The Chronicles of Runescape

Kuradal

2009-12-18T23:43:00.000+08:00

I've just returned from Australia, so my entries should revert to their normal frequency. I had a wonderful 18 days there; I probably will have a nice long post about it in my RL blog soon enough, but I digress.

On to more Runescape related matters, I've been squeezing in Slayer assignments during my limited time online this past week. To be specific, I've ditched Lapalok and have made the decision to visit Kuradal for my tasks from now on. As it turns out, the Slayer Master can be reached fairly easily via Fairy Ring. Jagex added the ring in the Ancient Caverns as part of a recent system update, which escaped my notice until Kitt, Mat and RS Economist helpfully pointed the inconspicuous addition out.

The new Fairy Ring at the Ancient Caverns

The few assignments Kuradal has given me so far have been excellent. I welcomed the two Aberrant Spectre tasks because I'm after the monster's Challenge Scroll, while working on the Tzhaar assignment was both refreshingly new and fun. There's also the fact that I'm getting rewarded more generously for my services; Kuradal awards players 18 points for every task completed, which compares well to Lapalok's 15.

Stuff achieved today: Nothing much

The New Girl In Town

2009-12-11T23:09:00.002+08:00

A new Slayer Master is in town and poor Lapalok has been stripped of his Slayer Cape.

Kuradal, daughter of the late Duradel, has taken over Lapalok's and her father's place as the highest levelled Slayer Master, only handing out assignments to players with at least level 110 Combat.

I've yet to visit her, but the Knowledge Base article has already informed me the kind of monsters she tasks players to kill. Due to the similarities between Kuradal's and Lapalok's assignments, reporting to her would get me mostly the same types of monsters, only in greater quantities; a good thing to be sure, but the remoteness of her location is a real turn off.

Kuradal's situated smack in the middle of the Ancient Caverns, so I imagine that the walk and the resident high levelled monsters would make it quite a hassle to get to her. I'll probably only take the trouble to visit her for milestone Slayer tasks to allow the multipliers to kick in. She awards players 18 points for every task completed.

Stuff achieved today: Level 82 Runecrafting, completed Nechryael task

Powers Unlocked

2009-12-08T23:36:00.002+08:00

I'm finally able to type out a more fleshed out blog entry.

The Temple at Senntisten quest was superb, as were its rewards. Ali the Wise requested that I try to help out a contact of his, Dr Nabanik. Nabanik turned out to be Azzanadra, the Mahjarrat with Zarosian sympathies whom I had freed during the Desert Treasure quest. He had been masquerading as an archaeologist in an attempt to secure permission to restore the Zarosian Temple I had discovered previously in the Digsite quest.

Me speaking with Azzanadra, disguised as a human.

However, he has been unsuccessful because he lacked the necessary documentation to prove his competence for the temple restoration, and needed me to vouch for his reliability due to my previous contributions to the Digsite. I persuaded the Archaeology Expert with ease to allow Azzanadra to conduct his work on the temple, but was given yet another task by the latter. I now had to collect two key objects, the Barrows Icon and the Frosthorn, to aid in the restoration project, whilst Azzanadra and his workers rebuilt the temple which was in ruins.

The Barrows Icon proved to be the more straightforward of the two items to retrieve, as it involved nothing more than a single completion of the Barrows minigame. My previous and only experience with the minigame involved me taking out Karil several years ago with nothing more than cheap armour and a few cakes as a food source.

I was too afraid of going toe-to-toe with the remaining five brothers, let alone continue on to loot the crypt's chest. Instead, I recall screaming and running away from the small hills which housed the brothers' ghosts, with the Barrows trip less than a sixth done. Fortunately, boss monster fights in the hundreds since that fateful day have long desensitized me, and I didn't harbour the same anxieties as I had felt all those years ago when I set off for the Barrows Icon. Chanting protection prayers, I easily swatted Dharok, Guthan, Verac, Ahrim and Torag aside, got past the tunnel's defences and looted the icon.

The Frosthorn was considerably more challenging, as it did not merely involve Combat. I had to navigate through an Icy Fortress that was completely new to me and was even forced to refer to a quest guide multiple times. The search concluded with a battle against a level 177 Ice Demon, which dropped the Frosthorn upon death.

