happy luminaire, everyone! 🎁

we’re about to relaunch the mysterious melody feature, where users can team up and send gifts throughout the day. we tested it last week with gold account users (just one of the perks of going gold!) and i’m wrapping up the final copy rn. but i want to break down one specific feature (and a bug i caused—and fixed) in more detail.

NPC Agents

a big issue with the subeta economy is how npcs typically just conjure items out of thin air. it’s convenient for new features with fresh item pools, but it floods the market, removing incentives to keep your shop stocked.

with mysterious melody, i wanted to bring in an npc to join your group without making it feel shady or fake. so: melody joins each group and buys items from user shops throughout the day, prioritizing wishlist items from group members.

this is the first time we’ve had an npc act like a real user—melody uses the same system players do to make purchases. we added safeguards to keep her in check: 1. rarity limits: melody won’t buy retired or custom wearables, but she’s not locked to r1-99 like most site features. she’ll grab event items or game prizes if they’re listed cheap enough. 2. sp limits: like everyone else, melody has a budget. if she runs out of sp, we get an alert in staff chat to investigate. if her account hasn’t been exploited, we can top her up as needed.

yes, her programming is very basic right now!

Item Prices

to support melody’s buying behavior, we needed a better way to track item prices over time. right now, items have a static userPrice property that only updates monthly via cron. that’s not ideal for real-time pricing decisions or historical tracking.

melody now evaluates whether an item in a shop is a “deal” and can snag it quickly. this upgrade will eventually be available to everyone—just need to optimize the queries first.

coming soon: price tracking for all!

🐛 Bugs Introduced

testing new systems is always… fun. on friday, melody bought 645 items for ~15 million sp. most of the time she paid the right price, but sometimes she didn’t—she overpaid, putting 2-3x the item price into your till (and sales history). 😅

97% of the overpayments came from her using historical data to buy at the high end of an item’s price range. on the flip side, there were three cases where melody bought a cw for its csc price in sp. all three transactions have been reversed, and the users were notified (and directed to this thread).

as for the overpayments? we’re not reversing those. enjoy the extra sp. 😉

What Next?

i’m hyped to see how mysterious melody shakes things up, especially with melody acting as a 🤖 all month. here’s what i’m hoping for:

1. more activity in user shops—not just melody snagging items for gifts, but players pricing items to attract that sweet melody money.
2. a wider variety of sourced items. since melody isn’t limited to r1-99, she can pull in event prizes, special items, etc., making the end-of-day gifts more exciting.

let’s see how it goes! stay tuned for the relaunch of mysterious melody.

This is not a mysterious melody feedback thread - we'll be launching it live later today. You can use the GA testing thread for any questions or feedback until then.

From the GA testing thread:

So I suspect you were paired with people who were following those details from the first post.

🤦‍♂️ I forgot the whole section about what I'm excited about these agents being able to do in the future!

with Melody buying from user shops, she is prioritizing items from wishlists. the next phase of that might look like prioritizing books that a pet hasn't read yet, or food that a pet hasn't had before. lots of really exciting opportunities to use what we know about the user to make sure that items are more personalized than just a wild spray of r1-99 items.

this kind of 👁️ mind reading 👁️ can be used in non-agent ways as well - we can have quests ask for things using those same parameters. i'm excited to see where we're able to take it!

i hear you! i directed you to the other thread because that’s where i’m actively collecting feedback and answering questions about that specific feature. it helps me keep everything organized and ensures that nothing gets missed. i might not be actively posting, but it's where i've specifically asked for this kind of question so that i can include it in my work.

your question absolutely counts as valuable input, and i want to make sure it’s part of that conversation. this topic is about NPC agents. if there’s something i’m misunderstanding about what you’re looking for, let me know.

no worries at all, this is a precursor post! there is a Gold Account Testing Thread that outlines the functionality of the new MM (spoiler: you get put into a group of multiple users, and melody, to try and balance it out).

we noticed that she made some mistakes purchasing items during that test and i wanted to get a thread explaining why you might see melody in your shop logs out asap.