Interviews with Runescape Fan Sites: Grand Exchange Central

Today's interview is with Absenm, founder, owner and developer of Grand Exchange Central. The site is a very unusual and very focused (in a good way). And when I think of innovation done by Runescape fan sites, Grand Exchange Central with it's Mock Grand Exchange feature is probably the first site that comes to my mind. Enjoy the interview!

Q: How would you describe your site in a few words?
A: The Grand Exchange Central is a safe place for RuneScape players who enjoy the economic side of RuneScape. Merchanting in RuneScape has negative tones, and the goal of the GEC is to be a safe information and training tool that is focused on changing merchanting from a negative to a positive.

Q: Can you tell us about major milestones of your site? A little bit of a history?
A: The GEC started out as a simple script I could personally use for my blog. When I wrote in my blog about items I thought were good investments, I wanted to have realtime data displayed in my blog. In concept this was a cool idea. But in practice I soon discovered that posting realtime data in a blog actually was a bad idea. When I'd write an article about good items, everything was fine. But over time those items may become bad investments, and thus the realtime data removed all sense from the blog post.
But the fact that I had the scripts to do the calculations and store the data still seemed to me to be a powerful tool. So I took my focus away from simple realtime data for a blog, and focused instead on making a site that improved upon the official RuneScape Grand Exchange Beta website.
The official GE website was an okay tool for RuneScape investors. But it lacked a lot of resources that merchants could use to make better investments. I started out the GEC slowly. First just giving realtime data on tradeable items. But once I had that data easily accessible I started making tools to use that data. I liked the idea of "indices" that could show how categories of items where performing over time. I called these Runedexes. This was not an origional idea to me. I first fell in love with the concept from the Grand Exchange Market Watch. Then I started making specific lists of items. First there were the normal lists, like most valuable items, and items that had the greatest price drops/falls. Then I started getting the GEC a little more advanced. We got lists of items that were bottoming out (near their historic low) or peaking (near their historic high). Then we developed a detection formula that could potentially spot items that were suffering from clan manipulations. Other lists followed.
While we were doing all this, I had this wonderful idea of creating a GE market simulator. We call it the Mock Grand Exchange. Visitors could make mock accounts on the GEC website, be giving a certain amount of mock GP, and trying out investment ideas without the risk of losing real RuneScape GP. This added a fun aspect to the otherwise static and intimidating process of researching RuneScape investments.

Q: What inspired you to start a Runescape fan site?
A: I already explained how the GEC started, so I'll focus on how the original blog started. While playing RuneScape, week after week I would see all the changes going on. It was an exciting time in the world of RuneScape. I wanted to talk about these things, but none of my real life friends played the game. So I decided to express my views publicly in a blog where other RuneScape fans could read and comment on my ideas.

Q: What were your original goals for the site?
A: Originally, I just wanted a place to quickly find historical information about tradeable items in RuneScape. I kind of wanted the GEC to become the Wall Street Journal of RuneScape.

Q: Had your goals changed over time? If yes, how and why?
A: My goals for the Grand Exchange Central are basically the same as when I started. I still want a safe site for everyone. I still want it to have the best investment tools available on the internet. I still want to remove the bad stigma that is sometimes associated with the word Merchanting.

Q: Was it the first web site you ever created?
A: No. For a brief time about a decade ago I had an antivirus help website. But it was straight HTML code, and mainly only provided links to antivirus resources. Back then blogging wasn't as popular as it is now. That first website of mine could have easily been a WordPress blog in today's world.

Q: What technologies were used to create the site? Did you add new technologies into the mix after you created the original version?
A: My coding background is very limited. I wrote my first program in BASIC almost thirty years ago when I was eight years old on a RadioShack Color Computer 2. But I never really got into programming. It was only ten years ago I tried my hand at limited HTML coding. It was only a couple of years ago, when I first wanted a more dynamic aspect for my RuneScape blog which meant I needed to teach myself PHP and mySQL. I had, and still have, no formal programming education. It's all been trial and error as I learn and improve the GEC.
The GEC itself is extremely heavily dependent on PHP and mySQL. With the exception of the forums, the entire site is custom made. This has been a blessing and a curse. Even though there are several thousand pages accessible on the GEC, only a few pages need to be coded to build all the pages visitors see. Yet that also means that even the simplest changes require making sitewide changes to some very important scripts. One mistake can take down thousands of pages, and even take down the entire site.
Currently the only new technologies I'm looking into are integrating with Facebook Connect and developing HTML5 graphing. Visitors can share various things already from the GEC to Facebook. But I'd eventually like to add the ability to logon to the GEC using Facebook. But I'm talking technologies here. We have ton of new features we are adding that use our current technologies. PHP and mySQL are still very powerful tools.

