An Annoying Mistake

I accidentally deleted 3 pages from the right column, due to trying to delete just one of them. I won't be recreating them, as they were out-dated anyway. Instead, I will be creating a few new pages, that may be of more use to the readers of this blog. I apologize to those of you who wished to read them, but I'll make this fluke a good thing. Gotta love technology. Thank you for bearing with me, and happy 'Scaping

A Quick Heads-Up

I apologize for the long wait for a new post, but don't worry, they're coming really soon. I've been busy in real life, and I've been busy in-game.

I will be releasing several posts at once, in attempt to make up for the long wait. I have one post in the linking-and-tweaking phase, and another over half-finished in writing, and yet another planned.

Also, I will create a page where I can update you on my in-game status.

Just hold on a little longer...

Dyes

I have come to learn that very few people know how to make dyes, even though they are in high demand. Dyes are in such high demand because many quests require them, such as Ghosts Ahoy and Enlightened Journey. Dyes come in eight colors, six of which are free-to-play. Dyes come in these colors: red, yellow, blue, orange, purple, green, pink (members only-Hand in the Sand quest required.) and black(members only-The Golem quest required.)

Dyes are really quite easy to make, and also very cheap. Dyes are a good source of money for low level free-to-play players. To make a dye, simply have the ingredients in your inventory, and 5 gp per dye, and go to Aggie in Draynor Village, and have her make the dyes. Its that simple. Do note that Aggie only makes red, yellow, and blue dyes. To make green, purple, or orange dyes, simply use the two colors on each other to mix them into the desired dye.

Pink dye requires no ingredients after finishing Hand in the Sand quest. Pink dye is not bought from Aggie. it is bought for 20GP from Betty in Port Sarim, just west of Draynor Village. Pink dye is untradable.

Black dye, or black mushroom ink, is free to make, but requires entering the Kharidian Desert. Black dye requires The Golem quest to make. To make black mushroom ink, simple enter the caverns underneath the Ruins of Uzer, and find a black mushroom. Use the black mushroom with a pestle and morter on it with an empty vial in your inventory to get black mushroom ink.
black mushroom ink is also untradable

All dyes can be used to dye capes (only the regular kind of cape) and on Origami Balloons (must have started Enlightened Journey to make Origami Balloons).

The red, blue and yellow dyes use inexpensive items to create:
Red: 3 Redberries
Yellow: 2 Onions
Blue: 2 Woad Leaves.

If you are a beginner, yellow dye is a great money-maker. Simply pick onions just south of Fred's Farm, run west to Draynor Village with 26 onions and 5GP per dye (65GP per inventory) Bank the yellow dyes just 2 doors south, and repeat. Each yellow dye is worth 500-700 GP each(over the Grand Exchange), and is quick and easy to make, plus it's cheap.

For those who already have a few thousand GP, blue dyes are even faster. Simply buy any even number of Woad Leaves off the Grand Exchange (be sure to have 5GP per 2 Woad Leaves, otherwise you'll just have wasted money.), and grab all the woad leaves (they're stack-able!) and the GP needed, and make blue dyes, banking each inventory of blue dyes, until you run out of Woad Leaves. This technique makes about the same amount of money per dye, but is faster, and thus, makes money faster.

So there you have it, A simple way to not only save money, but make money

Useful Items

This is something I have yet to see. it is a list of useful items to keep around your desk (or where ever you normally play Runescape) or within easy access on your computer. Please note that this is just the stuff I like to have on hand. you may find some of the things I use don't suit you for some reason or another. we'll start with the stuff I keep at my desk.

I like to keep a few pads of paper, and a few pens and pencils. This is very good for taking notes. I take notes from what I see on fan-sites, how much materials i need to make, or how much money I'd need for a certain outfit or resource. it's also useful for copying answers in a quest guide where you need to say certain exact words to an NPC.

