Chronicles of Primefalcon

A Runescape Trek
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Levels, heading for a couple of 99’s and a new police weapon?

Well I got a couple levels recently most notably 98 woodcutting and 98 magic. I am now about 280k away from 99 woodcutting & thinking I am going to go for the woodcut and then the magic….

Also on a side note I just watched a new technology here:

Remember an electro magnetic pulse is the same energy a nuclear bomb puts out. You ever see those movies where they have to stop and turn off their cars or have their electronics fried? This is the exact same thing, and – no – those movies weren’t exaggerating. Why do you think you’re not supposed to put a magnet too close to your computer? This won’t just kill the engine, it’ll fry the electronics of your vehicle.

There’s one major problem I see right away – electro-magnetic energy won’t just stop when it hits the car, it’ll go through and possibly hit another car or house….

Demonstration… do you have any magnets around your house? Ok – if you have a powerful one, put the magnet on one side of, say, a knife. Bring a pair of scissors close to the other side of the knife. Notice the magnet will work through the knife to effect the scissors? Imagine the magnet as the emp (electro magnetic pulse) gun, the knife as the car that’s the target, and the scissors as an innocent house or even another car on the other-side of the car.

Nice idea but are the police going to pay if they fry all the electronics in my house? Plus – what about compensation for important lost data?

Also….. What about people with pacemakers? Combine that with the shoot-through effect, and what do you think the consequences will be if the police use this en-masse? Who’s going to be paying for the funerals?

99 Strength, 99 Hitpoints and 133 combat ALL IN ONE DAY

Well – today’s been a big big day for me! As the title says, I got 99 Strength and Hitpoints, plus 133 combat all in one day…..

Here’s a pic of me getting the 99 Strength:

Which incidentally also got my 133 combat:

And the subsequent banner:

With Hitpoints, I couldn’t get the pic of getting the level due to the dang abyssal hitting me still but I did get the pic at the bottom showing that I got 99:

As well as the banner:

So off I tromped to the respective cape sellers. My first stop was Yadech Strongarm in the warriors guild to pick up the strength cape. Ahh poor Sloane, to be replaced by such a weakling as the Master of Strength.

BTW the lovely lady with me is my real-life Wife and Runescape Guru Marlaine

After this, my next stop was to pick up the Hitpoints cape from Surgeon General Tafani:

I also got level 81 Summoning, so it's been one busy stretch of accomplishments for Primefalcon!

Jagex’s new content is – well – very promising!

I was getting more and more disheartened by the direction Jagex was heading with Runescape. However, since their new Head Of Content has taken charge, things have changed! After getting in, he spent a lot of time fixing a lot of small details and bugs in Runescape that have existed for a long time. Even now, after fixing lots of things for around 8 months, he’s still paying attention to the small details. Example – Take a look at the compass … click it to instantly set it to proper N/S/E/W alignment.

What really concerned me about Jagex’s direction was the minimal care they were giving their older higher level players. Basically, they were giving high level junk items while giving better low level stuff. That gave the low levels an equal footing or even better ground, comparatively. It really wasn’t fair when you consider the time spent training those levels for those who have played the game nearer the start of Runescape when there were a lot less of the right click shortcuts that are in the game now. And lets face it, make it more interesting and more players will keep playing until they are also higher level players – which translates into longer membership fees for Jagex!

Now the HOC (hehehe) is going through and re-balancing all the skills. The first of which was the new Living Rock Caverns which gave fishing a huge boost in xp and interesting things to do. It has been given higher leveled fish – Cavefish (level 85) and Rocktail (level 90) – which I’ll give a proper description of later in this post. Even the bait required for the Rocktail has a requirement of level 73 just to get it. Whether you fish for Rocktail or Cavefish, it’s fast fishing and great xp! These are absolutely superior to fishing monks!

Also in the Caverns, there are mining spots of concentrated coal (level 77) and gold (level 80) rocks that actually let you mine multiple loads of ore from them before they collapse for about a minute. (I haven’t timed them but it seems like they let you mine for about five minutes.) There are multiple deposits around so no huge hassle. Here’s Marlaine’s Living Rock Caverns Guide and Map with all the mining spots color coded. BTW – it doesn’t matter how many people are mining there. Numbers don’t effect how fast or how much gold people get since the collapse is time based – not how much ore has been mined. In fact, these things collapse even when no one is mining them – I see it often myself while fishing close to the mining spot. All of this equals terrific mining and fishing xp for those with the levels to do these.

