The RuneScoop Soapbox

So Jagex came up with this idea to give us all a weekend when we could get bonus XP. The idea was to have XP start at a 2.7x multiplier and then descend gradually using an exponential-type curve to 1.1x. But they messed up and the curve was steeper than it should have been. And then the predictable complaining ensued.

I think a little perspective is in order.

First, for Jagex. I think the bug itself is pretty embarrassing—not because it is the most serious issue in the world, but because of what it shows about the much-maligned (and justifiably so) QA process in place at RuneScape.

I have repeatedly defended Jagex when I have seen people complaining about obscure bugs or expecting perfection—I’ve been writing software for 30 years and I know that when you have programs, you have bugs. With a code base as large as RuneScape’s, it’s normal and expected for problems to arise, often due to the interactions of different systems.

But this is not an obscure bug—it’s a glaring flaw that goes to the very heart of this feature. I simply cannot conceive of how this error wasn’t caught. Even a single hour of proper testing should have revealed it immediately. (Incidentally, the initial attempt to hand wave this away as “not a bug, but a small error” was rather comical, in an Orwellian sort of way).

For years I have called on Jagex to implement a beta testing program, even asking that this be done at the very highest level of the company. Every time I do, I get told that Jagex doesn’t think it is necessary, even though on a regular basis, events like this one show clearly that it is needed—desperately.

All that said, nobody is perfect and we do all make mistakes, even sometimes mistakes that seem like the sort we shouldn’t make. It’s not the end of the world.

To the whiny players hurling around insults and accusations about this, all I can say is: grow the hell up. This is not a bug that caused you to lose XP you already earned, all it did was cause a nice bonus that nobody anticipated to be not quite as nice as we thought it would be. Okay, some folks spent a bit of money on ingredients they didn’t get maximum use out of, but it’s not like anything went to waste.

Jagex didn’t owe any of us a bonus XP weekend, and we have no right to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.

Suppose one day the phone rings and you find it’s a long lost uncle who is dying, and as his last surviving heir, he plans to leave you a million dollars. Then a year later, he passes and his will is read, and you find out that you got “only” $750,000. Would you be grateful for that inheritance, or curse your dead uncle over the quarter million you “lost”?

The answer to that question speaks volume about your own character. Try working on that, instead of complaining about a bonus that nobody expected anyway.

When I started playing RuneScape, I avoided the Slayer skill at first. The reason was that I didn’t like the idea of some game NPC telling me what to fight. I wanted to kill what I wanted to kill, not some “Slayer master”.

I eventually started to train Slayer because I realized that I would want, later on, to have access to some monsters that required particular Slayer levels. At first I kinda hated it, but after some time, I started to appreciate Slayer for its own merits. I liked the variety, and being essentially “forced” to fight monsters that I normally wouldn’t meant that I got to learn a lot more about what was in the game.

I also appreciated the variety in the monsters, and learning what made them tick. Some required special armor or equipment to be worn. Some had unique tricks you had to use in order to make them attackable or to kill them.

This variety—in tasks, gear, monster killing methods—is what made Slayer interesting to me. Unfortunately, it is all being systematically dismantled. The skill that once had so much breadth and diversity is being reduced to an ice cream shoppe that serves only vanilla.

The ability to “Burthorpe” tasks wasn’t a bad in and of itself. While “forcing” players to go outside the box and fight monsters they don’t really like is good, it’s nice to have an option to get out of tasks that one truly despises (for a cost in time and hassle). This was a good “get out of jail free card” that still allowed Slayer to mostly retain its essential character.

And then came Sumona.

She brought with her Slayer points, and the ability to cancel tasks using those points, and even to block entire categories of monsters entirely. This was the first step down the slippery slope to Slayer oblivion. What exactly is the point of a skill where the entire concept is that you must do what your master assigns, and you just say “no thanks, I don’t want to” with essentially no consequences?

With a large number of quest points, you can now entirely block five monsters. And using Kuradal as one’s Slayer master, you now get so many Slayer points that you can essentially skip 50% of the assignments for the non-blocked monsters with no penalty. Does this even remotely resemble what Slayer is supposed to be about?

While the variety in tasks was decreasing, at least the skill maintained an interesting diversity in the techniques needed to kill various monsters, but that’s now also being ruined. Sure, lots of players didn’t like killing warped terrorbirds and tortoises because of the need to chime them. So what?! That is what made those monsters unique! Both have had significant drop upgrades and were entirely worth fighting before the auto-chime was added. Now that it has been, what is interesting about these? You need to waste one inventory slot? They are now just another monster.

Same thing goes for gargoyles and rock slugs and the other monsters that require “finishing blows”. Finish a few tasks and then spend your ubiquitous Slayer points to turn these flavorful monsters into yet another serving of vanilla. Boring.

Look,  I am not the sort of player who rails against improvement for its own sake. I do not think that progress is bad, nor am I one of those “I had it tough when I was lower level so you should too” luddites. But these changes don’t just make Slayer easier, they make it dull. What we are being left with no longer resembles the unique, diverse skill we used to have, but rather just a way for players to rack up XP in another skill while doing pretty much whatever they want combat-wise.

I always knew that a large segment of the RS player population was composed of foolish players who will scream and carry on over just about anything. But I must say that even with that in mind, witnessing the sheer extent of the ranting and hysteria associated with the Hitpoints/Constitution change made by Jagex has been simply breathtaking.

Let’s leave aside for now the small immediate benefits associated with the change, such as effectively higher maximum hits, and the ability to get incremental increases in damage when boosting one’s stats. And we’ll be able to add to that whatever Jagex is able to do with this in the  future.

No, let’s look simply at the change as it has been presented at face value: health and damge have been increased by a factor of 10. Is this REALLY such a calamity?

I mean, I know that change is difficult for a lot of folks, but too many people seem to have lost all perspective here. I’ve seen comments from players that while getting hits in the 30s or 40s is “natural”, seeing numbers in the 300s and 400s is “unnatural”.

What a load of bunk. The truth is that what seems “natural” is entirely a matter of conditioning — what you are accustomed to.

In the United Kingdom and the United States, we use currencies that have fairly high values — pounds and dollars — and so we are used to seeing item prices a particular way. After years and years, we expect a candy bar to cost a figure somewhere in the low single numbers, often with a decimal fraction. We expect an Ipod to cost something in the hundreds. We expect a car to have a price like 10,000 or 30,000.

Well, what about Japan? Their currency, the yen, has a lower inherent exchange value. This doesn’t mean that the currency is weak, just that it is denominated in larger numbers. So in Tokyo, a candy bar doesn’t cost 1.25; instead it might cost 150. An Ipod could go for 20,000. And cars are priced in the millions!

Does this change anything about the candy bar, the Ipod or the car? Of course not.

Are Japanese people somehow inherently more clever than their Western counterparts because they can deal with these larger numbers? I don’t think so. Do people who move from the UK or the US to Japan find themselves bewildered and overwhelmed and unable to deal with the change in the currency? How silly.

Look, I find the new system a bit strange myself. Hitting an 80 on a bat takes some getting used to. And when I got breathed on by a dragon for a 76 earlier this evening, my first instinct was one of panic.

But really, folks, this is just because it is NEW. In a few weeks, we will get used to the new numbers, and they won’t seem like anything strange at all. Pretty soon we will start to expect hits in the hundreds, and we’ll view hits in the tens as being glancing blows — just as we currently view hits in the tens as solid contact and hits in the single numbers as near misses.

Everyone just relax, okay? It will be fine. I promise.