Which Money Sinks Would Help Runescape Economy?

[Grimy_Bunyip]

We don't actually have any issues with inflation right now, so what's the point of trying to remove cash from the economy? It'll just make things worse.

dunno what other people said, but my reasoning is that it's very hard to take GP away from players

on the other hand, it's really easy to just add coin drops to monsters, and as rewards for quests/minigames and such

any opportunity to deflate the economy should be taken, because it can both be easily undone and gives game devs more liberty in update rewards.

[NukeMarine]

Not really related to this thread, but I'm really hating the term merchanting applied to these guys. They're speculators plain and simple. Merchanters bought low amounts for low prices from a large group of people looking for a quick sale and sold large amounts for a higher price to a small group of people also wanting a quick sale. It took time and effort and benefitted a large number of players. Such a player has not been needed since the GE opened.

 

Well, I guess I can relate it to the thread. Jagex can lay down the hammer and say: "All trades over of value over 1 mill gp must go through the GE." Just like they made exceptions with trade limits and friends lists, Jagex can also offer larger trading exception to people that are on each other's friends lists for longer periods of time (on the idea you're not likely to keep a guy added that's out to rip you off with trades). I can see such balanced trades going up to 50 mill gp or 100 mill gp as it is between friends.

 

Of course, if Jagex forces trades into the GE in such a manner, it needs to change how the GE moves it's prices. It's gotta get away from using only completed sales. I think the best is to let player's decide the price they want to sell and buy an item from. HOWEVER, a sale does not go through unless that sell price is in the 5% window. What that means is Jagex's computation now has an idea of where outside that 5% window people want to buy and sell to slowly move in that direction should sales not be happening inside the 5% window.

 

In other words, I can put a santa out there for 85 mill gp and someone can offer to buy it for 25 mill gp. But neither offer goes through while the Santa sits at 50mill gp and keeps trading at that value. If someone offers 85 million to buy a santa, he'll likely get a quick purchase at current 50 mill window. (numbers pulled out of my lower orifice so don't correct me on them).

 

Anyway, force trading into the GE, then tax trading on the GE, all of a sudden speculating has a cost involved and the ability to sell in a pump and dump scam becomes very difficult. I'm assuming that pump and dump rebound buys happen off the GE?

[reddawn509]

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

 

 

I am inclined to disagree with that statement. Around a year ago, whips were hovering around 1-2m, bandos was 15m a piece, and it was respectable to have 10-20m. Now, whips are ~4m , bandos is ~25m (which makes NO sense, considering that the amount of GWD traffic has increased probably tenfold) and if you have less than 10m you are a poor noob. I would say we are in fact experiencing inflation, but the same can be said about every MMORPG ever, because they have an unsustainable economy which is constantly pumping more money into the system. The only way to counter this is to implement gold sinks, which have proven quite effective in many games. I support it. The GE tax and untradeable armors sound particularly interesting.

[PenguinsLoose]

Why do people think that it is a good idea to control and manipulate the Runescape economy? This is what governments around the world are trying to do to their economies. How is that working out?

[Mugunge]

I didnt really like any of your ideas, except the one about PvP tombstones. As mentioned before, if you want to introduce a moneysink, it HAS to benefit the players, else Jagex will make a lot of people angry and ultimately, they only care about their players enjoying the game and paying for their membership, so they wont want to upset anyone by making changes 90%+ of players wont "get" anyway.

 

My idea for the ultimate moneysink is quite simple: Dynamic moneysinks. If we look past construction and summoning, one of the few successful ways that Jagex managed to remove gp from the game, was the barrows armor. It was new, had awesome bonuses, good stats and at the time, it was some of the best armor in the game. Lots of people used it and for years it served as a good moneysink. These days none of the armor is anywhere near as popular as it used to be, so that moneysink is no longer doing its job as well as it used to. This is why i want dynamic solutions, something us players will keep wanting to use, forever. Some examples:

 

 

Combat - Create npc's who can give weapons and armor temporary boosts, for a price. Combat is a big deal in runescape and it attracts people with a lot of gp, who are more than willing to spend it on temporary stat boosts, like potions. Jagex has pretty much failed to use this to their advantage, except for barrows armor and the new dungeoneering items. Having boosts, such as for example adding +20 to the maxhit of any weapon for 10 hours, will be very useful for players and it will always be relevant since all new weapons and armor can use it too. It wont end up being outdated eventually, like the barrows items or the dungeoneering items, when their time comes.

