52 replies to this topic

[J36]

We’re delighted to be able to announce that we’ve finally triumphed in our 2-year legal battle with Impulse Software, the developers of the iBOT RuneScape botting software.

Their statement on their websites sums it up very nicely:

“Farewell,

We (Mark/Eric Snellman t/a Impulse Software) have owned and operated the websites www.rscheata.net, www.impsoft.net and www.oembots.com for several years. We’ve been developing and making money through these websites from botting software called iBOT that works exclusively with RuneScape.

We’ve been involved in a lawsuit with Jagex in the US regarding the legality of this software and our actions for the last two years.

Recently, judgment was entered in Jagex’s favor at Court on every count in the case. We have to pay Jagex a significant sum of money, although we are not allowed to say exactly how much for legal reasons. We are also prevented by injunction from doing a number of things in the future, including developing botting software, helping other people develop or use botting software or talking about Jagex, the lawsuit or RuneScape. If we breach any of the conditions of the injunction (such as by developing new bot software or helping people cheat in RuneScape) we would have to pay Jagex at least $1,000,000.

Throughout the course of this lawsuit, we’ve come to understand the harm that botting does to RuneScape and Jagex. We’d like to apologize to Jagex and to all legitimate RuneScape players for the damage and harm iBOT has done.

In the next few weeks our websites, domains, code and customer details will be passed over to Jagex along with details of all those people who we know have developed scripts for iBOT and sold or re-sold those scripts.

We also won’t be going near Jagex or any Jagex game ever again. In fact, we’re prohibited from playing RuneScape or any other Jagex game ever again as a condition of this case ending.

Shortly, all references to iBOT and Impulse Software will disappear from the internet. We’d encourage all of you who have scripts or iBOT to delete them and certainly not to try and use or develop them. We’ve not been able to fix them anyway following Bot Nuke week, but if you did manage to get them working again, you’d be open to the same claims Jagex has made against us.

Mark and Eric Snellman – trading as Impulse Software”

Obviously, this is a big win for us, but it’s also just one of the latest initiatives in our ongoing offensive to permanently stamp out botting and gold-farming in RuneScape. First and foremost, we’ve remained dedicated to this cause to provide you - our esteemed community - an enduringly great game, and we’ve no intention of stopping here.

We remain committed to our ongoing work to ensure that the successes of Bot Nuke Day are never undone by staying a few steps ahead in the arms race with the remaining bot developers and gold farmers. We’re already well underway with our next generation of anti-botting software called Optimus, which is going to be released shortly, and we’re also currently developing ways to remove the remaining screen-scraper bots from the game. We’ll also be continuing to fight gold-farmers on every front.

The team has been dedicated to eliminating the last of the performance issues experienced by some users since Bot Nuke Day, and we will shortly be releasing an update intended to resolve these problems. We’re also planning further improvements to game accessibility and performance in future updates this year.

Have fun!

Cheers,

Mark Gerhard
CEO & CTO

[Shawol]

In the end, it resulted in a win-win for Jagex.

Edited by Majo1994, 27 January 2012 - 01:48 PM.

[Saxo]

Powerbot is meant to be going back up soon apparantly not sure when though

[Recruit011]

Saxo, on 27 January 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:

Powerbot is meant to be going back up soon apparantly not sure when though

It was meant to be up months ago. Anyone with a brain can see they're calling BS and only trying to retain their user base for money and advertising purposes.

[ToeJam]

This is good news. Part of me felt slightly sorry for the owners of impulse software... for example the court order to not even play jagex games anymore despite having no ability to continue operations after the nuke. Yet. as I thought more about it I decided 'sod that', the revenue damage that they and other bot companies caused was immense and it had such an impact on the reputation of rs.

Really glad that Jagex are starting to get all of the issues turned around and I'm hoping that the added revenue will not just be for the pocket of share holders via dividends but that it's re-invested into the game and future projects.

Edited by ToeJam, 27 January 2012 - 02:27 PM.

[Foop183]

Why is Jagex making it sound like Impulse's software is the prime source of botting? Are they intentionally being ignorant to the other hundreds of botting programs?

[Murdoc]

Dang.

[Recruit011]

ToeJam, on 27 January 2012 - 02:12 PM, said:

I'm hoping that the added revenue will not just be for the pocket of share holders via dividends but that it's re-invested into the game and future projects.

It will only be going into the pockets of shareholders, see the recent announcement of rising membership costs.

