Search the Community

Zach and I stood fishing on the shores of Port Sarim, rushing our catch to the range at Rimmington. A few yards away, Tabt raised her combat level on over-sized rats. Miles away in Falador and Varrock, MFI and Low-Ki were busily fighting for mining spots. Their ores were smelted into armour for us all. Someone died halfway across the world. Helm Larder called out in dismay, "I can't get to you! It's hard when you can't get anywhere much in two minutes." It was a sentiment echoed throughout Canting Away. But it wasn't enough to dent the bonhomie. The good-natured reply came back, "It's ok. I didn't lose anything much." Sour notes couldn't last long, when everyone was having so much fun. Adjustments in our reason to be were happening hourly, generally to shrieks of delight. Respirte was doing us proud. Each time he logged off he moved to the top of mining. The number one miner in the whole of 2007 Runescape - a Canting man! But then someone else would log off and the registered XP would knock him off his perch again. He'd mine more ore and the great dance went on. Meanwhile Warlock, Kicker and Alex were putting themselves through the toughest challenges. They were completing quests like Galadriel's Amulet, charging past bosses with little in the way of combat levels. Laughter, cheers of triumph and smug victory awaited. They emerged as high leveled players at just level 24 combat. Plus Warlock had another mission, which he'd vowed to accomplish. He needed the combat levels to get through Paterdomus - to complete Priest in Peril - because on the other side of that dreadful river is Canifis. And in Canifis, there is a shop. And in that shop, there is a hat. There was a prize of freshly caught cooked shrimp for the first person to reunite me with my hat. But that was all in the future. First there was this. The utter freaking delight of that music, that screen, those flaming torches and the old, old interface. I was bouncing in my seat here, thrilled to bits and mistyping what came next in my bid to be inside. I made it in eventually and gleefully skipped towards the first tutor on Tutorial Island. I remembered this back then, and how long it took me to walk out how to range a rat. The past was superimposed upon the present; and it was wonderful. I had to restrain myself from giggling, 'I know!', as the cooking tutor told me how to make a loaf of bread. I wanted to hug the blissfully unaware mining and smithing tutor, as he reeled off his speil about furnaces and ores. They were ghosts and I was amongst them. They were living reincarnations of something thought lost forever. An historian's dream to be there, moving amongst them, interacting with the past. There were so many people there! Even from Tutorial Island, you knew that the worlds would be vibrant and full. We couldn't talk on there, except with the tutors, but out in Gielinor we would. There the happiness was given expression in the constant exclaimations, as each old familiar sight was viewed once more. Oh! Lumbridge! I could log onto 2013 and walk along its beautifully rendered, high graphics streets, but I still missed it. This was the Lumbridge which I wished to see. MFI called it correctly. He said that 2007 looked like something a third year university student knocked up in his bedroom; and that was brilliant. Yes! That is precisely it! There is a friendliness to the 2007 graphics, which couldn't be carried into the high polish of 2013. It felt like something we were all in together. I danced on the streets of Lumbridge. I leapt for joy alongside the castle walls. I followed the fence off into Draynor, because that's what I did back then! Only then it was so I wouldn't lose my way. The fence led back to Lumbridge, where it was safe. As for the rest of Gielnor, here there be dragons. I followed the fence now because I was chasing nostalgia, not because I didn't know my way. Warlock had already diverted the old Canting crowd into the original clan chat. They were all there waiting, like the party had never been over, like the chairs had never been stacked against the wall and the lights switched off. And when Zach logged on, I admit that there were tears in my eyes. Something lost came back. After the horrible losses of the last few years - in a much wider scope than Runescape - the universe handed something back. Perhaps it's not too hyperbolic to call it a balm to the soul right now, at least for me; and, judging by the happy calls all around, for others too. When I think of 2007 now, I forget the long hours spent working off a year long redundancy notice at the university; the pain of a sprained knee is finally receding in my memory, along with the mud of that year's Glastonbury Festival. Instead I remember Runescape, during the year that I found it, and all that's wrapped up in recollections of selling rings of life in Edgeville Bank. Low-Ki humouring me through a nostalga kick reconstruction. The beauty in walking through Gielinor, or fishing, wood-cutting, fighting, coooking, mining, smithing and questing, was not only in the sense that we can somehow go back in time and do it all again. It was in witnessing everyone else feeling the same. Like sins, time