 

Non-combat - Speed increases. Let players pay for increase in speed. Such as crafting items fasters, chopping logs faster, etc. Basically faster exp for those who can afford it. However, it wont be a good alternative for those who dont have a lot of gp. The idea is that its meant to be an elite option, just like say, making mahogany tables instead of oak doors, when training construction. A lot more expensive but faster and maybe worth it, to those who can afford it. It will give those with a lot of gp more ways to spend them. This will again, always remain relevant, because no matter what Jagex adds to say, herblore, a pure increase in exp/hour will always be good and worth it, to some players.

 

 

These are just some ways that the idea of a dynamic moneysink can be applied. Even if they dont sound that great, i hope you get my point. Create permanent moneysinks that are attractive to players and applicable to all current and future content updates.

[Ex1le]

In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.[1] When the price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, annual inflation is also an erosion in the purchasing power of money a loss of real value in the internal medium of exchange and unit of account in the economy.[2][3] A chief measure of price inflation is the inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general price index (normally the Consumer Price Index) over time.[4]

(emphasis added)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation

 

Inflation does not have to be an increase in the supply of money.

In the equation I posted (that's pretty well accepted by economists), MV = PQ

 

That is to say, P = MV / Q.

IF (and this is a big if) the velocity of money and the transactions that occurred were held constant, inflation would exactly equal the change in the supply of money.

 

In the current economic crisis, its known that the supply of money has greatly expanded (and by some estimates tripled). Why haven't we seen inflation? The velocity with which the money is moving is practically zero.

 

We agree upon one thing: expanded money supply does not guarantee increased prices.

 

Inflation as defined on wikipedia and as given by yourself is the current government approved definition of inflation but it is still wrong. Go back into the past, pre-1990 and the definition of inflation is that of an expanding supply of money. The economists that use your definition of inflation (that IS most of them) are the ones that didn't see the collapse coming, they didn't see the problem of printing money. However, the economists that predicted the collapse (years in advance) provided the proper definition as I gave.

 

The end result here is that both of us are agreeing that an increase in money supply does necessarily equate to rising prices. At least in the short term. In the longer term, prices will rise from an increased supply of money. We have certainly seen inflation over our lifetime and will see it get worse for sure. Even from 2007 / 2008 until now I've watched prices of consumables rise, but on the plus side my gold is doing just fine. :-)

[NukeMarine]

Ok, let's say inflation is not occurring now. The economy stabilized thanks to some Jagex updates a few months back that balanced influx of Players (free and members), Items and GP. Are there any here that disagree with the idea that in the last two years of the game there was hyper inflation occurring? Because otherwise, that means that we have a stable economy, but two years worth of inflation skewed prices. As players mentioned above, this inflation that occurred means the reality is not that no one cares about gp drops from monsters. The amount of gp it takes to purchase effort has increased. The amount of gp expected to be earned for an hour's activity has risen.

 

So, even with a currently stable economy, would anti-inflation measures still be a bad thing to increase the value of gp with respect to trades in RS?

[Zepheras]

If inflation is 2% per year, it isn't a problem for active players. If you're worried what inflation is doing to the value of your bank, don't hold any currency. The player with 5 gp on hand in your hyperinflation scenario should immediately buy a shrimp, problem solved. For every day transactions, it doesn't matter if 35,000 gps buy a rune scimitar or 70,000 gps buy a rune scimitar, as long as it takes the same amount of time to get that rune scimitar.

