RuneScape High Society has Changed

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:06]Hey guys, happy Wednesday. I hope you're having a great week. So today I wanted to talk about Vlinin goods in Runescape.

[00:00:12]You know, when I was doing the market overview for the last week, I did a little bit of a segment on third age items and spent a little bit of time on that. And then after the video, I did a little bit more research about it and I came across some information that I found super interesting and I wanted to talk to you guys about it because I think you'll find it really interesting, too. So, at this point, you're probably asking, "What even is available good?"

[00:00:32]And great, because I have the answer. It is a good for which the demand correlates directly with the price of the items. So, when you see a price go up for these items, they become more desirable and more in demand by the people who would buy them, which is basically rich people. They are shows of wealth that you can outwardly see. So, we're talking like Louis Vuitton bags, you know, Rolls-Royces, collectible cars, expensive watches, you know, anything that somebody can buy that has an outward effect to show you that they are rich. This is obviously inverse to a normal supply and demand graph. You know, the demand for things usually goes down, prices goes up, but in this case, they the demand goes up as prices go up because rich people want to buy them to show that they have money. So, I included the charts here. This left one here is obviously a normal supply and demand chart. You know, as you can see, as price goes up, demand comes down, supply goes up because people don't want to spend more money for the things that they buy. You know, obviously, this goes for pretty much everything. You know, groceries is a great example. You know, people aren't going to buy eggs if egg prices are up like crazy. They're going to buy a substitute or something else.

[00:01:35]So, you know, that's just an example of real life behavior. And same thing for the inverse. As supply comes up and price comes down, you know, demand will rise because people want to pay less for the things that they buy.

[00:01:47]This is not true for Vevelin Goods. This is the demand curve for Vein Goods here.

[00:01:51]As you can see, it's parabolic. You know, at the bottom here, as the price is down, the demand is up because people want to spend less for the things that they buy, like I said. But then as price comes up, obviously, demand goes down to a certain point. And then we reach this uh point here, which is called the snob effect. And it's the point at which people will now associate the item with something that a rich person would want.

[00:02:13]And then the demand slowly creeps up as the price increases. Now I find this really interesting. You know this is a huge case for um watches and cars specifically. Uh that you know as the price just goes up. You know people the people that are rich especially like Lamborghinis right now. People are buying those just to show that they have money even though they're like some of the worst cars of all time you know in terms of reliability. But you know they look good. Same thing with Rolls-Royce.

[00:02:39]Rolls-Royce is a notoriously, you know, bad car in terms of maintenance costs, but people buy them anyway because they look good and they want to look rich.

[00:02:48]So, you know, I just think this is really interesting, especially this snob effect was was one of the big things I learned. So, anyway, Thorstein is the man who coined this term and he wrote the book called Theory of the Leisure Class. great read by the way if you're looking for a book about the late 1800s American upper class which is a I really like that subject and uh you know it was probably one of my favorite times in American history. So you know I I did read some excerpts from this book and it was super interesting. So if you want to you know check it out do so. But he basically did a in-depth and examination and critique of the upper class in America and how their whole like leisure versus productivity thing and how they learn all these useless behaviors to protest, you know, being productive and whatnot. And he described conspicuous consumption, which is the outward display of wealth to exemplify economic power. And this has rang true in all of history. You know, he was just the one to kind of talk about it in terms of, you know, actual economic theory. But obviously, you know, this has been a thing for very very long time. You know, we had like silks and gold and, you know, gold thrones and all that stuff to exemplify wealth. And then back in the 1800s, it was like expensive clothes, you know, the newest car, the biggest house, you know, all that, all that stuff. So, just a super interesting, you know, talk about that. And he basically just coined the term good, which was basically the whole origin of this video. So, I'm going to do a little bit of an exercise with you guys. I want to ask you who the richest person is that I'm about to show you here. This is uh this is Runescape related now. We're getting into the Runescape stuff. So, I'm done yapping about the historical context. We're talking about uh Runescape now. So, we're going to do a little exercise. You're going to tell me who the richest of these people are. So, first up, we've got our boy here in the elegant dress. You know, back in the day, this was a fit. You know, if you remember, same thing with the next person, the gilded armor. This was also a fit. I remember wanting this so bad when I was a I thought it looked so awesome. Next up, we've got Third Age.

