GregorDGrim

I like it! 8-)

That must be a great feeling of accomplishment, knowing that every item in that large bank was obtained solely through your own efforts. Nice job!

My last session was almost all about Dungeoneering. While I'm still somewhat of a completionist, constantly being distracted by that plant growing in the corner, or that tree growing up against the wall, I managed to resist temptation on multiple occasions and get through the floors more quickly. I'm still enjoying soloing; really, unless you have a friend of a comparable level, who is going to want to have a level 40-ish noob tagging along? I completed five small floors (10-14, my second time through) on complexity six. The most difficult boss for me was the hobgoblin geomancer, because I forgot to go in with a bow so I kept having to wait out the 'freeze in place' spells it cast on me as it teleported to another part of the room. To'kash the Bloodchiller? My blood flowed warm. Icy Bones? Didn't even drop icicles on my head once. Bulwark Beast? A cinch (twice). I died once during the five floors, to a fairly high-level zombie who caught me out of food and not paying close enough attention. I averaged about 27 minutes per floor on floors 10 through 12, then quickened my pace and completed floor 13 in 18 minutes and 14 in 20 minutes. DG experience is low for me currently, as my prestige is only 19, but I did manage to snag decent amounts of other experience (primarily combat, mining/smithing and fishing/cooking). For the session, I leveled dungeoneering twice (to 43) and mining (to 52). After leaving Daemonheim I chopped ivy for a while south of Falador, passing the 2.5 million experience mark in woodcutting: [spoiler=Insert Clever Caption Here] Total levels = 1,240

Thanks, I fixed it now Your percentage totals add up to 107.65%. That's why your end numbers didn't come out right.

November Update Thanks to two vacations, a busy schedule during the rest of the month, and the release of Skyrim, I had much less opportunity to play in November than in the prior two months. I love looking at various statistics, but since Jagex nuked the ability to see how many days/hours I've played, I am unable to track any time-related stats. That's lousy. Here's a short summary of Gregor's progress: 633K experience points (just under 6.5 million total) and 22 levels (1,235 total as of November 30) 4 - levels earned crafting (spinning flax into bowstrings) 3 - levels each in cooking and fishing. I've switched from lobsters to fly fishing in peaceful solitude north of Seers' Village. 237,000 - experience earned fletching, which resulted in two levels. 2.5 million - 5K more than the total experience I have earned in woodcutting. 189K for the month and a level. 2 - levels each in farming and construction. 1 - level each in summoning, runecrafting (finally!), herblore, prayer and magic. 0 - experience earned fighting during the month. I was a complete pacifist. 3 - quests completed (well short of my goal of a dozen). Completed Dwarf Cannon and Plague City on the 28th. I did spend some time this morning stealing a seed-load off the master farmer in Draynor, and leveled thieving twice (to 47). I believe that I've mentioned this before, but failing a pickpocket attempt may be the most frustrating event in Runescape. Failing it three or four times consecutively is enough to result in muttered expletives. I despise failing at this skill. Goals for December - complete at least 10 quests, hit 7.5 million total experience, reach level 60 in strength (level 57 now) Total levels = 1,237

My favorite section of the Green interview:

