PhelimReagh

I expect traps to be sold in specialty shops for exhorbitantly high prices, and when you fail to catch something, it breaks. No crafting them. A way to drain gp, like Construction.

Dang. In my excitment I totally glossed over the "non-combat" skill part. Hmmm. I don't seem to be as excited anymore :( You set traps and come back, like farming. Oh God, not like farming. Please, oh please, not like farming. Or set a lure, lie back and wait like chompy bird hunting. Oh God, no. I've done a complete 180 on this skill in the matter of 1 hour.

Its just my speculation, but with Jagex mentioning new lands to be opened up, who knows? A whole Tundra/Ice land, with Deers, Mammoths (like you said :D), Sabertooth Tigers (spelled right?). That would be really cool! well jagex have been hinting at the icelands release now for ages, what with the penguins and the fremminik quests, and it seems the most logical thingg to do as the north is the only area of the map they havent really expanded My mind is racing! Hunting tigers on Karmaja, Lions somewhere south of Uzer, Mammoths in the tundra of the icelands west of Miscellania, Saradomin knows what foul oddities south of the Ogre lands! Cold weather armor, if you lack it you take damage in the icelands. Release it now! Release it now! Argggggggh!

:shock: :) :D :thumbsup: I'm already enivisioning this gigantic thing whipping it's head around, and sending teams of hunters flying through the air, with big red "45"s attached to all of 'em. The price of Mammoth tusks... and Mammonth bones! :anxious:

It's very strange that folks can say one way or another whether they like this new Hunting skill or not. We know nothing about it. How can you know whether it's good or bad? And rushed? Unless you're privvy to Jagex's game development cycle, you're off your rocker. Games are developed in stages, with these types of releases done in parallel. While Jagex was putting the finishing touches on Construction, they were already no dobut deep into the early stages of developing this new skill. And guess what? As the testers and programmers are finishing up Hunting, I can guarantee you that other folks at Jagex are already fleshing out the details of at least one more skill, albeit in the much earlier stages. So if Hunting comes out in a month, they're probably already a few months into the next skill "Animal Husbandry" or something (made that one up). Each new update is usually developed to address one deficiency or another in the game. There was a lot of cash floating around, so the Jagex folks thought up construction. What parts of the game are "under-utilized"? Most certainly, the west of Runescape, Tirannwn, and to a lesser extent, the Tree Gnome Stronghold (although I'm sure lots of folks like it that way ;-) ). I would also not be surprised if that last bit of the west opened up as well. Special hunting grounds of a new race of people. or something. Under-utilized skills? Agility and Farming are pretty under-utilized, I'd say. There could very well be a tie in there (growing a special food to lure certain animals). You may also have to chase creatures down, requiring a high agility to keep up the hunt. I would expect that the folks at Jagex are probably are gonna try to get people out of the mines and furnaces, and away from the Yews, to see what this whole world they've created looks like. It's interesting to speculate, but of course, we have no idea what this new skill is going to be like. But I'm at least excited to find out.

You're never un-addicted. Seriously. If you're not going cold turkey, you need to set seemingly drastic limits on yourself and stick to them. Say 1 or 2 hours per day, with at least 1 or 2 days where you don't play at all. If you can't keep to that, you need to sit back and literally say out loud to yourself "If I play anymore, that means I've ceded control of my life to an online video game." Because that's what you've really done. It likely will not get any easier to log off, or not log on some days. Until you find other stuff to occupy your time, and get used to limiting yourself. Each time you stop yourself from playing when you really want to play is going to be equally as hard as the first time you cut yourself off. Seriously, it's going to be a battle. Every day. Kicking all addictions are.

If you're involved in some athletic activity, train more. If you're in school, study more. If you're out of school, go out and socialize more, and/or spend time improving upon your job skills. If you have a family, read to your kids, kick a ball around with them. Read. Exercise. Volunteer. Work a little more if you need the cash. There's lots to do out there in RL.

