I’ve had my eye on a fascinating microcosm of MMO economics for a while now, and it’s officially reached boiling point in the Old School RuneScape community. The recent release of two new enemies – one of which spits out millions of gold despite being easy to kill and the other stuck behind an endgame quest but struggling to drop anything of value – has both confused and annoyed the OSRS faithful, to the point that developer Jagex recently postponed a planned Q&A session so it could focus on ironing out some loot tables instead.
In April, Zombie Pirates were added to Old School RuneScape. These are weak mobs averaging level 28 and only 35 hitpoints, found in abundance in the PvP-enabled Wilderness, albeit not too deep into the Wilderness. They are easy to reach, easy to kill, and – based on player reports and according to the reputable OSRS Wiki – can earn you over 2 million gold per hour, with the bulk of that profit coming from weapons and materials that, while individually small payouts, quickly add up. They’re so easy money, in fact, that the countless bots that plague OSRS like termites on an oak tree soon descended en masse on pirate zombies.
Fast forward to this week and we have the release of While Guthix Sleeps, a new Grandmaster-tier quest. I say newbut this is actually a re-release of a quest that first came to regular RuneScape in 2008, and has now been revived for Old School RuneScape with a few changes. While Guthix Sleeps does come with some pretty tough skill and quest requirements, your main reward for completing it is the ability to craft new weapons and hunt down level 450 Tormented Demons that drop materials needed to make said weapons.
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While the main attraction of the original Tormented Demons, the coveted Dragon Claws, had already been introduced to OSRS via an earlier raid, many players were excited to see these demons return after all this time. Many of those players were quickly disappointed, however, to discover that the new Tormented Demons don’t drop much value, falling woefully short of the dramatically easier Pirate Zombies in terms of gold per hour, even if you can get your hands on exclusive items like Bone Claws and Tormented Synapses, roughly based on their drop rate.
This isn’t an entirely unique problem. Some OSRS bosses and enemies are known to spit out gold easily, and new challenges are often measured against them. After all, there can only be one best moneymaker. That said, you can still get plenty of Good moneymakers that are fun in their own way. But the extreme gulf between Pirate Zombies and Tormented Demons, especially with the review bias after they launched just months apart, raised some eyebrows in the OSRS community. Jagex had reworked Pirate Zombies after earlier outrage, but Tormented Demons still compared unfavorably.
The OSRS Reddit community, in short, has been vocal about this wealth gap. With some quick math, a player reasoned that killing Men – regular, level 2 dudes who spawn in regular cities – equaled or exceeded the yield of Tormented Demons, mega-rare excluded. Of course, this depends on your luck and how efficiently you can kill the demons, and players will optimize this process over time, but for Grandmaster-exclusive enemies, the early numbers weren’t pretty.
“I was worried I’d have to move my zombie pirate bot farm and didn’t feel like doing all those requirements, so I’m just leaving it as is and making 10x the gp/hr,” he joked another player.
A highly valued after explains it bluntly: “A few months ago we received zombie pirates that pooped out millions of gp and were locked behind zero restrictions and super easy content. Today we received a Grandmaster quest, featuring Tormented Demons that are located very far away, and their loot is worse than regular Greater Demons.”
Following a July 10 update that further adjusted Pirate Zombies by removing one item from their normal loot table, Jagex released a blog post acknowledging the feedback on Tormented Demons.
“As we’ve done with most releases of late, we’ve opted for a more cautious loot table rather than an overly generous one – this has worked well for us (and the health of the game) and is something we’ll continue to do,” Jagex said. “That said, we hear you loud and clear – the Tormented Demon loot tables need some work. We’re taking our time to get this right and ensure we’re making a decision that’s well-informed by data and your feedback. We plan to go into this in more detail next week once we have more data points for factors like kills per hour and/or unique prizes.”
“Admittedly, this doesn’t say much, but to make it crystal clear: we’ll be reviewing the loot tables carefully and plan to make changes in line with your feedback once we have better data,” the developer adds. “We’re always open to making changes where necessary, and this is no exception.”
Jagex was also quick to issue a request, which shouldn’t really be necessary but unfortunately happens all too often in online communities: “Please stop targeting or singling out individual developers when providing your feedback. In many cases, the developers being targeted don’t have much involvement in the content you’re critiquing. In all cases, loot mechanics and tables are passed around the team and reviewed – we succeed as a team and we fail as a team. We’re fine with you being critical of our work as a team, but the repeated targeting of individual team members must stop.”
OSRS players responded in kind, wonder why Tormented Demons got a “cautious loot table” while Pirate Zombies practically got a golden ticket. Importantly, one of the top posts The game’s subreddit also echoes Jagex’s call for normal, decent behavior: “This shouldn’t need to be said. Let’s be better, people!”
Jagex has had a number of PvE successes of late, and OSRS is widely regarded as one of the greatest MMOs out there, so I have no doubt that a reasonable middle ground can be reached here. The devs have been quick to respond, seem to agree with players on several points, and have postponed a Q&A not only because they don’t have “definite answers to many of the questions we’ve seen from you,” but also because “we want to protect our team’s time so they can make the necessary fixes and changes.”
When those changes will come remains to be seen, but this whole ordeal so far has been an intriguing demonstration of the expectations of MMO players, and of risk and reward in loot economies. I haven’t played RuneScape in years and have no vested interest in the game, but I’ve had similar loot quandaries in MMOs like Destiny 2, so I can’t wait to see how this plays out.
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