Firefox 52 and Runscape in Linux

I did my normal upgrade and forgot that Firefox 51 was the last version that supported the Java plugin.  When I got to launch RS it didn't start.  I checked to see if the Java client was there and I got a clue bat that Java wasn't there any more.

 

Not a problem as Jagex does have a Windows client and I downloaded that and then installed WINE.  Once that was there I launched file manager, navigated to my folder where I downloaded the client and clicked on it.

Nice part is that it added the game to my menu bar and launched without a problem.  I did have to modify the default settings in the client to what I like to play with, but, that was only 1 minute of work.

So far it seems to be fairly stable and CPU runs in the 20-30% range so that is a good thing there.

Old School update to construction

This week Jagex updated the Construction skill in Old School Runescape.  To put it quickly and simply I like the changes.  The tweaks are small, but, welcome.  The biggest is the ability to rearrange your house.  Before you had to destroy a room with all contents if you wanted it in a different location or rotated to allow for an expansion.  This way you can click on a room and then click where you want it and rotate it.  It has limits in that if there is something attached above/below then there are limits on the rotate.  I used the function to expand out the spacing in the house to allow me putting in the new features that are part of the update.

The one new spot you can build allows you to create a pool that recharges.  Right now it is set up to recharge run energy and that helps when I am doing long sessions making flat packs.  When I arrive I click on the pool to refresh then build.  It makes it a lot cheaper and easier than using energy or super energy potions.

There is another spot I can build, but, it requires level 80 and at this time I am only level 75.  Overall this is a nice well designed update to the game that the original Runescape doesn't have and should.

My current house layout

Interface on lower right has new option

Click on a room to move and/or rotate

I prefer playing Old School as it is simple to play, not overloaded with features and functions.  It also works well on lower end machines and runs in a browser in Linux.

OSRS - Bots, they are back

Bots have always been in Runescape (and other games), but, I have noticed in the last couple of weeks that there are more and more.  Every time I go to the G.E. (Grand Exchange) there are two or more bots advertising various sites for bots.  They think they are clever by using special characters and punctuation to hide the name of the site, but, I a person can recognize the URL it isn't that hard for a script to scan the logs of public conversations to find them too.  Every one I see I report just-in-case there is something new that may get missed.  I have noticed that Jagex has made a minor, but, nice change to the reporting function.  Before I would report and then mute so I wouldn't get 'spammed', but, now mute is part of the reporting function and that is a small AND nice change.  I trust that Jagex is on top of this and in the future do another bot nuke.

In my less-than-humble opinion they should also collaborate with the other gaming companies and see what can be done as a group.  I suspect the bot makers are not just Runescape specific and if the group can shut them down it would improve the game play as players cannot buy/cheat their way to being top tier players.  They also should follow the money.  Who is processing the credit card orders may be pressured into dropping the companies.

The sad thing is that bots will always be around and there is a small core of gamers who will not follow the rules and cheat their way through the game.  They think the goal is to finish all quests, get 99 in every skill, max out their banks and they are wrong.  The goal is explore what is there and the above is the end result of having fun.

Having fun with the new content - ZEAH!

For the last several days I have been trying out the new content in Old School Runescape.  I should have done a lot more reading before I started though.  I did start out in Hosidius and hit 100%.  I then wanted to get the 100% in Arceuus for the runecrafting.  When I started out the Arceuus items I noticed my prior 100% went away.  I did a bit of reading and they stated quite clearly that you can have only one, I missed that and I wasted about 2 days of my time there.  I will be keeping Arceuus as my next goal is to improve my runecrafting.  Lesson learned, read the article slowly and carefully!

Another item is the main laptop was upgraded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 so I will be keeping an eye on how the OSRS app runs after the upgrade.  The netbook upgraded without an issue and OSRS works, but, I am paranoid and will doing safe activities until I see how stable it is on the upgraded laptop.

OSRS, Resizable mode and Windows 10

A short time ago I upgraded my netbook from Windows 7 starter to Windows 10.  The reason for this blog entry is that I used my netbook to play OSRS and it worked fairly well. It wasn't the fastest machine, but, playable.  I upgraded that machine as it wasn't my 'mission critical' machine and if it got hosed then no major loss.

The machine is an Acer Aspire One D255E.

• CPU - Intel Atom N455 - 1.66 GHz
• Memory - 2 Gigs (I upgraded from 1 Gig)
• Storage - 160 gigs

The process itself I documented in my other blog under the subject Windows 10 Upgrade Experience.

Before the upgrade OSRS would run at 95-100% of the CPU.  In Windows 10 it runs in the 70-80% range and is quite responsive.  It isn't as fast as my gaming machine, but, considering that this is a netbook it is a huge bonus for me.  I like using the netbook as it is a lot smaller and lighter and at night I am playing it in the living room with it sitting on my lap.

