Runescape Dungeoneering- 99 Smithing, 90 Mining... Promethium Chestplate, here I come!

Mining gold ore at the Living Rock cavern

About a month ago, I was enjoying some Dungeoneering.  At that time, it had cost me something near 2 million gold to get someone to smith a Promethium 2-Hander and a Promethium Chestplate.  While I liked them very  much, in a way paying so much for them kind of locked me in.  At that price, it's not a good idea to keep trying new stuff.  If I bound anything else, that money's down the drain.  Also, any money paid for the newer gear would be a further loss.

Lava Mines- No ore, but easy exp.

Maybe I've already got the best stuff I currently can.  That's not the point.  The point is that I'm afraid to bind anything else.  There's no going back.  The solution seemed obvious.  Get 90 Mining, and 99 Smithing.  Simple, right?

Turning ore to bars at the Edgeville Smithy

Superheating at the bank

Well... don't know why, but I decided just as a side project, I'd  bang out those levels and then always be able to make anything needed.  It sounded like a simple plan, and besides, it ought to be fun.  It shouldn't divert me from my Dungeoneering that much, right?  Little did I know.

Going from 82 Mining up to 90 was no big deal.  It took about 4 days, and that was fine.  Spent some time in the Lava Mine.  Some for the experience, which is easy, but not as fast as possible.  Stayed there until I got my gold mining armor.  The rest of the time was spent mining gold ore in the Living Rock Cavern.  That's probably the fastest way to raise mining levels, with the ability to mine many ores from a single rock before it runs out.

The hard part... going from 90 Smithing to 99?  That was insanity.  I KNEW it would take about 125,000 gold ore being turned into bars.  I just somehow thought it would go much faster.  I mean, you take a whole inventory to the furnace in Edgeville... wear gold-smithing gloves... Have my Varrock 4 armor for the occasional extra bar smelted.  It's automated- you click to start, and then sit back while it does the whole backpack.
I somehow forgot that each bar smelted comes with full graphics animation and the 'hissss' noise.  No shortcuts, no speed-ups.  Full wait for every single gold ore to be converted to gold bar.

At some point, I read that smelting in Edgeville can give about 60k exp per hour.  That was pretty much my experience, so I give them credit for accuracy.  The same place said that Superheating can give up to 100k per hour.  At that point, I still had about 60,000 gold ore left, so I bought 60,000 Nature Runes, grabbed a staff out of the bank, and started Superheating.  They were right, it was far faster.  It also took a lot more attention and effort.  After a while I started alternating.  Some at the Edgeville furnace, some superheating.



So... slightly over three weeks of my time spent on nothing but smithing... and last night I finally got my 99 Smithing!  Wow.  That was intense.  Would have finished over the weekend, but Monique, my son, and my daughter-in-law, pooled their resources to give me a brand new (birthday) computer this weekend, and I spent the whole weekend playing around  with it.

Now I can get back to Dungeoneering!

 Late last night, did the final few thousand with Superheat.  This morning, my mouse finger was cramped... :^)  But I'm done!!!

Mining the Promethium

Now I can relax, Dungeoneer, make my own Prometheus gear.

I can even wear the cape and do the 99 Smithing emote, which I hadn't thought of until Monique asked about it! 

But no more no-lifing to 99.  It's not worth it.  With my obsessive nature, I get too absorbed.  Told Monique if I ever get a notion like that again, just hit me.  Hard.  With a big stick.

Runescape: I Am NOT The Babysitter!

Does not play well with others... but I skill great!

Recently I embarked on a side goal of getting my mining to 90, and my smithing to 99.  Mainly to make dungeoneering more fun.  During my time in the Living Rock Caverns, and world 84 in general, I've noticed a rather frightening trend.  While many of us have been upset at Jagex for allowing the 'bots to become such a major problem, I never realized how it was shaping the entire Runescape community. 

I'm a loner by nature, and enjoy quietly skilling, or roaming the world of Geilinor, without being bothered by anybody.  Most of my time is spent on world 160, where talking is restricted, and I'm more likely to be left in peace.

So it came as a shock to be on world 84, (for mining gold in the Living Rock Cavern) and see how things have changed.  Now, you're guilty of botting unless you respond to all the children clamoring for attention.  People call me by name, begging, borrowing, chasing, wanting my time and attention. 