My duel with the Ice Demon which dropped the Frosthorn

Azzanadra was delighted with my success in retrieving the two magical objects. By the time I had presented him with my finds, the temple had already been reconstructed. All that remained was to collect a third item from a contact of Azzanadra's, who was waiting just outside the temple. In a bizarre twist, the contact turned out to be the Assassin thief from the Devious Minds quest, while the item he delivered was actually the artefact he had stolen from Entrana.

Azzanadra attempts to communicate with his master, Zaros.

Zaros speaks!

With all three relics in his possession and the temple rebuilt, Azzanadra was able to communicate with his fallen lord, Zaros, and restore the link between him and Gielinor. The quest ends with cutscenes showing how the establishment of this link could be felt by the minions of Zamorak.

I was of course rewarded handsomely for the huge service rendered to Azzanadra. I received 10k Prayer exp, two Combat lamps which I used up for a total of 40k Summoning exp, and a generic exp lamp, which got me 23k Runecrafting exp. I was already rejoicing at this point, but discovered about a minute later that all the exp I had gained made up only a fraction of the Temple at Senntisten's total reward.

A new set of prayers, or rather curses, can be unlocked by praying at the newly rebuilt Zarosian altar. Though these curses operate very much like the Ancient Magicks and Modern spellbooks and may not be used concurrently with the traditional prayers, they serve as near perfect souped up versions of their counterparts.

Though substitutes for prayers such as Rapid Heal and Redemption are non-existent, curses to replace the prayers that truly matter are still present. Protection curses offer the same defensive bonuses as protection prayers, with the added bonus of reflecting damage back at enemies.

Soul Split, the curse counterpart for Smite, drains prayer points from enemies and leeches their health. And we see a more powerful version of Piety in the form of Turmoil. The most hilarious bit of it all is that, according to Runescape Wiki, these curses have a slower drain rate compared to their corresponding counterpart prayers. I will also not neglect to mention the completely new and handy curses that have been included to fill up missing prayers, such as Leech Special Attack.

The icons of the new curses

The only potential drawback of these curses I see so far would be the higher Prayer level required to activate them. In my case though, this actually serves as an advantage as I am already an owner of the Prayer Cape, and the level requirements would prevent a lot of people from using those same potent curses against me. This update seems almost too good to be true...

Stuff achieved today: Completed the Temple at Senntisten quest

Lapalok's Errands

2009-12-06T22:17:00.000+08:00

Still no progress with the Temple of Senntisten quest.

Although I have 24-hour Internet access, I have not been in the mood to attempt anything ambitious like a Master quest. Instead, I've been passing my time online undertaking Slayer assignments and going on my usual Farming rounds.

The quest and the two Fremennik Achievement Diaries I left out are on my to-do list.

Stuff achieved today: Completed Aquanites task, completed Bloodveld task

Some Chores

2009-12-03T22:30:00.000+08:00

Managed to secure an Internet connection.

Although I had aimed to max the skill out at the start of this year, I haven't been paying much attention to Hunter. With less than a month until 2010, there really isn't much time for me to fulfill this year-long goal. However, I still didn't intend to completely ignore it, so I made a trip to the Feldip Hills yesterday to hunt down the necessary 639 Red Chinchompas for a level up.

I also had enough time to finally start work on and finish the Cryptic Clue Fest. Admittedly, I cheated all the way by referring to Runescape Wiki; I was less interested in being challenged by the clues than receiving Roddeck's magnifying glass before the event was removed from the game. However, as with most other quests, I highly doubt I'll resort to using a walkthrough to complete today's newly released quest, the Temple at Senntisten.

Stuff achieved today: Nothing much

Inactivity

2009-11-30T21:22:00.000+08:00

Apologies for the longer than usual periods in-between blog entries. Real life has been keeping me busy and I have also been distracted by other video games.

Anyway, I am publishing this post to tell you that these longer gaps may continue for the next two and a half weeks or so. I will be out of the country until the 18th of December, and probably would be too tied up with sightseeing and visiting an assortment of tourist attractions to go online much, assuming I have access to an Internet connection in the first place.

Funny how my sudden inactivity has very inconveniently coincided with Kitt's. She made a short announcement in a post a fortnight earlier about how she's taking a break from blogging starting from December; I'd put up a link to the entry, but she deleted her blog a few days ago. This sudden move has me flummoxed, as I can't understand why Kitt would take the entire website away from public viewing. I certainly hope that all her writing hadn't been permanently erased in the deletion.

Stuff achieved today: Level 97 Mining

Pardoned

2009-11-26T23:24:00.000+08:00

Wasn't online much today.

