I'll probably stop posting as much when I move back to Japan, but until then....

I posted this discussion on the RSOF (QF: 188-189-920-61079274), but it's difficult to get a great discussion going there at the best of times. So here's a modified post concerning inflation.

 

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Summary: Rational ideas and discussion about inflation in the Runescape economy, and possible ideas that could help remove large amounts of coins from the game to counter that inflation.

 

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Let's ensure everyone understands a money sink's purpose (from my point of view):

 

Gold coins come into the game either with alchemy, selling items to the stores, drops, PvP statuettes, etc. Coins leave the game in a variety of ways: buying from stores, construction (and summoning), loss from death, players quitting, bans, etc. Coins DO NOT enter or leave the game through player trades, it just changes who has it. As more GP enter the game, it loses value in relation to other items so over time it takes more and more GP to compensate (prices rise). Yep, gp is affected by supply and demand just like any other item.

 

A money sink are the things that remove GP in the game to help keep the value of GP higher in relation to the items you use to buy items. Some are fast, some are slow, some are one time things. To be effective in a MMORPG the sink must be varied and useful.

 

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What follows are not only my ideas, but the ideas of others as to what can be USEFUL and EFFECTIVE money sinks in the game of Runescape. Please debate and discuss the merits of these ideas, in addition add your own.

 

1. Grand Exchange Consignment Fee - A consignment fee in real life is charged by a store that sells your items for you. Mentioned in other players, this can be a 1% to 5% fee on all PURCHASES through the GE. Has minimal impact on the casual trader, though it will have negative impact on merchanter profits though some see this as a positive. For example, in the last 30 days (as of this post) a 2% tax on just the top 7 traded items (Maple, Feather, Willow, Fire, Air, Nature and Pure essence) would have removed 12.7 billion gp from the economy.

 

There are some variants on this. Due to lack of decimals in prices, it might be wise to only apply a consignment fee on purchases of 1k gp or more.

 

2. Regal Clothing - a merging of Construction, Crafting and Smithing concepts. Players use expensive construction items in addition to create "Regal Clothes". Similar to the GP Banner, it's a way to let players wear wealth and show it off. Ex: Regal armor taking 5 magic stones to make would cost almost 5 mill gp. Deity helm taking 10 gold leaves and 30 magic stones would cost, well, over 30 mill gp. These will high alchemy at 3/5th the cost to make to limit the low end of their value. There can be variants such as tradeable and untradeable items. Downside is it's a toin coss if these would even work with players' egos.

 

3. Tombstones in PvP - This could be a big money sink in my opinion. When a player dies on PvP worlds, near his respawn is the Angel of Death that will sell the player back all the items he would have lost normally. The cost is the high alchemy value of his items (in addition to 3/5 of all the gp carried) + 76k gp to account for the EP cost. Players will not get back items that their killer was able to obtain as a drop (is that BH worlds only?). The downside to this idea that commonly lost PvP items are re-obtained.

 

From my understanding, such an idea would mean much more expensive items will be used in PvP battles, as they won't be lost to the ether on death. That 30 million gp Godsword can be retrieved from the AoD for a few 100k gp instead. If that's bad a variant is possible where the player pays 3/5th of the GE value of the potentially lost items. Yeah, that 30 million gp GS now cost 18 million gp to retrieve so one is not as likely to risk it in PvP.

 

4. Tombstones in Wilderness (non PvP) - Plays on the idea above for normal servers to add a stronger danger/risk to wilderness and select boss areas. When player dies in these areas, they cannot re-obtain the items from the tombstone (though it still saves them). Player must instead pay the Angel of Death at his respawn spot the high alchemy value of his loss to get his items back. Downside is this WILL NOT be a very popular update.

 

Variant: Angel is there for all players, though in non-Boss/Wild areas they only have to pay low alchemy values or they can go back to their tombstone and get it on their own. Ie this is a lazy persons pay out to save a trip.

