---

Quoted directly from Runescape.com:

You will be aware, from newsposts and this week's Development Diary, of real-world trading and the danger it poses to RuneScape. To solve this once and for all, we are tweaking what happens when you drop items, updating the trade system to warn you about unbalanced trades and planning a final adjustment to the trading system, in the first week of January.

We strongly advise you to read this week's Development Diary before this newspost, so that you can fully understand why we have made these vitally important changes.

Unbalanced Trade:


To remove real-world trading from RuneScape, we must stop the gold sellers' ability to function. We believe that the best and only way to do this will be to stop unbalanced trade.

We consider an unbalanced trade to be one that is not equivalent, with a trader receiving items that are much more valuable than those they are giving away. For example, a party hat traded for a bucket is quite obviously an unbalanced trade.

For a trade to be 'balanced', the total value of the items being given must be within 3,000gp of the items being received. For example you WOULD be allowed to trade an item worth 15,000gp for an item worth 17,000gp (because the DIFFERENCE is less than 3,000gp). You will be limited to a 3,000gp gain or loss every 15 minutes.

We are aware that many of you will want to prepare for this change. So, initially, we are just going to make the trade system WARN about unbalanced trades, but it will still allow the trade to go through. This seriously reduces any opportunities for scamming, but still gives you a chance to get used to how it works, organise your items, hand back borrowed stuff, and give Christmas presents. Then, in the first week of January, we will change it to simply not allow unbalanced trades outside of the 3,000gp limit. We will be reminding you when the January date approaches, so that you can be best prepared.

For certain categories of account (mostly new accounts) we are actually implementing the trade restriction immediately. This allows us to stop a large chunk of the cheating immediately, since most of the real-world traders are using new accounts due to their previous ones being banned. For the vast majority of players, the trade restriction will come into effect in the first week of January.

We'd like to reassure you that we plan to keep a thriving player-trading economy. We are certainly NOT planning to remove trading from the game! It's only very unbalanced trades which will be affected. You won't be forced to use the Grand Exchange to trade either, although that will remain a superb means of buying or selling any of your items.

The 3,000gp rule means that you can still help each other out by offering cheaper items for free. We are certainly not going to stop you giving a Fishing rod or an antipoison potion to those who need it or, indeed, offering inflated amounts for items you want in a hurry, within the 3,000gp limit.

This shouldn't overly affect legitimate players, as the aim is to make sure there is no reason to NEED to do an unbalanced trade (more on how we have tried to ensure this below). It stops the real-world traders dead, as there is no way they can make delivery of purchased gold/items any more. Our aim is to make gold-selling so difficult that gold sellers and farmers are forced to leave RuneScape forever.

For more information on unbalanced trade, please read the Knowledge Base article.

Covert Trades:

Any real-world trader will respond to the removal of unbalanced trade by investigating ways round it. They will be looking for alternative ways to transfer gold other than trading. We are one step ahead, however, and have already researched every possible means for them to do so and amended them over the past few months.

We have previously adjusted the Duel Arena, Party Room, shops, etc. to prevent them being used to covertly transfer purchased gold.

One way of covertly transferring gold has not been mentioned yet, and we have addressed it this month. By dropping an item - through death or just discarding it - a real-world trader was able to make an unbalanced trade.

For the removal of unbalanced trade to be successful we must, therefore, change the way that player-dropped items work.

Discarded Item Changes

One way to fix it would be to make all discarded items invisible to other players. After all, a real-world trader would find it difficult to offer another player a stack of gold if their customer could not see it, let alone pick it up!

We've not gone quite that far. Instead, we have decided to just limit the visible amount. When you discard items by dropping them on the floor, they will only become visible to other players if their market value is less than 3,000 coins. Items with a market value less than this will become visible to other players after a delay (like before) - unless you've already reached your limit of 3,000 coins worth of items on the floor in a 15 minute period. This doesn't prevent you from discarding unwanted items or picking them up again; the change only restricts the ability of other players to see your discarded stuff.