Q: Is there a unique feature/service your site provides to Runescape players?
A: That would be the Mock Grand Exchange. As I mentioned before, this is a virtual Grand Exchange that allows visitors to try out investment strategies without risk.

Q: Which feature/service took the most time and effort to create?
A: The Mock Grand Exchange. This changed the entire direction of the Grand Exchange Central. Before the MockGE, anyone could use all the features. But the MockGE required user accounts (which is why I added the forums... so I could use the forums user accounts for the MockGE). It require required fairly complex coding to mimic the real GE. It required detection of Official GE price updates almost immediately. Plus it required a fair bit of politics. How to mimic the GE without stepping on Jagex toes? It had to be an effective tool without duplicating the real thing. Also, since members can compare their performance to other members, I had to find a way that new members could still "compete" with older members who might have more mockGP.

Q: Which feature/service was the most complex from the programming stand point?
A: The whole site. LOL. The truth is, not being a programmer, almost everything has been a challenge. But if I had to pick one thing, it is getting the graphs right. Since the start I have used a nice FLASH app to create the GEC graphs. But I was never particularly happy with it. And once I got my iPhone, it became more important to me to look into graphing in HTML5. That is something I have been looking into for almost a year now, and have yet to implement. Only on the GEC mobile pages do I touch HTML5 graphs. But our mobile site is very limited, and the graphs are not particularly interesting. Yet.

Q: Is there a feature/service of the site you are most proud of?
A: Most members would probably think this is a minor feature, but I still smile when I think about it. The Clan Manipulation detection formula. Our Clan Manipulation detection mathematics are not perfect, but they do provide a nice level of logic and reasonable accuracy. The GEC uses what we call the 4x4 Rule. Any items that have increased and/or decreased in overall value by more than 4% for four days out of the last five days are flagged as potentially being manipulated. It seems to be fairly on the spot, and I'm a little smug about that.

Q: Did you start the site alone or with friends?
A: I started the site by myself.

Q: Are you the only developer of the site's code?
A: Yes, I'm the only developer. Again, I have no formal training in coding and I'm pretty much the only person that could understand my admittedly poor coding design. Though over the past year I have been updating portions of the site to be a little more clean.

Q: How much time do you normally spend supporting the site? A few hours a day? A few hours a month?
A: That really depends. There are times where I can easily put in 20 or 30 hours in a week on the site. But then there are times (like recently) when an unholy convergence of personal conflicts happen an I have almost no time at all to work on the site. Sadly, with me, it is an all or nothing type of situation. When I'm working on the site (about 40 weeks a year) I'm putting in at least 20hrs a week. The remaining 12 weeks I'm doing almost nothing but putting out any small fires (maybe a few minutes a week).

Q: What is the most difficult/challenging task you have to do to maintain the site?
A: Finding the free time to write (or rewrite) quality features. I have a backlog of features/fixes 13 pages long I want to implement. Coming back from those before mentioned unholy convergences is always hard. What to do first? What amazing features can I add that will make up for my time away?
I am thankful that I am a very anal person, and therefore I wrote the site with backup contingencies that allows the GEC to run itself in most situations. Every once in a while something horrible will happen that seems like it will require my immediate attention. But then I'll discover that the GEC somehow self corrected and is functioning properly. At those time I sit back and say out loud "Wow. I didn't know it could do that."

Q: How many staff members do you have? How did you find/chose them?
A: I have two staff members. Unfortunately one of them has disappeared over the past six months (that happens to everyone from time to time). But my other staff member Stramel has been an incredible addition to the site. He keeps an eye out on our forums, keeping them safe for our members, and tries to answer questions as best he can. I choose him and my other staff member based on their involvement in the forums and maturity level. Pretty much if someone is being helpful in the forums, and PMing me with questions and suggestions, and they do not present a negative attitude, I'll eventually ask them to become a mod. Over time, I hope to have more things for mods to do. But right now their job is focused on the forums. Though Stramel does have some limited ability to make minor changes to item detail information.

Q: Are there aspects of web site management you were able to completely delegate to others?
A: I wouldn't call it completely, but I have pretty much handed almost all control of the GEC forums to Stramel.

Q: Did you ever have to deal with hostility and/or attacks from other fan sites?
A: Not specifically from other fan sites. I usually am approached from other sites to merge or work with them as partners. I'm looking into a separated partnership with one such site right now, though I haven't had much time to follow up on it. However, every once in a while I do have to deal with attacks on the site as a whole from persons unknown. This happens to any sizable site, and is standard business. But as a community, I have heard very few negative comments about the GEC. Usually the only negative comments I see are about site design. And usually I agree.

