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The Future of Neopets


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#1 Steve

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 12:56 PM

So I've been looking into the trends for neopets over the past year and have been doing so for the past couple years. I noticed the amount of users is declining steadily.
Source: http://www.alexa.com...nfo/neopets.com

Will neopets ever bounce back? Or is it just going to slowly burn out like it has over the past year?

#2 Nonexistent

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 12:57 PM

probably burn out; they went for the money, not the user base

#3 Steve

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 01:00 PM

probably burn out; they went for the money, not the user base


I agree. I remember when I first started playing. Grade 6. I got a LDPB for 40k when they were 99k.
I've always been on and off, and everytime I came back I'd notice something new that was completely different from the old neopets.

What I really miss, is the old TNT.. the ones that cared. About neo and the users.
Ah well.

#4 Singer

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 01:36 PM

people get bored ... everything is the same

the only thing interesting are the plots and events and they are very similar to the old plots/events
(sorry for my english)

#5 Averssion

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 01:37 PM

Neopets will probably be dead in a couple of years - it all went downhill after they started putting ads in, making the chat filters ridiculous and silencing/freezing people all over the place for minor offences on the boards.

#6 Turnip

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 04:31 PM

Neopets will probably be dead in a couple of years - it all went downhill after they started putting ads in, making the chat filters ridiculous and silencing/freezing people all over the place for minor offences on the boards.


Pretty much this x3 Something tells me they won't last another 3 - 5 years unless they figure something new out to pull the players in.... Since really? Pay $5-10 to make your pets wear clothes? Yeah that was cool in 2007 but we need something fresh (which isn't just a glitchy mess which was thought up about five minutes ago!)~

Not sure what though :/



#7 Harlow

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 04:38 PM

They need to add some GOOD plots or revamp the battledome.

They also need to stop being such greedy assholes and care about the players. :(

Edited by Harlow, 06 April 2012 - 04:38 PM.


#8 Turnip

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 05:01 PM

They need to add some GOOD plots or revamp the battledome.

They also need to stop being such greedy assholes and care about the players. :(


To be completely honest, if TNT tried to touch the BD now they would just end up breaking it in so many ways :( I mean, have there been any events or updates (excluding the NC parts) that haven't had glitches or other bugs with them? Yes ok they're just human~* but that excuse is so overused x3


Also think of all the Flash and glitter and sparkles and wearable items they'd put in it... Thankfully they haven't made any more maps/other content like this but you know they'd pull some bullshit like that D: (or make it really over-the-top grimdark, idk)


Yes a good plot would be nice >w> ♥


Edited by Turnip, 06 April 2012 - 05:02 PM.


#9 trizzle

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 05:15 PM

Neopets is definitely in a downward spiral into its own demise.

I just think they KEEP alienating so many of their userbase.

Of course there will always be the crazy die-hards who stick it out to the bitter end (probably me) but I don't think their profit margins can be very healthy at the moment - I mean look how hard they're pushing all the NC crap. If they were rolling in cash I think they'd be more casual about it and spend some time on better NP wearables.

#10 Nonexistent

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 05:45 PM

Yeah seriously, if they make one more map that resemble faerie land or something revolting like that, I'm going to quit

Edited by Nonexistent, 06 April 2012 - 05:45 PM.


#11 Chappy

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 06:10 PM

Back when There was the Tale of Woe or even before that alot of plots had BD qualities. I think people felt it was unfair or something bs like that XD. I could care less, but It upsets me that they ONLY focus on NC. How about laying off freezing and answer mails XD

#12 Guest_idonotexist_*

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 06:18 PM

*
POPULAR POST!

Honestly, where do I start?

