Bots and Real World Trading

Jagex recently announced a severe crackdown on the runescape cheats that have blighted the game for a long time. The scale of cheating significantly increased and got to the point where Jagex had to act to maintain the integrity of runescape.

In total, 19035 accounts were banned last week for bot usage. This figure shows some of the extent that the cheats had on the game economy. It is unknown whether all the accounts banned were throwaway accounts that were used to harvest gold to sell online via cheat sites. This should act as a warning to any player who thinks they will gain an advantage by using a bot to train their account - Jagex have massively stepped up their bot hunting.

On top of the 19035 banned for using bots, Jagex banned an additional 2300 players who were buying runescape gold from cheat sites. These were actual players who had spent time training up their account and have now been permanently banned.

It is a shame that players had to buy runesape gold as their accounts are now useless - not only did they spend considerable amounts of money to acquire virtual wealth, but they had invested a lot of time over years to build up their characters. All of that time wasted because they wanted to try and gain an advantage.

Overall, it is good Jagex have started to clear out the cheats and have improved their mechanisms for bot detection. Hopefully players will now realise that they should not risk their accounts, either by using a bot or buying runescape gold. Jagex will eventually catch up with you and all the effort will have been wasted.

Runescape Trade Scams

Trade scams in runescape are likely the most frequent method people use to cheat. Jagex have so far not been able to effectively prevent this type of scamming on runescape due to the nature of the way their ingame report abuse feature works.

I made sample video to try and highlight the fact - simply as when I went to world 18 Edgeville bank a scammer by the name of 69Stoner4 tried to scam me by switching the total amount of cash in a trade. I was aware and took my time and checked the 2nd trade screen, many people do not check the 2nd trade screen and fall victim to such scams.



The video serves a purpose to inform people of the importance of being vigilante when dealing in busy trading locations. I didn't capture the scam on video as I was simply starting to record at the time - maybe next video I get the scam in action.

Hopefully Jagex realise the scale of such trade scams in runescape and properly implement a method to report people while the trade window is open. Currently this isn't the case so scammers are easily able to avoid being reported in any busy trading area.

Runescape Private Servers

There has been a great deal on search activity looking for Runescape Private Servers. However, this has mainly been generated by only a small number of people and is likely aimed at trying to boost the visibility of their own runescape private server site.

Extra caution must be taken to ensure that honest runescape players are not fooled into registering and using the same character name and password as they use on the main runescape.com site.

Most of the private servers are in fact attempts to gain access to an honest players account or a foolish players account. If ever required to download anything then you run the risk of having a keylogger installed, so be warned and stay safe and only access your runescape account from the actual main runescape.com website.

The same sites that offer private server access will normally offer various runescape cheats and runescape stat editor downloads. Again, extra caution should be taken as the majority of downloads associated with runescape are an attempt to gain control of your player account on the main game.

Forewarned is forearmed, or so the saying goes - so always treat any runescape download with extra caution and you will help insure the integrity of your account and your computer system.

Tweaks and Bugfixes

With the update last week concentrating on bugfixes as well as tweaking some smaller aspects of the game, all players can be assured that it is getting more difficult to abuse bugs within the game that effectively result in scamming others.

There are a few very simple rules to follow to reduce your chances of being scammed:

1. Never reveal your password to anyone
2. Never download any autominer software as they may contain keyloggers
3. Do not buy any runescape money for real money
4. Do not trade real items or money for runescape items or money
5. Never accept .exe files from strangers or anyone you do not trust inherently

Overall, if you play by Jagex Rules you will severely reduce the risks of being scammed. Many people do take the game very seriously and it is real people that are adversely affected when they are a victim. It is a game at the end of the day, and should be enjoyed by people rather than destroyed by a small minority of players.