If a government printed billions of dollars to cover their debt, then wouldn't the value of their dollar go down, and the price of everything go up? If a player sent their score time and time again, manufacturing neopoints, wouldn't the value of neopoints go down, and the prices for everything go up? Same thing goes for buying/selling neopoints/items - it takes less effort to get that NPs/item, then it has less worth? If it takes so little effort to get that item, whats to stop the seller from inflating the price of it? It gives you an "unfair advantage" over the other, legit players. So what do you think... Do NOT just post yes or no... TELL WHY! SUPPORT YOUR OPINION!
Yes this does effect the economy of neopets however you have to think about how many people play neopets that dont cheat. Those people are helping keep them level. If 20% of neopet account cheat and .4% are banned almost on a day to day basis, neopoints will find there wealth and stay there. So yes it affects it but there are things keeping it from crashing.
The value of neopoints going down and the price of things going up are the same thing. If it costs more for the same item (that is readily available in the economy and doesn't fluctuate in price because of other factors) from one week to another, then your neopoints are worth less. Cheating is good, though. Without it, there would be no neofriends.net. Amirite?
Cheating (daily doers and score senders) doesnt add nearly as much "new" money into the economy as you would think. The amount added is actually so miniscule you wouldn't even notice it at all. It's like a gang that is printing money in Chicago is never going to pump out enough money to make a dent in the US economy before getting caught. Also, autobuyers take money out of the economy because they purchase from the main shops (doesnt matter actually because the items would have been sold to legit restockers anyways). Score senders are only giving you money that is already available to you (capped at 1,000np a game) albiet with a lot less effort. It's not like someone stole a money printing machine and printed their own money. It's more like the government gives everyone their own money printing machines, but some people found a shortcut to print their daily quota with a lot less effort. Cheating this way does contribute to the horrible inflation problem we have on neopets, but only a small, SMALL amount. This small amount is compounded by the fact that a lot of cheaters are frozen every other day. A MUCH larger amount of neopoints enter the economy through chance games like the lottery, as well as games with jackpots and competition games like connundrum and mystery pic, holiday giveaways, sponsor giveaways, etc. There's also Coltzen's Shrine, discarded blue plushie, scratchcards, etc. Tens of millions of NP enter the economy this way daily, and hardly any are removed. There are also hundreds of other ways that HUUUGE amounts of NP enter the economy that I havn't even touched upon, such as the stockmarket and bank interests (10+ percent when you are hard pressed to find an item in any neopets store outside of the HT costing over 100k? lol...TNT shooting themselves in the foot) The BEST way to stop this crazy inflation is to put more interest into the battledome, which we all know they wont be doing. They did try a bit by letting paintbrushes stack on top of each other, but that does almost nothing since most paintbrushes are found for free, while the most expensive one only takes only 2.75m out of the economy. Making the battledome more popular and updating it would make people battle more, so more money would go into the Hidden Tower for weapons. Making unbelievably expensive weapons would also help. Hardly anyone even buys a weapon from the hidden tower a year after its released, they pick it up from each other which just leads to a redistribution of NP and none actually leaves. (I think we are at a point where the battledome is dead anyways. The gap between the haves and the have nots is sooo large its impossible to create a "fair" war anymore. You would need to create a war boss strong enough to be a challenge for those with WoDFs and SuAP, and in doing so, it would be impossible for anyone else [even those with SoS/PCCs] to have a shot. Anyone with a WoDF and over 10k hp would be impossible to kill unless the War Boss has weapons stronger than dual SuaP. Creating opponents strong enough to be a challenge to these people would alienate the majority of people who would be participating, ie those with 6-9 iconers. Why spend so much time, money, and effort creating a warplot when after the second or third day [2nd or 3rd wave], 99%+ of your users will stop participating because the opponents would already be too strong for them.) In conclusion, if neopets lasts another 10 years, just be glad you're cheating and collecting your np now. 10 years from now, I'm sure we'll have as many trillionaires as we currently have billionaires. I bet within the next couple of years, we'll see some sort of super auction or super trading post set up to remove the max np limit, which is currently 20m through auctions.
I like this topic Depends entirely on your point of view imo, does inflation really ruin the game economy? While hyper inflation is problematic in real life in the game it makes things much more interesting in terms of what become valuable. Personally I believe that the virtual economy was pretty screwy anyway so I think it was broken already but does cheating make it worse? The only type of cheating that causes the economy to suffer from an enjoyment point of view would be if SS was too common (and not being caught) or Duping Neopoints was too common cause it would cause the neopoint to become totally valueless which it currently is not. Cheating in the form of Abing on the other hand I find to make the economy much more interesting, people on the tp are more paranoid, people abing are somewhat paranoid and the games a bit more interesting. It's kind of like how a game like GTA is fun to play where you steal stuff and there is a sense of danger when you play, the Abers need to avoid detection and the legit players try to ferret out people that ab, fun stuff . Also you had a point where there is an unfair advantage between legit and illegit players, that is true but that does not make the game unplayble, take the first move advantage in games like chess or GO. But like in those games there are ways to balance this to a degree, an example of this would be the value of retired items as a kind of way that rewards legit players. Most illegit players experience freezings some on a regular basis, making it often difficult to keep a hold of specific items and as retired items are nolonger attainable it is easier for legit players to take advantage of the benefits of owning a retied item. Also freezings make it so that even less of an item (like g-sword) to be around so that the legit players that have a better chance of holding onto it would have a more valuable item.
My reply is no. Now, I don't claim to have a firm grasp on how a real economy works, but I can make a few observations. Firstly, neopoints don't get recycled like real money does. When I spend neopoints in a shop, that money never gets used again. It's not given out as change, it's never taken to a bank to be sold as rolls of quarters or dimes. It disappears forever and is never re-used. Secondly, the Neopoints made from ABing are still coming from a source that is most probably still legit. There is a very good chance the person you're selling these items to has never touched a score sender or anything illegit in their entire Neopets life. While the chance of someone illegit buying your item is also obviously present, the Neopoints THEY have acquired were probably from someone legit. And so on and so forth. And the neopoints from games, as mentioned, are neopoints that are waiting to be claimed by any user - score senders just get them faster. The only neopoints that are 'introduced' into the economy that are brand spakin' new that people can take advantage of are the ones from refreshers, which is where random events are harvested for their worth. And the Advent Calendar. ((I'm counting neopoints won from various wheels as game neopoints, by the way.)) Thirdly, this statement: 'Tens of millions of NP enter the economy this way daily, and hardly any are removed.' -- Untruths. There are SO many money sinks on Neopets, it's bleepin' ridiculous. I remember ONE on Gaia online EVER, and that was extremely recently when all the shopkeepers needed 'donations to keep their shops running'. Normally no one would donate, right? Because it's an obvious money sink. But there were ITEMS involved for donating, and people wanted them. Neopets does the same thing, but there are ten, twenty, thirty more cases of this than any other virtual site with a virtual economy. Think about allllllllll those money sinks Neopets has. A few great examples of which are: Lever of Doom ((for an avatar)), Wishing Well ((for a Snorkle Snout/avatar or other item for which there is zero guarantee you're going to get)), Tombola guy needing donations ((to get free stuff)), Kelp ((for an avatar)), the Deserted Fairground games ((overpriced and near impossible to win at)), and countless random events that can take anywhere from ten to any percentage of neopoints that you have on hand. While it sucks, avatars were introduced to try and do something to 'help' the economy, when all they did was inflate otherwise completely unimportant items to insane prices, or to get people to pay attention to a certain money-grabbing portion of the site that was otherwise overlooked because it didn't DO anything anyone cared about. Fourth((...ly?)) it costs nothing to make neopoints. There is no paper to pay for, no metal to pay for, no machines to keep up and running, nothing. ((Still talking from the perspective of the Neopets economy; not including the money to keep servers up and etc)) It'd be an entirely different case if there were users of the site that actually had a JOB to manufacture and keep track of all the neopoints made and distributed. Fifth...ly ((this is getting ridiculous)) the Neopian economy ((and any other virtual site economy)) is extremely different from a normal, IRL economy. No one has jobs they need to worry about getting fired from, no one has taxes or bills to pay, there's no women and children lining the streets with poverty. The REAL issue is people over-inflating things just because they CAN. The only poverty is not being able to afford something because some stupid avatar jacked the price up. ((Great example: I was one of the people that figured out Gourmet Cooking for your Pet was part of the Bonju avatar. I bought mine from someone's shop for 1k. Within HOURS, they shot up to 1.3 MILLION neopoints.)) Instead of letting avatar items become so inflated, they should either make neopoints easier to get ((or freeze less, dur hur)), or make the avatar items more common. Or profitable RE's more common. SOMETHING to help the Average Joe get the sort-of things he wants. THAT'S why most people cheat. They want a quick way to get money for something they wouldn't otherwise have been able to get. If Grey Paint Brushes were still as cheap as they were 4 years ago, even 3 - I wouldn't even need to be on this website. It's not because I want the avatar, it's because I want an effing GREY PET. Avatars are hurting the Average Joe Neopian who wants a Grey PB for the simple act of having a Grey pet just to HAVE, or the person that wants a ZDAP - an item whose estimated value ((via the rarity index)) is UNDER 5 THOUSAND NEOPOINTS - just for their gallery. ((another fantastic example: Snowbunny. My Advent Calendar gallery. I was extremely lucky to have gotten one from a friend for 100k. 100k! That is absolutely insane. They were given out FREE and some people had dozens of them.)) If anything, avatars are hurting the economy more than anything else. Avatars make items worth so much more than they should be, and scammers steal those items that SHOULD only be worth an easily re-obtainable 100k or so. ...and that's all I have to say about that.