I checked my offence record under the Account Management section to find that the offence I had committed last year has been pardoned. I'm probably being biased, but I thought it was a great move on Jagex's part to give players one-year expiry dates for minor infringements of the rules.

There's also a certain "Cryptic Clue Event" going on in the official RS forums. I'm known to take my time when trying out newly released features in the game, but I must make it a point to check it out soon.

Stuff achieved today: Nothing much

Achievement Diary Frenzy

2009-11-24T23:16:00.002+08:00

What began as a simple entry to tick off from my to-do list expanded into a much more ambitious goal.

I started out my day determined to get the remaining Medium tasks of the Karamja Diary completed, and took a boat ride to Brimhaven after running my first Farming round of the morning. Although only rated at Medium level, this section proved to be the longest and most arduous of all sets of Achievement Diary tasks I have ever attempted.

It wasn't so much the section's inherent difficulty as my dismally clumsy attempts to carry out the tasks that made it challenging. I kept making unnecessary bank trips because I had either absent mindedly forgotten to bring some key item along or simply because my inventory was too packed. And that wasn't even the worst of it; I could've easily shaved off a good two hours from my self-imposed imprisonment in Tai Bwo Wannai if my initial approaches to completing two particular tasks hadn't been so downright inefficient.

Me making use of an Agility shortcut as part of a diary task.

Task #1 required me to mine a Topaz from a gem rock outcrop. I participated in the Tai Bwo Wanna Cleanup mini-game, hoping to uncover the outcrop by hacking down the jungle growths which dotted the village. This would've been a fine plan since one of the other tasks required me to max out my favour with the village's denizens (which clearing up the foliage would've helped in), but I continued to linger around the village way past 100% favour because I still hadn't dug up the Topaz. Task #2 also kept me cooped up in the village. I had to trade in gems for a machete, but Safta Doc, the local machete dealer, needed a Gout Tuber as payment.

Me roasting a spider on a stick and inadvertently drying my soaked

partyhat (see above).

It was only after hours of fruitless searching before it occurred to me that I could make a GE offer for the damned herb, and head off to the mine in Shilo Village where the gem rock outcrops were in abundance. Incidentally, at over 150k, the Gout Tuber didn't come cheap, but it's still a pittance compared to the time I would've saved if I had purchased it much sooner.

Sometime in the middle of all this, I made the decision to get the Hard section of the diary finished as well since I was in the area. It was late afternoon when I proudly presented my Karamja Gloves to a forester at the outskirts of the Kharazi Jungle for the final upgrade.

Thanks to my Karamja Gloves, I now have access to an additional gem

mine in Shilo Village.

Naturally, I was already pretty satisfied with myself for completing the Achievement Diary in its entirety as opposed to only a single section, but I didn't stop there. I turned my attention to the Seers' diary later in the evening and completed it as well. I wised up and did the Seers' tasks in a more systematic fashion, which allowed me to finish all three sections in record time, even though this particular diary had previously been the most neglected.

Me wielding all of the diary items I have accumulated.

All exp from the antique lamps I received were pumped into Runecrafting, so I am now that much closer to level 82 now. It was a great day.

Stuff achieved today: Completed Karamja Diary, completed Seers' Village diary, gained 100k+ Mining exp

Stepping Up My Game

2009-11-22T23:23:00.001+08:00

In a Development Diary published three days ago, Jagex announced its intentions to include an Elite section to the remaining Achievement Diaries due to the positive feedback received on the Elite Ardougne tasks, the first of their kind.

You could say that this is the go-ahead sign I've been waiting all this time to complete my unfinished diary sections. I remember a few weeks ago when Full Of Pie and I were talking about our love for quests. When the conversation inevitably shifted to Achievement Diaries, I remember her being completely shocked when I revealed to her the laughable state my record of Achievement Diary completions was in.

It was at that point that I seriously considered at least finishing up the Medium section of the Karamja diary (Pie made a mention about the Karamja gloves). Typical me procrastinated and put the modest goal on hold, but the eventual release of Elite diary tasks and rewards proportional to their difficulty has given me even more incentive to start work immediately.

Besides the prerequisite diary sections, I also have the stat requirements to worry about. All of my skills are over level 80, but Jagex has shown through the Ardougne diary that it is not afraid to set giddily high criteria to the tune of level 90+ even for difficult stats such as Smithing and Summoning. Much has to be done if I hope to unlock the generous rewards current and future Elite diary sections have to offer.

