Troacctid

Like this: http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/runescape/images/5/55/ChaosDwarfRearp_p.png

I would absolutely post in a FunOrb forum. There's loads of things to discuss. -Arcanists -Armies of Gielinor -Dungeon Assault -More Arcanists -Future game speculation (Pirate Empires, Bachelor Fridge, mystery games from Diary screenshots) -FunOrb Central stuff -Steel Sentinels -Orb Defence -Kickabout League Plenty of discussion potential for all of those. And that's just off the top of my head.

Pretty much everything I'd ask for from a rocktail fishing guide. Those drops from the living rock protectors look pretty insane too.

I wrote a blog entry about this. Click here to read it. Am I the only one who thinks of these potions as steroids? Seriously. The baseball analogy writes itself.

PVP Worlds initiate new drug testing policy Following the recent Overload Scandal that has shattered the confidence of PVP fans, the Runescape PKing Council has officially banned the so-called "extreme" potions from all player-vs-player combat activities in the interest of fairness. With the new policy, players will be tested for Special Restore, Super Antifire, Super Prayer, Overload, and Extreme Attack, Strength, Defense, Ranged, or Magic potions before being allowed to participate in any PVP game. The ban will not apply to combat between players and monsters. The change comes on the heels of the exposure of several Major League PKers, including Mod MMG, who in 1998 broke the PK record by killing 70 players in one season, as having used performance-enhancing potions. Mod MMG declined to comment, saying "My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardizing my friends, my family, and myself." Added Mod MMG, "No, really, if I answered these questions, other PKers would come and kill my friends, my family, and myself." Fiara, guardian of the Fist of Guthix, introduced the policy. "I've been pushing for a long time to ban all performance-enhancing potions." said Fiara. "I've already banned all potions from the Fist of Guthix, but until now, Mandrith, Nomad, and the others wouldn't listen to me. They're still soft on the lesser potions, but at least they've done away with the worst of them. These new ones are incredibly dangerous for the PKers who use them. Just look at the damage an Overload potion does to the user's digestive tract!" Fiara then produced the digestive tract of a slain PKer to demonstrate that it was, indeed, irreparably damaged, prompting reporters on the scene to nod in agreement, back away slowly, and/or vomit. Player response to the new policy has been mixed. One disappointed PKer said, "I really wanted 2 use the new pots 4 pvp, but at least i can still use them on the kbd." But not all were so disapproving. "I think this change is for the best," said one player who requested to remain anonymous. "Players with the ability to brew these potions had an unfair advantage. The rest of us just can't compete without potentially damaging our long-term health. I heard Extreme Strength potions can cause uncontrollable aggression, for example--I wouldn't want to expose myself to that sort of thing." "Who said that? That's ********! Who said that? Tell me who said that so I can Slice & Dice them!" said Andrew Gower, known by fans as A-Gow. Gower denied using Extreme potions to illegally improve his PKing. The new policy is effective immediately.

Well, no matter how much it costs, you can save a pretty hefty figure by only getting 88 herblore, and using Greenman's Ale (sold in Yanille for only 10 gp) to boost your level by 1 when you need to make a potion.

Yeah, you need to kill a monster to get out of a cage at the end, so you will end up getting combat experience. Although I suppose you could let the monster kill you and use your respawn to escape.

All the line breaks make me expect that your blog is going to rhyme. :blink:

