First a King, then a Portmaster.

When I first heard about Player-Owned Ports update, I immediately thought of the Sailing skill, which was a hugely speculated skill release back in 2010. Ships, captains and sailing definitely reminded me of the much rumored skill. 

So far, I am pretty excited about this minigame and have been religiously checking on my ports on a daily basis. I've come to see it as a more interactive, engaging and improved version of the Managing Miscellania minigame. I think there is a rather gentle learning curve, but the difficulty increases rather exponentially as you unlock new regions.

At the point of writing, I have the Scythe region unlocked and I'm collecting the parts of the forgotten scroll so that I can make the Tetsu helm. Another great incentive to boost my Smithing, I must say. Smithing has been stagnant at 82 for a couple of months now, and the ability to smith Tetsu helms would potentially help me recoup some losses from buying that Christmas Tree Hat.

In retrospect, there were some things I'd probably do differently if I were to start from scratch. Hopefully these tips would be helpful to someone else who hasn't progressed as far.

1. Upgrade the deck items first. They seem to always give more skill points than other parts of the ship. I stick to this rule whenever I unlock new regions now.

2. Have 1 ship doing long(er) missions while you have another ship collecting resources more quickly. The ship that is collecting extra resources could also be utilized to train crew that needs leveling up.

3. Upgrade your office as soon as possible. An additional ship really makes a difference.

4. Adventurer re-rolls can be used even after you've sent your ship on a special mission. In other words, the re-roll would give you an addition special mission to attempt. 

5. Personal preference, I don't like to spend resources/chimes on speed crew or upgrades unless I have an obscene amount of leftover resources. When you progress into the game, 10 minute cut from 5 hours isn't exactly worth it. 

6. This doesn't have anything to do with POP progress per se, but once you've built a workshop, you now have a quiet one-click bank that you can train skills at.

POP is probably my favorite update in a while and I can actually see myself investing quite a bit of online time here. A new D&D called God Statues was released quite recently. I'll probably write another review once I've gotten the chance to try it out.

Evolution of Combat - Revolutionary or Disaster In The Making?

Evolution of Combat has been a real game changer indeed. As Runescape Wiki summarized, EOC brings "a variety of new content including powerful abilities, dual weapon wielding, new Magic and Ranged equipment, and new Prayers. In addition, the combat triangle has been massively balanced, monsters have new attacks, and the combat level formula has been revised." 

I remain rather ambivalent about this update. This update was a mixed bag of effects for me, helping me with training on one hand while causing me a significant deal of monetary loss on the other. (On hindsight though, the monetary loss was mostly due to players engaging in panic-selling, so I can't really pin the blame on the update.)

The aims of EOC can be found on Mod Mark's DevBlog. What I'd do is to pick a few aims to discuss, and hopefully give a picture of how I see EOC from the comments.

1) Refocus combat to be more about player skill - ... making it more about mastering techniques, rather than navigating interfaces at speed.

This is a rather sound argument, and the new abilities do warrant a little more attention than just waiting for the special bar to be filled up. The abilities could make monster slaying faster if used appropriately, so that's one incentive right there. However, I just seem to prefer the old system of click-and-wait. Getting Momentum activated in the shortest amount of time possible is usually my priority, then I can sit back and multitask while my character kicks some serious monster ass.

2) Encourage variety in combat equipment - ... The problem is, at the moment, there aren't many reasons to change from your favourite weapons or armour. We’d like to give you those reasons.

Well, this is valid. One personal benefit of EOC is that I'm a lot motivated to utilize Magic and Ranged for PVM situations. I've actually managed to gain quite a number of levels as a result. That being said. I am slightly annoyed at now less effective to tear through almost anything with my melee gear, as I used to.

3) Make it fun! - ... In-game combat - particularly training on standard enemies - currently involves clicking on a creature and waiting. We'll do a whole lot more to make these situations challenging, rewarding and - ultimately - more fun.

Honestly, I don't see much of a difference. With Momentum activated, it is the exact same game, except I don't get to use the flashy special moves. In fact, if you use the right gear, it is probably less challenging (which I suppose is a good thing, but makes this point moot).

4) Make it easier to access - Several combat options (special attacks, combat styles, spellbooks) are tucked away, hard to access, or on various different interfaces, so we’re planning to bring all those options together.

Without the action bar, the combat options are still located on different tabs - not really a significant change (or at all). On the sidenote, I really love the inclusion of the action bar, which is tremendous help even in non-combat situations. Tip: If you don't already know, you can put items such as the Explorers' Ring on the action bar to serve as an alternative one-click teleport!

