Wherever you are in the lands of Runescape, you always have the option of a free teleport spell to Lumbridge using the Lumbridge Home Teleport spell. Lumbridge castle is a short jaunt to the city of Al Kharid, and in that city is a place to get free passage all the way across the Runescape F2P world.

I do alot of training on Lesser Demons on the Isle of Kajarma, which is accessed via the Port Sarim docks. Rather than carrying teleport runes with me and taking up precious inventory space that I would rather use for food on the way there, or for treasure and  gold and Adamantium ores that I collect for the trip back to the mainlands- I take advantage of a little secret to get back and forth to the islands and the bank in Al Kharid.

Here’s a typical day of training on Kajarma for my beloved character Havokslinger.

Starting out at Lumbridge Castle ( assuming I have just come back from a round of demon slaying ) after having used the Lumby Home teleport, I head east over the bridge and past the gate to the desert city of Al Kharid. I trot to the bank to deposit my swag. Then I stock up on food and get ready to go back for more monster mutilation.

Simply head south from the city to the little alcove that would be the entrance to the Great Desert area if I were on a member’s world. It’s the place they call… Shantay Pass. Here you will find desert guards and a man called Shantay, who deals in gear for travel in the Desert on members servers. If you pass beyond into the desert you must carry water in order to avoid dying of thirst. After you have spoken to the guard at the Desert gate and go through the dialogue with Shantay you will get an understanding of what this little outpost is used for.

If you are a member there is a huge playing area on the other side of that gate. There are several cities that can be reached by using a network of Flying Carpet vendors who will, for a reasonable fee, let you rent one of their magical carpets to cross barren spans of the brutally hot desert regions. This is a very fun way to travel and will save you considerable water supply. Though your water bags can be filled by cutting open certain cacti if you are carrying a knife, you still will need three or four in inventory to avoid death by dehydration. There is alot to do in the desert.

Now, if you are NOT a member, Shantay Pass is basically useless to you, as the bank facility there is not available on F2P and there is nothing to do except maybe kill a couple guards that don’t drop anything very exciting.

HOWEVER!- there is one cool little feature that makes it quite a valuable place to visit.

Ater getting to know what it’s all about, just talk yourself into getting arrested by conversing with Shantay. When you come here for the free trip after your first arrest (which will take a little longer and establish that he knows you )  just ask Shantay “What is this place?” -TWO TIMES IN A ROW, and you will get the following dialogue box. ( Note you will have to click on the TALK TO SHANTAY option twice.)

Reply by saying  ”I am definately an outlaw, Prepare to die..”  and he will laugh at you and threaten you with jail, or pay him 5 gold coins to get out of trouble.

REFUSE to pay him and you will get locked up !

Once you are in the jail, he will give you one more chance to pay him the 5 gold pieces. Tell him you will  not  pay by choosing the  “No, do your worst!”  response, and you will be transported to the Port Sarim Jail.

Now you have to Pick the lock on the cell door by  right clicking  on it and choosing to Pick the Lock.

  This may take a few tries, but in a matter of seconds you will be free to exit the jail and walk out to Port Sarim. Falador will be directly north and if you are in Al Kharid or around Lumbridge and want to go to Fally, this is a great quick method of getting all the way across the Runescape freeworld without walking or using runes.

Hope this little trick comes in handy for those of you who didn’t know about it !

Hey gang, hope everyone is enjoying the splendid Runescape updates. I have been drinking in all the new wonders of the High Detail world and had the pleasure today of getting to a new combat and a new Strength level in one of the mid-level training areas in the area far south of the city of Falador. Starting out in that city in the Kingdom of Asgarnia, go south out of the city’s southern exit and travel all the way past Port Sarim to the peninsula at the bottom of the map. Past the church and the jail heading to Mudskipper Point (Don’t forget about the ever useful World Map to navigate) You will see the red exclamation point on the minimap that denotes a dungeon.

Climb down into the entrance. As you travel into the caverns there you will encounter low level muggers and will then find yourself in a room filled with PIRATES to train on if you are a low level player. Continue through either of the tunnels and you will find the entrance to the ICE CAVES.

Here is a fine training area for players approaching level 50 or above. The Ice warriors in here are very aggressive and will begin to attack you as soon as you go into their frosty lair. They are superb to train on and have quite good drops including a good number of Nature Runes. The only trouble with this training spot is that the closest bank to replenish your food supply is East of Port Sarim in the small burg of Draynor Village. So go in prepared and be ready to fight.

 Roaming the tunnels to the entrance of the Ice Caves are Hobgoblins, who are especially useful for their drops of Limpwurt roots that are used in combination with Red Spider Eggs to make Strength Potions at the Apothecary in Varrock.  As you enter the caves at the point shown above you will find yourself in an arctic area underground that is filled with Ice warriors who are “chillin out” so to speak ( .. yeah I know…)

 These “cool cats” are fairly tough and will be all over you when you walk through, so be sure you are up to the task if you are just looking around or if you have come here to kick some ice.  But the real meat of the caves are the Ice Giants. They are lower level than the Warriors, but have better variety of treasure drops and also yield their coveted “Big Bones” that are GREAT Prayer experience when burying them or, as some folks do, collect them and sell them for a pretty good price.

