Duke_Freedom

Ofcourse they tend to be more immature in general. Like I already said in the same post, most younger people are very impatient for example. I think some people here (not necessarily you) are also making the mistake that immaturity has little to do with someone being nice, honest and/or (trying to be) polite or not though. As for this quote: I doubt most scammers are younger people. Especially the more intelligent scams (for example the team scam) are probably done (at least the first time) by older people instead of younger people.. Heck, the first 4 big manipulaters were all ~18 y olds. To be honest I think I partly agree with that. I believe the ones here that are stereotyping 13 y olds don't realise that stereotyping is a form of immaturity too. ;)

In fact, age doesn't even have to do that much with maturity. I've spoken to 11 y old in this game who acted much more mature then some 21 y old I met. Sure, the 11 y old could oftenly be very impatient, which ofcourse had a lot to do with his age (most young people tend to be very impatient). But the point is, he was nice, honest and very polite (despite his impatience ;)), whereas the 21 y old was arrogant, rude and egoistic. Perhaps this actually has more to do with character traits then maturity, but in any case: it has little to do with age. ;)

Rs isn't focussing on the real RPG players, so ofcourse it lacks a storyline. And I don't think they, nor the main part of the players, are interested in one either ;).

Uh.. I cancelled the word "homework" quickly after I went to secondary school. Mostly because I found it all way too much work :P and besides that I can learn things quickly enough by just reading the stuff once without making homework about it. Ok, I'll admit: most of the time you'll only know it in your short term memory this way and forget much of it quickly. But who cares :P. After all, now that I'm done with secondary school, my impression about it stays that it's all solely about the notes and nothing else, even though the teachers tend to tell you the opposite at least 8396986 times during your schooltime. :roll: I never cheated with exams though, my grades were fine enough. Besides, people wanted to copy my stuff 99% of the time, mainly by math and physics. I did cheat with boring projects or orals though - I just hate them because they demand a lot of time and you barely learn anything from them.. Anyway, I guess my most interesting cheat was last year. We had to read 12 books for a very important oral about dutch literature. Before the orals, the teacher warned everyone that she would "Surely notice it during your oral if you didn't read one of your books". Considering teachers oftenly lie about such things I took the risk anyway, by not reading 7(!) of the 12 books. :lol: The oral went smooth, she didn't notice anything (obviously I did read some summaries on the books I didn't read at all). Even got a 7/10 for the oral. :lol: I wonder how things are going to go next school year at university. Gonna study math & computer engineering if you wonder. :)

Neat stat. How'd you figure that? lpinkus Calculated it by using the number of servers. Seeing the amount of people playing per server is about the same on F2P as on P2P this number should be quite accurate. I also remember hearing figures of 1mil active player accounts when there were about 250K members half a year ago. (total number of servers is 84 of which 33 are members. Which means 28% members) The precise number is probably a bit lower because I'm sure that on average P2Pers spend more hours/day on the game then F2Pers.

Nah I can't see Jagex implement a limit on the 'trial'. This tactic has payed them off very well and I'm sure they'll keep it for that reason. Not to mention that removing F2P now would create a lot of problems.. Don't forget that only 20-25% of the players are actually P2P. Unless RuneScape is gonna go downwards in player base within a few years, and the rate of P2Pers:F2Pers is dropping too significantly at that time (jagex making a loss), I don't see why they would or should remove F2P. To kaibini: Most of the games you named are not as great as you say (or addictive?), and most of them have a (very) small player base and relatively a lot of problems with bugs and inbalanced gameplay. Also, I'm not sure if all of those will stay F2P as some are mainly F2P because they are still in alpha/beta testing fase.

Oh help... Well, like others pointed out already: you have noobs at any level, although there are relatively more at the lower levels. I doubt it would solve much though. And even then - I doubt Jagex would ever do it.

Like I posted on the other thread about stereotyping: As for the racism in the game, which is what this topic was about really: RuneScape is merely a virtual copy of the real world. People act like this in rl too (like Eric mentioned: KKK, slavery, but there are loads of examples more). Taking into account internet(games) provide an anonymous environment, people will tend to voice their racists thoughts \ opinions much more quickly and rudely. IMO rs could be different though. Jagex has the full power over their world and, if they would try to, they could easily get rid of racism and / or other rl-derived problems like scamming. By actually PUNISHING offenders I do believe things could be a lot better.

