My Runescape Diary

There have been a few predictions about the soon to be introduced Grand Exchange, I am so surprised that people are more concerned about the Assist system that was introduced recently than the Grand Exchange.

The assist system has not affected the gameplay much and in the long term it will have almost no impact on playability.

The grand exchange however has the potential to destroy the economy and make life for low to middle level players more difficult, unless there are limitations to the amount of item groups for sale or time limits then the poor people of Runescape will stay poor for a lot longer than high level players.

When the system is introduced I predict that prices for everything will drop, some quite drastically, this is likely because it is new and people want to sell stuff to see it work, I then expect normal supplies for skills to rise back to probably a bit lower than they were before.

The problem is going to be things like rune weapons, helms and other monster drops, this is very likely to hit the lower level players, the reason I think this will happen is because high level players get loads of rune drops, some are high alched on site other are stock piled, for example I have 20 pairs of rune boots, I don't need any because I have 8 pairs of dragon boots, the reason I don't sell them is because I don't need the money and I cant be bothered to spend hours in a bank selling them, when the Grand Exchange comes what is to stop me putting them all on there for 50K, the current price for rune boots is 70K to 90K,, I don't need the cash so provided I get more than the cash alch price im on to a winner.

Looking at it from a low to mid level players eyes, they have trained slayer they don't have much cash and killing nechs they get a pair of rune boots, the price was 70K but there are thousands of players selling for 50K what is the chance of them getting 70k for their boots that they have trained hard for.

To give you an idea of the extent this problem is going to be, I have 90 rune axes, I have 50 rune pics, 30 sets of full rune, I am just 1 person I happen to know that many high level players have similar collections of items, for everyone to put up all their items in 1 go they will need to be all the same price or you will need to beat the next persons price to get the sale, can a new player who got his first rune axe compete on price with a player who has hundreds and only really interested in getting more than the alch price?

I am determined to find away that Jagex may incorporate to avoid this problem, my ideas so far.

1/ a time limit, allocating a 1 or 2 hour slot for each item listed will prevent people listing all their items for eternity, having to realist regularly will put many people off.

2/ Allow a maximum number of groups of items for sale at 1 time, say 5 groups of items, this will allow a full set of barrows, or 1000 prayer pots, 500 iron ores and 3 other groups of items, this will also stop people from putting their entire bank on there to save bank space or to sell all their rubbish like tinderboxes, bronze axes etc.

It sounds like a great idea and I cant wait to see it, I know Jagex will have ways to prevent the collapse of civilization as we know it, I will watch with interest to see if any of my predictions come true

I suggest you sell all your spare valuable items now ready for the mass price drop or you can wait until the prise returns to around normal afterwards.

You may be aware that there was an update today, you really couldn't have missed it, if you did its a way that you can help other lower level players with skills that they can not normally do.

If you read the forums there were hundreds of threads saying OMG levels with no work, an easy game just made easier, level 3 crafting players making full black dragon hide and fury ammies, no need to train skills anymore.

Mass hysteria over a new Runescape update that means the end of the game as we know it.

This new update nothing really has changed with the exception of making it a bit fairer, I often make pots, dragon hide armour and other items for players, all this update does is make the person who wants the items do the work instead of you, as far as I see this is the way it should be, if someone wants me to make 15 full dragon hide sets for them to sell I have the skills to make it, these skills I have worked for and should be rewarded for training them, the other player wants the benefit why should I do the work for their benefit.

People were complaining that low level players can make anything leaving it open for bots to rule the RS world, high level players could get double xp as they train and assist other players.

I would never make a statement in front of other players unless I knew it was true, this mass hysteria was cause by ignorance and people not finding the facts before commenting.

The fact is the system gives no more or no less than you had before, it simply passes the workload over to the people who want the help, this system is flawed and there are problems with it but not the ones that theses people are complaining about, Jagex have a forum for you to tell them what you think, this is currently being ruined by people complaining about things that they do not understand or have not been bothered to investigate.

There are problems, Jagex will listen to the reasonable complaints and moans and ignore the complaints of the ignorant.

The ones I have found so far.

You can not do anything while you are assisting, this is not a problem this is a must to stop the system being abused, the problem arises that when you are helping someone you must be by them, you can not do anything except chat to friends or people around you, it brings up a screen with a list of things you can use to assist the other players, while this screen is up you can not see who is around you, the person you are assisting can go off and you will be sat in this screen unaware that they have gone off, you need to rely on them telling you they are done and this doesn't always happen.

There is another problem with serial assist abuse, this is when a player seeks assistance from everyone in a bank and just leaves them in the assist window and not doing anything except wasting their training time.

These problems will be sorted by Jagex in time, it is however not helped by the spamming from the ignorant.