If you do upgrade your machines do a backup before you start!  Please, please, please, make a backup of your data before you start.  During the upgrade process pick custom so that your default software and browser remain the defaults.

On the resizable mode I just love the option.  I scale it to fit what I am doing, zooming in during combat and out just to see what is happening around the area.  It works well even on the netbook and on the gaming laptop it works extremely well.

More bratty bullies in Runescape Old School

Looks like some childish players reactions to being banned was to try to deny the majority of players who do follow the rules from being able to play OSRS.  For at least a couple of days getting on and staying on was an exercise in futility as these bullies initiated a DDOS on the OSRS servers.

Some legit players lost a lot of in-game items due to where they were and what they were doing.  While that is a bit sad, don't blame Jagex for this, blame the bullies who think they can extort Jagex into letting them back.  They were banned for not following the rules or initiating a DDOS to try to gain an unfair advantage.

I was lucky in that I didn't lose anything.  I was getting ready to do a slayer task when I thought to check the main web site and see if there was any news on updated content.  I noticed that there was a mention of a DDOS and I changed my activity to a safe one.  That was a good thing as about 15 minutes later the site dropped and it took about an hour before I could get back on.

For those who are complaining that Jagex should spend more money & time upgrading their servers, it probably won't work even if they spend more.  These bullies were probably renting a DDOS service which will allow them to pick the type of denial to use, how many machines and how long for just a few dollars an hour.  Even the biggest sites have a hard time fighting this as some of these DDOS services can flood a site with hundreds of gigs per second of traffic.

I hope Jagex can find the player(s) who did this and pass the information to the local authorities.  They may not be able to do a lot, but, at least they are on the radar of authorities.


Lastly for these bullies ->  THIS IS JUST A GAME!  Get over it, pick up and carry on in the game following the rules or just FUCK OFF AND DIE and let the rest of us enjoy and relax playing online.

EOC and other milestones

I have been slacking off a bit, but, with work I haven't had a lot of free time to do a lot of gaming.  I did have a bit of time to try out the EOC (Evolution of Combat) in RS and the concept takes a bit of getting used to.  So far I do like the changes as slayer tasks now seem to be going a lot faster.  The downside is that I need to be active to use the various new options for the 'special' combat moves.  You now have to plan out ahead of time what you are going to be doing and equip for that rather than just pray/tank the task.

I have also had enough time to level up a few skills and my total level is now 2400 and at this time my ranking is just under 20,000.  Part of this is to dungeoneering.  Now that EOC is live that is one area that really benefits from the combat changes and I can now do 3 or floors an hour solo without a problem.  The only downside that I see so far is that it has not stopped or slowed down the bots.

Botany Bay - Finally bots get nuked again!

The new bot killing that Jagex is in place and it seems to be working.  I have been able to get on to F2P and I can actually now gather resources without too many problems competing with the bots.  The animation on spam bots is nice and it happens within about two minutes of their going 'live'.  The court itself may be 'lame' for some players, but, it is a nice distraction and I like to be able to choose their final method of being removed permanently from Runescape.  The only thing I can see is that if you are F2P I would recommend that you log on to a F2P world as the cases happens much faster there.  When I was on P2P I would get maybe one bot tried an hour, but, F2P I watched seven within thirty minutes.

It will be interesting to see how long it will take before bots make another comeback, but, I truly hope that they never will.

One of the players watching was commenting that bots are not bad in that they help make materials ready.  I wonder if that was a bot master or user.  I find that bots are extremly annoying in that the spam-bots make reading chat almost impossible or they send you 'private message' without permission.  They also hog resources so that you cannot gather materials and artificially distort prices of raw materials which further discourages players from even try to gather materials to sell so that they can buy other items for progression within the game.  If anyone disagrees with me on this please think of the blue dragons and the bots there.  I had blue dragons as a slayer task and had to cancel as there were at least four bots for every dragon and it would have taken me weeks to finish that slayer task.

Spammers, scammers and bots

After the nuking last year of a lot of bots it looks like the spammers, scammers and bots are making a comeback.  I know Jagex is doing what it can to kill them, but, the ones who turn loose the spam bots, scam bots and resource bots are still out there.  For the last several days I get anywhere from two to four 'PM' from throwaway accounts advertising the 'gold' sites (I won't name them so they don't any more business).  They try to hide the website names so that auto detection doesn't work, but, humans can detect them easily.  Each time it happens I report all of the accounts so that Jagex can see where they originate. 

I did a WHOIS lookup for the accounts and every one I found was a Chinese registered web site.  I wonder how long it will be before the internet as a whole tells China they will not have access to the internet until they clean up their house and prove it. 

