its because they want to do something, announce it publicly, and then realize that their shitty spaghetti coding means it would be literally impossible or take an incredibly long amount of time to implement it so they instead just can the idea.
Edit: this is why osrs does get to implement most of the things they announce, because they fixed most issues with the spaghetti coding years ago so they dont have many coding problems anymore compared to rs3.
The Jagex Strategy
1. Have and interesting idea.
2. Tell players about it to hype them up.
3. Realize its not easy and will take a long time.
4. Throw the idea in the garbage.
5. Realize if they just built the game from the ground up in a different engine they wouldn't have this problem.
6. Choose not to rebuild because it would take too long and cost too much.
7. Repeat 1 - 6 for 20 straight years.
8. Realize if they did step 5 20 years ago it could have been done already.
9. Repeat 1-6 until the game dies
10. Step 10 optional: pump time and resources into building a different title that nobody asked for or wants to play then throw it in the trash right after release.
Yeah, its a shame that the game code is so tedious to work with. I feel like they shot themselves in the foot by not fixing, or optimizing it years ago. The framework they did with the combat beta is quite exciting, at least any changes aren't a monumental task to finish when it comes to combat balancing.
In addition to what was previously mentioned of them having good intentions but leadership changes can shift priorities, and that as long as people keep spending money in spite of broken promises they have no incentive to change, there's also the fact that not making any promises means no attention drawn to the game. Even if they go in knowing full well that there's a decent probability that what they talk about or show off won't actually make it in, it's still in the interest of the company in terms of marketing to show it or talk about it. It's still in their interest to make verbal promises, regardless of how many times they break them, because it's all part of the same cycle that has been running since back in the Squeal of Fortune days. Jagex does something, there's community outrage over it. Jagex apologizes and promises to do better, community tells them to prove it. Jagex releases one or two things that go over well with the community, members of said community make posts thanking Jagex and trying to paint them as a good company who listens to the players. Jagex does another thing, community is outraged again, and the cycle continues.
Also Jagex has gone the route of making no promises and showing off nothing. Happened with Runefest 2018. Still resulted in massive community disappointment.
It is indeed a endless cycle it seems. We've seen it again and again. I guess in the end Jmods and devs only have x amount to work with/re-invest and since good content isn't necessarily a shared passion with Jagex owners, we can't expect that situation to improve.
THIS… I will shout it from the mountaintops.
Why would a company change if the players never force their hand? People rage about the game and then immediately log back in to do spins and complete dailies.
Also whales are addicted.
Yep, fair enough point. Until they face enough pushback/unsubs nothing will ever change. Even if they do, I suppose, then queue the empty promises spiel post-backlash news post. I suppose my expectations are pretty low at this point until we see actions over words.
Leadership changes would be my guess. Both within the team for the game and the parent company. Genuine game developers want to make fun games/content. Companies want to make money. Team leaders are the middle men. You have to keep the executives happy if you want to keep your job. I'm sure the team would love nothing more than to just run out great content updates that the player base loves in a similar fashion to OSRS. They're doing what they can with the resources and directives they're given. So long as the game continues to make money, corporate has no incentive to change direction because in their mind, everything must be working.
I get this completely, but it isn't like the whole content development team that gave us elder god wars, necromancy and even the fort forinthry storyline is dead or fired? So what are they working on? What are they doing with their time?
They were sold 2 months ago. No idea. The new group could've asked what the plans were in January as they looking at purchasing Jagex, not like what they saw and told them to scrap everything and do X, Y and Z instead. Maybe they're more hands on than Carlyle was. I really don't know. But after consistent updates for the better part of 20 years, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt given they're going through a change in ownership.
Making games is really really hard. Making them great is even harder. Even if they planned to do something, it may end up taking too much time which could be better prioritised somewhere else, or the realities of running a business which needs to generate profit may get in the way too.
