Starstruck

I'm sure everyone has their Runescape 'idol', or someone they really look up to, may it be Gertjaars, Chessy018 or some Pking legend. Well, mine would be Excl, a RS machinima videomakler who recently won the Jagex machinima contest. Of course, my admiration for him started way back, when a fellow clanmate of mine, Deamonloard9 introduced the clan to a few of his videos, about a year or 2 ago. I have to say, I’m pretty amazed by his creativity and undoubtedly, his video making skills.

This sudden confession of fanhood aside, while lurking in his clan chat about a month ago, I was greeted with a surprise. Excl is holding a house party to celebrate 40k Youtube subscribers for one of his friend, Dark Arm3, also known as Sladeakakevin on his Youtube account. Of course, I had to stop my mining training and dash over to his house in Rimmington. By dash, I really ran all the way, using my charges from my explorer ring whenever I was out of run energy. Luckily enough, I was among the first few to reach his house, and decided to take a tour whilst waiting for the crowd to gather. Within 2 minutes, when I went back to the room Excl was in, it was just jam packed with players of all levels and outfits ( Yeah, some of them had fashion sense resembling that of Lady Gaga's -Runescape-wise.)

The house party soon moved to the altar, where Excl 'married' Dark Arm3, with rings and all, while the rest of us aww-ed.

After which, there was just a lot of people running around, me getting bored, and me leaving the party with a really good memory of meeting up with one second favourite Runescaper of all time, Excl. He seems really nice too!

Don't worry Tim, you are still first :)

So, if you are reading this, who is the Runescaper you really want to meet?

By the way, this is one of my favourite moments, I got to sit on Excl's throne!

Jubilation.

I finally got the cape I had been working towards for the past year, the Strength cape. As usual, I invited members from Blessings, as well as my own friends who were online to join me in the screenshot. Albeit the screenshot going wrong and missing the 99 message, we had a lot of fun enjoying ourselves at clan wars, fighting as a clan, as a group, as friends.

Coincidentally, my character looks rather grumpy in this screenshot. I guess my pixel self was as disappointed as myself for not getting the screenshot.

Still, I had a hell of a time, and thinking back, a realization hit me. It really wasn't about the achievement, the cape, or the maxed stat, it really was about friends who I could share any of these with. The most fun I had throughout the whole day was not the moment I got the level up, it wasn't the moment I got my cape either - I asked them to get ready for clan wars and went to get the cape myself, it wasn't even performing my emote for the first time, it was that extremely close match we fought with a larger clan, and Blessings holding our own ground, dealing almost equal damage albeit we had almost half their numbers.

Thank you all! :)

So, to those who could make it, thanks a lot, you really made my day. To those who couldn't, meh, there will be a next time, and its still gonna be awesome! :D

Target Locked.

I'm now closing in on maxing my first combat skill, Strength. And yes, though my methods still entail certain degrees of grinding, my tiny breaks in between did their job in not boring me off the game. The study and examination period that lasted for a few weeks also did wonders with keeping me occupied while my pixel self whacks away at the monsters, gaining those strength experience as I myself gained knowledge whilst reading through my notes. (Yeah, I actually learn from going through my notes, have to admit that I'm not the most attentive student out there :] )

If nothing else fails, I should be done with training by the end of this week, and probably be having the level up and party sometime next week.

This is how little experience there is left till 99 Strength while I'm working on this post! :)

Kat and I made use of the new name-change system too, though neither of us are pleased with the names we came up :|

Wanted to write this part way before the examination period, procrastination pushed the actual typing of this post till now, though.

Before moving over to the desert bandits, I was still training strength in the Stronghold, on level 50 giant spiders. Relative to the players training on desert bandits, those training on the giant spiders are lower in level, and in most cases, donning inferior armor compared to my bandos set.

Something that irked me after a while would happen everyday *without fail*. I would get asked how I made enough money to afford the set. Initially, the attention was rather pleasing and ego-boosting, to be honest, I've never been seen as a rich player before, at least not standing next to Tim, with this Reddy, or Dg, with her full bandos *AND* dragonfire shield.

So, when greeted by this question initially, I would gladly share my money-making method, fishing and farming, with a bit of slayer and hunting thrown in between. This routine goes on, from days to weeks. Albeit tired of repeating the same responses, I was still willing to offer my advice to those who asked me.

What really irks me was how some people decided to just strut by, and comment on how my BGS sucks compared to the SS, how I'm dumb 'cause I'm not selling my Bandos set even though its value (was) dropping, and that I'm a noob 'cause I still train at the spiders. The worst yet, those to question the effectiveness of how I make *my* money. Yup, those were not satisfied with the answer I gave, and started throwing out other common money-making ways, expecting me to do a comparison between those ways and *my* way. After a few instances of that happening, these thoughts entered my mind.

Are higher levels really obligated to help the 'little-ones' out? If so, why aren't we getting more appreciation? Really, if you want help and advice, put yourself in a position where you actually deserve some :\

Achievements today: 290k Strength Experience, 'bout 300k left to go.

Enjoying the game.

While training strength today, I had a talk with a fellow player, Boombaye, who suggested I try soul wars out. Tempted, I went to look up some guides on the minigame, and decided to give it a go.

