MyRuneEscape

Long Overdue Update

2008-11-28T10:09:00.008-05:00

The last post was January 25, 2008... ten months ago! I have not been keeping up on a LOT of online things this year. Well, here is an update on Kamahlia. Sometime in February Kamahlia went member. I started working the fletching and agility skills right away -especially fletching because she is a range fighter.

After getting agility to near what is seen here, I started the hunter skill and got kind'a hooked for a while. I found it to be a good mix of activity and income. Once she was lvl 20 and able to set multiple traps, I found a location in the Piscatoris hunting area where she could set both dead-fall and bird snares easily. Once able to catch chinchompas I would set a deadfall and as many box traps as able -this began becoming a race to keep up with the traps. At just three traps it was difficult to stay ahead of the traps. The advantage of trapping Prickly Kebits along with the chomps is that fletching the spikes into bolts become stackble and (at least at the time) they sold very well. Deadfalls require logs and you get bones with the spikes. So while leveling on chompas, continuing to traps prickleys allowed me to work on Kam's hunter, woodcutting, fletching, and prayer all at the same time. Another good thing about that location is that it is near an impling re-spawn location, which can also be financially rewarding.

Once able to catch Ninja implings, I discovered the Impetuous Impling mini-game (late, I know) and started collecting lots of them in the maze. After a number of dragon impling sightings and no other players around to catch them, I got fed up with not being able... so it was off to the jungles down south for red chinchompas to get to level 83 -the current level. Since then I have made at least $20M off d-implings (both looting and selling them as-is). This has led me to believe that hunter skill may be THE best cash skill in the game. Other skills require even higher levels for the really good payoffs.

Eventually I had to start working the slow skills to be able to continue questing... herb-lore, thieving, construction, farming, slayer -ugh! Has been a rather productive 10 months... in-game anyway. :-)

Some Current Outfits
Following are a few of the current outfits I use for Kam on a regular basis. First is the Black D'hide set. This is her typical fighting gear. She generally uses a rune crossbow and depending on the enemie's level either emerald tipped bolts (recently started enchanting them) or diamond tips (considering enchanting these as well). I am currently attempting to level up on defence to 70 so that she can get some better armor. It is still a toss-up retween Barrows and Armadyl. And occasionally I even consider going for 3rd age... but since the stats are not much (if any) better than blackd'hide, it would only be for the "look at what I'm wearing" value -kinda steep at over 50M for the set (not including kite shield).

Next is the typical outfit used when working skills like mining and smithing. The frog leather chaps, snakeskin boots, and Varrock armor offer a decent defense and carrying a bow (for aggressive Randoms)and the magnetic backpack allow collection of steel arrows while doing the mundane tasks.

BTW, the eyepatch means nothing... just like it better than most other headgear available.

I don't use the purple dress outfit very often, but from time to time it is rather a fun look to go about in. It has no stat value to speak of, so it is best for running to the Grand Exchange. Who doesn't put on decent clothes to go shopping? :-P

A recent addition that set her back about $5.5M is the infinity magic robes set. I was needing to work on Kam's magic lvls, and wanted a decent outfit that had good magic stats. This will likely be the robes of choice when training magic for a while -although direct mage training is not on my task list for while anyway.

Hopefully I can get some more timely updates in here -not that I think many (if any) will be seeing this, but it is kind'a cool to be able to look back at where the character has been and in some cases, goals that were made and kept (or sidelined). If nothing else, I'm sure I will be posting when she gets one of the better ranging armor sets.

Kamahlia: Gold

2008-01-25T15:46:00.000-05:00

Kamahlia is long overdue fro an update. When characters get above 70 in any skill it takes so long to reach new levels that it's hard to tell just when to consider it enough for a decent update. (Although, I may have to add another post soon just to vent a little about the RuneScape world and some of the 'idiots' that hang out there. :-)

The significant skill levels since the last post are Range, Mining, Smithing, and Runecrafting. Some other skills are a level or two higher, but represent much less effort mainly because of a lower level (therefore fewer XP needed to level-up). Both ranged and mining went from 71 to 75 over the past couple months and runecrafting has gone from 39 to 50. Smithing continues to be slow and arduous. Every surprise exam and genie have been used on smithing since last fall. It's simply a slow skill to develop.

The stats alone are worth a new post, but Kam has acquired a new outfit, so it is definitely time for the update. Since she's a free-play character still, there won't be many (if any more) armor changes available for her. So this is a big update in that respect. As of this post, the studded leather(g) set is running about 96k.

