Thought Experiment - Rebooting Trading

[swampjedi]

With the insanity that is GE prices, inflation, PvP, and merchant clans, I've been thinking of what we might do differently.

 

The question is, how can we tweak trade so that "making money" stops being the only skill that matters? Personally, I'm not a big fan of the whole money grubbing ethos that is popular in this game.

 

How about getting rid of player trading of raw ingredients? That is, when I mine an adamant ore, it's then untradeable. Raws will still be buyable from shops with generous but limited stocks (decreasing as the raws increase in level). Huge money sink, materials merchanting destroyed, and leveling the playing field. Weapons and final products would still be sellable.

 

How about limiting GE interaction? It could be 1m total cash flow through GE a day, or 10k per QP, or 10k per total level.

 

Other thoughts? Remember, the goal is shift the focus from "how can I make more gp" to "how can I have fun".

[ctim]

To me, making money is fun! I see what your saying though. I think that one possible solution is to remove the economy from the "gold standard." If you could buy things in stores and even through the GE with something besides gold then that may help the problem. Although, "multiple currencies, multiple problems," so it would have to be well thought out.

The problem with limiting trade more, is that that would continue the path to turn runescape from a MMORPG (key word being multiplayer) into a MORPG. This would further the decline into being a game where we all play our own game separate from everyone else, only at the same time.

I hope my ramblings make sense to someone...

[All_Is_Great]

While to some, making money is fun. I prefer to never have that much cash at once. Because my intentions are to train up skills (buyable or unbuyable) and not to buy high end slaying gear, I find it more fun to have less money at a single given time. That way, buying levels doesn't become a chore. I prefer to buy levels 3 or 4 at a time, instead of from 50 straight to 99.

 

What I'm trying to say is, limiting the GE probably wouldn't help in anyway.

[swampjedi]

Sure, making money can be fun. I enjoy seeing my cash pile grow, but I HATE spending it.

 

I like how WoW's economy went. Once you had cash for mounts, money wasn't really all that important. All of the best stuff was bind on pickup, and skills were quickly maxed with just a little effort.

[Expl0de]

1) How about getting rid of player trading of raw ingredients? That is, when I mine an adamant ore, it's then untradeable.

 

2)How about limiting GE interaction? It could be 1m total cash flow through GE a day, or 10k per QP, or 10k per total level.

 

Other thoughts? Remember, the goal is shift the focus from "how can I make more gp" to "how can I have fun".

 

1) Absolutely not. Not all players can or want to smelt/smith their ores. This would also limit Smithers that buy ores to buying from stores, or buying bars.

 

2) There are enough G.E. as well as ingame limitations in this game as it is, please don't suggest more. :pray:

[swampjedi]

Definitely not suggesting! Just a "what if", to see what might happen.

[Danny_TeamDan]

If you enjoy seeing your cash pile grow but hate seeing it go down then don't buy anything. I have a friend that's really into making money and he's up to 100m ish. He really doesn't play for anything else and doesn't waste it on anything. Why would we get rid of trade? why lvl the playing field? Competition is what makes the world go round.

[De_Lille_D]

When discussing the problem of changing prices, I don't think you have to change 'what' we trade, but we have to change 'how' we trade.

In my opinion, Jagex should have removed player controlled prices when they came up with GE. It doesn't bring anything positive to the game and allows for the bad things you mentioned to happen. I even ask myself why we need a player-to-player economy, when the GE could transform items into money and vice versa instantly...

 

Limiting raw materials trade would be bad for high level players. If someone has 91 RC, they can make up to 1M per hour (might not be acurate anymore, but it's still a lot). Now, they just RC for 2 hours and buy anything they need. If they had to gather everything themselves, they would lose a lot of time! Let's take Fletching for example: nowadays, if you want 99, you just buy Yew Logs and Bowstrings, then fletch and sell/High Alch. But if you can't buy those items, you'll have to cut your yew logs, and spin your flax and maybe even pick that flax while you're at it!

That means those 2 hours you would have spent RCing now became 5 hours... I know you like comparing to WoW, but Runescape takes a lot longer to max out (I think). Limiting raw materials would make that even longer.

 

Limiting GE to 1Mill a day would stop merchanting clans, but would also stop you from buying anything more valuable than 1 Mill.

 

I don't think the average Runescape players' money addiction is a result from the GE. Doing what you're best at all day long and then selling the result is the whole reason people trade: to save time; because it would take a lot longer, if they had to do everything a little instead of something specific for a long time.

If you want less people going after a lot of money, first of all, just transform all rares into money: this would remove the need for a lot of people to gain that much money. Secondly, bring out more skills like Slayer or Summoning: they can't be bought like Prayer or Fletching, so they depend mostly on the time (not the money) you put into them.

