Inflation..

[yuriqiu]

Honestly, is inflation that bad? Lets look at the D bones example (using this because it's convenient as some other topic was talking about it's continuous rise).

 

D bones started out at 1k each long long long long ago. Back then, a good income average would be around 200-300k/hr, back when people were still into gathering skills such as cutting yews or magics, mining coal, or fishing lobsters/swords/sharks. So the basically back then, you earn 200-300 D bones/hr.

 

Move on to the age of rcing, at this point double nats was still uncommon, rcing was the best skiller option to make money still however, averaging around 600k/hr with double cosmics using abyss. D bones rose to around 2k each. This was also when Green drag hunting became a popular method to making money. You still earn around 200-300 d bones/hr.

 

Now to the release of gwd and then the automation of G altars. Income skyrocketed to 1m/hr. D bones became 2.5-3k each (I just bought 99 prayer at this point, so I'm pretty certain of the prices). Hourly income: 300-333 D bones/hr. (Keep in mind Gilded altar by this time is getting common so if we include that multiplier of 3.5x in, hourly d bones income is 3.5*300 to 3.5*333, in otherwords, d bones got "cheaper")

 

Now comes the time of the pvp statues update, by this time gwd makes a moderate 1.5-2m/hr, Green drags 1m/hr, Tds 2.5-3m/hr. D bones began it's rise to around 3.5-4k each. Hourly income using gwd to make money: 500 d bones/hr.

 

Finally we come to the release of curses and present day. Tds, Dks, Bandos, and Arma solos all bring in an estimated 3m/hr. D bones prices is now 5k each and rising. Hourly income: 600 d bones/hr.

 

My point is, as long as someone is keeping up with the times and using the most effective way to train/make money. Inflation is nothing to be worried about. In fact, income has practically doubled with a constant price level in the D bones market. Of course I only looked at one sector of the entire RS market but I reckon popular commodities markets are around the same. (Herb, Fish, Mining, Woodcut) In a certain way, inflation is not be such a major concern.

 

Some other data from the time period of 04-10:

Yew 250-470 (1.88x)

Magics 900-1400 (1.55x)

Coal 100-270 (2.7x)

Iron Ore 100-240 (2.4x)

Iron Bar 250-400 (1.6x)

Sharks 900-1700 (1.88x)

Popular GP gathering method rate: 300k/hr-1m/hr (3.3x) (Very Conservative estimate seeing as 1m/hr means green drag hunting which is next to effortless)

 

Sorry if I made any mistakes with these data. I'm going by memory here. Please feel free to correct me if you find sources. Either way I'm sure my point is getting across. Inflation isn't nearly as bad as it is suppose to be.

 

P.S. The reason I used these particular items to illustrate my point is because they are still to this day the medium items. Ex. Fletching is still trained by Yew log which is still obtained mainly by cutting yews. It is not like an item such as Rannar which had evolved from monster drop to farming to the popularity of herblore etc etc. D bones only suffered from one exogenous event which shook it's price in the release of curses.

[cydoor]

As seen from the history, construction managed to be a quite successful money drain.

So one solution could be a release of some epic construction reward for 90+ construction that would force thousands of players

to go for these levels hence bringing millions out of the economy.

 

But ofcourse there are other way better solutions.

[Assume Nothing]

Said time and time again. Inflation is always better than Deflation, to a certain point. Steady rise promotes the ability to flip, and also maintain the economy. Deflation or recession would lead to everything becoming unsellable, because it would be 'cheaper tommorow'

 

There are benefits and drawbacks to both, but personally, I think Inflation would do less damage to the economy than Deflation. Would you REALLY want to watch half your bank melt away, with every moneymaker becoming junk making?

[romu000]

Prices are going up ok ! But i'd join Qeltar view on the points it's all psychological.

Reason ?

Simply on ending '09 i planned to got for few 99s like slay, agil and craft but omg i didn't expect prayer + 96 sum + 96 herby witch have been awesome cash burned i didn't have.

I couldn't imagine i could do 88-99 pray with the price of the bones unless i found a way to pay for it.

In fact i didn't even thought for long : payed whatever the price was !

 

There are many money making ways adapted to each levels now and best skilling technics are available to everyone... So the game is simply rolling !