[00:04:46]Another set I wanted as a kid, but obviously knew I could never afford.

[00:04:49]Every time I looked up these items on the forums, I was like, "Wow, I'm never going to be able to buy that cuz it's always been so expensive." Next up, we've got Third Age Druidic. Uh, this is a fairly new addition to the Third Age lineup, and you know, we see people wear this every now and then in the Grand Exchange. You know, the classic Grand Exchange standard. And then we have the Third Age pickaxe. you know, another relatively new addition. You know, just a third age pickaxe. And then finally, we have the classic, the OG, the blue party. So, real quick, I just want you to think about all these guys. You know, if you play Runescape at all, you can probably guess which one is the most expensive, but we're going to go through it at the end of the video, and we're going to talk about, you know, which one is. So, you know, take your guess now, and we're going to move on to the next thing, which is Vlin goods in Runescape.

[00:05:34]Back into the Runescape here. All treasure trail cosmetics were and still are in some cases goods. You know, we're talking the black rerays, the cavaliers, third age, Ellie enclosed, trimmed armor. You know, they all used to be pretty expensive. They all used to be desirable because they were expensive and they made you look expensive. And then of course we have discontinued rares, especially equipables like party hats, Santa hats, and Halloween masks.

[00:05:57]And then to a lesser extent, you know, pumpkins, Easter eggs, discs of returning, etc. And then more recently, treasure trail rares or treasure hunter rails rares, excuse me, the colored Santa hats, the walk tokens, you know, stuff like that. You know, I remember when the zombie walk token came out and I knew immediately that that was going to be a discontinued item. So, I bought like four of them for like 30 mil each.

[00:06:17]I think it was like 130 mil like cost basis that I had that I was in on that for. And over the next couple years, I ended up selling them for like insane profit. But I sold my first one for 500 mil, my second one for a bill, and my third one for 1 and a half bill. And I kept the last one cuz I was like, I have made so much off of this. I'm never going to need this one. So, I kept it for myself, and I still haven't used it.

[00:06:41]But it has come down significantly since it's no longer a discontinued item. But that was by far my most uh expensive or most successful investment in Runescape of all time. You know, I think I'm still riding high on that. So, you know, I thought that was pretty fun. But either way, those are some examples of Evelyn goods in Runescape. So, in early Runescape, before the Grand Exchange, you know, the treasure trail items were highly sought after. I mean, I'm sure you remember walking around, you know, world 2 or whatever social scene that you were in in old Runescape, seeing people in elegant or even third age gilded trimmed armor, you know, huge scam back then, but, you know, black gold trimmed armor was was an awesome look and they were worth money. you know, people spent real, not real, but a lot of gold on these items. And, you know, I just think that's really interesting, especially because they Runescape even tried to emulate like the upper class of like the 1800s and some of these items. The Boater hat is a huge one. You know, the boater hat was super popular in uh in high net worth social circles in the 1800s. Same thing with like the elegant kind of tries to to play off of that as well. I think that's really funny. Um, but basically their implied rarity gave them value. Like the fact that you didn't see many people wearing them and especially a full set, you know, good luck, you know, finding somebody with that. And if you did, it was like, wo, you know, their implied rarity is what gave them their value.

