Its only been six days since Jagex declared Bot-Nuking Day and today at Runefest, Jagex announced they have banned 7.7 million accounts so far. Add the 1.5 million accounts that were banned a few weeks earlier and that brings the total to 9.2 million accounts. Let that sink in. Most games don’t even have 9.2 registered accounts, yet alone botting accounts.

During an insider session at Runefest, Jagex gave out some addition figures listed below.

• New botting accounts created every day – 100,000 – 200,000
• Gold-farming accounts banned on bot-nuking day – 1,500,000
• Accounts being banned per minute right now – 9,000
• Gold farming accounts banned since Tuesday – 7,700,000
• Accounts created from China and Korea per week – Old: 173,000, New: 953
• Decrease in player activity since bot-nuking day – 60%
• Banned accounts that were paid members – 10%
• Bots estimated to have been rendered ineffective – 98%

Jagex mentions that 10% of the accounts that were banned were paying members, so we can extrapolate that Runescape had about 7.7 million paying members before Tuesday and now currently has about 6.93 million paying members.

Congratulations go out to Jagex on their determination and success against the botters.

Check out the full insider sessions Runefest 2011 video below.

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This past Tuesday marked “Bot-Nuking Day” in the free to play MMORPG Runescape which supposedly would introduce a new update that would be able to catch 98% of players who bot. Today however Jagex announced that they have sent out cease and desist emails to suspected botters threatening to sue them for statutory damages ranging from $200 to $2,500 per act of past, present, and/or future botting.

The email also offers suspected botters a one time amnesty and settlement lifeline. Players that accept will be placed on a watch list and will be monitored for the use of bots and other inappropriate third-party programs. Those that continue to bot will be named as a defendant in Jagex Limited v. John Does, which is a lawsuit based on DMCA violations that is currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Pretty harsh if you ask me and reminds me of what the music industry has done over the last decade. If this new update can supposedly catch 98% of botters, then I really don’t see the reason to also file a lawsuit against them. If anything this sounds like the new anti-cheating patch isn’t working as well as they thought.

What do you guys think? Is this over the top or are cheaters getting what they deserve?

Less than two weeks ago Jagex announced that they were losing the war against botters in Runescape and today it seems they are claiming victory. Next Tuesday will mark “Bot-Nuking Day” as Jagex will roll out their new bot-busting patch which is expected to catch 98% of botters.

Today, I am really happy to say we are in the long-awaited position of being able to announce that we’ll be launching our most formidable bot-busting weapon in our history, targeting what we believe to be 98% of the bots seen in game.

While talking about their efforts over the last year to stop botting, Jagex also revealed that they had “recently detected and banned over 1.5 million botting and gold farming accounts.” I’m only assuming that by “recently” they meant 2011 as 1.5 million accounts is a massive number of accounts.

The bot-busting patch, code-named “ClusterFlutterer” will permanently prevent “reflection” bots from working. I’m not sure what a reflection bot is, but it sounds good to me.

To celebrate, Runescape is going to reward legit players with four days of events that will provide players with XP and reward bonuses. For more information about the events, check out the RS blog.

Jagex, the developers behind the extremely popular Runescape MMORPG, today gave the community an update on their current struggle to combat botters and gold farmers. Basically they came out stating their initiative to stop bots, which began in the beginning of this year when Free Trade was reintroduced, has failed and they are losing the battle.

The challenge for us is that despite all of our programmes and best intentions the problem is still huge and, most annoyingly, still adversely impacting parts of our game.

While we are winning small battles by spending significant money and resources in trying to combat this problem, the war is not going in our favour as we are struggling to keep up with companies whose only business 24 hours a day 7 days a week is to find ways to get bots into the game.

While they will continue with their best efforts to try to stop botting, they’re asking Runescape players for help. Players are advised and encouraged to use the tools provided to report botters as well as provide feedback to Jagex on new ways to prevent the practice. However most importantly they are asking the players themselves to stop using bots and purchasing gold from black market sites stating, “If there is not a market, then bots will not exist“.

This certainly isn’t good news for legit Runescape players as it seems bot developers are unstoppable. If a Jagex developer is reading this, do what Facebook did and make users tie their RS account to a phone number before they can use it. That will stop botters from creating tons of fake accounts in no time. You’re welcome

Clans can rejoice as their floating fortresses have finally arrived in the form of Clan Citadels. Runescape players can head out to Avalani, where at least five clan members must meet to create a Clan Citadel. Once your citadel has been created, you can portal to it from the Clan Camp, sorry free players, no entrance for you.

