i've had my skiller mistaken for a macro more times than i'd care to count.
i've tried...
1. talking excessively. actually starting conversations, believe it or not. i tend to keep to myself when playing, and since may, virtually never say a thing unless i've been talked to in a manner i can't ignore. that's why it's a nightmare when i start playing on my main, but forget that i'm playing on my main and not on my skiller...
2. starting off by raising stats no macro would ever raise. namely, the most boring, useless stats that i don't even actively train on my main (not that i actively train anything, really...) because i simply don't see the point of it. namely, firemaking and rcing. i got firemaking up to the hiscores sooner than i did any of the other skills. after that came runecrafting. hardly any bots seriously rc on f2p servers, after all, if it's nature runes they're after.
3. dressing tastefully. not that macros don't ever do that, but i tried dressing something radically different from the usual combinations.
4. showing off items a level 3 character shouldn't have. not showing off in the explicit sense of the word, seeing as i can't quite afford that many items. not wearing items worthy of of much attention, like trimmed robes or rares. wearing items that are quietly expensive, rather. common items that you wouldn't give a second thought to, but items that just don't belong on a level 3, as most would think. exemplified by coloured gloves, holy symbol/power ammy (prefer the holy symbol), fire staff...
5. not following a set routine. using lumby tele sometimes when mining near the lumby swamps, but walking to draynor other times. not following a set pattern when banking, or mining at certain rocks. changing clothes between bank runs. and so on.
i've tried all that, and still i get that "macro!", "macro?", "macro or friend?"...
well. at least that's a start...
Sunday, 23 September 2007
live from world 139
edit: sigh. i take a cue from keywords. you get onto world 139 by clicking "deutsch" in the language sidebar. and if you speak german, you'll know where to go from there.
another foray into the german servers, another macro encounter.
weirdly enough, on a german server, i end up speaking chinese. it's surreal. i'm overusing that word, i might as well get used to the reality of it.
usually most of my proper conversations on world 139 start with "sprechen sie english?" to which most people answer to the affirmative. they're met with an altered enough rendition that the censor won't react to of "that's great. mind if we converse in english then? my german sucks."
it sucks enough that it takes two tries to secure the mysterious box's dematerialisation, but not enough that i get ko'ed by the sandwich lady.
this guy in question, anyway, looks like almost every other crafting guild macroer you'll meet. level 8, in default clothes, a chinese name that means 'i'm not civilised'.
the difference is he actually speaks. another player's trying to sell something, i gather, and is more persistant about it than most. to his german the borg returns answers in the range of fundamentals like "yes", "what?", and culminating in "nonononono". to which the player unceremoniously departs.
seems too fun an opportunity to pass.
me, out of characterly: sprechen sie deutsch?
macro: what?
me: do you speak german?
macro: *insults collectively specific areas of my mother's anatomy in chinese* (if it wasn't for this i might've seriously doubted his macro-ness. was only on my skiller account, after all.)
me: ni shi hua ren ma? (are you chinese?)
macro: *says 'what the-' in chinese. this i actually had to google to find out it's meaning. last count, i've learnt 2 new insults and 1 new vulgarity...*
after that we have a pleasant conversation during which he breaks the personal details rule several times over. it's interspersed with basic english when i can't quite get what he's trying to say. after the more genial inquiries "ni duo da? (how old are you?), "ni shi na de ren? (what's your nationality)", "ni shi nan de ma? (are you a guy?), i find he's from zhejiang.
i don't know why he bothered, and come to think of it, (beyond mining being the only skill he's maxed out and him being online whatever time i log in) i wouldn't otherwise have had much cause to think of him as anything more than another person, that as anything more than a mundane conversation.
in the meantime, i might as well properly figure out what "qq" is (a "lian xi fang fa (means of communication/interaction)" he tells me), or even start an account on what seems to be china's equivalent of msn. all the better to take him up on that offer the next time he asks.
