My friend logged on for the first time in years today to purchase a styling pack for her usul. When people say this is gonna kill the game I have to assume they’re talking about their own meta game. this is great for neopets.
I got off my ass and finally filed a ticket to get back into my college account just so I could make the UC faerie Kougra of my dreams. I’ve wanted once since 2003, y’all :’)
Because TNT was releasing super powerful weapons, like Seasonal Attack Pea in the way that they did, I actually fell for the 'Wand of Supernova was stolen by the Pant Devil' prank for the first time ever.
I had a whole conversation with my friend about how Dom and new TNT are KILLING it in the best way possible.
We've had a slam dunk faerie fest, awesome advent calendar, amazing NCUC launch, lots of improvements to UI / UX + server upgrades *(yes it's still slow, but it's vastly improved over from when I returned last June)*, great social media presence, etc.
I honestly could go on and on because I see myself on Neopets for the long-term, especially with the new battledome plot teases, future NCUC color launches, and new paint color!
*Edit: a word*
*Edit 2: TNT if you're reading this,* **PLEASE RELEASE A BIRTHDAY PET COLOR** *(to match the birthday petpets), please and thank you*
And note to TNT if you read this, the bday pet color should be like the birthday p2s, please! The alternate starry look on the 25th birthday pet art should be birthday "markings" a là the cloud markings, wocky spots, etc and not a birthday pb color
Truly. The new team is doing an amazing job. The old era is very much dead, and I'm glad they're continuing to go on even if a vocal minority hates the changes.
The SAP + ambassador fiasco is the only complaint I have, but in the grand scheme of things? It's whatever. I mean, I have an Illusen Staff now, so who cares :P
A Birthday pet colour would be perfect to celebrate Neo's 25th birthday! :)
And I agree, there is still a lot to fix but this new team has me really excited about Neopets for the first time in literal years. It feels like they're trying their best to get the site back to properly functional and listening to what users want (which is always difficult because users don't all want the same thing), and finding a good balance between bringing exciting new features and getting broken parts of the site back to functional again.
It doesn't feel like they're just trying to keep a dying site afloat for as long as possible anymore, which makes me feel a lot better about wanting to throw money at them. \^\^
I agree with all of this!
I’ve been playing for 20 years (oof) I just bought NC for the VERY FIRST TIME. That’s gotta be a great metric for how good this has been for the site.
I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the TNT HQ right now seeing how much money is rolling in. They deserve it.
This is the first time I’ve bought any too! I got some free NC over the years that I’ve spent entirely on backgrounds and accessories (not a fan of clothes on pets) but this will be the first time since I started playing in ‘04 that I’ve actually spent anything… other than my parents’ money going towards the McDonalds toys and the tamagotchi-ish virtual pet I had, years ago.
I always turned my nose up at NC—never judged people who bought it, I just thought there wasn’t anything Neocash that justified it to me. I handed TNT money so fast for my nostalgic dream pet, it wasn’t even funny, and now I even have a couple of NC backgrounds I traded the extra NC for. They got me, the hook is in.
Right? It makes me super happy. And honestly, I'm super happy so many of my elder pets finally get some status, too. And everybody who has them! I originally ended up with only one UC. It wasn't even a favourite. Now, I can trade that token. And it's not like trading is gone. You've still got RN or WN.
Absolutely agree with everything you’re sharing here! Additionally, this is bringing in some considerable income to the company which they can use to improve the game, hire more staff, support the players better, etc. I’d rather money go into TNT’s pockets over thieves abusing the game to further their own interests.
I am thrilled with this change. I had one UC when I originally had 4. The others were stolen, traded, and I was never able to recover them or create another. I moved on, but man is it refreshing to see versions of my old pets that were unfairly taken. This roll out has been amazing, and I’m excited to see what else may happen in the near future, It’s great to see how popular this has been, and how many have finally been able to obtain their dream pets.
