Everyone’s heard of Christmas in July, right? Well today I sit here jamming to some Christmas music as I write about July and the rest of 2009.

July

Mobilising Armies

On the 8th we were given the ability to Mobilize our Armies to fight against our friends-Enemies (Noone has friends in war, right? ;)). Once you find 3 ‘enemies’ to play against-Kill head on over to the Mobilising Armies base West of Oo’glog. This can be done multiple ways. If you enjoy running a bit you could glide down to the Feldip hills with a Gnome or walk into an odd ring of Mushrooms somewhere and appear at the hills also. Both ways are just a short jog south-west to Mobilising Armies. Alternatively if you’ve befriended a giant tree with a spirit you could teleport right outside or if you’re the Sea-type you could charter a ship to Oo’glog. Of course if you prefer good ol’ magic you could enchant an emerald ring and teleport there with it or just use 1 law, air, and water rune to teleport directly. Ofcourse you could walk from where ever you are but your ‘enemies’ might’ve started playing with-Killing someone else by the time you got there.

Once you’re there you’ll need to go through the Tutorial. Junior Cadet Mal will tell you all the basics about the game. Once done with that you can compete with your ‘enemies’.

Before playing a game you might find you need more squads. The only way to get more is to recruit them. Of course people won’t work for you for free, so you’ll have to get some Investment Credits to pay for your mercenaries. ICs can be acquired by trading many different items, usually one’s not many people want, to Junior Cadet Mal. Some good items are willow logs, fire runes, and bronze bolts as these are easy to acquire, cheap, and give atleast 1 credit per gp.

‘Squads’, sometimes referred to as ‘Mercenaries’ come in 3 different races, Elves, Dwarves, and Goblins. Each of these use a corner of the combat triangle. Mage, Melee, and Range (respectively as listed). Each race also comes in a ‘light’ and ‘heavy’ version. Light ones are weaker and faster and heavy ones are stronger but slower.

There are four different kinds of games that you can Mobilize your Armies in:

Conflict: Free-for-all, kill or be killed.
Siege: Like its name implies, you have to siege something. It just so happens that your sieging the fortress of a renegade knight. The first one to break through a wall wins. Of course destroying the other teams not only helps make this easier but also gives you a bonus.
Hoard: Gold is appealing to all, no? if you can steal 100,000 units of gold from the volcano before the other teams do you’ll win. Of course destroying the other team would work too. Or you could just kill their gatherers and collect their gold!
Rescue: Ever seen a Tzhaar afraid of lava? Surprisingly in this game you must be the first team to save 28 Tzhaars. Eliminating all other teams also works…or you could steal their Tzhaars!

Should you be able to command your troops well enough to gain victory you’ll be rewarded with Reward Credits. RCs can be used to claim spoils of war, buy Unifroms (merely for looks), buy a quest kit or locator, and to Imbue rings. Spoils of War are anything from ore to logs which can be claimed for a certain amount of reward credits after a game. Quest kits hold one of each of the following: Rope, tinderbox, spade, needle, pestle and mortar, steel pickaxe, thread, bucket, bowl, bullseye lantern, machete, knife, waterskin, plank, hammer, saw, steel hatchet, and a chisel. In other words, many items commonly used in quests. Locators can teleport you to areas with lots of a certain resource (Becareful though because sometimes these teleport you to an area in the Wilderness). Imbued rings give a combat bonus on top of whatever they might normally do. In the case of Fremmenik rings, their boosts are doubled (meaning Berzerker rings can give +8 str and archer rings give +8 ranged).

Mobilising Armies is Runescape’s 30th Minigame.

FTFPvPBWG

I wouldn’t suggest using Faruq’s Tools for PvP Bounty World Games on Bounty Worlds unless you plan to play with your prey. Released on the 15th, Faruq’s tools for games consist of a bag of dice, a skullball(like an eightball at the dollar store), Voting hats and a counting orb (making it easy to decide what the majority wants to do), Hide and Seek rings, Racing boots and a starting horn(making it easier for legit races), Marker seeds used for growing marking plants, An empty bag caller (which can only be used if it’s the only thing in the user’s inventory), a Timepiece(or watch as some call it) which records time, and a tick counter.

Now, about those PvP worlds.

People were complaining that other’s were able to one-item in the Bounty worlds so now you’re always skulled when entering a Bounty World and can no longer use the protect items prayer. Because of this you also must now be in a safe spot before you’ll be allowed to log into a PvP world.

Just a few days after this Jagex added +1 worlds because those who had been using Godswords, Saradomin swords, Dragon claws, and the like now couldn’t do so for risk of losing them (though that’s kind of what the wilderness is for, RISK). On these +1 worlds you’ll always keep your most valuable item. No more, no less. You can’t use the protect items prayer and you can’t lose the ability to keep your one item.

This way PvPers can fight each other with two Godswords and be safe or they can fight with two Godswords and not be safe. Basically if you don’t like losing your items but want to get others’ items then play on the +1 worlds. If you like taking risks then use the normal Bounty Worlds.

The Curse of Arrav

The 21st see’s yet another part of the Mysteries of the Mahjarrat series be released. This time it’s about Zemouregal and his cursed minion Arrav. As we all know Arrav was the hero who saved Varrock years ago but is now under the dreaded control of the Mahjarrat Necromancer Zemouregal. This time we go to the desert to speak with Ali the Wise who knows of a way we might beable to help Arrav, by stealing and preserving his heart. You’ll have to sneak into Zemouregal’s base in the wilderness again to do this and then return the preserved heart to Ali the Wise.