I had a free day yesterday, and used a good portion of it getting Gregor D'Grim some levels. What I spent time on was not picture-worthy; hence, a fairly short bullet-point summary of my accomplishments, along with a few comments. In mostly chronological order: Cooked the raw trout and salmon that was in my bank, in Catherby (level 62) Traveled to the quiet lake north of Seers' Village and fly-fished for more salmon and trout (level 61) Fletched the remainder of the 2,000 maple logs I had in my bank, into longbows (level 72) Left the small clan I was in. It had become inactive, and the citadel shut down during my vacation. I probably will look for a largish clan to join. Purchased 2000 flax and crafted bowstrings in Lumbridge (levels 46-49). That took a while. Considered stringing the bows, but decided to go for profit and sold the strings and unfinished bows separately. This was more profitable than alching the bows, given the increase in nature rune prices. I grossed about $710K from the deals, which translated to about a half million gold profit. Wasted about 100K of that profit making marrentill tar. Stupid herblore idea (level 39). Man, this skill is expensive. Bought 2,000 more maple logs and fletched them (level 73). I also hit 1 million experience in the skill, making it my 2nd with that amount (woodcutting). High alched some of the unfinished maple longbows (level 64) and sold the rest. Made back the profit I lost on herblore. So, about the website changes: I spend little time on the website, outside of the adventurer logs and highscores, so most of the changes meant almost nothing to me. I, like most others, think that removing retired/inactive and free-to-play players from the highscores list is a bad idea. While I liked moving up 700,000(!) ranks in total levels, it seems like a much better way to have handled this would have been to keep the all-time lists, and create an active list for members. That's what Major League Baseball does, and it preserves the history of the game while still giving current players a great idea of where they rank among those who still participate. I am most frustrated, however, with the removal of 'time played' from the Adventurer's Log. As you know from my monthly recaps, I use that statistic in a number of different ways to see how well I've been doing, and I really value that statistic. Now, there's no way to see how efficient I've been over a certain time frame, or if I've been improving. For the session, I gained 10 levels and just over 200K total experience. Total levels = 1,235

Am I just not seeing where it is, or did they remove the 'days/hours' played from my Adventurer's Log? If it's the latter, that truly sucks. I enjoy keeping various time-related stats, and not being able to track them any longer is frustrating.

I went up 700,000 ranks. Not bad for an hour's work fishing and cooking.

I found myself with a bit of free time, so I logged in for the first time in two weeks and worked on some skills. I fletched 1,000 maple logs into longbows, did some salmon/trout fishing north of Seers' Village, and then cooked a bunch of that fish in Catherby. I also was pulled away for a lame random event (tagging glowing pillars), using the experience lamp on runecrafting(!) and earning my first level in that skill (level 31) since the commencement of this blog. That's really all I had time to accomplish during this session. Hopefully some more time soon to play. Total levels = 1,225

Seems like they could do exactly what Major League Baseball does - there are career leaderboards, including everyone who has ever played, and active leaderboards. That allows for comparison to the all-time best, as well as figuring out who the best current players are.

Does 'B' mean 'million'? If so, then I support.

Thanks for the bump, swedishboy. My RS time will be limited for a while as my schedule is packed between now and the end of the year.

Super short blog entry - I chopped wood in my clan citadel, and a bunch of ivy on the Falador wall, getting about 117K experience and reaching level 82. What can I say? I was busy. Looks like this will be my last session for the next nine days - heading off on vacation. Hopefully the bots stay away and you all get lots of good experience! Total levels = 1,224

Nice work on the dungeoneering. About how many hours did all those recent levels take? Also, do you have regular DG teammates, or do you mostly wind up on random teams?

I love reading posts like your strategy one. It's well-thought out, and it's broken into enough steps that you'll be able to celebrate a lot of different achievements along the way. Great job!

That's really lousy. I'm happy that you're not letting it deter you in your quest for Runescape glory!

Thanks...by the way, after looking again at your levels I realize why you are teasing me about training runecrafting.