 

You're not actually solving a problem at its root but providing an alternative way to bypass it. :rolleyes: In my exaggerated scenario you should be finding out why items have an extra zero added, not telling me to buy shrimps. I still want to use the Grand Exchange and GP to buy anything whenever I need to, not buy shrimps so that I don't lose any buying power and go around searching for people to trade my shrimps for iron ore one week later when I need it. Not everyone would be willing to, even if the value is the same. Good thing we aren't suffering from a hyperinflation, and you're not the guy coming up with a solution. :thumbsup:

 

 

Even if we aren't suffering from inflation, optional money sinks aren't a bad idea. NPC shops selling expensive items to drain GP off for those who have the GP can be a nice new content for the rich and powerful players.

[noble_aloof]

i like all of the ideas. something has to be done about inflation but i fear that if you take money out of the game some items will come down but rares will skyrocket even more because people will hoard them.

[sees_all1]

We agree upon one thing: expanded money supply does not guarantee increased prices.

 

My point in bringing all of that up is that if everything is held equal, and all players were given 100m in coins, nothing would change price. Experience weekend was a good example of this - everyone used the cash pile they had hoarded up, rapidly changing the dynamics of the equation MV = PQ.

The money supply didn't change, and I'll venture to say the total number of transactions increased only slightly. What does that leave? The velocity of money dramatically increasing (people opening up their vaults and tossing cash into the GE).

Since more money instantly started circulating, the only thing the price level could do was rise up, dP/dt was positive so there was short term, hyper-inflation.

 

 

As far as the real life situation goes, I think we've disproved Keyensian economic policy in a recession - governments cannot spend their way into a better economy. Trying to control the natural cycles of the economy Is like pushing on a rope. You can't change consumer confidence or make a bank more willing to lend by throwing money at them.

[A_Fiasco]

I'll admit now, I'm no Runescape expert, and especially no economist. Yet the tax seems to be the only serious way to confront the 'money issues' that is suggested, the others seem fairly minimal, yet I would prefer greater leniency with the Jagex staff. Since they try to control the market themselves, without being able to accurately predict the steps of those pesky manipulators, all in all money in the game is fine, after all the average player isn't so fussed that P hats are being hoarded or whatever, money sinks like Summoning and Construction serve quite well?

[Golvellius]

Things are balanced out now, don't touch anything.

[Yankee_Jr]

First like to say, really support the idea of tax on the GE. Have been involved in quite a few discussions on the RSOF about. But one thing that was pointed out to me quite early on is, introducing this tax probably wouldn't stop trade of a lot more commonly traded items. But smaller items, that aren't traded as much, may be seriously affected, to the point where maybe it is just impossible to buy.

On the other hand, these items becoming impossible to buy on the GE, might encourage people to buy more from shops, removing GP from the game.

Okay, I know this isn't exactly related because it isn't a money sink. But I think, as well as trying to create money sinks, why not try and remove or diminish the effects of the things that bring in money to the game. For instance, reducing the amount of money earned from PVP Statuettes, as these are what I think are bringing in most of the cash at the moment. Coupling more money sinks with reduced input could seriously combat the problem.

[Bladewing]

Some comments and replies I've seen seem to indicate the belief that deflation is a good thing. "You get more purchasing power with GP!" However, that encourages players to hoard piles of coins, rather than trade for items and act as functioning members of an economy.

 

Also to "whips were 1m a year ago": Does it matter if a whip costs 1m, and you can only make 500k an hour or if whips are 4m and you can make 2m an hour? Both take the same amount of effort to obtain.

[tortilliachp]

Some comments and replies I've seen seem to indicate the belief that deflation is a good thing. "You get more purchasing power with GP!" However, that encourages players to hoard piles of coins, rather than trade for items and act as functioning members of an economy.

 

Also to "whips were 1m a year ago": Does it matter if a whip costs 1m, and you can only make 500k an hour or if whips are 4m and you can make 2m an hour? Both take the same amount of effort to obtain.

