be around, regardless of changes Jagex make. It's impossible for them to completely stop bot development.

 

Cannot agree with this any more, one of the smartest threads I've seen on here, if RuneScape doesn't change something then sadly it will die... eventually. The only thing I now enjoy doing is PK'ing but even that's become less enjoyable with updates such as EoC, PK'ing has gone down hill and so has the game as an entirety. I hope to see an increase in players when '07 Scape is released!

 

This is the reason why all themeparks after WoW have ultimately died off. No challenge and no player based economy. I rarely hear of anyone talk about GW2 anymore. And nobody talks about RIFT or SWOTR.

Making RS stupid easy like the entire themepark MMORPG genre is not the solution.

 

They make money off of bots, and bot farms. They welcome the bots, sure they have to publicly say they don't. But the truth is, they help keep the game above water.

Sure, it may not make for the greatest playing experience when legit players are trying to skill, pvm, mini-games etc. But it's a truth and future you have to live with if you want to play RS. Because without bots, there is no RS. There's not enough interest in grinding to keep the game alive.

Is Jagex going to complete write how level and obtaining items occurs? Highly unlikely due to the interest of the game already so low. They're in it for the money, and they'd be losing money if they did that. RS had it's run and it's now a game that is now out of the limelight.

 

Not at all they simply need to actually get a real bot detection system instead of just saying they are. as you can see on wow and other games there isn't any where near the amount of bots yet the other games have more "hardcore gamers" where items would be more profitable to bot for profit.

 

There is many bots in wow, infact its over the top, 40 man battleground i joined last month, 37 of my team were bots

Personally, i think gaming companys let bots slide due to there being a loss of interest in mmos in general, most people want games on the move, things they can play on consoles and such

If this had of been a few years ago, most bots would of been insta banned on rs and wow, now its as common as a house fly.

 

Just ridiculous. The best they can do is make the game play as enjoyable as possible with a small community of bots. They said it themselves, they only after money.

Almost everything you said is completely is the opposite of evolving. Your reverting to the bare basics of an enjoyable children's game.

For Jagex to remove bots, the dependency on them to help bring in revenue has to be gone. Meaning Jagex must increase the amount of players bringing in legit revenue. Then they would have better motives, but as it is bots are a part of the Runescape economy and a big reason Jagex still is able to make money.

Plus, reverting to the basics doesnt mean no bots.

Y u no make sense.

 

Yeah, I agree that they should change the game so that it doesn't require as much grinding. Unfortunately their reaction so far has been to increase xp rates(which obviously ruins the game for many players).

 

RuneScape without grinding would seem absurd, I wouldn't get the same satisfaction of getting a 99 if I didn't have to work for it.

 

Even if jagex implements this, bots will still exist bcuz of goldfarmers and lazy fuckers