Penguins, iPhones, and Defense

I have played too much Runescape lately.
Everything seems to relate to the game somehow. I read about ancient giant penguins in Peru and linked them in my mind to the penguins in the game.

These giant penguins sound amazing. Icadyptes salasi lived 36 million years ago, were 5 foot tall, and had beaks one foot long.

Here is a picture of their skull compared to a regular penguin's.


hmm. . . I'd say the would be about a level 70 monster with a good thrust attack.

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The new iPhone will be out soon and there is a lot of hype around it. I don't see why people are so excited - it won't do Java so you won't be able to play Runescape on it.


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Guthix is displeased that my Magic skill is out of balance with my Ranged skill, so I donned my mystic robes and went to fight some black knights. Jagex keeps the mechanics of their combat system a secret so I thought I'd do some experimentation to see if I could glean anything about what is going on "under the hood". I recorded the results of about 150 swings from the black knight's mighty swords (including zeros). I then wore an amulet of defense and activated the Steel Skin prayer and recorded the results from another 150 swings (I made trips to the monastery nearby to keep my prayer points fresh). Then I looked at the results, did some math, and was surprised.

Wearing the amulet and having the prayer up didn't make much of a difference at all. Without the ammy and prayers, the average black night swing would deliver 0.58 points of damage to me. With the ammy and prayer up, the average swing would deliver 0.55 points of damage to me. That is a difference of only 3 hp for every 100 swings!

Something seems wrong. I have class tonight and can't play, buy I plan on running more experiments Thursday.

Fun with math

Ever wonder why most people's Melee combat level is higher than Ranged or Magic combat level? Is it just because melee is more popular?

Well, you folks have played the game enough to get the feel for it and probably realize that it is just plain easier to get your melee combat level up.

Combat level has a couple of parts. One part (lets call it your "base") is computed from your HP, Def, and Prayer and is shared by all three types of combat level calculations. But the other part is figured a little differently.

For Melee the other part = 0.325 X (Attack level + Strength level)
For Ranged it's basically = 0.325 X ((Range lvl)/2 + Ranged level)
For Magic it's basically = 0.325 X ((magic lvl)/2 + magic level)

You see that ranged and magic are figured using the same sort of math but melee is different because it uses two skills (attack and strength) instead of just one.

Well, if you do the math for how many experience points it takes to reach different combat levels you will see something interesting. Let's ignore the base level (the part figured from Def, HP, and Pray) and just look at the second part and see how much exp it takes to reach different levels.

Non base . . . Mêlée exp . . Range or Magic
combat level. . needed . . . exp needed
10. . . . . . . . . . . 5 k. . . . . . . 5 k
20. . . . . . . . . . 28 k. . . . . . 41 k. . . . . . 1.5 times more
30. . . . . . . . . 136 k. . . . . 274 k. . . . . twice as much
40. . . . . . . . . 636 k. . . . 2421 k. . . . . almost 4 times more
48. . . . . . . . . 2 mill. . . . . 13 mill. . . . . 6.5 times more.
The higher you go the harder it is to get combat levels based on Range or Magic compared to getting the same combat levels in Melee.

48 is the most Ranged or Magic can contribute to total combat level but melee can go up to 64.

If you had a character with 99 in HP, Def, Pray, Attack & Strength then his combat level = 126
If you had a character with 99 in HP, Def, Pray & Ranged (or Magic) but low Attack and Str then combat level = 109

Magical Defense and Gold Farmers

My long term goal is to get my Magic skill to equal my Ranged skill. I want to get all three combat levels to be the same.
I found this in the knowledgebase which helps motivate me to get my Magic up:
"Magic Defence depends on your Magic skill level, Defence level and equipment you are wearing.

The higher your skill levels and Magic bonus, the less likely you are to get hit. You will also receive less damage from a spell."

Worried about Mages in the wild? Getting your own Magic up will help. I am rarely attacked by mages but it is common for PKers to start off with a spell to reduce my defense or hold me in place - it would be nice to see those spells fizzle.


Gold Farmers
Someone is making a documentary on Chinese Gold Farmers:
http://www.chinesegoldfarmers.com/Index.html]http://www.chinesegoldfarmers.com/Index.html

"In China, there are tens of thousands of gaming sweatshops that hire people to play games like World of Warcraft and Lineage. The gaming workers kill monsters and loot treasures for 10-12 hours a day to produce virtual assets that are exported all over the world. They are called Chinese gold farmers by western gamers"

"Changmao was a member of a gang in a small town called Lishui. Some residents in Lishui say that the town feels a lot safer even since the emergence of gold farms and there are less unemployed youngsters wondering around and looking for fights. He started working in a gold farm one year ago. Now he is persuading other gang members to join him to fight virtual enemies..."

"now his gold farms have collapsed because of the fierce competition in this business...Xiongxiong used to work in Tietou's gold farm. Since Tietou's gold farm collapsed, he invited several co-workers to live in his small home and keep playing games for a living. Since they don't have a distribution network, they are barely making enough money for food. But they cannot stop playing..."

The trailer is worth watching and so is the video in the blog they have.
These folks are mostly poor, young, and have few prospect for the future. They like to play games and hate bots. I wouldn't be surprised if they hated bots because they were competition but they seem to hate bots because they "spoil the game".
The most coveted skill for a gold farmer -- to be able to speak english and interact with other players.

I'm not sure how to feel about these guys. What they do in-game is not really cheating. The cheating happens when they sell virtual stuff for real money. Also it looks like the same old story where the laborer stays poor while the boss gets rich.