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

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The Hunt For Red Raktuber

Fantastic fun. :D   The conversation at the start is great and the ending (scratching his nose) is wonderful. Off to Witchaven and I somehow managed to run around the town several times and not notice the giant footprint, having to resort to looking at a guide after talking to pretty much NPC in the area more than once!   Up north to the Iceberg and everything feels right - all the conversations flow well, make sense, have various lines to extract a chuckle and drop hints at the right level. I missed the type of hat that the Penguin I was interrogating was wearing, but thankfully it didn't have any major repercussions later on.   I love the examine description on the penguin submarine: Definitely not a sandwich.   Fetching the telegram was easy enough, with the route being obvious almost instantly. Turning around to exit, I thought it would be possible to be caught and still escape with the telegram. I was wrong and had to quickly make my way back to the telegram room and out again. Oh well.   To Yanille and the submarine. It took me four attempts to pick the right hat, but that wasn't a problem. Once in, I was slightly confused by the camera angle, but quickly realised that it was a side-scrolling-submarine and decided that I love it. The tools and such are great fun and the cut-scene after messing with the submarine came as quite a shock.   The coast around the island is slightly buggy, but words cannot describe how epic that Polar Bear is. An absolutely wonderful conversation and then you're floating away on his tummy...     Back to Ardougne Zoo and quest complete! :D     This really is a great quest that you should certainly dedicate a couple of hours to completing, reading all the conversations and examining everything you see. The rewards aren't ridiculous, but who cares? The quest is so much fun in itself that you shouldn't care about what you've unlocked from it (though the hats are wonderful ^_^).   Fantastic work by all those who helped create it.
Neo Avatars

Neo Avatars

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Blood Runs Deep

Having completed Glorious Memories and 'accidentally' starting this quest while talking to Baba Yaga, it didn't take any persuasion to make me complete it.   Into the dream land and you find another one of the strange tablets, before climbing up some stairs, heading through a tunnel and pwning a load of Dagannoth. I was slightly worried about the Wallasalki and Dagannoth maging / ranging me from the other platform which I couldn't reach, but thankfully Baba got us out before I ran out of food. Out of this fight and you're given an option to bank.   Talk to Baba again and off you're whisked into a fierce battle between the Dagannoths and the people of Rellekka. This is fantastically instanced (unlike the invasion of Varrock during Defender of Varrock), with it feeling totally real and like you're there saving Rellekka. I ran off to the south to see how far you could go in this world of your own, missed the 'you are leaving the battle' message and found myself having to start again. This second transition didn't feel as smooth and it would have felt better without the fade out and in / teleport to the market.   http://i48.tinypic.com/8whf.png   After this, you're given the Balmung, with all the reasoning inferred and nothing stated. Off to restock on food again, before heading to Waterbirth and running around the island three times before I finally found the hole I was looking for. Head down and you find an escort mission waiting for you.   [/name]This is made to look scary by a Giantwalloftext in the guide on Sals which is impossible to make sense of. Thankfully, there was somebody maging the Rock Lobsters, so they were no problem and there was no instance where I was being attacked by Range, Mage and Melee at the same time. Heading up the ladder towards safety, I was slightly surprised by the Dagannoths turning to attack Vargas. We slowly limped to the ladder, me feeding him lots of Sharks to keep him alive, only to be told that he cannot climb the ladder when under attack. :D   I whacked each of them a few times so I had all the aggro, tried again and was given the same message. It turned out that they all wanted killing before I could continue up the ladder. This depleted my reserves to 4 Sharks and a couple of PPots. Thankfully, there wasn't much further to go and we made it to our destination before the rest of the Sharks needed eating. If you quickly take the aggro when the Dagannoths attack Vargas, this mission is fairly easy, albeit annoying because he's slow and keeps getting trapped on rocks.   ...and you're 'dead'. This place is beautiful and the conversations you can have are interesting, though it's slightly annoying that you can only have them one.   Back onto a boat and you're asked to conduct a wedding. Some of the options you can choose are amusing, so reading through it all is worth it for the lulz. Reading around afterwards, it appears that there was also an option for me to marry Prince Brand, however there were three or four conversations (about prophecies and battles) that you had, none of which flowed into each other, leaving you clicking around NPCs until they said something that sounded useful. I clearly missed my option to get married. :D   Off to stock up on more food, before heading back to Waterbirth and killing the two Sentinels, with the help of a Granite Lobster.     To the bank again, switching the Lobster for a Spirit Terrorbird full of Sharks and picking up enough runes for about 100 casts of Wave and Surge spells. I got lost in the tunnels between the Sentinels and the Dagannoth Mother, having to consult the map in the tipit guide to make my way through.   Into battle and it didn't start well - I'd hidden the 'Game' chat, so was totally unable to see what colour the mother was, nomming down a couple of Sharks before I made it visible and could see the colour-change notifications. There was then the problem of auto-cast being the left-click option, so failing to cause any damage until another few Sharks were eaten. Eventually I got the hang of it, a Ruby Bolt (e) spec hit a 54 and I got it down to about 1/4 health without many more problems. I then started hitting 0 after 0 after 0.   My Sharks were being eaten and my Runes were running low. What to do? I decided that the best thing to do was take off my DHide armour and simply accept that her magic attacks would hit slightly more. Thankfully this worked and I hit a few 15-20s in a row, finishing her off with 4 Sharks and under 20 Blood Runes left. Back out, collapse the pile of stones and you're in 'dead land' again.   Reappearing in the real world and Brand and Astrid are dead. I'm sure I should feel sad about this, but I can remember nothing about their characters, so it was a real 'meh' incident, made slightly poignant by the burning of the Pyre Ships.   Quest complete!     [name=ridiculous-rewards]Four hundred and fifty thousand Prayer experience. Nine million gp for two hours of questing. Sorry, that's a ridiculous reward. To put it in context, you're given 13m of stuff (400k Prayer xp and a 4m dragon lump) at the end of WGS and this quest was not worth 3/4 of the reward from WGS.   Certain elements of this quest are fantastic - the instancing of the Rellekka battle, the escort mission, the final battles, the 'dead land', the chat options when conducting the wedding. All the fights are fantastic and individually they couldn't be much better. The problem comes with the story which attempts to link them together. Like the 6th Harry Potter movie, there are too many sub-plots squashed together into a single entity, meaning none of them stand out and you're constantly confused as to what's happening or what is important.   When completing Glorious Memories, the thing that stood out was the prophecy. It kept coming up in Blood Runs Deep and you're handed two of the other tablets, plus told about the final couple. The problem is that it felt more like an after-thought, with the main plots being some romance between 5 characters and a war against the Dagannoth (which has no connection to the prophecy). At the end of the quest, there's a 30 second summary of the prophecy and if you banked the tablets, they're automatically destroyed, leaving you totally confused about what it actually said.   The quest really should have been made into two separate parts, allowing the various sub-plots time in the limelight and providing room to develop ideas so they didn't each end in a 'meh, so what?' situation. :D
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Temple At Senntisten

