Another in-depth look at the economy of RuneScape, carried out well by

 

 

 

you, duke. Alot of educated guesses and this time i read the whole thing

 

 

 

(i think it was the pretty little colours on the pictures :])

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It couldn't have been done by a better Runescape player of your stature

 

 

 

and knowledge of the market.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good luck with the future

 

 

 

Ex-Merchanter\Dueler-In-Training

 

 

 

Siao Mage

With a blue phat coming to 500M by the end of the year then less and less will be able to afford these prices. Many people either merchant or use slayer to aquire all there money and with the prices of whips dropping and d chains (they were at 23M yesterday from 25M a few days ago) less people will be intrested in slayer. So i suspect a large market for these will go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe it will lead to a small crash? I can't see any reason why there would be a big drop but i really can't see the prices at 500M. Mainly because its too exclusive. People have saved along time to find 200M for a blue p hat. The prices are leaving behind the people who want to buy them. There going up too high.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Duke it seems as if your expectations are based on a steady enviroment which Runescape is nothing like. Say a new update comes out that everyone has been looking forward too. Like POH's a lot of people are going to try and raise money for materials and not really be bothered in the market while the updates still new.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What i'm saying is that if runescape was steady your graphs would probably be correct. But we have to keep in mind the markets no where near steady.

The prices are current prices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Any future assumptions made are educated guesses and with the release

 

 

 

of POH's (if any), you're right - the prices will deteriorate for a short

 

 

 

amount of time, but you know that everyone with a flash house has a

 

 

 

flash hat :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My comment is biased btw... ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ex-Merchant\Dueler-In-Training

 

 

 

Siao Mage

nice article, but i thought that at one point back in 2004 around november kind of time i would guess, white party hats were selling for more than blues. I'm probably wrong but i am sure this was the case as at the time i remember white being the most expensive at 12 mill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

anyways yeah nice article, very interesting and it must have taken alot of work :)

i cant believe.. i have been so unlucky..santas never jumped up alot so i bought blue mask 5,5 mill... some players buy them for 6,7 mill! man im keeping my mask!

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nice article, but i thought that at one point back in 2004 around november kind of time i would guess, white party hats were selling for more than blues. I'm probably wrong but i am sure this was the case as at the time i remember white being the most expensive at 12 mill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

anyways yeah nice article, very interesting and it must have taken alot of work :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm fairly certain that when white's were 12mill, blues were at 16-18mill before rising to around 20mill, i may be wrong tho..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on topic, great read Duke. Since starting my new character i havent bothered merchanting like i used to, but i remember making easy profits buying santas for 150k and selling for 200k. :D

Duke it seems as if your expectations are based on a steady enviroment which Runescape is nothing like. Say a new update comes out that everyone has been looking forward too. Like POH's a lot of people are going to try and raise money for materials and not really be bothered in the market while the updates still new.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My expectations are not including speculation on updates that you have idea about how they are gonna work indeed :P. Plus, I've said in the article that the predictions may be off a lot if Jagex does very important updates with large consequences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The argument that people won't be able to afford them at 500mil is not very rational though. People say similiar things now, said similiar things when they were 100mil and when they were 50mil. Point is that rares will always go up on the long-term by consistent game mechanics. They have no limited price ability (yeah the sky really is the limit in theory ;)) - there may be some point where they would slow down with going up, but with people currently making 1mil / hour with runecrafting (slayer has become relatively unimportant), I think we are far away from reaching such a point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What i'm saying is that if runescape was steady your graphs would probably be correct. But we have to keep in mind the markets no where near steady.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite various important updates like slayer, barrows and other things that boosted the economy, I've always said that the total gp ingame and the huge inflation caused by that is a much more important factor on the long-term. Slayer and barrows only created an early peak, after which the prices went up a little more slowly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the gp creation ingame is a pretty steady trend, we should have a pretty steady trend in the phat prices on the long-term as well, providing no important changes regarding gp creation (and no huge changes in the demand of phats) happen. Luckely I already wanted to show the following graph anyway, which shows that very clearly:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/ ... fphats.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, you can practically make a straight line of the phat prices since the rock bottom of the rs2 depression, if we don't take the normal graph of phats but the logaritmic graph.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

redserpent4 - I'm totally sure that whites were never worth more then blues, neither before nor after the dupe. :)

Wow very nice I liked the graphics nice work, and my guesses on rares left were similar to yours I can see :D Nice Wok! 8)

Very nice work Duke. :)

 

 

 

Looks like you put alot into those graphs.

