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RuneTrack is a website dedicated to tracking and analyzing RuneScape experience gains on both an individual and global level with powerful applications, tools, graphs, and charts.

Jagex Removes F2P From the RuneScape Highscores + Solutions

Wed. November 23, 2011

Hi all,

As you may know, Jagex recently launched a new website design, which included some new website features and changes to existing features on the RuneScape website. One of those changes was the removal of all Free-to-play accounts from the RuneScape highscores.

Jagex's reasoning for this was summarized at the bottom of last week's RuneScape news post detailing the upcoming changes:


In their comprehensive effort to keep the RuneScape Highscores "fresh", Jagex also (possibly accidentally) removed all stat data for F2P accounts from the Light Highscores Feed, which is used by fansites like RuneTrack to track players' stats. So, in addition to the fact that Adventure Logs remain a Members-only feature, this means that Jagex has effectively removed any means of tracking F2P players' RuneScape stats.

Unfortunately, if you are F2P, this means: No more RuneScape stat signatures, individual stat tracking, clan competition participation, or anything else that involves a fansite retrieving your stats.

Not surprisingly, due to this update, RuneTrack will no longer be able to continue tracking F2P account stats. In order for Jagex to provide RuneTrack access to your stat data, you must now become a Member.

As a result of the removal of all F2P data from the RuneScape Highscores, 5,814 RuneTrack accounts (all of the F2P accounts) were moved to an inactive state on RuneTrack. However, note that these F2P accounts will remain in an inactive state on RuneTrack for now, instead of being completely removed, to retain their historical value. Seeing as this update affects so many RuneTrack users (and all F2P fansite users for that matter - F2P stat signatures from any site will no longer update themselves), I imagine you may want to voice your feelings about this update.

However, whether you're for, against, or indifferent toward Jagex's removal of F2P accounts from the regular RuneScape Highscores - I think we can all at least agree on something much more sensible and a lot less controversial: Jagex should keep F2P stat data on the RuneScape "Light" Highscores Feed for fansite use. As mentioned above, the RuneScape Light Highscores are a simplified version of the RuneScape Highscores which fansites use to obtain stat data. Here's an example Light Highscores link:

http://hiscore.runescape.com/index_lite.ws?player=S_U__O__M_I
(Simply replace the player name at the end of the URL to access different players' raw stat feeds, and notice how it doesn't work for F2P players anymore.)

This way, Jagex could keep F2P players off the official RuneScape Highscores if they wanted to, but still allow fansites to access their stats (level and experience) via the light feed for tracking purposes. If Jagex's reasoning for removing F2P players in the first place is as they describe, they should have no problem making this simple change.

The Jagex Web Development team is currently monitoring this feedback thread on the RuneScape Forums and I have also posted my own thread "Keep F2P On the Light Hiscores", so feel free to show your support for giving fansites access to F2P stat data via the Light Highscores.

Thank you for your support!

And as a final note, I'd like to wish those in the United States a happy Thanksgiving! =)

RuneTrack Reaches 15,000 Registered Members! + Other Updates

Mon. September 19, 2011

Hey all,

It's been a while since I've done a news post, but I'm happy to announce that today, RuneTrack hit the 15,000 user mark! I'd like to give a big thank you to everyone for their support in contributing to RuneTrack's continued growth.

I'd also like to take a moment and announce a couple of new features that have been added to RuneTrack recently:

• Automatic clan member imports - On the Create Competition page for Competition Trackers, competition administrators now have the ability to type in a clan's name, and automatically load all of that clan's members into the tracker. This means that competition administrators no longer have to type in each name individually, but can instead import all of their clan members at once. This feature extracts the information from the RuneScape Clans Directory, so the clan name you enter must be a valid name in the official directory.
  
  
• Improved geolocation on Automatic Timezone Converters - The Automatic Timezone Converter has been upgraded to use a new data source which should be more reliable and accurate at determining your approximate location. While the image cannot capture your exact location, in most cases it can determine a relatively close location which belongs to the same timezone as you, and is therefore able to yield an accurate timezone conversion.

Additionally, I'd like to highlight the importance of RuneTrack's Name Change Contribution System. As the site continues to grow past 15,000 members, the amount of name changes that occur among RuneTrack members also steadily increases. By taking just a moment of your time to contribute a few name changes (explained in more detail here), you can personally support RuneTrack and help keep our database up-to-date and accurate.

Thanks again everyone! =)

Live Wilderness and Free Trade Vote Tracking Signatures

Fri. December 24, 2010

Hey all,

Jagex has recently announced that they are holding a vote for players to decide if they want the wilderness and free trade (huge components of the game removed in 2008 to combat real-world trading and bots) to return to the game.

After voting, to avoid having to constantly login to check on the results and to give you a way to show your support for your vote, whatever it may be, I've created a live wilderness and free trade vote tracking signature:

You can create your own signature in the box below:

The signature shows a graph of how the vote has progressed since it started, along with an up to the minute total of where the vote currently stands. The color key for each vote choice is represented on the right, and the black line on the graph tracks the number of players who have voted for each hour since the vote started (the axis labels are not shown for the player number values on the graph). Additionally, the signature allows you to state what you voted for and give an optional short support message or reason for your vote.

