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We can destroy or we can cherish...the choice is ours

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Zmi Altar

Yup, the ZMI Altar thing appeared today, and I it.   I use a route that goes like: Lunar Isle Bank
Ourania Tele
Short route through temple, PRayer switching as appropriate
Craft Runes
Moonclan Teleport
It takes about 1 minute 40 seconds (100 seconds) to do, meaning it's certainly not slow.   With level 78 Runecrafting, I'm getting about 17xp per Ess used, which means just over 900 xp per run, so 36 runs per hour*900xp = about 30k xp per hour. :D   In reality, I managed to get 25k xp in an hour with just about no effort at all, whereas Abyss crafting I probably would have got about 15k xp in the same time. Big xp jumps for smaller profits ftw.   The profit isn't as much as Nats, but the Nats and Laws pretty much cover costs of Ess, and anything else is a bonus. This bonus can be anything from about 1-7k per run, so it certainly isn't fixed all the time.   The only small problem is that the Pouches degrade, but pulling out a Glory, Teleing to Edge, entering the Abyss, reapiring the Pouches, and crafting some Nats the Ess that was bought with you doesn't take much time, and only slows you down a tiny bit, but means a lot more Runes can be made. ^_^ Due to the time between Pouches degrading, the skull above your head goes awat before you have to go back again, so yet again it's another great thing about the ZMIA. :D   I haven't looked at all the Runes that I've made so far, although am sure that I should at some point when it's more noticeable (thousands of each rune).   With the Magic experience, I'm getting about 15% as much Mage xp as I do RC xp, so 100k RC xp = 15k 'free' Mage xp too, which is certainly nice to have. Getting level 80 RC would therefore get me 45k more Mage xp, while 91 RC would get about 600k Magic experience. :o   It's certainly my new favourite place to RC, although Nat crafting is still a great way to make cash.   RC 'PKers' got pwnt gud, which is a nice thing, but watching the Rune prices over the next few days will be interesting. Is it going to have a big effect on prices? :o   The only 'bad' thing about it is the annoying amount of clicking required to bank the Runes, but it's such as small problem that I'm not about to start 12 threads in the Rants section of the OFs. :P
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9
 

Zanaris Market

Wander around Zanaris Market with Im Fackelschein by Equilibrium (below) playing. I assure you that it's amazing.    
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1
 

World Map Quotes

The reasoning given by Mod Ash for removing the World Map from the website and just having it in-game instead (though why not use this instead? :D - should be updated this weekend). (posted at 4am :)) To all the people who've suggested fog or unlockable maps, please refer to what I wrote on the 2nd page of the thread. It'd just be a lot of development time to HIDE info that's already available in our KB and in fansites.  There are very few quest-specific dungeons on the list of maps. That's partly to keep the thrill of exploration and partly because quest-specific areas often have funny map layouts that would look bizarre if we showed them on the world map. ___________________________   Unfortunately we are not likely to add an option for opening the world map outside the game as a separate applet. We used to have that, but it had some problems:   1. For a very large number of players, it didn't work. Java applets are a bit fussy about running while there's another applet open in the browser. We don't really want a feature that sometimes works, sometimes doesn't and sometimes crashes your computer.   2. As it was part of the website, we were having to do a surprising amount of technical stuff behind the scenes every time we wanted to update it. Now that it's part of the game it updates automatically. ___________________________   I'm flattered to see so many people liking this diary. In fairness to last week's diary, it probably didn't help that it was about a quest that didn't even have a confirmed plot at the time, so there wasn't very much to write about. There certainly can't be any useful images when there's nothing yet to show. Unless you're into writing stories yourself, you might not find that topic as interesting as the programming of a functional map interface. :) Yay! :D Yes, you'll be able to toggle the existing text labels on and off. I made that button a few days after taking the screenshots for the diary. I wonder where he got that idea from *cough* :)... One of the other little features we've had from the Engine team is the ability to make tooltips for map icons. The list of icons is long, and it can be hard to find the meaning of the icons. So we'll be adding tooltips to tell you what all these things mean.  The tooltips can be turned off. I expect experienced players will probably want to turn them off most of the time, but they'll be available if you ever want to look up an obscure icon.   That said, the tooltips may be a useful way to display extra info about what's on the map. No plans at present, but it sounds like a convenient way to display info about Agility reqs in future expansions. I see plenty of ideas for what people would like listed.
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Woodcutting

