Bank Space Robbers

It's very rare that I log onto Runescape with no definite plans of what I'm about to do. When you train everything, with a side-order of wanting all costumes available to be stored in your costume room, that gives you a lot of gameplay to work with. I generally log off the previous session and stare at Runemonkey for a bit, until it throws up what is close to a level. Then I know what I'm doing next time. This time, though, nothing was close to a level and so the world was wide open. I'm not good with that many choices. I kind of loitered in the GE awaiting inspiration. That came from my bank itself.

I wasn't short of space in there. There were a good 50 spaces to play with, but there were also a lot of space hoggers in there. I'm talking about half finished projects or raw materials that could be turned into xp and money. Take, for example, clean dwarf weed. It's sitting there because I'd recently farmed it and so those herbs had joined the couple dropped by the aberrant spectres previously. In order to process dwarf weed, I need to go well out of my way, up to the Zamorak Chapel, just west of Goblin Village. I then have to stand there for ages, tele-grabbing Wine of Zamorak everytime it respawns. In between spawns, I have nothing to do but twiddle my fingers, whilst looking out over the barren Wilderness. It's boring. So I don't do it. I let dwarf weed build up and up, despite all that xp associated with ranging potions. I decided that the dwarf weed processing moment was now.

That kickstarted a whole bank sorting session, which took me all over Gielinor. Six blue charms got turned into Obby Titans, but only after I'd nipped to the Fight caves and killed three Something-Something-Kets for their obby charms. That sole lantadyme seed was planted, but only after I'd teleported to Trollheim and run up to the roof. Gold ore was smelted and used on the unstrung amulets gathering dust there. Coal was mined, in order to smelt the mithril and addy. Those were smithed, in Varrock, using up the last of my Stealing Creation hammers. I even went home, grabbed a pair of shears, then ran around outside the make-over mage's house, chasing down sheep and taking their wool. This after over 48 hours with no-one selling me any balls of wool in the GE.

After I'd smelted, smithed, mined, crafted, spun, hammered, fletched and cooked my way through all those raw materials, I was amazed to discover, via Runemonkey, that I'd gained 57.6k worth of xp. It was spread out across most of the skills, but it was there. All of that xp had just been hanging around in my bank, robbing me of spaces. I then turned my attention to the other items in my bank. Things like the couple of pieces of charcoal that I'd kept, in case it ever turned up in another quest. I didn't throw things out willy-nilly, for example, I've kept my entire collection of fish hats, despite them being of no real use other than making me look pretty. But things, like charcoal, which are easily collected from that shop in the jungle, went onto the GE. I'd made a good 200k by the time they were all sold.

I then looked for things that could be processed if I chucked money at them. All those irit herbs for a start. I'd heard rumours of packs of Eye of Newt that could be bought somewhere. I'd already tried my usual supplier, in Port Sarim, but she didn't sell packs. I'd also got a tooth half of a key sitting in my bank, which had been there for a while. I've never bought the other half before, always waiting until it turns up in a drop, but this time I did. The loop half was sold to me immediately. While I was in Taverley, gaining a dragonstone and three runite bars, I checked out the herb shop there. This is where the packs are sold! There was no clue as to how many were in a pack though. As they were cheap, I bought ten packs, figuring that there's probably only about 10 in them. Wrong. They hold 50. I now have over 500 eyes of newt in my bank.

I also went and fixed my Torag's Hammers, in my house, which only cost me 164gp. I'd expected much more! They sold for just over 100k gp.

By close of play, I had that 57.6k xp, nearly 400k gp and my bank had 100 free spaces! Nice day's work, eh?

New Canal?

Reckon this picture is a nod towards the rumours about a Sailing skill, that JMods keep having to deny? I found a canal barge under construction just north of the Digsite. I thought at first that it was Gielinor's answer to Sutton Hoo, but it wasn't, it was a barge being built. Then I clicked around it and apparently there's a canal being dug too. It makes sense, because why would you build a canal barge if you didn't have a canal to float it on? Maybe one day there will be a canal from the Digsite all the way to Falador, maybe beyond. Nice aquaducts over the River Lum and all that.

Nature Runecrafting - Some Data

I don't pretend to speak maths. Maths, to me, is a concept that I understand is there, but is largely the preserve of other people. Therefore I have done this run with the emphasis on ensuring the accuracy of the data. I'm not going to even attempt to analyse it. I've simply done it so that those who are fluent in the language of maths can take it and use it in their complex formulas. Somewhere between us, there will be more information about what the update to runecrafting means in real terms.

With that in mind, I've included here all the things that happened during this run that might affect your calculations. I hope it's useful.

I'm level 75 runecrafting. I own four pouches and used them during this. I did not do a nature run while any pouch was degraded (until the very end, but I don't think that counts), therefore you can be assured that every trip to the altar was with as many pure ess as four pouches and a full inventory can hold. (I think that's 62, isn't it?)

Just in case my attire holds any hidden runecrafting boost that I don't know about, I was wearing: an omni-tiara; a quest cape; penance gloves; boots of lightness; glory; and ring of duelling. Otherwise I was in default clothing. At different times, I carried nothing, a bronze pickaxe or a magical butterfly net (as the abyss or a sighted imp interfered with play).

I did one Spirit Graahk's worth of runecrafting, though that was slower than I believe possible, as I ensured that each run had full pouches and had emptied each pouch. Therefore I double-checked both ends that the pouches were either full or empty. This wasted seconds, but did ensure that I always processed the same amount of pure ess.

I started with, in my bank, 256 nature runes and 3547 pure ess. (As an incidental fact, the nats are worth 311gp each. This was just after the update, so that hadn't had chance to affect the market value of them.)

1. 76
2. 77
3. 70
4. 72
5. 81
6. 79
7. 75
8. 74
9. 73
10. 78
    
    
    At this point, my big pouch degraded. I didn't do a run with it in that state, but nipped to Edgeville/Abyss to get it fixed. While there, I crafted 28 death runes. Once back in Castle Wars, I noted that I had 2979 pure ess in my bank.
    
    
11. 81
12. 75
13. 78
14. 75
15. 80
16. 76
17. 71
18. 74
    
    
    At this point, I noted that I had 2547 ess in the bank, so my next nature runecrafting run was with only 28 pure ess. I figured that that would counteract the ess I'd used at the death altar, so to give those doing sums a round 1000 ess to deal with.
    
    
19. 37 (28 ess only)
    
    As I believe that I'd just done 1000 ess, I did a tally from my bank. I had 1658 nats and 2519 pure ess. I'd gained 9,280xp in runecrafting.
    
    The rest was just to finish off the time left with the Graahk (apparently his name is Graham and he knows A Grey Parrot).
    
    
20. 76
21. 75
    
    
    At this point, the big pouch degraded. There was only 30 seconds left before the Graahk had to go home, so I didn't hang about fixing it. For the purposes of this last calculation, please be aware that there were only 9 pure ess in the largest pouch.
    
    
22. 70 (degraded large pouch)

My Predictions Re Today's Updates

Regarding the update to Runecrafting, I have two predictions:

* The price of nature runes is going to absolutely crash. If you buy nats, instead of runecrafting them, then hold on for a few days. You'll get them very, very cheaply.

* Teacuptime is going to be posting a magnificent rant in his blog. To which I say in advance {{{{{hugs}}}}}}

That is unless I've totally misunderstood it. If so, then nats will slightly fall and Teacuptime's blog will be more of a reassuring hue. Either way, it's good for me. I get my money off laws or deaths (depending on whichever is more profitable on the day) and, at 75 runecrafting, I now have a chance at double nats.

Omg! Omg! Omg! Omg! Omg!

I'm shaking like a leaf IRL, so I'll go and make a cup of tea and then tell you what happened here. But for a big hint, look at my legs, then note that Gerroff is congratulating me.

Edit: Ok, I have a cup of tea. The world is back on its axis.

Steel dragons. Oh my Guthix. I don't know why I'm still going to Lapalok, as Summona is definitely my comfort zone. However, he didn't go a bad job last time, so I thought I'd give him another chance. He gave me 43 steel dragons to kill. 43 didn't sound like many at all and I had killed a steel dragon before, when I did Fur'n'Seek. I looked up the stats of the steel dragon and it looked akin to the KBD. Hey-ho.

