March 16, 2010

Got to 94 Crafting on Monday. Going to count that as part of bonus xp weekend since I did do a bunch of bank cleaning/crafting over the weekend. New goal: 2200 total levels by the end of the month. Was going to get it in May but now.....

Here are my thoughts on the big bonus weekend (in no particular order of importance):

1) It took a lot of cash out of the game. All those pouches? Worth less then the sum of their parts....a lot less. All those pots? Can't trade anything in the "extreme" category. Those were the two biggies from this weekend. All that money spent (and I bet a lot of bank space created) and not a lot that of finished products that can be sold back. If Jagex was trying to control prices this did it.

2) I said this before the weekend and believe it now even more. 2010 is going to see a lot of elite and high level content. And the only way it makes sense to produce all that content is to have players who can or are very close to being able to use it. This weekend was to help boost up the numbers in those categories.

3) Everyone complained about the prices. But prices were never twice what they were the week before the event (I'm only talking herblore since that's what I focused on). Therefore doing activities that gave you at least 2x the xp you normally would get still put you ahead. Yes, things did cost more but still cheaper using an xp/gp ratio.

4) 2.7x xp and people have the time to spam close doors? I wish Jagex had just "broken" all the doors open.

5) Speaking of which.....look I know this was a gift. The whole bonus was..well...a bonus. But sometimes Jagex tries to be too clever. First they said that they would use the graph (that they showed us and even provided the forumla for). This implied a minute by minute recalculation. Then they said it would change hourly. Then back to the formula being recalculated each time an action is taken. Then....when it mattered....the formula was a bit too aggressive. Look, I don't ding Jagex for most of their bugs/issues. I have worked in/with software development long enough to know it will happen. With all the coding for this game things are going to happen. But this? Come on......30 minutes of play testing should have thrown the flag on it. Really Jagex, this was a big glaring oops. And then to go and compound it by not posting it on the front page? And basically shrugging your shoulders and saying "oops"? I'm pretty sure I missed out on a summoning level (170k short) because of this. But it' s not a major level. I am a bit annoyed that I didn't get closer to 96 herblore (wasn't going to get there but thought I'd get a lot closer). I feel bad for people who planned based on what they were told though.

6) For those of you who didn't prepare for TWO WEEKS prior to the event but just logged in and then started crying because you couldn't get what you needed WAAAA!

7) For those of you who just played as normal and had fun....hats off to you.

8) I feel bad for those who got 99 on Friday/Saturday. Was pretty hard to get anyone to celebrate with you.

9) Go read Merch Gwyar's blog on this weekend (Google: Merch Gwyar) She blogs on Sal's Realm. I 100% agree with her opinions on this weekend.

10) Do I ever want a bonus xp weekend again? Not really. It was an interesting experiment and my hats off to Jagex for trying it. But, this is a game. And a game should be fun. And the stress of getting ready, leading up to and doin this did not equal fun. Maybe do it as part of a quest reward or a D&D. (Finish the D&D and get x minutes of bonus time)