Runescape: Morytania Easy Tasks

Monique and I have been looking forward to the Morytania tasks.  Since the first announcement, we've hoped for a good set.  As usual, most were easy enough, but some required some extra work.  We broke it into stages.  Didn't want to use up all the fun right away.  Some, of course, we did accidentally.  Like when we used the Wicked Hood to go to the Blood Altar and make runes.  That's just part of our daily things to do, but it's also on the task list.

Other than the 'accidents', we mostly did them per plan, from easy to elite.  Starting with crating a Snelm in Morytania.  With the new tool belts, it was very easy to catch a snail, and turn it into a helm.  Having forgotten to wear a helm, I used mine for a while.

Killing a werewolf in human form was problematic.  Monique and I both threw away our Wolfbane dagger years ago, back when bank space was a lot smaller.  It had been so long, I had to Google where to find Drezel and get the dagger back from him.  Of course, once we had the daggers, the rest was simple enough.  Since we were already in the bottom of the Paterdomus church, a short run to Canifis, an easy fight, and another task done.  While we were messing around with werewolves, a game of werewolf skullball seemed appropriate.  Remembering the Ring of Charos... because without it you can't get in... headed for the Werewolf Agility Course.  I've either never played skullball, or it's been so many years it's been forgotten.  Fortunately, it was extremely easy.  One short round later, skullball was checked off the list.

Lab Clean-up Assistant under Castle Fenkenstrain followed.  I can remember training combat on these.  In the old days, (back when I had to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow) it was so crowded, there was way too much competition to make them good training.  Now, running down there, it was like a morgue.  Or lab, anyway.  Nobody else was there, and taking an 'experiment' out was quick and painless.  The hardest part was getting in... we had forgotten which gravestone to push aside.  Since there's only a small handful, there weren't too many choices.  Once we went in through the secret entrance, it was a done deal.

Doing the altar at the Nature Grotto was another blast from the past.  After so much time passes, the memory gets kind of fuzzy.  But we both enjoyed the Nature Spirit quest, and it was kind of nice to re-visit.  I had also forgotten this is one of only 2 (I think) altars that boost your prayer points above maximum.  In the same general location, the Ghasts were thick as fleas on a dog, so we remembered to bring our Druid Pouches, and went Ghast poaching.  I haven't really looked at the Ghasts in a long time, the updated graphics make them look far more impressive than I remember!

 

 

Blooming Marvellous involved using the Silver Sickle(b) to grow fungus.  My favorite spot for that has always been just a bit south and west from the swamp gate by the cemetary.  There's a spot with three rotting logs close together, and if you stand in the right place, with some luck all three will grow fungus.  

Only Going Forward, We Can't Find Reverse - I love the pun here.  Star Trekking used to be one of my favorite songs.  Temple Trekking?  Not so much a favorite.  But still, taking an easy companion through the easy route was pretty darned... easy.  For the harder tasks later, I'm going to be very sorry I never played this game before!

One last task before the Easy list is complete.  We had to harvest limpwort from the farming patch near the ecto.  I hate farming, but after all these years, have managed to get mine to 80.  Monique got her first 99 in Farming, so no worries here.  We just needed to go plant the seed, then harvest it a few hours later.  I can't even begin to remember the last time I farmed in Port Phasmatys, but guess what?  There was a full-grown Limpwort waiting for me at my patch!  It's been there for years, and never died.  So I actually finished my final task while Monique was planting her seed.  I waited until she was done harvesting, then we went and got our Morytania Legs (1).  Cool job.  Easy as pie, all the way.

Coming next:  The Medium Tasks

Runescape: Skill Weekend 3/16/12- What will YOU be working on?

Not much going on right now for me.  Internet has been having intermittent service, so I've been unable to do anything dangerous.  I keep getting logged out.  Cable guy came out today, installed a couple of new parts.  Said there was a problem with the 'forward signal' in the outside lines, whatever that means.  He's sending someone to check it out.

In the meantime, I'm stuck skilling.  Doing things that won't cause problems if it logs me out.  Which ties in very nicely to today's "Behind the Scenes" announcements.  New Extra Experience Weekend coming up the weekend of March 16 (2012).  That's cool.  Monique and I usually make it a date weekend, and let everybody know we're out of touch for the weekend.  I haven't decided what to spend the time doing.  Thinking to spend at least part of the time on Agility.  It would be good to get crafting up, too.  That's an expensive skill if you're using Black Dragonhides! I pre-bought enough Black Dragon Leathers to go up one level... from 86 to 87. 

Then there's mining.  At one point that was going to be my next 99, but events (and Runescape Updates) have sidetracked me a bit.  Or, if they allow extra tokens and exp for Dungeoneering, that's an option.  Can't remember offhand if they allowed it last time or not.  Have to wait for more details to see what Jagex's rules and restrictions are for this time around.

