Bonus XP Weekend/March 2010



The bonus XP weekend was an event that started at 12:00 PM GMT Friday, 12 March 2010 and lasted until early afternoon 12:07 PM GMT Monday, 15 March 2010. During this event, players could have gained a significant amount of extra experience for the first seven hours of their personal gameplay time. This event was members only, but members were able to participate on free-to-play worlds.

Mechanics
When players initially logged in on the weekend, they were to gain 2.7 times the usual rate for all "normal" training activities. The multiplier would then decrease over time to a minimum of 1.1. Time spent off-line or in the lobby does not count towards the lowering of the multiplier.

An "XP+" mini-interface tracks the total amount of bonus xp gained per playing session (not the total experience) for example, lighting a maple log (135 xp) under the 2.7x multiplier would give 364 xp; however, the bonus XP+ counter would only increase by 229.

The current multiplier was shown in-game over the course of the weekend. Players had access to an interface showing a running total of the extra experience they had earned, over what they would have normally earned (since the player had logged in, not over the entire event), as well as the amount of time they had been logged in (total, over the entire event).

Originally, Jagex released an equation that gave the xp multiplier as a function of time, and it was stated that the multiplier would be recalculated on every XP event, accurate to one minute. The intended multiplier was $$\left(\frac{x-10}{7.5}\right)^2+1.1$$ for the first 10 hours, and a constant 1.1 after that, where $$x$$ is the number of hours played. This is shown in the graph on the right, which was also released with the formula.



This would have given an average multiplier of 1.69x over the first 10 hours of play (this average value is computed from the integral of the function: $$\frac1{10}\int_0^{10}\left[\left(\frac{x-10}{7.5}\right)^2+1.1\right]\,dx=1.69$$).

However, when the event started, players noticed that the bonus xp multiplier was lower than expected; it only changed every 45 minutes, and was always a multiple of 0.1. This was due to intermediate rounding. It is not clear how Jagex actually QA tested this update, as this error was almost impossible to miss. The above formula and graph were then deleted from the developer blog and Mod Fnord said that the mistake would not be corrected.

The following table shows how much bonus XP was actually being received after a certain amount of play time. The average multiplier over the first 10 hours was 1.59.

The number of random events many player received when the bonus modifier was in effect was greatly increased. Some players experienced six or more random events within the first half-hour of play. This suggests that the frequency of random events is at least partly dependent on the amount of experience being gained, due to the fact that doing the same activity resulted in more random events with a higher multiplier than with a lower multiplier or no multiplier.

Bonus Activities
What activities will earn me bonus XP?

Normal training activities will earn you the bonus XP. Every fight, log cut or hunter trap you lay will grant you a multiple of the XP it would normally give.

Typical training activities for each skill (not an exhaustive list):


 * Attack and Strength - melee combat
 * Ranged - ranged combat, Circus
 * Magic - magic combat and other spell casting (e.g. enchanting jewellery, alchemy, teleporting), Circus
 * Defence and Hitpoints - from all forms of combat
 * Agility - completing courses, using shortcuts, Circus
 * Construction - building furniture in your POH
 * Cooking - cooking food on range/fire/spit
 * Crafting - crafting pots, armour, jewellery, battlestaves, blowing glass
 * Farming - weeding, planting/harvesting crops, checking tree health (even on trees grown before Bonus XP Weekend)
 * Firemaking - lighting fires, burning Evil tree roots, lighting Beacons, burning Shades
 * Fishing - catching fish
 * Fletching - fletching bows/arrows/crossbows/bolts, etc
 * Herblore - cleaning herbs, mixing potions (including finishing off unfinished potions)
 * Hunter - setting/checking traps, butterfly/bird/impling catching, falconry
 * Mining - mining ores/gems, mining Shooting stars
 * Prayer - burying bones, burning shades, burying Ancient Bones from the Restless Ghost quest
 * Runecrafting - crafting runes at any altar (including ZMI/Ourania Altar), combination runes, crafting tiaras
 * Slayer - doing Slayer tasks
 * Smithing - smelting ores, smithing metal bars
 * Summoning - infusing pouches, summoning familiars
 * Thieving - pickpocketing, thieving from chests/stalls, Pyramid Plunder
 * Woodcutting - cutting trees/Evil trees

Non-Bonus Activities
What activities will NOT earn me bonus XP?


 * Quest XP rewards
 * Items/locations that already give bonus XP, for example:
 * Genie lamps
 * Tomes of experience
 * Goldsmithing gloves
 * Ectofuntus
 * POH altars
 * etc...


 * XP rewards at the end of activities/distractions, for example:
 * Tears of Guthix
 * Soul Wars
 * Pest Control
 * Jade vine
 * Skeletal horror
 * Giving Sq'irk juice to Osman
 * etc...


 * Anything which allows points to be exchanged for XP, for example:
 * Penguin Points
 * Brimhaven Agility Arena tickets
 * Slayer incentives
 * Mrs Winkin's World of Seeds shop from Vinesweeper
 * etc...


 * Any XP earned through the Assist system

Limitations
The bonus XP rate does not affect XP gained from quest rewards, XP items (such as genie lamps), or XP gained on a point by point basis (such as Penguin Points). Furthermore, the effect of Sacred Clay items, Penance horns, and brawling gloves does not stack with the bonus XP rate. Those items can be used without any degradation or potential decrease.

