fireembemphanatic

Here's my wishlist. I'm working on my Darigan gallery. Some stuff is obviously way too expensive to be gifted but any of the smaller stuff would be awesome.
Merry Christmas everyone!
http://items.jellyneo.net/mywishes/ganof/0/
 
Thanks to:
twiggy321177
 vetski2
 mello_is_mine
buizin
jlxy13
rockangel_star
charelan
ellykins9
systemic_anomaly
whats_ur_fantasy3
paperdoll66
spritzieblue
paperdoll66

Got a Pirate Aisha Morphing Potion from Anchor Management :)

I chose Darigan Citadel this year. I'm not very good, but every little helps! Go Darigan :)

YAY joined Darigan Citadel today. We're gonna win! :D

Got a Pirate Aisha Morphing Potion from Anchor Management :)

I just got the last piece of the lab map I needed off the TP! I have access to the lab ray! I am so happy! I have wanted this for years! :woot:

Today, being lucky enough to get a FFQ (as a result of my Grey Faerie quest), I customized my new Eventide Xweetok. Basically meaning I found a background I love with her. Why would someone cover up Eventide?!! Anyway - here she is!
 

 
:wub_anim: :wub_anim: :wub_anim:

Few days late, but 9 years on Neo. (On and off..)
 

 
EDIT:
Something Has Happened! You are now eligible to use 'Snorkle' as an avatar on the NeoBoards!

Today is my anniversary on my main! 14 years. (:
 

But the press release didn't say "several"; it said "a number" (which is just about the vaguest term they could use, but to me indicates a substantial portion).
 
I don't know. Neopets has grown bloated and stale over the years, hardly keeping up with the times. While they do have strong loyalty, they've had difficulties attracting new users for years now. And TNT's efforts at innovation have fallen short, despite things like Petpet Park, Key Quest, and Habitarium. I think they've been afraid to cut anything because everything has its fans (I've actually been relieved that DD, the Neopies, etc. were cut, at least temporarily). I think a shake-up was necessary for the continued success of Neopets, because fresh eyes can help. I just hope that they kept enough (and the right members) of old TNT to keep Neopets as "Neopets" even as it's brought into the 2010's. And I really hope that they gave generous severance packages and plenty of notice. I appreciate what TNT has brought us, and I wish all the members, past and future, success. I hope they find somewhere new to use their talents and creativity, somewhere they can really take flight without the constraints of a 15-year-old site.
 
And I hope Neopets goes somewhere exciting and creative, and soon. I don't know what it should look like, but I know that I, for one, am ready for some substantial changes (and not just because of the lag... I have been demotivated and just playing more out of habit than anything else, since TFR, with very brief resurgences of interest for things like BD beta, Obelisk War, and my personal discovery of Food Club. TFR was 5 years ago; that's a long time to be waiting for something "better").
 
That being said, my confidence is not very high given the sustained brokenness of the site, which only seems to grow worse as more things are taken down or stop being supported/updated. I'll believe they're dedicated to Neopets as it is (and not some amalgamation of apps/platform games that use the characters/world) when they show that they are.

Chocolate Ice Cream is probably that expensive because it has a very low drop rate. Our BD prize testing team doesn't have a ton of data for the Central Arena, but what we do has shows a drop rate of less than 0.5%.

I'm a bit of both. When it comes to things I like, I hold onto them. I also tend to throw most things in my SDB and occasionally go through and clear out what I don't want.

TNT did state that the rubbish avatar helped clear up space:

Also, I think the rubbish avatar was a step in the right direction for what TNT seemed to want, which was ridding Neopia of a bunch of useless junk. You discarded what you wanted, whether it was actually junk or not. These events with specific items being required, whether they were originally junk items or not, cause people to take advantage of the fact that people need/want them for the rewards given, and push the prices up.

Like you mention, that's backfiring because it seems like more people think they'll just hold onto everything because they never know when it might be required. I know there were quite a few requested items for the charity event that I'd sold because I didn't like them or have a need for them.