She has had enough to buy it for months, but when it really became tempting, she had about 800k in the bank, which is simply too close to 1M to be spending money on armor that has no significant benefit in combat. Fashion had to wait. Once she hit the million GP mark, it was then only a matter of getting the next 100k to buy the trimmed set without taking the account below the coveted number.

This will likely be the only time I post a screen-shot the bank account. But since she hit the 1Million GP benchmark, I thought I'd at least show the pseudo-proof of it. It is actually impossible to completely prove it in a post because I could have simply edited the graphic with the appropriate image and text. People have done it before.

Phthaloblue: 36 Hours

2007-12-30T08:27:00.000-05:00

"Been workin'in a coal mine, Goin' down down down, Workin' in a coal mine -Whop! about to slip down... ...Lord I am so tired How long can this go on?... "

After about ten hours in the mines and furnaces, Phthaloblue has finally made enough cash to get his addy armor set and an addy longsword. Some of the mining down-time was spent battling scorpions to get his attack level high enough to hold addy weapons -including his pick, which allows one more ore per load.

Basically the only stat increase since the last post is the mining and smithing. As mentioned above, I also worked a little on the attack level, so that shows a small increase also.

Now that Phthalo has gotten the addy armor, he can start doing some decent combat training. Although... food is another major consideration for that. The best option would probably be to start fishing and work up to lobbies since they can be quite expensive to buy all the time. The second option would be to go slaughter cows for the meat and hides. With the hides, Phthalo could work on getting the crafting level up.

For now, though, I think I will try the fishing route. It will be twelve hours of game-time before the next post (unless something interesting happens between now and then), so we will see how far a person can get fishing in half a day. So far I have not worked on fishing at all (except tutorial island of course), so this will be a good time-test. The key will be planning game time to avoid over-crowded fishing areas. ...Oh, to have member fishing holes available!

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Phthaloblue: HM Render-Addy

2007-12-30T08:10:00.000-05:00

So Hero Machine has many limitations and working with armor brings out most of them. But I think this is a fair rendering of the basic adamant game armor.

Some glaring differences are:

(1) No feathers on the full helm. Personally I think that's fine since the full helmet is kinda dorky to begin with. But it is needed fro defense, so fashion must be sacrificed for utility.

(2) HM offers no arm-armor. There is one item that covers the right arm only, but other than that, nothing for both the upper and lower arm.

(3) No kite shield. This rounded one is close in size so it works, but the trim does not go all the way around and it is not angled on the bottom.

Other limitations are minor and not a problem at all. It is actually quite challenging to try to recreate these characters on HM with only the items offered. I will probably continue to play around with it throughout the game.

~DL

Phthaloblue: 24 Hours

2007-12-10T09:29:00.000-05:00

This is the 24-hour progress report for Phthaloblue. The introduction post was made after 12 hours of game time.

At this point, I am working on getting better armor for Phthalo. At combat level 34, he is able to wear addy armor, but does not have the cash to buy it yet. Therefore, he has taken to mining, smelting, smithing, and selling. He is currently mining iron and smelting iron bars but is only a little way from being able to smelt steel bars. A few levels into steel smithing and he should have enough for full addy. Then it will back to combat training for a while.

Because Phthaloblue is not a pure of any kind, he will be training on all of the combat skills from time to time. So far, a fair amount of time has been spent on ranging since it could be done in relative safety from behind objects. That way he could combat higher level monsters with limited defense and armor.

Although I have not started working on Phthalo's various non-combat skills other than mining/smithing, I did come across some cow hides on the ground and went ahead and tanned them and made them into gloves. So the crafting skill is slightly started, but I don't plan to work on that for a while yet. In the mean time, Phthalo is stockpiling and gems he comes across anticipating future amulet crafting.

A small amount of cooking skill comes form the need for food. Since I will continue to combat-train Phthalo, cooking will continue to edge up as he kills cows and rats for meat.

The next update should be along after 36 hours of game time. Unfortunately, skill levels will gain less and less as time goes on. These first two posts have some very high level changes, but that won't continue -simply by the nature of the game.

Phthaloblue: HM Rendering

2007-12-10T08:11:00.000-05:00

Here is UGO's Hero Machine rendering for Phthaloblue in his current leather armor. Although at the time of this post he is able to wear addy armor, he still needs the cash to buy it.

The Hero Machine does not include a decent kite shield, so this one is just a plane shield with panels added in Paint Shop Pro. As stated in Kamalia's HM post, the items do not match RuneScape items exact, but usually can come very close.

I also forgot that he is typically wearing a cape now, blue of course, so that will be added in a future rendering. Because he is not going to a pure of any kind, there will likely be many renderings of various armor types over the course of the game.

