Removing the need to RWT
Written by Zheph

Hello everyone, I’m Zheph and welcome to this weeks edition of the MechScape Post.
Throughout this article I will be discussing possible ways Jagex plans to remove the need to Real World Trade in MechScape.

In their interview with Massively at GCD09, Jagex stated that “[MechScape] will have its own mechanics, its own storyline and a planet-based, non-linear game experience unlike anything they’ve [Jagex] tackled before.”

When you look at offline Role Playing Game’s, there’s not really all that much to do. You might run around touching enemies to initiate a battle or have them randomly initiated for you, with the occasional mini-game thrown in here and there. That doesn’t sound all that interesting, but it’s the storyline that makes the game desirable to play. In a way, Massively Multiplayer Online RPG’s are similar to this. There are skills to train, enemies to defeat, and a few quests thrown in here and there; some that progress into deeper, more epic stories, and others that don’t. The problem with MMOG’s is that the quests’ stories aren’t engrossing enough. Often you’ll find people looking up guides on how to complete a quest just for the rewards, not to find out what happens next.

If MechScape was largely story-driven it could use higher quality cut scenes than those used in RuneScape to help drive the story forward bringing the player deeper into it. Then you would start to get some of the characteristics that make offline RPG’s so successful.
So what happens when the story runs out? Well, Jagex has mentioned, “The game centers around the tension among four distinct species, each with their own look, abilities and back stories. Throughout the game, players can choose their alliances, which shape the path of their adventure.” This would lead to players creating multiple accounts to play over each possible story that is available, which would also lead to players trading items over each of their accounts to give themselves an advantage; which is currently against RuneScape’s rule number 8, Multiple logging in, and possibly MechScape’s too.

Of course, even with 4 different races, the story content in MechScape would have to end somewhere. So what to do after that? Jagex has hinted towards “cloning, player-built vehicles and even spaceship building eventually”. It would seem there are at least some forms of crafts in MechScape. Once again, Real World Trading pops its head up. Jagex doesn’t want to see a large group of bots gathering all the materials from a spot to produce a huge quantity of vehicles to sell to players. Since this has been one of the largest problems in RuneScape, it would certainly be a priority for Jagex to get it out of the way in MechScape.
One possible solution is making a player’s vehicle or spaceship their treasured possession, just like a Captain and his ship. Players could gather parts over time, and eventually have the right bits to put together their vehicle. This would be a big achievement in itself, but they wouldn’t stop there. They want to keep getting better parts and perhaps weaponry for their vehicle, and it would be quite an exciting event to get your hands on the best materials for your vehicle.
What I’m saying is that a vehicle would be made from scratch by a player over a long period of time, and can’t just be produced by a group of bots in 10 minutes. While some parts might need to be created by gathering a certain amount of materials, it may not be necessary to level up to get the materials. Instead of the levels, gaining the parts would be the achievement, thus removing the grinding mechanic from MechScape, as Jagex said they would. This, however, isn’t limited to just vehicles or ships. We just don’t know what other types of crafts will be available in MechScape.

Necessities in MechScape may not be in such high demand as RuneScape, such as food or potions. With the graphics being stepped up from RuneScape, and getting a totally new look, there may be a lot more realism in MechScape. When you’re flying around in space, you don’t order a lobster, and you most definitely don’t have a meal while in the center of gunfire. This would lower the demand of the necessities, hopefully with the required materials to make them being widely available and easy to get, removing the need to RWT to gather huge amounts, also resulting in a dramatic reduction of account scamming that takes place. Jagex mentioned MechScape would be planet-based, so hopefully you would be able to get the same materials on each planet.

