The Soul of a RuneScaper

Attempt Number Two.

2010-11-29T08:37:00.000-08:00

I've managed to do quite a bit of training during the past week, especially since Friday after I took my last examination paper. Liberation at last and I can finally play Runescape excessively without a single trace of guilt. Of course, with the new level of activity, there were a few levels gained, as well as more distractions and diversions completed.

Among those new levels were 92 Attack and 93 Farming, which were both awesome. I'll be expecting more Attack levels soon since I'm spending majority of my time online completing Slayer tasks. I've also tried resuming my previous daily farming rounds so I should be getting in some decent Farming experience daily and seeing some movement up the ranks once again. I think I peaked at top 15k before I stopped a few months ago and hopefully during my play this time, I can increase my peak rank to be within the top 12k.

I've also completed a treasure trail, hunted down another star at the invitation of Pie. Nothing really noteworthy about the treasure trail though, the rewards were quite average. As for the Star Hunting, the crash site brought me back to Crandor, an area I haven't visited in a really long time. I used to kill the demons there but I've found many better places to train since becoming a member.

I apologize for the quality of some screenshots. I think I saved them in the wrong format or something, which made them lose some quality. That is in addition to the fact that I have to play in minimum detail because my computer is already struggling to cope with minimum graphics.

In other news, Kat and I have made another attempt at starting a clan. Our last attempt, Blessings was a considerable success, if I may say so myself. Beyond the fact that we managed to stay as a clan for 3 whole years, many of us have also made wonderful friends who have enriched our gaming experience.

Now, we have Amicus. This time, we are focusing on a creating a community clan. We aim to gather a group of mature and committed players into a community, attending events, sharing advice and enjoying the company of one another. Due to the fact that we are more concerned with the quality of members we are recruiting this time, there will not be a level requirement and the quality of answers in each application would be the main basis of consideration when it comes to the decision of whether to grant membership. High stats are not required, though they might be of benefit to individual members in allowing them a greater range of community events to choose from. We are currently in the midst of recruiting and welcome interested players to try out.

Our recruitment post, now found in a few Runescape forums such as Zybez, Rune Tips and Rune HQ, will be shared below.

Amicus Forums
Memberlist

About us
Amicus strives to be a different kind of Runescape clan - one that does not look exclusively for strong Runescape characters, but instead sharp, dedicated people to join our community. We look for maturity in all our members.

What do I need to join?
We do not have level requirements. All you have to do is pass our application test to join. We want to get a feel of how you are a both a Runescape player and a person, so please be candid when answering the questions. However, good stats are still encouraged because they will allow you access to a wider variety of community events.

How do I apply?
Visit our forum here, sign up for an account and follow the instructions on our application form found in Administration > Clan Information > Application Form. Alternatively, there is a link provided under Pending Applications.

Who to contact?
For questions, please reply to this thread. Alternatively, you can direct them to MisterTiz on Runescape, or join the Amicus Clanchat at AmicusChat.

Return.

2010-11-23T02:32:00.000-08:00

I've decided to come back to the game following Tim's return. I've been kept busy in the past few months with a lot of studying and recently, major examinations. As I'm writing this, I have one final paper to go before I'll be done with studying for a while. At least until I come out of National Service. Actually, I was kept so busy with studies and real life in general that I never really felt a desire to play Runescape , and even during the few rare moments when I was tempted to, I managed to resist the urge. Until Tim told me of his plans to return to the game, that is. I caved to temptations soon after. Back to the examinations. At the moment, I'm pretty confident of getting good results, though there are still a few little mistakes here and there that make me nervous when I think about them.

I'm not particularly happy in the fact that I slipped almost 2k in ranks on my Farming skill, but I've enjoyed myself quite a lot ever since I returned to the game almost 2 weeks ago. Taking a break certainly helped in reigniting my interests in the game.I've already set a few goals that I'm hoping to complete before I get shipped off to the army. I hope to obtain both the Attack and Constitution cape, reach 85 Slayer and 95 Farming. I feel pretty certain about being able to get the capes and 85 Slayer, but Farming appears to be the biggest challenge at the moment.

Also, it seems that quite a few of my friends are returning to the game. Besides Tim, Kat and Mat, other ex-members from Blessings also made their return to the game, which is quite awesome since it was the lack of company that motivated me to stop playing a few months ago.

Since my return, albeit at a really bad timing in the middle of the examinations, I've mainly been training skills that require little attention whilst studying. That being said, I managed to get a new pet penguin, complete an elite clue scroll and gain a smithing level as a reward for the hours spent on smithing cannonballs.

The elite clue scroll was definitely not easy. I spent hours running around, being all clueless and stupid until finally the clue itself led me to the south end of the Piscatoris Hunter area. Special thanks to H Alger, he helped me out massively. I went on to solve a few cryptic knots, even more compass clues and a few puzzle boxes. Puzzle boxes have become much easier after the training I got from my sliding puzzle craze a while ago. I did get killed by the Chaos Elemental once though, when I ventured near its spawn unaware and unprepared. I managed to salvage most items, but I had to get a new Explorer's ring, Falador shield and Ectophial. After quite a bit of running around, I finally completed the trail and was rewarded pretty generously. I was shocked that I could not sell the Bandos kiteshield for anything above the minimum price on the Grand Exchange, but I still managed to make 1.2 mil off the sale of the kiteshield at minimum price.

I also managed to obtain 2000 total levels. I had orginally planned for 2000 total to be achieved with 93 Farming, but an accidental Runecrafting level gotten after hunting for penguins ruined my plan. I'm still happy to reach the 2000 milestone though! :)

Just earlier today, I finally caught Merch in Canting. Haven't seen her since my return and I haven't had many to chat with in Canting due to the influx of new members, (whom I'm shy around, heh). I need to make it a point to make new friends, especially since most of the people whom I used to talk to in Canting seemed to have left the game too. We got called off to Rellekka to mine a level 6 star after Orix's friends discovered the star and he relayed the message to us. The crowd at the crash site was pretty entertaining, to say the least. One of the dudes who couldn't enter the mine due to quest requirements made it his duty to entertain us while watching us from the outside. It was all good and entertaining indeed, until he started taking advantage of someone's Lava titan. Things got slightly creepy after that. Still, we picked up a new Canter and that's always good!

Oh.. and..

Taking a short break.

2010-08-23T07:05:00.001-07:00

Hello guys,

I'm going to be taking a short break from Runescape for now due to a couple of reasons. Firstly, my Prelims and national exams are not too far away and I really need to try and reduce the distractions I have. Secondly, my computer broke down, and while the other one works (this one), it runs Runescape extremely slowly. The lags-even-in-minimum-detail kind of lag. So yeah, not really encouraging me to play much either.

That being said, I might log in every once in a while to farm and if you do catch me on, say hi!

Hopefully I'll be back in about 2-3 months and getting a new computer/laptop early next year!

Cheers,

Tiz.

With 92 Farming, I'm finally halfway there!

2010-08-12T07:38:00.000-07:00

After realising that I can actually assist up to 93 Farming using a garden pie, I've been occasionally been helping out at this other chatchat, Assist Clan, which was created specially for players assisting and those in need of assisting to meet and help each other. All other information are in this following post on the Runescape forums. This clan has been pretty useful for me so far, and I usually get my assists within 20-30 minutes, which includes starting on the effigy from the 'starved' stage. I usually use up my farming assists within the same time period as well, since I can just ask the players in need of my assist to hop over to my world and location.

It seems that level up messages don't appear when you level up through assisting. So here's my latest stats (accurate as of 12/08/2010)

Oh, and I got a farming level while assisting another player today, pushing my farming level to 92 now, which is just a teeny step closer to getting that cape... Eventually. Another though popped into my mind while I was talking to the others in Canting just now. Kayla mentioned something along the lines of how she would be willing to trade her (almost)99 constitution for my (at that point, almost) 92 farming. And I know this is probably one of the oldest topics out there, but the issue of prestige which is associated with skills came to my mind. To be honest, the reasons I started training farming aggressively in my early stages was a combination of potential money, Tim's encouragement and the fact that since it wasn't a very widely trained skills, it was very easy for me to make huge advances rank-wise.

Practical as it is, I do consider some capes to me more 'prestigious' than others, and to me, wielding my cooking cape does make a difference to me wielding my defence or fishing cape. Not sure if this is the way I should be heading but at least for now, that's what I feel about different capes, and I really want that farming cape. Hopefully before JaGex comes up with something that makes farming overly easy to train too. Hmm, not sure if I'm correct here, but yeah, to me, some capes just seem to gain my admiration much more than others. And that is on the assumption that I don't know the player at all, I have many friends wielding cooking capes who are simply awesome people. :)

Ooh, and I'm quite hyped about the recent Treasure Trail update and I've completed 2 trails so far, with no luck getting the new items. Still, I'm looking forward to more clue scrolls.

Unlocked: Ability to investigate starved Farming effigies!

2010-07-29T07:01:00.000-07:00

t's been a while since I last posted due to schoolwork piling up. The dismal results I've received for the mid-year examinations did not exactly motivate me to blog either. Anyway, I shall try to generate a post per week, just so that I can update and track progress and share stuff along the way. Due to the same reasons, I haven't exactly been very active, only logging in for a farming round and some light training while I have dinner or when I'm taking a break from studying.

And yes, I've achieved level 91 Farming a while ago, which grants me the ability to investigate Starved Farming Effigies! Well, I don't see myself being able to help a lot of people out since 91 Farming is not that great yet but I guess I'm on my way there. Eventually. Still, I'm really looking forward to reaching 92 Farming, since it would represent the half-way point to maxing the skill.

After my failed merching attempt, which I mentioned in the last post, I've just found a new item to try out today and hopefully I'll be able to last for longer this time. As for the losses, I'll just plant the seeds and see if I can recoup my losses through selling ranarr weed. I bought 300 seeds for about 24.3-24.5k each, and that costs about 7-8m in total worth *when* I bought it. It dipped to 19k a while ago and is now falling yet again after a small improvement a couple of days ago. I suspect this might have something to do with the new resource dungeons but that's just pure conjecture at this point in time. Wish me luck on attempt #2!

This was taken a while ago (24/07/10) when seed prices were at its lowest, if i'm not mistaken.

This was taken earlier today (29/07/10). Slight improvement overall, but still experiencing a fall in prices.

On another separate, random issue of skill rankings, I was reminded of a discussion I had with a few friends who used to play RS with me about whether it is more prestigious to have many decently high skills, or a few in which one can be exceptional in terms of rankings. I remember sitting on the fence with that at that point in time and I still feel roughly the same. Though I have a slight lean towards having a few skills that we can be truly proud of instead of being a jack of all trades. I do see the merits of having all skills to be relatively well balanced and I am working towards that, but sometimes I think it is really worth it to just spend some extra time training past 99 to make a jump in rankings. This is especially so since there are many who simply stop after getting the cape and investing some more time and effort would push rankings up quite a fair bit.

That's what I did for fishing and cooking, and I'm still cooking fish every now and then when I fish my own supplies. I did the same with strength, except I didn't really have a choice in this case since I was hunting for crimson charms after I got the cape and was stuck at the Waterfiends for quite a while. I've yet to be able to train defence sadly, also since I am rarely online enough to be able to train it much anyway, but that's definitely going to happen once I am able to resume my previous level of activity.

Oh and I was finally convinced that I should not get the bonecrusher after reading this post by Vaskor.

A new addition to my cape rack.

2010-07-17T21:47:00.000-07:00

I managed to get the defence cape about a week ago, and I invited Tim over for the screenshot. I think I'll start working towards the attack cape soon, but I am spending my time now between training ranged and hunter. Ranged for slayer tasks, usually and hunter by trapping red chinchompas. I also intend on splurging on power-training ranged with a mixture of the red chins, which I would have to buy in addition to what I already caught, as well as using the cannon during slayer tasks whenever I can.

I've also met some difficulties with my merching business. I was merching ranarr seeds previously, and a recent drop in prices have left me stuck with some of the seeds I bought, so I'll have to wait for prices to go up again so that I can get the seeds off my hands. I'll probably be switching to another item soon since I think I have enough capital to start merching more expensive items which I wasn't able to when I started.

I've also been doing quite a few treasure trails, though none has yielded me anything worth celebrating yet, considering the time and effort involved in completing level 3 trails. Keeping my eyes out for the Elite trails though, they sound really interesting at the very least, if not lucrative at the same time.

Something else interesting, I met Canada Grrl, a forum moderator, during my hunt. She seems to be in-charge of the w60 penguins' clan and the author of the weekly Penguin Locations thread on the official forums, which is handy for checking which penguin(s) one might have missed. It appears that the 100th week of penguin release is approaching and they seem to be holding some sort of a celebration so if anyone is interested, read pages 4 and 5 of this thread.

Updates I'm looking forward to seeing this month...

2010-07-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

After reading Behind the Scenes for July, I made up my mind about which updates I'm looking forward to and which ones I really don't see affecting me.

Well, we've already seen the first promised update being released in the form of the new quest, Love Story. This is one update that would probably not affect me for quite a while, since I have neither the skills, nor the urge to complete this quest. Perhaps a little later, when I finally find time to complete WGS, and even for that I have to clear a lot of other quests before I can even start on.

As for the addition of hidden resource dungeons, I have a feeling the ways I can benefit from this updated would be quite limited as well, seeing that my dungeoneering level is nowhere decent enough to be able to access the better dungeons, assuming that the more useful ones only are made exclusive to the higher levels. This gives me the incentive and reason to continue training the skill though, not only to get the bonecrusher I've been going for, but also for the access to these resource dungeons when they are released.

The class rings rewards are definitely the update I'm the most excited about. I have always assumed the role of a warrior in most of the raids that I go on, some little help in gathering extra defense, especially against those pesky mysterious shades would certainly thrill me. I'm sure that it would be very useful for me when I go on my solo raids in terms of gathering resources as well, not to mention group raids, where extra armor always helps.

The prospect of incorporating the Construction skill into Dungeoneering, especially that of being able to build my own altar in the starting room sounds like a very practical use for the skill to me, not to mention saving myself the effort to search all over for altars. Hopefully I'll able to build the altar at my level.

