sees_all1

EDIT: I've now added in a forth topic, discussing price floors and ceilings. I'm looking forward to some insight as to what everyone else thinks. I also welcome discussion on past topics. "Pure inflation isn't that negative" is a point I've bee trying to make for the past three weeks, I'm glad you understand that. The point about junk not existing also gets to the efficiency of the GE, if it was 100% efficient, there could be no junk. Because more money enters the economy, people won't buy them at the old equilibrium price. So it changes. But some items are more elastic... It goes on and on. The point about demand-pull inflation relates in a very strong way with the death of macroing and RWT. I think the full effects of this, along with a crazy increase in demand for pvp materials is starting to hit home. I'm looking forward to reading it, it'll be refreshing to read something from someone who has shown credibility in knowing what they speak about. Thanks for the post.

I make assumptions because its impossible to do ANY calculation WITHOUT assumptions. Being the genius of economics, surely you of all people would know that. It went up 40.8% over the course of 3 months. If you weren't so [developmentally delayed]ed, you might see that rate of inflation is 12% per month. As far as your "golden rule" is concerned, I have never read about that in any work on economics. You're pulling crap out of your [wagon], and I'm calling you out on it. So put together your own basket, tell me what it is, and then tell me what numbers you get out of it. If you have any knowledge of macroeconomics, this should be a trivial task for you. I gave you three examples of items that didn't reach equilibrium over night. I proved you wrong when you said: "Market equilibriums happen very fast these days in RuneScape, even with the 5% limit... Just check any update made to the game that has affected prices of an item, and how fast the prices stabilized, but check them before the 15th of June..." Two months for a game when you supposedly experience 12% inflation a month IS NOT FAST. For your information, I have 54m GP in my bank. Last week I traded it all for uncut sapphires, two days ago I traded it all back. It would have gone faster if I was purchasing for medium price, but I was buying at the minimum. If you're worried that the GP is losing its value too quickly, then don't keep any of it in your bank. By the way, everyone can get rid of their GP simply by trading shops. It might take a while if you have 2B gp, but you can still get rid of it. It holds true for everyone. So get him on IM. I'm not "making this stuff up" when it comes to economic principals, I'm interpreting and applying that which two hundred years of the most brilliant minds have produced. I wish I could say the same for you.

I did the math using methods similar to what Duke Freedom did back in '05. For all the assumptions I made, I came out with a number. Assumptions: 1.Respective XP over a threshold level in each category is only for certain alchable items (if you read his article, it'll make a bit more sense) 2.GP was drained at the same rate as Duke predicted 3.Every player before PVP updates contributed 200k to the economy. The amount of GP I found was on the order of tens of trillions. So, I made the assumption that last month there was 10 trillion GP in runescape. In order to have 3% inflation over the past month: 4.Each PVP world was 3/8th full 5.Every person on a PVP world received drops of coins only 6.When a person died, they would net zero items (including pvp materials / food, potion, weapons, etc.) 7.Every hour everyone on a PVP world would get a drop To cause 3% inflation, the drop had to be valued at 93k gp. Pick whatever points you want on the wiki market watch, but I see the worst price increases were from September to October. The CPI appears to go from 141 to 162, which is 14.8%. That makes the drop value go up to nearly 460k each: The conclusion I draw from this is that while PVP may be a factor of inflation, PVP causing inflation isn't the main source of the 14.8% CPI increase. I will not say that PVP isn't the main source of the CPI increase though, because changes in demand and supply due to PVP can significantly increase CPI levels. Also TS, the point you made that: "Market equilibriums happen very fast these days in RuneScape, even with the 5% limit... Just check any update made to the game that has affected prices of an item, and how fast the prices stabilized, but check them before the 15th of June..." That gives me a month of updates to find things that affected the price, where data is still available. In that time span, there were literally no updates to the game that would case a significant change to supply and demand. However, I have three items in particular that older players will remember: lobsters, rune scimitars and amulets of ranging. Lobsters - after RWT was removed, lobsters plummeted in price. I do not have historical GE graphs, but it took more than a week. Rune Scimitars - After PVP worlds were introduced, it took more than a month for the price to stabilize: a couple weeks to climb and hit the price ceiling, and a couple weeks to come down below the price ceiling. Amulet of Ranging - You can take a look at the graph yourself, but it took more than two months for the price to get anywhere close to "stable" In no way are those time frames "fast". TS, inflation does not hurt players because of how liquid the economy is now. The GP is truly neutral. At any point in time, I can swap out all my GPs for all items, and I can (virtually) swap out all my items for all GP. Unless you hold 2.1 billion GP in your bank (or some other ridiculous sum), the value of GP should not matter to you. Inflation, as I keep repeating over and over again, does not hurt the players. Fixing PVP for the sole purpose of stopping inflation is pointless. Fixing PVP in order to make it more like the Old PVP system without RWT, or to make it more balanced is a much more worthy goal. Another way you can stop inflation, stop price manipulators, and all that jazz is to make all the prices in the economy fixed. Make every item have a specific price, and make it impossible to trade outside of that price. It "fixes" everything, but it also kills runescape.

