Kick, Push, Coast

Got a few things accomplished recently.

I can finally hunt C5S's!



And do other hunting-things!



Shortly after, I ran into my first dragon imp and it gave me 52 dragon bones. Sweet! It sounds weird, but 80 hunting is more important to me than my next achievement, because I hate that hunting skill so much. I just want to be able to get imps and use it in SC.

The next one is pretty sweet though:



Stoked on that. It kind of just snuck up on me while I read/watched movies/did paperwork, etc. Now I need to find a new skill while I do those. Now that fishing and wc are out of the way, I'm not sure what the replacement will be.

I found a bit of motivation hidden somewhere in my sarcasm-laden heart and felt it was time to get back what I earned:



I finished Love Story, Quiet Swarm, Void Dance and finally Elemental Workshop 3 to get my questcape back. EW3 is ridiculous, even with a guide.

I've been lagging like crazy ever since the Z-Buffering update. I'm not sure why. I always play with the small screen, min detail and my task manager says java hovers around 80%. Any tips?

Also, this taken without permission, but if Avicile hadn't mentioned her dad's screen name a few times in her blog, I would have sworn this would be him:

The Good, The Banned and The Ugly

I toyed around with the new elite diaries a bit. I have to say it’s a little annoying concerning certain aspects of it. I made a few admiral pies and it still wasn’t registering. It wasn’t counting it because I was using the barbarian method to get the tuna. For some reason, that matters? Or I was standing too far away while making my magic long bow. (Making it next to where the magic trees are actually located doesn’t count? Lame.) Stupid, trivial things like that kind of take the fun out of it.

The rewards look pretty decent. I’m always up for more battlestaves, but it’ll be a while before I get even close to the prayer levels. I might have to go back and start playing Soul Wars again.

I’m close to a few levels and even closer to 2200 total. I’m under 100k xp from a Magic and Farming levels I think. Those should put me at that nice round number milestone. I’m surprised that all the elite diaries were released at once. I thought they’d milk a few weeks out of it.

I realized I got pushed waayyy back in hiscores because I missed the BXPW. Kind of sucks, but I guess I should have expected it. I just have to get back at it again. 4 months left in 2010 and I’m still trying to get my goal of 90+ by the end of the year. (Dungeoneering not included) Hunting and Agility are killing me though. I don’t even have them to 80 yet (Hunting is about 100kxp away from 80). Everytime I hunt it feels like I did it for 4 hours, but really its only about 20 mins.

I need 10 RC levels (well 11 because why stop at 90 when you’re that close to 91?) but I’m oddly ok with that. There’s something about running in and out of the abyss over and over that’s kind of calming. It’s weird, but I really don’t mind it. I’m not a big fan of the ZMI running, but maybe I’ll give that a shot for a bit.

Daily Grind

Real life has been pretty hectic, I haven’t gotten on to play much. Clan trips keep getting cancelled left and right. It kind of makes me wish I had the time I spent prepping for them back.

For the few hours I get to play, I’ve got a pretty decent routine down. Staves, check on tree, check on star and do either if they are close in time. If both are over and hour, I’ll take my Graahk and hunt chins until it runs out. Its really annoying that the familiar stays so close to you when hunting. I just want to check my box, I don’t need to chat with it. Its amazing to me how much the bonuses help in hunting. I take a dip in the mud bath and summon the graahk, using pots when the mud bath wears off. It’s a difference of getting 3 chins out of 4 traps or getting 1 out of 4. One more summoning level til the Arctic Bear familiar which gives a +7. For trees, if it’s a low level, I’ll focus on chopping the tree as much as possible, only chopping the roots when they’re impossible to avoid, saving the kindling for the higher level trees.

The past week I’ve stalled at 1893 levels, however I’m close to about 8 which I’ll see how many I can get this weekend. I think I’ll be able to cross the 1900 barrier.

No team for the Jagex Cup. I think I’ll just use it as motivation and train whatever skill it is solo. I’ve been thinking about signing up for one of those 300+ people clans I see all over the forums recruiting people. I never PvP, but just to say I was part of it and check it out. Its kind of annoying when you’re excited to try something and can’t because you can’t solo it. It reminds me of standing in Varrock going “Need black arm band member!!!!!!” over and over again for hours.

