Blyaunte

Do all of the Quests!!!!! <3: .. and welcome back. Oh -- and join my clan! :lol:

Sorry this is a little late, but I just wanted to wish all my fellow Canadians a Happy on September 28th.

While I appreciate your response, the question was aimed at the theists to answer ... :razz:

... and that is where you're wrong again. After Manal al-Sharif, the woman in question, posted the video of herself driving a car in Khobar, she was arrested by individuals from the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice ("CPVPV") [formerly known as "the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Elimination of Sin"] -- are mutaween -- clerics posing as policemen who enforce Sharia Law.

Considering that his/her target audience can be, and is, multi-cultural in nature, isn't it rather presumptuous to assume that they all believe in the same god? :rolleyes:

Also -- I'd like to throw my own two cents into the over-all argument of "the rationale behind theism" by asking the theists this question: "Do gods (note the plural) exist?"

For the sake of argument, you DO realize that the "law" in question is an edict, right? A RELIGIOUS rule? There is no Saudi Law that prohibits women from driving -- it's a religious edict. :rolleyes: So who meted out the punishment? A Shariah Court -- the judge was a CLERIC. As I already pointed out -- you folks are having issues understanding the scale of Saudi Law. Shariah are "laws" that are religious in origin not "social". Sharia law is such that is determined by interpretation of Qu'ranic tenet and Hadith by clerical authorities. The Shariah court is overlooked by clerics -- not secular authorities. What you probably don't appreciate is that the Saudi King would never have achieved his own state if not for the help of the fundamentalist Islamists and, as such, he has always bowed to whatever religious edicts they issue as "law" and everyone's followed these laws albeit, whether it was more out of fear than belief one can never truly tell. It's only recently in light of developments from the Arab Spring, in fact that King Abdullah's started to make those "social changes" and overturned religious edict with an actual "social contract". ... and he's doing so in order to avoid having a revolution of his own to deal with ... To what extend this social contract will go, one cannot tell right now. All I know for sure is that, as long as the Saudi people keep pushing the envelope, and as long as King Abdullah is afraid for his own safety (i.e. revolution), social change will continue in Saudi for the next little while. That is, until such time as someone in power, being monarchy or clergy, decides to put a stop to it.

For the sake of argument, you DO realize that the "law" in question is an edict, right? A RELIGIOUS rule? There is no Saudi Law that prohibits women from driving -- it's a religious edict. :rolleyes:

These sort of responses are baseless and fatuous. Really -- I thought the bias was rather obvious. You refer to only one (1) diety -- not the many that are purported to exist. THAT is a bias.

That's not necessarily true. There's experience to be earned at the citadel -- but it is, of course, limited to those skills for which one develops plots. :unsure:

You left out: ".. unknowing dupe in whatever scheme King Lathas and Lord Iowerth are plotting ..." :unsure:

But you LOOK awesome!!! :rolleyes: :lol: <3:

... and there was much rejoicing ... YAY! :rolleyes: I will say two things on topic, namely: 1. While it's nice to see that, at least, we get some "free-be" content on what was otherwise a no-content week, I do hope that this doesn't mean that next week is a "no-content" week. I'm not saying that it will be, one way or another -- I am merely stating it for the sake of commentary; and 2. Is it just me, or is this week's content the kind of thing that should have been included with the original "citadels" package?

I've had back to back to back effigies (3 in a row) from Iron Dragons before -- and my drops are notoriously terrible ... :-P That said, when I got those drops, I was also on a 0 for 6500 kill streak for "dragon item drops" from metal dragons (irons, steels and miths). So, I suppose one could imagine that these kinds of things tend to even out ... :unsure:

"Indirectly" is probably the most apt description. Thing is though, if they're not being part of the solution, then they're really just another part of the problem. Acknowledging that there "may be a problem" (Really? What was his first clue? Did his Spider-senses tingle?) is a mere snow-flake as compared to the pending avalanche of general distrust, dissatisfaction and disgruntlement (Alliteration! FTW!) amongst the "community" at large. Sadly, it seems that, for the most part, the only "community" that Jagex appears to listen to are the pmods and the maxed players who, sadly, are likewise going to be amongst the majority of people attending Runefest – so I am, again, somewhat doubtful that we're going to see or hear much from THAT venue with respect to "rebuilding trust" – nor do I suspect that they intend to really pay much attention to what is being said outside of that relatively small circle of influence. As pointed out back in early February – after Jagex brought back the Wildy and Free-Trade – I asked then if anyone had a feeling that, at that time, Runescape had "jumped the shark". After that "update", they followed up with six months of rather disappointing "updates", culminating in the disastrous "smithing re-vamp" Artisan's Workshop and the PillarSalt in the Wound quest. ... and as much as I liked them – even the last two quests "Branches of Darkmeyer" and "Ritual of the Mahjarrat", while decent, are no "While Guthix Sleeps" in terms of quality quest material. Really. Meanwhile, the bots run amok, unabated – like locusts – piling over on every possible resource within the game, and they're growing in number and spreading to even more areas within the game. ... and a few days ago someone said that they're going to "rebuild trust in the community" ... Which community? The immediate small circle of pmods and maxed players that they speak to regularly? The locals living in and around London who can make it to Runefest? The massive horde of bots that really don't care? Or will they really come and talk us? Frankly – I think the "thrust in the community" is the most likely outcome ... I just hope I get a kiss, first. :unsure:

I would pay a small amount to watch a live stream of it, honestly, and they could make it available to those who only live outside of the UK. And I'm actually quite shocked they haven't come up with this idea before since they can't feasibly host RuneFests in other countries while forking back the cost of the ticket. Well last year they allowed videoing of Runefest - so there are playermade videos of most of the sessions on Youtube. Not live streams admittedly - but it does mean you at least get to hear what was said. Whatever way it works out -- I want to see a video of whatever formal statement(s) is/are issued and whatever discussion ensues therefrom ... :shades:

Lol! Maybe I should rent out the space that Zezima stands on? I could use vials of water and say they are holy water he has blessed.....money making scam or what? You're actually not far off things that have already happened. As it is people take screen shots of Zezima speaking: "OMFG, he said hello and I got a screenie of it!!!" People already ask him for something of his that they can keep, how long before others try selling items of having belonged to Zezima? I am using him as an example because he is the one I know and have seen the general 'public' reaction. Players will use examples of what he has said as if they are beyond reproof, he said it so therefore it is true, adulation to the point of religious fervour. :huh: Fine by me -- but I want a 25% "royalty" ... :rolleyes:

Has anyone begun collecting and displaying "holy relics" purporting to have belonged to Zezima, yet? Are people seeing visions of SUOMI on underpass walls? Has anyone written stories about King Duffy's exploits and tried to pass them off as some form of religious text? If, as and when any of THAT happens, then it is the time to have any real concern about it.

To be fair, this is probably a more accurate description of what Jagex is actually doing :lol: Thrusting themselves into the arms of an unhappy, insane community of players? :blink: Somehow -- I don't think it's our arms that they've been thrusting into ... :unsure:

Personally, I found the "Idolatry and Reverence" article a bit of a stretch. Then again, as an atheist, I've always found that, whenever someone tries to juxtapose their own belief system vis-a-vis some other form of likewise anecdotal source of wisdom or power, the end result is always utterly amusing. Honestly, on the one hand you're bemoaning that people aren't genuflecting themselves in front of iconic figurines of mythological "heroes", while at the same time chastising them for allegedly performing said same tasks before esrtwhile iconic personalities within the confines of a pixel-generate universe? Frankly I think the time to start worrying about any of this nonsense is about the same time someone finds a picture of Zezima on a grilled cheese sandwich and then manages to sell it for a Blue Phat ... :rolleyes:

Off topic +1 – is anyone else experiencing massive lag when they happen to wander into or around areas where the botting is particularly bad? For example, this past weekend my clan was "star finding", and every time I passed by the Varrock East Bank (where the ess-bots are operating en masse) I found the lag to be absolutely gawd-awful. Same thing applied when I passed through the Sorceress's Garden via the broom teleport. It didn't vary from world to world either – any world in which I passed through these two points was just terribly laggy. <.< On Topic: Actually, I stopped reporting bots ages ago when it was made abundantly clear to me that Jagex wasn't going to do anything about any such report. Well – that and the fact that I was (unjustifiably) chastized by certain members of this forum for acknolwedging my own participation in such activity (i.e. bot reporting). As I recall, one side of the argument called me a "rat-fink", while the other side of the argument informed me that I was abusing the system and that pmods and jmods had better things to do than to respond to any such reports. :unsure: Ya know, in hindsight, it's little wonder why I've become so jaded, isn't it? :rolleyes:

That's not what I said -- I merely suggested that perhaps they should explain their "detection system" for the purposes of allowing criticism of it in the hopes that some improvements may be made upon it. :huh:

Got to disagree with that. Less information released to big audiences, the better they can keep bot scripters from finding workarounds before they're even implemented, wouldn't you think? Aren't all these insider sessions locked down by legal agreements not to talk about it? On the contrary -- it's abundantly clear that what they're doing isn't working already. Not to mention that it's likewise clear the bot scripters have already found ways to circumvent whatever it is they're employing. It's broke -- time to fix the damn thing. <_<

My friend, I think you have an unhealthy problem! XD As Runescape's self-declared fashionista, I have a reputation to uphold ...

OH EM GEE!!! New shoes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :blink: