Hello 'Scapers,
Work to improve the integrity of our beloved game never stops. We want you to have fun and play competitively in an environment that's fair, and governed by mutual respect among players. As part of these efforts, additional measures to counter real world trading (RWT) will be introduced in the coming months.
Gold RWT
Gold purchased through RWT is a problem in any online game featuring a tradeable currency. For the last 20 years, our Anti-Cheating Team has done much to tackle RWT sellers both in and out of the game. However, it's not just the sellers that have an impact on game integrity. Buyers fuel demand - and higher demand means more sellers, more bots to remove and more nefarious activity.
Thanks to a growing team and improved tools, we're now in a position where as well as tackling sellers, we can also begin to clamp down on buyers. In the next few hours we'll be sending out messages to players we've identified as engaging in RWT.
For anyone who has been involved, we want to be clear – this is your one and only warning.
Should any further RWT activity be detected, accounts face possible bans and wealth removal.
Duel Arena RWT
The Duel Arena has been a flashpoint for this toxic behaviour. In fact, 38% of all RWT bans – accounting for thousands of bans per month – stem from there. We’ve heard your feedback and want to make definitive changes that keep the game fun for everyone.
We’re looking in the long-term to phase the Duel Arena out of RuneScape entirely. But before that, we'll be introducing some short-term measures to tide us over until our development teams can deliver a major update that fully replaces the Duel Arena next year.
The first step will be the implementation of a staking cap this November. This will limit stake values to no more than 10m GP per duel. Additionally, we'll be adding two new presets based on settings that players commonly use for their 'whip duels' and 'boxing duels', making it easier to see whether you've got your expected options. This will make scamming more difficult.
Our long-term solution will arrive in 2022, when we’ll be replacing the Duel Arena with something more engaging and enjoyable (such as a system that generates 1v1 tournaments for player groups and perhaps even expanding to 2v2 or 5v5 if possible). We'll share more information on this when we can!
To the vast majority of you who are playing the game as intended, put simply - thank you for being you. We won't stop looking for more ways to maintain the integrity of the game you love.
The Old School Team