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29 February 2008

Mother Fu-



I screwed it up. I completely fucked up my screenshot for Level 99 Strength!

Tiz came over to my house as planned and we decided to get ready for the level up after a few hours of fooling around. I further narrowed the exp gap until I had only 20+ xp left, before heading to Clan Wars for the screenshot.

We challenged each other and I found a nice spot close to the exit portal to serve as the level up's setting. He carefully typed out his message while I readied my Dragon Longsword. At my signal back in the real world, he pressed the ENTER key just as I slashed at him using a special attack... and missed!


A rather sad excuse for a 99 screenshot, but there ya go! Level 99 Strength,
people...

My character automatically attacks a second time; another miss! I then realized that Tiz's gratz message had already disappeared and tried to stop myself from hacking at him a third time. I clicked on the screen to try to stop the fight, but was too late. My third attack was actually successful in injuring Tiz, and I leveled up. To my utter shock and dismay, the clicks I had made resulted in the Strength level up message closing immediately after appearing.

Sheeeeet!


I screamed out the F-word back in the real world. My archive of perfect 99 screenshots was ruined! After directing several more profanities at my own stupidity, I finally got round to purchasing the Strength Cape at the Warriors Guild in Burthrope. Its emote wasn't too shabby. There was definitely a great satisfaction in finally being able to perform it, although I was still feeling quite distressed about the screenshot.

I'm sure I'll be able to avoid the same mistake next time. I've got my eyes set on Attack and am aiming to max it out by the end of April. Wish me luck, everyone! And thank you, Tiz, for coming!


Me performing the Strength Cape emote next to Tiz.


Stuff achieved today: Level 99 Strength (Level 126 Combat)

Posted by Timothy Gold at 11:42 PM |

28 February 2008

FunOrb.com

Couldn't get much training done; I was preoccupied with work from school.

I was, however, still able to get around to filling up my house's second Portal Chamber. The Scrying Pool has been built and all three portals directed to the appropriate tele-locations. The room will definitely receive much attention during the Clan Anniversary house party!


Me standing in front of my newly built Scrying Pool.

I also spent over an hour at Jagex's newly released website, FunOrb. The site provides a number of games completely unrelated to Runescape; much like a Jagex version of Miniclip. Although no actual Runescape benefits (money, exp and such) are obtained from playing these games, players can still sign in with their RS accounts and even communicate with any online friends.



Chess was among the various games the site had offered and I got hooked to it immediately. I was able to compete against real life players and played a total of five matches during my first session. Although I consider myself only a borderline intermediate Chess player, I was able to beat all five opponents with surprising ease. Two of the rounds were simply laughable; I checkmated my second and third opponents within five moves!

Although generally pleased with FunOrb, I can't help but worry that the attention Jagex is focusing on this new venture could be better used for Runescape. Whether anyone chooses to accept it or not, FunOrb is a drain on the company's resources. I think it is safe to assume that there would've been more updates in Runescape during these last few months, if it had not been for this side-project Jagex decided to embark upon.


Who would've thought that Chess would be
such a Mod-magnet?

This month, for example, has been woefully short on updates. Hopefully, February will remain an isolated incident.


Stuff achieved today: Constructed my Portal Chamber

Posted by Timothy Gold at 11:26 PM |

27 February 2008

Mastery of Melee

Much progress in my Melee training today.

My Hitpoints and Defence, which have been teetering on the edge of a level up for the last few days, finally reached 96 and 93 respectively. I wasn't able to take a screenshot of the Hitpoints level up, which was rather annoying since it’ll take another 1 million exp before level 97.


I decided to visit my old training spot at Ape Atoll.

However, I've been successful in closing the 1.25 million exp gap between Level 98 and Level 99 Strength. I am a mere 10k exp away from the Achievement Cape, though I plan to delay that until Friday. I've picked Tiz to be my "99 friend" for Strength; something which I had promised him several months back.

The screenie for level 99 Strength will, by far, be the trickiest one to take.

