Potpourri

I finally did the Halloween event (on 11/1, I’m happy I didn’t miss it!) and it was pretty good. I had some trouble finding all the spiders but it didn’t take long to get them on their matching tiles. I had heard this was super hard for some people. I think I really just lucked out, half were correct before I even realize what was going on. The talking to the dead musician guy was probably the worst part of it for me. I actually pulled up a guide because that kind of thing frustrates the hell out of me. However, when I looked at it, I realized I was on the last choice anyways.

I think the bone brooch is pretty cool and the emote is fun. Overall I liked it. I like how it incorporated people from previous Halloween events. I liked the Poe references and I had to look it up to confirm it, but there was a Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey reference. I got worried there that I was reading Bill & Ted’s into it, but its there! Whenever I see the grim reaper I think about challenging him to battleship and twister so I already had that goin on in the back of my head. Also, I don’t know where Bill S. Preston gets off adding Esq. to the end of his name. There’s no way that kid went to law school and passed the bar. Also, they’re coming out with a third one soon, which... will be interesting.

Yesterday I got to 93 Crafting, which I’m pretty happy about. Staves and the occasional assist is really the only way I train it. I had about 800 staves laying around so I bit the bullet and bought the air orbs to make them. They’re super expensive now, but they bought at mid instantly. I go in and out of my DIY phases and I just didn’t have it in me to make the orbs from scratch. Part of that has to do with not visiting Arnheim in Catherby for my seaweed. I just don’t really think of it because I have enough pineapples to last me forever.

The cash supply was running a little low, so I went to my favorite alching spot and took care of those. The best place to alch is the Skavid caves at Gu’Tanoth while collecting nightshade. It’s a second for herblore and its respawn rate is a little slow, not to mention it being untradeable. You just need a lightsource and the Skavid map. I wear my Seer’s 3 headband but you can also use the mining helmet to save an inventory spot. I wear my dueling ring so I can bank pretty quickly at Castle Wars. You also need to wear any kind of gloves or else it’ll hurt you when you pick it up.

It never ceases to amaze me how much of Runescape is based upon actual things. There really is belladonna and nightshade and it actually is a toxic plant. I’ve touched on this before, but the amount of real life knowledge you gain while playing a fantasy game is astounding. I always just assumed about 10% of it was real, while the rest is all just imaginary.

Do you know that when Jagex said that they were going to find a use for Ecto-Tokens, that was in 2008. It’s been 2 years and they still haven’t touched on it. They can’t think of anything to do with them? Really? I guess they have better things to do, but they just keep piling up. What would you want them to do with them? Have any ideas? New outfits? They stated originally that they’d be required for a pet, but something with the ex-ex-parrot got it askew. Which reminds me, I should get one of those… Spending 25 or whatever every, say, 4th week because there’s a penguin on braindeath doesn’t exactly deplete the pile. We already have ghostly robes, so that just seems redundant. I wouldn’t want to trade them in for xp being that the ecto place already gives the best pray xp you can get.

With two months left in the year and motivation at a pretty low state, I have to admit I don’t think I’ll make my goal of 90+ (Dungeoneering aside). I’m ok with that. I really wish I posted a list of my skills last January to see how far I’ve come. That’s something to remember for this year. It was a lofty goal, but I’m ok with not achieving it. It was something to reach for and I’ve done a lot in these 10 months. Training some skills that were already over 90 took some time away from leveling the lower ones. I got my Woodcutting cape which I never thought would happen. I brought Thieving up from one of my lowest, most hated levels to one of my higher ones. I got my Strength cape, have been working on Attack, etc.

I just looked back through this blog and my first post of the new year mentioned that I had just lost to Jad 4 times. Things don’t seem to change much I guess. I also noticed that it’s almost been a year since I had the idea of all the RS bloggers to kind of have a get together. It didn’t go exactly as I had thought it would, but it was a lot of fun to get to see everyone in game that I read about on an almost daily basis. Would anyone be interested in doing this again? I think it could be fun. Make it pretty informal, like a house party or meet in a tavern somewhere. Actually, maybe a F2P place would be better since some don’t have memberships. Falador pub? We can stack up on Dwarf Stouts and Wizard Mind Bombs when we’re there. Let me know your thoughts. I’ll organize something if people are interested. And I promise this year I’ll make it at a better time for the ones on the other side of the Atlantic.

