Glove

I don't really want to drag this topic out further, but the implications of some of the arguments are a bit disturbing. While the OP was inarticulate and brash in her presentation of her arguments, I believe what she was getting at was that privilege can blind people to the reality of what different people face. Here is a short definition of privilege as used in the context above quoted from another source: "Privilege is: About how society accommodates you. Its about advantages you have that you think are normal. Its about you being normal, and others being the deviation from normal. Its about fate dealing from the bottom of the deck on your behalf." Privilege can exist in the context of gender (i.e. male privilege), class, race and other aspects that make up an individual as part of differing groups in society. Privilege is afforded to groups of people (i.e. the wealthy), and thus often difficult for an individual to perceive their own privilege because that privilege is the norm for them and is often the norm for the people who surround them. Also, disadvantage in one are does not cancel out privilege in another (i.e. if a man were poor he would have the disadvantages associated with that socio-economic class, but he would still have the privileges that come with being male). Obviously, everyone faces hardships in their life, the problem is that the hardships of groups without privilege are often dismissed, swept aside or otherwise invalidated; especially as told by a person within that disadvantaged group. Anyway, I won't be reading or posting on this thread further, so if you have a question or a criticism about what I've just posted, feel free to continue this through PM.

Man, I remember the very first time I had a floor with Thunderous. I was in a random team with a lvl 100+ dunger, and rather than just soloing Thunderous himself, he took the time to teach me and another person how to do it ourselves. I didn't solo Thunderous well after that; it took me a few times doing it largely on my own to get the hang of it, but that mentoring the first time laid a foundation that was invaluable. Even after I failed miserably the first few times I tried soloing or duoing Thunderous myself, I always felt like I'd get the hang of it eventually because I had done it before successfully. The whole road from when I started teaming large dunges (I soloed dunge until lvl 74 or 75) to reaching my goal of lvl 100 dunge was built on moments of either someone taking a second to mentor me, or me dying and learning through the school of hard knocks. There's no way to avoid some of those hard knock lessons, but a lot of them can be avoided (or simply not repeated more than once or twice) if you have a mentor giving you advice and teaching you how to do it. Dunge is one of those skills where it absolutely helps to have a mentor because there's only so much you can learn from guides; you need hands on experience, and watching someone in the moment, having someone there who you can ask things when something comes up, is just invaluable. So, awesome job guys. Right now I'm on a break from dunge until I get 99 def and most likely until I get a few more goal levels in other skills, but as soon I'm back in the swing of things I'll be more than happy to help mentor. My keying needs some work, but I can always be a second set of hands to help teach the ins and outs of team dunging to people new to it. EDIT: On the topic of 60 min floors vs. 20 min floors, there's actually a very practical reason why a lot of dungers prefer faster floors, especially when teaming, that has nothing to do with exp/hour (although, admittedly, that is a nice bonus and probably the reason most people would cite first). A lot of teams have at least one random person who is a complete stranger to everyone else on the team. This leaves a large amount of space for personality conflicts to come into play, and the longer the floor goes on the more chance there is for people to blow up and either quit or do something else spiteful that ultimately only hurts the team. Most people can grin and bear someone that annoys them (or does things that annoy them) for twenty minutes, but an hour is pushing it. Just a caveat, I'm not saying that most players don't worship at the altar of exp/h. They do. Most dungers do. I'm just saying that there are other, equally valid reasons that someone would want to do floors quickly; and the complexity of team play with strangers is definitely one of them.

I'm a skiller and I don't flip so I don't often have large sums of money at my fingertips, but I've noticed a difference. I had a blue drags task today and half the people there were leaving the skins on the ground and just going for the bones; admittedly, I was too. It was something I would absolutely never do normally, but frost dbone prices have been ridiculous lately so it didn't feel nearly as stupid to leave 2.5k on the ground as it usually would. That's the thing of it, with all the money being thrown around it feels bit endless. Like who cares about the loss right now if there's a prospect for a greater gain in the future? I'm worried though. People can throw more money than ever at whatever problem they see, or whatever end they want to accomplish. I'm worried I'm going to get priced out of the market for some buyable skills, like herblore. I mean, I could always just go back to super splunking, but I have goals I want to meet in a somewhat timely manner.

People paying to leech dunge? Great, as if there weren't enough people with no clue what they're supposed to be doing. I soloed 1-75ish dunge and sucked hardcore when I finally started teaming with people because I had all sorts of habits that just didn't mesh with rushing and team play. Still, at least I knew some of the basic mechanics. If someone leeched from 1-85 and then decided they wanted to start actually dunging for whatever reason, they would know nothing about how dunging works at all. Sure, there are vids and guides, but the best way to learn is to do; and, a key component to dunging cannot be taught in a vid or a guide. In dunge you've got to learn to work and communicate with strangers who will likely irk you at some point and have styles of play and communication that differ from yours; you absolutely only learn to handle this in a dunge setting by actually doing floors. Yeah, this is me hoping that should free trade get reintroduced to RS this never takes hold. Luckily, it probably won't for a variety of reasons.

Charm sprites do always give a charm slice, it's just that it can be one of four colours. It just takes too many slices per charm to be even a halfway decent method of collecting charms (or even very helpful in collecting charms at all). It's not super unbalanced, but it could be much better without making it overpowered; if it were even lowered to five slices per charm with would be more viable (although I think ideally it would be more like two or three slices per charm). It still wouldn't compete with most combat options for collecting charms, but it would be a decent compromise in hunter xp/hour and charms/hour for someone interested in getting both at the same time. Wrong. They do NOT always give a charm slice. I was getting slices at bout 3 slices per 5 captures. I stand corrected then. I didn't notice that the ratio of captures to slices was less than 1:1, but I guess I wasn't paying close enough attention.

Charm sprites do always give a charm slice, it's just that it can be one of four colours. It just takes too many slices per charm to be even a halfway decent method of collecting charms (or even very helpful in collecting charms at all). It's not super unbalanced, but it could be much better without making it overpowered; if it were even lowered to five slices per charm with would be more viable (although I think ideally it would be more like two or three slices per charm). It still wouldn't compete with most combat options for collecting charms, but it would be a decent compromise in hunter xp/hour and charms/hour for someone interested in getting both at the same time.

Yeah, so far it's not great charms and it isn't excellent hunting xp (it is decent xp though), but I'm having a lot of fun actually doing it. I'll probably stick with it because it's more fun (and more interactive without being mind numbing) than the other ways of training hunter I've tried in the past.

I'm kind of getting mad that so many of the NPCs end up dying too. It's starting to feel gimmicky and lame. I actually really liked Korasi and Jessika and I didn't want to choose either of them. I wish the third option had actually been an option (along with the other two); I think that would have actually had more of an emotional impact and would have made the player think more about what they were choosing (i.e. sacrifice a friend while trying to divert a disaster, or go ahead and be the direct catalyst for a disaster so you can save both friends). Missed chance to have a bigger moral dilemma. Bah. Plus, I'm also going to miss how subtexty those two were together. Sigh.

No, you don't; but implying you know more about writing and are a better writer than other people leaves you open to people asking for evidence of it. I'm sorry, I don't just take people's word for it. I like to be able to judge things for myself and come to my own conclusions. His statements made me curious, so I asked. I could not find any examples of his writing on my own, so I asked for them. I'm not joking or trying to make a personal attack, I'm being completely honest and sincere without judgment (which I know can be difficult to tell in text, so I want to be clear about that). And in case anyone is wondering, I'm not friends with Racheya or anyone on the Tip.It Times staff. I'm not affiliated with anyone who runs Tip.It; I was in Das' clan for a time, but that was some time ago. I have little to no personal investment in this, aside from being a person who dislikes when source material is skewed and misinterpreted in arguments. I will admit I'm not adverse to disagreeing with people and communicating my own point of view. EDIT: Just to be entirely clear what prompted me to ask for credentials or writing samples, as I've realized some people are assuming I'm asking in response to Stonewall's comments about Racheya's article. It was actually nothing to do with Racheya's article or Stonewall's response to it, rather it was this comment made in response to jp7725's rebuttal of his points. Stonewall is stating what he believes jp knows about writing, I would like to know what Stonewall knows about writing. That's all.

You've made a number of claims about other people's knowledge of and ability to write, can you please explain to me what makes you eminently qualified to judge that? If you have a sample of your own writing that I can read, I would appreciate that as well. I would be willing to do the same for you if you like. Lol at you guys jumping Stone, you don't see me waltzing to the reviews section of a major newspaper, magazine, or any publisher and asking them for their credentials or previous work.... I'm not trying to 'jump' on him, I'm asking him because he's making statements about other people's abilities and I have no means of judging his own (aside from his posts, which don't provide a big enough sample). People don't generally ask for samples from professional writers for samples of their work because it's generally pretty easy to find some. If someone has written a review, I have something I can read and decide for myself whether or not I trust the judgment of the person. He's questioned other people's ability to write and knowledge of writing, and in turn I'm questioning his. He's free to question mine in response, I'm not asking for anything I would not willingly provide in turn.

You've made a number of claims about other people's knowledge of and ability to write, can you please explain to me what makes you eminently qualified to judge that? If you have a sample of your own writing that I can read, I would appreciate that as well. I would be willing to do the same for you if you like.

One of the quotes you picked out has the phrase 'I think' in it. She uses the phrase four times in the article, and uses 'I' no less than twelve times. Even when she uses 'we' it's in an editorial 'we' context. That's substantial considering the article is only a bit over a thousand words long. 'Many people' doesn't necessarily speak for others, it just means that's what she thinks many people do, believe and enjoy; it says a lot more about her than anyone else. "I think that many players believe X"? Whatever. Same thing. You're still saying many players believe X. No, it's not the same thing. One is stated as though it's fact, the other is clearly stated as though opinion. Considering the context of how the article is delivered, 'I think' is implied pretty well every time she uses 'many people' (or 'many players,' whichever she actually uses in the article). Stating 'I think' clearly indicates to the reader that something isn't just based on facts; that's why professors eat you alive if you use it in an academic essay. Using 'I' implies the same thing. Yeah, that's what I said. It implies that she's laid out where everyone else stands and is, at the end, saying what she thinks. Um, no. I honestly can't tell if you're deliberately misinterpreting my words, but what I'm saying is that she's laying out what she thinks the situation is for the entire article; meaning that the entire article is comprised on her own thoughts on things, even when these thoughts are about what others may think of things. The entire thing is her interpretation of a situation, a set of ideas surrounding a topic within the community; then she comes to a conclusion about that situation. Yes, she lays out what she believes is generally where people stand, but that doesn't mean she's laying it out as fact (immutable, without question); she lays it out as her opinion. She then gives her conclusion about it, which is still her opinion. The shift from interpreting to coming to a conclusion doesn't change that it's her opinion.

One of the quotes you picked out has the phrase 'I think' in it. She uses the phrase four times in the article, and uses 'I' no less than twelve times. Even when she uses 'we' it's in an editorial 'we' context. That's substantial considering the article is only a bit over a thousand words long. 'Many people' doesn't necessarily speak for others, it just means that's what she thinks many people do, believe and enjoy; it says a lot more about her than anyone else. The closing paragraph which contains "And where do I stand on this matter?" doesn't imply that her opinion doesn't colour the rest of the article; rather I'd say it does the opposite, it reinforces that she has laid out the different sides of the issue as well as she can and is now offering up her final conclusion. I'm sorry, I just don't see how this could be anything other than opinion piece.

Except, like I said, she's writing as if she is representing the opinion of lots of different players. Sorry, was there a specific paragraph you're speaking of? I thought it was pretty clear it was all her own opinion, even the parts where she uses 'we' seem to be using the editorial 'we' (which, I hate on a stylistic basis, but that's neither here nor there).

I think I've laid out quite clearly why there might be a reason to have high requirements for a quest. Quite simply, if you have a narrative that requires a show of skill beyond that which a person could ordinarily show that it should correspond with a greater skill level demanded as a requirement to complete that narrative. I've also laid out some examples within mythology where skills unrelated to combat were needed to accomplish important tasks and finish quests. I've laid out my point of view in what I believe is a clear manner. I understand that we don't agree on a very basic level about what type of content should and should not be restricted by extreme level requirements. I believe that this is because I fundamentally believe that story that requires epic achievements and moments in which the hero must go beyond and produce extraordinary skill and ingenuity to respond to equally extraordinary circumstances should correlate to requiring extraordinary levels (which in Runescape equates to time spent leveling skills) from the player who wishes to play through those moments. Anything less would honestly be a bit of let down. It wouldn't be proportionate, and it would likely kill my suspension of disbelief. I believe it's reasonable for content creators to ask this from players from time to time; not often, not even semi-regularly, but from time to time. I don't think we're going to come to a consensus on this, so I'm just going to agree to disagree with you. I understand that you may not value or appreciate my reasoning, but please don't say it hasn't been said. If you think there is some point which could use further clarification or documentation, I would very much be happy to provide that as I have plenty of time on my hands today.

Er, who? If you're referring to me, photoshop.

I hope nobody minds if I jump in. [spoiler=My try:] My Ref, the ollioules tulip. I didn't try to copy it exactly, but tried to get the general shape and then do my own thing with the small details of the petals while still keeping it in line with an ollioules. I also chose to go with a pale orange for the base of the tulip (to contrast with the blue background), but I don't I think I went dark enough with the orange and then added too many red tones and ended up washing it out. The stem and leaf really ended up an afterthought. Ah well, I spent about two and half hours on it and I'm tired of fiddling with it. Constructive criticism would very much be welcome. :)

Theres no reason that magic fish couldnt be caught with 60 fishing. The fishing requirement is just there to make the quest "exclusive" and force people to grind for 100 hours if they want to do a quest. Anything past 90 is way excessive for the average player. A quest lover should be able to quests without excessive grinding. If jagex threw in a level 97 quest requirement, the quest lover would have to excessively grind. The grinding is there for those who want it, you can grind your way to 97 fishing all you want. But don't try and push your grind onto other players. If it were a legendary magic fish that many skilled fishermen had tried and failed to catch it would be entirely stupid for it to be caught with lvl 60 fishing. It just wouldn't be reasonable to believe that the pinnacle of fishing ability and skill in Runescape would be equated with lvl 60. If players don't want to grind they don't have to; you're absolutely right about that. That said, if you want to do a quest and you don't have the required levels then you can't do the quest. It's as simple as that. It's not you or me who decides quest requirements, it's Jagex; I'm not pushing any kind of grind (I've been playing RS for nine years and I only have four 99s, so I don't think I'm in danger of 'grinding' any time soon... I'm more the slow burn sort) on anyone. I'm just saying it wouldn't be unreasonable to have a quest at some point in the future that did have extremely high requirements. I think there could be reasons within the narrative of the quest for that high lvl requirement that evolved naturally from the tasks that needed to be accomplished. And, as I mentioned before, any avid quester understands a need to be well rounded in skills. I'm not exactly a fan of agility or hunting or construction or runecrafting, but I take my lumps and level them (slowly, to be sure) because I know a quest always comes that raises the level requirements beyond what they currently are. That's just the way it is. If a quest came out tomorrow that required lvl 90 hunter I wouldn't be able to do it (for a long, long time); but fair enough, I would work on my hunting lvl until I could do it at my own pace. Not everyone can do the elite diaries. I can't do most of the elite diaries. Does that mean they shouldn't exist? Things that are out of reach in the present just give people goals to shoot for; no one is forcing anyone to do everything in the game. People still get to decide what their goals are for themselves. A quest with extremely high lvl requirements wouldn't change that.

I'm not really sure why having high skill requirements for a quest would be such a bad thing. Any quester with half a brain knows to train all skills because you can never know exactly what a quest will throw at you in requirements; it's always been this way. I pretty much loathe agility, but I raised it for ME2 (and then kept raising it for fear of needing a higher agility lvl for another quest). That's just how it goes. Being able to assist req quest requirements would defeat the purpose. The quest throws a task your way and you get someone else to do it? Sure, there are plenty of quests in various mythologies that are tackled by a group of specialists (i.e. Jason and the Argonauts), but one of the main draws of Runescape is that it doesn't require you to specialize; you can choose to put those kinds of restraints on your gameplay, but it isn't at all mandatory. The Runescape type hero tends to be a hero in the sense of being generally more awesome at everything he or she tries than anyone else (that can be suckered into doing it anyway) like Lugh (who has about a billion epithets because he was the most awesomest at everything, literally). It's also not uncommon in mythology for heroes to require more than combat savvy to complete a quest. Odysseus (or Ulysses, whichever you prefer) relied on his wits to get out of the sticky situations he found himself in on his ten year voyage home; he strapped himself to the bottom of a sheep to sneak out of a blind cyclope's cave. What do you think, hunter rec for that? Maybe summoning and a little crafting? It's really not uncommon for heroes on quests in mythology to be required to perform strange tasks completely unrelated to actual combat. Fionn mac Cumhaill had to cook a salmon for this guy (he inadvertently got super powers during the task, I'm not even joking... seriously, Irish mythology is crazy/awesome like that). Arthur (in the original Welsh cycles) had to help his cousin Culhwch get the girl, which amounted to running around getting all sorts of things (including a brush and scissors big and strong enough to groom a giant's beard). Perseus had to steal the Graeae's eye long before he ever faced off against Medusa. Even Hercules, known for his brute strength and combat prowess, had to finish one of his labours by tricking Atlas rather than resorting to fighting. There are tons and tons of other examples from mythologies around the world of heroes having to resort to skills and tactics that don't at all rely on combat prowess to finish their quest and win the day. So there is a precedence within narratives revolving around heroism for non-combat skills to be important parts of the hero's journey and success, and that Runescape quests tend to exhibit that same attribute generally makes them better rather than worse. Is it annoying to have to gather up all sorts of items? Yes, but just read "How Culhwch Won Olwen" to feel better about exactly how short the list of stuff you have to gather is. Basically, I don't think a fishing requirement in the 90 range (although 97 is maybe a bit excessive... but then again, there is admiral pie) would be terrible for a quest where you had to catch a magic fish (for some reason or another).

Did you kill Nomad the first day the quest was out, or did you have the benefit of other people's experience? Because one definitely has the advantage over the other. Just like Fight Caves are easy --now. The first day they were out nobody could figure out how to beat them. It's easy to sit back after other people have figured out a general strategy and pooled together information that can help formulate strategies through their own trials and errors. So yes, unless you killed Nomad the first day (or with a reasonable lack of knowledge or strategy after the first day) I'm calling BS.

Uh, you get to choose which herbs it destroys. Harralander and below anyone? It wouldn't be super helpful, but it would be a nice bit of extra exp on aberrant spectre tasks.

