I already blogged a while ago about buying more games than I can play
and well I didn't get any better over time...
note: a certain game won in a certain contest on a certain website called sal's might or might not be found in above image
You and I are travellers of the dreamscape. The goal of atomic ionization is to plant the seeds of faith rather than turbulence.
Have you found your quest?
It can be difficult to know where to begin. The universe is calling to you via sub-atomic particles. Can you hear it? How should you navigate this sentient quantum matrix?
Astrology may be the solution to what’s holding you back from an epic unifying of will. As you self-actualize, you will enter into infinite transcendence that transcends understanding. You will soon be aligned by a power deep within yourself — a power that is amazing, perennial.
Turbulence is born in the gap where power has been excluded. Yes, it is possible to disrupt the things that can obliterate us, but not without complexity on our side. The complexity of the present time seems to demand a flowering of our essences if we are going to survive.
Only a wanderer of the dreamscape may foster this fount of healing.
The metamorphosis of wonder is now happening worldwide. Imagine an awakening of what could be. We are being called to explore the world itself as an interface between health and freedom. Through astral projection, our lives are engulfed in interconnectedness. Without conscious living, one cannot grow. You may be ruled by yearning without realizing it. Do not let it eliminate the growth of your path.
Make your own path here
So I bought this gun yesterday on an auction and I was wondering if I can become a good 'Murican now?
Or doesn't it count if the gun is close to 200 years old and still 'works' with loose powder :P
For those wondering it's a Lefaucheux pistol made in Belgium originally operated by flintlock but later refurbished to a percussion system.
So can I be a 'Murican now? Yea or Nay?
Adam?
You are Timmy, a Townie with a drinking problem but still a good guy. As long as you get your booze that is.
(townie)
Samsara
You are John Doe, an ex criminal in hiding. You have nothign to gain from those vampires so you side with the town. But maybe your old skills might come in useful. Vampires might be nigh impossible to kill on your own but maybe you can break into a home and find out something on the inhabitant.
(cop)
Morte
You are Lord John Stein , a Vampire, you have been living for 300 years already and recently moved to Salmon Town where you turned a native (Eddy –Venom) into a vampire to aid you in restoring your power base.
Each day you have the urge to kill in order to feed. (pm me the name of who you wish to kill)
(Maffia boss)
Desireful
You are Glenn, a friend of the mayor and someone who is looking to do the best for the town.
(Townie)
Venom
You are a young vampire fledgling created by Count John Stein (Morte). If the count dies you will be resposible for finding peopel to feed on. (kill, pm me the name each night in that case, until then Morte makes the final call)
(Maffia Goon)
Goggie
You are Harry, a weapon crazy townie who thinks that it’s them damn immigratns who caused all this.
(townie)
Tabt
You are Reverend Paul, the city priest, with prayer, holy water and burning candles you can protect one citizen per night.
(PM me the name of who you sich to protect each night)
(Doctor)
Yuan
You are Tommy, a Townie with a drinking problem but still a good guy. As long as you get your booze that is.
(Townie)
Day 1:
You are asleep in your bed after another night of heavy drinkign coming from boredom and sightlessness. But sleep is bad, you keep twisting and turning and can’t seem to find any rest. The hot night air tastes like before a big thunderstorm, but the sky is clear. Somethign feels amiss, the night is too silent. It’s like the whole area is disturbed and lying low in fear.
As the sun starts to rise in the sleepy town a piercing scream suddenly tears you from your slumber. Another piercing scream is heard and suddenly is stopped short. The soudn appears to be commign from the town square. As you run out of your home towards the town square it becomes clear that the scream likely came from the town bar owned by the mayor. As you walk inside through the opened door you see that the mayor is lying on the floor appearign quite dead and extremely bleak. As you bend down to inspect him you can’t fail to notice the 2 holes in the side of the neck. An interesting and weird fact no.
As you stand up you suddenly spot somthign scribbled on the wall the other side of the wall. It says “Carpe Jugulum”, although you don’t knwo what it means you are certain that it is related to the murder as it certainly wasn’t there yet yesterday when you crawled home after another drunk night.
Soon everyoen is gathered into the small common room of the bar and the time has come to discuss what to do and to elect a new mayor, because without good leadership you sure won’t survive the comming ordeal. It is then that someone in the crowd, you don’t know who, utters the word “Vampire” for the first time. Inadvertatly you shudder and look out towards the sun thinkign about what has to be done.
