Veiva

70 snapdragons + 1 seed. Best run yet.

And with your expert opinion, how would you explain Jagex's colloquial explanation of the double wheel theory? Nice ad hominem, but I'll take the bait. It's not that difficult to understand for most people. To provide a different example, say there are two drop tables per monster, the rare and the common. The common is given a chance of 90% of being rolled, while the rare is only given 10%. You'd do something like Math.Random(0, 10). Under 9, you get the common. At 9, you get the rare (for this example, Math.Random returns at the least "min" and at the most "max - 1"). Now, in this table there is a second roll that determines the actual drop. Say you rolled a 9 on the first attempt. You get the second table. Now it rolls another number. This number is your drop. Say the table is: 1: dragon spear 2-10: loop half 11-20: tooth half 21-100: nothing You roll a 1. You get the dragon spear. Or you roll a 4, and get the loop half. Or you roll a 17 and get the tooth half. Or you roll a 99 and get nothing. Maybe now you understand? And as far as the "let's query a database for the total monsters killed," think on that nugget for a minute. How do you explain back to back drops? How do you explain the hundreds of servers being synchronized, and the resources required? We're not talking about something that can wait a few seconds (e.g., Grand Exchange offer). We're talking about something that occurs hundreds of times a second.

Honestly, I don't think you really understand what you're arguing against. I wrote a pretty good real-time roguelike some years ago (in 2007-2008), and I used weightings along with a table of possible outcomes. The table for the first dungeon was: 0-5: Tree 6-10: Water 11-12: Polar bear 13: Grraa'lak Summoner 14: Quad potion 15: Ninja Crazy Daisy 16: Twornadoe To use it I'd do something like this: local index = Math.Random(0, 30) local object = objects:Find(index) -- Bla bla. It's really not that difficult to do it in this manner, as others and I have shown before.

Assembly :thumbdown: Is there something wrong with assembly? I've dabbled in 6502, x86, PPC, and ARM assembly at some points. On top of that I had at one pointed created my own assembly language for a virtual processor. Unless you mean it's not the nicest thing to program in, then I concur. At least it's better than Visual Basic (not Visual Basic .NET) haha :P

What's with everyone saying this. It's possible to have free trade without old wildy. ... and it's certainly possible to have the old Wildy without free trade ... :mellow: Not really, if you consider the fact that everything from your opponent will drop on death then restricted trade will be completely irrelevant: if they bring back old wildy it would be ridiculous not to bring back free trade as well. And for the other position: why maintain the droptable and statuettes that continue rapid inflation if bots can simply transfer the wealth via trading? I agree with SirHatlar here, one without the other would be ineffectual. Reallly -- how many "honest" (not RWT) PK's did you manage to get in the "old Wildy" that allowed you to obtain HUGE amounts of gear or cash? This reminds me of an event in RuneScape that happened to me. I loved PKing in the old wilderness. Great fun, great risk. I happened across some dude in awesome gear (for the time). He was PKing in full rune (g) or something along those lines (this was back in late '05/early '06 if I recall correctly). I was seriously stunned. So we talked for a bit and agreed to a DM. I fought and won, and then before he died he told me to meet him back at Edgeville bank. I agreed, and then he gave me 1.5m or so in stuff when I got there (which, remember, at the time that was quite a bit). In total I made ~4m off a PK. Also, I've met quite a lot of decent people PKing back in the first two or so years of RuneScape 2. Now, I really don't PK anymore, so I wouldn't be able to tell you how good/bad the game community now is. But the few times I have it was just a little bit worse some days, a little bit better others. So, now for my opinion about this whole mess. I wouldn't have been upset if they left out the wilderness and only brought back free trade (though I would wonder what the point in that would be; why only cater to one membership base and not the other?). And I see that they can't bring back the wilderness and not free trade. In either case, I am happy, just like I'd be content (but disappointed) if they didn't. We've gotten by without free trade this long. But in the end, either way works. (I voted "Yes" on the poll).

