Wow!

What a turnout! To be completely honest, I was expecting a few people to show up last night, with the acceptance of it just being me and one other person in the bar having a beer, I was ok with that as well. I never expected so many people to show up!

With so many people showing up, it was a little difficult to carry on a conversation. Some good discussions were had and all in all it was a lot of fun! I can’t express enough thanks to everyone who made it despite it being late, being sick (get better Kitt!), real life commitments, etc. It’s much appreciated.



It’s amazing how many people have started writing about the game in the last couple months. Merch brought up the fact that Icey Dan1’s video was a pretty big inspiration to a lot of people. It’s interesting, three or so years ago when I was looking for websites about Runescape, they were pretty few and far between. You’d mostly come up with guides and gold farming websites when you searched. Yeah there were definitely a few out there, some are still around, some made a post or two and never got back to it again, some update once or twice a year and some go from Runescape to blogging about a new game that they have all moved on to. Now it seems like there are plenty of places to find people actively writing about their game experiences. Whether it be just a journal of their levels and goals, talking about interactions, talking about how the game relates to different socio-political-economic issues which surround all of us in real life, pking, runescape classic, anything and everything related to the game – its out there.



I'll probably host another one sometime relatively soon. It was great meeting everyone and hanging out with everyone whom I've been lucky enough to know before this.

I loved the Canting Away parade march in :)



Rollcall:
Jaxana
FullofPie
Vaskor and don't forget his Runewise
Merch Gwyar
Teacuptime
Air Stallion
Zachman3334
Ezenaku
Kitt Foxx
Gerasimos aka Somisareg
Tanlker
Eman1051
GymBagBoy
Nezantra
Hubertos1
Lnbo
Chrisoffour
Mroja

If I left you off, I'm soo sorry, just drop me a line and I'll add you. I was furiously trying to write down names, take screenies and of course, have fun :) Also, let me know if there's a problem with the links.

Note what Momma Licka, who I think just stopped by accidentally wrote :) lol. Unless of course, they actually have a blog called "I lick moms..."

Thanks for a great time everyone!

"But I've been calling her Crab-apple..."

I’m loving how quick the essence adds up from the Ardy diary. I made about 1k Nature runes and 1k Cosmics the other night to help me with my making orbs and alching staves. I got to 88 Crafting in the process. Nothing new, but a level is a level 

Did an herb run, knocked out the scarabite task with some really helpful advice from Jax. I always hated those things, it was good to take them out in one trip.

I went to Soul Wars last night and it was incredibly disappointing. Didn’t get in – Loss – Didn’t get in. Over an hour play, maybe 2k Strength xp and 1 zeal to show for it. This was even using advice from a friend in a 125+ clan chat for it. The loss was when no one in the chat got in on the first wave and decided to switch teams. I have to think about the usefulness of these things. If I had just stayed on one team consistently and not worried about stupid things like “fake rushes” and all, I would have at least gotten 5 zeal for 1 win and 2 losses. I’d even take 3 straight losses. Nothing drives me crazier in the game than just standing there and doing absolutely nothing.

Did an errand run after I got frustrated standing in the lobby. I realize the NPC’s in the game probably pronounce their names a lot differently than I do in my head. I’ve been calling Arhein “Arnheim” forever. I’ve been calling Cromperty “Comp-tree.” I think its because I don’t read their names in quests too closely, then whatever makes sense in my head just sticks. It reminds me of when I read the first Harry Potter book (actually the only one I got through) and saw Hermione’s name. Then I saw the movie and was like “Oh… so *that’s* how you say that…” And yes, I do know how to properly pronounce Thierry Henry. Either way, I’m sticking to what I make up in my head. I think it sounds better. I remember playing Final Fantasy and being able to change the names of characters. I really liked that. The only issue was when you had to look at a guide, I had no idea who they were talking about. “Who’s Wakka? Oh, you mean Victorino? Got it.”

I’m revisiting my goals from last year. At the time I needed 14 quests for the quest cape. I wanted everything 75+ and to get over 2k levels (I needed 170 at the time to get everything 75+). I also wanted 2 skillcapes.

I got the quest cape, but I’ve been slacking and I haven’t done Curse of Arrav or Within the Light yet. I got everything 75+ and have over 2k levels. I got my Cooking cape a while ago. I’ve also noticed I haven’t done any Firemaking since I did 77-92 last December. The 3 levels have been mostly from the Adze or evil trees. It’s been sitting at 95 for a while now. I’m more concerned with other skill and unlocking things than just getting it for the sake of it at the moment. Either way, I feel like its been a good year and I’ve done what I wanted to achieve. Looking back I think the skill cape goal was a little lame. If I get one, awesome, if I get a ton of levels across everything – even better. It’s really interesting looking back on old blog posts and seeing what mindset I was in and when.

