My subscription will end soon, and once that subscription ends, I will be reviewing the game mechanics, and how it appeals to gamers down to the lowest denomination possible.

I’ve just reached level 50 in terms of combat level today, and I believe it might be a good time to do a bit of review on the gameplay. First off, I’m going to review the multiplayer “multiplayer” aspect of Runescape: The Grand Exchange, and The Party Room, and how I believe these two are well-placed and well-scripted events that exist to encourage participation amongst Runescape players like us who would be happy to take some time off the quests.

The Grand Exchange:

Regarding the Grand Exchange, it’s like it’s name sake. You turn into your items in exchange for money. Players around the Grand Exchange would often declare what they are selling, such as “Selling <item> for <# of gold, currency of RS> each!”, in hopes of getting a buyer to buy their goods. I have sold a Black Scimitar worth nearly 5k of gold, as well as two Iron swords worth several hundred each. Sometimes, people would immediately buy your goods that you are all too happy to rid of in order to make a quick influx of RS gold, other times, you’ll have to wait or wander around before heading back to the G. Exchange or any of the banks around Runescape in order to collect your earnings from selling something.

Party Room:

Occasionally, there will be a huge party in Varrock’s Party Room (hosted on a select number of servers each day). What is it, is that a lot of players would gather around in the Party Room. A NPC (non player character) will count down until the party, in which balloons will drop, and us players will have to stamp on the balloons, revealing, sometimes, valuable items that can be sold or kept. This is a great way to get otherwise hard-to-get items, but, like the G. Exchange, it involves other players to put items in the party chest in order to be functional.

I have highlighted the two multiplayer aspects, and how they engage players like us in Runescape. I have not decided on another topic, but it will come to light soon in the time being.

Runescape:
I’ve been playing some Runescape over the break, experimenting and experiencing several type of skills. For better or for worse, there’s just way too many things to do in the membership version of Runescape. It’s almost to the extent of being overwhelming. And some of the skills, like summoning, took me forever to level up. (C’mon! I want to talk to my pet spirit wolf!) There are too many places to visit, too many skills to learn, and too many quests to attempt. For the time being, I’m actually quite poor to afford anything over several RS$100, so I’m just going to attempt the quests that rewards me with $.

One more drawback of being in a member’s world – I feel so lonely. ._.

I’m planning on cancelling my membership during the middle of March. After all, membership requires money on a monthly basis.

I’ve played a bit of Runescape, and I decided to focus more on fletching – the art of making bows and arrows. Although repetitive, I needed bows in order to sell them for money, and in order to make bows, I need to get good wood (lol).

For some strange reason, my interest in Runescape is ebbing away, which is quite bad. Sometimes I tend to feel a bit demoralized when I see a lv 100+ character walk past – i’ve played for like months, and I’m at lv 44. Man, those guys are hardcore. Speaking of hardcore, I’m starting to find certain tasks a pain in the ass – requiring me to run great distances from one city to the other just to get things done.

A typical pain in the ass scenario.

• 1. I managed to do a sub task,  in Point A.
• 2. Then I have to run all the way north to the nearest second subtask in Point B, which is like, several light years away.
• 3. Then I have to return back to Point A to finish the task.
• 4. Time taken = 5 minutes.

Typical vocabulary of a troll = noob. C’mon, can’t these guys troll better than that? Oh wait…they’re trolls, so I guess it’s a lost cause to them, right?

I’ll start doing homework tomorrow, I’ve wasted enough time resting up for a week.

Vancouver Standard Time 13:42

Airplane Blog.

Thank you Janice for inspiring me to write my own miniblog. I’m here, travelling on Air Canada flight 007 (lol) to Hong Kong. So here I am, blogging away on my laptop, in a seat quite close to Business Class.

It’s been 44 minutes since take off, and I’m basically watching a movie on TV now – 赤壁 directed by none other than John Woo!!!

This is my first time travelling by myself on a plane, and I’m kinda relieved that I didn’t encounter too much complications getting to my flight. I’m sitting in a 3 seats-per row., with two people, with an empty (yes!!) seat in the middle.

I might blog again sooner or later, but for now, I’m going to watch some movies!

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Vancouver Standard Time 3:10

Video keeps looping over and over again, and now it’s stopped completely. –;

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Vancouver Standard Time 20:42

Movies watched: 赤壁, Astro Boy

Now listening to: Sonata in B Minor, S. 178 III

How…timely – it is exactly 7 hours since I have written my earlier blog today. The cabin people have managed to fix up some technical difficulties several hours ago pertaining to the AVOD system (about damn time), so woohoo, I can now return to watching videos without being disrupted by crazy loopbacks and lags. 4

First of all, I love the ambient lighting within the plane – a huge improvement with respect to my previous experience with Air Canada – which was a very outdated plane with no AVOD and beautiful ambient lighting.

I’ve read through more of Baghdad Burning, to satisfy myself with more Bush bashing awesomeness.

