[maqic blitz]

When I arrived at the GE in world 2 today, I was shocked. My computer could hardly keep up with all the macro's.
There were like 15 different clans spamming their name. And of course making false promises. ("Join XXX for a daily 15M")
Many people think they can make some money with these "clans" but the real profit goes to the owner of the CC, who of course bought this item long before he released the item to the public. I think that it has to stop. What if some day about 50% of the items cant be bought in the GE because of all those new merchanting clans? Jagex should do something about it NOW, and not only because of the fact that a vast amount of the items has become unbuyable, but also because they are all using bots to bring their message.

Post your oppinion about this problem.

[amar]

I think you're over-exaggerating a little too much. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with merchanting clans, items that fluctuate regress back to their old price-range subsequently after being dumped. Your perception of their money-making method is probably "it's selfish" but in actuality every player is self-serving, so excuse others for attempting to gain money through an effortless method which takes a mere few minutes a day to work. The bot argument is also pointless, because merchanting clans isn't the cause for it. It's used extensively in places that actually have a high population, attempting to hinder merchanting clans because of spam-bots is just too unsound.

Then where do you get the statistics to say 50% of the items are bought out? You're exaggerating completely, again. Your hypothetical situation would never cross with reality, mainly because merchanting clans wont bother investing in an item that has low supply, combined with the fact that you portray merchanting clans to take a wide amount of the population.

[Rider]

A whole clan can have enough of an impact in the market to cause a rise. Merchanting clans ARE that bad, and it is in bad taste to cause artificial rises in prices. Even moreso to scam a clan into buying inflated goods.

[I Lost I]

I absolutely despise them, they ruin prices, they make items unbuyable causing some activities to be impossible to undertake, for example one clan is doing saradomin brews at the moment, they're impossible to buy, and loads of people use them for GWD, so loads of people cant buy.
They literally ruin the economy, and twist it to their will.

[T opaz]

To those who claim he's exaggerating:
What merchant clans do ("buying out") items, is illegal in most real-life first-world countries, if not all. It's a felony to try to manipulate the market like that, or even own a monopoly, even if you gained it by totally legal means. If it's enough of a problem in real markets to send people to prison for decades, it simply cannot be good for the Runescape economy. Disputing that point is completely... ludicrous.

All Jagex has to do to minimize the problem a lot, is make it against the rules to purposefully try to manipulate the Grand Exchange in groups in this manner. Even if they barely enforced it, it would stop the spamming macroes and the "wide-open"ness of the Merchant CC's. If they had to ply their underhanded trade in secret, they wouldn't have near the funds they currently have from players who join en mass. They wouldn't be able to effect the economy as much, and Jagex could easily tell who is "hoarding" items. All they would need to do is look at the top 100 rising items, and see who the top ten or so players are who own the most. From there, they can gather who's doing it and who's not. It's so simple I'm surprised Jagex hasn't already done something like this to fix this problem.

[chargersfan21]

these things are a load of crap. i was in "2lum" and they were saying how they were the best, anyways they said buy these puches for 5kmax and sell once they reach 25k.. 2 days later u get back on and the price droped and the cc had a new item... wasted 2m on this and their not selling in ge. gf me for not listening to you people

[Granzi]

Manipulations clans do a lot more harm than people give them credit for. For those of you saying that prices are simply fluctuating, that's only half the story. The items "chosen" are often affected for up to 2 months or more at a time:

When the price is rising, it's impossible to buy since everyone has offers in the GE at max.

When the price is falling, it's not worth buying since the price will continue to drop, and you lose value on the item.

Is it fair to the rest of us to "lock" up an item for that long of a period of time, simply so that a few people can earn their money dishonestly? Of course not, and many people are rightfully outraged.

This post has been edited by Granzi: 04 February 2010 - 05:45 PM

[halo 3 suxs]

what jagex needs to do is ban the major merch clans and post a message saying merch clans are against the rules public and private and that anyone in a merch clan will be banned

[Bradley_Jay]

I just feel bad for all the players who get sucked into this, even though it was probably out of greed in the first place.

