The Second Thousand - A Noob's Journey (Less Than 80 Levels Left)

[Godliest]

Your annotations make for a really good read, I'm following the blog put it that way.

[GregorDGrim]

Thanks, guys, for the nice comments.

 

Last night I was struck once again by the "log in and can't figure out what to do" bug. I have a long line of quests to tackle, a plan of attack for every skill, and a list of other miscellaneous items to try. Yet after signing on, I just sat there for a minute, looking over my spreadsheet, and then at my bank inventory, and then at my skill levels. I can't be the only player to whom this happens. Can I?

 

After another minute, I decided that I was tired and probably wouldn't be playing for much more than an hour, so I took the easy way out and went to Seers' Village to cut down maple trees and burn the logs. I like combining the two skills because it combats the inevitable boredom that sets in after 15 minutes. There were few other choppers sharing the four maples just north of the bank, one of whom actually spoke, so we had a nice little conversation which helped the time pass a bit more quickly. I created a little contest, seeing how many logs I could chop before the last fire set from my previous inventory went out. The best I could manage was 14 logs.

 

I played for about an hour and a half, and leveled firemaking twice (62 and 63). I also made good progress towards level 74 in woodcutting, but finished the session about 20K exp short.

 

Total levels = 1,095

[Godliest]

How are Maples for XP? Have you tried Teaks?

[SwreeTak]

The "no idea what I am supposed to do now in RS" happens to most players sometimes. I experience it quite often myself, and when it happens I usually just do some mini-game that I enjoy or chat and hang out with friends in the game. Sometimes I combine both of those, and I can recommend it!

Nice to see that you managed to level-up a bit. You're approaching that 1,1k total now! Gl!

[GregorDGrim]

How are Maples for XP? Have you tried Teaks?

100 xp woodcutting, 135 xp firemaking - I think maples are good for when I'm combining skills like chop and burn, or chop and fletch. With four trees right next to each other in Seers' Village, I rarely have to wait for repops. Also, I can fill up my inventory with logs much quicker with maples than with yews, for example. I have read that teaks are ideal for 'chop and burn', but I need to do Jungle Potion so that I can access the teaks at Tai Bwo Wannai.

[GregorDGrim]

I was hungry for a quest, and after the repeated noob-goofs from Holy Grail, I was intent on completing my next one more efficiently. I decided to tackle Dragon Slayer, for the good combat experience, the ability to wear green dragon-hide body and rune plate body, and because it's one of the prerequisites for the Heroes' Quest.

 

This quest was smooth from beginning to end, aside from a forced break due to a system update. I was just about to set sail for Crandor when I had to log off. After the timeout, I logged back on and spoke with Ned, who seemed eerily anxious to set sail.

 

[spoiler=Neddy is Ready (to be Deady?)]

 

 

I made it to the evil dragon Elvarg's lair without taking a single blow from the lesser demons or other meanies prowling the island, and began battle.

 

[spoiler=I Won, But Elvarg Came Out A Head]

 

 

A quick teleport back to the old coot selling overpriced armor, and I dropped the dragon's noggin' on the hardwood floor. "It ain't comin' back no more."

 

[spoiler=Darling, You-ooh-ooh-ooh Slay Me]

 

 

Now, here's where I acted noobish: I excitedly purchased the rune and green d'hide armor directly from the manufacturer, instead of from the Grand Exchange. That cost me more than 30K. *sigh* Oh, lest I forget to mention, I already had a set of rune plate body in my bank. Whoops.

 

I leveled strength and defense, both to 52. This was an enjoyable quest, and the rewards are solid for my level. My one regret is that I never got to take a pleasure ride on my first ship. May it rest peacefully on the rocky shoals of Crandor.

 

Total levels = 1,097

[GregorDGrim]

I had an extremely busy weekend, leaving scant time for Lil' Gregor to expand his skills. I had some time this evening, though, so decided to reach 1,100 total levels.

 

I spent some time in Catherby, fishing for lobsters and then cooking them, leveling once in each skill (54 in fishing, 56 in cooking). My goal is to cook an entire inventory of lobsters without burning one, and I got the closest ever to that goal this evening, burning just two out of 27.

