Official Plot Thread

[robozukin]

boy howdy this is unreal. as a side discussion, does anyone remember what the altador plot was like when it first launched? someone mentioned that the reason it is still playable now is as an apology for how completely unplayable and broken it was during the first run. i was not around for this

[Daviid]

boy howdy this is unreal. as a side discussion, does anyone remember what the altador plot was like when it first launched? someone mentioned that the reason it is still playable now is as an apology for how completely unplayable and broken it was during the first run. i was not around for this

I don't remember it being unplayable, maybe difficult, people probably complained about finding constellations the water plant the coliseum etc...

People whining as usual.

Plots are supposed to be hard.

[Buckley]

boy howdy this is unreal. as a side discussion, does anyone remember what the altador plot was like when it first launched? someone mentioned that the reason it is still playable now is as an apology for how completely unplayable and broken it was during the first run. i was not around for this

I was very active at that time and I do not remember it being broken. If it was it wasn't on a level a player would notice. Some of the parts were quite challenging but that is sort of the point? I also was on dial up at the time with a computer with a 6 GB hardrive, lol. The communication with the staff at that time was very different too. It felt like anything that was communicated was decided as a group. There was no single representative.

I've never experienced any site event go down like this before, even though everyone seems to insist they have.

[SabiSweaters]

The "finite amount of wraiths" thing seems a little iffy. Scrappy's answer was a super vague non-answer: "The estimated date of finish is when you guys defeat them all....or they take over and you guys lose.....sooooo"

[neofreak]

Can that dumb cartoon character of a woman stop giving vague, pointless non-answers followed by excessive amounts of exclamation points? Get her out of that job position because she's shit at it. She causes all this mass confusion and then only makes it worse when she tries to "fix" it. Quit it. For fuck's sake she's so ridiculous, but everyone wants to worship the ground she walks on as if she's doing this amazing job. Get rid of the damn coi, cutesy facade and address issues within the game to it's user base or you won't even have a job to suck at Scrapheap.

Rant over.

I feel like I'm the only person that isn't in love with this idiot. Someone explain to me why she's worth all the praise?

---------- Post added at 12:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:10 PM ----------

boy howdy this is unreal. as a side discussion, does anyone remember what the altador plot was like when it first launched? someone mentioned that the reason it is still playable now is as an apology for how completely unplayable and broken it was during the first run. i was not around for this

That's a lie.

The Altador Plot was intended to be an open plot from the get-go, partly because it was a tie-in to the video game.
It wasn't meant to be the only open plot either, but things changed when Viacom bought the site.

[neofreak]

Not her specifically so much as her role. Neopets has a history of being very hush hush and strict with its userbase for whatever reason. The thought of a staff member talking to users freely rather than in some pre-picked heavily fixed editorial is something that old Neopets wouldn't have humored in a thousand years. Or at least during that phase between Neopets' inception and when it was rapidly growing. Scrappy's existence is a clear step in the right direction on that front even if she personally is terrible at the job. Also she's just a community ambassador. I'm sure someone above her is telling her exactly what she's allowed to divulge to users. It can't be very much.

Acting like a hyper child that's filled to the brim with too much sugar isn't a step in the right direction imo. Are we so desperate for TNT to talk to us that we'll take anything and have no standard whatsoever? If she posts the word 'pizza' is that really good? I know it's not that extreme, but I don't think it's enough to appreciate her or her position simply because she posts.


Here are some dev posts/announcements from a couple other games in what I would consider the same category as neopets (younger userbase at least in appearance and web-based):

(you need an account to see links)

He promised to bring back zOMG:
(you need an account to see links)
^And it happened.

People had questions:
(you need an account to see links)
^And they answered them.

They had a serious issue with inflation and the economy was more broken than Neopets:
(you need an account to see links)
^They fixed it.

All of this within less than a year and they don't act like children. They don't divulge all the deep secrets of the office, but they don't throw their users under this veil of confusion.


AQW is a 100% flash-based game. Flash is losing support in 2 years, but they aren't not talking to their players about the issue...
(you need an account to see links)

Their office is in Florida and people were concerned because of the hurricane, but they didn't keep silent...
(you need an account to see links)

Another post regarding the future of the game and the impending Flash lack of support...
(you need an account to see links)

They had an exploit in the game (much like duping from a few years ago on Neopets) and they didn't stay silent on that either...
(you need an account to see links)

A post about how they don't ignore user reports or feedback...
(you need an account to see links)


AQ also posts bugfixes and patch notes a couple times a month or so so that their users know what's going on even if it's stuff they don't see on the surface or would even notice otherwise.



My only point is that Scrappy is shit at her job. If this is TNT's honest-to-goodness best effort then the ship is already sunk in my opinion. She doesn't seem to grasp anything at all.

[neofreak]

You have a point. All I'm saying is having a community ambassador at all is something I didn't think Neopets would ever have. Scrappy's not very good at it but with any luck they'll replace her with someone who isn't rather than just retire the position.

I want a community manager just like every other game these days has, but to me Scrappy isn't a community manager. She's a chaos creator. So much of the dissatisfaction and confusion is caused by her, and most--if not all--of it can be cleared up by her with one sentence on the TNT board. When GMC started why didn't she just say "Since you brave Neopians have staved off this wave of the wraith, perhaps you need some time to rest and play some games!". It would have prevented so many of the "sigh no update today, the plot's running out of time to cram everything in before the december 10th end date" boards and posts that spammed the neoboards for the past week.

She also needs to address the Dec. 10th end date thing more directly instead of saying the plot ends when we defeat enough wraiths or they take over. That implies we need to fight passed 100% doesn't it? I don't know.

Again: She doesn't grasp a damn thing about Neopets, Neopia, or Neopians.

[athron]

To be honest this has to be the worst plot in Neopets history.
Don't come for me with "it's been only a few days and there was Thanksgiving, give them a break" because real companies would've managed something to keep the players interested on the game.
I despise Scrappy and I'm pretty sure there are far more talented people out there (and here for fuck sake) that could do her jobs tons and tons of times better.

We've been complaining about Neopets for years and they just don't care. The idea I get from this is that they think they can pretend nothing is happening and keep delaying things, being quiet, not speaking with the users and etc, that everything will be fine. I'm really, really, close of just giving up on Neopets already.

There are other websites that care way more for their users and I'm tired of complaining and trying to defend Neopets (yeah, did that once many years ago).

[tiramisu]

Jesus christ at this rate it will take a year for the plot to finish. The current tnt sucks balls

[Ragemodeactivate]

I'm not sure why they didn't just start this plot after Thanksgiving? We had GMC that could (and did, lets be real) hold everyone over during the holiday gap.

It's a shame the tnt mindset now feels more focused on "sell them nc" then actual content