[Anti Rob]

I joined a private merchanting clan on my init pure about 3-4 months ago
went from 400m to 1.2b extremely quickly, doing nothing everyday

eventually i just thought that merchanting everyday really is pointless. takes the fun out of the game, even though it gave me something to do for a while and gave me a reason to actually log on

However it sucks for the inexperienced players that get sucked into this and I hope jagex do ban them, and actually post that people shouldn't trust merchanting clans on their website

[Grc25]

Firstly, merch clans don't make false promises. What they say may only be true in some circumstances, but people only get taken in by it only because they're greedy and want it to be true. If you use a bit of common sense you'll see right through what they say.

You're exaggerating a bit too when you complain about all the items being bought out. Only a small amount of items are bought out, and they crash not long afterwards, so you'll get it extra cheap. People take the GE for granted these days, think how hard it was to buy an uncommon item before the GE.

All Jagex needs to do is create a news post that:

1. Informs those inexperienced people about how merch clans work.

2. Scares advertising botters by saying something like: "Using bots or macros is a bannable offense. This includes using spamming bots to advertise merchanting clans. We will not hesitate to ban anyone doing. If multiple accounts are banned from the same ip address we have the right to block that ip address." That will reduce the numbers of spammers and they won't even have to follow it up lol.

[Crazy 88]

Grc25, on 05 February 2010 - 12:19 AM, said:

Firstly, merch clans don't make false promises. What they say may only be true in some circumstances, but people only get taken in by it only because they're greedy and want it to be true. If you use a bit of common sense you'll see right through what they say.

You're exaggerating a bit too when you complain about all the items being bought out. Only a small amount of items are bought out, and they crash not long afterwards, so you'll get it extra cheap. People take the GE for granted these days, think how hard it was to buy an uncommon item before the GE.

All Jagex needs to do is create a news post that:

1. Informs those inexperienced people about how merch clans work.

2. Scares advertising botters by saying something like: "Using bots or macros is a bannable offense. This includes using spamming bots to advertise merchanting clans. We will not hesitate to ban anyone doing. If multiple accounts are banned from the same ip address we have the right to block that ip address." That will reduce the numbers of spammers and they won't even have to follow it up lol.

If it was easy as telling botters or macroers that its a permanently bannable offenc to bot or macro, then we would have never had a botting issue to begin with. The thing is, regardless of what Jagex's stance on bots is, people will still bot. Banning IP addresses does nothing. The macroers you see are on low leveled accounts, or stolen accounts to advertise the merchant clans. And most likely don't care if they get banned. If they get an IP ban all it takes is a few simple google searches on how to change your IP and then bang, you can evade the ban like nothing ever happened.

[Grc25]

Crazy 88, on 05 February 2010 - 03:23 PM, said:

If it was easy as telling botters or macroers that its a permanently bannable offenc to bot or macro, then we would have never had a botting issue to begin with. The thing is, regardless of what Jagex's stance on bots is, people will still bot.

My reason in saying that wasn't so botting/macroing would stop. It's so Jagex would clearly state to all RSers that using any sort of software to speed up typing IS botting and IS a bannable offence. Public merch clans often have the rule "advertise for ranks". I don't see why you'd be trying to get ranks on an account if you knew to get ranks you could get banned. I've also seen tons of accounts over 100 combat advertising.

Crazy 88, on 05 February 2010 - 03:23 PM, said:

Banning IP addresses does nothing. The macroers you see are on low leveled accounts, or stolen accounts to advertise the merchant clans. And most likely don't care if they get banned. If they get an IP ban all it takes is a few simple google searches on how to change your IP and then bang, you can evade the ban like nothing ever happened.

