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The Blog with barely any comments

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Tip.it Forums and More!

Yes, I apologize for speaking about another "rival" fan-site on this forum, but I thought I would post anyway. A little Sunday sacrilege is fit anywhere.  As you all know by now, the traditional RuneScape fan-sites started to "die" sometime around 2010 or even earlier. I will not speculate on the reasons, but it happened with every site and every community, all of which were forum-based. New players stopped joining, current users stopped playing the game, and eventually people started going elsewhere, like Reddit. To me, the issue was mainly pronounced here with the lack of people playing the game, which became low in the 2010s, despite a core of that community still existing (and still existing now). This is particularly true for Runescape 3, where maybe 15 forum users were actively playing the game by the time of release. But activity did not wane uniformly across all fan-sites, and one was just active enough to be useful for Runescape 3 -- Tip.it. When I became an RS member in 2013, Tip.it had an active community of maybe one hundred or more active Runescape 3 players. This was by no means the glory days, but people would have conversations on the game, give bossing tips, and discuss updates at length. A lot of these players were also really good at the game -- a few I am tempted to name, but I decide against doing that because they did not know me, and I thought it might be strange for them . It was a nice place to have a "traditional" fansite community feel while still finding good discussion. Even then, I knew it was an anachronistic experience.  I browsed Tip.it until I started losing interest in Runescape 3 in 2016. After coming back to Runescape 3 in the COVID-19 pandemic, I noticed everyone on that site disappeared. Unlike Sals, which always kept a pulse, it seems like Tip.it evaporated relatively quickly, in 2016-2018. Now nothing is discussed. I also checked out their friends chat this morning ("sc" or HYT) and found only one person in there besides me. It looks like the site was completely offline for some time until someone started paying for the servers again. Looking at the traditional fansites as a whole, it looks like they've all died except for Sals Realm, which mainly survives through the discord and in-game clans in Runescape 3 and Old School. Perhaps some others live on in one form or another, but I can't find their communities. Perhaps the issue is that all of these fansites based their communities on forums--a long-dying communication form--and their Runescape help website--eventually outclassed by the wiki, just like how Wikipedia outclassed all encyclopedias in popularity. I'm thankful that Sals Realm persists, though as I write this I am reminded that the Runescape 3 clan has had low activity lately, possibly because the game itself is slowly declining in numbers.  Even back in the 2010s when I was browsing, people on Tip.it were complaining about how low activity was on their site. Looking back at their posts, I get a feeling that they did not understand what they had at that instant, which was something. Now there is nothing. One day we may also have that feeling about Sals Realm.
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Lumbridge Crater victory

They are finally fixing the ugly Lumbridge crater and they are doing it without making it into a lake (which I think was voted on by the community). It has not been implemented into the game yet but here are a few pictures:     So glad to see this. I called for this here and I am happy they came to a similar conclusion.
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Sals Clan leadership

The clan has really taken a hit in the past 3 months, particularly with the citadel. As I only play a few hours a month I am not really active enough to lead the clan anymore, especially now. So I thought I'd give you all a heads up that we're looking to replace me with someone. I won't leave the clan but I won't be a deputy owner, probably just a normal member or something that only requires 1-2 hours a month :P.   I am also considering slowly stopping RS3. They are discontinuing Java soon and I don't think I'll play NXT, so I will probably lower my play time gradually (even though it can't be lowered too much atm) and switch to Runescape Classic instead. I think I'll play next weekend for BXP and maybe do a few more new quests but beyond that idk.
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Sliske's Endgame Pictures

Sliske's Endgame is the end to a three year questline where a bunch of gods try to gain possession of the most powerful artifact in Runescape.   Here are some pictures I took for the guide but that I may not be putting into the quest guide.         Spoilers:    
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Children of Mah pictures

Here are some extra pictures I took during the quest that mostly have no use in the actual guide.         The quest had a nice few plot twists.
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Old man yells at cloud

