Many different levels of Giant Cockroaches offer good training and a lot of premo drops for F2P! Jagex throws us a nice bone!I have just today taken my first venture into this fairly new Runescape Update.

To find the place, get to Barbarian Village and head toward Edgeville (North) You’ll see the black square on the minimap. Head into the back of the building where you see the red exlamation point. It’s all pretty simple and intuitive. Go talk to the main NPC (Non Phayer Character) and he will explain what you have to do. It’s all par for the course Runescape activity. But what a boon for us Freeworlders!!!! For those of you noobs, or newbs, (whatever is politically correct recently). This is a very rewarding Runescape Training Area.

Until I make My epic voyage to the members word, it does my heart good to see all the new activity available to Runescape free ! Trust me fellows You will get much pleasure from killing easily Lesser demons on Kajarma once you grow mithril or addy testicles! but I have killed so many of those great Lessers that it makes them at some point a pretty repetitive enemy. lol

So it’s very nice to have a variety of creatures to battle, especially when they offer good treasure for your time! These neat looking and pretty fierce roaches offer nice booty for your exterminating efforts. And this is a creature no one minds wiping out! (ever feel guilty for wasting unicorns??

In the first couple of hours I collected a boatload of Law Runes, Cosmic Runes,  Mithril ore (3 at a time) and even addy ore from the level 83 Cockroches! These Runescape Monsters may sound gross but they look good and are fun to battle and will whip yer’ butt if you’re not careful. The high level ones that I have spent more time battling than the lower level ones drop a seeming average of about 300 gold pieces, while Lessers drop a max 200-ish.

There is also a pair of killer combat gloves to be had at this Magic Roach infested place. (With it’s green accented cave walls it’s a nice environment for underground training.) Find a lever in one of the rooms and pull it- then find another lever to open a Large Chest, and inside you will find a cool looking pair of gloves that match the combat Boots found in the Security Dungeon! It’s easily navigated and not a confusing configuration, so I’ll leave it to you to explore and find the Levers and the Chest.

But consider this good training and a way for you to collect good treasure and store it in the bank above in Edgeville with relatave ease.

I used to make a joke on open chat about us needing Raid for killing scorpions, as they at first looked a bit like roaches. Now we really need Raid (a well known insecticide) in the form of a Rune Weapon to kill these pests!!

Go get some loot!!

 Peaceful fishing or whomping Barbarians!

So you thing you’re getting to be a bit of a Runescape badass huh? you’re leveling up and looking to get good at this game? Well it’s time to get into Barbarian Village and the Edgeville Dungeon! Start from good ol’ Varrok and head west on the “magic road to fish”!

You have to have a certain level of fishing (Refer to the Runescape Manual on the Main Page as you open the Jagex Runescape sight. It has become within the last year a very  insightful tool in learning the  basics in a helpful way thanks to Jagex’s reception of input from actual players.)

The basic principle is to either buy bait (worms) or feathers! (the place you want to be)

Feathers are easily aquired , they cost only a few GP at the Fishing Shop in Port Sarim, or can be gained easily along with Raw Chicken at the chicken farm north of the port (and south of Falador)

So, get yourself a couple of thousand feathers,they are cheap and a fly fishing rod is under 50 gp! so this only takes up 2 inventory spaces .  The Second part of what makes fishing in barbarian village great is that right there inside of the Tavern that’s the main landmark, are fires that you can use to cook your catches of salmon or trout. My strategy was eventually weeding out the Trout and selling them, and keeping the Salmon for my training fuel. And the Edgeville Bank directly north of the fishing area couldn’t be more convenient to store and build up your fish supply whether you are selling them or munching them.

The third and not final reason to train here - because you can not only store the fish u catch - at lower combat levels you can waste the Barbarians or venture into the security dungeon and kill a variety of monsters in there. Be careful though, as you delve deeper into the levels down there, you will find some tough monsters up to level 75. But you are warned before going into each harder area.

But as you eat up all the food in your inventory you can simply go fish for more and then start combatting again without going to a bank.

More on the Security Dungeon in a post by that name. Enjoy and take advantage of Runescape’s Barbarian Village and we will also soon talk about the city of Edgeville and the dungeon there.

 Shark steak?   Roasted Lobster? Grilled Swordfish?   or humble Shrimp.

Lots of good eats to be had for all the fighting for yer’ life you may be getting in to! Take half an hour jaunts out to the fishing places and break it up with some training or maybe doing a quest. You don’t want to get burned out on one particular thing. Thats what drew me in to runescape, the fact that there is so much to do. A multi-taskers dream.

 HUNGRY? You have to start out with sardines and shrimp, but you wil get a crack at more and more meaty fish as you work you way up on Runescape Fishing Skills levels.

On the free world you top out with swordfish harpoon fishing.

