Faerie Festival so far + Day 2 recycling feature thoughts?

[Singledwish123]

Hi! Just wanted to see how everyone's been feeling about the recycling part of Faerie Festival now that Day 1 is over! Is anyone liking the event? People seem to have really strong opinions on a lot of these, and I'm more curious than truly opinionated. It definitely doesn't feel like anything is black-and-white fair or unfair.

My thoughts:

1. Donation limits - fairer for newbies/unfair to loyal players? Unfair to both?

For me, upping the donation limit from 10 to 30 seemed better at first, as it felt like I could use up more of the garbage in my SDB and fairer for the people who've been prepping BUT now I feel like it's barely a dent in most prepper's stashes AND it's increased the demand for higher rarity items even more. Inflation right now is so wild. How did they not see that coming?? It's kind of felt like some of the more disappointing parts of Neopets culture are being rewarded - price-gouging, a desire to make money at the expense of others (though you could argue no one forcing anyone to spend 60k on an omelette,) just general focus on the exclusivity and treating Neopets the game as seriously as finance bros take real-world money...

2. Re-releases of older items in the event prize shop and Recycling Capsule - good for the spirit of the game or bad for the spirit of capitalism (lol) ?

On the other hand, seeing the divide in people's reactions to the Recycling Capsules and both prize pools offering previously extremely elusive/all-but-gone/gone items to players has been fun. We're seeing a reintroduction of a small supply of those items, making it possible for a lot of people to more democratically get their dream items or maybe resources that would've taken them a long time to acquire otherwise. Plus, especially with random items from the Recycling Capsules - the prices may lower temporarily, but they'll probably eventually go up again. I think the more we move towards people buying things in Neopets for fun v. hoarding and selling to fund fun things v. collecting items they don't really want to wait for the prices to go up, the better!! I don't think there's any real wrong way to play Neopets, other than, like, blatantly stealing and ripping people off, so the fact that the Festival has brought up a lot of strong opinions has been really cool.

Overall, I really do appreciate the intentions behind re-releasing older, rarer items in the recent Neopets events. I've definitely felt the frustration of having to lower the asking price of an item I was hoping to sell for a certain amount of money because of a re-release, or of buying an expensive background that then drops the next week, but I think it's the right direction for the game to be moving in. It feels like one of the few good parts of all this!

The FFQs giving so many people their dream pets too!! And the people setting up donations when they get quests they don't need! Very adorable.

3. Older accounts in general - are features that reward those with older accounts unfair?

A lot of this re-sparked conversation around account ages. First, the whole idea that the donation limits were supposed to make it fairer to newbies - I think most felt it didn't really do that and it was a let down for people who were hoarding for years. Then, just in general, I didn't realize there was a big debate around whether some general features e.g. Food Club (bc of bet max being tied to account age) or Almost Abandoned Attic, unfairly reward people who have older accounts. I think some of that is complicated, a lot of people with older accounts have been loyal players and worked hard, but also some people had accounts stolen/lost or get accounts reinstated but all their assets are gone. I think it's nice to be rewarded for sticking around, and that feels like a normal part of a lot of online games, but hopefully it's not so discouraging that people try to pick Neopets back up but find it AND SOME PARTS OF THE COMMUNITY (not TDN!) gatekeep-y.

4. Jhudora v. Illusen

Some people do seem upset that Jhudora's side has "worse" (mostly interpreted by me as items that will get less money on the resale market/lesser value) items, do people agree/disagree/regret which side they picked? I picked Illusen because I've been really anxious lately lol and I just needed to see something cheery and heard Jhudora's side was a bit sad.

 

I feel like conversations on here always feel kinder and much more in good faith, so I'm excited to hear people's thoughts! Not trying to hate on anything or any one way to play Neopets, or say that wanting to make money here is bad, I want to make money to buy cute things too. And definitely not the most knowledgeable on all this, so I hope nothing I say came off as judgemental to any opinions you might hold on any of these topics!!

[GillyTook]

1:  I see good and bad.  They started this to reduce clutter that was slowing the site down, right?  The limit makes it fairer (sort of) to newbies, BUT the point system makes it unfair.  Instead of being able to donate 30 items of any quality and get good things, you've either got to spend a ton of NP, hope you had good stuff already, or just settle for so-so prizes.  I've been grabbing stuff that was worth more points in older events, but I'm already out of the stuff that was worth the maximum amount of points because I had zero idea how it'd work because they change the point system each year.  Do I buy a ton of things you can technically get for free every day at 10K each and hope to get some of that cash back, or do I go for the next tier down and hope that I can get enough NP to get enough good prizes to make up for what I've spent?  

2:  I like that they have a set of new things (petpet and the necklaces are, right?) AND a lot of old prizes.  I've been around for 20 years (wow, I feel old, lol) but wasn't active for a lot of it, so I've missed a lot of things like stamp giveaways or events (noooo!)  It's really nice that they are releasing some of the old stuff because there is no way I'll ever (especially with price gougers, especially since I've seen some theories a lot of those are using bots to grab items to inflate the prices of) be able to afford half the stuff I want-gourmet food, books, stamps, etc.  Would probably be better if they were doing it through things like the daily question, though.

3:  I also had no idea stuff like food club bets were controversial.  I don't see any problem with permanent events on the site giving better rewards as an account ages.  Gives you something to stick around for.  For limited time events, I think it's a lot less fair.  Hey, I'm new!  Oh, this event looks. . . oh, I'll just have to hope I can buy the prizes sometime in future when my account is older/I've got more np/I've just given up and become a price gouger so I can afford anything.  Cool.  

4:  I picked Illusen because I'm a goodie-two-shoes who likes light side stuff   There are a couple things on Jhudora's side that I'd like to get, but eh.  Either way it'll be fine I'm sure?  I just always get a ton of anxiety over choices because I am always afraid I'll find out I've made the wrong one.  

[discobiscuit]

If this was really a Charity Corner event, limits would make no sense since the point was to clean up our excess safety deposit box clutter.  Were we shown what perks or prizes we could get ahead of time?  I don't remember donating to the Charity Corner to get to a specific prize level. 

To me, this event is really a Faerie event (free quests!) but with a recycling side event to win valuable prizes and that's different.   The limits seem to be there to keep players with deep SDB's from snarfing up a billion valuable stamps or battle dome weapons. 

[SpideyLuc]

On 10/10/2023 at 3:37 AM, Singledwish123 said:

"I think it's nice to be rewarded for sticking around, and that feels like a normal part of a lot of online games, but hopefully it's not so discouraging that people try to pick Neopets back up but find it AND SOME PARTS OF THE COMMUNITY (not TDN!) gatekeep-y."

I fear for everyone whose first intro into the community is the /r/neopets discord... They are very strict and even asking questions can get you temporary, or if they are in a bad mood, permanent ban. I appealed my ban after 5 years and I wrote like a NOVEL. They basically responded TL;DR you're still banned bye.

I hope more people filter into the TDN forums and the TDN discord. That's where I refer everyone to lately because the atmosphere here and on discord is so much friendlier 

 

 

 

[berriganify]

I mean RE: the account ages, that's kind of unavoidable with any online game that has events? I've joined games mid- or post-events (or missed events because of hiatuses) and generally just thought, oh well, I'll join in for the next one then! But I also go into online game like this one knowing that I will not be able to be a completionist about it, that there will always be stuff I'll miss out on.

Ideally, if CC happened every year, then they could just run the events with the assumption that everyone had been stocking up for a year, and then even if new/returning players couldn't participate fully, they would only have to wait a year for the next one (and be motivated to return daily to stock up!)

For food club, though, I personally think the bets should be capped after ~10 years or so. New players will still have a reason to stick around, but they can eventually 'catch up' and won't be endlessly behind older players

[Singledwish123]

19 hours ago, SpideyLuc said:

I fear for everyone whose first intro into the community is the /r/neopets discord...

Haha you def caught on to which forums I was talking about, it's so intense there, esp around Festival Festival, it just doesn't feel nice. I really do hope more people join here, or both! It should be encouraging to talk to people playing and loving the same game as you, not stressful.

[berriganify]

Intense? Huh, I've been to that sub a few times and like 90% of the posts are just screenshots of FFQs/random events/zaps