Why and How Rares Should Be Removed From Runescape

Contents

• 1.0 [ Introduction ]
• 2.0 [ Problem 1]
• 3.0 [ Problem 2 ]
• 4.0 [ Flawed Solutions ]
• 5.0 [ The Only Real Solution ]

1.0 [ Introduction ]
  
   I saw an interesting topic on tip.it forums about removing rares a little while back and I wrote a reply to it.  The reply was on page 20, though, so, as is often the sad case, nobody really saw it or replied to it.  I’m gonna post it here (in slightly edited form more appropriate for my blog) so at least you guys can read it.

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2.0 [ Problem 1 ]
  
   The prices of rares will continue to rise over the years, making people who were lucky enough to have gotten one in the beginning or near the beginning have a huge advantage over other players because they can trade them for a lot cash, while other players have to work hard to get that money (and to buy rares).  When Jagex released rares they intended them to be only fun souvenirs – not the hoarded bundles of cash that they are today.  That is why Jagex no longer makes holiday items tradeable and sees to it that no new rares are created (like they did with pickax and hatchet handles and heads).

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3.0 [ Problem 2]

   Because rares are worth more than their market price on the Grand Exchange, large-scale Real World Trading can (and already does often) occur.  People who have rares can sell them through trade at market price to other people for cash or junk and require real money as payment from the other person.  If a rare is worth 300m more at street price than market price, people maybe be able to get more than $1,000 by selling it to someone at market price.  Some people have tons of rares that they got when they weren’t worth much or were free that are now already worth thousands of dollars and Lord knows how much they’ll be worth in 10 or 20 years – hundreds of thousands? (especially if no other rares are introduced).  That’s serious real world trading and if Jagex really wants to stop RWT they’ll have to do something before it gets more out of hand than it already has.

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4.0 [ Flawed Solutions ]

  
A few people on the forum who recognized the problem offered solutions that I think would do more harm than good.  Here they are:

1. Simply remove them from the game or make it so that everybody can buy the current rares from a store for free or nearly nothing (I.E. make them not rare).  If someone  owned 5 blue party hats, he now owns nothing or at least nothing of value.

Problem – It would work but it would make the people who own rares become crazy angry, start riots, and quit.

2.  Exchange all rares for Gold Pieces at their market value.  If someone owned 5 blue party hats which today have a Market Price of just over 500 million gp each, instead of those 5 blue party hats they would now own 2.5 billion gp.  This is supposed to be a way to make it up to those people who paid a lot of money to buy rares, not expecting them
to suddenly be worth nothing.

Problem -  So much cash suddenly flowing into the economy would cause a vast inflation and have detrimental effects on the economy, for which Jagex would have to take great measures in order to fix.  Think about it – if there are 10,000 rares with an average market price of 100M gp, that would mean 1 Trillion GP would suddenly be introduced into the game.  Everybody would be using that money to buy resources to get all their skills to 99 and because there would be more demand than supply, prices would skyrocket like crazy.  Plus it still wouldn’t be fair that those people who got rares when they first came out would suddenly have all that cash.  Not to mention it’s basically an impossibility, anyway (if someone has 20 blue phats worth 10bil gp how can he get the 10bil gp when the max you can hold is a bit over 2bil?).

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5.0 [ The Only Real Solution ]

   The only real solution I see (and I really would not be at all surprised if Jagex does this soon) is to make all the rares untradeable and make it so no more can be ever obtained.  This way the people who got it for free will finally get the item as Jagex intended it to be and those who paid for it will get what they paid for – an item that has no real value besides sentimental.  Most of the people who bought them at high prices would still be angry at this but not as much because they would at least be able to keep their rares and the sentimental value they hold.  In fact, they’re sentimental value would likely increase if this was done.
                     
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           After reading, feel free to offer your own arguments about the subject
               – I’d be glad to hear them and take them into consideration -

Commenting wasn’t working before, I’m sorry to say, but it’s fine now.

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