There are no restrictions to how many items you can drop and how many of them are visible to you - this is only a change to the way your discarded items appear to other players.

Items Dropped on Death Changes

For the same reasons as mentioned above, we have made changes to how items are dropped on death.

When you die, (unless in the Bounty Hunter area - more on this later), you will leave a temporary gravestone behind. While the gravestone remains, your dropped items will not despawn, giving you a bit of time to run back and collect them. Other players will not be able to see or take items from your gravestone.

Your friends can make your gravestone remain for longer, either by repairing it when it starts to crumble or by expending Prayer points to bless it. Your stone can be maintained this way for up to a maximum of an hour. This will give you more time to return and pick up from where you left off.

Please read the Knowledge Base article to find out more about gravestones and how to purchase a variety of gravestone types.

Previous Updates:

As mentioned before, we have already released several updates that have paved the way for this change. We've tried really, really hard to make sure that for everything affected by this week's changes, we have provided a replacement means of doing the same thing, which is at least as good.

On the left-hand side of the table below, you can see those activities that have been affected by this week's updates. On the right, we show those recent updates that allow you to continue performing that activity.

Popular activity :: New way of performing activity

Helping other players train their skills :: Assist System
Fighting other players to win their drops :: Bounty Hunter
Fighting other players to win money :: Duel tournaments
Fighting other players for fun and glory :: Duel Arena is now free, and also Clan Wars
Trading items with other players :: Balanced trades OR the Grand Exchange
Keeping an economy where the player determines the prices (based on supply and demand) :: Grand Exchange
Looking after the items of a friend who has died :: Gravestones
Sharing monster drops when fighting together :: LootShare
Having enough room to store stuff, instead of getting your friend to hold it for you :: Extra bank space
Hosting drop parties :: Using the party room which we moved to the free world for this purpose



If there's anything you think that we've missed then please let us know on the Suggestions forum. We are confident we can stop the cheaters AND still create all of the types of gameplay you enjoy. It just requires a bit of creative thinking!



Dominion's first reaction:

God **** you JaGeX! When and where we host drop parties is none of your concern. We don't have to use the Party Pete's house, which only adds to the beggers once all bankers and guards of all cities spam "there is a drop in progress."



So, you can give an unbalanced trade at Party Pete's house, but just not directly, because somehow killing off the idea of a cooperative game for the sake of stopping autoers, is far greater than giving the ability to help smith items for new users, because most of us don't level the smithing skill for items we ourselves will be using.

Plain and simple, JaGeX are morons. And if you care to support the riot cause of Edgeville 66, our clan channel is J8GeX Blows.

In other news

If you wish to attend the last holiday drop and costume contest of Runescape, go here. All users found guilty of announcing this event anywhere but at our forums, shall be immediately banned from our forums, without due process. This is our final holiday drop, our first NGoR-only drop, and the last for RuneScape. Let's make it count for much more, than our final strike against JaGeX for player-hosted events!

And if you wish to donate (your last chance ever for that) toward this event, or the future success of our events, all donations can be sent here. To view the currently donated items, go here.

Showing Your True Colors

If you feel that this update is bad or good, you can post a response to this thread (as always). Freedom of speech is something we grant, that all others groups attempt to oppress. Yet, remember the limitations of such, to not filter avoid. Should you happen to locate a new word that has yet to be filtered by us, remove the word using the "edit" button, and inbox a member of the NG Staff to update the word filter system. Thanks.


The Memory Lives On

Let us never forget, that which JaGeX has ended with the recent news, and update to arrive January 2008.

---

Those gravestones are a bit plain. Can I upgrade mine?

Of course! To change your gravestone, though, you'll first need to complete The Restless Ghost. If you've done that, you can speak to Father Aereck in Lumbridge Church and offer a small donation to one of his charities for the following options; the more expensive gravestones will protect your items for longer before needing to be repaired, as you can see in the 'Duration' column.

Note that the type of gravestone you have will not increase the length of time repairing or blessing it holds it in place.

