Runescape Community: Runescape Community -> Hemlock's Blog

Well to sum up from when I last posted...

The Mining goal is completed. After all the bars and ores and soft clays were sold off, I had a cool 187 million gold coins sitting in the bank; 135 million of that being from selling the items off. I spent about ten million gold coins on herb seeds and secondaries and except for maybe another 30 lantadyme and dwarf weed seeds, Herblore is officially paid off for 99.

Herblore is now 96 as of today and I already mixed about 300 Overloads and decanted them into four dose potions. I mentioned about worrying about getting the grenwall spikes? Well, all 8,500 grenwall spikes were collected in a relatively brief period of time and I sold off a LOT of them before they plummeted in price. I still have about 50 more pawya meats in the bank which I'll use up before the end of the year and I made at least ten million gold profit from all the excess grenwall spikes I sold away. I'm still collecting papayas twice a day because I may want to train Hunter this way until at least 90. But if I don't, I'll have a lotta papayas to sell off.

Mining is now up to 95 thanks to the concentrated gold ores on world 84. I have to admit, it's some pretty quickish Mining experience with items I can at least sell away for quick cash. I just need to save up about 5,000 gold ores so I can get them smelted into bars for I can make and enchant and sell off some jewelry. I have also taken the time to cook down all my seaweed and crafted them all into molten glass. I still have 1,200 glasses to blow into orbs but I'll get that all completed by the end of the year.

As before, everything is looking good.

E: Oh yeah, I got the 99 Fishing too. Emoted once and stashed it on the cape rack.

So, it's really been a while since I've wrote anything here so here's a quick recap of everything I've been doing in the game.

My Mining goal for the year is nearly completed. All I have to do is mine 400 more runite, adamantite, mithril and gold ore and purchase about 1,000 more silver ore from the Blast Furnace. Bronze, iron, steel and clay are all completed for the year with 5,200 mined and smelted up into bars. However, I think I'm going to not sell the clays so I can make them all into Varrock teletabs for future oak planking for Construction. At current time, I have about 110 million gold coins in bars sitting in the bank and I'll be selling them all off in the Grand Exchange on 01/01/10. If all goes well, I expect to resume mining up the remaining ore around the 23rd of the month once Fishing is 99ed out.

I'm currently at 470,000 more experience until 99 Fishing is obtained. All the fishing was done through monkfish and they have done well to finance Herblore with the purchase of wines of Zamorak, limpwurt roots, potato cactus and torstal seeds. If all goes well, I should have Fishing completed by around next weekend.

Herblore is puttering along well although I have an insane amount of Farming required in order to collect all the herbs needed to make 1,700 Overloads, the number needed in order to get 99 Herblore. Extreme attacks are halfway completed as I've already used up all the irit seeds in my bank. While I'm amount 100 irits shy of my goal, all I have to do is wait about two weeks and I'll have all the irits I need from Kingdom Management along with other needed herbs. I just started breaking into my avantoe seeds in order to make all the super attacks into extreme attacks. I've also need planting torstol seeds at Trollheim and I'm currently at 200 torstol in the bank. I expect to get 99 Herblore around April of next year but that's fine. Once I have all the extreme potions made, the last 1.7 million experience needed will probably take two to three days to complete and I'll have TONS of empty vials to train Humidify on.

The only major issue with my Herblore goal is getting all the grenwall spikes needed to make extreme range potions. But I've been collecting papayas daily from my five trees and I'm currently at 72 Hunter with 350 pawya meats collected from hunting pawyas. Once I get the level, I can begin trapping grenwalls for spikes and more herbs and extra Hunter levels on top of it.

So all in all, everything is working out nicely for me. I still haven't decided what my overall goal is going to be for next year but I expect it to be combat related so I can 99 out Strength, Attack and Defence and snag charms needed to get Summoning up to 93 for the elite Ardougne tasks. I can not stand uncompleted tasks.

As a quick backstory to those who don't know me very well...

I made a resolution at the beginning of the year that I would mine and smelt 100 of all ores every week. That means by the end of the year, I would have 5,200 bronze, iron, steel, mithril, adamantite and runite bars along with gold ore and soft clay. As of this point, I have September completed with the exception of one hundred more runite ore but they're coming in as I type. In fact, I'm an Alt-Tab away from the runite rock at the dark beasts. I'm currently sitting at 3,900 bars (3,800 runite bars) at this moment with an approximate value of 80 million. I'll get a more accurate value once I return to the bank but for now, let's just say that.

Well, when you have a three day weekend and the wife and kid and away for a day and a half of those three days, you're gonna have some serious no-lifing when you are not drinking or singing karaoke. So I was able to mine three hundred runite ore in three days. Looking back, I don't know how I did it except for sheer willpower. On normal evenings, I'm usually dreading mining runite because of the constant login/logout. Shooting Stars certainly helped. I love being about to mine two runite ore at once.

Not everything was all Mining. I was able to snag 90 Defense after a few abberent spectre runs. No snapdragon seeds but I was able to stock up on some kwuarm seeds, decent herbs, two full rune helmets and a nice scattering of charms. I also got Penguin Hunting completed on Saturday afternoon leading to 29K in Runecrafting. 8K of nature Abyss runs later, I got myself 74 Runecrafting. So I'm one more level away from being able to use the giant pouch and then I can really start racking in the RCing levels at ZMI.

Otherwise, I did a fair amount of Fishing and a decent chunk of Crafting to get it down to 20K until 88 Crafting.

Life is beautiful.

I didn't really sleep well last night. My wife was snoring up a storm so I got out of bed to try to unwind my mind. So, like an idiot, I got back on Runescape around 1:30am and I took a look at my bank and panicked a little.

First of all, it was a complete mess. When it comes to Farming and Herblore stuff, I have everything right where I want it. As for everything else, I needed to use the search option just to find things. Furthermore, I only had twenty items remaining before the bank was completely full. So I took the time to get a few suits of armour collected together and I upgraded the chests in the Costume Room in the house. That got about ten items out of the bank. I home teleported to Lumbridge and spent about five minutes filling up 250 empty vials with water. From there, I began to methodically mix potions.

Thirty minutes and roughly 160,000 Herblore experience later, I noted all the potions and slapped them into the Grand Exchange. All of the potions sold quickly with the exception of the Ranged potions but they should be sold by the time I log into the game tonight. All in all, I earned 1.7 million gold from all the potions and I still have tons of herb seeds remaining in the bank to make even more.

I wasn't going to make and sell all of those potions. I really wanted to store them all up and make them all in one fell swoop. But hoarding doesn't benefit anyone now. I think it's far better to simply use what's given to you now instead of potentially losing your opportunity later.

I still have a lot more work to get the bank down to a respectable and concise level. I'm off this weekend, I'll handle it then.

---

Unfortunately, all of the regular tree saplings and seeds are out of the bank. I planted my last two magic, one maple and two willow saplings remaining in the bank. Fortunately, I logged out of the game right at the Grand Exchange so I took the opportunity to purchase 100 willow seeds. While more expensive seeds would let me train Farming much faster, I'm not going to squander my hard earned money on disproportionate experience. 25,000 gold pieces for a maple seed which barely gives 3,000 experience points? Screw that. At least willow trees give willow branches and that'll assist with Summoning down the line or some quick cash should I choose to sell the four hundred or so in the bank.

I do need to spend about ten minutes running back and forth from the bank in Catherby and the Farming shop to pick up at least one hundred baskets and maybe fifty plant pots. I also need to begin harvesting the sweetcorn from the allotments and get the potato seeds planted. I have a load of chopped corn and tuna ready to make into tuna potatoes but I still need to get the potatoes collected and cooked. If anything, I can start planting limpwurt seeds and use the regular buckets of compost the leprachauns are holding to get the farmers to protect the patches.

Runite mining went well. There were a few times where it felt like it took forever to get the runite out but there were several times where the runite was one-hitted or the dark beasts were situated in just the position where I can mine without prayer.

I think tomorrow I'm going to work on getting some logs burnt and inch my way to 95.

On a completely off-topic and off-blog note, I watched the last episode of Morel Orel earlier this evening on adultswim.com. It was such a sweet ending to such a great series. Season three was spectacular writing as the characters were possibly the most human people I've seen on television in quite some time. I wish everyone's life could be like Orel's: .

70/5,000

endofline

So.

In an effort to blog here more often, I'm going try to post one hundred blogs in one hundred days. Let's see what happens.

First off, I finally got the two newest Achievement Diaries completed. The Falador Diary really wasn't very hard at all. I was most worried about the skeletal wyverns but I realized that safety was one click away at the cavern entrance. So, if I got owned, I could simply click once and be safe. I read somewhere that if you stay six squares away from them and turn on a protection Prayer (I forget which one now), you'll take absolutely no damage. That's all well and good except for two things.

1. I hate using crossbows. I don't know why. I just dislike them greatly.

2. I am painfully low in mind, death and blood runes.

So I attempted to mage the wyvern to death and I run out of runes at 15 hit points remaining and zero prayer. A quick bank and my trusty whip later, the wyvern bit the dust and the diary was completed. The hardest part for most people, the yew or magic tree in the park was actually the first thing I completed. By luck, I had planted a yew sapling there the night before the Diaries were released.

As for the Fremennik Diary, I was able to whip through all the tasks in roughly two hour's time. I was dreading the mithril dragon greatly but it turned out to be much easier than I expected. Yes I ate a few swordfish, yes I used up a bit of Prayer. But a super set and about a hundred whip cracks later, the task was completed. I'm also thankful that the crazed barbarian for the alpine tree pyre was in that safe spot near the brutal greens. I didn't want to have to deal with them. As for the rewards, all the experience lamps went straight into Runecrafting and I'm about 20,000 experience points away from 71. The Falador kiteshield has been used every day whilst farming north of Port Sarim but I haven't really noticed any major experience bonuses. But I don't care about that. It's experience I wouldn't have got if I didn't have the shield. Tack on the 100% prayer recharge and the +7 sat to Prayer (more on that later), I think it's a spiffy reward.

The Fremennik seaboots gets a resounding meh from me. I handle Kingdom Management on a daily basis since I'm actively working on getting 99 Herblore. So the approval bonus means nothing to me. It just means I have to chop one maple log instead of two to get my approval back to 100%. The only thing I use the boots for is the leap from the bush allotment over to the Miscellanian side to get to Ghrim faster.

