NukeMarine

Here's my thinking: If the gold farmers (and their bots and stolen credit card accounts and sweat shops) leave the game, Jagex may get inclined to offer all sorts of updates to improve these limited trades and duels. However, until then, these are meant as workable solutions that can be implemented immediately.

Ortiz, account selling will be the last major RWT business to be stopped. It's the most difficult too as how do you prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt? People change credit cards (so payment method alters), addresses (so IP addresses will change). It's very difficult. I do not see it being as bad as RWT though. With the trading changes, it makes it difficult to outfit the character. Plus, my understanding is accounts traded are usually scams to get you to put good items on it so the original can reset passwords to get it back.

I have to admit, I'm suprised you'd make this comment. You struck me as having a more balanced opinion on things. Calling F2P freeloaders when they offer Jagex a cash flow in form of ad revenue (true, ad revenues are the internets biggest joke, but that's beside the point). In addition, MANY members originate as f2p accounts. Jagex knows this so over time they cater slightly to them. However, this was not a F2P update, more of a overall update that affects all. Removing the wild as it was meant you had to replace both f2p and members with the mini-game or alienate potential future customers. Smart business tactic is all. That said, yeah, Jagex is not likely to lose much sleep over F2P. It's still moderated and monitored, but that's to make sure it's not being abused (and lose future members).

**EDIT: I'm adding in info as there's been two major changes similar to that suggested** **Keep the rants to the rants forums. Jagex has shown time and again they'll update the game in response to coherant player concerns. Offer those here** First I will say I like the updates that have been implemented today. In fact, I can see this business model being implemented by other MMORPG's as time goes on. With that: Legitimate Issues with Balanced Trades and Pking Updates 1. Rune Running (not yet addressed by Jagex) ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Ãâ a mainstay that has been around for a few years. It is complemented by other forms of running (Bone Running for prayer at POH altar, Ore and Bar running at the Blast Furnace, etc). Now, Jagex can fix these one of two ways: A) Create unnoting NPCÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢s at popular spots similar to what was done at Blast Furnace or General Store. B) Modify key UNNOTED item prices at key locations such as Unnoted Essence at the Nature Altar is worth price of 2 nature runes while at the air altar itÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢s worth 8 air runes. I think B is best for issues posted later. It's also possible Jagex wants running out of the game and only have skilled money makers. 2. F2P wilderness (not addressed by Jagex) ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Ãâ from what I hear, the NPCÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢s are just as powerful there. Seeing that P2P wilderness was more dangerous due to players being more powerful, then F2P wilderness revenants need to be less powerful to be more fair to F2P players. 3. Assistance Skills (not addressed by Jagex) ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Ãâ Jagex removed mining, fishing and woodcutting (maybe more) on the idea it did not assist anyone and allowed for powermining. With Balanced Trades, these skills need to be put back into assistance since I canÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t just ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¦Ã¢â¬ÅgiveÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬ÃâÃ

It should come as no suprise that ALL items that can be gathered on F2P world would suffer a decline in prices. You have far too many gatherers that for years had no convenient venue to sell with the best update F2P has ever experienced (outside the stronghold of security). Now, on the opposite hand, with exception of rares, I think items that originate on members but can be sold on F2P (strength pots, treasure trails) are probably getting a boost in prices. Jagex could solve alot of member problems by opening up low level P2P items on F2P (examples would be low level potions, sharks, selected enchanted jewelry, etc.). With the GE, it would definately help F2P and P2P without the worry of merchants gumming up the works. That leaves P2P items. As has been shown, end items (cooked sharks, potions, armor, rings, whatever) are probably going to suffer a dramatic decline in what was considered "standard" prices. Let's face it, you don't need too many sharks. How many are sold anyway. Part of this can be alleviated by allowing F2P to buy the items as stated above. Part of it is solved with time. We find out that players are willing to spend cash to level up, hence the end items sell for almost nothing. Now that I think about it, that 5% limit that was moaned about by so many (including myself) was a pretty smart move. It definately slowed down deflation to where it would have been. Now it's a matter of finding out what players actually want to buy. Still, it's nice to track progress. I think Jagex NEEDS to put tabbed screens on the NPC's that show current GE prices. I want to know going rates of Herbs, Secondaries and Finished potions. I want going Rates on Logs, Flax, Bowstrings, Bows and Crossbows. I want to know going rates on Ores, Bars and All armor sets. It should be simple, just tabbed screens. With that, bored players can put together a graph on price fluxuations. Eh, maybe in the future. Till then, we're just going to have to wait till Jagex modifies Player to Player trading. I think it will be like the Duel Arena where you cannot trade outside the GE value ranges, or if you do, it'll be limited to a certain amount every 15 minutes.