Improvements to the Single-Player instance dungeons is pretty appealing to me as well since I do go on solo raids very often, and sometimes it is really nice to be able to log off and know that my progress would be saved if I needed a break.

The re-work of the treasure trails and the new elite trails do sound interesting, but that's all I feel about them, I do trails only for the potential to earn some huge money, so it doesn't really matter to me whether I get a trail specific item or not, especially if it becomes so common due to the guarantee that one will be given for each trail and results in it having a low price. As for the elite trails, the puzzles sound difficult, and I've always been rather inapt at puzzles, so I foresee the Celtic knot puzzle being a real challenge to me.

I've also recently reached 100M total experience, which is quite cool, I guess. I've managed to get move even closer to 99 defence as well, and I'm only 700k away from it at this moment.

As for merching, it seems pretty successful and promising so far, I've made 1.2M in the past 10 days, which is pretty decent, considering that it barely takes 5 minutes of my time daily.

Recent activities.

2010-07-03T02:28:00.000-07:00

I've took a break from dungeoneering a few days ago to concentrate on getting 99 defence. At this point, I'm just 2 levels, or 1.8M experience points to go before I can get the cape. I've been splitting my training between Slayer and camping at the armoured zombies. To be honest, both are rather profitable, and I do take away a lot of loot even from camping at the armoured zombies. Usually, I've be able to bag a respectable amount of charms, oak and teak planks, rune essence, mithril arrows as well as an assortment of herbs. Most importantly, the experience there is amazing, and I used to get 200-300k experience daily just camping there for a few hours whilst I study for my mid-years (which, by the way, I foresee myself doing really badly in). So, with any luck, hopefully I'll be able to get the cape in another week or so. I've added slayer to my training routine to get some extra cash to fund my camping trips at the zombies as well, since camping at the armoured zombies can be quite costly seeing that I heal with Guthans so that I don't have to constantly run to a bank for food and I plan on keeping the resources gathered for training, so I am making quite little from camping at the armoured zombies. But the zombies are still a fairly good spot for getting fast experience and some cash if one is willing to sell the loot, or bother to pick them up in the first place.

I've also started merching after re-visiting one of Vaskor's posts. I've been using the 'fundamental trading' method, and results have been rather positive so far. I'm not making big profits, neither am I aiming for that at this point, but merching, as I found out, is quite fun, takes very little time to buy and sell items once I found the right items to trade, and the graphs on the GE database helps quite a bit in my selection of items. Hopefully, I'll be able to move on to other types of merching after I become more acquainted with the 'fundamental' style, and built up enough capital to move on to bigger items. I've also been considering selling my d-claws in exchange for prayer experience but the soaring prices of dragon bones have been stopping me from buying them in bulk at this point, hopefully the prices of d-bones would fall soon and I can get started on prayer training. That might take some time though, since the prices are still steadily rising right now.

Another thing, I've always noticed these weird looking like objects seemingly stuck to the side of my d-hide chaps, and I've never been able to make out what they are. I was finally able to do so today. I found out that those are arrows! They look like steel arrows, if I'm not wrong.

Oh, and before I forget, these are some screenshots from my 99 fishing, taken before I went for the long break a while ago.

I've also finished up some treasure trails since I'm back, as well as a quest, Fairy Tales III, my personal favourite.

Dungeoneering.

2010-06-19T06:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I am back on Runescape full time since Tim decided to start playing. I can't really say that I'm surprised by his decision to make a return, but I'm enjoying his company again. Mat is back too, which makes things even better.

Anyway, I've been dungeoneering a lot with Tim recently, we usually do a few raids as a team when we meet up. I remembered having a really bad impression of the skill when it was first released due to its similarity to Stealing Creation, and didn't really like it when I gave it my first try. I think playing in a group improves the experience greatly. Though I was reluctant to train this skill for a long time, I decided to give it a second go when Tim invited me for a game, and found myself actually enjoying the skill. I've made it a point to train by myself everyday since to keep up with Tim's progress.

Only one little thing about group raids that I'm not so fond with though - the aspect of playing this game with other strangers. Not that I have qualms with helping out others in my team as we go along, I've yet to meet a team that I thought was working along well. It seems that there is also someone in the team that (intentionally or otherwise), seem to be a little lost. Wait... make that very confused. I just ended 2 raids with this team that I was with, pretty decent guys, but there was just this one player, who was blatantly waiting for us to kill the guardians before proceeding to loot everything he can after we kill them. Yes, he went to the extent of waiting on the spot the guardians were on so that he could start looting the instant they were finished off by us. Thing is, he wasn't, by any measure, the weakest member in the team, and I am pretty sure that others on the team were not too fond of him either.

Later on, during one of the boss fights, I got a pleasant surprise. He was owned by the boss. I couldn't stop smiling when I saw his character performing the death animation.

Maybe its just one of those bad streaks, since I've only grouped with strangers thrice, but I really hope that I would be able to meet better, more responsible players. If not, I'll resort to going for solo raids. Still, I find dungeoneering somewhat fun now, especially with the company of friends.

Another thing that I've noticed with Dungeoneering, it might actually motivate players to train up other skills in order to unlock/equip more items. I know that is what I am experiencing now, trying to get my smithing up so that I don't have to rely Tim to smith me those awesome armor he always has to that much. Maybe it will have the effect on others as well, not to mention the bonus in Dungeoneering experience obtained when more skills are used, if I'm not wrong.

And, welcome back, Tim and Mat! :)

Attention Blessings members.

2010-03-08T06:52:00.001-08:00

I've just made the following post on the Blessings forum. Thank you all for the joy you have brought me over the three years of my stay in Blessings.

Hello everyone,

On the 9th on March, Blessings celebrates her 3rd year anniversary. Due to the inactivity of the clan lately, and the general inactivity of the admins and leaders, I've decided to announce Blessings disbanded.

I really owe a big thank you to you all, who have stood by Kat, Tim and myself, through the many difficult times Blessings faced, including the periods of diminishing membership, as well as the deletion of our first forum a while ago. There are a few people who I'd like to specially mention, who have contributed greatly to the clan, from its beginning, allowing us to prosper into such a close group of friends.

Thank you Stacey, for being one of our very first members and spending so much of your time offering your services as a moderator on the forums. Also, for being such a great friend to me.

Thank you Mat, for leading our first event team and organizing so many events for us to spend time together as a clan.

Thank you Mark, for being our first member and first top poster. Thank you for bringing us much joy in the clan chat.

Thank you Zelda, for also leading our event team, and for sharing your witty humour in the clan chat with the rest of us.

Also, a big thank you to a few of our founding members, Evolution, Spamicken, Marsh and Kinghell.

Last but not least, thank you Kat and Tim, for help to keep the clan going and working alongside with me.

I've had three very enriching and happy years with Blessings, and I wish our current members all the best in your future RS and RL endeavors. A side note, blesschat shall still be open for you guys to meet up and such.

That's all I have for now, thank you all very much.

Regards,
Titus.

Day 2 and spoilers to Day 1's Hint.

2009-11-28T07:17:00.000-08:00

I've managed to solve Day 2's hints, and am looking forward to Day 3's hints.

Here are some screenshots of my conversation with the mystery person, the answers will be out tomorrow :)

For those who have yet to solve Day 1's hints, or just couldn't figure them out, here are the answers.

Items: 3 Cakes, 2 Buckets and 5 Bananas

Person to speak to: Lachtopher, who wanders around the Lumbridge General Store.

A screenshot of what exactly to bring, as well as the location of the mystery person.

Little Surprises

2009-11-27T07:28:00.000-08:00

Ah yes, the little surprises we sometimes get while going on about your usual training, a sudden woodcutting level up while cutting down our own willow trees to make space for a new one, that unexpected herblore level up while cleaning our fresh harvests, and of course, clue scroll drops.

Something like that happened a while ago, a little surprise while I was slaying aberrant spectres as part of a slayer task. I received a challenge scroll from the Aberrant Spectre Champion. This was really unexpected, but a pleasant surprise though.

Ironically, just a week or 2 ago, I told Boom, who was out challenge scroll hunting, that I have no intention of spending the crazy amount of time he did on challenge scroll hunting, and am in fact, not interested at all.

Since the Champion had already issued a challenge, of course I was game enough to take the fight to him, and for the first time since I became a member, I entered the basement of the Champions Guild, into the arena and kicked the Aberrant Sceptre Champions's Ass. Hard.

I was awarded some experience and calling beads which allowed me to summon my own banner carrier, which really looks pretty damn cool now that I own it. :D

Another surprise was meeting Merch Gywar in pixel! It was the second time we've encountered each other online actually, but I was busy farming the first time so by the time I saw her name in the chatbox, I had teleported far, far away. That happened this time as well actually, but I was not going to miss this opportunity, so I headed over to the bank and got the runes to teleport right back where she was last at. Luckily, Merch showed up a little while later, and I stalked her for a little before I went back to slayer. That was an epic experience.

On a side note, the newly launched Cryptic Clue Fest has been wonderful so far, I've solved day 1's hint, and shall be working on day 2's hint tomorrow. I've blurred out the face and names just in case there is anyone out there who has yet to complete the hint and would not want spoilers.

I've looked through day 2's hints and I already have some guesses, I shall wait till tomorrow to see if my guesses are correct! :)

Some other levels I've gained since the last post:

Lunar Diplomacy.

2009-11-14T07:53:00.000-08:00

Under Tim's advice, I decided to get a spirit tree planted in Etceteria. So I decided to start Lunar Diplomacy in order to get access to Suroths. Surprisingly, both Lunar Diplomacy and the subsequent quest, Dream Mentor interested me so much that I completed both at one go, with Tim and Kat cheering me on as I fought off the boss in all its 4 forms. Those quests were rather entertaining, and I especially enjoyed the boss fights.

I also recently made an observation. I wonder if this is a pure coincidence but I chanced upon this player who had released an onslaught of insults on myself during a clan wars game a few days ago. Of course, I avoided him and left him to do his own stuff while I killed my own waterfiends, sticking to my own spot. Soon after, another player came by, a friendly girl, I must say, who came over and said 'Hi', then continued to converse with me. After a while of crushing waterfiends, I ran out of food, so I asked the lady if she had any cooked sharks to trade with my raws. (She could use her bunyip's 'Swallow whole' technique to consume those raw sharks) Unfortunately, she didn't happen to have enough food for herself. Suddenly though, rudeman came over and asked me if I wanted to trade with him and so I accepted the offer, and traded my raw sharks with his cooked sharks. He even threw in a few rocktails as a gift.

I was shocked. Did the man not recognize me? Or was it just a random display of kindness? We even resumed to have a civil, even enjoyable conversation during my stay there. It didn't add up, one day, he was such an angry and aggressive player in clan wars, yet on another incident, he became a generous and helpful guy. After some thought, I reckon that my only conclusion is possibly because of the nature of the activity we are engaging in. In Clan wars, it was a battle of strength, of domination and of pride. Maybe that's why testosterones are rising and tension is high. And for killing waterfiends, it was an individual thing, as long as players stick to their own spot. Relatively peaceful and non-aggressive.

Maybe be that's it. Maybe he just forgot about me. Maybe I was just thinking too much. But people at waterfiends, you need to learn how to hop when it is too crowded! :(

Starstruck

2009-10-31T19:53:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-10-17T19:30:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-10-14T04:55:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-09-11T08:17:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-07-15T05:52:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-04-14T07:41:00.001-07:00

My post for ya is here. :D

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

Getting the hang of it.

2009-03-07T22:28:00.001-08:00

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.

CALL ME A BEE!

2009-02-26T03:18:00.000-08:00

Recently, even though things have settled down, there are still too many things to cope with to make much time ( if any ) for Runescape. My deepest apologies to my clanmates for being an absent leader. Yeah, and now, anytime i have on Runscape is spent fishing and chatting with my guildmates. I'm hoping to see better days soon.

Hetic-ness

2009-02-11T05:41:00.000-08:00

Orientation and our CCAs started. Made it into the debate team, although i still have a lot to catch up with the ex-school team debaters, and my self-taught skills are no longer sufficient. The coach seemed very good, and im looking forward to working with the rest of the seniors and my future team mates. Time is flying by, stuff is going on everyday, i barely have enough sleep anymore, so for now, Runescape is for the weekends. :)

The ugly sight behind the lucrative hunting business.

2009-02-05T02:57:00.000-08:00

Many a time, when people learn that I've been hunting, comments about this rapid source of cash is made. Indeed, hunting is a rather fast way to earn money, given the relatively ease of catching red chinchompas coupled with the fact that the catch is stackable makes it an even more popular choice for a quick source of money. Although, after a while of hunting, I came to realise that behind the glamour and attractiveness of fast cash, there are some darker, repulsive habits some hunters have within that not only ruin the game for others, but potentially acting as a double-edged sword, spoiling his own mood.

I term these people the spot robbers. They hop into worlds with players they feel are pushovers and try to drive them out from their hunting spot. It is usually done in two ways, or a combination of both and/or more. One of the two is by walking to your spot, and setting their trap on yours while you dismantle it. This will usually result in the hunter "dropping" his trap on the spot while the robber gets away scot-free, with their spot.

The second, a more extreme way, is to lay his traps a little distance from yours, and start killing the chinchompas that approach yours in order for them to respawn (usually near his traps), using a bow/crossbow or less often seen, melee. More often than not, flaming and insults follow after.

I've seen and dealt with these spot robbers. For some reason, I'm less tolerant towards them than random level 50s asking me for places to catch rainbow wingtails. I might be able to offer some tips about how to stop these spot robbers. I think the key to stopping these people is to " pay them back in their own coin".

Bring crossbows, bows or other ranged weapon with you on your trips. Since not all of the spot robbers employ the trick of shooting down your chinchompas, you might be able to deal with some of them that way.

Also, when these robbers steal your spot, steal theirs'. They normally start with more strategic spots, then move in for yours, so by stealing some of theirs' you might actually end up turning the tables around.

Well, I've seen my share of spot robbers, dealt with all of them, never once did I end up at the losing side of the tug-of-war in power. I've driven away level 99 Hunters, driven level 63 Hunters, as long as they try to move in on a spot i painstakingly switched numerous worlds to find, they would be asked to leave, and if not complied, further actions would be taken.