Style: Memorial Plaque
Requirement: -
Duration: 2 minutes

Style: Flag
Requirement: 50 coins
Duration: 2 minutes

Style: Small Gravestone
Requirement: 500 coins
Duration: 3 minutes

Style: Ornate Gravestone
Requirement: 5,000 coins
Duration: 3 minutes

Members who have also completed The Giant Dwarf can speak to Blasidar the sculptor in Keldagrim to get access to a greater range of gravestones, as well as the basic memorial plaque. Blasidar's house can be found just east of the Consortium Palace.

Style: Memorial Plaque
Req: -
Duration: 2 minutes

Style: Font of Life
Requirements: 50,000 coins
Duration: 4 minutes

Style: Stele
Requirement: 50,000 coins
Duration: 4 minutes

Style: Symbol of Saradomin
Requirement: 50,000 coins
Duration: 4 minutes

Style: Symbol of Zamorak
Requirement: 50,000 coins
Duration: 4 minutes

Style: Symbol of Guthix
Requirement: 50,000 coins
Duration: 4 minutes

Style: Symbol of Bandos
Requirement: Land of the Goblins, 50,000 coins
Duration: 4 minutes

Style: Symbol of Armadyl
Requirement: Temple of Ikov, 50,000 coins
Duration: 4 minutes

Style: Ancient Symbol
Requirement: Desert Treasure, 50,000 coins
Duration: 4 minutes


Style: Angel of Death
Requirement: 500,000 coins
Duration: 5 minutes

**** YOU BASTERDS!!! all you ****ing do is ruin the game for us! leave it the **** alone!!!!

i actually thought this month updates were going to cool but no you set us up for disapiontment and bend us over and spank our ***** and call us retards! im sick of it! go to hell JAGEX!!!

Your ****ing kidding me... so no1 can donate to erik for the drops anymore because the trades will be unbalanced!!!.. what a bunch of ****s... why cant they just leave **** be!!

........ typical socialist mindset
Punish everyone to catch the rulebreakers??
I'd rather deal w/consequences of having the rulebreakers go unpunished than be put in a straight jacket myself!
This kinda thinking is nothing but ****ed up!!!

:omg: noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs noobs

grrrrrrrr i hate them losers!!!!!!!!!! well hmm yea grrrrrr!!!!!!! (shows angry face)

they better change this update else rs is ****ed up lol jages gonna b a ded ***

everyone we need to riot!!!!! we need to make jagex xhange it back....NOW!!!

is it me or has everyone of them post got a bad word in o.O

now this is mine without a bad word in there cause i was brought up proper ;)

you morons...

Aj321Walker1: Proper when we aren't devoting our lives to a game that is killing itself off.

I served my first 5 online years leading clan MF-D for the game Diablo II. At that time, the new version of the game released over 250 new items, which led to the instant fall of the market values.

Where I am, exact same bull ****, where I lead for NGoR in the game RuneScape, 5 years straight, and they decide to purposely kill the game off, not just the market, or content with killing out the fame, they completely rid of all that made this the greatest cooperative MMORPG there was.

So yeah, and now we are all seeking a new game to call our home, unless JaGeX wises up, and corrects their wrongs.

This is crud. But, everyone.. Enough Cussing. Next person who goes out of line will be getting reported.

ye i logged on today to find out jagex drops to a new low...we all get punished because sum stupid macroers...thats like punishing a town because a few people spray painted a wall...thats just rediculous...we cant stand for this..Jagex is starting to do everything wrong...First they remove holiday events from being tadeable...then they remove ngor mansion for a stupid balloon party house i never even go near..now they r removing drops..wtf is the point of playing now...ive stuck through jagex's mistakes before but this is just mind boggling, ive quit rs before but the fact that this game was so much based on other people is what got me to like it and come back to play it,diablo and stuff u run around and kill theres no fun of just hanging having relationships and being nice and sharing...now runescape is the same...plus i made my money by selling addy ores cheap 900-1k each..how the hell can i make fast cash now with this stupid 3k trade garbage..i swear jagex sold out to a six year old..or to some one with the mind of a six year old..if they dont change this..and change it fast im gonna leave the game and never come back and im geussing many others will too..id rather the unfair balance of those macroes running around then lose the ability to share..im lvl 76 with 59 smithing and 76 mining...wtf do i need my smithing level for now...i dont need mith items...now when i try to help low levels thers nothing to do about it..well i geuss jagex would rather lose good players then keep its society happy....
plus with all this going on new players wont stick around much longer if they cant get helped they will be confused and give up on this incredibly good game pretty quick...this is like jagex's way of killing itself off...but they dont seem to see 3 feet past theyre face to realize this..

Lol @ Update.

Well, Liam, stars are just stars. The filter is doing its job.

Here is what I tired several times to post on the RS Rants Forum but it keeps being deleted. Perhaps someone could tell me why, other than to make it look like ppl agree with the update, did they delete this post???:
"Jagex, I understand that u are trying to snuff out the scammers and real world traders here, but this "cure" is much worse than the "disease."
I have worked hard to build my skills, all 60 and up atm, and I firmly believe I should be able to enjoy dispersing these as I see fit.
Here are just a few examples of the impending devastation:
* I often help out players by giving them stuff and 3k is nothing to me.
* Sometimes I get stuff from treasure trails, i.e. compound bows, guthix pages or Bob shirts, that I would rather get some money from that have to store it in my bank. It should be my choice if I am willing to take less for an item in exchange for selling it quickly. Time is money and some stuff just doesnt sell well.
* I want to be able to take friends to my house and throw a drop party with rune armor or w/e I choose to drop, to celebrate their lvl 99 skill accomplishment.
* I love my friends and if I want to give a friend a black cav, that should be my choice.
* I have friends who dont farm who wish to give me their seeds rather than sell them.
* If my friend is doing a quest and I want to give him/her admiral pies or sharks or armor to help him finish the quest....that should be my choice.
* Irl, children sometimes have bad experiences. Does that mean parents should lock them up in order to "protect" them and poke their food through a small opening?? No!
* On Runescape, ppl will have bad experiences, they learn from them and move on. But if you try to keep us "safe" by taking away our freedom to make choices as to how we spend our resources, you have effectively "put us all in jail along with the criminals."
I appreciate that you are trying to protect me in the game. Monitor the uneven trades if you wish, but please do not eliminate them!!!!!!"

Anyone up for WoW? Jk. Jagex, gtfo plz.

Happy anniversary dear heres 3k

Happy bday heres 3k

Ill help u finish that quest heres 3k towards u buying a set of rune to fight the dragon...

Whats next..removing chat all together to get rid off all the rule 1 breakers?

Wow, officially the most AMAZINGLY RETARDED THING JAGEX HAS EVER DONE.

Teir: I made that exact comment at Catherby_9. The game is too much work for the millions JaGeX gets monthly, they don't get paid enough money to do their job, so they end all forms of rule violation, so the game runs itself, and they can sit back and get paid for nothing, just letting under-aged player moderators work for the company, unpaid for life.

Welcome to RuneScape. Leave your understanding of what is fun or cooperative, at the door.

By the way, J8gex Blows posted support of over 50 rants so far, and I have yet to have a single rule offense against my account name. I suppose they accept the truth, as all.

TaxGaming: Hey, I see you reading this thread. :P Post your hate/support so we know where everyone stand on this update.

In other news

If you wish to attend the last holiday drop and costume contest of Runescape, go here. All users found guilty of announcing this event anywhere but at our forums, shall be immediately banned from our forums, without due process. This is our final holiday drop, our first NGoR-only drop, and the last for RuneScape. Let's make it count for much more, than our final strike against JaGeX for player-hosted events!

And if you wish to donate (your last chance ever for that) toward this event, or the future success of our events, all donations can be sent here. To view the currently donated items, go here.

LOL @ Dom :rofl:

No excuses. Terrible update. I won't be leaving because I don't PK and the trading thing isn't game threatening but still, such a bad update.

Removing real world traders and macroers is brilliant, but this is just to bigger price to pay.