maybe even exchange views about macroing, if not actively persuade him otherwise; or at the very least, make a new friend.
a friend i'm sure will prove more scintillating than the level 29 player who came up to me that same day, putting 14k up in the trade window, declining, and after he'd had his fill of boasting what he obviously thought was his comparative wealth, inserted that choice uncensored four-letter insult. i mean, fine, insult me, but at least try to do it in style.
another foray into the german servers, another macro encounter.
weirdly enough, on a german server, i end up speaking chinese. it's surreal. i'm overusing that word, i might as well get used to the reality of it.
usually most of my proper conversations on world 139 start with "sprechen sie english?" to which most people answer to the affirmative. they're met with an altered enough rendition that the censor won't react to of "that's great. mind if we converse in english then? my german sucks."
it sucks enough that it takes two tries to secure the mysterious box's dematerialisation, but not enough that i get ko'ed by the sandwich lady.
this guy in question, anyway, looks like almost every other crafting guild macroer you'll meet. level 8, in default clothes, a chinese name that means 'i'm not civilised'.
the difference is he actually speaks. another player's trying to sell something, i gather, and is more persistant about it than most. to his german the borg returns answers in the range of fundamentals like "yes", "what?", and culminating in "nonononono". to which the player unceremoniously departs.
seems too fun an opportunity to pass.
me, out of characterly: sprechen sie deutsch?
macro: what?
me: do you speak german?
macro: *insults collectively specific areas of my mother's anatomy in chinese* (if it wasn't for this i might've seriously doubted his macro-ness. was only on my skiller account, after all.)
me: ni shi hua ren ma? (are you chinese?)
macro: *says 'what the-' in chinese. this i actually had to google to find out it's meaning. last count, i've learnt 2 new insults and 1 new vulgarity...*
after that we have a pleasant conversation during which he breaks the personal details rule several times over. it's interspersed with basic english when i can't quite get what he's trying to say. after the more genial inquiries "ni duo da? (how old are you?), "ni shi na de ren? (what's your nationality)", "ni shi nan de ma? (are you a guy?), i find he's from zhejiang.
i don't know why he bothered, and come to think of it, (beyond mining being the only skill he's maxed out and him being online whatever time i log in) i wouldn't otherwise have had much cause to think of him as anything more than another person, that as anything more than a mundane conversation.
in the meantime, i might as well properly figure out what "qq" is (a "lian xi fang fa (means of communication/interaction)" he tells me), or even start an account on what seems to be china's equivalent of msn. all the better to take him up on that offer the next time he asks.
maybe even exchange views about macroing, if not actively persuade him otherwise; or at the very least, make a new friend.
a friend i'm sure will prove more scintillating than the level 29 player who came up to me that same day, putting 14k up in the trade window, declining, and after he'd had his fill of boasting what he obviously thought was his comparative wealth, inserted that choice uncensored four-letter insult. i mean, fine, insult me, but at least try to do it in style.
Thursday, 20 September 2007
just, an annoyance.
there aren't very many things i explicitly love. there aren't very many things i hate either. confronted with most things, i register apathy.
not altogether the best of attitudes, or ways of life, but i've become quite good at convincing people i'm passionate about things i don't quite give much of a damn about.
one thing i am passionate about is figure skating. it's not that i don't love it, but sometimes everything gets so annoying. the one rink i go to has a monopoly, charges exorbitant prices, far as i'm concerned, and all in all burns a hole in my pocket. not even counting lessons, mind you. that whole quandary again, i know i'm meant to save money, i know i need money for other things, i know it's obscene to spend this much on something that's just, recreation.
it's just annoying. and it annoys me that it does.
end rant, such as it is.
not altogether the best of attitudes, or ways of life, but i've become quite good at convincing people i'm passionate about things i don't quite give much of a damn about.
one thing i am passionate about is figure skating. it's not that i don't love it, but sometimes everything gets so annoying. the one rink i go to has a monopoly, charges exorbitant prices, far as i'm concerned, and all in all burns a hole in my pocket. not even counting lessons, mind you. that whole quandary again, i know i'm meant to save money, i know i need money for other things, i know it's obscene to spend this much on something that's just, recreation.
it's just annoying. and it annoys me that it does.
end rant, such as it is.
