Debunking EoC: Modern Monetization

Jagex wanted to add more marketing methods to compete with recent MMORPG.

And personally, there's nothing wrong with that. Jagex has been a free to play game for years before many other games started adopting the F2P model.

And all Jagex was trying to do was update their F2P model to be a little more profitable.

This is actually a debunk against players who dislike Jagex's business ventures.

If you think about it, a $5-10 per month subscription limits the amount of money Jagex can make from each player to just that.

Adding microtransactions is as healthy for the game as it is for Jagex. It doesn't really harm people that don't buy from it. And people who do buy, it's their choice.

Back when Jagex was worrying about opening the road to more "modern" business with microtransactions and whatnot...

I never really had a thing against it. I only had problems with how it was done, how it was being presented to players, etc. There was clearly a problem considering all the player backlash.

Squeal of Fortune: So many people hated it. Jagex tried to act as if we liked it because people use it, but that's just because it was free items. Even people who hate it would still use it for free items.

Why did people hate it? I'm not entirely sure. I think the biggest reason was for buyable exp. I don't think that was really fair either.

But increasing ways for Jagex to do business is important.

Pre-2011 all Jagex had was membership subscription.

A lot of recent F2P models are based on microtransactions just like Solomon's Store. It gives a company a way to chase "whales", or players who are willing to spend large amounts of money on a game.

There's no problem with that really, companies need to flourish. RS already had one of the best F2P models for years, but once you spend $5-10 a month, there's nothing else to spend on. Jagex saw that room for improvement.

After looking at other MMORPG, I'm seeing many western players dislike the notion of "RNG Rewards", especially cash related, terming it as a "Cash grab" tactic. This may explain another reason many people protested the Squeal of Fortune.

Also note, I have no idea what Treasure Hunter is like now.

Personally, I would've liked SoF if the possible exp lamps you could get were extremely negligible compared to what people were doing with buying 99 stats in multiple skills. They either have to be negligible, or limited as to how many lamps you get.

Otherwise getting random free items, with a rare chance for crazy rares like Lucky items, is quite tempting on its own. I'm fine with that.

I don't know what all Solomon's store has right now, but the fact that they have a store, is good.

Microtransactions aren't wrong in themselves. What's available inside of them is what can be considered good or bad.

For example, some eastern MMORPG have cash shops that let you buy weapons exclusive to the cash shop. Even games with PvP. I don't know about eastern marketing, but westerners HATE Pay 2 Win. You don't want to introduce marketing that makes you look like you don't care about the game at all.

The huge exp available from SoF was an example of this, while not a pay to win thing and more pay to advance (faster), it was hugely looked down upon by the community.

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Back in 2011 I was going to suggest alternative microtransaction ideas, saying that all RS needed to do, was offer its players special outfits, animations, particle effects, only available in cash shop.

Actually, that's what they're doing. Good on them.

However I dislike some of the cosmetics they added, a bit too non-Runescapey. I also kinda disliked the EoC player model/animations from the start. Bad on them.

Also, the loyalty membership auras, that was awesome. It really felt great having 7 year concurrent membership and really motivated me never to drop my membership, even though I already had it running since like 2005 or something.

EoC made my cancel my membership instantly when it was released though. There goes my $5 subscription cost. I wonder if anyone still even has that.

I think RS players weren't open to micros because for years Jagex operated without it. But a lot of F2P models actually use it now.

Here's some videos from ExtraCreditz on this topic:

Without you having to look at the vids, I'll tell you that these all point out things that Jagex is doing the right way.

I think Jagex is doing a good job of avoiding many of the problems with F2P models that ExtraCreditz talk about.

So far premium in Runescape is one of the most worthwhile buys in any multiplayer game I've ever seen. This is the only game I would ever consider buying a monthly fee. At least RS2 was.

Jagex does great that way.

Bonds are also okay in that way, as it (supposedly) dampers gold sellers, gets Jagex more money, and gives players more ways to get free members.

I'll go look at the current day Solomon store.

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From the start I disliked having reskinnable weapons, but now I think I realize that's more because I dislike the new player models. For PvM it's just fine. For PvP, you can't really use them.

I really dislike the new model for claws.

Weapon reskins: Good idea.

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Heroic crit / hitsplay reskin / interface reskin: Good.

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Animations/Emotes: Good, though I dislike how some animations look as being too non-runescapey last I remember. Maybe more of me not liking the EoC playermodels.

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Equipment: Seem okay. Nothing here is like some special kind of food, weapon, exp lamp, etc. It's all misc stuff that's fun to buy.

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Titles: Good.

