Originally Posted to an LJ community devoted to RS Preface: Subsequently posted it on the Jagex forums - predictably it got buried amongst the dandruff posted by 12 year olds... What Prompted This? I'm starting to see bots and/or Chinese miners in Varrock mining pure ess and Chinese miners at eastern green dragons in lvl 20-25 Chinese miners are kids that are paid to play games and give the gold/loot to their bosses which is then sold on 3rd party sites. Current Locations Posted The same LJ community HeartUnit Forums RunescapeCommunity Forums TipIt Forums Last Edit Sunday, November 26th, 2006 01:15 EST New skill: Merchanting The ONLY skill worth working on past 99!" Locked by a long tedious, fiddly f2p quest (may not gain XP in this skill until unlocked). As in: tedious enough that youÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢d only want to have to do it once ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Ãâ and certainly annoying enough to seriously crimp into autoÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢ers time). Important Concept to Understand: NPC Buyer vs. human players Everyone can sell or buy anything to and from stores. To trade, give, sell to humans requires unlocking the Merchanting skill via quest. Further stages of the Merchanting skill are unlocked via further quests. XP Gained through: -Selling items to buyers (who distribute goods randomly to shops worldwide ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Ãâ prevents ppl selling to shops and buying back) at 75% of the base shop price/low alch value (which ever is higher) -Quest rewards -Genies + Tears of Guthix -mini game rewards etc Lvl 0 ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Ãâ only selling and buying from NPCÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢s/shops Lvl 1 ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Ãâ allows two-way trades at the rate of: 1 gp of value per xp of Merchanting Skill ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Ãâ e.g.: so both parties need 10 million xp in Merchanting to be able to trade 5 million cash for 5 million worth a good and only one way trades (gifts) at the rate of: 2 gp of value per xp of Merchanting Skill ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Ãâ e.g.: so both parties need 10,000 xp in Merchanting to be enable one party to give the other items totalling 20k gp value based upon shop price/low alch value. This would make it riskier to empty out a hacked bank account because you'd have to use and account with a decent merchant skill or take forever to empty it out with a throwaway account. Lvl 11 - allows you to trade bronze items, regular wood, regular bones, basic 6 runes Lvl 21 - allows you to trade iron items, oak, Lvl 30 - another fiddly f2p quest locks trading items past this point (13.3k) Lvl 31 - allows you to trade steel items, willow, members runes, big bones, basic ess Lvl 41 - allows you to trade mithril items, Lvl 50 - another fiddly f2p quest locks trading items past this point; (101k) +5% income from selling to shops/buyers, -5% cost for buying from shops Lvl 51 - allows you to trade addy items, maple, pure ess Lvl 59 - +10% income from selling to shops/buyers, -10% cost for buying from shops Lvl 61 - - allows you to trade rune items, yew, dragon bones, ), able to resist buying junk from Ali Morrisane Lvl 66 - +15% income from selling to shops/buyers, -15% cost for buying from shops Lvl 71 - - allows you to trade rares + dragon + barrows items, magic tree Lvl 74 - +20% income from selling to shops/buyers, -20% cost for buying from shops Lvl 75 ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Ãâ another fiddly p2p quest ocks trading items past this point; (1,096k) Lvl 81 ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Ãâ Able to sell junk to Ali Morrisane! Lvl 96 - +25% income from selling to shops/buyers, -25% cost for buying from shops Lvl 99 - +30% income from selling to shops/buyers, -30% cost for buying from shops =============================== Further details: Quest-Gate for level 1: Make the quest extremely variable, so that it's different almost every time that you do the quest. 1.) Start Quest at Lumby Guide 2.) Deliver 1 of 12 possible items (12x) + 1 of 12 possible items (12x) to 1 of 6 possible people (6x) [864x ] 3.) Complete a Puzzle Box OR pay 1000 gp to skip if you're young/not good at them/a macroer/multier 4.) Deliver 1 of 6 possible Quest only items (6x) + 1 of 10 possible items (10x) to 1 of 20 possible people (20x) [864x1200 = 1036800] 5.) Random Event Type MiniGame - along the lines of the QuizShow - heck it could be a memory game, match 2 to items to get a pair and clear from table. 