 

 

 

I've been hearing that alot of people who are quitting are alching their party hats. :?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The argument that people won't be able to afford them at 500mil is not very rational though. People say similiar things now, said similiar things when they were 100mil and when they were 50mil. Point is that rares will always go up on the long-term by consistent game mechanics. They have no limited price ability (yeah the sky really is the limit in theory ;)) - there may be some point where they would slow down with going up, but with people currently making 1mil / hour with runecrafting (slayer has become relatively unimportant), I think we are far away from reaching such a point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phat sets currently go for a little more than 500M now if i'm correct. Yet if we had a figure of how many active people had a phat set then that would be a very low figure. Blues if they hit that price would be in the same situation. I have no doubt they will keep rising but i really can't see the market that there is for them now, which in reality is a minute one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It can take up to a few days to sell a blue at 200M. And at 500M the sellers would have a very hard time. Making them sell for less? Maybe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think its fair to say that the updates such as slayer fuel the rares market and really when the market for slayer was new we saw an increase in phat prices. Becuase more had the money. But how many new skills can continue to fuel the market?

What are the latest holiday items that are tradeable?

Great article duke. Damn its painful to be reminded of the p-hat dupe though, I made ALL the wrong moves. I thought jagex would have reversed it some how so I didn't take any part in buying or selling p-hats during that time. The dupe also meant my green phat went from 6mil to like 100k.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just think how rich you could be if you could go back and make all the right moves. :(

People who are saying prices will not be able to be reached, you are wrong. There are many millions of gp pouring into runescape per week. It may not seem like it, but think:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

D armor is being spawned at massive rates now, and people know where to get them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barrows Armour is being obtained more and more, as more people are getting stronger every day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alchers can alch millions a week if they try, and there are thousands of alchers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Free worlders sell things and add millions of gold in the game a day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All of these things mean one thing: More money is obtainable, and more people mkae more moeny every day. Sure billions probably got banned with the megaban, but that is being made up for very quickly. People wil be able to afford Phats even at 500m. Merchants make millions a week, some merchants already have over 500m.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the market in runescape will crash whne they get that high, theres no doubt about it. The Phats will keep rising, more and more people are going to start saving up money for them, and less people will buy things, and more will sell. This will eventually lead up to so much more supply then demand, the prices on everythign will rapidly drop, leaving everything in the main money skills worthless, and then phats will drop, because noone can sell, becuase no one has the money. And then everything will start over. It's unavoidale unless people stop buying phats now. Which will not happen. So the market will eventually crash no matter what.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another theory could be a market horde, where anyone with a phat will be bale to control the markets, getting everything, and eventually putting everyone but themselves out of business. EVentually with this, the same outcome will happen. Noone will be able to buy, because noone was able to sell anything, and the market will yet again rapidly lower, leaving everythign to start over, with nothing left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you think about it, the second theory would be worse, because then everyone would ahve to remake money, or jagex would ahve to distribute moeny and then start over, unlike the first, which everything wuold just reset, and phats would end up worthless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another outcome of this could be a merchant market, where they sell between each other, and all of us who are not rich from pahts will suffer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOTE: THis does NOT mean that this will happen soon. This may happen when phats are at 500m or 2b, noone knows.