 

very good and valid point:

 

consider rares. With general deflation, would partyhats, masks, disks, pumpkins etc. suddenly stop their weekly price increases? No, they'd be even more attainable for those without them at this moment in time. Would market value approach street value more closely? definitely. how would it all turn out? That's anyones guess.

[unjustblood]

Give me the GP, I'll hold on to it for ya.

[Ex1le]

My point in bringing all of that up is that if everything is held equal, and all players were given 100m in coins, nothing would change price.

 

As far as the real life situation goes, I think we've disproved Keyensian economic policy in a recession - governments cannot spend their way into a better economy. Trying to control the natural cycles of the economy Is like pushing on a rope. You can't change consumer confidence or make a bank more willing to lend by throwing money at them.

 

I think that people will spend their coins over time, they 'have' to buy logs or ores in order to level. So that free money will eventually inflate prices. Perhaps not straight from day one. I definitely agree with that final sentence.

 

 

Some comments and replies I've seen seem to indicate the belief that deflation is a good thing. "You get more purchasing power with GP!" However, that encourages players to hoard piles of coins, rather than trade for items and act as functioning members of an economy.

 

Also to "whips were 1m a year ago": Does it matter if a whip costs 1m, and you can only make 500k an hour or if whips are 4m and you can make 2m an hour? Both take the same amount of effort to obtain.

 

Yes, we want deflation. Look at the price of r2h when it first came out, or rather when it was first smithed. The original one was 1.3million gp (I think, need someone else to verify that). However, the hard work by people such as Bluerose and Musashi was eventually copied by others. The items became more common and the price fell. Something that was rare started to decrease in price as supply rose. This is good for an economy and good for everyone. Then when Zezima started to free smith some other high level smitheres started to copy, such as Whitemagem. Eventually Zezima succeeded (as he planned) to drive the r2h price to near its high alch value (where it is now). People will spend money because they have the money to spend. If Ferarris were so cheap that I could buy 3 for a 10 dollars I'd do it, demand will always be there and more so when items are cheap. There is no interest paid on hoarding coins in rs, so there isn't as much to gain from doing it as we would irl.

 

 

In real life it shows efficiency/ improvement in manufacturing. While only the richest kings in Europe could afford the best luxuries in the middle ages, such luxuries are nothing compared to even the poorest people in a country like the USA or UK. Improved technology and efficiency has driven everything to be cheaper and hence affordable for everyone, even poor people: quality of life improves for all. But we have to accept that items like an r2h or a computer will be expensive and unavailable when they are new pieces of technology. In our times of inflation everything is more expensive.

 

 

Rares in RS serve two functons: look cool and hedge against inflation. We can price a party hat in terms of gp or coal and still see that the price rises. So the inflation is with respect to an increase in the amount of consumables, ie everything that isn't a rare item.

[Bladewing]

There is real interest on holding GP during times of falling prices. I don't know how you could say otherwise.

 

Deflation is different than an increase in real income. Increasing nominal income by driving down price levels helps no one and hurts many.

[That_Brown_Kid]

make a hidden update where 1 gp is taken away from every single bank account every day. NOBODY WOULD NOTICE...then make another update which transfers every single gp to EMP_ITS_OVER's bank.

[Triquos]

Buying 99's is already a tax in itself. I don't support any g.e. tax either. Also the dungeoneering items require a few hundred thousand + dung tokens or 2M gp to recharge, and that is already a recent money sink added to the game. I don't see why all this tax stuff is necessary when it should be EASIER to get money.

 

Look at all the street prices, by taking more and more money out of the game it will only drive them up further, creating more demand. If money is easier to get, then they will drop down to their original prices. That's what happened with animal masks - the first items with street prices. At the time money was scarce, so it drove the invisible prices up. As soon as the RS economy was back to normal, they started dropping and people were able to snatch them up with ease. Right now it's back to the drawing board and they're hard to get again.

