Skills-Thoughts on Summoning

The First Update

A few months ago (actually a WHILE ago), Jagex released a new (and really cool looking) skill called summoning. It was advertised as allowing player to summon a battling friend who would help them in skills, carry items, or just dish out some major damage. Cool, right? Right?

Meh. Not really. The first set of summoned creatures SUCKED (mostly) and it was SO hard to even make a pouch that nobody really cared (mostly). You spent a ton of money just to summon a mosquito that dealt 3 damage and died in one hit. Lots of complaints on the forums. Also the price of training this early version of this skill was astronomical (still is, but a little better).

The Second Update

So under a lot of pressure, Jagex released "summoning 2". Basically they made summoning cost less (still pricy), and the creatures were upgraded. New ones were added, until almost every 3 or 4 levels (sometimes 2) you were able to summon a new and completely different creature. Lots of complaints about this update too, but I think Jagex did a fairly good job. Before, summoning was so pointless. Now it actually can be useful. But I think Jagex could've done more.

The Third....fourth.....update?

Honestly, I haven't been follow the updates like I should. I know that the skill has been updated, but I really can't tell you how. The price of shards is still at 25coins per shard. Come on. They're just a bunch of little white dragon scale things! They shouldn't be that expensive.
STILL the most expensive skill in the game. My level (currently) is 33. I'll admit that leveling the skill is easy. It's just getting enough money to that's the hard part.

The Basics

Like herblore, you have to complete a quest called "wolf's whistle" to be able to summon. Basically you go around fetching stuff, summon a wolf, and scare a giant demented bunny in the attic. Loads of fun.

Ignoring the fact that the wolf looks like the mutated child of a cow and a horse, it's not a bad quest. It's kind of fun, and definitely interests you in summoning. It would have been more interesting if the animals had actually fought, but meh. It doesn't need to be epic.

I was lazy and skipped 16+ levels by using rewards from the Acheivement diaries. So, besides the wolf I had summoned in the quest, I was at lvl 20 and had never actually summoned a creature.

Summoning...Pouches? What a weird name.

Anyhow, I decided to summon a desert wrym and use it in the Stronghold of Player Safety. I got a few buckets of sand, a pouch and at least 100 shards. So I tele'd to falador, and headed to the summoning rock underneath Pickupstixs (don't ask) house. I clicked on the glowing rock and scrolled through the familiar's section. Nothing.

WHAATTT? I needed a !@#@! charm. I go back to falador and grab my only green charm and make my pouch. Whopee. Not much xp for all that money, might i add.

I try Combat!

After that ordeal, I teled to barbarian village (by way of skull scepter), and headed to the SPS. I start fighting one of the cockroach soldiers (lvl 84!). My little snakey takes a little bit of time to start attacking. Finally it starts and...three soldiers later it's dead and has dealt a grand total of 3 damage! w00t! talk about effective. Yeah, it's only lvl 30. But SERIOUSLY! I've kind of stopped making pouches after this experience.

I try Combat! Take two...

Second time around, I summoned a giant rat. Took it to the stronghold. Little ratty seemed a little reluctant to attack the cockroaches, but at least it dealt more than 3 damage. I was feeling pretty good. Until i realized that at about 1/3 health my rat wouldn't attack any more. WHAAATTT?! It just stood their taking hits, and squeaking. I thought rats ate cockroaches. So my rat dies.

PvP combat!

Yes, I couldn't resist the temptation. I tried three summoned creatures at Castle Wars. The first was some kind of tz-tox-something or another. Remember that I mentioned that a few familiars have secondary ingredients which are charms? Yup, this is one of them. Worked out pretty well! I did barely any regular damage, but it's special was moderately effective. Got killed by some annoying dude with a bgs.
My second familiar was a granite crab, who was absolutely worthless except for providing me a def boost with his special. Thanks little dude! I just wish you wouldn't die all the time.
Third familiar was somekind of bat thing. This was probably the best of them all, as it's special healed me 1/4 or so of the damage I inflicted on my opponenets. It got KO'd by a ranger though.

Training

Frankly, there are way too many things that you have to get for summoning. I'll run through a list of EVERYTHING you need.

Pouches:
Only cost 1gp each! Great price!...Until you realize that each summoning familiar only uses 1 pouch. Jagex, I beg you to change the price of the pouches with the price of the shards.

Spirit Shards:
Only costs 25 (?) gp each! Great price again!...Until you realize that you have to use up to 200 shards for 1 !@#! pouch.

Charms: Ok, now were just getting into the realm of "uselessness". You already have your "container". You already have the "base" ingredient of the pouch. There is no reason why you would need a "charm". They are dropped by monsters (rock crabs!), which is fine, but I'd rather that spirit shards were dropped by monsters. Also you can only use certain types of charms with certain pouches...so yeah. And you can't trade charms. *slaps head*

Secondary ingredient:
Oh ho ho...You saw this coming didn't you? Yup. Jagex has decided to be nice and friendly and make it just that much more difficult to make pouches! Yay! Each summoning creature has a different secondary ingredient, which most of the time are unique and rather rare items like "proboscis" or "bucket of sand". They're kind of a cool concept on their own. Charms or Secondary ingredients, Jagex. Not both at once. (to rub salt into your wounds, one summoning creature has a CHARM as its secondary ingredient. A CHARM.)

