TriangleArrow-Left.svgOctober 2015 Issues of the Questaholic Magazine December 2015TriangleArrow-Right.svg

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CLAN QUEST PEOPLE
by Santa Ends
An Interview with ILikeSlayer
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For the month of November, we have both a Slayer enthusiast Slayer as well as Farming enthusiast Shane. I decided to call log in and take the first volunteer as this month's first interviewee. Anyone, as long as they have an offsite account. Slayer and his fast reflexes claimed the spot, and I am very happy to bring you this article.


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Santa:

How did you get into Runescape?

I think it was about 10 years ago that Runescape was really popular in the Netherlands. My friends from primary school all played it, and naturally I did too. After about a year the hype died down and people started playing things like Call of Duty and Fifa.

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But I didn’t, I just kept playing Runescape. I guess it was because I felt that I had built up my account from nothing, and that it was a waste to just throw all that hard work away. And now, 10 years later, here I am. 1- icon biggrin.png

How did you find out about CQ, what attracted you here, why do you stay?

I used to be a solo-player. I was in a clan about 3 years ago for a few months, but the leaders of that clan disbanded over Christmas, so the clan was no more. Seeing as how none of my RL-friends play Runescape, I was okay with being a solo-player.

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I hung in friendchats a lot, was pretty known in Mod Mark’s FC for a while even, but I was still going solo.

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Then, out of a whim, I looked at the Clan recruitment threads, and found CQ. I checked it out and joined. The rest is history, as they say (right?).

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What is your favourite skill, minigame and wearable item and why you like it.

Mmmmmmh, my favorite skill eh? Not so sure about tha…. SLAYER FTW! Minigame would be Fist of Guthix, I was pretty good at it, ranked fairly high. Wearable item is my Keepsaked Slayer Skillcape.

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Is there a set of in game clothes you always wear?

At the moment I have an override set I quite like, but that might change over time. So no, I don’t have a specific set I like to wear.

Do you have a "favourite" Runescape player, if yes, why?

Luckybucket is my all-time favourite player. Not only are his RSMV’s amazing, he was the person that introduced me to Anime and Manga.

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Way back in 2009-2011, I was in his Friendchat a lot, so we spoke much about our goals and such. Thinking about it, I hung with a lot of ‘famous’ players and youtubers at that time. From the top of my head, Johnny Gutz, Icemaple, Matixpulse, Swordking200. Plastic Funnel poked his head in once a while as well. Aaaah, those were the good old days.

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What are your irl and in game goals?

IRL right now is just making it through Uni. We’ll see what’s next once that is done. In-game right now is getting all the reqs for MQPC. After that, maybe 120 slayer? Not sure though. Continuous goal is of course keeping the QPC.

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(Credit:Taken from Rsbandb, MQPC mockup by Halfingr, without permission)

Why did you major in political science?

I’ve always been interested in power and how the world is run. Political Science is exactly about that, so it fit me. I wasn’t aware of its existence however, so I originally was going to major in History.

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Are you involved in any sports or interest groups in school? Share your experiences!

Eeeeeh, I have a group of friends I play games with every Wednesday night, but I’m not really in any group yet. I should join a sports-group though, but……

Cireon:

Do you really like Slayer, or do you have a different favourite skill?

No, I really like slayer. I’ve liked it ever since becoming a member.

What in-game location would you like to visit in real-life?

Castle Drakan looks really neat, so I guess that. That is, of course, without the Vampyres. No need for those, thank you very much.

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What real-life location would you like to see become part of the game?

None. Real-life and in-game should be separated. I need but point towards the King Arthur series to prove my point. Runescape is a High Fantasy game and there is no place for real-life things in here.

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Iskh:

Why do you like slayer?

Perfect balance between earning xp and making money. Great to do while chatting. Plus, it’s the most prestigious skill out there, sooooo…

According to RuneTrack, you appear to like burning things more  :D

You could say that Firemaking was my first crush. I spend hours on hours making lines in Draynor when I was going for 99. It was my first 99, and it took my 3 years to get another 99. So Firemaking holds a special place in my heart. While I am married with Slayer right now, I’ll never forget the good times I had with Firemaking.

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LizBeth:

Political Science...any plans of becoming a Lawyer someday or you're just into politics?

I am just into politics I guess. Besides, lawyer is not really a prospect, at least not here in the Netherlands. Most likely I will end up working for the Government, but we’ll see.

What type of music genre appeals to you?

Mmmh, I listen to whatever I like at the moment, but I can always appreciate classical music or old-school rock ‘nd roll. Right now I’m listening to a lot of EDM/vocal dubstep/chillstep.