I think Jagex will lose 50,000 - 80,000 of the member player base (theres just over 1 million at the moment).

TaxGaming: Thanks for the support. I hope this is all just a big joke to mess with us until they remove the changes and tell us, "Ha! Merry Christmas!"

I just added all links to every holiday we ever did, to perhaps persuade more supports against JaGeX, for the National Guard of Runescape, in this matter. ;)

I hated when they tried to end all automation by making my free world Varrock east essence into two types, pure and rune. I mined a total of 6 months on NGoR32 and stopped at level 57 mining due to how they discriminated against free users like that, as I started work back on my pure (until I ruined it off Imp Catcher) NGoR36.

But yeah, through all of these updates, this could quite possibly top the one on forcing automated values on every item, where merchanting is no longer a forum of money, player killing is no longer a form of money, staking in duels is no longer a source of pay, and the only thing left is being either a skiller or autoer, selling all at the Grand Exchange.

I just want to hang out until January 2008, to see if [i]JaGeX[/i[ is just posting this fake news to avoid adding new items, and keep the focus on the fall of [i]RS[/b], rather than "Where are my holiday items?"

Tell you now mate, I can promise you a few things:

This isn't a joke and it won't change. This has come from the Gower brothers themselves or heads of content.

People have two options, sadly: Get use to it or quit.

TaxGaming: But we had to endure the stupidity of changes all throughout the years, starting in August 2005 with the change of Rule 11 to ban every website except RuneHQ and TipIt. The mass filter of non-offensive words in April 2006. The ban on SwiftSwitch of January 2007 (later taken back by Mod Andrew through a public apology to Strider3282 in RS News). October 2007 with the forced prices on all items sold/bought in the game. And January 2008, now they want to end all trades except at the values JaGeX pre-determines for us all? And somehow Mod Andrew Gower is behind it?!

I thought that ever since Andrew Gower left the mass new JMods in charge of the game, that is what led to the decline of quality of updates, starting in 2005. And you claim it was his work that killed the game off completely, at long last?



And, just to think, I assumed Mod Alan's response to my last report meant I had a shot of ever being a player moderator. All he meant was I would never have to bother reporting autoers on every free server, due to them turning off the trades feature for donations or loans.

And Erik sorry to say we cant have a last ngor drop party i just tried dropping normal drag vambraces to my range pker and they didnt show up....so we cant even do the last drop party if u want u can try with any item over 3k or even just drop 3001gp and switch accs n wait it wont show up..

what we cant do holiday drop!!!!!!!
thats so....GRRRRR :angry: :wtf:
what are we ganna do?
just hand out stuff?!?!!?
JAGEX GRRRR negitive 100 kudos for u!

:( Must........find.......a........Happy Place!!!!!!!!!!!

rnescape is usually my happyplace but since yesterday it aint :(

Looks like NGoR46 has become a very rich player! due to the assanine rule of JAG(OFF)EX. I am not a longtime player and have been somewhat supportive of the changes...always looking for the good instead of the bad....since I started; but this is one update in which I can not support. I do not understand the philosophy from Jagex to not allow players to give gifts and promote comraderie within the game. Players are not even able to reward others for the accomplishments for which they have achieved? There can be no celebration amongst friends for any type of achievement....unless every1 wants to drop 3k in items or gp (wow ,what a waste!) to celebrate. No fun!!!!!! Yes I purposely used bold as I wanted to show that I am angry with this update. I am not a pk'er so that has no effect on me and I'm not pure either so I guess I'll have to watch and see if Jagex decides that the loss of income from this update will justify recinding the 3k limit rule. I will seriously consider cancelling my membership if they continue with this update; to show support to the players who are being unjustifiably punished for the greedy in the world.

Another failing update. I think Jagex wants us to play WoW.

Finaly kire you can get your full D and guthans. Noob. :P

can't we do it at the party room still?



does this mean i get my 3mil donation back..? :zelda:

If we use the party room...all will be announced throughout the world in which the drop is held. If they announce everywhere there is a banker the value of the items and hold the drop for "x" minutes based on the amount of the value...for our value it would be a long wait and everyone in that world would turn uop for the drop! And there would be nothing we could do about it. As for your 3 mil....yeah u can get it back (if erik so decides) 3k at a time for 15 minutes then u have to wait a period of time till you can continue.