By now it seems obvious that the features found in Medieval and Fantasy genre games don’t mix well with the sci-fi genre that MechScape is to be. Jagex discovered that the sci-fi MMORPG’s were just Fantasy games set in a futuristic universe, so they identified what mechanics made a good sci-fi game and have created MechScape using most of these to better develop it.
So why aren’t the Fantasy mechanics working with sci-fi? It’s quite simple. The genres are completely different. Fantasy contains a large amount of magic and monsters, and little to no technology. Sci-fi is quite the opposite. It often speculates about what could be or what could have been if science or technology was better, and is generally set in a universe different from our own. It will often include guns, robots, aliens and space travel.
It just doesn’t work to take fantasy and mix it with sci-fi. It’s not as fun to cut down a robot with a sword as it is to cut down a Goblin, just as it isn’t as fun to blow up a Rat as it is to blow up a giant Mech. So rather than running up to something and hacking away at it, you could be leading a team and taking cover while shooting at an oversized robot. Perhaps this is what we’ll see in MechScape. Now wouldn’t that be fun?


It may not be just the story in MechScape that could make the game so appealing. RuneScape’s former content manager, Imre Jele, said, “To be honest, I think instead of real-world trading, games have to be designed in a way they provide enough fun while you are getting somewhere; if I am incapable of providing you with enough fun while you collect that 1000 gold for a steed, then the game is not good enough”. This makes it apparent that Jagex has identified that a fun game is a good game, and obviously that’s what they plan to make MechScape. But with no grinding, what will they do?
They could make a basic, fun style of gameplay, throw it into the story and say “Here’s the game”. But Henrique Olifiers mentioned in his and Geoff Iddison’s interview with Massively at E308 that “[MechScape’s] going to be the next step or two beyond Runescape HD in terms of technology, and a slightly more mature product. Their view is that, as players grow older with the fantasy product, they’re going to want something a little more in-depth, deeper. That said, they don’t feel that players will want to give up the jump-in jump-out portability of a browser-based game.
MechScape will capitalize on that by providing a science fiction world and more complicated gameplay, all via your standard web browser.” While MechScape will be appealing to all sci-fi fans, its complexity may be a bit too much to handle for your average young gamer.

I expect MechScape will feature a new style of never-before-seen gameplay that will be a joy to play. I’m sure many would agree that most MMORPG’s feel like a chore to get onto and play, and that’s not the way games are supposed to be. People set themselves goals, go for achievements, and that’s what drives them to play. They just want to reach a certain level, get good equipment and enjoy what they’ve got; It’s getting to that level that’s the problem. The huge amount of grinding needed to reach such high goals is daunting to some so they turn to Real World Traders as a last resort to do everything for them.
Jagex have surely overcome this problem by making the game so enjoyable to play that players would never consider getting someone else to proceed in the story for them. It would be like giving someone your Playstation or Xbox, a bit of money and saying “Beat this game for me.” You’d never do that. You would be missing out on the experience of playing, which, ultimately, is the point of the game. I’m sure Jagex put their utmost into adding that experience into MechScape.

That concludes this editorial. Thank you for reading and Happy Easter!


MechScape and Community News



New Pliigi Badge:
This week we added a new Pliigi badge! This has been given to users who participated in the Pliigi April Fools event. (read more)

Free-to-play RSOF:
The RuneScape Official Forums are now open to free players who meet the necessary requirements to post. Those who meet these requirements can now post in the "Approved MechScape Discussion Thread".(read more)

Mod MMG and Andrew Answer Questions In Chat:
Mod MMG and Andrew were in Mod MMG's chat this week and answered a few questions pertaining to MechScape. (read more)

ThirdScape and Micro-transactions
This Friday Mod MMG spoke against micro-transactions in MMORPGs. In addition to this, the "Head of MMORPG 2010" position is yet to be filled, putting in question both the future of ThirdScape and the payment model of the future MMORPG. (read more)

Previous Issues:
MechScape Post #5: The Hype Surrounding the Release Date of MechScape
MechScape Post #4: Gerhard’s Influence on MechScape and Jagex
MechScape Post #3: A Great MechScape Flood?
MechScape Post #2: The MechScape Environment and Concepts
MechScape Post #1: MechScape Clan Leadership

Footnotes
Contributors: Brenden, Garanaw, Ren (Content Research Team); mike470, Oscar, Psioptics, Xela, zepherusbane, Zheph (Writing & Editing Team).
Disclaimer: The views expressed by members of staff do not necessarily represent the view of MechScape World.