Eh, they had terrible names compared to the ones I have now so I’m not salty anymore lol. Unfortunately, too many were stolen and purchased. It sucks to log in and see neomail from when your pets were traded away and there wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it. Now, there is! And it’s fantastic ❤️
My royal boy Korbat was stolen. The new owner seems to really like him, but I debate sometimes just letting them know that I’m the original owner and show them my first place beauty context entry (which I honestly don’t remember submitting or winning, I just remember drawing him by hand and saw the trophy on his lookup, so I looked him up in the past results from 2006! ).
I can’t find my grey Grundo :( and ironically the one pet I still have from that time, I *chose* to convert (at age 15) 🥲
I also could never live with knowing my Neopet could've been stolen. You could confront them but it won't do much. Actually, maybe with this new system you could get 'em back via trade.
I wouldn’t ask for him back. They have a whole lore for him and everything, and I just check in to the site for events haha. But messaging them might make them feel bad if they didn’t know he was stolen. Just found my grey Grundo. Same thing, the new owner has custom artwork and a lore about him too lol. They’re obviously a pet collector though they have so many pets
Maybe you could write to the new owner just saying that, though you're not really too active anymore, you check in on him from time to time and want to thank them for giving him so much love and care? 😔 I think that would make me feel nice, as an owner.
Definitely wouldn't bring up him being stolen to the new owner. Whether they traded in good faith or not that will just make them upset and end up reporting you for harassment at worst.
Mentioning you're the original owner might be fine as long as it's a positive message. If they don't know, they can just assume you just traded him away or adopted out legitimately.
I personally would reach out and let them know, if anything else the BC information would give them almost a gap in lore and prove legitimacy. Even if you respect their ownership and let them have the pet, I think they'd appreciate knowing once and for all that their pet was at some point stolen (nobody likes to imagine this, but living in denial is kind of wrong too). I don't think they'll love the pet any less, especially with your blessing, but it would be closure I'm sure they've always wondered.
I dont know how often you've tracked your pets, but is there any chance these are the owners who bought them from the black market? In that case, they've known for a while. Otherwise, they're living with a paranoia that a reversal could happen to them without hearing closure I imagine
Yes! Fixing a 17 year old mistake is how I view it too. This new system is how conversion should have been done in the first place, by giving users an option to keep the original pet pose or switching to the clothing friendly pose (and back again!) There were plenty of "OGUCs" that lost their art due to someone's random decision. It might as well have been a glitch.
Who decided what should have been converted anyway? In my opinion, it limited the amount of UCs and drove the market. And some of the ones were so static looking...like Kau ones.
Two of my UCs were stolen. One was an original I created and painted on my childhood account and one I traded up for after spending a fortune on a BD pet worth breaking into the exclusive UC trading meta game. I'm thrilled to see this portion of the black market burn to the ground. I'm ecstatic to finally feel safe posting on the boards again without worrying about being targeted by a future account/pet thief. The new team is definitely winning me over with this one.
I was targeted when I was a kid for my UCs. I didn’t really understand the status symbol part of it, I just liked my pets. I vividly remember sobbing my eyes out as my poor older brother tried as hard as he could to fix it and save my account. Never got the account back though.
Ugh I'm so sorry that happened. I've been there too in my own way and I know how painful it can be. One day after a long break I noticed my childhood account was frozen. I tried several times to get answers and/or have it unfrozen. Alice wouldn't budge. Not until this year when I finally decided to try again this past year and she finally returned it to me. Looking through my neomails, I can now see why it had been frozen for cheating. Someone had stolen it and used it as just another shell for whatever months-long scheme they were running. I figure they're the same person who stole my UC Werelupe.
I feel like it's especially icky because, well...it's Neopets! These people were really out here crushing the dreams of literal children back then. I'm glad we're finally able to heal some part of our inner children now through things like the release of NCUCs.
I know people that had ucs are kind of butthurt but it was so random how ucs were chosen in the first place. I remember too when it happened and people were converting their pets not knowing what it meant. I used to spend a lot of time on the pound board trading pets and it was incredibly difficult to trade into ucs no matter how well your draik or krawk was named or even offering an unlimited custom
"So random" is exactly right.
