The Floating Pen

I think everyone is just waiting with bated breaths for that fateful moment. I have been following the thread for a looong time, then I took a break from reading through it. Now, I've come back and I see that S U O M I is on the cusp of the realization of his ambition. A truly amazing feat indeed.

Merry Christmas everyone! In hindsight, I should not have written a depressing article during the holiday seasons. Sorry about that. :P Thank you everyone for reading my articles, I have really enjoyed my time in the Editorial Panel. It's a great experience with great authors and editors. I look forward to writing for the Editorial Panel in 2013 as well!

What are the advantages of using a value such as "Productivity Ranking" over the commonly accepted values of "XP/Hour"?

Yes indeed, there are many unknowns. Obviously, a proper ranking cannot be assigned until after those updates are released, but I thought I would attempt to assign ratings according to what we know - they are essentially predictions regarding how the updates will be. Why is speculation harmful to the community? I would love it if you could elaborate on this point. Personally, I am of the opinion that speculation is by no means harmful and should be encouraged at times (building anticipation invites players to stick around).

Fill up your Costume room with every single item you can stuff in there. Stuff every pet possible into your Menagerie. Stock up on Effigies, Lamps, XP books, etc. and become the first one to 99 and 200M xp when new skills come out.

Too often, people dismiss an update before they even attempt to fully work out its intricacies and implications. Such is the current situation, for the Evolution of Combat has not even been released! With limited insights from Beta testing (which, I might add, is constantly subject to change and is far from the finished product which will ultimately be released), doomsayers do enjoy spreading their message of how the Evolution of Combat is not really an evolution but a degradation, an unwanted step towards other games, a destruction of the RuneScape we all know. Surely, negativity and skepticism have their places as the very instigators of philosophy and reasoning. Nevertheless, what worries me not is the refusal of these people to accept the incoming change. What worries me most is that their message will reach the ears and eyes of other players through their tirades and influence them to view the update with the same sort of negativity. The key difference is that the latter type of negativity is an induced negativity, thus subjugating those other players to the opinions of others. In other words, I fear that other players, manipulated by the caustic words of anti-progressive "old school" players, might eagerly believe the Evolution of Combat hate without first forming their own opinion! What I am trying to say is that negativity in this case is not merely to persuade Jagex or to express discontent with an update. This very negativity can poison the community and create an atmosphere of pervasive resistance to any sort of change. Ironically, this negativity had its origins in skepticism which dictates that an update should not be mindlessly accepted, but this negativity indirectly advocates that updates be mindlessly rejected. Which is worse: mindless acceptance or mindless rejection? Take your pick, I denounce both as narrow minded options. I disagree with the theme of this article because it portrays the community's reaction towards the Evolution of Combat as mourning, as an unwanted event. Why is this article about the five stages of grief rather than the five stages of happiness or excitement? While it is true that a part of the community (the vocal part, no less) will faithfully undergo the stages expertly described in Ts_Stormrage's article, there are yet others who view the update with anticipation and joy - these people are the ones who say "OMG Dual Wielding is awesome" and are willing to embrace the new change. Why are these people absent from Ts_Stormrage's article? Conclusion/TLDR: The community's reaction will not be as black and white as portrayed in the article. I think this article only propagates the sentiment that "change is bad" by assuring its audience that the community will view the change with grief.

This looks pretty darn amazing... Jagex, you may piss us off a lot. But when it comes down to it, you really know how to get players drooling!

Honestly, I'd rather see Evolution of Combat released soon. Yes, it has many problems, which is exactly why it needs to be released... it needs to have 100% of the attention focused on it. The team needs to stop designing updates twice, they can't afford to waste programming time when they could be fixing these key Evolution of Combat issues. For the first 2 months, Evolution of Combat will suck badly. Still, I can live through 2 months and I'm sure many others will too. After that, it can only be considered "progress"... the sooner we really start cranking out the Evolution of Combat, the faster it will be ready and awesome.

Prayer and Constitution simply don't have the offensive potential as Summoning or the traditional combat stats have.

Honestly, GWD gear (by GWD gear, I refer to Armadyl, Bandos, and Godswords, NOT Nex equipment) is simply not top-tier anymore. When GWD was first released, all of the gear was top-notch. Bandos was the best melee gear, Armadyl was the best range gear (well, along with Void since they each have their uses), and the Godswords were the best weapons to use against bosses. Nowadays, there are alternatives. Torva and Pernix outclass Bandos and Armadyl, Godswords are outclassed by Chaotics, and the inclusion of many factors (Overloads, Turmoil, familiars, even Spirit Shields, Ganodermic, Armadyl Battlestaff, etc.) has led to the rise of other options. An example of this would be the Whip outperforming Godswords at many bosses simply because Overloads + Turmoil + you name it has greatly increased the accuracy of Whip. In my opinion, GWD gear should be high-level tier... NOT endgame-tier. It should be a reasonable upgrade from Barrows/Dragon and it should be the step before Nex gear tier. Having Bandos chestplate cost 20,000,000+ is sort of ridiculous, considering that high-level tier can only make around 1.5-2 million per hour. Having to dedicate that much time making money just for one piece of equipment (which has the stunning benefit of... +4 Strength bonus?) is not feasible, and Jagex seems to understand the relative power of Bandos. In the EoC combat update, they made Bandos slightly better than Barrows, but only marginally... This is where Bandos should be: slightly above Barrows, not something used by the highest level players in the game. On the other hand, Nex-gear is a little TOO extreme... a jump in price from 20,000,000 to 100,000,000+ per piece (while money making rises to 4-6 million per hour) seems like an insurmountable wall. If we lower the GWD gear to be slightly above Barrows, then the gap between GWD and Nex will increase even more. Here is a flaw with GWD gear: Nex gear/Spirit shields/Top-tier boots/Dominion Tower gloves are virtually inaccessible to the majority of RuneScapers. The very very very top has access to this gear, but the rest do not... because their prices are exorbitant. Because only the VERY top have access to Nex tier, the rest of the high levels rely on GWD gear. This means that everyone from level 75 to 99 uses GWD gear (except for a small portion of max players who can sport full Nex gear). Solution: We need another tier. Perhaps another tier at level 90, while making Nex gear easier to obtain. That way, the very very very top has level 90 gear to play with, the majority of high levels can use Nex gear, and people who have grown out of their Barrows actually have a feasible gear upgrade: GWD gear. As of now, people generally use Barrows until they are fairly high level, simply because GWD gear is not very affordable. It is not very affordable because it is being used, even by top players who are almost maxed.

An epic milestone for sure! Let's hope that the Tip.it Times will continue to see it's 300th publication in 2 years or so.

I'd like to argue that from its onset, RuneScape was never meant to be a grind-towards-the-top game. It started off as a light game of exploring a new world and having the freedom to do what you like. In fact, players are the ones who took on the mindset of "let's maximize the efficiency of our time here" and players are the ones who started this trend. That is the point I bring up in the article: It's fine to do your own stuff (maybe you're working with 200+ APM, switching prayers and drinking potions and using familiars, oh my!), but it's good to realize that secluding yourself from the social aspect of the game can lead to the deterioration of the playing experience of others. By "social" aspect, it doesn't necessarily mean clans and clans only. The term 'social' encompasses those new players who haven't got a clue, who need someone to reach out to them. Thinking back to Croce's article (about Trolls) certainly highlights one of the negative aspects of anonymity. Anonymity can cause people to do stuff they wouldn't do in real life, they insult others, they say hurtful things, they act immaturely, etc. On the other hand, anonymity can be a beautiful thing. I can meet someone on a Slayer task and talk to that person and I won't have the faintest idea who that person is, his/her background, etc. I think this positive aspect of anonymity should be highlighted in the community. I just don't think RuneScape's interactions should be limited to Friends Chats, existing friends, and clan members. It has the potential for so much more.

