Thursday, September 3, 2009

Shop Update

The updates this week caused a bit of a whirlwind among players. (To be honest, I don't think I've ever seen an update that hasn't set off a mass panic). This one was a little different. I'm not going to touch on the graphics or the auto-cast of spells. I want to focus a little bit on the limited stock update for stores.

I actually really like this update. Hear me out. When I started Runescape, there was limited stock at stores. This was offset by the fact that the trade limit had yet to be imposed on the players. The prices of many items were much higher than they are in the game today.

There were rewards in skilling. Rune Platebodies need 99 Smithing in order to obtain them. This is a little ridiculous, being that there have been so many other, better, platebodies introduced since, but at the time, getting the best armor meant needing to have the best skills.

Needing runes meant you worked on Runecrafting, etc. I see this as a push to everyone who has gotten so used to buying everything they need, to train skills that they might never have. I put it on the level of the Achievement Diary. I hated getting my Farming and Smithing up at the moment, however, down the line I'm glad that I have those levels and that I worked on these skills.

Am I saying that every player should make everything for themselves? No, that's not what I'm getting at. I'm just stating that there needs to be a more drive for player-made items opposed to unlimited stock store items. Say you want a Rune Platebody, but are only 65 Smithing. Yes, its impossible to ask you to train to 99 to get what you want, but the point is, there are players out there who have trained to 99 Smithing. They are able to make one for you. Sure, it might be sold out of the GE, but there's entire forum threads dedicated to these things, as well as Worlds. If you need 1k vials and don't want to make them, that's fine as well. Someone out there is willing to do it and sell them to you. We had Runescape "jobs" for a while. I'd get the cowhides, the xp from attacking them and sell them to one high level everytime I got 1k. Same goes with coal. It gave the game a more personal feel to it as well as gave one more way to get to know your fellow players. It was walking into the mom & pop shop every weekend, saying hello, having a conversation, exchanging business, everyone wins. It feels to me that Runescape has taken on a very Wal-Mart feel lately.

This might drive the prices up on countless items, but I really feel as if skills have been hit hard over the years. Take Death Runes for example. You train your Runecrafting to 65, complete one of the more difficult quests in Mourning's End Part 2, all for what? You can create Death Runes now, but its more profitable to create Law Runes or even double Cosmics. That's really not much of a reward for those feats. Blood Runes have an insanely high level requirement considering the skill is so slow at giving xp, and the price really needs to reflect the work put into it.

Smithing as well. What started out as one of the most profitable skills on Runescape has really become a money sink over the years. Its to the point where rune armor and weapons are usually just alched when you get them as a drop. The value is negligible between selling it and its alch value, which really is kind of sad if you think about it.

I really hope this update sticks. A little legwork and "getting to know your local seller" as well as some price increases, I feel are a good thing. If I seem a little combatitive in this post its because its something I really feel pretty strong about. Merch clans, 75k, 26k schemes, etc, generating gigantic amounts of cash I feel has almost made players soft in a way. No need to train Herblore, just buy pots. No need to train Runecrafting, just buy runes, etc... Maybe it'll make someone second guess why they're spending all that cash on an item, which is now no longer selling and if it ever does it'd be for quadruple the price, say "why don't I just make that on my own?" Who knows, maybe they'll actually like it.

There was a time before the GE, before unlimited stocks where we all survived. I love the convenience of the GE, don't get me wrong. However, there was a time where that Rune Platebody we all take for granted now wasn't available in stores. To get it, you needed to know someone with 99 Smithing, if you weren't yourself. That really meant something.

As with everything, there are always exceptions. The main one for this is Shards. The limit on that is ridiculous and should be removed. Any items that are not able to be made by a player, shouldn't have a limit. As for the ones that are player made, the low limit makes me excited to use certain skills which have fallen by the weyside, again. I think its a good re-vamp by Jagex to brush the dust off of things like making vials, crafting in general, even RC. I'm excited that it looks like it will be profitable to be a skiller again.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post GS, and thanks for the post on mine.

I try to do exactly what you're talking about, make my own. And if I don't have the level and I really need it? I try to buy if from another player who made it themselves. And I generally only go to the GE if none of the above can happen.

We're just going to have to wait and see how things play out!

Meili said...

This a welcome change from what I can tell. I used to make it a point to train my own skills instead of "buying" skills then the GE came along and made every buyable skill super easy. :(

There needs to be some kind of balance between making everything super easy to get and making things soo difficult.

I remember back in RS Classic, we used to ask Jagex to make certs (you remember those?) easier but Jagex replied that if it was super easy to trade supplies, then skills would be too easy. This is what happened now, I think.

G said...

LePage - That's awesome!

Meili - I do remember certs! I played DIY for a while, but really just cracked due to the convenience of trading, the GE, and the money I had been collecting because I never really spent it on anything. The game was 100x more difficult in RSC than now and I don't want to come across as the old man who goes "back in my day..." but I feel it really got to an easy level. Do I want to revert back to having to click on the tree every single time you get a log? Absolutely not. There's just nothing wrong with putting a little elbow grease into things.

Meili said...

Lol yes I even played when to fish once you had to "point at backpack, click on lobster cage, click on fishing spot" only to fail fishing more than half the time.

That was a bit too much and no I don't want to go back to training like that. It's just that making everything easier takes the fun out of stuff.