devtrackers.gg
Pretty misleading title tbh.
I won't say it's "taken out of context" because I did say that, but it's kind of dishonest to clip part of the conversation and then title it to make it look like I'm saying something I'm not.
The intention of FSW is to appeal specifically to lapsed players. Right now it is our company policy that our best bet for increasing the health and longevity of RS is to specifically try to appeal to lapsed players (as opposed to new players). As Kalaya mentioned on the livestream, we talk to lapsed players about why they're lapsed and what would interest them in coming back.
FSW is an example of us trying to deliver to lapsed players something that would interest them. The people who are on reddit and in livestreams are not (for the most part) part of the lapsed audience we're trying to reach here - they're either existing players, or players who quit for some specific reason and are hanging around the community waiting for it to be changed (like all the stone spirit boycotters).
The specific thing I'm responding to here are various twitch and twitter polls being run for currently playing players which show overwhelmingly that they don't plan to play FSW, with the implication that this makes FSW a failure - but if no current players played FSW, and a lot of lapsed players returned to RS to play FSW, that would be a huge success!
I get that there is feedback on aspects of this and we'll be discussing that feedback, but in general I think it's good and healthy for us (Jagex and the community) to specifically create projects aimed at increasing the playerbase - it's the only way to ensure the long-term health of the game.
None of this is to say that current players don't matter - of course you do - but by definition we can't grow the game with existing players, and we need to do both.
EDIT: To the question "why require a new account if it's for lapsed players?" - this is one of the things we've learned talking to lapsed players (especially long lapsed ones) - over 20 years people lose accounts, lose emails, get banned for something they did as a child, get hacked etc. Even if they do still have the account, a lot of players also have kind of mid-level accounts which beyond a vet cape don't really have much on them and wouldn't mind restarting. There's a potentially large audience of ex-players who would love to get back into RS, but don't want to start entirely from scratch - FSW is designed to work well for them.
"try to appeal to lapsed players (as opposed to new players)"
Then why do you require people to make a new account?
As a former lapsed player, the idea of coming back to the game, just to have to start again and not carry on my old account does not appeal at all...
Oh yeah I should have clarified this, I'll edit the original post.
Was having seasonal darkscape or a proper league considered as an alternative? Apparently dmm/leagues have been really good in OSRS for current and lapsed players alike and it seems like this is a missed opportunity to introduce one. The boons and rewards already make it almost feel like a league but with potential risk thanks to Fresh Start accounts introducing items to the main game.
As they mentioned in the livestream, we can't currently create leagues in the way they work in OSRS. I don't fully understand the technical details, or why Darkscape works differently, but that's the case as explained to me by the tech guys. I believe they are currently working on it, but it's not something that we can get working in RS this year. Personally it's something I'm keen on doing (we used to have a regular brainstorming meeting just to develop alternate game modes like leagues), but I can't make any promises about future content at this stage.
I don't fully understand the technical details, or why Darkscape works differently, but that's the case as explained to me by the tech guys.
This is what was said about bank rework and placeholders.
That is what was said about trading above max cash on GE
A lot of things werent possible until they were done
That's what I said - it's not currently possible, they're working on it, but it can't be done for this year.
I'm curious if the mods think about the loss of current players due to the manner in which you are pursuing trying to appeal to lapsed players?
You talk about growth of the game, but if actions you take to attract new/lapsed players result in the loss of current players then are you not just unnecessarily pissing off your loyal playerbase for the 'hope' of players that might not even come.
Yes, it's something we're very conscious of. It's a topic that creates a lot of internal debate on any relevant project, and similar sorts of discussions on every project.
Obviously you don't want to give us false hope that it is happening, but atleast it seems optimistic that in the future we might get a true rs3 league. Psst add the collection log from osrs to rs3, infinite content.
Leagues is definitely something I'm personally keen on. No promises obviously but it's something I push for when I have the opportunity.
The concept is FSW being targeted towards lapsed players is in it of itself misleading when the primary targets are clearly existing players who are interested in collecting rares/making money. The tradeable rares, specifically the inverted 120 cape tokens, and the limited Halo for being top 100 appeal to existing players.
How many lapsed players, roughly, do you think, based on the data Jagex has collected or you own opinion, will grind out 104m xp in any skill in a 4 month span even with the xp boost? People are maxing for the first time ever despite having access to double xp/mtx with 20 year veteran capes. It's very clearly targeting the diehard RS3 players that are willing to invest a lot of time/money to get the best possible xp gains and subsequently get top 100 in a respective skill, reach world firsts, so they can carry over the tradeable to their mains. There won't be a single "lapsed" player that get top 100 or a world first.
At this rate, jagex would be better off selling account builds, like intro, medium tier (80+ and mid tier gear), and high level (maxed + gear). That may appeal to new players looks to jump to different parts of the game.
Either the people mouthing this idea that this is meant to appeal to new players are completely out of touch with their player base or are just following what they've been told to say. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it's the latter, saying that my title is misleading is laughable considering the blatant lie that Jagex isn't only making FSW to make existing players spend money on membership and micro-transactions (not through bonds). Let's be real here, Jagex doesn't care about existing players or Lapsed players, they just about the whales that buy bonds, keys, and runecoins.
Your title is vague and not aimed at anyone specific. It's pretty obviously untrue (the vast majority of what we do is aimed explicitly at existing players, like you think zamorak or twilight of the gods were designed to appeal to new players?) but I get it, you're annoyed and you're venting about it in a slightly hyperbolic way. No harm, no foul, that's just how it is on reddit sometimes. Players want to give their feedback and there are a bunch of threads on similar topics not targeting anyone in particular.
But you then post a picture of me in support of your title where I'm not actually saying the thing you're claiming I'm saying in your editorialising. Maybe you're honestly misinterpreting me, fair enough, but now it's no longer targeted at "jagex", now it's a thread calling me out specifically for not caring about existing players.
This is a pretty big deal to me for three reasons. Firstly it's just insulting to me personally. I (and a lot of others) care tremendously about the game and its players and our work time is often spent defending the "player perspective" and for me personally at least, most of my free time is spent talking to existing players trying to understand everyone's perspectives and discussing how we can make the game better. But... hey, I'm lead designer now, so being a random punching bag for venting kind of comes with the territory. It's frustrating to be misunderstood so badly but I guess that's just what it's like being an extremely minor public figure.
But it's not just a bit of random aggro. I don't think you are actually personally attacking me, but by creating a thread like this you invite people who do want to. Posts like this one and much worse that the reddit mods have to delete. That's just nasty sh*t to have to read. I could avoid that by just not reading or posting on social media, of course, but that leads me to...
Worst of all, I'm on holiday today. I could have just switched off social media and ignored everything completely. As I said above though, I do care about the game and its players, and I can't switch off that way. When something is going down, I want to know what's happening. After the livestream some of the players I was chatting to on discord still had questions, so I took some of my free time to answer their questions as best I could. I'm not expecting praise for this - it was my choice and I could have chosen not to. However, by selectively quoting me and posting what is (even if unintentionally) a hate thread, you're putting me in a situation where it would have been much better not to say anything. It would have been much wiser for me to stay off social media and say nothing. Now probably that won't happen because it's like a red rag to a bull with me, but most of my colleagues are wiser than I am. Whenever there's any sort of controversy on reddit, there are a lot of posts asking "why don't the jmods respond to this stuff?" and... this is why. Threads like this actively discourage jmod interaction with players, and any communication outside of official community management posts.