I know complaining about Runescape has been cliche for the past 10 years but I think my complaints are slightly different. Runescape (3) is so different from the 2005 game I started playing. People like to complain about things like combat, which I agree is broken, but I have nothing unique to add to that conversation.   Other things maybe I do. For one, the story has jumped the shark. I never cared much about the story but the past few years I have been paying more attention due to writing quest guides or checking quest guides and this has stuck out. For one, there are clear organization issues. There does not appear to be a definitive storyline the developers are following, and interesting developments that could lead to something are scrapped by the next quest in the sixth age storyline because some other developer wants to take it in another direction. Also, the villains keep getting more powerful and everything else, like some missing artifact from an earlier quest, seems unimportant. Now we're dealing with creators of the universe and there's nowhere else to go. Why can't we go back to saving towns from evil wizards?   Besides that, the biggest change has been the community. Back in 2005, it seemed to mostly be populated by casual gamers. Everyone was in it for fun, your average person didn't care too much about training skills to as high as possible, etc. People also played less. Then, a casual player of Runescape would play for a few hours a week; now it seems a casual gamer plays a few hours a day. As someone who has time for maybe 2 hours a week this is a fairly unappealing aspect. The rest of the community is completely different than I am and they are driving the game in a direction I dislike. I'd prefer to go back to playing Castle Wars instead of trying to go for 120 capes. And, to reiterate something people say all the time, the SOF costumes completely ruin the feel of the game. It would be different if there was some way to disable those features, but Jagex doesn't want to do that because the reason people buy those costumes in the first place is to show it off to other players, even if the other players don't care for it.   I think the core of the game is still good. Walking around places that have been fairly untouched, such as Rimmington, is still moderately enjoyable. Other newer features are not as appealing to me. This is not a quitting post but if it weren't for connections I've made in the game I would have probably left by now. The only Runescape version that still interests me is RSC, but that is not in great shape.
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The Light Within Pictures

#1 quest of all time in terms of unoriginal names.   Pictures I took but currently haven't put in guide. Most will not make the guide as they're cutscenes and crap.      
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Guides

It's been awhile since some sort of site update so here it is. There haven't been many guides lately besides guides for new quests. You might be wondering why. The reason why I'm not writing much in terms of guides is because I'm stuck. Our most outdated portion of the site is the skill training section. I said I'd clean this up a bit, which I did a little, but the truth is that I suck at getting fast XP. Whatever I write won't be good and probably not worth the time. What we need is in-depth analysis of skill training methods, which I can't provide, hence I'm here sitting on my hands. I think I should spend my time on other things, not writing about subjects I know nothing about.   Anyway, I think I'll break out of this rut. I plan on at least one guide this month. This is a TOP SECRET idea I've had for awhile and I plan on going through and writing the guide. There's also a new grandmaster quest coming out this month and I may write a guide on that too if no one else wants to. So you should see a total of at least two new guides this month. I also am considering writing range/magic training anyway because they're important and I already wrote a melee guide. Besides that, I think I'll stick to updating a few things like skill guides and calculators.   What do you think of the Santafish Monthly? Do you want to see it continued? Do you have any suggestions in what content it should have? The September edition is already planned but ahead of that we have nothing. It's possible that it would be the last one if we heard people say "yeah, just stop."   Clan-wise, we're also probably going to start holding more events in terms of minigames and maybe bosses. For fun purposes only. In the past there have been some attendance issues, but it's time for another shot. Likely to be held on a bi-weekly basis.
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Goodbye Cole Hamels

A bit late but I was obligated to...     GOODBYE COLE HAMELS. Traded to the Texas Rangers before he could even pitch another no-hitter for us. Stays classy though, took out full page ad on Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday.  
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COLE HAMELS

Oh yeah, no hitter against the Chicago Cubs. GET ON BOARD THE COLE TRAIN!!!   Unfortunately this blog post is likely to be followed one titled "Goodbye Cole Hamels"
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Sobend Reading Club

Check out John Updike's Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, which is an article about Ted Williams' last at bat in baseball.
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200th quest extra pictures

Here are a ton of extra pictures I took from the quest. May use some of these for the guide, don't know really.       Alternate timeline outside of Varrock       Varrock Herald got updated!!! First time in 8 years!!!  
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Clan DRAMA from nine years ago!!!