Q: Did you ever consider making money with the site or is it just a hobby?
A: It is a hobby, though I do have some Google ads that go toward paying my web hosting costs. I wouldn't say I make any profit off the site. When all is said and done, I probably make about $0.17 an hour for my time.

Q: Do you still play Runescape? If yes, how often?
A: Sadly, I play almost never now. What little free time I have to play RuneScape, I need to spend working on my site. Thankfully, the nature of my site doesn't require me to be an active RuneScape player. It does preclude me from giving much investment advice these days. But my members can take care of the advice part. I focus my attention on the mathematics, which doesn't require my involvement in game. That said, I do miss playing.

Q: What kind of Runescape player are you? Which Runescape aspect is most appealing to you: quests, role-playing, skilling, pking, minigames etc.?
A: When I was playing actively I stuck to trying to making money through combat. And the quests were pretty fun. Ironically, I didn't use to GE much to make money. Though I did fully adore merchanting when I made a small fortune off Strange Fruit a couple of years ago when the Random Events update occurred. Everyone knew about the update for a few weeks before, and I just knew those fruit were going to skyrocket. That was a ton of fun.

Q: Are there other Runescape fan sites you personally use as a Runescape player?
A: Whenever I need advice or quest help I use Tip.it. There are a lot of quality sites out there, but Tip.it was the site I used when I first started playing, and therefore they are the first (and usually the only) place I need to go.

Q: Is there something you don't mind revealing about your RL (age, country, hobbies etc.)?
A: I live in the midwest USA. I play darts and do computer consulting. Love the Green Bay Packers.


Thank you very much, Absenm!

Trading on The Grand Exchange

New blog from Sparhawke about various trading techniques for the Grand Exchange. If you are interested in this way of making money in Runescape, check it out. I've been using the same methods for ages (under different names). But Sparhawke explains it better :) For instance, the sliding (climbing) method - indeed highly profitable.

Jagex's Official Position regarding Merchanting Clans

From the last bunch of Q&As: Jagex's Official Position regarding Merchanting Clans.

And also this disturbing link.

Even more about Merchanting Clans in Runescape

Part two (deux?) of Runescape Merchanting Clans undercover investigation from G.

I wonder, is there going be a "back to school" market crash this year or not? The one we had last year was rather impressive.

Truth Behind Merchanting Clans in Runescape

Thanks to Icey Dan1, here is a link to an article written by "retired" Goldmerch Runescape merchanting clan leader. As you might expect, he confirms that he personally and his peers got their fortunes by scamming their own fellow clan members.

Yes, he also talks about beating merchanting clans from inside by selling earlier, but it is just the same type of scamming, isn't it? So when you think about joining a mecrhacning clan, think about this too: do you really want those RSGPs that badly that you are ready to resort to despicable methods and scam other players?

P.S. in case you were wondering, that's why I don't point to existing and legit Runescape blogs that promote this type of money making in Runescape.

Merch Clans Revolt in Runescape

Well, revolt might be too strong of a word, but that's how the topics are named on the RSOF anyway. The bottom line is that multiple merchanting clans just got owned by either Jagex or unexpected GE mechanism while trying to manipulate price of limpwurt roots. Huge losses by huge number of clan merchants resulted in about 3000 posts created in a span of only 2 days on RSOF.

Here are the topics, if you want to see them (though I won't suggest you to even attempt to read 3000 posts):

• Initial thread
• Continuation

And here is a short "summary" topic at TruthScape forum.

I personally don't feel any compassion for "poor" clan merchants, even if Jagex violated "market rules" to make their life harder. Price manipulation which is practiced by the merch clans is too close to bug abuse or even organized crime for my liking. And that's not even mentioning the duping part of the whole thing. I would be all for having some kind of unpredictable events influencing GE prices built into the game. Even zero-cycle trading at GE (which I am doing) is too easy and I wouldn't mind it being affected and becoming more risky, but a least it is a solo endevour which is not tied to artificial price manipulation.

What do you think?

The Grand Exchange web site

Just found this interesting Runescape merchanting web site. Probably the most Runescape "merchanting secrets revealing" one out there. Methods described by the site owner are somewhat similar to what I normally do, but descriptions are too scientific for my liking. Also items selection approach is quite different. But, anyway, looks like a valid Runescape merchanting resource.