6.) Get letters of credit to be delivered to each f2p bank in game: West Falador, East Falador, West Varrock, East Varrock, Draynor, Al Kharid, Edgeville (7) 7.) Talk to lumby guide 8.) parcels to be delivered to each f2p general store in the game: Falador, Edgeville, Dwarf Mines, Al Kharid, Lumbridge, Varrock, Rimmington (7) 9.) Talk to Lumby guide and PRESTO! Quest complete; you have learned the f2p map, the location of all banks and general stores and where to find some items. Gain 1000 merchant xp + merchant skill unlocked. Quest-Gates for level 30, 50 & 75: Similar but not as long, always featuring a Puzzlebox and Random Event Type MiniGame. Quest-Gate for level 30 Prerequisite: 10 Random Events will have to have to have been successfully passed (frog kissed, accept beer and kebab from dwarf, axe not damaged by ent, genie lamp accepted, etc.) Each failed event cost you one successful pass (bots, macroers and multiers will fail horribly at this condition. 1 delivery, one puzzlebox (2k to buy bypass), one minigame-random - 30 minutes Quest-Gate for level 50 Prerequisite: 50 Random Events will have to have to have been successfully passed (frog kissed, accept beer and kebab from dwarf, axe not damaged by ent, genie lamp accepted, etc.) Each failed event cost you one successful pass (bots, macroers and multiers will fail horribly at this condition. 2 delivery, one puzzlebox (5k to buy bypass), one minigame-random - 45 minutes Quest-Gate for level 75 Prerequisite: 100 Random Events will have to have to have been successfully passed (frog kissed, accept beer and kebab from dwarf, axe not damaged by ent, genie lamp accepted, etc.) Each failed event cost you one successful pass (bots, macroers and multiers will fail horribly at this condition. 3 delivery, one puzzlebox (10k to buy bypass), one minigame-random - 2 hrs Examples of Buyers Mistag (from the lost City Quest) - buys iron ore and silver ore at the regular prices, iron ore gives 45xp and silver ore gives 72xp Think about it, Mining Buyers in some of the more remote mines that are far away from banks. No more wasteful powermining! Ores sold to MIning buyers could appear at the Blast Furnace ore store! Farmers at all the Farming patches - buy herbs, flowers, veggies, berries, fruit, possibly logs, farming accessories & tools and give merchanting xp at either (shop price or low alch price x0.1 (whichever is higher)). Most people are dumping part of their produce anyway because banks are far away, this way they can get a bit of cash and some Merchanting xp for it. Logging agents in some of the more remote forests like the maple woods in between Sinclair Mansion and Relekka or the willow forest around the Lady's lake. Fishing agents at unused spots like the Fishing platform from sea slug quest (useless at the moment) or on Karamja so that f2p can train fishing at reasonable rate - the fish they sell to agent on karamja could appear in the catherby and/or port sarim fishing stores! =============================== How this will benefit the Meta-Game: -macro'ers seriously hosed -hackers risk more (either an account with high merchanting) or taking a long time to transfer the contents of a bank account to another -scammers faced with diminishing returns - 'pace' of volume of trade slowed down so that each deal is smaller and less worth cheating on, a recent post by a Barrows Scammed person might not have happened at all if they'd had to buy each piece of Verac's individually. Partly because scammed individual would have had more time to check, partly because scammer would have had to decide at which point to pull the scam. -as kovacs pointed out, this will limit the creation of throwaway Bot accounts to 2-3 per day, rather than dozens =============================== v.1.0 as originally posted v 1.4 *fleshed out details on quest-gates *corrected value at which Merchanting xp is earned from 0.1% (I'd meant 10%) to 75% - thank you to chaosperfected for making me sit down and calculate what an f2p player would have to do to get an excellent Merchanting level. 1 potato is 0.75xp, 1 cake is 37.4 xp, 1 willow log is 12xp, 1 yew log is 48 xp, 1 iron ore is 45xp, 1 iron platebody is 420xp, 1 strung yew longbow is 384xp and 1 green dragonhide top is 2340xp. You'll note that finished products are more valuable then raw goods which is as it should be. *removed xp stoppages at each quest gate, instead quest-gates lock ability to trade items beyond them v 1.3 *command trigger type (programming term) "Total Number of Randoms Passed" *conditions for QuestsGates for Merchant lvls 30, 50 & 75: *Clarification between NPC buyers and players one trades with v 1.2 *examples of Buyers: Mistag+Miner Agents, Farmers, Logging agents, fishing agents... *added the slogan: "Merchanting: The ONLY skill worth working on past 99!" *LJ cut as per tech_no_logic's request v 1.1 *Tweaked value at which Merchanting xp is earned from 0.001% to 0.1%, such that 10 potatoes is 1xp, 1 iron ore is 6xp and 1 green dragonhide top is 312xp *Made giving items quest-locked (trading with players at all) and at a rate of 2gp per xp of Merchanting Skill *added Further Details: Quest-gate for lvl 1, and suggestions as to how this would benefit the meta-game Thank you for reading this and contributing to the development of this idea! :)
