keep getting "this item already purchased" on my first buy is really getting on my nerve!! why aren't we allowed to buy simultaneously with other users?

Why implement things like fragging, recycling, Item Drive, etc, that encourage mass buying and then implement something else that discourages it? That doesn't make sense to me. And unless I'm remembering totally incorrectly, you said, when the captcha codes were eliminated, you didn't care if people mass buy items <R50 because they aren't worth anything anyway. :P And for items >R50 you had to go back and re-enter the captcha code anyway, so you weren't just refreshing the page.

I totally agree!

Item Drive isn't really for removing items already on the site. If it were then people could win expensive prizes for only turning in ten or so of an item. You have to restock all day to win that, which keeps users on the site. Isn't that a desired goal?

Do you not understand competitiveness? You seem to be surprised when something, like the snowballs, turns into something major. The things you have implemented over the years, from battling to buying have turned this into a totally competitive site. Most people are competitive by nature and when you tell them the top X% will win, things WILL get crazy. I remember when I first started on here years ago, that it was a very laid back site, then came achievements and things started to get crazy from there, with more and more things added. I'm not complaining about the competitive nature of the site, but please don't eliminate the "tools" we need to be competitive. (I've used that word way to much. LOL)

Edit: I totally missed the point I was trying to make. Restocking (or buying from shops) is not mindless, but vending is. I am one of the top restockers and do so for a variety of reasons, like re-selling, quest items like books, fragging, and just generally for the things I want for wardrobe, TCs, and gallery, plus things needed for achievements. To eliminate shops as they are now, would basically be a death knell for me on Subeta.

Not sure what the point of the new system is. I buy stuff for Matty Drinking Game, and HATE how I have to do it now.

I do realize the change keeps the playing field level, but it makes it a LOT less fun, and much more tedious. We have enough "tedious" in things like scratching 5000 scratchcards, and feeding a ton of minions, or scoring 25,000 pts on Street Team. :P

, if the point is to force people to go back to the store front, why have a short cut to the buy in the shop search? I remember it specifically being changed from sending you to the shop itself to sending you straight to the buy page to make it easier. You're kind of negating that.

I would much rather we go back to having captchas for every single item again if it'll 'deter people from buying in main shops' or whatever the purpose of this thing was.

Also about the 'features implemented to get rid of items, such as fragging and recycling', you do realise that the mere fact these features exist encourage people to buy these items just to sell them again, right? These features cause certain items to be bought, cause they have purpose. Really, if you don't want people buying these items, get rid of those features. (Though I don't know why you'd want to.)

And a further point...when the change to shops, removing the under R50 captcha, didn't you say at that point you wanted people buying from main shops rather than user shops? To actually remove sP from the site rather than just recirculate it. So which is it? Making it near impossible to buy from shops means that I'll pay a little more to buy from users instead.

Yeah I totally loved that for Recycle Beast especially, not so much anything else, which kinda sucks but I only deal with him when there's a new book anyways so I can't say I'm tragically effected by the change (especially since it used to function like this anyways).

But there's things that's entire focus is just that, namely the Recycle Beast and the Crystal Shop which basically require you to just sit there and buy things to turn around and give to them. I'm not really sure how those two can be changed to function otherwise, especially when their purpose was to cull items onsite (which isn't so much of a problem now, due to vending limits and the quest changes but I digress).

Admittedly, I wouldn't mind seeing the way the RB functions changed entirely (which would require achievement retirements and spend 'em if you got 'em/re-calculation of currency). Something to the effect of a recycle quest where he only asks for x amount of non-restocking items and in exchange he gives you recycle points in a shop that functions like the rest of the quest shops. That'd gut a massive need to buy items in mass/hoard, but unless something like that was done I don't see how the RB could ever function without buying a thing to turn around and redeem for another thing.

I really have nothing for the fragger, but I don't think anyone just camps out in main shops for that. However, hitting the back button and having it actually reload the page instead of giving you the exact same unchanged/cached data would certainly make buying from user shops a lot easier.

Here are my two issues with this change after restocking today:

1. The change doesn't actually stop people from restocking multiple items quickly, which it sounds like was part of the goal with this change. Instead of either refreshing on the purchase screen for non-captcha code items or clicking back one screen to enter a new captcha code to purchase rarer items that have them, I just click back two screens and go back in. It takes me pretty much five seconds to do the whole things, so this does nothing more than the previous five second rule accomplished.

2. It actually messes up purchasing items from the shop as I end up with an error code saying "Item has already been purchased" in the event someone has purchased one of the items. This sounds like what it should do, except that it happens even when there are still multiple copies of the same item left in the shop to be bought. For example, there are five How to Write I books available in the Book Nook. Someone buys one copy before I click on the book to buy my copy, and I get the error message that the item has already been purchased even when there are still four copies left to buy. That doesn't really stop me from restocking the item as I just refresh the page to get to the purchase screen, but it does make it a general hassle to restock.

As such, I don't think these are beneficial changes and find them to instead be unnecessary as they don't appear to accomplish the objective set and instead just make things more of a pain for buyers in general. That being said, the change also isn't that big a deal to me since it won't change my ability to restock one bit. Just makes it a little more frustrating and kills some of the fun.

so is this why i'm getting the "this item has already been purchased" when trying to buy a single item of a multiple stock?

eg: two negating pylonics stock, and i try to buy one of the two. someone buys one before i can, i get the error message. i go back and refresh, and there is still one left, which i buy without issue. what does this solve? i'm still getting my one pylonic, but now with added grief.

I'd rather just have a captcha for all items than all this hassle. My laptop and connection aren't all that, so it takes seemingly ages to get back, refresh, and start again. I walked away from it earlier today because the vexation was getting to me, and I had the vague hope it might just be a temporary bug or so. Please reconsider the situation? Thank you.

Siiiigghhhh. Not a fan of this at all.

Oooooooooohhhhh f**********ck

In a real store, if there's five of the same item on a shelf, and there's five people wanting that item, we each grab one. THEN it is out of stock. It isn't five people fighting for the one in the very front of the pile.

If there's more than one item in stock, more than one person should be able to try and get it at the same time. This is ridiculous and excessively inconvenient. I'd rather have a captcha on every single store item than deal with this.

I don't care about refresh-to-buy. I care about 'this item has been purchased' when there's plenty already there.

I posted in problems and bugs about this because I wasn't aware it was an intended feature. Competing with people for the same instance of an item when there are many in stock is pretty stupid. I hope that this will be reconsidered. It's an unnecessary annoyance, in my opinion.

I'm afraid you are wrong on this. It gives total advantage to the first person to an item. If 2 people are after the same item whoever gets in the first buy will get all of them, because they will get back to the 2nd one first and you will get the same "item sold" message each time you try to buy. I know! This has happened to me 5 times in the last 20 minutes when there 3 - 4 of an item in the shop. That NEVER happened before. This is making attempting to restock a total waste of time.

That's true, but that's only because it isn't really emphasized. Add a few Achievements for it and see what happens.. And the players who participate submit over 100 items each for the top three places some nights.