In fact now : the more you go, the more you can make... unless you act wrong !

[Pirate_Felix]

What's with certain things like Kwuarms being at an all time low in over a year and staying there? Ever since the exp weekend, I had invested 300M of my money into kwuarms when they were at around 5100-5300 each. All that 300M worth has been sitting in the GE for ever since the exp weekend ended, which is what, like 3 months now? If anything, they should have ROSE shouldn't they? Thousands of Kwuarms were used to make strength potions to train herblore that weekend, so what the hell?

 

And the fact that they're at an all time low in over a year and no merchant clans are taking advantage makes me even more confused. I'll be keeping those in there until they sell because I calculated it, and if I sold for the price now I'd lose 60M. No thanks. I'll keep them in there for years if I have to. Why are they so low and staying there though?

 

Look at the GE graph:

 

This was a smart move considering what the graph looks like, the inflation from PVP and alching, the fact that thousands of herbs were turned into potions and the fact that overloads and extremes are wanted by players, but something completely illogical has happened and they've went way below and stayed there.

 

Can anyone explain? Because this defies all logic of inflation.

 

As I just mentioned in my other post on a different thread, raw materials are consumables in some senses.

 

But once we reach 13m XP, some of them just drop off the radar in terms of demand, meaning once we buy something in this sort of economy, we don't ever need it again. It's hard to apply real life economic terms to this phenomena within a video game, but some raw materials are durable goods- We use them right away, but we have their utility in our level forever.

 

Kwuarm is an example of this; Torstol is not, as people may need to make overloads for PVM even if they are 99 Herblore- they'll still spend the money for it. If this case, if anything, demand for torstol is going to continually go up. Hence, the current price of torstol.

 

But to answer your question, the reason most herbs took a pooper on their pre XP weekend prices is that most people wanting to get high herblore got it- demand tapered off hugely.

Or moar simple answer: Jeddyflex saw big up in price so they thought: AMG MERCH CLAN HIT THE DEFLATE BUTTON

[Danqazmlp]

As seen from the history, construction managed to be a quite successful money drain.

So one solution could be a release of some epic construction reward for 90+ construction that would force thousands of players

to go for these levels hence bringing millions out of the economy.

 

But ofcourse there are other way better solutions.

 

 

The problem is, Construction has slowly been made cheaper and cheaper to train. the same is with summoning. With the buy-back, reduced shard prices and Exp weekends, summoning probably costs less than 1/5 of what it originally did. Construction now has Sc hammers and exp weekends, which can reduce the cost up to 1/4 of what it originally was. They were great deflationary methods, but they are not any more.

[MerchantInTheDark]

I dount they want inflation, it'a a bad thing in every way. They have been adding money sinks, but not enough - Coinshare is a money sink, but things like PVP cash rewards GREATLY outweigh it.

[Assume Nothing]

I dount they want inflation, it'a a bad thing in every way. They have been adding money sinks, but not enough - Coinshare is a money sink, but things like PVP cash rewards GREATLY outweigh it.

 

Why is inflation a bad thing in every way? Why is deflation better?

[Zachneap]

I dount they want inflation, it'a a bad thing in every way. They have been adding money sinks, but not enough - Coinshare is a money sink, but things like PVP cash rewards GREATLY outweigh it.

 

Why is inflation a bad thing in every way? Why is deflation better?

its uneven inflation. some things are going up while others aren't.

 

It is similar (slightly) to if jagex updates weapons to deal damage in the hundred while not upgrading lifepoints.

[yuriqiu]

I dount they want inflation, it'a a bad thing in every way. They have been adding money sinks, but not enough - Coinshare is a money sink, but things like PVP cash rewards GREATLY outweigh it.

Inflation isn't a bad thing in every way. In fact, it is a basic macroeconomic law that higher inflation means lower unemployment (in the real world). In RS, this translates to higher inflation more methods to make money. The only way inflation becomes bad is if it increase to a hyper inflation where it becomes like Zimbabwe in the real world where inflation occurs at a rate of near 1000% per month. And that is only because inflation becomes extremely unpredictable and erratic. The way I see it right now, inflation is way less than what it is suppose to be. Prices for most items in rs should be way higher than what they are right now honestly.