Knifestorm on Runescape

How I accidentally quit Runescape

2009-09-11T23:27:00.001-07:00

When Jagex first came out with Fun Orb, like a lot of Runescape players, I checked it out. Mehh, I thought and moved on. A while back I thought I'd give it another look. A few more game had been added and a couple were pretty good. Jagex has a deal where if you already subscibe to Runescape then Fun Orb only cost a couple of bucks more, so I decide to pay the extra $2 a month and get full access. I played a couple of games like a fanatic for a couple of weeks and then left.

Well, when I say left I mean I stopped playing in Fun Orb - but I was still paying that extra $2 a month. Eventually I realized I was just throwing this money away so I decided to cancel the Fun Orb account. But wait . . . there did not seem to be a way to cancel just Fun Orb, I had to cancel both Fun Orb and Runescape at the same time. So I did, but my Runescape account was still paid up for a couple of weeks. I figured I would just sign up for RS again when time ran up .

One day I logged on and found I had been transported to Fally in a free world. Oh yah, my account had lapsed. I logged off 'cause I didn't want to deal with it just then. The next day RL was busy so I didn't sign up again then either, same with the next day.

I had a strong urge to play the game but had to wonder - was I addicted to it? Could I quit, you know, if I wanted to. I didn't really want to quit but I wanted to find out if I could. So day followed day. I would still read about updates and visit various forums, but I would not play the game.

I'm thinking of it as a break. The game had become a little boring, but I realize the reason it was boring was because I had got into the habit of doing the same old things over and over. There are lots of different ways to play RS, if and when I come back I will not play the same way I have been for the last year.

Familiars For Skillers

2009-07-08T06:33:00.000-07:00

I was fishing monks up in Piscatoris and wondered if I should hop into the bank and get a familiar to help out. Nah, I decided - too many clicks for just a +1 bonus.

The next day I read an article berating players for not making better use of summoning familiars. Hmm . . . guilty. I then looked and saw that my Ibis would have given me a +3 to fishing, not just a +1. I probably should use familiars more often.

One of the problems with familiars is that most of the bonuses they give are invisible. This means, of course, you can't see the bonus. This makes it seem less real to me and causes me to forget what the bonus is. Invisible bonuses also do not let you do things you can't already do: the +10 invisible mining bonus from a Lava Titan will not allow you to mine any ores you can't mine without the titan - it just helps with speed and efficiency.

But the biggest reason I fail to use familiars is that I just forget. There are so many familiars with so many different traits that I can't keep track. So I learn two or three of them and those are the only ones I end up using.

In an effort to fix the situation I made a table I call "Familiars For Skillers". It divides familiars up into categories based on what skill they might help. None of the combat familiars are included in the table unless they have non-combat benefits. I don't know if the table will help me yet, but check it out. If you think it could be useful then you are welcome to borrow it, steel it, munge it to your own twisted purpose, whatever. Enjoy.

Familiars For Skillers

Measuring the Unknown

2009-05-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

I read a fun article speculating on the geology of Runescape and that got me thinking. Just how big is Gielinor anyway? How long before Jagex fills up the entire map?

First take a look at the Runescape map. There are still a lot of unbuilt black areas. Hmm . . . OK, I have too much time on my hands, here is what I did. First I opened an image of the Runescape map in Photoshop and measured the width and height in pixels. Then I drew rectangles covering all the unbuilt black areas. I measured the area of those rectangles and did some math. Turns out that 34.84% the map is still unexplored territory. Given that from December 2001 to April 2009 Jagex filled 65.16% of the map, it would take them another 47.5 months to fill out the remainder - about 4 years.

Of course, if they ran out of room they could just go beyond the current borders. But how big is Gielinor? When will they completely run out of room?

There are a bunch of globes in Runescape so we know that Gielinor is round. The Runescape Wiki has a mention about sextant coordinates being used to compute the size of the planet. But I just couldn't follow the logic, so I made my own calculations (which don't match the wiki's).

The Runescape sextant presumably works the same as real world sextants, and the latitude and longitude system is much like our own. We know that the observatory is at zero degrees East, and that the little peninsula in the lake at Taverly (where you get Excalabre) is at exactly 15 degrees East. There are a total of 360 degrees around the world from East to West, so 15 degrees is 1/24th the way around the world. I measured the East-West number of pixels in my map from the observatory to the Lady of the Lake, multiplied by 24, and increased the size of the canvas accordingly.

Next up; North-South. In the real world system there are only 180 degrees from the North Pole to the South pole (+90º to -90º). In Runescape the mine in the jungle near the nature altar is exactly 4 degrees South. So I measured that distance, multiplied by 45, and increase the canvas' North-south dimensions accordingly.

If you printed out nineteen Runescape maps and tiled them out; 5 1/3 across, and 3 1/2 tall, you would see how big Gielinor is.

This big:

19 times bigger than everything we've seen so far.

Proportionately on Earth it looks like this:

The known RS world is proportionately similar to the size of Europe on Earth.

If you assume the ratio of ocean to land in the future is going to be the same as it has been so far . . . and you assume Jagex builds new territory at the same rate they have been so far, then . . . (drum roll) . . . they will finish mapping the entire globe of Gielinor 203 years and 7 months from now!

More Suggestions

2009-03-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

Spindle

Before the invention of the spinning wheel in the real world, women spun using a drop spindle whorl. These look like a large wooden top, the wool is attached to the spindle and then it is spun like a top but in the air, suspended by the strand it is spinning.

The advantage of a drop spindle would be that it could be carried with you. You could spin in the bank, in the flax fields, even while you are walking (in the real world people can spin using one of these while they walk). Disadvantages of using the spindle would be that it takes longer and requires more skill.

Time to spin: twice as long as when using a spinning wheel.

Skill level required to spin using a spindle:
Ball of wool: 9
Bowstring: 22
Crssbowstring: 22
Magic string: 35

Quick find code: 77-78-357-58513971

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Mage Armor

Where you sit in the combat triangle is determained less by your skills and more by what you have equipped. The triangle is critisized for being out of balance. One way of nudging the triangle more toward ballance would to create a new set of Magic armor which would help spell casters survive against Melee attacks.

First let's look at the current situation with common armors. It is difficult to make comparisons but I'll talk only about the less exotic armors and am interested only in their defense bonuses. For this comparison I've taken a rough average of Stab, Slash, and Crush defense and call it Melee defense. I also am only looking at "sets" covering body, legs, and head (not boots or gloves).

Rune:
Melee Defense = 157
Magic Defense = -11
Range Defense = 159

Black Dragonhide:
Rune:
Melee Defense = 90
Magic Defense = 93
Range Defense = 93

Mystic Robes:
Melee Defense = 0
Magic Defense = 39
Range Defense = 0

Rune armor makes complete sence within the triangle - melee fighter are supposed to be weak against magic so a -11 is fair. The Black Dragonhide armor is nearly equal in all forms of defense, this is why it is often used by melee fighters when fighting against mages. It would have been better if Black Dragonhide had very poor defense against melee, but that is left for other threads. The real problem is the magic armor is simply terrible!

