DragnFly

Figures would have to be adjusted, obviously. I was using 80% more as an example figure, rather than a final figure. Yeah I fully expect there to be some small room for profit, otherwise if theres not you end up with what you have now. As for real world trading, yes theres always a small potential. You just have to make it profitable enough for people to use it, but not profitable enough to really be explited on large scale by real world traders (like the trade system). It would only make the GE useless if it was a unlimited stock, it carried everything, and guaranteed to be available. Obviously none of these are the case. Say you walk into the general store, you find 100 coal at 80% of the GE. Obviously you save abit of cash on the 100 coals here, but you did not know for sure that they would be there. You also have to run them back to the bank, since they wont be noted. Then you have to obviously be lucky enough to find it. Plus your bound to its limited stock (100) as it is dependant on what players sold there, and keep in mind items disappear from general store at regular intervals. It would not make the GE useless at all.

My idea is just practically changing and adjusting prices. At the moment, theres no real incentive to buy a thing from the general store as it costs entirely too much. Since the stores are usually short stock, if you charge alittle less (80%) of the lowest grand exchange price, people would check there again to find a bargain. Which is what people often did before the change in the first place. It also needs to pay more for the items sold to the store, make to be alittle more competitive with the GE, otherwise nobody is going to sell there in the first place. If nobody sells there, then theres nothing to buy there (obviously).

There was a point in time before unlimited store inventorys, the grand exchange, and trade limits that people frequently used the general store. Looking thru the store, you never knew what you could find. A bargain on afew lumps of coal, afew uncut gems at a steal. But now... prices paid to players are the old prices, whereas prices sold at higher than even their grand exchange counterparts. Why? By doing so, you have effectively rendered the general store useless for anything than dumping junk. Even in regards to junk, why would they sell their junk there now when they can almost always get more on the grand exchange? Why would anybody buy a thing there, when it costs alot more? I think that the general stores, in peticular the player stock section, need abit of a tweak. Giving people some incentives to use it again. Maybe sell items in the player stock to players at a rate of say 80% of their lowest grand exchange price. That way, theres still alittle room for profit for those who have a lucky find or willing to invest the time running back and forth between the stores and bank. Given that the player stock is NOT a unlimited stock, it would not some exploited as an infinite source of money, but would give players some profit from buying there and a reason to check said stores again. Those who wanted it faster or a guarantee to find what they were hunting would still use the grand exchange. Also, maybe the profit margins payed to players selling to the store could be adjusted alittle. Not by alot, but it might would entice some players to sell more of their items there as well. Not sure of the perfect solution or the right figures, but the general store does need to be made useful again. So the question is, how can the general store be made useful again? For the last year, its been practically useless. EDIT: I closed the thread on RSOF, as I figured it would get buried under pages of junk in a matter of seconds. It did. So I removed the quotes, and left it here.

Merry Christmas to all :)

Its been all over the news here lately, since it happened. All I could think of is that quote from the Austin Powers movies: "Who throws a shoe? Honestly!" - Austin Powers

You might know his brother, President George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush. Hes the president's brother.

Source: http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/s ... 925467.ece It should be interesting if he decides to run for the senate position in 2010. On one hand, he was a pretty popular governor here in Florida, leaving office with something around a 58% approval rating. On the other hand, his brother is not very popular these days. What do you think about Jeb running for the senate in 2010? What would his odds be?

