Platinum_Myr

Yeah the game is decent for members still. There are bots, but I don't notice them directly in game (indirect effects for sure though). I would suggest dungeoneering, as this is a fairly fun and group oriented skill. Getting it to ~80 will let you get a chaotic. Other high level powerful combat updates include the Extreme and Overload potions, and Turmoil+SoulSplit (Curses). I would suggest trying things out, and see what you enjoy. There is a lot to do, and it can be difficult to remember all that has changed. Also.. giant trees. :)

But the point is that humans don't actually make random jumbles of letters and numbers. We take a single dictionary word and perform obvious variations of it. So you can create a dictionary of common "strong" passwords very easily, because we know 3-4 of the patterns. The point is that I can make a longer password that is easier to remember when using the sequence of words. It is skewed in the sense that he chose common examples of each type of password. Yes, a similar length password which is jumbled is more secure than a series of words. But keep in mind that if you get 5-6 words in length, the number of combinations is very high. How many words are in the english language? there are thousands of words. Possibly even 100,000 words (or more, but lets keep to 100k here). so, if I select 4 words from that list, I have 100,000^4 which is 100k*100k*100k*100k which is 10^20, which is a very big number. Just under 1zeta (SI prefix) combinations. While a similar length password that is complete jiberish would be much stronger (considering that there are 96 characters on the keyboard) and let's assume an average word length of 5 that is 20 characters long would be 96^20, which is astronomically larger than 10^20. However, I don't know about you, I am not likely to remember a random 20 character password. The point is that the dictionary attack works perfectly fine against many passwords, because humans don't actually choose random passwords, and we keep them down under 10 characters. We use something as a base (a word) which we then modify using a standard pattern. Maybe that's not what you or I do, but I know a lot of people who think this creates a strong password. You are best off making a completely gibberish password that has no basis on a word or similar, but good luck remembering it. This is why the combination method can be better. Use 5-6 words and you have an exponential increase in the strength of your password. (Granted, a lot of systems won't even let you use passwords like this soo..)

QFT Yeah probably, it is the people who have a "real" life *gasp* who are likely to bot for levels and the people who are just into/out of college who have spare change who are likely to buy gold.

You can bot kuradel's dungeon, but you can't camp there. That means that even if there are bots in kuradel's dungeon it doesn't get overrun because you have to be on a slayer task. This means people tend to leave pretty fast because their task is up. I hope they do more like kuradel's dungeon. Also, I hope they do more slayer drops for only slayer tasks. The big problem with the economy is that slayer drops become more and more common, so over time their value has to decrease because they're exiting the game. I would like to see some systems in place to remove old items (better than the crap that was MA!) Some way to benefit by crushing up old rune armor or slayer items for smithing xp or something like that. It doesn't have to be much, but worth it enough that as the cost of the item goes down, it becomes worth buying and "destroying", but if the cost of the item is too high it is not worth it. (Thereby creating a semi-artificial floor on the price of items) But it cant' be like high-alch which puts more gp in the game. It should instead give xp or some other minigame reward or something. As it stands, we are getting more and more whips and dark bows and vine whips and sols into the game, but hardly any are leaving. And it's happening at a rate faster than the players are expanding.

It's a viable solution to drastically reduce botting in high level areas like frost dragons. The gp/h loss is enormous, and building up the stats to get there again takes a long time. If they know that they'll get systematically banned in those areas, they'll stop trying and wasting their resources. Implementing a solution that wouldn't even 'fix' 2% of the game's content when the problem spans at least 70% of the game's available content is not viable. 10 bucks says more legit players would be banned than not. So congratulations: not only would you have no bots in Frosts, but you'd have no legit players either! Because clearly they can't tell the difference from human inputs and bots, or the problem would be solved already. A human mod could more easily tell the difference between bots and players. Not perfectly, but more easily. A bot is less likely to respond in a non-cheasy way. A bot can still respond, but even private off, a mod could be heard by all players (ignore that status, since they're a mod). But it isn't a great solution, because the employee doesn't want to do this. (That's the real issue...) We make the employment into a worse grind than playing runescape!

