Inflation

[Shooter585]

Inflation seems to be the hottest topic with regard to the RS economy of late. Prices have been inflating practically since the release of Runescape 2 I think, but it's a growing problem. I first personally noticed it when people did the 26k trick, which gave rewards (statuettes) that could be cashed in for money. Anyway, what should Jagex do to take money out of circulation? Should they do more/less/the same? Where is all this money coming from anyway? Not as many people alch as they used to. I personally don't think it's a big enough problem to justify Araxxor having a 200k instance fee.

[Guitarguy]

Where is all this money coming from anyway?

I'm not an economist, but I think it's agreeable that a game like RuneScape is always inevitably subject to inflation. With the existence of the Grand Exchange, money that a player spends goes to another player, and money that is gained often comes from other players as well as monsters, quests, etc. The only reasonable way to fix this is to make players give back to the game, eradicating the existence of circulating coins. I'm not very knowledgeable about this Araxxor thing, but I believe a step in the right direction would be giving incentives for players to spend their money in such a manner that it doesn't go to another player. Of course, as a fairly inactive player, I don't have a holistic enough understanding of the game to propose some reasonable methods of doing that.

[Shooter585]

Where is all this money coming from anyway?

I'm not an economist, but I think it's agreeable that a game like RuneScape is always inevitably subject to inflation. With the existence of the Grand Exchange, money that a player spends goes to another player, and money that is gained often comes from other players as well as monsters, quests, etc. The only reasonable way to fix this is to make players give back to the game, eradicating the existence of circulating coins. I'm not very knowledgeable about this Araxxor thing, but I believe a step in the right direction would be giving incentives for players to spend their money in such a manner that it doesn't go to another player. Of course, as a fairly inactive player, I don't have a holistic enough understanding of the game to propose some reasonable methods of doing that.

There are ways to get rid of money that have been around for years, such as the sawmill, shops, etc. They controlled inflation pretty well from 2001-2009.

[Jna]

I read a nice post recently regarding money sinks and how they don't really solve the issues, prices of things go down, with less gp to buy them that makes it the same in the end. I'm not sure how correct is this and If I'm expressing It correctly, I'll look it up and post here if I find it.

Araxxor just with money from instances removed around 75B in the first week from circulation.

[Guitarguy]

Where is all this money coming from anyway?

I'm not an economist, but I think it's agreeable that a game like RuneScape is always inevitably subject to inflation. With the existence of the Grand Exchange, money that a player spends goes to another player, and money that is gained often comes from other players as well as monsters, quests, etc. The only reasonable way to fix this is to make players give back to the game, eradicating the existence of circulating coins. I'm not very knowledgeable about this Araxxor thing, but I believe a step in the right direction would be giving incentives for players to spend their money in such a manner that it doesn't go to another player. Of course, as a fairly inactive player, I don't have a holistic enough understanding of the game to propose some reasonable methods of doing that.

There are ways to get rid of money that have been around for years, such as the sawmill, shops, etc. They controlled inflation pretty well from 2001-2009.

Evidently it isn't enough, however. Perhaps the shops' selections and prices should be adjusted so as to promote more spending (like actual shops, lol). Maybe the amount of gold dropped by monsters should be nerfed, low as it may already be.

 

Also, I might be mistaken, but perhaps things seem to be going worse now because the inflation rate is inherently exponential, whereas one's rate of acquiring GP is not.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Guitarguy

[Shooter585]

I think part of the problem with regards to price increases is that there are fewer new/f2p players to get raw resources like yew logs. When I started playing coal was 100 gp each and on every world you had to fight over rocks except in the Wilderness and the mining guild. Now it's pretty dead and coal is more expensive (despite the release of Living Rock Caves which gives large amounts of coal).

[Sobend]

I think armor repairs are the biggest gold sink in the game.

 

Coinshare brought a lot of gold into the game (though this is fixed). Alching also brings tons of gold into the game - many items that are relatively useless in today's game (onyx bolt tips, visage, battlestaves, even whips) are kept high in price by the alch price and now are alched semi frequently.