Runescape: Time for a change of pace!

Finally, a change of pace!  I've been chopping Ivy behind Varrock Castle for so long, I feel like King Roald has sentenced me to a lifetime of hard labor...

The work is never finished

But after a long long time, the elusive '99' came to visit me.  Got the Woodcutting skillcape.  The emote for it was nice, but nothing that really called out to me.  So far my favorite is the Prayer Skillcape emote.  That one looks pretty cool.  The fishing one was surprisingly nice.  But the Woodcutting emote was just... nice.  Still, that's one more 99 down.  I'm not even halfway done, so it'll be ages before I get the Max Skillcape.  I'm maybe a third of the way there.

Just as Woodcutting hit the 99 mark, Jagex released the Christmas 2011 content.  Which, coincidentally, was Tuesday, the same day as the penguins are updated.  So last night, Monique and I did the Christmas 2011 event, and also our weekly Penguin Hunt.  By the way, the hunt this week has 3 penguins in the wilderness, and pk'ers were definitely out there stalking for prey.  For some strange reason, all three were easy to find, and we wrapped up our last three penguins quickly.  It was my first view of the new Wilderness Graphics update.  Nice look to it all, but the main improvement I could see was the lava.  It has a very cool bubbling and boiling effect now.

On to the big deal of the day... Runescape's Christmas 2011 event.  Graphically, Runescape is getting better and better.  The overall landscape is being improved and updated constantly, new quests show off great improvements, and in-game the changes have been quietly making the game more fun to play.  A far cry from the problems most of us suffered during the bot-nuking thing.  (Which I approved of, but I'm glad they've fixed most of the problems.)

Back to the winter wonder... I really liked the look of all the characters and environment in  the update.  The colors, the snow, the npc's facial epxressions... excellent job, and kudos to Jagex.  The content itself?  A mixed bag, but overall enjoyable.  Wasn't too fond of the snow-on-the-floor puzzle.  It wasn't horrible, I just don't like that kind of puzzle.  Can't cater to everybody every time, and I don't expect them to.  The cooking scene, though?  That was laugh-out-loud funny.  The rest of it fell somewhere between those two, with a new pet and a fun wand as memorable rewards.  And, as someone told me last night, he likes the 'tube-sock' Christmas Snake better than my baby Jad.  I think he was just trying to annoy me, but still, he's right to the point that the Snake is nice.  Graphically, he's quite funny.  I would have called him a sock puppet without eyes.  But if you talk to him, he has quite a few conversational options, and lots of things to make you laugh.  I like the snake too.  :^)

The wand, it's fun for  a while.  You wield it, and click on someone else.  It's like casting a spell on them, only the wand throws random items at the other player.  Monique and I had a minor cupcake fight, some fun, some laughs, then put our new toys away.  By the way, Diango will hold your Wand for you if you choose to destroy it.  You can also put it in your Player owned house.  You can't destroy the snake, and I'm afraid if I dismiss him, I won't be able to get him back.  But Monique was able to put hers in the house toybox.  That's good, but he pitches a fit at you for abandoning him to the toybox.  Say's you're as bad as the wizards, and does not like to be put away.  So mine's in the bank, until I get up the nerve to 'toybox' him!

Now, I'm back to ordinary Runescape.  Haven't decided if I'm going straight for my next 99, or if I'm going to play around with other things, but for now, I'm in the Lava Flow mine.  Unofficial world is 71.  I don't really like all the immature conversations that go on around me, and for the most part, I just ignore what people say.  But it's far easier to follow the crowd when the flow blockage moves, which makes it worth staying in world 71.  Given time and boredom, I might go do some Gold mining in the Living Rock caverns as well.  But the Lava Flow mine is easy, doesn't require my complete attention, and I can catch up on my reading while I play.

At least the Gold Mining Armour helps.  With the full set, there's a bonus of 2 or 3 points with each successful hit.  Not very much, but I'm level 90 Mining right now.  2 or 3 points at a time from 90 to 99, that could add up to a lot of bonus points over time.  So, unless I get bored, you can likely see me and Baby Jad on world 71 mining at the Lava Flow.  Say hi if you do... but remember, I'm probably reading a book;  if I don't notice you, don't be upset, just drop a friendly 'Hi' in the comments here!

