POLL: In your opinion, should Jagex forbid Price Manipulation/Merchanting Clans?

[Dire_Wolf]

Having G.E update more often will make items price change MORE often. So it may make items not be bought out for long, but it will make prices of things change more often, creating chaos.

[Ollyc3]

Just wondering why you've thrown Manipulation and Merchanting together, like they're both the same thing.

 

and no

[Dire_Wolf]

One of the arguments behind rich players using money to earn more through price manipulation is that "Earning more money is a game for us". But that's the biggest crap ever. There is TONS ways of earning money without [bleep]ing up the game for everyone else.

 

But can those players bother to do those methods? NO. Why? Selfish bastards.

 

As an example of how much i detest price manipulation. Colony lords took over Africa, and used it for their own benefits not thinking about the people there. Now look what has happened...

 

Corruption, poverty, illness

 

And white people are being kicked out i hear? As revenge on colony lords.

 

If you like to care only about yourself, to the extent that you [bleep] things up for many others. Then i suggest one thing, play the game in solitude. Which means NO Runescape player interaction in-game or here on Tip.it. If you can't? Then [bleep] you. You make a choice that your own benefit matters most. A choice that affect others game play negatively, and you still expect interaction with them?

[Zachneap]

Its hardly exploitation. In the long term it also does little, prices rise then drop. (it does serve as a catalyst for overdue changes however)

 

Its comparable to crashing. both screw up the game for recipient players. both involve the greedy often more adept players taking advantage of those with less stats/knowledge. and both deny the weaker player to a particular good or activity.

But when you get crashed you just go somewhere else. the crashers can't occupy every monster/boss and there is always skilling to be done. When prayer potions were bought out i was miffed, sure, but i easily put my specter tasks on hold and trained other skills. The spectres can wait. I mean sometimes things can't be bought. I used to go kbd hunting. i kept getting crashed by high level players So i went mole hunting and continued to get crashed. Was i upset that i couldn't do my thing? yes, but life moves on i went off and got some long overdue quests done. Its a jerk move but what can you do? Should we ban crashing because it 'ruins' the other players' experiences?

 

And How does it mess the game up? its not like you got stuck behind the falador counter when falador was updated and couldn't play at all.

 

But, Many people do think that this is a problem. I put my opinion aside and simply because manipulation (like any activity in this game) is completely optional, it can stand to be eliminated. And to do so i simply suggest one thing (no idea if this is a current feature i apologize if it is.)

 

1.) When figuring out what items are to be updated each player's buying/selling habits only count as 1 transaction (a player making 13 offers for dbones only counts as one transaction when they are filled.) and the quota for determining rising/falling is based on transactions and not items. (so a players choice to buy 1 prayer potion vs 100k prayer pots affects the G.E. Equally)

[cool360]

Answer is no.

 

If you want an item so badly, then pay the outrageous price. Otherwise, get to playing the game and go get the item yourself you lazy bums. (NOT directed at anybody here.)

 

Jagex should ban the lazy bums. They really give me a headache when it comes to this matter.

[Skeptical]

Merchant clans should be disbanded if they spam.

 

That's what I really hate. I'm fairly self-sufficient, so I'm not hugely annoyed by the price jumps and drops; I'm careful and it usually actually works out to benefit me, even though I dislike the paradigm itself.

[RSBDavid]

They should remove the Grand Exchange altogether or do single server GE systems. That's the root of the problem. This may not work unless they implemented a system where items bought in one world couldn't be used or traded in another, which would cause issues.

[zeestardust]

Voted Yes. Price Manipulation and Merchanting are, however two very different things. One is a group of people using the GE script to make money and the other is a group of people individually watching price trends and making money from it like a stockmarket.

[Wouter828]

 

I voted no. Not because I participate in it, but because I don't have/see a real problem with it.

 

i disagree merch clans are as much a threat to runescape as RWT was.

By saying that you're showing that you have no idea what the problems of RWT where.

 

Anyway, I said that I didn't have a problem with it, because the only ones who think they get scammed by it are people who don't know what they're doing. I'm not saying they deserve to scammed or something, but jagex shouldn't cater too much to these people imo.

 

If you look at it, it's like a big gamble. The most people who lose money know it's possible, and didn't sell on time. It's the risk they take by investing in these items.