P.S. There is also a forum and some kind of membership there, but I personally don't plan to join either one, so I can't really vouch for it.

Risks and Rewards of Runescape Merchants

Every time some big ticket item's price reverses its course, every big Runescape forum sprouts new topics about "lowly merchants", "pump and dump schemes" and "how merchants ruin the game for honest players". It's so repetitive that it is not even funny. If anything, it is sad and pathetic. People who never really made an effort to understand Runescape merchanting are eager to bash it and use merchants as scapegoats for their own inability to make desirable amount of money within the game.

First of all, it is a huge (yet common) misconception, that Runescape Merchants make most of their money by trading big ticket items and/or participating in "pump and dump schemes". While I can't deny that there are people and clans involved in "pump and dump" (I personally don't), I would still claim that vast majority of money made from merchanting in Runescape is made through "intraday" or "0-1 cycle" transactions which involve medium price items or even commodities. These transactions go completely unnoticed by the general Runescape population, but to Runescape merchants they provide stable low risk/high profit results. I wrote about it earlier this year and I can confirm that nothing has really changed since then. The items I trade has changed, their prices has changes, Jagex put more restrictions on volumes but I still get my average 1.5-2M a day quite easily spending no more that 10 minutes on swapping orders. And I am sure I could at least double the returns by merchanting more aggressively.

Now let's go back to the notorious big ticket items trades. Players who try to merchant these items put a lot of money at stake and, if they make just a little timing mistake, they may end up with huge losses. But at the same time if they predict the price movements just right, the rewards could be quite substantial. I want to show you one example which illustrates how risky and yet how profitable such trades might be.

Let's look at the most recently added big ticket item - Dragon Platebody (well, of course). The plates were released along with the While Guthix Sleeps quest and possibility to obtain them was tied to this most challenging quest. The initial price tag was set high and it spiked even more during the next few days (up to 39M). Then it was discovered that it was possible to get pieces of the dragon armor from Tormented Demons as well as realization of plate "not as superior" stats settled in. The price plummeted and went all the way down to 10-12M in two weeks. All this time there was no way to merchant this item, but Runescape merchants were waiting and pondering on a question where was the turning point. This is always the most important question. You have to buy the item while it is still on decline (thus taking a risk of stepping in too early). Jump in a day later and you won't get any profit. Jump in two days later and you loose huge money. Fortunately for me, Tim made very good prediction about the turning point and I trusted his judgment: I bought 7 Dragon Plates for 10.4M each (still during the decline at the minimum price). The very next day the price flattened and it was not possible to buy more for minimum or even medium, so I added 5 more plates for 12M each. Then the price went up and I was selling 1 plate per day trying to catch the inevitable turning point. I sold 1 plate for 13.5M, then another for 14.3M (both for maximum price). Then I missed a day and when I came back to the game, the turning point was already reached! I couldn't sell the remaining 10 plates even for minimum. One day passed, then another. Finally I sold 6 plates for 12.7M and remaining 4 for 12.1M. So...

• Average cost per plate: 11.125M (total 133.5M).
• Average return per plate: 12.7M (total 152.4M).

I ended up with 18.9M of pure profit (mostly thanks to Tim clue for the entry point and my trust in his prediction).

Now let's look at 3 alternative scenarios, all three of them very possible and could have happened to me during this trade.

Scenario 1
I could be less greedy and sell 11 plates at 14.3M mark.
The profit would be very good: 33.7M !!! Almost twice as much as I really got!

Scenario 2
I could decide to check Tim's prediction by waiting one extra day before entering. In this case I would buy all of my plates for 12M each.
The profit would be: 8.4M. Not bad, but not very good either considering the risks.

Scenario 3
Finally, if I would wait yet another day for the price to turn before entering the trade, I would have to buy the plates for something like 13.1M.
Then I would have LOST: 4.8M

And let's not even talk about possibility of buying the plates just before they started to move back down (hoping that the upside move wasn't over).

So what does this example show? The point I am trying to make that even for experienced Runescape merchants big ticket items trades are always very risky. In this particular trade I could have ended up with a loss of 4.8M, or profit up to 33.7M. And, frankly, both possibilities were equally likely. I was simply fortunate to end up with profit.

So, when players are moaning about merchants making it difficult to buy big ticket items and thus ruining the game, they don't have a clue about what is really going on and what they are talking about. And ignorance, by all means, is not a virtue.

Merch Clans in Runescape?

Was looking for a merchanting clan in Runescape to write about. Couldn't find a real one yet... Virtually no traces in internet, at least I couldn't dig them up. There are references to clan chats, but it seems that real price manipulation business is conducted in via IRC channels.