Next was the woodcutting re-balance. Even though it doesn’t offer new logs, it has offered 2 new ways to train woodcutting that is absolutely phenomenal xp! Training in the lumberyard mini-game and cutting ivy – both give around 80K per hour xp. Of the 2, I think ivy is the better. It requires no interaction beyond clicking again when a vine has been cut down, then respawns. When there aren’t a lot of people cutting, it doesn’t happen very often, so you can surf forums, read blogs or whatever else you want to do while power cutting. I wonder if we’ll ever see Elder logs released into the game? Perhaps they could be used to craft and fletch, (both would have high requirements, of course, in addition to high woodcut…), battlestaffs…..

Now – the super high leveled potions Jagex has just released really give higher Herblorists an edge on the competition. You can read more about these great potions on Marlaine’s wonderful blog – Extreme Untradeable Potions page and her New Herblore Potions post. There are a small minority of players complaining about these potions on the Runescape forums – either wanting them to be tradeable or to have them removed altogether. I say these potions are fine just the way they are, for the simple reasons that…
1.) This finally gives a serious advantage to high level herblorists that only they can use, and…
2.) If they were made tradeable, well, everyone would be running around with these pots, which would just unbalance things.
3.) If you’ve ever done herblore at higher levels, you would have seen how slow it is from about level 90 to 99!
As it is now, even with these updates, herblore is a hard enough skill. Herblorists are being rewarded for their hard work by getting an advantage only they can have. In fact, now I am actively working on my herblore levels so I can make and use The Super Antifire pot – wow – talk about an advantage that is one heck of an incentive to do a skill!!! Oh – you don’t think that’s why Jagex did it – do you?

With updates like this coming out, I am seriously interested in reading all the new updates now – which is something I have never really been interested in before. The new Head Of Content truly gets what his predecessor didn’t – those who work hard for their levels actually do deserve advantages over those who just do quick skilling to 60. Let’s face it, Level 60 in any of the skills is practically nothing, yet those lower levels expect to have everything handed to them on a platter……
and until now – they were getting it almost every time they whined.

When a lot of new supposedly high level content was release by the previous idiot… errr, I meant to say, person, he’d slap on high level requirements but the advantages wouldn’t be worth having. Hell who needed a level 85 dagger that a mith dagger could beat? Or a 5 million dollar hatchet that was only the same speed as rune? That’s right when the dragon hatchet was first released, it only looked different, but it really only cut at the same speed as a rune hatchet! It was only after serious complaints by the players that the dragon hatchet’s speed actually increased, to give the higher leveled woodcutters a slight advantage. Hell, what was the bloody point having a dragon hatchet that was no better than rune?!? All newly released content was heading in that direction….

Now that we have someone decent at the head of Jagex that actually gets it, and is doing something about it, some of the lower leveled players are whining that high levels are actually getting content. Please note, I am not targeting low levels really! Most are honest, hard working Runescapers who are headed for high things. I’ve known some who are so flat out efficient, I think a lot of us dinosaurs may have serious problems keeping up with their pace….. In truth, even though there is a whole lot more content on this game now than 4 years ago and it can be confusing, new players have more advantages than they could ever appreciate without going through the all old ways of leveling up. I almost envy them being able to start out new without all the old rules and steps cluttering up their thinking about how to do get something done. They sure won’t have to do things like buy a single inventory of vials without a beast of burden, run all the way to a bank and then running all the way back to the shop again and HOPE there are still some vials to buy!

On another note – I got a level in fishing today , level 91 now . I got the whole level fishing just the rocktail that I mentioned earlier…..

For reference, these great fish heal 23 hitpoints and that healing can take you above your maximum hitpoints level by 10 ten points. For example – say your max hp is 98 as is mine, and if I am down to 80 hitpoints, when I eat a rocktail, my hitpoints will be raised to 103. If I eat another, it’ll boost my hitpoints to no higher than 108 – wasting a perfectly wonderful rocktail! This boost is temporary and will slowly decline, but I can see this being massively useful when fighting tough bosses and such in the game. I might just give the Fire Cape a shot now!

