Duke_Freedom

i confirm these times as correct A purely lineair formula then, where time in seconds = 1500 - 3/8 * #players.

I currently don't want to make any definite statements on the long-term, because we simply do not have enough information to draw any conclusions in my opinion. However, for as much as I can guess what is going to happen I think we'll be seeing more instability on the short-term, but in general the long-term picture still looks relatively ok, so in that sense I would indeed state that there is indeed no price bubble. I don't think getting into a gray area of "chances on price bubbles" is very wise in this case - because it more or less indirectly implies that external factors are required for the price bubble to become relevant. Something is a price bubble or it is not, there is nothing inbetween in my opinion. However, if we go back in time then I would be well willing to defend that there was no chance of them being a bubble during the same period that I defended that they'll always go up on the long-term (under the relevant assumptions I make for that statement). I think you and qeltar would have still argued that rares are a price bubble during the past years as well, something I consider invalid and something you now seem to back down on a bit as well. Bottom line on my part is that rares would not have imploded on theirself in the past years or any future extension of the situation of the past years, assuming that there would have been no fundamental changes to the game or to the assumptions, hence them not being a price bubble. This statement is theoretically defendable under the assumptions that are made and thus I don't believe there is anything to discuss about it - even though we have been writing pages of text about it here. Indeed, before you would have argued that such a "sudden" change in people's utility valuation of rares would still imply that they had been a price bubble. Although, I have to say I find this one a bit tricky (since you can somewhat say the same of when people "suddenly" decide that the stock markets are overheated - which has certainly happened in the past and definately caused market crashes, which were still price bubbles anyway). I think this issue there comes from the fact that people don't just "suddenly" decide that something is worth less, but there has to be an external factor that lead to that. In the example you give below here, it is a "new set of living standards" (which means there is an external cause that resulted in a price crash, but which clearly does not mean it was price bubble before the new living ideology) versus "a longer realization that the stock markets were actually a price bubble" which "suddenly" (but actually not, since people (unconsciously?) knew about it if they didn't ignore many of the signals that were there) expresses itself in a panic selling on the market, hence it still being a price bubble. Anyway, I am very glad you now seem to realize that can happen to anything, which would hence make everything a price bubble, something that is obviously not true. So to conclude, it is very important what external factor is causing a "sudden" crash: was it or was it not related to a possible price bubble. I think I convinced you that if an external and unrelated change is required for a certain item to crash in price, then that does not imply it has always been a price bubble (or that it had been a price bubble at all). Hence my hammering on the invalidity of concluding that an item had a price bubble if a certain change causes its price to crash. To be complete: on the other hand we generally can't completely exclude it was not a price bubble before the change either. If rares go down 90% tomorrow then I expect that a dupe happened :P, but ok, yes if that would happen that would currently still imply that they were a price bubble - it's not going to happen anyway. :P Well I personally think the error lies in the wrong causal conclusion of the effect of a possible update.

I could have known that you would come up with the Tulip affaire again, which shows how little understanding you have of what rares are and why they are so expensive - and I'm not going to waste my time arguing it. I stated in one paragraph that things may or may not be different indeed - in which I was referring to long-term effects. In the other I was stating that there is so much panic around currently that it is the most likely that they'll probably hit rock bottom at some point - which is a short-term effect. Do I really need to go point that out in every sentence I write? This is simply false. Real bubbles often end with a precipitating event and then snowball from there. Think of raindrops or snowflakes, they are formed from water collecting around a speck of dust. But if the humidity is low, then no raindrops will form. The bubble is the humidity, the precipitating event is the speck of dust. It is not. If your bubble requires external events to burst, it is not a bubble. A bubble is about excesses which get worse and worse over time - if it would not collapse on its own at some point, then why would there be any need for it to collapse at all (under the assumption of non-changing economic factors)... I'm sure you realize that there is a huge difference between the requirement of an external event or the fact that external events may speed up the death-blow of a bubble. Real bubbles do not require external events and would crash under their own weight sooner or later even under consistent economic factors. That would have happened with the Florida real estate example you gave as well. In fact, economics can easily proof that real bubbles will crash on their own sooner or later, because the size of endless bubbles would, at some point, outgrow the economy which is obviously impossible. You see how easily you make claims about "always" as well? Well it is certainly not true that every anti-bad-people measurement has to hurt good people. Give an example then. I couldn't think of one such measure that didn't at least inconvenience the general populace, but if you can, don't keep it to yourself. I gave that some thought before I wrote it down already. One example could be a detection system that checks whether the executable of a certain game has the correct file size that it should have (in order to detect altered (cracked) executables). Hurts no genuine people who will always have the right file size and works as security measurement against cracked executables (yeah I know, they are probably be able to get around that again, but we know that's not the point here). Ok well at least you are consistent then and I can agree with this line of thought, except that you are forgetting too easily that Jagex ignored the (what you guys consider to be) "discontinued items problem" for over 5 years. There is/was no indication that they would do anything about it. The best time that they could solve the "issue" for once and for all (during the dupe) they consciously choose not to remove them and actually advised people to not panic and sell their rares too low! In fact, they even stated that they would not remove p-hats from the game ever as that would be an overreaction. Seriously, when are you guys going to admit you are fighting a weak case here? Relevant Jagex quotes:

I always added the disclaimer of the required truth of the assumptions that backed up the claim when I made such statements. If you can't understand the meaning of assumptions backing up a certain theory then that is your shortcomming. Historical bubbles didn't see procentual increases of ~15% per month and certainly didn't last for long if they did without any fundamental reasons backing the rise up. Rares have succesfully done this for over 4 years. Reading is a skill too. And there seems to be too much panic in the market currently which will most likely lead to the opposite of a price bubble - a certain rock bottom. If it requires an external event to end the "bubble" it is certainly not completely a bubble at the very least. The whole point of a real bubble is that it would end sooner or later without any external events causing it, simply because the excesses would be unmaintable. And we both know that EugenyG didn't mean it as litterally as the extend you are interpretting it or are you intentionally ignoring that? You see how easily you make claims about "always" as well? Well it is certainly not true that every anti-bad-people measurement has to hurt good people.

Jagex can make systematic changes to the game to reach anything want - there's no use in pointing that out. Jagex did nothing to stop rare price development for years. Yes, it was always a risk that they would do so at some point anyway. Real life government can take away your house if they pass a law which allows that - do you point that out to those who consider buying a house as well? There is no "bubble" once the continous price increase can be explained by economics. Irrational demand could not have supported rares prices for so long, nor could it have supported them during the past 1.5 year stagnation period from crashing. Nor would it currently support them from crashing down too fast. Rares can only drop back so much until some merchants, investors or normal skillers will buy all the available panic-supply away, causing prices to go back up. This is the flip side of what I said just above. Much as people always have rationalizations for why bubbles expand, so too do they find "simple explanations" for why they implode. That's not to say that you are wrong in explaining what caused the bubble to pop, but it doesn't negate what I'm saying at all. It negates your claim that rares are crashing because they are/were a bubble. They are crashing because of a fundamental change within the game. Without that change, they wouldn't have gone down currently. We both know that, there's little to discuss about that and you are wrongly relating the current price drop to rare prices being a bubble. You quoted the logarithmic price graph, but anyway I see a clear 3 month long depression in the period from february 2004 to may 2004 (during which the prices halved) and there was a set back between the peak in mid june 2005 and august 2005 of roughly 30-40%. Ofcourse the dupe was the worst crash ever seen and - excluding extraordinary low sales that only happened intra-day for a few hours - the price of a complete phat set + cracker lost no more than 75% of its value back then. We are currently looking at a ~30% price drop in ~1.5 month time, so far rather comparable with the period from june 2005 to august 2005, with the difference that there are plenty of fundamental reasons for this price drop - unlike the price drop from june 2005 to august 2005 which was 'merely' a temporary correction on the ridiculous price increases in the recent history before that price drop (which were the result of massive large scale price manipulation, by the way). I still don't believe that justifies taking large multiplayer aspects out of the game that many honest players used to enjoy as well.

