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

[JimmyMcNabb]

looking at all the replies to this I'm gonna have to say... Did the editor do his homework? :-k

[Iantiger]

Interesting article. Not being a US citizen, the random references to prohibition and whatnot went completely over my head. Other than that, the article held my interest. I didn't feel compelled to skip over some paragraphs as I usually do because I can predict their word-for-word content.

 

 

 

Having been away from the game for some time recently, I was actually quite surprised to hear about these price drops. At least rare prices have stabilised giving a lot of players (myself included) substantial chance to get ourselves back into the market.

 

 

 

~Ian

[jeroenrocks1]

i totaly agree with this edition of tip.it times.

 

i also think it's a good idea to introduce the "white market" :thumbsup:

[Ginger_Warrior]

This has probably been mentioned before, but I thought I'd get my twopence in as well. Firstly, it was on the most part a great article, well done, but there are some key flaws in it. Now, economics really messes up my head and I have never been able to understand it, despite being incredibly talented in mathematics, so please forgive me if I make naÃÆÃâÃâïve mistake here.

 

 

 

The first error I picked out was the comment about the Treasure Trials:

 

 

 

"The Price is Right! Or Is It?"[/url]":ortygp8w]With more players getting more random events and doing more treasure trails, you are going to see more prayer book pages, dragonstones (and thus amulets of glory), and more of the other uncommon treasure trail rewards. When the new rewards were first announced, the number of people actively hunting for clue scrolls went up dramatically. Prayer book pages have seen some substantial price drops because each player needs only one set of each type of page. If you lose the book, you can get it back intact for free. Thus, there isn't much of a market for the pages. Glorys, on the other hand, have become both more plentiful and more desirable. Abyss runecrafting really requires you to have several glorys unless you want to keep making trips to recharge them. Abyss Pkers do a good job of re-distributing glorys throughout the populace and that, together with the increased number in the game, has contributed to the decline in prices.

 

 

 

I would argue the counter to what you said - the new format of treasure trials I think put more people off Trials than it attracted with the rewards. Certainly, those who were only interested in the small-time rewards, like God-Pages and the like, cursed Jagex for making it much more complex, and decided to move away from the Trials. The increase in Treasure Hunters was the inevitable short-term interest in them, but it certainly hasn't survived for the long-term. Therefore, the number of Dragonstones in the economy decreases, and according to supply/demand, Amulets of Glory increase in price. Also an additional note - I don't think many people used Treasure Trials (a quest of chance) to secure a firm supply of Dragonstones, I was certainly under the impression most people used Crystal Keys, and that leads me to my next point, about the skill capes:

 

 

 

"The Price is Right! Or Is It?"[/url]":ortygp8w]So why are commodity prices declining? The pat answer is autoers and gold farmers. However there's another group of people contributing to the overall downward price trend: Skill cape hunters. The skill capes were released in the Fall of 2006. Initially they were pretty uncommon. I think it was several weeks at least between the time they came out and the time I'd seen all of them. These days, wherever you go, you're almost certain to see at least one person wearing a skill cape. Places that attract high level players are usually swarming with people in skill capes. And there are several players with more than one kind of cape. The rise in the number of skill capes has matched the decline in commodity prices ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Ãâ coincidence?

 

 

 

Like Duke_Freedom, I can see a contradiction in your analysis. Now, like I said, I don't understand economics, but surely if there are people going for skill capes, then demand increases? I guess the counter to that would be there's more people going for woodcutting, mining and fishing capes, but the fact there are 10,000 fletchers compared to 4,500 woodcutters at Level 99 proves that more people are going for the secondary, processing skills; not the primary, raw-material producing skills. Therefore, this proves that demand is actually increasing at a faster rate than supply, forcing prices up. On the note of Amulets of Glory, they are decreasing because of a rising number of Crafters (seeking 99) that will happily do them for free (BTW, that's where this paragraph and the last link, crafters use Crystal Keys rather than Trials), while before skills capes you didn't have this, and crafters could charge for labour without the fear of losing business. However, the fact that Bowstrings have doubled in price in the past year highlights that an increasing number of fletchers does *not* equal a decreased price in that commodity, but an increase instead.

