jaklumen

Part of it is a generation gap, Dev. While I agree that some pithy brevity can be a more effective way to communicate, some of us have grown more reminiscent with age, and have more patience for longer stories (as well as an eagerness to share them). Still waters run deep compared to the babbling brook. I understand that one. My typing speed is good, and I'd rather have a thoughtful discussion than quick small talk or idle chit-chat. Twitter drives me nuts after a while. I had to look up Kath & Kim, being rather clueless about Aussie TV. I think you guess right, but I'll be 39 next month. I'm guessing a number here are mostly in the 18-25 age range, and that might be representative of the playerbase generally. Going to send you a message; there's a place for us oldies.

Well, it should be noted that GIMP does things differently than Photoshop does. When I got into working with selective color in photos, I couldn't follow any of my father-in-law's tutorials (as he uses CS2 if I remember right). When I found a good tutorial for GIMP, I noticed that GIMP used a very different method for selective color. Also: the GIMP doesn't really do vector-based graphics-- a separate dedicated program called Inkscape does. Important distinction if you use vector methods for scalable graphics (.svg files and the like). Not needed if all you do is raster-based, I think.

Yes, tell us about your camera. These are some quality shots and the resolution suggests to me you're using something decently high-end. The captures are fantastic! Capturing an actively moving target such as a healthy little boy like your nephew is tough-- I'd say that takes considerable skill and a quality camera. My wife, my daughter and I were taking photos of fireworks two days ago (U.S. Independence Day)-- combine that with our squirrelly six-year old son and I hope that gives you an idea of where I'm coming from, plus we only have a glorified point-and-shoot (a Canon PowerShot SX110 IS).

Aiel... consider cutting the guy a break. His profile says "coming bak to rs after a long 3 yr break". He's been out of the loop. Maybe it should be spelled out for returnees that many guides on the website side of Tip.It badly need some updating, and many don't reflect changes that EOC brought. And as I just got back to TIF myself, I'm not entirely sure where the Crew is on that, but some friendly help probably couldn't hurt, right?

Crossbows changed a lot in EOC, and it's one of my pet peeves. Rune xbows lost access to most useful enchanted gem-tipped bolts, including mithril emerald (e). I think so, but I'm not sure. Me... I'm saving up for dual ccbs. More since Karil's pistol xbows were changed to take only bolt racks.

It's supposedly a "new" rare, more specifically-- see the Christmas tree hat for comparison: http://www.tip.it/runescape/items/view/13258-christmas-tree-hat Other than that, what the others said

I'll take that as a silver lining, although I do wonder why such an idea wasn't implemented before.

Haha, there's my chortle of the day, right there ^

Aming Heart, the Forsaken Mage... yes, a friend of mine, too, and someone I had the great pleasure to work with on Staff back in the day. Ask her sometime about stories concerning virtual wheelchair rides. It'll be awesome if she chooses to regale you. Full of win and nostalgia.

AHAHAHAHA, that is the best thing I've read all day long. Maybe follow up with Leonard Part 6?

Do you mean ranging ("chinning") mummies in the Chaos Tunnels with red chinchompas? EOC changed things so experience is gained per kill, and not per hit. (I seem to remember Quyneax saying that elsewhere-- did I get that right?) Also, protection prayers no longer protect 100%. They got dropped to 50% vs. monsters, and 40% vs. players, where Deflect Curses already were. Someone correct me if I'm wrong-- my understanding was these changes destroyed a lot of old training methods players used. And if RS Wiki(a) is correct, the void helms also changed, with a nerf of 5% to accuracy and damage, down from 10%. (That pisses me off, to be honest.) Summing up GWD armours: Jagex calls them "power" armors. Because Strength per se matters less with EOC, these sets have Damage bonuses instead of Strength bonuses, i.e. a straight bonus to damage output. This includes Bandos set (helm has damage bonus too), Armadyl set, robes of Subjugation, and the Nex armour sets. I forget which jmod said it, but the imbued onyx ring has more armour defense (+23 for onyx (i), +12 for Sixth-Age circuit). The other rings vary; they mostly provide critical bonuses. Berserker (i) seems to be a waste now (+18 to armour, and 2.5% crit bonus to Melee, Range, Mage, compared to Sixth-Age 2.7%), but Warrior (i) (3.0% crit to Melee), Seers (i) (3.0% crit to Magic) and Archers (i) (3.0% crit to Ranged) are still worth something IMO. Follow all of that? Kind of a bummer, isn't it?

Y'all are just too cute. See, I jest about similar things, but I truly am crazy, with years of paperwork to prove it. And meds. (Yeah, some horrific stories about meds. Psychiatry and pharmaceuticals can be a dangerous combination.) I'm dead serious. Yesss, let that sink in a while... Fortunately, those who glimpsed any evidence of such here are very kindly minding their P's and Q's, and I hope it will stay that way. No, I'm not having a pissing contest with Devnull. But I tell you... embrace the madness. Love the madness. There are plenty of us crazies living relatively peaceful, law-abiding lives. But the world is not perfect, so the reality of treatment in jail, or at least police being a wolf at the door, is still a reality for many of us. Have a laugh, but reject the stigma. So, almost 10 years, Sgt.? Do you have your 10-year cape yet? I finally grabbed mine, and I think it's spiffy. Oh yes, welcome. Kudos on your military service-- if I wasn't so terribly non-conformist and difficult, the Air Force was what looked best to me. A very good friend recommended it, as he fancied me to be a technical person like himself...

I'm still trying to figure out how this impacts those of us on Linux. HikariKnight has his work cut out for him, I think, and I'm guessing many of us may just stick with Java via the client port, because browser-plugins are generally gone for us.

That's nothing. 40 is the true beginning of old, or maybe the Boomers pushed it up to 50. I'm not sure. One of my sisters is rubbing her hands with glee, but is slightly bummed I won't be 40 next month (one more year). She wants to do an over-the-hill party so bad, stick it to me somewhat like we did for my father. Looking at photos of that event, my father's 40th "open house"... double-take, I tell ya. Google Glass? I'm still trying to get over the fact that Street View cached a recent photo of my front yard. We're kinda semi-remote, on an edge of the city near farm country. Not bloody likely we'll see a Glasshole here, and we'll just have the usual cellphone jerks, especially the Bluetooth headset ones. While Glass looks a lot like a Back to the Future idea (part II, to be precise): yeah, it probably will be the next step up from headset social gaffes (that Glasshole isn't looking at you, he/she is looking at something... else) and probably will be COMBINED with such (not only are they NOT looking at you, they aren't talking to you, either). Returning more on topic, could you imagine people playing Runescape on this thing? Hint: aforementioned sister is a librarian... yeah, imagine a bunch of kids at a table with these things on: "watch me, Imma gonna pwn this noob boss so hard" or other equally ridiculous chatter. Multiplayer games have created public awkwardness in libraries and college/uni computer labs before (all the way back to MUD days), but... just watch, it will happen

I have to ask-- is this in any way inspired by how slots were done in Diablo 2? It wouldn't be the first time Jagex has taken a Blizzard idea (HP/LP bars, for one), especially Diablo ones, but, just asking.

Good grief, that reminds me of my Live Action Roleplaying days in the White Wolf World of Darkness setting. The game studio rebooted the game setting and I remember a lot of players saying things like this. I still remember a friend and longtime DM of mine called it "How to Piss Off Your Fanbase."

They came close with shade skulls, the vine whip, and chaotic spikes, all which can upgrade weapons (staves and the abyssal whip, respectively). Oh, and the necromancer kits. I admit the shade skulls and necromancer kits were pretty failboat in any terms of practicality. So much work for so little reward, and I'm guessing that reward was relatively useless to those who got it (it was for me). I seem to remember that vine whips were more desirable, however, and I found the abyssal vine whip to be relatively useful pre-EOC. The way I understood EOC design to be was that Abilities effectively took the place of Special Attacks, and was meant to be fairly evenly distributed to range and mage as well as melee. That seemed moderately fair to me, as each combat style has similar Abilities (DoT, AoE, etc.) But there were SAs that were not like how Abilities are now. And then Jagex decided to fit poison to this same model: give poison to all combat style attack types. The EOC treatment of poison... well, I know peeps got their opinions. I liked that Thok-style EOC poison supposedly created demand as weapon poison potions were now drinkable, but I can't be sure that Abilities apply poison the same way SAs did. Then Jagex removed disease; I guess it was a tacit admission that they didn't think it fit the EOC template. While players never had access to it, I think that it made zogres/skogres interesting for me, but then they decided to make them fire magic-weak, and it's just not the same groove anymore (as brutal arrows are rather worthless there, and I liked ranging there to relax). I agree EOC was the optimal time to introduce an idea like slots, and based on the examples of existing code I gave above, I think they could have done it, but, they didn't. Maybe if the beta had lasted longer, but that dissolves into so much coulda, shoulda, woulda.

@With Trends Like These...: Oi, tripsis, you takin' the mick with TS Stormrage? He "has no friends"? Got my attention, you did. Old fart? I thought one had to be well over 30 for that. Is it just an online thing, or are mobile devices and social networking leading twentysomethings to be blithely casual about punctuality in meatspace, too? Oy vey. The general manners of cell phone/mobile device users must be worse than I thought. I like friends and clan chats for RS minigames, by the way. More so if they allow me to come and go freely-- in my physical agony I've tended to be a clanbreaker and don't like official commitments anymore. But I'll admit most of my "close" friends are those that chose to stick with me after I quit clans/communities or they imploded on their own. I prefer small groups, too. So I do like social slayer... but not 5 man Dunge teams. One of my quirks, I guess. @What Would They Do? Reminds me of Mod Osborne saying during a Q & A that if he had do redo something in Runescape, he'd pull King Arthur and Camelot. Oh, and it also reminds me of the removal of the Romeo and Juliet quest. Both had a sentiment of "those were very British, but not Runescapey enough". It's fun to pretend, though, especially in a whimsical way.

I hurt like bloody hell. Thanks for letting me whine just a little bit, really.

This so much. I remember watching that show a lot a few years ago and it would always piss me off so much when one of them would be a sore loser about it. Then again, they probably just overreact to keep the show entertaining and all. I define reality TV as typical show formats turned inside out. I put them in two categories, mainly: Celebrities acting like "average joes" "Average Joes" acting like celebrities I think both are meant to look satirical. #1 usually follows a documentary style, and the satirical, almost sardonic implication is "Haha, look at that silly celebrity, acting as if he/she is just a regular person!" #2 seems to follow all the other known entertainment formats, such as situation comedies (sitcoms) and soap operas. The implication is then "Haha, look at that silly regular person, acting as if they are a celebrity!" Indeed, I think producers will press circumstances so more drama results. Of course, few things are scripted, to really get that "fish out of water" effect. For example, I personally made a point NEVER to watch the Survivor series, but I couldn't help but notice (according to news reports) that they toned down the hardships to play up the drama more. News media tried to sensationalize it, how exercise machines and food were being brought in, but I honestly wasn't surprised: apparently viewers wanted to see contestants backstab each other more, and suffer under weather and climate conditions less. I'm jaded, though. At the end of the day, I know most media cares only about what Madison Avenue (advertisers) demand. I find advertisers more irritating online, where they haven't been made to put on a more entertaining "dog and pony show" quite so much yet. Dance, Monkey Madison Avenue, dance! If you're going to invade my interwebz, put on a show!

This is why I take scholarly arguments against Wikipedia with a giant grain of salt. If I'm writing online content, I accept that linking to Wikipedia provides a quick and easy reference. Those that want a more in-depth analysis, I trust, will research things themselves, or I will be writing to them in a medium more formal, than say, blogging, or forums, and I'll cite sources according to that formality (think MLA, APA, or similar standards).

Howdy. I've enjoyed reading your posts.

Jagex just isn't a small independent gaming company anymore. Their competition even in the casual gaming sphere has increased, and they want to start playing with the "big boy" MMOs. I view the opinion of the vocal minority as being very idealistic, with arguments framed under very concrete, black and white sort of thinking. There isn't much room for consideration of the corporate and financial realities in a more abstract way, and these players hold Jagex very firmly to statements they have made in the past, unwilling to concede that circumstances have changed. (Yes, I guess that's a "Grow up, whiners" sort of statement.) Not that I believe that the vocal minority was very kind when Andrew and Paul were actively involved; they seemed very vicious even then. I seem to remember that Andrew was interested in promoting a purchasable flash/thumb drive that would encrypt passwords and protect accounts accessed from remote machines (I mean basically, say, a computer at a local public library). This was long before JAG, of course. There was a lot of fallout on the RSOF. Some players recognized the technology from their workplaces and said they thought the idea was legitimate, but others were enraged that Andrew dared to suggest the purchases would involve extra bank space. He publicly retracted the idea on the RSOF right then and there. So I was very confused to see players that raged at Andrew so much in the past over various perceived slights cried bitterly when they learned he'd left the BoD and formed a R & D company. They complained a lot, even on these forums. But why would they expect him to return? When Andrew came here to protest a certain Times article (and yes, threatened a lawsuit), he made it abundantly clear he was much more interested in programming/coding than management and PR. I think it should go without stating that he wasn't that interested in soothing player rage and I would guess over time, Paul (who interacted more with the players anyways) got tired of it too. Hugh_Mannity and a few others wrote in the Times some years back that management overhaul was long overdue, and therefore, I'm not too shocked at the corporate structures that came afterward. And personally... I like Solomon's. My membership has stayed grandfathered at the 5US$ rate, and I like being able to vote for some developer content with my dollars, even if they are just silly cosmetic touches. I have much less love for SoF (although I accept the rewards), and really wish that its cosmetic items would be pushed over to Solomon's (save that STUPID Yelps hat). I think the idea is "quick and dirty", and very sloppy development, even compared to the old Random Events. I point to The Pit D&D as an example of how Jagex got it right, and a model of what more they could implement. (+5 if you read through all of that.)

Yup. I'm still contemplating whether or not to skip him on my next run because he would smash me with Ahrims and 99 Def. The main reason why I fought him was because I wanted to test out his armour set and I'm too broke to buy it flat out (not to mention I still have a top banked).

Heya Tim (Chen, that is, or anyone else feeling plucky enough to answer): Is Elite Void gear an acceptable substitute for armour? I've got full Armadyl but don't have Subjugation robes or a full set of Bandos (tassets are all I've got currently).