In addition to all of this, Sylestia also just suffered through a 'releasing party' for the contests. All the cheap pets were quickly bought up and released, thus leaving the more expensive ones behind. Now, I understand that themed and tagged pets are naturally going to be more expensive than the average run of the mill pet. I expect that the general price will come down as people get out of the mentality to 'buy them all and release them quick' and people begin to reel back since they spent loads of money on this recent festival. Yes the tagged and 'special' pets are going to be more expensive but I think the general price to lower within the next month.

I remember Aze wanted to make some sort of a guide on pricing. A survey can be found here.

I'm going to agree with Fforfox on the "nothing is fair" rule.
There plenty of ways to go from one of the "I only have 15k" players, to becoming a millionaire on this site.

It's as easy as finding what people want, and providing it.

-Make pets with desirable color schemes and traits, breed and sell them.
-Get a hold of some popular themed offspring. Also breed and sell them.
-Create an awesome custom item. Charge more than you have to pay for it. Can't afford the diamonds up front? A lot of people will pre-pay just so they can get it.
-Win ONE coloring page or other contest, get a 2-3 vis exclusive fabled pet. Sell it for a couple million easy.
-Stalk the search engine. I can't tell you the number of times I've found TAGGED wheel pets up there for cheap. I just bought a 3 vis Nani Plum Nyvene the other day for 60k and plan to resell it for at least a couple million. Cranberry Crisp Aeri for 1g, Blueberry Crumble Griffi for 50k. (And yes, I wait a very long time to sell them in case they were accidentally sold, I will always return a pet that was not meant to be put up for sale)


In the end, something is worth EXACTLY what someone else is willing to pay for it.

If I know I can get 50k for each one of the failed offspring of my Devil's Fool Aerie Project, because I do, often, then why the heck would I sell them for 5k instead? It doesn't' make sense anywhere.

If it's too much for some people to afford, then they can't afford it. They can complain, or they can become one of the people that can afford those things, or they can get over it and move on.

In the end, you play to win or you don't.
^{(And yes, I know there's literally no "winning" but accept it as a figure of speech)}

Haha, I agree with you completely about some of the crazily priced pets. :) But your point about the price of tagged pets being overly expensive-especially when you say that you can only find taggeds for 800k at the cheapest-doesn't make much sense to me.

I think it depends on what taggeds you're looking for. I bought a 2-vis Camellia Vulnyx a few days ago for 500k. Someone on the fest chat sold a 1-vis Iris Morrko for 60k. A lot of the other, more "common" taggeds found in the Zone go for usually less than 100k each (I'm selling an April Showers Morrko for 15k right now. I think), unless they are the fabled, in which case they're also usually around 300-600k for a 2-carry. Most people, if you're in the Zone with the chat up (even though I know you said you don't have time for the chat, but it's fairly easy to keep an eye on when you're in the Zone), will ask if people want a themed and sell it for around trap price.

Once, I spent the equivalent of 600k for one 2-carry tagged Haunted Depths Ryori. A few days later, I spent 700k in gold for a 1-vis Haunted Depths Ryori. XD But I wasn't able to find a single themed ryori the entire fest, so I wasn't too torn up about spending basically all of my savings. I mean, I love the design-but if it was only the design that appealed to me, I could have waited a few months for someone to start selling high trait offspring, and buy a maybe 4-vis offspring for a fraction of the tagged price. But I wasn't just looking for a sylesti of that color scheme, I wanted to have my own tagged ryori.

And I think that those prices pretty accurately reflect the time and effort that went into looking for those themes. A lot of people buy themes because they weren't present during the fest and want to get one of that theme, or they were present in the fest and weren't able to get that particular theme. After the fest, of course prices will rise a bit (you don't have another way to get those particular pets, and you probably won't be able to get them ever again unless there's a rerelease).

I think your selling problems may come from a lack of advertising. AriDae (not sure if that's the correct username) has a thread with all of her designs in it: all of them are six vis, all of them have really pretty designs and colors. She sells her offspring from them for 50k or 100k, if my memory serves me correctly. I'm pretty sure she's still able to sell a pretty good amount.

And the pride thing may not matter to you, but it sure does matter to a lot of other people. XD That's one of the reasons that prices can be so high. For example, Xavion's design for the Blue Lotus Aeridini was chosen this fest, and Xav has spent a lot of time and effort to collect a bunch of Aeris. In that case, it is, pretty much, a pride thing.

