The Animal Mask Crash

[totalpwnage]

NOTE: I am not 100% sure if this has ended, but I'm 95% sure it hasn't.

 

 

 

Just yesterday, for no apparent reason, animal masks crashed to become trade price -- or even lower. It happened very suddenly. About 6:30 pm EST, all the masks were moving at a normal rate. I check again at about 10:30 PM... everyone is selling masks for trade price or lower! Some are even using them as junk! Kinda ironic, considering about 4 hours before they were being traded with junk.

 

 

 

The weirdest part is that this happened pretty much out of nowhere. The ONLY thing that could be linked to this is the fact that Wolf Mask started dropping in the GE. Did that 1 mask falling cause everyone to go into a mass panic and sell their masks? Who knows. Its the most logical answer I have. And according to many people I know of, this was the case.

 

 

 

Is 3rd age destined to crash soon too? Many people have paniced now that masks are crashing as well, and many are expecting 3rd age to be the next big thing to crash. If a 3rd age item starts falling, will they all start to crash, even with 3rd age's current rarity?

 

 

 

And why did people panic so much that wolf mask was falling? One mask starting to fall doesn't mean another is gonna fall too. I never saw wolf masks being junk traded like ever. All I ever saw was bat, cat, penguin, and sheep. Now probably the least traded mask is the cause of a massive crash?

 

 

 

However i don't think the owners of masks are the only people that caused this. No one wanted to buy masks anymore cause of the wolf mask falling as well, I believe. And that might have been why people paniced and lowered their trade prices -- there was hardly any demand for masks at a high price anymore.

 

 

 

Theres a lot of discuss here, but please refrain from the flaming about junk trading (no "gf junk trades" or "gf scammers" etc.) so we can actually keep this a discussion, not another argument about the nature of junk trading being a scam or not, cause I've seen many many threads turn into that.

 

 

 

And sorry, I tried to summarize it, but its not easy for me. I'm not a very good writer. It'll be easier for me to respond to people. I'm not really a good conversation starter, lol :lol:

[brunokiller]

Interesting.

 

 

 

Those masks were expensive because they were expensive. Just a bubble. It gets very big then blows up. I predicted this the moment I saw what happened with the top hat.

 

 

 

Though I don't think third age will ever(or for a long long time) crash. It's just too rare, it actually has some decent bonusses and looks very nice.

 

 

 

Let's admit it, weren't those masks ugly as hell?

[Shadiochao]

I don't think it was just yesterday

 

2 or 3 days ago I sold my wolf mask 200k under trade price. And because of how popular they were, it would probably have taken a few days to get there in the first place.

[Danqazmlp]

Personally i think its a good thing. The main people who have lost out are junk traders who didn't want the item for the item. Now the peope who want the item can buy it on the g.e for a better price.

[SixFootOne]

I am really interested to see what this will do to all the items people used masks to buy/sell. I am guessing like you said 3rd age and some of the other items will crash, or will some other item jump in price and become the next big junk item.

[Peronix]

Ah good, one less item in the hands of junk traders and into the hands of people that actually wear them. I'm really hoping this happens with 3a too, I remember a time when it actually sold for a "reasonable" amount. That bubble's gotta burst eventually.

[obfuscator]

Hmm. Interesting. I can't say that I see this happening with third age though...much rarer, decent bonuses and has been out for much longer.

[smartme]

It's just the market over-reacting to the election results.

 

 

 

Honestly, Obama won't hurt the RS economy that much...

[Peronix]

Hmm. Interesting. I can't say that I see this happening with third age though...much rarer, decent bonuses and has been out for much longer.

 

 

 

Just because it's been out a while doesn't mean the bubble won't burst. Party hats were basically a bubble market, and look what's happening to them at the moment. They've been out since near the dawn of Runescape, and they're discontinued! Yeah 3a has decent stats, but not the best. And more are coming into the game, however slowly.

[CampbellMC]

It all has to do with people over reacting to everything in the RS market. I predict that the masks will go back up after a little bit. I put my two extra sheep masks on the GE at lowest price and I will hope they will sell, but I am not selling my cat mask because I like the way it looks with 3rd age range.

[Randox]

Interesting.

 

 

 

Those masks were expensive because they were expensive. Just a bubble. It gets very big then blows up. I predicted this the moment I saw what happened with the top hat.