After jumping masses of ranks in Fishing, I've suddenly jumped 379 ranks in Woodcutting, which I'm level 88 in.   Bot banning ftw. :(     It also seems like the Crafting ranks that I got may have been due to Bots that craft lots of Bowstrings. It's certainly a lot of strings for 2m xp though. :(
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5
 

Within The Light

As mentioned, I wanted to do this quest simply to see whether it's possible for a new developer to bring a great quest series back after a long time without huge disappointment. Following the suggestions I'd had from yesterday, I also decided to complete the quest with in-game music enabled.   Arriving in Lletya to start the quest, I noticed that there was a Pineapple plant which hadn't had it's health checked, so there was a free ~4500xp to start with. :) The conversation started and it didn't feel quite as refined as those from The Chosen Commander and Forgiveness of a Chaos Dwarf. There's nothing wrong with it in particular, it's just not 'special', whatever that means.   Off to do some tasks for Arianwyn and thankfully I'd a set of mourner gear sitting in my Costume Room, so didn't have to do the silly cleaning ritual that otherwise needs completing. When down in the Mourner HQ, I decided to get two extra sets rather than the one I needed to carry on - no particular reason, it simply felt like the right thing to do, despite there not being enough space in my inventory without eating a couple of Lobsters.   Searching the table provides a key to reach the gnome. I then did what seemed honourable and asked the Head Mourner if he could be released, before heading back and confirming that I'd kept my side of the deal. You don't want it to backfire in the future, eh?   Next, I needed to reach the Temple of Light, so searched the table for the New Key which is required to open the door and...   http://i46.tinypic.com/34o8x8x.png   Unless I'm missing something, there's only one key in my inventory, which isn't the one I'm looking for. I'm a hoarder, so obviously had a copy knocking around in my bank. Fine, I'll spend a couple of minutes teleporting off and fetching this key because you won't let me have another one. Why are people punished for keeping things from previous quests?   OK, back with the key and through the door. Past the Dark Beasts (getting lost en-route) and I eventually reach the temple and the people lying around, dead, outside. Attempting to sing to the Crystal provides this message:     The wording of that makes it sound as if I'm supposed to get CLOSER to the temple, so I head nearer. Oops, "you're now in the temple and the powers are too strong". *step 1 square away*... The pictured message comes up again. It turns out that finding an area 'closer to the temple' means going up the hill, AWAY from it. Once I'd worked out where to stand, a slightly amusing cut-scene plays as my painful singing resonates throughout the dungeon.   Back to Arianwyn to tell him that the tasks are complete. Once again, there was nothing really wrong with this conversation, it just doesn't quite flow correctly, with the text for each task having been written individually, then stuck together to become one. I'm a fan of being properly taught how to chant and can see it being a nice reward for a future quet in the series. :D   Since we'd be going into The Temple, I ensured I had 10 Lobsters and a couple of PPots with me, so fetched them from the bank before heading off with Arianwyn. Thankfully we didn't get lost, so arrived safely. Nice to see that Arianwyn also knows how to run... then we were able to enter The Temple despite me not having the magical crystal thing in my inventory. :o I presume that his presence is enough to let me in.   Finding my way to the centre of the temple was 'interesting'. Despite having a map open, I got lost several times and was extremely grateful for having help to kill the Shadows which otherwise would have driven me crazy. Eventually, we reached the Death Altar and Thurgo. Out I head to Investigate the pillar, love the animation, so do it several more times simply because I can. [/name]Back to Arianwyn and "you need that silly magical crystal"@@@@@@@@@   Once again, WHY PUNISH HOARDERS? If I didn't have it sitting in my bank, I could have asked him for a new one and be sorted within seconds, however as it was, ANOTHER long run was required to fetch the little crystal from my bank, which is then used for about a second. I wasn't a happy bunny and it didn't help that you can only view the 'boom' animation once. :o   Despite this giant flash that fills your entire screen, Arianwyn was so busy with his conversation that he didn't see anything. Yeah, riiiiiiiight. When I'd headed off to fetch the Crystal, I predicted that there would be an entrance to the Death Altar, so brought a Tiara with me. Turns out that it wasn't needed since you'll be given a free Talisman if you feel like asking. Anyway, into the altar and you're given a boost so you can stand on it. Along comes a beautiful animation to rival that of the adorable imp's summoning. :P     Stepping off the altar, you're given a short amount of time to reach somewhere on the top floor of The Temple. Because of the pretty thing swirling around me, I only managed to reach the stairs before the timer was up, so then did a bit of hunting to see where I had to go next. Second time, I didn't even bother attempting to reach the crystal, instead standing around staring at the pretty swirly thing and timing how long I had - 1 minute.   Third time on the altar - this time I was going to do it. Off I ran up the stairs to the Crystal, killed the Shadow that was attacking me so that it wouldn't mean I was distracted and Investigated. Ooo, another skull floating around me. OK, I have to go somewhere else now with another timer? *gives up and looks at a guide* Fourth attempt, I got distracted by a photo-op and a Shadow preventing me from turning the mirror. Fifth time, I made it! :/   Ooo, nice, a room with lots of things sticking up from the floor. Oh help, I can't see what the colours on the Colour Wheel are! Thankfully, whoever designed it put blue and purple next to each other and made yellow and green look different, so I wasn't totally screwed. :P Still, there NEEDS to be a way to 'View' the Colour Wheel so that a big version appears that names the different colours in tooltips otherwise it's horrible to use.   