Runescape’s developers have responded to a wave of criticism from the community, following plans to introduce the Hero Pass, an extra subscription on top of the base subscription that would have given access to “pay-to-win” features.
Significant backlash from the community led to the developers admitting that it had “messed up,” and that it will remove all the “controversial features” from the Hero Pass before it is launched. Specifically, the Hero Pass allowed players to essentially buy their way up the level ranks, obtain Underworld Emblems, and earn content and XP buffs.
Even without these controversial additions, the pass has also been criticized for being an additional cost for a game that already requires a monthly subscription fee. The Hero Pass itself isn’t going away, though, with cosmetics and consumables remaining.
The devs admitted that “The launch of Hero Pass alienated and frustrated many in the community. You’ve told us, amongst other things, that it was too pay-to-win and you’d lost important aspects of Daily Challenges.”
“We made a significant misjudgment and we are sorry. We need to reflect on that and learn from it. That also means we need to take more time to listen and work with the community. How and why that happened is for another time, what’s most important right now is what we’re doing about it.”
The Daily Challenges system will be restored to the game, separate from the Hero Pass, and the game will receive an “urgent” patch to remove the pay-to-win features. However, they warned that it will take a while to “digest your feedback in detail and engage in a community consultation to drive a thorough re-design and re-development of Hero Pass.”
An Update on Hero Pass from Mod Keeper and the RuneScape Leadership Team: https://t.co/vomGjJ0G9d
The following changes will be made to Hero Pass (among others):
• Removal of content buffs entirely
• XP Buffs only earnable via gameplay for all players
• Daily Challenges to…
— RuneScape (@RuneScape)
Jagex stated that the Hero Pass itself will remain, because “hundreds of thousands” of players are already subscribed to the pass, and that removing it would neither be fair on them nor would it be right to erase their progress made since subscribing to it. Players are declaring “Supreme Victory” on the Runescape subreddit, but players are also praising the developers for choosing to wind back some of the more controversial aspects of the subscription.
It’ll take a few weeks for the changes to roll out, with Jagex stating that “for the long-term changes, we intend to not rush, to allow for a re-think of the design, and have the space to work closely and iterate the design in consultation with the community.”
For players who purchased the Hero Pass and it’s paid reward track, Premier Pass, can request a full refund via the game’s customer support pages.
This content was originally published here.
