Pink Poogle Toy Forum

Well I may as well state the pet site. Nutrinopets avoids the medication inflation altogether by having a hospital. It's straightforward. Your pet is sick or low on hitpoints, go visit the nurse. She heals your pet with a cost depending on how much hitpoints you need to be healed.

I haven't played long enough to see if random events give pets sickness, but the hospital idea sounds great.

I've also been on a petsite called Powerpets. (I used to play more regularly before I was scammed.) They have a hospital where if your pet gets sick (it's random-- no certain food etc. can make your pet sick to my knowledge) you take it to the hospital, the nurce diagnose your pet, then give her certain items (all the medicines are cheap) and some PB (PowerBucks). I think that would be cool, especially because they're real diseases a dog/cat/horse/etc. can get.

You can get healed for free at the faerie springs. It's not as high a chance, but it IS free. I think if more people knew that fact, then the cost of healing items would go down.

It seems that increasing the amount of NPs that can be earned from games is generally thought to be a bad idea. And no matter how it was done, it would cause inflation... but only on some items. One thing that seems to be overlooked in this is a "cap" that is in place on items- for instance, Hidden Tower items will never sell for more than their HT price... and, any item that has a similar, but weaker, effect (i.e. weaker Battledome items) is capped by that price, as well. Though, I still can't imagine that any positive effect from this outweighing all of the negatives.

So it comes back to the restocking idea again. And some of the ideas mentioned are good. So those are included here:

1) Limit the amount of high-rarity items that a single player can restock in a day. Maybe 2-5 R90-100s, or something. That way, people who rely on buying a bunch of low-rarity items can still have a chance (and since they're buying a bunch anyway, other people have a chance, too)

2) Slowly increase the amount of higher rarity items in Neopia- and don't announce it. This could be easily hidden- increase the amount of weapons and medicine during a war, or use avatars to inflate the price of other types of items when the increase happens. And then, the people who had the item in the first place would have had a huge incentive to sell, sparing the smarter ones the inevitable drop in price that comes from increased supply.

3) Take special measures for 'problem' items- for instance, the Red Codestones that no one seems to have. In that specific case, giving Red Codestones as prizes for contests that give away rare items (replacing the dreaded normal codestone prize), Tombola, and letting the Wheel of Monotony give away random codestones rather than just one specific type. Other problems would have other solutions, of course.

4) Change Shop Wiz/Trading Post limit to 1 mil. I don't know if this would help anything, but it would definitely be more convenient.

5) Increase the price of rare items. Bgryph is right- purchases from shops are one of the few ways that NPs are taken out of Neopia. And if that amount is too low, things will naturally inflate. So, keeping that amount stable would be beneficial, and increasing shop prices is a good way to do that. This also might lower competion at the higher levels, too- less people could afford to pay 100,000 NPs (for instance) up front for an UB R99 item, so less people could go for the highest items. Perhaps it would be easier to start restocking as a result, too. Though, I'm sure it might be annoying to the already-established restockers.

6) Bring back game giveaways, especially those for Magical Plushies. I'm not sure this could help stop inflation besides lowering the price of that one item, but having something like a Magical Poogle Toy cheaply available gives newer people a chance to feel like they accomplished something- and that's just nice.

7) During the wars, put all supporter quest items into a war-themed Money Tree-like page for their side. All warriors/supporters for that side could try to get those items, and they wouldn't vanish off the face of Neopia, causing massive temporary inflation in the process. This might be small, but it's still an economic problem.

More freebies will hardly do anything at all other than lowering the prices of already cheap things. If paint brushes were given out SLIGHTLY more frequently in random events, they could become more accesible without significant;y hurting those who are already selling them.

Another problem is with Krawks and Draiks. Right now, only the hard-core and elite players can afford them at all, making them absolutely impossible to get. The potions, petpets and eggs must be made more common so that while they will still be expensive, they will drop in price greatly. I know everyone will argue with that, since most of the people here can afford them, but it's unfair for them to be so expensive.

Don't take the idea of significant price drops too hard; paintbrushes that are 200k now were literally 5k only a few years ago. BUt limiting what you can sell from user shops overcomplicates things, and people can still use trades.

