waheera1

Would genuinely like to see you write an article for the times. I reckon it would be interesting and better thought out than many that seem to come through... There's the gauntlet, how do you fancy your chances?! :-) Liked your points there though, good rational thought. =D>

I'll be totally honest, I liked only three of the four articles today. The story seems to be going along pretty nicely and always leaves you wondering what's next. I wouldn't say it's necessary, but I'm enjoying the weekly updates to find the next section. :-) Curmudgeon and Ts_Stormrage I think both wrote pretty decent articles, perhaps not especially illuminating but at least they were well written. As for the dragon crossbow I simply have to ask: Is it necessary? And in short I think I can conclude the answer to be no. Bolt enchantments already provide an incredible kill power for rangers that is almost unmatched except perhaps by the infamous godsword. And for pvp the dark bow special is a much feared strike. So where exactly does the dragon crossbow fit in to all of that? Does it need to give rangers yet another attacking boost? Personally I'd rather see jagex spending their time on different armours rather than weapons, or new areas which could introduce new aspects to the game on a broader spectrum than just: we love rangers... Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy range, I just can't see the point of a dragon crossbow.

So you're basically arguing that questers are more intelligent than your average RuneScape player? And what about those of us who hate questing but do all sorts of calculations to figure out the best way to train a skill? Or what about the people who spend their time figuring out things like combat formulas? Are you going to argue that those people are all questers too, because of their intelligence? A "skiller or indeed general player" is perfectly capable of figuring out that a leaf-bladed sword has a higher stab rating than a d long. Of course a SKILLER would have no business knowing that, but I'm sure that someone who is dedicated to training combat would certainly bother to figure that out. I'm not saying everyone would, but I certainly know quite a few people who would. Being a quester does not necessarily make you more intelligent than a "general player." And a skiller can master skills, which is certainly an "area of the game" and a quester may have no idea of. A skiller can figure out the most efficient methods of training and learn their skill in and out. Actually no, I'm not. Knowing a lot about the game is not in any way related to any level of intelligence. It may be that questers are more intelligent, but I would not make such a sweeping generalisation. I simply said they often know more about the game, meaning on a broad base that encompasses elements of every part of gameplay rather than "mastering" any single "skill". That is often true. And unfortunately that undoes your entire argument against my comments, since I was not suggesting that those who don't quest are more basic humans with a lesser capacity to process information. My point on skillers mastering skills which you omitted in your quotes was that in actual fact this stands for nothing. While the same could well be said for all elements of the game, having a 99 may statistically make you a master of the skill, but it doesn't really exhibit any special qualities. Just that you have more patience than someone who's repeatedly gone for 99s and failed. Arguably an achievement, but what have you actually learnt about the game? I say game, since that must be the measure of achievement in Runescape, given that the majority of its achievements mean nothing outside of it. I could, in a matter of perhaps 3 hours at most, work out the fastest way to gain 99 fletching having experimented with every possible fletching xp, but I don't actually have to bother getting to 99 in it to know that. Similarly, it's obvious that once you stop burning sharks, they become the fastest cooking xp. Or that the pyramid of plunder provides the fastest and easiest thieving xp. Etc etc. Oh and getting 99 doesn't signify your complete and infallible understanding of a skill, just your ability to follow the obvious hints for the fastest xp and stick to it. I'll admit to generalising and perhaps being unfair and uninspired by the mystical 99, but questing seems to take things beyond just the basic clicking and grinding which as a skiller, you are forever doomed to. I find them a welcome break myself, and would recommend them to anyone. If you hate them vehemently, follow a quest guide and skip the chat, you might as well still get them done. RuneScape isn't necessarily about "learning all you can about the game." I'd say it's about having fun, doing something you enjoy, and working towards achieving goals. Sure skilling may, for the most part, be clicking over and over and over again, but you can actually learn a lot about the economy and develop formulas and new, different methods of training. Both questing and skilling are achievements, but of a different kind. They require different skills and should both be respected for different reasons. I totally agree that RS should only be about having fun, since that was the sole reason it was created. It has been incredibly successful, in no small part because it offers a fantasy game loosely based on a popular period of history, but the skilling element should always be secondary to enjoyment in it. As for "learning all you can about the game", that seems to me the only measure of skill of any worth within it. Yes training methods etc can be refined and the like, but they are still essentially just a bunch of clicks, and whilst they should not be derided, 99s in real terms mean nothing. Similarly, a knowledge of runescape and a questcape amount to much the same, but somehow to me being knowledgeable is worth more than simply levels. It may get you branded a "geek", but by learning a lot about the game you have at least achieved something that cannot simply be done by clicking. And at the same time, questing alone cannot achieve that either. No offence to you or anyone else but I detest the argument that runescape can teach you about the economy. Try predicting the outcome/causes of the credit crunch based solely on runescape's simple "supply and demand" economy and you'll rapidly become unstuck. But that's just a personal irritation really, other than that I agree with what you say! Just for the love of God don't turn into a self-justifying player who tries to claim RS is good for learning! :-P Comparing quests and skills are like saying "chicken or egg?", really: both are different, of equal "importance" and ultimately it doesn't really matter either way.