Stuff achieved today: Level 96 Mining, completed Bloodveld task

Noisy Neighbours

2009-11-20T23:57:00.000+08:00

I still haven't done anything about Slayer and am continuing to camp at the Living Rock Caverns, but I did leave a few times to go for my Farming rounds and finally get that Summoning level up.

Lately, it has not only been the nagging guilt of neglecting Slayer that's making me think about ditching the mine. As cool as it is to train alongside high levelled players, I can't say I enjoy the company of some of my fellow miners. In general, conversations between players in the Mining Golds clanchat are about as inane as archetypal posts you may find in a typical online forum.

But as idiotic as their exchanges are, I'd be nothing but a dirty hypocrite if I did something crazily impulsive like demanding that they keep quiet or starting a flame war. After all, Mat and I have our silly moments in Blesschat, which, although highly amusing to us, would probably make the IQ of anyone else following our conversations drop by a few points.

So I stopped visiting Mining Golds, which solved the problem for a while, until a few of the other miners decided to take their banter to the public chat. One of the more vocal miners was a certain fellow named Amark0v. In the middle of my Summoning training yesterday, Tiz complained about him whining about the recent Runecrafting update and making a general nuisance of himself. When I returned to the caverns a couple of hours later, Amark0v was still there in the middle of his diatribe, flaming anyone who dared to hold contrary views regarding the RC changes.

I saw him again today at the mine. He's finally ended his rant, but remains as obnoxious as yesterday. Kingduffy, one of the top 21, showed up sometime in the evening and got owned. He was quietly fishing for Rocktails, before Amark0v - for no reason at all - suddenly made this random jibe at his name. Though within earshot, Kingduffy ignored this. Maybe he had his public chat switched off; perhaps I should do likewise should I choose to remain at the caverns out of laziness.

Stuff achieved today: Level 91 Summoning, gained 150k Mining exp

Inadequate Supplies

2009-11-19T23:15:00.001+08:00

Reached level 95 Mining yesterday.

Today, I took a short break from Mining to try and get that Summoning level up. I spent a wheelbarrow-load of cash to replenish my supply of secondary ingredients and Spirit Shards, before setting off to the Summoning Obelisk at the Piscatoris Fishing Colony.

I gained an astonishing 466k exp during my relatively brief stay there, but still fell short of the level up because I ran out of supplies. My granite and Earth Talisman GE offers refused to get through despite my generous payment set at the two items' respective maximum prices. I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow and see if the offers finally come through.

Anyway, I still haven't gotten round to training Slayer, but hopefully the sight of my rapidly diminishing Charms would guilt trip me into finally visiting Lapalok again.

Stuff achieved today: Gained 450k+ Summoning exp, Gained 100k+ Mining exp

Potions, Spells and Runecrafting

2009-11-17T23:11:00.000+08:00

Update today, though little change was made to the game in terms of new content, much to my disappointment.

The extreme Herblore potions may now be used in safe PvP mini-games. They still cannot be drunk in PvP servers, but it's good to know that Jagex had mostly reversed their original decision to make it completely unavailable in all forms of player to player combat. I hope they re-evaluate the situation more carefully the next time they are tempted to cave in to the demands of the Pking crowd.

Meanwhile, a change was also made to the Magic skill. Four new battle spells have been to the standard spell book. They serve as even more powerful elemental versions of the four Wave spells. They're still inferior compared to all of the Barrage spells in the Ancient Magicks spell book, but these additions should still help Mages using the conventional spell book become slightly more formidable.

And finally, depending on how one looks at it, Runecrafting has been made more profitable with today's update. Players can potentially craft an extra rune out of a single Pure Essence even if they have yet to reach the Runecrafting level needed to create multiple runes. This potential or chance to create that extra rune increases as they approach the said level.

It'll mean that more runes will be available for everyone, but higher levelled Runecrafters are disgruntled with the change because some of their hard work has been nullified. The influx of more runes as a result of more productive Runecrafting may also cause rune prices to drop, further upsetting experienced Runecrafters.

Stuff achieved today: Nothing much

Switching The Focus

2009-11-15T23:26:00.000+08:00

After Mining for the past month, I've been thinking of switching back to Slayer training for a while now, but I've so far kept on putting it off out of laziness.

