An inauspicious return to Gielinor

Over three years ago, I stopped playing Runescape. Nothing really caused me to stop playing, I just gradually got bored.  If any specific cause existed, it would be the fact that Facebook games were shinier and easier to play.  Even there, I would tend to play fantasy themed games.  I love a good adventure in either electronic or tabletop venues, hence my preference swords and sorcery.

Regardless, I'd grown tired of dealing with Facebook's craziness, so I stopped playing games there. With my copious free time, I've now returned to Runescape.  Luckily, my name hasn't been taken by another player during my absence, so I'm still the same Tidwin that I've always been.

Back in the day, I tended to focus on skills instead of combat, taking great pleasure in making armor, weapons, magic items and cuisine.  The only f2p quest I had not completed was Dragon Slayer. (I've always been f2p, never a member.)  I could mine adamant but still only work in mithril.  I could fish, cook and craft just about anything available to free players, with a bank full of gems, ore, and lobsters.  And costumes - but more on that another time.

I've been back for a week now, and the changes that I've noticed are interesting and for the most part beneficial.  Some of the new features I've noticed:

• For a skiller like me, the toolbelt is an incredible idea.  But for some reason when I first logged back in and discovered that I had a toolbelt to begin with, I was missing a tiara mould out of the set of tools.  Spade, chisel, knife, everything else already loaded.  Just no tiara mould for some unknown reason.
• New combat abilities and actions. Not sure if I like the new complexity, but I remember how boring combat used to be, just waiting to see if you needed to eat or checking when your Prayer points were gone.
• There's a gnome who offers challenges, attitude and baby trolls.  I have a pet one following me around named Silk.  I'll explain another time.
• Another neat item I've picked up: the five-year Veteran cape.
• Several stats or items have changed by at least an order of magnitude: the cornucopia used to heal fourteen hit points, but now it heals a thousand.
• Prayer points are now ten times your Prayer level, so I have 520 total Prayer points.
• An even bigger jump: health is now one hundred times Constitution! (Hence the change in the cornucopia.)
• And when running, my stamina never seems to run out. Travelling around Gielinor in the past, it felt like I never had enough running endurance and ended up walking everywhere, VERY slowly.  Maybe it's a change in calculations or just the effect of having the lodestone system available to players.  ("In my day, we walked to Varrock, uphill, both ways, and we LIKED it that way.")

Also, there are new quests, like Shadow over Ashdale, which I've already completed. Other quests have vanished, like Romeo & Juliet.  So it looks like I'll be completing a few more quests before I'm off hunting a dragon! (I've always planned for Dragon Slayer to be my final f2p quest, at which point I'd consider becoming a member.)

Anyhow, enough chat. Let's kill some monsters!

PLAY RECAP: start playing at 6:38PM with 812,580 total XP

Heading from GE to nearby locked shed, I plan to fight hill giants underground.  I can defeat them fairly easily without losing health too quickly, and the limpwurt roots are good money.  Random sapphires and emeralds are also a bonus, since I can craft them with the chisel on my toolbelt.

While down there I quickly gain a level of Defense.  At 49, I'm almost able to wear rune armor.  Once, of course, I kill a dragon.

I fill up rapidly on roots and return to GE and sell them for about 15K.  Cries of "Rewarding kindness" and "Need 1M to get bonds - can pay back more later" echo across the GE, the newest ways of separating the gullible from their gold, I suppose.

I'm not planning on playing much tonight, but I go to the monastery near the Wilderness to get bonus prayer and also grab monk robes to sell on the GE.  I get 540/520 Prayer to help boost healing when fighting, and return to the GE with ten sets of monk outfits to sell. I get 19K for the tops, and 10K for the bottoms, before chopping eight more oak logs for a bonfire near the giants to boost health.  I spy a line of ashes on the ground and think smugly how a bonfire takes less space and offers more XP.  (Also, regular logs give six minutes of boosted health, but oak logs provide a twelve minute buff.  Do higher trees offer even longer boosts?)

Running back to the locked shed, I pass by players scavenging rune 2H swords that start appearing on the ground.  I watch for a few seconds after the first three get picked up, but no more appear, so the vultures (myself included) scatter.  (Don't knock free stuff - I've gotten free rune armor and weapons just for being in the right place at the right time. (That's often the GE at 3AM, but I digress.))

Heading underground, I go to the zombie room to pick up a key before starting the oak bonfire.  (I always like getting brass keys so I can always be certain of getting back into this dungeon.)  In the hill giants' room, the place has become fairly crowded.  A ranger with adamant arrows, several mages, even a fighter with rune armor and a chef's hat for some reason. I only get to fight one giant at a time, meaning my adrenaline never builds to 100%.  Nonetheless, after dispatching a dozen foes, my Attack climbs to level 49, nearly letting me wield rune axes and picks instead of carrying them in my backpack.  Soon after that, my Prayer also levels up to 53.  In all, a good night for leveling up my combat skills.

But it's not a good night for the giants dropping more roots.  Body talismans, steel arrows and runes galore, but no limpwurt roots.  Nonetheless, I keep chugging along.  I chat briefly with Big Fat D about weapons and skill levels in between hill giants, but by and large everyone down here is quietly grinding away for XP, myself included.  Gradually I get a few more roots as my salmon supplies dwindle.  And now solitary rune arrows from a new archer begin to appear on the ground.

Finally, I get to use my full adrenaline move, dropping a giant in one stroke as I get an uncut emerald drop and enough XP for level 49 Strength.  (You can probably guess I'm not a "pure" combat anything.)  My food supplies exhausted, I head to the surface a few giants later.

I get over 10k for the roots, but only 900 for the body talismans. The brass keys and various runes all go into the bank, freeing up space for more monk clothes when I replenish Prayer points.  (The instant I get the bonfire boost to health, I turn on Rapid Heal, and it stays on until I'm out of Prayer.) I fill the cornucopia with five herrings before teleporting to Edgeville and the monastery.  Upstairs, I visit the altar before collecting monk outfits.  Brimming with divinity, I head back to GE, selling the robe tops (12k) and bottoms (7k) before calling it a night at 9:33PM.

The fruit of this evening's labors: total XP advanced to 849,747, and I banked 78,292 gold pieces.

Good hunting!  See you tomorrow!
 ~ Tidwin ~