 

 

 

Though I don't think third age will ever(or for a long long time) crash. It's just too rare, it actually has some decent bonusses and looks very nice.

 

 

 

Let's admit it, weren't those masks ugly as hell?

 

 

 

I like this explantion. As far as I know the masks were expensive for the sake of it more than anything. The other valubel items like christmas crakers, p hats, 3rd age and the other rares, are all expensive because so fe of them exist. The animal masks were artificiay high. The price rose initialy because of massive demand for the new rewards. Masks never came down. This is opposed to something like 3rd age which has always been expensive. I expect there were many original owners of animal masks, and when one fell on the GE all these woners were able to sell at GE price without suffering the losses someone who recently bought one would incure. As the prices drop, demand goes to nill for most people and only people who wanted but couldnt afford become buyers.

 

 

 

Now 3rd age an other TT rewards could crash as a result. This is because people would fear a drop and sell low on teh GE. So few of the items are traded on teh GE that a few low sells could show up as multi percent changes causing mass panic. As long as the people who own expensive TT rewards keep level heads and don't panic, there will be no drop. The drop will only come from people who panic and sell low. The people who sold the wolf masks are probably the reson that this happend. The blame also falls to the people who panicked and allowed all teh masks to follow suit. Of couse with teh game being populated by little kids, the panic was probably justified, and the older people would realise the little kids will panic and may even start the whole event.

 

 

 

The prices are determined by peoples confidence in the value of the item just as much as supply/demand dictate prices. Faith is somethig most people forget about in economics, but when push comes to shove, faith can cause far more drastic changes than anything else. The Global economic situation is a great example. Iceland banks ALL wen't belly up because of a lack of faith after coming clean with the fact they had suffered extreme losses. This means Icelandic currency is useless on the global market, and probably just as useless in Iceland itself.

[Soma2035]

Hmm. Interesting. I can't say that I see this happening with third age though...much rarer, decent bonuses and has been out for much longer.

 

 

 

Just because it's been out a while doesn't mean the bubble won't burst. Party hats were basically a bubble market, and look what's happening to them at the moment. They've been out since near the dawn of Runescape, and they're discontinued! Yeah 3a has decent stats, but not the best. And more are coming into the game, however slowly.

 

 

 

Party hats were not a bubble market.

 

 

 

Party hats collapsed due to several reasons:

 

 

 

1) Money didn't flow as quickly anymore. Without staking and PKing, it was unlikely for someone to go from 50M to 500M overnight. Even more so without unbalanced trades. A lot of people who buy party hats do so because they already earned everything else they want, or they suddenly find themselves in so much money they don't know what to do with a major chunk of it.

 

 

 

2) With the 3K trade limitations, buying and selling multiple party hats a day is just pointless. Most people expected to profit or lose 500k or more on each trade. This is hardly possible with those 3k limits. Even after the expansion to 30k this seemed pretty meaningless.

 

 

 

3) The bar has been "raised" as far as equipment goes. It's almost like a cycle. People generally choose armor/weapons/skills over rares with no other value. For example, I spent money on my cannon + rune armor + glory amulet before I finally realized that my 10M was excessive, and bought a party hat. Only, back then your items were rune, dragon, and glories. Now, they are Godswords, Bandos, Armadyl, etc. Back when the party hat market peaked, the top of the line items were whip and barrows, and they had pretty much reached a stable, and fairly low point. If you had 150M cash, and you already had your barrows and whip, if you didn't want to train skills, your only other choice is party hats / other rare items / don't spend it.

 

 

 

Anyhow, the party hat market won't crash forever. They've lost a substantial portion of their market, but their supply will fall as well. I've already seen people PK with party hats. People also alch them, or quit RS with them, etc. Eventually, it will probably reach the point at which people will want them again, but that might take a while.