What familiars to train on:
I'm not really going to go in depth on this part. There is always a trade off. I personally like beavers, giant rats, and rock crabs for lower lvls. I've heard rumors that you can get from lvl 17-lvl 99 in one trip. Want to know how? Sure you do!
Stock up on mosquito proboscus. ALOT OF THEM. Stock up on everything. Proboscus stack, so that makes summoning a breeze. Yes, you can get to lvl 99 doing this.
Downside; This is the absolute fastest way to train ANY skill. But Jagex knows that. Thats why training this way is so !@#! expensive. The total cost of the items is over 700mil! Even skychi doesn't have that much money (sorry skychi). But if your looking to train the "easy" way, go ahead and spend 700 hours nature running.

The Benefits

Ok, ignore the fact that you spent all that time and money getting 4 different ingredients. Now I'm gonna drop a train on you.

Until you get above lvl 50, the summoning creatures are mostly useless (a few exceptions). You can sell the pouches ("for almost all your money back!" jagex exclaims joyfully), but no one wants to buy 30 rock crab pouches.

Now remember, there was a huge update to make summoning creatures more useful (mostly combat cretaures). You can imagine what it was like before the update.

I'll sum this up by saying that it is mostly worth it at the high levels, so don't NOT train this skill.

Types of Summoning creatures

Combat: The main class of summoned creatures. Only gets good above lvl 50. At level 99 you can unlock the incredible steel titan (four 21's at once! OMG!), but until you get there it ain't so hot (with a few outstanding exceptions).

Skill Helpers: A few good creatures in here. Alot actually. These guys will boost your skills, or even do tasks for you. For instance, one creature will even fish for you O_o. Most likely the most useful group of creatures all the way to lvl 99.

Beasts of Burden: Extra inventory space! Holy @#$%@! Sound great, eh? Nah. Jagex had to protect them good ole' noobs by not alowing these creatures to carry any items that are deemed too valuable. I'm not going to hit Jagex over the head with this one too much, but it would increase summonings value 1000 fold if Jagex removed this major killer. Again, as useful as it can be all the way up to lvl 99. But not more useful.

Pets: Fun, cute, but so annoying. Hey, at lvl 99 you can spend 20 hours searching for a dragons egg! And once it hatches after 2 weeks of waiting, you can feed it 400k of raw chicken every day for as long as you still keep it! And it does absolutely nothing!

To Improve summoning....

Mwahaha! You thought I was going to rub some more summoning nonsesne in Jagex's face? In short, no. They already get enough nonsense about it.
I will give them this. It is an extremely useful skill that has a huge variety of uses. It looks awesome, it's fun to use, training is a breeze (i'll ignore the money aspect), and the specs really make the lower lvl creatures worth it.

Thanks for reading,
TMP

Thoughts on the RS community-Why it sucks

Hi,

As we all know, RuneScape is a MMORPG. All MMORPG's have a community, and different MMO's attract different people. Thus lively communities are formed, as players interface with each other.

Runescape has recieved a bit of criticism about its weak community. I really can see why. A disturbingly large amount of players are rude, selfish, scamming morons. I'd say at least 4 in 10 people you meet on RS are like this.

Of course, you could say that this is the same for every other MMO. You're always going to meet people online that are rude, etc. Plus anonimity makes people braver, and therfor more likely to insult without thought.

Still, you look at the community on WoW. I haven't actually played this game, but from what i've heard, there isn't as much of a problem with this. You'll meet a few players, but not to the extent of Runescape.

Why could this be? For one, RuneScapes "average" player is 11-14 year old boys. This is due to the fact that RuneScape is very accesible (you don't have to download anything). And then you can get into the whole "angsty" teenager thing.

I really wish runescapers were more considerate. It gets annoying having to deal with these crabby kids who have nothing better to do then spam and insult you.

Skill guide: Hunter

Hi,

Heres a little article on Hunter. In the photo above I reached lvl 61 hunter and a total lvl of 1000. I'll state my fav way to get to certain levels, but i'll also put different ways in another article (a.k.a. powerleveling).

What you need:

(you can get stuff from other players, or hunter stores)

Required:

1-2 noose wands

10 box traps

10 bird snares

a knife and axe

2000gp (don't use this to buy stuff, bring it along)

Optional:


5 small fishing nets


5 ropes


1 butterfly net


1-10 butterfly jars


hunter cooking equipment (normal fire and range won't work)


1 teasing stick


1-10 rabbit snares (only for people who have completed Eagle's Peak quest)





My method:

Levels 1-9

This is the easiest part of hunter. To start on a good note, go the the varrok museum, and go to the basement. You'll find a dizzying maze of rooms, but just talk to the guy in the safari hat who acts like an australian. He should be right near you as you come down, on your "level". He'll ask you to correct some info on the plaques, so just head down and read the plaques in front of the creatures. You'll get a little "natural history" quiz, but it's not that hard. If you don't know something you can ask the "professors" or just guess. Once you have completed the all the plaques you'll get 1000 hunter and slayer xp!