Wednesday, 19 September 2007
accounting.
was looking through my bank account (something that took all of 30 seconds), and while it's not quite the best load of stuff you ever will see (more likely to take the prize in the opposite category, actually), it's got it's own fair share of sentimentality.
how it's organised, and such. how do you organise your banked items? every screenshot of a bank account i see doesn't seem in the least bit messy. after this one incident, there came this period when i got somewhat neurotic about my bank account. neurotic because i'd insist on spending five minutes clicking and clicking and clicking, in the days when i hadn't yet discovered the purpose of the insert button (not so long ago, really. something like two months. whoops.) and in moving something from place 30 to place 1, would have to go through all that 30 to 29. 29 to 28. 28 to...
habit never quite died. or perhaps it's just been tidy enough ever since that first sweep, thorough as it was. enough talking, anyway. on to the screenshot. the cut, pasted, edited, circled, low-quality screenshot.
the screenshot's there, and there's organisation explained. the insert's things i carry on my person pretty much all the time. out of necessity more than anything. sentimental things (they're pixels, but sentiment kinda defies logic too, doesn't it?) you just don't bring everywhere with you.
on properly to sentimental things; they're the ones ringed in red. (the swap button too, yes. countless wasted clicks...) story behind every item, you might say, but the sentimental things have longer stories than most... (don't worry, i'm not about the go into all that. would bore me almost as much as it'll bore you.)
a power ammy's a gift that's not too tacky, like the mith axe, and not exactly amazingly expensive, either. sure, it cuts you back 8k or so (never was a good enough merchant to find people selling it for any less) but it's worth it. in that the people are worth it. no, everyone's worth more than that. um. the encouragement (hopefully) it gives the person is worth it. or. i don't know what i'm saying, it's just worth it. the first example that comes to mind... it was varrock main bank, a crowded enough world. i wasn't about to open my mouth. but everyone else was intent on all that flashing, so...
player a: i was hacked i need free stuff.
player a: i was hacked i need free stuff.
player a: i was hacked gimme free stuff.
player b: i was hacked too, but you don't see me going around begging.
maybe it doesn't seem altogether spectacular a thing, but it was, to me. people just let it go on, around them, and it just fades into something like background noise. that attitude just seemed encouraging, somehow. even though the phrasing might've been a little antagonistic.
that's what power ammys are for.
i don't know if it makes a difference, but that brings me to events like today's. sometimes these things that touch you, they happen when you least expect it.
i've already ranted my share in an earlier post (so much earlier that it's slightly strange, reading it now), but now that i've progressed onto addy, it just gets worse. there're so few addy rocks around that some people just can't seem to bear to avoid competing for ores. (that's just the downside though. world hopping's more successful than ever with these ores.) usually i just leave it be, not least of all because my smithing's lagging a good 11 levels behind mining, and i only mine addy for the joy of it. (like wow, i mined addy? wow. kinda feeling.)
today's no different. there are two addy rocks that've timely respawned. a guy in full sara takes one, i take the other. he's done with it, and he moves on to my rock. as i shove off i tell myself i should've been desentised to this long ago, and head towards the mining guild.
i start mining the two rocks nearest the door. by this time, i've focused on the article response i'm meant to be doing, and that little incident has, as all of them are wont to do, become a non-issue.
until the blue text of "free add yon the grounf" interrupts those lines of black. he's standing right outside the door.
i take some time to figure out what he did say. and
i don't know what to say. i don't say anything.
he logs.
i add him to my friends list, and he's commenced world hopping. i still don't know what to say.
i wonder if it would be right to pm him. tell him thank you, thank you kindly.
by the time i've decided, he really has logged.
i don't pick the addy up, but thank you. thank you kindly.
how it's organised, and such. how do you organise your banked items? every screenshot of a bank account i see doesn't seem in the least bit messy. after this one incident, there came this period when i got somewhat neurotic about my bank account. neurotic because i'd insist on spending five minutes clicking and clicking and clicking, in the days when i hadn't yet discovered the purpose of the insert button (not so long ago, really. something like two months. whoops.) and in moving something from place 30 to place 1, would have to go through all that 30 to 29. 29 to 28. 28 to...
habit never quite died. or perhaps it's just been tidy enough ever since that first sweep, thorough as it was. enough talking, anyway. on to the screenshot. the cut, pasted, edited, circled, low-quality screenshot.
sheesh. the quality's worse than i thought. but then again, i've only got this much space in my thumbdrive.
the screenshot's there, and there's organisation explained. the insert's things i carry on my person pretty much all the time. out of necessity more than anything. sentimental things (they're pixels, but sentiment kinda defies logic too, doesn't it?) you just don't bring everywhere with you.
on properly to sentimental things; they're the ones ringed in red. (the swap button too, yes. countless wasted clicks...) story behind every item, you might say, but the sentimental things have longer stories than most... (don't worry, i'm not about the go into all that. would bore me almost as much as it'll bore you.)
- the earth staff - my first staff. (replaced by the fire staff/skull sceptre, but whatever.)
- toy horise - from the days of 'ooh there's a toy horsie. wonder what it does...' and '150gp?? no thanks.' and 'w00t 150 gp to splurge... what shall i splurge it on...'
- tiara mould - my first tiara mould. a tiara mould costs 100gp?? *eyes bug out* now i just have to bank this... *clutches tiara mould tight and shuffles off to the nearest bank. walking in the wrong direction, of course.*
- chisel - my first chisel. wub.
a power ammy's a gift that's not too tacky, like the mith axe, and not exactly amazingly expensive, either. sure, it cuts you back 8k or so (never was a good enough merchant to find people selling it for any less) but it's worth it. in that the people are worth it. no, everyone's worth more than that. um. the encouragement (hopefully) it gives the person is worth it. or. i don't know what i'm saying, it's just worth it. the first example that comes to mind... it was varrock main bank, a crowded enough world. i wasn't about to open my mouth. but everyone else was intent on all that flashing, so...
player a: i was hacked i need free stuff.
player a: i was hacked i need free stuff.
player a: i was hacked gimme free stuff.
player b: i was hacked too, but you don't see me going around begging.
maybe it doesn't seem altogether spectacular a thing, but it was, to me. people just let it go on, around them, and it just fades into something like background noise. that attitude just seemed encouraging, somehow. even though the phrasing might've been a little antagonistic.
that's what power ammys are for.
i don't know if it makes a difference, but that brings me to events like today's. sometimes these things that touch you, they happen when you least expect it.
i've already ranted my share in an earlier post (so much earlier that it's slightly strange, reading it now), but now that i've progressed onto addy, it just gets worse. there're so few addy rocks around that some people just can't seem to bear to avoid competing for ores. (that's just the downside though. world hopping's more successful than ever with these ores.) usually i just leave it be, not least of all because my smithing's lagging a good 11 levels behind mining, and i only mine addy for the joy of it. (like wow, i mined addy? wow. kinda feeling.)
today's no different. there are two addy rocks that've timely respawned. a guy in full sara takes one, i take the other. he's done with it, and he moves on to my rock. as i shove off i tell myself i should've been desentised to this long ago, and head towards the mining guild.
i start mining the two rocks nearest the door. by this time, i've focused on the article response i'm meant to be doing, and that little incident has, as all of them are wont to do, become a non-issue.
until the blue text of "free add yon the grounf" interrupts those lines of black. he's standing right outside the door.
i take some time to figure out what he did say. and
i don't know what to say. i don't say anything.
he logs.
i add him to my friends list, and he's commenced world hopping. i still don't know what to say.
i wonder if it would be right to pm him. tell him thank you, thank you kindly.
by the time i've decided, he really has logged.
i don't pick the addy up, but thank you. thank you kindly.
Sunday, 16 September 2007
the week ahead.
one last post before i try to keep away from this blog for a week.
try being the operative word.
you would've thought i'd have learnt by now that writing something off the top of your in response to anything at all gets you nothing but trouble, and the need for a longer, more organised and well thought-out reply.
i haven't, but i'm about to. just a few minutes then i've got to leave. no time to reply coherently now, so it's exile to blogging off the top of my head again. back on topic.
the week ahead...
monday's the day you most feel like dying. dead tired because you slept at 2.24 sunday night kind of dying.
tuesday's the day of most stress. skipping-lunch-and-dinner-cos-you're-rushing kind of stress.
wednesday's the day of scary timetabling. insane timetabling. scarily insane. insanely scary.
thursday's the longest day. the day that's stretched like taffy that's already been stretched like taffy that's already been stretched like taffy across earlier weeks.
friday's the day of unexpected length and unpleasant surprises. friday's traditionally the day of exams and dental appointments, last sightings and lost books.
saturday's almost worse, but by saturday i'll probably be back to rant about it.
have a good week ahead, y'all.
try being the operative word.
you would've thought i'd have learnt by now that writing something off the top of your in response to anything at all gets you nothing but trouble, and the need for a longer, more organised and well thought-out reply.
i haven't, but i'm about to. just a few minutes then i've got to leave. no time to reply coherently now, so it's exile to blogging off the top of my head again. back on topic.
the week ahead...
monday's the day you most feel like dying. dead tired because you slept at 2.24 sunday night kind of dying.
tuesday's the day of most stress. skipping-lunch-and-dinner-cos-you're-rushing kind of stress.
wednesday's the day of scary timetabling. insane timetabling. scarily insane. insanely scary.
thursday's the longest day. the day that's stretched like taffy that's already been stretched like taffy that's already been stretched like taffy across earlier weeks.
friday's the day of unexpected length and unpleasant surprises. friday's traditionally the day of exams and dental appointments, last sightings and lost books.
saturday's almost worse, but by saturday i'll probably be back to rant about it.
have a good week ahead, y'all.
a regular day on pm, 92 point 5.
started playing again, after i got back last night, and because that just happens to be peak hour for america, on average i end up holding five conversations simultaneously. of course, none of them are friends. my real friends know by now when to leave well alone.
people are just so different. i don't believe it. i don't know what to believe. last night's five was a case in point.
(and this is excluding the normal, quite unanswerable pms like "!! guthix brings you balance!!", "wanna buy full zammy?", "u sed u wanted to be my gf!", "tell everyone to join zezima's chat!" etc.)
1. at fally bank, a guy's hankering after a single law rune. presumably for varrock tele or something, and i oblige. i give it to him free, and that part, maybe it was a mistake. "1 more. 1 more. 1 more." spams the chat screen. i leave the bank. he promptly 1-more'd me through pm. we discuss the merits of plain hard work, and the satisfaction it gives you.
once he's dealt with, i make the mistake of giving another guy mith ores. "more. weps and armour." he weps-and-armour's me via pm when i leave. i don't know where he got the idea that someone who hasn't consciously trained anything remotely melee-related for six months should be lugging mith and addy weapons and armour done to the mining pits. regardless. we discuss the merits of plain hard work, and the satisfaction it gives you.
it's vicious in its predictability.
2. a guy's been lobbying "f2p should get more quests and items!" again in fally. "follow me if you think f2p should get more quests and items!" it's not an extremely crowded world, all things considered, he doesn't attract very much attention, and thereafter resorts to (horror of horrors) pming innocent bystanders. we debate the fairness of jagex's decisions.
i don't see why people won't just play, and be grateful that they get so much for absolutely nothing. he's apparently been playing since rsc came out. it's rather futile, and we both realise it. we promptly move on to other things.
pking's hardly more edifying.
3. someone pms me from out of the blue (not that that's altogether unexpected) and asks what a whetstone is. i point out the search function, and promptly click search for him.
apparently it's a place where you sharpen rusty swords.
4. someone i'm positive has been hounding me ever since she discovered the fact of my existence strikes again. it's the same type of question every time. she starts off this time with "can u like, tell jagex to put me a mod!" as a prelude to whether it's "good" to help someone with a quest, whether it's "good" to report someone attempting to account trade, whether it's "good"... her definition of "good" being whether it'll get her mod status fast enough.
i'm still leery after the last encounter with the guy who initiated the let's toggle the pm settings! game. but this time i just can't help but tell her my views, incorporating all that about position, how to properly earn respect, right and wrong... she simmers. the moment i even mention "ignore list" she goes ballistic.
"ur mean! you're reported!!"
and to think, just the other day she was so surprised when i told her about the number of people who've reported me. was trying to say that reports don't mean a thing unless they're valid. i remind her of as much.
a silence, then she goes back to it again. "who r the people wit gold crowns?" only a matter of time before she gets back to the same form of asking.
i feel like screaming. (and if i did, one room over they'd be speculating tomorrow who presumably spent the night here.) i just log. it's easier to shoot yourself in the mouth than reason with people, it seems, sometimes.
i log in later to be faced with "yh do i always have to say hi y cant u do it]" i wonder if it's too cruel to tell her i delete her from my friends list everytime we're done conversing in hopes that we'll never have to again. initiate a conversation with her? is she crazy?
i stick with "i'm sorry, sometimes i need to clear my friends list when it gets too full, and..." then promptly initiate a conversation with her next i log in.
give me strength.
5. it seems someone really is listening. a person with a vaguely familiar username pms me. somehow we get onto the topic of family. we bond over standing around attracting randoms and talking about deaths of loved ones. he starts off, and in between i mention my friend.
we cover how unfair the world seems, how cruel things can be, grief, regret, time, meaning, religion, missing someone.
saying this almost seems like intruding on privacy. we talk about where we live.
it becomes a mundane conversation, and that's precisely what keeps me when faced with pms from the other four. it's coversations like these that remind me why i don't choose to keep private chat on friends.
four in five of every other person you talk to you won't particularly want to continue the conversation with, but that doesn't mean the latter kind of person doesn't exist.
people are just so different. i don't believe it. i don't know what to believe. last night's five was a case in point.
(and this is excluding the normal, quite unanswerable pms like "!! guthix brings you balance!!", "wanna buy full zammy?", "u sed u wanted to be my gf!", "tell everyone to join zezima's chat!" etc.)
1. at fally bank, a guy's hankering after a single law rune. presumably for varrock tele or something, and i oblige. i give it to him free, and that part, maybe it was a mistake. "1 more. 1 more. 1 more." spams the chat screen. i leave the bank. he promptly 1-more'd me through pm. we discuss the merits of plain hard work, and the satisfaction it gives you.
once he's dealt with, i make the mistake of giving another guy mith ores. "more. weps and armour." he weps-and-armour's me via pm when i leave. i don't know where he got the idea that someone who hasn't consciously trained anything remotely melee-related for six months should be lugging mith and addy weapons and armour done to the mining pits. regardless. we discuss the merits of plain hard work, and the satisfaction it gives you.
it's vicious in its predictability.
2. a guy's been lobbying "f2p should get more quests and items!" again in fally. "follow me if you think f2p should get more quests and items!" it's not an extremely crowded world, all things considered, he doesn't attract very much attention, and thereafter resorts to (horror of horrors) pming innocent bystanders. we debate the fairness of jagex's decisions.
i don't see why people won't just play, and be grateful that they get so much for absolutely nothing. he's apparently been playing since rsc came out. it's rather futile, and we both realise it. we promptly move on to other things.
pking's hardly more edifying.
