Out of sheer bordem, I took the time to write a much more descriptive story of my old "merchanting career". The story is about 5 pages long in Microsoft Works... so I hope you're ready for some reading. There are no pictures. There is, however, an interestingly tragic story of an oldschool Runescaper. I don't expect this topic to generate a lot of interest. I don't even expect any replies to be honest. I wrote the story out of bordem and since I wrote it there's really no reason not to post it in hopes there's at least 1 or 2 people around these forums who enjoy stories such as this one. Enjoy! Oh and the reason I posted this here is because I really had no other place to put it. I breifly thought about creating a topic in general discussion, but wasn't sure if that's where it should go. I might also create a topic anyways titled "What's your Runescape story?" just so I can read some other people's stuff :thumbsup: .

 

 

 

[hide=This is the greatest and best story ever told....]Zibls Merchanting History

 

DISCLAIMER: The dates, times, and prices used within this brief history are not all 100% correct. You have to understand that these experiences and situations were never recorded in stone and all of which are years old. I am human. I can, however, assure you that the stories and situations are 100% true and are in no way exaggerated or diluted. Enjoy.

 

 

 

Part #1 - In the Beginning

 

 

 

I joined Runescape in very late December 2001. When I first joined I was both confused and excited about runescape. The character class that I chose was an adventurer. I didn't know what in the heck to do first. The first two days ended up being pretty boring because I had no idea what to do and how to do it. On the 3rd day, I was collecting bones that were laying around when I noticed a guy in bright blue armor. I immediately approached the guy, asking what kind of armor he had. The guys name was Rubbermaid (whom I later found out years down the road was one of the 1st 1,000 people to ever join runescape) and it turned out the armor he was wearing was called runite. He was very friendly considering his higher level and me being such a newbie. I asked him how I could quickly earn some money so I could get started. The next day, Rubbermaid came back to Lumbridge and presented me with a free set of full bronze armor + bronze long sword + bronze square shield. I went nuts. I thought I was the best thing on runescape! He showed me the cows that were not far from Lumbridge castle and told me that if I gathered lots of cow hides, that he would buy them off of me for 20 gp a piece. I began slaying the cows. When my inventory got full, Rubbermaid would kindly come get them. The old RSC inventorys held 30 items. Since I had yet to discover a bank, I could only hold 24 cow hides (24 hides + all armor/weapons + coins = 30 slots) at a time. While at the cow pin I noticed something: other people there were trying to sell their cow hides. I thought to myself, why kill my own cows when I could just buy their hides? I began buying everyone elses hides that I could find for 10 gp each. Fast forward to the end of the week. I have accumulated just over 10,000 gp! And for near 2001 for a level 5 whos never been out of Lumbridge 10,000 gp is a lot.

 

 

 

Part 2: Britches, Dopen, and a Betrayal.

 

 

 

Dopen - Lets fast forward a loooong time. Ive been doing merchanting for months now and have obviously moved on from the cow pins of Lumbridge. Ive learned pretty much all there is to know about the game thus far, but am still not even slightly interested in raising my skill levels. It is nearing the middle of 2002. My skills were pretty crappy. If I had to ball park it, I would put my skill total around 450 and my combat level around 35? I was mining south of Falador when a guy who was passing thru stopped and asked if I had any iron. I told him I had only a few. He begged if he could have it. Reluctantly, I handed over my few iron ores. He thanked me and left. Less than 15 minutes later I received a message from the same guy (Dopen). He asked me to come to Falador bank for a surprise. Out of curiosity I went just to see what he wanted. He sent a trade request and threw up 200 cooked lobster certs!! I just about fell out of my chair. Cooked lobster certificates were worth 1,000 gp each and this was serious money in RSC in April 2002. Especially for someone of my level. He gladly gave them to me and left. I never seen him or spoke to him again, even though I added him to my friends list (he must have blocked me). I immediately went and sold those certs for 200,000 gp. Out of sheer excitement I turned around and bought a rune square shield (which at the time was worth a whopping 200,000 gp). After I bought it I sold it the same day for 215,000 gp. This put my total bank worth up to around 500,000 gp.

 

 

 

 

Part 3: The Comeback.

 

 

 

I was down, but not out. Thankfully I made it in good with the 99 smiths during my time with Britches. I added my 2 smithers (musashi22 and yankeeyank1), a couple of rune ore suppliers that I could remember, and about 10 or 15 good friends that I could remember. Through the graciousness of some friends, I managed to get my rune 2 hander business started again. It was wonderful! Even though I had became friends with the 99 smiths, I had very rarely delt with them 1-on-1 because Britches handled that. I kicked in to over drive with the shipments, sometimes getting as much as 3 sessions per week. Lets skip ahead a couple more months. Its now mid September. My bank account was bursting. I had managed to do more in 2 months than I had ever done COMBINED. By the end of September 2002, I was sitting on a bank account of just over 40 million! If I had to guess I would say 40 million gold in those days would be comparable to 500 million in todays time. However, I was getting extremely frustrated with my rune 2 hander business. 40 million gp worth of raw materials would get me roughly 250 rune 2 handers. The smiths that I had were naturally very busy with their own lives, and were not about to sit down and pound out 250 r2hs in a single sitting just for me. Even if they had, selling 250 rune 2 handers was not an easy task. I literally had TOO much money for a quick increase in gold. The shipment that put me at 40+ million gp (235 r2hs) was the last rune 2 hander shipment I ever did throughout my entire runescape career. I took a good break from merchanting, focusing more on my skills for the first time. It was the end of October. This meant Halloween! That year, Halloween masks were dropped. Within the first couple of days, a set of Halloween masks was selling for 50,000 (quite a bit of difference from todays prices wouldnt you say?). But thats not where the money was. I decided to plunge full force into the party hat market. 1 full set of party hats would run you about 20 million exactly in November 2002. So on November 4th, I struck a deal with a good friend that got me 2 full party hat sets for 39 million exactly. Pink, being the rarest back in those days, was the hat of choice that people wore if you were lucky enough to afford. I donned myself with my bronze plate, bronze legs, staff, and pink party hat (along with the rest of my hats) to do some merchanting.

 

 

 

Part 4: Party Hats, Sexy Money, and a Dupe

 

 

 

Party hats continued their steady climb. Things were going good. Great even. But things were very predictable. I logged on, I did some merchanting for a couple of hours in the back (rare) crowd of world 1 varrock castle, and eventually I would wander off for a little bit doing some random skilling. I had met some good friends along the way (most notably Wizardgir, who for the remainder of my runescape career would be my best in-game friend). But it wasnt the exciting golden days of Britches and the rune 2 hander business. Lets fast forward. As I said above, party hats continued their climb in price. At the beginning of January 2003 you could find a party hat set for around 22 million gp. By summer time (June), you were looking at 34 million gp a set. In fact, by the end of summer (august 1st), a party hat set had grown 9 million gp in worth. Lets fast forward to November 2003. I remember almost exactly what I had accumulated. 3 full hat sets, 1 extra green hat, 1 extra pink hat, and 9 million raw gp. If what little records I can find are correct, my total bank account was worth a staggering 185 million gp. Lets go forward exactly 1 week. November 7th, 2003... The dupe. I log on to a runescape in chaos. I see people selling party hats for under 1 million a piece. Sets for under 5. Im freaking out. I knew it wasnt just a couple of newbs trying to be funny, because EVERYONE was selling their rares at dirt cheap prices. Because of all the panic and confusion, all that was going through my head was get as much out of this bad situation as you can. I sold off every hat that I had. By the end of the day, my bank worth 185 million was sitting at a pathetic 25 million or so. I was crushed. I know tons of other people were crushed that day too, but I had no time to worry about others. I, along with most people, thought that the runescape market would never be the same. Eventually, I noticed that party hats began to rise gradually again. I took the remaining money I had (25 million) and purchased as many pink party hats as I could (which ended up being a stupid thing to do). My thought process was pink party hats were the rarest they will be again once party hats become more popular again. Wrong. Because pink party hats were the rarest (peaking at 17 million a piece prior to the duping), that was the rare that was most duplicated. Thus, the pink party hat became the most common of the party hats.

 

I eventually noticed that pinks were not doing so well, and quickly sold them off. I made a guess that pinks would no longer be the prize party hat they once were, so I turned my focus on the other colored hats. If I remember correctly, within 1 week of the dupe I had re-purchased as many party hats as I could afford (leaving out pink of course), which left me with 1 blue, 2 green, 1 white, 1 red, 1 yellow, and about 2 million gp left over. It was a time for rest and recuperation. The devastating effects of the dupe had sent the rare market plummeting but in various expensive items as well. Rune 2 handers were down to a record low of about 100k-150k a piece, and I hadnt contacted my 99 smiths in months. So that route was out of the question. I was tired and burnt out. I tucked my party hats in the corner of my bank, and forgot about them.

