Troacctid

I'd say he looks like that Sith fellow from The Old Republic trailer. [hide=Nomad][/hide] [hide=Nomad without shirt] (Astaroth from Soul Calibur)[/hide] Am I right?

Yeah, you only need 63 woodcutting, which is about 1/3 as much xp. Pretty big difference. And it still shows up in the Adventurer's Log if you don't have it--good reason to make the AL available to free players.

Another Chaos Elemental hint down. By the way, am I the only one who thinks Nomad looks like something out of Soul Calibur?

Well, it's the end of 2009 at long last! A time for reflecting on...what? What do you mean "It's January 10th"? So what if it is? A guy can't write a year-end review unless he does it in the first week? Jeez! Troacctid's Top 10 Updates of 2009 Now before I start, I should explain that I'm only going to list headline updates. Smaller updates, though they certainly have an important impact on our gameplay, are just too hard to sort through without the risk of missing some. Or perhaps they simply deserve their own list... Also, this is my list. There's no point in pretending to speak for the entire community. Obviously the choices will reflect the biases of my personal style of play. I welcome debate, but if you want your stuff in a different order, make your own list. Now, commence the Top 10 list! 10. The Curse of Arrav What is it? In this portion of the Mahjarrat quest line, the player uncovers some important secrets about the mahjarrat and undermines the evil necromancer Zemouregal's control over Arrav, the legendary hero of Varrock. Why is it on this list? I liked it. The Curse of Arrav is easily one of my favorite quests ever. Sure, I wasn't crazy about that bit with the digging. Infiltrating Zemouregal's hideout, however, was pretty sweet. I discussed it in a previous entry already. Nothing makes you feel like a master thief quite like an extended cutscene detailing all the security measures in place to stop you. There have been other quests that revolved around the "stealing priceless artifacts" thing, but none of them pulled it off this well. It was fun. Additionally, the information from this quest gave us story buffs Zemouregal's Notes, which give us info on all known mahjarrat. This information has become the basis for a great deal of storyline speculation. 9. The Reopening of Runescape Classic What is it? Back in November, Jagex temporarily reopened Runescape Classic to new players. Runescape Classic, as you probably know, was the game's original incarnation. Until this update, only those who had played it back in the day could still access the Classic servers, and only if they remained active. However, all members could log in during a special two-week period and gain permanent access to new Classic servers. A similar period of Classic reopening is slated to occur every six months or so from now on. Why is it on this list? Well, it was pretty significant. Runescape Classic has been closed off for a long time. I tried it out for myself. The basic mechanics are the same, but it's like a completely different game. This update gave the rest of us a chance to see for ourselves a part of the game's history. Do people play Classic very often? Probably not. But now we can. 8. Mobilising Armies What is it? Mobilising Armies is a minigame. It was released in July after an unusually long time in development (release was postponed seven months!) due to technical issues; it does things that the game engine had never done before, such as completely changing the interface during gameplay. The game has the player control squads of elves, dwarves, and goblins to battle other players in a real-time strategy setting. Alternate gameplay modes include assaulting a castle in Siege mode, stealing treasure in Hoard mode, and rescuing TzHaar in Rescue mode. Why is it on this list? Now, you might be thinking, "But troacctid, Mobilizing Armies sucked. It was riddled with bugs for the first week, it's boring, and it was pretty much an all-around failure." I would agree with you. But there's no denying it's had a significant impact on gameplay. Or at least, it's had a significant impact on my gameplay, and it's my list. As much as the actual minigame was lame, I can't ignore the addition of a very useful bank and teleport location, both of which I use every day. Any part of the spirit tree network is now easily accessible within seconds through a mere ring of duelling, and there's a bank right there. And as someone who chopped eucalyptus to 99 woodcutting, you can bet I appreciated the location they chose for it. 7. Ardougne Achievement Diary What is it? October saw the release of the latest Achievement Diary, this time for the Ardougne area. Players who explored the area, trying out all the different content around Ardougne, could complete a list of tasks. The reward: an Ardougne Cloak. This was the first diary to feature Elite-level tasks, with requirements as high as level 90+ in some skills. Why is it on this list? This one earns points simply because of the usefulness of the Ardougne Cloak. It has the highest prayer bonus of any cape, a +6 stab attack bonus, unlimited teleports to a prayer altar and a bush patch, and a great teleport to the Ardougne farming patch. That's on top of the more specific bonuses such as free pure essence or increased Thieving success rates--with really high levels, gloves of silence, and the cloak, you can actually gain a 100% success rate pickpocketing some NPCs, including Master Farmers at level 93 Thieving. The addition of the Elite tasks seems to have been generally well-received, and its success will influence future--and maybe even past--diaries. (Jagex suggested that new Elite tasks might be added onto existing diaries at some point.) And although some of the tasks seem arbitrary--a rune crossbow?--it's still great to get some high-level content. 6. Run Energy Update and Resting What is it? In June, the entire run energy system saw an overhaul. The Rest feature was added, allowing us to sit down and restore run energy more quickly. Musicians were placed in strategic locations for even faster restoration. Finally, the Agility skill now has a much greater effect on your run energy restoration as well as your drain rate. Energy potions and similar items were tweaked to retain some of their previous power level. Why is it on this list? Few updates this year have had the same impact on our play that the run energy update had. We run everywhere now, all the time. The once-ubiquitous super energy potion has become a relic of the past--or at least, it has for those of us with half-decent agility levels. :wink: Click here for Part 2

