They Keep Pulling Me Back In

Finally finished off my Blue Dragon task. It left me a few kxp from a Range level. I walked out of the dungeon to get a new task from Kuradel. I was hoping for something fun, I still haven't even seen a strykwyrm yet (unless you count watching Dune). I see an assignment with lots of T's and Z's in it, and the option...

I've been meaning to go back to face Jad at somepoint. I really want that firecape. Here's my excuse to try again.



I've tried about 9 times total now. Excluding just getting to the 360 for the Karamja Diary and the first time, I've made it to Jad each time. The waves aren't even an issue anymore. Its just that prayer switching that always gets me then boom, dead.

I didn't know what to train range on so I killed some Dusties to get 84 Range. It's really one of my least favorite skills. It's just so incredibly slow.

I'm not going to start doing waves just yet. The time commitment is one thing. I want to be able to start and do it beginning to end. I think logging out between waves kind of messes up your rhythm. I'll try to get to that this weekend hopefully.

Full of Pie's birthday is Saturday, which is awesome because mine is the following Tuesday. Go Aries! She's having a party, I'd love to try and make it to, but real life is going to be hectic for me the next two weeks. But check it out here:

I'm about 240k from 99 Strength. It'll be my first combat 99. It's weird to think about. I remember the tradition used to be that when you got 99 Strength you drop your dragon scimitar. I'll take one, drop it on the ground and then pick it back up again (I NEED that for Barb Assault!).

This week is a little busy and next week will be too. I'm taking a short vacation at the end of next week (Bahamas! Cruise!) so I might not be around for a little. Blogging at least. I'll try, just giving a heads up.

Speaking of which, has ANYONE seen or heard from Vaskor?

Runescape Gods Exposed

I'm probably late to the game in viewing these, but I stumbled across these on youtube last night and thought they were pretty hilarious. I'm clueless when it comes to making game videos, so it always amazes me when I see ones that are really well done.

So, enjoy!

Ok, Breathe

XP weekend is over. I'm not sure if we'll get to see another one based off of the overwhelmingly negative response on RSOF. I think it was a pretty fun time. The real key to this weekend really was in the planning.

Tweaking my tree checking route with a few dry runs allowed me to check all 12 of my trees with the 2.7xp bonus, tagging the last one about a second before it dropped to 2.5. All after completing the circus as well.

The end results:



I'm close to a Magic and Ranged level. Went from 82-84 Farming, 80-86 Summoning (so close to that unicorn, but so blasted far as well) and 76-81 Herblore. I managed to get everything done in the time I figured it would (tree run and circus going MUCH faster than I guessed) and I used my last gold charm just as the counter hit 1.2. It was pretty insane seeing 950,000 bonus xp in just an hour. I didn't even stop to read the level up messages, just kept going because I didn't want to waste any time.

I was pretty burned out by then. I didn't use much of the 1.2 or 1.1 bonus like I thought I would. Did a few Runecrafting runs, but nothing major. Lots of real life things got in the way most of Saturday and Sunday. I'm glad I got the majority of it Friday night.

New F2P quest released today. I think I might actually hop to a F2P world to do it. Should be interesting.

Documenting Insanity

I sat like this for about 5 minutes while waiting for my lifepoints to regenerate. I want to start everything off at max, don't ask me why. Besides, I was chatting with friends. But let me tell you, after about 3 minutes of watching that thing go back and forth at you with those spring sound effects... Wow.

Anyways, for figuring out how much xp I'm getting this weekend, I'm posting this:




Now, there is a major storm on the way here, starting tomorrow AM. I get done work at 5pm, usually home by 6pm. It's supposed to be incredibly bad with very high winds from early tomorrow afternoon (between 12-2PM) until about midnight on Saturday. So help me Saradomin, if my power goes out for this weekend, I am PKing mother nature.

Bring It!

My bank, my inventory and what I'm wearing to start this off. I put my character to sleep next to the circus tonight so I'm ready to go right as I 'wake up.'