I’m already thinking about goals for 2010. I think 90+ is a decent one to work towards. It seems ridiculous at the moment, but its only 162 levels. One for every regular season baseball game. I know some of those are hard levels, but it is 12 months. I had some doubt going into 2009 if what I could do would get done, and I pretty much did it, level-wise with still a month and a half to spare. We’ll see where the holidays take us, I guess.

Again, meetup, this Sunday (depending on where you live!) 11/22. Come out! Bring your friends and lets have a good time!

2 Updates in one day?!

I must be losing my mind!!

I needed to share this article though, it's pretty interesting. It's good to see Graardor get some face time ;)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7090490.stm

Interesting notes - 9 million accounts, 6 million of which are active. Also noted that there's 5 times more F2P than P2P. This means member base is 1.2M members. (In case you want to figure out percentage-wise where you are overall in high scores, figure high score rank divided by 1,200,000 = what % you are)

The average Jagex employee is 22. Wow. I mean... Wow! That may seem old to some of you who are younger, but in the grand scheme of things, that's actually really young.

Enjoy! :)

EDIT: I'm an idiot, when the article first came up it said 2009, I swear!

Insert clever title here

World 61, 8PM EST, South Varrock Bar for meetup and party! Check out my previous post for time zone conversions. (Merch – so sorry about the mixup! I felt so bad!)

A bunch of updates came out yesterday. I’m glad extreme pots can be used in minigames, even though I can’t make any of them yet. The RC update is nice. A few extra runes here and there is alright. I can understand why everyone 91+ would be upset. It’s not an easy skill to level, which comes with good rewards, but I hate to say it, it’s not going to stay like that forever. Eventually every skill gets updated with something new which angers everyone who already got a high level in it. Its just, Runescape life… Think of Mining before stars and Woodcutting before Evil Trees or even having to even click for each log.

I don’t really use Magic in combat, so that doesn’t really effect me either, but I’m happy that option is there. Basically, out of all the updates this week, the one I’m really excited about, which is really just a side note, is the fact that I can now make big bones into peaches. I’ve been dying for that forever. No more having to kill wild dogs for bones on Fire Giant tasks or hoping for fish drops from Aquanites.

I’ve been feeling fighty lately. I should get back to Slayer, but Scarabite task just leaves me so… ugh… I’ve been making a solo Bandos trip daily. I can usually get about 2 kills. A lot of times I go in and Graardor is already below half health. I get that, he hits hard, people need to tele out. I just can’t help but wonder when I finish him off, if that was the good drop or not. After that, I usually go to Soul Wars. After a herb run of course I’m saving up for 100 points and I have to say, I have no idea why. Its just a goal that I created that doesn’t really have a point. Should I use the xp on Slayer? Magic? Prayer? It would easily get me 94 Strength (I’m about 600k from that now)… I just really started liking the game. I like killing Jellies/Pyerfiends, taking control of the obelisk, killing the ava, etc. The waiting room does need an update however, there’s times where you get in with everyone else, but just don’t get in a game. You just sit there for 20 minutes and get told you have a higher priority. I swear, sometimes I wonder how my priority could possibly get any higher.

It’s also interesting how kills of Bork and Kril show up in the Adventurer Log, but Graardor kills don’t. I wonder what Rodney Dangerfield would have to say about that…

My favorite thing from the patch notes – “A tree broke its trunk. We've splinted the gap and it should be healed in no time.” For some reason that makes me laugh.

One thing that kills me about updates is that they come out on Tuesdays. It’s the one day of the week where I actually have obligations (albeit being at a bar shooting darts), so I sneak on the site at work during the morning, see what they are, read forums and blogs about them and the anticipation of using them is like being a kid and waiting for Christmas. No matter how big/small they are. The day the GE was released was the worst. I had been waiting for that forever! A little waiting just makes it that much more exciting :)

I’ve been seeing more RS blogs than ever. Some are new, some are ones I finally heard about that I haven’t seen before. I love this. Everyone’s experience with the game is unique, I love hearing about it from all angles.

Suntory Time

Sunday, November 22, 8PM EST. World 61 (F2P), Blue Moon Inn (Bar in southern Varrock) Stop by! Let's get together and actually meet each other. I know this isn't going to be a good time for everyone, but we can do this again at another time if this goes over well and people are interested.

