I do love of my Dragon battleaxe, and the stack of Toads in my bank makes me happy, and Caskets are a joy! But some things you can't keep in banks-- these are some of those Other things I really enjoy or loathe in RSC!
Shield of Arrav Quest
A legend, a library, an old book, and underworld gangs! This is right up my alley-- the alley leading to the Black Arm HQ. This quest might not be more complex than the usual, but after making cakes for a Cook, failing to rescue Juliet, chasing Imps, and shearing sheep, this really fired my imagination, and the excitement of joining the Blaggards to thwart the Feenits gang is forever burned into my memory!
It shows you don't need lengthy dialogue to make a game quest interesting, any more than you need a high poly count. Always happy to redo this one!
Opinions are divided on the co-op quests, but what else is a multiplayer for?
Doubtless, these days there is a steaming pile of official lore about Arrav, but I prefer not to know!
Alas, you can't keep the shield for yourself.
Seers Party Hall Fireplace
It's not the *closest* cooking spot to a bank, but it's pretty swanky having the whole hall to yourself!
Dark Wizard's Tower
When the Varrock circle of Dark Wizards seems like yesterday's challenge, just the other side of a members gate stands a tower of foul ungodliness so attractive to the Adventurer wanting Runes!
The ground level is swarming with evil, you can almost smell it- like boiled cabbage and spoiled milk! Many an unwary newb has died in this place, and even these days, it's the one spot you can be sure players keep the doors shut tight. Or maybe that's because so they don't want to chase them around outside...
Anyway, the top floor has a respawning Chaos rune, a spiffy reward for battling vile iniquity in the land. There are also many books, but if you're not strong enough to be able to make yourself a quiet moment, it's nearly impossible to fill out a library card.
The second floor is a great place to rest, having only two spawns of darkness there.
Even after I was strong enough to bring a just silence to the whole tower, I liked hanging out here, and have to remind myself to leave when a less experienced adventurer arrives. The Runes-- *mwah!* c'est magnifique!
Zombie Sweater Vest
This is how the Duke of Lumbridge's accountants end up when they fail in their fiscal duties. Or, maybe this is what became of the whole team of Misthalin United.
The color is on the lurid side, but they look so comfy, and I want one!
Aggie of Draynor
I've visited Aggie's hovel countless times for her respawns and dyes, somehow never realized/discovered until looking at the wiki what an interesting NPC she was! Some types of Man can be triggered through dialogue to become hostile-- Aggie has a multitude of dialogues, including an insult, and two options trigger events depending on your inventory!
Such commitment to NPC design more than makes up for Agility, in my mind.
Is there a more elaborately detailed NPC in the kingdoms? If there is, write an exclusive on them for FBN!
Underground Pass Quest
Some people despair at this very long quest, but most people I've heard from love it. It is generally agreed that U.P., or UGP as ppl say, or Underground P*** as Jaggers used to censor, is a *superior* quest to Legends! Which surprises me, since I had no idea anyone had done Legends.
In a concept, Underground Pass is as worthy of the term Quest as any in fiction, and more than most in RuneScape-- I mean, you get as many QP for this as you do for Romeo and Juliet! It is the sequel to a previous quest, and genuinely designed to kill you over and over. But I don't want to spoil the surprise with too many details!
The quest has unique object interactions, and interesting enemies, and gloriously evil architecture!
The traps are horrific, designed like the spelling errors to stun and shock the interpid! Of the final boss, I can't really say- I'm usually in such a state by the end that I don't hear a damn thing he says. But the reward, appropriately, is a very unique item.
I think this is the only quest I've really had to use Rapid Heal prayer, and one of the few I've had to plan retreat from, not having enough Stuff to continue. Even though you're using a guide, I don't want to spoil it!
Of course, being a very long quest, you might get lost in the caverns, or forget what you're looking for, or why you went there to begin with, or what grass looks like, or sunshine, or the smell of the catherby shore, and all those you once knew and loved... and you may never look at unicorns the same way again. But that's evil for you, eh?
Really, you have to give it a whirl! Not recommended for under lvl 20.
The Pineapple Pizza of the Lost City of Zanaris of RuneScape
In the old days, Pineapple pizzas weren't very popular, and nowadays even less so. But I have a perverse fondness for making them, and this is my place to do it-- my therapist says it's part of my masochistic tendencies, but then he also thinks an hour is 40 minutes long.
The Lost City is a challenging quest, and anyone arriving in Zanaris deserves fanfare and bunting, or at least free chocolate bars. They get the bars, and so much more! Therein will the adventurer find a wheat field, fountain, mill, closest range to the bank, ore and bar certing, a general store, sand pit, and furnace! All in one place! Not to mention the real reason everyone quests to get in here: the Egg and Bucket spawns!