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Services: All good. Especially that action bar monetization. Too bad I don't play anymore.

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Hairstyles/Pets: Good

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Auras: This is the only part where you can start to question them, because I do remember there being auras that give small bonuses like vampire/prayer bonuses.

But from what I recall, it was only for 1 hour, and couldn't be used in risk PvP. I think it was useable in PvP minigames though, but really, the bonuses were so small, it was pretty much very negligible.

Personally, one of the things they could've improved was to make those Wing auras able to be worn and activated without the stat bonus, so you can have the cosmetic wings equipped for more than an hour.

It passes.

Also, I wish they'd base the new player model more on the 2011 version. That weird dwarf face... the wierd hands... the weird animations. Etc.

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I think the playerbase itself just needs to be more complacent with business that doesn't really harm people who don't spend on it.

Jagex already has a much better F2P model than many other games, it's even doing microtransactions better. (Dunno what to say about spin2win tho).

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I'll go look at what Treasure Hunter is like some day. I guess it's the replacement for Squeal of Fortune? idk.

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Now let's go compare Runescape to other mmorpg.

Let's look at Runescape's $5/200 Runecoins (RC). Technically buying in bulk is cheaper, as $20/900 RC comes out to $5/225 RC. We'll go with $5/200 which is $0.02.5/rc.

You can buy a pack containing a full outfit, multiple emotes, a few animation reskins, weapon reskins, and other things for 459 RC - 720 RC - 1620 RC.

In other words, $11.48 - $18 - $40.5 if you buy RC in the most inefficient way. Members also get a 10% discount, and we'll assume most RS players are interested in being a member.

Weapon reskins have prices between 120-160 RC, so less than $5.

In the mean time, let's look at Blade & Soul NA's Hongmoon Store, which uses NCoins.

400NC/$5 and 1600NC/$20. Okay, no 'buy in bulk' I guess. $0.01.25/NC

Outfits: General a shirt+pants in one, sometimes comes with a hat an another "adornment".

Prices range from 1000-1400 or so. $12.5 - $17.5 for just a shirt+pants. We also recently saw an outfit bundled with a hat and some cheap in-game items/resources for 1999, or $25.

Comparatively, I like some of BnS's outfits a lot. It was annoying that the $25 bundle's only worthwhile part of the buy was the outfit and the rest was useless.

Runescape's bundles are fine to me, aside from my dislike of the EoC player model in general. They really pack a lot of stuff into it.

Anyway, BnS weapon reskins. Generally around 960NC or $12. Quite a bit more pricey than RS, not to mention there isn't an existing weapon reskin right now that I think looks good. Technically, I haven't seen one for RS that I like either. But it may be because of my dislike for the new player models.

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Despite games like BnS or PSO2 or BDO or TF2 with better graphics, better combat systems, different communities, these are all things I'd play alongside RS2 because it's still unique and different.

And while I would rotate out of the similar BnS/PSO2/BDO/TF2 games, RS2 keeps me here because it's vastly richer in content and having more things to do. It's the bigger and better game.

At least, if the base game weren't thrown out. Now that the combat isn't enjoyable, engaging in all of that rich content isn't worthwhile of the "chore" combat is now.

As a side note I never played WoW cause of its pay 2 play and never will at this point.

Jagex has both done really bad things to its community, yet is also one of the best companies in terms of how it deals with community.

That is one of the only reasons I am still here today hoping to appeal to them, because I know they are one of the only companies that will listen to the player's problems.

RS2 was their real competition in the MMORPG market. Not trying to copy other games.

The EoC is backfiring on them, as a recent Reddit poll indicates.

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Now let's look at another shard of this topic:

Bringing in new players. Allocation of Jagex's resources (time and dev teams) towards contents that is worth developing.

I'll elaborate on this later, but I'm just going to point at that Jagex's excuse that they need to spend development time and resources on updates was used during the EoC to help them fight and resist the players who didn't want the EoC in the first place.

After it was released, it was their excuse not to immediately revert, and I think their business venture went down a very bad path compared to what could have happened.

Edit: So I've looked at some stuff.

180k people voted in the 2014 poll to bring Legacy to RS. The 250k comes from the RSWiki, but Runescape's official archive of the poll shows a total of 182,432 votes. I dunno where that disparity is from, but it doesn't change much about my message.
100k people voted in the latest poll in 2016 as archived on the Runescape website.

85k people voted in a 2014 poll directly above the Legacy poll.

Considering that, people who think old players won't jump back into the game, don't have a strong argument.

Being able to more than double their current playerbase is definitely a worthwhile business venture if done right.


The EoC didn't need to happen. This could have been applied to RS2.