The Chronicles of Runescape

This will probably be my last post until I after I get back from my school camp, so it might be a while until I am able to update my blog. With that said, I'll now carry on with the day's events.


My charater wearing the Guthan's Set

Okay, despite having recently lost my Dragon axe, I decided to splurge a little today and buy a Guthan's set. This Barrows set gives you the ability to drain your opponent's health and transfer it to you. I've actually been thinking of getting one for sometime now, but because of its high price, I've put off the idea of buying it off again and again and again; until now of course.

They're worth around 8.5 to 8.6 million gp, and I had quite a bit of trouble trying to get sellers to bring down their prices. Even getting it at 8.5 million gp, a mere 100k below its "peak" price, was a huge challenge. And then something amazing happened! While browsing the Armour forums, I saw a guy selling a Guthan's set at 8.2 million gp, which is considered ridiculously cheap. I even suspected that it was some sort of a scam.

I still tried my luck though, so I sent a message to the guy and requested to buy it. We both agreed on a meeting place and server, we then traded and bam! I now have the set. No trade scams, no lures to the wilderness, nothing!


Behold! The special effect of the Guthan's Set, Infestation!

The rest of the day was then mostly spent on training Slayer. I managed to make use of the set several times while fighting. Its healing capabilities were amazing!


Stuff achieved today: Nothing much (give me a break, I was away from home today!)

Posted by Timothy Gold at 7:05 PM | Permalink

Ahh! I played like a damn retard today; my eyes were screaming for rest even before evening came. Okay so there's nothing unusual about that, but the progress I had made today was pretty good.


I already have my eyes set on lvl 99 for Woodcutting.

First off, I had successfully raised three stats (Crafting, Farming and Woodcutting) by a level each. Not surprisingly, I was way ahead of schedule in my Farming/Woodcutting training. Luck's been with me; I've been getting loads of good tree seeds from birds' nests and planting them for massive experience. The amount of Woodcutting experience I've been getting since the holidays started has also increased quite substantially.


Gaz doing the Runecrafting cape emote.

Asides from this, my friend, Gaz, has finally maxed out his Runecrafting. He managed to reach lvl 99 today, and even took a short video of it. It was really brilliant since only 90 players (including Gaz) have so far been able to achieve this. The downside of this is that the crazy idiot stayed up all night to get that 99 instead of waiting till the following day. I wonder how many hardcore players deprive themselves of sleep like that.

Ah well, not to worry. I'm sure he'll sleep well tonight knowing that he finally has a Runecrafting achievement cape stashed up in his bank.


Stuff achieved today: Lvl 63 Crafting, Lvl 91 Farming, Lvl 93 Woodcutting

Posted by Timothy Gold at 8:28 PM | Permalink

I really screwed up today. I was woodcutting as usual when Niles, a random event, suddenly popped out. Niles has the ability to either note all of your items in your inventory as well as your weapon or give you a small little token like an uncut gem if you answer his question correctly.

A friend of mine had taught me a really simple way to exploit this random event some time ago. It involves dropping your weapon (in this case, my Dragon woodcutting axe), and giving a wrong answer to Niles. He will then note all your items (my Yew logs) which saves space and I would pick up my axe, and no longer have to run back to the bank to deopsit the logs. I could then continue staying at the Yew tree spot until my inventory refills with un-noted logs!


A screenshot of Niles which I had taken sometime ago

It's a very neat and simple trick to pull off which saves you time. I had done it several times previously when fishing, and it worked like a charm. However, it turns out that Jagex has added a few very nasty tweaks to Niles. Not only does he note your stuff if you answer his question wrongly, he also teleports to a random area. I ended up losing my Dragon axe because of this since I was unable to retrieve it. Someone had already taken it by the time I got back to the place where I had dropped it!

It costed me 3.7 million gp to get a new one, and I'm really hating myself right now for making such a stupid mistake. Argh, that's the last time I mess around with Niles!


Stuff achieved today: Gained 150k Woodcutting exp (see? I still managed despite this huge setback)

Posted by Timothy Gold at 9:50 PM | Permalink

Spent quite some time in school today, and I was really glad to be back home, sitting in front my computer when it had ended.

As usual, I spent the first few hours chopping Yew trees and doing my Farming rounds. Much later sometime around the evening, there was this game update released. Since tomorrow's a holiday and I can afford to stay up tonight, the timing of its release was excellent!


A screenshot of a cut scene featured during the quest. Yes that's
right! This troll child is about to eat the Dwarf lying on the ground.

