Does anyone else feel like Demand is killing CS?

[Fae]

That's just supply and demand for you. The older pets are rereleased every year and the store pets are not. And as demand rises while supply falls, value goes up. That's just how economies are. It's just not feasible to keep value the exact same when everybody and their mother wants a Raven, or a Cerberus, or whatever. Only way to alleviate it would be to reintroduce the animals and make them more common, but it would have to be done through the store.

I would agree. While this might not be feasible and certainly wouldn't help with Demand, maybe there could be a store section on Dec 18th where you would, if you had them, give say 20 C$ for a random store pet of past years, but you can only purchase 1 on that day and like the Dec 18th box, its completely random. The reason for 1 is to make it fair; some people don't have C$, and the Advent box is already free, already all past year non-store pets and you get more of them. Plus you're still paying the monetary value of a Store Pet...Maybe something to think about, since there is a re-introduce system for all other older pets

Maybe not the best suggestion, I'd have to tweak it more, but Demand is pretty insane around here and I've refused to give into it

[Minaethiel]

That's just supply and demand for you. The older pets are rereleased every year and the store pets are not. And as demand rises while supply falls, value goes up. That's just how economies are. It's just not feasible to keep value the exact same when everybody and their mother wants a Raven, or a Cerberus, or whatever. Only way to alleviate it would be to reintroduce the animals and make them more common, but it would have to be done through the store.

I would agree. While this might not be feasible and certainly wouldn't help with Demand, maybe there could be a store section on Dec 18th where you would, if you had them, give say 20 C$ for a random store pet of past years, but you can only purchase 1 on that day and like the Dec 18th box, its completely random. The reason for 1 is to make it fair; some people don't have C$, and the Advent box is already free, already all past year non-store pets and you get more of them. Plus you're still paying the monetary value of a Store Pet...Maybe something to think about, since there is a re-introduce system for all other older pets

Maybe not the best suggestion, I'd have to tweak it more, but Demand is pretty insane around here and I've refused to give into it

See, here's the problem with my suggestion, which has been vaguely touched on, but would have a huge impact overall. Video game microtransactions have been a very hot topic the past few years thanks to the addictive nature of them to get a desired outcome, much like gambling. Thus, several laws have been passed limiting them and trying to make them less like a slot machine. The EU especially has been rigorous in handling them, which would greatly complicate having the 'random store pet' box, even for a short amount of time. Because it would, essentially, be like a loot box.

[Shinryu]

I would agree. While this might not be feasible and certainly wouldn't help with Demand, maybe there could be a store section on Dec 18th where you would, if you had them, give say 20 C$ for a random store pet of past years, but you can only purchase 1 on that day and like the Dec 18th box, its completely random. The reason for 1 is to make it fair; some people don't have C$, and the Advent box is already free, already all past year non-store pets and you get more of them. Plus you're still paying the monetary value of a Store Pet...Maybe something to think about, since there is a re-introduce system for all other older pets

Maybe not the best suggestion, I'd have to tweak it more, but Demand is pretty insane around here and I've refused to give into it

There's two main reasons for why something like this hasn't been considered yet.
One is that not all store pets actually cost 20 C$. That's the price they've gone for since around 2010, but the first store pets actually cost more, with the orange cerb being twice as expensive.
Similarly, there are set exclusive pets that could never be purchased separately and thus don't have a set price, but seeing as you could only get them by actually buying a whole set's worth, it'd be just as weird to give them out for 20 C$.

The other is that as soon as you do the Dec 18th box system with a currency that costs real money, it's nothing but a loot box - you could argue that if it's 20C$ you'll always get your money's worth since none of the store pets cost less, but it's safer to avoid situations where people paying real money for the same thing won't all get something of equal value.

[Silver Leaves]

They could do it by showing what the store pet is instead but have it be completely random. Like you open a gift and it's a random store pet, then it says something like "Adopt this pet for 25C$?" or however much the original pet costed and the offer stays there for that particular player if they needed to go and top up their account or something.

[Shian]

i've seen a few posts on here saying it used to be easy to get older pets.
did it??? when i was new i was only a little kid, and for the first four years i never got anything good from dec 18

No, it really wasn't. That's part of why the rares list was created was because some pets were really really hard to get and just like today, people didn't really understand why it was hard to get something that came out just 15 days ago.

I joined in October and didn't even get my first September pet for four months of playing. Four months of sending cold trades out, hoping that someone would log in and see it because there wasn't any indication when each user was last online, nor did we have an actual trade center for a while. My first July 08... must've been 8 months? Certainly within my first year, but it took forever because there was no C$, there was no offsite trading. Nothing. Just endlessly trying to find an older user that was still around and somehow wanted full sets of Oct 08s because that's all there was. It's NEVER been easy. It will never be easy to get pets that have been retired for 10 years. Why are people acting like being around "back then" was all easy street and sunjewel dogs rained from the sky? Because it just didn't. it was still difficult.

The oldest items in FR are worth 250,000 gems. That's $2,500. Light Sprites, one of the first Festival items is $750. And that game isn't 10 years old, it's only been around for 6 years. There's scores of retired items that are never coming back. Why are people surprised and upset that it's hard to get retired pets here? Is there some game that I don't know of where it's easy to get things that haven't been released for 10 years? We're so very lucky that this game has a re-release. Most games don't.

