Talk:Money making guide/Archive 3

Unreliability/inconsistency
Someone else has already mentioned this, but the five-star system used now is completely unreliable, due to the fact that this wiki is made by several people who each have their ownviews on whether 50kan hour is 2 or 3 stars ect. We could use a GP-per-hour system as listed above, but an even better system in my opinion (not even really a system) is simply putting a note next to the star rating info about how much money-per-hour a method of that rating generates. I do not think that wuld be too hard.

-Peanutman728 (I cant log in for some reason)

Well, seeing as it took a month and a half for anyone to even acknowledge my previous statement, it seems like we might need a better way of calling attention to the problem, as by this point the whole guide is sort of a joke, just like just about every other money making guide out there.

--Ashura652 06:05, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Try using the Yew Grove. 11:21, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Another idea is to order it from most GP/hr to least. Then we could completely eliminate the "5 star system," and use something a lot more reliable, and a lot less biased and does not rely on opinion. Sctjkc01 18:25, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The only major drawback to a Gp/hr method is that for some players at a given skill level and resources, some methods of earning money may be harder than others. The point here is that something much more objective into calculating the various stars ought to be done.... which IMHO would include the rate of money earning, the level and number of skills involved in creating the item, and quests that must be completed prior to gathering/making that item. All of these things can impact the "difficulty" of a particular approach... although I'd admit that gp/hr ought to be a major consideration and for the purposes of this guide may be the only real consideration most people will use in terms of using this guide.


 * The major question that begs to be asked: How can you objectively calculate what the gp/hr rate of any given method might be? It isn't nearly as easy as you might suggest, and some players are naturally more efficient than others for even the same general kind of task... not to mention that some even seemingly unrelated skills like agility or your combat level (even for resource gathering) can have a huge impact on how quickly you can perform a task. --Robert Horning 12:08, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Prerequisites should not affect the "difficulty" of the moneymaking level, and here's why: when you do a quest, it stays done forever. When you get a skill level, it's not going to ever go down and force you to train it back up to that level again. So that means if you want to craft double nats, you don't need to get 91 runecrafting for every hour you spend crafting. You get the level once, you can always do it forever on that character. In other words, the moneymaking activity itself is separate from the prerequisites.


 * As far as your major question, it certainly is one that needs to be answered. Here's how I would answer it: I think it would be best simply to cite the source for the data. Probably a lot of it is going to come from independent research, so whoever's doing the research ought to simply describe their method of testing, say what their results were, calculate the profit they got, and then post all that maybe on their user page or something and cite it as a source on the page. For example, I might write something like this for a test I did:


 * Chopping magic logs in Isafdar
 * With 99 woodcutting, a dragon axe, and using rings of dueling and elf teleport crystals to bank, I was able to obtain an average of about 120 magic logs per hour in four 45-minute tests. At the current prices, that comes to about 150k gp/hr and also about 30k woodcutting xp/hr.


 * I'm a firm believer that any good guide for this game ought to be supported by hard data, or else anyone can just claim anything, and that could especially be a problem here where anybody can edit the page. What if somebody says you can make 300k gp/hr chopping magic logs and nobody is there to contradict them? (Besides me, I mean.) It would just be a made-up number, a guess. Now, you could fudge or fabricate a report like the one I've shown here, but the format of it makes it a breeze for anyone to duplicate the experiment and confirm or deny its accuracy, and it allows people to follow the citation to the source and get more information about the method.


 * Or of course, the same kind of section could be added directly to the moneymaking guide, but it would make the page look very different and it would be a very big project, big enough that it should probably go in the Yew Grove instead of just the talk page here. Not sure if that's really a good idea though.


 * Personally, I think if we can't make our moneymaking guide the best guide it can be, we shouldn't have a moneymaking guide at all. troacctid 22:51, 18 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You have to start somewhere, which is why raising this issue is something useful. One of the problems we are facing here is that "original research" is going to be necessary to document these sort of money making schemes. This would include explaining all of the variables that can go into any sort of training method, including skill levels required, what skills can "improve" over time (for example, mining more ore faster due to higher mining levels), quests that can help the resource gathering (such as the various transport systems unlocked with quests)... with emphasis on the particular transports useful for the specific money making opportunity, and with pieces of equipment that may help improve the resource gathering as well. Mining coal with a bronze pickaxe isn't going to be as useful as a rune pickaxe, for example.