It is now day 1
With 8 players it takes 5 votes to burn someone at the stake or elect a mayor
Electing a mayor will give that person an extra vote in all lynch voting processes except that voting for mayor.
Night 1
And then in the middle of the discussion you suddenly noticed that the night was quickly falling and you all agreed that it would be safer to continue the discussion tomorrow and stay in your own homes for the night.
And so off you go.
Night actions are due to me in 48 hours from now, as soon as I have them all or in 48 hours day 2 will begin.
Samsara
In the house you find a lot of empty bottles and AA membership pamphlets
It seems like it's a normal guy with a drinking problem who is trying to get it under control.
Tabt
Protect: Adam?, why not eh? Can't always have him dying on the first night.
Morte
Kill: Samsara
Day 2
Sleeping wasn’t easy but a bit beofre morning you finally seem to find good sound sleep until you suddenly find yourself awake around daybreak. Not exactly certain what it was that drew you from your slumber and still a bit wary you suddenly notice that an eerie silence has descended over the town. It seems like nature itself senses somethign amiss. Sicne you think that you won’t be able to find sleep anymore that day you decide to get out of bed and get dressed. Outside you see that you clearly weren’t the only one with the same idea.
In silence you walk towards where you cna see a small gathering of people in front of the house of John Doe (samsara). When you draw closer you see the body of John Doe lie on the ground before his house. The pinpricks in his neck are clearly visible, the only colour left on his skin now turned white as chalck.
As you bend down to inspect the body you notice that he had a piece of paper in curled up in his hands. As you take it and smooth it down it becomes clear that it’s one of those AA pamphlets with the basic guidelines on fighting alcoholism.
Intrigued by this oddity you decide to check his pockets to see if you might learn somethign about what he was doing fully dressed and outside during the night. In his pockets you find a couple of screwdrivers, some iron wire and a bunch of master keys and a worn down torn out piece of a newspaper.
It’s an announcemtn from the federal police to look out for an escaped convict called Johan Von Ribbentorp. And the picture leaves no doubt that this convict is the man who recently came to town and called himself John Doe. It seems like whatever information he garned during the night is lost with him...
As you stand up you wonder who will be the first to break the unconfortabel silence that has decended over the town during the night...
It is now day 2, with 7 people (and votes) in play it takes 4 votes to reach a decision.
While the sun is quickly setting and with dusk just around the corner you are all gathered in the town bar for the inauguration of the new mayor. At the bar you can't fail to notice that your new mayor is quickly downing a couple of whiskeys to calm his nerves. And whether it's due to the whiskey or a burst of courage he manages to say the whole oath with stumbling over any words. And then someone hands him the official Mayor necklace, taken from the body of the old one, and no one can fail to notice the foreboding bloodstain on it.
Adam is now your mayor, from now on his votes for a lynch will be counted double.
Night 2:
When the night is coming nothing is more appealing than a good old bonfire to keep away the scary things. And a condemned suspected vampire would be a good plus.
So you all start piling on the wood and try not to think about the implications of the decision you all took in case that it would be wrong. In the meanwhile a few others tie your new condemned and scapegoat down while he keeps screaming about how he wishes to bet everyone and the devil himself that he is innocent. Making your heart a stone and quickly go through his pockets. A few items drop out, namely an old worn down Alcoholics Anonymous guidelines book and a small bottle of booze. Clearly he wasn't that serious about quitting or he is just a vampire trying to hard to blend in. Either way he has been condemned and the decision has been taken.
And then it's time, you all tie Tommy, or was it Timmy, you can't seem to remember, to the central trunk in the pile of wood and hold the torch to the wood. All the time the condemned keeps screaming his innocence until the flames start to touch him. And his screams are clearly only of pain. And then a sudden strong gout of flame blinds you all as you hear his final screams dying out. In that moment of sad reflection when you all think about what you have done you can clearly hear someone chuckling but you can't pinpoint where it exactly came from.
And then it's over, you all go home feeling outright down over getting the wrong guy.
It is now Night 2, Night actions are due to me before Friday 18:00 GMT
Tabt: Why was he acting so batsh!t crazy at the start then? love-childs. Protect Adam?.
Morte: Kill: Tabt
Day 3:
Sleep is hard to find with the guilt over killing an innocent man over something he was as much the victim of as all of you. And the knowledge that the vampire still stalks the night unchecked and unchallenged doesn’t help either. And you know that it is hungry and you know that it will feed this night. And all you can do is hope that it won’t be you.
9 little indians, the first 2 got eaten and the next one got fried and even this night another one probably died. And with that you drift off towards a restless sleep.