Because the level up message disappears immediately after a monster attacks, Tiz will have to carefully coordinate his gratz message for a proper shot to be taken. As a precaution, I've decided to invite him over to my place on the day itself; there will definitely be better communication and timing if we were to do it in the same room. I've even decided to take the extra measure of using a Dragon Halberd in order to prevent whatever creature I level up on from retaliating.

Admittedly though, I still have yet to finalise the location where this amazing level up will take place at. I've considered the dungeon within the Karamja Volcano, although I prefer to try something a little more unique (the top of the volcano served as the setting for Level 99 Firemaking after all). Undoubtedly though, those Lesser Demons would certainly look fearsome on the screenshot!


Stuff acheived today: Level 96 Hitpoints, Level 93 Defence

Posted by Timothy Gold at 8:51 PM |

24 February 2008

Evangelism

Sunday night, 11.15pm. I end this week and start the next on a sad note.

I've got a long Monday ahead of me, with school ending at 5.30 in the afternoon. My maid whom I mentioned about a month back is also finally leaving the country later this Friday. I am very dismayed about this since she has lived with my family for over twelve years now, but we promised each other that we'd continue to keep in touch, which was somewhat reassuring.

I even was able to get her to start playing Runescape in December last year. I helped her to create an account at an Internet cafe in Austria, during my trip to Europe. She's virtually addicted to the game now, so besides emailing and long-distance phone calls, we may even be able to speak to each other via private chat, albeit only occasionally because a computer may not be readily available to her.

It also appears that yet another member of the household may be becoming Runescapian. My dad happened to see my Runescape handbook lying next to one of the computer monitors earlier this evening. He picked it up, read a few pages and actually seems interested in starting an account.

Upon his queries, I gave him a rough explanation of what the game is like. One can only hope that his first few moments on Tutorial Island will get him hooked to RS, just like it did for my maid and I.


Stuff achieved today: Nothing much

Posted by Timothy Gold at 11:14 PM |

23 February 2008

House Party!

The first anniversary on my clan's establishment is coming up on the 2nd of March.

Tiz has requested that my house be used for the partying segment of the clan event. And his timing was pretty good actually since I've been able to liquefy all 12k of my Ranarrs into cash, which I can then use to fund the upgrading of my home.

I sold 5k more Ranarrs prior to this sale. In all, I've received a total of
approximately 70 million gp.

The price of the herb spiked very recently and I decided that it was an opportune moment to sell my entire stock. I suspect that the sudden jump was the result of the latest improvements made to the Bounty Hunter minigame. Those Pkers have become thirsty for Prayer Potions.

But anyway, back to the renovations, I think it's time I work on my house's second Portal Chamber. It's been completely empty for quite a while now and I intend to build three new portals to fill it up. There is also a centerpiece which I need to include, in order to direct the portals to teleport locations. I plan on constructing the most expensive type, the Scrying Pool, which has the added feature of enabling users to scry (see) these locations.

These upgrades may set me back at over 1.5 million, but it's been some time since I've done anything to my house anyway. The Gold Estate shall become a fortress!


Stuff achieved today: Gained 300k Melee exp

Posted by Timothy Gold at 10:18 PM |

21 February 2008

Vinesweeper

Got so caught up with the Varrock Achievement Diary the other day, that I didn't write about the release of the new Farming minigame.


The Vinesweeper minigame.



Although pleased that my favourite skill has finally received some attention from Jagex, I can't say that I'm eager to power-farm by playing around with this new feature. As Vinesweeper's name suggested, the minigame is actually a Runescape-Farming variation of the popular PC game, Minesweeper. You earn points by digging up empty plots in a field, and carefully avoiding the patches which contain seeds (similar to the mines in Minesweeper).



When the position of a seed is deduced, players will have to place a flag on the corresponding plot, which earns them extra points assuming their guess is correct. To a certain extent, some analytical skills are required here so this locating of seeds is not merely grindage. Personally though, I'd rather stick to the conventional method of growing Ranarrs and trees to up my Farming exp.