Let's look at other common magic armors.
Infinity Robes:
Melee Defense = 0
Magic Defense = 44
Range Defense = 0

Still awful!

Bark Armor:
Melee Defense = 67
Magic Defense = 78
Range Defense = 32

Better, but far from being good enough.

Mage needs better armor.

Two new armors:

Totenkopf Silk Robes, made from silk recovered from giant Totenkopf Moth cacoons.
Requirements: Deffense 30, Magic 45
Magic Attack: +20
Stab Defense: +15
Slash Defense: +180
Crush Defense: + 5
Magic Defense: +80
Range Defense: +5
The silk also sometimes wipes poison partially off any blade that cuts through it, so anyone wearing this armor is 50% less likely to be poisoned. This armor would offer fantastic protection against slash attacks and some protection against other attacks. It protects mages from three of the most feared melee weapons: dragon claws, whips, and poisoned daggers. A good mid level armor.

Harmonic Robes: These robes emit harmonic energies which disrupt attacks. They are not effective against ranged weapons however.
Requirements: Deffense 60, Magic 75
All Melee Attack Bonus: - 35
Ranged Attack Bonus: - 40
Magic Attack Bonus: +40
Stab Defense: +120
Slash Defense: +100
Crush Defense: +180
Magic Defense: +90
Range Defense: 0
This new high level armor fits in the triangle by protecting mages from melee but not ranged attack.

These two new armors might, at first, look too powerful, but even these are less powerful than simple rune armor is for melee fighters.

Quick find code: 77-78-104-58513980

Suggestion Blitz

2009-03-09T20:59:00.000-07:00

I decided to make March suggestion month. Here are suggestions I made on the official forum last night:

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Ordan's notes

Mining and smithing could use some more rewards at upper levels. This is one small possible reward.

Ordan works at the blast furnace selling ores. He also can un-note lower level ores. If a player has both mining and smithing skills at 80+ then Ordan will admit that he also has a private store of adamantite. He usually only makes this available to dwarves and he would get in trouble with his boss if he sold the ore to you, but he can un-note any adamantite the player carries . . . for a price.

If a player who has 90+ in both mining and smithing talks to Ordan then he will also admit that he has a similar store of rune ore. Like the adamantite, he can't sell you the ore outright, but he can un-note any rune ore the player wishes; also for a price.

Quick find code: 79-80-979-58506125
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Herblore Defensive Ointments

Problems addressed:
~ Herblore is not as popular as other skills.
~ The Defense potion is not often made because Ranarr Weed is used to create Restore Prayer potions instead.
~ Potion prices are often lower than the price of components.
~ Some herbs are underused and cheap, so farmers are not motivated to grow them.

Introducing: Defensive Ointments.

Ointments are mixed in the same way as potions. Only one dose per vial is created however. Instead of drinking ointments you pour them over your own head. Each ointment offers 5-25 points of protection against one specific type of attack. This bonus is added to the effects of your armor.

Stab Defense Ointments: Guam + oak root. Level 28. Exp 70. Temporarily adds 5-25 points to your stab defense bonus.

Slash Defense Ointments: Marrentill + willow root. Level 35. Exp 82. Temporarily adds 5-25 points to your slash defense bonus.

Crush Defense Ointments: Tarromin + maple root. Level 40. Exp 90. Temporarily adds 5-25 points to your crush defense bonus.

Range Defense Ointments: Harralander + snake skin. Level 44. Exp 95. Temporarily adds 5-25 points to your ranged defense bonus.

Magic Defense Ointments: Spirit Weed + crushed gem. Level 49. Exp 110. Temporarily adds 5-25 points to your magic defense bonus.

The effects stack with other ointments and with other potions.

If a person wants to protect themselves against whips and claws they may decide to apply some Slash Ointment before doing battle. Or if a player wishes, he could apply Stab, Slash, and Crush ointments and even drink a super defense potion before doing battle in melee: the effects compliment each other.

Quick find code: 77-78-381-58506130

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Make Satchels work like the Cornucopia

Satchels came out with the Tower of Life quest. Although they can hold a banana, a cake, and a triangle sandwich, they are not stackable and are almost never used by players.

I propose that they be changed to work like the cornucopia (earned during the Thanksgiving 2008 holiday event): place food in a satchel and it stores the food's healing points.

10 points can be stored in a plain satchel,
14 points in a red satchel
16 in a black satchel
18 in a gold satchel
20 in a rune satchel

Quick find code: 77-78-694-58506132

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Redo Runecrafting multiple tables

Both Paul and Mod Mark stated in the recent Q&A that it would be good if players were able to do something new every time they went up a level. They also admitted they needed to fill in the gaps at high levels. One easy place to effect this sort of change is in the creation of multiple runes. I propose the levels at which you can craft multiple runes be changed thus:

If you consider the levels where you can create combination runes, and the levels where you can get pouches then something new would be available most of the of the time you level up.
Each herblore level where you could do something new:

Effects of this change:
People are motivated by frequent rewards, gaining new abilities for almost every level will keep runecrafters motivated.
More multiple runes means more experience gained, so it would become easier to work up RC levels.
More runes means cheaper runes and that would make magic cheaper to use.
This would also have a large effect on the rune economy, but I'll leave that to others to predict.

Quick find code: 76-77-336-58506123

Unreal Graphics

2008-06-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

Everyone is awaiting the graphics update that Runescape will get next month. A lot has been said about the update and most of it good. I was surprised that they will be doing moving shadows and procedural textures, very cool. I was more pleased that the screen shots look like RS will keep its cartoon-like looks; and this is what I'm going to talk about here.

Many people seem to think that the goal of game graphics is to make things appear "real" - I couldn't disagree more. Here are three separate ideas from three separate sources which help argue against realistic graphics.

One:
A guy named Scott McCloud spent a lot of time thinking about comic books and trying to figure out why they work. He wrote a great book called "Understanding Comics" (which I recommend to everyone). One of his key points is what he call the Picture Plane

Look at the bottom of the picture and you see a continuum of images going from photorealistic to iconic or "language".

If you look at a realistic picture of a man you see him as a distinct individual, you also see him as something other than yourself. If you look at a cartoon picture of a man you understand that it represents an individual but that it also represents the idea of a person and you are included in that idea of person-hood. This means that it is possible for you to feel more connected with a cartoon image than with a photographic image. The cartoon is not only a picture it is a form of language.

Computer games used to be played with text which, of course, existed even further in the realm of language. If the text says "the monster is hideously ugly" then each reader may picture in their head what a ugly monster looks like. As soon as you draw a picture you are going to loose some people. No matter how you draw the monster some people will think, "It's not that ugly".

