The Neopian Times Editorial Thread

[Nyanobyte]

While the editorial was garbage as per usual, this part leaves me feeling optimistic.

I’m here to help make sure your voices are heard within JumpStart and to communicate on behalf of the Neopets team. You should expect to see improved communication, more ways to engage with each other, and spicy memes.

On that note, let’s start things off with some fun!

We’re excited to Introduce the “Share Your Story” community event, and all you need to do to be eligible to win some NC is to share your favorite Neopets memory with us! As someone new to Neopets, I feel honored to be able to learn the game through your memories and experiences.

A lot of issues do revolve around a lack of communication and the user base feeling totally unheard. I really hope Petra can bridge that gap and bring some more unity between staff and players. I know not everyone is a fan of the board event, but I hope we see more contests like this in the future. Writing prompts with a possible NC prize isn’t something I think we’ve ever had before? It would be nice to see things like that around holidays like ‘Whats your favorite Advent Calendar Memory’, ‘talk about your favorite spooky character’ etc with a little nc incentive as a prize. Even if not this style, I’d be excited to see what else Petra has up their sleeve for us next. The more contests and things to do onsite outside of the regular/annual events the better.

Going to be optimistic and assume that this editorial was short because Petra is getting up to speed with things, and that the next edition will be much better.

[Flordibel]

8/27/2021

Hey guys! Gutterfoot here. I’ve got a few updates to share with everyone so settle in.

Pet Slots

We at TNT are so excited to release Pet Slots and know that you all are too! I know there’s been a lot of anticipation on the Neoboards about when they’ll be released, especially after you folks caught a sneak peak of the Pet Slot bundles. We added those to the database for testing purposes, so we’re not quite ready to release yet but the team is working hard to get it out to everyone soon. As you may have seen already, we will be selling the Pet Slots in 1-, 5-, and 10-pack bundles. Here’s some additional information below:

* Pet Slots will be sold in the NC Mall but we don’t have a price to announce just yet.
In 2021’s Pet Slot release, we will allow all users to buy a total of 10 new Pet Slots.
Premium users will start off with 10 Pet Slots now and can have a total of 20 Pet Slots
Non-premium users will still start off with 6 Pet Slots, but can now go up to a total of 16 Pet Slots.

* Pet Slots will be coming soon, but we can’t give a date yet. The biggest hurdle has been dealing with the premium pet benefits. Since we are adding 3 additional Pet Slots to the existing 1 additional pet for premium, we have had to redo the system in which you lose your premium membership. Here’s a breakdown of some scenarios that may occur as a premium member:

- If you lose premium but have more than 16 pets, you’ll only be able to get those additional pets back if you renew premium or when we introduce more Pet Slots for you to purchase in the future.
- If you lose premium but have less than 16 pets, you’ll be able to purchase additional Pet Slots to get them back.
- We are removing the 90-day period for losing your pets and replacing it with a new system where the additional pets will sit Idle until you can either buy a new Pet Slot, renew premium, or choose to transfer/abandon them.
- Idle Pets cannot be interacted with at all apart from assigning them to a Pet Slot, transferring them, or pounding them. If you lose premium, you'll be able to choose which pets become Idle.

* We will also be temporarily removing Transfer Limits tied to an account. You will no longer be limited to how many pets you can transfer per day between a year old account versus a twenty-year-old account. This will help anyone who wants to try to combine their side accounts into one main account so they can transfer those pets over once Pet Slots are available. We’ll let everyone know when the limits are removed and when we are planning to bring them back. We have also been discussing removing the transfer restriction from Lutaris so no Lutari is left behind.


The Annual Premium Sale

The Annual Premium Sale is running late this year, but it’s coming next week! Although Pet Slots won’t be available before the sale, anyone who has a premium membership when they are released will have 10 Pet Slots total right off the bat. Go get that discount now!


Charity Corner 2021

With so many plans for the end of the year and the issues that arose from last year’s event, we are going to be skipping Charity Corner 2021. We will soon be getting a new member of the team who will be taking a look at many of our events to see how to improve them and Charity Corner will be one of those, so hold on to your donations and Granny Hopbobbin will see you soon. Thanks everyone for your continued support of Neopets! We are very excited with all the changes coming in 2021 and beyond. Stay tuned for updates on UC Pets, as I know you’re all eager to hear about that.