Well, firstly, these "sinks" are so small it doesn't do anything at all compared to how much NP is given out per day. Secondly, I always hate when people complain about items costing too much, and suggest that 1. lower the price of all these items they want, or 2. make it easier to gain np. This would SEVERELY compound the problem. People aren't overinflating items just because they "can," its because the economy dictates so. I can price an infested peach for 1 million np becuase I "can," but if no one buys it, it doesn't do anything. Grey paint brushes are expensive because there are WAY to much NP out there in relation to the demand for those paintbrushes. Making NP easier to get would just push the price up even higher, and lowering the price would just make OTHER things more expensive, not to mention lower the demand as everyone would have a GREY pet. Avatar items are a GODSEND to the economy. They take and help redistribute large chunks of NP. This redistribution of NP increases the purchasing power of the middle class and aids in the elimination of NP from the economy. There will always be people who complain paint brushes are too high or whatnot, and suggest they make NP easier to get when in reality that's the exact problem why paint brushes are high in the first place.
It doesn't ruin anything. I'm not going to OVER-analyze something simple and very understandable. It's like this. I got a dot . Then we got a wheel : Ok imagine the wheel is spinning. With the dot in it. Neopoints come and go... The price of an item goes up when the demand is lower and the offer is high. (Hope I got it right) You get neopoints through games, buying items and selling them to main shop and earn them through other methods. You lose neopoints through money sinks (like someone said in the post above me), luck based games or spend them for personal achievements. Scammers and cheaters contribute too low statistically to mention them, but yes they are "privileged" in some way. They get things quicker so that means the rotation of my wheel is slightly getting faster. :yup:
Well alot of cheaters get frozen anyway right? So I guess the freezing of Abers and whatnot kind of evens things out. It's like a ying yang situation between legit and non-legit. There's always going to be cheaters.
I've commented on this several times before, but since those old posts are long lost now..... Yes. People run ABers, snatch up expensive items, and then they devalue the items, defeating their own objectives. They do it because it seems too easy - "Hell, I got a morphing potion without even being at the computer... who cares if it's supposed to go for a million neopoints? I'll sell it for 800k real quick, or 500k, whatever, because I can get another one just as easily." So any poor slob out there actually working for a morphing potion is going to be heartbroken when he gets offered 1/5 of what the potion should be worth. What's worse is when you consider that a lot of AB users are reckless and ridiculous and get frozen after grabbing items. So the morphing potion that you might have taken pennies on the dollar for was robbed out from under your nose for nothing. And then, worse still *lol*, they come back and do it again with another account. It ruins it for average players who realize what is going on. Facing the fact that you cannot be competitive without autobuying and that you'll have to run a bargain basement shop even if you do autobuy won't make most people's day. It doesn't ruin it for the people cheating. They don't care because their only alternative would be to play the game, and they won't since 1)they don't want to invest the time/effort and 2)they fear falling behind - way behind. If ABers had long-term vision - if they could see the value in holding onto an account, and therefore were content to AB only once or twice a week - if they understood that listing items too far below their real value helps no one, and that buyers would eventually crumble against a united front of sellers seeking a certain price - then you wouldn't even notice the effect it had on the economy. But it'll never happen on its own and there's nothing you can say to make it happen.
