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.

Here is a really random thought for the blog. As far as I can remember in my almost six years of playing Runescape I have only died six times. I am excluding any deaths during my first week or two. But even during my formative weeks I don’t think I got killed all that often. Now that I think about it, I may not have gotten killed at all so my original count of six may be very close for Absenm’s life. I also do not count deaths in “safe” minigames like Castle Wars. I am talking deaths where your actually lose stuff.

(BTW: Absenm has been my sole character since I began on Runescape 2. I believe my character on Runescape 1.0 was named Absen with no ‘m’. I do have a secondary character whose name I forget but I only created him to finish the Shield of Arrav quest. Sadly I discovered that two computers on the same network can not play at the same time. Thus, I have yet to finish that frigging quest!  I hate quests where you have to work with other dorks… ah… I mean players.)

The first death I remember is getting my ass kicked in the basement of Draynor Mansion by that frickin vampire. Obviously this was early on in Absenm’s life and I was on a quest (in fact this was back when I wasn’t even a member). Actually, that vampire accounts for deaths one and two because he kicked my ass again when I went back to Draynor straight from Lumbridge.  It is funny to think about now, when I can just look at the vampire and he dies.  At least I assume he would die. I jhaven’t gone back to find out because I refuse to go anywhere near that SOB.

I know one time I got killed when I got jumped in the wilderness by some jackass while fighting green dragons. This was of course long before PvP worlds and before Pking was banned from the wilderness. He or she ruthlessly attacked right after I killed a dragon and only had about 10hp left. Strategically it was a beautiful ambush which wonderfully took advantage of me being an idiot and not eating enough. But it really pissed me off and my murderer remains on my ignore list to this day.

Another time, for whatever silly reason, I was by the Dark Warriors fortress in the wilderness (again). I can not recall my reason for being out there. It was probably a level three treasure trails or something like that. Anyway, that time I got jumped by three players. I didn’t even have time to move my mouse, let alone do anything to defend myself or run away. That pissed me off more than the green dragons dude. At least he waited patiently for me to screw up. The three jackasses went three on one. That was just rude.

The fifth time I don’t remember much at all. All I do remember is that I was fully expecting to get beatdown and therefore did not bring anything of value with me to my death. I think I was doing research on a monster. I only include this death because I did lose some Rune armour. Again nothing of much value.

The last time I died was just a couple of months ago and it may quite possibly be the most idiotic thing I ever did. I was in TzHaar beneath the Karamja Volcano. I was messing around fighting the TzHaar monsters. Nothing particularly dangerous for my skill level. But they are strong and due some respect. Respect which I did not show. First I wore my full daily wear outfit which I have mentioned before in other posts. A picture of my outfit graces the top of all the pages of this blog. According to todays Grand Exchange Central WIWI Index my daily wear is valued at 5,094,200gp. My second disrespect was leaving my computer during a fight to go upstairs and use the bathroom. Of course you can see where this is going. When I got back to the computer and logged back in and found myself standing in the Lumbridge Castle courtyard practically naked (hey, if you went from Gold-trimmed Rune [GEC 997.4k gp] to a t-shirt and jeans you would feel naked too.).

I was, of course, well past the time of my gravestone. Heck, even with a five minute gravestone (which I did not have) and some generous bystanders there would have been no way I would have gotten back there in time. I had taken a Popular Science with me to the bathroom and was in there for a good half hour. Not meaning to sound sexist, but taking a magazine to the bathroom is typically a male trait. I think guys do our best thinking in the bathroom. I am the only person I know who has a TV and a data port (which I no longer need thanks to WiFi) in my bathroom.  On a related side note, has anyone else noticed that there are no bathrooms in Runescape?  Just a weird observation.

Of course my three most expensive items remained with me so it wasn’t a full 5 million loss. My Amulet of Fury [GEC 14.6m gp] alone accounts for almost half my outfits value. But it still was a multi million gp bust. And every gp I made for a week or two after felt like I was just catching up, not going forward. (Oh yeah, did I mention I had over 200k in gp on me when I died. Talk about disrespect.)

Anyway, I don’t know exactly what triggered this walk down the valley of death. I know I had been thinking of my game play strategy and how I am not a risk taker. Heck, if my HP drops down to below 20, I am off like a prom dress. Also I very rarely go anywhere near the wilderness (excluding chaos druids in the Edgeville dungeon.) I suppose we all have our own ways to live life in Runescape. Risk isn’t mine. Plus, even without any loses in weapons, armour, or other valuables, I just simply find the death of Absenm unacceptable and insulting. Maybe that is just a character flaw (pun intended).

