Neopets Customization Spotlight

[Angeló]

This pet won 1st place two weeks in a row

I thought you're automatically disallowed to enter for 2 months once you win a Trophy !! I know because I won a few of those myself and I couldn't enter my pet in the next round ..

[gypsyknees]

I've never known the rules or participated but that does seem really weird. I'm more shocked that he has pets named Felix and Flash and they're only 3134 & 3194 days old (8ish years)  I would have thought that simple one word names would have been snapped up a loooong time ago. 

[Nielo]

That definitely seems like it should be a rule. But maybe I'm remembering incorrectly (and I've never won, so I definitely can't speak for that part), but I think the winners are announced quite late? So it might've been possible to enter the new round before the winners have been announced?

[Angeló]

5 hours ago, Nielo said:

That definitely seems like it should be a rule. But maybe I'm remembering incorrectly (and I've never won, so I definitely can't speak for that part), but I think the winners are announced quite late? So it might've been possible to enter the new round before the winners have been announced?

when darkphilosophy won gold , they didn't announce it in the news , so i didn't know , but when i went to enter my pets in the next competition it said she can't enter 

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I've never known the rules or participated but that does seem really weird. I'm more shocked that he has pets named Felix and Flash and they're only 3134 & 3194 days old (8ish years)  I would have thought that simple one word names would have been snapped up a loooong time ago. 

these names were probably purged and re-taken .. TNT haven't done a purge in ages though

[Yuiina]

For what I understand, and by reading official forums, it can happen but you need to be extremely lucky. I mean, winning is already a matter of luck so winning twice in a row is even more difficult.

You can read more about it here > http://www.neopets.com/neoboards/topic.phtml?topic=160135050 

These are the most important posts 

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 People enter once every week, so I think the person entered for the next week before their outfit won the first time. This repeat was probably unintentional. 

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I think it's a few weeks ahead of itself, they probably are banned from entering now or next week when it has caught up.

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It does need revamped. So much potential with this contest, especially since customizing and NC is a big selling point for Neo these days.

I seriously do feel like TNT picks the winners. Because most of the time the winners are pets I NEVER saw, and I vote every day. 

I can "understand" what happened. The person entered the next contest before the results came out.

I support what people say on that thread. CC needs lots of changes... 

I personaly agree that the voting system is a joke! I vote every day 100 times and I have get so many pets that:

- are repeated every day;

- have no items at all;

- have just the background;

- are mine! Yes... my own pets of that account where I'm voting appear for me to vote on them.. 

And the winners sometimes are just.... not.... deserved... at all. 

These NC winners are just... ... Kougra one is sort of ok, not saying it's not pretty but there are so much better around. 

[alohadiscordia]

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these names were probably purged and re-taken .. TNT haven't done a purge in ages though

wait, this actually happened/happens? how do they determine which ones are not going to be missed and which players might make a return one day... ? or is it only done to accounts that have been frozen years ago? still - seems kinda unfair

[Yuiina]

4 hours ago, alohadiscordia said:

wait, this actually happened/happens? how do they determine which ones are not going to be missed and which players might make a return one day... ? or is it only done to accounts that have been frozen years ago? still - seems kinda unfair

I think that once you haven't logged in.. let's say... 2 years, then they send the pets in to the pound (correct me if I am wrong). 

It is a good tatic to be honest and it wouldn't be the first game plataform to do so. I know many mmporg that do such. Once you don't log for more than 2 years, your account is deleted. 

It's a good way to keep everything balanced and clean.

When I was back from hiatus I was surprised to see that my account was still intact to be honest  

I think if they took purges seriously then people wouldn't leave neopets without taking some precautions like.. logging once in a while... or giving precious items to friends or ask them to save them for them in case they return in future. 

 

Many people that played neopets won't come back... and names will be stuck there forever.. 

Like these guys for example:

 

[Angeló]

Jade answered my Editorial Question

But did they remove the Trophy ? Nope

Hey TNT How come a pet won 1st place customization spotlight two weeks in a row ?? I thought you're automatically disallowed to enter for 1 or 2 months once you win a Trophy !! I know because I won a few of those myself and I couldn't enter my pet in the next round.
This was a glitch not purposeful. The rule still stands. So sorry about the confusion.

[Nielo]

On 9/13/2019 at 3:01 PM, Yuiina said:

I think that once you haven't logged in.. let's say... 2 years, then they send the pets in to the pound (correct me if I am wrong). 

It is a good tatic to be honest and it wouldn't be the first game plataform to do so. I know many mmporg that do such. Once you don't log for more than 2 years, your account is deleted. 

It's a good way to keep everything balanced and clean.

When I was back from hiatus I was surprised to see that my account was still intact to be honest  

I think if they took purges seriously then people wouldn't leave neopets without taking some precautions like.. logging once in a while... or giving precious items to friends or ask them to save them for them in case they return in future. 

 

If they ever do start purging (again), they should probably also communicate about it clearly (send emails to the addresses linked to the accounts they purge, so people can still come back and prevent it, if possible).

Anyway, I'm not sure when they last purged any accounts. I think it's been aaaaages. (I know one of my friends used to play Neo, and I think her account hasn't been logged into for over a decade, but it's still there.)

I'm personally not necessarily a fan of purging; sometimes you lose track of something you meant to go back to. Two years can go by without noticing (or realising that it's been two years). XD It'd be a shame to come back and find your account & pets gone. (Again, if they'd send emails to warn you about it, it'd be better. No idea if they've ever done that though. I'm working under the assumption that they haven't, simply based on their usual level of communication. )

[jellysundae]

I read an NT editorial question about this recently. (dunno if the question was recent, I just read it recently, lol) and whoever responded said it's an absolutely MASSIVE task to do a purge, so while one is definitely due it's kind of being indefinitely put-off because of how much it involves. Or words to that effect.