Although rather tedious at the beginning, the fishing skill here in the Runescape world is quite important. Starting at Lumbridge Castle go through the gate directly south of the church there where the gate is and go have a chat with the Fishing Tutor. If you have lost or gotten rid of your “small net”, this dude will give you another for free.

There are other ways of getting your grub on Runescape, but fishing is by far the best and most efficient.

It’s one of the simplest ways to make money, but for me -it’s all about fishing for food.

Unfortunately, on the free world, fishing on high levels is a pain in the butt, as the pier on kajarma is the only place to catch lobsters or swordies - and there is no bank there so you have to sell the fish in the shop or make a trip back to the mainland to store them. But as a newer fisherman, its perfect for raising your fishing skill, and as you will see, once you get to the right level, the stream by Barbarian Village is the ideal place to do some heavy duty food stocking-catching lots of Trout and Salmon there. If you decide to go for making alot of money before you adventure, sell the fish and get basic good equipment. Or you can go the route I did and just use your catches for your own personal use, and collect treasure from all the creatures you kill and cash those things in. Of course we all end up doing both.

Either way, you will see the need to spend time getting food from the waters ( although the advent of the Grand Exchange has made it easy enough to just buy food) So take to heart what the guide tells you and start out by netting, cooking, and eating or selling all your seafood.

See the Fishing Guide on Runescape Help Guide as you log in to the main menu on the Jagex Runescape site for all the details of how much experience you will need for each fishing level.

THANKS BE TO THE GODS AT JAGEX;

THIS IS NO LONGER A RUNESCAPE QUEST !

I WILL LEAVE THE POST FOR NOSTALGIC INTERESTS.

long live Runescape ! 

   Witch’s Brew is what you’re after in this in this safe beginner’s quest!

The first step to starting this quest is finding the tiny little burg they call Rimminton. Well if you look at the worldmap, locate The Kingdom of Asgarnia. If coming from Falador Castle, head south past the mining area on the map and you will run square into it. If you’ve lost your bearings and need to start from scratch, simply use your Lumbridge Home Teleport spell and head west from lumby castle, passing Draynor Village and then past Port Sarim. Head southwest till you see the mining area . This is called the Rimmington mines. Directly below is Rimmington itself.

The mines here are good at the beginning stages of your Mining Skill, and the bank in Draynor is fairly convenient to take your loads of copper, tin and iron to. You will also notice that right above Rimmy is Meltzars Maze, which you will explore in depth when you attempt to complete the Dragon Slayer Quest in the future. So remember where that is and it will make your life easier when you approach level 70 and want to attempt that quest.

Now we get to the lady of the hour who you will be running errands for in this quick little quest. (quick that is if you navigate the map well and this will help you get to know the Kingdom of Asgarnia better.

The quest is basically collecting some items for Hetty, the resident witch. You will find that a big part of most quests is collecting stuff and running all over the place.

In order to drink her brew and gain the 325 Magic Experience reward, you will need:

BURNT MEAT~ This is pretty simple, kill a cow, a giant rat, or a bear and take the raw meat to a cooking range. Cook it until it is burnt!  There are giant rats east by port sarim or cows behind the crafting guild. Slaughter something and take it’s meat to the range in Rimmington.

EYE OF NEWT~ This cliche’ item can be bought right next to you to (GO EAST) in the Port Sarim magic shop for a couple of gold pieces.

ONION~ This one’s a gimme! There is an onion field north of Rimmy-just go pick one.

RAT’S TAIL~ There are little rats running around all over the place in Runescape. Once you have started this quest you will be able to retrieve the tail once you have killed one. You will see them scurrying about near the witch’s home.

Go take Hetty all this stuff and collect your reward of 325 Mage exp. and one quest point!

 As you can see, This Mining area is rich in ore and opportunity to make money from all the booty that is available here, in what I knew as “The Scorpion Pit.” There is gold, silver, tin, copper, iron, mithril and adamantium ores here- as well as some tough scorpions!  I have to express here that I was never timid or worried much worrying about getting killed in the game- though the loss of an important item at times has bothered me for days at a time…lol.

This is precisely why everyone should follow the 3 ITEM RULE!  Which means that if you die from being overly adventurous, you won’t lose anything that will be costly to replace… I have lost so many Rune large helmets I cant count, especially in the wildy, as we used to call the wilderness. I stopped wearing a helmet at all for about 2 years . So it is best if you are afraid of dying, until you are strong enough to be confident in a cretain area, wear only armor legs and plate, and your weapon, (and pickaxe in the case of this mining pit) so if you do take a dirt nap, you won’t have to replace helms, amulets, etc.

I digress, but what I’m trying to say is that it’s only fun if you take chances! I’m sure that everyone knows this is the fun in gaming. I had a sad loss of a Blue Mask, that is now worth around 21 million the last time I noticed (though I admit I don’t really keep up on the current prices) that a few years ago I had Paid 400k. (This was alot for me, and in those days-the few months after the Beta Release of “Runescape 2″, I watched myself die more than once in a “computer freeze” that was common in Jagex’s early revamped graphics for the game) anyway my loss of the Blue Mask was disheartening.

Having said that,  if you take a close look at the Scorp Pit, you’ll see that the treasures to be gained here are worth the trouble of carrying some food and a weapon while you mine for many kinds of ore to sell or smith!

 These guys will get ya’ if you’re not careful!

From Lumbridge, cross the bridge in front of the castle and go to the gate you will see directly on the other side. Pay the gatekeeper 10 gold pieces and he will let you pass in to the desert area that is available to free players.  Head south and you will come to the city of Al Kharid. This is a very fun city with lots of things to do and places to train. You will see a bank and many shops. There is a Crafting shop here that will allow you to buy many of the things you will need for beginning and advanced crafting, like needles and thread for making leather armor and molds for making amulets, necklaces, rings and tiaras as well as holy symbols.

Here in Al Kharid is also a Tannery, where you can turn cowhides into leather and then craft leather armor from your tanned hides! These you can then sell to earn cash.

After you have explored the city and seen the palace, (be careful, if you attack the guards there, other guards will gang up on you in this multi-attack area denoted by a little crossed swords icon at the bottom right of your gamescreen) start walking north. At the top of this area of the map you will come to an area whose entrance is a bottlenecked area where if you enter, you will discover the scorpion pit! Here you can mine gold and silver, tin and copper, iron, mithril and even adamantium ores. BEWARE the scorpions, however, until you are a high enough combat level these giant scorpions will attack you! This is a great place to mine and train when you are strong enough. If you go around to the sides of this pit area, you cand stand atop the cliff looking down into the mining area and safely shoot arrows or cast spells on these scorpions and they will not be able to hurt you-an invaluable way to train your Ranging and Mage when you get started in these skills.

Finally, southeast of this area and directly east of the gate where you entered Al Kharid (there is a short path connecting the entrance gate and the entrance to this next Runescape feature) is the Duel Arena! Talk to the man in the booth as you enter the gate to the arena and he will guide you in the workings of this place. The basic concept is that you can challenge other players to battle in the duel arena. Great fun and good combat experience to be had here. This was a members only feature on the game until very recently. You can battle just for fun or you can “stake” items, basically betting items or gold with another player, and whoever is victorious in the battle wins the items bet. There is a whole list of options in combat, whether prayer or potions can be used, what armor is allowed and so on. If you do not stake anything you will NOT lose anything if you die here! If you do perish in combat, you will appear in the hospital there(which is the place where you challenge other players) with all your hitpoints restored and having lost NO items at all unless you have bet them.

All in all, Al Kharid is a great place to spend many hours building skills, training and having a great time. Welcome to the desert, fellow Runers!

 Try your hand at wasting wizards and collecting runes at the Tower!

After having made it back to the mainland from Kajarma (last post) go up north to where the chicken area is and next to that the huge cabbage field. You can collect these cabbages to use as food if you want but they only heal a couple of HP and it is better to kill and cook meat or fish because later on your cooking skill will become very important.

Taking the road that goes by the cabbage patch, head east through the gate opening you will see, and you have just come to Draynor Village. This little city is the closest one to Lumbridge. As you can see if you look at your worldmap we have almost come full circle back to Lumbridge in our little tour here.

Draynor is an important city in many ways for the inexperienced Runescape player, for this will be the place you will travel to often to deposit your inventory full of net fishing booty and tin and iron ore yo will get mining that will get you started on your way to high Runescape levels of these important skills.

Immediately to the right (East) of Draynor you will see a huge wheat field and below that a jail that is really only used at this point on a Quest.  Now go South and you can cross a quite long bridge that will take you to the Wizard’s Tower. This is a fun place to train on lower levels, especially if you are one who wants to make a Runescape Mage character!

Here there are multiple levels in a fun to explore sort of castle where you can kill rather wimply magic users and collect free runes in the proccess. Once you have seen all there is to see in this place, cross the bridge out and stick to the coast and tramp your little feet East and check out the Lumbridge Swamp. In a well thought out re-design, this swamp area used to be a little hard to access, in that you had to go all the way around the castle and city area of Lumbridge (using up a lot of running) to get here. In the updated configuration of Lumby swamp you can now access all the beginner mining and fishing areas to be found here via a simple gate addition very near Lumbridge Castle itself.

So this is it kidlets! Now we have become at least a little bit familiar with the runescape map and can now begin to explore, train in magic, melee, or range careers with hopefully considerably less trouble than I, as a noob, had. 

Next we will see how and where to take the steps from novice Runescapers to more experienced adventurers! Thanks for coming along.