Besides the carefree frolics of cooking dough and cheese, Zanny offers the rare Otherworldy Beings-- lvl 66 creatures within spitting distance of a bank! They spawn thickly enough that you shouldn't run out, and no one else trains on them, unless they are testing a new weapon. Oh yes! There is also a Dragon Longsword seller.
It's almost as wondrous as the Grand Tree!
Otherworldly Beings
Only found in Zanaris, these guys really suck, and I've been training on them for ages!!
Not only do they critically whittle me down, the best I've got from them is a Half of a Key. Add to that: they aren't aggro, and will actually run away!
The occasional Law or Death Rune doesn't make up for the investment of ATS (attention to screen) I've put in, just to get my own private training spot.
There's a reason no one else is there! It's almost as bad as the Grand Tree!
Firemaking
A tinderbox is a striker, a strikee, and some tinder- I won't speculate on exactly what the materials are in the RSC tinderbox, but I assume they don't include matches! IRL I've never used one, and I'm sure it's not easy at first. But I struggle to see what the increasing or decreasing difficulty might be in this journey from struggling apprentice to master firelighter, since you're only lighting the freaking tinder!!
Whatever this mechanic or pseudo-simulation is supposed to exemplify, the upshot is that it's pretty lame. But the kingdom would be a lesser place without lines of fires outside banks, which is the only joy I've found in it, excepting putting on dramatic recreations of the life and death of Joan of Arc.*
Everyone knows the skill is next to pointless, but let's look at the skill in a positive light- half alive rather than half dead- and see how we could integrate it more into the game!
One method would be to add other skills of limited use, so Firemaking seems less out of place. Another way would be to separate some of the already too-efficient tasks into different stats. Critically, all options should return more Fail! in line with the joy Firemaking, or smelting iron.
Long before OSRS, there was the original RS mini-game: Banking! It was an investment of time, skill, and cooperation to try and sort your bank by dropping on the floor and picking up before others saw your Stuff, by having a trusted friend take and return piles of Stuff, by making mules you couldn't even claim as dependents on your taxes! Couldn't I get a level in that??
Frog Catching as a skill would be silly, but Cleaning (picking up dropped things) could be one! Also Philanthropy ('Filantropy', ingame) trading things for 0gp, could be recorded and applied to a stat.
So imagine getting some of these messages back a couple decades ago, in what was the ever-expanding world of RSC--
I leave you with these heady thoughts of what could be, and what might have been, but thankfully never will!
*other saints are available. see also:List of People Burned as Heretics
Blessing a Holy Symbol of Saradomin
This takes forever, which wouldn't be a problem except that I like having a stack of them. If it didn't take so long, these might have been a Favorite. Added to the slow and lengthy dialogue you have to go through, if you disconnect while the vendor Monk is swapping an Unblessed for a Blessed ammy, you may log in to find an extra one in inventory, or on the ground. I expect this exploit has been there since the item was added-- but really, no one would ever care!
Thieving
"You're a hero now." -Gypsy
"You will always be a hero in our village!" -Morgan
"I don't what to say, we owe you so much." -King Narode Shareen
"Greetings, welcome to the hero's guild." -Achetties
"Hooray, you're amazing!" -King Bolren
"You shall be long remembered as one of the greatest heroes amongst the Knights of the Round Table." -King Arthur
"Hey! Get your hands off there!" -Paladin
Despite every thing you did for the kingdom, you can steal anything that isn't nailed down and you do.
Don't get me wrong, stealing from NPCs is one of the joys of gaming, if it's the path to pixel (or poly) wealth.
You can choose good or evil in The Hazeel Cult, but weirdly Thieving has no moral alignment or consequence, other than being punched, or NEVER being able to do Legends at all.
Doing Arrav puts you in a gang, but that's just a ploy to right the injustice of not having 600 gold and returning a stolen relic.
You may not belong to the cooks guild, or mining guild, or Crafters-- you may opt out of magic. But if there were a Thieves Guild, I bet you'd be in it!
In mechanics, I would choose Agility over Thieving-- and that's pretty low. Stalls are sort of- and chests are almost very much- just clicking on a square.
"Aha!" you may say, "but RS is made up entirely of squares!"
"Who are you and how did you get in my article?" I'd counter, adding that it would be a better argument to say: "fishing is just clicking on squares," and I'd parry that fishing, or mining, relies on a secondary skill to refine the goods, and is not just a button you press to get money.
So you steel from Mans, you steel from Warriors, from Paladins, even from the Heroes, which is what you're NOT! You're no better than a Bandit, you belong in the back allies of Varrock with Muggers, and those players who try to sell eye patches for 300gp.
Excepting those people on my Friends list.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those which Frank will admit to ingame.
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