The Xmas event was mercifully quick and I'm grateful for that since I hate the hot/cold game with a passion. I did that enough with the Historical quests with the enchanted key. The sadistic side of me rejoices in the knowledge that the F2P players got a taste of such a cruel task. Fortunately for me, I got lucky with my gut instinct to teleport to Varrock since Jack Claus was just to the southeast of the dark wizard coven south of the city. Two minutes later, I got my Xmas outfit which immediately got thrown into the toy chest in the house.

The Xmas quest was also mercifully quick but the 32,000 extra experience points made it a worthy ten minute investment of my time. It's a shame that 20,000 of those experience points were for Woodcutting, a skill I already 99ed out earlier this year. But 10,000 Agility experience, in the words of Lizarick, was a beautiful thing. I rolled my eyes at the British focus on scatological humour with the yeti dung but the quest was remarkably simple. The only part I had a smidgen of trouble was the room before the yeti with the moving blocks. Fortunately, it took about two minutes before I had a NES Legend of Zelda flashback and realized that the blocks had to be shoved.

As for earlier tonight, all my herb patches were farmed and all ten tree allotments got inspected and replanted. I decided to put my new Falador shield to good use and I headed over to the dark beasts to mine runite. Roughly an hour later, I teleported to the cabbage field with a total of 34 runite ore and one ruby. I had room for one more runite ore in my inventory but sadly my prayer had run out and I got hit down to about 18 hit points. The last thing I wanted to do is die there since my gravestone would have collapsed in the time it would take me to reacquire new Mourners clothes.

Still, 34 runite ore in about an hour's time is decent time spent.

34/5,000

endofline

Ok,

I have roughly 3,300 more potatoes to cook. I have roughly 3,100 more butters/creams to purchase or churn into butter. I'm pretty much completed on tunas, I need another 1,000 tunas or so but I'll just stop by the GE and get them purchased and cooked. I'm not worried about bowls since I'll get an empty one back for every tunacorn potato I make. The slowest part is the sweetcorn but I have three out of four allotments occupied with a scarecrow so I'll be able to collect six or twelve crops of sweetcorn a day. The main thing I need to occupy myself on right now is making at least 250 tunacorn potatoes a day and I'll be set with gold again and also a Cooking level to boot.

Cooking is going to be my fourth Cape and I expect to have it completed probably within the next week. I'm not worried about people showing up for my accomplishments. Let the more social people like Krystal attract the large crowds. I'm more content in personal accomplishments and letting my actions speak for myself. In all honesty, I'm going to celebrate my 99 Cooking by logging onto a random free world, lighting a fire in the middle of Varrock and cooking a swordfish for my 99. If anyone happens to witness the fireworks and stuff over my head and they offer me congratulations, so be it. I'm far more content to remain in the shadows and watch and learn.

And while only two people showed up for my 99 Woodcutting, I made it a point to arrive home from work as quickly as possible last night to show up for Krystal's 99 Farming accomplishment. That is an impressive goal and I'm sincerely grateful to have been there to witness her feat. Thank you for delaying the party for me, that means a lot.

As for that other thing that happened to me, I'm still stunned by the promotion to King. I can name three other S-Mods (Joolker was one of them) whom I believe to worthier for King than I. However, I've learned recently that humility and restraint will only get you so far in the world. There's a difference between a capable follower that shows the potential to lead and a leader who inspires people to follow. I'm hoping that I'm able to carry the mantle of the latter and guide others to become better people. I don't usually get PMs very often but within the first two hours of coming home from work and logging off of Runescape after Krystal's 99 Farming party, I received two requests for help which I was only grateful to accept.

Kings, Senior Moderators, Moderators and CLs (and not just Zybez, any fansite for any game or interest) must always remember that it is the regular member which dictates the pulse of a website. If you don't stand behind a decision or what you believe in, you will be walked upon by most. If you order people around with a draconian demeanor, they will leave and most likely take at least five others along with them. Impartiality (is that a word?), civility and consideration are the rules which all leaders must follow but never forget to stand behind what you believe in. Listen well to others though since there is no such thing as a one-sided coin.

To W13: Thank you. Out of curiousity, why did you decide to take the other choice? Shh, not here. ;)

To Joolker: We made it. While we are technically on equal footing, I'll always be inferior to you. You've been here far longer than I, you've dealt with far more e-drama than I and you've been a far more direct leader than I. You've led Questions for ages whereas I've been content to simply watch, suggest and guide. You're an inspiration to me and I'm grateful that you're feeling the same feelings of confusion, giddiness and pride that I am.

To No1 1000: I sincerely had you pegged as the next King. Your knowledge of programming is second-to-none (although I'm certain a few may take friendly objection to that). You've never been afraid to voice your opinions and that's a great trait to have. And no, I would never boss you around because you're far too valuable an asset to the Community to give up.

To Colton: I never thought I'd see the day that I was on a slightly higher rung than you. Until I reached S-Mod, you were always up there in the distance, looking down from the mountain and good to me. It would seem that the position is reversed but in reality, nothing at all changed. You and Apollo are still and always the only two on my friends list here in RSC.

To Brad: Two Jews in charge. Muah. Hah. Ha.

To Jack: So many people have compared me to you. Thanks for laying down the foundation. It was very solidly built.

And finally, to MDW: I remember our very first meeting here on RSC. While I did have a decent understanding of how things work, I never hated you because I didn't know you. But now I do know you and I pray you succeed at whatever life throws your way.

No blogs for at least a week or so. I don't want to bore people with potato stories. Once I get Cooking handled and I fully complete All Fired Up, I'll be off to Make Fires.

Word is bond.

/endofline

98 Woodcutting came last night. It was a good feeling. In fact, it was one of the best feelings I've had in this game since I first racked in level after level as a level three. The best part about it is that it's the last time I have to get a level in Woodcutting and lament that I still have more to go. One more and I'm done. I'll probably train it down to about 500,000 experience points til 99 and then train it by chopping down Farming trees.

Farming is also doing quite well as my month of Kingdom Management resulted in tons of willows and bananas and a nice wide selection of better quality trees. I added all the saplings up in the bank and discovered that I had 1.2 million Farming experience banked. That'll bump Farming up to 91 from 88. I'm still going to work on getting all the low end trees planted first but once I start dipping into the palms and magics and calquats, I'll be making 100,000 experience a day in Farming easily (as long as the calquats live). For now, I'm planting spirit trees until all but one is inspected. Once that happens, I'll plant the final one in Et Cetera and resume KM once it's grown in. Firemaking is finally making a serious comeback as I've trained it up to 90 and I'm currently 45,000 experience points away from 91. All that's left is Fishing and I'll focus on that once Woodcutting has been chopped down to where I want it.

Furthermore, I've been gaining levels in practically all my other skills. I snagged a Thieving level a few days ago after a rather bad night at the bar and my need to sit and click at the Master Farmers in fury. The level perked me up a little along with the three ranaar seeds and the two snapdragons. Herblore is starting to inch down to below 100K til next level. I got a Crafting level in the process of getting the cowhides out of the bank and I'm currently at 117 combat with 64 Summoning, 87 Attack and Defence and 78 Prayer.

As for this month's BTS, good, less updates. A two quest month is always good for us skillers and it'll give Jagex time to actually get the graphics update put in properly the first time instead of having to deal with bugs and glitches up the ying-yang.

endofline.

What is there really to talk about?

Not much. But I'm going to prove myself a hypocrite.

I've not really had much desire to post anything in this blog because there really isn't much to say. When you have a relatively high total skill level, each level may be an achievement but it's also a repetitive bore. What am I going to post about, the strategy of withdrawing maple logs and setting them on fire? It's all so boring and it's beginning to make me play less and less. So don't really expect anything here until I reach 2,000 total skill level (twenty-seven levels away). Then I'll be a little more diligent in posting here.

My enjoyment of Runescape is beginning to wane and I fear that there really isn't any purpose to continue playing by the end of the year. Chopping the same trees, fishing from the same spots and killing the same monsters just isn't appealing as it was back when I first started playing the game around 2002. Back then, just walking around and exploring was a thrill to me since I was the kind of person who enjoyed playing MUDs. There were no graphics, just a five to seven line paragraph that described the "room" you were in and told you what mob was in the room, what was lying on the ground and what directions you can walk from there. Runescape may have primitive graphics compared to hundreds of other online and console games but it was still the first, and to this date, only MMORPG I have played.

Everything about the game appealed to my fantasy senses. Players weren't mindless killing machines who explored to see what was out there to kill and pillage and gain experience points from. That's the problem with MUDs. Combat was EVERYTHING in those games. You can't improve yourself without shedding blood. In Runescape, players were invited to engage in many other activities that didn't involve combat and that makes perfect sense. There was no looming threat that players had to be vigilant at every step (unless you count the Wilderness). A person never had to wield a sword or grab a shield if they didn't want to. If a person wanted to stop killing hill giants or hobgoblins or dragons or demons and grab a fishing pole, the game didn't penalize you. Most skills made you money, other skills helped your combat and others were nice accessory jack-of-all-trades skills.

But what really captivated me was the relatively simple experience rewards. It started off so innocently: 83 tiny experience points to go from level one to level two, the little explosion of accomplishment and the occasional "grats" from other people who were nearby to witness it. Gaining levels in the beginning was digital crack for me and it made me want to accomplish more and more. I would relish the level screen and I would impatiently click the continue button to see what ability I gained with the level. I was probably one of the few people who said "OMG!!11 I can maek pi diishes!" and actually stopped what I was doing to mine clay, make it soft and craft me up a spanking new pie dish to marvel at. I'm a completist. I feel that I must experience everything positive a game has to offer. In the Bartles Test of gamers, I am an Achiever.

My first goal (and also my first) was to become an accomplished smither. I read about the legendary players of Runescape, specifically Bluerose and Musashi and Priscilla in today's age, and thought that being fantastically rich would be a nice thing to be. Use money for goals, that's a sound plan. I had no interest in flashy outfits or party hats because I saw them as symbols of vanity and not useful. And also, my original plan was to be a Mining and Smithing pure. I didn't want to engage in combat because I was pretty much burnt out from my MUDding days as a deca-remort. But one accidental quest gave me a combat level so I said screw it.

At that point, I became a full-fledged skiller.

Smithing was still my primary goal but I needed money so I could purchase items that I would need. So I began working on combat, specifically dark wizards for runes, so I could work on training Magic up so I could begin to high alch. I spent days at the lesser demon in the Wizard's Tower, maging it to death so I could start making money. I rarely teleported because laws were a thousand gold pieces and I barely had 300,000 gold in the bank. But I kept training and working and saving each and every gold I could pick up. I buried normal bones where ever I saw them on the ground. I used to comb through the banks and the general stores, picking up other people's junk from the ground or finding deals at less expensive prices.

