Ex1le

Nominal interest is not paid. The nominal amount of money in one's bank does not increase. Yes, if prices fall then a single gp has more purchasing power. That's simple. No dispute. But a short term fall in prices isn't going to last long in a market where monetary supply is increasing: ie the nominal amount of gp that people hold in their banks is increasing but the purchasing power of a single gp is decreasing. I didn't suggest increasing nominal income to drive down prices. Infact, increasing nominal income is the opposite of what I'm saying. Prices of semi-rare items, like an r2h and other high level player made items, will fall in the long run as more items are made. That is normal in a healthy economy. An increase in money supply will not help to drive the price down but rarely act in a way to make prices higher. In the case of r2h, they were being produced a rate fast enough to ensure a falling not increasing price. Rare items prices, like party hats, will always increase increase in the long term because of increased money supply. That, we don't want. For the system as a whole: we want less gp but gp of higher value. I completely agree. Cash is just like coal but isn't so easily 'destroyed'. It has the added benefit of being universal, it is the only thing that can be traded for items on ge. A more advanced ge could perhaps allow the transaction of, say, coal for lobsters. Lobsters can be eaten, coal can be transformed into bars but gp generally tends to not be lost.

I think that people will spend their coins over time, they 'have' to buy logs or ores in order to level. So that free money will eventually inflate prices. Perhaps not straight from day one. I definitely agree with that final sentence. Yes, we want deflation. Look at the price of r2h when it first came out, or rather when it was first smithed. The original one was 1.3million gp (I think, need someone else to verify that). However, the hard work by people such as Bluerose and Musashi was eventually copied by others. The items became more common and the price fell. Something that was rare started to decrease in price as supply rose. This is good for an economy and good for everyone. Then when Zezima started to free smith some other high level smitheres started to copy, such as Whitemagem. Eventually Zezima succeeded (as he planned) to drive the r2h price to near its high alch value (where it is now). People will spend money because they have the money to spend. If Ferarris were so cheap that I could buy 3 for a 10 dollars I'd do it, demand will always be there and more so when items are cheap. There is no interest paid on hoarding coins in rs, so there isn't as much to gain from doing it as we would irl. In real life it shows efficiency/ improvement in manufacturing. While only the richest kings in Europe could afford the best luxuries in the middle ages, such luxuries are nothing compared to even the poorest people in a country like the USA or UK. Improved technology and efficiency has driven everything to be cheaper and hence affordable for everyone, even poor people: quality of life improves for all. But we have to accept that items like an r2h or a computer will be expensive and unavailable when they are new pieces of technology. In our times of inflation everything is more expensive. Rares in RS serve two functons: look cool and hedge against inflation. We can price a party hat in terms of gp or coal and still see that the price rises. So the inflation is with respect to an increase in the amount of consumables, ie everything that isn't a rare item.

(emphasis added)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation Inflation does not have to be an increase in the supply of money. In the equation I posted (that's pretty well accepted by economists), MV = PQ That is to say, P = MV / Q. IF (and this is a big if) the velocity of money and the transactions that occurred were held constant, inflation would exactly equal the change in the supply of money. In the current economic crisis, its known that the supply of money has greatly expanded (and by some estimates tripled). Why haven't we seen inflation? The velocity with which the money is moving is practically zero. We agree upon one thing: expanded money supply does not guarantee increased prices. Inflation as defined on wikipedia and as given by yourself is the current government approved definition of inflation but it is still wrong. Go back into the past, pre-1990 and the definition of inflation is that of an expanding supply of money. The economists that use your definition of inflation (that IS most of them) are the ones that didn't see the collapse coming, they didn't see the problem of printing money. However, the economists that predicted the collapse (years in advance) provided the proper definition as I gave. The end result here is that both of us are agreeing that an increase in money supply does necessarily equate to rising prices. At least in the short term. In the longer term, prices will rise from an increased supply of money. We have certainly seen inflation over our lifetime and will see it get worse for sure. Even from 2007 / 2008 until now I've watched prices of consumables rise, but on the plus side my gold is doing just fine. :-)

Technically, no. Inflation means an increase in the supply of money. Often, prices rise because of an inflated supply of money but it isn't necessarily so. Gp in Rs is not quite the same as dollars, gp cannot be arbitrarily printed. The increased in supply is due to the gathering of gp being easier to get and from an increase in the number of players. In that sense, gp is like any other item: say coal or bones. The difference is that gp is more universal, it can be used at shops and has no direct use in any skill (unlike bones or coal). The price of iron ore before the ge was about 100 gp per ore, at the moment it is about 200 gp per ore. I wouldn't attribute this to inflation even though the price has risen. The supply and demand dynamics are probably more important with iron ore. Iron ore isn't particularly rare, unlike a party hat where the price always increases. Supply of gp is enormous while the supply of party hats is tiny. But we could price party hats in terms of gp or iron ore and still come to the same conclusion. The price of iron probably hasn't inflated as measured against party hats it has lost more value.

