Pharmacy Assistive Devices and Clothing

[Duke Pikachu]

Gelquie Mod Note: This post was originally in the Neopian Gloat/Cry! thread as a comment. The context is that Neopets has released Assistive Devices as wearables, and they have been released to the Neopian Pharmacy to fit the theme and so as not to take up the over-stocked Uni's Clothing shop.

Everything after the line is from Duke Pikachu.

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*Checks JN's Item Database, eyes glance some new "tube" items*

What are these?

*Clicks on one, see they're wearables stocked in the Pharmacy*

... No, these aren't what I think they are...

*Checks to see how they're worn, and my worst fear is confirmed*

... I... Um... Does anyone else find these a bit insensitive? Could just be me (some recent experiences I've had with such medical tubes are not positive ones), but I can't imagine anyone thinking "hey, you know what my custom needs? My Neopet on LIFE SUPPORT! A tube in their nose because they can't breath and a tube in their stomach cause they can't eat!".

If you're curious:

items.jellyneo.net/item/72892/
items.jellyneo.net/item/72891/
items.jellyneo.net/item/72890/

[Gelquie]

Re: Medical items - I have mixed feelings, so I'll just describe mine as best as I can.

Part of my feelings are the same as yours, Duke. It does feel a bit weird to go "hmm, I think I will dress up as Disabled today." And also devices that may trigger bad experiences for people. So I can definitely see how it might be insensitive.

On the other hand, I think it's good representation for when one is writing a disabled character, and someone who needs those things. I think it could also help curb the stigma of "oh no, a visibly ill person!!" or "oh my! Please drop everything to explain your medical problems to me so that I personally can be okay with it," rather than "oh, a device that helps you, okay, anyway." With exposure to these kind of things, the latter response is more likely to happen as going out with assistive devices becomes more normalized, which can be a huge load off the shoulders of the person with the disability.

I think it can also be educational. I had no idea what an AAC Device was until Neopets released it, and I kind of wish I knew about it sooner. I'm probably not the only one who learned about accessibility things through these releases, and for both those who need it, may need it, or don't, it's good to know about.

But yeah, genuinely mixed feelings. I really don't know.


(I also feel kind of weird that the shop I go to for cures is now not just for cures. I know pharmacies IRL generally carry these, but on the other hand, when it comes to the meta level of Neopets, I go to the cure shop for... cures, not clothes. Since on the meta, they are effectively clothes. I understand Uni's Clothing is getting bloated, and I won't argue the point. But maybe we need more clothing shops.)

[Duke Pikachu]

Mar 20, 2023 20:24:32 GMT -5 Gelquie said:

(I also feel kind of weird that the shop I go to for cures is now not just for cures. I know pharmacies IRL generally carry these, but on the other hand, when it comes to the meta level of Neopets, I go to the cure shop for... cures, not clothes. Since on the meta, they are effectively clothes. I understand Uni's Clothing is getting bloated, and I won't argue the point. But maybe we need more clothing shops.)

Yeah, at the very least maybe they should do something to separate the medical supplies from the wearables which doesn't affect how much each stock. Like, even though it's located in one shop, they're separated by Tabs or Links which treats it as a separate shop instant.

[Kat]

Mar 20, 2023 20:24:32 GMT -5 Gelquie said:

I think it can also be educational. I had no idea what an AAC Device was until Neopets released it, and I kind of wish I knew about it sooner. I'm probably not the only one who learned about accessibility things through these releases, and for both those who need it, may need it, or don't, it's good to know about.

I didn't know about the AAC Device either, or the significance of the sunflower lanyard! Now it makes me wish we had something like that in the Philippines - a coded lanyard for my sister's person with disability ID.

Considering the recent events of my life (jerks thumb at Banter Board) it's been a bit hard for me to see oxygen tanks and tubes as wearables on Neopets, but I am very happy for disabled players (and players who have disabled loved ones) who love these items.

[Stephanie (swordlilly)]

Mar 20, 2023 20:24:32 GMT -5 Gelquie said:

I understand Uni's Clothing is getting bloated, and I won't argue the point. But maybe we need more clothing shops.

I did a bit more thinking about this. Making new clothing shops would take staff hours that might not be feasible right now. But there are some underutilized shops with very small item pools. Whereas Uni's Clothing has 5,000+ items in its pool, for example, a shop like Brightvale Armour only has 44 items.

And historically there has been wearable Battledome equipment. Cloak of the Night would be one example.

So, any of the existing weapon shops (Altadorian Armour, Brightvale Armour, Faerie Weapon Shop, Maractite Weaponry, Qasalan Weaponry, Space Defense, Wonderous Weaponry) could potentially host new wearables as well. TNT would have to give the new items Battledome stats of course, but as long as they err on the side of making the stats weak, it shouldn't be a problem.


BTW I do not give permission for my ideas/research to be posted anywhere else without telling me first, and especially not in paraphrase form. I have now cross-posted this idea myself to a place that TNT checks.

