Runescape Economy

[HELLA]

In 2008, the definition of a rich pure would be having 200M and probably only 1% of pures had this much. Nowadays, it's not difficult to find pures with over 1B and I'd say probably 30% of pures have around 200M (this may be a gross overestimate, if you disagree with me feel free to comment). This is called inflation, and it happens because there is a source of money going into the economy that is larger than the amount of money leaving. Runescape has always had this problem, in the early stages of the game full rune was considered rich. As more players start playing the game and getting gold out of it, theres more money floating around. Jagex compensated this by releasing new skills or making updates to expensive skills. Construction is a prime example of a skill that just soaks up money for little return. And with the overload, summoning, and curses updates, it is pretty obvious that they are trying to remove money from the game. Every player with overloads took ~200-300M out of the economy; the same is true for every turmoiler or high summoner. I only mentioned prayer, herblore, and summoning because those three skills along with fm and construction are the ones where it is essentially impossible to make money off of.

 

Unfortunately though, releasing those skills actually increased the rate of inflation for the economy. Each of those updates increased the need for cash, which was easily solved by the newly (as of 2009ish) improved bots and gold selling website. These bots had an enormous impact on the economy. Even if they were purchased legitimately all it costed was ~$10 to make 10M every single day. And if you did not want to risk botting on your account, the gold selling websites would be able to give you botted money for an all time rs low. With an increased need for rs gold, there was an increased demand for gold farmers of rs bot coders. Once free trade was re-implemented, buying/transferring gold was made so much easier. With free trade came the re-emergence of staking which allowed some players to bring in more money by a single player than ever before in rs. My favorite example of this is Win All Day, who could easily get 1,000,000,000,000GP. If you assume he can sell his gold at $0.50/Mill he could easily get over $200,000.

 

Another unfortunate backfire of Jagex's attempts to stop the inflation is what happened with the overload, summoning, curses updates. Each of these updates made killing monsters and getting money faster. Godwars, Tormented Demons, Corp, and now Nex were made much easier and more rewarding by each of these updates. Gold farming companies kill Nex on maxed mains to farm their gold. But I'm not saying Jagex should not have introduced these updates. The game needs to progress to keep its appeal and difficulty and attract new players. I'm saying that they could have done other things, like make the items untradeable or something else.

 

What concerns me is that not only will the inflation increase, but that the rate of inflation will increase. Aka, a graph of money over time would have positive curvature. Besides the obvious reason for concern (there being more money). This also will increase the distance between the rich people and the poor people. I believe this will lower the interest for new players to start playing rs, which will decrease the amount of players.

 

So yeah, just putting my thoughts down for discussion because I was bored woodcutting. Got 90k xp writing this. Agree/disagree/predict the future.

[aTommy]

i agree 100% jagex should have done something earlier to fix this..

[Feelthef1re]

I agree, there are so many rich pures out there these days. Back in the day when I started playing, I had 1m and I thought I was extremely rich. But now theres people with 100m+ and I'm embarrassed to say that I only have 6m and have never had more than 10m

 

I try to flip now but with only 7m it still takes a while to generate money. However, I see my fellow clan mates racking up 10m+ per flip while I only rack up barely 100k lol

[Kris]

I agree with this. But I think that so called new players will be challenged to get more money then another person. Because we're competitive in nature.

[Jet]

I remember clearly when full rune was considered rich. It was really rare to see it in f2p, along with anyone 100+ cb

 

So much has changed, I agree with you mostly. Free trade is the final blow that is really making the economy expand. Gold farmers make 10,000x more than what jagex removes from banned/reset accounts... Plus Jagex has most def made poor choices in the past, its simply way to easy to make money now.

 

 

Anyways, its an aging game. I feel like when Jagex finally finds a way to fix the economy - they'll pss off a shitload of loyal players much like they did in 2007.

[Skillzy]

Business Cycle :\

[Hugh]

Why does it matter?

[Jet]

Why does it matter?

 

Maybe your new to rs and haven't seen the way things have progressed over time, or maybe your just very un-observant.

 

Or you just don't have a big enough bank to see it the same way =x

[Celine Dion]

Runescape is boring now adays, thanks to this very fact. I remember when I use to pk a rune scim in f2p. Would be worth 25-30k and I'd be so happy.

[Beau]

The rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. I believe you are correct the gap between the have's and have not's will increase and the "middle" class will be completely wiped out. Jagex may need to take its company public in the future.

[Itz Nilton]

i have 300m so im average now. never botted or anything though.

[`Pure]

proud owner of way too much rsgp

[Keith]

I got like 1M. I rarely play and never botted. Most I ever had was 30M. I remember when I thought full steel was a lot. Definite increase in GP.

[Obbyz]

I got like 1M. I rarely play and never botted. Most I ever had was 30M. I remember when I thought full steel was a lot. Definite increase in GP.

"never botted"

[Obbyz]

Botters, botters everywhere. I wonder why game economy so inflated.

[konka]

The GE didn't help with inflation either. Merching pre-GE meant standing in World 2/6/9 with an auto-typer buying and selling. Now you can log in, put an offer in, once the item is bought put it back into GE and log out and it does it all for you.

