r2-pleasent

Phats havent really "crashed" since last June, so I have no idea what you're talking about. As far as the rise after the ban, that was greatly exaggerated. Blues had alread hit 150M before the ban came into play, and really weren't affected. People charged maybe 5% more for their Hats during the morning of the ban, but that was where it ended.

Well, a few of you might have read my earlier thread about the developments of Merchanting throughout the past year. I figured it would be quite fitting to update it close to New Year's 2006, and this is the closest I could get :) To see the original thread check here http://forum.tip.it/viewtopic.php?t=300 ... erchanting UPDATE - Jan 1st 2006 Well, I believe I made this topic way back in August. Seems fitting to update it, as there are many transformations that have taken place in the past 5 months. September of 2006 saw rises in Rares across the board. Prices began soaring, as players began regaining confidence in Discontinued Items. Fally Park World 2 became alive with Party Hat merchants once again, and a whole new Small Rare section was created to the East. Small Rares were the talk of the month, as they were rising at rates that seemed impossible at the time. Everyone seemed to be jumping on the Mask and Santa wagon, as prices doubled within only a few weeks. However, these growth spurts were short lived, and eventually resulted in a 4 month-long drop (which continues today). September Small Rare Peaks: Santas - 6 Mil Red Masks - 9 Mil Blue Masks - 6 Mil Green Masks - 5 Mil Mask Sets - 20 Mil As Halloween grew closer, players immediately began panicking. Masks plummeted, and Santas took a reasonable hit as well. However, for the first time in RS2, Party Hats continued to rise despite the Small-Rare crash. Due to the much slower, and steadier increases in Party Hats, and also thanks to the healthy Party Hat Merchanting community, highlighted by big spenders Stevenxu, Clubber11 and the power-seller Wp Sk8ordie, prices continued on an upward slope. Many merchants began re-exitting the market, losing millions on the Small Rare bubble. October Party Hat Prices: Blue - 70M White - 50M Red - 39M Green - 32M Yellow - 28M Purple - 25M Cracker - 60M As Halloween passed, Masks continued their downward spiral. Santas seemed to stay in the 5-6 Mil area, seeing a 1 Mil rise in late October. Yet, despite the approaching Christmas Holiday, there was no "Holiday Rise" for the first time in RS2's history. The market had obviously adjusted to the absurd price increases that used to take place leading up to the 25th, which left many players extremely disappointed. Party Hats seemed untouchable, continuing their steady rise, while being merchanted by many new faces. Merchants like Samael88 and Fredmcgarry began building their wealth up solely from Party Hat merchanting. November Rare Prices: Blue - 85M White - 65M Red - 50M Green - 40M Yellow - 33M Purple - 30M Red Mask - 6M Blue Mask - 4M Green Mask - 3.3M Mask Set - 13.3M Santa Hats - 5.5M Each People had begun completely losing hope in Small Rares by November. The Santa rise that enchanted Runescape investors in 2004-05 was quite obviously not going to repeat itself in 2005-06. It was also quite obvious that as Christmas approached, Santas had nowhere to go but down. I had 70 on me before the drop, and managed to sell 25 off before it hit. The prices began dipping in early December when renowned staker Merak11111 sold off his Santa collection; a good 150-200 Santa Hats publicly. His prices were 200-300K below the average market value, and players panicked simaultaneously with the creation of his post. By the end of the month, Santas were back down to under 4 Mil. Party Hats continued to surprise many investors, continuing to increase through the Holidays, at which time many people predicted their crashing point. December Rare Prices: Blue - 95M White - 70M Red - 55M Green - 45M Yellow - 38M Purple - 35M The Small Rare crash following the holidays was significant in the sense that, for the first time in years, Rares began reacting individually. Party Hats were increasing at healthy rates, while Masks and Santas were in the midst of an extreme drop. January, however, was a great month overall for Small Rares and Party Hats alike. Party Hats saw their largest rises this month, as Blues shot up nearly 75% in only a month. Small Rares began recovering, as Mask Sets rose from 14M to their peak of 19M for a few days. They currently sell for 17.5M-18M, which is quite close to their peak in September. Respectable Party Hat merchants for this month include Fredmcgarry and Wp Sk8ordie, who have both beaten inflation, and are increasing their wealth daily. Current Rare Values Blue - 165M-170M White - 113M Red - 89M Green - 72M Yellow - 63M Purple - 56.5M Cracker - 115M Mask Set - 17.7M Santa Hats - 4.5M Where Are They Now? Stevenxu - Logs in from time to time, but is quite busy with college. A great merchant and a very well-mannered player. Clubber11 - One of the richer players I've met. This Clubber account was not his main, and he kept to himself. I often asked him what his main was, but he always managed to change the subject :P Wp Sk8ordie - Has recently returned to the Party Hat Market. One of the best merchants I've seen, and is quite well-mannered in-game. Fredmcgarry - One of the cooler Merchants around, he still sells quite a few Party Hats a day. I've never seen him participate in Price Manipulation either, which is quite easy to succumb to when dealing with under 4-5 Hats.