Sometimes others might think, why not share? The logic is simple. There are a limited number of spawns, the less people, the more chinchompas you have running around for you. It all boils down to the theory of "survival of the fittest" i feel. If they manage to steal my spot and force me to leave, kudos to them, if not, they would have wasted a great deal of time unsuccessfully trying to make a stubborn hunter leave.

Some of these spot robbers are in the level 90s when i met them, and they, of all people should understand the annoyance of people robbing your spot, yet they do not spare a thought for others hunting. These people definitely deserves a lesson.

For me, i make it a point not to steal the spots of others' for the sake of honour and thoughtfulness for others. I don't think the desire for fast training would drive me to go against, but at this moment, I'm definitely against this course of action. That's low, it really is.

A new chapter unfolds.

2009-02-04T06:07:00.000-08:00

Settling into my new school, i feel resigned to the state fate has brought me to. Slowly accepting the school as my second home for the next two years, I'm starting to see a forming a bond towards the school and cultivating school spirit as a possibility indeed. Alas, the day one kicked off in a rough start, with our schedule crammed full of talks of all sorts, we were delayed for 1 hour and 20 minutes in our dismissal time. Day 2 was slightly better, although seeing the student council perform the mass dances we were about to learn and dance during our orientation week made me pale instantly with embarrassment and dread. Day 3 was much better in comparison, ending with a CCA carnival, which i applied for the Debate and Oratorical Society, I am waiting for news of the interview or tryouts, and hopefully i'll make the cut.

Heh, Runescape-wise, Hunting as usual, having reached 80 a few days ago, the rate of catching red chinchompas seemed to have slightly increased, although it is still the behaviour or spot stealers that bothers me the most.

Stuff achieved today: none.

Nightmare turned reality.

2009-01-29T17:48:00.001-08:00

The posting of the school results came out today. My nightmare materialised and I was posted to Anderson Junior College. I don't know what to do, reality is still seeping into my mind and I am feeling dejected, pissed, depressed, anything but rejoicing. My mood is shit low now. Try not to step on my toes today. Seriously.

Chinchompas fear me!

2009-01-26T21:50:00.000-08:00

The hunting goes on, in hopes of me getting the skill to 83 as soon as possible, before taking a well-deserved break. Breaking into level 83 would definitely be a good point to take a break, since i would be able to catch dragon imps even when the training is stopped temporarily. With all my attention devoted to the art of hunting, my farming have not been given the attention it should have been given. Rapidly sliding the rank ladder, I am now hovering dangerously near the brink of the top 15k farmers, one milestone i just broke through before i stopped farming. I certainly would not want to have to gear up and train as madly as i did before to get into the top 14k.

Another thing had been bothering me for recently. A rather heated argument erupted in the clan not long ago, with a close friend of mine, Kicky, on one side of the argument, and Timothy, my real-life pal on the other. I tried to remain as neutral as i could, but i couldn't help swaying from side to side as each of them explained their cause and justified their actions. Fortunately though, the argument was soon settled, and Blessings is back on track, having just launched a recruitment drive recently.

A post about Boombaye had also been featured on Vaskor's blog, seemingly he was complaining about the speech used in our clan chat, and his sense of righteousness drove him to quit the clan. I am thankful that he did refrain himself from reporting the player that offended him with a conversation he was having with another member and Vaskor for using an objective tone as much as possible, but Tim recently told me of his opinion towards Boombaye. So it seems from the umpteen times Boombaye continued to linger around the clan chat that he is not so much put off by the type of language used, but was just looking for something to talk about, or maybe he was just bored and looking for attention.

Explained his motvies, didn't he?

Really, if he was so offended by the language that he had to quit, I wonder why he would even hover around our chat is search of 'entertainment' ? Its like one claiming that porn errodes the mind and still surfs the internet with firewall deactivated in hopes of a advertisment popping out. Ironical.

Stuff achieved today: 78 Hunting, 1700 total levels

Hooked.

2009-01-20T21:49:00.000-08:00

I've been rather busy on Runescape. Two things, hunting, which I decided to train two last week and got hooked since, and stealing creation, a mini-game I started out hating until I saw my name on the highscores for the first time. Now, I can't really do without a game of stealing creation. Things got so crazy that I just took a rest from 5 straight games. Tim really did a good job at making me addicted to the game :) I enjoy glory, and I just can't stop playing ever since I saw my name on both the most damage done and most player killed highscores today. Things got even better after Tim join me, with his crafting and the lv 5 daggers he sponsored me, the killing spree was much quicker and definitely more fun.

Hunting, on the other hand, gave me much opportunity to chat with my clan mates while waiting for the red chinchompas to wander into my traps out of curiosity. Although the problem of spot stealers bugged me for quite a while, Tim was able to offer a quick-fix solution and advised me to bring a crossbow along when i hunt. Now, the spot stealers can just switch spots or get his catches at a very, very, very slow rate. Although this bad behavior of spot stealing exists, I still see much of kindness and politeness amongst the higher levelled hunters. Many a time they would ask if I want to wait at the spot while they are finishing their last catches, or would switch worlds when I tell them that I'm using the spot, and wouldn't really enjoy the company of other hunters. I've decided on setting 99 Hunting as a goal of mine for this year, though I'm not in a hurry to get that just yet, I plan on enjoying the skill a little more before rushing into a mad hunting mood.

On another note, a close friend and clanmate, Demonmage386, got yet another skillcape, 99 Hitpoitnts a while back. Congratulations, Demonmage! I was quite happy to be asked to tag along for the screenshot. Dg has made some major jumps in the game and her levels and I couldn't be more happy for her. She also had another problem with her membership lately and I hope it gets sorted out as soon as possible :)

Stuff achieved today : 73 Hunting.

Revelation

2009-01-14T18:19:00.000-08:00

I've received my GCE O' Levels results this Monday. It was a painful wait, especially since I wasn't particularly certain of how I fared compared to the other sutdents in Singapore. I was rather jubilant upon receiving my results, seeing the first 3 subjects marked with an 'A' , in other words, a distinction. The happiness soon evolved into contemtment as I realised that I had not achieved the straight 'A's that I was secretly aiming for, instead ending up with 2 'B's in the 8 papers that I took together. After tabluating the score though, disappointment set in as I realised that am only 1 mark away from the Arts stream of my dream school, Anglo-Chinese Junior College. That was quite a distasteful realisation, and knowing that my friend, Forminable didn't do as good as he could didn't help with the disappointment either. I'm probably going to sound whiny if I carry on with the ranting, but I want to share my results and though i feel satisfied with my results, I'm not entirely happy with them.

English: A1 (Top grade attainable. Woohoo!)
Chinese: A1
Higher Chinese: A1
Elementary Mathematics: A2
Physics: A2
Combined Humanities ( Social Studies and History): A2
Additional Mathematics: B3
Chemistry: B4

Raw L1R5: 11
Finalised L1R5: 8

Meh, I'm still thankful that I have a final score that is a single digit, although 1 lesser would be perfect if I want to be more sure of a seating in my dream school. Tim and I sent in our choice of schools together yesterday and will be looking forward to hearing the results at the end of the month. Wish us both luck!

Stuff achieved today: None.

Another Beginning

2009-01-02T18:34:00.000-08:00

Stepping into year 2009, I have set myself a few more goals. Here's a list.

- Attain another non-combat Skillcape
- Attain 99 att/str
- Reach 2000 total level
- Get to Level 92 Farming
- Bandos Chestplate and tassets

These are pretty high goals I've set for myself, seeing that I'm nowhere as monstrous as Tim or Demongirl when it comes to skilling. But with some hard work I'm sure i can still achieve those within the span of a year.

Hmm what i have below is some of my rather recent level ups, although the 82 farming screenie is horrendously outdated and i am probably getting 83 farming today. ^^

Stuff achieved today : 83 Farming

Jackpot!

2008-12-18T22:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the newly elected Event Team member of our clan, Kicky organised a God Wars Dungeon event in an attempt to raid General Graador. Due to the well planned timing, it was relatively easy for us to find an empty server. Things started out pretty decent, with us getting quite a number of rune and cash drops from the General and his minions. On our 6th kill however, we were surprised with a Bandos Chestplate drop. Each of us got 2.1 million each, making it a great event already.

Not entirely satisfied with our loot yet, and with abundant resources left ( hardly any was used in my case) , we decided to stay on for a few more kills. As with most of our events that start with a bang, we didn't get any more spectacular drops. Still, we should have killed the General close to, if not over 20 times, and this was just with 5 of our clan members. Blessings did pretty well on this trip, and thanks to Kicky for the wonderful event and also everyone who came :)

I also did the Chrismas event today, was quite happy that it was another short event, and it didn't take me more than 30 mins to complete it. It was pretty well done, although my favourite holiday event of all time remains to be the Halloween event in 2007, where we had to try out a series of obstacle courses for the Grim Reaper. Still, I enjoyed the twist of the event this year, trust JaGex to come up with the idea that Jack Frost is the son of the Snow Queen and Santa Claus ( Named Nick in the event itself ). That was a good concept for a twist, this I give to the development team of the event! :) The Santa costume was a good reward, and it would have made a really good holiday outfit, if only i had a Santa Hat to don. Nevertheless, the holiday event was well done and I look forward to completing the holiday quest as well.

On another note, farming had been going pretty well, although after I did some massive farming training a few days back, I experienced a sudden wane of interest for the game itself. That kinda took me by surprise, seeing how i was extremely enthusiastic about farming just the day before. I am still rising rapidly amongst the ranks and I see myself once again in the top 15K ranked farmers by tomorrow, I might even get a farming level up on Sunday if i work a little harder tomorrow.

Stuff achieved today: Completed 2008 Chrismas holiday event; Obtained Santa Suit

Missing in action

2008-12-13T21:26:00.001-08:00

Away for a few overseas trips, i had been rather inactive in Runescape recently. Well, fun's over and I'm back to Runescape. Soon I'll be starting to get some part-time jobs, but for now, I'm taking a rest and spending some quality time with my little pixel friends.

Today Blessings made a trip to the Chaos Elemental, we enjoyed initial success, ending our 3rd kill with a triumphant D2H drop, and everyone got 179k from the coinshare split of the loot. After the sweet beginning however, things started going downhill, revs annoying us constantly, getting virtually no drops of any use, so we ended the trip after about 20 kills. The reaspawning time of the Elemental was another cause for worry, it took significantly longer than our previous trip, and the long waiting time wasn't such a pleasant thing.

Besides the events, i've also been training combat, finally beefing my character up to 111 combat, this morning. I've also decided to continue with my former farming regime in order to get myself back into the top 15k farmers, seeing that i was on the verge of getting kicked into the top 17k.

As a side note, congrats to Spamicken, who achieved 99 fishing a while ago. Grats Spam! ^^

Also, i got a new dragon chainbody before i left for Hong Kong since i saw its price dropping. Woots!

Stuff achieved today: 85 hitpoints, 111 combat.

A different experience

2008-11-27T00:31:00.000-08:00

Hi all! As I am typing this post, I am currently enjoying a game of cards with Kat and Tim. Being on an overseas vacation trip with two of my closest irl friends is indeed an exhilarating experience. Life’s been ok, except for the annoying fact that the ridiculously expensive internet service is not as good as it sounds. Connection is so bad that I find difficulty in completing a farming round after almost two hours of futile attempt, which would have usually taken me a little over half an hour. Ask Spamicken and you’ll have an idea how bad the connection was. Within the hour I was on chatting with him, I have disconnected more than 5 times, in fact, I would estimate about 8 times. Even a simple action such as making willow long bows using the ‘make x’ option could set off a disconnection problem, and the same goes with entering my bank pin. It wasn’t long before I lost all patience to carry on playing Runescape. It seems that the connection was kind to Tim though, he managed to complete many of his stuff without much problem arising from the pathetic connection.

All’s not well with Tim though. While in the hotel room one day, I heard the news that he was muted under rule 1, for Offensive Language. That came as a major shock. Tim has had a ‘clean’ account for over 4 years now, and having a record/ black mark wasn’t such an appealing idea after he has kept it ‘clean’ for so long. I guess its now up to JaGex to decide if they want to leave the black mark as it is or give Tim his ‘clean’ record back, on the account that he has been a rule-obeying player till now, and this being his first offense. Well, all we can do is hope for a positive response from JeGex and pray for the best.

Also, I would like to congratulate the Blessings mod, and a close friend of mine, Demonmage386 on achieving 99 defense a few days ago. I’m terribly sorry that I wasn’t able to be present due to the internet situation and all, but it was nice to see you reach another one of those incredibly tough goals you set for yourself. You would officially be able to hold the position as a tank for the clan! In my opinion, the combination of maxed range and defense could prove to be deadly to the many unfortunate victims we encounter during our pvp trips in the future.

In addition, I would like to wish the best for two other members of the clan that have been working on a skillcape, Spamicken on Fishing and Forminable on Firemaking respectively. I can definitely say that Blessings is getting stronger, with a tougher member base in terms of both skills and combat. Soon, Blessings would be two years old, and I personally see that as a rather impressive achievement. It has been a long journey, with many hiccups on the way, but the vision of Blessings making her mark in the Runescape community is getting clearer and more within grasp. As Blessings enter a new year of establishment, I hope to bring the clan to greater heights and (hopefully) gain some recognition as a clan of not merely fierce fighters but also elite skillers.

With that, I guess it’s time for me to end this rather dry post. It’s getting late (wait, it is late, already 3am) and I want to rest my eyes and relax a little, maybe another game of cards or two before I get some well deserved rest. So, ta-ta!

Achievement today: None.

Nubs.

2008-11-20T18:42:00.000-08:00

Throughout the ages of MMORPGs, the word noob has experienced many changes, even got itself developed for the use on specific groups of people. Nub and fr00b are just some of the many variations. In Runescape, it is not uncommon to see people with 99 def, or relatively higher defence being called a def nub in pvp based activities such as pking or clan/castle wars. I myself, despite only having 80 defence, had been greeted with that warm remark for a few times. As long as they are unable to break through your defences, you are a def nub. Or sometimes even, its just Nub! You're a nub. Plain and simple. I often find this word so overused that it no longer served as much impact that when i had just started the game. Of course, that could be a problem of me getting used to the insult, but it could also imply that the meaning of the word noob/nub had been confused, or "diluted" in the sense of intensity or effect.