tl;dr Well, I essentially agree with Fasty. Except that the price of an item goes up when the demand rises, and the supply decreases, and when the offer is high - these, of course, are not mutually exclusive events. Let me build on one of Fasty's minor (or non-existent) points. Sinks. A game like neopets needs sinks, where neopoints leave the economy - otherwise all of the neopoints generated via games (and, in some instances, yes, SSers) will stack up and everyone will have a billion in the bank, generating another few hundred kay every day. Before I waffle on too furter, let me get to the point. Cheaters provide for this sink. While dreamlorde may be right in saying that ABers sell the items for cheaper, and generally get frozen, a point hasn't been taken into account. This is a means to remove neopoints from the economy, and without this essential element, the economy would be ruined. Well, maybe not ruined. But if every item was worth another zero because these neopoints weren't being removed through the extra sinks, imagined how crazy things would get. It would be near impossible to sell rare items on the trading post, split auctions would be a necessity, and shops would be virtually redundant. Two points for Will! /rebut
I'm pretty sure, but I still have to ask - are you suggesting that cheaters being frozen is the sink? The only thing freezing does is minimize the damage caused by the cheating itself in the first place, lol.... it's a closed loop, not a cure to any problem outside of itself. As far as the "sink" issue goes, your imagined future scenario of everyone being a billionaire without one isn't based on reality. If we took cheating out of the picture completely and there were no so-called "sinks", the situation would be thus: you'd have a few billionaires, a bunch of upper and middle class, and an endless throng of poor slobs. Sounds pretty normal to me. Not everyone will be a Neopian billionaire under any circumstances, for the same reason not everyone is a billionaire off the internet. Not everyone is cut out for it. Not everyone has the drive. Not everyone has the know-how or intelligence. Anyone can make 70k a day playing games even with minimal gaming skill, but how many people do? Anyone can make a boatload of money playing the stock market, but how many do? The driven get rich and the lazy/dumb stay poor, in Neopets as in life. Cheating, and the freezing of cheaters, is not required to maintain that balance. The human condition maintains it.
Ok, after seeing the long responses, I'm amazed. You must remember that while millions of NPs are made through SSing and ABing, even more is lost through TNT freezing all the cheaters, and sometimes, wrongly freezing non-cheaters.
Firstly, in a sense no NP is made through ABing it merely redistributes existing Neopoints, I think quite a bit of cheating goes on without TNT catching on, else no-one would cheat.. Lets make things clear, Neopets is not reality in reality it is disaster to constantly be increasing the money supply, if there were no money sinks you would have way way way too much neopoints in the system. The lazy would still be poor obviously but that is kind of irrelevant, the neopoint would be worth practically nothing because there would be too much of it, the hard working would keep earning the points and there would constantly be more and more until no-one traded in neopoints anymore and it becomes a fully barter based system which wouldn't necessarily be bad imo but is not really as good as having a stable currency. Will is sort of correct in saying that it would be possible for everyone to have a billion in the bank (ie. you could technically still be poor with 300 mill cause no-one wants to sell you any 'valuable' items for that amount) but the point is that no-one wants neopoints cause they would be practically useless as no-one wants them for items and only a minimal account is needed for restocking, scratchcards etc..
I'm sorry, I was presenting a main rebuttal to the first point by Luna.. I tried to inference that mainly by tl;dr, although I did refer to some of your and Fasty's points when I wrote it. When I was saying that everything would have an extra 0 to the end of it, in terms of price, is playing on the notion that cheaters run amok and never get frozen for SSing and bringing neopoints into the economy. Which is partly true. Smart players will spend them fast, such as buying certain items and whatnot and then self-freezing. This does ruin the economy somewhat, as these items are more limited. Ruin is quite a harsh word. Sorry. What this is is, essentially, speeding up the "natural" process of depletion by a couple years, in a couple days. It doesn't ruin the economy, but massive prices for items previously worth scratch does ruin the game for others. However, when ABers trade the items they buy, they receive the neopoints, eventually get frozen and these neopoints are eventually lost into the shopping system or by being frozen on the account. So, cheaters are the sink. Yeah.
Sigh, forgot why its pointless arguing about real life issues on neopets. Keep forgetting most of the people are kids. There are so many things wrong with this its painful to respond.
Disclaimer: I didn't bother to read any of the posts in this thread The problem is that neopets has an unlimited money supply that continues to increase very quickly. Sure, cheating by score sending and such adds to this problem, but so does just playing games normally and such. Neo should stop giving out np for games and instead give out items as prizes.
Really? Rather than being rude and critical how about being constructive? what point did you find wrong? The points I made put succinctly would be 1) Money supply would be increasing 2) Money supply increasing would be inflationary 3) Inflation brings about lots of problems (ie. people stop using the currency to trade but rather use other items of value)
Yes, but... People get iced. Every cheater will gt iced sooner or later, its only a matter of time xD While some get iced more then others, you will get iced, even legit players get iced for bull, lol. It hurts the economy, but i think tnts ices balance it out for the most part.
I didn't read this thread either, too much tl;dr... (don't hurt me). However, there are so many players on Neopets now, and they ice so many cheaters, that it's hard to think that it's hurting it TOO badly. Then again, what do I know. I might just be justifying it, since I'm a big fat cheater.