RuneScape Exposed Part 1: An Education Kids Don't Need - Page 2

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Was this one game really worth dedicating an entire (two-part) article to? I would understand if it was an actual review, but that isn't the case. It reads more like a Geraldo-esque "expose" of some game company's plot to destroy our children.

In my opinion a better article would have been about free to play games in general, comparing and contrasting the games and communities out there. As many people have pointed out, the horrible behavior by the players described is hardly unique. Pointing out major flaws, like a developer encouraging and covering up scamming, would be an excellent point in this context.

The way it is, the article reads like an extended version of a forum rant.

I will first of all say that everything you said is true and it is an extremely well written article. If anything you were more then fair in your overall assessment of the game.

Secondly, I will agree being a female was indeed tough because of the harassment that you could not report and the constant following which made playing less fun. The fact that male players use female accounts to scam others also infuriated me, and gives the real females a bad reputation.

I liked Runescape and played it for three years but it was going downhill with all of the begging and scamming and I was not enjoying it as much because it had changed so drastically. The fact Jagex made some types of scams legal, and not even having the guts to tell the general population was the last straw.

My last complaint to Jagex about the scamming got me the usual form letter saying they were too busy, but had the additional information below, as I was now ftp:

~Unfortunately, due to the massive growth in popularity of RuneScape and the increasing number of queries that brings, we have not been able to keep up, and are not able to offer a personal response this time. We are increasing the size of our customer support unit and hopefully the next time you need help you will be able to get a quick answer!

We always give priority to answering all member queries personally, but we are now aiming to answer more free player queries. This number will increase even more in the coming weeks.

Why not consider becoming a member and help support the continued development of the game? Plus you'll also get a range of extra features and benefits like four extra bank pages, exclusive quests and you get no adverts that can sometimes put you off your game.

As a Member you also get access to the Forums which can usually answer any query you have allowing you more time to play the game~

As a member for 2 and a half years, I never received a reply from Jagex that was written specifically to answer a query, and not one of the bugs I reported was fixed. The people I reported got a few days mute at most and although Jagex says they ban players and catch autoers, it seems they have an arbitrary system much like the arbitrary use of their own rules.

I left the game with 113cb, 1,976 total 121,877,103 overall points. (I am not bragging, but it seems people think ranters didn't actually play) I happily gave away my stuff to ensure I won't be tempted to return, and my son was happy to also leave the game knowing rules were not being followed.

Of course RuneScape isn't meant for five year olds. THEY TRY TO DISCOURAGE PEOPLE UNDER 13 FROM PLAYING!!!!!!!!!!

Also, on the fact that people feel that every player is friendly. Does Jagex tell people that everyone will be friendly? They don't have the force, they know this so they don't make this claim! If you thought that on RuneScape that everyone is friendly YOU ARE AN IMBECILE! Just think for a moment, why would Jagex install a report abuse button, why would they think that everyone'll be friendly? USE COMMON SENSE.

Primitive graphics? Man this article is OLD. Incase you haven't noticed, RuneScape is out of the dark ages and in 3D!

Look, does Jagex ever boast that it has a child safe environment? If it did, it wouldn't discourage children!

Get your facts right fool!

Go play World of Warcraft, Linage II, Guild Wars, or any other popular MMO and reply with the same argument about graphics.

Yes, RS2 is a big step above RSC. However, It is definitely not special compared to the newer RPGs.

The 13 year old limit is only in place due to a US constitutional law stating that no child under 13 years of age is allowed to give out personal details without parental consent. it is the only reason why Jagex has imposed the verification upon registering a new account. From what I hear; it was either imply the check field or disable registration access to the site for American users.

lol, I guess you're right, I was contradicting myself. I apologize for insulting anyone.

When I feel strongly about something or I'm in a bad mood there's a repeat of Nagasaki and Hiroshima (the two cities that were bombed by the Americans using atomic bombs). Sorry again for the insults. Also, I will get angry if I am annoyed enough and can be quite impolite in the game too. This rarely ever happens as most of my friends in real life do not play in RuneScape and there the ones who annoy me the most.