I remember that early last year, i made a blogpost entitled "Noobs, The Pollutants of the Runescape Society". In that particular post, i defined the term noob as a player that is generally considered to be experienced, yet often makes mistakes that would more likely be attributed to a "newb." The term "noob" can also be applied to someone who is experienced, but blatantly disregards rules and etiquette through personal choice. Now it seems to me that the usage of noob/nub is no longer within the confines of noob-ish behaviour. The player who k0-ed you is a nub, the person next to you who doesn't want to help you with price checking is also a nub, even the person who refused to sell you the only pair of dragon legs he owns is a sad nub. As the usage of the word is diversified, the meaning of the word is inevitably changed. Nub can now mean a lot of things, so many that i'm not sure if the general meaning behind his word atill stands anymore.

Indeed, how do you define noob?

Almost over...

2008-11-04T05:45:00.000-08:00

Finally, the month-long examinations are coming to an end. How i fared, I'd rather skip that. I definitely underperformed. Still, I'm looking forward to the packed schedule after the end of the exams. I'll be away for 3 overseas trips. Woots. I get all excited just thinking about them.

Back to Runescape, training have been rather hard to do since my computer had not been functioning properly. Sometimes i can switch it on, sometimes i can't. So yeah, i already lost the fishing race i ha with Zelda. The boy's doing great though, and i see a 99 from him pretty soon. Anyway, yeah I've been doing things i enjoy doing today. Ranarr rounds, clue scrolls, spending some time training with my irl friends, i am rather surprised at how Runescape can be a simple, fun game when what we are not just obsessed with money-making,exp-gaining, and skilling. This seem to be all i had been concerned with lately. The need for speed in skilling, the need for profit, the need for levels even. I guess we all need to take a break occasionally and do the things we like, the things that puts a smile on our face as we go about doing them.

Anyway, Halloween event was great. We got 2 Halloween tasks, a quest and the usual event. For the quest, we had to enchant a broom for Maggie by taking it to 3 other witches located in Rimmington, Port Sarim and Draynor respectively. We also had to complete a series of tasks and puzzles in order to receive their help. For the event, we had to trick-or-treat in the areas of Draynor, Rimmington and Port Sarim. We had to don a Halloween outfit, and i decided to go with an impressive-looking one rather than a scary one. After some contemplation, i decided to go with my outfit for 99 cooking. Chef's Hat, Desert Robes, Holy Symbol, a Tambourine and completed the look with a dashing cooking cape. I even got a compliment on my look! :D Trick-or-treating took slightly longer since the residents simply refused to give me the wrapped candies i wanted but barraged me with popcorn balls instead. Still, after some convincing, i managed to gather enough sweet treats to complete the event. I was rewarded with a new set of costume (which i dumped right after because i thought it looked disastrous). The quest reward was so much better though, i got 10 gulps of Maggie's goulash which got me 8k exp for farming. Overall, i would rate the Halloween event this time a decent 7/10. I definitely preferred last year's event and would definitely like to see more events of that standard. Still, the areas had a really 'Halloween' feel to them and i would applaud Jagex for that.

Peering into the cauldron in order to get the emote

First puzzle, easy as pie.

I told you someone said my costume was l33t!

Thanks Kat! ps. You could have checked my highscores, ya know

Even the penguins were being festive!

Kat, Tim and Me. A picture of the leaders of Blessings ^^

Stuff achieved today : 65 slayer.

Fish and Fights.

2008-10-24T17:46:00.000-07:00

Following the release of the new pvp system, Blessings swiftly engaged ourselves in a series of conquests in the wilderness. Being a lot stronger than we are before the removal of the pking, we are now finding killing our opponents much easier and a lot faster. I haven't got the time to really go into pking yet, only enjoying the planned events and maybe sudden urges to 2H some people in Lumby for cheap thrill.

our first ever trip to the new pvp wilderness. nostalgia :)

Us, a lot stronger than we used to be.

Last night, Blessings made yet another trip to the wilderness. With our old friend, Form back with us, it was a little like the old times before pking was removed. The trip went off slow, we met 2 rangers at the ruins after some world hopping, and quickly started to reduce their hitpoints. Both got away and we ended up having to regroup since Form and Dg came face to face with a massive 100+ clan. Lucky Form, he made it out with 3hp after being binded when he entered a multi-zone. We met in the bounty hunter arena shortly and got attacked by a 125 and 117. Succumbing to their fierce attacks while wearing robes, Tim's food supply depleted rapidly. Soon, Tim had to teleport, and it was just Dg and me left to deal with those 2 players. Dg and me successfully took down the 117 and made off with the loot, leaving the 125 to fume. Soon, we went back to the bounty hunter bank, and after a while of attacking random people, we met the duo again. We got entangled in a bloody match, with the 117 and 125 both on Timmy. Luckily, we could attack the 117, eventually forcing him to teleport away so Tim could deal with the 125 with yet more ease. Soon, the 125 too was left with no choice but to teleport away under Tim's l33tness. Wanting to mess with Blessings, their attack was destined for failure before it even started. The trip soon came to an end when i had to go for dinner.

One of the two players we met at the ruins

Me finishing off the 117, Dg did more damage though.^^

The duo back for round 2, only to end in an inevitable defeat.

Besides,while the frenzy to prepare for my examinations are going on, i had been fishing dutifully. Propelling myself to 86, i could potentially be a contestant for 99 fishing in the clan too. Monks are coming at a steady rate, but the same could not be said for trying to sell them on the G.E. Those poor fishes have definitely seen better days. A few days ago, their prices started plummeting, and in all panic to get the fishes off their hands, it seems that some fishermen have fallen prey to their own panic attacks and sold the fishes at low prices, causing the prices to *oh no* nosedive. I'll be holding on to my fishes now and look for an opportunity to get them off my hands anytime in the near future.

*throws confetti*

Stuff achieved today : None at the moment. Its 9.30 am, mind you!

Life after the cape.

2008-10-12T04:53:00.000-07:00

Now that the cape is resting snugly upon my shoulders, i can finally concentrate on studying. Life had been hectic, so much to the point that i can't really spend as much time as i used on runescape anymore.

So, now when im on RS, im usually fishing, since it allows a great deal of afking while the monks come in as a decent profit. To reward myself every now and then, i also take an occasional break, going for mini-games and the such.

We had our very frist trip to the Chaos Elemental a few weeks ago, it was fun, and very fruitful too. Towards the end of the trip, we even got a D2H drop, split between me, Tim, Dg and Spam. Indeed a l33t trip it is.

Recently, Blessings made a trip to the Castlewars Arena, where our impregnable defense caused the opposing team to end with a score of 0 points on their side. It was fun, ancienting those poor GS-wielders, seeing them not able to do anything despite the oh-so-powerful swords they are holding.

stuff achieved today : nothing much. mindless fishing.

Tiz - The Master Chef

2008-09-30T05:15:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry that i haven't been posting regularly recently, but i have quite a number of pressing irl matters to settle. Playing extended hours of Runescape is already making me feel guilty of not utilising the time to study, much less take the time off to write a blog post. Fret not, i shall be free in about 2 months.

Anyway, from the previous post, i have managed to narrow down the exp gap to just 7 exp. A blunder of mine, that kept me jittery about accidentally cooking something, which would potentially screw up my first 99 screenshot. Thank god i was careful enough not to spoil anything.

The screenshot was scheduled to be on Friday this week, but my cooking buddy Evolution got a little impatient and decided to request for it to be push forward, and so it was changed to yesterday,September 29 2008,Wednesday. Many friends and clan mates showed up for the screenshot including my clanmates, Kicky, Frit, Tim, Kat, Atrey and Air Dragon. Evolution's friends turned up too, and made it look all the more spectacular and special. Indeed, thank you too Evo, for keeping me company whilst we journeyed our way towards 99 Cooking together. This is one cape well earned for the 2 of us. Now, its official! We are true Cooking (and Cape) Buddies! Grats on the cape too Evo! A big thank you to those who turned up for the screenshot, your effort is well appreciated. ^-^

For those that couldn't make it due to the last minute changes, I'm terribly sorry for the sudden change of plans and yeah Ill be sure to invite you for my next 99! :D

Cooking Buddies for the win!

Le screenie. L33t!

Evo got a random while i levelled up :\

Fooling around. The other cape holder is Air Dragon, a friend who was kind enough to accpet the invitation.

I also went on a Clan wars trip with my clan, feeling the thrill of letting the Cooking cape rest upon my shoulders, we had a good time aye, and Transformers are not as good as they sound (Clan mates who went will get my reference).

Us performing our cape emotes. And yes, Atreyu's emote counts too.

Random pic from previous clan war trip. Not amazing, but hey! Its not like you get to kill a player mod every other day.

Stuff achieved today : Does 99 Cooking yesterday count? :\

Almost there...

2008-09-16T06:04:00.000-07:00

I can finally see it coming... after reaching 98 cooking today, im so excited to think that my cooking cape won't be far from me. Anyway, i tried out the travelling circus yesterday, was quite intersting i must say. And yeah thats about it. Thanks Evo for turning up at my lv up today :D I'll post more another day, got a busy night tonight. >.<

stuff achieved today : 98 cooking

Thanks Demongirl!

2008-09-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

Short post to express my thanks to a clan mate, Demonmage, who made a tribute video for the clan. Many thanks dg, for being a clan mod, for sticking with us through all the clan disputes, for doing all these little surprises like this, and most importantly, for being such a great friend to us. Blessings love you!

EDIT: HERES THE VID! CLICK HERE

Also, the clan had been quite active at the clan wars lately, emerging triumphant in epic battles like 2 vs 13 (me and kat), 4 vs 16 (me, kat, tim and ic3). These victories will be helpful in boosting our confidence for the new clan wars update, and i shall look forward to many more victories and loot to come!

And cooking! I have finally hit the halfway mark to 99 cooking, and moving on to monks now, hopefully it will be a little bit faster than swords :D

stuff achieved today: 92 cooking

Cape Craze

2008-08-31T06:54:00.000-07:00

Recently, there seems to be this trend of members getting capes, one after another. Following Dg's 99 Ranged, it was Mat's 99 Thieving (Grats Mat! :D) , Tigerjones with 99 Defence (GRATS Tiggy!) and now, Kat can proudly wear her Strength cape.

I was invited to Mat's 99 Thieving party, and we assembled at the jail near Rimmington. After getting into position, we typed out our well-wishes as we waited anxiously for the fireworks to illuminate the air and mark the mastery of Mat in the skill of Thieving. The second and bigger set of fireworks were especially spectacular, along with nice firework-ish sounds. Two of our members, Mat and Dg has some really impressive and remarkable progress this year. Dg has gotten 3 capes, Hunting, Cooking, and Ranged. Mat, on the other hand, has achieved Cooking, Firemaking and Thieving. So, good luck for 99 Defence, Dg. Most importantly, GRATS Matman on 99 Thieving! Great job buddy. :D

Ahh, now for my rival-co-clan leader, Kkathy. After working on it for almost a year, I'm so proud to announce that Kat is now a master of Strength! I will miss calling you a noob. =p I was honoured to be one of the selected few to be invited to join the taking of the 99 Strength screenie. Meeting at the spiders, me and Dg got the chance to be the first ones to congratulate Kat on her 99 Strength. Heh, i think i deserve some credit for introducing that Saradomin Sword to you, sure it sped up your training by a somewhat noticeable degree? Anyway, finally, your hard work has paid off, and you have that Strength cape you had been dreaming (and drooling) for now. CONGRATS Kat on 99 Strength! Now, i can try to catch up with you in terms of total experience, watch out!

I'm too, motivated to get a cape of my own, and i finally settled on the first skill i had originally decided to get my cape on, Cooking. It rather fast exp, and if i consistently get 250k everyday, i should be able to get it in a month or two. I'm hoping that the price of the lobsters I'm cooking will escalate due to the release of the new pvp system, and if nothing goes wrong, i will be able to reduce my losses yet again. The only problem i see with that is that the prices of the raw fishes will also skyrocket, and i should probably try to get my 99 before then. That way, i would not be affected negatively by the rising prices, and i will have a healthy stock of food for my pking trips with the clan.

stuff achieved today: nothing

Back.

2008-08-27T07:41:00.001-07:00

Ahh... finally back to Runescape. Haven't been able to touch Runescape for the past week due to a virus attack on my computer. At least, its all good now. *pats CPU* The horror! It was kind of frustrating thinking of how much cooking exp i could have gotten and yet with the computer down, i was unable to do anything. On the bright side, the virus couldn't have attacked at a better time, it was the exams, and i needed all the concentration i can possibly have. Regrettably, i can't say i made full use of it. Distracted with other things, aye. As i am typing now, im recollecting about the horror last sunday. Switching on the computer, i got no response. I tried again, and soon, the familiar feeling that something is amiss came to me again. And thats how i spent almost a whole week without using the computer, or Runescape.

Now that I'm back, i shall continue to work towards my goal of 99 cooking. Cooking is rather easy experience, and it is making my cooking exp shoot up like nodody's business. Muahahha! Now i've found a skill i can power train to catch up with Kat's total exp. That 12 mil strength exp of hers is very intimidating to me. She'll probably get that cape she had always wanted really soon. So, good luck! :D

For Her.

2008-08-16T08:26:00.000-07:00

Shes great at hunting, a master at cooking, and now, her expertise has stretched to ranging. Yes, shes none other than my friend, the Blessings clan moderator, demonmage386 ( or demongirl as she prefers to be called). I've seen her progress from a lv 40 mage when she first joined the clan, to what she has became as of today. That is some remarkable work, i must say. On Friday, 15th of August, she celebrates her thrid skill cape, ranged. Some of the clan members gathered outside the portal of Tim's POH before he finally arrived and allowed us in. Most of us wandered into the dungeon while Dg went to the boxing ring alone, trying to get us to go over as well. After we assembled at the boxing ring, there was more messing around as we started fighting each other. Finally, we got settled down and got prepared for the level up and screenshot. Soon, with fireworks and the well-wishings of the players around, Dg got the level up she had been working hard on for so such a long time, not using cannons or chins. Once again, Congrats Dg and i'm sure we will be seeing more of your 99s in the near future. Especially, good luck for 99 defence! I suggest that August 15th be made into Demongirl Day.