I never really have luck to sleep for more than 30 minutes on a plane, and when I do, I wake up with horrible cramps in my arms and legs — thank goodness for the unoccupied middle seat, I can occupy up to 50% more of the space – just like in business class – woohoo! I’m currently sitting cross-legged, rather comfortably.

A few hours earlier today(night? It’s 20:48 Vancouver time and the sky outside is as bright as ever), I managed to take some really sweet photos of the frozen land 10 or so km beneath us. It was a beautifully clear day when our plane flew over the barren wasteland of ice, but it was so beautiful.

Man, there’s a whole lot of things that I could do in Runescape after getting a monthly subscription. Almost too much. I have no idea what I should start off with – kinda.

So I decided to settle being a tourist for the time being, traveling by ship and foot everywhere around the land of Runescape. The lands that I encountered were much more diverse than the lands that you could travel around in the free to play version. I nearly died of thirst in the desert. Man, you lose like a 5th of your health every half minute just by walking around in the desert…

YAY! WOLVES!!!

I took on a quest which allowed you to summon spirit wolves. Wolves are awesome, and by far my favorite Poké- I mean creature to summon. Too bad I’ll need a higher summoning level to strike up a conversation with my spirit wolfy friend. XP

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Olympics

The performances were awe-inspiring and the choreography was just amazing. It’s mind staggering to understand how the stage could become projected as the ocean, the forests, etc. One of my favorite scenes was the arctic scene with the polar bear. In addition, I liked how the Olympics paid tribute to the First Nations people. Good job.

But…

*moment of silence for Nodar Kumaritashvili*

- How the heck did the Olympics Committee, especially its physicians miscalculated (or even, underestimated) the speed at which the luger would travel? At least put up some warning barriers such as nets to prevent the luger from flying off the course.

- “Uh…we are encountering technical difficulties on the torch’s hydraulic systems.” I mean, c’mon! Seriously. What an embarrassment! And now one of the athletes’ gonna be so disappointed because he or she didn’t get to light the torch…

- Broken Chevy headlamps. Y’know that’s the pickup that Gretzky was riding on while holding the torch. I mean c’mon, seriously. Why would you have a car with a broken headlamp for Gretzky, or any athlete to ride on in the parade? It’s an embarrassment. >>

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I’m leaving on a jet plane…

I’m leaving for YVR, then for Hong Kong in a couple of hours to celebrate Chinese New Year with my family. Chinese New Year starts this Sunday in Hong Kong, which means it’ll be night when I arrive in HKIA. Hong Kong’s weather will be 10C when I arrive tomorrow evening…ouch!

After checking out Runescape Wikia, I will never walk into the Wilderness again until my combat level is OVER 9000!! I mean, at least 140 or so.

I love training in the underground tunnels, especially in the stronghold of security. It’s only there in which I could find opponents worthy of my blade. By the way, the stronghold of security, although it gets increasingly difficult as you progress down each and every floor, you can easily avoid the high level monsters (save for a couple points of damage) if your timing is right. And if you really want to be safe about it, you can always level up to a sizable level before attempting an excursion. In addition, you can ask any other fellow human controlled character that’s going on an expedition to assist them. That way you could have a human shield when things get sideways. ; )

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I should really start working on my History and Archaeology Essay Proposal tonight. And thank you Janice for moving the date for the midterm until after the break. I’d blackout if I had to do three assessments on one single day: Sociology Midterm, English Midterm, Archaeology Midterm.

I’m gonna go back to Hong Kong during the Chinese New Year of the Tiger. Woohoo!

P.S. Should I really get myself a subscription for a month? The last time I checked on XE, $6 in US is equivalent to $6.36.

I’ve been killed twice in Runescape by really high leveled enemies. I got a bit adventurous and decided to venture into hell in Runescape (complete with lava, graveyards, dead trees and black soil). Also, I found myself relying more and more on Runescape Wiki to find step by step instructions to complete quests. It’s not that I”m lazy to figure out things myself, but it would have been much more user friendly to give a couple of step by step objectives to complete a quest than to give one single objective with a little briefing description below it, giving not much aid save for an arrow to the starting point of a quest.

By the way, I was wondering, should I subscribe to Runescape for $6USD? There are just too many eye candies for subscribed members, such as being able to explore much more worlds, summons wolves or other animals to your aid, etc.

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I can be a work machine at times, but usually I tend to kick back and relax on a good game of Runescape or Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Take for example, I’ve done my “My Year of Meats” essay in one night. I better make a mental note to myself to keep up the good work. XD

Here I am again, playing Runescape, and level grinding on cooking, combat, and HP. I’m starting to get used to using the apple key to right click on stuff, but there are times in which I tend to forget, making it somewhat of an annoyance.

Map doesn’t want to load…causing the game to freeze up…which leads to me having to Apple-R the webpage to reset the game.

I’m not doing anything major, really. I’m just walking around, cooking steak and KFC, while slaying goblins, spiders, and the like.