The Tip.It Times


Issue 199gp

July Observations

Written by and edited by Tip.It

There it was when I browsed on over to RuneScape.com Monday morning… my favourite announcement: Behind The Scenes. I love to read what Jagex has got planned for us for the upcoming month, even when it doesn’t always all happen in that month. Hmmmmm… updates, new quests, new skills or new additions to old skills, new NPCs to talk to, new places to go. There’s so much promise in those few paragraphs.

I must confess, I get bored easily. I’m not someone who can hang out for days at a time on Catherby beach, down in the mining guild, over by the coal trucks, or waiting for magic trees to respawn. If I want to level up my skills I have to break up the levelling into manageable chunks. I’ll make myself promises: 1,000 yews and I’ll go play Pest Control for a bit. 500 more lobsters, then a quick trip to Ardougne for a little thieving practice. That sort of thing. I could never make a pure character.

That’s one of the reasons I like quests, they don’t have the repetition factor that skill levelling so often has, even the annoying quests like One Small Favour - I must have walked all the way round the map at least twice doing that one! – are fun in a weird sort of way. Another nice thing about quests is the way they fill in the "back story" of Runescape. You get a little history, a little mythology, a little theology, some politics, a little comedy, even some science. Quests make the world of Runescape a little bit richer, more three-dimensional.

Some of the quests are quite hard. I’m having trouble with a couple of the big ones at the moment. I’ll hack away at them for a little while, and sometimes I’ll make progress, sometimes not. Sometimes I’ll get together with a few friends and we’ll help each other out. Underground Pass and Monkey Madness are two quests that are much more fun when you’ve already done them and you’re only there to provide your friends with a supply of extra food, antipoison and prayer pots. And the comedy factor of watching your friends make fools of themselves always makes it worthwhile.

There’s also the friends you meet along the way. Negotiating that nasty dungeon on Ape Atoll a couple of months ago, I met up with a player and we kept each other company through that part of the quest. We’re still friends today, we chat back and forth and trade items now and again. Now, while I wouldn’t lend him my party hat (I’m generous, just not that generous!), he’s on the steadily growing list of people that I’ll lend a helping hand to at the drop of a private message.

So the list for July looks good: we get to see some more of the Fairy Godfather (I’ve been practicing my Tony Soprano impersonation for that one!), find out about the Moon Clan, and perhaps get some new magics.

I’m not sure that the Pirate mini-game will take me away from Pest Control, but I can see it being a great opportunity for clan “warfare”. A big clan could divide and conquer itself, while a couple of smaller clans could challenge each other. It might even be possible to set up a tournament on this game, which could be quite good fun. There’s that nice certificate of completion which can be made into a screenshot and used to confirm wins and scores. Perhaps I should talk to the Events Team when they get back from their vacation…

When I first started playing Runescape, I wondered what would happen when I ran out of things to do. These days, several years later, I’m not sure that I ever will run out of things to do. The way Jagex is pumping out updates, enhancements, new quests and mini-games, it’s almost more than a person with a full-time job and a life can do to keep up with it all. I wonder what my boss would say if I told him I needed to take a few weeks vacation so I could catch up with what’s going on in the world of Runescape? On second thought, that might not be such a good idea.

Do you have any thoughts or comments about what you've just read? Want to discuss this article with your fellow Runescapers? We invite you to discuss the article in this forum topic.


Do you have any thoughts or comments about this week's articles? Want to discuss these articles with your fellow RuneScapers? We invite you to discuss them in this forum topic.


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Will you use Menaphos to train your skills?



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