Back to myself, i have decided on 99 cooking after seeing Dg improve so much. The thoughts of a cape has been tempting me for a long time, and i think im really going for it this time. So, wish me luck, and *only* for once, RANGE > STRENGTH!

level up! grats!

celebrations

fooling around

fishing -dead-

cooking, woots!

Stuff achieved today: 78 cooking.

<>< Smells fishy <><

2008-08-13T07:15:00.000-07:00

Had been in the fishing mood for the past week. be it Spamicken, who started me fishing(again) , or the clan's monthly skill challenge, which gave me a reason to fish, I have decided to get a fishing level, or at least one that is decent for players of my level. I have no idea how long this surge will be able to last, but I'm rather determined to earn some big money from the monks, since they are starting to come at a tolerable rate. Another plus point of fishing is that it doesn't require that much attention as opposed to other skills like mining and firemaking, which requires focus while training. Since it is not that clicking-intensive, i am able to complete some work or catch some Olympic action while fishing.

Went on another trip to conquer the clan wars with my clan Blessings. I must say, we are getting better and better by the day! Just our last trip, we managed to take down a team of 24 players with just 7 of us. That's really something to be happy about, and i can't hide my excitement for the 'dangerous' clan wars to be released. Blessings will kick some serious butts!

On our conquest...

Much had been happening around me, Olympics, English o level oral examinations, prelims coming right up, revision, i have been kept quite busy, partly explaining for my recent lack of posts. On the note of the Olympics, 2 swimmers, especially have caught my attention. Micheal Phelps, the brilliant swimming machine, and Stephanie Rice, also a gold medalist. Both of them amazed me with their skills and speed. The male German gymnasts and the female Chinese team was exceptional too. If you haven't been watching the Olympics, it is time to start. Still, with all the updates and all, it is not that easy for me to forgo Runescape, an hour or two everyday would satisfy me enough.

Another thing, a runecrafting guild and a runecrafting minigame was released yesterday. Haven't been able to try them out though, since I'm missing 1 (!!!) level. Besides, i don't fancy the idea of distracting myself by stopping the fishing stuff and working on another skill. Hmm, i guess I'll squeeze some time out for runecrafting training when i need a break from fishing. I'm already hearing many compliments of the minigame from my fellow clan mate, Demonmage, so I'll look forward to the time i get that darned level and into the guild. ^^

Updated genie random. A new look!

stuff achieved today : 78 fishing

The 100 F2P Combat

2008-08-06T07:10:00.000-07:00

After much effort, i have finally made it to 100 combat in f2p. Though i lost the competition to Kat, it was kinda cool to train combat again after stopping it for a while. Yes, 85 strength was reached, but it was not able to deliver the finishing touch to 100 combat, it was an attack level afterwards that did the job. Whatever it is, i am glad that i managed to hang on all these while. Thinking back, 100 seemed so far away and unreachable when i just started, and now, WOW! The feeling is just great. Enough boasting. But really, nothing much have happened other than this. Unless you count random level ups and 85 strength achievements.

On another note, the behind the scenes for August revealed some screenshots of the "dangerous" clan wars i have been waiting for. I can't wait for the opportunity to relive the adrenaline rush of running around and killing other players with my clan. This would definitely present itself as a chance for Blessings to shine. :D
In addition, there is news of a new runecrafting minigame and a runecrafting guild. This is a superb piece of news for those who was bored to tears with the 'old' way of runecrafting, the old way of "getting essence, running to altar, banking runes, getting more essence..." might just become a thing of the past! Whatever it might be, a new change would definitely be something i would look forward to.

Also, i seem to be more apt at controlling my Runescape-playing urges and do work that is supposed to be done with more effort. Which means that i can expect some improvement in my studies. Hurray!

stuff achieved today: 73 fishing.

Standstill

2008-07-26T07:11:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's what happened to my farming. After getting it to 80, which has taken me quite some time, i have decided to take a break from farming. Still, i am proud to say that i had been rather motivated and focused on this skill all the way till lv 80, but now i need to take a little time off and concentrate on other skills. Anyway, i have been keeping myself rather busy with slayer lately, pushing it from 55 to 63, and i am now only a few thousand exp away from 64. I am intending to get that new combined slayer mask and getting myself some combat experience while completing the tasks. while typing this post, i am already on my way to 99 f2p combat, with roughly 20k defence exp to go. Getting to 100 f2p would probably require me 2 more strength levels, and 85 strength is sounding very appealing at this moment.

My results for my term 3 exams are out, and the signs aren't good. I am afraid i had been spending too much time on Runescape, and had been negligent about my studies. Maybe I'll be cutting down the time i am spending on Runescape. Just maybe, or I'll probably get my arse up from the chair and do some work while playing Runescape next time.

Sidetracking a bit, a have recently met a British player in Runescape, xx m3rk3d xx, who insulted me after finding out i was an Asian, and eventually dragged my country, Singapore into his onslaught of insulting remarks. He started asking me how it felt like being an Asian, and then moved on to question if Singapore had appropriate toilet systems, and if we had proper education. The most laughable fact is that he thinks that Singapore is an undeveloped, poor country, and kept insisting on that. Well, he can say what he wants, but his ignorance will be shown in every word he utters.

That night, i happened to see a poem about Racism on Sean Covey's " 7 Habits for Highly Effective Teens", and would like to share it with everyone reading this.

The Cold Within
James Patrick Kinney

Six humans trapped by happenstance
in black and bitter cold
Each possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story's told.

Their dying fire in need of logs,
the first woman held hers back
For on the faces around the fire
She noticed one was black.

The next man looking 'cross the way
Saw one not of his church
And couldn't bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch,
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store,
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.

The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight,
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.

And the last man of this forlorn group
Did naught except for gain,
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.

The logs held tight in death's stilled hands
Was proof of human sin,
They didn't die from the cold without,
They died from the cold within.

Hmm found this poem quite meaningful. The last stanza especially push forwards the point that nothing good will come out of prejudice and discrimination.

Stuff achieved today : 77 defence, 99 f2p combat.

Interesting Updates

2008-07-14T04:03:00.000-07:00

The greatest update this year. Yes, Runescape High Definition(Runescape HD) was released not long ago. Many were ecstatic about this new update, along with the full screen mode. Regrettably, the requirements were too high for my computer to handle, and i had to stick to the old version of the graphics. Although im not enjoying the wonders of the new runescape, the graphics of the lower detail version was also changed, just without the shadows and stuff. Runescape is sure looking good with all the new graphical updates.

It seems that even though kept busy by the bugs of the new graphical update, the Jagex staff are still working hard on updates to the game. From the behind the scenes from July, many were exhilarated to find out that our banks are also going to get a neat update, which includes a new tabbing structure. This is making me excited already, maybe, just maybe, the days where we have to spend time literally taking everything out of our bank to find a little certain item that had been hiding in a corner would be finally gone! Adding to that, there will also be other new functions such as a search button.

Thats not the end, it seems. Item lending will also be released. This would allow players to share items with their friends for a certain period of time. I'm sure i can find many uses for this. Who knows, i may even be able to persuade my friends to lend me some rare items to take screenies with!

There are more to come, a Lumby achievement diary, changes to the tutorial island, a wildy quest, wow the updates just
continue to astound me. If i had ever said anything negative about Jagex's efficiency, i take it back. Jagex has really done a great job this time, and definitely deserves a huge round of applaud, don't you think?

With all these updates in Runescape, i too, have been "updating" my skills. Im closing in on 80 farming, and my next farming goal shall be moved up to 85. I'm hoping that my interest for farming will not start fading anytime soon. Wait, im pretty sure it won't, not after so much effort. I also started to increase my farming round, doing an extra round of willow trees, ranarrs and marigolds everyday, which would give me an approximately 6k more exp.

Furthermore, i have also managed to get my mage and ranged to 70 each, completed a few quests such as legends quest and swan song. I'm also planning to advance my slayer to 65 after hearing the wondrous amount of exp the dust devils apparently gives. Well, i guess that's about it for now. Till next time, cya!

and.... an interesting glitch!

stuff achieved today: nothing much.

The fight continues

2008-06-21T07:54:00.000-07:00

Have resumed training strength lately, now hoping to hit f2p 100 as soon as i possibly can. A recent level up in my hitpoints level has brought me to 97 combat in f2p. Missed the screenie sadly, forgot that i was levelling hp, i switched to another attack style,and got a huge shock when i saw the fireworks. Ogres are still top in my training list, although i have decided to finish up my current slayer task, jellies. Somehow, my kill counts got messed up, and i get the message " we seem to have lost your records in our recent shuffle" from Duradel. I guess I'll still be killing those jellies until i finish my task eventually since they have been giving me rather decent drops.I completed a clue scroll from the jellies a week ago, and was rather disappointed when i only saw 2 runeplate bodies, a guilded wardrobe, some runes and sharks. For this clue scroll, i actually had to complete a few quests, shilo village, underground pass ( which is a pain in the ass!) and family crest. With the the poor quest and clue rewards, i would say my efforts were in vain. The only comfort i could find is that i can now start on the legends quest, and get that cool legends cape that will go well with my usual farming outfit.

As for farming, i have just reached lv 78 a few days ago, and is pushing on to lv 80. 21k exp per day is starting to seem rather slow, i am thinking of doing the quest to open up yet another fruit tree patch in Letya. Farming is becoming harder to level up by the level, and its getting tiring to wait for a whole week or two just to get a level. I'm imginating the horror of getting my farming to the heigher levels of 80, and to be honest, it looks rather discouraging. I think i should work on another cape while im waiting as patiently as i can for farming then.

Ancients magicks is now at my disposal after i completed desert treasure, one of my favourite quetsts of all time. i enjoyed fighting the 4 demons a lot, especially Dessous , the animation where he actually came out of the tomb was fantastic, (sadly i seem to have lost that particular screenie)and i had a great time doing that part in particular. Still at a rather low magic level, i am not gonan waste precious money using ancients at this stage just yet.

stuff achieved today : lv 80 hp

Missing in Action.

2008-05-27T20:33:00.000-07:00

Had not been on Runescape much the past week due to another game that has managed to keep me interested for some time. Maplestory, an addictive game it is. I got form to start with me, but now hes on runescape less than me! Ugh. Evil runescape-player-sucking-vortex.

Anyway, i was still able to make a few level ups although the time spent on Runescape drastically decreased. For one, i managed to get my farming to 75. Yay! magic tree time! This is where i can start spamming my money on. Not that I'm going to, not yet at least. Hmm... thinking of growing magic trees in celebration, but i wonder how expensive the seeds are... WHATTT? At 200k each, the pricing is absolutely magical. Magically expensive! Maybe I'll just grow *a* magic tree in celebration then.

Although i was not that active the past few days, i was keeping track on the new updates and such. One thing that got me interested was the new level up messages, that was promised to not be disrupted by combat. the first day it came out, my jaw almost dropped. There was no indication of the level you have just gotten! think of the poor people who got 99 on that day! All they would see is a " Congratulations! You have just advanced a (insert 99 skill here) level! ". ugh, i shudder at the thought of the agony and irritation that the poor player, if any would feel at that point. luckily, Jagex did react fast to this little problem, soon, the level up messages were fixed and it certainly does look l33ter than the previous one.

Another update was the quick chat thingy. At first glance, i thought the idea was stupid, as some of the messages found there can easily be typed, faster than the time needed to actually click your way to that particular message. After a short trip to the clan wars, my feel towards this quick chat system changed. Some of the messages there were actually very fun to use as taunts, and i loved repeating them using the f11 key, going " Another one bites the dust!" over and over again :D

Seeing that the first half of this post was written quite some time ago, the 'recent updates' mentioned above are now quite outdated =/

More time had passed, and it seems that my passion for runescape has once returned, under the influence of Kat, i completed 2 quests that i have put off for sometime, temple of ikov and desert treasure.

Desert treasure is now one of my favourite quests, and i found the storyline very interesting. I don't remember liking any quests for a long time now, and dt will probably get me started on questing again. Battling the 4 demons was very fun, i must say, and in the end, it wasn't as dangerous as i sounded, only wished i had done it earlier. And the boots of lightness gotten from the temple of ikov quest has proven itself very handy when i am doing my farming rounds to reduce the weight i am carrying, allowing me to run for a longer period of time.

Another thing, just got my farming to lv 77 with help from my new addition to my farming rounds, willow trees. Hopefully, these 5k increase in the daily exp gain would be helpful to reach my goal of lv 80 farming faster.

There had been a lv 99 rush within the clan recently. So, grats mat on 99 firemaking, dg on 99 cooking and timmy on 99 def!

Combat training had resumed, so Kat, get ready for some close competition. :D

Stuff achieved today : 77 farming.

Behold...The 3-digit combat level!

2008-05-08T02:20:00.000-07:00

Finally, Tiz has reached 100 combat! thanks to summoning, i am now a lv 100 in p2p worlds. It might take a few more weeks to get the same level from f2p, being just 4 levels short, I'm now back in the race with Kat to reach 100 f2p combat first. Although is just a race, I'm sure it has somehow pushed the both of us to work somewhat harder, for my case, start training combat again. I am also trying to work on my strength, using my new toy, the saradomin sword. This new toy is proving to be quite useful, and getting me some attention as well. Very useful for training strength this sword is, and I'm laughing at the 100 from castle wars who said i wasted my money on this weapon. HAHA! Man, this i one of the best gifts I've ever given myself, and to me, its money well spent.

Another thing I've managed to accomplish, farming! Managed to push my farming up to 73 yesterday, and gotten a total experience of 1 million :-) that's just.... 12 million left! i can make it! *dies from fatigue* But it is certainly nice to see my farming xp slowly going up and slowly getting my levels. Hopefully by taking it slow, i wont find it as tiring as going at full speed, and wont be as expensive. Besides, farming ranarrs had been very profitting lately, and its nice to see the dough rolling in. Having risen to be within the top 25k farmers, my next goal would be the top 10k farmers, which i will be able to get in about 1.4mil more xp :-/ time to sweat and do some farming then!

