The Chronicles of Runescape

The holidays haven't even arrived yet and the exams aren't even over but I've already made plans to get to Lvl 90 Farming. I should be able to get it in about 12-13 days. I'm speeding it up by planting all 6 of my Spirit Trees (now 4). The Farmer payment for the trees are taking up quite a bit of bank space, but I should be able to hold out until I've planted the last one.

Two of my other "scheduled lvl 90+ stats" are also doing quite well. I'm just inches away from lvl 90 for Strength and I mananged to reach lvl 88 for Woodcutting today, which raised my total lvl to 1700.


Stuff achieved today: Lvl 88 Woodcutting (Total Lvl 1700)

Posted by Timothy Gold at 10:35 PM | Permalink

The Exams started today, which is why I haven't been posting a lot lately. But hey, the questions were very easy, and I came back early from school today in a pretty good mood.

Too good in fact, I think I may be starting to let my guard down. Immediately after lunch, I ended up playing for 5 hours straight instead of studying! I would have stopped much earlier if it wasn't for this new guy in my clan named Silpheroam. Because we've never actually talked, he introduced himself to me, and we soon began having a casual conversation. I found him to be a very interesting person. It turns out he's your typical family guy and works as an accountant. he used to work in the military though, and often travelled before finally settling down in the US.

We later met up in Ardougne and Silph showed me a few "tricks" in the game. Techinically, those "tricks" were actually bugs and he taught me how to exploit them. While it may seem like cheating, these bugs do not really give players an advantage over others, so yeah, I should be fine. Besides, I've seen my friend, Gaffa, pull it off several times in the Fishing Guild. It was crowded there and although he had supposedly broke a rule, he wasn't banned.

We pretty much spent the whole afternoon (or in his case, night) together. Despite me playing over a year longer than he has, Silph definitely had a lot to teach me. The thought of him knowing stuff about Runescape that I am not aware of is really intimidating, yet he definitely attracted my curiosity. Yes, Silph's a very interesting fellow, I really should make an extra effort to get to know more about him.

Oh, and before I forget... Jagex has finally released all the updates for the month. It's heartening to know that they still bother to consistently create quality updates in spite of their busy-ness.


The three combat instructors released to help new players.

These are the updates which were released:

1. Upgraded sound effects
2. More NPCs to help new players
3. A new spell which enables the user to teleport back to Lumbridge without using any runes
4. A brand new interface
5. The monthly "Post Bag From the Hedge" Issue


The new "rune-less" spell, Lumbridge Home Port


Stuff achieved today: Gained 100k+ Woodcutting exp

Posted by Timothy Gold at 9:05 PM | Permalink

This is supposed to be a post for Saturday, the 23rd of September. I kinda posted it a few minutes too late...

Okay it's the weekend again, and since I was away for the whole morning, I played like crazy when I came back home. Holidays from school still should be enjoyed even though the exams are around the corner.

Anyway, things ran quite smoothly for me. The forums were nice and crowded so I managed to make a few trades. But instead of waiting around the Seers Bank all the day for traders, I decided to have a little fun and head to the Castle Wars arena. I played two games and went back to chopping Maple logs after that...


The Rogues Castle, an area found in the deep wilderness.

...And then came the highlight of the day, I decided to go hunt down the Chaos Elemental and take a few screenshots of it. My previous attempt long ago failed thanks to the pkers which killed me while I was looking for the monster. I didn't lose anything valuable, but that was enough to make me call off the trip.

So now here I am, taking up this suicidal adventure once more. I grabbed over 20 Lobsters, a Rune scimitar, and pulled the wilderness lever in Ardougne. Within moments, I was teleported to the wilderness and began making my way to the Chaos Elemental. I explored a couple of new areas which include the Scorpion Pit and the Rogues Castle for the first time. Finally while I was walking along one of the sides of the castle, I heard this weird sound.


Ouch!

For a moment there, I thought I was being attacked by a Mage pker, but since there were no white dots in my mini-map, I calmed down and assumed that the sound was just part of the music playing. But just barely a few seconds later, I saw this small rainbow-coloured sparkle ram into my character and do over 20+ damage to me. I panicked and ran as more of those deadly magical spells were fired onto me. It was the third hit when I finally realised that I was being ambushed by the Chaos Elemental. What else could have the ability to cast such a unqiue, strong spell?


Behold! The Chaos Elemental!

Once I was no longer within its firing range, I ate a couple of lobsters and charged back, ready to meet my foe face to face. And there it was! A mass of purple clouds with several tentacles protruding out of them. I had found the Chaos Elemental (or it had found me, rather)! As it dealt servere damage to my character once more, I kept on pressing the F12 button, determined to get a good screenshot. It used an array of attacks on me, including the well known one which kept teleporting me away from the creature so that it can kill me from afar.


