Issue Number 10 - Published September 4, 2009

 

Tip.It War Rankings Quick Info

Free To Play:

• F2P #1: Downfall
• F2P #2: Legendz
• F2P #3: Akeldama

Latest Wars:

• Downfall defeats Lost Heaven
  Starting: Clan - 25 Clan - 21
  Ending: Clan - 18 Clan - 0
• True 0wnage defeats Interqueo
  Starting: Clan - 22 Clan - 15
  Ending: Clan - 17 Clan - 0

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In the Clan Board

Tip.it vs RSC

Best/Worst Clan Name

Starting a new clan? What resources do I need?

Official Clan Fight Prediction Topic

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Spotlight On: BlacKnights Clan

By: y_guy_4_life

Tell me a little about the beginnings of BK. How long has BK been around for?

The BlacKnights clan was established in January 2001. It was founded by OsiriS BK and Blade BK. It is the oldest RuneScape only clan still surviving and was started like all clans by friends making a clan. We celebrate BK's birthday every January with a huge conga line all around rs.

Does BK prefer to fight in CWA or Pvp? Why?

Opinion is divided on this. My personal view is that I prefer cwa, I see no point in spending hours and hours returning only to be crashed by other clans or having a 3 hour capped fight where there is usually drama about who actually won. In cwa there is always a result, cheating is reduced. Jagex just needs to make cwa a bit more exciting.

What makes BK special?

There is a saying: "Once a BlacKnight, always a BlacKnight". Many people have been in BK ,some have stayed for years and have never been in any other clan, some have quit but most return. Why? Because of the people here, a clan is only as good as all of its members. Being in BK is a real rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, and we have a lot of fun whether warring, pking or skilling. No one can really identify what it is that keeps people coming back, my view is that it is the unique people we have in the clan.

(We even have a BK baby now, parents met in BK, got married, and had a baby)

Do you feel Jagex provides adequate support for clans? What would you like to see them do to improve?

With the new clan leaders board on rs forums, cwa and the Jagex cup, Jagex are at least trying to do more for clans and taking note of our views. Obviously the number of pvp/bh worlds is ridiculously low, that could be a priority, plus clan chat could be improved, clan id in game...there's always improvements to be made.

What is your opinion of alliances? Does BK have any allies?

My own opinion of alliances is that they dont work that well. I joined BK after BK had left the alliance with The, Gladz and Jagz. A true alliance means people all know everyone in each clan and they do lots of events together to make friendships. When any person in an alliance needs assistance anyone in the alliance should be there to help.

Being on friendly terms with a clan to go out pking together is fine, but that can cause problems as well and is not a true alliance in my opinion.

Your rivalry with the Gladiatorz is one of the clan world's most famous. How did that come about? Is it still current today?

This cannot be a short answer, lol.

In 2005 BK made the biggest decision ever made in the history of BK. Feeling that they needed independence and room to grow without constant clan politics between them and their allies, BK chose to leave the Alliance after four years of loyalty. The majority of the Alliance did not take this well and for a while there was much negativity towards BK for leaving.

BK were active in the wilderness and it was only inevitable that they would come across ex allies and situations would happen where people would get killed. Many Alliance clans decided that BK had backstabbed them, particularly those in the Gladiatorz. ( taken from BK history, not my words).

To make a long story short, war was declared on the Gladiatorz and BK emerged victorious. Accusations of cheating were thrown after the event, and other skirmishes since that time with Gladz have ended in BK winning, causing more accusations. It is still a rivalry today, Gladz have BK blacklisted and refuse to fight us. We were hoping we would be drawn in the Jagex combat cup against them but they were knocked out. My hope is that they will join TWR and fight us again soon. Having said this there are a lot of BK members who are on great terms with a lot of Gladz members and always have been.

What was your best war? The one that stands out above all others?

That has to be BK vs. Gladz in the summer of 2005. Both clans pulled max options so no one know actually how many attended. I had joined in June 2005 and it was my first ever war with bk, it was amazing.

