Duke_Freedom

Well, less or more directly, the inflation depends on the amount of people playing this game ofcourse. Personally I was surprised that it seems to follow the long-term trend of the gp ingame so literally though - I had expected the rares index to, at least slowly, diverge from the gp index. Another interesting note about the index graph: as you can see, in the period from may-2005 to october-2005, the rares index is significantly higher then the gp index. Most likely, the reason for this is slayer (in fact the whole peak you see in june-2005 was caused by slayer) which caused a large increase in demand for rares on short to mid-long term, which in turn influenced the development of the rare prices in that period. Apparently there was a 'lack of gp' to allow the rares index to continue it's divergence from the gp index though, and eventually the rares index even returned back to the exponential trendline of the gp index. Yes, most of the really rich merchants prefer to express their richness in rares, rather then gp, for that reason as well.

Mask sets are much more than 20 mill, and Santas are much more as you know than 4.5mill! Those errors need to be fixed! :wink: You're talking about the other article now - that was written 4 months ago :P... And yes mask sets were 20mil then santa's were 4.5mil then ^^.

Yup, and it's now published in the tip.it times :P.

Yeah, third one as well as that one is about the indexed graphs of both rares and the total gp ingame. :P Yes I know - but how many people really use them? Most people seem to level using oak, which only drains 5.8gp / exp (that is including the most expensive servant already) and is still significantly lower then the 8gp / exp rate I actually used in my calculations. I know there are people using mahogany and even spending cash on the Gold Leafs, Marble and Magic stones - but would they really be putting the average gp spend / exp gained up by more then the 2.2gp I took to compensate that? Apart from self-study on economics, some basic courses on economics (that didn't teach me much that I didn't already know :P) and quite long experience with RuneScape's economy - I don't really have an economical background. I do study applied mathematics though, which focusses on the modelling and (reasonably) simplifying of complex systems to more analysable models - which is a lot like what I do in these articles. :) Well, as I said, smaller rares did very well the past 4 months. However, in opposite to what most people usually think when you that, something that recently rose a lot is generally not a good item to buy for the short-term future. ;) They are currently 11.5mil, take another peak at my graphs as they do show that ^^. The 4.5mil your looking at is the pumpkin I think, which is actually 4mil. :? Thanks for the positive reactions everyone. :)

Ok that clears it up about the utility issue at least, although I'm not sure why we would want to consider the practical utility of items, as it's not really an important aspect in terms of economics? You can't derive the importance of an item for the economy by means of it's practical utility. Sure a bronze med has more practical use then a rare, but that's ignoring that it's a collectable, extremely wanted and thus highly priced. Yes, that's true. And in general yes, when people talk about RuneScape's economy they are usually only discussing rares. Although I agree it's a bit weird that there are very few topics created about the material market or the high-cost item markets in RuneScape, I must also say there is little to discuss about regarding those markets. As I said, most materials have remained at the same price for years, and the only times they change in price is when Jagex adds an update that influences the supply or demand of the material. Just to give an example, steel bars were 600gp 3 years ago when I started playing this game. They were 600gp 2 years ago, they were 550gp each after rs2 roughly a year ago and they are currently 650gp due to introduction of construction.. Chances are their prices are going to go back to 600gp each some time in the future again. All that said, what's left to discuss about them? Assuming that the supply grows at the same rate as the inflation is something totally different then proving it though. Doing basic calculations there is no possible way I can conclude that the supply is growing at any rate near the inflation rate in this game. The rate at which the supply grows cannot take away all the effects of inflation. I'd really suggest you read the article I linked to in my previous post regarding that and check the population growth of the game on this site for that, as population growth is clearly the most important factor for supply increase. For the person who asked, although personally I consider the information irrelevant, considering I've seen people claim to know all about economics on several occasions before, while they were promoting the most ridiculous idea's... Anyway, I'm 19 and studying both Applied Mathematics and Computer Science at university.