Levels 9-19

Polar Kebbits: Equip your noose wand, and bring nothing else. Go to the farthest north snowy hunter "island" north west of Relakka, and north of Keldagrim. Click on the burrows, then follow the trail around and click on the different objects that the trail leads to. Once you reach a snow drift, you can attack it with your wand and you'll catch a polar kebbit. Keep only the fur. This isn't the fastest way to get to lvl 19, but since the fur sells for about 1,700 gp each, it's not a bad way to make a little gold :D

Levels 19-33

Tropical wagtails: Take 10 bird snares to Feldip Hills hunter area (beware of ogres). Go south west until you reach the Euchalyptus trees. You can set up here, or south west of the small lake near by. Set up as many snares as you can, and move away about 4 squares. The birds will land, but the traps don't work 100%, so you'll need to reset any traps that don't have birds in them. Keep the feathers, they provide a lot of fletching xp.

Levels 33-37

Barb-tailed Kebbits: Grab your axe and knife, and head to the spot east of the Carnivorus Chinchompas. You should see boulders with a "deadfall trap" option on them. You need logs in your inventory, and a trap will appear. The kebbits will run under your trap, and it will fall, catching them. Note that you can set up only one of these traps at a time. Only keep one "barb harpoon". It's useful for fishing, but they aren't valuable enough to fill your inventory with.

Levels 37-43

Prickly kebbits: Not much different from barb tails, except in Pistacosis hunter area. You can set up shop pretty much anywhere. The spikes are worthless, don't even bother keeping them. You can also bring along your butterfly net and a few bird snares, but this is optional. Levels up really quickly though.

Levels 43-53

Spotted Kebbits: Go to the "falconry" area in pistacosis hunter area, and rent a falcon for 500 gp (this is where the 2000gp comes in as you can lose your bird to a random event). Do note that your bird misses occationally, and the falconry area might get crowded (never do it in world 2). Be sure to keep 1 or two furs to make into a spotted cape which reduces 2kg from your weight.

Levels 53-57

Grey Chinchompas: Bring along 10 box traps, and head to the area next to the fence in the south part of Pistacosis hunter area. Chinchompas are great money and great xp (use them for range!)

Levels 57-63

Dark Kebbits: Another falconry thing, except this time you're catching the pitch black kebbits at the south end of the falconry area. Remember to keep some fur to make gloves of silence (increases success at theivery).

Levels 63-99

Carnivorus Chinchompas: Take your good ol' box traps back to feldip hills. Go to the chinchompa area by the lake (always crowded) and go south a ways till you see the Larupias. Set up your box traps and let the fun begin! It'll take you about 48,000 chinchompas to reach lvl 99 (it'll get really fast at lvl 80). These will sell for a nice 30-35 million gp. Perfect to buy that bandos armor that you've been coveting! (mabye)

Oh btw, be sure to bring along 99,000gp if you are really serious about reaching lvl 99. The hunter master (and skillcapes!) are right near by.

Time, resources:

I haven't actually gotten to lvl 99, but nonstop 3 hours a day will take you about a month. It will take a fast player about 5 days to reach lvl 63. BIIIGGG gap.

As for money, The whole deal shouldn't cost more than 5k (excluding tele's). If you are going to buy the skillcapes, just a meer 104k.

Have fun!

TMP

Catherby: A City Guide

Hi,

Here is my guide to Catherby, my favorite city. Hope you enjoy it!

Catherby:

Catherby is a small town not far from the members-nonmembers gate. It is seperated from Taverly (and frankly, the whole east half of the map) by "white wolf mountain". To the north is the "sinclair" mansion. To the south is...karamanja i guess. To the east is the Seers village (and flax!). To the really far north east is Relakka.
As you can tell, catherby is quite a center for traffic. Due to its location, there is a constant flow of players heading through it.

Things to do:

Combat:
Catherby isn't really that much of a combat city, but you are close to the Taverly dungeon and warriors guild. Rock crabs are in Relakka, but they're kind of a haul. Please note that the Catherby bank is one the most direct ways to bank stuff from taverly. The best way is the "wall crawl" to falador, but this requires 20 agility.

Fishing:
This the "main" thing to do in Catherby. There are a bunch of fishing spots on the beach near wolf mountain, and a fishing shop. Don't bother with an axe and tinderbox; there is a range in a house next to the bank. Plus you have a greater success rate with cooking on a range. You can fish lobsters, sharks (!), tuna, swordfish, and various other types of fishing. Great stuff :D

Archery/Fletching:
There's a small archery shop next to the fishing shop where you can buy or sell some ranging goods. As for fletching, it isn't nearly as good as Seer's Village, but has the "master fletcher" who will sell you your very own skillcape.

