SRL Archive - Senior News and General

I don't think that I am the only one that has noticed this - forum activity is very low. I remember when we had over 3x the new posts we have now every day. When people would post scripts, and they would actually get used/tested. When we would have like 100 people online at some point every day.

Some of you may feel like nothing needs to be done about this, but I do. I don't want to see SRL die. Then Jagex wins.

What would increase the amount of members:

1) Removing the Jr. members group completely. Users active in the past 24 hours: 702 (265 members and 437 guests). About 35% of the users active in the last 24 hours are actually registered. That's not a very good ratio. Members originally come here to leech. Everyone does.

If we had good scripts (with banking. Leechers come here for gp normally, not exp), and it was well organized, they would find some scripts they liked, but then have to register to download and use them. I think that this would bring up the amount of leechers we get to register.

I don't even care if people use my scripts without posting feed back. That's a better feeling than nobody using my scripts at all (granted, it would increase the amount of feed back too)


2) Increase the amount of traffic we get to villavu.com. I was looking at the keywords and description for villavu in the page source and it was not very good. Words like autos, macros, bots, cheats, hacks…etc. should be in there 2 or 3 times to increase page rank. Also, a description that incorporates some of these words would really help too.

Another method of increasing traffic would be to (brace yourselves..) create an auto advertiser for runescape. RS players think (I did too) that autoing includes using level 3 accounts because all autos will get you banned. Now with the trade limit…etc., you cannot use this method anymore, therefore there are no bots. Drastic times call for drastic measures, and if we don't want villav to stay active, then people need to know that there are bots out there that will not get your main banned.


I am fairly certain that most of this, if not all, is going to be denied. But I'm not having fun sitting here watching Runescape autoing through SRL slowly die.

I don't really agree about removing the Jr. Member's rank. The reason we set it up was to serve as a filter for leechers, and we knew it would decrease the number of users who would register.

Most, if not all, of the other community managers often tell me they love the "SRL Spirit" and especially the way people act on our forums. Removing this rank will blow us right back to where we started; trying to weed out leechers.

I must admit I have not macroed in some time, and I do not know how stable SRL and/or SCAR is/are, but this may also be of some influence.

The question is: Do we really want to sacrifice the nice attitude around here for more members?

Most active people in here are really dedicated to SRL, and I don't see them leaving anytime soon.

I agree with you, and I have always loved the SRL spirit too. But even before we made the Jr. member group, SRL had that same spirit, but with more activity and more script testing.

It's more of a matter of how many people are actually autoing and using scripts right now. Most of the current active members are SRL member+, and many SRL don't even use other people's scripts, or even auto/play runescape.

I agree. I'm getting a bit tired of releasing scripts and then hardly getting any feedback. I've been releasing them all in Jr.'s in hope of increasing that, but it's not helping much. Sure, you may say a couple hundred posts of feedback is a lot, but compare that to, for instance, an equivalent script on RSBot.

Garrett's Essence Miner - 4 Months, 80k views, 1.5k replies.
My Essence Miner - 2 Months, 5k views, 400 replies

Sure, only twice as much, BUT, consider this as well - I have 90 posts on my thread, he has 20. Take those out of the equation and you get 1.45k replies vs 300 replies, or 362 replies/month vs. 150 replies a month – twice as high. Not to mention half of those 300 of mine are answering questions that I asked directly (which Garrett apparently doesn't do, or he made it flawless from the start), tipping it even more. Also consider that Garrett's Ess Miner isn't the only fully functioning one on RSBot (though it's probably considered the best by most).

The 8 times as many leechers make it seem a bit less appealing, but I'd take 4x as much feedback in exchange for whatever number of leechers any day. Like JAD, I just want someone to be getting something out of the time I put into making a script.


EDIT: Also, if the idea of advertising on RS sounds good to anyone, I might have some ideas; Camaro' and I were thinking about making some sort of fun script yesterday, and came up with two – A Taxi and a Tour Guide (I believe that was brought up some time ago here though?). For example, the taxi could simply walk back and forth from Lumbridge, Varrock, Falador, and Al-Kharid (the long way). While walking it could talk about botting and SRL. The other idea – a tour guide, would consist of bots showing people around RS or some specific area, then at the end explaining that this tour was brought to you by SRL.