My problem with people like you who have always been sceptic about rares is that they were sceptic about them when blue phats reached 5mil, when they reached 30mil, when they passed 100mil and now that they are 400mil. If some people had listened to you a couple years ago, they would have missed out on a 10000% price increase - that is the reality. However I have never denied that rares are speculative items and that there are plenty of risks involved, including but not limited to the fact that it is not "impossible" that Jagex could ever make them untradable, that another dupe would take some time, that - at the time the person buys - they may be overbought and set back for a temporary drop, or that there might even be a fundamental change in the economic fundamentals on which the claim that rares will go up on long-term is based. Yes I have claimed for years that rares will "always" go up on the long-term. Guess what I have been right about that for years as well, as so many other people with me. There is no bubble in that, it can be explained by simple economics. It was, however, based on a collection of (rough) assumptions, where population growth and money supply growth were the most important factors as well as the fact that the supply of rares slowly deprives over time. Since the first two of those assumptions have significantly changed (for the worse) over the last year, you (and everyone) should already have noticed that I have become a lot more cautious about long-term statements on rares. The recent updates make things only worse. The reason why rares are currently falling is because of these changes and other speculation though - not because of some sort of bubble, no matter how much you'd want to believe that. As I had already explained in another thread to you - there have been plenty of (large) corrections in the prices of rares in the past. Rares had always bounced back up though, which proved the strength of the rares throughout the years. Things may or may not be different this time and a lot will still depend on how effectively the whole trading system will work in January. I have to agree with Sly here - although I have to add that most good merchants long realized that they can make more money by trading the items with smaller profit margins but in larger volumes for a net higher profit. This is ridiculous. Taken literally, this prohibits any punishment or preventative action, anywhere, ever. There is always uncertainty, there is always collateral damage. There's nothing "ridiculous" about the ideology that good people shouldn't suffer (much) from measurements against bad people. In fact, I strongly agree with EugenyG on that, and it is one of the main reasons why I've always been against the random events, especially when they proved to be ineffective. Wrong. Price manipulation is defined as lying or consciously making up rumours about some aspect of an item in order to raise or lower the price of the item. For example, publically spamming in fally world 2 that santa's will be double their current price at christmas is price manipulation, as well as spamming the discontinued item board that some rare is rising or falling or that they will become untradable.

Solidus, I'd say the income change part is only a very small part of the reasons and I'd also rather throw it on the stack long-term effects if anywhere at all for the reason that Flammacor mentioned: it are zero-sum games. Furthermore, there are also people who are making more money than ever before. Panic, negativity, uncertainity and the new merchanting methods are definitely the main drivers behind the price drop. That's such a rubbish statement that it surprises me you even back it up. Risk doesn't 'suddenly' arise when prices are actually dropping - that risk was in there forever already then, as so many other risks. Can people stop to state this? Wanting to believe it being true, doesn't make it so. It's a false assumption and yet non-merchants are stating it all over while they have clearly have no clue what is even possible right now. Furthermore on the whole discussion of how much merchants make - innovative and creative ones will always be able to make millions if you have any 'acceptable' and effective real form of an economy anyway. Heck even I have stated on many occasions that 90% of the merchants ethic levels are dubious at best. Hm that's an interesting and certainly not far-fetched perspective that I hadn't heard before.

Heh, I wasn't really looking to get into such an in-depth discussion about all these points as we seem to agree on pretty much everything (on a broad level at least) anyway, including the fact that merchants essentially exist due to imperfections in the market mechanisms and the several shortcommings of the GE you named (which are exactly the ones I already named in the thread about the GE I created a little while ago) as well. The main reason why materials used to have larger (procentual) price ranges is indeed because of the trading volume and inability to buy and sell large quantities of materials in an easy manner - this is something the GE has solved now, and hence we see many merchants change their activities from active phat merchanting to passive GE merchanting. I do disagree (partly) with the statement you seem to make that the GE has overtaken the merchant's role (although that might depend on what you really implied with that). Yes, the GE took away the problem of finding buyers and sellers of specific items, which created a merchanting opportunity and larger price ranges, by creating a central place where all trade could take place. However, merchanting is certainly not "dead": it has just changed. Good merchants quickly discovered the new opportunities and I would say merchanting is still as thriving as ever before, just differently. It is a shame that the GE has several shortcommings, but other than that it is a great system: for normal players as well as merchants. Just to be clear: I wasn't arguing that the market should be tranquil, but just explaining why we are currently see devaluing rare prices (as that was the topic of this thread :P). There is no evidence, but there will probably be no "evidence" when it does happen either. I'm not saying Jagex is out there to go manipulate rare prices, again I was stating it is (one of the) speculations going around that is negatively impacting the prices of rares currently. What I am saying is that - if Jagex wants - they have all the necessary tools to do so in an easy and practically unverifiable manner, something you already somewhat concluded yourself as well, when you noted the extreme intransparency of the GE. I didn't really get into detail indeed, and I'm certainly not trying to imply that an absolute free market is always the best - I can think of numerous reasons why it could not be that. But indeed, I don't believe 9/11 was one of them for the main reason that delayal of panic is rarely good. Delayal of the panic does not mean the panic is gone, it just continues to stack up over time. It is like a snowball rolling down from a mountain - you better try to stop it while it is still near the top, because once it is halfway on its road downwards it has gotten so big that you won't be able to stop it anymore at all. And what would they have done if the terrorists continued to launch suicide attacks? All America proved by closing their stock markets during those days is that their economics system is so weak that it crashes at the first sight of ANY problems, even when they are, relatively, small. I believe the reason for that can be found in the fact that there are just way too many financial excesses in America - the current subprime crisis is just one example. The longer government organizations continue to delay them, the harder they will strike back and therefore I disagree with the notion that closing the stock markets back then was a good decision. By the way if you want to continue this discussion it may be better if you or I create some topic about it on the off-topic board here or feel free to just pm me. :) Yup. You are both completely right about that, sadly. The recent updates do not change what the rares are and will continue to be, although their popularity may or may not diminish due to other external factors.

