Was there any logic behind what became UC and what didn't?

[TheBestNeopetsPlayer]

Because I just spent the last 10 years thinking Alien Aishas were UC only to actually spot one in the pound and realize they got a generic rework for NC items. Did TNT ever tell the community what colors will keep unconverted art and why?

[Ice]

Snarkie herself actually answered this question on her personal website a while back, here's the snip.

(you need an account to see links)

UC Pets
December 02, 2019

I realized after that I posted this in the comments and didn’t use the form. I am very sorry for the double posting mess. Just wanted a chance to ask

–

Hey, Snarkie! *tosses some red vines*

What is your personal take on UCs?
Who’d decision was this? Why were certain pets only chosen from some colours that remained UC? Why not all Faeries, or Royals, for example?
Did TNT EVER have a plan of making them available, or did they try? Did they think they could sell a UC PB, or a potion in the Mall?
Coming from a lover of one single UC (I won’t reveal, because that will reveal me), I can’t fathom the feeling some may have gone through losing their hard-earned, painted pet for one that may not have been as extravagant as its UC form.
Please lighten the darkened places for us. And sorry for bombarding with a million questions right off the bat.
Having a lovely time browsing your site!
- Emerald

snarkie
January 04, 2021

Hi!!! I’m pretty sure we’ve answered this in a few places over the years (it’s a common question) but it would be nice to have it here for reference so here you go. I’ll try to keep it short this time. ? Thanks for asking!

Personal take: UCs were a huge mistake and the bane of our existence. ?

Whose decision: Since I was in charge of content at the time, it was ultimately my decision after we all discussed for weeks and weeks about how to handle conversion. Feel free to blame me!

Choice for UC colour/combo options: We didn’t want *any* unconverted combos for a number of reason—the maintenance it would require on the back end over time, Customisation was the new direction and we didn’t want a ton of remnants, it would confuse newbies, etc.—but felt that there were certain combos that would be really harsh to convert so we came up with the limited UC option as a compromise. (And we felt we could keep up the maintenance on the dwindling number of them over a long period of time since they would eventually be painted, the owners would abandon their accounts and they’d be purged, etc.). There were many factors that went into which ones had the UC option, like how customised the art was, how expensive/difficult it was to get the combo, when the combo was released, how many we were allowing overall, etc. We had a bunch of checklists and went over every combo to decide if it got a UC option.

Sell UCs: It would have very likely made us a TON of money in the NC Mall, sure, but we always felt it was pretty dang unfair to take something away from everyone* and then sell back access to it. That reason alone prevented us from ever seriously considering it. (Plus, like I said, we didn’t want any UCs at all so adding back an option to create them didn’t really make sense anyway.)

I hope that answered all your questions!

* We saw Customisation as a huge benefit. It was a feature that had been *frequently* and *adamantly* requested since the dawn of the site. And added much more extravagance and uniqueness to your own Neopet than the static art of the old days. So we didn’t really see conversion as taking something away so much as giving something new and different… but still, some people did feel that way. And regardless, charging you for something you used to have didn’t seem right.

[Double.Trouble]

Man...I still don't understand some of the choices the staff made.
"There were many factors that went into which ones had the UC option, like how customised the art was, how expensive/difficult it was to get the combo, when the combo was released, how many we were allowing overall, etc. We had a bunch of checklists and went over every combo to decide if it got a UC option."
So they ditched the old pets like the RB Lupe/Grarrl/Zafara but decided to keep the Darigan Mynci, Mara Scorchio/Chomby and Faerie Kau. Ok.

[Serebii]

Another reason mentioned during one of the AMAs on Reddit (I can't seem to find it, but someone else here may know what I'm talking about) is that some of the original artists for the UC art either couldn't be contacted to give their permission for the art to be redone to work with the new system, or wouldn't provide permission at all.

[gayblayde]

I am sure there WAS logic, but it was clearly pretty subjective. I miss the UC Mutant Cybunny.

[♥ Dita ♥]

Man...I still don't understand some of the choices the staff made.
"There were many factors that went into which ones had the UC option, like how customised the art was, how expensive/difficult it was to get the combo, when the combo was released, how many we were allowing overall, etc. We had a bunch of checklists and went over every combo to decide if it got a UC option."
So they ditched the old pets like the RB Lupe/Grarrl/Zafara but decided to keep the Darigan Mynci, Mara Scorchio/Chomby and Faerie Kau. Ok.