As you may have guessed from this entry, I completed Temple at Senntisten a few days back, bringing me up to date with the storyline.   The conversations around the Digsite at the start are nice, making you think back to Desert Treasure and what went on there. I can't remember much, but knew enough to get Dr Nabanik his certificate on the first attempt. Down the winch and I love the lighting down there. :)   I was then told that I had to go to the Barrows. I remember doing this ages back, earning a couple of Guthan Spears and a few other misc items. Unfortunately, this really was ages back and I could remember pretty much nothing, so had a quick look at a guide to remind myself. Slayer Dart and DHide sounded familiar, so I picked up that plus my Whip, a Crossbow and Bolts, plus a few Monkfish / Prayer Pots and a Spade.   After killing Dharok and Verac, I decided that I should take off my DHide to improve the amount that the Slayer Dart was hitting. Torag was fine, but heading into Karil's tomb, a 'lol' was uttered in my direction by lDropFatKids, to which I quickly replied 'questing' as he ran off towards Dharok, hoping it would explain my strange choice of equipment (Chompy Hat, Slayer Staff and Soul Wars Cape). The rest of the Brothers in the tombs died, so off I went into the tunnels. Passing through a couple of doors spawned the final brother, then it was time to head into the middle.   Back in the day, I was great at this, being able to pass through first time while under attack. This time, I was failing epically. Thankfully, lDropFatKids was around to help pwn the monsters that were hindering my progress and we had a quick chat before bidding each other farewell and opening the chest. :D (I got a Tooth Half of a Key, but no Barrows item)   It was into deep Wilderness for the second task that needed completing. I ran anti-clockwise all the way around the castle before finding a way to safety out of the way of the Iron and Steel Dragons that wanted to burn me. Yay, a nice puzzle with stupid monsters attacking you with multiple combat styles, cloning themselves as you try to figure out what to do! :D   In the end I only killed a single Waterfiend, which dropped the Clue Scroll I mentioned. OK, fine, this is a big, bad scary person who's castle I'm trying to break into, but I do not enjoy solving puzzles under the pressure of running out of food / prayer. Yes, there are safe spots and you can easily out-run them, but it makes it frustrating rather than fun and I found myself attempting to use a guide (all it managed to do was take me to the correct floors since the instructions themselves made no sense). After a while of clicking randomly on various things, I found my way to the Ice Demon.   If I'd taken metal armour instead of DHide, I wouldn't have needed to eat. Put on Protect from Mage and this is a stupidly easy fight - nothing at all to be worried about after the Waterfiends that you've been pestered by for the rest of the time in the castle. I will, however, point out that the attacks are hawt even if they're no threat to anybody. :)     Back to the Digsite and omg it's hawt. :D   The conversation here is full of lore, however it's been so long since I completed Devious Minds that it didn't make much sense. There's also one of those 'flyovers' in the cut-scene where the camera turns around by looking at the floor. I've noticed this has been in a large number of cut-scenes recently and it's starting to annoy me - when watching TV, how often do you see the camera turn around by looking at the floor really, really slowly?   OK, quest complete, providing 33k Prayer xp and some other stuff, yay!   http://i46.tinypic.com/oifacl.png   Having completed the quest, I headed off to Tears of Guthix to gain even more Prayer xp. While I was hanging around having drunk my 130 tears, Ffwalker came and gained some Summoning experience himself. A 'grats' when I saw the fireworks above his head started a long conversation about quests, how Juna wants to eat me and various other random things. :D   All in all, this quest was nothing special. Yes, there's some nice lore, but it doesn't feel like much effort was put into the quest itself. The Waterfiends make the puzzle annoying and telling you to go to Barrows can't have required much work. Some of the new graphics (those that I've screenshotted) are fantastic, but I don't like the lighting in the castle. It feels like much of the dev time went on balancing a new book of Curses rather than creating a great quest, which is a real shame.   What I will remember from it is that there are some fantastic people who play this game and that small acts of kindness or stopping what you're doing to simply chat for half an hour can be far more rewarding and enjoyable than grinding away to the next level or making your next million. :D
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And Her Name Will Be Rildar

Just completed Glorious Memories and have little to say other than 'truly magnificent'. :D   There aren't enough Musicians around Rellekka, so you spend half the quest walking if you don't take any Energy Pots with you, but other than that, there is a grand total of nothing to fault. The hints are exactly right, it's full to the brim with lore, feels natural and sends you to the Shining Lake. What more could you ask for? :D     [name=please-stop-the-taunting][/name]Heading to Baba Yaga afterwards, you will be kicked out of the house for no apparent reason after viewing the cut-scene, but what you're given is nothing other than taunting. :)     While chatting with Baba, I also got my Broomstick from the Halloween quest enchanted, giving 10k mage xp.   The tablet is the last in the series and has only one sentence engraved into it: 'And her name will be Rildar.'   Taking it to the Varrock Museum, you're stopped from telling the Historian who Rildar is, so the display sits there incorrect - the identity of Rildar is known. :D   Meanies! :D
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Déjà Vu And A Clue Scroll

While doing The Temple at Senntisten, I killed one of the Waterfiends and it dropped a Clue Scroll, so headed off to do it today.   First, to the Lumber Yard and search a crate. Then into the Wilderness, fight a nub mage that I remember being much more vicious (I've not done a clue scroll in ages) and pick up Chest with another clue in. This led me to Oziach, who gave me a Puzzle Box. >.< I thought I'd completed it, but had somehow managed to get two pieces the wrong way round, so had to swap them, which was easy enough. Talk to Oziach again and he gives me a clue...   Thou shalt return to the Lumber Yard because I've given you a replica of the first clue you did in this trail. Fine, I've had the same clue come up twice before in the same trail and this will be slightly easier to get to than 'next to where a Black Knight spawns in deep wilderness' (a previous repeater, when the only way to deep Wilderness was the Ardougne lever or running). *search the crate* "You have found a clue scroll." *look at clue scroll* *close it* *open again* *rub eyes to check they're working properly* Yes, it was exactly the same clue twice in a row, the third time in the trail! :D   *click on the crate again*     I already had two Guthix Platebodies as placeholers for when I was freeplay, so headed straight to the GE to see what it's worth. 900k for about 30 minutes of work, not bad. :D
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Neo Avatars

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The Curse Of Arrav

I split this quest up over two days - half yesterday and half today.   The puzzle in the tunnel where you have to clear your way through is fantastic. It should be really annoying having to run around to get to the other side, but it isn't. You realise that it's exactly what would happen if you were doing something similar IRL. OK, the floor where you have cleared the rocks looks ick, but I'll get over that because the puzzle itself felt fantastic.   The tablets that you pick up have text that's exactly the same colour as the background, so is a pain in the backside to read. No, dark grey text on a dark grey background is not a good idea and whoever let it creep into the game needs shooting. >.< The scroll in the bookcase is, however, possible to read and contains lots of great information about the Mahjarrat and certainly worth looking at when you pass through.   Up some stairs to fight Arrav. *whack* *another whack* "I am glad we can finally stop fighting." ~ Arrav If you had the right equipment with you, I'm reasonably sure it would be possible to kill him in two hits, not just get him down to half health. His comment makes no sense considering how little time we've been fighting. If Nomad's stupid avatar had said this, it would have made some sense, but COME ON Zemouregal, if you want to take over the world, at least get yourself an avatar that isn't useless in combat and has a reasonable sense of time!   Back to the Pharaoh Queen, well I loved when I was there earlier in the day, so were you expecting me to say anything other than good about her? :D At this point, I called it a night, the rest of the quest having been completed today.   [name=zemouregals-base][/name]Infiltrating the base, you're told exactly what to take. Reach the base and, oh yeah, you've been told exactly what to do. OK, you need to search a couple of tables and pick a chest. Big whoop. Paul, please take some advice from the other people working on the series with you and don't make 'hints' so glaringly obvious - it ruins half of all the fun! :D   Back to Ali and 30k Mining experience.     The first half of the quest is fantastic and you're given lots of nice lore about the Mahjarrat, but the second half is totally ruined because the hints are too darn obvious and you're told exactly what to do. If I wanted to do that, I'd be playing WoW.
Neo Avatars