There's a huge difference between "most younger players are beggars" and "it are mostly younger players who beg". While there's noone who can possibly prove the first sentence to be true, and as it's very unlikely that it's true (I would probably get at least 100 times as much pms for 'free stuff plz' then :P), I do think most will agree with the latter sentence being very likely.

I believe it was a 124 but at least it was above 120. Don't need to explain why I think... And yes - he was serious.

The things people come up with these days... :lol:

Ah but it's good to know you now see the positive effects of rares too. And there's nothing wrong with staying sceptical about rares. Rares just have their up- and downsides, like so many things in life.. :lol: Are they really? I don't see how they could stop that however...but that is for a different discussion Ofcourse they can't stop it totally (unless they would make loads of items untradable), but they can do their best to limit it as much as possible. Also, if you take a look at the skills that were added to the game later on, herblore is the only one that's really buyable. The other ones (*fletching, agility, thieving, slayer and runecrafting) are not. *Fastest way to level fletching would be by buying yew logs (~300gp ea) and bow strings (~100 ea) and make strung yew longs (~400gp ea), but as you can see, you don't really loose money by doing so, thus I don't consider the skill 'buyable'. And who knows what the reason for the un-tradability of the watering can for the upcomming farming skill might be... (most likely to prevent the use of runners?)

Yay! Converted another person to become neutral. Created another follower of Guthix! Power through balance! :lol: I must say you couldn't have formulated that better... Rs just has a lack of possibilities on what to do with loads of cash. Sure skills aren't cheap, but many people don't like the idea of spending on money skills (as you'll never make that money back from the skill). Saddest part of this all is that Jagex is even trying its best to prevent xp to be 'buyable' anymore, furthermore weakening the 'worth of the gp' by doing so...

*Goes and creates 100 characters or so.. :roll:* To Y2g2003: Although I know you mean it right you should not try to generalize.. What price manipulators do shouldn't be considered merchanting at all - even though people consider it like that. It's basically based on the (not much different and very old) *team scam. Also, it's not true what you said about merchanters making prices go up extra. Rares aren't called 'rare' for no reason. They are just that and will become more of it all that time. Rares only get rarer due to various reasons which are commonly known. Although these effects are all long-term, they do drive up the prices in the end too, and prices of rares wouldn't have been much lower without merchants. *note: I'm not saying price manipulators make the rares overpriced, as they actually do. *Team scam: You let a friend yell "buying pumpkin 10mil" and you yell "selling pumpkin 5mil" yourself.

Duke, that's interesting about the dragon chain prices. Were changes being made to the frequency of drops, design of the armor, stats of the armor, or something else? Let's see if I can still remember why every price rise and drop happened :lol:. Luckely the news items of Jagex help me with it :). 7 september 2004: The first drag chains were traded for around ~30mil. Like it is always the same thing with new rares, they drop very quickly in the beginning and so the prices would go to 20, 15, 10 and around ~8.5mil is the lowest I personally saw one go. 27 september 2004: Apparently Jagex considered the queen too easy to kill. They gave the queen a new attack option. Now a team was needed to kill it. Prices of drag chains shot up from 9 to 14mil ON THE NEWS ITEM ONLY. One person who had been at the queen like all the time told me to buy chains as investement, because they actually were very hard to get now. I would not do this, mainly because I hate investing in an item where the game designers actually set the prices. My point that you can't rely on their prices would be proven multiple times :). After 27 september 2004 (somewhere in december I believe): As a mid-long term result of the new attack option of the queen, the prices steadily to ~33mil. ??? (I think januari or februari): Not really a fault of Jagex, but there was a safe spot found for the queen. Prices quickly drop to ~20mil once this becomes common knowledge Soon after that: Jagex solved the bug. Prices shoot back up to ~33mil. 18 april 2005: Dust Devils drop drag chains. Prices quickly drop to ~24mil. After 18 april 2005: The price drop was a huge overreaction. Prices did shoot back up quickly again too.. Back to ~30mil. 9 may 2005: Barrows. Much better armour, drag chains drop to ~22mil almost instantly. 11 may 2005 or so: Jagex announced barrows will degrade by wearing it. After 15 hours of use you have to repair it. Chains shoot back up to ~31mil. Yes, the worth of an item can be fully controlled by Jagex :).