I was also very pleased with the work Jagex has done with this update, which is a quest known as "My Arm's Big Adventure". It didn't have much of a plot compared to the Myreque storyline, but it still had several funny, well thought out cutscenes as well as quite a bit of action. In case you were wondering, "My Arm" is actually the name of a Troll in the quest which desired to learn how to farm Goutweed, a herb considered a delicacy by Trolls.


I had to defend the Goutweed from giant, hungry bird-like monsters.



The Troll chef, Burntmeat, trying to cook a random adventurer.

My character tries to help him grow this plant in the quest in an attempt to stop his master, Burntmeat, from eating humans instead of the herb. I eventually was able to find a way to grow a hardier version of Goutweed in the rocky, cold mountains in Trollheim for My Arm. The reward was great, the quest itself was great... The Jagex staff have really outdone themselves this time.


Tubers of the
Hardy Goutweed


My Arm busily harvesting the Goutweed I had helped him grow.


Stuff achieved today: Completed the new quest "My Arm's Big Adventure", Reached 75 million Total exp

Posted by Timothy Gold at 10:50 PM | Permalink

I got back my exam results yesterday... They weren't pretty. I certainly wasn't expecting this. Anyway, they've really gotten me into a foul mood, so I'm just gonna complain and sulk for the rest of this post.

O-kay, at least the worst of it is gone. I've been through and completed project after project after project, no matter how pointless, complicated or tedious they were. I've studied through shit-loads of notes of all subjects. I have sat through dozens examination papers, as well as dealt with their grades at the end no matter how bad they are.

And now, I have a long two month break to look forward to... Or so I thought. Today, I was slapped in the face with a holiday assignment. A holiday assignment?! What the fuck! Whose bloody idea was that anyway?! Holidays are called holidays for a reason you know. Doesn't the school realize that they're interfering with my already screwed up Runescape training? I am really sick and tired of this, and the worst part of it all is that some, if not all, of this school work will count towards my grades for the first term in 2007!

I can't say I'm not disappointed with this. I was really looking forward to hours, days and weeks of uninterrupted gaming, but with my long trip to Australia, the school camp and homework, I'd be lucky to even retain half of my holiday time.

Hey, look! Don't judge me! I'm a very simple guy; all I ask is the quality time doing my favourite activity which I deserve. But hey, that's life, you can't have it your way all the time. I have long accepted that painful fact, just don't expect me to get used to it and shut up.


Stuff achieved today: Nothing much

Posted by Timothy Gold at 11:55 PM | Permalink

I refused to get distracted by the Tzaar Fight Pits today, so the whole morning and afternoon was spent on doing my usual Farming rounds and chopping some Yews.


The Fishing Cape


The Fishing cape emote

I definitely wasn't enjoying myself and was rather annoyed at the fact that Jagex did not release an update yesterday or the day before. Their timing's really bad; I was able to stay at home today as well as Tuesday yet there was absolutely nothing new I could do to chase away my boredom.

I suppose I still should be happy though since the update was eventually released today in the evening. A wee bit too late, but better than never right? Besides, it was definitely a quality addition to the game. The long awaited Capes of Achievement and the new room for POH's (player-owned houses) were finally made available to all players who had the appropriate lvls.

Don't get me wrong or anything, they were both excellent updates, but there was still a serious problem with the new Costume room. Jagex did not allow players to build extra rooms for their houses, which meant that players like me who already had 20 rooms when the update was released, could not build it. It was either that or remove one of the existing rooms in my house. I chose the second option and ended up destroying one of my Portal Chambers which had costed me over half a million.

I think I made the right choice in doing so, it's saved me quite a bit of bank space since I was able to store some of my clothes and armour inside the room. Can't say I'm too happy though, 500k worth of furniture was lost thanks to the Costume room's construction. Well, at least the room's usefulness made up for that loss. The new capes were really good too; they each had the same bonuses as an Obsidian cape yet they only costed 99k, which is less than half of its price!


Me and a few guys doing the Cooking cape emote.

I was able to get 3 out of the 23 capes, and was able to perform a unqiue "cape emote" for each of them. Very flashy, very nice, I'm pleased that Jagex finally has decided to pay more attention to the higher-lvled players even though they make up only a minority of Runescape.