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Missing My Mummy

omg omg omg   It was totally uneventful other than me missing the hint that 'aubergines' probably don't describe an ancient mummy and that Garden of Tranquility is a requirement. I also saw somebody heading into the mastaba despite not coming across anybody else in the desert. I know, exciting stuff.   Ignoring what didn't happen to me, absolutely fantastic quest. The hints are subtle, but clear enough to see, and make you go 'ooo, clever me!' each time you work one out. Even when you miss a clue and have to head back to fetch something, it feels totally natural as you realise you only have yourself to blame. The coloured brick 'maze' is nice and there is enough contrast between the colours for it to be reasonably easy to cross (though somebody with severe red / green colourblindness, feel free to say I'm wrong). I listened to one of the pieces of music in the temple (it looped) and have to say it sounded much better than my experience during Within the Light.   And... soooooooo... much... lore... :D :D   Problems? Apart from Reldo saying that the person handing out flyers to the north of Al Kharid is 'just a short stroll away', I can't think of anything. I noticed this because in other areas of the game, it's made to sound that cities and such are a huge distance apart, while that is totally contradictory.   Fantastic quest, thoroughly enjoyable, and enough to make me think that Mod Newmatic is able to make quests as amazing as Mod Tytn has shown he can. :D
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Barbarian Assault - Top 100

I've spent the time since the BA update on World 6 pwning Penance and developing a love for the Defender role. In doing this, I've slowly been creeping up the highscores and am currently ranked higher in this than any other thing in the past on Runescape. :D     I know there are other Slammers with higher ranks in other roles, but I started lower (rank ~15k) and will be slowly working towards the top 21 in among earning myself full Penance.
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Compass

Until a mis-click in BA just now, I'd never noticed that clicking on the compass in-game would make your camera face north. :)
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Downloading Music

It's something that's been on my mind for a while - why would you pay to download music?   CDs, fine, you get something there in your hand to hold and look at and then there's the other great things. There's the anticipation about what the box will look like - out of the last 6 CDs I've bought, only two of the 'boxes' have been plastic and none of them have been the same. Unwrapping the plastic wrapping - no, it isn't 'impossible' or 'annoying' and even when it takes 5 minutes to get into, there's a sense of accomplishment and a feel good factor about it. And the inserts - one of those CDs that came in a 'boring' plastic box has a fantastic insert that stretches out longer than my arm and smells fantastic. It SMELLS fantastic - when was the last time something you downloaded smell good?   As for paying for downloads, I don't get it. Until recently, I'd not succumbed, however Amazon was kind enough to give some free credit to their MP3 store when purchasing CDs just before New Year, so it clearly had to be used up. Beyond not getting any of the above, what's up with the pricing? On the SAME SITE, you can get the SAME SONG at two different prices - 69p or 89p. Am I missing something, or is there something totally wrong here? In other cases, the CD costs exactly the same as the download. I'm sure that a plastic box, CD, a fantastic insert, postage and packaging costs more than 200MB of bandwidth, so why, in this case, is NONE of the saving passed onto the customer? I highly doubt that those who created the music are going to take this extra profit, instead Amazon is slipping it into their pockets.   Why did I finally get round to writing this? Partly because Doddsy wrote something similar a couple of days back and party because of A Change of Seasons.   In this case, the download is £6 cheaper than the CD on Amazon. Looking around, the CD can be bought for slightly under £6 in several places, meaning I'd save about £3 if I 'bought' the MP3. Is the saving worth it? No. I want something tangible for my money and a simple file that is so easily erased doesn't fit that description.   I love Dream Theater deeply, but as it is, this pricing dilemma means that, for the moment, I'll stick with listening to it on Spotify and nobody gets my money.
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Soul Wars

I played that one game as a requirement for Nomad's Requiem and hated it. 600 people crammed into one place, with totally uneven teams and nobody doing what the tutorial made it clear was the most important thing in the world -burying bones. Having completed the quest, I'm determined that I'll experience enough of this game to bring me in another 30 points, so my total is 100 and I am given some bonus xp when they're cashed in.   Heading back into battle, I decided that I shouldn't try to take it at all seriously, instead accepting it for what it is - a complete joke that's made stupid by the sheer number of people, many of whom are doing nothing other than standing around spamming "join Iii Cc Iii for 3 zeal per game".   I was playing one game where there were about 400 people crowded around the obelisk in the middle, so I'm sure you can imagine the lag it created. It was, however, the most balanced game of the half dozen I've experienced, without either of the Avatars being killed until about 2 minutes were left. That's another strange thing about it - the laggier it is, the more fun it is because it shows that both teams think they can take control of the obelisk and it isn't heavily unbalanced by those in CCs.   I love the start of games - head in, pick up 28 bandages, run to the obelisk and kill off 10-15 people who are attacking me until I finally run out of bandages and die. I'm fairly sure that what I'm doing is useless in the grand scheme of things, but it's great fun and made for an interesting conversation with a couple of people IRL today who are determined that training defence is a bad thing and 'pures' are the only way to go. :P   Coming to the end of a 'long' tanking session at the start of one game   After the start, it's 15 minutes of dying, coming back, activating my 'Quick Select' Prayers (Piety and Protect from Melee), dropping down to 20hp, switching to Retribution, then giggling as my death causes 3 or 4 others to fall down dead. Totally stupid, but a great laugh.   Feel my wrath! >.<   All in all, Soul Wars is like High School Musical - a complete joke that's fantastic fun if you don't take it at all seriously. :P
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Tale Of The Muspah

Fun puzzle, several graphical glitches and lots of juicy lore.   The only thing I have to complain about the quest is the comment that you use to end conversations - 'Never mind' (or something along those lines). If we've been chatting about various lore-related things for the past 5 or 10 minutes, that comment makes absolutely no sense at all and really doesn't fit.   But importantly, great puzzle and lots of juicy lore - both reminders of stuff you already knew and new information.     *Neo Avatars can't wait to continue the series >.<
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Nomad And The Mysterious Spinning Thing

Hanging around chatting with people at Soul Wars having killed Nomad myself has been good fun and was made even more interesting when a strange spinning things suddenly appeared.   (you'll have to use your imagination to see it spinning at high speed)   At first I thought I was seeing things, although after a few seconds there were several people crowded round it, so I realised it wasn't just me. I had no idea what it was, but I'm told that it's the Leech Mage prayer. By the sound of the conversation, somebody had been killing Nomad with the Curses active, killed him and at the same time this activated. Rather than being able to reach Nomad, it had appeared outside the tent and was spinning at high speed, moving very slowly to the south-west.     We followed it across the area, each having a go at standing in the way before shouting 'Ow!' when it hit.     It entered the blue waiting area, so we couldn't get to it, before disappearing when it was about half way across.   Bugs like this are fantastic, causing no harm to anybody, but providing 5 minutes of fun for everybody in the area. >.<
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Nomad's Requiem - The Final Battle