A second, smaller Farming update came with the mingame. Much to my delight, the Amulet of Nature has been given new abilities. In addition to informing its wearer of the state of his crops, this enchanted trinket can now teleport you to diseased farming patches, as well as get nearby gardeners to help look after them. A useful feature, no doubt.


The Amulet of Nature even has a face now!

Before I end off this entry, I'd like to add that I haven't forgotten about my plans to take part in this month's Postbag of the Hedge. I have chosen to reply to the second letter - the one LT, the Summoning Familiar, had written. I've come up with three original limericks so far and am going to send them over to my RS pal, Tiz, for some preliminary judging.

Although I honestly think I've done a commendable job especially for a first attempt, it still would be wise to get a second opinion.



Stuff achieved today: Nothing much

Posted by Timothy Gold at 9:14 PM |

19 February 2008

Diary Tie-Ins

I got round to completing quite a number of the tasks that were listed in the Varrock Achievement Diary.

I don't think that the exp rewards or even the special Varrock armour is enough to justify the time I'm investing in the diary. However, working on the Achievement Diary has enabled me to see numerous features of the many places which I had previously overlooked.


The Varrock Sewers

For example, one of the diary's tasks required me to venture deep within the Varrock Sewers, and pass through a web that was obstructing one of the passages in the dungeon. I hadn't visit the sewers since the time I did the Rat Catcher's quest, which was over two years ago. When the place was updated, I really do not have a clue, but I was certainly pleasantly surprised to see that the whole area had gone through a complete graphical revamp.


Old lady, Elsie.

I also made another intriguing discovery. I had to get an old lady, Elsie, to tell me a story in order to get one of my diary tasks done. Now, I'm not entirely certain if anyone else has already spotted this, but the story she told was actually about the childhood of the Wise Old Man of Draynor.



The boy in the story went on to become a famous adventurer and even had a book written about him. If you search Herman's (guy at the Picatoris Fishing Colony) desk, you can find a book about the Wise Old Man.

The boy was nicknamed "Dissy"; the Wise Old Man's real name is Dionysius.

According to Elsie, the boy vandalised the walls of the Varrock Zamorakian temple. In the book, Dionysius did the exact same thing in his youth.

There were signs that both "Dissy" and "Dionysius" were expected by all to join the Saradominist priesthood, but both turned it down in favour of exploring the whole of Gielinor. Everything fits!


The now retired Wise Old Man.

Who'd have thought that Jagex would incorporate the background of such a well known figure in RS, into a seemingly insignificant chore in the Achievement Diary?


Stuff achieved today: Complwtion of a few Varrock Achievement Diary tasks

Posted by Timothy Gold at 9:55 PM |

16 February 2008

Time To Move On

I'm getting rather tired of Melee.

The two things keeping me at the Baxtorian Falls right now are the Charms those Fire Giants drop, and the much needed exp to max out my Strength. Even after obtaining the Strength Cape, there'll still be Attack, Defence and Hitpoints to work on. And not to mention Level 70 Summoning; I desperately need those God Birds!

What I really want to train right now is Hunter. There's good cash in Red Chinchompas, and the Hunter exp isn't that bad either judging by the many recommendations of the Hunters I know. Finding a good time to catch them shouldn't be that difficult either. The servers are usually empty on weekday afternoons and evenings, so hopefully, the Chinchompa hunting grounds will be cleared up.

Skilling aside, there are also a few little things I've recently expressed an interest in completing. I still have an estimated 15 locked soundtracks on my Runescape playlist. Many of the areas I need to visit are quite easy to reach. I also should probably start work on my Achievement Diary for both Varrock and Karamja. I've barely touched them; even the easy and intermediate tasks remain incomplete.

I'm also considering, for the first time ever, to actually type out an entry for Postie Pete's Postbag from the Hedge. The Jagex crew is trying something new; instead of players asking NPCs questions, both roles have been reversed. Now, the NPCs are sending letters to us. A few have caught my attention.


One of the letters from the latest issue of the Postbag from the Hedge.

I just need to find the time (and inspiration) to be able to come up with something.


