I seem to be in quite a pickle (or sauerkraut may be a better word). The last time I played Runescape was during the April Fool’s event. When I logged out I was still holding onto a cabbage. Well, today (April 3) I logged back in and still have a cabbage. Obviously I can’t store it or sell it. And I’m fairly certain that if I remove it, the cabbage will disappear all together. It does look like I can still chuck it to other players, but of course I don’t want to try that. And for all I know chucking it will cause it to disappear also. Of course, having a cabbage in both my hands means I am very limited combat wise. I really can only use magic and I hate magic. But yet there is a morbid curiosity in my brain that wants to know exactly how long one of these April Fool’s cabbages can be kept “alive”. Then again, Jagex in a few days might make it go away without any action by me. So I am caught between a rock and a hard place. Do I limit my actions actions for a few days or do I just chuck it to another player and hope that it lives on through other people? Of course, if Jagex doesn’t spontaneously remove these April Fool’s cabbages then they will become untradeable rares. No real value but there will be that all important “cool” factor that seems to impress newbs and makes the rest of us roll our eyes.

In semi-related news: The GEC got a bunch of hits on Wednesday because of the listing for the Magic Dragon Kiteshield. Of course that was an April Fool’s joke and there is no Magic Dragon Kiteshield that gives farming and fishing stat bonuses and is a drop by beating up Olivia the Draynor Village seed stall girl. But I will leave the item listing in the GEC as a historic footnote to the GEC itself.

Finally, I am sad to say that the price of Strange Fruit has taken a down turn. I am hoping this is only a hiccup and that Strange Fruit will stabilize at around 3500gp and start creeping back up at a much slower pace. In any case I am the proud to say that I currently have made over two million gp in profit from the fruits.

In blog news: Now this blog is also iPhone compatible. Also, because this blogs free server is just simply too unreliable I will be moving this blog over to the GEC site. I am hoping that link redirections will be seamless and my readers should have no significant transition problems.

Okay, the cabbage April Fool’s event is cute. Not nearly as cute as my idea for a Runescape Rickroll, but it is cute. Oh well, maybe next year. Anyway, for those of you who haven’t seen it yet there are free roaming cabbages floating around Runescape. A good place to go is Lumbridge castle to see and play with them. You should have accept aid turned on and both hands empty. Then you can play catch with the cabbages. There are also kick and tap options available but I’m not sure what those do yet. I only looked around for a few minutes. I am also not sure if there is more to the April Fool’s event but if I see anything else I’ll report it here.

By the way, if you are looking for more April Fools day related events on the web check out April Fool’s Day On The Web for a list of this years and other past years. The upside down YouTube is also pretty funny.

In other related news: I didn’t get off my butt to do anything for April Fool’s concerning my blog or the GEC. So there are no jokes here, sorry. Maybe next year.  I am also working on a blog post about the new Magic Dragon Kite Shield wieldable only by Rangers with mage combat level 90 or higher that was introduced in last weeks update.  I personally am dissappointed because my character Absenm is a combat warrior and I won’t be able to utilized it considerable stat bonuses (+37 fishing and +15 farming).  But atleast it is tradeable on the GE for just 5 gp so it may prove to be a good investment item. Other restrictions are that it can only be wielded while also wielding a two handed iron longsword. It is a rare drop after barehanded fighting Olivia the seed stall girl in Draynor Village.

One little comment on the whole 11 year old Timmy who got hacked because he got lead off the official Runescape site. Yeah, this is a couple of weeks late but I just heard about it.  Been so busy with the GEC I lost track of reading other people’s blogs.

At first I was actually feeling sorry for the kid. He seemed to have worked hard to get to where he was. He was high enough level to fish sharks so he must have spent a little time playing. But as the story progressed it became more and more fishy.

SEE NEWS VIDEO HERE!

The family says that they raised money so Timmy could buy weapons and other equipment. One hundred and forty dollars.  As any legitimate player of RuneScape knows, you cannot buy items in RuneScape with real world money (rule 12).  It seems that the family and the news crew are completely oblivious to the fact that this practice is against RuneScape rules and terms of service and that players are warned exhustively not to engage in such activities.

Thus little Timmy must have been engaged in real world trading if he used one hundred and forty real dollars to buy weapons, armour and become more powerful.  That is an offense that can and does get people banned. That is cheating. I now wonder if little Timmy was really just trying to join a clan and got tricked into going to the wrong RuneScape site. It takes jumping through quiet a few hoops in order to real world trade and I suspect that little Timmy knows at the very least he was cheating.

It is sad that he is only 11 years old and (hey, wait a minute!  What’s he doing chatting?  You need to be 13 or older to be on a non quick chat world).  Anyway, it is sad he had to learn such a tough lesson so young.  He had to learn that there are bad people in the world. He also had to learn that cheaters get cheated in the end. If he is a real world trader than he is a cheater. But maybe he will be a little smarter and a little wiser in the future.  Of course, maybe all of this could have been avoided if his family had taken the time to read the parents guide on the official website.  They should look into it.  From some of the quotes, it seems like the family isn’t aware that Runescape is not a childen’s game.

I’ll admit it. I am one of the very few who actually likes random events and was totally happy with how the old random event system worked. I thought the events were a charming little quirk of RuneScape life that interjected themselves into the sometimes mundane aspects of skilling. For the most part I found the events amusing, whether they happened to me or to other people. The one exception being when I once was fighting Chaos Druids in the Edgeville Dungeon and I ignored the Lunch Lady too long and got my sorry ass teleported way the hell over to White Wolf Mountain. But aside from that, I usually enjoyed being party or witness to random events. Of course it was also loads of fun to see bots get killed because they couldn’t respond to the events.

Do not get me wrong. I am not particularly disappointed in the recent random event update Jagex performed. I understand that Jagex wanted to cater to those players who found the events disruptive for one reason or another. Though I personally do not see how most random events could be all that disruptive to a legitimate player who is playing by the rules. As far as I am aware players are supposed to be in front of the computer paying attention to what is going on while logged onto Runescape. So if a player gets killed or teleported by a random event, they really only have themselves to blame. It is all part of the game folks.

From what I can tell, the random event update is living up to its billing. Since the update I have not seen one random event. Of course there are a couple of reasons that cause my lack of random events. The update was supposed to trigger fewer random events for higher level players. I’m a pretty decent level.  And I haven’t been on as much as usual. But I can say that I have been playing enough that under the old system I would have had four or five randoms by now.

One thing that really pleases me about this update is its effect on the price of Strange Fruit. Prior to the update, when Jagex announced that the update would limit but not eliminate Strange Plants, I decided to go out and buy a whole shish-load of Strange Fruit [GEC 5132 gp]. I was hedging my bets that the update would cause a radical upswing in the value of the fruit.  It has!  Within ten days of the update the price of strange fruit doubled. I am curious to see how long it will take until the skyrocketing price levels out.

One thing that doesn’t exactly please me, though it does not directly effect me, is how Jagex handled (no pun intended) people who had pickax heads and pickax handles in their inventories. When Jagex pre-announced the upcoming random events update and changes to Strange Plants they also announced the complete removal of the broken pickax event. When the update occurred Jagex decided to magically make all pickax heads respawn their handles and become whole. This wasn’t too bad a solution. At least players who invested in pickax heads got some value for their investment. However, those players who decided to go the pickax handle route pretty much got screwed. Handles were removed from inventories with no replacement what-so-ever. I think that Jagex should have at least replaced the handles with gp equivalent to the value of the handles at the time of the update. Those handles became pretty valuable prior to the update. In fact, when I say this change did not directly effect me, it is only because when I tried to buy handles, I couldn’t find any remaining on the Grand Exchange, and therefore did not have the ability to invest in them. This apparently saved me a significant financial loss.

Another thing that didn’t exactly please me, though it was through no fault of Jagex, was how they handled Frog Tokens. I have for many years just tossed away my frog tokens. I felt, like many other players, that the tokens were a completely useless prize. They were untradeable and therefore valueless and could only be used to get a frog mask or a prince or princess costume, which I never bother doing. Over the years, I am sure, I have dropped well over a hundred of these tokens. Then, of course, Jagex makes their pre-update announcement and suggests that we hang on to these tokens because they could become valuable. And, of course, between that announcement and the actual update not once did the frogs visit me. Once the update occurred all the frog tokens were changed in to mystery boxes and thus those tokens finally obtained at least the potential to have value. This, I am sad to admit, was exactly how Jagex should have handled the tokens and I completely blame myself for not having the foresight that the random event might eventually be retired.

