SRL Archive - Senior News and General

What can we do about this?

What solutions are there to create the enrichened atmosphere it once had?
I feel the problem is that most of the SSRL members at the moment simply aren't interested in SRL anymore and thus aren't browsing as often as they used to. Those that still are interested in SRL and are SSRL doesn't have anything important to share with the other SSRL members.

The SSRL section is dieing and it's yearning after the community it once had. Do we need new and fresh faces? What about new and exciting scripts for those that still play runescape? Most of the senior members (not only SSRL members) have left the scene and I miss them. A lot. Whenever I browse really old threads where EvilChicken!, Naum, N1ke, JuKKa, n3ss3s and all my other fellow friends were still active and posting (and not scamming *cough*N1ke*cough*) my heart skips a beat… We need fresh faces and beautiful minds if we want the SSRL section to come back alive…

Or perhaps the problem is that once SSRL members find something valuable to share, they simply post it in the public section or SRL Members section? If so, then what use has the SSRL members section?
I feel we need to find a use for the SSRL section or else it'll just keep on not being alive. The only thing really keeping it alive is the fact that we haven't closed it off - yet.

Doesn't anybody else miss the thriving forum we once had? The forum where everybody worked together as one unit - in unison - towards something greater? Let's create a new project for the SSRL members that will make the SSRL section alive once again. I have a project like this but I want more beautiful minds to be active once again and work together for something big. Something that will once again prove that SRL is the place to be! I have not yet lost faith in SRL. We can do better than what we're doing right now.

Isn't it time to give new life to SRL?!

Sadly that's what happens. I miss a lot of them too, but some people unfortunately move on. Really, the only solution is to promote more to SSRL, although sadly at the moment, I do not think too many qualify :(

The popularity of RuneScape is decreasing.. many people moved to Oldschool RuneScape. Only to completely quit once they got banned as Jagex improved their bot detection OR to quit once they realised the community wasn't the same.

The community here is great but on other botting sites most script users are really ungrateful for the work you put in making scripts. A big reason being that a lot of people are only "playing" RuneScape to profit off it: goldfarming, account selling, etc. Fortunately that is different here at SRL where most people simply use the scripts to train their skills.

Jagex has really stepped up their bot protection, they even managed to catch me after a few years of botting - although they catched me with a "Bot busting" event. I think many people have already quit RuneScape because the game is not the same as it used to be. And to be honest I'm also losing interest. I only seem to be botting for that thrill of breaking the rules and testing if I'm still ahead of Jagex.

What surprises me is the fact that nearly all the good programmers are active in the botting scene: SRL, Powerbot, TRiBot, etc. But there aren't that many people active in the actual legitting scene. As far as I know there is only one Toolkit that most people use and that is SwiftKit. And perhaps RSBuddy now it has been transformed.

I'm personally working on a RuneScape 3 Toolkit. People over at SwiftKit and RSBuddy seem to be really grateful that it has been made. The people that actually play RuneScape might have been neglected too much over the years.. while it's the biggest group!

Why is nearly every programmer trying to help botters and not the actual legit players? There is so much to be made to aid the real players:
- Instantly solve clue scroll riddles
- Track the xp/h you are gaining
- Help with quests
- Etc.

Perhaps it's time to focus on something different. It has been mentioned multiple times before. Perhaps even switch completely to a different game.

EDIT: And the idea would be that people can make their own plugins to aid their legitting gameplay.

This is a good post and I agree with it absolutely, but I believe it's this way not just in the SSRL section but the forum as a whole. There's quite a small amount of traffic on the forum at any give time and of that handful of active users, who posts? Not a whole lot, that's for sure. I really think we need to focus on getting all-around general activity here going again; focus at the base of the problem.

@ J J: A new game would be pretty neat (assuming we could find one) but it'd honestly have to fill the amount of popularity of Runescape, and that's not easy to match. The more popular the game is the higher the demand of macros, no? And the higher the demand the more potential we have of drawing in a larger crowd, whether new potential scripters or just a huge userbase. So it's a good idea but it would really have to be a big, logical target. Perhaps we can set our sights on some of the larger RSPS? Penny for your thoughts.

