mrph3r

Well, in normal SC games, going for points is a complete crapshoot. I've scored as high as 142000 before (SO close to 146), and as low as 9000, with all relevant noncombat skills 80+. In skill games, clay gifting/pickpoketing can influence the outcome a lot more, though (especially as the size of the game decreases).

That is a good point. Those who specialize are extremely prone to market swings. To bring up a counterexample from real life to your 'real life specialization' argument made before, people diversify their stock holdings to ensure that they don't lose it all on one big selloff from one sector/firm/whatever at some point. If all of a sudden coal happens to be made obsolete, those people who have 83 mining and all other skills under 40 are also rendered obsolete. I had this very thing happen to me - I was planning to make 52000 dorgeshuun orbs to get to 99 crafting. At the time, you could sell them on the forums for 1-1.5k, depending on the size of the order. By the time I was starting to gather the goblin wire, the last part for the orbs, the grand exchange was introduced, and the value of the orbs decreased 95% over the next few months. Of course, since I had pooled 80% of my money into this, I about died. (Still have about 35m worth of untradable unfinished orbs in the bank - the cost of goblin wire tripled at the same time.) Nowadays, as a rule, I never put more than 35% of my bank worth into a single skill, ever. I've had a few item prices crash on me, but it hasn't put a large dent in my wallet, since I have other things to do. Now, of course, this still comes back to the fact that if you find all this useless, it will be useless to you, and that's your choice.

This is the problem with the perception of SC. Giving clay to other people speeds up the game and INCREASES THE REWARD POINTS YOU CAN GET IN ONE HOUR. I'm one of those people who uses rag tools to gather a lvl3 tool and then up to lvl5, so I'm usually one of the first with a lvl5 tool (oftentimes by 18:30-18:00). Letting people pickpocket/giving them your clay will make the resources exhaust faster. Let's say in a 20-player game, three people are at the c5 asking for clay, and you oblige all of them. You just cut out four minutes of time between the three that they were just groveling for clay, and the c5 is dead by 16:00. The game takes a total of 11 minutes, meaning you finish roughly 4.6 games per hour accounting for the 2-minute wait time. If you gain 29000 points per game, you end up with 22 reward points. This translates to ~101 points per hour. (Note that adding 10% to this number does not change the number of reward points.) Now, let's say in a 20-player game, three people are at the c5 asking for clay, and you oblige none of them. These people are standing around the c5 waiting for the clay, and it takes them an extremely long amount of time to get any. Because none of them get any clay until 15:30 left in the game, the c5 is not dead until 12:30 left in the game, and the game takes 14 minutes instead, which means you finish roughly 3.8 games in an hour accounting for the same 2-minute wait time. Even if you double your score to 58000 points per game due to having the c5 to yourself longer, you only gain 24 reward points per game, adding up to ~91 points per hour. (Note once again that adding 10% to this number does not change the number of reward points.) You managed to score double the amount of clay in the second game, and yet you're getting rewards 10% slower since you don't share. It's really as simple as getting everybody to work somewhere, simultaneously. Efficiency is key, as I always say.

I must say, you are quite strong for being able to do this. As a skiller, I unfortunately would have an extremely tough time trying to go purist DIYing, but I try to utilize multiple skills through my training and all that. Major props.

As a competitive person by nature, I'm one of those people who likes getting skills higher past the point of any practical use. Other than runecraft and slayer, all of my noncombat skills have found their way to at least 86. I find combat personally useless, as a sort of counterexample to all of you guys who train combat to the exclusion of all else. My highest melee skill is 74 hitpoints, 12 below that 86. At 89 combat, I can do almost anything in the game that I want to (except for summoning, or using a godsword, two activities that I have no interest in), and can access pretty much any part of the game I might be interested in. So yes. Training skills (or doing quests, or whatever) you're not interested in is useless to you. Nobody's forcing you to do it.

