Over the last few months, more and more players have been seen complaining about the Runescape community becoming less and less enjoyable. Many blame this on the new target audience of Jagex advertising. This may or may not be the case, but much of the problem is simply due to an overwhelming increase in the phenomenon known as “macroing”.
Many players love “cheats” in any form they can get them. While Runescape has no “codes” or “cheats” that you can download (and if anybody tries to give you one it is an attempt to steal your password and steal your account), players have found that they can get millions of gold coins by just letting their computer play the game automatically for them.
This has disgusted many players throughout the game who play honestly by the rules as set by Jagex. Unfortunately it is nearly impossible to know which sellers are legitimate players or not. While buyers have enjoyed the decreased prices in items like sharks, the people who gather these items have had to suffer due to competition from rule-breakers, who Jagex often refer to as “scum”.
This month these players' prayers were answered as Jagex finally made one of the boldest, and some say most-needed, action ever made in recent Runescape history. On 12th January 2006, Jagex banned almost 5,000 Runescape Classic accounts for the overly-common "autoing" problem.
People thought this was huge. No longer would RSC be tainted with the filth of macroers at every imaginable training spot. Praises to Jagex echoed the forums for a job well done. Then speculation built up as to whether or not RS2 would be next. Jagex moderators had been seen scouring common places such as the fishing or mining guilds, essence mines, etc, looking for players breaking the 7th commandment: “Thou shalt not use programs to play the game for you.”
Then it happened. Doomsday for the cheating kind. Jagex banned 15,000 players for violating this rule. No longer, at least for now, were you going to have to deal with the difficulty of selling your items at prices comparable to the prices of people who obtained these items illegally. Feelings on the matter were mixed, and players' thoughts went wild as to how prices of items in Runescape would be affected by this.
Merchants of course are probably thrilled by this. Speculation that hundreds of rare holiday items were wiped out of the game spread like wildfire. Prices of rare items skyrocketed from their previous prices. Party hats immediately started selling for twenty to thirty million more than their previous sale prices (and even more). These party hats had the biggest rise in price. Other rare items such as Santa hats and Mask sets may have seen a short spike in price, but have not changed very much at all.
Rumours also arose as to how prices would be affected with skill-based items that these macroers used to gather such as ores, fish and logs. Hundreds of thousands of coal, essence, sharks, and logs no longer being brought into the world of Runescape on a daily basis. Players would expect this to cause prices to go up, as the demand would now seemingly be much larger than the supply.
Luckily for skill totallers such as myself, these items' prices are highly dependent upon the values of their products or the experience provided, and the bans have had little impact on items even as low in price as rune essence (compared to items like coal and sharks). The players who gather these items have not tried to start selling them for more than their previous prices, or at least have not done so in large enough numbers to keep players from finding sellers at more reasonable prices. Some credit the rare items' market with absorbing a lot of the impact of price increases, while others believe the prices are entirely independent of rares.
Many players are happy with the bans, and seek for Jagex to move forward and take more action against other players that violate the Runescape rules. Players would like nothing more than to see the betterment of the game, with the majority of players abiding by the rules. Good work, Jagex – keep at it!
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