Been a while

So its been a bit. Bonus xp weekend, Dung weekend, etc. etc... Got a few levels, got a few capes.

I hate to bring this up, but my absence has had a reason. I've had some terrible months and I hate to say it but I've been diagnosed as being bipolar. Kind of hard to take when you are in your 30s... If I can stress to anyone, its that there are lots of us out there. It does suck, but it does get better.

Back to trying to get back to reality. Fighting.

Prepping for who knows what....

If history is any indicator, we should probably have another bonus xp weekend in September. I’ve decided to start stockpiling supplies now while there’s a lot of good prices out there. Toadflax seeds are just about 200gp! I thought I was getting a great deal when I found them for under 1k ages ago. I stocked up then, but I’m definitely restocking now.

I’m going to be more diligent about herb runs and managing my kingdom when I get time to play. Also grabbing that free pure ess each day should add up as I’ve been doing a bit of runecrafting recently. I’d love to stockpile my 80 staves that I get each day and save them for when there’s a bonus, but I don’t haven enough cash to do that for too long. Besides, that’s fast enough xp and good money anyway. I’m almost at 97 Crafting so there’s nothing much I can really unlock for that skill.

Again, if history’s any indicator, not only will this happen but I will also be out of town for one reason or another and not able to participate. In that case, I’d just sell my materials when things get pricy and make some cash. Even if it doesn’t happen, having a stock of materials isn’t ever a bad thing, especially if one seed is just 200gp!

Over the last month or so and played a LOT of Soul Wars. I managed 85-90 prayer there before I couldn’t take it any longer. I broke down, sold some stuff and bought bones and worked my way to 95 prayer. Varrock and Fally Diaries completed! I’ve been better at getting Bork on a regular basis too, the double rewards are sweet!

I’m about 40k away from 99 Hitpoints. I just couldn’t keep my eyes open last night to get it done. That xp counter goes painfully slow when you’re watching it intently. Hopefully that will be for tonight or sometime this week, depending on work.

HP & Prayer have always been two of my favorite capes. What can I say, I guess I have a weakness for the white. I kind of wish they didn't change the HP emote though, I thought the old one was the coolest one out of them all.

Still Alive

I'm still alive. Life is ridiculously busy. I feel like every weekend since 2005 involves me going to a wedding... When I've been in the game all I've been doing is penguins and Soul Wars. So far I've gone 85-90 Prayer. I'm close to 91. It's taken weeks. Soul Wars clan chats are some of the most annoying I've ever been in.

However, 90 Prayer is a huge step in the 90+ quest. I'd love to get 95 for the diaries, but 92 would be great as well. It's just so slow and painful. And no, I don't have 100m to drop on it to make it faster. My bank has hovered around 300k for a long time now. I did manage 97 Attack which got me 134cb. I was pretty stoked on that.

I wish I had better things to report, but Soul Wars isn't really exciting. Slowly chipping away at Prayer levels...

Vengeancing Everything in Sight

I finally unlocked all of the livid farm spells. It really didn’t seem like a grind to me until the last 4 or so hours. That was probably because I knew I wasn’t going to get any other levels until I was done. Doing all of it I managed 2 farming levels and I’m about 68k from 91, 2 agility levels, a construction level and a magic level and a pretty good chunk out of my next. I think I’m about 300k from 97.

The spell came in pretty handy on a trip to corp, sadly I didn’t have any luck with drops.

I was a little closer to another agility level and something clicked where I finally realized I could access the advanced gnome course by using summer pies. Wow everyone who wrote about it was right, it really is scenic. I actually didn’t feel bored doing it. With the horn its about 1400+xp/lap. The running on the sign thing is actually a lot of fun. I played a little BA to charge my horn and once its full and I buy some more pies, I’m definitely going back there.

Air orbs are pretty low cost now so I bought a ton of them. That combined with getting 2 summoning levels, 90 and 91 pretty much wiped me out cash wise. I’ve been skilling so much lately that I guess its only time to get back into the swing of trips to kill stuff. So summoning knocks out another goal of getting all skills over 90. I’m getting closer. I actually got cb lvl 133 on one of the summoning levels, so that was a bonus. No fireworks for either though, weird.