I'd heard so much about this fight that I really wasn't sure what to expect. The number of annoying features earlier in the quest implied that a lot of time had been spent designing it, so I was expecting something good. That meant I'd be comparing it with the Dr Nefarious fight at the end of Ratchet & Clank 3 which is simply fantastic.   I'd read Merch's blog entry about attempting to kill Nomad, so picked up the gear she mentioned, filled my inventory with Sharks and headed in to see what his attacks are like. This first attempt was a fail, running into the mines, getting hit by the 75 attack and when the clones appeared, I got it right 4th time before running out of Sharks and dying.   Appearing outside, was Sisimang who rushed to my side ready to give tips, having completed it himself earlier in the day. With his advice, I switched my shield to a Spirit Shield, helm to Archer Helm and boots to Snakeskin Boots on the basis that my Defence level is high and my Range is low, plus Nomad's going to hit lots whatever armour I'm wearing. He also suggested switching to Void for the 10% bonuses that it provides, though it was stored in my POH, so I decided to leave it there until I had a better idea of the attacks.   This next time, both Nomad and I were hitting higher, though I managed to make my way out of the mines without getting hit as well as hiding behind the pillar without taking damage from the 75. I then stayed behind the pillar and he teleported back to the middle and healed. Ooo, I must be a long way in if he's healing! Carrying on the fight, I eventually died and mentioned the healing to Sisimang. It turns out that Nomad had reset since he'd been unable to attack me. I also noted that Piety doesn't help and Eagle Eye would be a much better thing to pray.   Several more attempts and I felt I was getting the hang of it, eventually managing to reach the second max-1 hit with 8 Sharks left. At this point I decided that I was ready to have a proper attempt.   Off I headed to fetch my Void Robes, then on to the GE to find that Tortoise Pouches weren't buying, so I put in an order for 10 of them and 10 Tortoise Shells encase they bought first. To prevent a potentially huge wait, I headed off to the Sewers to get some Shells of my own as drops. Ranging them with full Void and Broad Bolts is total pwnage and after a few minutes, three of them dropped, my GE order had updated and I had 13 Shells to turn into Pouches.   I teleported to Falador, then ran up to Taverley and the obelisk there. Upon arrival, I realised I'd forgotten to take any Charms, so had to do the run again with the correct materials.   With everything I needed, I headed back to Soul Wars, ensured I had everything and headed into the tent. Just before I confirmed that I was ready for battle, I noticed that I'd forgotten to take any Bolts, so popped back to the bank to get some. Heading in with everything, I failed epically. Although I was used to eating my way through Sharks, the healing with Potions wasn't working at all, with me constantly spam-clicking Potions, splitting them into multiple Vials and having no time to fire my Crossbow. In the end, I decided to give up and simply die. It turns out that when you do this, your familiar and whatever it's carrying disappears.   Oh well, that was only 60k of Potions that I'd lost. The next attempt was going slightly better, reaching the first max-1 hit with Nomad on about 80% health, so I potted up to 94hp and started attacking for the few seconds before his hit came. Unfortunately, one of the bolt specs activated and I died with an 8-86. I'd been warned about this happening, but forgot about it. Note to self: don't attack while he's preparing the big hit.   The third attempt was going wonderfully. I was sipping Potions more than I was splitting them into multiple Vials, there was time for me to hit Nomad and it felt good. Unfortunately, with all the mines on the floor around me, my Tortoise got in the way and I was totally unable to see where the mines were so I could step out of them, so I trod on one, then got finished off by the 75. I thought it was supposed to help, not get in the way!   [name=nomad-berserk-mode][/name]The fourth attempt was fantastic. I went in, fired Bolts, hid out of the way of all the 75s, detected the correct clone first time every time and did everything right. He healed, then reached the Berserk stage, so I switched on Protect from Melee since I'd heard it helps. The hits here were horrible - instead of being a consistent stream of damage that you can heal against, it was more like 0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-25-24-30-17-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 and so on. I managed to react quick enough to everything, though did drop below 20hp with a couple of the bursts. Eventually, I ran out of Brews with 3 doses of Super Restore left and died with Nomad on under 100hp. :(     It turns out that a couple of people hanging around at Soul Wars had got Nomad to even less health than I had and died, so I felt slightly less annoyed. Still, I knew it would be possible to win if the Ruby Bolt specs activated at the right time. My heart was pounding after the close battle, so I left it a few minutes before deciding to have one last attempt for the night.   In I went, calmly getting through one round of attacks. The mines appeared for a second time and I forgot to get out until just before the warning about the incoming 75 and ran towards the pillar as fast as I could. One square away from safety, I was hit. I had 73hp when this happened, so died. Maybe that last run wasn't a great idea and it really was time to head to bed.   Waking up this morning, I logged on and withdrew the stuff for another attempt. I also decided that it'd probably be worth sticking on Steel Skin since it would use up Prayer Points that would otherwise be wasted. All was going well, I was dodging the mines correctly, detecting the 'real' Nomad first time, finding myself with over 100hp when potted for the max-1 hit, so could safely fire off some Bolts when waiting and everything is going well.   Then, just after he healed, I clicked the wrong square to hide in, so the 75 flew across the room and hit me rather than the pillar. Spam-clicking some Sara Brews, over he came and hit me for a couple of 20s. Somehow, I was still alive, so healed myself back up to full while he ran off and created some clones.   Carrying on, I was hitting well, specs were activating at good moments in time and by the time he reached Berserk mode, there were still 12 full Sara Brews and several odd doses as well as plenty of Restores in my inventory. Like yesterday, the hits were still coming in bursts rather than a steady stream, but experience meant that as soon as my health dropped below full, I was primed to heal. When Nomad's health reached the point I died at yesterday, I felt confident that I was going to make it and...     :/ :/ :P :/ :/ :yay: :yay: :yay: :yay: :yay: :P :/ :/   I finished with 9 doses of Sara Brew and about 6 doses of Restore Potion. The battle took 137 Ruby Bolts (e).   Inventory: 5 Super Restore Potion (4), 6 Normal Restore Potion (4), the rest of my inventory and a tortoise: Sara Brews (4). I also sipped a dose of Range Pot before heading in. Important Stats: 79 Range, 87 Hitpoints, 92 Defence, 75 Prayer, 75 Summoning Equipment:   Something not mentioned on the reward scroll is the 80k Range xp that I gained while going the quest. :P   A big ty goes to Sisimang for providing useful tips and hanging around having completed the battle himself, showing that there are still great people in the RS community. :D   -   Was it as fun as the Dr Nefarious battle I mentioned? In some ways, yes. In others, no.   The fight itself was fantastic and perfectly suited for Runescape's mechanics and combat system. Yes, it would be slightly easier at maxed out combat, but you'd still need to work out a good method to survive each attack and you could always choose to use equipment that isn't the best around if you want it to be more difficult. If you're attempting this battle with much less than 80 Range and Defence, it will boil down to luck of the hits even if you do everything perfectly.   As for bad things, it suffers from what I hate about the Runescape combat system - the death penalty. Although you appear right next to your grave, my internet connection is prone to failing at totally random points in time, such as during the WGS final battle, so there's the worry that it'll cause me to die and lose my Void due to some kind of bug with the gravestone when you 'log out' or the internet connection not coming back on.   There's then the use of resources. In the Dr Nefarious battle, there are other enemies around that you can kill and make back any money that you spend on ammo, so it doesn't really matter if you fail an attempt since you've lost nothing and learned about the battle. With the Nomad fight, I personally used about 1-1.5m of supplies and others were looking at 3-5m+. I don't really care about the money - I've got plenty of it and can make it back in about 30-40 minutes of work over a couple of weeks, but at the same time I hate the idea that you need to use so much of your own stuff for a battle like this.   Yes, lore-wise it would probably make no sense at all if you were given fr33 st00f to complete this battle, but in the future I don't want to be spending millions on more Brews and other consumables to kill some random bad guy. I can see future storylines where you're killing big bad enemies like this to save a city - helping the White Knights or something. In a case like that, I'd want whoever I'm helping to supply me with Brews, Food, Potions and such (no non-consumables such as weapons and armour, of course). If I'm doing something for them, I can't see how them giving me this stuff would harm the lore, instead showing that they understand that I have feelings too. Give them limits so they can only be consumed in the room that the battle happens, perhaps only give the raw materials - Herbs and such, so you need other requirements to take advantage of it (with no xp so you can't train for free this way).   I don't know, I enjoy questing in Runescape, but I'm bored of pretty much everything else about the game, so don't want to be forced to do any of it because it isn't 'fun' any more.   -   A very fun battle that is accessible to those with a range of levels, unfortunately it took all the dev time for the quest and suffers from a very mild case of 'thoughtless NPC syndrome' which has lore-based foundations.
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0
 