Druids discover revolutionary new potions! Famed druidic herblorist Sanfew revealed today the recent discovery of several new potion recipes. "Well, I was working on a cure for baldness, as usual. I was experimenting with phoenix feathers to stimulate the hair's rebirth, but the heat from the feather kept boiling the water I put it in." said Sanfew. "I had the idea to try an antifire potion as a base, but my young apprentice Jojo mistook it for an ordinary antifire potion and took it with him to the dragon lair south of here to gather dragon scales. I ran down to stop him, and caught up with him on his way back to Taverley without as much as a scorch mark on him!" Jojo, age 16, had experienced enhanced resistance to dragonfire. Said Jojo, "Yeah, I forgot my anti-dragon shield, so I borrowed one of Sanfew's antifire, uh, things. I was expecting to get like maybe at most a couple burns, but they were just wailing on me with their fireballs and it like didn't hurt at all. It was pretty sick." Added Sanfew, "I hadn't explored using completed potions as a base for new potions since inventing my Sanfew Serum cure-all because of the inherent volatility. After all, a completed potion is a beautifully balanced thing. To recklessly disrupt that balance would be an affront to Guthix. These new recipes should only be attempted by very skilled herblorists confident enough to mix the ingredients with care. Under no circumstances should my Extreme Combat Potions be mixed together--the result would be incredibly dangerous." When asked if he had been successful in his search for a cure for his baldness, Sanfew replied, "Alas, no. The phoenix potion made me grow feathers instead of hair. But I will continue my research." The new potions, which include a variety of drinks to temporarily boost combat ability, were made available to high-level herblorists yesterday, and because of their volatile nature, the Bank of Runescape has declared them Class-B Untradeable Substances.

And us poor players trying to make quest levels? Cash in on the supply-side while you wait for the prices to drop again. :thumbup:

Remember, with Greenman's Ale, you only need 95, or 94 if it's mature. That should save you a lot of money on training. ;-)

I've completed my review of this update for my blog! Click here to view it in its entirety. The gist: This is a great example of successful high-level content. By making the potions usable only by those with high enough herblore to brew them, Jagex has effectively provided strong incentives to train what was previously an utterly useless skill. What's more, besides giving the rich players a new pit in which to throw their money, the rising prices of herblore ingredients as a result of the increased demand is a boon to poorer players as well, who will see increased income from farming, gathering seconds, killing chaos druids, or even typical herb-dropping slayer tasks. All in all, thumbs-up from me. :thumbsup:

