Hikensasameyuki

Thanks guys. I was pretty sure it would just be a normal death, but the runehq guide raised my suspicions.

If I die while in this puzzle space (of thirst, in this case), is it an actual death? A quest guide on another site says that I'll simply be teleported to outside, but I'm apprehensive about proving them wrong. Any advice?

Agreed. I've been thinking that myself for a long time. This is about as important as expanding the crossbow weapon type, as far as combat gameplay balance is concerned.

...

I probably shouldn't read past the first page of this misguided adventure. However, allow me to clarify a few of the things I noticed on the first page. 1. It is true that obsidian is sometimes referred to as 'volcanic glass.' Another substance that cooling magma (or lava, depending on whether or not the substance cools subterraneanly) forms, is pumice, which differs from obsidian because it cools with interspersed gas pockets, giving it a gritty texture, which is useful as an abrasive (employed, among other ways, in the popular 'Lava' brand abrasive hand cleanser). Both are igneous rocks, though obsidian is generally 'volcanic,' given that it almost in all cases cools rapidly at the earth's surface, while pumice is more often 'plutonic,' having cooled beneath the surface at a far slower rate. Nevertheless, both may be formed under either condition. Contrary to an opinion voiced earlier in this thread, neither obsidian nor pumice (nor any other igneous rock type, for that matter), may be refined into a form with increased Mohs hardness by smelting with coal or other ores, since that: a. is not structurally plausible; b. would not only change the structural matrix of the obsidian into a new substance with vastly different physical properties, thus rendering it no longer obsidian; it would also make the resulting substance 'metamorphic,' due to the process of recrystallization that would occur as the result of the heat and pressure conditions that would have to be exerted upon the reactant substances to induce such a result, the very definition of metamorphic type rock. Thus, it would no longer be igneous type rock, and therefore impossible for it to remain 'obsidian.' Furthermore, 'interlacing' with coal or granite increases the ridiculousness of the discussion. This supposes a nonmetamorphic process by which the obsidian might maintain its identity, while gaining Mohs hardness. Again, this is impossible, because: a. obsidian is a homogeneous matrix, making it the pinnacle of potential hardness for any substance possessing its crystalline type; b. interlacing would produce an 'amalgamate' rock, an entirely different type unto itself. While certainly some parts of the amalgamate would remain obsidian, the whole would achieve a new status with independent nomenclature. Also, amalgamate type rocks are, by definition, intrinsically weaker than any of the structural matrices of any one of the component materials of which they are comprised, when considered independently of each other and the whole. This is because the forces which hold them together are weak molecular forces, or simple compaction, which don't compare to the strength of generally ionic or otherwise ordered crystalline patterns of igneous rock. Amalgamate rocks can often be broken with the power of a bare hand. Bottom Line: Obsidian items in a game do not necessarily have any relation to the object we refer to as 'obsidian' in real life (by which I mean it doesn't mean they are made of the same stuff or have the same properties). Obsidian is a term often used in poetry to evoke the color black. While it might be a bit overboard to characterize RuneScape's item designers as poets, the Obsidian class of items they have introduced into the game are most certainly black. It may be the case that 'Obsidian' is simply a more evocative way of saying 'black,' making the item class seem cooler than it would otherwise be. 2. The heat inside a steam powered cannon is nowhere near the level required for 'vaporizing' iron. Sure enough, the literal temperature required for vaporization of iron is its boiling point, a figure which is easy enough to familiarize yourself with via a simple websearch (incidentally, it's 3134ÃÆââ¬Å¡ÃâðK; 2861ÃÆââ¬Å¡ÃâðC; 5182ÃÆââ¬Å¡ÃâðF). In fact, no type of cannon ever employed by creatures on earth has approached this temperature, at least inside the length of it's projection barrel, where it would have to reach this temperature to induce the type of reaction suggested. Not to mention the fact that no weapon system would ever employ a projectile which it could potentially vaporize unintentionally. Iron is not an efflorescent metal (that is to say, it is not a substance which naturally changes phase directly from solid to gas), and the amount of energy required to cause vaporization of nonefflorescent solids is both nuclear in nature, and far too ridiculous in magnitude to even discuss here. As for the debate over exactly what type of reaction could take place, let me send forth the following: a. Ferric oxide (common iron rust) is a weak solid, both at room temperature and at the temperatures induced by cannon firing (steam powered or otherwise). Need I point out that this excludes it from the phase class referred to as gases, and thereby impossibly the product of a vaporization reaction? Indeed, the shape change caused by rusting combined with forceful impact would be more aptly described as 'shattering,' not vaporization, even if the impact were forceful enough to induce complete gaseous dissolution of the resultant particulate matter into the atmospheric gases present at the point of impact. Given the temperature outside, unless you figured out how to fire your cannon inside the sun, the particles would remain solid and rapidly precipitate out of solution (simple gravity, iron WEIGHS more than air; that's right, WEIGHS; it doesn't just 'have more mass'), forming sediment. The oxidation reaction which produces ferric oxide from elemental iron is a slow one, even