Fighting in Runescape: Where To Start

Even if you wish to eventually be an all-powerful Mage or Archerin Runescape, I strongly recommend all low-level players start with developing Attack, Strength and Defense skills, which are all improved by fighting in hand-to-hand combat, with some kind of sword, scimitar, dagger, maul, or whatever it is you're going to bash your opponent to death with. Advancing magic and ranger skills are expensive, but having a good solid melee combat base will allow you time to collect runes and arrows in between your bouts as a Ranger or a Mage.

Now that you've got some fighting equipment (and if you don't, Get Chopping wood and contact me!), let's talk about great places to get started against opponents!

Goblins, Lvl 2

In Lumbridge, and between Lumbridge and Draynor Village (where the nearest bank is), there are a number of level 2 goblins running around. They are non-aggressive (meaning, they don't initiate battles when you walk by them) and drop runes as well as low-level armors, as well as bones and coins. The low-level armors can be sold at the shop to build up your money stores, and the runes can be stored in your bank account for use when you decide to practice your magical skills.

Chickens and Cows, Lvl 2

To the northeast of Lumbridge, across the river from where you originally started the game (and where you re-start if you die), there are not only goblins, but chickens and cows as well.

These areas were discussed in a previous entry about aquiring food on Runescape without begging, but at that time I was focussing my attention on picking up raw beef and raw chickens that other players have left behind in their own battles.

This time, the attention is on being among those players slaying the poor innocent farm animals for experience, adventure, and glory!

Chickens also offer a bonus that was not discussed earlier - feathers, which are used in fly fishing and, if you're a member, in fletching for the creation of arrows. Keep those feathers around, since you never know when you might need them or could sell them for up to 10gp a feather!

Cows also offer a bonus in that they drop cow hides which are used to improve the Crafting skill, but the hides don't "stack" the same way the feathers do and your inventory fills up rather quickly, meaning lots of trips to the bank. However, just like in collecting raw beef from what other players have killed, you can collect cow hides and make that, instead of fighting the cows, your specific goal. It's likely you can sell each cow hide for 10-20 gold once you've collected 100 or more.

Giant Rats, lvl 3

Just to the west (outside) of Lumbridge Castle is an area with a few level 3 giant white rats, and a few level 1 mice running around. Mainly, you get raw rat meat and bones from these rats, but occasionally you may luck out and receive a rat tail. It's important to know where rat meat is as at least one quest asks for it, but I much prefer the previous opponents due to the better "drops" they offer.

Other non-grouped monsters

In Lumbridge there are a couple level 4 Women who reset in the houses. In general, Women and Men are great opponents to start against, and they offer decent "drops" including occasional clues to treasure trails!! For this reason you may find competition stiff for the Men and Women on Runescape.

That should give you a great start!

Silly Reader Comments and my Silly Responses To Them

Here are some comments that didn't get approved to be publically visible in my blog, but to whom I am responding for all to read and ponder.

One thing I won't make fun of is spelling, punctuation and the likes. I think those things speak for themselves :)

Nov 14/06
"im srry but taking cow meat is such a nooby way to get food i mean they heak 3 health!!!"

Dude. Check the name of the blog and the target market, or offer a better suggestion which I'd be happy to share with this blog's readership.

November 10/05
"hello guy's...im from jagex staff"

[the rest chopped for brevity]

Scammer. I'll bet it annoys you when blogs like mine don't just let your little scam attempts be posted for all to read. I'm glad you have to put in the effort to figure out the post-verification graphic. I like to waste your time.

November 8/06
"hi im a lvl 126 i can smith full rune with plate body if you want full rune for free add me wait you might try to hack me srry"

What dream world are you living in that you think you're lvl 126? What are you doing on a "Newbie Guide" site doing anything but offering helpful advice? Oh, right - being fearful of getting hacked yet _still leaving a note_. Here's a Runescape-related article that might be helpful to you, but you might also want to consider this article, too about your apparent self-victimization which I cannot tell for sure, but suspect, is a regular habit if it comes out to a complete stranger.

October 06/06
"i am a wood cutter but im realy poor. I realy like your stats if you can go to world 37 now i will talk yo you just wondering could you helpme get to level 60 wc if so thks"

Here's the only advice I can give to advance any skill.

