Dungeoneering. Crafting. Milestones

Well, I've been a bit busy this weekend, but on Friday, on both sides of a six-hour sleep period, my RS chars got some milestones in.

First, Rebel Dragon and 85 crafting:

Then Elf Sphinx got Total level 200 and Dungeoneering level 20, respectively.

Okay, so actually level 21.

I feel that medium dungeons take too long and are not much fun to do if you're skilling on the available resources. Plus, they take well over an hour and a half sometimes while a small dungeon can be thoroughly mined, logged, and fished out in 20 minutes.

Just the way of things, I guess.

Rebel Dragon finally did a skeletal wyvern task. The only reason I'm doing them is I want to make those Super Prayer restores at lvl 94 herblore someday if I ever get there.

Incidently, here is Elf Sphinx battling a mighty planar-freeze thingy. Or, as I think of it, the tentacly thing in the ice room.

Dungeoneering Pure

Apparently I don't have enough to do. I know this to be incorrect, but considering what I'll randomly do...

This is Elf Sphinx, my new Runescape character. No, I'm not going to stop playing Rebel Dragon.

Elf Sphinx exists because I want to see what a Dungeoneering pure would look like...a character who spends the entire time of its Runescape existence inside the dungeons of Daemonheim. So far, the bosses have been Astea Frostweb (level 3) with the exception of this thing:

At my pitiful combat level of 3, there didn't seem to be enough heim crabs in the world for me to kill this thing, although it came close.

At the end of the night, I had reached complexity 3, doing three complete dungeons while skipping out on the behemoth, with the following stats:

All in all, not bad for a first night.

Runescape Behind the Scenes November

Well, this appears to be a promising month for Runescape, on several levels.

The Warped Dungeoneering floors are being released. I won't be able to use this update when they come out due to them starting at 95 Dungeoneering, but it's nice to see a skill being finished. There are eight new challenge rooms being released that will be available on all floors, and I'm more excited about those. The rest of the tier-11 equipment is also being released, and some of the new rewards (scroll of cleansing, anyone?) look like they could be useful.

The Herblore Habitat I'm not so sure about. Is it a minigame, or Distraction and Diversion? I like the promise of a new Construction area, but as a rule I don't do minigames unless I need something out of them. I hope it proves worthwhile, and isn't just another place in RS  that is forgotten after the first month.

Another master quest! I hope any combat isn't mind-numbingly difficult, like Nomad, because Nomad took me forever (like 6 months) to finally beat. I like a good epic boss fight but I prefer to not fail twenty times before beating it. It will be interesting to see how they tie the desert quests to Ape Atoll. I hope it doesn't come off as a cop-out just to finish up the Monkey Madness series because that storyline has the potential to be truly epic. IMHO.

Bank Op and Equip Screen Update (BOAESU) looks like it will be a possibly gameplay-changing update--being able to equip weapons or fill pouches while having your bank tab open will make certain things, such as Runecrafting, faster because there will be less clicks. Also, eating food and drinking potions while having your bank tab open? Someone's going to complain about eating a pumpkin or half wine, guaranteed, but it also seems like a promising aspect.

Looks to be an exciting month!

Runescape August Update Review

So apparently with my schedule at school and work, daily blogs are hard to do. Inspiration that is not rock-related tends to not turn up in case it has to compete with attitudes and apparent dips (don't ask). I'm going to try to get more consistent at it, but please don't be too severely disappointed if I don't update every day.

So, Runescape has finished all the updates they promised in their Behind the Scenes for August article, which is wonderful of them (they can abide by a schedule!). I haven't done some of these as much as I would like due to homework taking up all my free time, but what's a student to do?

The first week was the treasure trail update that was delayed from July--this saw the release of level 4 clues and many new rewards, including the promise of a treasure trail item in every clue. I can't say I'm a fan of getting a yew compound bow in a level 3 clue, and I've yet to get a level 4 clue in spite of faithfully visiting Bork every day. Still, I'm collecting the biscuits and I like how firelighters are now tradeable. I wish that they had done more work to make the new prayer books better for certain specialties, but all in all I found the update exciting. I really like the idea of meerkats.

