Duke_Freedom

Yeah, though I do think the ability to sign the items you create would enhance the popularity of the skill a lot. Without that, the skill would start to look quite a lot like the combination of construction & crafting, with which you can already make some 'custom' armour and weapons too. How long do you have in mind that it would take to make 100 of such items though (not including the time needed to collect the resources ofcourse)? Sure, they'll never be able to make one for everyone, but do realize that the amount of people who would be willing to pay extremely high prices for such items is not that large either. It is really an interesting question how much people would pay for such items.

Ok. As I already said in the few PM's we had about it, I must say it is evident that you put a lot of effort in it. :) Some of the effort was slightly unnecessary IMO though, as you already concluded yourself in your author's notes too. Personally I always prefer to only read concept idea's without actual item names, skill level requirement tables and all the like. :P Even if Jagex adopts idea's like this, they'll alter such things anyway. High skill & quest requirements It seems you didn't give much thought to the extremely high skill and quest requirements that you suggested in your idea. I honestly cannot see the main part of the RuneScape community like this idea, when only 15000 players fulfill your mining level requirement (and a lot of them might not even be members and/or might not fulfill the other level / quest requirements). While I can see you intended this skill to be focussed on the higher leveled players, I think leveling a new skill (at least at the lower levels) should be easily accessible to any person, and not have extremely high quest and skill requirements. This would definitely have to be changed if this skill was actually implemented. Different concept then other skills This is not as much critic on the idea itself as it is on whether Jagex would even be interested in the concept of the idea. Point is that it will require player tag's on items, items being 'attached' to a 'square' in your house and so on. This are kind of new concepts in RuneScape, which will require quite a bit of work on Jagex part to implement. Not to mention the amount of new items. Due to the different concept, I also doubt whether the RuneScape's player base would like the skill, even when the high requirements were omitted. While the idea of owning your own signed Rune Long might be cool, there will be few people who will actually ever realize this dream. People might start to wonder what the use of the skill is. To be honest, I don't really feel the skill 'fits' into RuneScape. But this does not mean the concept of the idea itself is bad! I think I can see future MMORPG's implement idea's like this. So much for my critism on the broader idea of the concept, now I'll raise some more in-depth issues. Famous people & Artistry I think it is quite evident that this skill is the most interesting for famous and well-known players. I mean who wouldn't want a Rune Long with Diamond smithed by mister Zezima himself? This raises several issues: - Famous players will be able to 'abuse' their reputation to earn tons of money by selling their signed products. - Famous players will have a monopoly position on products with their name attached. TheyÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢ll have the power to ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¹ÃâcrashÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢ their signed products any time they want. - Besides these upsides for them, I can also see how famous people will probably get bugged a lot by people who want (to buy) a signed product of them. Famous people & new rares Another issue arises when these famous people permanently quit RuneScape, get banned or disappear from RuneScape for another reason. This would lead to the creation of new rares, which, depending on how rare the famous person kept his signed items, might even be more costly then the current rares around. So what would be positive side of this skill? A more dynamic & interactive virtual world By allowing people to create items that have player names attached, the game turns less static, which is a good thing. A Rune Long sword will no longer be just a Rune Long swordÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâæ No it will be a Rune Long sword forged by Bluerose13x, or it will be a Rune Long sword that you got in the wilderness, after killing Thehate for it. Items will have a story. The game will be more interactive and the Role-Playing will be enhanced. New goals & player created quests People may have new goals that they want to reach. They might want to own a product created by their favourite idol. Furthermore, the idea of the whole skill and signed items could probably be extended with player created quests in some way. New use for old skills Since the Artistry skill will allow you to create items with your name on it, people will be motivated more to level the old (and somewhat obsolete) skills again. People might start to smith more again, because they'll now be able to create swords with your name on it when you reach higher levels. Conclusion IÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢ve always been very positive about the idea of player names attached to items they create and IÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢ve thought about it many times before in the past. Thinking more in-depth about it now that I read about your Artistry skill suggestion, IÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢m starting to become a bit more negative about it though. Apart from the interesting addition that it could be, there are quite a few downsides involved with it as well. To be honest, IÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢m still not really sure whether the idea of signed items would be a good addition to MMORPGÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢s or not.

I've watched this arrow stealling discussion for years now and must say it's really laughable. Never really went into the discussions about it, because I'm the type of guy who doesn't even bother to pick up his own arrows. What those who call it "arrow stealing" try to reach is improperly demanding ownership on arrows that lay on the ground, visible for everyone. It is the same kind of reasoning as that you should have "honour" when PKing in the wilderness. Their unwritten rules do not exist and should not exist. It is made up by people who want to make easy PK's or people who do not understand it is not called "the wilderness" without reason.

