Gameplay and getting going

I was replying to a post on a Runescape fansite forum about a player who had died during the Monkey Madness quest, he was mortified that he had lost his items and could not get back to his grave to recover his items, his gripe was not the value of his items but the fact that Jagex did not allow him sufficient time to recover his items from his grave before it dissapeared.

As you can imagine he met with quite a lot of hostility from other players about the fact that it is a hard quest for low level players and not being able to recover your items was a risk of the quest, it then got me thinking.

Most of the players on the forum were long term players, they remember the days when losing items was an everyday possibility, a stroll in the wilderness, extinguishing your lamp in a dungeon or not concentrating when fishing could part you from your items, the days when death meant some vulture would have a treat at your expense.

Things have changed now, death is less common, if you die you can collect your items from your grave in 99% of Runescape locations, Runescape has become idiot proof, danger is safely tucked away in little corners with warnings about everything from entering caves without a light and the removal of predatory randoms.

If a player has not been subject to the dangers of Runescape, if they are not aware that their safety was their responsibilty and trust in the provision of signs and warnings by Jagex for their protection then why should they expect to be in a situation where they can lose items.

Jagex have made a generation of players who expect to be hand fed and pampered on their Runescape career, it is not the fault of new players that they are upset when (In their eyes) errors occur in the game that force them to lose wealth, Jagex have made the game too easy and safe, players should still be taught that their safety is their responsibilty, I made a post at the beginning of this blog (here is a link for your information) about people taking responsibility for their actions, its a bit dated but the lesson is still very relevant.

I am not saying that Jagex have made mistakes, their hand has been forced by players who buy RS gold (real world trading) and the people who supply the gold, I do think the issue of accepting responsibility should be handed back to the player.

My 2 lowest skills were Runecrafting and Hunting, tears of Guthix xp was always added to my hunter this being the ultimate lowest but my least favourite skill being Runecrafting, I decided I had to do something about it and working on runecrafting wasnt an option (yet anyway) , I went to red chompas, found a quiet world but couldn't get down to it, laying boxes picking up and repeating, I have always neglected hunting because of the ignorance of hunters putting traps on the same place as lower level hunters, this wasn't happening but I was still well bored after catchging just 70 chompas.

I could catch Pawya's they were good xp so thought I would give it a try, had a few 100 papaya's went to the magic trees at Lletya, planted my traps laced them with papaya summoned my trusty Wolpertinger for the hunting boost and chopped magic logs while I watched, I heard that catching Pawya's was expensive and that is why no one did them, Papaya's were about 1.5k each so could understand that but I had plenty cash spare decided to give it a go.

I was actually surprised to find that Pawya's not only covered the cost but could make a tidy profit, the cost of the papaya was 1.5k the value of the raw pawya meat was 2.5k each so every 1 caught had the potential of a 1k profit, obviously not every papaya used caught a Pawya but it evened itself out over the course of the inventory of fruits, I estimated about 50% to 85% success per inventory and I made some extra selling the bones.

As I trained I leveled enough to catch Grenwalls, grenwalls require Pawya meat as bait so I was lacing every trap with a 2.5k item, bearing in mind I was only just the level to catch them but I did have the help of a Wolpertinger, laying 4 traps at a time I was catching about 50% to 80% Grenwalls per inventory, the 2.5k investment was recovered 10 fold, when you catch Grenwalls you get Grenwall spikes worth just under 1.5k each, per catch getting between 18 to 21 spikes, thats 30k per catch just on spikes, add to that the value of the herbs avantoe up to Ranarr and the odd Papaya tree seed that they drop. you cant make that much profit from chinchompas so why are chompas so overly hunted, you also get 1.1k xp catching Grenwalls so the xp is huge.

As it happens grenwall spikes are a requirement for extreme ranging pots so I used all my spikes on them, had I sold I could have made many millions for the few hours work I put into hunting Pawya's and Grenwalls, It was also a lot more exciting than chompa's I really enjoyed getting to 80 hunting, now I can catch level 5 sacred clay swarms in stealing creation but taking a break from hunting for a while now while I try to regain my slayer rank.

As a little side note, since I got 80 hunter I quite enjoyed hunting and went back to the grenwall spot with a pack of papaya's, checked price on price checker about 25K, set up the traps and caught pawya's I then laid the raw pawya meat and caught grenwalls, the value of the spikes themselves was 250k, thats 10 x the money made in a few minutes, this has got to be as good an earner as slayer.