1) Circus
2) Tag Lumby tree right next to it.
3) Cabbage port to tag the spirit tree at port sarim
4) Varrock tele tab, tag tree there
5) Fally teletab, tag tree in the park
6) Duel ring to Castlewars, take balloon to taverly
7) Karamja Gloves teleport to Shilo, pay cart guy to go to Brim, tag Brimhaven tree, run and tag Calquat
8) Elf Crystal tele to Lletya, tag palm there.
9) Mobilizing Armies teleport, spirit tree teleport to gnome maze, get escorted out by following the elf, tag fruit tree there (NE of CW)
10) Camelot teletab, run to catherby to tag tree
11) Mobilizing Armies teleport, spirit tree teleport to gnome stronghold, tag fruit tree, run southeast and tag last regular tree.


I've timed the dry run of the trees a couple of times. I get it done in about 7 minutes. A friend did it in less than 5. Assuming circus takes me 15 mins (conservative assumption, I'm sure it'll be faster), that puts me at 22 minutes into the bonus. After that, castle wars teleport, bank everything, withdraw all pouches, shards, crimson charms, 20 talon charms (still bitter).

That should put me at about 23-24 minutes.
12) Kyatt tele to Piscatoris, make all talon charms
13) Duel to CW, bank crimsons, withdraw blues and make all of those
14) Finish crimsons & granite (1300 charms total between crim & blue)

That should be a little over an hour.

So, lets be conservative again and say that puts me at 1:45

15) Make 2300 Magic Potions

I'm guessing 2.5 hours for that. So 3:15.

16) Make 4k gold charms. Split between toads/birds. Toads get used first.

I'm guessing 3.5 hours for that. Then I'm at 6:45.

At this point the bonus xp is pretty negligible. I'm probably also mentally out of it.

Log out, maybe go to bed.

When I get up, probably thieve for a little bit, maybe an hour or until I get sick of it. The rest I'll probably just RC.

EDIT: I moved my pouches to the same tab.

I'm ready for it though.

All Trekked Out

First off, I have to say congrats to Full of Pie on her 99 Agility. Check out her post here, along with the most adorable looking ‘cake’ ever.

Real life rewards for in-game accomplishments are always fun. Two years ago when I got my fishing cape, I treated myself to a pretty sweet pair of Nike Dunks that I designed to be two shades of blue with gold highlights. I’ll post a pic when I get home and find them.

Ok so… Temple Trekking for charms… Yeah…

I am probably the unluckiest person when it comes to Temple Trekking. I spent 10 hours doing it this weekend. I got full lumberjack and decided that was my cue to give it up. In 10 hours I managed to amass 10 Lumberjack Boots, 4 Lumberjack Hats, 2 legs and 1 top. This was just a side product of what I really wanted, which was charms. Total charms amassed in 10 hours? Drumroll please... 20. 20 freaking charms. What else did I manage to get? Lots of bogs. I think I broke a record when I got the bog on 7 STRAIGHT treks. I also managed to come upon a 17 square bog path.

I mean, really? That’s just downright mean. Once I got the Lumberjack Top, I gave up. Well, for 10 hours I have almost an inventory for Summoning. >.<

Nothing too much else accomplished. I fished sharks in Catherby for about an hour trying to get those rocks for Shattered Heart. Someone mentioned switching to Piscatoris. When I did that, I got one before I even caught my first monk. So if you’re wondering a good way to get it, Piscatoris is the way to go. While there I did a few lines of Firemaking for those stones. Went to Edge to smith some gold ore for the Smithing stones. That was a rough one. I got the first one alright but the second took forever. I finally got it on my second to last ore. From there I sat in my house and got the Construction stones. I cashed all those in and got some decent xp.

That was pretty much it for the weekend. It was good to get to hang out with Merch Gwyar and Warloc for a while at least. Temple Trekking is actually pretty fun, and made even better with friends. As for now, back to prepping for xp week. Which means cutting granite. Fun.