For the record, slaying is a concept not confined to Runescape's skill world: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define ... =firefox-a When I say slay I do in fact just mean kill, any idiot knows that you only get SLAYER xp for monsters on your particular task. Just to clear that one up.

So you're basically arguing that questers are more intelligent than your average RuneScape player? And what about those of us who hate questing but do all sorts of calculations to figure out the best way to train a skill? Or what about the people who spend their time figuring out things like combat formulas? Are you going to argue that those people are all questers too, because of their intelligence? A "skiller or indeed general player" is perfectly capable of figuring out that a leaf-bladed sword has a higher stab rating than a d long. Of course a SKILLER would have no business knowing that, but I'm sure that someone who is dedicated to training combat would certainly bother to figure that out. I'm not saying everyone would, but I certainly know quite a few people who would. Being a quester does not necessarily make you more intelligent than a "general player." And a skiller can master skills, which is certainly an "area of the game" and a quester may have no idea of. A skiller can figure out the most efficient methods of training and learn their skill in and out. Actually no, I'm not. Knowing a lot about the game is not in any way related to any level of intelligence. It may be that questers are more intelligent, but I would not make such a sweeping generalisation. I simply said they often know more about the game, meaning on a broad base that encompasses elements of every part of gameplay rather than "mastering" any single "skill". That is often true. And unfortunately that undoes your entire argument against my comments, since I was not suggesting that those who don't quest are more basic humans with a lesser capacity to process information. My point on skillers mastering skills which you omitted in your quotes was that in actual fact this stands for nothing. While the same could well be said for all elements of the game, having a 99 may statistically make you a master of the skill, but it doesn't really exhibit any special qualities. Just that you have more patience than someone who's repeatedly gone for 99s and failed. Arguably an achievement, but what have you actually learnt about the game? I say game, since that must be the measure of achievement in Runescape, given that the majority of its achievements mean nothing outside of it. I could, in a matter of perhaps 3 hours at most, work out the fastest way to gain 99 fletching having experimented with every possible fletching xp, but I don't actually have to bother getting to 99 in it to know that. Similarly, it's obvious that once you stop burning sharks, they become the fastest cooking xp. Or that the pyramid of plunder provides the fastest and easiest thieving xp. Etc etc. Oh and getting 99 doesn't signify your complete and infallible understanding of a skill, just your ability to follow the obvious hints for the fastest xp and stick to it. I'll admit to generalising and perhaps being unfair and uninspired by the mystical 99, but questing seems to take things beyond just the basic clicking and grinding which as a skiller, you are forever doomed to. I find them a welcome break myself, and would recommend them to anyone. If you hate them vehemently, follow a quest guide and skip the chat, you might as well still get them done.