Herblore:
You are close to the chaos druids and an herb store, but not anything to go wild about.

Farming:
Lots of farming patches, arguably one of the best places to train farming.

Summoning:
Good proximity to summoning facilities, but then again, falador is right by.

Quests:
Too many to count really. Closest one probably is fishing contest (the quest in those little huts on either side of wolf mountain).

Minigames:
The only minigame that actually is directly in Catherby is Vine Sweeper, but almost every big city has this.

Places to Visit:
In itself, Catherby doesn't have alot of terribly things to go to. What makes it great, however, is how close it is to EVERYTHING.
Spots of interest (close ones):
Heros guild (north of taverly), ledgends guild (follow the shore south)
Burthope and Warrior's guild
Camelot and Seers Village
Entrana (need to verify this)
Taverly in general
Ardougne (kind of a walk)
Fishing and ranging guild

Who to meet:
Alot of players I meet think RuneScape is just about getting to lvl 99 as quickly and as cheaply as possible. This really isn't true. While the RuneScape community is very weak, there's still a good deal of great socilization going on.
Catherby is THE place to meet high lvl players. They are constantly in this city (usually fishing). It's hit or miss, but some of these players can be REALLY nice. They're also great to chat with when fishing.

Overall:
Great city. No question about. Most likely you've visited it before, but not many people realise just how central it is to RuneScape. Everything flows through Catherby. Plus the fishing rocks.

Cheers,
TMP

Skill Milestones!

Now these aren't the really cool milestones (99 in a skill, maximum lvl), but I thought that it was cool that I was able to attain them.

P.S. If you can't make out the writing, the photos are of the 900 and 1000 total lvl milestones, plus the 75 combat.

Runescape Trouble: Price Check

Hi

I got inspired by the "things wrong with runescape" vid by skychi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJqaf6cEZtw), so I decided to make my own "things I hate about runescape" deal

Here goes:

Because of the grand exchange (and removal of unbalanced trade), alot of players have to calculate the price of items due the their being a specific price. So lets say you're fighting green dragons, or even just chillin' in varrok waiting for your friend to log on. Suddenly a player comes up to you going "Pc! Pc! Pc pc pc pc pc ples pc". Wait a minute...Pc? Private chat? What is he talking about? And sure enough-

___ wants to trade with you
___ wants to trade with you
___ wants to trade with you

So you oblige, and the player smashes ALL of his/her items into the trade box in a few seconds, declines trade, and teleports with a quick "ty". Wow. I'm fine doing a Pc (they changed the meaning to Price Check) in some calm situation, but just like random events, they pop up everywhere.

Alright, that in it's own isn't too bad. The higher lvl you are, the more likely they are to mob you (it's true), and it's really iratating but it isn't too bad.

The worst ones are the players that don't say ANYTHING to you. I mean, come on, it takes like .4 seconds to type "pc"? That is the worst type of "price checking".

Anyhow, just a really minor complaint, but it's been bugging me. I'm sure you've had a "pc" before.

Update: Does Jagex read my blog? Probably not, but I wish they did. Apparently somebody complained about this same issue. Now there is a pc button which you can use to check the price of anything in your inventory. Thank you jagex gods!

The Curse of the Laconic High Level players!

I don't know why, but high level players are always SOO laconic. They almost never talk to you, and when they do, it's usually one word max. I know they have alot of friends their chatting to (sometimes), but seriously?! Can they even speak?

The reason why I interface with this alot is because my fav city is catherby (look out for another post!). Of course, the main thing i do there is fishing. And guess who I get to meet? Yup thats right. 50% of the players are over level 100.
Know, as we all know, fishing is almost as boring as walking from lumbridge to the gnome stronghold(yes i did this once, it was WAAYY boring). So I like to have a little heart-to heart with the high levels.

Not a chance :/ They NEVER start a conversation, or even show any interest in continuing one (exceptions to this!).

I know high level players have to deal with alot of mugging by lower levels, but it would be nice to see them talk once in a while, and not just a quick "go away noob".

Rrgg.

(Oh, many many kudos to Scopio. He's an exception to this rule)

Skill training-The Chaos Druids

Hi all,


As the title makes evident, these creatures are the chaos druids. These NPC have gained some fame for their suprisingly vast amount of herb drops, despite being only lvl 13. Most people just come here for the great drops. Honestly, the drops are the best part, but you can't ignore the melee training.


How to get there:



Go to Taverly Dungeon, and go down the path to enter the thunder cauldron area (lvl 19 suits of armor might attack, there is a back way if you go straight). Walk until you get out of the open area with lots of giant bats (lvl 27) and into that "outer circle". Head north a short ways, and you should find a little circular room (cave...?) with loads of druids.

The Drops:

Chaos druids have a variety of good drops, the most notable of which are the herbs. They drop herbs almost half the time, and these herbs range from gwan, to snape grass, to even lantandyme (or however it's spelled). They also drop a healthy amount of water-filled vials (use on low level herbs to gain free exp), nature runes (not as common), and a suprisingly steady amount of law runes. On top of this, they also drop mithiril bolts, although the frequency of this drop isn't very high.

