Why?

[Gudi]

Before i start, i want to point out that i am not ranting about the economic spasm that is going on atm on 'scape. I am ranting about Jagex's laid back attitude towards merchant clans, which may not be the cause of the issues, but are one of the reasons why the problems have become so drawn out and extreme.

 

So, how many merchant clans can you name off the top of your head? I can name about 7 without a seconds thought. What i don't understand, is why don't Jagex do anything about these clans?

 

Jagex used to consider price manipulation a ban worthy offense, and as far as i know this still stands. Despite the mass use of macros to advertise, destruction of item prices and thousands of people losing money from these clans, Jagex continue to let it slide. Jagex enforced the Anti 76k'ing measures and the problems are still lingering. I am not sure about this, but i have been told that a lot of merchanting clans find items which begin to crash and buy them out so they stay at a ridiculous price, and looking at the graphs, this appears to be a possibility. A lot of items, one example is the whip, appear to begin to drop every two weeks or so, and after a day or two they once again rocket up.

 

I do not for one second believe that banning some major merchanting clans would solve the problems, as that is just idiotic. I just think that if people were banned for price manipulation then the economy may be given some chance to make a recovery. Even some measures such as no numbers allowed in clan names, which may be an annoyance to some, could prevent them giving members the dump price. This would make the clans even less reliable then they are at the moment.

 

Do you guys think that Jagex's attitude is too laid back? Tar for reading.

[Shangdi]

I'm fairly certain that Jagex simply making price manipulation breaking the rules and leading a price manipulation clan being bannable will get rid of at least 75% of them. :smile:

[Dirkmetal]

If they ban them, yes you will not see them at the GE spamming, but they will still be there operating on 3rd party sites. There might be less members, but it does not take many to screw up the GE.

 

You could ban the leaders, but do you really think that they run those clans on their main accounts? They could easily start new accounts and have the clan move their.

 

This is a complex issue. A good solution will take time. I think none of us want another hasty 07 type change now do we?

[quelmotz]

A hasty solution would solve nothing, as Dirkmetal said.

 

And can you please stop calling them "merchant" clans? Merchants are not doing anything illegal, price manipulators are. Merchants don't affect the market much, price manipulators do. Stop labelling anyone who buys something at a low price and sells it at a high price as a "merchant". Merchants usually work alone and don't use large amounts of cash to affect the market in their favour, whereas price manipulators just buy a ton of items, depleting its supplies and driving its prices up, then dumping the item back in for a large profit.

[Me_Hate_Libs]

And can you please stop calling them "merchant" clans? Merchants are not doing anything illegal, price manipulators are. Merchants don't affect the market much, price manipulators do. Stop labelling anyone who buys something at a low price and sells it at a high price as a "merchant". Merchants usually work alone and don't use large amounts of cash to affect the market in their favour, whereas price manipulators just buy a ton of items, depleting its supplies and driving its prices up, then dumping the item back in for a large profit.

 

Actually the people who buy low and sell high are merchants. This does not however mean they are people specifically attempting the manipulation of one or a group of predetermined items.

[Kaida23]

And can you please stop calling them "merchant" clans? Merchants are not doing anything illegal, price manipulators are. Merchants don't affect the market much, price manipulators do. Stop labelling anyone who buys something at a low price and sells it at a high price as a "merchant". Merchants usually work alone and don't use large amounts of cash to affect the market in their favour, whereas price manipulators just buy a ton of items, depleting its supplies and driving its prices up, then dumping the item back in for a large profit.

 

Actually the people who buy low and sell high are merchants. This does not however mean they are people specifically attempting the manipulation of one or a group of predetermined items.

Quelmotz' point is well taken though. People do refer to price manipulation clans and merchant clans interchangeably without making the proper distinction. I'm a member of a group of similarly-minded merchants (not sure if we consider ourselves a "clan" though...) who enjoy the challenge of being merchants in RS without forcing prices up or down so that a handful of us can profit while giving everyone else the shaft.

 

Although, admittedly, we've taken advantage of a manipulation dump and waited for the natural rebound to make some profit. That's hardly manipulating the price of an item to ridiculous levels (anyone remember air tallys at nearly 4x the usual price back in October?) in order to profit from everyone else.

[Me_Hate_Libs]

All I know I can't sell a damn Coconut to save my life and it pisses me off.

[quelmotz]

View PostQuelmotz, on 13 December 2009 - 04:20 AM, said:

And can you please stop calling them "merchant" clans? Merchants are not doing anything illegal, price manipulators are. Merchants don't affect the market much, price manipulators do. Stop labelling anyone who buys something at a low price and sells it at a high price as a "merchant". Merchants usually work alone and don't use large amounts of cash to affect the market in their favour, whereas price manipulators just buy a ton of items, depleting its supplies and driving its prices up, then dumping the item back in for a large profit.

 

Actually the people who buy low and sell high are merchants. This does not however mean they are people specifically attempting the manipulation of one or a group of predetermined items.

 

A person engaged in the purchase and sale of commodities for profit, esp on international markets; trader.

 

Looks like you're right.

 

Anyhow, there's not a single reference to "price manipulation" in the dictionary with regards to "merchant".