Here is the dialogue banner of me getting my new level….

….which brings me to the total level of 2114 skill points.

Tears of Guthix – 180 tears

After doing tears of Guthix today I got 180 tears. With tears being 60xp per tear that equates to 10,800xp! Not bad eh? Because of the highness of this score being a new personal record, I – of course – thought I’d grab a couple of screenshots and show them on here….

With this pic you can see how close my wife and I are We are actually walking almost in perfect sync – as we often do in real. That or she has become a Goddess with extra hands and feet…….. (She wasn’t wearing the quest cape.)

…and, of course, here’s a close up of the tears.

My guess is that my Karma is being smiled upon by the Runescape gods after rescuing Arrav’s heart the other day. I just hope Ali (The Wise?) doesn’t mistake it for a cooking ingredient…..

….and – obviously – I can wear that quest cape once again!

Mobilising Armies, a review

I have been playing Mobilizing armies for quite a bit, actually since it first came out. I’ve been finding it rather enjoyable to my surprise. Unlike castle wars and pretty much every other mini-game Jagex has brought out, but this one is oddly addictive….

One thing I like is the fact that you still get some points even if you lose. The fact that you’re fighting against 3 other players means that a lot of the time you won’t win. That’s a one good reason just to dive into the fray rather than sitting back – which I’ve seen a lot of people do. With this game, the speed of games count…..

As for tactics, I’ve been diving in at one player and bombing them with that weird electro area damage thing, all 5 one after another. Then I charge in to finish them off. You know, weirdly enough, that tactic has been working. After I’ve slaughtered an opponent, if the other 2 are just standing there doing nothing, I have been sending one piece out to attack one side and then run it over to the opposing team to get them fighting. If the other two are fighting, I let them fight it out and charge in near the end to finish off whoever is still standing. The tactic seems to work… I have been winning far more games than I’ve lost……..

I am not convinced the items and the clothes are that worthwhile. I’d like to see better rewards. Maybe a teleport to an alternate plane where you can get the resources or something – I don’t know. The herb secondaries teleport is far to random to be useful at all. The game itself is amazingly fun.

What would you do for more bank space?

First of all – so many people are on the forums complaining about the concept of a Dongle for Bank Space that Jagex didn’t bother blocking my last post. There are a lot of upset people out there!

The following is a forum post by Andrew – an attempt to explain a bit more about that dongle. Later in the posts, Andrew tries to justify the offer of extra bank space but really gets shot down.

Post by Andrew on the Runescape forums

Hi,

I’ve noticed the Jagex Security Key poll is causing some heated debate, so thought I’d better pop in and post some clarifications.

The first thing to bear in mind, (which we really should have mentioned in the poll), is we are NOT looking to make a profit from this key. The price is to cover the cost of buying the device and shipping it. In fact these devices aren’t particularly cheap and if we do go ahead with this I expect we will probably LOSE money doing it. To be able to get it down to $10 we would almost certainly have to either heavily subsidize the cost of the key (i.e sell it at a loss), or buy in such huge bulk that we would end up with a large number we’d never sell (Still making a loss). So this really ISNT about making some quick money. The main reason for the poll is to see if there is enough interest to make it practical at all.

Now you’re probably wondering why we would even consider doing this if we would be losing money. The reason is simple, we’re in this for the long run, not for a quick buck, and therefore player satisfaction is extremely important to us. And a player who has had their account stolen (even though due to a keylogger/virus on their own computer) is generally not very satisified! We feel that the benefit of keeping our players safe outweighs the cost, and so we are willing to potentially take a bit of a hit on this.

Which brings us on to the ‘bank space’ incentive. Which is exactly that… an incentive.

