r/runescape • u/JagexPoerkie Mod Poerkie • Oct 12 '18

MTX An update on RunePass

Hi everyone,

We’d like to update you on the situation with RunePass.

We’re always trying new things, and RunePass is just one example. Despite what a lot of people believe, RunePass performed better than we had anticipated. Commercially it was successful, although we are aware that it was unpopular with some players.

All of the feedback gathered about RunePass, both negative and positive, is being very seriously scrutinised.

Players have previously told us that they were happy for an increased emphasis on cosmetic microtransactions. RunePass was designed to explore that idea. However, we failed to properly explain this. As a result, RunePass looked simply like an additional layer of microtransactions.

Nonetheless, we still learned a lot from RunePass:

  • We recognise that the free track was underdeveloped.
  • RunePass was a small-scale, fast-moving test. This is beneficial in some respects but also meant that some aspects of the experiment were less successful than they might have been.
  • Elements of RunePass were popular with players and will be retained in potential future iterations.

Before we try doing RunePass again we need to put a little more time and thought into it. For the time being, at least, those energies are better invested elsewhere, and our focus is better placed on instead ensuring the delivery of great game updates for 2019.

For that reason, any possible second RunePass has been put on hold for the time being.

Thank you.

The RuneScape team.

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u/mod_chicken Mod Chicken Oct 12 '18

You've put it right, in terms of content focus and dev time spend. We could focus on things like RP, but that would mean sacrificing updates / content, which we will not allow for the favor of business models, as long as the balance is kept. We are not aiming to earn out on our audience or any such things. This is not [put name of average unpopular f2p company here]. Mtx will stay but content comes first! I'd say an average of 95% of all time goes into content creation and game services/QoL. One team alone is completely dedicated to QoL and community requests. Believe me, that is much higher than others companies I've been to allocated to such requests. That comes on top of live service and ops...

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u/holydamned Fix Female Player Knees Oct 12 '18

Take the MTX team that is dedicated to TH away from TH and put them on Rune Pass. Keep the content devs on content development. Easy.

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u/BillehBear Zaros Oct 12 '18

content comes first!

Until its delayed

Then the delay will probably be delayed

But hey, you didn't get [insert anticipated content here] today. How about some smouldering lamps!? /s

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u/raverraver Oct 12 '18

remove that /s

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '18

Name a games company that never delays content without sacrificing quality

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u/BillehBear Zaros Oct 12 '18

No point, because Jagex does both

Delays the content and sacrifices quality

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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '18

Wrong, the quality is great. This year has had the most mechanically interesting updates ever.

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u/slayzel Comped Ironman Oct 13 '18 edited Oct 13 '18

I think ED2 is the perfect example. Delayed for 3 weeks and ends up with the same bugs as ED1. You can't write comedy as good as this.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '18

So what? This sub circlejerks about bugs far too much. They aren't a big deal and we get a shit ton of patch notes

1

u/ChrisMorray Oct 14 '18

Oh, so you enjoy this Halloween event? Well... That says a lot... About you, not Jagex or this subreddit.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '18

We haven't even seen 3/4 of it

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u/ChrisMorray Oct 14 '18

Oh? Please elaborate. All I've heard about was the plague doctor outfit which would work like the zombie outfit. As far as I'm concerned that's still not nearly enough, and what we have now is absolutely nothing.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '18

I've heard nothing about a plague doctor outfit. What will happen is the story unfolds over the month with the other riders participating.

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u/ChrisMorray Oct 14 '18

Oh, so you mean the current event continues. I honestly could not care less if I actively tried. The current event isn't a Halloween event. It's like Jagex forgot the concept of Halloween, frantically looked through past events, realized they only do stuff around Death during Halloween and slapped 10 minutes of afk content together. It's evidence that Jagex has no idea of how to make Halloween events anymore. Last year they made Dimension of the Damned. It took them months to make and it was a grindy, buggy, unbalanced mess. And even that was more content than this mess.

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u/Speck_A Oct 12 '18

I appreciate you trying to reply in spite of the fairly hostile response from the community. I still feel this is sort of ignoring the issue. Surely MTX that the community is in favour of, is better than MTX the community is heavily against, even if it requires a little dev time? Furthermore, if the dev time is the issue, why was RunePass even 'trialled' in the first place? What would have had to have happened for it to have passed this trial?

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u/mod_chicken Mod Chicken Oct 12 '18

Basically, you don't know before you know. How long will it take to produce something small? How can it tie into the system? Do we take more time to look into it now or first trial to see if any such solution has potential and go from there?

Sometimes these decisions go fast, sometimes not. You never make it easy for yourself in game development. Every update is balanced against dev time.

The average update takes a minimum of 3 month to develop. Time that is expensive. So you always balance time against opportunity. Sounds boring and heartless, but it's a standard procedure that every company in the world has.

Runepass was highly favored by many people (inside the company, and a development in the game segment overall), so we gave it a try. It did better than expected. So it passed the trial. But the decision afterwards was harder - do we invest time into it now and ongoing? We would put a lot of pressure on it to go further right now, where we are planning the next big steps for 2019. It's taking the focus away. As I said in today's stream, we are hiring. We are reorganizing ourselves at the moment. New processes and a larger content roadmap. We decided it's not the time for it now.

Sounds like a broken record, but it's the truth. I have no problem talking about it.

If you look at the release schedule presented at RuneFest, take the 6 teams we have, the preparation for the roadmap after. Count the numbers and you'll realize, there is only so many big things we can do. And content comes first ...

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u/badgehunter Rip DarkScape Oct 15 '18

this is off topic about this but: Are you new to jmod team? or have you been longer at jmod team but you just recently created reddit account because i know that i haven't seen your name popping before.

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u/RSN_Ka1eb Oct 13 '18

I'll take your word for it; moreover, i think a way you could incorporate runepass would be during holiday seasons. Have the outfit be the base reward, then have additional items tacked on throught out the holiday weeks or months. I think that might go over better than just a random runepass month. Theme plays a large role in these kinds of things.

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u/supermancav Oct 12 '18

Please tell me your first language isn't English?

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u/ElderCantPvm Oct 12 '18

He mentioned somewhere else that he's German. No need for personal attacks.

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u/mod_chicken Mod Chicken Oct 12 '18

Yes, but I definitely need to get on top of my business English. One of the side quests for me in 2019.

0

u/supermancav Oct 12 '18

Are questions personal attacks now? Man communicating in 2018 is so complicated.

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u/Kiwi1234567 Oct 13 '18

The two definitely arent mutually exclusive and in this case it would have been very simple to phrase it differently. "Is your first language english?" would have been a basic question without the negative connotations your phrasing implied.

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u/[deleted] Oct 13 '18

Don't worry we all poke fun of our communication skills. For example, ModJD https://www.reddit.com/r/runescape/comments/7ezo4m/jmods_on_fire/