Constructed a Gilded Altar

After a long time of trying, I eventually got around to building my own gilded altar. It is relatively costly, but I have 24 more prayer levels to go and this should help repay the cost in the long term.

Unfortunately, I do not have dragon bones in stock to get up to level 99 prayer, so I know one of my future goals will involve a lot of dragon fighting to be able to stockpile some bones to use for raising my prayer skill.

I am currently level 123 combat and require another 23 prayer levels to obtain 126 combat. If I bought the bones, it would be quite expensive - so I am most likely going to mix some buying as well as gathering bones. This means it will be some time before I reach level 126 combat, but I am not in any major rush.

Overall, my player owned house on runescape is rather under developed - I have been concentrating on other things and not really trained construction skill up much (it is currently level 72 as I used a crystal saw to build the gilded altar).

I also purchased an addition 2 marble blocks - as had expected each burner to require two blocks. Instead, both burners were built and used only 2 blocks. The overall cost is still reasonably significant. The cheapest way to achieve the gilded altar would only be to build the actual altar and the burners.

Cheapest gilded altar cost:

• Gilded Altar = 1,170,000 (1170k) for 2 marble blocks and 4 gold leaves
• Marble Burners = 650,000 (650k) for 2 marble blocks

The basic cost is 1,820,000 (1820k) - that doesn't include the cost of training construction up to a level where you can actually construct the altar. Anyway, hopefully I will get around to putting it to good use in the near future.

Raising Construction

I recently spent some time raising a few construction levels in runescape. For the past 9 months or so I did not train any construction even though I had stocked up 30,000 or more oak logs. I guess I never felt inclined to train it up.

Anyway, my objective is to get to level 75 construction at least and therefore enable me to build the best altar available. This will make it easier to train prayer in the future, although it is expensive at the same time.

The long term benefits of building the best altar should enable any runescape member to enjoy quicker prayer training - if they train their prayer up using dragon bones or better. Although the pest control mini game does give prayer training some alternative and cheaper methods to train it with, I would still like to have the best altar available for my house so that friends can train their prayer in it if they wish.

I am training my construction using oak logs and building oak larders along with employing the demon butler. As I don't spend too much time ingame nowadays, I haven't found a more efficient method yet. I would be happy to find out any better methods - or even alternative metods than people have used when training their construction skill.

At the end of the day, the objective is to achieve 99 construction so that my player owned house will eventually be capable of having the best available materials in all locations. The downside is that it will cost a substantial amount of runescape money to achieve it. Slowly but surely, I am stepping closer - though I am unlikely to get up to level 99 for a year or more yet due to other real life requirements on my time.

Runescape Houses Boost Membership

Runescape Houses provided a boost to runescape members - people subscribing on a monthly basis. It can be viewed as a significant success in the development of runescape by Jagex.

Extract from an interview with runescape co-founder Andrew Gower:

1. What do you feel has been the biggest differentiating factor behind RuneScape's popularity in making it to the one million subscriber milestone?

• AG: I think one of the biggest things is the game's continual updates. We're constantly adding to the game, bringing new stuff in and improving it. It's interesting, but with each addition, we see surges of growth.
• We saw a huge surge with our recent addition of player houses, and again with our recent graphics update. The fact that we keep updating it, adding more to the experience, I think is key. Plus, people like having things to look forward to.

The full Andrew Gower interview can be viewed here.

Personally, I am not surprised that player owned houses provided a major boost to subscription levels as it was one of the most waited for additions to the game for a long time. I think it had a waiting time of 2 years or so.

However, after the initial boost to subscriptions and after people tried out their runescape houses, it would be interesting to find out how many people were disappointed and subsequently went back to free to play runescape servers.

Obviously those figures would be very hard to quantify as people choose to leave membership for a variety of reasons - normally to do with real life rather than any game specific reason.

Runescape Player House Construction Items

With the construction skill in runescape being a necessary evil for people wanting to have their own player house, I felt it necessary to include some information about items in runescape that can boost the construction skill. This may help some players become more efficient when building their own house or it may not.

Anyway, the construction stat boosting items for runescape are:

• Tea
• Crystal Saw
• Evil Dave's Stew of Doom

Stat boosting tea:
The stat boosting tea can be made by players in their own house. It can boost construction between 1 and 3 levels for a short time. The process is as follows:

• Use kettle with sink - to fill the kettle
  
• Use kettle with range - to boil the kettle
• Use tea leaves with teapot
  
• Use kettle with teapot - add boiling water to make the tea
  
• Use teapot with cups - to get the cups of tea

The stat boosting affect will depend on which type of shelves you have. Normal shelves will provide a +1 stat boost, oak shelves a +2 stat boost and teak shelves a +3 stat boost. Players should note this is only for a short time and their construction skill will return to normal after a while.

Crystal Saw:
Players who have completed the Eyes of Glouphrie Quest in runescape will be able to get a crystal saw. It will provide a stat boost of +3 when used as a saw when building furniture or items that require a saw to be used. Obviously it will only work if a player has the required materials to build what they want.

The crystal saw can only be used to boost actual items that can be made using a saw and does not let players add rooms that are beyond their natural construction level. Consequently, players can not add plants to their gardens that are 3 levels higher than their normal construction level as garden plants do not require a saw to be used.

The crystal saw bonus will stack with the homemade tea and Evil Dave's Stew of Doom.