If you want to make a comment on the forums please do, but don't guess what you are commenting on look into it and see the benefits and pitfalls then let them know.

I was helping my son do monkey madness today, he is a level 88 combat he is only 8 and gets stuck on a few things so I was there to guide him along when he needed it.

As he progressed through the quest he got to the stage where he needs to go to crash island and then Ape Attol, I told him to bank everything and go and have a look at the place first to get an idea how dangerous it is.

He had no armour or weapon and didn't even take any food, he went up to the gates at Ape Attol and was shot and sent to jail, after escaping from jail he spoke to the sergeant who told him to speak to the gnome in the tunnel, he then made a run for it and was shot and sent to jail again, in jail he was low hp and shortly died of poison, as he died another player said lol noob, I found this amusing, Dan had done all he needed to do on that trip, this other player was stuck in jail, had armour on and had not completed that part yet and I bet he used a ring of dueling or runes to get back, not free tele like Dan had and all stats reset.

He returned and got all the stuff he needed from Ape Atol no armour and sweetcorn for food and had the tunnel part to do, I said your likely to die here when I did it I had armour on and was hit so hard that I ate all my lobbies and needed to tele on my first attempt, he had ring of dueling, dentures, monkey amulet and gold bar and a full inventory of sweetcorn. he ran like hell with protect melee prayer on and got to the end after walking half the way with a few corn left over.

He only took armour to kill the monkey demon, I gave him a range pot and he wore blue dragon hide and had a mage shortbow with 130 steel arrows, it took him a few minutes and he was victorious the monkey demon was dead.

This got me thinking that was an easy quest, before I did it I was told it was a hard quest so I got my best armour and best weapon and I struggled and I succeeded, for me that was a major achievement to complete the monkey madness quest and wear a d scimmy, my son did it with no armour and carp food, hardly an achievement just a chore out of the way to use a d scimmy, I am so glad I did it at a lower level, there was a challenge and against all odds I won, a much greater achievement that a higher level player doing it.

If asked when is the best time to do a quest I would say just before you think you can do it, I do all quests now as soon as they come out, unfortunately now I have maxed almost all attack levels no quest is a struggle, the only thing I can strive to do is complete before the guides come out.

I went to Barrows today, haven't been for a while so thought I would stay until my next mage level (97) not far to go.

Main drops half key (loop) and Dharoks Helm and Veracs skirt in about 25 runs as normal using my barrows strategy there were quite a few people there and I was surprised how few were doing it the easy way.

The easy way is to use prayer and wear mage armour with magic dart or better magic combat spell, in my eyes magic dart is better or as good as any other spell including ancients and wave spells at barrows.

A lot of people were wearing melee armour and whips and all sorts of melee weapons, the only melee weapons suitable for barrows are dds or full veracs even those are unpredictable, you may get a quick kill one time and take ages the next.

The thing that really tickles me is the people in full melee armour using magic dart and not using prayer, there was a rumour that magic dart was not affected by your armour or equipment mage bonus, this is a false rumour but some people swear by it, the surprising thing is some high level players believe it as well.

Using Magic dart with melee armour reduces the amount of times you hit although it does not effect your max hit, so wearing melee armour killing the monster takes longer, this increases the amount of times you can get hit by your monster and the greater amount of food to eat.

This method is unpredictable, you may not get hit or you may get hit several times in a row, you may eat all your food or you may eat none.

Wearing mage gear you will normally kill the monster quicker so get on to your next brother quicker, using prayer you will not need food (Except maybe Verac) so you save expense and inventory space and you do not need to constantly be on the ready to eat.

Several times I went in today and saw player half kill their barrows brother using magic dart and melee armour, I go in and kill mine before they do.

MAGIC DART IS AFFECTED BY MAGE EQUIPMENT BONUS!!!

Perhaps its me I just like an easy life I don't need to prove im matcho, prayer and mage gear for me.

before someone says it Ahrim is easiest to range, maging him can take an eternity.

And while im here just to let you know I got 99 range eventually, I got 99 at spiritual warriors.

At long last 99 range at spiritual warriors

Perhaps I should go and get my range cape

And what the hell I also got 82 Herblore.

I got 82 herblore but couldnt screenie so here is my 81 piccy, If anyone has a screenie of the 82 herblore and the super weapon poison ++ screen please let me know.

Addition to initial post

I got 97 magic, I did about 50 barrows runs and got in total Dharoks Helm, Veracs skirt, Veracs helm, Dragon Med Helm, 3 half keys (all loops) as well as the usual runes and bolt racks, I got 170k mage xp from barrows and ended up with more runes than I started and about 2m worth of drops, although its not quick for mage xp it can be very profitable.

