"Help us understand," pleads MMO dev as Old School RuneScape players vote on infamously loud monsters and decide they should be louder, actually

Old School RuneScape does a lot of things that other games, let alone other MMOs, just plain don't, and one of the most fascinating examples is the way that player input impacts many changes and updates. Virtually all games respond to player feedback, but few games straight-up poll proposed changes via proper voting booths and require a supermajority 70% approval for things to get the green light. But OSRS does, and it has for years, which can lead to amazing moments like the recent division around the decision to finally take the megaphone away from some obnoxiously loud monsters. 

This all started late last month with OSRS poll 82, which focused on changes to minigames. One of those minigames is Temple Trekking, a swampy gauntlet of miscellaneous combat and puzzle challenges. Temple Trekking features monsters called Nail Beasts, and for reasons unknown to science, Nail Beasts sound like angry opossums wrapped in aluminum foil screeching inside copper kettles. They are inexplicably, distractingly loud compared to normal game sounds, as the below clip from YouTube user TheIvyX demonstrates. So, Jagex asked players a simple question in poll 82: "Should we make the Nail Beasts' attack sounds quieter?"

Old School Runescape - Nail Beasts - YouTube

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No, players decided, we should not. Technically the Nail Beast Quieters did win the popular vote with 59.8% of players voting to muzzle these things at long last, but that wasn't enough to push the change through. Hilariously, everything else in the poll passed the 70% margin, including another question about some items dropped by Nail Beasts getting a buff. 

"Help us understand," developer Jagex said in a tweet announcing the poll results. "Do you want the Nail Beasts to be louder? Maybe a small chance to play the sound at full volume whenever you get an XP drop?" 

You can probably imagine the replies. "Make them louder please," requests one user. "AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE," shouts another. "Please add a fourth slider to the options for Nail Beast Roar volume," adds another player, reasonably suggesting core UI changes tied to one monster in a minigame that most players barely touch. 

You see running jokes like this in plenty of games – Final Fantasy 14's beloved grapes come to mind – but OSRS is uniquely positioned for them given the age of the base game and the way it's been modernized. There's an entire culture around the in-joke of minor changes making the game unplayable. That video from TheIvyX is from April 2016, but the top comment – pinned by the uploader, who has 401 subscribers – was posted nine days ago calling for players to vote no on the Nail Beast change. Jagex has (likely quite knowingly) embedded Nail Beasts in OSRS canon now. May they scream forever.

With the determination that makes MMOs special, Old School RuneScape player kills 16,000 chickens by hand for a week because "I like my feathers covered in blood."