Cooking... possibly the most underused ability in RuneScape

[DragnFly]

There are very few people left who remember when cooking was more than just using a fish on the nearest fire or range. When players spent their evening, baking bread and pies or fermenting their wine the old fashioned way, up and down the ladders in the cooking guild.

 

 

 

When fishing launched on 06/11/2001, it was the death of the cooking skill as we had all knew it. No longer would people slave over a hot range cooking delicious meals in the land that we call RuneScape. Instead, people camped out at Karamja with a tinderbox and a hatchet, catching and cooking fish.

 

 

 

Not to mention the addition of afew new fish, and a fishers guild amongst other things that have been added since which further encourages the uselessness of cooking itself. People can sit in the fishing guild for ages, catching, cooking, and then banking or selling to the shop contained therein.

 

 

 

Cooking went from an unique skill, to little more than a secondary skill for fishing. There have since been plenty of updates to cooking attempting people to make more use out of it, such as several experience increases, restoration of certain amounts of fatigue in classic, and even stat boosts to some skills in runescape 2. Has any of this had any effect at all? Nope.

 

 

 

People refuse to cook because fishing is faster, and easier. Fish are better to use in combat too, getting that whole heal rate in 1 bite is pretty handy in a life threatening scenario. Not to mention that cooking is seen amongst many young males as "girly", and "unmasculine".

 

 

 

So what can be done to rectify this? Well to start with, I think we need to separate the cooking of fish and meats, and the cooking of thngs such as pastrys and drinks into separate skills. How would that have any effect you ask? Because being a separate skill, people will cook just for the sake of raising the skill alone. I honestly do not believe Slayer would be nearly as popular as it is now, had it not have been a separate skill and offered unique rewards. Afterall, when you think about it, the slayer skill is little more than a addon to combat.

 

 

 

Considering that the majority of the levels and experience the average runescape has gained has been from cooking fish, to the extent of 99% to 1% practically, I think most of the experience would be best transferred to the fish and meat cooking skill and the new skill be allowed to start anew, on an fresh start.

 

 

 

Incentives and other uses could be added to them as well, encouraging players to actually utilitize the skill. The stat boosts that you see in some of the pies would be an example of such incentives, although I do think we would need to find a proper incentive that could be applied to all foods. Perhaps energy restoration, which would vary depending upon the type of food?

 

 

 

Getting into the cooking guild should mean something, and it should have some use. The entire guild needs an overhaul and expansion, making way for many additions and changes that should accompany the new cooking abilities. It also needs a higher level to enter, I mean 32? Thats abit low compared to other guilds, atleast raise it up abit.

 

 

 

The possibilitys are endless, provided that they are explored and tried, rather than just simply being disregarded. I think its about time that the cooking skill stop being neglected, and put to use.

[weirdguy0101]

Its so obvious! just add the ability to cook waffles and BAM! its back!

[HatshepsutLecter]

just because something was added to a skill to make leveling it easier does not mean that said skill should be split in two.

 

 

 

some people still use the pastries to level cooking. i made about 800 apple pies awhile ago to bring my cooking level up. :

[DragnFly]

just because something was added to a skill to make leveling it easier does not mean that said skill should be split in two.

 

 

 

some people still use the pastries to level cooking. i made about 800 apple pies awhile ago to bring my cooking level up. :

 

 

 

While there is some truthfulness to that, I do not feel it will ever see any real use unless something is done. Every single thing Jagex has done to try to entice and encourage users to actually make use of anything other than fish as failed miserably.

 

 

 

This thread is for the discussion of putting cooking to better use, in any means possible, and thoughts upon how cooking used to be as compared to how it is nowadays.

 

 

 

By the way I have made a few updates to the post.

[spacheco]

waffles!!!!!!! ok to stay on topic....

 

 

 

the abillity to make breakfast.....(fried eggs,bacon,toast,oragne juice ect.)

 

 

 

we already have the raw materials! like pigs in draynor, eggs from chicken coops orages from the gnome place and toats is bread sliced with a knife and cooked ona a open fire afetr that bammo!!!!!!!!!! its back! \ \ \

 

comon jagex cant belive u over looke dthe most favored espects of cookin! :thumbsup: and to get the bacon u have to kill pigs they drop raw pok and raw and unpickled pigs feet

[donkeylad]

Its so obvious! just add the ability to cook waffles and BAM! its back!

rofl dude....

[TateModern]

You practically said yourself why this is a bad idea.

 

 

 

No one is going to take 28 curries to pk in the wild. Fish are just far too convenient. For true interest to return to the skill you'd have to kill off fish completely. Which is never gonna happen.

[hellbellz]

Or pancakes.. Pancakes would be getting cooking a cool skill! :twisted:

[blakdragon39]

I kinda like the breakfast idea :P Could it be the beginning of... :o POR? Player Owned Restaurants? lol that would be fuun...