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Do you have a favorite movie?

Mhmm, not really. There are some I have watched a few times, but there’s no movie I would call ‘favorite’. I guess I really liked Cowboy and Indian; Panic in the Village.

(Video below)

Other than that, I quite liked The Usual Suspects and Howl’s Moving Castle.

How do you spend your free time, besides playing RuneScape?

With Uni, I don’t have that much free time left. So it’s either playing games, reading manga, watching series, or playing board games/card games with friends. Lately, we’ve been into poker, and we have a weekly D&D night with a few campaigns going. But most time is spent on Uni.

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Do you like to read? If you do, who's your favorite author(s)?

Favorite author is Patrick Rothfuss, the author of the Kingkiller Chronicles. That man is a genius when it comes to storytelling and use of words. I have all his books and have read them all at least 5 times.

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What is ILikeSlayer like in real life? Describe yourself - your personality, your pet peeves, anything you would like to share about you.

I guess I’m quite shy in person. I have a bit of an inferiority complex, fueled by having both a genius brother and dad (brother went to uni when he just turned 17, dad went to uni when he was 16). I struggled with it a lot when I was younger and compared myself to them a lot. Now I’ve mostly gotten over it and just started to focus on my strong points and their weak points instead of the other way around.

I don’t really have any pet peeves, other than maybe spelling mistakes in English. I took the CPE-exam in my last year in high school, so I expect perfect English from myself in from everybody else. Not that my English is perfect, but oh well, a man can dream, right?

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DrakanHpS:

how does it feel, when i have more slayer exp than you do xD

How does it feel when I have a higher total level than you do? In all seriousness, I don’t really mind when people tell me I am playing inefficient or something like that. If I was bothered by it, I would have joined EE right?

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MsKonnan10:

Hi, Slayer
You are an active member in Low Council, and in the clan in general. What do you like most about the RuneScape Game that keeps you interested? What first drew you to this Clan and what keeps you so loyal to us?

I guess I keep coming back to the game because I have such good memories with it, I feel that I have built up this account and can’t just leave it alone now and because I just like the game. What first drw me to the clan was simply the name, since I was still in the process of getting my QPC back when I joined. I stayed because of Earth knife in my ba….

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(Huehuehue)

Because the community is great and I have made friends here, while I had an empty friendslist before joining the clan. I guess that’s just it, I really like the people in the clan.

I'm curious where you live and call home. Can you tell us about that? What do you want to reveal about your real life, family, job, etc?

I’m a 19 year young man who is a full-time student, part-time worker in a supermarket. HQ is in The Netherlands, Utrecht. Utrecht is the 4th largest city in the Netherlands, with 335 thousand inhabitants. The thing we are most known for is the Dom Tower, the largest Church tower in the Netherlands. We are also known for being the only Dutch city that has been struck by a tornado, so we got that going for us, which is nice.

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Right now I spend most of my time in Nijmegen, where I go to uni. It’s about 150 km away from Utrecht and the oldest city in the Netherlands. It’s quite a small town really, which I like. Back home are my father and mother and two younger brothers, of which one goes to uni and the other is still in high school.

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What is your most interesting experience? What is your 'claim to fame' ?

I guess my claim to fame would be my sports career. When I was ten I picked up ice-skating, something every fellow Dutchman should be able to do (Looking at you Cireon and Kyra). Not trying to beat my own drum, but I was pretty good at it, and I was asked by the teachers if I wanted to join the shorttrack team of the club. In about 2 years, I was good enough to gain entrance to the national circuit, and for the next 6 years I would move all over the country to race in the national competition.

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(Stereotypical windmill, shame on you, Santa)

When I was 16, which was when I was at my best, I managed to place 6th at the national championships. Unfortunately, there were some amazingly talented people in my age bracket, so I didn’t get an invite for a tryout for the National team, and the next season I had a pretty bad injury and it all went downhill from then.

Two years later, when I was 18 and started to think about uni, I made the decision to stop. Partly because I started to race against people two years younger, partly because there are no good clubs in Nijmegen. Another thing I am always proud of is the tour me and my dad always make each summer. We just grab our bikes and make a trip. Most trips take about 4, 5 days and are around 400-600 km. I always feel amazing on those trips, and my body is in shape once we get back.

Plus, it’s always fun with my dad and the weather is amazing.

Don't forget the trailer!

That concludes 1 of the 2 interviews for Slayer. Thank you all for the questions, Slayer for being proactive and supportive, and forum moderator for putting our interviews on public announcement. If there is anyone you wish to know more about, feel free to send me a pm or post here. Constructive feedback is welcome.