Should you survive and return to the Wise Ali he’ll reward you with 1 Quest Point, 30,000 Mining xp, 14,000 Thieving xp, 9,000 Ranging xp, 9,000 Agility xp, 9,000 Strength xp, 4,000 Summoning xp, and 2,500 Slayer xp. As well as some background information on the Mahjarrat should you bring some articles to Ali.

Poison Arrow Pub and the Aquanite

Anyone remember the old pub south-east of the south-eastern Ardougne bank? Well on the 28th it was officially named the Poison Arrow Pub and now has some new owners.
Marion, once the leader of a merry band of bandits, now owns this bar and serves drinks to passer-bys and polishes her archery trophies.
Geoff, an avid fletcher and arrow thrower(yes, thrower, not shooter) sits around in the bar fletching arrows. He tests these by throwing them at the dart board across the room. He once tried to join the Ranged Guild but somehow failed his test. Nobody knows quite how he did this except that it involved a swallow and an unfortunate squirrel named Sparky.
Sparky, the poor injured squirrel, never healed fully after the incident with Geoff. He now lives in the bar with Geoff caring for him. Those experienced enough with summoning can speak to him (level 70 summoning).

If you get thirsty while here you can buy a beer or try a new Ranger’s Aid which increases ranged by 2 and decreases defence by 5. If you buy a mature Aid your range will be raised 3 levels and your def lowered a random amount. If you find youself hungry you can buy a skewered kebab which heals 9 hitpoints.

If you’re like me and find fighting new Slayer creatures more appealing then outfit yourself with magic defense and head on over to the Fremmenik Slayer cave and run all the way to the end. You’ll find the new slayer creature, the Aquanite! One of the best things about this creature is that it drops the new Ranging Amulet which adds +15 ranged attack and +10 magic defense, making it the best ranged amulet in RuneScape.

Other small changes

On the 23rd RuneScape is released in Brazilian Portuguese.
On the 28th players now lose 20% of their EP if they teleport while in combat.
Many weapon and agility animations were also updated or ‘tweened’ on the 28th.

August

Fur ‘n’ Seek

August wasn’t a very active month, but on the 10th we were able to play some Fur ‘n’ Seek with the Odd Old Man. This time the OOM (or maybe his Mumble, Mumble, backpack?) wants HIDES also. You’ll have to butcher and skin a black and white unicron, a bear, a fox, a Fenris wolf(which never existed before this update, they’re just named gre wolves), a hobgoblin(eww?), a rock crab (Don’t ask), a cave crawler(don’t forget the anti-poison!), and a cockatrice(no 2handed weapons please!). Once you gather the pelts you return to the OOM and have to tan them. Once you do that you give them to him and you’re done.

Easy way to get 2 quest points, 2,500 hitpoint and slayer xp, 1,500 prayer, and 500 crafting and firemaking xp.

Ofcourse the OOM has a wishlist of bones he’d just LOVE to have. So if you’re in the Chirstmasy mood you could go get them for him. Ofcourse doing this will also reward you. Not only will your bone sack or ramskull now tele you to the OOM’s place but he’ll also give you 10,000 slayer and 7,000 prayer xp. You can now also fight his pet(or is it what was in his backpack?) once a week for an additional 1,250 slayer xp and 1,000 prayer xp each time.

A Menagerie of small changes

We got a Menagerie of updates on the 18th. The first of which was the addition of a new POH room, the Menagerie. In here you can store many of your pets, feed any that are currently in your inventory, and even recharge your summoning points. It’s a great little room if you use summoning alot near a house portal or if you’re like me and have a ton of pets.

The 18th also saw an update to Mobilising Armies. With this the Conflict scenario was changed to 2 player, the squad levels were removed, games start much faster, and you now get a full refund when selling items back to the Mobilising Armies’ rewards store. Locators and Quest kits are only refundable for 80% of the price though.
The summoning orb near the mini-map was also given a one-click option to make it easier to use familiars.
Butlers also are now more knowledgable when it comes to fetching things from the bank and will always follow you around unless told otherwise.

Unfortunately that’s it for August. Just updates on the 10th and 18th.

September

Rune Tek 5

On the 2nd two good things happened:

One, I was born 17 years ago.
Two,
Jagex released their new RuneTek 5 game engine. This upgrade allows Jagex to do more things easier and fixes some bugs such as unintentional mis-clicking in busy areas and stuck offer progress bars in the Grand Exchange. This update was quite a few months in the making and in all Jagex re-wrote over 50,000 lines of code! One of the most notable features of this update is the combined game engine which allows one to launch a single applet and log into any world on high or standard detail without changing pages.

A few other small changes this allowed was RuneScape themed cursors when playing RuneScape, an actual percentage gauge that says how much special attack energy you currently have, and a cleaner world select dialog.

Changes to Autocasting and Special shops

The need for a staff to autocast combat spells was removed on the 2nd also. You can now autocast any combat spell from the normal and Ancient spell books without a staff. This change makes some staves like the Void Knight mace and Ancient staff almost useless since their main use before was autocasting their spells. Jagex, however, has foreseen this and made those two staves, as well as a few others, give a 10% damage bonus when used. The staves that give this bonus are: Ahrim’s staff, Master wand, Void Knight mace, Zuriel’s staff, Corrupt Zuriel’s staff, and the Ancient staff. Spells that require a focus-staff(God spells, Slayer dart, and Iban Blast) still require their respective focus-staff however they can now autocast their special spell.

Another thing that happened today was the personalizing of almost every shop in Runescape. What this means is that now every shop’s stock is set to each player(almost ‘instanced’, if you will). Even general shops didn’t stock items other players had sold to them anymore. With this update the only things you could find in a shop were things either you had sold or the shop stocked normally. Jagex says this allowed them to alter the minimum and maximum values of some items on the grand Exchange.