Here's a slightly different perspective from the ones I seemed to see while scanning the posts so far. I'm a skiller, and an old-school one at that. I first created my account in 2002, and I've been the same combat level (89) for almost 4 1/2 years now. I reached 99 agility in July 2006, when the Ape Atoll course was still fresh and new. Since then, there have been three new courses that have surpassed the approximate xp rate of the Ape course (40-44k without any pots). The Dorgesh-Kaan course was first, with an easy xp rate of 48-50k an hour at 90+, followed by the two Extended courses (63k for Gnome, 71k for Barb as the approximate max xp rates). Does that devalue the 99 agility achievement compared to those who slaved away at a course with barely half the xp rate of the Barbarian course? I think most people (we people already at the top especially) would say that it does. Likewise, with the more buyable stats such as herblore or smithing, the Grand Exchange update essentially destroyed any illusions of misinformation that people might have had with their suppliers. With the massive amounts of inflation coming from: a) the increasing population of fletch/smith alchers, B) 26k-ing, and c) a lack of effective and popular moneysinks, the relative trade value of skill items had to keep pace with this inflation. However, at the same time, due to the 'merchantability' of the Exchange, the top 1% (or fewer) of the community started to profit big-time from the Exchange and probably hold well over 50% of the wealth today. I don't begrudge people who make money from skills and use it to spend on the other skills (isn't that the point of the game? That's how I play it anyway - you don't get 137 million skilling xp by not spending money anywhere...), but money from merchanting? Those of us who play the game the way Jagex seems to expect us to simply get stomped on by the half-capitalist half-communist system that they've set up with the Exchange. What are we to do about it? Jagex says they're against price manipulation, but yet they can't do anything about shutting down merch clans now that the Exchange is in place. Once again, the most effective way to make money is to simply fleece it from the small-time traders by what most people would consider less than scrupulous methods. So, somebody buys 80000 lantadymes, 80000 water vials, and 80000 blue dusts for 99 herb. Did they raise the 204m from runecrafting or fishing? Probably not. Somebody buys 100000 adamant bars for 99 smithing. Did they raise the 266m from hunter or slayer? Again, unlikely. The only two methods of gaining money that I would consider substantial enough to gain that kind of money, or even close, are runemining and double natures, both of which require incredible amounts of time to put in to make that kind of money. The likelihood is that those skill-buyers are merchanters, those who perpetuate this cycle of separating the extravagant haves from the subsisting have-nots. So, when the do-it-yourself skillers see themselves being passed by people who earned their money by essentially stealing it from other people, including themselves, we tend to get a bit ruffled.

The issue overall with the storytelling ones is that there really -aren't- that many things you can do in two minutes inside the game. Hence, we got people who actually had the same original idea - I think Jagex might end up tuning out most of the straight stories because a lot of them are so similar. That's why I keep coming back to Cheese as my runaway favorite from that bunch - the rest don't stand out so well. This could help out the less conventional entries - I doubt a PK vid or a first-person narrative is going to crack the top five. It would have been nice to know that they would have stretched to 2:30 just fine beforehand, though - I could have made my song 25% longer :P EDIT: Wow, I had a dash in every single sentence except the first!

I don't know if it's Youtube's problem or Jagex's, but it's just excruciating waiting for your video to go up, haha. In the meantime, I've been looking at the other videos already up; just got through the first two playlists (and somehow escaped with my life). Sound of Skilling's been mentioned several times already, so I don't have to go into that one too much. (Could have been so much better, for sure, but then that's true of almost anything...) Cheese is probably my favorite out of the 'storytelling' ones, although I doubt it could amass enough votes to win. Other than mine, of course :roll: , is probably the best-made music video, although I know Jagex specifically said that editing was not going to be a criterion. I'm wondering if anybody knows how much Jagex is going to emphasize the video itself in judging - my idea was based on the song that I wrote for the video and not so much based on the footage that I took...

mr_ph3r - P2P

The newest video just posted on the playlist was uploaded on the 18th of August. Looks like they're getting videos uploaded at about 2/3 of the speed that they're sent in.

The submissions so far that I've seen here are pretty cool. I cobbled together a song sucking up to Jagex, cut it down to two minutes, and made to it...I'm not making any predictions but I'm hoping I can do well. (Weird Al, anybody? Hardware Store?) At least they're not judging me on my singing ability.

83 herblore woo - 1955 total...should be 1962 by this time next week...

Been taking a few days for quests and other stuff - and I also got a job, so I'll be on less. That hasn't stopped me yet, though:

Good luck on your goals! Why not use dungeon doors instead of larders (saves on butler costs)?

Lots of levels today - 99 cooking, then 90 fishing, 81 con, and 96 thieving. New goals are now up on the frontpage, too.

Heheh, thanks guys. 99 cooking, watch this space, big update on front post forthcoming

98 cooking - almost there! Front page updated and all

Yeah, after I got 70-60-70 I figured I was set there =P

Nice stats so far, it's a good start! Woo for skillers or something like that...

Thanks! After a while, you just forget that there's more to the game then 89 combat...haha

Good luck! I'm currently fishing up there as well...maybe I'll see you around. =P Nice firemaking by the way - always wanted 99 fire but been too lazy as of late to finish the deal.

Heheh, thanks. Skilling is the way to go =P

I was talking about that with a few friends the other day, actually - I figured at the rate I was going I'd probably be 2050+ by now (the best I can do is 2086 before I have to gain a combat level). You do what you can, though. =P 89 fishing: Complete with some dude pretending to be me and making me look like I'm talking about...I don't even know Front page has been updated.

Heh, thanks! Good luck on your goals as well.

[url=http://forum.tip.it/viewtopic.php?f=98&t=664100]mrph3r - 89 combat and WHAT total?[/url]