93 replies to this topic

[ToeJam]

Hello everyone. Sitting with me now I have Mod Pips, Mod Mark & Mod Philip, ready and primed to answer as many of your questions as we can over the next two hours.

Before we start, I wanted to thank everyone for showing their support for Old School RuneScape by registering their votes. I've genuinely been surprised by the incredible passion and support for the return of this service amongst many in the community. The poll page has seen well over 2 million unique visitors already, which is terrific; If only half of those visitors actually voted for Old School Servers rather than the 10% we've seen so far players would have smashed the 750k.

You can see that as of 8:00pm we have over 210,000 votes, this means that I can already confirm we are already working on bringing back the Old School Servers – now we just need to see what level of support you would like us to provide and what the final service fee if any there would to be. Where the vote goes is up to you!

Now for some even bigger news, thanks to a truly herculean effort and much of which is still on-going I want to pledge to open the Old School Servers to all those who have already voted (or intend to do so in the next week before the poll closes) on Friday night! (likely quite late ?). We promised we would give players an option to bring it back and we are following through with that promise. We've literally, been working around the clock to get a version up and running for you. Everyone will start afresh and we are not expecting any roll backs – barring any major technical issues of course.

Remember it's the community that makes a game fun, memorable and truly great, it's not the tech, graphics or environment, so gather your friends and prepare to dust off your old school skills and join the Old School party this Friday.

I very much want to manage expectations, we have pulled out all the stops to do this quickly for you, the service will be rough around the edges, we still have tons of things to do to get it right, but due to the positive response we really wanted to bring this to you as soon as humanly possible. Please can I ask everyone to be tolerant and understanding of any challenges we might face together.

Remember: anyone who registers their vote will get their first month of old school RuneScape for free, regardless of the eventual poll outcome.

And now onto the live Q&A. You can post here, or message us on Facebook or Twitter. We've already tried to answer a handful of the most popular questions below. Over to the guys...

Discuss this here.
Thanks,
Mark Gerhard

You can find the questions and answers here: http://forums.zybez....wers-questions/

[Milktea4me]

Here's to hoping these new servers go off without a hitch

[Amor_De_Rey]

We need those 500k votes

[Caprisun]

Amor_De_Rey, on 20 February 2013 - 02:29 PM, said:

We need those 500k votes

We do. The only thing preventing me from coming back is that additional fee. I used to be f2p only so even the base membership fee is... annoying.

[Kevin♫]

They will not be well used unless they reach an amount that is above 500k. The additional membership fee is going to turn off many players; me included.

[Milktea4me]

Caprisun, on 20 February 2013 - 02:33 PM, said:

Amor_De_Rey, on 20 February 2013 - 02:29 PM, said:

We need those 500k votes

We do. The only thing preventing me from coming back is that additional fee. I used to be f2p only so even the base membership fee is... annoying.

I personally don't mind paying, but I can see where paying for membership on top of a 2007 server fee can put people on edge.

Kevin♫, on 20 February 2013 - 02:35 PM, said:

They will not be well used unless they reach an amount that is above 500k. The additional membership fee is going to turn off many players; me included.

Well used as in how?

[Kaur]

If you are too lazy to read through all the pages, here are the direct links to list all answers:


mmg:
http://services.rune...howuser=Mod�Mmg
pips:
http://services.rune...owuser=Mod�Pips
mark:
http://services.rune...owuser=Mod�Mark
philip:
http://services.rune...user=Mod�Philip
etch:
http://services.rune...owuser=Mod�Etch


...

Edited by Kaur, 20 February 2013 - 02:40 PM.

[K Sully]

FRIDAY!?!?!?!

[Milktea4me]

K Sully, on 20 February 2013 - 02:39 PM, said:

FRIDAY!?!?!?!

I had to sift through everything they said until I came to that part. Wonder why they didn't emphasis that they're releasing this so soon more vigorously.

[Caprisun]

Milktea4me, on 20 February 2013 - 02:36 PM, said:

Caprisun, on 20 February 2013 - 02:33 PM, said:

Amor_De_Rey, on 20 February 2013 - 02:29 PM, said:

We need those 500k votes

We do. The only thing preventing me from coming back is that additional fee. I used to be f2p only so even the base membership fee is... annoying.

I personally don't mind paying, but I can see where paying for membership on top of a 2007 server fee can put people on edge.

Kevin♫, on 20 February 2013 - 02:35 PM, said:

They will not be well used unless they reach an amount that is above 500k. The additional membership fee is going to turn off many players; me included.

Well used as in how?

I assume he means the population on each world will be low.



Anyway, I just did some rough math to see if it is possible, at the current rate of votes, to get to 500,000 before the deadline--and it's not. We are looking at about 9 and a half days if the vote rate is constant. It won't be--I assume it is only going to decrease with, maybe, sporadic spikes in activity.

Damn.

Edited by Caprisun, 20 February 2013 - 02:42 PM.