Stuff achieved today: Level 55 Summoning (Level 125 Combat)

Posted by Timothy Gold at 11:50 PM |

14 February 2008

Procrastination

Tiz turned 16 yesterday.

I'd get him real-life beer like I did for Air Dragon, but alas, the novelty of this alcoholic beverage has worn off in the former's case, so I've decided to come up with something in RS. I'm thinking Gnome cocktails, pizzas and pies. Might bake a cake as well, although I find it rather cheesy.

In any case, I'm preparing this assortment of goodies myself - my gifts would completely lose their meaning if I were to simply spend two minutes buying them off from the Grand Exchange.

It'll have to be a belated birthday present, unfortunately. I got too caught up with Melee training and real life both today and yesterday, and was not able to find the time to cook.


Notice the cleverly hidden wooden crossbows on the grass. Although
Isafdar was ridden with these traps, navigating around the forest proved
to be more of an annoyance than an adventure.

The newly released quest, Catapult Construction, also ate up some of my time. Although Jagex had announced that it was a continuation of the Regicide quest, the sequel, quite disappointedly, did not have much of a storyline. I just had to navigate my way around the Elven forest, Isafdar, and help rebuild a catapult that was no longer working due to the rotting of its wooden frame.

After gathering all the necessary construction materials, I had to try to piece them together and this part of the repairs came in the form of a puzzle my character had to solve. Catapult Construction was ranked as a Master quest, so the first thought which came to me was, "Oh fuck, not another Monkey Madness sliding puzzle which-took-me-over-three-agonizingly-long-hours-to-solve!"


It works!

The catapult was fixed in 15 minutes.

Annoyingly, the rewards were proportional to the challenge of the quest, but I'm still content; it only took me an hour and a half to finish it anyway. Jagex should really consider pushing the quest down to an Intermediate/Experienced rank.




Stuff achieved today: Completed the Catapult Construction quest, Lvl 74 Prayer

Posted by Timothy Gold at 10:13 PM |

12 February 2008

Charging Towards 60

My Melee Combat training has been going a little slow this week, but at least Summoning's finally back on track.


The Tears of Guthix mini-game was finally offering Summoning exp, so I decided to go for a round. Managed to get 140ish tears which was more than enough for Lvl 48. I then used up some of the Charms I accumulated from fighting Fire Giants and made three more level ups, before finally stopping at 51.



This progress costed me a shed-load of Summoning Shards, but I guess it shouldn't take too long to earn the money back. The next time I restock on those shards, I'm gonna try out Bloated Leech pouches. The exp's fairly decent, plus the secondary ingredient is only raw beef, which I can easily buy from Rufus at Canafis for only 8gp per slice.

Can't say much has happened these last few days, although Strider3282, the creator of SwiftSwitch and SwiftKit, decided to stop by at this site and tag in my chatbox. The good grammar and spelling weren't enough to fully convince me; I suspected that he was an impostor initially, but an IP Address check confirmed that the poster was from Australia, the homeland of the real Strider.


Click the image for a larger view.

Very sorry for doubting you, Mr Fah. And thank you for your contribution to the game! I'll promise I'll get round to making a donation.


Stuff achieved today: Lvl 51 Summoning (Lvl 124 Combat)

Posted by Timothy Gold at 11:14 PM |

10 February 2008

A Book Review

Sunday night, almost an hour past my bed time; my four day weekend certainly went by pretty quickly.

However, I still have much (well, kinda) to be happy with. The official Runescape handbook I ordered sometime in January has finally arrived, and I went off to Borders to collect it sometime in the evening.

As expected, the book covers only the basics; f2p stuff any experienced member should already have mastered. I only decided to purchase the guide on a whim as a collectable. It's still a must-have for any newbie and I highly recommend it to new players who are deeply interested in the game. The book does have a few problems that should be noted, however.

As fellow RS blogger, Marlaine, had mentioned in one of her earlier entries, the book's language seems to be targetted at 10-year olds. Simple English is used throughout the guide, but what really made me cringe was this description of a Monk of Zamorak under the Characters and Creatures section:

"Zamorak is the ultra-evil dude who threatens all of Runescape. His monks worship him and do his bidding. They're not so nice."