5) Allow players’ combat levels to truly represent their ability – The combat level calculator is complicated and encourages players to not train certain skills in an attempt to create a false impression of their damage potential (pures). 

This is one of the statements that I don't agree with. I don't think having a whole load of level 200 players running amok is the best idea that Jagex has had. For the longest time, maximum combat level is something that is pretty respected and sought after. Now, you have way too many players who have maxed combat levels. That definitely takes some fun off players who've been training Prayer and Summoning in order to get that coveted level 138. *points to self*

6) Be brave, but be traditional where possible - We are a game with a proud heritage and a player base with clear expectations of the game they want to play. We don’t want to make a game that we can’t even recognise anymore.

I think this is complete and utter bull. EOC is brave, but there is nothing traditional about it. By revamping the entire combat system, a huge deal of the game is fundamentally changed. I'm pretty sure old-timers who have stopped for a while and return to the game after EOC would not recognize it anymore. Yeah, I think this is pretty much an unnecessary justification for EOC, neither does it make any sense.

Of course, comments are entirely my own opinions and there is nothing I'd welcome more than fruitful debate on my outlook on these aims and their results.

Though I'm not in love with the new system, I'm going to tone down with the whining and live with it, very much like how I have with the other bad decisions (in my opinion) that were made by the developers. In a couple of years, people would have forgotten about the 'old days' and be perfectly fine with EOC being the norm... until Jagex comes along and decides to throw in another game changer.

Squeal of Fortune, Soloman's General Store - The New Priority for Jagex?

As promised, I'll be sharing a few thoughts on major updates I've seen since my return, starting with the much debated release of the Squeal of Fortune (SOF). This particular update has generated a great deal of discussion among the RS community. The main concern many had with this update was the fact that SOF rewarded various experience lamps and necklaces, and the spins can be bought with actual cash. Had the rewards been purely cosmetic, there wouldn't have been backlash to this extend (or at all).

This issue with buying spins is brought to a whole new level with the 2012 Christmas event where players scurried to collect different colored presents, which were most easily obtained through SOF. The purple dragonstone present even had it's street price elevated to 50M  immediately after release before crashing to 13-15M the following day. The relative ease in which we can obtain the present from SOF in addition to the high demand for said presents made the notion of purchasing steeply-priced spins so much more alluring. Although I'm not discounting the fact that free spins can be obtained as drops and rewards for completing daily challenges or quests, they do not come in frequently, nor are they aplenty as rewards/drops.

Presents come significantly easier from SOF. 

Another new inclusion that I don't really like is the special pets from the Soloman's General Store. The items were only obtained through microtransactions, and for a while, remained purely cosmetic. Then came an update in August when the bank boosters were released, generating yet another wave of controversy. Back to the special pets, which were a relatively recent release, are followers capable of foraging, banking and scavenging loot at different stages of their growth. Of course, if you want to throw more money in, you can always buy extra items that would speed up their growth.

A full description about the pets, their abilities and treats to speed up their growth can be found on the official site.

Maybe it's just me, but I think Jagex is losing subtlety when it comes to making the players pay. Back when I first joined, though membership did offer some benefits when it comes to training speed and bank spaces, it was mostly justified; members had a lot more skills and items available to them, hence the need for a larger amount of bank space. It has been a tad blatant in the recent couple of years from what I've observed. Starting from the removal of free-to-play users from the highscores, which I honestly saw as a rather dick-ish move to attract more members, to all these nice little items and pets for people to pour their money in.

I'd be lying if I said that these new pets not appeal to me at all, and I might very just well get one of them when I do have spare cash. I understand that it is probably within company objectives to maximise profit. Still, I wonder what it is that's making the company throw all subtlety away to embark on such an aggressive route of profit-making.

I'm back (I hope?)

Looks like I'm back to blogging again. I've been fairly busy with National Service, in which I was actually conscripted into the Navy and I'm finally done with it. I actually renewed my membership a little over 3 months ago on a whim and it seems that I'll be staying for a while (hopefully). 

I haven't had the chance to go a lot of writing over the past two years, except for a few articles I've written for my unit. I reckon that blogging might help me ease back into my writing habits, so here I am. Besides, I actually enjoyed blogging about Runescape. As unfortunate as it sounds, real life just isn't as interesting as the pixel human I have onscreen.

There have been plenty of changes while I was away, and I got caught in the whole whirlwind that is Evolution of Combat shortly upon my return. I will devote the next few posts to discussing the more recent changes to the game, particularly the Evolution of Combat.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Cheers,

Tiz.

Attempt Number Two.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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: