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[Kaida23]

^ Click to read about my party ^

Kaida23's F2P Blog!
"Goals don't have a deadline." - Lady Shahdie

Welcome fellow 'Scapers! It is I, Kaida23, and I invite you to join me on my quest to reach the pinnacle of Mining greatness: level 99.

First, an admission of sorts: I am a G.I.R.L. (ask your friends). That's right, my name is Ken and I'm from a small town south of Ottawa, Ontario. For some reason, I've always played female characters in games whenever possible. I'm 31 with an ex-wife, two kids, a mortgage and a dog. That's right, I'm living the American dream and I'm not even in America! I work for a service station maintenance company fixing gas pumps and related safety/control systems. No, really. Someone has to do it, right? I've been doing it for about 8 years and am the senior tech in my division. I have achieved this partially due to my mad skills, but mostly through attrition; everyone else who was with the company longer then me has left!

This is my second RuneScape character, my first having been smote by the mighty Jagex gods for, I'm ashamed to admit, botting . I now am strictly legit, not willing to risk all of my hard work a second time. Mining and Smithing were the first skills I started training and are what I like to refer to as my "focus" skills as they're the ones I've spent the most time on. Unfortunately, unlike other complimentary skills (like Woodcutting and Firemaking for example) these do not level evenly with Mining outpacing Smithing by a wide margin; sometimes as much as 10 levels! So I have decided to max out Mining before focusing on Smithing.

Alright, enough with the back story. Time to get to the meat of this blog: Mining!

Here's a pic of where I will be starting from.

Level 81. This was earlier this morning.

Level 81 may seem like a fairly high level to "start" from, but it takes more Xp to go from level 81-88 than it does to go from level 1-81. So the best days of my Mining career are yet to come! I'm going to try and play as often as possible and update this blog as regularly as I can. I'm hoping to make at least a couple of levels by the end of the week. Hopefully I can find a good spot and get some serious powermining in. I've never powermined before and I'm curious to see how effective it is.

Lastly, I freely admit that this blog was inspired, in no small part, by Lady Shahdie's recent ascension to Mining immortality. Her blog (read it here) and level 99 party were epic, and I will not do her the disservice of attempting to recreate either. I will be going about this in my own fashion, most likely alternating between stretches of powermining and superheating, and will be sharing my experiences and thoughts along the way. I hope that you enjoy it.

Goals & Achievements.

Here's where I brag about what I've done.

My current stats can be found here - QFC: 48-49-464-63404296. They can remove us from the hiscores, but we will still let our voice be heard.

My stats before the hiscores purge

- Achieved 3 June, 2012 (this is as far as I got before F2P was removed from the hiscores)
- Achieved 28 July, 2009
- Achieved 20 November, 2011

- Achieved 6 April, 2009

This is a secondary merching goal I shall be working on while focusing on my primary goals.
- Achieved January, 2011
- May not ever be achieved. The darn things just keep going up in price.  

My Clan.

Because we all need good friends.

The Total F2P Skillers
Current rank: Sergeant

Usually, I'm in the 'F2P United' friend chat (where I'm ranked Lieutenant). A place for all free players to connect, hang out and talk about how awesome it is to be F2P. Why don't you come and join us? We're not always crazy. Okay, we're usually crazy, but it's a fun kind of crazy.  

Sometimes I also hang out in the HYT friend chat. Join 'Serpent Eye' to chat with your fellow TIF'ers and watch your chat box get spammed into oblivion!

Quests and Holiday Events.

Click on a picture to read to the blog entry

These are just the ones I've taken proper pictures of. I may update it for previous ones I've mentioned.

Lumbridge/Draynor Hard Diary

Blood Pact quest

Gunnar's Ground quest

Halloween 2010

Christmas 2010

Golden Joystick Award 2010

Easter 2011

Freminnek Saga

Cryptic Clue Fest 3

Halloween 2011

Thanksgiving 2011

Christmas 2011

Mining Progress Pictures.

Click on a picture to read to the blog entry

So far these only include my Mining levels and a couple of RC levels. I might get around to adding all the other random levels I get.

