Due to the unexpected success of this blog, and the new updates in RS, we are moving from blogger to out own domain name. You can now find us at www.rseconomist.com.
I was also feeling that RS investor didn't accurately describe my blog, so I upgraded that as well. I am now the RS Economist.
The new blog can be found here.
I am still working out the bugs here and should be upgrading the RSS feed over the next few days (but it should work alright as it is). If yours doesn't go automatically, then please click the above link and update in manually.
-Turbo
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Pot your way to faster leveling – Part 2
Pot your way to faster leveling ? Part 2
Turbo from the RS Investor blog here posting again for the Runescape Blog with my second installment in the series. Today I will focus on some of the lesser known aspects of potting for training. In the first section, I talked about the potions you should be using, and can probably make yourself. Here I will go over some of the ones that you might need help with.
Magic Potions ? Drink Me!
Should you use these while training mage? Absolutely (well, unless you are casting high alch over and over again...). At today's cost of 235gp a sip, these are a bargain as well. They increase your mage by +4, significantly increasing not only the chances that you will hit more often, but also that you will do more damage.
I know that some readers are thinking, hmmm, “My inventory slots are more important than having a potion.” I agree to an extent, but you have to be aware that a potion's effects don't wear off instantly. I wouldn't carry one along to a blue dragon task, but I would sure have a sip every time I banked hides and bones. The stat bonus carries me through the entire time.
Can't make magic potions? I don't know any high level herblorist who would turn down free herblore XP. I certainly wouldn't. Today Lants are 1,163 and potato cactus is 965. That is 2128 per potion or 709gp per dose. Is it worth it for a +4 mage bonus? I think so.
The non-combat uses are also worth mentioning here. At level 70, I trained using teleother to Lumbridge with magic potions. On a crowded server, people beg to be teleported, and it is some of the fastest magic XP in the game. (at 71, you should switch from magic pots to Wizard Mind Bombs though).
Ranging Potions ? Shoot this!
With Pking gone, these have lost the majority of their value, but are still very worthwhile potions. Today they are 431 a dose. Range potions give a 4-13 (10%+3) level boost. At 60 range that will boost you up to nearly 70. Starting with 70 range will get you up to 80. This is a pretty hefty increase, and will significantly decrease your kill times, saving you arrows (darts, knives, cballs, charges), time, and increasing the rate at which you level up.
In conclusion...
It really is worth it to use what ever stat increasing items and tools you can while training. With the potion market being what it is, they are well worth the investment. With both range and magic potions, it is more expensive to buy the ingredients and get assisted, but still not unreasonable, especially if you happen to have a few lants and dwarf weeds sitting in the bank. The seconds for both are about 1k each, and many people will assist you. Just call it out in the GE, and you should get offers.
Stay tuned until next week when I will outline some of the highest potions in the game and some uses for them that you probably haven't even though about.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Life is a Bitch?
The new tipit Times article prompted me to write this post. I had been kicking the idea around for quite some time, but the glaring duality in the newest Times sucked it out of me.
I recently had some t-shirts made up for my RL pizza shop. In the process of developing the design, I came across a shirt with the old phrase, “Life is a Bitch, Then you die”. This is one of the phrases that at first glance sounds pretty true.
Ranting about Runescape has been covered to death. Just look at the rants section of the official forums. Nearly 700k posts, (compared to the compliments of just over 100k). That people complain is not really trying to get across here. You will never satisfy all of the players all of the time.
Looking closer at the actual phrase brings out the contradiction in this line of thinking. We can all agree that life is a bitch some of the time, but is it true all the time? If life really was so bad, wouldn’t dieing be a welcome relief? I assume most of you aren’t searching for the nearest tall bridge or cliff to jump off, so don’t let this overlooked contradiction poison your thinking. It does have a very observable though. The root of that phrase is something along the lines of telling Jagex: “Why bother trying, your updates won’t matter anyway”.
Now, I am sure that most of you readers couldn’t care less about the morale of anyone at Jagex (a few of you might even be actively thinking of ways to screw with it), but really if you are going to complain, then COMPLAIN! Don’t make some lame article that rants about updates, then finished with: “All in all, I can’t wait until the graphics come out, but please don’t continue to improve them”.
First of all, Jagex is out to make a profit. To do that they need to sell subscriptions and advertising, and in order to do that, they need to generate new customers. I am pretty sure they are actually happier when older players leave the game. The older toons are the ones skilled at emergent gaming, who pked well, merchanted well, and the ones who took advantage of every loophole there was. Old Paul in his Ivory Tower doesn’t like it when people don’t play the game the game the way he meant it to be played, and hence Jagex goes out of it’s way to stop it.
Back to the article though. Das ripps on Castle Wars. Well, I miss the point there as well. The goal of the game is to gain combat XP, with the secondary goal of getting some fairly noobish looking Armour. The higher level amours only tell others that you have spent hundreds of hours at Castle Wars, something that others might attach some status to, but I sure don’t. He more players there to kill, the more XP you get per game! The more the merrier, and if you don’t like the terrain, there is always FOG, Bounty Hunter, and Clan Wars.
You don’t need the wisdom of Solomon to write an effective complaint, so please. Take a stand, hold your ground, make a decent argument. Don’t make lame attempts and snide comments like, “is variety not the spice of life?“ Either complain about updates or shut the hell up.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Pot your way to faster leveling - Part I
Hi readers. I want to start by saying thanks for your views, yesterday I had the highest hits in a single day since starting this blog.
Today's focus is on effective training using potions. I am splitting this into 3 parts just because of the length and depth I will need to go into to really feel out the subject. Here we go:
Part I - The basics of using potions to speed up leveling and XP per hour
Any player regardless of how little money they have should, at a minimum, always be using normal Strength and Super Attack potions while training any combat related skill. (I will skip the making of potions, as I assume you already know how, you should be making all of the potions you use though.) Super attack potions are actually cheaper than normal attack potions, so there is no reason to go with normal ones unless you are really broke, then attack mixes are the cheapest thing on the market. This goes for free players as well in the case of strength potions, they are cheap and well worth it.
Super Attack Potions - What they do and why you should use them
These increase your attack by 20% for a 5-19 level increase. For example if you has an attack level of 80, one sip from a Super Attack would boost your attack level to 96. Not bad for 80 gold pieces, especially when you compare it to a slayer mask that only gives a 15% increase but costs nearly a mil. You could buy 12,300 Super Attack doses for the cost of that one mask, but since the bonuses stack, you really should use both while training slayer for a whopping 35% increase in attack.
Strength Potions - Drink this for Strength
Strength potions, or str pots, increase your strength by 12.5% for a 3-12 level increase. A sip of this boosts a strength of 80 to 90. This is especially useful in F2P, where str increases are few and far between. Increased str makes you to hit for higher damage, causing: faster kills, more XP per hour, and increased drop rate per hour (the more you kill the more drops you get).
Barbarian Mixes - Eat your pots
These are one of the greatest underutilized parts of the game. Cost wise they are pretty bad to make from scratch, but they are great to make if you already have the potions, especially if you are fighting monsters that occasionally hit you and do damage. To make a mix, you need a 2 dose potion and roe. You can decant 2-2dose potions using a 4 dose potion on an empty vial. adding the roe to either an attack or strength potion gives you attack mix(2) or strength mix(2) respectively, and turns the potion into food that heals 6 hp (3hp per dose). Roe is easy enoug to fish near the barbarian outpost, they even have a drop box 1 click away at the Barbarian Assault mini game, it is also very cheap, at only 35gp on the GE, so it is well worth buying, unless you want some fishing XP.
