Posted on 2009 under Holiday Guides |
13
Oct
Mattonline asks:
Trolling can be an annoying problem on the forums, why do you think this is? Also, some trolls seem to get away with a lot. Do you think that someone should be given a permanent forum mute after 20 temporary mutes (even more in some cases)? I understand wanting to give people the benefit of the doubt, but in some cases it ruins the community when trolls are just given a slap on the wrist.
Mod Paul M: Trolling can, indeed, be annoying. Why, though? Well, in essence, I’d say that it’s largely down to the anonymity that forum posting tends to provide as it gives some people more confidence to be unpleasant to others without the fear of any physical retribution. It’s no doubt equally true, however, that some people just enjoy getting a rise out of their fellow players.
Do we allow some trolls to “get away with a lot” more than others before we take action? I think it’s fair to say there are many degrees of troll and so some comments will cross the line quicker than others. Where should that line be, though? Well, that tends to depend on who you talk to (and what mood they’re in).
I agree with your final point that a forum troll can take away from a community and, although we try to avoid permanent bans whenever possible, it’s true that a ‘slap on the wrist’ doesn’t always do the trick. As I mention above, when a ’slap on the wrist’ should become a permanent ban really depends on the context of the situation and your level of tolerance. Whatever action we do take, though, we aim to deal with forum problems quickly, so if players do get trolled excessively, we do our best to ensure that you’re not more than 15 minutes away from one of the CM guys looking into it for you.
Houndof3vil asks:
Will there ever be a point in time where players who express their interests in serving the community as Player Moderators be given a chance to show their worth?
Mod Kelvin: That time is now! 
Have a read of the Volunteer Moderators Community Management Blog by Mod Hohbein, and there’s also the Are You Community Focused? thread.
As we had such a huge response to the blog, with almost 2,000 overwhelmingly enthusiastic posts, we had a think, and came up with the idea of wanting players who are interested in becoming a volunteer moderator to let us know about them.
Since then, we’ve reviewed nearly 1,500 potential moderators and sent a great many invitations for players to become P-Mods and F-Mods. The majority of these have come from those posting on the Are You Community Focused? Thread.
Soldier 1033 asks:
What convinced you to start looking into the community more for potential Moderators?
Mod Kelvin:
It’s something we’d been thinking about for quite some time, as we were trying to move away from the (not always correct) perception that all P-Mods and F-Mods were only there to report players.
When Mod MMG became the new CEO earlier this year, part of his vision for Jagex was for us to recognise players who have put a lot into the game, and into the community, and find new ways to support them and help them grow.
Where better to look for volunteer moderators than to seek out those who are high achievers in-game and community pioneers – that’s what we’re in the process of doing right now.
Migy Matty asks:
Do you plan to recruit considerably more P-Mods, because many people think we need it! XD
Mod Kelvin: Yes, and F-Mods too. Not only because we need it, but also because there are so many players out there whose involvement in the game and community we would like to recognise.
Kendrone asks:
My friend Djdex90 and I come up with ideas for the game all the time. Sometimes they are little fixes here or there, other times they are massive things. My most recent large thing being found here: 84-85-776-59290215
My question is, how can we players submit our ideas as large as the one I used as an example to really influence the game. We have ideas, sometimes we draw up the graphics and everything. I read about making a Game Concept Document, but I don’t have the time to come to Cambridge (or the money) and so I feel it would be like another forum post but sent by snail mail.
Is there anyway whatsoever that we can submit these large things and more importantly, get feedback on them?
Mod Paul M: I’m intrigued to know what your big ideas are, so will be checking out those links shortly. I do think that it’s possible to get the big ideas across succinctly. CM pitch ideas to each other constantly, so to make sure that we see as many as possible, we always start off with the bare bones of an idea. The great ideas are then fleshed out as needed.
I guess it’s also worth saying that before spending months on an idea it’s well worth considering the feasibility of it first. While it may be awesome to have spaceships, electric monkeys and free lemonade for all in the game, would it move the game away from our planned direction too much? Would it change the game too dramatically? Would it require a team of twenty people to spend the next six months working on the idea? If the answer to those questions is yes, then put the idea out there by all means, but keep it succinct so that other players can check it out and help you build on it. The briefer the idea, the more chance there is that your idea will be read and thought about by other players, which will then provide you with the best feedback possible.
While we’re talking about suggestions, I should mention that Mod Crow is our man in Community Management who makes sure that all the good suggestions are noted and passed to the right people. He spends an awful lot of time looking at a huge number of ideas, so he’s well-practised in filtering out duplicate ideas and searching for the gold.
Magimage60 asks:
How will jagex be more involved with us the community?
Mod Kelvin: Have a read of my Introduction to Community Management blog – it answers your question fully.
T H 3 I F Z asks:
Do you find it hard to recruit Moderators for the Forums? Or are there people who just stand out instantly ? (Also, do you plan (if you’re allowed) to make the forums more visible ?
Mod Kelvin: It is much harder to find forum moderators than player moderators – mainly because, even though our forums are massive, there are fewer players actively involved on the forums than in game. We’re trying to change this through opening up the forums to free players with over 12.5 million XP, and, in the future, we will extend this further.
As for making the forums more visible, I’m not sure quite what you mean… They will be getting a two-stage overhaul, but this will take quite an amount of time, and we really don’t expect to see any changes until next year. But the idea is to make them easier to use and, hopefully, more visible.
