作者：Mike Rose

Jagex首席执行官Mark Gerhard一向不讳言自己是那种看重《RuneScape》游戏内容和大小的人。该游戏每周都会定期更新，而且已经持续了多年——这款游戏自2001年起就开始问世，由此可见Jagex究竟为游戏玩家提供了多少内容。

但Gerhard还有一个方面并未考虑周全：虽然在许多方面来看，拥有海量内容确实很棒，但这却也可能吓退许多新玩家。相信还有许多人之前从未接触过《RuneSpace》，有部分原因是他们绝非那些已经在游戏中混迹了12年之久的老玩家的对手。

Gerhard承认自己也不知如何解决这个问题，“团队从多个不同的方面来看待这款游戏，这里可能存在一个亚问题‘这款游戏对我来说是不是太大了？’”

“我认为这里的理念是，你并不需要消化其中所有的内容。没错，这就像自助餐厅，但你并不需要吃下所有的东西。只要吃自己喜欢的东西就成了。”

RuneScape 3(from gamasutra)

《RuneSpace 3》

这也许就是《RuneSpace 3》问世的原因。对外人来说，《RuneSpace 3》也许是一款全新的游戏，但事实并非如此。

实际上，《RuneSpace 3》并非新游戏，而是现成游戏的更新版本，将后者从Java转向HTML5，提升了视觉效果，并境加了更新更强大的音频引擎，极大更新了UI设计，对其他许多方面进行了调整。

而游戏主要内容（游戏邦注：包括游戏角色、游戏世界和玩法功能等）却仍然保持不变——只是一般用户需要费些功夫才会发现这一点。将《RuneSpace 3》制作成一款貌似全新游戏而非更新版本，确实是Jagex有意为之的行为。

Gerhard解释道，“我们每周都会推出新内容和更新，但遗憾的是，这并不意味着你有什么重大消息可宣布。如果有人将今天所玩游戏与6个月之前进行对比，就会发现游戏发生了巨大变化……”

鉴于下一代技术的涌现，Jagex团队准备针对界面、音频、用户生成内容进行升级和优化，该工作室意识到更大规模的调整（而非定期更新）是同时吸引新老玩家的必要之举。

Gerhard对此表示，“没错，如果我们愿意，也可以将它称为《RuneSpace Next Age》，我的部分想法就是，对于一年内没有玩过这款游戏的用户来说，它就好像是白天和黑夜的差别。它并非一款全新的游戏，但确实拥有新体验。”

他们的计划是在最初几个月先使用《RuneScape 3》这一名称，再根据玩家数量来决定要不要把“3”去掉，使游戏恢复《RuneScape》的原名——正如2004年时《RuneScape 2》的做法。

Gerhard希望这一举措能够实现“新玩家进入尝试游戏”的效果。

RuneScape 3(from gamasutra)

“最糟糕的更新”

当然，这绝非简单地推出一款热门在线游戏的新版本，然后就寄希望于大功告成的做法。

游戏工作室无论何时推出在线游戏新版本时，都不免遭遇强烈的排斥。事实上有许多玩家讨厌变化（无论游戏是变得更好还是更糟），他们总会想法发泄自己的不满。

针对《RuneScape 3》可能将遭遇玩家抵制的说法，Gerhard对此笑道“没错，我们确实收到了一些印有‘史上最糟更新版本’的T恤衫。无论你怎么做，都会有人讨厌。”

Gerhard很清楚Jagex推出的多个《RuneScape》更新版本已经惹恼了不少玩家，但他指出团队在过去许多年里已经极大改变了更新游戏的方式。

他承认“我们最初是认为‘开发团队最了解情况，我们所做的一切都是为了游戏的长远发展，玩家到时候自然会明白，如果他们还是不理解，那是因为他们不够聪明，那他们就不配当我们的玩家。但现在我们已经不再这么想了，我们会同玩家社区沟通，告诉他们我们打算怎么做。”

他称同玩家对话可能彻底改变粉丝群体对游戏更新版本的态度，并改变Jagex计划的内容更新方式。“事实上这就好像重新粉刷墙壁一样，当你真的这么做的时候，人们却还是喜欢之前的颜色深浅。这也是顶级系统含有经典预先设置的原因，因为这可以让玩家获得熟悉感。”