In Conclusion
Even if you are only killing a monster that just drops bones, it is worth it to use potions. Bones sell for 90gp. Super Attack and Str mixes sell for 80gp and 100 per dose, and easily last more than 2 kills. I am not recommending you stop training to bank normal bones by any means, but I wanted to illustrate how cheap it is to use potions for training. Some more examples are:
- 1 dose of each gives higher bonuses than an Amulet of Fury. Cost:3.2mil vs 180gp
- At lvl 99 str the bonus is 300% better than bandos chest str bonus costing about 15.1mil less
- At str level of 32 the bonus from a str pot is eqivalent to the bonus from a berserker ring for 1/36000 the price.
Happy Potting!
Reader Survey:
There is a weekly column on a WOW blog about different classes and effective training techniques that I really like and have been thinking of modifying for RS. Are any of you interested in seeing a weekly column of RS pure types? If you are leave a comment.
Today's focus is on effective training using potions. I am splitting this into 3 parts just because of the length and depth I will need to go into to really feel out the subject. Here we go:
Part I - The basics of using potions to speed up leveling and XP per hour
Any player regardless of how little money they have should, at a minimum, always be using normal Strength and Super Attack potions while training any combat related skill. (I will skip the making of potions, as I assume you already know how, you should be making all of the potions you use though.) Super attack potions are actually cheaper than normal attack potions, so there is no reason to go with normal ones unless you are really broke, then attack mixes are the cheapest thing on the market. This goes for free players as well in the case of strength potions, they are cheap and well worth it.
Super Attack Potions - What they do and why you should use them
These increase your attack by 20% for a 5-19 level increase. For example if you has an attack level of 80, one sip from a Super Attack would boost your attack level to 96. Not bad for 80 gold pieces, especially when you compare it to a slayer mask that only gives a 15% increase but costs nearly a mil. You could buy 12,300 Super Attack doses for the cost of that one mask, but since the bonuses stack, you really should use both while training slayer for a whopping 35% increase in attack.
Strength Potions - Drink this for Strength
Strength potions, or str pots, increase your strength by 12.5% for a 3-12 level increase. A sip of this boosts a strength of 80 to 90. This is especially useful in F2P, where str increases are few and far between. Increased str makes you to hit for higher damage, causing: faster kills, more XP per hour, and increased drop rate per hour (the more you kill the more drops you get).
Barbarian Mixes - Eat your pots
These are one of the greatest underutilized parts of the game. Cost wise they are pretty bad to make from scratch, but they are great to make if you already have the potions, especially if you are fighting monsters that occasionally hit you and do damage. To make a mix, you need a 2 dose potion and roe. You can decant 2-2dose potions using a 4 dose potion on an empty vial. adding the roe to either an attack or strength potion gives you attack mix(2) or strength mix(2) respectively, and turns the potion into food that heals 6 hp (3hp per dose). Roe is easy enoug to fish near the barbarian outpost, they even have a drop box 1 click away at the Barbarian Assault mini game, it is also very cheap, at only 35gp on the GE, so it is well worth buying, unless you want some fishing XP.
In Conclusion
Even if you are only killing a monster that just drops bones, it is worth it to use potions. Bones sell for 90gp. Super Attack and Str mixes sell for 80gp and 100 per dose, and easily last more than 2 kills. I am not recommending you stop training to bank normal bones by any means, but I wanted to illustrate how cheap it is to use potions for training. Some more examples are:
- 1 dose of each gives higher bonuses than an Amulet of Fury. Cost:3.2mil vs 180gp
- At lvl 99 str the bonus is 300% better than bandos chest str bonus costing about 15.1mil less
- At str level of 32 the bonus from a str pot is eqivalent to the bonus from a berserker ring for 1/36000 the price.
Happy Potting!
Reader Survey:
There is a weekly column on a WOW blog about different classes and effective training techniques that I really like and have been thinking of modifying for RS. Are any of you interested in seeing a weekly column of RS pure types? If you are leave a comment.
Nothing to do eith MMORPGs, but it does date me
I came across this earlier today, and it literally made my day. I remember when Thriller came out on Friday Night Videos, well before Youtube and the internet. It is well worth passing along.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
A Life of Gratitude...
I am a big fan and avid reader of the Zen Habits blog. Today's blog post really hit a nerve in a good way. It made me thing back to my first days in RS, and some of the people who helped me along the way. Some I don't remember their names, line the girl who saw me wandering around the dwarf mine in bronze pl8 and took the time to make me a set of full iron. At the time, I though it was the coolest thing in the game, and that she was the coolest person for doing it.
Another player Oooorgle really stepped in and helped me out in my training and questing. He used to live in Fally 2 selling hallys. I remember buying my first one from him. I promptly took it to wildy and got pked the next day, and PMed him to buy another. From that point, he helped out a lot, from making me glories form d stones (free enchanting to boot) to general training advice. One of the high lights of my RS time was the guided trip through the Underground Pass. I had no clue about it until Oooorgle told me about Regicide and the hally shop. His cooked rabbits were a life saver on that quest as well. Thanks again for the good times Oooorgle.
I know it is clichet, but the olden days were the best days for RS. Clan chat is really doing a number on the community, but that is a topic for another post. Here is the post I am talking about on Zen Habits: Three Truths to Help You Create a Life of Gratitude, and:
The Zen Habits/RS Investor Gratefulness Challenge (paraphrased and adapted to RS from the Zen Habits Challenge)
Fellow readers of Zen Habits (RS Investor), I’d like to leave you with a challenge today. This is not a theoretical challenge–it’s designed to be quite practical.
Over the 30 days, I would like to challenge you to create your own in game life of gratitude in a way that is meaningful to you, and to begin practicing acts of gratefulness more than you have ever done before.
I’ll be doing it along with you, and so will a lot of other readers. It’s always good to be specific, so here are some ideas… but don’t let these limit you.
* Spend three minutes every morning writing down a few things you are grateful for that day
* Devote 15-20 minutes to your friends list and thinking of it as a gratefulness list. (One tip: think both about who you are grateful for knowing and also how you can show that gratitude)
* Make it a habit to encourage at least one person every day
* Review your finances to make sure they are in order and aligned with your values, basically re-evaluate how much that in game gold really means
* Plan something fun, like a trip to somewhere you’ve never been - There are some really cool forgotten places in RS, like the Fisher Kings castle.
* For one day (or more), say something positive to every person you interact with
The second part of the Zen Habits/RS Investor Gratefulness Challenge is for you to pass on the challenge to others.
If you blog, post on forums, or attend clan events, let others know. I know that there are a few people who helped me a lot who I probably didn't thank enough, but with a bit of practice we can all get better in this area, and hopefully make the game a little bit better place.
ps and a special thanks to Necro Brawler for the use of his pic.
Monday, June 16, 2008
A bit o real life
I have been busy with opening my latest restaurant these days, hence the lack of new content. Here are a few pics I threw together for your visual enjoyment.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Reporting in Clan Chat
Timothy Gold had an interesting post today on his blog: The Chronicles of Runescape. It resonated a lot with me because I have a black mark on my record from being reported in clan chat as well. I have booted people out of my clan's clan chat, but never reported them. Some things just shouldn't be done. In my case I told quite a few people my opinion, that reporting in clan chat is conduct unbecoming of a member.
The fact of the matter is that being in a clan is a privilege. If you have a problem with a member then take it through that route. You will get a much better resolution. Reporting in clan chat should be an instant banning from any clan.
The fact of the matter is that being in a clan is a privilege. If you have a problem with a member then take it through that route. You will get a much better resolution. Reporting in clan chat should be an instant banning from any clan.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Douschebag gold sellers
Here is another site that I have mentioned before, but today they take the cake. The wholesale copied this post (from 2006), and the topic is just comedy. A simple google of the first line brought up the Newbie guide post it was stolen from. Here is the link to the post they made/stole today.
