AMA - Mat K

[Mat K 173]

12 hours ago, Untargetable said:

Why are all these Accounts that have been permanently banned for macro are getting unbanned? 

@Mat K

I don't know, my cynical side says that it is to grow revenue. My non cynical side says it is to grow revenue.

[Mat K 173]

12 hours ago, I Kill Batty said:

What clans were you involved in during this time period? Were there any particular interactions with the community that stood out to you and drove you to make specific updates?

Gladz and Jaguars were probably the best known ones. What I always loved about the community is that most clans tried to give their members the best experience possible. The set up group events, had leg up programmes for new members and everyone was focused on doing the best for everyone. The selflessness was great.

[Venenatis 849]

1. If you could change something about the wilderness what would it be?
2. Do you still talk to Mod Reach? if so, how is he doing?

[Mat K 173]

12 hours ago, BV1 said:

Staying away from the controversial....

1. Can you go into detail on a couple of your favorite memories working for Jagex?
2. Are there any directions that you wanted to take OSRS that you never got the ok for?
3. What are your favorite and least favorite aspects of OSRS?
4. How's life been treating you these past few months?

1. The day OSRS got more members than RS3, although I couldn't celebrate it as Jagex didn't want to make it seem like it was a competition. When free to play came out on OSRS and it was a success as the worry was that a load of members would go F2P. When we became the headliners for Runefest as that was the moment Jagex acknowledge OSRS was the major game. 
2. I wanted to create a minecraft-like private server system for OSRS where players could rent their own server and create their own quests and bosses etc. But there was never much support at Jagex. 
3. Favourite - that it relies on gameplay instead of graphics to be fun. Least - the constant dumbing down of the game to make it easier.
4. Been good, have been working from home since February which makes life much easier.

Edited August 20, 2020 by Vanuckle
fixed formatting.

[Mar 61]

Do you have a specific piece of content in OSRS or RS3 you worked on (a quest or minigame) that you feel more pleased about/proud of?

 

[Pietru 1,230]

What do you think about the current F2P game in terms of game play?

 

Was there anything that wasn't given the green light into F2P that you would've implemented?

Edited August 20, 2020 by Pietru

[BV1 20]

Thanks for returning to field a few more questions.

[Geezerpunk 22]

8 hours ago, Mat K said:

Gladz and Jaguars were probably the best known ones. What I always loved about the community is that most clans tried to give their members the best experience possible. The set up group events, had leg up programmes for new members and everyone was focused on doing the best for everyone. The selflessness was great.

I actually did not know you were in Gladz and Jagz... What years? I am guessing we had some overlap 

[@True 2k8 3,220]

Have you ever considered clanning again?

 

Is there a cool/crazy Jagex story you can tell us that hasn't been told elsewhere?

[Majin 156]

Hey Mat, thanks for doing this. I always enjoyed having you on the weekly OSRS streams, and I was saddened to see you leave the OSRS team. I hope everything's good in your life and that you're enjoying your new job. Here are my questions.

1 ) Can you tell us anything about your work as a jagex employee, things you worked on etc.
2 ) Which of your co-workers were you able to get on with the most?
3 ) Which of your co-workers had the best sense of humour?
4 ) Were there any updates that you were excited for but never got released? If so, can you tell us a little about them?
5 ) Can you tell us anything about the process of how updates are planned/developed/released?
6 ) Do you think OSRS is better as a game due to the community input (polls, surveys, etc) or do you feel it hinders the development / potential of OSRS?
7 ) You've stated that you were involved in the clan scene -- is this something you need to report to your bosses (due to a possible conflict of interest?)
8 ) Are other J-mods involved in the clan scene (past or present)? (dont have to mention the names, just curious)

Again, thanks for the AMA. Much appreciated. ?

[Mat K 173]

23 hours ago, Ace said:

Do you think modern players of the game focus on solo content too much, or do you think group content is in any danger?

 

I don't mean to put clanning in a bad spot, but one of the reasons that I love clans(and I assume one of the reasons that you enjoyed them and believe in the importance of them) is that community is fun. It's enjoyable. Do you think the game's had a culture change to where maybe group content isn't a major focus or interest anymore? If so do you think anything could or should be done about that?

I think there is a lot of pressure to be super efficient when playing. However, I stream a fair bit a lots of people tell me that they enjoy watching someone who is just enjoying themselves.

[Mat K 173]

23 hours ago, Brian said:

Hey Mat, been a while. Hope you're doing well.

I remember back when wilderness was removed you reached out to me to try get feedback on what the community wanted. We talked a few times and if I remember it right you told me there wasn't a lot of interest or support in jagex for clans back then. Around the start of OSRS you reached out to me and other clan leaders to try work with us but nothing ever really came of it. I seem to remember there being some sort of conversation among us clan leaders but it pretty much turned into leaders just flaming each other (don't think you were involved in this conversation). I guess my question is that it seemed like you always wanted to do something for clans, but nothing ever came of it. Was this because of how "toxic" jagex perceived the clan community as being? Is that why the 2017 (?) jcup never ended up happening?

Hey Brian, how you doing? I've been really well. Back in the 00s there was a lot of reticence to do something for clans. But towards the end of the 00s people realised the importance of them. It took about 5 years to get the idea of a clan system onto the roadmap. But persistence seemed to work. All the conversations we had did help as each conversation gave me more evidence to get clans prioritised.

[Mat K 173]

23 hours ago, Ssj said:

If you could do one thing differently that you did whilst you were mod, what would it be and why?

 

What is your biggest person achievement as a moderator?

I would have sorted out PvP in OSRS. My biggest achievement was changing the culture of Jagex into a player first mindset.

[Mat K 173]

23 hours ago, Dickus said:

What do you think the OSRS team should try to do to revitalize PvP clans, particularly those based around the free-to-play game? Do you think the free-to-play scene is deserving of any sort of updates despite not paying membership fees?

PvP clans will flourish if more people do PvP. So the real question is how does Jagex revitalise PvP. This is how I would do it:

1. understand the current state of PvP (when in a player lifecycle do players start it, how do they do it, what type of PvP do they do, what do they do when they stop PvPing etc etc..

2. Build profiles of PvPers, both long term and short term and run research to understand what would have kept those players PvPing.

3. Build a user journey that takes any player seemlessly from a non-pvper to a top end pvper

4. Test, iterate, etc.

[Wee Man 1,345]

Did you have any kind of idea on how to approach the problem wtih PvP on OSRS? The different communities (Solo pkers, single clans, bridding, edge pking, multi clans, rev cave specific pkers etc) with all their different ideas and suggestions must have made it near impossible.

 

EDIT: you pretty much already answered this above as I posted lol.

Edited August 20, 2020 by Wee Man