What's wrong with Rarity? We want to explain

[Lufi]

I don't see how the rarity labels makes much of a difference when trading.
Rarity changes only seem to affect people that count and care about "how many rares they have" rather than "trade value of the pet".

Would you trade a 2013 common for a 2010 common? No! There's years difference!

Would you trade away your Shima long tail as a 2009 uncommon if it was still labeled uncommon? No. They're selling for rares list pets because they are harder to find despite having the exact same rarity as its littermates.


"I don't like it when rarities change! They should stay the same always so I don't lose anything!"

You're not losing anything. It's just a label that tells you roughly how many pets there are in the game. Not how many are tradeable. Rarity updates help gauge this though in this example:

"Oh, hey I have a rare!"

No you don't. It's not really rare. It's only labeled rare because there's thousands of spambots messing up the count by creating accounts and not adopting anything. Making the pet rarer than it really is. In reality, nearly everyone has this same pet you do and don't want to trade for it. Do you really want "false rares" like this where everyone has one but it's marked rare?
You'd still have a hard time trading it away no matter what it's rarity label is.

yeah i agreed with you... I don't have any problem that went that pets down in rarity and I'm very happy for some
I was just extremly confused it's all

also what are spam bots? its members which join and never are online? or it's that google "accounts"?

Spambots are the reason that new members must have their first post approved before they can communicate. They're automated (hence the "bot" in their name), and their sole purpose is to post ads, spam, inappropriate content, etc. wherever and whenever they can. More information can be found via your preferred search engine and on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spambot

The bots like the google bot, etc. are harmless as far as I know; their purpose is to collect information to help their search engine.

----

Thank you for the explanation, Nick. It'd be great if spambots weren't counted from the start, but I'm not too sure how that would work and it sounds like the problem wasn't expected xD But thanks again for explaining.

oh okay thank you for information

[Schuyler]

Thanks for the reply, Nick! It makes a lot more sense now. ^^

I don't see how the rarity labels makes much of a difference when trading.
Rarity changes only seem to affect people that count and care about "how many rares they have" rather than "trade value of the pet".

Would you trade a 2013 common for a 2010 common? No! There's years difference!

Would you trade away your Shima long tail as a 2009 uncommon if it was still labeled uncommon? No. They're selling for rares list pets because they are harder to find despite having the exact same rarity as its littermates.


"I don't like it when rarities change! They should stay the same always so I don't lose anything!"

You're not losing anything. It's just a label that tells you roughly how many pets there are in the game. Not how many are tradeable. Rarity updates help gauge this though in this example:

"Oh, hey I have a rare!"

No you don't. It's not really rare. It's only labeled rare because there's thousands of spambots messing up the count by creating accounts and not adopting anything. Making the pet rarer than it really is. In reality, nearly everyone has this same pet you do and don't want to trade for it. Do you really want "false rares" like this where everyone has one but it's marked rare?
You'd still have a hard time trading it away no matter what it's rarity label is.

^ This. Unfortunately a lot of people seem to treat rarity as some kind of fancy accessory to make their pet special and not as a practical label, so if a rare goes uncommon, they feel like their pets aren't worth the same anymore. Being "rare" doesn't necessarily make the pet is OMG super valuable; if it's close enough to uncommon to make the drop, that just shows it wasn't all that rare to begin with. And if it's close enough to rare to have been rare at first, that can also mean there's reasonable cause to believe it will go back to rare eventually, sooner than pets that were uncommon from the start.

Your pets still have exactly the same value as they did before; you haven't lost anything. And if you overpaid for them and/or paid more than what you would now, then well ... if value concerns you that much or you only paid ___ amount because the pet was rare, maybe next time you should check how scarce the pet actually is and the fairness of the trade before you send or accept it. :/

[Nycolei]

It makes sense as to why the rarity's were dropped now thanks to the info Nick put up on page two, but I'm still a little disappointed. Most of the rares I had are now uncommon. But, I still love my pets just the same ^.^
(Just as long as the rarity doesn't drop on my red toxic. ^.^ Which I feel would be kinda hard for that to happen.)

[Candle.Jack]

I'm pretty disappoint and angry. If it's the result of spambots, then can we clear all the un-used accounts and the more obvious spam accounts? >_> And to be honest, I'm not sure if I understand this. Something still seems off to me. Sure, we get a response from the administrator, but I'm pretty disgruntled and I find it very vague. For me, I want to hear of a solution alongside with the reason. Spam accounts are not suppose to be tolerated, just like double accounts, and it's hurting everyone. They should delete the spam/fake accounts the system restored to the best possible quality. Sorry but that's just how I feel.

[Candle.Jack]

Double post, I apologize.

[DuckGoesRawr]

It makes sense as to why the rarity's were dropped now thanks to the info Nick put up on page two, but I'm still a little disappointed. Most of the rares I had are now uncommon. But, I still love my pets just the same ^.^
(Just as long as the rarity doesn't drop on my red toxic. ^.^ Which I feel would be kinda hard for that to happen.)