I’m half tempted to change my name to Full of Bog.

I'm Just an Escort

I read Merch Gwyar’s post on finding a pattern to Talon Beast charms and thought I’d give it a shot. Wow. I haven’t done this in years and I am *terrible* at it. I switched to world 83 and started escorting people back and forth. This didn’t start off too well. First, I forgot a hatchet. Then I forgot the knife. Then I forgot my flail, which turns out I never needed anyway. Numerous failed attempts left me stranded in the swamp, my second least favorite place on the runescape map (elf lands is the current leader of that). I had been at it about an hour and was starting to get frustrated. Luckily this is when Merch appeared out of thin air, right in front of me.

She helped me get sorted out, fixing my inventory, telling me about snake hides and most importantly, the ‘evade’ path. I was stupidly fighting every single thing in my way. The non-combat interruptions took me forever to figure out, especially the vine one. I probably go up and back once in the time it takes people to do 3 or 4 runs, but that’s ok with me.

I got my first piece of lumberjack gear ever. I could never really justify spending the time to get it. I’d hear people complain for days about how they didn’t get a top or legs or whatever. It always seemed to me that if you just spend that time Woodcutting, it even outweighs the slight bonus you get from the clothes. I can understand if you want to fill your closet, but it just was never for me. However, in the hunt for talon charms for the bonus xp weekend, I’ll take it as a nice side gift. So far I got the hat, then the boots, then the hat, then the boots, then the boots… I sense a pattern here.

I had no luck getting charms, but I got a lot of snakes, Merch suggested hopping and trying a different world, so I did that. Still no luck. It was alright though, I was enjoying myself. I hate not knowing certain parts of the game, so this was a good reason to familiarize myself with it. I temple trekked for a good four hours. I amused myself by making up storylines for the people I was protecting. One person was going to save the world, another was carrying a heart that someone needed desperately for a transplant, one was a highly ranked political figure and I was escorting him to safety in the midst of a coup to overthrow him, etc.. Anyways, I did it for four hours and I never came across the nail beasts or got a charm. My friends were amazed, apparently that’s amazingly bad luck, but I didn’t really think anything of it. I could have kept hopping worlds, but I was having fun. I’ll give it another shot, who knows? Maybe I’ll get on a hot streak.

Other than that, just been getting prepped for next week. I’ve got about 2500 lantadyme and potato cactus. I’ve made most of the unf pots, but I still have about 500 more to go. I figure 2500 is a good limit to give myself. Anything over that I feel isn’t going to get that much bonus xp considering I plan to do summoning first.

The Great Freakout of 2010 Part 2: Son of Great Freakout

Ok, a boring lunch break at the office led to a few things. What do I do when I get bored? Math, of course. I ran some numbers. As it stands right now at the moment, I have 107 Blue Charms, 1097 Crimson Charms, 235 Green Charms and 3940 Gold Charms.

I have seconds for these, with the exception of the crimson ones. I'm going to have to get some granite, but that's easy enough. Lets see if I can format this in a readable way...

Charm - Pouch - Second - Shards - xp each - Total Exp
107 Blue Charms - Moss Titan - Earth Talis - 202 - 695.2xp - 74,386.4
1097 Crimson - Granite Lob - Granite - 166 - 325.6 - 357,183.2
3940 Gold Charm - Terrorbird - Bird Meat - 12 - 68.4 - 269,496
235 Green Charm - Hydra - Water Orb - 128 - 140.8 - 32,947.2

That's a total of 734,012.8xp. Using the conservative estimate of 2, brings it to 1,468,025.6xp. It also brings it to 281,076 shards used which has a price tag of 7,026,900gp. Of course, you can trade pouches back in for more shards. That'll get me about 5 Summoning levels and put me between level 85-86 (starting level 80).

Not bad, however making 4k birdie pouches is going to take a lot of time. I was thinking I need to organize even more that I realized initially. 10 hours is long, but that xp curve downward is sharp. It also doesn't decrease every half hour in stages, its decreasing as you go. That said, that first inventory of pouches is yielding more xp than your next one in 2 mins.

