RuneScape developer Jagex was forced to do a “general rollback” of the game earlier today and return all player progression to the point immediately prior to the game’s most recent update. The reason? Well, you see, there were too many runes.
That’s right, too many runes in RuneScape. As explained by DualShockers, a quality of life update went live today featuring a number of “game jam projects,” one of which massively increased the capacity of rune pouches.
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Logged back in after the update to all four of my rune pouches filled with an asburd amount of runes. from r/runescape
“The amount of Runes that could flow into RuneScape’s economy as a result of this bug would cause irreparable economic damage and challenge the economic integrity of the game,” Jagex explained in a Reddit post. “The bug meant that it was possible for players to duplicate billions of runes per person.
“The spread of this bug occurred too fast and its repercussions are too severe for us to have been able to determine any other action than to issue a rollback, especially as our time to make a decision on this matter was extremely limited. To not address it immediately would let the issue spread while exacerbating the pain of other players that comes from a rollback should it have been determined that one was required anyway at a later stage.”
Jagex said rolling the game back was a “method of last resort,” and acknowledged that “it sucks” for players who lose progress as a result of the rollback. “But we hope that you will agree with us that this step was necessary to maintain the overall health of the game.”
The general consensus, at least on Reddit, does in fact seem to be agreement with the move: There’s some disappointment and frustration, yes, but also acknowledgement that steps had to be taken quickly, because this really had the potential to do damage. Some players actually predicted the rollback before it happened—and in at least one case, pre-bemoaning their losses.
“Damn all my arch progress of the day is gone,” redditor Robinvw24 wrote. “I totally understand it is needed, but damn it’s demotivating to see my lvl back at where i started today 🙁 Time to log off for today and touch some grass.”
But there was good humor to be seen too—probably cold comfort to RuneScape players who suffered meaningful losses, but you have to admit, this is pretty good.
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