 * With all of these variables, it can be tough to advise somebody new to the game (presumably why this guide is being written) about money earning potentials when there are a whole bunch of things that are assumed. Certainly more veteran players would be using rune pickaxes/dragon axes for resource gathering, but those are only the most obvious examples.


 * The next question that begs to be asked: How can we organize this "hard data" where various players could help in confirming or at least noting what their experience has been in earning money using a particular method? How do we also keep the rating system from being skewed for only the high level members who obviously have so many more advantages over newer players that it isn't really a fair comparison? --Robert Horning 13:19, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * How about separating a whole section for moneymaking methods that can be done with little to no prerequisites? Examples would be making planks at the sawmill, tanning hides, buying various items from stores and reselling to players, mining pure essence, and collecting items like white berries from spawns. Or, just state the requirements for the activity in its entry in the guide, and players browsing through can look for things they can already do. troacctid 17:23, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

This is being discussed on Yew Grove

Selling ash heaps & bones in the GE
I've noticed that nobody has put down the semi-effectiveness of selling ash and bones in the GE. It's gold per set of bones, and  gold for each heap of ashes, using the "GEPrice" tag for each of the prices. Would this be a good item to put on the list? Bones would be easily enough collected (seeing as each killable NPC would drop one), and so will the ash (people would try training Firemaking after purchasing logs from the GE right in the desk area). Sctjkc01 18:07, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ashes definitely not, 5-6 gp each is far too little. Bones, maybe. Best things to kill for bones are probably Men in Edgeville (especially in p2p where they drop herbs and lv1 clues) or cows in the Gnomecopter field. But, before listing this, you should test it and confirm it is indeed good money. If it turns out to be only 50k gp/hr, don't bother. troacctid 18:13, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It could be where the player stockpiles bones in their bank over a period of time, and sell them all in one shot in the GE getting a large amount of money. This is actually a thing I have done myself, and I have gotten around 20k in about 20 minutes selling junk from my bank, including bones and other things i didn't need.Sctjkc01 18:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Snape Grass Method
This is my first day to be a member and fellow editor of Runescape Wiki. I have just finished creating the Snape Grass money making method on the page. I have looked at it carefully and added a few links here and there, but I'm sure it does not sound very good. It would be very appreciated if someone could go on in and fix it up. It is a good and effective way to make money. That's what i did as a non-member. I turned out pretty good. :D Thps3m8 03:59, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I see some people have made some changed. Thank you. I have just added the members tips under the Snape grass section mentioning the agility shortcut and beast's of burden from summoning. If there is anything to fix, please do. Thps3m8 20:01, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Wheres Herblore?
I was looking over this page seeing the usual oddities (coal and clay mining in their own section, not under mining, ranged minigame not under ranging etc.) when i noticed that there isnt a herblore section! There are numerous ways to make money with herblore (at 34 making unf...er... well i forget but whatever you can make at 34, upgrading sara brews, etc.) I don't want to sound like a jerk, but i don't plan on making a herblore page, do to my inherent laziness, but if someone else would, i would be most pleased. (And i would contribute) Swordfishguy 20:02, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Too big
I was wondering if we can merge some money making guide into the proper skills.When I was editing, it stated that the KB is much bigger than the standard 32kb(I think it said 32.)Powers38 01:07, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Combat guide
What is up with that combat guide?! It was a good decent long guide last time I was here now it is just 1-3 suggestions on making money. Tsuk4s4 03:25, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

