I'm absolutely going to ramble about it to you guys
Turns out that after getting so excited about getting back to Animal Jam (still finishing that comm by the way !! I do not forget !!), the local market has completely crashed due to some hacker screwing things up. Inflation and whatnot...
I had started a brand new account early this year (between February to April; can't remember exactly), and in order to grind up in that capitalistic "here's your foot into BUSINESS, kids!" animal game, you can either trade items for better items (there's a whole wiki on what they're worth, and some tiers of items are used as currency) OR you sell items for diamonds then buy items with said diamonds.
I personally adore the trading. I don't have the patience to put items on my shop and stand around the lobby saying "shop my den!" for 3 hours straight; and there's beauty in trading with people, negotiating and all...
anyway. Early this year I was able to grind all the way up to two yellow long spiked collars (in money terms, I'd call them "50$s") which I COULD have used to trade up for a black long (a "100$"). Instead I sold one for the listed diamond price hoping to buy underlisted den betas ("1$"s) so I could trade back up to the yellow with a margin of profit, buuuut I found a little yard sale with the most beautiful pink items ever which I immediately bought. I was broke but happy at the end of it...
• grind at the Claw for plushies
• trade plushies for RIMs (cents)
• trade RIMs for Clothing Betas (also cents, but better)
• trade 6-10 clothing betas for one den beta (1$)
• trade 15-18 den betas for a long spiked collar (back then that would be worth a green or a yellow!)
• keep the long spiked collar and trade that up for a better spike, OR
• trade DOWN the spike so I can redo the process with a bit of den beta profit ...
It was fun. I genuinely enjoyed the process.
Then my membership ended and I lost access to the beautiful items. So I lost motivation to play, and left for a while...
I came back today. and the market is absolutely fucking RIDICULOUS.
Apparently den betas are worth NOTHING now. Something that was the basis of my process (1$-5$) is now worth about 0.05$ more or less. 15-19 den betas could once get me a decent long spiked collar, now it gets me a bad long spiked WRISTBAND. A FUCKING WRISTBAND. DUDE
Wristbands used to be FIVES. They were pocket change !!!! WHY ARE DEN BETAS WORTH SO LITTLE NOW
I don't know what to do anymore. My only idea is to wait it out and try again in a few months when the market settles down again... but I'm just so sad, because I spent sapphires for this month of membership and I probably won't be able to use it because of the market crash
tldr: capitalism and rich people ruin everything for everyone, again