The Subetan Economy

For discussion of the Subeta pet site, including new colours and other features.
Officer 1BDI
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The Subetan Economy

Post by Officer 1BDI »

If you've logged on in the last few minutes, you might have noticed Keith's new header announcement and the accompanying thread:
Keith wrote:Pretend that you're running for the president of Subeta, and this is your platform Right now a lot of people don't like, and don't believe that the Subeta Economy is working. While I agree, and have been making steps to correct it, I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks should be done to fix it.
I don't have any ideas myself (at least any ideas that I think would work/be applicable to the site), but I was wondering what everyone else here thought?
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Jessi
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Re: The Subetan Economy

Post by Jessi »

Stopping this BS with restocking the token shop with so very few items.

People have said it here before, that the point of a game like this is for people to have fun. When more players are playing the site yet LESS items are going into circulation, there's nothing -fun- about that. If you miss a token shop restock (and its so easy to do that these days), you're going to be dishing out millions of SP for items. Sure, it's nice for the people who grab the items, but it's certainly not helping inflation.

That's one of my biggest things. More people are playing the site but more items aren't being added to accompany them - in fact, they took them away. It's like what started happening on Neopets. Five years ago I bought a draik MP for 600k; now they're 6 million. More people started placing, but the same or less items went into the economy.
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Re: The Subetan Economy

Post by Sunwolf »

I find it frightening that nearly everyone seems to want to do away with the Autopricer :shock: Some suggestions I liked from the thread:

Take the Subeautique items out of quests.

Do not add the new items to quests right away.

Make the games (other than Item Hunter) actually pay out something that will help. A new card game such as Solitaire has been suggested multiple times.

Create a new vending machine, or add to existing ones, that give out stickers and Holiday shop items.

Add the Subeautique items back to vending.

Make a new Quest just for clothes, to get rid of the millions floating around out there.

Stop having the Recycle Beast ask for retired or very rare items.

Make a special shop on the Uncharted Island so getting the map isn't a ripoff, or increase the rarities of items vended there.

Fix the damn shop restocking issue - 'Last restocked - 24 minutes' is not cool. Neither is 'last restocked - now!' and no items in the shop.
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Kamerynn
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Re: The Subetan Economy

Post by Kamerynn »

I found it funny that the users who want to do away with the autopricer are those without a gold account.

More of the common/normal/mundane items need to be added to circulation. I hate when a low rarity item costs 4 times as much as a rare item. Restock more (both quantity and frequency). Lower the vending price for a bit till more items are out there. I agree totally with adding stickers/holiday items into a specific vending machine, even though you can get them from various machines, depending on what is in the name of the item.
WisteriaLynx
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Re: The Subetan Economy

Post by WisteriaLynx »

I love how many people are choosing to ignore that autopricer = reason why most people BUY a GA. Note the word "buy," which implies that for GA medals to exist, cash usually has to be given to Subeta. You, know, cash? That little thing that keeps the site running at all? *golf claps for people who want to remove the autopricer go here*

My biggest suggestion is the cron being reset manually on days when the site is down at midnight. Token prices are wonky for the next day or so, no one can make Item Hunt sP, and less people vend. Then, prices go up on the items that weren't vended.

What's really bizarre is that now, the Really Common/Mundane/Common items the Wiz asks me for are *more* expensive than the Normal/Rare items he sometimes gives me in return, aka less incentive to do quests, since more and less rare items are being given out in place of tokens. Since I also check the main shops for items he asks that I consider pricey in user shops, I also think it would be nice to fix the restocking. Nothing more annoying than when an item restocks and then vanishes before anyone can buy it, much less when that's the first restock in forty minutes.

I absolutely second everything Jessibean says about Token Shop restocks. Rare pet potions/other cool limiteds are always going to be in some state of demand, but if they get as ridiculously expensive as some colouration methods on Neopets, what average player is going to want to turn Subeta into a second, unpaid job? With all the pet names being freed up lately, there was high demand.
Iggy
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Re: The Subetan Economy

Post by Iggy »

More quests. A clothing quests, and a plushie/beanbag quest could have potential.
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Re: The Subetan Economy

Post by AngharadTy »

I can just envision a clothing quest with a fantastic bishie who is just sure that he doesn't have anything to wear out on the town tonight, could you please bring him X, and when you bring it, he sighs and says it won't match after all, but thanks anyway, here's a little reward... Or maybe I just want a fashionable but utterly neurotic character on Subeta.

Turning up the rate of REs would be delicious. They're supposed to be "random," not "rare."

Viper fang needs to be lowered a rarity or something--nuclear is a colorfill and prices in line with reborn or spectrum are ridiculous.

Incidentally, the payout for Random did go up pretty recently. I quite appreciate getting several thousand sP instead of several hundred.

Getting rid of the autopricer would be laughable and stupid. I hope it wouldn't happen. You don't take away a feature--a prime feature--from something a user gave you money to enjoy. Also, autopricers don't cause inflation; they cause deflation. People complaining about it are either really rich or just don't understand the concept of an economy. Or, y'know, jealous.
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Re: The Subetan Economy

Post by Farseek »

The only problem I have with the ecomony is the undercutters. I'm sure we are all familiar with the joys of getting our hands on an expensive item only to have others lower thier prices so drastically that it becomes wothless.