Two:
I recently saw a lecture on-line by Julie Taymor. She has studied theatre for years and is most famous for doing the stage production of the Lion King.

In that production she never tries to hide the fact that these are people in costumes or people working puppets. The audience sees how the magic is done, and that is part of how the magic works. In the lecture I saw, Ms Taymor spent some time talking about struggling with a sunrise that opens the play. They were able to use technology to create a very realistic sunrise but she tossed that idea out and instead made a simple disk of silk and metal strips which lays folded on the stage. The disk is slowly raised and unfolds. The audience knows it is strips of fabric and metal, but the audience also knows it is a beautiful sunrise. This is what makes the difference - she didn't try to "fool" the audience by creating a fake sunrise, instead she created an atmosphere where the audience is allowed to fool itself into seeing a sunrise. Through unconscious use of imagination the audience become the magicians who make the magic possible.

Three:
I saw the movie Sin City on video not long ago.

Frank Miller and his team used advanced computer graphic technology to purposely create unrealistic images. He uses stark graphics, usually black and white with reduce gray tones. Color is used only when they purposely decided to use color. The move has truly grotesque scenes of mutilation and decapitations. If these scenes were depicted realistically I would probably have turned off the TV, but these things were presented unrealistically - as ideas, in a sort of visual language, so I was able to stomach them. Sometimes I see kids post in the Jagex forms that they want to see blood and flying limbs in Runescape. Not me.

OK. I'm about done being pedantic.

Runescape is a game where we can imagine we are heros who can slay demons and save cities. Games of imagination don't require graphics which are too realistic.

A Simple Case of Cause and Effect

2008-06-13T21:16:00.000-07:00

~~~~~~
Update
~~~~~~

Here are screen shots of the 30 day graphs of gold ore and coal prices. If you look at the last three days you see gold is still climbing at the maximum the GE allows (5%/day). Coal, however, is slowing down slightly.

Better graphics are on the way!

2008-05-08T12:17:00.000-07:00

Jagex just posted before and after shots of their upcoming improved graphics for Runescape. And, wow, the improvements are great!

BEFORE

AFTER

After Detail

Here are just a few things I noticed:
• Shadows!
• Soft edges on the shadows,
• The underlying grid is no longer visible,
• Smooth transitions from one terrain to another,
• Bump-maps (or some sort of bump tech)
• Much more details: from cobblestones, to wood grains, to dirt.
• Bigger image area!

This is very cool.

But here is some of what the improved graphics will probably NOT include:
• Not any more polygons - the details are not in the 3D framework of the models, but in the "skin" of the models.
• Avatars not much more detailed
• Trees look pretty much the same
• Currently the avatars do not have shadows
• Shadows will not be dynamic (that is, they won't move - no sun, day/night cycles, light form torches in your hand, etc.)