I hope you all find this useful in spreading awareness for the vote. The more that vote, the more accurate the results will be.

Happy holidays everyone!

RuneTrack Has Moved To a Faster, More Reliable Server

Sat. November 20, 2010

Hi all,

I'm happy to announce that RuneTrack has now moved to a faster, more reliable server with significantly increased uptime!

I'm aware that for the past couple months, the server has been continually sluggish from around 9:30am - 11:30am GMT. This downtime did not affect the majority of RuneTrack's users as it was during the early morning for those in the United States (5:30am - 7:30am Eastern US) and at about mid-day for Europeans. However, the downtime was unfortunately an issue for those in Australia, as it occurred during their peak playing hours in the evening (7:30pm - 9:30pm AEST). Additionally, other server slow-downs were causing minor errors to occur during some of the daily System Updates (though these were quickly fixed the next day).

So, in order to maintain RuneTrack's quick and efficient services, I have now moved RuneTrack.com to a new, more reliable server, which has fully solved the downtime issue. I apologize for any trouble this downtime issue may have caused, but after extensive monitoring of the server, I'm happy to report that RuneTrack.com is now running at virtually 100% uptime for all timezones. Furthermore, the server move has fixed those minor errors during system updates, such that all aspects of the daily System Update now function exactly as they should.

Additionally, the server move has also provided the site with a speed boost to allow for faster load times overall, as can be seen in an updated version of the Load Speed Improvement Chart (first used in the April 2, 2010 news post) below:

Page	Load Speed Improvement
	January 2010	April 2010	November 2010
Individual Records Page	21.5 seconds	0.2 seconds	0.15 seconds
Home Page	3.8 seconds	0.1 seconds	0.05 seconds
Competitions Catalogue	5.5 seconds	1.5 seconds	0.3 seconds
User Profile Page	8.5 seconds	1.1 seconds	0.6 seconds
Daily High Scores	9.4 seconds	0.2 seconds	0.1 seconds
RuneTrack High Scores	8.1 seconds	0.3 seconds	0.2 seconds

Note: Average load time refers to the time it takes the server to process the page (displayed at the very bottom of every page).

As you can see, RuneTrack's system has become significantly faster from where it was at the beginning of the year, and even just a few months ago, to the point where the load speed really can't get any noticeably faster. With this new server in place, I'd like to reaffirm RuneTrack's promise of providing quick, efficient, and bug-free stat tracking.

Thanks again to everyone who's provided feedback about this issue to help solve it, and for all the continued support! =)

A Flurry of RuneTrack Upgrades, Fixes, and More

Sat. August 14, 2010

Hey all,

I've now added a flurry of helpful new features and fixes to RuneTrack:

• The contents of the old "User Stat History" page has been split among the "User Stat History" and "User Stat Progress" pages.
• Competition Trackers now use a new stat checking algorithm which runs five times faster - meaning you'll only be waiting a few seconds instead of a few minutes when you press the "Update Clan Stats" button on Competition Trackers.
• Once a competition starts, the competition administrator now has the ability to remove members from ongoing competitions (however, they cannot remove members from the competition after it's finished).
• Instead of using the universal GMT standard on all Competition Trackers, competition administrators can now set the competition start and end time in a timezone of their choice.
• Based on the custom timezone selected on Competition Trackers by the competition administrator, clicking on the blue timezone text on a Competition Tracker will reveal a RuneTrack Auto Timezone Converter with the competition's start or end time, as well as proper timezone, so whoever is viewing it will know exactly when the competition starts or ends in their home timezone.
• RuneTrack now uses a "resolution" cookie to give you a personalized browsing experience based on your screen resolution. This allows the site to expand certain features like the flash graphs and charts for wider resolutions, and consense them for lower resolutions.
• Hovering over your current XP on your User Profile Page will display how much XP you have remaining until the next level.
• RuneTrack Auto Timezone Converters now have improved text support for special characters in the title.
• To recognize those who have given their time to contributing display name changes on the Contribute a Display Name Change page, there is now a leaderboard of the top name contributors. To be included in the running for this leaderboard, you must type your own display name (which must have its own RuneTrack account) in the optional field before submitting a name change contribution.
• The top three name contributors will have a special contribution medal placed on their User Profile page to recognize their support of the site. An example of this medal can be seen on the current #1 name contributor's User Profile: Capheraekton .
• RuneTrack now has improved HTML 4.01 and CSS validation. When you click a blue "W3C" button link at the bottom of any page, the "W3C" site will scan the code of the current page you are on, and prove that the page is coded to precise HTML 4.01 standards.
• Usernames now appear without the underscore "_" and instead use a proper space, unless a name has multiple spaces, in which the name will appear with underscores to show multiple spaces.
• Page source codes are now properly formatted in terms of tabs and new line spacing. This can be seen in Internet Explorer by right clicking on the page, clicking "View Source", then unchecking "Word Wrap" on the Format menu. In Firefox, this can be seen by right clicking the page and selecting "View Page Source", then deselecting "Wrap Long Lines" under the View menu.