One thing I would really like to see is the shop buyable limit increased. The items I have the greatest trouble affording are those over 100k and less than a million. Over a million prices will only inflate very slowly in the majority of cases (not including retired items and similar). Under 100k items are controlled far better by direct demand and supply - no middle man cutting a deal so to speak, and even when items are inflated through avatars they come down much quicker in price once buyable again.

In between 100k and 1mill traders are able to set prices as they wish more than as they are demanded. Far less people use the TP than use the wiz so I think it's a fair guess to make that if we could sell and buy things through shops that are currently unbuyable it would make these price fluctuations much smaller.

I'm not sure what the limit should be raised to - certainly 400k at least would be my choice. It wouldn't have a huge negative impact on the majority of players and it cannot really be interpreted as unfair either. If you buy and sell things at a fair price you won't be affected

Also I think that if neopets insists on having popular items that you cannot buy anywhere such as many pbs, especially ones which are supposed to be retired (eg Faerie pb) and yet they release colours for them at an alarming rate I think it would only be fair to increase supply of these items. Otherwise for many pbs, particularly the redraw pbs we have an ever increasing value attributed to them which players can do nothing about. Increasing frequency in REs significantly I feel would help stop that.

This is a great topic you all! Lots of good ideas and I see thought in the weighing of the pros and cons of each one

Games - as someone who mostly gets np via games (still on dial up - rs is a short couse in futility), I would like to see something done. At the ver least, I would like to see the np/point made equal as opposed to what I've seen - namely the decreasing of np to total points scored in a game. Maybe alot of the gamers are really that good that they can get 1k from every play - I'm not one of those and there's alot of others like me.

Even though it was a pain and there were many glitches when it was changed I think the shop wizard should be put back to the way it was. There's too many different pages to try to search now if you're looking for something or you're selling something. My shop (when I can resell), used to sell out within an hour at most of pricing things. Now things can sit for days and even weeks.

Now, to Trick's post and why I quoted it. Excellent! I've long thought that user shops should be able to sell items up to, let's say, 250k. I don't know about going as high as 400k, but any increase would be beneficial. People who've invested alot in their shops as galleries could still keep the galleries. Just raise the not-for-sale price. Yes, this would need alot of advance notice and reminders on TNT's part (like every day at least 2 weeks before anything was done!).

TP - I know they raised the np you can bid up to 800k, but I don't think that's high enough. I think it should be a million np you can bid pure. That would give the mid-level neopians who can and want to splurge on something over 800k but under a million the option of just trading and not having to wait for an auction to finish.

The idea of limiting the number of high rarity items a person can rs each day might be a good one. Now before you elite rs'ers think it's jealousy (well it is that too), I think it might actually help with the autobuyers. The 5 second rule isn't working there. If there was a cutoff, sure, some people would still try to cheat or take advantage, but I don't think it would be as easy as it is now. And more restocks. I see way too many boards where none of the shops have stocked in well over an hour or more. More restocks would satisfy so many people - give slower connections at least a little bit of chance, give new people to rs'ing a way to learn and keep the uber high speed rs'ers happy all at once.

Actually, Neopets has been planning to increase the price limits for shops. They would set every item to 0 np, and that would be perfect.
Neopets seems to be sending mixed messages though, since they say that games are the main way of making np, but they have absolutely crazy prices for some items (Hidden Tower).

Very rare items must drop in price heavily, or Neopetes is designed for the hardcore. Think about this: who is the average Neopets player? Some teenage kid who isn't playing all the time. What is their username. RANDOM_RANDOM#s. The people whose you might look up, whether finding them through a contest or the neoboards is not the average player, but an above average one who probably doesn't get most of their np through games. Any major economical changes should cater to the 'average' player, neither the hardcore nor the person who checks their account once a month.

I'm a professional restocker, and I don't mind the idea of cutting off the number of items above a certain rarity that one can buy. I just mind if it's global, rather than per store. I prefer a per-store limit idea, because for one thing, it forces you to know more about the restocking environment, and it forces you to learn a little more about the game as a whole.

It seems to me that that is the best way to level out the playing field in terms of rare items.

But wait, excuse me if I am wrong, but...

If more neopoints are let into the economy, causing items to inflate (As 75k to UB) and less sells, wouldn't that trigger lower prices in order to sell the item?

What I think is - since you can now have a Gallery that's seperate from the shops, there should be no 'unbuyable' price in user shops - you should be allowed to price items in shops like you would at the trading post.

