Aftermath of the Bounty Hunter update
The Aftermath of the Bounty Hunter update was the result of a number of changes made to RuneScape by Jagex, the game's designers. On 10 December of 2007, Jagex released four major updates, all of which were instrumental in their attempt to end real world trading, the practice of selling RuneScape coins in exchange for real-world currency. These updates were:
- Trade and Drop Changes.
- Wilderness Changes, Bounty Hunter and Clan Wars!.
- Duel Arena F2P and More Bank Space!.
- RuneScape vs Real-world Trading.
Because these updates greatly affected many important gaming aspects, the RuneScape community responded with extremely mixed reactions. Almost immediately after the changes were made, hundreds of in-game riots broke out, while the RuneScape Forums became flooded with criticism and on fansites and video hosting websites strong reactions were felt.
The updates which the aftermath concerned remain amongst the most controversial in RuneScape history, and today remain the subject of much debate.
Background
The History of Real World Trading
Since RuneScape's early days, the practice of Real-World Item Trading had created numerous issues within RuneScape. Real World Item Trading is the process by which players "harvest" gold, which they then sell online to other RuneScape players in exchange for real-world currency.
While always against the RuneScape Code of Conduct, RuneScape's exponential growth in the years prior to the changes made it extremely difficult for Jagex to cope with the sheer number of buyers and sellers. As real world trading grew in popularity, the issue became increasingly visible. During 2006 and 2007, macroers controlled nearly half of the game's raw resource channels, gathering in extremely large numbers in areas such as mining areas, fishing spots, and woodcutting groves. Not only did this make it difficult for legitimate players to gather resources; it also greatly impacted the RuneScape economy. Items such as sharks, becoming more easily obtained due to the sheer number of available, gradually dropped from over 1,100 coins to below 500.
Jagex's Response
As this issue grew, Jagex increased efforts to counter real world trading. In early 2007, Jagex began performing mass-bans on real world trading accounts, the first of which was made public on 1 May. As this proved insufficient, Jagex countered in other ways. More complicated random events, a new rune essence system, and the more rapid hiring of player moderators were amongst the earliest signs of Jagex's counter-methods, although the latter inevitably led to having too many player moderators, and its estimated that between 10%-50% of all player moderators were believed to have been removed from service following this update.[source needed]
As 2007 progressed, more forceful updates were made to end the issue. The party room system was altered, Lootshare was implemented, the Grand Exchange was added to manage the RuneScape economy, the shop system was overhauled, the assist system was released, and the Duel Arena was completely revamped. These updates all were ultimately meant to counter real world trading while not hurting the gaming experience of players.
However, as 2007 neared an end, tension began to surround the RuneScape community. Many of the updates meant to stop real world traders had been received very negatively by some members the community, and a growing unrest began to surround the game and forums. By December, there had already been several riots, all protesting the negative effects of the updates. On 10 December Jagex implemented one of the final phases of their plan, completely overhauling many game aspects.
The Updates of 10 December
The updates of 10 December were first hinted at in the December Behind the Scenes. The updates were not fully explained in the article, pointing out only the positive aspects of the changes. The article did not explain the changes to pking, drops, and other gaming aspects, leaving most players unaware of this. There was some speculation as to the possibility, but it was largely contained.
Player Reaction
10 December saw one of the largest player reactions in the history of RuneScape immediately after the updates were released.
Riots
Immediately, riots began to happen across RuneScape. Players began chanting various phrases, such as "Jagex ruined RS", "RuinedScape", "We pay to PK", and others. Worlds became full with players congregating in cities such as Falador and Edgeville. Eventually, Jagex moderators arrived at the riots to try to break them up, though without success.
Forum overload
The official forums were constantly up and down during the day; at times, more than 1,000 users were on the Rants forum; a record never before seen (the Rants forum is typically one of the most popular forums, but usually only averages 200 active users, rarely rising above 300). It is believed the forums can not handle the large volume of users ranting about the updates, causing them to continually be timed out. They came back within a few minutes to a few hours. The forums were overrun with users encouraging others to cancel their subscriptions and create more riots.
Mod Steve W Incident
On 25 June 2008, Mod Stevew was in the Arcanists 9 lobby. He was flamed by many players, he reportedly banned several of them from FunOrb. When asked about the Wilderness player killing being returned, he said it would not be coming back.
Subscription cancellations
According to TimesOnline the changes cost Jagex 60,000 subscriptions. This is likely to be the highest number of members lost to a single update. It is unknown, however, how many of these subscriptions were lost due to abandoned accounts or how many were lost due to the sudden decrease in RWT macro accounts.
Market crash
A brief and minor market crash followed the release of the four updates. An estimated 10,000 or more players, in frustration and joined protest, sold all or nearly all of their items to the Grand Exchange. From there, the players dropped all their cash or remaining items into the Falador Party Room. However, compared to the current economic crisis, the market crash of 2007 didn't suffer greatly in comparison to the crashes of the early months of 2009 to the early months of 2010.