The killing blow

I soon ran out of food and died. I lost nothing but after checking my "Not Edited" folder, I found that I had obtained quite a few good pictures of the monster. And here are a few of the best, all over this post!


Stuff achieved today: Took a few screenshots of the Chaos Elemental

Posted by Timothy Gold at 12:24 AM | Permalink

Finally, Sir Tiffy has decided to give me a promotion.

The Slug Menace quest was quite short, definitely did not prove as much of a challenge as the other quest released this month, Darkness of Hallowvale. Still, it was pretty fun. My only regret is that this is the last quest for the rest of September.


This is me kicking ass before I was forced to flee.

This quest complicated things further in the Sea Slug storyline. During the quest, my character unwittingly released the queen of those evil mind-controlling slugs. It was those folks at Witchaven who tricked me (they were being controlled bythe slugs). I was able to kill the prince, although in the end, I had to safely teleport away from the queen and will probably have to deal with her in part 3 of this series of quests.


The green slime is the remains of the slug prince. That ugly
looking thing on the right is the slug queen, Mother Mallum.

What really bothered me was my character's tendency to be manipulated by some of the NPC's. It's happened so many times! All those blunders... How can my character be so gullible? Ah well, if I'm luck, Jagex will make seem more intelligent in the next quest.


I crafted these special runes and
used them to unlock the wall
which was imprisoning the slug
queen.

Stuff achieved today: Completed the Slug Menace quest

Posted by Timothy Gold at 9:01 PM | Permalink

Managed to lvl my Farming a day earlier than I thought (I reached 89 yesterday). Trees give massive exp, I really should try growing those Spirit Trees I have in the bank. I really want to speed up my next lvl 90 stat.

To add to the brilliance of this wonderful achievement, a new quest, Slug Menace was released today. It's the continuation of the Sea Slug quest, which has been around for quite some time now. It's about time Jagex did something about that old cliffhanger. The Jagex staff have also linked this quest up with the Temple Knights, so in a way, it is also a continuation of another series of quests.


I entered a dungeon just West of Witchhaven, found several of
these Giant Lobsters there.

I've done the first few bits of it and just like all of Jagex's previously released quests, I felt that it was pretty good. No signs of a "boss" monster yet, and there aren't any cutscenes so far, but I'm really sure that things will get more interesting towards the end.


A strange wall with ancient Rune markings on it. This is the
part of the quest which I'm stuck at.


Stuff achieved today: Nothing much

Posted by Timothy Gold at 8:05 PM | Permalink

Already Monday, but still no update. The Jagex staff have explained the reason for the delay saying that they are currently upgrading Runescript, which is some sort of scripting language the game runs on. They've promised that all the updates mentioned in the "Behind The Scenes" announcement will pop out by this month.

It's rather nice of them to continue working on the gaming areas of the game, even though maintenance is already keeping their hands full. The complaints from various players must also have been driving them nuts... Wow, I really pity them, yet I am also impressed. I don't see this kind of commitment from the employees of other online games.

Well for now, I can only hope that the updates won't distract me too much when they are released. Farming and the occasional time spent on other stats, is all I can manage at the moment. Speaking of which, I'm really pleased to announce that I should reach Level 89 Farming by this Wednesday. Definitely sooner than I thought, especially since I have yet to grow the four Spirit Tree saplings in my bank (alright, I'm taking back what I said about them being super rare). Hehe, level 90 stat is just inching closer everyday, it'll only be a matter of time before I reach it.


Stuff achieved today: Gained a whole lot of Farming exp, Reached 70 Million Total exp

Posted by Timothy Gold at 9:23 PM | Permalink

Ah goody, Saturday, my favourite day of the week. I had quite a bit of free time today, and decided to work on my combat stats, so it was off to the Void Knight base for training.

The first few games were really good. Surprisingly, world 42, which was empty at the time, had quite a few players at the base, and a majority of them were over lvl 110. It was amazing seeing nothing but red whenever I right clicked a bunch of them. They were probably in a clan, and I was really lucky to have stumbled upon them.


You see those two guys with Fire capes in the background? They
are the members of the clan I was talking about.

I played around 15-20 games of Pest Control, and exchanged the points (including the 88 points I had gathered much earlier) for Ranging exp. And just like that, the stat jumped from lvl 60 to 63. It was amazing, it's proven to be the most effective method to raise my nooby Ranging. It's been stuck at the bottom since I started playing Runescape.


1214 hits dealt! A
new record!

Oh and before I forget to mention... A new game update has yet to be released. Not complaining or anything, but such a hold up is quite unusual. Right now, Jagex can only pray that the less understanding players won't whine too much because of this trivial matter.