To start with I had no idea what to do beyond cutting the tree, but a bit of examining things provided an answer. So there I was, randomly turning things until they headed in the right sort of direction. More beams of light appeared and it felt more and more impossible / random. Eventually, once it reached the black (final) receiver, I noticed that the mirror in a rotating thing will turn light 90 degrees and the hole will let it straight through. Before then, I was working with blind guessing.   With this knowledge, I noticed I was in even more trouble than before - I'm combining green and red and it's not changing colour! Thankfully, the beams aren't tiny, so examining showed that it had, actually, changed from green to yellow. There is NO WAY that I could see that, though, and I hate anybody who puts light green and yellow in the same puzzle and calls it 'possible'. The red beam was also a pain in the backside to see against the floor - at several points I was looking for 10+ seconds for it despite it heading directly across the middle of the room. :/   Green (right) = yellow (middle) Red (bottom right) = near impossible to see against the floor White (top left) = the same as cyan http://i50.tinypic.com/23hb04o.png   Eventually, the beams become white and a ladder appeared.   Up I go and find a load of platforms, with a route visible in the mini-map that needs following. OK, how do I jump between platforms? Right, clicking on the very edge of a platform will allow me to jump. Boing, boing, ow. Something had appeared and hit me for 10 damage. No worries, I'll simply carry onto the next platform... the clickable area on the next platform really is small, isn't it? Ow, ANOTHER spike just hit me. Why are these things appearing at random and attacking me? *eats a couple of Lobsters*   At this point I panic, wondering why the area that you can click on the next platform is so small and why the platforms are attacking me at random. Jumping and clicking like a madman along the path, I have no chance to react as my health drops from 60 to 0 almost instantly. The Ring of Life didn't help, there was no chance to eat, no chance to save myself. I had died and was now standing in Falador with my Whip, Cape and Glory sitting in my inventory. Damn it.   If there's one rule about staying alive, it has to be: Don't Panic. I didn't listen and I died.   OK, so I'm alive now, but what have I lost? Some Black DHide Armour, Boots of Lightness, a few Lobsters, a couple of PPots, a Death Tiara and Talisman, Teleport Runes, 10k gp, the silly crystal thing and the Mourner Gear.   The armour and food was fine - I have spares in my bank. The Tiara I only had one of, so headed to the GE and bought 10. The silly crystal thing can be re-obtained from Arianwyn, so no worries about that. As for the mourner gear, why was it that I'd collected a third set earlier on? I'm not sure if I believe in subconsciously knowing your future, but it's a strange coincidence that the one time I collected an extra set of something, I actually needed it. So, off I head to my POH and withdraw the extra set I'd stashed away so I could enter the Mourner HQ collect another set encase I make the same mistake and died again.   Placing one of these back in my POH, I checked that wearing a Forinthry Bracelet into the Abyss would prevent a skull appearing. It would, so I could get back that way rather than a trek through the Underground Pass. This time, I packed my bag with Sharks rather than Lobsters and made my way to the Death Altar. Stepping outside, a chat with Arianwyn informs him about what I've found so far and provides me with a new silly crystal thing.   Back into the Death Altar and I'm allowed to jump onto it again. :o This time I knew what I was doing, so stopped off next to the Pillar and took a screenshot because it looked nice (as with most dungeons in RS, I love the lighting in The Temple). :)     Up the ladder to the platforms with spikes and rather than rushing in and panicking, I stood and watched. It became clear that the spikes have a rhythm to them and aren't quite as random as I thought. I also noticed that you should jump by clicking BETWEEN the platforms rather than on the next one. This is unlike jumps you make elsewhere in the game, so probably helped confuse me first time. Before making each jump, I made sure I knew how spikes on the next two platforms worked so that there'd be no shock and I'd know exactly what was coming.   This technique worked and I reached the Crystal Crossbow without being hit by any spikes! It took a few attempts to shoot the sliding thing on the wall, but eventually it was hit and the door downstairs opened. Unfortunately, there was no way to jump directly down, so after the sudden panic subdued, I made my way back across the platforms the way I'd come - losing no health on the way back either. :/   Looking back at the area, it's fantastically designed and the only reason I died was my own stupidity. Look before you leap and you'll be fine. :P   Downstairs and through the door, the letter that you find makes an interesting read. Back to Arianwyn and he'll take the letter off you. Looking around, I can't find a transcript of it anywhere, so if anybody knows of where one can be found, please say! I also repeated what I'd told him when we'd met following my death, so that's another small consistency problem with the quest. The chat was over and... Quest Complete!   [name=why-I-hate-music-in-runescape]I mentioned that I'd completed this quest with music enabled and in doing so I think I've worked out what I dislike so much about it. Whenever you change location (teleporting somewhere, climbing down a ladder), the music abruptly changes without any care for being subtle (fading slowly into the next track). The jingle when entering your POH is worst of all since you end up being there for 20 seconds max, but the feeling you gained from the previous music has been totally lost.   While doing the quest, I did quite a lot of teleporting to Edgeville and Ardougne and both of these locations have music that's totally unlike The Temple, so these huge changes ruin any atmosphere that the 'correct' music has formed. There's also the problem that while doing the light puzzle, the one track that's unlocked during the quest is stuck on loop and drives you crazy after playing a couple of times.   Overall, it's a good quest - the puzzles are fun and only let down by poor design in previous quests (Colour Wheel), the animations are fantastic, and the conversations are reasonable but nothing special. I am, however, looking forward to completing future quests in the series.
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2
 