and trauma could be washed away in a virtual time machine. Every time another Canting person joined us and went 'wow', I grinned that little harder. Doing the quests too took on a new gleaming layer of delight. The first time I ventured into the Stronghold of Security, it was with decent enough stats, but alone. This time, it was with Tabt, MFI and Low-Ki, with hardly a stat to rub between us. But Low-Ki and MFI had made our armour; MFI had plotted our course; Tabt had trained the combat to lead us through; and me... well.. it was combat, so I was as useless as ever. I provided the confusion, the screams and the extra challenge for the rest of them in keeping me safe. Completing it was almost as satisfying as getting through a decent grandmaster quest in the main game. It was certainly much more fun! This was gaming at its finest. No-one standing on street corners yelling out gold farming URLs. No-one yet being nasty to froobs and noobs (because we all WERE froobs and noobs). The worst kind of PKers not yet strong enough to enact an effective lure of the innocent. The best sort of PKers already realizing in ecstasy that they can now repeat all of the old tactics, the death dot and more. People helped one another in Gielnor last night. Strangers joined in quests. The original taxis between the towns moved in snaking congo lines along the byways. Even the competition was friendly. As Respirte mined his way to number one, his main competitor joined Canting too. They were chatting amongst us, even as their pixel pick-axes strove to strike the other from the head of the hiscores. And as for Warlock, he got his combat levels. He did his quest. He brought me flowers and collected enough gp to make a purchase on my behalf. Once, back in the day, I'd stepped into the Wild wearing my first hat; and I'd lost it. Warlock swore then that I would never be without my hat in Runescape for as long as he was still playing. He bought me ten hats to stick in my bank to replace that one which was lost. But 2007 made it so much harder to fulfill that oath. In truth my offer of a prize of shrimp was half in jest. I didn't think anyone would actually put themselves through the rigors necessary to claim it. Until one did. Warlock went to Canifis and he brought back my hat. And another as a place-holder for my bank. What can I say to something like that? Other than thank you and here's fifty caught and cooked shrimp. But what do I mean by that? I mean that I'm back so long as this is included in the price of the main game. Right now, it's pretty much free, because a vote gives you your first month free of charge. In short, voting now means that you don't have to pay for a single month of gameplay, in the main game or 2007. Fiscal sense, really; as the money that you do spend pays for the second month. I'm struggling to make ends meet IRL. I haven't got the extra $15 nor $5 to spend on any game. I could just about meet the normal membership rate. That will take 500k votes on the poll. It's currently at 323k. If we don't meet that, then I'll milk the experiences of having 2007 back for all its worth during the next month, then try to gracefully bow out. It's the graceful part which will take the effort. The rest gives me no choice. I also want F2P in 2007. It's not the same without them, though Jagex's anti-F2P stance of the past few years is going to make this a Herculean effort. I wish I had money enough to buy them all membership, but I'm more likely to be joining them. The world isn't fair and not everyone has the same recourse to funding. There are parents out there who have a choice between feeding their kid or buying a Runescape game-card. Which parent in the world wouldn't opt for the bread on the table? It will take 750k votes to extend a hand to our F2P friends. I'm not at all confident that will happen. Even if we got 500k, then it would take an extra 250k people to want to be that kind. The push will be for 500k and then it'll fizzle out. As a society, we've never been that brilliant at reaching out to lift up the poor. Finally, I would have the clan chats interlinked, so 2007 can talk with 2013. Tanya came in yesterday, bitterly disappointed because hardly anyone was in Canting. Well, we were, but in the old style one. There it was vibrant and bursting at the seams. But back in 2013, there were just three individuals - Tanya, a refugee from Sal's and a third whom many suspect may be a bot. This divide and conquer may be one blow too many for those loyal players who prefer the 2013 model. Link them up, so that the clans may talk across the ages. As for right now, Warlock fetched my hat. It would be rude not to wear it.

Anybody in Canting not visited the citadel yet this week? We're still at 19 visitors, around 3 hours away from the build tick.

I've just received a message from MsClick. We need just four more people to pass through the doors of the citadel before the reset, in order to upgrade. The work is done. It's just a head count now. Run! Run! Please run! There's a loom upgrade resting on this! *blows kisses into the wake of Canters* Thanks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvctD6-8M54 Thank you very much for recording it, Lightarrow88!

