I can't say there weren't a few bumps along the way, but I'd like to start off by saying I think the release of the new user shops has been one of our most successful in a while. There weren't very many, but we've been able to fix most of the bugs that weren't caught during the initial testing period (including at least a couple that seem to have miraculously fixed themselves with no intervention from us at all!), and have tweaked interfaces here and there based on your feedback, which we will continue to do.
As was said when we first announced this project, one of the major reasons we were revamping the user shops now (when, to be honest, it's been on our to-do list for a few years) was due to the 502 and 504 errors that have been plaguing the site since our move from Rackspace to AWS. While the new shops didn't completely solve the problem, we did see the volume of 5xx errors reduced by more than 75%, which we were cautiously optimistic about. They were clearly still a problem, but we started to have an end in sight (keep an eye out for a post from about how we've seen almost no 5xx errors at all in the past few days since the removal of pusher.js - which was a big surprise!).
The new user shops have relieved so much strain on the servers and the database. Even buying from the legacy shops still being available via shop search has had a much smaller impact than we initially anticipated, so I'm happy to announce to you all that the legacy shops will remain in shop search results indefinitely!
Last but not least, gallery item limits have been raised once again, to allow 7,500 unique items per gallery for everyone, and 10,000 unique items for Gold Account users. These, along the current shop limits of 2,000 and 2,500, are likely to be the final item limits. That said, we will continue to monitor the new system and make adjustments as we see fit.
Thank you all so much for sticking with us through these tough times. You guys are why we do what we do!
May 16, 2016, 2:01 pm by
grace
Quote by keith
We&;re confident that we can leave the legacy shop up as items get purchased without causing problems for the site.
and in addition to that, the more items that continue to get purchased from legacy shops, the less of an effect they have :)
May 15, 2016, 10:42 pm by
Stiles
I doubt it, seeing as its an incentive for some to want a GA.
May 15, 2016, 9:34 pm by
ViretyEnten
I love you so much! Keep going and doing your thing you wonderful people you! I'm a lifer!
May 15, 2016, 8:49 pm by
just2b
will the non-GAs be able to get the option to move items into collections soon? That was an awesome feature I loved during the one week GA
May 15, 2016, 6:48 pm by
lull
Glad the errors are down but very sad to here the shops will not be getting any larger. With that in mind might we be allowed more of them?
May 15, 2016, 6:43 pm by
Speiro
Quote by Keith
The real problem with the legacy shops was all of the actions happening (buying, repricing, putting in, taking out, etc) so frequently. We&;ve built the new system to ensure that those actions all take place on separate places.
Then why does the new shop limit have to be so low?
May 15, 2016, 4:48 pm by
DaBluMeanie
I haven't been active on the site in a long time....I like the changes....I'm in the process of closing down my legacy shops and galleries and moving things to new shops and galleries.
It's time consuming...and that's OK...because it is helping me to refamiliarize myself with items and restocking.
I know that I had some achievements that were shop...gallery and item related....how will that pan out for getting to the next levels since the old shops have been deleted?
BTW GREAT JOB! Thanks :)
May 15, 2016, 3:25 pm by
rhino_loupe
I just picked a random item from my wishlist and searched for it. Storm Potion. 11 are available in shops. Of those 11, 9 are in legacy shops. If the legacy shops were removed, there would only be 2 Storm Potions available to buy on the whole site. It only takes 2 people to decide that they want a storm pet, and the whole stock of Storm Potions is depleted.
Alternatively, if we didn't have legacy shops now, anyone could drop 30mil, buy both of those potions, and hike up the price to whatever they liked because they'd be the only person on the whole site selling the item. Right now, someone would have to pay 219mil to get a monopoly on that item. The larger quantity of items and the higher prices in legacy shops protect us from scalpers.
There's one potion at 50 mil. If I wanted to make some money from reselling, I could buy 11 potions and set the price to 100mil each, and hope that someone is desperate enough to pay it. I'd only need to sell 2 to get into profit. Or I could buy 10 potions and be forced to set the price below 50mil. So it doesn't matter if that one expensive potion sits there forever and never gets bought, because it's protecting the price of the item and keeping it below 50 mil, which is better for the average user. It requires a scalper to make a bigger investment (and thus a greater risk) if they wanted to gain monopoly on the item.
