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TruthScape Sneak Previews - Why the Grand Exchange Could be RuneScape’s Most Important Update in Years Preview of The Grand Exchange - "Most Important Update in Years?" What’s the Big Deal?

One of the biggest problems with discussing the Grand Exchange is that right now, nobody knows any of the specifics of how it will work except Jagex—and they, of course, aren’t saying. This means that, of necessity, only general comments and observations can be made about how the GE will operate. Based on my past experience with Jagex, and my understanding of how online exchange systems work, I’ll give you my best guesses.

I believe the Grand Exchange will be released on November 26^th or 27^th, the Monday or Tuesday of the last week of the month. There are only two “normal” release dates left in November, and two significant updates: the Duel Arena changes and the GE. The evidence for my date guess is that the Duel Arena changes are discussed earlier in the BTS article, and the GE specifically says it will come out “later in the month”, which is usually Jagex’s code phrase for “the last update of the month”.

Jagex has said that the GE will be “located in the north-west of Varrock”. I think the most logical place for the GE to placed would be just outside the current western wall of the city, roughly between the Varrock west bank and the Chef’s Guild (Figure 73). Having the GE near a bank would make a lot of sense, so I hope Jagex will do that.

Jagex says that the GE can be used to “offer items to buy and sell”, so I would imagine that there might be two different sections of the GE: a place to list items for sale, and a “want to buy” area for those looking to purchase items. Obviously, those who are going to sell something would be best off to first check the listings of items wanted before writing up a sell offer, and vice-versa.

I would imagine that the GE will require all transactions to be cash-based, meaning that you will offer to buy for a certain amount of gold or sell for a certain amount. It would not be very practical to set up an exchange that allowed item trades, because there’s no realistic way for a buyer or seller to specify in advance what sort of items he or she is willing to take in trade. Computer systems also cannot automatically judge if an offer is met using equivalent items. If true, one nice benefit of this is that people who are looking to sell equipment for cash will no longer have to deal with people trying to pawn off useless items on them.

The specification of the phrase “offer items to buy and sell” would seem to indicate that only listings with specific prices would be allowed, meaning no auctions. If so, then while the exchange would still be very useful, it would not have the full potential it could have if auctions were permitted. Of course, Jagex could have just been simplifying things with that phrase, since Behind the Scenes never has much information beyond “this is coming”.

I believe the GE will probably allow you to search for items by category and by using a search engine—much the same way that the marketplace forums on the RuneScape website work. In fact, one could generally think of the GE as being like an in-game replacement for those forums, but more automated and restricted.

Many people are assuming that it will be free to trade on the GE, just as it is free to use the RS forums or to trade in-game. I don’t think that’s likely, however. I believe that a fee will be imposed both to list items for sale and to specify a desire to purchase items, and a further fee will be charged when a transaction takes place. These will probably be percentages of the value of the transaction, with certain minimums. I’ll discuss later in the article why these fees will likely exist, and why they aren’t necessarily a bad idea.

That phrase is well known and for a very important reason: anything can sound great when described in broad terms, but how good it is always comes down to the specifics, not the generalities. Every decision that Jagex makes about how exactly to design and implement the Grand Exchange will have a major impact on if people like the GE, how many people use it, and how they use it.

Here are some of the key design and operation issues that will have a huge influence on the desirability of using the GE:

• Cost of Use: As I mentioned above, I think there will be a fee to use the GE. How large the fee is will determine whether people think it is worth paying to use the GE, or if they should stick to more conventional trading methods. Of course, Jagex could also make it entirely free, which will lead to the GE being enormously popular, but could lead to a different set of problems.
  
  
• Listing Methods: Will auctions be permitted or only straight sales? Will it be possible to enter only simple “buy X item at X price” or more complicated orders? These are obviously essential issues.
  
  
• Method of Finding Items: The GE will be more usable if it is well designed and laid out, offering not only a powerful search engine but other ways of finding items. Will we be able to browse listings like we can in the RuneScape forums? We’ll have to wait and see.
  
  
• Use While Logged Off? One big question many people have is whether it will be possible to list something for sale and have it remain listed while a user is logged off. Which way Jagex goes with this decision will have a tremendous impact on how useful people find the Grand Exchange.
  
  
• F2P and P2P Decisions: Will the GE be usable only by members, or also in F2P? If the latter, will it be possible to trade non-member items between those in F2P and P2P worlds? If the latter is true, the effects on the game will be dramatic.
  
  
• Open Market or Price Ranges? Will Jagex let players set any price they want for items, or restrict items to certain price ranges? In theory, players can sell for whatever they want, but Jagex could still restrict prices in order to prevent certain abuses that we’ll see later.
  
  
• Items Available for Listing: We’ll have to see if Jagex will allow only specific (tradable) items—that is, specific items that appear in your inventory or take up a bank slot—to be listed, or if more arbitrary sets and sales will be permitted. For example, will you be able to list “Ahrim’s no staff” or only the three separate Ahrim’s pieces (top, bottom and hood)?
  
  
• Listing Limits: Will restrictions be put into place on how many of an item can be bought or sold? Or how many listings can be made? How much time will a listing remain on the GE? These and related questions will dictate how attractive the system is to larger volume buyers/sellers, as well as merchants.

One of the biggest questions that I have about the GE is how it is going to be run. Is Jagex going to just open it up to everyone and let us all go at it? Or is a specific set of rules going to be put into place, and possibly even moderators designated to watch for problems and correct them?

Rules are essential, in my opinion. There are many rules that govern appropriate use of the RuneScape forums for trading, and it should be no different here. For example, we don’t want people lying about offers, or trying to manipulate prices, or engaging in collusion. Jagex needs to recognize that 95%+ of its players do not use the forums and don’t know what the rules are there, and be sure that it formally codifies what is appropriate use of the GE.

The question of moderators is an interesting one. I think Jagex could either use player moderators or forum moderators in this role, or create a new class of moderator. If they don’t use players to supervise the exchange, then I hope they have some staff members ready to assume that role.

TruthScape Sneak Previews - Why the Grand Exchange Could be RuneScape’s Most Important Update in Years Preview of The Grand Exchange - "Most Important Update in Years?" What’s the Big Deal?