Mod Mat K adds a response to this thread: (Note: the quoted post is from page 128)
http://services.runescape.com/m=forum/s ... 129,goto,1
I quoted it below within the spoiler.
19-Aug-2011 15:16:24
Last edited on 19-Aug-2011 15:17:07 by Mod Mat K
First of all, thank you for patiently waiting for me to get back to you. I feel that a thread like this is worth a good investment of my time to explain some of the lingering issues.
I think the first thing I need to make sure is that everything I am going to tell is going to be the truth as far as I understand at this time. You need to understand that as an employee of Jagex there are somethings I cannot tell you and if I can't tell you these things I will tell you why. I suppose what I am trying to make clear is that I am going to be honest and that there are no conspiracy theories or hidden agendas.
The second thing you need to understand is that Jagex is a commercial company with shareholders and as such we have to provide a return on their investment. Everyone should be aware that there has been a lot of economic turbulence lately and any company (whether a game developer or supermarket) that isn't financially aware will cease to exist. The Board of Directors have a responsibility to you as customers and us as employees to ensure that the company is financially stable - this is pretty basic economics.
I've been through the thread and picked on general topics to discuss which I hope answers most of your questions. If any questions are left unanswered please ask them again and I will do my best to answer everyone next week.
So, the first subject is the Legitimacy of the wilderness vote. The vote itself was not the only factor in deciding whether the wilderness and free trade was going to return. The initial vote was just there to see if there was interest in it coming back. If there was no interest then we wouldn't have persued it further. However, no one can deny that it caused quite a stir and we looked further into the possibilities.
The referendum itself wasn't the only reason why we made the decision to bring the wild and FT back either. There was a huge amount of discussion and investigation which took place at the same time.
Now, there is some discussion as to work beginning on bringing back the wild before the referendum reached its target. To be honest, I can't tell you whether this was true or not as I wasn't party to that part of the process. However, it wouldn't surprise me if it did happen. It was pretty clear to me as an individual as well as most players that the target would be reached within the time limit set out (I think it was reached in 3 days wasn't it?) so it would make sense to start work on it early if you wanted it completed in a reasonable time frame. This behaviour is certainly not indicitive of some sort of conspiracy.
Ok, so next up is the word 'marketing'. Yes I know, to some people it is a profanity, but it is important. Now, remember in the third paragraph I mentioned about being a commercial company... well this is where marketing fits in. The bottom line is we have to make money. However, making money is not what is important to you and rightly so. What is important to you is what we do with that money. The money we make is ploughed straight back into Jagex so we can get more developers to make content or design systems to take out more bots. As a gamer, I can put up with things like the Katana and Refer a Friend if I know I am going to benefit from this money. Jagex makes money, but you benefit from that money with better games and content.
Now,this takes me on to the next and probably the biggest issue.... bots.
To make it clear, we know there are bots in game and we know you want to get rid of bots. We feel the same as you, as gamers and developers we completely understand why too. Never be in any doubt that Jagex is against bots wholeheartedly. I think the problem here is to with our communication over bots, rather than the bots themselves - I'll get to that in a minute, but first let me dispell some myths.
The biggest myth is that we make money from bots. This isn't true. If we add all the money we spend on wages, developing systems and lost revenue due to bots, we lose money of every single bot in game. So, even if you believe we are in it just for the money, there is no sense in us not doing our best to get rid of them all.
The other belief is that there should be a J-Mod constantly in game finding bots and banning them. This is a great PR stunt, but it is the most inefficient way of us tackling bots. In an hour one J-Mod can ban 100 bots if they are in a very busy location. However, we have other systems we can use which can catch many more. It makes much more sense for our resource to be used in the most efficient way. The same goes for the overall strategy we have too. Defeating RWT companies isn't just about defeating the bots, its about stopping them from trading either by removing websites, taking legal action or any other method which can disrupt their trading.
Just from the list alone you should be able to get a rough idea of the complexity of what we are doing and how many people it must involve. We have teams banning bots, creating systems to help ban bots, creating content to break bots as well as lawyers, copyright specialists and all the teams that back them up. Getting rid of bots is truly a cross Jagex effort.
The question you will now be asking is 'why aren't you telling us what you are doing?' The reason why we are not being vocal about it is because at the moment we can't. There are things going on which mean we have to be very quiet. This won't last forever and when we can talk to you we will. Once we do I think every reasonable person will turn round and say, "Ohhhhhh, that makes sense." We really want to tell you everything, and when we can, we will.
FunOrb - To be honest, there is not much I can say about FunOrb. I am not an expert in it, but I'll happily pass your concerns over.
As for Stellar Dawn, the only thing I can say is that we are not going to release it until we think it is good enough. If this takes another 10 years, then so be it. Let's hope it doesn't take that long. As things stand, it is still on its way.
Next, I want to look at Viper's 7 ways to improve things specifically.
1. Realisation that there are problems
I think we are aware of the problems that you are facing and their priority in your minds. It's not like you guys keep quiet about such things.
2. Apologize
I would much rather move forward than worry about apologising. People will use it as an excuse to attribute blame and to be honest, although some things are difficult, we are doing everything we can to make them better.
3. Improve communication
This is something we are trying to address over the coming months. A lot more focus has been placed upon engaging players within the CM team itself, so you should start seeing the effects of this shortly, if not already.
4. A new CEO
This is something for the board to decide rather than players or staff.
5. don't remove communities due to financial reasons
I can understand what you mean here. However, there is only a certain amount of money available within Jagex and we have to use it efficiently. Equally, one J-Mod cannot offer the support to a group of players which a whole team can, so in all honesty the resource and players are better off not segregated from the wider community.
6. Focus on improving current services before expanding
There has always been several different views on diversification versus consolidation. Within the gaming industry it is quite an interesting discussion to be had. Consolidating what we have and improving upon it makes what you have excellent, however you then run the risk of being left behind the curve as new technologies are developed and new demands are made by the players. So, I don't think it is right to either consolidate or diversify, but to make sure the balance of bothe is correct.
7. Aggressively go after feedback
Actually, this is one thing we have done for a long long time. What we haven't done is respond to this feedback. However, we are looking at getting more feedback to you about your ideas so hopefully this won't be an issue for much longer.
There has been a fair bit of talk about demodding of moderators and one in particular on this thread too. What I will say is that the demodding of moderators is a discussion that we will have with moderators rather than as a public debate. Just be aware that it is easy to jump to conclusions about why individuals have been demodded but it is rare that the general community is in full possession of the facts.
The final point I want to address is that the comment about forum trolls that is being quoted a lot at the moment. I think that it is important to differentiate between people who show their dissatisfaction about updates and those that show their dissatisfaction about EVERY update. We have some people who will rant and rave about every update that we make... without fail, I think we can call those trolls and we can safely give their feedback the consideration it deserves. Those that are persistent about what they don't like or join others in voicing their dissatisfaction when they mean are not trolls and their feedback holds much more credence.
As I said at the beginning, I am bound to have not covered everything you want me to, however post any questions you have and I will do my best to answer as many as possible next week.
Mat.
[Edit] 3 hours