Shelley and I set off packed to the gills with food and potions. The steel dragons are all the way down the bottom of Brimhaven Dungeon, then you cross half of Karamja underground, until you eventually find them. Mistake number one was that I really didn't need all of that food. If you're wielding an anti-fire shield, dosed up on anti-fire potion, then they can't hit through your protect from melee. I was taking no damage at all, physically. I was taking a lot of damage in the pocket though. It takes about 20 years to kill a steel dragon. Whole families are born, raised, go to work, retire and die, before you're even halfway through killing the thing. I walked in with level 80 prayer and still went through whole 4 dose prayer potions, before two were killed.

The really annoying thing about them though is their environment. Numerous iron dragons prowl the area and the instant you get that killing shot on the steel dragon, the iron ones fire at you. Your drops haven't had chance to materialise and you're already waving your whip in the direction of an iron hide. It's not enough to maintain a pacifist stance with them. You shout up, "It's ok, iron dragon, I'm after your steel friend," and they still come at you, rearing up like Champion the Wonder Horse. Meanwhile, all of your attempts to engage the respawned steel dragon in combat are futile. 'I am already under attack!' screams the legend and you scream right back at it. Their red blob breath thingie attack can hit you right up by the vine entrance to the black demons area. This is a true story. It happened to me several times. Of course there the dogs haven't a problem biting you. I killed three of them in succession and the blasted iron dragon was still waiting for me in the passage back to the dragon 'hood.

Sometimes you just have to give up and kill the iron dragon. I wasted more potions killing or running from iron dragons, during that first foray into the area, than I used killing steel dragons. In fact, I came away with just five dragon bones, most of which were from iron. I had to come away, as both me and Shelley were carrying a lot of unused fish and so we had nowhere to put any drops. *sigh*

Round two was nearly as bad. This time I took only two sharks, which was more than adequate, but I forgot my super-set. It turned out vaguely ok, as a steel dragon dropped a super-attack and someone else just left a super-defence sitting on the floor. However, I really missed the super-strength, which I'm starting to view as the most important third of a super-set. It was partway through this round that I also noticed mistake number two. I wasn't wearing my slayer helm. As I hadn't changed my armour, I couldn't have been wearing it in round one either. My Fremmy helm was perched on my head, like it had every right to be in a slayer task. At least sheer persistence in the face of iron dragon attacks and long-lived steel dragon fights resulted in 11 dead to put against my tally. Hurrah.

Round three, I was much more prepared. Slayer hat on, super-set in my bag, just the two fishies, all good. I'd even worked out my prayer potion to anti-fire potion ratio. What I was short on was time. I've been in there all day, but only for ten minutes here and fifteen minutes there. Mostly I was logged off doing RL stuff, while Merch Gwyar huddled up a corner and hoped nothing scary saw her at log in, before the protect from melee would be raised. It was mostly good. I only had to kill the one iron dragon.

Then I logged back on knowing that I wouldn't be back this evening. I figured that I'd better get myself out, while I remembered that I was in there. I didn't want to be logging back on first thing tomorrow morning, with my first cuppa not even kick-starting every neuron yet, only to discover myself staring down the fiery nostrils of a dragon. So on I went. Shelley only had a few minutes left before she had to go anyway, so it was a good move. However, before I could leave, a steel dragon attacked me. Hurrah! I checked and I had enough prayer to deal with it, so I fought away.

It was a dramatic fight. I'd already noticed that I'm the only person in Gielinor meleeing these things. Everyone else is leaning out of alcoves or scuffing the floorvines (which dragons mysteriously appear unable to negotiate over), ranging or maging them. I took the hint and, as my previous dragon had dropped poisoned rune darts, I used them now on this dragon. There were only fourteen of them, so each time I ran out, I placed a well-aimed kick right between its paws, then ran to retrieve the remainder of the darts. I am quite proud of the fact that my spiked dragon booted tootsie kicked him one for 11hp once. Oh yes. Each time I picked up the darts though, the dragon would dance backwards. In this way, we navigated bit by bit across the floor like demented tango dancers. Until I ended up in a corner literally surrounded by steel dragons. I so noted that for another time.

Then it happened. The dragon, weary of my combination of darts, boot and occasional whip, expired at my feet. There, in the dust, were a pair of dragon platelegs. I don't think I've ever had a drop that big before. It's worth 1m gp! IRL, I could barely control the mouse for shaking. I snatched them up, then realised that I should have screenied it, under the rules of no pic, no proof. I dashed into the nearest alcove and put them on. The iron dragons, perhaps sensing my utter mania, didn't come near me. I 'omg-ed' over and over again. The other person in the alcove, Gerroff, had the grace to be excited for me too.

It occurred to me to leave. Shelley was already on a countdown. I raced into Shilo Bank, gushing out that I'd just had a dragon platelegs drop. They all congratulated me in there. I was almost scared! What does one do with such a treasure? I tested them next to my dragon skirt to find that they really do have precisely the same stats, despite the legs being 1m and the skirt being 185k. For that reason, the like of Dr Leviathan and TheArcturus were advocating that I should sell them. I already have two skirts, why not have the 1m gp for something nice? Like oak planks. I know what I'm like. I'll never step out of the house with these platelegs, because they're too expensive and I might accidentally die or something. As it was, I was talking to Canting, whilst standing in the middle of Shilo, keeping a wary eye on a passing eclectic imp. You never know, it might suddenly develop claws and smack me until it had my platelegs.

But one last thing has occurred to me. How do big drops work? Now I've just had one, should I kill a thousand chickens or something to get my drop quota back up again? As in, now I have platelegs, is that it for rare drops for the next three years? Or doesn't it work like that? Could the next rare be in the next kill, as all things are reckoned anew each time I get my whip out?

I swear, I'm still shaking.

Full Guthans

I forgot to note in here that I'd finally got the Guthans helm a few days ago, after waiting for ages for it to buy on the GE. Here's a picture of me in that long-awaited armour. I'm so proud.



(And thank you to my friend, Miyamashi, who helped me screenie that. )

Classic Runescape

Every historian's dream is to be able to travel back in time, just to see what it was really like. As far as Runescape was concerned, we got that wish this week. Until now, anyone who joined Runescape after March 2004 has been automatically sent to Runescape 2. The world of the original game, Classic, has been in the realm of second-hand stories. It's a little like hearing your grandparents talk about the 1940s. You know that it was harder work. You know that it was more dangerous. You strongly suspect that, despite the ease and the greater safety, they all wish they were back there. Something about the camaderie and the Dunkirk spirit. For that more current view, we have been living vicariously through the blog of Aximili E I.

Then, on Wednesday, something unprecedented occurred. Classic was opened up again for two weeks only, for members to make accounts. No longer is it the preserve of those veterans, who have been around since the beginning. Noobs like me could peek inside. I dread to think what the old timers are making of this. It must be like everyone suddenly being given a free party-hat. Classic is no longer something that you had to be there to get. Though one day, people might be cursing that they weren't there in 2009, when the doors briefly opened again. Mind you, Aximili E I appears excited, urging everyone to grab themselves a Classic account. I already had. I was in there as soon as I saw the notice. I know history happening when I see it.



As a quest nub, I died laughing at having to see the Quest Expert on Tutorial Island:



This next bit was the first big surprise:



You can only cast a spell once every 20 seconds!

Last time I heard of the mythical Lumbridge, I'd never stepped foot in it. This time, I heard this and a big grin spread across my face. Little did I realise that it would still seem like a different world when I got there:



The first thing that struck me was how different everything looked. I was prepared for the graphics, as I'd seen loads of pictures; I don't mean that. I mean the fact that I quickly felt quite lost. I had set off into Lumbridge, but ended up behind the castle, where the knife respawn is. I'd assumed that I was somewhere up by the farm! I remember when I first played Runescape 2, having to memorise things like, 'if I follow this road, it will take me to the castle and I'll know where I am then'. I didn't expect to have to do that again now, but I did. When people were asking me where I was, I couldn't direct them to me. Bizarre, I know, but something about the old world made it so much more disorientating.