Does your clan war/pk in p2p? If no, why not?

We have groups who do p2p pk and have a team called BK Rebellion who go daily. I am noob pker and I have gone along too, it is all for a bit of fun and excitement, we are not a hard core pk clan and stick mostly to f2p.

Thanks for the interview.

Interview questions answered by Absuseless, BK Leader.

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The history of Warring - RSC Wilderness

By: Punc

Introduction

During first days of RuneScape, the small world had only one place where people could NOT attack each other. Lumbridge, the town of respawning, was the only safe zone for player that had chosen to be Player Killers (PKers). It didn’t take long before someone figured out that PKing was easier if you had friends to assist you, and the first clans were born.

In a world where there was still a 3-round system (a fight lasts a minimum of 3 rounds, in which food cannot be consumed), a lack of high level armours and the option to server-hop without waiting a certain amount of time, the wars were very differently.

Classes didn’t really exists. The use of magic and range attacks had nothing to do with the armour you wore. Wearing full rune, you could still blast or shoot arrows.

Range could only be used when not fighting yourself. You could only range another player when he was walking, or when he was fighting another player.

RSC Wilderness

When the Wilderness was created, people no longer could attack each other everywhere. Clans had to resort to the space in the North. With the same rules still applying, it was easy for one man to dominate a group of players. It all depending on catching skills (catching: when the 3 rounds are over, the players are allowed to separate. The running player can then be “caught” by a bug in the game, allowing the attacking player to restart another 3 rounds of combat.).

In order for a good war, one needed a decent place. The old Wilderness offered 2 such places. The first one was the area near the Great Demon ruins. Most smaller clans used this spot.

The second spot was the prayer altar under the Ice Warriors Mountain. This was used for bigger wars, because it offered a place to defend, and access to prayer renewal.

Rune Rocks were more a place where people PKed, because of the red spiders tying most players up for 3 round, which made it hard to have an actual war.

The biggest problem with, well, basically all wars pre-Clan Wars, was crashing. Random PKers (RPKers) took it upon themselves to use a war as a supply for free rune. The RPKers mostly had high skills in their business, making it hard to actually stop them for most clans.

During wars, leaders were quite useless. They could call dibs on an opponent they wished to fight, but since the Wilderness was purely single, it all depended on who had the best skills in going one-on-one. Teamwork only existed if one clan outnumbered the other. This way they could bring in range and magic attacks, to quicken the defeat of the opponent.

In most wars, the victor was easily determined by the clan that died first. Most wars had a no-returning rule, and the last one standing won the war. At the end of the Classic era however, the no-returning rule became obsolete, and long during wars become more and more popular.

This created a dilemma, was the clan who stayed the longest the winner, or did the clan who took out the most opponent victorious? The public mostly decided. This also explains why ranking lists were more fuelled, since even fights couldn’t always determine who was the strongest.

While numbers had less influence, they still counted. The average clan member base did not count 100 players, and member count of 80 was extremely high.

The major strength lay in the fact that your members had high levels, and were experienced PKers. If you happened to have a large amount of experienced PKers, your clan was almost impossible to take down.

Example:

Runescape Dynasty Versus Malicious Intent

RSD are in purple capes, MI are the ones in blue and black capes. The rest are Random PKers (crashers, RPKers)

This example also demonstrates the point of ‘who won?’. RSD was the last clan standing, but MI took out a lot of their numbers. This led to large amounts of flames between participants, as well as observers.

Part 2 will follow in the September issue.

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Villandra/Slayerbelle/Ellebreyals/Lorica interview

By: Laikrob

When did you start playing RS, and was Villandra your first account?

I started playing in Jan 2004, so I had 3 months of Classic. Yes, Villandra was my first account. I had never played a game like RuneScape before, so I think I got lucky with my account name.

What was your favourite skill back then? And now?

I was very much in love with fletching and I have no idea why. Fletching is probably one of my least favorite skills now. My favorite skill now hands down is slayer. Apparently I can't get enough of it.