It's probably not the best example since it can be restocked in the TS any time, but it's a demonstration that demand has outstripped supply recently, there aren't enough of the item in the new shops to sustain the current price, and this would be so much worse if legacy shops were removed. So the point is that in order to protect prices, we'd need pretty much every item on the site to come into circulation again (or be available somehow) before it's safe to get rid of legacy shops.
May 15, 2016, 2:44 pm by
moe
thanks and (*´???)
May 15, 2016, 2:34 pm by
Mackenzi
Wow, shops didn't get an increase too? Good thing I love having a bunch of items I can't get rid of just sitting around. Fingers crossed the crystal shop gets new items released too. Thanks for upping the final gallery amount...
May 15, 2016, 2:04 pm by
Keith
A lot of the items in legacy shops are from users who no longer get on the site. There are some active users who haven't moved their items over, but that isn't the majority of the items sitting there. The real problem with the legacy shops was all of the actions happening (buying, repricing, putting in, taking out, etc) so frequently. We've built the new system to ensure that those actions all take place on separate places.
We're confident that we can leave the legacy shop up as items get purchased without causing problems for the site.
May 15, 2016, 1:55 pm by
Slowerthanzero
yeah I agree with that. A little more time but not indefinitely. And then find a way to transfer their items to the vault.
May 15, 2016, 1:47 pm by
Memoria
I was under the impression legacy shops could not be priced anymore, but I could be wrong. Items can no longer be added, only removed for sure.
I'd give it another couple of months, that also gives people who may be inactive due to school or whatever, a chance to come back and sort out their shops. They do need to make a point to give more time if they do go that route, and not try and get everything changed in a week or suddenly. A proper amount of warning.
May 15, 2016, 1:41 pm by
Slowerthanzero
I dunno. I still don't quite get that. Cause in all honesty, the cheapest items are what are at the top of the list and what most questers purchase and imo that would be the active users since they price/auto price the most frequently. I'm honestly not sure if legacy shops are still allowed to autoprice or not. I know they can't add new items to said shops, or at least I believe they cannot.
I honestly think the old shops need to be removed soon and the items in them auto moved to each person's vault.
May 15, 2016, 1:36 pm by
Memoria
I think at this point, the legacy shops are still needed, I do all my quests daily, and I am still purchasing quite a bit from the old shops, not as much as when we first switched over, where I know people were having serious trouble with quests. I think in another month or two questing won't be so heavily reliant on the legacy shops. Admittedly, mainly what I am buying from legacy shops are more expensive items for Saggi and such, but still need them.
I honestly don't know how the staff would go about dealing with inactive user shops, they might not be willing to go into accounts and move items to vaults. Determining what constitutes inactive, etc.
May 15, 2016, 12:38 pm by
Slowerthanzero
I would just like to ask how so many people think the legacy shops are required to help maintain the economy?
The way I see it, Galleries, sure, since those don't affect search results I wont talk about legacy galleries. But why keep legacy shops around? In my opinion, if a legacy shop hasn't been un-stocked and all the items put into a new shop, then why should it remain? Most of those legacy shops that never get changed over are likely dead user accounts anyway. With a 2000/2500 item limit for people, I don't see how converting over would be such a big deal for active players. It's also not like we can't have more than one shop for selling things if the 2000/2500 limit isn't enough space. We have massive gallery space now so 1-2 of those per person would likely be more than enough to store galleries and then the other shop slots can go to actual shops by actual active users.
Now I do realize NOT ALL legacy shops are inactive users, however, a lot of them will be so how is it helping the economy to give money to an inactive user?
May 15, 2016, 12:01 pm by
Lexx
I still feel that how the change was announced, tested, and the original time frame was all poorly executed, and I hope that staff have learned some things on how to launch new largescale changes. That aside, I am pleased (but not surprised) that the errors have reduced. I am also not surprised that pusher.js had been a huge problem. There have also been other changes over the past few weeks that have likely reduced errors as well, so taken together, that is good news.
