[Discussion] How do you feel about the recent inflation in specific NP items?

[kittyray]

Also interestingly enough, after @(you need an account to see links) ws talking about graphing things I started tooling around with a script that shows that for the price history page on JellyNeo, and ended up asking @(you need an account to see links) for help with fine-tuning it (thank you!).

(Keep in mind that in the below graphs the dates aren't evenly spaced, more just points where there were significant changes.)

A random sample of some PB trends:

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[Using My Pass]

@(you need an account to see links) Thank you for doing the thing properly, I could never have achieved that hahaha.

It really shows how badly shit had deflated up until this point (on top of the mountain ranges of an unstable market lol)

Although to me, that sort of answers the question of "should the prices go up because there's less people around to get these paint brushes, or down because there's less people to buy"

ASSUMING i'm reading correctly, I'd say that this suggests the prices went down due to dwindling userbase and therefore we should see growth over the pandemic and then pet slots as people have stated. Just not quite this much.

[DrillyGang]

WOW THIS GAINED A LOT OF TRACTION and I can tell a LOT of you feel similarly that there's some sus stuff going on with the rampant inflation of (for example) paint brushes

but what about r99 plushies? I'm a huge fan of them, and the ones that went for 1m~3m less than 6 months ago are now going for 200-300%+ on the TP. I could drop names of people helping curve this specific inflation but I don't want to be THAT dude who stirs the pot to a boil, yknow?

Thank you alll for your input on this topic I cannot wait to see how this progresses, its finally time someone addresses this issue and doesnt sweep it under the rug and act like it's 100% purely normal inflation.

Thanks 4 coming 2 my TedTalk <3

[kittyray]

@(you need an account to see links) Thank you!
That said, @(you need an account to see links) definitely deserves a lot of credit, I slid into his DMs like "lol, know anything about chart.js?" expecting like a couple words of wisdom, but he ended up rolling in like the wizard he is and turning my popsicle stick'd mess into something actually usable while I did my best to follow along!

[Fiore]

I think Cybunny potions are like 3 mil now? I had bought a few for like 700-900k not too long ago. Depending how TNT is going to handle the UC situation I'm also sitting on a ton of backed-up FFQs. At least Darigan, Baby and Royal PBs are also readily available with a set price.

[♥ Vexi ♥]

That may be a little bit selfish of me I don't really mind the PBs/MPs being inflated. You can get FFQs somewhat regularly if you use the cookies and I've got most of my favorite pets painted already.

Stamps and backgrounds/wearables on the other hand ... UGHHH. Like it wasn't difficult enough to achieve my goals already! Specially r101s that were buyable like a month ago, or R97 stamps that should cost like 800k being sold for 5m. Come on.

What upsets me the most is that it's going to drive even more players away... For the first time in my neo life I've been considering just buying nps though so that's the silver lining for some people here? :p

[oventoast]

That may be a little bit selfish of me I don't really mind the PBs/MPs being inflated. You can get FFQs somewhat regularly if you use the cookies and I've got most of my favorite pets painted already.

Stamps and backgrounds/wearables on the other hand ... UGHHH. Like it wasn't difficult enough to achieve my goals already! Specially r101s that were buyable like a month ago, or R97 stamps that should cost like 800k being sold for 5m. Come on.

What upsets me the most is that it's going to drive even more players away... For the first time in my neo life I've been considering just buying nps though so that's the silver lining for some people here? :p

Legitimate question from somebody who has very little understanding of this type of (or any) economics:

Does this kind of thing actually help the economy? Like, if you already need to have a certain amount of capital to buy up these assets and drive inflation, won't it just mostly take money out of the pocket of middle-of-the-road users, and makes things really inaccessible to the more casual player? More or less keeping the status quo if not widening the divide? I'm not like arguing for Neopets Socialism, I just literally am too dumb do not know enough about this stuff to know how this actually works.

It’s not hyperinflation, I think. I think it’s just regular inflation which actually seems quite good based on the charts that were posted, since it seems the neopets economy is rebounding from the deflationary spiral that started around 2010 when it lost a significant chunk of its active user base.

I am personally not the wealthiest neopets player but I have found it easier to achieve goals now that I have come back, including stamp goals, mostly because the ways I primarily generate income have inflated as well?

I’m not really too knowledgeable about economics.

I don’t think what the Paintbrush Guys are doing is good for the economy though - but I think of it more as scalping than anything to do with inflation.

[♥ bottledwater ♥]

Omg these are beautiful! I love the data!! Thank you @(you need an account to see links) for pointing out the JN feature and @(you need an account to see links) and @(you need an account to see links) for putting these together!

[kittyray]

I think part of my problem was that a lot of the inflation started happening around the same time I moved and the responsibilities of my job picked up, which left less time for neopets and I've definitely not experienced it becoming easier to earn nps. My bank account is slowly shrinking, even with cutting back on a lot of my usual spending (stopped training pets and the like), but my goals keep increasing.

[Jhin]

TNT kinda screwed the pooch on announcing the revival of UCs, and this was going to be a consequence, of course. I think it is intentional, as it likely brought SOME people back. This kind of inflation isn’t unheard of on this site, however. Any time there was an announcement about a plot, BD items and stat increases naturally skyrocket because that meant that there was a slim chance of there being an associated war/BD component of the plot. I don’t think this is going to settle any time soon, even if the UCs dropped tomorrow. They need a new NP sink, which I have had MANY thoughts about in some of my other posts about related topics. They really need to make use of the Hidden Tower, tbh.