I'd like to point out that schoolastic and runescape are two different companies. A person's opinion on the matter does not mean that the opinion is instantly correct. There's a difference between opinion and fact.

I think we're seeing a division into the "It's not bad" and "It's terrible" camps. That to me says that there probably is a problem with the game, as you don't usually get a debate like that for the fun of it.

I think that the central point of Charles' argument is "The developers do not give parents the information they need to make an informed decision about allowing their children to play the game. Indeed, they may well mislead parents."

We are constantly buggering on in the games press about how parents should take more responsibility for their childrens gameplay. We do not suggest that parents should play games - they would have no interest, time nor technical skills to do so in many cases. What we suggest is that parents read into the games. Therefore if there are negative blemishes on the game, then that information should be available to parents.

I think that Charles makes a good point when he says that this is what this article sets out to do. We cannot say "Parents should read up on a game before they let their children play it" and then only have positive information from the developers as their only source.

Buck_Teeth7 said

No need to point that out, but you are going to have to read more carefully. Scolastic is the printer and distributer of course, and being that this is the "official" guide, that means it was made so by Jagex.

In other words it had to be endorsed by Jagex to be the official guide, and the fact Scolastic sells the majority of their books in schools ensures a huge new target base in elementary schools. The guide also repeats much of what was said in the parents guide, which is probably why Jagex is covering up it's lack of rule adherance and correct information.

Why do I see buy RS2 gold advertisements on this page lol.. good ole goooooogle ads.

My 11 year old son may well have written that. A child's ability to speak and write well is due to his environment, which includes the influence from teachers.

The article is neither uninformed nor ludicrous. I do not know the author other then agreeing with his point of view. We have both played the game a long time, and have seen first hand everything he has stated.

"Uninformed and ludicrous drivel" uses three words which in no way apply to the article. This man is very bright and informed, the article is not comical or non-sensical and it certainly is verbose, but not drivel. You do have the right to your opinion, but it lacks merit, regardless of whether you taught 3 years or not.

Arkhanaut: Just for you, I went back to the Runescape forums and hunted down the source for that quote. (No easy task since those forums do not include a full text search.)

Here it is: http://forum.runescape.com/forums. [...] 07,goto,51

Second-to-last post from the bottom, near the end.

Charles

Great Article, i was a runescape player many moon's ago but quit because it was laggy (Now wasn' that a blessing in disguise!)

However some people in response have posted what can be done about it?

Take the online game Neopets for example, it has a far larger player base and suffers many of the same problems yet there site is monitored a hell of a lot better...

Now Jagex may not have the funds Neopets now has but when i started playing Neopets it was a community of under 10,000, the difference is Neopets has put player safety as its number 1 priority for many years...

I look forward to part 2 of the article..

Thanks - I will go and read it now.

TwitchGuru has a long tradition of posting editorial pieces related to gaming. That includes the whole series of "Counter-Point" pieces between Rob and Aaron, for example.

The article doesn't "savage videogaming". It raises specific concerns with one game.

Again.. I am not some sort of anti-gaming, anti-technology Luddite. The article is written in a negative way because my goal is to raise awareness of the negative issues in the game that Jagex is deliberately suppressing.

The fact that an article is biased doesn't mean it is inherently flawed -- editorializing is a valid form of communication and has been pretty much forever.

Charles

Indeed - I appreciate that the author is willing to hear both criticism and praise for his article/editorial and to respond to points raised.

It's far more irksome when you have no way of contacting the writer to offer praise or conjecture on issues.

So gratitude for that, sir!

That is exactly my opinion on the subject aswell, which I find to be the major flaw of this editiorial.

I usually don't join forums and respond but I ran across your article and found it to be on the whole an accurate description of MMORPGS in general.

