Jmod interview

[Cpt Jack]

1) Ever since it was released, the Clan Wars arena has offered a safe, reliable method of fighting for clans. Many suggestions have been made, such as allowing bigger fights with the clan chat changes, or making a "Spiders to Greaters" arena, or allowing the pvp drop potential to come into play in dangerous clan wars? Are any of these ideas conceivable? If not, what can you tell us about what Jagex does have planned for warring clans?

 

As you will have noticed, the drop mechanics on PvP worlds are still being worked on and we want to make sure we are happy with them before we implement them in areas like Clan Wars. That being said, extensions to the Clan Wars arena are certainly possible. - Mod Fetzki

 

2) Merchanting clans have had a huge impact on the RS economy. Some call this taking advantage of the system, some call it organised scams, some call it price manipulation.... We know that you are aware of the effect of these and have limits on items and price increase/decrease, but do you have any specific plans to further prevent the impact that these clans have?

 

This is a constant point of discussion within the team and we are considering carefully how to minimise the disruption to the game while guaranteeing a fair trading system. We are carefully tweaking the system and will scrutinise the results. We will keep doing so until we find a solution that satisfies everyone. - Mod Fetzki

 

3) Can you tell us a bit about the Clan Chat changes? We know that a few of the wanted improvements is to be able to see who kicked who, to have separate clan chat and friends lists and the possibility for other people than the chat owner to ignore people from the clan chat. Will it ever be possible to set public to Clan? With the upcoming possibility of changing our display names, what are the chances of having our clan's name(s) visible aswell?

 

The sheer volume of information that needs to be stored in Clan Chat for every player means that we need to do major background upgrades before we can extend the functionality as much as we would like to. While we wait for these to be completed (and that might still be some months until completion), we will be looking at a whole barrage of changes that we want to implement. The ones that have been mentioned here are certainly right at the top of the list. - Mod Fetzki

 

4) Have you ever thought about giving clans the options to create clan forums via the official forums? It would give careful users a safer option to external clan forums, and could allow clans to advertise ingame – especially if tied with clans displayed under RS names.

 

The Community Management team are really keen to support clans in any way we can. I’m not entirely sure how sub-forums for clans might work exactly, but we’re always open for suggestions and we’ll take this on board. – Mod Hohbein

 

5) Will there be a Quick Spell option for binding, or similar ingame updates that will be beneficial for warring clans and pkers?

 

I wouldn’t reject the idea outright but there are no immediate plans to do this. - Mod Fetzki

 

6) You recently added Faruq's tools for games. While these were appreciated for what they are, at the same time you removed the ability to protect an item in pvp/bh worlds, seemingly without any thought of how clans would be affected by this. This led to many clan members saying that for every good small update, there is a large bad one. What is your opinion of this? And how might this change in the future?

 

I think we saved PvP with that update. The one-itemers with a godsword had such a distinct advantage over all other forms of combat that PvP threatened to lose its variety. As a ranger, mage or melee warrior without a godsword, you didn’t stand a chance in PvP worlds any more and this is not how we intended PvP to work, and it was confirmed to us very regularly that the 1-itemers were seriously threatening player-versus-player combat. I think the solution now guarantees gameplay for all groups of PKers.

 

Making unpopular decisions is unfortunately part of running an MMO. What’s important is that the decisions we make are calculated carefully, and really do benefit our players in the long term. - Mod Fetzki

 

7) Will it ever be possible for players to check their total gameplay hours? (We know that Jmods can look this up.)

 

Yes, you will! We are currently putting the finishing touches to a system that will enable you to see this total for yourselves, without our JMods having to look it up manually. We are hoping to launch this small but fine feature before the end of the year. - Mod Fetzki

 

8) We ”know” that chances are that Dragon Crossbows and Dragon Defenders might come out in updates far, far away, but do you have anything in store for the Magic lovers out there? Such as the new spellbook that was hinted about in an interview in April...

 

There are certainly things that are in store for Magic but the ’big update‘ that has been talked about a lot is still a long time away. Rather than applying another patch to the Magic skill, we want to take a good look at the interaction between melee, Ranged and Magic in the new year, and that will take its time. - Mod Fetzki

 

9) Will there be further changes to the PvP worlds, as people are still gaining EP doing afk or semi afk activities?

 

We are carefully monitoring the situation. As always, we don’t want to restrict gameplay more than absolutely necessary - therefore, we think twice before we put any barriers in game that might impact honest players. - Mod Fetzki

 

10) Some skills have very few new things to do or gain once you reach a higher level, such as Prayer. With the increasing costs of Dragon bones in mind, will you work on filling out these ”gaps” and give people a little more motivation to train past 80ish?

 

Yes! Prayer is one of the skills that has a lack of rewards in the very high levels and we are working on a Prayer update that will come out this year and will fill some of these gaps. I am really looking forward to your feedback on some of the updates that we have planned for September. - Mod Fetzki

 

11) Will the Slayer Helm ever work for Ranged/Magic, or do you think there will be an equivalent of this? Maybe a future quest?

 

I just talked to our Slayer curator about the next Slayer update, and the item he talked about excited me so much that I nearly forgot to mention the Slayer Helm! I am really looking forward to this update, which we hope to see some time this autumn/early winter. We will have to see if the change to the Slayer Helm will be included - the discussion is ongoing - Mod Fetzki

 

12) Why aren't there more pvp worlds? Clans find that often things get very crowded, especially on weekends.

