“Creativity Ore”.

Mining has, for a long time, been left untouched. With only 2 new “ores” added into the skill since I started playing in 2004, it’s safe to say it’s very neglected and needs some love. Unfortunately, I only know of one person who actually likes the skill. Why? Because it’s boring and most people will agree. What we know about Jagex is that they only appear to care about what the majority want - and what’s going through their heads will be, “Mining needs an update, but no-one likes the skill anyway so why bother?”

There’s very little to mining really, you run to an ore filled rock, mine the ore out of it (25 to 28 times), run to the bank and then repeat. With granite’s introduction a while back it took over from iron as the best mining experience out there, but still remains a hard way to train the skill as it’s incredibly far away from ‘civilization’ south of the bandit camp in the desert. So waterskins are required. Even still, the experience is decent… for mining.

Then, I had an idea. How could I make mining more fun, more rewarding and give players an incentive to train it. Runite’s no longer the best armour in the game by far and so there’s really no need for a level 99 miner (or smither) anymore.

First of all, mining needs better pickaxes. I know for a fact that Jagex has the Dragon Pickaxe idea already so I’ll leave it at that, though much like the hatchet, it’ll likely be dropped by a completely irrelevant high levelled monster (instead of being bought from a shop after a mining quest *rolls eyes*). Whilst it would make no sense to put a granite pickaxe ingame when a dragon one is in the works, much like how granite armour is stronger than rune yet a rune pickaxe can mine the ore, it would fit in with the red axe dwarf storyline which we all seem to have forgotten about.

Secondly, mining needs new “ores” and features. There’s absolutely no reason, other than the cost-reducing effect on construction, that miners should be unable to mine marble and craft them into blocks. Perhaps 80 mining and 75 crafting as it’s requirements. If not, mined marble could be cut by a sculptor for half the price.

Mining gloves, much like the fishing and herblore ones from FOG, should be implemented into the game as a reward from a minigame which involves mining. Maybe the game would ask players to mine different kinds of ore for dwarves to smith a variety of cannonballs, which would then be launched into the enemies base. The gloves would give a 25% boost to the speed of mining a rock containing gold, mithril, adamantite or runite. Other rewards could include pickaxe upgrades or dwarven armour like granite boots.

The age old problem of lower levelled miners getting the ore before those with a higher level should be ammended. The level of a player should most definitely be reflected in the time it takes to get an ore. That, or if you mine a rock - you should always get an ore anyway. Yes, this will cause a reduction in ore prices. Yes, this will mean there are a lot more on the market - but let’s face it, what are you going to do with the ore anyway? Smith it? Into what?

New gems and rare stones should be made availble through mining and put into crafting. For example, aquamarine, tiger’s eye, malachite and quartz could quite easily be made into silver-bound jewlery to give effects such as underwater breathing (for training in combat areas underwater, perhaps?), speed-enhancing necklaces, poison protection and the ability to walk through a dungeon of black demons without once getting attacked (removing the agressiveness of nearby monsters). These gems would be recieved randomly, like any others, and would be crafted at certain levels with silver bars and magic spells.

As you can see, it’s not hard to come up with ideas for RuneScape. It’s not even hard to come up with ideas for a dead skill. I for one am getting annoyed with the fact that Jagex appears to like throwing pointless quests out every two or three weeks without taking into consideration some of the most neglected parts of the game. It’s time for them to prioritize and improve old skills, not make long-winded quests about telekinetic children, not try and distract the few remaining PKers with medium-levelled PvP games and certanily not rushing to get that one update a week.

Until next time;
Anubis.

~ by Anubis on April 17, 2008.