Runescape's playerbase sucks the nut.

They're stupid, selfish, loners, spiteful, scammers, and make up the worst MMO population in the history of MMO populations. After I started playing WoW, I was amazed that players a few levels higher than me were actually willing to help or group with me from time to time, and max-level players didn't go out of their way to call me a dumb **** suck**** like Runescape's playerbase tends to.

It really doesn't matter what level you are in runescape, if someone has a single level or combat level over you, they'll gloat and gloat and be all "noobnoobnoobnoobnoobnoobnooboobdummy" and generally act like jackasses. Normally I don't really give a crap about people who do this because it gives me a certain sense of satisfaction to realize that once they start the real world, they'll be in the for the rude awakening that being an asshole is going to get your ass kicked, but it does irk me that I have such a hard time making friends in this game because every single person I come across is either retarded, can't spell correctly, or a prick that can't get his head out of his ass that he's got 75 attack, 90 strength and 72 defense and "LOL i own u nub wit my 90 str and dds spec lolol i like ****."

I personally have my theory on why runescape's playerbase sucks the nut (hence why i made this topic, dur). So. Yeah.

1. Players from the time they very first start playing this game are hardwired to assume that any and all other players they run across are not friends but hostile enemies intent on taking advantage of them, scamming them, or stealing their resources. What are the things most players do when they first start this game? They cut trees, mine minerals, and kill cows. All three of these, most notably the first and last, become exponentially slower when other players are present, often leading to intense verbal arguements and the ever-so-classy "noob noob noob.." Obviously, this is just an example, but the theme of players treating enemies as hostile instead of potential allies, friends, or simply other people occupying their same area continues throughout the low level areas. When playing WoW, players are given strong incentives to band together as low as level 12 or 14 on the horde faction and 20 on the alliance faction. By doing so they are able to run the first two dungeons in the game, Ragefire Chasm and The Deadmines, to obtain gear that is vastly superior for their level and to anything else available for the next several, sometimes up to 10 levels. When low level players band together, they mine slower, have to run around waiting for cows/nodes/etc to respawn, and gain *zero* experience at all that they couldn't gotten FASTER on their own. In WoW, even grouping for simple quests greatly speeds them, since monsters die twice as fast and downtime between them is reduced because less damage is taken (You can only eat outside of combat).

WoW players are encouraged to work together and runescape players are encouraged to work ALONE, as there is almost no task in the game outside of killing super-high level monsters such as in the God-Wars dungeon that aren't both faster and easier to complete alone.

2. Even if players wanted to group, there are no incentives to do so. In WoW, players who group together recieve about a 10-20% bonus amount of experience per monster killed (exp is divided by the number of players in the party, but the net result is faster gain), and since between a third and half the experience required to reach level 70 (the max level) is from finishing quests, it becomes often 20-50% faster to level in small groups of 2, maybe 3 than to level alone. There are also many many quests that require venture into dungeons with powerful monsters that require a party of 5 to defeat, and quite a few quests scattered around the open world that suggest between 2 and 5 players.

3. There was a third point that I figured out yesterday, but I can't figure out what it was. I'll edit it in later.

SOLUTION!

5% Exp bonus on certain skills such as mining, combat, etc. per person when in a group with other people. Thus a group of 2 would receive a 5% bonus, a group of 5 would receive a 20% bonus. (No more than 20% bonus, regardless of number of people). The party members would be decided by having them in a window identical to the clan chat window, but not related to it in any way. The group leader would invite each player to the group (it would have its own party chat, btw), and as long as the players remained together, they would receive the xp bonus. To be more specific, the bonus for any given player x would be y players in his group within z blocks of player x. One side effect of this is that if you players placed at a-----b-----c, players A and C would only receive a 5% bonus while player B received a 10% bonus. This would act to keep the group somewhat together instead of giving a group of friends a way to completely dominate an area. A lot of monster areas would probably have to be expanded to compensate for this change, but that would be easily coded and it would take like, 10 seconds. The party interface pane would show how many and which members you were close enough to to receive said bonus, to prevent it from being gay.

