My Runescape Diary

Runescapes Distractions and Diversions includes Penguin Hide and seek, Balthazar Beauregard's Big Top Bonanza and Shooting Star, I have already covered the last 2 so here we have the Penguin Hide and seek guide, if you can call it a guide that is.

I have a goal to get all my stats to 80, I now only have hunter and runecrafting to go, having recently managed it with construction, smithing and mining and getting a total level of 2200 in the process, hunter is easy to level I just haven't trained it because of the amount of nubs at chins but I will level that shortly, I have a way of dealing with the anti social nubs so watch out.

Runecrafting is a different matter, I cant say I enjoy Runecrafting, I don't hate it but I am not its greatest fan, I have days I can train it happily and others I cant, I never train things if I don't want unless there is a good reason so it has fallen behind a bit.

I have never much bothered with penguin spotting, just spying them If I come across one on my travels, which I have quite often, trading in I noticed that you get a lot of xp per penguin, I opted for runecrafting xp because it is my least trained skill and as already mentioned one of my under 80's, the cash option was never considered, I do not know how much you get but xp is worth so much more than cash.

I have heard of a clan channel that goes around spotting penguins, I looked on the Runescape Official forums for information and found the world 60 penguin chat, at first I was reluctant to join and just used the forum post to find some with mixed success, I eventually signed on and there were a whole list of people hunting the penguins, there were regular updates of their whereabouts and people requesting locations, within half an hour I had found 9 penguins, the last, a desert penguin was a bit tricky but eventually found him pretending to be a cactus.

I don't like to post clan chats or RSOF links because they are subject to change but a search on the RSOF should find them.

The world 60 penguin hunter clan chat is very helpful, there is more than just people hunting penguins and reporting them, there are players staying with the penguin trapping them or directing people to them, these are players who like to play Runescape just standing around to help others, what a great load of people.

A few rules are to try and not walk through people who have the penguin trapped, this will release them, always shut doors if they are trapped in a building, hardly rules but will help other players who arrive after you, there are lots of help on the RSOF take time to read it and it will make hunting fun.

And most important say thank you to the players trapping the penguins and the guys on the chat channel for helping you get your xp, they are doing it instead of training their skills just for you and other players.

It is fun hunting penguins and the xp is great it will take 4 weeks hunting penguins to get 77 runecrafting, then I can make bloods as a bit of motivation to get level 80.

Stealing creation is a few days old already, It didn't appeal to me much so I didn't try it immediately, been chasing stars instead.

Yesterday I gave it a go, I watched my son play before so I had a general idea what to do.

I did the little tutorial, all appeared to be OK so I decided to speak to the goblin to be put into a team

I stood in a square with some other players, lots of stats and numbers about not sure what it meant but the general idea is its trying to balance skill levels between teams, I guess its so the strategy would win the game not a 1 sided team, I believe this happens at Pest Control in the background trying to match similarly speced players.

The game started and I ran out grabbed some clay made an item to be able to get better clay then repeated until I could get some good level 5 clay, I then collected clay made stuff and banked it in our base, sometimes just taking clay and dumping it on the table for other to make stuff with.

I played 2 games and was pretty bored with it so decided to just have a play I tried pick pocketing people, this is when it started to be fun, there would be ancient mages there using Ice spells freezing everyone killing them very quickly (ancients is far to powerful for this game) I would jump out of a cloud and pick their pockets, often pinching their runes so they could no longer fight, bearing in mind I am 99 thieving so I can pick pocket anyone and only players over 79 thieving can pick pocket me.
I would then take the runes back to the base for points.

It is a very fast paced game, you do get time to think but the game seems to be over quickly because you are constantly doing things.

It will take a while to work out tactics but I personally don't think it has much to offer, certainly not enough to keep me at it.

The main complaint I see is that you don't get skill xp from it just combat, I am sure there was a reason for Jagex not giving skill xp in the first place but I would be very surprised if they don't change things so that the skilling aspect of the game is recognised.

A tactic I picked up when playing to get huge amount of points is to runecraft, get the clay and make runes you can do this without returning to base for as long as the clay source is there, when you have exhausted the clay go back and bank, there is a slight drawback to this, if you are killed returning to base you will lose all your hard work and the other team get it.

There is also a problem with the game in the fact you can collect all runes from your base, this will guarantee your team losing so anyone can sabotage the game for their friends on the other side.
Having said that the winning team gets a 10% bonus in points, not enough to be that bothered about winning the game.

The prizes are low spec armour that looks good but has no real place for fighting, some good tools for skillers that give extra xp when using them, hatchet, butterfly net, hammer, harpoon, knife, needle or pickaxe, this sounds fine but is the hatchet as good as a dragon with the extra xp or is it a rune one? same with the pick is it a rune pick with extra xp? if it is dragon and rune items will plummet in price, because it costs 20k points for the tools, 20k points can be obtained easily in 1, 20 minute game, the butterfly net, hammer, harpoon, knife, needle can only give better xp, I am looking forward to trying them.