 

You can merch, in between bosses / staking so the income is now double.

 

I don't really care about the inflation, I've got enough to keep me happy.

[M4G1CA]

In 2008, the definition of a rich pure would be having 200M and probably only 1% of pures had this much. Nowadays, it's not difficult to find pures with over 1B and I'd say probably 30% of pures have around 200M (this may be a gross overestimate, if you disagree with me feel free to comment). This is called inflation, and it happens because there is a source of money going into the economy that is larger than the amount of money leaving. Runescape has always had this problem, in the early stages of the game full rune was considered rich.

I agree that it is easier to acquire money now than it was a while ago. I attribute this to the sudden free flow of the billions of GP that have lied dormant in unwanted accounts prior to February 2011 and also to the very quick pace that GP can travel from one account to another through staking and trading. However, even more rapid than the increase of GP flow has been the increase of production of everything else. Lobsters at 100gp each, swordfish at 160gp just as examples (these are obviously the results of bots). Generally speaking, an inflation is defined as an increase in the price niveau of commonly traded items, so based on these statistics I'm not sure we can define our situation as such.

 

As more players start playing the game and getting gold out of it, theres more money floating around. Jagex compensated this by releasing new skills or making updates to expensive skills. Construction is a prime example of a skill that just soaks up money for little return. And with the overload, summoning, and curses updates, it is pretty obvious that they are trying to remove money from the game. Every player with overloads took ~200-300M out of the economy; the same is true for every turmoiler or high summoner. I only mentioned prayer, herblore, and summoning because those three skills along with fm and construction are the ones where it is essentially impossible to make money off of.

Just as clarification, paying for 95 prayer or 96 herblore doesn't remove GP, it simply passes it on to the next guy. Also, I don't think Jagex is having half the problem balancing the amount of GP coming in and going out (it's at a healthy level right now; remember, new active accounts require a higher quantity of GP) than they are having making sure that enough of the GP trickles down from the rich players to the poor noobs, especially now that bots have degraded typical money"making" methods in this game that once gave new players a decent amount to play with. One could argue that the high cost of dragon bones and herblore ingredients is doing just that, though, so perhaps it's less of a problem than we may think.

 

Unfortunately though, releasing those skills actually increased the rate of inflation for the economy. Each of those updates increased the need for cash, which was easily solved by the newly (as of 2009ish) improved bots and gold selling website. These bots had an enormous impact on the economy. Even if they were purchased legitimately all it costed was ~$10 to make 10M every single day. And if you did not want to risk botting on your account, the gold selling websites would be able to give you botted money for an all time rs low. With an increased need for rs gold, there was an increased demand for gold farmers of rs bot coders. Once free trade was re-implemented, buying/transferring gold was made so much easier. With free trade came the re-emergence of staking which allowed some players to bring in more money by a single player than ever before in rs. My favorite example of this is Win All Day, who could easily get 1,000,000,000,000GP. If you assume he can sell his gold at $0.50/Mill he could easily get over $200,000.

 

Another unfortunate backfire of Jagex's attempts to stop the inflation is what happened with the overload, summoning, curses updates. Each of these updates made killing monsters and getting money faster. Godwars, Tormented Demons, Corp, and now Nex were made much easier and more rewarding by each of these updates. Gold farming companies kill Nex on maxed mains to farm their gold. But I'm not saying Jagex should not have introduced these updates. The game needs to progress to keep its appeal and difficulty and attract new players. I'm saying that they could have done other things, like make the items untradeable or something else.

Yeah it's kind of funny how that worked out. People need a lot of money to fund their 95 pray/96 herblore? Farm the GP. Demand for supplies increase? Use bots to fill the new gap in supply.

You're right, this was obviously not Jagex' intention, but it wasn't really their fault. Like I stated above, they probably simply wanted more GP to trickle from rich accounts to newbies by increasing the public's demand for basic resources, what they didn't think about or didn't regard is that most of the demand would be neutralized with bots :whistling:. But you must admit, the updates probably did give a lot of newbies the chance to get out of the poor house.

 

What concerns me is that not only will the inflation increase, but that the rate of inflation will increase. Aka, a graph of money over time would have positive curvature. Besides the obvious reason for concern (there being more money). This also will increase the distance between the rich people and the poor people. I believe this will lower the interest for new players to start playing rs, which will decrease the amount of players.

I believe the gap between the SUPER rich and the rich will increase, but not so much the gap between the poor and the rich. There's lots of stuff to do in Runescape for a beginner, and without too much effort everything is affordable. Not everybody has an undying need for a partyhat or elysian spirit shield.

 

So yeah, just putting my thoughts down for discussion because I was bored woodcutting. Got 90k xp writing this. Agree/disagree/predict the future.

I find it sad that you find yourself in the need to justify a well thought-out and intellectual topic as opposed to the mind-numbing 3 liner posts that have become popular in these boards. Good topic, man.

[Furl]

who cares

[`kG]

Well this was expected, what im really concerned is Jagex's stupid ways of handling it like removal of Free Trade