 

Also, people tend to only look at the negative aspects. I've often seen people claiming that it is bad for the economy, without any arguments whatsoever. There are, however, also positive effects. It gives people ways of making more money than usual. For example, when d boots are stable, you can het about 300k per drop, but when they get merched you can get up to 540k for a pair of boots, almost doubling the profit per hour. This is mostly why I don't mind it. It also allows you to get items like prayer potions cheaper than normal after a crash.

 

The only annoyance is that some items become unbuyable for short periods of time. Annoying, but it's a bit harsh to ban something because of this,

 

You do not look at where the money is coming from. The extra money you're making is coming from Billy, a hard working player in the middle years of his account's existence. He's worked over hours, Billy has, just to be able to afford some decent armour. He put all his cash in the Grand Exchange and hoped for something awesome to come out, and it did! A brand new pair of shiny boots.

But what's this? A week after he bought his new boots and parading about in them, one of his friends told him he just got the same boots, and he paid 200k less for them!

 

Now this may not seem harsh for you since you're obviously too short-sighted to look beyond your big pile of cash made from all those Billys out there. But try to understand that it's not all rainbows and butterflies as you clearly think it is, not for everyone to say the least.

[strilmus]

Such is the way of capitalism.

 

Since our society seems to be founded on it, it's perfectly acceptable to do anything you want as long as you justify it later with apathy and lies.

 

It's too bad we can't actually threaten anybody with legal action like they do in real life. I think cornering the market occurs all the time regardless of the anti-trust laws, though.

[Piu]

No - they should fix the root of the problem, the broken grand exchange.

 

That would be like not fixing a bug and then continuing to ban players for abusing that bug.

 

This.

[Rekindled]

By saying that you're showing that you have no idea what the problems of RWT where.

 

Anyway, I said that I didn't have a problem with it, because the only ones who think they get scammed by it are people who don't know what they're doing. I'm not saying they deserve to scammed or something, but jagex shouldn't cater too much to these people imo.

 

If you look at it, it's like a big gamble. The most people who lose money know it's possible, and didn't sell on time. It's the risk they take by investing in these items.

 

Also, people tend to only look at the negative aspects. I've often seen people claiming that it is bad for the economy, without any arguments whatsoever. There are, however, also positive effects. It gives people ways of making more money than usual. For example, when d boots are stable, you can het about 300k per drop, but when they get merched you can get up to 540k for a pair of boots, almost doubling the profit per hour. This is mostly why I don't mind it. It also allows you to get items like prayer potions cheaper than normal after a crash.

 

The only annoyance is that some items become unbuyable for short periods of time. Annoying, but it's a bit harsh to ban something because of this,

 

You do not look at where the money is coming from. The extra money you're making is coming from Billy, a hard working player in the middle years of his account's existence. He's worked over hours, Billy has, just to be able to afford some decent armour. He put all his cash in the Grand Exchange and hoped for something awesome to come out, and it did! A brand new pair of shiny boots.

But what's this? A week after he bought his new boots and parading about in them, one of his friends told him he just got the same boots, and he paid 200k less for them!

 

Now this may not seem harsh for you since you're obviously too short-sighted to look beyond your big pile of cash made from all those Billys out there. But try to understand that it's not all rainbows and butterflies as you clearly think it is, not for everyone to say the least.

 

Then he paid the price of wanting that item immediately, instead of waiting for it to become cheaper, placing his value of convenience over his principle of saving money. He chose to pay the price of wanting an item instantly rather than saving his funds and waiting longer for his item - options which the GE is designed to provide.

 

That price change of 200k could have came from a natural crash or rise as well as an alleged manipulation; Billy would have been forced to pay an inflated price regardless if he really wanted those boots as fast as possible.

 

If someone happened to be selling a pair of boots when the price was up at 500k, why, they've actually done Billy a favor by selling him his boots, because he's willing to pay a higher price and the seller is willing to sell the boots quickly. Billy clearly wants the boots as soon as possible, and he's lucky enough to stumble upon someone willing to provide an immediate transaction.

[Youmu]

They should ban advertising of those clans, not the clans themselves.

 

Trying to ban the clans themselves will be way too hard to do. And the advertisers use autotypers anyway.

[Hegelstad]

I think the way to go is to do something with the grand exchange, price manipulation clans will persist whatsoever. And i also think that price manipulation isn't the worst problem, the worst problem is the scams involved and the advertising. Price manipulation is in itself normal and not a rule breaker. Even if noone likes it.

[SanNo1]

 

I voted no. Not because I participate in it, but because I don't have/see a real problem with it.

 

i disagree merch clans are as much a threat to runescape as RWT was.

