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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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."

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.