Tip.It Times - Total amount of GP in RS?

[shad0w666]

thanks, that was pointless and long

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

so was your spam..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this looks pretty neat. i wouldnt stand calculating things like this :oops:

[Monopoly]

 

thanks, that was pointless and long

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

so was your spam..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this looks pretty neat. i wouldnt stand calculating things like this :oops:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually its funny how positive short remarks such as "Wooo, nice article" is not considered spam while that is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You may not agree with him, but you don't have to disrespect his opinion.

[sligo]

Great article, but there are a few things you didn't consider, which may or may not affect your estimates:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Income generators:

 

 

 

1. Gold respawns (there are few, and they consist of very small amounts of money)

 

 

 

2. Selling at stores - not as significant as high-alcing, but is an income for those who can't do hi-alc

 

 

 

3. Quests - very small percentage, since these are one-time rewards for each player

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drains:

 

 

 

1. Crystal bows/shields (mentioned by someone else already)

 

 

 

2. Throne of Miscellania - this is significant for me because I keep it up, but I guess most people ignore this "feature" once they've completed the quest.

 

 

 

3. Death - characters who die carrying gold, but do so in remote areas no no one is able to pick it up before it vanishes - again, this would represent only a very small percentage

 

 

 

4. Players who quit playing - I think this does represent a significant amount of drain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other factor about calculating economy is "hording" . If a player hords large amounts of gold but never spends it, it is equivelent to a money drain with regards to all other players.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These factors aside, the general conclusion I draw from your article is that the sheer amount of gold in the economy is increasing without a significant increase in places to spend it, other than player-to-player trading. This infers that, based upon the basic natural laws of economics, Runescape is in a general inflationary situation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, what do I do about it? I do what any good entrepreneur does in this situation: charge more for Law Runes! (lol)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Sligo

[Duke_Freedom]

Well as you already said about most of your factors, they are probably all very small, thus it probably doesn't do too much harm for the estimate to ignore them. Besides it's impossible to determine how much gold is lost by people dying in a place where practically nobody comes. Luckily there are both small money drains and generators that I left out so that may even out a bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the factors I do find interesting that you named is drain 4. It may be a reasonable factor but is really hard to determine. Thinking about it, you should *not* exclude any money from players that come back in 6 months or so though. And taking into consideration that people who quit oftenly buy rares before they leave, the amount of pure gp on 'permantely quitted accounts' is probably not that high, but everything that is left could be put under the section 'gp banned by jagex', because, from an economical stance, that's exactly the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I can also reason a different way and say that the money created by 'permanentely quitted accounts' isn't count either as they don't show up on highscores. ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other factor about calculating economy is "hording" . If a player hords large amounts of gold but never spends it, it is equivelent to a money drain with regards to all other players.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hm I don't think many people really hoard large amounts of gold and never! spend it. I'm sure most of the 455bil estimate will, most of the time, be laying around in people's bank and not be spend, but that's not the point of the estimate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These factors aside, the general conclusion I draw from your article is that the sheer amount of gold in the economy is increasing without a significant increase in places to spend it, other than player-to-player trading. This infers that, based upon the basic natural laws of economics, Runescape is in a general inflationary situation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, rs has (huge) inflation. The weird thing about it, compared to real life, is that it only leads to higher prices of rare items, while everything else tends to stay at the same price.

[bedman]

very nice , really!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and not boring at all (at least for me, cause i like maths)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

so... you holding about 0.3 percent of it ? ;)

[sligo]

Duke, you're right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If "true inflation" were in effect, shop prices would then go up correspondingly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next question is this: should something be done about it? I think the jury is still out. Here are some ideas that may actually alleviate the "inflation" situation by directly affecting the amount of gold in the economy:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Income side:

 

 

 

