My name is Serpentotia. If you need a single phrase that can describe me completely, look at my member title. I am The Eternal F2P. That's right, I have always, and will always, play in the free world by choice. I have been a longtime member of Subsistence and will probably continue to remain as long as I play Runescape.
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Runescape
The name 'Serpentotia' is of my own creation. When I was thinking up of a character name I wanted something unique, yet something I wouldnt mind being called by other players and by NPCs when I did quests. Having read the Harry Potter books(love the books, not everything else that is marketed - including the movies), I came across the spell 'Serpensortia'. Specifically, that spell is used to summon a snake from Malfoy's wand in Book 2 in the chapter The Duelling Club. I liked the way it looked so I changed the second 'S' to a 'T' to make it sound like a name, and Serpentotia was born. Now wherever I go online, I call myself Serpentotia. Chances are, if you come across a Serpentotia, it'll most likely be me since its a name that has served me well.For a full list of my current levels, check my signature behind the spoiler tags - I tend to keep that uptodate whenever I level. Briefly, though I enjoy skilling more than killing (thats not to say I don't enjoy the odd scuffle at Clanwars, but I dont PK) and my personal favourite skill is Mining. For some reason I've always loved it more than the others, and to balance things out I've hated Woodcutting more than most people. I suppose that comes from how you don't always need to be attentive at the keyboard to train Woodcutting, whereas you need to be on your toes for Mining.My least liked skill though, is Runecrafting. No matter how you look at it, Runecrafting is slow to train - much more so in f2p. Prayer is a close second due to how few resources are available to train it in free play. Despite that, if you have the money and the patience to buy then bury all your bones, you can train Prayer. Even the prayer urns update makes it more worthwhile to kill demons and get some prayer xp in at the same time. For Runecrafting, even if you have all the essense you need to get to a certain level, you'll still have to run back and forth between alter and bank. Or you can spend time doing minigames and using their rewards to train it - which takes longer.I've been playing since around 2005 and I've seen all types of players - from people who are really worth talking to, to morons who everyone would be much better off without. I've had people who wanted me to add them simply because I had 2 lines of convorsation with them, or helped them out.
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If I can play without begging, you can too
Begging others for money/items is really one of my pet peeves and it can get me riled up in next to no time. I've been scammed to pay more for something than it was actually worth, and hacked twice (the first time I was careless with my password, the second time it was a bot and it was completely unexpected). Each time, I have built myself back up from scratch and never needed to beg for money from anyone - which is something I've prided myself in. Live and learn is my motto. It's also the reason why I'm very strongly against begging in all its forms. 'Asking' a bunch of people(in a clanchat) or asking a friend over pm if they will 'lend' you money counts as begging in my book.
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Why so F2p?
As I've mentioned, I'm a free player by choice. I never have been and never will be a member. Even if someone were to offer to pay a few months of membership for me, I would still decline the offer. Even if I logged in one day and found out that I was a member, I still would only play on free worlds. There are several reasons for this.Firstly, I like the simplicity of free play. Sure it takes longer to do anything, but there's no compulsion. I never feel like "I've paid to play this game, I'm wasting my money if i'm not playing or training". Yes I do sometimes play for longer than some members, but I do so because I enjoy it.People have tried to tell me that I'd love members and I don't know what I'm missing out on. I have no doubt that I would enjoy members because the extra content is worth the price (there are other mmos out there who make you pay far more and offer far less in return). But the fact is, I am not tempted to buy membership. I keep uptodate on even p2p updates by reading the Runescape Wiki and it's because of that that I'm not tempted because I know what I'm missing. There are only two things in p2p that have ever tempted me:
- Stealing Creation: I like training skills and combat equally, and don't like training a few skills to the exclusion of everything else. It's because I'm an all-rounder that I know I'd do very well in a game of Stealing Creation.
- Shooting Stars: Again, this comes from me having a high Mining level. I'd just love to find a star and mine the crap out of it just because I can. Mining is slow to train so something to make it more interesting is definitely a plus in my book.
Ultimately, its the wow factor that keeps me as a free player. When someone sees my stats on the highscores or in quickchat and realise I did all that in the free world, its those moments that make me proud to be a free player. Say what you will, you can't put a price on Shock and Awe."..Respect is the ultimate currency..."