[Duke Pikachu]

Mar 24, 2023 12:23:52 GMT -5 Stephanie (swordlilly) said:

Mar 20, 2023 20:24:32 GMT -5 Gelquie said:

I understand Uni's Clothing is getting bloated, and I won't argue the point. But maybe we need more clothing shops.

I did a bit more thinking about this. Making new clothing shops would take staff hours that might not be feasible right now. But there are some underutilized shops with very small item pools. Whereas Uni's Clothing has 5,000+ items in its pool, for example, a shop like Brightvale Armour only has 44 items.

And historically there has been wearable Battledome equipment. Cloak of the Night would be one example.

So, any of the existing weapon shops (Altadorian Armour, Brightvale Armour, Faerie Weapon Shop, Maractite Weaponry, Qasalan Weaponry, Space Defense, Wonderous Weaponry) could potentially host new wearables as well. TNT would have to give the new items Battledome stats of course, but as long as they err on the side of making the stats weak, it shouldn't be a problem.


BTW I do not give permission for my ideas/research to be posted anywhere else without telling me first, and especially not in paraphrase form. I have now cross-posted this idea myself to a place that TNT checks.

Hm, I'm a bit split on this.

On one hand I get that if they're being put into a Weapon Shop they should have some use in the BD. Certainly some of them, notably the ones with higher rarity, could be given some neat stats. In addition, it could inspire also taking some BD Equipment and turning it also into a wearable, something which I know has been suggested in the past (and, as you noted, they've experimented with but never fully dedicated to the idea).

But on the other hand, the idea of putting the clothing in other shops is simply to lower the amount of clothes in Uni's Clothing. And if most would just be given a few icons, I kind of don't see the point to give them stats at all. Once again, as stated above, if they're inspired by some clothing to turn them into interesting BD Equipment then I'm all for it, but I don't want to force them to if they didn't. As I stated above, it would be best if they could split the shop so that each "side" of it (in this case, BD Equipment and Clothing) didn't have to share (too much) restock space; either sharing the same page but having a clear segment split or links/tabs to different difference instances of the shop but selling different category of items.

[Stephanie (swordlilly)]

I'm not really sure how splitting the shop into different tabs would work in terms of restocking? Restocking is very competitive, you refresh at the page until new stock appears and then you click and buy it immediately, and hope you're faster than other people (or bots... TNT still needs to address that issue. They've been very silent about it).

If people have to click open an extra tab every time they refresh the shop, that makes restocking cumbersome because the act of doing an extra click slows down people more than bots, putting legitimate players at an even bigger disadvantage than they already are.


Today's editorial contains this interesting tidbit, though!

Hi! Any chance you can split Uni's Clothing Shop into... Multiple stores? I believe there could be a cosplay store, a profession store, etc. Pretty please? Perhaps the Shopkeeper for the cosplay store could be a young Mutant Usul named Ausimas? *bribes you with a Bag of Mutant Gummies* Wink wink. ~tangamandapiano
This is a very fun idea! Maybe in the future we will look into something like this. For now we have recently started dividing wearables into other shops are Neopia. Keep an eye on the news for updates about where any new wearables are being placed. ~ Stone

So they're aware of the need to expand/diversify shops, at least. ❤

[Gelquie]

Multiple tabs would be what would work best for me. (Stopping fast restocking is always a plus for me as that could help deter bots.) But I also know that would be a strong coding requirement that TNT may not have. Still, I really don't like the idea of dividing wearables into other shops that are for different categories like battle items. It's already muddied with the Pharmacy, and that would only muddy it further.

But yay for a suggestion on making more clothing stores making it into the Editorial and the team being open for it! (Really hope they don't go too far with putting clothes into other types of shops.)



((Also, this is taking up the thread. As a mod I can move all the posts relevant to the current clothing conversation as a new thread. Duke Pikachu, since you would be the first post on the thread and thus the technical thread starter, that's up to you. (The conversation technically started with my post, but at this point it lacks context that your post has.) If you don't want to be in that position, I'll suggest we create a new thread for this conversation.))
(Was originally on the Gloat/Cry! thread. Now that the posts have been moved, this section is no longer applicable.)

[Stephanie (swordlilly)]

Mar 24, 2023 16:51:20 GMT -5 Gelquie said:

Multiple tabs would be what would work best for me. (Stopping fast restocking is always a plus for me as that could help deter bots.)

(I'd edited my post because I wasn't sure if we were going to have a bigger discussion, but anyway) to reiterate my edit: Multiple tabs slow down humans more than bots. I'd be against multiple tabs, but I would definitely welcome new shops being added, if the team is willing/able to put in the work.

(Btw, if you're interested in the nitty-gritty of restocking and the imperfect strategies that are currently in place to try to protect human players against bots, check out this petpage: www.neopets.com/~2big )