Sore feet

Quick update on how it's going. 2 more levels of agility left. If I stick with the pace I've got going, I'll get 98 next Thursday and use the BEW to chip away to 99. I tells ya, I'll be happy to see the back end of the barbarian course.

Ignore the monkey

BEW went very well for me. My only regret were those silly Real Life things - bathroom breaks, food and sleep - that held me back from getting another construction level. I'm a rarity in that I like having BEW and would like more, just not often.

Here's a bot who was trapped in the Yanille pillory for 29 hours (2p Sat - 5p or 6p Sun). I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when s/he checked their program and saw they got nothing for their efforts. :[)

The elite sections of the achievement diaries came out this morning. Seeing the update timer appear freaked me out. "WTH is Jagex doing updating on a Tuesday morning?!?!" o_O I snooped around the RSOF and KB to find out what the tasks were and was bummed to see "Kill Jad" on the KAD list. I've been expecting it since the elite diaries were rumored; Jagex would have us kill a boss of some type and Jad felt for sure since they had us kill a Ket-Zek. The Ket is on wave 32, so the only logical thing tougher would be to complete the fight caves period. I'm honestly surprised we aren't going after the DKs for the Fremmy diary. Anyway, the only tasks I haven't finished are kill Jad and 75 pts from Lapalok. Yeah, I know I don't *have* to kill Jad. It's that I'll have done/do everything in the KAD (and other diaries) except that and it would bother me more to see it unfinished. I wonder how many other players feel like me about Jad?

Other notes about the elite parts: make sure you make the pies, potions, bows, etc. within the limits of the area. I didn't take any chances, especially with the super restore potion; I stood next to Jackie the Fruit when I made it. I despise the agility arena, can you tell? :P The potatoes have to be farmed, not picked from a field. Bork does give double rewards (double cash, 2 rubies, 2 emmies, 2 sapphs, 14 crims, 10 blues and 4 greens) so definitely worth killing him now (you don't need the VAD armor with you).

ION, I had to accept I'll never cross off everything under the Achievements section of Runewise. :( Vaskor added the main boss monsters recently and I'm not much for boss killing.

9 hours

It's 96 hours to Bonus Experience Weekend.

I've got 55,908 teak planks, 1,050 pack yak pouches, it's always 2:00 pm and I'm wearing sunglasses.

1. teak planks

(If I get through all those planks, I'll move on to the rest.)

2. battlestaves

3. nightshade (super poison ++)

4. ranarr (prayer pots)

5. toadflax (Sara brews)

6. irit (super antipoison)

7. snapdragon (super restore)

8. cave fish

9. rocktails

Aftermath

It's been a full day since the bonus experience event began. I'm pretty sure most people are down to the minimum 1.1 bonus by now. Everyone has their opinion and here is mine in question format.

Was the bonus weekend a good idea?

For the most part, yes. Since this was the first time for this type of event in RuneScape, glitches and mistakes were expected.

Should Jagex do this again?

Yes. I think it benefits more than detracts, though having it as an annual event is best option.

What was up with all the randoms?

From what I understand, randoms are triggered by getting insane amounts of experience in a short period of time (which is usually suggests a player is botting). This doesn't explain why some players were kidnapped by NPCs moments after logging in. A solution might be to lock the bonus experience timer when a player enters into a random event so he/she isn't losing that precious bonus while attempting to convince Miles he's looking at a spade.

Does this devalue certain skills?

No, not anymore than Pest Control, Soul Wars and penguin points have done.

Beware the twelfth of March

If for some reason you've been living under a rock, RuneScape is having an experience bonus weekend starting March 12 to March 15, 2010. This announcement came out-of-the-blue on Friday via a developer blog.

The two top skills contending for this update are herblore and summoning. People are stockpiling already and prices are skyrocketing. For those trying to buy any secondaries/tertiaries for current training are discovering themselves locked out of supplies. Big money can be made from this and I expect the highest prices will be a day or two before and the start of the event. This is affecting the rares market as a few people are willing to trade santas and Halloween masks for ingredients.

Skills that put you in contention with other players for resources will likely be crowded, such as hunter, slayer, mining and the combat skills (attack, strength, defense, range). Expect to do much world hopping to find semi-open training spots.

Alternative to fighting for resources is training where a crowd is either helpful or non-hindering. Runecraft via the abyss on W36 and become part of the herd against revenant attacks. Run laps on the agility course of your choice. Farm trees and herbs; planting trees the day before and checking the health on Friday may be sneaky but well within the rules. Bury every bone you find since house altars and the Ectofuntus don't count.

I'm neither for nor against this event. More experience is always welcome, no matter what level the skill. I am a bit concerned over how this will affect the new skill and base prices of materials on the GE.