I have faith that the lag will eventually go away. That being said, I'm fairly pleased with the new ownership. The only real complaint I have is the lack of communication - which has always been a pet peeve of mine. For example, the lag is awful and everyone knows it. A post on the neo facebook page or on the tnt board acknowledging that they know there is a problem would make me a happy camper.

Leverhelven: not an economist, no, but I have a strong interest in economy and around twelve years of experience with online communities with a mostly-closed, virtual, economy and after you see half a dozen of them derail in the near-exact same manner, the patterns become extremely clear. When some of these patterns showed remarkable similarity to patterns easily detected and commented upon in the string of real world economical crises in the same timespan, it became even more easy to detect the more subtle patterns and determine in which ways a closed virtual economy differs from a real life open economy.
 
The "mechanics" mostly; your comparison with anarcho-capitalism is rather apt in some ways, though in other ways it's as far from truth as can be. Frankly speaking, the Neopets economy at this point is an extremely strange mixture of traits one would find in a state-ran communistic autarkic closed economy* and an ultra-liberal free market ultra-capitalistic economy. (Yes, there are some socialistic/communistic traits, but more on that later)
 
I don't remember when exactly I noticed the first patterns, though it was while I was pretty young. Maybe 13 or so? Would probably be around 04 or 05, as I noticed them on Gaiaonline and that was the first time I was truly active there. I do remember which patterns I did first notice, however.
"Prices are predominately influenced by supply and demand but can be disturbed by other factors; artificial scarcity or demand can be created and the economy can be manipulated as easily--if not more easily--when it's a virtual closed economy as opposed to a real-world open economy" (artificial deflation and de-scarcifying items can in certain circumstances also be done--when a popular item is scarce because one person is hoarding a large amount of them or aggressively buying up those available; said person can accidentally or on purpose flood the market, oversaturate it and trigger a deflation that reaches at least slightly beyond the item itself, given the proper circumstances--but is less common, depends on a good many more factors than artificial inflating/increasing demand/decreasing supply, and more difficult); "To keep a virtual economy from spiralling into out-of-control inflation, the amount of virtual currency brought into it should be roughly balanced by the amount taken out of it" and "The release or re-release of one or more items into the economy has effects on the economy reaching far beyond said specific item; and if done badly, can collapse a good part of the economy or cause sky-high artificial inflation reaching far and wide." After noticing those, not only did other patterns become more clear and easy to spot, but I actively went looking for them. Even ran some statistics, and kept track of the prices of certain items, tried to predict some things (failed miserably at first, got somewhat better with it later on provided no unexpected situations occurred. Such as a mass re-release of a moderately rare item that was standing to increase in price due to its theme matching up well with the season). I did notice that every site with a virtual economy has its own quirks, depending in part on the actual mechanisms in place and in part on its userbase, predominantly taste in items, accepted etiquette and in amount of time and effort willing to spend on site earning currency.
 
I could continue on about this for a fair while, but let's not make my post novella-sized, eh?
 
*As to my above remark regarding socialism/communism:
I do understand some of what the person who said "socialism" is coming from; there are some characteristics that would normally signify socialism, or rather, certain variations of communism. While the virtual economy itself is a blatant liberal capitalist economy, by means of being a closed economy and lacking some of the factors of a real world economy--items and money being created from thin air, for one--it does share some key characteristics of communism or gives off the appearance of sharing them, especially if you presume the site's side (TNT, non-user shops, etc.) as "the state".
 
The state does have full control over which goods ("items") are produced and which price they are--initially, in any case--sold for. All economic resources are in the hands of, or originate with, the state. The money has to come from somewhere; and since there is no way to bring outside cash into the economy to be converted into neopoints, it must by definition have originated from the state; The items, since(no item is created or brought into the economy without the state; for even items bought from other users must have at some point come from the state; All "jobs", if defining job as neopoint-granting activities, are either while "employed by the state" (games, battledome, stocks, foodclub, other betting) or have the state as major player/supplier (restocking). Full control over what people can do to earn money. That shop you run? Remember paying them for every upgrade? That trading post? It's theirs, and if they decide to shut it down, well, let's wave it goodbye, and no, there isn't a way for you to create your own trading post. Or your own auction house. Or your own factory to produce goods you know people want. Or... well, you get the picture. Still, while this means that TNT is in a prime position to mess up the economy (something they have proven to be really, really good at, too), it is the mixture that makes it such a strange mess.
One or the other would be plenty of mess enough, if viable. (Which it isn't, in case of a virtual community; at least, not without total anarchy. Since it's practically impossible to have an online open economy, that one's hardly viable. If it's online communism, the userbase will be pretty small, because one of the thrills for many people is becoming--virtually--rich, or collecting items.)
Both means that the flaws of the one amplify those of the other.
 