Level 82

Level 83

Level 84

Level 85

My first Runite Ore mining trip!

Level 86

Level 87

Level 88

Level 89

Level 90

Level 30 Runecrafting

Level 35 Runecrafting

Level 91 Mining and Level 37 Runecrafting

Level 40 Runecrafting

Level 45 Runecrafting

Level 49 Runecrafting

Level 92 Mining and Level 50 Runecrafting

Level 51 Runecrafting (full-screen image)

Level 93

Level 94

Level 95

Level 96

>> 10,000,000 Mining Xp!!! <<

Level 97

Level 98

>> 99 Mining and 1000 total!!! <<

[LatinII]

Best of luck to you.   81 Mining is a nice level to have already!

[God_Himself]

w00t!!!! its spreading!!! more and more people going for 99 mining!!!! i wish you best of luck!

[Kaida23]

Wow, my first progress report. I'm all a-tingle.

Thanks to everyone for the kind words of encouragement.



After starting the blog yesterday, I went to check out a couple of prospective sites while I watched a movie with my kids (I don't care who you are, there's only so many times you can watch Shark Boy and Lava Girl). I was mostly curious about the hobgoblin mine in the wild. I had read somewhere, and for the life of me I can't recall where, that it was a good place to powermine on PvP worlds as there were no revenants and hardly any PK'ers. (I'm pretty sure I read it in the forum here somewhere. If you know where, please let me know so I can reference it properly). So I left everything in the bank and wandered into the wild. I jumped over to a PvP world and went to check out the hobgoblin mine. It was impressive, but the hobgoblins are very annoying. I don't think I'll be doing much mining there.

I then wandered back out of the wild into Edgeville...and was rapidly dispatched by a high level mage. I had forgotten I was still on a PvP world... ...a rather inauspicious start to my journey.



After I brought the kids back to their mother's (they live with her) I had a bit of luck and was able to log on to world 1! I went to the Rimmington mine and tried powermining for the first time. I did it for an hour and was very happy with it. I made just over 32k Xp, more than twice what I was getting superheating mithril. After spending so much time in the mining guild though, I had forgotten how crazy all-access mining spots were. Especially on such a busy world. I felt pretty sure I could do better without all the competition.



One of the great things about my job is I have a laptop with unlimited wireless internet access . Across the day I was able to log on for a 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there. I gained another 27k while I was at work! Excellent! This evening, I was back at the Rimmington mine. Lady Shahdie was right, it's a great spot. I have a feeling I'm going to be spending a lot of time here. I was on a less full world, which I realize will increase the spawn rates but I enjoy mining much more when I'm not battling for rocks or listening to people shout "OMZ!!!1111!!" or "GTF011!!!1!1!!" or call me a noob/newb/n00b because I keep beating them to the ore. I got another 77k Xp tonight for a grand total of just over 104k. If I can keep up a pace of 100k Xp a day, then I'll reach level 99 by mid-July. Seriously though, I am hoping to play at least an hour a day so I can keep a constant progress going. I'm looking at this more as a marathon than a race. Slow and steady and all that, right?



Another day like this and I should hit level 82 sometime tomorrow night!

[Avid43]

Good luck with your blog and your goal mate, I think you have the right approach with this 99 mining thing...



You mentioned Lady Shadie and I think she is a perfect example of how to get 99 mining without burning out...

[Enipeus]

Good luck will be hard dont bot    

[Kaida23]

Woot! Level 82! /' /> One down, eighteen to go.

One step closer.

I was hoping to reach this yesterday, but I got stuck on a job until almost midnight. Unfortunately maintenance knows no time of day and occasionally I get stuck working until all hours of the night. Once after an electrical storm tore through Ottawa, I worked 30 hours straight, got about 5 hours of sleep, and then put in another 14 hours repairing or replacing stuff the storm blew out.



Once again, I was able to get in a few minutes of mining here and there both yesterday and today and then the final stretch this evening after I got home. I also got the gravedigger random event today. The zombie mask was the only piece of random event clothing that I didn't have (that's why I'm wearing it in this picture). One more gravedigger and I'll have the last random emote as well.



