New Main Shop Pricing System

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Kamil
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Re: New Main Shop Pricing System

Post by Kamil »

I've always wondered - how the hell do you do that, Iggy? Seriously, how the hell do you do that?

For a while there I was vending 2000 (at Prize Get, because you once said if you want to make money, vend there =) tokens per night, and I usually made back just enough to buy more tokens to do it all over again. Sometimes not even that much, so I'd have to go into my vault to get more sp to buy tokens with. I thought for a while I must be imagining it, because you always talk about how much you made, so I separated off the vended items into their own shop to better keep track, and no, I wasn't imagining it.

Now I just vend the tokens I get from the wiz each day and sell the produce from same, and between that and Saggy's quests I'm making a decent profit - but no where near what you seem to do, Iggy.

I dunno, maybe the machines hate me.

And btw? I think wanting the average user to have under a million sp is bad. V.v.v.v.v.bad. When there are items scattered around the site with official prices of 200 million, asking the average user to sit back and watch while the few people with enough money to burn in the cash shop (enabling them to earn fake money hand over fist) have all the cool kid toys doesn't seem like the way to keep a happy user base.

Or really, much of a user base at all.
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Re: New Main Shop Pricing System

Post by Jessi »

I don't have the time or the urge to sink THAT many tokens into vending machines. Like Ty, I vend what I get from the wiz every day, and I'm just trying to get books! I make a mediocre 'profit' off the things i vend that aren't books, but it's VERY mediocre, and it certainly doesn't pay for the tokens I spend. Vending should NOT be the only way to make a profit.

I'd say something else, but everyone has summed it up perfectly, and I feel tired and like crap and anything I say would be incoherent. So I'll just let you guys keep saying it for me, since my most eloquent statement is: This idea is lame and sucks ass.

ETA - I thought of something after all! Keith is doing this so the 'rich people' will spend their SP. Now, in February, I tend to spend a lot of SP. A lot of pink, happy shit comes out and I need it ALL for Galena's treasures. But there's no way in hell I'm paying 80k+ for an item IN THE SHOP let alone whatever a user wants to charge for it. Galena will go without, and I'll continue to sit on my SP (and I have about 180million, so I'm way over that pathetic 1.9 million average) more than I already do. Great idea.
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Re: New Main Shop Pricing System

Post by bonecrivain »

Am I the only person who doesn't understand at all what he's trying to do? I don't see how this new shop pricing system is going to do anything but inflate prices, or at least make them fluctuate even more ridiculously than they already do. There are already "common" items, like plushies, that are worth over 300k because they don't stock frequently enough. Maybe I'm just not good enough with numbers, but won't this just increase that trend in overpriced items?

Keith said several times that the site needs something to keep the users with billions of sP happy. So the logic, I guess, is that prices need to be higher, so those rare few (who I can only imagine chuck tons of real money into the cash shop) can burn through their money more quickly. Except right now, as people keep pointing out, there are lots of items worth 100 million sP, or 200 million, or 300 million, or even 500 million in some absolutely ludicrous cases. So the really, really rich users already have items that they and no one else can afford. It seems like these should require some effort to obtain, even for the richest of the rich on the site. Why do they need more?

Or if there absolutely has to be more high-end items, why not just add more expensive weapons and things to the Millionaire Center and places like that? Why do ALL items have to become more expensive, so the average user (who apparently has less than 2 million sP) won't be able to buy anything without breaking the bank?

It's just stupid. Not everyone has the time to sit on Subeta all day long. Not everyone has $50 a month (or even $5) to throw into the cash shop for easy returns. Most people are on Subeta just because it's fun, and because a reasonable amount of effort invested into the site means you can end up with a reasonable amount of pretty things.

