After almost two months here at WordPress, my fellow Rune Guys staffer Piguy (Hai Ching Lu ingame) brought up a good point – that as a Rune Guys staff writer, I should be devoted to the community and not to my own separate RuneScape fansite/blog.

The thing is, I created this blog originally as a sort of companion site to the Rune Guys blog. Lately, however, Piguy has been right. So I’ve decided to take down the RSM blog and plug the Rune Guys once and for all.

I’m going to start out with guides. As you’ve probably noticed, most of my guides have what I call “Blurbs” at the beginning. These are mainly just little snippets of info about the skill that can be useful to people who are new to the skill or want to look into training it or getting 99. These “blurbs” make the guides open with information that gets straight to the point about the skill, leaving the rest open for more general tips or training guidelines.
Whenever possible, I try to include XP/hour or “x number of item to reach x level” descriptions for each step of the way to 99. This helps players plan their goals without having to use a calculator. Including the loss or profit gain is also helpful in aiding players to how much they will lose and if different, more cost-efficient methods are available.

Articles can be a little different. As you can imagine, I can brainstorm for quite some time on what to write about, as a weekly article can sometimes be nerve-wracking. I try to write about interesting topics effecting the RuneScape or RSM community, but sometimes I’ll go “cheap” on you guys and release a post detailing a new guide instead.
Articles that are fun to write, like my book review or “A Guide to n00bs,” will often make it onto the site because my general idea is that something fun to write should be something fun to read. Feedback from the Twitter community also helps on making article decisions.
Going back to what is fun to write, I will oftentimes start writing an article, get maybe a few paragraphs in or a page’s worth in Microsoft Word and decide if I like the article. If I do I’ll keep writing. If I don’t, I will usually save the document and brainstorm something else, or find a way to make the article more entertaining.

Update reviews are probably my favorite posts to pen – erm, keyboard. I try to release update reviews the day of the update’s release on RuneScape, but sometimes the article may not get up until Wednesday of that week, but preferably not any later. I use my own rating systems for the articles, a description of which follows:
Usefulness of this update: This basically just is a rating of how useful the update is in game or on the website from my point of view. If the update isn’t very coherent or just plain isn’t useful/is bad the rating will be low.
Practicality of this update: This rating shows how practical the update is. Was it foreshadowed in a Developer’s Blog or Behind the Scenes? If so, how long ago? If the answer to the former question is “yes,” then the rating will be high. If the update is something players have wanted for a long time, the rating will be high.
How much I like this update: This is basically just a representation of, well, how much I like the update. Obviously I’m free-to-play, so if an update has no new content for me then the rating will be low. However, updates like the rune energy update, dungeon maps, animations pack 1, etc. that benefit free players as equally as members will receive high ratings.
Overall: This rating is simply an average of the three other ratings. It’s just a total representation of the week’s update in a simple x/5 rating.

My newly launched series of Concepts articles has my excited because it will give me a new medium every week to express what I think should be added into the game to all my readers. These articles will almost always make it onto the site because they are fun to write, mostly because I can just dream up anything I want and write about it as if it’s been implemented into the game, or just provide a list of theoretical updates much like I would envision would appear in the In Other News section.

Time for a little statistical viewpoint of things! Obviously, I get more views on days when I post new articles or guides mostly through my Twitter followers. I also get quite a few hits from search results alone, and the day that my Twitter buddy @Linkbuilder linked to my very first post, my Magic guide, on his own site (www.rskillers.info), the view jumped.
The peak of views each day has exceeded 40, something that I’m pretty happy about. The average day has 18-25 views, still a high amount by my standards. So far, over the course of one month, I have received fairly formidable 500+ total views of www.thersmasters.wordpress.com. So thanks to all of you regular readers who have bookmarked the site and visit on a regular basis.

All that being said, I think it’s time once again to plug guest writers. I haven’t had any emails at all so far since setting up thersmasters@gmail.com, so send in any guides or articles for this blog and with any luck I’ll put them up, obviously crediting the author in full. But please, no copy and pasting from sites like RuneHQ, Zybez, etc.

And just a little preview of what’s to come…
•    This blog will soon be part of www.runeguys.com. Being a staff writer for the Rune Guys is an underlying part of this blog and I think that having my blog hosted with the site will drive more traffic both ways.
•    Quest guides! Having conquered skill guide I now plan to move on to quest guides. Hopefully these guides will help you finish quests and reap their rewards; currently I have none in development, but I plan to make my very own guides for most, if not all, free-to-play quests.

