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  The Grand Exchange prices for items are no longer valid, since you can set any price you want for your items.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.