Did you ever pk, or did you try to stay out of trouble?

Yes I did. I remember losing my first rune set in classic in Edge dungeon wildy. I was always more interested in skills, though, so pking was never a focus. I was in a few pk clans, but I left the last one in April of 2006, so I haven't been pking in a very long time.

Could you tell us a little about your clan history?

The very first clan I was in I don't even remember the name of it. It was started by someone who I'd randomly met, but he wasn't dedicated to making it work. Back during this time I was truly a noob and hadn't really figured out how most things worked. I hadn't discovered help sites yet and my only information about the social structure came from people on my friend list. I don't know if it was common for everyone back then, or just the noobs, but people seemed to use friend lists as personal information guides and as ways to buy or sell things. I outgrew that phase faster than everyone on my list it seemed, and most of them ended up on my ignore.

The first real clan I was in I'm actually embarrassed to admit. I had a good friend who had made friends with some people in the clan and then joined. He talked me in to joining, even though by this time I was more interested on working on getting 99 fletching. The clan was nMe (version 1), which I'm sure some of you will recognize. It was one of the first “no honor” pk clans. It didn't start out that way, but after I left it developed into being one of the most hated clans of the time. I remember the pk leader called a pk trip, then proceeded to invite random people to come along. Those random people became the targets once we got into multi. I was pretty disgusted and left right after that happened. It self destructed, mostly over arugments on which way it should go, then remade itself as version 2, which was focused on no honor. I was invited to rejoin but said no thanks. I don't know how many versions it had after that, lots, eventually becoming RoT.

The next and last pk clan I was in was the Knights Templar from May-November 2005. The same friend I had followed before joined this clan. It was a merging of Tyler11's and Raimus's clans. It was pretty much created as a DI hate clan lol. I avoided regular pking trips where possible, since I found them extremely boring and time that could have been spent on skilling. I really enjoyed the miniwars and wars though, and it seemed like we had a lot of those. Back then I recognized most people who were over 120 combat and could have told you what clans they were in. I made a lot of very very good friends in KT, but only a few of them are still around.

Then in December of 2005 I was approached by a friend who had co-started a skilling clan called Tranquillity (yes it was spelled wrong). I had never heard of skilling clans before and I was very intrigued. I enjoyed wars, but I did not like the atmosphere and the flaming that existed in the pking clan world, so I thought I'd give it a try. It was a great clan, but it only lasted a few months. One of the leaders quit, so the clan was remade, but that didn't last very long. Then the clan was remade again with a different leader entirely as Serenity.

At this point I was missing the wars, so I decided to try out RSD, which at the time was supposed to be a mix of warring and skilling. About a month after I joined the leader made a policy change making it all pking. I left and joined Serenity in April 2006.

Serenity was some of the best times I had in RS. It was everything a skills clan should be. Great fun and great people. Skills clans still have their dramas like pk clans, but overall the atmosphere is nicer and friendlier. Serenity was very active in warring as well, but with skill wars. If you've never been in one, I can see how the idea of a skill war would seem very strange. They're actually very intense and require coordination and working together as a clan to win, much like a traditional war. Serenity closed in December 2008 and I didn't rejoin anywhere else.

And then there's The Slayers Guild, or TSG. While it is situationally ambiguous as to whether it's a clan or a community, I've been registered on the forums for 2+ years and it's a great place for all things slayer and just to hang out. I recommend it to anyone who loves slayer even half as much as I do.

At what point did you start setting impossible goals, both with Villandra and later on other accounts?

