They are all around us... lurking in the shadows of our guilds and Neohomes. They gather among us in broad daylight, undetected. From every corner of Neopia they come, skulking down back alleys or, even worse, passing us with a smile in the streets. They are our neighbors, our friends, sometimes even members of our own families. They look and act just like the rest of us. The only difference is the sum of their bank accounts or the quality of their galleries. We marvel at their collections or find ourselves jealous at their battle gear. When asked how they make all of their NP, the chilling answer is delivered without remorse... "I'm a Sniper."

Alright, so maybe things aren't that dramatic. In the world of Neopets, sniping isn't some deadly, dangerous occupation. It is, however, a lucrative business, if you know the tricks of the trade. In fact, sniping can be one of the easiest, most time-effective ways of making quick NP. Here follows a basic, step-by-step guide to sniping with both the SW and the SSW, as well as some advice on what to snipe and where.

The Art of Sniping 

First things first, what is Sniping, exactly? Sniping is the art of buying low and selling high... a sniper searches user shops for items which have been, either as an advertising ploy or by accident, priced greatly below the retail value. The sniper then snatches up that item and puts it in his or her own shop, often making thousands of Neopoints in the process.

Words to Know 

Buyable - an item which sells for less than 99,999 NP, and thus can be found in user shops.

Shop Wizard (SW) - the fluffy guy in the cape and hat found by clicking on the wizard's hat from the shop screen's navigation bar. This feature is available to all players.

Snipe - (v) to buy items below retail using the SW or SSW, then resell them for actual cost.

Snipe - (n) an item that has been sniped.

Super Shop Wizard (SSW)- This upgraded version of the SW has his own set of advantages and limitations, and is available only to Premium Neopet members.

Unbuyable - an item which generally sells for more than 99,999 NP, and is thus not usually available through user shops.

The Systems - Shop Wizard vs. Super Shop Wizard

There are two ways of sniping; using the standard Shop Wizard, or using the Super Shop Wizard. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, and neither is necessarily better than the other. Here are the main differences:

	The Standard Shop Wizard Advantages Available to all players, whether Premium or not. No limitations on what can be searched for. Nearly impossible to get banned from. Disadvantages Shows only limited groups of user shops at a time. Has no Sniperspace feature.
The Super Shop Wizard  Advantages Sniperspace feature makes sniping a breeze. Shows every user shop in Neopia, not groups Price Only" feature makes pricing easier. Disadvantages Strict limitations on what can be searched for. Banning happens regularly. Only available to Premium Members.

Both systems have their quirks, but a good sniper knows how to use both to his or her best advantage.

How to Snipe using the Super Shop Wizard 

The Super Shop Wizard (SSW) is best for sniping smaller but easily lucrative goods. Most SSW snipes aren't multi-million NP hauls, but rather little earnings of 2-15k. These quickly add up, however, and are the main bread and butter of many snipers. It's important to note, though, that the SSW is only available to Premium members.

There are two ways to snipe with the SSW. Either way requires visiting your portal page where you should find a mod called "Super Shop Wizard".

If the mod is not there click on Portal Preferences at the top of the page, then Home Page on the left. Select Super Wiz from the drop down menu, and click add module. This will add the Super Shop Wizard to your portal page.

The mod should look similar to this:

It is highly recommended that you always snipe in Sniperspace. As a rule of thumb, Sniperspace runs more quickly because the page has less to load. It also opens all shops in a new window or tab, making it easy to return to your search for multiple snipes. The Super Wiz module is best used only for pricing purposes.

When the Launch button is clicked, a new window pops up:

Once the Sniperspace window pops up, close out your portal. The fewer screens you have running, the quicker the SSW will run.

Now, enter the name of what you're searching for. If it is a specific item, like Angelpuss or Easter Negg, enter the name and select Identical to my Phrase from the drop-down list. If you're looking for items within a category, like Dubloon or Codestone, enter that and leave Containing my Phrase selected.

Once you click Search or hit Enter the SSW goes to work looking through each and every user shop in Neopia and compiling a list of the 10 lowest prices. In a moment it will pop up a new screen, which looks something like this: 

As you can see, this search was for a Har Codestone. The wiz returned the search with the lowest priced item first; a codestone at 3k, while the next up was 4.5k. If bought and then resold for the same price as the next lowest, this snipe would earn a quick 1,500 NP. Not bad for less than a minute's work, hm?