Topher's right--people are already dealing with enough economic tumult in real life right now. I recently stockpiled a little more than 100 million sP, and honestly, it feels great to be decently well-off on Subeta. It's a nice contrast to and escape from real-life worries. If my Subeta bank account starts to become even remotely as stressful as my real-life bank account, I really don't see the point in continuing to play. I spend large chunks of my time on Subeta because it's FUN. (Sometimes.) I like being able to buy pretty things. At this rate, though, it's going to become more work than it's worth.
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Re: New Main Shop Pricing System

Post by Kamil »

bonecrivain wrote:
Topher's right--people are already dealing with enough economic tumult in real life right now. *snip* If my Subeta bank account starts to become even remotely as stressful as my real-life bank account, I really don't see the point in continuing to play. I spend large chunks of my time on Subeta because it's FUN. (Sometimes.) I like being able to buy pretty things. At this rate, though, it's going to become more work than it's worth.
That. Exactly. That right there. At a time in my life when money is more stressful and harder to come by than I can ever remember, playing Subeta was a good way to let off steam, knowing I could make a decent living and have nice, expensive things there, if not in real life. In real life things cost way more than they used to, and I have less and less money to buy them with.

And mimicking this on Subeta seems like a good idea? Why?
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Re: New Main Shop Pricing System

Post by Sunwolf »

1.5 million is too much? Well, I beg your pardon for saving up for another Gold Account (medals are now 7 million.) So if I save up for a legendary I'm a greedy selfish pig? Hah.

The problem with the Subeta economy is that Common and Normal items cost much more than Rare or Super Rare items, and are harder to get. Do they not stock as often? Are they given out by quests less than the others? Are rarer items vending more? Comparing these:

Lilac Pherret Plushie, rarity 47 - 145,000
Plain Senbei, rarity 50 - 492,000
Shiprat, rarity 53 - 292,000

vs.

Angelic Spider, rarity 78 - 9,000
Cream Mallarchy Elixir, rarity 85 - 10,000
Bloodred Furikake, rarity 77 - 7,000

The damn Holiday Shop isn't helping of course, as there is no vending machine that gives you items from there. An example is the Jingle Bell Earrings - only rarity 45, and they never dipped below 2 million. Now they are 24,000,000 million. Yet Gift Bomb, a rarity 70, dipped to 3,000 and is now 5,000.

Something is wrong here. And this isn't helping.
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Re: New Main Shop Pricing System

Post by AngharadTy »

More thoughts after sleeping:

- A supply-and-demand system on top of an item rarity system is dumb, and even if the goal is to get rid of rarities (which I assume it is not, if only for the r99 achievement), this is hardly a good way to test it. They are two different systems and they conflict.

- Previously, restocking required know-how. You needed to invest time to find out which items were worthwhile so that you could snap them up. If all you need to do is find the highest price currently in the shop, it renders all the knowledge people spent time gaining worthless. It also makes restockers into those people you hate taking to restaurants--jerks who just find the most expensive thing on the menu and order it. ("Can I have steak and lobster with a side of lobster?")

- Restocking an item that you want is supposed to be... kind of a reward. Jingle Bell Earrings are worth 2 million in user shops? Just stalk the official shop until you get it for yourself. I know I spent hours and hours and hours restocking wrapping paper from the Holiday Shop rather than buy them at 10-30k apiece from user shops. Sooooo many hours. And every restocking sold out within a minute. My time and effort would have been completely pointless if the wrapping paper had cost 10-30k in the shop!

Official item price should be unimportant because the effort and time required to get something from official shops should outweigh the cost.
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Re: New Main Shop Pricing System

Post by Rustyblu »

Most people have already said what I wanted to say (especially the fact that Subeta releases way to many new items to often).

The thing I don't understand, is why the Millionaire Centre is being left in the dark. If Keith wants to take money out of the economy, you would think the Millionaire Centre would be the first place he went. Unretire the legendaries. With the new achievement im sure many people would be after the 3 that stock there. Another option may be to release.. god weapons temporarily in the Millionaire Centre for extreme amounts of sP. I know that might seem insane, but if you think about it, not many would enter the market and it would take a significant chunk of sP out of the economy.

Maybe Keith could also release items that a vast majority of the userbase would want (such as the books leading up to the Reading Contest, wearables etc.) in the Millionaire Centre, rather than just weapons and... useless junk. The Gold Account medals could also be rereleased, but at an increased price like 5m.