[Youmu]

Remember, merchanting clans =/= price manipulators.

 

Merchanting clans buy low and sell high. Price manipulators just simply buy high. There's a difference.

 

Though, neither are as problematic as the artifact system that caused mass inflation of so many items.

[krseiferling]

even if all the price minipulators were baned the prices would still minipulate due to the natural econimy of runescape. thats what i found out. the clan just speeds up the markets natural rise and falls.

[Gudi]

even if all the price minipulators were baned the prices would still minipulate due to the natural econimy of runescape. thats what i found out. the clan just speeds up the markets natural rise and falls.

No, they don't.

 

 

Iron ore is one of the key examples. It was steady at 100gp for a very, very long time. Then after the manipulation (yes i do know the difference, i just get into habits as they are more commonly know as merchanting clans) took place, the price rocketed, and most likely down to inflation, it never dropped again.

 

And it isn't manipulation when the price makes a natural rise, it is just that, NATURAL. It has NOT been manipulated.

[DemonicSushi]

You cannot ban these clans for WHAT they are doing but for HOW they are doing it.... the macros and autotypers they use are the main concern as it spams and as it is the only way to recruit...

 

NO spammers = NO new recruits = NO clan

 

so do your part and when you see a spammer, report him

[alwaysonholiday]

The people at Jagex don't actually have to play their own game. Nearly all of their members will still pay for the game and the long term effects of manipulation clans doesn't really affect that. They don't see it as a big problem because most have stopped caring about the overall quality of the game. They cared in the earlier days of the game when they were trying to cultivate members, player feedback was valuable to them.

 

These manipulation clans are a huge problem to those who actually play the game. Take a look at the price of Purple Phats for example. They were 67m towards the beginning of the year and now they're 260m. This didn't happen organically. It was forced by clans buying up and holding on to all of the them, for no other reason than to hold the item hostage to make money off of it. All of these items will eventually crash and the effect of this spills over into most items in the game. These are people working directly against Jagex. Until Jagex realizes that, we all suffer.

[Kaida23]

I hate to disagree with you, but do you really think the main reason things like party hats went up so much in price the the manipulation clans? Manipulators buy large quantities of a single item and then dump them to make as much profit as possible in as little time as possible causing a huge spike and then drop in price. Does that seem to be what's happening? The prices for high value rares like party hats have gone up to ridiculous prices due to the incredible amount if gp dumped into the economy by the 76k (or what ever it's called) PVP trick. Because there was such a large influx of disposable income into the game, the demand for, and the price of, highly sought after items went up. Even though it's been "fixed", there is still a large amount of gp flooding into the economy every day from it and will only cause the prices of these items to go up.

 

I hate manipulation clans as much as the next person, but they're hardly responsible for the continuing rise in prices of high-end items.

[alwaysonholiday]

I hate to disagree with you, but do you really think the main reason things like party hats went up so much in price the the manipulation clans? Manipulators buy large quantities of a single item and then dump them to make as much profit as possible in as little time as possible causing a huge spike and then drop in price. Does that seem to be what's happening? The prices for high value rares like party hats have gone up to ridiculous prices due to the incredible amount if gp dumped into the economy by the 76k (or what ever it's called) PVP trick. Because there was such a large influx of disposable income into the game, the demand for, and the price of, highly sought after items went up. Even though it's been "fixed", there is still a large amount of gp flooding into the economy every day from it and will only cause the prices of these items to go up.

 

I hate manipulation clans as much as the next person, but they're hardly responsible for the continuing rise in prices of high-end items.

 

I know someone who bought two blues along with his clan when they bought out the GE months ago. An organized effort to hold rares hostage started months ago. It's no coincidence having to do with PVP that phats have been on the rise for months now. Whips and godswords are mostly the direct consequence of the faults in PVP. I chose a partyhat for an example of price manipulation because it has been on the rise for months straight. Perfect example of an item or group of items held hostage by manipulators.

[Sutty]

It would be an extremely big update... but the only way i can see merchanting being stopped is with fixed prices, unless people have figured a way to get around that also >.>

[K4ylan]

It would be an extremely big update... but the only way i can see merchanting being stopped is with fixed prices, unless people have figured a way to get around that also >.>

 

 

The only way Jagex can actually Ban the Main Accounts would be to create new accounts, join the clan, and ask who the leader's main is. But this too has it's drawbacks, you never know if this information is true.

 

Oh, and I only quoted Sutty to say that he needs to give credit to his avatar(I saw that on Deviant) and that his Hunter is awesome

 

 

[ghost4sale1]

I think that Jagex's attitude is too laid back. They had been talking a lot of Runescape issues for a long time, and so far almost nothing has been done about it. Except for one problem which was 76kin.

 

Which they when proceed to update pvp drop tables to officially suck :wall:

 

At least RWT is gone, but at what price?

[Me_Hate_Libs]

At the price of the game as a whole. If it wasn't for that, the game would've been ruined. Personally, I'd say screw the PVP. If people want to PVP, take it to the minigames. I'm over all the 76king and the complaining that has come with it. I'd say to Jagex, grow a pair and toss it.