Nomad's Requiem

This is a strange quest in that it's both everything I love and everything I hate about Runescape.   It started off with the requirement to complete a game of Soul Wars. I complete the tutorial, fine, then go to play a game. There were so many people that it was totally OTT and all this mass of people appeared to be doing nothing against the opposition. From the tutorial, it sounded like picking up bones and burying them was one of the best things you could do in the game, so is there a reason that nobody at all does this?   Anyway, the quest. Heading in, there were strange glowing things heading across the floor in a jerking manner since the animation doesn't loop properly. Right-clicking on them revealed nothing at all, so combined with their look it appeared that if you stood on one of them, you'd take damage. Out I headed to fetch some more food encase my thoughts were correct. Back in and it appeared that crossing them doesn't hurt you!   There are two doors, so in I headed to the one nearest to me and get swarmed by a group of Spectral things, so on goes Protect from Melee. Upstairs and there's a rockslide or something on one side of the room. Clicking on it was little help since I was under attack and it disappeared in a fraction of a second. After several attempts, I managed to time a screenshot with it's appearance, so saw that I needed a pickaxe. Looking around the room. Nothing. Off I went to fetch a pick. I also switched to full Proselyte and the Fally shield to give a +28 Prayer bonus, taking out a few Prayer Pots too.   Back in and I mine the rubble before heading up another ladder. Move the statues and the water flows. Back down and pull the levers until the water is flowing across the room. Down to the bottom floor and it's clear that it's a sliding puzzle, great, but the implementation is horrible.   *click to push* *wait until about 5 prayer points have been drained with the +28 Prayer bonus* *click to push another pillar*   If it had been made nicely, I would have had a go at working things out on my own. Instead I headed to this post in the announcement thread, deduced the orientation that the picture is taken at and worked out how to get the blocks into that position - about a minute of looking at things. It then took another 10-15 minutes for the horribly slow animation to play as each block was pushed around, Prayer draining.   If you're going to create a sliding puzzle, make it quick and don't make me waste Prayer Pots doing something that is simply tedious due to crap design.   Eventually, things slid into position and I read the rest of Merch's posts in the announcement thread, headed upstairs and made the water flow into the place that I'd mined the rubble from. Into the other room and it felt like it had been designed a lot better. The things didn't attack you simply to make you irritated, whatever jumped out of the machine was well behaved (though the third one got lost multiple times), looked nice and it simply felt 'fun'.   The big door was now open, so through I headed. OK, large area. I turned left and ran until I found a door. Having passed through, it turned out that attacking the roots wasn't possible since they were too close together, so more exploring was needed. Continuing, the four separate roots weren't hard to find, but they're so darn far apart that having cleared two of them, a groan of 'do I have to run round there too?' was inevitable. My energy ran out (for some reason I wasn't carrying energy pots despite them being part of my 'questing kit') and resting was impossible since you're under attack. Walking back to the middle, there's the big Avatar thing. To the bank to get some Ranged supplies.   [/name]Back I head with several Ranged Potions, Mithril Bolts and the rest of my ranging gear and attack it. 15 minutes later it was on about half health, so I teleported out to fetch the Ruby Bolts (e) that I'd ordered from the GE. Back in and it took about 10 more minutes to kill this damn thing. It's the best example I can think of to show 'why combat in Runescape sucks'. You click to attack and wait 10 minutes until the thing dies, tapping down the arrow key every couple of minutes to stop yourself logging out and checking every now and again that you've not been dragged from your safe spot.   With the Avatar finally dead, I headed round to the room on the opposite side. I have absolutely no problem with the things attacking you in this room - there's clearly something dangerous about it, as shown by the fact that if you don't have Piety on, there's a similar effect to being in the snow areas in DT, only without the Energy drain. Running about, it was clear what you had to do, so it was hardly 'puzzling', but I liked the aura of the room, so it was OK.   Out of these four rooms, two were tedious, annoying, stupidly designed and not at all enjoyable. One was 'meh'. The fourth was nothing special, but would be classed as 4 minutes of 'fun'.   [name=all-the-dev-time-went-on-the-battle]Oh well, all of the design and thought must have been put into this big bad Nomad that everybody is talking about...
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Neo Avatars

1
 

Reinventing The Wheel

As part of something I'm working on in Javascript, I wanted to add commas to long numbers to make them easier to read.   Of course, the simple option would be to do a quick Google search, find something that works and use that. But where's the fun in that? :D   To start with, I did do a Google search and found a number of ways to do the job with varying levels of complexity and extra features, finding that this (which also happens to be the top result) is the fastest by a factor of ~4 - using console.time() in Firebug when run 2,000,000 times.   The 'Google code' with some tabs added to make it easier to read: function Comma(number){ number = '' + number; if (number.length > 3) { var mod = number.length % 3; var output = (mod > 0 ? (number.substring(0,mod)) : ''); for (i=0; i < Math.floor(number.length / 3); i++) { if ((mod == 0) && (i == 0)) output += number.substring(mod+ 3 * i, mod + 3 * i + 3); else output+= ',' + number.substring(mod + 3 * i, mod + 3 * i + 3); } return (output); } else return number; }   Ignoring that, I set off to reinvent the wheel on my own, deciding that I also wanted my version to work with decimals (no commas in the decimal part because that's how I write it IRL) and it didn't need to worry about negative numbers.   After a bit of playing around, I arrived at the following: function addCommasToLargeNumbers(number){ if(number >= 1000){ var noStr = number + ''; var decimalPointPosition = noStr.indexOf('.'); var decimal = ''; if(decimalPointPosition != -1){ decimal = noStr.substr(decimalPointPosition, noStr.length - decimalPointPosition); noStr = noStr.substr(0, decimalPointPosition); } var numberOfCommas = Math.floor((noStr.length - 1) / 3); var output = noStr.substr(0, (noStr.length - (numberOfCommas * 3))); var lengthBeforeCommas = output.length; for(var i = 0; i < numberOfCommas; i++){ output += ',' + noStr.substr(lengthBeforeCommas, 3); lengthBeforeCommas += 3; } return output + decimal; } else { return number; } } Running the 'Google code' and my code a further ~50,000,000 times indicates that mine is ~15% faster. :P   I know that tiny speed differences like this will make no difference in the overall scheme of things (and for all I know, my version may be slower on non-FF browsers), but it's a bit of fun and doesn't do any harm. :)
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7
 