It's not bad money either. I made about 120k in probably 30 trips (only selling certain amounts of herbs tho). To make max money, you should probably only keep the most expensive herbs (some can be more than 5k per herb!). You'd probably hit 100k within 15-20 trips. Keep the laws. They stack, and they are dropped ALOT.

What I got in 30 or so trips:

A bunch of herbs equivelent to 120k. ( you can make alot more per trip if you don't pick up the marrentil, tarromin, harralander, and guam)

Over 100 law runes, possibly 200. Good stuff :D

Overall, great herbs, and decent (if you have tele runes, it's better, you can refill laws on druids) access to a bank.


Issues:


Because of the great drops, there is a fairly constant amount of player eager to get their hands on some herbs. Because of the proximity to Catherby (a kind of holy city for high level players) about 60% of the players in the little chaos druid alcove are very high levels. But the place does handle crowds fairly well, and the druids respawn very quickly.


I've had trouble with macroers (suprisingly enough) here, but they aren't too bad. Just report them and steal their kills out from under their noses. It's quite satisfying :P




Whats the big deal?


The reason why I say Chaos druids are good melee training is because they have a decent amount of hitpoints (20) are at a low level (13) have NO defence, AND spend most of their casting a usless spell that lowers your attack temporarily 3 levels, but does no damage. I've killed over 100 druids without getting any damage. And, of course, the drops.



The drops:



There's an excelent article on runescape wiki about the herb drops, but here is a photo of a good trip to the druids (ignore the vials, I only picked those up for reference). Heres are a few notes of what i've gotten on the trips.

Law runes: (none-16 per trip)
Nature runes: (none-6 per trip)
Guam: (2-10 per trip)
marrentil: (1-10 per trip)
Snape grass: (1-2 per trip)
Water filled vials: (15-30 per trip: don't bother with these except to make unfinished pots, and then drop)
Mithril bolts: (40 per trip, don't bother with these unless you're training like me. You can equip these, thus saving space and making a little more money)

Note: I didn't keep track of the high level herbs as much, but on one trip I did get 4 lantandyme (or however it's spelled).

So overall, I'd say that this is a great place to get lots of stuff all around. If you haven't tried this yet, you're missing out.

So pretty cool stuff eh? Try it out if you're a low lvl herb player. There are vials, marrentil, and a source of unicorn horns in catherbury and rellaka (north).

Slaying: First Impressions

Yo,

Recently, I summed up the courage to go slaying. I always here big hype about it, so it seemed like a good skill to start

The Slayer Master

I went to Vannaka (I'm too much of a wuss to go to the fairy lady) and got my first slayer assignment. It was ogres. Lots and lots of good training, and an excuse to try my max hits with my d long.

I've completed two assignments so far, Ogres (106?), and ankous (96). My most recent one is a green dragon assignment (47 of em) which is really quite difficult.

Thoughts

Despite my fiendish dragon assignment, I think slayer is awesome. Not only do you get the regular exp from your combat skill of choice, you also get slayer xp (amount of xp=amount of hitpoints the monster has). It's great. Trains really quickly too, and has cool rewards. For instance, the abbysal whip can be dropped by abbysal demons, once you reach lvl 85. But thats not going to happen for a while for me. I'm only lvl 29.

Untill next time!
TMP

Glitch galore

Recently I posted an article on an odd glitch with the gates to cities. Well folks! I found another one. I was fishing and a player next to me had a firemaking skill cape (?), when I noticed that part of his outfit was stretching into a white spear. It dissapeared when he stood up, but would appear again, as soon as he stooped to fish. Weird eh?

High hits with 60 str

Hi,

Here are some photos of me hitting fairly high with 60 str. The photo on the right is of my normal amount of damage, And the photos on the left are of my damage with dlong special. Pretty good if I do say so myself. (note: the obisidian sheild had ALOT to do with my high hits. I love that thing)

Door Glitch!

Recently I've been noticing a weird glitch in runescape. When you walk up to a door, it appears as if it is closed and open at the same time. You can't walk through it, you can't open or close it, you can't access what behind it. It's happened in two MAJOR places; the gate to the members part of runescape, and the "double" gates of yannile (both had the glitch!). You can fix it by logging out and then in again. The photo above is the taverly gate glitch. Weird!

Skill Exp: Rock Crabs

Hello!

In this article of Skill Exp, I'm going show you how to "rock crab"

First off, Rock Crabs are lvl 13 with low str, def, and attack, and really uubber high hitpoints (50). This means even lower levels can train on them (although if you are lvl 20 or lower, train on something else). They exist north of Rellakka (no quest required), and if you haven't done Fremmenik Trials, you can bank on Peer the Seer. Simple, right?