I think this sort of update redeems the no-patch-note weeks. This does seem to be a massive amount of work. Keep in mind that they're changing almost every piece of content in the game... Still, the Beta is already looking much better and more 'complete' than it did at the start. The progress does make me optimistic.

I understand that you are disappointed that I didn't use any real examples. However, the world is small, and even with anonymous descriptions of real clan interactions, it would not be difficult for people to see I was talking about them, and I wouldn't want them to take offense. I think an article with more details would indeed be more suitable if it were essentially made-up, like the fictional that was published. However, we'll have to agree to disagree, so to speak, on whether clans are an important part of the game. I'll illustrate with some numbers. You can quickly check the hiscores to see that there are about 110,000 clans with at least 5 people. That's almost as many clans as there are active people on the game at an average time. Furthermore, a fully 47,000 clans were created in 24 hours after the creation of clan camp and a quarter of a million players pledged allegiance to a clan in that time (source: Rs Wikia). As of now, there are 2,000 clans with 100+ members in them, making well over 200,000 players engaged in a fairly large group. In my opinion it seemed worthwhile considering it is such a large body of people, and not a disgrace to the Times as you have implied with your post. Finally, I'm not going to write my autobiography here, but whether you take my word for it or not, I am active RuneScape player. I have never quit and have no intentions of doing so in the foreseeable future. Arceus, are you sure that darthaddict wasn't referring to Calebchiam's article? 1. He compliments the two clan articles and says he understands the sentiments behind the articles. 2. He says the second article is bad, but goes on to say that "it's just some guy remembering before he quits." Well, Calebchiam's article is about someone remembering his time on RuneScape before he quits. It's pretty evident that darthaddict simply said "2nd article" when he meant "3rd article".

Check out the Evolution of Combat too, since that will eventually hit F2P. Read about it and read through people's opinions (or not, usually it's just ranting).

I believe Barrows is considered a boss-type gameplay, as in gameplay that will challenge you and force you to use abilities. Slayer tasks should be easy enough without any abilities.

Slow progress does not equal invisible progress. Watching their progress is not going to be a real-time event. The only updates we get are the patch notes every week. That doesn't mean they only work on the Beta one day per week. Give it some time, they're definitely making progress.

Devaluing the achievements of other people is a big concept of RuneScape. Even though each update slowly devalues your updates, there's a huge difference between someone who AFKed Firemaking through Bonfires and someone who paid a large sum of real life money and simply bought it. Real life success should mean nothing in RuneScape except for the difference between members and free play, and the free play should be completely playable on its own anyway. This was the stance that Jagex used to take. Now, it seems like they're encouraging the few people with lots of money and slightly less sensibility to blow their money on RuneScape. Yes, this devalues our achievements, it devalues our game. I don't really approve of anyone who simply buys his/her way through the game, and I have more respect for those who actually play the game. Still, in a way, these rich people are not just 'buying skills'. They are buying RuneScape, supporting the game for the rest of us yet having a firm grip on Jagex's policies. So long as they continue dumping large amounts of money into RuneScape, RuneScape will remain alive and open to more microtransaction-type offers. Ts's point about repeat business and long-term stability is a very good point. However, I'd like to point out that this game does not really have long-term stability as an option. Each player is destined to quit in his/her own time. Maybe all your friends quit, or real life obligations force you to lessen your playing time, or distasteful updates get released such as the Climbing boot change, you simply get bored of the game over time... A product which would have real stability is toothpaste. If a brand thoroughly convinced me that I must get this specific brand of toothpaste, I might end up using that brand for the rest of my life. RuneScape, unfortunately, doesn't have that sort of stability. Essentially, the "stability" you're talking about is persuading a temporary group of players to stay a bit longer. Ultimately, these players will quit due to various reasons unless Jagex somehow makes a perfect game. Though Jagex made it clear that they want to retain old members (price discounts, Loyalty Programme), the only way to sustain such a game is through new memberships. I don't think they're stupid enough to release an update they know will generate wild criticism if they knew their current system was working. Searching for stability in this game is quite hard when weekly updates get released, some of which thoroughly change the game.

Let me continue what I said earlier. Public opinion is way too fickle to be reliable. Jagex will never rely on public opinion as much as they rely on revenue and facts, data, numbers. A lot of the argument is based on the idea that Jagex, if they had never released the Squeal of Fortune and Solomon's Store, and had created good-quality quests and content, then there would be more subscribers and more income. Unfortunately, there is no way to measure "potential income", but it is likely that the Squeal of Fortune path has earned them more money. It was more successful to release cosmetic items for a price than create worthy content such as While Guthix Sleeps. Did the decision to suddenly release microtransactions get made overnight? You see, there is a way to vaguely gauge 'potential profit'. You can estimate the profit you will receive by looking at your current revenue. If you continue what you're doing, there's a good chance that your revenue will, more or less, stay the same. The fact that they released the Squeal of Fortune wasn't just some dumb greedy gesture, it was a decision made after they saw their current trend and became dissatisfied with it. If public opinion doesn't matter, the only way to get your voice heard is through the wallet. No, the answer is not to cancel your subscriptions and make everyone else do the same. When Jagex was producing good content, we should have referred our friends without bonus xp encouragement. When Jagex releases an update we enjoy, we should spread RuneScape's popularity. The only reason why they would release the Squeal of Fortune is because their old model wasn't working. Isn't it our fault that it didn't work? It's too late now, Jagex has seen what we truly want, not what we say. When they produce good content, it fails and the company declines. When they release the Squeal of Fortune and Solomon's General Store, rich RuneScapers generate lots of profit for Jagex. We have made it clear enough to Jagex that this is what we want.

Honestly, I would love to boycott bots and RWT updates (like the SoF) and whatever else is negatively affecting the game. Still, I think that's a little too quixotic for me.

Right or Right Now: The main problem I see is that bots are in direct competition with us. For the sake of argument, let's simplify the world: no Kingdom, no other sources of items, etc. Bots produce 3/4th of the Maple logs and players cut down the remaining 1/4th. When they cut down that Maple tree, they're cutting down a Maple tree that someone else, a potentially legit player, could cut down. See, all those Maple logs or Dragon bones are simply our items that we never got a chance to produce. The bots beat us to the punch! In an ideal world, demand is met exactly by supply. Let's say, for example, that 10,000 Maple logs are used up each day, while 10,000 Maple logs are produced each day. It's safe to say there are more producing bots than consuming bots, especially if their goal is profit. The producing bots include bots seeking experience and profit, whereas consuming bots are limited to those who want experience, therefore it is more natural to have more producing bots. Now, in my example, 7,500 Maple logs are produced daily by bots, whereas 2,500 Maple logs are produced by players. Players use up 10,000 Maple logs each day, but they want to buy from legit players. The result? Demand exceeds supply, since the logs obtained through bots are considered null and void, so the price of true commodities, rather than botted commodities, rises. It's cheaper to buy from bots, obviously. Maple logs skyrocket and become 6,000 coins each (this is obviously exaggerated), causing many people to cut Maple logs for profit. Unfortunately, they simply can't - the Maple logs are inhabited by bots. That's a fundamental problem of bots - we cannot consider their products to be a separate entity. They are actually our own logs that were 'stolen' from us. Botting and RWT are fundamentally different in this sense. If Jagex offered Maple logs for real life cash, they would be generating Maple logs, but not taking away from the players' supply of Maple logs. Thus, we could effectively boycott their Maple logs without harming ourselves. Boycotting bots harms ourselves because we are cutting off our supply. I didn't exactly prove anything other than "in an ideal world, bots replace players". Still, it's fun to think about. Another problem: players cannot be trusted. Even if we were to boycott every single bot product, the inevitable will happen. A botter will simply create a legit account, transfer the logs to the legit account, and advertise on the forums. We believe him to be legit since he's on the forums rather than the Grand Exchange. We have now bought logs from a bot despite our best efforts.

