The economy has been screwed up for as long as I can remember. (I've been here over 10 years now.) If they prop it up in one place it starts collapsing in another.

So, people are no longer restocking because this new NPC shop system isn't working. I hope it's not going to be taken as a justification for closing more shops to get the site away from restocking.

This long wait time has sucked the profit from restocking :(

Every store has become a Subeautique. LOL

It's one thing if the shops were to restock at their regular rate (5 or so min), but more of a turnover in what is RSed into said shop and what is removed due to lack of interest would make for WAAAAY more of an improvement over longer RS wait times.

All the above... so much to agree w/ on here that I don't want to be redundant.
The Subeautique, however, needs more attention. The wait in between the restocks and then to see half the items already cleared out within 30 seconds is utter bs. I've always been good about getting stuff out of there but after the mass release of invites and then the release of the retired items... I'll just say that I can't wait for the invites to disappear b/c I'm hoarding all mine.

Today was pretty much a complete waste of trying to RS anything and honestly I'm just sick of looking at the shops and seeing nothing. One of the few days I get to do it and it's been for naught. Thanks for that.

kthxbai

edit: You got a forum point while making a post! Check out the shop here!

So.

Magic Box Restocked 48 minutes ago how am i supposed to make any money like this? i'm pretty sure i rsed like 10 items yesterday compared to like the 100 i usually get a day, most being only super rares. exactly what is the point of playing when i have to wait 20-60 minutes for a restock?????????? and then the shop doesn't even restock anything good?????? why make already rare items even harder to get? i seriously don't get this.

Restocked 39 minutes ago

is it too much to hope that this is a bug?

At this point, if this is a change that was purposely implemented, it seems to me that restockers would be absolutely screwed.

But, I'm kind of hopeful it's a glitch/bug. I've been on pretty much all day and I still haven't seen an elixir stock other then the 5 in there now :/

I also find it very strange that the shops also don't appear to be clearing like they usually do. The stuff that isn't selling just....sits there forever.

I'm really, really hoping this is a bug because yeah, there's no point spending time on site restocking if this is the new normal.

I so so hope it's a bug. I've restocked two whole items today. One newish wearable I needed and one item for resale. My shop til is going to be very pathetic when I get online tomorrow. :(

Subeta-- where everything is everywhere and worth nothing, or it basically doesn't exist. Guess where the restocking falls...

No really, though, I really hope this is some unintented byproduct of an unrelated code change, or some weird glitch because I really can't rationalize why the site would do this...

I mean I get SubQ, more or less, the stuff is supposed to be rare and stuff (which isn't the message given out by the sheer abundance of invites that were passed out like stripper flyers at a popular nightclub on a busy night-- however, I digress) but yeah that doesn't work for normal shops so really hoping this isn't intended in any way/shape/form 8|

Oiy, yeah this is crazy... I figure it is either a first run at the theory they're working on and definitely needs (and hopefully will be) tweaked, or its a really good way to make restocking suck and create an excuse to phase it out (see guys, no one is RSing!). But I'm gonna go with the first guess because I hope don't think staff would take the second route. Hopefully they fix the algorithm soon cuz these wait times not only make it unprofitable for serious RSers, they make it impossible for casual ones. Boo.

i can already see people just buying up whatever is in stock/clearing out the main shop and reselling them since the restock times are so delayed.

I also think that the economy isn't super broken at the moment (pre-lowered stocking frequencies). Older users think the hundreds of cheap-ass items are useless, but that's one of the things that draws in new users. When you don't know all the tricks and you've only been playing for a couple weeks and have only 200k to your name then being able to buy a whole ton of gorgeous things for next to nothing is great. It gives them a nice little boost and makes them invested in the site to start with. I think the hundreds of impossible-to-get items are much more of an issue.

So, I'm with the rest of the folks here wondering about the NPC shops.

My thing about it is that I make a ton of my money from RSing. Quests help too, yes, but RSing is a good 75% of my income and I was trucking right along towards that last shop till achievement till this new update rolled out.

I understand that the shops haven't really changed since 08 and that needed an update. Okay, cool. But.

1. Don't make the shop restock times so long that people are bored and leave.
2. You have got to clear out the shops occasionally. I hate it, but it helps get rid of some of those items that are basically worthless to RS. Anything that can be vended needs to basically get gone.
3. Actually do what you set out to do. Eliminate the things that cost more in the shops than they do in user shops, let them move back up in value. However, don't slow the frequency you have already established for the rares/super rares. In doing so, you are creating a situation where they are SO expensive that they are elusive to anyone who isn't previously rich enough to buy them.

If you were to ask me, and I know no one here is, but I think the REAL solution is to look into reducing the number of vending machines/changing what they vend. Wait, hear me out before you criticize:

1. A large part of the reason we have some items that are only good for fragging is because you can vend them over and over and over, till you are sick of seeing them. Then they are 10+ in stock in a NPC shop to boot.
2. There are how many vending machines?? That's already too many if you can't recall the exact number unless you sit and vend extremely frequently.
3. You might make vending more lucrative by making them vend exclusively "vending only" items. I know I only vend when I know I can get something special from the machine (like when Grave Digger had the Valentine's Day goodies).

Consolidating the vending machines to a smaller number and then adding in more special items to those that remain actually might do the economy some good for a change.

For real though, if NOTHING else changes, CHANGE THE DAMN RESTOCK TIMES BACK THE WAY THEY WERE.

I know the way the shops are stocking right now is really annoying, but keep in mind that this is the first real change the restock system has seen in seven-ish years, and Keith seemed to suggest that he's still going to be tinkering with it, so hopefully some changes will be made to improve everything :)

That being said, the lengthy waits in restock times are super frustrating. It seems adjusting up the number of high rarity items is necessary.

Part of the problem though is that it's just boring waiting 45 minutes for a restock. Maybe instead of restocking huge numbers of items, restocks should be smaller - it doesn't seem like shops like Baked Goods really need to be restocking 13 Cheese Pretzels at once o.O - and much more frequent.

Grooming Parlour Restocked 1 hour, 13 minutes ago as of now

Some of the main shops took absolute ages to restock not good at all if this is the way Subeta is going you are going to chase away all the people who make their sp from restocking seeing the same things in shop all the time is totally a waste of everyone's time since they cannot restock to fill their shop to make sp.

Are the shops going to be fazed out altogether if that happens no one will be on here

Ohhhhhhhhhh I so much prefer the old way of restock I understand that it has to be done but some shops are taking too long to restock arghhhhhhhh

it takes an hour to restock :( which means i am not going to do it.

-Wants desperately to be "different from Neopets!!!!11!1!!" -Changes restocking so that shops restock infrequently enough to make restocking a drag...thus rendering it just like Neopets.

Ooookay then.

I really hope this is all just a bug and I'm just overly frustrated and very wrong.

I just wanted to echo this; I technically have an older account, but I literally forgot about it right after joining, and only came back to the site a few weeks ago because of my roommate's renewed interest. We both really enjoyed the ability to get lots of nice things without having a whole lot of funds to start out with, and I know for me personally it got me sucked into the hole that is RS'ing because I got to cut my teeth on the easy stuff and learn with all those "junk" items that only sell for a little bit of profit at a time.

What I'm awkwardly saying is: I got hooked because of the way it was working, and I'm concerned these changes won't be as much fun. Today was an abrupt and unpleasant echo of RS'ing on Neopets back when I was in middle school.

Based on how pleasant the site is otherwise, and what little I've seen of the staff so far (plus Keith's responses), I'm going to assume this hours-long restock + hardly anything actually restocking that's new is not an intended feature.

One can hope.