 

 

 

"The Price is Right! Or Is It?"[/url]":ortygp8w]True, there are players who do collect their own raw materials. For some it's a matter of personal pride that they never buy raw materials. Others, limited by the amount of gold they have, buy some and collect the rest.

 

 

 

Also, on a side-note, I would say a bigger minority of players gain resources for bilateral training, that meaning they can hit two birds with one stone, as Ard Choile mentioned in her article a couple of months back. For example, if I need to do Woodcutting and Firemaking, why buy the logs when I can chop them down and get two 99 capes?

 

 

 

As for the white market comment, this will never be implemented. PHats have long been an indication of rich in-game you are, not how rich outside you are. Although Jagex doesn't like rares being that ludacrisly high, I'm sure it would rather have the first option as opposed to the latter. Having said that, it would be very interesting to see what an IP address ban would have on the price of commodities...

[mpg321]

Selling rs gold would ruin the game in my opinion, as though who where already doing this illegaly would now be able to do it legally, however by doing this it could ruin autoers as why would people buy money from them rather than from jagex for a better price.

[wizarthas460]

not all the prices are dropping(excluding rares)

 

 

 

when i got last year a gilded plate from my treasure trail :XD:

 

the price was only 900k!!

 

but now...the price is 2,4 mill!!! :

 

 

 

but i agree with the part the "raw" product prices are dropping....

 

especially rune essence.

 

when i became member, you could use that to make cosmic, chaos....etc

 

but then came pure essence(luckely i got over 10k essence they became all pure : )

 

the price dropped, and now i can easely get then for 15 gp ea.......or i trade them for 2 air runes.<-----easy money

 

 

 

all those rune essence autoers began to cut yews......so those prices were dropping 2.

 

 

 

my solution......get more non member mods.....it's rare to see a non member mod......

 

 

 

 

 

about that buying gold.......dont do that...other "companies" will drop their prices(real money) so there will be a market for thiss in real world...and i dont think jagex wants that.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Selling rs gold would ruin the game in my opinion, as though who where already doing this illegaly would now be able to do it legally, however by doing this it could ruin autoers as why would people buy money from them rather than from jagex for a better price.

 

 

 

See, I disagree with that. For the RS economy not to crash and burn, Jagex would have to put some kind of limit on how much money a person can buy in a specified amount of time. However, the people who buy the gold illegally in the first place won't tend to have much respect for this and would still buy illegal gold, for which there is no limt on how much they can buy.

 

 

 

An addition to my post before, as many have said, the day Jagex make Real World purchasing of GP legal is the day they stop receiving mine and many others' membership money...

[Risika66]

Nice read, though the editor might want to check up on current prices. And not everything is going down, when I started playing bowstrings were 100 gp each, now it's difficult to buy below 180 each.

 

 

 

I think more players coming in is definitely a big part of the problem, it would help if Jagex did something like what WoW already uses and split players between different worlds. Such as split half the users who log on after a certain date into a new set of worlds and let the other half join the existing ones.

[Ridcullyw]

I have noticed that prices for certain things have dropped. for exapmple,

 

Steel bars go for 500 gps if you are lucky.

 

200 app coal + 100 app for iron. You dont make any profit out of it.

 

The only reason it is like this is because of macroers.

[Alg]

the point of not having an actual legal GP market is in the knowledge base

 

 

Why do we have this rule?

 

 

 

We have this rule for three reasons: Firstly because we donÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t want RuneScape to be just a game in which you can buy your way to success, if we let players start doing this it devalues the game for other players. We feel your status in real-life shouldnÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t affect your ability to be successful in the game.

 

that's the main part, in short, means some spoiled rich kid shouldn't be able to buy his levels, where the average player has to work for it.