And then you are awake, and alive. With a lump in your throat and your heart in your shoes you drag yourself out of your bed and start getting dressed. After staring for a couple of minutes at your halfhearted attempt for breakfast you decide to get it over with and go outside towards the bar knowing that the others will be there, the ones that survived the night that is...
As you arrive everyone seems to be waiting for you, everyone but the missing guy. Silently everyone agrees that this will be all that’s going to show up and silently the group moves towards the house of Paul, Reverend Paul (Tabt).
You find his body just inside his hallway dressed in his old priests robes and with his bible in his hands. Knowing already what you will find you still bend down to check and indeed the 2 bite marks in his neck are there, just like with all the others.
When you take the bible from his hands and open it on the ribbon you see that it talks about protection against the Darkness. Of protecting oneself and others from the darkness, the evil that is beyond man.
The lump in your throat is still there as you close the book and stand up. The implications of the death of this man, the one man who seemingly held any chance of protecting anyone from this evil tend to have that effect.
And still no one talks...
It’s now day 3, With 5 players in play it takes 3 votes to reach a decision.
Lynch: desireful
And with the mayor's final say Glenn (desire full) is condemned, you hope you made the right choice but did you?
If this is the wrong choice you will most likely all end up dead. But a mayor has to act doesn't he? Even when it's a tough decision like this one. He has to stand strong and do what he thinks is best for the town.
And as Glenn is being led towards you can see the look of loss in his eyes. And as you look him in the eyes before you lit the flame you suddenly know that all is lost. With 4 of you left what hope do you have against the upcoming night?
And then the fire is lit, and you find yourself crying. And that's when you hear the laughter and you don't even fight back when you feel the teeth sink in your neck.
As you look to the side you see Harry, that weapon crazy redneck (Goggie) also getting bitten by that young kid that lives down the road. As you start to fall to the ground you see the gleam in his eyes as he looks towards you. And then you are on the ground and you see that elder rich guy standing over you, John Stein (Morte) was his name of you recall it right. Lord John Stein to be correct.
And as the world turns to black the last thing you hear is poor Glenns final scream before the fire kills him.
After all these years we finally figured out who, or should i say what, dani exactly is.
it explains everything!!
Dani is nothing but a simple program posting horrible puns everywhere based on previous posts!
it even explains why he dissapeared suddenly after sal updated the forum software with anti dani protection
This is the article I wrote for the February issue of the santafish monthly
Back and gone again
Almost 2 years ago I left runescape on the day after they started with “squeal world trading”, it was the first of April. You can find my leaving blog post here. But now with the introduction of runescape bonds I got the opportunity to get back into the game as a member for free. And during holidays vacation I took that opportunity and bought myself a bunch of bonds to get me “bronze” membership, good for 3 months and a bunch of extra loyalty points. Plenty of time to check the game out and see if it is worth it to come back and maybe even stay.
Back and in totally outdated gear!
All the new items
First thing I noticed was that I had a real hard time recognizing whatever items people were wearing, lots and lots of new items clearly were introduced making my old combat equipment knowledge completely obsolete. So I needed new equipment and asked around on the forums to see what it was I needed to get considering my almost completely maxed combat stats. And then I saw that those new weapons and armours are ridiculously expensive compared to their old counterparts, both in simple market price as in ‘maintenance’ from being degradable. But more about the economy and such later, let’s focus for now on all those new items itself. There really are a lot of different pieces of equipment now, and I mean an absolute hell of a lot. Frankly I don’t see why they really needed so many new equipment, each addition rendering the previous completely obsolete. But ok, higher level equipment was indeed needed, stopping at level 70 was silly, I agree with that too. But level 75 equipment makes that point completely moot, that’s adding new stuff for the sake of adding new stuff and thus rendering older equipment obsolete. There really is no point game wise, it just makes people swap one piece of content with another, both the items itself and the means for getting them. Runescape now really seems flooded with items, way more than there is need for and way more than anyone can follow. And to my feeling it doesn't add anything to the game, it just replaces old content which is however still kept active and mainly unused.
The economy
One of the skills I was training when I quit 2 years ago was slayer, I was a few levels away from 99 and so that was the first skill I got back into. I think I did about 10 slayer tasks in my comeback period and, except for one, all of those cost me more than they made me. The only exception being a grotworm task. All the ‘old’ slayer tasks, even high level slayer required tasks which are supposed to be the reward for having such a high slayer level, didn’t make me any money. Combine that with the fact that the price of a set of the “best” weapons in the game is around 150m and you know that something is very much wrong with the economy here and that the skill itself became totally obsolete.