[spacheco]

im currenlt thinking of lunch dinner brunch and desert so gimmie some time!

[gtacrackhead]

hey...I still cook pizzas at bandit camp...after using some of my lobbies...

[Bludragon124]

yeah... fish are much better, and i wouldnt make sense for you to remove fishing, or do something like that to make "conventional" cooking more popular. i mean, you can cook like that if you want... and by the way, some people still cook... i mean, i know i love tuna&sweetcorn potatoes and pineapple pizzas

 

:D

[Mucky]

There is no real incentive to cook anything other than fish.

 

 

 

At cooking level 40 you can sit on the dock with your lobster pot and tinderbox, catching and cooking as many lobsters as you want for 120 exp each lobster.

 

 

 

Or

 

 

 

At cooking level 40 you can round up buckets, milk cows, gather flour, and eggs, find a range and cook cakes for 180 exp each.

 

 

 

The amount of work put into a cake is 10x more than cooking a lobster but there is very little reward for doing the extra work. You get alittle extra exp and a cake you can't sell because members can steal all they want.

 

 

 

I personally would love to see the healing properties of cooked fish to be signifigantly lowered to put more emphasis on other foods. It has gotten better though. I remember complaining about this same thing 3 years ago and back then the exp for a cooked lobster was the same as a cake. So they have made changes, the changes were just not big enough to make a difference.

[Role_Model]

Cooking has a wide range of variety food, which i like, but the cooking guild is nothing. It's too easy to get into, and there's barely anything you can do in there. :|

[mikeb912]

When I first started cooking I didn't feel like fishing so I got 1k (yes thats 1 with 3 0s) wheat and a bunch of pots and a bucket. And made 1k bread. (Yes I burned more than half of them but its the principle of the thing that counts :) )

[toast647]

I know the ability to make...TOAST! harharhar

 

 

 

i see your point if cooking was the same then i wouldnt have 99 :-k

[Zibl]

As everyone has already stated, the only way to bring cooking back to it's "glory days" is to remove the ability to cook fish. Which will never happen.

 

 

 

I do support the idea of a complete overhaul torwards the cooking guild. I especially support raising its level requierment considering cooking is so dern easy these days :-$ Cook All :-$ . The mining and fishing guild take a whole lot longer and harder work to get into (these days) than the cooking guild. I'd suggest putting the cooking guild's level requierment 50 to 70 or somewhere in that range.

[sligo]

I actually like this idea. The "break-off" skill could be "baking" and consist of all those cooked items that require a range.

 

 

 

Another aspect of it would be a tie-in to farming, allowing you to grow your cooking herbs and spices (oregano, basil, parsley, etc), then using these herbs and spices in your cooking to enhance the benefits of the food you eat.

 

 

 

The hard part is adding the skill into the game because Cooking already encompasses many of these items.

 

 

 

- Sligo

[SF_Rmond]

i agree increasing the requirments of the cooking guild or make a new one that has the same requirments as the fishing guild (lvl 68)

[hungryblader]

its fine how it is. the guild requirement is too low, but the skill itself is fine. Fishing is Hungryblader's $$. And, we didn't lose the other stuff. Pies are complicated, but they heal more health. Leave it.

[ShadowSam19]

I don't think there should be a new skill, by I definitely think changes should be made. The problem is, fish has the 3 main things going for it: Convenience, good xp, and usefulness. This leaves only two options, either change fish, or bring in new food to make. The prior isn't going to happen, to I wont delve into that, but the latter is what Jagex is trying to do, unsuccessfully thus far. The have released many new food options, such as the dairy products, baked potatoes, and new pies, but what they are all lacking is convenience, and to a lesser degree usefulness. Until jagex creates a food item that is easy to make, and heals a lot in one bite, fish will remain at the top of the cooking skill.

[spacheco]

make mud pies f2p?

[Dalcyte]

personally i love old fashioned cooking. I rarely did lobsters in my lvl 40s up until 50. I think its just to much of a hastle, i mean...you can sit there get fish and cook..or you can...gather wheat, make it into flour, get cooking apples from a respawn if ur f2p, tons of pie dishes and such. I mean its fun, i love doing that type of stuff, it gives my satisfaction , but when i wanna raise something fast and more easy, i turn to fishing. Btw, i think of fishing useless without cooking, cooking you can still do stuff, fishing...only place u can eat raw things is scaperune :-s

[Zaaps1]

make different kinds of cheese, now the swiss players can be patriotic by shoting aroows into cheese! no offence.

 

Or we can do it the easyway and make the rest(or mst of the rest) of cooking f2p. Cooking ftw(first skill i got past 50lol, at the time everything else was like 20lol)

[Stilev]

although a good idea fishing has been so inter-twined into cooking that it would probaly wouldn't go over very well