I donated 2050 times so looks like I just barely made the limit for Gold. Wow, and here I thought JS was going to go easy and maybe make Gold 1000 donations.
CHARITY CORNER SCHOOL TOOLS DRIVE REVIEW:Event: Compared to last year its a mixed bag. It "fixed" several problems with last year by pretty much removing them. The High Scores table sort of went against the feeling the event making it a competition between those who donated early and those who didn't couldn't catch up. Adopt-A-Neopian caused specific junk items to reach unbuyable prices making that part of the event difficult to do without staying up and being lucky or spending a lot of NP (and worst it was linked with the Avatar). Finally them asking for Books, School items, and Clothes sort of relieved the price gouging, at least on the non-r90 items.
However what they took away they didn't replace. Compared to last year this Charity Corner felt bland. The only thing to do was to donate without a clear goal except "as much as you can" (which we'll get into later). As
Herdy pointed out in the response to my original post, Adopt-A-Neopian was a good idea but just needed fixing. Instead of specific items it should have maybe asked for a certain category of items or maybe except a certain list of items as an answer. Last year it was the only part of the event I participated in and somewhat looked forward too but with it gone the event felt empty. Flavor wise helping out the poor Neopians and reading their letters gave some character and motivation behind the event. Considering this was a "Back to School" event they could have had kids/parents/teachers be the ones needing help asking for certain group of items.
I don't have anything else to say here. Pretty much they "fixed" problems with the Charity Corner by removing the problem area but they didn't replace them/add to it so it felt bare bones. It's good they got rid of the competition side of things and things causing mass inflation but they didn't put in another goal to focus on and even removed some personality from the event.
Score: 
NC Accompaniment: I got nothing to say since I don't do NC stuff. Anyone want to cover this section for me?
Prizes: Let's get this out of the way, the biggest winners are people who either:
A. Got something good by donating r90+ stuff.
B. Made a lot of NP by selling r90+ stuff.
So really me talking about the Final Prizes will pale in comparison to the above two. But they're worth mentioning as not all Events will have normal items being given away as such and newly made prizes will need to be made. So if anything I'm discussing the final prizes in order to direct JS in what do good final prizes make.
Starting with the ranks, since the final prizes were determined by how much you donated no one was quite sure how much they should donate. As I said above I thought they were going to be somewhat lax but as it turns out they were much stricter with Gold being over 2k donations, Silver being between 1k-2k, Bronze being between 100-1k, and Participant between 1-99. I don't know how I quite feel about that. One one hand I kind of like it, you did need to work to get Gold. However I question if I would be feeling this way if we haven't found an easy donating trick via the Big Blue Blumaroo Book. Also we had no clear idea exactly how much donating would reward us a trophy. Now last year's Charity Corner didn't have a trophy so it didn't really matter. But when you're rewarding a trophy, though those who want a high trophy should try hard to get as high as they could by instinct, some sort of scale would be very helpful in setting goals. Once again, I think maybe a "Doing Your Part" bar (aka a progress bar set to a reachable goal that resets each step/day) would have been such a helpful scale.
Moving onto trophies, they look alright. They're simple which isn't bad but I kind of wished they were different leaves depending on our rank. Like Participant would be a simple cordate leaf, Bronze would be a bipartite leaf, Silver would be a pinnatisect leaf, and Gold would remain as a Maple leaf. Also the Participant Medal's leaf maybe should have been made of wood (or been an actual leaf) as it being gold may think those people got a Gold Trophy.
NC was also given out and some people were complaining that last year gave out more NC to those who got Gold (and assumingly Silver). However I once again point out the Big Blue Blumaroo Book trick and say that the decrease in the amount of NC was actually appropriate. In addition the reason last year's top donators got 1k NC was because of the Top Score table thing, only 50 players got 1k no matter what. With no high score table this year there was no such high stakes, plus you still got the same amount of NP (which doesn't mean much since you probably spent WAY more) and item prizes.
Finally the item prizes. So for an event where you needed to donate school supplies, clothes, and books they awarded a school supply, wearable... and toy. Two out of three ain't bad? Looking at each item individually:
Illusens Floral Notebook: A prize all trophy earners got, it's a School Supply so while thematically makes sense at most it's just a Gallery item. Though I do question the quality of the image. The edges of the plant part looks choppy, like it wasn't saved in the right image format. Also I'm not sure what it has to do with Illusen, looks more like a Swirly Vine Notebook to me.
Dress Up Sloth Doll: For Silver and Gold they get the out of place toy and, boy, is it out of place. Now I kind of like it, but I do ask what does it have to do with the theme of this event? You could also ask the same thing about Illusens Floral Notebook but at least it was a school supply, but this? But still, seeing a orange afro, pink robed, white with polkadot suit Sloth is kind of entertaining to see. BUT its still a toy so once again at most a Gallery item.
Mauve Magic Background: Those who got Gold got the wearable prize and it's interesting. It's animated which is nice and I'm sure someone could make use of it in a customisation though I imagine it would be for something very specific. It's definitely the best of the prizes, but that's not saying much (in addition
doctortomoe says its just a recolor of an existing background).
Overall, not impressed. The items are fine... if they were just released as normal items. Heck, I would dare to say they WERE going to be released as such but JS decided to instead make them Charity Corner prizes so they wouldn't have to make actual prizes. They barely, if at all, fit the theme of the event. Please JS, if you're having a problem thinking of what would be appropriate prizes JUST TALK TO US NEOPIAN PLAYERS! We'll direct you or tell you what makes for good items.
Score: 
Summary: Sorry about that. To end this review I'll just say it feels like this Charity Corner is a watered down version of last year's. Now I give JS some kudos for not only just plainly recycling last year's Charity Corner but also addressing some of the problems, but it stops short as they didn't replace the removed content (or fixed it as they could have done with Adopt-A-Neopian) and the final item prizes don't feel like they match the event.
Overall Score: 
