ramblings inspired by halloween.

holiday events relieve the drudgery of an otherwise quest-bereft f2p. which is really sweet of them, considering.

after a while though, they get boring enough, too. till i almost dread repeating it on my mage pure, and wonder if it's even worth the effort. so call me an ingrate, you wouldn't be too far off. after all, wouldn't i just be going along with the more vocal forumers in the domain of rants?

it seems it's probably the general holidayish feel to it, though. it's like early birthdays, when there were presents to look forward to (as opposed to, say, money). all the expectation's built up, and i wonder if that isn't why they release these events early. regardless of how much better it is, it always falls short of those expectations of a holiday event. i don't suppose the poll and news of preparation helped much in that respect, either. if you raise awareness so expectations find their way up there too, it's hard to build as high, yourself. even if you do break a record or two along the way.

the consolation's that by the next holiday event, the initial positivity outshines that nagging sense of boredom that by the actual holiday day it peters off to. that, after all, is the fuel for expectations - that previous events were ultimately successes in themselves, as this will be.

maybe it's just me, but the easter you-are-a-rabbit hopping game kinda got me, the first time round. as a rule, i like mazes. a wish of mine's to visit (and be allowed to get lost in) one of those garden mazes they advertise when they advertise europe (with the price in fine print, of course). the easter event implied the player required something more than the mental capacity to walk and breathe at the same time. it's rather annoying that this halloween one patently does not. (and you still have people screaming away, where do i put the last testament???) i mean, it's a holiday event. fun doesn't imply brainless.

then sometimes i wonder how jagex comes up with these things. aside from conforming the intricacies of the idea to the various festivities, it would stand to reason that there's a sort of general template to draw from. not that it betrays a lack of creativity, just presence of mind, the way teacher's testimonials ostensibly do.

on to the components, anyhow.

1. mazes. (invisible spiders, rabbit! though that's stretching it...
2. give things out/ collect things. (dispense eggs to npcs, other players, defeat the strange tree...)
3. put things together. (bauble-painting, marionette-making...)
4. shoot things. (gublinch, freaky toys...)

only common factors i've managed to source, so far. maybe they aren't that boring, after all, not when taken as the whole concept of holiday events. just repetitive.

and fun. let's not forget fun. second floor. the slide was really cute. the springboard was so-so. the green slime was faintly disgusting. blah blah blah. it was okay, that bit, better than okay. then come the pitfall traps... i just couldn't see them, the first two times around. got it the third time, then complacently got caught by the trap just a square next to the door...

yes, it was fun. all in all i can't find fault worth mentioning with it, or with most holiday events, generally. but there's still the thing called overkill. so upstairs was fun, so upstairs got repetitive fast.

better overkill than not at all, anyway. happy holiday(s) y'all, if you have any.

rain.

something amazing happened. it's what prompted me to blog in the middle of the week, anyway.

it was raining, and i decided to just make a run for it, without an umbrella. i was running late, but i don't suppose that'd be much of an excuse.

so i prayed the rain wouldn't drench me too much, and started out.

then of all things, a car horned, and stopped, and someone passed me an umbrella. a stanger gave me an umbrella.

was completely nonplussed. dumbstruck. whatever you call it.

it was just amazing, amazing, amazing.

so i got drenched a few seconds more before taking it all in, and said thank you so many times over. i don't think they heard me.

i'd heard two cars horn just before that, but i hadn't stopped. i'd just crossed one of those small roads, and was under the impression they'd been rebuking me for not looking before i walked. one car turned, and that's why i'd thought what i'd thought, after all.

i'd like to think, they were trying to do exactly the same thing. it's an amazing world.

God's given me amazing friends. and He's blessed me with amazing people to share this world with.

i'd prayed that i wouldn't get sick, or get too wet, but i hadn't prayed for an umbrella. it just never came to mind.

God is good.

and while i waited at the bus stop, i hadn't taken a bus in rainy weather in a long enough time that i didn't think to stand back. when the first truck drove into a puddle that had water splashing halfway over the entire length of that sheltered area, i wasn't so much feeling anything but being stunned. then i realised, it was more than twice as many cars that purposely avoided the puddle made by the road sinking in a little just at the bus stop. they'd slow down, deliberately, or even drive in the middle of two lanes, just so they wouldn't get people wet.

and it's times like these when i just have to stop, and wonder at how amazing God is, how amazing life is.

the bots strike back.

the trees are alive -
with the sight of white dots...

musicals don't quite go with sci fi movies. hmm.

anyway. the title says it all. it's almost scary. more bots are massing around lumby, swarming aroundthat pond next to farmer fred's with willows round it. the theory's that it's an army of them, out for vengeance as a response to the shop update. i mean, well, that's heartening, the shop update rocks, in a nicer way of putting it, but...

a little too many bots to handle, if i do say so myself.

of course, there's reporting done in about as many droves, though by slightly less a number of people. just, well. brings up the whole macro issue again too. i just found this post on vaskor's blog, about real world trading. only just came across it, but the links really are interesting. in their differences.

