qeltar

About that. I know what that site looked like before December, you know. "Buying new black BMW convertible for $15,000, please call 555-1212"! Wow, look, BMWs are only 15,000 dollars now!

I'd say you're way off the mark there. The game used to be overrun with bots. They are now nearly entirely gone. Not 70% of them gone -- close to 100%. The price of mils before the recent changes was around $3. Now it is $6+ -- that's double. I went to several gold sites and every single one requires you to give your account details. I can assure you that MUCH fewer people are willing to do that than are willing to meet a stranger for an "unbalanced trade". I don't know what you are trying to prove here. It seems to boil down to "Jagex's effort wasn't perfect so they shouldn't have done it", which is nonsense. Re-read alcoolj's post -- it wasn't all RWT that was the danger here, but a specific type that Jagex has nearly completely eliminated. And don't forget that the changes aren't over. Some of the current ways of trading gold are based on GE and other flaws that will (hopefully) soon be corrected.

That about covers it. I never understand what the point is of these sorts of threads. Just because you cannot eliminate 100% of something, that doesn't mean there's no value in getting rid of 99% of it, and that's what Jagex has done.

Right. I mean, heaven forbid anyone should actually find out what's going on behind the Runite Curtain. :roll:

Have you ever participated in a thread where you did not, at some point, try to show off that you're some sort of RuneScape God With Inside Knowledge [tm] via a comment like this one?

And you think Jagex couldn't have handled their bot problem if they were running a game 1/100th the size of what it is now? The fact that it wasn't advertised is a big reason WHY he didn't have tons of bot problems. Sure. :wall:

Uh.. that doesn't prove jack squat, actually, even if it's true (which I doubt). Considering that he's a thief, if all they did was ask him then he got off easy. Jagex allow you to download the Client that forms both RS and RS2 without stopping you. Yes, so? They allow you to download it and use it according to the terms of service you agree to when you sign up. They sure as hell do NOT allow you to download it to set up competing servers and charge for them. Riiiiiight. And how many users did he have? Did you ever consider that he didn't have much of a bot problem because nobody really gave a damn about his little server except for a small circle of people?

Uh.. that doesn't prove jack squat, actually, even if it's true (which I doubt). Considering that he's a thief, if all they did was ask him then he got off easy.

I think this little troll said it best.

Agree with some of your comments, but... ...I think these two paragraphs contradict each other. The second one is essentially what I am trying to get across; that the price controls substantially curtail volume. I do not see how you can argue that a dysfunctional market with most people standing on the sidelines would not result in greater price swings than one with lots of active participants. It is well known in market theory that volatility is inversely proportional to transaction volume.

If people don't care about the economy, that's fine. But when people like myself, who do care about it and also happen to know something about, it try to show what's going on only to have their explanations dismissed without a single thought, that's ignorant. And sorry, alcoolj, but I do think most RS players have absolutely no clue what is going on in the markets, or why prices are moving around as they are. And Jagex is very happy for it to be that way. As for smugness -- I've been called worse. Only so much time one can spend banging one's head against a brick wall before it starts to get on one's nerves.

You're right -- events of the last few weeks indicate that I really should have said "nearly all".

If you can't log in because of the "Login server offline" message... then I think you won't be able to get into *any* world. It's player-specific, not world-specific. I've been unable to get in for at least 3-4 hours now... Edit: 5 minutes after I post that, it lets me in. :D

No you thilly Crewbie... Jagex are on a never-ceasing conspiracy to destroy our RS way of life, honestly! :roll: I guess it's easier to just hand-wave the whole thing away with jokes about conspiracies. The truth, though, is that it is not bots nor conspiracies that is responsible for the problem -- just economic ignorance on the part of Jagex and most RS players.

as far as i know bird nest is a bird nest , there is no diference where do you obtain it from ... so yeah its possible. No, it isn't. So it's not possible to get bird eggs from them? I'm nearly 100% sure you can't get eggs from nests obtained from mole skins or claw.s :) Well I've killed the mole a lot getting a couple hundred nests and never saw a birds egg in there. Moles don't give birds eggs and even tree seeds are very rare.

Wrong. You've bought into the myth. Look at properly functioning stock markets. Prices do not usually go up and down rapidly *unless* there's a reason. The 5% price ranges are what cause people to fixate on the price being "stuck up" or "stuck down" day after day. They also *dramatically* reduce trade volume, which makes price fluctuations far worse.