I've played Runescape since the days of 2d graphics. My children and grandchildren have also played it BUT...they were not initially allowed to play it alone. Perhaps this is the crux of the problem. It's not really the game.... it's the lack of scrutiny of the child's activity. I have found parental handbooks to fall quite short of the experience of actually playing or watching the game with my kids. No handbook can aptly describe an online community. In addition, without any enforced rules, people resort to very barbaric behaviors. Does "Lord of the Flies" come to mind?
Combine lack of parental involvement, and understanding of online communities, and the need to boost an ego at any cost.. [children have very needy egos] and you have the deterioration of online games, any of them.

This lack of civility is not limited to children, as many of my friends and family play online games and it is fairly predictiable who will act civilally and who is prone to exploit situations, otherwise known as cheat.
It is also fairly predictable that if a child has been taught about gaining status items in real life, that child will seek status items in a game and pay exorbitant prices for it. I had a friend who actually supported buying in-game gold because her child could not "do without". Yes, people are a bit crazy..and she is an adult.

It was a lot of fun to get holiday items. I was sad when they didn't hand things out anymore. However, the drop system was a bit frustrating. If you weren't fast, you didn't get anything; and those who ran programs that auto-looted got most of the goods. Again a minor exploit.... but all's fair isn't it?

Children need to know what happens to thier character when it dies.To them a character or "toon", is real and in combat it will die eventually. Not over a disrespect for real death, but because Runescape is a game and I personally don't like collecting and then losing stuff and neither does a child. I have received phone calls from a frantic grandchild who "died" in a game [while playing without me] and I needed to go rescue them and save thier "loot". Actually, when I died it was fairly painful and I even called my friends for help so as not to lose my precious loot. This has lead me away from punitive games. I do not like to play games where dying causes great frustration. I also inform the rest of my family and allow them an informed decision about the treatment of character death. Yes, I'm still a kid inside.

It is my opinion that your expose is not really one of the evils of a particular game but what evils will people do to one another for greed and pride. I have seen what you describe and fully agree that everything occurs as you say. However, Runescape, and any online community merely reflects the current accepted behaviors of people. In short, what you see in a MMORPG is what you find in society in general. The only difference is the attempt to enforce rules. The fix is not in the game but in the people playing.

BTW.... on another note.. I got a set of Easter bunny ears in the bank somewhere... you got a billion?

Hello snik. I purely visit Tom's Hardware for the hardware articles but I happened upon this article upon which this forum discussion is based. I was interested in seeing the reactions to this article. I had to stop and take some time out of my day to reply...to you and only you...snik.

I know nothing of role playing games. I remember long long ago playing D'n'D...just around the time of the first Nintendo...say...1985. I have played first person shooters for thier simplicity. You go in...blow up stuff...mindless devestation (including lots of sniping) and you leave. Lots of fun. Gaming that is easy to forget. Kill. Leave.

What amazes me is your reaction to the person who has written the article. I do believe you are a highly intelligent person and very articulate. You know this game inside and out...not doubt something you are proud of.

What floors me is your absolute flippant attitude towards the level of violence, distrust and melevolence that is being instilled in the young kids that are playing this game. We aren't talking about adults here. We are talking about impressionable children. Whether you want to dismiss this as just a game is purely ignorant on your part. Blaming parents that let the children play the game too long is even more laughable.

After reading this article and seeing your reaction to this story alone makes me want to make this game a reality for you. To turn you into a young boy and thow you into Jagex world and see just how this might change your attitude about the game. This may be a harsh reality...but think of it this way. You as an adult have the pure luxury of dismissing this as just a game based on the fact that...A) you are a grown man with the intelligence(I assume) and bravery of an coarse thick skinned adult and ...B) you may just very well be a person that is capable of these things in the real world.

As scary as option B seems this is the difference between you and the young impressionable children that are playing these games. Children for the most part start out with a clean slate but as stated many times in the article turn out to take alot of these little game lessons and translate them into the real world. THAT IS WHAT THE ARTICLE WAS ABOUT.