Stuff achieved today: Lvl 63 Ranging

Posted by Timothy Gold at 6:24 PM | Permalink

A couple of days have passed, and my Runescape activity restriction is still going strong. It's not too bad I guess. Boredom's not really getting to me, but the frustration of gaining little exp is very anoying.

Speaking of which, due to my inactivity, I'll have much less to talk about since all I'll be doing right now is Farm and occasionally handle trades. So chances are that I'll be posting less frequently for the next 3 weeks or so. Don't worry though, I'll work on previous posts; reviewing and editing them if any mistakes are found, adding more screenshots, and I might even decide to find a new site skin for the blog.



To my relief, no game update has been released yet to tempt me into over-playing once more, which is kind of odd since it's already Thursday, and updates normally pop out on Mondays and Tuesdays. I can only hope that I'll be able to control myself when it is finally released, but for now, it shouldn't be too much of a problem.


Stuff achieved today: Nothing much

Posted by Timothy Gold at 4:00 PM | Permalink

Under the pressure of the upcoming final year exams, crazy teachers running after my several school assignments, and a pair of serverely disappointed bitchy parents, my Runescape activity, as of today, has and will be drastically reduced.

I'm not too pleased with this decision, but the fact is, I've got to get my priorities straight. It still seems depressing not playing for so long, and watching my character wither away as each day passes. I mean, there are thousands of other people out there consistently training their stats, getting pass my own while I am busily studying in real life. So it won't be "status quo" if I suddenly stop playing so actively, I'll end up regressing! My character's rank in all stats in the highscores will begin to slide.

But hey, my studies are all that matters now, and I feel that devoting more of my time to them is far more important. Besides, I'm confident that I'll own everyone in class in the end. Ever since I can remember, I never did any "consistent studying". Yet, I still did pretty well, I even remember coming in second in class once. If I actually decide put *some* effort in, imagine where that can get me.



Well this has been a difficult day, and I can only expect more of this shit for the next few weeks. But nevermind... I'll somehow survive like I always do.


Stuff achieved today: Nothing much (expect more of these for the rest of September!)

Posted by Timothy Gold at 9:07 PM | Permalink

It's Saturday, only one day left till school starts and I still have loads of homework to do. I have this essay to write, and I really couldn't think of much except for some cheesy topics to write about. So I decided to get some help. A trip to one of threads in the RS "Story" forums, and there it was, an essay which I could "borrow". Lol it's just wonderful how a computer game can help with my homework.

The forums are amazing. They've helped me so much. Whenever I'm short of Ranarr Seeds, the forums will get me traders. Whenever I want to know the current prices of Partyhats the forums will tell me. And now, whenever I've got a mounting pile of school work, the forums will do it for me. It seems almost freaky that something as simple as a bunch of posts all gathered together can prove to be so useful.

Remember my post about my little financial problem? Well, the price of Ranarr seeds has risen, and the herbs themselves have dropped further. The only piece of good news I can give is that Red partyhats are back up, at 229mil. If I sell it now, I should be able to make a 7 million gp profit. Or I could exchange it for a White one, since it turns out that I now can easily afford it.

Which ever choice I make, I hope I won't screw up this oppurtunity to make some quick cash. It's been a while since I actively merched it.


Stuff achieved today: Nothing particularly special

Posted by Timothy Gold at 7:50 PM | Permalink

A pretty bad start to the day. A former friend of mine, Spartacus, who has been long removed from my list, finally decided to message me yesterday. We first started out with a normal, casual conversation, and then it steered into money. So Spartacus firsts asks "How much money do you have?"

Trusting my bountiful experience with old friends who finally decide to have a chat out of the blue, I tried avoiding the question. He presses on, and I eventually answer him. And just when I was about to type a "cya" message and switch my private chat off, he pops the question I was dreading, "Do you think you can buy me a whip?". Uh oh, Abyssal Whips aren't cheap, and saying no to friends (even former ones) can be really difficult. So once more, I avoided giving a direct answer and switched my chat off.

And finally today, he messages me again, asking the same question. That was it, I couldn't put off giving him an answer now, and so I politely turned down his request. The guy wouldn't give up though, he really meant business, and so came the barrage of questions. "Why not?" "Do you think I'm using you?" "It means so much to me..." Ugh, the guilt card... A very deadly persuasion technique not to be underestimated.

Thankfully, he later gave up, although he seemed eager to meet up and chop Maples with me... Hmm could this be some sort of a ploy to earn my trust? Most likely, but trust isn't the issue here.

I'm not parting with 2.5 million just to make some random guy happy. Yes, there was a time when we were quite close, but even that was shortlived. I don't even know his real first name! I guess I'll just have to try to remember that whenever my conscience starts acting up. Dang, I hate turning people down.