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Other Clans and Life in F2P
While Subsistence is the main clan I am a member of (and the one I am part of as far as the runescape clanchat is concerned), it is by no means the only clan I'm in. I am in 2 other clans - Babylon(now called Free Players) and The Total F2p Skillers. Both are pure f2p clans and I'm an avid participator on each of their forums.Being the only pure f2p in Subsistence, its nice to be with players who also have very respectable levels (quite often better levels) as compared to my own, and are also completely free to play. When something big comes along that will affect the free to play world, these are the people I discuss and debate it with.As a free player I don't expect to get many updates - most of the updates are rightfully geared towards members. But sometimes even a small graphical tweak or a bugfix every fortnight or so wouldnt go amiss. When f2p actually gets some additional non-holiday ingame content, I'm over the moon because of how rare it is. I honestly don't expect very much content because I have lived through a period of time where the free play world got absolutely NO updates at all (excluding the holiday events).Lately though, I've been severely disappointed with Jagex's modus operendi. Although I can see and agree with their goals, the path they choose to take seems to do the maximum damage to the playerbase as well, yet they plough on regardless. Mods are not allowed to do anything but show overwhelming support for any Jagex update and if they show any dissent they lose their modship.For the 'Number 1 Free to Play' game, they sure are trying their hardest to get rid of the free play version - or make it as unplayable as they possibly can in the hope that the disgruntled free players will start paying them out of desperation. For a company that claims to listen to their community, they sure do their hardest to ignore that community when they raise concerns over the decisions that are made that will have an obvious adverse effect to the game. In a word, they are hypocrites
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No PK
"I'm bloodthirsty but only as long as my items are safe."
That's pretty much me in a nutshell. I enjoy combat and killing other players, but I like my things. I don't like to lose my equipment on a lucky hit, or an unlucky streak of 0s.I quite enjoy Clanwars, the Free for All white portal and Fist of Guthix games,because I can go in with my best equipment knowing that I'll still have it at the end. The first time I ventured into the wilderness was after the Wildy-trade update because I knew it was safer than it had been with all the pkers around.Even now, after all these years, when I go into the wilderness to mine runite, I get stressed beacuse of the fear of being attacked by another player and losing my things. The stress was there with the revenants as well, but at least you could outrun a revenant ork/knight and trap them behind walls. Can't do that with another player.Besides, being as balanced as I am makes me a bad pker. People who pk are either pures (or pure to some degree) or maxed out (or close to it). I am neither, so I make a terrible pker.
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A Brief History
My true history begins in the clan called The Runite Legion (TRL for short) which I joined after a long period of being clan-less. I was a part of TRL for 2 years, even part of the leadership at one point, before it fell apart. While there though, I met some great people - most of the 'old timers' in Subsistence were originally in TRL - Wizarrd, Buck Teeth(Drop Bear), Antelope, Useph(Christian), and Knightlag(Joshua) to name but a few. I was disheartened after TRL fell apart and ended up taking a break from rs for a few months. Eventually I started playing again and Wizarrd invited me to join Subsistence, where I was welcomed with open arms.Soon after joining I found myself offered the position of Assistant Leader along with MiniBandGeek, due to my performance and valued input when I was part of TRL. It was a tempting offer but I had to decline as I did not feel I had done enough in Subsistence to deserve it at the time, and I was still disheartened after the fall of TRL to be involved in any leadership role at the time.Soon, the rank of Senior Clanmate was created, and when offered that, I gladly accepted
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Notable Moments
For the most part I've been pretty much doing my own thing in Subsistence, attending events every now and then, but there are a few moments that stand out from the rest.
- There was that Dungeoneering Boss Guide I wrote. I'm particularly proud of that. I was given the idea by a member in another clan and, once I gave it some thought, I realised it wasn't a bad idea.I had the format thought out of early on - and once I got around to typing it up, I was surprised by how much there was to it. I took it step by step, one boss at a time and after about 3 sessions, I had the whole thing typed up and posted on the forum. The hard part though, was getting the images for it. Every picture in there has been taken with the Orb of Occulus in a solo dungeon. While most bosses were relatively simple to screenie, others were trickier as they moved around the room in a pattern - all except Ba'laak the Pummeller. Ba'laak walks around in an unpredictable manner and mostly when I'd find him in a good location, my camera wouldnt have the proper angle, and by the time I would get it there, he had moved. It took a LOT of patience to get the perfect shot of him.It was later on that I added the Miniboss guide to it, as I realised that these monsters needed special attention as they could kill you as easily as any boss. I will admitt that instead of waiting around in a dungeon till I saw them (their appearance is random and depends on the size of the party), I took the images off of the RS Wiki and put them all together. Some clanmates also offered some tips for P2P so I took those into consideration and added a P2P tips section to the guide as well.