I'll be honest with you: I don't really understand what people drives people to pay millions for phats in RuneScape, just as I don't understand what drives people to pay millions for 'famous' art in real life either. (I know there are people who hate this comparison, but I'm sorry, from an economical point of view it is exactly the same concept) I do know what my own reasons were: they are a great investement* and they are the best items for merchanting. Still, with only people like me, rares would not be worth anything - even though the general thought is that merchants are responsible for the price rises in rares. *To sligo: while you are right that rares mostly act as inflation-correction, they are still considered an investement as there is a certain risk involved in buying rares. Also, compared to the situation of just keeping the gp you have or spending it on materials, rares definately are an investement as your 'purchasing power' of both gp and materials rises as rares go up. They didn't intend rares to become what they are as they were given out as a fun item during holidays. And to quote Jagex own words: "We don't want this to just become an event whereby a few lucky players suddenly become ludicrously unfairly rich." Nevertheless, anyone still using this arguement as a reason to remove rares is out of his mind. The amount of people still owning a rare from when they got them for free is extremely small. Furthermore, those who do will probably never sell them anyway. Personally I've always considered the addition of rares positive for the economy. Not only does it weaken the effect of inflation, it also gives a goal for extremely large amounts of money. It creates more diversity in game-play - I believe that's what MMORPG's are all about? Because there are people in this thread (not you) who don't realize how rude it is to say things like "just remove them, rather today then tomorrow, without compensating the people who own them". Besides, by removing rares you don't only take away the fun of the people who own rares, you also take away (some of) the fun of the (much larger?) group of people who plan to own a rare some day. The point is that it is precisely the same as me saying that "everyone's skill stats should be put at 1 as that would make the game interesting again". While I may actually think that, I'm not going to make a thread about it as I know how many people would strongly object that idea. I'm guessing you too would get "emotional about this" despite it "just being a game" then. Finally, I disagree it is "just a game". It's a virtual world. But that is a totally different discussion.

People should really learn to not overuse this seemingly meaningless sentence so much, without knowing what they want to say with it. I really doubt you guys have any concrete idea what you mean when you say the economy 'crashes'? A better way of saying it would be to say the economy would adapt / change when rares are removed or high alching is removed. The difference between saying this and saying that the 'economy' crashes is that it is still totally open for discussion whether this 'adaption' would be for the good or not. Furthermore, it seems the 'skillers' in this thread have trouble observing the whole rares situation in an objective way. People play the game for different reasons. Learn to respect that and refrain from only looking from your own position. Otherwise I'll have to say you're a Billy, as defined in Zubeedoo's post. :) Interesting. You expect a raise in the price of GP and a raise in the price of materials when rares would disappear? Compared to what would it all raise precisely? I'll make it easy for you. The billions you remove are billions of item value. Simple economics would have teached you that this will actually lead to a heavy drop of the value of GP instead, which in return is the cause for a rise in the prices of materials and high cost pseudo-rare armour. Nonsense. Rune items are pretty much based on their high alch values these days, and that is due to an overproduction of rune items. Nothing will change about this with rares disappearing. If you want to discuss economics, you're better off dropping your personal point of view and opinion on certain aspects. Otherwise you could just as well not discuss economics. Just because you don't see the use in rares does not mean that there is no use in rares. This has nothing to do with opinions.

Friendships aren't buyable. Non-friendships either by the way. You sell your soul if you scam people who put trust in you by lending you their items. That said, I rarely trust anyone with items. Still, if you're good at looking into people's minds and their honesty, you won't end up being scammed. I've lend out a phat set to a person and got it back without a problem.

And in case you hadn't seen the factors: x^3 = -216 (a+bi)^3 = -216 1) Real part: a^3-3ab^2 = -216 AND 2) Imaginary part: 3ba^2-b^3 = 0 From 2) 3) b^3 = 3ba^2 b^2 = 3a^2 From 1) and 3) 4) a^3-3ab^2 = -216 a^3-9a^3 = -216 8a^3=216 a^3=27 a=3 From 3) and 4) b^2 = 3a^2 b = 3ÃÆâÃâ¹Ã¢â¬Â Ãâ¦Ã¡3 OR -3ÃÆâÃâ¹Ã¢â¬Â Ãâ¦Ã¡3 Thus 3+3ÃÆâÃâ¹Ã¢â¬Â Ãâ¦Ã¡3i and 3-3ÃÆâÃâ¹Ã¢â¬Â Ãâ¦Ã¡3i are solutions too. ^^

Setting up my own software company (and in the most ideal situation: a game company) has been one of my ambitions for a long time already. *hires Nadril :P :twisted:* An alternative ambition I have these days is to become professional stock market trader...

Hm, I suppose the pressure of writing something new is there now. :P That article seems to be intended a bit more as an introduction to MMOG economics for people who have little or no experience with MMOG's too though, and he does a reasonable job at that. :) :thumbsup:

Nice retrospect. Didn't know we passed the year already - but I do now. :) Hmm, next week it is a year ago I published my first calculations on the total gp ingame. :o

They promised player owned shops over 2 years ago at the start of rs2 - it's still not here ^^.

