RuneScape Discussion

This month's issue of Runescape Discussion, we again have Sgt.Pepper's words of wisdom in the Runescape Trade Market. An insight and report on the new interface of the game is produced by the great iTush. Do you need a good weapon? Don't know what to get? Well, Co-Z has given you an article filled with ideas.

I hope this month's edition is something your brain can munch on!

~Sgt.Pepper

Need A Good Weapon? Right Here, Buddy. - By: Co-Z

Written by Co-Z
Special thanks to Meen

Weapons are something various throughout RuneScape. Even though some weapons, such as Abbyssal Whips, are obvious, not everyone can use them! When it comes to weapons, fear not! Your decisions will have to be made eventually, which is why I'm here to help.

Firstly, I'll cover freeplay weapons.

Melee
It's commonly asked what to use for freeplay melee, and commonly answered. The rune scimitar has just about the same power as a rune longsword, but it is slightly faster. Comparing it to the battle axe, the scimitar wins again. A battleaxe is stronger, but even slower than your longsword. And when you consider a two hander, that's the slowest melee weapon, even though it is the strongest. Without a doubt, the scimitar wins. However, a 2 hander is good for finishing off your enemies while PKing.

Range
This should be clearly obvious. Ranging is smaller skill for freeplay, so you'll want the maple bow. Some choose long, but the short is better. Shortbows are faster, and you really don't need the distance of a longbow.

Magic
Your staff depends on your runes needed. For example, if the spell requires more water runes than it requires air, you should use a water staff. Runecrafting is an easy solution to getting needed elemental runes. If you plan to fight monsters with magic, try wind spells. All you need is an air staff and either mind, chaos, or death runes. If you plan to PK, a good spell is fire blast.

Now, onto members.

Melee
There are a lot of questions asked in this area. Let's review some questions.
What are good dragon weapons?
Firstly, I'll compare the Dragon Longsword and Dragon Scimitar. The longsword has a better special, but the scimitar is slightly faster. I'd probably say the scimitar, but a longsword is still good. Not everyone can get the scimitar, because it requires completion of Monkey Madness, which is a difficult quest.
What is a good two-handed weapon?
It's always between mauls, halberds, and 2h swords in this area. First, let's compare 2h's and halberds. The halberd is a clear winner because it has a better slash bonus, even though the 2h has a better strength bonus. Halberds aren't very expensive, compared to the 2h that costs around 2 million. If you're not trying to spend much money, mauls are great. The Granite Maul requires 50 strength and attack, and is much better than a rune 2-hander. The best maul, however, is an obsidian maul. It's slightly weaker than a dragon halberd, but stronger than a granite maul. They have one attack stlye: crush. Crushing is underated, actually. Most players use plate armor, which takes harder hits from crushes than it does from slashes and stabs. If you have 60 strength, an obsidian maul is a great weapon, and it only costs about 110k!

And, of course, once you reach 70 attack, an abbyssal whip will be available to you. These whips are the best weapons in the game because of their power and speed.

Range
The worst weapon to use while training is a crossbow because it is very slow. A rune crossbow with enchanted onyx bolts is excellent for PKing, but is very pricy. My choice weapon is a magic shortbow. The special is great, and it can use all arrows. Other ideas are rune throwing knives, which are the best thrown weapons. Knives have bad distance, which is why they aren't commonly used. If you're a high level ranger, try a seercrull bow or a crystal bow.

Magic
This relates a lot to my freeplay advice. Always pick the staff for the runes you'll need the most of. Some good spells to use in this situation are wave spells, God spells, Iban blast, and magic dart. Optionally, you can use a battlestaff or mystic battlestaff, which both are stronger melee weapons. Any variaton of a lava staff is handy, because it provides unlimited earth and fire runes.

Now that most of your questions are probably answered, grab your weapon and show your foes who's boss.

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Revamped Interface Menu - By: iTush In the latest graphical upgrades, most of RuneScape's interface menu's have been revamped. They were changed from text to illustrated images that show a particular option, event or emoticon. In this edition of Sal's Official Newspaper, I will be talking about which interface menu's have been changed and the advantages/disadvantages of what other people think of this particular update.


Combat Interface
The Combat Interface is a menu in RuneScape which allows you to select how you want to fight and what combat skill you want experience in. This is helpful for players because it allows you to choose what level you want to gain in. (Attack, Strength or Defence) If you are unarmed (Wielding no weapons) you have 3 options: Punch, Kick or Block. If you are wielding a weapon, they have options such as:
Attack: Chop - (Accurate attack)
Strength: Slash - (Agressive strength)
Defence: Block - (Defensive defence)
The option 'Lunge' allows you to train all 3 combat skills without choosing a particular one to train on. Also in the combat interface, you may notice an option, 'Auto Retaliate'. Auto Retaliate works as:
If Auto Retaliate is on, you will attack your opponent if it attacks you or if Auto Retaliate is off, you will not attack your oppenent if it attacks you. Special attack is another option which gives you a boost at any combat skill chosen by that particular weapon. It gives bonus points which allow you to attack more easily. Example, a Dragon Dagger (poisoned or non poisoned) has 4 special attacks, with 2 strikes per special attack.



Equipped Interface
This menu shows what you are currently wielding in the game. In other words, wielding means to hold an object. This menu is really easy to use and learn in a few minutes. Back in the days of RuneScape Classic, once you wield an item, it used to stay in your inventory, so if I had 28 free space, I had a weapon and a shield equipped, I would only have 26 spaces left. The changes to this menu is the stat bonuses. Here is a picture of what the new interface looks like.