 

5. NPC Runners - replicates the runner experience before trade caps (are runners still used with junk trades?). For example w/ Runecrafting, NPC's are placed at Rune altars that charge the multi-craft profit of the rune at the altar to unnote essence. This changes daily based on current GE value. Ex: At the nature altar, the NPC charge 490 gp to unnote each essence, while at the law altar, the NPC would charge only 296 gp. This is because some players can make 2 natures but no one can make 2 laws. The downside is that fast skilling can return like the time of runners before trade limits. May need to be added to key areas where player runners were actually used. Will have a major impact on prices.

 

Variant: Put skill level limits on NPC's. Could be attached to the servant function of Construction.

 

***Other Poster's Comments****

 

1. Ring World (pg 1, post 6) - Suggests that great dungeon entrance fees and transportation costs would be a good money sink.

 

2. IIOxII (pg 1, post 12) - Suggest a GE tax on bulk trades only would be better.

 

3. TS_Stormrage (pg2, post 24) - Suggests a GE Tax is bad, and that limiting influx of gp is better. Ex given is dungeoneering that is a non-gp producing activity.

 

4. Neohero1972 (pg 2, post 28) - Suggests that Jagex offer its own items on the GE as a money sink (this is repeated by others in the thread).

 

5. Nukemarine (pg 3, post 49 - Compares 6 month prices of high trade and high value items, which meshes with see_all1 and Bladewing suggestion that the economy has stabalized.

 

6. Mungunge (pg 3, post 61) - Suggests dynamic moneysinks, such as paying for power/speed bonus for combat and non-combat areas of training.

 

7. Lep1423 (pg 5, post 89) - Suggests a lottery with a .5 payout. Led to me suggesting a gambling hall at the game room

 

8. Nukemarine (pg 5, post 96) - Suggests a gambling hall at the game room. Would include wheel, dice, cards, and other various RS centric games of chance. Limited amount of credits to play can be bought per day.

I have nothing to say besides how brilliant these ideas are. :thumbup:

 

GE tax should have existed from the start.

tbh i hate all of them.

 

Stuff i would like, raise fees to get into dungeons or raise costs for transportation.

 

Simple and effective.

 

Work with me here. What is it you don't like about what I listed?

 

About your ideas, are we talking a 1000 gp to enter a dungeon that nets 10k gp at the minimum inside? What do you mean by transportation costs? Look at the tip.it page on transportation, it's huge covering all manner and mode of transportation including dying. I honestly don't think a reasonable increase in cost of either that'll draw out the billions that enter the game on a monthly basis.

I have nothing to say besides how brilliant these ideas are. :thumbup:

 

GE tax should have existed from the start.

 

I'm torn on the decision of actually supporting huge money sinks like this being added, but if they did add them, I like these.

tbh i hate all of them.

 

Stuff i would like, raise fees to get into dungeons or raise costs for transportation.

 

Simple and effective.

 

Work with me here. What is it you don't like about what I listed?

 

About your ideas, are we talking a 1000 gp to enter a dungeon that nets 10k gp at the minimum inside? What do you mean by transportation costs? Look at the tip.it page on transportation, it's huge covering all manner and mode of transportation including dying. I honestly don't think a reasonable increase in cost of either that'll draw out the billions that enter the game on a monthly basis.

 

Mmk i shouldnt have said i hate all of them, but heres my opinions on them. Ill number my opinion in the same order as the money sinks you proposed.

 

1. GE tax would kill the economy, a lot of people would avoid the ge, making street prices for common items making EVERYONE not just party hat owners reliant on junk.

 

2. Good idea nice OPTIONAL money sink for those who can afford it. I dont know how popular it will be but i like this one.

 

3. Good idea as well except it kinda takes away from the danger of pking, and different street prices then ge prices can make some people loose less money then they would have if they lost the item and had to buy a new one. I like this one too though

 

4. Tombstones are the replacement for friends being able to pick up your items. Since pvp you lose everything if you die anyways it makes sense to have an option to save something at a price... this however is like a GE tax, it would make the game harder and its not optional since death happens to everyone.

 

5. NPC runners can break the game for runecrafting. How many runenrs would someone get, how much xp per hour would they deserve. Should they be allowed to profit and get good xp still? plus NPC's running for you would kinda break a skill like rc. Its good for construction (my butler works his ass off when im training ;) ) but not for runecrafting.

