Cash is Junk

[Punitive_D]

I apologize if someone already has explained this just this way, but I had a bit of an epiphany this morning. A guy was trying to trade a partyhat. He had no junk. He had a list of items that he would accept and a list of items that he wouldn't. One of the items that he wouldn't accept was cash. That's when it finally dawned on me -- cash is junk. It's not useless junk, like javelins; it's crashing junk. Jagex (probably via 76k tricking) has made cash super easy to get so that it's value is dropping so fast that traders (smartly) treat it as junk.

 

Any successful market economy must have a stable, universal medium of exchange. That's cash. Unfortunately, in Runescape right now, merchers are driving the desireable medium of exchange. Sometimes it's pumpkins. Sometimes it's the d pick. Sometimes it's 3A. But, increasingly, it's not cash. Can an economy survive and thrive if nobody wants to use cash? I doubt it.

 

Here's one solution that I thought of: (Of course, the obvious is to drastically nerf the 76k trick, but that's been completely discussed.) What if Jagex came out with a series of super items comparable to godswords or third age and made them untradeable and buyable only from a shop. Then place prices at ridiculous levels, perhaps even in the billions. If there were a super item in the game that could be purchased only with gigantic piles of cash, that would have the following effects on the economy: 1) huge money sink, shrinking the money supply and boosting the value of cash, and 2) cash would become a "collectible" -- people would hoard it with an eye toward getting that super item one day. Seems to me that might rescue cash from its present status as runescape junk.

[Technologic]

If they did add some billion gp item, every single item over 300k would crash and tricking would just become more popular.

[Grimy_Bunyip]

If they did add some billion gp item, every single item over 300k would crash and tricking would just become more popular.

i agree, less gp removed = more demand for 76king to replace the lost gp

 

just nuke 76king already

or at the very least, spread the pain over various items, instead of just on gp's

 

just DO SOMETHING

[Beloved]

i do agree that you describe the problem perfectly, although as said above your favored remedy would not work.

 

its actually quite simple, stop 76king and add a true money-sink (one people will actually use), other then that the only other thing i can think of is to manually decrease the amount of money anyone on rs has...

[Kimberly]

Can an economy survive and thrive if nobody wants to use cash? I doubt it.

 

You live in one right now, most likely. When was the last time you paid with cash, when you had the option to pay with your debit card? It's a similar situation, where the concept of cash is still the backbone of the economy, but the demand is for the item, not the wealth. And like you've touched on, it's because they made cash so easy to obtain.

 

Though I do have to chuckle when so many people say, "It's 76king oh no!" Yes, it's that. But there are also many, many other methods that pump cash into our wallets with absolutely no effort. What about Fruit Falling at the duel arena? Flipping items via the grand exchange? Merching clans as a whole? And all the various other little get-rich quick schemes that, bit by bit, aren't too devastating, but when you add them all together...76k'ing is only a slice of the troubling pie that is the failing short term economy.

[Silver_Corner]

As stated above, making untradeable items worth millions would not fix the problem, only make it worse.

 

From a end point of view, the only way to effectivly drain money without increasing the demand for 76king is to add small money sinks EVERYONE will use. This way it pulls out just as much GP as your armor idea, however the ammount of money per player is very small, so it does not encouage more 76king.

 

The best way to put up something like this is a "Kingdom" type application, available to F2P and P2P, which gives items back for GP spent that nobody wants to collect. By doing this you take money out, and save people from doing tasks nobody enjoys.

 

If you put it at.. lets say 25k a day, and 300k users use the application every day, thats 7.5 BILLION GP drained everyday.

 

EDIT:

You live in one right now, most likely. When was the last time you paid with cash, when you had the option to pay with your debit card? It's a similar situation, where the concept of cash is still the backbone of the economy, but the demand is for the item, not the wealth. And like you've touched on, it's because they made cash so easy to obtain.

 

Actually Credit Cards are cash, just a "borrowed" form, and not a physical form of it. At the end of the day you still owe your credit card Cash for the money you spent.

 

Debit card simply use the "cash" you have stored in your bank account. Its just a virtural transaction.

 

You can pay for a Party Hat in items, but you cant buy that new computer with a credit card your paying off with Peanut Butter Sandwiches. So your still using cash, just a different form of it.

[Punitive_D]

Can an economy survive and thrive if nobody wants to use cash? I doubt it.

 

You live in one right now, most likely. When was the last time you paid with cash, when you had the option to pay with your debit card? It's a similar situation, where the concept of cash is still the backbone of the economy, but the demand is for the item, not the wealth. And like you've touched on, it's because they made cash so easy to obtain.

