Duke_Freedom

- Last time I checked crackers are more around ~700-750mil. - Rares have been going sideways / downwards for quite a while by now. - There will be no time that their price "suddenly" becomes so overwhelming that they crash, that just doesn't make sense at all.

One of the various reasons why turkey shouldn't be allowed in the EU. The still don't admit to have been executing genocide plans then.

Kids who hit puberty have low self-esteem and self-confidence in general - I think you'll find the reason there, rather then in the fact of people playing these online games. Besides, you're generalizing just as bad that people who play this game much have low self-confidence. And why do you care about people who solely judge you on your items / levels / post count anyway - it's just an easy confirmation that you don't want to be friends with that person. Edit: I may even say that people who are lower leveled / poor have an easier time to find real friends who really care about them then those who are higher leveled / rich, because once you get higher leveled / rich it generally gets tougher to figure out whether someone added you for who you are or whether he added you just because you are higher leveled / rich.

I have given plenty of people the ability to make millions on their own. Hehe. ;)

As far as I can see, the only person who's upset is you. About other people who get a fletching cape in a normal and intended way. You're not making any sense at all. Now I get what you're complaining about: people can train with 100K exp / hour or so if they don't gather the materials themself. However, that is the point of fletching? If you were "supposed" to gather you're own materials, fletching wouldn't be worth to be a skill on it's own in the first place?

And exactly why does it matter that you're buying the materials..? Cutting yew trees is not part of fletching. :roll:

I don't get why people call fletching buyable. A skill is buyable when you can spend money to train the skill faster... Fletching yew logs into yew longs (s) doesn't cost money -> fletching is not a buyable skill. Same partly goes for cooking as well, although raw food does cost slightly more then cooked these days. So this thread doesn't make any sense at all.

What is efficient or not solely depends on the pure money making abilities of individual players. Hm I disagree. You'd be right if you say that individual players may disagree which skill is the most expensive though, as it depends on their hourly money making abilities and those are obviously not the same for everyone. Still, you could assume some "average money making ability" or something like that and use that to determine which skill is the most expensive for most people.

I don't think I've ever seen them this low. But yeah, as I said, it's currently only worthwhile to fish them for autoers... Prices would surely go back up if Jagex bans the huge amounts of shark autoers.

With the current prices of sharks, it really only seems worthwhile for autoers to be honest..

I assume you ment to say "but only costs 25% of the faster method" instead of "25% less"? Anyway, your lineair definition of efficiency merely shows that spending money on skills is not efficient - under your definition - in the first place. You'd end up concluding that smelting steel bars (no costs) would be the most efficient if you considered that too, despite it being only ~10-15K / hour or so. Your self-made definition of efficient misses the point that time = money, which is rather important here. What is the most efficient actually depends on the money making abilities of individual players. To keep it simple: Level 99 = 13 mil exp needed. Leveling by steel requires 13mil / 77K = 170 hours. Leveling by gold requires 13mil / 44K = 295 hours. Difference 295 - 170 = 125 hours. Steel costs from level 1: 140mil Gold costs from level 1: 80mil (your 60mil was based on level 85 smithing already) Difference 140mil - 80mil = 60mil So for steel bar smithing to be more useful 125 hours > 60 mil thus 1 hour > 480K. I.e. for everyone who is able to gain 480K per hour or more in some way, it is more efficient to level using steel bars, for anyone who is unable to do so, the gold ore would be more efficient instead.

~140mil as I calculated earlier. How about you two guys come up with the actual exp / hour ratio's of smithing gold ore or smithing steel bars. If xpx is right with 77K / hour (steel bars) vs 44K / hour (gold ore) then yes, steel bars are indeed more efficient. And most efficient way for farming seems magic trees indeed, which puts the skill up to some ~150mil or so as well.

Nope don't got that. Gold ore has always had similiar prices, although I believe at peak it did cost somewhere around ~600 each, but it just wasn't possible to get it in bulk for a long time anyway - no matter the price. Didn't the Blast Furnace update (23 augustus 2005) also come with that gold mine section somewhere around there? Now that I think of it, I actually should have known as I've been there once and was surprised by the (for low lvl mining) relatively good profit / hour mining gold there then. I believe that started making bulk gold ore more common?

Didn't know things changed regarding that - gold ore wasn't easy to get in bulk a year or perhaps two back, but I see that it is now. Seems gold ore is the way to go now indeed, making smithing quite a bit cheaper then what it used to cost.

Sorry, but you just don't seem to understand what supply and demand theory is. It is not like supply = x and demand = y, independent of price, perception and whatever. Supply is a function of the price, which increases as the price increases. Demand is also a function of the price, which logically decreases as the price increases. The actual supply and demand at a certain price are already based on the perceptions of individuals - people never agree that one price is really the 'right' price. However, we do have a price equilibrium, which is that price where supply and demand are equal. The effect of an untransparent market is that the actual supply and demand functions are not known to everyone involved in the market. This leads to people trading at other prices than the price equilibrium (but does not change the price equilibrium!), which in turn leads to arbitrage opportunities, which is exactly what merchants make use of.