[Troacctid]

With the insanity that is GE prices, inflation, PvP, and merchant clans, I've been thinking of what we might do differently.

 

The question is, how can we tweak trade so that "making money" stops being the only skill that matters? Personally, I'm not a big fan of the whole money grubbing ethos that is popular in this game.

 

How about getting rid of player trading of raw ingredients? That is, when I mine an adamant ore, it's then untradeable. Raws will still be buyable from shops with generous but limited stocks (decreasing as the raws increase in level). Huge money sink, materials merchanting destroyed, and leveling the playing field. Weapons and final products would still be sellable.

 

How about limiting GE interaction? It could be 1m total cash flow through GE a day, or 10k per QP, or 10k per total level.

 

Other thoughts? Remember, the goal is shift the focus from "how can I make more gp" to "how can I have fun".

Have you considered that reducing trade would make the game less fun?

 

People buy raw materials in part because gathering them is boring. Circumventing the tedium of mining pure essence is, in my opinion, a good thing. It gives players the ability to choose which activities they want to partake in.

 

Without trading, it goes from "Who can make the most money?" to "Who has the most spare time to waste gathering raw materials?" I don't think that's an improvement.

 

I'm pretty happy with the system as it is, except that I would loosen price restrictions on the GE. I see floors and ceilings as completely unnecessary--supply and demand does a perfectly good job of regulating prices when left alone. And the 5% margin should be more flexible, especially in the case of recently-released items. Originally they said they'd put it at 10% for new items, but they never followed through, and it's led to problems with dragon claws, dragon pickaxes, dragon platebodies, leaf-bladed swords, ranging amulets, and other things.

[Zaaps1]

Let's not change it again. I'm sure many other people, not just myself, are tired of hearing about trade-limit updates and such. Let's keep the system the way it is, since it isn't broken.

 

You've addressed 3 problems, essentially: Merch clans, inflation, and Style of Play.

 

This idea, in itself, is too complex to work against Merch clans. If we've learned anything in the past 2 years or so, it's that the simple solutions are the best solutions. Why not simply make manipulation against the rules? That would seriously cut down on many clans, since most members are HONEST PLAYERS (meaning they follow the rules-generally speaking) who want an easy method of getting "rich". Of course, the more dedicated members might continue, but if you had 500M coins, would you risk all your hard work? Probably not. So when many of the richer, less risk-taking, members leave, most merch clans will lose effectiveness.

 

On inflation, removing raw materials from the GE and setting up spending limits would NOT halt inflation. You cannot control inflation with an iron fist. In fact, you cannot control it at all; you can only influence it. In short, this would fail to curve inflation at all.

 

Lastly, with Style of Play, while it would get more players the incentive to get their own resources, it would more likely just make a huge amount of players discontent. You have to remember that not only will higher level players have to waste more time by going to get their own resources, or by continuously turning back to your proposed shops, but lower level players will also have far less methods to make their own cash.

[swampjedi]

Okay, think of it this way.

 

We're starting a whole new game - how do you set up the trading system?

 

I highly doubt making "manipulation" against the rules would work. How would you be able to tell? Plus, I seriously doubt people would stop. The problem really isn't individual manipulation - it's collusion.

 

And really, in a completely closed economy (ie, RS), inflation is controllable. Especially with the GE. Jagex could start loading "phantom goods" into the market and removing mass amounts of cash from the game.

Edited October 11, 2009 by swampjedi

[Zaaps1]

First off, could you explain "phantom goods" to me?

 

Making manipulation against the rules DOES help, but it won't completely remove it. The fact remains that merch clans are CLANS and therefore need some form of coordination and messaging. Most of the popular clans are well-known, so they will most likely be disbanded. Clans would then probably go underground, but even then it's easy to tell when something is being manipulated.

 

Another solution is to have GE prices on all items (except newly-released items) update weekly instead of roughly daily (although there is no set pattern currently). Of course, this isn't a total fix, but it helps cut down. As with any problem in RL, the solution isn't elimination, it's neutralization. Cut them down in numbers low enough to make them not a threat.

 

So yeah there will be those hidden groups of people manipulating, but threat-wise, they aren't significant.

[swampjedi]

Phantom goods - basically increasing supply by introducing more materials to the game, "invisibly" through the GE. So if they don't like the price of pure essence, add 50m of them or so to the GE until the price gets where they want it to be.

[De_Lille_D]

Phantom goods - basically increasing supply by introducing more materials to the game, "invisibly" through the GE. So if they don't like the price of pure essence, add 50m of them or so to the GE until the price gets where they want it to be.

