'Cos yeah. I'm probably the only one who went to that shop several times a day (or like every five minutes to check for rare balloons), so here's the feedback I put on the news post:

I'm... okay with this. I understand the reasoning behind closing the shop. I have the balloon achievement, and my balloon gallery is complete. Just wish I had bought more multiples, and I'm certainly not selling any of my duplicates now like I'd been considering! Some advanced notice would have been nice though, just so I could hoard even more of them ;)

And I'll add that I was shocked when I came home from teaching and saw the news post... and then I wondered why I was so surprised. There haven't been any new balloons added to the site since I joined last summer, except for cash shop items and CWs. Not even for New Year's... so I should have known staff wasn't that interested in balloons anymore. I am glad they are still hanging around the carnival, but since I rarely play the carnival games, I probably won't get many. I do feel bad for those working on the achievement though :(

I'm interested in hearing y'all's opinions on this. Just... no balloon hate or sarcasm please. There was enough of that on the news post :(

P.S. Thanks for pinging me to the earlier thread :)

You're welcome. I thought you of all people would be interested the most.

I never used the Balloon Hut but I can see why it's closed. I don't know what they'll do with Tiffanie now but I hope she has some use at least. I also hope no other shops suffer the same fate. If they do, there should at least be some sort of warning beforehand. :/

I hope Tiffanie is staying.

Yay :) This makes me feel better.

I think most of the balloon hate was more in response to how ridiculous the people were complaining about the shop closing.

I'm fine with the site closing the shops that aren't used/stocked frequently, or even closing them seasonally (stares at the Masks shop, seriously 99% of that stuff is worthless (last time I checked) because of how rarely it gets updated.

I don't think it was something that required advanced notice, specifically because of how worthless the items were.

Me too, she was so sweet. Maybe she can go hang out with the other kid NPCs until staff can put her someplace else.

Honestly I don't understand all the hate from closing the shop. Most of the items that restocked there are still worth less than 10k at SS, and were selling for less than 1k yesterday. I think it was a good move, having an abandoned shop with items that get cheaper and cheaper everyday doesn't sound really good. I wonder if the people complaining like it's the end of the world actually restocked there at least once a week?

Although I'm a bit worried that some carnival prizes will be harder to obtain now with a bigger prize pool. I really hope that's not the case :c

YES. Valen-- Survival balloon ❤ ❤ So glad to hear there's a new one coming out :D

The balloon shop died for our sins.

That's awesome to hear! I thought ALL the balloons were added as prizes, and with 100+ new prizes that was just... nope :'D

Will keep trying to get them then!

I was mainly shocked it closed because someone in the news comments mentioned Keith had hinted or something in the shoutbox about this happening. I don't use the shoutbox and I shouldn't have to in order to get information about shops maybe closing. I can understand why it was closed, although I do still think everyone, including those of us that don't use the shoutbox, should've known about this when it was hinted about and not just because some users noticed "it's not on the map" from however long ago. There's a lot of things not on the map, but not all of them are just up and gone from the site. Sorry if I sounded snarky or something in the comments.

Anyway, enough of that. I'm glad for 's sake there's going to be more balloons in the future. Also hoping staff finds somewhere else for Tiffanie to fit in.

That was one of my fave shops for rsing super rares sobs and cheap frag fodder :s

I would be A LOT more okay if the balloons were STILL FRAGGABLE. I LOVED fragging them because I am fucking terrified of balloons so this was really really a good way for me to get rid of so many, because I could destroy the thing I feared. With them being no longer fraggable I am SO UNCOMFORTABLE now because there is nothing I can do they will just pile up and pile up and fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

yup i buy these ballons usually to frag. lol so what am i gonna do with all this crap i have now? the same thing happened with the snowballs. :'(

I can understand closing the Balloon Hut because it must have been very difficult thinking up new things to go in it - there's only so much that can be done with balloons.

I think some of the upset is due to the fact that the Graveyard Shop was closed without warning a couple of years ago even though there was plenty of scope for adding new items every so often. Then there's the Atebus shop which hasn't had anything new added to it for years. It's current stock also bears no resemblance to Atebus culture as it's been developed over the course of Masquerade plots. People are now wondering if this is going to be closed some time in the future.

If you're serious about getting rid of your balloons, I'm willing to buy them in bulk at a discount from shop prices.

Yeah, I was a bit annoyed about the shoutbox thing too... I never even look at the shoutbox. I also had no idea the main shops page had been updated until somebody mentioned it in the comments, and I'm even a member of the siteupdates forum group. I wish Subeta would actually post about all the updates :P

I'm actually pretty happy about the shop closing, but yeah, I will miss being able to frag the balloons (cheap rares yay). At least I won't vend so many of the damn things at Blue Sky, lol.