 

 

And for my idea, think brimhaven dungeon its 850 gp. That was a lot more when the dungeon first came out then it is now. I think it should be bumped up to 8.5k.

 

Transportation would be like ships to karamja or charter ships. i think 10x higher cost would draw out considerably more amounts of money.

 

I don't think increasing the price of transport would solve much, remember there's plenty of ways to by-pass having to travel by ship. It would only affect the low-mid players who don't have access to other means. Also, there's not a very large percentage of player population who actually use the brimhaven dungeon, besides the fact that the drops from the dungeon itself cancel out the cost of entering.

A sink has to be forced for it to be effective. Or at least required for something very popular.

tbh i hate all of them.

 

Stuff i would like, raise fees to get into dungeons or raise costs for transportation.

 

Simple and effective.

 

Sorry, but I have to agree. A GE tax might work, but 1% seems a bit high; why not .1 or even .05%? The difference is that instead of 12.7B being removed, it would be 1.27B or 635m. However, compared to 0 gp, 635m is nothing to cough at. Sure, it would have a minimal effect on the economy, but you won't find many riots being held over having to pay an extra 50gp per dragon scimitar.

 

EDIT: I realize that fractionals would cause this number to decrease by a significant amount, but removing a couple hundred million per month still isn't to shabby

Mmk i shouldnt have said i hate all of them, but heres my opinions on them. Ill number my opinion in the same order as the money sinks you proposed.

 

1. GE tax would kill the economy, a lot of people would avoid the ge, making street prices for common items making EVERYONE not just party hat owners reliant on junk.

 

2. Good idea nice OPTIONAL money sink for those who can afford it. I dont know how popular it will be but i like this one.

 

3. Good idea as well except it kinda takes away from the danger of pking, and different street prices then ge prices can make some people loose less money then they would have if they lost the item and had to buy a new one. I like this one too though

 

4. Tombstones are the replacement for friends being able to pick up your items. Since pvp you lose everything if you die anyways it makes sense to have an option to save something at a price... this however is like a GE tax, it would make the game harder and its not optional since death happens to everyone.

 

5. NPC runners can break the game for runecrafting. How many runenrs would someone get, how much xp per hour would they deserve. Should they be allowed to profit and get good xp still? plus NPC's running for you would kinda break a skill like rc. Its good for construction (my butler works his ass off when im training ;) ) but not for runecrafting.

 

And for my idea, think brimhaven dungeon its 850 gp. That was a lot more when the dungeon first came out then it is now. I think it should be bumped up to 8.5k. Transportation would be like ships to karamja or charter ships. i think 10x higher cost would draw out considerably more amounts of money.

Ok, thanks for the lengthier reply. These I can respect. Ok, let's try this out:

 

1. I don't think it'll kill the economy for nothing else in that the GE is very convenient compared to Window trades. Remember before the GE when we had real merchants, the type that gathered items into bulk and sold for a mark-up? We bought from those guys to save the hassle of buying the same stuff cheaper from dozens of different players. Likewise, the average player will still use the GE even with a 1% to 5% mark-up because it's still the most convenient way to buy and sell.

 

3. Yes, it reduces the danger of Pk'ing. I had to note that can be seen as a problem, as one will risk 500k gp faster than one would risk 20 mill gp. On the other hand, people overall may be willing to then PvP more and remove more gp from the game. Consider, you're billionaire of sorts but even you don't want to risk 80 million of combat gear on a PvP server (what it is now). You're more likely but not as much if it cost you 3/5th of the GE value. However, you're really likely to give PvP a go if you're risking just the high alchemy value +76k gp (assuming you don't lag out and lose all your items that way, heh heh). It brings more players over to PvP and therefore increases the amount of money out of the game, even though the one time risks are lower (risk is lower, but attempts at risk are raised balancing it all out).

 

4. Yes, I posted such a thing would not be popular. There is a variant where the AoD is there as sort of a "let me pay you for my items instead of running back for them" lazy way out ie optional

 

5. NPC runners is replicating what already existed with Player runners. If you notice, I said the price to pay these guys are tied to the GE prices of the items you make, so you get no profit using these. In fact, as you're using essence (if runecrafting) that means you're losing money since you have zero profit from reselling the runes.