It would be intresting to have better cut scenes in Mechscape if it is Story Based and I hope that it is, and It is also good to have you gain more expirence as you go along other than you haveing to traing forever.

Great Mechscape Post :):) very good info

I agree. although Runescape's quests were not worth the items and skill. there were mostly focused on the quest points. I hope that Jagex could blance out whatever if they're useing quest points to unlock different routes in the game, or even to different skills like in WoW

You need to do quests to gain access to Herblore and Summoning in RuneScape. I agree, though. Most quests dont have good enough rewards to be worth doing.

Great analysis. I agree that Mechscape will feature mechanics completely different from any that have appeared on the MMORPG stage before.

man, that makes me more excited about it

can't wait...!

Excellent post.
Another way jagex could stop real world gold trading is if they used points that you got off defeating other npc's/players and used these to get better parts for your ship. If these points were intradable, it would stop gold selling altogether as there would not be any gold, or if there was gold, it will have very little use.

I hope there is more cut scenes and not forgetting free players!

Hmm... I think where witnessing history in the gaming industry. I hope we
are anyway

Well Jagex is keeping up the hype, let's just hope they live up to it.

From what I read it seems they're talking about bound items in the sense of you cannot trade them with people / they cannot be used by anyone else.

It might be a long shot but all this talk about questing seems to me that their next take against RWT will be with tons of quests that reward you quantities of materials to reduce botting and RWT. Assuming this is true it will surely reduce both botting and RWT, however I hope they have a secret detail to this since most of the RWT gold/materials are obtained from real people in "gold farming studios", so questing wont really make things difficult, nor will random events, which was the most annoying thing in Runescape.

Great editorial! Makes me want MechScape even more

Interesting views...

They kinda made me re-think what I thought they'd do for the anti-RWT measures.

Hmm, i'm not so sure Jagex's solution to RWT would be that shallow.
There are a few flaws in what you say. If quests just gave huge quantities of materials, it wouldn't really make sense. You wouldn't complete a quest for someone, then he just hands you a tonne of rock in exchange. Secondly, the bots could complete the quests, as well as farming it. It wouldn't remove real world trading at all. If materials are so important that you could get such a high quantity of it, then people would be buying them for real money if they can't afford it in-game.
One other thing is MechScape is going to be completely different from RuneScape. I doubt it will have a similar questing system, but instead just throwing in a heap more and giving huge rewards. Quests aren't easy to make, and with such a huge quantity of them, you'll find they're very shallow in the storyline, and are just there for the sake of it.

"What I’m saying is that a vehicle would be made from scratch by a player over a long period of time, and can’t just be produced by a group of bots in 10 minutes. While some parts might need to be created by gathering a certain amount of materials, it may not be necessary to level up to get the materials. Instead of the levels, gaining the parts would be the achievement, thus removing the grinding mechanic from MechScape, as Jagex said they would. This, however, isn’t limited to just vehicles or ships. We just don’t know what other types of crafts will be available in MechScape."

Really like this idea. (Doesn't Pliigi mean 'augment'?) Seems to me that this would be a good way to develop within the game. Looking at some of the pictures on this site, could it be that you can build onto your own character aswell?

Also...perhaps the 4 races might be a way of stopping RWT? Maybe each race will be dependant upon/linked to one of the others. Something like the combat triangle in RS.