Ugh!

Picture quality was also quite poor. Many of the images looked like they were taken directly out of the game and then blown up during publication, resulting in pixellated illustrations. Another annoyance would be the fact that some bits of the book (maps, areas, relatively new features in RS) are outdated. I suppose it cannot be helped due to the frequent tweaks and improvements Jagex makes to the game, but it's still an irritation nonetheless.

Don't get me wrong; it was a good buy, but a more updated book which focuses on advanced features of RS would've certainly appealed to me more. If only Jagex came up with more merchandise...


Stuff achieved today: Nothing much


Interested in getting a copy? Click on the link below:
http://www.amazon.com/RuneScape-Official-Handbook-Tracey-West/dp/0439877725

Posted by Timothy Gold at 10:13 PM |

08 February 2008

Tiz, Don't Play With Fire

Woohoo! Tiz, my real life and Runescape compadre, decided to come by at my place today.

Taking advantage of the ease of communicating with each other (we were, after all, playing in the same room), we decided to go King Black Dragon hunting sometime in the afternoon. Kat and Dg also decided to join in, so we had a pretty decent team consisting four players to slay the beast.


The four of us, desperately trying to seek refuge from the aggressive
Revenants.

The knowledge that no Pker could sneak up on us was deeply gratifying, but the Revenants were still a bit of a pain. They did fairly heavy damage before we finally outran them. The actual fights between the dragon were okay though. We happily shot, hacked and slashed at it as the monster kept spinning around, trying to fight off the attackers whom surrounded it.

We even went for a second trip after refilling our inventories with food and potions. Two other players appeared half away unfortunately, and we had to fight with them over the KBD's drops before they finally relented and decided to switch servers.


The King Black Dragon retaliating in response to our all-out assault. Dg
took the hit.

The real problem came towards the end, when we decided to fight our last KBD spawn. Tiz, who was low on food and health, thought he could hide in a corner of the dungeon while the rest of us distracted the dragon.

He was wrong.

After blasting the three of us with a few shots of its fiery-breath, the crazy creature spun around and charged at the lone, quivering warrior. We were unable to kill the KBD on time, and within seconds, Tiz was dead. Dg was able to repair his grave marker, but that only bought him five minutes. I was unable to bless it as I was completely out of Prayer Points.

Very frustratingly, neither of us was able to return to the grave on time to extend its life or retrieve the dropped items. Gah! He'll earn them back. We still had fun I suppose.


With over 3 million Summonnig exp separating the 1st and 2nd placings,
this was definitely a clear win by Nercychidae.

Oh, and for my own personal reference, Nercychlidae made it to Level 99 Summoning today, and is so far the only player to have achieved it at the time when this post was typed. Fantastic work! He's maxed out one of Runescape's arguably most difficult skills in only 25 days. A definite morale boost to those who think that Summoning is impossibly hard to train!


Stuff achieved today: Lvl 94 Attack

Posted by Timothy Gold at 11:11 PM |

06 February 2008

Ugly Runescapers

I decided to go for one of my usual trips to the Fire Giant room behind the Baxtorian Falls.

Standing in front of the bank at the Grand Exchange, I carefully selected the equipment to bring along in order to fight off the elemental monsters in the area.

Picking the right headgear proved to be the trickiest. I had three choices - my Black Mask, my Dragon Med and my Red Partyhat. Since I wasn't on a Slayer assignment and the Dragon Med only offered negligible defence bonuses, I decided to put on good ol' Reddy. I concluded that the likelihood of getting killed was slim anyway, and besides, the hat looked the prettiest.

So I step into the room and dds speced my first Fire Giant, when this player, F33l M4 Sc1m, asks me whether I brought the hat along for the pure intention of showing off to the other people training there. I denied this, and said that I'd rather have the place empty, which was quite true since there'd be plenty more giants to go around.

