A Growing Problem...

[Dire_Wolf]

 

Merchant clans is not merchanting to me.

 

cool. /care?

 

This is a discussion, or is it something else to you?

[bronzewarrior]

 

Merchant clans is not merchanting to me.

 

cool. /care?

 

This is a discussion, or is it something else to you?

 

i said: "solo merchanting might work well, saifzman has over 120m+ from it" then you go on to say "Merchant clans is not merchanting to me"... so...what did that have to do with my comment :roll: ?

[Dire_Wolf]

 

Merchant clans is not merchanting to me.

 

cool. /care?

 

This is a discussion, or is it something else to you?

 

i said: "solo merchanting might work well, saifzman has over 120m+ from it" then you go on to say "Merchant clans is not merchanting to me"... so...what did that have to do with my comment :roll: ?

 

 

 

You said "Solo", meaning clans (who manipulates items) is merchanters which they are not. They manipulate market for their benefit. Correct me if i am wrong, but don't they just pick items they wanna earn on? (Please answer that question).

 

 

 

I am guessing real merchant clans just share what items they think will go up or down? So they just research to find right item to merch on. And the cash they earn is because of their hard work.

[bronzewarrior]

 

Merchant clans is not merchanting to me.

 

cool. /care?

 

This is a discussion, or is it something else to you?

 

i said: "solo merchanting might work well, saifzman has over 120m+ from it" then you go on to say "Merchant clans is not merchanting to me"... so...what did that have to do with my comment :roll: ?

 

 

 

You said "Solo", meaning clans (who manipulates items) is merchanters which they are not. They manipulate market for their benefit. Correct me if i am wrong, but don't they just pick items they wanna earn on? (Please answer that question).

 

 

 

I am guessing real merchant clans just share what items they think will go up or down? So they just research to find right item to merch on. And the cash they earn is because of their hard work.

 

:wall:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

anyway, answering your question... I used to set items for a clan so... We go to an item and check the graph. If it has been falling for a while, we choose to buy it out. An item with a large chance of being bought out is one that has been falling and one that is in demand.

[Dire_Wolf]

kk thanks, just had to ask.

[bronzewarrior]

kk thanks, just had to ask.

 

2500 =D>

[jettrider]

Well first, I think you should not worry about the value of your bank being on a rollercoaster. I never understood why people are so angry about weapons or armor dropping in price. Unless you were planning to sell it, it doesn't affect you. If it's for personal use, it doesn't affect your cashpile. However I agree that you should look at graphs so you can buy and sell monster drops/better armor at the right time.

 

 

 

Jagex isn't doing anything because they don't believe clan merchanting is strictly against the rules. The only rulebreaking that happens in a typical group merchant deal is the leaders lying to the members about an item's new price. Also, since it's extremely hard to catch group merchants out of the many solo merchants who just look for good deals, it wouldn't be feasible to create a new rule or extend an existing one to cover group manipulation.

 

 

 

 

Just a few things I'd like to say.

 

 

 

1) It's called equity. Even though you aren't using it, it's a potential resource. It's like buying a house. It DOES matter if the house price goes up or down, even if you don't plan on selling it. If you ever need the money, and find that your equity is worthless, then you're screwed.

 

 

 

2) I personally think that Clan Manipulation IS cheating. What defines cheating?

 

Cheating in a video game is a process whereby a player of a video game creates an advantage beyond the bounds of normal gameplay, usually to make the game easier. (Wikipedia.org)

 

Basically it's using something that you have that others do not in order to gain profit for yourself. What do manipulators have? Control over the market. They use that to profit THEMSELVES AND ONLY THEMSELVES.

 

Then let's look at macroing. What do macroers have that others do not? Duh, macro programs. They use them to benefit THEMSELVES AND ONLY THEMSELVES.

 

No new rule or extension is needed. Imo, it's already breaking a rule. Why should someone who can order people around be able to get huge amounts of money? Even look at the title...price MANIPULATION. Eg, FRAUD.

 

 

 

3) Jagex doesn't have many options at their disposal.