Avatar - 3d

Is the most visually stunning thing I've ever seen.   The plot is slightly predictable and at points the music tells you exactly what's going to happen for the next 30 seconds, but it certainly isn't 'bad' in any way and there's time to become emotionally attached to the characters.   It's the first 3D movie I've seen (a couple of '4D' things over the years don't count), so I was interested to see how well it could be used. I was slightly worried when the trailers being shown before it started were painful to watch due to extremely fast cuts between shots where the focus was changing every second - clear examples of how NOT to use 3D. Thankfully, Avatar doesn't misuse this fantastic medium and apart from a ~10 second section where the shots switch too quickly, a couple of shoulders in the corners of shots (mainly early on) and out-of-focus ferns in the foreground every now and again, it is a fantastic example of how to use 3D well.   As I mentioned, it's beautiful. Every little thing is so... amazing. The line between 'real' and CG material is indistinguishable. The music works wonderfully (even if reviewers on Amazon dislike it). The use of 3D is fantastic, making the world feel much more real (and worth the £7 difference between a 2D and 3D ticket) - the 'futuristic screens' in particular look so much nicer in 3D.   Why should you go and see it? Because it's beautiful, visually stunning and a simply amazing experience. :D :lol:
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8
 

Bank Clearance

Having completed the main part of Fur 'n' Seek, there's another part to complete which requires you to fetch the bones of 20 creatures from around the world. Unlike the few from the Fremennik Province, it wouldn't be possible to hold all of these in my inventory at once, so I'd need some room in my bank to store them so that I could avoid lots of running back and forth to the Odd Old Man.   This was a problem since my bank was totally full, with no room for anything else. It sounded like time to sort out my bank! ;)   First to go was the silly magical crystal since I now know that you can get a new one from Arianwyn whenever it's needed. Next were a couple of books from Olaf which I could get back if I wanted. Beyond that, there was nothing obvious to get rid of, so a bit of searching was needed. 600 Weeds - it was a nice collection that took a while to obtain, but it had to go eventually, similar to the 650 Burnt Monkfish I dropped a couple of days ago.
Various low level Tree Seeds - once again, random collections, each pile worth 10-30k, so it brought in a small amount of money to start with.
3000+ Tomatoes - I'm not sure why I had so many, but they'd built up over time and a free 300k is nice.
~1700 Cooking Apples - like the Tomatoes, I'm not sure where they came from, but I'm not going to complain about finding 500k knocking around.
The Elf Costume - it looks pretty, but was simply taking up too much space, so had to go. I was surprised to see that so many of the pieces of Fremennik clothing sold instantly at max, so that may be something to pick up every time you're in the area.
3000 Unfinished Broad Arrows Bolts (ty Tiddyn for noticing) - this was something I'd seem when buying the Rock Salt, thought I recognised the name and was pleased to see that emptying the shop would provide me with ~75k free cash. It's slightly more work than the Battlestaves, but still extremely fast money that you can obtain on a daily(?) basis as the stock replenishes.
There was a Sapphire Lantern sitting lonely in the bank, so I replaced the Sapphire with a Lantern Lens so save that spot. At this moment there was a cry of 'Buying Lantern' from nearby, so it would have been criminal not to hop over and trade with them. After the trade, it turned out that they recognised me from here, so hai L4STWYL if you're reading! :D
2 Yew Longbows - they were probably a placeholder from the past, but I haven't fletched for a couple of years and don't plan on doing so in the near future, so they were sold.
A couple of other things that I can't remember.
I sold a load of Diamonds simply because the price is higher than I remember seeing it in... ever... and I doubt I'll need them any time soon.
Overall, this had made me about 5m cash and saved ~15 bank slots, so I was happy.   At this point, I switched to my last bank tab and saw something that I hadn't noticed up until then... over 300 Druidic Mage Tops. They had clearly been leftover from a merchanting idea that Sparhawke had suggested a ~year ago that I'd totally forgotten about. I've a feeling I bought them for 3 or 4k each, but wasn't really concerned about the cash since selling them would free up a bank space.   I look in the GE and...     38k each! :P :D :(   The price is dropping, but they are selling (~90 left) so this forgotten merch should turn out well and provide me with another bank space. ;)
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Neo Avatars

5
 

New Signature

I've made myself a new signature (and changed my member title) which I'll keep for a few days.     Blame Doddsy. :D
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3
 

Fur 'n' Seek

When I heard that this quest was coming (from the Postbag), my first reaction was 'Why? It was horrible the first time and you want us to do it AGAIN? :D'. Since then, I've played WoW for a month, so realise that it isn't quite as bad as it sounds (a lot of WoW quests consist of 'kill [number] of that monster and bring me what it drops'). This meant that I wasn't expecting total irritation when completing it, although I presume it was annoying waiting for spawns on release day.   The out-of-the-way position of the Odd Old Man means that you can reach him from two directions. I chose to head to him from Varrock and en-route ran into the Circus. True to it's name, it was both a Distraction and a Diversion and provided me with 17k Mage xp, 5k Range xp, 10k Agility xp and some Clown Boots. :P   Carrying on east, I was almost there when the Mysterious Old Man appeared and took me away to his maze. Annoyingly, he also gave me the worst spawn position that there is and there was only 65% of the reward remaining. Oh well, 250 Death Runes is nice to be given for free. :(   There were no more distractions and I reached the Odd Old Man, chatted, then wooted that all the creatures he wanted me to kill can be found in the same area! I didn't have a Mirror Shield, so bought one from the GE before teleporting off and killing the various creatures that are found around the Fremennik Province.   As expected, everything was a lowish level so died with ease. Upon reaching the Hobgoblins, I telegrabbed all the items sitting around on the various islands that can't be reached by foot. I know that a Law Rune costs over 100gp more than a Nat, but it makes you feel special that you're able to waste such huge amounts of money for the fun of it. :D   Heading back to the Odd Old Man, I went via Canifis so that I could pick up some Rock Salt. Wobbling around the middle of town was a Snowman, who I spied on and was informed that it was a Penguin. I guess I'll have to head to Larry at some point and take the experience that he'll want to give me for making a single click.   Reaching his camp came the annoying process of tanning the hides. I don't really mind the collecting of the items, but this click, wait, click, wait is boooooooooooooring. It was, however, made slightly more 'exciting' because with slightly over half the fires that I lit, the shadow that it formed would change from Dynamic to Static depending on the camera angle despite me not changing the graphics settings. It would also still be visible on the cliff after the fire went out if it was 'Static' when that happened. I know, exhilarating stuff. ;)   Another chat and... Quest Complete!  
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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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Forgiveness Of A Chaos Dwarf

