I normally do not post a lot in the forums, but there is something that has me worried and that is the restocking feature of this site. I did see the other restocking topic in this forum, but feel that this is another topic, since the other thread was about the recent rectocking algorith change.

While browsing the subeta tumblr/twitter I found these quotes:

On the new features in 2016:

And on Twitter:

I now fear that restocking might be one of those features that might be removed or changed greatly. There is already a large discussion going on since the restocking was changed recently in this thread: UNFIX Restocking!!!

Restocking has always been my main source of income and enjoyment that I get out of this site. Removing this would be a serious gamebreaker for me.

I am all for new exciting features, but I do not really get the hate that restocking gets lately. Restocking has been a core feature of this site, which even starred in events in the past (restock war anyone?)

Maybe I am interpreting the information the wrong way, but would like some opinions regarding this.

Considering how much restockable items were added in the last few months, removing restocking is gonna be counterproductive.

If anything, I expect vending to vanish from the site before restocking.

Vending is the more toxic feature. If they remove or completely change restocking it changes the entire nature of the economy and thus the experience of the site. With vending gone people just lose their insta-item button pushy machine and the economy recovers. So I'm not that worried about restocking being affected.

In addition, as you said, a lot of people use restocking as their main thing they do on the site for various reasons. If restocking is removed or changed to a degree where it becomes completely different, I will be gone. A lot of other people will be gone as well. Just another reason why administration would be fucking stupid to touch it again.

To your point about the 'hate' restocking gets: People do not like things that give other players advantages. Putting more time into restocking yields more items, thus more sP and as a result gives the player an advantage. This is a main tenant of western culture: Effort + Time = Reward. The simple fact is people are just jealous and do not want to put in the time that others do. Thats why the changes to questing were met with such heavy opposition. People lost some of their free effortless income.

I'm actually very eager for admin input into this thread, as this has been on my mind as well as other peoples minds since the tweet. Nice call on making the thread btw. .

The Floating Market in Shengui Guo is an example of this. Other examples are Medicontra in Sacred Lands and GoOutside in Veta.

The NPC shops stocking restockable items get more and more congested as new items are added. I think it's a good idea to have the 'always in stock' shops because of this. They also act as sP sinks.

Those items are also basically worthless though. Do you want all new items to be worth nothing more than their stock price? This defeats the purpose of user shops, restocking as a whole (major part of the site) and makes the site a more boring place in my opinion :(

You have a point in regards to equating the possible changes with this kind of thing they've been playing around with though. This kinda worries me now given the obvious bias towards getting rid of restocking that the administration has (the last time they touched it, it went to shit ): ).

I agree that the new shops are a welcome addition. The old shops can be just as good an sp sink as the new shops though. About the shops being congested, it could be a good idea to retire the old stock more often, or rotate the stock based on season even (but I can imagine that this could be too complicated to implement)

I also remember the shops clearing more often in the past (once every hour if I recall correctly), it is now once every day? While the shops clearing too often would not aid the sp sink idea, clearing more often (once 3/4 hours) would keep the shops more organized and would also promote the sales in user shops a bit more and keep item value better in my opinion.

Anyway, good to see that my initial fear does not appear to be the reality, but would also love to see some official input on this.

, thats another thing thats been bothering me. I remember ages ago that the stores used to clear every hour or so. This kept a lot of the garbage from sitting in there. I get that the garbage is there to act as a mini sP sink AND make it harder to pick out rarer items but it just makes it a very ugly congested thing. It also basically ensures that no one is going to buy items, that are always in-stock, from a user store. This devalues common items even more than they were before as prices will inevitably fall bit by bit when no one buys anything (autoprice + greed). I think a better balance on the clearing is required.

I agree that the old stores are effectively equal with the new stores in terms of sP sinking. I don't really think thats the point. I'm just confused as to the general vibe the administration has with restocking. If you want to theme and lore up the old stores, go ahead. Give them mechanics if needed, but don't turn them into the new stores. Items need value for an economy to exist.

While I like these shops... I just buy what I need. I don't buy what I don't need. Then I never touch them again. When I restock (which due to life, hasn't been frequently as of late), I can spend hours trying to get items. It makes me spend more time on Subeta, even if I spend less sP. True, the above shops are better sP sinks (which is great)... but they are bad time sinks. You WANT people to be invested in a site. You want them to spend lots of time on here. Shops like that... don't really encourage me to spend more time? They just make me go "oh, be back tomorrow" or "be back in one hour, if I care enough to remember." Medicontra and Go Outside don't even need me to come back at all. Buy what I want when it releases, then come back months later when there is more.

I get that restocking isn't perfect. Indeed, there are a lot of items with zero value. But there is a much easier solution to that problem than just getting rid of the shops. RETIREMENT. Subeta has done it in the past. No idea why they don't consider retiring some items again. I know the new algorithms were supposed to help that issue, but did we ever get them to work right?

Anyway, I doubt restocking is going away completely, since they have been adding new restockables to shops lately... I just think we may not see any NEW restockable SHOPS ever again.

As Sopheroo pointed out, there have been a lot of new restockable items added to the site over the past few months. Having alternative ways of putting new items out means that we can get a lot of new items on the site without the restockable NPC shops exploding.

Exactly. These stores give zero value to newer items. I get that some items are inherently worthless but everything has a value. Infinite stock = zero value. I think you just touched on another thing thats very important as well, the time spent on Subeta (pageviews, chatbox interaction, etc). I spend a lot of time restocking, crawling the shop pages every minute or so when I have the time. If this didn't happen I would literally spend 95% less time on this site, never interact and never buy CSC. It lowers engagement heavily for a lot of the lurkers.

