Message From Mod MMG

Hi everyone,

From today, your gameplay investment can work in your favour with Bonds: a new in-game item - purchased on our website and tradeable in-game - which can be redeemed for RuneScape membership, spins, RuneCoins and more.

RuneScape is your game, and Bonds give you more freedom and choice than ever before: pay for your membership with your in-game wealth; securely gift membership to a friend or fellow clan member anywhere in the world; access all premium content by trading Bonds in-game any item, resources or gold; and enjoy the full RuneScape experience, free of bots and gold farmers. Read on for more information!

What are bonds?

Bonds are new in-game items, allowing you to pay for selected account-related and out-of-game benefits with in-game resources. Bonds are initially purchased just as you would purchase membership, but they can then be freely gifted or traded with other players. They can be redeemed in-game for membership, spins or RuneCoins. Soon afterwards we plan for them to be usable for charitable donations and - in the future - perhaps even the Jagex Merchandise Store. We’ve even set up a way to use Bonds to buy RuneFest tickets this year - see our FAQ for details.

Bonds may be purchased via our website's Billing Page. They cost $5/£3/€4.25 per Bond and can be redeemed in exchange for 14 days membership, 8 spins or 160 RuneCoins.

You'll be able to freely determine how you exchange your Bonds - be it on the Grand Exchange or in player-to-player trades - and how much in-game wealth you wish to buy and sell them for. Just like any other item on the Grand Exchange, the community will determine how much Bonds are worth in relation to other items.

How does it work?

• Purchase: Player A purchases a Bond from the Billing Page with their credit card or PayPal account for real money. The bond can then be gifted, traded, or consumed.
  
• Gift/Trade: Player A and Player B agree a trade for the Bond - either as a gift, or in return for in-game resource or currency of any agreed value.
  
• Consume: Player B can then use that Bond for themselves and receive membership, spins or RuneCoins. Alternatively, they could re-trade it.
  

The value that players determine for a Bond trade is entirely up to them.

A Bond is purchased in a tradeable state. Once gifted or traded in-game, the Bond becomes untradeable. Players who want to re-trade their Bond to another player will need to pay a trade tax, which will be 10% of its Grand Exchange value. We’ve added this tax on secondary trading to act as a gold sink and to prevent excessive merchanting of Bonds.

Why are you adding bonds?

With this update, our aim is to unlock your investment in your account: giving hardcore players a way to get more than ever for their time and dedication, and more freedom for everyone in how they trade. On top of that, we hope to see this open up the full members' game for many more free players, those who can no longer afford subscription and - crucially - to deal a death blow to the long-standing issues with gold farming.

Bonds are a critical part of our war against gold farmers and of fixing the damage they have caused to the game economy. By allowing real players to meet the demand, gold farmers can no longer exploit it and are cut out of the system, preventing the injection of billions of additional GP per day into the economy, remedying the massive inflation caused, and thereby stabilising the economy overall.

The key to Bonds is that there are now two paths for players to access and enjoy every bit of content the game as has to offer. No player need ever feel excluded, since they can access everything the game has to offer, by whichever method they choose – through play or traditional payment.





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My thoughts: The only way this will be remotely effective is if the in-game price of a bond is competitive/better than the irl price of coins. If it's not... then this is a pointless update.

I really don't see how this is going to stop gold farmers. I mean those already buying gold from gold farmers will probably keep doing it due to better rates. And there will be people that would rather sell their own gold for rl cash than use it to buy bonds since that rl cash gives them more options than overinflated prices for membership, spins, or runecoins.

I won't claim to know anything about the ethics or long-term effects or whatever. I don't have a crystal ball like everyone else, but what I do know is that someone else just paid for my next 8 weeks of membership.

When I looked for an MMORPG, I specifically looked for a game without an item mall or microtransactions. I wanted to pay for access to content, just like a regular video game, and then have to play to earn status in game. I quit for a while after Solomon's store was introduced. I guess I'm a little bit of a rage quitter But I came back because those updates are cosmetic updates. This is not just a cosmetic update. This is a full blown microtransaction system entering the game.
Good for them though, I'm sure they'll make lots of money with this update. I think my money may not go any farther from here though.

So in short, Jagex tries to monopolise RWT?

After reading through a lot of the discussion on the rsof and hlf I am keen to believe this will basically peeter out in a few weeks and nobody will really use bonds for much of anything.

I actually find this interesting, since the player base determines the gp value of bonds. What is 14-days of membership worth to someone with lots of gp? Or will those with less gp determine the value.

Obviously Jagex needs money, and obviously this isn't a cosmetic way of getting extra money from the player-base. But I find this okay, as you aren't missing out on anything by not purchasing them from Jagex.

The problem is still the other micro-transactions available, as you do miss out on stuff by not purchasing spins/coins/loyalty.
( Although, buying bonds for gp seems to help this along. So I don't know )

All I'm hoping is that, with their confidence, this really does kill all the bot/rwt stuff...And maybe....just maybe, Jagex can focus on game-play again.

Also, Gohan may be right. Where is the other end? How do those people make real money for their gold? Not just gold for real money.

This is exactly the same as the government selling meth to combat the drug dealers >.<

They do what the want, it's their game. I won't be buying them, but if someone wants to gift them to me. I'll be more than happy to take them.

Dont really get how this is going to work in any of the ways jagex described.

The only thing i can see happening is people just buying gp from jagex, which is worse than from the gold farmers cause its magically being spawned in the game... at least with the gold farming it takes some sort of time and isnt just on-demand. Its gunna have to be cheaper than the gold farmers if anyone is to use that over them, but then that just brings the value of GP down even more... which is the exact opposite thing you need to do in order to stabilize an economy.

If anything this is just going to make more people buy GP because jagex have pretty much just made it part of the rules.

It could also mean less money from membership for jagex depending on how much these things are selling for in-game. If the players truly are setting the price then thats probably going to be the case.

Not sure jagex have quite grasped the idea of a money sink yet either...