When Rares Run Out: Hypothesises needed!

[Death9991]

It would be like if the world ran out of fossil fuels...

 

 

 

They would freak out and be pissed....

 

But would soon find a new thing to overprice and buy and sell to keep money circulating through to economy...

[IgnacioxD]

i think it's quite possible and i am an economus cause i study for it

 

when rares dissappear other items are going to be seen as rares and they will raise

 

raw materials will never extremely raise or lower

 

 

 

i think so lol :ohnoes: #-o

[Final_Mercy]

the prices would increase probably cause holiday randoms is the cause of inflation of certain items and massive crash on the stockmarket thing :P yeah i'm not sure but the people who are obsessed with looking good will definitely go insane on rs and quit forever

[Aneron]

The real question here is:

 

 

 

If the richest players in the game didn't have their money in rares, what would they spend their millions upon millions of gp on?

 

 

 

Get the answer to that, and we can start generating some discussion on the ramifications of the elimination of rares.

 

 

 

So "rich peeps", let's hear your answers :P .

 

 

 

I agree with Reb. However, I think it's fairly simple to guess what rich people would spend their money on. Lacking rares, they would search for other ways to show off their wealth. The main ways to do this are 99 capes (construction, herblore etc), and items such as the third age armor sets. It's also possible they would just train skills, not necessarily looking for a cape. There's not much else to do in the game. Naturally, this would drastically affect demand, causing the rise in prices of materials that other people have mentioned.

[stevepole]

I would expect the rs economy to crash.

[yomom1919]

Nothing would happen. Rares are limited to a select few, especially when they become more rare. Its like saying what would happen if we got rid of ferraris and yachts. Nothing. Nothing would happen, because only the richest would be hurt. Mercedes and BMW would take their place. I know your starting to think of the "trickle down" philosophy, but that wouldnt be the case. People expecting some great earthquake are not going to see it.

 

 

 

However, the value of gold will probably increase, and prices will go down because of that. Millions are made each day through rare merchanting and investing. If they were taken out, making money would be inveitably harder. Even though the quantity of gold would still be increasing, its accessability would decrease because of the new handicap of merchanting without the major moneymaker of rares. This would probably tricke down, and effect prices of raw materials, weapons, armor, etc, just as construction did. It would also effect merchants and their motives, but in no way would the economy collapse.

 

 

 

Not to mention, this would be an extremely slow process. Remember, construction came out and zapped millions out of the economy without former notice. Even though prices dipped, it was no where near an economic crash. Construction, if anything, would have toppled the runescape economy if it was vulnerable enough. That was a sudden and unexpected hit. However, rares would be slowly disappearing. This means the impact would happen over many years (possibly even 10 or more), and very, very gradually. The impact would mix in amongst the normal and regular drop of prices that occurs every day due to supply and demand.

 

 

 

On the topic of motives, it would greatly lessen them, considering many runescape players play with the eventual goal of a rare. But that wouldnt make many players quit, gaurenteed.

[Smapla]

yomom, that's incorrect.

 

 

 

Perhaps only hundreds of players have a rare...

 

 

 

But thousands dream of having one.

 

 

 

The extinction of rares would cause lots of people to focus on other things than making money, such as skilling.

 

 

 

It's hard to say what would happen, as some would turn all their attention to skilling, using up materials, whereas others would have turned all their attention to skilling and brining raw materials in, but there would be an imbalance. The easiest skills to train would probably see a rise in their raw materials cost, and construction would probably flourish.

[Mithril_Max]

i pity the guy with the last p hat, the headlines in tip.it, endless interviews, the swarm of noobs who follow from yanille to varrock... and worst of all... screams of "REPORTED" "NOOB HAXXORZ!" "OMFG AUTOER" :ohnoes:

[Emporer_Dave]

i pity the guy with the last p hat, the headlines in tip.it, endless interviews, the swarm of noobs who follow from yanille to varrock... and worst of all... screams of "REPORTED" "NOOB HAXXORZ!" "[omg] AUTOER" :ohnoes:

 

 

 

He he. Yeah. He'd probally be able to sell it for a fortune though - even though I personally wouldn't; the idea of having something that nobody else in the whole of Runescape doesn't would make me happy :)

[yomom1919]

yomom, that's incorrect.

 

 

 

Perhaps only hundreds of players have a rare...

 

 

 

But thousands dream of having one.

 

 

 

The extinction of rares would cause lots of people to focus on other things than making money, such as skilling.

 

 

 

It's hard to say what would happen, as some would turn all their attention to skilling, using up materials, whereas others would have turned all their attention to skilling and brining raw materials in, but there would be an imbalance. The easiest skills to train would probably see a rise in their raw materials cost, and construction would probably flourish.