I agree that the PVP system is broken, but not because of the drop tables, but because of the definition of earned potential. I agree that there should not be price caps or floors of any item on the GE, because it prevents liquidity, and free trade from happening. But I believe its unreasonable to think that the reason PVP needs to be fixed is simply to stop inflation. I also believe that people who think inflation is inherently bad do not understand economics enough to realize that it doesn't matter what money is valued. I also believe that trying to attribute prices of "certain" items solely to inflation is ridiculous. I would say that a market equilibrium of all items will not happen over night, or even in a month. Prices right now are readjusting because of market forces, and not purely because of inflation. I'd also appreciate it if you would stop attacking me personally for disagreeing with you. I haven't ignored any of what you've written, which is why I'm sticking you on several key points. Before you try to belittle me I want you to tell me, in your own words, what you think inflation is. I'm sorry TS, but I'm not going anywhere. That isn't what I'm arguing about. Also, if the majority of your wealth is in GP, then yes, inflation makes you "poor" in the sense that you have less purchasing power. Otherwise, it doesn't make a difference.

TS, items that are bound by alching have a price floor. Inflation means that prices go up, so a price floor does not affect items with inflation in any way. Second of all, could it be possible that instead of inflation, its an increase in demand on items with price caps? For instance, swordfish have a price cap of 500 each. Strength potions have a price cape of 1820 each. Could these items be these prices simply because more people want to PK, and not because the value of gp has gone down? Are you saying that inflation affects different items in different ways? If so, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Inflation is defined as an increase in the money supply, the GP's price goes down while everything else's price goes up. If its not uniform, its not pure inflation. Then the problem isn't inflation, its PVP worlds. Also, I know of very few players who use skilling as their primary money making method. Skillers use skilling as their primary money making method. That's a choice they made long ago, and wear it with pride. Being able to say, "I have never purchase XP, ever". Its the same thing you'll get from any high level pure F2P - "I have never purchased membership, all my XP was earned the hard way." That's fine, but don't get into a hissy fit when others find easier methods earning money or XP, when you refuse to change. TS, you must recognize that with every update, supplies and demands change for different items. This includes new methods for making money to surface, and old methods to become less popular. The more you write, the more I'm beginning to think that the only players change negatively affects are those too stubborn or stupid to change their ways. TS, learn macroeconomics. You may not want to hear it, but unless you know exactly how many GPs are in game, and exactly the value of ALL the items in game, its impossible to know and track inflation for sure. There are different ways to track it though, including putting together baskets of items, tracking the price, and then calculating the deflator. All you've done is say "There is hyper-inflation". Quit making bull claims about an economy you know nothing about.

My biggest problem with your article is this right here: TS, [sarcasm]I believe every GP should be worth one million GP, that way people won't be poor anymore.[/sarcasm] But in all seriousness, that's what inflation is. I suggest you read up on monetary neutrality. I hope you can understand why it doesn't matter if a shrimp costs 20, 50, or 500 gp (or whatever the item low levels need), so long as it reflects the current price level. I believe the problem with PVP is not, and was never in 76king, it was the definition of risk and EP. If you want to see my suggestion for "fixing" this, it can be found here. If you want to discuss the runescape economy, please contribute to this thread I'll probably be posting more stuff on it within the next couple of days.