I'm sure there's flaws with this too, but couldn't there be a "weight" or "rating" on the danger of an opponent? So for example, if a person has full torva, their weight/rating would be much higher than a guy in full bronze. This would go hand-in-hand with combat level, and could also just be based on items rather than combat. The weight/rating would pop up in PvP scenarios and show next to a person's combat. For example, say a person has no items. Their weight/rating would be 0. Now, say this person puts on full rune. Their weight/rating would go up some. Say this person also has green dragonhide (the set, not the leather, silly!) in their inventory. Their weight/rating would go up some more. Say they drop the green dragonhide or banked it; their rating would instantly go down to the level of just full rune. Basically, this would be a warning system. Obviously some things will have more weight than others (e.g., extremes in inventory versus no potions, rocktails versus shrimp). In any case, you could gauge a person's combat items just by a cursory glance, and the individual could still have an ace in the hole; after all, the weight/rating would not explicitly tell what items the person is carrying. This is just how I'd implement it.

Dungeoneering reward, "Scroll of life." Costs 10k tokens and gives a 10% chance of getting a seed back. As for my record, my max is 52 snapdragons + 2 seeds with Juju. Then again, I've only just started farming again after a long break.

I like useful items.

Two godsword shards in 7 kills. Makes me sad.

Not worth mentioning! :P 85 attack / 78 strength for melee and 56 dungeoneering. Hence the reason I failed to mention them. Side note: I have 95 hp (forgot to mention that in the OP). Oh and thanks bladewing, I'll probably go that route (didn't think about the obsidian shield).

Okay then, I have a few questions about solo Zilyana. I am mostly doing this because it's the only boss I haven't fought (besides Corporeal Beast, which is beyond my stats)... but on to the point. First of all, is it possible to solo with my stats (92 defense, 99 range, 71 prayer, 89 magic)? I also have access to a spirit terrorbird of course. If so, how many kills per trip do you think I'd manage once I got the hang of it, considering the update a few months back (I think?) that shrunk the room? Is the following gear good (see below for reasoning behind Spectral + RoL is only there on my first few attempts + the bolts are some random amount I pulled out): Regarding the Spectral, the item is not only for Sara solo. I use it for Armadyl, Castle Wars, Soul Wars (and may be some other stuff that I can't think of off hand), so I really am not keen on replacing it with a dragonfire shield, even if the latter costs half as much. Thanks and sorry (if) this question has been asked a million times since the update!

I thought it would be an interesting idea to discuss interesting tricks you've discovered on your own (doesn't matter if the tricks were known about by others beforehand). For example, a neat algorithm that is easier to implement over another or a quick shortcut in a programming language. I'll start off! I am developing a game using OpenGL, and it exclusively uses vector graphics (such as those made in InkScape or Adobe Illustrator). However, the shapes created in InkScape are merely a list of various points that form concave or convex polygons. Not only that, but these polygons can have holes in them (such as the letter "O"). OpenGL has little-to-no facilities for drawing convex polygons (depending on the version of OpenGL you're using; I am using 1.4 with some extensions), let alone concave ones. Now, I knew I could implement the difficult ear-clipping algorithm, which would be suitable for cases such as static graphics, like fonts. However, much of my graphics are going to be dynamic, and recalculating the triangulated mesh each and every frame is assuredly going to be slower than intended. Plus I don't feel like implementing the ear-clipping algorithm. So, I had the brilliant idea of using the stencil buffer. The stencil buffer basically masks parts of the image depending on how you set up the graphics device. Anyway, if I did a basic triangulation in that each vertex connects to two others to form a triangle, I could exploit the fact that an even amount of potential pixels means that the area has nothing to be drawn, while and odd amount means that something should be drawn. Therefore, after some jiggling around with different ways using the stencil buffer, I figured it out. In any case, I can render some hundreds of polygons relatively fast on a netbook, which is all I really need. When it comes to my desktop I am sure I can render some thousands. Here is the code, basically, for fonts: static void bsFontVertexCache_Draw(bsFontVertexCache * cache) { glVertexPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, sizeof(bsFontVertex) - sizeof(bsSingle) * 2, cache->vertices); glDrawElements(GL_TRIANGLES, cache->indexCount, GL_UNSIGNED_SHORT, cache->indices); } static void bsFontGlyph_DrawCharacter(bsFontGlyph * glyph, bsPaint * paint) { bsInt i = 0; glColorMask(bsFalse, bsFalse, bsFalse, bsFalse); glStencilMask(1); glStencilOp(GL_KEEP, GL_INVERT, GL_INVERT); glStencilFunc(GL_ALWAYS, 0, 0); for (i = 0; i < glyph->cacheCount; i++) bsFontVertexCache_Draw(glyph->caches[i]); glColorMask(bsTrue, bsTrue, bsTrue, bsTrue); if (paint) bsPaint_Fill(paint, glyph->dimensions.x, glyph->dimensions.y, glyph->dimensions.width, glyph->dimensions.height); } void bsFont_DrawText(const bsFont * font, bsPaint * paint, bsSingle x, bsSingle y, bsInt flags, const char * text) { bsInt i, stringLength = strlen(text); bsMatrix translation; glPushMatrix(); bsMatrix_CreateTranslation(&translation, x, y, 0); glMultMatrixf(translation.matrix); glPushClientAttrib(GL_CLIENT_VERTEX_ARRAY_BIT); glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); glPushAttrib(GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT | GL_STENCIL_BUFFER_BIT); glEnable(GL_STENCIL_TEST); glDepthMask(bsFalse); glDepthFunc(GL_ALWAYS); for (i = 0; i < stringLength; i++) { bsInt glyphIndex = bsFont_CharacterToIndex(font, text[i]); bsSingle width; bsFontGlyph * glyph; if (glyphIndex < 0) continue; glyph = font->glyphs[glyphIndex]; if (glyph->dimensions.width != 0.0f) { width = glyph->advance + glyph->advance * font->characterSpacing; bsFontGlyph_DrawCharacter(glyph, paint); } else width = font->spaceMultiplier; bsMatrix_CreateTranslation(&translation, width, 0, 0); glMultMatrixf(translation.matrix); } glPopAttrib(); glPopClientAttrib(); glPopMatrix(); } void bsPaint_Fill(bsPaint * paint, bsSingle x, bsSingle y, bsSingle width, bsSingle height) { if (paint && paint->flags & BS_PAINT_FLAG_COMPLETE) { GLenum drawMode; bsMatrix scale, translation, final; glPushMatrix(); bsMatrix_CreateScale(&scale, width, height, 1); bsMatrix_CreateTranslation(&translation, x, y, 0); bsMatrix_Multiply(&translation, &scale, &final); glMultMatrixf(final.matrix); glPushAttrib(GL_LIGHTING_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT | GL_TEXTURE_BIT | GL_STENCIL_BUFFER_BIT); glShadeModel(GL_SMOOTH); glDepthMask(bsFalse); glDepthFunc(GL_ALWAYS); glStencilOp(GL_KEEP, GL_ZERO, GL_ZERO); glStencilFunc(GL_EQUAL, 1, 1); glPushClientAttrib(GL_CLIENT_VERTEX_ARRAY_BIT); glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); glEnableClientState(GL_COLOR_ARRAY); glEnableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); if (paint->paintMode == BS_PAINT_MODE_TEXTURED || paint->paintMode == BS_PAINT_MODE_TEXTURED_TINTED) { glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, paint->texture); glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D); } glVertexPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, sizeof(bsPaintVertex), &paint->cache->vertices[0].x); glTexCoordPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, sizeof(bsPaintVertex), &paint->cache->vertices[0].u); glColorPointer(4, GL_FLOAT, sizeof(bsPaintVertex), &paint->cache->vertices[0].r); if (paint->paintMode == BS_PAINT_MODE_RADIAL_GRADIENT) drawMode = GL_TRIANGLES; else drawMode = GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP; glDrawElements(drawMode, paint->cache->indexCount, GL_UNSIGNED_SHORT, paint->cache->indices); glPopClientAttrib(); glPopAttrib(); glPopMatrix(); } } It's not the whole bunch of code obviously, but enough to give an idea of what I'm doing. This is the output: So, what tricks have you done?

C# is a pain in the ass to use with other operating systems. Java is made to run anywhere - it's basically unbeatable for cross platform development. Without arguing the other merits of C# over Java, for this specific situation it's a no contest until Microsoft takes a genuine interest in making their technologies portable. I also keep hearing about the "many advantages" of C# over Java, but I've never seen them. I haven't a huge amount of experience with the language but I've never felt hindered by using Java nor enabled by using C#. Perhaps you can enlighten me? It's not really that hard to use with other operating systems. Unless you use tons of features unsupported by Mono (e.g. bleeding edge or Windows-specific aspects), there's no reason your application can't run in Windows, Linux, iDevices, and even on the Wii / PS3 if you so desire (kind of off-topic there, but Mono runs on the Wii and PS3 if you have access to the development kits). In fact, I have developed a game framework that uses the Allegro game programming library for device creation, etc and OpenGL for graphics and it runs fine on Linux and Windows. No hitches. C# by itself is as portable as portable can be. Many people seem to confuse C# with the .NET Framework, of which the latter is less portable. As long as you don't use Windows-only features, your program will not break. System.Windows.Forms is kind of Windows-only as far as I can tell. In any case, basic system-agnostic programs can run on just about any platform. This goes for just about every language (C/C++, C#, Java, etc). The features of C# over Java are many. Some of them are personal (e.g. I prefer the .NET framework over the standard Java libraries). Some of them are technical (you can't write an OpenGL wrapper in pure Java I'm pretty sure, but you can in C#). I am one who feels hindered by using Java and its many idiosyncrasies. That's why I choose not to use the language. Here are some of the reasons I much prefer C# over Java (mind you I come from a C background and usually program at a lower level than most of those who use Java, so this is a biased list; for a better one, search the internet): Unsafe code. You can use pointers and other forms of unsafe code directly in C#. This limits portability if done improperly, but otherwise lets you use existing libraries (such as OpenGL and Allegro) to a much better extent and without having to write at a lower level. Properties. I absolutely can't stand OOP languages without something like this. D and C# have them and they're a great asset. Typing foo.setBar(foo.getBar() + 1) is absolutely annoying. Required exception handling. That's absurd in Java (has it changed or am I misinterpreting it?). I shouldn't be required to individually handle exceptions when I'm probably just going to throw them back up the chain. Partial types. Good for GUI code. Better event handling and delegates. Better generics support. etc etc. That's just a few off the top of my head and from reading a website or two.

Problem with that is that Java is not as nice as C# in my humble opinion. This is because C# has far more syntactic sugar than Java. But I digress. For C#, Mono allows you to "write once and run everywhere" if by everywhere you're targeting mainstream UNIX and Windows and by write once you mean write the code and recompile for the platforms. There's GTK# if you don't want System.Windows.Forms. GTK# is pretty nice for its targets, but it's not the prettiest. C++ has no good pure-C++ GUI library by the way. wxWidgets is shoddy, QT is nice and all but it depends too much on a preprocessing command. GTK is for C, and is kind of nice as far as C APIs go, but not sure if it has a C++ wrapper or such (at least a stable, tried-and-tested one). C++ is a horrible language anyway for this purpose, and you'll have to have you end-user install the Visual C runtime nonetheless.

This is the wrong game for you, which you seem to have already identified. There are plenty of games that don't require work to be good at, but generally level-based RPGs won't be among them. I understand that this is not quite the right game for me, but nonetheless, after the grind hit in the only thing that kept me going were quests. I've since abandoned the idea of a quest cape (as in: having done all quests that compliment the lore of RuneScape, not as in: I want the blue cape) simply because I'm bored of the game, but I still like the lore.