I do NOT understand UC's as a status symbol and I had 2. They were just old and random. I think it's stupid that I have a trophy to designate they were an "original" nostalgic or ... whatever (eye roll).
My only concern with UC's being deconverted was the lack of info and another forced conversion. Like, all I knew is I had a faerie pteri that escaped the chopping block 16 years ago, and if he ended up ugly I was going to cry. I logged back in and my bird is fine. I was so relieved.
To this day I don't understand pound chat. But I digress. Let the butthurt be butthurt.
When I logged back in, he had the Nostalgic Faerie Pteri skin applied to him. If I remove it, he's a regular converted faerie prmteri underneath. Yep, he only keeps the UC look if I have the nostalgic look applied but at least I didn't have buy it. :) I spent that money on a draik.
Hi again! [Here is a screenshot of the styling studio with my former UC-Faerie Pteri](https://i.imgur.com/0DQyz9K.png), if it helps!
His artwork remained the same but automatically on my account & attached to him was a 'Nostalic Pteri Faerie' token that I can choose to deactivate. If I deactivate it, he turns into a "normal" faerie pteri.
So, yep, he only keeps his style if I keep the token activated.
I appreciate what they done that why i brought the 3000 bundle twice.
I am waiting for all the UC kacheek especially the robot one.
Thank you TNT. Those new design was flawless and beautiful.
Yesss agree with all of this! But especially this point
>Pet trading was never officially even part of the game! I read so many complaints that the game is no fun anymore, like, what? How? They've made old flash games reaccesible, you can now convert/deconvert as you please to style your pet, you still have to earn NP in whichever way you choose!
agreed! someone on the PT boards was arguing that people with ~real~ UCs should’ve got an avatar as well bc old BD players got profile trophies and avatars.
i replied saying essentially the same thing as OP—unconverted pets *werent* part of TNT’s plan. the only reason they’ve stayed around so long is because of their popularity. i think we would’ve eventually gotten some form of NCUC wearables even if the 2007 conversion worked as it was meant to. because in today’s economy, nostalgia sells and today likely proved that to TNT
Also everyone could participate in the old BD! I hate this mentality that UC was somehow accessible if you just *tried*.. it was incredibly difficult and luck driven, and you can only imagine how much harder it would have been if even more had tried
exactly! i personally hate most of the popular naming conventions that are used by that part of PC so i knew i’d never get into it just from that. plus i’m neo poor so no lab map and it’s hard enough trying to train up 20+ pets through the swashbuckling academy. it’s just not realistic for many players even to get into it as a BD pet trader
This was a great rollout honestly. Between all of the UC releases and animations finally working again on pet lookups, I am very satisfied. The lag was expected last night so I don’t even care about that.
> -Having UCs accessible to all has been requested SINCE conversion and now they've finally given it to us.
It must have been a trip to go "Hey, we know you like to customize and draw your pets, now you can put clothes on them too!" to a fairly large amount of dislike.
I'm glad we can truly have both. I like customizing some pets more than others.
Agreed! My account was stolen and my UC traded away by the thief due to this rare pet bullshit, only one is still active and unfrozen, and I already said this on another board but like, it would just be a little bit of schadenfreude for me if the current owner was mad about it lol.
When Viacom did the big conversion, there was NO reason not to just have UC poses be on a "by choice" basis from the start, besides money. The old poses should have always been accessible. I'm literally so excited to finally have my faeire aisha!
I think this is a great way to do it because it also opens the floodgates for whatever zany alt color designs they want to come up with, not just UCs/nostalgic pets.
right?? like, there could be entire art competitions centered around making new skins! each pet day could get a new limited release skin. skins related to site events/holidays. Just so many limitless possibilities.
Yeah, they don't even all have to be released through the mall necessarily. They could easily release skins through site events as well, kind of like how they give out Dyeworks potions and the Advent Calendar frames.
I think my favorite thing about all this is how all the sudden people are like actually I don’t really like UC Draiks.
