|
Post by Ian Wolf-Park on Jun 21, 2024 19:06:56 GMT -5
So this was posted earlier today in New Features.
|
|
|
Post by PFA on Jun 21, 2024 20:13:09 GMT -5
I... have mixed feelings, tbh XD
I get the whole ethos of keeping it slow-paced so that people don't feel like they have to rush to complete plot steps. As someone who has been putting in minimal effort to participate in site events, I can appreciate that. At the same time, though... it feels like it's been TOO slow? Like they've been teasing this plot for over a year, and since the plot "started," there's been two pages of comics and nothing to do. The most excited I've been so far was with that dialogue with all of Neopia's leaders, which apparently wasn't even supposed to come out yet.
I feel like a better approach would have been to drop a whole bunch of stuff on us at once and leave it for us to chew on for a couple of weeks, rather than spoonfeeding us with a tiny baby spoon and expecting us to be excited. But I also kinda get the feeling that the whole "We're keeping it slow so you can enjoy it at your own pace!" is code for "We lack the resources to actually do this at a proper pace." Maybe that's just the pessimism talking, though.
|
|
|
Post by Themeguy on Jun 21, 2024 20:54:40 GMT -5
PFA hit the nail on the head there.
Absolutely the idea of giving the steps time to breathe, and drip feeding comic pages and updates every other day between the activity steps of the plot is a great approach for the long term idea of The Void Within.
However, the big advertised launch date of a plot that has been getting teased in every site event for almost a year is not the place to be employing that approach at all. When they said the big event starts on a day, I would expect it to actually *start* on that day and not after a week of comics consisting of less than 5 panels each that also have zero dialogue. I don't understand who thought it would be a good idea to move forward with such a wet fart, nothingburger of a launch. Could they not see that after a year of hype, a separate stream advertising it, and an official launch date (Which I don't think other plots had, I'm pretty sure they happened suddenly and by surprise), that people would get their expectations up and be disappointed when there's no activity to do?
They should have absolutely had something ready day one and then transitioned to the drip feed model as we waited for the next step.
Like obviously I know that there will be things to do, and I actually trust the team to pull it off, but right now I feel like Charlie Brown getting the football pulled out from under him as he goes to kick it.
|
|
|
Post by Ian Wolf-Park on Jun 23, 2024 5:29:07 GMT -5
Another day, another comic release. Still no plot steps yet
|
|
|
Post by downrightdude on Jun 23, 2024 16:46:35 GMT -5
Another day, another comic release. Still no plot steps yet But we get 10 extra points!
|
|
|
Post by Ian Wolf-Park on Jun 25, 2024 4:51:13 GMT -5
They're really going for the nostalgia over the past couple of comics, as there as more cameos from previous plots and events, not to mention Fyora and Orion.
|
|
|
Post by Carolyn on Jun 25, 2024 5:59:39 GMT -5
It kind of feels like they're trying to get us to check back daily to give the site more page views rather than give us more time to complete steps. I'm not a huge fan of one page at a time over a couple of days and then only giving the 10 points on the last page for a day or two...
At least it's nice to see a plethora of plot characters come back in one place, both old and new.
|
|
|
Post by Kyn on Jun 25, 2024 8:26:06 GMT -5
The appearance of the one-eyed Eyrie blindsided me at first because I thought it was Eyrieki and wondered when he got a makeover and why would he be at a leaders' council meeting Imagine if Dr Sloth showed up uninvited as the self-proclaimed overlord of Virtupets and Kreludor, but the current situation was so dire that the other leaders actually let him join in (bar some blaster-rattling from Valka). Or if the Happiness Faerie showed up because of course who else would be more concerned about the spreading greyness across Neopia?
|
|
|
Post by PFA on Jun 27, 2024 12:45:01 GMT -5
The fixed dialogue is finally up! And with it, confirmation that the dialogue was indeed meant to accompany a plot step. I was not expecting the glitched dialogue to be as glitched as it was. A lot of the speakers were completely different, and several characters completely absent. XD
Confirmation that King Roo was the only person who would suggest making the void essence into a game is very based though
|
|
|
Post by Ian Wolf-Park on Jun 27, 2024 16:10:22 GMT -5
Ouch, Darigan put in quite the burn on Skarl, even if it was unintentional. I can only imagine the awkwardness of having them in the same room. It kind of feels like they're trying to get us to check back daily to give the site more page views rather than give us more time to complete steps. I'm not a huge fan of one page at a time over a couple of days and then only giving the 10 points on the last page for a day or two... At least it's nice to see a plethora of plot characters come back in one place, both old and new. Yeah, definitely not agreeing with the pace, as today's plot step is a daily occurrence (until the plot ends), which is clearly contradicting what TNT said earlier about the pacing.
|
|
|
Post by Breakingchains on Jun 27, 2024 22:08:59 GMT -5
Doing the same step every day until the plot ends ("at least 10 months" as they said previously?) does seem like a LOT. Granted, it looks like you only have to hit 80% if you want the weekly bonus prize, but you're missing prize shop points if you're not on every day. Even if I somehow remember to do this every day for 10 months, knowing me I'm going to be SO sick of it by like, a month in and then I'm gonna have to argue with myself about whether the points are worth it lol.
Assuming the plot were to run for 10 months to the day, then from this one feature, that's roughly 15k in prize shop points by my math. Seems significant, but I guess it just depends on how many points are available total.
|
|
|
Post by Fraze on Jun 29, 2024 1:08:25 GMT -5
Wait wait wait. A rift in space. Spewing out little bits of void. That means...
|
|
|
Post by charming thievery on Jun 29, 2024 2:34:32 GMT -5
If this were the me from even a year or two ago, I probably could keep up with checking in daily to do a plot step, but now... The thought of having to do that for nearly a year sounds absolutely awful to me. -__- Considering you can't make up for lost days and you have to complete 80% per week, every week, again for nearly a year, it all feels rather punishing, especially since there are plot points at stake. This really does contradict what they've been saying about having a more relaxed schedule for us busy, grown adults so we don't stress over missing steps. This is kind of making me stress already, lol. OTZ
...I've already missed the first day, and that was a 1.5 day, so I'm already off to a great start. But on the other hand, maybe it's permission to just check out whenever I need to instead of worrying about missing anything, haha.
|
|
|
Post by Breakingchains on Jun 29, 2024 9:03:37 GMT -5
I DO love today's comic page tho. Actually, this plot has me thinking more about Baelia than I had in a long while. I'm assuming the enchantment currently being used to turn Neopia gray is similar to the one used on her. Would be really cool if she's a major character in this.
|
|
|
Post by Breakingchains on Jun 29, 2024 11:19:38 GMT -5
Also, folks are discussing the number of void essences being collected and how the math shakes out. Seems like about 50k users collected void essences yesterday.
Granted, an unknown number of those are gonna be bots. And I've already seen people claiming most of them are bots. But the thing is, if there's not a healthy number of real users, then a site is not profitable to bot, especially after you figure in things like electricity costs and wear and tear on your machines. (Most large bot farms aim for games like CS:GO, where there's stupid money to be made selling skins. Wands of the Dark Faerie, well... not as much of a market lol.) If we ignore individuals who bot for trophies and giggles, there should already be a pretty well-established equilibrium of bots vs. real users based on what profit there is to be made.
So from what I can reason out just from the user end of things, it looks like the site's numbers are doing really good???
|
|