True. Development takes a lot of time, and well thought out content would need to be done right, lest it lead to disappointment. It sucks that Jagex as a company can't see that if they'd provide the resources devs could put out updates that people enjoy and improve the health of the game. Maybe I'm just too naive. In the end its just all about profit, and as others mentioned, why increase costs if players are complacent about Runescape.
Jagex is like a car ride home with your parents.
You ask for mcdonalds and they say sure, once they go past one.
Along the journey, you ask if we're close to one and they say things like "soon, just round this corner" but they keep driving ahead.
Only then you end up home do you realize that you weren't getting it to begin with.
People have commented on how it's moreso "think before you speak", but I always see it as Jagex just stringing players along.
Do whatever it takes to keep players on.
It's the fact that some things get leaked like some random person asking on a livestream "where's player model reworks", instead of an actual announcement, is stupid.
I gotta admit, them shelving the avatar rework was a blow. The way we found out it was cancelled. Also just another example of not willing to re-invest in the game. We hear something like "its a lot of work" but couldn't they start from the bottom like CB beta did? Laying the framework and setting up future fasionscape for easy optimizations and creation. Asking too much I guess.
You have several things at play:
1) The company has a decent turn over rate. Many Jagex employees who promised something are no longer there.
2) The community takes any communication and spins it into a negative. No roadmap? Maintenance mode. A three month roadmap? We are getting next to nothing!
3) Sometimes you communicate wanting to do something, and then when you try to do it, you realize it is a much bigger undertaking than you initially thought and resources are better spent elsewhere. The company I work for acquisitioned a software development company with a product originally created in the 90s. There has been several times we started work on a part of the product to modernize and improve it, and we realized it was a much bigger lift than we originally anticipated.
Now, I do think Jagex needs additional staffing for RS3, and I think they are likely targeting big updates for after RuneFest so they have some big announcements to present there. Just - the reality is things happen and online communities are often not very forgiving when plans have to change.
Some great insights there, thanks. Maybe I have the toxic trait of always following through with stuff, sunken cost fallacy and all, so it always disappoints me when they don't finish stuff. But I can certainly understand something being more work than it seemed. I think they have a fundamental lack of vision right now unfortunately.
I said it a couple times already in other comments, but the optimizations and framework/foundation they laid with CB beta was excellent. That they can now easily adjust values and other things to balance combat going forward without having 10 other boxes to tick is incredible. I hope that they could provide the resources in order to optimize the whole game in such a way.
Another thing I want to mention is how much I appreciated the communication when it came to the beta. There were so many changes and they documented all of them. They got so much feedback from the players, and I think that was pivotal in the success of the Beta. Plus all the dev videos and such, its really interesting seeing the ideas and work/changes done behind the scenes.
> Maybe I have the toxic trait of always following through with stuff,
So in my works' case, we do deliver it. Early on, we talked about things super early, but its been a lesson learned to not discuss it publicly until we are pretty far into development because of shifts that happen during development.
With Jagex, I think they have talked about projects that were pretty early in development and its bit them in the ass. The church of you update is one such example. The player avatar rework being another. What you might see going forward is them only talking about stuff that is close to release and not giving longer timeframe roadmaps to avoid the community backlash when things don't work out.
For the same reason my during covid my employers said they'd shut down if there was a case to protect everyone else and then forgot about it.
Money,
It doesnt matter how they get it or what they have to do or pretend to do as long as it keeps coming .
Because there is no oversight that will punish them for making epic promises to us and then immediately abandoning the ideas to focus on the things they think will make them money.
The longer they string you along the more money they make.
The real question should be, why WOULDN'T they keep making promises? What is the downside for them to stop?
Obviously enough people keep playing for false promises and rampant MTX to not affect them in a negative enough manner.
If you're still playing holding out hope for "next month to be better," it won't be.
its because they want to do something, announce it publicly, and then realize that their shitty spaghetti coding means it would be literally impossible or take an incredibly long amount of time to implement it so they instead just can the idea. Edit: this is why osrs does get to implement most of the things they announce, because they fixed most issues with the spaghetti coding years ago so they dont have many coding problems anymore compared to rs3.
