It's good to have Runescape goals

Well, I've been laying low recently.  I just got back into my writing
after the last long break, when I decided maybe it was time to get
some things done in Runescape.  Firstly, to level up all skills
necessary for every Elite Achievement Task.  So I started making
Decorated Fishing Urns, then Decorated Cooking Urns, until my
Crafting was high enough for the Relleka requirements, if I take a
skill-boosting potion with it.  Once Crafting was high enough, that
left me with a stock of Cooking Urns in the bank.  I also had several
thousand uncooked Rocktail in the bank, so decided to cook them up
before continuing with the skills.
In the process of cooking the Rocktails, I made it to level 98
Cooking, then about 1/4 of the way to 99.  Figured, what the heck,
let's get the Cooking 99.  So I bought something like 4,000 raw
Rocktail, while at the same time selling 4000 from my stock of cooked
Rocktail.  By the time the new ones were cooked, my stocks were
replenished, and a small profit of a nearly 200k had been made.  It
was kind of an accidental 99, but I'll take it any way I can!
At that point, the only skills that still didn't meet the Elite
Achievement requirements were Agility and Slayer.  Slayer only needs
about 3 levels, no big deal.  It's fun, so I don't mind working on
it.  Agility, on the other hand, needed around 10 levels...  That's
going to be a LOT of running around the Ape Atoll course.  I'm
sticking with it because once you hit level 75, you quit falling. 
Otherwise I'd go do the Dorgesh-kun circuit.
Looking at all the agility running, I decided this might be a good
time to focus on Jad for the Fire Cape.  I truly, deeply, suck at
prayer switching.  If I didn't want the Elite Achievement rewards so
much, I just wouldn't mess with him.  But, I really want the Elite,
so Jad's been seeing me a lot recently.  I got him down to the
healers time before last.  Then the next time, he killed me before I
could even find him.
I've combed the net looking for ways to beat him.  With very high
combat stats, and a lot of luck, I might be able to dragon claw,
vengeance, and ancient curse him to death.  Maybe.  On the other
hand, if I get really good at prayer switching, Jad can be beat
entirely by Deflect prayers from the Ancient Curses.
In the meantime, it's Runescape's Extra Experience Weekend (their third one).  Monique and I have been grinding away at those skills that we hate.  For me, that's agility.

No pics right now, this is just a quick update.  I want to spend all the time I can getting my bonus experience from Runescape.  Even though at this point I'm down to the 1.1% bonus, it's still extra.
After the weekend's over, I'll update, with some pics too.  Hope you're making the best of it, too!

Runescape Shortcuts - Hidey Holes and Rope Racks - A "How To" Guide

You can read the blog about the guide... or just click on the link here for the actual guide:
Runescape Agility Shortcuts: How to Build Hidey Holes and Rope Racks Guide
And of course:
Runescape Cooking - Feel the Burn:How To Cook Rocktail Fish Without Burning: What You Do From Level 93 to 95

Been really hopping recently - Aside from playing with my new Lenovo Ideapad S10-3t Netbook Tablet Computer (my caps- I really love this little netbook!) I've been catching up on all the work (and play) that's fallen behind.  You may have noticed several new Runescape blogs in the last few days.
Today's blog is short and sweet, and relates to the hubpages I write (see sidebar.)  With all the updates recently, there's been a lot going on in Runescape.  And with so many BIG changes, there's been a minor change that didn't catch a lot of notice.

     The shortcuts update, Hidey-Holes and Rope Racks.  This small, unsung update is a lot more important than you'd suspect.  Sure, the Rope Racks aren't such a big deal.  After all, how many of us truly use the Eagle Transport System that much?  But the Hidey-Holes are a very nice change.  Out of all the Runescape agility shortcuts, the crossbow-and-grapple shortcuts have been, as a class, the most useless.  I mean really, who just happens to carry a crossbow and grapple around by accident?  If you've got them with you, you planned for it.
     As a result, most of us ignore those shortcuts.  Jagex finally did something about it... with a little work, those shortcuts will forever after be easy to access!
     ...Yes, I did say 'a little work'.  Don't panic, it's not that hard.  When I first looked into it, I realized there were the 'repeaters' all over the internet; you know, the sites that just cut and paste quotes from Jagex.  And there were good informational sites that offered dictionary definitions of certain aspects.   But nobody had bothered yet to tie it all together into one step by step guide.
     I play a lot.  Obviously, since I blog about it.  But I've only done one guide previously.  There's no sense writing a guide that's already been written about 50 times or more all over the internet.  So my one and only guide up until now has been the 'cooking Rocktails' guide.  I wrote it because it was a helpful technique, very useful between cooking levels of 93 to 95, and nobody had written one.
     The Hidey-Hole and Rope Rack guide came about in the same way.  I couldn't find one, and it seemed like a useful idea, so I wound up writing it myself.  I hope you find it useful!

Runescape Skilling - Just Got Better with Urns for Cooking, Fishing, Mining, Smithing, Woodcutting, and Prayer

This month's skilling update is a pretty cool one... or not, depending on your point of view.  As always, when Runescape gives us a new way to skill, or improves and existing one, there are complainers.  People with 99's who think this somehow devalues their skills.  While I can understand their feelings, I think they forget it's a game, played for fun.  If something changes to make the game more fun, I'm all for it.  Especially if it reduces the boring tedium required to earn a 99 in anything.
 