As for the legacy shops, I am torn. I understand we need them in our economy still (which was the main reason many of us did not want them taken out), but Subeta is HORRIBLE about keeping old code around. The stocking fiasco this past year? Caused by keeping old code around. Half of the errors we get whenever something new is rolled out is because of the patchwork old and new coding. At some point, the old coding of those legacy shops will likely become a problem (just based on all the other experiences we've had on Subeta across the years). Rather than "indefinitely," why not just set a long time frame? Like, say, the shops will be around for six months. Or even a year. After that, the items get tossed into vaults, or auto-converted into a new shop. Since you cannot add new items, a lot of those large shops should be MUCH lower within 6m-1y anyway. And if someone hasn't switched it within a year, they are probably not even playing anymore regardless. I still have my legacy gallery, which I guess I could switch now, but unless you give motivation, those old shops really will just rot for a long time... and Subeta, you just do not handle rotting code well AT ALL.
May 15, 2016, 8:05 am by
probabilistic
Thanks very much for all your hard work on this -- I haven't gotten a 5xx error in...a long time.
One feedback point -- I agree with others about requesting the option to order by ItemID. This goes for collections (plushie, beanbag, sticker) as well. So many items on this site are released in sets, and it's just so useful to be able to see them displayed that way.
May 15, 2016, 6:28 am by
delsomebody
What are people even collecting that you'd need over 7k unique item slots? I'm confused and afraid.
May 15, 2016, 6:23 am by
Speiro
I really hoped the shop limit would increase a few more times. :(
May 15, 2016, 4:01 am by
rhino_loupe
Thanks for the decision on legacy shops. They will help to keep the economy stable for a long time to come.
I'm surprised if you aren't planning to automatically convert them, though, since the limits are so high now. Old users who return will probably be confused by the fact they can't access their shop.
May 15, 2016, 3:03 am by
CastlesInTheSky
Error 520 Ray ID: 2a34b6c130c03042 Web server is returning an unknown error
:)
May 15, 2016, 2:35 am by
Manasse
That is really nice :3 However I have still a question (I asked in on the forum too): how could I bring the design from the old shop to the new? Could you please let redable the old shop's description?
May 15, 2016, 1:13 am by
Wrath
ok but the shop limit is too little i barely ever play and i have 2k ish items right now
May 15, 2016, 1:13 am by
Julie
How come when I use Safari, the select all does not work in the legacy shop? It's fine when I use Chrome.
Just wondering?
May 15, 2016, 12:21 am by
just2b
Ok, so I am loving the new shops (I wasn't expecting to), but re old shops, do you think it could be possible if Quick Stock could work in reverse, unstocking the old shops is beyond tedious.
May 14, 2016, 11:19 pm by
StarBaby
I took a long break from Subeta until recently, and I must say I'm very happy with all of the changes that have been made. I love the new shops and I love that there is a link to shop search under every item requested in quests. It makes everything so much faster and easier. I had a system for restocking before, but I like only needing one tab. I also love the new wardrobe. I know you guys were struggling with it for a while. I've experienced a few glitches where my items didn't show up for a while, but it was only a minor inconvenience. I was fairly sure they would show up and they did. Anyway, thanks for working hard to make this a great site. It really is.
May 14, 2016, 11:01 pm by
Strength
Well, I am happy to say that I was wrong. I was really pessimistic about this change and was fairly vocal about it, but you guys really stepped up to the plate, listened to feedback, and went out of your way to make this as painless as possible. I'm enjoying the new shops and have noticed a huge difference in site performance. Seeing the numbers back that up is very encouraging. So, thanks, Subeta Team.
May 14, 2016, 10:56 pm by
fresh
I am pleasantly surprised about how smooth and effective the transition was. I'm glad to see this finally happen.. I remember talking about it years ago during a live chat.
I wish the shop limits were a bit higher, but that's only because I have so many friggen hoard items to get rid of. At this rate my hoard might be empty by this time next year haha. Tbh, the galleries are higher than I was expecting, I think 7.5k/10k should be more than enough for the average user.
May 14, 2016, 10:14 pm by
Sunfire103
Total 22500 for 3 galleries... I started with 18k+ so this looks promising for items I do have, but doesn't give much room to grow in future :/
I'm glad issues are working/clearing themselves out.
May 14, 2016, 10:01 pm by
Literature
Any idea if we'll ever be able to sort by item ID instead of alphabetical? I like being able to go to the last page of my gallery and seeing all the newer items in there.
May 14, 2016, 9:55 pm by
LilyValentine
Gld to hear the changes are helping as planned. I do hope we get an increase in number of galleries permitted per user, though. Half of mine are still Legacy shops just because I'm out of room for new galleries.