Having completed The Chosen Commander, I was in the mood for more Questing. It had been the last of the series, so since then John A, the developer, has had time to bring the Dwarf series back to life. I remember this series as being amazing and certainly played a key role in forming my love of questing. It certainly wasn't going to be an easy act to follow - I deeply love every one of Mod Vincent's four quests, so there was certainly room to be let down, but having shown how amazing he can make quests, how bad could it be?   I started off checking the Sal's guide to ensure that I had all the items that I'd need. It turns out you need nothing more than combat equipment, so all was good there. It's nice when you aren't constantly running back and forth to pick up new items, so that was a good start.   I headed over and found Veldaban, wondering why the mine cart is on the opposite side of town to where all the quests start, end and so on. There's probably a reason for it, but the last quest came out so long ago that any specifics have been forgotten.   At the end of the conversation, you enter a flyover of the city, woo! The opening of the first quest in the series has been remembered and brought back! :D Oh, you're pointing the camera straight at the ground so all that's happening is you're making me disorientated rather than giving me a nice view of the city that's normally unobtainable.   The next conversation reminds you what sort of character Veldaban is - determined that he'll get his own way even if it'll put him in harm's way. He works had for Keldagrim and you have to adore him for that. The next part was unusual - I can't think of another quest that has a 'major' battle within the first five minutes, so that was different. I'm not sure that I'm a fan of the idea, though, since you expect enemies to get bigger and badder as a quest progresses, so you either get scared that worse is to come or get complacent and bank your food to save inventory space.   You then pick up the slip that is dropped and Veldaban tells you to take it to the Grand Exchange, fine. He then TELLS YOU HOW TO GET TO VARROCK. Seriously, what the heck? There was the stupid comment by Zanik in The Chosen Commander about avoiding the Wall Beasts which I accepted because I'd loved everything else she'd said up to that point, but this. I'm not yet in love with Valdaban as a character, having forgotten anything specific in the age since the previous part in the series, and you show me that he feels I'm totally idiotic. I think this comment ruined the quest for me. :P   The next part, fine. Total sense and bringing the Pub back into the story is good since I have fond memories of the place from the cutscene at the end of Forgettable Tale. The conversation in here is fantastic, with the request for you to fetch him another beer feeling totally natural and fitting with the state he was in.   Back to the Black Guard HQ and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Veldaban didn't appear particularly drunk when in the Pub, but a short walk across town totally changes the way he's acting and the flow stops, with you going 'wtf' at this sudden change rather than feeling concerned that he's going to barge into the Supreme Commander's office drunk. After that conversation, I rushed back upstairs and looked for a "I'm sorry about what he did just then" option and it was, sadly, missing, but beforehand I didn't care what was happening.   You're told to investigate, although you're given no clue at all where to start. Showing the items in the Package to the other NPCs around the HQ provides exactly the same response as Veldaban gave in the Pub. If they're different characters, why don't they say different things? So, you're on your own here with no idea what to do.   Looking back, I can see that the annoying camera angle from the flyover is meant to guide you to where you head at this point, but when doing the quest I didn't. I ended up heading to the big boat in the east to try and find the tower since I'd been so disorientated by where the flyover had gone. That was a recipe for disaster since I have no idea which boat at the entrance heads where and end up picking them at random, running around like a headless chicken until I find myself where I want to be. In the end, I opened the world map and saw where the tower was that way, then looked at the guide on Sal's to work out what to do next.   With the footprints, I would have expected Investigating with the Boot in your inventory to automatically find the path, but no, you've got to manually use the boot with the footprints. I followed the footprints to the end, missing the loop of them around the fire since the lighting means there isn't enough contrast to easily see them and ended up having to look at the guide once again to find out about the fire. The rest was randomly clicking things until it worked.   Onwards and you pass through an empty room, I presume to entice you back after the quest to see what's changed, and to an area with lots of track. Fine, try it out. Yay, free tele back to Veldaban. [/name]Omg it's a follower that runs!!@@@@@@   Sidenote: I don't care that the time 'Graphics' would need to spend making all followers run would be more than a week's worth or something. It's too common an excuse - no Prifddinas, no eastern lands, no running followers because 'Graphics doesn't have time'. A bunch of people were employed to make RSHD happen, so why can't the team be expanded by a few people to stop this repetitive excuse?   EDIT: Looking at the Jagex Vacancies page, it seems like more Modellers and Animators are being looked for, so we can only hope that it'll provide the resources for some of these 'larger' projects to happen. :P   The puzzle then feels well designed, but not remotely 'fun'. It seems to be totally based on educated guessing rather than anything you can do from the start and when you can see you've chosen a wrong turn, there's no "take me back" option until you've spent another 20 seconds reaching the buffer at the end of the line. If you could see the track from above at any point, great, I'd stop complaining, but as it is, there's no way 'random educated guessing' can be considered 'fun'. I took half a dozen attempts before resorting to using the guide. Yes, I would have got there eventually, but it wouldn't have been anything other than totally frustrating.   Bridge, prison, fine. Nothing wrong there. Head into the next room. Nice bit of back-story as you're pulling the lever, followed by another cut-scene. Nothing huge wrong, but turned into a facepalm situation because of what's shown in the below screenshot (taken from the Sal's guide).     You're telling me that it needs Veldaban to SHOUT before we're noticed? Look at us, we're huge and hardly trying to hide ourselves, yet simply keeping our voices down will stop us being noticed? I've a feeling there's a similar situation in one of the earlier quests in the series that it's copied from, but that isn't an excuse for my character to stand in such an obvious position while there are bad guys so close that you could jump on them. I know it would still be fairly obvious, but lying on your belly would be significantly better.   As for the next part, I decided I should head back towards the door we entered from rather than the room Veldaban went into. First Cannoner, dead. Second Cannoner, dead. (each hit a 25+ before I put on Protect from Range) Third Cannoner, dead. Fourth Cannoner, dead. At this point I noticed that for every one I killed, another one spawned, so decided to head into the room with Veldaban and have another chat.   I like the 'puzzle' in this room and if I hadn't thought the mine cart thing was so stupid, I would have had the chance to enjoy it. Climbing into the mine carts to escape, for some reason my one sped up, while Veldaban's went at a constantly slow speed, meaning it took several seconds at the other end before he arrived. Another small thing, but the bridge that I'd carefully lowered was now in a raised position. Maybe a Chaos Dwarf had got out and raised it, but I'd seen nothing head through into this area, so it made no sense and felt more buggy than anything.   The final cut-scene in the quest was text-heavy and when Veldaban did decide to resign, somebody had created what I presume was a great animation to demonstrate it. Unfortunately, all that there was to hint that I should look away from the textbox was a blank box and by the time I'd looked up, the animation was pretty much over.   I think this is a key problem with cut-scenes. If you have the NPCs say each line above their heads so you're watching them (it was standard a couple of years back iirc), the text is too slow and you sit there twiddling your thumbs. If, however, you allow the individual to click through the text at a speed that suits them, you miss most of the animation, only noticing that NPC who's desperate for the toilet.   Then it ended after about 40 or 50 minutes of questing. I was deeply disappointed. Fine, there may be a Dragon Pickaxe implemented with the reward and the xp pushed me into 78 Hunter, but when the quest itself has so many clear problems, I'm sad.     I've said for ages that RotRA was my favourite quest series. Maybe it's been so long since the last installation that I've forgotten anything about it. Maybe it was a total lack of humour. Maybe John A is simply better suited to making serious quests and this series simply isn't right for him. I don't know.   Yes, the conversations are fantastically written, when you can get to them, but the rest of it... Disappointing. :P   [name=within-the-light]My next quest will probably be Within the Light, simply to see whether it is possible for a new developer to bring a great quest series back after a long time without huge disappointment.
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The Chosen Commander