Went back again today and made 300k on a 20 minute trip, at 900k an hour this has got to be one of the best earners on Runescape, unfortunately its not always roses, another trip I only trapped a few and left with 150K profit, higher levels will get better luck but even 150k for 20 minutes work isn't bad.

just checked the value of the spines from the last few hunter levels, not bad for a few days work.

Now I am going to shove them in a range pot for extreme range potion, this is by far the quickest way to train herblore because you can combine 27 pots at a go, the spines stack and the extreme range pot production has one of the highest xp rates per action.

Familiars for training on Pawya/Grenwall can either be Wolpertinger as used by myself equally good are Spirit Larupia, Graahk or Kyatt, another idea that I saw at the grenwall hunting area was the fruit bat, the scrolls from this can be used to produce papaya fruit for the traps possibly prolonging your stay

Lets try to find a Runecrafting way I enjoy now.

I keep having ideas that would improve Runescape, not major updates that would effect everyone but little things that could be introduced that would make life easier, a bit of common sense or just make Runescape more playable, just for the hell of it I thought I would mention them here as and when I think of them.

1/ A creche for your familiar when you pop into GE to buy the supplies that you forgot to get, nothing worse than summoning your bunyip and remembering you forgot to buy your anti poison or bolts etc.

2/ Rework on the druid pouch, when you run through Mort Myre without a pouch the Ghasts can narrowly miss you, when you have a pouch they never miss you and it always uses a pouch, there should not be a penalty for taking the time to make the pouches they should be able to miss your backpack with or without a pouch in it.

3/ A fishermans hat, somthing to put your feathers in when fishing, similar to the enchanted summoning hats, not particularly useful but just a bit of fun, just to make it more like real life fly fishing.

4/ I think  the max skill level should be raised to 199, I do not think that you should be able to do anything extra above 99 but just to be recognised for having continued to train, either because you enjoy the skill or because you want another target to head for.

I have many that I cant think of at the moment, if you have any please leave them as a comment, I will add the comment and include it as part of the post if it is one that I have considered, remember its not major game changing updates or changes I am looking for just a little tweek here and there.

I have noticed that one of the messages of the week is that darts and knives are the fastest weapons on Runescape, they are correct stating this,  knives sell very quickly on the Grand Exchange that is why knives and bolts are the main smithers item (financially challenged players mainly) .

They may well be the fastest item but for xp they are pretty much useless, when I was training range I was told to use knives because they were quick xp, happy to try anything I took rune knives with me on my slayer tasks, I was advised to take bronze or Iron because I could just leave them and not bother picking them up saving time, I had my accumulator so used rune to hopefuly make it go quicker, it was great a double quick weapon but there was a snag, I couldnt hit anything, 0,0,0,0,14,0,12,0,0,18,0,0, the 0,s well out numbered even the low reds, so yes it was fast but you get xp for hits and I just wasnt getting any, it was bareable on things with little defence but as soon as you had a monster with the slightest defence they just couldnt penetrate.

This brings me on to a strange Grand Exchange phenomenon, the Grand Exchange moves in mysterious ways but I can not think of the reasoning or point of what follows, I have for years collected rune dart (p) from monster drops, mainly metal dragons, a couple of years ago I had a few k of them and decided I dont use them so I will put them on GE, they didnt sell, even at minimum they would not sell, for the last 2 years they have been on GE at minimum only taking them out to change the price to minimum again, the price has gone up and down by huge amount and still unable to sell, this is the chart for the last 180 days.

Every day I need to adjust my minimum price to stop it going to sleep on the GE, perhaps they are trying to generate some junk for junk trades, it escapes my why it is so artificially adjusted, rune darts (p+) had a similar peak in November.

I have millions worth of darts but just cant get at it,

WHY?

After a day at work I logged onto swiftkit to monitor my slayer rank, I have been doing this for a while to motivate me to train slayer for charms for summoning, I dont need much motivation I love slayer its just nice to have a target now that the illusive 99 has been well and truely reached, my target being the next 100 rank.

I was surpriseed that after a days work I had climbed 8 slayer places, the only explination I can think of is bannings, are high level players being banned regularly? I noticed yesterday the same thing happened but just assumed it was a mistake, it may well have happened before but I havent been following that closely.

If it was the case that high level players, even players with 99 slayer and the combat levels to match are being banned, a word of warning, STICK TO THE RULERS no one is immune, the rules are hardly difficult to stick too, they make playing nicer for everyone.

I prefer to gain rank by playing but the odd few levels dont go a miss by muppet players getting caught.