An Ever Growing Neopia by noremac9 |  |
Untitled Document
NEOPIA CENTRAL - If you haven't been to the World Page in a while, I suggest
you pay it a visit. If you take a look at the "Total Owners" statistic. You'll
see that it's constantly growing. Just look at the number and refresh, you'll
see a higher number. On average, it's two to four new users per second.
Maybe it's just me, but that seems like a rapid growth rate. With each new account
spawned, a whole new Neopian life begins. They'll have goals, pets, money, items,
dislikes, complaints, friends, and everything else that comes with being a Neopian.
Every account created is a new life being born, and they'll want a few things.
After all, we all want things, right?
The number one item on most Neopians want list is to get their pets painted.
There are many different ways to do this, but the most common (and usually the
easiest) way is to use a paint brush. Unfortunately, paint brushes can't simply
be bought in a store like most things in Neopia, because they are found at random
(save the baby paint brush in the Hidden Tower. But that's exception, not the
standard). With more and more Neopians appearing every day, the demand for paint
brushes is growing rapidly. But there's no supply increase to meet their demand,
and many paint brushes are hurtling towards the unbuyable realm. Slowly but
surely the prices are increasing, and there's no evidence of a slow down any
time soon. I hate to say it, but it looks very likely that a year from now,
new players will look at us very funny when we mention buying a paint brush
through the Shop Wizard. But they're not the only item that's rising, because
there are plenty of other items everyone wants.
Books are headed up at a rapid pace as well. Though not at the breakneck speed
of paint brushes, they too are rising. Since most of us would like our pets
to be smart, well educated, and read up, books are in demand. Even though most
books are sold in the Book Shop, supply does not meet demand. And those are
just normal books I'm talking about. The rare books have already seen a boost,
but aren't slowing at all. Due to the rabidly consuming minds of the top Book
Award readers, rare books are hot items. Once books are read, they're gone,
and since there are so few rare books to start with, the desire to read them
caused a steady increase in price. There are plenty of aspiring Book Award readers,
and more pop up every day.
Some petpets are going up in price, though by no means all of them. Mainly,
the petpets from the shop in Neopia Central are the ones increasing. I can only
guess why, but since most new players are mainly focused on Neopia Central,
it's the first place to go for petpets. Why some petpets are rising and other
aren't is beyond me, but it probably has more to do with popularity than anything.
Scratchcards, for some reason unbeknownst to me, are a terrible addiction
for some. They're (pretty much) popular in general, addiction or not, and you
can only buy them once every two hours. Now, maybe it's just me, but do you
really need to get them anymore frequently than that? I suppose so, because
the price has been going up for some time. It's rising slowly, but it's rising.
The more players that get hooked, the more their price goes up. It's a very
slow acceleration, but acceleration nonetheless.
For a new player, or new pet (which often go hand in hand), two dubloon coins
are the way to train. Although all Neopians are not interested in training their
pets, many are. Since two dubloon coins are the one-size-fits-all way to train
weaker pets, they're very popular. The price never went up before, because you
could get them fairly easily. But after games like Deck Ball and Deck Swabber
stopped giving out Dubloons, the price have risen dramatically. Luckily, two
dubloon coins were given out at the Advent Calendar, which helped the price
for a little while. However, their price is almost back to where it was before,
and they're not showing any signs of slowing. The staff promised new ways to
get Dubloons, but since they work about as fast as a pet rock going up a slippery
hill, we know how long that might take (and has already taken, actually). The
more new players there are, the more these little coins go up in price.
But items aren't the only thing affected by the growing number of Neopians.
Try restocking in a shop with more and more people everyday trying to get their
greasy little hands on the items they lust for. Neopia is not the kind of place
that increases supply with increasing demand. That means an item drought, a
constantly worsening situation for restockers. The competition's getting fiercer
all the time. By the second in fact.
Restocks are not the only place the competition is getting worse. Everywhere
you can imagine more and more players are trying their luck. From the High-Score
tables, to the Beauty Contest, to the something-else-that-involves-other-players
contest. All of the contests are upping the ante, because there is more competition
all the time.
The Chat boards are also feeling the pressure of the ever-growing population.
They're becoming so filled with posting users that boards are springing up faster
than people can read them all. They've been busy for some time, but like everything
else, they're getting busier.
Neopia is a big place, but it's becoming more and more of a survival of the
fittest, Spardel eat Spardel world. Competition is growing, and it weeds out
those that aren't good enough to make the cut, in whatever it is you're doing.
The more that join, the harder it gets to compete with other players, because
there are more good ones coming all the time (and bad players too, don't get
me wrong). If staff members do not address many of the issues that are presenting
themselves, Neopia could become a very harsh place.
Thanks for taking the time to read this article, I hope it was enlightening in
some way. If you have the slightest reason to send me a Neomail, please do. In
the meantime, good luck in the wide world of Neopia.
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