Rare Opportunity to Monitor the Neopian Economy

[professorelite]

As the title said, a rare opportunity has come. For the interest of academic research into the Neopian economy please help me in this endeavor. For more details, please refer to my pet's page:
http://www.neopets.com/~ChiaSnite

Don't message me in PPT, I don't check here that often =/ I will post the data here upon completion of the project though.


Contributers thusfar:
papa_neo_dude
sasami834

Last edited by professorelite on Sat Jun 17, 2006 7:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.

[Gondra]

sounds interesting alothough I dont understand it at all

[okamotosan18]

I'd predict that hoarders would just grab those up as they're awarded, but most of those people night not even be on when they're given out. That would mean a slow introduction to the market. If they aren't put into the market very quickly(or not at all), then there might be only a small change if any.

[AySz88]

250 codestones is probably far fewer than you think... There is probably 250 codestones' worth of fluctuation in the item's supply in less than an hour of time.

Another problem is that not all 250 winners will see their codestone appear in their inventory and put it up in the market at the same time - the effect is going to be masked with the "natural" variation over time.

You'll want premium users to do this, I think, since they have the SSW and can grab the equilibrium price at a single pass.

[Siniri]

I have a question about what people mean by codestone "hoarders." Please excuse me if I'm being woefully ignorant here; I've been on NP for more than 3.5 years now, but just sort of plugging along until recently...

I've seen a few discussions on the boards here about codestone hoarders, and one comment suggested not buying from hoarders (those selling like 50 codestones) because they're artificially raising the price... But how are these hoarders getting so many codestones? As far as I know, there isn't a codestone shop (if there is, please tell me where it is!). Are they just constantly using the SW and TP to find underpriced codestones (I tried this trick once or twice myself, until fear of cookie grabbers stopped me)? And if they're selling them, how can they also be hoarding them? The two are mutually exclusive.

Or do people mean that somewhere a group of friends got together and decided to buy one type of codestone to drive up the price? It seems like it would take a lot of people to really make a dent in the market since new codestones are constantly found. And when they put all their hoarded codestones on the market, the market would be flooded and the prices would drop, mitigating their profit.

I think that perhaps Eo codestones have been on demand more at the training school (random events have a bell curve, so it's likely unless TNT actually put into the code a way for the randomness to even out), and have also been given out fewer times by random events (I am saving up for the packrat avvie, so I've been saving all my codestones instead of training or selling -- I have much fewer Eo and Main than the others).

Professor, to test this alternative hypothesis, perhaps you could also monitor the rate at which various codestones are acquired (RE's, wheels, Tombola, etc.) and the frequency with which they're demanded at the training school.

I could be way off base here. If anyone could tell me how hoarders hoard, when they sell, and any evidence for their existence, I'd appreciate it. And if there is a shop where you can hope to buy codestones, please tell me where it is!!! I want some!

[professorelite]

Don't post any discussion on the project until data gathering is complete. We can only guess at what te real effect will be until it actully happens. If nothing happens, then so be it, atleast we then know that perhaps the codestone hoarders may not have so big an effect afterall. As for the codestones not entering at the exact same time, that's why it is planned that we monitor it even after 2 weeks.

Anyhow, project moved to:
http://www.neopets.com/~ChiaSnite


As for other project suggestions, I won't be thinking of how to try to make those work >.<; Busy enough with this one as is.

[AySz88]

Is this release of 250 codestones supposed to mimic the release of codestones by a hoarder (which I assume is what you're referring to)? 250 codestones from a single supplier is different from 250 from 250 different suppliers, as the 250 different suppliers will definately depress the price somewhat more because they all want to sell their codestone quickly, while the single supplier has less competition. Not a perfect market.

[poohroony]

You can actually buy codestones for cheap at the igloo garage sale, but you can only buy one item per restock so the codestones probably go to different users...

[Raza]

Don't post any discussion on the project until data gathering is complete. We can only guess at what te real effect will be until it actully happens.

Wha? Building hypothesis before the experiment is customary with the scientific method, why shouldn't we do that? It's not just 'guessing' if you know why it's what you expect.

[Alex]

In all honesty, I can't see how there'd be any impact on this at all.

Codestones are found all the time in Random Events. 250 more really won't make a difference.