For timezones:
Event starts:
US/Eastern: 8:00 PM (Sunday, 22 Nov 2009)
US/Pacific: 5:00 PM (Sunday, 22 Nov 2009)
US/Central: 7:00 PM (Sunday, 22 Nov 2009)
UK: 1:00 AM (Monday, 23 Nov 2009)
Europe: 2:00 AM (Monday, 23 Nov 2009)
Australia (Brisbane): 11:00 AM (Monday, 23 Nov 2009)
New Zealand: 2:00 PM (Monday, 23 Nov 2009)
(Totally stole that from the Events section of TCA)

Come out, have a beer at the pub and we can say hi, talk about whatever - state of the game, economy, recent updates, future updates, what we like, what we hate, how much better our sports team is than the others, anything. Like I said, I just think it'd be fun to meet with everyone who shares similar interests. Bring friends, bring friends of friends, its open to anyone and everyone.

That said, I got up to 82 Slayer this weekend. One more level to those Spiritual Mages and Dragon Boot drops.

Actually had a pretty decent experience at Armadyl last night. Since Armadyl Hilts are ridiculously expensive now, every world is pretty packed. We finally found one that was open, with a team about 10-15 kc behind us. They were actually really nice. We said we just wanted a few kills and they agreed to let us go in first. We ended up staying for about 8 kills before they came in, which was right as we were about to leave. Why can't it always be like that? A little communication goes so far. Also, if I know you're going to just kill a few, I'd gladly wait a bit instead of constantly world hopping or competing for kills. That said, no major drops, but no deaths between the 4-5 of us, c'est la vie...

The Champion update came out yesterday. I went to the Champions Guild, went to the basement, talked to... the person who's name I can't remember, fought a leprechaun, talked to him again and now I have my own personal cheerleader following me around carrying its zombie banner. Its pretty cute with its little wings and what it says and all. Plus, zombies are pretty awesome in their own right, so it amuses me.

I'm getting closer to 93 Strength. Hopefully I'll have that before the next posting.

Meetups, Chores & Godwars

Just to clarify some comments I made in the last post, what I'd like to do is just have an in-game meetup at some point. I'll host it in my house and anyone is welcome to come. Bloggers, readers, commenters, friends, etc. I just think it would be neat to see and talk to some of the people I sometimes only read about. We've got a pretty amazing community, people from all over, with all different gamestyles and goals, writing styles, writing subjects... It would be great to just have a gathering and socialize since we share a common interest.

I know that not everyone can make it because of timezones, life, etc, so maybe there'll be more than one. Now that the World Series is (sadly) over, I can concentrate on something other than baseball. I'll have the details together next week.

That said, I'm loving how pretty much all the daily errands are noted. I'm actually more inclined to do them now. I can usually get them done in about 10-15 mins. 20 tops if I'm fighting the jade vine instead of checking it. What I do is suit up in my best melee gear and weapon. My inv consists of:
Cammy tele runes (1 Law, 5 Air)
Ardy tele runes (2 Law, 2 Water)
Yanille tele runes (2 Law, 2 Earth)
Varrock tele runes (1 Law, 3 Air, 1 Fire)
Seer's Headband
Varrock 3 Platebody
Ardy Cape
Cash
Anti poison
Food

I usually start south and work my way up.
1) Tele to Yanille - Get sand from Bert
2) Tele to Ardy - Check/fight Jade Vine, get your 150 ess from the Wizard (wear cape)
3) Tele to Cammy - Get flax (headband), run to Catherby, get pineapples & seaweed from Arnheim
4) Tele to Varrock- Get staves (Varrock 3)
5) Tele to Edge (yes I'm lazy) - go kill Bork

You can bank at edge if you don't want to take all of that to Bork with you. I also stopped bothering with the Phoenix a while ago and the fact that I can do these so quickly, its really quite simple now.

The other night I was bored and feeling a little fighty. I decided to give soloing Kril down in Zammy GWD another shot. Each previous attempt I was really close, but just couldn't do it. I think the key is the fact that someone told me about setting the "Take bob" option to right click, making it easy to grab some extra Mantas from my turtle with just a quick click. No great drops, 3 Lantadyme seeds and 298 Addy P++ arrows (about 400k junk for those), but I'm glad to know I can do it now.

I really want to solo Kree'Aara. I've made a few attempts, all which bring me back to the fact that my range isn't close to good enough. I really need to train range, I just don't like it. Ah well.

Curious...

Just throwing something out there that was kind of inspired by Icey Dan's video...

The Runescape blogger community is something amazing. There are blogs covering all types of gameplay. Some deal with PK, some are guides, some are journals, some are an amalgamation of everything. The one thing that keeps us together, is the love of the game.

Anyone interested in a gathering/meetup between the people who play this game, blog about it, in any which way, so we can trade ideas, meet each other, etc..?

Maybe have a panel discussion with a moderator, just to see the different viewpoints we all have?

Like a cocktail party, just about the game :) Good idea? Terrible idea?