qeltar

No offense, but you really seem to have bought the swill peddled by the discontinued item shills far more than I'd have expected from you. Yes, the items are rare. You know what? There are lots of rare things that are worth jack squat. The only reason that these particular rare items are so (over)valued is because of all the hype and mystique that has built up over the years about them. Which has, I might point out, been pushed and reinforced continuously by those seeking to profit from these goods. You mention fear -- its counterparts are greed and envy, and those have been the main motivations responsible for inflating the rare balloon. If the game changes so that fewer people really care about wearing a silly paper Burger King hat, then the value of those hats will drop in price, no matter how rare they are. And it is my belief that the changes we are seeing so far are leading the game in that direction.

Before my time, but a perusal of past game update announcements suggests a possible impact from the introduction of Farming. I think there is.. when most people have become conditioned to thinking that the prices will "always go up" -- particularly due to being told this by most rare merchants. (Even if not you, I'm sure you will admit that many if not most merchants feed people this line.) It's a matter of odds and degrees. Very few people are actually at risk of having the government "pass a law to take away their house", so this is basically a strawman. If I knew anyone who lived in an area with a government as all-powerful and controlling as Jagex is with its game, and its housing prices had shot up to the degree that rares have in RS, yes, I would. :lol: Sorry, but that's complete nonsense. Most, if not all bubbles can be "explained by economics". They are still bubbles. Huh? Where do you get this stuff from? Bubbles can go on for VERY long periods of time, and can be notoriously difficult to predict. Why, because you say so? Because it happened last month or last year? Maybe. Maybe not. As the big boys say, "past history is no guarantee of future performance". With the major structural changes going on the game today, you could be right or you could be very, very wrong. Well, yes. Bubbles burst because of triggers -- specific reasons. That doesn't mean they aren't bubbles. Well, I agree to some extent. But before you tried the argument that "good people shouldn't suffer (much) from measurements against bad people." And sorry, but the fact is that many merchants deserved what they got here -- and many more, while not guilty of any wrongdoing, don't get any sympathy from me that their "cash cow" has been taken to the abbatoir.

I've been playing RS for two years. The bubble was well in gear when I arrived. And for the record, I have *never* made predictions about when the bubble in rares would "pop". I've only said that I felt it *was* a bubble, and that at any time Jagex could make systemic changes to the game that would stick a pin in it. And that's exactly what has happened. (I realize you said you've been saying the same, and I'll take your word for it.) That there may be an economic basis for a bubble doesn't change that it is a bubble. In fact, there *usually* is -- especially while the bubble is expanding and lots of people seek to explain why. But bubbles always have another factor too -- irrational demand. And that's definitely been the case with rares. This is the flip side of what I said just above. Much as people always have rationalizations for why bubbles expand, so too do they find "simple explanations" for why they implode. That's not to say that you are wrong in explaining what caused the bubble to pop, but it doesn't negate what I'm saying at all. In this case, though, it is more than just changes in population and money supply growth. Jagex has made fundamental changes in the game that are driving out many money-obsessed players. This is helping pop the bubble because those people are largely the ones who inflated it in the first place. Here's your phat price chart. I don't see any large corrections in phat prices from 2004 to 2006. And I am not aware of any that occurred since then -- until this past month. This is what has helped build the bubble -- people feeling like these were infallible, "foolproof investments". The problem with using this argument here is that a rather large percentage of merchants were "bad people", depending on one's definitions of course.

This has been discussed at length in other threads.

Ah. Right on time. Can I call them or what? :mrgreen: Yes, you're the unqualified master of predicting things four minutes after they've been posted. Take another trolling star out of petty cash.

That would be because he is. He also thinks there's "nothing wrong" with luring, and was one of about, oh, 8 people in the entire game to disapprove when Jagex changed the chat interface to block someone from saying his own password, claiming it would be good for "stupid" people to get hacked and quit the game. This is the sort of sick, twisted mentality that results in the rest of us being saddled with limits and restrictions. :(

That's such a rubbish statement that it surprises me you even back it up. Risk doesn't 'suddenly' arise when prices are actually dropping - that risk was in there forever already then, as so many other risks. I may have been a bit less than careful with my terminology, but I think you know full well what I meant there. Yes, the risk was there.. but people THOUGHT there wasn't any. Very much as in all bubbles, people started to think that because the prices had always gone up before that they would continue to do so forever. Corrections in such unrealistic, overheated markets are good things, as far as I am concerned. Especially given how many of the people who participated in that market earned their "wealth".

