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Cheers!

-JH

Excellent update:
Much needed, as half the time you don't make money.
~Vincent

Good annoucement. I find merchanting clans really annoying manipulating GE for their own reasons. What if people who buy Rune Essence get hit my merchants and they got up to 60? Hurts the Runecrafting profit.

I wish they banned them to be honest, they just lead to trouble most of the times.

That took wayy too long...
Maybe now something to stem the amount of bots in the GE spamming the Ads for these clans?

There simply is no viable way of banning them otherwise you have to ban everyone else who is affected by them since everything is connected, I always tell people to keep away and be responsible for their own money and that is what people need to learn to do for themselves. It is one thing to ask for hints and tips and ideas, it is quite another to basically tell people that you place all your money in their hands to gamble with effectively.

It seems here that Jagex is basically saying they won't be taking an active stance on manipulation clans. While it's good to see them educating players about these clans and warning them of the dangers of "investing" in such pyramid schemes, the post makes it sound like they won't be doing anything at all to prevent large clans from routinely abusing the system to make money. Their policy claims that price manipulation is part of the whole supply and demand aspect of the GE. They never state anywhere that such manipulation is against the rules, only that it advertising such behavior is discouraged on the forums, not even that engaging in this behavior in-game or outside of the official Runescape forums is frowned upon.

Sleepy's not calling for a witch hunt or nothing, but from what's written here, manipulators aren't even getting a slap on the wrist. In fact, it's not even being acknowledged that what they're doing is bad at all except in the sense that some players will be getting scammed out of their money by early dumps. She was at least hoping they'd say something like "oh yeah, and doing this messes with the economy, so please don't".

it's like luring
you can't really stop it unless you fundamently change the game

and it doesn't mess up the economy since it's influence is quite small

Well that's just the thing. While at first Jagex said that luring was an acceptable part of the game, they quickly retracted their original statement and said that it was indeed, a form of scamming. Jagex does address the issue of scamming, albeit in a roundabout way here:

but they fail to mention that the only way for a good chunk of the members of these clans to make money is to do exactly this, by passing on their items to people who buy after the crash date. The transfer of wealth will be almost entirely from newer members of the clan to older ones, a roundabout form of team scamming where the victims remain faceless. The official statement only notes that "merchanting" is at your own risk, and that letting other people tell you what to merchant is especially risky. While this statement is true, they fail to make a clear distinction between merchanting and manipulation. Merchanting carries risk for all investors, but manipulation carries no risk to established members of manipulation clans. Neither does it carry risk for new members; without the knowledge of the actual dump time, they are certain to lose money by following the clan's instructions. That's just how manipulation clans operate, the transfer of money is not always from the economy at large to the members of the clan, but from the new, gullible clan members to the older, more knowledgeable ones. It would be nice if this was established as a form of scamming, as clearly as luring was. Sure it won't eradicate it, but at least it would be known that this form of behavior isn't condoned anywhere.

As for the effects on the wholesale economy, the sum of currency of course, is zero. It may not lead to hyperinflation or a depression as far as the economy goes, but it does make certain items unpurchaseable by many players that need them for skilling and training purposes. One of the main selling points of the Grand Exchange is that it's far more convenient than trading person-to-person, but when trade is hindered on all fronts because of a purposeful clan effort, it's clear that this particular feature of the game isn't being used to its intended purpose.

Good to know that people won't be scammed anymore. (Like me, they dumped Uncut Dragonstones WAAAAY before they should've)

well playing the market always has its up's and down's
guess jagex put it out there
oh btw to all those noobs whio cant afford to merchant,jagex isn't going to stop us merching

A glowing review for the current state of the runescape fanbase that jagex feels the need to hold their hands in such a way, for the fourth year running jagex successfully removes content which can involve player input. May as well take runescape offline at this rate.

They are not holding anyones hand, not that I see. Holding players hands would be telling them what they can and cannot buy at any one time.

It may be true that many new players will buy up worthless items for double their normal price but they do have the graph to look back on, even more effectively now for 6 months of history where 30 days was next to useless...however they will be stung once and keep well away after getting good advice from existing players and their influence will eventually die out.

The players who should not be felt sorry for are those who have a good deal of spare money around who start trying to buy everything in sight that is rising too late, they are the ones who will likely lose because they simply have no plan of their own.