This! Like why the fuck would they keep RG Grarrl but not RB Grarrl? He had just as much unique art and detail as the RG but wasn't chosen? Like I really question how they really decided this. I still am pissed RG Poogle was massacred with this convertion.

[birdies]

It remains completely insane that we got to keep half of several royal couples. For a while I had a royal lupe pair on my account - she was UC he was converted and it was very 'here is my husband, he's a ten but he hasn't yet learned how to walk'.

But yeah, elsewhere (reddit IIRC?) Snarkie said it was also related to copyright/permission or something from some of the artists, though I still can't see how royal pairs were drawn by two different people. My guess is this is part of the reason they are 'updating' the art a little bit for the rerelease. Perhaps the permission part is related to 'changing' the work by adding paid-for custom items to it, meaning TNT are making additional profits from that artwork existing on the site.

Anyway, reading that response from Snarkie viscerally reminds me of dealing with the dev team at work, who are fantastic people who truly have the site's best interests at heart and want to make great changes that will help people, but can't always see the wood for the trees on how the changes will actually affect longterm users. Sometimes an idea seems great and it's only when you try it out you realise it really... is not.

Like she's not wrong, people always wanted to customise their pets. If you just asked the userbase if they wanted customisation the response would be yes. But if you showed them pictures of the clunky chunky fist wielding monstrosities they were going to get, and explained that every ounce of individuality and uniqueness would be drained out of the pets to make them all identikit customisation-ready clones there would have been a very different answer.

I fully understand it would have been / would still be far too much work to make all the unique pet sizes and poses able to wear clothes, but with a proper beta test they could have come up with a compromise that worked for everyone - like only being able to customise basic pets (and change their colours with body art etc rather than PBs) while painted pets would have the standard UC system of being able to wear BGs and trinkets etc. Anyone upset their fancy painted pet couldn't be fully customised could just pick up a basic one.

But it's easy for me to say with the benefit of a decade of hindsight, I guess.

[Seeno]

Like she's not wrong, people always wanted to customise their pets. If you just asked the userbase if they wanted customisation the response would be yes. But if you showed them pictures of the clunky chunky fist wielding monstrosities they were going to get, and explained that every ounce of individuality and uniqueness would be drained out of the pets to make them all identikit customisation-ready clones there would have been a very different answer.

For sure. I was the one who would say YES to customization back the in per-conversion time but I would never assume the price for it is to have our pets becoming awkward fist-holding individuals. I'd thought it more like how we customize the UCs today with BG/FG/BGitem, etc, plus some items that are COLOR-exclusive (like items that could only be wear by faerie pets, etc). I understand that this would be the ultimate easiest way for them to make customization work but I don't know how they can say "So we didn’t really see conversion as taking something away so much as giving something new and different", when something people used to own was CLEARLY changed solely for this purpose, and what gotten dramatically changed is the most important element of this site: The pet.

[Corliss]

I really wanted customization, but honestly the biggest reason for that was:

There were clothing items in the game that are totally useless

I really wanted my pets to actually *wear* the clothes that existed in the game, but they couldn't, and it was annoying. It still annoys me that most of the pet grooming items in the game and other interactive items just show a bit of text. I wanted there to be a visual effect on my pet.

I would have said "heck no" to the customization art that we got. I still think they should have given all pets their original form and a customized "anthro" form (the way they draw literally every character in the plot comics) - that way you could enjoy your pet in their basic art, or switch to the standing-pet avatar and dress them up. Most of the clothes only make sense on an anthro body anyway. Perfect world. One can dream.

[TheBestNeopetsPlayer]

I really wanted customization, but honestly the biggest reason for that was:

There were clothing items in the game that are totally useless

I really wanted my pets to actually *wear* the clothes that existed in the game, but they couldn't, and it was annoying. It still annoys me that most of the pet grooming items in the game and other interactive items just show a bit of text. I wanted there to be a visual effect on my pet.

I never really felt this way personally. A lot of old computer games used to inform you that your character changed clothes with some text and stat changes rather than anything visual. It's kind of like how you don't see all 6 of your BD items on your pet when you look at them.