May 14, 2016, 9:48 pm by
mollykmooney
Thanks for all the hard work!
May 14, 2016, 9:41 pm by
dmystry
Since I started putting my minions in the minion zoo instead of the gallery I do not mind the limits.
May 14, 2016, 9:04 pm by
Marx
very happy that the limit increase allows me to put my food gallery, which i had to break into two, back together. working on moving everything back into one now.
i really hope you will bring back to option to order the gallery by item ID rather than by name. my galleries are way out of order now lol!
May 14, 2016, 8:52 pm by
Nemui
I understand that logic and all of your points made, but if the subeta team keeps giving people the ability to just leave it there then the old shops will never be done away with, simply due to people using them as another type of vault/gallery system. I get that there are a lot of items on subeta, and people had thousands upon thousands of items in their shops, but the whole point of rolling out something new is to get rid of the old. So far people have had a month to move things, and thats clearly not enough time considering all the errors and so fourth, but why give everyone an indefinitely time frame? Looking at it from a professional point, thats a bad move if one is trying to make a better change for the site. I believe a real time frame should be put into place to empty out old shops, and whatever doesn't get moved by the player at the end of the time frame, the site dumps into their vault for them so nothing is lost, then old shops are removed. The items wont disappear they will still be there. It just make logical sense to me, for the subeta team to be assertive with getting rid of the old shop system all together, the old scripts for it are still going to be running which are going to be using servers and resources from the site. I just don't like the idea of it being indefinitely, because we could end up sitting on two shops styles for a year or more.
May 14, 2016, 8:14 pm by
Gunnarr
The reason the legacy shops will remain up is likely because there are thousands and thousands of items in them that will become completely unavailable if those shops are removed from the SS. Collection items, retired items, achievement items, Cash Shop items, etc. But even beyond the expensive stuff there's a huge number of lower rarity items that are still being purchased and burned up in quests and fragging that can't be removed from the economy without potentially throwing a huge wrench in things.
May 14, 2016, 8:08 pm by
CassieFenix
This is AWESOME!
My holiday gallery had around 6k uniques in it, so this is going to help me FINALLY give my gallery back its full glory once again! :D
May 14, 2016, 8:05 pm by
Aztec
Then get a gold account. I can't fathom why someone has 7.5K UNIQUE items anyway.
May 14, 2016, 7:38 pm by
Peppermint
I think the galleries are still an issue for people collecting everything of something, but I'm more than fine with the new shop system. It's a relief that the changes took strain off the site. I figure this kind of revamp was always bound to happen, so despite everything, I'll just go along with it. Also despite some bumps in the road, it went a lot better than I thought it'd go to be honest.
May 14, 2016, 7:18 pm by
Zekumi
I don't think this was nearly as big of a deal as it initially seemed to be. I'm happy.
May 14, 2016, 7:16 pm by
Merlin
thank YOU all for being so great. You did exactly what you said you were going to do and it's awesome not having to deal with those errors all the time. <3
May 14, 2016, 6:49 pm by
Jessica
7,500 for a gallery is still not enough....
May 14, 2016, 6:24 pm by
BrearHeart
Thank you!!
May 14, 2016, 6:05 pm by
Ickle
I was mostly worried about what this would do to the site's economy and questing. Happy to see things are fine and the site is working better than ever. :)
May 14, 2016, 6:00 pm by
Ororo
I liked the news
May 14, 2016, 5:56 pm by
bluemoonlightgirl
I'd still like to see the option to order items by Item ID along with alphabetically, like how the old shops had both options (personally I hate seeing them ordered alphabetically, but that's just me). Other than that, the new shops have been great so far. Good job.
May 14, 2016, 5:36 pm by
Pac
Mh, well I do wish you'd raised shop limits a tad more, but with errors so much better and such, it's overall a great update, as you say ^^
May 14, 2016, 5:34 pm by
rhymershouse
, thank you for the update. Also, heh you poor people have been stuck with me for seven years. You can't get rid of me that easily ;)
But in all seriousness, thank you. I find the new shops way easier to use, too.
any chance we can get rid of this absolutely awful 1 item per second buying limit. There are so many items i need to mass buy :( and its basically intolerable even for shops with big piles.