Dungeoneering 90 might be left off that goal list. I spent a good hour in a large dung with 3 friends the other night. It was pretty much a full map and we had everything open and were just prepping for the boss when I lagged. It couldn’t have been more than a minute or two (I think you have 5 to return to the dungeon) but was kicked out. No experience given whatsoever and when I went to check, I again lost my binds. I thought that was only supposed to happen when the server crashed. Wtf! I’m so sick of spending time training a skill that keeps giving me no xp and taking my stuff from me. I started a small c6 that luckily had a few gorg spots so I made a couple items but then I just left it. It is so frustrating to deal with all that time and effort wasted over and over.

I’m excited to be able to do the lower level summoning effigies, if I ever get them.

Real life is pretty busy the next few days. I won't be on much.

Early Evening of the Dead

I used up my Hati Paws yesterday. It took maybe 4 hours. It was amazing how quick the xp flew by. My goal was to do it as quick as possible because, like I’ve stated I’m sure countless times, I hate ranging.

My gear:
Void Range Helm
Ammy of Ranging
Ava’s
Elite Void Top
Void Robes
Archer’s Ring
Void Deflector
Hati Paws
Ranger Boots (borrowed)
Chins


I managed to get 88, 89 and 90 Ranged! As well as 98 Hitpoints! When my paws ran out, I was still stocked and a little over 150k til 90 Ranged, so I stayed down there a little longer. My xp counted was at about 1.3m when I was done. I sold my remaining 6k chins and 500 pray pots afterwards. Note that chins are really pretty cheap at the moment if anyone is considering using them.


I went to Ape Atoll to fight the zombies under there. No drops, but fast and easy xp. There were a few near deaths, but I managed to survive even a disconnection. I’d recommend a ring of life if anyone is going to try it, just to be safer.


I can now use Grave Creeper bows which is great. Whenever we’d need to range in a dungeon, someone would give me a bow and I’d always forget to check the type until we were in the boss room and I’m wondering why I can’t equip it… >.< When I get in the mood to go back down there, I can also bind some Prom arrows, which will be pretty sweet as well.


I probably won’t get to play much this weekend. Going to a baseball game, Mother’s Day, Derby day, etc. I’m hoping when things settle down a bit I can finish the Livid Farm. It’s helping me with two of my sub 90 skills, Agility and Farming. Not too long ago I got 90 Mining, now 90 Ranged, got 89 Farming and in the past 2 days I’ve been buying addy bars and using my SC tool stockpile as hammers and doing some Smithing. My plan was to make addy plates, but then I realized I needed 88 to do that. Ah well, not too much of an issue. Kiteshields and legs sell pretty easily. I managed 85, 86 and 87 Smithing and will probably get 88 tonight (hopefully!).

Quatro de Mayo

It's been a frustrating few weeks. I kept Dungeoneering and just as I was about to kill the boss of a 1+ hr long solo med which would get a level as well as enough tokens to get a CR, the server crashed. Not a problem on my end, but a problem on RS's end. I couldn't log on for over 40 minutes. Not only did I not get any experience or tokens from that time spent, I lost the items I bound. I don't get it! I had them before the dungeon and I should hold on to them, however that is not the case. The only thing I had when I went back into the dungeon was my gorg arrows. I lost my hood and my Prom spear++. Not only did the game let me down by crashing, it stole from me.

After a few hours of blowing off some steam, I sucked it up and got what I was looking for. Needless to say, I'll be taking a break from Dungeoneering for a good amount of time. I also don't understand how Jagex just won't even address the issue. The items were bound and I could even concede if it was maybe a problem on my end, with lag or my computer crashed, but not when their world goes down. Lame.

I used the sword on Mith Dragons and it was pretty sweet. I did a round of... that summoning minigame where you gather shards that I can't think of the name of at the moment, then went on to Waterfiends. I love the sword. If I ever lose it, I'll probably be crushed. I can't imagine going through all that to get it back.

I've been spending a good amount of time at Livid Farm. I think I'm the only one who actually likes it. I've unlocked the first 3 spells and am working on the rest. It got me 95 Magic and 89 Farming. Right now I'm pretty close to 96 Magic and 82 Agility. I'm excited to check out the pouch repair for when I RC. I'd love to be able to Vengeance Others, but that's a little ways off. I'd say I'm about 11 hours into the 35 needed. I did most of that in just a couple days, I'll probably take a little break and then do it in spurts. I'll take all the Agility xp without actually training Agility I can get!

