arbitrage.

arbitage: a fancy way of saying merchanting.

merchanting: a shorter way of saying buy cheap and sell high.

people make ridiculous amounts of money merchanting, and almost every good moneymaking guide i've come across mentions this, and mentions it as the best way to make money.

i don't dispute that, but frankly i just don't like it.

the macros're already destroying the yews, nats, deaths, chaos (chaoses? chaos?) etc markets. the way i see it, merchants simply buy from the bots and sell to players who tolerate their high prices simply because they want to do their part in buying from legitimate players, and legitimate players alone.

besides the bit that they're propelling that whole enterprise, there's also the issue of it being plain mercenary.

it's too businesslike for me, too calculating. i'm not too great at the whole marketing thing, and while i respect that merchants have their own skill (or at the very least, patience to spend equally ridiculous amounts of time on the game), i cannot bring myself to buy from a player knowing the price isn't a fair one, and that i will be playing on his ignorance of the market.

of course, if it's an experienced player just trying to get rid of stuff in a hurry, i've got nothing to say to that.

a while back, i read a post (in the rants forum, if i'm not wrong) about how runescape's economy's going to collapse just as rsc's did (or would have, i'm not too sure about the facts). it being early enough in the morning that i'd only have 4 hours of sleep before heading off to school, i just skimmed through the post. it seemed quite logical, really, and basically his argument was that there's too much money flooding the game, and to stop that, some solutions were to stop alching stuff, among the more prominent ones, and of course, to stop merchanting.

i'm trying to reconstruct the argument right now, kudos to the player who came up with this, i'll try to source for your name and the actual thread later.

with the influx of too much money, there's the risk of devaluing it. inflation, i believe it's termed. when money's worth decreases. the way it did during the war, when the foreign, military government simply printed their money as and when they needed it. prices more than doubled, for some products prices even increased a thousandfold.

just realised. it's off topic.

anyway. you could try arbitrage if you're looking to make quick money (quick in the sense that you won't be leveling any virtual skills) and if dealing so much with people doesn't bother you in the slightest.

i don't encourage it, but what the hell. i'm now fully convinced that persuading people to change their minds just isn't my thing.

edit: okay. i've been persuaded. TURN IT ALL AROUND. merchants sell their time. it's their time they're selling, so it's worth paying them. and they help the economy, like retailers do. and the RS ECONOMY IS NOT GOING TO CRASH. i'll post more some other time. it's all other people's points, and i'm all in agreement with them.