Yes, it is about the money you loose. I actually used steel bars for calculation though. Need roughly 350K of them * 600 each = 210mil. You make 70K steel plates (market value ~1000), so you get 70mil back: 210-70 = 140mil pure costs. Leveling smithing (with steel bars) has always cost somewhere around that. Or about efficiency, with time = money. ;) For some people training skills the fastest way is the best, for others training it the slower but cheaper way is more efficient instead.

Smithing costs some 120mil... No skills seem to cost really much these days though, prayer used to cost upwards to ~500mil back in the days of no guilded altar, etc.

Not "huge". Apart from that, 75% of the nat crafters won't go on a strike anyway, because it is still the best money maker for most people anyway. No. Would need to take a long time before it'd start effecting rares, besides rares have already been going sideways / downwards for ~8 months. Not much, only on yew logs and other alch-only items anyway.

The ditch update has no effect on that whatsoever - and definitely not within just a few days time.

20% over a two month period in RuneScape isn't that large to be honest. Merchants already trade whips with nearly a 5-10% profit range. What I mean with small price fluctuations is that the price at which (most) whips are sold during a day may be between 1.6-1.8mil, the price range. Those small "fluctuations" are based on different perspections of the 'right' price and are actually caused by, what you may call loosely, 'short term' supply & demand (the actual amount of people wanting to buy or sell a whip at a very specific moment in time on the market). I'm still not getting what you're trying to say with this though. It is impossible in both rs AND rl to really determine the supply and demand of various products -> that doesn't make the basic price equilibrium theory untrue in any way though. I'd love a link to your 'external data' or just the actual numbers from it and your reasoning how you concluded that demand should be going up faster then the supply. I strongly question your actual factual research for these strong claims you are making here. Sorry, I'm not a person who is convinced by words as "massive increases in RS" - especially not since I seem to be observing different trends myself. I already pointed out that psychology plays a central role in economics overall and directly influences supply and mostly demand - that is nothing special for untransparent markets though. Either way, simple supply & demand theory states that people thinking that "whip prices are 1.6mil" when there are more people who want to buy at 1.6mil then people wanting to sell for 1.6mil doesn't make the price 1.6mil (but higher instead). In other words, the prices don't become 1.6mil if the supply & demand aren't roughly equal at that price (which can only be possible if demand drops relatively to supply). What you seem to be saying is that the demand increases, while the perspection of the price decreases and while the supply doesn't keep up with the increased demand -> that goes against the whole supply & demand theory though (given that there are no other external reasons why the perspection of the price decreases: i.e. substitute goods).

If most of those people could make a living of it, you bet it wouldn't last long anyway. ;)

You're comparing materials and high cost armour and weapons in RuneScape with real life stocks, while you should be comparing them with products like bread, clothes and cars in real life. You don't got a fully transparent market (since that is what you are pointing out) in those products in real life either. However, supply and demand still dictate the (larger) price fluctuations. People can still use the forums and ingame trading places to get a (rough) idea of the prices. The mistake you seem to make here is that untransparency does not change the price equilibrium (which is dictated solely by demand and supply). Untransparency only changes the price spread: the range in which most sales of a product take place. - When people get in their head that stock x is no longer worth $10, you bet it's gonna be hard to sell it for $10 as well. Psychology is important in economics overall, this is no different for stocks nor RuneScape. Psychology just directly influences supply and, mostly, demand. - Stocks alternatively rise AND fall too, oftenly not based on much either(considering small price fluctuations). You're not literally gonna tell me that it makes sense that a stock is worth $10 now, $10.02 two seconds later and then $9.99 another ten seconds later? - As far as I know, RuneScape's player base hasn't been growing that much at all over the past months / year. People have different perspections of the 'right' price yes. As I said, that's the effect of an untransparent market - price ranges are wider and thus people will have different views on the 'normal' price. For the rest, throw in the average age of the players in this game and you'll end up being a "n00b" when you don't buy for the prices they perceive as 'right'. :lol:

My point was - stakers don't make such ridiculous large amount daily, that's just a stupid statement. Sure they may win it one day but then they oftenly loose it the next day. It's about what they can make on average, not what they make during incidents... To say stakers can make whatever extreme amount of money per day based on what some staker made one time is just nonsense.

Luring was only 'legal' during the time Jagex choose to make it legal. Before their initial rule change, it felt perfectly fine under rule 2: item scamming. And I've always said there is nothing wrong with arrow "stealing" -> it isn't stealing. If people aren't quick enough with picking up their arrows then they are no longer their property anymore - it is as simple as that. People who whine about this should start playing single player games.

1bil a day... You are funny. Cursed you won 7bil in total probably - not daily winnings. :lol: Besides, I'm the living evidence that merchanting can hold staking, especially if you keep in mind that pretty much all top stakers were involved in bug abuse one way or another - not a very fair comparison eh. :roll: Merchanting is relatively reliable and consistent income. Staking, in most cases, eventually comes down to luck with perhaps a slightly expected higher chance of winning then your opponent for good stakers.