Canting Away met Sal's Realm of Runescape in Soul Wars today. Naturally Canting emerged victorious! Thank you very much for those players on both sides, who came to join in. I do love my clan! I love the healthy mix of terrifying fighters and laid-back skillers, which lead to comments like these: I'm soooo ferocious that I will hold my meetings in the cooking guild and delay preparing for the fight, because I'm too busy cooking sardines after strange stones! Rawr! All skilling done, it was off to Soul Wars in world 71. Plenty of people were milling about the place, which made me nervous. I thought they were all Sal's people. Unfortunately, it turned out that they were random skillers using the one click bank. While a dozen Canters amassed, there were only two or three members of Sal's Realm there! Canting Away ready to take on the hordes of Sal's, but... Yes, Helm, we soooo can have that on the record! In the end, Luftwaffe swapped sides, just so we could get this party moving. So yes, a Canting member was over there! Later on, it transpired that some other strangers were there too. They weren't anything to do with Canting. I can only surmise that they had been in the Soul Wars lobby and just joined in. Apparently they were trolling Sal's members. If that had been someone from Canting, then I'd have have Stern Words. The only true Canter fighting for Sal's was Luftwaffe and he did attack us. I know because the git nearly killed me once! It was a fun fight in Soul Wars. For a while it seems that Sal's were going to win. They had our avatar down to 24%. I went on Operation Collect Bones and managed to knock the slayer level up to 95. That 24% didn't get any lower after that. Meanwhile, our lot were fighting all over the world. I've never seen the areas change hands so often. Finally Oldmaroon ran by telling me to get to their avatar. It was nearly dead! I legged it all the way there, only to be viciously slaughtered by MFI and Sellador within sniffing distance of the avatar. ;_; It was no matter though, because the rest of Canting was up there and the Sal's avatar was finally dead. Woot! We managed to keep it like that until the end. Canting 1 - Sal's 0! Canting immediately rushed back into the blue waiting area, only to discover half of Sal's in there with us. LOL It soon became obvious that a rematch wasn't going to happen. With the reputation of Sal's Realm trampled firmly into that accursed soil, we relocated to Fight Pits. Being one on one, I only lasted to the final two or three because I wasn't much of a challenge to kill (and I hid a lot). I did manage to win one Fight Pits round! Though to be fair, there was only Warlock left and he 'accidentally' took off all of his armour, recalled his familiar and forgot to hit me back. He even tipped me off that I was using the wrong prayer. -.- But who cares?! I won Fight Pits! Once again, thank you all who came to defend the honour of our respective clans. That was a lot of fun! And a particular thanks to Sellador (for Sal's) and Warlock (for Canting), who organized it all.

The subject of luring has been a hot topic recently in Canting Away. But are we all talking about the same thing? Our clan was targeted by people (or person, on multiple accounts, as some suspect), who sought to take advantage of the famous generosity of Canting members. Alongside inconsistencies in stories, or retelling the same one in private with several different people, it soon became clear what was happening. The guilty party was immediately banned, but the sense of betrayal remained. It's hardly surprising, therefore, that some Canters are vigilantly watching new members, in case it's the same scammer returned. I've been approached with a request to ban all item loaning and present giving within our clan. I've resisted, because that's not Canting's way. We've survived since 2007 with the minimum of rules (and those largely matters of IRL protection and in-game equality). The family that we've built has been forged around genuine friendship, compassion and kindness. It would be a shame to even attempt to smack a sledgehammer response down over there, just because of one bad egg. Especially since that person was only in the clan for a week. But that isn't all. These conversations have been using the word 'luring' a lot. The trouble is that no-one has defined what that means within the context. Luring can be a clever PKing strategy, which even I can respect. Or it can be a heinous PKing abuse, which I most certainly do not. Let me give examples of these two things. Imagine for a moment that Cossack says to Gri3f that he wants to fight him in the Wilderness. They should both bring their best fighting outfits, with spiky bits everywhere, and as much food and potions as they wish to take. Gri3f says, 'Kk!', gets changed and rushes off to the ditch. Coss follows him, but at the 11th hour doesn't jump the ditch. Gri3f does and finds, to his horror, that Warlock and I are waiting with runes and arrows at the ready. Warlock binds him. I shoot arrows at him. Gri3f dies in a screaming fit of pixels and we all share his Bandos and rocktails between us. Coss would have lured him, but this is fine, because Gri3f is a pwnage PKer and he knew precisely what he was getting into. He was fully aware of the (no) rules of the Wilderness and how to defend himself in it. It would have been his own stupidity that got him killed. (And also the fact that this little scenario is pure fantasy, as Gri3f could PK the crap out of the three of us put together; and there's no way I'd even be in the Wilderness to be shooting arrows.) My feeling is that PKing is fine for those who want to do it. The story above told sounds to me like PKing strategy. I don't like it, but then again, I don't like PKing. That's no reason for me to want other people to abstain from it. The strength of Canting is that we each do our own thing. This gives us a lot of great in-game expertise to fall back on. Take the Sal's clan wars at Xmas. We'd have been in trouble if Gri3f hadn't been there to help us. To me, luring is when someone who doesn't know the dangers is being taken where (s)he can be PKed. In my scenario, Gri3f knew from the outset that he was crossing into the Wildy for a PKing session. He