Issachunt69 asks:
We see your efforts to up-hold the community amongst the forums, but do you have any plans for J-Mods to be more of a ‘normal’ thing to see in-game?
Mod Kelvin: We’d love to have more J-Mods in game. It’s not straightforward, but it is something we’re working towards.
Recently, we’ve increased the size of our Community Management teams, both for English-speaking players and for the multitude of language communities in game. This means we can turn up to more player events, have a greater presence on the forums and recruit more volunteer moderators.
We still have far more abuse reports and account appeals than we would like, however, and we need at least 60 J-Mods just to keep on top of those. We’re working hard to see what we can do behind the scenes to reduce these work volumes. As we do that, we will have more and more J-Mods available to work in Community Management.
Right now, though, we’re trialling J-Mod/player surgeries – the ones we’ve done so far have gone extremely well, both for us and for players – so we’re looking to see how we can do much more of these from now on.
Master V65 asks:
I’ve noticed no one from jagex posting on forums that much. I see about one mod post every 80 pages of forums. Are you planning on posting on the forums more?
Mod Kelvin: We’d love to post more on the forums, but see my answer to the previous question. The answer to this is just the same: we will put more J-Mod time into the forums and game once team members are freed up from other areas in Player Support.
Issachunt69 asks:
Would you ever consider holding a CM event, alike the Gaming Convention in Germany here in the UK?
Mod Kelvin: We like the idea and have considered and talked about it, but no decisions have yet been made, so no promises.
Milandabest asks:
What do you like and dislike about the runescape community that you generally do not in other communities?
Mod Paul M: I think I’d have to say size. I love that RuneScape has such a massive and diverse community of people from all over the world with such different backgrounds. The only disadvantage of that being it’s that much harder to meet you all.
Userexpired1 asks:
with release of new content, will we be seeing more Jmod/player interaction? (like the poison arrow grand opening) because i feel that these gave players a great experience and it got a chance for the Jmods to see players feedback. I for one enjoyed taking part in this events and hope to see you all in the future…
PS. Perhaps with release of new quests Jmods could go into quest areas and perhaps give a helping hand aswell? Obviously this wouldnt happen all the time because they are working but its just a thought.
Mod Paul M: The short answer to that is yes! There are so many ways that J-Mods and the rest of the community can get together that I won’t spam up the forum by listing them all here. Instead, I’ll just recommend keeping an eye out for the next CM blog and J-Mod surgery. =)
A Cole asks:
Are you going to continue to give 3rd party sites exclusive concept art, etc. without posting it on your own site? (Whether it be a day or a week after the initial release on the 3rd party site – You don’t want to encourage site advertising to fake sites now, do you?)
Mod Kelvin: The short answer is yes. We’ve been building relationships with fansites, and releasing exclusive concept art to them is our way of saying “thanks for being awesome; we absolutely love what you do for our community”.
If someone is dead set on copying images, they’ll do so regardless of whether we release concept art to other sites or have it on our own. Rest assured, however, that the ICU team in Player Support invest a significant amount of time in looking for and removing fake sites – we take copyright issues very seriously.
Find Emotion asks:
You’ve stated in the Player moderator blog that you will be looking at members of fanstes to help choose new player moderators – will a member of a unsupported site still have the same opportunities as a member of a supported site? Would you be biased depending on which fansite a certain player supports?
Mod Kelvin: Anyone can recommend a player or forum moderator on the Are You Community Focused? thread and we will check out every single one. Quite simply, if you’re a great community-minded player either in game or on the forums, then we’ll see if you can be a potential moderator.
Bluemagic176 asks:
Are you planning to rewrite the article in the knowledge base anytime soon concerning player moderators “not” getting any behind the scenes updates?
Mod Paul M: We’re actually planning to update the moderator section of the KB entirely in the not too distant future, as it’s been a while and the team has evolved a fair bit since it was last updated. Player moderators still don’t receive any behind the scenes information on updates, though, so that section won’t change massively.
We’ve already updated the section called “What tools do Player Moderators have for their role?”, as people were interested to hear about the P-Mod room, P-Mod surgeries and what crazy options they have when sending a report.
Clonewars3 asks:
The new P-mod method of choosing. Will this affect the community members who aren’t really active on a fansite, or really take a role in a clan? I’ve been playing for almost 4 years this October, and I’m not one of those players’ that really take apart in a fansite/clan. Will this affect all players’ who are like myself, and do not take apart in a fansite/clan?
Mod Kelvin: You don’t have to be a member of a fansite or a clan to become a moderator.
You can:
Be active on the forums.
Create your own events.
Regularly take part in player events.
Be a high level player.
Be involved in the role-playing community.
Find your own way to add to the RuneScape community.
This isn’t a comprehensive list, but it gives you an idea that it’s not all about being a member of a fansite or clan.
Icemaster X1 asks:
How EXACTLY do you choose Player Moderators? Is there some way you monitor ingame behaviour other than looking at the amount of black marks people have. Is it more of other Player Moderators recommending people.
Mod Kelvin: Well, you’re not expecting me to give away trade secrets are you? 
I’ve already said above what we look for in potential moderators and where we look for them. If I may, let me answer your question about how EXACTLY we choose moderators by letting you know what we definitely don’t want – you can then put two and two together.
