by DragonGirl218 » Sat Aug 11, 2012 5:21 am
I must say, after reading 50+ pages (i posted somewhere under the 10-page mark last night at, like, 2 in the morning XD ) I'm starting to better understand how things will change.
When it comes to pets with the same rarity, dates and demand will be the major factor in trade fairness. I know people have brought up the idea of "Would you trade your Vixen Advent for a random '09 VR (i think) ?" The simple answer is "No." Why? Primarily because the Vixen has much more demand, which is why it's on the Rares List. I mean, the RL is basically just a rarity/demand hybrid chart for the top x number of pets. So demand is still a factor.
As are dates, but not to the same degree. It's no longer "Oh my '08 Uncommon is worth way more than your '10 Uncommon because a lot of them aren't available for trade." Now it's more along the lines of "Oh my '08 Uncommon is more worth holding onto than your '10 Uncommon because it has a better chance of turning Rare as more people join and accounts that have them go inactive." There's still a difference between two pets of the same rarity, but at least now that difference is more closely based on numbers than just "My pet's older, therefore it's instantly worth way more than anything newer."
Also, now that inactive pets/accounts aren't counted, inter-rarity trades should be easier. Let's say there are two pets, neither of which are Rares List and which both have roughly the same demand as well as the same species, so that all that could be used to judge fairness (aside from personal preference) is date and rarity. Now let's say that one is an '09 Uncommon while the other is a '12 Rare. In the past, people could say that the '09 UC was more valuable just because it was older, pets were on inactive accounts, etc. Now that those aren't factors any more, it's clear that the '12 Rare truly is more rare (going strictly by numbers, of course). Admittedly, they could both be close to the Rare threshold and it's only a slight difference -- but there is a clear difference now, without quite as much guesstimating of how rare the '09 UC actually is.
Or, at least, I believe that's how it works, if I'm understanding things correctly. Anyone with more knowledge on the matter, feel free to correct me.
As a side-note, to those complaining about "losing Rares" : There's still the same number of individual pets on the site as there were before. And keep in mind...it's not just your pets that dropped; a lot of them did. Sure you may have a lot of C, VC, and OMGSC pets now, but a lot more of them will be introduced in the months and years to come. It's like being mad that now you have more exact change to buy stuff with when you can't get change back (if that makes any sense...basically, it's easier to pay a pet's exact worth now).
The system doesn't instantly make trading perfectly fair, but nothing ever will be perfect when you're talking about something that requires human input. The best we can get is "Well, it's more accurate than it was", which is what we have. And now that an automated rarity-updating system is in place, it should hopefully be easier for things to be tweaked in the future if need be.
I like this update. I really do. Though, I do agree that perhaps there should be an option to turn the rarity bar on/off. Maybe even add a third option where the bar's gone but the rarity-tag becomes color-coded like the bar -- it would be less distracting for people who have an issue with the bar, but it would still have the color to make it more difficult to confuse similar-looking rarities if one isn't paying attention/is sleepy/whatever. Also, seeing rarities in groups would be awesome -- I don't care too much about my pets' rarities, but it would be nice to see them at a glance if I'm just curious.
(dang, this turned out a lot longer than i thought...feel free to ignore my rambling, just posting my two cents now that i'm more awake and informed than earlier ^.^;; )
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