Seriously?
My absolute favourite runescape activity however has always been merchanting, so when I got back I immediatly started again with my old tricks and saw, to my astonishment, that they still worked in exactly the same way as before. Same items, same rule of buying at minus 5% plus a few geepee and selling at market minus a few geepee. That makes roughly about 2m a day without doing much or even checking prices or trends on the GE database. Enough to keep buying bonds sure but even with this nice trick I would never be able to make me the money to buy me a set of drygores and some new fancy armour of the same level. Before I used to be able to buy pretty much everything I wanted excluding rares (and even those I bought just less fast).
Since my other old moneymaker, the slayer skill, now cost me money too I would have to look for another way to make the big cash I needed. And there is where the problem starts.
It seems to me that the only way to still make real money in runescape is to actually do team bossing, and that is a big change to how it was before. Before bosses would be good money indeed but not the only way to make good money. Now all the rest is nothing compared to bossing.
The world is both empty and overflowing
Another noticeable thing is that the worlds are hardly bustling anymore, with players that is. The GE is my natural habitat and I found it to be nigh void of other players. Often one or two of the 4 boots would have no player at them. And that was weird for me, the GE used to be the bustling centre of the game. Now ok, maybe the game changed and there’s another centre so I didn’t think that much of it at the time, my merchanting tricks still worked nicely so clearly there were still enough players to actually make the economy run so whatever. And then I went to train divination, the new skill. Since there is only 1 skill plot per level increment I thought I would run into many players there. I remember training hunter in the first months after the release and the spots were completely crowded then. So I started to see a pattern when I saw 2 other people training there too at most…. I won’t go as far as saying that runescape is dying, because it ain’t, the running economy is proof of that but it’s hard to not notice how empty the worlds seem. It was a good thing that the clan was active so I didn’t think it was a single player game now :P.
And yet the world is overly crowded too, Everywhere there were new npc's around to talk to, to give you activities, quests etc. When I was training divination I could always see another training spot or event or quest location or quite likely all of those a few steps away. I mean look at the world map, it’s really full of icons. If you see the location of the whisps they appear to be really crammed wherever there was some space left on the map for a new skillplot.
I think I can see an empty spot on the bottom left
Hardly anywhere on RS you still have the feeling of being in a far away location, the runescape world is starting to run out of empty space. If you look at it the mayor bustling city, the Waterdeep of Runescape, is Varrock and it has the feel of a small town… .
That is a change I expected Runescape would have taken already, grow in size. Now the only region that gives the city feeling is Meiyerditch. So it’s not that they don’t know how to do it, they just don’t do it... . Since I have been playing runescape there has been no expansion of the map, none at all. Instead we got flying castles and various other shenanigans to stick stuff outside the world map. And that worked but now runescape has really run out of ‘ground’. There is hardly any place left from where you can’t see the next activity spot. Runescape really needs an expansion in space.
Multiplayer
I like playing multiplayer games but I like to play them solo, being in a clan like sal's realm sure but not in a clan where you have to do this or that at a given time. When I play a game I want to decide myself, at the time, when and how long I play. It is why games like WOW have no appeal to me, yes I tried it and saw that I didn’t like it. In my absence runescape has strongly evolved in that direction. I already said that the money making is centered around bossing but that is something I simply don’t want to do, I don’t want to team up with other players. Let me explain myself: If you team up with random players they either shout at you because you do things wrong or leave themselves leaving you stranded. If you do it with a standard team you need commitment to be there at that time until everyone decides it's done for the day. And that also is nothing I want to be a part of. Also this also goes for dungeoneering, team effort where you really have to act as a team is a no go for me. Playing castlewars is fine, I love castlewars but that's different, other players don't have that big an impact on my fun and I don't have it on theirs either. It's something Teacuptime talked about in his blog here on Sal's Realm too, you can read it here. And for players like us Runescape is really losing it’s appeal.
Bonus XP
So I heard you like bonus XP so I got you some bonus XP so you can bonus XP while you bonus XP.
Seriously, this is getting completely ridiculous, In the 2 or 3 weeks I played I racked in several mills worth of bonus and free xp. It even got so out of hand that I had more bonus XP in divination than I had regular XP. And that not only from the Hati and Sköll event but also from the upgraded xp rewards from the squeal. The normal 2 tickets a day combined with slayer drop spin tickets got me multiple stars a day, most of them for a skill of my own choosing. RS is clearly focusing on it’s new and shiny high level content and want you to get there as fast as possible.