The problem we face is the VAST majority of players don’t actually believe they need extra security (until it is too late), and it seems very hard to convince them otherwise. I’ve been working on computer security for years, and the problem is people assume if they have an antivirus and a firewall and don’t tell people their password they are bound to be safe. This ISNT true! It certainly makes you safer, and is a very good idea, but it sadly doesn’t make you invulnerable. Even if you are very careful – believe it or not you can still end up with a keylogger on your computer. For starters all of the commonly used web-browsers are written in C++, and repeatedly suffer flaws where if you visit a malicious webpage, even without clicking on anything your computer can be compromised. I’m more up to speed on computer security than most, but I still use a bank pin on my account, and will still be using a Jagex Security key on my account. Because I don’t suffer from the delusion that I’m somehow magically immune.

So the problem we face is we know lots of our players lose their passwords, we also know those very same players point blank refuse to believe anything bad could possible happen to them, and think they are secure (until it is too late), and therefore probably won’t buy a security key. The evidence for this is clear, just look at our own forums and all the people saying “I’m secure, I don’t need a key!”. So we started wondering what we could do about that. If we can incentive people to buy a key some other way perhaps we can still protect their account. Of course even if the key does ultimately protect them, they will probably never even realize that it happened, and will probably go on thinking that they didn’t need it, but at least their account is secure.

We chose extra bank space for the proposed incentive, because a) we already give extra bank space to members anyway, so this doesn’t unbalance things further in any way b) it kind of makes sense that the people with the fullest banks are the ones with most to lose, so the ones who most need a key.

So this isn’t about RWT (any more than the members game we already sell isn’t about RWT), and it isn’t about trying to make a quick profit. It really is simply about keeping our players accounts secure.

If we were in it for a quick buck we would just sell the bank space and forget the loss making key idea entirely (then we WOULD make lots of money), we’re not going to do that, because that’s not what this is about.

What is that I smell? Is there a bull around here somewhere? The smell wafting from that post surely smells like something took a dump……

Ok let’s start with the bit about browsers being written in C++…….

C++ is a base level computer language that nearly all serious applications are written from. Java is written in C, which is an earlier version of C++. Unfortunately, Java is mostly open source but was recently bought by Oracle and soon, might be obsolete because they might be charging for their updates. In other words, if anything new comes out of Oracle and they charge a fee, you may have to pay for if you want to keep using Java to run Runescape. Sort of puts Runescape in a minor bind as well because if they need to pay to use it, they will have to charge more as well.

Also on a side note C++ is faster. After you have written a piece of code, you use a program called a compiler to turn the human readable code into assembly code – or more commonly known as machine code. It’s a binary language that writes to an individual computer, which means the computer can read the code natively without having to use any other programs to try to understand the code. Java however compiles into a code specifically for a java virtual machine, which is a simulated computer inside your computer. This offers some flexibility because once you compile the code, it can run easily on any computer that can run java. Java’s main problem is that it has to run everything through this virtual machine and uses a major amount of the computer’s resources. Have you noticed that Runescape lags massively at times, yet other games that you buy with far better graphics don’t lag? That’s because those other games are written in C++ while Runescape runs in a virtual machine inside your browser rather than in your computer.

C++ is secure but like any other language out there, it’s about how well you can program. Any security holes in a program are left there by the programmer. The website exploits Andrew has been talking about on the forums have to do with Internet Explorers ActiveX functionality which allows websites to run code on your computer. Other browsers, such as Firefox, simply do not have this vulnerability since they do not run ActiveX. JavaScript (totally unrelated to Java), does not allow that level of inter-activity for exactly this reason. The simple fact that Andrew doesn’t get this makes me wonder about his programming abilities at all. Definitely leaves his security advice questionable right from the start.

Take a look at this – a direct quote from the Jagex site:

“9th January 2009 – Weak passwords must be changed.

We have noticed that a relatively large number of our users are using the same few extremely common passwords.”

Quote from Andrew on the Runescape News

We have noticed that a relatively large number of our users are using the same few extremely common passwords.

Using an extremely common password puts your account at significant risk, as it makes it extremely easy for someone else to guess it. In particular certain dictionary words and names are extremely common choices.

To help keep our users safe we have therefore today disallowed the use of the 500 most common passwords that people choose. You will no longer be able to use these very common passwords. If you already have one of these weak passwords, then you will be forced to change your password when you next try to login to the game.