It won't get me any total levels since Slayer's even more difficult to train, but the monsters I kill should get me the Charms needed to put my Summoning training back on track. I have enough of the Crimsons and Blues to cover the 500k exp gap to level 91, but I certainly can't keep relying on Bork to get me to my target of level 93, which will enable me to complete the Elite tasks of the Ardougne Diary.

One of my long term goals for this year, obtaining the Hunter Cape, will have to be abandoned though.

Stuff achieved today: Nothing much

Runescape Classic

2009-11-12T23:22:00.000+08:00

Runescape Classic has been temporarily re-opened for P2P players. They have a two-week window to sign in at least once to gain permanent access to the game.

I doubt there'll be many Classic converts, but the influx of new casual players into RSC, no matter how small, should invigorate its steadily shrinking community. Beyond checking out the archaic graphics, landscape and interface, I personally have no desire to linger around in any of the Classic servers. However, I am still appreciative of this move made by Jagex because I've always been curious about its gameplay.

A scene at the Lumbridge Cow pen in Runescape Classic. I am the fellow

in white.

I don't know how the general population of RSC Veterans will react to their newbie guests, but I hope they won't be snooty about it. I've already spotted an experienced player on the RSC forums offering to help out any newbies, so things look promising so far.

Stuff achieved today: Gained 125k+ Mining exp

Dirty Boxing

2009-11-09T21:43:00.001+08:00

The Strikers and Protectors may be a frisky lot, but player deaths are very uncommon in the Living Rock Caverns if you exclude the occasional level 3 Skiller casualty, who has the common sense to mine with inexpensive gear anyway. This was why I found the following such a shocking sight:

The screenshot's quite cluttered, but if you look carefully, you should be able to see a lone Miner donning a Blue Halloween Mask facing off against a Living Rock Protector. He died seconds after the screenshot was taken, but some kind soul blessed his grave the moment it fully materialized.

I had my own duel later that same night, just hours after the game went through a system update. So many changes were made to the point that Jagex resorted to listing the minor ones on a thread in the RS Forums instead of announcing them on the website's main page. An update which did stand out though is easily the addition of content to the Champions' Challenge mini-game. New champions of different species have been added, including a Leprachaun Champion whom players could fight without a Challenge Scroll.

Next to the earlier drama at the Living Rock Caverns, my short battle with the Leprachaun proved to be completely anti-climatic. At level 32, the Champion really wasn't able to put up much of a fight, even though he adopted some rather underhanded tactics:

Ouch! With a target that large, how can you not miss? ;-)

Stuff achieved today: Nothing much

Chance Encounter

2009-11-08T23:25:00.002+08:00

I took this lovely screenshot of KingDuffy, one of top 21, while in the middle of one of my Farming rounds today.

But sadly, as with the rest of this week, my day beyond that chance encounter was quite uneventful. I had actually planned to visit the Duel Arena with Tiz and participate in the Tournament, but some reconnaissance work on Tiz's part revealed the Registrar area to be almost completely empty, even in the Tournaments server. Pathetic really, especially since the game is supposed to be more crowded on weekends.

Stuff achieved today: Nothing much

Court Is In Session

2009-11-06T23:16:00.000+08:00

I mostly mined and did little else today.

Jagex released no updates for this week, so I mostly stuck to skilling. An article in the Developer Blogs archive caught my attention though. The Jagex staff are presently working on yet another Distration & Diversion, which will involve the court house in Seers' Village. From what I've read, players will be playing the dual role of detective and lawyer, collecting evidence from crime scenes which will then be used to either prosecute or defend the accused.

Nothing has been said about its rewards, which has left me to wonder whether Jagex would choose to award players with easy exp just like the other Distractions & Diversions, or opt to take the more realistic approach of giving out legal fees to participants.

Stuff achieved today: Gained 200k Mining exp

Agility Level Up

2009-11-04T21:48:00.001+08:00

I got too impatient waiting for the Circus to reset, so I went ahead to the Ape Atoll Agility Arena to clear the small exp gap to level 81 Agility.

I received not one but two messages in my Adventurer Log. Apparently, getting all stats to at least 81 is considered an achievement as well. But the level up's significance doesn't end there; I've unlocked a new shortcut in the Relleka Slayer Caves and my timing was excellent when taking the screenshot of the level up.

Stuff achieved today: Level 81 Agility

Halloween Event 2009

2009-11-02T22:38:00.004+08:00

I've completed the Halloween Event, albeit belatedly.

Unlike last year, Jagex did not bundle a quest along with it, though they have compensated for this by making the event itself more elaborate.

