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The RuneScape World 2 Trading Survival Guide - Comparing World 2 Falador to Other Markets The RuneScape World 2 Trading Survival Guide - Tips for Successful Trading

If you try to go unprepared to the marketplace in World 2 Falador, you’ll quickly discover why so many people hate it there. First, it can be extremely difficult to even get into the server. Then, if you do, you’ll discover that Falador itself is crowded and chaotic, and filled with autotypers, spammers and scammers.

All is not lost, however. With the assistance I’ll provide you here, you can learn to survive and maybe even enjoy the World 2 Fally experience.

Since World 2 is the trading hub of RuneScape, it is full or nearly full 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Jagex doesn’t include a link to the server on its server list unless there is open space, so the first challenge is even finding a way to see the World 2 login screen. This can take many minutes, and often scares people away from World 2 before they even have a chance to try to log in!

Jagex prohibits the use of third-party software to make it easier to get into World 2, but does not disallow the use of bookmarks or your own personal links to the server. This means you can easily set up your own HTML page to let you get a chance to log into World 2.

NOTE: Based on everything I have uncovered in my research, the method below is legal. You will need to decide for yourself if you feel comfortable using it, though; if not, then please skip this section. If anyone can point me to anything official from Jagex that says this is against the rules, I’ll remove it. (No rumors or hearsay, please!)

Just follow this simple set of three steps, which is geared towards Windows computers; Apple users, just substitute whatever text editor you normally use, and the process will be about the same:

1. Select Start, then All Programs, then Accessories and then Notepad.
   
   
2. Copy the text in Table 7 into Notepad.
   
   
3. From the File menu, choose “Save As”. Click “Desktop” on the left side, and then enter a name like “rsworld2.htm” and click the “Save” button. Note that the “.htm” suffix is important!

That’s it! Now, to get into World 2, all you have to do is click that “world2.htm” icon on your desktop. Your browser will launch and the World 2 login screen should hopefully show up. Enter your login and password, and keep trying the Login button until you get in.

Falador is a town, and one that contains no aggressive monsters, so it is technically a safe place for players. Despite this, World 2 Falador is probably one of the most unsafe “safe places” in all of RuneScape. This is mainly due to the huge throngs of people in the marketplace, and the impact that this can have on how you play and what happens to your character. It is wise to be aware of these issues and take appropriate precautions.

So what exactly is the problem? It’s simple: random events. Jagex’s insistence on putting damage-dealing random events into the game can lead to annoyances under any circumstances, but in the World 2 Fally marketplace, they can be deadly. There are three main reasons for this. First, there are so many people around that it is much more difficult to tell when a random event NPC shows up, and notice when you are the person it is addressing. (It’s easy to not realize that Rick Turpentine or a swarm have shown up, or to think they are damaging someone else.) Second, many players spend a lot of time in Falador doing nothing but chatting, so it’s easy to get bored and stop paying attention to what’s going on around you. Finally, because World 2 is always full, and hundreds of people are chatting at once in Falador, lag is a common problem. This can lead to your character dying even you actually are paying attention.

Here are a few tips to avoid dying and losing items while in the World 2 marketplace:

• Pay Attention: Pretty self-explanatory. J
  
  
• Wear a Ring of Life: This simple precaution can save you in the event that you don’t notice a random, or you lag out while one is harassing you. I believe that general randoms (unlike skill-specific ones such as the river troll) only do one or two points of damage at a time, so the ring should work.
  
  
• Limit What You Wear and Carry: I’ve heard so many horror stories from people who have died and lost incredibly valuable items, huge sums of gold, and so forth. It’s really not smart to carry all your valuables around on you at once, especially in World 2. Similarly, if you’re going to be spending any length of time trading, don’t wander around in full dragon with a Santa hat unless you like taking chances. Keep the pricy stuff in the bank.
  