 

Though I do have to chuckle when so many people say, "It's 76king oh no!" Yes, it's that. But there are also many, many other methods that pump cash into our wallets with absolutely no effort. What about Fruit Falling at the duel arena? Flipping items via the grand exchange? Merching clans as a whole? And all the various other little get-rich quick schemes that, bit by bit, aren't too devastating, but when you add them all together...76k'ing is only a slice of the troubling pie that is the failing short term economy.

 

First, using your debit card is cash. Think of it this way -- it's like noted gp.

 

Second, flipping items in the GE does not "create" cash. Even merching clans do not make cash. 76k does. Alching does. There might be a few others. Moving cash around within the game and accumulating great piles here and there does not make cash junk. People getting rich is not the problem. Creating too much cash too fast makes it crashing junk.

[bedman]

Can an economy survive and thrive if nobody wants to use cash? I doubt it.

 

You live in one right now, most likely. When was the last time you paid with cash, when you had the option to pay with your debit card? It's a similar situation, where the concept of cash is still the backbone of the economy, but the demand is for the item, not the wealth. And like you've touched on, it's because they made cash so easy to obtain.

 

Though I do have to chuckle when so many people say, "It's 76king oh no!" Yes, it's that. But there are also many, many other methods that pump cash into our wallets with absolutely no effort. What about Fruit Falling at the duel arena? Flipping items via the grand exchange? Merching clans as a whole? And all the various other little get-rich quick schemes that, bit by bit, aren't too devastating, but when you add them all together...76k'ing is only a slice of the troubling pie that is the failing short term economy.

Please explain me how flipping items on the GE, or fruit falling creates GP, thus causing inflation. That's right, it doesn't and thus it doesn't apply to this discussion.

 

Also,off topic, what is fruit falling exactly? You go to duel arena, use your fruitbat to create papaya's, end duel to get special summ attack again?

[Wkw]

Noted cash?

 

Cash are already notes, bank notes, bills, paper money?

[Kimberly]

Second, flipping items in the GE does not "create" cash. Even merching clans do not make cash. 76k does. Alching does. There might be a few others. Moving cash around within the game and accumulating great piles here and there does not make cash junk. People getting rich is not the problem. Creating too much cash too fast makes it crashing junk.

 

Getting rich quick IS a problem when you're not putting in any risk. The whole game is founded on the concept of risk versus reward, and when that balance is askew, so is the economy.

 

The economy was better before trade was gone. We can agree on this, yes? Lets look at what happened there, though...Before, when the risk-reward was still unbalanced, but limited by several constraints (ie effort and time put in to create a successful merch/flip back on w2, limited rush weapons), the economy was better off. The more these methods became easier to acheive though, the more the economy suffered. Thus we are where we are today.

[Myweponsg00d]

Can an economy survive and thrive if nobody wants to use cash? I doubt it.

 

You live in one right now, most likely. When was the last time you paid with cash, when you had the option to pay with your debit card? It's a similar situation, where the concept of cash is still the backbone of the economy, but the demand is for the item, not the wealth. And like you've touched on, it's because they made cash so easy to obtain.

 

Though I do have to chuckle when so many people say, "It's 76king oh no!" Yes, it's that. But there are also many, many other methods that pump cash into our wallets with absolutely no effort. What about Fruit Falling at the duel arena? Flipping items via the grand exchange? Merching clans as a whole? And all the various other little get-rich quick schemes that, bit by bit, aren't too devastating, but when you add them all together...76k'ing is only a slice of the troubling pie that is the failing short term economy.

 

I don't want to sound rude, but you are missing the point. The methods you listed are making people wealthy, but they are not bringing tons and tons of COINS into the game. It is just a transfer of coins from one player to the other. The reason he is mentioning 76king is because all it takes is an investment of 76k in junky items, and you can spawn over a million GP into the game by trading in the statues. The biggest coin spawner used to be Coinshare, when the price of AGS was 120m+ and nobody was buying it. However, now PvP is definitely the largest source of excess GP in the game.

 

Again, just wanted to clarify this for you.

[Ts_Stormrage]

Can an economy survive and thrive if nobody wants to use cash? I doubt it.

 

You live in one right now, most likely. When was the last time you paid with cash, when you had the option to pay with your debit card? It's a similar situation, where the concept of cash is still the backbone of the economy, but the demand is for the item, not the wealth. And like you've touched on, it's because they made cash so easy to obtain.