It's true that the majority of people complete a quest for the rewards not a storyline, because without a reward there would not be much point going deeper in a storyline. To say not RWT or scamming wont be heavily involved in this game will mean that it is entirely self-sufficient.. if you want a game like this go to adventure quest worlds >_<

I'm very interested to see how this game pans out. If there is a bulk on items like people have mentioned and no trading then this game probably wont get far... so hmmm

Pliigi can mean the following:
- increase
- multiply
- become
- enhance
- nourish
- grow
- proliferate
- spring
- germinate

Hi there,
Some nice thoughts, quest reward items would eliminate the bots as they can't complete quests; currently questing on Runescape opens up various locations and activities (the Mortton/Burgh De Rott area bank is a good example of this, lots of quests needed there), as well as the skills mentioned a few posts ago. Perhaps more of these types of activities/locations will be essential for Mechscape.
Jagex have stated numerous times that the issue of grinding will be less present in the new MMO, grinding is not fun and is why people pay real money for the items... a 'bound' system (again, mentioned above) could work if it is done well, although thousands of players enjoy trading their items quite legally; hopefully there will still be some form of legal trading. There may not be any form of currency at all, or maybe even a currency based on loyalty... I dunno where this is going (half formed idea).
One final thing, I think there is a spelling mistake:

"While MechScape will be appealing to all sci-fi fans, its complicity may be a bit too much to handle for your average young gamer."

Maybe 'complexity' is a better word... this from thefreedictionary.com:
Complicity: Involvement as an accomplice in a questionable act or a crime.

Although maybe you were talking about the complicity of RWT :)

Kind regards,

Vonie

Oh, thought of one more thing:

I personally don't think Jagex will go down the whole 'multiple races means multiple classes means multiple accounts' route... the classless gaming system seems to be a bit of a company ethos, and the idea of not messing up a build is a strong draw of Runescape over other online games. I could be wrong...

Regards,

Vonie

First of all, please refrain from double posting. Try to edit your second point into your original post.
Second of all, I don't see huge amounts of questing as an answer to real world trading. It's a cheap way to fix it, and wont be all that fun to do. I also see bound items as a bad idea. I don't think having bound items is exactly what Jagex meant by tackling real world trading at a "core design level". And as mentioned in the editorial, Jagex obviously know that if they can't convert progression into fun, then it's not worth having the game (not exactly what was said, but along the same lines).

And thank you for pointing out the error. I did mean complexity. That was an error on my behalf.
Mike or Ren, is it possible that you could edit the OP to fix that error?

Edit: Thank you, whoever did it.

Great job Zheph! I enjoyed the article.

Great article! I could definitely see this happening in an MMORPG and this would be a very original twist on the popular concept of video games. Good job Zheph!

Hopefully, multiple races means multiple characters within the same account, and even lets them interact together. I imagine you'd be able to tell the characters what to do (collecting resources, etc) without having to control them every step of the way, but still letting you take that level of control when you want to. If they have a built-in system to automate your characters' grinding/collection, then that eliminates the reason to have RWIT do it for you.

I decided to leave out the multiple character's per account from the editorial, because there wasn't much to say about it. But if you have more than one character per account, if you're hacked, you lose everything on every character.
Also, I don't think what you say is a good solution to removing RWT by having an in-built automated system. If that's there, then that means when you're actually present on the computer, you have to do it yourself, just repeated material gathering, which is in a way a form of grinding. We don't want to have that in MechScape, and they're going to try and make everything as fun as possible, i'm sure.

Nice. I think the account system will be similar to WoWs where you have one account and you can create multiple characters on that account, so you could have a different character for each race maybe? anyway very interesting read.

Nicely written, you've brought up some interesting points.

Scroll up to see my opinion on multiple characters per account, in case you haven't already read that post.

First off, I believe you mean "GDC 09" not "GCD09" other than that great post!

There are multiple things you can do to ensure that each one is secure regardless of they know the account password. Such as a bank pin on a RuneScape account would be different on all character.

That's true, but it might be a bit difficult to remember bank pins for several accounts, and still, if a person gets possession of your account, they have possession of all your characters. It's up to Jagex what they do/have done.