For this week I have a generic list of little things I would add to the game.
•    Clan Chat announcements. When I’m Runecrafting or doing other skills that require a lot of attention, I find it annoying to have to switch back to the Clan Chat menu to see who’s in the chat. Instead, I think a simple message like “Avalon512 has entered your Clan Chat” would be much better.
•   Notes on your game screen. Sure, the new Notes tab is awesome, but who can remember something they put on there without it constantly in their face? I think another good idea would be to be able to put chosen notes up on your game screen to constantly remind your of things.
•    An Overall XP box. Just like when you hover over a skill level to see the current XP and how close the next level is, I think you should be able to hover over your total level and see the amount of total XP you have.
•    A public chat filter. Just like the Game tab has a “Filter” tab, I think that the Public tab should have one too, like for people at the Grand Exchange who repeatedly type in “Buying rune pl8 50k” over and over again. This could reduce lag while still allowing you to talk to other people without a constant flood of public chat.
•    Glasses on characters! I wear glasses in real life, so when I find no option for my RuneScape avatar to have glasses I’m pretty bummed. And not as a headgear item – just as an option at the hairdresser for instance. A little box reading “Glasses” that could be checked or unchecked would be fine. =)
•    Will JaGeX just hurry up and let us open the trapdoor in the Grand Exchange? It’s DRIVING ME NUTS!

That’s all for this week. Next week I’ll have a more in-depth post on brand-new content. Thanks for reading.

Not that they would have any reason to say that.

This is another week where the majority of the updates are geared for members but free-to-play gets some little things that are actually quite good for us. The fact alone that JaGeX decided to rework popular member’s weapons like the whip, godswords, etc. along with rune scimitars and longswords is a nice gesture, especially because I had to live through two weeks of my member friends saying how great RuneScape HD beta is while I was stuck looking at “An Image of The Future” news posts and in standard detail. My only gripe about this is that the rune scimitar now looks a lot different compared to the rune platebody and other armor, along with how it’s held in your hand like the old way of holding 2hs. The new animations are pretty cool; for the rune scimitar, at least. I’ve heard from some of my friends that the whip’s new animations aren’t great. Oh well. I’m sure in a few months it’ll all seem better, much like how I hated the new full helms when RuneScape HD was released to free players.

Now it’s time for some ratings:

Usefulness of this update: 3/5
Practicality of this update: 5/5
How much I like this update: 5/5
Overall: 4.3/5

I also have a “blavatar” for the blog (bascially a favicon) of the RSM logo.

Being on Bounty +1 Worlds has brought me back to the different ways one can come about being a n00b by way of the PvP n00b. One of these ways is by being a safer, as I am. I hate to do so, but I bring in just my rune scimitar and an inventory of lobs to go PKing and my Quick Prayers are set to Protect From Melee and Steel Skin. I hang around safe zones and only attack people who also have a lack of visible armor. But I’m not doing Bounty Worlds for the rewards; I’m doing them for fun. And then, of course, you get the real n00bs that attack you with their armor on when you have none, or the clans that stalk around multicombat areas and pile you. Then after you’re dead they chant “pwned noob” like the fight was actually fair.

Another type of n00b is the noob. Noobs in essence are just newbies to the game; the ones who have no idea that the spell with the ball of fire above your staff is high alchemy. Noobs are very populous around Lumbridge and Al-Kharid, with the latter being the second town most players even go to as soon as they can scrunch up the 10 GP fee.

The skiller and combat n00bs, respectively, often have obscenely high combat skills and very low non-combat skills, or vice versa, and do not hesitate to brag about it. I guess they just don’t realize that having a more balanced account is better. Oh well, just try your best with these n00bs.

The Stuck-Up n00b is by far one of the most annoying n00bs you will ever meet. They are most often pures or higher-leveled players. Pure-type Stuck-Up n00bs will brag about how their Strength is like 20 levels higher than yours but their Defense is still level 1. And then the people who say that “they don’t fight noobs like you” when you happen to try to win against them at the Duel Arena. I remember being challenged by a level 117 at the Duel Arena. He had 99 Attack and Strength and I used Protect From Melee against him. He said he wouldn’t be fighting me again because I used a protection prayer. Oh yeah, and I also don’t have any combat 99s!

Knowing the different types of n00bs is important to knowing how to deal with them. Here’s how you can deal with the different varieties of n00bs that you may meet while training various skills or doing various activities.

The PvP n00b
Location: Bounty or PvP Worlds, Fist of Guthix, the Duel Arena
How To Deal With Them: Kill them in a PvP minigame somehow, or just remind them that combat is only one part of the game.

Noob n00bs:
Location: Lumbridge, Al-Kharid, almost anywhere in RuneScape (look for them especially at new holiday events, minigames, skill training locations, etc.).
How To Deal With Them: If they are confused about what they are doing, either explain it to them step by step or tell them to look it up in the Manual. Noobs who follow you around asking how to do things at new locations should be ignored or possibly helped if the question being asked is a simple one.