On a side note, the party interface would allow several updates to the way monsters are tagged by a person or group. It would help prevent leechers in god wars, for instance, by disallowing multiple groups to be present within the god wars area at once. Also, when a player in a group tags a monster for combat, only players in that group are allowed to gain exp or drops from that monster. This ties in below.

There was also another interesting solution I posted in the thieving topic which consisted of dealing [thieving level/3]% extra damage to targets when attacking from behind, which would be an awesome reason to group together on stronger monsters in multicombat zones. However, this requires the above suggestion that a group is the only entity allowed to gain experience or loot for monsters it has tagged first into combat. Otherwise, people would just run around attacking everyone else's monsters from behind, getting absurd exp and free loot, while never needing food.

This one confused me

You're going to have to be more specific -.-

No you just worded it very strangely... I don't want more specific, I want more vague.

The more people you group with, the more exp you get.

I kind'a guessed that... why though?

Read the first post.

But the current RuneScape system wouldn't allow this to fit in all balanced-like.


The number of cows in a field don't change... players are still going to get aggressive about it because there aren't enough. Players will abuse this by having many players about and carrying on as usual... bonus experience for being competative.

Yes it would. Show me an area this isn't balanced for.

I completely agree with you.

However, what I think would be a better solution is:

1. Add more multi-player quests, currently there are only 2. They may be really annoying, but if Jagex add more, people will get used to it. The only reason it's annoying at the moment is because of how people are so used to doing things alone.

2. Add more team mini-games. Not like Castle wars, where people still go ahead and do their own thing, but like Barbarian Assault, with better awards and more clashing tasks, even Barbarian Assault isn't good enough, everyone has their own individual tasks with hardly any need to interact except healing and egg swapping in the final wave.

3. Harder Team Kill monsters. Not ones where you can get away with soloing or duoing, but ones that actually require big teams that are working together. WoW is very good at stuff like this.

4. More places where players are required to help each other. Like the Dagganoth Kings, it is impossible to get to them without at least one other person, so essentially you have to ask for help.

5. Group Skilling is a good idea, however I think it should implemented in different ways. For example, fishing. From the fishing guild should be a small rowing boat that you can hire, and you can only go with a minimum of 3 people, maximum of 8. Perhaps there are new types of fish when you use this rowing boat to fish in the middle of the lake, maybe even a boss fish (lol) where 3-4 people have to work together to catch.

Another example of group skilling: Thieving. With a team of 3-6 friends, you should be able to rob a bank and get mass amounts of money, of course it would be a long process but you would have to work together, digging tunnels to bank vaults, etc.

An example of a team mini-game: Quadruple Maze. Two team mates see an overview of the maze. The other two enter the maze and take different directions. The people seeing the whole maze has to guide them, and the other two have to help each other to unlock doors. For example, PersonInMaze1 comes across a sign that says "Your partners door opens with a red circle", he then has to tell the PersonInMaze2 that his door opens when he pulls the Red Lever. (It would be like a clan chat). Then the person seeing the whole maze can tell PersonInMaze1 to be careful because there is a lvl 935 monster bird ahead. And PersonInMaze2 can come across a warning that says "The only way to defeat the bird, is to pluck a single feather, otherwise doom awaits your partner", then he can tell his partner that before he dies etc.

This needs such team work, but at the end, the reward could be so amazing.

5. A 'Thanks' system. Right-Click -> Thank someone. It wouldn't mean anything, there won't be a way to show it off, since people will make friends do it etc. But it would be so that a person can look at the end of the day and see how many thanks he got, and from who. It would have a positive effect on the community. For example, if I am standing there killing something in pest control, and a noob walks in through the gate and doesn't close it, and then another person goes and closes it, "Right -Click -> Thank that person". It can't be abused, and yes there will be a hype in the first place, but it will eventually calm down and turn into normal where really grateful people use it.

These are what I think will get people to work together and help each other. At the moment, people are far too reluctant to working with others. People should be encouraged to work together.

I agree my ideas may sound very odd, but in the end, it is the kind of vague solution that will fix RuneScapes terrible community.

Anonymous wrote:I completely agree with you.