Jagex will not get rid of Player to Player trades. What Jagex will likely do is this: 1. All "accident" trades (death drops, party hall, duel arena, general stores) will be closed entirely by one means or another. 2. All drops over a certain value will never be seen by another player (I'm thinking 1k gp is the limit). 3. All trades between players must be within a certain value of each other in relation to Grand Exchange. Yes, this will close that one thing that's between Shared Accounts and Multiple Loggins: Friend trading. No more getting 1 million gp from your friend to get you back on your feet. So, I see player to player trading still existing, but the game will monitor your activities for unbalanced trades. If you go too far (say, 10k gp in a 15 minutes span with one player), it won't let you do any more trades. What's cool about that is that getting "hacked" (in reality, being a moron and giving your "friend" your pass) will not matter anymore. The "hacker" can't trade your items off anyway. Most he can do is just dump your stuff on the ground which won't be seen by anyone.

Think of it like this: Your clan puts in 1 Bill GP to buy up 1 Mill Mage Logs. Now, that VERY likely took out the low sellers. Now your clan turns around and puts up 1 Mill mage logs at 30 gp (average) above what you got them for. It may take time, but you're probably going to sell all of them and make a 30 Mill profit (in addition to driving up prices), since your clan is now in control of a very large stock. With this resell time freeze, you must wait a set time to get other sellers a chance to fill that void that you created with your market manipulating purchase. Then you can, after a set time, put your logs back on the market. Basicly, Jagex does not want you using the Grand Exchange to flip items. Either you want to buy an item you need or sell an item you don't need.

Well, if you take the pictures URL http://www.runescape.com/img/varrock/de ... mic05a.gif http://www.runescape.com/img/varrock/de ... mic05b.gif You see that the next two will be 5c and 5d. Sadly, Jagex hasn't preloaded those images yet. Drats.

It's VERY simple, in your Options menu, you can select how your item save will work. Either Hi-Alchemy price or GE Price. With that, you can make the best determination. By the way, that would even out the Barrow Set prices, as the items lost will soon pull toward being the same price (all soon, all will begin getting lost at same interval). At least Karil's will still be Junk.

Yeah, I think the Gravestone thing is no more death piles. The more you die with, the better the Gravestone looks. However, that means that Bounty Hunter will be MUCH, MUCH, cooler. You have to BUY into that game. Meaning your Loot will be online and at risk to some other random Pker while you hunt another Pker's loot. Sounds like it can easily work. Not to mention, there's a high score so the best man will be at the top of the list. Or you can go Rogue, which means you don't get loot for the kills (but you still have to buy into the system probably, Risk vs Fun I guess you can call it). Oh boy, no more moaning about 3 itemers. Bounty Hunters have to risk something to get something. Yes, these changes are just the final plug in the "accidental" RWT schemes: Environment Deaths: Monsters, Randoms, Whatever - currently a 1 minute wait before your items appear to all. Now it may be a return to item's to players bank" on the gravestone that appears. Staking: Now it's 3k limit. Useless for RWT. Pking deaths: Gravestones, which means no reward for killing in the Wilderness either unless you do Bounty Hunter or Clan Wars. Wonder if there'll be a "return item to player's bank" option on the gravestone?

I agree with the OP, but it's not all doom and gloom. Looks like the idea is 3 fold: The two mini-games are Pker and Clan Pker based, seeing as they take place in the high wild based on the Dormant Volcano statement. Now, if you can pk with Bounty Hunter (for Loot as it says) and Rogue Bounty Hunter, and you can have Clan Duels, well, Jagex can then drop the Bomb Shell. If you die, your "items" that don't get saved instead buy your tombstone. Outside the wild, it's taken care of by the 1 minute rule to get your items back. Probably that means that those items will now just....disappear after the minute. So yes, I think Jagex is really, really taking it to this level: You WILL NOT gain items by "accident". They can track drop trades and Player to Player trades with ease. That left Staking, Death by Environment, Death by Pking. This probably explains the purpose of the Behind the Scenes announcement. With all manner of transfers by "accident" closed, players stupid enough to buy cash with RWT are going have to use tracked methods. All will know that any attempts now will not work with anonymity. Depending on how Bounty hunting works, players may accept the compromise. We'll see.

