Membership

Since I started playing in 2007, there has always been the option to become a member and gain access to even more adventure on Gielinor. However, I enjoyed playing for free then and still do so. One subtle change I've noticed since returning is the prevalence in advertising for free players to become members, either via subscription or buying in-game Bonds. And this encouragement isn't subtle.

Members have always enjoyed more benefits for obvious reasons: a higher price indicates a higher quality game experience. Members get access to more skills, quests, areas and items within the game. They can also create an online profile and participate on forums.

But a lot more emphasis seems to be placed on having membership. When the latest World Event ended, the vanquished Tuska fell to Gielinor south of the Wizards' Tower in an area accessible only to members. In contrast, the last three World Events took place in free areas and the aftermath remains available to all players.

Additionally, as you progress in your skills, you begin receiving notices about potentially becoming a member. When a combat skill reaches level 10, you get a notice about a nifty members-only dwarven axe,

This notice appears when any combat skill reaches tenth level, giving you multiple reminders to try membership.

Additionally, certain skills used to be unavailable to free players. But at some point in the last few years, skills like Agility, Summoning and Divination could be built up to level 5 on free worlds. Once you hit fifth level, you can gain no more experience in those skills. Usually these skills don't affect free players, but during the recent World Event players used Divination, Construction and Agility to gain anima and weaken Tuska.

These notices showed up during a timed activity - how likely are players to stop playing and subscribe while the clock is ticking on gaining anima?

Membership notices appear everywhere, reminding free players they can access more quests and areas should they subscribe.

Even in free areas, such as Falador, there are member benefits such as tasks within the Artisans' Guild where members can earn smithing experience at a faster rate.

In possibly a Freudian slip regarding member items, recently every player got a free, new item. It helps with a member skill and can only be worn by members. The item's name?

Get it? Trollololololololol!

Nevermind.

Treasure Hunter is a new feature in Runescape that encourages me to login daily for a prize. But occasionally I get member items from the magic chests that I can either discard or bank, but never convert to cash or used.

This restriction covers the rarer & bigger Fallen Stars and XP Lamps as well as XP Lamps for member skills.

To be fair, you can use Hearts of Ice to freeze categories and prevent yourself from getting member items, but it still hurts to discard the largest XP Lamps for free skills.

Additionally, the bonus XP generated by Fallen Stars is available to free players only during Double XP Weekends. Members playing on member worlds have access to bonus XP all the time.

Even during the introduction of the current summer event, members could collect buckets of sand for Reyna to make a beach west of Lumbridge and earn mystery box rewards, including a pet turtle. Free players get to enjoy the actual party, which has lots of rewards for all players, but as usual there are extra perqs for members in the form of XP games for member skills.

Another addition to the game is Daily Challenges. Go to Burthorpe and Fara the gnome will reward you for completing various combat or skill-related tasks. Unfortunately, this request can involve member skills, meaning free players cannot get that day's reward.

There are many opportunities that Jagex takes to encourage you to become a member:

• when you try to overstuff your bank
• when click on any NPC for a member quest
• when you try to gain more XP in a capped member skill
• when you click on entrances to member areas
• when you try to use member Agility shortcuts
• when you try to create too many offers on Grand Exchange

...and so on.

Remember that happy couple from Gunnar's Ground that move into Juliet's old pad? The dwarf continues to ask for you assistance in crafting, a free skill. But after a few tasks, he asks if you can cut a dragonstone. I have the skill to do so, but as a free player cannot cut dragonstone, so I can no longer get rewards from him, regardless of my skill level.

So enough griping about constantly being begged, cajoled or otherwise encouraged to acquire membership. I begin to wonder if RuneScape can survive if I don't give them real money.  In short:

Does Jagex need money? Is the company about to collapse and take my favorite game with them?

Well, a good measure of the health of a business is to count how much profit or loss the company made, and the best way to tell how much money a company makes is to look at their financial statements. The good news is that across the globe, publicly traded companies report their revenues, income and other operating data every year for all to see. The bad news is that Jagex is not publicly traded, meaning that their information is harder to find.

I am not saying Jagex doesn't produce financial statements for outside consumption. First of all, they still need financial services from banks and those institutions like to see audited financials. And if you've already produced them, why not share with everyone? This action can reassure people that the company isn't going anywhere. In this case, Jagex wants subscribers to pay real money for virtual items that could go away in an instant if the game is shuttered. (Yes, I'm looking at you, FreeRealms!) Additionally, potential employees or managers want to know that they're not going to be job hunting in six months time if they accept an offer from Jagex. As a matter of fact, really impressive financial results serve to attract the best talent that want to catch a rising star. If for no other reason, Jagex would produce financial reports for themselves just to gauge how successful current operations and initiatives are proving.

There are articles about Jagex's 2013 performance, but finding the actual financials has proved difficult. There is no section for financials or reports that I found on the Jagex website, nor any copy I could discover through Google. One article listed results for 2013 that indicate a drop in revenues and income that seem incredible. (Results in £000s.)

• Profits fell from £9,700 in 2012 to £945 in 2013, a drop of 90%(!)
• EBIT dipped similarly from £9,800 to £968, also down 90%
• Total revenues slipped from £53,100 to £46,500, decreasing 12%
• Revenues from subscriptions & microtransactions comprised the lion's share and slid from £52,300 to £46,100, another 12% decrease
• Advertising revenue fared worse, going from £735 to £332, down 55%
• Merchandise sales were small but bucked the trend, rising from £28 to £90, jumping 221%(!)
• Overall, this indicates that expenses rose from £43,300 to £45,500, costing the company 5% more

These results (especially the first two) seem incredible and make me wish I could sink my teeth into the actual reports. The company is still profitable, but ouch, what a hit! Digging into press releases available through Gamasutra, I learned some other interesting tidbits.

Jagex is developing a CCG called Chronicle: RuneScape Legends that has its own website and twitter. (Thank you, sunk R&D costs!) This development comes on the heels of shuttering Transformers MOBA in January 2015, which in turn was the new focus of development once Jagex closed their scifi MMORPG Stellar Dawn in 2012. However, the game website FunOrb remains online.

Also this year, Jagex got a new CEO, Rod Cousens. (He came from Codemasters, the same company from where Jagex hired David Solari as Chief Marketing Officer in 2012.) Swapping out CEOs is never a good sign, especially when the previous one Mark Gerhard left in late 2014 without giving any reasons or nominating a clear successor.

So is the company in trouble? The new system of paying real cash for Bonds supposedly has dealt a blow to the profitably of third-party (and TOS-violating) gold farmers. So the company's emphasis on microtransactions isn't just greed: it serves to return control of the value of in-game money to the company from not outside actors. This control serves to reinforce player opinion of the stability of RuneScape, increasing the likelihood that the game will remain online and encouraging players to spend real money on their game experience.