Had been doing some other stuff, and for this period of time, even started a hunting frenzy. got myself to 58, and got bored lol. and there are other lv ups here and there not much worthy of being talked about. i'll post the screenies below.

Goals reached :D

2008-04-22T00:24:00.000-07:00

After much training and anticipation, i managed to reach 70 farming. Although it has been 1 week since the actual level up, i still feel thrilled thinking about it now. 70 farming had seemed so far away when i just started, back in November last year, it was just a distant number, not even in my goals, but as time passed, i realised that i was slowly getting my farming experiences at a faster rate using better seeds and more plots. After 70 farming, my next goal is to get ranked in the top 25k on the farming high scores. Steadily getting rising about 1k in rank each day, and within the top 29k now, i should be able to get there in a week or so. Suddenly the thought that i would eventually hit 99 if i carry on farming hit me, and i shall be looking forward to that day, no matter how far away it seems to be now.

Another goal i have reached is 80 strength, a skill that i have rather neglected recently due to other irl matters. Training on the ogres proved to be a good source of experience and gold charms. It took me 2 painful days to get from where i stopped (somewhere in mid-79) to 80. But it was very nice to see that my first 80 skill is also the first 1 i got to 70, hopefully the first i get to 90 lol. Another training method i have tried is pest control, and i found the results rather satisfying, unlike what some others had said about the mini-game. Due to the fact that its a safe mini-game,i feel much at ease to bring my dharoks set along with me, which eventually turned into something i pretty much use for most of the battles to save the void knight. Good thing that the splatters are there, and i can easily get my health low enough to hit high 30s. Another great thing is that because i can pretty use my prayer for the entire game, i can switch on incredible reflexes and hit the 30s, a lot more often, accelerating the rate which i gain str xp. When it all sums up, it isn't that bad compared to the ogres. At least i have more fun with pc.

Something else i tried is summoning, something i had put off my priority list for a long long time after i heard the negative comments about the skill since its release. It was actually a very easy skill to pick up, and fast training too. Well at least for the first 30 levels it was. i managed to push it to lv 30, and it shall stay there till i find time to mine more iron ores :-)

ooh! and there was this really nice update this month, the grand exchange database! definitely a good news for me, since i like to keep track of ranarr prices, the database has provided me with easier excess to the current prices of not just ranarr, but many items without the hassle of going to the GE ourselves. Great job on that, Jagex!

Fists of Guthix

2008-04-11T04:19:00.000-07:00

The new mini-game Jagex had promised in April's Behind the Scenes had been released! Fists of Guthix was soon flocked with players from all across Runescape, I also made a trip there myself and tried the new game out. The first thing i noticed is, the overcrowding is terrible, and the moment i stepped into the game arena itself, i lagged like hell. Out of the 3 games i played, i lagged out of 2, well this can't be blamed on Jagex, and i am not trying to lol. Maybe I'll try it again when the crowd clears.

On to the pros and cons of this mini-game. I liked the general concept of the game, running from your predator and getting those charges for the prey, and hunting down that little player that keeps hiding from you for the predator. Another thing that is good about the game is that it is very simple, and easy to understand. Free rune were also given for mages who cant afford to pay for those runes for a mini-game that does not yield great returns. It being "safe" also allows us to bring all our best equipment and be able to put up our best fight.

On the other hand, the overcrowding situation is kinda discouraging, and with so many players around, it is increasingly difficult to locate your prey. Its not the part about not being to find your prey that is irritating, if that happens to everyone, it becomes a competition purely on who can get more charges in the given time, the " you are able to kill your prey " element would no longer exist. And that, might be a little boring in the long run if all you do is walk around aimlessly during your turn to be the hunter because you know full well that locating your prey is more difficult than getting killed by a flower pot that was thrown off a building on Friday the 13th, year 2313. And when you are the prey, just run and dd on others and collect charges while your predator wander around looking for you to no avail.

Some tips i found through my 3 games of playing. To give me an advantage, i normally add my opponent to my friends list, and in the event that the poor guy forgets/ did not change his p chat to "friends" , I'll be able to see that green dot running around, making it easier for me to track him down. I also found that dhide seems to give a better defense from those magical attacks you are hit with while collecting those charges. ( this tip is not verified yet, I'll make a note if it is verified or otherwise )

Putting that update aside, i am edging close to 70 farming, which i hope to achieve within the next 2 weeks, if everything goes well, i will also be getting 69 farming tomorrow. i have also been concerned about combat training as i cannot allow Kat to overtake me in terms of combat!( sorry kat if you are reading this. i must win! ) Seeing her progress so fast in her strength training, i feel happy that she is getting closer to that str cape she had been dreaming of, but i am also worried that the sheer speed she is training at with one day overtake me, something i absolutely dread. Personal desires apart, good luck and all the best for your str cape ^^ !

Recent level ups :)

Stuff achieved today : 12k farming xp

Easter 2008, much better than chrismas.

2008-03-21T08:11:00.000-07:00

Its Easter yet again! And guess what? The pink Easter bunny messed things up again! Hurray! So I met up with Tim to help the bunny in distress. We met the bunny and was told to find Easter eggs that were hidden in draynor, port sarim and falador. This was fairly quick, and we located the eggs under 10 minutes.

Next, we had to incubate a choco-trice egg by adjusting the heat of the incubator using water and coal. This part of the event, honestly is the one i liked most. Very fun to turn the dials to get the choco-trice eggs hatched :-p

Finally, we had to agitate the choco-trice to make them turn other monsters into chocolates with his stare. We also got turned into a bunny for this part of the event.

Well, i liked this event a LOT better than the previous one during Christmas. Hopefully Jagex can continue to make the events better for all of us :-)

More training had been done, and i managed a few more levels ^_^

Farming, as usual is among the screenies that im gonna post. I've definitely developed a love for the skill, and i can see myself getting that cape... sooner or later. Although i hope that it would be sooner. I'll take things a step at a time now, and settle my fletching, i dont want to be over-ambitious :-p

stuff achieved today: 66 farming, 79 strength, 76 attack, combat lv 94 (F2P)

The wonder of curry plants

2008-03-17T07:27:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, much had been going on lately, with many updates such as the stronghold of player safety, and my usual training, i've been kept rather busy, explaining my recent lack of posts. Fret not, i'll try to make this one as good as possible.

A few goals had been reached within this week, the first being reaching 1400 total lv. I've always wanted to be a all-rounded player, and im still working towards that goal now :-) After reaching the 1400 total lv, i am setting my goal at 1500, hopefully to be achieved by June this year. Since i have gotten most of my skills to decent levels, i am starting to find it difficult to level them recently. To get those 100 levels, i'll probably do start working on construction and hunting. Hopefully, those 2 skills will be sufficient to get me there since i dread the thought of training summoning. I don't want to get those "extra" combat levels, since the likelihood of me using summoning in combat is very low and i don't really like the whole 'pouch-making' deal either.

Another goal i've reached is to squeeze into the top 50k farmers in the high scores list. 62 farming was the final push for me to enter the top 50k farmers, and getting to that level was made a lot faster after i got a tip from Tim about growing curry trees. Fast exp they are, and since i replant them everyday, i am able to get up to 18k exp a day, which is a lot compared to the mare 4-5k xp i used to get while growing ranarrs and marigolds. However, i am only utilizing 3 plots out of the 5 available plots since only those 3 fit into my farming rounds well. I shall try to work out another route that will brig me to all the 5 plots soon enough, though the bananas i have stocked up, used as payment for the farmers are slowly depleting. I have also had my share of bad luck lately, ranarr yields are going down, and for the first time since i have started growing ranarrs, i have had 3 plants out of the 4 i've grown die consecutively.

I finally got to try the wilderness agility course today. Two reasons why i didn't fancy the idea of risking a close encounter with the revenents before today. Reason 1 - I was simply too afraid of going there and being near those revs, just thinking about those lv 70s blast you with their icy spells that hit you as though they are lv 140 does enough to send chills down my spine. i finally found the courage to challenge those pesky revs today, apparently my courage was hidden under my pillow, haven't use it for some time now, and it was getting dusty. Reason 2 - My level fell short by 1 and i didn't like the idea of potting just to get in, i'll probably fail my way through anyway. But guess what, with 53 agility and a short while of training, i managed to gain an agility level! Hurray!

One more thing i have decided to do is to get my fletching yet another step closer to the 99 goal. I've brought a dragon woodcutting axe for approximately 2.2 million today, and hoping that it will give me some boost to my woodcutting speed on yew trees. So far, i have not yet seen a significant increase in the time i get my logs, so i am considering training my woodcutting a tiny bit higher before i go back to cutting yews. Another option i can take is to buy the yew logs off the G.E and fletch them immediately, but the only problem with this is that i'll end up making a loss since the prices of raw materials mostly add up to be more than the high alching price ofthe end-product. I'll be comtenplating on this issue and hopefully i'll come out with a good soultion. In the meanwhile, i'll be happy to consider any other suggestions that you might have.

I guess thats all for now. Till next time, see ya.

Stuff achieved today : 54 agility, 17 summoning.

Year 2,aiming to make Blessings bigger and better.

2008-03-09T17:59:00.000-07:00

On the 8th of March 2008, Blessings celebrated its first birthday. We started out with a nice house party at Tim's house, before heading for f2p duel arena. The f2p arenas were quite boring after a while, though i managed to kill timmy once. hehe. I guess luck and prayer helped quite a lot, but hey, u cant blame me for my good luck :-p

After that, we went back to p2p fight pits, a lot of flaming happened, the target mostly tim cause he led the clan when we were piling. So we switched a few worlds and somehow there will always be a few flamers in every world 0.o But on the whole, we had a great time, and we owned many matches :-p

Blessings are one of the blessed to have survive this year, through many major updates in the game itself and a major forum problem in earlier this year, and we will be blessed to survive many years to come!

HURRAY Blessings!

Funorb - a backup in case Jagex fails its players yet again?

2008-03-01T02:25:00.001-08:00

I've managed to try funorb out today, i have to admit that the graphics are a LOT better than those of Runescape, probably since it is less complicate to program compared to Runescape itself. Although it hosts some decent games, most of the ones i have tried are hopeless versions of others that had been improved ( or changed for the worse ). Funorb, to me is not as fun as its name suggests, probably due to it being at the beta stage, but then again, that doesnt answer for some of the "crappier" games they got up there. I have catergorized the games into 2categories.

Decent - which include chess, the orginal version without much changes , tetra link, a version of link 4, or connect 4 as it is known in other variations.

Hopeless - Hmm im not in the position to name stuff here, its up to you to find out yourself, i've ranked 3 games here.

Yet to be tried - A few of them that were less appealing

Before u start going about " a few games not being up to your standard doesnt mean the rest arent good", this is solely MY OPNION.

Other than that, i had a feeling that after Funorb is getting bigger, Jagex will lose its balance and neglect Runescape overtime, which is something i dread to even think about.

Perhaps they start to feel that Runescape isnt as appealing as it had just started? or is this a back-up in case they disappoint us a yet another bad update?

I'll let the passing of time to answer those doubts of mine.

=====================================================================

Back to Runescape, i was invited by my irl friend, Timothy Gold, to be in his 99 Strength screenshot. Although due to some errors that occured, my message did not get shown in the end. I was still really happy to be able to witness a 99, GRATS TIMMY!

Managed another few levels in the past week, pushing my total level to 1385, another 15 levels away from my 1400 total level goal, and i can sense that top 50k ranked farmer coming close too. Wish me luck :-)

Speaking of Farming, i had managed to make a little profit off it, and im sure there will be more to come. just check out my ge pic, 1.28mill isnt bad eh? And oh yeah i hated the farming minigame, too boring and repetitive after a few rounds.

Slow progress...

2008-02-22T05:44:00.000-08:00

Another week has passed by and my fletching isnt making significant advancement, i am starting to doubt if my goal of 99 fletching by the end of the june holidays would be possible. Although i managed a fletching lv a few days ago, it was not enough if i want that 99 anytime this year, so i'll have to buck up and work harder. About my plans to save up enough money to buy a dragon woodcutting axe, it might no longer be necessary since Jagex is developing this "item lending" update, where players would be able to "lend" each other items, this would be a good time to borrow an axe or two from my friends :-p

Item Lending would really help out a lot with my fletching. The only problem is, the whole description is too vague and i wasn't able to figure out when it'll come out, or how it might work, my guess is that there would be a time limit to this thing, say maybe 10 hours or more/less depending on the rarity of the usefulness. Besides, i don't think that the update will be released anytime soon, since the "development bar" is relatively low compared to the other updates.

Farming had been going well, with marigolds now highly in demand due to the release of the summoning skill. A pretty useless flower it used to be, and now it can be sold at prices above 5k, time i use the marigold seeds i have stocked up in my bank to swap for good and easy money :-p

Although farming had been going well, the price of ranarr seeds went up again -cheers- *sarcasm* , for seed sellers its s good news since they are making more money, for big time farmers its good too since the herb prices should be rising accordingly, but for me, its no good since the price of paryer pot was not rising that much along the increase of price in the seeds, which means that my profit would no longer be as big as it used to be, lets all hope the price of prayer potions rise. *fingers crossed*

I have also decided on some combat training while waiting for my crops to grow or when im outta yew logs to fletch. A few combat levels would be good, probably more money to buy more yew logs as well :-) Speaking of which, i managed to gain another "P2P" combat level since juna helped me with lv 10 summoning. Thinking of some monster thats good would be tough though, Tim once suggested fire giants, and i think im gonna go slaughter them. Muahahahah.

Ooh, F2P clan wars is also good... hahaha the l33t is coming to kill ya all! *laughs menancingly*

stuff achieved today : 45 theiving, 73 fletching

Take that, you nasty Black Dragon!

2008-02-18T03:46:00.000-08:00

Blessings had yet another clan event on the 16th Feburary 2008, we were once again back at the lair of the Kings Black Dragon, on a mission to wipe out his sorry black ass.For me personally, to get my revenge for the slaughter last time. The trip can be considered successful, without any deaths and the loots were pretty decent. Take that, KBD! Not so majastic now eh? Don't worry, we'll be back for more in time to come, just you watch out for Blessings!

take that!

and that!