The new capes came out yesterday! I'm not thrilled about the design chosen of the Veteran's Cape (I think the flames at the bottom are tacky, it could have been so much more elegant) but the emote is great! I love being able to stand on a giant Rocky V symbol. I'd actually like it to change over the years as well. Maybe the people who have played 7 years get to stand on a giant VII or X for 10 years. That might make it a little more personal.

Jagex claims it won't tell people their start dates of their accounts. I wonder how people will know when they've played 5 years then... Mod Emilee said to check the holiday items if they weren't sure. That might be an ok gauge, but if anyone's like me, I didn't care about holiday items for the first few years I played. I think the first thing I got was the Grim Reaper Hood, and that was easily after several years of playing.

With the Classic cape, I feel the opposite of the Veteran's Cape. I love how it looks, but I'm not thrilled with the emote. Yeah its a little nostalgic, but meh.

I made all the skill level capes as well. I can wear the 80+ one, but was still able to make the 90+. They look alright. I don't think I'll do much more with them than just put them in my POH though.

I need to use up my Hati Paws! 100% left remaining and only 6 days to go! Look out zombie monkeys, I'm coming to throw small exploding animals in your faces!

Down in a Hole

I tried doing Dung with strangers (I was really, really bored). Oi! Annoying! It usually ends up with multiple deaths and general annoyance. The best is when someone states there’s a skill door at the ggs, so naturally I’ll tele over to open it. What they conveniently forget to mention is “Oh yeah, there’s also 3 lvl 130 Shades in there with two archers.” Mass confusion on opening doors/entering rooms too, as people jump into rooms they thought they were just unlocking. Out of about 4 dungeon attempts (and countless amounts of time trying to find a team) only one was completed and it took about an hour and a half. -42% for three deaths. One was completely my fault, but two weren’t. The people apologized, but it still sucks. If I try to do this again, I’m just going to keep my head down and do the bare minimum to get by. It seems to be what everyone else does and there’s no reason for me to be killing myself when no one else will.

Clan chat update…. Where even to start? How about how they chose the most obnoxious colors to begin with… Thankfully you can change them on our settings. That bright lime green is just offensive to look at. It’s also not multi-clan friendly. For me, I’m in two clans. One was started with friends years ago and is really just us hanging out with trips and competitions but no real requirements. There’s no public recruiting and potential members are on a buddy system, then finally allowed into CC on their own, but they’re acceptance actually takes a few months. This is really to weed out any personality conflicts and has nothing to do with skills or levels. The other is a lot larger with a different set of rules and monthly requirements and I love it because it keeps me motivated. Now, I have to have friend chat open to our old CC, with our new designed CC being automatically entered. This way, we can talk with everyone, even the recruits and just use the CC, which is accepted members only, for more business like discussions regarding clan matters, voting, etc. Since I’m already registered for that CC (which I need to be, being that I’m one of the higher ups needed for voting and business measures), I have no option regarding joining my other CC. I’m forced to log in as a guest, which has its restrictions and can not carry a rank.

Speaking of restrictions, how about mental ones? 5 levels of chat, all pretty much separated by a single keystroke? People struggle with wc’s constantly with just public, pm and cc. This should create some interesting drama.

I'm also baffled by needing to actually go up to the person in order to add them. Doesn't really make much sense to me as you never had to do that before.

We'll see how it goes. I finally got to see the tree update everyone had been talking about. (I had to come up to the service for the cc) They are beautiful! I love how gigantic they look.

Back to the dung...

Through the roof... Underground...

I have been doing a lot of Dungeoneering this week. I’ll do it with a friend or two if they’re willing and have floors in common, but I mostly do solos. I’ll rush 1-20 then do a few smalls but mostly mediums. I know its not the most effective, plus I’m dying to get it to 80 and doing it slowly, but I hate relying on others. Also, most people online I know want to start large dungeons at 11pm when I get up for work around 6am. Somethings in the game just take way too long when involving a group of people. 3 rooms in someone dies so you reset, then someone has to leave abruptly, then this and that and I just don’t even want to deal with it when all I can think of is that I’m not going to get any sleep when I was coerced into it to begin with.

