Wonderful news for those of you interested in the investment side of this website. The Grand Exchange Central has now surpassed the 1000 items mark. This exceeds how many items I thought the database would contain and is only half of what I expect to have entered into the database within the coming weeks. Each item is updated daily and we are now maintaining a 90 day history on all items (though because the GEC itself is not 90 days old it will take a little time to fill in the histories). I am kicking around keeping a year long history of weekly averages.

Another big news item is for those of you involved in Summoning. The GEC now contains a listing of all the summoning pouches and scrolls. But the best part about this is the “parts list” included on each item page. Now at a simple glance you can see exactly how much each pouch will cost to produce. This will let summoners out there see which pouches actually make a profit (sorry, most do not).

Even though the GEC is not as complete as I would like, to the best of my knowledge, I have all the headwear, bodywear, and handwear already entered. There is also a lot listed that is not included in those categories. I am diligently working on getting footwear, weapons, and legwear entered. And please remember that the GEC only lists tradeable items (it is an investment website after all).  Also, if you happen to spot something I may of forgotten please leave a comment here or on the GEC main page.

I’ve also started to add alchemey values to various items.  I will add these values to the rest of the database as time alows.  Right now I have to go back and add to a 1000+ items, so it may take a little time.  Newly added items will have the values added imediately.

In keeping with the Summoning theme of my most recent blogs, I would like to give some tips about gathering Crimson charms.

Crimson charms are the second most common charm in Runescape, and additionally the second best for high summoning xp. One pouch made with a crimson charm can net anywhere from 83 to 435 experience points, whereas gold charms will only give between 4 and 93 xp.

It is not particularly hard to harvest Crimson charms. Many creatures in Runescape drop them. To name just a few of these creatures are Dust Devils, Giant Rock Crabs, Goblins, Greater Demons, Dragons and Hill Giants. Remember, those are just a few of the more popular creatures people use to harvest Crimson charms. I personally prefer Cockroaches.

Cockroaches are found in and around the Stronghold of Player Safety. (BTW: On the way to the Stronghold kill the two unicorns to the east. Thats an easy 1800 gp) There are three levels of cockroaches available. The Cockroach Drone is by far the easiest, with a combat level of only 8 and 11 hit points. These are a very good option for low level players. The Cockroach Worker is a very nice mid level monster at combat level 56 and 54 hit points. The toughest cockroach is the Soldier at combat level 83 and 96 hit points. All three types of cockroaches drop crimson as their main charm drop. They also provide some nice combat xp and drop a variety of pretty decent items. Included among these drops are half keys and left half of dragon shields.

I go back and forth between Soldiers and Workers. I usually bring about 16 swordfish and a combat potion and fight these guys for an hour or two. I often leave the Stronghold with a mess of charms, a bunch of runes, and my remaining inventory filled with semi valuable seeds and herbs (I only keep the ones worth 500 gp or more). With luck I may even walk out with a clue scroll.

On a non-summoning note: The Cockroach Soldiers are very good for Law Rune drops. They can drop up to fifteen at a time.

In my continuing effort to try to justify the existence of the Summoning skill, at least in my own mind, I spent the past several days researching and trying to harvest green charms. Of the four basic charms (gold, crimson, green and blue), green comes in at number three in difficulty to find. As far as my research and experience goes, I have found no end-all-be-all solution to harvesting green charms quickly. But I have seen things that are better options than just hoping for a random drop from any old monster.

The talk on Internet forums and fan sites is that Green Dragons tend to drop green charms at a higher rate then other monsters. I will agree that green charms do drop from Green Dragons at a significantly higher rate.  But I think Green Dragons are too much a pain in the butt to be an effective and efficient charm harvesting tool.  First, they are located in the wild where their location poses a much greater risk to safety.  Second, though they are the easiest of Dragons to kill, they still require investments in food and potions. Third, they take too long to kill, and are heavily hunted by other players.  Don’t get me wrong, there are many reasons to hunt Green Dragons (for one, their hides turn a nice profit).  But as a safe route to train summoning, I personally would leave these monsters alone.

The only creatures that seem to be worthwhile for me to spend my time killing to harvest green charms is the four Abyssal Monsters. These creatures range in combat level from 41 to 124, and are located in the Abyss or ALR plane of the Fairy Ring network. Of the four, the Abyssal Demon is the only slayer creature, and requires level 85 slayer to kill (but it does have some wonderful drops, including the Abyssal Whip.)