Loved reading every minute of it. You write some great material Duke. Loved the graphs as well, but I don't agree with your prediction for the future prices of some items, especially over such a short space of time. I think there are too many unaccountable factors to make an accurate guesstimate. And judging by the previous price rises... excluding the craziness of p hat exponential rise in the last year, the majority of increase has suffered so many setbacks it always seems to rise more linearly than exponentially.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~Ian

very well written i hope that the market will reset because prices can be set again like cosmics wich went up to 100 gp each less money is good for the economy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

oh well back to saving up moeny for a green mask

:shock:

 

 

 

Phat price

 

 

 

 

 

 

Graph of a exponintal equation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Runescape is gona need more money to keep up with this.

I really enjoyed reading this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good article on the economy, i'm sure many others enjoyed reading it too since everyone has an interest in "money" on Runescape.

Nice article Duke. I agree that phats are going to go up abit and I won a purple party hat myself. But I also think that if phats reach 500m per that hardly anyone is going to buy them ,maybe around 100m-150m would be a reasonable price. I think people will realize what is reasonable and whats not. My opinion is the same as Shiny Blades :D

Just think how rich you could be if you could go back and make all the right moves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hehe... I have; and it's very depressing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And to the guy who wanted to know how it was done, and also to the guy who said only pinks were "duped".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I say "duped" because to dupe implies you start with one and make it into two. It was done by pulling up a trade screen, and adding any nonstackable into the trade window with a hex and then changing its value to 0. Messed with the server or something and made it think you had one when you didn't.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That my understanding, could very well be wrong. But I do know for sure it wasn't just pinks being "duped".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~Dave

Wow very informative page. Thanks Duke for the tip. :)

one thing that i think is funny is that noone is asking about

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will merely state my own guesses here, without explaining why I choose these numbers

 

 

 

not like i have it out for Duke Freedom.. but if r2pleasent had written the article people would be flaming him to death for that. i do understand that you probably have a legitimate method for those numbers, possibly forming a theoretical equation to fit the data then solving for the quantity; the general equation being c*e^kt, and k would change with the quantity of rares.... erm but the point is that explanation would take too long and that's probably why you didn't include it. but i thought i'd point it out anyways. i'm still kind of curious about that though, if you don't mind wasting your time explaining here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

anyways, good article as always.

W000t very nice Duke, I love reading things like this. :D

i do understand that you probably have a legitimate method for those numbers, possibly forming a theoretical equation to fit the data then solving for the quantity; the general equation being c*e^kt, and k would change with the quantity of rares.... erm but the point is that explanation would take too long and that's probably why you didn't include it. but i thought i'd point it out anyways. i'm still kind of curious about that though, if you don't mind wasting your time explaining here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be honest, I based the numbers mostly on my own experiences of rares over the year I actively merchanted the most (which was from the start of rs2 to roughly one year later). I have traded with tons of rich other players in that time and have seen the necessary things to end up making some of my conclusions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also did some extensive research to the estimated total value of the rares market on the estimated total gp ingame at various dates, which I roughly believe to be a constant. With the numbers I gave in the article, this somewhat seems to be true, making the numbers more likely to be true.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the smaller rares, I assumed that their total market values (thus number of the rare * the price) would be quite similiar as well (as it are practically the same type of rares: you can't wear them, they only cost a lot of money because they are a rare).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also note that this is an estimate of the total of the rares ingame though. Many of the 500 estimated phat sets may never be sold once on the market in the comming year; the total of rares in circulation at any given time is much lower then the numbers I gave.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So there's no formula ;), it is mostly a conclusion of my own observations with several reasons for why I think these numbers are about right. Like I said in the article, people are free to disagree with them though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think there are too many unaccountable factors to make an accurate guesstimate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I believe in the article I said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personally IÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢ve always disliked giving future predictions and refrained doing so. There are so many factors involved with the price development of rares that itÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢s just not funny anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:P

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

excluding the craziness of p hat exponential rise in the last year, the majority of increase has suffered so many setbacks it always seems to rise more linearly than exponentially.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did you take a look at the logaritmic (thus exponential) graph of the phat prices though? You can nearly draw a straight line over the real fluctation, for example, take a look at this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This does show that rare prices develop exponentially rather then linearly.

Blue masks are being sold at 10m! I only bought one two days ago for 6.5m... :shock:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the article. Think I should keep hold of the mask?