If you could buy neo, what are the first actions you would take?

[Ehentalix]

Fuck, I totally forgot about the Purge

#1 priority would be to start that up alongside pound_release immediately

[Enchantix]

first thing? definitely hire competent moderators
Otherwise a lot of the same as people have said. Get some actual artists and devs on board, redesign uglier aspects of the site. I love the thought of either ending UCs entirely, or making UCs obtainable again through a special PB/morph potion. Or maybe as a premium perk. Would be pretty cool to add UC options for the pets and colors that don't have this to give a little more incentive to pay for this kinda thing. Converteds can stick around for the dress up fans.

[penguin1991]

If I was going to buy it I'd be planning to put a small (relatively) amount of money into acquiring the property and a shitload of money into fixing it and making it profitable outside of the NC Mall.

Hire real artists to totally overhaul the converted pets and release more than 1-2 good colors a year instead of just drab colorfills. Most of the conversion-era art needs a revamp anyways and I think it'd make a lot of people happy if the quality went back to or exceeded that of preconversion era.

UC paintbrush or NC feature. I love trading UCs but mostly because I just love the UC art. That + making converted pets look better would break that whole UC economy and that's exactly what I would want. Anyone could have the UC art with a little work or maybe money.

Make Neopets an app that functions on computer or mobile. Retain as much of the web-based option as possible for post-flash as well for OG users. I don't know why they're not doing this. Have they seen how popular some games are? Update the art and go full app, and Neopets would come roaring back.

Fix premium. Make it less about free NPs. Bonus plots, bonus colors/options, polls that actually affect change on the site, options for more galleries, etc. Stuff that doesn't interfere with playing the game or succeeding, but things that many fans would happily pay for.

Court quality advertisers, bring back merchandising (still have my darling kougra plushie!) and focus on making premium a truly premium experience so that I could rely less on NC Mall.

New plots with actual storylines and interactive components. End the low-effort NP sink events.

Amnesty period. Create a pathway back for frozen users who have either been away so long the system doesn't know what they even did, or who were frozen for minor things. I think a lot of people end up quitting because they get frozen for minor things or in some cases for nothing at all. And a lot more come back and cheat, because if you're just going to be frozen for nothing anyway, you may as well be frozen for something. I'm sure tons of people would come back if they knew they could get their accounts and pets back.

Fix the security system, do away with birthday checks, hire reasonable mods/support team. Relax the filters slightly, given the older audience. My kids are 7 and 5 and even they don't need to be protected from words like "grape" and "uncle." Or even mild swearing and innuendo.

Fix the BD and make that a key part of the site again.

Kill CAPTCHA and fix the damn lag.

Could you elaborate on this : If I was going to buy it I'd be planning to put a small (relatively) amount of money into acquiring the property and a shitload of money into fixing it and making it profitable outside of the NC Mall.

Would really like to hear your ideas

[My name is Yoshikage Kira]

If I bought Neo I'd give it to Tony then sit back and watch it burn

[qhn]

Could you elaborate on this : If I was going to buy it I'd be planning to put a small (relatively) amount of money into acquiring the property and a shitload of money into fixing it and making it profitable outside of the NC Mall.

Would really like to hear your ideas

1) make Premium a stronger incentive as a paid option rather than NC Mall. Even the hardcore NC mallers seem to be irritated that everything is so derivative, and I think over time the NC Mall-only strategy has backfired and made the game increasingly irrelevant, because nothing new is going on besides daily NC mall content. And it's a vicious cycle. Can't focus on new NP-based/free content because NC mall stuff is the money spinner; but NC mall is running on an increasingly smaller core of loyal buyers; and more potential buyers AND free users leave because there's no real content; which makes them have to focus ever more on NC.

2) Make it an app and do more, and better, plots. That pulls more users, new and younger users, and will naturally increase the revenue generated by existing ads rather than putting in more obtrusive advertising, or making the site pay-to-play. Fixing the BD would bring back/attract new users from demographics that currently are alienated. Neo was always more female than male but I'm guessing when avatar collecting dried up and the BD started to suck, the ratio got even more heavily female.

3) if it got popular again, which I think it probably would if they invested time and money into fixing major issues and bringing it into the 21st Century, I'm thinking that merchandising would be a strong factor. POP figures, plushies, etc. Rare item codes were the shit back in the day, that would be a huge incentive to buy real world merch. Tie-in games like they used to have, to promote movies, toys, etc.

4) bring back trading cards, and do it right this time. That game could have been a competitor to Pokemon or MTG, but they just sort of neglected it and then abandoned it.

5) ???

6) PROFIT!!!!

[Chenbi]

I would pardon everyone and unsilence my main. Then I'd change the rules and the general idea that the site is for kids 'cus kids don't have money to spend and we adults like to say a few "bad" words from time to time. Also everyone could mention any social media they like, if someone falls into a scam it would be their problem as stated in the small lines of the thing we accept without reading. Just what I can think rn. Also if the users want it so bad, UCs for everyone, but you would have to spend 600 NC to unconvert. I'd also delete pets with ugly names in the pound, that shit is sad, and you wanna adopt some pets to get their cupcakes and train your pets? Do it, but whoever creates them just for the cupcake will be frozen. And there would be a huge purge so we can get those pretty, forgotten names. Making a new KQ and habitarium too, because I like them. And announce a new plot in the works with BD parts cuz that's what we're here for. And defenders of neopia, of course.

[aimee_cindy]

I like working towards UCs and trading but would be cool for them to release UCs via some kind scheme - like the dream neopet event at christmas. Or rewards for getting in the art gallery or something.
Or they take pets from the pound and give them random UC colours and pound them via events or something.
There is a dwindling supply with pets get frozena nd users quitting and it's impossible for newer users to get them.

I'm not sure I'd cool with an uc painbrush with the amount of nps in the economy and NC - some people will spend crazy money so not sure I like that either will make neo trading even more dull - converted trading is pointless right now and uc trading will join it.

[Dot]

To add on to what everyone has said, I'd change the reCaptcha a little. Shit gets old SO fast.

[penguin1991]

1) make Premium a stronger incentive as a paid option rather than NC Mall. Even the hardcore NC mallers seem to be irritated that everything is so derivative, and I think over time the NC Mall-only strategy has backfired and made the game increasingly irrelevant, because nothing new is going on besides daily NC mall content. And it's a vicious cycle. Can't focus on new NP-based/free content because NC mall stuff is the money spinner; but NC mall is running on an increasingly smaller core of loyal buyers; and more potential buyers AND free users leave because there's no real content; which makes them have to focus ever more on NC.

2) Make it an app and do more, and better, plots. That pulls more users, new and younger users, and will naturally increase the revenue generated by existing ads rather than putting in more obtrusive advertising, or making the site pay-to-play. Fixing the BD would bring back/attract new users from demographics that currently are alienated. Neo was always more female than male but I'm guessing when avatar collecting dried up and the BD started to suck, the ratio got even more heavily female.

3) if it got popular again, which I think it probably would if they invested time and money into fixing major issues and bringing it into the 21st Century, I'm thinking that merchandising would be a strong factor. POP figures, plushies, etc. Rare item codes were the shit back in the day, that would be a huge incentive to buy real world merch. Tie-in games like they used to have, to promote movies, toys, etc.

4) bring back trading cards, and do it right this time. That game could have been a competitor to Pokemon or MTG, but they just sort of neglected it and then abandoned it.

5) ???

6) PROFIT!!!!

How much would it cost us to pool money together and just buy it?! We at CK could run neo and it would flourish!!
Love your ideas.

[Erik.]

Fire Tony P.

Nah don't fire the guy! Just change his post. He would make an excellent privy counsellor

---------- Post added at 06:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:21 PM ----------

I would pardon everyone and unsilence my main. Then I'd change the rules and the general idea that the site is for kids 'cus kids don't have money to spend and we adults like to say a few "bad" words from time to time. Also everyone could mention any social media they like, if someone falls into a scam it would be their problem as stated in the small lines of the thing we accept without reading.

You have to protect your consumers/clients though. If Neo turned into an online Wild West you'd lose the majority of users.