Aside from the thanks system, I could have sworn I mentioned all of the points you mentioned . All these points I agree with though. The thanks system seems like the kind of cheesy-kiddy thing that I personally wouldn't want in a game, but from an objective standpoint would probably be beneficial to have as long there are safegaurds to make sure that thanks messages can't spam up the combat log.

However, what I think would be a better solution is:

1. Add more multi-player quests, currently there are only 2. They may be really annoying, but if Jagex add more, people will get used to it. The only reason it's annoying at the moment is because of how people are so used to doing things alone.

This is something that jagex started off well with and then let fade after hero's quest. The problem with the system they used before is that being in one of the shield of arrav gangs was very easy, while the other hard even to find the correct NPC to talk to. They need to have quests where 2 or more players is required to complete an objective, but not in a way that screws people over for making a poor decision in a previous quest or a previous step in the current quest. Something like the double-switch thingy to get into the daggonath king lair, but more elaborate so that it feels like an actual necessity rather than a cockblock.

2. Add more team mini-games. Not like Castle wars, where people still go ahead and do their own thing, but like Barbarian Assault, with better awards and more clashing tasks, even Barbarian Assault isn't good enough, everyone has their own individual tasks with hardly any need to interact except healing and egg swapping in the final wave.

Barbarian assault was a good step in the right direction as far as making minigames that require teamwork. Its actually far more elaborate than anything in WoW aside from endgame raiding/arena pvp. What I would like to see is minigames that encourage teamwork not by brute-forced methods of necessary interaction, but by design of the minigame itself that makes an objective near-impossible to achieve unless every member of the team is working together.

3. Harder Team Kill monsters. Not ones where you can get away with soloing or duoing, but ones that actually require big teams that are working together. WoW is very good at stuff like this.

I had a great post on this in one of the forums on runescape.com, but I didn't copy it over and I'm too lazy to go find it since these forums are the only ones I read nowadays. Basically I came up with a 5 man version of Jad that bent the currently established combat system mechanics to make a boss that absolutely requires multiple people to kill.

4. More places where players are required to help each other. Like the Dagganoth Kings, it is impossible to get to them without at least one other person, so essentially you have to ask for help.

5. Group Skilling is a good idea, however I think it should implemented in different ways. For example, fishing. From the fishing guild should be a small rowing boat that you can hire, and you can only go with a minimum of 3 people, maximum of 8. Perhaps there are new types of fish when you use this rowing boat to fish in the middle of the lake, maybe even a boss fish (lol) where 3-4 people have to work together to catch.

Another example of group skilling: Thieving. With a team of 3-6 friends, you should be able to rob a bank and get mass amounts of money, of course it would be a long process but you would have to work together, digging tunnels to bank vaults, etc.

Obviously some skills would benefit greatly from this method of group skilling, but in skills such as combat, the bonus exp system I proposed would work better, unless jagex manages to make monsters that are strong enough to require multiple people to kill, but weak enough to be highly killable (50+/inventory, no prayer pots) while giving bonus exp. Obviously some skills that are entirely solo like fletching would have no system of bonus exp, but for most others there should be at least *some* way of getting group exp that rivals or surpasses the best of the solo leveling methods. Hell, even agility could have double dutch jumprope or something...

An example of a team mini-game: Quadruple Maze. Two team mates see an overview of the maze. The other two enter the maze and take different directions. The people seeing the whole maze has to guide them, and the other two have to help each other to unlock doors. For example, PersonInMaze1 comes across a sign that says "Your partners door opens with a red circle", he then has to tell the PersonInMaze2 that his door opens when he pulls the Red Lever. (It would be like a clan chat). Then the person seeing the whole maze can tell PersonInMaze1 to be careful because there is a lvl 935 monster bird ahead. And PersonInMaze2 can come across a warning that says "The only way to defeat the bird, is to pluck a single feather, otherwise doom awaits your partner", then he can tell his partner that before he dies etc.

This needs such team work, but at the end, the reward could be so amazing.

