Posted 21 September 2003 - 03:37 PM
Thieving. The skill was pretty much designed for making money, and not much else.
Mining. Easy enough to level, but getting coal on F2P is REALLY hard, and selling those coal certs more often than not takes quite a bit of time. Iron certs are even harder to sell, though easier to obtain. Rune ore prices are low, often 10k or less. Hardly worth the time to get to level 84 or 85. Quite a hassle to sell too.
Smithing. Until you can start smithing the upper end Addy stuff, selling the coal needed makes you more money. And it's pretty hard to sell Addy stuff. Once you hit some of the good Rune items, then you can make a decent sum of money. But if you factor in the price and the time it took you to get to those levels, it's not worth it at all. Besides, even though Rune is still the most expensive F2P armor, it's a pain in the butt to try and sell it, because practically ANYONE can afford it these days. Rune is easily the most common armor in terms of sets in circulation.
Fishing. USED to be good, but then prices dropped like a ten-ton brick off a twenty story building, because PKers didn't want to pay a decent price for them. Why? Friggin' autoers sold their thousands of certs for dirt cheap, because they didn't want to take their time to sell, and they knew that they would have another thousand or so real soon without lifting a finger. That's another discussion though...
Cooking. Pretty much pointless unless used in conjunction with fishing. Which, needless to say, is really stupid. Again, another discussion...
Crafting: As I've learned from Rabk's experience, selling amulets is quite possibly one of the hardest things to do in RuneScape. 'Nuff said.
Herblaw. P2P only, so a MUCH smaller (if richer, usually) consumer base. Also the hardest skill in all of RuneScape to level up in, I think (setting aside spending a few hundred thousand to buy your herbs, few people can really afford to do that).
Monster Drops. Honestly, unless you are high 70s+ AND P2P, this really isn't a good way to make money. If you are though, it can be a somewhat decent source of income.
The Few. The Proud. The Jews.