Tip.It Times Presents: The Price is Right! Or is it?

[jimjimson]

That white market thing is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You could be some rich guy and spend a billion dollars on rs money. Then someone who has never worked a day on runescape would have billions of gold. I'm sorry, but no.

[Maynard]

Nice article,

 

I See Runescape slightly heading south as each year goes on. Really I'm not sure if the problems are really that easy to fix. But I hope Jagex do something soon because Runescape future don't look to bright?

[nulled]

Because prices go down 'poor' people cant really own whip, fury or barrow set... :(

[Mooge]

Once again I'd like to thank the Editor for an excellent article and a worthwhile read. =D>

 

 

 

I would agree in general that the price of an item is governed by what it costs to obtain it and by how many people want to buy it BUT surely the exception to that rule is big bones. I read the other week that it now costs between 400 and 500gp to buy one big bone. P2pers have no use for big bones and so I figured that there is only a real market for big bones within the F2p sector. I've worked out that for me to reach my next level in prayer I would have to shell out well over 5m (it takes a while to earn 5m in F2p!)

 

 

 

Now I'm not complaining about my situation, I love it! But surely the price of big bones is unjustified? I guess what I'm saying is that I have only known big bone prices to increase since I started playing. I really want to know why this is?! Perhaps the Editor or someone with a bit of insight could explain why it's possible to get paid between 400 and 500 coins just for killing a Hill Giant?

 

 

 

Thanks!

[therehadtobe1]

I get teh fellign that in about 6 months+ time people will become a lot poorer and will not buy anything at all let alone sell the economy will collapse and the autoers will stop as no money is being made then slowly the economy will begin to rebuild itself over time.

[D. V. Devnull]

I get teh fellign that in about 6 months+ time people will become a lot poorer and will not buy anything at all let alone sell the economy will collapse and the autoers will stop as no money is being made then slowly the economy will begin to rebuild itself over time.

 

If that's the case, then RuneScape is too close to collapsing. It wouldn't survive anywhere near the 9 months needed beyond the collapse for there to be a full rebuild. Too many players would end up leaving, and the game would die.

 

 

 

Even though I'd like to have infinite faith in other humans, that has hit its' limits. And it wasn't destroyed by the honest players. It was destroyed by the "autoers"/"macroers"/"Real World Traders"/"Pass and Item Scammers"/etc., and they only have themselves to blame ... but sadly, I wonder (with the following potential theory) if they have been out to intentionally destroy RuneScape from their beginning in some kind of conspiracy to wipe out all fun/gaming/happiness on the planet. Especially with my having heard from my dad reading his e-mail as of late that there are people hacking WoW accounts that belong to others. :( ... I wonder if this is happening in other games? :ohnoes:

 

 

 

Excuse me while I go take a mental break. -.- ... Something tells me I'm getting overloaded on "Doomsday Prophecies" and such. :anxious:

 

 

 

~Mr. Devnull

[Veltia]

I have an idea of how the economy can survive if everything goes bad. We select a stack able item that is not needed for any skills, is easy to obtain and is both F2P and P2P - sounds like GP. Well we should change out this whole economy currency system so then the autoers are only interested in selling for GP we won't buy because they would be out fashioned. It would be a short-termed sollution and wouldn't work perfectly or gain any support!

[cheese327]

:idea: I think the only real way of making prices go down is make to the amount of gold ingame constant.

 

:arrow: Let the stores only have as much gold as what they sell so no new gold is introduced into the system. This would stop most black market gold becouse people couldn't amass that amount without getting it from other people.

 

:arrow: You could no longer sell you stuff to the general store to get gold that doesn't exist.

 

:ohnoes: The only flaw in this is that people would horde gold and keep everyone from having some.

[grege_fan_1]

most people in runescape have 1m+ in money and others just find it impossible to get any money at all (me)i think its ok to buy gold from r/l, just to keep the economy at level, or maybe jagex should make holiday items tradeable again, its not fair that people who have money, stay rich, but if ur poor, u stay poor

[D. V. Devnull]

its not fair that people who have money, stay rich, but if ur poor, u stay poor

 

Not true. I used to be one of those poor people, and when my skills got high enough, I finally climbed out of that hole. And I didn't break the rules in doing it. If you're smart while in-game, you don't stay poor forever.

