34 replies to this topic

[Player Killer]

I've always wondered where all the money on Runescape is from. Every time you mine an ore, get a bcp drop, or pk a rune set, you get something that you will probably sell later on the ge or to another player for coins. That's how a lot of players get money. But where did that money come from? That player who bought your stuff must have gotten it somehow.

So where's the origin of all coins, directly from a non player source? When you kill a monster they drop a few coins, but surely that can't add up to millions. People don't even pick coins up nowadays. NPC's don't hand you a huge stack of coins in exchange for anything.

My guess is that most coins in the game come from thousands of players high alching. Everyone knows that's one of the most popular (but dumbest) ways to train magic, and you see loads of people doing it. Botters mine rune essence (what legit player is looking for ~50k/hr cash) and craft them into nats. Then people training their skills create the items to be alched out of scratch, like yew longbows. Alchers buy both items and turn them into coins. Although they lose money from alching, the money they pay goes to the sellers (so it remains in the game), and the alchemy introduces more money into the game.

I'd like to hear others' thoughts on this too, so please post.

• coinshare sounds like it generates huge millions every day, but the amount of coins players get is min ge price, and when someone buys it on ge for mid price, that money goes to god-knows-where, so you lose a net 5%
  
• general stores turn some stuff into coins, but they love to rip you off so usually people only sell stuff that they cant sell on the ge to it
  
• by the end of bounty hunter, i had amassed about 63 million gp in ancient artifacts, and had sold a few mil worth during the time bh worlds were out. now i still have 7 semi-rare ancients :)

Edited by richboyliang, 10 April 2011 - 09:55 PM.

[» Caudery]

Alching doesn't make money because you use money to buy the items then they disappear.

I have no clue.

[Selena Gomez Twin]

Lots of people use coinshare, that produces coins from major drops.  They then use that GP from coinshare to buy items in the GE, which can easily be millions.  Now whoever sold that item in the GE has the coins, and they go on to buy more items in the GE, passing the coins onward.  It's the cycle of money.  Each coin is actually counted much more then just 1 in the GE because of how often it passes hands.  A single coin can pass through 3 people in a day for example, so all 3 could've put that same coin into the GE to buy items.  So the true amount of coins in the economy isn't as high as the amount actually passing through the economy because each coin goes through multiple times.

There are also other ways coins go into the economy to contribute to this, like you mentioned, alching, and there are individuals who pick up coins from kills.  Before the old new wildy, lots of coins flooded the market from the pvp drops.  But I'd think with the amount of CS going on, a lot of it simply comes from CS large drops and then gets passed continuously from person to person


e.g.  I have one coin, I buy an item. Subject A gets the coin, he spends that same coin and buys and item. B gets a coin, spends the same coin buying item from C. etcetcetc.  Only one actual coin, but it passes through the economy multiple times giving the impression of a of coins.  And Cs=millions of coins per drop

Edited by twin suns 17, 10 April 2011 - 06:13 PM.

[Frostymouse]

Money is created through alching, as well as various other methods, but primarily alching.

twin suns 17, on 10 April 2011 - 06:12 PM, said:

Lots of people use coinshare, that produces coins from major drops.  They then use that GP from coinshare to buy items in the GE, which can easily be millions.  Now whoever sold that item in the GE has the coins, and they go on to buy more items in the GE, passing the coins onward.  It's the cycle of money.  Each coin is actually counted much more then just 1 in the GE because of how often it passes hands.  A single coin can pass through 3 people in a day for example, so all 3 could've put that same coin into the GE to buy items.  So the true amount of coins in the economy isn't as high as the amount actually passing through the economy because each coin goes through multiple times.

There are also other ways coins go into the economy to contribute to this, like you mentioned, alching, and there are individuals who pick up coins from kills.  Before the old new wildy, lots of coins flooded the market from the pvp drops.  But I'd think with the amount of CS going on, a lot of it simply comes from CS large drops and then gets passed continuously from person to person


e.g.  I have one coin, I buy an item. Subject A gets the coin, he spends that same coin and buys and item. B gets a coin, spends the same coin buying item from C. etcetcetc.  Only one actual coin, but it passes through the economy multiple times giving the impression of a of coins.  And Cs=millions of coins per drop

I'd been thinking about CS, but with CS, the people get 5% below the guide price split among them immediately.  However, when someone buys the item that was put onto the market, that cash doesn't go to the people who got the drop; that cash is removed from the game, so no cash is actually made through CS.

In fact, if the person buys the item for guide price, actually 5% of the value of the item, in terms of gp, was removed from the game.

Edited by Frostymouse, 10 April 2011 - 06:16 PM.

[Vashwolf]

Alching, quest rewards, task rewards, monster drops, coinshare.

Which is why back 7+ yrs ago, if you had over 10m, that was a lot of coins - there simply wasn't as much in circulation.

