Runescape Economy

[Elektrey]

Can someone explain the mechanics of the runescape economy to me?
As seen in the picture, rares are going up, but everything else is going down.
Gold is losing value so that explains the rares but why is armor going down? Is this the combined effect of botting+wildy? also it seems to be exponentionally decreasing in some items.

EDIT:Heres resources too

also going down, runes seem to have a bump in 30day avg but are going down daily-avg

 

[Demius]

It all comes down to simple supply and demand.

With the re-introduction of free trade, and because of the ever present bots, everything that is obtainable in game by botting will go down because the market is flooded with such items.

Bots however cannot 'bot' rares, therefore they will always be on the rise, as now less and less people will want to sell their rares. This will also continue into a vicious cycle in the future but right now we don't need to worry about that

 

[Tckr]

Well that was a lot of graphs but in every economy things that are made by everyone are going to go down.

Rares are always going to go up because there are no more being introduced into the game.

 

[Elektrey]

But can you bot Claws and Bandos armor? I know there are tokkul bots but what about gwd and such. how are more of those introduced?

also, will they ever stabilize or will bgs eventually become 1m?

 

[Emperor Nero]

Well, 1.

Don't stretch the page, it pisses people off - like me.

2.

The game produces Tokkul and Gold and the like items by spawning them after drops. They're are millions of gold going in and out of RS everyday, as well as all other Game produced items. The BGS could, in theory drop down to 1m if they're was enough of them pumped into the economy but considering they are somewhat difficult to get they're will never be enough to drop them below 1m. The economy is always in fluctuation and is always in a constant state of change - so stabilization is a term that I would use loosely because nothing is every absolutely stable. It would be a stagnant market.

 

[Elektrey]

Sorry about that, I should have resized it, it didnt seem too stretched at 1920x1080

But if it keeps going down, what keeps it from staying at a price?
I mean, theres no way to lose those items, except dying without anyone near, dropping with no one picking up or just quitting. so theoretically it will always drop? only thing driving price up is demand, right?

 

[Elektrey]

Sorry about that, I should have resized it, it didnt seem too stretched at 1920x1080

But if it keeps going down, what keeps it from staying at a price?
I mean, theres no way to lose those items, except dying without anyone near, dropping with no one picking up or just quitting. so theoretically it will always drop? only thing driving price up is demand, right?

 

[Scottay]

Huge images

The only thing that comes to mind for me why this is happening is due to the fact so many people are resorting to buying gold. After the first time players buy gold they go out and buy the nice gear they need. Now that the majority of people have all the gear they need they want more, the only thing left is rares to buy. Staking and botting are the main source of the economy failing now. People will either get cleaned staking, or they will make billions. When this happens it is a few people with the majority of the wealth. When these people sell their cash they can afford to sell it at a lower price because they have so much. Now average players can buy even more gold for their account. As for botting, it is just as obvious, gold farming bots are everywhere. Almost anywhere you go in RS now there will be a botter right next to you.

To be honest the staking effect on the economy cannot be reversed, however the botting thing can. Although I bot and have gold farming accounts, I would like Jagex to crack down on bots big time. I would rather lose a few accounts and have a stable and nice economy on RS compared to a horrible economy with accounts that are mediocre.

 

[xOneDown]

In the long run, rares have nothing to do but go up. This is due to the fact that there will NEVER be an increase in the supply of rares. However, rares' supply can decrease, and when that happens, the price will rise. Rares are also a common victim to hoarding/merchanting.

 

[rsplayer95]

I will use examples to help you understand:

For rares
To understand this you need to know that everyday more and more cash is pumped into runescape by drops, quests, etc.


Lets say there are only 20 Bandos Godswords( which I will refer to as BG) in all of runescape, and one person owns all of them. There is also only 5B gold in all of Runescape. You cannot get any more Bandos godswords, the 20 in circulation is all we have. So a lot of people are going to want one of those godswords, wether to feel important that they are one of only 20 people in the world to have one, or to actually use it for some purpose. Now everyone will try to buy them off the person, and it will basically turn into an auction, and the person with the godswords will sell, lets say 19 of the 20, to the 19 highest bidders. Now there are 20 people with this 'rare' item, and none of them want to sell t. Time will pass and sooner or later some of these BG users will quit or lose their BGs somehow. Now lets say that 10 of the BGs are lost either by the owner quitting or high alching it, and only 10 remain. Now some of the remaining BG owners will want to sell their BG for some nice profits since they realize that there are only 10 BGs left, and the money in circulation has increased now to 10B in all of Runescape. So now not only are their items 'rarer' the prices have also inflated, they can sell their items back at any item for upto triple what they bought it for, due to the huge demand, yet small supply, and no more coming into circulation of the market.