For help on how to change your password: click here.

For guidelines on how to choose a good password: click here.

We recommend you use a combination of letters and numbers, and then write the password down and store it in a very safe place so you don’t forget it. Andrew.

Do you realize what they actually just told you? They are storing everyone’s password as plain text and can easily read them and therefore anyone hacking into their databases could also read them. For security’s sake, proper security etiquette dictates that all user passwords should be hashed – it’s called one way encryption. When you log in, the system hashes your password and compares the saved version and your current log in attempt, and then either oks it or dumps you back to the log in page. Jagex should not even have access to your password. This is standard security practice to deter those who would breach the system and try to steal the passwords. This really is basic security protocol and Jagex is ignoring it. As I said in my previous post, USB Dongle, Not Much More Than A Scam, there are better ways to increase security.

As for not doing it for the money…. Of course you are in this for the money. You’re a money making company aren’t you? You must run all those complex marketing tests before putting a product on the market. Those childish Runescape books and overpriced t-shirts aren’t losing any money – are they? Oh – what’s that? Raised eyebrow – oh they aren’t exactly selling very well? I have no problem with Jagex selling stuff, but just don’t turn this great game into just another copy cat of all those games that make players pay extra to unlock feature X, and then pretend you’re doing us a favor by doing it……..

USB Dongle – Not much more than a scam!

Really. This is sounding like just another way for Jagex to coax more money out of their customers and turn the game into a “Just pay a small fee to unlock feature X – in this instance, unlock some extra bank space.” Just watch Jagex expand the concept to armour or some new item. “With just a one off small, tiny, minuscule, paltry fee, you will be able to own the newest demonic armour West of the River Salve!* This is sounding a bit like real world trading.

If Jagex were really concerned about security, they could implement a keyfile utilizing 256bit or more encryption which players could store on their own USB device if needed with no extra purchases necessary, which would only require a matching key phrase. This way Jagex wouldn’t have to charge a damn thing – that is if they were honestly concerned about security rather than just scamming their players out of more money…. They get ticked when you don’t want to view their pay-per-view ads, don’t they? How many players are there – I can’t remember that phenomenal number that earned them a place in the Guinness World Book Of Records for most played free online game….. and they are earning real world money from that, you know.

All they’d need is one good coder to implement this feature since this is actually recommended government level security and is basic practice for serious companies.

I’ve also posted this on the runescape forums here, but you can bet jagex will remove it one they get an eyeful of it….

77 Summoning new Ubuntu release – 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

I haven’t done a lot of Runescape today but I did get another summoning level today…

Not much else. Been spending a lot of today configuring my Ubuntu 9.04 installation. Compared to the previous version of Ubuntu, Intrepid Ibex, it’s blindingly fast! Jaunty Jackalope is faster even with extra desktop effects on than 8.10 was with no desktop effects. I think a large part of the speed is due to the new ext4 filesystem.

Levels, Levels and more Levels

Well it’s been quite a while since I’ve been on here and blogged, but since then I’ve been getting quite a few levels.

Which I’ll list first….
There are a few other levels I’ve gotten, but these are the ones I took the screenshots for:

The most notable one was level 90 slayer

So now – finally – I can fight all the slayer critters in the game. Unfortunately, the dark bow is hardly worth it, which is the primary drop from these little beasties, (dark beasts) but at least it’ll be a great slayer assignment to be able to do – great exp! Wish I could do the rune ore, too.

The second level I got of late was 96 Strength

So I’m yet another step on the way to another 99 skill, but still a long way. Oh well – a level’s a level

A pic of me getting level 89 crafting:

Only 1 level left until I can do Amulets of Fury….

Anyhow that’s it for now. I’ll try to post again sooner. I’ve got a few things I want to talk about….

Magic level 96, and 559k from 99 Attack!

Ok I got Level 96 Magic today! I was training slayer and I got Black demons as an assignment. I figured sweet – these things are good for magic training, since they are weak to magic.

Here’s a pic of me getting the level (click for a bigger pic):

Getting this level unlocked 2 new spells for me.
.

I’m also getting ever closer to that level 99 attack, as well. Only 559k xp away from that beautiful attack cape.

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