The opposite of this would obviously be "phantom cash": when the supply of a certain item is way too high, Jagex steps in and exchange some of those items for cash they create. (This has already been partially used in Mobilizing Armies, where they incourage players to buy certain items in high suply (like maple long u) to exchange for MA credit.)

 

I incourage this idea, but adding this would give Jagex control over prices. Personally, I have no problem with that, but some people do (especially manipulatirs).

 

What are your views on an economy where Jagex controls prices and the GE would solely trade your cash for phantom items and your item for phantom cash instantly?

[swampjedi]

Actually, I'd be okay with it. If it was done right, we'd never even notice.

 

Get rid of rares, and this would work fine. And I say that as a rares owner.

[De_Lille_D]

I'd like to hear the arguments of anyone who is against such an economy (where Jagex controls the prices and you don't trade goods between players, but they get created/destroyed instead).

[swampjedi]

The only issue that I can see is for new items that drop rarely (eg, Dragon Pickaxe). How would that work?

[De_Lille_D]

The only issue that I can see is for new items that drop rarely (eg, Dragon Pickaxe). How would that work?

In a player-to-GE economy, even if no one ever had a D pickaxe drop, people would still to be able to get one from the GE, and frankly, I don't see what's wrong with that. If they want people to go after it themselves, they can just raise the price until monster hunting dworges because a good money making method.

I have faith that Jagex will balance out the item's stats, the drop rate and the price at release; they're a big company after all, I don't think it would really be that hard.

[swampjedi]

Well, I don't trust Jagex to judge anything correctly :-P

 

What I meant was, how would they decide which account wins one? Would anyone be able to buy one, or would they "release" a few a day?

[De_Lille_D]

Well, I don't trust Jagex to judge anything correctly :-P

 

What I meant was, how would they decide which account wins one? Would anyone be able to buy one, or would they "release" a few a day?

I don't see why people would have to wait to get one... They finish the quest, click on their varrock tab and can buy 1 right away from the GE instantly, even if no one bothers to try and get the drop.

 

It's funny how many people (mostly adolesents) really think they know better than Jagex, a successful company who have been making one of the biggest MMOs around for almost 9 years and employes over 350 adults. When you think about it, I'd rather have Jagex making the decisions than that bunch of teenagers...

[swampjedi]

FYI, I'm almost 30.

 

I judge Jagex by the past. How many times have they had to "tweak" things?

 

Then again, a drop rate is basically the same as a release rate.

[De_Lille_D]

FYI, I'm almost 30.

 

I judge Jagex by the past. How many times have they had to "tweak" things?

 

Then again, a drop rate is basically the same as a release rate.

Oh Lol, cool, even though your profile says you're 27 ... We all love to exaggerate, he? :wink:

 

The way I see it: the past can't be changed, you can only learn from it. You shouldn't judge judge Jagex by the past, you should judge them by how they've used it to improve their game.

 

Not really ... With a release rate, you can control exactly how many items get into the game (assuming more people will be buying than you are putting items in). With a drop rate, you put an item in the game every x kills. So, unless you know about how many kills there will be, you can't control it. Also, I'm not in favor of only releasing some items, because I don't see why you can't sell one to everyone.

[AlexRose]

With the insanity that is GE prices, inflation, PvP, and merchant clans, I've been thinking of what we might do differently.

 

The question is, how can we tweak trade so that "making money" stops being the only skill that matters? Personally, I'm not a big fan of the whole money grubbing ethos that is popular in this game.

 

How about getting rid of player trading of raw ingredients? That is, when I mine an adamant ore, it's then untradeable. Raws will still be buyable from shops with generous but limited stocks (decreasing as the raws increase in level). Huge money sink, materials merchanting destroyed, and leveling the playing field. Weapons and final products would still be sellable.

 

How about limiting GE interaction? It could be 1m total cash flow through GE a day, or 10k per QP, or 10k per total level.

 

Other thoughts? Remember, the goal is shift the focus from "how can I make more gp" to "how can I have fun".

 

Your solution would be a direct, forcible solution. Although the focus would shift from the production of money, and it would reduce player interaction even more and, quite frankly, piss everyone off. An ideal solution would be not to force people to disregard money, or even to reduce the benefits of money-making, but make the other aspects of the game more competitive with money making.

 

However, I'm not sure what is so bad about retaining currency. It is merely the dishonest methods of making money that distract players from the real purpose of the game. So I think a great solution would be to destroy dishonest merchanting and reduce the effectiveness of 76king. That, and the creation of several money sinks that are worthwhile and beneficial; perhaps updating construction to be more cost effective and with more benefits might be a good start?

[swampjedi]

And yet, as of yesterday, Jagex is moving towards having a heavy hand in the GE. Vials and EoNewt - what's next?

 

Frankly, probably essence.