By saying that you're showing that you have no idea what the problems of RWT where.

 

Anyway, I said that I didn't have a problem with it, because the only ones who think they get scammed by it are people who don't know what they're doing. I'm not saying they deserve to scammed or something, but jagex shouldn't cater too much to these people imo.

 

If you look at it, it's like a big gamble. The most people who lose money know it's possible, and didn't sell on time. It's the risk they take by investing in these items.

 

Also, people tend to only look at the negative aspects. I've often seen people claiming that it is bad for the economy, without any arguments whatsoever. There are, however, also positive effects. It gives people ways of making more money than usual. For example, when d boots are stable, you can het about 300k per drop, but when they get merched you can get up to 540k for a pair of boots, almost doubling the profit per hour. This is mostly why I don't mind it. It also allows you to get items like prayer potions cheaper than normal after a crash.

 

The only annoyance is that some items become unbuyable for short periods of time. Annoying, but it's a bit harsh to ban something because of this,

 

You do not look at where the money is coming from. The extra money you're making is coming from Billy, a hard working player in the middle years of his account's existence. He's worked over hours, Billy has, just to be able to afford some decent armour. He put all his cash in the Grand Exchange and hoped for something awesome to come out, and it did! A brand new pair of shiny boots.

But what's this? A week after he bought his new boots and parading about in them, one of his friends told him he just got the same boots, and he paid 200k less for them!

 

Now this may not seem harsh for you since you're obviously too short-sighted to look beyond your big pile of cash made from all those Billys out there. But try to understand that it's not all rainbows and butterflies as you clearly think it is, not for everyone to say the least.

 

Most of the money isn't coming from 'Billy', that's just your general idea. The money comes from the people who participate in the merch and are buying out all the items. If Billy was smart enough he should either leave the items alone for a while or make money from the merch by producing the skyrocketing items.

 

In your example, you say that Billy bought the boots for a very high price, this won't immediately happen, because the item is bought out. So if he really wants it at THAT moment, he has to overpay big time, I agree on that. But if he just waits a few days/weeks he can buy the item for even less than he would pay for it in a normal way. If he decides to buy the boots for 500k because he thinks they are worth it, he gets his money's worth. If he thinks they aren't worth it he shouldn't buy them.

 

We aren't living in 2003 anymore when it was hard to establish prices for the average Billy. Anyone has acces to the GE graphs on the site. If you're going to spend all your hard-earned money on a single item, I would at least suggest you to think about it first.

[Peronix]

Yes. The GE does need to be fixed, but that dosen't mean these clans should be allowed to scam their non ranked members in the mean time.

[Ibcrootbeer]

I never really reply to these things :P but YES they should forbid the Price manipulating clans... along with the pvp drop tricks they completely screwed up the whole system...

 

Its too late now... they will just use friends list chains if they forbid it publicly, the only way it could be fixed is to remove the trade cap, AMG oh no RWT!!!! That would only reduce it because people could sell the way its been for years... a restriction is just stupid.

 

They made many many advances with PvP, so people can pk again... but what about merchants? You either watch as every time you sell a rare the price triples from manipulators, or see people junk trade 100m for an easter egg you used to eat to torment noobs! The only way anyone can make money "merchanting" anymore is dropping all ethics and forming a merchant clan, or junk trade...

 

I prefer the days when you rejected a noob that offered you a full inventory of junk, and traded for cash, as much as they would pay... not 60k over the GE price... but those days are dead, and without a massive reformat of the system, it will never come back.

 

Would also like to point out... PRICE MANIPULATION always existed... It was just called scamming in the old days... 2 noobs standing in varrock castle, one on each side of the trading mob... "Buying black chain 100k!!!" (with trade requests turned off) ~ "Selling black chain 50k!" Whats that? that sounds like a scam to you?? well what do you call buying 100k strange fruit, and selling it back to noobs for max price? with a promise to make money? Its the same deal... only it hurts alot more people this way... back then you lost 50k, one time, and you'd remember it forever.