I'd say these crabs give you a good 20k xp per hour. Thats not too bad. There are plenty of them, and because this is a multicombat zone, you can line 'em up and sit back and relax. At lvl 71 with rune armor, they hit ones on me every 10 minutes or so. Don't bring food if you are high enough to absorb the damage.

Exp:
Like I said, They give you a solid 20-25k exp per hour. Remember that you have to walk near them, then they'll attack. Bring your best weapon. With a whip they'd probably give you 50k xp per hour.

Drops:
The drops aren't bad, and they do drop a fairly good amount of charms (crimson, green, and gold). You can also take the oyster pearls, which can be fletched into bolt heads. There is also a small but good chance (if you're power lvling) that you'll get a lvl 1 clue scroll (really rare drop). Ironicaly I got a clue scroll drop on my first crab :D

Tips:
There are two sides of the fence, but I'd stay on the left side, in rellaka, because there are more crabs. If there are too many people you can switch sides easily.
As this is a popular place, it does get VERY crowded, even in worlds with only 400 or less players. Finding the right world will litterally save you hours if you are power lvling.
For lower level players, there are a few agressive lvl 48 (hobgoblins) on the "peninsula" area. If you're high lvl, they aren't a big deal.
If the rock crabs stop attacking you, don't panic. Run to the helmet shop and back to refresh. This is a preventative feature against macros.
Beware! This place is full of noobs. Below is how not to be one

How Not to be a Rock Crab Noob (This is very important!):
1. Stay to your crab if there are a bunch of players in the area. Don't pick up multiple crabs and complain if someone steals one or two.
2. Just because this is a multicombat zone, doesn't mean that you can go around attacking other people's crabs (called kill stealing). You need to get your own crab. Besides, it's much better xp.
3. Rangers: We know that you guys want to lvl up as fast as possible, but respect the melees. Don't attack other people's crabs because you don't want to take the 1 damage that might ocasionally hit you. Besides, training on other people's crabs is really bad xp.
4. Magers: For some reason, magers aren't that big of a problem, despite having weaker armor. But same as rangers, no kill stealing. (rock crabs do have an ok amount of magic def, so this isn't a great place to train anyways).
5. This is very important: Do not use a multicannon in the rock crab area! Yes, it is a multi-combat zone, and yes, it is your training, but other people are training too. Multicannons prevent hard working players from getting there exp. If someone complains, TAKE IT DOWN. This is the worst, most offensive form of kill stealing.

Hope this helped!
TMP

Obsidian Shield and the PvP rage

Ah the obsidian sheild! Remember those days when it used to cost like 400k or something? There's a reason why.

This sheild currently (and I stress to take in acount when this article was written) costs, on average 248-270k. It used to be 230k a week ago. Litterally, I logged in one minute, switched worlds, logged in again, and the price had already gone up 5-6k.

Why?

This shield has the same def stats as a granite sheild which is O.K. but nothing special. Why would it be so popular?

Its popularity is due to a little thing called PvP. This sheild, unlike the granite sheild, gives a +5 str bonus. This doesn't seem like alot, but in a pvp situation, this little bonus is worth a billion.
Now when pvp was in action, it used to cost alot. Like 400-600k or something. Now that jagex has announced the majestic return of PvP, everyone wants to get their hands on one.

Not that I have any problems with PvP (despite the fact that I suck at it), but this seriously messes up my little agenda. I just got 60 def, and was finally able to put on my dragon med (which had dejectly been sitting in my bank) and go get an obby sheild. W00t, right?
I took with me 170k, and sold a rune full and kite at min price (yeah I know, that sucks). So I had 250k. I set up an offer to buy it, and sure enough, no one does. Meanwhile the clan wars update had made all of the players at the GE go bannanas.

I had to sell ALOT of stuff, and buy it at max price. I'm happy I did. Here's why.

Because of pvp, the price of everything combat related is going up (wall street crash, anyone?). Now those abbysal whips, which seemed so tantilizingly close, are going to shoot up in price. Probably stabilize at around 3-4 mil. They've dropped a ton, but still are regarded as an excelent choice for PvP.

This is big. Very big. As soon I bought the sheild and put it on, a million people started there little "buy max price!" rant. I had like my own little cloud of high and low lvl gnats following me around.
This may or may not come true, but i'm betting the price of the obby sheild to get to at least, 1 mil. Expect to see my obby sheild on the market once it maxes.

To any runescape player, THIS IS THE TIME TO BUY WEAPONS! Anything that has fallen in price will go up again. This is your little window to make some bling.

Will stuff fall in price again? Definently. But the obby sheild will never be 230k again.

Update: If your reading this, your probably thinking "What the heck is the newb talking about?!" Sorry! I wrote this article before the great recession of runescape, So i didn't realize that the obby sheild was not going to rise in price. *sob*

The Quest list (easy member's quests)

Here is the easy section of a master quest list. I've enclosed links to certain quests, but they don't seem to be working.