I think it just started gradually. When I first started playing I never thought I would be on the front page, or get all 99s, or make crazy noobs, or make billions of gp. All of my experiences just built on each other. I definitely couldn't have jumped right into a project like Ellebreyals. After I got my first 99 on Vill, that made getting other 99s seem more possible. I quickly fell in love with Slayer after it was released. Even though it was almost a full year till I got 99 slayer, I was still the 13th person to get it. No one was training it back then. I realized after that experience that if I could stick to a goal like that then I could get any 99. But slayer had already done its damage. Before I got 99 I was already planning my first noob, Villaninja. I had never made a noob or a pure before, so I really had no clue what I was doing. She started out as a melee 10 def pure. I got 10 def based purely on looks for armor. By the time I realized that mage/range would be lower combat, it was already too late. If I had known better I would have done things differently. I also made some stupid mistakes that resulted in me getting 14 def when I was very close to 85 slayer. I made a lot of mistakes with that account, but the whole experience was essential to my future accounts. Experience is the best teacher, and she was definitely my practice noob.

After that I realized that I should focus on Vill before I made any more noobs. That became the driving force behind me maxing. The day I got 2277 I was already on a new noob, and that was that.

Can you tell us more about your different accounts and what you have achieved on them? (feel free to elaborate, and link and/or copypaste from blogs and such here)

Sure. For most of the time I've been keeping a thread on RSC. I've always been a big fan of keeping data and statistics. A lot of good information is in that thread.

As I said in the previous question, Villaninja was my first noob. The achievement on that was 85 slayer with 76 combat in April 2006.

The next noob I started on was intended to be 99 slayer 1 def at 78 combat. The name of that account isn't public. I got to almost 80 slayer when I switched gears and decided to go for an untrimmed slayer cape. People kept asking me if I was going to do it and I wasn't interested at first. It wasn't until people kept telling me that it wasn't possible that I started looking into it. I had a very good friend who was my math advisor. I doubt I would have tried without his help. So, on Slayerbelle I got the first untrimmed slayer cape on December 22, 2007.

By that time there was already talk of Summoning and if an untrimmed summoning cape would be possible. I did actually create the name Summonbelle, but I ended up using another account, Lorica, for privacy concerns. It gave me about four months of peace before I announced what I was doing. I achieved the first untrimmed summoning cape on August 5, 2008. It was an enjoyable account to make, but I made it mostly out of a feeling of obligation. I just had to have a matched set of capes.

Ellebreyals was born during a conversation two months before I finished Lorica. I always like to have a plan ready for what the next goal is, because that gives me something to look forward to and keep me focused on finishing the current task. A friend asked me what my next goal would be and I didn't have anything decided yet. He recommended getting 99 range with 10 hp, just using cannon. I immediately dismissed the idea as too simple and no challenge. But then I wondered, would it be possible to only cannon slayer? I just couldn't let the idea go. I knew that there are a lot of slayer areas that don't allow cannons, but I also knew that with a very low combat level I wouldn't be assigned those tasks anyway. The only thing I would limited by were burthorpe tasks. When I realized I could eliminate crawling hands and banshees by simply not doing Priest in Peril, it began to look like I could actually do it. I completeled that goal on July 25, 2009, after 346 days of slaying.

All of my accounts built on each other, getting progressively longer and more expensive. Villaninja used about 30k cannonballs. Planning Slayerbelle was fairly daunting, knowing that I'd need to make about 100 mil for the account and use 500k cannonballs. I never made money on Vill just to make money, so it was a completely new thing for me. For Lorica I knew I'd need 300 mil or so. By the time I got to the planning for Ellebreyals and was looking at 1.2 million cannonballs, I didn't even bat an eye. I had everything figured out by then.

What changes in the game have affected you the most?

That's a good question. The game is always changing and you have to learn to adapt. I know a few times I thought changes were the end of things, but they ended up just being a new beginning. I'm not happy with all of the changes, but I don't know anyone who is. I think minigames for xp were a bad move. I remember when Pest Control was released everyone was like, “wow, this is great xp!” And then it didn't take very long before the ramifications set in and then people thought it was the apocalypse. I think PC was a very bad idea. It completely changed the dynamic of the whole social structure and certainly added to the general level of flaming in the community. Before “Pc products” there were “RS2 products” (don't hear that one anymore), and now there's SW products. Soul Wars is a much worse update than PC ever was. I shake my head that Jagex would nerf PC right after release because it was too powerful, then create Soul Wars on purpose, which is even worse.

