 June 2022 |
Issues of the Questaholic Magazine | December 2022 |
Table of Contents
- An Interview With Uptheirons05 by Choto 3000
- Web Game Showcase: Explore and Solve by Questcaping
- Chess: Candidates and Cheating? by Derparnieux
- A Lukewarm Defence of Fresh Start Worlds by Xurdones
- Shiro Applies Math: Music Theory, Part 2 by Shiro Shana
- The Clan Quest Test Kitchen by Darkestnight
- How To Be an Adventurer, Chapter 1 by TycoElf
- Xurdones Reviews: Ghostbusters: Afterlife by Xurdones
- My Personal (OSRS) Construction Guide by Francine1225
Letter From Your Editor
What time is it Mister Wolf?
It's Questaholic time!
It's been a little longer getting out the door than I expected, but I couldn't be happier with the product we've put out this season. I know I say this every time, but I truly think we have something for everyone, including gameplay tips, how to be an adventurer, and a glimpse into the seedy underbelly of the chess world - you read that right!
As always, this wouldn't be possible without our wonderful and patient production team, so let me extend a heartfelt "thank you" to all of our writers: Choto, Darkestnight, Derp, Francine, Questcaping, Shiro, and Tyco; to Questcaping, as ever, for the fantastic cover; and to Uptheirons05, for kindly agreeing to be interviewed for this issue, even after I told him Choto would be doing it!
I think he did a good job, but you can judge for yourself
I'll end of this note with my usual calls to action: if anyone reading this would be interested in contributing to a future issue, either on a one-off basis or as a recurring feature, please don't hesitate to reach out to me on Discord or send me a private message on the offsite. I'd love to have you! And, likewise, if you have any feedback on this issue or the magazine generally - anything you'd like to see more of, or less of, or something that isn't here that you'd like to see - my dms are always open.
With that, unhoods, and enjoy the magazine!
Article by Xurdones
QUESTAHOLIC PRESENTS
An interview with UpTheIrons
Oh my...so tall and British!
by his nemesis.
GENERAL
What are you currently studying?
Japanese language
What do you do for a living?
Japanese language
What's your favourite sport?
Japanese language Probably Football (the proper football, not American Hand Egg)
Which are your favourite childhood cartoons?
Recess, Watch My Chops, Yvon of the Yukon – I apparently watched a lot more live action stuff on CBBC than cartoon.
If you could have any super power other than invincibility, what would you choose and why?
The ability to sleep on planes. I just can’t do it.
What are your favourite outdoor activities?
Hiking (and driving if that counts)
Which is your favourite movie?
I know it’s a boring choice, but I do like the Shawshank Redemption.
What sort of music and artists do you listen to?
A very wide variety of music, both Japanese as well as Western. I recommend Tokyo Incidents （東京事変）.
Which books would you recommend?
Very original but read stuff by Tolkien.
What's your favourite type of food?
Depends on what I’m craving. Restaurant ramen will triumph over homemade ramen. Mum’s fry up triumphs over a restaurant fry up.
GAMING
Which are your favourite games?
I enjoy the story/characters in the Yakuza series. Currently playing Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III.
You mean this Yakuza, right?
What are your favourite video game genres?
My favourite games span multiple genres, so it’s hard to say.
Which was the most difficult video game you ever beat?
I’ve not really played many games that are, by design, exceptionally difficult (i.e Dark Souls franchise). I generally play games to relax.
What's the toughest thing you've ever accomplished in a video game?
Almost surviving Choto’s biased rolls in Warskep.
[Editor’s note: This is slander and shall not be tolerated.]
When playing with friends, do you prefer video games or tabletop games, and why do you prefer one over the other?
Played boardgames pretty regularly at university. Less anger inducing than Mario Party.
RUNESCAPE
What's your favourite skill?
I enjoyed Archaeology – fun to train on release with everyone.
What's your favourite quest?
Did the You Are It quest on release day, and it was fun contributing to the guide.
When did you start playing?
June 2005. Same account.
What was your very first accomplishment?
Woodcutting. Pretty much entirely by cutting ivy behind Varrock castle.
You get 30 seconds of full attention from all employees of Jagex. What do you say?
“Tone the MTX down please!”
You get a ticket to visit Gielinor IRL. Where do you go first?
Pub; doesn’t matter which one.
[Editor’s note: Probably the best answer I’ve ever seen]
GENERAL PART 2
What are your biggest dreams in life?
Become actually competent in Japanese
If you could have any 3 animals in the world (only real animals, not fictional), which would you pick?
3 dogs… duh. Ideally something like a Staffordshire Bull Terrier or a Labrador mix
If you had to give up one of your senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste) which one would you pick?
All terrible choices. Probably hearing.
How would you describe yourself to others?
Tall and British.
What is your most used item in your daily life?
Probably phone.
If I were to visit your country, what do you think I should do first?
My home country (UK) – find a good chippy. My country of residence (Japan) – find a good ramen shop.
What are your favourite cities/locations, both in RS and in real life?
I prefer the countryside. Brussels (and Bruges) were very nice though (lots of beer and chips). RS-wise, can’t go wrong with Priff.
Do you have a motto or a favourite phrase? If so, which is it?
“@Choto”
Do you play an instrument? If not, which instrument/s would you like to learn?
I can play both the piano and bass guitar (not to a high level though)
Tell us the story behind your name!
Account got hacked and I panicked and chose this. There’s a name I’d like to change it to (Pallando), but it’s taken by an inactive user!
How many languages do you speak? Which one would you like to learn?
I speak 1.5 (English being the 1, and Japanese being the half).
If you had to escape your country immediately, what's the one thing you'd take with you?
Passport.
What's your first memory of Clan Quest?
Joining back in 2011.
Coffee or tea?
TEA
Is this you?
Which is the most interesting God? Why?
That aspect of RS was never my thing. I enjoy(ed) Guthix and Icthlarin as characters though.
Best thing of Clan Quest?
Bullying Choto.
THE ALEX 43 SECTION BECAUSE WHY NOT
Did you find it yet?
This is an in-joke I’m not a part of.
[Editor’s note: And no one has ever cracked the code]
Do you need help?
Not from Choto.
BACK TO CHOTO
Have you discovered any planets yet? What would you name it?
No. Exoplanet names are mostly named by convention (name of survey + number + letter which corresponds to the number of planets already discovered around that star).
What’s the most amazing thing you’ve observed through a telescope?
Exoplanet (already discovered). Obviously, you can’t see it with your eye, but the light curve can be analysed by computers.
You get a free meal from Choto&Sons. You can order anything. What do you ask for?
Would probably need to check for poison. Yorkshire Puddings!
What’s your favourite wine variety?
English Sparkling Wine (Gusbourne). Other than that, I generally prefer red – probably a Cabernet Sauvignon.
Any alcoholic drink you can reccomend?
Trappist Beer
I’ve heard stories about mad scientists. Are you one of them?
No, because I didn’t go mad from doing a doctorate.
Why do you pester me so much? WHAT HAVE I DONE TO YOU
Big question. [Editor’s note: :middle_finger:]
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Getting old. Hopefully with an income. [Editor’s note: ha ha u old]
Tell us a bit on that research paper you shared with us some time ago.
Neural Networks are a pain but useful for theoretical analysis. Most stars form in clusters, most of these stars are in binary (or higher order) systems, planets can form around them. Do the orbits of these planets get changed significantly during the first 10 million years (i.e whilst they are forming)?
Tell us your darkest secret that would make us all shudder in fear.
I don’t know Darkest’s secrets, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell Choto.
What is the meaning of life?
A big question that a Q&A can’t contain.
Who are you again?
Your nemesis.
Web Game Showcase: Explore and Solve
Shood, Clan Quest! Questcaping here. This article is a sequel to one I wrote for the second Clan Quest Advent Calendar in December 2021. I'm back again, and this time I'm here to showcase three ancient (for the Internet) web games -- the very youngest of them being over fifteen years old. The web may have moved on... but I haven't. I'm here to give some love to the games that helped shape me.
As a reminder, almost all of the games I recommend in these articles are only available via archives, the most complete of these being BlueMaxima's Flashpoint Archive. Their Infinity download option is entirely free, only 2.7GB when extracted, and will give you access to just about every web game you played as a kid -- including everything listed below!
This time, the focus is on puzzle-based exploration games: adventure your way through unfamiliar worlds, deducing your way past anything that might stand in your path.
Here we go...
Dwarf Complete
- Developer: ON, sole developer behind the well-loved puzzle game site EYEZMAZE
- Released: 2007
- Platform: Flash
- Archival status: Still available in its original form, and functional on modern browsers via the Ruffle Flash emulator! Once had an Apple app, but that looks to be long dead. And as always, it's fully available on Flashpoint Archive.
- When I discovered it: 2007, barely any time after its release. I checked EYEZMAZE for updates as often as I could, and this release was a dream come true.
Developer's description:
[Note: ON auto-translates his writing from Japanese to English.]
I've just finished a puzzle or problem-solving game featuring dwarfs which appear in on-line RPG game Lineage II. Of course officially.
As I made it with a vigorous effort, you can enjoy it especially for the people who like escaping game.
The challenge level is mid-high. I think it would be difficult to solve it by yourself. Please make good use of the community.
And it has the auto-save features, you can stop or start it as you like. You can play it step by step in your free time. Thank you!
