TruthScape.com - The RuneScape World 2 Trading Survival Guide

If you had occasion to mention the phrase “World 2” to a group of experienced RuneScape players, you’d probably get a wide range of reactions in response. Some people would dreamily tell you that World 2, and specifically the marketplace in Falador, is the most dynamic, exciting and enjoyable place in the entire game. Others would frown at you, and inform you that they’d rather have teeth pulled without anesthetic than go there. And, perhaps most amusing of all, some might tell you that they feel both of those emotions at different times!

If you’ve ever asked a bunch of people how they feel about the downtown area of a big city, you might get similar reactions. And that’s a fitting comparison, because World 2 Falador is the closest thing that RuneScape has to a bustling, always-active, going-24/7 big city. In fact, you might even say that World 2 Falador is RuneScape’s New York, New York: a virtual “city that never sleeps”.

What makes World 2 and its market so unique? How does the marketplace work? Is it really a great place or a horrible one? Let’s find out.

In an ideal world—I mean the real world here, not RuneScape ones—every person on RuneScape would be using the same server, together. If you think about it, this is how the game was likely always intended to be played; all characters really are supposed to be in the same land. The use of multiple worlds (servers) is really a practical compromise that is necessary because of hardware limitations—no single computer can handle 100,000 or more RuneScape players at once.

One of the drawbacks of having multiple servers, however, is that people who are on different worlds cannot interact directly, other than chatting. If you want to buy, sell or trade items, then one person has to switch to the other person’s world. This is not a problem for the occasional trade, but when you are looking to buy or sell large quantities of items, having to find trading partners and constantly world hop is a giant nuisance.

Even before Jagex’s (excellent) decision to create themed worlds, many worlds were informally designated for particular purposes, and World 2 became the world known for trading within the member’s only portion of the game. This likely came about due to its status as one of the original two RuneScape servers. Whatever the reason, it has been the hub of trading for many years, especially in the main trading center of Falador.

Obviously, trading can be done on any server, not just World 2. However, the value of a marketplace is a function of how many people participate in it, and there are more people buying, selling and trading in World 2 Falador than anywhere else in RuneScape. If you are looking to quickly buy an item that you need for a quest, sell something to get cash, check prices or engage in merchanting, World 2 has no peer; see Figure 46 for an example.

**Figure 46: Potion/Herb Central**
Need to buy or sell a bunch of herbs or potions? This is the place to be.

Choosing a specific world for trading could be considered an initial step in bringing buyers and sellers together, but just agreeing on a world isn’t enough. RuneScape is a pretty big place, so to create a viable market, a specific gathering spot had to be designated. In World 2 that place is the town of Falador.

Since I am not an old-timer—I started playing in late 2005—I am not familiar with the history behind the creation of the original World 2 marketplace. My understanding, though, is that it began with groups of players who decided to meet in Falador Park to buy, sell and trade various items, including rares like party hats. Over time, more and more people started to come to Falador to trade. As the number of buyers and sellers increased and the market broadened to more types of items, players with an interest in specific item types started to congregate in specific hotspots. These would then grow as still more players started to use them.

At present, there are literally dozens of reasonably well-defined trading spots in World 2. The majority of these locations are clustered in the territory between Falador Park and the Falador east bank. Older items tend to have locations closer to the center of the park or near the bank, while newer ones are traded more often around the perimeter of the marketplace. Perhaps ironically, party hats are now traded not in Falador itself, but in the field north of its walls (see Figure 47).

**Figure 47: World 2 Party Hat Marketplace**
Party hats are the primary item routinely sold in World 2 but not in Falador; look at the minimap and you can see that I am standing in a field north of Fally’s north wall. There are at least four people here wearing different colors of party hats, and someone offering to buy a green hat for 220 million gold.

As RuneScape has expanded, so has demand on World 2. The Falador marketplace has generally been expanding towards the west, as new items are brought into the game that spawn new trading districts. One of the largest expansions occurred after the treasure trail system overhaul, which brought many new TT items into RuneScape; these are now generally traded in several regions around the smelting furnace just southeast of Falador Center. Another large new trading zone came into being for items from the new God Wars Dungeon; this area is located around the bridge to the White Knights’ Castle.

Note that trading zones are not “set in stone” or absolute—it’s quite common to see people offering items for sale in different areas, or in the banks, instead of the usual spots. Despite this, using the right trading spot is recommended, for the simple and obvious reason that this is where most of the buyers and sellers are. Another reason is that shorthands are often used that are specific to a particular district, which can be confusing if you don’t know the context. For example, you might find a player saying something like “buying full”, and you won’t understand “full what?” unless you realize what people are trading in the place where you’re standing. My trading location overview map and detail map should help you with this.

In its November 2007 Behind the Scenes article, Jagex mentions an upcoming feature called the Grand Exchange. You’ll recall that I said earlier that one problem with having multiple worlds for the game is the inability to buy or sell across servers—well, the Grand Exchange is intended to solve that problem. Jagex’s short description says that players will be able to list items for sale or make purchase offers that work across all servers.

It would seem, on the surface, that this new feature could greatly diminish the importance of World 2. It should let people access an even large potential market base than is present at World 2 Falador, and permit trading without the need to go to a particular world and wade through throngs of people shouting out offers and requests.

However, let’s remember that the devil, as they say, is in the details. The simple truth is that right now, nobody really knows what the Grand Exchange will be or how it will work. It could turn out to be an incredibly fantastic tool that puts World 2 Falador out of business—or an annoying, awful clunker that nobody uses. There’s no point in speculating, since we’ll all get to see it in a few weeks; I will update this guide after I see what impact the Grand Exchange has on World 2 trading.