I'm inclined to agree with all of what you have said. I don't think tax will help the problem, it won't be a problem for players with a lot of money. Prices may increase to account for the tax. Players without a lot of money, like myself, will find it harder to buy items when the inflated prices are also taxed. Dungeoneering is one way of having players spend their time not generating gp. In the future I'm sure there will be a link between Dungeoneering and gp though, just a matter of time. The supply of gp has to be decreased. So I propose a balance of restricting gp on one side of the equation but then giving something on the other side: 1) Less gp but MORE items dropped from monsters would help to decrease prices and deflate the amount of gp in existence. 2) A decrease in the amount of gp from high alching but perhaps a little bit MORE xp: so gp supply would decrease but at least we could get some more xp.

They recently toured the US as Demilich. They have had awesome reviews. Hopefully they will tour more often and to more places under the new name. Somewhere near me would be great.

Demilich are something special. Quite an unknown Finnish band but still seem to have a fair number of fans. Only released one album with a record company that gave them no money. That's why the official website (that one) let's you download it for free. From what I've heard, the band are going on to make more music under a different name. Should be the same line up of people (I think). They are quite progressive and almost random yet still maintain a sense of melody. Their weird sound and odd timing often puts people off. They simply don't have the attention span to comprehend. :boohoo: If people are willing to take a bit of time to get into Demilich then hopefully you will find them very enjoyable. A similar work is Gorgut's Obscura, very esoteric.

Indeed, search youtube for videos. A better example of good technique than the video above. Especially, notice the difference in the amount of body movement. Neil barely moves yet is still able to produce speed and interesting rthythms without worry.

I'm pretty sure that's a lie. But Travis Barker is an amazing drummer. He used to drum for the Aquabats and the Vandals! :P Along with Lars Ulrich, he is the most over rated drummer of all time. I can't stand him. Well I for one happen to know a good deal about drumming, being since I played the drums for seven years (A little less than half) of my life. He is an amazing 'drummer'. He might not be the best at a drum set, but that's not really what I'm talking about. His technique is almost flawless; for you to say he is overrated would be like me saying that Elton John is an overrated piano player. No matter how much you want to stretch it, it just is not happening. :wink: Well not really. Almost every experienced drummer will tell you the same thing. The thing that annoys me most about his playing is his inconsistency. Live, he sounds nothing like he does on the CD. You can put that down to him wanting to try something different with his playing but all he does live is use his snare and hi-hats for rolls. It's quite annoying. All Travis has is fast rolls that he keeps in time, for the most part. This is not impressive in the slightest. Agreed to the inexperienced drummers eye he may not be that good, and his solos do get somewhat repetitive, however his technique is incredible and this drum solo is one of the best I have seen for his style of music. Watch ahead: http://www.drummerworld.com/Videos/TravisBarker1.html :D I'm not an inexperienced drummer. I didnt' mean that you yourself were an inexperienced drummer, I meant in general that Travis Barker's talent is not always that obvious, but very noticeable to people who play the drums like me, and I'm guessing yourself. About Joey Jordinson, I think he is a good drummer, however all I see him do is play fast which, sure, is great, but gets pretty dull quite quickly. That video is fairly average. Too much pomp and circumstance without any really demonstration of technique. That said, part of the final section is notable better than the rest. There isn't any impressive techniques there that a mediocre metal can't do. Most of the timing is very simplistic to say the least. He sounds in time, which is the least I'd expect from any drummer. He is too busy bouncing to the music in order to produce anything note worthy. The most technical and speed orientated drummers tend to move as little as possible, minimize energy wasted and I believe that the smaller muscles in the body are able to move faster Ie, gripping the stick in your fingers and working the fingers without working much of the wrist can give a lot of speed. After a lot of training of course, I'm still struggling a little with using only fingers but I'm not too shabby with using only my wrists - very little movement from my arms except moving snare to tom etc. I'm trying to think on a video worth watching but none come to mind. Speed isn't everything, I admit that but, there are some impressive techniques for getting extremely fast snare or bass drum hits that are nearly non-existant outside of metal. Proscriptor of the band Absu would be my recommendation, particularly his later stuff.

Which is the main failing of Death Metal and Thrash. The world sucks but they don't offer a solution nor suggest that there is some good. One of the biggest reasons that Black Metal supercedes the rest of the genre; "The world sucks, but this is a solution..." Yeah, but still, I believe about 75% of our world isn't that bad. The only serious troubles are wars; and they don't occur everywhere. I live in Belgium and the worst thing you see here are problems with immigrants, or the rather high unemployment rate. I don't think that's a reason to whine. But deeper problems, like limited opportunities in life, psychological problems etc are most often problems of the person self, community can't change too much about that. Highyl debateable and easily the basis for a new thread. I'd say that there are far more problems than those that you listed but, this thread isn't really about that.