[Chaos23456]

Back in ye olden days, High Alchemy was profitable and was widely considered as the best way to train magic. As a result, many players High Alched Yew Longbows/Magic Longbows for profit and magic levels.

[Selena Gomez Twin]

Frostymouse, on 10 April 2011 - 06:14 PM, said:

Money is created through alching, as well as various other methods, but primarily alching.

twin suns 17, on 10 April 2011 - 06:12 PM, said:

Lots of people use coinshare, that produces coins from major drops.  They then use that GP from coinshare to buy items in the GE, which can easily be millions.  Now whoever sold that item in the GE has the coins, and they go on to buy more items in the GE, passing the coins onward.  It's the cycle of money.  Each coin is actually counted much more then just 1 in the GE because of how often it passes hands.  A single coin can pass through 3 people in a day for example, so all 3 could've put that same coin into the GE to buy items.  So the true amount of coins in the economy isn't as high as the amount actually passing through the economy because each coin goes through multiple times.

There are also other ways coins go into the economy to contribute to this, like you mentioned, alching, and there are individuals who pick up coins from kills.  Before the old new wildy, lots of coins flooded the market from the pvp drops.  But I'd think with the amount of CS going on, a lot of it simply comes from CS large drops and then gets passed continuously from person to person


e.g.  I have one coin, I buy an item. Subject A gets the coin, he spends that same coin and buys and item. B gets a coin, spends the same coin buying item from C. etcetcetc.  Only one actual coin, but it passes through the economy multiple times giving the impression of a of coins.  And Cs=millions of coins per drop

I'd been thinking about CS, but with CS, the people get 5% below the guide price split among them immediately.  However, when someone buys the item that was put onto the market, that cash doesn't go to the people who got the drop; that cash is removed from the game, so no cash is actually made through CS.

In fact, if the person buys the item for guide price, actually 5% of the value of the item, in terms of gp, was removed from the game.

That's not what I was trying to explain.  If you CS, you get a coin drop.  Lets say you get 10k drop from a bcp split. You have 10k in your bank. You spend 20k on a bcp.  Now like you said, you got less then the actual value of the item since it's 5% below.  But you just spend 20k on a bcp. Whoever owned that bcp got 20k. They spend that 20k on an ags.  Whoever owned that AGS got 20k.  Whoever got the 20k next spends it on a bgs that you sell in the ge.  Well, in the end, that same 10k you got from the CS drop went through the economy 3 times, generating a value in the economy of 30k, and you ended up with the 10k again.  So although you got the same 10k back, it's value in the economy is 30k.  And with the actual mass amount of money going on in exchanges, the true value is probably much higher.  Essentially what i'm trying to say is it doesn't matter that it's 5% less.  Millions of gp come from csing, and each time that same piece of gold goes through the economy, it generates its equivalent value.  So a 1 mil gp split from a drop, depending on how often it goes through the economy, can be equivalent to 10 mil in the economy.  10 mil in items was bought with that same 1 mil gp.

[Flists]

High alch used to be one of the main money makers way back when. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the source of much of today's gold.

[Scott]

Alching brings a massive amount of coins into the game.  And although monster drops might seem relatively insignificant at first, think about how many people there are killing monsters in RuneScape every second of everyday.  And many people do pick up coin drops, especially large coin drops from higher leveled monsters.  It definitely adds up.  Then take into account things like quest rewards, and the cash reward from Pest Control.  Remember that Pest Control was hugely popular after it was first released, and was (and even continues to be, but to a lesser extent) one of the main methods of fast combat training.  It may seem like there are only a couple of big sources of coins into the game, but you have to take into account the number of players and the number of years all of these coins have been in circulation.  Cash enters the game at much faster rate than it is removed, so the amount of gold in the game only increases over time, especially since the number of players is also always on the rise.

[Hatinghilary]

Bh brought in a huge amount of money from (Statuettes),like others said, high alching used to be pretty profitable whether they gathered supplies or what not, so I would mainly say high alching, + BH (STATUETTES) for the current rise in gold supply...

Edited by Hatinghilary, 10 April 2011 - 09:27 PM.

[Debenkey]

I would think that majority of the coins in RuneScape come from alchemy, Coinshare, and selling to General stores. However, alchemy was definitely the prime way of bringing currency into the game in the early years, with most items yielding profit, especially Yew longbows like stated above. Though as the years went and the number of profitable alching items started to decrease, JaGex introduced Coinshare, which has easily taken over alchemy as the #1 generator of coins. With Coinshare, players can gain millions upon millions of coins from a single monster drop, making it the dominant producer. However, we can not leave out General stores as a generator of coins throughout all the years of RuneScape's existence, as all players used to sell to the store, with the newer players still doing so today.

Edited by Debenkey, 10 April 2011 - 09:44 PM.