Why potion-making is now an extreme sport, and how it affects your wallet! High-level Herblore Potions "This week, high-level herbalists will find a variety of new, untradeable potions at their disposal, including extreme combat boosts, complete protection from dragon-fire, and a gut-wrenching overload potion." I've complained for a long time that high herblore levels are useless because the skill stops short in the low 80s, long before it maxes out, and experience afterwards has no bearing on gameplay. Well, this week's update aims to fix that. In fact, this is the third update in a row that is aimed at high-level players, coming on the heels of the Living Rock Caverns' fishing and mining update, which I believe was excellent, and the woodcutting rebalance, which I believe left something to be desired. How did Jagex do this time with herblore? It's time for some content evaluation! This update introduces nine new potions for high-level herblorists, spanning levels 84-96. The full list is in the game guide, and can be found here. Okay, new potions--so what? They'll be just like all the other potions--mass-produced for level-ups then dumped on the GE with a loss of value, more money-losing potions...right? Wrong! None of these new guys are tradeable! That means if you want to use them, you have to actually have the requisite level and make them yourself. This is a big change and a very important one, because it creates the incentive to train that herblore skill. Is it worth it? Hmm. Some of the potions are more useful than others. Super antifire potions provide full immunity from dragonbreath, enough that you can wield a two-handed weapon like a Godsword, Zamorakian Spear, or Verac's Flail when battling dragons and not worry about the massive damage you'd normally take without the proper shield. It doesn't say how long they last, but since the higher-level dragons like Mithrils are significantly faster to kill with two-handed weapons, there is a definite increase in performance, although on lower-level dragons, the ingredients for this potion may be too expensive to justify its use. Recover special potions have a unique ability to restore your special attack meter by 25% per dose. This is a huge advantage in high-level combat situations. There's a delay of 30 seconds between each use, which is an important balancing factor, but it's still incredibly brutal with some weapons. The dragon dagger (or Vesta's longsword) is the obvious one, because it takes 25% to activate, so you can get in 5 specs in a row--pretty deadly. However, it's also great with a Zamorak Godsword (which has 60% drain). Doubling up on the special attack can give a full 40 seconds in which your opponent will be a helpless ice cube. Ouch! Extreme magic potions, unlike regular magic potions, provide an actual damage boost of 40% to your magical attacks. That's pretty significant and very deadly. However, it has little application outside of PvP combat. The other Extreme combat potions, as well as the super prayer potion, have a similar problem, in that the lower-level, tradeable versions are just fine for most purposes. The added effectiveness is good, but probably not worth all of the millions of xp you need to use them. Finally, we have the UBER ULTIMATE OVER 9000 DOMINANCE OVERLOAD!!! potion, which puts you into UBER ULTIMATE SUPER SAIYAN DOMINANCE OVERLOAD MODE!!!, boosting your combat stats as high as they can possibly be boosted and keeping them there for five minutes straight. Of course, the UBER ULTIMATE POWER OF DESTRUCTION OVERLOAD!!! has a backlash effect that hits you for five chunks of 10 damage after you drink it, but in the meantime you get UBER DOMINANCE OVERLOAD!!!, which you have to admit is pretty awesome. Yes, I think the incentives are pretty strong. The best ones, in my opinion, are the first two. I'm sure many people will train to level 83 or 84 for recover special & super antifire potions. (Remember, you can temporarily boost your herblore level with a Greenman's Ale.) Plenty of hardcore mages will go for 90 herblore to get the extreme magic potions. I think only the hardcore herblorists, though, are going to go all the way to the OVERLOAD!!! potion. However, I can now definitively state that there is a now strong reason for training your herblore level, and that the skill has been mostly fixed. What's left for herblore? We still need training methods that don't involve spending lots of money to process ingredients into far more potions than anyone will ever need. High-level herblore is solidly fixed. However, all herblore levels still need new training methods to make the skill more accessible to players without massive piles of cash to burn. Speaking of cash to burn, let's talk economics. How is this update affecting our economy? Economic effects of the high-level herblore update Expect a huge influx of demand for herblore training ingredients. All herbs are going to rise quickly in the short-term. Similarly, expect a huge influx of supply for most potions. Potion prices are going to drop in the short-term as the market becomes flooded. True, lower-level potions are now inputs to the untradeable high-level potions as well, which will increase demand; however, the huge loss involved in creating potions that can't be resold will relegate them to being created solely for personal use, which is not likely to significantly drive prices. Over time, prices will grow farther apart, making herblore more and more expensive to train; however, as it becomes more expensive, fewer people will train it, bringing the prices back to more reasonable levels. This is similar to what is currently going on with the skill, except that it should occur on a larger scale now that the experience gained is more valuable. What we've got is a permanent increase in demand. The world of herblore will never be the same. How can you capitalize on this? First off, don't bother trying to train herblore right now. Wait for the rush to subside. We've been waiting years for these potions, and I think you can wait another week or two. As we speak, I'm sure merchants everywhere are buying out the GE's entire stock of every kind of herb and second ingredient to flip them for a profit on Friday. When they've all sold what they've been stocking up on, the price will peak and crash. Then start training your herblore. Second, when herb prices go up, farmers make more money! If you haven't been farming herbs, now is a good time to get started, because your profits are going to increase. My profits are going to increase! I like this update more every minute! Similarly, herb-dropping monsters like chaos druids are more profitable to kill. Third, gathering secondary ingredients is going to increase in profitability as well. Those of you with low levels who need cash, now is a good time to collect snape grass and red spider eggs, grind blue dragon scales, and so on. Because of these economic ripples, a high-level herblore update is beneficial to low-level players as well! That's trickle-down economics in action right there. Of course, as prices continue to increase, the folks training herblore will buy fewer supplies, and we'll end up with steady fluctuations as the laws of supply & demand do their thing. Once a stable price curve develops, it will once again be pretty safe for solo merchants to invest in herblore-related items. Bottom line This update is great. For rich endgame players, herblore is now useful! For poor intermediate players, high-level herblore ingredients sell for more money! Even those in the middle will find themselves earning more from farming and slayer. And from a game design standpoint, it does a great job of completing a skill that was sorely lacking in relevant content. Thumbs-up all around. Final note This update also included a forum upgrade: avatars based on your in-game character. They shall be reviewed separately.