The Party Hat rise immediately following the Mass Ban was greatly exaggerated. Prices seemed to go up maybe a 1-2 Mil on the morning of the ban, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. Party Hats actually dropped a few days after the mass ban, and since then have recovered to their old prices. While Blue and White have seen some nice rises in the past few days, I really could not attribute this in any way to the autoing bans either.

15000 Autoers gone means a few Rares gone too, that goes without saying. However, the effect on the market from the disappearance of these Rares is easily countered by the fact that much less wealth is being created due to the removal of these accounts. Although I hate to admit it, autoers were providing Rare Investors like myself great returns, and have been fueling extremely high Party Hat prices in recent weeks. Needless to say, however, that there are likely plenty more players using these autoers, and that their effects will continue to be felt until a major change is implemented by Jagex. I am simply stating that besides the speculation arising from the mass ban (which seems to have greatly subsided already), the deletion of the accounts will have a negative effect on Rares, if any.

Sure, I'd say those numbers aren't a bad estimate. But since we're playing the numbers game, why don't we investigate the appreciation in the Rares market as well? In August, A Rares Set (1 of each Rare) would have cost you around 285M. Today, it trades for over 700M. If we give an approximate value of 2 Trillion GP to the current Rares Market (which is extremely conservative, it is likely 5 Tril+), we realise the Market value is August would have been approximately 250% less, or 0.8 Tril. So, the Market has increased about 1.2 Tril since Mid August (let's say the 15th). So, today's the 20th of January, that's an increase rate of 8.5 Billion a day. Sort of overshadows that 690M a day from Nats, doesn't it? And the thing is, that whopping 8.5 Bil a day appreciation of the Rares Market is due to your statistic; lots more wealth is coming into the game everyday, which very little wealth being removed. The economy compensates this imbalance by increased prices of Rares, leaving nearly every other area of the market unaffected. If the new wealth being introduced into Runescape was not being absorbed into Rares (we're back to the hypothetical removal of the Rares Market), then it would have to be reflected through some other items. Duke has his own theory, and I have mine, but we agree on the same basic principle: The Rares Market absorbs potentially detrimental market forces, leaving Materials and Pseudo-Rares stable in value.

Actually I think you could argue that the price of rares stabalise the price of raw materials. If 'rich' players didn't have things like blue party hats to buy for 100m+, they would spend that 100m+ on other things like raw materials. having so much money, they could afford to pay more to get these things, so the prices could go up? Except for some merchants, the players with that kind of money are already spending millions on skills on top of their phats. When I got keylogged my bank was worth 250m, without ever "investing" in rares, merchanting, or whatever. I spent and made all that gp on skills, and there are others who do the same. The point is that there are already players spending 100m at a time or more on skills, so obviously the existence of rares isn't keeping that from happening. If somebody like Duke sold his rares and spent the 6b worth of GP he supposedly has on skills (not saying you don't, Duke, but I'm not much for basing info on speculation without a bank pic or personal statement at least) that would not make an impact on the market in the long run. Prices might get jacked up while he was buying, more people would start collecting to try to get in on it, and once he finished there would be a lot of people wanting to get rid of their stuff without Duke's buying power still present, and prices would stabalize. If I was going to give any credit whatsoever to rare items helping keep prices stable, it would be that most the people who sell them have a goal for one of these items and would rather sell than use themselves, so they place the GP over XP, but that would happen even without rares, just with other items (look how many new players mine iron or ess to buy rune armor, god armor, dragon armor, etc). Odd, you're completely missing the point. We're not talking one person here, even if that person is quite wealthy. We're talking about the entire Rares Market, likely worth well over a Trillion GP. This market reacts immediately to any changes to the game, which in effect absorbs most of the market forces. Imagine, however, that the entire Rare Market was completely transfered to GP, and Rares were removed completely from the game. All the sudden, there's trillion(s) of Gold to be spent on nothing but Supplies and Pseudo-Rares. Wealthy players would still be investing their money somewhere; whether it be in Yews, Coal, Ranarrs, D Chains, whatever. Now, let's be logical here, if you were a Billionaire investing in any of the above items, wouldn't you suddenly feel the urge to begin buying up supplies? I mean, 15K autoers have been banned, how could your materials go down? And there you go, the demand has increased on large investments of Rune Essence, Raw Sharks, etc.