Consider for just a moment: What's actually in the name? SKILL cape? Forgive me if you disagree with this, but nothing in runescape that's related to skilling actually requires any genuine skill. Unless of course you take the coincidental xp gained doing boss fights or pvp etc. All that is in fact required for a 99 skill is either a) money (this can in fact aid virtually every skill depending on how the wealth is used) and/or B) commitment. Sure, a 99 skill cape shows you've put in a lot of time and effort, but you don't need to exhibition any skill at all in grinding out the levels. I can sit on a pier fishing all day, go slaying in chaos tunnels, craft dragonhide bodies and alch etc all day, but I don't LEARN anything or show any SKILL in doing any of those. It is not the concept of a SKILLcape that people should admire, but perhaps the fact that people have such a drive to achieve the magical 99. Quest capes on the other hand are a mixed bag. If you do only follow quest guides (as many quest capers no doubt have) then no, it doesn't really say anything special about you. That said, if you worked through the majority without quest guides (I didn't even know about fan sites and quest guides for the first year or so that I played!) then you will usually master an area of the game (even if it is only the history of the game), which a basic skiller will have no idea of. That surely is a more admirable quality? As a closing point, it is my experience (and i mean MY experience, yours could well be entirely the opposite) that the majority of quest capers know far more about the game and have thereby achieved more than just wasting countless hours grinding to a 99. Often they will pay closer attention to detail and have tips for levelling skills efficiently (both in time and costs) which pure skillers may not have. For example, how many skillers or indeed general players bothered to work out that a leaf-bladed sword has a higher stab rating than a d long and is therefore theoretically the most accurate melee weapon against dragons? - dragons being weak to stab attacks. (I won't claim that for myself, but extend my thanks to a good friend J_R_Kerr, a fellow quest caper :-P )

Wholeheartedly agree with the comments on random events. Something that nobody else seems to pick up on with the topic of randoms is that even at the height of bot-harvesting loot, they didn't work. Consider for a moment, bots were essentially a programme that allowed the user to afk whilst still gaining resources/xp. As a result, jagex implemented the safety features we all know and largely don't love. Aside from anything else, random events were the most well-known measure, implemented to outfox all those bots which followed a set clicking pattern and therefore wouldn't be able to cope with the rogue clicks required by a random event. However, I often wonder if jagex considered the places where people could actually afk anyway. Would it really be possible to afk at steel dragons? Or in the chaos tunnels with 6 angry fire giants milling round? Perhaps, I'll grant, considering the benefits of guthans, but still an almighty risk that would gain little reward at the best of times. Metal dragons could destroy any canny mager or ranger if the bot clicked in too close to allow melee attacks, similarly even with 92 defence, a few lucky strikes from a fire giant would have me rolling around in agony/death... In fact, it seems to me that aside from the obviously hostile spots where an idiot could theoretically afk for a little while before death, the only place that remains in combat is in the desert at the bandit camp. Now I have no issue with the countless number of people who use desert bandits for stupendously fast xp with minimal clicks, and while I do not condone the popular afking method, I'm not so naive as to think it doesn't happen. Still, if randoms have a place in combat areas, the desert surely is it. Here I think few would argue in favour of removing randoms, as I'm sure many would accept that afking, being technically against the rules, is worthy of a random event punishment. Yet this does not answer the question of why they have to be applied to every area in the whole of runescape. As stated, they seem to have lost their place as a measure against bots, so why do they remain? It seems odd that after sacrificing a large part of their long-term player base, many of whom left when the wilderness and free trade were abolished, jagex did not immediately seek to rectify the imbalance created by pointless randoms. Surely it is not too much to ask that those in very risky areas such as metal dragons or the vast multi-combat catacombs of the chaos tunnels should be spared the pointless "protection" of anti-bot randoms...? Personally I'd be happy to see almost all of the randoms removed for good, but at the very least let's start with removing them as a threat to obviously legitimate players. Oh and as for the other two articles, nice work, though I felt that perhaps the giant mole guide would be more suited to a "monster hunting" guide than as a tip.it times article.

Literally impossible unless u somehow manage to level it solely on genies etc. In which case, you'd waste even more of your life than the average player, just waiting for lamps! Best of luck tho...

Hahaha that's an excellent way of putting it. :-) And to all those who say don't post if it hasn't helped, what exactly is the point of putting this in a forum if not to discuss the various pros and cons of RS in real life?!

Anyone else find it ironic that someone lambasting people for criticising spelling errors punctuates his own post completely incorrectly?! Added to which you can't really BY a skillcape. :-P

Sorry to point out the critical flaw in your comments: Hunter is an incredibly lucrative skill to get to 99, assuming you know how (and that really isn't too hard to fathom). Chincompas, even just using them from 80-99 should net you a minimum of 30-40m unless prices have changed a lot since I could last be bothered to look. So for the record, that's not a reason for people looking down on hunter! Other than that, fair points.

And now moving off spelling and onto capes... If a firemaking, fletching, cooking cape etc are all nooby, explain what exactly is to be respected about all the other capes? In the great scheme of life, not a single one of them will amount to any tangible improvement in your quality of life, your wages, your social life, house, family etc etc... To me those are things that matter and it is the preservation of these which deserves the greater respect. Thus a friend of mine without skillcapes who stops playing early every evening to be fresh for taking her children to school the next morning commands more respect than Zezima (an unmistakable all-time great player). Sure Gertjaars is top at the moment, but Zezima the real life person finally woke up to the life he was wasting and I believe is currently studying for a degree. If not for that he would probably still be sat on top spot with a few hundred million xp to spare, but somehow I respect him more for that now than I ever did in the many years he was number 1. I will congratulate anyone I see with any form of cape, such that even months ago before the harder quests came out, the quest cape got a special congratulatory message from me as well. Or rather, the person did. However, does that mean I respect them? No. I can appreciate that they have the kind of drive I do not in pursuing an essentially pointless cause to the pinnacle of achievement in it, but I do not respect that person by default, or write them off as a noob because they don't have one of the rare capes. I myself have no 99s, with a total lvl in excess of 1700 and am neither especially wealthy nor an especially remarkable character. But why should I respect somebody with full combat 99s because of the time they wasted in getting there? I've played for years and I've met plenty of people chasing crazy targets in game, and I enjoy the diversity they bring to the gaming community. To say these people should be respected purely based on skills is a pathetic fallacy that will leave you ill-prepared for the real world, where such crude measures of attainment are rarely so highly prized. It is surely unfair to criticise someone for spending their time attaining a skillcape in a lesser skill, because that alone signifies a remarkable commitment to what may be deemed a pathetic cause. But perhaps a little rethink is in order for whether it is the capes or the people behind them that deserve respect. I will gladly call a 138 a noob and think nothing of their multitude of capes if that is what they deserve. And I will gladly give my respect to ANYONE worthy of it, regardless of skill totals or wealth. There is something a lot more noble to the notion of respect than simply the cheap purchase of achievement.

Call me pedantic if you like, but ect means absolutely nothing. For those that are not aware, etc. is an abbreviation generally held to have stemmed from the Latin phrase ET Ceteri. Let's get the basic 3 letter words right shall we now?!

Learning to spell can also do wonders to the respect you receive from others...

=D> Two brilliant little features there. Bravo! I can't profess to know that much about PvP as even on the old system (that was still running for around 3 years of my gaming time on RS) I never pked. Even when I was up to 100+ combat before summoning etc, with pking still rampant, I never once went. And now I definitely regret that. Even so, I can well understand the points about PvP that were made, and it was honestly a pleasure to read. Well thought out and well presented. Bravo! On another note, on my brief foray onto a PvP world earlier this month I had great fun going "naked pking" without any items at all, and left feeling pretty chuffed at my haul of adamant and mithril items. However, I only actually went for a laugh with a good mate of mine, and only once found any serious pkers in the form of a large, pointlessly hostile clan. Quite what they earnt from killing someone with no items on still leaves me a little confused, but never mind. The fact I didn't see a single serious solo pker in my 4 hour stint there seems indicative of the flaws behind PvP. I might also point out that i'm sure many would agree when fully armoured that the thought that a 126 combat pure (ie no summoning) with a gs could wipe you out with no risk to his own weapon (item protect) is pretty galling. 90% if not more, were making use of the 1 item tactic, the rest equipping some cheap armour + wep and using the 3/4 item idea of protect item + tactical non-aggression. So after all that mighty ramble, yes, PvP needs a lot of tweaking to get it right. And perhaps just for fun let's re-introduce the question of how important was it to remove RWT? Bots I agree are a happy removal from the game, but how many players genuinely would have chosen to remove RWT over the old style of pking. As I said, I never pked, but I was still disappointed to see proper pking abolished. Seemingly it will never be quite the same again. As for article 2, I liked it, and I can indeed see what you were driving at with your comments. That said, is there anything so terrible about being able to easily hold conversations with old friends from a distance? Without wishing to be too flippant, it seemed to do the trick with the telephone and emails! :P As for you, I also enjoy the friendship aspect of the game, indeed almost require it in order to enjoy the time! On the rare occasions that not one of my really good friends are online, I find I rapidly get bored and go off to other things. But when I can get together with a friend in clan chat (which is also easier to hold conversations in that private messages - no clicking, just a quick / before every sentence), it really does make things so much more fun. In particular, myself and a friend regularly meet up purely to have a laugh together, with real life LOLs a-plenty. But spending hours wasting money on lvl 1 clues at HAM or lvl 3 clues at Jellies just wouldn't be the same, if every time one of us had to go our conversations became stilted due to excessive clicking for the old-school P.M. Admittedly, most people would call us noobs for doing that at our levels, but then what's Runescape for if not to have fun? Anything that helps that without the need to sacrifice friendships gets a big thumbs up from me.

A quite extraordinary post. Good effort, must have taken a lot of time to get all that lot together. Certainly made me more interested in Dragonkin etc and I look forward to seeing the unravelling (hopefully) of all your theories in the new quest. Don't think I can add anything though, just liked the read!

Or i suppose on the flip side one could learnt it helping out doing some gardening... Nice to hear it paid off, but you shouldn't really need to study to know what they are anyway! #-o

You'd be amazed at how many people in my college econ class took most of the semester to understand this. I also find it very basic and obvious, but who am I to say what should and should not be challenging to others? If Runescape helps someone understand it without them shelling out a couple hundred bucks, more power to them. I do agree with this though. If you're playing to learn, there are at least a dozen better ways to do it. Yeah fair point, I suppose I was trying to add weight to my final paragraph with the examples of Runescape's flaws when applied to the real world. Like your closing comment too! :-)

Don't mean to be too harsh here, but what on earth were you doing on the roads with navigational skills like that?! And for the record, RS is pretty rubbish at teaching real life skills. Making friends etc is easier anyway because you never have people forming pre-conceptions about you as a person through looks, social standing, race etc etc. Typing is something that you could learn quite efficiently from numerous other sources and if, as I've read in some posts here, you wouldn't type much if not for RS, where's the use of being able to type fast?! The science of much of Runescape is essentially flawed even if it is loosely based on real life science, and thus the comments from people saying they won quiz tournaments with their knowledge of making steel etc are pretty amusing, largely since steel is not in fact made from coal and iron, as has been covered elsewhere by others in more detail. I don't doubt they may have done it, but shame on the quiz writers for that! Can I also comment on the bizarre notion that RS teaches an understanding of the economy. ANYBODY can work out the extremely basic concepts of supply and demand. It is only a tiny part of the economy and the only part that applies to Runscape. Understanding that limited supply increases demand and therefore enables prices to be boosted, is an incredibly obvious fact and obviously vice versa huge supply saturates the demand and prices fall. Arguing that this helps to understand the real life economy is a very low-level analysis that does not take into account any of the complex systems that dictate the real life economy. For example, it doesn't even deal with inflation - you can always buy a tinderbox for 1gp from a general store and that will never change, or at least it hasn't in the 5 years I've played, whereas in real life the equivalent essential item would invariably have changed in value over the years of inflation and currency exchange. And no, the drop or increase in price of rares etc is not inflation, the gp is always a constant value and is not based on a "gold standard" or any equivalent, it is simply reverting to the supply and demand concept. Also, try explaining the credit crunch through runescape's economic structure! :-P And as with almost every other supposed use of RS knowledge, ALL of it can be learnt in its entirely correct forms elsewhere, you just have to want to find out rather than accidentally stumbling across it whilst spending the time on playing a game instead! Just accept runescape is a game and play it for the enjoyment of it. If you don't enjoy skilling or combat etc then don't do it, and don't try to justify playing with a list of supposed uses. Just enjoy it and accept that you need a break sometimes and that RS is mostly a fun place to take that break! :-)