[Travis_of_legend]

Scamming is probably the only problem I ever encountered in the game. Somebody would do a price change or lure a Noob into the wild and kill them. That is a naughty thing to do and those evil people deserve to be banned or at least have some black marks put on their account. Merchantism however is a completely different realm. These players always played by the rules and showed discipline and professionalism in their business. Merchants are completely legal economists and rely on the concepts of supply and demand. They recognize and learn the trade of prices of all items in the game and learn also to avoid scammers. They buy an item for less and sell it to someone who has more demand for it than other players. The good people of runescape including merchants work hard for their money and should be able to do what they want with it as long as its not used to scam people. Merchants indeed play a huge part in stimulating the runescape economy. Merchants are based on the concept of mutualism. A merchant sells a player an item and makes a profit. Both the player and merchant benefit from each other. The other concept of the old capitalist system of runescape is that it allowed everybody to be equal. anybody could hold any sum of money and loan it to another player. The Grand Exchange is indeed a good idea and highlights the concept of an "in-game" forum but it is inferior in comparison to real humans who set the prices of items. That is what made the game the most fun and realistic. The prices were set by the people for the people and were very flexible. There was no "market price" or "minimum/maximum price." If somebody felt generous and wanted to sell a full barrows set for 30k then they could. With all these pluses in mind let us remember the negative side; scamming. Scammers are dishonest people only set out to make things better for themselves and in the end have no reason to be playing the game. This feud could very easily be solved if only Jagex would employ more in-game moderators and make moves to make getting away with scamming much harder. This is a common case of blaming the wrong system. It is true that merchanting and scamming go together, and it is also true that they are both arts. But one is for the good and one is for evil. I feel merchanting/free trade, has been associated with scamming and therefore one bad apple truly spoiled the whole bunch.

 

Your humble gamer,

 

sephi101

[Wouter828]

By saying that you're showing that you have no idea what the problems of RWT where.

 

Anyway, I said that I didn't have a problem with it, because the only ones who think they get scammed by it are people who don't know what they're doing. I'm not saying they deserve to scammed or something, but jagex shouldn't cater too much to these people imo.

 

If you look at it, it's like a big gamble. The most people who lose money know it's possible, and didn't sell on time. It's the risk they take by investing in these items.

 

Also, people tend to only look at the negative aspects. I've often seen people claiming that it is bad for the economy, without any arguments whatsoever. There are, however, also positive effects. It gives people ways of making more money than usual. For example, when d boots are stable, you can het about 300k per drop, but when they get merched you can get up to 540k for a pair of boots, almost doubling the profit per hour. This is mostly why I don't mind it. It also allows you to get items like prayer potions cheaper than normal after a crash.

 

The only annoyance is that some items become unbuyable for short periods of time. Annoying, but it's a bit harsh to ban something because of this,

 

You do not look at where the money is coming from. The extra money you're making is coming from Billy, a hard working player in the middle years of his account's existence. He's worked over hours, Billy has, just to be able to afford some decent armour. He put all his cash in the Grand Exchange and hoped for something awesome to come out, and it did! A brand new pair of shiny boots.

But what's this? A week after he bought his new boots and parading about in them, one of his friends told him he just got the same boots, and he paid 200k less for them!

 

Now this may not seem harsh for you since you're obviously too short-sighted to look beyond your big pile of cash made from all those Billys out there. But try to understand that it's not all rainbows and butterflies as you clearly think it is, not for everyone to say the least.

 

Then he paid the price of wanting that item immediately, instead of waiting for it to become cheaper, placing his value of convenience over his principle of saving money. He chose to pay the price of wanting an item instantly rather than saving his funds and waiting longer for his item - options which the GE is designed to provide.

 

That price change of 200k could have came from a natural crash or rise as well as an alleged manipulation; Billy would have been forced to pay an inflated price regardless if he really wanted those boots as fast as possible.

 

If someone happened to be selling a pair of boots when the price was up at 500k, why, they've actually done Billy a favor by selling him his boots, because he's willing to pay a higher price and the seller is willing to sell the boots quickly. Billy clearly wants the boots as soon as possible, and he's lucky enough to stumble upon someone willing to provide an immediate transaction.

Billy is actually not as well informed as you and I, he's just the average chap interested in playing the game unaware of evils such as merchanting clans. So, you can say 'well then he just payed the price for being ignorant' but you can't expect everyone to be able to look as much into a game as we do especially if you're young and unaware of the possibilities and information sites such as tipit can provide you. So in your example, the trade 'mislead' Billy into thinking 500k is the uninflated price and selling them for that amount to Billy, cheating him out of 200k.

 

In any case it's taking advantage of someone's ignorance and cheating them out of their money which is the wrong thing to do by my standards.

[Rekindled]

Then he paid the price of wanting that item immediately, instead of waiting for it to become cheaper, placing his value of convenience over his principle of saving money. He chose to pay the price of wanting an item instantly rather than saving his funds and waiting longer for his item - options which the GE is designed to provide.

