It’s not hard to get high runes in the game if you play (and are savvy with) the trade game. I’ve done it before.
Biggest rune income for me? It’s not finding them… It was trading runeword base items for them. People will pay through the nose for perfect and nearly perfect runeword base items.
What??? I never said 2 million left D2R. I said that Blizzard in the 4th quarter report stated that their MAU dropped from 26 to 24 million. These MAU numbers were for all their games collectively. The specific breakdown per title is unknown. Considering that D2R was less than 10 days old when the 4th quarter started, D2R had to add to the total MAUs in comparison to the 3rd quarter.
You did not ask for bind to account; however, you did state that itt was too easy to get high runes and that 90% was from “TRADE TRADE TRADE for 90% of it.” If you got rid of trade that definitely would make high runes more rare.
Your comment leads me to believe that the high rune drop rate itself is not easy as OP claimed, since you apparently do not find many HRs yourself but get them through trade.
How many you kill is a direct function of time playing and kill rate. In the internet age, people know the canonical farming routes to get high end gear. This is not some super secret.
Even players who farm Meph tend to kill the other baddies in Durance of Hate 3.