R2Pleasent's Runescape Development Blog

Today, Jagex announced a new update to Runescape.  They announced the return of the Wilderness / Free Trade.  They have created a Voting system where people can input any Runescape name and vote to reintroduce the old Wild / Trade System.

www.runescape.com

 I hope everyone understands the vote is a FARCE.  They are doing this simply to give players the ILLUSION that their opinions are guiding the game's fate.  In reality, Jagex has already decided to pursue this project, and the amount of votes they get couldn't mean any less.  They have been researching and developing this project for probably well over a year (maybe ever since they removed it in the first place).

Really, this project makes very little sense at first glance.  Jagex implemented trade limits to prevent Botting and Real World Trading (RWT).  They figured that they could kill the market for Runescape Gold by making it impossible to trade (or so they thought).  Obviously, as we know, there are as many people who buy Runescape Gold today as there were ever before.  However, the real problem, botting on throwaway accounts has indeed been basically fixed with the new system.

Most players from Free Trade Era Remember These Guys All Too Well..

So the question is, how on Earth is Jagex going to stop these bots from running rampant in a Free Trade system?  As of right now, there are no effective ways to transfer off level 3 bots, so they are basically unprofitable.  The unfortunate truth is that with a completely Free Trade System, Runescape bots are going to be EVERYWHERE.  This is why I believe Jagex is not revealing the true story; why work so hard to fight Runescape Gold Buying, and Botting, to suddenly just let it run wild again?  There is no way we will see a complete return to the old system.  There must be a catch...

So what is the catch?  Some possibilities:

- A wait period before a character can free trade (3 months, 6 months, etc)
- A Stat / QP requirement to free trade (50+ QP, 500+ Overall)
- Increased Botting surveillance (unlikely as bots are near undetectable in this day and age)

Another situation is that Jagex's proposed "Free Trade" / "Old Wilderness" system is actually not very "free" at all.  Perhaps they will boost the trade limit by 10x (still nowhere close to free trade).  Maybe they will bring back the "Old Wild" and keep random drops in the current PVP system.  Although these seem like ridiculous updates, Jagex has been known to hype up a negative change to gameplay.  They tried to act as if the original Trade Limit updates were going to be an awesome change.  Good work, idiots.

I think we can all agree though, the old system was FUN.  And maybe that's just it.  Jagex realizes that competition among MMORPG's gets more heated everyday, and the best way to increase your member base is to improve your product.  No one can undermine the entertainment value in Staking, PKing and even Trading when there are no limitations.  The risk is high, the reward is high, and it's what made Runescape so popular in the first place.