I like restocking, it's really not too bad -- you can make 5k+ sP per item in some shops with a constant flow of items to restock. Plus obviously the items you're really looking for that are worth significantly more.

Is there any information on the number of users who join each day/week/month who actually stay and remain active? Injecting new users would mean more people who haven't yet: earned any achievements feed / reading to pets, trained pets, earned hoarder achievements, etc. Since a lot of the ways items get used around here other than quests are one-time-only, perhaps a push for new users might inject some much-needed newness to the economy.

This. I couldn't agree more! Restocking is pretty much what I do 90% of the time on subeta. I live for that rush and even if I don't nab the r99's there are plenty of normal rarity items that will turn a good profit, unlike the Neopets system. The fact that I have to make a board in the Advertising forum pretty much religiously in order to sell my lingering restocks is what kills me. At this point I have just been immediately underpricing my rares in order to get some sort of profit before it gets haggled down WAY too much by users asking for 50%+ discounts ;_;

Quests and Restocking are my MAIN source of income! I RARELY play ANY games... in fact the ONLY game I have ever played on subeta since my time being here has been: Random and Mind Reader, and those only dish out but only so much sP at a time. I have thought to myself if I should just purchase CSC but why should I empty out my REAL wallet to support my lifestyle here? I personally do not think it is fair to cut out the Quests and stop restock. There ARE still users on here who manage to make money by earning and saving. I play Saggi Quests everyday and I am lucky to get at least 350k out of the lot

Good point. What you said got me thinkin'

There are several features that require only CSC (changing usernames, pet overlays, the resort, leashing your pet, etc.). Why can't there be an sPs option as well? It could be an absurd amount of sPs, but it would at least offer a potential sPs sink and give users who don't have as much opportunity to purchase CSC. Even though users can buy CSC from other users, the amount of sPs required is ridiculous (over 30mil for 1k CSC).

made a good point on another thread, about how Gaia has pretty become a pay-to-play scenario. With the great emphasis on CSC lately, I fear Subeta is starting to head down that path as well.

please consider adding an sPs option to these various features I mentioned above. I don't think players would mind spending 5-10 mil to have a custom overlay approved for their pet. Hell if I truly knew, but it sure as hell would be a lot cheaper than spending 18mil for a .

He's already said no to that as it would set up a hard sp-to-csc ratio and he wants that to be controlled by the users.

Also, if he made it 5 or 10 mil for a custom overlay, no one in their right mind would spend 500 csc on it.

Hmm...I see. =/ Did not know that he had already said no, so thank you for informing me.

I always have horrid suggestions, but what if we could frag sPs and get crystals in return? Have numerous options (5k, 10k, 25k, 50k, 75k, 100k) and randomize the amount of crystals a player could possibly receive, pretty much how it is with fragging items. Dispose of the main currency by bringing in a new form of currency to semi-replace it, like how it is with wiz tokens. Do more with the crystals, besides the Crystal Shop.

Many users enjoy restocking. Staff doesn't think it's fun though, which is one reason why there hasn't been a restock war in a while.

It's really cool to see some public support for restocking. It's one of those activities that just goes on behind the scenes - nobody makes a big noise in the forums about it like they do with vending or quests or events but that doesn't mean it's not fun!

For the record, I make most of my sp restocking, and I enjoy it.

There are many reasons for the item deflation here on Subeta but vending seems to be the one people want to talk about, sooo...

Vending has been made too easy with the new updated machines. It is affecting prices. A limit on the number of vends per day is one solution that has been suggested. The problem though is really that token are too easy to get.

Make the token rewards from quests rarer. Why should the wiz hand them out for every quest? They could become a rare quest reward or the amount of Wiz quests that a user can do could be greatly reduced.

Perhaps the entire quests system needs a revamp. Sorry, but I do not see the fun in every quest (with the exception of Drills) being "go buy an item and give it to me". Where is the fun in that? Hell, there is nothing to that, now even the shop search link is right there. Monkeys on -insert intoxicating substance here- can do these quests. These useless quests just flood the market with items. Fix the quests system, and that will fix some of the problem.