Here's what happened. Let's consider the average Joe who is mining pure essence. He has 10k of it in the bank. The price had been in the 110-120 range, then rising slowly, but now it has shot up to 134 "fair" (cough) price, but is actually limit up at 141. You can sell at 141 instantly because there are too many buyers. Now.. with the current system, why would Average Joe Pure Ess Miner sell for 141? He's better off to wait and see what happens the next day. Most sellers do the same.. and so nearly nobody can buy pure ess. The buyers are joined by merchants who *know in advance* that the price is going to go up tomorrow. So the next day comes, now the average price is 141 and ess is limit-up at 149. Sellers? Some may sell to take profits (I did), but others will wait. Same situation persists. The next day, now average price is 149. Again, limit up at 157. Ride the wave, ride the wave. But all waves end. Fourth day, now average price is 157 and max is 165. A few people sell at 165, but there's not much buying interest. Sellers probe the market and see there aren't a lot of buyers at 165, so they realize the streak won't be maintained and they start to sell. They undercut each other, and soon it is selling below 157. Then more people who have been "riding the wave" notice that it has broken. They decide they better sell before the price drops further. Then some people who bought in the 157 range realize that they are too late; they panic and dump. Price goes down more.. and more people sell. And suddenly, after four days of being limit up on price, pure ess is now *limit down*. And that's where we are now.. with pure ess limit *down* at 149, lots of sellers and no buyers. Nearly ALL of this is caused by the price limits themselves. They drive down transaction volume, and cause people to panic when they can't either buy or sell. Without them, as soon as the price started to rise, there would be increasing sales pressure from those holding essence, along with more supply from miners. Could the price fluctuate? I'm sure it would. But nobody would know where the price was going the way they do now, and nobody would be locked out of the market causing panic the way it occurs today.

Chart on the front page looks fine though? I have prices of those items and many more from 12/31 and 1/4... part of a similar but larger project I have been working extensively on for the last week. I can give them to you if you like.

Sorry, I had just written a couple of long posts on the same issue in another thread and didn't feel like repeating myself. Simply put, the autoers left in early December. The price of ess already rose from that, then dropped, and now has taken off again. And the reason for this latest surge is probably a bit of the autoers being gone but there are many other reasons, some of which are more important. Here's what I wrote before: Note that saying something is going up in price due to "fear of change" is kinda silly; people tend to *sell* when scared, not buy.

The recent price rise in pure ess is NOT because of the exit of autoers. That price rise already came and went weeks ago.

What's the point of yet another thread discussing something nobody knows?

This person is right. Yep.. and the Grand Excrement's 5% price limits is what is allowing them to do this. The really smart speculators will make a huge killing, the bad ones will lose their shirts, and the 99% of players who just want ess for RC all lose out due to lack of availability and higher prices. All of which is exactly what I said would happen the day the GE came out, because price controls always have these sorts of effects. Isn't it nice that Jagex is "protecting" us from merchants and "ensuring market stability" with its little rules and restrictions?

Alright, alright, it was at least partially tongue-in-cheek. :P I just find so few people understand simple economic principles like inputs/outputs, the monetary value of time and so forth. Fletching is probably THE most overrated skill in the entire game, because so many people go around saying it's a great way to make money -- heck, it's right at the top of Tip.It's guide to the skill. As you say, RCers have had a free ride for a long time. I don't think pure ess will stay above 150, but it's not going down to 80 again any time soon either. "Nature abhors a vacuum" as they say, and when any skill seems to be too easy a way to make money, people will adapt to "squeeze" the excess profits out of it. Frankly, considering how much money RC has always made, and how hard miners have always had things, I'd say this is a positive development.

Why? Is this a MULTIPLAYER game or just a single player game on shared servers? And if Jagex wanted to force everyone to do everything themselves, why not admit that up front? Why? Because you make 100% profit. Oh, btw I don't think that fletching and wcing is everything in rs. There are many more things you can do that are multiplayer. The dynamic economy was one of the things that MANY players liked about this game. It's not the only thing in the game but trade is very important in an MMO. As for "100% profit", someone else covered that nicely. Remember that the saying "time is money" is just as true in RS as in the real world. I have something I call my "world's simplest RS economic IQ test". I just ask someone: "Do you think fletching bows is a great way to make money?" If they answer "yes", they fail the test.

Pure essence will not stay above 150. Watch.