Evil Dave's Stew of Doom:
Players who have completed the Evil Dave section in Recipe for Disaster quest in runescape will be able to make a stew that will boost construction stats - again for only a short time. One of the spices used when making the stew will give a construction boost - although players should note that a stat boost can range from -6 to +6, but it will stack with any bonus gained from the tea or through using the saw.

Overall, construction of player owned houses in runescape can present a challenge to even the best players in the game - there are many different methods to raise the skill, although it does help to be aware of any stat boosting bonus items to make it more efficient. Runescape construction is an expensive skill to level for members so players should be aware of any items that will help them build sections in their house at an earlier level if desired. Additionally, players should be aware of the construction basics to ensure they are not wasted any unncessary effort or money in the process of building their house.

Runescape House Planner

Runescape player houses have been a well liked introduction into the game and many people have built themselves some very nice homes. However, there are many players, including myself, that have failed to build a home that I would be able to invite my friends to.

Over at runehq, there is a house planner for runescape houses. Obviously it is impossible to have direct access into any players account (a violation of jagex rules for runescape), this house planner will let players plan their house layout.

Player houses are another benefit of paying the monthly subscription. Free to play runescape people can try out the house planner and maybe one day become a member in order to make their virtual dream home turn into reality. Bear in mind, player houses can become quite expensive and there are only marginal benefits overall.

Free to play runescape people may still help their member friends by supplying the necessary materials such as oak logs for training the construction skill that is required to construct better houses. However, the demand for materials is somewhat lower than it was when the skill was introduced in mid-2006.

Runescape Construction NPCs

Runescape construction of player owned houses is faciliated through the use of several non-playing characters (NPC's). This ensures that the basic cost of houses will remain the same for every player in the game, although how people accumulate the required resources will impact how much the constuction skill will cost them overall.

The list of NPC's players will encounter when making their player owned house (POH):

• Estate Agents
• Sawmill Operator
• Gardener
• Stonemason
• Taxidermist
• Herald
• Servants

The role of estate agents in runescape is simply to sell the plot of land required for members to build their houses and move them to different locations when requested, if they have a high enough level. It will cost 1,000 gps (gp = gold pieces or runescape money) for the plot and there are 4 agents located throughout runescape. They can be found in Varrock (East of the Palace), Falador (between the east bank and furnace), Seers Village (north east of the bank) and Ardougne (north west from the bank in the south west). Estate agents can also redecorate your house style for a price.

The sawmill operator will convert logs to planks for a price. He is located north east of varrock just outside the sawmill. The cost of converting logs to planks is as follows:

• normal logs to normal planks = 100 gp
• oak logs to oak planks = 250 gp
• teak logs to teack planks = 500 gp
• mahogany logs to mahogany planks = 1000 gp

Although the cost is low in relative terms, the cumulative cost for runescape members can be significant as 1000s of logs are required to gain a good construction level. In addition to this, the sawmill operator also sells a saw, cloth and nails - all of which can be used to help level construction and decorate your house.

The gardener has more of a decorative role within runescape construction. Once again there is a list of items that can be bought. The price range is 1600gp for a bagged plant or dead tree through to 100,000gp for a tall boxed hedge.

The stonemason is again more for decorative purposes and to enable your runescape house to be more distinguished. He is located in southern keldagrim and has the following inventory:

• limstone brick - 45 gps
  
• gold leaf - 130,000 gps
• marble block - 325,000 gps
• magic stone - 975,000 gps

The taxidermist will be used by players for decorative purposes as they may find the heads (or hands) of some runescape monsters as a drop. The taxidermist will stuff this item for a cost with his prices ranging from 1000gps to stuff a crawling hand up to 50,000 gps to stuff the head of a kalphite queen or king black dragon.

The herald is located upstairs in the white knights castle and sells items such as maps and portraits. In addition to this he can amend your family crest, so players who do not like their crest can pay him to alter theirs. The portraits and maps are related to other runescape quests and players need to have completed a relevant quest to gain these.

Finally, but also importantly, are servants. Servants can carry out a number of tasks to help you in your house construction, but will again cost some money. They can be hired from the servants quarters located in East Ardougne and each one has different limitations and costs associated with them.

Most players will aim to get a demon butler in their service to help them train construction effectively through using oak logs. The cost of servants range from 500gp for Rick to 10,000 gp for the demon butler or Alathazdrar who can carry up to 26 items and can serve guests curry.

Share Your Runescape House

Player owned houses have been around for quite some time now on Runescape. It has given some players plenty of time to customise their homes and spend excessive amounts of money to ensure they have a home fit for a king or queen.

I have recently launched my new runescape help site that offers a place for all runescape characters to be able to show off their Player Owned Houses. Players may also want to give their runescape characters a storyline and this section enables them to write a short story about their character development.

In addition, my new help site has incorporated a new runescape search engine that will be composed of all sites that comply with Jagex rules. This will ensure that players after genuine help will be able to find it from the growing number of sites that will be added to the search engine.

I would encourage people to bookmark both my new help site and the runescape search engine as if you bookmark the search engine then you do not need to load my site specifically to find what you need. The search engine is part of the new feature on Google Co-Op - Customised Search Engine.

The new help site will grow and become a more power resource itself as well as offering players the ability to write a guide on anything they desire - provided it has not already been done, that it is their own work and that it complies with Jagex rules.

In addition, my new runescape help site enables guides to be updated by the authors directly and as such will enable people to keep control of the content of their guide - this will ensure that it will always remain up to date and relevant as well as providing the flexibility to adapt the guide should Jagex make changes to any game features.