So my opinion: Jagex has weathered the global financial crisis (and their audience is worldwide) while cracking down on those who exploit the game at players' expense. Outside projects fall to the wayside, but RuneScape as a property remains solid. So enjoy!

Good hunting!

~ Tidwin ~

I have no clue what I'm doing

For those of you who harbored illusions about my competency, let me say this once and for all:

I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT I'M DOING

As proof of this statement, this notice appeared when I logged in today to write about Jagex and their membership-driven revenues:

I have no clue what cookies I'm using, what data I'm collecting, or even if I have readers from Europe. (If so, welcome!)

Nonetheless, please consider yourselves warned.

Good hunting,
~ Tidwin ~

Tiger trivia

So a new week is upon us and that means UPDATES! (If you haven't figured out by now, Jagex tends to run updates Monday mornings from England. So early AM locally.) The update I've been looking forward to is Big Cats Sanctuary Week 2!

During week one, answering 12 questions about jaguars could earn you up to 12 points and two xp lamps. This week, another 12 points and two lamps are up for grabs, but this time the topic is tigers!

It works out well, because the prizes you could get with points are cub pets (9pts each) and titles (2pts each). With two pets and three titles, 9+9+2+2+2= all 24 points from the last two weeks.

Anyhow, since I know you want to get your prizes too, here are the answers in order:

1. thirty two hundred
2. poaching
3. live in prides
4. meat
5. Borneo
6. all of the above
7. 10-15 years
8. doubling tiger numbers by 2022
9. 13 countries
10. wine
11. quadruple in size
12. India & Russia

Okay, didn't get to talk about membership again, since that's going to be a long post (possibly more than one) so I'm gonna have a bit of fun first. But I promise I will be sharing my thoughts about p2p soon!

Good hunting!
~ Tidwin ~

Farewell to Tuska

One last farewell to Tuska, now that the event has wrapped up. In some ways, this adventure reminded me of the utterly fantastic fantasy of Discworld, with sci-fi elements throw on top for good measure. But after the initial setup, the story, much like an inert rock hurtling through space, moved along via momentum without going anywhere.

It certainly was lucky for Gielinor that some wizard was studying astromancy the whole time and could help us out of the proverbial pickle. But what does astromancy do other than get heroes into space? What is the story of the small anima worlds destroyed by Tuska that proved to be the vehicle of her literal downfall? Is there more to be explored in space? And even during the course of the fight, clues like the World Window near the nape of Tuska's neck were dropped but somehow I never figured out what they meant.

So yes, the adventure devolved into a repetitive marathon of hopping anima worlds and then hanging out on Tuska's back. By the time Vorago punched Tuska in the face, it lacked the satisfying & complementary sense of accomplishment and instead just felt like a merciful release after a tedious lecture.

One odd thing about the cutscenes at the end: watching them counts as visiting the top of the Wizards' Tower if you hadn't before now. Perched atop the magical building, you watch Tuska fly over Draynor and south into the waters near the wizards' retreat.

What's annoying is that Tuska comes down to the west of the Bandit Camp south of al Kharid in member territory. Unlike previous World Events that have altered the landscape in free areas, the aftermath of this event is open only to members. So having put it off for long enough, I think I'll address membership next time.

Good hunting!
~ Tidwin ~

Summer redux

Happy part-of-July-with-no-major-holiday!

Just wanted to touch base with everyone to let you know that all is well and summer continues to be fun. As a matter of fact, I learned that checking your Beach Stats with the Lifeguards lets you track your progress towards many of the rewards for this summer!

Filling your thermometer fifty times gives you the Beach Swimwear cosmetic override. Fifty defeats of Clawdia (the creature with 1.5mill HP in the center pool that shows up every :45 after the hour) gives you the multicolor Lifeguard title. And consuming ten ice creams to clear your thermometer gives you the title Chilled. Thank you, Jagex, for letting us know not to go crazy, you've hit the major milestones. There are a few other rewards to collect fairly easy, such as the Deck Chair rest emote, hitting five targets in a row at Coconut Shy for the Beachbum title, or digging up ten ducks for Quackers. Well worth the effort, IMHO.

Additionally, for the next two weeks (this week & next), Jagex is spotlighting the plight of tigers and panthers while raising funds for the WWF. You can get some cute pets and titles, as well as some free XP, for participating. (I still can't believe you can't name your tiger cub Hobbes!) Go to Burthorpe and find the Conservationist southeast from the teleport stone near the blue banner with the white tiger face. Join his quiz challenge every half hour to get all twelve questions correct:

1. human hunters
2. blind at birth
3. black coat
4. deforestation
5. piercing the skull
6. more than 80
7. restricting tourism
8. dawn & dusk
9. over fifteen thousand
10. Guyana
11. near threatened
12. Mayan

Honestly, the Summer Event is a welcome carefree diversion. Gielinor is safe from the machinations of Tuska or any other deity for the moment, so let's just enjoy sand between the toes and keep applying the sun tan lotion.

Good hunting!
~ Tidwin ~

Summer fun

Many apologies for the lapse in reporting, but as you can clearly see, I've been enjoying the summer events on Runescape. To celebrate the end of the war behind Lumbridge Castle a year ago, Reyna commissioned members to bring her enough sand to cover the crater and turn it into an ersatz seashore. (Members were rewarded with Prize Boxes for bringing buckets of sand. I spoke with Reyna during the beach preparations and was told only members could help her prepare. I guess she felt sorry for me, though, because when the beach officially opened, Reyna gave me two Prize Boxes from which I got flea battleships. So I was Captain of a ship for a brief time, even winning a few naval sorties!)

However, while some people were preparing to relax, more than a few of us were dealing with a major potential buzzkill: Tuska. A giant space sow was hurtling towards Gielinor, threatening to destroy everything. Luckily the astromancer (a new type of wizard) had an idea that might save the planet. Because Tuska is traveling through space, remnants of previously obliterated worlds are caught in her gravitational wake. The anima energy still held in those erstwhile globes could be used to power a spear aligned to certain deities and plunged into weak points on Tuska's skull. Zamorak, Saradomin, Armadyl and the Godless all sent representatives to encourage their followers and collects charged anima. Hopefully, if we mortals could collect enough anima, we could both weaken Tuska and empower one of the divine emissaries and stop the threat to Gielinor. (If anything I mentioned here was phrased incorrectly, it's because I didn't major in Astromancy. Sorry.)

So the Astromancer sent the willing heroes off Tuska and onto the world fragments to collect energy once an hour. Completing different tasks like farming, woodcutting, agility and others lets you collect energy in your spear. You could gather up to 25% anima energy from each planetoid. If you fell behind on an earlier world, you could catch up on later ones. Getting the spear charged to 100% caused the energy meter to light up.