  
• Don’t Trade Valuable While Skulled: Normally, if you are trying to sell an expensive item, like say a dragonfire shield, then at least if you die you’ll keep it. But if you’re skulled…

An amusing anecdote.. I can recall one situation when I was in World 2 Falador. I was doing pricing research and taking screenshots for my special report on the godsword, and at one point I had all four godsword types in my inventory. I was afraid of dying and not keeping them all, so I actually put Protect Item on. I then thought to myself that it was pretty funny (and a bit sad) that I felt I had to use that prayer while standing in a bank! J

Arriving in the World 2 marketplace for the first time is a.. shall we say… interesting experience. In fact, I can recall the first time I went there; I was fairly low level, and rather overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. I remember calling over a couple of family members to marvel at the nearly full “grid” of white dots surrounding me on my minimap. My chat box was also scrolling up so fast that I couldn’t read a thing!

Here are a few tips to help you get the spamming and craziness of World 2 a bit more under control, so you can keep your sanity:

• Set Public Chat to “Hide”: You want to see what others are saying, but if you keep public chat set to “On” you’ll experience continuous scrolling, and you won’t be able to trade easily because you’ll never notice the server message if anyone tries to trade you. Right-click the “Public” button and select “Hide”—now you’ll be able to see in the game window what people are saying without it all showing up in your chat box.
  
  
• Turn Off Chat Effects: Many buyers and sellers use annoying chat effects to cause their text to show up in garish colors, wave up and down, scroll or flash on the screen (Figure 50 shows what these look like). Most people find this incredibly irritating, especially since the people most apt to employ this junk are cheaters using autotyping software. You can turn these effects off by clicking the wrench icon at the bottom right of the screen, then clicking the little “Abc” text balloon icon so the red background goes away.
  
  
• Split Private Chat: Right next to the chat effects button is another one that has two text balloons each containing three dots (“…”). If you click this to turn it on, private chat from friends and others will appear in an overlay in the main game window instead of in the chat box below. Most people find that this makes things easier.
  
  
• Avoid the Very Busiest Areas: Fally East bank is the “spammiest” location in the market. Unless you are trading something that requires you to be right around there, you’ll get less of a headache being, well, anywhere else. J
  
  
• Put the Worst Autotypers on Ignore: Jagex has done a very poor job of enforcing the rules against autotyping, especially in World 2, so you are going to see a lot of them. Some can be particularly abusive, though, repeating the same thing every 2 or 3 seconds. Don’t reward this cheating—put them on ignore.
  

  Figure 50: Chat Effects = Headache

  As bad as the chaos in World 2 Fally is with chat effects off, it’s even worse with them on. Contrast this screenshot to, say, Figure 46, and you’ll see what I mean—except it’s even worse in the game because here you can’t see how the text actually moves!

  
  

For related information, please also see the section on effectively communicating with other players.

The similarities between World 2 and a big city continue when it comes to the subject of crime. Since there are a lot of people around, and it’s also so chaotic, it’s a perfect place for scammers to “ply their trade”. Recent changes by Jagex have reduced the incidence of item scamming, but there’s still lots to watch out for in the World 2 Falador market.

I strongly suggest reading The Truth About RuneScape Item Scams, the extensive guide here on TruthScape to the tricks pulled by item scammers. It will tell you all that you need to know to avoid falling victim to most scams. If you don’t want to read all of that—and I realize that it’s long—then at the very least read the topic Common Sense Tips to Avoid Most Item Scams, and be sure you follow those suggestions.

Here are a few of the most common scams that you may encounter in World 2 today. Again, this list is much reduced compared to what it was a year ago, thanks to improvements to the trade interface, and other anti-scamming measures:

• Look-alike item substitution, such as trading a Barrows set with two skirts instead of a skirt and a helm.
  
  
• Trying to confuse junk items for valuable ones, such as selling the “arena book” in the area where mage’s books are traded.
  
  
• Team advertising scams and other types of price manipulation.
  
  
• Arithmetic scams.
  
  
• Trust games and in-game lures like fake drop parties.

It’s also fairly common for new people to lose money simply by overpaying when buying, or asking too little when selling, generally because they don’t know what items are worth. As I mention in my common sense tips list, be sure to know your items and prices before you venture into the market…

The RuneScape World 2 Trading Survival Guide - Comparing World 2 Falador to Other Markets The RuneScape World 2 Trading Survival Guide - Tips for Successful Trading