A calculator is very useful for figuring out how much something will cost. For example, when i was trying to figure out how many gold bars I'd have to smith to get a certain smithing level, I used a guide and calculated that I'd need 1,200-something bars to get 60 smithing. a calculator is much faster (and can save you lots of GP) than pencil and paper.

An extremely useful thing that you can find on Rune HQ, and may want to copy into Excel, is an XP to Level chart. This is a chart that says how much total XP is needed for a certain level. This is another item that can save you oodles of GP.

One item that is very useful is a way of sorting all the slips of paper you put your notes in or on. you could use folders, a file cabinet, a small shelving unit, or anything else of the like.

That's about it for items around your computer space, now for items on your computer.

The first item i recommend for your computer is the Runescape Game Bar. This is a tool bar that goes on your browser that updates you on Runescape-related information, such as updates, Grand Exchange offers, and Distractions & Diversions. It also has links to major parts of the official Runescape website. As of November 17, 2010, the game bar only has tree Distractions & Diversions: Tears of Guthix, receiving sand deliveries, and exchanging Hanky Points at the Thieves' Guild.

Another very helpful item is to have some Runescape fan-sites in your Favorites (bookmarks) list. This is a great time saver, because you won't have to type in the URL of the fan-sites every time you want to look something up.

How boring is it to sit and watch your character swing a hatchet at a magic tree? pretty boring. one trick to ending this boredom is to have a few podcasts on your hard drive. i don't recommend playing them straight from iTunes. I recommend playing them on Quicktime Player, or anything like it. The problem with playing off iTunes is iTunes uses a lot of RAM and will significantly lower the speed of your game. My personal favorite Runescape podcast is Runescape Weekly, hosted by Magebot
One other way to curb this boredom (this also fits under 'Stuff To Have Around Your Computer' section) is to keep a couple magazines next to your computer of any genre your interested in (if you followed my link to Flickr, you'll see I'm a train nut, so i choose railroad magazines.)

These items listed here are all easy to access, and quick to obtain. My guess is it would take you only 15 minutes to get everything together, and yet, it can easily save you many hours. As I stated before: these are just items I like to use. you may have things to add or change, and there is absolutely no problem with that. I do hope that you take the time to get these items, and try it out. if you have anything to add or change, please comment!

Zanaris

Time for another Runescape city.

Zanaris is the city the fairies live in. to access this city, you much complete the Lost City quest, and be a member. do not panic when you see that you must defeat a level 101 spirit. you can take runes in, and there is a safe spot where you can mage the spirit.

Some-what recently, Zanaris got an update. now instead of pink, it is green, but the green has a blueish tinge. they also added walls to buildings, and moved a few things slightly. Personally, i like the way it looks, but it doesn't have the advantage of no doors while cooking anymore.

Zanaris contains the Cosmic altar, the slayer master, Chaeldar and the starting point of the quest A Fairy Tale Part III-Battle at Orks Rift. The Cosmic Altar is located at the end of a long tunnel far south of the bank. there are two agility shortcuts that can significantly speed up the conventional Cosmic Runecrafting. Chaeldar, is the slayer master requiring 70+ Combat. Zanaris also contains the easiest entrance to Puro Puro, the place where you play the Impetuous Impulses mini-game.

Zanaris has some interesting Random Events, such as your character dancing and saying "All of a sudden I have an overwhelming urge to dance!" Zanaris is a good place to go if you are sick of the ordinary Runescape world, or just want something different. You may even laugh when your character turns into a pig for a few seconds, or talk to the cows and sheep. It's a different, and nice place, and you should go there sometime.

Varrock

unquestionably the largest city in the free-to-play world, Varrock is a common destination for free-to-play and pay-to-play alike. Varrock contains the Grand Exchange, the trading hub of Runescape. To those who don't know about the Grand Exchange (GE for short), it is a place where players can buy and sell any tradable item. to buy an item, you simply have the money in your inventory, put up a buy offer, and if someone is selling that item for the buyer's price, or lower, the buyer can take the item from the exchange, and the seller gets the money.