I don't know what Jagex does in the background, but, if they are not already talking to other gaming companies it would be a good time now to start.  They can compare notes on how they handle this problem and as a group try to shut down this crap.  A good place would be to see who does the credit card processing for those sites and let them know what is going on and if they continue then they may be also be hauled to court as an accomplice to the spam/scam/bot providers.

The gold sites give an unfair advantage to players in that they can 'buy' gold for Runescape that can then buy materials for various skills or weapons.  With that flood of gold they drive up the price for the items so that it is harder for legit players to obtain those items.  Also, do you really trust these sites with your credit card information?

Bots make it harder for legit players to obtain the resources they need and also flood the market with a large amount of raw materials which has the effect of driving down prices.  With the low prices and competition for those resources a lot of players are not doing those skills or going to other games.  This hurts all legit players.

One of the good places to look at right now is the green dragons.  There are a lot of players there with identical setups taking out the dragons for their bones and hides. 

Another 99

Just a minor thing and a few notes.  On the weekend I finally got a 99 in firemaking.  A few clan members recommended doing 'curly roots' and I headed over to the Jadinko lairs.  They are right, if you have the ability to get into there it is a great way to quickly get experience in firemaking and there is not any cost to it other than your time.

The Bonus XP weekend was also another wonderful experience.  If you get the chance start stocking up on supplies at least a month before.  I did that for herblore and had over 3,500 unfinished pots ready to go.

On a 'whiny' note I am noticing that there are more and more bots starting to show up.  That and I am getting 'PM' from throw away accounts advertising various 'GOLD' sites.  I keep reporting, but, Jagex should look at ways to shut this down.  I know you can set 'PM' to friends only, but, I like to keep it open for clan members who want to quickly do private chat and not have to add the whole clan to my friend list.

• Jagex may want to look at limiting how many 'PM' a new account can send out.
• jagex may also want to investigate the sites and see who the credit card processors are and go after them too.  If they can make it too expensive for the card processors to accept these scammers maybe things will get a bit better to.  This is a possible strategy for the bot makers, go and follow the money and shut down their income.

Clan and stuff

For that last few weeks I have been part of a clan.  It is a social clan with a few events.  The only thing they ask is that you help out once a week on maintaining the citadel.  This isn't a problem as it takes maybe one hour and the ring you get afterwards gives bonus XP on a selected skill.

I like the social part as you can ask questions and someone usually has the answer and I try to help other clan members in various tasks and quests.  This is what Runescape is at its best, players helping players enjoy the game.

Runescape finally bot rid of the bots

After a long time of everyone (at least legit players) complaining about the bots Jagex finally nuked the bots.  It was getting almost impossible to play in many areas on my F2P account as the resource bots were sucking all of the resources dry.  Even if you were a fairly high level player there were so many bots that the odds were against you getting anything.  Even on F2P there were a lot of bots and they were making game play there difficult.  I haven't gone around to everywhere yet, but, from the spots I normally frequent they are much quieter with legit players.

Some of the botters are doing their normal FUD by making claims like the following:

• Skilling is a boring process and botting makes it easier.
• It will only work a few hours and we will be back.
• It will destroy the economy by making things (like logs, coal, herbs) more expensive.

My answers:

• Spread out what you are doing across multiple skills.  You don't have to spend hours/days on one skill.
• So far it has been several days and I haven't seen bots so far.
• I haven't seen prices rise that much yet (and some have dropped).  Even if they do it will encourage players to work on the skills to get the raw materials the need.

It probably won't stop bots and I expect to start seeing a few in the coming months.  Players are lazy/greedy/impatient and are willing to pay someone to write a 'bot'.  In my less than humble opinion when Jagex catches those players Jagex should not show any mercy and do a permanent ban on those chaters.  I have actually seen a botter claim that somehow Jagex infringed on their 'rights' by taking the bots away,  BULLSHIT, you are given the privilege of playing if you follow the rules that Jagex lays down.  If you don't like the rules then don't play and don't complain when you get caught breaking the rules and get your account nuked.

I have noticed that the number of players is lower over most of the servers and that is probably a good indicator that the bots were have a large impact on the game.  When I was on world 70 for the ZMI it was just maybe a dozen players doing RC and before the bot-nuke it was several dozen (at a minimum).  Next up I want to check out the living rock cavern as that was the home to hundreds of bots.  I have a fairly good machine (quad core) with a decent graphics card and every time the bots moved from one spot to another my machine would slow to a crawl.