But the gain is artificial. It's artificial because the economy for one material doesn't exist in a vacuum. Any money saved on one resource gets funneled into something else, raising the cost of more desirable items (i.e. dragon bones continue to rise in price because players have more disposable income, part of this disposable income comes from the price of fish and ore being driven down by bots). Unless you never level highly desired skills that require materials from gathering skills, you are affected by bots. As for the mass amounts of resources needed to fuel the player base, if there's a demand someone will fill it. I wouldn't worry about where the fish and logs and ore will come from to fuel hardcore players if bots get a severe blow in the future. And what about places like green dragons where legitimate players are continuously crowded out by bots? You can't argue that if there were few bots the supply of dragon bones would go down. You know those spaces would fill up in an instant with legitimate players. This is a zero sum game. Any tangible 'benefit' comes with an equal negative and we end up back at zero; except that there is less flexibility in play style, which hurts the diversity of the community. Also, I'll say this again: efficiency is subjective based on the goals and desired outcomes of the person evaluating whether or not a way of doing something is efficient. Believe it or not, sometimes convenience is absolutely a factor in efficiency; in fact, that's the whole principle convenience stores work on to turn a tidy profit. You're willing to pay more for the same candy bar at a convenience store than you would pay if you went to the grocery store because the convenience store is closer or on your way or just there when you have a sudden craving; it's a less efficient use of money, but a more efficient use of time. You have to decide which aspect is more important to you and you use that to base your analysis of efficiency on. So you can harp about there being more efficient ways to do something and you would be right, but you'd also be assuming you know which lens another person is viewing efficiency out of; can you see how that would lead to trouble? My example above was just one from my own personal experience, there are any number of reasons why people choose to do certain activities a certain way in Runescape. Just because we don't see the value in them doesn't mean we should feel good about potential benefits we gain from the erosion of their way of doing things by other people breaking the rules. I don't think either of us can actually predict what would happen to the price of goods if botters were erased from the face of Runescape; aside from that the short term lowering of supply would increase the demand (and thus the general price) of some items, which would most likely make them more attractive to collect to some segments of the player base (which would increase the supply and stabilize the demand and price). Beyond that, we have guesses. More importantly though, is what the threshold for making a item attractive to collect is (and for what portion of the player base?) because that's what really determines practical application of theory from intellectual speculation in this regard; it's the actual marker for what the overall harm caused by bots is. If the threshold is low, then that small increase you dismiss is important; if the threshold is higher then I'm getting in a tizzy over what is potentially a very small deal. The main point though is that if you level all skills (or most skills), it's likely any 'savings' you can chalk up to bots are negated to inflation of prices in other areas (which can also be linked back to bots).

I'm not buying that it's helpful or useful for bots to gather items for production skills because legitimate players ought to focus on other more 'efficient' methods of leveling and making money. Efficiency is actually more subjective than you think because the way a person weighs efficiency is based on their desired goals and outcomes. For example, I had to read The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimoore Cooper for a class; it is one of the worst books I have ever had the displeasure of reading. It as difficult to get through, but it had to be done. I got through it by accomplishing other goals on Runescape while I forced myself to read it. At the time I had a goal of raising my woodcutting level to 90 and amassing the gold I needed to reach level 90 prayer, so I cut yew logs; this allowed to read the book, work on my woodcutting and net a little profit towards my prayer goal all at the same time. For any one of those tasks taken in isolation, the route I chose was not the most efficient if you look at raw pages read per hour, experience gained per hour or gp gained per hour. But the goals didn't exist in isolation, it was an effective compromise of time and effort with rewards gained and goals worked towards. It was efficient for me in that situation. That's why I don't buy what you're selling. It's easy to spout raw data at people and declare one method better than another; but context is still important. Botters don't just hurt stupid skillers, they degrade things that were once viable options and conceivable compromises for legitimate players. There may be a short term benefit for some players in terms of driving some resources needed for production skills down in price, but botting has a larger negative effect on the community as a whole in that it limits players options as to how they can play the game with a sense of accomplishment and achievement.

I can make money because I have high skills, that's true. I also put in the time and effort to attain those high skills, that's also true. But I don't think bots lowering the profit threshold on gathering skills is good for anyone. Yes, it makes it easier and cheaper to buy resources for manufacturing skills... but it ultimately only increases the cost of highly sought after skills. The money 'saved' from buying cheaper resources that bots provide ends up driving up prices on more desired resources for other skills, like herbs for herblore and bones for prayer. Yeah, you save money on 99 fletching, but you're going to feel it when you go for 99 prayer. I'm not arguing that herblore and prayer wouldn't always cost more than other manufacturing skills; they would, they're perceived as far more useful in daily play than smithing or fletching or cooking. What I'm arguing is that any money that isn't being redistributed towards the lesser gathering skills is being funneled into higher end or more desired items, driving up their prices. So you save money in some areas, but end up losing money in others. This skewing of things is bad for the game because it kills diversity and diversity of experience and playing style is what has allowed a community to grow around the game and ultimately let the game thrive. I'm not saying bots are going to kill Runescape dead, but they have a bigger impact on the game than just the gp bottom line. There are aspects to this that cannot be measured in dollars and cents that are much harder to foster than a brimming bank account.

I can't wait to do the quest! I'm also wondering what the baby versions of the dragons look like now.