I did have a proper response until my mouse went funny and highlighted all my prior comments just as I typed another couple of words... :wall: Still, I might as well say that whilst I personally detest the impersonal, limiting and time-consuming method of communication that is QuickChat, I enjoyed reading both articles. The second was a more constructive analysis I felt, and but for the unfortunately frequent typos, I would hope that it could perhaps be posted on Jagex's own forums. We must I suppose live in the hope that Jagex may listen to someone wishing to suggest things for the good of the game! I don't think it would work as a "pre-teen" comms system, simply because those intelligent enough to grasp all of runescape's finer details must surely be capable even if not willing to hold sensible conversations in a conventional format. Would it really satisfy them? I know I would've dodged the use of that system if it were imposed on me by Jagex - dodging a Birthday tester is as easy as dodging a menu of "13 or under", it'll just catch more people the first time round! Anyway, as I said, good read and perhaps if posted enough times with enough forum support, QuickChat may change for the better before too long.

Perhaps the logical response to that rather bizarre addition is this: I must inform some of you feminist readers; not all mistaken men are chauvinists. :P Also if we want the real irony, your closing comment on the quality of turtlefemm's writing is wrong: "surprisingly that"?! Surely just surprising? :P

Got a lot of respect for Turtlefemm after reading what she wrote. It's nice to know that there were people like her playing the game before these changes, and a shame that there will be less of them after the recent changes. It's probably too much to to hope that Jagex will change it ever again, but I think as long as there are generous and kind people in Runescape there's at least a small chance that it will remain an enjoyable place to spend time. Both posts good, Turtlefemm's was nice from the personal touch and I found it a really enjoyable read. =D>

I don't really want to just join the merry throng of people angry at this new, and frankly ridiculous update, but I fear I have no choice. It is already noticeable how this has affected the game. The f2p Draynor Willows used to be packed, with real players and bots alike... I could go there any time of day or night and see probably anywhere between 10 and 30 people. Today I went there and including myself there were 3. That alone is a big clue of the concensus reached over this update. Every high-level player I have spoken to has lambasted the reshuffle of the wilderness for taking out the only rule-free element of the game. I remember reading an editorial on emergent gameplay in evidence throughout the wilderness... Jagex has singlehandedly destroyed this. Those who wish to pk are unlikely to go to the new bounty hunter arena because in spite of Jagex's intentions, it is still wide open to abuse. Who wants to go there when seasoned pkers can get destroyed in a 5-on-1 before they get a chance to fight back? A friend of mine suffered like that and will never go back now, despite being a level 95 with high enough mage and range to rule the wild in its older incarnation. Teleblock was a coveted spell... Arguably the only reason to get to that sort of level unless you particularly wanted to be a mage pker... So Jagex took it out... Along with the rest of the good points of pking. I never once pked in the 4 years I played, but still this update to the wilderness makes me wonder what they were thinking? The wilderness created "pures", and "tanks", gave the distinction between the three combat types, and provided an area that people could choose to enjoy or not at their own bidding. It will certainly be interesting to see how long it takes for the whole culture of pking to diminish. As for trading... I cannot believe the stupidity of this update. My characters were a lvl 100 main and a lvl 37 black pure. Although I didn't need him to, a friend I made whilst training my pure wanted to give me roughly 1M worth of items on it just because I helped him to pass the time while he was training. That may have been excessive generosity, but what about donating a rune scimitar to a guy who just levelled to use rune weapons? Or for the families out there, why should a parent not be allowed to set their kids up with some helpful additions to their bank...? I cannot begin to understand why Jagex created this update. The given reasons were to remove RWT and bots etc... To some extent they have succeeded I'm sure - to quote my earlier comment on willows, there was 1 bot instead of the customary stream to Draynor bank from Lumbridge's Yews... It was suggested to me though that perhaps Jagex was jealous of RWTers for making money off their creation. I sincerely hope this wasn't the reason. EVERY person I spoke to said they'd prefer to have the old RWT and bot problem than the new updates. I would have to count myself among them. With most of my friends quitting, it will only be a matter of time before I do the same myself. The worst part about it is that many of these friends were only met through runescape, and to have destroyed what made many people play will undoubtedly cause many strong friendships to fall into neglect as people stop playing. Jagex can destroy their own game as much as they desire, but it seems a great shame to me that it will have such an unpleasant knock-on effect for many people. Jagex's intentions were laudable, their execution laughable. Let's hope they can sort something out before they lose their only measure of success: players.