Glad to hear it. Pretty much all decent people would agree. But the actions that you are upset about weren't really taken to stop scammers. They were created because Jagex has implemented features to stop RWT that require stable market prices. That's the real underlying reason for the price limits and caps. Well, we can have a difference of opinion on this. :D I'm not saying that your opinion doesn't matter. I'm just pointing out that some others seem to think that Jagex isn't entitled to have their own wants and desires about how their game is played. Just because we and others like us enjoy a free market, that doesn't mean Jagex necessarily does. I see your reasoning, and I agree with it in part. I am simply saying that while merchants on the whole are complaining about these restrictions, they are largely the reason they were put into place. And I don't think that in this particular group that the dishonest ones -- or at least, "ethically questionable ones" -- were a small minority; they may not have been a minority at all. Very true. And part of the reason I've been one of those leading the fight against Jagex marketing the game to kids -- with some recent success, too, I might add. But it's a separate issue. And to Jagex's credit, perhaps they are finally realizing that they should stop pretending this should be a "wild wild West" game environment for adults when most of their customers are kids.

Just as is the case with bots.. they make some people happy, and others very UNhappy. If F2Pers provide cheap goods for P2P, then that is good for those who consume those resources, but bad for P2Pers who want to produce the goods themselves. Since the GE came out and F2P/P2P economic integration has increased, the prices on many items have gone way down, effectively putting P2P players who used to gather those items out of business. So.. there are winners and losers. I certainly reject any flat claim that F2P is "good" for P2P -- just as I rejected such claims about bots.

*Some* merchants made money this way. Others made it through deception, dishonesty, taking advantage of others' ignorance, price manipulation and worse. Now, they weren't *all* like that. And in fact, I was one of the people who pointed out that some merchants earned their money through providing the liquidity and other services you mention. But let's be honest -- a lot of merchanting was little more than exploitation. And this is a *game* -- one oriented at kids, too -- it's not supposed to be a cut-throat miniature of big business. Yes, that's one of my points exactly. Well... again.. this is a matter of opinion. And really, Jagex is entitled to have the highest-weighted opinion, since it IS their game. I don't like the limits either.. but I understand why Jagex put them in. What you aren't recognizing -- or perhaps I just missed it in some other discussion -- is that these changes were put into place in many cases BECAUSE of merchants. We've even seen a few of them here on this forum, openly and happily admitting that they manipulated prices, worked to "rip people off" and so forth. Now, is it any surprise that players wouldn't be happy about that, or that Jagex wouldn't want it in their game? My personal opinion is that merchants were not a *primary* target in the recent changes -- the main targets were RWTers, gamblers, bots and cheaters. Merchants (and rare speculators) were just a form of collateral damage that Jagex didn't really mind very much. And frankly, neither have most of the rest of RS players.

Realize what, exactly? I don't understand what the point is here.

But like stocks, you have neither gained or lost money untill you decide to sell. That's a myth. A commonly believed one, but a myth all the same. If you're dealing with an item that is liquid (easily bought and sold) then you gain or lose money on it continuously as its price fluctuates, whether you decide to sell it or not. I don't disagree. But you couldn't make millions an hour chopping wood or mining rocks. And that's what was out of balance. Well, you know you're preaching to the choir on that score. Unfortunately, Jagex let the calls for more freedom in trade go in one eye and out the other. Instead of relaxing the stupid price controls, they are instituting the Junta of Grand Exchange Micromanagement -- and we all know how well THAT is going to work. P.S. Raw chompies are *STILL* under 90 gold pieces.

It may not be true now, but it sure as hell was true two months ago. All you really had to do was get a couple of mil from somewhere (whether legally or illegally), then read a merchanting guide and spend lots of time on the forums and/or autotyping in World 2. It was virtually impossible NOT to make money through simple arbitrage. Right -- it's speculating. And until recently, it too was very low risk, if there was any risk at all. Which is why I think it is GOOD that rare prices have gone down. Not just because I don't like them, but because it's bad for there to be a "sure thing" big money maker in the game. How much work does it take to stand around in W2 buying widgets for X gold pieces and then selling them on the forums for X+20% gold pieces? Not much.

True, but there's more to it than just that. The game is undergoing a sea change at the moment. Many, if not most of the people who previously saw RuneScape as being largely about accumulating wealth, are now altering their focus or moving on to other games. I believe rares are currently at a nexus of sorts. Depending on what further changes Jagex makes, they may either drop some more and then go back up again, or they may fade entirely, becoming a small niche market. They could continue to be high in price but simply not be as sought after as they were in the past.