As always, if any element of the site isn't working exactly as it should (or even looks just a little off), please feel free to drop a quick note in the Bugs/Issues Forum and it'll be quickly fixed. Thanks for your continued help!

I hope these upgrades will enhance the user experience of RuneTrack and lay the foundation for further developments to come. :)

Speed/Design Enhancements and Name Change Contributions

Fri. April 2, 2010

Hi all,

I'd like to announce a few great improvements to RuneTrack. I realize this is a lengthy news post, but I assure you that it's entirety is definitely worth the read!

Firstly, I know there hasn't been a news post in a while - but I have still been very much at work on the "behind the scenes" features at RuneTrack. With RuneTrack's explosive growth over the past few months, I noticed that various pages weren't running as smoothly with the addition of millions of new data values to process. To ensure that our efficiency here is maintained, I re-designed a significant amount of RuneTrack scripts with a better code structure, allowing for a much faster stat tracking and experience analysis.

To give you an idea of the vast improvements made, take a look at this chart comparing certain pages' average load speeds:

Page	Load Speed Improvement
	January 2010	April 2010
Individual Records Page	21.5 seconds	0.2 seconds
Home Page	3.8 seconds	0.1 seconds
Competitions Catalogue	5.5 seconds	1.5 seconds
User Profile Page	8.5 seconds	1.1 seconds
Daily High Scores	9.4 seconds	0.2 seconds
RuneTrack High Scores	8.1 seconds	0.3 seconds

Note: Average load time refers to the time it takes the server to process the page (displayed at the very bottom of every page).

The update efficiently reduced the amount of server calculations needed to be preformed on runtime by storing them in a retrievable database during the system update. As you can see from the above table, this was a major improvement.

Additionally, I'd also like to mention the site design enhancements. As you may have noticed, most pages have undergone some nice graphic tweaks, presenting a sleeker feel to the site. I'd like to thank Branin (Lateralus) for all of his help in designing many these new site images. Note that there are still a number of graphical updates to come.

Finally, I have introduced another RuneTrack feature to further improve tracking services. Since the name change update back in October which allows players to change their display names every month, Jagex has still not provided fansites with a way to easily obtain name change information. Unfortunately, this meant that many User Profiles went inactive, simply because there was no way to determine a players' new display names once changed. The individual name changer successfully gave players the ability to merge their old and new display names on RuneTrack - however, as a significant number of users have not done this, many User Profiles still remain stuck on a player's old display name.

To solve this issue, I have now introduced a Name Change Contributions Page (also located on the left navigation menu under "Auto Timezone Converter"). The contribution system allows the community of RuneTrack users like you to help maintain the accurate and efficient stat tracking services, by ensuring that old display names are not left behind.

Essentially, if you wish to participate, the contribution system will present you with a random old display name in the RuneTrack database which someone has recently switched to a new display name. To contribute, all you have to do is locate that player's new name by adding the old name to your Friends List (thus displaying their new name), and submitting their new name on the page. Simply by doing that, the player's entire Individual Tracking account will be completely updated to their new display name, and you will have saved their User Profile from going inactive.

In a database of thousands of users, I knew that I alone would be unable to keep up with the many daily name changes, which is why I decided to give you all the ability to do so as well. Of course choosing to contribute name changes is completely voluntary - but if you ever have a spare moment in-game, you may want consider spending a minute or two helping keep RuneTrack up to date.

Thanks again for all of your continued support! =)

Name Changing Feature and Other Updates

Mon. November 2, 2009

Hi all,

I know that Jagex's recent update which allows players to change their RuneScape display names has caused quite a bit of confusion lately. Unfortunately, Jagex has made the decision to not provide fansites with any way of obtaining a player's new display name if a player should choose to change it, which of course makes stat tracking rather difficult with so many name changes with no means to track them all.

However, I have now created a Change Display Name feature at the bottom of the Individual Tracking menu which allows any user to transfer or merge a RuneTrack profile to a new display name. This can apply to those who either want to change the name on their current RuneTrack account to correctly match their new RuneScape display name, or for those who have already created a new RuneTrack account for their new display name and simply want to merge their history from their old accounts into it. RuneTrack will cycle through a variety of verification checks to ensure that the name change provided is accurate.

If successful, the old display name will be replaced with the new display name in all Individual and Global tracking areas, including Global Record names. The player's old display name(s) will also be placed in small text under his or her new display name on the User Profile page for reference.

Eventually, as RuneTrack logs enough name changing information, I will be releasing a new database feature which will allow the user to view the history of a given display name in time line form. For example, say you are a clan leader processing a new application that looks somewhat suspicious - you would be able to type that player's current display name into RuneTrack, and it would output a complete history of all display names that account has previously held, with additional tracking information such as the dates on which the name changes were made, and if any other accounts have held that display name in the past.

Also, as another minor update to RuneTrack today - if you scroll down on the homepage, you will notice that I have added two extra tables for "This Week's Top Xp Gains" and "This Month's Top Xp Gains". Just as further explanation, the top weekly xp gains reset every Sunday morning and the top monthly xp gains reset on the first of the month.