Runescape: Clearing Ivy off the back of Varrock Castle

Haven't been doing anything too exciting recently.  Last time, I had just finished getting 99 Fishing, and wasn't sure what to do next.  Not that there aren't plenty of things to do, just hadn't made up my mind yet.

To kill some time while thinking it over, I decided to do a bit of flipping at the Grand Exchange, and chop down ivy behind Varrock Castle.  Well, that was about 5 levels ago.  I'm not doing a lot of flipping, but chopping ivy is easy, non-stressful, and I don't have to give it my total attention.  So, for a change of pace, it seems I'll be here for a while getting my Woodcutting 99.  At the moment, it's at 95, and very close to the next level.  Then there'll just be 97, 98, and 99 to  go.  I know, it sounds so easy that way.  Still, it's only a matter of time and persistence.

In between, of course Monique and I are still doing penguins, and trolls once a month.  I put all my 'free' exp points into Dungeoneering.  I actually enjoy Dungeoneering, but don't like team play.  At most I'll do a few levels with Monique, but she doesn't care for it as much as I do, so it's mainly a solo skill for me.  Being solo, the experience rate is horrendous.  Which is why all my bonus exp points always go to Dungeoneering.  Kind of balances out the slowness of it.  Hopefully, this will let me get to deeper dungeons faster, where the experience is... improved, at least.  It's a good thing DG'ing is fun!

Runescape hasn't done much in the way of updates, aside from trying to recover after all the problems caused from the bot-nuking effort.  I still applaud them for their effort, but it's been a rough time for a lot of players.  The lag/frame rate has been so bad for Monique, she nearly quit playing, and definitely doesn't play as much any more because of it.  That's sad.  I really enjoy the fact that we play side by side.

Still, this month has some notable positive changes.  I especially like the extra bank space (long overdue and much appreciated!) and the toolbelt.  Not totally thrilled with the money pouch.  I'd like the money pouch better if it had an 'All' option.  I hate having to type specific amounts of gold any time I want to just drop it all in the bank, or back in the pouch.  There's also a few glitches, like when I try to buy my daily battlestaves, I'm told I have no money.  Even though it's all in the pouch.  It has to be withdrawn from the pouch, put in my inventory, purchase the staves, then put back in the pouch.  Should be an easy fix, and I expect it to be corrected soon.  Hopefully, they'll address the 'All' option at the same time.  Then I'd be totally happy with the money pouch.

 

As far as the toolbelt, it's a pretty cool idea, and I've already found it useful as I crush bird nests while woodcutting.  Being a freak for thoroughness, of course I had to get every single item that the toolbelt can hold.  It was going pretty well until I tried to get a new Unholy Symbol.  I didn't have any more in my bank, but Scorpius (not sure if I remember his name right) over by the ZMI altar refused to give me a new one.  After thinking it over for a while, Monique remembered we'd used it making the Ivandis Flail.  So the solution was to take any Ivandis Flails in the bank, carry the with me to Scorpius' spirit, drop them on the ground, and talk to him.  Once you've gotten your Unholy Symbol, pick the flails back up, and it's done.

So after a slight hitch, my toolbelt is finally completely full.  Life is good.

Still haven't visited the Dominion tower, or the Polypore dungeons.  They both sound fun, but I tend to focus intently and right now, it's all about the woodcutting.  Maybe if I take a short break I can stop in for a visit.  They both sound pretty fun.

In the meantime, if you happen to be running behind Varrock Castle and see someone chopping ivy with their Baby Jad, it's probably me.  Wave hi!

Runescape: Bot Nuking Day and the Aftermath

Note:  No pretty pictures this time.  Just me talking.  If you're easily bored, this will certainly trigger an attack of boredom:

Well, I wasn't going to write specifically about this... but it's much bigger than I realized it was going to be.  Yesterday, 10-25-2011, was Runescape's Bot Nuking Day.  I had high hopes, but no actual frame of reference.  The scale of this event is astounding.
In advance, I was pretty pleased at the prospect of removing bots.  I hate botting in Runescape.  Aside from the practical effects on the economy, and availability of resources, I just hated the cheating in general.  Real players have worked hard for every skill they have, every reward they've earned, every rare drop they've fought for.  It seriously cheapens the value of our hard work to have someone leveling, harvesting, getting rich, all without actually playing.