 

similar to people's opinions of pest control in a way, lower levels go in at level 40, come out 90+. the level 100 who would be hanging around actually worked for his combat, and the former level 40 probably has an inflated ego, although the same knowledge of game mechanics(pc product). that problem would be a lot worse if the pc product actually had multiple millions at his disposal from buying it.

 

*my opinion of it*

[Veltia]

I'm seriously scared by the rising amount of autoers!

 

 

 

I have never lived in the 1930s or been outside Europe, yet I have heard about the depression in 1930s America and it not only happened in America but in the whole world. Also at the dawn of last century and the end of the century before that people starved in the nordic countries. 11-13% of Denmarks population immegrated to America in the end of the 19th. century (which explains the 1.000.000 of people living in America with Danish as mothertongue - today).

 

 

 

I'm a hard working fisher who recently got from 70 to 74 and again to 78 earning my first million of RuneScape cash only on lobsters yet I could as easy have got not 1 million but more than 1ÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâý maybe 2 million on the lobsters entirely. But I ended up with 1.1million, but that's all right 'coz I went for the Cooking level of 80 so I could cook lobsters and I have around 1330 lobsters that is allready cooked and is stacking up the 5000 lobsters needed from 76-80 cooking! Now, I have due to my work been in fishing guild since beggining of 2007 and I have always seen 1-2 autoers but from Wedensday to Thursday the number exploded. There is not 1-2 autoers now, THERE IS FRIGGIN' 50+ AUTOERS!!! Guess what they are fishing LOBSTERS AND SHARKS, exactly what I'm fishing too, this means I will starve while some fat person - and I say fat both as an insult but also because lazy tends to be fat - a fat person sitting having 1 account fishing 5000 lobsters while I have only fished 1000 and the person don't even care about the RuneScape cash, he will proberly be selling it for real cash breaking 2 rules at once. Or maybe be 3 by also multiple logging in!

 

 

 

I just can't take it anymore -.-

[merchman]

ok, i think you have a great article, I always love getting home from school on friday afternoons, and having a great article. I do not agree with the white market thing. I agree with the couple of people who said that if Jagex made a guard that would start attacking you if you answered the question incorrectly then it would kill you. Also, I recently made a thread on the rs official forums about the 80+ autoers i found in wrld 52 draynor. After a couple of days, the thread was locked. I think Jagex doesn't really care about autoers. They said 2 use the in game report button but there are a couple of problems with that, one, it would take well over 2 hours to report them all, because u have 2 wait 1 min every time u report sum1, two, every minute or two I saw 3-5 more popping up, meaning more came then were reported, and three, if you get good at it, making a char, and doing tutorial island only takes about 2-3min. If the Jagex staff would go out and find EVERY autoing place and put one of those guards there, it could surely stop autoers for good, and when they found a new spot, not too hard to find it and put a couple guards there too.

[qeltar]

This article covers issues related to the economy far better than most discussions of it (which I realize is, to some degree, damning with faint praise.) Unfortunately it also makes a number of common mistakes, and some of the suggestions are dubious at best.

 

 

If you're accustomed to buying items on a regular basis, you've probably noticed that a lot of the commodity prices are dropping. Cooked sharks, for example, had been stable at around 1,000 GP each for the last three years or so. In the last six months they've dropped to around 750 GP.

 

 

I'm seeing people now trying to sell at 650 and not getting quick sales.

 

 

However, if left-handed whompus grinders are a highly sought after item, you can more or less name your price. Popular items will always command a premium over similar unpopular items. Plentiful items will usually be cheaper than similar but scarce items.

 

 

One point worth remembering is that Burger King hats and other rares basically are "left-handed whompus grinders". They serve no purpose in the game; they are only sought after because of a cult mystique surrounding them.

 

 

So why are commodity prices declining? The pat answer is autoers and gold farmers. However there's another group of people contributing to the overall downward price trend: Skill cape hunters.

 

 

Autoers and gold farmers, yes. Skill cape hunters? Maybe.

