August 12, 2009

Did the new quest. I really enjoyed the 2 tier structure. Part 1 was very fast and easy, but I could see how someone lower leveled would find it a challenge without being impossible.

The 2nd part was tough. Drop from Bork or Graandor? 9 Dragon bones? Hmmmm

Otherwise I've been grinding runecrafting. I've been making astrals (double astrals thank you very much). Slow slow ...............s l o w xp. But good money and I actually like the short little run. Yeah, it'd be faster w/zmi. I might start mixing that back in but for some reason I just don't like that run as much.

So without much to report in other stuff I thought I'd start a series of financial articles. I could care less about merchant clans, the RS economy or whether there's going to be a crash soon. What I am going to talk about is how to earn, save and spend your gp.

First let's talk about capital expenses (capex) versus operating expenses (opex).

Capex is your tools, equipment, mahinery etc. Operating expenses would be things like payroll, electric bills, coffee funds, paper.

For example, let's say you owned a pie shop. First you'd need an oven, a table and a cash register. (Ok fine, you'd need a lot more but stay with me). Now that you have some equipment you'll need apples, flour and butter.

The first group is your capex. Your second group is your opex.

So why am I discussing this and what does it have to do with Runescape? Ever been in a chat or a bank or been pm'ed by a friend "should I buy a d'axe" or "what should I spend 10 mill on"? If you've been playing RS for any period of time you certainly have.

So what's the answer? Well....the standard Jax answer is it's your money buy whatever you want. Since that never seems to work here's a more thought out approach.

1) Buy your tools, armors and weapons. And I don't mean cannonballs and chins. I mean non degrading, non consumable items. Can you use it 1000 times and still own it? And I'm not talking full dragon. I'm talking something level appropriate. Think of this as your capex. With what you spend here you are getting yourself ready to go make money. Will a dragon axe make you money? No. Will it allow you to make money faster cutting down yews? Yes. Is it worth it? That's up to you.

2) Buy supplies that are not cost effective for you to gather. What? Classic example is pure essense. At lower levels it's quite profitable to mine and sell. Plus you get some mining xp. For me, I can make a lot more money per hour then what an hour of mining pure essense pays.

3) Don't buy stuff you're not going to use. I have proselyte armor. I fight the jade vine and bork daily. It's all I need. If I were to get serious about combat I'd buy better stuff. But at the moment this works.

4) If you have it you don't have to spend it. Look, good for you that you have 10million. Now hold it until you have a REASON to spend it. Buying stuff for the sake of buying stuff, wait til your rich.