What wise guy
What wise guy replaced all the current price showers with links and estimates. those where there for a reason. there isn't a single one left.-- 18:44, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I just added a section but I didn't change any of the others, maybe it made a conflict :S this seems to have happened before I made the edit though --SuperLlama 18:47, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I saw the edits you made and you aren't the cause. It happened over time with people not knowing what the "GEPrice" tags where, so they changed them to estamates and links. I've made some of the corrections, but it will take awhile to fix them all unless lots of people help.-- 19:08, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I can't get the GEPrice tag to work for Pastry Dough; so I just used an estimate for mine. I might have just put in the wrong code though; it gave this: --SuperLlama 20:14, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Fixed for you 20:22, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * ah, so I just capitalized it wrong. Thanks :) --SuperLlama 20:23, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm helping now, adding GEPrice tags instead of the stupid Runescape query links that don't work :P --SuperLlama 20:27, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * thanks. While you are working over long term you should have an under construction marker up so that we don't get an editor war starting.-- 20:59, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * no problem. I got all the [1]'s and [2]'s and stuff replaced, so its pretty much fixed now :) (lol at all the indents XD) --SuperLlama 21:15, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

prove it
it was said on RuneScape:Article of the Month/Money making guidethat many of the options in this guide are "worthless". Many of these methods waver depending on how the market is and their guides show that VIA the GEPrice tags used in the coding and it is warned on the top of the page. If you know better ones: offer them up and if you see things that would make the page better: do them and see if they get undone or changed all the more. don't forget that this page is up for January -- 03:25, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * well i'm waiting. I haven't seen the guide edited recently and there are no additions to the nominations other then the wise old man who was re-added.-- 06:51, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Khalron, why you not reacting or responding, i ain't seen a thing out of you since you made that post.-- 13:16, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

My reasons for opposing are pretty much all covered under the Inconsistencies section of this page, so I'm not going to list them all. I believe the AOTM should feature the best articles from the Wiki; pleasing to look at, perhaps some varied grapholoy, and above all, factually accurate. This page is none of those three. For example, collecting Monk's Robes is rated as 3 star. Not only would it be poor money, but it offers no experience whatsoever, and by the time a player has 31 prayer, I'd imagine they would have learnt some far better money making methods. Silk-merchanting; are you kidding me? You can make such tiny amounts of money from this it doesn't even come close to being worthwhile, simply killing cows in the Gnomecoptor field would be a far better use of a beginners time, and would yield experience too. In the members' section, there is a part about raising cats for death runes, which would again be deathly (excuse the pun) slow for making money. I know a fair bit about making money, and this article is far too erratic and inconsistent to be allowed anywhere near being featured. Khalron 23:51, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Consistency
Would it be possible to come up with a somewhat more consistent method of rating the various money-making methods? The star system is a great start, but what are the bases for giving certain methods a higher rating than others? Are we shooting for more coins/hour = higher rating? Do the required levels for that method come into play at all? Should we list the coins/hour in the method explanations? Without a standard format, these methods and therefore this entire page are far too disorderly. And what's up with putting various m-m methods in the page itself? Why can they not be placed under a miscellaneous page at the very least? Bf2142pwner 14:25, 16 December 2008 (UTC), at your service.
 * This is crazy; I just did a quick check over the main article and found that many of the m-m methods listed at the beginning of the page are repeated in various skill-related m-m methods farther down. Would it be possible to simply delete whole sections of this page? It would cause the page to become far more wieldy (as opposed to unwieldy, so to speak) and a better candidate for article of the month, in my opinion.
 * I think we should replace the ratings with how many coins/hour you get, to make it more consistent. immibis 06:23, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Beginner Skills
Originally, when this page was re-factored to push most of the money making ideas into sub-pages, there were just a couple of items that were left on this main page which were so general in nature that they could apply to all players.

I think it is time to create some more sub-pages again... this time pushing all of the remaining ideas onto sub-pages.

Many of them are really good ideas, but do require certain quests to be performed or certainly require some meele skill levels that are unrealistic for beginning players. I am suggesting that money-making skills that can be done by beginning players be organized as just that: Some methods for new players just starting out in the game or money making methods that don't have any special requirements of any kind and aren't "dangerous".