My name is Steve, I am the Author of Runescapeblog I am also Director of Marked For Life Limited.

Before starting my Own business I was a Server Engineer for Specialist Computer Centres, these were at time of leaving the largest independent computer company in the UK and possibly Europe.

I was repairing the larger most important computer for their top customers, Companies such as Zurich, Alliance and Leicester, Next etc.

The computers I was repairing may have been similar to the servers that Runescape run on, they often had thousands of people all retrieving data from them.

I had many bouts of Tonsillitis that made it impossible for me to work, In fact I had so many I learnt how to spell tonsillitis for the sick notes, people who haven't had tonsillitis think its a sore throat, the version I had made me immobile for weeks at a time, in fact in the early stages the doctor was called to my house because I could not possibly walk to the health centre, I was confined to bed for week at a time only moving to answer the call of nature and to hurl.

Pressure at work about my illness and personal problems forced me to leave my job, I then started to use Marked For Life Limited as my main form of income.

I later found that my tonsillitis was caused by a preventative inhaler I used for my asthma, after using the brown inhaler I developed Flu type symptoms within hours and the following day the severe headaches, sore throat and nausea symptoms took effect.

I continued to run my business as my main source of income, I started this blog as a way of sharing my Runescape experiences with others with the intention of having it funded by Google by adds placed on it. As my first payment was due Google decided that I had generated invalid click traffic and refused to pay me, they had no evidence to show me, there is no way they could have showed me because I would never have generated invalid click activity, but Google own the Internet and their decision is law.

You may be aware that I had a serious system crash and my main business computer went down, all my data was backed up but I had to build a new computer just to be able to use the latest supported Microsoft Window operating system "Vista", minimum advertised memory spec for Vista is 500m.

I was looking around and studying all the systems available on the Internet, I found 3 suitable systems and comparing the 3 prices and specifications they all had benefits and drawbacks, one of the 3 I was looking at was one of the companies I have advertised on this blog here
And just for the hell of it this is a link to the other

Although the systems were very good the advertised service was exceptional there was something lacking in all of them that I wanted, either not enough memory, not a big enough hard disk or other little things, I did find a company who did exactly what I wanted at slightly over the price I wanted, I went through the motions of ordering it then found out it would be 19 days before it would be ready for delivery.

Because of this I decided to have a look at my trade suppliers that I had from my previous business building computers, "Bristol Clone Centre", I made a note of everything I needed and bought the components, the price came to a lot less than the other comparable systems.

The parts came the next day and I assembled them, the system was up and running in no time, then came the problem of installing the software that I use, this is ongoing and I don't anticipate ever getting everything I used as it used to be but it is nice to have a clean install.

Although the other companies did their best deal they could and this would be ideal for most people who use the internet, for a little less I got the best value system available, I ended up with a duel core processor, 2 gb memory, 500gb hard disk.

The problems with Dabs Direct and MD Components is that they need to show you what you are getting up front, you want to see what your getting for your money, this is quite right but by demanding information you may well be losing out on great deals, to advertise they must have enough of the product to supply them for a set amount of time (as long as the system is advertised), this may result in the system being obsolete by the time they have exhausted their stock, what may have been a good deal at the time they bought the components may not be the best deal at the time you want to buy.

This had me thinking what do people want from their new computer purchase, this is a checklist that I put together that I was interested in, look at the list and see if your values are the same as mine.

1/ Do you want the best value system at the time of purchase
2/ Do you want the highest spec machine available at the time of purchase
3/ Do you want the latest technologies available at the time of purchase
4/ Would you like to spend a little extra money for a system with greatly increased performance.
5/ Would you like me to stop this list and give you what you want

I have decided to start up my computer business again building bespoke systems for individuals, I will not be using the name Bristol Clone Centre as I was before I will be starting a brand new company.

The way I can deliver the above check list is the way I source my products and conduct the business.

1/ I will purchase the components to order, our supplier supply many companies and stock turnaround is almost daily so guaranteed the latest components available.

2/ I will source the best (Highest spec) products that are economical to buy, If the next level of performance is a lot higher I will purchase that if the price is comparatively small, if there is a great increase in price for the next specification increase I will not purchase it.

3/ See number 1 above

4/ See number 2 above

5/ I will promise to give you the best value product available at a price the other suppliers charge for the minimal systems, your system will be built by an engineer that was qualified to work on IBM and Compaq servers for some of the major players in the UK (My hourly rate was £60 to £120 to these major companies (I wish they paid me that much)), your system will be built at a static sensitive workstation ensuring maximum lifetime of your computer system.

I will be working through the purchasing/ordering system shortly if you are interested please contact us through our current business Marked For Life Limited, our contact details can be found here.