For Normal items

I will make this one simple and short.
When Bandos armor first came out it was worth over 100M, and there were only a few sets. Over time though people got more and more Bandos drops, and it wasn't sought after as much. So due to the rising supply, and lowering demand, they reach equilibrium price which is basically know as its 'stablizing price'. Now the reason they are going down again is due to two reasons. One is the new armor sets being introduced, such as Torva, now everyone wants this armor instead of Bandos, causing the demand to take a hit, all while the supply keeps increasing. The second reason is all the new gold put into circulation, mainly through combat drops from bots, which I hope is self-explanatory.

Note: Although it is widely believed by most 12 year old botters, highly botted items such as essence, vials of water, and clay, do not cause inflation unless they are being sold to a NPC store. As long as these items are sold to other players there is just more supply of that one item, it does not create, nor destroy any gp from circulation.


I hope that made sense, I am not a great at explaining, so that was the best I could do. You need some basic economic knowledge to understand what I was trying to say.

 

[Rune Scimmy]

I will use examples to help you understand:

For rares
To understand this you need to know that everyday more and more cash is pumped into runescape by drops, quests, etc.


Lets say there are only 20 Bandos Godswords( which I will refer to as BG) in all of runescape, and one person owns all of them. There is also only 5B gold in all of Runescape. You cannot get any more Bandos godswords, the 20 in circulation is all we have. So a lot of people are going to want one of those godswords, wether to feel important that they are one of only 20 people in the world to have one, or to actually use it for some purpose. Now everyone will try to buy them off the person, and it will basically turn into an auction, and the person with the godswords will sell, lets say 19 of the 20, to the 19 highest bidders. Now there are 20 people with this 'rare' item, and none of them want to sell t. Time will pass and sooner or later some of these BG users will quit or lose their BGs somehow. Now lets say that 10 of the BGs are lost either by the owner quitting or high alching it, and only 10 remain. Now some of the remaining BG owners will want to sell their BG for some nice profits since they realize that there are only 10 BGs left, and the money in circulation has increased now to 10B in all of Runescape. So now not only are their items 'rarer' the prices have also inflated, they can sell their items back at any item for upto triple what they bought it for, due to the huge demand, yet small supply, and no more coming into circulation of the market.

For Normal items

I will make this one simple and short.
When Bandos armor first came out it was worth over 100M, and there were only a few sets. Over time though people got more and more Bandos drops, and it wasn't sought after as much. So due to the rising supply, and lowering demand, they reach equilibrium price which is basically know as its 'stablizing price'. Now the reason they are going down again is due to two reasons. One is the new armor sets being introduced, such as Torva, now everyone wants this armor instead of Bandos, causing the demand to take a hit, all while the supply keeps increasing. The second reason is all the new gold put into circulation, mainly through combat drops from bots, which I hope is self-explanatory.

Note: Although it is widely believed by most 12 year old botters, highly botted items such as essence, vials of water, and clay, do not cause inflation unless they are being sold to a NPC store. As long as these items are sold to other players there is just more supply of that one item, it does not create, nor destroy any gp from circulation.


I hope that made sense, I am not a great at explaining, so that was the best I could do. You need some basic economic knowledge to understand what I was trying to say.

That was a great story. I see the point though. Is the only way to get more money in the game an NPC store and killing things?

 

[Elektrey]

That was a great story. I see the point though. Is the only way to get more money in the game an NPC store and killing things?

High alching also.
I've heard high-alchers are being a source of the inflation.
Go to the GE, how many high alchers do you see?

Also, if people buy gold, they spend on these expensive armors, right?
doesnt that increase demand, causing them to go up?

And I really don't see why demand would go down for bandos for torva, torva is like 1b and costs so much to repair that I don't really see a point for it.

Godswords have less demand because of rapiers, i see that though.