As it turns out, regular tortoises aren't so bad either. At straight 70s in melee, you can make like 300k gp/hr killing them in the Gnome Stronghold and banking the shells/bones, with ~37k xp/hr (according to http://runescoop.com/html/rs_MMCombatTortoise.htm). And that goes up significantly at higher levels. Not too shabby. Warped tortoises are better for money, though.

Fishing, mining, woodcutting, and hunter are relatively weak moneymakers at 99, which makes them useless. Especially woodcutting, which makes less than 200k gp/hr even when maxed. (Hunter can make good money with dragon implings I guess, but that only needs 83, which is a big difference.) Agility is also useless at 99, since you can eliminate the need for energy restoration completely long before maxing out. Summoning stands out as the most useful 99, tbh. You can easily get it with 10m once you incorporate Miscellania and herb farming and similar activities that you should be doing anyway, so long as you don't try to burst rock lobsters for your charms. This works with summoning even better than with prayer, because the bulk of training time is spent gathering charms, which costs no money and even makes a profit depending on what you kill. So although you eventually may end up spending millions, you could also make it all back by the time you're done. It also ties conveniently into your goals of 99 attack and defense--just kill charm droppers.

For starters you should have a few mil in your coffers at Miscellania. That's important. In addition, you ought to keep a couple mil to ensure that you don't run out of cash with which to buy those daily battlestaves, unfinished broad bolts, runes, and so on. 70 prayer is a great idea, though. Piety rocks.

Hey, dollars aren't just paper. They're made of a special material that's very different than ordinary paper. More resistant to tearing and so on. But otherwise you're right.

Sorin has seen some play, actually. Most recently, he showed up as a singleton in a Grixis control deck that Top 8'd the Starcity Games 5k in Los Angeles last weekend. (The deck ran one of him over a fourth Ultimatum.) Other Grixis control decks have been doing the same thing. (Source) Sorin is an absolute house if you can land him--he can easily win the game for you once he comes out. (And he's obviously brutal in EDH.)

I guess the real problem is the baggage that comes with it. The King Black Dragon and the spiders at the entrance to his lair are poisonous. That's bothersome to fix. F2P revenants resolve the issue by only using poison in Members' Wilderness, a solution which obviously wouldn't work with the KBD. Also, the KBD's drops that are f2p are all pretty unimpressive, even once you include the d med. It would be great if there were some way to introduce free players to the badassery that is the King Black Dragon, perhaps the most famous and iconic of all boss monsters, but it's complicated.