So eventually the Godless faction siphoned the most anima energy, so Vorago unleashed that energy in a series of blows that killed Tuska and caused her to crash onto Gielinor, south of the Wizards' Tower, without annihilating all life in Runescape. There were a few days overlap where Tuska was still in space and the beach party had started. I figured the whole thing could wrap up in a massive luau but I was mistaken.

Indeed, to celebrate one morning, Mod Sayln showed up for a Happy Hour at the beach party, even appearing as Vorago for our amusement. This Happy Hour special meant more experience and a greater chance for random drops. The experience for cooking and fishing has been incredible and worth the time spent. The drops are also cute. The favorite one I have so far is the snorkel mask. The bunting whip is a close second. Hopefully I can get one of the pet tokens as drops as well. Other people have gotten them randomly, so there's always a chance.

Getting all the token rewards can earn you the King/Queen of the Sandcastle title.  I'm happy because I finally got Lifeguard for beating Clawdia fifty times. I also have Beachbum for hitting five coconuts in a row at the summer games. A lot of other titles such as Bronzed or Chilled involve filling up your thermometer by skilling in the sum and eating ice cream to cool back off. Another easy prize to earn from this event is the deck chair.

In this case, I am now officially sitting in my own deck chair that could appear anywhere on Gielinor. This emote is easy to unlock. Scattered across the beach are deck chairs in three colors: red, blue & green. Sit ten times in each color chair and you unlock the emote. (To make it even easier, right in front of Reyna's stage are three chairs, one of each color.) Once unlocked, a red chair always appears when you sit, eliminating the chance for scams and player-run games of chance using this emote.

Good hunting!
~ Tidwin ~

Where did May go?

Seriously, the last time I wrote on this blog, Arrow and the Flash hadn't wrapped up their respective seasons yet (one I liked, the other, not so much). There was a whole month left of school before summer officially hit.

And again I've hit a wall in my psychological health and stopped contributing.

To be fair, I've played in a Netrunner Tournament and won exactly half my games, so that was good. Another friend has a card game that is awesome (not just saying because he's my friend) that is still in playtest but is really fun and fits my concept for how to make money nowadays with games, but more on that later. Haven't caught any of the major films this season yet, and there are some spectacular specimens out there: Ex Machina, Avengers 2, Mad Max. Even the yardwork is helping cheer me up, when it's not too desert-like out there.

Runescape-wise (remember Runescape?), I've started exploring the Wilderness for better loot (and died once braving the Lava Maze), got my Explorers' Ring 4 (with only 67 Smithing, I might humbly add), and even started taking part in the Tuska World Event, having been AWOL for every World Event up to this point. So everything is coming up roses.

But I'm still subject to funks that suck all joy and energy from me. Ironically, the mindless repetition of mining or woodcutting passes the time with meaningless landmarks but doesn't accomplish any meaningful.

And for now, I need small meaningful accomplishments. The thought of trying anything big or major sends me mentally scurrying. But small successes might just be what the doctor ordered.

Being a math geek, I tend to think in quantifiable terms. Victor Vroom (I'm NOT making up that name) studied motivation and behaviour and built a formula to measure the impetus/likelihood/degree to which any person would attack a given task:

Ability x Expectancy x Valence = Motivation

Ability is your assessment of tools and support to accomplish a given task. I.e. if you know you don't have the strength to move a boulder with your bare hands, you're not going to approach that task with much enthusiasm or success.  Expectancy is your assessment of the likelihood of receiving acknowledgement or reward for completing said task. If your boss treats you like crap and tells you to do some extra chores off the clock, you know there's no reward waiting for you. Finally, Valence is the importance or significance attached in your mind to the task at hand. If you hate a class and don't care about getting a good grade, studying isn't important either and thus unlikely to happen.

So Motivation is the product of all three! And like any multiplication solution, bring any part of the formula to nil turns the result unalterably to zero. You might find some task important and within your abilities, but think you'd never get credit upon successful completion. Or you might know there's a huge reward and you want to do the job, but if you don't have the proper tools, no amount of wishful thinking will erase that shortcoming.

Thinking back to my younger self, I never understood jokes. So when I was left home alone one afternoon with the rest of the family ran errands, my dad joked, "Have dinner ready by the time we get back."

The twelve-year-old me panicked and tried to figure out what to do. Obviously I'd been told to make dinner because my dad felt it well within my capabilities, although I had only prepared cereal, toast and ramen for myself previously. Yet I found both boxed Macaroni & Cheese as well as plain elbow macaroni. I cut up tomatoes, celery and olives to make a pasta salad with the plain noodles, and then had Mac&Cheese as the hot part of the dinner. All before the return of my parents.

I didn't know I could do it, but that didn't stop me. Why can't I be that motivated kid again, unafraid of failure and unwilling to believe my talents have limits?

Good hunting!

~ Tidwin ~

Happy birthday to me!

Every year is a practice in wishing, so here goes again:

• Weiss Schwarz KanteColle Starter deck, booster boxes and playmat
• Weiss Schwarz Attack on Titan Starter deck, booster boxes and playmat
• Netrunner:Android cards, especially the new Order and Chaos expansion
• Core rulebook for 13th Age, the new RPG from Jonathan Tweet

What I get will be far different from these, I know.

Actually, it will probably involve ducks.

Not real live waterfowl. But at some point in the past, I admitted that I liked ducks and thought those creatures were neat. Which, for various biological and behavioral reason, they totally are. But that's beside the point. For people near me that are contractually obligated to give me presents, ducks became the default answer.

Duck shirts. Duck figures. Duck pictures. Duck lint brushes.

And I know I'm not alone. I know other people trapped into always receiving butterflies or trains or bats because it's easy to remember and it makes the gift-giver feel good. (In many ways, the selection of gifts tells you more about the purchaser than about the recipient.) Maybe those other trapped people actually like getting that default category of gift. Maybe I'm the only one with this problem. I'm just trapped in a socially acceptable lie because one cannot speak bad about gifts. That action makes one an ungrateful wretch.

Why couldn't I have gotten tagged by LEGO bricks? "What should I get Tidwin this year?" "Oh, just get him something with LEGO bricks."

Trivia: one of the first toys manufactured by the LEGO company was a wooden duck. (Look it up if you don't believe me!)

Anyhow, here's to being another year older and another year wiser.

Good hunting!
~ Tidwin ~

Flash After Show Talk (FAST): "The Trap"

I like all sorts of geeky pursuits, so let me indulge in another one today: The Flash TV series.

I watched “The Trap” episode from a few weeks back and feel like talking about it. I’m really liking the series at this point – the series started off clunky in my opinion but picked up momentum, so to speak, as this season has progressed. (The coma/break between introduction in Arrow and the start of the Series helped find solid footing, to be sure.) It's nothing groundbreaking or unexpected, but the bouncier look & feel (as opposed to Arrow, which I also enjoy) makes for pleasurable watching.