Introductions: Phthaloblue

2007-11-21T11:39:00.000-05:00

Phthaloblue was created on November 17, 2007 and is basically an experiment to see how far I can get a character in specific time frames. This snapshot is taken at 12 hours of game-play.

I am tracking the time on an excel spreadsheet and plan to post updates at regular intervals -probably about every 12 game-hours. A side-benefit of doing this is that I can see just how much time I am spending... and if it is too much time in too few days.

Phthalo will be an "everything" character -all stats (free-play) will be worked on at some point. I may try another in the future as a pure of some kind to see how fast you can level-up when not distracted by other training.

Here are the stats for Phthaloblue at the 12-hour mark. I have played enough to know that the early levels go quickly, but I was surprised to see a combat level of 27 already. The number seems like a medium character, but the individual stats make it look very much like the noob it is.

Phthalo started out mining-only to earn some money and smith some basic stuff for combat training. This worked quite well and I would suggest it to anyone else starting a new character. The mining levels pretty fast and within the first few hours you can earn several hundred gold pieces, if not a couple K. I probably shoudl have stuck to mining for at least another 3-4 hours to be fully equipped for combat training, but a couple hours did OK.

The best way to start combat I've found is to train on goblins behind the general store in Lumbridge. Levels 3-5 expect a lot of hits against you so bring food. but once defense is nearing 10 and up, you will heal as fast or faster than they will hit.

Kamahlia: HM Rendering

2007-11-03T14:31:00.000-04:00

This is a straight rendering of Kamahlia from UGO's Hero Machine. For those unfamiliar with the HM, it is a character designer that takes a basic humanoid form and then lets you add a bunch of accessories that are pre-designed. It's kinda like paper dolls for guys (no offense to anyone intended :-).

No special editing was done except the backgrounds and lettering... all the character features are as they would be on the Hero Machine, except that I mirrored it. I had to do that because the Runescape characters hold the bow in the right hand and the quiver is strapped to the left leg.

I really don't like the selection of facial features... so that will have to be redrawn by hand at some point. There are a number of other items that are not exactly what the game offers, but close enough to have some fun with it. At some point I plan to use this as a base to re-paint the character and add/alter features to be more realistic. Later it would be fun to try to do a photo-realistic rendering... probably from scratch, not the HM.

For more HM pics of RuneScape characters, go to Spidermike9's blog. He has been using HM to render characters for some of his game friends.

Introductions: Kamahlia

2007-10-31T11:35:00.000-04:00

Kamahlia is my second character on RuneScape. I cut my rune teeth on Ned Macmorf, who I will get into at a later time.

I started this character with several things in mind. First, I wanted to do a "pure." However, I decided to an elf-pure, known in RuneScape as a "mage/range."

Second, I decided to create a female character, which further separates the player form the character. If other players think to ask, or if it needed in context, I DO let people know that the player is a guy... not out to fool anyone -just playing a different character.

And third, I decided to stay freeplay. At the time Kamahlia was created, my kid had already been provided a membership for his character by a friend, so I saw what was available. However, at the time I just couldn't justify investing any money in the game myself. So I thought I'd see how far I could get with freeplay.

This Character was started sometime in early summer.. June, I think. I really don't remember. One advantage of freeplay is that because there are fewer options and skills available, I ended up focusing my game time and leveling faster than I would have had I been able to do other skills.

I'd also like to note that in playing and gaining the XP seen here, I also maintained the same game-play integrity that I strive fro in the real world. In other words, I don't claim-jump when mining or do other things that directly interfere with other players. It is not necessary to take advantage of other players in order to get ahead yourself.

I now find myself at a tough crossroads with Kamahlia... stay FP or go member. There are advantages to both.

I already play more than I probably should (That's why this blog has the word ESCAPE in the name instead of just SCAPE... it has been an escape from reality). Going member would definitely make the game even more interesting and therefore tempting to squeeze out even more time on it. That's a plus for staying FP.

Also, as Kamahlia's stats are getting into the 70's, there are special bragging rights to being FP only... it is very difficult to gain XP very fast without all the member benefits. I am starting to get some very interesting reactions from other players when they hear her stats and find out it is all on FP.

On the otherhand, I am very anxious to fletch my own arrows, have more crafting options, and Kamahlia has a range level high enough for black dragon skins. Also, as an elf-inspired character, I'd like to work on agility, too. (Kamahlia was named with agility in mind. I was looking for a name that hinted toward the natural and elemental; something that suggested the ability to blend in with surroundings... a chameleon of sorts.)

SO, if you have read this far and especially if you are a RuneScape player yourself, I'd love to hear your opinion... member or stay FP??