Sleepy made a very good post earlier and I agree with her completely, many player mods feel the same way but the trouble is that merchanting in all its forms is too entrenched in the players psyche that there is nothing to do but instead of putting a ditch around the GE simply put it in a big canyon and tell players that this is the United Soviet States of Runescape and they will pay a price that Jagex deems fair and if they dont like it they can lump it.

The best way of merchanting right now is to choose stuff that clans often get hold of due to their inherent lack of imagination and buy up massive quantities at the bottom price and then wait. Guess who bought 3800 dragonstones just for this at 40k each and is waiting for them to rise up a lot?

Like I said earlier, people have to learn responsibility for their own money and while swapping rune armour for a trimming promise can be stopped, promising people that they will likely make money due to rising prices cannot because it is true...it is up to the person involved not to be greedy and simply be out for a quick pound.

I see you completely failed to notice that no actual change was made. All Jagex did was make a forum post talking about merchanting and educating the populace. Given that the level of player input they ask for (and use!) is far greater than it was a couple of years ago, your point is also completely null.

Grand exchange itself reduced player contact by a rediculous extent in that trading is practically obsolete, in addition jagex feeling compelled to guide all the idiots through their game means no one ever learns. Jagex are playing the game, making the mistakes we should be so we dont have to. A player should have to roll with the punches not sit in a cotton candy bubble of 0 player interaction, negative experiences are important to a game or else it gets sterile and we lack motivation.

Anyone with 3 brain cells can see a pyramid scheme or scam like this. People need to learn and no one learns like this.

Learn like what? All Jagex did is clarify the risks of merchanting clans, they didn't tell people not to join them. If you think Jagex posting a sticky on the forums educating people about clans is destroying the game, then okay, but... no.

yeah its so annoying

i have to get 60herb and 99fletching
but i cant do super energys cuz ran update crashed it. so im doing ranarrs but i have to buy them at 10k
and yews are falling badly so yeah

Does Jagex expect the general population of Runescape to actually read?

If real life is any guide:

Merchanting clans are likely to destroy the RS economy. If that happens, they will be key in repairing it. Of course, we can't just create new money - that leads to inflation. So, Jagex will take money from anyone who isn't in a Merchanting clan or doesn't do the 26K trick, and give it to those who do. They will drive the economy further down the toilet, Jagex will do another bailout, until the whole thing is destroyed. At that point, Jagex won't come out with any more quests involving such dastardly villains as Anna Sinclair, Evil Dave, or Kennith, because unless they are kept where they are, they will escape from their virtual prison, enter the real world, crawl up through our toilets, and steal our vital essence.

That won't happen though. The best case scenario is too optimistic.

Merchanting clans just appeared, almost like a natural side effect of the GE's arrival. The old ways of merchanting were ruined, so people decided to search for new ways, thus forming the clans. Now Jagex has come to warn people about the possible risks of joining such a clan, which I believe is perfectly right. Jagex isn't pushing players around or telling them what to do. Merchant at your own risk. If you believe a clan and seriously want to invest money into whatever item, go ahead, but understand the risks. The fact is, some people don't, and some get "brainwashed" after hearing, "make millions if you join ____'s cc."



Yeah, the most Jagex can do is warn people. I mean, I don't see any clear way of dissolving of merchanting clans. I personally don't like them, but you know, that's life--it has its good parts and bad parts.

About 90% of the things done in merchanting clans today are approved methods in today's stock markets. The people who run these clans are essentially stockbrokers who tell people where to put their money. Groups of people who invest are allowed to get together and say, "We're going to try to get this stock up and then sell all the shares we have of it", and that's basically what merchanting clans do. Jagex has said that the basis for the Grand Exchange market was, in part, to simulate a real economy and stock market. So why would they change this?

The reason for them doing anything at all about it is that people complain and whine about how they think they're getting their money stolen, so Jagex goes with the voice of the people (no-one's saying to Jagex: "Good game, I love being able to [mess] with the economy!" so all they hear are bad reports) and speaks out. However, Jagex realizes that none of this is strictly against the rules, but wants to shut the whiners up anyway. That is what this is about.


It's like the USA saying, "You shouldn't smoke" and giving all these reasons and restrictions but acknowledging the right of the citizens to kill themselves in a disgusting and disturbing way.

What do you report people on who are advertising for merchanting clans? I see them all the time and they can say about half a paragraph in 3 seconds what do you report them for?

Macroing.

Exactly. The type of people who are actually lured into being scammed of their money are the type of people who usually don't browse forums. If Jagex wants to get a message across, the should actually put an update on the main page, which is more likely to be read, or they should just use those login hints that you get in the login screen.