 

Though I do have to chuckle when so many people say, "It's 76king oh no!" Yes, it's that. But there are also many, many other methods that pump cash into our wallets with absolutely no effort. What about Fruit Falling at the duel arena? Flipping items via the grand exchange? Merching clans as a whole? And all the various other little get-rich quick schemes that, bit by bit, aren't too devastating, but when you add them all together...76k'ing is only a slice of the troubling pie that is the failing short term economy.

 

First, using your debit card is cash. Think of it this way -- it's like noted gp.

 

Second, flipping items in the GE does not "create" cash. Even merching clans do not make cash. 76k does. Alching does. There might be a few others. Moving cash around within the game and accumulating great piles here and there does not make cash junk. People getting rich is not the problem. Creating too much cash too fast makes it crashing junk.

 

This +1

 

As said, the things that cause inflation are the things that create cash out of nothing; EP-farming, Alching, Thieving, monster drops and selling to the various stores around runescape... Everything else is just moving it around, trading cash for items...

When you consider this, and here I am just guesstimating, Alching is still the #1 thing responsible for flowing cash into the economy, but this does not have much of an impact since it removes other items often just created to be alched... More over, the time to go from nothing to cutting yews, picking flax, and mining pure essence, to making it into a neat stack of noted yew longs and nature runes, does not NEARLY bring as much GP/hour into the economy as EP-farming does, but a lot more people are doing it, AND noone does everything themselves, so money gets spread around while this happens...

 

The problem with EP farming is that certain people find themselves with 5m for 2 hours of "work", and this is nowhere near anything that skillig can make... Or, the person who can go from nothing to making all the supplies needed for, AND alching 6.5k of Yew Longbows in JUST 2 hours, has to show me how he does that...

 

I would advise everyone to realise one thing;

Inflation is caused in RuneScape by GP created out of nothing...

 

There are factors affecting this, such as how fast it is made, and how fast it is drained (by, for example, having your logs turned into planks, or buying Runes from a shop)...

 

I would advise you to read my Times article of this week (october 18) and then come back to this thread... Link is found in my sig...

[iusetitans]

as the game goes on and the balance is in favour of more money being produced than removed then inflation is the obvious outcome

[dragon246665]

Another nail in the coffin was the removal of infinite shop stocks. Before, commodities that were bought by the tens of thousands per day would create a noticeable drain on the economy. In short Jagex has created so many ways for gold to enter this game, and is cutting down on the ways it can leave. It seems like the only way to stave off bankruptcy is to invest in items.

[Adam007]

Yeah I too had that realization one day, quite the epiphany when it hits you. I don't know if it's Diablo I or II but my friend was describing that same situation in that game. Gold just no longer has any value. You'll always be able to trade it for small things I think but it is possible that there will be a cap to what people will want to accept in large trades. It's interesting imagining another item taking the place of cash, but really just about any other item has more value than a gp. Jagex does need to counteract all the money brought in with some money-sink, and I think you have a great idea (although knowing them, directly buying things with gp isn't in the spirit of the game).

[gspbeetle]

Second, flipping items in the GE does not "create" cash. Even merching clans do not make cash. 76k does. Alching does. There might be a few others. Moving cash around within the game and accumulating great piles here and there does not make cash junk. People getting rich is not the problem. Creating too much cash too fast makes it crashing junk.

 

Getting rich quick IS a problem when you're not putting in any risk. The whole game is founded on the concept of risk versus reward, and when that balance is askew, so is the economy.

 

The economy was better before trade was gone. We can agree on this, yes? Lets look at what happened there, though...Before, when the risk-reward was still unbalanced, but limited by several constraints (ie effort and time put in to create a successful merch/flip back on w2, limited rush weapons), the economy was better off. The more these methods became easier to acheive though, the more the economy suffered. Thus we are where we are today.

 

Yes, you are right for the first part, but just please dont try to mix things up, ok?

 

The market may be affected by the value of money and that may affect buying insentive which may lead to a change in supply and demand.

 

However the value of money has nothing to do with the economy. It entirely depends on the supply of GP (there is no demand as GP is the only currency in runescape).

[canadiansmurf]

What happened to devalue cash?

 

1. GE and trade limits

Everyone knows this one.

 

2. GE mechanics were changed.

Around the time that partyhats finally started to rise in price there was general inflation for every single item in the game almost. Sharks are sitting at 1.5k now. There is no way the true suppy and demand for sharks values sharks at 1.5k. There is less need for food with summons monsters and guthans etc. PvP doesn't really use that much food and sharks are not the food of choice for true pkers, tuna potato's etc. are.