Various problems and loopholes in your suggestion: - Party hats aren't always traded for pure gp; and when this will be introduced they will definately not be traded for pure gp anymore ;). - I could just let the person give me the cash for the rare first and then give him the rare in another trade afterwards. (also leads to increased amount of scamming again) - Or drop the rare or sell it to a general store in a silent place (with the same scamming risks) Way too many flaws to be a serious solution, and even then, like lpinkus already said: Jagex will never officially accept the value that players gave to the rares and thus Jagex will never come with a solution that shows they recognize the value of rares. To lpinkus: Your comment that Jagex doesn't interfere in the economy isn't really true. I've seen dragon chain prices go from 9 to 14 to 30 to 20 to 30 to 20 to 30 to 20 to 30mil so far, just because Jagex was changing some things in the game design and thus in the game's economy - they don't seem to understand that major changes in the game will also cause major changes in prices of items ;). And, if anything, Jagex only contributes to the profit of active merchants by doing so, so you should start complaining to Jagex about that :P.

Changing the integer types isn't a problem at all... Graphical changes might be some work (to make room for 3 digits), but not really something to worry about. If all integers are signed you better not get more then 2.1Bil pure gp... Might be risky :P.

2) is not, in runescape or real life. I would guess that most party hat buyers are investors, merchants who are buying lower and selling higher, not people who are enchanted by the way a phat looks :) Maybe I'm biased because I understand what it takes to produce great music, but I'm sure it takes longer than coding the pixels for a phat. Your making a mistake in your reasoning here. Merchants and investors may or may not have the largest market share in rares (I think you should be careful with saying that in the first place - I think 'normal players' own much more rares then you might think ;)), but they are not the ones driving the prices up on the long-term. As you said yourself, they buy to resell. Although it might be true that merchants and investors sell a lot to each other, the real ones who drive the prices of rares upwards are the collectors and the show-offs. They actually take rares out of the market forever which creates less supply or shortage of rares. This shortage leads to higher prices. The same is true for art. Museums buy art for huge prices because there is a shortage of art. Analysing it closely, museums are just 'representing' a lot of 'collectors' (for the lack of a better definition here) in the form of a 'non-profit organization'. (not sure if all museums are non profit - not really important though) Yeah.

I'm not talking about the immediate effect of this. The immediate effect is only short term and not really important. However on a one or two month term, prices will stabalize. The price range of party hats will be much smaller then, making it less interesting for merchants to trade them. Currently I see party hats being traded within a ~1mil range... That will definately drop back to a few 100Ks again after prices stabalized because of this update. Merchants who aren't used to small profit margins (most merchants around nowadays) won't be able to adapt to this and thus leave the rare-merchanting. The quest wouldn't make them a real-rare anymore. Like I said.. The idea of "one day I'll own them all" will be taken away. Besides, I don't see people collect abyssal whips either, nor any other pseudo-rare. So why would they collect party hats and such, while theyt work exactly like all the other pseudo-rares now?

You are right about the fact that there are some (although few) people who buy / sell at "any" price. (I edited the example, it now also has some buyers at 100mil and some sellers at 1gp) However, even though there are people who are willing to sell for 1gp, there are way more people who are willing to buy for much higher. So under ideal circumstances, there will always be someone else who will offer 12mil for the party hat, preventing you from buying it for 1gp. The stock-market, like you rightly concluded, works exactly like that. Now you are right rs doesn't have these 'ideal circumstances'. Trades don't take place at one static price, based on the total demand and supply. But instead, items in rs have a 'price range' in which most trades take place. The average of all those trades would, theoretically, still be the same as with the 'ideal circumstances' though. I appreciated your post, read the whole thing. But, with all due respect to you and your cousin, look deeper into the Picasso-there's more in there than in a phat :) What I fail to understand is that you don't see the link between rares in rs and famous art in real life. Let me show that they have everything in common: 1) They both can't be reproduced. (This partly explains their high pricing from an economical stance) 2) They are both based on 'sentimental' value. Party hats are expensive because there are people who like their looks. Art is expensive because there are people who "see deeper things" in it and thus they think it's worth a lot. 3) Both really have no use. No - that you can see "deeper thoughts" in art or that art "delightens" you is not useful at all. If you do think that's useful, then party hats are useful too, as they show that you "worked hard to gain so much money to afford them" and / or "that you've playing rs for a long time". So my question is - why don't you agree it's just as ridiculous that people pay millions for a painting of Picasso as it is that they pay millions for a Party Hat in rs? Believe me, if look at it objectively, there's absolutely no difference between rares in rs and art in rl. :)