We don’t want:
Cheaters or bug abusers.
Macroers.
Someone who has hijacked other accounts.
Someone who uses fraudulent means to pay for an account.
Someone who consistently breaks multiple rules over time, either in game or on our forums.
Someone who continually reports other players for things like calling others a noob.
Irojo5 asks:
What plans do you have to involve the community?
Mod Paul M: As the RuneScape Community Manager, I look after a team of people whose whole raison d’etre is centred on community involvement. I know I speak for the whole team when I say that, to us, it’s the best bit of the game, and without community involvement, RuneScape wouldn’t be the game it is.
We’ve long taken player suggestions, attended player-created events and used polls to get community input on what we’re doing and what we’re planning. This summer, we increased the size of the Community Management team so that we can get even more community involvement. We’re putting more team members onto the Suggestions forums, making more J-Mods available to work with you on your events and, most recently, have created extra forums dedicated to player-created content (or, as we geekily like to call it, emergent gameplay). We are even getting the community involved in Jagex by flying some of them to our door to come and party with us (sorry for using party as a verb, I’ve jabbed a fork in my leg as a suitable punishment).
That’s just the start, though, as we’ve plenty more up our sleeves.
For example:
The clan community gave us valuable feedback on the Clan Cup, which we’ll be using to make the next one better.
We’ll be running competitions that will see the community designing merchandise for the community.
We’ve been getting input on how we can best run a community-driven, -written and -inspired newsletter, and will soon be putting that into action.
We’ll be doing more to take your ideas for emergent gameplay and turn them into massive events.
And, as ever, we’ll be looking to the community to see how you want to be more involved in the future.
Heavenlyevil asks:
You reveal a lot of information at many different websites now. These include social networking sites, fansites and sites dedicated to the gaming industry (interviews). Rather then having your members search the internet and perhaps come across malicious pages in the process, is there a possibility of a sticky or web page that links to all off-site information you’ve released?
Mod Paul M: That’s a great question and is something that we’re looking at right now. In the meantime, a sticky on the forums that keeps all that info in a one-stop, tidy and safe place makes total sense, so we’ll do that. =) (What was I saying about community involvement? )
Heavenlyevil asks:
You often create a ‘Spotlight Suggestions’ sticky for high/elite level skill suggestions. Could you shed some light on what happens if there’s a suggestion made that’s particularly good?
Mod Kelvin: Okay, so, the Spotlight Suggestions sticky is agreed between Mod Crow in Community Management and Mod Mark in RuneScape Content. Once suggestions have been made, Mod Crow puts them all together and goes through them with members of the RuneScape Content team.
We then find out what RuneScape Content think are good or bad ideas – what can/can’t work in the game, what fits/doesn’t fit in with current content – and then, finally, whether there’s a developer free to do the work.
The reason we ask for a particular area of suggestions is because we want players to input into a particular area of the game – but please bear in mind that we have a team of awesome and creative content developers at Jagex and that they wouldn’t be in their role if they didn’t come up with excellent content ideas themselves. That said, we’d be plain daft if we didn’t ask those who play our games what their ideas and thoughts are.
So, what’s the point of players making suggestions, I hear you ask. Well, often, an idea from a player will spark something off at Jagex Games Studios, and the development team will then work on it themselves – it may not be the exact idea proposed by a player, but their idea would have helped the RuneScape Content team to either refine or add to new content, or change existing content.
Kabutocool 1 asks:
Will you have J-Mods posted on World 31 to keep an eye out for dating parties? Dating parties encourage the breaking of two rules: Offensive Language and Solicitation. That is because people ask other people to be their boyfriend or girlfriend in the game. I’ve been keeping an eye out for those to stop these parties in Rimmington. But it gets tiresome… Will you please put a J-mod or two in Rimmington to watch out for dating parties?
Mod Paul M: We do regularly have a number of J-Mods in game with an emphasis on supporting events and, although I think it would be a shame to cut that support short to deal with dating parties, we’re keen to do our best to make sure everyone’s playing safely.
Fortunately, our P-Mod community do a really great job in bringing things like this to our attention, so J-Mods are able to put time into both areas.
Of course, the best course of action is for the community to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and send us a report whenever you come across a dating party. We review your reports pretty quickly, and this is also the way to really put the community in charge of itself.
Bentomat asks:
I think it’s great that you’re trying to get Mods more friendly, and Jmods into the game, but I still have yet to meet a Jmod ingame. It would be great if you could have some Jmods do Bounty Hunter, or Duel Arena, or even something like Trouble Brewing to draw more people to it. Mostly, would it be possible to use a Jmod account in combat with other players?
Mod Paul M: Oh, how I’d love to come into Castle Wars for some epic pwnage on my J-Mod. Still, armed with my rubber chicken, pink skirt and old-skool Santa hat, I don’t think I’d be of that much use.
Generally, we don’t jump into combat with the community because we can’t do it 24/7, which means some players would have an advantage that others wouldn’t. We’d get complaints of being unfair and general misery would surely ensue. I’d never say never, but for something like that to happen, we’d have to find a way around that kind of problem.
There are other ways to meet up with J-Mods, though, if you so desire. We recently introduced J-Mod surgeries, which are proving to be a lot of fun. If you’d like to check one out, take a look at this forum thread.