That is indeed true, @Flight; and I believe you're referring to my post in the dev section..?
I'll post it here as well. I'd love to get more input on this:

The SRL community is declining in popularity. The SSRL Forums are dead, scripters are slowly moving towards tribot and pbot, new members are coming but not staying. Something has changed, and the SRL forums requires some change as well.

We have always been looked upon as the stubborn forum that won't get taken down and who won't truly change our ways. We have always been the rigid community.
I miss the old days. I miss the thriving forums where each new day I was excited to see "new posts: 12664" when I woke up.
Don't you want that back as well? Don't you miss those days? We had all these brilliant new minds entering our forums all the time; what happened that made them leave? I think we can do better.

Sure, Runescape has changed too, of course, but why can't we change with it? Such an incredibly large portion of Runescape players don't even play on the official servers, they play custom versions of Runescape on private servers. Why should we be limiting ourselves to what's official, when we can easily bring in every alternative as well?

We are a diverse and versatile community! There is no reason we can't easily implement a number of these custom servers in a short time and work on continuing to prove how our one bot is so much more capable than Tribot or Powerbot. This is just a step along the path however. This would bring in the crowds of people that actually play RSPS, AS WELL AS the scripters who become interested in us, simply for the fact that we have a single bot capable of accessing all of them.

The fact that people play on private servers is also easily spottable on our forums as well. Officer Barbary has made about 15 scripts for private servers, we see more and more interest in those forums; villavu is in fact the only active botting community out there that actually support any private server. We need to face that fact and seize that opportunity. We need to adapt in order to regain our former glory.
How can we adapt to this? Would we have to create tens or even hundreds of different includes? SRL-ThisPrivateServer, SRL-ThatPrivateServer?
I think there's an easier way.

Let's look at SRL-6. It's way more dynamic than SRL-5; one simple change in one file and you could adapt to a whole different server. People are going to realize this as well and create local includes for different private servers. Why don't we aid them in doing so? What if we create a database (Yes, here I go again) over different interface layouts and objects? What if we create an extensible include along with a database system that makes it possible for SRL to grow to greater heights? We won't have to do much; we could let the community maintain the different databases. All we have to do is to let them help themselves.

One gigantic smart extensible database system that will make it possible for scripters as well as script users to help the villavu community in growing into something larger.

There is also several other major matters that we need to discuss. OGL is one of them; while we won't necessarily add it to the include, why don't we help people in making something like an OGL include? They already have a working one, why not aid them? We, the SRL community, have to be more open and welcoming towards change. We even see people creating HTML5 bots on the forums. We need to adjust in order to keep people like that from leaving.

Let us turn SRL into a dynamic and extensible include, rather than the rigid and strong one it is today.

From: Flight
This is a good post and I agree with it absolutely, but I believe it's this way not just in the SSRL section but the forum as a whole. There's quite a small amount of traffic on the forum at any give time and of that handful of active users, who posts? Not a whole lot, that's for sure. I really think we need to focus on getting all-around general activity here going again; focus at the base of the problem.

@ J J: A new game would be pretty neat (assuming we could find one) but it'd honestly have to fill the amount of popularity of Runescape, and that's not easy to match. The more popular the game is the higher the demand of macros, no? And the higher the demand the more potential we have of drawing in a larger crowd, whether new potential scripters or just a huge userbase. So it's a good idea but it would really have to be a big, logical target. Perhaps we can set our sights on some of the larger RSPS? Penny for your thoughts.

Well at this point so much work has been done for RuneScape that it would be very hard to leave all that behind and move to a new game. Obviously you could just work on making stuff for a new game but that would mean less time for RuneScape.

I also have no idea what game we could move to. RuneScape has been a pretty stable and all around pretty popular game for the past 10 years. As you and Zyt3x mentioned we could spend more time on a RSPS include.

But what do you guys think of something like a Toolkit that enhances gameplay for legit players instead of helping people to bot. Especially with Jagex stepping up their bot preventation it might be a viable option..

I think once SRL 6 gets to the level of stability as SRL 5 was we will see a large increase in activity (actually it might already be there, I still haven't played with it too much). So really making a push to educate people on SRL 6 will get the scripts going and cause much more traffic here. Just my two cents

@Zyt3x; I love you man. I love everyone here, just wish I had the time to be active once again.

From: Kyle Undefined
@Zyt3x; I love you man. I love everyone here, just wish I had the time to be active once again.