They also stopped comments with a wordpress log in screen that you can't sign up for. I have never used wordpress, so I went to the site and asked about it on the forums there. Anyone have any ideas on how to take them down?
They also stopped comments with a wordpress log in screen that you can't sign up for. I have never used wordpress, so I went to the site and asked about it on the forums there. Anyone have any ideas on how to take them down?
Monday, June 9, 2008
Hey all. I just cut and pasted the following from Vaskor's Runescape Reader's Digest. (As I was doing this I chuckled to myself that I am doing the same thing the content thieves are doing). Please go and flag the following blog : http://runescape-powerleveling.blogspot.com/
They are clearly ripping off content from decent fan sites, and really do deserve to be shut down.
Here is what Vaskor suggests:
"1. Mark this blog as "inappropriate". You will need an account on Blogspot in order to do it. If you don't have one, please, register - it's free. Plus you'll be able to post "non-anonymous" comments to all Blogspot blogs, including the Reader's Digest :-)
Here is where you mark the blog as "inappropriate":
[Photo]
2. Write a complain to the Blogspot team about that cheating blog. You can start from here.
3. If you are from Sal's, I'd like to ask you to send a note to Salmoneus notifying about the problem. As the content owner, Salmoneus (or someone else from the site management) can file a DMCA notice, starting from here.
That should have a lot of weight. I sent a note to Salmoneus, but I am afraid he might ignore it, as I am not that active on the forum there.
4. If you would like to join the action, let your blog readers know about it as well. Link to this post or copy the steps.
And let's see if it works out. Hopefully we can make an impact there."
They are clearly ripping off content from decent fan sites, and really do deserve to be shut down.
Here is what Vaskor suggests:
"1. Mark this blog as "inappropriate". You will need an account on Blogspot in order to do it. If you don't have one, please, register - it's free. Plus you'll be able to post "non-anonymous" comments to all Blogspot blogs, including the Reader's Digest :-)
Here is where you mark the blog as "inappropriate":
[Photo]
2. Write a complain to the Blogspot team about that cheating blog. You can start from here.
3. If you are from Sal's, I'd like to ask you to send a note to Salmoneus notifying about the problem. As the content owner, Salmoneus (or someone else from the site management) can file a DMCA notice, starting from here.
That should have a lot of weight. I sent a note to Salmoneus, but I am afraid he might ignore it, as I am not that active on the forum there.
4. If you would like to join the action, let your blog readers know about it as well. Link to this post or copy the steps.
And let's see if it works out. Hopefully we can make an impact there."
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Content thieves
I have been following a blog for a bit. (This one), just because it seemed to be soo much crap. I first though it might be an older player who just quit, the url didn't tip me off at the time, but I guess it should have. gprunescape.com. Wonder what their goal is.
Vaskor wrote today about stealing content on blogs and I though I would chime in as well about these low lifes. grurnescape is just a plain old gold seller, and have that blog to increase their ratings on search engines. On some days they have over 10 posts, and don't even bother to check the content. Lots is from pre-ge and revnant days, and it just makes no sense in today's RS. Does that fool anyone but the search engines?
They are even stealing directly from the RS forums. The sad thing is that on the internet, there isn't much you can do to combat this blatant stealing of content.
Vaskor wrote today about stealing content on blogs and I though I would chime in as well about these low lifes. grurnescape is just a plain old gold seller, and have that blog to increase their ratings on search engines. On some days they have over 10 posts, and don't even bother to check the content. Lots is from pre-ge and revnant days, and it just makes no sense in today's RS. Does that fool anyone but the search engines?
They are even stealing directly from the RS forums. The sad thing is that on the internet, there isn't much you can do to combat this blatant stealing of content.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
The Enchanted Lyre
I had a buddy ask me about these, and though I might throw up a section from an old guide I made on tip.it.
Enchanted Lyres are made using the fletching skill to attach a golden string to an unstrung lyre
Unstrung Lyres are made by cutting a branch from the swaying tree just to the east of Rellekka (see the mini map in my pic, it is the area with many rabbits and Doogle Leaf spawns). Just equip your axe and go chop as many branches as you need. You will get 'branch', use a knife on these to make unstrung lyre, it is almost a musical instrument. Bring a Cammy teletab to speed up the collection process. With the teletab you can collect 27 branches in one trip.
Golden Wool is made by buying golden fleece from Lalli the troll to the east of the rare tree and using the fleece on a spinning wheel to make golden wool. During the quest fleeses are free and you can get as many as you need by talking to Lalli and dropping them, but after the quest you will need to buy them for 1k each. Bring an air staff (your hands will be free this time) and a law or a Cammy teletab here as well to speed up the process. Bring 27,000 gp and you can grab 27 strings in one trip.
Lyres are also a very rare drop from the Fremmenik. If you need some combat XP and have nothing better to do then this is an option for you, but it is an inefficient use of time.
Turbo Tip:
You can cut out some time by using the agility shortcut above the Sinclair Mansion. 48 Agility Required.
Enchanted Lyres are made using the fletching skill to attach a golden string to an unstrung lyre
Unstrung Lyres are made by cutting a branch from the swaying tree just to the east of Rellekka (see the mini map in my pic, it is the area with many rabbits and Doogle Leaf spawns). Just equip your axe and go chop as many branches as you need. You will get 'branch', use a knife on these to make unstrung lyre, it is almost a musical instrument. Bring a Cammy teletab to speed up the collection process. With the teletab you can collect 27 branches in one trip.
Golden Wool is made by buying golden fleece from Lalli the troll to the east of the rare tree and using the fleece on a spinning wheel to make golden wool. During the quest fleeses are free and you can get as many as you need by talking to Lalli and dropping them, but after the quest you will need to buy them for 1k each. Bring an air staff (your hands will be free this time) and a law or a Cammy teletab here as well to speed up the process. Bring 27,000 gp and you can grab 27 strings in one trip.
Lyres are also a very rare drop from the Fremmenik. If you need some combat XP and have nothing better to do then this is an option for you, but it is an inefficient use of time.
Turbo Tip:
You can cut out some time by using the agility shortcut above the Sinclair Mansion. 48 Agility Required.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Cheap Shards Today!
A while ago I found an interesting tip on the Truth Scape forums. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a pouch exchange until then. Checking todays losers in price on the GE, the bunyip pouch came up as having lost 31.5% of its value over the past month. A quick bit of calculation:
Pouch cost: 1,701
# of shards to make: 110
# of shards from pouch exchange: 77 (you get 70% back)
Shard cost: 25
Shard cost when exchanged: 22 (1701gp divided by 77 shards)
It might not look like much, but it is a 12% discount on your shard prices. Over the long haul this is a significant savings for almost no effort.
**D'OH!**
After digging a bit further, you need to be at least 1 level over the required level to make the pouch you are exchanging, so not a lot of people will be able to exchange bunyips. It does look like this holds true for most other pouches though.
A new record
Hey all. Sorry for the recent dearth of posts. I have been running like a mad man trying to get a few more investors on board for my next RL project. Today's post is just a quick one about a new farming personal record I got today. I didn't even think it was possible, but I got 16 toadflax from one patch this morning!
I wish I had been using snapdragons.
I wish I had been using snapdragons.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Sell your high level herbs? Yes you should.
I mentioned a while back that you should sell the herbs you can't use and use the GP form those sales to buy herbs you can use. I still think that advice is pretty good, although others don't quite see eye to eye with me on that point. I commented on Marlaine's blog about it, and though I would expand on it here.
Unids made it far more economically reasonable to sell your higher herbs, because you could buy unids rannars and above for 2k each then use what you needed and the pots paid for the herbs. Higher levels would buy the higher herbs for more, and you could continue to train endlessly
making money. Herb prices were also far less liquid than they are now, and the demand for potions much greater.