 

That price change of 200k could have came from a natural crash or rise as well as an alleged manipulation; Billy would have been forced to pay an inflated price regardless if he really wanted those boots as fast as possible.

 

If someone happened to be selling a pair of boots when the price was up at 500k, why, they've actually done Billy a favor by selling him his boots, because he's willing to pay a higher price and the seller is willing to sell the boots quickly. Billy clearly wants the boots as soon as possible, and he's lucky enough to stumble upon someone willing to provide an immediate transaction.

Billy is actually not as well informed as you and I, he's just the average chap interested in playing the game unaware of evils such as merchanting clans. So, you can say 'well then he just payed the price for being ignorant' but you can't expect everyone to be able to look as much into a game as we do especially if you're young and unaware of the possibilities and information sites such as tipit can provide you. So in your example, the trade 'mislead' Billy into thinking 500k is the uninflated price and selling them for that amount to Billy, cheating him out of 200k.

 

In any case it's taking advantage of someone's ignorance and cheating them out of their money which is the wrong thing to do by my standards.

 

As Sanno said,

We aren't living in 2003 anymore when it was hard to establish prices for the average Billy. Anyone has acces to the GE graphs on the site. If you're going to spend all your hard-earned money on a single item, I would at least suggest you to think about it first.

Billy has been looking forward towards these boots for a very long time. If he's aiming to purchase them, he would at the very least look at the price to set a goal for himself before he embarked on his mission; then when he went to buy them and saw them 200k higher I would imagine he would stop and think for a second about why they've increased so much.

 

He doesn't have to realize that the extreme rise when he's trying to buy them is caused by a merchant clan; all he needs to know is that's not the average price of the item. You don't need sites like tipit to assist you in reading the market - Jagex has very plainly made the GE graphs available to all players.

 

Yes, it's immoral to cheat those more ignorant than you, but when they almost choose not to enlighten themselves, it's more of a matter of teaching a lesson to them by charging them a higher price than scamming.

[jjjon123]

They should make a rule that only allows clans to manipulate the prices of maple longs (u), tiles, and fire runes haha

[oreocookie987]

Wow. I just came on to look at some old friend's blogs and saw the poll, it seemed interesting so I voted.... 64% vote Yes.... just... wow. That is pathetic. Now I'm not sure here, I haven't played this game for almost 3 years so I may not be up to speed, but I'm going to assume its about clans of merchants that use the Runescape economy to make money. Well, to these people I say this, "Good for you! You've learned to take advantage of others for your own gain, prepare for success!". To those of you who voted Yes in this poll, if you're actually being manipulated by these people and spending double or triple the price on said items then congratulations, you are a puppet. Get used to it. (Before I go on I understand that there is a difference between being manipulated and having the money to throw around to get your item NOW rather than waiting for it to drop in price, just for the record.)

 

If you voted Yes because you want an easier time in Runescape then hey, I have news for you. There's a real economy right outside your window or door, literally a few feet away from where you're sitting now. Now some of you may be from Europe or Canada or anywhere else around the world so I can't speak for you, but any American will know our economy is pretty damn harsh. Compared to it, the Runescape economy is a cake walk. If you need merchants and price manipulators to be banned from Runescape so you can manage your money better, then God only knows whats going to happen to you in the real world. Boy do I feel sorry for you.

 

Looking through posts, I also see some people voted Yes to reduce scamming.... seriously? Look buddy, you have eyes, try them out sometime... I'm sure they work great. For those who haven't already noticed, when ANYTHING changes in a Runescape trade window there's a nice big flashing red message letting you know what happened... and if you've already hit Accept then it cancels and you have to re-Accept. Nobody should ever get scammed, and if you do get scammed then clearly you're not very familiar with the Trade Window and hopefully you learn your lesson.

 

And to those of you saying its wrong to cheat people out of their money because its immoral and such.. well look around you. See a guy driving a $100,000 sports car? There's a 10% chance he made it on honest wages, 90% chance he cheated a crap-load of people out of their money to get it. Personally I'm a social Darwinist, I believe the strongest survive and the weak are trampled to help them rise. If you have a skill you should use it, and having the mental capacity and intelligence to take advantage of other people to fuel your own gains and welfare sure as hell counts as a skill in my book. Welcome to the world, its a pretty nasty place.

[Mercifull]

You are a social Darwinist, its different.

[oreocookie987]

You are a social Darwinist, its different.

Yep, sorry its kinda late here... fixed it.