Duke_Freedom

May sound strange, but I could even see raw materials rise as a result. Allowing people to buy xp in skills like woodcutting, mining, fishing, etc means a lower supply of raw materials too. Overall I agree that whatever change that would happen wouldn't be very significant though. I'm proposing some sort of self-adapting system. I know it's possible, you'll see this kind of idea implemented more in future MMO's. In fact, RuneScape's general shop works already a bit like this... Increasing prices as the stock of an item in a shop drops. Such a system for xp would need to be a bit more complex then that though. As I said, the price of xp in the shop should be high enough to prevent - this is just a matter of tweaking the system and the actual gp rates of xp. Hm yeah, this is part of the reason I added this:

The downfall of the "debate-club" is already starting in this very topic with various people 'threatening' (in a one line sentence, I may add) that they will quit the game if the idea was implemented. Not really the kind of reply that would fall under my definition of "serious debating". Especially considering curmudgeony certainly seems to realize that the idea would be extremely contraversional and therefore seems to be asking more for discussion about the consequences of the idea rather than a discussion about whether the player community would like it. That said, I have thought about the idea of buyable or tradable xp plenty of times in the past but never bothered making a thread about it as the replies on it are expectable: negative, with little in-depth reasoning why. Even worse, the little reasoning that is given, mentions that it would probably mean an increase in the amount of people breaking a specific rule - not a very legit counter arguement against the idea itself in the first place. Let me start out by stating that the questions curmudgeony raised are quite open - the answers depend a lot on how the idea is implemented exactly and how much the cost of xp of a certain skill would be in relation to the cost / time it currently takes to raise that skill. For example, if the prices of xp would be something absurd as 1000gp / xp, then the effect of this idea would be next to zero. In order to get some real discussion going on, I'll work out the general idea of two options of the "buyable xp idea": 1) Litterally buyable xp in some NPC shop. The price of the xp would fluctuate depending on the player demand for the xp at that price. This may require quite a bit thought to work out on Jagex part, but is possible. Effects: - Money drained. Probably quite a considerable amount, helping to stop RuneScape's inflation numbers to a certain extent. - Raw materials may see a price change. I'm currently unsure how significant this will be and what the exact effect will be - that would need some more thought. - The market price of the xp of a skill in the NPC shop would be multiple times higher then the cost of xp when training the skill the fastest way. - Give rich players an useful ability to spend their wealth on. - A significant drop in the prices of rares. - If implement well, it should not be interesting for most people to take advantage of this option. The price of xp in the NPC should be high enough to ensure this. 2) Not buyable xp, but tradable xp - players being able to sell their xp in a skill to another player. The exact way of implementing this would, again, be a bit more complex as I would not suggest a 1-on-1 of trading xp regardless of anything. Firstly, I think that there should be some kind of 'xp loss' in the sale of xp. Secondly, this 'xp loss' should be greater the more high leveled you are in the skill. And thirdly, the buying of xp of people who are leveled lower than you in the skill should give you much less xp, or maybe none at all. Effects: - No money drained, the sale of xp will be player to player. - Raw materials may see a change here too. - Rares may or may not see a change and this may be either a drop or a rise in their price - requires more thought. - The buying of xp would probably only be interested for rich people, and become steadily less interesting as the player has a higher skill level. - Give rich players an useful ability to spend their wealth on. - If implement well, it should not be interesting for most people to take advantage of this option. The xp loss ratio would be high enough to ensure this. So much for my thoughts.

Don't think I ever made any really wrong deals... :P Only considerable 'mistakes' I have made in the past were rebuying santa hats after christmas 2003 and not buying up phats during the dupe of 2003 because I was affraid that they'd be deleted...

Just like merchants are not responsible for rares costing so much money, merchants are not responsible for any change in the prices of any items. Merchants show up on both the supply side and the demand side of the market as they buy up items for a lower price (increased demand) and sell for a higher price (increased supply). Merchants don't change the price equilibrium of items. Instead, merchants do narrow the normal price range in which the item is mostly traded.