- Another notable moment for me was the time I actually accepted a Leadership position. Poe told me she had been thinking about implementing a Mentor System to enable newer clanmates to benefit from the knowledge of the more experienced ones. After doing some brainstorming with her, I accepted the position and got to work on it immedietely. We got a great response from the clan as a lot of members wanted to apply for the Mentor and Guru posts in a variety of skills. Me and Poe spent time interviewing each one and eventually had a good spread of Mentors and Gurus in various skills.Unfortunately, when the time came to actually hold a skill seminar, we were unable to find a suitable date and time, so the whole thing came to a halt.
- I also put forth the suggestion to create the Correctional Facility - a forum where people who don't treat other clanmates in the proper manner, are placed. It is a solitary confinement of sorts and after it was created, I made the original topic to 'welcome' the inmates. I am happy to say that everyone who has been put into the Correctional Facility (we only use it as a last resort) has come out a far better member than when they went in.I remained in Leadership for a while after this, until I became inactive and subsequently stepped down to Senior Member.
- I even once posted up a Runescape Story I had been working on but never completed. With the help and feedback from the readers I added several new chapters to it. Unfortunately, that too, came to a halt and the story remains unfinished to this day. One thing writing the story did do for me was to make me more aware of the Runescape world. For several of the descriptive sections, I had to physically log in and go to that part of the world, picking out all the details that everyone else just ignores, in order to paint an accurate picture of the scene.
- Another great moment was the Subsistence Olympics, hosted by Poe. It was great to be in a skilling contest with other clanmates, all striving to beat one another in terms of xp and levels gained. It was a tough struggle, but I managed to come out on top in the f2p division having gained the most f2p xp overall. It was a ton of fun and I hope to keep my title the next time the Olympics are held.
- Then there was the time when we were choosing a new motto for Subsistence.After a great deal of thought, I suggested the following:We are the apple that fell from the dying tree.We are the next generation.We are Subsistence, and we live on! I was incredibly pleased to see that suggestion go forward and actually be picked to be our official clan motto. Christian even gave it his personal recommendation, saying it was what he had been thinking of when he created Subsistence in the first place. My suggestion was put on the Runehead memberlist page and one of our clanmates even created an image that incorporated it. It was a great honour to see my suggestion be placed there - as the first thing any other clan would see and read when they went to view our memberlist to gauge our potential.
- It was great when we upgraded to the new version of the forums, but a shame when all our data was lost because of a bug in the system.
- I also remember introducing Horsesmad50 to the clan. She was my best friend on rs and after bugging her for years to join, she finally did and I was really glad that she fit right in. Heck, if it wasn't for her, Momo's Mudhutt wouldnt have gotten as much attention as it did, and after she posted her fingerpainting of it on the forum, every other leader subsequently changed the name of their office in ventrilo to something hilarious. And that was within her first week of being in the clan XD
- The new clanchat system came out in Runescape and we ended up hosting our meetings in the clan tent - which was much more private than the old al-kharid rooftop. It was there that we decided we needed a Clan Scribe for the meetings. I held the vote and then chose Horsesmad for it - which was something she did really well.
Serpentotia - 2011 and beyond
Over time my love of Runescape has diminished, but one thing I will never do is turn my back on all the friends I made here. I may stop playing but I won't stop logging into the lobby to talk.Nowadays, I am recovering from the second hack and building myself back up again. I may have lost my items but I don't lose my levels or my pride as a free player. I am slowly playing more and more, though my connection - which has always been the variable - is worse than usual, so I don't remain on anywhere near as long as I used to. Still, even after all these years, Runescape is still fun for me to play
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Contacting me
I prefer not to make my real life information known to everyone. I apologise but it's a personal thing - I value my privacy. If I know someone well enough, I give them info so I can talk to them out of runescape as well.In the meantime, if you wish to contact/ask me something, just send me a pm on the forums. I am notified of any pm I get on the Subsistence forums on my Hotmail account, which I check every day
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Peace out and happy gaming everyone.
