New Main Shop Pricing System

[Officer 1BDI]

So, it looks like official shop prices are undergoing quite a change, at least if this "testing phase" pans out. From this thread:

For those who don't know, Keith is now in the process of testing a new shop pricing method that includes a bit of supply-demand principles. The more an item is bought, the higher the price. The less an item is bought, the lower the price.

Just so you get an idea of how this is currently working out: you know that plushie that was just put into the holiday shop a few days ago? This fugly yet utterly endearing (IMHO) plushie? It's official price was around 800 sP before, but when I just checked the shop it was going for almost 80,000 sP.

I'll probably have more to say tomorrow when I'm not wiped out, but my initial impression is that I am not pleased.

[bonecrivain]

Oh, well. More inflated prices. Fantastic.

[AngharadTy]

...um. Yay. Sure makes me want to play more, I tell you what.

[bonecrivain]

The funny thing is that Keith apparently expects this to encourage user activity on the site. That's his main goal right now--that's the point of the Achievements, and one of his stated purposes for this new shop pricing system. Maybe I don't have a good head for numbers, but I don't see how this is going to encourage people to be on the site more. I get frustrated when I can't afford anything. Right now, all of my goals are pretty tough, but reachable. If prices keep inflating, I'm just going to get fed up after a while. I don't get paid to play Subeta. It needs to be fun. Why does Keith not seem to understand this? Subeta may be his job, but it's not ours.

[Huggles]

I've actually considered something similar for the Neocolours virtual pet project. Which I still think about almost daily, but never post about because I'm an uncompromising egotist and the ideas have developed into my own pet project. Puns! Except, you know, it's different. One main difference being that you supply raw materials to shopkeepers when they run out of a certain item by exploring/adventuring. So if Pete runs out of catsup, you go hunt down some killer tomatoes and sell them to him, whereby he then restocks ketchup. However, it is not always a 1 to 1 ratio. Sometimes he stocks more; sometimes he stocks less, because of what other users supply and the invisible hand of Bob.

[Kamil]

....

Things are gonna cost more? Oh yeah, that'll work out. People just love paying more for their shit.

Not to mention, Subeta is, more or less, a quest-driven economy. If it costs 75k to restock something, no one is then going to turn right around and sell it for 12k. Which means quests should shortly become undoable. Vending will help somewhat with that, but probably not for long, as the tokens to vend with come from the Wizard. Whose quests are about to get really, really expensive to complete. Leading to fewer tokens. Leading to less vending.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

[Alicorn]

What Kamil says. I don't restock, I suck at it. So I quest. If this turns my questing into a bad time, then I don't play as much cause it's not fun.
I went and checked out the form and Keith said he's also doing this to help lessen people's sp. Now I don't know about some, but I know I won't spend a lot of sp on something I don't think is worth it. I only spend a lot of sp on things I really want. And even then I tend to think on it. I'm a penny pincher, I can't help myself.

[covet]

Yeah, no.

edit: Siiince I am incapable of being concise; this is ridiculous. New items come out. They are in high demand. Prices in the main shops get higher and higher as people swoop to buy them. Prices in usershops take longer and longer to deflae. In the case of seasonal items, they never deflate, they simply retire and continue to skyrocket.

Things on Subeta are already overpriced. I'm all in favour of money sinks, but working on making other items less, not more pricey would be nice, too.

I was wondering wtf a common muffin cost 50k, earlier.

[Griffin]

That's great. I was just contemplating getting back into restocking because I'm almost flat broke and have sold off all my excess items. If this screws up quests (even more--can only do 10/40 quests on average), how else can I make sP?

[Alicorn]

Now Keith has said he put a cap on the system. Meaning that once an item reaches a certain price, it will start to lower. So that's good, I hope.

[Huggles]

Well that obviously leaves everyone to make sp from games. Let's see.