Not on the market, and if you want to alch them you still need to add a 320gp cost for the nature that you'll need. ;)

When will people ever learn that merchanting has absolutely nothing to do with rares costing so much money. Rares are Limited Edition items and collectables. They were bound to reach the prices they have reached nowadays from the day they were brought into the game. With or without merchanting. I disagree with you (:P) here. Initially I agree that pseudo-rares would probably [bleep]e upwards, as rich people will have to use their money on other things. On the long-term, pseudo-rares remain just that - pseudo-rare - though. They can, and will, only go down in price on the long-term. Therefore they are not really suitable to take over rares role to 'absorb' inflation. Yew longs (s): 570 Nature rune: 320 High alch yew long (s): 768 Loss: 122 Loss / exp: 1.9gp / exp Steel bar: 600 Steel plate: 1000 Loss: 2000 Loss / exp: 10.7gp / exp People already do several skills at a loss. Loosing money has never prevented people from buying materials for those prices. However, you'd be right if you said that material prices are relatively stable - changes in prices don't happen quickly/easily.

Just watch out for this when getting into game development for large game companies. :P Anyway, I pay ~270 euro a month for gas/electric/water and an one person apartement, but like Mercifull said, prices can depend a lot on where you live...

Yeah :) Have you been still playing lately or kept eye on rare prices? :) No playing anymore eh.. But yeah, I'm still updating my rares graphs - like I'm bound to death by it. :P Ps: Watch my forum signature place - I got some nice things comming up soon. ;)

Ooh 2 or more of each rare these days eh? :) Gj pessi. :)

Black party hat never existed. Pink did turn into purple at start of RuneScape 2...

Quake ftw... Was the first shoot 'm up I played extensively.

People using social security for legimitate reasons. But ok, using the word "rare" was a 'bit' of an exaggeration. Hell, this is not America. In the country I'm living in, you surely can still afford all that (within reason, ofcourse) with social security income. So please keep the sarcasm to yourself - my point remains. God forbid that we force such people to look for a job. If I remember well, there has been a (ridiculous) time in history where applying for jobs wasn't even required here. That is socialism for you - when it goes too far. Already pointed out the "no pocket money" is pure bs, at least in the country where I'm living in. And yes over here the lazy-type people I mentioned are quite common. I don't think you read what I said very well. I actually agreed that the good-willing poor-workers class kid who wants to study physics at some university should get the chance to do so - in fact, it would be idiotic not to let him study that, as, eventually, the whole society will profit from it. However, that doesn't mean I'm also willing to pay for the lazy kid's [wagon] who doesn't want to work. My point is that socialism generally means that you get both (the upside and the downside) or none. Therefore any social securities should, IMO, be severely controlled to prevent abuse. To a certain, but reasonable, extend that may also mean it will limit your so beloved "freedom" too. For example: *Assume 1% of all people in the world want to study psychology and that the 'demand' for psychologists would only be 0.1%... Then we would have to "limit" the 'freedom' of 0.9% of the people by totally disallowing them to study psychology as they'd never find a job with that study. *please don't argue about the realism of the numbers used, just argue the concept if you see the need to do so.

Apart from taking the rare occasional situation where socialism is fairer then capitalism, why not also mention the abundance of situations where socialism is anything but fair? Let's say we have this guy here, who's 20 and quite intelligent. However, he is extremely lazy and thus dropped out of school. To make a living he had to take a job, but, because of his lazy attitude, he was fired within a month in the several jobs he had over time. Now the government feels sorry for this guy and so they pay the guy social security. In other words, other hard working people who pay tax have to pay for this guy's food, water and home just because the guy himself is too lazy to work? How is that fair? Now again, let me state that socialism as ideology is not wrong either. However in practice, it oftenly works out more negative then positive. I do think a mix of capitalism and socialism is the best to go, but the socialism part of it has to be severely controlled to avoid abuse - and that part is totally lacking in reality. IMO you just absolutely can't justify lazy people living off the money earned by the hard working class. As you already half-pointed out yourself, one of the problems in your arguement is that most billionaires had to work hard to become billionaire in the first place. For the rest, I don't see why grand inheritances are so "unfair". Someone still worked for that cash at some point and I'd consider it completely normal that parents want their children to have a good future. I don't see why giving your children money should be taxed. The problem of socialism is that it thinks they can tax money earned 5 times under the arguement that it is "fairer" that way. Therefore, in practice, socialism is very similiar to communism as it tries to reach equality and fairness too much under the same assumption that people are generally "good".