Full disclosure here: I have not always been a fan of the Flash – actually started out as a Firestorm fan (more on that another day).  But when DC imploded and had to shrink titles, Firestorm was moved from his(their?) own title to the back of Flash. So I got to read lots of Flash vicariously, although that wasn't the main plan. (Eventually I was a bigger fan of Wally West as the Flash reading JLA/JLI in the late 80s/early 90s, but still loved the story arc of Barry Allen including his sacrifice during Infinity Crisis.) Flash and Firestorm both had a cute, quirky way of trying to be sci-fi stories and getting really strange with the science part of the equation, but I still enjoyed reading them.

So the Flash faces the dilemma of rescuing people trapped in a burning skyscraper and the ladders that won’t reach to the affected floors, I thought back to one of the most ridiculous uses of superspeed ever seen. In one comic, Barry asks the firemen to train a spotlight on the side of the building, right where the flames are coming out of the building. And then the Flash runs through the air and up to the fire.

No he doesn't run up the beam of light, that’d be ridiculous.

He ran on the dust particles hit by the beam of light. Totally plausible.

Okay, so TV Barry didn't do anything that preposterous. He just ran inside the building and once inside he sucked all the air away from the fire using his arms to vortex spin real fast and create a vacuum, right in front of the trapped people. Because there are never any negative side effects to sucking away the air from near a bunch of bystanders.

While I'm here, I want to admit I liked Barry’s hesitation at the start of that rescue, because he was not sure he could save everyone.  If he chose to save the chief’s fiancé, would he learn that he let someone else die that he should have saved instead? If he didn't save the chief’s fiancé, would he be able to face working with the police anymore?

As it stands, he's avoided this dilemma for now. I hate to tell you, Barry, but you will face this decision again, and worse, you won't be able to save everyone at some point. (*cough* your mom *cough*)

I know this is old news, but Firestorm has shown up on the show, although the name is now an acronym. But the iconic off-center six-beam part of the costume remains. The character Firestorm was created and originally written by Gerry Conway. He’s the first comic book author that I started looking into other issues written by him. Mr. Conway (maybe someday I can call him Gerry) wrote many characters you know: the Punisher, Vibe, Killer Frost, Killer Croc. So it was nice to see an homage where an episode of the show mentions that the character Dr. Martin Stein had received a Conway Science Award (actually three!). But the current discussion on how DC Comics determines who "created" a specific character is disheartening. Why would anyone write/create knowing what could be the possible outcome twenty/thirty years down the line?

Anyhow, the last three Flash episodes for the season are on starting tonight. I'll be following twitter #DatFlash just to see what everyone is thinking.

Good hunting!

~ Tidwin ~

Where did February go?

February might be the shortest month of the year, but it still shouldn't be ignored. Yet that's pretty much what I did.

The previous post about clearing the last few free quests from my log all took place on February 1st.

Today is May 4th. How did I lose February, March and April?

Not that there hasn't been time to finish the article. As a matter of fact, I'd written most of the post back on February when I'd played through the last free quests on Runescape. So if the article was so close to finished, what kept me from just hitting Publish?

That's one of the nasty features/bugs of depression is you get to reflect on the time you have, where you're not doing any constructive pursuit, and your brain kicks in, "Hey, are you just going to waste another day?" So now it's even a darker morass you sink into, with the promise that once you dig out it'll all be better.

This rant is not to discount the "It gets better" campaign about bullying. Outside pressures do taper off as you grow up but depression brings its own bag of doubt and worry from inside your brain.

Want to know a weird coincidence about depression? It has a greater chance of affecting the kids (and later adults) generally tagged as gifted. What's funny is being smarter than average is you can hide the negative drag on your abilities by doing so much better than expected much of the time, and playing catch up once the brain decides to hit the brakes for a few days or even weeks. That's how I've gotten by for years, completing college and holding several professional positions.

But I've finally hit the point where I can't see moving forward with any joy. And nobody I tell believes me. Conclusions are drawn that because I don't write then obviously I'm not interested in writing anymore. I must not be interested in gaming because I never bring up gaming. And so on and so on.

Maybe I've learned from repeated experience that when I ask about games then nobody wants to play. When I write, nobody reads it. Someone close to me said the other night, "You don't write on your blog anymore. Or I don't think you do, I haven't looked in a while." Which tells me that nobody, least of all myself, is expecting me to write anything of consequence. I have a long history of people telling me how and where I've messed up. And yet these same people seem surprised that I have such a low opinion of myself.

And the solutions! I just need to get out, do the things I used to enjoy. Or find another job doing exactly what I've been loathing because changing locations but not activities will fix everything. Of course, I can't hate what I'm doing, because I'd be looking for something different if I was.

That's just going through the motions. That's like chest compressions from CPR; you can force blood through the body but that is literally having a dying person go through the motions of being alive. It's just postponing the time of death unless something changes.

So I'll be here, writing inconsequential junk until the day I die. Maybe I'll start talking more about how fun being depressed is, and how people immediately understand why one can just "get over it" and restart life.

Good hunting!
~ Tidwin ~

The Questions on Quests

When I left the game years ago, I had only one f2p quest left unfinished: Dragon Slayer.  I had been everywhere else and done everything else that Gielinor offered. I had fought the cultists and their demon south of Varrock, saved Ernest from being a chicken, solved the problem of the squabbling goblins, and even helped Romeo find a girlfriend (just not Juliet) . Returning to Gielinor, there are 16 quests total for free players, including some new quests. But oddly enough, some quests I'd already completed once were showing up again: Rune Mysteries, Gunnar's Ground and Demon Slayer.  Many had vanished outright, like the quest for beads stolen by imps, or slaying the vampire in Draynor Manor, or rescuing Prince Ali.

Wandering through Taverly, I accidentally started the Druidic Ritual quest because I was unfamiliar with the layout and questions and what would happen next.  Nonetheless, I completed that quest to get a feel for the new interface and how it helped you complete quests, with arrows and updates and all that. However, I was still not ready to tackle Elvarg, Instead, I turned to two quests that I had already completed to continue my fairly risk-free exploration of the new commands, quest guide and combat system: Rune Mysteries and Gunnar's Ground.

Rune Mysteries let me see how snazzy the Wizard's Tower had gotten in the last few years. I met a new character, Arriane, earned a new title and headpiece (blue Saradomin mage, if you were curious) and explored new maps and foes. The old skeleton in the basement is replaced by an automaton that sorts you into one of the four schools of magic: blue/good/Saradomin or red/evil/Zamorak or gray/neutral/Guthix or black(?)/unaligned/minor gods. (No points to Gryffindor - soz Hermione.) So Jagex added lots of cutscenes, maps and loot here.