1. Variable return from Alch'ing. Rather than a fixed amount when high-alching an item, make the return variable. On the outset this may not seem like a big deal, but based upon the variable formula, people may not be willing to high-alch single items because the return on them may not be worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Decreasing return from Alch'ing. This would be very difficult to "program" into the game logic, but the concept is similar to that of a general store - the more the store has in stock, the less they pay you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. General lowering of high-alch returns for player-made items. This would be a global, sweeping update that will result in a lot of people becoming real angry, but aside from that, it would serve to decrease inflation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drain side:

 

 

 

1. As stated, higher prices in the stores. Perhaps a sliding indicator based upon the character's total level (or combat level in weapon/armor shops) that affects the prices of items purchased.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Taxation, tolls, tarriffs, etc. The governments each want a "piece of the action" so they institute various fees and charges. Again, this can be based upon character level or some other interesting formula. Perhaps the Ardougne-to-Brimhaven ship should charge based upon total weight carried plus 30 gold. So, if you are traveling in full armor, weapons and full inventory of sharks, your price for transport is 75 gp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Banking services. People have long desired the bank give interest on gold stored. This is always shot down in that it constitutes free money. Take this idea but temper it with transaction fees, storage fees, etc. Here's the idea, you may receive 1% interest on your gold each week. However, for each ITEM you have stored in the bank, you are charged 1 gp each week. Oh boy! Now keeping your bank account minimized becomes a real task! Especially since you'd now be able to borrow money from the bank to be paid back with interest of 5% per week. Another idea to add here is the bank will charge 1 gp for each item withdrawn as a note.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. More mini-games and activities that cost money. Not mentioned in your article are the various costs in the game, such as the 875 for the Brimhaven dungeon and the 200 for the Agility course, perhaps more fees of this type should be instituted for other areas as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not saying any of these changes SHOULD be made. However, I think it would be interesting to see some of these ideas included because they would help to decrease the rate of inflation in the game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Sligo

[RScaper]

Wow, that was a very interesting article... good job on writing it! I really enjoyed reading this article and i look forward to next week's!

[stevester77]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Especially since you'd now be able to borrow money from the bank to be paid back with interest of 5% per week.

 

 

 

- Sligo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So what happens if you dont pay it back? You get banned?muted?cant withdraw until its payed?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a feeling that if you can borrow money from the bank that it would be disasterous. Lets just say that for every gp you have, you can borrow 4 more. So I could easily transfer my 11m to a noob account and "borrow" 33m from the bank. Then I can go out buy a red phat and transfer it to my main. Who cares if the noob gets banned/muted/unable to withdraw items. But because of this noob account, i was easily able to leech of the system and get myself a red phat. And think, if i wanted to, I could keep this going. I could quickly sell the phat for 40m, transfer to new noob, borrow 120m, transfer to main, let noob account rot.......this can go on forever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I forsee jagex doing to correct the economy is nothing. I think that they plan on the economy correcting itself because of high alching and manipulation of rares. Eventually there will be enough money in the economy from high alching that prices on regular items will be forced to go up. When those items go up, high alching is less profitable. Lets just say that you buy some yews for 300 each now, flax for 100 each, and nats for 300 each. With that you can make about 40k profit without collecting a single item. Now if prices rise, what will you do when yews become 500 each, flax 250 each, and nats 500 each also. Now what would you do it that were to occur? Well obviously you would either stop alching or start collecting all your items. When this happen's on a large scale, the average amount of money coming into the economy lessens everyday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for those who say that the price on regular items never increase. Well I remember back when I first started in November of last year, one could easily buy/sell coal for 100 each. Now the price on coal is around 160 each. Also, you could buy yews back in january for 220 each and now they sell for 300 each.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

im done for now :D

[sligo]