The Grange Exchange update probably affected me the most. I thought it was the end of my noobs, since I had always made money with rune merching from shops. But once I figured out how to use it, it actually made making noobs even easier. The GE has made things easier for a lot of people. I know we have a lot more 200 mil skills than we would have had without it.

What has been the best part of achieving the goals?

I think the most fun part is coming up with ideas and planning everything out. I love the excitement of connecting with a goal. After all, it's a game, right? It's supposed to be fun and exciting. Even though the end result keeps me going, it's the journey that's most enjoyable. And then when I finally do reach the end, it just feels really good, especially if it was something that didn't come easily. I think it's the same for anyone; the feeling of accomplishing something you set out to do.

Funniest moment(s)?

Hmmm. Well. A lot of the really funny things are situational or inside jokes, so it would be difficult to try to explain. There is a pretty funny story from when I was just starting out. I was playing on an ibook, so I didn't know there was a right click option in game. I couldn't drop anything, so whenever I wanted to get rid of something I either banked it or sold it to the general store. I don't know how I discovered it, but it was like a whole new world opened up.

I've taken pics of a lot of funny conversations I've had with people, but there are just too many to post them all. This one has to be my favorite though. Some people are just argumentative no matter what you do. I admit I enjoyed this one a bit too much.

What are your future plans?

I'm done with RuneScape. I may come back in the future but I really have no idea if I will or not. I haven't talked much publicly about my personal life until recently. I have had a chronic health condition which left me pretty much confined to bed for 4+ years. The doctors couldn't find out what was wrong with me. I'm happy to say we've finally figured it out and I'm well on my way to regaining my health 100%. RuneScape was a great benefit to me during that time, but now it's time for me to do other things.

I had wanted to get 99 summoning on Elle too, and keep skilling. I really have no idea what the future holds. I might return one day and decide to continue on with that account, but I can't see it being anytime soon

Thank you so much for your time. Good luck with real life, and we hope to see you visiting RS on Villandra when the new skill comes out.

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A Reaction to last Issue's DK Interview

By: y_guy_4_life

• Nodari567, Violent Resolution Advisor wrote:
  With DK and VR, they pretty much come at our fights because they've the same enemies such as DF and EOS for example, qho are the only two clans who can compete with VR now days. DK has crashed us as well, but mainly other clans since we don't really bother with Dk. Other clans usually crash them at their fights, or kill them while they're acing, so they strike back. We did have a falling out of sorts with them a few weeks back. We did have a problem with them, I think they crashed us about a month and a half ago when we were fighting Eos, not sure though. For the most part we try to stay neutral with them, so they don't bother us and vice versa. The fact that they crash other clans, well this game was made to have fun, and if crashing is what makes it fun for them, I respect that. Even though they are having fun, at the expense of other people's fun.
  
  They could have just been a normal pking clan but I don't think it would work out well given their past experience.


• Denat555, Shadow Elves Leader wrote:
  It was an interesting interview although pretty biased at some points, but it was to be expected. However, what I really find interesting is how the original DK members are preserving their old clan (i.e. having actual fights), something which I believe is going against the original ZH leaders' plans, and I respect that. Can't say I like how he claims that they play to have fun yet at the same time attempt to ruin the fun of the others, but perhaps I'm fine with the fact that it adds a bit more action rather than having a utopian clan world.


• Kris_1520, Lethality Leader wrote:
  DK, known by all hated by many, not saying that I hate DK. Dk has no surely made quite a few unjust decisions, crashing legendary fights, even small ones trying to make a name for themselves, but that's what makes DK, DK. Whether we like them or not those decisions are what makes DK still a force to be reckoned with.


• 911_Blue, BlacKnights Warlord wrote:
  It's a good article for those who don't know anything about NH and the past over the last couple years with NI before, it's just a new generation. Nothing will change unless Jagex do something to the wilderness again and the same [cabbage] will continue, just with larger numbers. I don't think it's fair that they crash for fun, but there's nothing stopping them, isn't like clan wars where the rules can be made and stopped from happening. It's just annoying to deal with sometimes depending on the AC. I consider DK to be more of a team then a clan.