Even if the toxics (or any other list pets) rarity goes down, it's still worth where it sits on the list..

Candle.Jack, please don't re quote your post especially when its on the same page.

[Candle.Jack]

It makes sense as to why the rarity's were dropped now thanks to the info Nick put up on page two, but I'm still a little disappointed. Most of the rares I had are now uncommon. But, I still love my pets just the same ^.^
(Just as long as the rarity doesn't drop on my red toxic. ^.^ Which I feel would be kinda hard for that to happen.)

Even if the toxics (or any other list pets) rarity goes down, it's still worth where it sits on the list..

Candle.Jack, please don't re quote your post especially when its on the same page.

It wasn't on purpose. I was trying to edit. >_>

[RavenclawHobbit]

I'm pretty disappoint and angry. If it's the result of spambots, then can we clear all the un-used accounts and the more obvious spam accounts? >_> And to be honest, I'm not sure if I understand this. Something still seems off to me. Sure, we get a response from the administrator, but I'm pretty disgruntled and I find it very vague. For me, I want to hear of a solution alongside with the reason. Spam accounts are not suppose to be tolerated, just like double accounts, and it's hurting everyone. They should delete the spam/fake accounts the system restored to the best possible quality. Sorry but that's just how I feel.

The spam accounts are being phased out, since they have been inactive for over a year. That's what's causing this. There is no "solution" because this isn't a "problem", it's just the rarities settling back down after they were incorrectly raised by the bots.

Unless I'm mistaken, the site cannot tell which accounts were made by the bots. There is no visible difference between an account made by a bot and an account made by a person who later forgot about it. So clearing away unused accounts could accidentally delete ones that belonged to somebody.

Spam accounts aren't hurting anybody. They make trading a little more difficult because they occasionally cause fluctuations in rarity that don't truly reflect the trading market, but I don't believe there is any practical way to weed them out, and it's not a huge deal anyway.

[Minimanta]

I'm pretty disappoint and angry. If it's the result of spambots, then can we clear all the un-used accounts and the more obvious spam accounts? >_> And to be honest, I'm not sure if I understand this. Something still seems off to me. Sure, we get a response from the administrator, but I'm pretty disgruntled and I find it very vague. For me, I want to hear of a solution alongside with the reason. Spam accounts are not suppose to be tolerated, just like double accounts, and it's hurting everyone. They should delete the spam/fake accounts the system restored to the best possible quality. Sorry but that's just how I feel.

The spam accounts are being phased out, since they have been inactive for over a year. That's what's causing this. There is no "solution" because this isn't a "problem", it's just the rarities settling back down after they were incorrectly raised by the bots.

Unless I'm mistaken, the site cannot tell which accounts were made by the bots. There is no visible difference between an account made by a bot and an account made by a person who later forgot about it. So clearing away unused accounts could accidentally delete ones that belonged to somebody.

Spam accounts aren't hurting anybody. They make trading a little more difficult because they occasionally cause fluctuations in rarity that don't truly reflect the trading market, but I don't believe there is any practical way to weed them out, and it's not a huge deal anyway.

But isn't it possible to prevent spambots to create accounts in the first place?
Aren't there like simple question type things you can set up that people have to answer to join so only real humans can join?

That would prevent this problem altogether.

[RavenclawHobbit]

I'm pretty disappoint and angry. If it's the result of spambots, then can we clear all the un-used accounts and the more obvious spam accounts? >_> And to be honest, I'm not sure if I understand this. Something still seems off to me. Sure, we get a response from the administrator, but I'm pretty disgruntled and I find it very vague. For me, I want to hear of a solution alongside with the reason. Spam accounts are not suppose to be tolerated, just like double accounts, and it's hurting everyone. They should delete the spam/fake accounts the system restored to the best possible quality. Sorry but that's just how I feel.

The spam accounts are being phased out, since they have been inactive for over a year. That's what's causing this. There is no "solution" because this isn't a "problem", it's just the rarities settling back down after they were incorrectly raised by the bots.

Unless I'm mistaken, the site cannot tell which accounts were made by the bots. There is no visible difference between an account made by a bot and an account made by a person who later forgot about it. So clearing away unused accounts could accidentally delete ones that belonged to somebody.

Spam accounts aren't hurting anybody. They make trading a little more difficult because they occasionally cause fluctuations in rarity that don't truly reflect the trading market, but I don't believe there is any practical way to weed them out, and it's not a huge deal anyway.

But isn't it possible to prevent spambots to create accounts in the first place?
Aren't there like simple question type things you can set up that people have to answer to join so only real humans can join?

That would prevent this problem altogether.

If you visit the "register" screen, you'll see that one of those "Captcha" widgets is already in place, and I assume it filters out the vast majority of spam. However, some of the bots are cleverer than that. I am not a computer expert but I don't believe there is such thing as a catch-all solution to spam, because every bot is different. Candle.jack's idea of deleting all inactive accounts would be counterproductive since inactive accounts don't affect the rarities, and also unfair to the real people who may have made accounts and then forgotten them.