under artificially optimal conditions. It weakens the metal structure of iron by a process called 'fissuring,' whereby it invades the matrix, causing fissures which resemble the fault lines present at intersections of earth's tectonic plate structure. To produce the level of fissuring necessary to replicate the type of shattering which would make an iron mass the size of a conventional cannonball appear to the naked eye to have 'vaporized' would take many years under the conditions present in nature. Indeed, even a cannonball moving at "only a few meters per second" would find its target quite a long time before this type of shattering would be possible. b. Ferric hydroxide is a granular solid within the applicable temperature range, and therefore also not a candidate for a reaction product of the character discussed. c. The chemical formula for water is the widely known H(2)O. The following quote has been proofread in order to characterize the quoted as more grammatically apt than in reality: "The friction caused by the speed would allow the iron to react with the water. Such a combination would release some oxygen from the water and the rest would form into iron hydroxide - a gas." It's easy enough to see that if some oxygen was released from the water, what would remain is H(2). Since hydroxide is an ion represented by the formula OH(-), this is clearly a preposterous suggestion. Hydroxide ions are formed from water molecules by freeing H+ ions, not oxygen molecules. In addition, cannon firing of this type produces none of the conditions required for any type of reaction whatsoever, other than the partial phase change of water from liquid to gas, let alone any reaction between the water and the iron in the cannonball, which depending on the specifications of the cannon, may never even come into contact with one another. Bottom Line: Your cannonballs 'vaporize' because the cannons in RuneScape are ridiculously powerful and JaGeX wants to make everything more difficult for you. A simple way of doing this is to make items degenerate (like Crystal and Barrows items). They just couldn't figure out a good way of explaining why they did it to cannonballs. In other multiplayer online games, players refer to this as 'Nerfing.' Familiarize yourself with the term. 3. Runescape is notorious for inconsistencies in mass changes which don't reflect the physics of the natural world. Smelting of ores is indeed one of the most suspect. Also, player-produced objects often contain components which were not required as raw materials, making them 'greater than the sum of their parts,' at least as far as their mass and weight are concerned. Woodcut axes are a prime example. For each bar a player smiths into a hatchet head, he or she acquires a free axe handle made of wood. It's not that unexpected, by this token, that a decorative helm required as a quest item will WEIGH more than its required raw materials, given that its final appearance is apparently comprised of many items that were not used by the player to produce it (not unlike every other kind of smithable helmet in this aspect). Bottom Line: Unless you're willing to argue until you convince JaGeX that our inventories should WEIGH a fraction of a nanogram less when Gielinor's moon(s) are directly overhead, this is probably a moot point. I have relegated myself to the fact that RuneScape is a fantasy adventure game with its own physics independent of those of my world, and that inventory weights of game items are determined arbitrarily. 4. Finally, let's put the debate on mass vs. weight measurements to rest here. To say there is a misconception about what weight means is more than a little derogatory to the human population. There is no more a misconception about what 'weight' means than as to what the color 'blue' is. Most people (this means non-scientists) consider weight to be an encapsulated term, which is simply a linguistic referent which means they view the concept to be self-explanatory, and requiring of no further definition. The fact that, in Newtonian and Relative physics, weight has a definitional relation to mass, is of less than no interest to them. Indeed, the convention of reporting weight in mass units is a sociological one, most certainly not a scientific one, giving scientific definitional analysis of the relation between weight and mass no bearing on the discussion. Furthermore, even scientifically speaking, mass has absolutely no meaningful application to situations which occur in everyday life, unless you can think of a situation in which objects which have mass are not also under the effects of gravitational forces. Certainly, no cannonball has ever, nor will ever be fired under no gravitational force, nor will bars be smelted nor helmets smithed outside of gravity's reach. Not to beleaguer the meaninglessness of even bringing this up, but mass and weight, when considered in the scope of the field provided by any one massive body (be it earth or the mythical RuneScape... pardon me, Gielinor), are on proportional interval scales, related by the unchanging force of gravity (represented by the equation W = mG, where W = weight, m = mass, and G = the net force of present gravitation), meaning they are in constant equal proportion to one another, consequentially making differentiating between them as units of measurement largely irrelevant. Indeed, even equations which require the input of a mass value can be carried out with equal abandon by instead using weight values; AND yield correct results as long as they are reported in the appropriate units (an easy way to do this is by dividing the final result by the value of G and reporting in whatever units the mass equation would have called for; it can also be done by reporting in whatever units/G the equation yielded when worked out with the W values). Bottom Line: When a person asked to report his or her weight replies in kg, he or she is not only giving a sociologically acceptable answer, he or she is more than likely British, and works for JaGeX.