Gold Prices in Free Trade

A bunch of people have asked me what will happen to gold prices in Free Trade.  It is an interesting question, which does depend on several factors.  First and foremost of course, is how Jagex will actually implement "Free Trade".  The odds are it will never be as "Free" as the old system, there must be some catches to prevent level 3 bots from ruling the land once more.

However, from what we've seen from Jagex so far, it does seem that it will be at least very flexible for most older players.  Assuming this is true, many things begin to change.  The Grand Exchange prices for items are no longer valid, since you can set any price you want for your items.  Immediately, this has a major impact.  "Junk" once again becomes essentially valueless.  In the GE system, Junk was actually quite useful.  It was used basically as a second currency in Runescape, because no matter how useless the items, they still had trade value.  Very helpful in RWT trades, very helpful in Rares trades, Junk actually was an important part of the Runescape Economy.

Another big factor is that many large companies used RWT methods reliant on Junk.  Whether it was buying items at lowest and selling market, or simply a method which created junk from the xfer, junk played an important role in RWT xfers.  So now, what happens when all that junk becomes essentially valueless?  Well, right away, the total value in the Runescape economy goes down.  It actually creates a state of deflation; GP in-game will become much more valuable as people attempt to get rid of these useless placeholder items.  Prices should drop across the board, as a large quantity of items are useless to the average Runescaper (Talismans, anyone?)

GP prices are largely dependent on in-game prices.  They are strongly linked.  Items like Party Hats, Godswords, and regular weapons like Whips are all great indicators of GP Value.  When the price of these items are low in GP, then the value of that GP is high.  So, my prediction is that initially GP prices will be much lower for most items.  Many are valued far too high on the GE (Santa Hat 100M+?  Really?)  In Free Trade, Whips were near 1 Mil.  They're over 3x that on the GE.


So, my prediction is that GP prices will actually rise after the updates.  Are they going to hit $5/M?  Highly doubt it.  It's hard to say exactly where they'll end up though.  It will be largely dependent on how the GE is involved, and how item values will be adjusted to the new system.

Mod Mark's Comments On Free Trade / Wildy

Caught wind of this chat by Mod Mark discussing the upcoming Free Trade / Old Wildy update for Runescape.  Interesting how he claims they are capable of stopping RWT / Botting when right now there are barely any bans for RWT.  Back in Free Trade, Buying Runescape Gold was quite a high risk ban-wise.  These days it's virtually undetectable.

Click here for Full Size

It's hard to get any solid information from this picture.  One thing that is noticeable is the ambiguity.  There is no specific outline of what Runescape will be like in this update.  He says the Wilderness will be "similar to 2006", but that in itself means it will be different in certain ways, too.  I have to keep coming back to this safety thing as well.  What makes this any safer than before?  Has Jagex been working behind the scenes all this time on a complex detection system?  Or are they just throwing in the towel?  What do you guys think?

R2Pleasent's Runescape Development Blog

Today, Jagex announced a new update to Runescape.  They announced the return of the Wilderness / Free Trade.  They have created a Voting system where people can input any Runescape name and vote to reintroduce the old Wild / Trade System.

www.runescape.com

 I hope everyone understands the vote is a FARCE.  They are doing this simply to give players the ILLUSION that their opinions are guiding the game's fate.  In reality, Jagex has already decided to pursue this project, and the amount of votes they get couldn't mean any less.  They have been researching and developing this project for probably well over a year (maybe ever since they removed it in the first place).

Really, this project makes very little sense at first glance.  Jagex implemented trade limits to prevent Botting and Real World Trading (RWT).  They figured that they could kill the market for Runescape Gold by making it impossible to trade (or so they thought).  Obviously, as we know, there are as many people who buy Runescape Gold today as there were ever before.  However, the real problem, botting on throwaway accounts has indeed been basically fixed with the new system.

Most players from Free Trade Era Remember These Guys All Too Well..

So the question is, how on Earth is Jagex going to stop these bots from running rampant in a Free Trade system?  As of right now, there are no effective ways to transfer off level 3 bots, so they are basically unprofitable.  The unfortunate truth is that with a completely Free Trade System, Runescape bots are going to be EVERYWHERE.  This is why I believe Jagex is not revealing the true story; why work so hard to fight Runescape Gold Buying, and Botting, to suddenly just let it run wild again?  There is no way we will see a complete return to the old system.  There must be a catch...

So what is the catch?  Some possibilities:

- A wait period before a character can free trade (3 months, 6 months, etc)
- A Stat / QP requirement to free trade (50+ QP, 500+ Overall)
- Increased Botting surveillance (unlikely as bots are near undetectable in this day and age)

Another situation is that Jagex's proposed "Free Trade" / "Old Wilderness" system is actually not very "free" at all.  Perhaps they will boost the trade limit by 10x (still nowhere close to free trade).  Maybe they will bring back the "Old Wild" and keep random drops in the current PVP system.  Although these seem like ridiculous updates, Jagex has been known to hype up a negative change to gameplay.  They tried to act as if the original Trade Limit updates were going to be an awesome change.  Good work, idiots.

I think we can all agree though, the old system was FUN.  And maybe that's just it.  Jagex realizes that competition among MMORPG's gets more heated everyday, and the best way to increase your member base is to improve your product.  No one can undermine the entertainment value in Staking, PKing and even Trading when there are no limitations.  The risk is high, the reward is high, and it's what made Runescape so popular in the first place.