 

 

 

Masks, on the other hand, have honestly been showing signs of crashing for days. When everyone and their mother has 10+ masks, no one wears them, and no one's trying to buy them, but everyone's asking 10m+, you have problems. I have yet to understand why they ever reached such a high price. They're ridiculously ugly. I managed to get a couple off the GE. One of them I promptly gave to my brother at GE price so he could sell off his 4M summoning junk and 1M other PvP drops junk. The other I was holding in case one of my friends / clannmates needed it. Ended up selling it before it plummeted. :wall:

 

 

 

I don't think 3rd age will go the same way. People treat 3rd age very differently from animal masks. On one hand, you have people gathering 10+ animal masks to hopefully trade for something more valuable, like an elyssian spirit shield, or 3rd age armor. On the other, you have people who want to earn a full 3rd age set (melee, magic, and ranged). Other people who just want an individual set.

 

 

 

Right now, people are collecting 3rd age for collection's sake. People were collecting masks for the sake of junk trading. That is the problem.

 

 

 

3rd age will decline in value, but it will be gradual, alongside more and more of them coming into the game, and more and more other collectibles entering the game.

[Omali]

According to GE Express, most masks have gone up 50%+ in the past month.

 

 

 

How are they crashing?

[toast647]

The weirdest part is that this happened pretty much out of nowhere.

 

 

 

Merchanters bought a lot of them on the first day. They kept them till now and sold them all. They were at their peak so..I couldn't see wolf going much higher

[coenvg]

 

The true merchant foresees the market \ ,

 

 

 

And did I say something about stupid trades -.- ;) ,

 

 

 

 

 

 

could have been an easy extra 20 millions (with some patience :mrgreen: )

[totalpwnage]

[hide=Randox quote]

Interesting.

 

 

 

Those masks were expensive because they were expensive. Just a bubble. It gets very big then blows up. I predicted this the moment I saw what happened with the top hat.

 

 

 

Though I don't think third age will ever(or for a long long time) crash. It's just too rare, it actually has some decent bonusses and looks very nice.

 

 

 

Let's admit it, weren't those masks ugly as hell?

 

 

 

I like this explantion. As far as I know the masks were expensive for the sake of it more than anything. The other valubel items like christmas crakers, p hats, 3rd age and the other rares, are all expensive because so fe of them exist. The animal masks were artificiay high. The price rose initialy because of massive demand for the new rewards. Masks never came down. This is opposed to something like 3rd age which has always been expensive. I expect there were many original owners of animal masks, and when one fell on the GE all these woners were able to sell at GE price without suffering the losses someone who recently bought one would incure. As the prices drop, demand goes to nill for most people and only people who wanted but couldnt afford become buyers.

 

 

 

Now 3rd age an other TT rewards could crash as a result. This is because people would fear a drop and sell low on teh GE. So few of the items are traded on teh GE that a few low sells could show up as multi percent changes causing mass panic. As long as the people who own expensive TT rewards keep level heads and don't panic, there will be no drop. The drop will only come from people who panic and sell low. The people who sold the wolf masks are probably the reson that this happend. The blame also falls to the people who panicked and allowed all teh masks to follow suit. Of couse with teh game being populated by little kids, the panic was probably justified, and the older people would realise the little kids will panic and may even start the whole event.

 

 

 

The prices are determined by peoples confidence in the value of the item just as much as supply/demand dictate prices. Faith is somethig most people forget about in economics, but when push comes to shove, faith can cause far more drastic changes than anything else. The Global economic situation is a great example. Iceland banks ALL wen't belly up because of a lack of faith after coming clean with the fact they had suffered extreme losses. This means Icelandic currency is useless on the global market, and probably just as useless in Iceland itself.

[/hide]

 

Its a good explanation, but I don't think those masks were just expensive for the sake of it. Masks were pretty rare because not many people did level 2s for money. It was rare that one was sold to the GE every day. Not many of them were created daily, thats for sure. Thats why they never came down. 3rd age was always rare but not as expensive as it is today, too... so I don't know.

 

 

 

The chances that 3rd age will drop is very low though. There is a high demand for 3rd age in the GE because many want to sell party hats and other high cost junk... but mainly partyhats. I don't know about other TT rewards being so popular, though. Third age is very very rare -- 1/10000 drop rate from a clue apparently. There are 12 different pieces of 3rd age or something, right? This means the chance for a specific 3rd age item is 1/120000. So each piece of 3rd age armour is INSANELY rare. This means even if people did panic it probably wouldn't drop. But you're right, people selling wolf masks probably caused this to happen.

