"As sand through the hourglass..."

...so are the Days of our Runescape Lives.

Yes, the end of Runescape is upon us.  They changed the name of the Hit Points skill to Constitution, and made a minor alteration to how combat works.

They moved the decimal place of all damage related statistics one place to the right.  Yes, I know.  Devistating.

I'm not going to rant.  What I'm going to do is explain why they did what they did, and what it means to me.

What it allows for are potions and items which can boost your maximum HP (now called Life Points) temporarily.  So since Wrthlss Noob has 85 Constitution, he has 850 Life Points.  So if he drinks a potion (yet to be released) and raises it to 100, he would have a maximum of 1000 Life Points.  After taking damage, you could restore your LP to the elevated level by eating!

Before, if you boosted your HP, that bonus was totally gone after you took damage equal to the boost.

It also allows for combat effects that lower your maximum Life Points by reducing your Constitution.  Some elusions to a Dragon Warhammer were made, but I don't think this is more than something people think.  Nothing official to my knowledge, but it seems logical enough.

It's also not a stretch to imagine this being step 1 to the long discussed reworking of the Combat Triangle.  And I doubt that anyone could argue that this needs to be done.  Well...yeah, I'm sure someone could actually.  But I'm not ranting.

As for what it means to me, I have always used the green bar over the head of my character to determine when to eat.  While I know that sharks heal 20 HP (or did), that never really factored into anything I did in-game.  Just looking at the bar, I know when it's time to eat and I have a real good idea of how much will be green after I eat.

Really, it doesn't change the way I do business.  Sure, there's the occasional "OMG" factor that pops up when I get hit for 36, but it's short lived and causes no adverse affects.

It's something everyone has to get used to.

Combining Goals

While doing the various things I do to make money, I got a little bored and went out to do the Temple Trekking/Burgh de Rott Ramble minigame for a bit. While I didn't get a Lumberjack shirt (much to my continued annoyance), I did stockpile some shade remains. So, once I got tired of trekking, I decided to burn some shades.

I, of course, didn't just burn the small number I got from trekking: I decided to make a day of it. I stockpiled 250 sacred oil (4), 250 magic logs, and 250 shades. I ended up making about 1.2M gp. I also got somewhere in the neighborhood of 120k firemaking xp.

This got me to thinking...instead of just wasting time burning maple logs for weeks to get 99 firemaking, why not burn shades? It might take the same amount of time (or a bit more), but I'll have a whole lot of money when all is said and done.

Now, I've never played for money. But (much like in the real world) money does help. I am going to get the firemaking skillcape anyways, so why not do it in a way that I end up ahead financially? Plus, I'll also get a decent amount of crafting and prayer xp, too. Finally, the minigame is rather easy (although it is a bit labor intensive) and I enjoy it.

As a result, my firemaking skillcape goal and my Dragon Full Helm goal have met unexpectedly at a bizarre crossroads out in the middle of nowhere and became unlikely travelling partners.

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In other news: All of my melee stats are now 79. With 80's across the board in combat, I'm temted to try to get all my combat stats 80+. It would give me an excuse to do some work on my prayer. I already have a goal to get summoning to 80, and I could train range and prayer at the same time by killing dragons. These are only thoughts, however, as I still have a long way to go for 80 in my melee stats.

I am also just a stone's throw from 74 summoning.

Back Again

After a small hiatus (call it a "mental health" holiday), I've returned with news. Not much news, but some.

Before my vacation, I got my Cooking Skillcape. While I would have undoubtedly achieved this on my own (at some point) I managed this with the help of some friends. I shaved weeks of cooking (and months of procrastinating) off my time with the help, primarily of (but not exclusive to) two of my friends: Nana Sam and Zenia2008. Since they both had cooking capes themselves, they appointed me their personal Runescape chef.

And I didn't have to make any Summer Pies. I hate making pies.

I also bought a good number of raw Manta Rays, and cooked them to sell, like was suggested to me by someone else. And he wasn't kidding when he said it was a profit. In fact...it was staggering at the time. Even while burning 16% on average, I made nearly 1k gp per Manta Ray BOUGHT (yes, that's right, bought, not sold). Between those and my daily tasks, I made enough money to make one of my long standing dreams come true.

Wait for it.

Drumroll please?



Dragon Platebody: 10, 600,000 gp.

After seeing myself in my new armor, I decided I have to get the whole set. All of which I need now is the full helm. Which is more than the platebody (of course). So, of course, my goal of a Firemaking Skillcape are temporarily on the back burner.

New Goals Added!

After getting 92 Cooking (which gave me 2 skills beyond the half way mark), I was somewhat coersed by my friends into the persuit of a skill cape. Then independently thought "Untrimmed skill capes suck. Let's make it 2." Firemaking was the obvious choice for two very important reasons: 1) It's 1 of the 2 closest skills to 99, and 2) I already have everything I need to get it...I just have to do it.