Of course, advertising on RS has it's pro's and con's, so maybe I'm getting too far ahead of myself :p

And you have to consider that ess miners are probably the most popular things to auto (Wizzup essence miner even pops up in google's search suggestions, lol). Tad gets a lot of use in his scripts here, compared to other people, because his reflection scripts do lots of different things (2 different ess mining locations, AIO miner…etc).

Example of a script that would have probably gotten a good amount of use back in the day:

http://www.villavu.com/forum/showthread.php?t=48275 - VEM by Tickyy

Now in over 3 weeks it has had 2 replies.

Another example of how much activity has fallen is the 'Most Viewed Threads' statistic. The majority of threads on there are scripts. Of currently active scripts, I believe 6 are in the top 100.

3 Narcle's Fast Fighter! 61,802
16 [SRL4][#4] Forefeathers 27,224
28 Ultra cut n bank fixed 21,533
38 Fight Caves Runner by Harry 16,786
50 ChickenKiller by Tarajunky 13,833
73 Blumblebee's PowerMiner 11,211

I believe #3, 16, and 28 are outdated/not functioning well by now? 38 and 50 have been around for a very long time, and 73 is one of the few functioning Free For All scripts. As you can see, SRL used to be much more active, before bots such as RSBot came along. Now that they have, SRL needs to adapt if it wishes to stay a major botting community.

EDIT: Just realized #3 is a very old FFA script as well.

From: Tad
As you can see, SRL used to be much more active, before bots such as RSBot came along. Now that they have, SRL needs to adapt if it wishes to stay a major botting community.

It seems that villavu has become more of a programming community than a Runescape autoing community. Majority of the active people here know how to script, but few actually play/auto Runescape.

What does everyone think about auto advertising villavu.com in RS?

I'm not sure how well auto advertising in RS would work, considering a lot of the players wouldn't want to spend more time than just download and run, and a lot of the other players will think SCAR is a virus and won't even visit it. Although, if for some reason we do decide to do any auto advertising I have ~20 autoers which I don't mind getting banned.

Advertising on Scape kinda gives us a lot of negative attention don't you think?

Negative attention in whose point of view? Players or Jagex?

If players - It won't be negative if you do it in the way I mentioned a couple posts up above. If you're performing a free, useful service to them and then mention how it was done (SRL), I highly doubt they'll see botters in a worse light then before; most likely they'll have a more positive view.

If Jagex - Well, every big botting community (Which we strive to be, right? Or am I missing something?) is going to be treated with contempt by them no matter what we do, though I see what you're saying… What could they do to us though?

I am for removing the Junior Member rank.

From: Iron Man
I'm not sure how well auto advertising in RS would work, considering a lot of the players wouldn't want to spend more time than just download and run, and a lot of the other players will think SCAR is a virus and won't even visit it.

I started out just planning on downloading and running too. Nobody comes to this forum with the idea that they are going to be big contributors to the community. As for SCAR being a virus, that maybe so. But people would know that we are auto advertising (and auto walking if we use Tad's idea), which would help prove our point of having a working auto.

I am sure we could reach a lot of young talent in Runescape and get a lot of script testers to enjoy our scripts. What is the point of having the best bot for Runescape if few people use it?

I had a feeling that some people would disagree with this, but we should at least remove Jr. members in my opinion.

From: nielsie95
I am for removing the Junior Member rank.

As am I, but not for the reason of getting more members. If people want to post they'll post, there's hardly any incentive to auto anymore and as people get older they usually move on - which means less new members, more people leaving = decreased activity. In reality jagex beat us with the trade limit update, it's just going to be a long and slow death

I don't think there's much we can do to increase activity.

We were all leechers at one point. Its how we initially got hooked.

The trick to growth as I see it is to hoard as many members as you can and then the ones who are actually useful and motivated will create scripts anyways.

From: The Claw
In reality jagex beat us with the trade limit update, it's just going to be a long and slow death.

I don't think there's much we can do to increase activity.

People can still auto on their mains because SRL is pretty undetectable if used correctly. People need to know this though. That's why we need to get the message to people through auto advertising.

If you think that we are going to die, then shouldn't we do something about it? If we are going to go through a "long and slow death", then it couldn't hurt us to try. Lets try to put us back on the right track through attracting new members.

I 100% agree with what Bam Bam said.

I think removing Junior members wouldn't be a bad idea. However if Wizzup wants to keep the rank perhaps have better working scripts in the FFA section - allow bankers and collectors.