 

Basically I think when they changed the way the GE responded to partyhat and other rares pricing it made the GE more sensitive causing price rises for almost every item. This is just a guess though, as no one except Jagex knows how the GE works.

 

 

3. Personalized stores.

Along with personalized stores the price floors & ceilings for items were changed, noticeably stable junk became unstable overnight. Junk prices crashed to new lows not making it worth the while to create junk anymore for trades. Overnight clever RS players started to demand "fast-rising items" or "high-demand items" as payment.

4. Player ingenuity.

Before cash was worth something because cash was accepted for payment as the added value to the seller came from selling the buyer junk + the item for cash.

 

Now it's high-demand and fast-rising items that sellers are looking for.

 

This all ties back to Number 1. GE and price floors and ceilings. Until prices can reflect the true value of an item given supply and demand it's impossible to buy certain items for cash unless you are very lucky and manage to purchase it via the GE.

 

Essentially no matter how much cash a player has if they are looking to buy certain items they will need other items to trade with such as rares or 3rd age or whatever the item of the day is at the moment.

 

It's a frustrating situation for both players and sellers.

 

Currently grenwall spikes are sitting at 10k each as the street or RSOF price.

The GE price is 188GP.

 

Vials of water have been artificially price-capped at 103gp each.

Very few literally 2 or 3 per day sell through the GE.

People on forums are offering 200-250 gp per vial.

The few sellers are getting up to 600 gp per vial.

 

Of course cash is junk at the moment, there is inflation and each day 1gp is worth less.

The RS econony is dynamic and players are working around the limitations placed by Jagex.

However as an everyday player I find the situation frustrating, and this has changed my gameplay.

[cookiestealer222]

This is why I stopped playing Diablo (on top of the dupes).

[Mike_Ike111]

2. GE mechanics were changed.

Around the time that partyhats finally started to rise in price there was general inflation for every single item in the game almost. Sharks are sitting at 1.5k now. There is no way the true suppy and demand for sharks values sharks at 1.5k. There is less need for food with summons monsters and guthans etc. PvP doesn't really use that much food and sharks are not the food of choice for true pkers, tuna potato's etc. are.

 

Well I can certainly say the only reason raw sharks are even that high of price is because they are still the best way to gain cooking xp. The reason for Cooked sharks however is because they are a pretty decent merchant item. You can get a good 5m off them a day if you time it right.

 

It probably has a bit to do with the GE mechanics though. You're most likely right.

[Star_Fox]

anyone suggesting a money sink has the right idea. but i doubt jagex has any intentions of releasing one this year when they claimed that they're only intentions is to fix the game....instead they end up screwing it for a lot of us which makes the game even more broken then before...so theoritcally speaking: they're next money sink won't do so good either. which gave no incentive to players that were holding cash in hopes of price drops.

 

thats it for my speculation.

[oropher]

Can an economy survive and thrive if nobody wants to use cash? I doubt it.

 

You live in one right now, most likely. When was the last time you paid with cash, when you had the option to pay with your debit card? It's a similar situation, where the concept of cash is still the backbone of the economy, but the demand is for the item, not the wealth. And like you've touched on, it's because they made cash so easy to obtain.

 

Though I do have to chuckle when so many people say, "It's 76king oh no!" Yes, it's that. But there are also many, many other methods that pump cash into our wallets with absolutely no effort. What about Fruit Falling at the duel arena? Flipping items via the grand exchange? Merching clans as a whole? And all the various other little get-rich quick schemes that, bit by bit, aren't too devastating, but when you add them all together...76k'ing is only a slice of the troubling pie that is the failing short term economy.

 

 

NO NO NO. It's really JUST 76king. Merching clans/merching is just swapping around wealth, not generating more cash. 76king brings over 100bil/day into rs economy. It's the ONLY REAL PROBLEM.

[JoeDaStudd]

Can an economy survive and thrive if nobody wants to use cash? I doubt it.

 

You live in one right now, most likely. When was the last time you paid with cash, when you had the option to pay with your debit card? It's a similar situation, where the concept of cash is still the backbone of the economy, but the demand is for the item, not the wealth. And like you've touched on, it's because they made cash so easy to obtain.

 

Though I do have to chuckle when so many people say, "It's 76king oh no!" Yes, it's that. But there are also many, many other methods that pump cash into our wallets with absolutely no effort. What about Fruit Falling at the duel arena? Flipping items via the grand exchange? Merching clans as a whole? And all the various other little get-rich quick schemes that, bit by bit, aren't too devastating, but when you add them all together...76k'ing is only a slice of the troubling pie that is the failing short term economy.

I know this has already been said but I'd like to emphasize the point.