Are we allowed to use a VPN when using Neopets. Please remove my username. ~~anonymous
We do understand the need for safety when you are online so we do not have any issues with using a VPN for your own protection and safety!


I have a quick question for Kikocat: Is lending SuAP and other expensive avatar items while advertising for Caption Contest votes allowed or not? ~~anonymous
Hi, Kikocat here!! As long as the items are being lent and as long as they are not being lent only for votes and votes are not being requested as part of the lend.


The Usukicon Y22 Goodie bag is still active. The Usukicon Y23 Goodie Bag was newly released 8/21. The whole idea and DRAW for Usuki Collectors is to get the bags during their active year. There's no point to collecting when anyone can obtain it with little to no effort. Please retire this Y22 bag. Please remove my username. Thanks, ~~anonymous
Thanks so much for bringing this to our attention! The Usukicon Y22 Goodie bag has now been retired.


Hello everyone! So, this is about the NT avatars and the new biweekly schedule. Is there a plan to increase the frequency the community is able to earn the Neopian Times Writer avatar? With how the schedule is setup, we may only have the chance once every two years to earn this achievement! Please-please consider making it slightly more frequent so all Neopians can earn the elusive avatar.
Hey there! We actually addressed this at the top of the Editorial in Issue 941:

"Since this change will impact how often Anniversary editions occur, we have also decided to make every 25th, 50th, 75th, and 100th issue of the Neopian Times an Anniversary Issue. This way writers and artists submitting to the Neopian Times won't have to wait twice as long for a chance at earning the Neopian Times Writer avatar!"



HAPPY THOUGHTS:

I just wanted to give a shout-out to you guys for giving us some awesome Mutant wearables this year! I can't believe we've gotten 4 new ones for this year's Mutant Day plus all the ones from the Monstrous Mutant Gram earlier this year, you guys are knocking it out of the park. Keep it up!!

No CC? No Faerie Quest event? The only event we've had this year is... Festival of Neggs? Dang. I miss Neo events. I'd kill for a Games Master Challenge right about now.

[Autobot]

tbh i'd rather have no CC than one that was like the previous one so thank god for that
i'm really glad they're rethinking the lutari thing too; it's an interesting pet quirk until you actually need to move one and can't afford to re-morph/paint

hopefully they come up with something that alleviates issues with transferring paint brush/color clothing too

[♥ cherub ♥]

Even the mini events were nice.
Sad to see they're not doing any! Even a one-weeker daily or something.

[cregganwhitehare]

i'm really glad they're rethinking the lutari thing too; it's an interesting pet quirk until you actually need to move one and can't afford to re-morph/paint

Having recently had to transfer a Lutari, hard agree. I think the implication is that the Lutari transfer thing will also be temporary immediately in the wake of pet slots release, like lifting the account transfer limits, but hope it ends up being something they just keep... or maybe a good compromise would be to make Lutaris transferable but un-poundable, and then create a new illness (separation anxiety? homesickness?) with which they become afflicted after the transfer is accepted.

[Ice]

Having recently had to transfer a Lutari, hard agree. I think the implication is that the Lutari transfer thing will also be temporary immediately in the wake of pet slots release, like lifting the account transfer limits, but hope it ends up being something they just keep... or maybe a good compromise would be to make Lutaris transferable but un-poundable, and then create a new illness (separation anxiety? homesickness?) with which they become afflicted after the transfer is accepted.

Oh no i just had a terrible brain thought... what if... they made it cost NC to transfer pets like Lutaris

[cregganwhitehare]

Oh no i just had a terrible brain thought... what if... they made it cost NC to transfer pets like Lutaris

Hahaha do we have a "thanks I hate it" reaction???

[Aero]

Watch them give out UCs as a top prize to NC charity corner
I've missed every year of CC so I was looking forward to trying it out this year, but hopefully there will be good improvement for the upcoming one.

[Zapdos]

(separation anxiety)

Wow TDIL I'm a Lutari

[Lyrichord]

Watch them give out UCs as a top prize to NC charity corner
I've missed every year of CC so I was looking forward to trying it out this year, but hopefully there will be good improvement for the upcoming one.

If they want the cash grab they'll sell them straight in the NC Mall. But I could certainly see some elitists wishing they were CC prizes.