Why sell the high level herbs you can't use? They are over priced. Bottom line. They can only go down from here. Herblore is such a money loser at this point that people are giving up training it in droves. Go check the high scores. There is far less movement on it relative to pre-ge herblore, or to the other skills. This was an unintended consequence of a combination of 4 things:
1. The Grand Exchange
2. No more UNIDS
3. Easy price manipulation on the GE
4. The end of PKing
#1 and 2 are easy to understand. No need to keep things simple with 1k or 2k herbs. They are actually sold at a 'market price' now. #3 is a bit harder, but anyone with a few mil can corner most of the potion markets easily. Just continue to buy. There are not that many Torstols on the market, so if you constantly buy them all, you can sit on them and only sell for max, driving up the price. Done with 2 people it is even more efficient. One sells at max, one buys at mid +1gp, and he buys them all. Then they switch positions the next day. This was done last week by a group of players with over 700mil between them. They bought up every single p pot all week.
I have inadvertently done it with super restore pots. At any one time there are only 350-400 of them on the market (try it for yourself, only takes about 3mil). If you don't have 3mil, buy up 28-3 dose pots at median, combine and sell the 4 dose at max. Do this 15 times, and you will not only make money, but also see that what I am saying is true.
All that aside though, I believe that Jagex did not intend for herblore to be such an expensive skill to raise. That being said it is due for an update. Some mini-game, or an easier way to train or get herbs. Nothing in the neighborhood of nerfing the skill, no need for that at all, but something to correct what they broke in the process of creating the GE and eliminating PKing. Just look at RC. They keep adding tools and options to make that training go faster, mainly because it was slow and tedious to train.
If and when that update comes, the bottom will fall out of the herb market, and prices will be brought back in line.
Unids made it far more economically reasonable to sell your higher herbs, because you could buy unids rannars and above for 2k each then use what you needed and the pots paid for the herbs. Higher levels would buy the higher herbs for more, and you could continue to train endlessly
making money. Herb prices were also far less liquid than they are now, and the demand for potions much greater.
Why sell the high level herbs you can't use? They are over priced. Bottom line. They can only go down from here. Herblore is such a money loser at this point that people are giving up training it in droves. Go check the high scores. There is far less movement on it relative to pre-ge herblore, or to the other skills. This was an unintended consequence of a combination of 4 things:
1. The Grand Exchange
2. No more UNIDS
3. Easy price manipulation on the GE
4. The end of PKing
#1 and 2 are easy to understand. No need to keep things simple with 1k or 2k herbs. They are actually sold at a 'market price' now. #3 is a bit harder, but anyone with a few mil can corner most of the potion markets easily. Just continue to buy. There are not that many Torstols on the market, so if you constantly buy them all, you can sit on them and only sell for max, driving up the price. Done with 2 people it is even more efficient. One sells at max, one buys at mid +1gp, and he buys them all. Then they switch positions the next day. This was done last week by a group of players with over 700mil between them. They bought up every single p pot all week.
I have inadvertently done it with super restore pots. At any one time there are only 350-400 of them on the market (try it for yourself, only takes about 3mil). If you don't have 3mil, buy up 28-3 dose pots at median, combine and sell the 4 dose at max. Do this 15 times, and you will not only make money, but also see that what I am saying is true.
All that aside though, I believe that Jagex did not intend for herblore to be such an expensive skill to raise. That being said it is due for an update. Some mini-game, or an easier way to train or get herbs. Nothing in the neighborhood of nerfing the skill, no need for that at all, but something to correct what they broke in the process of creating the GE and eliminating PKing. Just look at RC. They keep adding tools and options to make that training go faster, mainly because it was slow and tedious to train.
If and when that update comes, the bottom will fall out of the herb market, and prices will be brought back in line.
Prayer Potions
If you have them, start selling while they are high. Prayer pots are up almost 15% this month, and are over priced. Snapdragon seeds and super restores when through the same curve last month, and started trending down over the last 4-5 days, so P pots should be soon to follow.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Tiaras, tiaras, tiaras, tiaras, and more tiaras.
Looking back over my posts, I can see that the runecrafting ones have a grand total of zero comments, so I will assume they weren't that popular. This one will be the last for a bit. I was browsing the prices on the GE and the talismans kept coming up, so I searched talisman. Body talismans are about the same price as air talismans.
Now that bumps up the best low level rc XP. You can abyss it or go to the body alter with these (they are about the same distance from Edge bank).
For below 50s: 2 pouches 13 tiaras, 13 talismans and 1 rune ess.
Total XP: 563 per trip
Now that is not bad RC XP at all, it is the best in f2p, and the best for below 75 on members. In order to get that without making tiaras, you would need to be at least 75 RC, using all 4 pouches, and making blood runes.
(With or without 62 summoning, you still need 75 RC).
Now that bumps up the best low level rc XP. You can abyss it or go to the body alter with these (they are about the same distance from Edge bank).
For below 50s: 2 pouches 13 tiaras, 13 talismans and 1 rune ess.
Total XP: 563 per trip
Now that is not bad RC XP at all, it is the best in f2p, and the best for below 75 on members. In order to get that without making tiaras, you would need to be at least 75 RC, using all 4 pouches, and making blood runes.
(With or without 62 summoning, you still need 75 RC).
Friday, May 16, 2008
Hot Keys
A while back I took a few month break from Runescape. During that time there was a pretty cool update I had no clue about until last week when I was playing and accidentally hit the F12 key, and my interface jumped to the song list. That is how I learned about hot keys.
I asked some of my buddies in game about them and surprisingly no one really seemed to use, or even care bout them. After a bit of digging, I found the Game Engine Update from June 29, 2007. There is nothing about it in the KB either, and that is the first place I searched.
Here they are:
Esc - Inventory
F1 - Combat options
F2 - Your statistics
F3 - Quest Journal
F4 - Equipped interface
F5 - Prayer
F6 - Spellbook
F8 - Friends list
F9 - Ignore list
F10 - Options interface
F11 - Emotes
F12 - Music Player
Although some of those hot keys are useless, (who needs to open up the music player quickly?) F1, F4, and F5 make game play much faster. I used F1 to get through that first fight in 'Legacy of Seergaze' recently, and it made things quite a bit easier. Although I haven't tried it, I am sure it will help speed things up when trying to kill Jad in the fight caves.
Do you use the hot keys?
Monday, May 12, 2008
Rune Mysteries Part II
I have been chatting up my air talisman low cost RC experience, and one of my clan mates pointed out that it really wasn't so hit after all. I will give him the point that at his level, it is actually slower than crafting runes with all the available additions he has access to, so I though I would quantify myself a bit more and give a numerical break down.
First, you lose money crafting air tiaras at any level, so you are buying XP. Why would this be a viable option when you can craft runes and have something for your work? Well... you might be like me and really not like RC, and are only looking for XP at any price, or you might have a goal (or quest req) that you want regardless of the cost. If you don't want to lose money then craft airs until you can do double cosmics.
One other thing, I don't have RC gloves, so I will leave them out.
When crafting tiaras, you really should bring your pouches filled with ess. I carry 10 tiaras, 10 talismans, 3 pouches, and 6 rune ess. (I wear one of the tiaras if you were wondering why that ads up to 29 items). One trip gets me 250 XP from tiaras and 120 from making air runes for a total of 330 a trip.
This is the fastest RC XP in the game not including the abyss. Fairy rings to the nature alter do come close, and are actually faster if you have 62 summoning though.
Now if you are using the abyss for example, at level 44 RC you can only get 315 XP per trip, with 2 pouches and 26 ess. You need to hit 50 to be able to use that third pouch to make abyss RCing beat air tiaras.
With 25-49 RC, making air tiaras would look like this: 2 pouches, 13 tiaras, 13 talismans and a rune ess. You would get 325xp from tiaras, and 50xp form making the runes, for a total of 375.
In my book that is still pretty good, but I have to concede the point if you have at least 77 RC, and 62 summoning, you can blow those numbers away with 661.5 XP per trip to the blood alter.
First, you lose money crafting air tiaras at any level, so you are buying XP. Why would this be a viable option when you can craft runes and have something for your work? Well... you might be like me and really not like RC, and are only looking for XP at any price, or you might have a goal (or quest req) that you want regardless of the cost. If you don't want to lose money then craft airs until you can do double cosmics.
One other thing, I don't have RC gloves, so I will leave them out.
When crafting tiaras, you really should bring your pouches filled with ess. I carry 10 tiaras, 10 talismans, 3 pouches, and 6 rune ess. (I wear one of the tiaras if you were wondering why that ads up to 29 items). One trip gets me 250 XP from tiaras and 120 from making air runes for a total of 330 a trip.
This is the fastest RC XP in the game not including the abyss. Fairy rings to the nature alter do come close, and are actually faster if you have 62 summoning though.
Now if you are using the abyss for example, at level 44 RC you can only get 315 XP per trip, with 2 pouches and 26 ess. You need to hit 50 to be able to use that third pouch to make abyss RCing beat air tiaras.
With 25-49 RC, making air tiaras would look like this: 2 pouches, 13 tiaras, 13 talismans and a rune ess. You would get 325xp from tiaras, and 50xp form making the runes, for a total of 375.
In my book that is still pretty good, but I have to concede the point if you have at least 77 RC, and 62 summoning, you can blow those numbers away with 661.5 XP per trip to the blood alter.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Herblore
Ever read Truthscape? I have been poking around on that site for the past few days, and wanted to comment about something they had in the 'herblore secrets' section. I had planned another post about this, but I might as well get it over with here today. There is a section called: The Pros and Cons of Combining Three Dose Potions into Four, that I take some exception to. In general you can't make money off combining potions, but you can also make over a mil an hour doing this. Here is the data I put together in my post on the truthscape forums for super restores:
3 dose Super restores are 8155 (actually over priced today, but that is beside my point)Combining super restores is a method I have used to regain some cash after losing everything a few months back. Like I said, I am not a fan of no XP money making, but this really is worth the time spent.
28 super restores are 228,340
These combine to make 21 4 dose potions
Sold at max that is 241,500
That is a 13,160 profit per inventory (28-3 dose or 21-4 dose). I am not a fan of XP-less money making, but using your numbers of 1,120 three dose to 840 four dose in 30 minutes, that is 1,052,800gp an hour. Do these potions sell? I have never had an auction last more than an hour, and 90% of the time the four dose potions sell instantly. Why? because the players using them are not interested in saving a few gp here and there. They want their potions and they want to get back to killing dagganoth kings, soloing the KQ, or whatever else they are using them on, and the profits outweigh the costs involved here. A mil an hour is nothing to scoff at and I just though it deserved a mention.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Compound Time
I am a huge fan of the book Four Hour Work Week, and somewhat a fan of the author Timothy Ferris, enough so that I read his blog whenever he updates it. Today Tim posted something that really got me thinking about in its relationship to gaming and RS in general. Today's post was titled "Compound Time" (wonder where I have seen that before).
The premise of the post is summed up well in this quote:
This might have been a good strategy for an all or nothing pure back in the good old days of pvp wildy, although I don't think so, but with todays Runescape? There isn't much benefit.
The flip side here is training and using that to compound your future training. This is applicable to just about everything in the game. When doing slayer or training melee, you will get drops. What you do with those drops really had a huge effect on you other skills. The big ones are summoning, herblore and farming. Do you keep your seeds/herbs or charms? If not, then you should know that you will have to buy them back/or obtain them again at some point.
I think many people lose track of the goal when they do purely profit minded things, like picking flax to sell. At some point they will need that flax (or some other material) to train crafting. It might be good for the short term, but are you shooting your long term training goals in the foot? I think so, and that post on Tim's blog just re-enforces that.
What do you guys think?
The premise of the post is summed up well in this quote:
my conclusion is that the value of ones time could experience a significant gain, and perhaps a compounding effect over time, given an investment of [that present-state] time in knowledge, skill or other capacity, and a reinvestment of future gains (just like currency).Now, that might not make much sense to many of you, but in reality, it it right on. The easiest example I can think of is melee stats. Think about if you only trained attack. No def and no str. This might be a good strategy for a lower level pure, but what good is it for? As you level up, your levels will come slower and slower. With high attack, you can hit more often, but with no strength, you will hit for lower damage on average, increasing your training time significantly.
This might have been a good strategy for an all or nothing pure back in the good old days of pvp wildy, although I don't think so, but with todays Runescape? There isn't much benefit.
The flip side here is training and using that to compound your future training. This is applicable to just about everything in the game. When doing slayer or training melee, you will get drops. What you do with those drops really had a huge effect on you other skills. The big ones are summoning, herblore and farming. Do you keep your seeds/herbs or charms? If not, then you should know that you will have to buy them back/or obtain them again at some point.
I think many people lose track of the goal when they do purely profit minded things, like picking flax to sell. At some point they will need that flax (or some other material) to train crafting. It might be good for the short term, but are you shooting your long term training goals in the foot? I think so, and that post on Tim's blog just re-enforces that.
What do you guys think?
Rune Mysteries?
I was doing some research on some of the best ways to get money as a noob low level account, and remembered an old trick I used to do to get unlimited supplies of air talismans. It only works of you haven't completed rune mysteries, so most people can't use it, but it is still worth mentioning. Basically y9oou start the quest and then just drop the talisman Duke Horatio gives you, much the same way you would get multiple anti-dragon fire shields.
Drop, get, drop, get, note, drop, get... That trick still works fine, but an interesting thing I came across was that the price of air talismans is down 32% for the week and 60% this month. I am not sure what is causing this price deflation, but it is a great opportunity to buy up air talismans to either use for RC XP or for when the price goes back up as it should next month.
I am going to grab an RC level while they are so cheap. Making tiaras is some incredible XP per hour. It takes 1 talisman, 1 tiara, and you get 25 XP for each one made. Wear a blans tiara, and bring another 9 along with 10 talismans. Fill the other 9 slots with rune essence/pouches, and you are good to go, and at a significantly higher XP per hour rate over making runes alone.
You can also sell the tiaras for 45 gp each, but I am not sure how well they sell. The shop price is 40gp, and you can sell them there instantly, so that is a batter option unless you want a hand full of tiaras taking up a slot in your GE auctions.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Back Office Stuff
Sorry for the dearth of posts this week. I had some problems with the RSS feed on my blog and that soaked up a bit of my time. I finally have it limping along, and hopefully it works. If you have problems let me know. I wouldn't have known if a Guild mate hadn't mentioned it.
I am also working on getting my blog it's own domain name! We will see how that goes, and I have my fingers crossed that if it happens the transition will go smoothly.
Now for the meat...
No RS tips today, but I came across this and though I should mention it. There is a company out there making bots that work for WOW and they are in a law suit with Blizzard. I do not support cheating or breaking the rules in any way, but this was interesting enough to mention.
Back on the point though, I would like to be able to pull down a menu, and click once for a certain task. For example, bank, take out 14 herbs and 14 vials in one click, or cast bind and fire bolt in succession in one click. Even the ability to map certain things to certain keys. Keyboard mouse is great and perfectly legal, but it has limitations. The game is moving in that direction with cook X, crush X, and so on and so forth, so why not make it a bit more open and see what kinds of emergent game play develop?
I am also working on getting my blog it's own domain name! We will see how that goes, and I have my fingers crossed that if it happens the transition will go smoothly.
Now for the meat...
No RS tips today, but I came across this and though I should mention it. There is a company out there making bots that work for WOW and they are in a law suit with Blizzard. I do not support cheating or breaking the rules in any way, but this was interesting enough to mention.
Interest group speaks up against Blizzard on Glider case
One thing that WOW has and supports are (some) add ons. I do wish that RS would allow some non-Jagex coded software to be used in game. I liken the example of selling Lindens in Second Life. Is it bad to do it there? No it is perfectly acceptable behavior. Using a tool or a money to get ahead is not inherently bad. For every college kid who is low on money and high on time, there is a 35 year old guy who values his 1 hour of gaming a night and has the cash to pay for the better things. A well regulated gold trade run by Jagex itself would eliminate all of the bad associations with gold traders.Back on the point though, I would like to be able to pull down a menu, and click once for a certain task. For example, bank, take out 14 herbs and 14 vials in one click, or cast bind and fire bolt in succession in one click. Even the ability to map certain things to certain keys. Keyboard mouse is great and perfectly legal, but it has limitations. The game is moving in that direction with cook X, crush X, and so on and so forth, so why not make it a bit more open and see what kinds of emergent game play develop?
Friday, May 2, 2008
Grrr! My rant about Grind X.
Hi all, kind of in a ranty mood today. I checked out this month's updates and at the bottom there is a blurb about the new introduction of grind X. I am pretty much 100% against this change. With 84 herblore, I do a lot of sara brews, and need tons of nests. It is very fast to grind them manually, bank, grab more and repeat.
It is much the same as fletching and herblore used to be, where you were limited in speed only by how fast you could click. The new 'make X' options artificially slow down production. Cook X wasn't so bad because of the wait time in there to actually cook the food, but there was no wait time between stringing 2 bows or adding 2 herbs to vials (or seconds for that matter).
With the invent of the GE (don't get my wrong, I love it), the herb market went into the shitter. Potions are now much cheaper than the herbs and seconds that make them, and training herblore has become one of the most expensive skills in the game to train. Why make it any slower Jagex?
Anyone think the same? Post here and let me know.
It is much the same as fletching and herblore used to be, where you were limited in speed only by how fast you could click. The new 'make X' options artificially slow down production. Cook X wasn't so bad because of the wait time in there to actually cook the food, but there was no wait time between stringing 2 bows or adding 2 herbs to vials (or seconds for that matter).
With the invent of the GE (don't get my wrong, I love it), the herb market went into the shitter. Potions are now much cheaper than the herbs and seconds that make them, and training herblore has become one of the most expensive skills in the game to train. Why make it any slower Jagex?
Anyone think the same? Post here and let me know.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Other gaming blogs
I follow a few other blogs, and today when I powered up my Google reader (if you don't have it, bet it and subscribe to my blog first thing). Two very interesting posts that kind of apply to RS were out there, and a third that has nothing to do with RS, but I just felt how stupid it was and wanted to comment about it.
1. The first one is Some Remarks about drop rates form wow insider. I find that a lot of scapers don't have the slightest idea of how drop rates relate to them. The drop rate itself (like 1 in 1600 kills for a d chain drop from dusties) is not the only part of the equation. For example, I some times see lvl 60s wielding rune halberds from a save spot killing the black demons in the Edgeville dungeon when I run past to charge air orbs. Why they are killing them is obvious, the drops are better when you kill high level monsters. The problem with this is that you take forever to kill one. Killing something just because you can is no reason at all.
Another example is the dolt who came to experiments when I was there to train range. He was level 1 range, and hit constant zeros. It took 30 minutes to convince him that he got zero XP every time he hit a zero and should be training on chickens, cows, or anything that had a def level low enough for him to get some range XP. Again, just because you can is no justification for
doing something.
2. The 10 commandments of Altitis from Waaagh!. This was an interesting read, and I for one have a pure mage alt, and I know a lot of others do too. One of the commandments that stood out was #5. I know that my guildmates have a ton of alts, and when they log into clan chat I never know who they really are. No need to be kama 1, kama 2, and kama 3, but you can do what a buddy of mine did. His main was posman, and he had posranger, a range pure, that he used frequently. It was always easy to know it was him.
#6 was also a good one. Doing the shield of Arrav for the other side was a pretty interesting experience, and I had always wanted to go in there. ANd the following quote is great:
3. The last part of this post is from a blog i subscribe to called unclutterer. The entire thing is dedicated to reducing clutter, and the blog posts are great. Lately though, they keep making these stupid posts titled 'a year ago on unclutterer'. They are two liners with no writing at all, only links to year old crusty posts.
Why do I have such a problem with this? BECAUSE THEY CLUTTER MY READER! They waste my time, cause me to click more, and aren't wanted. I mentioned that ion a comment and the author had the nerve to email me back telling me that she had more readers of the older posts than the new ones. Duh! Then she said, "I hope you find the A Year Ago This Week posts to be less offensive." What the heck is that supposed to mean? I wasn't offended at all, but now I am.
If you have a blog called unclutterer, then don't create clutter. Bottom line there. Thats all for today folks.
1. The first one is Some Remarks about drop rates form wow insider. I find that a lot of scapers don't have the slightest idea of how drop rates relate to them. The drop rate itself (like 1 in 1600 kills for a d chain drop from dusties) is not the only part of the equation. For example, I some times see lvl 60s wielding rune halberds from a save spot killing the black demons in the Edgeville dungeon when I run past to charge air orbs. Why they are killing them is obvious, the drops are better when you kill high level monsters. The problem with this is that you take forever to kill one. Killing something just because you can is no reason at all.
Another example is the dolt who came to experiments when I was there to train range. He was level 1 range, and hit constant zeros. It took 30 minutes to convince him that he got zero XP every time he hit a zero and should be training on chickens, cows, or anything that had a def level low enough for him to get some range XP. Again, just because you can is no justification for
doing something.
2. The 10 commandments of Altitis from Waaagh!. This was an interesting read, and I for one have a pure mage alt, and I know a lot of others do too. One of the commandments that stood out was #5. I know that my guildmates have a ton of alts, and when they log into clan chat I never know who they really are. No need to be kama 1, kama 2, and kama 3, but you can do what a buddy of mine did. His main was posman, and he had posranger, a range pure, that he used frequently. It was always easy to know it was him.
#6 was also a good one. Doing the shield of Arrav for the other side was a pretty interesting experience, and I had always wanted to go in there. ANd the following quote is great:
Just grin, emoticon a grin so they know you’re grinning, and embrace the fun and joy of being diagnosed with one of the most enjoyable diseases an MMO gamer can have!
3. The last part of this post is from a blog i subscribe to called unclutterer. The entire thing is dedicated to reducing clutter, and the blog posts are great. Lately though, they keep making these stupid posts titled 'a year ago on unclutterer'. They are two liners with no writing at all, only links to year old crusty posts.
Why do I have such a problem with this? BECAUSE THEY CLUTTER MY READER! They waste my time, cause me to click more, and aren't wanted. I mentioned that ion a comment and the author had the nerve to email me back telling me that she had more readers of the older posts than the new ones. Duh! Then she said, "I hope you find the A Year Ago This Week posts to be less offensive." What the heck is that supposed to mean? I wasn't offended at all, but now I am.
If you have a blog called unclutterer, then don't create clutter. Bottom line there. Thats all for today folks.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
20% increase in Snapdragon Seeds
I just finished a farming run and had to say that Snapdragons are going gangbusters. 20% increase in price over the last 30 days. Here is the graph of the price on the GE. Based on the price of other herbs, this is way over priced. The seeds tend to average out at about the cost of 3-4 herbs, but this is now at 5.