First of all, there are tons of things on the site that have went outdated for YEARS. Not just a few, but games like Gormball hasn't been updated since it was released like 11 years ago. That's just ridiculous, especially considering how easy it would be to revamp it.
Neopian Lottery hasn't been altered with the rate of inflation, how trophies are given is ridiculous (relies on the amount of the JP and how many numbers you guessed correctly. JP has never gotten high enough in the past year or more for anyone to get Gold)
BattleDome has never been updated (in any major way) In order for them to actually get use out of the BD beyond a war plot, I feel they'll need to do a major overhaul.
Quests, like Snow Faerie, Brain Tree still give crap prizes and amounts of np as they always have. Pretty much making them pointless unless you want a trophy.
The problem is, there is so much outdated material on Neopets that people never bother with anymore. Practically making most of the site a waste and unvisited. I can't tell you the last time I clicked through links on world maps unless it involved some event. (Like this Negg Festival)

Then, you have to look at the fact that Neopets has promised countless things to it's users over the years and has never delivered on them. They never address them and if they do ever tell people what happened to the idea or what they're doing, it's either another empty promise, scrap the idea or they say nothing at all.
I'm still waiting to see the promise they made about making things up to users about the whole conversion thing. They promised they were going to do something to make up for it (or something to that effect) Heck, since Neopets released the Coming Soon page (http://www.neopets.c...omingsoon.phtml) it has never been updated or changed and the only thing on that page that they've delivered on was "Plenty of things to wear", which isn't much of a promise considering that page launched around the same time that the customization was released, so it's a given that more things would be made for pets to wear.

Then, and this is what I consider to be Neopets' biggest downfall, is their outrageously HORRIBLE customer service. I don't honestly even know where to begin, although I have to say they have at least improved upon their CS a tad.
I used to be a volunteer monitor back in 1999/2000, so I saw a lot of favoritism (and I received some of it, even after they dropped all of their volunteer monitors) for users that were friends with staff. YEARS before transferring Neopets was even a thought of an idea, staff members would do that service for their friends.
When there was a glitch resetting people's shop size's back to 0, everyone else that had no connection to staff had to rebuild their shops and pay the price to do so. Not people like HRobi, they had their shop sizes restored by the staff. Cost them nothing.
Then there's the whole mari_jhane scandal that basically bit Neopets in the ass something major and blew the whole favoritism out of the water. (For those that don't know, long story short, mari_jhane was a big time player wayyy back in the day. She scammed something fierce (using direct buy links and anything she could) and she was close friends with Adam and Donna and they overlooked her scamming people and getting rich of screwing people for years until MJ decided to post conversations on the, then, most popular neo fan site and give out some staff secrets and ALL of the staff's AIM names; because back then all staff were required to have AIM to communicate during work)
Granted, since Viacom took over, I believe a lot of that stuff has stopped but they haven't really given their players any sort of real customer service and that's half the reason people either quit or turn to cheating.

I have been one of Neopets most devoted (sad really) players since 1999, spent THOUSANDS of dollars on merchandise (Pre-Target/KQ Plushies and Pre-NC), ran, owned or worked for almost every popular fan site over the years, joined Premium as beta months before it was released to the public or advertised. I am addicted to say the least and when I lost my most popular account, I was PISSED. I posted on on Charter and Greg (flighttime) was the one who froze me, he admitted to it and said "You deserved it. Go whine somewhere else". I later had a staff friend of mine (Wendy) talk to him to see if she could do anything and she told me he said "I froze that faggot because I felt like it" which is what led Wendy to leave the company early and finish her degree. (She had planned on leaving to do school for awhile but left early because of the huge uproar over him calling me a faggot) Needless to say, Greg has since been fired and his account frozen. ;)

Neopets has a lot to do to get their act together. I think it still has a lot of potential to be relevant, but the question is do they realize this and can they move in that direction instead of catering their entire site to kids who will grow up and move on to something else.

#13 Nonexistent

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 06:41 PM

wow, that's intense :rolleyes:

#14 trizzle

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 06:48 PM

Grundox your post was SO interesting it's like reading a celeb gossip mag (ok fine I am sad too, TNT interest me haha) :D But everything you've said is so true (Well, the stuff I can relate to anyway, although the history of all the scandal was the best bit ;) )

#15 syaopup

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 07:20 PM

I can really see why Neopets went downhill. I was one of the many who quit Neopets after being fed up with all the ads, and then the final straw as the NC. Although they claim that NC won't affect the quality of the playtime on neopets, it definitely wasn't the case as the impact must still be big enough for people to be willing to spend money. Neopets just lost its magic when it went crazy for money.
The reason why I'm back playing neopets was because I found cheats for it, and it plays in the background rather than needing my active attention. Spending too much time on it is simply not worth it imo. And boy, I really do see a huge difference in the amount of marketing they have for NC products compared to when they first came out. When did that happen, when was the first plot they had which has a NC sideplot?

