Bye Bye "Wilderness" , Range/2h Combo Trick gets Disabled!!

Breaking News, it seems that the Range-2h combo trick has been nerfed. Indeed, all weapons now have delays. ie. when you switch your shortbow to a 2h and then click your opponent to strike, the delay will not be that of the bow anymore (enabling the range-2h switch combo trick), now there is a 3 second delay for the new weapon you are wielding, letting anyone eat at least three times before you can even hit that 2h .. This is a huge blow to the wilderness...

Can you believe it?

THIS IS MADNESS!!

Just too bad I didin't make any videos to keep good memories alive... Since 04 I used to be a jackass pker, I've been chassing pures that were 10 combat levels higher and killing them, doing amazing stunts at castle; fighting with no food left to find my opponent run away (from fear of running out of food) and dying while trying to escape.

I used to solo train at greater demons, where clans were common, switching from my bronze training arrows to my adamant ones when a target was nearby. Had my binds on me, my mage spells. Defeating players in full rune at 30+ levels over my combat level was the norm...

Too bad that I couldn't record any of those memories. Indeed, countless memories they were. I remember each sequence as if it was yesterday. Forget those wasted days and nights, not seeing the good old times again is probably my only real regret so far in rs.

Come read this blog tomorrow, I will explain the way RuneScape is dying, and how Runescape will be sold off to another company

Jagex Closing Eyes on Botters

There is nothing more frustrating than watching a bot next to you make his way to 99's while you ruin your own f-ing time trying to get ahead.

Why does Jagex talk about Real-world trading when the real problem is botting? Why are they talking about it while doing nothing to make it stop? Botting is the cause of more than 80% of all real-world trading (buying runescape gf in exchange for real money). This is mainly for two reasons;

1. First, RWT(real-world trading/gold selling) companies mass-produce produce their gold via thousands of botted accounts and;
2. The average player's frustration from watching these thousands of bots all over the place is alone responsible for making them feel ripped off and in turn make the sin themselves. These same legit players become so sick of what they see that they start looking for ways to buy-back the time lost. Time lost with friends. Time lost with family, etc... they feel stupid for wasting all this time and rightfully so. After looking for solutions, they are unfortunately left with none-other than to bot themselves, buy gold or adopt the same cheating behavior that the game of runescape is suffering from. And they do it all the way to 99, or until they feel satiated.

But who to blame? When you feel ripped-off of hundreds of hours used to advance in a game, you start to ask yourself questions such as ''Where could I have gotten in real-life (and in the game), if I botted like all these people are doing?''It is a normal feeling.

As of now, there are no consequences to botting (sadly). If you bot and get caught (and most people apparently do not get caught), Jagex will let you buy back your account with real money--no kidding!... talk about real-world trading here!!

What saddens me most though is to observe how Jagex simply seems careless and does nothing about botting.. and especially with the p2p botters.

Example; Before the wilderness had been returned, soul wars was flooded with bots. More than 50% of people in soul wars are pure bots... go see for yourself!

No-wonder people buy rs gold from sites selling these. Anyhow, enough criticizing for now. On the next post I will try to come up with some much-needed solutions.

Top 5 Staking Tips for Serious Stakers

Okay, so far it's been about 16-17 days that staking re-appeared. I've started this staking game with a total of 667k raw trout, around 1 million in cash, and 13k pie dishes along with other items. Ive started with ~15 million gold. During this short time-span, I've went from around 15 million worth to 19 million, then dropping to 16 million, then all the way down to 20k in items (almost broke) to completely broke. Then I've came back to 22 million before finally falling down completely to 700k in cash and items (my current money as of writing this).

Loosing 15 million is not a big deal though. I'm gratefull for the staking experience gained. Here are my top 5 best staking tips that any wealth-aspiring staker should put these in application;

1. Get good stats; There's no denial that carefully planned stats make you win. Your character's levels are permanent, and you can't go back once you've got one. Make sure to keep 1 prayer if possible, as 95% of people stake with prayer turned off. Having level 1 prayer truly saves you from gaining unecessary combat levels (and put you to an advantage against those who do got more than 1, but check 'off' this option from the staking screen - which is most often the case). Other levels to be warry of include excessive attack or defence (arguably). When planning out your stats, make sure to use your favorite combat calculator. If you don't know what are good stats to have or not, make sure to ask in the comments and I'll give you some feedback wether I think they'd be good or not ;). I've been in pvp for 7-8 years so I know what I'm doing.

2. Learn to negotiate your stakes and say NO; Negotiating your bets and be able to say NO to risky conditions or risky opponents is an important ability that will directly impact your cash stack. To give you an example, I've been loosing significant money while almost being maxed out for my combat level (81 range 80 str, 80 magic 76 hp, 1 prayer 1 defence) with 58 combat [1 constitution level and 1 strenght and magic level away from maxed].  This was due in part because I was staking others who had very similar stats as myself, or even slightly higher and offered no real advantage in battling against. The cause was of frustration of finding no one to stake.