3. someone pms me from out of the blue (not that that's altogether unexpected) and asks what a whetstone is. i point out the search function, and promptly click search for him.
apparently it's a place where you sharpen rusty swords.
4. someone i'm positive has been hounding me ever since she discovered the fact of my existence strikes again. it's the same type of question every time. she starts off this time with "can u like, tell jagex to put me a mod!" as a prelude to whether it's "good" to help someone with a quest, whether it's "good" to report someone attempting to account trade, whether it's "good"... her definition of "good" being whether it'll get her mod status fast enough.
i'm still leery after the last encounter with the guy who initiated the let's toggle the pm settings! game. but this time i just can't help but tell her my views, incorporating all that about position, how to properly earn respect, right and wrong... she simmers. the moment i even mention "ignore list" she goes ballistic.
"ur mean! you're reported!!"
and to think, just the other day she was so surprised when i told her about the number of people who've reported me. was trying to say that reports don't mean a thing unless they're valid. i remind her of as much.
a silence, then she goes back to it again. "who r the people wit gold crowns?" only a matter of time before she gets back to the same form of asking.
i feel like screaming. (and if i did, one room over they'd be speculating tomorrow who presumably spent the night here.) i just log. it's easier to shoot yourself in the mouth than reason with people, it seems, sometimes.
i log in later to be faced with "yh do i always have to say hi y cant u do it]" i wonder if it's too cruel to tell her i delete her from my friends list everytime we're done conversing in hopes that we'll never have to again. initiate a conversation with her? is she crazy?
i stick with "i'm sorry, sometimes i need to clear my friends list when it gets too full, and..." then promptly initiate a conversation with her next i log in.
give me strength.
5. it seems someone really is listening. a person with a vaguely familiar username pms me. somehow we get onto the topic of family. we bond over standing around attracting randoms and talking about deaths of loved ones. he starts off, and in between i mention my friend.
we cover how unfair the world seems, how cruel things can be, grief, regret, time, meaning, religion, missing someone.
saying this almost seems like intruding on privacy. we talk about where we live.
it becomes a mundane conversation, and that's precisely what keeps me when faced with pms from the other four. it's coversations like these that remind me why i don't choose to keep private chat on friends.
four in five of every other person you talk to you won't particularly want to continue the conversation with, but that doesn't mean the latter kind of person doesn't exist.
warning: this takes too long to get to the point.
EDIT: what i'm ranting about are help sites. to be precise, most of the content in "advice sites". more detailed explanation by mushroom queen in categories of fan sites. (thanks vaskor for the link!) perhaps that explains things somewhat, seeing as i suck at categorising and organising things, any things. nother paper just came back with a new batch of "unclear...", "disorganised points", "what do you mean here?", "unclear!", "more clarity needed"... grrr.
still thinking about help sites. help sites help people, that's a fact. it's whether they deserve that help or not that bothers me.
you could say, everyone deserves every kind of help they can get on their way down a common road. and it's the job of those who've gone before them to help pave the way. those that've gone before them are self-sacrificial, accessories ultimately to this common goal they're all looking towards.
by that logic, help sites are perfectly necessary.
it still seems that logic applies more to, say, great scientific discoveries, things that you spend a lifetime on, because you know it's worth the spending. if help's provided, it's provided not because you hope to reach the end, but because you hope to be part of that journey to reach the end.
if not the end, then a meaningful journey.
runescape's a part of the world. runescape's a model of the world, in as realistic a way as it is possible. it stands to reason that what applies in the real world applies there. and vice versa.
the fact remains that rs is not the real world. and to help you live you character's life in as great a way as it is possible - it's not exactly worth spending time on. but to save people time by giving them your own, regardless of the context...
it's a service. not that that makes it any more worthwhile.
it's not reasonable to expect people to start from the beginning all over again, without any knowledge of what's already known. it's not reasonable to force people to rediscover for themselves what others have, just because it's worth the discovering.
sometimes they say, life's a journey of self-discovery.
to play rs is a journey of discovering, by yourself.
and why is that?
because take that element of independence away, and you're left with little else.
in this sense, runescape's too small a model of the real world for help sites.
why help sites, then? is it purely alturistic motives? to help people. to share with people knowledge. to pool experience. so we all come out on top.
i went into this post with my belief that help sites were unnecessary very much shaken. midway through, i'm back to where i started. yet i deign to contradict myself, by doing exactly what i claim not to.
i'm trying to figure out why. why do such a thing?
to tell the world perhaps, how smart you are, that you've found out this certain thing about rs that no one else has (or that you think no one else has, and considering the small enough size of rs, usually isn't all that remarkable at all) and it just has to be shared. for credit's sake, or for the sake of the telling, or simply yeah, to help.
wtf.
never mind. on to the actual point of this post. i've set up shop in the barbarian outpost. pizza-making and blogging ftw. it's rather quiet, really, and rather amusing when people do pop in. on my level 3 skiller, i'm rather untouchable.
some people're beumused to the point of condescension.
"hello little girl... you shouldn't be here."
the conversation following is peppered with lmao's and lol's.
i end up dispensing pizzas to whoever comes round, and with that 2 levels per trip. a fair bit of fun, really. in the time it takes to respawn i play around with the print screen button.
still thinking about help sites. help sites help people, that's a fact. it's whether they deserve that help or not that bothers me.
you could say, everyone deserves every kind of help they can get on their way down a common road. and it's the job of those who've gone before them to help pave the way. those that've gone before them are self-sacrificial, accessories ultimately to this common goal they're all looking towards.
by that logic, help sites are perfectly necessary.
it still seems that logic applies more to, say, great scientific discoveries, things that you spend a lifetime on, because you know it's worth the spending. if help's provided, it's provided not because you hope to reach the end, but because you hope to be part of that journey to reach the end.
if not the end, then a meaningful journey.
runescape's a part of the world. runescape's a model of the world, in as realistic a way as it is possible. it stands to reason that what applies in the real world applies there. and vice versa.
the fact remains that rs is not the real world. and to help you live you character's life in as great a way as it is possible - it's not exactly worth spending time on. but to save people time by giving them your own, regardless of the context...
it's a service. not that that makes it any more worthwhile.
it's not reasonable to expect people to start from the beginning all over again, without any knowledge of what's already known. it's not reasonable to force people to rediscover for themselves what others have, just because it's worth the discovering.
sometimes they say, life's a journey of self-discovery.
to play rs is a journey of discovering, by yourself.
and why is that?
because take that element of independence away, and you're left with little else.
in this sense, runescape's too small a model of the real world for help sites.
why help sites, then? is it purely alturistic motives? to help people. to share with people knowledge. to pool experience. so we all come out on top.
i went into this post with my belief that help sites were unnecessary very much shaken. midway through, i'm back to where i started. yet i deign to contradict myself, by doing exactly what i claim not to.
i'm trying to figure out why. why do such a thing?
to tell the world perhaps, how smart you are, that you've found out this certain thing about rs that no one else has (or that you think no one else has, and considering the small enough size of rs, usually isn't all that remarkable at all) and it just has to be shared. for credit's sake, or for the sake of the telling, or simply yeah, to help.
wtf.
never mind. on to the actual point of this post. i've set up shop in the barbarian outpost. pizza-making and blogging ftw. it's rather quiet, really, and rather amusing when people do pop in. on my level 3 skiller, i'm rather untouchable.
some people're beumused to the point of condescension.
"hello little girl... you shouldn't be here."
the conversation following is peppered with lmao's and lol's.
i end up dispensing pizzas to whoever comes round, and with that 2 levels per trip. a fair bit of fun, really. in the time it takes to respawn i play around with the print screen button.
water, fresh air, company... what more could you ask for?
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