 

What can they do? Too many people would rant if there were bannings, and anything under giving out bannings would just be ineffective.

 

 

 

1) Are you comparing a RuneScape item to a house? This is a game...I bought a Saradomin Godsword for 107m because the GE had a broken system for godswords at the time. It has now dropped to 40-50m...am I angry that it's dropped? No, because I'm not planning to sell it ever, I'll never be in a situation where I would absolutely NEED liquidated money with RuneScape's trade system. (Although I am slightly annoyed that others can buy it for way less :P )

 

 

 

2) That's your opinion. I was discussing Jagex's opinion. And they don't call it manipulation, by the way - it's referred to as group merchanting or clan merchanting in any JMod post, it's the "politically correct" way to refer to it at Jagex Towers. They believe that with the current trade system, nothing bad can happen...eg they approve of junk trading and merchanting.

 

 

 

3) If Jagex were to simply lower the buying limits on medium to high priced items (mostly armor, weapons, etc) it would be harder to dry up the supply. And there is no reason for the current ridiculous limits except to allow merchanting. And I don't think the GE should cater to merchants. Merchanting will always be possible, but I make about the same amount of money logging in and changing my GE offers twice a day as I would get while grinding runecrafting or green dragons for about 3 hours. I don't think the GE should be the best source of income on an adventure game.

[Silver_Corner]

I hate to say it, but merchant clans are really only half the problem.

 

 

 

The other part of the problem is the large volume of players, like the OP, who feel like their being "devalued" or gaining profit when items which they currently own fall or rise. People who see an item going down and sell thinking they can buy it back at a lower price "making" money only make the situation much worse. And there are a large number of people who do this.

 

 

 

Because of the way the G.E. is set up, any time there is some sort of trade system in addition to the G.E. prices will be slightly off and will be much easier to manipulate. But if Jagex start basing the G.E. off uncompleted offers and not just the completed ones (offers stopped by G.E. trading limits are not classified as "uncompleted offers"), we could see a decline in merchant clan control in the G.E.. The same could also be said if somehow the player to player trade was removed and replaced with only G.E. transactions.

 

 

 

P.S. this is what Jagex has to say about "clan merchants":

 

We are keen to keep a player-driven economy, so the prices are worked out using the supply and demand rules. We will only intervene as a last resort, and only if we think price manipulation is going on, although the system has lots of safeguards to prevent that.

 

 

 

Jagex has stated in the past that clans "deceiving" others into purchasing items are against the rules, but a group of people all buying the same item is not, since Jagex feel the item is being manipulated they will simply change the price themselves. Is it fair? not really, but being in a merchant clan isn't *against the rules*.

 

 

 

PSS. I don't like merchanting and never have tried it, but like the others above have said, merchanting has risks in which you can lose money, while manipulation does not.

[Sir_Kurity]

Solo merchanting wouldn't work without clan merchanting.

 

 

 

Because the clan merchants are the ones that effect the prices the most.

[bronzewarrior]

Solo merchanting wouldn't work without clan merchanting.

 

 

 

Because the clan merchants are the ones that effect the prices the most.

 

lie...

 

 

 

guthan merchanting worked 100% every time i tried. The sets would go up normally and fall normally. Only when the clans started [bleep]'ing with the items did guthan merchanting get screwed up...

 

 

 

Btw. you have never solo merchanted, so you wouldn't know.

[Sir_Kurity]

... What gives you the impression that i haven't merched before, ive been merchanting guthans war spears ever since i got my first 1.5 mill.

 

 

 

Clan merchanters have been there since the GE came out, so your probably just unlucky with the whole thing. How do you know the prices went up and down naturally? do you have any proof of this, whats to say that the merchanters didnt make it go up and down?

[bronzewarrior]

... What gives you the impression that i haven't merched before, ive been merchanting guthans war spears ever since i got my first 1.5 mill.

 

 

 

Clan merchanters have been there since the GE came out, so your probably just unlucky with the whole thing. How do you know the prices went up and down naturally? do you have any proof of this, whats to say that the merchanters didnt make it go up and down?