Thanks dogfever for clearing it up a bit ^^. It's ok - to be honest I infact did not know the other definition of the word utilitarian till your post and only found out about it till I looked it up (I'm not english - for as much that is an excuse), but Paulhartman clearly ment the more economical definition of it. He's using it wrong however; economics does not make a difference between collectables and "useful" items regarding utility - and you surely cannot compare a painting of Rembrandt with some painting made by your kids in terms of value nor utility as it is defined by economics. Nevertheless I suppose you are slightly right that I'm arguing too little on the subject itself, which I may have been doing as he posted a lot of extreme point of views on the other topic he created saying things that rares are totally unimportant, which just isn't based on anything and basically saying that anyone who didn't agree with him doesn't know what he's talking about. As in his last reply he is at least taking my point of view a bit more seriously, I guess I'll do an attemp to create some more intelligent debate to go on here. While in the current situation of nowadays, rares are less important regarding that issue then they used to be, say, 2-3 years ago, when there were practically no high-cost items (like dragon chains, whips and all the like) they still do function a bit for that as well. By the way, I'm pretty sure Syko ment to say that rares "take (a big part) of the effects of the inflation" (where the inflation is, obviously, caused by money growth). If your arguement is true and rares do not hold down the inflation, then where is all this gp going to? Mind you that the material prices have bearly changed in price over the past 3 years, and if they did, it was only because of an update Jagex had. Pseudo-rares are always going downwards due to their simple nature of not being limited as rares are - so really I'm not going to believe they take care of the whole inflation issue either. Still, I'm sure you agree the gp has to go somewhere, and the only thing that is left, are rares. Now before you jump on it and turn my words around, saying that I state that all the effects of inflation are absorbed by the rares - no I'm not saying that. However, I'm 100% convinced that rares do play a role in, at least, absorbing part of the inflation effect. In fact, all the evidence is pointing in that direction - you'll have a hard time to prove where it's going otherwise.

ofcourse, in item value, it would be maybe 10-20T?(nobody will ever know, or even be able make an educated guess) even the entire rs would not be able to afford that. Hm, I think the high side of that range is a bit too much. Personally I'd guess the total item value somewhere between 5 and 10tril. But then again, it's really hard to tell what's reasonable. Yes, I've got that criticism before. Maybe I'll be adapting smithing slightly next time, although you should not forget the calculations do not consider things like mith plates and especially magic longs either. The idea is the estimate in a way that both sides (overestimation and underestimation) may even out a bit. I already did that once, you may wanna read this article ;). The calculations consider the amount of gp that is created by high alching (which in the case of example a yew long is 768gp). The high alcher may loose all that cash on the nature and the yew long he bought, but that's not the point. Key word is that there was money created in the game. No I did not create a new account, and the chances are extremely slim I will ever create a new char. Either way, for now I'll still be browsing these forums regularly and as I still have an interest in observing the game's economy left, I'll probably keep writing some articles every now and then as well. ;) Oi, lemme add them. :lol: 1780bil and 1gp, 1780bil and 2gp ... ... 1780bil and 14gp. And as you should have known(!1), tin ore doesn't add to the gp total in the economy. :P

Rares went too low, and enough merchants saw that and stocked up again. Although the extremely negative effect of construction wasn't likely to last long, people should keep in mind that rares will grow at a smaller rate then seen in the past, due to the much lower inflation rate nowadays.

And in case you are wondering about the definition of utilitarianism: Apparently you want to join Paulhartman by saying I have no idea what I'm talking about? :roll:

Clearly you do not understand that utility is an economically defined concept, which you can't just give a definition you like. You can read more about the real definition of utility here on wikipedia. In case you decide to actually learn something. For that time, the money is not taking part in the economy. It's as simple as that. As I just pointed out, you're using wrong self-defined definitions for perfectly well-defined economical concepts. That's not making statements based on economics, that's just making stuff up. Correction you do not even consider my arguements and just put them down like I have no idea what economics is about. All you're doing right now is creating misinformation yourself. We're not just a bit full of ourselves are we? :roll: Lastly - I am not claiming that the rares market IS the economy or anything ridiculous like that. It is undeniable, however, that rares play a big part in RuneScape's economy as well and are one of the most interesting items in RuneScape to observe from an economical point of view, as they have fluctuating prices, in opposite to the material markets who have practically constant prices and the pseudo-rares market that have continous-dropping prices. Unless you're going to take my arguments more seriously and be open for other people's opinions, I probably won't post on this thread again.

I'll be writing about that soon. ;) Yes, I'm guessing the rapidly increasing player population of RuneScape is a large cause for it.