This is ****ing ********, if they really go through with that I will quit..

Oh, stop crying, they're only trying to stop people making money off their game.. Any business would do the same.

Would you prefer having all gathering skills nerfed into oblivion, with all level 99 gathered items cost 10g each, or simply have to make your money without "xfer"ing?

HamtaroRox: As you mention, Rule 8 is "xfer" -ing, and as such, donating is nothing of the likeness. We simply enjoy our right to have our own private holiday, and to promote a reason for kids to play their game, without fear of jerks and morons spaming our holidays and stealing our items, which are ours to begin with, from donations and earned by myself as well.

Though Party Pete's offers a sort of drop, not as good as the ones we host, it also spams all of the server banks and guards, to notify all users that in 8 minutes, there shall be 5 million in items dropped for all to grab.

To this end, we require our freedom of events. And it isn't anyone to blame, just time for us to wait until the game is reverted back, after all automation is rid of.

---

Thanks to CrashM100, for the following truth behind the recent failures and strictness of game. The images were referenced by another filtered fan website, Zybez. Also, this news is made mention by RuneScape Community, and now here at The National Guard of Runescape. Get informed, not gossiped! The time of change is now, the end of automation/macro is now! Enjoy it while it lasts, for it shall be short lived...

The original thread at RSC, posted thanks to Ghjjf, can be found here.

---

The true solution to this problem of rule offenses and automation, is to limit 1 account per IP address, per 30 days. If the payments are set to a monthly schedule, there should be as easy a way for them to change the maximum 6 accounts every 15 minutes, to a maximum 1 account every 30 or 31 days, just so those banned have no way of violation again twice the same month.

And THAT will end the majority of automation.

If Jagex doesnt fix this soon I will be quitting and going to Guild Wars or some other game

I actually love that I know soon enough, no one can ever beg me for free **** again! Too bad it is only temporary. I finally started to accept my fate for our game. But with recent news it is just a temporary solution to an ever-present threat to the security of market values of our game, and won't last, it makes me wonder if I should work on 99 for all of the stats such as woodcut, runecraft, and mining, before the kids are back to auto that, and the noobs are back to PK abyss RC runners.

Make the best of our short-lived victory over a world of hate and crime.

Yet, rest assured. The moment that the game is changed back, the world will know. We will have the news posted for all of RS to see.

cool its not pernament

Which is a bad thing, because I won't focus fully on beating the fame of Zezima. But is a good thing, because we will be able to drop in time for the Easter 2008 holiday.

I still can't stop lolling at the Listen up runescape has been saved.

I went to those big riots and the mass log outs yesterday:)

Hey, make some videos of this mass log-outs! We need some hard evidence of the historical events which are RuneScape 2. When RuneScape 3 finally come around, if ever, we can look back on everything we endured during these trying times, and laugh with old veterans. It shall become a monument to all of our past ways, and a lesson for all those new to our world, of exactly how the automation threat was put to an immediate halt, dead stop. As well, all of those non-believers, that this is only temporary, and we shall be given back our rights to trade, stake, gamble -- once the threat of Rule 7 is no more.

unfortunetly i was at school between classes during all this so i didn't get to record it.


i just ahve exams left next week so no more school for me for the semester

To fully appreciate all JaGeX does on a daily basis for us, first you must understand how the brain of Andrew Gower works.



I posted images about it somewhere, Blue Jay 04 announced to me the mass log-out at 8PM, but I was too busy checking around at new clan channels that I got rumor were somewhat similar to that of our own purpose/function, the aid of game knowledge to the gamer world. So far, only 1 has been located, and the member count for 2 days straight when I checked up on it, was a mere 12 users max.

Oh yeah, and I have just added another image to the start of the very first post in this topic. I just love when my opinion matters to some of the gamers. ;)

Yet to some, it matters not.