Please note, this is compiled for www.runescape.com

I'll highlight the important quests in blue, and i'll provide comments on the quests. (i've done all of the easy quests in runescape so I know what i'm talking about)

Easy:

(Quests with no requirements)

Clock tower:
Start point: South of Ardougne, just southwest of Ardougne Zoo
To Start: Speak to Brother Kojo
comments: easy quest, but be prepared for some puzzles

Death Plateau:
Start point: Imperial Guard training camp in Burthorpe, (north of the Heroes' Guild)
To Start: Speak to Denulth
Comments: Easy. Just plain easy. Watch out for trolls.

Druidic Ritual:
Start point: Stone circle north of Taverley
To Start: Speak to Kaqemeex
Comments: It's good to get the different types of meat (bear, rat, chicken, beef) before hand. This shaves off alot of time.

Dwarf Cannon:
Start point: The coal trucks, west of McGrubor's Wood
To Start: Speak to the Dwarf Commander (or whoever looks like they're in charge)
Comments: A very boring quest.

Gertrude’s Cat:
Start point: Gertrude's House, just opposite Juliet's place on the outskirts of Varrock
To Start: Speak to Gertrude
Minimum Requirements: Level 5 Fishing recommended
Comments: The part in the lumbermill is annoying.

Hazeel Cult:
Start point: South Ardougne
To Start: Speak to Sir Ceril Carnillean
Comments: Chose good or evil? I hate it when they do that.

Monks Friend:
Start point: Monastery south of Ardougne
To Start: Speak to Brother Omad

Murder Mystery:
Start point: Sinclair Mansion, north of Seers' Village
To Start: Speak to any of the guards on the property
Comments: Very fun quest, with some interesting puzzles.

Observatory Quest:
Start point: Observatory reception, south-west of Ardougne
To Start: Speak to the Observatory Professor
Useful: Able to kill a level 42 guard
Comments: pick up the dose of super antipoison in the goblin camp. You'll need it later...

Plague City:
Start point: East Ardougne
To Start: Speak to Edmond
Comments: Interesting quest, I didn't actually get the sense that there was any plauge.

Sheep Herder:
Start point: East Ardougne
To Start: Speak to Councillor Halgrive

A Soul’s Bane:
Start point: Rift entrance, north-west of the Dig Site
To Start: Speak to Launa
Minimum Requirements: None, but a good knowledge of combat is recommended

Wolf Whistle:
Start point: Pikkupstix's house, Taverley
To Start: Speak to Pikkupstix
Comments: Need this quest for summoning.

(Quest with requirements)

Biohazard:
Start point: East Ardougne, in the building west of the bank.
To Start: Speak to Elena
Minimum Requirements: Plague City
Comments: I was right!

Eagles’ Peak:
Start point: Ardougne Zoo
To Start: Speak to Charlie the zookeeper
Minimum Requirements: Level 27 Hunter
Comments: Get those teleports out. It's helpful if you have the gnome tree teleports.

The Elemental workshop I:
Start point: House in Seers' Village
To Start: Search the bookcases
Minimum Requirements: Level 20 in Crafting, Mining and Smithing
Comments: You HAVE to use a quest guide for this. Don't even attempt it without help.

Fishing Contest:
Start point: Near to White Wolf Mountain
To Start: Talk to Austri or Vestri east or west of White Wolf Mountain
Minimum Requirements: Level 10 Fishing
Comments: Apparently, Dracula is a good fisherman.

Jungle Potion:
Start point: Deep in Karamja jungle
To Start: Speak to Trufitus
Minimum Requirements: Druidic Ritual, Level 3 Herblore
Useful: Ability to survive encounters with level 48 jogres
Comments: Jungle experiences can be frightening. Antipoison is a good idea.

Nature Spirit:
Start point: Underground chambers of the temple to Saradomin on the River Salve
To Start: Speak to Drezel
Minimum Requirements: Priest In Peril, The Restless Ghost and Level 18 Crafting
Useful: Must be able to kill a level 30 foe
Comments: I hate ghasts! uhg!

Perils of Ice Mountain:
Start point: On the road south of Ice Mountain
To Start: Speak to the dwarf next to the broken cart
Minimum Requirements: Level 10 Construction, Farming and Hunter and Level 11 Thieving
Comments: Global warming in runescape?! Should be called "An Inconvenient Quest".

Priest in Peril:
Start point: Varrock Palace
To Start: Speak to King Roald
Minimum Requirements: Be able to defeat a level 30 enemy

Rag and Bone Man:
Start point: Next to the quarry
To Start: Speak to the old man
Minimum Requirements: An advised combat level of 20
Comments: To use the boiler, get some logs, put them under the boiler, put the pot on the boiler, and light it up. There. I just saved you alot of annoyance.

Recruitment Drive:
Start point: White Knights' Castle
To Start: Speak to Sir Amik Varze
Minimum Requirements: Black Knights' Fortress and Druidic Ritual
Useful: Be able to defeat a level 20 enemy without any weapons or armour.Be able to solve very taxing puzzles and logic problems (not really)

Tower of Life:
Start point: Tower south of Ardougne, next to the Necromancer's Tower
To Start: Speak to Effigy
Minimum Requirements: Level 10 Construction
Comments: Tower of annoyingly simple puzzles, more like it.