I don't care about X level content. In fact, any way it's done I don't like it for the simple fact that you have to grind to do it (unless it's level 1 of course). That is not my idea of fun. I prefer quests, and if they started requiring level 90+ stats, I'd be sad because I miss out on an aspect of RuneScape I like (lore) due to some high levels (minority) wanting it that way. Since I can't stand grind, I'm not going to go through with it just to do a quest. Oh well. Not like I play much anymore, so it doesn't really matter... (My opinion is that quests should be reserved for those who like lore [such as me], and not so much having high requirements. Leave things with 90+ stat requirements to skills/minigames/etc, and keep it out of quests. Having level 99 strength won't help you understand how the Mahjarrats' ritual works. Nor will it help you do a puzzle [gimmicks like "you need 92 strength to move this boulder are simply lame and unimaginative]. Quests should be the part of RuneScape that use your brain, not your clicking-on-a-tree ability; elite doesn't only mean "skills" in so much as it can involve puzzles, boss difficulty, etc).

Interesting bug. Hopefully publicly release it will push Jagex to fix is quicker. And as far as those who "don't care," this has an impact on the F2P community. Regardless of your opinion on them, this isn't fair in any way. They should not be forced to deal with the overpowered potential of overloads. Imagine if people could one hit bosses, such as the long-fixed knife bug, if they had say some obscure quest item equipped that you no longer possess/are able to get...you'd be screaming "fix it," I'm sure. Because, y'know, it affects you. Lack of empathy ain't a cool thing.

One could say the same about free trade. Or Lumbridge. Or just about any aspect of RuneScape. In fact, does scamming not still exist, in the form of price manipulation clans (no need to reply to this question)? I used to PK back in the days of yore, when the Wilderness was a PK area, but so did I do clues, and killed green dragons, and went to the KBD, etc etc. All of these were generally dangerous back then, but now I can walk through the wilderness without even worrying if I'll die, and consequently, I risk a relatively large some (to me) just doing clues there.

I am saddened to see no one mentioned the Zune HD...

I use butterflies. Seriously though, Visual Studio for C# and for debugging C/C++ stuff, command line for C/C++ stuff that doesn't need debugged.

Dev-C++ has an atrocious build system. Use Visual Studio 2010 Express or Code::Blocks; basically, anything else. Dev-C++ probably doesn't think your code is updated and doesn't rebuild.

So I've been getting back into Pokemon, and just recently (i.e., yesterday) caught an almost perfect Dialga. It has a careful nature (it's supposed to be a defensive Dialga, so that works out great) and has the IVs 30 HP / 31 Attack / 30 defence / 12 Special Attack / 31 special defense / 30 speed. Probably one of the best Dialga there is with a careful nature. It also works out perfectly as per Smogon's Bulk Up Dialga set. I also have good, but less than perfect, Azelf with HP Ground with 70 power. It has flawless attack and speed and 30 Special Attack IVs. The other stats are more lackluster, but have fun getting a flawless HP Ground Azelf! I caught this one in January when I was bored, so yea. At the moment I'm working on a flawless Jolly Garchomp with Outrage. Almost there; have the perfect parents, though the mother has an Adamant nature so I have to keep trying to get a Jolly egg. This one I'm going to duplicate and give to a friend.

Norton is actually considerably better than it was 7 years ago. They've caught up in the game once again. Their scanner is very light-weight compared to most others. I use Microsoft Security Essentials, but I used Nod32 before my subscription expired.

I'm wondering how much a maple longbow with sight is on the "Kept on Death" interface. Hopefully it's worth more than like 2,000 gp...

It's too late I guess, since you bought a DS Lite, but the DSi is incredible. I have owned one of each iteration, and I'd put them in order from best to worst as DSi, original, and lite. My original DS is fully functioning and works like a charm. The only problems are that the label on the bottom has worn off (it was a launch-day DS by the way) and that the battery only lasts about 30 minutes. My DS lite soon broke its hinge (not that it broke off; it just swings open too easily now), and my brother's DS lite has problems with the "L" shoulder button. The DSi, on the other hand, is just wonderful. It may get less battery life on the default brightness setting, but I can play on it for 5+ hours at a time from games on my AceKard 2i, homebrew or otherwise (which tend to drain the battery more than a normal cartridge because it has to go through the MicroSD card).