Stevester! Good job - I was wondering if someone was going to pick up on that nuance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You are absolutely right that unconditional loans would be disastrous because enterprising individuals would find ways to "borrow" huge amounts of money.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the scenario I describe, though, the only money you'd be able to borrow is only the amount you actually owe the bank at that given time - i.e. borrow enough to cover your debt, which is then immediately paid to the debtor, leaving you with, in effect, a negative balance of gold pieces in your account. This negative amount, of course, increases at a rate of 5% per week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Never will you have the ability to borrow gold directy from the bank and spend it elsewhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, I don't see any of that happening, so the discussion is moot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for the price of coal and such - the price you speak of is the player-to-player price. The price of coal in a store is still the low amount it has always been, it's just that it takes some inexperienced noob to actually sell his coal to a general store to find this out. (lol)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite the increased market price of coal, I will never pay more than 110 gp per coal. I guess this means I'm stuck mining my own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Sligo

[Wilmot]

Very interesting post, sort of thing that is impressive that it all adds up in the end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, I wonder if you have an estimate as to the total value of all rares in the game? It would be an interesting figure to compare I think.

[Magrathea]

In my opinion the best way to drain tons of money out of the economy is to have a casino in runescape to burn up excess cash.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You could have the odds of winning just like in a real casino for the normal gambling games. Then create special games that have rares for prizes with super low chances of winning and high cost to play them. 100k each time mabe? Anyways, as long as this was the only place to get some of those rares, people WILL gamble to get them and probably burn a ton of money trying. Because you have a chance of winning each time, people with small amounts of cash will still try the games even though it would be improbably to win with only trying a couple times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only problem with this would be the fact that I am not sure if Jagex would like gambling being in their game. And I could see their customer support getting tons of messages from people who lost all their money.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And since you seem to be reading this topic duke, do you think you could see yourself gambling 100k a time on a game that had a 1 in 500 chance of winning if the prize was lets say dragon full helm or dragon boots or something. and of course this was the only way of obtaining it.

[stevester77]

Stevester! Good job - I was wondering if someone was going to pick up on that nuance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Sligo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lol what do i win :D ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for a rise in the player to player prices, the result would be a rise in the amount of people gathering items for themselves. This in turn would lower prices and we will have the cycle all over again. We would see much rising and falling, but in the long run an overall rising.

[sligo]

I'm one of those folks who don't like gambling on general principles, but your idea has a lot of merit, Magrathea. Gambling, in a sense, is already part of the game in terms of staking in the fight arena and in the wilderness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Games of chance where you stake money to win potential prizes is an interesting idea. It would definitely affect the economy issue discussed here in this thread, but I'm not totally sure what its total ramifications would be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Sligo

[stevester77]

I'm one of those folks who don't like gambling on general principles, but your idea has a lot of merit, Magrathea. Gambling, in a sense, is already part of the game in terms of staking in the fight arena and in the wilderness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Games of chance where you stake money to win potential prizes is an interesting idea. It would definitely affect the economy issue discussed here in this thread, but I'm not totally sure what its total ramifications would be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Sligo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know I personally wouldn't mind a poker addition to the bunthorpe games room which you can bet on. I would just suggest a time limit that your allowed to be their as some people are pro's, and others can be addicted.

[Stubru_Freak]

A good solution to shop prices would be like this:

 

 

 

You should be able to "auction" items somehow, putting in a minimum price, then let people place bids on your item. This could for example be in a special auction room in varrock general store. You should then offer one item, or a stack of items/notes, then set a minimum price. Then other people can come and see all items auctioned, and bid on the items, these auctions should take about 5 minutes.

 

 

 

Then the shop prices should be the average amount these items are auctioned for.

 

 

 

This would mean there is no cheap input of high-value items by stores (for example, the shop prices of runes before the update lately).

 

 

 

Also, if the difference between buying and selling price would be less, this would make high alching less attracting and selling to shops more attracting.

 

 

 

Also, shop stocks shouldnt reset after updates, so in the end shops get overstocked of certain items, so high alching is better, or even transporting items to other, more remote shops, like the one in karamja... Or a new shop somewhere even further away.

 

 

 

However smart players can make a profit out of this, lots of players will make losses, so money will be drained.

 

 

 

If this is well investigated, and made perfectly balanced out, this would seriously lower the amount of money made in the game, and slow down, or even stop the inflation.