After just reading through a lot of the front page, so having no idea where the conversation has gone since (but with little desire to get very involved since I just want to throw two cents at the forum and run away) I'd just like to point out that the economy here is way better than other online communities I've been to. I have no idea what Neopets is like now since I haven't been on since I was 12 or 13 or so, but when I was on, their quests were terrible for money and tended to eat it more often than not...the best, best way to earn money was through games and there were little other options. There are more options here; there are still two quests that hand out a lot of sp. Posting gives you sp, even if a little. There's clever watch of goods and therefore RSing (sure it doesn't generate sp but I think it still counts). There are pet jobs. There's careful hoarding and other investments. There's battles. So there's no way to earn money? I don't think so.

As for what I saw about a huge push to buy CSC - I compare this site to the one I had played most recently before - Gaia Online, didn't have pets but it did have human avatars - and comparatively, the economy here is great. That one sucked so bad. There were almost no games and you earned a real pittance for them. You earned gold for posting on forums but you earned almost nothing. Almost every item that wasn't totally stupid was really, really expensive - As in you earned 50 gold for your first forum post of the day, and maybe 300 for completing an insanely difficult jigsaw puzzle, but wearables that weren't basic or flat out stupid were at the very, very least 10000, and and most were upwards of 100k. Cash shop items, of which there were many, MAAAANY more than ANY other type of item, were almost always at least 300-500k and the popular ones were much more. Even after Gaia made a MMORPG kind of game which was actually fairly impressive for what it was, even after that, you weren't earning very much. The only hope you had of getting anything ever was if you were a mind-blowingly amazing artist, if you had a patron or sugar whatever of some sort, or if you bought stuff from the cash shop. THAT is a push to empty your real world wallet into a site. That is. Not this. The entire Gaian economy depended on people buying cash shop items. Subeta's is nowhere near that bad. I at no time feel any huge push to buy CSC. I see a lot of incentives to, but never pushed to to enjoy the site.

Just a few things to think about, eh? (In other related news, I'm always feeling the vibe that Subeta staff actually does care more about us than they do about our wallets. I have been on many a different petsite, even if I don't really remember most of them that well at this point. Subeta is my favorite, primarily because I get that feeling.)

This is just my POV and not going to argue since every one sees things differently ;)

I like to vend , restock and quest to earn. If I do all of Wiz Quests since the new format I get around 800 tokens which equals to 400 vends. This is not an exact amount but is what I get most frequently. 400 vends go fast and the majority is low profit items mainly bought for quests. So it adds up but takes longer to earn. So to me someone who vends almost every day they come on 400 vends and 800 tokens are not a lot. Back when Wiz gave out more tokens I could keep easily a surplus of 5,000 or more. These days not so much. Especially if vending is going to be part of Events. 1000 Wiz Token is 2,800,000 or more ..again this is not exact but what I see most frequently.

Restocking before it was swtiched back from and event restocking was more profitable then vending or questing. I spent many morning sitting in the stores snatching items since it was worth it in my opinion. Now it takes longer I just don't have the time. I do try restocking when I have the time. Really missed the way it was before of course.

Questing to me is in the middle. Some days I have a great day and some days its ok. I keep what to spend on them down so if I get to many high sp requests have to turn them down. So makes it an ok day.

Back when Sag and Wiz were brought up as Weekend Quests more often it was a lot better selling items. Now it does take longer and you have to constantly check prices in hopes to sell your item first .

Games. I really need to play them more since it's free sP. Never really been into games online in that format if that makes sense. To me questing, restocking, vending, HA making is the game.

Out of all the games sites I have played or now playing I spend most of my time on Subeta. Still feel like I can get my goals and not get frustrated. From when I first started palying here and now it's a lot different with sP earning. Do like that I have a varity and don't want to see any of them taken away. I rather take longer to earn then not have the option at all.

I actually think this site handles money FAR better than Gaia and Neopets. The economies on both those sites tanked and I don't play them anymore, but I still enjoy this site quite a lot and even though the staff wants to sell CSC (how dare they want to make money off a successful site) there is still a lot of opportunity for everyone else.

I make a few million a day, at least, and I have never bought CSC with my own money. I have a few custom items, but I enjoy struggling. I don't want to get everything immediately. This is, after all, a game.

I also think that people forget that there are new users? This isn't just a site full of rich elitist jerks, right?