Initially, though I was reluctant to leave the training spot I've been camping at, I was getting extremely bored of looking at my avatar slashing away at the little critters. The minigame, however, had the effect of breaking the monotony of the training and after a good round, I dived back into strength training with a somewhat less bored self. Though closing in on 95 strength, I must admit that the monotony of the power training is getting to me, and I really admire a few of my friends who could bear just training the skill day in, day out until 99. Ah yes, I'm referring to you, Stacey (She's a complete training machine. Madness). That was what gave me the idea of this post actually, to explore avenues which reduce the pain of power-training.

After some thought, I came up with a list of things I do/did while I was getting my cooking cape, and during my mad dash for both the fishing and strength capes.

1. Minigames

Ah, my favourite. A game of two of Stealing Creation, Castle wars, or an hour at Clan Wars usually gives me a break enjoyable for me to get back to intensive training.

2. Do something IRL - Homework, Manga, Anime, something else that can share your attention.

Surprisingly, training that requires little attention gives me a lot of time to do my work. During my break last year, although I was intensively fishing monkfish, I saw the opportunity to study at the same time since there was little attention required. All I had to do was to move spots and get gear good enough to withstand a few hits from river trolls and the like(aggressive random events were still in play back then :-\).

During that period of time, the amount of time I spent studying was literally the amount of hours I was on Runescape. I even used the clan chat to quiz another friend of mine who was taking the same examinations as I do to check my studying progress.

Anime does a great job for me as well, although sometimes I miss the subtitles when I eat, or reply someone and have to rewatch some parts. :-\

I also take the time training to read the games news and updates, as well as look around the net for other stuff.

3. Train another skill

This was a dangerous choice for me. Getting a little tired of the constant fishing after the examinaions had ended, I decided to take a break and train my strength. ... and that became the current skillcape I'm going full steam ahead for.

But hey, that just proved how effective this is. The new skill relieved my bordoom so much that I switched to training it instead! :)

4. Observing other players

This is my favourite. Entering a clan chat, I often rest in Chessy018's clan chat if I'm not in Blesschat. I like just lurking around, watching how players interact. Maybe it's just a personality thing, but I actually enjoy doing this. Maybe chime in once in a while, but mostly its just silently reading their conversation.

Happen to catch Excl on while writing this post too, around the time when the results of the Machinima competition was posted. A sudden server reset kicked the other players and myself out of the chat though, and by the time I managed to get back in, Excl had left for work. *Sigh*. the first time I've had the chance to see Excl too.

5. Just do something else

For this, I sometimes have random impluses to merch items from the G.E, or do a quest, distractions, and stuff like that. Usually will take me a while too before I get back to training. That's pretty good for bordoom relief too.

While writing this post again, Boombaye messaged me excitedly telling me that Mod Nyrr was in World 1, and *poof*, I was there. The dude stayed to answer some questions and danced around while I got back to training after taking a few satisfactory screenshots of the Moderator.

I really question the fashion sense though, but that's just me.

Today's Achievement: Tons of Strength experience, kept myself un-bored.

Revival.

Hmm, this blog had been left dead for a while, but since I've recently started Runescape again, I think I'll try to keep it going for the time being. :)

I've been doing quite a lot of 26k Pvp trick recently, after being tempted by Tim and Dg's wonderful drops. Surprised to say, the money comes in very easily. Many have argued, however, the easy money has led to the spike in prices of many items, food and potions being one of the categories affected. Countless threads that are unsupportive of this form of money making have also mushroomed in the Official Runescape Forums.

For me, I see their point, but I really do not see why there is a need for such a fuss. One thing I've noticed though, many of the opponents of the PVP trick fall under the "below 100" category and yet most of the trick users I've seen are in the the high 100s.

Hmm.

Happy Birthday Mark!

My post for ya is here. :D

http://a-life-of-hecticness.blogspot.com/

Getting the hang of it.

Finally, the weekend arrived. I never knew the significance of TGIF!(Thank God Its Friday) until now. The time I have to spend on Runescape is really little now, since my new cca demands a lot our of its members. The competition is less than a month away, and that's all the time the coach as to turn most of us from debaters with little-no experience, into mean, savage killing machines. School is rather tiring too, and I found myself dozing off a couple of times during lectures already. Apart from the exhausting schedule and overly-strenuous physical education, I am actually enjoying my junior college life a lot. I made a couple of great friends already, everyone-well, almost everyone in my new class is great, and the bond came really quickly. This is something I have never experienced before. Then again, we only have 2 years to bond and enjoy each others's accompaniment anyway, we'd have to do it quick or miss the fun we'd have. There isn't much really an issue of breaking the ice, we were all rather prepared to be friendly from day 1, and I can really see this class going on to achieve bigger and better things as a whole.
Still, I miss my secondary school life a lot, my friends, my cca, the teachers, I can't wait till Teachers' Day this year to return to my Alma Mater.

My time on Runescape now is mainly split between events, minigame, and fishing. Fishing takes up the bulk of the time actually, since I am usually multi-tasking when I play Runescape on weekdays, if I have any time to play anyway. For now, I'm working towards 90 Fishing, then probably 92. I'll see where this multi-tasking brings me to and decide if I want to switch skills.

Oh and Blessings just turned 2 this March. Finally, we passed another milestone, although the membership is dwindling. I'm grateful for the loyal clanmates who stayed on despite the waning interest for the game, and the changes in schedule in their own lives. I have the intention of keeping Blessings small, I'd rather have a really tight family than a huge group of cliques. This coming year would be tough, with many of the pillars of the clan being engaged in really busy real-life-stuff. We have to stick together, its gonna be better during the holidays! :D Happy Birthday Blessings!

Stuff achieved today : Nothing worth noting.