If I did all of those charms, there wouldn't be much for Herblore's bonus. I didn't want to mess around with making this pot here, than that there, etc. I sold almost all of my herbs and am sticking to making just Magic Potions. Focus on one thing, and its easier for me to work on that.

Some things need to be done this weekend in order to maximize the time used. First, I need to reorganize my bank. I need to move things around to free up a tab. I want all the bonus xp weekend things I need in the same place so that I don't have to waste even seconds looking for them. This is going to include my best range gear, dagon hai robes, spottier cape, boots of lightness, charms, pouches, shards, seconds, unf lantadyme pots, potato cactus, charged glories, dramen staff, adze, elf crystal, karamja gloves, cash, all teleport runes and rune essence.

Tuesday I'm going to plant and pay for my spirit & calquat trees. Wednesday I'm going to plant and pay for all of my other trees (5 Magic, 5 Palm). I'm hoping the Circus is somewhat close to a bank (please be edgeville), but am willing to doubt that it will be.

Plan is to wear boots of lightness, spottier cape and charged glory and park myself right next to that ticket booth when I log off on Thursday night. This way I log in, do the agility, tele to edge, bank get all my range gear, back to circus for range, bank, get my dagon hai robes, back to circus for mage.

Circus done, check.

After that's complete, I bank grab my Karamja gloves, cash, teleports, elf crystal so I can do a quick run checking all my trees. Not bothering to replant or even pick, just check health.

Grab my dramen staff and its off to Piscatoris to Summon. From here, I'll do all my Blue Charms first, then onto the Crimson ones. I might do green as well.

As I run back to the bank I'll start stuffing potato cacti into my unf lant pots until they're complete. Then, once they're all done, on to using the Gold Charms.

Once they're through, I've mainly gotten what I wanted to accomplish over with.

Deep breath.

The rest of the time I'll be taking relaxing strolls from edge into the abyss and making runes.

That's the plan for now. Strategy may change, but I think that's a pretty decent one.

The Great Freakout of 2010

XP weekend is pretty much all anyone is talking about. Godswords and expensive armor are crashing in price as people frantically sell what they have to buy up herbs, pots and seconds as well as other skill necessities in the GE.

I'm guilty of this as well. I haven't sold anything, I like my armor, but that stockpile of cash I've been hoarding is going to be put to good use. Since so much is virtually sold out of the GE, its making trading one item for another kind of fun among friends. It's also making me herb farm as quickly as possible.

I think I've got my plans in order. I have over 7k pure ess, so that should tide me over for the Runecrafting. At least until my sanity gives out.

Everyone has the same variation of skills they want to train, from what I've gathered on others. Summoning and Herblore seem to be the top two. Can't say I'm any different. Two skills that don't really have any other way of boosting xp other than Penguin Points. No clay vials or pouches to use from Stealing Creation.

It's interesting to me to see that everyone seems to be doing nothing but skilling that weekend. Its kind of cool, to be honest. I want to see the bounceback price changes that happen after that weekend.

This is going to be a big push for levels, and I love it. I feel like after all this gathering cactus, filling vials, etc, I'm going to be disappointed in what Herblore level I end up. I dream big, but I think I'm going to get maybe 2 levels max. That even seems pretty high. Oh well, motivation is motivation.

This goes right TCA's survivor competition. Basically everyone races skills over weeks to lose their minds. I'm not sure I'm fully recovered from the last one.

This has had me spending some time back at Stealing Creation. It's been a while since I've played this. I realized I missed it a lot, the skill only version. The clanchat has changed a lot since the last time I played. It seems some let the little rank next to them in clan chat go to their heads. Its fine though, I usually just ignore whatever's going on and focus on getting my clay and making what I need.

Olympics are over, sadly. 35 days until the first baseball game of the regular season. Seems like forever, but it'll pass soon enough. Until then, I'll continue prepping for D-Weekend :)