I’ll admit it. I am one of the very few who actually likes random events and was totally happy with how the old random event system worked. I thought the events were a charming little quirk of RuneScape life that interjected themselves into the sometimes mundane aspects of skilling. For the most part I found the events amusing, whether they happened to me or to other people. The one exception being when I once was fighting Chaos Druids in the Edgeville Dungeon and I ignored the Lunch Lady too long and got my sorry ass teleported way the hell over to White Wolf Mountain. But aside from that, I usually enjoyed being party or witness to random events. Of course it was also loads of fun to see bots get killed because they couldn’t respond to the events.

Do not get me wrong. I am not particularly disappointed in the recent random event update Jagex performed. I understand that Jagex wanted to cater to those players who found the events disruptive for one reason or another. Though I personally do not see how most random events could be all that disruptive to a legitimate player who is playing by the rules. As far as I am aware players are supposed to be in front of the computer paying attention to what is going on while logged onto Runescape. So if a player gets killed or teleported by a random event, they really only have themselves to blame. It is all part of the game folks.

From what I can tell, the random event update is living up to its billing. Since the update I have not seen one random event. Of course there are a couple of reasons that cause my lack of random events. The update was supposed to trigger fewer random events for higher level players. I’m a pretty decent level.  And I haven’t been on as much as usual. But I can say that I have been playing enough that under the old system I would have had four or five randoms by now.

One thing that really pleases me about this update is its effect on the price of Strange Fruit. Prior to the update, when Jagex announced that the update would limit but not eliminate Strange Plants, I decided to go out and buy a whole shish-load of Strange Fruit [GEC 2544 gp]. I was hedging my bets that the update would cause a radical upswing in the value of the fruit.  It has!  Within ten days of the update the price of strange fruit doubled. I am curious to see how long it will take until the skyrocketing price levels out.

One thing that doesn’t exactly please me, though it does not directly effect me, is how Jagex handled (no pun intended) people who had pickax heads and pickax handles in their inventories. When Jagex pre-announced the upcoming random events update and changes to Strange Plants they also announced the complete removal of the broken pickax event. When the update occurred Jagex decided to magically make all pickax heads respawn their handles and become whole. This wasn’t too bad a solution. At least players who invested in pickax heads got some value for their investment. However, those players who decided to go the pickax handle route pretty much got screwed. Handles were removed from inventories with no replacement what-so-ever. I think that Jagex should have at least replaced the handles with gp equivalent to the value of the handles at the time of the update. Those handles became pretty valuable prior to the update. In fact, when I say this change did not directly effect me, it is only because when I tried to buy handles, I couldn’t find any remaining on the Grand Exchange, and therefore did not have the ability to invest in them. This apparently saved me a significant financial loss.

Another thing that didn’t exactly please me, though it was through no fault of Jagex, was how they handled Frog Tokens. I have for many years just tossed away my frog tokens. I felt, like many other players, that the tokens were a completely useless prize. They were untradeable and therefore valueless and could only be used to get a frog mask or a prince or princess costume, which I never bother doing. Over the years, I am sure, I have dropped well over a hundred of these tokens. Then, of course, Jagex makes their pre-update announcement and suggests that we hang on to these tokens because they could become valuable. And, of course, between that announcement and the actual update not once did the frogs visit me. Once the update occurred all the frog tokens were changed in to mystery boxes and thus those tokens finally obtained at least the potential to have value. This, I am sad to admit, was exactly how Jagex should have handled the tokens and I completely blame myself for not having the foresight that the random event might eventually be retired.

Aside from those things I think Jagex did pretty good with the Random Event update. I like how some of the events are retired but not gone, like Dr. Jekyll and the Strange Plant and the Drunken Dwarf. Those events can still be found, though they no longer directly bother specific players any more. Dr Jekyll will occasionally be seen running to the Varrock apothecary and the Drunken Dwarf might stagger on by and if you talk to him he may give you a beer and a kebab. The Strange Plant still appears southwest of Brimhaven and you can still pick its fruit (which might be a great idea with the prices climbing). Of course if you really miss these random events you can visit some of them by using BKQ on the fairy ring network. Cap’n Hand and Rick Turpentine are currently spending involuntary time at the Port Sarim Jail. And the Shade can be found on the fourth level of the Strong Hold of Security. So I guess I can always go visit the old quirky friends.

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.

Well, today’s updates included a nice surprise for the f2p (free to play) players of Runescape. A resizeable playing screen has now been implemented that will certainly bring a smile to many f2pers in addition to many members like myself. The Runescape game screen now expands to fill the width of the player’s browser window. This allows for a larger, easier to see and enjoy screen. Plus it introduces players to the game interfaces which before today were only available in full screen mode.

As a member, I usually play in full screen mode, but it has had its drawbacks. My main issue with full screen mode is that I can’t jump easily around on other web pages and programs while playing Runescape. Often I will be writing this blog while playing the game at the same time. I can’t do that in full screen mode. I also like to do price checks off the Grand Exchange database on the Runescape web page, which was also not easily accessible in full screen mode. I like to be on fan sites to gather needed information to help me in game play. I have a lot of skills that still need a lot of training and I don’t always know the best ways to proceed, and it is nice to have skill guides available on different tabs to help me along the way. And of course, when I am training dull skills like fishing and mining, I would keep another browser window open to CNN or something a little more interesting.

The image to the right is a compilation of the three modes of screen size now available to members (only the top two are available to f2p). The top image is the original, small screen browser window. The middle image is the full browser window mode. The bottom image is full screen mode. All three are relative in size to each other, though I did half the size of the images to conserve space. As can be clearly seen, the full browser and full screen modes are definitely much larger than the original mode. Also, it is clear that the full browser and full screen modes are not too terribly different in size from each other, so now f2ps really are not missing out on much compared to paying members (at least when it comes to screen size.)