When Jagex starts to ban people with names like Krazyfaken or Pursesnatcher like the guy above posts, perhaps it is. Add on to that that some people even created those chars before the rule was even in place. Furthermore, it is just plain ridiculous that Jagex considered it normal for so long to ban people - who have played the game for years and spend thousands of hours on it - just because their name is offensive (in Jagex eyes). There is not ethical, fair or moral about that, and yet Jagex never considered the time people spent on those characters to be worthwhile to solve the issue, which is not difficult at all. That is certainly worrisome, for everyone who plays this game.

Like I posted on a similiar thread to this one: It's quite useless to speculate on what happen after the January as a lot will depend on Jagex, their crappy Adaptive Pricing System and the Grand Exchange Team. Rares can fluctuate more or less depending on market sentiment. In general you are right that, procentually, rares fluctuate a lot less than most items. However, the problem is probably not the 5% price ranges imposed by the GE, but the Adaptive Pricing System which works too slow and too inaccurate. Rares are able to [bleep]e up or down 10% or even much more in value in a matter of days - the GE works extremely ineffectively in those cases and that WILL limit trade. They are not on par and the long-term investment part has been weak for 1.5 years already. The prices we are currently seeing on rares are about equal to the prices 1.5 year ago. Direct evidence is not needed. Rares are speculative items of which the price behaviour is the most stable in steady, stable, consistent and predictable times. We are seeing huge changes, a lot of uncertainity and unstability in the game as well as inconsistency in markets and prices on the GE that don't reflect real demand and supply. Obviously none of that is good for the rares - hence why rares are declining in value currently. That was not "good" in any sense. It creates manipulated, unnatural, unstable and ineffective markets. The markets should have crashed - it is better in the long run. Amerika certainly proved that it not as much of a free market economy as it claims to be. Jagex objectives are to create a fun MMORPG and the second M in that abbreviation stands for Multiplayer, not for Maoism. If Jagex wanted to create stability they could just as well give every item a specific price (i.e. the high alch value) and assert that everyone has to pay the same price for the items. Where's the fun in that though? In the end, I expect rares to hit rock bottom at some point and - assuming Jagex doesn't make any strange moves - they'll probably go back up again thereafter.

I think they read the critism on their ridiculous actions and are now finally recognizing that it really is not so hard to give an account a new name... Good job Jagex - it took you how many years? :roll:

No, we're talking about paper hats and rotten food (common - who in his right might would still take a bite of a 5 year old pumpkin?). :lol: However, if Jagex had decided to add stones in the game and later cancel them we'd be talking about stones right now. :D For the same reason that people can pay thousands for some rare post stamp or $7.59 million for a 1933 golden coin. It's madness - just don't ask the "why" question. I don't think all this talk about generations of players is really relevant either. Rares are wanted by many people in all of the generations. Regarding phats it may even be so that many / most phats in roulation are actually duped items instead of orginal christmas drops... Back to what the topic was about: Rares are logically declining in price due to a variety of reasons like: - The uncertainity about their practical tradability once the January update is done. - What Jagex may or may not do: we all know Jagex doesn't really like rares and the GE is giving them absolute control over item prices. - The overall chaos caused by the recent updates is certainly not positive for the price stability of rares. Plus, there are people quiting due to the recent updates and selling off their rares. - People may be 'cashing in' their rares for RWT purposes while it is still possible. - Many other items have declined in price. People may be selling rares to buy those up and profit of them. - New merchanting feature (the GE) that may be far more profitable than actively trading phats for good merchants. This leads to a lower net amount of phats held by merchants and less liquidity of rares as fewer merchants will actively "make a market" in them. - Negative market sentiment

If anything, Jagex ensured that GP will continue to play the role "money" in RuneScape forever rather than making it obsolete. After the January update, most trade will start to take place in the GE, which only accepts GP as payment.

