Behind the Scenes - November 2013

[muggiwhplar]

I'm with Alg. The only difference is, I did quit playing because the grind expectancy is ludicrous.

[Lord Zophar]

I also agree with the idea that it is by no means 'expecting everything to be handed to them' if people find the prices pushing in to billions ridiculous.

 

I am by no means the best money maker in the world, but I do ok and my account is now approaching 10 years with near maxed stats. I've done my fair share of money making over the years, but I've never been a merchant or hugely in to pvm so I simply don't get to rake in billions with no effort. It took a concerted effort to save up for expensive skills and decent gear; and even now I'm nowhere near max gear really.

 

I dislike the element of the game where to really make money you either have to do masses of research and get deep into merching and price watching or be forced in to facing top end pvm regardless of how you enjoy it - especially as most of the top end to be done well requires you have the stupidly expensive gear in the first place. It's unbalanced and prices as a whole are distorted by too much gold being around.

 

This is why I am completely in favor of them introducing lvl99 gear obtained in a similar method as POP gear-- you combine a minigame with an abundance of high-level skills to produce the top gear. You can make slightly inferior gear to those obtainable through boss drops, but the best stuff should always be skills-based. Making it a boss drop ensures that only the obscenely lucky or those who have more money than they can spend are able to obtain it, until it is no longer relevant. It SUCKS to ALWAYS have second-rate gear in the game no matter how long you've played or how much time you've invested in the game, simply because you don't take part in the legalized scamming that is merching price manipulation or weren't in the right place at the right time.

 

Requiring 99 crafting and/or smithing to obtain the best combat gear still ensures that gear has an opportunity cost of several hundred million and dozens if not hundreds of hours of skilling, but the difference is that it is a REASONABLE goal. Many, in fact, MOST veteran players will probably NEVER obtain a max cash stack. Ever.

[Estoc]

 

 It SUCKS to ALWAYS have second-rate gear in the game no matter how long you've played or how much time you've invested in the game, simply because you don't take part in the legalized scamming that is merching price manipulation or weren't in the right place at the right time.

 

I'd love to hear how buying and selling items for profit is a scam.

[Yoko Kurama]

 

 

 It SUCKS to ALWAYS have second-rate gear in the game no matter how long you've played or how much time you've invested in the game, simply because you don't take part in the legalized scamming that is merching price manipulation or weren't in the right place at the right time.

 

I'd love to hear how buying and selling items for profit is a scam.

 

 

Most of the large profits are not generated through common-day flipping, but rather large-scale and highly coordinated buyouts and price manipulation. Even everyday flipping, it could be argued, adds absolutely nothing to the game. It's a non-productive activity, and really just exploits game-mechanics. It's a sad state of affairs in any particular game when the way to make money isn't doing quests, doing skills, engaging in any of the in-game content, but rather price manipulation, staking, taking gambles, or sitting all day at the GE, shuffling coins around and pulling accounting tricks.

[Lord Zophar]

 

 

 It SUCKS to ALWAYS have second-rate gear in the game no matter how long you've played or how much time you've invested in the game, simply because you don't take part in the legalized scamming that is merching price manipulation or weren't in the right place at the right time.

 

I'd love to hear how buying and selling items for profit is a scam.

A very small minority of players control the vast majority of wealth in the game. Because of that and a lack of proper fail-safes in the GE, it enables those people to completely absorb the supply of any big-ticket item. This is a scam because it artifically raises the price of items, making it so that anyone who wants to actually buy one for its intended purpose cannot unless they grossly overpay for it, and then a few days or weeks later the merchants all dump their items at the same time flooding the market and causing the price to collapse. Thus, everyone who bought one loses a considerable amount of value. It screws EVERYBODY except for the greedy douchebag merchants, who make out like bandits.

 

Here is how you (largely) fix this to keep it from happening:

 

For any item worth between 10m-49.99m, the buy limit is 1 per 6 hours.

 

For any item worth between 50m-99.99m, the buy limit is 1 per 12 hours.

 

For any item worth over 100m, the buy limit is 1 per 24 hours.

 

The sell limits for any items worth 10m or more would be 1 per hour and no more than 4 within a 24 hour period. Receiving more than 4 of the SAME DROP that are worth 10m+ in a 24 hour period is very unlikely. And if it does happen, well most teams FFA split now anyway so just trade one of them to somebody else to sell.

