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.

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.

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.

Finally joining a clan

For a while I have been looking on joining a clan.  I wanted a group that was a bit more social and relaxed rather than focused on a skill or a few skills.  I finally found one a couple of days ago and I checked them out as a 'guest' in their chat.  I put in my application in their forum and they got back to me in a day saying 'welcome'.  I am now looking forward to being part of a group in RS in a social setting and helping out on the development of the citadel and not just grinding away in combat or skilling.  If I am lucky I may be able to help out other players enjoy the game as much as I do and repay the help I have received over the years from other fellow RS players.

If you are interested in a clan check out the RS forums and browse through the various clans.  If they allow it check into their clan chat as a guest for a day or two to see how they interact before taking the next step by asking to join.

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.

Fish Flingers

It is a new mini-game for pay-to-play players and you don't have to worry about tools, requirements or inventory space. There are fishing spots on the beach, lake, docks, ponds and rivers. The game starts every 90 minutes and goes on for about 15 minutes. You can get tackle boxes to hold some of your supplies, the bigger tackle box the more supplies you can store.

So far I like the mini-game (activity) as-is. The last time I played the game I received about 7k of Xp in 15 minutes.

Bonus XP weekend - Prep time

With the weekend of March 12th approaching Zelda and myself are starting to prepare the schedule of activities for the weekend.  She is planning on starting with Hunter and then go over to firemaking later on with possible other activities.  I have a lot more planned as I want to get multiple levels over the weekend.  I am planning on Farming, summoning, herblore, hunter, crafting, smithing and fletching in that order.  For the last week I have been building up my supplies of what I need for the weekend.

Primary	Secondary	Quantity	Stocked
Avantoe	Mort Myre Fungus	119	Y
Cadantine	White Berries	378	Y
Dwarf Weed	Wine of Zamorak	84	Y
Harralander	Ground Goat Horn	202	Y
Irit	Eye of Newt	695	Y
Kwuarm	Limpwurt Root	86	Y
Lantadyme	Dragon Scale	77	Y
Ranarr	Snape Grass	117	Y
Trees	Protection	Location	Planted
Magic	25 coconuts	Gnome Stronghold
Magic	25 coconuts	Lumbridge
Magic	25 coconuts	Varrock
Magic	25 coconuts	Falador
Magic	25 coconuts	Falador 2
Palm	15 Papaya	Llyetta
Palm	15 Papaya	Catherby
Palm	15 Papaya	Gnome Stronghold
Palm	15 Papaya	Gnome village
Bushes	Protection	Location	Planted
Poison Ivy	None	Rimmington	Y
Poison Ivy	None	Champions guild
Poison Ivy	None	Etceteria
Poison Ivy	None	Monastery	Y
Mushroom	None	Canifis	Y
Cactus	None	El Kharid	Y
Belladona	None	Draynor	Y
Charms	Secondary	Quantity	Stocked
Gold	Raw Bird Meat	500	Y
Red	Granite	311	Y
Green	Water Orb	1	Y
Green	Willow Branch	138	Y
Green	Shark	131	Y
Blue	Fire Talisman	1	Y
Blue	Earth Talisman	1	Y
Blue	Obsidian Charm	106	Y

As you can see I have a lot of materials ready.  I expect to get my next farming level and herbcrafting and hunter levels.  I may not make the next level in summoning, smithing, crafting and fletching, but, I should get very close so that I can get the levels in another week or two. Over this week I plan on getting all of my farming done ahead of time so that on the weekend all I have to do is check and harvest. Thursday I will go back to Miscellania to pick up what the NPCs have harvested for me in the way of herbs and clean and prepare the unfinished pots so that on the weekend all I have to do is finish them.

I did a quick check on the forums in Runescape and a lot of people are being negative about this.  I look at this as a positive as it give us additional incentive to work on our non-combat skills and it won't be as much of a grind working on our levels.  When I get most of my stuff done I will probably join Zelda and work on our hunting skill together.

For other news I changed my name to Max CH4 from TOMT1960 and GRANDPA TOMT.  The reasoning is that Zelda suggested it as a joke and it was something totally different.  I am now combat level 125 and my total levels is now 2075.  I am still working on my ranging level and once it hits 90 I will be finishing off the Nomad's Requiem quest.

Blood Runs Deep quest

I finished the latest quest for Runscape last night.  Blood Runs Deep is a continuation of the Fremennik and Lunar Isle quests.  It took me two nights of play to get through the quest and I found it a totally enjoyable and challenging quest.