  The tough part about getting to combat these big fellows is that the smaller-yet more powerful- Ice warriors will continue to attack you and until you have been in the area for about twenty minutes (at which point they will let you alone so that you can freely chose what you want to target) and make it difficult to get a crack at the Giants. In addition to their big bones, they drop Adamantium Arrows, Black Kite shields and a decent assortment of other booty.

I had the pleasure of training here this morning and (Finally ) made it to Strength level 91 !… at the very same instant much to my surprise because I had not been checking on my level status, I hit Combat level 106 !! Yay me. So it was a good day in the icy realm of these creatures and I urge you all to come check out one of the more pleasant places ( not so gloomy as most dungeons) to train on the free worlds. Have at them folks, and see you next post.

Well, it’s finally here folks. Those of us F2P Runescape junkies at last have available High Detail ( Runescape HD…) Runescape. And it is well worth the waiting we endured. A sad note is that at this time unless you are a member you cannot enjoy the splendid full screen version of the game. But rest assured you will enjoy the wonderful souped-up graphics and …well high detail, of the complete Runescape world. I am quite impressed and at this writing have actually only seen a few bits of the improved landscape and character/monster detail.

The areas where I usually train are all that I have checked out so far (Lesser Demon area above for one)  besides the major city teleportation sites like Varrock and Falador. I think they have done a really nice job and am looking forward to exploring further. I have mentally plotted out waiting until I am Combat level 110 before I join Members for the rest of my Runescape career and am sure that by then things will look even better.

I am sorry to all of you who do not have computers that are up to speed and cannot enjoy the HD mode, BUT- all of the graphical improvements to the characters, buildings, landscapes and just about everything in the RS universe still look better, so no one loses. Whether you are playing in HD or  the standard Runescape mode, your character now enjoys a new look, with completely re-vamped emotes and sweet new spell effects.

    Here is an example of the new look given to spells. These shots of me coming through the teleportation matrix are on standard- NOT HD. So you can see that all of us have scored on some level and next we will take a look at some of the sweet mega-coolness of the high detail stuff (I know-I’m corny, but I am digging this shit, lol)

The lighting and water effects are superb, and brings the game to a new level of enjoyment for me. Those of us who have been around since the beginning and stayed despite the cheese-o-rama 2d graphics of the original game ( See the June 21 ‘08 Post to see a history of Runescape Graphics ) are hyped that our long lived characters have truly come of age.

I’m off to look around our new surroundings and will see you next time.

As we all wait with baited breath for the release of Runescape High Definition and all that it entails, the standard method of play (which will still be available if your computer cannot handle the mighty new graphics) has gotten re-vamped. One of the areas to get re-designed is the desert city and surrounding areas of Al Kharid. The characters and buildings have gotten a new look and it is looking very good.

This was always a fun place to come and train mining, crafting and combat in my mid levels. Then they even gave free worlders access to the Duel Arena after a few years of that neat place being a members-only feature. Al Kharid is a truly neat environment and with it being so close to Lumbridge, it is a very convenient place to come after using the Lumbridge Home teleport spell to bank and do other business such as using the Furnace to smelt ores. It is probably the best place on F2P (free to play) to do that considering it’s close proximity between the Furnace and the city’s bank.

Here’s a look at what Jagex has done to the Scorpion pit mines and the area between that and the city proper. All the visuals, from the ore sites to the new and improved scorpions, are truly a nice touch.

Not being a Member at the time, I don’t know as yet how it will look on the new HD graphics, but on standard High or Low Detail, it is a wonderful improvement to one of my favorite cities on the free worlds.

 Here’s me having a go at the Adamantium ores at the far end of the pit. Lots more texture detail on the rocky surface of the mining area add to the rustic feel of the place.

As you can see it’s quite an improvement. I can’t wait to see how it looks when the Beta testing period is over and we all get to see the new Graphics package and the awesome new full-screen mode, which will vastly improve gameplay.

 Here you can see the much better visuals in the desert stretch from the mining pit to Al Kharid itself, the water is already much better and promises to improve even more if you are able to enjoy the new HD package.

The NPC’s are also looking quite a bit better. It’s seriously more fun to battle when your enemies look and have the feel of a bit more realistic set of miniatures. We all love Runescape, and I think we can all agree that all the hard work and improvements to the game will make it even more popular than it already is.

 Here the new and improved Palace Guards team up on a lower level dude clad in Iron armor. You will notice that the look of the armor has changed, it took me a couple of days to get used to the look of the new FULL HELMETS that now appear quite different. Go and check out the improvements for yourself and in the next post we will have a look at more of the features of Al Kharid and teach those of you who do not know the little secret that lies at the farthest south point of the desert area; A free trip all the way across the Runescape map to Port Sarim from here !