Finally, at 70 Smithing, I made my fateful jump over to members. I had my self-smithed suit of mithril armor equipped along with my trusty rune scimitar and found myself in a completely new world again*. First things first, I got the Herblore and Fishing Contest quests out of the way and began training on Agility. I think that's the reason I hate Agility to this day: just doing those endless and boring laps around the Gnome Stronghold over and over and over again. I continued to train combat on chaos druids and slowly got Herblore up to around 30 to 40. But what really changed my perspective is when I was reading through the official forums and I saw this person who was purchasing unided herbs for 2K each. Well, I had a nice load of unided herbs in the bank which were avantoe and up and I wasn't particularly bright back then so I private messaged him in the game and we met in Yanille. I really didn't want to sell the herbs since I wouldn't gain the experience from them when I could identify the herbs. But five minutes later, I walked away with 800,000 gold pieces.

* - My original account, T'Rikmet (don't ask, I dreamed that name one night) was members back in Classic. I was familiar with the geography and the quests but seeing the world in 3D was mind-blowing.

To me, this was a gigantic amount of cash. It allowed me to purchase a decent amount of ores that day so I could smelt myself a nice number of bars. Of course I didn't sell the bars for more money, I smithed them and high alched them as always. I've always played the game knowing that experience points should never be wasted. Train your skills and use what you collect to train other skills and then sell the end product for the best amount possible. My problem is that I had no patience standing in crowded worlds endlessly typing the same thing over and over again. No, I'm not going to use an autotyper: that's lazy, unfair and illegal. No, I'm not going to use the official forums: five seconds after you post something, it's already on the third page because everyone else is bumping like a kid without Ritilan.

Instead, this was just about the time where I typed Runescape into Google and found Runescape Community. Oh, I found other sites: some decent, some horrifically bad and a few bordering on illegal. But the site I stuck with was this one and I popped my head into the Marketplace to try to buy coal for 150 each. And after posting the topic, I read the other topics and realized what a noob I was. Practically everyone else had topics selling THOUSANDS of coal for 185-200 gold pieces each! 5K minimum if buying... Gold only, no items... I was a "noob offer". I was a very small fish in a very large ocean of players.

My time in the Marketplace was brief as I decided that posting wouldn't be a wise thing to do. I decided to read and I read a LOT about the game. Questions was one of my favorite forums on RSC to rummage through and I was always impressed by posters like Ben Goten, Phobia and Robin Hood. When they answered questions, they gave complete answers to questions, normally citing and linking readers to their sources, giving people alternatives and not being snobbish about it. It's a shame I never had the opportunity to CL there as I would have enjoyed it greatly. I read over a lot of guides for certain skills and quests and that really helped me prosper.

So I dived back into the game and decided to do a quest a day until they were all completed. I also spent many an hour at the chaos druids in the tower northwest of Ardougne since it was far less risky than the Edgeville Wilderness dungeon. About a week later I made my first million by selling off a humble collection of prayer potions and I made my second million by selling off a pair of ranger boots I was lucky enough to get on a clue scroll (sold for 600K, they certainly did go up in price). Just a short period of time later, I completed the Holy Grail quest and finally got my 43 Prayer and everything changed for me. I was technically invulnerable since I could click a prayer and not be hurt. Every other quest at that time was slaughtered since demons and monsters were unable to touch me. I began calling quest guides right around this time and I took pride in following in the steps of Robin Hood.

Some people say that my guides are too wordy; I say other guides don't contain enough information to actually help.

At this time, I was getting back into Mining and Smithing and I posted a topic in Services (of which I would eventually CL) offering smelting services. I did everything for free, which was a mistake but I can't deny that I gained a load of experience. One of my biggest clients at that time was Fenixangel, a former Moderator here who was either Senior Member or almost Senior Member at that time. He was at least understanding about smelting. He never said to me "I need you to smelt 30,000 steel bars by tomorrow." He was the person who actually READ what I typed and UNDERSTOOD what I requested. Rules are important because they are created to not only help out the organization but also to help you out too.* So every day, I would normally get 1,400 iron ores plus rubies plus gold bars/ores plus cosmic runes so he can get iron bars in return. Other days it would be steel bars and other days it would be mithril or adamantite. But I was glad that he was there because without him, I wouldn't have gained that many Smithing levels so quickly. Mining was also continuing along and it was a short period of time after TheExtremist (or was it LivingHell?) got 85, I got 85 also.

* - He received a lot of flak from people when he had his Services post up also since it was chock full of rules. People just need to understand that there is not just one personality type on RSC or the Internet. Fenix was a very analytic person and more intelligent than 98.5% of everyone else on RSC, including me. I'm pretty relaxed with rules, I see issues as rights and wrongs. If you do something wrong, you're going to reap the consequences, regardless if there is a written rule or not. But if you do something wrong, I am more apt to warn than punish. Guide people to the higher ground but punish should they choose to ignore you and err again.

That was a good day because it was the same feeling as when I got 99 Smithing. It was a major accomplishment because it was the first skill I have ever effectively killed*. It was also right around this time I was delivering steel bars to Fenixangel in the game when I got a PM in the game from MDW. Most people here think MDW and equate that with "uh oh". That's complete jarvis, he's a nice guy. He didn't even get offended when I told him to hold a minute while I completed my trade. That's when he asked me if I wanted to become a Moderator on RSC.

* - Killed: To achieve all abilities that any one skill can provide you. As in: "I recently got 85 Herblore and can make Zamorak mixes. Herblore is officially killed." And yes, that's true. Thank you Grand Exchange and your cheap secondaries.

Well, that was an odd moment.

I told him no at first but I quickly changed my mind and never teetered back and forth since. Most people will never understand this but there is an extreme difference between being a member and being a Moderator. It's just like being a normal player versus being a Jagex Moderator; it's two completely seperate worlds. When you are a member, you see every as normal: you see the boards, you post on the boards, you read replies to things you posts, you generate compliments or criticism or sometimes flames and you continue this habit ad nauseum. But when you become a Moderator, the gritty truth is revealed. It's like standing outside a nice two story home with a green lawn and a white picket fence. But when you open the front door, you find yourself in the bathroom from "Saw". You see the stark reality behind the scenes. It's not always pleasant, discussions are energetic and impassioned but without it, your experience as a member would have never been enjoyed.

And shortly after becoming a Moderator on RSC, I received a three messages in my Message Centre while logging onto the game. I was mining adamantite at that time so I was looking at a lot of green and I didn't notice I had new messages at first. Three messages all at once was odd so I finished mining the six adamantite rocks (Mining Camp FTW, I've only seen ONE other person there EVER) and read my messages from Jagex. Two were reports (both of which were racial slurs against me) and the other was an invite to become a Player Moderator.

Well, that was an odd moment also. I've talked about how much I like the game, let's talk about how much I hate the game.

I hate people in general. One thing that I despise which was found everywhere in the game is greed. It's the "me-first" mentality where common courtesy and kindness was always put off unless it benefitted you primarily. It was the loads of beggers who demanded money from other people. It's the people who would stand for half an hour spamming "buying one onion" when that person could easily spend two minutes to walk from Draynor Village to the chicken farm in Lumbridge and pick their own damn onion. While I hate stupidity and sloth and greed, I hated cheaters and scammers far far more. I hate the trust scammers, the zero droppers, the armor trimmers, the flamers, the bots and the real world traders (difficult to report in the game). I had the same dilemma as with becoming a Mod on RSC but my main problem was the little silver crown. Every time I've ever seen a Player Mod in Runescape, they were surrounded by other players, enduring a never ending barrage of questions from people who were too lazy to go to any Runescape fansite of their choice and spend two minutes looking for themselves. If I had a nickel for every time I've seen the phrase "How do I become a Player Mod?", I would have 4,831 dollars and 60 cents. So I had a choice. I could either accept a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and never enjoy a peaceful minute in the game if I ever publically spoke or I could decline and enjoy life out of the limelight and away from prying eyes.

Yeah, I accepted it. Reality as I knew it didn't shatter that badly because Jagex only informs Player Moderators with the information they need to know, nothing more. That's a very good thing because the last thing I really wanted to do was give up being a player of the game.

Life progressed fine for the next several months. I continued to write a few more quest guides (One Small Favour being my favourite despite its agonizingly long length). I continued smelting bars although I dropped iron from my Services post since I made more money buying iron ore and selling iron knives. Right around this time the Blast Furance was released and I was legitimately giddy because it was an actual Smithing update! Of course it was packed when I arrived there for the first time and of course people were stealing ores just like the pure essense at the general store near the Nature Shrine. But I gave it a few days before people lost interest and I returned to do some serious studying.

My road to 99 Smithing officially begun. I smelted mithril and adamantite into bars and made arrowheads and bought gold ore to deposit into the bank for later. The arrowheads were fletched into arrows and the arrows were sold on free worlds. I loved Swiftswitch at this time because it was the only way people could ever get onto World 1. While selling the arrows were a pain, especially since my crown stuck out like a sore thumb, I did get the arrows sold and I immediately teleported to Falador to purchase more coal and more adamantite. I chopped my own logs, I fletched my own arrow shafts, I made my own headless arrows and I fletched the vast majority of all the arrows. I did keep a small portion of arrowheads and shafts off to the side because one of my greatest pleasures was having others help me out in exchange for powerleveling their Fletching. I've helped several people on RSC who just became members get from 1 to 60ish Fletching in a rather short period of time. Basically, I gave them the shafts and the feathers and they made headless arrows until they could make mithril arrows. As my levels in Smithing increased, I started dipping into the runite ore I've been mining on and off for quite a while and bagan smithing up axes and scimitars and eventually full rune sets (with dwarven stout, of course). One thing that others liked about me is that I sold my items for less than standard price. I mine my own runite, therefore the only thing I pay for is the coal. I could charge 5,000 gold for a rune scimitar if I wanted to. It's still profit. While I didn't sell dirt cheap, I sold items significantly cheaper than other people. I normally sold my rune sets for 165,000 gold pieces instead of the standard 200K without scimitar. Why? Because I'm not greedy. I'm making money, I'm saving other people money and I'm basically helping others out. That's what's important in life.

Without other people, your life is pretty insignificant.