Well, if I were working for jagex, I would want to get paid more than $30,000 a year, for one. For two, I can't even come up with an idea for stopping the bots, let alone one that actually works. 40 people? Maybe. But not likely. Bots are incredibly difficult to detect automatically, because I wouldn't want to ban legitimate players either. In game bot busting is effective on a small scale, but they cannot afford to pay people to bot bust 24/7, and even if they could it would still be very improbable to hit every area of the game. The best approaches involve making it unprofitable to RWT, by making gold not necessary. This has issues, because in game players like their gold. Also, creating activities that cannot be paid for, but which are incredibly grind based *cough*Livid Farm*cough*, does not help, as now legitimate players will simply bot that activity. Getting angry when Jagex doesn't have a solution for bots is stupid. Getting angry because Jagex lies about having a solution for bots, is good. They shouldn't keep on telling us they have solutions when they clearly do not. When thousands of players online are bots, (estimated from how many don't come back right after an ingame update...) it is clear that they're sophisticated automation systems do not work. Maybe its because as they said on 2007: "The majority of members bots we banned are from stolen credit cards." is still true, and they are only banning the bots which don't pay them? That makes some sense..

I've found that in the 50s, Rolayne and Smiddi both gain a level almost every trek, so it isn't really bad if you do easy. I haven't done any of the ones who fight with you, since I wanted to do the slow ones first. Does anyone know if you can get red tokens from the easier followers, obviously as long as you do hard events? (I want to get more torstol)

I fail to see how releasing BXPW is very different from releasing other content that is supremely popular during September... Yes, BXPW preys on our desire to have fast free xp, because the game is very grind based, and the cost of herblore and other skills is astronomical (both time and in game GP). Yes, I wish that instead of releasing BXPW they would create lasting but popular content for September. However, BXPW is nothing at all compared to the disgust I feel for the refer a friend program. I don't mind BXPW, but I absolutely disagree with the intentions of Refer a friend program. I don't really like BXPW because it entices me to play at a time when I don't normally want to (I am pretty busy on weekends). But it's not really a huge issue. Refer a friend program gives free xp to those who want to pay above and beyond the normal membership. Which is too much like RWT. At least it doesn't give the xp for nothing, you still have to play (unlike buying gp for cash, or straight raw xp for cash would). I would rather they release better lasting content than a BXPW, because BXPW really shows the flaw in their game design, that they have to release temporary methods of extremely fast xp rates in order to compensate for the shear amount of time it takes to finish the skills. They should design the game to not require this, or live with the consequences of it. I would rather see content that gives comparable xp rates to some of the medium high methods of skills, but which provide more enjoyment such as some excellent minigames. (Ala, dungeoneering. which i find to be incredibly enjoyable, and it also has a very decent experience rate.) The biggest difference to BXPW or Refer a friend program and normal content is the fact that free xp doesn't feel like "fresh" content.

^ Exactly. You like members because you pay to get higher xp rates that f2p games? The difference is that I already pay for membership. I don't want to pay for other accounts membership in order to get bonus xp in the game. BXPW is like any other members update, because it fits in the category of "things you can do if you have members". It just so happens that it also fits in the category of "things which take place during a specific time of the year" and people seem to dislike this. The difference with refer a friend is "you already payed for members. Now, 5 of your friends need to pay for members so that you can get the 50% bonus". You can't tell the difference between these two things? Ultimately, yes "pay money, get benefit" but they're asking me to "pay more money" to get more benefit when I've already payed (and continue to pay) for membership. Ultimately, the difference is that you pay for 5 months of membership to get 1 week of bonus, and then never continue membership of those accounts. BXPW is a ploy to make more money, but many players benefit from BXPW without paying more because we're already subscribed. Where as the refer a friend program can only benefit people who either refer friends who are willing to pay, or (expected) pay for friends/random accounts they refer. There is a clear difference in that I pay for members for all of the members benefits. BXPW is another one of these. Refer a friend is effectively only obtainable through spending extra on top of the existing membership fees. Granted, it is possible for me to have 5 friends who I can say "hey, come try out RS" and they join and give me the 50% bonus for a week. But practically the more often approach will be to create 5 accounts through referrals, and then subscribe them each for one month. I see a clear difference between the two. Yes, they have parallels, but it isn't the things that are similar, it is how they are different that matters to me.

