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Gaia has announcement overload. There's no way to actually KEEP UP with them, nor to ensure their relevance.

well i think i want to get this started ;3; if it takes a member to do it instead of staff then my first day will be spent encouraging you guys to do what eryna has been doing very successfully for a very long time

by the way though, that rotating thing on the front page would be perfect for displaying site-related stuff, winner of an contest could fit very nicely up there

For the first post concerns -
I think a market place option would be a lovely idea, it gets tiring looking through the market threads to locate someone selling the one item your seeking.

As for the games, it would certainly get me more interested in coming back if there was other ways to earn au than just posting.

For the clickable pets, in disagreement with Asami there. I don't think that was what really caused Zantarni to flop. I think it was more the change of pixels and the fact the last owner didn't put the time and effort into the actual site and the pets were a cute idea, that like with the animated items, were ideas that came too late to actually do the site any good. Also, most people instead of raising their own pets, just bought the pets off of other people which defeated the whole purpose of them. I think for this idea, making the pet only capable of being equipped to the owner's avatar or offering rewards for each stage of evolution the pet receives, like on KoFK, where each level the owner receives a small amount of site currency.

My only fear with an active market place is how quickly things on trisphee will get inflated. There isn't any one really keeping up with the price guy and I always read that people do not know what to charge. Once something like that goes live, its up to the users to determine the price of items and even still it does not guarantee, that A you are paying a fair price and B circulation of old items.

I agree with the games.

I am still not sure how I feel about the process of leveling up. It is one of the reasons why I have not bothered with clicky sites and KoFK. I was horrible at keeping up with my Neopets and powerpets.

This is exactly why we don't want to automate the process of buying and selling, and why what we'll be providing is essentially searchable classified ads rather than an online store. (Closer to Craigslist than eBay, essentially.)

well as it stands the market setup we have is a shambles and is a big detterent to new users, i dont feel comfortable buying things or even /wanting/ things since i have no idea what they are worth, if there are any at all or what quite a few of them look like. trisphee is a store with no price labels, much of the good stuff locked away and untouchable and with several things that look like they ought to be acquirable but are not because those who'd sell them cannot get their inventories to work once you get a certain amount of stuff


also i have found the lack of games a deterrent since there is very little incentive to visit i can also tell you that summer is when /more/ activity is normal. if this site goes into a lull over the summer there is something wrong

also, one last thing, it is all well and good that you are talking about trying to fix it but noone is actually actively doing anything and of the half dozen people who joined(that i know of) since i came back i don't see any of them being active and i myself would have left days ago if i had not promised a contest, once i hand out prizes i am leaving too. there is nothing here to keep me except my own dogged enthusiasm and that barely lasted two weeks. you have people who really want this place to thrive but if you do not take care of them they, like a potted plant in a shady corner, will die

I can understand both of your opinions on the marketplace and that it is true it might cause inflation cause prices on things are not set but than again, the same should happen using threads since the price guide we have is just an estimate on prices.

The good thing about Neopets is your pets don't die if you don't feed them, I actually was giving some of my pets away on there and downsizing to two accounts cause it was too much hassle logging on to the other two accounts to fully take care of five - six other pets.
On KofK, most sponsor contests and more to get clicks for their pets, this may be older knuffels (which newer people want cause they are rare to find randomly), donation currency, etc. This might aid with getting more people active in the long run, cause to be honest, who doesn't like contests?

And in agreement with zosa. I pop back in and out cause I like to see what is new on here and unless you start doing something to keep people interested and coming back, your not going to fix the issue.

Maybe the marketplace could have a max price set on items? Like you could only ask up to X amount of money for a particular item?
Or maybe all items could be bid only? No auto-buy option?
Or perhaps staff gets together and determines a set price for certain items and makes an frequently updated price guide?

Chloe; So out of curiosity then, what exactly are some things that you would like to see that would keep you coming back to the site?

The first and last ones become difficult to balance. We try to let the free market determine what items are actually worth, and for the most part it works.

The problem with bid-only is that it doesn't stop someone from buying low and selling high -- it just slows it down. Also, when people want items, they usually want them right away, so not allowing buy-now would frustrate users. It would also not work very well for negotiating item trades instead of aurum-based purchases.

I think the system as it stands right now actually does do a pretty good job of managing prices. It just suffers from an extreme lack of discoverability. A tool that would let someone put items up for sale, and then negotiate prices in a thread or in PM, would solve the problem we're having.

Very valid points.

Hm. I don't know. It's tough to try and come up with an alternative to a market place.
I mean, it does create mass inflation, but at the same time, it's really hard to have a successful economy without one.
People are having a hard time "questing" because they don't know how much they need to complete their goal.
That was one of my favorite things to do on Gaia back in the day.
Find an item I wanted, figure out how much it was going for, and questing the hell out of it in my beautiful quest threads I made.
It's hard to do when there aren't enough of that item being sold to validate a generally price of what someone might give it up for.

It's such a fragile situation. I mean, you don't want to mess up the economy, but at the same time, there really isn't one right now to mess up in my opinion.

That's why I'm proposing, essentially, Craigslist. It IS a marketplace, just not one with an automated purchase system. You can still offer items for sale; the server just won't run the transaction for you. And this would also allow us to support a list of "searching for item" requests; if you have an item you want to put up for sale you could look for people who have expressed interest in buying them.

I've toyed off and on with thoughts on how I might track historical prices but I haven't thought of a good way.

In all honesty, to not be like Gaia and have a few ways of earning currency besides posting. I don't live in the States like most of the active users on here so when they are active, I'm in bed and which means I have to scroll through tons of pages to catch up which leaves me not being interested in staying in the conversion at all.

I wish we had a better way to accommodate you, Chloe, but making it to where you could sustain aurum income without posting would have a negative effect on overall posting habits, regardless of time zone. We've intentionally chosen not to give too many aurum rewards because encouraging people to be socially active is our highest priority. If people aren't socially active, then the site won't be able to sustain itself. (We could, theoretically, convert to some sort of freemium games site, but that's not what our mission is.)

But I'm always interested in ideas that might support posting activity -- is there something that would help you with the way you use the site that would make it easier for you to be active?

i wasnt saying the clickable pets made zanny flop
i said the clickable pets idea flopped haha
but yea
i adore clickable pets. and would love the feature.
but if we do it. we need to do it right.

Coda; Yeah, I think like a Craiglist thing could work. I was thinking something like that, but I couldn't find a way to explain it.

Chloe; I understand where you're coming from. I work third shift in the states and my nights off are usually when I'm able to post the most. So usually there's not really anyone online then.

Annie, I'm interested in your feedback as well -- is there some way we could make it easier for you?