Ts_Stormrage

Thats ok... But then your argument would not be to have new ones, but rather revive some old ones? I have pondered this too, and it's lead me to a major money sink thats rarely used these days; Shops! Besides some slayer equipment and supplies for summoning and construction, what do people buy from shops these days?

The bushes that hide th new Charm Sprites found south of the Gnome Stronghold... It is rumored that they never hold any berries!!!

As long as the average 'wage' goes up at the same rate, there isn't that much of a problem. And before people argue about things tied with alchemy; It never was good money. Stop dreaming. Never? then why (as I described in the first couple of paragraphs of my article) was like 90%* of runescape doing that at the time? :D In response to the recent development: Efficiency in RS means: To get as much money for as little time spent, or, to get as much XP with as little money or time spent... And I think lazy means in RS: The fact that you can't be arsed to do it all of it yourself... But face it; if we had to do everything ourselves, other players would be no different to us than NPC's, and this would become a RPG (or even an FPS) rather than an MMORPG (a direction which we're heading to anyway, it seems)... *90% is a guesstimate and may not be used for statistical purposes other than to exaggerate ones point...

*Dusts off his Salve (e) Amulet*

It has become my last reason hasn't it? But its a conclusion I've drawn from your own arguments :D So, removing alchemy from the game... How then do we get rid of items we would normally alch? How fast would the popularity of large portions of the fletching, smithing and crafting skills plummet? Followed by the raw materials needed for them, followed by the gathering skills like woodcutting and mining... So is alching becoming the neccisary evil of the economy? Btw, omg, we have an actual debate going on :o

Aight, I'll walk with Nifflin and Seesall down this lane as this proves to be an immensly interesting debate... Suppose the alching system is redone in such a way that alching items will yield enough money, after having been based on what moneymakers there are and where the alch moneymaker should be, and continues to adjust according to inflation levels (aka more GP in total = higher prices of items and raw materials = higher alch values)... Meaning inflation is never an issue anymore as your income rises relative to inflation... Wouldnt this cause a runaway effect with this 'inflation'?

To reply to one at a time: 1st point: Bots are an insecure supply as Jagex stated repeatedly that they are still nowhere near undetectable... So can we asume that mass bannings will happen? You're probably right about the point you make about deflation there, and you may even be right in how quickly bots adapt... But how long do you think jagex is going to take to defeat the problem at the source? 2nd point: I learned the hard way that people cannot trim my armor ;) it is something everyone must go through at some point in their RuneScape career... Do I feel sorry for the newby? Maybe I do maybe I dont, but that was not the point I was trying to make (I DID say I threw the rules and ethics out the window, didn't I?)... 3rd point: I talk to a lot of people when gathering material for my articles, and this came up once... It turned into an interesting discussion, and after that I asked just about everyone the same question how they felt Dungeoneering was impacting the RuneScape economy... Every single one mentioned the upkeep of the items being a money sink, but only a few had given it enough thought to actually see the point of not participating in the rest of RuneScape while you're in Daemonheim... I do not think it is neccisary for me to write down the names of people I talked to about this... I have been asked before to give data on where I got my numbers (see the 'Share and share a hate' article), but I did not name any quantities or proportions in my article... 4th point: Did you consider that the items that are worth something may have no economic impact at all? Vesta's, Corrupt items, brawlers, food... It completely dissapears given enough time without ever adding any weight in the counter-inflation scale... On top of that; the people you killed ALSO lost items... Add the proper things up and then see me again plz :) (this should back up Joanananas' point as well)... 5th point: Your example was flawed form the beginning as neither Coal nor Emeralds nor any of the other items rise EXACTLY as quick as any other item in RuneScape. Some other items are pretty much fixed in price for various reasons, and sometimes you cannot trade immediatly. All that aside, the only currency in this town is GP... This goes to Nifflin as well: XP is untradable, GP is not. If we could trade in our XP to undo the stuff we made with it and sell the raw products for higher prices, the argument would be valid...