But obviously you weren't smart enough to get that point...snik.

SNIK. This question if for you and I really do look forward to your reply:

Would you be prepared to fall victim to a violent offender who claims that the life lessons they learned from your precious "Runescape"

Choose wisely snik. Remember. There is always someone more powerful ...no matter how bravely you choose to answer this question.

I want to say to the writer, I really liked the article. Now saying that I played Runescape, for a grand total of maybe a hour, but I have played several MMORPG's over the years. Those being Nexus: Kingdom of the Wind, Star Wars, and Guild Wars.

For the most part I agree, but the one thing I do partially disagree with is something you said in the part about scams (or I should say led me to believe)...Now correct me if I am wrong, but you led me to believe that you put all blame on the scammer entirely. I disagree with that. The first mmorpg I played was Nexus. I played for a little over a month as paying customer. I was about 12 at the time, and I convinced me mom to pay so I could play a character past lvl 10, I think that was the limit at the time. I played for over a month and made a few friends that I played and quested with online. Then I met this guy, who said he would give me 10000 gold or what ever the currency was (it has been years since I have played) if he could "borrow" the character for a hour. So like a idiot I accepted and gave him the password to the character. A hour later I went to log on, and of course I couldn't. I had lost my character, but l was able to delete from the main website, since I still had the whole account password.

I was upset to say the least I had been scammed, so I quit the game in order for that to not happen again. It would be about 6 years until I played another mmorpg, that being Guild Wars.

My point for the whole thing is, even at a younger age it is partially the person who got scammed's fault. Even at a young age someone should know not give out your password for anything to anyone, I am pretty sure that all mmorpg's state that somewhere that is out in the open somewhere either in the game itself or on their website.

Also something else I disagree with, is the taking away of rare artifacts, weapons, etc.... Like someone else said most people that play like to show off something that shows their game playing abilities. Where it be their name in a top ten list, or a special item or trophey they got for doing something special. Of course that doesn't mean they should be arrogant about it... I mean yes you got a special prize....in a game... it isn't like you cured cancer, or rescued a child from a burning building...

Also for those others who insult others by calling them "newb" or what ever word is "in" at the moment... I think that is just stupid... When I call of duty 2 on my friends network, if we kill some body or just completly own the person in a game, we will make jokes, but we don't try to humilate them....even if we did it was because we personally know each other and we know our limits and where to stop... but to make fun of someone we don't know is just wrong... You could really hurt some body...

Those just my thoughts on the article. Like I said at the beginning good article, writer.

The parents are given information if they wish to seek it using the KBase.

Ya, I agree for a part of it. I once tried to help and warn people that someone was password scamming. I was smacked with password scamming myself and copped an instant 10 blackmarks. But, also, I believe that sometimes Jagex can be fair.

There's a simple soloution to the problem. Hire PMods that are good. They seem to hire people who aren't capable of being PMods.

Also, Charles, try to be more optimistic, the good features of RuneScape outnumber the bad by far, stop breeding a race of people who think that RuneScape is nothing but cr*p.

The NSW (Australia) premier had is campaign, his slogan for the better part of it was "There's more to do but we're heading in the right direction".

I do see your point but the reason why I said what I said was that it seems that almost everyone who's posting has something else to add that is negative for the game or something making Charles a king.

Although, I do applaud you Charles for you definately have research skills to find around everything that is bad about the game. I know that it would take me quite a while to attempt such a task.

With regards to Jagex making scamming 'legal', here are some direct quotes from the Knowledge Baser and Forum Code of Conduct.

Again, you only have to read them to see this - you don't even need to have a n account or be logged in...

Jagex are very much against scammers - and do their best to prevent and discourage it.

As for not being 'allowed' to 'warn other users' on the forums about scams, etc, this is explained nicely here:

The last thing that I would want as a player is to tell 9 million players about how I was scammed by 1 person, only to find that now 9 million other people know how to do it. That makes a lot of sense to me. Sure, I would want other people to be warned about it to protect them, but the way to do this would be to report it to Jagex privately who would then take the necessary steps to try and stop it.

