Runescape Gold Strategy Guide
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RuneScape Gold Strategy Guide Lesley Harrison Chapter No. 6 "Avoiding Scams" In this package, you will find: A Biography of the author of the book A preview chapter from the book, Chapter NO.6 "Avoiding Scams" A synopsis of the book’s content Information on where to buy this book About the Author Lesley Harrison is an avid gamer who has played a range of online games at a competitive level, from the first MUDs to today's spectacular AAA experiences with 3D graphics. Today, Lesley runs her own video gaming company, Myth Games, and works as a freelance web developer. Lesley has written several books for Packt Publishing, including the WordPress_MU Beginner's Guide and the TortoiseSVN Beginner's Guide. In her spare time Lesley volunteers within several open source projects. Away from the computer she recently found a love for Seiken Ryu Karate, and has reached the rank of first Kyu. I would like to thank the entire Packt team for their patience and understanding while I was working on this book. I would also like to thank the technical reviewers for their time, knowledge, and suggestions. RuneScape is a huge and ever-changing world, and writing a focused guide was quite a challenge. Finally, I would like to thank Jagex for creating such an amazing world, and the RuneScape player community for making it so interesting and fun to play in. For More Information: www.packtpub.com/runescape-mmorpg-gold-strategy-guide/book RuneScape Gold Strategy Guide Making money in RuneScape is challenging, but vitally important if you want to get the best equipment for your character. Whether you're interested in Player vs Player combat, high level dungeons, or just role-playing in cool clothes, you need money to achieve your goals. RuneScape Gold Strategy Guide is the unofficial guide to legitimately making millions in the RuneScape MMORPG. Once you have learned the skills and techniques in the book, you will be equipped to level up faster, earn quicker, and enjoy the game more. Learn where to find the best places to train your skills, what items to buy and when, and how to avoid scammers taking all your money! The book covers gold-earning topics such as gathering, crafting and trading in depth. What This Book Covers Chapter 1, Can I Ever Afford 8 Million Gold for a Dragon Pickaxe?... introduces and briefly explains the world of RuneScape. Chapter 2, Making Earning Easier... gives a brief introduction to the world of RuneScape. You learn how to select a world; how to take advantage of time zones, activities, and server differences to find a good farming spot; how combat levels are calculated and why they matter; and how to get started in the game. Chapter 3, Earning Gold with Gathering skills... explains the gathering skills in detail— what they are, what they provide, and what those skills can be used for. It also teaches how to maximize your income. Chapter 4, Earning Gold with the Artisan Skills... explains the artisan skills, how it's possible to make money with them, and how you could lose money too! It also explains about merchanting, or arbitrage—the practice of buying items for the purpose of re-sale later at a profit. These skills make use of in-game resources and turn them into useful items such as weapons, armour, and food. There's money to be made at each stage of the creation process. For More Information: www.packtpub.com/runescape-mmorpg-gold-strategy-guide/book Chapter 5, Dungeoneering... explains dungeoneering, what it is, and why you'd want to do it. Chapter 6 Avoiding Scams... looks at the darker side of the world of online gaming, and covers some of the more common scams and how to avoid them. Chapter 7, Pricing, Equipment, and Levels... covers issues such as choosing the right gear for your level, finding people to buy your goods in bulk, and deciding what to spend your money on. For More Information: www.packtpub.com/runescape-mmorpg-gold-strategy-guide/book Avoiding Scams Popular MMORPGs such as RuneScape are a huge target for scammers. Some of these scammers are account thieves or hackers that operate outside of the game, while others are people that like to scam players in-game, to take money and items. Most scams are easily avoided if you know what to look for, and think carefully about every situation you fi nd yourself in. This chapter will help you to: Understand the most common scams and hacks Figure out how to spot a scammer Learn how to avoid the most popular tricks So let's get started... What do the scammers hope to gain? RuneScape is a popular game, and there's a huge real-world market for RuneScape gold and high level RuneScape characters. A character with a high combat level, some decent non-combat skills, and a lot of quest points and gold can go for more than $300 on the black market. That might not sound like much if you're a RuneScape player that is attached to your character, but if you're a scammer that steals other people's accounts in bulk, and has no regard for the law, that starts to sound like some pretty easy money. RuneScape gold is also sold on the black market, at a price of approximately £0.45 per million gold. Some of this gold is bought from players looking to recoup some of the costs of their account, but it's a safe bet to assume that a lot of the gold comes from stolen accounts being cleaned out, or scammers ripping off players and selling on their ill-gotten gains. For More Information: www.packtpub.com/runescape-mmorpg-gold-strategy-guide/book Avoiding Scams Let's not forget the people who scam for less nefarious reasons. Some people just like to feel that they've gotten the better of other people, and will steal from newbies or unsuspecting older players, just because they can. Falling for a scam is frustrating, and can set you back a long way in your goals of earning that coveted party hat, cracker, or set of armor. It's also embarrassing, because in hindsight the scam always seems so obvious. Stay on your guard, and don't put yourself in positions where you are likely to be scammed. Popular scams There are several different types of scam. Some scammers rely on quirks of the RuneScape user interface, others rely on fast talking or social engineering, or on a player who does not quite understand the rules of the game. Trading scams Trading scams are some of the most popular types of scam. Scamming players will open a trade window, then close it, blaming lag. They'll keep putting up a trade then close it again, hoping that you'll agree to trade quickly (to avoid the lag). At some point during this opening and closing of the trade window, they'll alter the trade, hoping you won't notice that you're not getting what you originally agreed to trade for; they've swapped their side of the trade for a worthless item. Rounding out your money Some cunning players will say I'm quitting RuneScape! I'm giving away my money. Show me how much you've got and I'll round your money up to an impressive fi gure. You open a trade window and show them 700,000 coins. They put 300,000 in their side of the trade window. That looks like one million to you, so you accept, right? Think about it for a second; you're giving them 700,000 gold. They're giving you 300,000 gold. They profi t by 400,000 and you end up losing money. A surprising number of people fall for this scam. Double your money You may have encountered this scam in other games. It's certainly a popular one in EVE Online, where it's easy to tip people money without having to actually open a trade window with them. It happens a lot in RuneScape too, though. [ 116 ] For More Information: www.packtpub.com/runescape-mmorpg-gold-strategy-guide/book Chapter 6 The scammer offers to double whatever money you send to them. If you send them a small amount, say 10,000 gold, they probably will double it. Sometimes, they'll even double a large quantity of money for one or two people, so that those people will vouch that the scammer is legit. In most cases, though, the scammer will just log in a couple of alternative accounts of their own to shill for them. Once a few people believe that the scammer is legitimate, people will get greedy and trade him large amounts of gold. Of course, he'll log out at this point, and keep all the money. Teleport scams If someone offers you a teleport, look up the location before you accept it. Or even better, just don't accept random teleport offers from people you don't know. It's common for people to offer teleports to safe-sounding locations that are actually in the wilderness. When you accept the teleport, you'll fi nd yourself surrounded by player killers looking to kill you and take whatever you drop. Armor scamming Don't trust people offering to trim your armor. Armour that you obtain untrimmed cannot be trimmed (well, with the exception of Dragon Armour, which you can trim with an ornamental kit). You can buy trimmed armor on the Grand Exchange, or you can earn it by completing the relevant scrolls, but that's the only way you can get trimmed armor.