Itâââ‰â¢s been about 9 months since the last time I estimated the total amount of gp in the game, which I calculated at about 455bil then. Since Iâââ‰â¢ve gotten a lot of requests to do the calculation over again lately and since I was interested in seeing the current numbers myself as well, especially with the recent introduction of the large money drain that is construction, I decided to update my estimation. Using the same techniques as the previous time, I added the total exp of all (130K people) who can make yew longbows (370bil exp), subtracted the required exp for yew longbow making of all those people (which leaves us at 270bil exp left) divided that by the amount of exp gained by making a strung yew longbow (gives us 1800mil finished yew longbows) and multiplied that number by the amount of gp you gain from high alching a yew long, which means a total of 1400bil was created by fletching (estimated this at 420bil the previous time). For smithing the total exp of all (500K people) who can make steel plates added up to 133bil exp, which, subtracting the exp needed to be able to make steel plates leaves us with 91.5bil after steel plate smithing. Dividing this amount of exp by the amount of exp you gain for making a steel plate, gives a total of 490mil steel plates made. Multiplying this by the amount of gp you gain by high alching a steel plate, we see that roughly 590bil was created by smithing (estimated this at 200bil the previous time). The last large non-combat gp creator to consider is crafting. The total exp of all (15K people) those who can make blue dragon hide leather bodies is about 25.5bil of which 13.5bil exp was gained after that reaching the level required to craft that. This means that 65mil blue dragon hides bodies were made, resulting in roughly 380bil created. As I estimated that roughly 50bil worth of exp was gained pre-rs2 (thus, before dragon hide crafting) the previous time, Iâââ‰â¢ll be subtracting that this time as well, which means 330bil was really created by crafting (estimated this at 100bil the previous time). For thieving I added the exp of the first 70K players in the high scores, which came to a total exp of about 48bil. Looking at the average gp thieved / exp gained ratio of the skill, I roughly concluded that 0.8gp was created per exp point gained, which means that the whole thieving skill introduced about 40bil gp in the economy (estimated this at 15bil the previous time). Lastly, Iâââ‰â¢ll take a look at combat again. Iâââ‰â¢ve considered some of the feedback I received the previous time, and decided to assume that combat created 0.3mil per person on average, whereas I assumed 0.2mil the previous time. I considered the top 1000K players (an average combat level of ~75-80). Multiplying both things with each other gives us 300bil created (estimated this at 100bil the previous time). Adding it all together: 1400+590+330+40+300 = 2660bil created. Moving on to the money drains I now guesstimate that somewhere between 100-200bil = ~150bil gp left the economy on banned accounts (estimated this at 50-90bil the previous time). Guesstimating the total of gp drained by expensive item shops at 200bil now (100bil + my previous estimate of 100bil). Using the same techniques to calculate the gp drained by feather, rune and arrow shops, I now estimate that 4 people * 110 servers on average * 25gp / item * 10 items / click * 3600 seconds / hour * 24 hours / day * 270 days that roughly passed since my previous estimation / 15 seconds needed per click = 170bil is drained by shops since the last time. Adding the previous estimate of 200bil to this, we come to about 370bil drained by regular shops. Lastly, Iâââ‰â¢ll estimate the total gp drained by barrows. I now estimate that there were about 12.5K full barrow sets on average since barrows came out, 13 months ago. Assuming that people with barrow sets train 1.5 hour a day on average, they need to repair their armor 3 times a month, at a cost of 330K. Multiplying this all together gives 160bil gp drained by barrows (which I estimated at only 10bil the previous time, as barrows was relatively new back then). Adding all drains together: 150+370+200+160 = 880bil drained. Now if we subtract the total drains from the total created gp, 2660bil-880bil, we can roughly say that there is 1780bil gp floating around in the economy. I was quite surprised with this number as I expected it more to be around 1300bil, using the calculation that since my previous estimate 3bil gp was created per day on average. However according to these calculations (which are much more reliable) it seems that 5bil gp was created on average since my previous estimate instead and if we observe the money makers, they all roughly seem have tripled the amount of money that they created in my previous calculations. Feel free to give constructive criticism if you see the need to do so. :)

Perhaps because this thread is not raising any points at all and the arguing is flawed in various ways? He's arguing that the rares market is of zero importance to the economy, I can't argue with people who believe such ridiculous things... Especially when they basically say that anyone who doesn't agree with their opinion "doesn't know what he's talking about and needs a lesson on economics". :roll: Denying to accept something that is a fact does not make it untrue. You're calling this a fact? That's the most ridiculous argument I've heard about this. Perhaps I may have misinterpret his post here. I thought he said that he doesn't believe that there are people who play this game solely for rares, which is just not true. Which rereading it now, doesn't seem to be what he ment. Then again people are talking way too much in extreme's in this topic. No rares are no the whole economy, no they are not totally unimportant either, no they are not what everyone is after and no their not totally unwanted by everyone either. It are items with an interesting (price) behaviour and they are an addition to the game's economy - yes. Anything wrong with that?

I find it ironic that you see the need to create 2 topics about the same topic (rares are not important) :lol:. Sigh... Your arguements are flawed in like a billion ways. IF you had really known what you are talking about, then you would have known that quality, style and rarity are aspects of utility as well. How on earth can you argue that rares don't have utility? The utility value of a product decides what people are willing to pay for the product - rares have huge utility values, hence their price. Guess what, the real world and RuneScape are not comparable on everything... :roll: As someone else already said, rares keep prices of other products down because it makes people stash gp away to spare for a rare. Yay, I'm glad you posted that. I almost feared you weren't going to say others don't what they are talking about. As I also replied on that in the other thread you made about rares, it is generally true that the people who say that others don't know what they are talking about, don't know what they are talking about themselves. :D