Due to the shop update the rewards of the Karamja and Varrock diaries were altered slightly. Since the Karamja one’s used to give better prices all around Karamja they weren’t as useful now that all the shops are personalized. To fix this they added a pirate named Dell Monti who will give players pineapples daily if they speak to him with their gloves equipped. The Varrock armor has been given an increased chance of skull sceptre pieces dropping in the Stronghold of Security and double charges on the sceptre when it’s formed while wearing the armor.

Forgiveness of a Chaos Dwarf

On the 9th we tried to Forgive a Chaos Dwarf. This was the first quest to see NPC’s using swear words. This is surprising because the way that Jagex used them would be against the rules if a player did the same. This quest also see’s the first gunpowder hand unit. Much like an early pistol or handcannon, the Chaos Dwarf Hand Cannoneers can hit in the high 30s though they attack slowly.

The rewards for this quest are quite decent considering it’s not all that hard. 30,000 Hunter, Firemaking, and Strength experience is pretty good, as well as 2 quest points and access to the Chaos Dwarf Battlefield and the North Keldagrim mining area. The mine contains 2 Runite ore, 10 Adamantite ore, and 8 Gold ore.

The Chaos Dwarf Battlefield has a few enemies, most notably the Chaos Dwogres and Chaos Dwarf Hand Cannoneers for their rare drops of Dragon pickaxes and hand Cannons.

Living Rock caverns

The 17th saw the addition of a large new mining area under the Dwarven mine under Falador. In here there are not only many deposits of coal and gold that don’t run out right after you mine them, but there are also Rock golems! Not the same as the ones that used to come up at random though. These ones are called ‘Living Rock Creatures’ and their are 3 types: The Protector, the Striker, and the Patriarch. They can all melee but the Striker will range if you stand away from it. The caves are not very dangerous for anyone level 80 combat or higher because the creatures are quite weak for their level. The Patriarch only spawns about every hour and always drops 3 noted rune ores, 8 noted uncut diamonds, and 125 blood & mud runes. Decent drop considering their max is only 14 and higher level players won’t take much if any damage. Guthan’s works well in this cave as you’ll usually heal more hitpoints than you’re damaged. All Living rock creatures fall into a pile of living rock remains once their dead which can be mined to acquire Living rock minerals. These minerals can then be used as bait to fish cavefish and Rocktails. Cavefish heal 20 hitpoints and give a +2 boost to Attack, Strength, Defence, Ranged or Magic and the Rocktails heal 23 hitpoints with a chance of healing/boosting an additional 10! There is an everlasting fire in the Dwarven mines above so one could stay in the mines forever by killing the creatures, mining the minerals, fishing, and then going up to the Dwarven mines and cooking them.

The concentrated gold and coal veins cave-in and open up every now and then(No fear, these cave-ins don’t cause damage). It’s possible to get 2 ores when mining these or 3 if wearing Varrock armor. Their’s a deposit box near the entrance to the caves so it’s easy to bank all your ore and makes this a fairly good place to mine coal and gold, especially if in a large group or wearing Guthan’s armor(as both these way lessens the amount of damage you take).

The Rocktails are the best one bite food in Runescape(23 with a possible +10 for a max of 33!) and are very useful in dangerous quests, mini-games, and boss fights.

Advised Objectives

The 17th also allowed anyone to set an Objective or ask for advice from a new guy in Lumbridge. The nice thing is you can contact him anywhere. Most of his advice doesn’t help senior players but can be useful for new players. The Objectives sytem is a neat one and makes it much easier to track how close you are to a quest or skill goal.

Woodcutting changes

On the 23rd Jagex said they Rebalanced Woodcutting but I think they more of just added to it. To be honest I don’t see what needed to be ‘rebalanced’ before. Teak and Mahogany trees will now sometimes give a ‘special’ log. These logs can be sold to the sawmill operator for some coins or if you have two you can trade them to him in exchange for a free conversion of all your current teak/mahogany logs being turned into planks.

They’ve also made it a bit easier when splitting arctic pine logs(not many did that before, maybe more will do it now). And they’ve added torches in the Haunted Woods which can be loaded with hollow bark and then lit with a tinderbox to restore 10 prayer points. This can be very useful if you have a vampire task as you can just use protect from melee against them. Another semi-minigame called Sawmill Training was added in the Sawmill for high level woodcutters.

The most popular part of today’s updates was the addition of choking ivy which grows on many buildings and walls around Runescape. This grants 332 woodcutting experience everytime some is ‘chopped’ however unlike most other choppable things it doesn’t provide anything. The only thing obtainable from ivy is a chance of birds’ nest (though the ivy cannot support the nests). One thing that doesn’t make sense when cutting ivy is that the player is repeatedly bashing their axe into the wall. This should dull the axe but because most items in Runescape are invulnerable to decay all axes remain unhindered by this.

Not really any small updates this month. We had 6 bigger ones instead.

October

Name change!

On the 1st of October Jagex released the ability to Change your display name. This was a long awaited updated and allowed played to change their name to almost any alphanumerical string twelve characters long. Please remember when changing your name that though it is possible to make some offensive names you will be punished if you do so. You can change your name every 28 days. Your previous name will be held for 35 days and then anyone can use it so becareful when changing you name as your friends (and enemies) can now have your old name if you changed it.

Overload!

A very controversial update almost Overloaded herblore on the 7th. New, high level, potions were added that gave high level players almost ‘Jas-like’ powers when used with the right equipment. When originally released these were able to be used on PvP worlds but was changed within two days due to PKers(mostly pures) who didn’t have the required herblore level complaining. It was possible to hit 40s with a whip and 60s with an Armadyl Godsword’s special. This made for very fast kills as even a 138 could be killed by a 40, 40, 19 with a whip or a 60, 39 with an Armadyl godsword. These potions can still be used in normal PvM and are very popular for crashing or kill-stealing(mostly when fighting Boss monsters).