I put large dungeons on the level of Armady boss trips. It takes forever to get your kill count, then two other people sign on and want to join, but need help prepping and getting kc.

I know I’ll get responses like “I do larges all the time and it only takes me 30 mins and never had an issue” or whatever. Awesome. I’m stoked for you. Not my experience. Unless I have a giant amount of time to kill or feel the need to be annoyed by strangers, I’ll keep at it my way. Earlier in the week I unlocked the occult floors, which have actually been easier for me. I know I’m jinxng myself, but I like them. I got up to lvl 76 and I’m just shy of lvl 77.

I had been using my ring all wrong. I finally figured it out and charged my gathering up to tier 9. It was an expensive amount of tokens and the reason why I’m spending so much time in dungeons is that I want a CR. It’s alright though, because of a jagex mix up, you can uncharged it once and get your tokens back. Just once though. I’m treating it like I’m just putting them in the bank.

The null thing in the Adventure Log is really annoying. I haven’t come up to the surface enough to check out the Livid Farm thing yet. Vengeance Group sounds like it would be a pretty amazing spell, but it looks like it’ll have a pretty huge time requirement to unlock it. I'm sure I’ll look into it soon. B2P took a long time to unlock, but that was absolutely worth it. VG would be amazing for boss battles. Blessing up to 30 people with Vengeance would destroy almost anything.

Have an amazing weekend!

On my way to the Prom

No, not the dance.

I've been doing a ton of Mining this week. I got 88, 89 and am about to get to lvl 90. Prom ore and size 9 stars, here I come! I need to work on my smithing though, that's only at 84. Prom ore isn't very useful if I can't do anything with it.

The combination of the penance horn and SC picks have been pretty amazing. I'm getting over 100k xp/hr mining gold at LRC. The horn's about to be empty though. I think when I do some BA runs and when it's refilled I might run some laps and get my agility up a bit.

My over ambitious goal last year was to get every level to 90. It was a motivator more than anything. I did get a lot of my lower skills up. I feel like with some additions to the game, that's actually possible and not that far away. I still don't feel any reason to level up Construction. I wish there was some motivation, but I can't think of anything. My house is exactly the way I want it, I have the higher level storage items to save bankspace because they're tradeable, I have no interest in a guardian or dungeon pet. Spending a ton of cash on a throne doesn't interest me. I use my house to check on stars, recharge my pray, store my stuff, repair my armor, teleport and that's about it. Can anyone think of anything? I'm not big into hosting house parties.

So Survivor kicked off and I'm happy. Lots of Mining, Thieving. Competition might be the motivation that I've been lacking lately.

I've seen a pretty decent exodus of friends from the game lately. A lot have picked up playing LOTRO, which I have checked out. It is a gorgeous game and is entertaining. Runescape will always be the go-to though. I have too much invested in it to really just switch over. Not just the gameplay, but the people that I don't know outside of the game. Besides, its SURVIVOR! I don't have the time to work on anything else!

Things have been hectic in RL, sick grandpop, super busy at work but some fun involved. About 20 of my friends and I heading down the street to watch the home opener of the Philadelphia Union (soccer) for my birthday. Gonna be cold, but should be a lot of fun.

Go Union!

So many things...

I skipped bxp weekend, but I got home in time to do a quick tree run which got me 88 Farming as well as the Circus, which has me closer to some levels in Mage and Range. After that I did about an hour or so of Runecrafting at Ouriana. That pretty much was the weekend for me.

I had been fooling around with my horn and I finally got around to getting back my Ninja Greegree, which I somehow lost (I think I teleported with a full inventory at some point, not sure how I got a full inv running laps, but every tells me that’s the likely culprit), which was a bit of a pain, but I’m glad I have it now. I got a few Agility levels and it goes fast at over 1kxp/lap.

