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I firmly believe that Old School Runescape is currently the best MMO that is on the market. I also firmly believe the reason for that success is the unique polling system. Old School Runescape has operated on a polling system since it was launched on February 22, 2013. Since then, the game has steadily risen from the ashes of RS3 and is larger than ever with a peak of 150k players online at a time.
The polling system has worked since launch day, and some may argue that it has issues and I agree it isn't perfect. However, it has in 99% of cases worked the way it was intended and the game is in a great place because of it. There are a few hiccups here and there with wording or package deals that should be addressed, but I truly believe that it is effective.
Now recently, say in the last 6 months or so, Jagex seems to be ignoring that system and implementing changes as either 'integrity' or just completely ignoring previous results. This in itself is an 'integrity' issue. If the polls dictate a certain outcome and Jagex entirely ignores that decision, then what was the point of the system in the first place? We should be pushing for more frequent, conclusive polls, not straying away from the system that built this game and gave it life.
Well within the last 2 days Jagex has released a few blogs regarding future updates. This includes the Song of the Elves 2, New Player Experience, and State of PvP blogs. From these blogs there is quite a lot of information that is listed and a few in particular are what initially caught my eye. I will list a few just to get my point across.
Jagex has forced through the F2P Teleblock suggestion. Now personally I am okay with this change and even voted yes the multiple times it was polled. But this is not about my personal opinion, this is about the fact that Jagex has blatantly ignored multiple instances of no voting and decided that they would just do what they wanted instead. This case, regardless of the content that was polled, whether it be PvP, PvM, or Skilling, should be alarming to anyone. This piece of 'content' was decided, by the community, that it was not to be added. You can say it was PvM'ers being malicious, or whatever the excuse is, but the absolute fact of the matter is that it DID NOT PASS. I want this discussion to be removed from bias of PvM or PvP, but seen as a variable. X did not pass in multiple polls, but Jagex forced X thing into the game. That is how this should be viewed.
Now on the same spectrum, in the New Player Experience blog that was released today Jagex has stated that they will be making a host of changes WITHOUT any polling whatsoever. Their exact quote is "This need for versatility and responsiveness means that we can't poll these content changes, as the process would be too slow." This entire statement is a huge can of worms and I am surprised this sentence alone has not already caused an uproar in the community. Why can these changes not be polled exactly? My personal theory is because they know the proposed changes will fail. These changes, just like everything else in Runescape, SHOULD BE POLLED. If we, as a community, lie down and allow this to happen, then that sends a message to Jagex that they can start to do it more and more with future updates.
With all that said I'd love to hear everyone's opinions on this. I have seen a few mention it in comments but I figured I'd make a big thread about it to get the discussion unified under one post. I really hope Jagex sees this as well and understands our feelings about the subject. Polling is what made this game great, and by sticking to those roots is how it will continue to be great.
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