Ah, my fellow Camo Kyle/Camo Developer/JaGeX Spy. How could I miss you in my original post. :( Sorry man <3 Ilu too.
Whenever you're up for a chat, hit me up on skype! :D

From: Zyt3x
Ah, my fellow Camo Kyle/Camo Developer/JaGeX Spy. How could I miss you in my original post. :( Sorry man <3 Ilu too.
Whenever you're up for a chat, hit me up on skype! :D

No problem, brother. I'm hardly home, so it might be awhile before I'm on Skype.

From: Kyle Undefined
No problem, brother. I'm hardly home, so it might be awhile before I'm on Skype.

Give up. We all know you're a spy that is constantly spying on us in the shadows, unseen. You can't pin it on me any more, we all know the truth!

No excuses that you're too "busy" or "working".

Regards,
~ Sp.. Daniel. :)

From: Daniel
Give up. We all know you're a spy that is constantly spying on us in the shadows, unseen. You can't pin it on me any more, we all know the truth!

No excuses that you're too "busy" or "working".

Regards,
~ Sp.. Daniel. :)

I love you too Daniel.


So you can understand, being an Aussie and all :)

From: Kyle Undefined
I love you too Daniel.


So you can understand, being an Aussie and all :)

How did you know I am Australian?! Coincidence? I think not! Spy!

From: Daniel
How did you know I am Australian?! Coincidence? I think not! Spy!

I have my ways ;)

Aside from my decline in activity, I would say that something to reignite my interests around SRL would be a movement towards more possibilities.

Ex. keep the idea around learning 1st community, but expand development to able more versatility.

My jagged brain farts aside,
Cheers and only the best,
-Lj

I must say, this thread really caught my eye, and it's been good reading everyone's opinion on the decline in legit players and botters..
While I like JJ's idea of focusing on helping legit players with "3rd-party" tools.. Legit players have never been too much of a concern for me.. I have a friend who still plays legit (cause he is max combat) and he would never use any bots or scripts because he is so scared of his main being banned. I had made some script-tools in the past, one resembled an auto-clicker with isuptext() which stops clicking on a full inventory. I found it very versatile and useful but it was something which was never really popular with the community..

I have always been "lurking" around since 08 when I left, and while I did not post until recently, I still kept tabs on things here.. I think that is the case with more of SRL's members than you would expect. It is intimidating to "weigh-in" on some topics (although they may interest you) if you are not currently "on-the-scene" so to speak.. Maybe more rewards to members for tutorial-making would be a suitable solution to that one..

One of the biggest reasons I left was the class-ist structure of the forums. Developers had access to some amazing scripts which NEVER saw the light of day. I didn't have too much of a problem with people not wanting to share their own scripts, but there was one big community script that was kept hidden which was the final blow for me. I'm talking about the Auto-Responder script, yes the one from the dev section.
There was a public version released (after many of us complained that this stuff should be public) and it was a joke. Nothing like our developer version, it was a bare-bones noob script which made it into public hands. I was insulted because I'd spent a lot of time helping fill the master version with vocab and conversation-recognition. For what? The benefit of a few? That is exactly what I hate about the real world and why I started making scripts for anyone to use and educate themselves with.

Another reason I don't patrol the SSRL section is because of the lack of senior member content, more specifically, rs-related content. We don't have a lot that we can all work together on and we'd all be old enough to have some serious responsibilities nowadays (Busy work-life, kids, nagging partners, etc.) so it would have to be something any senior member could just add their 2cents to (like a multi-skiller script).

I have a suggestion that might bring the senior SRL community closer to the regular SRL members, perhaps including the OSR-SRL include with the normal version of SRL (a lot of senior members play OSR I'm sure). There is now a version which supports Lape (done by Olly, Flight and a few other members) so it wouldn't clash with anyone trying to set up SRL for rs3. I've spoken to Flight about why there is another version still using Pascal as the interpreter and he informed me that was the "official" version. So anyway, I was thinking, give the senior members sub-forum a little control over the official OSR-SRL include, allow us to oversee that include and focus most the developers on rs3.
I think if you want something less rigid that would keep SSRL members active, this might be a good idea.