I'm advocating the creation of five new sub-pages:


 * Ideas for new F2P players
 * Ideas for new members
 * Questing money makers (money making ideas for players doing quests)
 * Money makers requiring combat for F2P
 * Money makers requiring combat for members

About the only F2P idea I can think of requiring a F2P quest is mining on Crandor Isle... or at the very least there isn't that many ideas that require quests to be completed that can be done by F2P players. There still may be a need for a polyglot page called "Miscellaneous" for ideas that don't fit neatly into any category, but we don't need to expand this main page any more.

Are there any other ideas on how this content can be organized, and is there agreement that this reorganization should happen? --Robert Horning 10:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

member guides?
1. some of the p2p guides are f2p as well and

2. can we have someone move it to a seperate page? some admin?15:14, 22 December 2008 (UTC)


 * You don't need special administrator privileges for moving content or even moving pages. If you see a need here, please help us out. Put in the links for the new pages and help make this a better wiki. If you are unsure about how to get this to happen, however, I'd be more than willing to give you some pointers to get it to work. It never hurts to ask. --Robert Horning 17:40, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

adding rune images to the RCing guide
I was thinking of adding a column after the level requirements in the RCing money making guide with images to show which runes were being crafted with that method and also to add a little color to it so they are not so "boring". Any objections? If I didn't think it looked ok after trying it, I would abort it. I'll check back after Christmas. 06:27, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

GP per hour, and use the 5-star rating for patience needed to get to that income level
It would make much, much, much more sense to list how many gp per hour you can do at the minimum level for a task, and sort all money making methods accordingly. The stars should keep track of how much training/patience/quests you have to go thru before you can start using the method.

This way silk buying from NPC would rank waaaaaay at the end, and not be mistaken for equivalent or better to, say, mining clay with clay bracers and selling soft clay which is level 1.

Also there should be a section on "dailies".


 * This is in fact a terrific idea! Delapaco 19:16, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe this idea has been worked through on the yew grove

Nomination?
I think this page has already been passed over; I'll remove the tag. Besides, I don't think the spelling, grammatical, and factual errors make it a good candidate for the main page...Shinray1kuo 03:15, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

About F2P "Air Rune Running"
I dont belive this is the correct way to run. It may be a: 1. Mistake, 2. Noob edit, or 3. another way. I dunno.. Kid2255  Talk  19:51, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Major cleanup of this page
In a sort of feature creep that has been happening here, a whole bunch of "money making tips" have been added to this page that have been thrown on in a very haphazard fashion and have made this page illegible. A couple of good "starter" tips that were left after breaking most of the original money making tips into sub-pages have turned into dozens of tips... many of which are duplicated in the sub-pages.