Which is the main failing of Death Metal and Thrash. The world sucks but they don't offer a solution nor suggest that there is some good. One of the biggest reasons that Black Metal supercedes the rest of the genre; "The world sucks, but this is a solution..."

Roumsteen? WHAT THE HELL. It's Rammstein same as everywhere else in England. :evil: Methinks he is making fun of the English accent. :P But who cares, they suck anyway. :P (flames ahoy) I can listen to the heaviest of the heavy but, most of them get boring after a few listens or are only worth listening to when in a particular type of mood. Such as, 1349 or (later) Marduk. Too many of the 'brootal' Death Metal bands go all out brutal and forget to make worthwhile music.

It does not necessarily matter how basic the riffs are, it is what they do with them. Darkthrone's Transilvanian Hunger is a great example of minimalism, perfectly created atmosphere. However, many people tried to copy this album and failed (the entrance of Norsecore to the scene). I'll need to go back and listen to Morbid Angel's first album in order to give more reasons as to why it is worth it. It is also one of the first DM albums. Jazz is all about structure and talent, but is contentless. The same is true for Dream Theater and Meshuggah. I think you'd be surprised at the amount of counter-points and polyrhthms in metal. Too many bands focus on being overly technical but have nothing to say. Ie, the music is artistically vapid. I've heard people recommend Death's Scream Bloody Gore, but they went commercial as hell towards the end of their life, needless to say their frontman converted to Christianity as he was dying. I get the feeling he was merely following a trend in creating a Death Metal band. Solos and technical ability is often used poorly in metal, as means to stroke the performer's ego, much like Jazz, I find this to be artistically vapid. Less so for the earliest of metal bands when the idea was new and perhaps better constructed. Now metal bands are limited in thought so believe that having multiple soloes constitutes a masterpiece. The real craftmanship in music lies in composition. Some bands rarely change their sound through out their career just are able to produce albums that are vastly different. I believe this is less noticeable in Death Metal and more so in Black Metal.

I rarely hear anyone praising them. Shame as I quite like them and looking forward to their new album. They played in London recently but there wasn't a chance of me getting to that. :(

Many people take to metal music for the aggressive side of it, it gets the adrenaline pumping. Generally, it is favoured by malcontents. People that are generally annoyed with stuff (perhaps the world, their life etc). Less people take to metal because they are 100% depressed. It has been my experience of meeting metal fans, that they are annoyed or even partly depressed don't but necessarily feel themselves as completely helpless. Once you start listening to metal you find out that it has a lot of depth and is smarter than original thought. Smart? Isn't it just noise. The hardest obstacle to overcome is the production. Often hyper-distored and streamlined (hence, limited dynamic range of sound). The people that play metal are often geeks/ nerds/ the uncool kids. That's why the music tends to be more complex than most other genres. Quite often they grew up listening to classical music and/or classical trained. Massively noticeable in the structure of metal, cyclic structure if generally abandoned in favour of narrative structure. Furthermore, like Romantic era orchestral music, metal is motivic. At least, the 'real' metal; The sound and lyrical content create a certain image (motif) within the listener. I'd further add that the sound and lyrical content are inseparable and generally disdain people that only like metal for the sound. Metal is much more than just 'banging choons dude'. Besides the shock factor, the smarter bands tend to use philosophical ideas fo their content. The shock factor merely grabs your attention. I'm not really a fan of Goregrind etc that focusses purely on shocking. If you enjoy composers such as Beethoven, Bach, Paganini and Wagner then there is a good chance you might find something in metal that you will like. Provided that you are willing to get past the production. It may take you a while to get familiar with it or comfortable with it but, you are rewarded with the subtleties of the music that are generally prevailent only in orchestral music. As for smarter metal bands, I'd suggest Emperor and Burzum. Undoubtedly the best examples of black metal. Also as suggested before, Immortal and older Gorgoroth. I agree with Hohto and recommend Gorgoroth's Pentagram. 8-) If you are a fan of melodic Death but want to get into Black Metal, then try Sacramentum. Swedish group that is fairly unknown yet very talented. As for Death Metal, I'd recommend the first two from Morbid Angel. Deicide's self-titled album and Deicide's Legion. I'm not as big of a fan of Death Metal, to be honest, however if you want something that is more jazzy but not quite as contentless then I'd suggest Gorguts's album Obscura. I further suggest staying away from Trivium, In Flames, Arch Enemy, Children of Bodom etc. But that is another story. I'm happy to talk about metal on RS, feel free to add me. :P