Whilst on Tutorial Island, I'd been getting a lot of PMs from people, whom I couldn't reply to. It's simply not allowed there. Now I was in Lumbridge, I was finally able to say hello back. Sir Calanon (aka Whiskas) was around and just like the old days, we went on quests together. We also discovered that you could fight each other in the middle of Lumbridge!



Thereon, we lost each other. I ended up woodcutting and firemaking. I agree with the veterans, it WAS much harder in Classic. I'm really proud to say that I finished up at level 5 woodcutting and level 5 firemaking. Luckily for me, one veteran, Rhhh4, was fishing nearby and looked after me, until Whiskas and Joshua Mack found me again.



After that, Whiskas and I completed 'Restless Ghost'. The whole disorientation thing, coupled with new controls and fundamentally a whole new gameplay, meant that I really did experience that quest as a noob. It was the second quest I ever did in RS2 and this really did recapture that feeling. Other things were strangely nostalgic. Whiskas died to a nasty wizard and I was able to pick his stuff up off the floor and keep it safe for him. None of this gravestone malarkey. Other things were horrific finds, like the fact that you couldn't run away until the first three rounds of combat were over.

All in all, I enjoyed it. I will probably visit again, though most of my RS time will be on my RS2 account.

Busy Week

One of the fundamental things about training everything simultaneously, and keeping your levels as level as possible, is that you can go for a week or two without gaining a level. Experience comes in drips and drabs, 1000xp here, another 9xp on something else there. Most of the time, I'll log in for a couple of hours and yet my Runemonkey record shows that I've got xp in all but two or three skills. The second column though, the one that shows how many levels you gained today, remains resolutely blank. Then you get one of those weeks. Those are the weeks when all of these little bits of xp add up and the levels all happen at once.

Two days ago, I ran after a star in Crandor or Karamja. If I have time to get there, I tend to start that searching route on Crandor Island, as it's the most out of the way location. I was alone there and so mined the mithril. I was still alone there when the star landed beside me. Hurrah! I was soon swamped, of course, and the level 3 star disappeared within ten minutes, but I had my 200 dust and that translated into 20 gold ore, amongst other things. I used my 15 minutes mining bonus time logging in and out of worlds, mining the mithril ore and the adamant ore on the ridge above it. The upshot was about 68 mithril and 13 addy, alongside the gold. By the time that they'd been smelted and smithed with a morphic hammer, I'd gained 76 Smithing. The level had been sitting about 20k away for days.

Also teetering on the edge of a level had been Farming. This is the one skill that I tend to do every day, in one form or another. It has many benefits and attractions. Foremost amongst those are the fact that it's one of my main cash cows. People tend to grimace when I say that, then whinge about the price of seeds. They look at me blankly when I reply that I only very rarely buy seeds. Here's the craic there: farming is expensive if you're trying to train it fast. If you're buying bagfuls of magic tree seeds, calquat tree seeds, poison ivy bush seeds, palm tree seeds and then topping them up with a few snapdragon and torstol seeds, then yes, you are going to be very quickly broke. There is a slight change of some recompense though. For example, I had a snapdragon seed yesterday, which was worth 86k. I planted it and gained 113k worth of snapdragon herbs. Baby profit there.

Now here's my way. I plant anything and everything. I get the majority of my seeds from the GE. I'm talking about the floor of the GE, where players drop them. 90% of the time, I'm planting spuds, onions or cabbages in my allotment. I've just been and put in a load of rosemary. I did buy some toadflax, before the big rise in it, but that was only because I was completely out of herb seeds and no-one was having a bank clearout in my vicinity. The toadflax are planted now, so my next round will be to plant one marrentill, one irit and a couple of harralander, that the aberrant spectres dropped on my slayer task. In short, it's all xp and it's all free. I'm in no rush. In the meantime, the gp is trickling in. At my level, you tend to get A LOT of low level vegetables. I walked into the GE with nearly 200 cabbages from must four plots earlier. They're only worth a couple of hundred gp, but my old Mum told me that if you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves. Alongside these, are the stable money-making crops. It only takes couple of minutes to harvest my palm trees, but they yield 18 coconuts between them, which is worth nearly 30k. Then you have my papaya fruit, six of those are worth 15.5k. I can do that brief run several times a day. On top of that, you have the herbs. I just bought full Guthans on the proceeds of farmed toadflax alone.

Now that's out of the way, farming also supplies my herblore; provides me with quicker ways to get places (spirit tree in Brimhaven); and is something quiet that I can do when Canting is busy and everyone there wants my undivided attention right now. It beats standing still on a pavement for 15 minutes. This farming level took me by surprise though. I'd only gone to pick more toadflax, as I wanted full Zammy armour, and suddenly I had level 82! I was soon up Trollheim with a garden pie and my torstol seeds. They've been taking up bankspace forever.

That felt a bit like a 'guilty' level though, as my main goal in life is to have level 80 in all of my skills. Summoning is still stook in the 'get everything to level 75' goal, but I'm chucking all of my penguin points and Tears of Guthix into it, so it'll soon catch up. Slayer is much closer. It was level 78, but so close to 79 that it could practically see 80 on the horizon. I'd also got my new Guthans to try out. Summona hates me. Since I've had my Guthans, I've had no task that I could use it in. I had black dragons (need the anti-fire shield); then aberrant spectres (need the slayer mask); then kurasks (need the leaf-bladed sword). I had used my Guthans though. I wore it to the skeletal horror on Wednesday night and awwed and whooed at the healing that it did, whilst also frowning at the slowness of the spear. I've had it explained to me now that I only use that for healing, the rest of the time, my whip and shield quite suffice. Then, last night, Sabre Grief was trying to persuade me, unsuccessfully, to go PKing with him. After me saying 'no' for about three hours, he then switched to persuading me to go to Shilo for my next slayer task. If it was waterfiends, he'd come with me. If I still hated it, I could ban it for life. Ok. I gave in to that. Lapalok gave me 134 fire giants.

Oh. My. Guthix. Guthan's armour is worth every penny! I donned it and was about to go to my usual spot in the Smokey Dungeon, when it occurred to me that it's smokey in there. I sighed, very close to putting the Guthans away, when I recalled that in the olden days, I used to go up the Waterfall for Fire Giants. Being inexperienced with Guthans, I packed carefully. I put in five sharks for a start. I was aware of all the hype about never having to leave until your task was done though, so I also packed two Shelley pouches. The sharks were not needed. I eventually had to put the spear away and allow myself to get hit 20 points (five times) in order to just use them up. Once I had the space back, I stood in that room and killed 134 Fire Giants without once needing to go to the bank. I did bank, but only because I got Leo as a random and it gave me the opportunity to. I didn't need to leave once though!

In the middle of all of this, that slayer level was got. Not only that, but I achieved three more levels. My defence was first, shortly followed by attack and strength. They always come together and are now all level 83. It didn't knock me up a combat level though, which was mildly disappointing. I seem to have been level 114 for ages! I have had some great drops though, this from the person who never does seem to have any. I got a dark mystic skirt, a snapdragon seed and a level 3 clue scroll, all within 10 minutes, at the aberrant spectres. The clue scroll yielded a Zammy page 3, which I'd already got, so I sold it for some Zammy armour instead. That's now completely bought and in my house, by the way. I had a leaf-bladed sword from the kurasks, which made it onto my official log. I'm not sure of the criteria for drops turning up there. It wasn't at all interested in my skirt, but the sword made it. In the other column, detailing the achievements of my friends, Dr Leviathan seems to be getting dragon boots every couple of hours. Yet it didn't mention the cadantine seed that I've been desperate to have as a drop. I'm nearly out of super-defence.