If you want to show off items, you can use your gallery to do that. *shrug* Or just increase the price... but that could cause problems - there's really no way to do that without messing everyone up (suddenly making their unpurchasable items purchasable.)

Yes there is. Donna said in a recent editorial that TNT has been discussing increasing the limit in shops. If they do that, she said they'd set all the items that are currently priced at 100K or more back to 0, so they can't be sold. I imagine there'd be a big warning on your shop stock page, too, so people would know about the change. I really hope they do this, because right now it can be hard to get hold of items that cost 100K+ because we have to wait for traders to respond or auctions to end, and it's harder to find a good price on some items. I'd like to see a shops limit of at least 500k, but:

I really think a price limit in shops is unnecessary now that we have separate galleries. You wanna show off the fact that you have five faerie paintbrushes sitting around collecting dust? Fine, put 'em in your gallery. I'm getting tired of searching for stuff on the shop wiz and seeing all these items no one can buy.

I think one of the big reasons for setting a price limit in shops was scammers, as well as galleries. Same reason the max TP cash offer is 800k.

I'm hoping that something will be done about hyperinflation. Every kid in the United States who gets a Happy Meal is another potential member. The inflation of paint brushes is what bothers me most. They're what the majority of users aspire to obtain for various reasons and a critical part of what makes Neopets successful. As others have mentioned, the demand has skyrocketed while supply has remained pretty much the same. There's expensive, and then there's so bloody high priced that most new players simply give up and move on.

I think they could help reduce the prices gradually by knocking back the rarity of morphing potions. Perhaps they could even open potion shops on each world that include native colors and species. With cheaper morphing potions, the demand for more rare paint brushes will decrease.

I also have to mention just how easy restocking is. Up until a few months ago I had been using games as my only source of income. On my 56k connection, I tried restocking many times. In the end, I was only frustrated and poorer than before because I didn't have time to play games. After getting cable and skimming over a restock guide, I can easily mark 100k a day as opposed to 100k a week. It's a night and day difference. I'm not sure what, if anything can be done to balance it out, but I've got next to no sympathy for restockers and felt like sharing my bias.

Setting price limits in shops and the tp hasn't, as far as I can see, stopped anyone who's determined to do so from scamming people. Or at least trying to.

Along with all the very good ideas here, another thing I think many of us are aware of is the almost contact false inflation lately. Seems every week there's another item that is suddenly "ub" when in fact it's just a few people buying up an item to try to scam people.

Then there's the inflation that the site itself causes with avatars and kad feeding. Last week heart shaped neggs (I need one for my gallery) were 400k - and I started saving toward one. This week they're at a million. Apparently it's now a kad food! Grrrr. And the horrible inflation caused by the last war with the supporters being asked for the same items. Codestones, for example, went up dramatically. That affected many people adversely.

Galleries - yes, that we can now have separate galleries is wonderful. I know I'd been writing in for the last couple of years asking for such a thing. However, not everyone wants, is willing to or can afford to start up again with the cost of shop/gallery size increases. Like, my old gallery (now long gone) held over 300 items. Might not seem big to some, but to me it was insane just paying for 5 extra spaces. So, I don't think it would be fair to suddenly say to people who've had galleries forever that they have to move it all to the new gallery option. Yes it can be annoying when you're searching the wiz, but ... there's more inflation if people have to put out large amounts of np, then have a shop that's pretty much empty if they aren't restockers/resellers.

Shapu, my idea of limiting the number of high rarity items per day was actually global. But reading your post, I can see where that could be a very bad thing. Maybe one specific item per store per day? Like the infamous t-tear, elemental vial, draik eggs. I still think more restocks/more rareties stocking on a regular basis would be a good thing overall. Not everyone has the millions needed to buy 1 item.

Now, if you would like to rs me a few valentines/heart things at a good price, I'd love to talk to you

I honestly don't see how increasing either the amount of times we can send a score for a game (even 4 times instead of 3) or equalizing the np/points scored ratio for some of the games where the payout really is close to not worth playing a certain game would cause more inflation. Yes, there would probably be more np floating around the site, but there would be people with more np to be able to actually buy something. So the np would keep flowing through the site, either to the main shops, user shops/tp/auctions.

Economics were never my strong suit though. So, I'm probably completely wrong on the game payouts theory.