• Sparze, Violent Resolution Member wrote:
  The Dk Article was nice now people can actually see why Dk does things they do learned few things my self from reading the last part since i'm not Dk any more. Tip it staff did good job on this article it was probably needed so people can actually see for them selfs that Dk is not the only clan that crashes, they been crashed alot to.
  
  I think Dk has what it takes to beat any top 10 + clan, they even fought Se for hour couple of times ? and has beaten trwf,Cr, Tr ,tcl And more in the past . And for your own good Dk is the last clan you want to have on your bad side they just don't care they will stop there war and come crash you.

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Jmod interview

By: Laikrob

(Thanks to Tip.It Clan Discussion and TSG for unknowingly giving ideas for a few of the questions.)

1) Ever since it was released, the Clan Wars arena has offered a safe, reliable method of fighting for clans. Many suggestions have been made, such as allowing bigger fights with the clan chat changes, or making a "Spiders to Greaters" arena, or allowing the pvp drop potential to come into play in dangerous clan wars? Are any of these ideas conceivable? If not, what can you tell us about what Jagex does have planned for warring clans?

As you will have noticed, the drop mechanics on PvP worlds are still being worked on and we want to make sure we are happy with them before we implement them in areas like Clan Wars. That being said, extensions to the Clan Wars arena are certainly possible. - Mod Fetzki

2) Merchanting clans have had a huge impact on the RS economy. Some call this taking advantage of the system, some call it organised scams, some call it price manipulation.... We know that you are aware of the effect of these and have limits on items and price increase/decrease, but do you have any specific plans to further prevent the impact that these clans have?

This is a constant point of discussion within the team and we are considering carefully how to minimise the disruption to the game while guaranteeing a fair trading system. We are carefully tweaking the system and will scrutinise the results. We will keep doing so until we find a solution that satisfies everyone. - Mod Fetzki

3) Can you tell us a bit about the Clan Chat changes? We know that a few of the wanted improvements is to be able to see who kicked who, to have separate clan chat and friends lists and the possibility for other people than the chat owner to ignore people from the clan chat. Will it ever be possible to set public to Clan? With the upcoming possibility of changing our display names, what are the chances of having our clan's name(s) visible aswell?

The sheer volume of information that needs to be stored in Clan Chat for every player means that we need to do major background upgrades before we can extend the functionality as much as we would like to. While we wait for these to be completed (and that might still be some months until completion), we will be looking at a whole barrage of changes that we want to implement. The ones that have been mentioned here are certainly right at the top of the list. - Mod Fetzki

4) Have you ever thought about giving clans the options to create clan forums via the official forums? It would give careful users a safer option to external clan forums, and could allow clans to advertise ingame – especially if tied with clans displayed under RS names.

The Community Management team are really keen to support clans in any way we can. I’m not entirely sure how sub-forums for clans might work exactly, but we’re always open for suggestions and we’ll take this on board. – Mod Hohbein

5) Will there be a Quick Spell option for binding, or similar ingame updates that will be beneficial for warring clans and pkers?

I wouldn’t reject the idea outright but there are no immediate plans to do this. - Mod Fetzki

6) You recently added Faruq's tools for games. While these were appreciated for what they are, at the same time you removed the ability to protect an item in pvp/bh worlds, seemingly without any thought of how clans would be affected by this. This led to many clan members saying that for every good small update, there is a large bad one. What is your opinion of this? And how might this change in the future?

I think we saved PvP with that update. The one-itemers with a godsword had such a distinct advantage over all other forms of combat that PvP threatened to lose its variety. As a ranger, mage or melee warrior without a godsword, you didn’t stand a chance in PvP worlds any more and this is not how we intended PvP to work, and it was confirmed to us very regularly that the 1-itemers were seriously threatening player-versus-player combat. I think the solution now guarantees gameplay for all groups of PKers.