15000 is a start, and big up to Jagex for doing it, but there's still plenty more to be done for this problem to subside.

I second that.. Only price that might go up is the price of rares.. There must be some auto'ers with a few rares on their accounts.. (i don't own rares) The price of raw supplies will likely be quite unaffected by this mass ban. Perhaps down the road, items like Rune Ess and Sharks will return to their normal values (rising 10-15%), but that is more of a good thing than a bad thing. The items that have been truly impacted by these mass bans are Rares. Santas and Party Hats are up nearly 10% this morning solely due to the mass bans. No one has any idea how many Rares have been removed from the game, and the amount is even less distinguishable 2-3 hours after the bans, but the sole fact that 15K accounts are now gone has increased the demand immensely. Rares are really the only items which have the capacity to change prices short-term, which is really a good thing for Runescape. With Rares in the game, many of the economic forces are absorbed by the miniscule Discontinued Items market, leaving Supplies, and even most Pseudo-Rares at stable values.

I believe that people are forgetting what has provided Jagex with so much success. The ability to play Runescape on older machines (thanks to low system requirements), the ease of access and the low member fees are the reason why the game is so popular. If Jagex tried to emulate the graphics in games like WoW, or Guild Wars, they'd be losing a huge portion of their clientelle.

i love how you covered your behind there :P though i can't even pretend to be an expert on the rares economy, i do have some experience with RL stock charts, and i'm glad i recognized that santas would start rising again once the christmas craze was over; it was just too greatly oversold, 4M was a resistance level and now it's bouncing back (5M already? jebus, i bought 6 two days ago 4.05M ea :D ). ugh i sound so self serving. but it does go to show you you don't have to be an expert to predict where the market may be going. and, on the note of RL stock charts, have you ever seen or heard of anything like that for runescape, r2-pleasent? it'd be very interesting to see the rare charts over the past 5 years.. I've been working on a Rares price chart, but I still need a bit more data for it.

It doesn't take a merchant to pick up on this one. This year has had 3 big influences on prices: 1: Slayer: When the first few hundred players got to 85 slayer they made previously unimaginable amounts of GP in a very short time. At first it was easy to get a few whips a day, or at least a whip every day or two. At prices well over 10m each for over a month or two, that really added up. Aside from whips, just GETTING to 85 slayer was very profitable for the first to do so. I made about 5-6m from addy boots the first weekend I had 75 slayer, and mauls were going for 2m a piece. I was one of the slower to get 85 slayer (out of the people who started strong in it) and around my 1 year mark had around a 250m bank. I had stayed around the top 200 or so in slayer until I got bored and sick of combat and worked on smithing and some other skills. Was around the 500th person to get 85 when whips were 8m a pop. High levels with 85 slayer bought dragon bones and rares, knowing that their ownership and holding of them would profit them when prices rose more. This was the beginning, then... 2: Barrows: Barrows came out and completely changed the face of combat in Runescape. Players of just about any skill level could attempt grabbing pieces of armor selling at rediculous prices. This gave those who didn't raise slayer a chance at some sweet drops without much of a time investment. The prices of sets at first were absurd. Sets that are no more than 1-2m now were selling 15-20m upon release. Only Guthan has retained anything near its original prices. Torag was the primary choice at first until word spread of the set effects with Guthan. So what does this all matter? People who have never had large amounts of gold in the past were suddenly making more in a day than some players have made in the whole time they've played RS. These players wanted rares, and with as easy as they made their money, didn't mind paying a little more than average in order to get them. This made for a big [bleep]e in rare prices, which then went on to... 3: Merchants/Manipulations: With so much demand for rare items, merchants and their friends saw an opportunity to profit. The forums were flooded with combinations of overpriced sellers and also overpriced offers. Regardless of how obvious it was that some of these threads were fake, and nothing more than a bad attempt to jack up prices, they managed to bring up the prices of rares to levels you wouldn't have even imagined a year before. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* The combination of these things (highly uneven distribution of gp, masses of newly wealthy players, and profit-seekers) combined for a nice skyrocket of rare prices. Honestly I've never cared much about rares. The only one I've ever wanted was my red phat (which cost me 30m MORE to replace after getting keylogged than my original one did... grrr), but it is interesting to see how much the prices change and what people will pay for a useless item (myself included lol). This post examined a cross-road for the Rares economy. Had the Party Hat drop continued for only 1-2 days longer, the entire Rares Market would have likely been in a recession for weeks, possibly even months. However, the sudden rebound in prices has given way to recent rises in Santa Hats (which have increased nearly 25% since the creation of this post). Masks are also beginning to rise (up to 14.8M a set from 14M). I believe this proves that what I have written was a very accurate prediction, as the exact Rares that I pointed out rose within 2-3 days of the writing of this thread.

