AMA - Mat K

[Mat K 173]

On 8/20/2020 at 2:10 AM, Clark Kent said:

Do you like pineapple on Pizza?

I'm not a great fan of pizzas. ?

[Mat K 173]

On 8/20/2020 at 3:20 AM, D96 said:

Are we ever seeing a JCup again?

I hope so, I can see it happening.

[Mat K 173]

On 8/20/2020 at 3:41 AM, Robtokill said:

Mat K, What an absolute staple of the Clan Community you've been!

Thanks mate

1. What drove you to be such an integral part of the clan community and constantly back clans to your bosses?

I was in clans from 04-07 so I understood the value of them.

2. How difficult was it to keep that integrity throughout your time at Jagex?

The thing about the game industry is that everyone wants you to have their opinions and at times it was very hard to keep that side of the integrity. If you mean not pulling a Reach or Jed then that was easy as I have morals.

3. What was one time you felt you failed the clan community despite your best efforts to help?

I don't think I ever succeeded as the clans are not in the place they should be.

 

[Mat K 173]

On 8/20/2020 at 9:17 AM, Venenatis said:

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?

1. I would add specific equipment that would only become active above a certain level to push people deeper.

2. I haven't spoken to him in a while, last time I did he was doing well and enjoying himself... not sure what he was doing and thought it best not to ask,

[Mat K 173]

On 8/20/2020 at 12:18 PM, mar said:

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?

 

I designed the entirety of the first iteration of Zeah..... I got the scale wrong hence why it was so big..... but then no one else noticed either.

[Mat K 173]

On 8/20/2020 at 12:46 PM, Pietru said:

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?

The F2P game in OSRS is very different to how it was back in RS2. In OSRS 99.9999% of people sub up within an hour as people already know about the game. The only thing I didn't get int F2P was short term (a matter of hours) membership tokens that would be rare drops from world events (member monsters invading Varrock for example).

[Mat K 173]

On 8/20/2020 at 4:11 PM, BV1 said:

Thanks for returning to field a few more questions.

No worries, I will keep popping in as long as you have questions.

[Mat K 173]

On 8/20/2020 at 5:21 PM, Geezerpunk said:

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

Oooh, 2005-6 I think. We probably did overlap.

[Mat K 173]

On 8/20/2020 at 6:12 PM, True 2k8 said:

Have you ever considered clanning again?

 

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

I haven't in OSRS. I don't have a lot of time unfortunately. I have been part of the same guild for 11 years in a game called Star Wars Galaxies.

There was a Jagex outing to the bowling alley and a certain senior person (I won't say who) was kicked out of the bowling alley for toking on a reefer (see how hip I am with the lingo).

[Geezerpunk 22]

7 minutes ago, Mat K said:

Oooh, 2005-6 I think. We probably did overlap.

What was your RSN

[Mat K 173]

On 8/20/2020 at 6:18 PM, Majin said:

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. ?

1. Uh, everything this would be a really long list.

2. Everyone in the OSRS team and Timbo, SteveW and loads of others. I like to think I get on well with everyone.

3. Ash does

4. I'd loved to have seen sailing released, I mentioned more about it in another answer to someone else.

5. We used scrum to develop. The process was ideation, test with community, test more with community, poll to communty, build in scrum with a dedicated team, test with community while building, build some more, release when ready.

6. I think it is better for the polls, but I think the pols are not longer fit for purpose and need revising.

7. I did indeed yes.

8. There have been many jmods in clans over the years. Not sure they are allowed anymore after Jedgate.

[Mat K 173]

On 8/20/2020 at 8:52 PM, Wee Man said:

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.

HAHA - But the difficulty is what you have mentioned.

[Mat K 173]

On 8/20/2020 at 9:04 PM, Brian said:

Shame really that it took so long and came too late. The launch of RS2 with the introduction of multi combat wilderness was a real opportunity to make the game about clans. The "golden era" was long over by time clans started to get recognition. Game seems to be very much about solo playing now. Maybe there's a lot more revenue in that.

I think if the shift had happened Jagex would be much more successful.

[Mat K 173]

On 8/20/2020 at 11:19 PM, Rekmdm said:

How can we convince Jagex to do PvP updates? Asking for a friend...

Tell your friend to create a business case that looks at PvP as a whole.

Favorite Era of Runescape? You can list two, 1 by nostalgia, 1 by objectivity.

2005-7 as that was when I was in clans.

Why are website updates so hard to do? Is there really only one IT guy? Boss highscores broke highscores. They "cant" do hc pvp only ironmen because there's no one available to the highscores. Boss highscores took forever because of the same reason. The poll on the website still doesnt separate skipped votes. Like what is the deal?

The modules that run the website are many years old and the databases are so big the work to change anything is huge.

On a similar note. Jagex has had record breaking profits in 2018 and 2019 and now 2020 surely. How come there are less employees than during pre eoc era then? How can the investors not recognize the potential growth and just dump resources into the game? OSRS makes half the profit now yet has less than half the RS3 devs not even counting mtx artists. Is there anything we can do to help OSRS get the staff it deserves/needs?

The difference now is that all the money is not being spaffed on failed projects like Transformers Universe. 

So back in the day, there were St. louis worlds, canada worlds, florida worlds, etc. Were they all hosted in said location or were they all just hosted on one server location and then the worlds were given specific areas? 

Yeah, mostly they were hosted in those locations, I don't think the datacentres have moved that much. Except Australia as their internet sucks.

  Thoughts on Venezuelans invading OSRS and farming gold to make a living in their crumbling economy?

I am pleased I do not live in Venezuela

I feel like Jagex never really gets that the majority of their playerbase is in the USA. When you picture the playerbase, did you think to yourself you're making games for americans or did you picture that you made games for your fellow countrymen? 

I am pleased I do not live in the USA

 

On 8/20/2020 at 11:19 PM, Rekmdm said:

 

 

 

 

[Mat K 173]

On 8/21/2020 at 12:34 AM, Pengy said:

In some ways, the gaming community is a hive of scum and villany. Despite the many wonderful people, the clanning community in particular is known for nefarious acts. Do you believe there are any ways in which companies such as Jagex can combat these negative aspects of gaming? Do you believe that if people's online profiles contained identifying information, this would decrease their willingness to abuse others in and out of the game?

Oh yes, with the information Jagex holds on people it doesn't take much to find out who everyone is, where they live, what their mums maiden name is etc etc. We've also done significant work with the police to identify supposedly hidden expert who have used RuneScape and we can generally track them down in 24 hours. God knows how much Google knows about us all.