Umm, "shop link" bar (shops, etc.) as text links now?

[Fjorab_Teke]

Hah, odd. I went to check the News, saw there's a new Sloth comic up, and went to check on the fighting (now that the easiest way to get there is the Shops menu and not games).

It seems they're playing around with the image links on the secondary "top bar" since it's all text links right now. Hm!

[oogabooga]

Huh. Looks like they've added a couple links, too - closet, and I think guilds (or was that there already?). It looks really cluttered right now, I hope they don't leave it that way.

[EofS]

Guilds has always been there, it's the only way to actually get to the guild main page.

I hope that they'll keep it as an image not as flash - the fact that it has no text means there shouldn't be a reason to need to flashify it. Please?

[daisybell]

I don't like it, it is too cluttered- there are far too many things there for them all to be text links. Whilst it wasn't always clear what each image meant, at least they took up less space- and once you did know what they meant it was easy to navigate using them.

I too hope they don't use flash if this is an intermediate stage before something else- loading the flash things doesn't take that long but if you go back a page the flash disappears and you have to reload the page if you want it back.

[Cranberry]

The mallers at IDB are freaking out because the marketplace link is gone. Apparently people actually spend millions upon millions of NP to make it into the market huts, and newbies actually click on them to find usershops! I thiiiiink I remember doing that, but since it would have been back in early 2000, my memory is a little fuzzy!

[daisybell]

I have trouble feeling sorry for people who have that many np to waste... but then, I guess they spent them thinking it would be a good long term investment, and things have changed. However, that's true of lots of things on Neopets.

The marketplace link is still there on the Neopian Bazaar map, anyway.

[Jazzy]

It's virtual money in a game, it doesn't exactly matter what they do with it My having lots of np sitting around in my bank account isn't any more altruistic, though I do have no sympathy for those who get into the marketplace and deliberately raise their prices to a level which practically constitutes scamming, knowing that the newbies won't know any better.

[Wingsrising]

I sometimes go to the Marketplace when I'm on Faerie Quests and I'm not logged into a side account on my other browser for whatever reason. I can see how it would be a good way to earn NP.

I didn't even know there was a link in the top bar, though, I always went through the link in the Neopian Bazaar.

[mellaka]

i just recently got my shop into the spooky marketplace, and even more recently was accepted into a mall where nearly everyone else is main market. generally i make at least 50k-100k in overnight sales on a slow day, but this morning only had 6k in my till. so i can't help but wonder if all the big mallers (and people cheering about malls going down) are correct in their comments about the text links.

of course it will take more time to determine if it's just the worst sales day i've had in about 2 years (when i joined a mini mall with my then-sized 50 shop) or related to the new text links.

and, for the record, i price nearly all my items only 300-1000 nps over what i paid, with a few pricier stamps maybe getting up into the +5k range. i'm always getting neomails about how people appreciate the fair prices in my mall-sized shop.

[Rainbow Daydreamer]

Well, I've been saying for some time that the shops bar needed tweaking; there was at least one redundant button (Price Changes), and the symbols were rather less than logical (I'm sure there was some reason lost in the mists of time why the Inventory icon was a Plushie Buzz MP, and why out of all the species in Neopia they chose to put TWO Cybunnies on the scroll, one to represent Realworld plush toys and the other the Battledome, and for that matter what the Battledome has to do with the shops of Neopia Central anyway...)

What's baffling me is the Neoboard reaction to the absence of the bar. Yes, I know, the HC is not known for its abundance of level heads and voices of reason. But for Fyora's sake, it's a link bar. It provides an easy way of getting to places that most serious Neopians have on their own dailies list anyway. None of the significant links have even been taken away, they've just been changed into text links, and we don't even know at this stage if it's staying that way. So what in all this is a valid reason for the HC to spiral into Chaos Mode and decide that the end of the world is nigh and that TNT are soulless idiots (again)? I understood the Draik MP fiasco and wrote my own missive to the editorial about it, but are my fellow Neopians really THAT attached to one rather outdated graphic?

[Wingsrising]

Well, if people who have spent a lot of money on building up a marketplace shop really are seeing a big drop in profit because of the change, I can understand why they're upset.

I rarely used the marketplace and never through the top bar (I didn't even know there was a link there) so a priori I wouldn't have thought it would make a big difference. But if people are finding that it is... then I can't argue with data, can I?

As an aside, I don't see anything wrong with marketplace shops a way to make NP. If I'd invested a lot in my shop and Neopets made an unexpected change that cut back my income, I'd be upset, too. For me the equivalent would be Neopets changing the stock market so that I could no longer make a decent income off of it... if that happened, I might very well quit, let alone complain on the HC.

[Aurinona]

I've put 37 million NP into upgrading my shop over the last two years- all of that was basically out of mall profits, so yes... changes to the marketplace make me a bit twitchy. Not so much for the potential loss of past investments (since I'm not really out anything) but more about what it will do to my profit stream in the future.

My real problem with the text links is that they mess up my routine. I tend to go on autopilot and mouse over where the links used to be before realizing they're not there anymore. -.-

[Iggy]

It provides an easy way of getting to places that most serious Neopians have on their own dailies list anyway.

Dailies lists provide less page views, and less odds of getting a good random event.

[Teragram]

Wow, I underestimated how annoying I would find this. Having to actually read the links is quite frustrating . Honestly, I don't think most neopets users have daily lists, I mean, sure, serious users might, but most of us are casual players, and this is just annoying. I woudn't mind a revamped bar, but I really prefer some sort of bar to text links. It's difficult to read, looks bad, and It makes it harder for me.

[thelonetiel]

Out of pure curiosity, are malls/large shops still losing profits from this? Auri, Mellaka?

I have to say I like the old bar better because images are faster recognition than text, but I use shops so rarely these days it hardly matters. The page does look oddly naked though, but not in the good way.