[Yoko Kurama]

Or better yet, a permanent limit. You can only own 2 or 3, maybe, sets of any high level items. One placeholder/spare, and one for regular use. That's it. You don't need any more than that.

[LogOnBeach]

Remind me to never vote for you two into any sort of position of power.

[Ammako]

If you really disagreed with their views, we wouldn't have to remind you. :P

[Yoko Kurama]

Remind me to never vote for you two into any sort of position of power.

 

I take it you're a price manipulator, or a sympathizer of some sort. We don't ever expect to court your vote.

[LogOnBeach]

I have 40k GP on my account right now. Far from a mercher or price manipulator or whatever names you have for them. I just see how ridiculous your opinion is.

[Yoko Kurama]

I have 40k GP on my account right now. Far from a mercher or price manipulator or whatever names you have for them. I just see how ridiculous your opinion is.

 

In that case you're a sympathizer, and of a particularly odd sort, the sort that has nothing to gain with sympathizing for a bunch of people who constantly make Runescape's economy a dread for most players for no reason at all.

[LogOnBeach]

Hah.

How am I at all a sympathizer?

 

How is the economy at all a dread for most players? If you want something you have to work for it, it is no different than real life.

 

Want that Lamborghini? Win the lottery, get a decent paying job, take out a huge loan, or invest your money wisely.

Let's make that an rs analogy.

Want that Party Hat? PvM for gp, skill for gp, borrow gp from friends, or merch the gp you already have.

[Hedgehog]

Really though if you play 4-5 hours per day, you shouldn't have any trouble earning 500m+ per month, just from killing frosts or something.

 

If you don't have money, it's because you haven't earned it.

[muggiwhplar]

Hah.

How am I at all a sympathizer?

 

How is the economy at all a dread for most players? If you want something you have to work for it, it is no different than real life.

 

Want that Lamborghini? Win the lottery, get a decent paying job, take out a huge loan, or invest your money wisely.

Let's make that an rs analogy.

Want that Party Hat? PvM for gp, skill for gp, borrow gp from friends, or merch the gp you already have.

 

Don't forget the opportunity cost of such endeavors. If I were to start pursuing max total or maxed equipment or anything, I would be sacrificing my real life income, fitness, and relationship goals in order to do so. As it's already been pointed out, the gap is growing quicker than I can reach it unless I dedicated a large portion of my time to RS.

 

 

Edit: Thank you Hedgehog for proving my point.

 

The defense rests, your honor. :D

[Hedgehog]

The amount of time you have to spend playing RS to compete with hardcore players is diminishing because of daily activities such as challenges and warbands.

[Fallstar]

If you want max total on RS you don't have to sacrifice any of those things. I have no idea how much max gear actually costs (or even wtf it is these days) so I can't speak to that.

[muggiwhplar]

How long would it take to max playing 1 hour a day? And how long would it take to buy max equipment playing 1 hour a day?

[Fallstar]

That first hour is extremely valuable compared to the subsequent hours you play due to the vastly disproportionate rewards dailies give compared to time spent. In modern RS you actually don't really hurt your ability to max that much by limiting yourself to an hour or so a day.

 

With good macromanagement of your time, I believe it is pretty easily possible to reach max total playing the game (i.e. not buying spins/bonds) in fewer than 50 days played starting from scratch. I don't know how close you already are.

 

I don't know what max equipment is or how much it's worth, so ask someone else for that. But again, you only have to invest time into the money making process up to a certain point. Once you have say 400M, you can make decent returns daily with negligible time spent.

[Lord Zophar]

Or better yet, a permanent limit. You can only own 2 or 3, maybe, sets of any high level items. One placeholder/spare, and one for regular use. That's it. You don't need any more than that.

The problem with that is what happens when you get drops? That's what I actually spent quite a bit of time thinking about when writing that post.

 

If someone has a virtus wand and a placeholder, and they get two drops in a trip (which has happened), now they have four and are no longer able to pick one of them up?

[Fallstar]

Or better yet, a permanent limit. You can only own 2 or 3, maybe, sets of any high level items. One placeholder/spare, and one for regular use. That's it. You don't need any more than that.

 

What if I like something and would like to collect a large quantity of that item. Precisely why do we need these restrictions?