Article by Santa Ends

~!~ ***** ~!~
CLAN QUEST PEOPLE
by Santa Ends
An Interview with Shane
~!~ ***** ~!~

For the month of November, we have both a Slayer enthusiast ILikeSlayer as well as Farming enthusiast Shane. Feeling hyped, I decided to accept 2 interviewees this month. One of our newer members would be good for a change. Shane has graciously accepted.


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Santa:

Starting a fansite has to be tough. Can you tell us some of the challenges you had when RSBandB was still in development? As well as current challenges.

Well, to start off with RSBANDB is always in development to some degree. This leads into the challenges we face. Starting off with today we’re constantly moving in one direction or another because we run our own server. This means we’re actually system administrators in addition to fansite administrators (though we are fortunate to have Mike who handles most of the sys-admin tasks). So to sum up this challenge that means that often times it’s a question of whether we enhance our server first or create user facing features first. It’s a tough choice.

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(Picture of Mike, from Adventurer's Log)

Going back a little while we’ve had troubles getting noticed as a fansite. Jagex has been helpful in this regard over the last few years or so. But as a small fansite that prefers to focus on innovative features over being a Walmart of fansites this means we need to work extra hard to attract users. So for example while there are great places to go get everything (guides, monster info, basic tools, etc.) we need to provide that extra reason to come and use our custom signature system, equipment calculator/ planner, or grand exchange portfolios.

{{{2}}}

Where do the fundings for the site come from?

Our largest hurdle though has always been funding. As a website with a tech savvy and smart user base online ads don’t work as well as they do on other websites.

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This tacks into your second question because RSBANDB today is entirely funded by our page ads and the generous support from user donations. We are so grateful for our users, podcast listeners, and readers because without them we wouldn’t be able to run our website. Thank you!

You mentioned you started scaping since 2003 or 2004. Any challenge in adapting? Do you miss anything from the old days?

Absolutely no change in adapting. I’m a big believer in actual progress, not just change for the sake of adding a new product or new skill. I love what RuneScape is today with a few exceptions. The community is great because the community is what you make it out to be.

My community consists of people I’ve known for years, Clan Quest of course, and everyone involved with RSBANDB. 2013 was the best year ever to play RuneScape. I’m almost ready to say 2015 has overtaken it but we’ll see.

Do the string of numbers behind your username have any meaning?

The numbers behind my name (12088) are a series of numbers that I copied from Mike. He had first. They don’t mean anything. They were just a series of numbers that he found.

How do you balance work with RuneScape? Do you have other hobbies?

Balance is critical to everything you do. I’ve never personally hit the 6 hour maximum logout limit during a RuneScape session. I always pepper other things in along the way.

Hobby wise though, Star Trek part 2 (and the game Star Trek Online). It’s great. Or computer programming.

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Cireon:

Why did you decide to start a weekly podcast?

RSBANDBUpdate! was started on the advice of my first co-host, Pika69 as he was named. He suggested that there needed to be a RuneScape radio show or something similar. Podcasting was just coming on and that’s how we got our start.

What are the thoughts/responses you want to provoke with your podcast?

The goal of the podcast changes from week to week. Some weeks it’s just a primer to the update for those who don’t have the time to experience it themselves. Other times we like to go deep into the details to explain how something works and how to reap the maximum benefit out of it. Quests fall into this category.

Finally, some weeks we attempt to explain why certain updates came out and why the game needs them. This is what we spent a good deal of time doing after the Evolution of Combat was released. Thought wise though in general I want players to give updates a chance, don’t automatically assume their garage if your friends or the community say they’re garbage.

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That leads to lots of negativity in the community and isn’t fair to Jagex. I’m not saying to blindfully support everything, just build your own opinions.

How did Earth become your main co-host?

Earth was next in line, demonstrates a great knowledge of the games lore (which is what I wanted), and we have fun together. I need to be able to talk to my co-hosts on a person to person basis to facilitate a natural conversation.

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(Santa's stalking is top notch. Photo of Earth. From his Twitter, taken without permission)

Why farming? Like seriously.

Farming <3 <3 <3. I like Farming because the cape is green. I also like it because I grew up outside and it’s the most unique skill in game! What skill can you train and come back a couple hours later and get MORE XP? It’s very conducive to multitasking.

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Any goals after 120 farming?

After 120 Farming (which is Friday October 30th): Either 120 Herblore (with my own grown herbs) or an Ironman to get 99 Farming untrimmed (though I don’t know if this is possible yet).

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If you could design a elite skill related to farming, what would it be?

A great elite skill related to Farming would be animal husbandry. That’s the other side of the Farm that we don’t see in RuneScape. Farming + Summoning + Construction?