#16 TamerVirus

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 07:21 PM

The thing is this: ALL GOOD THINGS WILL COME TO AN END, personally I feel like Neopet's Golden Age has long since past. Right now, unless they can attract new interest and usership as well as retain existing usership, Neopets is trapped in a slow decay. Certain games are primitive. Some worlds are outdated. It might not die out this year, but it will in the long run. I give it another 5 or so years at best.

#17 megedyz

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 07:33 PM

I loved your post, Grundox. It's ridiculous how much TNT was able to get away with in the way of favoritism and how obvious it was.

I used to be a member of a forum called AntiNeopian or something like that 6 years ago, I joined it right after being banned for something petty on the neoboards that I can't remember. Good memories of that board, seems that it's dead now. It was just a nice place to bitch about how we'd gotten banned for dumb reasons, but a lot of us still loved the uesrbase and didn't really want to quit Neo for good. Honestly, I'm surprised Neo is still up and running. I'd like to think that as long as it has its core of dedicated users, legit or not, it wouldn't shut down. But since the takeover, I don't see it lasting longer than maybe five years. It seems like it'd be a lot easier for Viacom to just end it since they don't necessarily have any reason to keep it going when it stops being profitable.

Edited by megedyz, 06 April 2012 - 07:33 PM.


#18 Guest_idonotexist_*

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 07:38 PM

http://www.pinkpt.co...9101febcb115281

If anyone cares to give a listen. :p That was YEARS ago though.

#19 trizzle

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 07:42 PM

http://pinkpt.com/ne...a-by-chromefox/

Oooh just found this along the same lines as what Grundox was saying, gonna have a read of it now.

#20 Keil

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 10:18 PM

My post and experience has been invalided in comparison to what Grundo has said. I tip my imaginary top hat to you, noble sire, madam, or any form of responsive being that you identity with.

Although I wish the Viacom take-over never happened, I wonder what would of happened to Neopets if Donna and Adam continued with this project. I would no doubts that there would be a higher quality in site content (probably not as high in respect with the NC art), but I have this gut feeling in which neopets would die out eventually as it reaches it prime. As the site would age and grow, problems that only can occur with massive popularity would turn off people from neopets. Excessive favoritism (in terms of item retrievals/unfreezings), consistent lag due to TOO many people online with barely accommodating servers, or even "not enough originality" (eventually, Adam and Donna would run out of ideas that lives up to the community's expectations). In any case, Neopets is doomed to die out as with any popular fad or obsolete game. The time it takes to reach that dead end; however, would definitely be longer.

#21 GothicxToy

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Posted 06 April 2012 - 11:07 PM

I remembering when earning 1,000 NP was HARD and the angelpus was actually like 10k. Now they're worthless =/
There's to blame with the staff and some greedy users on neopets who are in it only to screw the poorer people over on neopets.
You can be silenced by pretty much anyone on the neoboards because they're having a bad day and you say you don't like a subject
It takes MONTHS for support tickets to get responses (OMG really?!)
And some countries don't have NC mall things, so they have to get only the NP wearables (which is what I do :3)
Plushies haven't been given out in YEARS (I miss going to Target and buying them), nor have I seen Neo-toys (God I still have my little blue Uni, her mane lights up when there's a sound near by :D)

Neopets, in all honesty, i think needs to hit rock bottom before it can rebuild itself. They seriously need to take 24-48 hour 'lock down' period and just delete accounts/neopets that haven't been online forevers, get more staff members, and actually pay attention to the user's cry. If they allowed UC neos again, it'd bring back many members. Almost every day in the 'ideas/suggestions' form, I see something about 'bring back UCs D:'

I miss playing neopets when I was a little girl (I was like 10 when I discovered the site). Now I'm going off to college and I can't help but sigh at Neo. I'm only it it for the pretty pets now =/

#22 Spirited

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Posted 07 April 2012 - 12:31 AM

IMO the NC part really kills the game, even though Neopets promised it would not affect gameplay.
From their FAQS: Neocash is an option for those who wish to expand their Neopets experience by shopping in the NC Mall for special apparel items, accessories, backgrounds, and more.
I don't use neocash (except once for a gallery item), and everytime I see a cool NC item I will go "Oh wow that looks really nice but I can't buy it...." It sometimes makes me wonder what I'm doing in Neopets, just looking at all the pretty stuff and can't do anything about it. More like negative experience for non-NC players.