The premise is standard enough. The Grim Reaper is once more recruiting adventurers to assist him in his household chores and the portal to his abode has materialised just South of Falador. The Lord of Death tasked me to get rid of a spider in his bathroom, which I meekly obeyed after deciding that that would've been the healthier option.

However, the said task wasn't so straightforward. The giant spider which had lodged itself in the Grim Reaper's bathtub refused to budge, and explained in a series of monosyllabic responses that it was under the instruction of the Spider Queen to remain there. But rather than kill the obnoxious creature, I took the more diplomatic action of searching for the Spider Queen and asking her to make the spider leave.

Grim was so kind as to open up a portal to some spider dimension, but I was on my own after that. I had to navigate through two mazes before reaching the Spider Queen in her chamber, who then explained that she had sent her minion to the Grim Reaper's bathroom because he had offended her by removing all the spider webs from his house.

Me in the spider realm; the portal from which I entered from is still visible.

I negotiated with the giant arachnid and she agreed to get her minion to leave if I decorated the mansion with the webs. To aid me, she ordered one of her subjects, a (relatively) tiny spider named Eek, to travel back to Grim's house. What followed was a very tedious task of coating 64 pieces of furniture all over the two story building with cobwebs. Jagex should've probably cut down on this needlessly long segment of the holiday event, as it was only a dull chore unlike navigating through the mazes from earlier.

Me speaking with the Spider Queen.

The Halloween Event concluded with me reporting back to the Spider Queen and receiving a cloak made out of spider webs as a token of her gratitude. Eek, the small helper spider, also decided to remain with me in my travels.

Stuff achieved today: Completed Halloween Event

Halloween Plans

2009-10-31T23:08:00.000+08:00

It's finally the 31st, but I still haven't gotten round to completing the Halloween Event.

I knew as early as the first day of its release that the event's reward would involve a cape of some sort; a fact made obvious by the number of players running around with it. But Mat's hinted that we'll also be getting some type of pet. It'll probably be Halloween themed, so my Ex-Ex Parrot will have some company in the menagerie soon enough.

Besides hoping to finish the holiday event before the end of the weekend, I also aim to get a handful of level ups by Monday. Agility is now almost in the bag with a minuscule 3k exp gap, after I completed this week's Circus performance. I can continue hunting for penguin spies, which recently have been made more conspicuous thanks to their Halloween pumpkin costumes, to get enough penguin points for level 81 Runecrafting. Meanwhile, I should be able to train my way to level 92 Mining tomorrow.

Stuff achieved today: Nothing much

What Happens In Canting...

2009-10-29T20:34:00.001+08:00

... Stays in Canting.

Not!

Several months ago, Mat started a thread in the Blessings forums, which invited clan members to post screenshots of any witty or wacky conversation snippets that take place in Blesschat. The thread has now died, but not before being visited by a number of contributors.

I don't really have any plans to revive it, but I've been spending a lot of time in Canting, and thanks to Mat's thread, I've been making it a point to take a screenshot of any piece of conversation I find particularly amusing. I only have three at the moment, but I'll post them here anyway.

I think Merch's was by far the funniest and she did it without trying!

Stuff achieved today: Nothing much

Halloween Surprises

2009-10-27T22:15:00.004+08:00

I logged on sometime in the morning to find that the game had undergone a system update.

The penguin spies are back in their pumpkin costumes!

The release of the Halloween Event was hardly a surprise since the 31st is this Saturday, while the PvP update to address the growing inflation in the game was a bonus. However, I am still firm in the belief that Jagex should've made the change much sooner, as their previous attempt to counter 76k tricking and the resulting inflation had been pitiful.

Their second and latest solution to the problem is pure simplicity. Loot from revenge kills has been drastically reduced in a bid to stem the flow of money into the Runescape economy, as well as discourage pairs of 76kers from taking turns to kill each other for drops. However, this deterrent may not be completely foolproof.

My clanmate, Phit, was quick to find a potential loophole and pointed out that 76kers could simply team up in threes and do a triangle kill. Meaning, player A kills player B, who kills player C, and player C in turn kills player A, effectively bypassing the revenge system. I certainly hope Jagex had factored this in when making the amendments.

To view the screenshot of my Adventurer Log, click here.

