New usermade Mystery Capsule at the Mall!

[♥ lagrima ♥]

I have to say, while I like some items in this cap (and the cap art is great, a million times better than the ugly black friday GBC), I'm mad they made the fountain so ugly. The art is horrible, and some of the entries were stunning.

And speaking of stunning, I feel like if they had actually put effort into that fountain and made the colors softer it would look amazing with Stunning Moon BG.

[oventoast]

Whoever drew this sky got under my skin
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edit: the bg, the faerie and the fountain are some of the ugliest NC items TNT has had the audacity to make live imo, I'm sure the original entries were 1000 times better

I am currently writing an article about how terribly incompetent JumpStart is. It started because I was asked to create a case study for a graduate-level class I will be teaching on how businesses fail from a management perspective. That snowballed into just general malaise about how Neopets is run. I'm a lawyer whose practice revolves around corporate restructuring, outsourcing and business management, so this right up my ally. I love my job and I spend most of my time thinking about my job, and I find Neopets to be a great example of how you can fuck up the restructuring process. I've been hesitant to share any of this because I don't know how popular my opinions are with the community or whether anyone will read my drivel but @(you need an account to see links) did want me to come back and write more. You're right... the fountain is probably the ugliest NC item that has been made live, and the original entries were 1000 times better.

I wrote a little bit about my own personal opinions in the UCGATE thread on my account @(you need an account to see links) before I got the password to this account reset. The article I'm writing is at about 5,000 words and criticizes everything under the sun, so at this point it is looking more like an academic article. Every time a new JumpStart development happens, I am left more and more confused as to their incompetencies and what the fuck is going on.

This, however, takes the cake. I could write 10,000 more words on this alone. I'm actually astounded.

At this point I'm left wondering whether JumpStart has developed some sort of AI that runs the company for you... considering in 2017 JS was acquired by a Chinese company called NetDragon Websoft, this might not even be a joke.

Like you, I also am sure that the original entries were 1000 times better. I saw some of them on social media. Some of the original sketches looked so good and would fit well with other attractive NC items. This... I have no idea what this is. I'm speechless. I've been on a permanent hiatus so I missed the roll out of the ugly Toy pb and other flops, so this burns fresh as yet another incredibly stupid failure on JS's behalf, in a situation where they can actually capitalize from their very own userbase.

I know that in the grand scheme of things, that this is meaningless, just pixels, etc. but this signals something much deeper in terms of JS's lack of business competence. If you are trying to outsource work to the community of a game, it's crucial to actually listen to what the community wants and select good end products. Especially when it is clear that the company itself is struggling to maintain a full-time artist. This isn't just a fun community event, this a cry for content to keep pushing out.

I'm just going to rant about them in order of how bad they are, with the worst at the time:

Please log in to view spoilers.

Apologies for the length of this post, the art of being a lawyer is babbling on forever about minuscule details.

[♥ PrettySarcastic ♥]

The whole thing is just a testament to incompetence.

The lunar fountain looks like it's slowly melting into a puddle.

I can't even process whatever was done to the babaa in the background of that background, it looks like it's been smashed. The "closed eyes contacts" ... yeah. Birth defect about describes it, oventoast.

Further, I've seen multiple allegations that designs that were submitted for this random contest appear to have been appropriated and used for NC items earlier this month/last month??? Or at least "inspired" them?

I'll edit when I find the source.

Small Edit: Here's the wigs that did NOT make it, who freakin' knows why. Probably because they couldn't find an existing model close enough to copy/paste and recolor.
(you need an account to see links)

[Meepit]

Lmfao I showed my husband who doesn't even play neopets and he laughed at the quiggle with no eyes.

[oventoast]

The whole thing is just a testament to incompetence.

The lunar fountain looks like it's slowly melting into a puddle.

I can't even process whatever was done to the babaa in the background of that background, it looks like it's been smashed. The "closed eyes contacts" ... yeah. Birth defect about describes it, oventoast.

Further, I've seen multiple allegations that designs that were submitted for this random contest appear to have been appropriated and used for NC items earlier this month/last month??? Or at least "inspired" them?

I'll edit when I find the source.

I wouldn't find this a problem is they

1) were able to implement the designs correctly (which requires hiring a damn competent artist)

2) put the rest of the decent designs (i.e. the wig I linked) into this new capsule, and never let that Lunar Fountain or Petpet bg see the light of day.

Seriously, there are so many starving artists, unemployed and working minimum wage, dead end jobs. How hard is it to find one? At first I thought "it must be really hard to find a competent artist" but actually I don't think that's the case. I think that JS just bungles every remotely easy task due to incompetence. The past released items that end up looking nice, I suspect may have been created by an artist who is no longer employed by JS.

Imagine crowdsourcing art for your on-site real money trading items and implementing the worst entries possible out of sheer laziness and incompetence. Because it's not just laziness, there were plenty of items that could have just gone into the capsule, barely tinkered with. I just realistically can't understand what is going on.

[Malarkey]

My favorite part of this capsule is the fact that the items and the capsule were done in October based on where the items fall in closets/SDBs, so it's not even like they "rushed" this to get it to drop on Black Friday or anything.

If you're going to make us wait months for something, at least put some effort in.

[♥ PrettySarcastic ♥]

Yeah had any of it been well done, the level of bitching would be minimal to non-existent. But 99% of it looks like garbage.

The users who designed the items didn't get credit in the item description as promised, nor did they get a copy of their item -- they got a single mystery capsule, so presumably they are expected to dump their own money into the slot machine to try and get the item they inspired the creation of and won a trophy for.

[oventoast]

At first I didn't think this one was too bad but seeing the original submission, I'm floored...

This is what the Air Faerie Statute user submitted (clearly someone with some semblance of taste and artistic knowledge):



This is what staff did:



I have no words to describe this level of incompetence. It really must be a team of like 5 programmers with zero design knowledge sitting in a basement somewhere and just jerking around. There is no other explanation.

---------- Post added at 12:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:04 AM ----------

My favorite part of this capsule is the fact that the items and the capsule were done in October based on where the items fall in closets/SDBs, so it's not even like they "rushed" this to get it to drop on Black Friday or anything.

If you're going to make us wait months for something, at least put some effort in.

Just by looking at how terrible it was, I thought it was a rushed job. Learning that it was ready in October (for a pre-Christmas release) explains a lot, actually. The company is run in just such a disjointed manner, literally not a single person working for Neopets actually cares about the state of the game. No one stopped to think in the two months that these items are sitting, ready to publish, "wow, this is ridiculously fucking ugly"? Amazing.

[Flordibel]

Oh hell, they didn't even get a copy of their item OR credit for it?

That actually annoys me a bit more than the implementation of these.

The closed idea contacts idea is neat - definitely looks weird on some species though. I definitely wish there was a cool wig or facepaint : /

[Styx]

these are all terrible and depressing. tnt needs better, more solid art direction. i don't understand how we can go from the various nc pops to these in terms of style and execution.