I assume many new people looking for scripts would just come to this site, see that no FFA scripts are working then leave. Some might register and spam 10 post and then get caught and banned. The few remaining may then get a few working Junior scripts.

If we could have the working scripts (perhaps not the best but at least working) available immediately it would draw more people to register, become Junior member and hopefully find scripting quit enjoyable and then stay.

tl, dr: I propose we allow Bankers and Collectors to be posted in the FFA section.

I like the walker & tour guide idea. We could even use it better: for example: taxi air runecrafting. We could also use Cycrocism' power banker idea, but write it in a way that anyone is allowed to use it. We could also have some autoers talking about the script they are using as they auto.

/me imagines someone fishing saying "I am using RM Power Fisher"; "See, i'm now going to change fishing spots, because i believe this one is gone"; "Since I started running RM Power Fisher, I have fished 567 anchovies"

These would of course not blend in with the crowd as SRL intends, but the rest would.

~RM

I do have to agree with the claw on this one. Unless we can find some legit way of transferring autoed good, there really isn't anything that can be done to increase activity. The trade limit both ruined the game and autoing with armies (for the most part).

Although I hope to not see this place, 'die' a long and slow death and personally I don't think that will ever happen. I believe we will always have something around here to keep people here and if we stop getting so much 'traffic' then we could possibly explore things.

Maybe SRL/Villavu will end up be private/invite only someday again and we will have several bots included or something, SCAR, a java bot (reflection, color and byte code injection) one of each or something.

OR

We (SSRL+) do like other communities/bots and make scripts that are included in with SCAR/SRL download so that people don't have to go searching to get scripts and once they become more familiar with SCAR/SRL they can use other peoples scripts also. Just a thought.

But either way, SRL will never die.

-Derek

From: Rasta Magician
I like the walker & tour guide idea. We could even use it better: for example: taxi air runecrafting. We could also use Cycrocism' power banker idea, but write it in a way that anyone is allowed to use it. We could also have some autoers talking about the script they are using as they auto.

/me imagines someone fishing saying "I am using RM Power Fisher"; "See, i'm now going to change fishing spots, because i believe this one is gone"; "Since I started running RM Power Fisher, I have fished 567 anchovies"

These would of course not blend in with the crowd as SRL intends, but the rest would.

~RM

Yeah I really liked the idea of doing something like that more than just spamming in the GE. Obviously, you would most likely end up getting banned from doing this. So people who want to contribute to this idea could just add a boolean constant AdvertiseVillavu to their scripts.

I agree with Zeph that this is the reason we have so few people register here. But if we allow scripts to be posted in FFA, then most people will want to post them there so that their scripts get some use, and that would defeat the purpose of the Jr. members group anyways. Maybe we could just allow color scripts to be posted in the FFA section, because people would want to stay the week then to gain access to some good (arguably flawless in many cases) reflection scripts.

Concerning the 'autoing with armies is pointless nowadays' - Armies aren't a necessity to botting anymore. Look at RSBot, they don't even have the option to run an army yet they have arguably the largest botting community.

I'm against advertising on RS, the point is to blend in. I don't know whether it is better to increase the percentage of registrants that turn into feedback givers/scripters, or increase the number of registrants, but assuming it's the latter; I think we should be looking at people that have already decided that they want to cheat. (Marketers call this pre-qualified leads or something like that.) Also, trying to convert people from one bot to another is annoying. Lastly, being the most popular bot means being the most targeted by jagex.

Not saying that I'm for the idea, but if we go ahead with it, my Army Relocater (In SRL Members) could be modded to fit this purpose.

~RM

Small bump.

Does anybody know why our google rank is so low? If you google working SCAR scripts, villavu isn't even on the first 5 pages I looked at. You can google SRL SCAR scripts, and we won't even be on the first page. Sythe.org comes up, moparisthebest comes up. Just increasing google rank would be a great start to increasing member count in my opinion.

From: JAD
Small bump.

Does anybody know why our google rank is so low? If you google working SCAR scripts, villavu isn't even on the first 5 pages I looked at. You can google SRL SCAR scripts, and we won't even be on the first page. Sythe.org comes up, moparisthebest comes up. Just increasing google rank would be a great start to increasing member count in my opinion.

hummm. when i was first looking for bots, SRL was indeed a bit far back in google. i got to it eventually because it was the only place that was for free, scriptable and that looked decent.