My new blue mage gear

In stark contrast, Gunnar's Ground was almost exactly what I remembered; a lovelorn dwarf courts a pretty barbarian, her father, the chief disapproves, and the barbarian champion gets in your way no matter whether you can defeat him or not. The action takes place in the same barbarian village you've known forever, starting near the exposed rocks and going to the Great Hall and back and forth and back and forth. The wonderfully new change is that, once united with your help, the happy couple moves into Juliet's old digs. Stopping by to say, "Hi!" to the newlyweds nets you a pair of Swanky boots. No, literally!

I got two more quests out of the way before today. I've already talked about slaying Elvarg. That venture went so well that I had lots of food, potions and summoning pouches left over. Since I was counting on burning through resources, I started Demon Slayer to use up more of my inventory. It did take more food and potions, but I never got my pet to work. I summoned a spirit wolf but never figured out how to get him to help me in combat, either directly or with the howl scrolls. So at this point I just sell pouches as soon as I make them. Nonetheless, I knocked those quest out easily, and then called it a night.

Anyhow, having started on the quests (and abandoning my original plan to save Dragon Slayer for last), I've decided to run through the remaining quests today: Stolen Hearts, What's Mine is Yours, Let Them Eat Pie, and The Death of Chivalry. But before anything else, now that I had emptied enough slots, I'm going to talk to Gudrik and the do tutorial all over so I can hopefully unlock the Ashdale Lodestone and meander all over the free realms without let or hindrance.

I already saw the post-alien invasion apocalypse from Shadow over Ashdale, so what does Ashdale 1.0 look like? (Really, who knew a massive underground hive of twisted aberrations would ever threaten the peace and security of a sleepy island hamlet?!?) Venturing back to the beginning, I'm facing several low-level zombie threats. Even wielding a bronze sword, I still one-shot the foes, never taking long enough in combat to trigger the abilities Gudrik keeps rambling on about. Some mining, some smithing, some damsel rescuing, and we're outta there for the mainland. Nice use of cutscenes and vocals, and not as tedious as the old newbie island tutorial, but this version seemed too empty, almost diametrically opposed to how dense the information came at you in the previous tutorial.

Although Gudrik isn't done with me yet. He gives me a communication crystal so he can bug me remotely, and sends me off to see Fara. She loads me up with several challenges, all easy-peasy with my skill levels. Then she tells me about a troll eating her stuff, although I've already gotten one and named him Banana. (Spoiler from later - here's a shot of Banana, along with yours truly and some random Temple Knight getting ready for battle.)

Gudrik STILL isn't done helping me, so he suggests I meet some guy called Nails Newton to get an idea of what's going on in town - I like this suggestion, since I want to get through the remaining quests today anyhow. The first quest is Let Them Eat Pie. There are refugees pouring into Taverly. (From the most recent God Wars? Maybe, since those conflicts have disrupted a lot of the land, but I never catch explicitly the source.) The merchants are hoarding foodstuffs and charging exorbitant prices to the refugees, at least in Nails' opinion. Since he's a legitimate businessmanTM now, he needs a new face, unknown to the merchants, to help steal the seal from Rolo the Stout and forge a letter releasing the warehoused food to the refugees free of charge. To get Rolo out of the way, I'm not going to have to kill him, just make him sick. Very sick.

Okay, I'm not liking this quest at all, to be honest. The pie is made from maggots and flour. The "meat" is a crawfish stuck under a pasture until it "ripens" in the sun. The rancid dish won't pass the smell test (literally) so I steal spices from another merchant to make the culinary monstrosity less odoriferous. Rolo eats the pie with some coaxing and proceeds to get very sick, very quickly. I take the auditory option not for the faint of heart, which includes several waves of scatological sounds of the merchant losing his lunch. Yuck. I guess it was funny on paper, but honestly I'd advise choosing differently, since declaring your character's indomitable intestinal fortitude seems to alter nothing about the outcome of this quest.

After a few more tasks, it sounds like Gudrik has gotten bored and no longer checks in, so I go back to him and ask to see Ashdale for a third time. This time, I see the town as normal, nothing going on, some fishing, little mining and smithing, endless supply of unnatural, slimy, tentacly denizens underground. (Do real estate agents just gloss over this last fact when showing houses on the island? They have to let you know about termites or previous murders on the premises. Seriously, I'm thinking this infestation is the kind of hazard people should be warned about.) I activate the lodestone but for all that work of making Ashdale mysterious and off-limits, nothing strikes me as writing home about. (Oh yeah, Ashdale IS the boring home that I left and hence I would be writing TO, not about.)

So now to the other quests. The next quest is Stolen Hearts, so I need to meet Ozan at Draynor. He's a rogue and trying to help his old friend, a palace guard in al Kharid. Okay, long story short, this is the abduction of Prince Ali! Yay, this quest is still around, although in a new form with more cutscenes and audio. Another change from before, you get to use some Agility abilities and gain experience up to level 5 in that skill. However, despite all the neat new bells and whistles, when the quest ends, you haven't rescued Ali. You and Ozan can pursue the kidnappers, but only if you're a member. Okay, so the prince stays abducted for now...

Next up is What's Mine is Yours, and you start it by talking to Doric, near Taverly. Okay, years ago, you started this quest talking to Doric, but he was out in the middle of nowhere! He still needs you help, but instead of gathering ores and some random tools, this time around he's concerned about his dwindling business. (I don't know why, but I love the British concept of an economy built around craftsmen plying their trades. Capitalism might not be perfect, but it's hella better than what we have nowadays.) So I'm getting special ore from different quarries, and each time a little rock guy jumps me. And gets demolished before I can even register that I'm being attacked. Obviously a quest geared to a much lower level combatant. Eventually at the last quarry, there's a cutscene with a wizard and a dwarf conspiring to rig the mine with pop-up boulder monster to thwart anyone helping Doric. Nonetheless, I charge in, trigger the trap, and show back up at Doric's place with the high quality ore to make high quality weapons. Without giving away the ending, the resolution is telegraphed pretty clearly, especially if you've watched any telly or theatre in the last half century. Nonetheless, an enjoyable experience overall.

I head to the Edgeville monastery to meet with Sir Owen. Talking to him starts the final free quest, so at this point, my quest log looks like this:

The Death of Chivalry is the Black Knight's Fortress quest from years ago. But this time, you enter disguised as a Captain Dulcin of the Black Knights (more costume pieces YAY!) so no skulking around in a bronze helm and iron chainbody like some lower-rung recruit.

As a matter of fact, you even get orders from Saradomin himself! He tells you what needs to happen in the fortress. Since I haven't played in years, I'd missed the whole God Wars event. Saradomin drops some sass to let me know he's disappointed that I did not help out during the conflict. Mroww!

"I'm a god, so let me condescend to your level for a minute."