Once there, you can start customizing and building up for Clan Citadel. One new bonus announced today was the clan dragon reward.  For those clans who upgrade their Citadel all the way up to tier 7, they will be rewarded with a clan dragon mascot, who perches itself on your castle or flies above it.

You can check out our previous Clan Citadels post that details many of the customization, areas and features or head over to the RS site for patch notes and information.

Today Jagex, the guys behind Runescape, issued an announcement on their site updating players on their fight against botting. In the statement, Jagex revealed they are taking legal action against websites that support botting, developers and even going after players who purchased bots.

Jagex is actively pursuing companies that support the macroing market as well as those who bot. As such we are currently pursuing various bot developers through multiple legal channels, although sadly we cannot yet disclose the full details of our actions for legal reasons. Separately, as part of normal legal process and procedure, we have also taken steps to acquire the details of all players who have purchased bots.

If you remember a few years ago Blizzard did the same thing and won against the developer of the WoW Glider bot. No information as to what websites or developers have been contacted thus far, however once Jagex files suit against one of them, I’m sure will hear about it and we’ll update you.

Runefest 2011 tickets are now on sale. The yearly Runescape get-together will take place on Oct 29 – 30 in London at Old Billingsgate. These seven different tickets available for purchase based on if you want to go for both days or one, if you want to go to the Halloween party and if you want to be a VIP. Ticket prices start at £59 and can go up to £179.

If you’re interested in purchasing tickets, head over to the official Runefest tickets site.

The Jadinko Lair is a high-level training area in Runescape that was released today in an update.  There players can train their slayer, woodcutting, firemaking and fletching skills with all require a minimum level of 83.

Performing tasks within the lair will increase your favour with the jadinkos, who will reward you with fruit imbued with beneficial properties, seeds and juju teleport bags. Finally, fortunate combatants will have the chance to obtain a special vine which can be used to upgrade their abyssal whip.

For more information a full list of what players can expect to find in the lair, check out the official Jadinko Lair guide over on the RS site.

The next major expansion to Runescape is heading for launch on July 26th and today we have the first details has to how new Clan Citadels will work. Floating high above the lands, these massive castles will become the new homes for Runescape clans.

The centerpiece of the Clan Citadel expansion is the new Clan Battlegrounds system. This will allow clans, for the first time, to generate their own multiplayer games within RS. Clans will be given access to a full-blown Battleground Editor that will give them all the tools they need to create simple capture-the-flag type games to full clan vs clan battles. Clan members will be able to save these games and also invite players from outside their clan to participate.

Clan leaders will have four Citadel layouts to choose from and can select whether the Citadel is basked in sunlight or shrouded in the darkness of night. Each Citadel also comes with portal grounds, meeting rooms, senates and party rooms, which players can customize with banners, flags and their clan colors.

Upgrading & Maintaining

Clan Citadels can both be upgraded and downgraded if left unkempt, which means clans will need to gather resources for the Citadels.  This can be done by using your Citadel’s skilling plots, which are clan specific and cannot be taken out of the Citadel.  Clans begin with a woodcutting plot and as the Citadel grows new plots will become available such as mining, firemaking, smithing, summoning and cooking, with each plot having 7 tiers.

Each week the Citadel will require a certain amount of these resources and if it does’t get it will begin to dilapidate and eventually downgrade if not already on the lowest tier.  Clansmen must also visit the Citadel each week or the same thing will happen.

Seems like each clan member will be spending at least some of their weekly game time grinding in their new Citadel.

ideally players should spend about 20 minutes a week maintaining their Citadel and then some more time if they’re working on upgrading it

The Citadels also will have customizable areas called hotspots and blanket features.  Hotspots are just areas where a custom item can be added while blanket features are things that can receive cosmetic changes such as wall patterns, flags, tapestries and plotted plants.  A fully upgraded Citadel will have 19 hotspots and 14 blanket features with over 200 options combined.

After the jump we talk about the Clank Ranking system and Citadel security and also have the Clan Cidatel trailer for you.

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Today a new player survey was put up on the Runescape site asking players to give there opinions on certain matters of the game and their gaming habits.  The survey asked the general questions such as how often do you play, what MMOs have you played, why are you playing them or why did you quit playing.  Pretty general stuff, however towards the end was a series of questions asking players how they felt about paid subscriptions and items stores.

The questions ranged from whether you would ever pay for items and if so what type of items or content would you pay for?  It also asked if whether or not you’ve ever spent money before in other MMOs item stores.

While Runescape has always been free with an premium subscription option, it seems Jagex is contemplating making the move to an item store over a premium subscription.  Or perhaps they will offer both.

To those Runescape players reading this, what do you think?  Would you mind if Runescape opened up an in-game item store?