Finally I have time to give my thoughts!
Well another year another Altador Cup, though personally a more exciting AC since Meridell was a top contender and got second place (first place next year hype!). But from a non-bias perspective nothing was different from last year. Only major thing to talk about would be the possible changes they promise would happen next year, mainly possible roster changes after years of having the same team and how they plan on combating cheaters. Hopefully what they do will not involve captchas, or at least not the captchas they used because sometimes I had no idea what they considered right.
While I played Yooyuball to "max" each day (I played one less game each day because I didn't want to get suspected of cheating for maxing, though looks like that wasn't a thing this year), sadly I didn't do much else playing. For the first year I can't afford the top prize (or the second to top prize). However, this year's top prize was the Yooyu that was released last year so no major loss (besides I was just going to sell it anyway so instead I'll just carefully spend my points this year). Speaking of prizes, my opinions on them and the trophies:
Yooyuball Crazy: GEEZ, so many items with "yooyuball" in their name! Come on JS, if you're going to make Slushie Slinger, Make Some Noise, and Shootout Showdown be equal to Yooyuball in match results at least reflect that in prize shop representation too.
Yooyuball Cake: You couldn't make it a cake in a shape of a Yooyuball?
Yooyuball Globe: Like, had it been a Yooyuball painted to look like the Neopian globe that would have been cute, but it's just a Fire Yooyu instead of a globe, why?
Yooyuballoons: Okay, I'll give you a point for the pun.
That said, could have made them different colours of Yooyu, so I'm taking that point back.
Team Cap: This year's series of team prizes, a backwards baseball cap... with pigtails hanging off the side? So pretty much these caps are only for female Neopets. Why not just make them plain caps? I wonder if this was a recycled item, they had a plain backwards baseball cap with pigtails in the works but when they needed a team prize this year decided this would be the easiest and most appropriate item to turn into the team prizes. Well, eitherway I'll get one at some point and put it in my Gallery.
Yooyuball Tattoo: Should be "Fire Yooyuball Tattoo", but I'm fine with it otherwise.
Inflatable Darigan Yooyuball: Wrong color and lacks wings. Yes, I know, it's a re-color of the Inflatable Fire Yooyuball (yet at first they still got the name wrong), but how about they AT LEAST TRY TO BE CONSISTENT!
Darigan Citadel Glo Highlighter: ... Why it is specifically for Darigan Citadel? They haven't even podium in recent years. Like this is an item it would make sense to be based on the Fire Yooyu.
Yooyuball Slushie: ... You aren't even trying, are you JS?
Yooyuball Cot Mobile: OH MY FYORA, they remembered there's more Yooyu colours than Fire and Snow! Though I notice they used the "Darigan Yooyuball" team prize item instead of the actual Darigan Yooyu. *Sigh*
Caustic Yooyu Tears: Why is a one-use weapon a prize? Who would ever use it? Because otherwise it's just more Gallery fodder like with the Food. At least there's somewhere on the site which records what book your Neopets have read.
Jerseys: Good thing last year Kiko Lake won so they could just re-use their Jersey... also, WHY ARE THEY DIFFERENT COSTS? None are new and everyone knows the next AC will be selling 1st and 2nd place's Jersey from last year again, so why not just make all of them 400 points?!
Altador Cup Commentator Bobblehead: You're missing one of them...
Frenzied - Demystifying the Shaye Fever: Seriously, what's with the Darigan Citadel items all of the sudden?
Water Yooyu: Really? You couldn't think of another Colour to paint the Yooyu prize for Kiko Lake? Like how about Woodland!
This has to be one of the LAZIEST Prize Shops I've seen in years. Really shows a lack of imagination and effort, like these were first drafts/placeholders of the items and they just threw their hands in the air and decided these were good enough. Kind of glad Meridell didn't win first now cause this is a sad display. When Meridell wins first (hopefully next year), the prize shop BETTER be at the very least interesting and show effort has been put in.
Not to be entirely negative, there are some I like. Altador Cup Stadium Background and Yooyuball Commentator Box looks like they could be fun to customize with, about time they had a wearable Altador Cup Trophy (and I guess Yooyuball Gloves to a lesser extent), I like the stamp design, and I like the prizes that have a moving animation.
