Unbalanced Trade Riot

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The Unbalanced Trade Riot (or the World 1 riot) is a riot that started sometime before (9 PM Jan 2. US eastern time) 1:00 A.M., UTC time, in early morning of 3 January 2008. This riot was caused by many F2P players finding that the update instituting a trade limit was unfair. It is also the first major riot to ever occur in F2P.

It started a year prior with the growing problem of illegal trade of coins, which is more commonly known as "real world item trading" (abbreviated as RWT). In the months prior to the Unbalanced Trade Riot, Jagex was cracking down on RWTers by creating multiple updates to stop RWTing, but unfortunately penalised legit players. Some players were also activating Protection Prayers, as F2P players cannot activate Retribution, a P2P prayer usually used in riots.

Unlike a similar riot, the "Pay to Pk Riot", which lasted multiple days, this one lasted around seven hours; sometime before 1:00 A.M. (UTC), and ended sometime before 7:30 A.M.

[edit] Impact

This riot is quite significant in the sense that this is the first time free players started rioting. However, due to the short lifespan of the riot, the riot is relatively small compared to the Pay to PK Riot, and thus received less publicity and moderators' presence. Furthermore, the riot was held in World 1, where many players would be busy with their in-game tasks and the server was nearly always fully packed, and thus most players were unaware of the riot.

Although it was the first major riot to occur on a free world, it would not be the last. The Wilderness Riot of 4 June would later occur in the same location, although it had more in common with its predecessor, the Pay to Pk Riot, than the Unbalanced Trade Riot.

[edit] See also

• Wilderness Changes, Bounty Hunter and Clan Wars!
• Trade and Drop Changes
• RuneScape vs Real-world Trading
• A Word About Our Updates
• Future Changes to Recent Updates
• Unbalanced Trade Removal

v • d • e Riots
2007	Rule Seven Protest • 14 Hour Riot • Pest Control Riot • Duel Arena Riot • Mod Hasmo Riot • Pay to PK Riot
2008	Unbalanced Trade Riot • Wilderness Riot • Graphics Riot
2009	Protect Item Riot