I'm sure it's not surprising that I'm bringing this up on the forums, it's something I've been voicing my opinion about since I started playing realism, the merge. I would like to get everyone's thoughts and opinions on it, whether in support or against the merge, including Omicron's opinion.
Realism is the best game-mode that Alora has. I joined Alora almost a year ago (Dec 12 makes a year), and I quickly 4.6b'ed my normie account, started doing some collection log/pet hunting, maxed all the gamemodes besides a couple, and got bored. I prefer skilling over PvM, so a lower game-mode option was my next go-to, realism. The idea of switching to realism was something I was against, and didn't really want to do, because I've been told that it's just basically an ironman game-mode with a little more flexibility, and I didn't want an ironman game-mode, I just wanted a normie game-mode with very low exp rates. I finally caved to the idea, and they were right, it's just an ironman game-mode with a little more flexibility. I don't think it should be this way, and I know that it makes people not want to switch over. I have talked with over a dozen people since I started this game-mode who have shown interest in it but ultimately stayed away because they didn't like the idea of it being essentially a group ironman game-mode.
Now I know that this merge isn't supported by some of the old heads that play realism, and let's talk about why, but also let's not decide the fate of the game-mode on less than 5 people who have played it long term. A merge is about helping the community grow because I truly feel like people would want to play this game-mode if it wasn't for the simple fact that they're not a part of the rest of the economy.
From some long term realism players that I've talked with, the main reason they don't want a merge, is because a merge would give full access to ;;shops. And for those who don't know, realism shops don't have pots you can buy. When they mention realism having an economy, what they mean to say is that realism has an economy on pots. You have to make 30-40k pots just for 99 herblore, and what better way to make money than to sell these at an inflated cost to people who haven't started the grind yet. I fully believe that the realism merge would not be a huge issue if it weren't for having full access to ;;shops. There's not a "more stable economy", you can't have an economy with a dozen players contributing to it. If a split economy was a beneficial thing, it would be in OSRS.
Four years ago, someone made this same post about classic being merged, because classic used to also have their own separate economy, and it passed and the same thing should happen with realism. Here's a link to the post: https://www.alora.io...-about-classic/
And the points made there also apply here. Realism players can purchase the late game items they have been looking for. Realism players can finally sell some of the stuff that they've been holding in their bank, unable to sell. And there no items on realism players that would contribute to a crash in the economy. If anything, a realism merge would help stabilize prices of some things that aren't frequently grind(ed?) (ground?) . It's a slow game-mode, and this means you do a LOT of boss killing, skilling, and raiding. Realism would contribute a lot to the normie economy, and with the player base as small as it is, I think it's time for a change and a merge
Make realism what it should be, a normie account with a close to OSRS experience. People who play this game-mode, or are interested in playing it, don't want to play it because of the split economy, they want to play it because of the exp rates and because it's more rewarding to max the lowest exp rated game-mode on Alora.