I agree with others about the token shop, it really should restocked more often. I have been stalking the item(s) I want for four days and have not seen them in stock even once.
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AngharadTy
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Re: The Subetan Economy

Post by AngharadTy »

But if the item is actually worth more, just hang on to it and sell it later when prices go back up. If prices don't go back up... it wasn't worth more.
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EofS
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Re: The Subetan Economy

Post by EofS »

Purely from an outsider's point of view (and thus filtered through what I see here, and therefore possibly incorrect) it seems that the Subetan economy is heavily based on luck. Luck getting a desirable item in the token shop, luck getting a good reward from a quest, luck vending something valuable.

I haven't seen much talk about restocking for months - is that no longer a viable source of income? Or perhaps there's just nothing to say about it.

It's not that Neopets' economy is exactly a model to be copied (it's screwed up in its own myriad ways) but at least the flash and html games give a consistent(ish) source of income. It's small unless you input a lot of time, of course, but it's still there. It creates a way for every user to earn money based on skill, and irrespective of other players' activities. (Except the dynamic payouts thing, though that's quite recent anyway.) And it's also got the stock market, which is basically guaranteed money to anyone with the patience. At the same time, it keeps money tied up within the game.

Speaking as a very casual Neopian, I count on those games being there for the times when I say "you know what, I want to earn some money". Or even "you know what, I'm bored, I want to have some fun". Is being a casual Subetan possible like that? Are there ways to have fun on the site which don't involve you having to then sell on the reward in order to profit from that fun? (Ok, the wardrobe looks like enormous fun ;0) But aside from that.)

I remember when everyone from NC jumped onto the Subeta ship. One of the things which everyone loved was that you could earn a couple of million within your first day, and immediately get a redrawn pet. These days the money earning seems to be harder, but the high priced items have stayed the same - and increased in quantity.

As I say, all from an outsider's perspective and therefore liable to error.
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Saturn
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Re: The Subetan Economy

Post by Saturn »

the autopricer is pretty much the main reason to get a gold account IMO, get rid of that and there'd be pretty much no reason for myself, at least, to ever get another one. I already have ten pets and don't plan on getting rid of any of them any time soon.

I agree, making shops restock more often/regularly, more quests to get cheap junk items out of the system and more games with better payouts would probably help the most right now.
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Re: The Subetan Economy

Post by Wingsrising »

Yep. No autopricer = no reason to have a Gold Account = massive loss of site revenue.

I think the biggest problem is not enough items being released, particularly expensive items like Token Shop items but also shop restocks. I also think they would also do well to lower vending prices again.

I think EofS is spot-on with the assessment that making sP is heavily based on luck, much more so than earning NP on Neopets is. That's something else that I think needs to be addressed.
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Re: The Subetan Economy

Post by Mayhem »

I think more Subeautique items need to go into circulation, seriously. Have them vend somewhere again, but make them much less common as they were - I honestly don't think Subeautique items should be less than 20k, but the tens of millions that some are going for is ridiculous.

Also, the autopricer argument can shove it. I can honesty say that is the ONLY reason I buy a GA. Unless they added some useful (key word!) features to GAs while removing the autopricer, while I'll be very, very angry for a while, I might be appeased after a bit of the new features aren't completely worthless.
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Iggy
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Re: The Subetan Economy

Post by Iggy »

but the tens of millions that some are going for is ridiculous.
The ones worth "tens of millions" are over the r89 maximum for vending. Making Subeautique vendable will only contribute to make r45-r89 Subeautique worthless.
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Re: The Subetan Economy

Post by shaelyn76 »

Alright. I hate the autopricer for one simple reason: People autoprice without actually checking the items that should be more expensive first. Some irritating person puts a r98 that is priced at 5 mil into their shop and decides to undercut for a quick profit. They price it at 2 million. If nobody happens to snap that item up in the first five minutes it is in the shop, chances are decent that someone will autoprice their shop and have that same item. Now the price is drastically lowered and every single person who has that item in their shop and autoprices will only continue to lower the price until it is relatively worthless. Now, with all that said, I agree that taking away the autopricer would be the worst thing Keith could do for GA sales. I would hazard a guess that 95% or more of the current GA holders use the autopricer more than any other feature given by the GA.

Moving on. I agree 100% with the notion that Token Shop restocks are ridiculous lately. It is so close to impossible to get what you actually want without having to spend million upon millions that it takes all of the fun out of it and makes it feel like work. I don't want everything handed to me on a silver platter by any means, but the fact that of the last 10 TS releases, I have caught zero on the first go around and exactly 1 on the second stock, says to me that it is no longer fun or even plausible to get the items I want without going bankrupt. I don't live on Subeta, but I am there a fair amount of time during the week and at all different times of day and night. Yet even with that type of schedule, I still haven't caught even one first release in the last month or more? That just seems wrong to me. The recent TS restock of a ton of items was nice. I appreciated the opportunity to snag an item that maybe I had had on my wishlist for a while. However, I found it sad that even then I missed out on most of the more desirable items as they only had a bare minimum put in and they sold out in minutes. I understand what Amber had said previously about wanting TS items to be more rare. I personally feel that they have become not Rare but OMFG Next to Impossible to get. Especially the wearables. It seems that not a whole lot of those ever even make it onto the market as most people keep them and use them.