 

 

 

Yeah, the confidence in an item definitely determines a lot though. That's why many people when holding an item thats in low supply in a large amount sell early and cause it to drop. This has happened a lot to the price manipulators because many dump the item after about 1 update, guess thats a good thing more than a bad thing though.

 

 

 

[hide=soma2035 quote]

Party hats were not a bubble market.

 

 

 

Party hats collapsed due to several reasons:

 

 

 

1) Money didn't flow as quickly anymore. Without staking and PKing, it was unlikely for someone to go from 50M to 500M overnight. Even more so without unbalanced trades. A lot of people who buy party hats do so because they already earned everything else they want, or they suddenly find themselves in so much money they don't know what to do with a major chunk of it.

 

 

 

2) With the 3K trade limitations, buying and selling multiple party hats a day is just pointless. Most people expected to profit or lose 500k or more on each trade. This is hardly possible with those 3k limits. Even after the expansion to 30k this seemed pretty meaningless.

 

 

 

3) The bar has been "raised" as far as equipment goes. It's almost like a cycle. People generally choose armor/weapons/skills over rares with no other value. For example, I spent money on my cannon + rune armor + glory amulet before I finally realized that my 10M was excessive, and bought a party hat. Only, back then your items were rune, dragon, and glories. Now, they are Godswords, Bandos, Armadyl, etc. Back when the party hat market peaked, the top of the line items were whip and barrows, and they had pretty much reached a stable, and fairly low point. If you had 150M cash, and you already had your barrows and whip, if you didn't want to train skills, your only other choice is party hats / other rare items / don't spend it.

 

 

 

Anyhow, the party hat market won't crash forever. They've lost a substantial portion of their market, but their supply will fall as well. I've already seen people PK with party hats. People also alch them, or quit RS with them, etc. Eventually, it will probably reach the point at which people will want them again, but that might take a while.

 

 

 

Masks, on the other hand, have honestly been showing signs of crashing for days. When everyone and their mother has 10+ masks, no one wears them, and no one's trying to buy them, but everyone's asking 10m+, you have problems. I have yet to understand why they ever reached such a high price. They're ridiculously ugly. I managed to get a couple off the GE. One of them I promptly gave to my brother at GE price so he could sell off his 4M summoning junk and 1M other PvP drops junk. The other I was holding in case one of my friends / clannmates needed it. Ended up selling it before it plummeted.

 

 

 

I don't think 3rd age will go the same way. People treat 3rd age very differently from animal masks. On one hand, you have people gathering 10+ animal masks to hopefully trade for something more valuable, like an elyssian spirit shield, or 3rd age armor. On the other, you have people who want to earn a full 3rd age set (melee, magic, and ranged). Other people who just want an individual set.

 

 

 

Right now, people are collecting 3rd age for collection's sake. People were collecting masks for the sake of junk trading. That is the problem.

 

 

 

3rd age will decline in value, but it will be gradual, alongside more and more of them coming into the game, and more and more other collectibles entering the game.

[/hide]

 

 

 

Indeed party hats collapsed due to the flow of money becoming slower. I believe staking put a lot of value on the party hats... but the fact that you could profit off buying low and selling high through an actual trade made it a lot better. People could sell at a firm price without causing it to drop but now theres GE limitations that also make PHats look a lot worse than they would be today.

 

 

 

Also, the new equipment is definitely making party hats pointless. You've got godswords, the new spirit shields, and many other things. Some things such as dragon full helms and third age are things you can actually use to show off. Skilling has become a lot more of a popular thing now too. Many people would rather raise their skills rather than show off a party hat. Skills are something you actually can use, and especially with the new grand quest coming, there could be even more. There are so many more high level updates to skills nowadays -- things like Inferno Adze and all. Skilling is more popular than ever now, even with spending money. And there are also many high-cost methods of training for very fast exp that people do now, too.

 

 

 

Party hats definitely won't crash forever. But they will not stop crashing for a long long time. People don't want them without 3rd age right now.

 

 

 

Wolf mask was destined to crash, but I didn't expect EVERY mask to drop. I knew, 3 days ago, they were gonna crash as they were buyable at max instantly. I didn't see every mask dropping, though.

