So from what I understand, the prices will be something like MC prices?

I think people expect billions because at least 3 of the items from the prize shops have sold for billions. I also in a way think that subeta's nothing is retired forever system is kind of hurtful to the economy, people need to be able to know that they can invest in items and that they will not only hold there value but also have a chance of increasing, even quite a bit hopefully for some, or that the collection item they buy isn't going to be available for 1/4th the price next year because enough people complained they were too expensive. That being said there is obviously just not many of a few of the pirate islander items that are ever traded around and it was basically impossible for someone to find a certain item they wanted at any price, which lasted until just recently. There definitely needs to be some sort of balance, most easily would be making them only available in limited quantities at a very high (probably seemingly obscenely high to you) and not making a regular habit of re-releasing items unless there is literally the problem that one can't be bought for any sum, so that people can buy with confidence (both the buyers and hopefully the collectors who buy from them).

From what I've read in some of your posts and listened to in your Keith answers (which is one of the coolest things about this site BTW) you don't seem to like that some items might obtain ridiculously high price tags, but having items like such means that large sums of money would be flowing through the site, and usually when that happens, whoever obtains it spends it and the people who get that, spend it and eventually some flows out and the rest flows around. More items sell, more people are happy, the economy is better. Big ticket items do this the best, but if there's a risk of re-release, no one wants to shell out for the price of an item who's value will inevitably drop. Also things like collections should be rather ridiculously hard to complete and cost obscene amounts. If it's harder to obtain the most expensive items for a collection, and it's basically not possible to complete, there's arguably more competition to buy the most rare items, and the value increases such that one person generally can't buy all the different items, and the competition stays instead of there being a winner and a runner up. And again, having big ticket items being bought and sold is arguably pretty darn good for the economy.

And lastly, an example. I personally wanted to buy an amulet of neutrality since I joined the site basically, I don't know why but I love that item. In 2012 I finally amassed what I thought ought to be enough to get one, 500m sP. There was only one I could find available to pretend to be for sale, and 500m wasn't enough. Then some time later, staff puts AoN's in the crystal shop, albeit it at a seemingly expensive price and small quantity, but which turned out to basically divide the value of the item in half, and though the fact that some where traded around was great, it was simply too many. And come just recently there was one offered to me at ~300m I believe, which logically I would have been elated to grab, since I couldn't get one for 500m before, but because I have absolutely 0 confidence that the item won't be released again en masse, I'm not willing to invest in an item even if it's something that would have sentimental value to me. This is just one example, but re-releasing the old plot items without very careful consideration as to the price and quantity of items released would certainly be another.

well the words 'insane' and 'manageable' kinda cancel each other out, so I was thinking large numbers rather than not.

I'd disagree with your statement that "no one wants to shell out for the price of an item who's value will inevitably drop." If you want the item, you want the item. I'm personally not overly fussed if things I paid a lot for are now far cheaper. I wanted them and I went after them and at this point in time, I don't wish to sell them, and I certainly don't go back to check on prices of things I have purchased in the past, and I wouldn't recall what I paid for them anyway. And yes, in a perfect world collections and things you want should take time and effort and should cost a pretty penny, but some players simply do not have the time or ability to amass massive fortunes like some of us. I'm not entirely sure what your example is meant to portray, it just seems like you didn't actually want or like the item enough to buy it even when it was cheaper. Do you only purchase with the intent of selling on further up the road? 500 mil down to 300 mil doesn't actually seem that bad.

I think re-releasing items after a few years isn't a horrendous idea. There are loads of new players who never got the chance to obtain the items for the original plot and what's wrong with re-releasing some stuff? They're hardly about to flood the market and cause certain items to completely lose all value. Personally, I hate things sitting around waiting to be bought. I've had an item I received two of one Luminaire from two friends, I have yet to be able to offload the second one two years on, and it isn't actually THAT expensive in the grand scheme of things.

To conclude, I don't see an issue in re-releasing old items.

There are people who agree and just purchase what they want, and there are certainly people who think otherwise and have specific budgets and give careful measure to the value of any particular item based on any number of things. It's not a bad idea to keep track of things you've bought and sold, when and for how much, if you ever plan on buying or selling similar items, it could help maximize you profits (penny saved is penny earned and all that) and then you're able to buy more or other things...