Problem is, there's too many skills to work on, and not enough weekend to do it in.  Monique's got 98 Defence and aiming for 99, this might be a great opportunity for her to get her next 99.  Of course, choosing how to spend that time is half the fun.  I enjoy looking through the skills, seeing what's close to another level, or what's normally an expensive/slow skill to raise.  These weekends are great.  One of the first ones earned me a 99 Construction, which was awesome, considering it's expense.  The Hati paws helped train my Agility.  Monique got 99 Crafting AND Herblore from the last time.

There's just so many choices, I'm really looking forward to it.  For now, not really sure what to do, but going to have fun doing it!

So what did YOU do during Extra Exp Weekend last time?

What are your goals for this time?

Runescape 99 Woodcutting: Might as well make it official

I guess it's official by now.  Having been undecided on my next big goal for some weeks now, I've been cutting Ivy behind Varrock Castle.  By my last post, it was pretty clear I had unintentionally set myself up to get 99 Woodcutting.  At this point, I've given in to the inevitable and sunk my teeth in the bit.  That 99's going to be mine.  At the start of this phase, my Woodcutting was early 90's, maybe as high as 92.  Sorry, just don't remember at the moment.  By now, it's up to 97, and about a third of the way to the next level.

Look like the same picture as last time?  That's because I'm standing at the same wall cutting down the same ivy as last time.

One thing I didn't realize, was how many birds nests are dropped cutting ivy.  I do wear a rabbit's foot necklace, which is supposed to help make nests drop more often.  It's been quite nice, selling off a few extra crushed nests, rings, and seeds for an additional bonus.  Mostly the seeds are junk, like acorns, but occasionally they're quite nice.  A couple of days ago I got a Magic Tree seed, Yew Seed, and Spirit Tree seed, back to back.  Can't sell the Spirit seeds, but they're great farming experience.  And I made a good chunk of change that day from selling the seeds and nests all together.

I've mentioned this before, but since there's no 'direct' income to be made from cutting ivy, it's a good opportunity to flip at the Grand Exchange.  I haven't had as much luck with flipping since the return of the wilderness and unrestricted trading, and it's gotten even slower since the bot-nuking day.  But it still works.  It's just that my old favorites don't have enough margin any more.  I used to do great with Pure Essence, maple logs, and the like.  Seems like something has to be a lot more expensive now to have any margin for profit.  At least the time limits are gone.  I can buy and sell trade limits without having to wait 4 hours.

Since my playing is pretty focused, I haven't gotten to experience much of the new updates, as far back (and including) the Dominion Tower.  It sounds like fun, but my combat stats are maxed.  I'll try it sooner or later.  Same with the Polypore dungeon.  Haven't been yet, though it sounds like a lot of fun.  I like the idea of an entire mage-combat-centric dungeon.

I did fill the new tool belt, even though it took a little work to get some of the pieces.  It may not be a high-visibility glamorous update, but in it's own quiet way, it's a very useful update, and will continue to be for as long as I'm playing.  It's nice to have all those basic tools on hand all the time, and not wasting an inventory space to have them.  I've been using it to crush birds nests, chip house teletabs for alternate destinations, and light fires.  It's especially great when I go penguin hunting, because my inventory is usually pretty full carrying all the possible teleports, runes, and general junk I find useful while chasing down the weekly penguins.

I like the concept of the Money Pouch, but it's got a couple of rough edges.  The idea of a safe-upon-death pouch to keep your money in is very cool.  Even though it DOES NOT protect your money if you die in the wilderness, that's quite understandable.  There are two problems though that baffle me.  They seemed like an oversight at first, but since Jagex has not yet corrected the problems, now I'm not sure.  The first, is the glitch when you're buying battlestaves at Naff's Staffs.  Even with money in your pouch, it says you do not have enough money.  You have to remove enough from your pouch into your inventory, to buy battlestaffs.  Should be a simple fix, but it's been days (nearly a week now?) and no change, or even mention from Jagex.  The other complaint is related.  When you remove money from the pouch, there should be an 'All' option.  Whether it's going into your inventory, or back to the bank, I hate having to type a specific amount in for every transfer.  A simple 'transfer all' option would make it perfect.

Oh well, minor complaints.  It's a step in a good direction.  I like most of these minor-improvement updates.  They make the game more fun, more playable.  Last night was penguin night, and it was my first time to run into the new npc interfaces.  I like them greatly.  The options are commonsense, look good, and are far far easier to manage.  Great job on the conversational update.  I've only seen it in a few places so far, but it looks very good!


Generally, I focus like a laser.  One thing, don't stop until done.  With the woodcutting, I'm actually considering taking entertainment breaks.  Do a little dungeoneering, fish, some agility.  Maybe even Jad.  On the other hand, it's going quite well, very easy skill to level, and all I need is 98 and 99.  Maybe I'll just tough it out.

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!