 

 

 

~Mr. Devnull

[teagod2004]

Yery good article. I agree with everything. I still think that the only way to effectively ged rid of autoers is to remove the free portion of the game, and only allow players who pay the $5 per month (NOTE: I do not support this idea, I am simply stating that this is the only way to remove autoers from the game.)

 

 

 

hey... autors also exist in member worlds..

[Veltia]

i think its ok to buy gold from r/l

 

 

 

So what if a rich kid IRL just brought for over 1.000 Swissfranks/Dollars/Euros/Pounds and got over hundreds of millions ingame?

[therehadtobe1]

we couldn't chage the currency things would get confusing and everyone would have no money (thats worth anything). This whole economic dip in the system is indeed worrying and it could mean that runescape's economy could collapse soon if this does happen then the game will fall into economic deppression similar to hyperinflation in Germany in the 1920's where money will become worthless and the things will be bought with other items what people should do know is get up your skills so you can make good items in case this terrible thing comes true.

[Kama]

By creating a white gold market, Jagex would be establishing an even clearer link between RS gold and the real world. This would cause the IRS and other tax authorities to perk up and take a closer look at in game gains.

 

 

 

If you stake for a p hat and sell it, then turn around and sell that gold for $4,000, then that income is just as taxable as if you had earned it by working in the eyes of the government.

[Aran_Armath]

As I look down through these posts not reading what people said (Im sorry I dont have enough time to read them all I have to go to bed) but I notice that there are alot of people here that are rushing to get a skill cape, in reality arn't we all rushing to get to a high level in some skill so we can do such and such, I for one am trying to achieve 99 smithing by just making steel bars alone (I will eventually give this up once I reach lvl 68) I mine most of my iron ores myself and if i really want to I mine some coal, but back on subject how will we make money if we all make our own goods :?:

 

 

 

EDIT: Deleting the F2P part of the game would solve nothing exept eliminate all the broke (no-offence) people from playing the game and just allowing the rich people to auto as some do. AND AUTOERS EXIST IN THE MEMBER REALM, how do all those bs get made? and where do all the people will 2k magic logs for sale come from? and the people with 20k iron ore? or they just simply be rich enough to buy those goods and sell them for a higher price

[wrightri]

i may not entirely understand the big problem but what if jagex did a one time thing where they gave every account a certain amount of gold to help the prices of raw materials raise? it obviously wouldn't completely solve the problem but it might give them more time to think of a permanent solution. and since it woulnd't be a monthly thing it wouldn't be as bad going against their idea of working for your skills.

[Lotus_Nailo]

Furthermore, the day jagex implents a "legal" real world gold piece buying is the day I quit for good.

 

 

 

I have to agree completely. I don't know what the editor was thinking when he suggested this, but GIVING UP is not the answer to all our problems. These people (the autoers) don't understand how they are hurting our games (and it's a serious problem in ALL online games, not just Runescape) and letting them win is not the answer. We need to show them that they are not welcome here, and why.

 

 

 

Furthermore, if we allow people to legally purchase gold through the game, that opens a floodgate of legal issues. Assigning gold a dollar value effectively makes everything in the game worth real money. If you get PKed, can you sue the guy who PKed you and get your stuff back? What if you get banned, can you sue Jagex? What about taxes? It's a slippery slope to tread on, for sure, and not somewhere I would like to see ANY game progress any time soon. As long as Jagex continues to insist that the gold is virtual and belongs to them, then we are safe from the ravages of the Real World.

[therehadtobe1]

eventually even if we do nothing the autoers will stop why? because when that happens runescapes economy has collapsed and it is no longer worth it to sell rwa materials they will go out of bussiness and runescape will be left in a mess. It would take about 2-4 weeks for runescape to balance itself out again and start the slow process of rebuilding the economy and runescape as a whole.