Seriously Jagex???
Technical difficulties and performance
Something else and something more profound entirely. Old mac OSX technical issues, still present from back before my absence, suddenly started to get much worse. It got much worse around the time of the first update of January. Before I used to get flickering screen issues on certain specific parts of the map like running around at the skill plots in the citadel or when teleporting and on other small occurances. Annoying but not game breaking, but now those problems appeared when standing around at the GE too, and the GE is where I spend most of my runescape time. So I went to the official forums and searched for a solution, hoping that in all those years they had come up with a sollution for this annoying bug. The first I found was a Jmod saying that Mac users should install windows if they wanted to play runescape without issues, sadly I can’t find that thread anymore but here is another gem. Keep in mind that this problem has been present for 3 years already.
Because of the blaring fiddlesticks detector in my head I decided to see what would happen when playing in firefox, you see Until now I always played in the client, even before their was an official mac client. And indeed in Firefox there was no flickering screen issue, cheers all around. Happily I flipped the graphics setting to max, like I always do, and immediately the framerate dropped so low that the game became near unplayable. But still absolutely no flickering screen issues….
Now it might be true that the problem was initially caused by a change on OSX’s part but that doesn’t change Jagex’s responsibility to look for a solution, I mean it’s their product that doesn’t work properly anymore. The problem has been there for at least 3 years and for a browser game it is absolutely unacceptable that it doesn’t run smooth in any major OS or browser.
At last something exciting happens
At this time, because of all the reasons stated above, I was already much less into the game but I was still hanging on and mainly enjoyed the merchanting part and chatting in the clan. But even for those thigns I didn’t check in every day anymore. And that is absolutely nefarious for your merchanting profits. But then someone asked me if I would help him with something I didn’t understand and didn’t really bother understanding or looking up. Happy that at least something potentially exciting was happening and thus I went along. Ofcourse I was a bit worried about being lured, I thought at the time that he might drag me into a dangerous monster or something simmilar but frankly whatever, howverI didn’t expect to suddenly end up in the wildy without crawling over that typical well known wall. Anyhow I lost about 300m I estimate, maybe less maybe more and all in all not that big a deal since I had enough cash on me in my money pouch to buy it all back, red Halloween mask included. The only thing that I was a bit mad about was about losing my santa hat pet troll, back in the day when you died you lost your pet but little santa hat is still with me now so all good :).
Ain't he cute :)
After the first 2 minutes I honestly didn’t feel any hard feelings for those guys who lured me, and that says a lot doesn’t it. Looking back at it this was the most exciting thing on RS in my whole return.
The End
This game really isn't my game anymore and instead of slowly dwindling activity this event caused me to me make a real decision instead of stalling and so I decided to quit. About 5 minutes after all this I went to the well of goodwill and tried to drop all my stuff into it but that sadly got the message that it didn't work anymore. So I pondered what else I would do. Going into the wildy with a bunch of rares and announcing it on the forums seemed like a good idea but then I wouldn't be able to enjoy the total chaos myself being the first who died.
And so after a poll in a thread here on Sal's realm it came to 2 drop parties in the citadel announced solely here on Sals and in the Sal's Realm and Canting clan chats.
Thank you all for showing up and making the party awesome :)
One thing I would like to ask, both at the people at the party and to the guys who lured me, if you read this tell me what you did with the loot. Because one thing I know for sure, it will be more than whatever I would ever have done with it otherwise.
Disagree or agree with what I wrote, tell me in the relevant entry in my blog here
Egghebrecht
I've got 4 movie tickets that I will need to use up before the end of the year.
But there is literally not one movie I would like to go see
let alone 2...
the tickets are for the kinepolis group in Belgium and they only give zero brain activity movies :(
halp plox :(
link to all the movies currently playing in the 2 theaters I can go to
Gent: http://kinepolis.be/nl/bioscopen/kinepolis-gent#showtimes
Brussels: http://kinepolis.be/nl/bioscopen/kinepolis-brussel#showtimes
Never thought I would have to do this but desperate times ask for desperate measures...
Gentlemen (not woman because they can't help except by making more gentlemen) terrible terrible times are upon us, the situation is graver than ever. Our trappist beers are in fatal danger, the Belgian monasteries are slowly running out of monks. The abbey of Achel for one, which makes two great beers, only has 5 brothers left and will probably have to stop brewing soon. You see the situation is really grave and immediate action is needed!
Save the beer
Sign up to become a monk today!