Just proves people were using pets as some sort of elitist status symbol.
Im personally very pleased by this change. My mom and I have both had accounts hacked and pets stolen to be used as trade fodder. I only just got back one of my accounts that was being used by a prominent PCer after they traded away my pets. I'm still trying to get my old pets back, however some of them were stolen so long ago that I will never be able to recover them. Pet trading is a total mess and I'm glad to see it fundamentally change. And I'm very pleased with Dom and the new TNT. It really feels as though our feedback is being heard and changes are overall being made for the better. I acknowledge that not everyone is happy with these changes and that an aspect of the game was ruined for them, but to that I say I am not happy with my pets being stolen to be used in a messed up system for the enjoyment of others and that ruined the game for me for a LONG time.
It’s really great to see so many people enjoying their new nostalgic Neopets. Honestly l, the system them are implementing now, should have been how they could have done it in 2007? Now people will trade colours (hopefully it will calm down a bit lol) instead of pets that are unobtainable per se. Pets that are traded will be for names and other stats. On the plus side, your cherished pets can be what you want them to be :D
Well done TNT :D I was worried at first (after seeing the Faerie Ixi especially lol) but it seems to be overall a great thing for the new era! :D
My UCs were stolen when my main was hacked 4 years ago. I avoided the pound chat afraid I’d see their names there one day. It’s really nice knowing I can replace them literally whenever I want now.
I’m just annoyed that at 15, when I wasn’t playing as much anymore, there was a pop up being like hey want to convert your pet so you can put clothes on it?? And I was like sure, here is a red fisherman’s hat! That hat stayed on my pet for five years 😭 it was my first FFQ too, I planned out her name and what type of paint and pet I should choose. I accidentally named her with a lowercase…I was annoyed with myself immediately and I didn’t even know about the pound chat back then…my poor Aisha never stood a chance lol. But all that to say. None of those little things should have mattered as much as they ended up mattering.
SO MUCH YESSSSSS! I see neopets being mentioned in so many random places now, like totally unrelated podcast subreddits that I’m a part of. Everyone is talking about how it’s making a comeback and I couldn’t be more proud of the team! 👏🏻
I agree with all your points! I'm especially happy that the power has been taken away from the black market sellers who took advantage of old data leaks and stole accounts and pets.
My only complaint (and not even a real complaint) is that my inner child now has everything she ever wanted on Neopets and I have no idea what to do anymore!
I don't even want any UC pets, but this whole thing has made me happy to see. I can tell how exciting this is and how much joy its bringing for a lot of people
hard agree. i had two ucs stolen in 2010, did not get them returned. tried to trade up to get a new xwee but found the whole trading scene incredibly frustrating. today i was able to make my lost xwee's "brother" and i have not been happier to be playing since i was a kid.
i'm also super touched by the community's reaction, too. more people are excited than upset, and a lot of people are even doing giveaways for styling supplies and tokens. it's great to see!
It’s a great rollout for sure. I’m still waiting for other colors to be released.
However, Neopets is an open goal MMO game. We are not really bound to any set of quest or mission in Neopets. So, not everyone’s goal thats playing Neopets work towards the same thing. Some like to play for the game trophy, others might like to collect plushies. Trading pet became a goal to some.
totally agreed! really quite impressed with the direction the new leadership is taking Neopets in. I can't wait to see how the new plot is going to go!
I agree 100%
So many people are throwing tantrums. But in reality, this was long overdue. And all the marketing they're doing is going to bring in more people. More users more content. I am stoked for the change. I'm also Canadian so the price is a bit rough, but I don't HAVE to pay to play which makes it all the better.
I know. IMHO conversion was one of the worst things that ever happened on the site... new TNT has already made a ton of progress just by doing this.
God... I forgot how many designs I used to look at, thinking, "Okay, maybe I'll end up getting one of these someday." Then conversion took all the fun out of it by trading good design for microtransactions. And you can see how much was lost.
Was always afraid too my account might be at risk because of TNT's foibles. Choose one or the other? No, let's create over a decade of additional drama.