[Miss Lioness]

 

Or better yet, a permanent limit. You can only own 2 or 3, maybe, sets of any high level items. One placeholder/spare, and one for regular use. That's it. You don't need any more than that.

 

What if I like something and would like to collect a large quantity of that item. Precisely why do we need these restrictions?

 

 

For it not to be hoarded, so prices drops and thus more accessible to the people who it's meant for?

[Platinum_Myr]

There is a difference between max levels and max gears.

 

But the items aren't hoarded necessarily. I mean if I had two virtus wands already I would just sell the new one. The issue is the super rare drop rate, plus the high wealth of the rich players that keeps the price up (and maybe their ability to merchant).

 

I wouldn't mind seeing GE limits longer than 4 hours for some of those high items so that they take more time to merchant.

[Fallstar]

 

 

Or better yet, a permanent limit. You can only own 2 or 3, maybe, sets of any high level items. One placeholder/spare, and one for regular use. That's it. You don't need any more than that.

 

What if I like something and would like to collect a large quantity of that item. Precisely why do we need these restrictions?

 

 

For it not to be hoarded, so prices drops and thus more accessible to the people who it's meant for?

 

 

If the price drops, that also makes the activity which gives the item less rewarding. The paltry sum you can make from skilling would become even more pathetic, the gp/hr from bossing would approach the skilling tier. Not to mention that if someone has the desire and means to hoard an item and drive the price up artificially... let them. The in-game economy is not, and neither it should be, something which is fettered with restrictions and regulations.

 

The price of an item should be based on the average demand of the entire population, not restricted to a certain range - which is the real terms effect of restricting access to items - in order to satisfy a certain entitled subset who feels they should be able to obtain the same things in game as someone who is willing to invest more into the game.

[helring]

If the gp/hour from bossing approaches the skilling tier then good. I understand that bossing should get more due to risk, but the amount more has really gotten ridiculous. Back when it was only barrows, things seemed pretty well balanced. GWD was really the first instance of bossing making obscene amounts more than skilling. Since then its just gotten worse and worse.

 

I have no issue with bossers making more. I do have an issue with bossers making such obscene amounts more. No item from a regular drop should be worth max cash. Skilling makes nearly nothing and yet instead of trying to fix that issue, Jagex keeps pumping out new bosses. There's no reason to come out with new bosses after vorago when vorago is still able to pump out so much cash. I'm glad they're considering skiller bosses, more ports stuff, and skilling rebalances but they need to bench Chris L for a while. Focus on the skilling aspects of the game that have been left so far behind.

 

As far as merchanting goes, I'm not sure what to do there. I agree that its not cool that people who aren't really playing the game can make such large amounts of money. However, I'm not sure that I'd agree with limits to the amount of items you can own. I wouldn't object to harsher g.e. limits though for how many you can buy and sell in a time limit though.

[helring]

 

 

 

Or better yet, a permanent limit. You can only own 2 or 3, maybe, sets of any high level items. One placeholder/spare, and one for regular use. That's it. You don't need any more than that.

 

What if I like something and would like to collect a large quantity of that item. Precisely why do we need these restrictions?

 

 

For it not to be hoarded, so prices drops and thus more accessible to the people who it's meant for?

 

 

If the price drops, that also makes the activity which gives the item less rewarding. The paltry sum you can make from skilling would become even more pathetic, the gp/hr from bossing would approach the skilling tier. Not to mention that if someone has the desire and means to hoard an item and drive the price up artificially... let them. The in-game economy is not, and neither it should be, something which is fettered with restrictions and regulations.

 

The price of an item should be based on the average demand of the entire population, not restricted to a certain range - which is the real terms effect of restricting access to items - in order to satisfy a certain entitled subset who feels they should be able to obtain the same things in game as someone who is willing to invest more into the game.

 

 

"in order to satisfy a certain entitled subset who feels they should be able to obtain the same things in game as someone who is willing to invest more into the game."  I'm sorry, but thats complete bs. The purpose of the g.e. restrictions is to limit the gain of those who aren't willing to invest as much time and energy. Merchants don't need to spend much time while flipping, they're not "investing more into the game" than the skillers grinding away on something or even the bossers. While I think some suggestions like the max item limit would do more harm than good, I don't think merchants add anything positive to the game, they're at best neutral and in many cases outright harmful.