If you don't respond, … then you're automatically a bot.  When in the world did THAT happen?  Because I like to play in solitude, I've been called names, insulted, followed incessantly, and talked about between players as if I'm not there. 

It may seem rude, for me not to respond.  To me, it's rude to intrude on my time.  When I play, I'm focused on my goal.  Unless I'm specifically hanging out with my wife, or real-world friends, in which case we usually get together to work on a skill together, or hunt penguins.  I don't generally strike up random aquaintances with strangers whose faces and names (and locations) are total mysteries.  When someone tries to take away my time, they're stealing from me.

Yesterday someone persistently continued to ask if I could loan them a godsword.  I wasn't holding one.  Wasn't standing there, yelling "Godsword for loan or sale!"  I gave them no reason to assume I'd be glad of their attention.  And if harrassing me in the bank wasn't enough, then he chased me from Edgeville, to the Varrock shortcut, before giving up.  At that point, he got quite vulgar and called me a bot, among other things.  I never responded once, not even to retaliate.  Never gave him any reason to think he deserved anything from me, yet he acted like I was the one who had done wrong.

This whole attitude, that I 'owe' another player my attention merely because they demand it, bothers me.  I play because it's fun.  Don't need anybody telling me how to play.  If, occasionally, I choose to interact with someone, it's because they were polite, or caught my interest.  Not because they have the right to demand it. 

I sure hope there are other players out there who agree.  I'd hate to think I'm offending the majority of Runescapers here :^)

But still, for the unsupervised children roaming the internet…I am not your mommy nor your daddy, and do not owe you anything.  If you must intrude on my fun, please do so courteously, don't demand, and I might actually be nice.  Either way, I'm not a bot… surly, grouchy old guy, yes.  Bot, no.

Skilling to make Dungeoneering more fun

Recently, I've gotten into dungeoneering.  Having never really tried it before, I was pretty intimidated by the massive learning curve.  My level was mid-60's due to Tears of Guthix.  (Funny how much exp a solid year of Tears will give you!)

Monique tried it with me, and we had mixed results.  She likes to dive in and try things.  I like to research, plan, and prepare.  So for her, it was very boring... waiting for me.  For me, it was a wonderful new world within Runescape.  Dungeoneering harks back, for me, to the early days of home computers.  Bard's tale, Pool of Radiance, all those games that were mainly about gaining levels and crawling dungeons.  I kind of miss those days.

As I've learned, and improved, I think maybe I can take Monique back into the dungeons and not slow her down now.  So with luck, she might be willing to duo a few floors with me.  Otherwise, I enjoy solo dungeoneering.  Even if the exp is far slower than with team play.

A couple of weeks ago, I found someone to make a couple of items for me to bind.  Promethium 2-Handed Sword and Chestplate.  Love them both, but I would really enjoy trying other things out.  I'm also looking to find a Shadow Silk Hood, and will have to give up one of the binds if I do.  But I can't afford to lose the time, or money, constantly paying someone to make new gear, so I'm hesitant to experiment, and don't want to give anything up for the hood (not that I've found one yet!).

It got me thinking how fun it would be, to make my own gear.  I'm a skiller at heart, and most of  my skills are decent or better.  So I looked up how much I'd need to mine and smith promethium.  To do it all, I'd need 90 mining, and 99 smithing.  I thought, heck, I've got 82 mining, and 91 Smithing.  Let's do this! 

The Liquid Gold Nymph sorta liked me...

It's a week later now.  I have the fancy golden mining armor from the Liquid Gold Nymph.  It took 14 real-time hours down in the Lava Flow Mine to get it all, and to have my pick guilded.  Also bought a Dragon Pick Axe for best mining.  Figured I can always sell it back later.  And at 14 million, trust me, it's going back just as soon as I'm done with it! 

She gave me this cool Gold Mining Armor

For the last week, all my game-time has been spent in the Living Rock Cavern, mining gold.  My mining went from level 82, up to 88 by Thursday.   89 by Friday, and got 90 this morning.

I'll be glad to leave this chaos behind!

