Xaninum

In addition to almost everything already stated, I think a perfect RS world would include my main account being unbanned and the bringing back of unid herbs so I can merchant them again.

The problem lies in the fact that most of the wealth created in the game stays in one player's possession for way too long. It doesn't change hands. There's no "consumer spending" as its called in the real world. Players horde their wealth by purchasing armor, weapons, rares, etc. These items don't need replacing for a long time, so what ends up happening is that a minority of players end up with all the gp (those who sell the armor weapons, rares, etc.). What do they do with all this gp? Well, they try to spend it on other armor, weapons, etc., but the supply of such items is low as many players don't want to sell their only whip. So how do the wealthier players get that whip that they want? They raise the price, and thus is created the problem of high prices. The problem is essentially that a small number of runescape players, say 20%, control over 80% of the Runescape market. The actual numbers I don't know, but I do it is a minority amount. This leaves the majority, those who have less wealth, unable to purchase such high priced items. This is actually just one problem. Runescape's economic crisis, if you want to call it that, is a result of many different errors. I believe it's impossible to just pin the crisis on one, single problem.

For there to be inflation don't good have to become more expensive while gold remains at the same value? If more gold is coming into the economy and prices are going up too then it really isn't inflation. I don't think I ever called it inflation, and if I did I didn't mean to. Inflation is just a word people have tagged on to the problem. Yes, for inflation to happen gold has to be able to buy less, which means gold would stay the same and prices would go up. What's happening in RuneScape has is effected by two groups. The first group consists of wealthy players who are able to afford everything at high prices, and as long as they continue to do so, the prices of items will remain high. Which leaves the other group of lesser wealth players unable to afford the items. If money was taken out of the game some how, there would be less cash to go around, and therefore less money in players pockets, forcing prices to go down because nobody can afford them anymore. Think about it. When God Swords came out, who would be selling them for 100+ million gp if nobody could afford that amount? They sell for that amount because SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE can afford it. It might only be 1,000 of RuneScape's players, leaving the other 30,000,000 without God Swords, but the point is there is a buyer somewhere. Its like saying why aren't God Swords selling for 100 billion gp right now? Its because nobody could afford them if they were. Yes, God Swords would have still been expensive when they first came out because the demand would have still been high, but the prices of them wouldn't have been so outragous because the top 10% of RuneScape's richest players would have less money. It's almost the opposite of inflation actually. The word for it escapes my mind though =/

I think raw materials are a different story when it comes to high prices. Unlike expensive single items, raw materials are almost a necessity, which means that more players are willing to pay high prices for then. As long as there are players willing to buy raw materials at high prices, most other players would rather sell their high prices to them instead of a lower price.

Merchanting isn't the cause of RuneScape's financial problems. Merchanting has been around since classic, and it has never caused problems like there are now in the game. Over the years, more and more money has been created in the game through gp handouts and item drops, and not enough money has been removed. Eventually, like now, this super positive cash flow has created so much wealth in the game, that ALL players, not just merchanters, have driven there prices up because they know that other people can afford to pay it. The only fix would be to either lower the positive cash flow, or raise the negative cash flow so that two become equal.

Agreed. The GE should charge some sort of convenience fee (a certain percentage of the final value of the item) that should be paid by both the seller and buyer. Even if it was a small percent (<1%) , it would still make a difference because of the volume of trades that go through the GE. Is that before or after the PvP drops are changed to not bring in as much pure cash each kill? Because with the current system, 1% on each item will not do a single thing. Actually, 1% will do more than you think. Take for example, raw monkfish. Currently, there are 3.6m raw monkfish traded on the Grand Exchange. The raw monkfish fetch an average price of 589gp each. If a 1% Grand Exchange commission was charged per monkfish, that would bring the price down to ~583gp (589 x 0.99) each. This amounts to 5.89gp removed per raw monkfish, for a total of 21,204,000gp. That's 21 million gp removed from the game for just one item that is only mediumly traded. Multiply that number by thousands of other items, and you may begin to see the magnitude of such a commission. Oh, and by the way this happens each and every day. I personally think 1% is too much, but the commission rate shouldn't be set by personal opinion. Instead, it should be set to closely match the percent rate that money is being created in the game. This way, the money flow is being kept close to equilibrium. The only way this could be done however, is if Jagex used statistics to analyze the percente rate that money is being created, and the chances of them actually spending the money and effort to do this is a whole other story...

Wow. I couldn't have said it better. This describes my experience almost exactly. After the death of pking, the institution of communism(no free trade), and the removal of unid herbs, the game isn't worth playing to me anymore.

Merching Clans make their living off other people. Where do you think they get there items to sell? From people who sell their items at low prices. How do they make a profit? By selling to people who want to buy something right now, regardless of cost. If people weren't so desperate at times, and not desperate enough at other times, perhaps the clans wouldn't be as effective as they are.

I usually don't AFK when I play, with the exception of maybe fishing or woodcutting. All other times I would occupy my attention with conversations with nearby players :)

If you cause those who have money to lose it, the prices of every item will rapidly decline because nobody can afford them anymore, especially higher prices items. Once this happens, players will lose incentives to battle high-level monsters, as their drops are no longer worth substantial amounts of money, making those who already own the items so much more powerful because they have virtually "priceless" items. It wouldn't fix inflation, it would just cause a bigger gap as richer players turn their gp into items that hold their value, while poorer players who can't afford such items lose money.