Recent Rarity Change List [January Update in progress!!]

[DuckGoesRawr]

Bumping this up for you guys.

For those of you who are curious/confused/frustrated, Nick was kind enough to explain why this is happening. Turns out those pets were never really that rare to begin with! The rarities were just inflated by a surge of spam accounts, and are now settling back into their true values.

The only real way for the rarity of pets to fall is for the number of "active players" to drop, since this is used to work out how many people are competing to collect pets. That's the number of accounts that have logged in within the last year. In 2013, we had a huge number of accounts sign up and then not do anything in May, June and July (possibly caused by spambots, about 2-3x as many as normal). So when the rarities were updated in the last couple of months, the number of new people who had joined the site in those months this year was about 50% less than the number of accounts that had gone inactive in those months in the previous year, so the count of the number of "active players" over the past 12 months fell for three months in a row. This meant that the "rarity" displayed on all pets fell slightly in those months.

[Topiratti]

how exactly do "spambots" create accounts if theyre not even real? and what exactly are spambots?

[Candle.Jack]

I like the explanation, but I don't see any solution of the problem, there for I do not feel comforted- I still feel cheated. Delete the fake accounts and perhaps change the way sign ups work. Anything to deter the spam bots looks like something's being done to me.

Are the pets now at true rarity? I can't trust anyone's judgement.

[DuckGoesRawr]

I like the explanation, but I don't see any solution of the problem, there for I do not feel comforted- I still feel cheated. Delete the fake accounts and perhaps change the way sign ups work. Anything to deter the spam bots looks like something's being done to me.

Are the pets now at true rarity? I can't trust anyone's judgement.

I don't think they can delete the account, I would assume they probably look exactly the same as normal newly registered accounts. Rarities constantly change, its part of the game and your just gonna have to learn to deal with it like everyone else has to.

[CSF]

Bumping this up for you guys.

For those of you who are curious/confused/frustrated, Nick was kind enough to explain why this is happening. Turns out those pets were never really that rare to begin with! The rarities were just inflated by a surge of spam accounts, and are now settling back into their true values.

The only real way for the rarity of pets to fall is for the number of "active players" to drop, since this is used to work out how many people are competing to collect pets. That's the number of accounts that have logged in within the last year. In 2013, we had a huge number of accounts sign up and then not do anything in May, June and July (possibly caused by spambots, about 2-3x as many as normal). So when the rarities were updated in the last couple of months, the number of new people who had joined the site in those months this year was about 50% less than the number of accounts that had gone inactive in those months in the previous year, so the count of the number of "active players" over the past 12 months fell for three months in a row. This meant that the "rarity" displayed on all pets fell slightly in those months.

This makes perfect sense to me ^-^

[marmoris]

What the hell is going on with the rarities? I basically just lost my rare fodder.

Same. I'm getting a little bit tired of everything going down! >:C


Seriously, these pets should be going UP, NOT down. :I


(Well.. Some.)

I mean, I'm a bit confused with it ;3;

[RavenclawHobbit]

Nobody "lost" any rare fodder, because those pets never should have been rare in the first place. A higher-than-usual rate of spam accounts made in 2013 caused the rarities to inflate, and now they are just settling back down to their true values.

Nick posted a very logical explanation for us, and it's been quoted all over this thread. The rarities should return to their normal behavior once that wave of spam accounts turns inactive. (Accounts are considered inactive one year after their creation)

[ægis]

D:

Oh no.
My first Omg So Rare pet went Very Rare. ;n;

Sad.
</3

There also goes a quarter of my trade fodder. /:
I also paid 400K for my White Feb via off-site FR.
Demand and rarity was included in that offer, plus a little extra since I didn't buy much on FR and was desperate for the White Feb.
At that time though, that amount of treasure was worth a Target Dog.
Kinda feel ripped off now, but I guess it's alright. xP


Anyone know why this is happening?
It just can't be old accounts re-activating.
The event is now over, and the amount of people that logged in during and after the event is a huge difference in numbers.

Oh wow yeah the same thing happened to me with the White Feb except I paid 200k.
I'm not actively trading much anymore so half my fodder going down doesn't annoy me as much as it would but I am a little disappointed.

[Yoyce]

I can't say I'm disappointed with the change; yes, it's weird to see so many very rares suddenly go rare, but in the end it can only be better for us, users - it's not like we lost something; because of the spambot accounts we were rather being fooled by the system that the pets were worth more/rarer than they really were and we had to overpay for them even more; now everything can slowly go back to normal.

[Costelle]

I have lost over 3/4 of my trade fodder. Thanks a lot, spam bots. I'm going to go cry in a corner now.