A friend of mine has been trading raw monkfish for cooked with me for a little bit (it will be over 6k when all is said and done). I'm also still getting tuna and swordfish from Miscelania, which is good for about 1k-2k fish every week.

I just recently got 95 Cooking, so I can now make Summer Pies. Most of the ingredients I can get from either farming, the RFD chest in Lumbridge basement or my house, so I plan to assemble the pies as I get the materials and cook them using the Lunar Spellbook when I make my glass for orbs (you don't burn them using the "make pie" spell). This will help out my Farming level goal as well.

I was also told by a friend of mine that it was possible to buy raw manta rays, cook them, and sell them for a profit...and at 96 cooking you don't burn any with the cooking gauntlets. Prices on food has changed remarkably recently, so I don't know if that still stands, but it's worth looking into.

Speaking of changing food prices: cooked sharks are currently going for 1,262 gp (at the time of the writing). Now that I don't burn sharks, I'm even considering fishing some to sell.


Firemaking, my plan is to burn 1k to 2k logs every day, plus do my 2 Evil Trees per day. Should take a month or less.

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Other than that, nothing really new. I've done some Slayer, but haven't really got much in the way of good charm droppers. There were also a few new quests, but nothing really hard-core. More fun than difficult, which I don't mind at all.

I do have a desire to hit God Wars for a bit when all is said and done, in a desire to upgrade my uniform a bit, and to buy a few new toys. These wants include (but are not exclusive to): Dragon Plate Body and full helm, Bandos armor (of some kind, preferably body), and a Dragonfire Shield. It's a big shopping list, but there's big money to be made at GWD. And besides...it's not like I couldn't use the Range experience. Even to get one or two of the above items would be a good break from power-training.

Happy Birthday Wrthlss Noob!

While I'm late in posting about it, Wrthlss Noob turned 1 year old Sunday. For posterity's sake, I'm posting a screenie of my Hiscores:





While I think that 1807 total levels and a 104.9 Combat Level isn't a bad acomplishment, I was hoping to have a Skill Cape by now. But I do take solace in the fact that I have a Quest Cape (which is my favorite cape anyways), I'm ranked within the top 100,000 players in Runescape, all my skills are 60+, I got the Inferno Adze, and all the Achievement Diaries done.

Happy Birthday Wrthlss Noob!

A Zezima Sighting

...In other news, Zezima was sighted in Varrock's west bank today on world 60, and there was much rejoicing in the noob population.

Now, I understand hero worship and all. Really, I get it. Everyone needs someone to look up to. But there a line between normal idolizing and paparazzi-esque stalking. Every rational person knows where this line is, and it isn't really all that fine of a line either. Despite this, I witnessed what was possibly the most revolting display of sycophantic behavior I've witnessed so far this millennium.

While I briefly considered taking a screen shot of this sick display, I didn't. This would make me just like the paparazzi that I despise so much. Trust me, it was nauseating.

Zezima is a guy, just like anyone else. You don't know anything about him, other than the fact that he plays Runescape, and has 99 in (apparently) almost every skill. This is nothing that any of you Zezima groupies couldn't do yourself if you'd quit whining about how hard it is and just do it.

People said Dragon Slayer couldn't be done by a character lower than Combat Level 50. I've proved that wrong.

People think that Legend's quest is a very difficult quest that can't be done by anyone below 70-80 combat level (depending on who you ask). Yep, wrong again.

Not only have I proved the above two misconceptions 100% wrong, I've done so with TWO CHARACTERS.

They all worship a guy they pretty much don't know anything about. However, I don't worship him, and apparently I know more about him than they do.

Because of the groupies that eternally hound him, he leaves public and private chat on friends, if not off. He does this because of everyone chasing him around, wanting to ride around on his coat tails or wanting him to do something for them. When he turns either on, it makes him lag, because he literally gets flooded.

I've had high level characters before, so seeing as he's higher than I've ever attained (yet), he probably sees much more of this than I have: when some people know you have high levels in something, they want to be your friend so they can get something out of you. The conversation usually goes something like this:

Noob (not me): Wat u doin
Noob (me): Crafting air orbs to make battlestaves.
Noob (not me): Cool!
Noob (not me): Friends?
Noob (me): Sure, why not?
Noob (not me, in pm): So wen ever u git dose bstaffs done u can give me 1, k?
Noob (me): *Removes Noob (not me) from friends list*

The above is an actual conversation I had on another character I was playing, for the most part word for word, and it took part in a span of less than 2 minutes (the names have been changed to protect the criminally retarded). Note at the end how he didn't exactly ask me if he could have one. He just let me know that I was going to give it to him. And this is not the only conversation I've had like that. I've had quest capes before, and people will walk up to you and strike up a random conversations about nothing, ask to be friends, and instantly ask for help on a quest.

Of course, we have the anti-worshipers, as well! They, from what I can see, spend 5$ a month to hang around in a bank, waiting for Zezima to log in so they can bad mouth him. When you have a guy with a combat level of low to mid 50's, standing around repeatedly typing "Zezimas a noob!!!!!!!!!1111oneone", it's what is known as jealousy. Again, a problem that is solved simply by worrying more about your own character's progress than someone else's.