Next: I agree that restocking has lost any appeal to me. I used to RS every now and again to supplement my income. In the last few months though, I noticed that unless I snagged an uber rare item (usually a most coveted wearable) that the items held little or no profit margin when resold in my shop. When the minions in bubbles were first released, they drove up the value on food for a while, but now that has bottomed out. Same with the Reading Contest. Right now, books are higher priced and actually worth restocking. I am willing to bet that within 3 weeks after the reading contest ends they will be back to almost worthless again (for the majority of them at least).

To fix the RS issue I feel that there are a few different steps that could be taken. First, have the Recycle Beast ask for items that there is a glut of only. Him asking for really rare or stupidly expensive items does nothing to help the economy. Second, have any item that is over r75(or whatever rarity staff feels is appropriate) and is selling for less than the original shop price, stop restocking until prices go back to a decent level. Third, create a way to get all of the underpriced items out of the economy. A clothing quest as mentioned above is an option. Maybe change the user shops to have a minimum price available. I hate seeing stuff in shops for 10sP. You know that it cost more to obtain the item originally than 10 sP so it seems stupid to have it priced so low. SubetaTeam tries valiantly to help with this issue by buying up items from user shops every now and again that are underpriced (like recently when they went through and bought up underpriced DPs). But they have also gone through and bought up items that were "unsellable" at the prices they were at. I know because I had some of my elixirs priced well above the average user shop price and SubetaTeam bought up a bunch of them a few months back. A message saying they had bought it from me since it would never sell at that price(or something very close to that, sorry can't remember verbatim what it said)I found almost sad. Maybe the cheaper priced ones should have been bought up to raise the value of said elixirs back closer to where they should be. I am continually irritated by the fact that I can buy (almost) any elixir and change my actual pets color (and sometimes species) cheaper than if I just bought the plushie that corresponds to their special color. Next on my fix it list, have shops restock more often and fix whatever makes the restocked-now! show up when the shop is empty. It is frustrating and useless. Next, have the Subeautique items vend on a very rare basis out of Ocean's Depths. All of the Subeautique stuff no matter the actual rarity. It makes the map so much more worth it, it makes the extra cost of vending so much more worth it, it makes the Subeautique items a bit more obtainable while still keeping their appeal and value as resale items at a decent level. I don't think the machine should spit them out like it did before...that was sad to see items that sold for 40k in the actual shop sell for 5000sP in user shops. It should be a rare thing to get Subby items...rare like getting a Lotus Flower, Ice Blade or Riptide. It would get more into circulation without deluging the market.Last on my RSing tangent....break the clothing shop into several different shops. Actually, this applies to more than the clothing shop. Any shop where an average restock is huge and you have to scroll more than three times to get to the bottom of the page, needs to be broken out into smaller more specialized shops. For example: the clothing shop could be broken out into tops and bottoms with a separate shop for body items like coats and dresses. Minions could be broken out into aviary and furry minions with a general minion shop for the "other" type minions. Or we could just do away with the "main" shops and have little shops scattered all over the map that specialize in certain types of items like the graveyard shop and the icy goods do now. We could just expand on that concept and have each part of the map have several shops with items pertaining to them.(Ex: Arctic Frost could have five different stores. One for cold weather clothes, one for cold food, one for cold minions, one for cold weapons and defense items and one for misc stuff that relates to cold or something like a general souvenir shop for anything arctic related like glacier plushies and beanbags).I understand that would make it more like Neopets, but I still think it would work well.


I agree that Subeautique items should be taken out of quests altogether. I also agree that the games should pay out better. I noticed that Random is paying better(I won just over 8k earlier today!), but there is still room for improvement. Also, more REs would be fantastic! I get a fair amount of them, but I know people who get hardly any at all. This goes to the whole "luck" portion of Subeta that was brought up earlier here. I agree wholeheartedly that Subeta is based very heavily on luck. Luck and impeccable timing seem to be the most important parts of the gameplay. If you have neither, you are screwed and have to scratch and claw your way to even somewhat paltry goals. There are some players that it would seem the game favors as they seem to have things come to them extremely easily. Then there are others that it almost seems like the game is biased against as they never quite get ahead. Now, I'm sure a lot of this is due to how each of these players actually plays the game and just how savvy of a business person they are when it comes to sP, but from the outside looking in, it can seem almost unfair at times or as if there are "favorites" onsite that have things go their way an awful lot. Again...I'm sure that is just the impression though and not the reality.

Wow...tl;dr...sorry, but I found I had a bit to say about all this.
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