Some stats for me
Combat = 122
Attack = 90
Strength = 89
Defense = 89
Hitpoints = 92

Read the quest walk-through on the Wiki and believe me, it is very easy to die in this quest.  I moved my house to Rellekka as they recommended and that really helps.  If you have teletabs make sure you have one as you will need to use them.  During the quest at the end I had to teleport out three times before I figured out the proper way to defeat the Dagannoth Mother.

For the first part talking to Silas I was wearing Rune Armour and had 3 prayer pots, 1 teletab and the rest in monks.  I went through most of this before Baba Yaga got the lectern to work.  Afterward we were back on Lunar Isle.  Before using her 'trick' go to the bank and stock up on food, more prayer pots (3 worked for me) and a teletab.  The Dagannoth in Rellekka are agressive, but, after a while they stop being agressive and you can pick your targets.  On the saving King Vargas bring the same number of prayer pots and food as you will need them all going through the caves.  Take care to walk as he is very slow.  Also when going around corners or obstructions you may have to go back and move further out as he will get trapped. 

When fighting the sentinels take care to watch your health as they do hit hard and fairly often.  On the mother you will find this a challenge and a fairly high risk of death.  Watch your health at all times and make sure that your prayer does not run out.  If you have to leave you will need to restart the combat using Balmung.  Make sure you have protect from Melee on for that portion.  Once you get a hit you can move away so that she does not use Melee, but, Magic and range.  I found using protect from range using a combination of Armour that gives high magic protection worked for me.  It still took three teleports out and back before I got everything down on my timing.

At the end you talk to Brundt three times and you can then pick what area to apply your rewards to.  I took it all in prayer as that is a fairly expensive skill to level up in.  I went from level 78 to 80 with this.

Overall I found this one of the most enjoyable and challenging quests in the last two years and for me it was as hard as the While Guthix Sleeps quest.

My new menagerie

This week Runescape made an new room for your pets. I have two cats and one dog right now. Since I don't have a high enough level to put all of my pets in I made the house as best as I could.

You can see the screen shots I made. The first picture is me entering the house. The second is my new spot for my pets.

The other new thing is that Runescape now allows us to make teletabs much more easily. Before we had to do one at a time, now we can make 'x' teletabs. Both myself and my dad (tomt1960) find this is a lot easier on our fingers and the mice. It may be a bit slower, but, it does not wear out our mice as quickly as we don't constantly click all of the time.

Linux and HD mode

This week I did an update on my Linux/Vista box for Java and the ATI drivers. Every time I do that I try the HD mode of Runescape to see if it works and it does, partially. It usually allowed me to log in, sound was working and I was in HD, but, when I moved the browser screen or went to another session it would white-out the screen and lock. This time the update works and I can run a HD session that I can re-size, move to another desktop, flip desktops and it works. If you are running Linux you may want to check out the JAVA updates and the ATI updates if you are running an ATI video card that supports HD mode in Runescape.

Zelda is also looking forward to using my machine now. The only way we could play HD was to boot to Vista and I didn't like her playing on my machine as she tends to visit other sites that may leave 'surprises' on my machine that I have to clean up. I can now set up a limited profile in Linux and she can play HD mode and surf the web without my worrying about all of those nasty virus/trojans that are floating around out there.

We have done a good number of upgrades to our skills playing. She can now burn elder evil trees, but, needs to get her wood cutting up to cut magic logs. Once she does that she can do all evil tree events. She discovered Stealing Creations and has been playing that as the rewards can be applied to tools that helps her various skill levels. I have skilling up and trying to get all of my skills to at least level 80. The skills I have to get up are:

• Prayer = 72
• Agility = 74
• Thieving = 75
• Slayer = 79
• Runecrafting = 75
• Hunter = 75
• Construction = 74
• Summoning = 74

In the living room I moved one of our older machines and plugged it into the TV as the TV has the connections. The computer is not hooked up to the net (yet), but, eventually I will be getting a wireless router. This will allow us to play USB sticksfrom anywhere in our network of pictures or movies that the kids bring over, or, stream shows from the network on our TV. Zelda is looking forward to this update as she will be wanting to play Runescape on a 26 inch TV.