 

There were 3(4) main ways of creating gp.

1. Killing a monster for a pure gp drop

2. Selling an item to a shop

3. Alching items

(4. Coinshare)

 

1. There aren't any big pure gp drops

2. This is equal or lower then the alch value

3. The value never changes so the players balance out the ingredients prices.

(4. This is arguble, but it creates pure gp as a drop, but keeps the item in the ge for a player this GE price is created by the player.)

 

Over time all the above have been balanced out by players based on there usability and rarity.

 

In your example papaya and other fruits are only worth 1 of 3 things; there shop price, there high alch price or the price a player is willing to pay.

When your fruit falling your merely creating its high alch value 38gp nothing more, but possibly less. This is the amount entering the game, however in this example its also balancing the loss a player makes in creating the scrolls in the first place.

 

PvP in its current form came along and removed any player based balancing out of the game. You always get the same amount for a drop its in essence pure gp.

 

Before the economy used to be like so.

alches+monster gp+shop sales(+coinshare)<=sink holes

 

Now

PvP drops+alches+monster gp+shop sales(+coinshare)>sink holes

 

The solution is simple remove the PvP drops.

However I have a gut feeling Jagex is doing this to extend the life of the game. By pumping gp into the ecomony there increasing the time frame in which the gp in the game hits the same level as the items high alch value.

 

Sounds silly, but whips used to be about 3m, before the inflation they were close to 1m and this inflation has propped it back up.

[Ts_Stormrage]

[hide]

Can an economy survive and thrive if nobody wants to use cash? I doubt it.

 

You live in one right now, most likely. When was the last time you paid with cash, when you had the option to pay with your debit card? It's a similar situation, where the concept of cash is still the backbone of the economy, but the demand is for the item, not the wealth. And like you've touched on, it's because they made cash so easy to obtain.

 

Though I do have to chuckle when so many people say, "It's 76king oh no!" Yes, it's that. But there are also many, many other methods that pump cash into our wallets with absolutely no effort. What about Fruit Falling at the duel arena? Flipping items via the grand exchange? Merching clans as a whole? And all the various other little get-rich quick schemes that, bit by bit, aren't too devastating, but when you add them all together...76k'ing is only a slice of the troubling pie that is the failing short term economy.

I know this has already been said but I'd like to emphasize the point.

 

There were 3(4) main ways of creating gp.

1. Killing a monster for a pure gp drop

2. Selling an item to a shop

3. Alching items

(4. Coinshare)

 

1. There aren't any big pure gp drops

2. This is equal or lower then the alch value

3. The value never changes so the players balance out the ingredients prices.

(4. This is arguble, but it creates pure gp as a drop, but keeps the item in the ge for a player this GE price is created by the player.)

 

Over time all the above have been balanced out by players based on there usability and rarity.

 

In your example papaya and other fruits are only worth 1 of 3 things; there shop price, there high alch price or the price a player is willing to pay.

When your fruit falling your merely creating its high alch value 38gp nothing more, but possibly less. This is the amount entering the game, however in this example its also balancing the loss a player makes in creating the scrolls in the first place.

 

PvP in its current form came along and removed any player based balancing out of the game. You always get the same amount for a drop its in essence pure gp.

 

Before the economy used to be like so.

alches+monster gp+shop sales(+coinshare)<=sink holes

 

Now

PvP drops+alches+monster gp+shop sales(+coinshare)>sink holes

 

The solution is simple remove the PvP drops.

However I have a gut feeling Jagex is doing this to extend the life of the game. By pumping gp into the ecomony there increasing the time frame in which the gp in the game hits the same level as the items high alch value.

 

Sounds silly, but whips used to be about 3m, before the inflation they were close to 1m and this inflation has propped it back up.

[/hide]

 

Actually; Coinshare does not create GP, but it gives you cash according to the current Low end of the price range, and puts the item for MID on the GE, meaning it actually removes 5% of the cash...

 

A money maker you forgot is Thieving, which brings instant GP to the game, but I suppose they can fall under monster drops...

 

Spot on with the equation though :)

[la la la]

In order for a money sink to be very effective, I think they need to remove the current pvp rewards first. I don't care if it takes Jagex a month to devise a new solution and we miss a month of updates... just fix it.

[Natedoggygog]

I think our main problem in this is the pvp loots atm.

 

I really liked the idea where the max loot you can get is the max loot someone was carrying. As in, if someone died with 76k, the max drop you could get would be 76k.

 

If you don't agree with me about 76king, then look at the graphs of items. Prices have risen out of control ever since the pvp update.