One. Thousand. Eighty. Three. K.
That was my first sight I saw after finishing a round of tanning cowhides. I nearly jumped right out of my chair. I had joined the not-so-exclusive RuneScape millionaires club! I was finally sort of rich!
I could afford a Saradomin platebody.
The definition of being “rich” in RuneScape is not a standard that is easy to meet. Bandos armor, santa hats, Barrows, and, obviously, partyhats, are symbols of exquisite wealth in the game. Even the cheapest of those items listed, a standard Barrows armor set, was worth easily five or six times more than what I have. A santa hat more than twelve times what I had.
I remember a few months ago when I borrowed a santa hat from someone for an hour. It cost me 10k. It was amazing the attention I got wearing it, so much so that I almost felt guilty even wearing it as it was borrowed. I would much rather have green numbers in my bank than a silly out-of-season hat on my head. Nevertheless, I loved walking through Lumbridge on my way to Draynor and having people follow me around like I was the next Zezima or something.
Making money is not just a thing to do in RuneScape. Making money has transformed the game into a community, and just transformed the game as a whole; merchanting players and clans are a major force in the economy, which can in turn affect the choices players make in training skills or combat. Updates ca also play into this mess. Look back on the 180 Days option for the dragon full helm. Its graphs spiked downwards tens of millions when it was added to the rare drops list on PvP worlds. Now that it’s off the list it’s rose back to its normal price. If you were a player who purchased one back when they were worth a mere 10m or so your investment would have nearly quadrupled in value!
If you look back to my free-to-play moneymaking guide, you’ll see that merchanting is not mentioned. I think that Grand Exchange solo merchanting is very risky and I would much rather place my bets on cutting some old-fashioned yew logs than buying and reselling items, hoping that their value increases. However, merchanting clans, of which I am a tentative member of one, seem like trustworthy ways of merchanting, no matter who frowns upon them for changing prices.
All in all, I guess my main point here is that money makes RuneScape go ’round. Money in the game earns you respect, some dang cool gear and, sometimes, an ego as big as Gielinor itself. Making money isn’t easy. Having the determination to keep raking in those millions on your way to expensive items is even harder. But it’s certainly great when you make your first 1m, or 1000k as JaGeX prefers to show it as, or even 100k for that matter.
And yes, we all remember our first 1k we earned. Right?
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