My buddy showed me how to get the Herblore JuJu Pots from… Herblore Habitat? I think that’s the name. Super fast Hunting experience. Also using the Herblore pots on the herbs to make the Herblore pots = awesome. I made a lot of money selling herbs before the big weekend. Getting about 40 for each run is awesome. I’ve been mainly getting my Herblore xp from cleaning the herbs as well as the statue and giving assists. I’m about 10k from 91, and not as much in the mood to push it to 95 as I was a while ago. The extremes are working just fine.

I got to lvl 5 in all the Barb Assault roles, which really just makes it easier to get on a team when doing it with strangers. I also got to lvl 70 Dungeoneering. The new update is alright, I like that it gives you a screen in the chat box with all the info when you start it. I still have yet to do that with strangers, we’ll see if that happens.

Does anyone even really read the history notes that are dropped at the end of dungeons? I try to, but just getting a paragraph every now and then makes it very difficult to string together. Is there a place where you can pick up and read the ones you have start to finish? I’ve also gotten one or two that was just completely blank with a message ‘its too old to read’ or something along those lines.

Survivor is starting and I’m excited to get some Mining levels out of it. I’ll need to train Smithing at some point. Ore isn’t any good if you can’t do anything with it. I haven’t tried the new Smithing update area yet, anyone know if its any good?

I love the Ring of Wealth update. I always used mine as a good luck charm, even in LS where I know its useless. I was slaying yesterday, Waterfiends, Black and Iron Dragons. It was a little disheartening when it would shine brighter and the drop is 300gp. New task is Dusties, which I actually love. I’m hoping for some luck there. I have about 250 of them.

I just returned from amazing vacations in the Poconos and Key West (where I was during bxp) a few days ago and getting over a cold. March has been, always has been and always will be, super busy for me. The majority of my friends birthdays are in March, as well as my own. I haven’t had a birthday party in years because of how fast the month fills up. I planned mine in early January, which was good because the next week, every weekend is booked up until late April. Weddings, birthdays, life… Throw that on top with a sick grandparent (doing much better!) and a lap top that committed suicide on me, playing time has been limited. I’ve got a new computer though, and am going to actually live in my house for 2 straight weeks instead of being in hotels/motels/holiday inns. Actually, since I’ve been back I’ve been glued to the TV regarding the Japan crisis. I have friends over there who are thankfully fine. The western media regarding the radiation is out of control. We (meaning the USA) are going to be fine. No need to stock up on iodine. Actually doing that is a bad thing, Japan needs them more. Marlaine touched on it briefly on her blog, but its been a constant topic of conversation for me. No looting, no rioting, just trying to make it through it and coming together.

This reminded me of a recent insurance commercial I just watched last night with my roommate. It focused on how people went out of their way to help others. Someone was helping a person pick up papers they dropped, one was holding a door for others, one was stopping a kid from wrecking on his bike due to a runaway innertube from the beach. This shouldn’t be extraordinary behavior people! This is just called being a human being! It’s sad when common courtesy and respect are out the window. I see less and less of it in the RS community as well. I want to have a “Do something awesome for a completely random RS stranger Day.” It doesn’t have to be giving anyone something of value. It can just be something as simple as giving someone a lift to Lunar when they needed it, or showing a new player who’s lost where that super strange city of “Varrock” is located. Don’t really bring it up either, don’t start a competition about who can do the most (actually, would that *really* be a bad thing?), just have that little knowledge to yourself that you helped someone in need out. Negativity spreads like wildfire. You’re rude to a person in the grocery store because someone cut you off on your way to work who was probably pissed because someone cut them off beforehand. I’ve seen it in game. Someone gets scammed then they try to scam someone else, so then they camp and try to PK someone on a TT or something like that. Everyone just needs to chill. Life can be so much easier.

Wow, tangent much? Anyways. Happy St. Patrick’s day and lets go Villanova!

Catching Up

Where to start since last November? Dragon Defenders, return of the Wildy, free trade, the removal of the censor. So much has changed...

I haven't been missing all of this, I've still consistently been playing RS, I just haven't written anything on it. To be honest, everyone seemed to have pretty heated opinions on the subjects, myself included and I just wanted to sit back a bit.

Also, for a while I really lost my motivation in the game. When all you do is bankstand and chat with friends, and not actually 'play,' it doesn't give you much to write about.

