Slayer by Example
ne of the most influential players on the GRS forums is Lil_Mcginley. He started the most active goals and achievements threads, he is the top player on the site, and he is still (after achieving level 99, retiring, and coming back) an avid Slayer. I watched his journey, skimmed advice from him along the way, both in-game and on the forums. Finally after hating the slayer skill for the entire time that it was out, I decided to jump in with both feet. It is not hard to see the motivation behind Slayer, Jagex has made it very clear that Slayer is one of their top priorities through many updates, many great drops, and the most recent vast improvement in rewards. So why did I hate it so much?
Slayer is different from most of the other skills in Runescape in that it is all encompassing; it is almost like playing a completely different game. You can choose to melee, to range, to mage, or even to skip a task, but that is what each day is when you are training Slayer. You get a task and you kill some monster you don’t want to kill over and over again. I guess the part I don’t like is that you cannot really shape your own path. You just have to go along with whatever the master says. When I was training Magic I chose to alch or to mage iron dragons or whatever my preference was at the time. Really though when you get down to it, you do not have a choice in how you level anything. You either choose the cheapest or the fastest experience points then go with it from there. So truthfully in the end I came to terms with taking orders from Duradel.
My journey to 85 slayer had the benefit of thousands of people who came before me. People like Lil Mcginley who made the mistakes, broke the ground, and shared their methods with me. But like I said, Slayer is a whole different game. I did not know just how much it takes over everything else in Runescape. When I found myself approaching my goal I really was left with the question of "What next?" This is a question nobody can really answer. To me Slayer becomes the game simply because of the magnitude. You must have the perfect gear for every situation, you level each of your combat stats as a side-effect, making them be a result of playing, instead of the cause of playing. As a result of that any non-slayer combat feels like a "waste" because you are *just* getting combat experience. Any piece of armor that is not the absolute best for the job feels like a waste, any skill or spell that does not contribute to Slayer, is simply a distraction. I have barely scratched the surface with level 85, I cannot even imagine putting in the time and effort for 99.
It is kind of hard moving on from such a rare, hard, slow, and all encompassing skill but I think I can manage. In fact I think I could do without working on a 15k/hour skill for the foreseeable future.
Some Thoughts on Achievements by Lil_Mcginley
We all see many skill capes around RuneScape; the vast majority of people who play have one. Granted not everyone can have a skill cape but they are becoming more of a fixture of the RuneScape society. This Herald will cover my main point; that point will be the titles that go along with certain skill capes and should they be attached to them?
To jump into my point I will cite The Slayers’ Guild forums. We at TSG take pride in our looks and skillful play of RuneScape, we tend look down on people who don’t slay properly and wear the incorrect gear or do noobish things. We have a thread called "The Wall of Noobism"; it is roughly 48 pages long and contains a collection of pictures of people around RuneScape acting noobish. Usually comments are posted based on our reaction to that photo. Photos include people praying mage in melee gear (not prayer friendly gear) and some others include people asking stupid questions or generally acting like a noob. The most common pictures however include people wearing untrimmed fletching or cooking capes, along with them saying something stupid, which usually follows soon after meeting them. Granted 99 Fletching is one of the easiest skills, but that person still sat at their computer and fletched 75k yew longbows. Some RuneScape players look down on someone who is 1 of 43,000+ players to achieve 99 Fletching, even though I do not have 99 Fletching, I still know it is easy to obtain and I have done harder skills. So I ask you GRS, Are there titles that go along with certain skill capes? Should someone be called a noob for having the easiest 99 Cape and being proud of it? Should a 99 Slayer be called a noob for having no life and disregarded for having roughly the hardest and slowest skill in the game?
I end this Herald saying one thing, be careful your goals, because you never know how another person is going to perceive your achievements.
