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

[Raylu]

I'm really glad I started this thread, answers like these are awesome to read, actually all of them have been great. Maybe the members of TNT THAT LURK THESE BOARDS. Will take some notice and make some positive changes.

doubt that since people have been saying all of these things for literal years on here and it's done absolutely nothing for us .
but at least it's nice to imagine the alternate timeline where tnt is actually, you know, competent.

[qhn]

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.

Hahah, I wish.

Putting together a group of outlaws, thieves, and cheats and letting them run a community seemed to work out okay for Australia.

Jury's still out on the U.S.

---------- Post added at 02:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:32 AM ----------

I don't have the knowledge or network to know how to make it work, but with everybody saying hire a dev team, hire ck, et cetera... got me thinking about making certain aspects of neopets open source.

I googled and found (you need an account to see links) and I know neopets isn't really a traditional MMO, but it even mentioned Glitch, a game that shut down and made a lot of the assets open source which allowed it to live on. I don't know if there's really any equivalent to neopets to see if anything similar worked as open source, but I can't find anything.

(you need an account to see links)

I feel like this would probably fail terribly, but my heart wants it to work.

(I say this as somebody who has never successfully contributed to an open source project, I think I'm doing something simple, like minor text changes and boom fail all the tests).

I've actually been working on an open-source MMORPG, Asheron's Call. I just do data stuff but some people have devoted hundreds or thousands of hours to making it work. We had to resurrect it after Turbine shut us down in 2017, refused offers to buy the IP. The community has pulled together to rebuild it bit by bit. It's not what it was in its heyday (early 2000s for the uninitiated), but it's a community. Everyone from the people running the servers to the people just recreating and testing a few items here and there is important.

There is currently a one(?) person effort to mirror vintage Neo, he's posted promising screenshots on Reddit. (you need an account to see links) He hasn't posted in a while but long silences seem to be the norm for him. If he gives it up maybe others could take up the torch. Seems to be a Python-heavy endeavor.

[Spoildlittleme]

First I would also fire Tony P.

I would first offer a bunch of $$$ to some of the programmers/coders here and offer them jobs.
Why? Because people here are already amazingly skilled + they are familiar/love the website. A super bonus in my opinion.

Next I would also focus on converting the flash aspects into html5 etc.
Then I would release a UC option (NC) and use this opportunity for marketing/advertising and to raise some funds.

Next I would wave more $$$ at some of the amazing artists who already did amazing fanart such as for the paint brush design contest, or the artist who did the mara lutari art.

Then, I would set up a priority list of things that need to be fixed on the website, and I would set up a weekly or monthly poll in the new features to ask neopets users what they would like to see fixed first.

Also, I would perhaps use the random contest more often for getting users to submit their own designs for various things.

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[Raylu]

There is currently a one(?) person effort to mirror vintage Neo, he's posted promising screenshots on Reddit. (you need an account to see links) He hasn't posted in a while but long silences seem to be the norm for him. If he gives it up maybe others could take up the torch. Seems to be a Python-heavy endeavor.

isn't that essentially what leopets is?
old version of neo with uc artwork plus a bunch of user-made pets and colours, too. i'm on there, it's pretty nice though the community is quite small.

[jellybelly]

sorry i posted on the wrong thread, please delete

[penguin1991]

Hahah, I wish.

Putting together a group of outlaws, thieves, and cheats and letting them run a community seemed to work out okay for Australia.

Jury's still out on the U.S.

---------- Post added at 02:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:32 AM ----------



I've actually been working on an open-source MMORPG, Asheron's Call. I just do data stuff but some people have devoted hundreds or thousands of hours to making it work. We had to resurrect it after Turbine shut us down in 2017, refused offers to buy the IP. The community has pulled together to rebuild it bit by bit. It's not what it was in its heyday (early 2000s for the uninitiated), but it's a community. Everyone from the people running the servers to the people just recreating and testing a few items here and there is important.

There is currently a one(?) person effort to mirror vintage Neo, he's posted promising screenshots on Reddit. (you need an account to see links) He hasn't posted in a while but long silences seem to be the norm for him. If he gives it up maybe others could take up the torch. Seems to be a Python-heavy endeavor.