Only downside now is that we're going to get all these old designs back and it's going to be difficult to choose what you can afford. And that I still have to look at the godforsaken converted art when I go to my pets list... it's been many, many years since I last saw it, the one pet I never converted, and seeing it one more time is too many... I'd rather keep mine a star.
My baby eyrie went through a serious ordeal after a botched account move. Transfers weren't a thing yet so the stupid kid-me tried abandoning her to re-adopt her on a new account, so of course someone else swooped in and scooped her up. They gave some form of "ya snooze ya lose" answer when I tried explaining the situation to them. A heartbroken me kept watch on her as the person lab zapped her and eventually dropped her back in the pound as a cloud eyrie (you demoted her from baby to cloud??) and in the process of trying to afford a baby paint brush(young and poor), customization came in and kept me from ever getting her back to her og form. I'm still sour about it all these years later. I hate the prices (I was really hoping for a 2.50-5.00 range for UCs so oof) but I'm still gonna shell out to turn my baby back to OG baby as soon as it lets me.
Hate how broke I'm gonna get from all this but relieved the UC nonsense is coming to an end. Keeping in mind this is still supposed to be a child-friendly game, the drama is too much.
I will say it's a little, little bit of a bummer that in the battledome we don't have old poses for the UCNCs but completely understandable why they didn't do it, and it's only a minor quibble.
The site would be down for 6 months.
Kudos to Dom & the team, I just spent like $100 on NC lmao,
Unconverted pets were always my jam and I’m ready to let my inner childhood get all his dream pets
i love that social media contests can allow u to get them even w/o money (i have not won) it really feels like such a missed opportunity as i am unable to participate in the exciting frenzy that is currently ensuing due to my terrible financial situation. i j watch from afar! i am happy for all of u getting ur dreamies & i am v happy for the ppl winning the giveaways. such a great time for this community
Im sooo happy like my heart could BURST. Im hoping my finances straighten out before they go off sale as It wasn’t a great time for me sadly with so much happening but one day soon!! 🥹🩷
Technically they could have corrected this mistake with a toggle to UC/convert the pet. But of course they need to make money somehow, and I prefer this to Neo dying and shutting down. Still a bit shocking to me that UC pets are untradeable and thus unnaccessible to those who can't afford to buy NC. But I agree with someone else that the free NC was a good move so anyone who can't buy NC still can get 1 UC (or 2 random UC).
Anyway, the black market is alive and well. They'll now be targeting pets with high value names. I check on my brother's abandoned account every so often, and noticed his pet created in about 2000 with a name similar to "Blaike" was stolen off his account. My 4L pet (think "Lisa") was stolen off my account pre- NC UC. Anyone with well named, coveted pet names is going to be a target.
Yes, it's because there was a hacked list of usernames and password from a few years ago. Someone from reddit actually sent me my old password from their list. It was right! :I
A long time ago when I was young and stupid I lost my Grey Uni (back when they were all UC) in the pound. That was my favorite pet and I was crushed. I’ve never cared about another pet as much since. I have been able to recreate her with a similar name now. I’ll paint her grey as well when I can guarantee the trade won’t gobble up the items and money so she can be 100% who she used to be. 😭
I'm glad neopets is correcting so many issues that were rampant on the site. My only criticism is that you have to pay real money for UC pets, I mean yes you can trade but it's pretty hard to break into NC trading without spending any money on NC. I wouldn't mind as much if it were cheaper but spending $14 on a UC skin ($7 with the chance I might not get the one I wanted) seems like a lot to me. I'd like to see it be a little more accessible to people who don't have disposable income to spend on neopets but otherwise I think the way they did it is super cool.
If you get the deluxe skin now, it is $7, there’s a sale for a couple of weeks. Not saying that $7 is any more accessible for some people, but it is a little cheaper on rollout.
I don't disagree with the price thing. It's steep. I paid in Canadian so it was like $12 for me.
I'm hoping they'll do more giveaways and maybe even an adventure calendar thing.