Win :o

Not quite as epic as it could have been, but meh it's still epic win. :D   http://ema.mtv.co.il/blog/post/rick-astley...-best-act-ever/
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5
 

Win

http://musicmachinery.com/2009/04/15/insid...precision-hack/ http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001256.html   :)
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4
 

Wide Sal's

There's been talk of changing the layout of the main site to fill the screen without black columns on either side on resolutions larger than 800x600, but why wait? After 20 minutes of work (much of which was screaming at the IDB), you can have it right now!   Just go here and either load into Stylish if you use that, or 'Load as user script' if you're a Greasemonkey or Opera user.   http://userstyles.org/styles/17564   >.<
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9
 

Wide Runescape Forums

For some reason I found myself browsing userstyles earlier today, trying out various things, eventually coming across a beautiful set of Google styles: http://userstyles.org/styles/13292 http://userstyles.org/styles/13339 http://userstyles.org/styles/13884   This gave me an idea to try with the RS site, which I played around with, though found that it was laggy... so turned to trying to make it wider (why not? :)). I slowly made my way around the sections of the site, hating the way that certain things are implemented... on the homepage why does the left column have to be before the right column in the HTML? >.< After spending a while getting annoyed at things, I noticed that the Forums were looking nice on their own, so stripped ou everything else and got left with a 'wide' (or correctly fitting if your screen is less than 800px wide) RuneScape Forums. :)     http://userstyles.org/styles/18358   (and it also works with the blue RS website skin, though there are a couple of gaps if you make the browser too narrow (less than ~450px wide))
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0
 

Why?

http://runescape.salmoneus.net/forums/inde...howtopic=288083   Why is that poll not multiple-choice?   I use Firefox, Flock and Opera in general usage. I'll use Safari if I feel like it, Chrome starts quickly so may replace Opera as my 'quickstart' option. IE exists purely for testing purposes or those places that other browsers haven't been installed.   From that, it's clear that I could tick every single box in the poll. WE AREN'T STUCK TO ONE BROWSER AND CAN USE MULTIPLE@@@   Agh, it bugs me. -.-
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6
 

Why Waste The Emergency Services' Time?