Honestly, SoF and Solomon's Store are not RWT updates. SoF is very close, but it's not quite RWT. If you want to support RuneScape, and you have the money to do so, the only way to actually use your money was buying membership. No one was going to buy membership on multiple characters just because they felt like helping Jagex out. Now, those people with spare money, a desire to support their favorite game, and suckers for a nifty emote/costume/animation can freely spend lots of money on this game. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and no one can deny that Jagex doesn't gain revenue from these approaches. I feel like Jagex has needed another source of revenue for a long time. They make all this content, and people stay subscribed. That's pretty much it. If they didn't release another update for a full year (some people might be happy about that, actually), many people would still stay subscribed to enjoy the already-existing content. I hate it too, but I'd rather have a RuneScape full of rich players wearing fancy costumes than no RuneScape at all.

Do you have full Elite Void + Deflector yet? Honestly, I think it's better to just train Prayer the regular way because it's soooo much faster. You could probably get full Void in the time it takes to earn 600-700k Prayer xp. On the other hand, that's just 1 hour of Frost dragon bones.

I did mine at 70 Ranged, 70 Defence, and 60 Prayer, old-school style. Here was my setup: Verac's Helm, Black D'hide Top, Verac's Plateskirt, Rune Crossbow, Snakeskin Boots, Archer Ring, Amulet of Fury, Ava's Accumulator, Barrows Gloves, Unholy Book. I brought Broad bolts and switched to Diamond (e) for Jad. I did it without flasks, so that should make your life a lot easier. Some tips: - I died once because the healers just hit too hard on me and I ran out of brews. After that, I brought Blessed Spirit Shield and I switched to that while tanking the healers. It also came in handy while tanking the 90s, but with your higher Defence level, this might not be necessary. - Find a recent video of Jad and memorize his attack patterns. Keep calm and remember: switch prayer before doing else. Switch a prayer, drink one dose, switch prayer, hit a healer, switch prayer, do something, switch prayer, etc. - If you get hit, do NOT panic Brew, this is death. Make sure you switch prayer, and drink a dose in between prayer switches. - When the healers come, switch to Long Range to hit them all. I once used Rapid and the healers were too far away, and I got lured into Jad's melee range... - Make an awesome music playlist. When you do the Fight Caves with Ranged, it takes forever... - Don't bring Guthan's My inventory was the Diamond (e) bolts, Blessed spirit shield, 3 Range potion (4), 6 Saradomin brew (4), 6 Super restore (4), the rest Prayer potion (4). Holy wrench might help, definitely bring flasks even though you probably won't need them. About the waves themselves: - Find a safespot, trap everything, kill the 22s first - After wave 31 or so, always have Protect from Magic on and attack the 90s first, they do the most damage to you and they can hurt - Then hit the 360s to conserve prayer - The 180s and 45s should be trapped, kill them next. If you have to tank a 45, no problem On the second to last wave: - Brew up to above your maximum health, super restore your stats back to normal, drink range potion - I believe it's better to start with Protect from Ranged on - Turn on Eagle Eye, it's quite helpful - Switch to Diamond (e) bolts - Turn off music, breathe deeply, recite in your head: switch prayer, switch prayer, switch prayer - Don't be discouraged if you die Yeah, I did the Fight Caves a long time ago and it's a lot easier now. Just go for it, even if you die, the experience is valuable.

I don't think the goal of this update was to fix crowding. The goal was to allow you to have a more social experience by slaying with a friend. Did the update accomplish its goal? Yes.