[soulreaver z]

Quote

20-Feb-2013 19:58:09  Last edited on 20-Feb-2013 20:09:56 by Mod Mark
As far as I am aware the ditch didn’t cause any issues with genuine gameplay… it is only 1 extra click. If you’re a lurer, then boo hiss to you!

*Facepalm*

I better go get some real-life stuff done so that I can play this all weekend.

[Milktea4me]

Caprisun, on 20 February 2013 - 02:41 PM, said:

Anyway, I just did some rough math to see if it were possible at the current rate of votes to get to 500,000 before the deadline--and it's not. We are looking at about 9 and a half days if the rate of votes is constant. It won't be--I assume it is only going to decrease with, maybe, sporadic spikes in activity.

Damn.

Maybe with this announcement  people that have been holding their votes might finally reach a conclusion. Any variable to spike up results right now is more than welcomed in my opinion.

[K Sully]

I have a strong feeling that even if we don't reach 500k votes, the number of people playing old school RS will be so overwhelming that Jagex will HAVE to implement same-cost membership, regular game updates and rares..... well, at least i hope.

[Caprisun]

Milktea4me, on 20 February 2013 - 02:42 PM, said:

Caprisun, on 20 February 2013 - 02:41 PM, said:

Anyway, I just did some rough math to see if it were possible at the current rate of votes to get to 500,000 before the deadline--and it's not. We are looking at about 9 and a half days if the rate of votes is constant. It won't be--I assume it is only going to decrease with, maybe, sporadic spikes in activity.

Damn.

Maybe with this announcement  people that have been holding their votes might finally reach a conclusion. Any variable to spike up results right now is more than welcomed in my opinion.

I just read that the server will be up in two days. So it is pretty likely that players who wouldn't of bought membership to vote will be attracted to buying membership to play. Looking at it that way... 500,000 is not impossible. It's almost likely.

K Sully, on 20 February 2013 - 02:45 PM, said:

I have a strong feeling that even if we don't reach 500k votes, the number of people playing old school RS will be so overwhelming that Jagex will HAVE to implement same-cost membership, regular game updates and rares..... well, at least i hope.

Ehh... that doesn't really make sense from a business perspective. If Jagex has a large amount of people playing the old runescape and paying a premium price, they would only reduce the price if they saw a drastic drop in subscriptions coming into the first month of the additional fee (second month after being released).

Edited by Caprisun, 20 February 2013 - 02:50 PM.

[Milktea4me]

Caprisun, on 20 February 2013 - 02:48 PM, said:

I just read that the server will be up in two days. So it is pretty likely that players who wouldn't of bought membership to vote will be attracted to buying membership to play. Looking at it that way... 500,000 is not impossible. It's almost likely.

I personally doubt it. I would love for it to be free, don't get me wrong, but without Jagex's decision to include F2P votes, it's looking pretty bleak.

[Matchu]

Toejam will be keeping the questions updated over here. Feel free to discuss them there

Matchu

[Caprisun]

Milktea4me, on 20 February 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

Caprisun, on 20 February 2013 - 02:48 PM, said:

I just read that the server will be up in two days. So it is pretty likely that players who wouldn't of bought membership to vote will be attracted to buying membership to play. Looking at it that way... 500,000 is not impossible. It's almost likely.

I personally doubt it. I would love for it to be free, don't get me wrong, but without Jagex's decision to include F2P votes, it's looking pretty bleak.

If my understanding is correct, the servers will be up in two days at the current cost for a single month. This will certainly attract a mass of players who would of otherwise not voted due to being forced to purchase membership with no actual benefits. I guess we will just find out in 8 days--it's going to be close though.

[Lord of Pkay]

Kevin♫, on 20 February 2013 - 02:35 PM, said:

They will not be well used unless they reach an amount that is above 500k. The additional membership fee is going to turn off many players; me included.

Entirely agree.

I also feel F2p is crucial in establishing a stronger community and more resources.  

I don't think many people realise the magnitude of starting again.

This isn't Classic to RS2; there were already established players at that time.  This is the equivalent of starting a new game for the first time.  EVERYONE is level 3, with no money and no levels.  The problem I forsee is the fact that everything will be in short supply, and no one will have any money to purchase those items.  I'm pretty sure a lot of people would love to play their old account and just go to the wilderness or mage bank and Pk, not grind their stats back up.  Hell, you're going to even have to do ALL the quests again.  Cook's Assistant, The Restless Ghost and even Fishing Contest just to be able to walk through White Wolf Mountain.  

I'm pumped to see thousands of people on Tutorial island, but I question how long the hype will last.

[iMagiaErebea]

Kevin♫, on 20 February 2013 - 02:35 PM, said:

They will not be well used unless they reach an amount that is above 500k. The additional membership fee is going to turn off many players; me included.

Agreed. Personally, I'm willing to pay $13/month, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be happy about it. Will NOT pay anymore than that, though.

[Zpoon]

They had the servers ready to go before they announced the poll. They knew full well.