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If you could make one change to the farming skill, what would it be?

Farming change: Lettuce, carrots, peas, and purple cabbage. I want to be able to make salads and slaws!

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Who's your favourite High Councillor? No... it's not Earth innit?

I like all the high councillors equally but Cireon is awesome. I hear there’s competition for him.

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(Santa does it again. From Cireon's personal website, taken without permission)

ILikeSlayer:

When and why did you start playing Runescape and what keeps you going?

Started seriously playing in Summer 2004. On and off through early 2004 and late 2003. The great community that I am surrounded with keeps me going. As well as every single person who messages me in game telling me they value what we do for the podcast and/or website. I love the stories where people tell me they’ve just returned from a break and are using us to catch up or when we have cleared up an issue they had in game for them.

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(This is what the interface looked like back then)

Why did you join the clan? Did Earth force you? If yes, how did he force you?

If I were forced into joining Clan Quest I don’t think I’d be reading these interview questions ;)

Apart from farming, what do you enjoy doing most in Runescape?

Apart from Farming… Questing of course. I’m not just saying that because of this clan’s name but because it’s true. RuneScape is deceptively simple from a quick glance. It’s not until you start playing that you realize just how much lore and story content there actually is in game. But if I had to choose a second skill it would be my long awaited goal of 99 Smithing once it’s finally updated.

What are your IRL-goals?

My IRL goal right now is to find a career path that is rewarding and sets me on a path to what I want to accomplish later on in life. That would ultimately culminate in serving as an MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly) here in Alberta or an MP (Member of Parliament) in the federal House of Commons.

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MsKonnan10:

Hi, Shane, I like the RSBandB podcasts, but I have one question about them.
Is there any way we can hear just parts of the 3 hour broadcasts? Your indexing is great, and there are parts I want to listen to, but 3 hours is a long time to be using my pc as a radio 17- icon question.gif

It would depend on the parts that you are referring to. We’ve recently started putting the audio up on YouTube as well and that allows for better indexing. I’ll be sure to note the start of the various segments going forward. Is there any specific episode or part you’re looking to have trimmed down?

How do you like your 'job' on Honor Council, now you have been at it for a few rounds? Personally I think you are doing a good job. 2- icon smile.gif

The Honour Council is something that I jumped at the opportunity of accepting when asked. As you’ve probably guessed based on my past answers about the podcast I love to serve. Anything I can do in that capacity is great. Looking forward to some interesting things coming up.

Can you tell us a bit more about where you call home, and your family life?

Family is the most important aspect of someones life, it’s the bedrock of society. I come from a standard run of the mill family of 4, nothing really to write home about but they are great. As for where I call home, Edmonton, Alberta.

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For those unaware it’s the capital city of our province (Alberta). Alberta is the best place to live in Canada for a myriad of reasons including but not limited to Banff and Jasper National Park! We. Are. Wild Rose. Country.

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Is there anything special you want to tell us about your approach to the game, to other games, and to real life?

Time management is the key to being successful. It’s most true in school but for other things in life too. If you miss deadlines or are late for appointments people are going to get the wrong idea about you. We don’t know how much time we have left for ourselves and loved ones, time is so important when it comes to that. Always keep time on your mind.

LizBeth:

Hi, Shane!
What musical genre do you listen to?
Do you play any musical instrument?

This is something that’s odd for most people but I don’t listen to music. I find anything with lyrics too distracting listen to while trying to be productive. This for me is because I need to understand the meaning of a song from a lyrical point of view before I can say whether or not I like it.

Because of these reasons I can’t commit to music. I also have no idea what kind of music I like, only what I don’t like.

And no, I don’t play any instruments. If I could play one though it would be the piano or flute.

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What would be your "perfect" day?

Perfect day... Hmm well it would have been last Monday (October 19th) ahahahahaha. If only I could travel through time.

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

If I could travel anywhere I would love to do a European tour centred around battlefields from World War II and World War I. Those wars defined the 20th century and set into motion so many of the geopolitics that are at play today.

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Aside from that I’d also like to attend RuneFest before it’s no longer a thing. This year is the first year I feel as though I should have went.

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What's the craziest thing you've ever done?

Craziest thing I’ve done… In 2013 I went to New Zealand for two weeks. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be crazy but it was my first journey off the North American continent and added on to that I was meeting one of my best friends (whom I met online, he lives there) for the first time. All in all it was a great experience despite the odd looks I got when I first made the decision.

This concludes the 2 of 2 interviews of November. Shane has been a great correspondent. I am very happy to have learnt more about Rsbandb as well as more about himself. Constructive feedback is welcome.

Article by Santa Ends