For example, one major part of the inflation comes from the scarcity of certain items because TNT does not release more of them and/or because they decide which "goods" are "produced" in what "amounts". (Read: they code the shops. They decide which items stock, for how much, how often, and how many of them) That would match a whole lot closer with communism than free market capitalism.
Another major part of the inflation comes from the freedom to set your own prices on goods and the essentially endless supply of neopoints a user can have, provided they have the time/skill/determination. Which is definitely a capitalistic trait.
 

Some of the described issues are not so much a result of savage capitalism by itself, but rather, savage capitalism in an essentially closed economy* lacking many of the complicating factors of a real-world economy while adding others. It's something you see commonly in nearly every online community with virtual currency and some form of economy, though pet-sites like Neopets, avatar communities like Gaiaonline (and MMORPGs such as Runescape and World of Warcraft) are most heavily predisposed towards it.
This tends to be a combination of several factors:
A lack of attractive sinks (scarcity attracts, but those items are scarce because they do not frequently appear, which means that most people will buy said items from other people, which means the NP stays in circulation); it does not help that the great majority of items that get used up sink less neopoints than a single player could make in a few minutes, or have alternative options in that price-range; A tendency towards making the more attractive potential sinks real-world-money items instead (NeoCash in Neopets' case, Gaia Cash in Gaiaonline's case, etc.) which does not work as a sink for the normal currency at all (and indeed even makes the other sinks less attractive to some degree); An endless supply of new money to enter the economy, limited only by the number of players active x time willing and able to spend. In the real world, money changes hands, but there are strong limits on the amount of new money to enter an economy (by coins being minted and bills being printed), which may as well not be present at all in Neopets' case. (One could say there is some limit on the amount of new money a single player can make in a short timespan, but with a long list of different possible ways in which said player can make it, essentially the only limit is the time said player has and the amount of effort they're willing to make. Of which in some cases, not much is needed at all.) Essentially unlimited storage of items and money, meaning that people are extremely unlikely to throw away an object they have simply because they now have something better; In Neopets' case, random events and dailies adding items and money to the economy. (Yes, there are also random events that take away things, but with a bank to keep one's money safe and a SDB to do the same, I dare say a lot less is lost that way than is added) Items with an actual limited number (as opposed to items that are rare but still in some form supplied to the economy, however little) staying on abandoned and frozen accounts or ending up with people who will not consider selling under any circumstance, constantly decreasing the number and thus driving the prices on said items higher; resulting in a top-down inflation at first, followed up by a deflation of the lower-rung/common items resulting in what is essentially a break in the economy between a large group of cheap items and a small group of very expensive items with very little in between.** A lack of actual necessities. Your pets may not exactly be happy about being left untrained, disease-ridden and starving, but they won't die. Nor will you. There quite honesty are very few consequences to such a thing beyond the risk of a random event making your pet red or blue (if that one even happens any more), which isn't even much of a risk if your pets aren't painted. This means people can spend practically every single neopoint they have on luxuries. Heck, it's even possible to keep your pets well-fed, free from disease and happy without ever spending a single neopoint, long as you're willing to hop by the giant jelly and omelette daily and hang around the healing springs when your pet catches a disease. As a result, pricing makes very little sense and you get things like certain pencils being more expensive than a chair or bed. A lack of fees on transactions between players, meaning that it's a reasonable choice to buy an item from a fellow user for, say, 597NP rather than pay 599NP for it in the shop. This makes the already ineffective sinks even less effective.  
*One could make the claim that Neopets is not so much a closed economy as an autarky, though it certainly has strong traits of both. Indeed, there is outside influence on Neopets albeit indirectly (in the form of holidays, for example, which influence to some degree which items are popular--Christmas/winter-themed items as we're nearing Christmas, romantic items as Valentine approaches, etc.--but also in the form of (not allowed, but nonetheless happening) offsite trading/account selling, to name just a few) but far less than would be the case in a real-world economy; and furthermore, the influence is indirect rather than direct. An object made in Belgium can end up in, say, China. An item on Neopets will stay on Neopets or be destroyed on Neopets, but will not ever enter a different economy/site. Neopoints are the same; they exist on Neopets or stop existing, but will not enter a different economy/be ported off-site.
 