 

If anything, we need more money gains, not money sinks.

[xpx]

I havn't read most of the entrys on this thread but there are quite a few easy and effective money sinks that could be introduced...

 

1. Dungeoneering construction hot-spot needs 99/90 construction for an altar.

 

2. Make dragon bones be buyable quite like battlestaves are atm.

 

3. Substitute pvp monetary rewards for the exact same ge value(quite like MA) of unalchable raw goods like coal, herbs, dragon bones, flax and planks.

 

4. Currency exchange for coins->tokkul.

 

5. Make buying runes from stores(or a special store) worth it again, as it used to be at the start of rs2.

 

Also to everyone who keep saying inflation is not a problem, where the hell have you all been living? Prices are stable? In the last 3 years, bandos has gone up 3 times, all raw materials atleast 1,5 times while dragon bones have gone up 3 times. Divine/Ely are 500m+ and still above that in street. If there were no trade restrictions, max money wouldn't buy you a cracker.

 

Well, you might say that having more money to buy the same amount of items is ok, but since the gp stack limit is 2.1b, we'll all have half of our ge slots blocked in the future because of it.

 

Look at all the street prices, by taking more and more money out of the game it will only drive them up further, creating more demand. If money is easier to get, then they will drop down to their original prices. That's what happened with animal masks - the first items with street prices. At the time money was scarce, so it drove the invisible prices up. As soon as the RS economy was back to normal, they started dropping and people were able to snatch them up with ease. Right now it's back to the drawing board and they're hard to get again.

 

If anything, we need more money gains, not money sinks.

Quite funny to read this. :thumbsup:

 

Street prices exist because GP is undervalued and too easy to get. If there were more gp the street prices would INCREASE accordingly, but the ge wouldn't be able to catch up.

 

Now if GP was scarce, people would rather own it than those items thus they would sell the items in ge instead of items and the ge would be able to accurately reclect the price changes of those items.

 

At this moment, owning gp loses you money because gp comes in faster than the items it can buy.

 

Ok, that's an example of a great money sink. It was something players wanted to spend cash on to play. A GE tax actually is a tax on something that people WANT to use, the GE. If you don't like to use the GE for a 2% charge, then do it person to person and save your money. However, it's not something players will want to do since they're used to not paying a tax.

 

I understand the ge tax idea and how it would be a good sink but you are WAY WAY WAY too optimistic about this. 2%? That's ALOT. The best merchants would be happy to increase their money 2% a day, but this would just kill GE as it is used right now. Noone would use it for items worth more than 10m, getting the prices stuck, killing the economy. A reasnoble ge tax would go within the lines of 0.01% or so, which would still be a huge sink.

[NukeMarine]

Buying 99's is already a tax in itself. I don't support any g.e. tax either. Also the dungeoneering items require a few hundred thousand + dung tokens or 2M gp to recharge, and that is already a recent money sink added to the game. I don't see why all this tax stuff is necessary when it should be EASIER to get money.

 

Look at all the street prices, by taking more and more money out of the game it will only drive them up further, creating more demand. If money is easier to get, then they will drop down to their original prices. That's what happened with animal masks - the first items with street prices. At the time money was scarce, so it drove the invisible prices up. As soon as the RS economy was back to normal, they started dropping and people were able to snatch them up with ease. Right now it's back to the drawing board and they're hard to get again.

 

If anything, we need more money gains, not money sinks.

Buying 99 is not a tax as that's a player to player exchange. In addition, while paying to recharge degrading items (barrows, crystal, d'ng items) is a money sink it's a very slow money sink. However, you're understanding on supply and demand is completely wrong. There more cash there is out, the more people are willing to pay higher to compete to get a limited item. The more items are out there, the less cash people are willing to pay to compete for that item. Yes, treat cash like any other commodity especially in Runescape.