Jagex在过去的每次更新调整时确实遭遇了许多抵制，所以它为玩家提供了启动旧版游戏的选项，以免他们感到突兀。

这里有一个典型例子：《RuneScape》在2008年发布HD升级版本时，大量玩家吐槽游戏中的额外纹理和全屏功能。

Jagex因此为玩家推出了下载2007年版本的选择，7年之后，仍有大量订阅用户在玩《RuneScape》2007版本。

针对《RuneSpace 3》，Jagex也会再次供应旧版游戏——玩家可以随时切换到之前的Java版本。

Gerhard指出“我们尽量与玩家进行更多对话，我们现在所做的许多事情都与用户生成内容有关，由玩家社区来决定叙事内容。我们应该接受这一现实，因为这是他们的决定。但无论怎样，总会有人唱反调。所以你要妥善管理玩家社区。”

RuneScape(from gamasutra)

订阅模式还有市场吗？

Jagex打算通过《RuneScape 3》植入少量的微交易内容，这一举动不禁令人好奇该公司是否有意追随游戏行业的大潮，取消订阅模式，转而采用大规模的微交易模式。

Gerhard明确表示这并非《RuneScape》的选择，“我们在《RuneScape》中引进了一些微交易元素，但这只涉及装饰性道具和一些可以为玩家提供一点帮助的资源。”

“游戏行业确实正向免费增值模式方向转移，但我不认为随大流就一定是正确的选择。”

Jagex已经有一个含有微交易元素的免费增值模式理念——该工作室目前正为孩之宝开发的《Transformers Universe》就是一款仅支持微交易的免费增值游戏。

该工作室还开发了《Ace of Spades》这款付费游戏（最近已通过Steam发布），Gerhard称这种模式正适合该游戏，“而对《RuneScape》来说，它仍然会采用‘自助餐’服务。”

虽然该团队并不迷信订阅用户数量，但他们也透露，投票支持当前游戏叙事内容的订阅用户（约45万）还只是《RuneScape》所有访阅用户中的一小部分而已。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

How Jagex plans to entice new players into its 12-year-old MMO

By Mike Rose

“For years I was one of the people saying we should talk about how much content we’ve got, how big it is etc. You know, we’ve got tens of thousands of hours of content – who else has got that?”

Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard was always the person championing everything that the world of RuneScape had to offer. The game receives weekly updates, and has for many years now — consider that the game has existed in some form since 2001, and you begin to understand the breadth of content that Jagex has to offer its players.

But there was one angle that Gerhard hadn’t fully considered: While having plenty of content to dive into is great in many respects, it can also be hugely daunting to newcomers.

No doubt many people reading this will have never touched RuneScape before, in part because they don’t see how they can possibly compete with players who have been chugging away at the game for 12 years now.

“I never had a simple answer for it,” he admits. “The team looks at it from a number of different perspectives. There’s probably a meta-question of ‘Is the game too big for me?’”

“I think we just need to get around the idea that you don’t have to consume it all. Yes it’s a buffet, but you don’t have to eat everything. Just eat the stuff you like.”

RuneScape Version 3

That’s part of the reasoning behind RuneScape 3 — more a number than anything else. To an outsider, it would appear that RuneScape 3 is a brand new game, but this is far from the truth.

In fact, RuneScape 3 is not a new game, but rather a huge update to the current game that switches it over to HTML5 from Java, allowing for boosted visuals and a better draw distance. It also adds in a new, more powerful audio engine, upgrades the UI dramatically, and tinkers in various other aspects too.

The main game itself, however, remains the exact same, from the characters to the game world to the gameplay features — but the average consumer would have to do a little digging to discover this fact. As you might expect, making RuneScape 3 vaguely out to be a brand new game rather than an update was intentional.

“Every week we’re putting new content out and major upgrades, but sadly it means you never really have a big event to shout about,” explains Gerhard. “If someone was to play the game today versus six months ago, it’s dramatically different – but we don’t get that tent-pole event.”

With next-generation tech coming in, and the Jagex team preparing major interface improvements, audio upgrades, and user-generated content, the studio realized that something on a larger scale than a regular update was necessary to really get across to players both inside and outside of the game just how important this upcoming content truly is.