 

 

 

Part 5: The End of an Era

 

 

 

2003 had come and gone. What a year. Not only had I neared the 200 million mark (as far as net worth goes), but runescape had also witnessed its biggest chaos in history thanks to the duping. I didnt do any merchanting through the rest of 2003. For almost 2 whole months I had focused on skills and friends rather than the market. 2004 came with new hopes. Rumors of runescape 2 were billowing through the streets, and the best news of all: rares kept rising. Although I had not done any merchanting throughout the end of 2003, I still kept an eye on it and recorded the rises and falls of party hats. It was almost February 2004 when I decided it was time to get to merchanting again. My party hats were up to a total of about 33 million which was a lot better. Blue hats had sky rocketed past the rest, being worth 8 million at this point in time. I wont go in to very much detail because there isnt any. Nothing exciting happened throughout 2004 thats worth noting. No new friends that helped me grow leaps and bounds, no major events in runescape that affected me in any way.

 

Lets fast forward A LOOOONG time. It is the end of September 2005. Runescape 2 had come out by then, and I had also purchased members for the first time. I had managed for the first time ever to create a good balance between skilling and merchanting. I had found a new love in fletching and magic (getting my fletching level to 86 and magic to 75 prior to the fletch X and string X options). But one thing that bothered me was the way runescape had become. It was no longer exciting and fun. On top of that, it seemed like everyone and their mom was rich as hell! I hated it. Back in mid 2002, most people would near crap their pants if you threw up 1 or 2 million gp in a trade screen (or for that matter, a trade screen full of r2hs!). It seemed like with the release of runescape 2, 1 million gp became the new 100k gp. People were also hateful and terribly childish. I was sitting on a bank account of 3 blue party hats, 2 green, 1 white, 1 red, a couple of mask sets, and 20 to 25 million raw gp. All in all I know for a fact my bank account was worth around 420 million gp. Give or take.

 

October 5th, 2005. It was a Tuesday. After getting home from football practice, I brought up runescape to log in. I couldnt. I shrugged it off, thinking I typed my password wrong. Still couldnt. The best way to describe the feeling was an entire wave of sadness and disappointment over my body. I wasnt even mad. After resetting my password, I logged in to find my character stripped of everything. I had no idea what had happened. My Norton antivirus was up and running strong, and hadnt detected anything. Nor had I downloaded any questionable material or directly connected (through instant messenger) with any in-game friends. My password wasnt impossible to guess just extraordinarily unlikely. But I suppose if one of my in-game friends knew me really well (which some of them did), they could have gotten lucky and guessed it. I thought about trying to merchant my way back up the ladder again but I just couldnt. The rune 2 hander business had been long dead, and any really big jumps in money were through party hats and the cheapest one was pink selling at 27 million. I was tired, bored, and hatful for what the game had become. Reluctantly I hung up my hat, and graciously bowed out from runescape that very same day.

 

 

 

Part 6: Total Losses from 12/20/01 - 10/5/05

 

 

 

Britches hacking = 27,000,000 gp

 

The 2003 Duping = 185,000,000 gp

 

Oct. 5th hacking = 420,000,000 gp

 

Total Losses in 5 years = 632,000,000 gp (roughly)[/hide]

 

 

 

Well I hope that some of you have enjoyed the read. It was done in a rush and without very much worry for grammatical correctness. I'm sure there were also parts that were hard to understand/read or didn't seem to fit together good. Sorry about that.

:) :thumbup:

 

good read!

 

did you quit rs?

 

or did you ever got the account back?

Very interesting read,

 

sad story though.

That sucks :-#

I read the whole thing, that's ann interesting yet sad story.

sweet reminds me of the phat merchant i had from RSC still cant get acc back #-o #-o

:) :thumbup:

 

good read!

 

did you quit rs?

 

or did you ever got the account back?

 

 

 

Didn't you read my story? Tuesday, October the 5th was my last day. I mean... of course I signed on everyone once in a while right after I quit but it was mostly to just talk to old friends (I never worried with merchanting or skilling). And excluding a breif 2 week period in November 2007, I haven't Runescape since and don't plan to. As my story said my account was taken twice, but I easily got them back because I had remembered my recovery questions.

 

 

 

Thanks everyone for the good feedback. I've always been fascinated with old stories from the golden days which is why I wrote and posted my story. There are tons of other stories (especially about Wizardgir... whos name is mentioned in this topic story).

This really puts me selling my santa hats and masks waaay too early in perspective. While that decision was controlled by me, your situation was out of your control. It's unfortunate but true - had you kept those items and not been hacked, by today's prices, they would be worth several BILLION gp.

 

 

 

That just sucks

 

 

 

P.S. Pink partyhat? You mean purple...right?

Unfortunately BlogScape is for ongoing progress reports, not previous timelines. It also seems you have posted it in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=776108

 

 

 

And again, first post edited to remove the negative naming of another player.