 

 

 

Some skill capes result in an increase in commodities in the market, but others are neutral or even remove commodities. So it's really not that simple.

 

 

It takes about 31,000 sharks to go from level 92 to level 99. A woodcutter would need to cut 37K yews or 26K magic logs, and while a firemaker could take either 32K yews or 21K magics off his hands, that still leaves a few thousand to clutter up his bank.

 

 

Most people who power-level don't use the highest-level items, though. People who are trying for capes in WC or fishing or mining would generally use willows, salmon/trout and iron respectively, because they are much faster. This strongly argues against claiming that skillers are responsible for gluts in high-end items.

 

 

In some respects, autoers and skill cape hunters form a nice closed circle.

 

 

Not at all. Even leaving aside the moral arguments, if this were true things like sharks wouldn't be bombing in price.

 

 

Jagex has so far been unable to do more than briefly slow down the macroers and autoers.

 

 

Mainly because they haven't made much of an effort. That includes their total unwillingness to actually patrol the game and do what they promise by maintaining an active presence.

 

 

It's almost impossible to stamp out a black market once it's been established ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Ãâ the US found that out during Prohibition. Far from reducing the incidence of drunkenness, Prohibition actually caused more of it because people substituted hard liquor (which was easier to transport) for beer. It also created conditions in which the rise of organised crime was inevitable. The black market for liquor almost completely vanished with the repeal of Prohibition.

 

 

No offense, but this comparison is mostly invalid. Jagex has almost complete control over everything that happens in its game and could get rid of autoers completely if it were important to them.

 

 

There are lots of ways they could do it, but the simplest would be to enable members to buy a limited amount of gold each month, the cost of which would be added to their membership.

 

 

This won't work. By definition, if you "limit" this to below what the market demand for buying RS gold is, then the black market will still exist to fill that gap. There would be no reduction in illegal gold -- in fact, it might even be worse due to legalization as many more people would do it, as said later in the piece.

 

 

So it looks like we're stuck at the moment. I suspect that prices of commodities will continue to decline however, until either the skill cape rush slows down a little or the prices get so low that it's not worth selling raw materials.

 

 

Most commodities actually haven't change price all that much. It's the few that do change that get a lot of attention.

 

 

 

~q

[dark_messenger]

not a bad article, and maybe even better posts, but theres one thing id like to point out

 

 

 

some of you talk about (i dont say support) altering or even deleting the free world so the autoers would have it harder or stop, because paying 5$ a month would ruin their profit?

 

 

 

Depends, those that sell the rs gold they make from autoing for real money will just have a little less real world profit, some others would find a best way to deal with it (only use parts of their ingame profit to get their 5$ back)

 

 

 

It may stop some, but not the smarter macroers, and maybe those would help their less-smart autoing friends get over it

[radecneerg]

As for people getting skill capes It's Ridiculous how everyone goes for the "easier" skills.... 13,785 have 99 cooking...whereas only 161 people have 99 farming It's a vast differance....

[Viv]

yews increased with the skillcapes. as a nonmember i cut yews and even 200 ea was good but now so many people want the fletching or fm cape they buy for 300ea + o.o

 

 

 

and the cooked sharks dropped cause everyone wants the raw sharks to get the cooking cape. some cooks do fish all the food that they cook ( not me) but i know people.

 

 

 

 

 

real life gp buying isn't good at all because with the rl trading at least the gp comes and swaps hands between players but if jagex just added more money to the game it would ruin it more..

[qeltar]

 

and the cooked sharks dropped cause everyone wants the raw sharks to get the cooking cape.

 

 

I'm sorry, but you're mistaken. If it were due to people getting cooking capes, then the price of raw sharks would have stayed high while the price of cooked ones went down. But both have gone down.

 

 

 

It's due to Jagex's avoidance of the autoer issue, nothing more.