I also had very rare drop from the aberrant spectres. It was a challenge scroll! Ive only ever had one of those before, when I was about level 40 combat. I was talking to someone, at the farming patch, the other day, who is maxed out on most of his skills. He's never had one challenge scroll. Yet here I was with it in my paws, half wooting with delight and half wondering if that's my rare drop quota over for the rest of my life, and therefore will I never get a head to stuff? Still, the drop surprised both myself and H0STILE 0NE:



The rule was that I could only use a two-handed weapon. I finished my task and went to investigate the contents of my bank. The major contenders seemed to me to be my Torag's hammers, the Barrelchest anchor or a 2h addy sword, that I keep for clues. Dr Leviathan, in Canting, recommended the anchor. I walked in, with a bag full of tuna and sweetcorn spuds, a super set, a prayer potion and my holy wrench. The champion couldn't hit through my protect from mage prayer, so I didn't touch any of it. A few whacks with the anchor and I was 6k slayer and 6k hitpoints xp better off. It was all very fast.

Talking about champion scrolls, there was an update in the week. This allowed us to go and get the cutest little imps to follow us around. Full of Pie took a lovely picture of mine, which she showed in this blog entry. I walked around with it for a whole night, while it was still a novelty. While those in Varrock quickly got used to them, they were still a brand new phenomenon in Yanille. I got to be the first to show an imp off to the bank's denizens: Lord Zsolti, 420 weeeed and Emarcher:



So yes, all told a week of levels. It's also caused two big personal achievements. Firstly every one of my skills is now over 1m xp and secondly, I'm currently in the top 50k Runescape players! Yeah, I play too much. No lifer nub. *smirks*

Slaying The King Black Dragon

Going up Shilo for slayer tasks worries me. It used to be that Chaeldar was my comfort zone, while Summona was for when I was feeling a little daring. Just recently though, I've gone to Summona for all of my tasks, as I'm yet to have one that's frightened me too much. I think that my comfort zone has moved up. However, going to Lapolak holds huge risks, namely waterfiends. I know that waterfiends are beloved of the like of Kayla and Kitt Fox, but I'm not very good at them. I had them once, headed down into the Chaos Tunnels, got piled. I killed one out of sheer luck, then barely escaped with my life. That's the first and only time, since the slayer points came in, that I've Burthorped a task.

But this was a multiple of ten, which meant extra points if I went up Shilo. I've also got 279 slayer points sitting there waiting to be spent. If Lapolak gave me waterfiends, I would spend 100 points banning it from my life forever. Merch Gwyar slaying =/= Waterfiends. Nevertheless there is some trepidation involved in going to the highest level slayer master for a task. It's akin to being strapped into a rollercoaster, just as the first climb is about to end. You know that you're going to plunge several feet down at high speed, but there's nothing you can do about it. You know that whatever he says is going to involve a sharp intake of breath, followed by logging out for a frantic search in guides and wikis. There is a strong possibility of going somewhere you have never been before to fight something you've never clapped eyes on. It's quite exciting.

Thus it was that a very slow, smug grin grew upon my face as I read what Lapolak had in store for me. 47 black dragons. Oh yes. Sod running off to play with the fairies. I was going to kill the KBD 47 times. It's a slayer task. 47 black dragons = 47 King Black Dragons. Bring. It. On. I realised that this was going to involve an extraordinary amount of pots and sharks, but I have a vague superstition that slayer tasks yield more heads to stuff. You're forever reading about people setting off on slayer tasks and getting the head in the first ten kills; while those just killing them for the head are still bereft 8000 kills later. Maybe that's because the majority of people wouldn't be touching this creature with someone else's sword, if it wasn't for slayer tasks. I don't know! All I know is that I've killed 8000+ basilisks, untold numbers of crawling hands and, surely by now, 100+ KBDs without a single thing to take to Canifis and stuff for my skill hall. I'm desperate! I'll believe anything, if Lady Luck will just provide.

I waited until the next day, because weekends mean that Gielinor is full of people who are at school during the week. The one perk of the unemployed is that you have week days to nip into Runescape and find deserted resources. Tooling up as usual, I made just one swop. Instead of the hat for my proselyte armour, I wore my slayer helm. It quickly became apparent, once I was in there, what a genius swop that was. I average four comfortable kills with a 5th happening perhaps 70% of the time. The 5th kill is usually a little fraught, as I've run out of food partway through and I'm desperately hoping that my special attack will come back. Today though, first time in there, I comfortably killed him seven times. I only left then because I was on 7 prayer points and only had two sharks left. Seven times netted me 202k gp and 1806 slayer xp, on top of the usual combat xp. Made me happy. Only 40 more kills to go! Come on head. Come on....

Edit: Second trip, I had both my fastest kill ever and my longest. The fastest only involved eating two sharks. I'd potted up immediately before and my att/str/def boosts had only dripped down by 2 points. My special attack bar was only at quarter renewal by the next KBD! The longest probably would have made a normal trip into a 3 KBD kill only, but the boost of my slayer helm helped enormously. I ate 9 sharks, but still had enough remaining for one more kill. It finished with six dead KBDs and 1,548 slayer xp. The drops amounted to 196k. (NB with these drops, they include the dragon bones, which I'll naturally be using rather than cashing in. They also include yew logs, which will be worth substantially more when I've fletched them into yew longbows.) So far: Merch Gwyar 13 - KBD 0. Gf.

Edit 2: Bit of a delay while I did boring real life things, like fill in a job application. Then I tooled up and set off for another session. The teleport transported me to the right place on the second attempt, which is unusual. I was just basking in my good luck, when a rev hit me for 28. I've had this happen before, hence the Forinthry bracelet, which I always wear en route. Instead of panicking and running back to the teleport thing, I hurtled towards the ladder down to the poison spiders instead. This still threw me. I ran for the lever, but fortunately had changed into my barrows gloves, so the teleblock kicked in. I took some breaths, then potted up, as the spiders crawled all over me. I'd taken another 22hp damage from the rev, plus 6hp from the demons. The spiders managed neither to poison or hurt me, despite me standing there like a noob. I potted up, ate some sharks, then swopped back to Forinthry bracelet to activate the lever. I'd just stepped foot into the KBD's lair, when a system update started the countdown. *sigh* I killed him once before logging out. Slayer xp for one KBD = 258xp. Just for the record.

Edit 3: I've been three more times, with very different outcomes. The first is just an extension of the last edit. I logged back in to find 'my' world was now occupied with another solo slayer. I immediately attempted to hop, but the KBD was intent on hitting me. I kept getting trapped in the 'thou shalt not log out within 10 seconds of combat' law. I eventually made it out to the spiders, who, unusually, hit several times on me. I ran back in, hoping that the player had killed the dragon by now. He hadn't. He had by the time I made it out to another world though. The next fight was very fraught, as I had to repot, eat etc, not at all ready, while a new KBD was attacking me. I made it through though, only to have another player appear just before the next fight. It really threw me and I wasn't at all ready for the third fight, despite the honorable player, x x B0w3d, having hopped. In short I did manage five kills, which really weren't hard fights, but I had to leave after that, as I was out of sharks. I returned with 112,250gp worth of drops.

The next session set a record for me. I killed KBD no less than eight times in one go and still returned with two sharks in my bag! I've started to get this fight now. Instead of releasing my ddp special, then swopping to my whip, I keep hold of the ddp until I see signs that he's poisoned. The fights are always easier if KBD is poisoned, but before it hasn't happened every time. I swop to my whip after all four specials, feverently hoping that he's poisoned, but accepting it if he isn't. I've altered that strategy to not swopping to my whip until he definitely is poisoned. It worked. I might be hanging onto the ddp for ages, with lesser hits accordingly, but once that poison is in, the rest of the fight is plain sailing. Returning, wooting, to Edgeville with eight skins in my bag, I totted up the price of the drops: 150,509gp. Could have been better, but also could have been a lot worse.

The third time was a lot worse. A series of desperate fights, with an interuption from another player in the middle resulting in me hopping. I only scraped five kills, by which I mean that I killed him the final time with only 23hp and 7 prayer points between me and death. The drops were quite dire too. They amounted to 55,187gp, which didn't cover the price of the potions and sharks that I took to fight with me. I've hung up my whip for the night, having killed 31 KBDs today, amassing a total of 7,998xp in slayer.