This

I pledge will try to remember to train runecrafting during November. Yesterday was the day to try a new fishing spot. I've been reading that fly-fishing gives better experience than lobster trapping, because inventories get filled much more quickly which offsets the lower experience per catch. I had the rod, but needed feathers, so I bought 3,000 of them from the Grand Exchange. Apparently there's decent money in chicken plucking. Shilo Village is the fly-fisherman's paradise, but I haven't completed the quest to allow access into that area, so I decided to check out the lake north of Seers' Village. It is both a lovely and lonely spot, so much more peaceful than the bustling area in Catherby. During my time there I ran into other people only while banking my catches of salmon and trout; a lone highwayman was the only one available with whom to strike up a conversation while casting: [spoiler=What Exactly Did I Say to the Highwayman, Anyway?] I spent awhile in solitude, and leveled fishing twice (to 60): [spoiler=Here, Fishy Fishy Fishy] After reaching that point, I had worked up an appetite. An appetite for fish! I traveled to Catherby because I like the proximity of the cooking range to the bank, and it's a familiar location to me. Cooking all of that fish resulted in leveling twice (to 61): [spoiler=This Looks Just Like My Level 55 Cooking Pic] While traveling between cities, I also managed a couple of farming runs, harvesting and planting tomatoes, leading to level 32 in that skill. To get started on my questing goal for the month, I decided to try Spirit of Summer, mainly because of the nice experience I could earn in some of my lowest-level skills. This quest was interesting, and I felt as though I was doing something very valuable for the spirits who had been tormented for hundreds of years by this foul beast: [spoiler=Evil Beast Dragon, Or Fluffy Bunny?] I was happy to help little Summer Bonde, although according to the elder spirits, I had made a mistake in trapping the beast. "This is only going to make it stronger!" Whine, whine, whine. Only the girl was grateful, so she is the only one whose name I cared to remember. I just may need to assist her again in the future, though. If the rewards are as sweet, I'll be eager to do so: [spoiler=The Summer Experience] Just over 15K in experience rewards, but because of the particular skills in which the reward was given I leveled five times: levels 41 and 42 in construction, level 33 in farming, level 31 in summoning and level 40 in prayer: [spoiler=Praying For More Summer] My overall combat level also increased to 72 at the conclusion of this quest. Ten levels on the day, and some advertising of my blog. I'm confident that highwaymen readership of this journal will skyrocket. Total levels = 1,223

October Summary Since I'm a big fan of statistics, here's a mostly numerical summary of Gregor's progress during October: Total experience earned = 1.694 million. I am listing that to three places only because I beat my September total by 3,000 experience. Total experience just over 5.8 million. Levels gained = 61. Hours played = 54. Very consistent with last month, when I had 57 hours of game time. Brings my total to 314 hours. Experience per hour = 31,370, slightly higher than September's 29,667. It means I did a lot of woodcutting in October. Total exp/hr for Gregor since inception is just over 18,500. Breakdown of levels earned during the month: Farming - 11. Not much experience, but finally got this skill (the last one) to level 30. Magic - 8. 234K was third most in any skill, and the vast majority of it was via high alching. Summoning - 7. The other sub-30 skill prior to the month, I accomplished most of this in one shot, burning through all my gold, green and crimson charms. Woodcutting - 5. Chopping ivy and yew, earned nearly 900K during the month, and passed my son who has been at level 80 for a long time. Slayer, Fletching - 4. Leveled both the same amount, but earned 23 times more experience fletching. I'm getting to like slaying, though. Strength, Ranged - 3. Had just a few sessions focused on these two skills, mostly while slaying. Construction - 3. Earned these on the last day of the month, got me the butler. Fishing, Cooking - 3. These two have gone together for a long time. Catherby, anyone? Constitution - 2. When focusing on skilling more than fighting, not going to level this much. Attack, Defense, Prayer - 1. Am I really meant to be a skiller? Dungeoneering, Smithing - 1. Got both of these yesterday in Daemonheim. Crafting, Firemaking, Mining, Herblore, Agility, Thieving, Runecraft, Hunting - 0. I basically ignored all of these. Two months without a single runecrafting level. [spoiler=21% Of The Way To Non-Noob Status?] My main goal for November is to complete a bunch of quests. There are 57 that I've qualified for but haven't completed yet; I'd like to do at least a dozen. I'll be on vacation away from the computer for at least 10 days during the month, however, so play time is unpredictable. Thank you very much for all of the page views!