I imagine this is what Zezima goes through...every single second he plays Runescape. He is hounded every single moment of his RS existence by a group of people who live only to have their worship recognized.

Nobody likes it when someone runs up to them while they're trying to do something, and do anything they can to make it difficult to do it (door spammers were a textbook example of this). Yet they think nothing of charging up and trying to interfere with Zezima's game play.

I don't worship Zezima. I don't hate him either. But I do feel sorry for him. That being said: I'm glad to see that he's back.

It gives me a bigger target to shoot at!

A change in format

I'm changing the way I'll be chronicling my adventures in the future. I will no longer be posting "chapters" and "episodes". It's going to be more of a daily journal.

There are several reasons for this:

1) I have already documented a majority of what I wanted to prove/disprove. Ideas like Dragon Slayer is impossible before combat level 50 are a thing of the past.
2) The posts are dramatically longer than I'd like them to be. They span several days of playing (which was not what I wanted at all), and at times I'm spending more time doing this than I am playing (again: not what I wanted).
3) Now that most of my skills are decent levels, there will be long spans between levels, which will make most posts drag on for weeks.
4) As seen in the last few posts, my plans have a tendency to be highly fluid, and may jump around in a seemingly unrelated fashion, depending on the circumstances at hand. This is not condusive to telling stories that span for several days.
5) The more often I have to save and return to it later, the better chances that something in the post will screw up. I cannot tolerate this, as it totally messes with my sense of order in the universe.

I'll still discuss my plans and my goals, but those discussions will be a bit more brief and to the point. I'll back these updates with a basic rundown of my daily activities. It's my plan to basically tell people how Wrthlss Noob spent his days before he became ultra-famous.

Computer Problems

A nice little virus greeted me this morning when I turned on my computer. I don't know where it came from or how I got it, but it's there, and as a result my good computer is down for the moment.

Luckily for me, I still have a back up computer. The problem is that it's ancient. So old, that while it hasn't been confirmed, many scientists believe that a dinosaur may have very well used it before me. Not really, but it sounded good at the time.

The effects of this on me are as follows:

No HD Runescape until I get a new copy of windows. The people who built my good computer were nice enough not to give me any way of solving this problem myself (i.e. a recovery disc). They're called Discount Computer Parts, and are located at 16500 Detroit Ave, in Lakewood OH. I would recomend that if you're driving past there that you continue to do just that: drive right on by.

Sal's Realm of Runescape's skill calculators and the entire Zybez website are off limits to me, since my current version of Windows doesn't support the latest Java. I'd imagine that I'm darn lucky to be able to play Runescape at all.

As such, I'm forced to use a different website...one that I absolutely loathe. While it's less graphically intensive, it's poorly set up, is difficult to navigate and very slow to be updated, and as a result, I refuse to even mention their name here. There will be no plugs for this place.

I will still make screenshots, but unfortunately, they won't be HD screenies for a while.

Chapter 3: Prologue-Hiatus

July 26, 2008

After a bit of a hiatus, I've decided to return to Runescape.

The reason why I took a break was simple. I was bored and went to check out other things:

My website: I have a Geocities account that I maintain and periodically tear down to the ground just so I can rebuild it. Recent updates include a new account with a new name, and moving the things I wanted to the new site, and the addition of some slick flash nav menus. I will be adding a section on my Runescape acomplishments, few that they are thus far.

Guild Wars: Total and complete waste of time and money. I'll give you my official review of the game:

Civilization IV: I absolutely love that game, but I can only play it so much before I'm bored to tears with it. It's one that I play for a couple days and put it away for a few months or more.

History Channel: My favorite channel on cable. I get in moods where I want to do nothing but watch TV, and this is my normal choice.

Youtube: I have days where I'll just search Youtube for random stuff. I usually end up getting mad at the psychotic conspiracy theorists. That's where I'm at now.

Why Come Back?

I always knew I'd come back. I always do. I've gone long spans without playing and letting my membership expire, but I always come back. I enjoy the way the community works better in this game than I do in any other game. I usually start over...but not this time. I have the perfect character name and I've already done some noteworthy things. This one's for keeps.

I can't believe that people still try this...

Jagex has put more of an emphasis on stopping scammers and real world traders than any online game I've ever heard of. Now, with the unbalanced trade cap, scamming is somewhat pointless. Stealing someone's account is just an act of maliciousness, since you can't really get any more than 3k gp from it. Yet, I just encountered this individual while I was making flour today. The only alteration to this image was to paste two separate images together. Also, the names have been omitted to protect to protect the tragically stupid (click to enlarge):

I knew exactly what was going on from the first line, and it was somewhat obvious from my response. Yet he continued...despite the fact that I couldn't possibly type in my password if I wanted to (your password is a blocked word). Some people are so stupid that they don't know when they're being baited.