Soul Wars freeloader fix + Penguin Hide&Seek

Jagex finally made a small fix to Soul Wars. Before people would just stand there and get a reward for doing nothing. I found it very annoying that they would get a reward for doing nothing and I was trying to get in to play and could not. Now that they made the fix people must play or get kicked out without getting rewards. I have not tried it yet, but, when I am doing working on my other skills I will play it again with my dad.

My dad has been playing Penguin hide and seek with me for the last several weeks helping me find all of the penguins across Runescape. There are a few places I cannot go to as I have not done the quest or I just won't go there (high wilderness). I have been putting the rewards to runecrafting so I can get to level 50 and then I can play the 'Great Orb Project' with my dad and really get cool rewards there. I can then buy the teletabs to the various altars so I can get 55 runecrafing, then I can start to make law runes and make lots of GP for the things I want to buy in the game.

Prayer skill and Canifis

This is a skill that allows the user (P2P or F2P) to help with their combat. There are a number of ones that will make your combat and quests go easier. There is a good section in the WIKI that explains this skill.

Leveling up the skill outside of the rewards of the various quests takes a lot of time and effort, or, a lot of GP. While playing, Zelda and myself found a way for P2P players to bring up the skill a bit faster. If you hunt werewolves in Canifis (you have to finish the priest in peril quest) save the wolf bones that they drop. At the grand exchange sell all of the bones and then buy dragon bones. Wolf bones gives you 4.5 XP per bone, dragon gives 72. At this time you can sell 5 wolf bones and get one dragon bone. Using a bit of math you can either get 22.5 XP burying 5 wolf bones or 72 for one dragon bone. If you have a house (POH) with a high level altar and incense burners or access to one then you can get more bonus points. Read the section in the WIKI on the POH.

First cape

After three years of playing I finally got my first cape. I finished off the quest While Guthix Sleeps. To get there I had to finish off Mourning's End Part 2.

For Mourning 2 I was using the two walkthroughs. Sals and the Wiki have great walkthroughs that make the quest somewhat easier and allows you to know what you need to have to work on the quests. For Mourning 2 they are not kidding that prayer potions and prayer enhanced items are helpful, in my opinion the only way you can easily finish without going through hundreds prayer potions and teleporting to Ardougne dozens of times to restock is to use the items. Even with the armour it took me about 10 restocking of potions and food to finish that quest.

On the master quest it was a lot of fun and reading all of the various 'conversations' has hints to what may be in store for future quests. Once the quest was finished I headed back to Falador and the party room where I held a small party (500k) to celebrate the fact that I finally got my quest cape.

Over Christmas Zelda and myself took a small break to enjoy the holiday and we would like to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy new year. The picture was drawn by Zelda.

Skill - Firemaking

Firemaking is a skill that allows you to set logs on fire. One of the useful things is that you can use it to cook food. Firemaking is a skill that is required for a few quests and mini-games. The skill itself does not make you money unless you consider the cooked food to sell.

One thing we have found out about firemaking is that when you get high enough to cut and burn Yew (or Magic) it is actually better to burn maple logs. When you burn Yew you get around 202 experience points (XP) for each log, with Maple you get 135 XP. If you sell the Yew on the Grand Exchange (G.E.) you can get 460 gold pieces (GP) for each log. Maple goes for 37 GP each. So, for every Yew you sell you can then buy 12 Maple logs. To do the math, one Yew log will give you 202 XP, but, 12 Maple logs will give you 1,620 XP. If you do want to go for level 99 in firemaking you will burn a lot more Maple logs, but, you won't have to cut as many logs when you cut Yew and buy Maple.

One other note, Maple is a Pay-to-Play item that only members can cut. If you are a free-to-play you will need to check if you can buy maple on the G.E.

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Update 1:

The following table shows:

• The six types of logs we commonly cut.
  
• The woodcutting level required for the log and the XP gained from burning the logs.
  
• We assumed you have the firemaking level for at least maple logs.
• The current G.E. price (November 29, 2008) for the logs.
• The XP per GP if you bought the logs for burning.
• The number of maple logs if you sold them and buy maple.
• The total XP gained by burning the maples you buy.

Log	WC Lvl	FM XP	GP	XP/GP	Buy Maple	Maple FM XP
Logs	1	40	25	1.6	0.68	91.22
Oak	15	60	25	2.4	0.68	91.22
Willow	30	90	18	5	0.49	65.68
Maple	45	135	37	3.65	1	135
Yew	60	202.5	456	0.44	12.32	1663.78
Magic	75	303.75	1271	0.24	34.35	4637.43

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