Pink Poogle Toy Forum

Well, okay- I'm starting to not like this.

From what someone said before with it only happening a few times an hour, I thought- alright, why not? But if you get to do it this many times, I can imagine it wouldn't be impossible to get a rarer item than a codestone every hour for cheap. That's enough to make a pretty easy living off of.

*sigh*

Ok I thought I was going to keep my mouth shut about this but I've thought it out and I think I might have come up with some comparables to the neopets premium.

How many of you have a cell phone? How many of you pay for a plan? How many of you pay as you go with your cell phone? What's my point? My point is when you pay for a plan with your cell phone you get free long distance and free roaming with most plans as you do not with pay as you go. Is it fair that those who pay for the plan gets those freebies?

How many of you have cable tv? How many have premium movie channels? How many of you just have basic analog cable? How many have digital cable? What's my point? Those of you that pay for your premium movie channels get to watch movies that those who do not pay for the channels do not get to watch. Is this unfair? Now with analog cable you get basic channels, with digital cable you get MORE basic channels than with analog. Is that unfair?

How many of you pay for premium neopets? How many don't? My point in all of this is, as with everything you get what you pay for. So if you pay for neopets then you get things like an avatar, scratchcard every month, and now super shop wiz.

I personally do not care that you get a super shop wiz and that you get an uber cool avatar. Why do I not care? Because you are paying for it so more power to you.

And for those of you who are complaining about the super shop wiz then I suggest that you write to your local cell phone companies, cable companies and so forth because what you are complaining about with neopets applies to everyday life.

I really hope that this made sense to you.

The thing is- this is taking away a living from people that dont' have premium.

For example, an avvy or more random events- that's totally fine. The Premium user is getting benefits, but they are not taking away anything from other users.

However, that is no true of this new Super Shop Wiz. For example, a person does not have the money to purchase premium. Maybe their parents won't let them. However, they make all their NPs on Neopets by shop wizard sniping. All of a sudden, the people that were able to pay, are now able to beat them shop wiz sniping- and they can't make many NPs anymore. Not only is it giving Premium members an advantage, it is very much hurting the user that can't afford premium.

Another example would be if suddenly shops restocked a minute earlier for premium users. By the time the shop restocked for basic members, all the good items would be gone. However, if the premium users got their own restock shop- that would be different. The basic members are not getting anything taken away- they are just getting new things.

The way I see it- the Premium users should get advantages. But the advantages should not put non-premium users at a DISadvantage.

Did that make any sense? XD

...

The point is Neopets is supposed to be a free virtual game, and TNT even promised before that Premium users won't get money-making advantages over other non-Premium users. I can think of a few everyday comparables here.

You play soccer? Would you like it if by paying money, you can gain free goals for each soccer match? Pay $1000 and get a free goal!

You play computer games online? How would you like it if by paying money, you can boost your skill levels and rankings on the online community?

How many of you pay for premium neopets? How many don't? My point in all of this is, is that Neopet is supposed to be a virtual game which takes you away from your real-life worries, such as financial inabilities. Earning neopoints is an escapist way of fulfilling your get-rich fantasies. When the line between real-life money and neopoints is breached, Neopets is no longer a fair game.

Yes, I know the Super Shop Wizard may not be too much of an advantage now, but it could be a slippery slope leading to a host of other unfair advantages for Premium users. The very mindset that paying members should get more game-related advatanges over other non-paying players is against the meritocratic concept of gaming, IMO, where you advance because you are good at the game and not because you are rich in real life and can afford to pay and get advantages.

How is it supposed to take you away from real-life worries such as financial inabilities when that is exactly what we are sitting here arguing about? Financial inabilities on a GAME site.

I have one question for the people who say it is eating into the money making capabilities of non-premium people - have you actually seen a difference in your np making? Have your average profits gone down for those of you who are resellers? Those who are snipers will have to wait longer before knowing of course as that income is so irregular anyway.

I've found it very useful for quests and pricing my shop, not very useful for attempted sniping as you get wiz banned after a few searches.

But really I want to know - has anyone had their usual average profits affected? Or is this all just speculation? I really think if it's the latter then people should just wait and see how it pans out. Better to get the actual situation scoped out than be reactionary about it Which is again true of people saying it is a slippery slope - if you take up all your time complaining about something like this then you'll have run out of steam if they ever do give premium an undeniable advantage. And that's an if not a when

It's too soon for regular players to notice a decrease in profits, but as stated already in this thread, premium players have noticed an increase. Even if regular players never notice a decrease, premiums will keep getting more, and when people have more money, inflation hits. Inflation is fine if the general population gets more money, but since it's only premium players, it's unfair and inflation hurts the rest of us. (just a prediction for the long-run)

Edit: What really sucks is that no matter how much we cry about it, the super wizard will not go away. The last thing Neo wants to do is upset its paying members. Hopefully they'll get the message though, and watch their step on future premium-only features.