 

For my next level, I headed to Daemonheim. I'm on my second time through the floors, having made it through 19 before my level restricted me from progressing any deeper. I cleared floor two, taking a very long time as I feel a compulsion to stop at every plant, every fishing hole, every vein of ore. The experience gained from working on other skills still means something to me and my low levels. Anyway, I finally made it through and leveled dungeoneering to 38.

 

[spoiler=100th Level Since BOB (Beginning of Blog)]

 

 

Semi-interesting statistics:

I've averaged 16,000 exp per hour played (234 hours, 3.46 million xp). This should increase as my levels increase.

I've averaged 3.23 levels per hour played since starting this blog. This will decrease as my levels increase.

 

Total levels = um, 1,100. Haven't you been paying attention?

[GregorDGrim]

It was a busy day working on skills for me.

 

Daemonheim - I soloed floors three through six without many problems, and went more quickly than I have in the past. I actually completed the sixth floor in under 22 minutes. I know that's about 4.5x slower than someone 'rushing' the floor, but it's quick for me. The toughest spot for me was fighting the luminescent ice fiend boss on floor three; I won that battle with seven hit points remaining. I was extremely nervous, before realizing that the ice shards dropping from the ceiling stopped doing damage once my hit points fell to a very low level.

 

I gained four levels in Daemonheim - level 53 defense, level 38 smithing, and levels 39 and 40 in dungeoneering:

 

[spoiler=Only Eighty To Go]

 

 

Vinesweeper - I wanted to get to level 24 hunter so I could buy a rabbit's foot necklace and get more bird's nests while woodcutting. I spent some time ogling the rabbits and played the game until I got 1,000 points. When you're a really low level farmer, the trade-in of points for experience is terrible. Those 1,000 netted me just 160 farming experience, but I did hit level 15 (and then later level 16 through some raking and composting) in farming, and achieved levels 22 through 24 in hunter.

 

House-building - I spent about 90K on a second bedroom and 250 oak planks, and built various oaken objects, mostly in the workshop, to level seven times (31-37). This wasn't really towards any specific goal, but since I had well over 350K gold I was looking for a way to spend it. I can see that I'll have an issue with accumulating large amounts of gold unless it is for a particular purpose.

 

Choppin' ivy - I tried out my new necklace on the ivy covering the southern city wall of Falador. In about an hour, I got four bird's nests, one of which contained a papaya tree seed that's worth about 36K on the Grand Exchange. Yeah, that rabbit foot is lucky. I also leveled woodcutting to 74:

 

[spoiler=Not a Noob in This Skill, Right?]

 

 

Total levels = 1,117 (17 on the day)

[GregorDGrim]

The Jungle Potion quest was calling out to me. Because it unlocks Tai Bwo Wannai Trio (so I can cut and burn teak), as well as Shilo Village (so I can go fly-fishing), this seemed like an important quest to complete. It was easy to locate the different herbs and finish the quest:

 

[spoiler=Made Some Good Jungle Juice]

 

 

Thinking of that potion (and getting that herblore exp reward) led me to training herblore. I picked up some chocolate from the cooking chest under the Lumbridge Castle kitchen, bought some marrentil at the GE, and made a bunch of energy potions. They don't sell for anything, but the experience is decent, and I quickly leveled three times (to 38).

 

After finished with the herbs, I cut maple logs north of the Seers' Village bank and fletched longbows out of them. I sold the unfinished bows for a tidy profit, after leveling fletching to 66 and woodcutting to 75. Now I can cut magic trees (hooray?):

 

[spoiler=Level 75 - That Almost Sounds Semi-Impressive]

 

 

As evident in that close-up, I look absolutely ridiculous with those Boots of Lightness and the generic dark grey outfit. I might need a makeover. Or might just stick to overhead camera shots.

 

One of my primary goals is to get every skill to at least level 30. It's been difficult for me to get interested in farming, I don't have many charms for summoning, and I am sick of poisoning Peter Cottontail at Vinesweeper for hunting. Whoops, sorry! I mean hunter. Time for actually hunting something in the jungle. At my level, it appeared that tropical wagtails were the prey for me. I made my first-ever visit to the Feldip area with snares in hand. Six levels and a lot of raw bird meat later, I hit the level 30 mark:

 

[spoiler=If I Catch You, I'll Wring Your Little Neck!!]