 

 

 

Masks were quite rare and were raising quite often in the GE. Many people started to use them to get rid of their junk. With PvP updates, a LOT of high cost junk was being created, with all the noncorrupt armours and a few noncorrupt weapons being junk...DFH being junk... a lot of low cost junk being created as well. People started selling masks for lower because people didn't want higher cost junk -- the reason being that low cost junk could be used to lend out godswords. But yeah, I guess people didn't really use masks. I did see some people go around in them. But the high cost causes many people to be lazy and not want to buy it to make an outfit with it. Someone earlier said cat mask looks good with 3rd age range.

 

 

 

3rd age is treated specially. You can use it in combat and it doesn't degrade... you can actually show it off when slaying and all! Its also got a nice look, making many outfits able to be made out of it. But most 3rd age is used to sell phats nowadays. People buy 3rd age with a party hat too, getting even more out of the buy. Party hats, lots of people still respect them. But people have more demand for other items.

 

 

 

Masks definitely were collected for the purpose of junk trading -- I used mine to sell my Zuriel Robe Top, though I had that mask for a couple weeks before I had that robe top. 3rd age will be very gradual in lowering of value. As I said earlier, 1/10000 for a piece of 3rd age -- 1/120000 for a specific piece. I'm pretty sure that a jmod stated its 1/10000 for 3rd age item; thats where I'm getting the number from.

 

 

 

[hide=Omali quote]

According to GE Express, most masks have gone up 50%+ in the past month.

 

 

 

How are they crashing?

[/hide]

 

They just started crashing yesterday. Look at world 2 -- they were being junk traded for 10m+ depending on the mask, now they're being used as junk. You'll see soon -- THe GE hasn't updated for 34 hours, so it will update soon. It has to update within the next 6 hours (40 hours is the longest the GE can go without updating). Thats when its gonna start dropping.

[xpx]

Where is the surprise? Everyone knew they would, the question was just when they would, and reaching 11m is quite an achievement for items that would normally sell for around 1m ea. Can't really say it was a good thing they did, because having masks in the market meant buying and selling over/underpriced items was made much more convenient. I myself got full 3a melee thanks to them and cashed out the last masks i had left over around a week ago.

 

 

 

As for 3a prices- this update only makes 3a more desirable- 3a is now times harder to buy and this further cuts the ring of people who can conceivably afford it(only bh trades or pvp/shield/phat junk trades). Also the fact that partyhats are already showing signs of recovery means 3a is likely to skyrocket in near future.

[Mercifull]

Maybe some day in the near future i'll be able to buy a cat mask for a reasonable price to actually WEAR it and enjoy it.

[saif]

w00t mroe stuff i can put in my costume room \

[wakka102]

I'm amazed they were ever as high as they got/are. People generally buy tt items based on how they look. The higher the price the better it looked. But those masks are ugly and still higher than many other things.

[kolko]

It's called mass hysteria. Buy now, before everyone realises they will rise anyway.

[Triquos]

I think this is a good thing. Too many people have taken advantage of the trade limit and made these invisible price tags on items such as the animal masks, and now that they're falling I think either a new one will pop up (rares maybe?), or the 3rd age will start suffering and coming back down to their original prices \

 

 

 

And I hope for everyone's sake it's the 2nd option ;)

[00hydro]

All I can say is "yay." I've been pretty sick of masks being so outrageous.

[bedman]

Where is the surprise? Everyone knew they would, the question was just when they would, and reaching 11m is quite an achievement for items that would normally sell for around 1m ea. Can't really say it was a good thing they did, because having masks in the market meant buying and selling over/underpriced items was made much more convenient. I myself got full 3a melee thanks to them and cashed out the last masks i had left over around a week ago.

 

 

 

As for 3a prices- this update only makes 3a more desirable- 3a is now times harder to buy and this further cuts the ring of people who can conceivably afford it(only bh trades or pvp/shield/phat junk trades). Also the fact that partyhats are already showing signs of recovery means 3a is likely to skyrocket in near future.

 

 

 

I'd say the opposite. When people realise rares are going up again, demand is going to skyrocket, and so are phats. Much more people can afford them now. Phats will become the new 3a (but rarer) and interest in 3a will decline. Since 3a is pretty much a big price bubble, they will crash. However, I'm hoping the opposite :-)

 

 

 

anyway, I'm pretty happy I sold my masks 2 days ago. Saw it coming when i heard wolfs were going down.

[Zaaps1]

Mirrors the housing market doesn't it?