So yes, I'm thrilled.  And you know what?  I'm kind of vindictive about it.  This is odd for me... I'm normally too nice for my own good.  After 50 years of being nice, it's a hard habit to break.  But in this case, I'm making an exception.
Glad.  Glad, glad, glad... happy happy glad glad.

And another thing?  Did you know some of these bots are sold?  For real money!!  Can you imagine?  I don't know what a typical cost would be, but I heard of one that costs $350...  Dang.  Can you even imagine paying that kind of money for playing Runescape?  And not even acutally playing.
Let me put this into my own twisted perspective:  Someone signs up for Runescape, as a member.  So they're paying for the privilege of playing, right?  Then they turn around and shell out big bucks for a bot to play for them.  Are they even having fun?  What's the point in PAYING to play a game, then PAYING someone else to play it for them?  Maybe you could PAY someone to eat supper for you?  Or to get a good night's sleep for you?

Okay, I do get the point that most of them don't play for fun, rather they farm resources for gold, which they sell real-world.  Shady.  Images of mafia underworld, and overseas child labor factories.  Lets keep organized crime and child abuse OUT of our game.

From another viewpoint, consider the script-writers who make their money selling illegal scripts.  Hmmm, do you think they'll be issuing any refunds?  They certainly aren't working from a foundation of honesty and integrity.  I suspect any fool who paid them money is not going to see that money back now that the bots are broken.

That's a good penalty.  Lesson learned, maybe.  For some, anyway.  I'm guessing the majority won't see the error of their ways.  They'll just keep looking for ways to cheat.  I sure hope this event will drive the bot-writers out of business.  I also hope to see Runescape pursue legal action as they've threatened to do.

My one concern is that Jagex may lose a lot of income with this bold move.  I have a ton of respect for them, and seriously hope they don't suffer financially because of it.

From reaction on the forums, it seems many other players share my exuberance.  And of course, many don't.  The forums are certainly lively right now.  Especially with buzz about the legal notice Jagex emailed many suspected botters.  It was pretty much a last chance, straighten up and we'll grant amnesty, keep botting and we'll sue you.  I'm no lawyer, and the forums are chock-full of players who think they are.  So I won't be pontificating about the legals aspects of this letter, and the rights of the poor, abused and misunderstood botters.  All I'm going to mention is actual Right and Wrong, which many players (probably children, for the majority) don't seem to comprehend. 

We all have our stories to tell.  I solo Dungeoneer a lot, so yesterday didn't get to see the result of the bot-nuke.  But today I logged in during breakfast.  I like to fish shark while I eat.  It's easy, doesn't require full attention, and I can manage breakfast while playing.  Using Barbarian techniques to fish, makes it bare-handed, so all I carry is a skills necklace to teleport to the fishing guild, and a kinship ring to get back to Dungeoneering.
Usually the docks are elbow to elbow, and players stacked on the shark harpoon spots.  This morning?  Ghost town.  Nobody.  Just me and Man(level 2) on the docks, the whole morning.  Wow.
Similar story for Monique.  She went to the Kalphite lair to collect some potato cactus... and NO bots, nobody else, at all.  She could collect at her leisure, without competing for a limited resource.  It's made the game SO much nicer.  She just read a post by someone else who went into the essence mines and there was nobody there.  Just the empty sound of echoing footsteps...

I expect a financial impact, as well.  Prices of just about everything will probably rise sharply, then taper off to it's natural level.  Yes, it'll make buying things more expensive.  But it will also make the results of our hard work more valuable.  If I fish a few thousand shark and sell them, hopefully I can actually sell them for enough to be worth my time.

Let's not forget Jagex kicking off a whole multi-day celebration of player rewards and events.  In recognition of the immensity of the event, for the next several days there are extras and bonuses.  Yesterday was triple Slayer experience.  Got my 99 while earning Baby Jad, but Monique took as much advantage of it as she could.  Sometimes real life gets in the way of fun, but she made a good effort.
Today, if I remember right, is Castle Wars bonus.  Tomorrow, Thursday, is double penguin points.  Even better, it's a new reset, so if you already did them for the week, you get to do the penguins again!  Not to mention, several other distractions and diversions will give boosts.  Evil Trees, Mining, Familiarization.
Finally, Friday will be triple experience for Soul Wars.  I've wanted a second Baby Jad for my house menagerie.  This would be a great time to earn some Soul Wars Zeal.

All told, there's quite a carnival going on this week, all because of the bot-nuking initiative.  Yay Runescape.  Good job.

In the near future, will bots make a comeback?  I hope not.  At least, not to the extreme they had been.  And what will the near-and-long term effect on the game be?

Who knows.  Like I said, the practical aspects are nice, but I'm mainly excited at the prospect of not living in a bot-filled Runescape.  At least for now, any competition will be from real players.  Any crowding will be actual people.  Cheaters won't prosper.  I hope they choke on it.

Happy happy joy joy.  Nyah Nyah.

Runescape: The Wicked Hood is Wicked Cool!

I logged in a couple of days ago, and had a strange notice on the screen.  Something about being a loyal customer, and getting a new item as a thank you...

It turned out to be the Wicked Hood, and it was a pretty nice gift.  Have you gotten yours yet?  At first glance, it's kind of confusing, because it does several things, and each thing has it's own limiting factor.

But let's go with my favorite part first.  Teleports.  You know, I always love rewards that expand my teleport options.  When Drakan's Medallion came out, I was absolutely thrilled.  It really opened up the Southwest area of the Runescape map.

The Wicked Hood offers a large number of new teleports.  When properly prepared, it will teleport you to any runecrafting altar in the game (except for the ZMI altar.)  When you first get it, it only teleports you to the Air and Mind altars.  If you feed the hat a talisman (just use the talisman on the hood), it will 'learn' to teleport to that talisman's altar.  For example, if you use a Nature Talisman on the hood, it will permanently be able to teleport to the Nature Altar... 2 times each day.

Twice a day is pretty limiting, but if you plan your uses well, it can be an extremely useful two teleports.  You can feed one of each kind of talisman to the hood, to learn all the locations.  Or you can feed an Omni-talisman to it, and it will learn all the destinations in one sweep. You lose the Omni-Talisman, but the hood does everything the Omni-talisman does, plus much more.

You might think 2 teleports a day too limited to be of use, but in reality, it can be just enough to make life much easier.  I've been using it already on my daily battlestaff purchase.  I've been getting 80 a day at Varrock (thanks to the Varrock 4 task rewards) but it's been too much hassle to go over to Lunar Island for the 20 Baba Yaga offers.  Now with the hood, even if I'm not using the Lunar Spellbook, I can teleport directly to the Lunar Altar, run north to Baba Yaga, grab my battlestaves and be back in the Grand Exchange before I know it.
Another Lunar Isle example is if you're going after Jad in the Fight Cave.  Many people like to Vengeance Jad, which requires the Lunar Spellbook.  It's always been annoying to switch before, but now you can teleport straight there, change spellbooks, and be on your way to Jad without any wasted time.

Ok, so this one came to me...

One more example.  If you hunt penguins, or have any reason to go to Entrana, this is, hands down, the fastest way to get there.  Remove all weapons/armor as usual, use the Hood to teleport to the Law Altar, and you land right by the chicken pen!  No more long runs from Draynor, Rimmington, or your personal Spirit Tree... just go directly there.

But wait... there's more!  I'm sure you've heard those pitches before.  In this case, you also get free runes, and free essence every day.  I haven't tried this yet, but here's what I understand:  You get 100 elemental runes every day, or you can pick any other rune and get 5.  If you apply an elemental talisman to the Wicked Hood, you'll get to do this twice a day.  You also get 100 unnoted essence every day... and that's upgraded to 100 Pure Essence if you used an Omni-Talisman.

Don't get overexcited about the Soul Rune position on the graphic.  There is NO Soul Rune altar as yet.  I suspect they put that in for a planned upgrade.  The interface is pretty cool, too.  Attractive graphics, and easy to understand.  (Easier than when you've only read about it.)  Though I wish the volume was lower.  With that constant beeping, I feel pressured to pick my teleport quickly, like it's trying to hurry me along.

The Wicked Hood takes the place of any runecrafting tiara, and of any talisman.  I've already sold off all my talismans except the ones I use for Summoning.  Keeps on death (you don't lose it), and if you somehow lose or destroy it, the Wicked Hood can be replaced by Tam McGrubor.  For Free.  And it will still know all the locations you've taught it.

I haven't yet explored the other teleport locations.  If I remember right, the Earth Altar is near the lumberyard.  For penguin-hunting, that could be useful.  I'm sure if I look at a map, I'll see more uses.  Like I said, new teleport locations are my favorite rewards.  Even if I never use anything but the Lunar and Entrana ports, I'm ecstatic about the Wicked Hood.