The second week was A Void Dance quest that I found engaging and refreshing, although the tracking on Karamja nearly got annoying when I couldn't find the right fern to search for ten minutes. I found the story line engaging and the rewards weren't too shabby for the ease of the quest.

Third update was the Dungeoneering 2.0 update. I haven't really had a chance to try the occult floors but more prestige is a good thing and I immediately bought the Scroll of Efficiency that allows you to save bars while smithing. (Really, Firefox? You think 'smithing' isn't a legit word?).

Last update was the new minigame activity Conquest. I'd like to spend more time at this game if I wasn't currently working on getting all my skills to 80 and gathering seconds for the bonus xp weekend coming up. It definitely rewards the player who can better man their units and use their special spells wisely.

Lastly, check out their Game Bar. It's definitely nice to have, even if you play Runescape in one browser and do your web surfing in another.

That's all for now--hopefully we find some red hot goopy lava tomorrow and I can post some more pics of the stuff.

I BEAT NOMAD!!@!@!@!@!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for the abundance of Runescape post to you non Runescapians.

I BEAT NOMAD!!!!!! of Noman's Requiem quest.




Me trying on my Quest Cape for the first time in months:




Me running across Runescape screaming in triumph:

99 Range

So I got 99 Range today




Thanks to Flaivia, Fire11_11, Mark_H0ffman, Icy_Necros and Dischlerb for showing up to help me celebrate!

Am currently pursuing 88 slayer and 93 hitpoints today. Once I hit 80 def I will try to challenge Nomad again. Here's to hoping I succeed this time!

Runescape: What I do wrong/right

I ran across this list on The World Portal, by Kitt, a blog specifically about Runescape. I was a little surprised to find that there ARE blogs out there about Runescape and nothing but Runescape. It's really cool.

Anyways, I found this list of supposed "right" and "wrong" ways of playing Runescape. I thought I'd see how I measured up...

"These are all the things I do wrong in RuneScape.

Slayer

- no super/extreme pots (sometimes check...I get lazy/forget to use them)

- no piety/turmoil (check--can't do turmoil and piety drains prayer like a vampire drains blood)

- no cannon (check--I'd want to make my own cannonballs, and I don't want to do that)

- no Guthan's armor (I have it. I love it.)

- don't complete clues ASAP (usually I do--l00tz for meeee)

- no combat familiars (sometimes I do. What else am I going to do with them?)

Agility

- don't run at Ape Atoll (whyever not?)

Mining

- don't drop ores (check--if I'm mining, I probably want the ores for smithing)

Construction

- no servant (Got one. Minions are cool)

- no oak doors (check--I did  oak tables)

Runecrafting

- no graahking (check--don't have any)

- no abyssal minion (got them. So I use them)

- don't bank at ZMI (check--don't use ZMI)

- use all pouches (check)

Farming

- no daily herbs runs (check--until I want to empty my bank of seeds)

Hunter

- no red chins (got 91 hunter off these)

Dungeoneering

- don't rush (check)

- don't run 5:5 larges (check)

- kill everything except dino cows (check...um...trap dino cows, personally)

- check every room (check)

- haven't switched to 2h (check--mostly range or mage)"

Score: 14/21.

Well, I play to have fun, not to make money or level in the most efficient manner possible. Isn't that how it's supposed to go?

By the way, if you like reading Runescape blogs, Kitt's blog (The World Portal) is very good. I highly recommend it.

Runescape July Update Review

Warning: Unless you play Runescape, you may have no interest in the following blog.

The month of July was the first month in over a year that a Behind the Scenes was released for. I've always like Behind the Scenes as it gave you plenty of time to anticipate an update and gave you some reassurance that everyone at Jagex (Runescape's publisher) hadn't suddenly died and left a cold empty office behind.