~RM

From: Rasta Magician
hummm. when i was first looking for bots, SRL was indeed a bit far back in google. i got to it eventually because it was the only place that was for free, scriptable and that looked decent.

~RM

I started looking for bots just after kaitnieks died. I tried all of the SCAR scripts that used like squigg.txt (I didn't know any better) and had no luck. I finally found sythe (wasn't high up in google ranks back then either), and found this place through sythe luckily.

From: JAD
I started looking for bots just after kaitnieks died. I tried all of the SCAR scripts that used like squigg.txt (I didn't know any better) and had no luck. I finally found sythe (wasn't high up in google ranks back then either), and found this place through sythe luckily.

I also found SRL through Sythe about 2 years ago. Nowadays we generate virtually no members from Sythe because of the RSBot dominance there.

Does anyone agree we should have better scripts in FFA? I'm willing to move my Draynor Yew Gatherer there.

From: ZephyrsFury
Does anyone agree we should have better scripts in FFA? I'm willing to move my Draynor Yew Gatherer there.

I would consider moving all of my Jr. Member scripts there.

(If we end up allowing banking scripts in FFA, don't forget to make separate sections for skills ;))

Do you need a forum acct for FFA? If not, definitely no miner/wcer bankers that use up training spots, but smelters/flecthers/essminers/etc should be ok. Make sure it's all attachments and not code tags, so we can see how much something is being used/abused.

From: Boreas
Do you need a forum acct for FFA? If not, definitely no miner/wcer bankers that use up training spots, but smelters/flecthers/essminers/etc should be ok. Make sure it's all attachments and not code tags, so we can see how much something is being used/abused.

Non-registered users can access the threads but not the downloads.

K then as long as they don't take up training spots and are attachments, I don't see why not.

Scripts don't have to be fancy or work flawlessly for hours, just enough to get people interested into becoming Junior members and perhaps active.

If banking scripts are allowed in FFA section, then I don't think that many people will leave their scripts in Jr. members. Nobody wants their scripts to get only 1 or 2 testers a month. But then again, more people would become Jr. members, thus increasing activity in that forum for people who want to leave their scripts there.

Removing Jr. members or allowing posting of banking scripts in FFA would both have the same, positive effect, so I am all for either.

In my opinion, we're in need of not only more script testers, but also more new staff and/or developers. Making SRL a much more popular community will no doubt bring in new talent that could be to the major benefit of SRL. If we wait too long to do something (For example, if the include gets neglected for too long, not that it's getting neglected now, but it's only a matter of time), SRL will start to slowly fade out.

From: JAD
If banking scripts are allowed in FFA section, then I don't think that many people will leave their scripts in Jr. members. Nobody wants their scripts to get only 1 or 2 testers a month. But then again, more people would become Jr. members, thus increasing activity in that forum for people who want to leave their scripts there.

Removing Jr. members or allowing posting of banking scripts in FFA would both have the same, positive effect, so I am all for either.

There are more than one or two testers a month in Junior members. Its not actually that hard to become a JM… Besides a lot of people wouldn't want their scripts leeched by completely new 0 post leechers anyway.. such is the attitude of many SRL members towards leechers.

From: ZephyrsFury
There are more than one or two testers a month in Junior members. Its not actually that hard to become a JM… Besides a lot of people wouldn't want their scripts leeched by completely new 0 post leechers anyway.. such is the attitude of many SRL members towards leechers.

I'd say as long as their was some sort of forced feedback through script stats I wouldn't care who was using my script.

From: ZephyrsFury
There are more than one or two testers a month in Junior members. Its not actually that hard to become a JM… Besides a lot of people wouldn't want their scripts leeched by completely new 0 post leechers anyway.. such is the attitude of many SRL members towards leechers.

This is true. I guess it would be better than to leave the JM group so people have the choice.

Well, i've given this some thought. Most Registered Users wouldn't know how to edit the script; we can use this to our advantage.

We can allow all scripts to be posted in FFA, as long as they have a timer!

Say, all FFA scripts run for a maximum of 3h. It's enough to show quality, reliability, etc, it does no great harm to us (they wouldn't thief all training spots 24 / 7 ) and gives them a rather good taste of what they want.

What do you guys think? This would be rather easy to implement.

to implement:
Write the timer piece of code
Write a sticky saying all scripts with this timer are allowed
when allowing a new script just search for the timer, if not there auto-reject.