Say RuneScape has around 500,000 subscribing members. That's £1,600,000 revenue per month at a subscription cost of £3.20, not taking into account the first rise in membership costs, advertising revenue, jagex store revenue, funorb subscription revenue (and funorb advertising revenue), and higher subscription costs from other methods of subscription.

I remember seeing somewhere that RuneScape cost around £1,000,000 per month to run (couldn't fish out the article I read at the moment. It was an interview I think and the interviewee mentioned the maintenance costs of running RuneScape compared to World of Warcraft). Obviously this may have increased/decreased due to factors such as more efficient technology and increased staff etc.

However so, that leaves £600,000 in profit per month without taking any of the factors I mentioned earlier into account. Now take the rest of the revenues from other revenue streams Jagex receives. You have quite some profit after all of the costs involved. It's capitalism so shareholders have to be happy, i.e. they have to have heavy pockets.

Edited by Recruit011, 27 January 2012 - 02:26 PM.

[Trainer980]

Jagex gets rid of bots after letting them destroy the game and now they decide to raise the price of memberships on people who played the game legitimetly for all these years to make up for the loss revenue from the removal of bots. Jagex should actually make the game better and make membership less to bring more players into the game. This is why Runescape is dumb.

[Obelisk]

Oooooh, Jagex just made a whole ton of money. Now I understand why they had to increase the membership prices. Of course... Silly me.

[CL Trevor]

Trainer980, on 27 January 2012 - 02:45 PM, said:

Jagex gets rid of bots after letting them destroy the game and now they decide to raise the price of memberships on people who played the game legitimetly for all these years to make up for the loss revenue from the removal of bots. Jagex should actually make the game better and make membership less to bring more players into the game. This is why Runescape is dumb.

Trainer has it right once again.

I'd rather pay the original price for RS with bots than the new price without. Let alone added in with the lag... Might as well just bring bots back, we're not gaining anything from all this anyways.

[Tact]

CL Trevor, on 27 January 2012 - 03:35 PM, said:

Trainer980, on 27 January 2012 - 02:45 PM, said:

Jagex gets rid of bots after letting them destroy the game and now they decide to raise the price of memberships on people who played the game legitimetly for all these years to make up for the loss revenue from the removal of bots. Jagex should actually make the game better and make membership less to bring more players into the game. This is why Runescape is dumb.

Trainer has it right once again.

I'd rather pay the original price for RS with bots than the new price without. Let alone added in with the lag... Might as well just bring bots back, we're not gaining anything from all this anyways.

With this kind of attitude I wouldn't be surprised to see people in a few years calling 2010-2011 the Golden Age of Runescape; before Jagex came in and ruined it by killing off bots.

Edited by Tact, 27 January 2012 - 04:01 PM.

[Magick]

If they got as much as I think they got, price of membership should have gone down instead.

Oh well, hooray for bot nuke v2.

[Trainer980]

Tact, on 27 January 2012 - 03:59 PM, said:

CL Trevor, on 27 January 2012 - 03:35 PM, said:

Trainer980, on 27 January 2012 - 02:45 PM, said:

Jagex gets rid of bots after letting them destroy the game and now they decide to raise the price of memberships on people who played the game legitimetly for all these years to make up for the loss revenue from the removal of bots. Jagex should actually make the game better and make membership less to bring more players into the game. This is why Runescape is dumb.

Trainer has it right once again.

I'd rather pay the original price for RS with bots than the new price without. Let alone added in with the lag... Might as well just bring bots back, we're not gaining anything from all this anyways.

With this kind of attitude I wouldn't be surprised to see people in a few years calling 2010-2011 the Golden Age of Runescape; before Jagex came in and ruined it by killing off bots.

Golden age was 6 years ago. You new to the rap game bro?

[Tact]

Trainer980, on 27 January 2012 - 04:14 PM, said:

Tact, on 27 January 2012 - 03:59 PM, said:

CL Trevor, on 27 January 2012 - 03:35 PM, said:

Trainer980, on 27 January 2012 - 02:45 PM, said:

Jagex gets rid of bots after letting them destroy the game and now they decide to raise the price of memberships on people who played the game legitimetly for all these years to make up for the loss revenue from the removal of bots. Jagex should actually make the game better and make membership less to bring more players into the game. This is why Runescape is dumb.

Trainer has it right once again.

I'd rather pay the original price for RS with bots than the new price without. Let alone added in with the lag... Might as well just bring bots back, we're not gaining anything from all this anyways.