No worries, just say which post you are replying to (I refuse to participate in quote trains :P) I do not know what the current levels of inflation are, but looking back, the RS economy is more inflated than it used ot be... The luxury the world has, is that it can always switch to a different currency, or have the entire country go bankrupt (Weimar Republic anyone?), the RuneScape economy can not... The Luxury the world does not have, is that, whatever you do, there is some job out there that will generate the same income no matter what (for example alching yew longbows)... Now I would not like to lose that, as it is a nice and steady money maker for low-mid level players... This is another reason why I do not want to see alching touched... But those jobs do not rise or fall in income with inflation, and that brings me back to my previous point of having the GP/hr income be closer together... I'm willing to blame bots for some jobs being unprofitable (hunting chins), but fixed-to-alchemy-value jobs are not done because inflation pushed the GP/hr income of not-tied-to-alch-value jobs out of proportion with one another (this may need clarification :P)... So normal or not, its still too much... The point we'll probably agree on is; some inflation is good, but only up to a certain point... Then somethign has to happen to regulate prices (preferably something that cannot be avoided with junktrading)

I called your statement idiotic, you clearly grasp what RuneScape economics are like :) But yeah, your point of relaxing alch prices in order to reflect the markets value is certainly an interestng take on it, although I doubt that the GE could even keep up with just the plain items (it already has trouble with some of the more expensive ones)... I am most intrigued by this question you ask: The fact is that we then have a choice... And in this example; more people AFK-ing yews rather than bosshunt, would make Yews less profitable, and monster drops more profitable, resulting in people switching back to bosshunting... Btw, your links provide examples of real world economics, which are substantially different than here in RuneScape... I believe I already responded to that on this thread, because someone else also made the same argument with real life economic articles ot back them up...

I'll take that one :) (Nifflin asked someone to exlain why Deflation is better then Inflation is before he editted his post) First, lets establish that we are talking about RuneScape economics, not real life... Inflation, when it happens, is caused by some source introducing ever more money into the economy, and doing this faster than it is taken out... Deflation is the opposite of this... In an inflated RuneScape economy, certain money makers are also getting progressively better, because the price of the items generated rise with that inflation (for example, Red Chinchompa's)... Others are lagging behind, because their ultimate cash-in point is dependant on, for example, alch values (like Yew Longbows)... This causes people to leave parts of the game alone and all flock to the one thing that makes money fast enough (GWD or Slayer for example) to keep up with the rate of inflation... In a deflated RuneScape economy, those moneymakers that could keep up with inflation, are now not so appealing anymore. And since the rates of GP/hr income of all the stuff that you can do in RuneScape are now much closer together, the choice of jobs is much greater, allowing you to do what you want, without falling behind financially... Deflation can only go up to a certain point, because at some point alching becomes the superior source of GP influx for the economy, putting a break on deflation... I am making this argument deliberately in a RuneScape setting without bots... The problem right now is that bots have infiltrated the mining, fishing, hunting and woodcutting market, making the unbuyable gathering skills completely improfitable, all because prices are kept low due to high supply rates... And since skilling has been reduced to a 2nd rate moneymaker, without a sufficiently visible rise in the products form those skills, noone really cares as they can still buy their stuff rather cheap... The simple fact that Bots and Inflation cancel eachother out to some extend on a lot of items worries me... To Nifflin's new post: Rares do not absorb inflation as it is not somethign every single person in the RuneScape community aims for, nor do rares take GP out of the economy... What you meant was that Rares inflate themselves... A product that is desirable because of its high price, and therefor will increase in price... Such an item is called (wait for it, I'm looking)...

It is, but he states very early in his article somethign that basicly nullifies it: "As long as your income keeps up, rising prices shouldn't matter" The only way our income can keep up with rising prices in runescape, is switch away from jobs that are done by bots, or are tied to alch values, and pick up a task you previously avoided (probably with reason)... The 2nd article is even clearer ont hat as it states that noone will buy anything because the supply of money runs out... This can never be the case in RuneScape though, as there are those same consistent moneymakers that will always yield the same GP/hr... This is the sole reason why I never have advocated changing the alch values of items (or make them adaptable to GE values), and are strongly against this ever happening...

To topic starter: http://forum.tip.it/topic/268955-wanted-gang-member-shield-of-arrav-heroes/