The only widely spread information I found was about "A Dark Alley" A C I D Y's clan chat. Checked it out, there were indeed a lot of players in chatting about price manipulation schemes and seemingly doing some, but I got an impression that the clan chat was mostly used for dumping and pumping AFTER serious price manipulators already made the move. So most of the clan chat participants were "to be victims" of some unknown "behind the scene" price manipulators. Rather sick place to abide if you ask me.

So no luck in finding "real" merch clans in Runescape, but I am now pretty sure that there are such clans, though I still doubt they control the Grand Exchange - they just make quick (and presumably big) money on selected items, that's it. And, no, I don't have any desire to join such clan, but I'd love to know more about these people and their organizations.

Anyone knows anything more?

Should merchants be worried by Jagex dealing with marketplace manipulation?

Here is an official message from Jagex regarding merchanting, speculation and market price manipulation. While I am curious how do they plan to prevent market price manipulation, I am also relieved to see that Jagex's position toward people merchanting on the GE is positive.

It is official now. Merchants are not vultures after all - they do provide liquidity to the Runescape market.

GE Express

Great tool for tracking GE prices and trends. Big help to all Runescape merchants. I personally use it and can confirm that it is more convenient comparing to the GE database.

List of the features (from the official site):

• Search for any item on runescape in an easy-to-use client
• Load multiple pages, search by price, type, exact, and wildcard
• Save searches and custom lists for quickly loading and checking later
• Automatic refresh and Automatic updates
• Use Over 50 Runescape common Abbreviations in searches (such as abby, g axe, dh, dds, etc)
• Save your search history for faster searches
• Complete Item information, graphs, and pictures
• Sort Searches, results by name and price
• Complete Item information, stats, etc
• User input to add/update item information
  

Secrets of merchanting on the GE (Grand Exchange)

Yesterday I sold Bandos armor and Armadyl armor sets which I bought a week ago during the "so called" market crash in Runescape, thus making about 10M profit on this transaction (could have been 20M, but I decided to keep one of each sets for my personal use instead of selling them). While such type of merchanting is not what I usually do (read about short term speculation on the GE here), I am still quite happy with the outcome.

In this article I will try to outline my reasonings which led to the successful trade. Why did I buy these armor sets on Sep 1 and not a day later? Why did I sell them yesterday instead of waiting till today (when the price started to drop again)? I do hope that this analysis will help you to make good merchanting decisions in the future and prosper in Gielinor.

September 1. Purchase.

Sky is falling, people are dumping their expensive weapons and armors on the Grand Exchange and proclaiming yet another big market crash in Runescape. The GE database Bandos Plate 30 days chart shows something like this:

Similar charts are for Bandos Tassets and Armadyl Armor.
Why buy them? Wouldn't they drop even further?


Now here is what I thought:

• First of all, there is no market crash, as all the vital commodities are not affected. It means that the price drop in expensive weapons and armors is not sustainable and is bound to end rather soon (when panic selling stops).
• People at the GE and on forums (such as TruthScape) has already started to buy Bandos godswords. A lot of people merchant Bandos godswords, so when the market turns, it first visible in the Bandos godsword sales rather than in sales of related items such as Bandos plate and tassets.
• The godsword seems to be reversing (not visible on the chart yet!), it means that the bottom for related items is near. Better to hurry and buy a few sets of Bandos and Armadyl armor while they are still selling for the lowest price.
• Done.

If I would had waited another day for the actual price reverse, I would had have difficulties in buying these items. And surely not for the lowest price!

September 7. Selling.

The pull back has occurred. Prices did not went up to their previous level, but they ran up quite a bit nevertheless. The GE database Bandos Plate 30 days chart shows something like this:


Similar charts are for Bandos Tassets and Armadyl Armor.
Should I sell now? Or wait a bit more?

Here is what I thought:

• The pull back like this has happened before for other items and commodities and usually the price wouldn't go back to the original level. At least not quickly. Therefore I should expect the pull back to be cut short very soon.
• Let's watch my "indicator" (Bandos godsword) price daily.
• On Sep 7 Bandos godsword dropped in value. It means that I have already waited too long and should sell the armor sets quickly.
• Done.

I couldn't sell everything for the highest price. Bandos plate and tassets went for the medium, but Armadyl armor set still went for the highest. Quite logical, as again more people trade Bandos armor comparing to Armadyl armor.

I wouldn't claim that the same rules and indicators will always work, but I am pretty sure that such kind of reasoning is applicable to merchanting in Runescape. And, as you can see, it is definitely not a rocket science. Good luck!