Communism in itself, as an ideology, is not wrong, but the problem is that, in practice, it just doesn't work. In my opinion, the most fundamental issue of communism is that it assumes that everyone in the world wants the best for everyone and that it assumes everyone is willing to participate in that. In other words, the fundamental idea of communism is that it assumes that everyone in the world is "good". "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." is one of the underlying thoughts regarding equality in communism. Objectively speaking, it seems fair. However, in reality, not everyone in the world is willing to do his fair share of that thought. Not everyone in the world is "good" and that in itself is one of the most fundamental downfalls of communism as it will result in: - A small group of people seizing control of the country for a variety of reasons. They more or less eventually turn the communistic system into a dictatorship. - A lack of motivation to work hard because there is no real reward (for yourself) by doing so. This ensures inefficiency and low productivity levels. This also creates unfairness in itself, as people who don't do their best won't be punished for not doing their best. Capitalism, on the other hand, focusses extremely on the "invidual". However, in a way, capitalism also fundamentally rewards and promotes egoism and inequality by doing so. In practice, capitalism has it's own problems as well. They generally manifest themselves as huge economic and political scandals, like Enron for example.

Taxation is done in the country where you live. The US would not tax you, seeing as you are living in the UK. However if the IRS did this, it is ofcourse very likely that UK's taxcollectors would follow sooner or later. The negative effect of RMT on the game is heavily overestimated by people. The word "unfair" is way overused in discussions about the morality of RMT'ing as well. There are tons of reasons why it is not "unfair".

Hm, reading a bit more about it, you're probably right on the poker example, although it depends on whether the money with the poker site is seen as a 'bank' account or not, but it is probably not seen as such (although that theoretically means that you could stash $1 million there without having to pay asset tax over it? a weird consequence I would say?). Such a freedom for interpretation is not a very good aspect of a law. But let me ask you a question: what if a person bought a forum signature and paid 1 million gp for it? And what if that person then proceeded to buy someone else's service to design a website for him for the 1 million gp? I'm fairly sure you'll agree that those transactions would be realized events and are taxable, as this is exactly what the barter tax is designed for. Now exactly what is the difference between the person paying 1 million for your time to design a website or the person paying 1 million for your time to gather 1,000 steel bars? The HTML code and the forum signature are both just as virtual as the steel bars and the game money.

However, you don't need to cash-out for it to be income. If our game of poker ends up with me winning $100 of you (thanks! :P), but I leave it on my 'virtual bankroll' at the poker site, it is still income. I don't need to cash-out for it to become income. The argument remains that it is barter. The (theoretical) idea is that an in-game trade of, for example, 1000 steel bars for 600,000 coins, actually (in-directly) consists of selling the 600,000 coins for real dollars and then using those real dollars to buy the 1000 steel bars with. Assuming both gathered the steel bars / coins themself, both 'players' in the transaction have income. There is a real world equilavent of this, which indeed is taxable. If I paint your house and you repair my computer as a return, this actually (in-directly) consists of me selling the service of painting your house and using the money earned from that to buy your service of repairing my computer. Again, both of us has income. Indeed. I disagree with the need of it being a unique service in the first place, however, I could easily say that someone might sell the service of smithing someone's rune bars to full rune and claim that the person buying this service is unable to do this himself. Using your "I could train my slayer to 85", I could also say that you "could" learn to be an electrician too. No it's not realistic that you will, but hey that wasn't required? It's not realistic to assume that everyone "could" train their slayer to 85 or their smithing to 99 either. However, the Barter Tax makes no mention of vague terms like "unique services" and "impossibility to receive a certain service without creating a taxable event" and thus they are rather irrelevant in my opinion.