3. Stake only if you have an advantage (stat-wise); With some luck, you can make some quick gp staking people that have the same levels and stats as you, but on the long run, staking small to medium amounts of gp against people weaker than you (even slightly weaker) is what will make you win in the long-run (and keep  you from going broke). You need to have the power upon yourself to systematically refuse staking people that are higher combat, even if you have been looking for an opponent for ages without luck.

4. Do not stake if frustrated, or feel for revenge; As said earlier, runescape can be a frustrating game. If you loose your cool, do not stake! Take some time off and head to the wilderness, or better yet - do some personal projects, homework, or other real-life related tasks until you feel fresher. Exercising is also good for tension-relief.

5. Stake a little more when you have been assigned luck (often are the first one to hit);

Update : Learn how to get the first hit in a stake (and have luck). Just updated this. First hits are associated with "having luck" and winning more often.

In runescape, 'real luck' does not really exist. If you've noticed, "luck" is rather assigned ranging from various degrees from high to low - let's say 0 to 100. I've noticed that when you are in a duel and you do the first hit, you will get higher hits throughout the duel than you'd normally do, and more often. I also remember reading somewhere that in runescape classic, the luck factor was displayed on the page source code, but that in runescape2/hd, it is completely hidden.

You can verify your luck by seeing who gets items first (despite clicking in same time) using telekenetic grab with friends, or just have some 'fun duels' with different people no matter their combat level, just to see who hits first. If you've duelled for fun with several players and have been able to hit first on most or a big portion of them, then it means that you've been assigned considerable luck.

Furthermore, I highly suspect that the more time you are logged in the game, your luck tends to get trickled up (but not always). This is from what I recall in my zammorack wine telegrabbing experience; the telegrabbers who used to stay logged in longer in a world used to be the ones who were able to get the wine first. I am 100% sure that there is a luck factor involved. I recount even when I used to systematically loose in stakes against the same one opponent who won around 10 million from me; two days later I was not only beating him systematically, but doing so with big margins ex.easily winning. And as a matter of fact, I had cleaned this guy his 17 million - giving him back 1 so he could start somewhere.

If you think that you've been assigned luck, you can increase your stakes slightly. From my own experience, good luck is worth up to 2-3 extra combat levels (from my point of view, and I am level 58 combat). So remember that a good idea before fighting an opponent for a large sum of money, would be to estimate your luck (and his!). You may duel him a smaller amount first for instance, to see who has been assigned more luck.

So that's about it for now. I will add more tips when I can find. But what are your own staking tips? Right now, I'm sure I've missed a good couple, please let us know so we can discuss it or if you want me to add them on the list. With some more, I will make a full guide. Cheers !

Don't be a Fool - The Wilderness is Not back (and probably never will again)

Can you really call this pokemon-like pvp game "wilderness" ? It's got ugly graphics that are too advanced, people hit 100, 150 and way more, and on every attack you can see multiple icons next to your hp... Now is this really the wilderness you've been craving for my friends?

There used to be a time where an honorable land was being called 'the wilderness. The pre-runescape hd & pre-wildy removal era was clearly the best. Don't tell me you are having the same fun playing runescape as you had 3-4 years ago.

In the real wilderness, the max hit was 32 for a 99 strenght guy. (by real wilderness, i mean in f2p of course). There were simple and beautiful graphics. Nothing too fancy.

Graphics were plain and good. Now graphics seem to be too much on the realistic-wannabe side. The company that made these graphics for jagex did a poor job.

Then there's that whole gameplay chapter.

When you were in a fight (back in the days), you couldn't see your exact hitpoints level unless you switched to your stat screen.
For newer players reading this – the hitpoints/constitution level was not displayed next to the map. The only place it would be written would be on your statistics page. So while you were fighting, you usually had to estimate your own hitpoints level and eat accordingly. This is because going back to the statistics tab and looking at your hp level would make you lose precious seconds, with food only available within two mouse clicks and some little scrolling to the food instead of a single mouse click. This would make pkers guesstimate when to eat which would make more fun and challenging.

The other fun part of the old hp display while pking (player-killing) would be the “know if you’re dead” part. This is pretty simple; when people used to get redbarred (when all your hp bar would be red) you may still have be alive with 1 or 2 hp unless of course you had zero hp. Getting redbarred and going to the hp screen was a thrill in itself; it was like a lottery ticket to know if all the hard work you’d put in to afford your items would be worth it or not. The suspense would go on for a good two seconds with nobody knowing if the fight was over or not.

There are other examples too but let's leave it there. Unfortunately gone are these old happy days. The sad thing about it though is to see Jagex making all these bold claims, making people believe that the wilderness is back; its not – pokemon is back. Sorry but when you get hit a 190 with a water icon it makes me think of one of those water pokemons hitting some damage, or yet some sort of crappy Chinese-style game. I hope people find for themselves how crappy fighting is. If you've got an old story or two to tell, then please help remind me/us what the good times were like, we could surely relate to one another. Looking forward to see some good tales in the comments. I'm out for now, new post tomorrow