Back to runescape training, i had quite a number of level ups today, and with the help of our new member, Kicky, i managed to get yet another fletching level, and im hoping to come up with more in the recent future *fingers crossed* And i reached another farming goal, lv 60 farming *strikes out goal* and i'll be going for top 50k next, slow but steady.

stuff achieved today : 72 fletching, 60 farming, 44 theiving.

Sweet 16 pops cracker

2008-02-13T22:20:00.000-08:00

On 13th of Feburary 2008, Tiz turned 16. Had a surprise party during recess ( or breakfast break if u dunno what that is). Was super happy and thankful. this is the nice ice cream cake i had.

Ok, back to Runescape stuff. Fletching, i am sad to announce had pretty much ended due to the lack of money to buy resources. On the other hand, since i have decided to buy a dragon axe, i had been doing only herbs for farming to make the rounds faster, so that i'll make money faster. And the prayer pot experience is wonderful! yet another level gained!

Oh and today, i went to f2p clan wars and met with this really irritating lv 107. Had a little argument with him. Just take a look at this and you will understand why he hunted me down constantly for 3 consecutive games. Bummer.

The fall of a hero

2008-02-11T00:32:00.000-08:00

On the 8th of Feburary 2008, i went over to Tim and Kat's house for a Blessings meeting. ok im joking, but we did discuss clan stuff. Anyway, we went on a trip to the king black dragon, and we had quite a good time killing it and driving away poor idiots who think they can over power blessings. However, good times don't last, i got killed by the last dragon we were intending to kill. Dg was kind enough to repair my grave, which i was very thankful for, but on the way back, i got chased down by a revenent and was killed again. imgaine that! getting killed twice under 10 minutes, i was really irritated and frustrated, so i went straight to the G.E to buy whatever i lost. The total loss calculated to be approximately 550k and it sucked big time cause i was saving up for a dragon woodcutting axe to help me with cutting yew logs.

To deal with the finanical difficulty, i decided to spend my time farming mainly on growing herbs, this actually made my farming rounds faster, thus i was able to get more herbs while playing. Hopefully i'll be able to get back to my financial state i was soon. Then i'll start on my farming again and catch up with dg hehehe.

Oh and i brought a dharok set i had been planning to get 2 weeks ago, im absoultely thrilled with it and i can't wait for the next p2p clan event where i can show my power. rawr! haha

Don't i look l33t?

Stuff achieved today : - pending -

Another milestone towards my first skill cape.

2008-02-07T06:31:00.000-08:00

Hiya! I finally reached lv 70 fletching today, which means that i am able to fletch yew long bows now! woots, this is supposed to be easy but i realised that no one is buying the yew longs i put up on the ge, where have all the high alchers gone to? thats super sad cuz im 700xp off the next lv up and im outta cash to restock. anyone wanna high alch some yew longs feel free to contact me :D im saving up for a dragon wc axe now, i heard its a lot faaster compared to rune wc axe.

Herblore had also been shot up by the prayer pots, them making an extra 1k (a little lesser) to what i make while selling ranarrs, its great for herblore as well, from the pots, im getting a lv almost everyday, haha its is so cool, farming is finally paying off big now.

Oh yeah the yew problem i mentiond, i started to chop my own yews, although its taking forever to get there, i managed a wc lv as i got a few inventories of logs, pushing me to lv 72 woodcutting. Maybe i could get a higher woodcutting before i continue to cut yew logs. But that would mean a stop to my fletching... another difficult decision to make. Is it me or am i like getting this everyday? :-/

Farming, going well as usual, apart from a few cases of deaths, it was pretty much smooth sailing. now that i can make prayer pots with my ranarrs, i found myself to be a lot more hardworking farming those precious ranarr babykins. and ooh i got a farming lv today, another step closer to my lv 60 farmin goal!

WOOT! SMITE!

thank you prayer pots :-)

thank you my precious ranarr babykins :-o

stuff achieved today : 70 fletching, 72 woodcutting, 59 farming,

Recent updates

2008-02-05T06:24:00.000-08:00

Hey guys! Nice to see ya'll again. Hmm had been doing quite a lot of random training since the end of my fletching after i ran outta maples to fletch. Planning to get a few thousands from the ge to push it to lv 70 a while later, after i recover from the recent splurging on prayer pot secondary ingredients and some other stuff.

Meanwhile, training is still going on, although not concentrated on any specific skills, i have managed on a few levels, i am now stuck between 2 choices, strenght or fletching. I have made a promise to myself that i am going to get 99 fletching this year, if i switch to strength training, that means that fletching will be greatly affected. However, i realised my strenght is not enough for my level, and i realised that some clan members are catching up, or rather overtaking me rapidly therefore i am intending to raise it by a few levels... hmm this is a tough one... while im still contemplating, take a look at my recent level ups, if i manage to work out an answer, i'll inform you guys again :D

Fletching Frenzy

2008-01-31T23:52:00.001-08:00

I've gone into another fletching frenzy after i decided to get 99 fletching this year. Started slow, only managed 5 levels yesterday, hoping to get a few more today, hopfully i will be able to hit 70 fletch today. Planning to fletch maple longs till lv 70, i noticed that my supply of maple from my folks at miscellenia are running short, which is very saddening, since that means my progress will be much hindered.

Herblore has also been doing well for me, and im making quite a lot of money from the prayer pots. Never knew that herblore could be that lucrative, now that i know, its a good thing after all.

Farming had been going on as well, without the tree seeds propelling me up the levels at high speed, im relying on my trusty ranarrs and veggies to get me my xp. Still, the climb up the ladder of l33t farmers is still going well for me.

F2p clan wars are also very fun, and im spending almost 1 hr everyday there. Although not very productive to my training, i still enjoyed fighting with other clans :-)

Well, thats about it, and blogger is acting weird, i cant use spell check lol :-/

The Road to Runescape Riches

2008-01-27T06:40:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, haven't blogged for a long time, so its time to showcase my recent achievements again. Since i had made the last post, i have managed to achieve yet another farming related goal, which is to be in among the top 75k ranked farmers. Something that gave me a great deal of help was my little folks back at my kingdom, working hard to provide me with tree seeds everyday without complain. I'm so proud of my loyal subjects and citizens, u bet i am :) The numerous herbs that they managed to collected was also proving useful to my herblore, which is just a level away from making prayer pots now, and it will be easy since i have my own supply of ranarr herbs, thank Jagex for releasing farming.

Speaking of prayer pots and ranarrs, the 1.28mil worth of seeds had already started to make me profit. it only took me like 30-40 seeds to earn back my money output, which leaves me with 60 odd seeds to make pure profit from. If everything goes well, i should be able to make 1.9 mil from this investment. Not a bad first try, I'd say.

With good news comes bad news, as i have discovered. Although i started making profits, i realised that recent harvests had been starting to decline, be it luck or something else, it will definitely not be good for me if this carries on. Just the last farming round i had ended up with 2 out of the 4 ranarr plants dying. Very disappointing, not to mention that the survivors were not exactly producing good harvests, i am starting to doubt the usefulness of the magic secretus. I'm praying to Demeter ( also known as Ceres, the goddess of Grain and Agriculture in Greek and Roman Mythology ) that this would not last. Help the poor apprentice farmer, oh wise Demeter! Despite all the setbacks, i am starting to have a strong interest in farming, hopefully i can follow in Tim's footsteps in becoming a master farmer someday.

Furthermore, i had been playing around in the f2p clan wars, i had a great deal of fun fire blasting the full rune wearers, and since rangers are considerably weakened in the f2p server, i had my way most of the time, I'd most likely continue as long as i have death runes to waste. If you guys ever feel bored an want to battle alongside with me, by all means pm me when I'm online, I'll be more than happy to oblige.

After so much talking, you must be thinking, what the heck, where are all these achievements this little bugger had been talking about? i see none so far!. Without further ado, here we go!

stuff achieved today: 57, 58 fletch, 56 farming, 37 herblore.

Royal Splurging

2008-01-21T01:52:00.000-08:00

WOOT! Finally completed the Royal Trouble quest today. After much anticipation, i was utterly disappointed to realise that i will not be making much of a profit when i manage my kingdom since there is a drop in the price of maple logs. i would in fact be making a loss of about 30k everyday, which will definitely give me more stress financially. Despite the many losses i might make, i would be getting birds nest, which will help me out in farming. The maples might come in handy for fire making too. Guess its not such a big loss after all.

Speaking of farming, i just brought 100 ranarr seeds at 1.28mil gp. Not a bad buy considering the price of the seeds were 19k each 2 weeks ago. I just hope the price of the herbs and seeds won't drop too much. So yeah, Tizzy is poor now. This better be lucrative or else im gonna make a big big loss :(

Questing had been ok, and i already have the next quest i want to attempt in mind. Swan song. Hahaha! Monkfishes, daddy is coming! But first, i'll need 66 magic. Bummer. :(

stuff achieved today: 50 agility, 51 slayer, completed " Royal Trouble " quest

My own widdle kingdom.

2008-01-20T04:47:00.001-08:00

Pay your respects to King Tiz, humble peasant.

I finally got to do the quest i had been preparing for, Throne of Miscellania.

The most tiring part of the whole quest was trying to to get 100% support from the citizens. Wait, before you go telling me "you only need 75% to be a regent, dunnmy", hear me out. I am getting 100% support as i am gonna need the services of the citzens after i complete the other miscellania qurst, Royal Trouble. So having a higher support rate reduces the amount of money i have to pay for their services.

anyway, cant wait to finish up the Royal Trouble quest and make the citizen cough up.. i meant gather some supplies for me. im so gonna be a great king. just you see.

in case you haven't realised, our forums have moved due to the following reasons quoted from the eamped site :

Late last week the ISP had some electric/power issues due to weather. This caused the computers where the database for the forums as well as our backups to go down.

And this is what they suggested us to do :

The summary is that its looking slim that data will be 100% restored. We might get bits and pieces, but who knows what those pieces are. So the alternatives are this:

1.Go somewhere else. I'm assuming some of you have already, and I don't blame you.
2.Wait to see what happens with the hard drives (no ETA on this).
3.Work with the Lefora folks to re-establish your forum. They have told me they are coming out with a more traditional forum style next week and all new data created would move into the classic look.

So yeah, we took alternative 1. and for the new forum address click here.

this is really funny. read it :D

girls out there,its time to cry, for dashing tiz is getting married.

starting of royal trouble.
we also made a trip to the clan wars f2p today. our first event since the forums went down. a pretty decent turn-up rate for a first event. haha. we owned, too.

Summoning!

2008-01-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

after hearing many complains about my blog having too many pictures thus lagging others, i have decided to cut down on my screenshots stuff.

anyway started on the summoning quest today. very easy, and took me less then 10 mins to complete it. so yeah i might do a little bit of summoning after that. but for now, its back to combat for me.

stuff achieved today: lv 4 summoning

Its good to be back.

2008-01-14T00:54:00.001-08:00

It has been some time since i made a full length post since i spoiled my previous keyboard, and the standby keyboard i had wasn't good. ever heard of flexi-keyboards? yeah i was using one of those, it looked cool, but it is really difficult to type with it.

Anyway, even though my keyboard was not working well i have been working hard in runescape, as you can see from the various lv up screenies in my last post. its so nice to be able to write a blog post while playing runescape lol.

Farming had been a major skill i want to excel in, the first step being getting into the top 100k farmers, and im pretty sure that goal would be achieved today (edit: achieved). the next goal im setting for myself is to be ranked among the top 75k farmers, or getting 65 farming, whichever comes first. But that might take sometime unless i start growing trees, so this looks like a good time to start collecting those tree seeds. Hopefully, i'll be able to reach 70 farming by the end of this year, although i'll be taking time off the game during the term 3 exams, the prelims and most definitely the o level period.

Besides farming, i have been training my slayer, hoping to achieve 55 slayer soon, for that slayer dart i have always wanted before i try the barrows minigame. Some pieces of barrows armor would do me very well, since i look mighty noobish using rune armor at my level. i am eyeing dharoks armor right now, i could do with some high hits, although some parts of guthans armor will be a nice surprise. I'd better not count my chickens before they hatch now, it would be wiser to get back to slayer training instead of blabbering about all this. rofl.

Slayer had been a great help to my ranging too, especially when i get easy assignments like fire giants. who knows, if i continue getting assignments like fire giants, i might be able to achieve 70 ranging while nobody is expecting it. lol. im a dark horse. *neighhhh*

anyway after so much talking, (or neighing, whichever you prefer) its time for some screenies. yay!

thanks to uzueld for congratulating me

stuf achieved today: lv 67 ranging.

2008-01-08T00:22:00.000-08:00

old keyboard spoiled. cant type well wtith this so yeah just pics. a lot of em :D

76 hp "D

ANOTHER GOAL REACHED!

Farming is tough work sweat

2007-12-27T06:32:00.000-08:00

I started a bigger farming routine yesterday, extended the plots i used from just 1 in catherby to 4, in north of catherby as well as port phasmatys, south of falador and the north of ardougne. I am surprised at the amount of experience i can get now, hopefully, 50 farming won't be that far away :D Anyway, nothing much had been happening, so yeah, back to skilling.

edit:

surprise farming lv before i log off.. how nice :D

stuff achieved today: 42 theiving, 46 slayer, 46 farming

Questing as usual.

2007-12-24T05:31:00.000-08:00

hmm sudden interest for construction yesterday... so i pushed it up by 6 levels and oh yeah, herblore levels too.

i really wanted that magic secateurs today, so i did 2 quests at one go. very tiring i must say. especially while getting the 3 ingerdients for fairytale part 1. i made a stupid mistake and had to get one of them again.

Nature Spirit

Fairytale Part 1 - Growing Pains

we had a clan chrismas event too :D fishing trawler :)

<

stuff achieved today : 42 farming , 69 fishing

Ho ho ho! Eh? Santa is missing! Chrismas @ Runescape 2007

2007-12-21T05:24:00.000-08:00

The much awaited Chrismas's event has been released. I finished up the event quite quickly, wasen't as much fun as i hoped, but it was a little entertaining. I liked the idea where u can pelt other players with snowballs, but i was hoping that they would receive a message telling them who pelted them and stuff. The snow imp looked damn ugly to me, the whole snow land was also very plain, and well, bare. It didnt look like much though was put into it, i preferred the Halloween event a LOT more. Anyway, here are some screenshots i managed to get from the event.