And everything is worth different things to different people. :) I find myself quite partial to floral henna on aeris, and would (probably) gladly fork over 50k or so to get a single aeri with a good color scheme that shows that trait, but I know that some other people hate it. So general pricing schemes are kind of out.

The pricing system is kind of crazy, but nothing's perfect. XD

Sorry if things are hard to understand haha, I wrote this in a rush. ^^

One more note on the subject. I think perhaps the relatively high prices of some pets help to combat inflation on the site. Runaway inflation can destroy a game's economy.

And to think people used to complain about the ridiculously low prices.

I won't repeat what others have already mentioned (supply and demand, there being no objective way to price, etc.) but I wanted to mention the possibility of negotiating. I can't speak for the other sellers but my prices aren't set in stone. Every now and then I'll get a message from someone who wants one of my pets but thinks the price is too high and I'll usually lower it for them. Or trade for items, or for other pets.

How long does it take to write a message? Five minutes? The worst that can happen is that the owner of the pet says no, but they could also accept. Sometimes it takes a bit of haggling before you reach an agreement but in my experience (both selling and buying) it's really not that difficult.

Here are my tidbits that I think haven't been touched upon too much yet.

New Player
- I would say rather than a flaw of the game, think of the current 'expensive items' as not available since you are still a new player. (Still learning the ropes of making gold -- 4 months is still newbie territory to me) When you start an RPG video game you are generally level 1 and can't buy expensive cool gear, right? This is the same here. ^.^'' Gold becomes much easier to get after the initial stages of the game. If you are having trouble with this, ask others for tips and tricks! ^o^

From Experience:
- It should have been not too difficult to get at least 4 mil gold during the Spring Festival with your user level. o: One can trade gold for diamonds as well, so that is luckily a non-issue. ^.^''' I have not paid real money for this game before, but have accumulated a lot of diamonds over my time on here. Tons of other players have done the same. ^___^)~

Selling Pets as Income
- I don't think this is really possible. If so, it is very hard to do. D: Selling pets is more of people's passion rather than a way to make money. I also want to note that Pleasing Color Schemes are very very subjective. ^.^'' There is no way to know what others will like. What you may think is beautiful beyond belief, others will just glance by. >.<

Why tagged pets are expensive:
- An analogy - If you spend $100 on materials to make a dress, you should sell the finished dress at more than $100.
- An example - For 2-vis plant pet, 10 fertilizer at roughly 80k each and 50k upgrade cost => 850k not even counting the seed needed. In truth many plant pets are underpriced given the cost of the means to obtain them. The reason why fertilizer and seeds cost so much is due to their demand and also the amount of gold in circulation (people have the means to buy at higher prices!) Gold transactions increase significantly during festivals as does the amount of players. ^^ There is of course these themed prices juxtaposed with non-themed prices (which are not expensive due to the easiness in obtaining them). This contrast makes the prices seem higher.

There are lots of themed pets! || What's most popular is expensive!
- Have you looked at other themed pets? There are some going for as little as 5k! ^u^ The data that you are taking from seems to be too skewed. :c

Wealth:
- This isn't like the real world with tax, so the rich on Sylestia are growing richer and richer. I do hope they will tackle that at some point, but if not, the prices will keep rising for the most rare items and pets. While this looks bad (as it is), I also think it isn't too hard to become rich or at least upper middle class on Sylestia. So at least to me, the cons are slightly mitigated. (Lol pardon RL terms)

Earning gold WITH little time spent AND 0 money spent
By quests do you mean missions? Because quests are not a vaild money source either just like Selling Pets. Missions are good though. c:

Missions || Time Spent per Day: 10-15 minutes || 50 - 100k Gold Gained per Day
- Missions should get you a decent amount of gold and are a good way to gain gold as a New Player. I stopped doing missions after maybe 7 months of the game, and moved onto other sources of income? It's been a while, but I believe with missions it is easy to get 50-100k a day with spending only 10 minutes on Sylestia. Have about 10-12 mission pets. Just log on for 3-5 minutes at a time at 3 different hours of the day.

Spring Festival || Time Spent per Day: 45 minutes || 240k Gold Gained per Day
- Go to the regular maze twice a day. Follow guide map. Make sure check in an interval of at least 4 hours. Get roughly 40 eggs per run. Sell at 3k each. Obviously can't be done now. But a simple example of how to get gold quickly.

How I earn gold || Time Spent per Day: XXX minutes || XXX Gold Gained per Month
- This is a trade secret. :p

My suggestion for you if missions are not your cup of tea is to wait for the next festival. You will be able to make millions quickly. If you would like to learn how when it comes about, I would be happy to help. c: