November 9, 2009

Had some fun with the new updates. Did my usual daily tasks and then went to a friend's house party. I'm loving on house parties at the moment since I'm using the money from runecrafting to buy dragon bones. Plan is to runecraft unless someone is having a house party. I am more then happy to supply someone with marrentil to keep the burners lit and then I can offer bones even faster. I know dragon bones are pretty pricey (compared to early in the summer) but I honestly don't see the prices going down significnatly. Maybe a little. But between the offer-x update, the promise of new prayers and the cash infusion that 76k'ing has brought I can't see a return to sub 2000gp dragon bones.

I saw an imp carrying someone's banner at a star last night (that someone being my friend S (formerly my friend G.....name changing is going to make me crazy)). I want one! I may have to go slaughter the leprechaun champion tonight and claim me a banner. (I am already champion of the ghouls, I realize that the leprechaun doesn't let you have a banner but I still want to crush him).

I saw a lot of rants on the RS forums about the updates yesterday. To be honest, I'm really really happy. I love the idea of buying packs of vials and newt eyes. That, to be honest, is a massive high level update at the expense of the low levels. The prices for wfv is going to go down, hence another good low level money maker bites the dust. On the other hand, I can acquire about 10k vials and water filled vials in about 10 minutes for a fraction of what I would pay on the GE.

Liking the new Shilo shortcut.

Hairstyles-I'll have to check that out later. In RL I've had about every bad haircut that you can have (mullet, shaved, flock of seagulls type thing, spiked, badly dyed, you name it) I am now at the point where both me and my RS avatar have medium length normal colored non descript hair. I'm sure some people think a green mullet is a good idea. I may have even dated this person earlier in my life. However......

Falador Castle got an altar. About time.

Slayer masters and slayer gems are now easier to deal with. I like that alot and am looking forward to my next slayer push.

Tzhaar updated drops, Yanille increase in entrances-all good things.

I've had a think about the so called "high level" worlds.

First, I would say that worlds based on levels is a bit ridiculous. There's no reason other then to make people feel "special".

Second, wouldn't it make more sense for the overall health of the community to make "low level" worlds?

Let's pretend that there is a world that requires a total of 2k levels to get into. Many of the players eligible to be in this world just wouldn't because they already have established friends/clans/identities on their home world. And by the time you get to level 2000 you have a lot of friends and ties to your home world. But let's say you can get an average of 1000 people in that world at any time. Those who have 2000-2100 levels are now noobs, and they aren't going to be pleased about that. The high level training areas are going to be camped (would any sane person think GWD on a high level server wouldn't be 24x7 packed?). Is there any real benefit to anyone or has Jagex just created a situation where the "elite" levels have their private club?

Now let's talk about what would happen if Jagex went in another direction. What if there was a world that you had to have LESS than 1000 levels to be in. We'll call it a noob only world. Characters that have a few really high levels and many low levels would have an advantage here. More importantly, low leveled players won't find themselves beat out by the higher leveled ones for things like Fire Giants, Dagganoths and other creatures. Remember when you were level 50 in combat? And you'd be trying to do a slayer task and some high leveled person would come in and just dominate an area? What if there was a world where you knew that you would be on par with everyone else? Wouldn't that make you more likely to stick to your slayer task?

Exceptions could be made so that P-Mods could roam this world. More hints, guides, pop ups could be available to help new players get oriented. From a playability/community point of view this would make so much more sense. Create worlds (heck create a sub 500 level world too) where new players can be around other new players and learn the game at a different pace then the usual frenticness of the other worlds. As they get used to the map (how long did it take you to pretty much memorize the map in your head and navigate as well as you do now?), and the controls, and the various other components they can migrate out.

Jagex will never do it. The rants would be insane (not that they haven't been so far anyways).