 

 

I did take a short break at level 28 to purchase the full set of Larupia gear, paid for with a significant portion of the bird meat I sold. My first real costume:

 

[spoiler=The Beard Makes the Look]

 

 

With the 11 levels obtained, I have cracked the top 1.4 million in the overall rankings, and am now in the top million scores in five skills - fletching, firemaking, herblore, construction and dungeoneering. Just think, out of all the players to ever log into this game, I'm in the top million in those skills. So elite.

 

Total levels = 1,128

[Syd]

First time in a - while - to say the least, I've actually read every post on a blog. And NO, it was NOT only because I was extremely bored running circles - wearing monkey suit (yes I really did that, and sober even) - in an island full of monkeys. You'll get what I mean when you'll get to the point of doing Monkey Madness. By the way, that quest involves running around some caves with nasty stuff falling on your head every once in a while. It's no fun, but heroes have to deal with all this kind of nonsense every once in a while.

 

Before actually getting too much sidetracked with my experiences considering this mystery monkey island, I think I had something else to say here. I have my own blog to write all about monkeys, but I sometimes forget where I am actually posting so bare with me.

 

So my point being, if this post actually has one, was to say that your blog was certainly fresh air to all these efficiency-is-the-way blogs. Trust me, I know. I have one myself too.

 

It's interesting to read about ones adventures (hey, I actually used adventure with this game), with so much to learn and discover from the world, skills, quests and everything that comes with it. It has been 10 years when I last did that. And back in the days the creatures looked like this http://srm62.webs.com/photos/Runescape-classic-photos/RSC%20goblin.bmp and fighting was as epic as this http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091125002140/runescape/images/archive/c/c8/20100614154930!Goblin_RSC.png (sorry about long and absolutely pointless links considering the topic itself), one really needed to hit his head in the table for calling it an adventure. It was ugly. Hey, it was still fun though.

 

There are so many things I could give tips about, hints, guide you forward and tell you what to do - but I guess that would sort of a ruin the whole point of your blog. I'm not the only one. Usually people are very eager to tell others what to do, yet hardly ever follow their own advice.

 

By the way, you actually sound alot like one friend of mine - who I've gotten to know by playing Travian. He also lives in USA, Florida - and has good sense of humour. Hah, I guess all older (one is as old as one feels!!!!) people living in Florida play games and make jokes about it. That's my theory based on two out of the two persons I know that are from Florida. It must be true.

 

This came quite a long post, but as your posts are not exactly the shortest ones either, I hope you forgive me for this thread hi-jack. I didn't do it (completely) on purpose, and I'm very much looking forward for your progress. Best of luck!

[GregorDGrim]

Sydan, thanks so much for your post. I'm writing this blog primarily for myself, to keep at a high level my interest in the game and also to allow myself to look back some day and smile at my enjoyment over solving a minor quest or clue scroll, or achieving level 30 at something. Level 30! I would not be honest, however, if I didn't admit that I also sincerely enjoy when others read (and comment on) this journal.

 

First time in a - while - to say the least, I've actually read every post on a blog. And NO, it was NOT only because I was extremely bored running circles - wearing monkey suit (yes I really did that, and sober even) - in an island full of monkeys. You'll get what I mean when you'll get to the point of doing Monkey Madness. By the way, that quest involves running around some caves with nasty stuff falling on your head every once in a while. It's no fun, but heroes have to deal with all this kind of nonsense every once in a while.

 

The life of a hero *wistful sigh*.

 

So my point being, if this post actually has one, was to say that your blog was certainly fresh air to all these efficiency-is-the-way blogs. Trust me, I know. I have one myself too.

 

I noticed that you restarted yours. I will be a regular reader.

 

There are so many things I could give tips about, hints, guide you forward and tell you what to do - but I guess that would sort of a ruin the whole point of your blog. I'm not the only one. Usually people are very eager to tell others what to do, yet hardly ever follow their own advice.

 

I would welcome hints and advice. I enjoy learning from those who have been there before. I like to incorporate efficiency into my playing style, without it being the focus (of my style, or of the blog).

 

By the way, you actually sound alot like one friend of mine - who I've gotten to know by playing Travian. He also lives in USA, Florida - and has good sense of humour. Hah, I guess all older (one is as old as one feels!!!!) people living in Florida play games and make jokes about it. That's my theory based on two out of the two persons I know that are from Florida. It must be true.