**People want those items; they get more expensive; they try to sell their own items for higher prices at first or sell expensive items they otherwise would not have sold; for the rare items, this new higher price likely stays; however, because there is now an influx of common goods on the market, not only does the inflation not stay, the prices decrease to likely a price lower than before

Battlers will be excited to learn that the errors the Battledome sustained during the transition have now been fixed. Users will no longer receive an error message while attempting to send a move and prizes now show up after the battle.
 

Nope. They're of no value as out of battle healing is incredibly cheap. The only appeal they could have is for collectors, but I doubt that there would be enough demand to make any sort of profit. I think very few people will be looking to buy.

Got a raindorf from clicking in the animation (after waiting x amount of time for the animation to actually, y'know, show). How cute! I'd give it to my Christmas Kougra but the Huggy she has is so old. lol

Yes! I feel exactly like this! In years past, it's been so much more elaborate! Choosing teams, being able to repeat the game up to 5 times to earn additional prizes, a list of qualifying games! On one hand, it's nice because I'm a student and finals are approaching. But on the other, GMC is one of my favorite site events of the year,
 
I feel like I haven't had to devote too much time to getting the scores. In years past, some seemed like a real stretch -- and I was really proud of myself when I achieved them. This year, my biggest problems in getting scores have been not being patient enough/trying to rush the games. No stretches. They've been getting more difficult though, which is nice. I'm curious to see what tomorrow's challenges will be. Hopefully, there will be some nice trophies.
 
I guess that they've been busy with the switch to JumpStart. But the plots have started to feel less involved too. And I'm still bitter about the removal of Habitarium :(

Nope. They're of no value as out of battle healing is incredibly cheap. The only appeal they could have is for collectors, but I doubt that there would be enough demand to make any sort of profit. I think very few people will be looking to buy.

Game wise, the scores you need to send are always this low. They are even reusing challenges from previous years. Daily Dare is when it gets hard. I guess it may seem easier due to it only being two challenges but the other challenges weren't that hard either as they were like adding things to your favourites list etc.


No way girl! You can totally do Snowmuncher! A trick is to do level one and two twice. When you get to the end of level one, do not complete it. Let the timer run out and do level one again. Once you get to the end of level one the second time, finish the level. Repeat this process for level 2.

I think the only reason we're thinking this year is easy is because there are only 2 challenges as opposed to several ones like previous years. That was more challenging, not because the scores were harder, but simply because of the volume of challengers. There's three games so far that I've gotten stuck on. Bouncey Supreme, Bumble Beams and Top Chop only because I don't play them on a regular basis and it takes practice to get there.
 
GMC scores are always low. Daily Dare is when they get higher and it's more challenging. :)

It seems really easy this year. I've struggled more in years past. But this year, it's generally two well known games with scores well within my reach. Most days, it's taken me about 15 minutes tops (except for yesterday when I may not have read/checked and was playing Jelly Blobs of Doom for half an hour...). Nothing's really challenged me. Which is good and bad. It's something that I like to do during my Thanksgiving break but on the other hand, I've got huge projects and finals fast approaching.

Yesterday, I got the most expensive piece of the Secret Lab Map while playing Neoquest. Sweet! :rock:

Woo-hoo! :thumbsup: Neopets has been very kind to me today. First, the grundo plushie gives me a few nps. Then i find a a few more nps while strolling about.
 
Now, i get this:
 
The Pant Devil's evil twin hands you Disco Bruce Morphing Potion, stolen from his brother. He flies away cackling madly.