The Wheel of Extravagance Project

or, How I lost 11.5 million Neopoints over the the last year.

Ever since my guildmate won a rare Booktastic Book from the Wheel of Extravagance and was able to sell it for 65 MILLION Neopoints, I've been spinning that wheel in hope of the same luck. Now, I knew that such an occurrence was likely rare, and I was prepared to go in for the long haul, spinning every day until I either won something worthwhile or had thrown enough Neopoints at the Wheel that I decided I'd had enough. By a series of complex mathematical calculations, I decided that 20 million Neopoints lost would be my upper limit.

I spun the Wheel of Extravagance every day for 365 consecutive days, and while I haven't hit my upper limit yet, nor have I won that elusive rarity-100 prize, I thought this would be a good time to share the results so far. So here we go!

Fondly nicknamed the Wheel of Extortion, or WoEx, the Wheel of Extravagance requires that you put 100,000 Neopoints into the hands of the very-enthusiastic Tonu before you are allowed to step up and take your spin. Most Neopians of my acquaintance spin the wheel solely for the chance of the elusive avatar to add to their growing collection. However, I have noticed a few quiet spinners, such as myself, who already have the avatar and are spinning solely to gamble on that rare item slot.

If you are unfamiliar with the Wheel of Extravagance, it is similar to the other wheels around Neopia: the Wheel of Excitement in Faerieland, the Wheels of Mediocrity and Monotony in Tyrannia, the Wheel of Knowledge in Brightvale, and the Wheel of Misfortune in the Haunted Woods.

The Wheel of Extravagance is located in Qasala, in the Lost Desert. It has twelve wedges and therefore twelve different results you can get from your spin.

(1) The X spot is the bane of everyone's existence. Landing on this spot means that you will have spent 100,000 Neopoints for absolutely nothing in return.

(2-4) There are three NP bag wedges. The small bag will give you 25,000 Neopoints, meaning you will “only” have lost 75,000 Neopoints. The medium bag gives you 50,000 Neopoints, half of what you spent for the privilege of spinning. And the large bag gives you 100,001 Neopoints; a profit of 1NP.

(5-6) There are two slots which will award you stats. One of them has a picture of one flexed arm. This one gives you +5 of either hit points, strength, defence, agility, or intelligence. The slot with the picture of two flexed arms will you give +10 from the same set of possible stats listed above. The stats are awarded to your active 'pet, so make sure to set your preferred potential trainee before spinning the wheel! If your 'pet already has pretty high statistics and you are still actively training, these two spots could save you quite a bit of Neopoints at the training schools.

(7-9) There are three wedges that give you exclusive Wheel of Extravagance items. The wedge with the picture of the background awards you the Wheel of Extravagance Background. The wedge with the picture of a star stamp awards you the Wheel of Extravagance Stamp. And finally, the wedge with the picture of the blank bordered rectangle will award you the elusive “High Roller” avatar.

(10-12) And last but not least, there are three wedges that will award you item prizes. Aside from the large money bag slot which wins you a profit of 1NP, these three wedges have the highest probability of helping you earn back a little of what you spend to spin the wheel. The slot with the picture of the Nerkmid will award you one random Nerkmid, Secret Laboratory Map piece, or Faerieland Job Coupon. Due to the influx of Nerkmids from the Cosmic Dome (Premium member access), none of the possible Nerkmids that you can win will completely pay for your spin if sold as is. Gambling with your Nerkmids at the Alien Aisha Vending Machine will have to be an article of its own! There have been a few articles written on this topic in the past, if you would like to peruse the Neopian Times archives. The slot with the picture of the paint brush will award you (surprise surprise) one random paint brush. As I'm sure most of you are aware, many paint brushes are worth more than 100,000 NP (although to be fair, there are also a few that are worth less than that sum). And lastly, the goal of my spinning project, is the slot with the picture of the Scorchstone. Landing on this wedge will award you one random rarity-100 item. Now, this should definitely come with a caveat. While you can most definitely win a rare Booktastic Book worth 65 million NP, like my friend did. You can also, by definition, win a Sticky Snowball worth a paltry 100NP.

And now, what you have all been waiting for, my spin statistics!