 

About three years ago, I went through a Travian phase where a friend (from Florida) and I sunk plenty of money into it over about a year. I read every website and piece of advice I could, and became a strong Gaul player. Of course, I had a huge Excel spreadsheet with looting targets and time frames mapped out, along with goals for what I wanted to develop next. One of my villages became the site of my clan's World Wonder. The game just became too time-consuming, so I quit. My friend still plays, though, and is quite successful.

 

And what you wrote is true about Floridian gamers...and about being only as old as you feel. Thanks again.

[Syd]

No problem, I enjoy writing especially when one can expect even a rather more intelligent response. With a game like this, where there are people of all ages playing, it's nice to find somewhat like-minded players around.

 

About Travian:

I get what you mean by the time-consuming part. Personally been three times server winner, twice building the winning WW. After every server you're exhausted as ever, and don't really want to play anything, especially anything that involves food, starving troops and real time strategy. Still, server after server one keeps going through the same old routines. Fun, boredom, exhaust, win. At worst times you lose and feel like you just wasted a year or more. That's life though. Wasting a year here and there.

 

And back to RuneScape.

 

It's absolutely true, that ones way of writing and keeping updated blog motivates the player itself, but also other players. Positive feedback from other readers feeds the motivation, and the circle goes on. Actually, once I watched over 10 hours of gameplay video on YouTube, about a guy who started a game he had never played before, until he finished it. Even though I had played the game myself, I still could "live through" the feelings of discovering things and finding all sorts of odd and hilarious things. It's often humour that keeps things going. After running about 1000 laps around, dressed as a monkey to gain digital score levels - not even close to the maxium - really requires some humour to realise what you've been doing past few days.

 

So far I've really liked the way you write, no pressure, but keep up the good work. You will find many things that will keep you interested for weeks, months and even years with this game. I've actually played this game half of my life, as odd as it sounds. Sometimes you wonder if those whopping 127 days, or 3048 hours of gaming could've been better spent doing something else. Think if I were using those to learn doing things. I could be a master pianist, speak perfect french, dated dozens of girls or.. Simply play and sing french songs to beautiful girls. But I didn't. I spent time front of computer clicking things up. Don't get depressed about this though, in overall I enjoyed my time and had fun. And well, I still have played guitar for years, speak rather functional English and have better girlfriend I could've hoped for. And, 3000 hours divided for 10 years makes it only 50 minutes a day average. Needless to say, there were days when I spent hours and hours roaming the lands of Gielinor, slaying dragons and simply - being a hero. If you can sound any more geek, feel free to try.

 

But as you said you don't mind taking tips, I could give you a few. First of all, farming is not that bad of a skill. It's actually one of the easiest and most rewarding skills as soon as you'll stumble over the beginning, growing potatoes when basically you gain xp faster just waiting for grass to grow for raking. Not really, but you get the point. Actually, you might want to do a bit of research in terms of farming, and farm trees if possible. Lower level trees (normal and fruit) are usually very cheap to buy, but give rather decent xp. Farming herbs, potatoes and other stuff isn't really worth it before the high level herbs (which, done right, can yield nice profit).

 

One good bet for making money is the good ol' fletching. It seems like you've got already a hand out of it (not literally), so basically just keep doing. Making yew and maple longbows (especially adding strings to unstringed bows) can yield like 200kish profit per hour, and some very decent XP. For a hardcore efficiency-troll, 200k is not much, but as I read your blog - I assume it's quite a decent pile for you. Actually reminds me of a story back in 2003, when I was collecting money for my first Rune 2 Hander (which by the time was the coolest thing there was - which anyone wanted - like a whip or rapier of early days), I fished lobsters for a week at Karamja. It was slow money, but boy was I happy with my Rune 2 hander. I don't think it lasted a week before I lost it in the Wilderness. Back to lobsters it was. Point of the story was non-existant, but it used to be very hard to reach even 200k coins. Now it's like everyday pocket-penny for a midstage RS gamer.

 

Another tip is that there are really no "bad" skills in RuneScape. There are ways to get a "decent" skill out of each and every one of them, though some skills are obviously fair bit more enjoyable than others. Getting quests out of the way early, and unlocking content like Tears of Guthix, Penguins Hide and Seek and Troll Invasion offer easy and fun experience weekly/montly for skills of your choice. If there is a skill you particularly don't like, doing those really saves you some trouble and gray hair (no pun intended). ;)

[GregorDGrim]

Another nice post, and thanks for the advice. Do stringed maple longbows sell in quantity quickly, or does it take awhile?

