Runescape: Mad Scientist Outfit, Combat Beta, and Freezy

This weekend marks the last event required to earn the Mad Scientist Outfit.  The ongoing Combat Beta Testing opens the Beta worlds to all members during weekends.  Each weekend has a scheduled event, though not all events are required for the Mad Scientist Outfit. 
To earn the outfit, you must have participated in 4 specific Beta events.  First came the Castle Wars game, on the weekend of July 6th.  The next event to count was the Duel Arena, July 27th - 30th.  Last weekend (August 3-6) was Pest Control.
There was some confusion regarding an event during the July 20th weekend.  It was listed as Soul Wars, and either stated or implied that it would count toward the costume.  Later, we found it did not count.  Not a major mistake, since Soul Wars is a no-risk game, and winning or losing didn't matter. 

None of these were any problem.  Log in, do your time, play the best you can figure out... neither of us like to play team-based minigames, so our strategy usually revolved around killing everything we could.  Except for Duel Arena, which only required us to stage a friendly contest.  We were going to each take a turn winning, but when I won the first one, we both got the 'Congratulations' notice.  So we didn't play a second round.

Where we really ran into trouble was this weekend, August 10-13.  The assignment was Barrows.  Okay, no problem, we're Barrows pros.  I figured, 5 minutes, 10 tops, in-out and we're done. 
What I didn't count on was how completely different everything is in the Beta Combat.  I've played with the Beta Combat some.  Know the basics of customizing the action bar.  Thought that, if anything, using the bar would just make Barrows easier. 
The biggest problem was simply one of overcrowding.  It's extremely difficult to see what's going on, and react intelligently.  Since the Enhanced Excalibur no longer heals, I put Rejuvenation on the action bar, along with a mix of magic, melee, and ranging choices.  Then just kept an eye on my health meter, and tried to eat or heal whenever it got low.

Most of the brothers were easy enough.  But Akrisae...I guess nobody told him he was supposed to be the easiest one.  He killed Monique several times.  Would have killed me twice, but I teleported out when I saw it coming. 
Once in the dungeon area, I picked a door and crossed back and forth until Kharil, my last brother, came out to play.  Then I just ran the rooms until I got there.  Things were not as easy as they used to be, but that's probably from a lack of strategic planning.  Proper set-up would likely have made it much easier.
Monique wasn't as lucky with her brothers.  Her final was Akrisae.  Like I said, he killed her a few times.  The last time, it looked like they were going toe to toe.  Anybody's guess who would win.  At the final moment, she teleported, rather than be killed again.  Going back in, Akrisae never showed back up.  Open the chest, search it, done.  Easy... 
We really thought that meant she had killed him as she was teleporting away.  Didn't find out until today (from Wiki) that you don't actually HAVE to kill the last brother.  Just search the chest. 

Now we're waiting for our new costume.  There's no official release date for the Mad Scientist Outfit yet.  The Wiki doesn't have a date, but states the 5-piece outfit will be awarded on the live game "at the end of the combat beta." 
They also clearly state, if you miss any of the required 4 events, then you get nothing.  Not even a partial costume.  That would be really frustrating!

Aside from the Combat Beta events, I've been (slowly) working on thieving, and doing Social Slayer with Monique.  We've finally earned Freezy, the baby Ice Strykewyrm pet.  He's really pretty awesome.  Considering he's a lot easier to obtain than Baby Jad, I'm surprised more people don't have Freezy.  So far, though, I've only seen a couple others around.
Freezy has nice graphics, a good mix of reactions when you interact, and when you run, he follows below-ground.  At times, he's actually ahead of, or directly under, my character. 

Next we're working toward a pet baby Aquanite.  I'm not convinced I really want one (don't like the Aquanites) but Monique does.  So we'll continue to do Social Slaying at least until then.

As far as the combat upgrade, I still think it's going to be good.  But it's such a massive set of changes, it will require new strategies for nearly everything.   I'm looking forward to all the new guides that should be released.  People writing them will have to differentiate between "Old combat style" and "New combat style".  There's going to be a ton of useless guides on the internet.