Economy

The day the Grand Exchange (GE) was released was filled with excitement and disappointment. Many people throughout the game believed this was a good thing, not having to travel all over Runescape to find what they needed. Others thought it destroyed the nature of the game with the set prices, which set the table for the updates to come in the weeks following the Grand Exchange’s release. Ever since the update of the Grand Exchange and the trade limits were released, players have been considering the Grand Exchange a good thing, or a bad thing. The Grand Exchange has its pros and cons, and has had a major effect of the economy of the game.

Pros

The Grand Exchange is one of the updates in recent Runescape history that has affected the Runescape economy the most. There are many good things about this.

Accessibility

• The Grand Exchange is easy to access, being in the middle of Varrock, only a tele away, with the ability to tele directly to the entrance of the GE by completing the easy tasks in the Varrock Achievement Diary.
• With the collection box for items bought or sold at every bank, once an offer has been placed, and you have been notified that it has gone through, you can pick it up at whatever bank you please.

Buying Ability

• Before the Grand Exchange, finding items you needed could take a long time. To find items for skills such as fletching, smithing, or herblore could be tedious, running from town to town, often for small amounts of the item needed. With the GE, you can buy by the thousands, and have any item you need at any time.

Selling Ability

• Having the ability to sell items you have collected, made, or worked for is easy to do with the GE. Without it, players would have to run all over Runescape looking for a buyer before the GE was created.

Cons

The GE only has a few things bad about it, but these are very big problems.

Price Manipulation and Merchanting Clans

• Possibly one of the biggest problems with the GE is price manipulation, mainly caused by merchanting clans. This has made items that players use to train skill go up in price, and drop often.

Supply and Demand

• Supply and demand can often change prices on the GE fairly quickly. Many items, such as pure essence, that are bought by the thousands, often 100k+, tend to move in price quite often. From September 1st, when Pure Essence was 144 each, it went up to 221 each by October 1st, and dropped back down to 173 each by November 1st.

Price Fluctuation on expensive items

• Very often we see many different high level and expensive items (godswords, bandos, rares, etc) move in price very often. These drop by the millions of gold somedays, and only go up a few hundred thousand gold the next day. When buying these items players must be very careful to not to buy these items when they are at their peak, so they do not lose to much gold.

One question that is often asked by players is “What would Runescape be like without the Grand Exchange?” Many players like it and others prefer the old way, in which the players created their own prices. Others argue that price manipulation is todays way of the players creating their own prices. Now ask yourself the question, would you rather Runescape without the Grand Exchange, or with it?

Economy Update of the Month: Anti “76k”ing Measures

With this update, it did not affect the economy all that much. It did, for a day, create a PvP world without “cheats” to get good drops. This was quickly taken over by the new form of the trick, using 3 people instead of 2. If It did work, and 76king was gone, it would have made a few more changes in the economy, with some commonly used items in PvP rising in price.