[Duke_Freedom]

Now if prices rise, what will you do when yews become 500 each, flax 250 each, and nats 500 each also. Now what would you do it that were to occur? Well obviously you would either stop alching or start collecting all your items. When this happen's on a large scale, the average amount of money coming into the economy lessens everyday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Situation wouldn't change, besides, most skills do cost money already and people still train them. But the total production will not lower because of higher item prices, so nor will the gp generation lower.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for those who say that the price on regular items never increase. Well I remember back when I first started in November of last year, one could easily buy/sell coal for 100 each. Now the price on coal is around 160 each. Also, you could buy yews back in january for 220 each and now they sell for 300 each.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Newer players always think prices have rise when they play the game longer. This is just *not* true. The prices on materials have not increased in ages. Prices on coal when I started were 200gp each (2.75 years ago) it was 220 per right before runescape 2, and was 180 per shortly after. Ever since rs2 it has been somewhere in the range of 150 - 180gp. You remembering them being 100gp each when you started was just the prices you got when selling 100 coal. Yes ofcourse, 100 coal goes at a considerably lower price - that has nothing to do with prices increasing, but with you looking at bulk prices now, instead of small amounts ;).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And since you seem to be reading this topic duke, do you think you could see yourself gambling 100k a time on a game that had a 1 in 500 chance of winning if the prize was lets say dragon full helm or dragon boots or something. and of course this was the only way of obtaining it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Depends on what the market price of the drag full helm and boots would be ;). I can't see them be 50mil, so I guess no ;).

[henk333]

Wow I am seriously amazed, you people need to snap back to reality. This is a game, people play it to have fun and here you are discussing inflation? I mean I think its a good article and its fun to know how much money there is in the total of runescape, but inflation?

 

 

 

I what we have here is a luxury problem: you are allready millionairs and dont want other people to become millionairs, so you think up ways to prevent others making money. To you it may be nothing when shop prices increase or when you need to pay the bank to withdraw notes or need to pay toll or something, but to beginning and medium level players it will make the game a lot harder and also a lot less fun! When you really feel there is too much money in runescape, make an example and withdraw a couple millions from your bank, go to a place where nobody ever comes, drop it and watch it dissappear.

[Stubru_Freak]

Wow I am seriously amazed, you people need to snap back to reality. This is a game, people play it to have fun and here you are discussing inflation? I mean I think its a good article and its fun to know how much money there is in the total of runescape, but inflation?

 

 

 

I what we have here is a luxury problem: you are allready millionairs and dont want other people to become millionairs, so you think up ways to prevent others making money. To you it may be nothing when shop prices increase or when you need to pay the bank to withdraw notes or need to pay toll or something, but to beginning and medium level players it will make the game a lot harder and also a lot less fun! When you really feel there is too much money in runescape, make an example and withdraw a couple millions from your bank, go to a place where nobody ever comes, drop it and watch it dissappear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You are right, I changed my mind about my above post (even though i'm not a millionaire).

 

 

 

If money wouldn't be inflating, then if one person gets richer, another person would get less rich. That means if some1 makes 1mill, someone else loses 1 mill the same moment... That would s*ck

[mmcg]

And I dream of just getting 20M so I can get 99 Magic.... :(

[sligo]

... you are allready millionairs and dont want other people to become millionairs, so you think up ways to prevent others making money.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting point. Remember that the RS economy is NOT a zer0-sum game where the total amount of gold available is fixed. There is nothing preventing newer players from becoming millionaires if they desire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a contrast, my perspective in playing the game is not to make lots of money, rather, it is to achieve higher levels of skills. For me, money is nothing more than the grease to help that wheel turn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think discussing ways of changing the economy is interesting, but we all know that Jagex doesn't read these threads (if they do, they surely don't take us seriously most of the time). In summary, Duke, it was a great and interesting article, that has sparked this awesome discussion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Sligo

[henk333]

 

 

 

... As a contrast, my perspective in playing the game is not to make lots of money, rather, it is to achieve higher levels of skills. For me, money is nothing more than the grease to help that wheel turn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Sligo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is also my perspective, but generally people think that they are of higher status when they have more money. If I wanted to I could be a millionair in this game, just go merchanting rares and makes loads of money, but i just dont like that.