I personally stay on the Abyssal Guardians (level 59) because they die fairly easy for my level 89 warrior, they respawn almost instantaneously, and they have some nice drops in addition to charms. But all Abyssal monsters drop charms, and I have found that they tend to drop greens more often then the other colors.  Abyssal monsters will also drop Abyssal charms, which are required secondary ingredients for a couple of higher level summoning pouches. Abyssal charms do not stack and I have not yet decided if they are really worth collecting. In addition to charms, Abyssals drop pure essence in both physical and noted forms, talismans (all kinds), binding necklaces (which I ignore because they do not sell well on the Grand Exchange), and rune crafting pouches of all sizes.

The Abyss is accessible once you have performed a small favor for the Zamorak Mage who hangs around the mouth of the River Lum, just north of Edgeville (level 5 wilderness). This is not a dedicated quest (don’t confuse it with the One Small Favor quest). It is just a minor task that needs to be performed so the player can learn the background story. The Abyss can be a very dangerous place, and is multi-combat, so things can get dicey very quickly. I prefer to fight the Abyssal monsters on the ALR plane of the Fairy Ring network, which is much safer.  To access the fairy rings you will need to have started a little of the Fairy Tale part II – Cure a Queen quest. The Fairy Ring network provides quick access to the ALR and many locations throughout Runescape, including a nice portal squarely between Edgeville and the Grand Exchange.

As for me, I think fighting Green Dragons is a more fun and interesting way to harvest green charms. Challenging the Abyssal monsters in the ALR can be very dull, and trying to collect charms in the Abyss itself is downright suicidal.  In the end, both routes seem to produce simular numbers of green charms in simular time frames.  If you want a degree of safety, go with the ALR.  If you want something a little more interesting, but more dangerous, go with the Green Dragons.

Abyssal Leech (CL 41,HP 10); Abyssal Guardian (CL 59, HP 50); Abyssal Walker (CL 81, HP 95); Abyssal Demon (CL 124, HP 150); Green Dragons (CL 79, HP 75)

This next idea is one that just recently started formulating in my brain, unlike my other ideas about weather and healthcare that have been festering for years. I think we should have true beasts of burden, not just the nominal activities we get with the Summoning skill. Wooooo… imagine wavy lines going down the screen as I go off on a brief tangent…

This is how I picture the Jagex meeting when they decided to lump pet care into the Summoning skill. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, and because I’m too lazy to look up the real names.

Ted - “Well, the Summoning skill is almost complete, but it seems to be lacking something.”

Bill - “What? It’s not confusing enough?”

Gale - “Not expensive enough?”

Jim – “Not a big enough pain in the ass?”

Ted - “No, it just seems like a root canal.  You might need to get one, but do you really want to do it?”

Bill - “That’s true. No one ever actually asked for anything like it.”

Gale - “Are you saying that not one of our 10 million players asked for anything like Summoning?”

Ted - “Well, there was talk about creature creation.”

Gale - “We added that in the Tower of Life quest.”

Bill - “And no one knows about it, and those who do, don’t give a damn.”

Ted - “Lets get back on track people. What can we do to make Summoning entertaining?”

Gale - “I hear many players asking for more pets.”

Ted - “That’s the ticket. We’ll lump a pet care skill in with Summoning and then people will have to deal with the Summoning skill.”

Bill - “Are those two even related?”

Ted - “Does it matter?”

Wavey lines again. Back on topic.

Anyway, it occurred to me the other day that one thing that seems to go hand-in-hand with medieval times is horses. Knights rode horses. Contests were played on horses.  Goods were transported by horses. Everyone had a horse.  Why not add horses to the Runescape mix?

Of course, thanks to Summoning, owning and caring for a horse would fall squarely under that sad skill set. I guess I’ll just have to deal with that aspect. Yet, I think the inclusion of horses (and donkeys and camels, and other beasts of burden) would be a nice addition to Runescape and would certainly fall within the realm of reality for the time period. Right now we are expected to accept that farmers take their goods to market via push carts. That knights ride into battle on… their feet. That ores we mine are transported via, at the most advanced, carts on tracks that lead to locations that are not strategically located to any place that ores need to go.

Here is my view of horses in Runescape. I see players with a high enough summoning skill (cough) earning the right to care for horses and keeping them as pets (raising them from birth). As the horses get older they would develop the ability to carry players as riders (players would be able to travel faster and further without depleting energy as quickly).  Of course players would need to dismount before entering buildings.  As the horse gets even older it would begin to be able to carry items in an inventory of its own (like the current beast of burden routine). Maybe player would be able to attach carts to the horses and transport loads of goods around Runescape. Over time the horse would reach a peak productive age, and then its abilities would lessen and eventually be of little “work” value. At that point the horse could be put out to pasture to make way for younger horses. I’m not suggesting sending the old horses to the glue factory (though, now that I think about it, that could be a new feature in the crafting skill… sorry, bad joke.  I really do love horses).  We’d just send them to Farmer Ted’s Ranch for Elderly Livestock.

Some restrictions would be needed. Players would not be able to put horses in their inventory. Lets face it, stuffing a horse in to your backpack just looks weird (and is already illegal in many cities). Also, players would need to build homes with special stables attached.  To ride the horse, a player would need to have at least one hand free (so a shield or weapon would have to be in the inventory or not brought along at all). Also, a large animal working so much would require a good amount of food.

I am still working on this idea, so check back for updates on this latest idea.

Disclaimer: I know I make fun of Jagex a lot about the Summoning skill and I give a lot of ideas for game improvements. Please don’t take that as dissatisfaction with the game. I do hate Summoning. But I love the game as a whole and the ideas I suggest are merely things I view as added bonuses.

I’m not too fond of the Summoning skill. I don’t dislike it because its too expensive (which it is) nor because charm harvesting is too big a burden (which it is). The skill in and of itself feels all wrong.  It is like someone in the development department at Jagex had a burr on his butt to get this skill implemented without thinking it through and having it make any sense what-so-ever. The complexity of this skill really does boggle the mind.  Worse yet, the skill seems like it is ultimately more work than its worth.  For me, its only value to date has been allowing me to have a pet other than a cat.  But enough about my dislike for Summoning…

In Summoning there are four items that are needed to create pouches which in turn are used to summon the assistance of specific creatures which may or may not be of some additional value to the player.  Plain pouches can be bought fairly cheaply, but need to be infused to have any use. To infuse pouches you need shards that cost 25gp each (which at first seems inexpensive until you get over level 30 and start needing well over 1800gp worth of shards to infuse one stupid pouch for a piddly 60xp). Then a secondary ingredient is needed, like the bones of a specific creature, a bucket of sand, your first born (okay, maybe not that) or practically anything else in the Runescape world. The last item is one of four types of charms (gold, crimson, green, or blue) which can only be obtained by killing creatures and through certain limited kinds of thieving.  Charms are untradeable and not available for sale. Any charms you get, you get on your own and no amount of money will help.

A popular and cost effective way of low level training Summoning is by infusing Granite Crab pouches using seven shards, a gold charm, and an iron ore to gain a total 21 Summoning experience. Sure, a Mosquito pouch may only require one shard and one gold charm, but the Proboscis secondary ingredient is cost prohibitive at over 3000gp each for only 46xp.  What training Summoning boils down to is either a lot of combat to get a lot of charms, or a whole-hell-of-a-lot of money to buy the shards and still needing to use the hard to find charms. The problem with using a lower level xp technique to train Summoning is obviously a lot more time needed to obtain more charms and then the time needed infusing the pouches.  But this low xp technique does save money and only requires gold charms which are the most common to find.  I recommend Ice Warriors to anyone training Summoning and in need of gold charms.

Ice Warriors can be found in the Ice Caves south of Port Sarim or the Ice Plateau in the wilderness. My favorite spot, however, is on the top of White Wolf Mountain. There are two Warriors up there, and several more can be found in the dungeon below.  Remember to bring a Pick Axe with you to the mountain as you will need it to clear a rock slide to get to the Ice Warriors.  Also, the area sounds start out cool and creepy, but quickly become a little annoying, so you may wish to turn down or off the area sounds in this spot.

At combat level 57, Ice Warriors are not wimps, but most mid level players should have little problem with these guys given enough food. At my current 89 combat level I still require some food to harvest from the Warriors, but I usually only bring cakes I have thieved from the stalls in East Ardougne. Weaker players may need lobsters or swordfish. It should also be noted that the Ice Warriors on White Wolf are in a multi-combat zone and will gang up on players, but after fifteen minutes of constant fighting they will start to ignore you unless you attack them first.  I use a Dragon Longsword against these guys, but just for fun, every once in a while I will use my Rune Pick Axe with almost identical effectiveness.  So if you can’t wield Dragon, try a Rune Pick Axe.

Charms are the whole reason to fight Ice Warriors. More often than not they will drop charms, and most of those charms will be gold with an occasional crimson and very rarely a green or blue thrown in to mix things up a bit. Still, in my admittedly non-expert experience in Runescape, Ice Warriors are the most prolific and consistent droppers of gold charms.  Other than, and in addition to charms, they also drop a wide range of other mid value items. I like to think of them as the WalMart of Runescape. They tend to drop a lot of different types or herbs, seeds, and runes. Uncut gems and arrows are also fairly common. I even manage to get a half key every once in a while. You won’t get rich off Ice Warriors, but you will get the charms needed to train up summoning.  I mainly fight them for the charms, and once I deplete my food, which takes a good hour, I’m off to the Catherby bank to make my deposit and get more food. Typically I can get atleast 40 gold charms in an hour.

Ice Warriors: CL-57, HP-59