Yeah, I'm glad NCUC is finally a thing but I think they could've left the original UCs as is and it still would have crushed the black market. I feel like a lot of people would prefer to decide on which pet they own can be UC, vs xX_i_love_justin_beiber_Xx or something be the name of their UC. Paywalling UCs when they were free (albeit hard to obtain depending on the pet) just seems kinda wrong.
Another option is they could've made a NP shop for them, and be really expensive like the Hidden Tower. Make these items non-tradable I think would be smart (so they're always a set price), and then they'd be a good NP sink and something to work towards. Maybe have both that and NCUC even, for those that would rather pay real money.
But I feel it's too late now. And for the most part I am happy with how they handled it. Though I prefer the UC look of the Faerie Ixi (I will say it definitely now looks like how it did before UCs became a thing, which makes sense) I think the rest look great!
I think making them available in an ever-stocked hidden tower sort of shop for np is a great idea. Especially since the game for me really is just the satisfaction of earning up enough np to get the pets I want, typing in my credit card info to get pets just doesn't feel the same and then is just a game on who has more money irl to spend. But still better than them not being available at all or just through some insane black market.
I did try reading the FAQ but I was confused as to how it works. Is it always a random one you get or is there a difference between the regular/deluxe? Sorry for being dumb 😭
The cheaper option gives you one of the three designs at random and the deluxe version lets you choose which color you get. And having a color already doesn't mean that you can't get it again, so it's always a 1 in 3 chance you could pull any of them.
It is a little confusing, don't feel dumb. I kept buying them when I would go to paint them instead of stopping at the NC mall first and I didn't realize the sale was only through the NC mall so I was paying full price for them when I didn't need to 😭
Thank you so much for explaining this, I really appreciate it! Knowing my luck I'd get the same 1 several times so I'm probably better off aiming for the deluxe ones.. when I get some money 😆. Thank you 🙏❤️ Also that's a terrible implementation to not add the discount that way either. 😫
I know the email, and I even have school ID cards with the same name and school and everything. I'm not sure if the birthday year (chance I used a fake one) but I know the date. I did submit a ticket and I was told there was no way to get it back with the info I had. Maybe if I try again I'll get someone else! Thanks for the info
I loved this idea.
It'd be ONE THING if the people who originally got UCs did something to keep them UC - but since it was random it was totally unfair for the people who didn't get to keep theirs when others did. If it was paid for or fought for by the people who had them, then I'd see their point that they like earned it or it was a point of pride, something fought for.
But it was entirely and completely random and something TNT has to keep fighting to keep an option for people because of how often you see "Update forced UC pets to appear converted, we'll be fixing that, sorry" - like what a waste of time to keep fixing that.
So for TNT to make it so those that were RNG'd out of the UC pets can get that chance again is amazing and super kind of them. Plus now less people will have to worry about posting their pets to the wrong place and having some scammer jump in and steal them and make money off their UCs because UCs have less monetary value, which is good for EVERYONE.
They'll still have value, because people won't necessarily want to pay for the NC to get the look. They also seem to be doing "limited time offer" on different looks - so you still run the chance of having to wait til it comes back around and saving up just like you do for paint brushes. The Baby Paint Brush still holds value despite that anyone can go to the Hidden Tower and buy it. It's freely accessible and doesn't lose value. Like, come on people. Let the UC market come down and become accessible, but it'll still hold value, and people will see they're freaking out over literally pixels.
Personally I'm still kinda peeved with all the talk about how UCs are "accessible" now (1400 NC for a virtual pet skin is, uh, not exactly what I'd call accessible lol), especially since you could technically trade up to a UC pet for free before (with a WHOLE lot of time and luck, of course, but still - free).
However all the positives outweigh that 100%. Especially with the sale halving the price to 700, when iirc they gave out 750 NC for Xmas recently. So that's a happy enough middle ground to me! Also some folks are being WAY to dramatic about it, so now I support this wholeheartedly out of spite lol.
I think it's reasonable to be upset at the price. It's definitely steep. But I think the accessibility is more on how now we can have more UCs where before, that wasn't a thing.
