Shop limit change and the r99 economy

     Greetings and welcome to my article.. or you may call it a rant! It's mainly a casually written article from an experienced Neopets player written in a way to vent my views at the changes and to inform other unknowing people. I am a r99 (Rarity 99 Item) gallery owner and this affects me and other collectors directly., and it probably affects you whether you're aware of it or not.As you may notice, the shop limit has changed from the regular 100,000 NP cap to 999,999 NP effective on the 27th March 2018. This means that previously unbuyable items in the 100k to 1 mill range have now become effectively buyable on the shop wiz. Now, I am not economist and haven't studied anything of the sort in university (although I am educated in another field), but I enjoy speculation and this article will provide my viewpoints of what has happened and what may be to come in the future of the Neopets r99 economy due to this change.

     Firstly, the initial change sparked some outcry from a niche of users, as well as extreme smugness from another..The first group are people heavily invested in items ranging between 100k and 1 mill. This has hit them particularly hard as the items that previously had to be sold with some effort and bargaining over Neomail have become available in shops for a click of a button at a set price. Unfortunately, as there aren't as many users wanting to buy these items compared to the amount out there this leads to the shop wizard becoming saturated with said items. Without the shop wiz price change, many people would be too lazy to sell these items, or a better advertiser and seller on the trading post would get the sale. That is the original Neopets style, and I believe it should have stayed that way.

     On the flip side of the Neopoint coin, it means that poorer users who are looking for a bargain will indeed be able to find their ideal slashed price on the shop wiz and good luck to them. However it means that people who had spent decent Neopoints on their items before the change have been left out of pocket. A huge downside of this change is undercutting. I know a simple economic concept is that prices are driven by demand, and in theory it should be that way but having a medium in which people can change the price of their items instantaneously will probably lead to extreme undercutting. The items most affected by these changes are hard to sell items (HTS). An example would be books, gourmets, rare code items, some r99s, some plot prizes and basically any item that doesn't have a direct use. Examples of items that are not affected are stamps, certain r99 morphing potions, r99 gourmets, stat increases and generally useful expendable items.

     Now the body of my article has a lot of significance to the r99 economy. R99's (or rarity ninety nine items) are the items used if you want to quest an Illusen's Staff or Wand of the Dark Faerie through Illusen or Jhudora which are worth millions. I will be honest, there are a lot of r99s that are effectively useless except for questing, with a small proportion being used for gallery collectors. Such items are battle dome, school, furniture, gardening, plushie and the list goes on. These items are the most likely to be affected by the change.

     A good question is, with the shop limit change what will happen to the prices of WoDF (Wand of the Dark Faerie) and I-staff (Illusen's Staff)? The true impact of the r99 questing economy after this change will depend on many variables.

     1. The amount of people buying r99s for questing.

     2. The amounts of quests failed, the amount of r99s still left over from the CC (which was over a year ago mind you).

     3. The amount of restockers, the amount of r99 items being used for purposes other than questing (gourmet feeding, using r99 MPs, gallery collectibles).

     4. Random events that take r99s.

     5. Users frozen with big collections.

     6. R99 hoarders.

     7. People getting frozen with WoDF/ I-Staff.

     Among many others! It is hard for anyone to tell or know what will happen in the short term except for making reasonable guesses. I have developed a little system to rate the possibility of I-staff and WoDF being negatively effected by the shop limit change. I will give each pointer a rating out of 10 (with 10 being maximum negative effect on the price of WoDF and I-staff) to a 1 being minimal.

     Buying r99s for questing: 7

     I suspect that many people will try and buy r99s off the shop wizard in an attempt to quest a cheap I-staff or WoDF. I have rated this 7 because although them buying the r99s off the shop wizard makes the r99s more scarce, there is a significantly higher change they will get a lucky run and be able to quest a wand or staff just from the shop wizard. However I presume r99 collectors will be a bit more savvy with their lends on the trading chat and thus I haven't scored it 10/10.

     Amount of quests failed: 4

     In the days prior to writing this article, I observed 4 people fail Jhudoras quests on the boards simultaneously in one evening on items worth 2 million or over. This goes to show that for one, collectors aren't too happy with backing people up on the boards and Jhudora does indeed ask for the rarer and more expensive items too. However I do imagine a lot of people will be questing wands and staffs, and this will affect their prices accordingly. It may have a positive effect with all the r99s being expended from the economy however.

     The amount of r99's left over from CC (Charity Corner): 7

     It's no secret that the last couple of CC's have wreaked havoc on the price of r99s, thus it scoring so high. The sheer drop in prices of r99s over the year has been a testament to this, thus receiving a score of 7. However it didn't score a 10 because the CC prizes are finite, and will deplete eventually.

     Amount of restockers: 1

     All you have to do is go to the RS and Chat boards on the trading chat and see that only 1 or 2 r99s are being restocked an hour to see that not many people are restocking. After CC giving out a r99 at the click of a button for 5 junk items, you'll see why nobody tends to restock anymore unless for a bit of fun.

     Amount of r99s being used for galleries, collecting, feeding and morphing: 3

     These practices do indeed take the strain off r99 saturation, albeit slightly. People still use morphing potions to morph their battle pets for an example, and gourmet feeding is still a thing, and so is gallery collecting. It doesn't have such a big impact, but a more positive than negative to the price of WoDF and I-staff.

     Random Events that take r99s: 5

     This happens occasionally, but it would be like a drop of water in the ocean as fast as I'm concerned. Minimal impact so this has scored neutral.

     Users frozen with big collections: 3

     Now, I'm not saying any names and that might be hard when I'm trying to write a viewpoint. However I have seen multiple users (and close friends at that) frozen with nearly or full r99 collections. That is ~1700 r99s out of the economy and it makes a HUGE difference as they become rarer that way. However, compared to the boatloads of r99s out there 1700 isn't really a big number. Think of all the junk items people can get from just doing their battle dome dailies. This has scored a 3 in my view.

     People frozen with WoDF and I-staff: 5

     This is another subjective point like users frozen with big collections but I still have to score it the same. Unfortunately some people come onto Neopets with sinister motives and they find big ticket items in their safety deposit box, like Fake Von Roo Fangs and the such. They offload these for ETS such as WoDF and are caught shortly after, as well as other examples. It happens, and when WoDF and i-staff are taken out of the economy then the value of them significantly increases, whether people know it or not. It's all about supply and demand. However seeing many people currently own plenty of WoDF and i-staff, I have to score this a neutral 5.

     R99 hoarders: 2

     Ah, now we come to a very interesting part! There are certain smart individuals that are taking no notice of the panic after the shop wiz changes. These people are actually buying the R99's off the shop wiz and hoarding them and waiting for them to increase in value. Some people have under priced morphing potions and other very ETS r99s and hoarders are jumping on this. I have seen first hand evidence when I panicked a little bit myself and priced some r99s a bit under, but they were gone quite promptly. This scores a definite 2.

     My scoring system is adding points to either the negative effect of the price of WoDF or the minimal effect to its price. Anything over 5 goes to the negative side and anything under 5 goes to the minimal side. And the final score is! Drum roll please!

     11 for minimal

     4 for negative

     It's interesting how with logically explained viewpoints, a sensible conclusion regarding this matter can be reached! It seems that with these pointers, minimal impact on the price of WoDF and I-staff is the clear winner. Of course, a lot of pointers were speculation but my view at least supports evidence as to why. The only real indicator is time however, as in a real economy. Lets just hope TNT releases a new valuable quest prize for Jhudora and Illusen and it would sort out this mess straight away. Thanks for reading my article and I hope you have a good day and remember to be smart with what you buy as prices are fluctuating at the moment!