The main thing to note is that many skills like Smithing, Herblore, Farming, and even most forms of Fletching usually don't make you any profit; they actually end up costing you money most of the time. The amount of money you make on a Skill is not the only factor in how good a Skill it is overall, it is just one of the many factors. One thing I personally enjoy about Smithing is how peaceful it is. Just chilling at an Anvil and hammering my Bars into usable items holds a certain prestige that keeps me entertained.

Don't give me that flaming crap, because I've done a good deal of smithing from scratch. Smithing plates is NOT very profitable, it merely nets you a little pittance to go along with your experience. But the smithing part costs you a lot of money there. Assuming you get a great rate for the plate (1200), you used 10 coal and 5 iron to get there. -Each steel bar would sell for 600 (a total of 3000, or 1800 loss) -Each coal would go for 150, and 100 per iron (2000, or 800 loss) So by using your own resources to smith, you are forfeiting the opportunity to make a LOT more money. If you have an educated rebuttal for that (aside from the sophomoric flaming you've already exhibited), then I'm all ears. Paw, I'm sorry, but you gotta do some research on this stuff before posting. You're saying Smithing is profitable if you mine your own ores, but it really isn't. The only reason you're "profitting" is because of Mining; the actual act of Smithing the Armor is actually losing you money. Smithing is only profittable if you're Smelting Bars, which is quite boring.

Here's what I'm wearing ATM

The Party Hat market is actually pretty big these days; they've been rising since late August. In Fally Park there's usually at least 15 players merchanting Party Hats, and as many as 25-30 during peak hours. At the time of the crash, just about every merchant online came to World 2 in hopes of selling of their Hats and rebuying at lower values. I was there myself, I sold off around 8 Party Hats at the start, and parked myself in the Park for most of the day. As a Merchant I was somewhat forced to observe the day's events, as I didn't want to be stuck with Party Hats during a crash, but also because I didn't want to be stuck with 500M cash or whatever if they began re-rising. By the end of the day, despite the extremely low prices (103M Blues, 73-74M Whites), it was becoming obvious that Hats were probably going to bounce back, as fewer and fewer players were selling, and buyers finally began appearing. At this point I bought a Blue, White and Green, and called it a night, it was pretty late. The next day I had work, but I checked the forums in the morning and confirmed my prediction: Party Hats were bouncing back fast. I logged in and nabbed another Blue and Red and headed to work. By the time I got back, prices had risen from the previous day's lows by nearly 10%. Blues were nearly impossible to buy, as sellers refused to part with them at such low values as 110-112M. It was basically the fact that I was online merchanting nearly the entire day that I can give such a confident report about the drop. I always love Party Hat crashes, since they are a great way to beat inflation. If you sell your Hats at the start of a drop, and then buy them all back at or near bottom values, you can increase your wealth by up to 10% (assuming it is a drop, and not a crash which leads to a recession). It was a very significant day for Rares overall, since many believed that the economy was ready to head into a recession following a crash in Party Hats. This just proves that theory is false.