Jax’s blog must have me thinking about goals. Congrats to her on her 4th complete year of playing and just plowing through levels. I’ve been playing years longer and haven’t accomplished nearly as much.

A Fistful of GP

I took a look back at some of my past blog entries over the year. It’s nice to be able to do that, and is kind of the reason why I have this blog. Two things stood out to me as I tried to see if I posted a screen shot of my hiscores at the beginning of 2010 (I didn’t). The first is that I got 85 Slayer in December. I just now got 86 Slayer recently. I don’t slay as much as I should.

The other, I was a lot more excited about the game then. Most of the posts took on a “Oh awesome! Look at what I just did!” kind of vibe. Sort of in the way Full of Pie writes her blog. I don’t know if its just that I’m super busy with real life & work or I’m just in a rut or what. I log on to chat with friends, but I don’t really want to do anything. I end up bankstanding. I’ll do maybe 10-30 mins of something then get bored and bank stand before doing something else. It’s not that I’m sick of the game, I just don’t feel motivated. Before anyone says to quit or not play, it’s the talking with friends that I really enjoy. The game has sort of taken a background to a social thing I guess. Everything comes and goes and is cyclical. In a few months I’ll be playing happier than ever again.

We got screwed on the Jagex Cup. Timbo claims we didn’t post the signup on the last week, we claim we did. Doesn’t really matter what we say, all the posts are hidden anyways (not sure for what reason though). The mining week I didn’t mind, but fishing & cooking followed by fishing again was annoying. Putting in so many hours on two skills where I don’t need to level isn’t a lot of fun. It’s fun in the name of competition and trying to help your team, but in the end where your work isn’t even counted, it lets the wind out of your sails a bit. So many teams had 0xp/hr with nothing counting, and we don’t even get credit for competing each week while getting all the required sessions in… blah.

Jagex’s stance of refusal to work with players has really ruined something that has potential. I don’t understand why they can’t just be open to players about what’s going on. Timbo was constantly late releasing information with no explanation whatsoever. Also when he stated the detailed information release date, and it came out about 5 days after that, he just claims “well I wasn’t in the office.” Listen, we get that, but we also put a lot of time into these things. A “I’m getting the detailed information together, but it looks like its going to take a bit. I’ll get to it as soon as I can” would be much better instead of giving us a timeline to rely on, then to break. The lack of even clearly defining the rules is a bit absurd. They’d really have to directly address a lot of issues before I think I’ll participate in it again.

I know some fellow bloggers out there make some money off of your sites. Some probably a decent amount, others maybe just a few bucks. I never have because I feel like it would change the content of this site. If money started being a motivator, it’d be like work. I’m pretty happy with that choice today. The city of brotherly love, where I reside has decided that everyone who makes money from blogging, needs to buy a $300 business permit in order to operate. So the guy that made say $11 dollars last year from advertising revenue on his site about say, where to find a good steak in the city has just been handed a bill. This isn’t something they are instating going forward, as if “if you’re going to make money you need to do this” which would let you reassess if you want to do it or not. This is an invoice, if you’ve made money with it in the past, now you have to pay. I’m sure I wouldn’t have made close to $300 with this site to cover the ridiculous cost of a business permit. I will say, if you ever wanted to find out a way to make freelance writers really pissed, really quick – this is the way to go.

The second XP weekend has been announced. I spent a ridiculous amount of planning for the last one and was rewarded pretty well for all the effort. What are my plans for this one? Nothing. I’m going on vacation to the other side of the country for a friend’s wedding. I’m a little relieved to be honest. I have a nice stack of herbs sitting in my bank leftover from when I got my Herblore up to 90. (I was originally holding off on leveling, but it was killing me just seeing them sit there) I’ll wait a few more days and sell them and some other Summoning seconds I have stored for a nice profit. I’ll plant my highest level tree seeds before because I’m sure I can log on for 10 mins to do the circus and tree run real quick. That will only take like 10 minutes. It’s nice not having to stress about it though. I’d probably just use the time doing Agility or Runecrafting or Hunting anyway. Working on the skills that are my lowest and really require no prepping.

Happy New Year!

I don't know what got into me, but I decided to try and kill Jad this weekend. It looks like I'm not alone in that either, turns out about 4-5 other friends got the itch as well.