 

 

 

~q

[lord_of_blades]

once again the world is ruled by the laws of supply and demand and with all the autoers there is more supply than demand so eventyally it will die down but then heat up again no way to stop it......... :XD:

[jemathonical]

A very nice read. :thumbsup:

[Veltia]

A very nice read. :thumbsup:

 

 

 

I think it's because it's something everyone is related to. Also the rising problem of Autoers. Never in my time on Tif I have seen that many anti-autoers suggestions!

[Hogi]

Very true, very true. I worked very hard for my fishing level to reach the ability to fish sharks, and now autoers are making more than me for just some dollars. It's dumb.

 

 

 

D - don't autoers have a life?

 

U - Ugly, the color of every autoer's shirt and pants

 

M - Mad at all the lvl 5s fishing sharks that have chinese names

 

B - Bad people use bad system, therefore changing Runescape into a bad economy

 

 

 

I'm glad the editor clearly spoke this message in the article. =D>

[D. V. Devnull]

Very true, very true. I worked very hard for my fishing level to reach the ability to fish sharks, and now autoers are making more than me for just some dollars. It's dumb.

 

 

 

D - don't autoers have a life?

 

U - Ugly, the color of every autoer's shirt and pants

 

M - Mad at all the lvl 5s fishing sharks that have chinese names

 

B - Bad people use bad system, therefore changing Runescape into a bad economy

 

 

 

I'm glad the editor clearly spoke this message in the article. =D>

 

Congrats on doing a fast summary. I think you nailed it almost perfectly. :)

 

 

 

BTW, not all chinese/japanese/korean are autoing scum. I may not be chinese/japanese/korean, but I am certain there are some good ones in the mix. :wink:

 

 

 

~Mr. Devnull

[malo2]

Very true, very true. I worked very hard for my fishing level to reach the ability to fish sharks, and now autoers are making more than me for just some dollars. It's dumb.

 

 

 

D - don't autoers have a life?

 

U - Ugly, the color of every autoer's shirt and pants

 

M - Mad at all the lvl 5s fishing sharks that have chinese names

 

B - Bad people use bad system, therefore changing Runescape into a bad economy

 

 

 

I'm glad the editor clearly spoke this message in the article. =D>

 

Congrats on doing a fast summary. I think you nailed it almost perfectly. :)

 

 

 

BTW, not all chinese/japanese/korean are autoing scum. I may not be chinese/japanese/korean, but I am certain there are some good ones in the mix. :wink:

 

 

 

~Mr. Devnull

no autoers don't have lives, as long as they don't have organic parts.

[D. V. Devnull]

no autoers don't have lives, as long as they don't have organic parts.

 

ROTFLMAO ... I was trying to say that there are some humans in the mix and not all were autoers. Sorry you took me the wrong way. :(

 

 

 

~Mr. Devnull

[therehadtobe1]

I see what the editor means by the decrease of prices caused by the skill cape hunters and autoers. (I don't actually know the price of raw shark I haven't been a member for quite a while so this is just an example) say raw sharks cost 300gp, now suddenly the skill cape hunters come along and there is a big demand for raw shark people put prices up and things slow down but then 1 person realises he could get the whole market if he lowered his prices. So say everyone has increased their price to 350 while this one person decreases his price to 250 everyone buys from him he makes lots of money. Now of course other people want to make money and everyone starts lowering their prices until the cost reaches 200.Then this causes a domino effect and the cookers buy cheaper and they sell cheaper to get a quick buck. I have never had a lot of money so I like to be self sufficient and get my skills up and make all the stuff myself. The thing is though is that if the autoers stopped then the skill cape rush would come to a standstill and the prices would rise again but this looks unlikely to happen. So the auoters produce the raw materials cheaply and then then the skill cape hunters produce the final product but this means they have to keep buying. Its people like me how sometimes have to hold up the system. As we level up all our skills (which takes longer) we make make money because we don't but raw materials and in the end when it isn't worth selling raw materials because you make little money and everything comes to a standstill we are there to buy things at a higher price (because we have more money) and get things going again.