lock please

[Wachtwoord]

I forsee one possibly BIG problem - MONOPOLY

 

 

 

With Runescape's entire supply market located in one store, what is to prevent one of the wealthy players from buying 100% of a certain resource? They could effectively gain a monopoly on that market and manipulate prices.

 

 

 

What do others think about this? I'm no Economics major, but I have taken the university class and this seems like a possible problem. We all know that JAGeX doesn't always think things through ahead of time. One possible solution I can think of is having a limit on how much each player can buy a month, of say 500million gp per day. This would hinder the phat trading market, but little beyond that.

 

All items in RS are either easy to get or worth quite a lot and of every item there are at least thousand of them (maybe not for the new GWD items). Of course there are some exceptions to this like certain level 1 and 2 TT items, so those would be the only option. And even if someone would do that, the price would probably sky-rocket and there for increase the supply. So you also need something which is a bit hard to get and isn't gotten in bulk already. The only option I see would be level 2 TT items, like a certain boater. Or maybe even level 3's like a certain enchanted robe part. And even if someone would get a monopoly, would it really matter? For such obscure items, I don't think so.

 

 

 

And why does everyone hate merchants? Try guying 15K+ bowstrings without trading a merchant and without standing in a bank screaming "buy all bs" whole day.

[Makoto_the_Phoenix]

The way that I see it is that it will only ruin the wannabe merchants at their half-profession. I don't necessarily see that merchants as a whole will be wholly affected by any of this.

 

 

 

Of course, what is merchanting? To me, it sounds like they're too lazy to raise any profit-making skill [and they turn out huge profits], and then ridicule those that do.

[Lime_Mercury]

Wonder what effect this will have on barrows - now people can buy whatever piece they want... can fill up sets almost instantly.

[Sharane]

I've got one thing to say to this: Die world 1 die!

[Randox]

I like this. Im willing to take a small hit to profits if it means not spending hours of my life selling red chinchompas. Besides, i figure lost revenue will be made up for by being able to get things cheeper with greater ease. Skills mean more to me than money (good thing, I only have 1 or 2 mill at a time), and this will enhance my skilling.

[Bobbington]

It's difficult to know until it is here.... but I suspect we will have huge amounts of rants about how "merchanting is ruined" although i think it will just change how it is approached. A real merchant will have the ability to adapt to their new surroundings, I am sure it will be just as good if not better.... yet different.

[SuperS]

Change is good. :)

[Reztral]

Shouldn't mess with merchanting. Will probably make it easier actually.

[wakka102]

OMG YES! I've been asking and waiting for an update like this forever! I HATE going to world 2 and yelling things over and over to sell items or constantly running a forum post and dealing with people from there with locations, this will help so much w00t! \ \

 

 

 

however, it probably will stop merchanting of materials a bit. People tend to pay higher prices because they can get things in bulk, a merchant would buy in small amounts at a reduced price to sell to someone for a bulk amount for higher price. With an update like this there will be more universal prices for items because someone can just go down the list looking for "coal" and could just buy from 10 people selling in small amounts at 200 each rather than someone selling in bulk for 210. (these are just random prices I came up with).

[Ginger_Warrior]

I'm not an economist, but I can try my best to analyse the effects of this. To be honest, I don't believe the RS economy has much similarities between the real-life economy anyway.

 

 

 

My personal opinion is that it would make merchanting much more common, and as a result, much less profitable. The current system is for merchanters to buy their products from the street, and then to use the RSOF to sell those products for as high a price as possible. I kinda compare it to a market trader, who buys his goods from eBay, and then sells them off for a bigger price.

 

 

 

The global market structure will allow those selling primary materials to sell directly to those who need them. This won't have much of an effect, I feel, since they were really doing that before using the forums instead. However, a global market would make trading a lot easier, and as a result, there'd be more merchanters. More merchanters means more competition in the market, which forces the merchanters to lower the prices they sell their goods for. As a result, merchanting becomes less profitable.

 

 

 

That's my analysis. TBH, this kind of thing's been done with Pok̮̩̉̉mon and it hasn't made a great difference to how people were trading before (on the forums of major fansites). I doubt this will have any great impact on the game.

[RoswellCrash]

Some of the junk I have been meaning to sell in that asap, also I will be over pricing some items because you know someone will buy it sooner or later.

[Adam007]

It will make it so merchants can't profit like they used to, but it'll save everyone time, and time's money, so I think it's a greater good. It really seems jagex doesn't see merchanting as part of the game anymore. I think it will help merchanting big rares though. I'd love to drop a party hat in there, set an asking price on my own terms, and whatever amount of time later it takes for that to become the price I'll be happy with.

[TheDecline]

Merchanting shouldn't even be a way to make money in the first place. Merchanting is pretty much scamming. You find some fool who doesn't know the price of something and buy low sell high. Or take advantage of someone wanting to sell an item quickly. Seriously people should have to make honest money by pking, dueling, killing monsters, or off of skills. I hate merchants.