A compilation of responses from the Jagex Youtube page: http://[Censored - Don't use a URL shortner]/8K0Sgv And here's a screenshot from the game: The trailer and the screenshot pretty much tell us absolutely nothing about the gameplay. We just know it's a multiplayer strategy game that will have alliances, you'll log into it with your Jagex account, and there will be some p2p content. And apparently there's a map, but we have no idea what the map is for. Also, it will not have ninjas.

Except for anywhere around Falador.... But he's right. If you have Slayer Ring, Slayer Cave is the closest to a Ring. Otherwise, use the Kandarian Monastary from the Ardy cape. Also, when it comes to spirit trees you lose out on the MA tele. But the Ardy cape puts you reasonably close a tree, or use a Glider to the GS by duel/glory to Al Kharid or Fairy to Feldip. ~Sirus Why wouldn't you just use a ring of duelling to teleport to MA? Anyway, a skills necklace teleports you right to the Mining Guild, so Falador's not an issue.

Currently I'm fairly certain we have no information on what will be coming out in the next update, except that the Christmas event (and candy cane glitch) will end and Fairy Tale 3 is scheduled for release soon. If anything, that means a spike in low-level farming- and herblore-related items because of the quest requirements--any effect on weapons and armor is extremely unlikely.

Even at 38 farming, toadflax is 4-5x as profitable as harralander while providing better xp. Ranarr is even better for money.

I wouldn't say highest herb you can--you should go for the herb that makes the most money. Currently the best herb to plant is snapdragon. Avantoe and ranarr are pretty close in terms of profit as well. The fastest way to train farming (and it can be ridiculously fast) is to plant trees and fruit trees regularly. It's up to you how much you want to spend; the higher-level trees you plant, the faster it'll be and the more expensive it'll be.

Heavy rod fishing is definitely more efficient than Shilo--not only is it faster fishing experience, but you also get strength and agility xp out of it. I did heavy rod all the way to 99 (before rocktails came out) and went from 63-74 agility just off of fishing. Caviar also sells very well if you bank the sturgeon. Price graph

Couldn't use bind the patch to an Ammy of Nature? Sure you waste the possibility of using it on a different patch but the run from Trollheim to the patch is inconvenient as it is. Nature ammy can only teleport you to diseased patches, I'm afraid.

Then you won't be able to sell it for its true value. The whole point of selling things in junk trades is to get rid of junk. You have no junk, so you have no reason to want to do a junk trade, unless there's something you want to buy with junk. If there is, buy it and use the junk you get to sell your stuff. If there isn't, just wait for the GE prices to go up. I don't know of any methods of creating junk faster than creating actual money; I don't think there are any.

I put my house in Pollnivneach, and I use a slayer ring instead of a house teleport. It's convenient.

You're buying a pirate hook, right? They're underpriced on the GE, aren't they? So you don't need to make junk--the person you buy it from will sell you junk along with it. Use that.

I agree with this, especially on the tassets. The tassets in general are weaker than the chestplate when compared to similar equipment--they offer a smaller strength bonus and a greater drop in defense compared to the equivalent Barrows piece.

Except that every piece of smithable armor is buyable in some shop or other or else dropped by monsters, is it not? If smithing wasn't there, we wouldn't be missing out on anything. Most of us p2p'ers already don't wear smithed armor in the first place; we wear granite, dragon, barrows, Bandos, d'hide, that sort of stuff. Do you know anyone who smiths armor to wear anyway?

Nope, warhammer is too slow.

Free recharges on skills necklaces and combat braces = pretty nice. Not much to do there other than that. It's required for While Guthix Sleeps though.

I'm a little surprised at some of the things they chose to highlight from 2009. Evil trees? Advisor system? I wasn't under the impression that those were the most popular or influential updates of the year. And they didn't mention the random event update or the run update, both of which had huge impacts on gameplay.