Making unpopular decisions is unfortunately part of running an MMO. What’s important is that the decisions we make are calculated carefully, and really do benefit our players in the long term. - Mod Fetzki

7) Will it ever be possible for players to check their total gameplay hours? (We know that Jmods can look this up.)

Yes, you will! We are currently putting the finishing touches to a system that will enable you to see this total for yourselves, without our JMods having to look it up manually. We are hoping to launch this small but fine feature before the end of the year. - Mod Fetzki

8) We ”know” that chances are that Dragon Crossbows and Dragon Defenders might come out in updates far, far away, but do you have anything in store for the Magic lovers out there? Such as the new spellbook that was hinted about in an interview in April...

There are certainly things that are in store for Magic but the ’big update‘ that has been talked about a lot is still a long time away. Rather than applying another patch to the Magic skill, we want to take a good look at the interaction between melee, Ranged and Magic in the new year, and that will take its time. - Mod Fetzki

9) Will there be further changes to the PvP worlds, as people are still gaining EP doing afk or semi afk activities?

We are carefully monitoring the situation. As always, we don’t want to restrict gameplay more than absolutely necessary - therefore, we think twice before we put any barriers in game that might impact honest players. - Mod Fetzki

10) Some skills have very few new things to do or gain once you reach a higher level, such as Prayer. With the increasing costs of Dragon bones in mind, will you work on filling out these ”gaps” and give people a little more motivation to train past 80ish?

Yes! Prayer is one of the skills that has a lack of rewards in the very high levels and we are working on a Prayer update that will come out this year and will fill some of these gaps. I am really looking forward to your feedback on some of the updates that we have planned for September. - Mod Fetzki

11) Will the Slayer Helm ever work for Ranged/Magic, or do you think there will be an equivalent of this? Maybe a future quest?

I just talked to our Slayer curator about the next Slayer update, and the item he talked about excited me so much that I nearly forgot to mention the Slayer Helm! I am really looking forward to this update, which we hope to see some time this autumn/early winter. We will have to see if the change to the Slayer Helm will be included - the discussion is ongoing :) - Mod Fetzki

12) Why aren't there more pvp worlds? Clans find that often things get very crowded, especially on weekends.

We are keen that players log into PvP worlds and always find someone to fight, therefore we want to keep the number of PvP worlds quite low. I will take your comment on board, though, and we will take a closer look over the next weekend to decide if we need to increase the number of worlds. - Mod Fetzki

13) Do you have any plans on finding solutions to the problems that members face when they become free to play, and their items crowd the bank making it impossible to place new this in it, or when they withdraw a member item by accident they have to carry it until they renew membership?

We certainly are not happy with the current situation and we are planning a fix to this very shortly. - Mod Fetzki

14) Many people loved The Jagex Cup, myself included. It gave the clan world a direct link to Jagex in a tournament form, something that has always been popular amongst clans. However, some people felt that the way it was set up, and the decisions made by Jagex moderators only served to prove how far away from clans Jagex really was. If another Cup is held, what might be done differently? If so, will the next Jagex Cup have better rewards?

The Jagex Cup was a huge learning curve for the Community Management team. It was really the first competition of that size that we’d ever run. While we think it went really well and was an overall success, there were definitely things we’d do differently next time round and we’ll bear our experiences mind for future competitions. – Mod Hohbein

15) Despite Jagex's recent effort to get more involved in the clan community, many clan members and specifically leaders feel that Jagex is still distant and unreachable. Would it be possible to somehow create a shortcut for leaders of big clans (apart from the Clan Leader Forum) to get in contact with Jmods for possible problems that may arise in the future or for general feedback?

Again, clan support is something we’re really interested in doing more of and we’ll bear this feedback in mind. – Mod Hohbein

16) The Clan Leader Forum is a nice initiative from Jagex, but how do you think it can be used in a more constructive way?

