Questions

Why can we not recharge prayer points at the Ectofuntus?

When did AFK (Away From Keyboard) become AFRSWYTBFINAFKBICHGS (Away From RuneScape Watching YouTube Videos and Browsing Forums but I'm Not AFK Because I Can Hear Game Sounds)?

What is the deal with the slow response times between mouse clicks and keystrokes and RuneScape?

Does the return of Behind The Scenes mean Jagex has learned their employees aren't any better workers without deadlines?

Guides

When did using a quest guide become the Welcome to Noobville city sign?

It's great that you did Elemental Workshop 3 without any help, but are you really that much of a better person because of it?

I use quest guides most of the time. I don't see anything wrong with it. I certainly don't think it makes me a crappy RuneScape player.

Learning process

You can never know everything about RuneScape because it's constantly updating and evolving. Last year, I learned something that made my opinion of Barrows armor do a 180.

Since I became a member in 2006 and learned about the Barrows brothers and their armor, I'd been under a misinterpretation of their degradation. The RS Wiki says this about Barrows degradation:

"Each piece of Barrows equipment degrades when it is used. After 15 hours of combat, an item becomes fully degraded, at which point it is unusable (cannot be worn or wielded) until it is repaired. The equipment only degrades during combat and can be worn indefinitely without degrading as long as a player does not enter combat."

Theoretically, Barrows armor should degrade like the other degradable items in RuneScape (runecrafting pouches and crystal equipment). Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?

Not really.

What's left out of the explanation is Barrows armor doesn't lose any bonuses as it degrades. That's right; Torag's platebody gives as much protection undamaged as it does when knocked down to 25%.

It took me 3 years to even get to the point of asking myself (and Merch) whether this uber armor really degrades (as in loses protection bonuses). I ended up secretly testing it out in the Legends' guild basement. 

To sum up, other degrading equipment gradual decreases in ability until it's destroyed (the usual definition of "degrade"). Barrows, on the other hand, has full ability until it breaks (moreso a demotion or binary definition; either it works or it doesn't).

Fast SC

Asking anyone how to make construction, crafting or smithing faster and the usual answer will be "play fast sc". It's a tad more complicated than that.

The short of it is Fast SC is a clan chat dedicated to making Stealing Creations go fast by eliminating the combat aspect. Everyone is expected to wield a bow with no arrows and help by calling in the chat where the clay deposits are hiding.

Now for the long version. On the RSOF under Events is a thread titled Fast Sc: NonCombat Sc Clan 6.5 (lazy may clicky here). Read the first couple of pages to get an idea for acceptable behavior and what will get you kicked/banned. The group typically can be found on W99. Joining the chat can be done by typing "fast sc" after clicking join a clan. Hop one of the stiles into the clan holding pen and wait for the massive crowd if there isn't one. The chat will tell you if they're close to completing a game.

The clan's basic rules are pretty straightforward:

1. Always wield a bow (no arrows). Doing this means you can't accidentally attack someone.
2. No armor of any kind, this includes mage hats.
3. No thieving/pickpocketing
4. Don't put barriers around clay locations. The whole point of Fast SC is to get all the clay picked/processed by EVERYONE as quickly as possible.
5. Call out any clay locations. The code is not hard to understand once you get the hang of it (C4s = class 4 swarm for example). Frags or rags are those low level fragments. Giving calls in the cc helps make the game go faster.

They get their share of griefers, mostly in the form of pkers (typically mages). The idea is to get those sc tools as fast as possible and getting into fights only prolongs the games. If you want to pk, go over to regular Stealing Creations.

Here's my strategy which may help.

When game starts, head out to the nearest frag spot and get 5 frags. Run to the nearest kiln and make 1 of each: hatchet, pickaxe, butterfly net, harpoon and a bow. Equip the bow asap, then go hunt around for the best clay you can process. Keep an eye on the chat for clay calls because it seems the cc has scouters for that. Once you get to the best clay you can make stuff with, get 1 clay, run to a kiln and make a new piece of equipment in order to get clay faster. After that, get a load of clay and hit the kiln again. Make replacements of the old frag tools, a summoning pouch and the rest make into scrolls. Summon your familiar and deposit your frag tools into it. Now, just run around gathering all the clay you can and processing it into scrolls. I make scrolls because they can't be used for combat like arrows or runes. Keep gathering until the one minute warning appears. That means all the clay is gone and you've got to hustle your butt back to base. Deposit all your tools into your summon and use the Clay Deposit ability to send all your tools to your base. Run to base, take off your bow and deposit your inventory.

Non-Player Characters

It's got to be the Varrock cleaner, only just winning (?) over the Varrock stray dog as the most useless NPC in the game.

According to  the RS Wiki, the cleaner's job is to "help cope with the large number of ashes that often littered the streets of Varrock". 

Really? Because all I ever see this guy doing is leaning on his broom around the east bank. The only times I've seen him sweep up ashes were when someone was trying to collect them for herblore. He rather enjoys pushing his broom around the Varrock east bank. I suppose he's cleaning up all that dirt and dust we adventurers track inside (read that with heavy sarcasm). 

If he's really looking to do his job of ash removal, he might want to move his cabbage across town to the west bank and the GE, you know, where people are actually lighting fires.

Another interesting debate is who is currently the richest NPC. A couple years ago, the hands-down favorite was Saniboch, to whom you paid 875 gold to enter Brimhaven dungeon. With the addition of the achievement diaries, the entry fee is waived when you wear the KAD gloves. Alathazdrar, the demon butler, may be near the top of this year's list with his whopping 10k gold salary, but not everyone has a servant. Personally, I'm choosing the fruit tree patch gardeners and the 25k gold they get (in papayas) to keep an eye on palm trees.

How to win friends and influence people

Try this in Real Life:

1. Find the person nearest you, preferably a stranger.

2. Say, "Hi"

3. Call them, "Jerk"

4. Wait for response

Sucking it up

At the beginning, runecrafting was a fun skill to train as the levels came rather quickly and there was something new at each one. Once level 20 came around, I could make all the F2P runes. Of course, why not keep going until 30 so I can be on the hiscores? That's about all you need for F2P, the other runes will have to be bought. Around this time, I got membership. P2P comes into it with the ability to make new runes until 77 and throwing in 4 essence pouches as well. After level 77, the only things to change are more runes per essence and a schmexy cape if you're a weirdo who likes runecrafting. :P

So what keeps me slogging my way through a skill I absolutely despise?

It steams from a mix of reasons. One, I need certain runes, like astrals, laws and nats, for crafting and alchemy and I'm not buying when I only need a few hundred or so. Two, goals of all levels above 70/80/90. Three, I've finally relieved my kung-fu grip of hoarding runes Just In Case and am making deaths to sell. 

And why don't I like runecrafting?

It's a lot of work for a little pay. When first starting, 5 exp per rune is great because the experience between levels is small. Right now, I'm staring at 413k exp until level 88. Just thinking about all those runs through ZMI or the Abyss is killing my will to train it. ZMI will make it go faster, giving me nearly double the experience over the same number of death runes.