Photo booth

The 7th also saw a new addition to the forums: Forum avatars! Iconis the wizard, friend of Mr./Ms. Makeover Mage, has moved near Falador and is willing to let player’s use his new photo-making technology for free. The Photo booth takes a picture of the player’s head and body, however the head picture is the only one used as the player’s avatar on the forums. The full body shot is shown on the player’s Adventure log.

A new picture may only be taken once every 2 hours.

Within the Light

We were brought Within the Light on the 13th when a new quest was released, the 8th in the Plague series quests. The player learns about the crystal city of Prifddinas after getting almost too close to the Death altar and some rather sharp jumps.

If you’ve got what it takes to reach the end you’ll be rewarded with 2 questpoints, 35,000 agility xp, and 20,000 fletching, woodcutting, and ranged xp as well as the ability to teleport to the Temple of Light with a small teleport crystal.

Ardougne Achievement Diary

One of my favorite things in Runescape is completing the newest achievement diaries, and today, the 20th, we see the addition of the Ardougne Diary! This is my favorite diary yet because the cape looks great and because of the unlimited teleports directly to a prayer altar. Of course the increased chances of successfully thieving anywhere in Runescape and the fact it’s the best prayer cape in the game sure helps also 😉

Total tasks: 61
Highest Skill requirement: 93 Summoning
Total Quest requirement: 21
Hardest Quest requirement: Monkey Madness
Easiest Task: Enter the Castle Wars waiting room
Hardest Task: Make a rune crossbow yourself, from scratch, performing each step within either Withchaven or Yanille
Most Expensive Task: Make a rune crossbow yourself, from scratch, performing each step within either Withchaven or Yanille

The Total Rewards are: Ability to teleport to the monastery south of Ardougne an unlimited number of times, Twice as many death runes when trading a cat to a citizen in West Ardougne, lots of drops in the Tower of Life will become noted, A 10% Prayerboost on entry to Castle Wars, Unlimited teleports to the farm north of Ardougne , Better chance at getting more runes at Ourania Altar, Longer immunity from attack once teleporting to the wilderness from the Ardougne Lever, Toggle Ring of life teleport to Ardougne, Better chance at stealing and pickpocketing anywhere in RuneScape, After thieving from the chests in Ardougne Castle or under the chaos druid’s tower, you will be teleported to East Ardougne north Bank instead of a random location, Wizard Cromperty will give 150 pure essence per day, Ability to change the Watchtower teleport to take the player within Yanille’s walls. And one 1k, one 5k, one 28k (min skilllevel 60), and four 50k experience lamps (min skilllevel 85).

Halloween’s Web of Shadows

The 26th gave us the Halloween event of the year. Eradicating Grim’s bath of a stubborn spider isn’t quite how I intended to spend Halloween but I was rewarded with a quaint cape and a cute little arachnid. Eek the spider joined me as I went around Runescape spinning webs and showing off my zombie head.

Other small changes

On the 7th certain teleportation jewelry such as amulets of glory have had their teleports split up so that you can right click and teleport directly to your destination rather than having to go through the dialog.
The in-game world map also saw the addition of arrow keys for movement on the 7th.
On the 13th clan chats would now automatically try to reconnect with the last logged into chat when a player logs back in if they were in a chat when they logged out.
The Wilderness agility course is now on Bounty and +1 worlds. This was also done on the 13th.
When typing numbers in input dialogs (such as withdrawing coins from a bank) you can now use ‘k’ and ‘m’ for thousands and millions. This was also done on the 13th.
A few small updates were done on the 20th:
-Health bars no longer show as completely red unless your enemy has no hp.
-The chat window and stats UI will now auto-resize when in the Resizable graphics setting on.
-After completing Within the Light you can speak to ELuned to change your elf crystal teleport location.
-Your gravestone will now show up on the mini-map.
-The position of the scroll bars in Clan chats and the Friend’s list are now remembered though logins.
-You can now purchase multiple skill capes.
-If you’re kicked off during the Tzhaar fight cave you’ll start on the wave that you were on when you were kicked off when you log back in.
-The quick-click summoning options no longer closes in combat.
-Murky Matt in the Grand Exchange can now combine teleport jewelries’ charges.
Duel Tournaments were made a bit funner on the 20th also.
Anti-’76king’ measures were made on the 26th which gave cheaters that used this feature much less drop.

November

Champion’s Challenge

The 9th saw a new challenge for Champions of the Champion’s guild. Three new races have had their champions brought in to fight the mightiest Champion of Humans, you! The Mummy, banshee, and Aberrant Spectre races feel it’s high time someone tried to champion over a real undead champion. If you’re challenged by one of these new races make sure you’re outfitted well. To combat the Banshee you’ll need to use a slayer helm, mask-earmuffs, or earmuffs to protect from it’s screams and you can’t use prayer or melee attacks. If you want to fight the stinking champion of the Aberrant Spectres you’ll need a slayer helm or nosepeg and a 2-handed weapon. The Mummy champion can be combated quite easily, only requiring you to not use any shields.

Defeating the banshee will reward you with 1,050 slayer and hitpoint xp.
Deafeat the aberrant spectre will reward you with 6,000 slayer and hitpoint xp.
Defeating the mummy will reward you with 473 slayer and hitpoint xp.

There’s also a new Leprchaun champion which can be fought by any champion without a scroll. All he requires is that you fight him without any items. Killing him will give you 200 slayer and hitpoint xp.

Once you’ve killed all 13 champions you can challenge Glouphren, the gnome champion. He does not allow the use of shields and only magic may be used against him. When his health is low he’ll duplicate himself 3 times and the player will see 4 of him. Once the real Glouphren is killed all the other duplicates will disappear. Killing him gives 520 slayer and hitpoint xp.

This update also saw the addition of Banner carriers. These are little gnomes which will follow a player around like a cat or familiar does. They carry a banner showing either a picture of a defeated race or the number of champions killed in the arena.

Total level worlds

The 9th also saw the addition of a new concept, Skill total worlds! These worlds, 113 and 114, require 1,000 total levels to log into. This is a great concept because it keeps lazy people from clogging up useful areas(such as pures out of the blue dragons) and allows serious players to play more freely. 1,000 total levels however is fairly easy to acquire, but it’s a good start to the concept. I’d like to see 1,500, 2,000, and 2,250 worlds now. These would make gathering and fighting certain things much easier as it weeds out both combat only and skill only people(I only have 1,798 total levels so I wouldn’t even be able to access some of these, which is fine).

RSC Re-Opened!

Temporarily.

The 11th saw the temporary re-opening of RuneScape Classic to members. This was nice for me because I’d never been able to try RSC before. I was surprised at how…basic it really was. I had to drop logs before I could light a fire. One nice thing is that I found pickpocketing was much more successful in RSC than in RS2. Infact that’s how I make most of my money in RSC.

Jagex left member registration for RSC open for two weeks during this time. After the two weeks they closed registration but anyone who registered during those two weeks could still log in and play RSC whenever. If you missed registering this time you’ll be able to register in 6 months. Jagex said that they’d open RSC up for registration every 6 months. This is to allow new members to test it out but to prevent bots and RWITs.

Look for another opening in April of 2010.

Surging Extreme Potion Runes

The 17th saw a few updates, the first of which is the change to Extreme potions. All extreme and other high level potions added recently are now allowed in safe PvP mini-games such as Castle Wars, Soul Wars, safe Clan Wars, and the TzHaar Fight Pits. This makes high level Herbalists still have a slight advantage in safe PvP.

The next change today is the Surge spells. These 5th level magic spells are Wind Surge (level 81), Water Surge (level 85), Earth Surge (level 90) and Fire Surge (level 95). They each require one blood and one death rune as well as some air and respective elemental runes. I can’t cast any of these yet so I’m not entirely sure how good they are, but they look fairly good.

Lastly we see a change to RuneCrafting. You used to get multiple runes at certain levels depending upon what you were crafting. Now you not only do that but also have a chance of creating one more above your normal multiple. Basically, if you’d normally get 2 runes you may now get 3. If you’d normally get 5 you might now get 6. This allows RCers to make more runes while using the same amount of Essence. This was a controversial change. While it’s good for the RCers because they get to make more profit per essence, it’s also bad for them because now it’s much easier for people of a lower runecrafting to make more nature runes, thus increasing the supply. The demand has remained the same or dropped due to natures being so easy to self-make. This means the price of Nature runes are, and have been, dropping. The price is currently 279, 30 coins less than it was at the release of this update (which was roughly a month ago). They’ve been steadily dropping and I expect them to drop another 30-50 coins before stabilizing.

Adventurer’s log

The 18th saw the release of a new, previously unreleased released feature, the Adventurer’s Log! This is alot like a quickchat version of RuneWire except that everything is automatic. If you level up a skill or gain a milestone amount of experience in a skill (say, 50m), it’ll automatically post and say you leveld up X skill, or got X experience in X skill. It also says a small pre-determined script when you complete a quest, find a rare item, or kill a special creature. One unique thing about the AL is that it records how much time in game you’ve played. Now I don’t know for sure, but I think this is a 24hr timer. Meaning if you play 2 hours a day for twelve days your log will say you’ve played one day. Likewise if you no-life and play 48 hours straight it’d say you’ve played 2 days(Yes, you’re on Christmas break kids, but I don’t suggest this). Another great aspect is that it puts all your skills, total rank, level, and experience all in one compact place. I would’ve liked to see combat level here also but I guess we’ll just have to wait on that.

The AL also utilizes the recently added Photo Booth. It shows your forum avatar head shot and a full body shot. This could be useful as it makes it easy to access both images.

To the side is your friends’ recent activity. In this area any events logged on your friends’ log are posted here. To the bottom (or side when viewing a friend or someone else) is a quest log. This shows completed, started, and not started quests. To the bottom right is your friends list.

This feature is member’s only, so unfortunately F2Ps can’t have logs, however they can look members up.

2009 Thanksgiving event

The 26th saw the release of the 2009 Thanksgiving event! Most of this update wasn’t actually Thanksgiving themed and was both annoying and long. The first part, however, was fun and fast, albeit not rewarding to most.

For the first part giant killer turkeys were released – 10 of them – in a field near Lumbridge. The Cook’s brother said these were originally fed special food to make them grow larger and be tastier. Unfortunately it also made them much stronger and aggressive. Now the Cook’s brother thinks these chickens are planning an attack on Lumbridge and there’s only one way to stop them – You of course! The Cook’s brother asks you to fight them but first gives you a drink from the (fabled) Gravy boat of Saradomin! This doesn’t affect the stats like in While Guthix Sleeps though it sounds like it. During this event your possible damage is replaced from based on strength bonus and strength level to 10-199. I don’t believe it’s possible to hit 0 on these because I never did and none of my friends did. Once you’ve bested all 10 of the turkeys you can talk to the Cook’s brother again to be teleported back to Lumbridge Castle’s Kitchen. The reward for this event is the ‘Give thanks’ Emote which was also given last year.

That’s it.

Annoying, isn’t it?