Stuff achieved today: Lvl 85 Woodcutting

Posted by Timothy Gold at 10:19 PM | Permalink

Yay! Go me!

Sorry I was unable to post yesterday when I completed the quest. I didn't have much time, but now that I do, I'll be including a few details about it.

Okay, the quest is the continuation of the "Myreque plot". The Myreque are a group of freedom fighters who battle against the Vampyres, a vicious race of monsters (closely resembling vampires) who capture and farm humans in Morytania for blood. Upon the request of a mysterious cloaked figure, my character tried to assist the Myreque by first locating them and then bringing them some decent weapons. I managed to pass the weapons to them and locate their hideout, and the cloaked figure from earlier soon arrived.

It turned out that the person who had requested for my help was actually a very powerful Vampyre named Vanstrom Klause. He was using me the whole time to lead him to the Myreque's hideout. He kills two members, and leaves a giant bone dog-like monster to kill off all survivors. I defeated it, and later help the Myreque to create a new base for them to stay in, helping out an entire town in Morytania in the process.


Vertida Sefalatis, a member of the Sanguinesti Myreque

This brings me to the opening of the new quest. The leader of the Myreque, Valiaf, wanted me to find a way to get past a huge impenetrable wall, and enter an area East of Morytania known as the Sanguinesti region. I was supposed to locate another group of the Myreque there. The place was infested with Vampyres, and the town's civillians had to give regular blood tithes to them. I eventually located the Sanguenesti Myreque base, and helped both groups complete several tasks, which include getting help from misthalin, and making some sketches of Drakan Castle for them (the Drakans are the overlords of the vampyres).


The entire town was a giant maze. I had to get past several
obstacles to finally reach the hideout.

I even discovered a book which could potentially inform the Myreque of a weakness of the Vampyres, which are currently immune to all weapons. The book is currently with the Sanguinesti Myreque who are researching it.


We both hitted a few 0s, until he finally did an 8 to me, and I was
knocked to the ground.

This was a very action-packed quest, I even got my ass kicked by Vanstrom Klause at one point (hey don't laugh, he's immune to all weapon types remember?). Yep, it was definitely worth my time. Hopefully, part 4 will be released soon. The storyline is amazing.


Stuff achieved today: Nothing special in particular

Posted by Timothy Gold at 5:27 PM | Permalink

A rather interesting day. I've managed to hit Level 88 Farming, and I did some calculations... It turns out that I should be able to easily hit 90 before 2007. It's still a while away, but I'm really looking forward to it.

As for Woodcutting, the "race" was cut short a few days ago to Level 84 instead of 85. I reached it yesterday and won, but my friend wants a rematch. He'll probably beat me this time though, but I'm still going to give it a go anyway. Besides, what is important is that I reach 85 by Saturday, and continue Woodcutting consistently. I am determined to make this a Level 90+ stat by the end of the year.


A screenshot of my character sliding facedown on a pile of rubble.
See? I told you quests can be fun.

Jagex released a quest, Darkness of Hallowvale, today sometime in the late afternoon. In addition, they also updated an area near East Ardougne and turned it to a village named Witchhaven. They even updated the world map! I have to say, I'm really impressed. Now this is what I call a quality update of adequate size (the last one was a wee bit to small).


At Lvl 100+, with an immunity towards all weapons, the newly
released Vyrewatch (pictured above) in the quest are not to be trifled with.

I've made only a little progress in the completion of the quest so far. It seems quite difficult, but I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy because of its excellent graphics, and its storyline (it's the continuation of two previous quests, In Search of The Myreque, and In Aid of The Myreque). I might get quite a few screenshots as well which I'll include in my next post when I have completed the quest.

Stuff achieved today: Level 88 Farming, Gained 120k Woodcutting exp

Posted by Timothy Gold at 10:31 PM | Permalink

For almost two weeks, I have restrained and controlled myself from buying the Dragon Axe. I waited and waited, as its price slowly dropped, until Tuesday night when I finally bought one. It wasn't as cheap as I wanted it to be, but hey, at least my patience saved me quite a bit.

So far I've gotten it broken thanks to an Ent, and just this morning, the head flew off! How mean of Jagex to allow these randoms to affect my axe, my DRAGON axe. The other Dragon weapons aren't so flimsy, and why would it's head fly off? I mean, I'm chopping wood here, not titanium. Surely Dragon is stronger than that?

Lol anyway, no real harm has been done so far. I just have to be more careful, the thought of losing it only a few days after I buy it, is really disturbing. I have to admit though, it was kinda cool seeing the head and handle being seperated like that.


Stuff achieved today: Lvl 83 Woodcutting

Posted by Timothy Gold at 7:18 PM | Permalink