[00:08:02]And then, of course, fashioncape was a huge reason people played back then. You know, fashioncape was very big before the Grand Exchange, even after for a while. You know, people played the game for a different reason back then. You know, people played for the social aspect. People played it as a chat room with customizable avatars. Kind of like, you know, those old flash games and whatever that were just really like like Hoba Hotel, you know, they were just like social gathering places where, you know, you just put your freshest fit on and you went and went and talk to people. You know, Runescape back then was a lot like that where you would just kind of buy your best fit, get your best fit together and go hang out at World 2 or in the Rock Square or wherever it was that you were hanging out with your friends or whoever and just and just chatting. And that was what the game was more about back then. And then prices and volume were varied wildly because of inefficient markets and improper information. So inefficient markets basically means there's some friction between buyers in terms of commerce. You know there's you know it could be taxes, it could be you know getting parties together you know so like obviously globalization in the real world fixed this problem to an extent. You know it made markets much more efficient. you know, Amazon changed the game in terms of bringing products to market for more people. And the Grand Exchange did that for Runescape, but before that, it was just hoping you found the person that you needed to buy the item from and then getting a good price for that item at the same time. And it was it was very difficult. And, you know, the people that were selling the items definitely kind of held the market hostage in terms of some of those items because, you know, they could kind of set the price.

[00:09:32]you know, if you were looking for a black beret specifically and you could only find red, you know, and you finally found somebody with black after looking for like 3 days, you know, you were going to have trouble getting a good price for that item. And then, of course, Runescape and other, you know, fan site forums were really the only reliable places to get price information for these items before the Grand Exchange. So, if you weren't surfing the forums, which I knew I wasn't when I was the age I started playing this game, uh, I wasn't finding that. So, you know, I was just kind of at the mercy of the sellers at that point. And then after the Grand Exchange, a lot of treasure trails had a lot more volume and were traded more and were easier to attain.

[00:10:10]And then it be kind of kind of got known that these items were not as rare as we originally thought and their prices came down pretty significantly. They became much more affordable, much more attainable, and information spread more about these items and also treasure trails became much easier due to forums and ultimately the wiki. So, if you have ever done a treasure trail before the wiki had the answers or like some forum had the answers, it was not easy. Okay, you had to do the coordinate clues yourself and if you didn't memorize them or like put like a notepad or something that had the locations that you had previously done, they were not easy. You know, you had to line up the little horizon with the sun and it was just like, oh my god, they were they were so annoying to do. And even with the wiki there, some of them were still annoying and you had to do the puzzle boxes still yourself. So, you know, hards were were not the best time back then. Uh, and then now they're just they're so easy with the plugins. You know, you don't even have to do anything anymore. It just solves everything for you, which is neither here nor there, and I'm not going to give my opinion on that, but uh you know, either way. And then, of course, some items maintain their prices due to their usefulness. This is true for God Dehide specifically. You know, the especially in old school, you know, God dehide is still very useful in old school uh because it is a good range armor. It's a good tier 70 range armor that's not too expensive. And then of course, third age and discontinued items were basically immune to this uh grand exchange effect because just because they were on the market now doesn't make them any less expensive. We just have more accurate price information. That's really all that that did. And then of course the party hats, you know, quickly surpassed the limit of the Grand Exchange of 2.1 bill. So you really it really didn't help that much in the grand scheme of things until they added the new trade uh trade limit which is like trillions now. I don't I'm not really sure what the limit is, but you we have accurate price information for party hats again. And party hats have always been the ultimate show of wealth.

[00:11:55]When back in the day, if you saw somebody with a party hat on, especially a blue one, yo, you you know, you dropped everything. You were like, "Yo, this dude's got money." And that still remains true to this day in RS3.

[00:12:07]And then I wanted to do a little side note on discontinued rares. You know, these have perfectly inelastic supply, which means that their supply will never go up again. They will only ever go down, you know, if somebody decides to alk them or drop them or whatever, it only goes down. They're not going to read these items. And that's why their price continues to rise, not only because they're in demand and, you know, for these people that want these shows of wealth, but they're also just never going to come up again. So, if you see anyone of them be destroyed or dropped or out or whatever, you're that is a permanent loss to supply and thus will drive the price up more more so than it already is going up because of the demand, because it's so expensive.

