What is the purpose of keeping a separate economy for realism if we’re able to trade between normie/realism?
What's the purpose of keeping a separate economy for DMM and OSRS? The items in the economies are obtained under different rules.
On DMM, barrows items are obtained under dangerous circumstances (different rule). Consequently, there is less supply and more demand of barrows item than on the regular game. This makes barrows items more expensive. If you merge the two ecos, then there'd be no point in doing barrows on DMM anymore.
How come? Because why take that risk of being attacked by another player while you do barrows when you can just do it on regular OSRS where it's safe?
This is why merging two economies created under different rules is super problematic.
To draw a parallel to Realism, a casket yields half the amount of coins on Realism as on Normie (different rule). So coins are worth roughly 2:1.
Also, ultimate mystery boxes aren't available on Realism (different rule). So endgame pvp items aren't being spawned into the economy.
If you spawn items into the eco, you create excess supply -> Then, under constant demand, prices will drop -> making pvming less profitable -> and eventually making the activity no longer worth doing. Think about it. Why do PVM for profit on Realism (2x) when you can just do it on Normie (325x)?
Not to mention, Normie eco also has dupes pumped into it by ironmen who contribute to supply but not demand, which will further drop item prices. Why?
Imagine having a bunch of shark fishing bots on OSRS. They would add artificial supply to eco and drive prices of raw shark down.
If prices of raw shark plummet, it becomes no longer profitable for legitimate players to manually fish shark.
Similarly, if you allow these ironman dupes into the realism eco (raw shark), the same thing would happen to the price of realism raw sharks. It would plummet.
Consequently, that would make it no longer worth fishing shark for profit on Realism because you can just fish on iron where leveling is 20x as fast (different rule)
Keep in mind what makes a game fun -> A game's payout must match its time investment.
You might think lowering prices makes the game more accessible for new players, but in reality lowering prices (through artificial supply) just compromises the authenticity of the economy and undermines the challenge (and gratification upon success) of the Realism game mode.
Lastly, consider why Realism players swap GP with Normie. Realism players need donator rank, but rank tickets and bonds are mostly sold on Normie. Put those same rank tickets and bonds on the Realism TP for 1/2 the price of normie and you'd see a lot less swapping Realism for Normie.
Too late to do that now though and it would be unfair for GIM players that make accounts now
Here's the cycle of GIM for you
New GIM team forms -> they gather items -> group member get busy with life or bored -> they buy GIM replacement tickets -> new teammates join / buys bank -> old GIM player sells GIM bank then gambles or goes for rank -> team goes through several cycles of this -> eventually team only has 1 or 2 people active -> drops take longer and longer -> more complain about dupes & dryness -> game gets boring -> whole GIM team quits and tries to sell banks -> they await the next victim to fall into this trap of bullshit fakeass ironman buymanmode
I honestly think correcting this bullshittery of buying/selling ironman bank is the best way to help new GIM players.