Even this solution will not manage to prevent massive changes in the economy though. A few posts earlier I already explained what kind of players buy rares - now let's take a look at how they'll probably react to your solution: 1) Investors. The investors won't have a reason to keep their money in rares anymore (rares don't go up in price on the long-term anymore) they will pull out the worth they have in them. 2) Merchants. The profit marges of rares-sales will probably be smaller due to such a shop. The activity of rares-trading as a whole will be lower, as many people are less or not interested in rares now. This would make the rares less attractive for merchants, so a lot of merchants would move away from the rares market. 3) Show offs. I'm not sure what these people would do if this change happened. Let's assume they stay interested in rares. 4) Collectors. The collectors will see less interest to collect the rares, because the idea of "one day I'll own them all" will be taken away. There will be a unlimited supply of rares and thus a big part of the collectors might not see the point in collecting the rares anymore. As you can see - such a change will take away the interest in rares of many people. If the shop buys the rares for a good price too, that would only add on to the problems that already come from the lowered interest in the rares. Well, like I already said in a previous post. The largest problem with finding a 'good' solution is that the rares market is way too large. If it wasn't so large, this could be a solution perhaps; but we are talking about a total worth of all rares that goes into the 100+ bils. Besides that, not only that huge amount of new gp introduced will have a major impact on the economy... The fact that there would be only a few items really expensive items in the game left, combined with the fact that (theoretically) there would be no items that always go up on the long-term anymore, will have a major impact on the economy. To desipardesi: Well written post. Summarizes most important things said in this thread. And yes - the rs economy is very similiar to the real economy, just a little less complicated on some area's.

It's ok the way it is now. There's no demand when the price is insanely high, and there's a huge demand when the price is ridiculously low. ;) The numbers after the price show how much demand (how many people are willing to buy) and supply (how many people are willing to sell) there is at that price. ...Bah you already figured out before I posted :P.

Exp = Time = Money Tell me why people who get exp should make more money then merchants? Merchant's don't get exp - they trade that in for money :). Anyway, I suppose you never met one of the various insane rich stakers.. The top ones of them used to have comparable bank worths to richest merchants. I'm not too sure about the situation on that now, but I'm sure it shouldn't be much different now. Don't forget about the slayer richness either. Those people got way too rich way too easily. :lol: Power to the level 99 firemaking pyro-merchants! ;) Nah, we don't need skills beyond 99. I'd rather see Jagex introduce new skills, giving new/other players a chance to be the best in a skill too.. Much fairer then extending on a skill where only the top players can (massively) profit from.

If everyone reasoned like that, it would be true that rares would be worthless. But not everyone has the same idea's as you about this. People are willing to pay these high prices for various reasons, of which I already gave a few some posts earlier. Hmm, you seem to forget that noone will sell you a party hat for 1gp. Let me clarify why what you say isn't true though. We'll have to define 'market value' first: "The market value of an item is the price at which most trade can take place. In other words: the price at which the most buyers and sellers agree to trade with each other". Now, let's take a look at how a simplified situation of the demand and supply of a party hat could like: Price - *Total Demand - *Total Supply 100mil - 25 - 10.000 15mil - 150 - 1.000 14mil - 200 - 800 13mil - 300 - 600 12mil - 400 - 400 11mil - 600 - 250 10mil - 1.000 - 100 1gp - 10.000 - 25 *Total Demand and Total Supply have the meaning of "The total amount of buyers / sellers willing to buy / sell at this price" here. As we can clearly see, the most trade can take place at the price of 12mil. At this price 400 people are willing to buy and the same amount of people are willing to sell. Therefore, the market value of this item would be 12mil. It doesn't really matter why the art is famous to me :P. My point was that most art didn't have any (market) value when it was created, and gained it's current value over time - just like all rares in RuneScape did. It's not just a random chance that art in rl and rares in rs are similiar in that... It's a standard economic concept that they both share.

Yes, I've seen and read it (not the quest part :P). I have a few questions about your version of this often suggested 'solution': Would the shop also buy the tradable rares? Are the prices static? Anyway, stopping the price increase of rares is only half of the 'problem'. Jagex (and everyone who is against rares) principally and fundamentally doesn't like the rares prices to be so high in price and thus will never want them to be for sale at such a price in a shop. For a 'good' solution, one of the following things is required (otherwise there is no reason to change anything at all). - all rares are buyable for several gps. - all rares are permanently removed from the game. - all rares are made untradable. But even if only a price stabalization was the requirement your suggestion will have too much impact on the whole economy, slightly depending on the answers you give on the questions I asked above.