“Yes, we could have called it RuneScape Next Age if we wanted to,” says Gerhard, “and part of my thinking was, for people who haven’t played this game in a year, it’s going to be night and day.

It’s not a completely new game, but it’s certainly a new experience.”

The plan is to keep the RuneScape 3 name for a few months, maybe a year depending on how player numbers are looking, then drop the 3 and simply call the game RuneScape again — much like what happened with RuneScape 2 back in 2004.

And Gerhard is hoping this will lead to “new players coming in, thinking ‘I’ll give it a chance.’”

“Worst update ever”

Of course, it’s never as simple as putting out a new version of a popular online game and hoping that everything is hunky dory with the existing players.

Whenever a studio puts out a new version of an online game, you can expect it to be met with a huge vocal resistance. The fact is that some players hate change, no matter whether it is for the better or not, and will make sure that their voices are very much heard.

As I begin to suggest to Gerhard that RuneScape 3 will no doubt be hit with this sort of resistance, he begins to laugh knowingly.

“You’re right – you’re really right,” he says. “We’ve actually all got company t-shirts that say ‘Worst Update Ever’ on them. No matter what you do, someone will hate it.”

Gerhard is all too aware that Jagex has upset a number of players with its various updates to RuneScape, but he notes that his team has significantly altered how it updates the game over the many years it has been running.

“Initially we used to say ‘The team knows best, everything we do is for the long term, the players will see that in time, and if they don’t they’re not smart enough, and they don’t deserve to be our players,’” he admits. “That’s now changed, and we’ll have a conversation with the community in which we say ‘Guys, we’re thinking of doing this.’”

Having this dialogue with RuneScape players can completely shifted the sentiment that the fanbase has towards updates, says Gerhard, and made a massive difference to how Jagex approaches any alterations it’s planning to make.

“The reality is that you’re still repainting someone’s clubhouse,” he reasons, “and when you do, they like it the shade that it was. That’s why the top-level system includes classic presets, so that it can be as familiar as possible.”

Indeed, the Jagex team has found so much resistance to updates in the past, that it has provided players with the ability to boot up older versions of the game that they felt most comfortable with.

Here’s one incredible example: When the HD upgrade for RuneScape was released in 2008, a huge number of players complained that they didn’t want extra textures or fullscreen functionality.

In response, Jagex made the previous 2007 build available to download if players so chose. Seven years later, and there are still hundreds of thousands of RuneScape subscribers who are using that 2007 build.

And when it comes to RuneScape 3, Jagex will once again provide back versions — players will be able to switch to the current Java edition of the game whenever they want.

“So yeah, we try to have as much dialogue as we can,” says Gerhard. “A lot of the stuff we’re doing now is around user-generated content, and the community determining narrative. So that should be far better received, as it’s their decision. But equally, there will always be one guy who says ‘I didn’t want that!’ You manage your community the best you can.”
Are subscriptions here to stay?

With the shift to RuneScape 3, and Jagex’s recent move to implement a small number of microtransactions in the game, one has to wonder whether the company is planning to follow the game industry trend of killing off subscriptions in favor of large-scale microtransactions.

Gerhard assures me that this is never going to happen with RuneScape. “We’ve introduced some microtransactions into RuneScape, but only cosmetic items and some resources that can help you a bit in-game,” he says.

“Yes, there’s a strong movement in the industry towards free-to-play, but I don’t think necessarily running with the pack is always the right thing,” he continues.

Jagex already has a general idea of how free-to-play with full-on microtransactions can work — the studio is currently working on Transformers Universe for Hasbro, and this is set to be a microtransactions-only free-to-play title.

The studio also worked on Ace of Spades, a “buy once” game that was released recently via Steam. “It’s what’s right for the game,” says Gerhard. “For RuneScape, it’s still very much ‘this is the buffet service.’ I think there’s a comfort with the dependency of ‘For my £5, I get this content each week.’”

Although the team doesn’t divulge subscription numbers as a rule, I was told that the number of subscribers who voted on a recent narrative poll in-game — around 450,000 in total — was “only a small fraction” of the total number of subscribers that RuneScape currently has. （source：gamasutra）