From left to right: The Fishing emote, Defence emote, Quest
emote, Strength emote


Stuff achieved today: Built and fully furnished Costume room, Gained 150k+ Woodcutting exp

Posted by Timothy Gold at 8:36 PM | Permalink

I managed to make quite a bit of progress for Woodcutting today (finally), and also was able to take a short break in between.


My character dueling with a Zamorakian Battle Mage

Silpheroam was online and needed help to get his third arena spell, Flames of Zamorak. So since I was getting bored and had access to none of the spells, I decided to join him in getting them so that we could protect each other from pkers. We picked my home server, World 42, and fortunately for us, it proved to be a very uneventful trip. No pkers in sight! The place was completely empty!


A close-up shot of Silpheroam getting attacked by a Battle Mage

So we went to the Mage Arena bank, got ready our stuff and started fighting those annoying battle mages in the arena. It was really fun casting those spells for the first time ever, and after practising them for some time, Silpheroam was able to use all three of his spells outside the arena, while I was able to use two.



Hmm I probably should try learning the third spell when I get the bankspace. Currently, I really cannot afford to reserve even just one spot for another God staff (which are required to cast the three spells). Guess I'll just have to wait for the wardrobe update which will enable me to store certain clothes in my house instead of my bank account.


Stuff achieved today: Gained the ability to use two arena spells

Posted by Timothy Gold at 8:33 PM | Permalink

Yay! My examination restrictions are gone so I was able to play as much as I liked today.

I decided to take a short break from Woodcutting, so I mostly trained combat, starting with a few slayer assignments. The tasks were pretty easy I guess; didn't get any of that rubbish from Vannaka like those annoying Jellies or Turoths which have Magic based attacks. Also decided to have a little fun at the Fight Pits again. It's the best place to go to when you wanna destress and whack some noobs.


Hoohah! That's me as the Tzaar Fight Pit Champion.

I must've spent almost 2 hours there. It was really fun even though I often lost because of this lvl 109. He practically owned me each time we fought; the guy had all the melee Barrows sets with him. There were still a few close fights though, and I managed to kill him a couple of times. We later decided to team up though, but I didn't really fair any better since more high lvled players showed up and owned the both of us.

Ahh nothing like a break from Woodcutting, perhaps I should do it again sometime?


Stuff achieved today: Gained a whole bunch of Slayer and Combat exp

Posted by Timothy Gold at 9:42 PM | Permalink

Ahh! My axe broke!

I will get straight to the point: I've finally reached lvl 90 Woodcutting!

I'm gonna be frank, the training really sucked. It was really boring at times and all I had were Youtube videos, a few Webcomics and this blog to keep me from dying of boredom. I'm still glad I've gotten another lvl 90 stat though. It seems rather unreal if you ask me. I've been having all these amazing achievements for the past few weeks, they've begun to lose their meaning.



Three lvl 90 stats, my total lvl hitting 1700, 70 million total experience, becoming the top 300 in Farming; all of them are pretty recent... Wow, so many during the exam period? Now that's committment; I just hope this isn't extreme enough to be considered as an unhealthy obsession though. That'd just be freaky.

Oh and before I forget, this week's update was rather simple. Jagex has made 6 wallpapers available from the Runescape homepage, made some tweaks to a few items in the game, and displayed some fan art in the website. Definitely wasn't the new lvl 99 capes I was hoping for, but ah well, I'll just have to be more patient and wait.


Stuff achieved today: Lvl 90 Woodcutting

Posted by Timothy Gold at 4:57 PM | Permalink

No update yet, but at least things are starting to liven up, to my relief; I was really starting to get tired of all this studying and woodcutting. Just yesterday, Silpheroam sent me on a trip to the wilderness to protect this other clan member from pkers.

To my disappointment, no aggressive players showed up, but I was still able to test out an Ancient Magiks spell for the first time. I just wish I took a screenshot though.

Anywho, I've already sat for three exams this week. Only two more, and I'll be able to allocate more time for Runescape. I expect a substantial increase for all stats in the following weeks to come. It'll be essential that I take advantage of this free time... The school holidays won't last forever, and I've recently found out that my trip to Australia will be up to 3 weeks long! Some people would kill for such lengthy vacations, but me? Oh, hell no... I'm way too obsessed with the game for that.



Well at least the fresh air and scenery will do me some good. It'll sure beat sitting in front of the computer all day everyday for two months. Besides, I've already achieved most of my targets set for 2006. In fact, just today, I finally reached lvl 90 Farming, giving me a total of five lvl 90+ stats. This was definitely a huge achievement, and what made it even more impressive was that my Farming rank was 300 the moment I lvled, which means that I'm the 300th guy in Runescape to get lvl 90 Farming.