I didn't get anything good out of the Dec 18th box until just last year. 10 years. 10 years of playing. I can't help but feel very jaded whenever someone complains that they didn't get anything good for their first year and acts like it's just them that has bad luck.

Want valuable pets easy?
That's really simple. Trade for pets now. Start finding pets you like now instead of treating anything that's not a "rares list" as garbage. One of the points of retiring that list was so people would stop focusing on these few dozen pets out of well over 10 thousand. You never know when that uncommon will turn rare. That rare to turn VR. It can turn into something really special when it suddenly turns popular three years down the road. And yes, that really happens. Zodiacs were just 2010 uncommons. Two years later, a webcomic happens to gain popularity far after the pet's release and everyone wanted a set. Now they're worth 3 for an advent 08.

Heck, for a very long while, we couldn't even trade for C$. You had to tell someone what you wanted, they had to buy it and pray you didn't change your mind halfway through the trade. Nowadays, it's super easy to get C$ so you don't even need to spend money to get store pets.

Just play the game. Rarity, scarcity and demand has always and will always be a part of it. The ebb and flow of demand and value is always changing and it's not just going to go away.

[Fae]

That's just supply and demand for you. The older pets are rereleased every year and the store pets are not. And as demand rises while supply falls, value goes up. That's just how economies are. It's just not feasible to keep value the exact same when everybody and their mother wants a Raven, or a Cerberus, or whatever. Only way to alleviate it would be to reintroduce the animals and make them more common, but it would have to be done through the store.

I would agree. While this might not be feasible and certainly wouldn't help with Demand, maybe there could be a store section on Dec 18th where you would, if you had them, give say 20 C$ for a random store pet of past years, but you can only purchase 1 on that day and like the Dec 18th box, its completely random. The reason for 1 is to make it fair; some people don't have C$, and the Advent box is already free, already all past year non-store pets and you get more of them. Plus you're still paying the monetary value of a Store Pet...Maybe something to think about, since there is a re-introduce system for all other older pets

Maybe not the best suggestion, I'd have to tweak it more, but Demand is pretty insane around here and I've refused to give into it

See, here's the problem with my suggestion, which has been vaguely touched on, but would have a huge impact overall. Video game microtransactions have been a very hot topic the past few years thanks to the addictive nature of them to get a desired outcome, much like gambling. Thus, several laws have been passed limiting them and trying to make them less like a slot machine. The EU especially has been rigorous in handling them, which would greatly complicate having the 'random store pet' box, even for a short amount of time. Because it would, essentially, be like a loot box.

Aw dang it, that's right it would function exactly like that, and since it'd be handling real money, it might be beholden to those laws and be complicated. I feel like there has to be a solution to the store pet problem though, since this where the majority of the HUGE demand pets come in (Raven, Cerbs, Eat Me/Drink Me). I'll have to think on it some more, it was just the first one that popped into my head...

[FOUND VERDICT]

am i the only one who doesn't think that there is a "store pet" problem?

like, the whole point of them of is to be an limited time offer... otherwise you could still buy them all in the store.
they are literally supposed to become more valuable and harder to get

[meodencon01]

I personally think re-releasing old store pets is just unfair to the people who bought them years ago. (since it was bought with real money)
Also, if you refuse to pay what the pet's owner wants, then you will not get that pet. Is that so hard to understand?
For example, i want 2 nons for my liontail, then i will trade it for only that amount! If you don't like my price, you may go trade someone else?
Stop setting goals on super valuable pets and then throw hate cause no one will trade it for your commons.
-from an experienced trader

[ThunderCedar]

I am arguably one of the people that would benefit the most from rereleasing store pets. (I am only missing 4 for a complete collection. Cerbs, skelebun, and brown sleipnir). However, I stand against rereleasing them. Store pets are supposed to be a reward you get for supporting the site with money. And like many said, their entire appeal comes from the fact they are limited edition. Store pets simply wouldn't be purchased as often if they got rereleased.
It baffles me that people will go out of their way to obtain them for cheap, even if it means hurting other players, or even hurting the site as a whole.
Not everyone is supposed to be able to get their hands on cerbs and such. That's the entire point of store pets.
It's also why store pets aren't even considered part of a complete pet collection by Tess herself.

They're a luxury/bonus. They are not something everyone is entitled to.

[Asvoria]

Whelp, I've scrambled through the discussion since my last post where I threw the inactive-accounts-problem in and I didn't imagine for it to be such a thing.
What if instead of deleting an account after a certain time of inactivity, send an e-mail and ask if you don't intend on returning and if it's okay to bring the pets back into circulation.
If they still have e-mail access and answer with a yes then it would be fair to take the pets away. They don't have to, as they can always say no and come back whenever.
I don't actually think that this would have a huge impact as so many people don't use their old e-mails anyway, but it might just bring that one store pet or one rarer pet back into circulation.

On the other hand, do remember that in ten years time (if CS makes it through a secone decade, lol) the pets that you get for free every month will be as sought after as we want the ones from ten years ago right now. It's an endless circle and every pet you have now and save for your collection is also something that someone else wants much later on.
The member numbers aren't going to reduce themselves from nothing, so every pet released will at some point be a rare thing to acquire.