The powermining has been going pretty good so far. I'm definitely loving the rate that my Mining Xp is going up. With a bit of luck, I should make level 83 by the weekend. I've found a couple of worlds that work well during the day; they average over 1400 people, but the mine is usually empty on at least one of them so I don't have to fight for rocks. This is good as my laptop's wireless connection is a little slow to respond and won't let me fight over rocks lower than coal. After all the time I've spent banking ore and smithing it, it feels a little weird to simply drop the ore on the ground, but I once again have a long term goal. I haven't felt this purposeful since I set out to complete all the F2P quests.

Enipeus said:

Good luck will be hard dont bot    

Don't worry, I definitely learned my lesson the first (and only) time. I'm now completely chicken soup.

[Kaida23]

I have some good news, and a shameful admission today gentle reader.

First, the good news: Level 83 baby!

...and a small fortune in gems. I'm rich!

Yesterday I went with another tech to a job out of town and I "let" (read: convinced) him to drive. I got almost 4 hours of mining while traveling back and forth, and got paid for it! Have I mentioned how much my job rocks some days? I got over 100k Xp at work, and another 100k after I got home. It took less than an hour tonight to level up. I even finished in time to watch Dollhouse. I'm hoping to put in some serious mining time this weekend and if the Mining Gods smile upon me I will make it most, if not all, of the way to level 84.



Also, this quest of mine has given me a reason to go through a lot of my old CD's for something to listen to while I mine. In honor of Pearl Jam's re-release of "Ten", I got out my copy and gave it a listen, and it's as good now as it was when it was released. I was amazed at how much I still remembered of an album I haven't listened to, apart from "Alive" and "Jeremy" on the radio, of course, in several years. Ah, for the days when I had time to listen to an album until I had memorized every lyric, every key change and every subtlety of music...and then listened to it some more! I was in a very happy kind of nostalgic mood, until I looked at the release date (I really need to stop doing that. Perhaps one day I will regale you all with my tale of "License To Ill"). Sadly, I noticed that this genre-defining piece of musical genius from the halcyon days of my youth is older than most of you probably are! That's right, 1992! Oy...



And now to the shameful admission (no, it's not that I'm an old geezer...). Yesterday, while "working" I called someone else a noob and then proceeded to call him out for his noobishness. It's really not like me to do it. I don't know what came over me.

Here's how it all went down: I was mining away in Rimmington when he loged in on the other side of the rocks I've been working for nearly an hour and proceeded to steal them from me even though the pair of iron rocks on the other side of the mine were empty. I got kind of frustrated and we had the following exchange:



Me - *sigh*...noobs (as I'm walking to the other rocks)

He then followed me to the other rocks and started stealing them too.

Me - what's your problem?

Him - I'm not a noob

He is now following me back and forth from one pair to the other stealing every rock I'm trying to mine.

Me - sure you are.

Him - no I'm not!!!! (apparently I touched a nerve)

Me - you logged into a half-empty mine and stole someone's rocks. makes you a noob.

Me - you have no respect for your fellow players. makes you a noob.

Me - and now you're following me because you've been "insulted". makes you a noob.

Me - only noobs get upset at being called noobs.

Him - **** you.

All the while we've been going back and forth between the rocks with him stealing every rock I try to get, and a couple of other people in the mine have been laughing at it the whole time. So, I decide to give him one final shot before jumping worlds. As he follows me across the mine I say:

That's right noob....follow the leader.

This elicited laughter from everyone else and at least two *****-filled messages from him before I logged out.



Like I said, I don't do this sort of thing and I don't know what prompted me to do it this time. Though, I do wish that people with high levels would stop treating everyone else like they don't matter. This kind of thing is why I prefer mining on worlds with fewer people. Hopefully, I can avoid this kind of thing in the future.



Okay, rant over. Whew...this entry was a long one. See you next time.

[Kaida23]

Level 84!!!  /' />

Woo Hoo!

I can't believe it, I've gone up three levels in a week! I have a feeling I'd better not get used to leveling up like this. I've still got over 10 million Xp to go.



I got really lucky yesterday. I was able to find a free mining spot on nearly full worlds all day and gained over 208k Xp! I made the last 70k sprint this morning in a little under 2 hours. I can barely believe how effective powermining is. I kind of wish I had started this a long time ago...



I originally had planned to try for level 85 by Easter, but at this rate I'll probably make it by Wednesday. I think I might need to pull back on the reins a little bit before I over exert myself and get stranded part-way to the top gasping for air.

I've also decided to hang on to all the gems that I get. I've always kept the gems I found while mining and they've always been a nice little supplement to my income. I'm going to hang on to them until after I get to 99 and then cut and sell them to reward myself with a nice chunk of both Crafting Xp and gold. I've always taken flak from other players for doing this, though. They seem to think it slows down the training or cuts into profits.



Does anyone else keep the gems they find while mining?

[LatinII]

Oh wow, 84 already. You're doing great.



And yes, I keep all the gems I get while doing whatever I'm doing. It all adds up, eh? I have had a gem collection that was worth 300k or so.

[johnlocke]

Good luck with your mining I know its a difficult skill to get to 99 just because of the time it takes to get ore but i'm sure you'll get it  

[PuppyKing]

Your blog is very interesting. Keep up the mining!  /' />

And I keep my gems while mining..

[Kaida23]

PuppyKing said:

Your blog is very interesting. Keep up the mining!  /' />

And I keep my gems while mining..

Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Not quite as much progress today, only 80k Xp gained (only?). Also, I've crossed the 3 million Xp mark...only 10 million to go! Whee! /' />



Work was pretty crazy today and I didn't make it home until 7:30pm. Of course I didn't get on until after 9. Sorry RuneScape, but Mondays from 8-9pm House M.D. comes first.

The weather has been very wet and cold the past couple of days and has been causing a lot of equipment failure (why do people always think their problem is more important than everyone else's?). Believe it or not, electronic equipment designed in a lab in California doesn't stand up very well when exposed to Canadian weather.



Tomorrow isn't shaping up to be much better, but hopefully I'll still be able to get in a couple of hours of mining.

[God_Himself]

i wish i had that much free time to mine....keep up the good work, youre going to pass me soon!

[Kaida23]

xxxgod said:

i wish i had that much free time to mine....keep up the good work, youre going to pass me soon!

Very soon indeed.   Less than 87k Xp to go.

As for the free time...well... (*cough* personal admission coming) My ex and I are still kind of hammering out the divorce settlement and I've mostly been spending my evenings sitting on the couch watching TV anyway. Believe it or not, RuneScape has been a good escape for me of late, and deciding to go for 99 Mining has given me a small bit of purpose to take my mind off of things. Okay, the Dr. Phil moment is over. Back to the blog.



Once again today I rode with another tech to an out of town call...I got almost 4 more hours in today going to and from the site! Combined with another couple of hours after dinner, I made almost 140k total Xp today. Looks like my prediction of level 85 by Wednesday may yet come to pass after all. Does anyone know of a good Runite ore mining guide? I'd like to take a shot at it after I level up. I'm looking especially for info on dealing with the Revenants. All the guides I've see so far talk about gearing up to protect against PK'ers in the wild.



I had a good experience with another player this evening, which certainly doesn't happen very often while mining. I was in Rimmington again (or is it still?) when he logged in and started mining the rocks I was working. I politely asked him to find another spot and he was impressed that I asked instead of yelling or calling him names, so he moved to a different set of rocks. We chatted back and for for a bit until he had to go. After the problem with the follow-the-leader-noob the other day, it was definitely refreshing to talk to someone who also appreciates respect between players.

[Cup Lion]

We're in the same situation. Hope you have a blast getting it.

[Kaida23]

LEVEL 85!!!!

The final achievement before level 99 (I obviously combined them into one picture)

I finally did it. I have reached the last checkpoint before my final climb to the summit and my ultimate ascension to Mining godhood. I will achieve this; it is my destiny. Here I shall rest and attempt to mine some Runite ore before continuing upon my journey. After all, how can one make claim to ultimate mining ability without having mined all types of ore?



Lol. Grandiose, no? Seriously though, I almost didn't make it today. I started at about 9pm and found a good spot in world 3, which was almost full. I was on pace to get the last 75k Xp within 2 hours, but the longer I mined the more people who logged out. I checked the other worlds every so often, but the only F2P world with more people was world 1. I checked it at about 10pm and there were no less than 7 people fighting over the iron rocks so I decided that it would be faster to stay in world 3. By 11:40pm I finally did it and joined 33,134 others with the ability to mine Runite ore.

33,135th to level 85 Mining. 1 Mudkipz, 2009. No, seriously. Look.

As predicted, I made it by Wednesday (although, just barely). Now I think I'll ease up for a bit. Maybe try my hand and mining some Runite just to say I've done it.



Anyone got any good tips? What should I wear or bring? How many should I get before I bank them? Edgeville or Bounty Hunter bank? Is it even worth the trouble? Coke or Pepsi? Boxers? Briefs? 42?  

[Arawina]

Very nice blog i must admit, and congratulations on level 85 mining! Even though it's not much compared to level 99 it's still a pretty big achievement.  



"33,135th to level 85 Mining. 1 Mudkipz, 2009. No, seriously. Look."



Don't know if you've noticed that.. But it was kind of funneh.  :' />

[Lameo3]

saw your post in help and advice and thought id drop by to say congrats for your 85 mining man. peace

[Kaida23]

Greetings once again fellow TIP'ers. Today, I am officially a Runite miner!  



I made a post asking for help/advice on this and received several excellent suggestions (Check it out here). I had intended to give this a try Thursday night, but unfortunately I once again had to work until almost midnight. Last night I got home in time to peruse the forums for a bit before Dollhouse came on. Mmmm...Eliza Dukshu ... By the way, for all of you who are old enough to have seen True Lies when it first came out, she played Arnie's daughter. She was 13 at the time. Think about the way she is now, and you'll never watch that movie (or Jumanji with a 13-year-old Kirsten Dunst) the same way again...you dirty old man you . Whoops, got a little side tracked there...



So I set up a new account to act as a scout, loaded her up with some armor and headed into the lava maze....where I proceeded to get lost (in a maze? really? no way!) and unceremoniously dispatched by a scorpion. Alright, take two; this time giving the scout some food to survive long enough to get into position. I got Kaida23 geared up and into position and began jumping worlds with the scout until...

OMG! OMGOMGOMG!!!

...and now to buisness...

The first swing of the pick.

I got them both successfully, and began jumping worlds again. I found that if I swapped between accounts I didn't have to wait, or had to for only a couple of seconds, when logging into a new world. I got attacked a couple of times and even had a Revenant Knight float right by me once! I tried to get a screenshot but it didn't take for some reason, and I certainly wasn't about to go chasing it to try again. I was glad I brought the swordfish with me for my first trip as I got hit a fair bit by the Revenants before figuring out which prayer to use when. After about an hour and a half, I got a full load and, with a small prayer to Saradomin, began the trek back to Edgeville. With each step towards safety I began breathing a little easier until I finally got back to the wilderness ditch.

Success!  

Now off to the Grand Exchange to reap the rewards of my hard work

Boo yah

Wow! If you subtract the 7k I spent on swordfish, I made 434k. Not bad for a night's work. Even if you include all the setup time with the scout, that's still over 173k/hour. In F2P!   The best I had ever done before this was 75-85k an hour. I'm definitely going to be coming back to this for making money. Another 10 or 12 loads of Runite ore, and I'll be able to buy myself the Halloween mask I've been saving for. Or 345 loads and I could buy a white party hat...hmm... tempting, very tempting. Not exactly quick Xp though.



I think I'll probably go profit mining for the weekend and try and get a mask, then return to powermining the iron next week. After all, rare items are all well and good but they're not mastery of a skill.