A bit melodramatic, no? They've stated their reasons for acting as they have. I don't agree with all of it, but that's rather over the top. What you and a few others don't get is that most players never WERE engaged with those activities. In fact, most players disliked merchants and PKers, and didn't care much about duelers only because they kept to themselves. So there's not nearly as much to "get away with" as you seem to think. Well, that's a rather interesting thing to say in a discussion about rares. For ages everyone seemed to justify buying rares on the grounds that they will "always go up in value". Isn't THAT basically getting rich with no risk? And before the recent changes, merchanting was ridiculously easy. Just as the old quip goes that a sign of the impending stock market crash in '29 was when the shoeshine boy was giving stock tips, I felt that merchanting was similarly due for changes when EVERY guide to making money pretty much flatly said that merchanting was the only way to go. Now, I don't necessarily agree with Jagex's decisions about the GE and controlling the marketplace; in fact, I've argued against it. But if you think that most people are unhappy about the demise of merchanting in this game (to whatever extent it has demised) then you're deluding yourself. It IS beneficial to them. And while you seem to denigrate people about being concerned over losing items, that's human nature. Why would people like losing things?

The problem is that it would make members chars weaker in f2p than f2p chars if it is purely p2p yet affects combat. I hope Jagex has taken this into consideration. Take for example, two level 70s, one is members with summoning and the other is f2p. the f2p would have higher att str def hp and prayer, while the member level 70 would be stuck with useless summoning levels. The members guy would have his char ruined for player vs player in f2p, especially when the new single combat area is introduced. Pkers normally like to pk in both f2p and members. F2p is also good for BH since you spend a lot less. :P They could also make one's combat level appear using the old formula on F2P (though that would be rather confusing to some.)

No time to reply in detail at the moment.. perhaps later. But overall.. this is not surprising. It happens all the time in bubbles created for useless items in the real world, and was only a matter of time before it happened in RS as well.

Of course, reptiles also lay eggs... and amphibians... and insects.. and...

I checked at the GE and vulture eggs won't list... probably untradeable.

Nice find. I'm trying chompies. Probably a long shot but what the heck. :)

No offense, but do we really need a new thread in General for every song someone comes up with?

It doesn't MATTER what the relevance is. When you get something for free, it's certainly reasonable to provide feedback or make requests.. but to whine and moan and make demands? No way. Well sure, why do you think Jagex has F2P at all? But most games have limits on free play. I remember when the achievement capes came out..and quite a few F2Pers started moaning that they "deserved" the capes, because of all their "hundreds of hours of hard work" and how it was "harder to get to 99 in F2P". Apparently it never dawned on them that those hundreds of hours were all spent freeloading on the backs of Jagex and the members who pay for the development of features like achievement capes? That's a load of bull. This IS a "real life issue" in that we are talking about real life payment of real money to cover the cost of real programmers doing real work. The analogies are entirely relevant. My membership period started the day after I signed up. You seem to be the one with the mental block here. You're describing a small minority of members and you know it. And I have no problem with F2P players UNTIL they start acting like anyone owes them anything. Well, they are. ZIP ZERO ZILCH. Nada. Nothing. You are getting a free game for UNLIMITED use by the good graces of Jagex. All you are entitled to is to express your thanks and gratitude. As well they should be. They've gotten a lot more than they've paid for. Edit: BBC3's opinions below are an example of an attitude I do NOT hold, for the record.

I wasn't saying anything about you personally. There are, however, a LOT of F2Pers who go on about what's "fair" and how they "deserve" updates and so forth. And that's a load of whiny, ungrateful BS that annoys me. Do you see a difference between someone who pays $30 a month for cable TV service and complains about the picture quality, and someone who gets it for free and complains about the picture quality? Do you see a difference between someone who pays for a meal at a restaurant and then complains that the quality of the food isn't up to snuff, and someone who complains after getting a free meal? If you DON'T see these differences then you have bought into the entitlement mentality. Of course you're content.. you're freeloading! LOL. Yet some can't even be happy with that, they have to complain that they don't "get enough updates". Jagex has said repeatedly that the ads from F2P barely cover the cost of running the F2P servers -- if at all. I run websites and I know how pathetic ad revenues are. Pretty much ALL development is paid for by members.

Here's what's fair: those who get things for free should be quietly grateful and not expect even MORE free stuff that was developed using membership fees. Thorn? Hardly. I'd imagine that most P2Pers consider F2Pers to be freeloaders -- which you are. And that's fine, as long as you don't take the next step to being whiny ingrates.

And in other news.... it has been discovered humans in Gielinor can run around with 50,000 cannonballs without breaking a sweat, but balk at carrying 29 sapphires. (It's a game.)