Its quite a complex answer - as MrMyk said, its all to do with inflation. Basically, inflation is when demand>supply. For instance rune sets and Guthan sets. As more and more people get 40 defence, and eventually 70, more and more people will want Rune sets and Guthan sets. However, there are not as many people making Rune sets as people want to buy them, so people have to pay more them. The same for Guthan - not many people do barrows properly, 24/7, so there aren't that many Guthan sets in comparison to people who want them. Because of this, people have to pay more for them, which is why the price gets hiked up. This is the complex bit. As the price gets higher and higher, then people find it harder and harder to raise the required money to buy it, it being whatever it is they want to buy. Because of this, the price of things that they sell to raise cash, such as yews or bowstrings, gets hiked as well because they want to earn more money quickly. However, by doing this, other things get more expensive, and this carries on in a vicious circle. In real life, the only real way to cap inflation is to increase the intrest rate, so in theory people buy less stuff as they cannot afford too, and so inflation decreases. However, it is virtually impossible to get 0% inflation, so it usually hovers around the 2-3% mark. Anything above this and governments get a bit edgy, as a rise in inflation is usually the sign of a decrease in the economy. So they have to step in and increase the inflation rate, which is whats happening in the UK at the moment. Because, of course, this is impossible in RS, the next best thing they can do is to decrease the drop rate of expensive/rare items, which is what they have done. Wow. :ohnoes: Did I write all that?