With this kind of attitude I wouldn't be surprised to see people in a few years calling 2010-2011 the Golden Age of Runescape; before Jagex came in and ruined it by killing off bots.

Golden age was 6 years ago. You new to the rap game bro?

Sarcasm. Amazing, isn't it?

[CL Trevor]

Tact, on 27 January 2012 - 03:59 PM, said:

CL Trevor, on 27 January 2012 - 03:35 PM, said:

Trainer980, on 27 January 2012 - 02:45 PM, said:

Jagex gets rid of bots after letting them destroy the game and now they decide to raise the price of memberships on people who played the game legitimetly for all these years to make up for the loss revenue from the removal of bots. Jagex should actually make the game better and make membership less to bring more players into the game. This is why Runescape is dumb.

Trainer has it right once again.

I'd rather pay the original price for RS with bots than the new price without. Let alone added in with the lag... Might as well just bring bots back, we're not gaining anything from all this anyways.

With this kind of attitude I wouldn't be surprised to see people in a few years calling 2010-2011 the Golden Age of Runescape; before Jagex came in and ruined it by killing off bots.

I started RS in 2001, my golden age has long passed. At this rate, Jagex won't make it a few years from now.

[Lieutenant Dan]

My god people you really will find ANYTHING to complain about won't you. Yes, prices went up. Yes, there are frame rate issues curently. Let's just forget about JaGEx actually listening for once and getting rid of most of the bots in game, and continuing to follow up on it. Great plan guys. There's a reason 2006 is the "golden age" as you call it, because you were all too young and stupid to complain about everything! How about instead of whining about a whole $2 price hike and instead about JaGEx actually getting rid of the bots for once and making RuneScape better for all. Just a thought.

[zoth01]

Not to put new players aside but...

This is a dream come true for all veterans. I think only people that play runescape for many years truly realize how long we've waited for runescape being back to what it was. We here here when wilderness was removed, when bots start showing up, when free-trade was gone, when everything came back and now we live to see bots completely nuked.

Anyone here can say the game sucks. Personally, I think Runescape never has been so great as it is now. Thank you jagex, you took ages, but you fixed the problem so in return you can take once again my cash once per moth

[Trainer980]

Lieutenant Dan, on 27 January 2012 - 04:39 PM, said:

My god people you really will find ANYTHING to complain about won't you. Yes, prices went up. Yes, there are frame rate issues curently. Let's just forget about JaGEx actually listening for once and getting rid of most of the bots in game, and continuing to follow up on it. Great plan guys. There's a reason 2006 is the "golden age" as you call it, because you were all too young and stupid to complain about everything! How about instead of whining about a whole $2 price hike and instead about JaGEx actually getting rid of the bots for once and making RuneScape better for all. Just a thought.

Yeah call us stupid because we complain about a price hike....

Instead of blindly follow Jagex you should question why should we pay more for no major improvements to the game. They haven't done anything to require us to pay more. If they think they deserve more money for removing bots than that's just stupid. They had to remove bots because it was getting to a point where it seemed like more bots were playing the game than players were. We are already paying them enough so removing bots should have been just another service that we the customers paid for.

If jagex came out with a new skill should we pay more? If jagex came out with a amazing weapon should we pay more? We should be paying less because of how slow they are at bringing new content to the game compared to other game sites.

Edited by Trainer980, 27 January 2012 - 05:04 PM.

[Lieutenant Dan]

Trainer980, on 27 January 2012 - 05:02 PM, said:

Yeah call us stupid because we complain about a price hike....

Instead of blindly follow Jagex you should question why should we pay more for no major improvements to the game. They haven't done anything to require us to pay more. If they think they deserve more money for removing bots than that's just stupid. They had to remove bots because it was getting to a point where it seemed like more bots were playing the game than players were. We are already paying them enough so removing bots should have been just another service that we the customers paid for.

If jagex came out with a new skill should we pay more? If jagex came out with a amazing weapon should we pay more? We should be paying less because of how slow they are at bringing new content to the game compared to other game sites.

I'm not blindly following JaGEx. I can understand a price increase though... Have you seen the economy recently? Prices go up and incomes go down. It's a recipe for disaster and honestly I'm surprised the price didn't go up earlier. And honestly, no one is asking you to pay the increased price. If you're that hellbent against it then nothing is stopping you from unsubscribing. You sit here and complain, complain, complain but if JaGEx is such a terrible company then stop paying them. Walk away.