Not content with my answer, Sc1m presses on. He asks why I wasn't using other strength-boosting helmets instead. Distracted by something back in the real world, I took a slightly longer time to reply, to which he said, "No reply? Gf mate," with a satisfied smirk at the end. Annoyed, I promptly typed out a short list of reasons for my choice of headgear; laziness to buy a "proper" strength helmet being one of them. Sc1m then goes, "but not too lazy to get a Farming Cape?"

It was at that point that I lost all patience and the whole thing just escalated into a flame war. And really now, the entire quarrel Sc1m was just begging to start is incredibly stupid. It really shouldn't matter even if I showed up in, say, a pair of Dwarven shorts and a Rubber Chicken. If the guy had even a shred of basic courtesy, he would've just shut up and allowed me to train in peace.

Thankfully, the argument was cut short after I added Sc1m to my ignore list and he decided to log out, but it still bothers me that there are Runescapers who can actually behave in such a manner. Forget beggars, emote noobs and random name-callers; those are relatively benign! It's the people who possess this "stuff must be done XXX way or you're a moron" mindset that really get under your skin.

Will the Runescape community one day grow up? I certainly hope so, but for now, I'm taking the first boat ride back to the kingdom of Neitiznot, and then begging that Mawnis fellow for a replacement helmet that I threw away ages ago.


And just to get my point across...


Stuff achieved today: Lvl 47 Summoning, Lvl 92 Defence

Posted by Timothy Gold at 11:51 PM |

05 February 2008

Musical Updates

Blogspot's being a real bitch this evening.

It can't seem to record my keystrokes properly, so whenever I type too fast, the letters, spacings and caps get all jumbled up. And no, please don't blame it on cruddy touch-typing skills or even the keyboard. Everything seemed to work fine when I was pming friends back in Runescape or when I was working on a school assignment on a word document.

I'm hoping that the problem will fix itself as soon as possible. It's extremely irritating to be forced to type at a snail's pace just to prevent spelling mistakes.



Anywho, on a lighter note, a nice group of updates came out today.


The Air Guitar Emote

Some extensive work has been done on the sound and music system. Its interface has been changed and various tweaks have been made to some of the musical pieces. A new air guitar emote has also been released, which can only be activated when at least 500 of the songs in the music player have been unlocked.



The second major change was the graphical revamp of the Edgeville Dungeon. I’ve yet to explore the entire area yet, but the improvements to the sections I visited were very commendable. Vannaka must be so pleased!

And finally, players can now receive Summoning exp from the Tears of Guthix minigame, which would’ve been just perfect if I wasn’t unlucky enough to use up this week’s round a few hours prior to the change. Not-so-impeccable timing right there, but I suppose there’s always next week.


Even the part of the dungeon that was in the Wilderness got updated!


Stuff achieved today: Gained lotsa Melee exp

Posted by Timothy Gold at 9:44 PM |

02 February 2008

Farming Treats & SwiftKit

The start of a new month; February's Behind the Scenes article is now out.

Sadly, we can only expect one quest to come out this month, but I'm quite pleased with the number of updates the Farming skill is going to receive. A new Farming Amulet will be coming out towards the end of February, while the Nature Amulet will be getting "a fresh infusion of magic", allowing it to perform more tasks such as teleporting its owner to diseased patches.

The skill will even get its very own mini-game in a few weeks. A real treat for all of Gielinor's Farmers!

And it appears that the Jagx staff aren't the only ones keeping themselves busy for the game's many players. A special version of the popular Runescape toolkit, SwiftSwitch, has been recently released by Strider3282. It possesses the same features as its predecessor program and more.


Part of SwiftKit's interface.

SwiftKit's still under testing however, and may have several bugs and glitches just waiting to surface. My other gripe about the program is the fact that it doesn't have a custom links section, unlike SwiftSwitch which made things so convenient for me. However, SwiftKit still shows a lot of promise.

It is currently still in its early stages and is likely to be frequently upgraded as the weeks and months go by. It'll only be a matter of time before Strider perfects the toolkit.


Stuff achieved today: Lvl 40 Summoning, Lvl 95 Hitpoints

Posted by Timothy Gold at 11:45 PM |




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