Should rares be kept tradeable?

k, after two weeks of [M]ike writing for the Herald, I will try to write a good article myself again. This week, the subject is: should rares be kept tradeable? The poor people will probably say no, while the rich merchants who make a lot of money with trading rares will say yes. This article is about all holiday drops, especially the (in)famous Party Hats, and Santa Hats of course. For many of you, this is probably a well known story, and a lot of people are wondering why I would write about rares. Well, because Christmas is getting close, and that is always a time in which the sellers of rares make a lot of money. Christmas, Santa Hats, new holiday items... Got it? Good, now get reading!

Now why has Jagex ever made these rares tradeable? And why have they never changed it and will they probably never change it? I can never be sure about that, but the answer to the first question is spirit, and the second question... Money! So... I will at first find the exact answers to these questions, and explain them.

Ok, at first, let us see this update from RuneScape.com: 25 December 2002 - Merry Christmas Merry Christmas from the Jagex team. We're dropping some Santa hats today at random intervals in random places. They're just a bit of fun though, so please don't be too upset if you can't find one. If you manage to get more than one then please consider giving them to your friends as Christmas presents. Of course you can sell them but that's not really the spirit of Christmas :-)

Now, that explains it pretty much I would say. The Santa hats are just a bit of fun, and you can trade them, so you can give them to friends as Christmas presents. Now I don't think anyone could ever expect such a huge inflation on the rares market. I have heard stories of people merchanting rares in the beginning, buying for 200k and selling for 500k and they thought it was a good deal... So in 2003, Jagex stopped the tradeable holiday drops.

Now, why these items will probably always stay tradeable, is because it is not fair to people who paid for them, if they can not sell it anymore. Also, Jagex might lose a lot of players, and they do not want that to happen of course. Another argument why rares should stay tradeable is because it makes the game a little more fun. If you can afford buying a party hat, you are very rich. And in real life, there are all kinds of rare items as well.

These rares will always keep going up in price, and that is because a lot of them get lost. Some people who stop playing RuneScape leave everything on their accounts, including rares. There are also more people getting rich every day, so more people who want to buy a rare item. And more people willing to buy it means the price will go up.

Now, for normal items, the price is high at the release, then it goes down fast as it is not new anymore. And finally it is quite stable when a lot of people have it. It will keep going down of course, but very slowly. This is why the economy of RuneScape does not really work out. There are unlimited supplies of everything, except holiday drops and discontinued items. That creates a gap in the economy as the price of these items will keep raising forever, and players will always keep getting more money.

Overall, I would say these items should be kept tradeable, they add a special thing to the economy of RuneScape, but they also take the fun out of the game sometimes. If the prices get really high, I would say it is a good idea to let some more flow into the game slowly. Maybe as very rare slayer drops or treasure trial rewards? I am sure this would work out, and it could be fair, as long as Jagex will not let lots of them in at once. Maybe the prices could be lowered slowly to a few millions for all drops.

Now that is it, all I can think of for this edition, as TOGRC's forums are just reopened, next week, we will dig deep into the history of our official clan in an extra big article. But for now, we invite to discuss the article and post your own opinions.