 

Here's what happened the last time a real money sink came into the game - Construction. People NEEDED gp, and a lot of it. No, not d. bones or santas or phats that people claimed were worth a lot of gp but actually gp that the game would let you buy other construction items. People that hoarded rares needed to sell them to people that had CASH and a lot of it. Guess what? Rares were going for a lower price to get the cash for the mad dash to 99 Constr. That cash left the game, and the prices of rares stayed low for a bit till more cash came back into the game thanks to players backing off construction (well, that and the enormous bot use appearing everywhere).

 

Ok, that's an example of a great money sink. It was something players wanted to spend cash on to play. A GE tax actually is a tax on something that people WANT to use, the GE. If you don't like to use the GE for a 2% charge, then do it person to person and save your money. However, it's not something players will want to do since they're used to not paying a tax.

 

Now, a PvP Gravestone option would really take out cash. I can't imagine a player that would not choose to do the payout option to get their stuff back. It'll be something players want to do, because they're used to losing all their stuff and having to resupply. Same would go with normal Gravestones having a pay out option especially in areas you're likely not going to get back to in time.

 

Yes, people are pointing out with supporting evidence that the economy is currently stable. So maybe messing with it in extreme measures might be a bad idea. I'm glad this info is out there so Jagex, should they actually read threads like this can make a decision formed in part by the opinion of their players. Doubtful, but you never know.

[Ex1le]

There is real interest on holding GP during times of falling prices. I don't know how you could say otherwise.

 

Deflation is different than an increase in real income. Increasing nominal income by driving down price levels helps no one and hurts many.

 

Nominal interest is not paid. The nominal amount of money in one's bank does not increase. Yes, if prices fall then a single gp has more purchasing power. That's simple. No dispute. But a short term fall in prices isn't going to last long in a market where monetary supply is increasing: ie the nominal amount of gp that people hold in their banks is increasing but the purchasing power of a single gp is decreasing.

 

I didn't suggest increasing nominal income to drive down prices. Infact, increasing nominal income is the opposite of what I'm saying. Prices of semi-rare items, like an r2h and other high level player made items, will fall in the long run as more items are made. That is normal in a healthy economy. An increase in money supply will not help to drive the price down but rarely act in a way to make prices higher. In the case of r2h, they were being produced a rate fast enough to ensure a falling not increasing price. Rare items prices, like party hats, will always increase increase in the long term because of increased money supply. That, we don't want.

 

For the system as a whole: we want less gp but gp of higher value.

 

 

Buying 99 is not a tax as that's a player to player exchange. In addition, while paying to recharge degrading items (barrows, crystal, d'ng items) is a money sink it's a very slow money sink. However, you're understanding on supply and demand is completely wrong. There more cash there is out, the more people are willing to pay higher to compete to get a limited item. The more items are out there, the less cash people are willing to pay to compete for that item. Yes, treat cash like any other commodity especially in Runescape.

 

I completely agree. Cash is just like coal but isn't so easily 'destroyed'. It has the added benefit of being universal, it is the only thing that can be traded for items on ge. A more advanced ge could perhaps allow the transaction of, say, coal for lobsters. Lobsters can be eaten, coal can be transformed into bars but gp generally tends to not be lost.

[stonewall337]

I don't see a problem with inflation. The market changes. Somethings are worth more, others less.

However, a money sink would be nice, just to get rid of so much floating GP.

[Bookworm911]

Just as a foreword I'd like to say I didn't ready past the first page due to time constraints.

 

Now for my opinion on these matters. I don't think any of the money sinks should be implemented. I have been playing Runescape for years, even back when the Wilderness was at its prime. For all of you who don't know, there is no inflation or whatnot. Everyone thinks prices are so high because not that many people nowadays played back when prices were pretty much the same. No one complained then. I remember when whips were stable at 4mil. I also remember buying my first Seercull for I think 2mil at the Camelot bank on World 2. Prices have gone through a huge fluctuation after the GE, Wilderness, and all these other updates and are finally returning to the level that they were at during the "Golden Days" as I've heard many a player that played back then call it.