I Feel So Grown Up

I'd just about convinced myself to buy more treasure trail items. Josh had convinced me to sell my dragon shard. I was looking and thinking of how I could pretty much fill my treasure trail chest with this money, as it would amount to nearly 10m. That would be the rest of the Zammy armour and the Robin Hood hat, plus the wolf mask. That would only leave the ranger boots, Sara armour and gilded armour to buy! (I'm also bearing in mind that any future clue rewards can just be sold, as I'll have them all.)

Then Simple and Teacuptime turned up in Canting. Between them, they swung the pendulum back towards Guthans armour. The deal was just about clinched when Simple added that she had a spare Guthans skirt, that she was willing to sell to me at discount. I was straight over there. Then I was straight into the GE. I got the platebody for 377,600 and the warspear for 868,600, both of which were the lowest prices on the GE, though I'd bid at mid-range. Full of Pie commented that it might be crashing, hence the low priced sales. I've just been to check the graphs, but they are the lowest they've been in days and look like they're starting to rise. For example, on October 28th, the warspear was about 1.1m, but two days ago it was about 880k. It smells like a bargain to me.

I'm still working through the excellent advice given in the comments to my last blog and thinking of the implications. The shard, as Josh advised, is already in the GE, but I've done nothing else yet. Other than buy these obviously. I'll comment back there when I've reached my decisions, but thank you all for your thoughts here.

Anyway, I've been dreaming of this moment forever!

I'm In The Money! I'm In The Money!

I got the hint from reading Full of Pie's blog entry, which mentioned the high price of toadflax at the moment. My interest was piqued. After all, I recently had a load of toadflax seeds, which were gradually planted over a series of weeks. There's no potion that is worth making, involving toadflax, at my herblore level, so it's one of the two that I just stockpile against the future. The marrentill stockpile feeds my gilded altar, while the toadflax stockpile was looking ahead to Sara Brews. I had 651 clean toadflax herbs sitting in my bank, so you can see how Full of Pie's merchanting gossip raised my eyebrows somewhat.

Nevertheless, it still took me a day to get round to checking the GE to see if the prices were still high. Toadflax was being bought at 5k each. I blinked and experimentally checked how much that would mean for me, if I did sell. When I'd recovered somewhat from the shock, enough to actually type, I asked those in Canting what they would do. After all, it was 4am for me and I'm not brilliant at maths or merchanting at the best of times. I spelt it out. If I sold, I'd have just over 3m gp. If I kept it, I'd have 651 towards eventual Sara Brews, in a dim, distant future. The response was unanimous. Dr Leviathan, Wolfhe, Mister Tiz, Timothy Gold and AquarianPixi all immediately said, 'Sell the toadflax, Merch.' I put it in at max price and it sold instantly for 5008 gp each. I put a cool 3,260,208 into my bank. This morning, I've done a farming run and wandered into the GE with another 23 toadflax. Again they sold instantly at max price. Only today, they're worth 5,294 gp each.

So what does this mean? It means that I've got more money in my bank than at any time ever in my entire Runescape life. I have 5.2m in there. I know that at my combat level (114), people generally have enough for several Godswords and a Bandos placeholder, but I train Construction. The most that I've ever had in there was 3m and that was when I was saving up for, then buying my marble portal holders. Generally, I keep 1m as my savings. This covers me against a new quest coming out with a sudden large outlay of money. It also covers me if someone is selling a big bargain in the GE. It's emergency money. The second I go over 1m in the bank, then it's spending money. 80% of the time, that's spending money on Construction. By Construction, I also include the contents of the costume room, hence a large amount of money went on treasure trail items that can be stored in there. Kayla and Josh were looking at that recently and informing me that I'm sitting on a goldmine. Those are my investment savings. The price of treasure trail items have been slowly creeping up since last June.

In short, I'm used to having 1m fallback money, which I'm loathe to touch. In real terms, I'm used to having a couple of 100k, which gets thrown onto shards or planks. I'm more used to selling random things, like harvested crops, than actually buying things. Then suddenly I have 5.2m (call it 4.2m, if I retain my 1m savings) to play with. Dr Leviathan cracked me up, when he drily commented, 'So that's 5m gp worth of planks then.' I giggled and said, 'Probably'. But I was already drifting over to the combat dude in the GE and eyeing up his Barrows armour. I could afford Ahrims. With a little more saving and the willingness to clean myself out, I could have Guthans. I've wanted Guthans since I was a tiny noob, walking to work from Lumbridge, in the snow, uphill both ways. Sabo Wolf informed me that Ahrims armour is the best mage armour in the game. Mister Tiz counselled not buying anything just now (it was 4am and I was half dead). I didn't. I went to bed.

This morning, that 5.2m is looking at me. I'm almost scared of it! I know that wealth is relative. There will be those reading this blog who can only dream of 1m in their back. There will be those who would consider themselves extremely poor with only 20m in there. 5m, to me, feels like a lot of money. Moreover, it has a lot of decisions attached to it.

* 5m gp = 7440 oak planks. That equates 744 oak dungeon doors. Using morphic hammers, that's just 100 doors shy of level 87 Construction.

* 5m gp = just a couple of 100k short of a full Guthans. I could make 200k easily. A farming run can bring in 200k (especially if I've planted toadflax!)

* 5m gp = more treasure trail items. I've nearly filled the chest. I'm missing ranger boots (11.9m), wolf mask (2.1m), Robin Hood hat (3.3m), gilded armour set (sk) (3.5m), Saradomin armour set (sk) (4.7m) and the remaining pieces of my Zammy armour set: full helm (798k), platebody (1.5m) and kiteshield (852k). These might look like 'wtf?' items, but they have all been rising steadily for months. They complete my house, which makes me happy, or they are long-term investment buys. Put it this way, the first time I looked at ranger boots, they were 5m. They're now 11.9m. The Zammy armour set is an attractive one, simply because I've had the plateskirt in my bank for months, taking up space!

Big, big decisions!

On a related note, I was in conversation with Joshua Mack about 3 weeks ago. (I'm so fast....) We discussed the fact that I never know the use for the armour and weapons in my bank. I tend to default to the same old things and he's never quite sure what to advise me to wear, as he has no idea what I have to choose from. I find myself erring towards range these days, as much as possible, because I'm scared of dying in my torso. Apparently it's not kept and it's not under your gravestone. Doing loads more Barbarian Assault for another one is certainly not a problem, but the fact that I own two torsos is. Jagex nerfed the coding to stop you owning two, if you didn't already. In short, if I die, I will never have a torso bankholder again.

The below picture then is the sum of my armoury. It's mainly for Josh's viewing, but please don't let that stop anyone putting their 2gp's worth of advice into the mix. All insight is gratefully received! I've also included the contents of my Summoning tab, as that might have a bearing on things. Basically I'd love to know these things:

* Is there anything there not worth the bankspace? I'm looking pointedly at the Fighting Boots, that I earned as a little noob and I'm worried that I'll one day need.
* Is there anything there making you wonder why I never use it, when it's the most pwnage weapon known to humanity and would have Jad quaking in his boots to see me approaching with it?
* Is there anything there that you think I really should be selling and upgrading? (The Fremmy hat is sacrosanct, as Whiskas and I fought too hard to gain that for me to give it up; the whip was a gift, so that's equally precious. One of the dragon shields belongs to Lilshu.)

Thanks in advance!

Killing The Kbd

I'm not the world's best film-maker. However, I decided, after watching -82-'s videos, that I wanted to make one to show how I killed the KBD. I filmed about 25 minutes worth of it with the idea that maybe Massecure could help me work out the important bits. But then he went on holiday before I could ask him and so I edited it myself. Yeah. But I did get it down to 9.20 mins.

It took me ages to sort out the music to put on my [s]butchered edited video. I've just uploaded it onto YouTube and the first thing that they did was mute it. *sigh* Please put on some dramatic music before watching, so you're not seeing it in silence. I had a selection, including 'Shelob's Lair' from the Lord of the Rings and 'Cyberworld' by X-Ray Dog. Strangely enough, it seems that if you watch it from my profile page, the audio is currently still there. There's also a note on mine saying that it's still processing and the quality will improve after it's finished. Edit: And apparently the audio is still here on this embedded video. Curiouser and curiouser.

A huge, huge thank you to Cpt1992carrot, who commented on my video with instructions on how to dispute the audio muting. Sound is now back. Thanks also to Josh, who'd linked to another source for the same information in the comments here.