I agree that its certainly disheartening to the editors and guest authors who pour their time and energy into writing a article for the masses, only to be flamed and to be told their article is garbage. Remember, they are providing a service to you, for free, atleast show abit of courtesy and gratitude. While its one thing to disagree with the point the article is making, or even the style the article is written in some cases, bashing the author personally is never acceptable. If you are going to express disagreement with a point in the article, or the style it was written, its generally best to do so in a mature and intelligent matter. Also, try to provide some positive criticism so that the author may improve, rather than behaving like a heathen and discouraging them to ever write again. That being said, however, I do understand some of the arguments that the quality of the times has declined in more recent times. To be honest, I stopped reading them as much myself around the time all the letters to the editor started occurring. While once in awhile is tolerable, they where occurring on average atleast once every three weeks, where we got around 18 of them in the span of a year. Also, it seems many times, you would only hear of a controversial issue from one side of the coin. Take the changes to the trade and pking systems late last year, these changes where so big they divided the communitys opinion on the game. However, if you where to look at the times articles, it seemed what little discussion there was of it was all of the "pro change" side, not giving adequette coverage from the perspective of the other half who disagreed with it. It felt like their opinions where simply written off. As for suggestions to improve the times articles, here are some things that could spice them up: [*:cvfhkrxe] Provide a few more articles in the form of a story, whether a true occurrance in the game, or a fictional story revolving around RuneScape. For instance, someone who attended MSSW3 might cover the happenings from the view of a player who participated. Those who did not attend, or were not around at the time might enjoy reading about it. [*:cvfhkrxe] More interviews with well known players from the past, like the Gregechidna interview. Where older players can reminisce, and newer ones can learn abit more about the days of old. [*:cvfhkrxe] Articles providing facts of histoical and present. For example, do you know who the first player to ever obtain a level 99 is? (everdred, for woodcutting) [*:cvfhkrxe] Articles relevant to the tip.it site itself, discussing issues of the community or site. Such as providing some ideas of things in store for the future of the site or forums. [*:cvfhkrxe] A few controversial articles. I'm not saying every article needs to be a "Bias Banning Raises Brows" type, but something that not everyone agrees with. Like whether or not certain rules in the game are necessary, or are they excessive? That sort of thing.

Its that time of year, christmas is nearly upon us. Unfortunately, it seems most years, it feels like someone is always out to spoil the fun. Although I cannot say I have heard of any major stories this year, I am afraid its coming. First off, you have the "merry christmas" vs "happy holidays" argument, which seems to emerge every year. Personally, I do not take offense to someone saying either to me, as both are made with good intentions usually. However, I do prefer merry christmas. I usually say merry christmas myself, as its tradition and sounds better to me personally. I do not set out to be malicious about it, if I know you celebrate something else I will wish you a happy holiday. What I dislike is when people act like its wrong to say merry christmas nowadays, because its not "inclusive". While I do not mind if you celebrate something else (thats your perogative), it really irks me that it seems to be getting to the point we cannot even walk outside and expect to see as many decorations as in the past, and that christmas specials on television seem fewer, or even controversial to wish someone a merry christmas out of political correctness. Also, it seems that stores are getting more reluctant to say merry christmas, or even mention christmas by name, which I dislike. I understand they are trying to be inclusive, but its tradition and I do not believe it should be banished from stores to be politically correct. Is it that hard to include advertisements and signs that say both? Or allowing workers to greet customers however they prefer? It is a tradition in many countries, and the overwhelming majority in those countries celebrates it. Yes, others celebrate other holidays, or in some cases none at all. However, you do not have to celebrate or enjoy it, but why spoil the fun for others? Christmas is suppose to be a happy time of year, where you gather around with loved ones, and celebrate. It is a cheery time of year, and great for everyone to be able to enjoy it, especially children. As an American, I believe one of the things that robs