Do you really want me to spoil the fun? Too many questions and you can never un-know your answers!
3 Likes
The issue with direct price comparisons like that is that people back then were way more nooby than they are now. 10m seemed like an insane amount of money to most players in 2004-2005, but 10m in the current lost city project is a sizable but very attainable sum, on the 20-50hr scale for most players. People know the best moneymakers and there’s a lot less competition. I think targeting rares at authentic prices would cause them to be a bit too common.
I think Pazaz is aiming more for the authentic rarity metric, i.e. ratio of rares to total playerbase. The issue with this is that people have the power of hindsight and more developed brains, and the player base is 1/200 of authentic. This is resulting in an authentic rarity ratio feeling way too rare.
To me it seems like somewhere in the middle is the best solution.
3 Likes
Yea I wasn’t even aware that ranger/wizard boots existed back then. Now we are all meta-pilled and also know they will be BiS for a very very long time
I know you boost certain things and prohibit others certain weeks I just meant 1-5% boost overall in the amount of rares over the course of the event, but I understand the anonymity
based on rares in game weekend one (factoring in assumed hours played, average people playing and rares received), he did increase the chances. Original projections were around 200-250 at most. Now we are leaning toward 350 at most. (Based on my projections, not any inside info, this is not financial advice.)
1 Like
Indeed, and we don’t know how this increase occurs, if it is linear, or exponential, and there are still 9 weekends left.
I doubt there’s “an increase,” rather that Pazaz just tweaks the drop rate directly in the code whenever he wants.
I hope drop rate factors time played or time “having fun”. I’ve been tracking front page high score rare drops and last week they seemed to be well above the drop rate - and that’s just the ones that have announced rares. Say the current rate is 1/6 - 1/12. Well, front page high scores are at around 50% pulling a rare.
12% of the active player base having a rare by the end of the event would already be a much higher ratio of the playerbase owning rares than how it was originally in 2004. I understand we live in 2025 and we have the mindset of everyone should get a participation trophy, and so we complain until we get out trophy. But this way of thinking has become like a virus to modern day gaming. It steals the uniqueness factor away from games and the things that were once special become baseline and meaningless because of it. A perfect example of this: In the year 2004/2005 on RuneScape 2 you would come across a player wearing a party hat. You would stop to talk to them. Maybe take a screenshot, or message your friend. Maybe you would even walk away with the goal of one day being able to afford your own party hat. Compare this to how rares were released in OSRS. You could purchase a bond and use it to purchase every ‘rare’ item off the grand exchange within minutes, but shortly after you would feel empty because you achieved nothing.
There’s a reason why we are here playing a version of RuneScape how it was originally in 2004. The goal should be an authentic feeling of playing RuneScape how it was in the year 2004. The best way to do that when it comes to the release of rares is to mirror the ratio of rares owned by the player base in 2004.
Pazaz is doing a near perfect job with the approach he is taking. He has created an extremely exciting event that is determined by the 3 pillars of RuneScape throughout it’s existence: RNG, playtime, and play your way. Remember this is a return to RuneScape in 2004 and the ratio of rares owned by the player base should reflect that.
5 Likes
Did any of you even play runescape in 2004? I bought an entire halloween mask set after mining coal for 7 weeks after school each day.
There we’re more santa hats in the game than there was players in 2002 and 2003.
The most expensive Halloween mask was about 550k the cheapest one was 250k.
I swear you guys are spreading straight up misinformation with no facts behind it.
They we’re still considered “rares” because they we’re discontinued items and rose in value as more people started to play the game and a lot of the og original accounts just got banned or quit ect.
Where the hell are guy getting a 5% of the player base and all these numbers from? When I played in 2004 it was at least 50% of players had one.
For sure in 2002 and 2003 almost every single player had a santa hat.
I’m just super confused where you guys are even getting half of these number’s from? 5% seems wildly inaccurate from when I was playing.
3 Likes
maybe they’re using misleading player numbers Jagex used for investors/PR to calc % of players who had one, counting bots and players who tried the game for less than a week. The more meaningful figure would be what percent of players who played regularly had one.
Yeah I’m not saying we need to mimic the authentic 2004 numbers, because they really weren’t that rare back than, like I said mask’s were like 200k-600k they weren’t really that rare at all. Coal was also like 100gp-150gp.
But is it a bit frustrating people referring to historical data with completely false information, like pulling numbers out of a hat and displaying it as objective facts.
I do suspect a lot of the websites are probably incorporating Bots as actual players, because bots were so prevalent. I think the whole reason behind random events was to target the bot abuse because it became so rampant.
Later making the mime and maze event, which really screwed up bots because they we’re not able to defeat or complete these tasks.
Rune essence also remained super low because rune ess bots. I remember it was about 30 to 50 gold each, and doubled to 100 each once pure essence was released.
I digress but yeah I think people are using wildly inaccurate figures to represent the true authentic 2004 numbers.
1 Like
Yeah, I think bots and kids trying out the game for a short time is going to give a misleading denominator in calcing the percent of players who owned a rare for the purposes of LostCity.
1 Like
I played F2P beginning in summer 2004. I would go pking with my friends and mine rune ess to afford supplies. I never saw a party hat in F2P, and there were very few santa hats or masks I ever came across. Christmas 2004 I got membership and saw my first ever party hat at Falador park. I started to see a lot more players that had santa hats and masks in members worlds, but there definitely wasn’t 1 in every 5 members who had a mask, santa, or party hat. And I guarantee that 1 in every 10 F2P players didn’t have a mask, santa, or party hat. Out of all my friends from school 20+ people only 1 of us had a santa hat and that was because he bought gold with his mom’s credit card lol.
Maybe you’re misremembering because you were a member who spent little time on F2P worlds? None of my friends mined coal either we didn’t have the patience for that back then. We would either mine rune ess, cut trees, or fish lobbies while typing to each other. Even running law runes you may see 1 or 2 people wearing rares out of hundreds of players at the time. I think you may have been in the minority of the rich player base at the time where 50% of your friends had rares. Because to say that at the end of 2004 and the start of 2005 50% of the player base had rares is crazy.
2 Likes
Party hats are a different story but the prices I remember were
Santa hat: 150k 2003.
Santa hat 2004: 250k - 350k
Halloween mask green 250k 2003-2004
Halloween mask red: 350k - 2003-2004
Halloween mask Blue 550k - 750k
Somewhere in that ball park. Feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong.
A lot of people had them but didn’t always wear them around everywhere also.
For example: if you are going to kill blue dragons in Taverly you wouldn’t wear your santa hat. You would wear a rune full helm.
I owned all 3 halloween masks but rarely ever wore them while I was mining coal. Maybe once or twice just to flex a bit.
I don’t think it was very hard to generate that much GP either but a lot of people just played for fun back than and didn’t really care about buying rares, just wanted to have fun with their friends.
Again, I dont mind if pazaz decides to make them more rare in Lost city But i personally never saw a halloween mask go over a million gp back than. Coal was also only about 120 each where in lost city it is like 600 each so
(kinda gives you an insight to how many bots there was lol)
Also remember the fact Santa hats we’re released on 25 December 2002 so early 2003 pretty much. Every single player received one some people had multiple. Some people had multiple accounts that received multiple of them. So literally every single player had one 100% of players in early 2003.
So one year later you would expect that at least 50% of players still had one.
It’s pretty crazy to think 95% of players lost their santa hat within one year timeframe.
You think 95% of the player’s all lost their santa hat that quickly?
I don’t think you quite understand how crazy of a statement that 50% of the player base had a rare at the end of 2004 is. That’s not even close to being true. Even to say that 20% of the player base had a rare at the end of 2004 would be to inflate reality. I can’t speak about 2003 because I didn’t play during that time. But it’s also irrelevant because by the time that the rare event is over we’ll be at the end of 2004 in the RuneScape 2 timeline.
Moving on to your point about the prices of Santa hats and Halloween masks. I can’t give you a concrete answer on my end about the prices because I wasn’t able to afford a Santa hat or Halloween mask in 2004. But honestly it would be futile to compare the price of these items in 2004. Just as an example, if we could go back to 2010 with the knowledge of the price of Bitcoin today. Bitcoin would become instantly more valuable than it originally was in 2010.
Do you see how that works?
For this reason the prices of rares in 2004 is irrelevant. But the ratio of rares owned by the player base is the most relevant for an authentic feel of a return to RuneScape in 2004 and for a healthy future of following the RuneScape 2 timeline into 2005, 2006, and beyond.
It’s almost as if @Pazaz gave this serious thought before he decided to release rares. Or maybe it’s just a string of lucky, but great decisions.
2 Likes
If we compared the increase of players between the time the first ever rares dropped to how many more people started playing after the release of rs2, it makes more sense that percentages changed over time. Which is probably a big reason rares became so valuable not because nobody had them but because compared to the amount of people who played rsc when they dropped was vastly smaller than how big the player base grew between 2004-2007
If this project was meant to grow a player base/income, giving everyone the chance to get rares while they are available makes more sense in that context, but I think the best route to take is to just handle it as though the player base now (even though numbers rise on rare weekends) is what it will average as long as it stays up, as we can never really know what the future entails.
2 Likes
2004 is the year the game really started to grow honestly so you’re right about that but the start of 2004 If i had to guess I would say Yes 50% of players had at least one rare. Considering santa’s we’re like 150k at this time because it was only 1 year after they dropped multiple thousands of them, almost everyone had a santa hat.
Closer to the end of 2004 a lot less % wise would have them because the player base was rapidly growing at this time and so we’re the bots lol.
Also we aren’t at the end of 2004 we are at the middle but yeah I mean I guess the difference between the start of 2004 and the end of 2004 would be quite significant given how quickly the game was growing.
I also agree people are too smart now, already knowing items are rare, hindsight is always 20-20 so you’re not wrong about that either but i’m just saying 5% is not accurate and you kind of have to specify, early 2004 compared to late 2004 or 2005. I think regardless 5% is super low but you do have to factor in everything and it doesn’t have to mimic authentic 2004 exactly either.
I’m just kinda pointing out what I saw when I played during this year anyways and I did own 4 rares myself in 2004. I had all 3 masks and a santa hat.
3 Likes
because we all know the end game for rares, they must be extremely rare from the jump. everyone desperately wants a rare (apart from chaosandlead hes too cool for rares) so if they are lucky enough to roll one they arent willing to sell it unless its for a crazy price. this is why the market seems inflated but its just the reality of how valued they are. the only other big price tag items are ranger sets and god armour so the rich players who already have those will be looking to control the rare market
2 Likes