Yeah, like mr_tiddles himself - he's ancient. :anxious: *runs*

Double nature runecrafting makes about 1-1.3mil per hour. Merchanting could make millions per hour - most merchants tend to make several millions profit per phat they sell nowadays.

It's part of the way people treat each other in general.

The effect of construction is probably hardly visible on the long-term, as the last time I estimated the total gp I concluded roughly 6-7 bil more gp went into the economy then out of it each day. Still, construction at least drains some of that extra money away.

I said in the last tip.it times article I wrote that I'd take a look at construction again when the skill would be a few months old - so that's what I'll do now. Not surprisingly, the graph of the total experience of all players on the construction highscores shows to be a root function. Ofcourse a new skill is very popular during the first few days after it came out and looses the massive interest quickly. The latest total exp of all people on the construction highscores (about 193K people) combined is ~21bil exp. Eventually we should expect the graph to start looking more like a linear line (as the interest in leveling the skill will become 'constant') or actually even a bit like an exponential function (as more and more people are starting to play runescape). Between 1-6-06 and 10-6-06, people were getting a total of 1000mil exp / day, between 10-6-06 and 30-6-06 people were getting about 325mil exp / day and between 30-6-06 and 26-8-06 (now) people were only getting 95mil exp / day together. Assuming that every experience gained roughly draines 10gp from the economy, construction still drains about 1bil gp / day. Nothing extremely big, but it is still a significant money drain. :)

Sorry but these arguments mean little to me. If the person has little time and/or cares about not being paid for it, then (s)he's not the right person to be the editor. Anyway, generally the editor is doing a good job, so I'm not questioning whether (s)he's the right person to be the editor. What I (and others) do question is the use of the Tip.It Times for 'bloggish' articles when there's not much else to write about. Constructive critism usually ensures improvement.

Sligo - didn't know tip.it was 'owned' by the editor of the tip.it times? Nor is it there just for the editor to spread his opinion about whatever he wants. It's there to... Wait, just let me copy-paste.

Been noticing for a while that the the editor of the tip.it times is writing a bit too much about 'nothing' when there are no significant updates. Can't blame the editor for that - when there's not much new to write about, there's not much new to write about. But I do agree with Adam that it would probably be better to have an article about a more 'general subject' written by either the editor or a guest author instead then. :oops: Been trying to come up with an interesting topic for a while already - I'll see what I can do. :P

There's a big difference between 'scamming' and 'hacking' and their definitions though. In online games, scamming usually means "cheating someone out of their possesions" within the world. Hacking is using things like keyloggers, trojans, whatever, to steal passwords / accounts. Point is that the whole thing of keylogging someone is already a crime. The article you referred to writes only about 'hacking', which, like I said, is already against law anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if the 'scamming' itself became against real law in the (far) future as well though. Would be a good thing.

I wouldn't put autoers on the same level as scammers. Scammers directly hurt fellow players, while autoers indirectly hurt fellow players. Scammers tend to take pleasure in ruining someone else's fun, while autoers (mainly) do it to enhance their own fun. I think a better conclusion is that they don't take the game seriously, instead of not taking responsibility seriously. Or that they just don't have a conscience. Jagex is too hesistant to ban the (main) accounts of scammers IMO. Admitted, even if they would do a better job at that, scamming would not totally go away. However, I do think that it would be much less of a problem then it is now. In the end, their main reason is usually the profits. If that is continously taken away from them, many would stop. :lol: Apparently you haven't been around in the popular trading places oftenly. Otherwise you would have known that scammers are the most stubborn people around. Even if there are several players around them saying they are scamming, they'll still continue to try and scam people.

Never got to know you personally, but I always had a good impression of you. Spontaneous, motivated and helpful. Good luck with raising your kid and any other plans you may have in life ;).

It's a quest item of some quest. Not rare.

No, definately not. However, I do think it creates a certain price floor or at least makes the panic smaller (then if they were all in the hands of speculators). Well during the 3.5 month long price drop of phat prices at the start of rs2 I observed that quite a few people were holding on to their rares. Yeah, it's a rough estimate anyway. If I look at my data right now and that of exactly a year ago I see they rose with a factor 7 even. Ok it's a good arguement that the people who can't afford the cheapest rare could buy materials for future purposes instead of just keeping their gp (that alone creates increased demand for materials already, helping to let the process go more gradually). I don't think the individual player who can afford rares currently has an advantage by buying materials right now though? Especially because rares are still going up, and at a high rate. Nor is the individual player really concerned with trying to prevent panic or not. :P It depends mostly on whether the process goes gradually or not. If the prices of materials go up too fast in a short period of time, people will panic. Speculators seek out items that go up in price. The only items doing that are rares and will probably be rares for quite some time still. We can't even say whether the scenario's we describe could happen in 6 months, a year, 2 year or even longer. Speculators don't want to buy materials and wait that long - especially with rares going up. It depends a lot on the situation. Not all scenario's we described lead to a crash of the rares-market. Ofcourse you'd probably be better off owning materials at those times though.