You can now see that it shows your character turning in a 45 degree angle, able to change whatever you are wearing whilst viewing the interface, how much you are currently holding in weight and stat bonuses.


Options Interface
The changes to this menu are the graphics. Starting from the top left, we have the run icon. You can choose either to walk or run. The next one (AbC) is the chat effects. In RuneScape, you can type in decorative text, but for instance you get annoyed by soamming, you can always turn it off. The next one is split-private chat. This will change your private message conversations on the chatbox or the actual gamescreen on the bottom left. The next one is choosing if you want to use 1 or 2 mouse buttons. I see no reason why we have this, or probably people are too lazy to use 2 fingers. Accept aid is used when another player is teleporting you to a place in RuneScape. You get a warning/invitation if you wish to teleport to that designated place. To make this work, make sure it is ticked. The house options are used for controlling your player owned house. Going down, the sun is the brightness of the screen, the music icon adjusts your volume for the RuneScape MIDI player, the speaker to adjust your sound effect volume and the last one is the control to adjust your area sound effect.


Emoticons Interface
These are self-explanatory by the pictures. These were changed due to an international players reason.

Advantages/Disadvantages
I have interviewed a few people and here are what they say about the new update.

Advantages
The equipped stats page looks much better (same as seeing yourself) - Arch
Easier for those really bad in english - Kronian
Helpful for new players - Kronian

Disadvantages
The emotes are too hard to tell from each other - Arch
Experienced players instinctively hit the Ctrl for run...only to find its not there anymore - Kronian
You cannot see the equipped stats properly - Kronian
Looks childish - Kronian

That is all from me for this edition, I would like to thank Arch and Kronian for taking their time telling me any advantages/disadvantages that took place while they had a first glance at the update. I hope you enjoy reading this and I will see you in the next edition of Sal's Official Newspaper.

-iTush

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RuneScape Stock Market - By: Sgt.Pepper

October 2006


Have you ever thought that an item was going to become really really expensive soon, so you bought a giant stockpile of it and it turns out it isn't worth diddily squat? No more! This article is going to be me telling you, the reader, what exactly is going on with the prices in Runescape. I won't cover every item, but I will cover a good variety.

This Month's Blockbuster: Barrows Armor takes a turn for the worst

Everyone knows that Barrows Armors will always fluxuate and drop in price, and that is what we are witnessing. Dharoks Sets have dropped from 5,600,000 (5.6m) to a mere 3,600,000 (3.6m). That is a difference of 2 million! Now, many of you may say "Oh, don't worry, the same thing happened with Construction; it will bounce back." I seriously think that this is the beginning of the end for Barrows. When Construction was released, Guthans was not plagued with propaganda unlike the other brother sets. But now, Guthans has dropped from 11,200,000 (11.2m) to a mochary of 8,600,000 (8.6m). Not only has the price dropped, but the supply and demand have pummeled. Is this a hint of the future? Will there be a day where everyone has a Barrows Set? I beleive it is heading down that path; most people say barrows will climb back up, but with the holiday season soon approaching, and all the hardcore Merchanters preparing for Christmas, all Barrows armors will be left out to dry. The same thing happened with Abyssal Whips. In their early days, Whips were commonly sold for 15,000,000 (15m) gold peices each. They soon declined with age into the mere shadow of what they once were, they are currently going for 1,700,000 gold a pop.

Armor Stocks:

I already discussed the Barrows in the former, so I am going to discuss the not so popular topics. Full Mystic prices have slowly declined; the popular Full Black Mystic has dropped from 800,000 (800k) to 500,000 (500k). Mystic isn't exactly a hot potato in World 2, unlike the Dragon Chain. Many of you may not know, but Dragon Chains at a time were priced at over 50,000,000 (50m), but have lowered down to 15,000,00 (15m). With the fall of Barrows, look for Dragon Chains on the radar as merchants begin to look deeper in their pockets for a profitable trade.

Discontinued Item Stocks:

What to say about the Rare Market this month... Pumpkins have skyrocketed from 12m each to over 25m each. If you read last month's issue, you will realize that I was right on target with my predictions.

Blue Partyhats are, of course, out of reach of most Runescapers at a staggering 500,000,000 (500m!!!). They will most likely never change (unless the proposed "Merchant Apocalypse" occurs, which is where the band of the richest players around that have the majority of the rares in the game were to all quit at one time; thus taking out the largest portion of money in the game).

Santa Hats are climbing, they were at last issue 22 million, they are now 26 million. But, just like in prior years, they will skyrocket on Christmas, and then will come crashing down on the days following the 24th and into the New Year.

Reflections

This is where I get to keep track of my knowledge of predictions to see if I was right or wrong.

From last issue:
-I said Pumpkins would raise in price. Did they? YES
-I said Cowhides would drop down to 150 gold peices each. Did they? YES
-I said Barrows armor would go up a bit, then come back down. Did they? YES

So, that is proof to show that I, Sgt.Pepper; am a mastermind at the Runescape Economy My Record currently stands at 3-0 which will most likely change in the near future.

My Predictions

Going Up?

-Pumpkins will continue to rise, but will crash at Halloween.
-Barrows Armor prices will flux a bit heading into the holiday season, but we may as well hold a funeral on Christmas, for that will be the final nail in the coffin as Barrows being the cornerstone of the economy.


Crashing Down!

-As said in the former, Barrows armor is starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, it is going down.


Well, I hope my words of wisdom will lead you to sucess!

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