Another way to meet up with a J-Mod is to attend one of the many player-created events on any given weekend. We do our best to support the community’s events and put on a number of our own too, which are all advertised on the Events thread.
Finally, why not create your own event? If we love it and can support it, we’ll be in touch to see how we can best make your events and ideas work. For that, the Events and Emergent Gameplay forums are your friend!
Yevano1 asks:
-Will there ever be any updates to how the forum works? It would be great if you could have your own signature without having to type in each post. And new smilies and different fonts would be cool, too.
Mod Kelvin: You would not believe the size of the list of forum improvements we’d like to make, but it’s not that straightforward…
We’re fiercely proud of our forum community – it’s the second largest in the world and we created them ourselves! This means that we need to invest a great deal of time to make any changes, and to add in cool new features is actually quite difficult.
We are looking at things like formatting, quoting, avatars, ways to enable you to see who’s on the forums when you are, improved searches, etc… This isn’t a definitive list of improvements, simply an idea of what we’re looking at and, unfortunately, I have no timeframe on this. Speaking to the developers, we may be able to add in one or two additional features over the next few months, then look into a larger forum update for next year, but please don’t hold us to that.
C0smic1 asks:
Does Jagex every intend to allow the use of BBcode on the forums, and does Jagex ever expect to allow posting of URLs for non-advertising purposes and mentioning websites?
Does Jagex ever plan on developing a system for the I need a mod sticky which would allow moderators to flag posts as dealt with but would not allow users to read active reports?
Will users ever be able to close/change the titles of their own threads?
Mod Kelvin: Wow, so many questions! The above answer covers most of your points. As for the “I need a Mod/Forum emergency sticky” point, we are looking at a much better system for players’ forum escalations for next year.
Treeman851 asks:
Will we players ever have our own Runescape Homepage? (sort of like a Facebook but for our characters)
Mod Kelvin: It’s a nice idea, but one that would require a significant increase in servers at our end, so that may be a show-stopper, I’m afraid. We are going to be making some changes to enable you to have a much more extensive view of your account – not quite a homepage, but an improvement on what’s currently available for you to view. And you won’t have to wait too long for this…
Lol A Pic asks:
Is there going to be another Jagex Cup this year?
Mod Paul M: Well, we’ve already had the 2009 Cup, but there will certainly be another one in 2010. =) Mod Kathy and Mod Timbo have taken on the feedback from the last cup and will be using it to make a bigger and better Jagex Cup for next year.
Tcool Guy asks:
are there hired people that browse the forums for unappropriated material, or are the people who browse the forums players that have earned a special title? Or both? I know there are modes for the forums, I’m just asking are they specifically paid to browse the forums, or is it a side job for when things get dull?
Mod Paul M: The quick answer to that is: both!
The player community itself highlights areas of the forums that we need to look at for whatever reason. We also have our wonderful forum moderator team, which is made up by some of our most prolific and community-minded posters. They do an awesome job in quickly picking up anything on the forums that, well, shouldn’t be there.
Finally, we have J-Mods monitoring the forums 24/7. Moderating forums is a key role for Community Management and, whether it’s answering questions, supporting ideas, passing on feedback or creating new threads and forums, there are stacks of J-Mods involved. It is certainly not just an area we look at “when things get dull”.
Crazy Foo997 asks:
Hi, i have a question. Okay.. so with all the new updates and all the complaints that people are having… Do you honestly think that this is worthy of *spending* your time reading and answering when there are so many more important topics that should be adressed first to, you know, make your customers happy?
Mod Kelvin: Crazy: your question is a bit vague, so feel free to post a clarification on the live Q&A thread if this doesn’t answer it (especially what you mean by “more important topics” that you feel should be addressed first).
The way we look at it is that we’d love to have a J-Mod on every forum page, continually responding to player feedback and questions, and when we have the opportunity, we do put more J-Mods onto the forums.
Also, player opinion is important to us, so it is worth our while reading the ‘complaints’. While we know it’s difficult to please absolutely every player with each update, the development teams try very hard to create great content.
We strive to have happy players, and part of this is allowing players to vent their frustrations and tell us what they do and don’t like. We can then consider all of the feedback, make changes if we need to, or, alternatively, speak to you about why we made the choices we did.
Hughmister asks:
What is your favourite working beverage?
Mod Paul M: Anyone that knows us will be painfully aware that without a trusty pot of coffee at our side, we’d be lost. Really, I’m 100% serious.
Mod Kelvin: STRONG black coffee.
Themyth2004 asks:
Hey there! My question is… RuneScape hasn’t had a huge amount of advertising, as far as I am aware the growth of RuneScape has been fairly unique in that it has consisted mostly of word of mouth and then later on mini-clip, yet there is over 1 million members nowadays and a huge number of F2P players.
Advertising has picked up for MMORPGs for the last year or two… I was wondering if there is any plans to expand advertising for RuneScape, and if you could tell me what other kinds of advertising RuneScape participates in at this moment in time?
Mod Kelvin: As you correctly observed, RuneScape has grown over the years through word of mouth and very little advertising – it’s another key point that makes RuneScape unique. That said, we’re not complacent, and we’re always looking to evolve as a company, so your question is actually bigger than just RuneScape – it concerns Jagex as a whole.