They're all a bunch of lousy hypocrites. If you're going to PK, don't let what they say upset you. I usually keep my hands off the keyboard until the point I'm ready to throw it. I find that usually 70% of the people yelling "safer" have no idea what the term means - I have 23 hp, you just hit a 24 with your scimitar, in no way is eating right now safing. Also, if people eat past 1/2 their bar, I'll usually say something about it, especially if they've already called me a safer. I figure most people my level have around 70-90 hp (depending how pure), and reasonably they shouldn't eat at 26 or 27. One of the most relaxing things you can do in PVP is turn public off. Then you have no idea what they're saying. It'll tick them off too, making them easier targets.

I think that its bogus you have to wait up to 10 minutes to get into a game of GOP. Part of the problem is that the timer moves too slowly, people get cold feet, and then break just before the timer reaches zero, resetting the clock. One or two of these is enough to fill that room up even more than the picture depicts. If the game either a ) gave penalties for breaking early or b ) started a game once teams filled up you wouldn't see any crowded rooms.

So, I know Jagex tried to nerf 76king. In my humble opinion, the system is still flawed. Why is it flawed? Not because of triangle or square killing, but because of EP - earned potential. Earned potential (as is my understanding) is based on the amount of time spent in a PVP world, risking 76k or more. Spent two hours hiding in the corner of a hot spot, you'll have 100% EP. Kill someone risking more than 76k, you'll get a spectacular drop. My biggest problem with this is the time spent. Waiting should not pay off so handsomely. Waiting does not equal risk, especially because a short run will get you to a safe spot. My solution: redefine risk, so that Earned Potential is based on real risk, and not time. So, how do you do that? Simple. The amount you've risked is proportionate to the value of items dropped on death, multiplied by the amount of damage you've taken in the last N minutes (limited to some artificial ceiling). What does this mean? For one, it encourages people to actually risk something. Sitting in one location doing nothing isn't risking anything. Getting hit a ton means that you're actually fighting, risking. Another, it rewards people that take more risk. Someone that takes 1000 damage in a fight will get a better drop than someone who takes no damage, and just gets a cheap k/o spec. Lastly, it means that PVP can become a money sink again. People taking damage leads to more deaths. More damage means more consumption of PVP materials (food, potions). Unintended, foreseeable consequences: -Makes pure farcasting unprofitable. -Allows for wealth exchange from one account to another I'm fairly confident that there are more consequences, but I'm also sure that this can become a workable solution, with a little tweaking. Feedback is appreciated.

even better - see if you can kill it with range or mage, and then it'll drop something behind the counter.

Go troll somewhere else loser.

I read the first two... I'm starting to get annoyed by these. The first thing I don't like is that they start with the basic assumption: there is major inflation only caused by pvp, and inflation is bad. Then they go off like they know what they're talking about... Making many fallacies. It doesn't make any difference at all what a gp is valued at towards all other goods. Learn2macroeconomics pl0x. Although I was surprised the first article came to the same conclusion I reached in a different thread a little bit ago: inflation will eventually stop 76king if the majority of the drops are gp. I think the biggest problem people have with the 76king trick if the amount of effort it takes, not the "fact" that it's causing inflation. Edit:stupid iPod touch

Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. How about (female dog)ing? I'm sure most of us would have 99 in it by now. :o

I feel as though most of you don't get it. Inflation is not a problem to the runescape economy... It never will be a problem even though it's rampant. Any economics professor or book will tell you that the supply of money is independent of the amount of goods and services produced. In fact... A simple way to end 76king is to make the number and the amount of pure gp dropped more than the number of items gained. This will make the gp worth less compared to items... Meaning that the real value gained through pvp is much less than the real value that skilling gets you. In this case, inflation is the solution and not a problem. If you don't understand what i've just said, don't flame me for something you can't understand. If you still think inflation is bad, you need to read my thread "relating economics to runescape"... It will explain lots of it. Edit: stupid iPod touch.

Well, true, but there are some key differences between the financial system during 1929, and today. First of all, in 1920s, the majority of stocks were purchased at margin. People would pay 5-10% of a large amount of stock, and take out a loan to finance the rest of the purchase. This worked great because people would make tremendous profits, so long as stock prices continued to rise. (people were able to take out loans) Second of all, banks would do similar practices, they would back deposits with the stock market. (banks were able to participate in trade) Lastly, when people couldn't pay back their loans when stock prices fell, banks started failing. (banks could not give back deposits) What you've said about merchanting clans is true enough, and I've illustrated that in section 2 of the first post in this thread.