Here are a few things I have questions about:
• What will the new sky look like? Black? blue? gray? clouds?
• With the larger image area, how will the far distance be handled? Will distant things just pop into existence like they do now? Or will they be blurry or misty in the distance?
• What improvements to the avatar are in store?

~~~~~
Additional comment:
Some people have noticed the white triangle in the upper right corner of the "after" image and have interpreted this as "fog". If true, this would mean the far distance would be white and objects would quickly fade into existence from this white "fog" as you walked closer to them.

Also, Jagex has managed to get more detail while keeping the "cartoon" look. This is great!

I can't wait to see this stuff in-game.

Tippecanoe

2008-04-08T07:06:00.000-07:00

Took too much time with my other hobby (alternate history) to play much Runescape.

Made a map for a contest Alternate History is having:

In the real world Gov. Harrison won the battle and went on to become president of the USA.

In my made-up version of history a mistake fails to happen and Harrison loses. -In the real-world some troop were mistakenly sent to the wrong spot and later they turned out to be critical to Harrison's victory. I figure in my made-up version of history Techumsa would not die fighting for the British in the War of 1812 and would live to face Andrew Jackson during the Creek Wars. Andrew Jackson: another Indian killer that became president - aint' history grand.

When ever I think the current world is going to hell-in-a-handbasket, I take a look at history and see how much worse things used to be.

Dragon Kite

2008-04-02T20:44:00.000-07:00

New high score!

lol

Now on to Runescape.

Last night I was falsely accused of stealing a dragon kite

The complete lack of wind and the very limited space in which to run presented no obstacle to a kite expert like me. The heckler was unimpressed. I had to escape the old fashion way. Oh well.

Played a little Pest Control. I used to love this game but now that everyone is an expert the games are too easy and boring. I guess I need to expand my horizons. After 3 years there is still a lot of this game I have not explored: Never seen an elf, never been a bounty hunter, nor entered a dueling tourney, there are two magic books I have yet to try, and on, and on.

The Rat Rocks!

2008-03-05T17:08:00.001-08:00

A month or two ago I started the Fremennik Isles quest and I didn't have any real problems until I got to the Troll King. I used my best melee gear when fighting the King, but then I made the mistake of turning on the protection from melee prayer and the King pummeled me with boulders. Before I knew it I was dead and born again in Fally, trying to figure out what items I had lost.

Bad prayer aside, it was clear that I didn't have the chops to handle the Troll King. Every time one of my melee skills went up a level I'd trek back up to the King and he would own me. Each time I'd do things a little differently - sometimes rune armor, sometimes yak hide (which the quest claims is good protection against trolls) and so on. Sometimes I would get close to winning but I just couldn't get the kill. One time, just before the ring of life pulled me to safety, I noticed that the cave where the Troll King lives is multi-combat, even though he is the only one there. Next trip I decided to see if summoning would help. I brought a spider familiar but the poor thing was useless. It just cowered behind me as the King smashed me to a pulp.

So the Troll King must have beaten me at least five times. Ouch.

Last night my attack skill went up a level (62 woot!) so I went North again. This time I used my only blue charm to make an albino rat pouch. I decided to give the yak armor another try but I had lost my round shield somewhere and used a granite shield instead. The rest of my gear was pretty typical: rune helm and boots, dragon long, potions, good food.

Disaster! To get to the troll cave you have to run across linked islands full of trolls who throw rock with a punch. My mix of armor was not up to the task and, by the time I got to the caves, I only had 15 hit points left - worst ever. Well, I figured I might as well finish what I had started.

Once in the caves there is a place to rest before you have run across a battlefield, cross a bridge, and face the Troll King. I ate some of my limited supply of food, drank potions, said some defensive spells, turned off auto retaliate (to avoid distractions while crossing the battlefield) . . . and summoned my albino rat. He (or she . . . I couldn't tell which) was a monster; as big as a cow and as ugly as bile.

I then ran through the battlefield and started crossing the bridge. There was a blue circle of fire as my rat crossed to the other side in his own fashion. Before I could turn auto-retaliate back on, my rat jumped into action. Unlike the spider, he was eager for a fight - I have never seen a summoned creature attack so swiftly. But the rat wasn't doing much damage and my armor choice was a big mistake. I almost couldn't eat food fast enough to stay alive; I barely had time to swing my sword. Then the Troll King hit me with another one of his signature blows that sent me flying fifteen or twenty feet backwards and off my feet. I stood up again and quickly rushed back into the fray. The Troll King, however, had finally noticed the giant mutant rat trying to chew on his arm and had started attacking the rat!

I took the opportunity to eat more food, hurrying because I knew the rat wouldn't last long against the King. But I didn't really need to hurry. The rat wasn't hurting the King much, but the Troll King wasn't hurting the rat much either. I started attacking the Troll, worrying that he might turn his attention back to me. But he kept on attacking the albino rat, and the albino rat kept on shrugging it off - what a tank! Now that I could swing at the troll at my leisure, it didn't take long to defeat him.

That rat turned certain defeat into an easy victory.

You might want to complain about summoning, but I don't want to hear it. Last night was fun!

Some guesses made from ignorance

2008-02-18T12:44:00.000-08:00

Jagex does not tell us how they run their company and they have no reason to. But it is kinda fun to try and guess why Jagex is doing some of the things it is doing . . . even when the answers are unpleasant.

Some dots:
1. Jagex got a new CEO late last year. (Geoff Iddison came over from PayPal)
http://www.developmag.com/news/28689/PayPal-exec-becomes-Jagex-CEO

2. Jagex made several heavy handed changes to the game to prevent real-world-trading and to reduce credit card fraud.

3. Jagex failed to make it's announced deadline for the second half of the new Summoning skill, which was due in February

4. Jagex announces an entirely new business, Funorb, which is also due in February.

Connecting the dots.
What is Funorb? It is a new thing Jagex is doing for the casual gamer. It will start with 18 new games, some of them shallow, some of them deep, none of them having anything to do with Runescape. They say they will release an additional two games every month. Games are not just whipped up overnight, they take time to create so Jagex has been working on this stuff for a long time.

I think there has been a physiological shift in the thinking and planing within the company. They realize that RS will not last forever, so the company needs to look for the next area to grow into. They also know that RPG sequels can not save the franchise. In other words, Jagex feels they have to grow away from Runescape. RS is a cash cow which will fund investment in the next new thing (Funorb).

If Jagex felt that their future rested in Runescape then they would treat it with caution: "Don't rock the boat", "Don't kill the goose that laid the golden egg", and so on. But if they think of Funorb as the future then RS is less important. They look for ways to reduce the cost of keeping RS going (cut RWT, credit card fraud, reduce customer service, and so on). If the future (Funorb) and the past (Runscape) are both having difficulties meeting deadlines in February then you move resources away from RS and shift them to Funorb in order to make sure Funorb has a successful launch.

I believe Jagex saw that RS membership had peaked, so they have put the product on the slow track. It will still be maintained and updated, but it will not get the best developers, or the most attention.

Some of what they have done recently makes sense in this light. From a business perspective it seems like the right choice. From a players perspective it sucks.

Funorb links:
http://www.jagex.com/
http://www.funorb.com/
http://www.funorbworld.com/media/gallery/
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8858&Itemid=50
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17136

Funorb shots:

Leveling, leveling, leveling!

2008-01-23T07:21:00.000-08:00

Leveling!
