RE:Wilderness and Free Trading

With response to the list of exact changes,
- Unrestricted Free Trade between players
- Unlimited staking in the Duel Arena
- The Grand Exchange would remain, but with the lower and upper price limits removed
- Party Room drop restrictions removed
- Item Lending still available
- Assist System still available
- LootShare and CoinShare still available

- The Wilderness becomes a rather dangerous area again and players can kill each other for their items
- PVP, Bounty and Bounty +1 Worlds removed (game mechanics may be re-used in the future)
- New objects that affect combat will be analysed on an individual basis
- Gravestones will still be used outside of the Wilderness
- Various PVP items and gear will still be available and won’t become 'rares'
- Revenants patrolling the Wilderness will be relocated
- Content located in the Wilderness will be reviewed as follows:
- Quests (e.g. Spirit of Summer) and Activities (e.g. Clan Wars) will be relocated
- Other content (e.g. Treasure Trails, the Beacon Network and D&Ds) will be looked at on a case-by-case basis

What do you want to see? How do you feel about the relocation? And so on.

- Unrestricted Free Trade between players
^ the value indicators and alert for changes should remain.

- The Grand Exchange would remain...
^ I would still like to see the upper and lower limit as guidelines, so we know the approximate street price. Of course, I can see that with an increased number of trades happening outside of the GE the street prices would be less accurate - so I'm not sure exactly how reliable this would be.

- PVP, Bounty and Bounty +1 Worlds removed (game mechanics may be re-used in the future)
^ I would like to see Bounty Hunter return in an actual kill-the-renown-killers style of minigame. Players who spend ages in the Wilderness should become more worthwhile targets to kill. *slays third poor soul* "A bounty has appeared on your head." To prevent players from just leaving, there would be an experience modifier - leaving the wilderness will forfeit both modifier and bounty. Perhaps limit this to pk-worlds... to prevent a small group of players just abusing the free experience buffs.

- Revenants patrolling the Wilderness will be relocated
^Awwwh. Where?!

- Quests (e.g. Spirit of Summer)
^No, leave it. When released the were announced as dangerous, now they actually might be. Since the initial rush of completing it has already passed, it's only ever going to be one or two people completing it. Perhaps even introduce an item that grants you brief (maybe 30 minutes tops) amnesty from pk'ers - you can't use it when skulled, during combat, or within 10 seconds of combat. Perhaps you can't even use it in 30+ Wilderness... so Mage Arena still has it's adrenaline-filled running sequence.

Activities (e.g. Clan Wars)
^
I suppose.

That's my two cents.

The "old" wilderness was far more rigid as I recall. Pretty much, you could slip in and do your wilderness business whilst the worlds were quiet. That's how I did Mage Arena all those years ago.

What's wrong with gravestones?

I've never understood why anyone would want rid of the GE. If I want a new weapon, piece of armour, quest-item, etc. I'd like to be able to just buy it and be done with it, rather that sit around for at least half-an-hour, repeating my offer over and over, just to have someone finally trade me and offer something entirely different.

The reason is because the GE makes the game easier. It's amazing how these 'veterans' consider the game to be watered down. The game naturally gets easier because it gets better. The more powerful weapons, the easier it is to train combat. I just had to type that.

GE doesn't make it easier, it just makes it quicker.

Which people see as a form of easier.

You shouldn't have to give effort when simply buying an item.
It was like walking into a shop and asking for something, only to have the clerk ignore you for a good long while as you repeatedly state your request, hoping he'll listen to you. Afterwhich, he holds up something entirely different, and expects you to buy it for no reason. Then, at last, he finally offers the item you wanted... but will only fork it over for a sum higher than its actual value.
That's what buying stuff in RS was like. I for one, just wanted to buy the equipment I'd saved money for and earned the right to use, and return to the game to have fun with it.

The problem blaze, is as follows:

In the real world, when someone processes resources, it takes time and effort, and they can sell the finished goods at a price that garners them profit.

In Runescape, making items takes virtually no time except in bulk, and the maker gets an intangible, intransferrable, but incredibly highly valued bonus: XP. What the GE did was it collectivized everything, stripping the sellers of all power.

I'm still in favour of the GE. Sellers can no longer charge exactly what they wish without supply and demand's approval, yes, but desireable high-levelled items are still a source of great profit for them. A seller who trains their skills and takes the time to provide procude can still earn a great income from providing worthwhile items. The GE hasn't robbed sellers of income - players rely on their input as much as ever when buying ingrediants.