The only side effect I've seen so far is deflation, more people are having to price stuff at the correct value in order for it to sell. No one is making huge amounts out of reselling and sniping who wasn't already on the old shop wizard as far as I can see. How fast your internet is still the major factor in who gets the bargain first.

The number of people making a lot out of this, even if it was all the premium people is a pretty negligible figure when compared to the vast numbers of people who make a fortune rsing. Perhaps when there is actual proof that this is taking money away from non-premium people (which seems to be the main arguement - after all people have already agreed that it is fine for premium people to make more money as long as it isn't taken away from non-premium people) I'll see it differently.

As for crying about it neopets will only take notice if people actually write to them, it doesn't make a smidgen of difference if a fan site has some complaints. Perhaps if more people were positive about it rather than so negative there would be a better chance that non-premium people would get this new feature too - premium is after all used a lot to beta test things.

Someone in my guild is now making around 200k a day, when their old main income used to be Plushie Tycoon.

Yesterday it was a Electric PB for 60k, that was early in the day. I don't know if they got anything else. Now can you say that?

Well as you haven't said how fast their internet connection is I don't see what difference it makes. Change no one to most people and it's pretty much the same. Like I say, have you as a non-premium person found you're making less money?

People keep changing why they're unhappy with this, firstly it's because premium people are taking away money from non-premium people and it would be fine if they were just making extra money and now that no one can say they're making less money they've changed tune to saying premium people shouldn't be able to make more - regardless of whether it takes away from other people.

And again, complaining about it here does no good what so ever. If you don't like it then talk to neopets!

See - here's my question.
And I'm not saying one way or the other about the Super Shop Wiz... I have premium, and i see both sides of the story.

But here we have people saying that while Premium users should have perks, they shouldn't have advantages.
Where does that line start?

Ok, so we get a special scratchcard each Friday. Isn't that a source of income? Isn't that free np? Extra? After scratching off the Space Faerie card, we can go get a new scratchcard from any of the other booths and scratch that. It's only 200-1000np, but that's still money that non-Premium users aren't getting.
Premium users get to beta test games. Sometimes, we can get rather good at the games before they come out. Would you say that gives us an advantage over non-Premiums? Or is that simply a perk? Or is it just a helping hand to TNT?
People are saying they wouldn't mind if we had our own world, as long as there was only 1 or 2 shops or dailies. But once we had that, would you really feel the same way? What if there was a petpet shop there? Premiums could buy, and they could charge hundreds of thousands of NP for a petpet they bought for a few measly hundred NP. Wouldn't that be giving Premiums the advantage? What if that petpet went on to be a ppl award? Is that an advantage? Same is there was a battle items shop, or even just a foods shop... if the stuff sold there wasn't sold anywhere else, and non-Premiums could only get the items by buying from Premiums, would it still be a perk?

I'm not trying to be mean or rude... I just wonder where the line is between "perk" and "advantage". It makes me wonder, especially when I read that somebody wouldn't mind if we got our own special world. But everybody's going NUTS over the idea that cell-phone users would be able to get to the world that Lutari's are going to be from, and that that world will mostly likely not be accessable by computer.
Is that a perk of having a cell phone? Or is it giving cell phone users the advantage?

Here's the way I look at it.

A perk is something that the premium users could have, scratchcards or whatnot, so the premium users can GAIN money. However, these things will not make the basic members LOSE money.

An advantage would be things like the shop wiz. The premium users are GAINing money, because it's easier for them to find the items. However, now that they can't find the items as fast, basic users are LOSEing NP.

So...

Perk-

Premium- gain NP
Basic- don't lose NP

Advantage-

Premium- gain NP
Basic- lose NP

Gotcha, thank you.

What would you call an additional, premium-free world then?
Technically, the only way non-premium users would be losing money is to the Premiums, to buy things they can't.
Sorry, I'm just interested in who believes what falls where.

I personally would consider something like a special world a perk. The basic users can't really lose money they were never making.

Another example I said before, if the premiums had a special store to restock at, I would consider that a perk. However, if the premium members suddenly got to see the restocks at all the current shops a minute before basic members, that would be an advantage, since the basic users would be losing NP.

I think there needs to be a limit, premium members shouldn't be making millions and millions more than basic members, but I don't think there is anything wrong with them gaining a little extra NP, as long as basic users aren't losing out because of it.

OK, I was just lurking on the BD chat, found this topic "Poll: premium users have too much advantage over normal users" Look at page 4 - here: http://www.neopets.com/neoboards/topic. ... 4&next=151

A staff member posted there - the super wiz will definitely NOT be so "super" anymore. Posting this just in case that board "asplodes" or something.



So it's going to be more restricted AND it will count toward regular shop wizard searches.