Runescape Bits & Bytes

The start of February means 2010 is one-twelfth complete! January was a big month for us on RSBandB but we'll get to that later, first up your Runescape articles for January written by our intrepid writers.

January was kicked off with Tim's article, Miscellaneous Magic Training, following from December's Magic Skill of The Month. The first Runescape update of 2010 brought us the second Runescape Grandmaster quest entitled "Nomad's Requiem" which was covered by Alex. The next Runescape update encompassed an update to Barbarian Assault and integrating Agility into a few skills. Other Runescape articles were "A New Nation," by Kirby, which delved into possible theories about the much anticipated elf land expansion. Jason brought us a review of ten useful Summoning familiars. Finally, we have Marco's economy article which covered Junk Trading and Chris' article which took a look at the age old favourite PvP minigame: Castle Wars.

This month Kenny made a swap from Gaming to Music. The music articles will come out weekly and feature a discussion and/or review of an album or past concert. The first review covers "This is War" by 30 Seconds to Mars. This month in gaming and tech, Ryan reviewed Assassins Creed II and I discussed starting off the new year right with a concrete backup plan.

The January Cooking Skill of The Month ended with 91,881,240 experience gained. This resulted in Jrdgames taking the win with 31 million experience gained. Congratulations! Here's your trophy:



Other competition winners in January include: Reventon42 (Fight Pits), J Blighted (SKOT(1/2)H), Jsbrules (SKOT(1/2)H), and Jasonmrc (Scavenger Hunt).

These competition winners won various events held by prospective community members eying to become Events Crew staff. With this being said we're proud to announce that Tim and Owen were the successful applicants. Good job to everyone who submitted their application by running their event.

We would also like to welcome Fr0styb0w onboard as a new Gaming writer. Look for Fr0sty's article later this month.

Finally it's with mixed emotions that we move forward into a new era at RSBandB with the departures of Brad and Jeff. Brad has been my co-host on RSBANDBUpdate! for the better part of 200 episodes so it's certainly an understatement to assume that Brad's departure will be a low key affair. Jeff has been instrumental around RSBandB with his initial work on the RuneWire project (he implemented the design). Of course it wouldn't be right to forget all the work that both Brad and Jeff have done in various administration tasks throughout RSBandB. They will be both greatly missed and we wish them well!

Finally we would like you to take this small survey for us to tell us which direction you would like us to take RSBANDBInformer! in general. More specific surveys for RS General, Economy, PvP, Tech, and Gaming will be coming next month.

Now go train Crafting!

Happy New Year!

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves planning for 2010, let's take a look at what December brought us.

December was kicked off on Runescape with "The Temple at Senntisten," a Digsite story line quest covered by Tim. On a related note Alex wrote an articled entitled, "The Mysteries of the Mahjarrat." The second quest of the month, covered by Alex, was "Blood Runs Deep," a continuation of the Freminnik story line. Some of the articles this month were focused on looking back at 2009. Jason's articles are called "Looking Back at The Old Year" part 1 and part 2. Kirby also had a look back at the BTS 2009 posted at this time last year and compared it with what 2009 brought. Tim's year end review was a review of the quests of 2009. Finally our PvP and Economy specialists have their year end reviews, "An Interesting Year for PvP" and "The State of the Game - Economy - 2009." In tech, Paul and I provided you with some expensive and not so expensive gift ideas.

The December Magic Skill of The Month was won by our very own Chris (ChrisT) with 10,059,943 experience gained. Here is your trophy:


Overall 47,190,644 experience was gained in the month of December. With the new year upon us that means that we also have to tally up all the experience gained and find out who gained the most experience this year (otherwise known as SKOTY).

Let's start with some facts of 2009:

• Overal 370,815,669 experience was gained.
  
• The average experience per person over the year was 1,113,561 (rounded).
  
• Tim (Mli 699) gained the most experience in a single month. July 2009, Fletching, he gained 14,701,535 experience.

The person with the most experience gained in 2009 SKOTM's and the SKOTY winner is: Mli 699. Over the entire year he gained 34,140,176 experience. You can find your total 2009 SKOTM experience tally here (middle column is forumID).

Before we move on to start 2010 I have a few other notes to pass along. Both Informer and the Events Crew will be hiring in January, watch the forums for the relevant topics. We have moved our clan chat channel to the username BitsBytes, you can find more info about chat here. Jason, JRDGames, and Riceay13 have been hired as chat mods, congratulations to them! We also have a nice little surprise on the way for everyone.

Without spoiling the surprise, 2009's been a blast and we thank you all for the support in 2009.

Happy New Year!
Shane, Mike, and all of the RSBandB Staff