knew what the Wildy is. At least that's how I would read it. But then you get the other sort of luring. When I was a mithril noob, being told to pull the Ardy lever because it takes me somewhere good, I didn't know what the Wilderness was. I had no idea what PKing was. I was told in advance that it wasn't dangerous on the other side of that lever. That is luring in its worst form; and that is what I'd not like to see in Canting. What happened to us, with regards the scamming individual, is being called luring, but is it that? It was malicious greed, but it had nothing to do with PKing. For the sake of Canting's PKers, I think we should be clarifying exactly what we're trying to say here. <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3 I now want to hand over to Warlock. As a member of Canting practically since its inception, he knows well the ethos there. He's also long been a general of the clan, which is a decision that I have never regretted. He is very used to overseeing queries and complaints, though we get few enough of those in such a laid-back clan as Canting Away. Moreover, he has experience of PKing itself. Personally I think what he has to say is very valuable here. Consider him a guest blogger hereon. Warlock's Take on Canting and Luring Firstly, I'm not entirely certain that I agree with some Canters' view of lurers, While I don't necessarily approve of them, and they try to take advantage of less experienced players by playing off their lack of knowledge and potential greed, there are fundamental differences. In the vast majority of cases, lures depend on the player being lured entering the Wilderness (or dangerous Clan Wars arena), despite the multiple warning by Jagex that other players can (and, most likely, will) attack them, and not to bring anything at all that they are not prepared to lose. This step is always made by the player being lured, it is always their choice to take the metaphorical 'leap of faith', as it were; it is extremely difficult to be lured if you listen to the warnings, since starting RuneScape in 2004, I have not once fallen victim to a lure, almost solely because I've read the warnings presented to me. and not given other players I've just met the opportunity to do so. While I'm not necessarily supporting luring, I see it as little different from any other form of PKing, if I were to go to the Mage Arena in level 52 Wilderness to get my God cape back, I wouldn't expect people not to attack me on the way merely because my aim was not to fight with them, the Wilderness is supposed to provide a balance of risk vs. reward, and lurers will almost always use the allure of a massive reward, the player being lured being the one to decide themselves that the risk is worth it. We have to consider both how banned lurers might react (potentially launching a 'luring vendetta' against Canting members as a form of vengeance?) as well as what any judgement might mean to the message Canting is sending out to other members. If we condemn lurers, do we also condemn RC PKers? What about people who PK KBD killers or Green Dragon hunters? The list goes on. Ultimately, the line between luring and other forms of PKing is often so thin, distinguishing between them in order to condemn luring often tends to a highly controversial and hypocritical rule being passed. I am aware that Merch Gwyar is not a great fan of PKing, but I'd like to think that even she sees that PKing has its place, and while being killed is often frustrating at best, it is a vital part of the game, and something many players enjoy greatly, training skills or even boss hunting merely doesn't provide the same thrill as PKing, nothing in RuneScape has a higher risk and, potentially, higher reward. This having been said, I would strongly recommend not taking disciplinary action against luring Canters, mostly because of the effect it could have on Canting's prosperity and growth as a clan, as well as the open and inviting atmosphere we intend to provide, rather than unfounded hostility against those who choose to partake in a perfectly legitimate aspect of the game. It may be worth reminding you that dicing, while also viewed as an atrocity by many people, was something that (a Canting member*) often partook in after his return, and, in my personal opinion, although I am evidently guilty of much bias, I still believe he's one of the greatest members Canting has ever had the privilege to have. I completely agree with Merch's feelings about diversity within the clan and it keeping us strong. I think what has kept me with Canting for so long is just that, there are no forced requirements, people are pretty much free to do as they please within the rules of the game, joining Canting doesn't mean you have to change your playing style at all if you don't want to, and I love that about it. It was for these reasons that, admittedly, I was initially skeptical about Canting becoming an official clan when the system was first released. I honestly thought that the lack of clan-like structure would cause massive problems within our ranks and that we should have stayed as a friend's chat. Since then, however, watching Canting develop as a clan has changed my mind. While, in the first few months, I still feared the structural differences from the conventional clan system would prove to be detrimental, having seen the bonds of friendship between our members tried and tested by updates alienating F2Pers or those who dislike skilling such as citadels, I'm confident that the right choice was made. Canting has grown in a way even I could never have imagined, it's no longer just a group of friends chatting, yet it's unlike any clan I've ever witnessed as well; in my mind, at least, it's become more of an international community than anything else, even stretching outside the boundaries of the virtual world with the meetup last year. While my rambling has deviated somewhat away from the issue of villanising luring, the underlying principle is interlinked. The diversity and accepting nature of our community is one of our greatest strengths, and to take that away would be little short of criminal. * Redacted by Merch Gwyar, as I didn't know if had that member's permission to include his name. ;)