Wish me luck for my next Farming goal: lvl 91!


Stuff achieved today: Lvl 90 Farming

Posted by Timothy Gold at 7:26 PM | Permalink

I've been feeling quite anxious the whole day. Tomorrow, as well as for the rest of the week, I'll be taking a total of 5 test papers.

I am also eagerly waiting for next weeks update; whether I'll be getting those lvl 99 Capes, a new quest or another room to add to my house, I really have no idea. All of them seem so amazing! I'll be expecting great things in October. A pity I still have those exams to worry about and not to mention, their results. I better not screw up this time, or I'll be in so much shit.

Despite the anxiety, I was still able to enjoy myself. I spent some time training my Woodcutting. If I'm lucky, I should be able to get it to lvl 90 by the end of next week. Didn't do anything interesting today though; I'm really begining to miss those mini-games. The past few days have been so dull...


Stuff achieved today: Gained 100k Woodcutting exp

Posted by Timothy Gold at 5:22 PM | Permalink

I came back from school really early today since I was allowed to leave after I finished my Literature exam. I still have quite a few more papers left, but I still decided to continue playing like a retard today...

I'm feeling quite guilty that I didn't get any studying done, but I was at least able to push up a couple of my stats closer to lvl 90. Yep, I'm doing really well for Farming and Woodcutting. About a few months ago, I would never have imagined my progress to be so quick.

Things should speed up further during the school holidays... I won't be playing everyday since I have this trip to Australia sometime in November and a stupid, compulsory school camp. Ah well, I still should expect some major speed lvling, I just hope I won't neglect my other 20 stats. I also hope to push my total lvl up faster. I'm doing a great job right now, but being the impatient player I am, I'm still not completely satisfied with my progress.


Stuff achieved today: Gained 130k+ Woodcutting exp

Posted by Timothy Gold at 10:35 PM | Permalink

One of the previously hidden parts of the Elemental Workshop

I have a lot to talk about today. The "Behind the Scenes" addition for October was released this evening, and I'm really looking forward to this month's promised updates. Level 99 and Quest capes are only a couple of the updates that are going to be released. We're even going to get a new type of room to build for our POH's (Player owned houses)!

And those Level 99 capes, wow... Not sure whether they'll have any good stat bonuses, but the thought of wearing one, just to show off, is exillerating. Those quest capes could also be useful; for once I'd like to be able to prove that I've gotten all quest points. And speaking of which, a new quest was released today (and it was also mentioned by Jagex that another one will also be released later this month).


It's as painful as it looks

The released quest, Elemental Workshop II is a continuation of Elemental Workshop I (well, duh!). There's not much of a storyline behind the both of them. Your character just "accidentally" finds a book in a shelf, gains access to an underground workshop, and eventually finds out how to make an Elemental shield using a special type of metal. Part two of this quest is pretty much the same, only this time, I was able to enhance the power of this special metal before smithing it and creating a Mind Shield and a Mind Helmet.


My character trying to upgrade or "prime" the metal to make the
new helmet and shield in the quest.

Wow, the entire plot summarised in a paragraph. A very simple quest, but hey, I'm not complaining. I managed to obtain yet another quest point!




Stuff achieved today: Completed the Elemental Workshop II quest

Posted by Timothy Gold at 10:27 PM | Permalink

Can't see the text? Click on it for a larger view.

Besides gathering more Ranarr Seeds for my constant Farming and getting some guy banned, I was able to fully make use of my new Black Mask these past two days. It gives the wearer a 15% boost to Strength and Attack when fighting Slayer assignment monsters. Definitely worth the 615k I spent since I was able to hit 30s with it just by using an Abbysal Whip.

Besides enjoying these stat benefits, I managed to raise my Hitpoints and Strength lvl, bringing my combat lvl to 106. My Strength has also finally reached lvl 90, and I'm really damn happy about that. Only Farming and Woodcutting to go, not to mention the other stats I have to raise to an "acceptable" lvl.

I'm also struggling to catch up with two of my three clan leaders. Their total levels are currently over 1720+, while mine's lagging behind at 1703. Training lower lvl stats require less exp, so hopefully, I'll make some effort to do that soon. I doubt that I'll be able to catch up otherwise.


Stuff achieved today: Lvl 86 Hitpoints (Lvl 106 Combat)

Posted by Timothy Gold at 8:26 PM | Permalink