They are quite different. BXPW just means paying for membership for a month during which I already will be paying for membership (I pay year round.) The refer a friend, would require me to spend at minimum 5 extra memberships a year to get the 50% bonus xp or the 10% bonus xp over 5 weeks a year. That is what sickens me. Most players don't want to spend 5 memberships for accounts that will do nothing. Yes, I understand the "surface" intention of the program is to support bringing on friends. The problem with refer a friend, is my friends either: a) treat RS as a kiddie game, or b) already play. And the fact that Jagex outright stated that it was ok to refer yourself. Even if they had allowed it, but not explicitly called out that behavior it would feel a lot less like a money grub. BXPW is something that we benefit for paying to play the game. Much closer to the other members features. Refer program is something where we benefit by paying for someone else (or NO ONE ELSE!) to play. Refer a friend program is a lot closer to RWT than BXPW. There are issues with BXPW: Why design a game where you have to add the "patch/bandage" in order to make the game feel playable. There is content for the high end player that is ridiculously insane and grind based, that BXPW can help with.... but why design a game where this kind of underhanded after the fact fix is necessary? Personally, I won't be playing much during BXPW because I have a family camping trip scheduled that weekend. I would play otherwise, though, so eh.

Casting telegroup trollheim apparently takes no time, so you can cast it as often as you can click. Hope no one was planning on doing a large with randoms. That'll be patched soon I'm sure. Yeah, but it would be fun while it lasts. :D (stupid expensive though =o)

Yes. I read through the update post on the official forums. It appears that the armors don't have stats outside the minigames. Oh well. Also, Borrowed Power is a terrible disappointment. I was excepting rewards which added equivalent teleports or other spells, so rather than this silly borrowed power dealio, we would simply have telekinetic grab added to our spell book (possibly with the extra cost of astral runes as well added to the casting cost) I don't really care about adding the combat spells, but it would've been nice to add high-alchemy to the lunar spell book.. At least trollhiem teleport goes straight to patch. That saves 20-30 seconds (or more if i'm distracted). I can now start my farming run from any patch now :) Also, group trollhiem is great, so that my friends can benefit without having to spend the 50 hrs of livid farm.

Anyone else notice that the knowledge base lists stats for the hybrid armor, then shows a set bonus that reads "in minigames X, Y, and Z, you get a damage boost..." So it's possible that the armor stats work outside the game, but without the set bonus? I'm not sure, because they said cosmetic only, but we'd have to see. How would they make the stats go away outside the game? Someone needs to actually obtain a piece and see if it still performs like a normal armor piece outside the games (without the set bonus that you clearly get within minigames). If so, those hybrid armors have some pretty epic stats.

This is not entirely true. If everything was a handout, in otherwords "click this button for 2b gp" you wouldn't enjoy the game, because there would be no sense of achievement. What's needed is a careful balance of rewards for grinding content, yet not making the content horrible. "Too easy" is very possible. For example, Livid Farm would've been very interesting if the game itself had been enjoyable, rather than a horrendous click-fest. Then it wouldn't feel grindy, but there would still be achievement for unlocking the rewards. The new Temple Trekking, for example, I find quite enjoyable. So I'll play it, and be happy when I get the rewards. Livid Farm, I barely managed to survive getting the rewards. It just has horrible gameplay. But if everyone had been able to get Venge Group just for playing a single round of Livid Farm, the accomplishment of getting Venge Group would feel lame. It doesn't matter much if a single reward in the game is like this. But it would suck if every single thing within game was super easy. No one would want to play if you got 99 wc for chopping a single tree, and 99 mining for mining one piece of clay, and ... (repeat for all skills and quests and minigames). Because everyone would be maxed out and wouldn't have much reason to continue.

Well.... runecrafting is so freaking slow, no wonder they haven't gotten around to "fixing" anything else yet!!

The citadels provide absolutely nothing of value to me, because I can't do any form of skilling there besides the (extremely tedious and annoying) resource gathering. I don't really care about the battlefield, and sure the citadel looks amazing, but I want a bank and to be allowed to skill. Even just alching? Why can't we do something as simple as that... The problem is that they wanted to create an area that felt like a "base" of operations, and clan members would go to, without members only being in the citadels all the time. However, I feel like these are mutually exclusive, because as it stands if we don't have reasons to go there, we aren't going to go. If we have good reasons to go there, it's less likely we would leave.

The graphics are good, but it's nothing special.It takes to long to grind skills and when you die there's no respawn. :(Why would anyone want to play that game? No one's ever told them they don't have to.