Runescape: Finally, a new goal

On the fast train to nowhere in particular

It's been a few days since the last post, thought I'd just do a quick update.  I've finally gotten past the "what do I do next" stage.  You know how it is, you finish a big project, take a deep breath, and suddenly don't know what to do next.  Getting baby Jad was a really big deal for me, and the let-down was equally big.  Just kind of wandered the Runescape lands without aim or purpose, looking for the next goal.

I did wind up making a few thousand house teletabs, sold some, kept some.  I'm thinking about making some Varrock tabs as well.  Never done so before, but that's pretty much my go-to spot in between all my running around.  It's a centralized hub for banking, buying/selling, close to my daily battle-staves, Keldagrim, Edgeville, and the Wilderness.  Plus the Spirit Tree for multiple destinations, including the Evil Trees.

So anyway, goals, wandering aimlessly, not sure what next...  Spent some time flipping items at the GE, most of my favorites have been botted to death.  There's no margin for profit any more.  So my best income is gone.  Fortunately, if you target more expensive items, it's still there.  I've had minor luck with a few things, still need to play with it.  Eventually I'll have a new list of profitable items to flip.  Of course, still doing the penguins every Tuesday, and the Trolls once a month.

As I mentioned in the last hub, Dungeoneering was a strong possible, and so was Tormented Demons, which I've never gone back to for fun and profit.  Being the 'study and plan' type, I looked up some guides for the TD's.  As it turns out, most of the guides recommend a Chaotic Rapier as the melee weapon of choice.  Sure, it's possible to do them with other weapons, but I like having the best possible options.  I'm currently 85 Dungeoneering.  Got there solo, plus using penguin and troll points, and Ancient Effigies.  Up till now, all my Dungeoneering tokens have been spent customizing my Ring of Kinship for better combat.  (And an Herbicide, for the free herblore experience while doing slayer tasks.)

The result is, only about 1/4 of the tokens needed for a Chaotic.  This is starting to come together.  To do Tormented Demons, I want a Chaotic weapon.  To get a Chaotic, more Dungeoneering is needed.  Both of my potential goals are hand in hand.  And the Chaotic weapon will be useable in many other situations.

In most cases, the next goal is usually something that helps me accomplish something else.  Kind of like getting Herblore to 96 for Overloads, so I can then use Overloads with Jad in the Fight Caves.  It's the same this time.  Only both goals go hand in hand.  Eventually, I'll make a run for 120 Dungeoneering, and this helps with that.  For now, I'm enjoying working on the skill, with the goal of doing Tormented Demons for fun and profit.

It's all good.

Runescape: What next?

Is there life after Baby Jad?  After spending weeks dedicated to attaining a bouncing baby TzRek-Jad, I'm still kind of wondering.  At first, I had that euphoria you get when a hard task is done.  Take a deep breath, relax, and enjoy it a bit.  Trouble is, It's been a week or more now, and I still haven't really gravitated to another goal.  I had a kind of short-term one.  Decided to get Herblore high enough to make my own extreme potions and overloads.  Too many guides these days suggest overloads, and I hate not having access to them.

To start with, my Herblore was 89.  Already high enough to make one or two of the extremes.  Given enough money, Herblore is lightning fast to raise.  So I spent well over 35 million buying enough ingredients to make 5000 each of all the extremes.  By the time I was done, herblore was 97, and I had all the extremes ready to use as needed.  So I made 100 3-dose Overloads, combined them down to 75 4-doses, and that should hold me for a while.  And with all those extremes in the bank, I'll just have to buy Torstol leaves on an as-needed basis.

While getting Overloads required time and focus to accomplish, it wasn't, in the grand scheme of Runescape, as big of a goal as I usually set.  Once done, I went back to the Barrows brothers and burned off a few overloads just to see how well they worked.  The results were good.  Moment to moment, I could see improvement in my combat, but the biggest difference was the time for each run.  Without overloads, I tend to take 10 minutes per round.  With overloads, it was more often 8 minutes, or even 7.  That's a 20 to 30 percent improvement.  

 Highly satisfactory.