I made a couple of updates to the Grand Exchange Central beta site.  There is now a Grimy Herb Index.  Also, now many items have side by side comparisons.  For example the Grimy Ranarr is compared to Clean Ranarr and Raw Chicken is compared to Cooked Chicken.  These comparisons are located on the individual item pages. 

In the near future I plan on also including a parts list for certain items.  For example, a Potato with butter will also provide a summary of the prices for raw potatos, buckets of milk, baked potatos, and pats of butter because all four of those items can go into the process of making a Potato with Butter.  It is my hope that these parts lists will give readers a better idea of what items can be purchased on the GE without significant lost to profits while making individual items.

I am still working on a GEC database search engine!  Hopefully I will have something soon.  Right now we have over 60 individual items.  We should have that number up to a hundred by the end of the week.

Well, after confronting various technical issues, my Grand Exchange Central area of this site is progressing nicely. I am moving it out of alpha stages and now calling it a beta. For those of you who haven’t read my prior posts on The Grand Exchange Central, here is a description of it an some of its uses.

I view the Grand Exchange Central (GEC) as a resource to make informed investment decisions in the world of Runescape. The GEC is not all inclusive of all items Runescape. There are tens of thousands of purchasable items in the world of Runescape. Only a small percentage of that total is of any investment value or market effect. That small percentage is what the GEC will follow.

On the Runescape site item market history only goes back a month. On my Grand Exchange Central the data I have goes back to about 45 days. Obviously newly added items will have less available data. I plan on extending that period to 60 or even 90 days (more than double as much as available from the official GE site). With this added information trends can be more accurately seen.

I have broken up much of the economy into indexes (or indices) which represent various segments of the Runescape world. Currently the beta contains an Economy Index, A Wood Index, A Herb Index, and a WIWI Index. Very soon it will include Food, Seed, Potion, Rune, Weapons, Armour and other basic Indexes. And not too long from now other new Indexes will include oddball things like luxury and rare items. I am still trying to determine the best levels at which to calibrate these Indexes. I am leaning toward calibrating the higher value indexes to 10,000 points and the lower value indexes to 1000 points.

One of my priorities even before adding new indexes is to add a search feature. Right now the GEC only has about 50 items and can be looked through fairly easily. When I am finished I plan on having as many as 500 plus items and a search feature is going to be very important. Expect to see the search feature within the coming week.

After I am done including most of the items and indexes I may focus my attention incorporating smart projection routines into the GEC pages that will attempt to predict if certain items will continue declining or improving. Of course any prediction made by the GEC or anywhere else on the Runescape Thoughts Website are as is, caveat emptor, not guaranteed, past results not indicative of future returns, and so on.

If I really get my butt moving I may also include additional item information to the item pages. This information may include the amount of experience earned from making the item, the amount of healing from ingesting an item, and so forth. Don’t expect to see anything like that for months. I will also try to include Index RSS feeds so they can be added to google and yahoo homepages.

If you can think of any items that have investment value or have a direct impact on other parts of the Runescape economy please leave a comment and let me know. I will try, but not guarantee, to include all requested items in the Grand Exchange Central. The Runescape Thoughts is a small site on a free host and simply doesn’t have enough resources to track the whole of Runescape. But we will be happy to accommodate any reasonable requests within our means.

Here is just a little quick money making tip for newbs. And I mean “newb” in the new player kind of way and not “noob” in the annoying idiot kind of way. This technique does not generate massive money… at least not for mid to high level member players. But it should provide a tiddy income for low level free players (level 10 and below) and help them get the nominal cash they require. Plus it will provide a little combat experience to boot. Best of all, this technique is available to free members and can be useful for members too.

Go after feathers. There is a chicken farm just north west of Lumbridge and one just south of Faladore. There is also one north east of Lumbridge on the other side of the River Lum. Killed chickens usually leave multiple feathers, bones, and meat. Best of all, feathers are stackable and only take up one inventory slot. In just fifteen minutes even a new player can collect as many as two hundred feathers. Feathers are very sought after as they are used a lot in fishing and fletching and to a lesser extent in other skills. They usually sell immediately on the Grand Exchange for 16 gp a feather. That is a quick thousand plus gold pieces in fifteen minutes. Yeah, that is piddly for higher level players, but the newbs can do quiet a bit with it.

While you are killing chickens make sure you collect the eggs [GEC 53 gp] that respawn in the same area. You can also sell the raw chicken meat for around 160 gp too. But eggs and meat will take longer to sell on the Grand Exchange than feathers. Also, if you are a true new player and very low level you might as well bury the bones [GEC 168 gp] and get the prayer experience while you are at it.

Anyway, that was just a little newb advice. If you want to make gold even more quickly, I would recommend collecting swamp tar (only available to members). Selling for around 256 gp each on the Grand Exchange, swamp tar can literally earn a player a small fortune in a short period of time.