That's my 2cents :p

From: Krazy_Meerkat
I have a suggestion that might bring the senior SRL community closer to the regular SRL members, perhaps including the OSR-SRL include with the normal version of SRL (a lot of senior members play OSR I'm sure). There is now a version which supports Lape (done by Olly, Flight and a few other members) so it wouldn't clash with anyone trying to set up SRL for rs3. I've spoken to Flight about why there is another version still using Pascal as the interpreter and he informed me that was the "official" version. So anyway, I was thinking, give the senior members sub-forum a little control over the official OSR-SRL include, allow us to oversee that include and focus most the developers on rs3.
I think if you want something less rigid that would keep SSRL members active, this might be a good idea.

That's my 2cents :p

We've talked about that in the past (by we, I mean @Dgby714; suggested it). Having a single SRL include (on github) with a different branch for RS3, OSR, some private server, basically for all the official SRL includes. Using git we could basically have the same includes (same functions/structure), but that work with different games. For example, the colors and coordinates would be different, but the structure and functions would be very similar.

From: Ashaman88
I think once SRL 6 gets to the level of stability as SRL 5 was we will see a large increase in activity (actually it might already be there, I still haven't played with it too much). So really making a push to educate people on SRL 6 will get the scripts going and cause much more traffic here. Just my two cents

I really hope that is true.

Talking about aiding legit players – that would be a neat project, something a little more "advanced" or those who are more skilled programmers. Would that draw in users? I don't know, but it's a cool idea.

From: Coh3n
We've talked about that in the past (by we, I mean @Dgby714; suggested it). Having a single SRL include (on github) with a different branch for RS3, OSR, some private server, basically for all the official SRL includes. Using git we could basically have the same includes (same functions/structure), but that work with different games. For example, the colors and coordinates would be different, but the structure and functions would be very similar.

Yep, actually I believe this (or something similar) was mentioned in post #5 of this thread, by Zyt3x.


I enjoyed reading @Krazy_Meerkat's post, he bought up some good points to think about.

This actually has very little to do with the SSRL section specifically but rather the community as a whole. I'd like to see us working on group projects again reviving some key features, like SRL Stats and the Auto-Responder that Krazy_Meerkat mentioned above. Whatever happened to the Script Manager that was in development before? I'd really love to see that take off, anything similar to a script repo that can communicate directly with Simba. This feature is common in most of the present bots available out there and this feature is very appealing to users. Here's a outline of what I had in mind:


This could be what shows up Simba-side and, depending on the effort of whomever maintains the script report, we could link this to SRL-Stats and have key variables displayed on this screen as well, like current # of users, # of unique users, total run time, total X gained, and so on…

Thoughts?

From: Flight
Whatever happened to the Script Manager that was in development before? I'd really love to see that take off,

The people maintaining Simba cannot be bothered to implement sizable new features. Simba 1.0 was the supposed "master goal" where everything would be complete, but now that supposed dream version is getting pushed farther and farther back.

From: Daniel
The people maintaining Simba cannot be bothered to implement sizable new features. Simba 1.0 was the supposed "master goal" where everything would be complete, but now that supposed dream version is getting pushed farther and farther back.

Is bothered really the right word? Seems like to me people ie wizzup, have much more going on in "real-life" and dont have the time to update Simba.

But Simba has a script manager built in.. it just needs stuff done server side :p

I would be really nice to have a single repo. for all versions of SRL, and to get the script manager working. Once Dgby is back we should be able to get a single repo. for sure.

I'm not actually sure on the status of the script manager. Like, I don't know what the GUI looks like, but if we could get that we could start tweaking it to our liking so it's ready when the server code is done.

From: Flight
Yep, actually I believe this (or something similar) was mentioned in post #5 of this thread, by Zyt3x.

Heh, brought this up with Coh3n like the day of SRL-6 release.

iirc, I also setup a repo as an example… https://github.com/SRL/SRL

Just need to merge in the changes to SRL-6 and OSR in the meantime, then obsolete the old repos.

From: Olly
Is bothered really the right word? Seems like to me people ie wizzup, have much more going on in "real-life" and dont have the time to update Simba.

But Simba has a script manager built in.. it just needs stuff done server side :p

I think this is a pretty general statement: I know that college/life/everything has lowered SRL activity a few years back unfortunaetly. But it still stands this is where I learned my first language and was such an influence at a younger age.