If you look at our jagex.com site, you’ll see that we’re looking to recruit a Head of Online Marketing.
Stuvis asks:
Will you ever start responding to the players posts on forums?
Mod Paul M: Does this count? 
Bobacupcake asks:
How hard is it to read 2000+ posts and answer most of them?
Mod Kelvin: Hard. On the basis that it takes around five minutes for threads and posts to be read and answered, it would take almost 170 hours from Jagex staff to answer 2,000 posts! On a weekly basis, we have over 400,000 posts on our forums (and over 40,000 threads added), so we’d need 3,333 hours and 133 people to respond to every thread. That’s almost as many people as we have in the whole of Player Support!
Tygirltaco asks:
After reading up alot about Jagex Mods and them playing in the game. I also read that Jagex had started seperating themselves more from the player community more. For instance they weren’t joining the regualr players as much lately. Maybe this is all mislead speculation on the part of whoever wrote what I read, but just incase, would this new Player Mod community involvement project soon extend to the ‘big mods’ as well?
Mod Kelvin: I’d be interested to see what you’ve read; can you let me know where you saw this?
One of my earlier answers explains about the many requirements we have for J-Mod resource in Player Support and how we’re trying to increase the amount of J-Mod time in the game and on the forums – in fact, we’ve just started experimenting with daily in-game J-Mod/player surgeries. Have a look in the Jagex Lite forum for a timetable.
So, no, far from separating ourselves, we’re looking at more ways in increase J-Mod interaction with players.
Wcing Isfun asks:
Any chance we will see the JMODS try to make a bigger effort to be active with the players? IE: Hosting events like Jmods vs Players in clan wars or something?
Mod Paul M: We’re always looking for more ways to actively support the community, both in and out of the game. We do host events (which you’ll find details of in the Events forum) and also love to support events that the community itself creates (which we do predominantly over the weekends).
We want to do more, though, and, as the Community Management team grows, we’ll be able to do so. As for J-Mods vs players in Clan Wars, that’s not a possibility right now, but is an awesome idea and something I know we’d really get a kick out of.
I do know that a couple of weekends ago we had a clan battle, with a J-Mod assigned to each clan, who then battled it out to the death to decide which clan won. I’d like to do that again, but next time run a book.
Poison730 asks:
Will JaGeX become more involved with the clan community? If so, how will this happen?
Mod Paul M: Directing more support towards the clan community is something we’ve been really keen to do in 2009 and, currently, we have two J-Mods assigned to that support in the shapes of Mod Kathy and Mod Timbo. They ran the Jagex Cup 2009, are in the process of preparing for the 2010 Cup and, in the meantime, creating and supporting a variety of events.
They also answer questions, pass on feedback, take clan suggestions and badger me on a weekly basis to get them implemented. (Sorry, Mod Timbo and Mod Kathy, but you’re not getting space hoppers to replace your chairs and, frankly, I don’t see how having plastic-horned bouncing blimps would help the clan community in any way. Nice try, though. )
The clan community is a massive part of RuneScape and, although I feel we’ve made a good start, the support we’re offering is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a huge amount more we want to be doing; 2010’s going to be busy for us, I think.
Dark Kirby 0 asks:
Why can we no longer post on News & Announcement forum? all the updates are now immediately locked.
Mod Kelvin: It’s quite straightforward, really – we want News and Announcements to be what it says on the tin, where players can simply view news or announcements at a glance. We also create a thread in Recent or Future Updates at the same time where players can post their thoughts, feedback and opinions. It’s a tad clumsy, but we feel this gives the best of both worlds.
Humra7 asks:
How exactly do you become player moderator and what are the chances of becoming one? What exactly is the duty of player moderator?
Mod Paul M: This is an age old question and I think the KB will go a long way to showing you the light there. We also created a thread not so long ago that invited players to let us know if they wanted to be considered to be a moderator. The lead post on this thread explains exactly what we’re looking for. In short, though, if you’re community-minded, pleasant to talk to and aren’t a cheating, macroing scumbag, you’re already on the right track.
What is the duty of a Player Moderator? Well, as a volunteer forum or player moderator, the key thing to remember is that moderators are, first and foremost, players. So, their first duty is to play the game, enjoy the game and continue being the same player they were before we asked them to join the team. After that, it’s really up to each player how they want to take their moderator crown and use it to benefit the community.
Some like to spend time in game answering other players’ questions, such as the guys looking after the “Ask a Mod” sessions. Others like to find player events and help publicise them to increase community attendance, such as Outreach. Then we have moderators who continue just playing the game, but who keep an eye out for any players in need, should one come wandering towards them. Then we have mods who love nothing more than a damn good pwning session, and so organise competitions and events to ensure that happens.
Basically, it takes all sorts and, as with the community at large, the moderator team is made up of a great number of very different people of all ages, skills and backgrounds. Blimey, I wrote a bit more there than I meant to – sorry about that!
Sohrab19 asks:
Will you be adding events where people in runescape and mods do things?
Mod Paul M: Yes, my friend. If you check out the Events forum, you’ll see moderator-related events in there. There’s a thread that immediately springs to mind called Player and PMod events and, although it’s a bit messy at the moment (we’re in the process of getting that sorted!), it’ll give you a good idea of what’s going on.
If we’re talking J-Mods then, again, various forums will note J-Mod-created events. We also attend community events at the weekends, but, as I write, I’m thinking that a central resource would be helpful. Hmm, thanks for that thought. =)
If you’re the Twittering type, then you can also get a heads-up on events through following us there.
Saphirajfire asks:
RS Times the paper of our future! will it be possible to have the old varok newspaper tossed out and something fresh put in its place? It would be nice to have a paper that was not years old. If it could be updated one time a month that would be great.
I know a lot of things that could go in the paper, letters you guys write I know they come out a lot I never remember to look at them or ever read them. same with the god letters. there are so many possibilities for a fresh paper. it does not need to be just in varok it. would it ever be possible for something cool like this to come out in game? I do have a thread dedicated just for the future RS paper lol.
Mod Paul M: Funnily enough, this is something we’ve been talking about a fair bit lately. I can’t say any more than that, though.
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Hereunder, I will explain how to manipulate these skills. You may find that only a few, maybe even one or two, will actually suit you. Depending on your level, the skills mentioned may or may not suit you. This applies to ALL skills.
1. Combat :
If you are a high leveled combat, there are some monsters which drop good items, though they are scarce and the place would usually be quite packed (Hence more of the tendency for KSers, or Kill-Stealers, who are people who basically just walk in and take your monster that you were waiting for to spawn and then kick you out of your spot. Also there would be an increased chance of having arrow stealers, who are a pain in the butt, but I do pity them for having to resort to stealing arrows. Arrow stealers are NEWBIES, so DON’T become one.) Some good Free-To-Play (F2P, a terminology I will use a lot in this guide) monsters which are good to kill would be Lesser Demons (level 82), found in Crandor predominantly. Moss Giants (Level 42) are another good monster to kill, and they can be found in the depths of Varrock Sewers and Crandor. Good Pay-to-Play (In other words, members, but I will refer to you lot as P2P) monsters are Fire Giants (level 86), as they drop really good items (I had a haul of many rune scimitars, and it’s possible to get a dragon med helm and dragon half shield from them. Big bones are another good item to get from them too.) They can be found in Saniboch’s dungeon (The new Karamjan dungeon, where the metal dragons are found) or Baxtorian Falls (After doing Waterfall quest. This is the best place to get them.)
If you are a low-level and are thinking about using combat to gain money, I suggest you train at Barbarian Village . Believe it or not, it is very easy to gain levels there, the monastery is not even a minute’s walk away (but you need 31 prayer to get in) and there is a limitless food supply there. Once you think you are done with this, I suggest going to Hill Giants (level 28) next. They drop big bones, which are very good for prayer experience, and for members the limpwurt roots are a bonus (for herblore – strength potion), and hill giants can drop iron and steel items. The third step would be to seek and mutilate Moss Giants (level 42). These also drop big bones, but they have better drops; such as Nature rune, uncut gem, black square, magic staff, mith sword, steel kite and steel bars are some examples. Remember that if you want to get to them in the Varrock sewers, you need to bring a weapon with ’slash’ attack (to cut through the web). After ‘Mossies’, the final monster you should progress to is the feared Lesser Demon (level 82) They are one of the best monsters in Runescape, in my opinion. What you do is fish a load of lobsters or swordfish on the deck, cook them, proceed into the dungeon, genocide the lesser demons, who can drop rune med helms (which sell for 10k to other players or high alchemies for 11,520gp. Yes, that is why people buy rune med helms for 10k each.), up to 200gp, gems and consequently dragon med helms and shield halves.
As you can see, being a P2Per is very beneficial in terms of using Combat to earn money, and this applies to many other skills too. A big thing in being part of the P2P community is the bonus ‘Clue Scroll’ drop. Also known as treasure trails/hunts, these are like mini-quests which take you to places in Runescape (and sometimes throughout and all over the place) step-by-step until you get your prize; and these prizes can sometimes earn you a lot of money – Especially the Level 3 Clues which can give you Rune Trimmed, Gold, God and Gilded armours, and other good stuff in it. Of course, bear in mind that you can only have one Clue Scroll at a time, and Level 3 clues are very challenging! (A lot of it can be in the Wilderness, and many of them require access to places you can only go to during or after you have done hard quests, e.g. Regicide Quest or Legends Quest. Puzzle boxes are a pain if you are not good at it (and many people are not good at it), and plus there are the Saradomin and Zamorak Wizards to take care of when you do these clues.)
2. Runecrafting : Runecrafting is a great way to make a bit of fast cash, if you know how. Normally the alters are a pain to find and the best alters (i.e laws, nats, and deaths) are usually quite far from a bank. However if you are a mid to high leveled player that is willing to take a chance in the wild and looking to make a quick buck this could just be your ticket. On the 13th of June, 2005, Jagex came out with an update, The Abyss, which became a fast way to make higher level runes thus vastly increasing the profit coming from the runecrafting business. It is possible to craft 10k essence in about 8 hours or approximately 1 days time. I myself have done this many times.
3. Crafting : Unless you are a hardcore, lucky non-member miner, crafting is useless to you in terms of earning a lot of money quickly. Like runecrafting, members greatly benefit from this skill as opposed to free-players. With crafting, the common items to make are enchanted battlestaffs (which high alchs for 9300gp each – you can make a million gp a day with these, and I’m not kidding).
Battlestaff making is commonly known as Battlestaving, and what you do is you buy battlestaffs from Zaff (In varrock. The first staff costs 7,000gp, and the next 4 of them costs slightly more. Just like all items you buy from shops. I’ld bring 50k just in case.) Zaff stocks up 5 at a time, so people who wish to do battlestaving usually world-hop to buy staffs. After getting the amount of battlestaffs you want, you will need glass orbs. If you buy them, you don’t actually make money (assuming one nature rune is 300gp), so make the glass orbs yourself (Bucket of sand with Soda ash (use seaweed on range) and use them on a furnace. Use Glassblowing pipe with the molten glass, then make glass orbs. 46 Crafting required). With the glass orbs in your inventory, you must ‘charge’ them. This charging is done at elemental obelisks, and you require specific Magic levels for different Orbs. The easiest one is Water Orbs, 56 Magic required, you need 30 Water Runes, 3 Cosmic Runes The Water and Fire obelisks are found in the Taverly dungeon, all the way in until the Black Dragons. Head west of the black dragons to find the Fire Obelisk, and head upstairs (onto the small island south of the Catherby Fishing Shore ) to find the Water Obelisk. The Air and Earth Obelisks are found in the Wilderness; the Earth one is in the wildy portion of Edgeville Dungeon, and the Air Obelisk is located just north of there, beyond the Black Demons and up the ladder. You should surface at about level 5 wilderness.
Crafting dragonhide bodies (you don’t earn as much with these unless you obtain the hides yourself) is a good method of earning money too, but you need over 60 crafting to be productive in this. Another method used mostly by lower levels is the picking and spinning of flax. It is fast, easy, you get a bit of crafting exp for spinning them and plus they’re worth 100gp each (over that amount if you have more than 1k usually). Gems are another merchandise, so if you can mine them (gem rocks or not), they sell for good prices, however they are time consuming to get, and it is rare for people to buy cut gems. Leaving them uncut means you do not get experience at all – just money.
4. Mining : One of the ‘Big Three’ – or the three primary money-making skills – is Mining. It is also my personal liking. But really, the best thing to mine for experience is iron ore. You get 35 exp per ore, you can get it in one hit (after mining for a while), it re-spawns fairly quickly and it can sell for up to 100gp each (if you find a decent buyer, and you accumulate a stash of it). For money, the best things to mine are rune essences, coal, mithril ores, adamantite ores and runite ores. Rune essences are easy and fast to get; a great way for newer players to earn money (You can obtain these after doing the Rune Mysteries Quest), and plus they can sell for 20gp and upwards. Coal – 120 to 170gp each, but it’s a bummer to get unless you spend time at the member worlds’ coal trucks [Like Me!], mithril ores at 200 to 400gp each depending on amount, adamantite ores at 750gp (I never sell for this price because it’s simply too low) to 1,000gp each (buyers at this price are extremely hard to find! I’ld go with 800gp and up each.) and finally, the creme de la creme – Runite ores. They’re the big nice cyan ones, and they can sell for a minimum of 12.5k each to 15k each! That’s a whopping amount for one ore! But bear in mind that there are only 5 runite rocks, 2 of them in the basement of Heroes Guild and the other 3 in wilderness.
5. Smithing : A branch out from mining, smithing is quite a good way to make money, but to do so you will need patience with it, as it may take a while (especially cannonballs. Oh boy) As non-members, steel plate bodies (at 48 smithing) is a good item to make. They high alchemy for 1,200gp each, and can sell to other players for 900 to 1,000gp each. After that, the next best items are runite. Rune axes, scimitars, battle axes and kites are the better items to make and sell. They are also high in demand so you would not have to hold on to them for a long time. Note that ‘Full Addy’ can be in demand sometimes, and ‘Full Rune’ is also a desirable set. As members, an extra bonus is the well-known Cannonball. After doing the Dwarf Cannon quest, you can get your hands on what is known as an ‘Ammo Mould’. Cannonballs are worth 150gp to 200gp each, and one Steel Bar makes four. That’s 600 to 800gp per bar. This is the best item to make until you hit rune smithing, whatever obscure high level that is.
Then, of course, there are bars. Steel bars sell for 550gp to 600gp each (depending on amount), mithril bars at 1,000gp each, addy bars at 2,000gp and upwards each and finally the famous pretty runite bars, at 15,000 to 18,000gp each (and I have had buyers for 20,000gp each even.)
6. Fishing : Second of the Big Three – fishing is a good source of money as well as a great money saver. The main fish groups people buy are lobsters, swordfish and sharks. Lobsters sell from 100gp to 150gp each (and even 200gp each sometimes), swordfish sell from 250gp and a bit upwards each, and sharks are a great jack-up to 1,000gp each (76 fishing required, and 1,000gp each is the price for an uncooked shark. Cooked ones cost more) Fishing is a money-saver because you need food a lot of times throughout the game and what cheaper alternative than to do it yourself? The best places to sell fish vary, though personally I like Edgeville, for obvious, wilderness and PKers reasons.
7. Woodcutting : Last of the Big Three, woodcutting is another good skill to have. The good trees to cut are normal or evergreens, which sell for a minimum of 30gp each, maple trees at 100gp each, yew trees at 250 to 350gp each (free-play worlds sell these logs for really cheap – I bought a stash at 200gp each in Falador) and finally magic logs sell for 1,000gp each and it’s great for cash earning. Time consuming to accumulate the logs (and this applies to yew trees as well) but it is not hard selling magic’s. Best places to get these logs: Draynor and north of Falador for normal trees and/or Evergreens. Behind Varrock Castle , ‘The Falador Triangle’; three trees south of Falador, and a whole cluster of them in a very secret place – north of the Crafting Guild! (Don’t tell the cutters there that I told you or I’ll get in trouble. Note that this place is very far from bank, so it’s not advisable unless you’re here to get experience instead of banking the logs for money.) Another spot is just directly south of Edgeville bank, but it’s not advisable to get yew logs there as many people cut at that place. There are two places which I know of which provide Magic trees – seven, I believe, south of the Seers bank; three to the north west and four to the front yard of the place you start the Scorpion Catcher quest. And three trees in Gnome Stronghold, near the south wall of the Agility Course.
8. Fletching : A useful member skill to have, as you can make your own arrows with these levels (and save arrow money, which costs a lot sometimes, taking into consideration the low-life arrow stealers walking around). Mith, Addy and Rune arrows sell well, especially rune arrows (for you lovely PKers). Maple longbows and upwards are worth stringing and high alching. Arrow shafts sell for 10gp each (One normal log makes 15 of these shafts) and feathers are valued at 10 to 15gp each among players (depending upon amount, like so many other things.)
9. Herblore : Second member skill to touch upon; this is a very hard skill to raise and it requires a lot of time, effort and if you do not have Capital (or money) to start with, it will be very hard for you. The potions which sell well are prayer, fishing, agility, ranged, anti-fire and Super sets (For those of you who don’t know what these are, they are simply a three-combination potion set; Super Attack, Super Strength and Super Defence) and the rest are slightly harder to sell. I do not advise herblore unless you have a true passion for it (I do know of such people) and are willing to spend good money and time on it. Un-IDs are pretty good objects to sell, and can vary in prices. The standard price for Un-ID herbs are 1,000gp each, but if you specify TRUTHFULLY that your herbs are above a certain one, e.g. “Un-IDs above Irit Leaves”, these sell for higher prices.
At 25 herblore, there is a herb you can identify called Ranarr Weed! This is a very popular, high-in-demand herb. When IDed, these herbs sell for 3k to 4k each. Once you reach 38 herblore, you can make one of the most popular and ’sells-like-hotcakes’ potions is the Prayer Potion. It restores prayer, so if you’re fighting a big mean monster and your prayer is running out, all you need to do is take a dosage, and you’ll last for a bit longer. Prayer potions sell for 5k each, so you could buy ranarrs, and then sell the potions at 1k to 2k profit. Alternatively, if you know of people who have 38 herblore and/or upwards, they (at least, most of them) will trade prayer potions for your ranarrs. This is a win-win situation for both yourself and the herblorian.
10. Thieving : This is an unusual one, I must admit, but thieving can earn you money in a warped sense. What you do is steal whatever you can from the stall (hopefully without getting caught) and bank them. Stock them up (like my 795 Grey Wolf Furs I accumulated last night) and then when you happen to be at the town where the trader is located (In my case, Varrock), just sell them back to the Trader. Silks stolen from the Ardougne stall can sell at the Al Kharid Silk Trader at, I think it was, 60gp each. Grey wolf fur from the fur stall in Ardougne sell for 120gp each to Baraek, the fur trader in Varrock. As well as raising thieving, you can sell these items to the specialized stall traders to earn some money. Do note that cakes is another favourite, from the Baker stall, as people don’t sell the cake back to the baker but use it as a good food, and it is, especially for quests like Underground Pass.
11. Arbitrage : I would like to touch finally on this. In lay-man’s terms, arbitrage is more commonly known as ‘Merchanting’. Yes, you should know what I’m talking about now. This means that you buy something for a relatively cheap price, and then you sell it for more expensive e.g. buying iron ores for 70gp each and then selling them at 100gp each later. This is the simplest one of all. Another form of merchanting is actually modifying or adding two or more objects together e.g. buying normal logs at 30gp each, cutting them up into 15 arrow shafts, and then selling each shaft for 10gp each. Another common one is buying iron ores at 50gp each, and double the coal at 150gp each. This amounts to 350gp for the ores. Just by placing them into the furnace or using your fire staff and nature rune, you can sell the steel bar for 200 to 250gp each profit. Merchants earn good money, but it is time consuming (Unless you have a vast network of connections already set up) to camp in a world and type out “buying -insert item here-” 500 times, and then selling that item (another 500 times). Nevertheless, this is a good way of earning money.
800 – 240 = 560gp. 560 / 4 = 140gp.
That is 140gp profit per cannonball. Oh, and below is an image of the market areas of Runescape. This is where the people are for World 1 and World 2 respectively. Note that if you want to sell some F2P items and you’re a member e.g. Halloween Masks, you are better off selling them in World 1. You could always try World 2, and no one will stop you, but F2P stuff sells faster in F2P worlds. It’s logical and makes sense, so the choice of whether to camp in World 1 or World 2 is up to you.
For you lot of F2Pers, sorry, but World 1 is your only option. I hope this guide to money-making helped! I also hope to see you in the realm of Runescape, masquerading and parading around in that awesome outfit of yours which you always wanted …