If you have Snapdragon seeds saved up, sell them while the price is high, then repurchase them when the price drops back down to a more reasonable 1-32k each. The averages of the game dictate that the price will find an equilibrium, so barring any sudden increase in disease free herb plots, these should get an adjustment in the near future.
Red Spider Eggs
I have been busy this week (sorry subscribers). This one will be a shorter post, but I have been doing a ton of farming runs lately and keep using this trick for herblore seconds. You can choose to save or sell these, but I always use mine to make Super Restore potions. The principal is the same.
Unless you have a Summoning level of less than 16, you should buy your Spirit Spider pouches. Making them is just an inefficient use of your gold charms at that point. Today they sell for 281gp, and have held steady at that price for over a week. The Egg Spawn scroll, is 28gp, and does fluctuate a bit more. You can grab some free XP here if the scrolls are less than the cost of 1/10 the pouch, but converting 28 pouches into scrolls is only 59.6xp, so it isn't really an efficient use of your time.
I can usually get 70 casts of Egg Spawn before the spider's timer runs out. The easiest place to do it is just outside of the Edgeville bank. There is a mini-alter very near there so you can restore points as needed too.
The rest is easy, just grab a pouch, summon the spider and cast away at Egg Spawn. Done well, you can generate 70-90 eggs per pouch. The price of eggs on the GE today is 285, for a total profit of about 50k an hour. In and of itself this not the best or the fastest way to make money, but if you have herbore, alching, fletching, or crafting do do, you can combine it with casting egg spawn and maximize your time.
Where this really helps is after you hit 62/63 herblore and can make Super Restore potions. It significantly reduces the collection time for this second if you collect your own resources.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Just about any herb will more than pay for itself in terms of ROI in terms of time invested, so I am only going to focus on the top five. Keep in mind the best seed to plant for XP will always be the best you can plant that is at least three levels below your farming level. Anything above that will tend to get diseased and die far too often to be worthwhile.
Flowers:
Flowers are the easiest so I will get them out of the way first. Basically you have two options.
1. Limpwurt - These seeds sell for 241 today and are easy to come by. They harvest 3 roots (569 today for 1,707 or 1,466 in profit).
2. Marigolds - 63gp on the GE, and the harvested flower wells for 4,225.
Profit wise marigolds are the way to go. That is nearly 20k gp in 10 minutes of farming for planting just one patch.
Herbs
Like mentioned previously, never plant herb seeds that are within three levels of your current faring level (unless you are wearing an amulet of nature that is bound to that plot and are planning on staying logged in for at least 75 minutes). Here are the top 5 herbs to plant for profits:
1. Snapdragon: Today these are above 35k, which is on the high side. Try to pick them up around 31-32k. Even though this is the most expensive of all seeds, it offers the best return. 7.1 Snapdragons made into potions, and sold for 288k gives you a ROI of 113kgp. With more reasonable seed prices, I make about 150k per trip with these.
2. Ranarr: Today these are almost 20k each, high, but still very reasonable. Made into prayer potions, these would sell for 210k, giving a ROI of 110k. This is about the max you can expect for a round of ranarrs.
3. Toadflax: These seeds are 316gp. In this case, you are better off cleaning the herbs, adding them to a vial, and selling them if you do not have 80 herblore to make sara brews, so I will use the herb price. These will sell for about 94k, giving a return of nearly 90k, but at the expense of some herblore XP.
4. Kwuarm: These seeds are 3,282 each and made into super strength potions, they sell for 82k. ROI: 63k gp.
5. Harralander: These seeds are 36gp each and made into energy potions, they sell for a whopping 7k. ROI: 7k.
There are two honorable mentions here of seeds that didn't make the cut. Cadantine is good to sell if you sell the weeds, but loses money if made into super def potions, so it got skipped. Torstol offers incredible ROI, but the number of farmers who can farm it is so low I didn't thing it would be of worth to most of my readers, and those who can farm it know enough about power farming.
All seeds will give you a good return on your seed investment if you sell the herbs. Unless you never plan on training herblore, it is best to make your harvest into potions, because at some point you will need to buy those herbs back anyway. If you do choose that route however, make sure that you clean the herbs and add them to vials to make unfinished potions. In general, these sell well and for more than the cost of the added vial.
All sales figures were calculated using 7.1 as the average herbs per plot, that number includes a death rate of about 93%. The cost of vials and seconds are not included in the ROI.
Flowers:
Flowers are the easiest so I will get them out of the way first. Basically you have two options.
1. Limpwurt - These seeds sell for 241 today and are easy to come by. They harvest 3 roots (569 today for 1,707 or 1,466 in profit).
2. Marigolds - 63gp on the GE, and the harvested flower wells for 4,225.
Profit wise marigolds are the way to go. That is nearly 20k gp in 10 minutes of farming for planting just one patch.
Herbs
Like mentioned previously, never plant herb seeds that are within three levels of your current faring level (unless you are wearing an amulet of nature that is bound to that plot and are planning on staying logged in for at least 75 minutes). Here are the top 5 herbs to plant for profits:
1. Snapdragon: Today these are above 35k, which is on the high side. Try to pick them up around 31-32k. Even though this is the most expensive of all seeds, it offers the best return. 7.1 Snapdragons made into potions, and sold for 288k gives you a ROI of 113kgp. With more reasonable seed prices, I make about 150k per trip with these.
2. Ranarr: Today these are almost 20k each, high, but still very reasonable. Made into prayer potions, these would sell for 210k, giving a ROI of 110k. This is about the max you can expect for a round of ranarrs.
3. Toadflax: These seeds are 316gp. In this case, you are better off cleaning the herbs, adding them to a vial, and selling them if you do not have 80 herblore to make sara brews, so I will use the herb price. These will sell for about 94k, giving a return of nearly 90k, but at the expense of some herblore XP.
4. Kwuarm: These seeds are 3,282 each and made into super strength potions, they sell for 82k. ROI: 63k gp.
5. Harralander: These seeds are 36gp each and made into energy potions, they sell for a whopping 7k. ROI: 7k.
There are two honorable mentions here of seeds that didn't make the cut. Cadantine is good to sell if you sell the weeds, but loses money if made into super def potions, so it got skipped. Torstol offers incredible ROI, but the number of farmers who can farm it is so low I didn't thing it would be of worth to most of my readers, and those who can farm it know enough about power farming.
All seeds will give you a good return on your seed investment if you sell the herbs. Unless you never plan on training herblore, it is best to make your harvest into potions, because at some point you will need to buy those herbs back anyway. If you do choose that route however, make sure that you clean the herbs and add them to vials to make unfinished potions. In general, these sell well and for more than the cost of the added vial.
All sales figures were calculated using 7.1 as the average herbs per plot, that number includes a death rate of about 93%. The cost of vials and seconds are not included in the ROI.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Herb Farming for Profit and XP
I am an avid farmer, and you will find few other skills that offer such a high ratio of gold to time invested. In this post I will outline my power farming course. I use this a few times a day, and with practice, you can shave your farming time down to less than 10 minutes a circuit.
Start location: Any bank
Inventory:
1 herb seed, 1 marigold seed, ectophial, and a charged wearing a glory, and any weight reducing equipment you have.
Use the ecto teleport and run to the plot there. Plant the herb and flower patch.
Glory tele to Draynor, bank, and grab herb and flower seeds, air staff and a law.
Here you can also grab a Nightshade and turnip seeds, and plant the Draynor mansion plots before doing the Fally plot. It adds about 1.5 to 2 minutes to your circuit, but is worth it for the herblore and summoning supplies.
Plant the Fally plot, then tele to Camelot and pick that plot.
Bank and grab herb and flower seeds for the next 2 plantings, plant Catherby (and pick any herbs if you had a bumper crop), then run to the Ardo plot harvest and plant there.
From here you can run to the bank, but I usually just glory to Edge, it is much faster.
