PROJECT: CODE EO - started June 15th, 2006

This project's goal is simple. To gather data on the price of a single item: the Eo Codestone (also known as "Codestone Eo" in other languages).

Orginal purpose of this project:

On the night of June 21st the Lenny Conundrum gave out 250 Eo Codestones. We believe this was a rare opportunity to measure the strength of the effect of codestone hoarders on the Neopian economy; 250 is comparable to the amounts that we see hoarders have. We do not know if we'll ever have the opportunity to see the effect of a set number of codestones again. We Neopians, hopefully including you, should take advantage of this by keeping a close watch on the price of the Eo Codestone over the coming weeks.

This project has since moved beyond its original purpose to gain further insight into the Neopian economy.

Goals:

- To gather data to monitor Eo Codestone prices.
- To organize the data and see how much and how long of an impact 250 codestones would make on the economy.
- To address the plausibility of codestone hoarding causing inflation.
- To access the impact of wars on the codestone economy.

Procedure:

Please help by following these simple instructions. It only takes about a minute or two to do this. To maintain the integrity of this project, all data contributors must follow these same standard procedures (no super-shop-wizard). These are for eliminating sampling bias and maintaining continuity.

- Record hour, minute, and day in NST
- Get data from the shop wizard 8 times, recording the lowwest price each time.
- Record data all 8 times, regardless of high ridiculously high or low the prices may seem, even if it appears that the same section of the market is fetched repeatedly.
- Do not purchase any codestones while recording. If you cannot resist temptation then go ahead and buy it; just discard all data and wait atleast 30 minutes before starting over, from the beginning, again.
- Check to make sure all steps were completed within 2 minutes preferably (although a maximum 3 minutes is acceptable).
- Neomail me the raw data. Do not try to sort the data.
- Repeat in a few hours, hopefully =)

Current Progess

The charts will be updated here throughout the project. Note: If the image is broken, that most likely means that I am updating the chart. Try refreshing in a minute or so.
Note: Remember to press the refresh button. Also, these charts will not be updated in real-time; it is an intention delay between updates.

Overall:

Close up:

Theories

The project is being discussed in:
Primary: http://forums.finalhit.org/showthread.php?tid=13885
http://www.pinkpt.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27408

Leading Theory:

War controls the price of codestones. The project began when prices were high because participants (780 of them) in the Neopian Council of War's War II (http://www.neopianwarcouncil.org.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=3286) had been training up in the months leading up to its start to prepare for it.

However, prices would gradually fall following start of the NCW's second war because participants stopped training to avoid moving up a league, which decreased demand. The Lenny Connundrum prize of 250 did seem to have an impact due to the notably steeper drop following the release of the prize; however, this merely sped up a process started by the NCW war.

Prices eventually leveled off 800 NP below from the levels observed in the start of the project. The NCW war's influence appears to be proven by the gradual inflation and re-leveling off following the end of the NCW's second war.

Prices stayed at this new level for almost a week when suddenly it would leap up another 500 NP due to rumors that the Cryodrake's Gaze, a ship that appeared in the harbors of Krawk Island may be a sign that an official Neopian war may come.

The following are some of the original conjectures for the first downward movement in prices.

Conjecture A:

The prices appeared periodic for 3 days, which would have likely been the normal pattern before the project started as well. Then the prices seem to destabilize and, after two days of chaos, the prices plummeted about 100 NP. The surprising part is that this happened BEFORE the prize was released! This may have happened because, as the news spread that the conundrum prize was the Eo, some hoarders may have been sent into a panic and began slashing prices to try to sell their codestones before the possible price drop. The prices appeared to somewhat re-stabilize at this new level.

Then, within a day of the prize release, the prices would drop another 200 NP! This may mean that hoarders really do make a difference? Could the price drop have scared more hoarders into slashing their prices to compete?

Conjecture B:

The leveling off was an illusion. The whole movement was really a gradual decline that reflected TNT's general effort to reduce codestone prices. The 250 codestones may have not made a major difference after all. This may be shown by the general decline in prices for all codestones.


Then again, the Eo did seem to drop more than the others.

Conjecture C:

Prices of many items, not just the Eo Codestone, have gone crazy in the last few weeks. Some time, between the 9th and 10th of June, TNT changed the restock system so that all the shops did not restock simutaniously. This also made restock times nearly unpredictable and have put many former "elite restockers" out of a job. This has shifted the balance of Neopoints from one portion of the Neopian population to another. It may be that Neopia is going through a minor recession due to this change in the economy.

Perhaps many battlers were also restockers and the loss of their primary income caused them to no longer be able to afford heavy training. This reduced the demand on codestones and therefor caused prices to go tumbling down.

It must be noted that actual statistics for other items were not gathered as far as it is known. The belief that non-codestone prices have gone crazy as well may only be an illusion.

Conjecture D:

The Neopian War Council, a massive battledome organization, had been organizing a one-player massive war. With 780 people, they may have been a massive influence on the economy. In the months leading up to the war, prices may have steadily increased due to heavy training.

Many of those battlers may have stopped training to avoid moving up a league after the NWC war began and so reduced the demand on the codestones.

Timeline for NWC war:
War announced: May 23
War begins: June 14
Second Challengers: June 20
Third Challengers: June 27
Trophies released: July 16 (There is a spike on this date)

Neopian War Council:
neopianwarcouncil.net

Data Contributors

Thanks to all those who have gathered data for this project. Special thanks to papa_neo_dude and his wife for being the largest contributors to this project (besides me). Also thanks to cran_b for pointing out that the NCW was hosting a war.

We used to share all the data gather here, but now that is way too much to fit X.x;

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