(this is just in response to the first page!!)

Just to throw my opinion in here, and ask the question from the title: The main ways that I earned SP before were through questing and restocking. My favourite was the Wiz, but I also do Cursed Quests, Maleria, Saggi if I'm desperate for a large sum of SP. Right now, I'm going for the Shop Till achievement, and I'm around 5.5 mil/10 mil for that? I'm seriously thinking of taking all the money out once I reach 10 mil because there's just no way I'm going to get to 250 mil, and I see that as my main source of SP now. I do Wiz quests for the tokens, but that means losing my SP. I suppose I could vend for some items to sell, but because of my Shop Till achievement need, I'm not going to get that money out until I reach 10 mil. I don't really spend too much: I have the Subeautique items that I want, I'm just going for wearables, I suppose? For the majority of users, most of what I want doesn't cost too much. Because it's Luminaire, I'm just trying to get more SP to gift other people, but normally, I don't have a huge SP goal. I wouldn't really play games, mostly because if I wanted to do that, I'd try another site like Neopets which has games and a not-so-great restocking system. I'd stick to questing and restocking, but because of that darned achievement and my grit, I'm not going to quit that until 10mil, which leaves me with questing. For me though, I don't mind the loss of Wiz quest SP too much: I can do the other quests and it's really encouraging me to get to 10mil in my shop till! Doesn't mean that I love it, but I suppose Subeta has it's reasons. I'm just never going to spend any real money here, that's the bottom line. No CSC for me.

I spend money here on very special occasions, but I think you bring up an interesting point. Vending without a GA is almost a waste of tokens. I only bother restocking expensive items because I have to hand-price.

Through straight restocking, there is almost no way I'm going to make enough sP to spend 16m on a 500CSC gift card and still come out with enough profit on top to make the endeavor worthwhile, it makes more sense to pocket the 16m. The economy seems pretty healthy so I'm assuming that other people make enough, but I'm curious about how the heck they manage it.

I don't do quests very often but I'd love to know: does anybody here make enough through pure questing/restocking to purchase a GA with sP and still come out with actual profit on top? Are Saggi and the Wizard the saving graces in terms of making sP? Do venders make enough to purchase a GA with sP and still come out with profit on top? Are there any threads or adminposts about the Subeta economy in general?

I think it's possible to make a profit doing pure questing or restocking or vending or games while buying a GA, but it would be damn tedious and you wouldn't get very far ahead each month. Add in things like events, which tend to drain your sP, and I think you'd be losing money if you tried to stick to a single way of making a profit.

On the other hand, it's still VERY possible to make a lot of cash on Subeta if you're willing to put in a few hours each day at it (and do things that you might not find 'fun'.) I'm doing an sP sprint right now and I can lay down some numbers. I'm on my 5th day of earnings for my sprint, and in that time I've earned about 25 mil. That's 5 mil per day of questing+games (I'm not a restocker or a vender).

Each day I've played a handful of games - Caliph's Tomb (200k sP/day), Matlal's Jewels (250k sP/day), Item Hunt (started at nearly 500k/day but had to start over), and Memory (225k sP/day). Add all that up, and that's 675k per day doing three games, plus Item Hunt, which can potentially push you up to 1mil+. It takes me about an hour to an hour and a half to play all four of those each day.

From Saggi I generally make anywhere from 3-500k sP. Wiz quests get me around 550 tokens, I sell 500 each day and bank the rest, and they've been selling for about 1.3mil sP. Shinwa's quests vary, but in the past few days iirc I've earned a maybe two items worth 300k, two items worth 1.2mil+ sP, and a few junk items, which averages out to about 600k profit per day. From the Library quests I earned some things to frag, and maybe 10 items worth 20k+ sP to sell each day. Add all that up and I earned about 2.6mil each day just from questing. Round it up to 3mil because sometimes you get lucky and Saggi only asked for cheap items, or Shinwa gave you two 1mil+ items for a quest or whatever. The other million sP comes from incidental things, like selling my extra wiz tokens or cleaning some expensive items that I never use out from my wardrobe.

So, 5mil sP per day, but that takes about 4 hours of work. It's a pretty awesome profit, and in less than a week I could earn enough to buy a GA or a CW. But that's four hours of work every single day. That's more time than most people are willing to spend on a virtual pet site doing boring shit.

