In the MMORPG Runescape, 20-year-old hats are worth billions in gold – now there are new ones

In the MMORPG Runescape, golden party hats have now appeared that have to be farmed relatively laboriously. These hats are actually completely useless, but they could become valuable in the future. Because 20 years ago there were hats like this, they are now worth billions in gold.

What kind of hats are these?

  • The “golden party hats” in Runescape are cosmetic headgear given out to celebrate Runescape’s 20th birthday. The hats are only available until January 3rd.
  • To get such a party hat you need 8 shards: To get these shards, the players need luck and time above all else. The shards are there when you level up combat, art or collecting skills and in many different other ways: You can simply buy a shard for around 30 million gold.
  • The item is useless in itself, but is seen as an exciting investment in the future, because hats like this were already available in 2001. They are now worth billions in gold.

In 2001, many simply threw away their party hat – today it would be worth billions of gold

What’s up with the old hats? In 2001 party hats came into play, which were distributed during a Christmas event.

As the developer Jagex explains, the hats should be “worthless and disposable”. There was no advantage in wearing such a hat. Many players would have destroyed their hats after the event. But because Jagex stopped giving hats for free in 2002 and never after, the hats became such sought-after collectibles: They indicated that someone had been playing Runescape for years.

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Over the past 20 years, hats have become rarer as people quit the MMORPG and take their hats with them to the digital grave. These hats are now worth 2.1 billion gold and play a “crucial role in the economy of Runescape,” as Jagex says.

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How many hours do players farm for the neuen hats? The Runescape players are currently investing a lot of time in getting the individual shards. The time investment is far apart if you read the forum:

  • One says he’s been picking locks for 2 hours and still doesn’t have a shard.
  • Another says he has killed 2,000 demons and found nothing.
  • A third reports that after 6 hours he got his “battle shard”. It was probably worth it.

This is behind it: It’s pretty unlikely that the new hats will get any real value because everyone expects them. The original hats are so valuable because only a few came up with the idea that something could be valuable and have the hats stored somewhere. Today we know that such limited event items gain in value, so many will pick up their hats – and they will then remain relatively worthless.

But Jagex has to be congratulated: The party hats are a good idea to keep players busy for hours with “old content that is in the game anyway”.

Stories like this show how intense Runescape is for its players:

Twitch streamer loses € 12,700 in gold in MMORPG, freaks out in front of family

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Reference-mein-mmo.de