The above example is a very small snipe, and only a taste of what can be earned from the SSW. The fact that the SSW pulls up the absolute lowest price means that it isn't necessary to know what an item is worth before hand. Any significant gap in price between the first one or two items listed and the rest of the prices is grounds for purchase, and an almost guaranteed return on your investment.

Occasionally you may stumble upon a windfall item using this method. A good rule of thumb for the SSW is if there is only one of an item listed, it can generally be traded or auctioned for a much higher price. Recently a SSW sniper located a Cracker for 500 NP, the only one listed of it's kind. The lowest priced of these Crackers in the Trading Post was 500K. The sniper played with the Cracker and found a rare book which was quickly sold for 1 million NP! 

But, as stated earlier, there are distinct disadvantages to the SSW. Banning, or being unable to look up items on the SSW for the rest of the hour, happens frequently, sometimes after five searches and sometimes after twenty-five, but it does happen. Being banned does not mean that you've done something wrong; it is simply one of several measures taken by tNT to keep the game from being unbalanced by Premium players.

The other big downside is the list of items you CANNOT search for. There is a filter for these items built in to the SSW, and trying to circumvent this filter is a freezable offense. These include:

• Paint Brushes
• Nerkmids
• Transmogrification Potions
• Secret Laboratory Map Pieces

Good Things to Search for are items that can be searched under a general term and net a variety results. Some of these are:

• Neggs
• Codestones
• Bottled Faeries
• Dubloons 

In other words, while the SSW is a great way to make quick NP in small amounts, if you want the big stuff, there's only one place to go for it.

How to Snipe with the Shop Wizard 

In a lot of ways, sniping with the Shop Wizard is just like using the SSW. You can choose whether to look for specific items or to use general search terms like faerie or codestone. The biggest disadvantage lies in the fact that you cannot see all of the shops at once, rather, the SW pulls up stores in groups, and you are shown the lowest price from that group.

As such, it is very important to know the average selling prices of the items you are trying to snipe. People who intend to snipe buyable items on the shop wiz would do well to specialize in specific item types, like petpets or battle equipment. Knowing how much things sell for and how quickly they go are the two keys to success on the SW.

Of course, the best thing about the Shop Wizard is that there is absolutely no restriction on what you can search for. Paintbrushes, map pieces, and any other unbuyable item that you can think of is fully searchable. While items like these don't pop up very often, it does happen, and a dedicated sniper could very well make more than a million NP with a lucky snipe. If you see one of these, snatch it up, quick!

The Best of Both Worlds - Making the Wizzes Work for You 

Now, what if your time is limited, and you've only got an hour or so to snipe? You don't want to spend all of that valuable time on the SW looking for paint brushes that may or may not appear, but you don't want to play around on the SSW for five minutes only to have it ban you. What's a time-crunched sniper to do?

Why, use both, of course! There are a few limitations to this, caused by the fickleness of the SSW. If you are going to use both, always use the SSW first. Search for buyables until you get banned. Then switch over to the regular shop wiz and spend the rest of your time searching for unbuyables until your time is up.

The SSW is a jealous search engine. If you use the SW to search for unbuyables BEFORE sniping with the SSW, you will find yourself banned much, much more quickly. The same goes if you happen to get banned from the SW before going to the SSW (hard to do, but not impossible). A ban from the SW means an almost automatic ban from the SSW. In fact, there is a lot of speculation (and a good bit of circumstantial evidence) to suggest that using the SW for unbuyables affects not only the SSW that hour but in the NEXT hour as well, making this method effective only if you cannot snipe when your ban is lifted. The Super Shop Wizard just doesn't know how to share.

Another way to utilize the SSW with the regular Shop Wiz is by using the Price Only feature. When you are looking for a specific item and you know the approximate price or that item, using the price only feature will quickly let you know if there is a bargain out there to be discovered. If looking for a petpet that generally sells for 50K and the SSW Price Only say the average cost of the 10 lowest priced items is only 20K, there is a certainty that one or more of them are selling for a much lower price. This method can be used also to quickly determine if an unbuyable item has been misplaced in a user shop. If you were to search for the Price Only of a Baby Paint Brush and the SSW has any result at all, you could quickly switch to the SW to locate the item. 

Despite their many drawbacks, the Super Shop Wizard and The Shop Wizard can be a Neopian's best friend. Learn what makes them tick and what to look for, and soon you, too, will join the ranks of the proud, the elite, the snipers.

Credit:

This guide was written exclusively for NeoLodge.com by Shorea.
Edited by Georgie.

2007-01-05