I avidly journaled my Smithing process in my LiveJournal and finally, after months of hard work, twitching fingers and late nights running to and from the Blast Furnace, I logged into a free server at the eastern Varrock bank and withdrew a pickaxe, 198,000 gold pieces, an axe, a hammer and a knife. I also withdrew a few rune items to drop early. I wore nothing except for what I originally chose when I appeared on Tutorial Island. I walked a short distance to the south to the SE Varrock Mine and mined myself five copper and five tin ore. I continued to walk southward to Lumbridge where I smelted those ores into five bronze bars. I continued to the west and chopped myself a single yew log and continued past Draynor, through Port Sarim and straight down south to Thurgo.

I walked along the eastern shoreline and stood on the shoreline of the peninsula on the eastern side. I was expecting a small crowd of people, maybe 20-30 people. There was probably 100-200 people all swarming around the hut near the west coast. That I wasn't expecting but I guess that's what I get when I posted the event on RSC and said ten million drop party. I actually stood over there for a few minutes and finally walked up the hut. That's when my eyes began to roll from everyone talking to me at once. It was frenzied and chaotic but I was finally able to say hello to a few good friends, pose for a few pictures and smith five bronze bars into five bronze daggers. So it began, so shall it end. Those daggers are still in my bank, I will never drop them.

I popped over to members quickly so I could collect my Smithing cape and then proceeded to fletch the single log into a bow for 99 Fletching and insta-trim. I wanted to stay on members since it was far less rowdy but I made a promise to drop some rune so we walked all the way to Varrock. Ten inventories and twenty minutes later, I dropped my final rune plate, said my thank yous to those who came and logged off for thirty minutes. I was justifiably satisfied as my first goal was the first goal completed. I logged back into the game where there were a few people from the drop party still chatting away at the anvils. They asked me to smith them a few things which I gladly did and completely ignored the few people there begging for free items from me that they did not get from the drops. Sorry buddies, not my fault. Except for a few occasions, the Smithing cape has never left my back. To this day, it still attracts attention and compliments.

---

Now, what is there to aspire to?

Smithing has become a mere shell of it's former glory. There are far more other skills which will provide players with more money and more experience points in less amount of time. The only time I am ever needed for my 99 Smithing is the occasional player who wants a draconic visage pounded onto a shield or a set of Barrows repaired. While I do appreciate the Assist system for preventing scams, I feel the visceral sensation of being traded the pixels so I can perform my own work like I had trained for years. The Assist feature just seems so cold and emotionless; a sensation of paralytic helplessness as you must politely wait for the other fumbling player to finish doing what they need done. When you get to be 99 Smithing, you know the location of every item on the Smithing menu like the back of your hand. You can do it faster than they can.

We can't provide gifts to others because we feel like being generous. Real world traders killed that dream dead so kindness between friends can't be accomplished. If you want to give something nice to someone for nothing in return, you have to use the Party Room. Hopefully your friend will pop the 1:300 to 1:2000 odds balloon and he or she will get what you intended. Gift-giving and charity - dead.

Because of this, we can't give training materials to others so they can train their skills and make the items the first person wanted. Services - dead.

Because of this, PvP - dead. Stakers and pures are dead because the amount of money they can win at the Duel Arena is pathetically small compared to what it was previously. After all, it's those real-world traders. If the value of a player's possessions is more than 3,000 gold, the drop won't appear. Wilderness PvP - dead. What's the point in being a 99 Smither if people just need one full set of rune armor and a rune scimitar? You'll never lose it since your remains are protected with gravestones.

There's really no more need for Player Moderators for that matter. The great scourge of the game, the Chinese gold farmers are practically extinct. Sure, account trading is still an issue but the great time tested scams of the past are gone. "Oh yeah, I'll trim that rune plate for you. I'll just take your platemail off your hands as I'm forced to give an equal amount of gold pieces so I can press accept. Oh no, I didn't have a trimmed armor to give you but you really aren't screwed." Trust scams = dead. Password scams = dead (can't say them). Drop trading = dead. All that's really left is advertising and abusive language.

The Grand Exchange was a blessing and a curse. I love it since I no longer have to endure noob offers when buying or selling items. In it goes, click click, boom, out comes gold. But it's been devaluing items dramatically. Herblore is a nearly dead skill since practically every potion with the except of prayers and super stat restorations are dirt cheap. When secondary ingregients are more expensive than the end potion, there's a serious problem. But, on the flipside, I was able to purchase all the level one and two treasure trail items without any stress whatsoever. Too bad new stuff is coming out later this month. So economy - slightly dead. I'm sure it will recover eventually but bad business in the game = bad business for Jagex.

Random events may possibly be dead but I certainly hope it doesn't die out. I personally like random events, a small little candy-covered break from the MMORPG grind which sometimes provide excellent rewards. Please Jagex, if you read this, program a random toggle just like the Doomssayer in Lumbridge. If a player doesn't want randoms, have them toggle it off. If they want it on, have them toggle it on. And for the record, I love the Molly random event. That one better not go.

I still log onto Runescape.com on a daily basis to see what, if anything, was updated. I still try to get excited over a new update or a new quest. But in the end, I don't feel the same emotion as I did back in the day. I play the game because it gives me something to do when I am at home, relaxing from working a shift at work.

The Rennaissance of Runescape is dead. Welcome to the Industrial Age.

---

Gaming wise, I'm taking a break for the time being from my Five Cape goal. Frankly, I much rather hold it off until I have at least ten to fifteen 99s on deck to make the event far more memorable. This month, I'm focusing on Slayer (which in turn will train combat and also Summoning). I don't really care for it that much since it gets repetitious fast. But I am gaining experience in Attack pretty nicely and I'm currently training Ranged since my current assignment is 160 Black Demons. I only wish arrows hit them as effectively as they do with greater demons. Oh well. Bloodvelds were my previous assignment and I collected a decent number of green charms from their bloated hides along with three pairs of black boots, a load of blood runes and a few rune drops (quickly high alched). Once I complete the black demon assignment, I should have about 20,000 more Slayer experience until 68. My goal is to get this skill along with Hunter, Runecrafting and Summoning all up to 70. It's going to take a while with the Summoning but I've got plenty of time. No rush.

Farming is down to 50,000 experience points until 87. When I get off of work today (working Sundays, especially the 8-5 shift, sucks), I'll inspect all my trees and get the best saplings I can planted down so the level should come by either Monday or Tuesday night. Firemaking is at roughly 500,000 experience points away from 90. So that roughly 3,500 maple logs. That can be done in roughly 3-4 hours. I'll just grin and bear that on either a weekend or one of my days off.

Fishing is slightly screwed because I forgot that cutting the leaping fish for roe or caviar gives Cooking experience and I bought myself 5,000 raw swordfish. Because of this, I may accidentially get 99 Cooking while training Fishing and I DO NOT WANT to train at Shilo. So Cooking is officially on hold while I calculate the approximate number of leaping fish I need for 99, factor in Cooking experience and see how many swordfish I can safely cook and sell. I mean, I will train a few hundred thousand experience points in Shilo if needed but certainly not five or six million experience points.

All that's left is Woodcutting and it's blissfully on hold. The constant tap tap tap of the axe is annoying but sound is vital for sanity, especially when you're Alt-tabbing back and forth between the game and Fark, for example. It's not really going to be that much longer for Woodcutting and I can make it go by faster if I just suck it in and chop teaks.

So all in all, I'm doing fine but I'm not doing fine. I'm feeling passionless and that needs to change stat.

endofline

1. 85 Farming - I really, really, really love me some Kingdom Management. It's given me the seeds I need to train this skill with little to none to negative losses. The nests are quickly ground down and made into Sara brews and sold, the herbs are mixed into potions and sold and the seeds are down into pots and eventually planted. I flat out can't argue with the minigame since it allows me to level Farming, Herblore and Firemaking quite nicely.



I no longer require the need of any more garden pies or Compost Mounds to boost Farming since I can now farm everything which can be farmed. Another skill effectively killed with the exception of the cape. Fourteen more to go.

2. 77 Prayer - I thought I had enough dragon bones stored up in the bank for the level but it turned out that I was off. So I did something I never did before in my Runescape career: I bought bones from someone else. Sure, it's the Grand Exchange, but ultimately someone else had to put the bones in to sell. Forty-two dragon bones later:



3. 49 Summoning - Sunday is Tears Day and me and my stupid 254 quest point self waltzed down to Juna and collected some water to drink. I will mention that the tears have become so chaotic and random in recent weeks, making it really hard to collect more than 100 tears per week. But I was able to collect 104 tears this week and I get a level from it...



On a side-note, I was chopping willows earlier this afternoon and I finally collected a raven's egg. I have only 1,700 more experience points needed for 50 Summoning so I may use up a few crimson charms and get the level early so I can get the raven out of the way. Or then again, I may not. I'm not a huge pet fan. I much rather keep my cat in the bank instead of it walking around behind me. I really hate the constant "yap yap" other pets make, especially around the Grand Exchange. I think I'll hold until I get 70 Summoning before I make a pet. But at least I have it in the bank so I can hatch it whenever I so choose. I'm a completist; I can't stand not accomplishing something.

4. 84 Herblore - All that Farming definately added up. Combined with Farming, Kingdom Management plus monster drops, I really brought in a lot of herbs on a daily basis and it's a true joy when I stop and think to myself "Hmm, it's time to collect secondaries." Because when I collect secondaries, I know I'm going to be making a lot of potions, a lot of experience and a lot of money. I've made nearly five million in gold in the past month by selling super strengths, prayer potions, super energy restorations and super restoration potions on the Exchange. I don't even sell high; I just throw them in and click OK. They usually sell in two seconds and I have gold. Now I did purchase a nice amount of eyes of newts and limpwurt roots but Mort Myre fungi and white berries are just stupidly expensive to purchase so I collect them by hand for maximum profit. I still have 400 unfinished cadantine potions left in the bank. My level was just from super energy restoration potions.



I'm not going to sell them however. I need to see how effective spirit terrorbirds and their Tireless Runs work out. If the familiar is decent, all of the potions will be sold.

5. Misc. stuffages - 86 Attack is in the bag. I'm about 105,000 experience points away from 86 Strength and 35,000 experience points away from 72 Agility. I got 66 Hunter earlier in the month and I'll probably collect more red chinchompas next month. Right now, I've been getting a head start on next month's goals. Woodcutting is already down to 650,000 until 96 and Fishing is down to 295,000 until 88. Farming in on a mini=hold right now as I test out Myst's theory on leaving Kingdom Management alone for a few days to see if the quality of seeds improve. But I have a nice collection of magic, yew, papaya and palm saplings ready to go into the ground for some quick Farming experience. 320,000 experience points until 86 Farming will only take about four to five days to do as long as I get decent seeds. Worst comes worst, curry seeds are about 3,000 gold pieces each in the exchange and that's pretty much 1:1 ratio for gold pieces spent versus experience gained.