The land of snow! i wasnn't wrong about it looking plain and bare eh?

Besides the event, normal training is still going on, hoping to get the melee goals, then going for 70 ranged. Farming had been going smoothly as well, hopefully i'll reach lv 50 when tim and kat comes back. Pc has been pretty much a daily routine, pcing early in the morning where there is a huge crowd, and normal training in the later part of the day when less players are around to affect my progress.

thanks to Mr Frost888 for saying grats, that took me by surprise :D

65 ranging!

I had been trying to organize events for the clan too, hopefully i wont let it crumble before the other leaders get back, im really hoping the members can be more cooperative and be less on the argumentative side. Anyway, im trying to hold out as much as i can, hopefully i can see a change soon. Blessings aint gonna be history just because pking is a thing of the past!

Stuff achieved today : 65 ranging, 41 farming.

Animals love me =] im a magnet!

2007-12-18T06:40:00.000-08:00

Completed another quest, Animal Magnetism today. It was very fast and easy compared to Monkey Madness.

For the first part, i had to get some alive undead chickens. (pardon the pun here.) Another trip to the familiar Canifis it is.

well, unhealiter isnt a good word, how about putrid?

well, get over it. rofl im mean heheh

part 2 needed me to make a magnet, and i had to talk to this smelly old witch. ok i added the smelly, but she was definitely old.

hurmph, go bake ur childern, i dont care.

part 3, i had to get a blessed axe to cut some undead trees.

hanging aound trees? another walking dead that has just risen from his grave? no wonder he smells like soil.

finally! quest complete!

yay, reached 2 of my combat goals, only 75 attack and defence left :)

dang it, missed that ranging 64 lv up screenie

stuff achieved today: lv 75 str, lv 74 hp, lv 64 ranging, lv 27 herblore.

Monkey Mad(angry)-ness

2007-12-17T07:42:00.000-08:00

Finished another irritating quest, Monkey Madness today. Took me 6 straight hours to complete this quest. Well i loved the gree grees and ape atoll seemed like a nice place for me to train my agility one day. Managed to gain a hitpoints lv due to the exp received from the quest too. Well, i'll let the screenshots do the talking for now.

my first ever tree. i so proud of this healthy apple tree :D

finally! 50 fletching! moving on to yew longs now.

one very irritating part of the quest where i have to solve this puzzle. i am not a fan of puzzles admittedly

the plot thickens...

ambush!!!

waking up trapped in a cell. time for.. prisonbreak!

very fitting description indeed.

in search for the 10th squad mage, Zooknock...

my first gree gree! can u guess which one it is?

if u have guessed zombie monkey, ur correct!

u think so? wait till i kick ur hairy bottom. >.<

the screenshot says it all...

noisy monkey... *takes out earmuffs*

my faceoff with the Jungle Demon!

nothing less could be expected from tiz, of course.

wow! such a generous king!

oh yeah and i made a trip to the Bounty Hunter Arena yesterday night...

scary :(

managed to walk away with a rune scimmy. yay!

stuff achieved today : lv 75 hitpoints.

Robin Hood loves Tiz. I supply his arrows

2007-12-15T22:28:00.000-08:00

Hmm more fletching for me, managed to get to lv 44 fletching yesterday. A little disappointing i feel, was aiming for 50 in fact. Nevermind, that shall be my goal for today. I have started a fletching - farming schedule, while waiting for my herbs and crops to grow, i'll fletch near around catherby and sell my unstrung willow longs to arhein for little profit. Hope that this would be good for both my farming and fletching.

A trip to the clan wars was also made yesterday. We went up againest this clan with 2 lv 100s and had a few glorious wins. They were very irritating i'd say, apprantly they think that when they had a 4 v 7 advantage over us, the game was fair, and when we had the numbers, it wasen't. And this was how they were recruiting members, "join (cant remember name)'s chat for fair fight!" and i was like rofl! So laughable. We had won when the numbers were againest us a few times, i don't see why they can't. They had the lv advantage too, being lv 100s, when our highest was only 98, until the later part of the game.

Victory!

======================================================================
today's lv ups.

yay surprise woodcutting lv!

update: looks like 50 fletching isnt gonna be achieved today *smacks lazy tiz*

stuff achieved today : 49 fletching, 70 woodcutting

Fletching, Fletching and more Fletching!

2007-12-14T00:53:00.000-08:00

This week had been pretty packed. Stayover at Tim's house on Monday, turning his house into the Blessings HeadQuarters, after the completion of the heroes quest, i did some intensive agility training, as well as completing the ghost ahoy quest with forminable, with Lee's help.

The Brimhaven Agility Course is really great! Its fun, but a little slow and annoying. But i still like it, quite good xp i think.

YAY! Dragon mace and battle axe unlocked! Ty formi, who brought me a dragon mace.

Wouldn't mind a free herblore lv lol :D

whee! i can finally recharge my own glory ammys!

a little trip to the duel arena, the same one where i got pwned by dg, and 3 times! :(

AHHH! Brimhaven Agility course, a true "heaven" indeed

When i logged in today, i had a sudden urge (?) to start fletching, and is making me a little profit by fletching oak longs and selling it to Arhein, about 200gp every run. Hopefully it wont take long before i can start making yew longbows.

yup, thats dg flooding my p chat lol

woot! onward to 50 farming!

heres a 50, prayer!

A random picture. Thanks Tim for lending me the Red partyhat and dragon chain, too bad i can't use the dragon square.

stuff achieved today: 37 farming, 40 fletching, 50 prayer

Updates = Yay? Not this one.

2007-12-11T16:33:00.000-08:00

10th December 2007, Jagex released a few updates that prove to cause uproar and chaos.

The wildy is no longer a place for pking, in order to kill other players for their loot, you will have to try out the Bounty Hunter minigame, which is based on 1 v 1 combat. Often we will see players shouting slogans like " no pk, no rs", or "we pay, we say", indeed, the wilderness has been turning yet another monster infested area, no different from varrock, lumbridge or catherby. Although i doubt that Runescape will not survive without pking, i am very upset that they made such an update. This would greatly affect my clan, and many other pking-based clans. Luckily, they have also added another minigame Clan Wars for clans to fight with each other, i found this game quite interesting and would not mind shifting pking into fighting clan wars.

The riots that many players are carrying out is starting to annoy me though, they are flooding crowded places such as the duel tourney room and grand exchange with repeated messages, lagging the area when i step into it. 2 reasons why i do not see the need why they have to riot. firstly, i seriously do not think that Jagex would remove the update they spent time and money on just because a minority of the players are upset, therefore the riots are pointless, i'd rather they spend their time to write a complaint letter to Jagex. That would be a better way to express their anger. secondly, Runescape is not a pking-based game, its more than just trying to range your opponents to death, get this straight, runescape is not all about pking, if it was, Runescape would just be a medieval form of counter strike.

I symphatize with those hardcore pkers and pures and i too, feel sad that the wildy is gone, but i just cant stand the riots.

And then there is the unbalanced trading crap, the one im most unhappy with. Quoted from Runescape.com,
"For a trade to be 'balanced', the total value of the items being given must be within 3,000gp of the items being received. For example you WOULD be allowed to trade an item worth 15,000gp for an item worth 17,000gp (because the DIFFERENCE is less than 3,000gp). You will be limited to a 3,000gp gain or loss every 15 minutes."
Yes, i do agree that this would do a big part in stopping real world trading, but this will too make our lives much more difficult, friends cant lend each other items that are expensive anymore, the money u can make from merchanting is now 3k max and the list of disadvantages to us players goes on...

I think Jagex is trying way too hard to stop real world trading, they are making the lives of players difficult!

Preparation for Heroes Quest Complete!

2007-12-07T22:39:00.000-08:00

Herblore is really boring! Can't wait to complete the Heroes Quest since i just got 25 herblore. Monkey madness after that, surely i can get to 100 quest points by then, and it will be monkfish fishing time! But now, i'll concentrate on the skills i have neglected, farming especially. Anyway, more quests completed, a few fight pits battle (yeah we owned :D) and more lv ups, an enriching day indeed :)

One of the recent quests i had completed was Recruitment drive, which included a series of tests which we have to complete in order to move on, it was one of the quest i had most fun in ever since i went into p2p :)

Another quest, Digsite Quest, which i found a little annoying since i took a considerable amount of time to find some of the items, but ther certificates i got were nice :)

Now for some fighting action!

We met this annoying bugger called 03puremage1, a lv 61 ranger, who kept calling us noobs and nerds simply because we owned him >.<>:-(

me fighting formi :)

Stuff achieved today : lv 25 herblore, lv 34 farming

Dragon Hunting

2007-12-06T16:34:00.000-08:00

Demonmage showed me the ropes to dragon killing yesterday, and i have indeed been attracted to it the same way that i had the pc craze, so now, in the morn when the pc world is almost full, i go do some portal kicking, and in the later afternoon, i'll settle for some dragon killing. BLue dragons currently,the dragon hide sells good, as well as the dragon bones, i've made a considerable amount of profit now, and im intending to carry on until i reach my 2 mil cash goal. Maybe then, i'll find something better to train my combat, as for now, im on a gold hunt!

look at the wonders of pc =]

Combat 90, here i come!

2007-12-05T06:47:00.000-08:00

I had been crazy about pest control, the minigame these few days. It has given me so much xp, and i would definitely stick to it as one of my main source of xp. Well, combat training has been going smoothly, and i would be getting 90 Combat tomorrow, another major step towards 99 combat. I am also in the middle of getting a rune defender, a task that is proving difficult to achieve, i have spent 1.8k tokens just to get a bronze defender, luckily for me the rest aren't taking long to get, until i reached mith, the defender im stuck with now. But i had been neglecting my other stats such as farming for a while, guess i should get to it tomorrow. Hmm, looks like tomorrow will be another busy day.

my first time seeing a godsword =D

another couple of quests completed!

stuff achieved today : 74 hp and str, 14 herblore.

A new start

2007-12-04T17:28:00.001-08:00

This shall be my first RS based blog! Due to some technical errors, i cant get the old blog up and working well with my blog skins, thus, i have decided to start anew, besides, i hated that blog name

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Noobs, the Pollutants of RuneScape Society

Noobs. Every Runescape player that had played enough has heard of that term. Many loathe them, many insult them, some others decide to be one of them instead. But what does the term "noob" exactly mean? According to wikipedia.com, a "noob" is a player that is generally considered to be experienced, yet often makes mistakes that would more likely be attributed to a "newb." The term "noob" can also be applied to someone who is experienced, but blatantly disregards rules and etiquette through personal choice.

Well that's wordy if you ask me. To put it simply, a noob is a player experienced enough to understand the game play but still break the rules without hesitation. Often they also do stupid things, say stupid things and annoy others for sheer pleasure.

However, a distinct difference must be made clearly between a "noob and a "newb". "Newb", often confused with "noob" is used to address a player new to the game or is inexperienced in certain aspects of the game. A "noob" , on the other hand as i have explained, is more of an insult.

Distinct Traits of Noobs

1. Begging

This is one of the favourite pastimes of our dear noobs. You never fail to find them following higher levelled players, hoping to somehow beg or annoy them into giving away free items.

Two such screenshots to illustrate exactly what i mean.

2. Claiming ownership of certain spots in Runescape.

More often than not, they would have the belief that when they get to a training spot first, usually combat training areas, that particular spot "belongs" to them, and no other players can and should steal their monsters or trespass in their "spot". Often, they exhibit their displeasure by screaming at the "trespasser" with lines such as "hey! that's my spot! " or " get lost, i came here first " .

" i was here first! " gah. then wouldn't the very first player to travel to the different parts of Runescape own them?

EDIT : there had been discussions about this point and i think that although taking over somebody's training spot can be considered rude, but mostly this game is based on a "survival of the fittest" basis, thus i feel that we can express our disapproval, but not to over do it. overdoing it just makes us even ruder. and guess what? you'll look like a noob when you overly experss your disapproval.

3. Insulting

Another hobby of the noobs. This is among the most annoying of all their traits. They have the tendency to start insulting other players that do not agree with them, or has "trespassed" on their spot. Their insults mainly consists of chains of words that do not deal much damage to the other player, but instead make themselves look dumb. Very often they will also resort to vulgarities when they are about to be outwitted by the other player. such an example is " go poop in your own face! ... *****!!1 " (taken from an actual conversation i had with another player. lost the screenie. =[ ). For one, how do you poop in your face? It is ridiculously stupid and only makes the speaker look like a retard.

4. Calling others noobs.

One way the noobs generally try to make themselves look smart and "pro". They often abuse this word, under circumstances that the other party did nothing noobish at all. Such an example would be when the other player thinks that the noob is overcharging for a certain object and walk off. What normally coems after that is the noob shouting "noob" after that player. Really classic, i must say.

well i don't have any idea where to put this, but another example of noob behaviour.

That's all for the traits, i shall now move on to the favourite hideouts/ hot spots of noobs.

Noob Hot spots

according to the noobishness i find in the players there.

#3 : In third position, the Karamja Island is the best choice for me. Both the fishing spot and the volcano where the Lesser Demons reside are great spots for noob spotting.

#2 : In second position, we have the Al Khaid Mine. Seeing a player shouting lines like "this ore is mine" or " get lost, I'm here first" is not a rare thing at all.

#1 : The Hill Giants' Den comes in first with an outstanding lead. Its the place many rangers and mages lurk around in their early days to get their levels up. I don't mind them actually, until they start making noise about ridiculous things.

Finally, my advice for all the noob and noob-lets out there, stay away from evil and its path and you will become an honourable player one day. There is nothing proud in being a noob, whereas it brings you shame and insults, so do try your best and make your Runescape character one that you can be proud of. As i end here, good luck on your Runescape adventures and pm me @ tiz yeo if your have any enquires.

Please note that all the above words are my own opinion, based on my experience playing Runescape.