Is that all RS players care about? Look on the Jagex forums and there are scores of threads about Summoning being to hard too level, or too expensive to level, or too slow to level. There are countless posts on the internet with advice on how to level Summoning, some with calculations and tables and so on.

But it is hard to find people talking about fun or useful was to actually USE the new skill. There are few post showing that anyone is even experimenting with using the skill.

No; its all about leveling, leveling, leveling.

The next skill Jagex makes for the game should just be called "Leveling" and be done with it.

Same old issue

2007-12-14T20:12:00.001-08:00

Andrew Gower is the guy who created Runescape. He hates cheaters. Below are excerpts from the-man-himself in a chat site:

. . .
(MrAndrew) I wouldn't have added it, but it's the usual case of people trying to cheat forcing me to waste time on features which inconveniance everyone else
(MrAndrew) the cheating is just ridculous!
. . .
(MrAndrew) well thanks for moaning at me for stopping the cheating 
(MrAndrew) I won't bother in future :-)
. . .
[00:16] (Asrock) andrew: are people that have been locked up for macroing locked up forever?
 [00:16] (MrAndrew) pretty much yes asrock, I do NOT like macroing
 [00:16] (MrAndrew) it's blatantly obvious when people macro
 [00:17] (MrAndrew) people report macroers to me and I login and go and have a look
 [00:17] (MrAndrew) well the people who hate the game just shouldn't play it! stands to reason
. . .

This all sound familiar doesn't it. Well you might be surprised WHEN he said it. Here is a hint; at the time he also said:

. . .
[23:40] (MrAndrew) had a record number of players this evening :-) I was very pleased 
[23:41] (MrAndrew) I saw 3067 at once!
. . .

Yep, these are all posts from 2001.
Cheaters have been in Runescape since the VERY beginning, and Andrew Gower has been fighting them for a long, long time.
If you are curious, look here: http://gowerarchive.googlepages.com/communications

RS3

2007-12-11T07:48:00.001-08:00

Wow! So they went and nerfed trading! Crazy.

Why only a 3k limit? Why not ± 5% like the Grand Exchange? Why not link the limit to the player's level? Why not just drop P2P trading all together?- - *shrugs* Who knows?

I might be naive but my hope is that in eight months, or so, they will up the limit. Maybe they are trying to flush out all the bots, gold farmers, and compulsive cheats. Maybe they will hold their own customers in better guard some day in the future. There's always hope.

I posted a couple of real suggestions in the official forms. Jagex said they would listen and may amend the recent changes a little. I encourage all of you to try and come up with suggestions as well, maybe some one will come up with a solution to the current situation.

----

My first day of playing RS3 I didn't do anything that I couldn't do in RS2. I hunted some chompys, worked on a clue scroll - stuff like that. The graphics and game play were the same as the old game, but everyone was telling me that it was different now, and I knew they were right.

I played for a couple of hours and then went to bed. At 5 o'clock in the morning my two year old woke me up. Groan. I got her back to sleep but I was up and I could hear the faint voice of Runescape calling to me. I went to the RS site and saw that only 45 thousand players were on line. I logged in and went to kill some green dragons in the "wild".

I went to the dragon crater in level 12 "wilds" and was lucky that only two other players were there (3 dragons spawn here, if you remember). Killing the dragons was the same as always, but I didn't have to keep looking to see if some PKers were sneaking up near the crater's rim. I kinda missed that. I rarely went into the wild but I will still miss it. It was somehow nice knowing that there was room in the world for a lawless frontier.

---

A Revenant! I had killed about 1o dragons when a level 75 revenant showed up and started to attack me. I had some food and prayer points, so I decided to stand and fight. "Come'on old dead guy! Let's see what you got!"

The Revenant's max hit was not too high but it hit me with 7s pretty consistently (black dragonhide, def 66). The knowledgebase said that revenant can steel you away from other monsters, but it turns out monsters can steel you from revenants as well. I had auto-retaliate turned on so I ended up switching back and forth from fighting the revenant and fighting a green dragon - frustrating. Luckily the other players were all-to-happy to take the dragons off my hands (none of them offered to try and take the Revenant off my hands though, lol). I said dragonS plural because two spawned during my revenant fight - it was that long. I kept eating and the revenant kept healing itself. I noticed that my hits went in cycles. Hit & miss for a bit and then a long string of zeros - The knowledgebase mentions that revenants can attack from all three corners of the combat triangle, but I wonder if they defend from all three corners as well. Maybe a third of the time they had really good defense against my range attack and that is why I saw strings of zeros. Next time I'll bring a non-range weapon with me too.

Well, the revenant finally gave up the ghost and dropped . . . nothing, nada, zilch. Drats! Well, I learned something at least. In level 12 "wilderness" revenants are a nuisance but not a real threat (that particular type of Revenant at least). I saw a few more during my stay but none of the others attacked me. It was getting to be 6 am so I had to quit and go to work.

The price of green hides will go down soon, I'm sure.

What's wrong with RWT

2007-12-06T13:04:00.001-08:00

Why does Jagex even care about Real World Trading?

There have been a lot of changes to Runescape lately showing that Jagex is trying to stomp out real world trading (RWT). But why does Jagex even care? Do they think real world traders may destroy fun for most player and end up costing Jagex subscribers? - Thats probably part of it. But there might be more involved.

I did some google searches to try and figure out what the hub-bub was all about. There were a predictable number of fan and blog pages, but I was surprised to find several dusty law journals discuss the matter. There have been a couple of cases in Asia of people trying to sue other players in court for the steeling of items, for example.

I only read parts of these articles because, well, because they are long and boring. But here are a few things that stand out.
The matter popped up in 2003 when a real-world-trader playing Ultama became worried that he could become legally considered a "fence". This guy bought game items and sold them for real money to other players. He was worried that if he bought a weapon that he knew one player had stolen, then the he might be charged in the real world for fencing stolen goods. The legal opinions tended to say that the trader had nothing to worry about. It is a game with it's own rules. A basketball player can "steel" a basket ball without worrying about being arrested for theft, for example.

But once the world of on-line gaming came to the attention of the legal community they found other items of "interest".

Intangible Assets.
An intangible asset is something which can not be held in your hand but is worth real money. Stocks in a company are a form of intangible asset. There is a huge body of laws covering intangible assets.

Some on-line games DO allow virtual goods to be bought and sold for real world money. In those games the virtual goods are legally intangible assets and are covered by existing laws. Some game developers are worried that if they do not vigilantly separate their virtual world from the real world then items in their gams can also become intangible assets.

If that were to happen it would be a disaster for Jagex.
- If Jagex had to "roll back" a server due to a bug, then thousands of players would lose some items (it has happened before). If these items are worth real money then Jagex could be subject to legal suits.
- If game items could be obtained by chance then the game could fall under the laws covering on-line gambling.
- If one player scams another then the victim could bring legal charges for a real dollar loss.

That's all bad enough but consider this. Say a scam takes place in a Runescape on a server in Norway between a player in the USA and one in Korea. Which nation has jurisdiction? Remember Jagex is based in the UK so there are at least four possible answers to the question.

Perusing the legal journals it comes out that nobody really has the answers yet. This is uncharted legal territory. I'm sure the last thing Jagex wants to do is spend thousands of dollars in court fees. The smart thing to do is to make sure that Runescape virtual goods are NEVER allowed to have value in real world money. If that's their thinking then their heavy handed changes to the game to stop RWT make a whole lot of sense.

One last worry. It was speculated in some of these legal texts that (now watch your blood pressure): if virtual items had real-world value then virtual wealth would be subject to taxation. A player's wealth might be subject to real-wolrd taxes even if that player never converted any of his or her game wealth into real-world money. Gulp.