Having been away from the game for a while, 11 quests have been released that I've missed out on writing the guides for, so questing is something is clearly something I want to spend time doing. Out of these 11, I chose to do The Chosen Commander first simply because it was the first one I missed out on (and was #150).   Dorgesh-Kaan is somewhere that I'm totally unable to find my way around, so rather than opening a quest guide, I opened up my Full World Map and enabled the Dorgesh-Kaan map. Anything to help me find my way around this jumble of a city would be a good thing. I also took out my questing gear (Black DHide, Whip, Chompy Hat, Boots of Lightness, 10k gp, 20 Teleports to various places, a couple of pieces of food) from the bank to help me with whatever may come. I also took a look at the guide to see what items would be required and also withdrew a Bullseye Lantern and Tinderbox.   I made my way to Dorgesh-Kaan and saw the Quest symbol, so that wasn't a problem. What was a problem was the first part of the quest - working out the poisoned food. Normally, I'd have a pen and pad of paper with me to write down every little thing that happens for when writing up a guide. This time I had neither, so had to use my memory to work out what foods were eaten inside and out, then use this wrong information to chat with people in the market. In the end I falsely accused three merchants and had to pay out 15,000gp before deciding that it would be better to do it properly. Having done this, I found the correct person first try.   Although I know you shouldn't need to get onto it, the conversation to pay the 5000gp compensation is badly designed in that it ends abruptly part way through even if you have the required cash in your inventory rather than giving you the option to simply pay it.   The fight, no problem - it's a level 50 foe and I'm slightly higher than that... then Zanik appeared. :o I know it should have been expected, but it was a shock none-the-less. The screen fades into the Bandos Throne Room and the only character you can see is Zanik, who says something. Then it stops. AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!! The internet connection has decided to die in the MIDDLE OF A CUTSCENE and chances are there's going to be no way to re-watch it. AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!! *insert 30 second pause* Erm, there's no 'Connection lost, attempting to reestablish' message in the top-corner, I must be missing something. *click* Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. *wipes sweat from forehead*   As amazing an idea as it is to control another NPC, it really needs to be clearer that it's happening.   That problem solved, I bounce around and learned of what had happened to Zanik via a fantastic mechanic that could so easily have been turned into a cutscene, so kudos to whoever came up with the idea.   Coming back from the Throne Room, I managed to get lost en-route to the council (told you I'm unable to find my way around), then found my way down to the Agility course where Zanik was. A tear formed in the corner of my eye while having this conversation, which only grew as she was banished from the city. :'(   The next conversation with Captain Undak totally threw me out of the world and reminded me that I was, in fact, playing a game. Rather than heading through conversations quickly, I'll deliberately choose every other option possible to gain as much information as possible to find out more about what's happening. In this case, I was deeply saddened by what had happened to Zanik, so clearly chose the 'Sorry, I'm not going to help you' option, which your in-game character says with an angry face, before the conversation stops. Talking to Undak again, he totally ignores the fact that you've just said you hate him and carries on regardless. I know it's simply a game, but how hard would it be to add a single sentence to show that he's heard what you've said. [/name]NPCs are so damn heartless and need to care more for the adventurer that does every little task for them. ACCEPT THAT I HAVE FEELINGS FOR ONCE, YOU JERK. :/   Once my rage had subdued slightly I took my H.A.M. Robes back from him and headed to their HQ. Talking with Johanhus wasn't a simple task - if you choose anything other than the 'continue the quest' option, any choices that you need to say to continue the quest disappear until you start the conversation again. Why?   By this point, I'd lost pretty much all the sympathy that I had towards Zanik due to a couple of small elements being missed by whoever tested this (and haven't been fixed if they've been reported as bugs by anybody else in the however many months since release).   Off to Ardougne. Yay, I'd brought the tele runes with me, so no banking was needed. Into the base and there's Sigmund who I instinctively talk to, instantly being thrown out, ending up in a field. I quickly work out where I am and, once I'd located a gate, made my way back to the base. Heading through the double doors and into the other half of the base, I chat with the Guard who's paranoid about Imps, before working out how to unlock the locked doors. Chat with the other guard, fail to find the rota on the wall (see my note about not placing things right next to where you're told about them here) and eventually make my way into the cell.   It them took half a dozen attempts to get Grubfoot across the corridor without being spotted, so I looked at the Sal's guide to help me with the rest, which I still failed with by heading out the wrong door into the 'crate maze'. :D   Once I'd made my way out with Grubfoot, the battle was bound to be fairly easy even without Prayer since my DHide and Whip were still sitting in my inventory... then Zanik started fighting me. I'd been expecting it, having read on slightly in the guide, but the conversations you can have with 'her' when her health regerates are just as well written as those earlier in the quest, bringing me back into what's happening. What is her purpose? Why has this happened? Who is Bandos? When it comes to the 'omg take off the pendant' option, if you click through too many of the other conversations, she'll regen and the same thing will appear a second time, but it fits with the story, so not a problem.   The next bit with the earthquake was simply mean. The range of emotions I felt towards Zanik, trapped there on the other side of the chasm, were crazy and I'm not sure if you're supposed to feel so emotional about another character like this. I'd a feeling I'd heard that Zanik was going to die during the quest, so that didn't help things, but really, this part of the quest was hard to cope with and I'm really not an emotional person.   Wandering back to Dorgesh-Kaan, the chat with Juna was wonderfully written and something special, although the comment by Zanik about avoiding the Wall Beasts (why would you go anywhere near them? :P) made me want to shout "yes, I know the way to your stupid city" at her. I'm not stupid.   [name=bouncy-council-member]The next cut-scene with the council was... odd. As usual, I was focused on reading the text, but there was one thing moving - one of the council members nearest to the camera was bouncing up and down in their chair in a really annoying manner. If you're desperate to go to the toilet, then please go rather than being an annoyance to the rest of us in this room when we're discussing the future of the city. Thanks. :)   I made fetching the items harder than it should have been due to be poor navigation around the city. When I needed to head to the Agility Course, I headed to the Mines and when I wanted to head to the Mines, I headed to the Agility Course, despite the instructions given by NPCs about where others were location. It meant a lot of unwanted running around that was all self-induced.   The final fight was made significantly more scary because the Bandos Avatar was attacking Zanik rather than myself, meaning there was a battle against time to kill the Orks before the Avatar killed Zanik. I reached the third Ork and Zanik was on about half health, fine... but next thing I knew, she was laying on the floor dead. I've a feeling some chat flashed up, but since I was under attack, it disappeared instantly (needs fixing). With the Ork still attacking me, I tried to talk to Zanik, but couldn't because I was under attack, so had to kill it and then the Avatar.   The conversation with the Avatar was hard because I both wanted to talk with Zanik so urgently, but didn't want to miss out on any of the hidden lore within its words, so it felt longer than it was. Eventually, I decided to shoot the crossbow at it, then pick up the Pendant it dropped before rushing to Zanik's side and sitting next to her. Thankfully, my worst fears weren't true and she was still alive! :P   Back to Dorgesh-Kaan and there was a speech to end the Quest which I didn't feel was quite as good as the one Zanik gave in the council meeting.   Overall, it's a fantastic quest with some amazing writing which should not, under any circumstances, be completed by simply following a guide. It is, however, let down by a couple of small points which totally ruin the flow of the quest and stop it being the epic that it should be, but less than a day of additional dev time would fix pretty much all of these problems.   Perfect? No. Pretty darn amazing? Hell, yes! :P
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