Well, in their beginning of 2009 news post, Jagex announced quiet a few exciting changes going on during the course of this year. In addition to new content and other enhancements to the game, Jagex also announced that they would be updating a lot of their older content in order to bring everything into line with all the wonderful improvements they have made over the years. I personally am very excited that the Runescape team is not letting the older stuff sit ideal and outmoded. As a long time player with a medium high level, many of these updates will likely not be noticeable to myself. I am sure many of these changes will involve quests I finished years ago. But anyone who creates a new character should certainly benefit from these improvements. I think this is excellent and well deserved attention for new and future players.

One thing I am most excited about is the change of the auto-logout timer from ninety seconds to five minutes. According to Jagex this change should take place during January 2008. It will be nice to go fishing, quick run to the bathroom, and be back before I get logged out (yeah, I know that risks a random event.  I like to live dangerously).  Scarce other information was provided about this much needed ‘little’ update. I am not sure if this will be a direct change from 90 seconds to 300 seconds, or if it will be a conditional change based on other factors.

I have labored on the assumption that the auto-logout feature of Runescape was mostly in existence as a way to combat bots and real-world trading schemes with the side benefit of clearing out players who may have forgotten they were still online. Jagex’s willingness to increase the logout time signals to me that they are comfortable with the tools and measures they currently have to prevent this kind of cheating.

Personally I would like to see this increase to be based conditionally on membership and/or advancement within the world of Runescape. I believe paying members should always get little extra benefits for their money. Don’t get me wrong, I also believe that the F2P people should have a load of attention and improvements tossed their way too. I love the recent trend of Jagex providing the members holiday quests to free players for a limited time. F2P characters are very important to the world of Runescape. But I think that a little feature like auto-logout should go to the members for a number of reasons.

Bots and real-world trading as I mentioned above is a good reason to have a shorter timeout period. Though it is probably a nominal effect these days, a shorter timeout is still an effect and will have a slightly negative punch on bots. It’s not much, but it is something. A paying member is less likely to use a bot and risk the account then a free player. Don’t miss understand. I am sure there are still some members who use bots. They are idiots and cheats. I am simply talking likelihood and risk factors here. Therefore, in a security sense, a longer timeout period for members is reasonable.

Then there is the financial contribution members make. Yes, F2P players keep the world of Runescape turning, but it is the paying members who front the money to keep Runescape advancing and improving and running on hundreds of servers around the real world. A longer timeout period is one of those eye candy updates that sounds great but really has a nominal effect on game play. It’s more of a convenience factor. Many members, especially those who do not read the Runescape news posts, will likely not even notice the change until months after it is implemented. Whereas free members will obviously notice no change at all. And those members who do notice will likely only give it a fleeting thought of “that’s nice” and then forget all about it. It would be just another nice little thing that Jagex can put on its Member’s Benefits page. It would likely not be a deciding factor for becoming a member. But you take ten of these little things and lump them all together and suddenly you’ve got something that could break the camel’s back.

My hat’s off to Jagex for acknowledging the little things. I am looking forward to another interesting year.