This is a predictable side effect of a shrinking user base. The less users, the less demand for most items. Most people who DO stay are those more established users, or ones with money and 'high end' items. Items that are not highly sought after, or that are still being released will drop in price sharply. For those who care, invest in Gold. In this case, Gold would be retired, especially one use, items. Unfortunately, I don't care enough to follow my own advice *lol* edit: Actually, even those aren't going to help you much. Gold would be retired, one use items that you can use multiple times for stacked benefit (such as stat increasing Neggs, etc). Anyone have a handy list of items that fit into this category? This 'economy' issue is why events such as the Save the Wheels (to pull out NP of the Economy), bad REs (like my Ixi turning Invisible, spending the same 1.4M to repaint if I buy from the Hidden Tower, or removing another Darigan PB from circulation if I buy from a user), may become more normal. TNT may also adjust restock rates, which means less frequent restocks as there are less 'customers' to satisfy. If restock rates stay the same with a lower user base, those items drop even MORE in price. Now if only I had the NP to invest smartly, but I've never been good at economic predictions, so maybe you shouldn't listen to me (though investing in one use retired items is ALWAYS good advice).

I havent been able to confirm it really, but I believe the ATTIC is also contributing to the deflation... At least, I can only assume Acara Twin Blade is one of the items that stocks there, as I can remember not even being able to touch it for under 4m, and a few months ago I snagged two for 1.5m each... I also picked up several Acara MPs for way cheaper than they ever had been... But it could of just be random, or me being very lucky... Either way, there definently is an upset with the economy at the moment [font=Courier New] -------------------------------------------------------------- The STUFF - Mainly Codestones @ reasonable prices http://www.neopets.com/browseshop.phtml?owner=whispering_acara&misc [/font]

Ahh, very true! I forgot about the Attic, but I do remember the panic when it first opened that it would kill prices on any item that stocks there. I wonder if the AAA was a purposeful move by TNT to reduce the price gap with super rare items. But if it doesn't restock r100 items, it only acts to increase the gap more, but move where the gap is (i.e. anything in the AAA is reduced in price, while making anything more rare than that RISE more?) Hmmm, any economists here? I never went past 101, I was going to go for an MBA, but 3 classes in decided that the mentality of an economist was actually quite psychotic and dangerous to society in general and bailed to finish my MS in IT *lol* edit: The NP Sinks I was talking about earlier are a necessity with or without a shrinking economy. Since Neopians can 'print money' by playing games, inflation will get out of control (hyperinflation anyone?) without methods to destroy that extra generated NP.

[quote]The NP Sinks[/quote] Speaking of that and games, the 10x event from the end of last year... I can remember that playing games was actually worthwhile during that, pulling in 120k+ a day just from games. That had huge effects [font=Courier New] -------------------------------------------------------------- The STUFF - Mainly Codestones @ reasonable prices http://www.neopets.com/browseshop.phtml?owner=whispering_acara&misc [/font]

[font=verdana]The first BGC that stocked at the attic, I actually saw it when I pressed the back button after buying something else. In that restock, I picked up a morphing potion instead. Still decent.. but not as good as the BGC I missed (or didn't initially see)... [/font][center]x - - - - - x - - - - - x User Lookup [u][url]http://www.neopets.com/userlookup.phtml?user=vw1282[/url][/u] [/center]

[quote=whispering_acara][quote]The NP Sinks[/quote] Speaking of that and games, the 10x event from the end of last year... I can remember that playing games was actually worthwhile during that, pulling in 120k+ a day just from games. That had huge effects [font=Courier New] -------------------------------------------------------------- The STUFF - Mainly Codestones @ reasonable prices http://www.neopets.com/browseshop.phtml?owner=whispering_acara&misc [/font][/quote] [font=verdana]The 10x thing made things go up in price not down. [/font][center]x - - - - - x - - - - - x User Lookup [u][url]http://www.neopets.com/userlookup.phtml?user=vw1282[/url][/u] [/center]

[quote=vw1282]The 10x thing made things go up in price not down.[/quote] Which is exactly what that should do. People were able to 'print more money', and therefore the value of money goes down, and prices go up. It's like playing the money market, 10x games make currency less valuable, so if you are invested in items, you win. NP sinks make currency more valuable, and item investments lose. I would love to be able to see the Neopets Databases at times like this. What percentage of the Save the Wheels cash came from the 'middle class', as opposed to the 'upper class' or 'lower class'? Anyone in the upper class invested heavily in NP could watch the value of their NP rise as more and more of other peoples NP gobbled up by the sink. Or, they spend lots of NP on the sink, but pull it back from everyone else by way of selling the stamps and everything (with the same overall effect of them having more valuable NP, and the middle class having a bunch of stamps *lol* ).

[quote=zixianna][quote=vw1282]The 10x thing made things go up in price not down.[/quote] Which is exactly what that should do. People were able to 'print more money', and therefore the value of money goes down, and prices go up. It's like playing the money market, 10x games make currency less valuable, so if you are invested in items, you win. NP sinks make currency more valuable, and item investments lose. I would love to be able to see the Neopets Databases at times like this. What percentage of the Save the Wheels cash came from the 'middle class', as opposed to the 'upper class' or 'lower class'? Anyone in the upper class invested heavily in NP could watch the value of their NP rise as more and more of other peoples NP gobbled up by the sink. Or, they spend lots of NP on the sink, but pull it back from everyone else by way of selling the stamps and everything (with the same overall effect of them having more valuable NP, and the middle class having a bunch of stamps *lol* ).[/quote] haha that would be very interesting but if we just have a look at the top 10 benefactors for save the wheel the money came from the very rich. However, since they got items from the event for donating neopoints, those items were then sold to the so called middle class... A lot of the middle class I assume invested in some of those items hoping for the lower class to be able to buy these at a latter date :P But as far as the economy goes one way to fix stuff would be to have a maximum cap on items that stock in main shops. There's no need to stock 30-40 multiples of a single junk item.. why not cap it to 15-20. There is soo much junk in the main shops that most items are worthless to buy, and the items that are worth getting stock so rarely that their prices have jumped too high. When the price difference is this big, its no wonder that new players have a hard time adjusting to this game. I think another item sink like, kitchen quest and illusen/jhudohra quest may help the economy as well.

Makes me glad I avoided the 'Save the Wheels Tax', I think I donated a total of just over 1,500 NP to it, and didn't buy a single item it produced (though I'd love that background, it's so pretty! *lol* )

[quote=zixianna]Makes me glad I avoided the 'Save the Wheels Tax', I think I donated a total of just over 1,500 NP to it, and didn't buy a single item it produced (though I'd love that background, it's so pretty! *lol* )[/quote] lol I fell for the stupid tax and donated 760k.. and then bought a bunch of stamps and the background. xD