 

Again, thanks for you more lengthy response. I had to think about the replies which I like to do.

I don't think a tax will kill the economy for nothing else in that the GE is very convenient compared to Window trades. Remember before the GE when we had real merchants, the type that gathered items into bulk and sold for a mark-up? We bought from those guys to save the hassle of buying the same stuff cheaper from dozens of different players. Likewise, the average player will still use the GE even with a 1% to 5% mark-up because it's still the most convenient way to buy and sell.

 

So perhaps a tax on bulk trades only (such as 10k+ ores/logs or 100+ units of armour/weapons at a time) would work?

I love the idea of creating expensive untradeable items via smith/crafting, whether it be vanity items or untradeable armours and weapons. Like Ring World said it's optional, so haters have no reason to hate. It'll redistribute money from the rich to anyone willing to gather powerlevelling materials (since it'll require high levels in con/craft/smith/etc). And making materials buyable only from a NPC makes it a true moneysink. Might even make items like Bandos cheaper if the rich jump over to self-crafted items. I hope they implement this idea.

 

I really hate the GE tax idea though. I'm taxed enough in real life as it is :rolleyes:

1. We do not need a money sink - we are not experiencing inflation.

 

2. A GE tax would be pointless, since people would just stop using the GE, and you'd be back here whining about "omgf horders r hording".

I don't think a tax will kill the economy for nothing else in that the GE is very convenient compared to Window trades. Remember before the GE when we had real merchants, the type that gathered items into bulk and sold for a mark-up? We bought from those guys to save the hassle of buying the same stuff cheaper from dozens of different players. Likewise, the average player will still use the GE even with a 1% to 5% mark-up because it's still the most convenient way to buy and sell.

So perhaps a tax on bulk trades only (such as 10k+ ores/logs or 100+ units of armour/weapons at a time) would work?

Now that's an idea. Such a thing is true in real life with the US income tax. You have a certain amount below which you're not taxed at all. Ok, so let's say instead of a solid number of items, we go with the actual price of the trade? Any trades under 100k gp (just to say a number) are not taxed. So trades over that amount are likely bulk trades or higher level items.

 

If Jagex were really mean, they could also make a rule that trades in value OVER 5 mill gp MUST be done in the GE. Not fair given the bad way it moves the value of items, but very mean.

I agree with the GE tax, maybe that would help the economy stabilize a bit

I like the "luxury" tax idea on transactions over x gp. For those who worry that this would run people out of the GE, remember that Jagex could implement the tax on all trades, even ones outside the GE, like they did with price ranges. Also, I don't think that 1% would really be that steep.

Maybe the coin drops from monsters could be decreased by 20%; not too drastic, but won't upset too many players either and would slow the flow of coins into the game

Well, all the merchants do is buy things so that they can sell them at a higher price later. This doesn't contribute much except "let's make the price higher so that the person using the items has to pay more"

 

And then it's really a false increase in wealth since the more money you earn, the less it's worth since oh hey look all the prices went up for some reason.

Maybe the coin drops from monsters could be decreased by 20%; not too drastic, but won't upset too many players either and would slow the flow of coins into the game

 

Sorry but this made me lol, monsters dont drop enough coins as it is...And a vast majority of players dont even pick up coin drops....

The GE Tax is very nice idea, but I'm not sure how the rest of the Runescape players would react to the idea.

The GE tax is a TERRIBLE idea... And here is why:

 

Many people trade in the GE, but some people do not for the reason that the GE is too restrictive in its prices and the amount of a certain item one can buy... Adding another restriction will cause more people to trade outside of the GE, resulting in even more frozen prices...

 

People will always want more money.

 

Imagine filling up a carton (empty milk carton) with water. Water is money, and the carton holds the amount the total economy has. Poking more tiny holes in it to let the water flow out faster is not the solution if the carton is already overflowing (inflation). Instead we need to stop some of the massive ammounts of water from coming into the carton...

 

Since the PVP/Bounty worlds were updated almost a year ago to give statues and other items which are directly exchangable for money, rather then the items they gave out back then, items got rarer and money became more common...

 

Last haloween I wrote a Times article (link still in sig) with 4 suggestions (one implemented so far) how to stop money flowing into the economy so massively, and one of the major solutions I thought up was to change that PVP reward update...