 

It was a productive day for Gregor, earning a total of eight levels, completing a quest and making a couple friends. Starting with some afk-ish ivy chopping along the southern wall of Falador, I ended up having a nice conversation with two other choppers. Both were long-time players, with one only three skills away from having 99s across the board. He had actually quit at the end of last year, with the introduction of effigies, but had recently returned for the max cape. I've read posts from other players who have gotten frustrated with skills becoming easier to level, and this really bothered him with respect to runecrafting. He spoke longingly of the days when he maxed the skill earning just 15k per hour. One other interesting comment he made was about world 42, my world of choice - he talked about playing on it when it was a FTP world, so I know he has been around a long time:

 

[spoiler=Back in My Day...]

 

 

I chopped for about 90 minutes and then teleported to Catherby for some potato/marigold farming (switching back and forth between there and south of Falador), and fishing/cooking lobsters. While I was cooking, I got pulled off to a random event (using a claw to put some girl's sister behind bars), and used the experience lamp on summoning, which got me enough to level that skill to 24. I managed to level twice in farming (to 18) and once in fishing (to 55):

 

[spoiler=Fishing While Waiting for Taters]

 

 

After my second crop of potatoes and marigolds were harvested, I sold a bunch of random items in my bank and then turned around and bought 1,600 maple logs for fletching. After the purchase I still had 450K gold left, leaving me feeling flush with coinage. I fletched for awhile, not quite long enough to level, but more than long enough to daydream about completing another quest.

 

I chose to head to Baxtorian Falls and complete the Waterfall Quest. It was an interesting quest, not requiring too much brainpower, which is always nice. The exp rewards were sufficient to earn a level in both attack and strength:

 

[spoiler=Don't Go Chasin' Waterfalls]

 

 

That brought my total combat level to 68. I decided to end the session by improving my combat skills further, so I traveled to the Stronghold of Security and kicked some fleshcrawler butt for more than an hour. I leveled attack to 52 and strength to 54, and filled my inventory with good herbs, charms and runes. I quit with my third 200K+ experience day.

 

Total levels = 1,136

[Syd]

Congrats on all those levels, they keep coming fast! =P~

 

Maple longbows do sell (especially if put -5% under mid) instantly for as huge bulks as possible (still profiting). Actually it's not because people would actually buy them to use them, but because they are good items to use high alchemy spell on. There are quite a few items, that are being alched, in terms of cheap and quite fast magic experience. Going around the G.E. you've probably noticed quite a few persons alching things.

 

Understanding how many of the lower end items have stable price on G.E. because of their alchemy value, is quite important in terms of understanding the metagame. Many skills like fletching, crafting and smithing are to be trained (costefficiently) doing items that can be sold in bulks due to the alchers. Ever wondered why do people buy things like bracelets, thousands and thousands of dragonhide tops, steel platebodies, battlestaves or longbows for example? Their use in the game itself is quite minimal.

 

Talking about the guy who was complaining about effigies and game becoming easier - he is absolutely right and his frustration is easy to understand. Who doesn't feel down, when you work hard for something, and soon later there are hundreds and hundreds of people with same achievement - only they just did get it many times easier. Back in the days before ZMI altar or even before Abyss and Graahk runecrafting - 15k experience per hour was actually quite close to the maximum experience per hour in Runecrafting. That would explain why it was such a hated skill and there were only the few who bothered to properly train it. It yield nice profits for those with patience though. It would've taken around 850 hours for one to reach 99 Runecrafting with 15k experience with hour. Nowadays one can get like 60k Runecrafting experience per hour using cannon at Cave Crawlers - exactly, it's not even crafting runes in the first place. I would be frustrated too, if my 850 hours of work would've been cutted down to 200 hours.

 

In overall it has been the same in all skills. Back in the days I remember people reaching skills like 99 Firemaking in RuneScape Classic. There were only one type of logs, no things like G.E., no noted items to be traded and when firemaking you first had to drop each log to the ground before you could light a fire. One can only imagine how did one even obtain like two hundred thousand logs it took to level, not even mentioning what kind of a grind it was to reach that 13 million experience. And no, people didn't stop there. One TIFer Matt258 for example (if I remember right) had way over 15 million experience and all the way upto 50 million at the early stages of RuneScape 2. He has 200 million experience now, by the way.