Down with Drakan! Free Morytania! Say no to Vampyre oppression! Good to see you're doing your part, fellow freedom fighter! I hope you'll continue aiding the Myreque's cause by continuing on to investigate the Legacy of Seergaze. We can always use more help fighting the Vyrewatch Scourge. In the meantime, your services as a guide through Mort Myre Swamp are still invaluable to the resistance effort. Keep up the good work! :thumbup:

Broad bolt tips are impressive profit after the shop update. They're stackable, so you can buy out the stocks in under a minute and earn an easy ~100k gp or something even if you don't fletch them.

Eucalyptus would beat either of them easily. Better profit, better xp. EarthySun is right, though, you're better off powertraining and earning money some other way.

Go to the top-right and click the dropdown menu by your username. Then go to your settings and click on the "Blog" tab.

The reason I titled this blog "Troacctid's Gielinor Review" was, see, I had this plan that I would type up reviews of the new content, and that would be the context in which I voice my opinion on "Runescape current events and stuff." So even though I already wrote more than one entry today, I'm going to write another, because I want to talk about this update. I figure that there's always a chance that Jagex Moderators are looking at me because they value my insight on their work, and I feel a need to harness that attention to steer them in the right direction. After all, where would they be without the expert guidance of some random guy who's never designed a game in his life? :thumbsup: Now that I've lost your attention, allow me to talk about Display Names. This is one of those updates that's kind of boring, but functional. It's a nuts-and-bolts kind of thing. Sure, it's not new content. Sure, there aren't even any patches this week. But let's face it: we can't get a new Living Rock Caverns every week. It just isn't feasible. I don't expect it, you shouldn't expect it. Hell, I think we get that stuff too frequently. A lot of it could benefit from more time in QA. So I don't mind. Runescape has always had pretty bland usernames, with a short character limit, no case sensitivity, and every other name trailing along a string of several random-looking numbers at the beginning, middle, or end. Well, no more! I'm sure most of you have already experienced the sort of changes this update has wrought: players mildly dissatisfied with their current names have shucked them off, replacing them with sleeker, shinier, more exciting ones! It's like the U.S. government's cash-for-clunkers program, where people mildly dissatisfied with their merely-adequate vehicles can trade them in for sleeker, shinier, more fuel-efficient ones! With government subsidies! In this case, there's no subsidy, but the service is free, so it amounts to the same thing. There's nothing wrong with wanting to change your username. We can't all have thought of names as awesome as "Troacctid" when first creating our accounts. In fact, for those unlucky souls with crappy names like "Pkerjoe2718" or "Pwnage8979323," it's pretty much the Runescape equivalent of giving homeless guys free apartments. Or at least a fresh set of clothes. So I like this update, even if it has little to no effect on my gameplay. Actually, I confess: I changed my own username. Yes, even I, with an awesome name like Troacctid, found room for improvement. Specifically, I changed my name to all lowercase, the way it is on Tip.It. I like it better that way. Thanks, Display Names! You know the most amazing part of this update? It's been done without any major bugs or data loss, despite all of the technical obstacles involved. That's impressive. The bottom line: this update is all upside. While it's not a hugely significant change, and things are a little hectic the first week as everyone is changing names at once, there's really nothing to complain about, and I think it improves the game. This is far from a Top 10 update, but it effectively accomplishes what it was meant to accomplish.