Many players were annoyed that the only reward for saving Lumbridge was an emote that half the population already had. Jagex released another event a few days later which was not at all related to Thanksgiving but atleast it gave a new item.

On the 26th they released the first of four ‘Cryptic Clues’ for the Cryptic Clue fest. In this event the players had to decipher each clue to figure out what items were required to talk to certain people. The first person was fairly easy to guess. The clue was:

“To a sponger of Lumbridge is to whom you must speak, He asks folks for money, week after week .”

Sponger, must be some sort of beggar.
Asking for money, yep a beggar.
Week after week, stubborn beggar that doesn’t learn.

These three can only mean one person in Lumbridge, the new NPC named Lachtopher. Once you had the correct items you could speak with him and he’d tell you who to speak with next. The whole event went on like this for four days. Each day the clue given by yesterday’s contact would lead to that day’s contact and a new clue would be given on the RuneScape forums.

Eventually when players had figured out the fourth clue released on the 29th they were given the reward. The reward was another fun weapon and holiday item like usual, a Magnifying glass. This provides no special ability (like most holiday items) except that it can do the Sleuth emote. Many players were annoyed because this emote is very short and doesn’t look very good and they felt it was a waste of time. Jagex had hoped that the Clue hunt itself would be a good reward for players but most were just annoyed by it. I would’ve liked the hunt if some of the clues had been harder to figure out.

Other small changes

The 9th saw a few changes:
-Item packs of useful items such as spirit shards, vials, and raw bird meat. These are packs of 50 of their respective item and cost the normal price times 50.
-Their was a click problem in CastleWars which has now been fixed.
-When other players look at the in-game world map you’ll now see their character looking at a map.
-Multiple dose potions have had their names clarified for consistency.
-A new altar was erected on the upper floor of the Falador White Knight’s Castle.
-A confirmation was added when trying to High-alch items whose Grand Exchange value is 500k or higher.
-Superheat, Enchant spells and Plank Make have been given queues like the High Alchemy spell.
-Slayer Masters were given a right click ‘get task’ optin (this makes it much easier to get slayer tasks).
-Tzhaar now drop more Tokkul and defeating the Jad will now give double Tokkul. This is because of the recent Tzhaar shop update.
-The Fairy ring system now has an auto-dial feature(this significantly speeds up fairy ring travel).
-More points of entry were added to Yanille.
-The hair styles Dragon variant, Mohawk shaved, and Mullet were added for guys and Asymmetric fringe, Half-up/half-down, Headband, and Page boy for ladies.

The 17th also had a few updates:
-Run mode is now kept between logins.
-Ava’s Attractor and Accumulator can be brought to Lanthus. Doing so will have him enchant the Castle wars capes to have the same abilities.
-Pharaoh’s sceptre now display’s how many charges it has in its name.
-The Summoning cape previously didn’t have the traditional +1 boost option, this has been fixed.
-Cannons now automatically setup and no longer fire at dieing creatures.
-The ‘Bones to’ spells now work on any bone up to big bones.

December

Temple at Senntisten

On the 3rd we were able to further explore the temple under the digsite known as Senntisten. A new archeologist known to the public as Dr. Nabanik has come to the Digsite and wants the help of an avid archeologist in restoring the temple found in the Digsite quest. Of course since this is a great archeological find and is on museum property Dr. Nabanik must have a certificate of restoration before he can legally begin work on the temple. This is an easy thing for a trusted archeologist to acquire.

Once you help him get his certificate he’ll tell you to meet him at the temple. By now Dr. Nabanik has told you of his true identidy, the Mahjarrat Azzanadra, one of Zaros’ most trusted generals. Azzanadra tells you he needs two things to complete the temple, the Barrows icon and the Frostenhorn. The Icon can be gotten quite easily by doing a routine Barrows trip.

Some players say that prayer no longer drains in the barrows tunnels after the icon has been removed, others say this is not true.

The Frostenhorn is a little harder to acquire. To get it you must go through a type of maze in the Zarosian fortress Ghorrock in the wilderness. You can either walk here from the Ardougne lever, teleport here via the Ancient teleport to Ghorrock, or teleport to the Ice Plateau via the Lunar spell. Once here you have to go around the frozen fortress thawing certain parts as you make your way to the Frostenhorn. During this you’ll find a level 177 Ice Demon. Use protect from Melee and high ranged defence armor and it should be easy. Once it’s dead it’ll drop the Frostenhorn. The easiest way out of here is to teleport.

There are Ice and Water Fiends in this area and Metal dragons, so come prepared.

After you have both the items return to Azzanadra and give them to him. He’ll tell you he needs just one more item and that someone on the surface at the hole has it(Apparently this person is not allowed to see the temple). Go back to the surface and you’ll meet an Assassin. Talk to him and he’ll give you the Relic from Entrana. Go back down to the Temple and give it to Azzanadra. A cutscene will ensue showing Azzanadra contacting his lord Zaros. Zaros tests his power by trying to directly destroy a statue of Zamorak but instead only damages it. After the cutscene talk to Azzanadra again to get your reward.

The reward is fairly good, 2 questpoints, a 23k experience lamp for any skill, two combat lamps granting 20k experience in any combat skill (even summoning), and 10k prayer experience(this could amount to a total of 73k prayer experience). This quest also grants access to the altar in the Senntisten temple which gives a 15% prayer boost(Like one of the spas in Ooglog). It also allows you to become a follower of Zaros by uttering his curses instead of normal prayers. These curses have most of the same abilities as the normal prayer but also a few unique ones.

Kuradal and her dungeon

The 8th saw Duradel’s daughter, Kuradal, finally show herself. She’s created a special area in the Ancient barbarian caverns and teleported many high level monsters into it. Due to her extensive travels and self-training(even more than her father) she has beat her father and is now the highest level, most powerful, Slayer master in Gielinor. One must’ve proven themselves 10% more experienced in combat and 50% more experienced in the art of slaying than her father would accept(100 combat and 75 slayer are required to get a task from her). Kuradal gives lots of slayer points every time a task is completed. 18 for one task, 90 for every tenth task, and 270 for every 50th task. She also now wears and sells the 99 slayer cape.

To access her dungeon you must have an assignment assigned by her of one of the creatures in the dungeon. The creatures in the cave are:
7 Greater Demons
7 Gargoyles
5 Blue Dragons
7 Hellhounds
8 Abyssal Demons
6 Dark Beasts
4 Iron Dragons
4 Steel Dragons

You’re only allowed to attack these monsters when on an assignment for them. Thus if you’re on a Blue dragon task you cannot fight hellhounds, though the hellhounds will still attack you. All the creatures in here can also drop a special ring, the Ferocious ring. This ring automatically adds +4 damage when fighting in the cave so long as you hit. This doesn’t mean every attack will always do atleast 4 damage (since some attacks will miss and not do any damage). It means that if you hit (Like you hit a 1) 4 more damage will be added. Thus the minimum damage in this dungeon is 5 (1 base +4 special because of the ring). This ring also functions like a ring of Life anywhere in Runescape, except that it will teleport the player back to Kuradal instead of their spawn point. The ring can also teleport to Kuradal 5 times before it crumbles.

If gathering information for Max hits when using this ring please make sure to remove the ring or always remove 4 damage from your hit as this bonus damage is a solid+4 and is not a +percent.

Blood Runs Deep

One thing that is sure in the Fremmenik lands is that Blood Runs Deeps, very deep in certain cases. In this case it’s the blood of the Dagannoth heritage that has arisen once again. Those that have fixed the Light House and removed the Horror from the Deep will remember the fight against the Dagannoth Mother. It seems that in the Dagannoth lineage there must always be a Mother (or Queen). If the mother is killed then her eldest female offspring is given the power of the deceased mother and becomes the new Dagannoth Mother. How do you stop this from happening? It seems you can’t (however killing all her female offspring and then her should do it), so instead you choose to seal her away after you’ve wounded her.

But how do you reach this new mother and why bother her when the Dagannoth haven’t been causing problems…or have they?

To start this quest go to Baba Yaga on Lunar isle and she’ll tell you she found someone washed up on the shore. Being of the Moonclan she of course wants to look into his dreams(talk about picking someone’s brain!). During this you’ll learn about the new Dagannoth Mother and that the person, Silas (who used to be the Light House keeper) is now a slave to the new Mother. After a fight with the Dagannoth (yes, IN his DREAM!) you’ll be able to return to reality. During the fight in the dream Baba Yaga will occasionally use vengeance and heal other on the player.

After this you can either have Baba Yaga teleport you back to Fremmenik or go to the bank and then have her teleport you (I suggest banking as you’ll need combat gear and food for the next part). Once in Fremmenik you’ll have to defend Rellekka from many Dagannoths. After killing many Chieftain Brundt will tell the player to board his ship. After doing that they’ll be told King Vargas is trapped on Waterbirth island. Queen Sigrid will also give the player the might Balmung, a mighty Dagannoth-bane axe. After restocking head to Waterbirth.

Find a man named Bardur on Waterbirth and he’ll tell you about a cave. Once down the cave you’ll find King Vargas, who is badly injured. Because of this he moves very slowly when following you and can get injured by the monsters in the cave. You can’t teleport him out even with teleother spells (which makes absolutely no sense) and you can’t take him back the way you came because he can’t climb the rope. So that leaves only one way out, the path through the Dagannoth lair. After you get him to the end you tell him to climb out, unfortunately he knocks some rocks on your head.

Oh dear, you’re dead!

What’s (in my opinion) STUPID is that even if we’re wearing a helmet and armor we get instantly killed by this when we can fight metal dragons in melee and not be 1 hit KO’d.

Anyways, you’ll go to the Fremmenik spiritual realm since you’re a Fremmenik (But you never go to the Fremmenik realm if you die for real). Eir will tell you you can’t enter yet since you still have a job to do. She’ll send you back to life and you’ll be on the Chief’s ship again, and so is Vargas (magically) and the Prince and Princess of Miscellanea. The King and Queen want to get married and they ask you to do the ceremonies since you’re the regent of the islands. Your fiance says you two might as well get married also. If you’re like me and don’t want your character to marry some NPC that your character has only ever seen a few times in its life and that was only because of a quest, then choose some other option and eventually they’ll stop bugging you.

After that it will be time for the final assault on the Dagannoth. Get supplies ready to fight two Dagannoth Sentinels which mage, range, and melee and can heal each other. Melee armor and protect from mage works or mage defense armor and protect from range. You don’t have to use the balmung on these but it works pretty well. Hit one sentinel and then hit another, this way they won’t heal each other. They can’t heal damage done by familiars either, so having a familiar would be useful.

Once defeated continue on and you’ll find some Dagannoth Guardians. These only range and melee, so melee armor and protect from ranged works as their attack depends on which protect prayer you’re using.

After defeating the guardians and sentinels you should return to a bank to change to ranged armor (karils or black/bllessed d hide), a good ranged weapon, the balmung, atleast 100 of each elemental spell cast (highest level spell is worth using), one or two prayer potions, and the rest sharks, cavefish, or rocktail. Taking a BoB familiar and filling it with food is useful also.

When fighting her you must do the first attack with the balmung. Switch protection prayers when needed and make sure you have protect from melee on when she melees you as she can easily hit 40 with her melee attack. Once she changes color back away and switch to the appropriate attack style corresponding to her color.

White, Air Spells (Wind Strike, Wind Bolt, Wind Blast, Wind Wave, and Wind Surge)
Blue, Water Spells (Water Strike, Water Bolt, Water Blast, Water Wave, and Water Surge)
Brown, Earth Spells (Earth Strike, Earth Bolt, Earth Blast, Earth Wave, and Earth Surge)
Red, Fire Spells (Fire Strike, Fire Bolt, Fire Blast, Fire Wave, and Fire Surge)
Orange, Melee attacks with Balmung
Green, Ranged attacks

Make sure to restore prayer points and always keep your hitpoints at max but don’t over-heal and waste food. If you stand away from her she’ll range and mage you so put protect from missles on and heal from her magic attack. When she turns orange equip the balmung and hit her and then run. This prevents her from hitting you with her high-hitting melee attack.

Once she’s killed exited the cave and collapse it. Unfortunately we’re not smart enough to run away so we get killed again.

Speak to Eir again and she’ll say this is the last time you can come here and will then teleport you back to your friends at the cave. You’ll learn the your sweetheart is dead alongwith her sibling (who cares anyways, you never liked them, you just wanted the kingdom, right?). You’ll return to the Miscellaneous islands and send the royal children on their way in pyre ships. After this you and the Chief will return to Rellekka and he’ll reward you.

2 Quest points, the Balmung, and three sets of 150k experience in Attack, Defence, Strength, Hitpoints, Ranged, Magic or Prayer is a pretty nice reward. Infact it’s the largest amount of experience given by any quest. The experience requires the skills to be level 75 or above, so I suggest having level 75 or higher prayer and dumping the xp into it as prayer is one of the hardest skills to train.

A Christmas Warble

Warble is another word for ‘carol’, meaning this event’s name is ‘A Christmas Carol’. And though it doesn’t follow the original story very well, it’s still an alright copy. In the beginning players find their Snow Imp from last year and he tells them that Ebenezer scourge has stolen Santa and all the food for the Juletide feast. With the help of your snow imp you make a Ghost costume and try scaring Scourge into giving back the food and releasing Santa. The first try doesn’t work and ends up freezing the partygoers in fire (as dumb as that sounds, frozen in fire?). After thawing them out you try a psychological approach to try to make him feel sad for wreck the spoilt brat Tiny Thom’s Chrstimas. Of course that doesn’t work (why should anyone feel sorry for teaching a brat a lesson) so you try something else. The future is something unknown to all, even the moonclan, so almost everyone is afraid of it. Your imp friend creates a hologram of a gravesone with scourge’s name on it as you, the silent Ghost of Christmas yet to come, point to his demise. Since he hasn’t proven that you’re just an adventurer he believes you and repents of his wrongs and frees Santa and returns the food.

The reward for this event was ‘ok’. The ghost costume could’ve been much better (it should’ve changed for each ghost, white for past, orangeish fall-like feast colors for present, and black for future) and the emote wasn’t good. It should’ve been a much slower emote, having the player point much slower. The Candy cane was a nice little normal fun weapon like most events.

What I found most disappointing about this event was the lack of creativity on Jagex’s part. This event was almost a complete duplicate of Charles Dicken’s The Christmas Carol. I would like to see Jagex create more of their own ideas rather than taking ideas from pre-existing things. It’s alright to be inspired by something but copying it almost word for word isn’t good.

Christmas Wishes to the Community

I was very pleased to read this news article. Unlike most of the world nowadays who say “Happy Holidays”, Mark and Andrew actually said, “We wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone out there a very merry Christmas & fantastic New Year.”. They could’ve easily said Happy Holidays but instead they said each Holiday individually. I’m surprised but also very happy to see them do this when so many companies out there only say ‘Happy Holidays’ because they’re afraid they might offend someone.

Additionally they said, “God bless and see you all in 2010!”. I’m very glad they had the courage to say this. Unfortunately a few people will probably rant and say this is bringing religion into the game and that they’re being unfair to other religions. Guess what, Jagex is a private company, not controlled by any government or religion/religious stance. They can say whatever they want, it’s their site. If they want to say ‘God Bless you’ then they have every right. If you don’t like it then either quit or don’t read it. I’m sure they knew the consequences(probably a couple hundred people will be quitting because of it). It’s very likely that this was talked about in a meeting even and was agreed upon by many of the ‘higher-ups'(don’t take this for fact, though it is likely).

More power to you, Jagex! I look forward to seeing what you have in store for us in 2010.

Other small changes
On the 3rd some shop prices for dragon daggers were changed and given more in stock.
It’s cheaper to recharge most items from Fist of Guthix, this was also done on the 3rd.
The 3rd also saw the addition of special ‘warning animations’ for the Dwarf cannon. These will show five minutes before it decays.
The 3rd also so an unannounced font mess up. Whether this was intentional or not is unknown.
The 8th saw the removal of the Cryptic Clue fest and the fixing of the RuneScape font.
On the 15th tzhaar shops were changed t’where they no longer buy from players. This made the price of Obisidian capes and shields rise, as well as furies and onyxes.
Kuradal’s dungeon was also changed on the 15th so that randoms would no longer appear.
The 0(zero) was changed to not look so much like a O(capital o). This was also the 15th.
Cook’s Assistant, Ernest the Chicken, Sheep Shearer, and The Restless Ghost had their rewards changed, with some giving more rewards. This was also done on the 15th.
Particles, a part of the graphics system, were added on the 15th. It’s said they’ll be used for many more things in the future.

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Trivia: These two recap articles combined had 13,432 words and 75,255 characters. That’s an average of 1,119.33^repetend words and 6,271.25 characters per month, with an average 5.379318046456224 characters per word.

Have a safe and Happy New year!