So, July has ended. We got 2 out of 3 updates, with the last one being pushed back into August, so I'm just going to review the two we got.

Love Story: A charming quest, really. A mildly annoying factor of Runescape quests is that your character is usually gullible and can say some really silly stuff. You start the quest off by finding a ring a little whiny girl lost and then get challenged by a female mage saying that she hates all adventurers and that you and the Wise Old Man should come fight her. I'm not going to reiterate the entire quest here, but I will say, the cutscenes and story were really cool, and the rewards were awesome. A very enjoyable quest.

With the Love Story update most of the dragon graphics were updated. They now look more scaly and dragonlike, but I think their tales are too small to be proper dragon tails.

The next update is the commonly referred to 1.5 Dungeoneering update. This saw the release of various resource dungeons all over Runescape that gave you a one-time Dungeoneering xp find and permitted you to access some new resource spots. Very cool. The construction hotspot and group gatestone teleport were also much appreciated on my part. I feel that the class rings left something to be desired, as for most of the ring levels you are paying a lot of tokens for a very small % increase.

All in all, a good update month. I was disappointed that the new Treasure Trails did not come out but other than that, it was quite decent.

A Monday Morning

I scramble for the the alarm as it beeps at me. It doesn't feel as though I have gotten enough sleep but the twirping tells me I'd better have. My brain frantically scrambles to disentangle my last dream from waking reality. Some mornings are more difficult than others; if I get yanked out of sleep mid-dream I have to run down the list of reality checks: this is my bed, the window is on that side, there is no warehouse, I can't actually fly, etc..

I crawl off our California King bed and make a stumble for the door. The aroma of coffee in the air reassures me that yes, I did remember to set the automatic coffee maker last night. I stumble past it to the bathroom for a quick visit, pausing on the way to turn my laptop on.

Upon exiting the restroom I enter my password into the computer and navigate to the kitchen, where with any luck the coffee pot has stopped gurgling. I pour five seconds worth of sugar in my coffee cup and then fill it up with coffee. A quick stir and a quick sample tell me that it's sweet enough. Clutching my coffee mug like the Holy Grail, I slog to the couch where my laptop has hopefully finished loading everything and open the Runescape home page in hopes that they've updated the game today.  This week they're supposed to be making an upgrade to their clue trails. The way clue trails work is that you get a clue scroll from a monster and then you go on a treasure hunt all over the world of Runescape, following the clues. If you're lucky you get cool stuff.

No update, which makes me sad for all of two minutes as I log on and set off to slay Hellhounds, which is my current slayer assignment. Twelve red dogs later and I get a clue. I decide to save it for the update (as you can only get one clue at a time and I want kewl st00fs) and set off to gain a fishing level.

I end up not getting the fishing level because I'm trying to find a way to get my Facebook to announce whenever I have a blog post. This takes some time. I also run across a way to put a 'Like' button for people to like my posts, so I figure how to put that in (took some HTML code insertion). I am startled by the sudden appearance of Roommate, who mumbles a good morning in my general direction and sets about making himself breakfast. I am finishing reading Cracked articles when Roommate offers some corned hash and eggs. I have a small amount before looking in the refrigerator for items I can throw together for lunch. Today, we end up with some leftover stuffing and McDonalds chicken nuggets. I nearly forget but I grab a white nectarine to accompany the other items in my soft-sided lunch bucket. I then head to the bedroom to put on some out-of-the-house clothes and to put my pocket items in their appropriate pockets. Today I switch up some of the pockets; the keys ended up in the right front pocket when they normally go in the left front pocket.

I then give LOML a kiss, and he gives a happy grunt without waking up. I grab the lunch pail and backpack and head for the door. It's raining, so after putting my sandals on I sidle against the house wall for as long as I can before making a dash for my car.