@Ring World: If there are no bots, skillign moneymakers would automatically become more profitable as the supply dries up... Combine that with the solution to stop the massive influx of GP into the economy (which will result in a lower value of a Godsword and such), and you'll see the different variations of moneymakers I have talked about grow closer together... They will not be tied and nor do I want to... But (again pointing to my article) if some mediocre warriors can make as much money as a high levelled skiller, something is out of balance... If we bring those closer together, you'll see more areas of the game used by more people... @Not Trolling: I have already stated what to do about inflation (and tbh, the economy could use a cicle of deflation for a while)... Fix the influx of GP (aka PVP droptable) and wait out the effects... Also feel free to point out where I make unfounded assumptions and mistakes and I will gladly explain how I came to those... To clear up any false interpretations, my "msg in red" is to people picking apart every single scentence without even checking the rest of the paragraph, not to people who quote a possible false assumption... Inflation or deflation, I don't like either of em... I just don't want to see certain moneymakers get pulled completely out of whack with the others, "forcing" everyone to proceed to do just that... I have clearly observed that, since the introduction of statues on PVP worlds, things started to inflate rather quickly, and therefor think that that problem needs to be fixed... Unfortunately, inflationairy problems are harder to fix than deflationairy... The latter would see a drain of GP from the economy greater than the influx, which is often corrected by players themselves by not spending as much... Inflationairy is a lot harder to fix, because noone is willing to lose a stack of their cash without seeing something in return... In real life inflation is kept in check by interest rates, a mechanism often discussed to be implemented on GE transactions in RuneScape... I just do not see that particular solution happen... To both: As you yourselves stated, if all bots were banned, players will fill the gap... So lets run down that scenario... If bots stop supplying, prices go up... If prices go up, people either stop buying, or start gathering themselves... If prices go up far enough, because it is a popular item, people will start gathering it for money... This will only happen if it is on par with other money makers out there... ~*~ If players do the jobs that used to be done by botters, less players will participate in other moneymakers... End result; for the ordinairy person, little would change. But on the game overall; people will work MUCH more diversified "jobs", and as at least one person already stated on this thread, they can make money doing something they like doing, rather than something they hate (which would cut down on the obvious grind vs fun rants)... ~*~ This is asuming the influx of GP is also stopped, bringing down the other "rampantly out of control" moneymakers down a notch... <Editted for clarification>

Not a double post... The previous post replied to someone that actually made a point and argued... This post replies to people that are simply making wrong statements without backing them up... Hell, some of those replies are a downright troll Idiocy rank: A few fries short of a happy meal... "Moderate" level of inflation from the pre-dungeoneering time was anything but moderate... I dare infact call it hyper inflation because it made other moneymakers MUCH more profitable as well... Which is also the point of saying inflation is bad. It rips forms of money making out of proportion with one another, and therefor will leave huge portions of the game unused... Rares do not absorb any inflation at all, because (as ALSO pointed out in my article) rares are not traded for JUST gp anymore... On top of that, the GP does not leave the game when buying a rare... I think the mistake you made is thinking of your OWN economy, rather than RuneScape as a whole... Idiocy rank:Likes to play with fire... In a forest... When it hasn't rained for months... While wearing a polyester suit! How is a bot's supply insecure? I stated this in my article, but I will repeat it for you; They are there at the whim of Jagex' security updates, and will to go out and mass-ban these things, none of which are predictable... I'm not sure people have a problem with what they're doing (buying low and selling high), its a problem with how they're doing it (duping people to believe that buying out item x will net everyone a profit). They're also upset with the temporary freeze in the market - it doesn't matter how much they're willing to pay for an item, they just can't get it (or anything related). Many things in runescape are done on a whim, which is why stocking up on everything you might ever need isn't possible. Its not bank space, its GP. Did I mention I have no sympathy for impatient people? If you need it NAO, RAIT NAO!, then l2bpatient... So uh, who told you this? Can you find 3 people in the past 6 months on the forums that have said this? Fortunately, I do not only use forums to see what some people are thinking... But I think I get the implication of your statement here, you think that noone believed this lie in the first place... Just as I can't be bothered to quote everyone that actually did believe this, you cannot claim noone did not believe it... However... Whether or not people believe Dungeoneering had an impact on the economy, most people will think of that impact of being the cost to keep Chaotic equipment up and running... Not the fact that many people suddenly stopped 'participating' in RuneScape... This is a troll, and you will be reported for it... This next one deserves a seperate mention... Idiocy rank: A very special kind of stupid... As I posted before, the PVP drop table would've fixed itself. Here's one for you - I've been PVPing a lot the past month, and guess what. 75% of the value of my drops have been sold to the GE - items that weren't worth alching. You know what that means if it held true for everyone (no way of knowing because I don't P2P PVP)? PVP causes deflation. Hang on, if I get you correctly, you sold some drops you got on the PVP worlds on the GE and therefor PVP causes inflation? First of all, get it in your skull please that nothing in RuneScape fixes itself, not even the economy, and ESPECIALLY not a droptable as it remains EXACTLY the same without Jagex updating it... Second, your drops also consisted most likely of statues which are traded directly for GP... This GP flows into the economy much faster than alching or monster drops or thieves do, and therefor it caused a massive spike in the common trade index (learn about it)... Selling something to the GE does not remove GP form the game, the item goes to someone else, and the GP goes from them to you; aka nothing gets added or removed... Now I can already hear your next argument; "But if more items come into the game, the supply gets higher, so prices drop; and tadaa, its deflation." All very untrue because this is not what inflation is. Inflation is when there is an ever increasing amount of GP available PER PERSON... If there used to be X amount of GP for 10 million players, and now there is 3 times X amount of GP available for 12 million players (and not 30 million) it is inflation... Everyone has (on average) more money to buy stuff with, and therefor prices go up... The reason why this is bad is because it kills the diversity of the game, something RuneScape is very famous for... You're an active player in RuneScape. Why does it matter to you if one GP buys 1/100th of a piece of coal, or 1/300th, so long as 1 piece of coal buys 1/10th of an uncut emerald? It matters because I cannot use the GE to trade 10 coal directly for an uncut emerald... GE is supposed to be the tool of the economy, using GP as a lubricant... See my previous answer on why inflation is bad... Or they should not worry about it and play the game how they want to? Ahh, how lovely, another troll... This was a scentence that (it says hypothetically speaking, for crying out loud), was supposed to paint a picture of where we go from here... Some people do happen to care about their cashpile, you know :P But let me state this as a warning to everyone posting on threads: I've just written a huge article, filled with arguments, points made, and theories explained... What YOU just did was pick out a single scentence completely out of context, and tried to find stuff wrong with that single statement, without even looking further into the article, or even the paragraph... It is a pathetic tactic to try and poke holes into something, hoping others will also see it and agree with you... You are the embodiment of what is wrong with today's society... Screaming for attention, dare I say desperate for validation, and trying to rip other people's work apart if you must to get that attention... Go away, noone wants you here, except for other people that are just like you... Go seek help...

