Farming: A Look Back

It all started on June 6th, 2005. Seeds were released and the farming race had begun. If you are anything like me, nothing gets you more excited than a new skill. Here I am, six weeks later writing this. Let's just say things haven't quite gone as expected. But when does it ever? Here are my musings on the last six weeks of fear and frivolity farming has inflicted upon us:

On June 6th, I gave the ol' glory ammy a rub and I was in Draynor in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, so was everyone else. And I really mean everyone. If you had ever wondered what it would be like to see hundreds of people inside a tiny wooden pen, today was your lucky day.

Of course, the hard part was getting in and out of the pen. In fact, that day a whole set of unspoken "pen etiquette" was created. When to open the gate, when to close it, it’s not rocket science, but that day, I realized it might as well have been with all the trouble it caused.

I almost felt bad for the new guys, happily arriving to Draynor ready to see what the master farmer could give them. They open the gate and... are met with every insult imaginable. The farmer has escaped and the people are upset. They have now learned their lesson. Unfortunately with new people arriving every second, this was repeated and repeated and repeated.

Actually, what I found most surprising was how people could constantly get upset about the gate. The farmer was never staying in there for more than 30 seconds, yet every time he escaped we were met with a chorus of "OMG" and "stupid noob." Honestly, is it worth the effort when it’s happening ALL of the time? Apparently it is.

I kinda felt like the vast quantities of seeds were a joke on us by Jagex. We will give them two new rows of bank space, but also give them a million new items to store. Let me tell you, I have never seen so much junk before in my life. The Draynor bank floor was constantly littered with it. Buckets, half-eaten pies, fishing potions; all the junk you can imagine. I felt like I was part of a newbie’s dream. Too bad all the real noobs were stuck on f2p; they would have had a field day in there. Anyway, I managed to conjure up the bank space for all those seeds. I still have to find more now as farming throws more and more items at us. Two rows of bank space. What a joke.

While doing my seed stealing, I became quite familiar with two comments. The first was actually a question: "are _____ seeds rare?" Well if it took you this long to get one, that would make it rare, wouldn't it? The second one was "omg! I just got a _____ seed!!" I never really got this one. Was this bragging, elation, or just a running commentary on their life? The best part was when it wasn't even that rare of a seed.

I was lucky enough to become a player mod during the seed stealing endeavor, so I was treated to a 3rd statement: "When is farming coming out." I had one and only one response to this question: "July." Needless to say, I was given some follow-up questions.

The sheer monotony of stealing seeds necessitated some sort of distraction, a game if you will. I don't know about all of you, but I had 2 such games. The first was quite simple; I would root for Potato seeds to break 100 in a run. Now I had rules. The run ended when I a) went under 35 hit points or b) ran out of room in my inventory. This game was fun, but not nearly as fun as this second game. The second game potato went from the hero to the villain. It was a race to see what seed would end the round with the most. I didn’t care who beat potato, whether it was onion, cabbage, or barley, I just wanted to see potato go down. You better believe I celebrated on the rare occasion it happened.

There is an aspect I have yet to comment on, and is something I am still sore about: farming tools. We all knew that those tools would be available to buy for cheap the second farming came out. But none of us had the guts to truly believe it. We all spent a long time at those farmers, or spent a pretty penny buying the tools. The icing on the cake was the watering can. Rarest drop of them all, and untradeable. Mysterious, intriguing, and most of all, upsetting. I spent enough time there to acquire 4 of those precious watering cans. Our own Flummbullen spent 4 solid days at the farmers and ended up with 12. And after all that fuss, you can just buy the tools for practically nothing, even the watering can. Kind of makes you feel like a tool (pun intended).

When July 1st rolled around, farming was not released. Not surprising, BECAUSE IT WAS A FRIDAY. This didn’t stop anyone from complaining though. Honestly, if you thought it was coming out on July 1st, you clearly know nothing about anything.

However, July 11th was the day. You know you have been playing RS too long when you have a psychic connection with it. I knew it was coming out then, absolutely knew it. I knew it to the point that my body woke me up at 8:30 A.M. (too early) to go play. Pretty sad, huh?

If you thought the seeds had caused havoc, there is nothing like a new skill showing up on the menu. Unfortunately, I first made my way to the farm south of Fally. I am not kidding you when I say there were 500 people there. It was absolute madness. Luckily I had a few friends and Chow's guide to help me learn how to farm. I started chugging away and by the end of the day I had reached level 32. Not because I had some nice trick, or I was really good at it, but because I played ALL DAY. I told you I liked new skills.

The second day was more fine-tuning. I got a nice system down and realized that this skill was tough. By the end of day 4 I was level 50 farming and I was absolutely sick of it. Raising this skill is like getting teeth pulled, and I don’t like the dentist.

I stole 15,000 potato seeds and I used 200, thanks Jagex.

The only thing good about farming was the great xp from jute seeds. Turns out it was just a bug. Thought farming was bad before? Heh. Thanks Jagex.

It’s hard enough to find the farmers when people are bringing their cats along to act as decoys on the mini-map. Thanks people.

How about the new random event? A pirate, now that makes sense. Anyway, I can’t say I'm a big fan of him. So far we have had two encounters- they both ended up with me being hit on the head and teleported away. Now I consider myself to be a pretty smart guy, but I just can’t figure out how to beat him. The worst part is when you are teleported, you never remember which farm you were at. Random events were made to stop autoers, not to punish the stupid. Thanks Jagex.

To be honest, I still don’t get this skill. I don’t understand how somebody already has 2 million xp. Am I missing some trick because I don’t think I will be level 80 farming for years. If you have any good tips, please call this hotline: 1-800-HELP-APPLE.

All in all, I really can't complain. I always thought Jagex was making RS too easy. That makes the moral of this story somewhere along the lines of "be careful what you wish for." I like to watch TV when I play RS, not take notes on a pad of paper on which farms I have visited and where I still need to go (yes, I did that). So ya, I guess that’s my last six weeks of farming-related activity in a somewhat large nut shell. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. [/sarcasm]

Have a pleasant day and thanks for reading The Villager.

Written by: Applequest
Proofread by: Judge
Coded by: Frogger