Merch Gwyar's 1000th post

This is Merch Gwyar's 1000th post and it is beautiful.

Do you realize how lucky we are, that Merch Gwyar plays Runescape and chooses to write about it? I am so glad she does and I am happy that it helps her too.

That day we spent together (to commemorate her 500th post) was one of my best days in Runescape. Maybe the best. I am also an avid reader of her blog about Mexico - in the last two years I happened to travel there a lot and came to love that country.

Thank you, Merch Gwyar. There will be time, when Runescape will be no more, but wherever you go and whatever you do, please, know that you have a special talent: you can touch and heal people's souls with your words. Thank you...

Game or Competition

Merch Gwyar at her best in this post.
Ironic part is that it's actually much more fulfilling and satisfying to play the game while being nice, courteous and cordial to other players. And players who behave this way get much more fun out of the game. The sad part is that some people don't ever try this approach...

Sharks in Runescape

Awesome piece of Runescape lore started by Merch Gwyar and fully expanded by Josh. If you ever wondered how come there are sharks in Hemenster Lake or thought about origins of Baron sharks, you'll find the answers there. Enjoy!

Fish Flingers Helper Tool

Just to let you know, there is a new tool at Runewise, called Fish Flingers Helper (start it from the main menu). It helps to keep track of fish, baits, locations, hooks, and weights during the Fish Flingers minigame - so if you play it, you might find the tool helpful.

P.S. Special thanks goes to Merch Gwyar for the idea and design of the tool.

Fame and Stupidity

I am a total noob at Dugeoneering. Yeap, no point in denying it... Soloing dungeons has absolutely nothing in common with going through a dungeon with a group of experienced players. I tried it today - it was overwhelming. I could hardly understand what was going on and what I was supposed to do at any given moment. At the end I claimed "Meat Shield" and "Most Deaths" titles without much difficulty. Fortunately, Warlock (the leader of the group) was patient and the rest of the team handpicked by Merch Gwyar didn't show any signs of frustration, I am grateful for that. Yes, Merch was there too, I indeed had an honor of sharing a dungeon with her, yay :)

Which brings me to the subject: "Fame and Stupidity". There was a moment when four of us were standing in the gathering area trying to find fifth player to join the group. A few high level players walked by and Merch offered one of them (l chriss l) to come with us. What happened next was totally unexpected. Instead of simply agreeing or refusing, l chriss l uttered something like "I am too good to go with you", donned his 120 lvl Dungeoneering cape and then made an attempt (unsuccessful) to mock Merch. I looked him up: lvl 120 in Dungeoneering, 150M exp, rank 26. He was clearly enjoying his illusory high rank fame. And, for the sake of it, refused Merch Gwyar's invitation, thus passing by a chance to really get known. That was so ironic, I couldn't help myself and kept chuckling, that is right till my first death.

P.S. I did learn something else too. Apparently "pwyll" means both mad and genius in Welsh. I think it's pwyll :)

Save the Sabre-toothed Kyatt

A plea from Merch Gwyar to the Runescape world: save the Sabre-toothed Kyatt!

I think we need to establish a permanent environmentalist station out there, restrict or even completely stop the hunting and start importing yaks from Neitiznot. ASAP!

RuneFest

Tabt's report (with lots of pictures) from RuneFest. Pure awesomeness. I do seriously wish I could be there too...

And pictures are priceless: Merch Gwyar (yes, with a pointy green hat!), Salmoneous, TS_Stormrage, Excl, just to name a few.

Tales from the GE

After re-reading Merch Gwyar's "Tales from the GE" post for the third time in the last three weeks, I suddenly realized, that I haven't linked it yet... Well, better now, than never, or so they say...

Canting Away Summer Festival. Report

What can I say? I enjoyed the festival tremendously. This time I was able to attend quite a few events - 8 !!! And even made a run for #9 (KBD trip), but was stopped by a lightning which caused my internet connection to disappear for about 20 mins.

I want to say huge THANK YOU to Merch Gwyar, all the people who hosted the events and all the people I met there. It was one of the best days I had in Runescape.