Ready for it?

Here it comes:

Keep doing the skill, and if you can, keep doing the skill on the highest-level skilling device you can. For example, if you're a woodchopper, chop the highest type of tree you can gain access to, and just KEEP GOING.

There is no easy way out of skilling up things like mining and woodcutting - just keep mining and woodcutting.

October 4/06
"hey, add [a name not posted here]... i wanna say and ask some stuff plz..."

Unfortunately, due to the wonderful popularity of this blog, I have chosen to severely limit who gets onto my online friends list, and I never have my private chat status set to where folks not on my friends list can see me online. It's funny, every once in a while I'll switch to 'On' instead of 'private/friends' and I'll be flooded with chats from 15 people at a time - so fast that I can't read what everyone's said before the chats get scrolled off of my screen.

So, if you have a question, please do leave me a comment on this blog. As of today's posting I have 800 outstanding comments to sift through from when I wasn't actively maintaining the blog, but new comments get first attention so post your questions and suggestions any time you'd like!

September 30/06
"i am not a scamer but my name is [snipped] and I am lev [who cares] so if you want your lev up, email me your username and password...'

Methinks thou dost protesteth too much. Scammer. I wish I could make it so if folks put certain keywords in their comments that in addition to the verification code required, a skill-testing mathematical question would be required, in addition to 3 or 4 questions from an IQ test (which would all have to be answered correctly). If nothing else, it would waste scammer's time, which is something I like to do.

September 27/06
"you r all silly noobs and its a dum computer game so who cares if u get hacked of blocked or what ever go get a life"

We're rubber and you're glue...

Did your girlfriend dump you for glomming on to her and expecting her to be the center of your life, and now you're lashing out at people who are still having fun? Here's an illuminating bit of information you might benefit from, considering your need to lash out to the blog of a complete stranger, attempting to tell others what to do.

The End For This Round

Well, that's enough for now. I'm sure there'll be a lot more fodder for these types of entries, considering the 800 additional comments I haven't viewed yet.

There are a number of other comments that were left that had questions of substance (ie: great questions, useful tips!), and I'll be answering those, too, as time allows. If you've got a question or some helpful tips for others reading the blog, feel free to leave a comment. I'll dedicate a full entry to any true, thoughtful, intelligent question.

But note, if you post a self-centered, whiny, begging or outright idiotic comment, you may appear on the next list where I practice calling those types of people out on their behavior.

I know, some people like that. Maybe I won't give _those people_ attention, because I like to annoy attention-mongers... it's in my blood.

Reader question: How much can I sell logs for?

I sincerely appreciate the questions, comments and tips other folks leave me through this blog, and while I'm currently way behind on approving comments for display, I plan to be answering a lot of the good questions that have come through. If your question doesn't get handled, feel free to leave a comment about what you're wondering about!

Recent Reader Question:

Submitted November 16/06
"Hey, i have a pure wc'er and hes only lvl 6. =] hes 59 wc but i never seem to be able to sell them. what price should i prefferably sell them :)"

Congrats! That's a lot of chopping to get to wc59! And you're so close to being able to chop Yew, which is highly sought-after by members because bows made of Yew 'high alch' for great rates!

In a non-member world, wood is probably a lot harder to sell, simply because the 'fletching' skill is not available to the players around you.

For those who might not have read about it much, fletching is a members-only skill which allows players to whittle arrow shafts and bows from various types of logs.

My personal experience has been that regular logs sell much better than oak or willow. Maple sells better than regular logs, but their higher price is likely because there are no Maple trees on non-member worlds and thus the whole 'supply and demand' bit is imbalanced. Yew logs sell for the highest price, but also require the most dedication to be able to cut in the first place.

Note, I've been away for a bit so my prices may not be superbly accurate. They should be close, if you can find the right buyer, however:

Regular logs - 100gp per log (when selling to an arrow-maker)
Oak logs - 20gp per log
Willow logs - 30gp per log
Maple logs - 150gp per log
Yew logs - 300gp per log
Magic logs - 1000gp per log

As is standard with most things on the Player Market, transactions are done in bulk. For you, the woodchopper, that means you should be collecting at least 250 logs before advertising to other players in common meeting areas like banks, and in some cases you'd be better off to have collected 1000 logs before attempting to make a sale.