 

We are keen that players log into PvP worlds and always find someone to fight, therefore we want to keep the number of PvP worlds quite low. I will take your comment on board, though, and we will take a closer look over the next weekend to decide if we need to increase the number of worlds. - Mod Fetzki

 

13) Do you have any plans on finding solutions to the problems that members face when they become free to play, and their items crowd the bank making it impossible to place new this in it, or when they withdraw a member item by accident they have to carry it until they renew membership?

 

We certainly are not happy with the current situation and we are planning a fix to this very shortly. - Mod Fetzki

 

14) Many people loved The Jagex Cup, myself included. It gave the clan world a direct link to Jagex in a tournament form, something that has always been popular amongst clans. However, some people felt that the way it was set up, and the decisions made by Jagex moderators only served to prove how far away from clans Jagex really was. If another Cup is held, what might be done differently? If so, will the next Jagex Cup have better rewards?

 

The Jagex Cup was a huge learning curve for the Community Management team. It was really the first competition of that size that we’d ever run. While we think it went really well and was an overall success, there were definitely things we’d do differently next time round and we’ll bear our experiences mind for future competitions. – Mod Hohbein

 

15) Despite Jagex's recent effort to get more involved in the clan community, many clan members and specifically leaders feel that Jagex is still distant and unreachable. Would it be possible to somehow create a shortcut for leaders of big clans (apart from the Clan Leader Forum) to get in contact with Jmods for possible problems that may arise in the future or for general feedback?

 

Again, clan support is something we’re really interested in doing more of and we’ll bear this feedback in mind. – Mod Hohbein

 

16) The Clan Leader Forum is a nice initiative from Jagex, but how do you think it can be used in a more constructive way?

 

The Clan Leader forum was primarily put in place so that clan leaders could talk to one another. This would allow clan leaders to do two important things: network and seek support from people in a similar position, should things not go as smoothly for a clan as it might. It is interesting to see that the more long-term clans are active participants in the forum. Another reason for the Clan Leader Forum was to allow clan leaders to talk directly with us, so we could see what issues they had and how we could support them better. A lot of really good (and important) ideas have come out of the Clan Leader forum, and lots of new friendships have been made. In all honesty, I think that this forum is one of the most constructive forums we have. The change in the attitude of the clan community over the last 12 months is very positive to see. – Mod Mat K

 

17) The RSOF rant section has a huge amount of posts compared to the section for positive feedback. How does it feel to get such huge amounts of complaints when releasing a new update?

 

This is not specific to RuneScape. If you talk to people who work in call centres or customer support environments, then you realise that, 99% of the time, feedback means negative feedback. It is just in human nature to be silent when everything is alright and only raise your voice when something isn’t right. Of course we like it when people congratulate us on successful designs, but generally we are looking into improving our updates, so we welcome every piece of constructive feedback we get. The only thing we could live without is the abuse, but we wouldn’t want any criticism to be withheld. - Mod Fetzki

 

18) Will we be seeing more Jmods at Clan events and generally ingame?

 

Yes! – Mod Hohbein

 

19) Over the past year, since MMG was promoted to CEO, the clan world has seen a significant increase in the effort Jagex has put into involving clans and appealing to them. Why did this change happen?

 

Well, this is something that we should have done much earlier, judging by the positive feedback that both clans and JMods have given concerning the new cooperation. We are just starting to realise how much value it adds to RuneScape when Jagex and the clans work together, so this is certainly a learning experience for us. - Mod Fetzki

 

20) Do any of the Jmods have legit/private accounts that are member of any of the bigger clans? If so, why are they in a clan?

 

There are JMods who have been in clans ever since they joined and they didn’t give up on that – and why would they? - Mod Fetzki

 

21) Many RS players are embarrassed to tell their friends that they play RS. Do Jmods ever lie about where they work to increase their chances with the ladies (or men)?

 

Ha ha, no, I cannot imagine anyone saying they are a banker with a huge bonus when in reality they are a cool game designer for a massively popular game.

 

But seriously, people who dismiss RuneScape are just not looking deep enough into the game. The freedom of the player to decide what they want to do makes it, in my mind, the most involved MMO out there, but this is something that takes time to discover. - Mod Fetzki

 

22) Last, but not least (since it was a popular question in the Tip.It interview): What was the most expensive thing you have ever broken, RuneScape wise?

 

My computer – it made a cracking sound and started to smell like fish. Knew I shouldn’t have fed it that Tuna. :( - Mod Hohbein

 

 

Some interesting topics being discussed.

[Arron]

22) Last, but not least (since it was a popular question in the Tip.It interview): What was the most expensive thing you have ever broken, RuneScape wise?

 

My computer – it made a cracking sound and started to smell like fish. Knew I shouldn’t have fed it that Tuna. sad.gif - Mod Hohbein

 

 

Sounds wrong.

[Anthoni]

eh, cool?

[Tal]

Interesting.

 

I hope you realize that 'Clans' is a very broad term. Jagex likes them, but that doesn't mean they like pure clans.

[Anthoni]

Interesting.

 

I hope you realize that 'Clans' is a very broad term. Jagex likes them, but that doesn't mean they like pure clans.

lol, they hate pures becasue it goes against what they like, They want everyone to train all skills.

[Riggz]

the only real difference between us and mains is that pures pk more in general, and defense levels.

 

were still human playing their game so idk why they hate us so much

[Peter]

some good things and bad

[Jake]

some good things and bad

 

What he said.

[Asher]

They need to make barrage work like it does in cw lol =[

[Jonah]

i feel hurt they dont like us pures to much

[`JvYv]

(Y)

[Flabbyrange]

Don't think I wanna know how many hours I've played lol!

 

Anyhow, interesting read ty.