I just wanted to add: I can't tell you how glad that they didn't have this game when I was younger. I find it addictive now (and I'm in my 30s). I can't imagine what would have happened if I'd had this around when I was going to college, had to wake up early for a clase, game or a track meet. Nowadays it's easy to justify spending a whole rainy (or cloudy, or sunny) Saturday at the computer in that I'm staying at home and not blowing money on X, Y or Z, and/or that I deserve a day of doing something I enjoy after a long workweek. But I _know_ that college would have been a completely different ballgame. Good luck with kicking this.

The Big Picture To get level 99 in all skills requires about 287 million xp. Assume that, over time, you can average 50K xp per hour. That's over 5,700 hours. That's 7.5 hours/day, 5 days/week for almost 3 years. That's a full time job. What are you going to have to show for it when you finally do get to Zezima's "level"? Will your life really be, in any way, better for the experience? If you stop playing RS, what are the odds that your relationships with the people you know in-game, who likely live hundreds if not thousands of miles away, will last? Especially if they too are, in fact, addicted to RS? You need to step back and figure out why you're playing the game. And what you're missing out on when spending all that time mining or runecrafting or playing PC.

There are tons and tons of articles and weblog entries out there on the internet saying the same thing, if not about RS, but about other MMORPGs. You're not alone. This is a poorly understood thing, this MMORPG addiction. But from what I've read, it's pretty real. While the consequences may not be physically debilitating like a substance abuse, or financially dangerous like a gambling addtiction, it is still "bad". Personal relationships often suffer, as does work/ academic performance. Now if I could just bring myself to admit it myself... PS - Most people seem to only kick the habit if they go cold-turkey.

In keeping with the "spirit" of the game, I think rune essence (pure or otherwise) is too rare and mystical to be gathered by simple workers. Since runes (although not essences) can be found for sale in many places throughout Runescape, the ultimate end-product of using essences, I think they've kinda covered this. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to gather Pure Essence for less than 100 gp each, but that also takes away a great money-making opportunity for lower-levels. A method that I certainly used in the early days (though back then they were selling for 70 each!).

I haven't done it yet (as I haven't finished Fairy Tale II), but I thought that the fairy ring to the Canafis Mushroom patch and banking in Canafis looked pretty fast. In fact, I was wondering if it could rival the Abyss, speed-wise. At least that was how I was planning to do it :(

That's a tough analysis to make, because with greens you're going to have different levels of productivity based on competition, PKers, etc. With RCing nats you know what you're getting per hour. In theory, killing green dragons and selling bones/hides should get you more, if there was no competition for them, and no one trying to PK you. Then if you do get PKed, and lose something you have to factor _that_ in as well =/ I don't think there's a right answer to this question, sadly.

I would have to agree. If Jagex was doing anything more than breaking even with F2P ads, they would put more effort into enhancing the F2P experience, and encourage more folks to play it. That would make sense business-wise, as a better F2P environment would mean more users and, therefore, more money. The fact that they don't make much effort in F2P is a sign that F2P is more-than-likely a drain on resources, not any kind of profit center. While that idea concept be contrary to the expert analysis of all the 13 and 14 year-old e-commerce business mavens here, I would expect the "F2P is a drain/subsidized by P2P" scenario to be most likely.

I was hoping I could put the cannon right in the middle and avoid the dogs as best as I could, but you're probably right that they would, eventually, wander into range. That would probably add another 200-500 cannonballs (40-100K). Still feasible, I suppose. And a little more range XP, I guess.

I don't know how practical the option is, but I would work my little F2P fingers off to save 2 million gp (that 20K iron ore), get $5 for one month of membership, and take advantage of either the Ectofungus in Port Phasmatys (400% more prayer), or another P2Pers Gilded Altar (350% more prayer). I had a friend over just yesterday, and we trained Prayer on my Gilded Altar. It cost 400K for 200 dragon bones, but he got about 56K xp and went from 47 to 52 in about 15 minutes. Granted, if you're using a strangers' Gilded Altar, they'll probably charge you 20-50K/trip for the service, but it's totally worth it. So if you can, save 2 million and buy a whip in P2P. Spend the month with said whip training on blue dragons, collecting bones and hides. Sell the hides and buy more dragon bones. Near the end of the month, sell your whip, buy more dragon bones if you like. You'll have lots of combat XP, and a ridiculous prayer level when you're done.