This is me killing KBD five times in one solo session:

Death Of The Green Hat

What on earth I was doing in PvP in the first place, I don't know. Actually, I do. It was Joshua Mack's fault. I'd been happily engaged in the wanton mass destruction of mighty banshees; a process made easier by the fact that Zvi5 was letting me use his Pollnivneach house to replenish my prayer. Suddeny the call came up that Josh was getting level 96 range, did anyone want to come for a screenshot? Yes, I did, but I didn't have many banshees left and Shelley was shortly due to go home to Summoning World. I kept going, but ran out of food before the end. Zvi5 appeared to be with Josh, so I surrendered to the inevitable and joined them at the Duel Arena. It's not that I didn't want to be there anyway.

I'd expected that we'd be inside the duel arena, but Josh led me onto the rooftops, past that place where me and CJ used to watch the fighting from a safe parapet. As others arrived, Josh nipped back to the bank to guide them to me. Then there was a slight change of plan. I was called back to the bank. Shelley was about to go, so I said my goodbyes to him and thanked him for the help with the banshees (he'd taken a few out himself). Then promptly got hopelessly lost. I was overlooking Al-Kharid before Josh gave up on my sense of direction and came to find me. Safely back at the bank, he had me bank all of my belongings, then follow him back up to the rooftops. I should have suspected something dire then, but I knew that sometimes you had to bank stuff to enter the duel arena. I figured something like that would happen and just did as I was told.

We ended up in a corner on the roof, with Josh grinning that he wanted to get his level here. He was holding some Chinchompa shaped pillows and looking pointedly at Chiwowa504. He asked us to hop to a PvP world Off we went, arriving back in the same spot with skulls over our heads and the warning that we couldn't protect an item. Chiwowa504, Dr Leviathan and myself got our messages ready and emoted our little legs off. Josh attacked Chiwowa and the level was achieved.



Congratulations, Joshy! (Zach and Zvi5 had had to leave due to real life happening, and E Zenaku also shouted congrats from within Canting, but was thwarted from being there by lack of membership. )

Chiwowa504 immediately dashed of in fear of his sandals, as his hitpoints ebbed dangerously low. Josh followed thereon to bank the rest of his pillows. This left Dr Leviathan and I standing there canting. Neither of us could have attacked the other. Dr Leviathan is combat level about 16 billion, while I was a mere 114, so both of our names looked white to the other. After a while, I asked him why we were still standing there. Josh, by now, was in another world having adventures of his own and the others had scattered. Dr Leviathan just looked at me and shrugged. He had no idea either. We shuffled a bit, then I suggested that we go for a walk, just to see how long it was before we were killed.

So we did. It was a bit creepy. We passed someone in full armour farming in Al-Kharid, but otherwise the world seemed utterly deserted. All across the top of the desert and into Varrock, we didn't pass another soul on the road.



I had vague ideas about skirting the major cities, then perhaps ending up in Kandorin. I figured that if we could make it through Seers unmolested, then we might get all the way to the west coast of Tirannwn. The world was so empty that it felt like a slight possibility. All logic told me that we'd die somewhere between Falador and Camelot though. What I didn't anticipate for one second was that, as we stepped around the Champions' Guild, we would spot a level 4 shooting star sitting on the ground just south of the mine.

Dr Leviathan and I stared at it. Riches and mining xp stared back. We were on a PvP world with skulls on our head. Only complete idiots would even think of grabbing their pickaxes and starting work on it. Dr Leviathan and I exchanged glances. A short conversation later and we were turning on our heels and heading into Varrock to the nearest bank. There were people there. Just two or three of them, dashing in and out of the bank. One person setting fire to the street. Just low-level anarchy. I wasn't as brave as Dr Leviathan. As he grabbed a rune pickaxe, I was pulling out the bronze pickaxe that use when runecrafting through the abyss. I felt a bit of a lightweight noob compared to his bravery, as we raced back to the star.



It didn't take me long to realise that bronze pickaxes didn't produce stardust with any great urgency. I whacked that star with all my might, but the dust only trickled in. In the end, I asked Dr Leviathan how much a rune pickaxe costs. It was only 19k. I gave up on the last remnant of prudence and ran back to Varrock bank to swop my bronze pickaxe for my rune.

I was already on the way back, when Dr Leviathan alerted me, inside Canting, that we had company. I froze next to the Blue Moon pub and tentatively asked if the newcomer looked friendly. There was no response. I rocked forward a step, hesitantly waiting and listening. There were no screams coming from the direction of the mine. I continued back there to find that our fellow miner was dressed like Gonthorian in all regards, as well as being flanked by a huge lava titan. His combat level was white. I relaxed and said 'hi'. I Chemical X did not reply.

Meanwhile, OAll-StarO had been following all of this from within Canting. He was safe and sound in a non-PvP world, but decided to give that all up for the utter tomfoolery of mining a star in PvP with us. He arrived with a cheery hello, which stilled my heart after it had pounded at the sight of a person approaching. Not that Star alone was causing all of this. Every time the lephrachaun or gardener, at the berry patch behind us, moved, I jumped 10 feet out of my seat. I'm not a natural in a PvP world, it has to be said. Nevertheless, Star, Dr Leviathan, I Chemical X and I mined away in relative peace.



I was quite surprised to reach 200 stardust whilst still intact. Knowing that death now would mean the loss of the dust, I immediately sprinted off to Varrock to bank it. Hereon would be mining xp. I'd worry about the tubby if I was still alive to see it. However, at the bank, my natural paranoia got the better of me. I took out three rings of duelling, on the basis that A Grey Parrot had told me that you could teleport wearing it, even while in combat. Back at the star, I traded Dr Leviathan and Star a ring each, then returned to my mining.

It felt like mere seconds afterwards that I Chemical X suddenly turned and attacked Dr Leviathan. I was in shock, because it had all been so quiet until then. I'd half thought that I Chemical X might prove to be protection in the event of an attack, as he had shown no inkling to hurt us before. I'd been lulled into a false sense of security, albeit an extremely jumpy one, in thinking that any threat would come from outside our mining circle. I exclaimed, 'OMG!' into Canting, while Star typed, 'Wow what a jerk!' but neither of us could do a thing to help. Our combat levels were too noobish.

Recovering myself from my fright enough to speak, I then started a diatribe on the PKer. 'Why did you kill him?' and all that. To me, it seemed so mean. If he was going to kill him for his pickaxe, then why not do that when he first arrived? Instead, he waited for him to mine all of that dust, then killed him. It's not like he could claim the dust. Star was reporting into Canting, 'Merch's giving him a right mouthful', but I Chemical X pwnt all of my arguments with a single line, 'Its pvp why cant i'. Why couldn't he indeed? I deflated greatly, unable to think of a response to that. Meanwhile, Star was trying to direct my attention to an important detail. Dr Leviathan wasn't dead. He'd used the duelling ring to teleport away and now had his belongings safely stashed in the duel arena bank.

Just on it, Star reached 200 dust. This was his first shooting star, so he wasn't even aware of what was at stake here with that dust. I was standing there, still mining, debating whether to leave. I wanted to be at the duel arena counting Dr Leviathan's fingers and toes, checking his wounds and stuff, but that was just real life maternal instinct interfering with play. Of course he was alright. He has 99 hitpoints and presumably a bank full of fish. I advised Star to teleport out and bank his dust, explaining that it would be lost if he was killed. Off he went, but before I could teleport out myself out of sheer alarm at suddenly being alone with a PKer, Dr Leviathan was back.

He stood behind I Chemical X blowing raspberries until I got the giggles big time. I did screenie it, but accidentally pasted over it before I could save the picture. That's because I Chemical X immediately turned and attacked again.



With Dr Leviathan once again teleporting out, Star was already on the horizon meandering back. I felt a little calmer after the laugh, so decided to see it out as long as Star did. Dr Leviathan did return another time, again with the raspberries and again with the teleport. I pointed out to I Chemical X that we'd get down this star much faster if he'd just let Dr Leviathan mine.

Before he could reply, there was a zap of fire. L1k3 Ur B4ck was in blue mystic, but wielding a Zammy prayer book and a rune crossbow. I was teleblocked before I even knew she was there. I remember reading, ages ago, in an article linked by Runescape Reader that most deaths in Runescape occur because the player panics. In the grip of utter panic, I tried to calm myself down, clicking impotently on that duelling ring. I noticed little details, like I Chemical X saying, 'gl', a second before my assailant appeared. He had called her there then. I attempted to run, but after a couple of steps, I was frozen. I'd already banked my dust. I was going to lose my rune pickaxe. I recalled Dr Leviathan saying that it's only 19k. That didn't matter. A farming run would more than cover that. I worried about Star being alone there. I wondered at how long it was taking to die. I was going to lose my pointy green hat.



Star survived. He teleported to Castle Wars, where he was joined by Dr Leviathan. Not that it was much safer there. I teleported to join them, in time to see strongthz z being kicked up the backside by Dr Leviathan for attacking us. Strongthz z ran away, but was soon back, freezing me and killing me outright. It didn't matter, I didn't have anything on me at the time.



We came out of PvP after that. Within an hour, I'd nipped into Star Find to learn the location of a tubbied star in a safe world. We cashed in our dust there, as none of us had actually lost that. I bought back a rune pickaxe from the GE and got on with a bit of mining.

It should be noted that that hat is not the original. That was lost to giant snails years ago. At the time, Joshua Mack had the foresight to buy me 10 of them as a gift. That was the third hat that I've lost in my Runescape career. I took the fourth from my bank and put it on my head. The world was suddenly much better again.

A shout out here to Yaaaaaz, ODST Isaac and Bravinator, whom I know are reading, as they took the time to speak to me in-game about this blog. Also to E Zenaku, who came into Canting to say hello and ended up staying to support me in a fairly frustrating conversation with another newcomer.

Edit: Here is Star's telling of this: Star Hunting.

Proud Of Myself

I just got all six achievement awards in my Mock GE. If only I was that good at merchanting actually in the game, I'd be well rich!

Me And My Bandos Godsword

Spoiler: Click to Toggle the Spoiler.

Well, when I say 'my'... the astute amongst you might be looking with grave suspicion at that picture in the wider scene context...



*breaks under the pressure* Ok! Ok! I was out penguin hunting in the Wild, when I spotted a gravestone. I stopped to bless it, but the rev that had been the cause of that death was still around. There was a player named Deadily attempting to kick it to death. As it was a multi-combat area, I joined in with my left-hook, while Titan Armada watched us. He'd already killed six revs, but this one was out of his combat range. In the end, he stepped beside me and loaned me the Bandos Godsword. I've never held a Godsword before in my life! I whacked the rev with it, while Titan Armada and Deadily recommended using the special. I did that and the rev just died at my feet.

Then Titan Armada had his sword back.

[Close]

Official Jagex Hallowe'en Event

On Friday night, I went to my first official Jagex event. I'd heard about it from their You Tube video, that had been realised a day or two before. There was no description of precisely what was going to happen and the only clue to the theme was in the content of the video itself. In a way, that made it more exciting, as there was a real sense of the unknown there.

IRL I was at my friend's house, using his laptop to attend the event. His laptop has a fairly low spec, so I was only ever going to be able to play in standard detail. I have to admit that my heart sank slightly discovering that this was a f2p world, simply because this laptop was struggling to cope with Runescape, let alone adverts. I was half an hour early, but Varrock town centre was already brimming with people. The minimap was a mass of white, in a way that I hadn't seen since Fat Wrecked's funeral. I lagged like lagging was going out of fashion. It took me ages to even get into Canting.

Once in there, I announced where I was and some people came to join me. Helm came briefly, but had to leave before it fully began. It was with some relief that I spotted a green dot, then manoeuvred myself, like someone swimming in treacle through the lag, to TheArcturus1's side. Once firmly attached to him, I felt secure that wherever this party went, I'd go with it. Unfortunately, within about five minutes, a cacophony of voices rose in welcome of Mod French. I say unfortunately, because I stupidly clicked into the vicinity to try and spot him. That was the last I saw of TheArcturus1, other than inside Canting. However, I did spot Dr Leviathan and attached myself to him instead. Me and Dr Leviathan circled danced outside the staff shop, which gave a reference point for Nezantra to find us. With Dr Leviathan leading me around, my lag did subside somewhat. It seemed that it was me clicking on things that caused much of the problem, so I was happy to just let him take us around the throng, while I typed reports into Canting.

Me and Nezantra were celebrity spotting. I counted at least five Jagex mods. I also saw (and stood next to, then on) Tehnoobshow. My big surprise there was that he's not combat level 3. He's actually 72! I heard, but didn't see, Kingduffy. I saw Green098 and Neo Qdon. There were constant shouts that Zezima was there, but I didn't see him and, to be fair, there always are shouts that Zezima's around. Just once, I saw someone going, 'OMG!!! Gertjaars!', but again, I didn't personally see him. I couldn't get any pics on that laptop, but I believe that Nezantra was getting some.

On the stroke of 11, as the party officially started, every silver crown there suddenly started spamming, 'Brrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnsssssssss'. This went on for a few minutes and I kept looking to see if we were going to be inundated with zombies. That appeared to be the only thing happening though. Mod French had spoken when he first arrived, just to say hi, but after that I didn't see a single gold crown speak. I don't know quite what I expected to happen, but it seemed a little anti-climatic.

After a while, the silver crowns started announcing a move to clan wars. By now, I'd lost Dr Leviathan as well as TheArcturus1. Nezantra had had to log off. There were still a lot of people around, so no way of spotting green dots in the midst of that. I let Canting know that I was going to Clan Wars, then attempted to use my games necklace. Epic phail. Games necklaces are members' items. I ran up through Varrock North Gate, asking in Canting if they still have revs in f2p. I'd just leapt over the ditch, when Sabre Grief assured me that they did. Oh dear. Fortunately Clan Wars was only a short run and nothing tried to kill me en route.

I reached there just in time to see a gaggle of Jmods just emerging from the game; they told everyone that they were great, then logged off. I didn't have a weapon. I checked to see what I did have. A quest cape, a green hat, full black dragonhide. I looked to see what I'd lose if I died and it turned out to be my green, pointy hat. It was gone midnight and I was feeling reckless, so I entered Clan Wars anyway. I needed have worried, as it was a free-for-all safe game.

Once inside, I found Dr Leviathan and stupidly hit him. The guy is combat level 123, so I was soon dead. I nipped back in again and had a wander around. It's like another world in there. I was soon hopelessly lost somewhere in the nether regions of beyond. I did find a zombie and we did some synchonised emotes. Then I explored further, until I had to admit in Canting that I didn't have a clue where I was nor how to find the others again. Just then, a couple of people piled me, so finding my way back to the portal ceased to become a problem.

Ferus Murco had arrived and he lent me a 2h rune sword, so I finally got to enter Clan Wars armed. This held no water with Dr Leviathan, whom I hit and got slaughtered again in response. I did wander off alone again (honestly, you need reins on me sometimes to keep me in sight) and got attacked. The attacker must have underestimated my stats though, because he seemed quite perturbed by how long it was taking to kill me. He asked my defence level several times. In the end, I killed him before he managed to get the boot in. I was immediately beset by his mate, who announced, 'I'm in his clan!', then such things as, 'Meet our clan!', as he killed me.

I got the giggles then, as I entered the portal. I'd spotted Full of Pie with Ferus Murco and Dr Leviathan. I begged in Canting for them to kill this individual with, 'Now meet Merch Gwyar's clan!' *dies* They were good sports and didn't even stop to laugh at the absurdity of me hosting a PKing clan. Those poor kids suddenly found themselves surrounded and they soon absconded to our cc!

Later on, Full of Pie and I had a fight. She was in flippers and defence cape only; while I was in green hat and quest cape only. She kicked my backside.

All in all, it was quite fun by the end of it, though I wish I'd been on my own computer, as that laptop wasn't really up to the job.

Happy Samhain all!

October Hiscores

I'm still working on slowly moving Summoning and Hunter over level 75, then everything over level 80. Other than that, no big plans...