Spinning the wheel 365 times, selling all my item prizes at Shop Wizard prices, and considering all Battledome-stat increases as the equivalent of what it would have cost in Codestones to train those points (Intelligence increases were counted as being worth no Neopoints), I lost 11,541,077 Neopoints over the past year. Considering it would have cost 36,500,000 Neopoints just to spin the wheel over the year, that means I was awarded nearly 25 million Neopoints worth of NP, item prizes, and equivalent training points.

The Avatar

I know that most people are probably most interested in the avatar. So to cut right to the chase, in the past year, 365 spins, I have landed on the avatar wedge 5 times.

That surprised me. I remember when I was first trying for the avatar I thought it took ages and ages of spinning before I got it. But for this project, I actually landed on the avatar spot on day 74, roughly two months in, and coincidentally pretty close to the average number of days it would take given my data set. For completeness, I also landed on the avatar spot on days 90, 258, 308, and 353.

X

The next thing that most people, myself included, talk about is how often you land on the big X. I'm sorry to say that if it feels like you land on that spot the most often, your feeling is actually correct. It's not a trick of your mind remembering the disappointments more clearly than the wins. I landed on the X wedge 81 times, which is 22% of my spins, a shockingly large number and yet not completely surprising. Just rather depressing.

Neopoint Bags

Besides the X, I landed on the Neopoint bag spots at the next highest rate. I visited the 50,000 NP spot 77 times (21%), the 25,000 NP spot 70 times (19%), and the 100,001 NP spot 47 times (13%).

Nerkmid

The Nerkmid spot (which remember, also awards Secret Lab Maps and Job Coupons), was the fifth most common result. I landed on this spot 45 times (12%). Of the 45 times, I received Nerkmids 20 times, Job Coupons 7 times (only three coupons were worth more than 100,000 NP), and Lab Maps 18 times. Surprisingly, 15 of the 18 times I was awarded a Secret Laboratory Map piece, the piece was worth more than 100,000 NP. This is even more astonishing when you consider that only 5 of the 9 pieces fall into this price range.

More Statistics

If you've been counting, we've already accounted for 325 of the 365 spins. To fill out the rest of the data, I'm lumping everything else into this last section.

I landed on the +5 stats spot 25 times, and the +10 stats spot 10 times. The “worth” of these spots will definitely vary a lot depending on your active 'pet's current stats. For the first half of the year, I had a goal of reaching the max boost (750 strength and 750 defence) for my little battler. Because she was already at quite a high level of training, every additional point cost quite a lot in terms of Codestones for the training course. In my particular case, a +10 boost from the wheel was worth roughly 400,000 NP to me (2 red Codestones per course x 20,000 NP per average red Codestone x 10 stat points). Later on in the year, after I had achieved my 750/750 goal, I switched which 'pet I would take with me to spin the Wheel of Extravagance, and therefore the worth of the spin, when landing on these stats wedges, was considerably lower. I also was awarded Intelligence points 4 times, which I counted as being worth 0 Neopoints. And for those more serious trainers, I will admit that I was awarded +10 Agility points three times, and +5 Agility points seven times. Considering there are five possible statistics you can get (HP, Strength, Defence, Agility, and Intelligence), the numbers here are fair, with Agility and Intelligence being awarded 2/5 of the time (14/35, when the +5 and +10 wedges are taken together). As a note, I did in fact count Agility points in the profit/loss calculation as what they would be worth if trained, even though I, like many others, do not train Agility and consider it to be for the most part a useless statistic in the Battledome.

I landed on the Background and Stamp spots twice each. And last, but certainly not least, I landed on the Paint Brush spot one time, winning a Plushie Paint Brush, making that my single most profitable spin to date.

Given my data and my results, it looks like I may be spinning for almost another year before I hit my self-set limit of 20,000,000 Neopoints lost to the Wheel of Extravagance. I can no longer claim that it is extorting me, having already obtained the avatar, and no longer being compelled to spin it for any other reason than my personal penchant toward gambling.

For those still after the avatar, I will definitely say that you can expect to have to spin the wheel for at least two months daily. But you might win something nice, or at least a little something to offset the cost of the spin. Just remember to have your training buddy as your active Neopet so you can take the fullest advantage of those stats wedges!

In conclusion, having done the math, my daily spins actually turn out to cost only ~30,000 NP per day after all is said and done. Perhaps this will give those with tighter budgets that are dreaming of that High Roller avatar a little more hope.