[Nielo]

37 minutes ago, jellysundae said:

I read an NT editorial question about this recently. (dunno if the question was recent, I just read it recently, lol) and whoever responded said it's an absolutely MASSIVE task to do a purge, so while one is definitely due it's kind of being indefinitely put-off because of how much it involves. Or words to that effect.

Yeah, I can imagine that this would be a giant task, and there are so many things that have priority, so I doubt they'll get around to doing any purging any time soon.

[alohadiscordia]

3 hours ago, Nielo said:

Yeah, I can imagine that this would be a giant task, and there are so many things that have priority, so I doubt they'll get around to doing any purging any time soon.

*cough* key quest? *cough* HABITARIUM?! *cough*

one can dream I guess... for real though, have they mentioned yet what there next big project / next most-urgent point on their to-do list is, after converting the whole site to a non-java version? you'd think that would free up a lot of their resources that are currently tied down in it.

[Nielo]

On 9/15/2019 at 7:21 PM, alohadiscordia said:

*cough* key quest? *cough* HABITARIUM?! *cough*

one can dream I guess... for real though, have they mentioned yet what there next big project / next most-urgent point on their to-do list is, after converting the whole site to a non-java version? you'd think that would free up a lot of their resources that are currently tied down in it.

Key Quest maybe, but not the Habitarium, as that one was taken down intentionally, instead of just breaking down. Personally, I was thinking more along the lines of 'fixing relatively small things that have been broken for years', like the Abandoned Attic. (I really miss the Abandoned Attic!)

I'm not sure if there are any "big" projects on their list; I think that in between plots & events they're busy with bug fixing, and I don't think they've got as many resources as a site of this size would ideally have, so I doubt any new big things will be happening any time soon. (But I'm a bit of a pessimist, so I might be wrong. )

[alohadiscordia]

11 hours ago, Nielo said:

'fixing relatively small things that have been broken for years', like the Abandoned Attic. (I really miss the Abandoned Attic!)

dude right! I was really bummed out too when I found out it broke over the years. before I left for my last hiatus it was still there... I wonder how something like this happens. like, how can a working code that is left untouched 'break' all of sudden?

and do you happen to know why they took habitarium down on purpose? everyone seems to have loved it.

[Nielo]

You'd be surprised at how easy it is to break code that you didn't even know your update might touch. XD I work as a software developer for a company that has grown a pretty big codebase over the years, and most of it is connected, sometimes in ways you'd never even have considered. I've broken things I'd never even heard of, just by updating a different bit of code. XD From what I've read about Neo, I'm assuming its code is pretty old & all connected as well, so things breaking like they do is not at all surprising. I just wish they had the resources & employees to fix more of the things that have been broken for literal years.
To make matters worse, there's actually such a thing as "code rot", which means that even code you didn't touch might deteroriate over time. (There are several reasons for it, and the code doesn't physically disappear, but it's definitely possible for code that was working fine before to become faulty, without being changed.)

As for the habitarium, this thread also discusses why it closed down. It appears it might've had something to do with changing servers, and habi being hosted by a third party.

[alohadiscordia]

16 hours ago, Nielo said:

I've broken things I'd never even heard of, just by updating a different bit of code. XD

that... sounds terrifying haha  

16 hours ago, Nielo said:

I just wish they had the resources & employees to fix more of the things that have been broken for literal years.

that's what I mean though: once their huge conversion project is over, there's got to be resources free again to do this kind of stuff. I just really hope that TNT comes to the same conclusion.

and I have never even heard about code rot. thanks for teaching me something, that's really interesting!

[Nielo]

8 hours ago, alohadiscordia said:

that... sounds terrifying haha  

that's what I mean though: once their huge conversion project is over, there's got to be resources free again to do this kind of stuff. I just really hope that TNT comes to the same conclusion.

and I have never even heard about code rot. thanks for teaching me something, that's really interesting!

It is. XD
You'll suddenly have someone at your desk, telling you that you broke the thing. But you don't even know the thing! Very stressful.

I hope so too, but I have to admit that I've wondered about the amount of people working on this conversion in the first place. They've been working on it for years. (Here's an editorial from about 3 years ago that mentions the Flash to HMTL5 conversion in the first question.) It's gotten more urgent now, with Flash really being shunned by most browsers, but if they had a sufficient amount of developers working on it, chances are at least parts of the conversion would be done by now.

I mean, I obviously don't know how many people they've got working on projects (and I *am* a pessimist by nature ), but editorials like this one, that mention 'our developer' (singular!) makes me fear that they're a bit understaffed. (A common probably in IT, btw. Software developers can be pretty hard to come by.):

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Hi! Many users put in a lot of effort into the Charity Corner event, in hopes of getting the Zapped! perk. We were looking forward to being able to zap our petpets an exclusive lab ray color, as was advertised in the shop. I & many users waited patiently for TNT to fix the shop only to have the description & perk changed to something many users weren't even working towards. Many users feel cheated & as though our time & effort was wasted. I'm writing in hopes that TNT will keep their word & do right by the user base & work towards fixing this issue, by allowing us to have lab ray exclusive colors as an option. Thanks!
Unfortunately, our developer ran into unexpected problems while setting the perk up, and fixing it was taking so long that all his other tasks were getting affected. We do realise that some players were saving up especially for this perk, and we want to see what can be done for those players. This is not to make any promises here, just to let you know that we are aware of your situation and that we have not closed the matter.