 

Instead of statues that are directly exchangable for money, give out items that are either untradable, or 100% consumable. Such items that we have that are suited ideally for PVP rewards are Brawlers, Corrupt equipment, Ancient equipment (Vesta, Zuriel, Statius, Morrigan) and so on...

Items like Extreme potions are a perfect example of what can be added to such droptables; They are wanted by the PVP people, and have no net impact on the overall economy ...

 

I am not saying to get rid of Statues entirely, but the total value of the statue drop should be no more then twice the worth of the items that the person dying just lost in tradable items.

 

 

And finally;

As for money sinks, we just had a major one introduced in the form of... Dungeoneering... People spend hours and hours NOT making cash trying to get items that have negligible impact on the economy, of which some cost millions to keep charged!

And finally;

As for money sinks, we just had a major one introduced in the form of... Dungeoneering... People spend hours and hours NOT making cash trying to get items that have negligible impact on the economy, of which some cost millions to keep charged!

 

Oh really? How will less people doing TDs/Bandos/Armadyl help to keep prices low? Don't forget that a lot of the elite people doing dungeoneering are the same people that would solo bandos/TDs allday, i.eI bringing more items in the game, i.e. countering inflation.

The GE tax is a TERRIBLE idea... And here is why:

 

Many people trade in the GE, but some people do not for the reason that the GE is too restrictive in its prices and the amount of a certain item one can buy... Adding another restriction will cause more people to trade outside of the GE, resulting in even more frozen prices...

 

People will always want more money.

 

Imagine filling up a carton (empty milk carton) with water. Water is money, and the carton holds the amount the total economy has. Poking more tiny holes in it to let the water flow out faster is not the solution if the carton is already overflowing (inflation). Instead we need to stop some of the massive ammounts of water from coming into the carton...

 

Since the PVP/Bounty worlds were updated almost a year ago to give statues and other items which are directly exchangable for money, rather then the items they gave out back then, items got rarer and money became more common...

 

Last haloween I wrote a Times article (link still in sig) with 4 suggestions (one implemented so far) how to stop money flowing into the economy so massively, and one of the major solutions I thought up was to change that PVP reward update...

 

Instead of statues that are directly exchangable for money, give out items that are either untradable, or 100% consumable. Such items that we have that are suited ideally for PVP rewards are Brawlers, Corrupt equipment, Ancient equipment (Vesta, Zuriel, Statius, Morrigan) and so on...

Items like Extreme potions are a perfect example of what can be added to such droptables; They are wanted by the PVP people, and have no net impact on the overall economy ...

 

I am not saying to get rid of Statues entirely, but the total value of the statue drop should be no more then twice the worth of the items that the person dying just lost in tradable items.

 

And finally; As for money sinks, we just had a major one introduced in the form of... Dungeoneering... People spend hours and hours NOT making cash trying to get items that have negligible impact on the economy, of which some cost millions to keep charged!

I reread your article, and while it was well written I don't agree with it in whole (mainly about CoinShare adding to inflation when it took from it in reality). If I recall, that article may have gotten me to think of some of the things above.

 

Anyway, first things first: I honestly think High Alchemy brings in more gp into the economy than PvP. Now, Jagex can be the only ones to answer this with certainty, so let's not argue too much on this. However, if it is alchemy, then a GE tax does help that situation. In addition, creating NPC runners at rune altars could also help as at least 600 gp (at double current nature price) per essence crafted leaves the economy. Obviously only level 92 runecrafters would use such runners so it's not an overflow. Then there's the Jagex being very mean option and changing alchemy so it only works on non-stackable items. That would add a lot more time to process (in reality, only encourage more players to bot).

 

Now, let's say PvP is the other big culprit (very likely with ease of EP farming). Again, the idea of buying back equipment that would disappear on death makes for a useful solution but doesn't stop EP farming. It does sort of in that more players would PvP making the worlds a bit more dangerous. Now, I did post a discussion and suggestion about that How to stop 76k'rs last year but only thing I saw was Jagex putting a penalty on teleporting and finally implementing an autoskull (something I suggested for PvP everywhere way back in Dec. 06 PK Anywhere, point 4). The idea is get more players on to PvP that are willing to kill each other while having something to lose.

