Tact

Thanks for the welcome guys. I've posted an overview of my tribe in the Tip.It Kingdom thread. I'm not sure where this thread is at; would it be too late to join or has the action mostly died down?

[hide=A Brief History of the Shu Nation]The people and culture of what are known as the Shu descend from an earlier kingdom. It is not known where the Wei was originally from, but local legends attribute their past to migration from forgotten lands. On the fertile terrain at the junction of the Zhu and Song River, the Wei developed into farmers, skilled artisans, and proficient metalworkers. They did not have a large army, but there simply was no need for one; the earth was bountiful and peace had reigned for almost a hundred years. Everything changed in the fifth year of the rule of the Konggu Emperor. Nomadic horsemen, spurred by an unknown impetus, began raids against frontier towns adjoining the northern grasslands. Striking with near impunity at first, they would swiftly overcome weak Wei resistance before stripping the locale of valuables and destroying what could not be carried off. With pleas for aid coming in from his officials, the Konggu Emperor decided to lead a grand military expedition himself in a bid to crush the barbarians for good. He marshaled his soldiers and called upon the largest contingent of peasant levies in Wei history. This large military force marched out the capital in early March, with plans to relieve the garrison of a small fortress under threat from the wandering hordes. However, the army was lured into a narrow mountain pass, where the unwieldy bulk of so many units became a deadly disadvantage. The Emperor, his hundred advisors, and the cream of the Wei administration perished on the field of battle that day. Wholesale slaughter of Wei forces followed, as many were trapped between the enemy and impassable terrain. Following this military catastrophe, there was nothing to stop the waves of nomads from sweeping deep into the heart of the Wei Kingdom. All of the outlying villages were burned, and what was a steady flow of refugees early in the war became a rising flood. The desperate and destitute peasantry flooded into the major cities, but with farmland either abandoned or destroyed, famine gripped the nation. Further defeats in the field led to the sacking of Zongdian and Nanfang. Into this chaos, one man stepped forward to save his people. Sun Tai, Governor of Shikou, was born the third son of a low-ranked civil administrator. As his father possessed neither great rank or wealth, young Tai was forced to rely on his wits and hard work to succeed. After graduating from the Royal Academy with high marks, he was sent to a post in a border province, from where he rose to become governor. Sun Tai foresaw the imminent collapse of the Wei Kingdom and took protective measures to safeguard his territory. Since both the Wei society and army were now headless, Governor Tai rallied the remainder of the local militia and began an extensive fortification of his city. Drawing upon his previous military studies at the academy, Tai believed that the only way to break the nomads' strength was to avoid open combat and rely on strong walls to hold back their cavalry until their numbers were depleted by the starvation and disease of a long seige. When the moment was right, he launched an armed sortie that pinned the horsemen against the city walls. Unable to manuveur, their forces were killed or routed. The governor had won a great victory, but the country he had known was in shambles. Ten of thousands had died, and the survivors would have to deal with critically low supplies of food and other essentials. Almost all the infrastructure would have to be built again from scratch. Yet, Sun Tai was ready to take on the challenge. After cementing his position as the new king, he proclaimed a new nation. One that would be titled as... the Shu.[/hide] OOC: I'll post the map of Shikou at a later time, along with a general terrain map of the surrounding area with locations of the 2 other (small) towns marked. Also to come will be an overview of Shu society, layout of the new army, and a tech tree. OOC2: Would it be possible to delegate a new thread specifically for OOC talk? That way, all the questions, comments, and other stuff wouldn't be sandwiched in between in the IC posts, and it would be easier to follow the action.

Hey all, I stumbled upon this thread through the announcement on 3 new forums. Since it looks like you're all planning to create a new medieval type Hegemony RP, I'd like to be one of the participants. I'm not sure if there's any entrance requirement, and I don't have the time to read through all 120 pages, so I'll just start off by posting a bit of personal introduction. I got started RPing several years ago when I played Nationstates. In the early days, each player controlled a country, where you decided its national policies that would affect such areas as economy and political freedoms. Most of the action existed on the forums, where'd you'd character RP with stastics and such based on the your country. However, everything else was created by you or other players. I had fun, but eventually I quit NS several years ago, when Granzi had about 6 billion population. (Yes, that's where my RS name comes from.) Here's some schematics and maps drawn by me from my NS days: [hide=Large Pic Warning] [/hide] I'd post some examples of RPs as well, but it looks like they've switch forums and my old posts have been lost. I'll see what I can dig up on my computer and post what I found later. Anyways, I look forward to the new thread.

Wouldn't knives be better training at yaks? And yes, I would sell the guthix dhide and put that money toward an archer's ring.

Aren't you missing maples in that list? ^ I put 10 on maples and 5 on fish. I'm planning on switching to 10 on herbs and 5 on fish once I start training herblore.