I dunno... just a few ideas :P!
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Re: New Main Shop Pricing System

Post by Seerow »

Keith is really against putting stuff into the MC it seems, which baffles me. I'd think putting stuff in there ranging from say 500k to a couple hundred mill would help get sp out of the economy in a much more effective way then raising shop prices, and without pissing off the masses. As I believe it was Debi said in the forums, the people with billions of dollars probably don't rs anyway, so this doesn't affect them at all.
When the average user has over 1,000,000sP -- we are targeting everyone to spend. We want every single user to spend more sP than they do right now.

While the users with only 1,000,000sP should be spending more (In my opinion) the way isn't to put super expensive items (they can't afford) into the MC, but increase prices on items that they can afford.
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Re: New Main Shop Pricing System

Post by AngharadTy »

There are so many things wrong with that quote that I'm just... I... I'm just going to go play another game for a while. Y'all should play with me.

This kind of economic "management" idea is one more of the many, many reasons why I refuse to give Subeta money. It is funny, too, because every time I start to weaken and think, "You know, 5 bucks isn't really that much," I get reminded of why my money is so much better off in my pocket.
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Re: New Main Shop Pricing System

Post by Ierosbats »

...wait, what? The reason users with only a million sp aren't spending as much is because they can't afford anything and they're saving up! Potions, wearables, holiday items... you can't get those things for a million sp. So... the solution to get those users to spend more is to make everything else so expensive that they have to spend whether they like it or not?

That's not the right way to get people to spend more. That's the way to get people to give up and quit.
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Re: New Main Shop Pricing System

Post by Keith »

I just wanted to say -- that as I said on the thread. There was a lot of tweaking going on. I didn't feel like item prices actually reflected... anything. They were random numbers generated on the creation of the item.

Now they are given a number actually linked to something. It will be very rare for an item to reach even 20,000sP at this point (after considerable tweaking to the original formula).

The restocking formula itself has also been tweaked, and shops clear less often.

The goal is to get users to spend more sP, because it doesn't make sense in the current subeta economy (with trillions of sP floating around) for items to be selling for 100sP in the main shops.
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Re: New Main Shop Pricing System

Post by AngharadTy »

Great, tweaked, only 20k, whatever--the basic premises behind this idea of yours are badly flawed.

- Why should shop prices reflect anything? See my post above Rustyblu's.

- 1 million sP is not that much. People have so damn many goals that 1 million is not even a scant drop in the bucket. That's why this thread is full of people saying, "1.9 million is TOO MUCH?!?!?!"
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Re: New Main Shop Pricing System

Post by Kamil »

Yeah, that's the main part I can't get past. I almost never buy anything from the Main Shops (although I've done a bit of restocking in Books lately, for the obvious reasons), so this will only affect me indirectly.

Until it makes quests undoable, but that's an entirely different wtf. The part that is making me insane is the thought that you want all of us to have less than two million sp each.

I DO NOT WANT TO BE POOR. I AM POOR IN RL RIGHT NOW AND I DO NOT WANT IT TO FOLLOW ME HOME.
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Re: New Main Shop Pricing System

Post by Cranberry »

Two million won't even buy your HA a nice wig. I have 85 mil right now and I feel poor. And all these changes are just making me want to hang onto my SP, not spend it. I don't want to end up broke, struggling to make SP so I can buy some insanely inflated new Subeautique item or whatever.

I'm just going to sit back and watch this. If it works, great! If it doesn't, I trust that it'll be scrapped, just like all the other things that didn't work (double-blocking, various different quest payouts, giveaways, etc.). But I'm thinking that people here are right -- this is going to make quests not worth doing and screw up the economy even more.

Finally, I know I've said this before, but I started playing Subeta because it was so easy to get rich. I didn't have to save for months to paint my first pet, which was awesome. There are so many items released every month that even though I'm considered decently well-off by Subeta standards, I still can't afford everything I want (and my friend recently quit and spent her entire fortune of 500 mil on me, and it still didn't completely clear my wishlist). And that's cool -- I can't get everything, but I can get enough to make me happy. If this new setup changes things enough that I have to struggle for every damn clothing item or minion I want, I'm not going to want to play. I just don't have the time.
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Re: New Main Shop Pricing System

Post by Huggles »

I'm just going to keep doing other things, mostly WoW, and sit on my 19,000 sp.
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