Daily Dare March 09

[thelonetiel]

I just want to say... Using real money to buy an item which can then be used to win an item that can be sold to regular users, and because it is available to a limited audience, not extremely difficult to obtain, wearable and animated will sell for comparatively high prices...

TNT has been very good at preventing users with access to cash to have anything more than an aesthetic advantage over others, but this strikes me as very contrary to that ideal.

I'm not sure how else it could be done, because having them untradable would create annoyance among the masses... But still. I can't help but think it is a bad plan.

[Goldenchaos]

Itd kind of be the same as buying a plushie and using the virtual code to get a virtual item that you can sell for NP...sort of.

It strikes me as odd that people are all up on TNTs case when they indirectly sell virtual things for real money, and yet, don't think nothing of Subeta or Gaia, since they do the same thing. While they too say their site is free to use.

But I suppose it all stems from the age old promise that Neopets will always be free.

[Fjorab_Teke]

I'm one of those who can and is willing to shell out real cash for stuff on this site. After all, as someone said recently, people spend money on pointless entertainment all the time. This one is my particular pay-for-pointless-entertainment (aside from TV, though it's packaged with internet).

And I'm buying up one of each of the prizes I don't get, doubling up on the books.

[Seerow]

For me, it just seems like a ripoff. It costs $2 if you just purchase a stand alone ticket, and you get what will probably be a not-very-amazing item. Take the last two, they haven't really been anything spectacular art wise. If I'm going to spend my cash on a virtual site, I'd much rather take it to Subeta where I can get a lovely item there.

Today's game is Bubble Beam, which is fun even if I suck at it. Considering my high score of all time is only 250, I didn't bother to try and beat AAA. I like Abigail's prize much better anyway It's so pretty!

Spoiler: open/close

AAA: Caution Tape Garland
Abigail: Candy Stars
Lulu: Shiny Caution Tape Garland

Ohh boy, $2 for added shine! And probably animation I guess.

[Rainbow Daydreamer]

Does anyone want my caution tape? It isn't really to my taste.

[Wingsrising]

It strikes me as odd that people are all up on TNTs case when they indirectly sell virtual things for real money, and yet, don't think nothing of Subeta or Gaia, since they do the same thing. While they too say their site is free to use.

But I suppose it all stems from the age old promise that Neopets will always be free.

I think that has something to do with it. Subeta has had the pay-for-sP model for as long as we've been playing. Since it's always been like that it seems less objectionable than suddenly introducing pay-for-NP.

Having said that, the advantage of the pay-for-sP system is that you can also buy the cash items for virtual money. It seems like as currently implemented this is the worst of both worlds -- people pay RL money and get NP, but I can't pay NP for cool items instead of of money.

[zebru]

Oh, dear - they could have at least repositioned the tape a bit or added additional tape line for the shiny one - you actually have to squint at the profile image to notice any difference between AAA's and Lulu' prize.

Which is very good for me as I don't want it - I'm happy enough with non shiny one, but pretty lousy for sellers - it's in 30k range now.

[Cranberry]

I don't mind them letting you essentially buy NP for real money (unless they start messing with the battledome), but they could at least make Lulu's items nice. None of the NC prizes so far have appealed to me. But I'm not a fan of animation in the first place (I think it looks kind of dumb when stuff's moving all around your pet, who is simply standing stock still with a stupid smile frozen on its face).

(And how's that for alliteration? Heh.)

I don't get why Lulu's prize has to be an "upgrade" of AAA's, anyway. It's a completely different challenge, so give us a completely different prize!

[Jessi]

Well I like Abigail's prize much more, but this is a favorite game of mine and my high score blows AAA's away, so I challenged AAA anyway and won xD I'll just go buy Abigail's.

I'm just kind of ignoring Lulu in general, heh.

[Iggy]

Well, one of Abi's prizes seems to have been revamped already



So much cuter!

Ohh boy, $2 for added shine! And probably animation I guess.

Buying 30 X 1 day tickets is a ripoff. The more tickets you buy, the less money by ticket you're spending. Buying a 5 ticket pack will cost you half of 5 X 1 ticket.

[thelonetiel]

Itd kind of be the same as buying a plushie and using the virtual code to get a virtual item that you can sell for NP...sort of.

I don't think I've ever gotten anything worth more than a few k from any virtual prize code I've redeemed. Maybe that's just my bad luck, but that's where I see the difference lying. The Purple Hasee Balloon Toy is already unbuyable. The Tangram Puzzle Piece Kite is 70k, in comparison with AAA's prize at 2k. Maybe a few days prizes isn't enough to tell, but I'm getting the idea that if I spent $20 on 30 tickets, I could get at least 100k for each item with a little patience, and that would be about 3 mil. Without a whole lot of effort, aside from playing games, but even then the scores are fairly low and not difficult to achieve.

$20 is a lot, but 3 mil on Neopets still is quite a bit of money to the average player. It would also probably buy very few plushies/prize code items, I'd be doubtful if it would be so easy to get 3 mil from those prizes. I definitely spent more than $20 on Premium and doubt I made more than 400k from the random events and prizes, and most of that was from the single paintbrush prize (snow) from referring others to Premium.

Subeta is different because they don't really try to disguise the fact that people who are rich can have the best goods on the site... They've always been that way, there have been no promises that people who pay real money won't get any significant advantage in terms of Neopoints, which Neopets has promised many many times.

[Jessi]

Today's game is Turmac Roll! I went for AAA's again, since Abigail's score is a measly 75 and I can get that just by rolling and not even trying to collect any berries. Turmac Roll can be frustrating though, since it really depends on your luck of what berries you're getting - luckily, I had a round where I got three great berries in a row and beat the score easily xD

Spoiler: open/close

Abigail: - Turmac Roll Playset
AAA: - Tree Stump
Lulu: - Wind-up Turmac

The Wind-up Turmac is wearable, of course. I actually think the Tree Stump is really pretty, so I'm glad I went with AAA today.

[Iggy]

And the AAA/Lulu prize are very different, this time.

I love the AAA prize, for real. Shame I didn't do over 300 this morning. But, haven't sent a score yet. It will be a long, long day

[mellaka]

Ugh I'm so bad at Turmac Roll even though I play it all the time. I'll try for AAA when I have a chance later though. Any tips apart from hope for good berries?

[Seerow]

Considering that my high score is something like 240, I didn't even bother trying for AAAs. I really like AAA's and Abigail's prizes, both are the best so far in my opinion. Not too excited by Lulu's, which is fine by me. I'll have to buy AAA's later on today