 

I personally remember cooking fishes one at a time at the Varrock oven, and felt relieved when they finally released the "cook all" option. Which happened to multiple other skills aswell. I have to admit, that for me the current ways of how things are suit more than the old - enormous grind it was to reach higher levels. It's understandable, people who reached the higher levels when it was harder are obviously frustrated. #-o

 

PS. Fly-fishing in Shilo Village or Barbarian Village is quite a bit faster and efficient way to fish compared to lobsters.

[SwreeTak]

I agree competely with Sydan here. Awesome work with your blog.

[Kickthat]

After reading through this whole thread, I felt compelled to echo what others have already said.

 

You have a way of writing that is very enjoyable to read and an incredibly fresh outlook to the game.

As you yourself stated, it is important to remember that this is only a game and the purpose of it is therefore enjoyment.

 

I think a lot of people forget this in their mad rush for xp. It shouldn't be a chore, it should be fun.

 

I shall also be keeping my eye on this thread. All the best with your goals.

[PuppyKing]

I enjoy reading this blog.

[GregorDGrim]

I'll call this post 'Another Day, Another 100K'. Nothing exciting happened on this spot in 2011. A busy weekend kept me to just a couple of hours this evening, and it was not quality RS time. What I mean by that is there were a number of other things going on around me. House duties, I'll call them, for lack of a better phrase. Oh, and football on television.

 

I decided to stick to easy skills that did not demand my full concentration. I fletched the remainder of the 1,600 maple logs I purchased, reaching level 67. I then sold all of the maple longbows, which brought my bank to more than 600K. I contemplated stringing the bows first, but decided to just take the gold this time. In hindsight, I think that I should have strung them first. Next time.

 

After fletching (done right by the bank chest in the Lumbridge Castle basement), I grabbed my pickaxe and bothered the Dorge'Shuun for a while. Tonight I decided to bank the iron ore I mined, so it went significantly slower than the typical 'mine and drop' strategy. I filled up inventories until leveling (51). I then teleported to Falador to do some smithing, but ran out of steam quickly. Earning smithing experience is terribly slow at my level, and I just wasn't in the mood.

 

Knowing I had about another 45 minutes to play, I planted potatoes and marigolds in Catherby and Falador, and pruned the Falador southern wall of excess ivy while waiting for the harvests to be ready. I reached level 76 in woodcutting (only four levels behind my son), and after harvesting the crops achieved level 19 in farming. It was time to call it a night.

 

Thanks so much for the recent set of positive comments about my blog. That makes it even more fun to play, and more fun to write about my wanderings. I hope to be able to keep you entertained for quite a while.

 

Total levels = 1,140

[GregorDGrim]

I chose to spend my last session focusing on three skills that have been neglected by Gregor of late: smithing, thieving and ranged.

 

Smithing - With the coal and iron ore I had stored in my bank, I went back to smithing steel (and then iron, after running out of coal) bars in Falador. The furnace is located close to the bank, but this is a terribly slow way to level the skill. I think I will simply sell the ore from now one and purchase bars directly. I hit level 39 and then traveled to Varrock. It was time to hammer out my smithing issues, so with my iron and steel bars I made some nails, some knives and some armor. As soon as I realized how much more money I could get for the knives, I focused solely on them. After selling my newly smithed goods, my gold count passed the 650K mark; the highest it's been aside from saving coins to purchase my dragon hatchet. I also leveled two more times (40 and 41):

 

[spoiler=If I Had A Hammer]

 

 

Thieving - I can say without hesitation that this is the skill that frustrates me the most when I fail at it. The five second delay. The 20-30 hit points of damage that adds up quickly. The damn tweeting noise. All so annoying. At least I can eat lobster while stunned, so I have that going for me, which is nice. This is why I had barely trained thieving since the start of this blog. I strolled down to Draynor Village and started picking the pocket of the master farmer. That guy is about as clueless as a person can be, because there were at least six of us following him around. I would have just packed up my Cloak of Many Seeds and went home instead of putting up with that nonsense. After failing on him a bit often for my liking, I went back to Varrock and picked the pockets of the guards and female warriors, and leveled twice (44 and 45):

 

[spoiler=Perfecting the Pocket Pilfering Process]

 

 

I haven't been able to find a definitive answer to something I'm wondering about thieving. Is there less of a fail chance if the pickpocket attempt is from the back, or the side, rather than in front of the victim?

 

Ranged - I know there are better ranged candidates than the fleshcrawlers in the Stronghold of Security, but I like the little buggers. To be more specific, I like their drops - runes and charms and herbs, oh my. Shooting an arrow into their back reminds me of Kafka's great story about turning into a roach. But, I digress. I found an isolated pair of them that no one else ever seems to bother (at least the bots don't), and there's a safe spot for one of them, allowing me to shoot them with my bone bolts with impunity. I spent enough time on the creepy crawlers to achieve level 45:

 

[spoiler=No Metamorphosis Here]

 

 

While I was in the Stronghold I remembered that I had not ever made it down to the bottom two levels, so I snagged 5,000 gold and the idea emote from the Box of Health on Level Three, and some fancy, colorful boots and the stomp emote from the Cradle of Life on Level Four. The boots look good for use at retro parties, but other than that are basically useless.

 

Miscellany - I passed four million in total experience during the session. While this is a nice milestone for me, I realize that it's less than a third of the way to a level 99 in a single skill, so I can brag about it only to my two sons. Even they aren't all that impressed.

 

Total levels = 1,146

[GregorDGrim]

The Task System - before today, I had never (at least to my memory) consciously spent any significant time completing tasks. Now and then I would see a little box in the upper center of my screen stating that I had completed something, and I have read about the tasks and the rewards that can be earned through completion of sets in various towns. I began today with just over 100 total tasks completed, including 67 out of 133 in the Lumbridge/Draynor set. My goal for the day was to complete the beginner and easy sets, experience be damned. The highlights:

 

• Completed 51 tasks in Lumbridge/Draynor, giving me 118/133 total.
  
• Finished all beginner and easy tasks.
  
• Went to Jack (and then Bob at Bob's Axes) for rewards, receiving a total of 187K gold, along with some small items.
  
• Received the explorer ring level 2 (silver), which allows some low alching and energy-restoration each day.
  
• Used the two experience lamps on summoning (500 xp) and prayer (1000 exp).
  
• Earned a total of just under 4K experience among various skills. Not good for my hourly rate, but I knew that going in.
  
• Leveled constitution to 54; didn't realize how close I was.
  
• With the gold haul, my bank is now over 850K.
  
• Learned some new areas, including Wizard Tower, the Jailhouse (and sewers) and the Water Runecrafting area in the Lumbridge Swamp.
  
• Am close to completing the medium set.
  

 

While earning very little in the way of experience, I was quite pleased with the session. I definitely plan to have another 'tasking session' in the near future.

 

Total levels = 1,147

[vb354]

I just wanted to say very nice progress and I like the way you write its very entertianing keep up the good work and I'm keeping an eye on this blog

[GregorDGrim]

High-level alchemy. It just sounds cool, and profitable. At a magic level of 50, I was five away from being able to cast this skill. How best to gain those five levels quickly? Why, cast 'Camelot Teleport' repeatedly, of course. I took 207K of my meager gold pile (Harry Potter's stash at Gringott's it ain't) out of the bank and purchased 1,200 law runes, leaving me with 670K in the bank and a load of law runes. 1,096 clicks later, and I had leveled five times to 55:

 

[spoiler=How is This Fun?]

 

 

Doing this shouldn't even be possible. It makes no game sense whatsoever. A player should be forced either to wait a substantial amount of time before teleporting to the same location (1 minute, for example), or not allowed to teleport to the same location twice in a row. Anyway, I took advantage of it and now I can high-alch.

 

It has been one month since I began this blog, with 1,000 total levels. Now, at the end of September, I'm at 1,152 total. 152 levels, in 57 hours of game time. I'll take that. If only it continued to be this quick....

 

I thought it would be interesting (at least to myself) to break down the progress during the month. Here's what I leveled this month:

 

• Fletching - 37. More than 580K experience and made a good bit of profit off bows. Easily my primary focus during the month.
  
• Magic - 10. Nearly all experience was gained through Camelot Teleporting, during bonus exp weekend and today.
  
• Farming and Hunting - 10 each. Two of my three lowest level skills, I still haven't gotten the hang of farming, and earned my hunting levels in Vinesweeper and Feldip.
  