Cannoning them at the clan wars spawn and banking at wilderness volcano with games necklace is the most efficient method of killing.

Members already have a dragon boss monster that drops the visage. It's called the King Black Dragon, and it's more than adequate to cover their needs. There's simply no need to introduce a weaker and easier version with the same drops.

I just re-read the entire post. Overall, I like the general layout of the monster, location, and quest. Introducing a serious high-leveled challenge to F2Pers would bring a much needed teamwork aspect to their combat. However, there are some more issues I'd like to discuss. First of all, I'd like to address the altar inside of Elvarg's lair. The time between uses is too short. I don't think that it's even possible to completely drain your prayer within 1 minute at level 43 without using a protection prayer and other stat boosting prayers, nevermind those with even higher prayer. This greatly reduces the excitement of the monster-hunting experience, since the risk of you dying and actually losing some of your items is greatly reduced. I suggest raising the time limit to at least 10 minutes. In addition, I don't agree with the "stepped" approach to altar use, where the addition of more players in the lair also increases the time between prayer replenishment. If you really wanted to have such a system, it at least should be the other way around, since we should be encouraging teamwork instead of soloing. Personally though, I'd rather that the 10 minute figure be kept constant, since it would save you the bother of keeping track of your teammates and whether or not they leave, or more people arrive. As for members, I strongly discourage adding any more high-value drops. This update should be targeted mostly at F2Pers. If you were to add the draconic visage to the drop table, for example, that would only encourage more lowered leveled members to team up to try and get it. With their greater access to weapons and equipment, Elvarg is much easier to kill, and that should simply not be the case. They should instead train up their combat skills and go after black or iron dragons (which are easy enough already).

Elvarg needs far more hitpoints than it has currently. Just as a comparison, a red dragon has 140 hp, and a normal black dragon has 190 hp. As it currently stands, it is far too easy to solo, even with the limited power of f2p weapons and the damage capability of the dragon. Simply flip on melee prayer, wear dragonhide to minimize effect of its magic attack, and the most you need to worry about is 15 damage from its range attack (which doesn't appear to be used very often). Keep in mind that it's easy to hit 20+ with a rune scim if you have decent combat stats. Members will have an even easier time since they have access to prayer potions and more powerful weapons and armor. If you're serious about making Elvarg a challenge to high level F2pers, I suggest a minimum hp level of 400 hitpoints. That way, you'd need a team and some strategy in order to effectively tackle this boss.

On the effects of Greed: Besides prayer and defense, does the halving of your hitpoints stay permanent for 10 minutes, acting similar to a "cap" where food will heal no more past that amount? What happens if a player uses an item (sara brew or rocktail) to boost their hitpoints past 99 immediately prior to activating this plea? Will the halving be based on the base number or the boosted figure?

I remember spending *hours* trying to figure out Underground Pass when I first became a member. Granted, a large chunk of that was me failing the ledges over and over again <_< , but I got a big rush out of finally defeating Iban. Since then, I've moved onto other parts of the game besides quests, but this is such a well-thought out guide that I'm sure it'll be a great motivator for new players. Thanks for writing it. :thumbup:

It's not. Some of the mining areas are terrible, either because they don't have enough spawns, or are located in dangerous areas (such as past lvl30 wilderness). You need to bring a lot of extra equipment in case you are teleported to one of those locations.

Manoman has an (image intensive) guide on MA locators. You could try asking for permission to use some of the data and pictures? Link to guide I'm looking forward to reading up when you've added some more details.

Hey Cry, Last I heard, cannoning at green dragons is fast and profitable, and you get some range xp to boot. Use the spawns east of clan wars. Banking is simple because you can use games necklace > Clan Wars, then use it again to get to the wildy volcano. Of course, this will get you flamed by the other dragon slayers. >_>

For F2P ranging, unless you're really stingy with your money, there's no reason for you to be killing minotaurs for their arrows. A better option would be ranging moss giants on Crandor. You will get slightly less xp per hour due to their higher defense, but the drops are far superior to those of minotaurs; part of the profit can go toward buying the arrows you will use. Consider investing in a few thousand steel arrows for the higher damage rate. Since there are an abundance of safespots on the island (the most popular is the one near the south mining rocks), you can stay for as long as your arrows last. They do drop alchables, so bring a fire staff and some nature runes. Plus, you always get big bones, which is a lot better for prayer training than running around the chaos temple.

[/hide]The part that I don't understand is why people feel the need to rush for a 99 in skill that they don't enjoy. It could be that they want the status of getting a 99 that most people do not have (whether due to the amount of work that needs to be done, or the expense). Or, perhaps it's so that they can "strike another 99" off the list as they go for a high skill total. There's a point in there where most people lose the fun aspect of RS and start playing the game only for the game's sake. Now, I'm not going to tell you how to play. However, I do not think that Jagex should be expected to offer these methods of training. PS: You can probably tell from my stat sig which skills I dislike training. :razz: Okay first of all I want to say I agree completely with Brian. I don't understand all of these elitist attitudes of people who think they are better because they put more time into the game to level up skills instead of "buying" them or whatever. Anyways I wanted to point out how ironic this statement was: Why rush for a 99 that you DON'T like? What would you do instead? Take your time doing something you hate doing, or get it over with? You said Jagex shouldn't be expected to offer those methods, but you could say the same thing about the training of skills boringly and slowly. Just like you worked hard to level up boring skills, some people worked hard to get the money to level up the boring skills fast. Who are you to dictate how people choose to level their skills? I fail to see how my statement is ironic. To answer your question, I'll first have to acknowledge that you and I probably have different thoughts as to how someone should approach the game. I personally see no reason to train a skill that I don't like. Why would I commit myself to hundreds of hours in grinding if that entire process is throughly unenjoyable? To me, Runescape is still a game, and games are meant to be played for fun. When skill 99s become the ends rather than the means, then I think there's a bigger issue than simply training preferences. Second, I'm not dictating how anyone should level. I've been very careful to say which points I give are my personal opinions. However, I do not think that Jagex made an error when they decided to cap vial prices. Players with a great deal of money may think that they should be offered a fast alternative to traditional herblore training. However, there are already skills out there that can't be "bought." You need to put in the hours if you want a fishing cape, for example. What's to say that it's not Jagex's intention to steer herblore more toward those lines? With the release of the high level potions, training has gotten more time-consuming, but aren't the fruits of your labor also more rewarding? Edit: As for the "elitist" comment... I don't see where I've ever said that I was better than anyone else. This is a discussion thread after all, and I'm simply stating my thoughts.

Make a guide then? :)

Then buy it. Go to world 2, or use the GE. Better yet, advertise on the forums. Your analogy is flawed. First of all, people are still paying to play this game. What constitutes a "bad" decision to you may very well be viewed positively by someone else. Second, what you're referring to is called consumer choice. It's not the same as "owning" a game or anything else, which is what I was trying to point out. I don't think this update is on the order of something that would cause players to quit.

I don't see why it is a problem for you or anyone else if I want to pay those high market prices to get my stuff quickly. And of course I realize it's hard to buy the items now in the first place because everyone wants them, but so what if I'm with paying a little more to compensate that. I know how it was to play before the GE, but then I just made a thread on the forums and did some woodcutting while managing it. Just as lazy in terms of gathering your own stuff, only difference was it required a little better time management. So then what's the problem? Jagex didn't stop you from paying above market price to get your vials. You'll just need to advertise on the forums or find some people willing to run vials for you.

In essence it does. This makes no sense. Jagex owns Runescape. You are paying for the right to play the members version. Nothing in the Terms and Conditions gives you any say in RS's direction. Sure, it may be in the interest of Jagex to listen to their paying customers, but they have no legal obligation to do so.

Craft them all. :blink: Nah, but Jagex should update the vial stock in shops, maybe to 3k every few hours.

Yes, you did, because it's Jagex's game. Your monthly membership entitles you to play the game, but it doesn't buy you fractional ownership. ;-)

The part that I don't understand is why people feel the need to rush for a 99 in skill that they don't enjoy. It could be that they want the status of getting a 99 that most people do not have (whether due to the amount of work that needs to be done, or the expense). Or, perhaps it's so that they can "strike another 99" off the list as they go for a high skill total. There's a point in there where most people lose the fun aspect of RS and start playing the game only for the game's sake. Now, I'm not going to tell you how to play. However, I do not think that Jagex should be expected to offer these methods of training. PS: You can probably tell from my stat sig which skills I dislike training. :razz:

I'm more than happy to debate specifics with you, but slandering my post doesn't further the discussion in any way. Alright, so 300 vials may be a little low. Jagex should bump that number up a bit, but my point is that it's still reasonable to be expected to train herblore on a day-to-day basis instead of taking the easier but extremely expensive approach. In addition, I don't agree that most skills are a grindfest. Sure, there are methods out there for almost every skill where you can gain faster xp by repeating the same actions over and over again. And yes, if you have the cash, you can spend it on whatever you'd like. However, Jagex should not be "obligated" to provide this route for any skill, which I think some of the wealthier players expect.

What's wrong with 300 water-filled vials every few hours? Honestly, I don't think herblore is meant to be trained by grinding out levels. If you do some long term planning to farm your own herbs and make some potions every time you log on, it's perfectly possible to obtain 99 without losing 200 million. Personally, I don't mind seeing the players who believe that gold is everything having to put in some time and effort if they really want such a high herblore level.