[Alphanos]

Here are some ways that coins enter and leave the economy as a whole:

Creation of coins:
-High alchemy - by far the biggest source, but dropping as people realize it's a poor method to train magic.
-Former PvP drops, now revenant drops - a huge source prior to free trade, now mostly gone.
-Coin drops from monsters
-Coin drops from Thieving/Pickpocketing
-Selling items to NPC shops.
-Other miscellaneous methods, such as Pest Control, people taking coins from penguin hunting, etc.

Destruction of coins:
-Construction training - making planks, purchasing gold leaf and other supplies.
-Summoning training - spirit shards.
-Coinshare, which destroys 5% of the coins used to purchase items sold this way.
-Coins lost from deaths, etc.
-Other miscellaneous methods: buying items from shops, repairing Barrows/Chaotic gear, re-purchasing Korasi's Sword, etc.

The biggest balance is between alchemy injecting coins into the economy, and planks/spirit shards sucking them out. With the loss of PvP drops, and with more players learning about other methods to train magic, I think we're starting to feel some deflationary pressure.

Edited by Alphanos, 11 April 2011 - 01:00 AM.

[kasame10]

coins come from jagex... and alching but then by daily's gp's actually disapear used to buy items so.... hmmm yeah.... uuuhm penguin points? no lol.. uhmmm... jagex? well actually there is just a lot of coins and when somebody buys something they are just sended to another player but they never disapear so actually they come from recycling. for example: Bob has 0gp. Harry has 100k. St. Jorge has 0gp.   Bob sells ashes to harry for 50k. now bob has 50k and harry has 50k and St. Jorge has 0gp. then Harry and bob both give all of their money to St. Jorge. now St. Jorge has 100k and the rest has 0gp. all the money is recycled. The end!

[Hatinghilary]

Quote

The total number of coins is based on the item's guide price on the Grand Exchange. The item will also be added to the Grand Exchange at the guide price. Any items sold on the Grand Exchange from CoinSharing will have no effect on that item's market value. A cap may also be applied to the cash you receive from your share, to limit any market manipulation that may be attempted by using CoinShare.

Doesn't this mean that coins are not generated from coinshare? And that the gold is coming from the GE ?

EDIT: To those that are saying coins come from coinshare

Edited by Hatinghilary, 11 April 2011 - 08:38 AM.

[Dakk.]

Hatinghilary, on 11 April 2011 - 08:35 AM, said:

Quote

The total number of coins is based on the item's guide price on the Grand Exchange. The item will also be added to the Grand Exchange at the guide price. Any items sold on the Grand Exchange from CoinSharing will have no effect on that item's market value. A cap may also be applied to the cash you receive from your share, to limit any market manipulation that may be attempted by using CoinShare.

Doesn't this mean that coins are not generated from coinshare? And that the gold is coming from the GE ?

EDIT: To those that are saying coins come from coinshare

No, the coins ARE generated from coinshare.

Example:

-Team gains a BCP split
-Team gains 95% of the coins of BCP's market price
-Guy A buys the same BCP on market price
-Guy A gains BCP, team gains 95% of cash, 5% cash disappears into thin air, UNLESS the BCP isn't sold immediately and actually drops in price.

[Paradite]

I am surprised no one has mentioned all of the coins that are coming into the game when a person dies in the wild with untradeables. You can get 300k+ simply from killing someone with an untradeable and this goes on many multiple times for the same player for everytime they kill someone. Not much else to say really, everyone has listed all of the most obvious ways cash comes into the game.

[Player Killer]

Paradite, on 11 April 2011 - 10:57 AM, said:

I am surprised no one has mentioned all of the coins that are coming into the game when a person dies in the wild with untradeables. You can get 300k+ simply from killing someone with an untradeable and this goes on many multiple times for the same player for everytime they kill someone. Not much else to say really, everyone has listed all of the most obvious ways cash comes into the game.

have you wondered how you get these untradeables? ofc by paying a few % to 40% more for it.
korasi's sword is like the least loss, buy for 250k, converts to 245k
barrows gloves buy for 100k, converts to 60k
etc etc

[dragon1425]

You have to remember that coins are still in circulation from Classic. They come from monster drops, quest rewards, and NPC stores. I've always thought this too. I would love to hear an official response from JaGex.

[bethg]

Paradite, on 11 April 2011 - 10:57 AM, said:

I am surprised no one has mentioned all of the coins that are coming into the game when a person dies in the wild with untradeables. You can get 300k+ simply from killing someone with an untradeable and this goes on many multiple times for the same player for everytime they kill someone. Not much else to say really, everyone has listed all of the most obvious ways cash comes into the game.

WOW really? i didnt even know what , good stuffs

[bolsh]

Money is gained in the game in SO many ways:

• 1. Selling items to the General Store - usually for way under what they're worth
  
• 2. Alching items - make money/lose money, either way, it brings coins into the game
  
• 3. Drops from Players/Monsters - coins, coins, coins

There are so many, endless ways in which coins come into the game. Money is generated equal to the amount of people who play the game, do PVPing, PVMing, anything along those lines. It's unlimited.