With Sir Owen posing as a prisoner, you march brazenly into the Black Knight's fortress and generally terrorize your underlings. You're supposed to pretend to be the ruthless Captain but being nice or hesitant might betray your disguise. Just berate underlings but removing your helmet sounds like a bad idea. Acting like you have a plan further up the tower seems to work okay.

My favorite part of sneaking through the fortress was running into Lieutenant Graves who approaches me with "grave news." I bet he says that all the time just to see if someone snickers. HE delivers his news about the witch, and it's off to the ritual chamber to complete the spell. (Do castles come standard with ritual chambers or is that a feature of evil fortresses only?)

"Captain Happy will be along later with some lighter news."

The ritual opens a portal to a long forgotten temple. Inside are more cutscenes as the history of the temple is retold. There's a matching puzzle to break a magical barrier and two tough fights. I got a shield and some combat XP lamps, but more importantly, every free quest is complete.

Okay, now that every free quest is cleared off my log, how will I keep myself entertained? Well, there's always skills and special events. Or membership. More on that later.

Good hunting!
~ Tidwin ~

Elvarg can't Even

Before leaving for years, I'd completed every freequest save one: Dragon Slayer!

In many ways, Dragon Slayer is the final f2p quest: you wander close to the Wilderness, specifically Edgeville, to start. Your journey will take you to the Adventurer's Guild (where you must have lots of quest points to enter), across towards Rimmington, up onto the Ice Mountain, down into dwarf mines, back to Lumbridge, over to Port Sarim (maybe more than once), slide back to Draynor, and maybe even into the Wilderness for planks and nails lying around. Given that this travel was done without benefit of the Lodestone network, so hopefully one had a Magic skill high enough to speed this journey along.

Speaking of skills, you will need crafting to make an unfired bowl, high enough magic to telekinesis part of a map away from a prisoner, maybe sufficient cooking or fishing to provide healing rations, and a good mix of combat skills to get through lesser demons, skeletons and moss giants before you even reach Elvarg.

Returning to Runescape of the present, my completed quest list looked much different than I remembered. Since coming back, I'd helped druids, mages, barbarians, and Ashdale colonists. Oddly enough, I'd done Rune Mysteries and Gunnar's Ground before, but I could get credit for doing them again.

Now other quests I'd done before were gone - slaying the vampire in Draynor Manor, helping Doric set up his smithy, rescuing Ernest from being a chicken, helping the goblin generals pick a colour for their armour, repair the Shield of Arrav, infiltrate the Phoenix Gang, rescue Prince Ali, and thwart the Black Knights by invading their fortress. Good times, and it's sad to see them gone. What's funny is I can still talk to the drunk doctor in the Blue Moon Tavern about slaughtering the vampire, or chat with the people around Draynor Manor about saving Ernest. Like ghosts in the virtual machine, I keep finding reminders of past exploits. Those quests might not have advanced skills and maybe that's what players prefer, which explains the change. Nonetheless, I love the stories in the quests, not just the fights and rewards.

Disirregardless, the time had come to finish this quest - if nothing else, I needed the bank space taken up by various and sundry items to placate everyone from obscure oracles to ersatz captains. So with a full complement of adamant armor, potion buffs, a rune mace, anti-dragon breath shield, swordfish and willow logs for the bonfire HP boost. Heading to Sarim with the last few tidbits packed away, we set sail and, in an epic cut scene, draw the ire (and fire) of Elvarg of Crandor!

Shipwrecked, I leave Captain Ned and the Cabin Boy and venture up the volcano. Most monsters ignore me, but the moss giants definitely don't like me. But I like the adamant ore I can get without interference from other miners, so even before finding the wyrm's hoard, I've got some treasure. The lesser demons at the crest of the volcano ignore me too, despite being more powerful than the moss giants. Spelunking inside the caldera, again monsters ignore me, except the skeletons, which fall quickly to my crushing mace. And then I find Elvarg. I've only gone through one swordfish so far, which gives me a great feeling of confidence!

Charging in, I get hit for a few blasts, losing about 1K HP before closing into melee range. And then, trading blows, I quickly puul ahead in the war of health attrition. One swordfish later, I'm victorious, pulling off Elvarg's head and stuffing the trophy into my backpack.

Stopping for a quick selfie next to an unfortunate adventurer, I wander along the passage to find myself under another volcano, this time the familiar one on Karamja. Rather than pay for a boat trip, I magically jaunt back to the mainland. (Another erstwhile quest feature: you can buy Karamjan Rum, but you can't just bring it back to Gielinor proper.) One last discussion about being heroic, and I can buy and wear rune plate. (Well, at least I can buy the breastplate for 65K gold. Every other piece of armour must be looted, traded, smithed or bought on GE.)

So I'm going to power through the other quests - if slaying a dragon was this straightforward, then what can be so hard about the other quests?
(Cue music suitable for doomed fools.)

Good hunting!
~ Tidwin ~

Learning to Count

Okay, I've taken a couple days off to revisit what I'm doing with this blog. Honestly, nobody came here to read play-by-play of me spending hours roaming Gielinor. And really, that's not what I want to write either. So I guess we've both been disappointed by the initial posts.

I'm not sure exactly what I'm going for here, but I wanted to discuss Runescape, focusing on what's changed, improved, appeared & disappeared in the last four years. Being easily distracted, I'll probably muse about gaming in general, maybe fantasy, fiction, RPGs & who know what else. And maybe a few posts will be about the sharp learning curve of returning to the game after so long that I'm really a noob but have too much progress and experience to access various tutorials.

One tidbit I've learned is that I've been under-reporting my accumulated XP. The number that I thought was my current XP total was really a tally that could be reset to zero. So it's like I was reporting a car's total mileage based on the trip counter. It must have reset once I started playing recently, since I don't remember this feature from years ago. Additionally, I've found out how to reset the XP tracker, so I can report my progress between posts.

First, this image shows the XP number I'm talking about that confused me. You can find it one the top of the screen, towards the right near but not immediately next to the minimap.

To access the XP tracker, go into Settings by clicking on the gear at the bottom right.

The gear icon will bring up the Settings menu. You'll want the Interface settings.

If you select the top Game settings instead, the box opens to the Gameplay tab, which is where you can deselect the UTC clock and get the timer out of your inventory. Just choose the Interface tab shown below and you'll be where you belong.

Disirregardless, you should be at the Interface tab now, shown below. Along the right is a box showing skill icons. At the bottom of that is the reset option. Clicking that will bring up the usual "Are you sure? (Y/N)" dialog box, so click 'yes' if you're sure.

You can also track individual skills by selecting the specific skill icon and the tabs at the top of the skill box. Personally I haven't played with those options, but if you want to know how much Fishing XP you've gotten on a trip to Karamja or any other limited measurement, this box is where you'd set that up.

