2019 Neopies

[Liou]

Reizo? Among the new characters? Er, I wouldn't count that as a character, at all. =/
Anyway, I was disappointed to see only one female character, voted Lyra because she's been efficient at performing her role in the plot, and she had *better* not be overshadowed by the secondary character in her own plot. s(°-°)z

As for today: look, I'm a simple person. I see Jhudora, I click.

[Duke Pikachu]

Day 17 - Best Caption Image: I included the captions they included in the description because I feel they're going to help some people decide on what to pick as it did for me. Originally I was going to go for the Sloth one but, noticing they included the Captions, read them and couldn't think of a better one to vote for but 1406 - Let the Festivities Begin!. For one, while I do honestly try to support JS, now and again they do need a little poke here and there. Second, since JS are the ones who picked it, shows they can take the joke and (and hopefully understand the message behind it of the work they still need to do).

Day 14 - Best Mystery Capsule Results Discussion: As I said, plenty of retired items and the MME are the most fun and varied NC Mall items. Maybe we'll get to see more MME in the future (maybe make one for Baby, Mutant, Maraquan, and Food Chias...).

[Duke Pikachu]

Day 18 - Best Advent Animation: Ugh, maybe they should have skipped this category this year. None stood out, so much so they actually made a mistake with the images on the actual Neopies page I corrected here (they switched Day 16 and 28). Also they gave the Caption Images titles but not these (I decided to add my own titles)? Well, might as well get on with it, decided to go with Day 2 as it was cute and had more of a story. I guess so did Day 28 but I felt it broke from the previous story of the Unfortunate Holiday Ogrin so that took points away in my book.

Day 15 - Best NC Wearable Results Discussion: Went exactly as I thought it would.

[Jae]

Jan 31, 2019 21:24:06 GMT -5 Duke Pikachu said:

Day 17 - Best New Character: Huh, no Kaia, that's surprising. Anyway I picked Reizo for mainly minor reasons, though I don't feel strongly about any of these characters so minor reasons is all I really have. First the plot he's from is finished (so I have a feel for his character), second I think his design is cool... and I think that's it.

Kaia was introduced for the Faerie Festival in 2017. I mean you could technically say Reizo was as well, but I don't think he made his actual debut until 2018, and we certainly didn't know he was Malum until then.

For today's category I picked the snow angel one because of the item we got along with it. Honestly, the past few categories have been meh. Still waiting to see if JS has the guts to go with a 'Let us Never Speak of This Again' category.

[Tudor Rose]

The most recent two categories were kind of hard to pick for because nothing really stood out to me. But ultimately I went with 1407 - Bubble, Bubble... for Best Caption Image and Day 7 (Snow Angels) for Best Advent Animation.

[charming thievery]

Okay, I have to give some credit to JS for including the "Let us Never Speak of This Again" category, especially when all four options are pretty valid choices (and their descriptions acknowledge the issues very well). But I really appreciate the titles for "New Feechers" and "The 'Plods'", lol. xD I'm not sure which to pick between those two. Do I want to emphasize my desire for better news or better plots? ...Perhaps better plots since those mean more to me, and I think the news has been okay lately, even if there might have been some recent hiccups.

(Also, I wouldn't mind if the person who writes the Neopies descriptions takes over the editorial or news. I like their style of writing.)

And look at that, Reizo won for Best Character. I'm happy Lyra was decently close percentage-wise, coming in second. But wow at Aurrick, lol.

[doctortomoe]

I went with the News. That always just kind of bugs me.

Honestly, I didn't mind the slow pace of the plots. It was their first attempt, and on this second one, they had the mobile game they were working on at the same time.

The avatars were a long-time coming. And stamps are always expensive. Just the way the world works.

And I didn't have that issue with the NC.

[Liou]

Let Us Never Speak of This Again: they dared!
All four were valid choices indeed. I picked the stamp avatars, because I felt the other three option were embarrassing and irksome but more forgivable, whereas things like avatar and stamp collecting that have a much bigger impact on gameplay and site economy should be handled with caution.