Something requiring this much teamwork is ok, but I personally hate mazes so I wouldn't support this idea :-P. The biggest problem with this idea is if the person reading the directions fails at mazes and ends up leading everyone on a wild goose chase, or is simply a jackass pretending to be stupid to waste other peoples' time.

5. A 'Thanks' system. Right-Click -> Thank someone. It wouldn't mean anything, there won't be a way to show it off, since people will make friends do it etc. But it would be so that a person can look at the end of the day and see how many thanks he got, and from who. It would have a positive effect on the community. For example, if I am standing there killing something in pest control, and a noob walks in through the gate and doesn't close it, and then another person goes and closes it, "Right -Click -> Thank that person". It can't be abused, and yes there will be a hype in the first place, but it will eventually calm down and turn into normal where really grateful people use it.

These are what I think will get people to work together and help each other. At the moment, people are far too reluctant to working with others. People should be encouraged to work together.

I agree my ideas may sound very odd, but in the end, it is the kind of vague solution that will fix RuneScapes terrible community.

Lol @ thanks system. It might work though. Excessive bans and a language filter more strict than southern baptist parents haven't really done much to help.

Nitetrain8 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I completely agree with you.

Aside from the thanks system, I could have sworn I mentioned all of the points you mentioned . All these points I agree with though. The thanks system seems like the kind of cheesy-kiddy thing that I personally wouldn't want in a game, but from an objective standpoint would probably be beneficial to have as long there are safegaurds to make sure that thanks messages can't spam up the combat log.

I agree, though it's a nice idea, I wouldn't personally use it over just saying thank you and running off... requires less effort.

Nitetrain8 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:However, what I think would be a better solution is:

1. Add more multi-player quests, currently there are only 2. They may be really annoying, but if Jagex add more, people will get used to it. The only reason it's annoying at the moment is because of how people are so used to doing things alone.

This is something that jagex started off well with and then let fade after hero's quest. The problem with the system they used before is that being in one of the shield of arrav gangs was very easy, while the other hard even to find the correct NPC to talk to. They need to have quests where 2 or more players is required to complete an objective, but not in a way that screws people over for making a poor decision in a previous quest or a previous step in the current quest. Something like the double-switch thingy to get into the daggonath king lair, but more elaborate so that it feels like an actual necessity rather than a cockblock.

I agree, but Jagex mentioned back when they first teasered a Summoning skill that they were hoping to update an instance-style thing... basically a random-scenario generator. It's not quite a quest, but it's less strenuous than trying to find specific people to help you. Although I agree that more multiplayer quests should be released.

Nitetrain8 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2. Add more team mini-games. Not like Castle wars, where people still go ahead and do their own thing, but like Barbarian Assault, with better awards and more clashing tasks, even Barbarian Assault isn't good enough, everyone has their own individual tasks with hardly any need to interact except healing and egg swapping in the final wave.

Barbarian assault was a good step in the right direction as far as making minigames that require teamwork. Its actually far more elaborate than anything in WoW aside from endgame raiding/arena pvp. What I would like to see is minigames that encourage teamwork not by brute-forced methods of necessary interaction, but by design of the minigame itself that makes an objective near-impossible to achieve unless every member of the team is working together.

I never thought I'd see the day Nite admitted RuneScape had something WoW didn't, or to a better extent.

I always like the theme of Barbarian Assault, but it isn't really a "team game" until the final wave... it's basically a couple of friends/complete strangers performing a task that is effectivly Slayer; you slay that, you that, you that, and finally you take that. I think that the Great Orb Project could be made a step closer to a team minigame if it incorpirated two-point loci (geometry).

A ----- O ----- B = The Orb wouldn't move.
A+1 ----- O ----- B = The Orb would be biased towards A.
A+1 ----- O ----- B + 1 = The Orb wouldn't move.

A ----- O = The Orb would move diagnoally between them.
|
|
B

A ----- O = The Orb would move diagnoally between them, but biased to B.
|
|
B + 1

This would allow for more team work, at the moment if the orb gets stuck but player A won't let go of the orb, it'll just stay there for a while. With this method player B could just come along and pull from what it's stuck to... like two players with two magnets.