Also, it protects that person from being ridiculed or laughed at (by other children, of course) in the event that they perhaps did something a bit silly which caused them to be scammed.

With regards to price increases by players:

Price manipulation is illegal in Runescape and again, Jagex does its best to prevent it.

From the knowledge base regarding Education and Account security:

As in my previous post, I mentioned that there are plenty of banners and information available on the website to inform new players how to be safe and have an enjoyable gaming experience. It's all there [b]if you choose to read it.

This then goes on to show a visual example of how someone can be scammed in-game. Jagex cannot possibly make it any clearer to either parent nor player the importance of security and self-protection.

Geez, just because Charles has put up several things that are bad about Jagex, we are suddenly all against Jagex? Now, just because people are scammed, you think that the Jagex staff are filming the gameplay of scammed players and sending it to Funniest Home Video Shows for money?

Jagex are against scammers. They do their best to discourage and prevent it. That does not mean that they prevent it completely. They try to manage millions of accounts but don't you realise that this would be HARD?

You can't get much higher than top, to be honest!

Hmm, didn't the news recently say Elton John was experiencing something similar. (Slightly off-topic)

Apparently not hard enough, lol! Best not try the olympics.....or writing a Java based game for that matter.... 8O

I think you're losing your points here which detracts from your arguments.

Firstly, I would direct you to this simple search here:
http://www.youtube.com/results?sea [...] rch=Search
This shows more than 80 videos (There are lots more) where people have seen Jagex Mods and thought to record them on video. How many more instances have there been where it hasn't been videoed? I would imagine hundreds at least since the majority of people don't video seeing a mod in a game.
It would seem highly irregular if the makers of a game never actually entered the game themselves.

As mentioned before, Jagex has not and does not advertise Runescape anywhere which is what makes it something of a phenomenon. Perhaps you are referring to 3rd party sites who might advertise it for their own ends? Where have you seen this "propoganda machine" as you delicately put it? On their own website?

Perhaps they repeat it because some people seem unable to grasp the simple concept of fact?
Just because one chooses to ignore it doesn't make it cease to exist.

What hard evidence is there to the contrary? A couple of posts on a forum of someone complaining? That's called conjecture and would be thrown out of a case based on evidence.

Forgive me for asking, but who exactly are you the messenger for? I thought you wrote the article.....or was it someone else? You can't be a messenger for your own work.

You're quoting Jagex's boilerplate. The reality is very different, and that's part of why I wrote this two-part article.

Well, it makes no sense to me at all. It leaves victims ignorant and helpless, while not stopping the scammers at all -- because they communicate privately and share the new scams that way.

My new site will contain a full description of all the scams and lures anyway. If Jagex wants to keep people in the dark, then it's up to others to warn them.

Except they don't. There are many common scams that have been around for literally months or years that Jagex knows about, doesn't fix and doesn't warn people about.

For example, even right now you can go to the Runescape knowledge base and find Jagex telling players that they can't die and lose items in player-owned houses, when scammers are doing exactly that. Jagex:

[*:fc1ef5cd7d] Won't fix the problem;
[*:fc1ef5cd7d] Won't take the false claim out of the KB;
[*:fc1ef5cd7d] Won't warn people not to take valuables into others' houses; and
[*:fc1ef5cd7d] Won't let anyone talk about the issue on its forums.

That's not what I would call taking scamming seriously.

Better to give the potential victims a place to read up on scams and avoid being victims in the first place.

Has nothing to do with the issue of rares, if that's why you brought it up.

And by the way, people manipulate the prices of non-rare items constantly. Do you even play Runescape?

Again, I have to wonder if you even play the game, because anyone who does knows that scamming has grown out of control in Runescape. It's everywhere.

Edit: They banned luring! It's about time... and I have to wonder if it's a coincidence that they did it 3 days after my article was published.

Charles