our country of any culture is going to the extremes to be "inclusive", to be everything to everyone. This wasn't that big of a problem even 20 years ago was it? Its the extremes of political correctness in modern times that have made it one. We have cases of people trying to change christmas trees to "holiday trees", merry christmas to "happy holidays", christmas lights to "winter lights" or "festive lights". Hell, i've heard cases where people want to change the words in Deck the Halls from gay apparel" to "festive apparel" or "fine apparel", as the line could be considered offensive to homosexuals. Democracy is about doing whats best for the majority in most cases, and while that might upset some people, its no reason not to do it. For example, we would not go over to a country in the middle east and demand that they stop celebrating their customary holidays publically because the minority there celebrates something else, so why is it acceptable here? Below are various stories of recent news regarding the christmas holidays. I have tried to include alittle of everything I could find, to allow people to form their own opinions. Afew notes before I start: * Some of the above stories might be in wrong categories. Many are links I bookmarked over time, so I have not reverified them: * Some are duplicates of other stories, providing more than one source. * Also, while many are from various news sources, some are opinion pieces on various websites. Still though, plenty of them are from legitimate news sources. Anyways, on with the stories. Stories about Seattle Airport removing (later readding)christmas tree out of fears of being sued: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/seat ... 117979.asp http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/295604_trees12.html http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2715008&page=1 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,235772,00.html http://blogs.usatoday.com/sky/2006/12/c ... trees.html http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16150563/ Stories about christmas trees: http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourview/2006/12 ... m_cou.html http://blog.canoe.ca/tanyaenberg/2006/1 ... _christmas http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=47748 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1925520/posts http://washingtontimes.com/news/2005/no ... 703-5977r/ http://www.markdroberts.com/htmfiles/re ... astree.htm http://volokh.com/posts/1166823609.shtml Stories about words "[garden tool] [garden tool] [garden tool]": http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311797,00.html http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=323480 Stories about words "gay apparel": http://beingbrilliant.wordpress.com/200 ... rrectness/ Stories about Santas: http://onthescene.blogs.foxnews.com/200 ... fat-santa/ http://www.strausnews.com/articles/2006 ... news/2.txt http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... e97500.ece http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?secti ... id=6465721 http://a.abcnews.com/Business/SiliconIn ... id=1448805 http://www.bostonherald.com/news/region ... id=1047979 Stories about nativity scene/story: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1530444/posts http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/art ... 47/0/theme http://www.nbc4i.com/midwest/cmh/news.a ... -0005.html http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18272 http://static-news.com/2008/11/11/no-na ... fair-mall/ Stories regarding the word christmas: http://offtheshelf.us/retail/merry_christmas.asp http://www.sacunion.com/pages/state_cap ... ticles/917 http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17 ... 21,00.html Various complaints about christmas lights: http://the-riotact.com/?p=1738 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/england/london/4398680.stm http://neveryetmelted.com/index.php/red ... -colorado/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... grant.html http://www.satelliteguys.us/chit-chat-c ... nsive.html http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/a ... 019250.php http://www.cnsnews.com/Public/Content/A ... srcid=6842 Stories about wreaths: http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/10 ... etail.html http://www.denverpost.com/traffic/ci_4728852 Various stories about christmas and christmas decorations: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3320237.stm http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ceoftinsel http://www.matchdoctor.com/blog_72635/N ... _Wins.html http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/ ... 22df18d76a http://www.bloggernews.net/112136 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1903984/posts http://www.thedailyconservative.net/200 ... -of-allah/ So what do you think? Personally, I think its getting rediculous, and that christmas should be left alone, so that we may celebrate it as we have all these years before all this controversy ever started.