most of all this, from runehead. there's the claim that it isn't "immoral". i almost was convinced myself. it's kinda pathetic that i'm not more able to keep to the same view. but i finally did, and it is immoral. in more plain langauge, it's stealing. it's not a service that's being sold, it's property of jagex being stolen in that what's exchanged for it is real world money.

it's immoral in that you're going behind the backs of other players to gain an underserved advantage for yourself. like backstabbing, of the worst order, because you're doing it to every single person you come across who does not, also, real world trade, and because it's children backstabbing, or being backstabbers, who also, simply, don't understand.

then there's this other link, also from vaskor. (whom i owe alot to, thank you. i'd tried before to find runescape blogs worth a visit to, and hadn't previously found any at all. just logs, and blogs chock full of quoted updates, nothing else. i knew blogs existed, i just never could find them. must've been walking about with my eyes closed. i hadn't even realised tip it had a news section. of sorts.)

http://www.chinesegoldfarmers.com/

it explains the perspective most of the spoilt children and brats i come across never look to. while it doesn't make real world trading any less wrong, it does do something more. i'd touched on this earlier, but the people i knew didn't at all have this much to lose.

anyway. there was this one sentence that struck me.

They think that the game world should be a level playing field, that it should
be a magical circle free of the corruption of the real world.

precisely. i think the whole world should be like that, and in as many places as it is possible - whyever not?

i don't like the idea of pragmatism, even though i'm more pragmatic than i'd like. it just seems so... crass. like living to eat. like being obsessed over money yourself just because money's a major driving force behind many other people, when it shouldn't be. it's just crass. i can't quite find another word for it.

and well. that's all i have to say.

i suppose it's all old news to you, and those others expressed it so well i don't feel a need to. i just write because it's how i think. it's how i go about thinking, not an expression of my views per se. i don't write about what i think, because i don't know what i think till i write it.

and that's what it seems a blog's for. yep.

updates, goals, updates on goals.

before i properly leave this and rs for the rest of this week (i've decided to shorten it to a week. i suck at planning and goals and executing what i do plan, so it's back to shortening it all. besides, i wouldn't have time to do anything rs-related this week even if i wanted to, so no danger there. i suck. i know. it's my long term goal to do something about it.) one last post about something rs-related seems to be in order. to make posts topically more proportionate and all.

updates. i don't know how jagex manages to keep that steady stream of updates going, but whatever the case, they're doing a damn good job of it. (right on schedule, too, or at least it comes out looking right on schedule. *cues the sheepish look*)

as for october's, the shop issue. nice that they got rid of the rune and arrow buying bots, but things do seem a little too gp-consuming for comfort. 4 gp for a spool of thread. 310 gp for a death rune. we'll see then. i'll wait for prices to settle before i properly comment. i'll probably end up buying straight of the shelves though. i don't buy much at all, period, so when i do, it's a 'money? what about it?' thing.

another problem with the shops though - the endless supply of willow logs, oak logs, normal logs. till they reach yew-worthy stages, the general store would be the main source of bot income. it's the assumption players don't buy willows which has the players down at lumby general store, next to those bots selling a continuous stream of willows, buying their pants of and promptly... burning their pants off? that sounds wrong...

a continuous stream of selling and buying, with the selling by far outdistancing the buying. which probably isn't so much at all, but looking at the sheer number of willows in there... isn't there some sort of rule against selling too much?

i'm starting to sound and feel like an ingrate. off with that. good riddance days of welcoming being booted from the game for 'system update in 1:04' just because you know the bots'll be booted, too, and think (or hope) that they'll take a longer time coming in. meaning there's time to go about restocking the shops, for bots to lose that bit of money that could've let someone else astray, and for those few seconds, find f2p, overall, a much more pleasant place. (ie going to a yew tree doesn't have you thinking, 'domain of the bots'.)

(oh wait. contradition. come back, days of welcoming being booted from the game for 'system update in 1:04'!)

regarding edgeville's graphically enhanced coat of paint, that's the way to go. make it so the last sight of those pkers pk'ed against their best intentions is something that'll bear looking at as one kneels over. literally. bearing in mind that i'm saying this as someone who hasn't stepped close enough to inhale the fumes of aforesaid new paint on aforesaid edgeville.

and halloween? anniversary of my first holiday event. beyond that, the seventh month by the lunar calendar ended not so long ago, and anything remotely halloween-like mainly's confined to the expat communities. so reading that was more of 'halloween? *delayed reaction* ohh, halloween'.

update on my goals for rs: an investigation into the ways of ending a conversation as quickly as possible.

preferably in a one word, non-offensive, non-illicit, neutral, monosyllabic response that kills the conversation deader than lag would. (if lag does at all. i don't know how people manage to ramble, and ramble, and ramble, without me even trying to get a word in edgeways. seeing as a word would be 'if you please, stop spamming my private chat with a one-sided conversation' i suppose they're grateful. unless they just want someone to listen, in which case, go ahead. i love being a sounding board. *said without any sarcasm, seriously.* i'd rather listen about you than talk about me.)

necessary for my survival if i am to persist in keeping private chat 'on'. which i will, or not log in at all in the attempt.

update on gameplay-related goal: not to get bored with the game by going off it for long stretches that by the time i do log on, all boredom's dissipated.

yay. a post of doable goals. i hope.

recovery questions.

setting recovery questions is ever so fun.

i don't see how it's possible to be hacked if you didn't set a password too obvious, or let an erstwhile friend too near. i suppose keyloggers play their own part, but keyloggers seem to be scapegoats more than anything else. conclusion: it's unlikely that recovery questions'll be your downfall.

but it's still good fun, anyway.

try setting recovery questions cryptic, cute, coldly logical, and downright weird. don't know about you, but it's not as easy as i'd have thought. think of it as an art. set recovery questions you'd be proud of.

i've yet to fulfil those criteria, by my own standards.

it's like macro names, kinda. random letters on some, but names like men jiu (alcohol you drink when you're sad. that it's nicely, reasonably specific is what makes the word endearing) on others. doesn't make any much difference, but if you have to do it, it's the latter you'd aim for. beauty for the sake of it. like i read in a book somewhere once, rather a long time ago. it's the same reason why you learn about paint dripping into the eyes of michelangelo as he painted the roof of the sistine chapel, and suchlike related things. you just do it because you can.

i don't dare risk it on my mod account, but for my skiller and inactive pure, the questions are solvable, yet unsolvably so. if you'd just be logical, you'd be able to solve them all. and get ahold of my account, but i'm assuming those secondary defences of 'password', 'previous password', 'time you last logged in' and such would deter you enough.

not that 'what was your mother's maiden name?' and so on aren't difficult to bypass, but it's plain boring. boringness isn't a thing you've got to have written all over your account, if you don't want it to.

i'm still working on it, myself. there's classic questions, 'how much land does a man need?', 'chicken or egg?' and so on. or questions related to your character's name. 'why isn't it/aren't there summer/s?' questions about questions. 'how many?' there's questions so in-your-face, so logical, so it-all-makes-so-much-sense!, but patently unsolvable, like 'state the answer of recovery question 1'.

so yeah. give it a shot. questions that make any prospective hacker (if there ever even might be one, but let's imagine there will be for the sake of feeling useful) go hunh? and ditch your account for something perhaps, less ridiculous.

a filler. from between week to week.

uh huh. lasted all of a week. and what a week.

at least the primary sixes are sitting tight in their exam rooms by now. just one more set of exams to go...

from what i gather majority of parents here are insanely achievement oriented. insanely. if their precious in-their-eyes-precocious nine year olds don't score in the realm of band 1, or (horror of horrors) drop a further 5.5 marks to below 80...

well, they'll whip the cane out, and for good measure get rid of the ineffective person who claims to be giving tuition to their kids once a week.

i read a book. apparently caning's the culture. wacky people. (oh no, i should say, traditional...) i have concluded. i am blessed. not to have parents like that. or the parents who gleefully impart their disciplinary secrets. "don't use canes, canes leave a mark. use rubber bands."

what is freaking wrong with you?

in any case. i'd have had to be going, anyway, by the end of the year. it's bad enough that the primary school year overlaps into our first semester. i wonder if i should tell them that, or let them politely ask me to get lost first. maybe i'll let them refine that art of office politicking.

but enough people are decent enough themselves. as are the kids, all three of them (i know, small basis for comparison, but that doesn't make it any less real), that i don't know how i'm going to be decent to them in saying 'i quit'. if the action itself doesn't already count that impossible.

i don't know. i don't know. (so i know i don't know. is that supposed to make me feel any better?)

i don't type in capital letters because that makes it feel too formal for me to be honest.

the kids aren't all bad. infact they aren't bad at all. and it's not as if i don't wish for them to be happy, or do well. i'm just not in a position to achieve either next year. so that leaves till the end of this.

i'm awaiting eviction in the case of the primary sixes. it's just science and mother tongue, if i'm not wrong, that's left. and i do hope they get all the a*s they want or need. as for the aforementioned primary three kid, well. just a little while more, before the exams come a-caling. here's to practice papers i'll have to churn out if i don't find good enough assessment books in time. and to hoping.

i'm sorry.

a few things i've got to say, seeing as i suppose i have offended my fair share of people, or at the very least, not been very charitable in the expression of opinions. something i sincerely regret, believe it or not.

1. economics does drive much of the world (more of the world than it should, imo). i still don't feel it should, and think it's entirely possible for it not to, but fact is, it does.

2. advice sites and fan sites in general should be recognised by jagex for the simple reason that the effort put into them is just not at all proportional to the appreciation received.

3. sudoku is more complicated than it would otherwise seem. meaning that while i wouldn't try it a second time myself, there's more reason for others who like that sort of thing to solve it than previously supposed.

4. public transport is reliable enough, and of high enough quality to merit whatever we pay for it. yes. people (like me) just complain too much.

5. fan fiction isn't complete crap. although alot of it is, and i haven't yet come across enough that don't put me off before i've ploughed through the promised first page, it isn't complete crap.

i'm sorry. i've since been provided with quite nice perspectives on things, and while my core opinions still stand, there are some things i've believed wrong.