But for me, the GE means less time spent hunting down items when I just want to relax and play the game.

"Earning and Right" in this context would be attaining the skills and/or finishing whichever quest is necessary, as well as mustering the cash for the item.
The GE's prices are determined by how the player's value items. This means each item's value is in the players' hands and is for them to dictate. Seems fair to me. And besides, if the wilderness and freetrade return, it's been said that the price caps will be lifted. So buyers and sellers will be able to work out how much their willing to value an item with greater freedom.

Skills are still necessary for making profit for selling. The resources require skills to attain just as much as the finished product does. Coal, ore, bones, wood, runes, potion ingrediants, etc. are always in high demand, but it takes trained skills and effort to gather them, especially the most desired.
The fact the finished products are worth less than resources is often due to players using them for skill-training. But, like I said above, those values are player-defined. It was the players and their desires that led to those prices, and it is they who can change them.

And again, I must point out that RS is game above anything else. We're here to have fun. I doubt many have more fun hanging around banks shouting their requests again and again than questing, skilling, PKing, with the items they've strived and longed for.

Ultimately, a lot of updates these days have been designed to make the menial things all that easier. When I started all those years ago, the nearest bank from Lumbridge was in Draynor Village, and some lower level players never made it that far.

I once became stuck in the weapons shop in Varrock, because I didn't know that I could rotate the camera and so couldn't find the ladder, see Giles and missed the Christmas event from that year. That little error always ended up with me dying in Draynor sewers as well.

The Grand Exchange, if anything, has made everything all that more helpful. What has been designed is a system that works without the player always being there, and it works brilliantly. I once quite membership for over six months once, tons of stuff in my bank, because I didn't think selling it was worthwhile. When I rejoined and found the Grand Exchange, I managed to make millions in a matter of minutes, selling all the space-fillers in my bank; the assets that meant nothing to me but were really worth a fortune.

It's that simple idea that has made businesses and trading in the game all that easier. Previously, if you wanted something, you had to venture out of your way to find it. I'd spend hours law running, and could never find a quick seller, it was far too time consuming, when I'd rather have been out fighting monsters and completing quests. The Grand Exchange does just that.

If players want to make solid profit, they have to keep and eye on things. The Grand Exchange is, in effect, a real market. Assets increase in value and lose value in accordance to demand. It is a mirror of the real world, and it teaches valuable lessons like that. Whilst some practises in RuneScape may not challenge more than commitment, the Grand Exchange prepares players for the real world of marketting. There are always buyers and always sellers.

And that is what I like about the Grand Exchange.

What I'm nervous is that the prices might fluctuate too violently and no one will buy items in a general price range on the GE since there will be no limits.

This can be a real problem especially with hackers wanting to sell all your stuff that's normally worth millions for a menial amount of GP.

As oppose to dropping the items?

I get your point though. However, there wasn't a control before and a street price still moderated itself. The Grand Exchange would just become an anonymous trading interface - if you charge too much it still won't sell.

I reckon the interface may change somewhat, as I think I've stated somewhere before. Rather than searching for "Bucket" and your buying price, then hitting go, you would just search "Bucket" and be shown all sales of buckets. You choose which one you get, at which offer you're willing to pay. This would help to control the street price - as seeing all the offers flashing up, and sellers trying to undercut each other, is what helped encourage deals.

As a seller you can set multiple prices - per single item, per X items, minimum buy (maybe). 1500gp per shark, buy 100 at 1250gp each. Selling sharks in 10s, 10k each (that's per 10). And so on.

gah! That is so complex! Why not ust ask around for a general market price?

How's it complex?

Seeing other people's selling prices helps establish your own.

I always used to use RuneHQ when selling something new, then RS Wiki when I discovered it (or when it was set-up, I doubt Google would have skipped over it if it existed).

The selling might be overdoing it.

Or it could just show you the average of all sales that have gon through in the last few hours...

That'd be good too.

Yeah, that seems much better.

A popularity index? In a way, that could work. If something new shows up, it might give the player an idea of what is selling at the moment. Sometimes I walk in and complete forget what it is I need, something like this might jog my memory.

MorbiusMonster wrote:A popularity index? In a way, that could work. If something new shows up, it might give the player an idea of what is selling at the moment. Sometimes I walk in and complete forget what it is I need, something like this might jog my memory.

Assuming what you want to buy is a trend. But given the many items, and the limited space the list will inevitably have, I doubt somewhat you'll ever see what you want on the list. of top 10 buys in the last 10 seconds.