Source: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/webcam_suicide I found this article lastnight, and I thought it was quite sad. Not only did a young boy commit suicide, which is horrible enough, but he did it over webcam. Why would you ever want to broadcast it for the entire world? Also, why would anybody want to even watch such a thing? Disgusting.

I posted about this time last year on a former paypal employee coming to work for jagex (viewtopic.php?f=30&t=710871), and now it appears they have acquired a employee from THQ. Sources: http://www.mcvuk.com/press-releases/413 ... -RuneScape http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_i ... tory=20741 http://www.crispygamer.com/news/index.p ... ins-jagex/

I am sure most of you are aware that Google recently celebrated their tenth birthday. To celebrate, they put a old search database from January 2001 back online: http://www.google.com/search2001.html An interesting tidbit is searching for "RuneScape" on modern google returns 17,800,000 results at the time of this post, whereas a search for it on the old google returns just 842 results. Not too surprising, since RuneScape was just into its first month at the time of this database. (Although results on modern google tend to vary wildly. I have ended up with as many as 51,600,000 results for RuneScape searching last week) I thought many people on here might enjoy messing with it, seeing what they can find using the old google. So feel free to post any interesting searches you find.

I was not meaning to imply the board was overwhelmingly conservative, nor do I think it should be. Note the fact that I said "quite afew" instead of "majority" of conservatives. What I meant was that there were more of them, which is probably for the better as having a variety of views often leads to better debates. As far as regulating where and what can be said, we already do that. The forum has a set of rules, infact bashing religion is already against those rules. The problem is that, more often than not, its not enforced well enough. Project Offtopic, in my opinion, was about cleaning up the forum in attempt to make it a more pleasant forum to read and post in. Which means getting rid of inappropriate sexual based posts, excessive language, and indeed posts that do nothing but bash others and their beliefs pointlessy. I do not recall reading Laterus' post, so I cannot comment on it. Where did I say debating religion was wrong? Theres a difference between a debate, and a flat out attack. Although I do sometimes think offtopic has proven it has troubles with mature discussions, which is why "Project Offtopic" was necessary to begin with. Its true that one could argue that religion is not really debatable, since being based on faith alone means it cannot be either proven or disproven. Certain subjects do need to be approached with a certain degree of maturity, intelligence and caution. Topics like religion and politics are delicate subjects, that many people often have passionate views on, and its something you should always take into account before posting. It is not wrong to disagree with someone, or to hold different beliefs. Infact, it can be quite healthy for the forum to have a diverse group of views and opinions. However, how you express those beliefs regarding delicate subjects is quite important. For example, to say "I disagree with on , for " is quite acceptable. Its also acceptable to say "I am an athiest, I do not accept or agree with it". However, what I do think is inappropriate (and the reason I made this post) is pointless attacks that are often made, without any sort of punishment. Posts like the one Barihawk mentioned are a good example of what I am referring to. In short, I feel that pointless attacks leads to nothing but hard feelings, and in cases may discourage or stop people from reading or posting in the forum. As for what is and is not a religion, thats a tough one. I guess the best bet would be to look at what larger countries like the US and UK officially recognize as a religion. As far as getting into specifics, I am sure you are already aware of the differences between religion and cults. Disrespecting or attacking the staff was not my intention. If anything, we got quite afew good staff members around here, who I respect. I know it must be a hard spot, and a very fine line for the moderators and administrators to try to walk. As I said earlier in this posts, some subjects have to be handled more delicately than others, and as a staff member I am sure you are already aware of that. All I meant is that in regards to either religion or politics, efforts may need to be increased to keep things civil, so that the forum is fun and friendly for all. Maybe clearer rules and guidelines for debating those two might would help matters.

Anyone who visits the offtopic board knows how frequently religion and politics come into discussion there. With such controversial topics and the diverse range of users that tip.it has, its no surprise that many will disagree over these issues. However, more often than not, any discussion of either religion or politics often leads to common insults, flaming, and childish behavior. Sometimes these two topics leak over into other posts, tainting them. Personally, I feel tip.it is a place where everyone is suppose to feel welcome. However, those who go against the grain of whatever is believed or accepted by the majority here, more often than not, find themselves on the receiving end of insults and ridicule. Back in 2004, it seemed that quite afew people considered themselves conservative/republican, and anyone who identified themselves as liberal/democrat was often thought of and treated negatively. Nowadays, it seems the majority identify themselves as liberal/democrat, and anyone who identifys themselves as conversative/republican are now thought of and treated negatively. Look at how bad the topic regarding Sarah Palin becomes on occasion. At the moment, she is probably the most controversial of the four presidential/vice presidential candidates running for office in the United States at the moment. Quite a overwhelming majority of attacks are being made against her, including ones in the past that have gone as far as to refer to her daughter as a "[bleep]". You can pretty much guarantee anyone who supports her, will be replied to negatively. Religion is another hot topic. Whether its christians, jewish, islamic, or other various religions, I would be willing to bet that it has been bashed more than once, openly. Christianity is probably the single most bashed religion on the board, and often people who identify themselves as christian are often insulted or thought of as less intelligent than the athiets of the board. Not coincidentially, the majority of the offtopic board today consider themselves athiest. There have been posts in the past, that have gone beyond debating religion, and straight into flame wars. Is it any wonder that you hardly hear any posters openly identifying themselves as religious nowadays? One topic earlier this year went as far as to ask fellow athiests on how to rid the world of religion. While the replies and discussion were tame compared to other religious based posts, it is still shocking that such a post was even permitted in the first place. Do you think a post about ridding the world of athiests would be permitted? I think not, it would have been locked quickly for forcing its beliefs on others. So why am I creating this topic, you may ask? I think maybe its time to evaluate the way discussions of these two highly controversial topics are handled on these forums. I think that maybe we need to decide what is and what is not acceptable behavior. Among the possible solutions would be to set more strict rules and guidelines, disallowing all discussion of them altogether, or perhaps a separate subforum for highly controversial topics. What do you think?