Unless there is an objection here, I'm going to wipe them out and/or throw them onto sub-pages as I outlined above to set up some "beginner" money making tips and do some other clean-up on these pages. Please, I'm interested in a discussion here, and if there is a legitimate objection, I'd love to hear it. I'm throwing down the gauntlet and demanding that some higher standards on some of these ideas be brought forward. --Robert Horning 23:26, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That would be perfectly sofa-factory to me. :) WWTDD? 23:43, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup
I think we need a new order for the Money Making Guides. I propose 3 actions: What do you think about this topic? -- Rrgogoman 12:27, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Since the single guides contain member and non member content i think the seperation in member and non member guides is no longer consistent. (1) We should only seperate in guides with skills and guides without skills. (2) Therefore the seperated guides (for example misc.) should be merged.
 * 2) The headline structure was ok when there were still tables with tips on this page. It seams overfull now. (3) We should replace it with simple lists and should not repeat the introduction.
 * Free and member's moneymaking methods are judged by different standards, so it makes sense to have them apart for each other. Some methods would be strong moneymakers in f2p, but terrible in p2p, such as cutting yews. Of course, the guide as is doesn't separate them very well, and doing so would require some re-writing, so I can get behind your idea anyway. Also, when separating guides with skills from guides without skills (which is a good idea), it would be important to make a decision on where to put guides without skills but with a significant skill requirement--making unfinished potions, for example, which requires an herblore level but isn't actually training the herblore skill. That's my thoughts on the matter. --troacctid 20:49, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we could change the color of the star rating system. So we take the blue bar for the F2P Money making guides and we add a red star rating for the member guides. Therefore a user can see very fast if it is a F2P or a P2P guide and how good the guide is.
 * The matter of perfectly rating a money making guide is very complex. Its very subjective and in my opinion it would be the best extimate to give ranges of money per hour. For that we could collect Data samples (like the GE-history in the Grand Exchange Market Watch).
 * I think the skill requirement information is already present. Its the first column in every table. The seperation in making money and train and making money is in my opinion not nedded, because it's a money making guide not a training guide. Skilling is a nice second effect. ;) Therefore is - in my opinion - the seperation in another group not needed. -- Rrgogoman 07:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * While we are at it I suggest formulating a guideline for how to give ranking to the different methods, ie the stars. One way is to simply state earning requirements per hour for different levels, another to norm the comparisment to one particular method, for example three stars for spinning flax. I think a brief introduction what the stars mean is also needed. Delapaco 22:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * To norm this method seams very complex. I think the definition of ranges by collected estimated money/hour is a flexible and practical method. The comparisment to other methods seams to me too subjective. If you f.e. think that killing green dragons is three times better than spinning flax and you further think that making unfinished potions is 2 times better than spinning flax, but making unfinished potions is 2 times better than killing green dragon. This example is inconsistent and not absolute, because there is no best method. -- Rrgogoman 07:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds like good logic to me. My main issue with the star system today is that it hardly means anything, and I also doubt that either readers nor writers know what it stands for. I have for example seen talk additions like "I think this method is worth at least three stars because I make a lot of money from it". Well plucking potatoes will eventually also make you a santa hat, even if it will take a while. We should define a scale that is easy to understand. And then if we are later on required to revise it, then so be it. * Earnings per hour, is easy to interpret, hard to misunderstand. What might really be needed though is some general information on how to calculate this number/what to expect from it. If you spin flax for example - then banking time should be included, not just the time by the wheel. However ge buy time is not interesting as you can buy any amount of flax at the same time. Delapaco 19:56, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup?
I want everyone to know that I'm basically single-handedly going through this guide on a rampage of restoration. Suggestions and such, either made here or on my talk page, are very welcome. -- 18:31, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Style
While I'm rampaging through these pages fixing them up, I may as well add something about writing style. Read RuneScape:Quest style guide. The page says that it is acceptable to write quest guide pages in second-form and/or command form (so long as the writing is still half-decent, of course). While the policy page applies specifically to quest guides, my interpretation is that it applies to any guide page on the wiki. This means it is better to write "Talk to Ned in Draynor Village" than "The player must talk to Ned in Draynor Village." In an article about rune two-handers you don't want to say "You need 40 Attack to wield it," because you want to be informative without speaking to anyone. "The player needs 40 Attack to wield it" is a better way to write it, but "40 Attack is needed to wield it" is probably the best you can get. A guide page is different because you are giving instructions on how to achieve a specific goal- on the Dragon Slayer page the instructions are how to finish the quest. Well, here, the instructions are how to make money. As such I believe that second person and/or command form is not only okay here, but much preferred to using "the player" because "the player" is not good writing. -- 18:46, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Money Making Metric
Based on some assumptions from this disscusion - i made a system to measure a money making method. It is based on some variables: On that basis we can calculate the minimum and maximum profit for that method in a practical and compareable way. So you can do this method a timespan long including the banking time and just count how much you produced - tata you got the profit per hour. The other values could be retrieved from the Grand Exchange Market Watch. Therefore we could include the range of the money making method in a new colum of the guide listing. We only need a page specifing the variables of this method. For example:
 * 1) the minimum and maximum cost of a unit made.
 * 2) the minimum and maximum value of the unit sold.
 * 3) the minimum and maximum count of units produced in a specific time interval.

The profit range for my spinning flax example is:

See User:Rrgogoman/FlaxSpinning for the data and Template:MoneyMethod for the template.

What do you think about it? -- 09:26, 9 March 2009 (UTC)