As far as people not having the time or ability to amass the wealth necessary to complete collections, I absolutely 100% think that it should barely be possible for these people to compete in collecting. It doesn't make sense to have someone who spends hours a day and some real money on the site at the same level as someone who logs in once a week to check the news. Everything should take some effort to obtain and some things really should take rather obscene amounts of effort to obtain whether it be directly or through accumulating the wealth to obtain it. Right now in a lot of ways subeta has that method wrong, not purposely, but simply because there isn't really much content that rewards your time above a certain point. The snowball war was definitely a step in the right direction as it required you to devote time above and beyond for the highest rewards, and the amount of effort scaled quickly and directly with the amount of effort of others, competition is great :). Compare that to your average plot where you can log in the day before it ends, finish up all the steps in ~an hour and you get the exact same rewards as the people who did each step right away. There's not really much incentive unless you're already logged in to do the steps that day vs waiting to right before the end. While there certainly is obvious increase in user activity for plots, if it was more incentivized, it would be much higher, surely.

And there are a lot of people who are quite obvious about not wanting to buy an item because it will most likely drop in price significantly, like the 40% drop from 500m to 300m. In most online games there are many people like you who just want the item and will pay what it's being sold for, and then there are many people who want to buy items that suite their needs but also retain their value in case they decide they no longer want that item. A different example might be that say in summer I come up with this great idea for a winter themed HA. I look up the prices of the items and see that one item was released a long time ago and can't be obtained right now except through buying from another player, and oh no, there's only one for sale and it's 25m, every other copy of the item is tucked up safely in a wardrobe, gallery, tc etc. I'm not big into HA's so 25m for a wearable is a lot for me, but the fact that there's only one for sale means that if I'm patient, after I'm done with my HA I can probably recoup the cost, perhaps even make some profit or even at worst lose a small amount maybe 10-20%. That's fine I guess, I'm not big into HA's but this one time I'll make an exception, so I buy the item before the very last one for sale for the time being gets bought by someone else. Now come winter time I make my HA it looks great. But now other people want that item too, so it's released in something like the crystal shop. Maybe 100 copies at 5k crystals each. Well shit now there's tons of them on the market and at a far lower price simply because more were "printed off". Now I can't even sell the item for a fraction of it's previous value. This is something that happens regularly with all sorts of items. The fact is that in order to have a successful economy with money flowing around as it ought to be, someone has to be making a profit some where. If people can't say with any sort of confidence that any given item might retain it's value then not many people are going to buy the item unless they want it permanently and immediately. That is actually sort of a problem.

But I'm not saying that items shouldn't ever be re-released, I'm saying that in order to have a stable economy that the players can have confidence in, things that are going to be re-released need to have careful consideration into the quantity, cost and method of re-release. Not just one or the other, but all three.

tl;dr it's more important to give the site what it needs for sustainability, than to give the player what they want immediately. a balance needs to be struck, carefully.

I am a bargain shopper, nonetheless. I don't like buying at full price and let things sit on my wishlist for a long time in hopes they decrease in value. I can say for myself that money is not an issue. I could easily buy everything on my wishlist if I decided to do so, but I don't because I do like seeing my sP just accumulate. I make my money from questing, I do not restock or much else, so I pay little attention to what I have paid and it is really a rare occasion that something I really wanted is ever sold from my collection.

I'm not referring to THOSE people, I mean the ones who do try to at least get on daily and participate, but time constraints do not allow them to spend as much time as they would like online. I am lucky that apart from work and house repairs, I can generally manage to spend at least three hours a day here and can get a lot done. I would agree that those that piss about and just finish a plot the day before after all the information is in are not deserving of the rewards, but what are you going to do? I appreciate things that cause people to get involved, but repetitive snowball throwing was tedious and by no means fun, but I did it... not sure why I did, but I did.

I do not socialize within Subeta much so I am unaware of the mass of people who are obvious about their buying and selling preferences. As this is strictly a game, I honestly do not put that much strategy into my every day goings on here as many people seem to do. I've been making money and whatever else the same for the past seven years and it has always served me well. I don't think those considerations are ever dismissed and I think Keith has a much better idea of the state of the economy and site as a whole than any of us do. He clearly has no desire to flood the market or make things that easy.

I wouldn't call it giving immediately, been many a year.

This sounds like a great idea, but kinda concerned about the price range, i would love a few wearable. i need to stay out of my vault unless im depositing sP

I agree with Mike in that a balance needs to be struck but I think it needs to be calculated according to what's good for the future of the site. New players who spend real money will be very good for the site.

The way I see it, the idea that some things should be exclusive to players who have been here a long time, isn't good for the site. Learning that some things will be forever unobtainable no matter how hard they work isn't going to encourage new players to stick around.