I wrapped up October with a good session, starting with the sale of lobsters and yew logs that I had accumulated. That left me with more than 1.6 million gold in the bank, the highest amount I've ever had. While peering through the tabs in my bank, the ring of Daemonheim beckoned, so it was off for some dungeoneering. I spent about two hours clearing three floors (7-9), focusing on skilling as well as getting through the dungeon. The rooms seemed to have an inordinate amount of puzzles, including three instances of the pondskaters, two of them in a row on floor 8. The most difficult boss on the three floors was Planefreezer Lakhrah...Lakhrah...something; I can't read my notes. I leveled dungeoneering (to 41) and smithing (to 42) while poking around. After resurfacing, I was pining for the comforts of home, so I decided to buy oak planks and build some items in my workshop. Since gold tends to burn a hole in my pocket, I purchased 200K worth of planks (less than 500 - this sure is an expensive skill to train) and built flatpacks of carved oak tables and chairs. That got me levels 38, 39 and 40 in construction: [spoiler=The Oakcidental Leveler] Level 40 construction was a goal of mine because I really wanted a butler. Tea service and plank delivery - really, could one ask for any more from the help? First I had to add a bed to the second bedroom so that he would have somewhere to sleep. After that was completed, I traveled to Ardougne and hired my guy: [spoiler=Billy Bob Butler] I was also happy to reach level 40 construction because it made me eligible to take on the Spirit of Summer quest. With the experience rewards and access to the Spirit Portals, this is one quest that jumped near the top of my to-do list. I finished the session with some tomato planting and some ivy chopping, but no additional levels. Total levels = 1,213

Chop Chop Chop That was my entire session. I started in the clan citadel, chopping 500 resources at the plot. After charging the clan ring, I went to my favorite ivy spot and chopped until the benefits of the ring wore off. Experience adds up quickly when I'm getting 499 experience per ivy. Since it's a good moneymaker, the three yew trees south of Falador were last on my list. Two bird nests dropped within a one-minute span: [spoiler=Poor Widdle Birdies] One of the nests contained a seed worth about 10,000 coins, so that was a very profitable minute. I also had a random event, called away to take part in the "Odd One Out" quiz show. For the first time that I can remember, an experience lamp was not offered as one of the rewards, so I took two gold charms instead. All in all, I earned some decent money through nests and yews, and leveled woodcutting to 81. Total levels = 1,208

Two Milestones In One Day Fresh off reaching level 30 in summoning, I decided to do the same in farming. Farming was the last skill I had under level 30, which was an important number to me because Runetrack captures statistics only for those skills at least that level. So, with one more review of the farming guides, I set off, using the following strategy: Plant marigolds at plots near Draynor/Falador, Catherby, and NE Ardougne Once the marigolds bloomed, plant tomatoes in the allotments in all three locations. Continue replanting tomatoes until level 30. Don't pick the marigolds. While waiting, play Vinesweeper or do some fishing/cooking in Catherby. I quickly hit levels 25 and 26. Achieving level 26 resulted in hitting my first milestone of the day: [spoiler=1,200 Total Levels] I paused from my manual labor and patted the sweat from my brow, proud of what I had achieved in a short time. A realization struck me, however: 20% of the Second Thousand levels did not mean 20% of the total time required. More like 3-5%, I think. I have such a long, long way to go, but I plan to enjoy the trip. After my reflection period, I continued farming and knocked out levels 27-29 easily. At level 29 I also planted some harralander herb seeds, which I was more hesitant about doing since there does not appear to be any method available to prevent them becoming diseased. Of course, two of the three did get sick, but I was able to treat them in time. Finally, after doing my best to mostly ignore farming during my brief RS career, I reached level 30: [spoiler=Old McGregor Had A Farm] Since I was having so much fun, I planted another set of crops and managed to level both fishing (to 58) and cooking (to 59) while waiting in Catherby. There were a lot of fishermen on the shore, and they were a bunch of chatterboxes. I assume they were reveling in the fact that everyone there was not a bot. With my final harvest of the evening, I leveled farming one more time (to 31). Total levels = 1,207

Nice work. How much bonus experience were you able to get? I like your strategy of raising skills evenly. It does tend to minimize the 'grind' feel of the game.