Not pleased that Reizo the broom won, but pleased that Lyra was right behind. c: (No really, if Aurrick's boy band hair and dashing scoundrel thing had got more votes than the girl whose name is in the actual plot title, I'd have been mad)

[Carolyn]

I went with the mass release of stamp avatars. While that was meant with good intentions... geez, did it botch the chance for people to ever obtain these avvies. It took basically my entire bank account for the BFM one.

Even if the plots have had their hiccups... they're trying. And I don't want to discourage them from making more events.

[Tudor Rose]

It's good to see JS are fully aware of these mistakes and can laugh at themselves.  I chose Release of 11 Stamp Collector Avatars, as while I'm not a hardcore avatar collector myself, I can see how that had a huge negative impact on those that are. The others are things can be easily improved upon/fixed.

[Jae]

Alright, so let's break this down. At first glance, the correct answer would seem to be 'none of the above.' It was certainly my first reaction. Then I remembered that this is a straight vote and feedback form.

The Nonexistent NC Items appears to be something they have mostly fixed on their own. People submitted bug reports and TNT was able to eventually implement fixes for most of the glitched items. The problem seems to be the re-released MME items having different item IDs than the originals (possibly due to how MME items are distributed). Regardless, as I said, they seem to be able to fix it so that's out.

Then there are The Plods. Unlike Nonexistent NC, this seems like a much more alluring choice. It was annoying having to wait weeks or months for plot steps. It's been especially annoying having to wait weeks or months for 12 lines of dialogue for Lyra. But I feel the message sent out from this might be damaging. Picking The Plods might make TNT hesitant to release another plot. It might make them rush the steps out faster than all but the most dedicated users can keep up with. Considering TWR won by a large margin, there's a good chance they interpret the results accurately 'we want plots, and we like plots, we just want the pacing to be better.' But I couldn't justify picking this when there was a better option.

Then we have Releasing 11 Stamp Avatars. Again, another alluring choice. Not only did they release 11 of them, but many of the 11 were low quality and just frankly not worth the NP needed to get them. They're just stat padders, and prohibitively expensive stat padders at that. Like The Plods, though, I couldn't justify picking this option. It's not like I don't want to see stamp avatars get released - as a matter of fact, it's the opposite! There are several pages I'd like to see avatars for someday (hi Moltara). I'm afraid that picking this option will lead to them not releasing any new stamp avatars. Stamp avatars themselves aren't a problem, they just need to be balanced out by other avatars, like game avatars, that require different types of effort.

That leaves us with New Feechers, which is what I ended up picking. Call me an optimist, but maybe - just maybe - if we can convince them to put just a bit more effort in each day, these problems will start to resolve themselves. I know the opposite is true - that small problems can and have snowballed into bigger ones. Maybe if we can start with just a little more QA every day, then the rest will follow.

[doctortomoe]

Feb 3, 2019 10:54:50 GMT -5 Jae said:

Alright, so let's break this down. At first glance, the correct answer would seem to be 'none of the above.' It was certainly my first reaction. Then I remembered that this is a straight vote and feedback form.

The Nonexistent NC Items appears to be something they have mostly fixed on their own. People submitted bug reports and TNT was able to eventually implement fixes for most of the glitched items. The problem seems to be the re-released MME items having different item IDs than the originals (possibly due to how MME items are distributed). Regardless, as I said, they seem to be able to fix it so that's out.

Then there are The Plods. Unlike Nonexistent NC, this seems like a much more alluring choice. It was annoying having to wait weeks or months for plot steps. It's been especially annoying having to wait weeks or months for 12 lines of dialogue for Lyra. But I feel the message sent out from this might be damaging. Picking The Plods might make TNT hesitant to release another plot. It might make them rush the steps out faster than all but the most dedicated users can keep up with. Considering TWR won by a large margin, there's a good chance they interpret the results accurately 'we want plots, and we like plots, we just want the pacing to be better.' But I couldn't justify picking this when there was a better option.