About half of the free-player quests use locations and things in Varrock, and a few even start in the area. The quest Romeo and Juliet, takes place completely in the Varrock area.

there are several ways to get to Varrock. the easiest (and one of the few available to free players) is to cast the Varrock teleport spell (level 25 magic required). if you have started the Giant Dwarf quest(to the point of gaining access to the mine carts), you can take them to and from Keldagrim, White Wolf Mountain (Fishing Contest quest required), or Ice Mountain. If you have done the Tree Gnome Village quest, you can use the Spirit Tree on the north-east corner of the GE. Other methods include Fairy Rings (Fairy Tale Part II at least to the point of Fairy Ring access), and the cannoes.

South of the Grand Exchange, is the Cooking Guild (32 cooking and a chef's hat/cooking skill cape must be wielded to enter) For free players, the cooking guild is a great place to train cooking until the player cooks lobsters/swordfish. the Cooking Guild has every ingredient for cooking apple pies, and making wine right inside (Though you will have to run behind the guild to get grain. Don't worry, it only takes a few seconds to get there).

North-east of Varrock is the sawmill. The sawmill is where members can buy planks (assuming they have the logs required in their inventory.) used for the construction Skill.

South of Varrock is the Champions' Guild. the Champions' Guild requires 32 quest points to enter, and is where the quest Dragon Slayer is started. on the top floor of the Champions' Guild contains shops selling Runite armour (no rune plate body, just rune chainbody.) Before buying from these shops, check the Grand Exchange prices of the items, because Runite equipment is often cheaper there than in these shops. In the basement is where the Champion's ChallengeDistraction and Diversion is fought.

For new players, Varrock is a great place to get swords, and long swords (up to Adamantite), though, you may want to get a scimitar rather than a long sword(scimitars are faster, and only hit slightly lower than long swords. the scimitar's speed makes up for the slightly lower hits. for scimitars up to Mithril, go to Al Kharid)

next time you need some equipment, Varrock is the place to go, because the Grand Exchange is right there.

until next time, Happy 'Scaping

Lumbridge

When you complete the tutorial, you find yourself in a nice town, Lumbridge, an ideal place for beginners. Unless your a member who has gotten to a certain point in the Achievement Diaries for other areas, when you die, you respawn in the Lumbridge castle court yard. This is also where the Lumbridge teleport will send you (31 magic, and the required runes), and where (in the regular spell book) the home teleport (1 magic, no runes are needed, but you can only cast this spell once every 30 minutes)sends you. Lumbridge contains a few shops, including Bob's Brilliant Axes, the General Store, and a fishing shop. Lumbridge also holds a church, an anvil, a furnace (for smelting metal bars), and a windmill (for making flour. there is also a wheat field next to the windmill). there are three dungeons around Lumbridge: the Lumbridge Swamp Dungeon (members only), the Lumbridge Catacombs (a low level dungeon containing monster from level 1 to level 20. great place for new players to train combat. Requires the quest The Blood Pact) and another members only dungeon in the cellar under the kitchen (only accessable after The Lost Tribe quest.) The two members dungeons are connected. for the Lumbridge castle dungeon, you will need a light source.

Lumbridge is a great place to train most free to play skills. I spent a few hours sitting at the duck pond fishing and cooking crayfish from level 12 to level 32 ( the level required for the cooking guild) Low level miners and/or smiths can head through the Lumbridge graveyard, and follow the river Lum to a mining spot with copper and tin rocks. a perfect place for mining the ores for bronze bars. there is also a furnace north-east of Lumbridge castle, and an anvil in the same hut. there are some combat dummies for those who don't have food. (though these dummies can only be used up to 7 combat/magic/ranged)

When you first reach Lumbridge, you may want to go to the shops to grab the free samples, so you can start training your skills. Lumbridge is available for both Free-to-play, and members. There is much more to Lumbridge that you will discover yourself.

Have fun and Happy 'Scaping