 

[rsplayer95]

High alching also.
I've heard high-alchers are being a source of the inflation.
Go to the GE, how many high alchers do you see?

Also, if people buy gold, they spend on these expensive armors, right?
doesnt that increase demand, causing them to go up?

And I really don't see why demand would go down for bandos for torva, torva is like 1b and costs so much to repair that I don't really see a point for it.

Godswords have less demand because of rapiers, i see that though.

I guess Torva wasn't the best item to use as an example, but yea Torva didn't effect Bandos demand too much due to such high cost of the set. Atm Bandos demand is stable, but the supply is still rising, causing the dump in prices. Botting is only part of the reason for armor prices dropping, the bigger factor, at least in my opinion, is the fact the not many Bandos armor pieces are moving out of circulation. What I mean by that is not many people with Bandos armor are quitting, accidentally alching it, or doing something that will make their piece disappear from Runescape, which would cause these people to buy more of that armor and keep up with the supply.

This is what is happening with Bandos armor atm:

There are 2 pkers in full Bandos, both fighting in Edge. Now one of them wins, this guy will be known as pker 1, and loots the other, who will be known as pker 2, now he already has full Bandos so he has two options: Sell it or Keep it incase he needs it later. In this instance he will be looking to sell it though, so he goes to G.E. and puts it up for sale. Now on the other side of the story, pker 2 who died and just lost full Bandos will either: Rage quit, or buy more Bandos and continue pking. In this instance he will be buying more. So I think you can guess what happens next, the pker sells set and it moves back to the guy who lost it. Now this is just the case about...30-40% of the time (yes I am making these percentages up). Other things could happen as well, like pker 1's set could be sold to someone who just wants to train with full Bandos, or pker 2 might have bought the set that someone got as a drop from the Bandos boss. There are many possibilities but I am just naming the few that I see often.

 

[CMotDibbler]

Similar has probably already been said, difficult to see as I have to scroll across 3x my laptop screen!

Many items are coming into the game, if the demand stays constant, but the number of that item coming into the game increases (and this quantitative increase is greater than the rate of inflation), then the price will fall (law of supply/demand). Whilst the levels of gp are increasing exponentially, it is much easier to bring a godsword into the game than, say, 30 million gp. Gp must be created through means such as alchemy which takes time.

The number of rares on the market rarely increases, therefore the only way in which rares will become less expensive is as a result of deflation. Temporary spikes may occur due to panic buying/selling (consumer confidence), but in general rares will rise and rise only.

 

[CMotDibbler]

Similar has probably already been said, difficult to see as I have to scroll across 3x my laptop screen!

Many items are coming into the game, if the demand stays constant, but the number of that item coming into the game increases (and this quantitative increase is greater than the rate of inflation), then the price will fall (law of supply/demand). Whilst the levels of gp are increasing exponentially, it is much easier to bring a godsword into the game than, say, 30 million gp. Gp must be created through means such as alchemy which takes time.

The number of rares on the market rarely increases, therefore the only way in which rares will become less expensive is as a result of deflation. Temporary spikes may occur due to panic buying/selling (consumer confidence), but in general rares will rise and rise only.

 

[Rune Scimmy]

What needs to happen is that there needs to be a way to get everyone to ditch their Phats. I would laugh.

 

[Cody]

Well, 1.

Don't stretch the page, it pisses people off - like me.

2.

The game produces Tokkul and Gold and the like items by spawning them after drops. They're are millions of gold going in and out of RS everyday, as well as all other Game produced items. The BGS could, in theory drop down to 1m if they're was enough of them pumped into the economy but considering they are somewhat difficult to get they're will never be enough to drop them below 1m. The economy is always in fluctuation and is always in a constant state of change - so stabilization is a term that I would use loosely because nothing is every absolutely stable. It would be a stagnant market.

Buy a bigger monitor...

 

[TahBreezy]

You should also know, botting effects the community. If there were no botters, the economy would be in the hands of merchants.

 

[Call me Mike]

Think everyone has covered the topic but...

In theory, if one buys a phat today, in a few years phats would rise? Is there any way that the price can drop dramatically from where it is now?

^ I'm guessing this is why everyone wants one, and why no one sells the ones they own?

 

[DuckBill]

That is insane. I need to get a hold of a rare.