Then we have Releasing 11 Stamp Avatars. Again, another alluring choice. Not only did they release 11 of them, but many of the 11 were low quality and just frankly not worth the NP needed to get them. They're just stat padders, and prohibitively expensive stat padders at that. Like The Plods, though, I couldn't justify picking this option. It's not like I don't want to see stamp avatars get released - as a matter of fact, it's the opposite! There are several pages I'd like to see avatars for someday (hi Moltara). I'm afraid that picking this option will lead to them not releasing any new stamp avatars. Stamp avatars themselves aren't a problem, they just need to be balanced out by other avatars, like game avatars, that require different types of effort.

That leaves us with New Feechers, which is what I ended up picking. Call me an optimist, but maybe - just maybe - if we can convince them to put just a bit more effort in each day, these problems will start to resolve themselves. I know the opposite is true - that small problems can and have snowballed into bigger ones. Maybe if we can start with just a little more QA every day, then the rest will follow.

This was pretty much my line of reasoning as well.

[Duke Pikachu]

Day 19 - Let us Never Speak of This Again: Wow, it's certainly a surprise they did this category, what would have been more surprising if they included more of their mistakes (like all their Battledome issues... also would image Charity Corner's Perk Shop to be another).

I made an entire Neoboard topic but I'll summarize my thoughts here: we should have a "all of the above" option. But since we can only pick one, let's go over each quickly:

New Feechers is very annoying though they looked to have improved on that front.

Nonexistant NC Items I imagine was a nightmare to deal with but I assumed it was fixed and so a lesson learned.

The 11 Stamp Avatars was a major problem and they haven't really done anything to fix it. For the Avatars themselves they need to get more of the retired ones out there (Sloth Auctions, Igloo Garage Sale, Almost Abandoned Attic, Money Tree, Rubbish Dump, Wishing Well, etc.. Maybe even super rarely for some Dailies). As for Avatars in general, what they need to do is start releasing Avatars "easier" or at least inexpensive to get. Avatars for Games, Dailies, and Site Features (like Faerie Employment Agency). Also let's not forget we used to get Avatars which was just based on a certain coloured Neopet or item. Would like to see more of those Avatars we used to get in the early days.

And now for my pick: The "Plods". Now, it's great that they're doing Plots, Neopets has deep lore full of potential. But it doesn't feel like JS knows what a Plot is or want to see how many corners they can cut. It's simple, we want to see plots like the ones TNT did a few years ago: Lost Desert Plot, Tale of Woe, Return of Sloth, & Faeries' Ruin. Both JS and TNT had made detailed pages about those plots. Comics, plot points, better pacing, some battling, and having a plot step every one or two story bits. That's what we want from plots. All the other candidates are annoying but easy mistakes to make, even the Avatar one (that's lack of foresight). However for how much work needs to go into making a Plot, I feel it's the bigger offender.

Day 16 - Best New Character Results Discussion: Guess most users agreed with me. Lyra would be my second choice, I like her personality and she has a cool design. Aurrick's design is a bit too bland, he looks like an NPC then a main character. And while I also like Xendrik's design, he's a jerk and not the likable kind.

[Ian Wolf-Park]

I had to go with the 'Plods', mainly due to the fact that I'm not as active on Neo as I was in the past, so that's the only thing that I'm aware of. It's mainly the pacing of the plots (well, mainly TWR, but Lyra has not had an update for a while) that has annoyed me. . If I remember correctly, TWR ended up being the longest (or second-longest, after Battle for Meridell). As for Lyra, it's also been the lack of activity.

[doctortomoe]

Wow, that was a near 3-way tie for captions.

As for today's, don't have premium, so doesn't really apply to me. But I went with the pumpkin patch, because I'll always go for Halloween type items in situations like this.