The key with making money on the player market as a 'worker' is having the patience to understand that the real buyers don't buy in 100-lot quantities of ore, wood, flax, cow hides, feathers, etc... the real buyers are players who spend serious chunks of money on raw materials so _they don't have to do the collection work themselves_ but can make use of the materials in boosting other skills or re-stocking equipment such as arrows.

Once you've found one single buyer for your stock, it's usually not that difficult to leverage the relationship to find additional buyers, or find additional "jobs" with the first buyer. Players who use the player market to buy raw materials in bulk generally buy many different raw materials from many different players, and have friends who do the same thing as well. If you serve your first client well, you should be able to get some referrals in time, to expand your "business"

Good luck with your woodcutter, I hope Yew brings you much wealth!

Future Entries will tackle the topics of:

- Not all lowbies are noobs, not all highbies are jerks
- Unlocking zone music
- Where to find nature runes

Answering Comments Left - maybe poking fun.

Note, I really do enjoy some of the feedback I get in this blog. I've heard some great stories and received some great tips and tricks that have helped my own playing and enjoyment of the game.

But, unfortunately, my blog also attracts folks of all ages who see me as competition to be battered down into the ground ("I'm better than you, see?" comments), or some kind of financial supplier with a never-ending source of free stuff.

On the one hand, the relentless begging and bashing are strange concepts to me, considering I'm a complete and utter stranger, but on the other hand they're not strange concepts to me because I notice clearly in life how many humans mistakenly think the world revolves around them and that everyone around them is ultimately present to either serve them or stand in their way.

I used to just delete the comments, but I think I'll start to post about them instead, because it sounds more fun, and lets me link to other articles in my blog that new readers might not have otherwise come across.

I'll be nice, because that's what I am - but I also need practice being blunt, so I will likely do that too.

So, we'll start with the first one I looked at out of the 909 comments I need to sift through since I haven't been moderating comments for the past 9 months or so:


QUESTION/COMMENT
Date: November 18, 2006

dude how did u get ur stats so high?! I wuz wonderin if u could give me some money like 500k or sometin.

my user is [no longer included here]

add me and try and give memoney!!!!

ANSWER:

I got my stats high by playing hour upon hour upon hour, wasting time I could have spent socializing with humans face-to-face, working out, cooking healthy meals, or even learning new things and expanding my various Real Life potentials. I also got my stats high by sticking with the same character and rarely playing alternate ones. For example, I have no "pure" PK-based characters at this time.

To optimize my advancement, I tended to log in early in the morning when the population counts were the lowest and work on my high-competition skills like mining during those times.

Becoming a member was a key in my advancement. The world is much much bigger and therefore things you're trying to gather in any one spot tend to have less competition than in non-member worlds.

As for cash - no, I won't give you any. You're a complete stranger, take responsibility, learn how to earn it on your own and stop relying on the world to support you.

There's lots of great tips in this blog in general, but check out the specific entries about earning money by selling logs, running runes, mining ores, and if you're a member, running flax.

[sarcasm]
Besides, you'll get more online girlfriends if you have the bling to support their needs.
[/sarcasm]

Back playing RuneScape

Hey folks! I'm back! It's been around a year since I played RuneScape very often as I got into World of Warcraft pretty heavily, but life changes, and hey, I'm back on RuneScape, checkin' out all the new changes.

Since I haven't been playing for almost a year, I had allowed my Member account to move to non-member status, so I've been logging in as one of my low level 'noob' accounts to play around and get used to everything again. Just this morning, however, I cancelled my $15USD/month subscription to World of Warcraft and turned up the $5USD/month membership on my combat 85 toon, Valdesta.

Sorry folks, I'm not available to chat when on the game, but I'm starting to get back into reading the comments on this blog when submitted, so if you have topics you'd like me to write an entry on, or specific questions you would like answers to, please feel free to leave a comment.

Note, scam and spam comments won't make it into the public part of the blog, as I moderate them. Unfortunately, about 99% of the comments on this blog are drug spams or attempted password scams, so if you DO leave an on-topic comment, please give me a bit to get to it :)

Valdesta
Combat 85 RuneScape Member
Stats over level 70 include:
Ranged, Strength, Hitpoints, Fletching, Fishing, Mining, Smithing