Qelter, I think Jagex put that sticky up there to shut people up. I wouldn't want them to change prices on an item solely because L33tPk3r says long bows are x price. I honestly, honestly believe that Jagex moniters all trades to get a market average of player prices. Heck, that could have been a big reason behind the Unid Herb change. Can't narrow down what prices are if people are paying 1k for Ranarr herbs then paying 7k later. The grimy update made the herb prices much more solid. With this monitering, you may find a quicker adaption of GE prices. Now the worrying part: Yew Longbow prices. Now, these things sell in bulk so often that the GE price should have been dead on. For some reason it was 100 to 200 gp too high. That is evidence that Jagex is messing up in a bad way. I'll summarize in saying that so long as Jagex utilizes both forms of trading (GE and Player) to update GE prices, then I'm cool with it and the 5% limit. If not, then as you have said, the GE will move too slow in reaction to players that many will bypass to get a better deal. Hmm, perhaps we should ask Jagex if they're taking player trades into account when updating the GE prices?

The major growing pain with the GE is it turned many low trade items now into bulk items. Ex: I buy a law rune for 1k gp. In bulk, yeah, 300 each, but the 1k is the "goto your bank and get me a rune, I'm in a hurry" price. Many, many items are just not sold in bulk due to it being tedious, so the prices are single sell prices which in RS generally means its higher (I say generally, because in many cases, bulk items sell for a higher price). Anyway, you have two common prices for Law: 1k and 300. Imagine if Jagex based the price of law runes SOLELY off the 1k trades? Insanity, yes. Because that price was based off annoyance. With the GE, any item is no longer an annoyance. Any item is automatically a bulk item. So the prices need to be tweaked early on for things. It's not really Jagex's fault. They were probably doing automatic monitoring of trades to get a fairly accurate representation of item prices that PLAYERS actually traded for. Ok, rambling. The main point then is Jagex will monitor trades outside the GE. If there are more trades outside the GE than in, it will adjust GE prices to match the player trades. What that means by example: If Crystal Bows get an update making them even better (say, always keep full charge), then Crystal Seeds (currently 200k GE) will now be worth more because more archers would want the Seeds. As a seller, I know I can get a better price outside the GE, so now trading for Seeds inside GE stops (no one wants to sell for such a low price) and instead Player trades increase (300k gp for example). Jagex monitors that Player trades for Seed is averaging 300k, next day at update time, you'll notice that the GE now has the Seed at 300k average. The same idea would work with any new item introduced into the game. The GE may have a Jagex price, but the Player Trades will quickly alter that price within 24 hours. So, Qelter's doom and gloom on the GE would be wrong IF (and that's a big IF as Jagex never confirmed) Jagex will ALSO use player to player trades to alter Grand Exchange prices. With that, then the 5% limit makes alot of sense as it would stop rapid price changes based on rumors. If an items value change is drastic enough, trade outside the GE and help Jagex find out the real player value.

I'm bumping this as sort of a "look back" and also show a good format for someone that might want to do a "best of 2007" thread after December. Definately MUCH more has happened this year in my opinion, but it's good to see what's been offered.

I'd call that Bug Abuse, but I think that's purely unintentional... That's not a bug abuse, that's price manipulation. Consider: Clan A wants to lower price of Santas (in an attempt to cause people to sell more santas to corner the market for an upswing). So, they put 500 santas on sale for low end. They constantly buy and sell at the low end for over a month, forcing a drop in prices. This brings out the scaredy cats to put their santas up for sale (before the prices drop further). BAMM! CLan A buys up the cheap santas and now only sells at the high end end, forcing an upswing and mass profit. Now, its a risky attempt as other players will be buying the Santas at the low end too. Still, there's the method for the abuse. Solution: Prevention is You CANNOT sell an item you have a buy bid on, You CANNOT buy an item you have a sell bid on. Mass trading of Items (buying and selling an item over and over at the same price) can then be tracked to determine if its collusion (One buying, one selling then switching roles after that).

Here's the bad news. I "ranted" about this 2 years, and Andrew gave a reply where he said he considered the metal dragons dropping noted bars. However it would have meant decreasing the value of the other drops and that it did not seem realistic (yeah, he talked about the realism of a Metal Dragon). Anyway, after that, I offered up the concept of a Metal Dragon Scale that a dwarf NPC (before Keldagrim, so it was Thurgood I think) would trade you for 5 noted steel bars (or 10 noted iron bars if iron scale, or 15 noted bronze bars if bronze scale) for the steel scale similar to how the tanner takes care of hides for you. There was no reply to it, seeing as it's been so long, I think Andrew just kept the dragons as is. Still, with the Stickied Suggestion forum threads in RSOF, you probably could post this in a high level skill update (combat is a skill, it helps out smithing to boot). Seeing that Dragon bones are decreasing in value and dragon legs are only 500k and dropping, it makes sense to have the metal scales (as a 3k gp drop).