The Clan Leader forum was primarily put in place so that clan leaders could talk to one another. This would allow clan leaders to do two important things: network and seek support from people in a similar position, should things not go as smoothly for a clan as it might. It is interesting to see that the more long-term clans are active participants in the forum. Another reason for the Clan Leader Forum was to allow clan leaders to talk directly with us, so we could see what issues they had and how we could support them better. A lot of really good (and important) ideas have come out of the Clan Leader forum, and lots of new friendships have been made. In all honesty, I think that this forum is one of the most constructive forums we have. The change in the attitude of the clan community over the last 12 months is very positive to see. – Mod Mat K

17) The RSOF rant section has a huge amount of posts compared to the section for positive feedback. How does it feel to get such huge amounts of complaints when releasing a new update?

This is not specific to RuneScape. If you talk to people who work in call centres or customer support environments, then you realise that, 99% of the time, feedback means negative feedback. It is just in human nature to be silent when everything is alright and only raise your voice when something isn’t right. Of course we like it when people congratulate us on successful designs, but generally we are looking into improving our updates, so we welcome every piece of constructive feedback we get. The only thing we could live without is the abuse, but we wouldn’t want any criticism to be withheld. - Mod Fetzki

18) Will we be seeing more Jmods at Clan events and generally ingame?

Yes! – Mod Hohbein

19) Over the past year, since MMG was promoted to CEO, the clan world has seen a significant increase in the effort Jagex has put into involving clans and appealing to them. Why did this change happen?

Well, this is something that we should have done much earlier, judging by the positive feedback that both clans and JMods have given concerning the new cooperation. We are just starting to realise how much value it adds to RuneScape when Jagex and the clans work together, so this is certainly a learning experience for us. - Mod Fetzki

20) Do any of the Jmods have legit/private accounts that are member of any of the bigger clans? If so, why are they in a clan?

There are JMods who have been in clans ever since they joined and they didn’t give up on that – and why would they? - Mod Fetzki

21) Many RS players are embarrassed to tell their friends that they play RS. Do Jmods ever lie about where they work to increase their chances with the ladies (or men)?

Ha ha, no, I cannot imagine anyone saying they are a banker with a huge bonus when in reality they are a cool game designer for a massively popular game. :D

But seriously, people who dismiss RuneScape are just not looking deep enough into the game. The freedom of the player to decide what they want to do makes it, in my mind, the most involved MMO out there, but this is something that takes time to discover. - Mod Fetzki

22) Last, but not least (since it was a popular question in the Tip.It interview): What was the most expensive thing you have ever broken, RuneScape wise?

My computer – it made a cracking sound and started to smell like fish. Knew I shouldn’t have fed it that Tuna. :( - Mod Hohbein

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Tempted Killers closing

By: Laikrob

One of the most active clans on TWR and Tip.It has closed. At the point of their closing they held the #1 spot on the Tip.It War Rankings, and it came as a shock to most that two of their leaders Soulja Melle and Viking Ship stepped down due to problems outside of Runescape. It was the clan everyone loved to hate, and although other clans will fight for #1 on both TWR and Most Hated, TK will not be forgotten.

Ending list

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Team Power Rangers downed

By: Laikrob

Now unless you are resident to Tip.It, you're thinking ”What? Who?!?” Even if you are, you might be oblivious. This team started as a fun thing on IRC in #clans with some of the regulars, and they had a few fun wars. After posting some war topics they suddenly became more popular, and got their own IRC channel and more members. Unfortunately bigger egos and more members made to a fun thing turn into serious business, and they closed in the end of August because of the conflict between wanting more wars and too inactive members. The latest rumours say they will resurrect in the beginning of September to fight Team Baby Jebus for one last epic fight.

Ending list

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Sneak Peek

Next month we bring the next part of the guest article by Punc, in addition to another top clan interview.

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Chronicle Credits

Laikrob - Editor and Clan Moderator
tripsis - Chronicle Editor
y_guy_4_life - Chronicle Author
Punc - Guest Author

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