 

 

 

It seems to me that the only people worrying about inflation are the people that think that having a lot of money is having a high status. And they feel their status threatened by the money that flows into runescape on a daily basis, so in order to keep their status they thought up ways to keep their own money but prevent others from getting rich.

[bambino]

Hm, nice article,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The economy doesn't need restoring :o

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More money is coming in , more people get more money but the best items get cheaper , that's why you need items that will keep raising...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If not, in a matter of months every lvl 80 will walk around in full dragon... Hopefully the desire of becoming even richer , would make them save for a rare, so that dragon armor and even barrows can stay a bit exclusive

[wl_daniel]

People from the Netherlands are so smart :lol:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good job Duke,that you made so much time for that :D

 

 

 

Very interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~sppr goed gedaan :D

[PDJ]

one thing i noticed, he said steel plates were 275 xp each, first i read that and i said "um no" and then i realised he was factoring in smelting aswell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So yeah, those bars did have to be smelted, but really, who smelts? the low smithers who cant make plates, they smelt everyone else's bars... so really i think the smithing factor is off by alot... if I asume that none of that 46bill smtihing xp was achived by smelting (which is almost as bad as asumming all of it was) then it would be an additional 94billion geepee originating from the alchemy of steel plates... I would guess that the actual discrepency is closer to half of that, some people do smelt... but still thats 47billion, throwing duke's estimates off by over 10% :wink:

[Duke_Freedom]

one thing i noticed, he said steel plates were 275 xp each, first i read that and i said "um no" and then i realised he was factoring in smelting aswell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So yeah, those bars did have to be smelted, but really, who smelts? the low smithers who cant make plates, they smelt everyone else's bars... so really i think the smithing factor is off by alot... if I asume that none of that 46bil smtihing xp was achived by smelting (which is almost as bad as asumming all of it was) then it would be an additional 94billion geepee originating from the alchemy of steel plates... I would guess that the actual discrepency is closer to half of that, some people do smelt... but still thats 47billion, throwing duke's estimates off by over 10% :wink:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Very good point, PDJ. To be honest I didn't even think about the possibility that all the people with less then 48 smithing would have been able to supply enough bars for higher level smiths. Quickly adding the exp of rank 200K to rank 1000K and subtracting the exp needed for level 30, adds up to an impressive 33bil exp though. Even if only a third of that was gotten by smelting steel bars for the top 200K smithers then your calculation of 47bil extra would be true.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personally I don't think the effect is that big though. Let's see if I can come up with some good arguements why...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The supply side of the smithing market: I believe that most players who are new to the game don't really sell their materials but use them for their own skills. I know that I did when I first played this game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The demand side of the smithing market: With smithing exp costing around ~10gp / exp point I don't think that many smithers (especially the ones below like 75 smithing) bought much, if anything at all, of their experience by only buying bars. Calculating their total exp (rank 6K - 200K) and subtracting exp needed for level 48 they were already responsible for 33bil of the 46bil exp gotten after steel plate smithing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assuming half of the people with above 75 smithing got all their exp by buying bars that would mean some ~12bil gp more created then I estimated. As I never considered iron smelting & smithing either I think we can forget about that too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My end conclusion is that I don't think it is good to assume much of the exp of the top #200K smithers was gotten by smithing bars smelted by smithers ranked #200K+. Sure, a lot of people with like level 75+ smithing* probably got most of their exp by buying bars, but my thought is that most of these bars were made by the lower leveled players in the first #200K ranked smithers, still keeping my estimate accurate and true.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Note that they only make up for 1/4th of the exp gotten after steel plate smithing though, in the worst case scenario this could lead to 12bil gp counted too less.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for your well-considered and interesting view though, Pker Dude Jr. :)