The PK anywhere is meant to be harsh, with players that chose it having to deal with any sort of treachery other players will dish out (and vice versa). Yes, that means getting MUGGED right after you bought stuff, or getting attacked right after stepping away from a bank. It's meant to be vicious and cruel and turn away all but the strongest of minds that want to visit death upon their fellow pkers. Guys like me can just sit back and watch the fun. I don't PK, but I cannot see how that a pker will use the environment to avoid getting killed and to make a kill. They will abuse doors, NPC's, teleport spots, banks, what ever else to hurt one another. It will be glorious and they will create more accounts to take advantage of it. Exciting eh?

Here's what will happen: New items will have a pre-determined Grand Exchange price. However, as that will likely be FAR too low, most new items will be traded outside the Grand Exchange (to get a far better deal for the seller). Jagex will use these prices (as they can easily track player to player exchanges, that's how they got the starting GE price list) to update the New Item to a more reasonable player determined price. With that, I think Jagex will be monitoring Player to Player trading on many items and use that (in addition to Grand Exchange) to update Grand Exchange prices. If they do not, I'd be disappointed in the oversight.

Hey, thanks for pointing out other updates. There's one I think I can claim, but do not have proof: When Jagex altered the Rune stores from 5k max stock down to 250 and increased the refresh, I still had an active 50 page rant going complaining how Jagex was creating instant millionaires every update because it would put 5k runes of Blood, Deaths, Nats, etc at LOW store prices which players would turn around and resell. Anyone remember the Update game where people rushed the mage guild prior to shut down? Irrelevant now after infinate stocks have been introduced.

Hellbellz, thanks. As for Jagex using more suggestions recently, I'm actually wondering if those Stickies in the RSOF Suggestion Forum for various suggestions are being used (they probably are, but can we find the ones that were). I look at it like this: If Jagex used an idea of mine from Oct of last year to make an large update that took till Sept of this year, we're bound to start seeing more suggestions rolling off the assembly line. There are stickies for quests, weapons, skills, and others with a Jagex mod directly interacting with opinion and comments on many of the suggestions offered. So I think there's suggestions somewhere in those 2000 pages that have seen the light of day in the last year. So lets find them, post them and give the originator the credit he can be due.

Seeing that in the RSOF Item Forum, there's a Sticky for the Item Price Guide (initially created by Tomisme, now maintained by G3m). What that means is that Jagex can now put up a Knowledge Base article that "updates" weekly the average player prices based of Grand Exchange trades. Then again, it could also prevent "noobs" from putting up their items for too low a price with a warning such as putting up 28 coal for 160 gp each "Are you sure, the item you're putting up for sale has averaged 205 gp each in the last week".

I do not doubt that they will change the saved item system to apply to Grand Exchange calculated player prices in due time. Perhaps as soon as a month from now. Likely you'd have the option of using alchemy or GE prices to determine saved items. Course, Barrows will be an interesting circumstance. See, the helms are usually the most expensive as they are saved last of the 4. Therefore, they'd be the first saved if the GE drop were used. Which would then make the helms start being cheaper (as you would not need to buy another) moving another barrow item to be worth more. Wonder where that would balance out?

Killer, I'm not looking for forum prices. In the Duel Arena, when you stake, it gives a DEFINATE price that Jagex thinks the item is worth (based off tracked player trades I'm sure). Pretty interesting results, too bad I don't have any rares save for santas to check out.

I think you'll find the value Jagex assigns the items are based off the millions of trades done daily with said items. Considering the cap, that means you can't even wager a mith platebody. Personally I think: For any account older than 3 months (and certain ingame playing time): Lift the cap to 20k (match the rat pits wager limit), with a limit of total win or loss of 250k every 15 minutes. Should not be difficult to program. If the system is not being abused for one month, then implement a wager limit raise based SOLELY off the age of the character. Maybe upto 50k or even 100k per fight. Now, will this make everyone happy? No. Still, it puts the wagering back into play (encouraging the best type of fights). It rewards older accounts. Discourages throw away accounts using the Duel Arena.

It's not "my method", it's an assumption merited out by posts by Jagex. No offense, but the rare "give away" will have minimal impact on the millions of legitimate trades, so it's reasonable to say the prices shown at the Duel Arena are actual player traded values. But hey, don't take my word for it. Go to the arena, put up some offers, write them down and post them here. If I can get on my computer at home, I'd try it myself. Be nice to see the average price of items before and after GE.