Originally Posted by
birdies
They do mention NC UCs as something still bring worked on in their FAQ on Medium but it doesn't sound like an immediate prospect - which I'm okay with, tbh as I think it's going to take a delicate hand to bring NC UCs out without killing trading and if the site has just changed hands they really should take a little time and look at all the comments they've collected from previous surveys, etc.
That said...
Idk, I don't want to be a downer but I'm hecking wary.
The first thing I note is that Neopets was very close to death when JS went. So I have to be grateful that the Neopets Meta guy saw a new life (let's be clear: a new way of making money) in it.
But, this is the Neopets Meta guy. I think we can safely say he doesn't really know much about the site's ethos and community, despite having a shoyru in the early 2000s. From reading the whole Neopets World spiel, I think their main project is going to be making some kind of pokemon go type game with neopets. Which could be great, but I'm wary that plots and onsite events will start requiring you to join in with this, tie your phone to your account, etc - partly so they can suck more data out of us, as data is an incredibly valuable commodity. Starting out by asking us to complete a bunch of social media actions to win prizes hints at that.
I'm worried about the use of 'influential neopets players' - I don't think they mean influences, I think they mean loud voices on the site and as someone mentioned the loud voices aren't always the best people, or people who have any idea what fun is.
And I worry that without a parent company to back it, if this stuff doesn't take off fairly fast, they'll just take our data, shutter the site and run.
I'm not seeing the actual site being the priority here. I don't think this is the dream of a rich neopets player restoring the site to what it was, I think it's someone who wants to cash in on a nostalgic franchise. Which could work... if I were them I'd spend a good year getting the site up and running in every possible way, sort out all the bugs, clear up the back end, make the mobile/non mobile pages consistent, give it some classic touches, consult properly on NC UCs and pet nicknames so there's a really viable site for people to come back to - and then launch the other things around it, like neo world and island builders etc.
Eeehhh, I just have some alarm bells ringing. We'll see!