It appears the season 12 thread got wiped out during the forum rollback. I know this is a older thread, however I felt the bump was warranted in this case. South Park has won yet another emmy, this time for the imaginationland series. Source: http://www.southparkstudios.com/news/3504 I bumped this thread, rather than creating a new one, since the imaginationland episodes were part of season 11.

That seems to be part of the problem, though... People got this thought into their heads that, for whatever reason, that these advertisements were somehow meant to address the apple advertisements. These advertisements would seemed to be aimed at improving their own image, since a large amount of people view vista negatively. I really fail to see the reason why microsoft would even have to address apple at all. Apple, in the computer market, is practically a nitch market and not a serious threat to microsoft at all.

A month or two back, it was announced that microsoft had struck a deal with Jerry Seinfeld to perform a series of advertisements for the company, alongside Bill Gates himself. Since then, a few of their commercials have already been released. For those of you who have not seen them, microsoft has made them available for download off their website: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/wind ... llery.aspx What do you think of the advertisements, thus far? I must say, seeing Bill Gates trying to do the robot is sort of funny.

Aside from possibly the V8 javascript engine (I am unaware of whether google invented it or not), what did they 'innovate'? Their browser engine? Nope, that was Apple Tabs? Nope, every major browser has those Most recently visited sites? Opera has it I believe, IE8 beta 2 does too. Incognito? Nope, Safari I believe offered such a feature first, IE8 beta 2 does as well (InPrivate). Separate processes for each tab? Again IE8 beta 2 offers that. Crash control? Firefox 3 I am pretty sure has it, IE8 beta 2 does as well. Anti Phishing filter? hmm... pretty sure most major browsers offer that. As I pointed out, many other browser vendors, including microsoft (which is considered behind in the browser wars) beat them to most of these features. Nothing wrong with offering people more options. However, I wouldn't use the word "innovative". Mozilla and Opera are fairly far ahead of google at this point.

When searching by keyword, half the time the search feature will not show up a post, despite the posts existing. However, it does not effect the search by author feature. For example, search the Music, Movies & Television board for "stardust". You will not find a post about it, despite the fact that it exists: viewtopic.php?f=77&t=688273 Searching for "oldskool" turns 0 results as well, but the post exist such as: viewtopic.php?t=376284 Searching for "Different Strokes", does not turn up the post on my first times article either, however it also exists: viewtopic.php?t=502662 This happens with many searches, on many subjects. It has behaved this way since the conversion to phpbb3. It seems to effect only posts made before and not replied to since the move to phpbb3. I am uncertain as to what causes this, or how many posts it effects but it seems to be a fairly large scale effect. I have mentioned this issue to afew staff members before, but I do not believe much has been said about what the cause is. Has there been any updates on whats happening with the search feature?

As far as new types of smiles, it doesn't matter. However, I say we should just revert back to the phpbb2 smilies. Alot of the custom smiles included match those, and I think most preferred their look. Less hassle on staff that way too, than going thru the trouble of creating their own.

Sources: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/ ... 3920080810 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26125699/?GT1=43001 I felt I should edit this post, and insert the actual article here rather than just a link alone. Sad that such a talented man has passed away. Rest In Peace, Mr. Hayes.

Will contest winners ranks replace the current generic ranks for all users? Or are they in addition to the current ranks? Or will it simply be a for fun contest, where the ranks are unused? Also, are more than 5-6 ranks accepted as a entry? Say if you have come up with a pattern.

EDIT: I didn't see we already have a thread on the subject. Was going to request this one to be locked, but someone must have already reported it. Please use this thread instead: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=750778 Please lock and delete this one.

That would be kinda hard, because some players would probably have multiple 99s. So it would be either you'd have to look at the thousands of hiscores, or have an incorrect number. Without some sort of automated script set download the list and remove duplicate entries, that is pretty much an impossibility with the number of players who have a 99.

The highscores obviously Yea obviously he got it from the highscores. Don't be an idiot. If you weren't such an idiot, you would had understood that I meant "did you do it manually?" (the obvious answer is no) or "what program/script/whatever did you used?" Actually, it was done all manually, within half an hour Given that I knew from the previous times what the scores were, I tried increasing the search til I hit a number below a level 99, then tried middle numbers til I found the difference. It isn't too hard, just a minute or two of guessing for each score. I'll update the post in a minute with the number of people who have hit 99 between the time period of the two charts.