Also a special thanks goes to Zach, who was kind and patient enough to run a two hour Dungeoneering party on a large floor with zero prestige bonus for himself. The Dungeoneering trip was tough (and long). We killed the boss, but couldn't unlock all the rooms. Every one of us died out there, and we exited the dungeon after Full of Pie got buried under falling rocks in the Mining room at the end of the second hour.

I loved Fred's clues, got me to jump over Gielinor quite a bit :) I even won one - luckily I guessed it right from the first clue ("It's cold around me but many dragons can heat up the place"). Almost died at the Chaos Elemental, but didn't, fortunately - there were enough deaths already.

An hour at Brimhaven was fun too, though, I was lagging badly. It is indeed much more entertaining to train Agility in a good company and be able to race against each other.

Great Orb project event was intense. Very competitive too. I had to remind myself to breathe at the end of the rounds :) Comparing to that the Clan Wars was a walk in the park and a time for relaxation.

After the lightning accident I was just in time for Stealing Creation. I am glad I did, every player counted :) Finally Merch Gwyar's house party with Aximili E I's narrative was great (and, yes, Merch has chairs facing the wall, graffiti, evil means to teleport guests far away and an awesome dungeon nowadays).

Two pictures I got (yes, I am a lousy photographer):

The Beginning



Cabbage/Orange bombing of the GE

Personal Information in Clan Chats

You've probably already seen Merch Gwyar's post about inappropriateness of disclosing personal information in Canting Away clan chat. If not, take a look, before you read further. It is an important topic and, as usual, Merch stated her position perfectly.

What's my view on it? As related to Canting Away, Merch is absolutely right in demanding that personal information would not be disclosed there. She has all the rights to set safety standards for the clan she runs. And non-disclosure of personal information is not an unreasonable requirement.

But talking broadly, I personally don't believe that we can hide our real identities in internet. One have to try really really hard in order to do so. And it's going to be harder and harder as time goes on. Unless something changes drastically in the way internet works, our real lives will get so tied to our online identities, that we won't be making a clear distinction anymore. And I don't think it is bad. It is just the way it is. Instead of trying to shut the world out, I believe that we all need to learn how to live in an open, with our lives exposed.

We need to teach our children and ourselves how to be prudent when making new friends using internet and especially when making transition from online to RL contacts. We need to be aware about identity theft menace and learn how to keep important internet accounts safe and secure. We need to know about computer security and follow required procedures and precautions required by it.

But we cannot simply build walls. In a long run, it won't work.

Pet Rocks

A touching story about Pet Rocks from Merch Gwyar. I don't know about you, but I had no idea Pet Rocks could do so much!

Off to Rellekka looking for my long time lost little heavy friend...

Sleep in Runescape

Interesting article about sleep in Runescape (Fatigue in RSC and such). You may say it has nothing to do with RS2, but why?

“If we have beds and can yawn and have chairs and can sit down, why can’t we lay/sleep in our beds?”

Indeed, why? I think, it'd be cool to be able to sleep in Runescape again. Maybe players could get some small temporary attack/strength/constitution bonus after a good sleep? Or something similar to Oo'glog's pool effect? I suspect that part of the problem might be pure technical. Remember how Jagex were proud about changes in the game engine which allowed characters to sit on the ground? Yeap, I bet, the RS2 engine simply does not support "laying on the ground (or bed)" yet. Speaking about beds, while I am in this "wishful thinking" mode, here is what I would really love to happen: our characters being able to use ALL that furniture, windows and things/tools inside Gielinor houses. Without any kind of EXP gain - just for fun.


In other news, Merch Gwyar talks about various types of Runescape Blogs and how to approach blogging about Runescape. I agree with her, you don't get e-fame through regular blogging (at least not in Runescape), but you might find a lot of new friends that way. And, yes, as Merch said don't be shy to point to your blog in comments. I am trying to find as many Runescape blogs as I can, but I am surely missing a lot. So if you simply post a link to your blog, I'll subscribe to it right away. Thank you.

Summer Festival

Merch Gwyar is organizing a Summer Festival. If you participated in the last year Winter Festival, you'll know what it is about. If not, I can tell you: it is about having fun. In fact, a lot of fun. So mark your calendars - July 31 is the date.