I'm great at the waves now. I did it 4 times over Saturday and Sunday. Aside from Jad, wave 60 is the hardest. The trick is trapping the 180 behind one of the 90s. I got to Jad 3 of the 4 times, and he's killed me 3 of those 3 times. I can pray switch alright, but sometimes he fakes me out then when I go to eat, it takes a second for the pray switch to happen.

I broke down and bought arma plate and ranger boots and an archer's ring for the occasion. I'll sell them back *when* I defeat him.

Not much time to write, so I'll just show my goals for the year:
1)Reclaim Quest Cape and keep current with new quests
2)Beat jad's stupid face
3)All skills 90+
4)Reclaim Adze

I have about 4-5 quests left to go for the cape. The real part of that goal is trying to keep current with the new ones as they are released.

Jad, well, its personal now.

90+ is a pretty lofty goal. Most of my skills are in the 80s, with a handful in the 70s. The one in the 70s aren't the hardest to level (hunting, thieving, etc), I just need to sit down and do them. That's a goal of 100+ big levels, but its over 12 months. I'll have time I hope. If anything, its something to strive for. Also, this doesn't include the new skill to be released. We'll assess that when it comes out.

Adze - ugh I just need to do that stupid beacon thing again. Its been a couple months, I just hate it so.

Real life goals for 2010 - buy a house (been looking for months), quit smoking (currently dealing with this - not fun, but 5 days without one), finish the triathlon on memorial day weekend that I registered for.

"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!

New Year!

I had completely forgotten about the Wild Pie bonus for Slayer. I ate one of those and took off to the dungeon by Port Sarim, went into the ice cave and killed my first Skeletal Wyvern. Got my revenge from stupidly wandering in there ages ago at lvl 50 or so. Then I used my pingu points from the week on Runecrafting, made a few rounds of crafting Nats and got to 66 Runecrafting. Collected my rewards, Falador Diary done. I also, temporarily, cracked the top 50,000 overall on hiscores. I was at 49,996 last night and knew that wouldn’t last. I woke up this morning, 50,026. One or two more levels should do it.

Last May I started keeping track of my levels on Excel. I did this because I wanted to see how I was progressing, which skills I was neglecting and that I’m a huge nerd and use Excel for pretty much everything. In the last 7 months, here’s how I have progressed:

Attack 74 – 81
Defence 72 – 80
Strength 80 – 86
Hitpoints 75 – 83
Ranged 62 – 77
Prayer 61 – 70
Magic 73 – 82
Cooking 92 – 96
Woodcutting 66 – 81
Fletching 73 – 75
Fishing 98 – 99
Firemaking 53 – 86
Crafting 66 – 79
Smithing 71 – 73
Mining 62 – 73
Herblore 50 – 63
Agility 57 – 74
Thieving 61 – 65
Slayer 58 – 71
Farming 67 – 77
Runecrafting 51 – 66
Hunter 50 – 66
Construction 52 – 63
Summoning 43 – 68
Overall 1567 – 1834

Looking at those original levels, I can tell that I had just completed the Varrock Diary. Close to 300 levels in a span of 7 months sounds pretty good, but at the time, skills like Summoning, RC, Hunting, I wasn’t really working on and some of those skills in the low 50s and 40s are pretty quick levels. Some people would ask why I’ve only gone from 92-96 Cooking when its such a fast skill to get xp in, and I’m so close to a cape. The easy answer, I kind of hate cooking. I find it boring. I don’t have any desire to go buy 5k sharks and tuck away at the Cooking Guild for hours on end. I’ve only ever cooked what I’ve caught and I really only cook when I need food. The cape is nice, but I’m not a big fan or purple anyway. Why do I bring this up? With the new year approaching, its about the time that everyone sets goals for themselves. While we’d love to be optimistic, we also need to take a second to be realistic.

While I’d love to sport that beautiful Hitpoints skillcape in the next twelve months, let’s see what it would take. In the past 7 months I’ve gone from level 75 to 83. 8 levels. That’s a little more than a level a month. As we all know, you need more and more xp as the skills get higher. Even if I continued at that rate, that would still only bring me to the mid 90s. To break it down even further, I look at xp because level numbers can be deceiving. I have 2,820,904 xp in HP as I write this. The magic number for a skillcape is 13,034,431. That leaves me with 10,213,527 xp until 99. Divide that by 365 days and I’d need to get about 27,982 xp per day. Maybe for some people that’s do-able, but I know how I play. I sometimes neglect cb altogether for weeks at a time. That’s not happening.