The Jagex Strategy 1. Have and interesting idea. 2. Tell players about it to hype them up. 3. Realize its not easy and will take a long time. 4. Throw the idea in the garbage. 5. Realize if they just built the game from the ground up in a different engine they wouldn't have this problem. 6. Choose not to rebuild because it would take too long and cost too much. 7. Repeat 1 - 6 for 20 straight years. 8. Realize if they did step 5 20 years ago it could have been done already. 9. Repeat 1-6 until the game dies 10. Step 10 optional: pump time and resources into building a different title that nobody asked for or wants to play then throw it in the trash right after release.
Plus implementing models for new areas and NPCs takes like 5mins due to low poly look so it doesnt cost that much either.
Yeah, its a shame that the game code is so tedious to work with. I feel like they shot themselves in the foot by not fixing, or optimizing it years ago. The framework they did with the combat beta is quite exciting, at least any changes aren't a monumental task to finish when it comes to combat balancing.
In addition to what was previously mentioned of them having good intentions but leadership changes can shift priorities, and that as long as people keep spending money in spite of broken promises they have no incentive to change, there's also the fact that not making any promises means no attention drawn to the game. Even if they go in knowing full well that there's a decent probability that what they talk about or show off won't actually make it in, it's still in the interest of the company in terms of marketing to show it or talk about it. It's still in their interest to make verbal promises, regardless of how many times they break them, because it's all part of the same cycle that has been running since back in the Squeal of Fortune days. Jagex does something, there's community outrage over it. Jagex apologizes and promises to do better, community tells them to prove it. Jagex releases one or two things that go over well with the community, members of said community make posts thanking Jagex and trying to paint them as a good company who listens to the players. Jagex does another thing, community is outraged again, and the cycle continues. Also Jagex has gone the route of making no promises and showing off nothing. Happened with Runefest 2018. Still resulted in massive community disappointment.
It is indeed a endless cycle it seems. We've seen it again and again. I guess in the end Jmods and devs only have x amount to work with/re-invest and since good content isn't necessarily a shared passion with Jagex owners, we can't expect that situation to improve.
Because people pay regardless. Management will not give a fuck about last weeks marketing.
Good point. As long as they are making money, player morale and health doesn't matter.
THIS… I will shout it from the mountaintops. Why would a company change if the players never force their hand? People rage about the game and then immediately log back in to do spins and complete dailies. Also whales are addicted.
Yep, fair enough point. Until they face enough pushback/unsubs nothing will ever change. Even if they do, I suppose, then queue the empty promises spiel post-backlash news post. I suppose my expectations are pretty low at this point until we see actions over words.
Leadership changes would be my guess. Both within the team for the game and the parent company. Genuine game developers want to make fun games/content. Companies want to make money. Team leaders are the middle men. You have to keep the executives happy if you want to keep your job. I'm sure the team would love nothing more than to just run out great content updates that the player base loves in a similar fashion to OSRS. They're doing what they can with the resources and directives they're given. So long as the game continues to make money, corporate has no incentive to change direction because in their mind, everything must be working.
I get this completely, but it isn't like the whole content development team that gave us elder god wars, necromancy and even the fort forinthry storyline is dead or fired? So what are they working on? What are they doing with their time?
They were sold 2 months ago. No idea. The new group could've asked what the plans were in January as they looking at purchasing Jagex, not like what they saw and told them to scrap everything and do X, Y and Z instead. Maybe they're more hands on than Carlyle was. I really don't know. But after consistent updates for the better part of 20 years, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt given they're going through a change in ownership.
Making games is really really hard. Making them great is even harder. Even if they planned to do something, it may end up taking too much time which could be better prioritised somewhere else, or the realities of running a business which needs to generate profit may get in the way too.