TROPHIES:I kind of didn't like the original versions of them and not because of the controversy. They looked cheaply drawn. While the redone versions look more generic I kind of like them more just because they look more official.
STAFF TOURNEY:Now there was an interesting change done with the Staff Tourney this year. In addition to choosing a team we also chose a "Star Player" each week and if we're right we got an additional prize for that week, a Bobblehead of that player. I like this idea, kind of wish they could maybe bring this to the normal AC (or at least bring back Achievements). Though I do have some problems with it. Since the requirement wasn't always just the staff who did best, only being able to select the star player from the staff you chose meant there was a chance you had no possibility of being right if you didn't have that staffer on your team. For example I didn't have Jade on my team at all (since she had terrible scores...) so I had no way of choosing her to be the star player and getting her bobblehead. What they should have done was do this for 3 weeks and each week told us the star player would be the top Forward, Defender, or Goalie of that week. But what's done has been done, onto the prizes:
Office Bulletin Board: Think they made a mistake here. I think those crosslines are suppose to be behind the papers, not above them. Also why is this a Gift, this seems like it could be a wearable.
TNT Mantra Coffee Mug: JS, maybe you could have wrote what the mantra was in the description since it's kind of hard to read what the image is. Like I think I see a "No talking" but the other two are illegible. But with that said, why is "No talking" a TNT mantra? That doesn't sound very encouraging, makes me worry about the staff's working environment...
Remaining Staff Bobblehead: Now I'm glad there's bobbleheads for the remaining staff members, but 5k points each?! That's a bit much, I'd say even half that would be high.
Stack of Rusty Files: Why isn't this one item? Okay, yes, one is a book and the other is a wearable, but they had dual items before.
Handy Office WeaPen: Only does 14 icons and has a chance of missing, why? At least it's not one use...
Yeah, this prize shop wasn't that great either. *Sigh*
So overall it was an average AC... but only because my team got second. For everyone else that wasn't on the podium this was a mediocre year. I can only guess that maybe the Wraith Resurgence took planning time away? Or maybe it's time to slow down with the AC if they're running out of ideas and only doing it every two years to give them time to plan big changes and interesting prizes.
And to lighten things up, it's time for the Staff Tourney Score Math Fun!
Round 1:Best Team: Agog (1289), Senor Malo (1455), Scrappy (2180), Kikocat (1920), Binary Supagoo (1920);
Total: 8,764
Worst Team: Jade (506), DJ Sally (542), Leo (500), Axe Bond (831), Ppod (353);
Total: 2,732
Round 2:
Best Team: Agog (1324), Senor Malo (1445), Scrappy (1870), Kikocat (1770), Binary Supagoo (1650);
Total: 8,059
Worst Team: Jade (590), DJ Sally (625), Leo (550), Axe Bond (826), Ppod (600);
Total: 3,191
Round 3:
Best Team: Agog (1354), Senor Malo (1415), Scrappy (1980), Kikocat (2010), Binary Supagoo (1920);
Total:
8,679
Worst Team: Jade (600), DJ Sally (638), Leo (710), Axe Bond (836), Ppod (501);
Total: 3,285
Round 4:
Best Team: Agog (1519), Senor Malo (1503), Scrappy (2010), Kakarot (2057), Binary Supagoo (1970);
Total:
9,059
Worst Team: Jade (680), DJ Sally (656), Leo (730), Axe Bond (858), Ppod (500);
Total: 3,424
Best Team Total: 34,561
Worst Team Total: 12,632
If you chose the same team throughout:
Best Overall Team: Agog (5486), Senor Malo (5818), Scrappy (8040), Kikocat (7620), Binary Supagoo (7460);
Total: 34,424
Worst Overall Team: Jade (2376), DJ Sally (2461), Leo (2490), Axe Bond (3351), Ppod (1954);
Total: 12,632
She said she's tried 3 different browsers to no avail.
I'll let him know he has fans who care."
That said, could have made them different colours of Yooyu, so I'm taking that point back.