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wyd...

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some cheeky april fools achievements for you all :PPPP

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strap in folks it's time for another neopets drama update

some background reading before we begin: back when neopets wanted to introduce customisation (i.e. dressing up your pet) in 2007, they decided to 'convert' all existing pet art to align with a rigid body structure, rather than all having unique poses. it was just not feasible to create new pieces of art for hundreds of different pet poses every single time they released a new clothing them

customisation had been highly requested up until this point. however, the conversion was NOT popular. in some cases, particularly for basic colours, the change wasn't huge, but in other cases.... uh....

you get the idea. the more expensive colours like plushie, faerie, grey, royal and darigan got the worst of it because they had the more unique poses pre-conversion, and therefore it was largely agreed that the change to the stiff 'samey', frankly kinda goofy converted look did not look great

most users did not get a choice in having their neopet converted and it was done automatically, but if you had one of these colours where the change was huge, you were given the choice of converting or retaining the old pose (but not having the option to customise your pet). those pets that retained the old, pre-conversion poses are therefore referred to as 'unconverted', or UC for short

once a pet is converted, there's no returning to UC. you also couldn't create UC pets anymore, making UCs a limited resource that would only increase in value with time, particularly as people abandon their pets, leave the site, get frozen, etc.

i could write an entire dissertation on the drama that UC pets have caused for the pet trading economy, the neopet account black market, and general retention of the userbase, but to sum it up, people REALLY want UC pets. they are the single most coveted status symbol on the site

we skip forward now to 2023

the neopets team are planning to introduce UC pets back to the site, so that people will be able to create their own UC pets again for the first time post-converstion (legally at least)

they drip feed bits of information over the year about what this will look like. the main points are

changing a pet to UC will be done via some kind of item bought with neocash, the premium currency on neopets that you need to spend real money to get

putting this item on your pet will give it the UC art style appearance

so. not much really known. but expected release is set for january 2024

yesterday, they hosted an AMA focusing on the new UC pet system and how this was going to work. noticeably absent is any explanation of how much this is actually going to cost and whether it is going to involve any kind of gatcha mechanic, so that's causing our first lot of concern

second lot of drama is that the new UCs aren't actually going to be COMPLETELY the same as the old art, as they're making some small changes for style consistency, see below (old on top, new below):

the biggest drama, however, comes from how they're dealing with the 'original' UC pets. ALL pets will be getting forcibly converted on the 23rd, with anyone who has a pet that is already an original UC immediately receiving the UC neocash item. there's mention of possibly some kind of trophy or badge recognition for particularly old pets, but it's vague, and generally seems like it won't be possible to distinguish between the original UCs and these new ones

the people who already have OCs are not happy about this

people are allegedly pounding their pets, cancelling their premium, and quitting the site in protest. the boards are flooded with people complaining about the changes and laughing at the downfall of the 'neo-elite' in equal measure

it's t-minus 5 days until the second great conversion goes live. let's all pray for our souls

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Finished the green Ogrin, everyone’s favorite Neopet! I’m really pleased with how this one turned out too- painting the eyes was SO intimidating, haha

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A summary I saw posted on discord! I did not write this ❤️

ok here's my effort at collating all the high-level updates.

Neopets is now a standalone entity after JS's closure.

New head of said entity is Dominic Law (staff name probably Altador...that's what he goes by in NMC server), who previously headed NMC and saved Neopets through a "management buyout deal"

New TNT has raised $4M from external investors to be used for rebuilding the brand/site.

Plan to incorporate Ruffle to save Flash content. 50(!) games will be returning via Ruffle on July 25th!

Plan to launch new mobile app "World of Neopia", "a social life-simulation game in which you live your ideal Neopian life from the perspective of a Neopet"

Plan to increase communication. "releasing monthly updates, hosting regularly scheduled AMAs, and launch an exciting new brand ambassador program"

New unified home page launching July 20

Plan to relaunch Island Builders

Plan for "a virtual concert"

Plan for a new plot (called "The Void Within" per the youtube video)

Launch 2M NC giveaway, which ends Aug 6

Neopets Metaverse has been cancelled. Some assets will be used for World of Neopia, but world of Neopia will have no crypto/NFT elements. Collectibles continue to exist and can be traded on secondary markets but have no utility.

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Antola was confirmed as trans in the Neopian Times!

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We got a name and face for Mirsha's girlfriend!!

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MIRSHA CONFIRMED GAY ???!?!?!?! IM LITERALLY CRYING

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Adorable Rainbow Kougra! They are halfofacat on Twitter and Instagram!

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Adam, of neopets' creator fame, got banned from the r/neopets discord today.

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11th Birthday Constellation Cupcake | 13th Birthday Whimsical Cupcake | 15th Unhappy Birthday Cake

My favorite NC mall cakes

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I think it was a good move for neopets to have a standard "hurt" image to cover when your pet was both ill or low on HP because it's like, "your neopet has a cough!"

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IT’S TIME

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Commission for Fujo on flightrising!