I have been doing a fair amount of Shooting Star Hunting, I use the world select page to find a quiet world and go to my house and look for a shooting star in an area I want to go to.

I have often seen a quiet world only to find out it is a PVP world, even at peak time its not unusual to have just 200 people on a PVP world, some of these are just skillers looking for a quiet world doing minimal loss skills, off peak 65 players on a PVP world is the norm.

When pking was removed from the wilderness thousands of players protested and threatened to quit, a few even did quit, If you believe the hype billions quite Runescape because of the abolition of Pking, there were mass protests and chat spamming all around Fally, Varrock and the rest of Runescape.

Jagex brought back Pking because it is what some people wanted, it was the sole reason for them playing Runescape, well guys its back, use it, according to popular belief every one was a pker and wanted pking back its back on your very own world so why not use it.

I know there are going to be the excuse that the drops are carp, If you get carp drops play, learn and get better, I have seen players get great drops, Dragon Full Helm was amongst the millions worth of drops from one player, if 45m isnt enough for you then what do you want?

To tell you the truth I knew this is how it was going to be, the protesters were a small minority, they just did the most shouting, the wilderness was always a quiet place with very few people wandering around looking for a good fight, pking was limited mainly to world 18 where a handful of people had a sparring match restocked and returned, the odd pking clan and organised clan fights would sometimes have events in the wilderness but pking was and always will be the minority.

I am as convinced as I always was that the majority of PK abolition protectors had never pked in their life just jumping on the bandwagon for a protest and for people to think they are born killing machines.

Jagex have made a number of worlds with special rules for a minority group, there are restrictions and specials rules to avoid RWT but Jagex have gone to a lot of trouble to make a system that can satisfy as many people as possible, if you don't use the worlds they should be reclaimed and handed back to the normal players.

I am glad Jagex have given you your pking back, I hope it gives you a lot of pleasure and great rewards, if things are not good about pking give Jagex feedback through the forums, don't just avoid pking because of problems, constructive criticism and praise when its due will get it as close to how you like it as possible.

The Story

Now I have 99 woodcutting I decided to work on my mining a bit, I have set myself a challenge to get all my stats to 80 and probably farming as my next 99, but I set about getting 80 mining, I use my normal trick of taking ore mining coal and superheating addy bars on site, click here to review my guide. I had help from my Lava Titan giving me a 10 mining boost, click, click, click, click, click, click, heat and repeat, not as boring as click * 28 then bank but still very boring, I had heard about people getting mining xp from the meteors from the Distractions and Diversions mini game and decided to give it a go.

I went to my house and had a look out of the telescope, it said a meteor was going to land in the next 1hr 20 minutes to 1hr 40 minutes (similar time but for indication only), I went and did some farming and came back after 1hr 20 min and the meteor was going to land in 0 to 20 minutes, I trotted off to the area and ran around the mines and banks looking for it, I couldn't find it so I went back home and it was still going to land in 0 to 7 minutes, I couldn't see any point in running around so I kept looking through the telescope until it no longer gave a time, I then quickly teled to one of the likely sites and ran around all the sites that it may land, I eventually found it next to the magic shop with a tele-tubby stood in the middle, poop I got there too late, it must have been a low level star because it only lasted a few minutes at most.

I wasn't going to be beaten and decided to try again, went to my house and had a look, made a note of the time and trained a skill until the time it was estimated to land, I then went back to my house and watched until the time was not given and teled to the first likely place, it wasn't there so ran to the next and there was a ring of white dots on the mini map, I ran around and started to mine the level 4 star getting mining xp and star dust.

The mining xp was good so I decided to train on shooting stars a bit more, the next day I found a quiet world and found a star on my own I got the finders xp and continued to mine for 20 minutes before someone else turned up.

The Guide

First you need a telescope in yours or someone else's house, you can use the one at the observatory but home is a lot more convenient.

You will get an indication as to when and where it will drop, If you have a friend have a look through the telescope you will have a different set of time scales so you can narrow it down even more, Use the latest minimum time and the earliest maximum time from both players.

Example
Your time 1hr 20 minutes to 1hr 40 minutes
Friends time 1hr 30 minutes to 1hr 50 minutes
Narrowed time 1hr 30 minutes to 1hr 40 minutes

Using a better telescope reduces the size of the drop window, a mahogany scope reduces the window to 2 minutes, this makes it a lot easier to plan your star hunting time around your skill times.

Go and train a skill and wait until your drop window and get to your house just before, you will have an indication where it will drop so have tele runes and jewellery to tele to the places and some super energy pots so you can keep running.

Keep looking in the telescope, look then close the window then look again when its in the time window as soon as it stops showing a meteor tele to the first place and run to the next location as quickly as possible until you locate it.