"Games" like poker are taxed too. Players who make money by playing poker have to declare this as income. The arguement that it is just a game and that it is a leisure activity is not that relevant. Ofcourse you are right that according to the ToS and the Rules of Conduct of most game companies, the theoretical trade of game money for real money is disallowed so it is already questionable if they can observe trade in real dollars there - but again this is quite related to the in-depth intellectual property right discussions that take place. On the other hand, the prohibition of trading certain products has never stopped people from putting a price on those products. The same is true for the value of in-game money, which can be observed easily on the various auction sites on the web. However, this is totally different for games as Second Life, Project Entropia, Everquest II and others, where it is completely legal and encouraged to buy and sell the in-game money. Some people in these games are already making a living (or even becomming a millionair) with these games. Others are buying virtual islands for $26,500 (and even earning back their initial investement within a year) or virtual space stations for even $100,000. The total trade value of Second Life seems to be ~$600,000 per day. With that in mind, it is not strange that the IRS is also considering taxing in-game transactions, at least in those 'games'.

That's just not true:

It is rather questionable whether people who do not participate in RMT do not generate 'income'. If the in-game resources you make in the game have a fair market value you are actually having an income - income is not defined as "only dollar income". I believe this is partially what the IRS is researching. The IRS 'decides' whether something is taxable under the current law or not, which is exactly what this is about. Exactly. The article says online currency is becoming a "big business with 7-9 billion dollars" fluctuating annually. What about the hundreds of billions that fluctuate annually in other online auctions and eBay sales like cars, laptops, machinery, etc? There's a huge difference between income and trade. The 7-9 billion dollar figure is a new and potentially taxable income figure. The hundreds of billions figure describes the amount of trade of taking place at ebay and businesses selling their products via eBay already pay tax. The reason why the IRS is also looking into taxing in-game trade is because it may fall into the category of bartering. What that is and other interesting info surrounding the taxing can be read in this article. And for those who question the seriousness of taxability of MMOG income might want to take a look at this article too... Edit: The IRS and the US government have no use for gp - they obviously only tax in real dollars.

Such a daring topic for the tip.it times for once, what a miracle! Having read the article this is about and tons of different articles on this and related subjects and considering my own background I obviously have a strong opinion on this. I think "my humble editor" fails to see the point why the IRS is interested in potentially taxing MMOG income, so let me start by giving a quite astounding quote to put it all in a better perspective:

Honestly why do people always spread false rumours?

Discs aren't that rare. But yea, half wines and crackers are probably in a close race when it's about which one is rarer.

To be honest I based it on both observation in RuneScape as well as real life. I think this topic was actually handled very summarily in an economic class I had once and I believe the arguement ended up that money itself does have an 'utility value' and that, therefore, the total money around certainly does not need to equalize the total item value around. I can simply quote two real life numbers that clearly show it is definately not equal though: US M3 money supply = ~$9.7 trillion Total U.S. household assets, including real estate, equipment, and financial instruments such as mutual funds = ~$62.5 trillion (both quoted from wikipedia) Which shows that there is a huge factor difference for real life at least. I do expect this difference to be much smaller in RuneScape, but I just wanted to point out that there is definately no economic theory asserting that total money supply should equalize total item value. Hm, you read this article right? While I did argue that 1 billion gp was "leaving" per day as result of construction indeed, I also mentioned that 6-7 billion gp was entering the economy per day as a result of high alching, etc. I could probably have better said "1 billion gp comming less into the economy". Anyway, combining it both would mean that ~5-6 billion gp is still entering RuneScape's economy every day. I have estimated total value of all discontinued items in rs before and doing a very quick and rough estimate now, I would say the total item value of all rares combined would be ~1650bil. It's rather hard to do estimates on other items though, but I would say that the other items in the economy would at least make up for another 1650bil, but really, don't quote that number. :P I'm not actively playing rs anymore, but I still follow the game's economy and update my rares graphs every week / two weeks. If you are interested in reading an in-depth discussion I had with someone else on this board about the possibilities of a (huge) material price inflation, you may want to read this thread. If they would really be released on a frequent base I suppose they could fulfill at least partly the function of rares, but in general I'd say it is a rather unstable solution as pseudo-rare items like treasure trails can and will only go down on the long term.

I agree with most of what you said, Wonder (how could I disagree, I have been saying most of what you said in your post for years by now :P), however: I strongly disagree with this. The total amount of gp in RuneScape is definately not equal nor anywhere near equal to the total value of all items in the game, nor 'should' it be. And: This is a "bit" (understatement :P) overexagerated.