Retirement works, and it has been used in the past. Alternative stock sets (daily) might be interesting too?

True, and I'm not saying they're bad. I just don't want that kind of thing to happen to the stores that actually matter for income generation. I just had a scary realisation that might happen, but I don't think thats the case. At least I hope not :x

I'm curious about that tweet as well. Enough with the foreshadowing and just tell us the news :)

Unless it's Pets or the forums I'm basically cool with getting rid of everything but now I'm curious of course so just tell us what's going on, Subeta.

As for the topic itself, I used to LOVE restocking and even though I've stopped it entirely due to time issues I would prefer it to stay. As others already said if a feature has to go for being toxic for the economy then it's the vending machines.

I'm with you on this one, why tweet it if you're not going to say what features are affected?

I thought one of them (can't remember which) said they don't clear out the shops like they use to because new people (especially) would file tickets. They would think it was a glitch or something, when they would go to buy and it was gone and the whole shop was empty.

Although honestly that is just a silly reason, they will learn. Or there needs to be a statement somewhere. shop clears out and restocks randomly! Get it while you can! XD Obviously something better. So junk isn't sitting there so long.

I seriously don't think restocking is going anywhere. The whole site economy, how quests work, etc, would have to be completely upended and built up again from scratch if it were removed. It's great that we can have a bit more diversity in how items go out, but I don't think a handful of new shops are much of a threat to traditional style shops.

I'm much more concerned about what that tweet alludes to. SUPER CURIOUS! You can't drop something like that and then leave us all hanging!

Keith mentioned a few weeks ago in the SB that he did want to get rid of restocking eventually because it was "something they copied over from Neopets" and he didn't like it. But personally I think if they take away restocking then they are going to lose A LOT of the people who play this site.

I mean if thats the case then he'd have to get rid of a lot of stuff. Neo was basically the template for most pet sites. Confirms the distaste for restocking though :(

That really confirms my initial fear that I had.

I also have the feeling that the site is moving away from restocking more and more. The new shops are nice, but I completely agree with the others ( ) in that they do not really motivate me to buy anything from there. I like the surprise in what items I am going to find, but with the new shops all items are there ready to be taken whenever I want.

What I don't get is that because something is similar from neopets, that it should be removed. A lot of people here are originally from neopets and are here because subeta reminds them of the better neopets days, me included. A loved feature should be cherished, not discarded.

There are no garbage items in stock anymore. If noone buys them, they temporarily retire. Any assertion that there's garbage items in shops is wrong. Maybe YOU don't want them, but someone does. There is nothing wrong with the amount of items in shops. Target and Walmart exist quite nicely in RL, and Amazon too. If it's too much for you? Pick a smaller shop.

Staff has said we're overdue for some mass retirements. This is IMO a mistake, but quite likely to happen alas.

These new items that are always in stock, it's true that they are worthless from an economist's rigidly capitalistic point of view of "I must restock EVERYTHING and must must must charge somebody (anybody) for it all the time always". But as far as getting the value of the fun of having or using them, they are not in any way worthless. While new shops like this have been introduced to the economy, other shops and other items that are not like this have also been introduced. Like it says in bright blinking lights on the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: DON"T PANIC!

I restock a lot and these always-in-stock shops do not affect my income in any way.

I do not think that the animus restocking gets is a jealousy thing. There is a strong sense of socialism and social value in all human thinking, and it appears particularly strongly in the young/female audience that Subeta attracts. I personally have been to a live meetup and and seen and talked to my fellow users who don't much like restocking. They are not jealous.

Vending is a social equalizer that prevents the site from being taken over by those who like to spend forever grinding out profit. While it is surely fun for restockers (or whomever else is playing and whatever means they are using to make income) to accumulate scrip and act as if it is true wealth, that is not the only source of fun in the game. It shuts out the casual player, and Subeta needs these. I was, am, and always will be opposed to the limitation of Vending. I say this owning one of the biggest shops on Subeta and being a restocker myself. Competition will not kill me or my fun, and I made a nice profit way back when Vending was unlimited. One's market-stance has to change, but survival is still possible.

Questing is a (limited) form of Vending, in that you pay in your stake, and just don't know what you're gonna get. Staff staying on top of this is a Good Thing (tm) as far as I am concerned. Quests here on Subeta are a moderating factor and can compensate for both Vending excess and restocking greed.

As far as making the regular shops more of an sP-sink? This was tried four years ago. The wholesale price of an item that was in demand went up. This alogrithm made Vending pretty necessary, because it sucked even the minimum necessary amount of trade-lubricating-sP out of the system. In order to get working capital users could have lowered their prices, this is a sensible thing to do in a deflationary economy. But they did not. Instead they screamed that Subeta Team should prop up the value of rare items (independent of whether anyone wanted them or could afford them). Therefore this method seems like it will not work.

Now maybe Subeta could cause a massive contraction by trying it again now that Vending is so strongly limited, and maybe users will quietly and orderly adapt to this and lower their prices this time around. It's not like they need a certain amount of sP for fixed real life expenses like food/tax/utilities/rent, so it is not such a catastrophe as such contractions are in the RL. This doesn't seem to likely to me, I think users will just walk away or demand more price-supports.

I'm not a frquent restocker but I have to say I'd miss it greatly if it was removed from the site. Managing to catch that item I've been looking for in a NPC shop is a bajillion times more satisfying than simply going to, say, Medicontra and buying something that's always in stock. What's more, I find I haven't bought almost anything from the new shops. Why would I? I can always get it later, or even later, if I really need it. From restocking shops (well, Subeautique mainly) I buy stuff just in case. So maybe I'm a unique snowflake here, but restocking shops are a much bigger sink for my SP.