Only going to adres one thing you said: No in my logic it is no unfair advantage either. If both invest the same amount of total playing time they get to the same point (more or less). Well the problem is that that isn't necessarily true. The best example would be that the first 99 rune smithers made millions upon millions from the skill. Nowadays, any new 99 rune smither is not going to make anywhere as much as them in the same amount of time - that's not completely "fair" either (yes it may be a bit extreme example, on a lower level it is possible to come up with similiar comparisons though, like saying that it isn't "fair" that people are generally able to train skills faster now then could 2 years ago - or the other way around). Either way, I can understand your point of view as you do have a valid point. Personally I just don't consider it to be more important then the positive sides that rares also have though... So I guess we should agree to respectfully disagree. ;)

The real issue, as you already mentioned, is actually the huge inflation problem of the game, which may have been solved for a big part by the introduction of construction now. The huge inflation was the main reason why rares were going up so fast in price. Admitted, even without any inflation, rares will go up on the long-term, just slower. While I can see your point that rares allow people to get "rich while being asleep", I do not see that as a negative something. Everyone is free to participate in the rares market if they want, and investing in rares is not completely riskless to remind you about that. Furthermore, from a educational point of view, it learns people that sparing money is rewarding, I think a lot of people in real life can learn a lot from that ;). Therefore I don't agree rares are an "unfair" advantage. Everyone has the ability to buy and sell them as they like. They are also an interesting addition to the game's economy. You can't compare using the game mechanics with breaking the rules. People who will start playing in 2 years will start out with all their skills at 1. People who start playing now will have levels ~80 or so by then. Isn't that an (unfair) advantage to the person starting in 2 years either? No, in my definition it isn't. Using your logic I would say it is, though.

Even though tip.it has nothing to do with the interview at all, I personally think it wasn't a smart move to post such an extremely biased and opinionated interview on the site. If I go back to a short while ago, I can remember an article that was too biased on "unfair banning" of players, written by the Editor of the tip.it times, who's opinion is clearly stated to not necessarily reflect tip.it's opinion either. The article was removed because it was too biased. Tell me, apart from the one being in the tip.it times and the other being just an uploaded article on your site, what's the difference in both things? That says more about 90% of RuneScape in that case, rather then that it makes it "ok" what Durial did. It's plain non-contraversional bug abuse, there's no way to talk that "right".

I'm not saying everyone plays for the rares (we're going from one extreme to another here), but you're totally denying the importance of rares by saying the total value of the rares market is insignificant and by saying you don't believe that rares are the sole reason some people play this game and that not many people will be pissed of when you remove them. Rares don't harm the economy. Most "rares ruin up the economy" threads actually mean to say there is an extreme inflation problem in this game. That may have been solved for a big part with the introduction of construction now though.

Denying to accept something that is a fact does not make it untrue. You're not making the economy any better by removing one of the most interesting items in RuneScape. I'm so glad that people who have no clue what they are talking about always say that others don't know what they are saying. :roll:

I swear, the "solutions" to the rares "issue" that I've been seeing throughout the years are getting worse and worse. :roll:

They didn't even have a roll-back when the famous dupe happened - this is nothing compared to that even. ^^

Oi, steve's a good guy :(. Hope he gets through it all well and recovers from it.

Nice. 8-) How much gp did you spent in construction so far? And (roughly) how much gp was drained out of the game? :)

Question is how useful this indicator really is. Do rares go in the consumer price index? (I know they wouldn't in real life, but rares play a big role in RuneScape's economy - not putting them in the overall cpi will not reflect the cpi very well imo though). It is easier, better doable and, I think, more useful to keep partial price index about the several markets in the game (materials, pseudo-rares and rares) and determine the general inflation / deflation rates of those markets. Nevertheless, as you already said, updates have huge influence in the economy, as the recently introduced construction clearly shows. That does 'ruin' the data and makes it quite hard to interpret the data. GDP and GDP per capita are extremely hard to determine if people don't know how long they have played for. Since Jagex doesn't give out playing times anymore, this sounds quite impossible. Basically I wrote about that already. Possible to do, but requires a large survey to be reliable. I'll be willing to help interpret the data, check the reasonability of the data and create useful survey-questions if needed, but I don't got the time to run the surveys themself. Keep in mind you'll have to keep a lot of surveys for it to give even slightly reliable information (1000+ people). Also keep in mind that only doing such surveys on forums gives less reliable data (as people who visit forums are generally higher leveled, richer, playing longer, etc), but is a lot of easier to do (which is why you'll probably still prefer to do it that way). Anyway, you may be interested in taking a peak in this article written by Edward Castronova, who basically analysed GDP in the game Everquest 4.5 years ago already.

I wouldn't call the article recent considering I wrote it on the 15th of september 2005 :P - someone just bumped it recently again, since the total amount of gp ingame is now a hot issue with the introduction of the huge money draining skill construction. Thanks for the compliment though. :) If you are really serious about your project then I'll be interested to see and interpret the data you get from the surveys you are planning to do.