As I said before, I've seen plenty of decent accounts auto-typing. Even if you did use bad accounts, you'd only be advertising if you had a good account that you were profiting off. If Jagex clearly threatened to ban these good accounts with the same ip, I would think a lot less people would take the risk.

[Jioxas]

The only thing i hate about the merchanting clans is that people that are recruiting with auto-talkers. The rest is ok for me.

This post has been edited by Jioxas: 05 February 2010 - 05:11 AM

[The duck]

Public Merchanting clans bother me in so many ways: first their members decide to spam the GE with advertisement, causing me to turn off public again.
Then their work: they seem to buy out an item just when I need it. Pity, eh?
Then the final fruits of their work: the people who complaint that they lost money.

Technically they are doing nothing wrong, they just 'overuse' the system. Abuse, in my opinion.
Banning the current merchanting leaders won't have any use: new ones will arise.
The whole problem with merchanting clans is, is that they do something that is not 'cheating', but still very, very annoying.
Oh well, you could have forseen problems like this when the Grand Exchange was released. And if the prices really go out of hand (Remember Goldmerch's Limpwurt Roots?), Jagex changes the price themselves.

[bolshevik]

People are always going to find ways to make money, in real life and in video games, even if it has to be on the backs of other people. The merchanting clans are an excellent example of such because they take advantage of the inexperienced players, who buy the items they advertise, and then the owners dump their own items without telling the other members of the "clan." I believe that there are two people at fault, but it more lies along the lines of the inexperienced, and the under-knowledgeable. I know that being new to the game that you're going to be more susceptible to certain aspects, like merchanting clans, that are going to play tricks on you. However, before going into a deal that involves anything of your personal items, you should make yourself a bit more smart on the subject, and try and see what may or may not happen.

Yet on the other hand, the leaders of the merchanting clan are also at fault because they are in fact, scamming people by dumping early. Even though each person is responsible for their own trade, misleading others in order to profit for yourself, is a tad devious to say the least. It's a tough topic because both parties are at fault for their part in the deal, but merchanting clans as a whole are devious, and is something that I really don't like as a part of this game.

[eval slayer]

I used to be able to buy a set of something like barrows any time I wanted. ANYTIME! Now to get a set of Guthans for slayer tasks I had to buy each part at max price. So annoying to have to buy sets one at a time. Not to mention the silliness of some prices. I owned a saradomin sword long ago so there would have been less of them. I mean don't people get those everyday? Now they are almost double what i paid long ago.

Nothing more then price gouging.

[Granzi]

If only it were that easy to report and ban autotypers.

I've talked to my friend who's a player mod, and he told me that Jagex had a clarification on just this topic in the player mod section of the RSOF. Unless the person actually types out that they are using an autotyper (as if anyone is that stupid), it is not a bannable offense. Reporting someone simply because you think they are using an autotyper, even if it is really obvious, is just spamming up the report abuse system.

[The duck]

Granzi, on 05 February 2010 - 06:16 PM, said:

If only it were that easy to report and ban autotypers.

I've talked to my friend who's a player mod, and he told me that Jagex had a clarification on just this topic in the player mod section of the RSOF. Unless the person actually types out that they are using an autotyper (as if anyone is that stupid), it is not a bannable offense. Reporting someone simply because you think they are using an autotyper, even if it is really obvious, is just spamming up the report abuse system.

So you basically mean reporting people for using an autotyper (macroing) is a waste of your time, as the report only counts if the reported person admits using one (And no one will be that dumb to admit that in public)?

[bolshevik]

The duck, on 05 February 2010 - 01:21 PM, said:

So you basically mean reporting people for using an autotyper (macroing) is a waste of your time, as the report only counts if the reported person admits using one (And no one will be that dumb to admit that in public)?

I think what he meant was that the likelihood that something will happen to the person, is slim to none, but even if it happens, another ten will pop into their place. It's a problem, yes, but the reality is that until you can limit how much people speak over a period of time, the auto-typer will always be there to spam your screen.