Howdy folks! Darkestnight here with a little slice of festive history for you! With the recent introduction of the highly coveted and much grinded for Golden Party Hat, I wondered how much does the average person know about the original Party Hats?
When you see a Player wearing a Party Hat your main reaction is traditionally one of "Oh my god, how much money does this Player have?".
Party Hats have over the years become a symbol of wealth and are used to hold large sums of money as the average Party Hat's value far exceeds the gold limit. The value of the hats are growing all the time due to their rare status as there are a limited number of them in game, and Jagex have no plans to rerelease the originals.
Party Hats were released in 2001 as a reward from the Christmas Cracker holiday item. This was the very first Christmas event held in RuneScape which I'm sure contributes to their rare status. The Christmas Cracker they originate from is arguably far rarer and more valuable than the Party Hats themselves as the majority of players used these crackers to generate Party Hats.
The number of Party Hats in circulation has actually diminished over the years for various reasons;
- Some accounts which hold Party Hats have been banned or have been abandoned thus making these Party Hats impossible to obtain.
- Some of the original Party Hats were dropped by players as at the time of release they had no monetary value and thus the players saw no reason to hold onto them.
- There is a member of the Runescape Community who has an unknown amount of Party Hats saved in their bank due to being around at the original release, who then chooses to disassemble one every New Years Day as nobody can stop them. This, is a powerful individual.
The circulation of Party Hats has had a massive impact on the RuneScape economy, however, Jagex has stated in the past that they do not wish to recreate this sort of impact on the economy again.
This fear of throwing the economy into turbulence once more was responsible for the discontinuation of tradeable holiday drops which was replaced with non-tradeable rewards. This changed, however, with the release and discontinuation of the Fish Mask that featured as a prize on the Squeal of Fortune as it was the first tradeable discontinued item after the release of the Santa Hat.
It is interesting then with this history lesson that Jagex would release a Golden Party Hat in celebration of it's 20th Anniversary, especially considering their stance in 2009 that they did not wish to create a similar impact on the economy. This is what I predict will be the future of the Golden Party Hat;
- Considering there is a window of 42 days from event start to create a Golden Party Hat, during this period the value of the G-Phats will fluctuate wildly. As more come into circulation the G-Phats will lose value.
- After the event finishes, G-Phats will slowly increase in value as there will now be a limited amount of G-Phats in-game.
- We will slowly watch the G-Phat join it's Phat brethren in rare discontinued club as the years pass by, but it will never be as valuable as the original Phats on account of the fact it is 20 years younger and the originals will continue to gain in value during this time.
So there we are, 20 years of history celebrated with the release of a brand new Party Hat! Will my predictions be eerily accurate? Should I predict your winning lottery numbers? Or will I be so far off the mark that next year we'll have to write an Advent Entry on how bad Dark got it wrong? ;)
Thank you everybody for joining me today in RuneScape History 101, and I'll see you again soon! Unshood!
charity: water
This year we are raising money for charity: water. You can donate directly through our campaign page. If you want to show your appreciation to our streamers, make sure you donate during their streams, as they'll be keeping an eye on incoming donations and reading out donation messages! We also have goals and incentives to hit during the month of December, so keep an eye out for those as well.
charity: water is a nonprofit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing countries. 100% of donations made to charity: water go straight to the sustainable water projects. The work is incredibly important as nearly 1 in 10 people worldwide still do not have access to reliable sources of clean water. Access to clean water improves health, increases access to food, grows local economies, and helps kids spend more time in school. Since 2016, charity: water has funded almost 79,136 water projects (as of October 2021) across 29 countries, serving more than 13.2 million people. We at Clan Quest are proud to help raise money for this amazing cause, and if you like what we're doing with this Advent Calendar, please consider contributing today. Every donation helps.