I like to have fun.  But I also like leveling up, even though it can be a real pain.  If I can level up, and have more fun doing it, that's the way the game should be.  If you followed the complainers logic to it's bitter end, we'd all still be playing original  Runescape Classic, in all it's glorious hand-drawn, flat 2-d art.  Because the complainers would veto any changes that made earning a skill easier.

Okay, enough griping.  Sorry, got off topic slightly.

The new Urns are a pretty spectacular addition to certain skills.  First, in their very creation, you earn exp in Crafting.  Way cool, because I need to improve my crafting level, and these are cheap to make, while mildly profitable to sell.  (I would say Wildly profitable, but they sell slow at the moment.)
Then they can be crafted to speed up experience in Cooking, Fishing, Mining, Smithing, Woodcutting, and Prayer.  I've only used the Fishing Urns so far, but the exp gain is very nice.  

With the best urn, I get 1900 exp per full urn.  I've been fishing Rocktails, with a Rock Lobster.  I now bring a few urns with me.  While they do enhance exp gained, and quite nicely, there's an even better aspect.  They give me something new and entertaining to consider while I fish.
Just imagine- fish, fish, fish, kill some bait, fish, fish, fish... that gets a little boring after 90+ levels.  Now, every now and then I get a notice.  "Your urn is now one-quarter full"... "Your urn is now half full"... and when the urn is full, I actually get to manually initiate the teleport.  Watch my little guy put the urn down, see it whisk away...

If it sounds like I'm teasing, well, maybe a little.  But really, I'm glad for the extra distraction.  It provides a little more entertainment, yet if I'm reading something, (or writing a new Runescape blog) there's no hold-up because I'm not paying attention.  Sometimes I miss an urn being filled up.  When the next one tells me, and I go to teleport it, that's when I realize I had more than one.  I still get all the exp, no waiting, hold-up, or penalties.
Bear in mind, I've only tried it with fishing so far, which I like very much.  

Monique has used the Prayer urns, and that looks pretty good too.  Prayer got an even better boost than the other skills did.  Now demons drop ashes that can be used for prayer, and are very effective used with the Prayer Urns.  Monique has been working very hard, and spending a fortune, trying to raise prayer.  Now she'll have a new tool to use.  She likes to multi-task, so rarely does Abyssal demons unless it's a Slayer task.  But I told her she should just camp out at the Abyssals, collecting the odd Abyssal Whip, and earning (urning) Prayer exp.  Sounds like a win-win to me!

The other update, making agility shortcuts easier, I haven't looked at yet.  Maybe this weekend.

Runescape Grand Exchange: Bad flip makes money after all... and experience!

Recently I made a bad decision with my Runescape investments.  I'm a low-budget investor who likes to flip commodities.  Usually make between one million and three million profit a day.  Problem is, outside of the gold I have tied up in flipping my investments, I keep spending as fast as I'm making.  It started when I decided to go for 99 Construction.  I nickeled and dimed my construction skill, until Jagex started hinting about their 2nd extra-experience-weekend.  At that point, I decided to jump into merchanting.  Took a 10 million startup, and began flipping.  By the time the weekend arrived, I had over 100 million gold (this is Runescape now, not real cash!)
That was just barely enough to buy all the oak planks I needed to dungeon-door my way to 99 Construction.  After that, I was too broke to build my dream home, so I kept investing in the grand exchange.  But before I got very far, they announced the Elite Achievement Diaries.  Well, I think of myself as a high-level player.  At least, my character is level 138 and most skills are decent.  So as a point of pride, I want to get ALL the Elite achievement rewards.  I had the Ardougne elite already, and decided the next thing I wanted was the super-enhanced Excalibur from the Seers Village elite tasks.  Problem was, my herblore level was abysmal. (Not abyssal... abysmal!)
It took weeks to make enough money to raise my herblore.  And even then, I Evil-Daved a skill-boosting stew for the last 5 levels worth.  Then back to home-building.  Still flipping on the G.E., and I'd started fishing and cooking Rocktails. 
It was the Rocktails that did me in.  I saw how well they sold.  Decided to take my current spending money of 20 million, and buy 10,000 Rocktail to flip.  Everything went well, right up till the time to sell them.  They sat for days, then the price starting tanking.  I didn't want to lose that much money.  So I pulled them out of the GE, and started cooking.
By the time I'd cooked 10,000 Rocktail, I wound up making a small profit, using some money to invest in Death Runes for flipping, keeping a few Rocktail for myself.  And with my current gold of 14 million, today I bought back the Armadyl Chestplate I sold for Herblore money. 
Yay!... I'm broke again.  Okay, so starting over. 
Oh, and cooking 10k Rocktail?  My cooking skill went from 95 to 97!  I guess it worked out okay after all. 
Bit of quick advice... for a small and steady profit, without a lot of risk, flip Maple logs.  I buy 25,000 at 2 gold below median, and sell it at 2 gold above median.  I make 100k Runescape money every buy/sell flip.  It may not be much, but it's an easy way to get started.  The risk is low, and they usually sell quickly for me (bearing in mind the GE 4-hour buying and selling delay.)