Pay to PK Riot

The Pay to Pk Riot (also known as the World 66 Riot) is a massive riot that is currently taking place in Falador square, World 66, and started on December 10th, 2007. It was a response to the following updates:


 * Wilderness Changes, Bounty Hunter and Clan Wars!
 * Trade and Drop Changes
 * RuneScape vs Real-world Trading
 * Duel Arena F2P and More Bank Space!

World 66 is where the riots primarily occurred, although there were other riots occurring at the same time, such as the Mod Hasmo Riot in World 18 and many smaller riots in other worlds (indeed, there was universal protesting and rioting of some form held on nearly every server).

Background
During the later half of 2007, Jagex had been making many updates to control the macroing and real world trading problems. Updates such as the movement of the Party Room, Lootshare, the Grand Exchange, the assist system, the addition of new random events, and the changes at the Duel Arena had all been designed to stop macroers and real world traders, while at the same time giving players alternative methods of playing that were intended not to hinder gameplay. However, many players felt these update did in fact hurt gameplay.

The tension had been growing, with an increasing anti-Jagex air beginning to surround the forums. When the Behind the Scenes for December was released, some players feared that the removal of the Wilderness would occur, although these were general dismissed as unlikely. Tension was growing greatly between players. On December 10th, Jagex released the updates listed above.

Response
Many players had felt that the removal of unbalanced trades obliterated Merchanting as well as limited the extent of aid between friends; others believed that this had severely handicapped Player-Killing; some were simply angry that they could no longer reliably transfer items between their accounts, although that was a violation of the Jagex rules to begin with. Gold farmers and real world traders were also upset because they could no longer illegally make money by selling RuneScape gold, and so they used their macroing accounts to protest. Still others were ranting about Jagex's recent anti-real world trading updates in general, such as the Grand Exchange, the changes to the shop system, the staking limit at the Duel Arena, and lootshare.

Riots started on many worlds and in many locations, most notably in World 66. Nearly everyone on the world was involved with the riot, and the server was nearly always at the maximum capacity of 2,000 active players. The rioters covered a large area, including Falador square, the Party Room, the White Knights' Castle, both of the city's banks, and some of the area north of the city. Cannons, fires, and magic were commonly used to add to the pandemonium. Mass amounts of miscellaneous items such as Shears, Hammers, and leather gloves were dropped on the ground, as well as Mithril seeds being planted. The dropped items were often used to spell out phrases, the most common being "PK". Other, offensive symbols were used, which players stopped by picking up the items. Other players purposely killed themselves so that their gravestones would cover the area. Some players planted flowers around the stones, saying things such as "R.I.P Durial", siting the infamous World 111 Glitch that occured in Falador on June 6th and 7th of 2006. Incredible lag was caused due to the mass amount of players.

The most common sayings were: "we pay, we say"; "we pay to pk"; "no kills no bills"; "runescape is ruinedscape"; "R.I.P. RuneScape", "jagex is communist", and "R.I.P. Runescape 1999-2007". As in all previous riots, there was much spamming and Retribution. Many players used offensive language by going around the censors, mainly to insult Jagex. The player moderators in the area attempted to stop these rule-breakers with great difficulty, and many other player moderators decided to join the riot. There was much flaming of Andrew Gower and other Jagex moderators and those who attempted to break up the riot. The rioters would parade, it seemed, through Falador, to Varrock, and possibly Lumbridge. Much of RuneScape, including the Wilderness, was left abandoned to those not partaking in the riot.

There were also mass drop parties in the Falador Party Room, with items worth up to 16M+ being dropped. Due to the large amount of players in the area, many players began selling items at the city's east bank. Players began to beg for the items of players that were quitting, and others attempted to purchase retired holiday items such as party hats for one to two million coins; far below their market value.

Once the evening of December 10th came, the riots died down, although the Mod Hasmo Riot had already completely dissipated by then. However, when December 11th came, the riots picked up again in full swing.

People started to drop and buy pink skirts and pink gnome robes. These were known as "riot outfits" and some people began selling collections of the items calling them "full pink". Soon, nearly half of the players in the area were clothed with pink clothing, and many more were dropped and sold to the Falador General Store.

There were also players shouting "Support jagex - read the diary." and "Support Jagex.". The diary refers to the development diary explaining why Jagex made these changes. However, these players were heavily insulted and bombarded with messages.

During the riot, the official RuneScape Forums were incredibly busy, with the rants forum reaching nearly 1,200 active users and the recent updates forum reaching over 400, although it is estimated that many more were viewing the forums but not logged in. In the News and Announcements forum, the threads concerning the wilderness changes and real world trading reached the maximum 2,000 posts fairly quickly. The sticky in the rants forum concerning the updates reached over 40 000 posts within the first two days, eventually being reset. Meanwhile, the sticky in recent updates reached over 21,000. Many ranters belived that the updates concerning summoning were meant only as a distraction, and so the future updates forum contained many threads voicing the issue that summoning might be a rushed skill. The forums shut down several times over the course of the riot, most likely due to the incredible amount of traffic. The rioters were upset by this as well, some claiming that Jagex was trying to "keep them quiet" or "shut them up". Rioters and ranters were further angered by a sticky created by Mod Poppy in the rants forum that told players not to make nonconstructive, offensive, or unkind posts on the forums. Some believed this to be a way of telling players to quit ranting.

At 7:00 P.M. (EST), a mass-logout was staged in which players ran around telling others to log out at 7:00 and messaging their friends informing them, so their friends in turn would tell others. When 7:00 came, the participators logged out en masse. The number of players online in World 89 alone dropped by between 200 and 300 players between 6:55 and 7:05. Over the course of December 10th to 12th, the amount of players logged on decreased drastically, either players were quitting and boycotting RuneScape, or because the large amount of macroers have left the game as real world trading is impossible now.

On the evening of December 11th, the riot calmed down, although a large amount of rioters still remain. When December 12th came, the riot became centralized in Falador once again, although it was considerably smaller. Many players, however, began to be "buy blue and support jagex". Blue skirts began to appear on Jagex supporters in a fight against the pink-clad rioters. Soon the two sides began an all-out-flame war between eachother, insulting eachother's loyalties. The rioters also began to use world 39, although the riot in this world never reached the scale of the one in world 66.

Players' anger was further fueled when Mod Stuart made a post on the forums stating that Jagex had no intention of bringing the old Wilderness back and merely wanted suggestions on how to improve the new updates. Although the factuality of this quote was controversial, it caused the riot to become even more bitter. The rumor that Zezima, the number one ranked player in the game at the time, was partaking in the riot and gave new hope to the rioters, although many doubted this was true.

At this time, the riot is in its 72nd hour of protesting and is already considered by some to be one of the worst events in RuneScape history, whether concerning the update itself or players' reactions to the event.

This protesting may seem to be in vein because Mod Craddock said that they will not bring the old wilderness back.

Videos of the Riot
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