-There's the trivia, but 500 sp isn't anything and people have to have money to buy your prize.
-Subeta Tiles lets you play every 2 hours. It's always been too much of an information dump for me, so I have no idea how to play.
-You have to buy treasure maps to play that game or randomly find them.
-You can play the stock market, but stocks cost money.
-Stickers? Someone else has to give them to you.
-Stargazer is a one click game, and I haven't a clue what sp amount it gives.
-Slots, again costs sp and currently seems to be broke.
-Scratchcards cost money with no guarantee of reward.
-Safecrack is free, but only playable once a day. Again, mostly no reward.
-Rock, Paper, Scissors is free, but gives a piddly sp amount.
-Restocking War...
-Reflection is free, but you can only win something every 4 hours.
-Reading Contest...Over and I think it required you to buy and donate books?
-Random is only playable once every 3 hours. I just won 6k sp, but I don't know how the high scores are tabulated, so maybe you can win millions? Maybe.
-Potion Lottery costs money and you probably won't win.
-Plushie Collections requires you to buy plushies that you can never resell.
-Mistic Spindles costs nothing and I just won 5sp!
-Mind Reader gives you a chance to win up to 4000 sp a day. Odds are you'll win 1333.
-Item Scramble let's you play once an hour. I won 130 sP!
-Item Identifier was accidentally broken.
-Item Hunt is an item quest...
-Item Drive is down for repairs.
-Fishing only lets you play once an hour with a 100 sp fee. I won a fish worth 400sp!
-Easter Egg Game is only for Easter.
-Decanter of Indestructibility costs 500 sp and lets you play once an hour. I won a 1,500 sp mushroom.
-Darkmatter Dice is a game I chose not to understand, but it gave me 12 sp anyway. Yay?
-Calvin Blackmoon's Card Crusade let's you win up to 25k sp every daily, but I find it not as fun as the game called War I played with my friends. Seems to take a really long time, and what happened to his new art?
-Card Collections requires you to buy cards and stick them in your collection forever. I don't know what the prizes are.
-Bones lets you play for a mere 500...something and only once a day.
-Beanbags is another collection "game".
-Battle-Coliseum is complicated, but to earn sp you have to spend sp training and outfitting your pet.

This all leads me to wonder just where the hell all these inflationary Subeta points even came/come from in the first place. Really, where? Most of the so-called games aren't, require you to pay money to earn a chance of winning sp, literally take less than a handful of clicks to play, and heavily restrict your play time. That leaves only quests and restocking. Quests take items, and items come from shops, and the money to buy them there comes from where? I'm more baffled than ever before now, and the only new thing I've learned is that almost all of the games need updated pictures or even just pictures.

[Ierosbats]

This number: The average user has 1,925,161 sP is way too high.

So the goal is to make people have less money? Or be able to spend less? Or... what? I... what? Because people aren't facing enough of that in real life right now? We can't have real-world Christmas anymore but c'mon, the recession is just so fun that Subeta HAD to make an exception and get in on that action. I really can't figure out the logic behind this one. Granted, I'm all kinds of terrible at economics but to me Kamil's post made a hell of a lot more sense than any of Keith's do.

[Huggles]

Why? Why is it too high? Is that because if sp were US dollars that'd be high? Neopoints? What? This game is basically about amassing large quantities of items either in collections, wardrobes, galleries, or treasure chests. That's about it. So in order to play the game, one would need large amount of sp to acquire said items.

[covet]

I have a feeling there's a small number of users who have epic, epic levels of SP and push that number right up. But really, how much is 1,925,161 sP in real subetan terms?

If I want to make an avatar wearing luscious long blonde locks (15 mil) long autumn scarf (10 mil) mysterious moon collar (10 mil) huge partner pleasing fuzzy teddy (8mil) helpless snowpeople (12mil) cherry blossoms (30mil) cropped aviator jacket (9 mil) ... well I might look a little stange, but I wouldn't even have a full outfit and I would have spent almost 100mil. And I picked fairly average priced items, there, for the most part. There are some clothing items that might cost me 50mil or more on their own.

That, in my opinion, is ridiculous.

Until there's a way of bringing down the cost of items people want, there shouldn't be an effort to eat away at people's SP. Subeta has a retirement culture like no other site. They also release an incredible number of items, which is good as there's little other content to motivate users to play daily, but it means things stock less, and when they retire they shoot up in price. That really needs looking at.

Incidentally, the biggest cause of inflation I'm aware of would be the cash shop. It's the only place you can create SP from nowhere, and in vast amounts.

[Slugawoo]

This number: The average user has 1,925,161 sP is way too high.

Haha. WHAT?

I started playing Subeta almost 4 years ago. That would have been just barely enough to get by back then. Hell, that wouldn't even color your pet Dark Matter.

Too much? BULLSHIT. Maybe if the average user had 1,925,161,000 sP. Maybe then I'd understand. But "back in the old days" you'd have to have at least 3.5 mil to color your pet a decent color. It took a week to save up about 600k. But none of that really matters anymore. Because the userbase grew.

Higher userbase/more user activity = higher amount of sP in the economy. There's not really anything anyone can do to change that.

He has to choose one or the other. He can't have both, because every time he tries to fix the economy, users leave because, surprise surprise, it's not fun anymore, and they don't want to play.

/not being helpful, ranting

I don't know why I'm complaining. I don't really play much as it is. I'm one of those jerks stockpiling money with no real goal in mind.