Then mine.

Apparently the higher level shooting stars give more xp per star dust, I haven't checked yet but I do know you will get more xp from the lower level stars, I guess the xp is greater at higher levels but because you have a higher mining level than the requirement for the small stars the xp will be less but more often, you can watch the xp shoot up frequently on the small stars.

The shooting star will drop in predetermined areas and there are about 6 places for each area, its luck if you get it the first time.

Places it may fall are

Asgarnia

• By the mine entrance North East Falador
• The mine over the wall West of Falador
• Rimmington mine
• Mine Inside the Crafting guild (Brown apron required)
• Falador Square
• East mining guild

Crandor or Karamja

• Crandor mine - north or south
• Brimhaven, near metal dragon dungeon entrance
• Nature altar mine North of Shilo Village
• Shilo Village gem mine
• Gold mine on the peninsula North of Brimhaven

Fremennik lands or Lunar Isle

* The mine in Rellekka
• The mine in Miscellania
• The mine ladder North West of Jatizso
• North East Neitznot, South of the rune rock peninsula
• Mine South of entrance to Keldagrim, East of Relleka.
• Essence mine North East Lunar Isle

Kandarin

• Coal Trucks Near Seers
• Outside Yanille bank
• Near Monastery Mines
• Mine East of Ardougne, south of legends
• Mine North East of Yanille and South West of port khazard

Kharidian Desert

• Outside Nardah bank
• Clay Mine North of Uzer
• Vultures Gold Mine North West of the Agility Pyramid
• Outside Al Kharid bank
• Scorpion mine North of Al Kharid
• Duel Arena near hospital
• Quarry, South of the bandit camp

Misthalin

• Lumbridge Swamp west or east mine
• Varrock west or east mine
• East Varrock, beside the magic shop

Morytania or Mos Le'Harmless

• North of Canifis bank
* North of Burgh de Rott bank
• South of Mos Le'Harmless bank

Piscatoris, the Gnome Stronghold or Tirannwn

• South of the fishing colony, North East of Fairy ring AKQ
• Gnome Stronghold - North of bank, west of spirit tree
• Lletya South of the Elf teleport crystal destination

Wilderness

• Skeleton mine
• Zamorak mage mine
• Bounty Hunter banker
• Hobgoblin Mine
• Rune rocks
* Pirates' Hideout mine
* Outide Mage arena bank

These are places located by myself and friends and may not be conclusive, if you know any more please let me know.

If you can not access all places you can change world and find a meteor landing somewhere else, you can even mine 1 and change world and mine another one.

After you have 200 stardust you can no longer mine any more until you trade it in with the star sprite in the centre of the star, after trading in you can mine a further 200 stardust but not trade in until the following day, even with it in your bank you will not gain any more stardust.

Even if you do not get stardust you will still get good mining xp so it is well worth doing.

Shooting Star Hunting Clan Chat
You can join a clan with other shooting star hunters, this will make locating a star a lot easier, the problem is you will have many hunters mining the same star and a high level star will be demolished very quickly giving you little star dust and little xp, clans are for social meetings not for xp so I would suggest you avoid them.
There is a small benefit with clans and that is you can monitor different worlds, if you finish 1 star on one world you can hop and mine another on a different world.

Chop, chop, chop, chop chop, chop.

I have chopped and chopped and chopped and now I have a shiny new cape to show for it, today 2nd November 2008 I got my woodcutting skill cape, this is one of my greatest achievements because it can only be obtained by working for it, you cant buy supplies to speed it up you need to chop every log using just xp and stat boosting equipment as a aid.

I have not rushed this skill, because I quite enjoyed it I did find myself coming back to it on an almost daily basis, when I had 1m + xp for the last few levels I kept focused by watching the xp and not being overwhelmed by the magnitude I broke it down into smaller chunks, a target of 10 x 100k a go is a lot easier to stomach than 1m xp, every time I started I would aim to get to the next century, sometimes I would go for 200k if I was enjoying myself and chatting to other choppers and 50k if I wasn't and wanted to kill something.

I am not one for shouting about my achievements but a few of the woodcutters there kept asking how far to 99, and my countdown went from 50k to 760xp at very regular intervals, I banked my logs just before levelling and everyone was watching as I chopped my last log.

Considering I knew no one there before I started chopping they all congratulated me on my 99, it was really nice to see lots of strangers all congratulating me on my achievement, I have always made a point of congratulating people for every level I see them gain no matter how low, a level is always an achievement and it is one step closer to a 99.

Another piece of news I got the last helmet for my void set, void range helmet is now sitting in my house with my void mage and melee hats and full void armour, I have maxed combat and no need for the points at Pest Control I just enjoy it there so used the points to get void armour as a trophy, I wonder what I shall get next there, perhaps some charms for summoning, who knows.