Skilling n00bs:
Location: Areas with high-level monsters or popular training locations.
How To Deal With Them: Look them up on the Highscores and brag about your skilling stats. If your combat and skilling stats are both higher then you have pretty much nothing to worry about.

Combat n00bs:
Location: Any place where the monster to kill is too high level for them to kill.
How To Deal With Them: Offer them training advice on where to go instead. If they start to die, tell them to run. If they die, PM them “I told you so” and if they ask you to save their grave, ignore the request. It’s their fault, after all.

Stuck-Up n00bs:
Location: Anywhere high-level or where lower-level players might be to taunt.
How To Deal With Them: Not much can be done for Stuck-Up n00bs. Simply try to ignore them or find a skill that you are higher level at than them.

Now that you know what different types of n00bs are and how to deal with them, you can safely do anything in RuneScape without fear of running into a n00b.

And I understand why.

This book, when read, feels like you’re listening to a friend or some random nerd telling you about the game. Here’s the excerpt from the back cover:

Welcome to the magical world of RuneScape – the online adventure game that has become a worldwide sensation! When you enter RuneScape, you become a part of a fantastic world – one where warriors, wizards, pirates, and princes roam. Where you can go on unforgettable quests and discover far-off lands all while making friends from around the world. This handbook outlines everything you’ll need to know about the free version of the game. From learning basic skills to mastering quests, to getting to know all of RuneScape’s characters and creatures, with the help of this guide, you’ll be a RuneScape expert in no time.

It’s written in a way that really makes you want to puke. RuneScape’s supposed age it’s geared for is teenagers; do you think teenagers browse the kid’s gaming section at the library, where I found this book? To start off on my ranting, I’m first going to explain a few things. I’ve read this book before, put that was when I was gawking at seeing the level 60 Woodcutting requirement to cut yew trees. Now that I can basically do everything in the free game except cast teleblock and go in the Runecrafting Guild I can look at this book in disgust. I’m also going to point out that I’m a neat freak, which any budding graphic designer should be, so the fonts and colors of this book were poorly designed. It’s trying to go for a “rustic” look, but with blurry pictures of monsters that aren’t even up to the graphics detail at the time of press. The people over at Scholastic probably took not even a month to work on this book. It’s like one of those crappy-looking guides you’ll find if you search “RuneScape” in eBay.

Another gripe I have about this book is that the author probably took the job and created a RuneScape character on the spot. Quest Points are referred to as “QPs” and if you have multiple coins they are called “GPs”. For the description of a giant spider, this book advises you to “Attack it – if it’s a level 2, that is.” Yet another thing wrong with this book is that it covers the extremes. Out of the monsters featured in it, greater demons are listed as the highest level. The next highest besides a lesser demon is a level 57 ice warrior. At lower levels it is recommended to kill, cook and sell chickens to the Lumbridge general store to make money.

Now, I know that RuneScape has received countless updates in the three years since this book’s release and a revision would be nice. Obviously, the removal of the Wilderness alone could prompt a revision. However, if JaGeX really wants to sell books, could they hire actual writers like all the other RuneScape bloggers and I to put some blurbs in? Basically, this book is for not really anybody. I picked it up the first time because I had just started the game and I picked it up again because I had nothing else to read.

Once again, it feels like Scholastic hired someone with no knowledge of the game, which is insulting to those of us who know enough about RuneScape to write our own guides! This book is also extremely short. There is no discussion on the best ways to train skills or combat, the actual spells you can cast with Magic or even how much XP you get from mining a given rock or cutting a given log, which is not that difficult as adding another column to a book is not extremely time-consuming. The pictures are low-quality and blurry, and the writing is oftentimes very kiddy and, excuse me, nooby.

JaGeX, if you want people to take your game seriously, just don’t publish any more books like this. It makes RuneScape feel like Club Penguin or something. Should I buy this book? Only for laughs; if you want an actual, serious guide for RuneScape, there’s a lot better ones out there, specifically ones here, on RSKillers.info, Zybez.net and RuneHQ.com. My conclusion is that I think JaGeX should let fansites do their thing and write the guides. Purchase the rights to the guides or ask to use them if you want to make a book. Fansites are great – I wrote an entire article on them. They’ve got the info. We’ve got the logic to look at that info.

As always, follow me on Twitter (@Avalon512), check out the Rune Guys website (http://www.runeguys.com) and thanks for reading.

This week didn’t have much else in store except for the main update. The Patch Notes were so-so as usual along with the In Other News blurbs. Though I guess it’s good that JaGeX is keeping up with weekly updates instead of missing a week like before Mobilizing Armies. Now, it’s time for ratings.

Usefulness of This Update: 5/5
Practicality of This Update: 4/5
How Much I Like This Update: 3/5
Overall: 4/5

Thanks,
Avalon512