What is the Grand Exchange Central?

This blog is part of a website known as the Grand Exchange Central (GEC). For almost a year now I have been developing this incredibly advanced RuneScape investing tool, and because of that I have neglected my blog more than I should. But I did want to explain what the Grand Exchange Central is so that even more people can enjoy this one of a kind RuneScape tool. And the best part is that it is free.  Plus membership is not required to enjoy most of the sites basic features.

The basic description of the GEC is that it is a repository of data concerning items listed on the RuneScape Grand Exchange. But this description really does not give justice to the power that the GEC can provide RuneScape investors. Yes, the GEC is a repository of price data dating back up to 210 days. But there are so many more tools and features. Here are some of the highlights.

Mock Grand Exchange: Are you a fan of fantasy football or baseball? Well, the Mock Grand Exchange (MGE) is basically the same thing, except instead of having a fantasy team of players you have a fantasy team of RuneScape items. You are provided with mock (fake) RuneScape gp and can purchase and sell mock (fake) RuneScape items. You can watch you fantasy networth grow or decline in comparison to other MGE members. Plus it is an excellent way to try out investment strategies without the risk of losing real RuneScape gp. The Mock Grand Exchange is still in alpha testing, but very stable and has many active users.

Watch Lists: Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to check every day to see if that “killer” item finally has bottomed out or peeked? Well, the Grand Exchange Central lets users set up watch lists that will e-mail alerts when items have reached certain user defined thresholds. Wanna know when Strange fruit hits 9000gp. You can be alerted. Want to know when it hits 1500gp? You can be alerted.

Trending: This feature is in limited alpha testing right now, but soon visitors will be able to submit search queries that look into pricing trends on items. Want to know which items increased by %25 five times over the past three months. Trend Searching will do that. Find those great investments that no one ever thought of.

Runedexes: These are basically the same as Wall Street stock indexes except they lump RuneScape items into various categories such as headgear, malee weapons, gems, etc. You can watch these Runedexes to see how those categories are performing over time. Is it a good time to buy gems? Should I sell some armor? How are sets doing? Or just take a good look at how the overall economy is doing in general.

Parts Lists: Is it better to sell the parts of an item, or make the whole thing and sell it for major profit. Well, the GEC can help. Many items on the GEC contain parts lists that display what the item is made from and what those parts will cost individually. Just a glance at these lists can give you a wealth of information. And parts lists are being added to items on a regular basis.

Comparisons: Many items also have easy read comparison charts so you can quickly tell how it compares to related items. How much does cutting that gem stone effect it’s price?

Extended History: Most items have data going back up to 120 days with graphs covering time periods as short as a week or up to four months. Plus item 120 day Hi’s and Low’s are prominently listed. It’s a wonderful way of quickly determining if an item is about to bust or is primed for a major increase.

Accuracy: The GEC is updated multiple times throughout the day so the data is almost always fresh.

Forums: Get together and talk with other people interested in RuneScape investing. Our forums have strict policies to prevent violation of RuneScape rules so if you’ve been concerned about getting involved with other merchanting forums, the GEC is the place for you. No RWT, bug exploits or cheats allowed. Feel comfortable talking in a place where if anyone tries to promote violating RuneScape rules they will be banned from the forums and the GEC/MGE. Many other sites are tolerant of these things. We are not. We want our members to be safe.

There are many items I forgot to mention. But what I did mention should already have you wanting to check out the site. So go ahead, check out the

GRAND EXCHANGE CENTRAL

Well, I am giving the GEC a forums section. I suspect that because these forums are so new they will probably be pretty lonely for a couple of weeks or even months. But it is my hope that they will eventually take off, slowly but surely. In the future when I finally introduce the Mock Grand Exchange investment tracker, forum membership will be a requirement (mainly in order to have the forum run user login so users can maintain their own personal mock investment history). The MockGEC is still a couple of months down the road. Hopefully a slow start of the forums will give me plenty of time to work out bugs and other kinks in the forum system along with adding more customizations. So consider these forums as a beta test right now. Though never fear, any memberships and posts in this beta system will be automatically carried over to the final product.

You can pretty much discuss anything Runescape, though an obvious focus of the forums will be RuneScape investments. However, remember that this blog, the GEC, and the forums have a strict policy against any material which is knowingly false (with the exception of April Fool’s jokes), inaccurate, abusive, hateful, harassing, sexually orientated, threatening or invasive of a person’s privacy, or any other material which may violate any applicable laws. We will also not tolerate any advice or solicitation about RuneScape real world trading, cheats, or bug exploits. And to become a member of these forums you will need to agree that your activities on the forums and the greater Grand Exchange Central website will in no way violate the official Rules of RuneScape.

Some of the current features of the forums I have right now include realtime connectivity to the GEC database. That means you can display, using BBcode, the current value of items you are discussing. Also, if you wish, you can display your characters current combat level in the header area of each posting you leave. Combat states are acquired once a day. This is of course optional. Other features to come soon.

Anyway, stop by the forums and introduce yourself, leave suggestions, or read a little more about how the GEC functions, future plans for the GEC, or any changes that are currently being made. See you on the forums.

Absenm

I seem to be in quite a pickle (or sauerkraut may be a better word). The last time I played Runescape was during the April Fool’s event. When I logged out I was still holding onto a cabbage. Well, today (April 3) I logged back in and still have a cabbage. Obviously I can’t store it or sell it. And I’m fairly certain that if I remove it, the cabbage will disappear all together. It does look like I can still chuck it to other players, but of course I don’t want to try that. And for all I know chucking it will cause it to disappear also. Of course, having a cabbage in both my hands means I am very limited combat wise. I really can only use magic and I hate magic. But yet there is a morbid curiosity in my brain that wants to know exactly how long one of these April Fool’s cabbages can be kept “alive”. Then again, Jagex in a few days might make it go away without any action by me. So I am caught between a rock and a hard place. Do I limit my actions actions for a few days or do I just chuck it to another player and hope that it lives on through other people? Of course, if Jagex doesn’t spontaneously remove these April Fool’s cabbages then they will become untradeable rares. No real value but there will be that all important “cool” factor that seems to impress newbs and makes the rest of us roll our eyes.

In semi-related news: The GEC got a bunch of hits on Wednesday because of the listing for the Magic Dragon Kiteshield. Of course that was an April Fool’s joke and there is no Magic Dragon Kiteshield that gives farming and fishing stat bonuses and is a drop by beating up Olivia the Draynor Village seed stall girl. But I will leave the item listing in the GEC as a historic footnote to the GEC itself.

Finally, I am sad to say that the price of Strange Fruit has taken a down turn. I am hoping this is only a hiccup and that Strange Fruit will stabilize at around 3500gp and start creeping back up at a much slower pace. In any case I am the proud to say that I currently have made over two million gp in profit from the fruits.

In blog news: Now this blog is also iPhone compatible. Also, because this blogs free server is just simply too unreliable I will be moving this blog over to the GEC site. I am hoping that link redirections will be seamless and my readers should have no significant transition problems.

 Some of you may have noticed that for the past week I haven’t been entering new data into the Grand Exchange Central database. I apologize for that. I’ll try to get construction items in the database within a week. The truth is a week ago I got an iPhone and I have spent a lot of my free time playing with it. But I haven’t been completely ignoring the GEC. Behind the scenes I have been writing iPhone optimized pages. Yup, now if you have an iPhone you can check Grand Exchange prices easily from anywhere you have a WiFi, Edge, or 3G connection (pretty much anywhere). I have finished the main page and the search page. Item pages hopefully be done within the next day. Best of all you don’t have to go to any special pages. The GEC will recoginze you are on an iPhone and configure everything for you. So if you have an iPhone give the GEC a visit.

If you are not interested in investing in Runescape and using the Grand Exchange then this post will be of no interest to you.  But if you spend your time trying to figure out which GE items will make you the most profit, then read further.

 I have reached the point where I can safely say I have about 80% of all the items I want entered into the Grand Exchange Central Database. Nearly 2000 items with individual values exceeding 3 billion gp.  Because I have devoted a lot of time to the development of the GEC and plan to devoting even more time I have finally got a paid hosting service and a real domain name. www.grandexchangecentral.com. Everything GEC related has already been moved over to the new server and domain and I have setup 301 redirects so visitors from search engines and other blogs can seemlessly be transferred to the new domain. I am sure there will be a few bad links that will crop up, but for the most part everything appears to be functioning properly. It is best to make this move now while the GEC is still small and has very limited search engine placement and visitors.

My blog, Runescape Thoughts, will continue to remain on my free x10hosting account. I plan on continuing to write articles with the same frequency that I currently am now. Which is about one every week to ten days.

Concerning the GEC, I just need to finish off food, range and mage weapons and parts and I will be pretty much finished setting up the database. I am sure when I finish entering those items I will remember a whole lot more things to add, but at least the end is in sight. There are a smattering of a few dozen other non runedexable items I also want to add. Anyway, I see the initial DB building finishing up in the next week or two.

After I get everything entered I am going to proceed by doing following things, all likely simutanoiusly.

1) I will review all the items I have entered into the GEC and confirm alchemy values and parts lists for accuracy. I’ll also try to setup logical comparisons. Anyway, I will likely just work on 25 items a day so it will be about three months before I finish with the “polishing” of the database.

2) I will be continuing to develop and design new content and ways of analyzing the GEC data. We have charts and tables and tickers, but there can always be more. Recently I started working on a Currency Exchange page where Tokkuls and other Runescape currencies are compared to gp. I also plan on tracking the value of the Gold Piece to see how it has performed against itself. The are tons of way to display the wealth of information in the GEC database.

3) I am going to set up some forums that will focus on investing on the Grand Exchange and other ways to make money in Runescape. Real world trading and exploiting bugs and using cheats will be strictly taboo and users who promote such activities will be banned. Of course other general discussion areas will be available.

4) This  item I am most excited about. I will be setting up a Mock Grand Exchange.  A mock exchange can be used as a “game” or as an investment training tool. Users will be allotted a certain amount of mock (virtual) gp and be able to purchase items in the mock exchange. Then they can track how those items perform over time without the risk of using real gp in the real Runescape. After I get the bugs worked out I might even implement contests where users can compete against each other to see who is the best investor.

5) I will finally start actively promoting the Grand Exchange Central. Currently I have made no attempts to mention it on other fan sites or blogs. I want a stable and advanced system in place before trying to bring a bunch of visitors to the site.

All of this and more.  And it is all for free.  I have written this site because I love the game and also because it gives me an excellant chance to train my coding and web development skills.  I have no plans now or in the future of ever charging to access the GEC or any parts of it.  The GEC for me is fun and I would rather have a great and well visited free site then a so-so and barely active pay site.