Mod Ianh In The Ge Today

I can honestly say that this is the first time that I've seen a Jmod in the game. I naturally made like a papparazzi and took loads of pictures. This was Mod Ianh basically spamming the GE about some adventurer's log. I've still not seen what he was advertising, because I had to log and go out shortly afterwards, then got sidetracked by the Halloween Event.









Then look who I got to stalk 30 seconds after that! Timothy Gold!



So I was about to log off, smirking with all of the celebrity spotting that I'd done in the GE that dinnertime, when IDragonexI went and made me feel like a celebrity too. Yes, I blushed:




Ok, I'm done with pics now.

Castle Wars Door Guarding Extravaganza

Yesterday's Castle Wars marathon turned into such fun. At one time, most of those in Canting were actually in the same game. Each game, more and more arrived. LOL I think that the final tally was that myself, Teacuptime, I_Choccy, Joshua Mack, Nezantra, 0All-Star0, Sir Calanon, Ferus Murco, TheArcturus1 and 11Jdeh12wwe were all there. Many apologies if I've missed someone. Just comment and I'll add you to the list.

Teacuptime was the first of my friends to arrive. Though technically he was there independently of me. I just saw his green dot in the waiting room and glomped him. Nickle391 was my partner in crime, as I'd met in the last game. He took the small door and I took the large door and we defended that castle between us! That's Teacuptime and I inspecting our door, with Nickle391 behind us:



Next up is a group photo before we went into a game. Mostly it's to record how utterly cute TheArcturus1 was at the time. Can you believe that that teeny, weeny, fluffy bunny went on to score the flag at least three times? Shortly after this photo was taken, Josh talked pointedly about rabbit stew, so TheArcturus1 went 'eeek' and ran swiftly away. I've got this marked as: (l-r) TheArcturus1, Joshua Mack, myself and 0All-Star0, but I think that's wrong. That doesn't look like Star's armour, so I think it's actually Sir Calanon. Am I right? Teacuptime! The titan was following Josh around.



0All-Star0 was trying to get a picture to record our door watching moments, but having an epic phail with the CPU on the home computer. I helped out by taking the picture myself. That's 0All-Star0 and myself:



Imagine coming through a large Castle Wars door and finding this:



Death dot ftw! Incidentally, can someone talk me through these colours? I understand that green = lower combat level; orange = pretty much in the vicinity of my combat level; and red = big, scary person. It's the use of them that I'm hazy on. I know that it related to the old Wild and that it's supposed to be to do with revenants now. However, I had a level 120 rev attack me in level 6 Wild. I'm 113, so surely I should have been too noobish for it to bother. Can anyone shed light on this please?

And finally I got level 85 hitpoints there. I captured Josh's message, but missed Star's. Sorry, cariad. However, I did add it in, with a very dodgy fake, using the exact message that I screenied from the chat box a couple of seconds on:

Attempting Castle Wars Strategy

Poll: Castle Wars Large Door

Should the large door to your castle, in Castle Wars, be left open or closed? Open [ 1 ]  [3.70%] Closed [ 24 ]  [88.89%] It doesn't matter, it doesn't greatly affect the game either way [ 2 ]  [7.41%]

Total Votes: 27

Guests cannot vote

I've been ridiculously close to a hitpoints level for days. It's dripping down from 13k to, currently, 5k. I decided that I really want this levelled before I next face the KBD, on the basis that you tend to fail more close to levels. I could go and see him with a shiny new 85hp, instead of the tail end of 84. As I'd enjoyed the last game of Castle Wars, I figured I'd do it there. After all I ultimately do want enough tickets for posh armour.

Last time I whinged about Castle Wars, I had people telling me that it's not about the killing per se. It's about strategy. I don't want to be a noob in this game. I want to be useful to my team. Most of all, I want to be on a winning team, which would be more likely with me helping constructively, rather than being whatever the Castle Wars equivalent of a brawler killer is. To start then, I entered a team at random (the blue team) and set about asking advice of the other players. Here I am with 82 range, a bow and some arrows. Where would you most usefully deploy me? The first person I asked had CWer in his name, but he confessed to being a noob there too. I was directed to someone who apparently played it 24/7. His advice? Just kill all of the brown people.

Brown? >.>

Then we were in the game, so I translated his advice into 'red-cloaked people' and went up to the range platform. It was how I've got through the majority of games. Up there, ranging any of the opposition who come into view. However, I was being observant. I was looking out for the things that thwarted our team. Someone came up and set fire to our catapult. That interested me. I went into our storeroom looking for the means to do it. The Molotov Cocktail seemed like the way forward. I took a rope and one of them, then went underground to their castle. I was soon killed. However, my inventory was intact, so I went over the stepping stones, ninja-ed across the back and threw the rope up their wall. I managed to blow up their catapult before I was killed.

An even bigger annoyance was the fact that our large door was constantly left open. I noted how many red-cloaked players regularly streamed through it; one in particular often reappeared a couple of minutes later with our flag in his hand. He was out, alongside the back wall and into the mists towards his stepping stones. I called several times for people to close the door, but no-one was listening. They were too busy getting out into the middle battlefield, getting killed, then repeating. I listened to my own advice, went and collected a couple of barricades, then closed the large door. I'd just got the two barricades up, when a level 77 player appeared beside me and promptly destroyed them both. She opened the door, left it open and it was away. Before I could even get out a 'stop!', I was trampled underfoot by a herd of high levels, stampeding through the door. They didn't even bother to kill me first, they just carried on and up into our castle. We lost that game.

By now, though, I had my strategy. I positioned myself, not on the range platform, but just outside the large door on the battlefield side of it. Every time that door was opened, I closed it. There was a steady trickle of the opposition players coming to see it, then rushing off around our castle, through the bombardment from above. Occasionally, one stopped to kill me, but mostly they didn't. Mostly they took one look, then raced off to find an alternative route. Once one killed me then, once I'd returned, I discovered that he'd somehow broken our door. I tried to repair it, but found that I needed a toolkit. I grabbed one of them from the storeroom and fixed it easily. Thereon, a toolkit in my inventory became something I always picked up.

Realising how effective this defence of the door seemed to be, next game, I called out to everyone in the waiting room. 'Please can you close doors behind you? They are our defence. Lock the small door and close the large door.' To my shock, it worked. Every time I died, I ran to the small door and 9/10 times, it was locked. I'd then run to the large door and it was closed. As I was stationed by the large door anyway, I noticed that people tended to close it after themselves, after I'd shut it in their faces a few times for loitering. Open, run out, close. If you open, then stand there posing, you're going to end up with a door in your face. I was also almost constantly fighting. Opposition players would come to my door and find it closed. They'd then run away, returning less than a minute later, presumably upon finding the small door locked too. Then it was a battle to the death. Usually, I was alone, but towards the end, I ended up with a small group of people helping me defend.

We were winning 5-0 when, in the closing minutes of the game, a player named ganon3999 started expleting. 'Stop closing the ******* door! Noob!' >.> I calmly responded that it was our defence. He argued that it was slowing our team down. I replied that, if our flag holder comes through, I open the door for him/her. Ganon3999 wasn't having it. He demanded that the door be left open. There ensued a door spamming. By which I mean that he opened it, I closed it, he opened it, I closed it, etc etc. After he'd let through a few reds, I went on a rant. 'Do you want the red team in? Why don't you weave them a welcome mat as well? Please come in, red team, let me make you a cup of tea, while you steal our flag. You are all very, very welcome.'

The red-cloaked player, whom I was currently fighting, thanked me for that. He appreciated the sentiment. Ganon3999 replied, 'Yes, we do want them in.' He argued that the door is no defence, as the opposition can open it. I responded they can only do so with difficulty. They have to force through it, breaking it open, they can't just click onto it, as we can. He didn't care. Another door spamming ensued, during which both sides had clear access through. Fortunately, the game was in its dying seconds and so it was all academic by this point. I did explain to Ganon3999 that he was quite ridiculous and I was screenie-ing him for my blog. He was quite alright with this and asked me where my blog is, so he can see it. Unfortunately the game ended before I could direct him into Sal's. Oh well.