Hey guys, this really doesn't effect very many people still here. I need a public place to put this so I decided to put it here. If you're a random person then you can continue on somewhere else. If you're interested in this crap anyway, backstory is in the spoiler.         Somebody alerted Shooter585, an old clanmate of mine, that Pkpete, once a warlord in TUP, recently wrote this in an application to DI:     This isn't particularly true. I thought about just ignoring it (correcting RS Clan history is not high on my priority list) but I heard that a past member of the clan is trying to re-enter the clanning scene and, with TUP being his major clan prior to this, I thought I should correct this inaccuracy so it doesn't look like he is BSing his clan history.   First off, leadership was not inactive. It's possible he's mistaken in remembering who the leaders exactly were and perhaps thought the founders of the clan were still the leaders. This isn't true; they were both no longer leaders. The leaders were myself and somebody else named okm1888. We were both very active. If we hadn't been, the clan wouldn't have made a comeback from the dead, Pkpete would have complete control, and no split-off would have happened.   Second, the split-off. Here's what happened. Pkpete knew a high ranking member (perhaps leader?) of the clan 3v0lution, which was a pretty good but not top 10 clan at the time. As they became friends, eventually Pkpete's friend asked him if TUP could be the junior member of 3v0lution. This is directly contrary to what Pkpete said in the statement. Pkpete jumped at the deal and began arranging it. It was all set - the only problem was that Pkpete wasn't the leader and didn't have the authority to do something like that. He posted a topic about it on the forums (which I cannot retrieve; it has been deleted) and told everybody about the offer. Pkpete stated that the move could help publicity and growth. We, the leadership had different ideas. We thought that the move would kill our level growth (all people above a certain level would be put in the main clan), ruin our freedom we had in running a clan, and hurt our community both in-game and in Sal's CD. After a long discussion, we said no. Following this, there were clear irreconcilable differences. Although we told Pkpete he could stay (he was the face of the clan after all), he decided to leave and most of the clan followed him. Pkpete, along with another player not from the clan, co-founded a clan called 3xtermination. I always found 3xtermination to be a homage to 3v0lution - furthering the idea that it was Pkpete who wanted to become the junior clan of 3v0lution, not the leadership. Pkpete began using our forums as a recruitment method for this clan, at which point we deleted his account. In case you were wondering, 3xtermination far out lived 3v0lution, which died shortly thereafter.   The whole situation was simply a power struggle. Although Pkpete was not a leader, he was definitely the face of the clan from both the outside and largely from the inside. He was popular among the members, certainly more popular than the leadership and other ranks, which unfortunately would spell doom for this specific incarnation of the clan.   After the split, The Ultimate Pkers was left with around 7 members. All of the members that left assumed that the clan was as good as dead. With the help of its leadership, it made a quick comeback and was stronger than it had ever have been before. The whole situation only set us back about three months. Also, after the split we were 1-0 against 3xtermination .   Visual proof Pkpete was for the 3v0lution move and not against it as he leads you to think (people were already getting riled up before Pkpete left):     By the way, I like Pkpete. We still talk occasionally and if someone asked me for a vouch on his character I would give them one. At the same time I cannot let him hurt the reputation of my ex-members.
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Dishonor Among Thieves

(spoilers)   Just wrote a quest guide on this and took a bunch of extra pictures, a few of which will probably go in the guide. But I'd thought I'd post them here anyway.   I thought it was hard for an intermediate quest. Probably should have been experienced at minimum with that difficulty. The puzzles were difficult (especially when compared to the grandmaster Plagues End "puzzle") and I'm not sure the combat would be easy at a low level. Overall the quest was OK. It was not voice acted, which felt awkward actually because every quest like it so far has been. You can hear Sliske's laugh every now and then and that's it.   They brought Nomad back for this one. I dislike how they made his master some random dude instead of someone important. A few people also questioned why he was fighting for Zamorak when he should be on his own. This was answered when he betrayed the team and took part of the stone for himself. I also thought during one of the flashbacks they made Zamorak seem like a wuss.   If you're wondering I was neutral-aid nomad-neutral.   Pictures         Unrelated, but for some reason I keep getting logged in as anonymous. I keep logging in and out to stop being anonymous but it doesn't work. Hellppp.
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Hey

I wasn't going to make a blog post about this but I decided to in the end so nobody goes "OMG STAFF R INACTIVE LOL"   January 20-February 20 I'm going to be on break here. I won't be logging in here and not in Runescape much either. I need to log in to prepare for bxp weekend but that's it. Reason for this break isn't complicated. I'm a bit tired of doing so many things Runescape related and I need to take a break to pique my interest again. Besides no posts from me it should be business as usual. I know we're low on staff right now but it shouldn't be too much of a problem, and if it is... have fun with anarchy!!!   Yeah that's it.
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So this is... Christmas?

Well Christmas is almost over, with only three hours left here in Pennsylvania. A few things:   Does anyone else prefer Christmas Eve to Christmas? Christmas Eve seems to be the penultimate episode of the holiday season and Christmas seems to be the disappointing finale. On Christmas Eve you're looking forward to the next day like it's going to be some triumphant victory and after Christmas morning it's pretty dull. I suppose some families have some dinner party, but personally in my family we've sat around and played with our thumbs for the past 10 years.   Opening Christmas presents is actually pretty stressful, if you think about it. First off, you have everyone looking at you. You can't herd all of your presents into a corner and start tearing wrapping paper. Second, there's the possibility that you may have to pull off a bit of acting. Even if the gift is something you instantly know you'll never use, you're still going to have to look excited. "Wow, a feminine T-shirt with a New York Mets logo, thanks!!!" This is something I think we all do but don't outwardly admit sometimes.   Christmas music got repetitive. The problem is that radio stations continually play the same 50 pop songs for whatever reason. And there are about 500 arrangements of each Christmas song, 90% of which are bad. I'd like to see some less popular songs get some attention, such as March of the Toys.   Finally, I want to use this SUPER POPULAR blog to highlight a few cool people who had to live under the limelight of Jesus for their entire lives...   Today is also the birthday of:   Issac Newton! (1642) Humphrey Bogart! (1899) Rod Serling! (1924) Jimmy Buffet! (1946)   I'm looking forward to New Years... anyone got a date?
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Skill Training Guides 3