Aside from those things I think Jagex did pretty good with the Random Event update. I like how some of the events are retired but not gone, like Dr. Jekyll and the Strange Plant and the Drunken Dwarf. Those events can still be found, though they no longer directly bother specific players any more. Dr Jekyll will occasionally be seen running to the Varrock apothecary and the Drunken Dwarf might stagger on by and if you talk to him he may give you a beer and a kebab. The Strange Plant still appears southwest of Brimhaven and you can still pick its fruit (which might be a great idea with the prices climbing). Of course if you really miss these random events you can visit some of them by using BKQ on the fairy ring network. Cap’n Hand and Rick Turpentine are currently spending involuntary time at the Port Sarim Jail. And the Shade can be found on the fourth level of the Strong Hold of Security. So I guess I can always go visit the old quirky friends.

After reading some of the feedback about the February 2009 minor update delay and the feedback to some of the Mark Gerhard’s posts about RWT I have come to the conclusion that the people at Jagex really do need to make a few separate areas for some “special” players. Most of the feedback was constructive and proper. But a lot was so mind numbingly idiotic I nearly had to scream.  And that is why I suggest the following separate and restricted Runescape Worlds.

Brat World:  Let’s get the most needed world out there first. I think an easy way of getting a point across would be to restrict players who get mutes or temporary bans to a special type of “half-way-house” world to play on for a month of two. Of course those worlds would need to be quick chat only, and maybe even a more restrictive version of the current quick chat. If not quick chat only then at least filter out the word “noob.”  That would be traumatizing to most of the people sent to that world because they don’t know how to chat without using ”noob”  in every other sentence.  Wow, I just used “noob” two sentences in a row.  Now three.  Maybe I should be sent to this world.

There would only need to be two of these worlds, a free player world and a members world. If they are always full then it is simply too bad for the people waiting to get connected.  Brat World isn’t supposed to be as pleasant as the greater Runescape.  Maybe some other restrictions could be placed on these worlds. Like a two hour daily play limit. I would like to see such a world nice enough for “rule breakers” that they actually feel like they have been given a chance to redeem themselves and yet unpleasant enough so people won’t purposely try to get sent to one of these world.

Adult World: I believe from some of Mr. Gerhard’s responses to player questions that this type of world is actually being kicked around. And I whole heartedly believe we need a few adults only worlds. I don’t mean making these worlds a lot more risque with half naked players and no filters on chat. I don’t mean kinky worlds (this post is going to get a lot of hits) I just mean worlds where everyone is at least eighteen years old.

One of the reasons I don’t chat too much in Runescape is the idea that I may actually be talking to a strange fourteen year old kid. It just seems creepy.  Also, sometimes some of the kids write incrediably idiotic things and I just want to chime in and say “get off the computer and don’t come back till you graduate”. That is not how all the kids are or even most of them. But there are a few mind numbingly immature brats out there. How Jagex would go about getting confirmations on adult status and so forth, I don’t know and can not fathom, but I am sure it can be done. Before anyone says that kids will still be able to get in because they always have gotten unto adult sites. I agree. But there would be a lot less of them.

Newb Free World:  Please note that I used the term Newb (as in new player) and not Noob (as in jack ass player). I think it would be technically unfeasible to create a non-jack-ass world. Every group has one or two or fifty. Here I mean a world where a player has reached a certain level of game play that indicates that player has a fairly good understanding of Runescape. Minimum limits would have to be obtained, such as a combat level of at least fifty or quest points of at least 32 or at least one skill at 70+ or all of the above. I think these worlds would be a nice reward for players who have put in the time to get familiar with the game and who would rather not spend a bunch of their time helping new players or seeing the same questions over and over again.

Noob Only World:  Note this is the type meaning jack-ass. Here we could send the biggest pain in the asses who walk the streets of Runescape. It would be like the Brat World but for those players who are on the cusp of permanent bans for behavior problems.  It would be a PvP world, and if you die your character gets deleted. Or at least your character has all its bank items removed, and its skills and quest points zeroed out. Also where you died any NPC that wanders by will spit on your bones. Heck, make that a special emote on this world.  “Spit On Bones”.  Okay, maybe this last world is a little extreme.