I, for one, support Jagex wholeheartedly for stomping out real-world trading and for keeping Runescape firmly in the game world.

Taming the Wilds

2007-12-03T12:38:00.000-08:00

"If you die while holding any items, you will reveal the fourth of our updates this month. A gravestone will temporarily appear on the spot where you perished, which can be read and admired by passers-by."

Consider this: Jagex is on a campaign to stop real world trading.
Thus far they have:
1. Reduced staking in the duel arena to the point where it could not be used to transfer any large sums of money.
2. Made it so the Party Room would not be used to transfer money because the value of the contents may be announced all across RS.
3. The Grand Exchange reduces the need for player-to-player trades. All trades are monitored by Jagex

Next month they will introduce two minigames: Bounty Hunter and Clan Wars. It is interesting to note that these are two "legitimate" activities people used to do in the Wild. They will also introduce gravestones. Look at the quote at the top of this post. Gravestones will only show up if you die while holding an item . . . interesting.

By the end of the year, when you die, items you are holding will NOT be dropped on the ground. You will still lose them, but your killer will not get them. This will stop yet another method real world traders used.

This will also tame the Wilds.
Want to PK? Then go play Bounty Hunter.
Want to Clan War, then go to that minigame.
I'm afraid the wilds would become positively safe, except they are also introducing some new monsters to the Wild to help spice it up again.

A lot of people have been complaining about all these changes, but I like them. I like them all.

More consequences of the Grand Exchange

2007-11-27T22:13:00.001-08:00

The Grand Exchange is Great! Prices have yet to stabilize, but it has already helped me out. Jagex said they intended it to free up our time to do things we want to do, and they were right. The first morning the GE came out I logged in as I was getting ready to go to work, I quickly bought three things I needed for a clue scroll I'm doing, and offered a few things for sale to see how things work.

In the evening, I visited the GE again and made a few more transactions. My experience has been that it is easy to buy, but a little slower to sell. This indicates the market is overstuffed with goods. Things will settle down in a few days, of course.

I originally thought that people would sell stuff that they didn't use and which was just taking up space in their bank, but now I wonder if people will also sell stuff they DO use.

Let's say your bank is full and you want to go fighting using melee for a bit. You can go to the GE and sell your black dragonhide armor to free up some space for the booty you will soon earn fighting. Later on, when you want to range for a bit, you just go to the GE and buy some black dh armor again. The GE means that black dh will almost always be available and Jagex's price system means that you won't lose too much money by "storing" stuff in the GE for a while. Why store stuff in your bank when you can just go buy it anytime you want? The GE can be thought of as an infinitely large bank that costs a little money to use (providing you can actually sell your stuff).

The prices for anything which can be created by players will continue to go down. The price for common drops will also go down. People will sell this stuff as soon as they get it. What will they do with their money? - Buy rare items. The price of rare stuff will start to go up again.

What other consequences are there to the GE? As predicted, semi-rare items don't seem very rare any more. Want gilded magic robes? Well, just go buy some.

The GE will also erode Runescape clan communities. When I was a low level ranger I decided I wanted a snakeskin bandana, but I didn't have enough snake skins to make one. My clan came to my rescue and gave me a brand new bandana which I treasured. Similarly when I lost my Amulet of Accuracy, my clan helped me out, and a generous person gave me an Amulet of Accuracy which they no longer used. These sort of acts help build friendships and community - - and they will happen much less frequently now that the GE exists.
Want a bandana or an Amulet of Accuracy? -- Well, just go buy 'em.

Also, clan banks may no longer be necessary.

The GE might lead to the era of the specialist skiller.

Early in my ranger career, I used throwing knives almost exclusively. You can't buy knifes in archery shops so I had to work up my mining and smithing skills to make my own. But if I was starting out now-a-days I may not do that. I could just pocket the change I get from fighting and buy knives at the GE -- easy. I would become a fighting specialist and my mining and smithing skills would languish. Or maybe I'd just become a mining specialist and mine coal and buy knives, no need to work on smithing at all (except for a few quests).

With the GE, a character needs only ONE good way to make money. With money they can get whatever else they want. This means characters starting off now are much more likely to be specialists when it comes to skilling.

. . . but they might become generalist when it comes to killing. A lot of people play melee because it is easy and they don't want to waste time getting arrows or runes. Now that arrows and runes are easier to obtain, more people just might decide to work up their magic and ranger skills. We'll see.

~ ~ ~

A while back it was thought the RS economy had just too much gold floating around. Jagex introduced the Construction skill as a sort of sink you could pour money down. Soon Jagex will realize the RS economy now has the opposite problem: too much stuff. Jagex might start thinking about reducing monsters drops. They also might introduce more "consumable" items -- armor that wears out or swords that can break, for example.

No one can predict the future, but it's fun to try.

Prices in Runescape may soon go down

2007-11-02T12:22:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I go to this cool rare bookstore near where I work. The place has more books than will fit on the shelves. You have to squeeze past large stacks of books that look like they would topple at the slightest touch. The place is run by a crusty old man who acts like customers are an inconvenience to his business. The guy hardly talks at all . . . until you get him going, then you can't get him to stop talking.

The place is like a time capsule (he writes receipts up by hand), so I just had to ask him if the internet had effect his business much. Oh boy, that got him talking! He told me the history of used and rare bookstores in the area, how many had closed their doors forever, how NO new ones had been successful in the last twelve years. All because of the internet. He considered himself lucky because he started using the net early and adjusted to new market conditions (he actually has a respectable computer back behind some more piles of books). The internet had caused prices for rare books to plummet.

"There's no more pent-up demand", he told me. He explained how, in the old days, people would hear about a rare book a few times and start to become curious about it. They would start looking for it at book stores but would not be able to find it. The harder the book was to find, the more the desire to have it would build. Then, one day, they would stumble across it in some dusty store. Overjoyed they would say "At last! I've been looking for this title for years!" At this point they would be willing to pay almost any price to possess the rare tome.

But now days the same customer can search on the internet when they first hear about the book. They can see that a dozen copies are available, and then decide if they really want it. They often decide they don't want the book.

Things have changed on the supply side as well. In the old days small estate sales would have a table of books in the corner somewhere. The same sort of neglected tables of books can be found when people clear out their attic and have garage sales. A few people would buy a couple titles but most of the books would go unnoticed. But now days all the books can be put up for sale on-line.

In short: the internet has reduced pent-up demand for rare books and increased the supply. The result was that the price for rares went down.

Ok, you say, but what does this have to do with Runescape?

Well Jagex has just announced a Grand Exchange, quote:
"Later in the month, we bring you the 'Grand Exchange'. This new building will be located in the north-west of Varrock and will house a huge new addition to the game: the ability to offer items to buy and sell across ALL servers and to ALL players! You might, for example, go to the Exchange and put a full Barrows set up for sale - then, playing Skullball in Canifis, you might get a message telling you that they have sold and that you can go to the nearest bank to receive payment! The Grand Exchange will allow you to spend more time on the things you enjoy, providing a less time-consuming alternative to selling your items on the Forums or amongst the crowds of Varrock Marketplace."

