Just to introduce myself. My character's name is Sharper2 and I have played Runescape across 4 character since the middle of 2001. I understand how Runescape works and have completed my fair share of merchanting over the different economy circumstances. I would just like to state my opinion on the much hyped subject and try to convey to people why Rares really do mean nothing to the Runescape economy. My view: Rares are nothing. (Simple isn't it :P) Basically I have merchanted almost every single Runescape item that has any value and have seen the traits of their price changes and the effect of updates to the game. Made and lost many a GP and even had a hand in some significant historical events :) The reason why I believe Rares do not mean anything to the Runescape economy is because I believe they would have absolutely no effect on the economy if they were to suddenly dissapear. The price of raw materials through Runescape history have held their prices in a very stable manner. Some raw materials have become easy to gather over time and others alot harder. The price of these materials has been reflected by these gameplay changes. One simple example is the once only theivable Blood Runes which sold for 3k each and now only 600gp. This comes down to the basic supply and demand of the raw materials in the game. I could go on for hundred's of pages describing how every single raw material in Runescape relates to others and why prices are actually priced as they are. Because prices aren't just made up, the economy has been structured and everything is relative to eachother, later I may go into more depth of this. Ok so to explain in a little more detail why Rares mean nothing to the actual mechanics of the Runescape economy... Rare's weren't a part of Runescape for it's first 12 months of playtime. In this time the game was actually quite simple. The supply and demand of items kept prices of items quite stable, yet with the fast growing player base and gameplay developments the prices of items seemed to abnormally change. However as I have stated above these changes have all been very relative to gameplay changes. The value of Rare items have no effect on the economy as a whole (and in my view even a small effect). The price of Rares continues to rise for 2 simple facts, they become rarer each day as more players start the game and items are lost through banned characters other Rare sinks. The other reason the price extends is simply because the amount of GP in the game rises by millions and millions each hour of every day. And players have to have something to spend this money on. There isn't much difference between a player having 1 billion gp now and someone having 50 million gp in 2001, it's all relative. There is only one flaw in this. The fact that, as we all know, there is way too much money coming into the economy each hour yet the price of raw materials does not vary at all. This just means that every single day more and more players can afford to spend more money on their skills. Buying more raw materials from players for their normal low prices. A point in Rare's favour: OMG whats this? I have something to contribute that is in the favour of Rare's? :o Yes! Rare's actually play a nice little role in the economy. The reason why I am going to mention this point is because I know it is what alot of people (who know what they are talking about) will argue in the favour of Rares :) Rare's somewhat keep the prices of raw materials stable. How? Because of the millions and millions of GP entering the game every hour this money has to be spent on something! If there were no Rare's then people with 100mil+ would start buying raw materials (or something similar) and this may incurr the prices of these raw materials to rise, if the richer players wanted to buy alot of them quickly. There is an example of this. Before Rare's even thought of has a valued or merchantable item there were a few bugs in Runescape that hackers took advantage of. They released millions and millions (could have been billions) of GP into the game and started buying raw materials for over double their regular prices. This is somewhat how the tide of the economy could turn if all of a sudden there weren't item's worth 50mil+ for people to waste their money on (or is invest a better word? :P). I have put some thought into this and have brought my opinion to think that his would be an unlikely scenario. I would expect the economy would take a turn in a different direction though. The game would definately take a step back to earlier times of the economy when raw materials were the spotlight of large trades, and it wasn't unlikely for merchants to be hording mass amounts of raw materials and selling them for top dollar to wannabe level 99ers :P But getting off track here, I made this post initially to discuss Rares and their effect on the economy... Rares have disappeared: Unhappy that your Blue Phat just disappeared? Are you a lucky one that had just sold all your Rares? Yes, scary thoughts. But as we know this will never happen, it is impossible for the Rare's to leave the economy anymore, and unless Jagex do some big gameplay changes their prices will continue to rise as more money flows into the economy. The only way the price of Rares will drop forever is if they do not exist anymore or Jagex makes some big gameplay changes that would change the way money is brought into the game. Overall I think it would be great if the Rare items just suddenly disappeared. I myself would lose a fair bit of money but it would be great for the game. It would return the trading to it's old ways and increase the production of raw materials. I did have more to say but if I say anymore then user's probably wouldn't read my post :) So if you would like to discuss anything in particular in detail I'ld love to join in. Just remember these are just my views that I have come to know from my experience playing Runescape. In an attempt to sum up my view I would say this... "Rare's are nothing but items for the large amounts of GP in the game to be traded around with. In the event that they were no longer in the game the mechanics of the game would still function and the price of raw materials would not ulter." Please feel free to flame me :) Although I'm normally always right of course! :D ;)