[00:12:45]And they are of course still Vlinin goods because of their rarity and prints. And Ultimate Runescape of course does not have discontinued rares. The closest we've ever come is the Dead Man mode one items, the uh Armageddon weapon scrolls and whatnot. They reached a high of you know almost a couple hundred mil.

[00:13:01]I think the highest they were ever at was like 175. And you know they have never come back since. But back then they were theorized to be like a pseudo discontinued item because we didn't know when the next ones are going to come out. So the price reflected that because we didn't know when or if we would ever see them again. But now that we have seen them again and more people went into the whole thing knowing that they could make insane profit just by playing the game. They they're no longer at risk of being that type of item. You know, I obviously did a dead man mode video. I can put it up there for you if you are interested. But um you know I wanted to include the prices of some of these RS3 discontinued rares. You know specifically the party hats I think is super interesting because like I said these are the ultimate show of wealth in in RS3.

[00:13:46]And the blue party hat has always been the most expensive one. Now sitting at almost 100 bill which is just an insane price to pay for a paper hat. But it's even more expensive than the next rarest one which is the purple one. You know, it just goes to show that like even though it's rarer, the purple hat is rare, the the prestige of the blue one is much more so. You know, it's 40 bill higher than the purple one. There's even ones that are more common than the blue one that are better or more in demand than the purple one, which is the white and the red are still, you know, 10 to 20 bill above the purple party hat at any given time. So, I just think that's a good example of these goods are are just really, you know, it's all about the look. It's all about looking wealthy. It's not about the rarity. And then, of course, we have the other discontinued rares.

[00:14:36]The half jug of wines 16 bill, which is crazy. You know, I remember when these were like under, you know, 100 mil. You know, the r the disc of returning is 2.8 bill. The egg is 1.3 bill, which is crazy. So just really interesting you know behavior with those you know especially now that we have the increased price limits in RS3 you know you can see uh there is um you know just the prices are just insane you know um but I will say because of that you know we have more accurate price information before there was really no way to know what these prices for especially the party hats were cuz they were over 2.1 bill so far over in fact that that the price volatility was crazy like there was no reliable way to get good pricing information outside of the forums and and even that it wasn't like at instant speed like you had to set up an offer.

[00:15:25]You had to go in and like negotiate you know what the price was and now that they are on the Grand Exchange and have value you know we actually can get accurate price information which is really interesting just you know I I like efficient markets so I just I wanted to talk about that as well. And then finally, we have Vlinin goods and old school Runescape. Old treasure trail items, you know, like the ones that we were just talking about are are not as valuable anymore. They are still technically Vlinin goods, but the people that are rich aren't buying them anymore because they're not as rare and as valuable as they used to be. You know, they're more common than ever. People are doing clue scrolls more than ever, especially now with how easy they are with the plugin. you know, these items that are not rare like the Boers and the Cavaliers, you know, they are coming onto the market much faster now because people are doing much more clue scrolls, you know, third age gilded anku sets, you know, those are holding their value pretty well because they are still rare.

[00:16:15]They are still goods. People are still buying them for fashion and to show that they have some level of wealth.

[00:16:22]Uh they of course provide no real value other than to show off that you are wealthy. You know, the third age set is just under justice, which is a much better set in terms of its defensive capabilities, and it is like 10 times the price. So, you know, they're really the the rarity and the value is really the only thing keeping it going. And then obviously the most expensive of the third age items are the most soughta.

[00:16:46]So, why is this the case? Why is modern runescape different? Well, it's because a lot of fashioncape and old school specifically comes from earned cosmetics. there's much less of a focus on um bot cosmetics as there was back in the day. This game is not really a social game anymore. Like it is obviously there's clans, there's there's a chat room, there's all that, but people aren't playing it for that anymore like they used to back then.

[00:17:10]Back then it was like you got home from school and you hopped on Runescape to chat with your friends. Now it's like you get on Runescape, you get on Discord to go do raids with your friends.