 

 

 

One day the price of a guthan's helmet would go up 17k because it has gone down so much... not necessarily due to the evil of a clan. Then i'd [NOUCANNOTSEEMYMERCHANTINGSEKKRITS] guthan sets at [NAISETRY] and sell at [LUL] and end up with a profit. When cmrobins jumped at guthan spears, it was nearly impossible to solo merchant because clan merchanters would break open guthan sets (they'd buy at max) and get the spear and sell the other pieces.

[jettrider]

Solo merchanting wouldn't work without clan merchanting.

 

 

 

Because the clan merchants are the ones that effect the prices the most.

 

 

 

There are many items that are both great to merchant and impossible to manipulate.

 

 

 

If you try to merchant high-priced p2p items you are taking a much greater risk than you have to for inconsistent profit.

[Great_one]

... What gives you the impression that i haven't merched before, ive been merchanting guthans war spears ever since i got my first 1.5 mill.

 

 

 

Clan merchanters have been there since the GE came out, so your probably just unlucky with the whole thing. How do you know the prices went up and down naturally? do you have any proof of this, whats to say that the merchanters didnt make it go up and down?

 

they have only recently dropped to 1.5m so that means not long. most ppl on this tread merched when they were 5.5m each so you don't have much to talk about bud.

[Sir_Kurity]

Just cause i haven't merchanted as long doesn't mean i haven't had experience merchanting.

[AlxeMen]

I totally agree; this problem is out of control. I feel like the G.E in controled by a small minority of people that happen to know what to do and when to do it; and what they're doing is making items very hard to buy, very hard to sell, and either well over-priced or under-priced as it crashes insanely.

 

 

 

The G.E used to be my new form of merchanting where I used to sit there alching or fletching or i'm off doing a quest while I'll sell X items for top and buy lowest, this didn't last long as the merch clans came in :(

 

 

 

I don't miss it too much although it was a nice little bonus to my bank; I still think that the regular runescapers and solo merch's should have the ability to actually buy or sell something with relative ease and have the price be constant.

[la la la]

Anyone rich is guilty of that, unless they hunt a lot.

 

Or runecraft.

 

 

 

Patience is a virtue. Because all prices are waves, if you really want an item, it only takes about 3 days until you can get that item for a relatively cheap price (after a dump) so just find something else to do until the item you need is cheap.

[bronzewarrior]

Anyone rich is guilty of that, unless they hunt a lot.

 

Or runecraft.

 

 

 

Patience is a virtue. Because all prices are waves, if you really want an item, it only takes about 3 days until you can get that item for a relatively cheap price (after a dump) so just find something else to do until the item you need is cheap.

 

runecrafters amaze me... I cannot comprehend how they can craft tens (or hundreds) of thousands of runes... I get bored from the first 400 runes I make. #-o

[AlexDT]

The gist of the problem is that people are buying out items with no intention of ever using them in the way that they're supposed to be used, right? I know this is going to sound extremely controversial, and it's not a finished plan by any stretch of the imagination, but please, lend me your ear.

 

 

 

An alteration of the buying cap - the thing that stops you buying 1000 abyssal whips at once. I think it's broken, and here's how I propose we fix it. Our protagonist is a herblorist. She wants to train herblore by making super strength potions, and she plans to mix 3,000 in total. However, the G.E limits her to only buying 1,000 kwuarms, limpwurts and wf vials in the next (insert period of time here, I can't decide). She knows she's going to finish making the 1,000 potions before (period of time) passes, so her training is going to be severely impeded.

 

Or is it?

 

See, the buying limit is dependant on how many of an item you already have. Once our protagonist has gone through 500 of each of the potion ingredients, she is then able to buy another 500. This means that while players cannot stockpile enormous numbers of items, if they use them for their intended purpose, they will never have to run out. What this also means is that even if you do manage to buy enormous numbers of a certain item, you won't benefit from it at all because you will have consumed the item you were manipulating. With herblore, the herbs and secondaries may have risen in price, but you'll have to dump potions instead, and the potions' prices haven't changed.