Here's a list of guides that I don't find my self rewriting because I barely train them   Not going to rewrite any time soon: Construction. This skill doesn't need much of a rewrite though because it's barely been updated since release. Maybe a few things like God Statues.
Farming
Herblore
Here are skills I could rewrite but don't want to because I'm not great at them Crafting - got most of my levels off the citadel skillplot and the bonus experience from the citadel
Fletching - I don't train this often but it's not difficult to train, so I'm sure I could figure it out.
Summoning - however like construction this skill has not been updated much since release and there aren't really new training methods, just minor things like familiarization
Smithing - Not great at the Artisian's Workshop
Thieving - Not great at coshing and blackjacking. Also how do you trap dwarf traders?
I'll probably end up doing one from the latter list because I don't think we'll find a writer for every one of them.   Also here are skill training guides that I'm not going to rewrite but other people have volunteered Agility- Army of One
Hunter - Army of One
Gocart has promised to rewrite FM training many times but keeps procrastinating so if you see him in game spam his PM about it. Maybe he can do crafting training too???   So over the following month(s) I'll mainly be working on the three combat style training guides and also brief updates to prayer. I also plan to update the regular skill guides.   Here is a list of all of the skill training guides.
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Skill Training Guides 2

I'm still working on updating the skill training guides. Doing fishing now. The problem I noticed with these guides, which became very clear while updating them, is probably how they were accepted. Many seem to have an exorbitant amount of information, which really is not necessary while training a skill.   So because of this I will probably end up doing straight rewrites from now on. The thing is that I can't really update a guide to 2014 without making massive changes and additions/deletions to what is on there now. So this sort of begs the philosophical question how much can you change something before it no longer is what is used to be. If I end up having to change 75% of the guide it really is not the same guide anymore. Also, working around someone's writing structure can be a bit of a pain.   Anyway, I am admittedly not the XP GAINS MASTA or anything of the sort, so if you are up to the task you can rewrite a guide yourself! You're probably better than me :P . Army of One is rewriting agility and hunter I know, but I do not know of anyone else.   Personally I will probably do woodcutting next. Our current guide for training woodcutting was published on December 19 2006... a bit outdated. It was written by Lilshu though. :P I hope I can get it done by the end of this month, although that is optimistic.   Speaking about optimistic predictions, I thought we could make a serious dent into the skill training guides by the end of this year, but it's been a bit slow. Mainly I thought we'd just be adding new training methods and not restructuring guides. Woops! So it likely won't be done by the end of this year, unless we get an outpouring of help. Your help will really speed things along. I'm up for redoing everything myself, but it will take an extended period of time if I do it alone. I try to work on this 30 mins/day, but I'm very busy and it's hard to find the time every day.   Before leaving, I'd like to thank the Sals CC for help with finding training methods and experience rates. Saves me time.
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SMARTY JONES FTW

Yay! This bonus XP weekend I got from 78-92 Summoning, which is good for me because now Summoning is no longer my lowest skill.   Getting for 78-88 took around 30 minutes. I used this fast method I think many here are aware of but I'll explain it anyway. Basically what I did was bring all of my crimson charms, spirit shards, empty pouches, and noted granite to this one area. Then I sold my granite to the guy with the summoning icon above him (a few people were selling to the wrong guy, Pickupstix, who is a few squares away). Then I bought it to unnote the granite, quickly made the pouches, and deposited them into the portable deposit box (I used somebody else's but I was ready to use my own). Then I bought my granite again from the guy and repeated the process. As the guy you sell the pouches to never moves and the deposit box is right next to you, you can gain millions of summoning experience without ever moving. This method makes upwards of 10,000 pouches per hour. I sold 500 granite at a time. The unnote trick works on most secondaries, but for some secondaries it can be expensive. For granite, you sell for 1 gp each and buy for 1 gp each, so there is no loss. If you are going to do this, make sure you bring some extra secondaries because the shop gradually drains away your stock.   I did this for all of my crimson charms but I couldn't do this for my blue charms because I was making obsidian titans and their secondaries are untradeable. So I did the TokKul-Zo and fairy ring method because I couldn't be bothered with buying a kyatt pouch for 30k.   So in short: Crimsons (Granite Lobsters): 78-90 Blues (Obsidian Titans): 90-92   Oh and I almost forgot... the Mighty Smarty Jones!
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