Nitetrain8 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:3. Harder Team Kill monsters. Not ones where you can get away with soloing or duoing, but ones that actually require big teams that are working together. WoW is very good at stuff like this.

I had a great post on this in one of the forums on runescape.com, but I didn't copy it over and I'm too lazy to go find it since these forums are the only ones I read nowadays. Basically I came up with a 5 man version of Jad that bent the currently established combat system mechanics to make a boss that absolutely requires multiple people to kill.

Was it basically a KBD where each had was almost independant and you require one of each combat class to repel it? Lol... you wouldn't send a warrior up against the magic head.


Lol, I like the idea of the mazes, it sounds like a show on British TV called Jungle Run. One of them involves and underground maze with loads of sealed doors and the person in the tunnel has to use walkie talkies to tell the people upto which button to stand on. There is also a maze thing, like the idea above, where one player is in the maze (which isn't static, doors open and close) and the player up top has to just shout down directions... but unless a first person perspective is applied the player in the maze could just look over/around the corner.

*sigh* I need to collect lots of essence to play the orb game, is it any good?

Group Quests - YES
Team Minigames - YES
Team Dungeons - YES
Clan Monsters - YES

Don't worry psychoboy, I didn't admit anything =D. Wow's endgame raids are more complex than barbarian assault and far less forgiving- calling out the wrong ability to use, for example, would result in death or very close to it =P. As far as completing the minigame in a flawless manner the way it was intended to be played, yes it is more complex than any fight in WoW pre-endgame. The one thing I could see to improve the game is to vastly increase the difficulty of the harder waves. When a random pug (pick-up group) of 5 players, all rank 1 in each BA class manages to beat every wave 1-shot despite me being a noob and not realizing the eggs were in my inventory for around 3 minutes, I think the difficulty should be several notches higher.

Completely off-topic, how does WoW reward PvP? Can you loot dead players? I only played the game briefly and the only PvP I enjoyed was dueling, which was for fun.

nite this is a very focused topic and I do agree.

I think that was the reason for the introduction of mini games like Blast Furnace, pity smithing as become such a dead skill, that no one really cares too much, but then Trouble brewing is good also.

Woot, Trev

I'm so very confused where this is ending up.

I actually have little idea aswell.

Well if we start with the beginning, RS players are selfish, then we want the community to be nice, so you create more incentive to be nice.

In practical terms this may be hard, but little things can evolve, an example would be the runecrafting companies, they rely on lots of players interacting to work efficiently, from time to time players are rude, but overall, players are nice to one another as the sitautuion is win win.

In skills for example, we already know that ores spawn faster in busier worlds, so this encourages people lookng for resources to migrate to busier worlds, the next step in the current process is that all players can only mine one ore rock, creating players who want one spot to themselves and are mean, like a snarling dog protecting its turf.

To alter that you need change the structure of certain skills, to make the skill more productive with more people around, like mini games are.


Lets say we experiment with mining, how could we alter mining to be more productive with more people?

One possible way is to have mining rocks that don't give single ores and then nothing. You change the size of the rocks, to say, 4 squares, and have them give out unlimited ores, similar to the pure ess rocks.

The next step is make the ore drop rate from the rocks conditional on the amount of people mining the ore and your mining level. As the more people are mining that large rock increases, the faster the ore comes out. The large rocks could also run out temporarily similar to how trees get cut down, but then respawn.

This encourages more players to mine rocks together and not compete for resources as much, and makes players welcome when others are there.

That is a very good idea.

I agree, great plan. Although, I think 4 space rocks might mess up some stuff

Meteors are four-spacers.

Yeah, but meteors only land in specific areas. 4 space normal rocks might mess up somewhere you need to go for quests

It doesn't really matter, Jagex would figure that out sooner or later

For the rocks you could only have a certain number over the whole world.

So like in the mining guld your replace say 15 of the normal coal rocks with 2 large coal ones, and the only mith one in the game, bring the glory back to the mining guild.

Have one at coal trucks.

Have an Addy one in the wildy and one at the bottom of the haunted mine.

And no Rune ones or Iron ones, to much emphasis is placed on iron, I don't want it to improve