Let me start by saying I happen to have a high-school economics textbook handy, and I've been reading through it a lot lately. (Why? Because I'm in high school and I'm taking an economics class. Don't look at me like that. Geez.) The more I go through these basic economic concepts in the first few chapters, the more I find myself thinking, "Yup, that's just like in Runescape." Does that make me weird, a good critical thinker, or both? An economics professor might say it's because you can apply economics everywhere, and my initial thought is, "Yeah, you keep telling yourself that." But it's true. You can't go two paragraphs in this thing without a Gielinorian analogue. Look, here's an excerpt right out of the first page of the first section of the first chapter: "To look at the world economically, we can focus on the decisions that people make. You, for example, have to decide what to do with your time--go to a movie or study for a test. Businesses have to decide how many people to employ and how much to produce. A city government may have to decide whether to spend its budget to build a school or a park." And in my head I'm thinking, "Runescape players have to decide whether they want to go PVPing, level their skills, or quest." Look, right in the second section. Opportunity cost. Seems like nobody understands opportunity costs in Runescape. Turns out it really is one of the first things they teach you in Economics 101. "Every decision we make involves trade-offs." the textbook offers. "For example, if you choose to spend more time at work, you give up watching a movie or going to a baseball game." Or if you choose to mine pure essence, you can't use that time to train your runecrafting. I have this urge to just re-write an entire chapter of the textbook using only example from Runescape. So many players have no idea how to apply basic economic principles. It would be so informative and relevant, and yet...so uninformative and irrelevant. Maybe I should. Maybe I should just write a whole essay on this crap. Maybe I should show it to my teacher. Extra credit? Students always complain how this stuff isn't useful in real life. Maybe not, but at least it's useful in video games.

When I found out the new Tip.It Forums were going to include a blogging feature, I was ecstatic! Okay, that's a lie. I was mildly intrigued. Okay, that's also a lie. I pretty much didn't care at all. Blogs are boring. Then I thought, "Hey, you know, I'm kind of hungry. Maybe I'll go eat a banana." So I went to the kitchen. We were out of bananas. Then I thought, "You know, I'm an opinionated person. I really oughta blog about my opinions." Actually, that's not entirely accurate. For added accuracy, please read that sentence again, inserting "about online gaming" where relevant. Please refrain from inserting juvenile phrases such as "...in my pants." or "...about your mom." or "...that's what she said." Get your own thoughts to screw around with, okay? The point I'm trying to make here: Tip.It has a blogging feature. And I'm using it. To blog. About Runescape. And about blogging about Runescape. I'm sure you'll find it very entertaining. I try to write the way I talk. Actually, that's a lie too. I try to talk the way I write. Actually, that's also a lie. I write the way I would talk if I wrote everything down before I said it. Which brings me to Runescape. Actually, that's also a lie. I wasn't planning on talking about Runescape at all in this entry. This entry is just about how I have a Runescape blog and plan on using it to discuss Runescape. It's more of an exposition thing. Hmm, exposition...Ever see "Urinetown"? There's this whole opening number titled "Too Much Exposition" where the characters break the fourth wall and sing a musical number about pay toilets. It's better than it sounds. You should see the play sometime. Or at least illegally download the soundtrack. I probably should have stopped at the banana. I feel like I'm belaboring. Look, I'm just going to write another entry now. Go read that. It'll actually have substance, I promise. ;-)

[/hide]and I can go on........ I hope that you can now see that for some the 'grinding' and 'boring' bits are as much part of the game as anything else and as enjoyable, especially for relaxation. And 'shortcutting' them to make things faster or easier because some people don't like it, is not on in my books! It's only a change in direction for the thread in general. My stance on the main issue is still the same as I posted it back on the first page. In fact, I've been referring to those same kinds of updates even since way back then. Proof: Key points: [*:1zo9gzxa]The updates that do make skills easier are the primarily interface-based small tweaks. (Yes, within my definition of "easier.") [*:1zo9gzxa]For most of those updates, it's very difficult to complain about them; in fact, they tend to be the least controversial updates. Can you give specific examples of that kind of upgrade that negatively impacted your experience of the game by making it faster or easier?

Your reports are less "trusted" simply because of the limitations of the system. It's not possible to give priority reports to everyone. I honestly have no idea exactly how the selection system works, but it's obvious that if everybody has priority reports, then nobody has priority reports. As for "why take up the offer," I'm serious when I say it's a case of why not. For something like whether to put your head in an oven, there's an obvious con in that you will probably die. (Or if the oven is off, then at least that it probably smells funny and there's nothing exciting to look at in there.) What insidious effects exactly are you talking about here? Any negative effects I can think of are caused by misconceptions about player moderators, not the actual moderators themselves.

But you need to drink the potion to make it do anything. :lol:

But you need to drink the potion to make it do anything. :lol:

Well that's easy, Zamorakian Spear. It has a defensive crush option.