Almost everyone has a few items taking up space in their banks which they never use but are worth a decent amount of money. They intend to sell the items one day, but never seem to get around to it . . . too much bother. But with the Grand Exchange it will be easy to sell this stuff.

On the flip side, if you are interested in buying a whip (or what ever), but don't want to go to a merchant world, you can pop over to the Exchange and see what is available. Seeing that a couple are in stock you realize that you can pick one up anytime you want to. You decide you don't really need a whip right this second and decide to pick one up some other time.

Supplies will go up but pent-up demand will be less.
Prices will go down.

The RS merchants will scream and rant. "The RS economy is Ruined!!!, Worst update EVER", they'll say. But they will be wrong, like always.

--

When I asked the old guy in the book store how HIS business was going, he told me "Great! Better than ever!".
"But you just told me about all those places going out of business", I countered.
"Oh", he replied, "They didn't adjust".

Runescape is based upon Runequest

2007-10-30T20:27:00.000-07:00

Everybody knows about the old-school pencil and paper role playing game called Dungeons and Dragons which came out in the mid 1970's. Most computer RPGs are generally based on that original classic. Some, like Neverwinter Knights, explicitly try to recreate the entire game system. Even people who never played D&D will be familiar with many of the concepts and mechanisms used in the game: character classes, player levels, and so on.

Shortly after D&D came out another RPG system was published that did things differently - RuneQuest. The manual said that the name of the game came from the fact that magic could be performed by using runestones. People who wanted to gain magical power would seek out these stones i.e. quest for them, and thus the name RuneQuest was born. Sound a bit familiar?

The game mechanics of RuneQuest ended up not really using the idea of runestones very much, however, even though they were used in the illustrations and cover art a lot. But there are several other things RQ did that a RS player might recognize:
In D&D a character's abilities were based on an overarching "level" and all his abilities improved at once. In RuneQuest characters did not have levels but instead had individual skills, each skill had a value of from 0 to 100 (hmm . . . ) And instead of getting better at a set group of skills when you leveled-up, you got better at the things you actually did during game-play. D&D used character classes which is an idea still used by most computer RPGs today - RQ had no character classes. In D&D a character had a general Armor Class for his whole body but in RuneQuest you could mix and match armor. And so forth and so on.

You could make your own game-world in RuneQuest or you could use the game-world the company created for you - their world was called Glorantha, which to me sounds a bit like the real name for the Runescape world: Gielinor.

RuneQuest was an "also ran" in the United States but it was very popular in the UK -- hmm . . . Jagex is based in the UK . . .

Varrock Achievement Armor

2007-10-04T12:04:00.001-07:00

It took me longer to get the level 2 achievement armor than I had thought it would. I'm not a big fan of Runescape cats, so doing the cat related stuff was a chore. But I finally got the armor and gave it a quick try.

The armor is supposed to help you mine by sometimes giving you 2 ores instead of 1. This works, but it only happens about 4% of the time. Not much, but it is still worth wearing the stuff whenever mining.

The second thing the armor does is let you use the forge in Edgeville which sometimes gives you 2 bars instead of 1. This forge is nice and close to the bank but the door is always closed so it requires one more click than the ghost town forge. Unfortunately, the 2 for 1 thing with bars does not happen very often(I'm guessing it is also about 4% of the time). I think I will go to Edgevile when making steel or gold bars, but use other places for other metals.

Lastly the armor is supposed to make you smith faster sometime. This works as advertised but, again, only every once in a while. One cool thing is that the hammering sound also happens faster when the advantage occurs. I never minded the speed of smithing but I hate how long it takes to make cannon balls - - - but the armor does NOT help you in any way when making cannon balls.

So . . . I plan on using the armor whenever I go mining, use the Edgevile forge when I need to make a bunch of steal bars, and not worry about the armor at any other time. Its not bad, and it is certainly better than the jungle gloves you get for Karamja.

Day 2 (posted late)

2007-09-08T07:21:00.000-07:00

Day 2 . . .

Level Race:
All the teams kept their relative standings.
Team 3 gained another 11 levels bringing their total up to 28! Olhillbilly gained 5 more levels in Herblore, he's gained 13 since the start.
Born4Berlin (in team 2) gained 4 levels in Hunting in a day, 7 levels since the start.

1st: 28 Levels: TEAM 3 . . . Anon.
2nd: 22 Levels: TEAM 2 . . . Born4Berlin under DaRock with a Cobra that has Amnesia
3rd: 16 Levels: TEAM 1 . . . MERLIN'S MAGNIFICENT MARAUDERS
4th: 13 Levels:TEAM 5 . . . The Awesomely Fantastic Ultimate Fighting Pwnage Foo-Foo Bunnies With A Mean Face At The End To Show That We Mean Business It Looks Like This >:[ Pretty Intimidating Isn't It Well Yea This Is Our Team Name
5th: 3 Levels: TEAM 4 . . . Mr. P's Golden Ladies

XP Race:
Logicace in Team 5 has gained close to a million XP (adjusted) in Crafting since game start. Amazing, but not quite enough to keep Team 5 in first place. Team 1 edged into the number one position.
At the back of the pack; Team 4 is gaining on Team 2 but couldn't quite catch up.

1st: TEAM 1 MERLIN'S MAGNIFICENT MARAUDERS: 2.3 million EXP
2nd: TEAM 5 The Awesomely Fantastic Ultimate Fighting Pwnage Foo-Foo Bunnies With A Mean Face At The End To Show That We Mean Business It Looks Like This >:[ Pretty Intimidating Isn't It Well Yea This Is Our Team Name: 2.2 million EXP
3rd: TEAM 3 Anon.: 1.4 million EXP
4th: TEAM 2 Born4Berlin under DaRock with a Cobra that has Amnesia: 748k EXP
5th: TEAM 4 Mr. P's Golden Ladies: 638k EXP

FILM OF LEVEL RACE
http://www.amateurgeek.com/Runescape/images/forforum/Race2/race2LEVEL.html

FILM of XP Race
http://www.amateurgeek.com/Runescape/images/forforum/Race2/race2EXP.html

Day 1 (posted late)

2007-09-08T07:16:00.000-07:00

Teams 1, 2, & 5 have come out of the gate VERY strong. It is obvious that the teams have come into the event fully prepared to win! But who will be on top eight days from now?

Level Race
Team 3 (I have dubbed then "Anon") gained an amazing 17 levels in a day, closely followed by Team 2 which gained 15 levels. Standouts are Olhillbilly and DaRockBomc who gained 8 and 10 levels in Herblore respectively (I though herblore was hard to level ). Also star players are Furysangel who brought her construction up 4 levels to 76, and Butchmcd who brought construction up 4 levels to 60 - how much did that cost you guys?

1st: 17 Levels: TEAM 3 Anon.

2nd: 15 Levels: TEAM 2 Born4Berlin under DaRock with a Cobra that has Amnesia
3rd: 10 Levels: TEAM 1 MERLIN'S MAGNIFICENT MARAUDERS
4th: 7 Levels:TEAM 5 [SIZE=1]The Awesomely Fantastic Ultimate Fighting Pwnage Foo-Foo Bunnies With A Mean Face At The End To Show That We Mean Business It Looks Like This >:[ Pretty Intimidating Isn't It Well Yea This Is Our Team Name[/SIZE]
5th: 2 Levels: TEAM 4 Mr. P's Golden Ladies
Standby: No activity as of yet.

Experience Race
Two teams earned over a million experience points in less than 24 hours! Team 5 (whose name is to long to be at all reasonable) gained 1.4 million points, followed by Team 1 (The Marauders) who gained 1.2 million. Good work.

Standout players in experience are: J W Grandma who gained over 300 k in cooking, and Furysangel who gained over half a million adjusted* points in construction. But hang on to your helmets - according to my records, Logicace gained over 800 k adjusted* experience points in crafting! A gain so astounding that I went back and rechecked my numbers, but it appears to be true. Great job.

1st: TEAM 5 [SIZE=1]The Awesomely Fantastic Ultimate Fighting Pwnage Foo-Foo Bunnies With A Mean Face At The End To Show That We Mean Business It Looks Like This >:[ Pretty Intimidating Isn't It Well Yea This Is Our Team Name[/SIZE]: 1.4 MILLION EXP !!!

2nd: TEAM 1 MERLIN'S MAGNIFICENT MARAUDERS: 1.3 MILLION ! EXP :
3rd: TEAM 3 Anon.: 600k EXP
4th: TEAM 2 Born4Berlin under DaRock with a Cobra that has Amnesia: 511k EXP
5th: TEAM 4 Mr. P's Golden Ladies: 221k EXP
Standby: No activity as of yet.

[u]Highest Level Achieved[/u]