Indeed. *Andrew skipped his class economics 101 to work on his game "RuneScape". Of course, I don't want to say it was stupid of him to do so, but the effect of this on the game is clearly visibile in everything related to the game's economy. Well that is not tough. Why would Jagex introduce "non-fun" items. You are not asking the right question: prove that the older tradable holiday items were/are less "fun" than the newer untradable holiday items. Which is the result of a certain vocal group of whiny anti-rares people who generally: - claim that they don't want rares - claim that they are not jealous on those who do have them - claim that rares do not effect them - claim that rares were/are not an integral part of the game's economy - claim that the game is not about accumulating money, but about getting skills (even though the succes of MMORPGs is that there is no standard of game play that one should adhere to) - somehow claim that rares are responsible for everything that is bad in the game I personally don't understand why Jagex ever took that group of players seriously. New holiday items would still be tradable without them. * = For those of us who have no sense of humor: I'm obviously being sarcastic here.

Probably through the GE. It's quite a loophole still, which is unlikely to change anyway.

Predictive expertise is technically not really merchanting, but rather speculating or investing. Don't get me wrong though - it is certainly an interesting new feature offered by the Grand Exchange. In fact, I already stated in various other threads that I would have loved this update if I would still be playing this game. But merchanting is essentially about short-term profitting of the natural price ranges that exist on items. The social interaction and complexity that was formerly involved in getting people to know what you are buying and building webs of buyers and sellers is soon gone. That certainly is a significant loss for the merchanting part of the game (despite being one that only few will really be aware off). It's different, but I am confident that the new system will make it easier (or should I say: more convenient?) for those who know what they are doing.

Fame is a hate-love relationship. As a merchant, fame contributed quite a bit to my trading succes, which for me was also the main reason I seeked it out. Merchanting is so much more than buy low and sell high - it's as complex as you want it to be. Although, the Grand Exchange is, sadly, taking out quite a few aspects of it and simplifying it greatly.

http://forum.tip.it/viewtopic.php?t=723463 http://forum.tip.it/viewtopic.php?t=723541&start=20 Obviously no "evidence", but there are signals pointing into that direction.

According the various other threads around, this price floor is not just a limitation on how low people can sell their items.... Jagex is actually buying up items on the Grand Exchange themself - and they broke their promise that the Grand Exchange would be purely player based by doing so.

And the MMOG part stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Game. Jagex took a lot of the Multiplayer interaction out of their Game with the recent updates.

In essence it is not about that at all. A good merchant can still make a nice living without any - what you may call - "lucky deals". In fact, a good merchant can therefore still make a nice living in the new trading system.

It still exists, no matter what people say. Profit margins are just smaller. Instead trading volume much higher Profit possibilities are similiar to before, given you got enough cash to start with. I have always rather called this group "investors", since it has nothing to do with merchanting at all. And indeed, the Grand Exchange has now offered the possibility to speculate in price increases of materials, something that generally wasn't practically possible before. People may be going to see "hoarding manipulation" going on, but at least that is based on something (a real shortage, intentionally created), unlike the various pure psychologic price manipulation done in the past.

And my name could be changed to Nuke Freedom (edit: something Jagex seems to be quite good at :D), by changing one letter. Isn't it wonderful? :lol: Like someone already said, people just want to feel offended. In fact that is one of the worst problems these and the cause for 'political correct' talking in real life.

Clearly more than you - you are the one whining all across the boards how you are no longer able to merchant anymore. Oh wait I forgot. All your "merchanting" profits came from rip-off deals and price manipulation. Guess what, that is not what real merchanting is about anyway, and indeed, Jagex "ruined" that kind of "merchanting". Continue to whine. Noone cares and Jagex is determined to keep their system like this anyway.

If you look at the wallpaper - the monster is available in the colours red, blue, green. ;) Skillful merchants are making millions off the Grand Exchange, like I predicted beforehand. Of course, you wouldn't know.