[hide=quote train] So the point about certain moneymakers falling horribly behind because they have fixed alch values (or similar restraints) is completely lost on you? I said it is a fortunate thing that we can be flexible and change carreers every minute, but that alone is not enough of an excuse to let whole skills and areas of the game go unused... If you disagree, name some big money makers that do not involve any combat or merchanting, besides hunting Grenwalls and making Nature Runes Non combat money makers have always been bad, on the generic anti bot threads ive been trying to tell people this or a while. "Bots r dum they ruined my money maker (refering to yews, fish *during summer*, or red chins)" My response is that even if bots werent around they would still be bad because they are tied to their alch prices, or utility value (in the case of fish, they are mostly a support healing method to familiars and SGS/EE) Now for the noobs... err new players that think they will be rolling in bllions off cutting yews inflation would be a problem (just like bots) however its not the way to make money anyways in ideal situations. Combat always pays more, and some easy ways for a new player to make money would be killing dragons or collecting herbs from men or chaos druids. Both those methods rise with inflation and pay 10x more per hour then your average skilling method. So yes inflation does hurt players, but it (much like bots) only hurts players already hurting themselves. Now on the topic of bots ive mentioned, your opinion on do they benefit or hurt runescape is entirely on your point of view. For example Mr. Monster Hunter had a great week and earned 100mil profit, naturally a player like this would support lower prices as he or she would be the one who would benefit, as bots lower prices he or she by proxxy supports bots. However a player that slaves away at yews (a terrible money maker in itself regardless) sees the price going down, he sees 3-4 bots on his tree thus he puts the two together that bots lowered his profits. Naturally this player will hate bots The conclusion is several things, your right inflation does hurt those who are producing things tied to alch prices (such as yew logs) however they really are chopping off their own legs by doing such a lousy money maker to begin with. Combat money makers rise with inflation (d bones were 2k and now they are what 5k?). The benefit or hurt that bots cause to runescape is extremely subjective. Ultimately your opinion about them comes from past experiences so it becomes an emotional argument (much like any moral issue), someone that got a skill to 99 for cheaper because of them is likely to tolerate them if not support their existance, and someone who is negatively affected by them is likely to damn them all to hell. [/hide] You're making several points at once here, so let me try and sum it up :) I do not know how long you have been around, but you obviously did not read the very first bit of my article (the whole Yew Longbow business)... After that, 91 RC used to be top of the game money making until barrows and abyssal demons came out... I get the fact that RuneScape evolves, but it used to be famous for being a very diverse game... But you cannot argue that people should move on to monster hunting and PVP worlds, and leave the woodcutting to bots... Well you could, but is that what you want RuneScape to look like? My overall point is that both factors (inflation and bots) leave a HUGE portion of RuneScape that completely goes unenjoyed by people... Even some skills are nowhere near as popular as they used to be, so what does that tell you... In an ideal world bots would not exist, then prices of fish and logs and chins would shoot up, and PLAYERS would jump into that gap because suddenly it is a good money maker again (tadaa, a player-regulated market)...