 

 

 

But, the extinction of rares will happen very slowly. That means they will less and less effect the players joining at this moment, and make them more and more out of reach. Eventually, for players joining 2 years from now, rares will be on the backburner or out of the question. Sure, players will take up skilling, but whos to say that 3rd age, or any other rare armors, wont take rare's show off place. And just because rares disappear doesnt mean people are going to go out and blow 100+m on 99 smithing, 85+m on construction, etc. Jagex is constantly releasing new armors and weapons, and they will act as temporary rares. I doubt that, if rares are gone, people will be willing to pay 100m+ for a cape to take their place. Even if raw materials were bought up more, f2p will be turning out the same amount of raw materials, even greater considering the amount that runescape is growing. The materials themselves will stay the same because of the supply. Not to mention, jagex is always releasing updates, which means an eventual new set of raw materials, prices to be determined by the current economy and supply and demand. If players started buying up raw materials, the only ones that would probably increase would be rune, addy, and mabye mith ore. Players will still go about getting high levels using cheaper methods, especially since only a select few are enabled to take the fast track for skills; players with vast quantities of money are rare. Not to mention, the billions they saved up would be diminished quicky if they decided to burn it on skills, taking their money away and setting them on the same level as the average 'scapers competing for rares. This would make money much "tighter", and probably end up with many people obtaining their own raw materials, and in a "tight" economy, people tend to spend much less.

 

 

 

I also mentioned that its available to a select few. Are you implying that mabye 1,000 people with rares 7 years from now will buy up enough raw materials on their own to effect the whole economy? Not to mention, mabye only 3/10ths of them will be serious skillers. Also, many merchants dont play to skill. They may get a construction cape as a show-off, but they play to make money because runescape has a well-constructed economic system. They would probably become stakers or combatants before skilling. I highly doubt many merchants would turn to skilling, they would rather merchant lower items way before they start monotonously skilling, especially since merchanting is the fast-track life of runescape, just like stockbroking or currency trading.

 

 

 

However, this is all assuming merchanting becomes extinct. Merchanting in no way will become extinct when rares do. Merchants will still be able to make mass quantities of money through other means. The only case in which raw materials would rise dramatically would be if all merchants suddenly quit, which obviously won't happen because only a select few participate in rares merchanting.

 

 

 

I doubt even normal players will stop making money just because rares are gone and focus on skilling and spending their money on that. There are still many able items to take their place.

[Forgotenn00b]

First of all: Think of Runescape as a microcosm for the real world for a moment. (Thankfully) this situation is not plausible, but it will help me describe in detail what would happen should Runescape "go on forever" and rares doing the opposite.

 

 

 

Think of rares as antique paintings, or just antiques in general. Eventually, all of van Gogh's original paintings will be gone and/or destroyed, but will that affect the price of broccoli at your grocery store?

 

 

 

Tl;dr version: No, the change to the regular Runescape economy would be very very gradual or even not at all.

[Infi]

3rd Age Announcement - May 17, 2014

 

 

 

We have now decided that the 3rd Age Armour will now be discontinued.

 

 

 

:-k

[lavaownz]

:o ^^^^

 

 

 

I was actually just htinking about this, either prices would go up or down... I dont know...

[HellsBells]

MASSIVE price drops and autoers everywhere.

[Rebdragon]

First of all: Think of Runescape as a microcosm for the real world for a moment. (Thankfully) this situation is not plausible, but it will help me describe in detail what would happen should Runescape "go on forever" and rares doing the opposite.

 

 

 

Think of rares as antique paintings, or just antiques in general. Eventually, all of van Gogh's original paintings will be gone and/or destroyed, but will that affect the price of broccoli at your grocery store?

 

 

 

Tl;dr version: No, the change to the regular Runescape economy would be very very gradual or even not at all.

 

But your opinion rests on the fact that you're assuming the Runescape economy is identical to the real world economy.

 

 

 

It's not.

 

 

 

Do people need unnumerable amounts of broccoli? No, they don't. That's why prices wouldn't go up- people don't need the item past a certain quantity. That, and who the hell wants broccoli?

 

 

 

But skilling items, as people have suggested, would rise in price dramatically. Rich people would flood their money into something else, and it'll probably be skilling since they most likely own doubles or triples of any item they need. People can buy millions of logs, of strings, nats... you name it. There's no limit on the quantity at which they'd stop buying, especially if they're going past 99 to achieve a high rank in the skill they choose. The skilling market would be flooded with new cash from rich buyers, and prices would rise.

 

 

 

This rule goes for any market, too. If for some reason the rich people decided to go for the Dagganoth King market to hoard drops and cause prices to rise, both their adding of money to the market as well as their price manipulation would make Dragon Axe prices soar through the roof.

 

 

 

So, again, don't compare the real world economy to Runescape. It just doesn't work.

[truffoo]

Some good and well thought out comments here. =D>

 

 

 

I'm not really sure about Jagex secretly feeding rares into the market though :-k, but it's an interesting idea.