Eventually the police arrived [...] overheard the following exchange:

Megastore guy: They were all just standing there.
Cop: What were they doing?
Megastore guy: Just standing, and then they all danced.
Cop: Did they say anything?
Megastore guy: No.

Pause

Cop: Why are we here?


http://improveverywhere.com/2003/07/19/megastore/

Several years old, but still as epic (as are most things on that site).
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Why Coin In Wild With Ice Man?

i wos wndrin dat 2 but i dnt go neer dat bc sum1 els sed bout it but i wnt 2 say tnx 2 da ppl hoo psted dat so dat no1 els wil get hrt by da ICE CUBE MAN! :o :wub: :o :king:
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9
 

White Knight Master And 77 Attack

There's been speculation that some sort of Quest in the future will have a requirement based on the White Knight ranking, so since the Elite Black Knights give 'bonus' kills, I thought it was a reasonable time to get myself up to Master.   With a Bunyip at my side, I was able to stay down there, just using the food and Potions they dropped to heal me (plus what the Bunyip does), the only limitation being Summoning points.   Part way through, I got 77 Attack.     Eventually, I reached the coveted mark that lets me buy all the White Armour. :P     *Neo Avatars hopes there is a Quest that has this as a requirement :D
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While Guthix Sleeps Guide

After 10 hours of Guide writing, I have finished the guide. :P   Having a 100 step FQW to write and then link makes a really tedious 2 hours. :o     RIP. :P     Tip for when doing a boss battle: Make sure your internet connection isn't going to fail half way through. :o
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11
 

What Hasn't Been Asked?

There have been a load of Q&A sessions / interviews with Jagex over the past year or so in which a huge amount has been asked about various things to do with Runescape and Jagex itself, so I've been thinking over the past few days...   What hasn't been asked or answered to an acceptable* level? (and seems mildly interesting)   *if a question was asked, but the answer Jagex gave was about something totally unrelated, it isn't classed as 'acceptable'
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6
 

Welsh, What A Wonderful Language

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7702913.stm     The English is clear enough to lorry drivers - but the Welsh reads "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated."   When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed.   Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated".   So that was what went up under the English version which barred lorries from a road near a supermarket.   "When they're proofing signs, they should really use someone who speaks Welsh," said journalist Dylan Iorwerth.   Swansea Council became lost in translation when it was looking to halt heavy goods vehicles using a road near an Asda store in the Morriston area   All official road signs in Wales are bilingual, so the local authority e-mailed its in-house translation service for the Welsh version of: "No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only".   The reply duly came back and officials set the wheels in motion to create the large sign in both languages.   The notice went up and all seemed well - until Welsh speakers began pointing out the embarrassing error.   Welsh-language magazine Golwg was promptly sent photographs of the offending sign by a number of its readers. Site of wrongly translated sign   Managing editor Mr Iorwerth said: "We've been running a series of these pictures over the past months.   "They're circulating among Welsh speakers because, unfortunately, it's all too common that things are not just badly translated, but are put together by people who have no idea about the language.   "It's good to see people trying to translate, but they should really ask for expert help.   "Everything these days seems to be written first in English and then translated.   "Ideally, they should be written separately in both languages."   A council spokeswoman said: "Our attention was drawn to the mistranslation of a sign at the junction of Clase Road and Pant-y-Blawd Road.   Other confusing signs   "We took it down as soon as we were made aware of it and a correct sign will be re-instated as soon as possible."   The blunder is not the only time Welsh has been translated incorrectly or put in the wrong place:   • Cyclists between Cardiff and Penarth in 2006 were left confused by a bilingual road sign telling them they had problems with an "inflamed bladder".   • In the same year, a sign for pedestrians in Cardiff reading 'Look Right' in English read 'Look Left' in Welsh.   • In 2006, a shared-faith school in Wrexham removed a sign which translated the Welsh for staff as "wooden stave".   • Football fans at a FA Cup tie between Oldham and Chasetown - two English teams - in 2005 were left scratching their heads after a Welsh-language hoarding was put up along the pitch. It should have gone to a match in Merthyr Tydfil.   • People living near an Aberdeenshire building site in 2006 were mystified when a sign apologising for the inconvenience was written in Welsh as well as English.  
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