 

 

 

As person grows up he learns to control his emotions, but you are one of those people I would gladly tell off.

 

 

 

Just because you were taken advantage off due to poor knoweldge of prices, it does not give you any right to downtalk mercahnts.

 

 

 

Dont hate what you cant do.

 

 

 

You are a big hypocrate. Talking about taking advantage of people who dont know prices. What about pkers taking advantage of people? What about duelers who cheat and scam and take advantage of people?

 

 

 

If you have no job and can afford to skill 24/7 to make $ that doesnt mean others can, merchnating is an alternative for those who want a lot of money quickly and have the brain to do it.

 

 

 

I wasn't even talking about myself. I'm not saying I was taken advantage of... Also, I'm not a hypocrite. I don't know where you are coming up with all of this stuff. I was just explaining why I do not like merchants. It's not because I was scammed by them or anything like that. Its just that its not a respectable way to make money in my opinion.

[highlanders]

It will, just think at it.

 

 

 

Now, the desperate people can just put it for sale on advance and know it will sell all by itself. People wanting to sell quickly also often don't want to spend minutes selling and they can just put it for sale.

 

 

 

Anyway, when a cheap item will come up, the merchanters will speed fight to get it first.

[SwreeTak]

No, I thinks that it only will make merchanting goes faster :).

 

But this is a big change, and it's impossible to see every possible end of it...

[ego_scorpion]

Its just that its not a respectable way to make money in my opinion.

 

 

 

tell that to my 10 billion net worth and swarm of people around me whenever i log in

[InkofDeath]

Honestly we should wait before it comes out, that way Jagex won't dislike this forum as much. :P

 

 

 

But in any case, it would take away those opportunities where the opponent doesn't know the price, and you make 50k-150k off that alone. Though I think the prices would be the same as shop prices, therefore not much of a difference...

[Harrington]

I think it will have a massive impact on merchanting. Profits will be down, but I think overall, the task of merchanting will become much much easier.

 

 

 

Frankly, I couldn't care less if merchants lose out... in fact, I hope they do. They've been ripping the heart out of the game economy for years.

[xSxqPowerx]

I think it will benefit myself, and players who play like me hugely.

 

 

 

It may destroy merchanting.

 

 

 

As far as I can tell (and it's not out yet so no one knows.) the only people who will be able to sell easily there will be the ones that can compete at the lowest prices.

[Adam007]

Its just that its not a respectable way to make money in my opinion.

 

 

 

tell that to my 10 billion net worth and swarm of people around me whenever i log in

 

Playing devil's advocate here, what's that have to do with respectability?

[Sharane]

People are forgetting one major factor to this: Trade scams are destroyed since you cannot trick the system into changing prices or items as you would in the traditional trading system. Who here hasn't almost fallen victim of somebody selling you 1k iron ore with coal prices, or remove a zero from the whip you just sold?

[malo2]

it's basically almost the same thing as the forums, and the forums have only helped merchanting.

[ego_scorpion]

it's basically almost the same thing as the forums, and the forums have only helped merchanting.

 

 

 

I just thought about it, and I agree

 

 

 

afterall, back in WoW the "auction house" was the only possible way of merchanting.

 

 

 

Somehow who isnt very bright and doenst know the prices will still sell cheap.

 

 

 

Only difference now will be all the mercahnts constantly scanning the exchange to be the first to snag something at a silly price.

[DRUMINATOR17]

This should and will play a huge part on the game and I think that it will benefit more players then it will hurt.

 

 

 

Yes, granted, it might kill merchanting, but only to some degree.

 

 

 

I do believe that lower level merchanting with cheaper and more common items such as barrows sets, or things of that nature will pretty much die out.

 

 

 

However for big ticket items such as rares this will be an amazing and even easier or harder way, all just depends on more specifics really, to make large amounts of money.

 

 

 

And if it turns out that this update does kill merchanting. O well :roll:

 

 

 

People are forgetting one major factor to this: Trade scams are destroyed since you cannot trick the system into changing prices or items as you would in the traditional trading system. Who here hasn't almost fallen victim of somebody selling you 1k iron ore with coal prices, or remove a zero from the whip you just sold?

 

 

 

Rofl or the completeing mills scam that I fell for #-o :wall:

[WildxYak]

Merchanting is usually revolved around easy to sell items that have slightly varying prices and can be sold and bought relatively easily.

 

 

 

The Grand Exchange will probably get full of items that are harder to sell and you can just leave them be until someone wants it....I've had a dmed in my bank for nearing a month because I can't sell it and don't want to be stood around for hours in banks for Fally W2 trying to sell it when I could be having fun doing something else.

 

 

 

I personally believe it'll empty out the main marketplaces a bit but won't kill merchanting as it'll likely be a slower process of selling and buying.