~RM

From: Rasta Magician
Well, i've given this some thought. Most Registered Users wouldn't know how to edit the script; we can use this to our advantage.

We can allow all scripts to be posted in FFA, as long as they have a timer!

Say, all FFA scripts run for a maximum of 3h. It's enough to show quality, reliability, etc, it does no great harm to us (they wouldn't thief all training spots 24 / 7 ) and gives them a rather good taste of what they want.

What do you guys think? This would be rather easy to implement.

to implement:
Write the timer piece of code
Write a sticky saying all scripts with this timer are allowed
when allowing a new script just search for the timer, if not there auto-reject.

~RM

program New;
{.include srl/srl.scar}

procedure EndTheScript;
begin
  writeln('Limit reached.');
  proggy;
  Logout;
  TerminateScript;
end;

begin
  SetupSRL;
  SetTimeout(3 * 3600000, 'EndTheScript)');
end.

I don't know if I'm for the idea or not though. If they don't like the limit, they're just going to go to RSBot, where they don't have any sort of limits.

I'm not saying I'm for the timer idea (or against), but remember that we do want some types of people to go to rsbot (and other methods). We want to increase forum activity to get more feedback, more scripters, and more devs, not to become the most popular cheating method.

From: Boreas
I'm not saying I'm for the timer idea (or against), but remember that we do want some types of people to go to rsbot (and other methods). We want to increase forum activity to get more feedback, more scripters, and more devs, not to become the most popular cheating method.

Agreed. We just want to make sure that we don't become a dead cheating method. If too many people start leeching and we don't see an increase in member count/people trying to script, we can put it back to the way it was.

I still think that you should change the page description and tags to increase google traffic at least a little. That wouldn't be too hard (I could write the key words and description if it would be too much of a hassle).

From: Boreas
I'm not saying I'm for the timer idea (or against), but remember that we do want some types of people to go to rsbot (and other methods). We want to increase forum activity to get more feedback, more scripters, and more devs, not to become the most popular cheating method.

The timer would not make us the most popular, but it would probably keep people around long enough to become JMs. Also, it would be an incentive to learn to script to remove it ;)

I agree with the google stuff

~RM

From: Rasta Magician
The timer would not make us the most popular, but it would probably keep people around long enough to become JMs. Also, it would be an incentive to learn to script to remove it ;)

I agree with the google stuff

~RM

Of course a timer would not make us the most popular, that wasn't my point, I wasn't trying to make a point about a specific idea for increasing activity. I was trying to say that we shouldn't judge ideas based on their ability to help us become the most popular cheating method, because of the eye of sauron.

(Below are my views and it is possible them to be wrong)
Scripts are what attract people, but people aren't motivated to script. Why? Because they aren't getting as much feedback and/or feeling as loved for it. Even I, with my peculiar projects, will only script while it is something I really want to do *and* I am doing it for someone.

The slow spiral of death comes as scripters can't be replaced as fast as they leave. I believe that the stats system will help with this a lot when released as people can see how much their script is being used etc. and that should hopefully be a good motivator. If not, then something has to be done just to get a surge for even a small amount of time to get the snowballing effect going on.


I do also think that the majority of the forums could use large amounts of selective re-arranging - trolling through multiple topics to find a working script shouldn't be a problem and the like - ease of use ftw.
If the mods+ do find themselves lacking with the time to accomplish a spring clean, then that should be a good sign they need to expand and steal some nolifers/active members to join them as staff, even if it would be smaller roles, such as FFA script moderators, Jr Member script organisers and the like.

*Note* To clarify selective re-arranging, similar to Tutorial island section where outdated tutorials now have a place and actively encourage reporting of out of date scripts. Of course, scripts can be updated, so some boundaries and protocols would have to be setup to handle possible situations.

I'm for certain this has been mentioned in the past… but we might have to consider other games to possible bot. I myself can't stand RS anymore because of Jagex's development and many actions against "botters" or those that look like em. I think some even mentioned switching to another game completely - of course this is the extreme and probably won't be necessary.

There are A LOT more free MMORPG's out there now, maybe we should consider adding a couple. Some are 3D and world oriented like WoW and would probably take more then simple color clicking, but some are still easily scriptable.

I'm looking forward to being one of the first botters for mechscape :p