• Dungeoneering - 9. I like going to Daemonheim, and I learned how to get through a floor more quickly.
  
• Mining - 8. I earned more experience in this skill in September than in all but four others (fletching, woodcutting, fishing, cooking), with just under 61K. Most of it was in the Dorge'shuun Mine.
  
• Construction - 7. Lots of flatpacks and oak furniture. Almost time to hire a servant.
  
• Herblore - 7. Strength and attack potions.
  
• Defense - 6. Brought it even with attack and strength at level 50, then got a few more off various mobs.
  
• Smithing - 6. Making bars for a little while, then switching to hammering out equipment.
  
• Agility - 6. All during bonus exp weekend, at Barbarian Outpost.
  
• Prayer - 5. A couple of quests helped me level this skill.
  
• Fishing - 5. Lobsters in Catherby, and various fishies in Daemonheim.
  
• Woodcutting - 4. 450K experience, primarily chopping ivy in Falador. Most afk-able skill for me. Got a good bit of nests.
  
• Cooking - 4. Lobsters in Catherby, and various fishies in Daemonheim.
  
• Strength - 4. When not training defense on the mobs, was training strength.
  
• Crafting and Thieving - 3 each. Yak hair to rope got me the crafting levels, and stealing from guards and the master farmers got me the thieving levels. Spent little time on either skill.
  
• Firemaking - 2. The most experience in any 2-level skill, I spent a fair amount of time making fires after getting maple logs.
  
• Attack and Constitution - 2 each. Didn't spend much time on attack, and constitution levels were low as I didn't spend a ton of time in combat during the month.
  
• Ranged and Summoning - 1 each. Pretty much ignored both of these skills during the month, although did get nice green ranged gear.
  
• Slayer - 0. Have some mob to kill in the desert, and kept forgetting about it. Will focus on this skill more in October as I want to level combat skills, particularly strength.
  
• Runecrafting - 0. Gathered some charms during the month, but need more before I think about leveling this skill.
  

 

Here's to a productive October, and a second month of this blog. Thanks to each of you who read this; I love seeing the page views increase and knowing it's not only because of me.

 

Total levels = 1,152

[GregorDGrim]

Got October off to a good start, playing around with high level alchemy. I purchased 500 nature runes, to go along with the 116 I already had, for 56K gold, and then began to peruse the list I found on the Wiki of profitable alching items. I noticed that many of the items on the list weren't available in quantities of 100 at the Grand Exchange. Weren't available immediately, I mean. I wasn't in a patient mood. I eventually purchased and alched 100 each of the following items: yanillian seeds, yak-hide armor, rune arrows and attack potions. None were very profitable, with the yak-hide armor giving the best return on the investment at 3,900 profit. However, it is basically free experience, which is so much better than buying law runes to cast Camelot Teleport. Thank Guthix I never have to do that again.

 

With the remaining 216 runes, I decided to triple-skill woodcutting, fletching and magic. I went to Seers' Village, cut maple, fletched them to longbows and alched them, which worked great for replenishing my bank. I leveled magic twice (to 57) and fletching to level 68.

 

I then went into afk-stealth mode and cut ivy for more than an hour, leveling woodcutting to 77, which resulted in my fifth-highest daily experience total.

 

Minor milestones - hit 11 game days played, and cracked the top 1.3 million in total ranking. Well, we're movin' on up...

 

Total levels = 1,156

[99s]

good luck

[GregorDGrim]

Lots of afk-ish playing this evening. Spent the past few hours watching sports and working on a few skills - woodcutting, fletching and magic, just like my last session. Tonight, though, I tried it with yew logs instead of maple. It worked out okay, but it was slow, taking a very long time to fill my inventory with logs. After a while doing that, I decided to forgo chopping the wood, and just bought 1,000 maple logs at the grand exchange. I fletched unfinished longbows and high alched a bunch of them, and then for the last 300 bought bowstring, fletched completed longbows and high alched them.

 

Typing that last paragraph almost made me fall asleep. It was about as boring to type that as it was to do the skills, but at least I had some good television to watch.

 

I leveled fletching once to 69, and magic twice, to 59, earning just under 187K experience, my new fifth-highest daily total.

 

Some days my blog posts are going to be extremely dull, and serve to do little other than bumping my thread to the first page. This is one of those days.

 

Total levels = 1,159