A lot of these glitches are random-recurring, and QA may not see them every time. Also, QA probably tests things under a testing environment, which can sometimes cause problems because of changes which people thought were unconnected. Sometimes the transition from development into production system (going from the test bed into the real world) can cause bugs that were not there in the QA's test sandbox. I agree that they could potentially do more QA, but would it be worth the cost? Maybe. Many bugs are configuration dependent. There are millions-billions of combinations of character names, skills, stats, items, character outfits, times, servers, random numbers, all of which could cause any one of the bugs that have been mentioned as "easily" fixable. Remember, as in this quest's example: the 4th room with the skeletons spawning... That did not happen for everyone. I played the quest (fairly) early on that day and had no trouble at all. Keep in mind that sometimes changes are requested late (due to balance etc) and there isn't always time to fully test things. We can't criticize the QA team's work without knowing what the actual process is. And I can tell you for certain, if QA wasn't doing their job, the game would be 100x more bug filled than it is now. NOW: as for the storyboard and depth of this quest.. that is an entirely different matter, and I believe Jagex could have done a much better job. Yes, I believe there is room for humor in the quests, but I don't believe that ignoring older quests is good. Suddenly adding characters into quest lines who don't really need to be there is also bad story telling. I think the penguin explanation is more or less alright, because the penguin quests were meant to be more hilarious anyways.

The world map image of the Falador Circus is incorrect (due to the Artisan's workshop update) and the Circus has moved slightly. I have attached a new image of the current world map location.

I noticed that a lot of the data here regarding equipment, and items is outdated. It's not a huge deal to update these things, as it is kind of obvious what to use now. (We have soulsplit, turmoil, soulwars cape, extreme potions, etc). It would be nice to see this guide updated with these in mind.

The OP's argument about consequences is dangerous. Ethics based on consequences is foolish, and is a very poor system of understanding morality. Ethics has nothing to do with what is, but rather, what actions we ought perform. A system of ethics based on the concept that something is ok, because no one has enforced the law is wrong. Many things are known to be ethically wrong, but are not enforced or are unenforceable. But that doesn't make them any less different. (We can debate the various good systems of ethics, but this assumes something that the general systems say is wrong). For example, lets say we lived in a society where the legal rule was to slaughter our firstborn to appease the "Gods". We know this is ethically wrong, and ought to be the case, regardless of the legal rules and punishments set up to make us to the other. the "everyone will do it this way" is not a valid moral argument either, because morality and ethics are not about what is, but about what ought to be. Murder, theft, adultary, lying, and so forth happen despite the fact that we know they are not morally ok. But we don't decide to believe they are ok just because people do them. Neither are the "wrong" simply because people are punished for doing them. Also, the OP argues based on his/her own goals being ruined, which leads to egocentric ethics ( a system of ethics I disagree with..) However, just because the argument is flawed does not mean the OP's outcome is incorrect. In the case of CastleWars (some of this is my opinion and not based very strong in ethics): Loafing does not tend to ruin my experience of the game, because they a) don't get in the way of me having fun, b) don't tend to have a large impact on which team wins. (because even if they were "participating", they may not provide that much impact on who wins anyways). and c) their presence doesn't change the effort required by the other players. The only flaw is when far more people loaf on one team than the other. However, most loafers choose to go to random teams, and therefor get spread more evenly across the teams. This means that on average the impact is minimal. For other minigames, loafing actively minimizes rewards for other teammembers, (DG, PC, SW etc), and therefore is completely wrong. I don't like trying to apply a general "moral rule" because these rules cannot be made to apply in every situation. The big difference between the "work" and the "game" scenario, is this: 2 people working on a project, and one person does nothing, effectively the other person must double their efforts to get reward. In castlewars, this is no where near the case, so the situations are not at all the same.

I officially started in 2001 or 2002 or something, but I didn't really play that much until a long time later.

The recent Ring of Wealth update modified the rare drop table to include many new items, including the ones you see listed here.

1. Instanced boss fights 2. Instanced boss fights 3. Instanced boss fights!

No you have the opportunity cost wrong. An opportunity cost is the cost of not doing something you could do otherwise. For example, lets say that I have two job opportunities where Job A pays 60k a year, and Job B pays 160k a year. (these would be the accounting profit) But the opportunity cost of taking Job A is the total money made from Job B. So, the economic profit is in fact -100k.