Today also saw the release of a more discreet feature into the game. I was alerted to a certain Adventurer Log by Vaskor's site which tracks down player activities, as well as the total period of time a player has spent in-game. According to my friend SpiritLink (whom some of you may know as Hyruliankid0), the link to the log had initially been put up in the RS website, but was removed a short while later.

Me playing the Trawler minin-game to complete an Easy diary task.

However, by then, players had already gotten hold of the link and started publicizing it around in the official forums. Word about the mysterious website addition got round in the forums and beyond despite of Forum Moderator efforts to lock the threads, which I suppose eventually led to players like me and Vaskor finding out about it.

And even with the initial astonishment of this discovery behind me hours later, the rest of my day was almost equally eventful. I systematically finished up the remainder of my Ardougne Diary tasks and then triumphantly proceeded to claim my full reward (excluding Elite, of course). Just so you know, the final diary task, which required me to win a round of Castlewars, was completed with much finesse on my part. My team dominated the game with a score of 9 - 2 in our favour; six of the flag captures were made by me.

Stuff achieved today: Finished the Ardougne Diary, gained 250k Mining exp

The Ardougne Cloak

2009-10-25T22:27:00.000+08:00

Nothing much to discuss, except that I've been steadily crossing out the tasks of the Ardougne Achievement Diary for the last few days.

Me killing a Frogeel as part of the Achievement Diary.

As with all other diaries, my progress has been quite erratic since I don't do the tasks in order of their difficulty. I've ticked out quite a number of them, but have yet to fully unlock all tasks at a single level. The ones involving mini-games are particularly annoying since they're more time consuming.

Completion will have to wait until next week, while the rewards of diary's special Elite segment remains unattainable due to the high Summoning requirement. However, a level up in Mining to 90 today meant that I still have at least something to show for even without any of the diary rewards.

Stuff achieved today: Level 90 Mining

Misclick Of Doom

2009-10-22T23:05:00.003+08:00

I checked Kitt's blog this afternoon to find that she had a last minute level 99 Summoning party planned that same evening.

Kitt performing the Summoning Cape emote.

It was a very respectable 99, so I thought it would've been nice to attend it to show my support, especially since she had showed up for my Construction screenshot earlier this year. A handful of players were there, including a certain Teacuptime who was a familiar face in Canting.

We all yelled out our congratulatory messages on cue, but Kitt botched up the screenshot due to a misclick. Ouch. It's completely the player's fault of course, but I wonder if it's possible for Jagex to somehow idiot-proof 99 level ups. Tiz and I have fallen victim to it with the Strength skill and screwed up our respective screenshots.

Anyway, I couldn't stay for the post-99 celebrations. It was getting late and I wanted to cram in a duel with Bork and the completion of a few Ardougne Diary tasks during the 40 minutes before bedtime. I also made it a point to research the new Achievement Diary rewards a little more, whilst running around Ardougne and Yanille to tick off some of the entries.

The Ardougne Achievement Diary required me to scale the wall

surrounding Yanille.

The Ardougne Cloak is so incredibly versatile. The free Pure Essence from Wizard Cromperty and teleportation to the Farming patch near the city were features of the cloak that particularly stood out. And I almost cried when I read about the exp lamps awarded to players who complete the Elite tasks; 200k exp in any skill for completing just a handful of simple chores. It is a huge shame that I lack the Summoning level; one of the Elite tasks involves the use of an Abyssal Titan.

Stuff achieved today: Gained 175k Mining exp

Patriarchs

2009-10-20T22:00:00.004+08:00

I got extremely lucky at the Living Rock Caverns yesterday.

Besides amassing level ups and gold ore, Miners at the dungeon are also on the constant lookout for the elusive Living Rock Patriarch, a level 200 rock creature which dwells in the cave. Players who slay the monster are guaranteed a drop consisting of three loads of Runite ore, eight uncut diamonds and 125 Mud and Blood Runes each. By today's prices, the loot is worth over 200k.

Dwarfing even the enormous Living Rock Strikers and Protectors, any Miner would attest to the fact that Patriarchs are hard to miss, even against the similarly coloured brown backdrop of the cave's dirt floor. However, they are still a rare sight, due to the extremely slow spawn rates of one Patriarch every hour or so, which is obviously Jagex's way of offsetting their generous drops.

However, I was able to kill a total of two Patriarchs just yesterday alone, up from zero during the previous week or so at the caverns. I picked up over 400k worth of items after just five minutes of work and gratefully put them up on the Grand Exchange.

Stuff achieved today: Level 88 Mining