Skillcapes are a problem for a very long time. In RWT we saw a increase after their introduction in mid/late 2006 and botting in 2007. Skills which were unworthy to max such as Firemaking and RS gold Herblore needed a massive demand all of a sudden and RWTers only filled that gap. Correlation doesn't equal causation.
Beyond that, what you are proposing is that the action of getting individuals to play Runescape longer is going to worsen the botting and RWT problems. If that is true, it's only the price of doing business because they want people enjoying more. I recall the change in mindset skillcapes caused's release. It actually was a simpler time prior to skillcapes. It seemed like hardly anyone cared to acquire high stats, let alone get level 99 in futile or unenjoyable skills. Then after their release everyone seemed to abruptly care.
Nowadays its much. The playerbase is obsessed with efficiency. I genuinely believe its hurting Runescape. There's a lot of dead material ingame, simply as it is not considered efficient. Every minor inconvenience has to be eliminated for the sake of efficiency. The efficiency attitude the skillcapes caused definitely increased the requirement for cheating and RWT. The perks are also a significant part of the issue, like IVIorphinz said, however, it all started with the introduction of skillcapes in my personal opinion.
Like a lot of people these days do not play for pleasure 14, I really feel. Many individuals are chasing after very very long duration, mind numbing pliers since the playerbase for a whole has become so aggressive with each other that those are the only things"that thing". In case it doesn't take hundreds of hours, then it's not a true accomplishment apparently. I don't disagree with that since it's bound to occur so long there's hiscore and could be achieved right by buying gp, but however the accession of perks and max cape, although invite more people to invest time = more money for Jagex, is money earned via manipulation.
Over the last few weeks we have had a sudden rise in reports of individuals apparently using'bots' to perform Runescape automatically (which is in breach of Rule 7). Primarily, we want to let our fair players (and that's the vast majority of you) understand that we're conscious of this issue, which we are taking immediate steps to handle it. We currently ban about 8000 accounts every week for trying this type of cheating, and for a long time that kept things in check. Things have clearly moved on, however, and that is no longer, so we are in the process of updating our detection and prevention systems. We also have logs of cheap OSRS gold historic activity, so we will be able to make sure that dishonesty doesn't pay. Please bear with us while we sort out it! There are also ways that you can help us, so please continue reading.