If Subeta shuts down due to lack of money, all the exclusive things that make some people feel special will go with it.

The more expensive an item gets due to rarity, the less often it will be bought. Could you really say the economy is stable if certain items become so expensive that nobody is buying them? I'd rather have my expensive items lose some value if it goes along with the chance of it selling going up. And if I buy an item for a lot of money and it ends up becoming cheaper a while later, well, that's tough luck on my part.

For an economy to actually stay stable, you do need a flow of new items, especially as more people join, and even more especially as items are used up. The amount of items and the price of items both being in flux is what ought to be expected. Investing in anything is a risk. Certain types of items will be more reliable than others, but not 100% guaranteed. That is simply the reality of this type of economic system.

I think it is a shame we don't have another plot that will use these plot shops

Not that I'm into the whole battle scene I find it rather boring but wouldn't it be smart to allow the release of the god weapons from the islander shop? Wasn't that one of the big complaints from all the battlers, that they couldn't win against certain opponents because they didn't have some super expensive impossible to find weapon? I realize this would lower the value of said items...but wouldn't this be better for the majority of people instead of helping a small few make more sP? Maybe it would even encourage a few people to try their hand at battling?

I just love that you don't care about weapons, but your UN is the name of the most expensive weapon in the MC. Too funny! Natasha Cost: 750,000,000 sP

As for re-releasing godlies, some users already have been 'protected' at the expense of others for years now. Using retired ingredients for scrolls? Not releasing the most potent weapons while making more and more foes that make them essential? It's favoritism and it's wrong.

You and I agree on something -- the godlies should have been nerfed. We disagree on:

Someone who started more recently has had more tools than someone who started battling in 2007, yes. I don't even see how this is absurd.

You have BATTLE QUESTS, you have autotraining, you have alerts, you have restockable boosters, you have the possibility of getting two Shinwas Boosters, you have a quest that gives you amulets.

None of this existed years ago. There were DP boosters, but after one month, they were gone. Also, DP were random.

Also, you had no tiers, battling was 95% weapons, 5% pt stats, so if you didn't have the top weapons, you were SOL

So yes, younger battlers have to pay more for weapons. But they have to pay a lot less for training.

I'm really glad to hear these will be released again. I'm also worried about the prices, but I've been on such a huge kick lately with my collections that I'd probably pay the prices regardless of how insane they were.

I think the same's still true for the new crop of battlers, though. All your points about BQs and training and boosters is pretty much spot on, but all those benefits are still weighed down by the fact that if you don't have the right/best weapons, you're still screwed.

What I meant is that you could destroy everything before with a 500 stats pet, as long as you had godlies.

shhh it's early I am not yet grasping the finer points of your post byt srsly tho my t12 can barely scrape a win on some impossibles - because I don't have those coveted full-blocking (or close enough to it) weapons. And I thought my stats would be enough (ha). There's a serious discrepancy between supply and demand for the big guns. You can only get so much out of boosters and bqs before you hit the need-godlies-to-win wall.

Agreed. I would love to have another restock war or a combo battle/restock event like we had with the Omen Islands. Man, I miss restock wars :D

I think that would be the perfect way to get some of this stuff back into circulation. And it would give people a chance to 'earn' their prizes/weaps as opposed to feeling like they've just bought them? (lol not that I'd be bothered by that, I'll buy everything just take my money??).

If you took place in the Omen war you'd know how hard it was to earn enough points to get those suckers-- you think the site lags now during events, it was like that on a normal day then so you can imagine how bad it was during that. I didn't get them, I don't have them, I can't afford them and I don't think they need to be re-introduced because it'll just open up a can of worms for the rest of the gods that took even more effort to get.

I'm not talking battle effort, either. I'm talking all day every day restocking/battling effort (one easy win = 1 point/restocking one 45+ item = 1 point) And it took 50k points to get a godly, so that's what I'm talking about in terms of effort. But since you brought it up, no it's ridiculously easier to train/boost these days than it was at the time that took place. There wasn't autotraining, there wasn't battle quests, AND -AND- we didn't even have ALERTS for training. You best set your own timer if you want to remember.

Those, and any plot related old school god, took a ridiculously large amount of time and dedication to earn and IF for whatever reason the gods come back they need to be priced as they would be priced if sold on the open market (2.5-3b, best I recall?). You can get a water blocking or fire blocking god fro FAR less than that already, my problem with bringing these back is the can of worms it's going to open.