The real question is; With every idea put forward so far on fixing the drop table, they could have done so by now n a way that doesnt decrease popularity, stops the influx of GP, and without too much items (mostly welfare) being "lost"... So why haven't they?

Now we're talking, bladewing :) I like your first solution, but it has one drawback; it would quickly kill the popularity of PVP worlds as it is no longer a good money maker... The 2nd solution seems rather complicated, I'll have to think it out a bit... But how do you like the solution I advocated a year ago? Replace the statuettes to some extent (l;eave just enough to compnsate what the dead person was wearing), and drop items that have no impact on the economy at all. I am talking about more 100% degradable items (such as Vesta's or Zuriel's or Corrupt Dragon or Brawlers) or more consumables (such as extreme potions or high level food)... People will still get the same amount of "GP" dropped, but instead of actual GP, it will be items that they can sell, and those tiems will eventually dissapear from RuneScape again (aka GP neutral, unless alched)...

So the point about certain moneymakers falling horribly behind because they have fixed alch values (or similar restraints) is completely lost on you? I said it is a fortunate thing that we can be flexible and change carreers every minute, but that alone is not enough of an excuse to let whole skills and areas of the game go unused... If you disagree, name some big money makers that do not involve any combat or merchanting, besides hunting Grenwalls and making Nature Runes

@Bladewing: The "This is not the case in RuneScape" referred to "Economists would say that a little bit of inflation is not a bad thing"... Referring to real life economists here, of course... Economies do not collapse, as a crappy economy uis still an economy... I just think that the healthy parts of it are rapidly decreasing in numbers, meaning that a lot of good money makers now, could be poorer money makers in the future... I named skilling (formerly a huge part of the game) as an example... And yea, I did mean to have the first 5 be a supportive argument for #6 (the whole #6 part is basicly the conclusion drawn)... But since I set out to dispell some lies, I figured it would be better to display it out in this way... As for the Achievement Capes argument; I think it is most certainly relevant when you can basicly BUY your way to level 99 or 200M xp in certain skills (smithing, crafting, cooking, fletching, construction, etc)... A cape is something you show off... 200M XP is even worse, as that is permanently fixed (if you are the 15th to 200m XP, you will forever be ranked 15th)... If you can buy your way to those places with increasing levels of ease due to the economy overheating, I think it is a most relevant point to make... That is just my opinion though, but I can also see why you think it is not relevant to the article :) [spoiler=what MrGandalf said] Exactly! Although I still think the PVP droptable needs adjustment to reduce the GP flowing into the economy. Stop the problem at the source!

Allow me to retort :) Did I say inflation does not encourage people to buy now? If I did, it must be a typo, I obviously meant deflation... (but after reading my own article again, I conclude you misread it) That 'shred of evidence' to an unstable economy as you call it, is backed up by all the other points I made in my article :) I hope at leats that much was clear... As for Achievement Capes; I am talking of course about the fact that the ultimate goal is not having billions of GP... But billions of XP! (subtle difference between the two, I know :)) Also, Mr. Monopoly; would you care to point out the mistakes I made so they can be corrected? PS: November and December I will be taking some time off from the regular schedule to write a fictional spanning all weeks of the two months. It will be my first serious attempt at fictionals, so I hope everyone will enjoy it :)

Would only work if there are 2 GE's, one dealing with the regular GP and one with the other currency, and by having some items only be traded through the Gold GE, some other items only through the other GE, and some items availabkle through both... Alching and thieving and shops would also be yielding/accepting said curreny's (one, other, or both)... It would change the game too radically, without knowing what the result would be (how do you decide if a Hilt coins shares for GP or SP?)

I still will state the equivalent of "dont blame me man, i just work here..."

Just a quick clarification; The writers and editors are on the same level as "regular" forum people are... We are not staff, we do not have any powers or responsabilities to follow those up... We write because we like it, and hopefully can entertain some of you with it... Tip.it is in charge of what gets published or not, but we have a pretty free hand in what we write about... The only rule I know of is that we have to write about something related to RuneScape... Hope this helps :) Sorry if it looks like I have lowered myself to your level (underhanded apology much?)...

Thats very well paraphrased :) I would put it more like this, though: Some of our articles may suck, we are only volunteers, so please do not expect all articles to be top notch every single week...

I must not have read that sign :( Oh well, call me Troll slayer :)