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 ~
Monday, May 4, 2015
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.
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.
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!
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?)
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 ~
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 |
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." |
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." |
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 ~
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