 

 

 

So, to recap: If you want to use an item for its intended purpose, you will never have any problems, because an item's intended purpose is either to be turned into a different item, or to continue exist and not cause the player to need any more of it.

 

I guess the manipulation of the item created from the purchased items could pose a problem, but then ingredients would also inevitably rise, and it would become pointless and profitless anyway, so people wouldn't bother.

 

Also I should clarify that this is not a cap on how much of an item you can own. It's simply a cap on how much of an item you can buy if you already own that item. So if you have 0 raw sharks, you can buy as many as the cap allows, cook them and buy some more. But if you already have 700 raw sharks from fishing, you can only buy 1000 in the next (time period), because you already have enough to use, and if you do manage to run out somehow you'll be able to get back up to 1000 before the time period has passed. You could also buy 1000 and fish another 2000 before the time period has passed, since you're not obtaining them via the G.E.

 

 

 

I think I've even managed to confuse myself, and I'm sure there are a number of faults with that system, but I'm sure it could be of some use.

[acenator]

I have nothing against people making money, but price manipulation is wrong.

 

 

 

I say Jagex should come out, make a new rule, give merchanting clans one week to shut everything down and then ban any merchanting clan leaders that haven't done so. I highly doubt anyone would want to try to organize another merchanting clan after seeing a few of their predecessors lose everything.

[Sir_Kurity]

It will always be possible to price manipulate and you can't always catch clan merchants.

 

 

 

Many use forums outside runescape, and they can keep anonymous doing it only with a group of friends so as to evade the rule.

[Kolgan]

Im in for hanging al the merch clans at GE, so they put an example for the rest of those (bleep)bag merchers :twisted:

[pulli23]

While I won't deny manipulation is an issue, the 'waves' are a natural phenomenon. Eventualy a price rises enough that a whole bunch of people decide to sell. This causes the price to drop causing more selling and more dropping. Eventualy alot of people think its cheep enough to buy again causing teh price to stall or rise, thus causing more buying and more rising. This continues indefinatly though overal trends of up or down are not uncommon.

 

 

 

Actually a waving economy is NOT natural: from itself any healthy economic will behave like a damped wave: it will have smaller drops and smaller [bleep]es..

 

 

 

However an economic is also influenced by the outside, and those things give an extra hit to the [bleep]es/drops sometimes.... This keeps an economy waving, however in reality theres a REASON behind waves.. Something won't suddenly drop 20% of it's worth in a week time, in rs those waves are way to much for the casual player..

 

 

 

Take me for example: I had to do a waterfiend task.. Now I can't play a lot, yet my bank is full with random stuff I often need, so I bought a saradomin sword "temporary".. Since I don't play much this task took me 2 weeks. (I only play 1-2 hours a week these days).. And afterwards I wanted to do something else: SS didn't fit on the bank, so I had to sell it... Then I discovered it dropped 2M..

 

 

 

If this happens 20 times I'm out of cash! - And was there any reason for a fast drop? No, just some team decided to drop it..

 

 

 

Ow and please don't tell me to actually "buy at the right moment": since your actually saying that manipulators are bad then.

 

 

 

(what is the main reason for bots being bad: it influences the game so people can't as easily skill as they would like too! - This also applies to manipulators: if I have to wait till the market gets low they influence me so that I can't do things I like, when I like!)

[Danqazmlp]

I have the same views as mercifull on the first post.

 

 

 

I don't get why people say this has no effect on the prices in the long run. it has a HUGe effect. After an item is dumped, it will usually end up about 5-10% lower than it started as all the items are flooded into the g.e, take master wands, they were heavily manipulated and crashed, they were at a constant 1.5-2m for over a year, but once they got manipulated, theyve crashed to below 900k.

[Kietaro1]

With the stance that good ole Andrew took with junk trading I cannot see Jagex taking a stand against this type of trading.

 

 

 

To begin I really fail to see the problem that players have with merchanting clans. I have never been affected by them in a large sense and fail to see how there are complaints against them. In a nutshell the largest complaint is that players cannot get the items that they want RIGHT NOW. To that I have two things to say. First, and? I mean really what is the problem with having to wait 2-3 days for something? If it was not important enough to already have the item in your bank, it must not be important enough to need RIGHT NOW! A members acoount has room for 496 items. A combat player has a spot for every reasonable piece of armor, every decent weapon, every arrow, rune sets, staves, potions, tablets, mith grapples, etc. AND THEN SOME. Weapons and armor for mage, range, and melee should not be a problem, ever.

 

 

 

Now for skillers, which I kind of group myself with. You would think that surely skillers are not able to keep everything that they need to skill at any given time. Unfortunately you are again incorrect. I have a spot in my bank for every seed, herb, potion, log, produce from farming, arrow, ore, bar, gem, tools such as hammers, chisels, saws, fishing gear, etc, rune, essense, pouch, teleport, and half of the treasure trail items. I bascially have room for every item I could ever need. When my friends want to go to DK or GWD, and they do not have something they need, regardless of whether they can get it off the GE or not, I have it. That is because I am not stingy and try to suck every piece of gold out of every drop that a monster leaves behind. If players would stop caring about their cash pile and instead worry about things that matter such as ability to do anything you want at any time, this whole merchanter problem would not be one. Imagine if you held onto that barrows set instead of selling it. You would not have to worry about losing money by selling it nor having to buy it again. It becomes part of you as something you will use. I bought my Guthans set before trade limits and paid 8m for the spear alone. If I sold now I would lose 3m off the top to start with. Then again I could care less as I actually use Guthans. In the same way a player will always use a whip, will always need teleport runes/tabs, need some type of armor, need food, use potions, etc. So why sell it? Why worry with what you could get out of it for now, and have to worry about buying it again later?

 

 

 

"But I do not have as much gold as you, I can't afford to keep my whip all the time"

 

Then you should not have one. If you cannot reasonably fund your weapon and armor, you should not use it. I would even say that you should be able to buy two of any item you use to be able to really afford one. What happens if you die with it, hypothetically losing it? Then you have nothing. Making money in Runescape is a joke and any player can make enough gold in a weekend to fund anything that a character of their level should have access to do. (In other words a level 100 could get a whip in a weekend and a level 40 could get full rune, etc). Sure a player will not become uber rich over night but as they say in real life, do not live outside of your means. If you can barely afford a whip, use a d scimmy until you can afford it comfortably. Heck waste an hour or two or 4 collecting snape grass, summoning seconds, etc and you will be set. Invest in your kingdom and keep the favor up, buy battlestaves and even if you can't craft them sell them to the GE, buy grapes out of the chest in lumbridge cellar, fight cows, go to barrows, ...the possiblities are endless. Some would say that these are pointless but if someone is gripping over losing 300k on an item that a merchant clan is manipulating these activities add up.

 

 

 

And second, what is stopping players from getting the items they need themselves? I am not going to use the adage of 'back in my day before the ge blah blah blah' but I am going to point out that any item that a player may need came from somewhere other than the GE. If you cannot get a whip because your slayer is too low, do something else to get the money for 2 of them, then buy one. Heck you could even work on slayer while you try to make the money. Need coal to make mith bars? There is a mine for that. Having trouble getting a barrows piece? If you can wear barrows you can do barrows so get to work. Now some thing I understand are not going to be as accessible. Godwords for instance might be trouble but if you can afford one what does it matter if you lose 2 m by buying one? You still have 16m+ A loss of 2m should not hurt you that badly and if it does DO NOT BUY THE SWORD, it is not that much better than a whip or scimmy.

 

 

 

SO tl:dr merchanters can do what they do because players will always have the mentalities of buy when they need it then sell when not using it. When they need it again, they have to buy it again. Buy it once (or a few times depending on deaths) and only buy it when you can TRULY afford it. Having enough money for an item is not really affording it. With fewer trades merchanters have fewer chances to buy or sell items. It is when a player buys and sells an item 3-4 times a week that the opportunity to manipulate occurs.