P.S. In other news, I am pondering about adding a new service to Runewise. Here is a preview. I'm looking for outside opinions, can't decide whether it is too cool or too stupid :-)

Crashing Mint Cakes

Merch Gwyar explains in details the mint cakes situation.

And I have a bit of personal history with those cakes. A few month ago I was trying to find a way to buy a party hat, but no one would sell it to me. At least not for cash. I went so low as to offer buying any kind of junk along with the hat (and I despise junk trades...), but still no one would agree. Then I started to visit RSOF section for trading rares quite regularly and realized that the only way I could buy a party hat was to exchange it for some other rares (Easter eggs, santas, pumpkins and such). But I didn't have ANY rares. So I tried to buy some. For cash. Yeap, didn't work out either. Sellers were asking for some ridiculous amounts of mint cakes instead. And that finally broke my spirit. Mint cakes, I thought, what the hell?!

Strange power unleashes itself on Runescape

Thanks to Merch Gwyar for the pointer.



What a great way to give hints! Bravo, Jagex!
Unfortunately, I missed it, but still, wow. And as far as my predictions go, I think we'll get a new Sea Slugs quest where the Queen will finally step up to her ambitions to rule the world!

What is the price of the Quest Cape?

Amazingly, players need at least 14,091,141 exp to fulfill all formal requirements for the Quest Cape and in reality way more (like 20-30M). Beats most of the skill capes, doesn't it?

Merch Gwyar is also writing about her experiences with killing Nomad (or rather attempting to kill Nomad). Being very close to her combat levels, I guess, I am bound to have the same results... Plus I don't like using crossbows and from what I hear it is pretty much a requirement there.

So I'll wait and try to raise a few levels. I still need to do the Blood Runs Deep before I go for Nomad anyway. And I also owe another visit to Jad...

Do you have a pointy green hat?

Yet another heart gripping adventure from Merch Gwyar. I don't know how she does it, but her stories are so vividly alive, I feel like being there and witnessing it with my own eyes, yet I also can't resist regretting not actually being there...

Well, I have a question for you, my dear readers. Do YOU have your own "pointy green hat" (that is something you wear which defines your character's identity)? I know Tim has red party hat, I am guessing that's his "pointy green hat". I think, I might have one too, but haven't completely decided yet. I've been wearing a fish (puffer) on my head for quite a while now. People kept asking what it was and I would answer "a fish" - and everybody would lol. I lost it recently (to a group of well armed revenants) and haven't got the replacements yet. And strangely I feel like my character is missing something intangible, yet important. A fish? Green pointy hat? Maybe...

g2g, real life happened

"g2g, real life happened" - thanks to Avicile Mohaili for capturing this one.

Yeap, that's exactly what happened to me during the last two days. I've been hiking around black lakes with cypresses sticking up from the water their weird roots and no people anywhere around for miles, eating still slightly astringent fruits from wild persimmon trees in the middle of a sandy pine forest, watching gulls at the ocean's shore and climbing 1 million year old river bank cliffs. This kind of stuff tends to happen when you have a map, a car, a big open country and don't have planned routes and fixed schedules. My kind of travel :-) Which is actually possible to replicate in Runescape at some degree.

Anyway, I am back.

And one more link today is to an awesome article about noobs from the author of the phrase which started this post. Enjoy!

Penguin Lure

First thing in the morning I saw Icey Dan1's report about penguins lured into the south Yanille wall in the world 36. Figured that the penguins must be still there, I rushed into Yanille and witnessed a group of players luring in a penguin #5 (or was it #6?). It indeed takes a team work to lure penguins. Got a few pictures of these folks as well as of the penguins. I bet we are going to see this happening again and again unless Jagex somehow intervenes. But I just keep wondering, is the cactus penguin was from Al-Kharid?!! Speaking about a taxi service to get from one part of the Gielinor to another...

P.S. In other news, Merch Gwyar is having a birthday party at her house tomorrow.

Knights, Orcs, Werewolves, Rufus And Merch Gwyar

Yet another awesome story from Merch Gwyar. Every time I read about her adventures, I literally feel being there, so colorful and realistic the stories are.