Sorry for the delayed response - I've been a little busy. @hohto - The economics you use to justify your points are mostly correct, the only thing I'm a little uncertain is the entire time-line you're using. Summoning was released what, three months after the death of RWT? And at that point in time, no one would have the levels to summon those familiars. It would take a little bit longer than that for the effects you've described to kick in. Also, I've posted my third topic, "What is GP anyway?" Hope to have some good discussions on it.

I'm surprised that they took jrhairchest's question, tbh. Especially seeing what he's had to say on the topic of P-Mods, but I guess there's know way Jagex would know that. I think the response jr wanted was more along the lines of, "Our Old Pmods only wanted glory from themselves, and were being complete jerkbags, which is why we started taking applications off of wbm." Certainly not that same response. Anyhow, I think it means that Jagex is tired of searching for mods, and would rather have resumes.

yikes... so the leaked picture was real? I don't want to know how long I've been logged in, its like seeing how much of my life I've wasted :P

usually I'll randomly trade someone - say I'm trying to make bank space. I target lvls 3-30, and make sure its worth their while (i.e. more than 2k total). But I guess that's different, because I'm giving away free stuff, rather than showing it and declining. For me it's easier than dropping it :P Anyhow, that has happened to me a few times too, but only when I was under level 50. Since then, people don't bother me as much.

The question is, is it plausible that it took about a year before the prices got up to this level? The equilibrium price for fire runes (right now) is somewhere between 6 and 7 GP. I'm not sure if it'll be higher in the future, but Jagex had a price floor on these for a very long time. Granted the floor was only 9 gp, but it only took 5 days before they reached an equilibrium. If in 1 year, fire runes are around 20-30 each, then I'll say that it was probable that item prices then went so low and stayed low for so long because of all the gold farmers. If in 1 year, fire runes are still 6-7 gp each, then I'll say its improbable, because the markets should have adjusted much more quickly.

Is this in reference to Macroing / RWT? I understand the point about Fire Runes, its related to price floors. I'm not sure the time frames you're referencing when you're talking about lobsters, swordfish, and Anchovy Pizza. My point was that after RWT was basically stopped, lobsters went to an unheard of price of 150-170 each. Pure Ess was at a historical low at that point, and ever since has been creeping higher and higher. Is it plausible that the prices we're seeing now are the new equilibrium, or approaching the new equilibrium? A little more to add - Back when there was RWT, A significant portion of the RS population was a bot or a gold farmer. I remember there used to be around 160k people playing at once daily, and now its closer to 80-100k (I couldn't tell you exact numbers, the average or st dev, but others will remember this too). Could that be supply being cut by 20-30%?

I hope not... I'm trying to bring a new perspective. I posted my thoughts on supply and demand. Tell me what you guys think, I'm open to discuss, debate, and learn :P

I think this will be my next topic for discussion... I want to look a little past the PVP updates. I think supply and demand is a little more pertinent to current affairs than inflation is. It was just everyone else calling it inflation, blaming it on inflation, saying we need to fix inflation that was getting me a little irked. The other thing I'd consider writing about is similar to inflation - what is money? (I was actually just lectured over this in a macroeconomics class, so its fresh in my head). I'll probably get started on that tonight...

I'd prefer to call that the effects of supply and demand. Merchant clans are short term ventures that economically speaking can't work. I've done several graphs with explanations on this in a guide I was writing, here is the link. The pertinent part is section 2 - Economics of Merchanting clans explained. Yes, that does make sense. I think this is an example of substitution, magic logs are a substitute for yew logs. When it became impossible to buy rune scimitars (because BH was released), I bought adamant scimitars. They worked nearly as well, and didn't hurt so much to lose. I think you and I will agree that inflation cannot explain everything that is going on in the economy at once. There's too much other stuff. However, I believe that given enough time we can understand some basic things that are going on, enough to know how to least be affected by it.

Perhaps what we're witnessing isn't pure inflation? What I want to know is what is causing different items rising different amounts. But I'll get to what I think is causing it later, because I want to know and discuss what everyone else thinks. Your point about the SGS is a good one - you've identified an item that is isolated from several different variables, but I think it might be susceptible to other factors. I find this topic fascinating, and it helps me apply what I've learned. I don't know about you, but I like that. I would much rather talk to others and learn from them than to write everything and have people say, "I like what you've written". That's probably why I like forums much better than English papers or speeches.