After that, I figured it was time to make money again.  So I spent a few hours with the Aviansies.  Nothing super exciting here.  Avies drop noted Adamant bars 4 at a time, and fairly often.  They also drop low-end Runite items now and then.  Between selling the bars, and hi-alching the rune stuff, wound up bringing home 1.3 million in gold and adamant bars.    

Next I went penguin hunting.   It was Tuesday, and Monique and I try to spy all the penguins as soon as possible.

After the penguins, I'm making House Teletabs.  Not fast money, but solid and dependable.  Besides, my personal teletab stock was getting low.  I like to keep around 1000 in the bank, and after a long time using them, had gotten down to about 200.  I don't know if that's typical or not, but it's always worked well for me.

For the moment, that's where I'm at.  Next up?  Not sure, but thinking maybe back to Dungeoneering.  It's the only combat skill left to max out.  I'm still interested in Jad, and have been thinking about Tormented Demons too.  Haven't made up my mind for sure.  But I know there's still plenty to do!

Runescape Troll Invasion - New Solo Distraction and Diversion

Troll Invasion came out just yesterday.  Monique and I did penguins, and didn't feel like figuring out something new so waited till today to try it.  I'm not usually big on mini-games.  But this one gives experience that you can put on any skill you want. 

Get the trolls close enough, and your ranged support will help you.

Turns out it's a good thing we waited a day.  Apparently it was still a bit buggy, and a lot of players wound up not getting credit for this month's attempt.  Yes, this months.  You can play it as often as you like, but you only score the big exp on your first attempt of each calendar month.  So brace yourself, get ready, and do your best straight out, because you'll have to wait a month to try again (for points, anyway)!!
There's two sides to it, you can just go and fight all the way through, or you can work defense to protect the keep.  Monique took defense, and I took combat.  She did well enough, scoring about 22k of xp.  I was very happy with mine, finished all 20 waves and got 42k of xp, which went on my lvl 73 dungeoneering, raising me up one level.
Since we went together, I didn't get to watch Monique's part.  It sounded like she did pretty good.  But for me, the combat was pure fun.  Lots of variety, good graphics and sounds, and the occasional bit of humor.  This being a 'safe' minigame, there was no risk of losing anything by getting killed.  Just the same, I'd rather not die.  I've heard you get better points scored if you don't die. 
If you enjoy combat, this is a blast.  Jagex makes it pretty easy to survive.  Not that you won't take damage, just that it's pretty easy to manage your resources, and you have plenty.  I still brought my own, and definitely needed them near the end, but only because I let an explosive troll blow my resource table up.  Not on purpose, I didn't even see it happen.  But I went to heal up and my table was blown away!
The Troll magicians were cool, especially their ability to summon me to them.  It was awesome to see me being dragged rapidly from wherever I was to fight with them.  And welcome, since I really wanted to kill the magicians as a top priority.  It was also pretty neat to see summoners conjuring creatures up. 

Of course the big news was the big guy himself, Cliff.  He was huge, and made my Steel Titan look tiny.  Of course, the bigger they are...  and wow, when he fell, he fell hard.  It's a little bit like the fight cave and Jad.  You go through waves to get to the boss, and he uses multiple styles of attack.
I've read that you should vary your protection prayers according to which attackers your facing.  I tried that, but eventually realized it worked out just fine if I left my prayer on Deflect Melee and Turmoil (Ancient Curses) the whole time.

Also, based on advice from Wiki, I took my best melee armor, best summoning creature, and 3 weapons.  Whip, Rune Crossbow, and Dragon Claws (for special attack on the boss monster).  Whip for normal fighting, crossbow for the ones that refuse to come into melee range.  Brought 5 Prayer Pot (4)s, and the rest of the inventory was Rocktails.  Only used 2 Prayer pots, and about 1/3 of the Rocktail.
With this setup, it was pretty easy to just bull through.  Didn't really need any finesse or skill, just kept prayer on and kept fighting.






All in all, this was a very fun diversion, and I loved getting 42k of exp for just a few minutes of play.  I assume if I'd put it on a higher skill it would have been more, but 42k was great for the skill it went on.  We only tried it the one time.  Based on what I could see of Monique's part, I think the combat was more fun.  I might even come back before the new month and try the harder combat, the one with only 7 (very intense) waves.  Just to get a feel for it before trying it for real points.  I'm sure it'll be more challenging than the easier 20 waves.

If you're thinking about trying it, I'd say give it a shot.  It was enjoyable, and well worth the time spent!