[00:17:18]there's a much higher um reason for playing in terms of achievements and doing actual activities. You there was a lot less to do in Runescape back in the day. Now there's there's so much to do that like fashioncape really isn't a problem anymore in terms of bot fashioncape. People want fashioncape now that they can earn like oath plate or blood tova, you know, stuff like that.

[00:17:42]you know, people are playing for achievements, and this is by far the largest driver for the price of Fashioncape items, which is why like all of these old rares that people like used to really want, you know, are not as wanted anymore. You know, really third age and above is the goal. You know, maybe gilded, maybe a little bit of uh, you know, the Anku set or whatever, you know, those are kind of sought after.

[00:18:02]But in terms of like fashioncape now you're seeing a lot more players do like getting the max cape variants you know for cosmetics like the Dana's max cape or the infernal max cape you know they're getting blood to or just regular tova looks good as well you know radiant oath plate looks amazing looks like third age too in terms of the color scheme so you're seeing a lot more of the achievement based um cosmetics than you do the bot fashioncape that we used to see a lot more of in the past and then I wanted to talk briefly about the Runescape high society as I call it because players will ultimately filter into one of two groups. We have like the ultra rich GE standards wearing full druidic and third age pickaxes. You know, we're talking wealth levels of you would never need this much money. You know, not unlike the real world either.

[00:18:48]It's like they're talking like 2.1 bill platinum chips. You know, they got the most expensive items that they possibly can. And again, that's where the uh Thank you for subscribing, by the way.

[00:18:58]That's where the uh value for these items comes from.

[00:19:02]Um, but I hope that wasn't too loud. I have to re-watch this, but uh, thank you to whoever that was for subscribing. I forgot I had that on for when I'm recording, but thank you. Um, the Ultra Rich uh, GE uh, standards like I was talking about, they buy these super expensive items, these Vlin goods, because they want to show everyone that they have this money. They they have they have 18 bill to drop on full dritic and and a third age pig. You know, they have that kind of money. And that's why the third age plate body and all the other lower third ages are now stepping stones instead of the pinnacle which I will talk about. And then of course we have the ultra skilled you know wearing blood to the earned cosmetics that I was talking about the the max cape with the cosmetics on it the you know all that other stuff. And then you know it's not far off like I said from subscription of production versus leisure. The people that are doing the ultra skill PVM they're earning these cosmetics. They're doing the work. they're putting in the time to actually earn the things that they are wearing versus the people who are ultra rich you know they might have gotten it from you know they might have even ported it over from RS3 you know they they might have swapped it you know from you know the old money you know what I'm saying you know so these are the people that are rich are not really earning what they have in some cases especially if you have like hundreds of bills you know there's no way unless you're doing some crazy market manipulation that you're making that kind of money in any reasonable amount of time and that's because there's two really different psychologies for this game that very seldomly overlap.

[00:20:33]You know, we have the highest skill PVMER might not ever approach or want the level of wealth that the, you know, the bankstanders have versus the richest GE or the richest bank stander or GE standards. Like they'll never attain or even want Radiant or Grandmaster.

[00:20:47]They're they might be content in just having a ton of money, being able to buy all these new items whenever they want and just, you know, you know, living their life, you know, standing at the GE. And then most players strive to be in one of these two categories, right?

[00:21:00]So, you know, I for one, you know, enjoy the high effort of the PVM stuff. You know, I have a quiver. You know, I'm working on my Inferno cape. You know, I like the idea of the high effort cosmetics. The the whole reason I went for the quiver at all was for the Desanas Max cape cuz I think it looks so sick. Like, if I if it didn't have a variant, I probably would not have gotten it. So, you know, that was a huge reason for me was for that cosmetic.

[00:21:24]And then of course, you know, that that is the case for a lot of people. You know, I don't think I'll ever be like the grandmaster combat achievement type of play, but you know, I did I did do the quiver for just the max kit because I thought it was so cool. So, most players will fall into one of those two categories on some level, but you know, they might not ever achieve, you know, the stat the level of wealth or the status of the Grandmaster. And that's okay. You know, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's just that that that's kind of how it's organized.