Bot-busting and rewarding good players

It has finally happened.  Jagex, the makers of Runscape are now getting around to nuking the bots who are making game play almost impossible for F2P in many areas (and some P2P) and distorting the market by making materials cheaper than they should be.  They are also rewarding players who didn't bot with bonus experience points (XP) for a variety of tasks for the week starting October 25.

It was overdue, but, I can understand why it took so long.  They had to determine a way to detect the bots reliably and then figure out what they needed to change in the game code to flag them.  I am very happy that they got around and kill the bots as I was looking at something else to play as I couldn't get much done with the bots.  A lot of players probably will be upset at getting banned, but, from my point of view 'do the crime do the time' and that means you get banned for breaking the rules of the game.  They also don't realize that the 'bot' they buy may also have other code that will steal information (like banking, password, etc) or make their machine into a spambot.

I know that for some people that working on skills is a long, hard and boring process.  There are ways to relieve the tedium of game play.  I normally work on a skill 30-60 minutes and then switch to another skill.  I also try to work on skills that feed other skills.  For example I woodcut yew.  I then fletch the logs into longbows and string them.  Once I am done I sell the bows and buy more bowstrings.  This is actually paying for itself and I have over 16,000 bow strings already for future work.  Another example is that I mine gold ore.  Once I get a good supply I then smelt the ore and then make amulets and then I sell them to buy teak planks for house construction.  Another hint is I play penguin-hide-and-seek each week and apply the rewards to what ever skill I want.  I normally get 35k of experience a week from playing one hour.  My next to last hint is the 'Jack of all Trades' aura, you can use that once a day and the reward amount depends on your skill level.  My last hint is that you should also check out the shattered hearts distraction as you can redeem your stones once a week for a nice bit of bonus XP.  I normally get 1 million to 1.5 million XP per week doing all of the above and working on all my skills and I spend maybe two hours an evening playing.

Bots and scammers

For the last bit I have noticed that I am getting private messages from obvious bots to go to a site for 'GOLD'.  Obviously that is a scam looking for your credit card information.  If you get that message ignore it and report the user.

I have also seen spam bots in Yanille advertising the new RS 3 Beta site.  As far as I know there is no BETA runescape.  I won't give the name of the site as I don't want to drive traffic to their site.

1. The people who are advertising are normal players and not Jagex.
2. I checked the WHOIS information and it is registered in Los Angeles and not to Jagex.
3. If Jagex truly has a new version it would either be mentioned on the website or a secure email sent to players on the site and not advertised to everyone.  The point of a beta is a controlled run to see how it works and get feedback from the players.
4. The java certificate is not signed and therefore it is not Jagex!

Don't go to the site advertised as all they are wanting is your userid and password.  Once they get they get that they probably will wipe out your account, or, turn it into a spam bot and you lose absolutely everything!

I also reported it to Google safeweb as something that should be blacklisted.  If it works and enough people report it then Google Chrome and Firefox (and maybe other browsers) will flag the site as unsafe and give those people who don't know any better a second chance before entering their log on credentials.

Bots are getting to be a major pain again

For the last bit I have noticed more bots on the P2P sites.  The auto typing bots at the G.E. advertising the sites are getting to be a major pain.  When I was on the F2P site with my other account it was even worse.  The G.E. seems to be almost all bots, the chat window scrolls with all of the bots advertising various sites for 'GOLD' and other crap.  I was glad when I saw the Jagex announcement on the bot problem and that they are looking at it. 

I hope that they are also looking at the companies who process the payments.  Follow the money and then find the choke point financially and shut that down.  It won`t shut all of the bot makers, but, if we shut off their flow of money it will hurt them and possible cause a number of smaller outfits to shut down.  That and when they do get the list of players who make use of those services Jagex should ban the accounts for life.  These bots are making playing in a number of areas almost impossible as we cannot compete with them for the resources and the fact that players are `buying` gold and that allows them to buy other resources and increase the price offered for the items.  That causes a bubble in the prices that makes it harder for legit players like me to pay inflated prices. 

Lastly I hope that Jagex does figure out how to detect bot and macros then ban those cheats for life.  If you want to play then follow the rules and don`t use the cheats. 

Another dumb scammer - Jag Corp Aja

I just got a private PM from someone with the account 'JAG CORP AJA'.  They noted that 'we can noticed a certain maturity...' and then they offered me the chance to fill in a player moderation form for the chance to become a player moderator.  I decided to '???' back to them for a response and when they replied I noted that they are a free account and there was not a crown on their chat.  They told me that if I didn't trust them I didn't have to fill in the form and that they had a lot of players waiting.

Jagex never offers that, you receive an invite via your Runescape account mail so it was a scam.  I reported them for impersonating staff as the name does try to give the air that they are official Jagex.  You can check out the Safety & Security Guidlines - Scamming Prevention Guide for more information.