diib

It seems to me that runescape is neither an intellectual activity nor an obscure interest (given its popularity). I suppose knowing a lot about the game and trying to find the most efficient strategies might be "pursuing esoteric knowledge". Either way, being a nerd is not a bad thing. I'm a physicist myself (physics being a stereotypically nerd subject). I assure you that in the real world, nerds are often highly successful.

Have you ever seen a goblin use a crossbow or an elf cast battle magic in runescape? They could have used infernal mages or dagon-hai monks (mage) vs elves (ranged) vs dwarves (melee)

In my opinion, it needs lots of work - The combat triangle should be mage vs melee vs ranged rather than these races. There was no need to invent an entirely new combat triangle for this game - All scenarios are symmetric. This was obviously done to make the game balanced. In my opinion, non-symmetric scenarios would add both variety and tactics. For example, why isn't the castle in the siege scenario defended by a player? To balance this, the game could find the likelihood of winning and loosing by simply counting the amount of wins and losses of each side, and adjust rewards and/or troop effectiveness accordingly. - Interaction between the game and the runescape main game: Why can't mobilizing armies be played in pre-existing places in runescape? Imagine the possibilities : a white knight "training" war near Falador, a Varrockian army against zombies in the wilderness, gnomes vs. Khazard troops, fremmennik vs. ice trolls, ... On a positive note, the junk-removal tactic seems effective. I have yet to try the locators. Furthermore, I'm sure this technology could be used in quests, which would be great.

it was micromanaging to the extreme, true, but yet I found it more enjoyable than the "hope-they-ignore-you" tactics that dominate the "conflict" mode.

In run-time strategy games, there is usually some highly simplistic strategy that is the most successful, be it camping, racing to get certain resources first, or other strategies that are in no way comparable to the in-depth strategies found in turn-based strategy games games such as chess, go or stratego. I think the strategy element shoiuld be inherent to the game, not to the way the rewards are calculated.

Question from a non-PKer Is there a clear point at which 26k-ing ends and "real pking" begins? Or is there a "grey zone" between 26k-ing and real pking?

Thanks to this potion, I can now craft slayer rings It is usefull

Hint for in the future "there are many popular runescape fansites where you can find your answer" Just don't mention any particular fansite - that counts as website advertising

Remember the pieces of dragon armour from when guthix sleeps? And the phoenix quills from that phoenix quest? Players can profit from doing quests soon after their release. Wether or not any given quest can be exploited in this way is usually unclear untill a few days after the release, no matter how many people call the rewards "crappy".

- congratulations! - I'd also like to congratulate Deu_Terium for his beautiful and well-chosen name

I obtained a shield half as a drop from a fire giant. Unfortunately, the other half, which is sold in the legends guild, costs more than the complete dragon square shield. I could attempt to sell it on the GE, but who's going to buy it? It seems a most extraordinarily useless item. Maybe I should alch it?

....What ? I'm Jewish and I can say that there is no way any god killed kids...Will you please explain that? And if you mean the 10th Plague, there's no proof that it happened just as there's no proof that the Jews were slaves.. (Which I believe by the way, has anyone noticed Israel's *convienent* geographical position in relation to Egypt?) SheepiTails, I am highly surprised by your response here. I'm not joking, I'm seriously surprised. You are, of course, entirely correct when you claim that there's no proof that it (the 10th plague) happened just as there's no proof that the Jews were slaves. However, there is never any evidence that any god undertook any action at any time. If there were, people wouldn't believe in god(s), they would know god(s) existed. So surely, whenever someone claims that a certain god did a certain thing, what he means is that people who believe in this god believe he did this thing. So If I claim that the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl demanded human sacrifices, I do not actually mean that Quetzalcoatl demanded human sacrifices, rather I mean that the people who believed in Quetzalcoatl thought he demanded human sacrifices. Similarly, If I were to say the god of the Jews and the Christians killed thousands of children in the 10th plague, what I mean is that the people who believe in veracity of the writings describing this god's actions, that these people believe this god killed thousands of children in the 10th plague. It is without question that many people in history did indeed believe in, and worship, gods which were evil by today's standards.

The tablet says "and (his/her) name will be (player fremmennik name)" You can't even give the tablet to the chieftain. Not by talking to him, not by using it on him. At best, it's a hint to future quests, but it's entirely open-ended, not at all like Hazelmere's prophecy.

I think it's a loophole in the "non-interference contract". Bandos didn't interfere, he merely happened to "accidentally" (wink,wink) leave a mind control amulet in his throne room...

- The pseudorandom functions used by computers are, as you say, not actually random. However, it is impossible to efficiently* distinguish them from true randomness. - Assuming the runescape servers use a single pseudorandom generator (as opposed to one per player), the result of the pseudorandom generator will depend on the amount of random numbers it has generated so far, i.e. your pseudorandom number will depend on the amount of monster drops, trees chopped, ores mined, etc. since the last server reset - a highly unpredictable quantity. Whether it is actually random depends on whether or not human players are deterministic. - The cooking range, or fire (it's been a while since I visited tutorial island) on tutorial island may well be a special, non-random range or fire, specifically made to ensure players fail at least once (it's a tutorial, after all, new players should see both the successful and unsuccessful outcomes). * for a certain well-defined technical meaning of "efficiently"