Started all this last Sunday, and today is Saturday.  Now that mining is at 90, I've switched to smithing.  It'll take 125,000 gold ore turned into bars, using the goldsmith gauntlets and my Varrock 4 armor.  I banked about 17,000 gold ore while mining.  (Spent some of my time Lava Mining, which doesn't give ores.)  It cost around 24 million to buy the rest of the ore, which will become gold bars.  Then craft, probably into plain gold rings.  They resell at a loss, but not a complete loss.  With any luck, by the time I've gotten to 99 smithing, it won't be a big money pit.   Or maybe I'll forget profit, and just make gold amulets for the better experience.

Monique and me making gold bars

I know this'll take a lot of time.  But worth it, when I head back into the dungeons and can make my own armor and weapons instead of relying on someone else.  To me,  dungeoneering is all about the fun.  If I was serious about getting exp and levels, I'd team dungeon.

The good part, when it's all done, I'll be a tiny bit closer to the max skills cape.  So it's all good.

Runescape Bonus Experience Weekend Coming Up Again

Dinner should be ready in a moment

If you haven't heard yet, it's true... Runescape will be hosting a Bonus XP Weekend from the 11th to the 13th of March.  Last time we had one, I used it to get my 99 in Construction.  Monique used it on a multitude of skills, but she played consistently all weekend and really maxed out her bonus points!
     If you don't remember how it went, you generally get a 2.7x experience bonus the first 30 minutes.  The next 30 minutes nets you 2.55x exp.  Every thirty minutes, the XP bonus reduces a bit, until you get to 10 hours.  After that, you get a constant modifier of 1.1x until the weekend is over.
     Some skills don't get any improvement.  For instance, if you're using a player owned house, or the ectofuntus to work on Prayer, the skill bonus won't apply.  That's a downer, because Prayer is the main skill Monique is trying to raise.  In lieu of raising Prayer, she's going to work on Herblore.  She's always enjoyed it, and wants her next 99 to be Herblore.  Though she might spend some time working on other skills.  In particular, Agility.  We both need to raise that a lot.

Crafting...I'm Urning this experience (bad pun)

     I'm going to be working on Smithing and Crafting.  Smithing is easy, I'm smelting gold ore for that.  But Crafting is a weak spot for me.  I don't like messing around with it, and as a result, I'm pretty low on Crafting.  On the good side, now that Urns have come out, I can make Urns to raise my crafting level fairly cheaply.  But it's still slow and boring.  So I'll spend most of my XP Bonus Weekend on Crafting.  I need nearly ten levels for my Elite Achievements. 
     I think it makes a lot of sense to use the extra experience on skills you hate, so you can knock them out of the way faster... or expensive skills, so you can afford to level up more.  I'll save the free and fun skills for normal times.  Though like Monique, I may spend some of that time on Agility.  It's free, but tends to be boring.
     Regardless of how you plan to spend your Bonus XP Weekend, I'm sure Runescape has something to offer for at least some of your skills.  Even if it's not the one you most want. 
     Believe it or not, there are a small group of immature whiners (name-calling, yeah, I really shouldn't, I know) who like to complain about everything.  They figure since they had to walk to school uphill, in the snow, both ways, every day of the year, then nobody else should get to ride the school bus.  Or, in Runescape terms, since they earned their 99's the hard way (whatever way that was) then it cheapens the skill for someone else to have it easier.
     Speaking as someone with several 99's, and several skills close to 99, I don't mind.  Sure, maybe I got some of mine the hard/expensive/long way.  But that's okay, because... I was a) having fun and b) playing a game.  If someone is not enjoying the game, maybe it's time to find a new game.  If they're truly upset that someone else gets to play and have more fun than they did, maybe it's time to turn off the computer and play in the real world for a while. 
     Seriously, it's just a game.  If it quits being fun, I'll find something else to do.  I play Runescape to get away from working, jobs, responsibilities... for a while.  If it starts feeling too much like work, why the heck would I keep playing?
   
     I thought very hard about not expressing my opinions here... but decided to let it stand.  Those of us who simply enjoy the game often get shouted out and flamed by those who can't tolerate other opinions.  So, there's my opinion.  Comments are welcome, even opposing comments... as long as we can keep it civil and express our thoughts coherently.  So if you disagree, and can say so nicely, I would be happy to discuss it, and share our thoughts.