[Veltia]

Eventually I don't see how skill capes can affect it all. Yes.. if a person got 99 cooking by cooking 100.000 sharks the price should be relatively unaffected as the guy would try to sell the sharks for a higher price than he brought for.

 

 

 

I will agree that there's an economy problem but I don't think that skill capes is the main part of the problem but autoers and annoying parents are.

[mahlachi]

Great article!

[zander459]

The article misses the point that prices are not solely determined by supply and demand in a game like RS.

 

 

 

In a system where accurate information regarding prices is very limited and of little reliability, psychology and expecations play critical roles in setting prices.

 

 

 

In the stock market, there is an independent reporting mechanism for each trade, so that you can see what willing buyers and willing sellers are actually paying for a stock in the open market. Stock traders always check the market prices before they make a trade. However, no such information exists on RS.

 

 

 

Therefore, players tend to rely on spotty and unreliable sources of information regarding prices, such as the forums, to determine the prices where they should effect buys and sales of items. When players get in their heads that "whips are now 1.6, not 1.8" it becomes hard to sell whips at 1.8 anymore, until a counter-trend occurs. I don't believe that this change in price is due at all to an increased supply of whips - after all, whip prices alternatively rise AND fall, and I expect the daily increase in people getting 85 Slayer is far outmatched by the daily overall increase in new members joining RS - I think these changes in prices are due almost totally to psychology.

 

 

 

The lack of independently verified trading information also leads to some funny in game behavior. Many times I have stood in a bank, calling out trades, and literally accumulating over 10K of a commodity from loads of trades, while at the same time others in the bank were screaming at me that I was a "n00b" because my prices were too low and "nobody sells that that price anymore".

 

 

 

Somehow, even though I have tens of millions of xp in the skill that I was trading for, and even though I was sucessfully buying 10k plus of the item right under their noses, they thought they knew better than me what the "prices" were because they had read the forums. I guarantee you that if these people went out to buy the item I was buying, they would pay far more than they needed to, because they would be oblivious to the fact that other people were actually buying and selling the item at much lower prices - they had only the forums and word of mouth to rely on for their price information.

[romking]

yes i noticed this to, with how both nats and pure essence were going down, i was confused and worried thinking dat no one wanted nats anymore and ppl who were runecrafting were seein what happend so they were not buyin pure essence anymore

 

but thankfully that is not the situation and it turns out its just those capes changing the prices

[Duke_Freedom]

In a system where accurate information regarding prices is very limited and of little reliability, psychology and expecations play critical roles in setting prices.

 

 

 

In the stock market, there is an independent reporting mechanism for each trade, so that you can see what willing buyers and willing sellers are actually paying for a stock in the open market. Stock traders always check the market prices before they make a trade. However, no such information exists on RS.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Therefore, players tend to rely on spotty and unreliable sources of information regarding prices, such as the forums, to determine the prices where they should effect buys and sales of items. When players get in their heads that "whips are now 1.6, not 1.8" it becomes hard to sell whips at 1.8 anymore, until a counter-trend occurs. I don't believe that this change in price is due at all to an increased supply of whips - after all, whip prices alternatively rise AND fall, and I expect the daily increase in people getting 85 Slayer is far outmatched by the daily overall increase in new members joining RS - I think these changes in prices are due almost totally to psychology.

 

 

 

- 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.

 

 

 

The lack of independently verified trading information also leads to some funny in game behavior. Many times I have stood in a bank, calling out trades, and literally accumulating over 10K of a commodity from loads of trades, while at the same time others in the bank were screaming at me that I was a "n00b" because my prices were too low and "nobody sells that that price anymore".

 

 

 

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:

[therehadtobe1]

the reason whips goes down is that as moer and more whips are sold more and more people who can use them have them and so it becomes harder to sell the whip at that priceso they price gets lower. The amount of new players coming in every day does not effect the amount of whips coming in everyday as these people cant use or buy whips it all depends on how many people each day reach 70 attack

[Veltia]

Where the hÃÆÃâÃâæk do I write an articel, I would really like to respond in a articel with my own (bad) english!