If anything this post is promoting Small Rares, not Party Hats. Try actually reading it before making these stupid comments.

It seems pretty ridiculous that you can get 30 Santas for a Blue Phat

You got the downlow or you just playin' me? :P

For this Mage Arena to have any real effect on the economy, there must be a major advantage to High Alching in the Arena as opposed to outside of it. Currently, the items from the Arena are trading at unsustainable values, which is always the case when new items are released. When the prices of these newly introduced items drop, and the hype surrounding this update is gone, do you honestly believe there will be any reason to waste the money high alching in the arena? Considering there are thousands of players High Alching at any given moment on RS2, it just doesn't seem likely that this will even put a dent on the GP entering the game. I would hope this is not an attempt to stop inflation, as it would show that Jagex is really on the wrong track. I still support my "Land Rental" proposition with the introduction of Carpentry, and durability costs on all items in the game. It really shouldn't be that difficult to remove GP from the game through NPC's.

Investing in Rares is a good idea most of the time. Just take note that Small Rares can take awhile to rise, and many investors end up selling them off at around the same price they paid. If you really want your investment to pay off, be prepared to hold it for at least 2-3 months, preferably longer.

:lol: Nice read. What are the p hat prices atm? Prices are changing quite often, but ATM i'd say: Blue - 117M White - 78.5M Red - 62.5M Green - 52-53M Yellow - 45.5M Purple - 42-43M

We can't all be pretty.

Yesterday, many of you know, there was a semi-serious Party Hat crash. In the early morning, prices began skyrocketting (Yellows went from 45M to 52M overnight, Whites from 80M to 90M), which resulted in prices much above the Market Equilibrium. At around 12 PM ET, the prices on Party Hats began dropping significantly. Buyers were nowhere to be found, and on the rare occasion that you did find someone interested in a Phat, he was buying it with another Hat + cash. I was lucky enough to be in the market during this whole shift in demand, and managed to sell off my Hats quite early on. As the day continued, the prices just kept continuing to decline. Players were fighting over sales, and GP seemed to be nearly extinct; the exact symptoms of a crash. By late night, players were selling Blues at 105M and lower (a serious difference from their 130M price that morning). It seemed as if the Phat craze had finally come to an end. I bought up one Blue Party Hat, seeing as they were so cheap, for 104M. The next day, after a serious sleep in, I forced myself to my computer chair to check if the Phat crash had worsened. To my surprise, the prices had ALREADY began recovering. I frantically began buying up whatever Hats I could find, as the prices seemed to be bouncing back at an astounding rate. At the time I am writing this, Blues are selling 116M and upwards. Well, this earlier blog may seem completely random and pointless, but it does have some underlying meaning. These past few months, Masks crashed in October (going from 18M a set to 14M; they haven't really changed since), and then Santas crashed in mid December (going from 5.5M to around 4M each). Most Rare prospectors took these drops as signs that the Rare economy was on the decline, and that Phats were next. However, yesterday's drop proves that Party Hats are not going to crash (for the time being), so this theory must not be true. Maybe the economy is actually not as bad as many make it out to be. Small Rares completely over-rose in September; Mask Sets hit 20M when Purples were barely selling for 21-22M. In my opinion, (AND THIS IS STRICTLY MY OPINION, NOT TO BE DEPENDED ON) the entire Rare Market is completely healthy, and is not in for another recession (such as those in summer 2005 and January 2005). This Phat drop proves that the inflation in the market is real, and that Small Rares are going to be forced to catch up to Party Hats in the near-future. They are simply recovering from their massive increase in September.

my 3 ruel enjoy: 1. no smoikng 2. no food in duel!! 3. hav fun!!!11!1

one day i was walk in dranyor i see zezima!! i say you must have no life!! play all day for these stat. he say lets fihgt in wild i say shure i fgight you stupid no life nobo. so we go to lvl 55 and he use aberant whip i use adamnat scim. eqaul on paper but he use some srot of cheat code and he kill me. i email jagex for item bcak they say no wtf?? who is in charge of tihs stupid company in first place i put so mnay hour in just to lose all item? i quit this gaem forever they lose my 5 doller per month.