Five minutes of driving, I'm at work and it's not raining anymore. I walk into the office I share with two other interns (M___ is already in, as usual). I set my backpack down on my seat and head for the kitchenette area to stow my lunch. I get a cup of espresso and head back to my desk. It appears that the computer in Chile is still running the program I told it to before I left on Friday, which is good; however there appear to have been no earthquakes over the weekend. My mind is still refusing to put thoughts in sequential order. But that's Monday for you.

On Runescape...

So I’ve mentioned Runescape. Unless you’re blind or oblivious you’ve probably noticed the RSS feed in the sidebar that lists “I killed Bork” and several other things that probably make no sense if you’ve
A. Never played a MMORPG
B. Never played Runescape.

Runescape is a fantasy game that permits you to wander the wide wide world, performing quests, slaughtering monsters and chickens, killing other players, or grinding away at an endless variety of skills. That’s the nutshell description. If you read on you’ll undoubtedly learn more but I’m afraid it won’t make a whole lot of sense if you don’t have a background for it. I could try to give you a background but that would make this blog much longer than I want to write and I would suggest you go try your hand at Runescape. You can play the free version for as long as you want and no I’m not getting any kickbacks from Runescape for directing people their way although I think they definitely should be.

I do quests. I didn’t realize my love for quests was unusual until B___(one of the people responsible for me playing this game) commented on my unusually high Quest Points for my level. So I can’t help it that a bit of story-telling overrides poking a sharp metal stick into stuff. Plus quests usually give cool rewards and open access to new areas blah blah blah.

After quests I skill. Some people with steady nerves and lightning fast reflexes go into the whole killing players for riches (and sometimes glory) business but the few times I’ve attempted it I’ve ended up donating everything I was wearing to the big empty Wilderness (so this was a long time ago when the Wildy was still a place for player killers to kill other player killers or, more likely, skillers. No, I have no bitterness at all from that episode of my RS existence). Some people band together to kill the ‘boss’ monsters around RS for their big dough.

And since I’m more inclined to skill I looked about for a skill to train once I ran out of quests. First I raised all my skills to 70, and then Construction came out and I fell in love with the whole concept of player houses. Actually, I was training Slayer but I realized that training Slayer would raise one or two of my combat skills to the highest level (99) before I got slayer to that level. And since everyone was running around with their untrimmed combat capes I decided for my first 99 to be Construction. This actually took longer than I thought it would.

I don’t recommend playing RS this way unless you either find it fun/relaxing/mind-numbing bliss/allows you to catch up on 10 seasons of Stargate, but I proceeded to hack thousands of mahogany logs for my very own Construction shop, where I sold flatpacked furniture to less able RS players for quite a few levels, managing to avoid the cash drain so many players training Con were suffering. Due to a sudden change in living situations and internet availability (i.e. getting booted out of the place I was living for really stupid reasons not my fault) forced me to close the shop and I hacked trees whenever I got the opportunity to be online. By the time I was ready to train Con again, Summoning had been released, and being the mildly compulsive person I am I had to train it. So I trained it to 82 (because I ended up with the charms for that level) and looked at the options for 99 Con again. Due to the introduction of the Grand Exchange and the elimination of free trade, all flatpack prices had dropped through the floor and meant that spending 2 mahogany planks (3000gp) to build a chair worth 10gp simply wasn’t going to cut it.

So I bought a shite ton of oak logs at a low price and proceeding to make the money to plank them. In January 2009 I finally had more gp than I had ever had in my RS career (a mere 40 mil to some of you) and I proceed to plank and level with the logs I had.

This took to July 25th, 2009.

That’s almost 7 months.

That’s a lot of time to do almost nothing in your gaming time but run back and forth building oak tables.

Untrimmed 99 Construction cape. I wore it with pride. People were awed. Etcetera etyada.

After that I got 99 woodcutting so I could get 99 fletch so I could spend it all getting some armor and supplies and then I most recently got 99 magic. Now I’m slaying. And actually, there is something refreshing about sticking sharp things into monsters.

But that’s only until the next quest.