Top Level: Team 1. Merlinhoe reached level 98 in smithing. Congratulations!

*Remember the experience point tallies are adjusted with these bonuses:
+10% bonus to Crafting, Smithing, & Slayer
+15% bonus to Herblore & Hunting
+20% bonus to Runecrafting & Farming
+25% bonus to Constructions

Teams 3 and 4 picked skills to train where every single skill gets a bonus. Team 2 picked all skills but 1 so that they can enjoy bonuses as well. Nice strategizing!

Graphs:

P.S. These stats were made figuring sk8rdude in Team 5, he is being replaced by Sirlancer. Future stats will figure in Sirlancer.

The race has just begun!

Clan Training Contest

2007-09-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

The clan I'm in is having a training contest. Not everyone involved can view the forum posts so I'm posting here as well.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

It's another beautiful day here at the Runescape Skill Training Racing Track. The sky is its usual shade of black, the course is dry, and the teams are ready.
It is time to start the Grey Knights Second Training Contest!

There are five teams of four members each. We also have one member on standby in case someone has to drop out. These are all seasoned pros, it looks like we are in for a treat. The teams all move up to the starting line and a hush falls over the crowd.

Captain Teach will do the honors of lighting the starting cannon. He steps up to the cannon, pulls a lit punk from his unkept beard, touches it to the fuse . . .

. . . AND THEY'RE OFF ! ! !

-----

I have recorded the starting stats. Show time.

We're Number 2

2007-08-30T19:50:00.000-07:00

Ahgh! I haven't posted here in over a month. I can't really call this a blog if I only post once a month . . . I better come up with something to say.

hmmm . . .
Oh, here is one thing I noticed that I have not seen people talk about much - the new graphics. When Jagex added clan chat they got rid of some of the "chrome" around the edges of the game to make more room for chat and stuff. They pushed things around just a little bit. At around the same time they also seemed to have silently made some fundamental changes to ALL graphics. The colors everywhere changed a little bit. They also improved seams: there used to be gaps or lines all over the place - they were usually black lines but they could be white or some overlapping color. Most those ugly seams are gone now. If you used to brew beer you probably noticed the vat always looked like it had a layer of broken ice on top because of all the lines. Well those lines are gone now. OK, cool, I guess. Looks better.

I don't remember hearing a lot of people complaining about the lines so why did Jagex spend the time (and money) to fix 'em? Do they have a bunch of engineers looking for something to do? How is Jagex, as a company, doing these days anyways?

Here is how they are doing: GREAT!

Here is the market share data:
(from MMOGdata charts - http://mmogdata.voig.com)

Word of Warcraft: 26.5%
Runescape: 23%
Guild Wars: 12%
Linage I + Linage II: 8%
All the other online fantasy MMRPGs get ittsy-bittsy crumbs.

RS is number 2 baby!
. . . and WoW is not that far ahead.

But wait there's more. Those are the numbers from June 2007. Go back six months earlier and WoW had over 40% of the market. WoW is shrinking but RS is still growing. Jagex has lots of $$$ to improve the game. Now that's nice. :)

Some of the numbers on the MMOGdata website don't make since. I think Jagex used to only report paid subscribers but now they report all subscribers. Jagex still gets money from free accounts through advertising, so I guess it's fair to clump them together. Poking around the site I'm reminded of something I noticed earlier which convinces me there will never be a game called "Runescape 3".

Look at this:

I copied these curves from the subscribers data for Lineage 1 and 2, but the same thing happened with Ultima and other games. Version 2 was never as popular as Version 1. Version 2 players are really old Version 1 players, there are not very many NEW players. If you are a company and your number of subscribers is going down, a major new version will NOT save your butt.

Jagex knows this and will continue to pursue change in the game through gradual evolution rather than major revolution. Two years from now people will be playing a Runescape that might look a lot different from what we have now, and have a lot more going on - but you will still be able to play the same characters you have now, and the game will NOT be called "Runescape 3".

2007-07-18T12:32:00.001-07:00

I used to love Pest Control, but eventually I got board of it and moved on to other things. Now that Jagex has made some major changes to PC, I thought I'd check it out.

Jagex's changes in a nutshell:
• There are now three launches divided by combat level. 40+, 70+, and 100+
• Portals are protected by shields so you can't attack them at first. The shields turn off one at a time in a random order as the game progresses.
• Points awarded and experience gained for points has changed (downward).
• You can now walk through most monsters (but not Brawlers).
• Bunch of other minor stuff.

I played 8 games on the intermediate launch. Won 7, lost 1.

Effects of changes:
In a way, it's a whole different game now. It used to be that you would rush to a portal and ignore all the monsters except Spinners. Now you have no way of knowing which portal you can attack at first, and there is a reason to kill monsters. People all scatter as soon as the launch lands, each making their best guess as to which portal will lose shields first - it seemed to usually be one of the Northern portals, but I only played 8 times, so I can't say for sure. My strategy was to run straight South, right down the middle, run out the gate and kill whatever critter I could as I waited for a shield to drop. Being in the middle meant that, when a shield went down, I could run to any portal without wasting too much time. If I found myself in a bad position as far as portals go, then I'd just kill whatever monster was nearby (usually the ones that were attacking me).

When shields drop there is a message in the chat area and the info also is shown in the heads-up display. These shields mean the game can last longer; that's why you need to keep the monster population low. Overall, the games were still pretty fast and easy to win (with a good crew).

After winning you are awarded more points but when you turn them in you get less experience. I think this is a good thing, Pest Control was way to generous and needed to be toned down.

Conclusion: The game is different but is still good, It has NOT been "nerfed" and is still rewarding and fun (in small doses).

---

I reached some milestones recently:
80 Ranged - huzza!
54 Runecrafting - can make my own Laws now, cool!

---

Barbarian Fishing.
If you haven't checked out Barbarian Training, you should. The fishing, in particular, is good for training.
If you want to keep roe to use with your potions then here is what to equip:
Games Necklace, Dueling Ring, Bait, Knife.
Use the necklace to teleport to the Barbarian Outpost, head South, grab a heavy rod from under the trainer's bed (after you have talked to him), and fish in the lake.
Once you have a full load of fish, use you knife on the fish to get roe and more bait. Then repeat until you have a full load of roe. Use the Dueling Ring to bank at Castle Wars and repeat. It gives good fishing exp, some cooking exp, and you can use the roe to bump you herblore as well.

If you don't want to use the roe, then just stay at the lake and keep fishing. If you run out of other bait you can use the roe as bait - you will almost always have something the fish will eat. You can basically stay as long as you like.

Penguins, iPhones, and Defense

2007-06-27T12:27:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-25T20:34:00.001-07:00

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

2007-06-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

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.

Forcing Randoms

2005-10-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

I'm part of a clan which is trying to get up and running. We had a meeting in an out of the way room and about ten members attended. We chated, conducted clan business, and used the emote animation more than I have ever seen; but what I wanted to mention here is the randoms.

The meeting took a little over 30 minutes and I had three random events: two dwarves and one mysterious man. I could see that other members attending the meeting were also getting a bunch of randoms : genies, swarms, killer chickens etc.
What's going on here?

Was the Jagex machine sending us randoms just because we were standing around talking? Were they checking to see if there was a human at the controls? Do they want to discourage these sort of chat sessions? Why don't I see this many random events happening to the folks who stand around outside banks?

Hmm. . . could you use this to somehow force random events?