jellysundae Posted September 25, 2017 Share Posted September 25, 2017 I'm just idly looking through the hand-held items on DTI and I spot this. Black and White Flower Staff A beautiful staff in simple black and white colours. This NC item was awarded through Shenanigifts. Release Date June 25, 2013 And I realised something... Rose of Friendship Release Date April 1, 2017 They (barely) recoloured a cash item to make a freebie...that's all kinds of unethical to me. But it does at least explain why the stem and leaves are black, I never understood that at the time. I'd love to know the thinking behind the things they do. I feel I'm being really unfair getting all judgey over here when they do stuff like this, because it seems clearer and clearer as time goes on that they're seriously under-staffed. But (yeah I'm still gonna criticise ) they could have tried a BIT harder to disguise the origins of this item! I've had much past personal experience of creating "new" items out of existing ones because of a severe lack of art staff. If this item was pixels I'd have got rid of the dew drop and the glass end of the staff for a start, and used that existing leaf to create another on the other side, and made it GREEN for heaven's sake. But really, I'd not have used it at all because I'd not be able to make it look different enough for it not to be obvious that it was a recycled (upcycled?) item. So I'm back to wondering if JS do this because they don't care/think we don't care/won't notice, or what? I've got zero issue with re-using what you already have because there's truly no other option, I suppose I just wish I knew whether the reason behind it really was them trying their best with extremely limited resources, or basically just "PFFT whatever! they're gonna complain no matter what we give them, so let's not waste time creating something new - resize, recolour and flip this old thing, no-one will notice" How do you guys interpret things? Has anyone spotted any good re-purposing of old items? Of course when it's done right no-one does notice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rntracy1 Posted September 25, 2017 Share Posted September 25, 2017 I agree with you in the fact that it is not right to take a NC item and re-purpose it into a neopoints item. So now you have an item that people have paid real money for, changed the color, and now anyone can have it. They could have made it so that you could use the hue brew potions on it, or made different colors of it in NC items, but not changed it to a neopoints item. I mean, it does kind of look like the original NC item's stem is a bit longer, so there is THAT change too. Or it could just be an optical illusion from the way your Draik is holding it. LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acmerasta Posted September 26, 2017 Share Posted September 26, 2017 If you didn't point it out, I would never have noticed On the other hand, I don't put *that* much thought into these pixels either. Maybe because I rarely use NC items or am motivated enough to... I haven't changed my pets' clothes in ages and my lab rat goes naked LOL balloongal247 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naime Posted September 26, 2017 Share Posted September 26, 2017 I feel bad for them, I've noticed people complaining on the neoboards about most things, and I know I am new and no expert but it seems like they do things and people complain and when they don't do things, people complain. They seem to be in a lose/lose situation from where I'm sitting. While I agree that they shouldn't make an item that costs real money available as a NP item because there is no point in paying money for it in the end, maybe they are super short staffed? Just my thoughts, sorry if I'm out of place as a newbie here. jellysundae and acorah 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jellysundae Posted September 26, 2017 Author Share Posted September 26, 2017 1 hour ago, naime said: I feel bad for them, I've noticed people complaining on the neoboards about most things, and I know I am new and no expert but it seems like they do things and people complain and when they don't do things, people complain. They seem to be in a lose/lose situation from where I'm sitting. While I agree that they shouldn't make an item that costs real money available as a NP item because there is no point in paying money for it in the end, maybe they are super short staffed? Just my thoughts, sorry if I'm out of place as a newbie here. Please don't feel out of place! There's not a huge amount of us who actively post on here, so it's great to see a new face. I'm hopeful that the complaining you see is just a small percentage of people, and that most Neopians are of the silent majority that don't feel strongly enough about anything to publicly complain. It's a sad fact that people are more likely to make the effort to complain than to praise, must be the way we're wired. I notice I've been harder to please than normal, but maybe it's because of disappointment at the Faerie Festival after looking forward to it so much. I was so hopeful that that would be something that both didn't go hideously wrong, and that people enjoyed so they'd start to feel more positive about JS, but that didn't happen so my grouch level increased. I'm over that now though, onwards and upwards! naime 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acorah Posted September 26, 2017 Share Posted September 26, 2017 Does anyone recall the Tarlas Staff and the Tarla Inspired Staff? Hardly any difference there, although they were actually both np items. That got people a bit confused, lol. Regarding lack of staff, I`ve read ( think it was Charter, not here ) that a couple of computer savvy Neopians had offered their services for free and been turned down ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jellysundae Posted September 26, 2017 Author Share Posted September 26, 2017 2 hours ago, acorah said: Does anyone recall the Tarlas Staff and the Tarla Inspired Staff? Hardly any difference there, although they were actually both np items. That got people a bit confused, lol. Regarding lack of staff, I`ve read ( think it was Charter, not here ) that a couple of computer savvy Neopians had offered their services for free and been turned down ... Hahaha, yes I remember that with the staff. I think at the time I kind of figured they didn't even know there was already a Tarla staff, lol. Nah, no company's going to accept help for free from its user base, it's just not a viable option because of the security risk. The code would have to be checked over completely by whoever does JS's coding - to make sure there was nothing in it that might (accidentally or maliciously) damage the site - and would no doubt need recoding to make it compatible with Neo's existing code (some of which is Neolithic by computing standards) so accepting this "help" would actually be the opposite of helpful. ^_^;; acorah and acmerasta 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
balloongal247 Posted September 26, 2017 Share Posted September 26, 2017 Yeah, they can't just make it open source.. But they could have somewhere to send resumes, and check the potential volunteers out just as they do regular employees, and then figure out a way to make them official employees, either volunteer, intern, or maybe even just minimum wage... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naime Posted September 27, 2017 Share Posted September 27, 2017 Thank you for replying. You all may be excited to see the new Faerie Festival page has been "destroyed" by vandals! There's a notice from the Faerie Queen, also there is a new theme on the site as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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