Pain in the Adze

It took me roughly a month and a half, but I finally got to 92 Firemaking from 74. The xp flies by when you’re used to Runecrafting, Woodcutting, Fishing and other slow xp skills. I went on to get my Inferno Adze from the All Fired Up minigame and let me just say, it’s a lot more difficult than some guides make it out to be. I had already done the requirements for the first 10, so I figured the additional 4 wouldn’t be such a big deal. I went around to loading them all up, ended up dying twice, once at each the one near the temple in the Wilderness and the other on the Frozen Plateau (is that what its called? Near the Wildy Agility course). Realized then that even when you get back to your grave in time, you automatically lose the Fire Ring and Fire Gloves. I went around to lighting them and I wasn’t quick enough. I used Maples and thought I’d have plenty of time being that Runescape Wiki states that you can do it in about 9 minutes. Perhaps I’m just slow.

I got my Fire Ring and Gloves back but had to do it all again. Died again in the deep wildy, losing the ring & gloves again. Will I never learn? This time I just really wanted it so I actually broke down and bought some Magic Logs. Normally, I’d just go get them myself, but I just wanted this over with. I bought 200 of them and just used them for the first 8 beacons and used my stock of Maples for the remainder. Died lighting them, but managed to get them lit. Got my Adze, finally, but it kills me that I missed out on so much xp by not having the gloves & ring when lighting. If you take anything from this, just know to put them in the bank while filling the beacons and only wear when you’re ready to go on lighting them. I’m super protective of the Adze knowing that I lose it when I die and I don’t want to go through that again. If the Wildy stars come, I might just take a Rune Pickaxe instead.

I didn’t realize how competitive Hiscores is. In the past week I’ve gotten 6 levels, yet have moved up 409 spots. Its almost as if every level has me just barely clinging to the inside 50,000 mark.

I feel like I’ve only been Firemaking lately so I wanted to get a few levels in other things yesterday. I got about 120 tears which led me very close to a Herblore level. I really need to train this more as I’m sick of my tears going to that when they would be better suited saving me money on Construction or just time Runecrafting. I had 14 Gorak claws in the bank so I stopped over to the Cosmic Being’s place to pick some Starflowers. That was enough to get me to 64 Herblore. This leaves me at just an Herb and a Con level from 65+.

I was also close to a Slayer level so I grabbed my Bones to Peaches runes and headed down to Hellhounds. Sunday must be Slayer day because I had to hop worlds a disgusting amount of time. Got my level, got a clue then got out of there before finishing my task. I have to go back, but Hellhounds can be incredibly boring if you don’t break it up by doing a clue when you get one. 5 Rune Platebodies, Rune Axe and 50 Nature Runes. Whatever, I’ll take it. No puzzleboxes, 1 Wildy location, no co-ordinates, not bad for about 10 minutes of teleports.

I did some quests. Did As a First Resort and with the unlimited run, decided it was a good time to bang out Between a Rock… After that I completed Elemental Workshop II, all were relatively easy and I really liked the puzzle pool thing in As a First Resort. I have no reason for not completing these quests earlier. This leaves me with… 12(?) quests left to go. I need to do the Phoenix one as well as I’m all for daily xp rewards.

As a First Resort’s Hunting xp reward got me close to a level so I decided to set out on my first trip to get Red Chins. That didn’t last too long at all. Every world had a lot of people competing for a spot. When I finally got one (after about 30 hops), I saw how slow they were. Lots of clicking, very few catches and slow xp. I decided I had enough and went to Red Salamanders where I leveled within about 15 minutes.

Not sure what to work on next. Tonight I’ll go pingu hunting. I like to do this at the last possible time I can in the week. I can’t play on Tuesday nights so this leaves Mondays. The reason being is that I like to see how many of these little things I can stumble upon while just playing. The sound is pretty distinctive so they’re easy to find if you’re near one. I’ve gotten 4 this week and some weeks I get the majority just doing stars, farming runs, etc. It saves time when you go out to look for them, only needing a few and, to be honest, its kind of fun just randomly finding one.

The Eagles bowed down to The Buzzsaw that is the Arizona Cardinals yesterday. What can I say, they were just outplayed. Good luck to them in the Super Bowl. Pitchers and catchers report in 27 days. Bring on the warm weather and the Fightins!

I'm Hunting Wabbits

I finally reached the 1800 total level milemarker. At 1798 I had 12k xp to a Crafting level and 9k to a Slayer level. The Crafting level went easily due to some saved up battle staves and gems. The Slayer level, that’s a different story. I’ve been assigned Steel Dragons which take a little while. Throw in a dead Jade Vine, a few clue scrolls and it seemed to be taking forever. I got it down to 1.2k xp when I absolutely had to go meet my friends for a drink. I have no idea how, but somehow I had a penguin point. I don’t remember seeing one this week and I certainly hadn’t gone pingu hunting yet, but I’ll take it. Ran over to Larry, he gives me 1.7k and then the fireworks and that little “ffssheeeeeeew” sound goes off. 70 Slayer and 1800 total. Big Fireworks. I got a Dragon Plateskirt out of the drops too, along with a good amount of charms. It might be slow xp, but I really don’t mind dragon assignments. You spend all your lower levels fearing even attempting to kill them, that I still revel in the fact that there are ways to kill hundreds and not take a lick of damage.

It took me roughly 3 months to go from 1600-1700, and a few days short of 3 months from 1700-1800. Winter is definitely here and I hate the cold. I’ll probably be playing more often. If it takes me 3 months to go from 1800-1900 I will be more than happy. I’m setting a very generous goal of the start of baseball season. That gives me 5 months. Easy levels are hard to come by and I think that’s reasonable. Its kind of appropriate too, the very first game of the season this year is the 2008 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies (“World f’n champs!” as Chase Utley so eloquently put it) on Sunday Night Baseball. A good friend of mine just got 2001 total levels. She’s celebrating the invention of Wikipedia, my college graduation and making comments like “Its full of stars!” while beating obelisks with bones while I am still looking towards the Emancipation Proclamantion, the Civil War and Lincoln’s assasination. That 2000 level barrier has to be so sweet to break.

I hated that my Tears of Guthix were going to a skill that was so easy to train – Hunting. Last week I made myself hunt 1 level a night. It only took an hour usually to gain a level getting from 62-66. I hate forcing myself to do things in the game. It’s a game, not work, and should be fun. Hunting drives me crazy though, its much more intense and faster paced than I usually like. Setting up 4 traps, checking them, replacing them, dropping what you’ve caught… This is probably the lamest thing I’ve ever said but its too clicky for my tastes. I prefer things that you can at least chat during. The reason why I did it was that even though I’m not a huge fan of it, I find the skill very interesting. Its very versatile. I love what it opens up at the higher levels. This is how I justify it – a little work now = a lot of fun later. I love catching imps and I hate it when I spot a Ninja or Dragon impling then I have to call to my friends to come catch it and get their reward. I’m more than happy to do it, I’m not going to let a Dragon Impling just fly away when I see one because I can’t catch it. If someone’s going to get it, at least let it be a friend of mine. Sometimes though I just want to be the one to catch it. I hate to admit it, but I’ve also never used a Chin. It’ll be nice to catch a few and see what they’re all about. One of my favorite reasons though is that I can now use the Spottier Cape. It’s odd, but I have this unusual fascination with being light on my feet. I think that I just hate walking, so I’ll do anything to extend my running ability.

Jaxana was generous enough to extend an invitation to fight Armadyl boss Kree’aara with her friends. I figured it was safe enough with about 10 people. I’m always eager for something I’ve never tried before. The last kill, there were only 3 of us and we got a God Sword shard, which somehow was only 50k each. While chatting, Kree’aara promptly respawned on my head, hit me for 69 & 10 and boom – death. No one was left in the room to bless, but I really didn’t mind at all. I knew that last kill was my last one and got easily distracted when I should have been paying attention. I didn’t really lose anything major either. Bolts, Sara Coif, I have mutliple Armadyl pendants for that very reason. . Lost some Dragon Bolts (e) which I owned for about 30 seconds. Everything is easily replaceable thanks to the GE and it was kind of worth it just for the self-satisfaction of knowing you can kill something big, plus I got my first God Sword part drop. Good enough for me.

I’m looking forward to the long holiday weekend. I’m hoping I can get a few things done like work on Herblore or a number of quests. Still chipping away at the QPs.

I hate to say it, but both of you really need to go. It’s been a fun ride, really. It’s not you, its me.