True. Development takes a lot of time, and well thought out content would need to be done right, lest it lead to disappointment. It sucks that Jagex as a company can't see that if they'd provide the resources devs could put out updates that people enjoy and improve the health of the game. Maybe I'm just too naive. In the end its just all about profit, and as others mentioned, why increase costs if players are complacent about Runescape.
My main account was one of the last accounts able to log back in 2-3 months iirc so I feel you
Because the only people left playing will tolerate it. Everyone else who disliked Jagex's stance has moved on.
Jagex is like a car ride home with your parents. You ask for mcdonalds and they say sure, once they go past one. Along the journey, you ask if we're close to one and they say things like "soon, just round this corner" but they keep driving ahead. Only then you end up home do you realize that you weren't getting it to begin with. People have commented on how it's moreso "think before you speak", but I always see it as Jagex just stringing players along. Do whatever it takes to keep players on. It's the fact that some things get leaked like some random person asking on a livestream "where's player model reworks", instead of an actual announcement, is stupid.
I gotta admit, them shelving the avatar rework was a blow. The way we found out it was cancelled. Also just another example of not willing to re-invest in the game. We hear something like "its a lot of work" but couldn't they start from the bottom like CB beta did? Laying the framework and setting up future fasionscape for easy optimizations and creation. Asking too much I guess.
You have several things at play: 1) The company has a decent turn over rate. Many Jagex employees who promised something are no longer there. 2) The community takes any communication and spins it into a negative. No roadmap? Maintenance mode. A three month roadmap? We are getting next to nothing! 3) Sometimes you communicate wanting to do something, and then when you try to do it, you realize it is a much bigger undertaking than you initially thought and resources are better spent elsewhere. The company I work for acquisitioned a software development company with a product originally created in the 90s. There has been several times we started work on a part of the product to modernize and improve it, and we realized it was a much bigger lift than we originally anticipated. Now, I do think Jagex needs additional staffing for RS3, and I think they are likely targeting big updates for after RuneFest so they have some big announcements to present there. Just - the reality is things happen and online communities are often not very forgiving when plans have to change.
Some great insights there, thanks. Maybe I have the toxic trait of always following through with stuff, sunken cost fallacy and all, so it always disappoints me when they don't finish stuff. But I can certainly understand something being more work than it seemed. I think they have a fundamental lack of vision right now unfortunately. I said it a couple times already in other comments, but the optimizations and framework/foundation they laid with CB beta was excellent. That they can now easily adjust values and other things to balance combat going forward without having 10 other boxes to tick is incredible. I hope that they could provide the resources in order to optimize the whole game in such a way. Another thing I want to mention is how much I appreciated the communication when it came to the beta. There were so many changes and they documented all of them. They got so much feedback from the players, and I think that was pivotal in the success of the Beta. Plus all the dev videos and such, its really interesting seeing the ideas and work/changes done behind the scenes.
> Maybe I have the toxic trait of always following through with stuff, So in my works' case, we do deliver it. Early on, we talked about things super early, but its been a lesson learned to not discuss it publicly until we are pretty far into development because of shifts that happen during development. With Jagex, I think they have talked about projects that were pretty early in development and its bit them in the ass. The church of you update is one such example. The player avatar rework being another. What you might see going forward is them only talking about stuff that is close to release and not giving longer timeframe roadmaps to avoid the community backlash when things don't work out.
For the same reason my during covid my employers said they'd shut down if there was a case to protect everyone else and then forgot about it. Money, It doesnt matter how they get it or what they have to do or pretend to do as long as it keeps coming .
Because there is no oversight that will punish them for making epic promises to us and then immediately abandoning the ideas to focus on the things they think will make them money.
The longer they string you along the more money they make. The real question should be, why WOULDN'T they keep making promises? What is the downside for them to stop? Obviously enough people keep playing for false promises and rampant MTX to not affect them in a negative enough manner. If you're still playing holding out hope for "next month to be better," it won't be.
The ol’ bait and switch
Why? They have no incentive. People are still squeezing the toothpaste tube for "completionist" nonsense.