[00:21:51]And then, of course, we have the state of Third Age. Finally, the low tier third age, like I said, has become a stepping stone, not the pinnacle anymore. Back in the day, third age and then, of course, the discontinued rares were all like the pinnacle of what you could get. The third age plate was the most expensive thing you could get, you know, and that is not the case anymore. We have more valuable third ages and as a result, it has pushed the third age price not down, but it's just not as in desire for the people that are ultra wealthy anymore.

[00:22:18]They have a new thing that they can buy, which is the third age druid set. And then of course the hunt for dritic and tools is pushing down the prices for the other rares. Again, calling back to what I was saying about the old treasure trail items not being as valuable anymore cuz they're not as used as fashion escape anymore. You know, they're never going to be valuable again because there's just so much more ways to display wealth that aren't, you know, the brays or the cavaliers or the elegant sets or whatever. And then until we get another tier of clue scroll, uh the druidic and the pickaxe are going to be the top. You know, if we ever get a grandmaster tier clue scroll, which god help us if we do, you know, those are going to be I'm sure there's going to be some crazy rare item that you get from that that's going to hold these those items up and and eventually drive down the druidic prices because there's going to be a new more rare thing to get from clue scrolls. So, I mean, that's just speculation. I don't think that's going to happen for a very long time. I think the druidic and the pickaxe are going to be the top of the top for for many years to come. And then finally, we have the who is the richest competition. So, if you've been thinking about this at all, I mean, I'm sure you have an idea. I mean, one is very obvious, but I think it's pretty interesting thing that I found out when I was doing this. So, of course, we have the elegant at the lowest at 45K. I'm honestly surprised it's even that high. Uh, but that is the lowest one. Next up, we have is the gilded one, which is 36 mil. You know, kind of interesting there. I thought this would be a little bit more, but 36 mil is not a bad show of wealth. You know, if you were to go to the Grand Exchange, you would definitely be getting looks. I mean, the the gilded set still looks great in my opinion. So, you know, it's it's just not that expensive. Next up, we have the Third Age Melee set at 400 mil. You know, getting a little up there. You know, you're definitely in like the getting to the upper echelon there for sure. And then we have the Druidic Rose, which is sitting at around six bill. You know, that's a that's a pretty price tag. You know, that's you're in the upper echelon at this point. They're definitely firmly in the 1%.

[00:24:12]And then just the dragon pickaxe alone is 12 bill, which is crazy to think about. You know, I don't know actually what the current market price is. The most recent one that I have heard is around 12 bill. I think it might even be closer to 15 now. But either way, this is by far the most expensive single item in Old School Runescape. It is I think the axe is behind it by a large margin.

[00:24:32]But the the pickaxe is just overwhelmingly expensive. So if you see somebody wearing the pickaxe with the druidic robes, you know they got money.

[00:24:41]And then finally, the blue party hat, of course, is the most expensive in RS3 gold at 91 bill, which we saw in the graph earlier, but I was doing the conversion, which uh which was just me go converting to Runescape 3 to old school gold by going off the ratio of the bond prices, and it actually is slightly less expensive in terms of old school gold than the dragon pickaxe at 11.8 8 bill, which I thought was really interesting and funny. Um, but either way, you know, there's your answers there. You know, I thought that'd be kind of fun to talk about as we were talking about these Bablin goods. But, uh, yeah, I I hope you guys found this video interesting. You know, I was just trying something a little bit different here. Uh, I just found it interesting when I was doing research for Third Age.

[00:25:23]So, if you liked this uh content and like this video, you know, please like the video and and give me some comments if you enjoyed this uh little history lessons slash, you know, learning about what Vevelins Vlin goods are. Uh thank you so much for watching and I will see you on Friday for our mocker review as usual. Goodbye now.