Goldsmithing gauntlets do not work during the bonus XP weekend. Gold ore smelted using the gauntlets will be the same as gold ore smelted without. This gives a smelting XP rate of 22.5 XP per ore times the multiplier.

Barbarian Fishing does not receive any bonus XP for either fishing, strength, or agility.

When training prayer, Player-owned house altars do not give the usual extra experience for having high level altars and/or burners lit during the weekend - instead they only perform at the player's current bonus XP weekend multiplier rate. Conversely, the bonus XP weekend multiplier rate is not applied to the Ectofuntus which continues to give the quadruple prayer experience that it normally does.

Strategy
To optimise the benefit, the basic strategy is to prepare items in advance - acquiring ores, bars, tertiary ingredients, charms and so forth, and then processing these as fast as possible. Detail depends on the player's preferences, for example: If overall gain (towards all 99s, say) is the goal, benefit from individual activities is better measured in time saved rather than in XP:
 * 1) Achieving a particular XP/level goal in some skill or skills
 * 2) Optimising net XP earned
 * 3) Minimising a disliked task
 * 4) Saving money
 * 5) Saving time

Effective multiplier = (multiplier x (prep time + skilling time) - (prep time)/skilling time

So for the basic resource skills such as Woodcutting or Mining, where preparation time is virtually nil, the benefit is simply the multiplier, whereas for summoning collecting the charms probably takes 10 times as long as crafting pouches. So the effective multiplier would be 11 instead of 2 : (2 x (10+1) - 10)/1.

On this basis summoning is the optimal skill to train since its preparation ratio is largest, and not buyable.

To gain maximum XP however by boosting farming one might:
 * 1) Log on 12:00 Friday, check, cut and replant all trees, log off
 * 2) Log on 12:00 Saturday, check, cut and replant all trees, log off
 * 3) Log on 12:00 Sunday, check all trees. (Continue with any other tasks having used a fairly small amount of the time.)

This could provide hundreds of thousands of xp, but the time saving is fairly minimal. On the other hand double value has been had from potentially expensive seeds, saving maybe millions of coins.

You can also have your highest level farm items planted in advance of the bonus xp weekend. Check them immediately upon log in. Replant before you leave the area and repeat above.

Prayer is pretty much cheaper and faster at a player owned house without the bonus XP than normal burying (figures based on 2x). However players who have not spoken to Father Aereck in Lumbridge Church since December 2009 can obtain Ancient Bones (requires completing the Restless Ghost quest if not already completed) which are worth 1000 XP when buried and cannot be used with POH altars or the Ectofuntus, therefore it makes sense to bury these during the Bonus XP Weekend for higher XP.

Slayer is an apparent candidate skill because both slayer and combat skills will be bonused. However this benefit is illusory, the saving is purely in time and as slayer generally yields money, time would be better spent in loss making skills.

For Herblore the best method is to make the highest potions possible and regress to lower potions as supplies deplete. Making a potion high or low level takes the same amount of time the only difference being how much xp gained. Since the Weekend Bonus will eventually go down, making the better potion first will yield the better bonus. Keep in mind that by gaining levels more potions may be unlocked for herbs.

Half or pre-potting the primary item in advance will greatly effect experience gained.

For high-level Runecrafting since ZMI and Graahk methods have conflicting benefits normally, ZMI generally reckoned to be superior in XP, Graahk clearly the leader in coins, players who use both should dedicate this time to ZMI to maximize the XP benefit. Players who runecraft other than at ZMI might also consider playing the Great Orb Project and spending their reward on Runecrafting Teletabs, effectively changing about half their Runecrafting time into 'prep time' that can be carried out in advance. Similarly woodcutters who mix Ivy and tree cutting, should choose this time for Ivy cutting, however if they are also fire-makers they would do better still by considering burning logs which would normally be considered too expensive for the XP gained.

Effect on market
The Grand Exchange market mechanisms were not able to respond quickly enough to the massive surge in demand for precursor items.

Consequently the market sold out of many items, such as magic, yew and eucalytpus logs, most tertiary summoning components (such as tinderboxes, raw beef, uncooked bird meat was trading off exchange for 2k, however less used items such as steel bars were still available), and many other items.

Many of the items relating to less popular skills to train during the weekend went down, notably expensive weapons. For example, dragon claws dropped 1.5m in one day. However, they recovered rather quickly; dragon claws rose about 400k the day after it dropped 1.5m.

Moreover a glut of product meant that pouches for example were likely to drop in price.

Most of the items which had increased in price were back to normal within one or two weeks.

Trivia

 * There was no system update when this was added into the game, and the XP+ interface was easy to miss.
 * In the article on Bonus XP Weekend found on the front page on the Runescape website, it was said that one's XP counter would reach 1.1x after 10 hours of gameplay. Players were disappointed to find out that it actually hit 1.1x after 7 hours of gameplay.
 * No bonus XP was given to Barbarian Fishing at all, in either Fishing, Strength or Agility, while other skills that receive multiple XP such as Slayer did receive the XP bonus.
 * No bonus XP was given to lighting fires in the beacon network.
 * The bonus experience counter in the XP+ interface would reset to zero when a player exited the world they were on.
 * The modifier went down 0.2 each time (2.7, 2.5, 2.3, etc.), but went down only 0.1 after it reached 1.5 (1.5, 1.4, 1.3, etc.).
 * Opening store interfaces gave you a random amount of exp that was unused in any skill.