 

 

 

 

 

I think there are 2 categories of players that would be affected by the eventual disappearance of current rares:

 

1. Rare holders - currently have rares. If they all lost their rares through some bizarre set of circumstances (e.g., massacre in wilderness of phat wearers with no-one left to pick them up), they would probably just go about their normal daily business (I considered taking this out since you can't hold a rare if they have disappeared, but I think my point is still valid)

 

2. Rare savers - saving for a rare. These would have the biggest impact on the economy because they would have gp saved up which would then be spare cash. They would also likely have extremely efficient money making processes. All of this extra gp would then go towards either "rare" armour or skilling. But as said above by numerous people, the disappearance of rares will happen slowly so one by one the Rare savers will give up on saving for a rare and go on with everything else (or quit).

 

 

 

 

 

However, and this is my main point, unless Jagex decide that rares are no longer in existence (i.e., remove them as items), some number of rares will always be valid items within the game, even if they may not be actively traded. These are the ones held by player who quit. They could technically come back at any time and suddenly there would be an 'active' rare.

 

 

 

The only rares that truely go out-of-game are banned accounts and lost through death (pretty uncommon I'd hope :ohnoes:).

 

 

 

 

 

But if this game is still going (in its current form) long enough into the future for this to happen, I'd be very surprised.

[Giordano]

Lots of good and interesting 'hypotheses' ( Thanks Zach :wink: ). :) The idea of Jagex secretly pouring in phats into the economy is just wow. :uhh:

[TheAncient]

Jagex won't remove rares.

[sk8ermaster]

unless if some bug came out in the arena where some few people couldnt possibly lose, and all the richest people went to stake them lost their rares to them and then they all got perm banned for bug abuse then maybe, but then again lots of people have never and never will stake, ah well, doubt it will ever happen

[Forgotenn00b]

words

 

 

 

You seem to be under the false impression that I was being literal, it was only a metaphor. Also, you seem to think that this would happen in a day, or a week, which it certainly would not. This would happen over the course of many many years, in which course gold value would settle out. Also, broccoli was intended to be a representation of consumables in general, which people do indeed need on a daily basis.

 

 

 

I will not address your daggonith king reference, because I do not see it in any way relevant. Short term economy study != long term economy study by a very large margin

[Zandalf]

I have sometimes wondered if Jagex might someday introduce more rares into the game to absorb the continuing influx of money and control the run-away inflation.

 

 

 

It would have to be a complete surprise to prevent hoarding before it happened.

 

 

 

They might consider it because (as the original post suggests) at some point, the existing number of rares will be insufficient to absorb the inflation. Not because there will be too few rares, but rather because there will be too many rich players. The best solution might be for Jagex to reverse their stated policy on rares.

 

 

 

They could either discontinue an existing item (think headbands, heraldic items, other wearables etc.), or drop a new item (a la Christmas crackers).

 

 

 

I heard one old player compare the half-wine situation to burnt shrimp. That is, what if they reduced the burn rate on shrimp to 0%? Everyone with burnt shrimp in their bank would suddenly be rich...

[Kill_Thomas9]

People are missing the point here. We are not debating the issue of weather or not rares will dissapear. We are looking for hypotheses on what would happen if they did dissapear.

[Forgotenn00b]

words.

 

 

 

RebDragon and I are debating the issue, if you want to contribute feel free, but otherwise you should be aware that this was not the right forum (or site for that matter) to post this in. Let me save you a rant and say debate is beyond most of Tip.It's members.

[Cabbage_Boii]

no....jagex will just introduce new rares..rares will never run out so why talk about impossible things. its like saying if humans had wings how would that change the world....

 

 

 

jagex will not make new rares cause they have said that the holiday events are non tradeable...and if you have not noticed they have begun to repeat every year(bunny hop emote,scared emote), if the rares ran out :XD: well alot of my beuty looks that i walk around in would be RUINED...rares WILL NOT run out ill tell you that now.if they did well runescape would have to continue how it was....though i think it would be a depressing game...something else that has become rare like the gnome scarf/goggles(ex) would just take its place. :-w

[Rebdragon]

words

 

 

 

You seem to be under the false impression that I was being literal, it was only a metaphor. Also, you seem to think that this would happen in a day, or a week, which it certainly would not. This would happen over the course of many many years, in which course gold value would settle out. Also, broccoli was intended to be a representation of consumables in general, which people do indeed need on a daily basis.

 

 

 

I will not address your daggonith king reference, because I do not see it in any way relevant. Short term economy study != long term economy study by a very large margin

 

This would never happen. Ever.

 

 

 

I'm looking at it hypothetically, as if the rares dissappeared all in a moment. There really is no other way for it to happen except for intervention by Jagex.

 

 

 

This whole thing is hypothetical; logically speaking, it will never happen.

 

 

 

 

 

As for the broccoli comment... even if we arguing two different cases (you're arguing long term while I'm arguing short, we need to do something about that o_O), people only need so much broccoli. But logs... some guy could go out and buy a million logs to go and burn in one day, that would never happen with broccoli.

 

 

 

It's just walking on thin ice to compare the Runescape economy to the real world one. Runescape is... a fantasy javascript game played on the computer with a very limited diversity of goods. The real world is... well, real life. They're completely different.