It kills me when I see people fishing at Piscatoris and they state that they are going to get a level that day. However, they need 550,000 xp to that level. You make roughly 30,000 xp/hr fishing monks. If you break it down, that level is going to take you over 18 hours to get. I love your enthusiasm, but its already 5pm…

That said, for 2009 I’m going to keep my goals pretty simple and not do anything to really burn myself out on the game. I have 14 quests remaining, so I can see myself getting a Questcape. This will also, hopefully, serve as motivation to do quests as they’re released. I’d like to get 75+ and 2000 total levels. These are probably going to be the biggest goals that I have. However, 170 levels isn’t a lot to achieve in the span of 12 months. That’s 13 levels a month, which I feel is attainable. Runecrafting will be a pain, but with the pingu points, and other xp bonuses in the game, I can do it. It won’t be easy, but that’s the point of setting goals, right? With that I think will come 2 skillcapes. I have about 4M xp left til my Cooking cape and over the span of 12 months, I can see needing that much food. That’s roughly 19,048 sharks cooked. That works out to about 1,587 sharks a month. That’s attainable. Getting 75+ will give me 1907 levels alone, putting me in good position to finish out the year with 2000.

As for the other cape, I have a suspicion that it might be Firemaking. As much as I would love for it to be another time consuming, no easy way to buy levels one, like Woodcutting, I’m only 81 in that currently. I don’t realistically see going from 81-99 in a year’s time. My short term goal is the Inferno Adze. In the past week I’ve gotten 84-86 and the experience is super fast. I just use Maples from my kingdom or train it in synch with WC when chopping Yews and chatting to friends. Also if I’m going to get it to 92, I can see myself saying “what the heck” and continuing on with it. I’ve gotten over 2M xp in it this month alone and it wouldn’t be that much of a strain to get the remaining xp.

I wish you lots of luck and happy playing in the year to come! Set some goals, just be realistic about it. Don’t think that you’re going to get from 75-99 Fishing before March because you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment, and you’ll probably end up hating the skill and burning yourself out on it. Take your time, enjoy it! It is a game afterall.

One World, One Dream

I can’t believe the Olympics is coming to an end. I also can’t believe that Microsoft Word just auto-corrected “Olympics” to have a capital – O. The thought of spending 4 years without Team Handball is a complete bummer. Watching sports has always been inspiring to me. Spending 5 hours indoors watching the Tour de France riders leg out 100 miles through the Alps has always made me go out and go for a ride. Sure that giant hill I’d climb a few miles away isn’t the Alp D’Huez, but mentally it was.

I’ve never been that good of a swimmer. I grew up surfing the beaches in Jersey where you could always stand if needed. Getting around in the ocean without a board leashed to my ankle always meant walking in the sand against the current. Don’t get me wrong, I can “not drown” but I wouldn’t say my freestyle is anything close to graceful. That said, in what you might call a subconsciously Phelps-inspired move, I joined a swim program at my gym. Basically, it rewards you for little accomplishments you make in swimming the lap pool.

It starts off with some easy tasks. 100m, or 4 laps. Gradually working its way up. The equivalent of the English Channel, ending with 100 miles. Of course, these all aren’t going to be done in one sitting. I’ll do a few laps, go home, come back the next day and do some more. Each level is awarded with a patch which shows your accomplishment. If I could sew, maybe this would end up on something, but I have a feeling it’ll end up in a drawer somewhere.

Once again though, it’s a little bit of life imitating Runescape, or vice versa. The first few levels will be easy, and maybe I’ll even get a couple in a day. The end, however, will take days and dedication to get to the next level. Maybe I’ll sputter out in the middle somewhere and get distracted by another skill, or maybe I’ll keep with it to achieve my goal of completing them all. The reward is minor, fireworks above the head, maybe a sparkler lit in the backyard. A patch that shows what you’ve accomplished or a cape to cover the shoulders. Either way, regardless of how minor the actual reward, the sense of pride is really what we work towards. You don’t necessarily need a patch or cape to prove to yourself what you’ve done. So like all those amazing athletes we gather every 4 (or 2) years to watch, just stick to what you set. Proving something to yourself is almost better than proving it to others.