Anyhow, I've learned from this exercise that Runescape has grown in complexity in the last few years. Do I need all these new bells and whistles? Maybe, maybe not, but I can use the counter to report XP gains between blog posts, I guess. But if I find any new stuff I use a lot, then I will certainly pass on useful hints.

Good hunting!
~ Tidwin ~

Urning my Pay

Starting at 2:28 PM, because I'm still in a mood to craft, and I have an actual target: mining urns. Clay is much easier to work with now that you can get water directly from a faucet or fountain to soften the clay. No more lugging jugs of water

So heading south from Falador, I just realized I don't have a brown apron. I know a chef's hat is still required for the cooking tower. Too late, I wander over to the door.

It opens! Huzzah! So now I get some clay, then soften, shape and bake it. Viola, more urns.

I head over to Taverly to bank them. And I meet an herbalist who needs help. Now I'm questing to gather life water, stone scales and wandering leaves. Got them, so what does this do?

One cutscene later, some vines grow on the altar, the druids seem happy, and I've got a bunch of grimy guam and newt eyes. So now back through the wall into Falador.

Except the gate doesn't go to Falador. It's the stretch of land west of Falador, with the Zamorak church. Two bots (37awfu561459 and A Runner) are taking the Zammy wine as soon as it appears. *sigh* Some things haven't changed in the years I've been gone.

I thinks that's an emissary symbol on the minimap. Yes, a goblin is an emissary. Murknose, Emissary of Bandos. Never hear of him.

Okay, Bandos is the Big High War God. Murknose is his emi...mish...he'll tell you about Bandos. Turns out Bandos believes in might through right, survival of the strongest. He led a strong goblin army against the followers of Armadyl, who also raised an army. An army stronger than Bandos' army, so Bandos lost and died. Which proved that Bandos' beliefs were correct and true. Only a goblin could follow that kind of logic.

So another emissary! Didn't even think about the goblins. It's good they have a god, even if the god turns out to be dead. Go figure.

Anyhow, I'm gonna cabbage-port back to Falador and mine some more before quitting. And that's a dead highwayman. And I swear that's another emissary symbol next to the farm.

It's Taw'Paak, the Emissary of Armadyl. I know he's good at killing goblin gods. What else is on his CV? He's for justice and peace, but will fight to preserve the greater good. Bandos wouldn't compromise and so was destroyed. This god sounds a bit like the Doctor - willing to work with anyone in the universe, but not really big on second chances. I think I could do well here.

Anyhow, I got a book of gods for joining Armadyl. (Sorry, Saradomin, you didn't have an avian as an emissary.) The book lists seven gods and the Godless faction. I guess Guthix isn't a choice right now.

Okay, forget mining. I'll get some yew logs and call it a day for now. Then I get to the bank, trade in noted guam for actual guam. And cleaning those leaves gets me to level 4 herblore (yay) and total levels of 900 (big Yay!).

That seems like a great stopping point. So by 4:02 PM, I've looted 4 gold pieces and my current XP has climbed to 992,698! Almost a million!

Good hunting!
~ Tidwin ~

Pleasant Valley Sunday

Today is going to be a lazy day of exploration. Starting out at 7:33 AM to just stroll across Gielinor. (At least I hope it's a lazy day. The last random stroll I took brought me into Wildy to see where rune ore lived and eventually my lack of attention and caution got me killed.)

I have two goals in mind - first, to change my look, and second, to find religion.

Being an established character created by a legacy character generator, my clothes need updating. Talking to Thessalia, I currently have a retro plain top and retro turn-ups.  I don't plan on being out of costume or armour much, but I think it would be nice to spice up my default appearance.

Lots of interesting choices, but many of them too busy with collars or straps or ruffles or whatever.  I like the waxed tunic in pale cream dwogre. The cross stitching there matches with the retro turn-ups, although I change the color of my pants to sooted brown. I accept the changes, and Thessalia tells me I look great. Go me!

Now about finding religion, I ran into a priest of Zamorak the other day in Edgeville. Used to be Zamorak, at least in f2p, was a source of expensive wine but nothing else. Now he(?) can be followed, although after the mess he left behind Lumbridge castle, I don't know who would,  But if he's around, I'm sure Saradomin and Guthix must have disciples out there too, so I'm going to track them down. Provided, of course, they're somewhere within the freeplay area - would Jagex make members-only deities?

Anyhow, the best place to start is the beginning, so I port back to Lumbridge to start looking for new NPCs. (I know, there are a LOT of new NPCs, like civic-pride-local-cape lady, but I shall persevere.)

Despite running a church for Saradomin, Father Aleck is no help at all, but the Sage of Lumbridge mentioned that a single devotee of Saradomin hangs around the ruined battlefield, so westward ho!

Well, the Saradomin disciple has cool armour and even cooler cutscenes, but nothing more concrete about following his god, so my search continues over to Draynor.

And in front of the dyeing witch is an Emisasary of Sliske. That is really the title that shows up when you hover over the character: Relomia, Emissary of Sliske. And she is the person trying to get worshipers for her patron, in this case the god of darkness and shadows. Sounds interesting, but probably not a match with Tidwin. He's a bit of a stuck-up boy scout, all light and happiness, so the search continues.

Over in Port Sarim, I met Holstein, Emissary of the Godless. citizens of Gielinor that want no interference from the gods. Seeing the crater in Lumbridge, I understand the appeal of not having omnipowerful beings clashing on this world. Not quite ready to declare allegiance, but this is interesting.

Continuing south through Sarim, there's the prison. I know some of the inmates are important for quests, so I wander in for nostalgia's sake. I'm really glad I did, because Prison Pete is there. I can't tell you how many times Prison Pete and I burst balloon animals to collect the keys that would free us from Evil Bob, the cat. I'm guessing if Prison Pete is safely in prison in Port Sarim, Evil Bob's reign of random terror is at an end.

Good thing I stopped by, because Endwyr, the Emissary of Seren, is out among the willows.  Seren is the Crystal Lady, the first elf to visit Gielinor and the guide that brought the other elves here.  She wants to avoid conflicts like the God Wars, shielding her people and letting them enjoy lives of peace and fulfillment. I'm really becoming a fan of "no gods mucking up the place" campaigns, so I guess Seren goes into the 'maybe' column as well.

Just because I'm closeby, I run down the the solitary peninsula. The blurite caves are still there, and the ice knights are still aggresive and dangerous. Elsewhere on the beach, things are pretty much like I remember them, still and calm.

Back up the coast, kill some hobgoblins, visit Taverly and Buthorpe, but still no emissaries. Moving over to Edgeville, I revisit Goldark, the Emissary of Zamorak. With bald head and pale skin, he looks sufficiently creepy in a stalky eunuch kind of way. Heading south, I bet the barbarians have a god - maybe the Gunnarr or whoever they're always yelling about.