I'm a cheap bastich. I always will be.

endofline

Catapult Construction was completed last night and one of the only good things I can mention about it that it was short.

I'm a storyline driven kinda guy. It's sorta like how I enjoy Heroes with their fifteen or some odd story lines in a standard season because I like to see where things go. I like my quests in Runescape to be "Future Hiro stops time on the subway and speaks to Peter Patrelli" in quality instead of "Season Two Wonder Twins" like this quest was. The quest continued the Regicide storyline except it's like all the characters of the storyline conveniently forgot their epic war and started kvetching over a wooden contraption. One would assume that the Elves would just make a few hundred ents and beat the stuffing out of the camp but hey, I'm not a Jagex writer. Everything about the Mourners, Ardougne, the resistance camp in Lleyta was just tossed out the window so we can repair a catapult. Hell, that Fremennik quest where you're underneath Miscellania and building a WOODEN ELEVATOR was more meaningful than this quest.

Anywho, the quest was rather simple to complete once I understood the fact that I needed to read that letter after delivering it to the insipid Engineer. The jump from the Elven Forest to Ice Mountain to Port Sarim and back was not that bad and the catapult puzzle was a refreshing flex of my brain. What I was impressed most was the field testing of the catapult and the nice 360 movement from catapult to target rock. That was a very nice push of the graphics engine and the camera work was spot on. But I felt like my thirty minutes spent completing the quest could have been spent killing ice warriors and such. 15,000 Construction experience is nice. 5,000 Fletching experience is so little nowadays. This is a Master quest; most likely because of all the quest requirements needed to access this quest. So many other Master quests give experience rewards double this quest. An adamantite halberd is pointless if you've completed Regicide. You might as well have snagged a dragon halberd from the shop once Regicide was completed. The thirty teak planks will just be made into dining room tables and summarily forgotten about.

And finally, the largest complaint I have ever seen from other Runescape players which I openly laugh at, the permanent no-friendly fire buff at Castle Wars. What so many people fail to realize is that practically every buff in Runescape (potions, amulets, Prayer, etc) is a temporary measure. You drink the potion, you wear the amulet, you invoke the Prayer and you are more powerful than before. When the potion wears off, you take off the amulet or your Prayer points drops to zero, you are back to normal. This reward becomes a permanent augmentation on your game file. You never have to worry about forgetting to bring your no friendly-fire ring into Castle Wars, it's always there. Players are so adamant about the now that they are not willing to look at the what could be. Jagex could make changes to Castle Wars and there is the possibility the quest reward will be particularly useful.

Blah blah, Catapult Construction was completed and I quickly headed back to Castle Wars to throw down my trees and pluck my herbs. Thirty minutes later, I suited up and headed to the ice warriors to engage in arctic genocide. The Attack training went well although I really wasn't bringing in the gold charms like I really wanted to. I had to teleport out of the cavern with only 95 charms collected and about 20 health remaining. I quickly teleported to Varrock, used the spirit tree in the Grand Exchange to Et Cetera and got my Kingdom Management swag (seven seed nests: three acorns, two curries, one maple, one yew) and teleported back to Castle Wars to make more potions and sow the seeds in the plant pot. I woke up this morning and quickly did my herb run before showering and heading to work.

To do for tonight:

1. Complete my tree run and do another herb run - With the saplings I'm putting down tonight, I should bump my experience until a new Farming level down under 100,000. Next month, I'm going to just collect the tree seeds from Kingdom Management and let them build up for a solid month. I'll be resuming Woodcutting next month so I should bring in at least thirty to forty more nests from chopping. Once I have a fair number of saplings, I'll resume tree Farming and try to powertrain about three more Farming levels out of it.
Completed. All potions made, all decent trees down and I'm at 103,000 'til level. Tomorrow's trees should drop me to 60K and I should level by Tuesday of next week.

2. Purchase about 200 baskets, 200 plant pots and 100 sacks from the Farming store in Catherby. Baskets of apples are completely out and oranges are starting to get low again. Bananas are not a problem especially with the bones to bananas spell.
Did not do. I'll wait until the weekend.

3. Recharge my amulets of glory.
Done.

4. Complete Tears of Guthix.
Not done. I think it was Friday or Saturday.

5. Kill blue dragons and greater demons until I get tired (which should be early since I'm tired).
Done. And I decided to take down that level three clue scroll. Six or seven trips later, I got two magic shortbows, rune pickaxe, rune legs, black dragonhide chaps and no 3rd Age. I also popped over to Miscellania and retrieved two acorns, one apple and one curry. Oh well, the four ranarr herbs made me feel a little better.

endofline.

I'm all done with my Five Cape goal for this month so I finally have time to relax a little and get some well-deserved combat out of the way. But lets babble on about my goals before I look forward.

Firemaking was a complete breeze. Yes, it was boring. Yes, I don't enjoy having to stop in the middle of a nice twenty-seven log line to answer a question from a random player who starts following me much to my chagrin. But it was a breeze. I no longer have to worry about not having enough maple logs in the bank thanks to Kingdom Management. I normally do 500 maple logs daily which is about 67,500 experience a day. I'm happy to get 50,000 experience a day since that was my daily goal for when I was training Smithing. Two levels didn't really take that long at all. In fact, I could probably do about 500,000 experience in a day in this skill if I have a day off and decide to completely no-life it.

Farming technically turned into an off month for me since I got the level I needed last month. But that didn't stop me from training it up this month. As long as I continue to bring in decent quality seeds at Kingdom Management each day (which is a crap shoot for the most part), I should have another Farming level within the next week. Putting down a whole grove of yews and maples and pineapple seeds really does boost the skill up quickly. And all the kwuarm seeds I've been laying down has resulted in excellent income. Sadly, I realize why cadantine seeds are so cheap; super defence potions are also so cheap. I'm slightly regretting the decision to purchase 500 cadantine seeds but I'm not too worried about it. They're great Farming and Herblore experience even though collecting the white seeds are a pain. Oo'glog makes it slightly tolerable. I can usually collect about 100 white berries before the run effect wears off.

Woodcutting was leveled to 95 very early this month so I've been enjoying the time without the sounds of "clunk clunk" coursing through my headphones. I miss the stream of nests while chopping willows but at least KM has been providing me an average of 5-6 seed nests a day. Cooking was also leveled early on this month to 95 also. Right now, I'm working on selling my potions in the Grand Exchange to raise up another four million gold pieces so I can afford raw lobsters or swordfish or monkfish. I haven't decided which one I'm going to train on but the level won't take too long.

And finally Fishing. Meh.

I really hate Fishing. It's steady experience when you fish trouts and salmon at Shilo. But the problem is that you have to spend time banking low quality fish that don't really sell well on the Grand Exchange (raw or cooked) and provide sad Cooking experience. Furthermore, when the fishing spots change to the other side of the river, it slows down the training time even more. And lets don't forget that you have to constantly purchase feathers at six gold each. I know it's a small amount to pay but when you purchase thousands of them, it gets pricy in due time. So I decided to try out the Barbarian variant of bait fishing and I haven't looked back since.

Positives:
1. No banking - All you do when you have a full inventory of fish is use your knife on them to collect roe, caviar and fish clippings. You don't need to move from your spot and this takes about fifteen seconds to do.
2. Very little spot moving - Shilo gets hellish with the fishing spots. One second the spot is behind the furnace, the next second it's underneath the hut where the Slayer master is at. If a spot moves up at the mountain, it's usually five seconds away.
3. Slightly better experience - Throwing sturgeons in the mix at eighty experience each makes each full inventory of fish a slightly higher experience value than Shilo. Sure you'll continue to catch fifty experience trout but in the long term, you're fishing less loads at the same pace for the same level.
4. Cheap as free (almost) - A million experience points with regular fly fishing, assuming you catch only trout, requires 20,000 feathers which will cost you 120,000 gold pieces. A million experience points with Barbarian bait fishing will cost you 25 bait (150 gold pieces) initially. That's it. When you're done fishing for the day and you teleport to Castle Wars with a full inventory of leaping fish, all you have to do is slice all your fish. You'll receive more than twenty-five clippings, roe or caviar which you can use as bait for when you travel there next.
5. Not just Fishing - But Strength, Agility and Cooking also. You get a piddily amount of experience in those three skills whenever you catch a fish there and gut them. And when you are ignoring everything in your Fishing trance, that piddily experience actually adds up. I'm about 30,000 experience points away from 72 Agility which will require about 6,000 leaping fish. I'll get a new Agility level before hitting my next Fishing level.

Negatives:
1. No income - It's not worth banking leaping fish to cook or sell later. It's too long of a walk/run to run up to Barbarian Assault and bank the fish. Using rings of dueling and necklaces of gaming to teleport back and forth is not worth the time. Members rather buy fish that non-members can purchase if they are training Cooking. The converse is also true. F2Pers won't be able to purchase member fish. Caviar and roe don't sell by themselves or when used to make potion mixes. The herblore experience isn't worth it either.
2. Cooking stagnation - Since you're not banking, you aren't depositing raw fish to be cooked later. The piddily Cooking experience doesn't cut it compared to regular fly fishing for when you cook your trout and salmon later.

All that said and done, training Fishing is still a grueling chore. It's dead boring and you have to keep an eye on it fairly often so you can click the knife and fish to start over again. I'm glad it's over for the month. The sad thing is that it's just going to take longer to train as I hit the 90s in the skill.

But no time to stop and gripe, it's all done for the month! So I now have sixteen days which I can spend on training up combat skills, gather charms, complete Slayer assignments and make myself look all buff and cut and glistening in the morning sunlight. I've already got started with my combat training down at the ice warriors and have already collected 200 gold charms. I've also collected two level two clue scrolls, both of which amounted to nothing but high alch fodder. I've also ventured over to my favourite blue dragon/greater demon spot underneath Gu'Tannoth and resumed my collection of blue dragonhides, dragon bones and green and crimson charms. I was lucky enough to get a level three scroll from the greater demon which I haven't collected as of yet. With all that fighting, I got a Defence level making my melee skills an even 85/85/85. I've switched over to Attack and have already bumped my experience to next level down under 300,000.