-TMP

Fist of Gunthix: First Impressions

Hi viewers,

The other day I decided that it might not be a bad idea to try out the Fist of Gunthix mini-game. What tempted me most was the rewards, as out of all mini-games I personally think that these rewards are the best (mabye). The gauntlets look awesome, especially the dragon gauntlet (the best defence gauntlet in runescape). So of course, I have to try it out.

To the top right is the path to fist of gunthix. Varrok tele is probably the fastest way to get there. It's a fairly simple path, but you DO have to travel through low level wilderness. Also, be a little wary because of a strange glitch that causes reverents (uhg) to follow you inside of the mini-game cave.

The guide to Fist of Gunthix is VERY misleading. The guide makes it seem quite complicated, but in truth, it is irratatingly simple. You are assigned to two positions. Hunter, and hunted. Hunter is simple. Follow the arrow(s), and kill who you assigned to kill. If they all crowd in the center, don't freak out. It actually isn't that hard to find the hunted player. Do note that your arrows don't always point in the right direction.

If you are hunted, it's very much a different story. You need your crystal thing, so grab it from one of the pillars next to where you spawn. Higher levels could probably just go straight to the center and sit there (the crystal charges faster the closer you are to the center).

If you are a low level player (like me), hang around the back. Keep your run on, and periodically move around the wall of the cave. To be safe, only come as close to the center as far as you can see the little tele houses. This not only makes it harder for the hunter to find you, but it also has a good chance of glitching the arrow that the hunter uses. Keep going like this.

Now if the hunter DOES find you, throw your little teleport orb down and run to the opposite wall. This will confuse the hunter. After this, it's a good idea to stay halfway between the wall and the tele houses, to make sure you can make a clean getaway. Use the tele houses like the tele orb.

Sounds complicated eh? It's not too bad. But if you want those d gauntlets badly, buy the damaged ones from the GE (110k or so) and get 60 tokens so you can repair it.

Overall it is a worthless and boring mini-game. It has excellent rewards, but unless you are level 120 you can't effectively fight in the game. But I did (lvl 71) beat a lvl 110 at it. It took like 30 minutes.

My advice: only waste your time on this enough to get 60 tokens.

Rating: 2.5/5 (2 just for rewards)

Making money: Flax (members only)

Flax:red rout
Bowstrings:blue rout

Hi all viewers! Here is the money making flax guide (this is going to be a series).

Making money with flax (rating: 3/5):

FLAX(100gp per flax, 100k per hour)

Please note: Remove all heavy items (Boots of weightlessness, Spottier cape, and high level agility helps alot).

Flax is probably the most famous form of making money in runescape (for members). This is due to the fact that pretty much anyone can pick flax. Most likely you know this, but here are the steps:

1. Go to the seers village (this is the best place). South of camelot castle are two fields surrounded by fences. One contains beehives, and the other contains flax.

2. Pick the flax and bank it in the seers village. Wait until you have at least 1k before you continue.

Notes: You will be able to pick 1k in 45min-1hr assuming your internet commection doesn't lag. When picking, don't just randomly pick different flax plants. Like up a row and positon your pointer so that all you have to do is continuously press the mouse button, and you'll automatically pick the whole row (this saves ALOT of time).

BOWSTRINGS(180gp per bowstring)

The second step in this process is spinning bowstrings. Assuming you have the required crafting level, here are the steps.

If you are absolute MAD for money, don't do this step. It will take a bit of time, and you'll only get 80k per extra hour (but you will get crafting xp).

1. Pick flax until you have 1k.

2. Run back and forth (blue rout) between the spinning wheel (on the second story) and the bank. Spin your flax.

Notes: The amount of crafting xp (15 xp per string) is worth it for players wanting to level up crafting AND make money. It takes about an hour to spin 1k flax.

THE MONEY

1 flax will fetch 100gp in the grand exchange. 1k of flax is worth 100,000gp.

gp/hour: 100,000-120,000 (flax only, does vary)

1 bowstring will fletch 180 gp (1k bowstrings is worth 180,000). Spinning bowstrings will make you 80k per extra hour spent.

gp/hour: 80,000 gp per hour (including flax picking and spinning)

You will spend 2 hours getting 1k of bowstrings, earning you 180,000gp and 15k crafting xp.

Overall

Not bad money for low levels. Not recomended for high levels, however. It can get mind numbing very easily.

Blog Under Construction!

Hi all viewers!

You might notice a few stark changes in color sceme, or in font, etc. Do not panic. I am training my construction skill.

Thanks,
TMP

First Post!

Hello All viewers!

This is the first post in the RP (runescape post) blog. This blog will be a source of information for all runescapers, and constant discussion. I hope to make this a center of runescape information.

Examples of what I'll post:
Quest guides
Thoughts on new Updates
Reviews of items
General guides (Skill guides, minigame guides, etc.)

Thanks!
TMP
The Master Poster