I wish I knew how to do these kind of things, if there was ever a project I would absolutely help out however I couldn't hope this person pulls it off. I think it would spread and have a pretty decent playerbase honestly. I feel like theres more people like me that would love 1 place to play that keeps the kid in us still there.

[qhn]

isn't that essentially what leopets is?
old version of neo with uc artwork plus a bunch of user-made pets and colours, too. i'm on there, it's pretty nice though the community is quite small.

I think so! I haven't gotten on LP yet, keep missing the first of the month.

I think it'd be cool to develop that old Neopets 1.0 framework, and then open source it, so everyone could do what they want with it and have it be a kind of sandbox game where you could change the world however you wanted. Though that would unfortunately eliminate community and require at least some knowledge of something like MySQL or private hosting. And you'd be self-hosting so you'd have to either invite people one by one onto your private server, or you'd be playing by yourself.

---------- Post added at 03:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:26 PM ----------

I wish I knew how to do these kind of things, if there was ever a project I would absolutely help out however I couldn't hope this person pulls it off. I think it would spread and have a pretty decent playerbase honestly. I feel like theres more people like me that would love 1 place to play that keeps the kid in us still there.

Definitely. He doesn't seem to want help though. Which makes me slightly skeptical that this is going anywhere. No one achieves anything alone!

[♥ HailSeitan ♥]

These are all such good ideas omg.

NC
I think I'd start with rangling NC into a more reasonable place - probably by cutting new releases by about half. Things that were released would be very high quality, and unique - think closed eye contacts vs another flat wig in a colour that already exists. More MMEs, dyeworks, etc. Essentially, all new items should be so desirable that new drops would be a real /event/. Since this would cut down on the amount of NC being bought, I'd focus on improving the NC trading community - maybe a version of the trading post for NC - I list my item, users can bid other items and GBC on it, and if accepted, the boxes and items are automatically traded. This ease of trading, paired with less new things, would make NC trading more accessible - and keep the market for GBCs strong.

Site
More developers, coders, problem fixers. Converting flash would be priority no 1, but additionally, each month would tackle a different realm of the site AND a random surprise improvement. For example, in February, the focus would be on neomail, and glitches would be fixed, maybe a better system for archiving implemented, AND the tooth faerie av would be fixed. This combination of minor, long term fixes and short term exciting things would help with user buy-in, and lead to a stronger, more functional site overall.

Public Relations
Finally, and imo most importantly, I'd hire a few really socially intelligent people with strong writing and communication skills. These people would be put in charge of all communications that go out to users; new features, neopian times, an actual organized list of rules. These people would also be tasked with digging through old lore to think of strong narrative plots, and world building. This team would work with coding/development folks to enable more transparent communication with users, about priorities, timelines, and expectations. So much of the writing on site right now is just shockingly incompetent - and really makes the site look unprofessional. I think a group of people just responsible for clear, competent communication would help so much.

[penguin1991]

isn't that essentially what leopets is?
old version of neo with uc artwork plus a bunch of user-made pets and colours, too. i'm on there, it's pretty nice though the community is quite small.

I keep missing the 1st of the month for LP , whats it like in there? Is it a lot like the old neo, with custom pets?

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Definitely. He doesn't seem to want help though. Which makes me slightly skeptical that this is going anywhere. No one achieves anything alone!

I did a little bit of coding in javascript, and html/css. As well as some work with SQL in college, I'm actually intrigued about learning the type of coding he did for this so I can try to work on it too and send pages to him when ever he comes back. I need a new hobbie anyways, I'm played out of video games right now. xD

[Raylu]

I keep missing the 1st of the month for LP , whats it like in there? Is it a lot like the old neo, with custom pets?

yep. custom pet species and colours get made almost entirely by the users, who get reward points for it that they can use in a reward shop to buy pbs and so on. for those who can't draw, you can write books to get points, and if you can't do either, it's pretty easy to make leopoints via games if you invest a little time each day.

took the liberty of taking some screens for ya'll.

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so yeah. leopets is basically neo, but better LOL. i recommend it to anyone with a case of nostalgia - just keep in mind the community is pretty small, since the closed registration and all. still, i get my uc fix on there completely for free, so hey :')