Then there's a lack of security for their accounts (or old accounts). Mass freezings is one thing, but hacked accounts are common sight. When I returned to neopets a friend was supposed to be playing with me too, but when he logged in all his NPs were gone and his pets as well, then he can't be bothered anymore. How do those hackers even get into his account? Then I saw and realised even a scarier fact that other sites are selling active (currently being used by their owners) accounts. I was like whaaaatt on earth neopets has become?

Neopets was supposed to be a game site targeted at children but now they're so profit driven. Most kids probably don't have enough of pocket money to keep up with their NC releases. Then we have another group of teenagers/adults playing neopets trying to relive the good old moments, paying NC and stuff, but so much has changed (UC pets gone, etc) and the new content are not specifically designed for us either, which makes it all the while quite meaningless.

Neopets will still continue gaining profits from their NC but support from their players? Nah. The site will be dead the day all their NC players decide that it's pointless to stay.


#23 OriginalFake

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Posted 07 April 2012 - 12:39 AM

The events are what pull me in, and I remember reading some statistic that the number of active players spikes during the AC. I think if TNT can manage to create events as involving as the AC, they'll see the userbase at least stabilize.

#24 Guest_idonotexist_*

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Posted 07 April 2012 - 04:52 AM

I honestly have to disagree about the NC Mall. I don't think it really impacts the game at all, at least not in my opinion.
Even when events incorporate NC, all it is is a glorified game to earn NC prizes. Something I don't involve myself in because every single effing thing in the NC Mall is girly, sparkly and fluffy. Hardly any non-female oriented items, which is really what pushes me away from purchasing NC. (And the fact that you only get boxes from cards, which is idiotic)

I do agree that account security is an issue, which ties back to customer service. For example, a friend of mine about a month ago was doing the whole clothing trade thing with his Draik. He has screenshots, neomails, etc. where they agreed on trading for clothing or w/e and the guy stole his Draik, traded it to like 2 other people and TNT claims they can't return the pet when we all know they can and they have done so in the past. They need to stop doing things for some people and not others. Either apply it to everyone and return EVERY scammed pet or don't return any at all. That's probably my BIGGEST pet peeve, not treating everyone the same.

I honestly supported Neopets going pay-to-play (which contrary to what TNT claims, it WAS under consideration for a few years) I think their biggest mistake was pushing previous Nickelodeon heads to the top of Neopets, of course all they care and know about is targeting things to children. I don't think they realized just how many older players there are on the site and that most of the 'serious' players are over the age of 18 and probably have been playing for YEARS.

I do agree that I would have liked to see Adam and Donna stay, or I wish they could have released TwinSkies when they originally announced they would. I probably would have left Neopets for it. xD But they left for good reason, they didn't agree with what Viacom was doing to Neopets and it's sad. I do miss the old days (and when I say old days I don't mean like 2005 lol) but I think Neopets can be saved if they make some realizations about their user base and where WE want the site to go. I hate to admit it but my dream job, for years, was to work at Neopets. Dead serious. Either as their receptionist or as their support staff. I've played Neopets since the VERY beginning, joined 16 days after it launched and I've played ever since. It's been a huge part of my life, I have thousands of dollars in their old merchandise and a lot of merchandise regular people can't buy (or you couldn't buy in stores) all sealed in display boxes (mint condition) and what not. I'm a huge Neopets nerd and it saddens me what the site has come to. :(

Be jealous. ;D Only 250 were made and only given to TNT Staff and guess who has one?!
Spoiler


#25 Sammiantha

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Posted 09 April 2012 - 02:52 AM

This thread is really interesting, as well as the links posted with bits of Neopets history in. I don't know what will happen to Neopets, I'd hate to see if disappear entirely but wonder if that is inevitable with all the changes that have been made over the years. One way they could get people interested and playing again would be to re-release UC pets but as they've stated a number of times it seems unlikely that they ever will.


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