 

The main reason I think Jagex should concentrate on PvP as a useful money sink is that players want to kill each other and are not as reluctant to die there. Instead of forcing compliance, there you can encourage it by tweaking it. The GE is another as players can still trade with each other but it's way to easy to trade on the GE, hence a low tax would not stop them. It was the ham handed way they set price limits that opened the door to junk trading. I think idea 1 and 2 are the carrot approach even if it sounds like a stick and would show immediate benefits to the game, but also to the enjoyment of PvP servers.

 

PS: I'm not sure of the impact Dungeoneering has on inflation. Are the ones playing that non-stop the ones likely to be generating large amounts of GP in the game? Again, it's one of those things we can only guess while Jagex has the harder data.

The GE tax is a TERRIBLE idea... And here is why:

 

Many people trade in the GE, but some people do not for the reason that the GE is too restrictive in its prices and the amount of a certain item one can buy... Adding another restriction will cause more people to trade outside of the GE, resulting in even more frozen prices...

 

People will always want more money.

 

Imagine filling up a carton (empty milk carton) with water. Water is money, and the carton holds the amount the total economy has. Poking more tiny holes in it to let the water flow out faster is not the solution if the carton is already overflowing (inflation). Instead we need to stop some of the massive ammounts of water from coming into the carton...

 

Since the PVP/Bounty worlds were updated almost a year ago to give statues and other items which are directly exchangable for money, rather then the items they gave out back then, items got rarer and money became more common...

 

Last haloween I wrote a Times article (link still in sig) with 4 suggestions (one implemented so far) how to stop money flowing into the economy so massively, and one of the major solutions I thought up was to change that PVP reward update...

 

Instead of statues that are directly exchangable for money, give out items that are either untradable, or 100% consumable. Such items that we have that are suited ideally for PVP rewards are Brawlers, Corrupt equipment, Ancient equipment (Vesta, Zuriel, Statius, Morrigan) and so on...

Items like Extreme potions are a perfect example of what can be added to such droptables; They are wanted by the PVP people, and have no net impact on the overall economy ...

 

I am not saying to get rid of Statues entirely, but the total value of the statue drop should be no more then twice the worth of the items that the person dying just lost in tradable items.

 

 

And finally;

As for money sinks, we just had a major one introduced in the form of... Dungeoneering... People spend hours and hours NOT making cash trying to get items that have negligible impact on the economy, of which some cost millions to keep charged!

 

I'm inclined to agree with all of what you have said. I don't think tax will help the problem, it won't be a problem for players with a lot of money. Prices may increase to account for the tax. Players without a lot of money, like myself, will find it harder to buy items when the inflated prices are also taxed. Dungeoneering is one way of having players spend their time not generating gp. In the future I'm sure there will be a link between Dungeoneering and gp though, just a matter of time.

 

The supply of gp has to be decreased. So I propose a balance of restricting gp on one side of the equation but then giving something on the other side:

 

1) Less gp but MORE items dropped from monsters would help to decrease prices and deflate the amount of gp in existence.

 

2) A decrease in the amount of gp from high alching but perhaps a little bit MORE xp: so gp supply would decrease but at least we could get some more xp.

Hi

 

I think a think Jagex should start to sell items on the Grand Exchange and then destroy the money they make.

 

The items they should sell should only be consumables like food, arrows, runes and bowstrings.

 

They would ofcause have to make sure that they didn't crash the marked for a particular item by paying close attention to the quantity of an item.

 

I would imagine that they should be able to offer for example 10% of the total quantity of runes on sale at current market price without hurting the player merchants.

 

My suggestion would mean that we had a constant money drain from the Grand Exchange

any contruction update would be good, potential to take so much money with people training to get these items (planks take ALOT of gp out).

+ ge tax of 1% would hardly be noticable.

Why should inflation be countered? Inflation doesn't have a bad influence on the economy at all. I don't see why a moneysink would be needed at all. I'm not saying a moneysink would be a bad idea, but it isn't needed. If they want to add one, they should, but they shouldn't just do it to 'fix' something that isn't a problem.