I'll do a little recap:
- Got a few dragon defs a few days after it came out. I keep confusing it for a dragon scim in my bank even to this day. I like it. Was hard to get because of the crowds, but I signed on at an odd time and got a couple for myself

-Free Trade & Wildy. What a sham of a "vote." I fully believe they intended to bring it back regardless and the referendum and vote was really just an advertising ploy. I have no issues with free trade. I would have liked to have them set aside a few safe wildy worlds, but they didn't and what can you do? I've been playing for a while. I remember the pre-GE days and the dangerous wildy, so I just went back into that mindset and I don't really mind it. As with anything, you just deal with it. Prices of things went out of whack a bit. However, they kind of did in the same way when the GE was first created. Certain items tanked in value and recovered, the same thing is happening to those same items, so its kind of predictable. Maybe I'll put my money where my mouth is and see if it plays out the same.

-Removal of the censor. Someone brought up on forums that they thought Jagex would institute a voice chat included with the game. My thought process is that they'd never do that, as there's no way to censor it. However, with the removal of the censor, I really think they are going to institute this. Maybe charge a small additional fee along with the service. I've said I've hated it before, but I've come around to using Skype with the game. It makes things so much easier sometimes. Dungeons and Barb Assault come immediately to mind. Also, the removal of the censor was kind of abrupt. I'm older and I'm not really offended by the language, but for so many parents with younger kids playing the game, it seems off. Yes, there is a filter, but the kid can easily access that. If there were some parental control over an account, it might work better. The argument against this seems to be coming from kids. "In middle school I hear cursing every single day." Good for you (apparently this is something to be bragged about?). That doesn't mean you should. In a heartbeat I would cancel my kid's membership if they were in the 10-16 yr old age range.

Ok, those issues addressed. This is going to be a long post. What can I say, I haven't written in a while, bear with me.

So, after a long time of no motivation, an update actually sparked my activity. A seemingly weird one too. The Hati Wolf. Just seemed like a fun holiday-ish thing to do. The paws give you double xp in cb though. That was all it took. I HATE ranging. I've been at lvl 87 for a while now with not a lot of xp to get 88, but I just haven't done it. I am NOT wasting a chance at double xp on this. Plus my HP lvl is at 97 and could use some help. I'm going to use chins for this and after some discussion, the best way to do it is using the void gear. I never entertained the thought of using PC points for anything other than xp. It seemed like a waste. With the introduction of the Void Deflector, I could use the full gear and the paws. On to PC it was. I got all of the gear after doing it. On to Conquest... You start at 1000, but need either 1250 or 1350 to get the deflector, I forget which and can't be bothered to look it up atm.

The deflector I still need. I suck at conquest. If anyone wants to play a few rigged games, let me know. We can both get it.

Jax brought up the return of Survivor. In my inactivity I lost clan status, so if I'm allowed back, I'll be competing in this. I'm also organizing one with my other friends so if the first falls through, I'll have the other. Either that or its just double motivation.

Prepping for that, I've been playing a ton of non-cb Stealing Creation. This has always been one of my favorite in-game activities. I just love the race to gather, process and bank and see if I can make the hiscore. The cc's can be a little annoying at times, but whatever. Those little inconveniences will be worth it when I cash my points in. I'm currently at about 1300 points now and will try to get a lot more before the start of either.

Then I wondered what else is xp boosting that I need. My barb horn has been empty for some time. I started playing that, and currently I've just been concentrating on that. I did enough to get my horn full. I've never owned a penance torso, but I've always wanted one. A few friends have been on a BA kick and I'll usually only defend when I'm with friends. I can be sort of slow at it, but I can do it pretty competently now. I got my points to get my torso and I'm happy. I probably won't use it much, but its one of those things in the game that I just always wanted. I kept playing and managed to get up to level 4 defender (from lvl 1) with lvl 5's in all three other roles. I had lvl 5 atk for a bit, but have recently gone from lvl 2 healer to 5 and lvl 3 coll to lvl 5. I'm on a kick and I'm running with it. I kind of want all the penance parts and my bankspace is currently hating me because I've been on a collecting spree.

If people are free, I try to do a dung. Got up to lvl 67 which isn't high, but whatever. I actually like rushing floors better than doing the big ones. Anyways, that's what I've been up to. I hope you all have been well.