Words On Wednesday

It’s been quite a few weeks (months, actually) since I last posted about Runescape. Since that time, I’ve accomplished quite a bit and gotten banned again. Without further ado, an update on the current state of my Runescape account. To follow up with the final thoughts of my most recent post , I did manage to get the remainder of the golem outfit pieces and combine them into a full Magic golem outfit. Between Trahaearn hour Harmonized runite mining and Seren stone daily challenges, I did a lot of mining. Since level 99 mining yields double Gemstone golem fragments, I was getting roughly 200 fragments every 5 minutes. I already had several pieces of the outfit, and more than enough fragments to finish it out. The only missing requirement was level 20 invention. I got that pretty quickly after getting 99 fletching, but unfortunately before I discovered that you can disassemble noted items. That’s right, I disassembled loads of unnoted unstrung maple shieldbows, 28 at a time, all the...

After a few times starting and stopping, I’ve reached level 99 fletching and popped a bond… or three. As I mentioned way back in November , the decision of Jagex to make fletching a f2p skill is part of what made me start playing again. It was an influx of new content, and a skill that I enjoyed playing. Mind you, at the time, I didn’t realize it could be free/profitable to train. I just knew that it was something I could do without paying for membership. Turns out, just because fletching is what brought me back to Runescape, doesn’t mean I would actually do much of it. Between  my last post of my last stretch of playing, and the first post of this current stint, I only got 13,843 xp in the skill. For comparison, a single load of unstrung maple shieldbows gives around 1,600 xp. So I did less than 10 loads worth of my bread and butter training method, and just stopped completely at 2,047,727 fletching xp. I liked fletching, sure, but there were more pressing issues in the w...

After 2 weeks of membership, my bond has expired and I am back to f2p status. Was my experience worth the 15.5 million gp I paid for the bond? Was it worth whatever the current price of a bond is? What caused me to actually pull the trigger on consuming a bond was the result of the Spring Fayre  on my inventory. Because the activities of the event required no inventory space, and I wasn’t going to waste that time doing anything else, I accrued a ton of xp items that were either p2p exclusive, or could be more effectively used on p2p skills. Since most everything else in the game requires an empty inventory to effectively participate, I was forced with the decision to either trash a lot of really useful items or use a bond to take advantage of them. May as well make the most of the situation. My initial goal after consuming the bond was making enough money to purchase another and replace the one I had used. Figuring that bonds would only go up in price until the next DXPW , I...

I finally did it. I finally got level 99 Magic. As I have discussed time , and time , and time , and time  again, this has been a long and ongoing process. Between the setbacks, the missed goals, and the distractions, I wasn’t actually sure I would ever hit 99. But through it all, I have persisted, and finally reached my goal. On 17 March 2018, I made the  final cast of High Level Alchemy that gave me enough experience to level up. After DXPW, I only had about 12,500 high alchs to go before I got 99 Magic. Even if I just did 1000 per day, I could get it in about 2 weeks. To avoid getting a third ban, I limited myself to 500 or 1000 casts at a time. Eventually I would get it, I just didn’t want to have another ban on my record. My pace may have been a crawl, but I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I was 1 level away, and I had already come so far. While every skill that I have trained to level 99 has given me a sense of accomplishment from my pe...

A few weeks ago, Jagex held its semi-annual Double Experience Weekend (DXPW) event on Runescape. With a few exceptions, players gained double experience for nearly any action from February 23 to February 26, 2018. These exceptions, along with the consequences of my attempt to reach level 99 Magic again, have left a sour taste in my mouth. DXPW is always announced several weeks before it begins , in order to give players time to prepare. Players stock up on materials and items to train certain skills and take advantage of the bonus experience rates. For typically expensive skills like construction, DXPW gives players 72 hours to spend half as much, and train skills twice as quickly. Since DXPW only comes twice a year, most players like to make the most of it. I considered what I might want to work on for DXPW. I recently knocked out 99 Runecrafting, and I didn’t really want to put too much effort into Smithing since I’d also like to get all of the Respect rewards from  Art...