Time for a Dwarven Cannon? That lovely little fairy Slayer Master Chaeldar saw fit to assign me to slay 100+ Greater Demons. Nice of her (if it's a her... I can't even be sure). That's just a darn lot of Greaters. So, I'm now considering purchasing a Dwarven Cannon, smelting some cannonballs, and going to work on my range in the Brimhaven dungeon. Would this be a good, bad, neutral idea? I figure: 1. Brimhaven's dungeon is pretty much out of the way, so I hopefully won't inconvenience my fellow players by bringing a cannon. The two times I've been there, nobody was messing with the Greaters. 2. If I have to kill 150 of 'em, I'm figuring around 1.2-1.4K cannonballs = ~250K gp. The drops in the Tip.it bestiary seem pretty good, but how likely am I to get a Dragon Spear or a Shield Half? No too likely, I imagine. Just wondering if I can come close to getting like 100-150K in drops along the way to lessen the financial hit. A Level 3 clue scroll, of course, could prove to be very, very profitable, and I figure with 100+ Greaters, I'd be sure to get one. PS - that's about 26K range xp using a cannon. Only enough to go from 60-61. Advice?

Zybez.net lists Yews at 300+gp. If they were worth it at 230 a month ago, they're definitely worth it now.

You can take a bucket, use the bucket on a well in Pollinveach (sp?), and then refill the 3-4 waterskins you have. The crocs are just south of Pollinveach, right? Shouldn't be a problem. I've never done it though, just relying on Tip.it's bestiary and map.

No, I don't want 3K logs per day. But if I decide it's time to fletch some arrows, I'd like to be able to set a few workers to it for a day or two to get the logs I need. I'd rather make 'em than buy 'em from the store. Just more fun that way.

There is a common fee for all credit card transactions, regardless of the amount. It's usually between 30-50 cents US (plus about 2-4% of the transaction fee). That fee is about 10% of Jagex's monthly charge. Reduce the subscription to $3-4, and that's a massive percentage of Jagex's income going to Mastercard and Visa. There might be a way to find a happy medium, but my guess is: if you're too "frugal" to pay $5/month, you're probably too frugal to pay $4/month as well, ads or naught.

I have a suggestion for the folks at Jagex. Upgrade the options in Miscellania, so that your subjects (Lumberjack Leif) could gather regular logs for you instead of just maple logs. Cutting regular logs is such a painful, tedious experience in-game that few folks have the patience to do it. As a result, a regular log costs as much as a maple in-game. If you can even find someone selling them! Give them a price of 10-15 gp each or something. I'm not asking for willows, oaks or yews (although yews would be sweeet), just regular logs.

We all go through that phase where we want everybody lower than us out of Pest Control. Frustration always seems to peak around the same time of day, too, around 8-10PM EST when PC is filled with little kiddies. Thank goodness they eventually have to go to bed.

Level 50s want the limit to be 50. Level 60s want the limit to be 60. Level Xs want the limit to be X. Insert your current combat level for X. Everyone has the same complaint. Everyone wants every player lower than them off of the lander. Thank goodness for Affliction, so level 90+ don't need to worry about that. Dying playing PC is a good thing. Your prayer gets recharged, and you lose no items. What could be better? That will really just slow down PC, spreading the players out. While thanks for posting, these are ideas that I don't think will fly.

Dragon Scmitar: +67 Slash, +66 Strength Abyssal Whip: +82 Slash, +82 Strength That +15/+16 difference may not seem like much, but it certainly makes a huge difference against higher level monsters/PC gates. The two weapons operate at the same speed, but you're going to hit more often with the Whip, and when you do hit, it's going to be for more damage. In the long run, that is going to speed up your training time dramatically. And the Whip allows you to train all three combat skills at once, distributing 6xp/hit over all three, as opposed to putting only 4xp/hit into one skill. That's 50% more xp per hit. And you hit more often. And for more damage. The only drawback is price, and the inability to put 4xp/hit towards strength (but why would you even want to anyway if you can put 6xp towards all three?).