Next grab a fire staff, 2 laws, and a final herb seed to plant the last herb patch.
Then entire trip should take you less than ten minutes, and when done a few times a day it will seriously increase your bank account balance while at the same time giving your farming a decent boost. Herbs grow in about 75 minutes and flowers grow much faster, but the XP really isn't worth it to chain farm flowers.
I will go over the types of flowers and herbs as well as your expected ROI to plant tomorrow.
Start location: Any bank
Inventory:
1 herb seed, 1 marigold seed, ectophial, and a charged wearing a glory, and any weight reducing equipment you have.
Use the ecto teleport and run to the plot there. Plant the herb and flower patch.
Glory tele to Draynor, bank, and grab herb and flower seeds, air staff and a law.
Here you can also grab a Nightshade and turnip seeds, and plant the Draynor mansion plots before doing the Fally plot. It adds about 1.5 to 2 minutes to your circuit, but is worth it for the herblore and summoning supplies.
Plant the Fally plot, then tele to Camelot and pick that plot.
Bank and grab herb and flower seeds for the next 2 plantings, plant Catherby (and pick any herbs if you had a bumper crop), then run to the Ardo plot harvest and plant there.
From here you can run to the bank, but I usually just glory to Edge, it is much faster.
Next grab a fire staff, 2 laws, and a final herb seed to plant the last herb patch.
Then entire trip should take you less than ten minutes, and when done a few times a day it will seriously increase your bank account balance while at the same time giving your farming a decent boost. Herbs grow in about 75 minutes and flowers grow much faster, but the XP really isn't worth it to chain farm flowers.
I will go over the types of flowers and herbs as well as your expected ROI to plant tomorrow.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Lose Money Making Farmer Payments?
I have long been a farmer. It is currently my highest skill. Along the way, I realized that in some cases (the big ones) it is actually better not to pay for your trees and some other plants. Payments like a basket of apples for strawberries is a no brainer, but when paying for yew or magic trees, this isn't the case.
Yew trees only have a death rate of about 1 in 10, as long as you are over 63 farming (3 levels higher than 60). This means that in order to save one yew seed, you would need to make 10 payments of 10 cactus spines. At today's GE price that is 255,700gp. Since the price of a yew seed is only about 70k, it clearly is best to just let that 1 in 10 trees die.
Even if you grow your own cactus, it is better to sell the spines and just buy more yew seeds. You still come out ahead. If you sold the payment for 10 trees, you could buy almost 4 more yew seeds for the cost of losing one yew tree.
Magic trees are also a loss to pay for, but the break even point is far lower at 1.25 deaths in 10. If you don't farm much, then it might be worth it to pay the extra gp for that bit of XP that you would save by not having the tree die.
For a more in depth description, you can also see my post on TIF.
Happy Farming
Yew trees only have a death rate of about 1 in 10, as long as you are over 63 farming (3 levels higher than 60). This means that in order to save one yew seed, you would need to make 10 payments of 10 cactus spines. At today's GE price that is 255,700gp. Since the price of a yew seed is only about 70k, it clearly is best to just let that 1 in 10 trees die.
Even if you grow your own cactus, it is better to sell the spines and just buy more yew seeds. You still come out ahead. If you sold the payment for 10 trees, you could buy almost 4 more yew seeds for the cost of losing one yew tree.
Magic trees are also a loss to pay for, but the break even point is far lower at 1.25 deaths in 10. If you don't farm much, then it might be worth it to pay the extra gp for that bit of XP that you would save by not having the tree die.
For a more in depth description, you can also see my post on TIF.
Happy Farming
Saturday, April 19, 2008
The Reason for Swamp Lizard Price Increase
I gained 3 more hunter levels last night catching Swamp Lizards, and they just kept selling. I can catch them much faster than normal chinchompas, so all around it was a good bit of training in a skill I have neglected quite a bit. I am sure this XP per hour will change as I go up in level, and the inconvenience of banking does have an impact in training, but for the time being, I will take the extra cash generated by catching them.
Now for the meat, the reason for Swamp Lizards going over 1k each is that they are in great demand as a second for summoning. The level 85 Swamp Titan (150 shards and a crimson token) takes these as the second, and is a very popular way to train summoning. Even with the cost above 1000gp, this makes them one of the most cost effective ways to train summoning above level 85.
I want to thank a buddy from my clan, Carlo, for coming up with the idea that they might be in demand as a second. A quick trip to the KG and sure enough they were. Now if I had only had had the foresight to see that a month ago, and purchased a mil worth of lizards...
Now for the meat, the reason for Swamp Lizards going over 1k each is that they are in great demand as a second for summoning. The level 85 Swamp Titan (150 shards and a crimson token) takes these as the second, and is a very popular way to train summoning. Even with the cost above 1000gp, this makes them one of the most cost effective ways to train summoning above level 85.
I want to thank a buddy from my clan, Carlo, for coming up with the idea that they might be in demand as a second. A quick trip to the KG and sure enough they were. Now if I had only had had the foresight to see that a month ago, and purchased a mil worth of lizards...
Friday, April 18, 2008
Make thousands with Hunter
There are a few things with hunter that are consistent money makers, well two normal and red chins, but what about for lower levels? There isn't much. Last night I came across a curiosity while browsing the new GE graphs. Take a look at this:
I made nearly a quarter mil last night catching these things and finally got those last few levels so I can catch chins now, but I am going back to swamp lizards because they are still fast XP, and they sell for more.
In the past 30 days, the price has risen from 17gp each a whopping 3450% to 937 max price. I sold all of mine for max and the trades went through instantly. Why are they so high? My first guess is that there is some site out there doing RWT using them as a cash source. They surely aren't in demand weapon wise, and you don't see people carrying them around every day.
This is a very safe investment of time, and a decent amount of XP. Just catch bank and sell. The swamp lizards are located in the hunter area near Canafis, a short walk from the
ecto tele or the Ancients tele as well. Just grab your Larupia outfit (although catching them is so fast you really don't need it), 3-4 nets and ropes for the traps and start setting up net traps.
Here are the number of traps you can set up:
| Hunter level | Maximum traps |
| 20 - 39 | Two traps at a time |
| 40 - 59 | Three traps at a time |
| 60 - 79 | Four traps at a time |
| 80 - 99 | Five traps at a time |
Many guides say to bring the nature pouch, but that really isn't necessary either, as the attacking ghasts didn't hit me for more than 2hp, and very infrequently when they did. At level 49, I was catching them so fast I didn't have time to bait or smoke the nets, so leave that struff, and catch one more per trip.
Take advantage of this before others catch on and the market corrects itself. If you are looking for a purely speculative way to make cash, you might try your hand at just buying swamp lizards and selling them in a few hours or a day. The price is still rising, but the bottom could fall out at any time.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Welcome to Runescape Investor
I have seen a lot of blogs out there related to other MMORPGs, but none specifically related to Runescape and more specifically none related to making money in RS.
My goal is to provide free investment advice (and hopefully some economics lessons), to the average RS player who is tired of grinding for cash. I will primarily focus on P2P ways to increase your cash flow, but there be a few things that F2P players can use thrown in. By following my advice in a timely manner (the early bird gets the worm), you should start to see your wealth increase much faster.
Some of my suggestions will take time, but the focus will be on things you can get done in 10-15 minutes a day, with either a short trip to the Grand Exchange, bank window, or other easy to access location. I assure you, my suggestions beat the pants off mindless grinding at yews or fishing lobsters.
*DISCLAIMER*
I really didn't need to throw this in here, but I wanted to let people know that a lot of factors will affect your in-game wealth, and like the stock market, there aren't any guarantees. I will be personally testing each of the methods I promote, and will only blog the ones that work. If you are late to implement them though you might find that the market has changed.
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