Review:
ON of EYEZMAZE is a genuine Flash game hero of mine. He's responsible for the classic GROW series, such as GROW Cube. Over many variations and themes, these games are iconic for their cute, minimalistic aesthetic and their signature process of deductive reasoning: the player must find the right order to combine different factors to grow a simple initial state into something elaborate and fun. Only a few have made it over to HTML5, but the Flashpoint Archive has twenty-five of them archived: you can GROW your way through anything from a simple RPG to a developing island, from a park to a planet. More recently, there's even a fantastical creature built through Twitter polls. It's an impressive collection to explore.
Anyway, I'm recommending something that's completely different to any of that.
Dwarf Complete is a puzzle-based adventure game, ostensibly made as promotion for the South Korean MMORPG Lineage II (not something I'd heard of otherwise, but apparently still around). The connection is tangential at best, extending in-game only to some tiny images of the MMORPG's gear. In terms of play, Dwarf Complete is individually complete.
(This is definitely one of the easiest puzzles. No qualms about spoiling it.)
Despite the entirely different style of game, it feels like Dwarf Complete is cut from the same cloth as the GROW games, just moulded to the needs of a different setting. It has to be more constrained than the wild evolutions of GROW -- we're not creating new worlds or vast underground civilisations here -- but puzzle-wise, it's got room to run with its out-of-the-box thinking more than anything else on EYEZMAZE can. Outside the limitations of a small, single-sitting game, Dwarf Complete presents a barrage of varied puzzles, each building on increasing mechanics introduced along the course of the game. Build a pickaxe, build a magnet, and unlock a whole new dynamic each time. Build a torch, and you'd be surprised at how much can burn to reveal something new underneath.
Not all of it feels fully unique -- who hasn't done one of those "change the railroad ahead of you" puzzles? -- but it doesn't have to be when there's just so much here. Special mentions go to the timed cannon puzzle, which will challenge your evolving game knowledge to the fullest, and the stairs maze, which will challenge you to use that knowledge in ways you might not have otherwise considered.
(For a little replay value, you're given a grade at the end for how quickly you completed the game. Perfectly ignorable if you just want to figure it out as you go, but it definitely is enjoyable to have a go at speedrunning.)
HONORABLE MENTIONS: I've already mentioned the GROW series, of course. But if you're interested in EYEZMAZE'S relatively rare adventure games, another one archived on Flashpoint Archive is Galves Adventure. It's a smaller game, with a smaller protagonist: a family friend's newborn baby! But don't let that fool you into thinking it's easy. There are multiple ways to mess this one up beyond return, so take note of your actions and be prepared to restart.
Tork
- Developer: Nectarine (they're still around!!) for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Victoria "Game On" Initiative
- Released: 2002
- Platform: Flash
- Archival status: No longer available in its original form, though the information pages can still be found on the Wayback Machine. Fully available on Flashpoint Archive.
- When I discovered it: 2004 at the earliest, maybe earlier, in my family's cramped computer room in Australia. This isn't just one of my earliest Internet memories -- it's one of my earliest memories.
Developer's description:
Ever been to a place where you didn't speak the language?
Well, accompanied only by an on-board computer with a nasty case of sarcasm, you're about to crash land on an alien planet where they don't even speak normal.
You'll need to learn their hieroglyphic language to get your ship repaired (and win the game).
Not often you get games as linguistic as this one. Here you are, stumbling your way through an alien language (and a whole alien world to boot), and probably accidentally insulting people along the way. That's really just how it is when you're travelling, though.
Overall, this is a very well-crafted game. I'd like to point to the UI in particular as a prime example of that. The core of the game is in building up your very own phrasebook, and new pictograms you encounter are written in automatically for you. Each one starts as "unknown", but you're encouraged to write in your own presumed definitions -- whether right or wrong! It's very easy to use, with the ability to rotate left and right through the pictograms you know, or to skip to a specific one with a keyboard shortcut. In the menu, there's a tracker that will keep track of all conversations, just in case you need to go back for a reference; on top of that, there's a hint system to nudge you along, or an outright cheat system to fill in your phrasebook for you. There's no way to get stuck completely: this is a game that wants to encourage you in any way possible.
Perhaps it goes too easy on you? It's easily the shortest of the three games listed here. But then again, I did find it genuinely difficult aged seven. (At most.)
There's something enchanting about Tork, honestly. Past the goofy animated intro, you're launched right into the game's eerie setting. Quite a good deal of visual research went into the design, simplified and stylised from real plant life (Nectarine credit the BBC documentary "The Private Life of Plants" as a primary visual resource). The art is definitely "of its time", with a distinct Flash animation style, but it's surprising how nice it looks -- the relatively lineless background, the little aliens going about their daily lives and paying you little heed. You float on through it all, engage on whatever level you can, and leave no trace when you're done.
[[File:Questaholic_-_September_2022_014.png|center]
And of course, the most important visual of all is the language. The pictograms are actually quite intuitive once you get to know what's going on with them: the "open" sign just sort of looks like "open", for one, the harsher signs are spikier, and some of the pictograms that refer to objects have clearly evolved from what they depict. (And quite a lot of research was done on this front as well, from the look of the info pages. No wonder -- this did have to win an application for a public funding grant, after all. Tork, brought to you by the Australian government.)
All in all, I could do without the bad joke tutorial computer, but I'm glad that this one of my oldest memories turned out to be a pretty good game in the end.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS: Chasm and Og Og Alive are two others I remember fondly from this batch of games -- and both are also available on Flashpoint Archive. Chasm is more a Myst-type exploration puzzle game, though with a very distinctly Australian sense of humour, and Og Og Alive... whoof, caveman chaos. Prototypical craft-survival game, almost.
The Flowering Nose in Slugland
- Developers: Seth Fisher, the artist behind Flowering Nose, in collaboration with Omar Waly, the developer behind [Radical Play https://www.radicalplay.com/].
- Released: 2004
- Platform: Java
- Archival status: Still available in its original form, though non-functional on modern browsers. Fully available on Flashpoint Archive.
- When I discovered it: 2006 or 2007, a recent immigrant to the UK, exploring pixel worlds from the family's new living room.
Developer's description:
In this game, you are the Flowering Nose. You collect items from all over and explore different worlds, solve mysteries/puzzles and fight bad guys.
Your Goal:
Your ultimate goal in the game is to find the lost sprout
As you will need this sprout to open the final gate
That gate is located in the first level you enter which is the "Strawberry" level.
Sounds simple enough, doesn't it? Don't be fooled -- this game's the longest of the three.
It creeps up on you. One minute you're happily picking flowers, the next you're being swarmed by ladybugs and throwing flowers as fast as your tiny hands can manage, the next you're managing your single-item inventory as well as your tiny hands can carry. Sentences like I've got a key on the rock level and a pickaxe on the cherry level, but if I drop down to Hell with my key I can pick up another pickaxe and use it on the pickaxe level start to make sense. It's easy to end up part of the madness.
The starting point for said madness is the fact that every item, and I do mean EVERY item in the game comes with its very own themed level. The strawberry level, as mentioned in the description above, is only the beginning -- when you pick up the pickaxe, you could simply mine in the quarry with it as you're directed to -- but why would you do that, in the face of the temptation to teleport to the bespoke pickaxe-themed level?
(Okay, yeah, that's all there is. It's completely useless... at first.)
The challenge comes with the fact that you can only carry one item at a time. You're stuck in an eternal, extensive game of the age-old fox-chicken-grain riddle -- which could get frustrating if not for the constant idiosyncratic, surrealist sense of humour that ensures a steady supply of nonsense to stop you taking it too seriously. And on top of that, the game's designed to ensure that the path to progression is always there, no matter how many metaphorical foxes you leave your metaphorical chickens with. Curiosity WILL be rewarded -- maybe only by Monty Python references, or maybe by knowledge that you can return to later in the game.
So get stuck into the madness. Go to the pickaxe level, the donut level, the goddamn nuclear bomb level. Drop through a hole in the game world directly into Hell. (Bad idea, generally speaking, but there's a way back even from that!) Willingly surround yourself with nonsense. Your eventual goal, by way of finding the lost sprout, is to "enter the Holy Garden of Vegetation" and "begin your career as a gardener of worth", but you'll encounter the phrases "mulching equals bliss", "some kind of Doughy Torus", and "one small, determined but slightly confused tree named Ed" long before that ever occurs.
(Gotta be honest, I've been having trouble with the savegame system. I had to do a Hell Speedrun for that second screenshot.)
There are so many loving touches that make this game an early Internet gem. It even shakes the game window a little when you teleport! Now that's a throwback. The grammar's far from perfect and the gameplay window is stuck at a miniscule 390px -- both hallmarks of the less polished games of days gone by -- but this feels real, and it feels well-loved. Hell, this being a series of point-and-click fetch quests for some wildly ridiculous characters, I feel The Flowering Nose in Slugland makes itself a perfect candidate for lovers of early RuneScape quests. Same era, after all.
The Flowering Nose in Slugland is a truly international affair, developed by an indie dev in Egypt with an American artist living in Japan. There's not much to be found about the former, barring his bio on the game's instructions page. The latter, Seth Fisher, has a versatile and impressive comic book portfolio behind him -- for DC, Marvel and beyond, plus concept art for the Myst series. From his website, I'm particularly into his tessellations -- wild and wacky art, endlessly repeating but full of variation.
And his comic art is about as wild as you could imagine:
Tragically, Seth Fisher -- having suffered an accidental fall from a building in 2006 -- was already dead by the time I played his game in my childhood. [His Flowering Nose website http://www.floweringnose.com/], now maintained by his family, stands as a memorial to his life and work. The message "Dedicated to Seth Fisher's memory" shows up in-game after you die -- or "become food for flowers", as the game puts it.
But the Flowering Nose lived on. I can attest to how, even posthumously, he managed to enthrall my tiny self: The Flowering Nose in Slugland stuck in my head for years on end, enough to make me spend years looking for that one damn game (as my Reddit history of four years ago shows well).
So, what do we take from this? Life is short. Live yer dreams. Don't overthink things -- go to the goddamn pickaxe level, just because you can.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: Not really any, I can't think of anything that matches it. Just take a look around floweringnose.com. Shout out to the "dress the Seth" game on there, complete with swappable chest hair.
End Note
Hope you had a good time with this one! I'm still deciding what I want to do next time round. Might be a Strategy theme, might be Arcade -- maybe even a wildcard theme that I'm calling "The Sky's the Limit".
Whatever it is, I'll see you there!
Article by Questcaping
Chess: Candidates and Cheating?
In the Spring 2022 edition of Questaholic, I talked about the Candidates tournament and the players who would be playing there. To give a short recap, the classical Chess World Championship cycle has a duration of about two years. In the first year, the best players in the world try and qualify for that cycle's Candidates tournament. Typically, the Candidates tournament consists of 8 players that qualify through a few different avenues, typically by winning certain tournament (World Cup/Grand Swiss/Grand Prix/...). Usually, there's also one or two spots reserved for wildcards or the player with the highest rating (who is not the current World Champion and hasn't qualified through other means). The Candidates tournament is a double round-robin tournament held at the start of the second year, and the winner of this tournament gets to play a World Championship match against the reigning World Champion at the end of the second year.
The current World Champion is the Norwegian Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen. He won the title in 2013, and has successfully defended it four times. His last successful title defence was last December, when he defeated the Russian Grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi. After this match, Carlsen made the relatively shocking announcement that he had serious doubts about whether or not he would defend the title for a fifth time. He singled out the young Iranian-French Grandmaster Alireza Firouzja, who is widely regarded as the leader of the new generation of chess players, as the only opponent he would really consider defending the title against. Otherwise, Magnus felt he had proven his superiority, and the World Championship cycle costs him too much time, effort and money than he wants to invest in it.
The Candidates
The Candidates Tournament 2022 was held From June 16 to July 5 in Madrid, Spain. For the full story regarding the qualification of the players above, I will direct you to my article in the Spring 2022 edition. It is important to note here that, during the course of the tournament, players had no clue yet whether or not Magnus would choose to defend his title. According to FIDE regulations, if Magnus decided not to defend, then a World Championship match would be played by the top two finishers of the Candidates tournament. As such, when the tournament was being held, the players didn't know for sure whether or not it was worth fighting for second place. Normally, the sentiment for the Candidates tournament is that only first place matters; whether you end up second or eighth is inconsequential, as only the top spot got you a chance to play for the World Championship. It was widely believed that Magnus would choose to defend his title, no matter who came out on top, and so the prevalent idea was the usual one: the only spot worth fighting for was first place.
The Candidates tournament was a double round-robin tournament with 8 players, and as such, it consisted of 14 rounds. Every player played every other player exactly twice, once with each colour. The mood, which would prevail through the first half of the tournament, was properly set in the first round of the tournament already. In this round, Fabiano Caruana beat his compatriot Hikaru Nakamura, and Ian Nepomniachtchi had an incredible victory with the black pieces against the bookmakers' favourite, Ding Liren. Their performance continued to absolutely dominate the first half of the tournament, with respective scores of 5.5/7 (or +4) for Ian and 5/7 (or +3) for Fabiano after 7 rounds. For clarity, +4 means that the player has won 4 more games than they lost: in particular, Ian had won 4 games, drawn 3 games and lost 0 games, and hence his score was +4. At the bottom of the standings were Teimour Radjabov and the aforementioned Alireza Firouzja, both on a score of -2.
Unfortunately for Fabiano, it had proven difficult to keep up with Ian. In every single of the three rounds that the American Grandmaster had won a game, his Russian competitor had done the same. Suffering under the psychological pressure of thinking only the first place really mattered, Fabiano's wonderful performance in the first half of the tournament was followed by a disastrous performance in the second half, in which he scored 1.5/7 (or -4) for an overall tournament score of -1. Meanwhile, Ian did manage to keep his performance up, and he ended the tournament on an overall score of +5, a record score since this Candidates format was introduced about a decade ago.
However, despite people thinking that it didn't really matter, the battle for second place raged on. Towards the final rounds of the tournament, three players emerged as real contenders. These players were Teimour Radjabov, Hikaru Nakamura and Ding Liren. Teimour's performance during the tournament was essentially the reverse of Fabiano's; after finding himself in shared last place after the first half, Teimour managed to get a grip during the second half. At the end of the tournament, he had managed to turn his -2 score after 7 rounds to an overall +1 score, which was almost enough for that desired second place. Round 14 saw the battle of the other two contenders for second place, Hikaru Nakamura and Ding Liren, and it was already clear that no possible result in round 14 would end up with Teimour in second place. Instead, the situation looked very favourably for Hikaru; although he was playing with the black pieces, a draw was enough to give him second place. Those with enough chess experience can attest to the fact that, if the player with the black pieces is really intent on drawing the game, it can often be very difficult to avoid that.
In this case, the opposite turned out to be true: after an exhilarating round 14, Ding managed to beat Hikaru. Ding's stellar performance in the second half of the tournament of +3, matched only by Teimour's performance, had resulted in an overall score of +2 for the Chinese Grandmaster, which was enough to secure him the second place finish. And to everyone's surprise, about two weeks after the conclusion of the Candidates tournament, Magnus Carlsen announced that he would not be defending his World Championship title. This means that the next World Championship match, set to be held in early 2023, will be between Ian Nepomniachtchi, who with a historic show of force won his second Candidates in a row, and Ding Liren, the second-ranked player in the world behind only Magnus Carlsen.
What's this I heard about a cheating scandal?
Over the past couple of weeks, news from the chess world has seeped into the mainstream media. There are two players at the center of the drama: the World Champion, Magnus Carlsen, and a 19-year-old American Grandmaster by the name of Hans Niemann. To set the stage, it's important to note that Hans is not particularly well-liked by chess players; he is generally viewed as a very dedicated, but also very arrogant. The illustrious example here is his performance in the FTX Crypto Cup, a speed chess tournament held in Miami this past August. During his 4-game match with Magnus, Hans managed to win the first game. In the post-game interview, when asked about the game, he replied that "chess speaks for itself". Unfortunately for Hans, chess decided to speak differently in the games to follow: Hans lost every 4-game match, despite winning a game in almost every one of the matches.
At the start of September, the Sinquefield Cup was held in St. Louis. During round 3, Hans played Magnus win the black pieces, and to everyone's surprise, Hans won the game. In the post-game interview, Hans stated that "it must be embarrassing for the World Champion to lose to a loser like me". The day after, on September 5th, Magnus announced in a cryptic tweet that he was withdrawing from the tournament, including a video of Portuguese soccer coach José Mourinho saying "I prefer really not to speak. If I speak, I am in big trouble, and I don't want to be in big trouble."
This was a career-first for the World Champion. Speculation began to run wild, with many people interpreting Magnus' crypticism as a silent accusation that Hans had cheated. Theories on how this cheating would have occurred were... versatile, to say the least. Many top chess players and organisations chimed in, with a lot of talk focusing on allegations about Hans' history of cheating online in the past. Hans admitted to having cheated online before, but he denied all allegations of cheating during real-life tournaments. The chess world was divided; on the one hand, many people believed the World Champion would not make such silent accusations without good evidence, so surely something must be up? On the other hand, a lot of people spoke out in support of Hans, citing that his over-the-board play was not suspicious, and that this was an unjust witch hunt motivated by the people's general disliking of Hans Niemann. The chess world cried out for Magnus to clarify his reasons on why he withdrew from the tournament, but Magnus stayed silent.
A few weeks later, Magnus and Hans both participated in an online tournament known as the Julius Baer Generation Cup. Many players were holding their breath for the day Magnus and Hans would play their game. When the game finally happened, it was over quite quickly: Magnus Carlsen resigned after making his first move. With this action, he made it clear that he was serious in his convictions and that he was not willing to play against Hans Niemann. In an interview at a later point in the tournament, Magnus commented on the whole affair for the first time since withdrawing from the Sinquefield Cup: he said he was impressed with Hans' play, and congratulated Hans' coach, Maxim Dlugy, on his hard work. This only added fuel to the fire, as Dlugy has allegedly cheated during Titled Tuesday, a money tournament organised by chess.com, you guessed it, every Tuesday.
The Julius Baer Generation Cup ended on September 25th, with Magnus defeating the Indian Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi in very convincing fashion. In the closing interview, Magnus revealed he would be releasing a statement very soon. This statement followed on September 26, and you can read it here. A few days earlier, international chess federation FIDE had also released a statement. With these statements, it's looking like the situation will really start to heat up over the next couple of weeks, so if you're interested in keeping up with the drama, be sure to keep an eye on the chess news!
Article by Derparnieux
A Lukewarm Defence of Fresh Start Worlds
If everything has gone to plan, this issue of Questaholic will run shortly after the launch of Fresh Start Worlds, Jagex's most recent attempt at a temporary game mode for Runescape 3 (it exists for OSRS as well, but I'm an RS3 player and not an OSRS player, so this is what you get). The mode has been controversial, to say the least, pretty much from the second it was announced, with many players deriding it as at best pointless, and at worst the newest frontier in Jagex's predatory monetization strategy. However, we here at Questaholic are committed to bringing you only the five-alarm-spiciest of takes, so I present for your consideration: FSW is fine, actually.
No, seriously, FSW is fine. It's okay. It's fine.
WAIT! Please don't leave, I have more.
Before I get into things, I want to say up front: it's perfectly fine if you don't like Fresh Start Worlds. I'm not here to tell you that your opinions are wrong, but I do think that a lot of the ire I've seen from segments of the community are overblown; frankly, I don't agree with a lot of the criticism levelled at the mode, and I'm going to use this platform what I've given myself to explain why.
First, though, there are some criticisms I do agree with, so in the interests of being Fair and Balanced™©®, let's go through those first:
FSW offers little to existing players
I've re-worded this criticism slightly, the way it's usually expressed is some variation of "what's the point of this?" And, from the perspective of an existing player, I agree completely: the core concept of FSW has very limited appeal. The core gameplay of Runescape is long-term progression of a single account, so for someone who's been maintaining their account for a decade or more (seventeen years and counting, here) there's very little reason to invest in a new account with accelerated XP rates and little else.
That isn't to say that long-time players can't or don't make alts, but those alts are usually goal-oriented: maybe they're mules for gathering resources, or maybe they're Ironman accounts or Hardcore Ironman accounts with additional gameplay challenges. Neither of those goals are furthered by FSW; in fact the only real appeal of the core concept I can see is to players who want to re-play quests, but don't want to grind quite so hard in order to do it. That's a pretty niche interest group, all things considered.
But despite that, Jagex is clearly trying to make FSW appeal to existing players, and enticing them to play it. Several stated features, most notably the one-time-tradeable cosmetic tokens for Capes of Accomplishment and skilling pets, make no sense from any other lens. And this, I think, is a mistake. The mode is clearly not designed with existing players in mind, more on that later, so these rewards feel like an afterthought, and really aren't a good value trade for existing players. It would have been a lower-friction decision to more explicitly exclude existing players from the game mode. I understand why Jagex didn't do that, again more on that later, but there it is.
There's a sub-criticism here that specifically addresses how Jagex chose to market FSW to existing players. The mode was initially described very vaguely, but it was presented as being a celebration; in fact the first reference to it I can find is in the newspost for the 300m accounts update, which says (emphasis mine):
"Runescape" wrote:
However, we've got something else in the works too. We've been working on this for many months now since we first thought about how we could really celebrate hitting 300M players
This was an exciting tease, and it was a massive let-down when the "something else" was revealed to be a four-month game mode that required a new account, and a new membersip subscription - at current prices, costing ~50 USD, or ~£36. I'm not going to defend this, this is just deeply tone-deaf messaging. It sucks.
As an existing player, this affects me
This is a little different because this is more of a counterpoint to an argument I occasionally see brought up in defence of FSW: "it doesn't affect you, so don't worry about it." While I understand where this argument comes from, it is, frankly, false.
There's a concept in economics called "opportunity cost"; it's a pretty nuanced concept, and I only barely passed three semesters of econ ten years ago, but the tl;dr is that every time you do something, you could have been doing something else, and the value (usually money, because it's easier to quantify, but not necessarily) you could have earned doing that other thing is your opportunity cost. Concrete example: say I have a part-time job that pays $10 an hour, and I have the choice of either taking a four hour shift or going to see a movie with my friends. The opportunity cost of going to the movies is $40, because that's how much I would have earned from taking the shift.
Clever readers have already seen where I'm going with this: every time Jagex devotes resources to a project, they're implicitly taking resources away from other potential projects; FSW has an opportunity cost, and that cost is whatever else Jagex could have made instead. Of course, without knowing more about Jagex's internal structures and processes, we can't know what exactly that cost is: maybe it's the cost of a Patch Notes week, maybe the cost of the entire Elder God Wars dungeon. The reality lies somewhere between those two extremes, and although we'll never know exactly what the cost is, it's farcical to pretend that it doesn't exist.
However, the mere fact that an opportunity cost exists isn't itself a problem; every decision has an opportunity cost, after all. The relevant question is whether the opportunity cost is higher or lower than the expected return of the choice you did make. To go back to my example from a few paragraph ago, if the opportunity cost of going to the movies is $40, I made the right decision if I value the act of going to the movies (the enjoyment of the movie itself, the strengthening of the social bonds with my friends, the relaxation of having a night not working, etc.) more than $40. Jagex faces the same question: from their perspective, FSW was a good idea if the cost of making it is outweighed by the value it provides. Obviously this is something they won't know for quite a while yet, and we the players will probably never know for sure, but I think it's a pretty good bet. Why?
FSW isn't for existing players
This is something Jagex hasn't been shy about saying, and in hindsight I think it's very obvious. The primary audience of FSW isn't existing players, it's lapsed players: people who played in 2001, 2004, 2007, want to get back into the game, but feel intimidated by the high barrier to access the shiniest content. And not to toot my own horn, but I absolutely called this a full month before FSW was ever announced, in a private Discord message to a clanmate who shall remain nameless:
Now, one counterargument I've heard to this is that Jagex isn't above lying to players, and the stated goals need not align with the actual goals. But I tend to trust Jagex on this one, because nearly every design decision makes infinitely more sense when viewed through this lens:
- Why do we need a new account for FSW? Because the goal is to convert lapsed players into regular players, FSW accounts will need to merge into the base game, which means they have to be uniquely distinguishable from base game accounts
- Why does FSW get xp buffs? Because the goal is to bypass the early-to-midgame grind as much as possible, to get lapsed players to a place where they can reliably participate (even if not optimally) in the shiny new content that gets released
- Why is Treasure Hunter going to be a thing? Because the goal is to acclimate lapsed players to the game as it exists in 2022, which for better or worse does include Treasure Hunter
- Plus, as a secondary goal, Jagex is still a profit-motivated company, and Treasure Hunter is a significant revenue stream
- Why are there new tradeable rares? Because everyone remembers Party Hats, but the combination of a twenty-year-old economy and a dedicated Rares market has pushed them beyond the reach of all but the most dedicated - or most RWT-y - of players. Much like the Golden Party Hate, the Halo of Returning is a simulacrum of that, while the Challenger Halo is an enticing stretch goal
- Why is there a competitive highscores table? Because old players remember watching the hiscores back in the day, and players who were highly-ranked were in-game celebrities, some of them still to this day: Zezima, The Old Nite, Larryr, Cursed You, etc. These days the highscores have ossified to the point where it's virtually impossible to be recognized on them, so it makes sense to establish a separate hiscores table where these players can see their accomplishments recognized
Of course, that isn't to say that Jagex doesn't want existing players to participate in FSW; it's in their best interests if they do, because it's extra revenue, it fills out the worlds to help enforce that sense of community, and because existing players starting fresh can help teach lapsed players how to interact with the game again. And some of these design decisions, particularly the tradeable rares and hiscores table, appeal equally to existing players as much as to lapsed players. But, looking at the design in its totality, I think it's hard to argue that it wasn't designed primarily with lapsed players in mind.
The other counter-argument I've heard to this is that even if FSW is geared towards lapsed players, it will be ineffective; why would a lapsed player want to start a brand new account, rather than just pick up their old existing account and learn from that? I would offer two rebuttals to this:
First, I think it's a mistake to underestimate how hard it can be to remember the login details to an online account you haven't used in over a decade, particularly when the account isn't tied to an email address. Speaking for myself, I have a half-dozen accounts I created back in 2004 that I don't remember the usernames of, let alone the passwords, because they weren't very original names; I only remembered my current account because it's a pretty unique name that I've also used in other places in the intervening years. That's easier to do when your account is named "Xurdones" then when it's "batman1548652".
Second, I also think it's a mistake to underestimate how intimidatingly full Runescape can be when you haven't touched it in a long time. The game has had a lot of updates over its life, and has changed substantially; it's easy to be overwhelmed when diving into the endgame, so there's an appeal to starting small and letting the game unlock gradually over time.
There's one more position I want to argue against, but I'm running short on space so it's going to have to be quick (I'm already closing on 2k words!); that argument is:
FSW isn't predatory monetization, at least no more than Runescape itself
I see where this argument comes from, truly I do: I mentioned it several paragraphs ago, that FSW doesn't have a clear value proposition for most existing players. It is, quite frankly, not worth a membership fee outside of a handful of extremely niche cases. So I think it's natural for players to go looking for a value proposition, and they're going to land on the things they can take out of FSW: the cosmetic tokens. And I understand why it grates to have to pay a separate membership for the chance to earn some cosmetics tokens.
But, to be perfectly honest...how is that different from any other time-limited event in the game? We pay money for membership, and Jagex runs Treasure Hunter promotions with rare items that have a very low chance of being obtained. In many ways FSW is an improvement over the base game's microtransaction scheme, just because you can't improve your chances at getting a reward by throwing more real-world money at Jagex.
The only difference is that existing players need to pay again to have the same chance at these cosmetics, and that is definitely frustrating, but I'd be more incensed about it if Jagex hadn't come out and said that they plan to make the cosmetics, or at least the capes, available in the base game in the future.
Of course this is subject to change, but personally I think it's a safe bet; as with the Het's Oasis rewards, some amount of effort went into the development of the inverted capes, so it would be a silly use of resources to only make them available through such a short-term game mode and with such a restrictive means of obtaining. Though, of course, it's impossible to say in general, and Jagex has done that before. But based on the information we have today, it feels premature to call FSW out as being especially bad monetization, compared to the base game. And there's certainly a debate to be had about monetization in the base game, but if that's your complaint then FSW shouldn't be the target of your ire.
Final analysis: will FSW be successful? I don't know, currently nobody does. But it strikes me as flawed not to at least give it a chance, even if you don't intend to play it yourself. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Article by Xurdones
Shiro Applies Math
Hoods and welcome back to already the third issue of Shiro Applies Maths. Throw away those theoretical books and assignments. In here you read all about how we've used maths and still use in the real world. This issue will continue forward from where we left off last time. If you haven't read part one of Music Theory or need a recap, I really recommend you to start there. This link should get you to part one. Without further ado, here's the third issue of Shiro Applies Maths!
Music Theory Part Two
In part one we've introduced Pythagorean tuning and Just Intonation. Both had their strengths but also some issues. One issue that Pythagorean tuning had became a bigger problem in the Renaissance. This eventually lead to creation of Meantone Temperament, which is what this article will start with. I do have to warn people that from now on it will get slightly more technical, feel free to ask me questions if something is unclear.
General Meantone Temperament
In the Renaissance era, musicians more frequently used chords in their compositions instead of single note melodies as was more common before. In doing this, they encountered problems with the Pythagorean tuning, as it was very limited, and many intervals were dissonant. Especially the major third became problematic, as they are very important in playing chords. In pursuit of solving this, the perfect fifth was tempered to obtain a more accurate ratio for the pure major third. This tempered fifth is then used in the same way as shown in part one of Music Theory to construct the new scale. An example of this construction will given later in this article, but the Figure below will give a reminder of how it was done for Pythagorean tuning. There is a multitude of ways to construct this `meantone' by tempering the perfect fifth, however this article will mostly look into the construction of what we call the ¼-comma meantone.
It is unclear who invented the first meantone temperament, however, Gioseffo Zarlino and Pietro Aron are often regarded as the first to complete a meantone temperament. Both men were Italian music theorists and composers. Zarlino invented a system that narrows each fifth by exactly ²⁄₇ of a syntonic comma. This system, however, leads to flat thirds, instead of the desired pure thirds. Aron took a different approach to temper the fifth. Instead of finding a good ratio for the major third by tempering the perfect fifth, Pietro Aron used a pure major third and then tried to find the corresponding tempered fifth. Aron based this method purely on sounds and his hearing; the mathematics behind it is unknown. This makes this discovery even more admirable. A mathematician that used Aron's method was Barbour. He applied this method and calculated that all fifths are ¼ of a syntonic comma flatter than a perfect fifth. A syntonic comma is the difference between the pure major third and the Pythagorean third. The Figure above shows that the Pythagorean third has a ratio of 81:64 while the pure major third has ratio 5:4. This difference is then given by dividing these ratio's which gives a new ratio 81:80 and defines the syntonic comma. The result of Barbour leads then to the name of Aron's method, most commonly known as the ¼-comma meantone.
In order to construct the scale by Aron's method, a ratio for the tempered fifth is required. This ratio can be obtained as follows: Let the tempered fifth be x. The ratio of the pure major third is 5:4 and the ratio of a perfect octave remains unchanged (2:1). Adding two octaves and one major third on top of each other will result in the seventeenth. The ratio of the seventeenth is then given by ⁵⁄₄·2² = 5:1, also denoted by 5. Another way to obtain the seventeenth would be by adding four tempered fifths together, this is equal to x⁴. Since there are two ways of obtaining the same seventeenth, this means that x⁴ = 5. This can then be used to determine x, thus it follows that the value of the desired tempered perfect fifth is x = ∜5. Aron's ¼-comma meantone is one of many meantone temperaments created, however it was the method that was used most commonly. Other examples are ⅓-comma meantone, ²⁄₇-comma meantone and ⅙-comma meantone.
Constructing a Meantone Scale
Constructing a meantone scale is similarly done as a Pythagorean scale. However, instead of perfect fifths, the tempered fifths are used. In this method, it can be seen that not only the perfect fifth is tempered but also the perfect fourth, since this perfect fourth is acquired by the tempered fifth.
To calculate a meantone scale, let x be the ratio for the tempered fifth. The major second is then determined by moving two fifths up and then one octave (2:1) down to remain within the octave. This will lead to the ratio ˣ²⁄₂. For the ¼-comma meantone scale, x = ∜5. This will lead to a ratio for the major second of ½√5. For this x, two major seconds are exactly equal to the ratio of the pure major third (½√5)² = ⁵⁄₄. Thus, the distance between a major second, is exactly half the distance of a pure third. This is also why meantone temperament is now called `meantone' temperament. In a final example, I will show how to obtain the ratio of the minor seventh. This interval is acquired by going down two fifths and up one octave, leading to the corresponding meantone formula ²⁄ₓ₂.The Table below shows the method, formula, and an example, to obtain all corresponding ratios for every interval.
Circle of Fifths
Similar to Pythagorean tuning, a circle of fifths can be made with ¼-comma meantone temperament. The Figure below is a visual representation of the circle of fifths in equal temperament(discussed next time) and ¼-comma meantone temperament. As raising a fifth twelve times still results in a note seven octaves higher, and all fifths differ ¼-comma from the actual fifth, the difference between the desired octave and the acquired one is exactly ⁷⁄₄. This wolf whistle is even larger than the Pythagorean wolf whistle we discussed last time. Despite this increased wolf whistle, meantone temperament is used, as the sounds of chords are valued more highly.
Next time
In this article I've covered General Meantone Temperament. I was planning to finish Music Theory in this issue, however I recognized that the meantone temperament may already have been a bit difficult to read and the following to come would turn this issue way too large. Therefor I'm leaving the finale for the next time. I promise you it will be worth the wait. In the next issue I will cover Equal Temperament, the history behind not one but two famous (Dutch) mathematicians who delved into music theory in the past, ending with a rather strange 31-toned temperament. I hope you enjoyed this somewhat shorter issue and see you next time on Shiro Applies Maths!
Article by Shiro Shana
The Clan Quest Test Kitchen
Hoods, and welcome back to Questaholic's Test Kitchen! Last edition I gave you Arrav's heart, but the very next day the World Guardian stole it away.... This edition to save me from tears, I'm going to teach you something special.
The difficulty ranking of this recipe is a 4 out of 5 possible pages based on the decoration aspect of the dish, as today we are making the Quest Journal out of cake and icing. What could be more appropriate for the Questing Clan than trying to eat quests?!
- To start we're preheating our oven to 160°C/325 degrees Fahrenheit and we're going to pre-line our baking tray with baking parchment. Now this recipe does create enough batter for a 30cm x 23 cm x 3.5cm square tin baking tin, but who knows which tin I actually used? Do as I say folks, not as I do. If I eyeball it and get it wrong then that's on me, you know better!
- Into a mixing bowl add your flour, butter, caster sugar, eggs, milk, and vanilla essence. If you have a stand mixer then let it do all the work for you until you have a nice smooth batter consistency.
- Pour the cake batter into your pre-lined tin, and give it a couple of hard slams on the kitchen counter to get rid of any air bubbles in the mix. Try and keep the batter consistent in volume across the tin as you don't want one end to rise more than the other.
- Place your cake tin into the oven and let it cook for 25-30 minutes. Before turning off the heat be sure to check the cake in several areas with either a knife or a skewer to make sure it's cooked through. If it needs more time then that's fine, keep checking until the knife comes back clear. If you're worried about the top part of the cake burning then loosely cover your tin with tin foil.
- After removing from the oven, allow your cake to cool down before removing from the tin. Peel away the baking paper, and behold your rectangle. Beautiful. Next you should find where the middle of the cake approximately is and cut down the middle width wise. You should now have two smaller rectangles approximately the same size as one another.
- Next, take your buttercream and ice both rectangles cakes. Choose which rectangle will act as your base and then place a layer of jam on top of that first buttercream layer. Once this is done sandwich the jam free layer on top of the base. Your filling should be a layer of buttercream, jam, and then buttercream again.
- If you're like me and you like to make sure your sponges are secure so they don't slide around later on, then you can take a couple of lollipop sticks and repurpose them to become cake dowels. Place them into your cake and take note of where the cake finishes on your stick, remove them from the cake to trim, and place your shortened dowels back into the cake. When serving your cake later be sure to make sure the dowels are removed and/or are not in any slices you serve to people. I personally choose to anxiously stand by the cake like I have a sworn duty to prevent people from chomping down on one.
- Now your cake is sandwiched together we're going to trim the edges for a neater finish. Cake trimmings are of course yours to enjoy as a reward for your hard work and patience throughout this process.
- Here comes the messy part. We're now going to ice the entire cake in buttercream. This will act as a sort of glue for the fondant icing we will soon be covering the cake with. Less is more, don't feel that the cake has to be covered in a thick layer of icing, just make sure that it's covered.
- Fondant icing moves in mysterious ways, but I'm here to help. If you've bought premade fondant icing then half the battle is won as often times making fondant icing is more trouble than it's worth. It's going to start off stiff to begin with, but rolling it out a few times makes it easier to work with. Be sure to sprinkle some icing sugar on your counter and rolling pin to prevent it from sticking (although truthfully I have used flour of all things instead and the results were just the same).
- Once you have rolled out enough white fondant icing to cover the cake, place the icing onto the cake. Your cake will look like it's ready for Halloween in it's little white sheet, but we're going to trim and tuck the icing to become form fitting. If your icing tears in the process then don't panic! We can patch tears with excess icing, and use small amounts of water to blend the icing into one another. If you have one side of the cake that is patchier than the other lengthwise then we'll make that the book spine and cover it with the next step of icing.
- Before we prepare our book cover, we need to sort out our book pages. Apply a thin layer of water to the edges of the cake, just enough to become sticky. Now I used a side scraper for this next step but anything with a long edge like a ruler will work; take your tool and gently score lines on the length and width sides of your cake. The length of the cake you've chosen to become the book spine will not need to be scored as this will be covered. Voila, your cake now has pages!
- If you really want the spine of the book to show you can do an additional step and make an indentation on top of the cake about an inch from your book spine's length. Add a thin layer of water before making an indent to prevent the icing from being torn. I used a chopstick to make an indent but a pencil or other similar tool will work. You're applying enough pressure for a mark to be left but not enough to tear the icing.
- Onto the book cover! I've listed brown icing for the book cover of our Quest Journal but who knows what your one looks like?! Any colour will do so long as it contrasts the pages. Apply a thin layer of water to the book spine edge of the cake as well as the top, and roll out the book cover icing. Place the icing on top of the cake, and again tuck and trim as need. This icing should be cover just the spine edge and the top layer to allow your pages to shine. If you've made an indent for the spine then gently do the same again to guide the cover icing into space you made earlier.
- You may find your cake would benefit from reinforcing the edges of the cover with more icing for a more robust look (is your book hardcover or paperback? All things to consider), and this is easy to do. You can again choose to blend the extra icing in with water to conceal the icing, or if you feel it adds a certain element to your book cover than you can leave it be. I chose the latter as I felt it looked interesting.
- So you've created a book cover and pages, but what really improves the appearance is to take a thin scrap of your cover icing and to line the bottom of each edge with a small amount to make it look like a small part of the cover beneath the pages is poking out. It's subtle, but it does make a difference.
- Congratulations! You have done the hard part of this quest, now it's time for those personal touches. What does your Quest Journal look like? Is it a simple plain book, inconspicuous to others? Or does it have embellishments, making it grander than most? This is for you to decide! I've chosen to take yellow icing strips and decorate the spine of the book, and to give golden corners to part of the book as well. Small additions really do add more character!
- This is entirely optional but I do hope you consider adding this extra personal touch; a Quest Journal entry. It's easy! If you have spare white icing then simply roll out a section big enough to write on, roll the top section a little to form a scroll, and add a sample of your favourite quest's journal transcript. I generally find it difficult to place one quest above the rest, but out of the recent releases I enjoyed Azzanadra's quest the most, so I have chosen to show that off in this way.
- Now clean up your cake by gently wiping off excess icing sugar from the fondant, and place your scroll! If you want a fountain pen to add to your cake as well then take a lollipop stick, wrap icing around it, and fashion it into the vague shape of a pen. White icing for the nib, a different colour for your pen base, and a third final colour to conjoin the nib and the base together.
- And there we have it, a Quest Journal of your very own! Your reward for this quest? The fruits of your labour and 2 quest points (in my next quest I give emeralds as a reward so really this Darkestnight Questline is actually worth it, promise!). Pull up a chair and enjoy a slice of your (dowel free) cake!
Congratulations! Your hard work was well worth it, and you've made me very proud. This quest is naturally a prerequisite for Recipe for Disaster: Idiot Sandwich so you had no choice but to do it. But I'm proud anyway! Thank you so much for joining me in the Clan Quest Test Kitchen today, let me know if you tried baking this as I'd love to see any photos! Unshood for now folks and of course...
Article by Darkestnight
Welcome adventurer!
This is Tyco, the elf of the Nordic Lands. I am here to enlighten you who wish to explore the world around you. No matter if you are a gamer who despite the sun, a walker who wants to get more adventurous or maybe a hiker with plenty of experience, I hope these series of articles will take you to a new place you never knew before.
Before we move onto the main topic, let me present myself properly. My name is Tyco and I joined Clan Quest in january 2016 in search of new companionship and adventures. My peak of activity was 2016 - 2018, where I attended 3 RuneFests with the clan. I’m more laid back these days though. My experience with real life adventuring has been long. 10 years in fact, all of them with a group called “TVM” which stands for the three goals of wilderness: The Forest, The Sea, The Mountain. Here I have honed my survival skills and even been inspired to pursue a side-career as a mountain guide. I have also made many friends along the way and formed a special relationship with nature. Now, let’s get into how to make you into an adventurer!
When you hear the word adventurer, what comes to your mind? Characters like Indiana Jones and Gandalf? Or maybe chests filled with gold and riches? Endearing quests with dangers and enemies? I don’t blame you if you did. And neither if you think “But my adventures are never going to be like that”. While games and movies excel at exaggerating what an adventure can be, that does not mean your future adventures will be boring. On the contrary actually, if you know what you are looking for. And that is what this chapter is about: Finding your first and own adventure.
Expectations
What are you expecting from becoming an adventurer? It can be for knowledge of surviving on your own. It can be for memories, visiting new places to show your friends and family. It can be for your health, increasing your determination and strength through your travels. Everyone has their own reasons to search for adventures, but knowing yours is what matters the most. And with today’s accessibility of areas (we will get to that in a bit) it’s not uncommon to design your own adventures.
However, please write down what your goal(s) are with adventuring (preferably something measurable) and expectations before going to the next step. These will serve you great both when looking for the available options and when looking back on your first thoughts.
Locations
What areas exist where you can experience and practice your adventures? If you are into memories and discovering the area around you, you are in luck. Tourist guides and outdoor groups are experts at knowing where the fun is and will gladly share this information. With today’s easy access to information, the possibilities are very likely already waiting for you. If social, consider even giving groups of interest a call. The best knowledge comes from the people who have great interest in the matter.
If you are more of a lone wolf and/or looking for simpler exercises, use maps to check for natural reserves and/or paths which you would like to run along. Just finding the perfect jogging route by trial and error is an adventure in itself. A tip is to move to areas far away whenever you have a lot of time, and stay in close-by areas on stressful weeks. The variation will enhance the experience and avoid possible boredom on your first tries.
Jogging, sleeping outdoors, paddling, rock-climbing and sky-diving. No matter your level, taking the first step of finding it is half the work done. And it’s free! So no reason not to.
Obstacles
So you have a goal and a location. What is currently stopping you from visiting it? If it’s money, don’t worry too much about it. You are not the first person to encounter this and you won’t be the last. Put the expensive stuff on the wish-list (do not throw them aside!) and look for cheaper alternatives. Express your wish to your friends and family, it could turn into a joint journey or a nice birthday present.
If it’s about the lack of time, then prioritize. Look over your current schedule and see when you can reward yourself some self-time. In some cases companies can even support physical activity in the form of money and/or time, so do not be afraid to ask. If it makes you happier as a person, it’s a win-win when your workplace gets a happier and loyal employee!
Lastly if it’s about knowledge, then you are also in luck. The internet has a lot of information. Oh don’t be afraid to look for groups or like minded individuals. But as mentioned the best knowledge comes from the people who have experienced the activity first-hand.
No adventure comes without obstacles. What separates adventurers from the rest is the will to overcome them. Don’t give up, give it a try. If it doesn’t fit you, then you now know and that was an experience in itself. Check the notes from step 1 and adjust if needed, then make a new try.
And that is all I have for today. Next issue we will talk about the adventurer’s typical gear and tools to survive.
Article by TycoElf
I'll be perfectly honest, I forgot that this movie ever existed. I think a lot of people did; the first trailer came out in January 2019, so by the time it finally came out in November 2021, I don't suspect it was high on anybody's radar. It didn't help, of course, that the last entry in the Ghostbusters franchise was polarizing, to say the least, or that Dan Akroyd has hyping up an "imminent" GB3 basically since the moment GB2 came out. But it seems that somebody at Sony Pictures finally offered the proper sacrifices to the proper Dark Gods, and so Ghostbusters: Afterlife was eventually unleased upon an unsuspecting world.
I don't think anyone is surprised that I'm not particularly delighted by this film. I've made no secret of my general disdain for long-delayed sequels to movies that were already good, particularly when they're essentially remakes of the original film. I'm not generally a fan of the Star Wars sequel trilogy for this reason, and I'm extremely not a fan of last year's Coming to America sequel. This is a position I've gotten some pushback on, so I'm going to use Ghostbusters: Afterlife as an excuse to talk about why I hold it. But first, let's do a quick plot summary. It's not a terribly deep film, so this will be quick.
The main protagonist is Phoebe (McKenna Grace), a loner and science geek who lives in Chicago on the edge of poverty with her mother Callie (Carrie Coon) and older brother Trevor (Finn Wolfhard). When Callie's estranged father - Egon Spengler (the late Harold Ramis' character from the original films), though Phoebe and Trevor don't know this yet - dies and leaves her a farmhouse in middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma, the recently-evicted single mother packs up her car and moves her family to the dying mining town of Summerville, which unbenknowst to anyone holds a Dark Secret: it was built by Ivo Shandor, a turn-of-the-century occultist, to further his goal of summoning the ancient Sumerian deity Gozer and bringing about the end of the world. You might remember this as being substantially the same scheme as the original Ghostbusters, right down to the same antagonists.
It turns out that Egon had figured out Shandor's plan and abandoned the other 'busters to come and put a stop to it, jury-rigging a safety net made out of proton packs that keeps Gozer and its ghostly horde from breaking into the world. When this system starts to fail, Egon's spirit guides Phoebe to his secret lab full of broken ghostbusting equipment, helps her repair it, and then...leaves his twelve-year-old granddaughter to save the world. Nice plan, Egon; you have not earned a Twinkie.
I am condensing somewhat, I haven't even mentioned the other three primary characters, but that's because most of them are only barely relevant to the film. Rounding out the cast are: Lucky (Celeste O'Connor), a Cool Girl and daughter of the local police chief, who mostly serves as a source of exposition on the town and as an excuse for Trevor, who is very unsubtly into her, to be in certain places to advance the plot; "Podcast" (Logan Kim), who is almost exclusively paranormal exposition and comic relief; and Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), who seems to exist primarily so the film can put a bankable name on the poster, and to serve as a love interest for Callie so it can re-create the implied sex between two possessed humans that summons Gozer into the world - but, y'know, without it being weird. But that's a fair summary of the plot, which leads me into my first and really only gripe: the film is made measurably worse by its connection to the original Ghostbusters.
And don't get me wrong, I like Ghostbusters; it's a great movie, one of my favourites, starring four incredible comedians at the peak of their careers, plus Sigourney Weaver playing against type, and also Ernie Hudson is there. But, that's also pretty much the only reason why I liked it. The film was a character-driven comedy, with a tacked-on romance and an even-more-tacked-on set-piece climax. You're not watching Ghostbusters for an intriguing supernatural mystery, or for a hard-scifi take on ghosts, you're watching it for these:
Say what you will about it, but Ghostbusters knew exactly what it wanted to be.
Afterlife does not know what it wants to be. Or, rather, it does know, but its attempts to be that thing are hampered by the legacy of its predecessor. At its heart, Afterlife wants to be two things: a supernatural mystery and a story about repairing damaged relationships. Those are fine things to be, and fine things to combine; I like a genre film that tries to be about something other than just "genre tropes *jazz hands*". But the film utterly fails at both, and does so almost entirely because it's also trying to be a Ghostbusters film. Allow me to explain.
...or don't, I can't stop you from skipping ahead to Francine's OSRS Construction guide. It's good, check it out.
Still here? Great. Let's start with the mystery. The driving question for much of the film is, essentially: "what's the deal with Summerville?" It's a middle-of-nowhere town, home to a closed selenium mine and little else, so why did Egon decide to abandon his entire life and move out there? Unfortunately all drama is sucked out of that mystery as soon as the name "Gozer" is uttered, which happens...a third of the way through. Of course the film continues trundling along, because the characters don't know who Gozer is, and the next stage of the mystery is finding out, but, well...
There's a literary concept you might remember from high school English class, called "dramatic irony"; in effect, dramatic irony is where the audience knows information the characters don't. This can be an effective source of tension, because the audience is waiting for the axe to drop. Consider Titanic as an example, where everyone in the audience knows the film is going to end with the ship sinking (and, if you didn't, spoilers for a twenty-five-year-old film and a hundred-year-old historical event), and we know from the framing device that at least Rose survives, but the tension comes from not knowing if Jack, and the romance we've spent the last two hours getting invested in, also survives.
But there's no tension in Afterlife, partly because we know the characters are in no actual danger (a peril of modern franchise filmmaking, something I could devote a whole article to on its own), but mostly because we've seen this movie before, we already know how it ends. Traditionally, in horror movies with this structure, the mystery after you learn the creature's name is "how do we defeat it?", but this is a Ghostbusters movie: we defeat it with proton packs and ghost traps. Which is exactly what happens, and the only novel element is that the characters use a lot of ghost traps, which Egon had buried in his front yard to make a Super Trap. It's actually an interesting idea, which is subtly foreshadowed by the characters finding all of Egon's old gear (including four proton packs, four uniforms, etc.) but only a single trap, but we already saw in the very first scene that Egon had something in front of his house, so a halfway-clever viewer will have already figured out that Chekhov's Gun was going to go off in the climax.
Next, the relationship drama. At the start of the film we have three core relationships which are broken: Callie's relationship with Egon, who walked out on the family when she was quite young; Callie's relationship with her two kids, which is strained due to the difficulties of poverty and the stress of being uprooted and moving to Summerville; and Egon's relationship with the other 'busters, especially Ray Stanz (Dan Akroyd) who never learned why he stole all their ghostbusting equipment and skipped town. Repairing these relationships is the emotional heart of the film, facilitated by our protagonist, Phoebe. The problem is that they don't really work, because we have no investment in the relationships; the characters spend almost no time together before the climax, so there's no opportunity to establish their strained relationship with more than one or two lines of dialogue, and they're so barely present as characters it largely wouldn't matter if they had.
The only relationship we have something close to investment in is between Egon and the original Ghostbusters, by virtue of our nostalgic attachment to the original film, but repairing that relationship means nothing to us because it happens entirely off-screen; Ray appears in one scene about halfway through to deliver some "where are they now" exposition, and then all three surviving 'busters appear in the final minutes to help our new heroes. We skip over all the actual emotional bits of that arc, leaving us only one scene at the very end where Egon's ghost (played by a CGI reconstruction of Harold Ramis, who died in 2014) gives his old pals a bro-y nod of recognition.
As an aside, I confess that I have a personal bias against using CGI to reconstruct dead actors. I personally find it deeply ghoulish and I'm glad it's remained fairly uncommon. But this ocurrence bothers me less than some others, I think partly because the film resurrects a dead actor to play a dead character, and partly because Egon's ghost never speaks. It comes off more as a slightly-in-poor-taste tribute than a cynical cash grab.
I do want to be clear about one thing: I didn't hate this movie; it didn't inspire the same visceral disgust as Coming 2 America. It was an enjoyable way to spend two hours, and I even admire it in some respects (for example, they resisted the urge to include Slimer, something I think no other Ghostbusters spin-off has; though I take off some points for the inclusion of the Suspiciously Similar Substitute character of Muncher). But it did disappoint me, because it had all the makings of a decent supernatural horror-thriller, but was too bogged down in its own legacy to deliver.
This, ultimately, is the root of my distaste for these sorts of films: at their best, they're uninspired genre films with a borrowed identity and an obligation, real or imagined, to devote significant running time to reminding us of that identity. That necessity simultaneously robs the film of substantial dramatic stakes, and reduces the amount of time available for the film to make us care about this film, what we are watching. It's a disservice to the new characters, to the actors who are genuinely trying to bring life to those characters, and to the rest of the crew trying to make genuine art. If you liked this film, or if you liked any of the other films that are similar to it, I'm not going to judge you for it; I've watched several of them, and I enjoyed my fair share. And there's nothing wrong with putting on something familiar and turning your brain off for a while, mercy knows we all need that sometimes, especially these days.
But, sometimes, I want more. And I wish we could get more of that more, instead of devoting so many resources and so much talent to crap like this.
Article by Xurdones
Table of Construction
HOODS
Hoods to all newbs reading this article, RS3 and OSRS players alike. It’s me, Francine, here again, welcoming you to my house! I like to think it is always Christmas in my log cabin covered in snow. That way it is always my Birthday! So be in the spirit or be expelled! I am here to share with you my personal Construction guide. Construction is one of the most expensive skills, but if you are smarter than the average newb, then you should be able to reach milestones by spending much less of your precious gold pieces.
My Personal Construction Guide
Starting Out
To start, you do not need to spend 1000gp and buy a house directly from an agent like the ordinary newb would do. Instead, you earn your house by helping Old Man Yarlo fix up his house in Varrock during the Daddy’s Home Miniquest. You do need to purchase 5 bolts of cloth for 650 each. Other supplies do not have to be purchased: you can pick up 10 ordinary planks from where they can spawn around Gielinor, make your own metal nails, and talk to Yarlo during the miniquest to receive a hammer and saw. By completing the quest, you will earn 944xp, putting you very close to level 9. If you were a newb and did purchase a house already, you will get a refund of 1000gp, lucky you! Yarlo’s son, Marlo, will also give you a crate and inside you will find 25 planks, 50 mithril nails, 5 steel bars, 10 oak planks, 8 bolts of cloth, 5 house teleports, and 1 Falador teleport, a total value of 25,100 coins.
Now, since you own a POH, you can train the skill however you like. I suggest the cheapest way would be getting levels passively at Wintertodt, Tempoross, or Fishing Trawler by fixing the braziers, totem poles, railings, or holes in the boat. Keep in mind my last article about Wintertodt and all my tips and recommendations I mentioned. For fishing trawler, getting swamp paste may become expensive, so it is helpful to do the Shades of Morton minigame to get swamp paste for free. Tempoross may be in a future article, so look out for that!
My Strategy
In my mind, I like to be efficient with my skilling. So, even though my next steps would be out of the ordinary, I think it is strategic and smart for a completionist of the game. Since Construction is a skill where at every level you unlock something new to do, I would want to look at the level-up table for useful things to build or activities to do. After completing Daddy’s Home, at 944xp, I would look back at levels 1-8 to see what I should do next. I see I could repair the spinning and pottery wheel on the Isle of Souls, only requiring level 2 and level 5. I may never use them in the future, but if I do, it would be nice if they are repaired. This will then boost me to level 10.
After repairs have been made, I would complete very essential quests regarding construction. Tower of Life only requires 10 construction and gives 1kxp. Bring a piece of raw chicken and raw swordfish to also complete the Ardougne medium achievement diary task after the quest.The Eyes of Glouphrie requires 5 Construction, but you also need 46 Magic and various odd supplies. The quest rewards the player with a crystal saw, which always gives a +3 invisible boost when in your inventory and building something requiring a saw. I would also complete the quest Below Ice Mountain to then have access to the Ruins of Camdozaal and be able to find the Imcando hammer, a wieldable hammer that can be used for Construction, Smithing, Barbarian Assault, and almost anything else that requires a hammer.
After receiving the quest rewards, I would be at level 14, with a goal to get to level 25. I would go to Wintertodt, Fishing Trawler, or Tempoross for a few levels and a chance to receive some beginner construction supplies, and then finally level 20. Now is when I would actually enter my POH and furnish the parlor, buy and furnish the workshop, and eventually achieve level 25. At this level, you can make the Crafting table 2, which can then make clockwork out of steel bars. For an ironman, this is very useful to be able to craft birdhouses, a passive way to gain Hunter experience on Fossil island; after, of course, you get the necessary Kudos and finish Bone Voyage. Later, after getting level 26, I would finish the quest Getting Ahead to get a free hefty 4k Crafting experience and 3.2k Construction experience.
Next, I would move my house to Hosidius, requiring level 25 and a few quests. This becomes your fastest and easiest way to Hosidius farming patch and Mahogany Homes contracts before you find yourself the Xeric’s talisman. From now on I will start the minigame Mahogany Homes as I now have an easier way to Hosidius. I would continue this until level 70 or until I run out of Oak planks, whichever comes first. Then I would come back to it once I get more resources. I would also continuously go to my POH every so many levels to build useful rooms and furnish useful items. These may be the following.
- Kitchen - If you want to train by Oak Larder at level 33
- Dining Room - If you want to train by Mahogany Table at level 52
- 2 Bedrooms - If you want to hire a servant, load the servant’s moneybag!
- Quest Hall Downstairs - Amulet of Glory and Myth Cape training at level 47
- Skill Hall Upstairs - Needed for Achievement Diaries only
- Menagerie - Store Pets and for Achievement Diaries
- Study - Telescope for Shooting Stars & Teleport tablets & Stash Units scroll
- Costume Room - Save bank space
- Chapel - Your own Gilded altar for a Prayer method
- Portal Chamber - 100x of each rune, 3 teleports
- Superior Garden - Spirit Tree, Fairy Ring, Obelisk, Restore Pool, and Teak Garden Bench Training at level 66
- Portal Nexus - 1000x of each rune, level 72 can hold 4 teleports, and upgrading at level 82 - 8 teleports, and level 92 - 30 teleports.
- Achievement Gallery - Jewelry box, changing to other Spellbooks
By going to settings, then the gear logo, then the house logo, this will take you to your house options.
Here you can select different options, but most importantly, you are able to go into your viewer interface and change the layout of your house without deleting rooms and wasting money. With this, build without worry, since you can always use this feature to move rooms around later.
You can also hover over each room to see what you have built inside. Remember, you must have a room downstairs before you can build a room upstairs in the same square. This takes more moving around than is needed, but eventually, you will get to your goal.
My POH Layout
My downstairs layout is like this for a list of reasons. The inner circle is the most important and used often, while the outer circle is not used as often. Yes, according to this theory, my throne room is important.
My Garden and Superior garden is rotated in this orientation for a few reasons. First, my player enters the house on this tile every time, no matter the orientation of the room. The northwest corner of my portal. With this particular orientation, the trees do not give me any trouble as if I ran to my pool, I would have a straight 8 tiles to run. From there I would run diagonally to my achievement gallery room for a jewelry teleport. This combination is commonly used between kills for Wintertodt or another boss with a jewelry teleport. In this orientation, I also have a straight path to my portal nexus, quest hall, or chapel room. No need to run around a portal or tree.
The main goal here is your running distance to the most used items in your house. Orient them the way you want, depending on what you use the most, and also the number of doors the room allows. Remember running diagonally takes the shortest time, so even the rooms in the corners of my inner circle can be reached just as fast.
My upstairs layout is rooms that I use the least. Skill Hall, Games, Combat, Costume, and two Bedrooms. I assume that the door orientations and my reasoning is self-explanatory.
Mahogany Homes
Mahogany Homes was released on August 26, 2020. It is a minigame where the player receives contracts from clients of the company. The headquarters are in Falador, which is why you get a Falador Tablet in the crate from Daddy’s Home. After speaking to Amy, you may start and can speak to her again for future contracts, or one of her employees based in the other locations: Marlo in North-East Varrock, Ellie in East Ardougne, or Angelo in North Hosidius.
It is recommended to start the minigame at level 20, once you are able to do Novice contracts using Oak planks, rewarding 3 points per contract completed. If you start at level 20 with a goal for level 70, you will use up close to 3,700 Oak Planks, with an average of 10 planks per contract, about 370 contracts in total, racking up 1,110 points. It is greatly encouraged to spend these points when you can for the Carpenter’s Outfit: 200 for boots, 400 for the helm, 600 for trousers, then 800 for the shirt. You may also choose to purchase the plank sack at 350 points, which holds 28 of any variety of planks. This is up to you. I would not recommend purchasing the wieldable saw when that would also go in your main hand, where you should already have a free wieldable hammer. If, however, it is updated that I can use the hammer in my mainhand and saw on offhand, I would then deem the purchase useful as I can wield both tools.
At level 50 you may choose to start taking Adept contracts using Teak planks, rewarding 4 points per contract. Of course, only if you have the money to afford it. It is not recommended to choose Expert contracts using Mahogany planks as it is the most expensive for little more reward than Adept Contracts.
How to Mahogany Homes
Novice's Guide
Novice's Equipment
- Wieldable Hammer
- Games necklace and Ring of Dueling
- (for banking at Wintertodt camp and Castle Wars)
- Chronicle or Tome of Fire to Varrock
- Ardy Cloak
- (only if you don’t have 51 Magic)
- Graceful - Remain running at all times
- Carpenter’s Boots - The first unlock
Novice's Inventory
Falador, Ardougne, POH (Hosidius), and Varrock (Tome of Fire equipped) runes. Saw, Steel bars, and Oak planks. With this inventory, you will need to bank after every contract or every two contracts. Depending on how many planks and steel bars have been used and what is needed for your next one.
Novice's Run
- Get a contract from any employee from any location (Amy, Marlo, Ellie, Angelo).
- Bank if needed at castle wars or wintertodt camp, unless going to Falador, you may use the east bank on the way to the house. Similarly, if you are going to north Hosidius, use the bank on the way.
- Go to the House and fix what is broken and build what needs to be upgraded.
- When completed, go to your client. They will thank you, give you experience, and offer you a cup of tea. ALWAYS take that cup of tea, as it replenishes your run energy to full.
- Return to a Mahogany homes employee and receive another contract. If you are near Marlo, Ellie, or Angelo, it is recommended to run to them rather than teleporting to Falador for Amy.
Adept's Guide
Adept's Equipment
- Dust Battlestaff
- Chronicle, to reach the south Varrock client faster
- Using the Varrock Portal in your POH would be the best method to reach the northern Varrock clients
- Xeric’s Talisman for banking and access to Hosidius
- Ring of Dueling
- Full Carpenters Outfit
- Graceful gloves and Quest Point Cape is optional
Adept's Inventory
- Law, Cosmic, and Astral Runes in Pouch: runes for NPC contact to Amy and Moonclan teleport for banking.
- Home Teleport tablet for Portal Nexus to Falador, Ardougne, Varrock, and Xeric’s Talisman.
- Hammer, Saw, 3 Steel bars, and 48 Teak Planks.
This inventory may last you 4 contracts, again depending on how lucky you are with which contract you are assigned.
Adept's Run
- NPC Contact on Lunar Spellbook to contact Amy. Receive a new Adept Contract.
- Bank if needed. The best options are Castle Wars, Moonclan Teleport, Xeric’s Honor, Falador east bank, or Hosidius Bank.
- Go to the House and fix what is broken and build what needs to be upgraded.
- When completed, go to your client. They will thank you, give you experience, and offer you a cup of tea. ALWAYS take that cup of tea, as it replenishes your run energy to full.
- NPC Contact Amy again. Rinse and Repeat.
Notable Tips
If a Sink, Bathtub, or Range needs to be fixed, this uses one left click and one steel bar.
If a Godfather Clock, Standing Mirror, or Hatstand, this uses one left click and one plank. Others must be torn down and built new.
Most clients have both upstairs and downstairs work, so be aware of the ladder or stairs locations. It may be faster to do upstairs first if the client is downstairs to then finish there. If the client is upstairs, finish the downstairs first.
Hotkeys will be very useful to get through conversations with the client, employee, or building mode. Learn them and use them often to slowly increase your experience per hour.
Runelite plug-in called Mahogany Homes helps with highlighting what needs fixing in each house, points out the client, and will let you know the range of planks and if a steel bar is needed. The plug-in called Plank Sack shows the number of planks stored at first glance while in the inventory.
Sarah in South Varrock, Barbara in South Hosidius, Ross in Ardougne, and any of the clients in Falador, will take fewer planks per contract. Sarah will always take exactly 11. Barbara will take 3-8 Oaks and 9-10 Teaks. Ross will take 8-11 Oaks or Teaks. All of the clients in Falador have a nice 8-13 range for both Oaks or Teaks.
Bob and Jeff in Varrock and Jess and Noella in Ardougne all take the max of 11-14 Oaks or 15-17 Teaks. These are the contracts that I usually do not want when I only have 11 planks left in my inventory because I will always need to go to the bank before I go to their house.
UNHOODS
Construction is an expensive grind, so finding ways to loot planks, such as from Eclectic Implings, Kraken, Tempoross, and Vet'ion, will be very beneficial and always be worth it. For more information refer to the OSRS wikipage.
I will be writing more Questaholic articles, so I would like to hear from you what Oldschool Runescape Content you are curious to learn more about. Please let me know, so then I can write another informative article that lets you know more about the other and oldschool side of Clan Quest.
For any other questions or inquiries, you may contact me on discord @Francine1225#2877
Until next time, unhoods
Article by Francine1225