To throw in another answer, I keep a GA active, but I don't do it -just- for the autopricer. So I'm not really concerned about breaking even with the csc cost of the GA. It's a great feature, and I make use of it, sure. But for me the GA comes with several other perks that make it more than worth it for me to keep active. You'll have to keep in mind that there's a lot of people who share that sentiment and are mixed in with others who want to make the GA "pay" for itself.

And I'd echo what said - you can make a lot of sp quickly on this site, even with half of the quests being revamped for lower sp payouts. However, you have to be willing/able to put in a few hours and endure some amount of tedium. That said, you can either go full tilt and wear yourself out and make a whole lot in a short period of time, or you can do a mix of what seems fun at the time and what you have time to do and go at a slower pace. But the best strategy definitely makes use of a variety of site activities and adjusts to new conditions. For example, when special/limited releases through vending glut the market with lots of items, I cut way back on vending and focus on selling tokens or on restocking rares. You have to adapt or you'll just be throwing yourself (and your sp!) at a brick wall.

That is a SUPER awesome answer - thank you so much for taking the time to figure up the totals. That sounds like a pretty good payout considering that half of the effort is games, and games are fun so that seems to work out pretty well.

Great tip about adjusting strategy according to current events, definitely smart. It's fun to participate in sP-draining activities but it's even more fun to profit off them!

I guess GAs do provide some fun-value on their own, but my only concern was that it's hard to do a lot of fun stuff without sP (avatars, battling, and buying pet art all require ample amounts of it) so I personally like to think about GAs in terms of return on investment. There are plenty of ways to play Subeta though (especially for those who pay to play) so ROI probably doesn't matter that much to most people as you mentioned. Plus CSC pays the server bills which is worthwhile on its own. I appreciate the perspective!

All in all, I am relieved by both of those answers. I've always thought that Subeta (and pet sites in general) are supposed to reward the people who invest their time and effort above all else. Even though I can't spend as much time here as I used to it's really really nice to see that brute force is still profitable, even though it's not always fun. :P

You're welcome! I thought it was worth pointing out - of course, I have a subscription for my GA so that does alter my perspective just a little (though I purchased the subscription because there were other features, like the extra wardrobe layers, that I wanted always on). And some days I'll do every sp-generating activity I can, just to see how much I can make in one day - and that itself is fun for me. Other days I only have time or motivation enough to quickly pound out some saggi quests, and that's good too. I keep things fresh by not grinding the same things over and over, and not pushing myself to do something if I'm not really feeling it that day.

People are making millions per day on saggi? Clearly i am doing it wrong. I have almost 4mil in the bank, and thats the most ive ever had - i do exclusively RSing and Quests. I will never do games because i suck at them, and they bore me. I prefer RS/stocking/vending/anything else.

perhaps a rotation in what items RS in the shop? There are certain items in there every single time, while others not so much. Would there be a way to make RSing more exciting for users and yet be a SP sink? To be honest though, the graph posted isnt surprising, there are users who have been on here saving for years who have billions of sp so an average SP banked amount of 9mil is actually quite low. And generally someone like me who isnt the fastest RSer or best quester(i dont make millions a day anyway), it takes me most of an event and a few weeks after to get most of the items from events. I make 400-600k a day, and i blow it all on WL items. I think the problem here is that there is more inter-trading among users while earning SP from all sources, rather than spending money back into the system. Punishing questers/venders/RSers and giving gamers an edge wont fix this. We need a turn over in old items in the shops, a new emphasis on getting money "deleted" through sending it back into NPCs, etc. Restock wars, a new version of Restock Wars. SB is an older site, it needs an event that will be an SP/super devalued item sink.

EDIT: That is to say, an event that will suck up some of that ancient, residual SP and make things more even in the economy. Saving is fine, but perhaps when average user savings becomes certain point we need a safety valve in terms of events.

The problem is, how do we make an event like that fun for users like yourself, who only have 4 million? If there is a step that requires putting in millions / billions to complete, what do we do about the 99.9% of users who just couldn't do that, or how do we incentivize the prizes for doing so enough that people are willing to part with a hundred million for something?