Prices in the auction house are incredibly high. Even outside the auction house, basic supplies are incredibly expensive. In this work, I will outline what I believe to be the three main causes to the high prices: scarcity of supplies due to shop limits and difficulty in collection, the size of the playerbase, and the fact that there is one gameplay world. I will attempt to seek a resolution.

It should be noted by the reader that this work is a step toward an open discourse on this subject. I claim no final word on this topic: may this post be a forum for the discussion of the future of the economy, and for metrics by which we can analyze carefully steps to be taken to improve it.

Scarcity of Materials

This topic must be sectioned out, since there are different kinds of materials in game. I believe that there is a problem of scarcity with some of these in particular, yet not others, or at least not to the same degree.
As I see it, there are four types:

• Those items which are purchased from shops
• Those items which are dropped by monsters
• Those items which are collected from the ground
• Those items which must be gathered through some skill

Shop Items

These I find a major issue with. The evidence is in the current market values. Take, for example, vials, which are 1000 each in the marketplace. Now, compare this to the shop price of 2gp ea. I think it will be agreeable to all that the price of vials on the market at its current state is absurd. Further, take fire runes, which range from 60-150 in the marketplace. Now, compare this to the shop price of 6-8, or 28-30 gp, depending on the source.

There are multiple examples like this. The pricing of these items has to do with the lack of supply in the face of greater demand. This effect is much more obvious with the vials, and less so with the fire runes, but the reasoning lies the same with both: There is not nearly enough supply to meet the current market demand. We must state why: The shops which provide these items do not provide enough supply. This is a major issue, especially in the case of vials. Jatix's shop is the viable option, where unless a player has 60 agility, and even if so, the run takes a large amount of time. Further, his shop stocks only 50 vials at a time, and while the regeneration is fairly quick, it only allows for perhaps two immediately filled inventories for a quick player. The same can be said for eye of newt.

So why are the prices on fire runes so much lower? Well considering the prices of fire runes in shops, this price is still high. (Let it be known that I am not implying that the market price should match the npc price -- not at all, but something's got to give.) The price of fire runes is lower because there are multiple suppliers which sell in much higher numbers. Betty of Port Sarim sells 300 at a time, Aubury and the Magic Guild sell 50 at a time, and the Mage Arena sells 1,000 at a time. Now I want to point out that for that last store, the prices are much higher -- 28 gold per rune -- however what is interesting is that the store stock has been boosted from 100 in the original RSC to 1,000 in RSCRevolution. This is a good move because it decreases the scarcity of the runes, given a risk on the part of the player. We must not discount the effect this has on prices.

Now the playerbase does take advantage of these shops: As such, I do not believe that the size of the playerbase is contributing to these issues. Competition to buy out runes, vials, and other shopped materials is high. For these items, I think two factors play into it, one of which is repairable and the other which is not:
First, the limits to store stock, and second, there is only one server to play on.

Allow me to elaborate.

Since there is such limited store stock, the number of items coming into the game is limited to two factors. The first is the regeneration rate of store-stocked items. The other is the competition for store stock at any given time.
Since the stores stock a limited supply, only so many items of a given kind can enter the game. When the demand for an item exceeds the very limits of the game, overpricing occurs.
Not only this, but there is not constant competition to bring items into the game. If nobody is running vials, there are no vials, and thus the prices for vials begin to rise. Even when there is competition for store stock, only so many items can come into the game due to shop limitations!

Now I believe that this ties directly into the problem of having only one server. Unfortunately, we cannot have another one; not only would it be expensive to maintain and difficult to bring together, but with the size of the playerbase it may not be worthwhile. This is important:
Having only one server means that people cannot buy out store stock on multiple worlds, which means that the scarcity of store stock is limited even further. As such, it may be necessary to compensate for this by increasing the store stock to match what would be available across multiple worlds at once, while maintaining caution as to undercut the demand of the playerbase. Having less than met demand allows for shop buyouts to still have value to a player who wants to merch shops. I find this to be a reasonable solution to this first problem.

More coming soon!