And finally, Jagex released their newest quest earlier this morning (which irritated me greatly since yesterday was my day off). I browsed through the thread on RSC and was amazed about the great amount of pig-headedness of impetulant youngsters complaining about the quality of the reward. So what if the quest reward isn't a +200 Blade of Death? It's an attempt to make Castle Wars a little more interesting by giving a slight boost to the players who took the time to complete the quest. Not every update revolves around your playing habits. If it's not something you are interested in, don't do it. I personally never play Castle Wars except in the rare times there's a Zybez Castle Wars event. And while the reward isn't something I'll ever use, I do appreciate that it was added in. The 15,000 experience points in Construction is something I'll appreciate much more. I just need to purchase or mine six mithrils, get the nails smithed and I'll have everything I need to complete the quest.

So, list of to-dos for the remainder of the month:

1. Complete Catapult Construction for the completion of all quests.

2. Tears of Guthix for Summoning on Thursdays. Unless I get an obscenely high amount of tears (like 130 or more) tomorrow, it'll take two Tears to get 49 Summoning. At the end of the month, I'll probably bite the bullet and use up greens and crimsons to get up to 52 Summoning and train with gold charms up to the next gold charm plateau. Those spirit shards do get expensive. If I don't bring in that many greens and crimsons (which I seriously doubt will happen), I'll just Tears up to 52 Summoning and then gold charm train. I believe the level is Spirit Terrorbirds and their Endless Run special is something I will be using to great effect.

3. Combat experience until the end of the month. That means 100 gold charms from ice warriors (along with anything else they might drop) and three runs of blue dragons/greater demons per day. One hundred gold charms usually equates to 60,000 experience points in the melee skill and three Gu'Tannoth runs will come to roughly 25,000 more experience. I should get up to 86/86/86 by the end of the month.

4. Slayer weekends. On weekends, I'll be supplementing my Combat training/charm collecting with Slayer training. I got about five more desert lizards to kill off (less than a minute to complete) before my current assignment is completed. Hopefully I'll get a good assignment like Bloodvelds or Hellhounds which should bolster Slayer up nicely. For once, I hope I don't get blue dragons as an assignment because I'm dying to get a little more variety.

5. Herbs and trees on a daily basis. If I can average at least 20,000 Farming experience a day, I should have a new Farming level within a week. If I can get really good quality seeds on Kingdom Management, I might level within three to four days. Oh yeah, Kingdom Management on a daily basis. All the nests are made into Sara brews and the kwuarm seeds made into super strength potions and summarily sold. I'm down to about fifteen more kwuarm seeds before I am out so I will most likely purchase more seeds and limpwurt roots from the GE. I should have an Herblore level by the end of the month.

6. Maybe another 500-600 chinchompas hunted up and captured by month's end. That should be good enough for two, maybe three, more Hunter levels. If anything, it'll get me enough experience for padwas and I can finally find out if they provide sufficient papaya seeds for my tastes.

7. Get about 1,000 law runes and 2,000 nature runes runecrafted and put into the bank. Use the laws for teleportation spells, use some of the natures to kill off the yew longbows remaining in the bank, and sell the rest of the natures for cash and more pure essense. That should get me a Runecrafting level.

8. And finally, do some Woodcutting here and there to bump the experience needed for next level down from 900,000 to about 500-600,000. I can usually do about 125,000 Woodcutting experience a day on teaks and willows.

So, I was up late last night because my wife decided that she would like to go out by herself to the bar tonight. I'm all women's lib as long as she cooks me dinner every night and cleans the house as every woman should be doing*. This was good because it gave me a little more time for myself. I watched TV, I tucked my son into bed and I got online to do some training. I was looking over my skills, taking a look at the experience needed for next level when I was surprised to see Hunter was 275 experience points away from a level. I forgot that "As a First Resort" gave out a stupid amount of experience so I was a genie away from getting a level.

And then Karma, in Her infinite beauty, said to Herself: "He let his wife enjoy a night out. That'll do pig. That will do." And She gave me a classroom random. Three questions later:

Insert 63 Hunter here.

But my wife made the cardinal error in not calling me as to when she was coming home. So I stood awake because I can't sleep unless I know she's alright. And I chopped. I chopped a slew of willow logs until 2:30am. I got a nice collection of bird's nests including a pair of yew seeds along with the standard junk (acorns and apple trees). Eventually, she got home, I gave her a sound beating* and finally headed off to bed with 160,000 experience left 'til a new Woodcutting level.

I woke up, made eggs and steak, read the paper, did the standard chores, drove our neighbors over to the laundromat and vacuumed the house. I even threw a pizza into the oven for later in the evening for the Super Bowl. And after everything was over (or during some lulls in the day), I trained in the game. First off, I did 60,000 experience in the teak and mahogany enclosure and also got a fair amount of Firemaking experience in burning the logs. Fortunately, there were no broodoo victims wandering about so Firemaking was much easier than yesterday since I moved it on down now to the south side. Five nests in total: three rings, one willow and one maple. I finished up and poofed over to the Rogue's Den and quickly cooked up another 1,000 lobsters. And I say quickly because those lobsters cook fast and the experience pours in when you don't have to worry about fish spots shifting or trees falling over or Ents appearing (two broken axes today) or constant clicking with the burning. Oh no, Cooking is relaxing and peaceful. I listened to the Tool station on Pandora and time drifted away quickly.

I also continued with the herb farming throughout the day. I got a nice number of grown spirit weeds and cadantines made up into unfinished potions. I decided to bite the bullet and throw down all the high end tree saplings into the ground. Tomorrow, I got a guaranteed Farming screenshot to post. So Farming for this month is completed. Basically for the rest of the night, I chopped away at the trees. I stuck with willows all the way to level and level I did.

Insert 95 Woodcutting here.

Woodcutting for this month is completed also. Firemaking has about 110,000 experience 'til 86 (an hour's worth of time burning maples) and one more Firemaking level for the month which will probably take about two to three more days to do. Cooking has about 450,000 more experience to go but that should be a quick easy level. I have just barely enough lobsters remaining in the bank and I *MAY* be able to do it in one evening. If it takes two, so be it. All that leaves left is Fishing which I am sincerely dreading. I'm thinking an entire week to get two levels.

That should leave me with about ten to twelve days of do whatever I want. So I'll probably get a Defence level by killing blue dragons and greater demons and get my charms back in the bank. I may get a Ranged level out of the way so it's an even 80. I should get enough dragon bones to get yet another Prayer level and I'll try to get two more Slayer levels out of the way. Do clue scrolls as they appear, continue to farm herbs, and check out new updates and quests as they occur.

Life is good.

endofline

* - That's called sarcasm. If you took that seriously, please die in a fire. Thank you.

Right.

Before I begin, may I present to you 85 Firemaking:



Meh achievement for the most part but at least it's a relatively quick skill to level. So February started off on a mistake because I told myself that I needed to get myself 95 Woodcutting last month. Oops, my bad, Summoning was all so shiny and tempting that I said sod it and got that skill all trained up. At last count, I'm currently 47 Summoning after power leveling from 30 to 40 and then getting all the marigolds out of the bank. The experience I was hoping for was pathetic to say the least. The 370 or someodd marigolds was good enough for three levels. I suppose it's because that I have the majority of my skills in the 70s to 90s and I completely forgot what it's like to train up a low level skill so my concept of experience to next level is completely skewed. Blah blah, I decided to use up all the charms in the bank with the exception of 25 golds, one green, one crimson and one blue and I ended with 47. Not too shabby really.

It's then when I realized how incredibly expensive those shards turn out to be. I mean when I started Summoning, I'm plunking down 250,000 gold pieces for 10,000 shards and thinking to myself "this should last a while". Oh no. Once you start training on crimsons for the sure-fire level in one to two trips, you realize that those shards are disappearing by the thousands. It was nice talking to you Summoning but it's a new month so I need to return to my overall goal.

So I started on my goal today with chopping away at good ol' reliable willows. I picked up a few nests, got a few maples (nice) and acorns (pfft) and suddenly thought again to myself "umm, you aren't really going to do anything with those willows you idiot." So I pulled out my trading sticks and headed to the mahogany and teak enclosure in TBW village and started chopping there with a tinderbox. And the training was good. Nice experience per log. Nice experience per burnt log although the dimensions of the enclosure makes burning there as efficient as an ape with Down's Syndrome. But in the end, I got both Woodcutting and Firemaking down to about 230,000 experience 'til levels.

I also headed over to the Rogue's Den and cooked myself up 1,000 raw lobsters for a quick and painless 120,000 experience towards Cooking. I then clapped my hands twice and appeared in Shilo where I fished up about 50,000 experience points in Fishing. At this point, I rummaged through the bank and found a level three clue scroll which had been festering in there for quite some time. Three emote clues, one anagram, one coordinate with Saradomin wizard and one click a bookcase in Shilo later, I went full circle with a giant reward of nothing. Well, it was something (rune battleaxe, ten red firelighters, 24 bloods and two other things I can't remember because IT WASN'T ANYTHING SPECIAL).

I also made several herb runs thoughout the day so I can bolster the number of unfinished vials in the bank. Now, people can gripe and complain about how stuff in the game have cheapened due to the Grand Exchange and the trade limitations Jagex released. However, I can't complain about the extremely low prices of herb seeds at this time. Case in point: cadantine seeds are now 900 gold pieces average. For 900 gold, I can receive about 720 Farming experience from six cadantine herbs and sell these potions for an instant profit. It may take awhile before the super defence potions sell but eventually, I will profit. Kwuarms are far more profitable albeit a little more expensive per seed. 3,000 gold per kwuarm seed versus 3,000 per completed super strength potion is a win-win situation for me.

Anywho, I fully expect to get Woodcutting, Cooking, Firemaking and Farming completed by the end of the first week. Fishing is going to take a little longer but hell, I have three more weeks remaining in the month before February is over. I'll have plenty of time to continue training up my combat skills and push my Summoning up to 52 so I can enjoy training the skill cheaply on gold charms.

endofline

So, I got home from work and got about 600 maple logs burnt in about thirty minutes time. Note to self, get the money put into Kingdom Management ASAP so I don't have to burn logs at the Grand Exchange. Too many people stop and ask my questions or spam trade me expecting me to stop burning logs so I can answer their questions or see what sad little items they want to sell. I got my Firemaking down to about 40,000 experience points to go before I decided to take a break. I ran around from Trollheim to Draynor Village collecting my herbs and was perturbed so find that only two of the five patches grew in my herbs. That irked me greatly for whatever reason. So I headed back to a bank and loaded up my combat suit for killing dragons and demons.

And just five seconds prior to entering the Gu'Tannoth cavern, the Internet and cable went down. If I was in the middle of the blue dragons and I lost connection, I would have been quite irate. It turned out that there was a car accident about three blocks down the road which struck a light pole which in turn knocked down some electrical wires. My section of the city still had power but it did knock out my cable until about 4am.

Pfft.

So I woke up earlier than normal this morning because I couldn't sleep well at all and spent about two hours playing the game while my wife did some grocery shopping. First of all, the First Resort quest really isn't worth it at all. Well, it may be worth it for Hunters, especially with a chinchompa area directly north of the spas. But the saltwater bath which gives energy ain't really worth it at all. Apparently, the energy boost doesn't last for thirty minutes as others had mentioned. The reason I say this is because I bathed in the waters, immediately clapped my way to Shilo Village using the Karamja gloves and began running water-filled vials from the store to the bank. I was able to bank 500 of them before the effects of the water wore off. If I were to make an assumption, the waters give you 1,000 extra invisible energy points. Once they are all used up, the effects are over. I think people who bathed in the water and then did something that required very little movement like Woodcutting assumed it lasted thirty minutes because they weren't running around (except to bank and head back).

Everything else about the quest was meh at best. I didn't care much for the scripting of the quest except for the ogres. Dumb ogre talk is amusing, stereotypical business-talk was not enjoyable. I can't complain about the 45,000 experience points as a reward. I can complain about the general worthlessness of the rewards. The pools aren't anything I'll take a charter ship to Oo'Glog for, the mud mask and Davy Kebbit hats are good for about five minutes and the eucalypus trees aren't good for training at all. I don't really care about pets at this particular minute so I'm not caring about the platypodes.

The quest rates a two out of five. I don't care about Hunter. I much rather train Hunter through falconry than setting traps and waiting for a critter to waltz inside. My mind may change after I start collecting some chinchompas and those new critters in the Elven Forest (so I can see the frequency of papaya seeds).

The rest of the morning was spent killing blue dragons and greater demons for more greens and crimsons and the appreciated blues, farming my herbs, collecting water-filled vials and training up my Summoning. I went from 30 to 38 Summoning before I had to log out so I could get ready for work. No screenshots of levels because everyone knows that anything under level 50 is noob. Once I get home, I'll get my Summoning up to 40 so I can thankfully get back to cheap, easy to obtain gold charms. My marigolds will be put to very good use and hopefully I'll gain enough experience in the skill so I can head back to Oo'glog for raw bird meat. That's the main reason I rated this quest a two instead of a one. Any cheap and easy to obtain source of secondary materials for Summoning is greatly appreciated. I'll also take care of my 40,000 experience points needed for 85 Firemaking and I can chalk January up as a resounding success.

endofline

I like Summoning. However, I have only summoned two familiars to date: the spirit wolf from the Wolf Whistle quest and a Compost mound because I had a torstol seed to plant up in Trollheim.

Why do I like Summoning? It's because I now have a reason to train up my combat skills. I never was a tremendous fan on combat in the first place because I really didn't like watching a green bar slowly grow red. But in the process of killing off ice warriors, ice giants, blue dragons, greater demons and other baddies in the search of charms, I've really appreciated the fact that I have a much better drive in getting my combat Capes out of the way instead of having to worry about the boredom of Fishing or the statistical impossibility of 99ing Farming without throwing away all my gold.

And what I like about combat now is that I can easily collect a fair amount of items that I can use while training a skill at the same time. Herb seeds? No problem. I already have ten spirit weed seeds in the bank along with various ranarrs, snapdragons and lantadymes ready to be put into the ground. Runes? No problem. In the last three days, I've collected enough nature runes to get 84 Magic from the blue dragonhide bodies I've made from killing a load of blue dragons.



In fact, all the killing I've been doing has given me the impetus to train skills I've long neglected. Slayer is one of those skills. I do not care for Slayer one bit. It's a painfully slow skill to train. One simple assignment of 150 Cave Horrors usually takes me about two hours to complete and what do I get from it? Maybe 15,000 Slayer experience and that's it. That sucks. However, I've realized that I have a much better chance of collecting the charms which I've been stockpiling up if I actually do assignments than ignoring it. I finished up those annoying cave horrors Friday evening and was assigned 150 blue dragons to kill. That, I like. And while working on the genocide of the azure lizards, I got 65 Slayer.




And while working on that particular assignment, I also reached 79 Ranged.



And in the process of killing said blue dragons, I banked myself enough dragon bones to hit 76 Prayer.



And in the process of killing said blue dragons for the Slayer level, I got tired of ranging them so I put on my armor and antidragonfire shield and began swiping away at them with my dragon scimitar so I could train on Strength while completing the assignment. By the time I finished the assignment, I was 1,000 experience points away from Hits and 25,000 experience points away from Strength. Did I get those levels? Sure thing.




I'm currently at 111 combat level in the course of a week. It took about eight months for me to go from 104 combat up to 105 combat. Wolf Whistle bumped me up to 106 combat and since Summoning has been released, I've went up five combat levels. I can finally one-click blue dragons. I only have 30 Summoning at this point and I'm not worried about training up that skill. As far as I'm concerned, I'll simply do the Tears of Guthix on a weekly basis once Jagex says that Summoning can be trained through that minigame. Until then, I'm just going to stockpile up the charms until I reach the point where I can stop and methodically get myself 13 million experience points in Summoning. Will it take a while? Oh sure, definately. But Summoning gave me the motivation to aim for more Capes instead of less.

Alright, lets get the basics out of the way...

Cooking was a complete breeze. All you have to do is purchase or fish enough raw fish, Cook X at a range or fire and listen to music and chat on Zchat to pass the time. There's really no effort to it at all. The Cooking Guild provides just enough privacy so you can get the training done with the occasional person asking how you got in there.



Woodcutting really wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. It was hard to find a relatively quiet world at Draynor but once I found one, I was bringing in a decent amount of experience per hour. All the nests certainly helped out greatly and I recently made myself 100 Sara brews from all the crushed nests.



85 Fishing was not enjoyable at all but at least each run was quick for the most part. I particularly hated it when the fishing spots moved all the way over to the other side of the river in Shilo but at least I'm really beginning to build up my levels of raw trout and salmon in the bank. I miss the olden times when I could arbitrarily give several thousand raw fish to someone who could use it in training their Cooking. But there's no reason to complain over what has happened. I can finally train myself on blue dragons without Qixiao55 through 99 hogging up every blue dragon on every member server.


More levels to post later. I'm tired and I need a nap.

Goal - Five Capes (Cooking, Woodcutting, Fishing, Farming, Firemaking)

Cooking
Ease: 1 (1 = simple, 5 = difficult)
Remaining experience: roughly 5,000,000 experience points.
Recommended training routine: Cooking the raw fish at the Fishing Guild.
Estimated number of lobsters until completion: ~42,000 lobsters
Estimated number of "runs": 1,500
Estimated time of completion: 1,750 minutes or just over 29 hours. If two hours a day, ~15 days.
Estimated time of completion through no-lifing: 2 to 3 days
Cost to purchase needed inventory: 10,500,000 gold
Resell value of cooked material: 8,442,000 gold
Estimated net cost: 2,058,000 gold

Remarks - At this point, I can easily gain the experience needed to accomplish this goal. While the cost of raw lobsters and other fish have increased slightly from the inception of the Grand Exchange, I can gather together a nice collection of runite ore within a relatively short period of time. Combined with the high alching of blue dragonhide bodies plus a sizable collection of strung yew bows in the bank, money is simply not a problem. I decided with cooking at the Cooking Guild as the positioning of the range and the bank is stable whereas Emerald Benedict's location in the Rogue's Den can shift depending on whether other players talk to him instead of quickbanking. Besides, I appreciate the relative peace and quiet the Cooking Guild provides me and the range will be doubly useful if I decide to train on sharks.

Siderant - Jagex, please understand that PvP is the cornerstone of EVERY online game there is which involves more than one player (multiplayer as the youth puts it) is combat. Culture has drifted away from the concept of tie to the concept of winner and loser. PvP in Runescape has been reduced down to "best seven out of fifteen?". Ease off the PvP restrictions or encode the game that only melee related items can be introduced into the PvP zones. We can think laterally so players are satisfied and RWTers still remain obsolete. I personally feel that Jagex made the "draconian" changes so other MMORPGs would actually take notice and take steps of their own to eradicate the gold farmer. Remember, good competition between game develops breeds innovation. If they follow your example, they'll think of a better idea. Just react quickly to them and you'll ensure more players will remain or come back.

Besides, no one's buying my cooked lobsters in the Exchange and that's making me pissy.

Firemaking

Ease: 2 (1 = simple, 5 = difficult)
Remaining experience: roughly 10,000,000 experience points.
Recommended training routine: Burning at the Rogue's Den or Lunar Isle
Estimated number of logs until completion: ~90,000 maple logs
Estimated number of "runs": ~3,400
Estimated time of completion: 4,000 minutes or just over 66 hours. At two hours a day, roughly a month.
Estimated time of completion through no-lifing: 10 days
Cost to purchase needed inventory: Unknown as yet. (SEE REMARKS)
Resell value of burnt logs: N/A (Ashes? Pfft.)
Estimated net cost: Unknown as yet (SEE REMARKS)

Remarks - In reality, this isn't really going to be a tough skill to train. The main issue is just the complete repetitious nature of the skill. It's not like Cooking or Fletching where you can X it and sit back and relax. Fortunately, the experience per log is a little higher than average compared to other skills so I should be able to motor up to level 90 at a brisk pace. I'm choosing maples for the overall excellent experience point value compared to the cost. Depending on what logs I happen accumulate on the way, I should be able to build up more experience with the occasional burning of yews or magics. I'm done with Fletching so I'm not worried about stringing and alching any more bows than what I already have in my bank. If magic logs were cheaper, I'd burn through them in a heartbeat.

Woodcutting
Ease: 2 (1 = simple, 5 = difficult)
Remaining experience: roughly 5,000,000 experience points.
Recommended training routine: Willows at Draynor with the occasional teak/yew chopping as I reach the end.
Estimated number of logs until completion: ~80,000 willow logs
Estimated number of "runs": ~2,900
Estimated time of completion: 5,800 minutes or just over 96 hours. If two hours a day, roughly 50 days.
Estimated time of completion through no-lifing: 10 days
Cost to purchase needed inventory: N/A
Resell value of collected material: 1,760,000 gold
Estimated net cost: N/A

Remarks - I'm sure the estimated time of completion is way off. Two hours a day will get me a little more than 100,000 experience a day. Right now, this skill is on cruise control. I'm just chopping and banking and collecting as many nests as I can get. The great thing about training this skill is that I'm getting a modest number of bird eggs which will probably be helpful in training Summoning. (Edit: 70 Summoning for a Zamorak birdie? Tempting...) The willows I'm collecting will probably be helpful if I run short on maple logs for Firemaking. I honestly don't mind this skill at all. Nests are the new herbs for me since I never know what seeds I'll get when I click the nest. Furthermore, toadflax seeds are impossibly simple to pick up and Saradomin brews tend to sell briskly through the Grand Exchange.

Fishing
Ease: 4 (1 = simple, 5 = difficult)
Remaining experience: roughly 10,000,000 experience points.
Recommended training routine: Trout and salmon fishing at Shilo Village.
Estimated number of trout/salmon until completion (average of the two fish): ~170,000
Estimated number of "runs": ~6,500
Estimated time of completion: 9,000 minutes or roughly 150 hours. If two hours a day, ~75 days.
Estimated time of completion through no-lifing: 1 month
Cost to purchase needed inventory: 1,020,000 gold (for the feathers)
Resell value of cooked material: Unknown at this point so will edit later. I'm assuming 60% trout and 40% salmon.
Estimated net cost: 1,020,000 gold

Remarks - This skill I'm not particularly looking forward to. I've never really cared for Fishing since I never really considered it a huge money making skill. Lobsters, swordfish and sharks take a considerable amount of time compared to trout and salmon and even they are meh compared to good ol' reliable runite ore. The shifting fishing spots are just like Woodcutting but at least there isn't any competition for the fish like there is with Mining or Woodcutting (to a degree). So as long as the fishing spots behave themselves and I don't have to run all the way around the river to fish, the training shouldn't really be THAT bad. I think once I really get into the training I'll do the majority of the training on weekends or holidays (preferably with the wife and child away; no, I am not a bad parent.)

Farming
Ease: 5 (1 = simple, 5 = difficult)
Remaining experience: roughly 10,000,000 experience points.
Recommended training routine: Tree seeds with high end herb seeds and bushes as a secondary measure.
Estimated number of seeds until completion: No unearthly clue
Estimated number of "runs": See above
Estimated time of completion: See above
Estimated time of completion through no-lifing: 2 months
Cost to purchase needed inventory: See above
Resell value of harvested materials: See above
Estimated net cost: See above

Remarks - I'm going to be honest. The odds of me completing this goal by the end of the year and also getting the other four capes is going to be slim to none. So many people think "Oh he has a Smithing Cape. He has hundreds of millions of gold." Lies. If you really want to know, I have almost seventeen million gold pieces at the time of this post along with about ten million gold of items lying around in the bank and in the treasure chests in the house. To many, that's a lot. To many others, that's not really that impressive. I'm not the kind of person who says to himself "I'm plunking down 30 million gold into this skill". To me, I earn through good old fashioned hard work. The vast majority of my seeds were collected through pickpocketing Master Farmers for the normal seeds, killing dagonnoths for the herb seeds and chopping willows for the tree seeds. So depleting my hard earned money to "buy" up a skill will be my absolute last option.

---

So I need to be realistic about this.

First things first, I've already collected a nice number of saplings in the bank waiting to be put into the ground. But all the good tree seeds take a good amount of time to grow even when being watched by a farmer. Furthermore, I need to focus on collecting a large number of grown items so I have the supply to pay the farmers. So starting February, I'm going to begin pruning down my crappy saplings (oaks and apples) from the bank so I have room for the decent experience gainers. Doing a tree run really doesn't take that long. Oak and willow trees chop down quickly and only take about four hours to grow. So depending on my morning schedule, I'll do a morning tree run and an evening tree run which will amount to about 20,000 experience points a day altogether (not counting bushes and allotment patches). Once the junk experience trees are out of the way, I'll begin focusing on the decent ones like curries and maples and higher quality. I have a nice supply of grown coconuts, watermelons and papayas resting in the bank but I'll make certain I keep Catherby occupied with a high end fruit tree so I can continue to bolster my reserves.

Secondly, I'll need to collect a large number of herb seeds from the daggonoths which will raise my combat skills in return. After all, once I have everything planted, I'll need to do something to occupy my time. As long as I collect at least ten decent quality herb seeds a day, I'll be able to do two, nearly three, Farming runs a day. I have a very large amount of bush seeds lying in the bank so that's not a problem. I have a decent number of specialty seeds (cactus, belladonna, mushroom) in the bank so I can use the Fairy Circles to quickly reach and harvest those allotments. Flower seeds I'm not worried about at all. I much rather put down a nasturtium or scarecrow to ensure the survival of my high end crop seeds than plant limpwurts which offer no protection at all.

Game plan is this.

Cooking? No problem. I can get a stupid amount of experience in four hours. I'll save for insomnia nights.

I'm going to continue to chop willows until 100,000 experience points away from 99. After all, I don't want a quest to come out with obscene experience and find myself accidentally leveling. Every seed I collect will be made into saplings. Around March or April, I'll throw down 7,500,000 gold into Kingdom Management and put everything in maples. The nests I gain will be harvested and made into more saplings. The maple logs will be burnt on Lunar Isle (with Lunar Magics on so I can log in and immediately Contact NPC). Note to self, make some dragonstone necklaces and bracelets so I have a fuller range of teleports along with an assortment of teletabs. Once all the logs are burnt for the day, I'll fish in Shilo Village or kill daggonoths for Fishing experience or herb seeds.

Once I have a decent number of high end saplings, I will easily gain 100,000 experience of Farming a day and I should be able to complete this goal in roughly three months. Potions which are made will be immediately sold for cash. The cash will either go into more herb seeds or allotment seeds (strawberries or better). Once Firemaking is completed, I'll end Kingdom Management and rely on the cash gained from potion selling to purchase mid-tier tree seeds. Time not spent Farming (which should be a fair amount of time) will be spent Fishing away.

So in the end, I'm training these five skills to 100,000 experience points from 99. The last week of December of 2008, I'll train these skills down to 100 points from level and I'll gather together a small group of my dear friends from Runescape Community and Zchat to log in and watch five 99s occur almost at once. It's going to be interesting.

Let's see what happens.

January - 94 Cooking, 95 Woodcutting, 85 Firemaking, 84 Fishing, 83 Farming (no activity)
February - 95 Cooking, 95 Woodcutting (no activity), 87 Firemaking, 86 Fishing, 84 Farming
March - 96 Cooking, 96 Woodcutting, 89 Firemaking, 88 Fishing, 84 Farming (no activity)
**7.5 MILLION INTO MAPLES AT KINGDOM MANAGEMENT**
April - 96 Cooking and Woodcutting (no activity), 90 Firemaking, 90 Fishing, 86 Farming
May - 96 Cooking and Woodcutting (no activity), 92 Firemaking, 91 Fishing, 88 Farming
June - 96 Cooking (no activity), 97 Woodcutting, 93 Firemaking, 92 Fishing, 90 Farming
July - 97 Cooking, 97 Woodcutting (no activity), 94 Firemaking, 94 Fishing, 91 Farming
August - 97 Cooking (no activity), 98 Woodcutting, 95 Firemaking, 95 Fishing, 92 Farming
September - 98 Cooking, 98 Woodcutting (no activity), 96 Firemaking, 96 Fishing, 94 Farming
October - Lockdown Cooking and Woodcutting, 97 Firemaking, 97 Fishing, 96 Farming
November - Lockdown Firemaking, 98 Fishing, 97.5 Farming
December - Lockdown Fishing and Farming.
01/01/09 - Party.

First of all, I hate people.

All I want in life is people to treat others kindly. Runescape is yet another shining example of how the people who play the game are the lowest common denominator of both intelligence and consideration. I've been a player moderator for several years now. I truly wish I had the ability to turn off the crown so people don't prejudge me. But I have it and I have to deal with it. I also have the ability to kick in the Zybez Clan channel in the game.

For two hours, I've been in that chatroom while killing nearly two hundred blue dragons. I got two clue scrolls today of which I got a Saradomin page 1 as a high-tier reward. I'm down to 60,000 experience points until yet another Ranged level. Oh yeah, last night I ranged another hundred blue dragons and got both 76 Ranged and 74 Prayer. Behold:


So during the process of killing dragon after dragon, I was watching the general idiocy of the conversations. And during all the talking, all the ranting, all the BSing that children tend to do in the game, I said absolutely nothing. However, someone began that stupid q p W thing to make it look like an e-Schlong. I said "<NAME REMOVED>, if you type that in again, you will be kicked."

Please note that I never kicked him, nor did I say anything else in advance. I gave him the common courtesy of a warning. And yet I'm still accused of being a power hungry moderator and obsessed with being in the center of attention. Power-hungry? Obsessed? If I had either of those two qualities, I wouldn't have retired as a Senior Moderator. So fair warning. If you type in anything on Zybez Clan that is offensive (not what I think is offensive but rather anything that would get you suspended here on RSC or reported on Runescape), expect a kick without a single word from me.

Back to runite mining tomorrow. 82 Farming tomorrow once the papaya and palm trees finish growing.

First off, runite mining is continuing along. I've already mined just a little over 300 runite ore and all but 70 ores have been smelted into bars. Gold is holding up nicely so I'll have quite a while before I'll need to smith up full rune sets and sell them. Secondly, I had purchased a fair number of tree and fruit seeds so I have more than enough saplings to plant for the rest of this month. I should have enough to get 82 Farming by the end of the month. All my herb seeds are used up and honestly, I'm holding off from them for a little while longer.

Three levels to showcase:


Nothing else to say.

The runite mining is still going strong. I woke up early this morning (thanks to my wife cussing up and down the hallways because a fuse burnt out and it shut down the computer). The fuse was replaced, I got on and mined a quick inventory of runite ore as the sun was coming up. And then I went back to bed for about an hour.

I came home to work to a completely quiet house as she and Nicholas were already asleep. I took that opportunity to work on Thieving. I will say that pickpocketing knights with gloves of silence is rather quick experience. I was at 60,000 experience til next level and in about 20-30 minute's time, I was down to about 20K to go. I tried heading over to the watchmen in Yanille but I got caught far more often than not. I quickly became bored with this and ran to the Falconry Range to catch kebbits.

It's so strange having a skill in the upper 50s. It takes nearly no time at all to train it to a new level.


I'm currently at 183 runite ore in the bank. I'll be smelting them up this weekend and will probably get levels in Thieving, Runecrafting and Hunter if I can help it.