No barbarian emissary, coming into Varrock to bank stuff, there's an emissary symbol on the map south of the bank, guy with a purple glowy staff. Saron, Emissary of Zaros. Zaros is the Empty God, the god of fate and control. Apparently he was betrayed and killed or something, but still watches over us. His plans are unknowable, but definitely do NOT include endless wars or petty revenge. That's like having to declare that you're not a dingo - the fact that you felt you had to say it just makes people suspicious. I'll put Zaros on the "Don't-call-us-we'll-call-you" list.

Nobody else shows up emissarywise in Varrock, so I'm off to Falador, the other major city, to search for emissiraies. Rather than teleport, I'm walking to see if the dwarves have a god of gold or commerce or something. I'll explore the campgrounds, but not going underground. (Metagaming here: no other emissary has shown up underground yet.)

No dwarf god, so I get into Falador without incident. A guy in the park north of the bank turns out to be Julienne, Emissary of Saradomin. He's got the usual spiel: power, good, order, light, blah, blah. I'm probably going with Saradomin because I'm a kind-hearted soul. I won't steal kills or ore rocks, even if I know I'd probably come out on top, because doping either of those robs the player of both items and XP, wasting their time and making the gaming experience less enjoyable.  Additionally, I hate scammers and reported frequently in the early days. Now that there are extra safeguards on trading, Jagex isn't as worried about scamming ruining the game as it once could. (I'm stopping a long aside about scamming here, but I'll devote more time later, probably.)

While I'm here, I'll wrap up with some mining. In the bank, grab a mining urn and go visit the dwarves. I'm up to level 74 mining, but I need to restock on urns soon. Sounds like a good excuse to go south to the crafters guild.

Wrapping up at 12:08 PM, it's been a full morning of wandering, exploring, adventuring and trading. Current XP is at 985,216 and I've collected 117,387 gold pieces so far today.

And for those readers of my generation where the song is now stuck in your head, I apologise.

Good hunting!
~ Tidwin ~

Catching up

Just catching up on some administrative items:

Last post was from Friday night, not Saturday morning.  I'd written it then but was tired enough to leave it in the draft box until I found it this morning.

I did play some on Saturday morning, selling monk robes, runecrafting and other random stuff. Current XP at 915,681 and 219,589 coins collected through different sales.

So what have I been doing while writing this post?

Nothing strenuous. Spent twenty minutes following Chassi the Scrumptious based on a promise of a two billion gp drop party.  We started at GE, meandered through Varrock, strolled past the cows on the east bank of the Lum River, over to the Zamorak crater, then back up through Draynor, then Port Sarim, down to the grassy penninsula, now along the west wall of Falador, and now Taverly. Everyone in the party wants to convince the others that it's a scam and they should leave, so there will be fewer people if the drop party turns out to be legit.

Turns out Chassi bailed - no free billions to be had.  But I did grab six gold bars from the next drop party, so not a total loss. And later tonight I'll be mining coal with the drawves.

Good hunting!
~ Tidwin ~

Runecrafting Redux

After a long day, it is now 5:49, so time for some diversion.

Today's goal is to get some runecrafting in. Since I logged at Varrock, probably the easiest will be earth runes. I remember it's outside the east gate of Varrock, just not sure if the altar is to the north or south once you reach the road.

I think I should travel north and yes, my memory is correct. The altar hasn't moved, still behind the yew tree that I can chop on the way back to Varrock. (Crafting earth runes seems logical since I've only used that rune to activate mining urns and haven't used any others recently.)

Crafting done, but a wizard is camped out. Taking notes it turns out. Researching if the rune altars are gradually losing energy. Okay, if we can't craft runes, how will Runescape stay the same without runes to cast spells? I've already noticed the damage spells changed to no longer require chaos or death runes. If runes go away altogether, will the game's name change to just "Scape"?

Well, I can go on a quest to ask the wizard theorist and get teleported right there. Tallyho!

Is this the top of the wizards tower south of Draynor? Seems much more elaborate than I remember. I don't think you could get on the roof of that wizard's tower.

Finix is one of the characters with recorded dialog and has a voice. Although is he supposed to sound like Harry Potter?

Okay, he says we can still make runes from siphoning rune energy. He also sells wicked robes and essence pouches for POINTS? I have no points and no idea where/how to get some! (Then again, I don't need another costume filling my bank.) I'm getting confused on all the different exchange media within the game, some cost real money, some come from specific activities.  Why can't I just throw gold pieces at everyone?

(Btw, why do I hear a seagull sound at top of Wizzy Tower? It's getting annoying and seems quite out of place. (We're talking John-Cleese-yelling-"Albatross" levels of annoying.))

I still haven't found Finix's quest, but I have teleported to the rune essence siphoning plane. You grab floating essence that looks strange, different from normal rune essence. Then you just walk up to mind storms or watter esslings(?) and suck rune energy out of those entities and into your strange looking essence, giving you strange looking runes. But my rune essence isn't getting used up.  I actually have a lot more than when I started.

Don't know if these runes cast spells, but you use them to travel via elemental bridges between the floating islands of this plane. So while I still haven't found Wizard Esslis or whomever to ask about Finix's research, I have found traveling clouds, iceberg bridges and climbable beanstalks

Quest or no quest, there is lots of free easy runecrafting xp to go around.  Oops, and to prove my point, I just made level 53 runcrafting!  I also have an alert that a wizard is calling for help, but i cant find him anywhere.

Aah, if you siphon a feature like a pools of water or storm funnel, you use up the odd looking essence.  If you siphon from an essling creature (killing it?) you get odd rune essence from its drained cadaver.

Okay, these aren't runes you can take back to Gielinor.  Finix turns whatever you've created into points that I presume are spent at his store to get stuff.  Will follow up later.

I gave up looking for the hapless wizard and teleported out, but it turns out that I cannot find ANYONE no matter where I look. Returning to tower again I cannot find Elriss, although I find Arianne at the front door and she needs help with a vortex disrupting the library.  So I have a new quest from here.

Goodie! Part of solving this quest is playing an old style rune spell.("old style" - hmph! That's the style I'm familiar with.) on a pipe organ. (After playing the official quest tune, I played both "Mary had a little lamb" and "Heart and Soul" - the latter of which should have definitely gotten me kicked our of tower by the librarian.)

Anyhow, I've found a key, so going outside with Arianne, we break into the OLD portion of the Wizard's Tower. I learn that I should be a Saradomim mage (blue), defile a statue, yet never deal with the eventual doublecross that never happens. (C'mon, Arianna, you've consorted with demons, step up your game!)

Anyhow, now I have another hat and weapon to store, so I return to GE with materials for a divine bronze rock.  Giving a shout that I'm going to drop the puppy, myself and a few others mine from the rock. I sell off the ore and call it a night at 8:46, having collected 14,346 coin and brought my current XP up to 879,625.

Good hunting!
~ Tidwin ~