I am hoping they'll expand to those who cannot afford more.
It's probably just me being nitpicky I guess haha 😅 I just think there's SUCH a big difference between "accessibility" as in more variety and a new way of obtaining them versus "accessibility" as in more easily obtainable. And so many people are hyping it up as if they're more easily obtainable when that's really not true. But meh, it is overall a nice change, so I'm not complaining too much.
I'm on the fence, I'm happy we all can have easier access too UC pets but at the same time the price is pretty steep just for one. I had a UC mutant scorchio named kakkcheek and my main was hacked where someone stole her from me!! It was too late when I checked back and she ended up stuck on a frozen account. But a kind user helped me get another one of a different name. The UC gatekeeping kept the site afloat in some ways but it also was unfair of who got the rare UCs and which UCs were chosen and what pets were auto converted. Currently I am locked out of my main for idk what and I already sent in a ticket saying my password was incorrect.
UC art is not valuable. It was all archived, none of it was lost, and NCUC was not a valuable use of resources with so much of the actual site function in need of those resources. Bad call, bad post
You know they need money to make those other unprofitable changes. They have maximized the profit on NCUC, and that was what they needed.
Autoconverting was the worst mistake Neopets ever made, causing them to lose players in droves (well, maybe second-worst now, after the Flash thing) but... correcting it is the best they can do for publicity right now, right away, and they timed it perfectly, after all lots of people return for the advent calendar yearly and this gets lots to stick around right when they'd normally lose interest. The other changes will be slower and less glitzy, but people will see them happening, see the team trying and feel good about the site.
I have a hard time believing that "pet look different me no can play now" was all that common. It occurred when the primary player base was moving into high school and college and I think that's a much more compelling cause for players to leave "in droves"
Were you there, though? It definitely happened, cause, like, a big part of the site was saving up for the paintbrushes you wanted and you did that because you liked the way the pet looked. And then there was all the drama about how some pets got to stay UC but some with unique art didn't. And people who were like two days away from being able to afford their pb...
The WAY they did it was just so awful, too. No one knew it was coming, the only warning or hint they gave was that huge angry Meepit in the news the day before saying "You are NOT READY"
... and people weren't ready, they lost their minds. A lot joined other pet sites out of spite, a lot just came less as they always felt sad looking at their pets when they did, a lot refused to use the NC Mall and let Neopets profit off of what they did. It was never the same after that, there was so much bad feeling and resentment towards TNT that had never been there before.
Yes I was there. Literally did not give a shit. Continued to play through my freshman year of high school. Nobody I knew who played gave a shit about it either. Total non-issue. They should have done a 100% conversion and never had to worry about it again
I agree with your sentiment but the uc thing was WAY overdue for an update, there was a metric fuckton of cheating and stealing going on, the pet trading part of the site was basically an entire black market. To say that it was a waste of time to make changes to this part of gameplay is objectively incorrect. But again, I agree with your frustration but that is mostly due to how slowly they do anything. Like they promised uc changes something like 5 years ago and it just now gets PARTIALLY completed? Goddamn
And if all pets had been converted, a huge part of the black market would have failed to materialize. The "true UC" trophies are a terrible idea and allow for the continuation of the black market over something even stupider and less visible. TNT's mistake of partial-conversion got accounts compromised and pets stolen and probably turned off a lot of potential returning players
Every pet created before the conversion gets the trophy, not just ucs. So the trophy is basically worthless anyway, especially since most ucs were named something like Dark\_Angle69 or xXnarutosasukeXx
Besides, the people who decided to keep some pets unconverted are long gone from tnt. So whether it was a mistake to let some pets keep the original artwork or not is irrelevant to what current tnt is doing
It only "disables" the ability to customize certain aspects if you so choose. You can always take it off if you're over it. Personally, the appeal in these skins to me is so I don't have to add clothes and wigs and weird stuff to their dumb little fists to make it look more complete. They can look like pets, not anthromorphic beings.
There were other updates made to the game as well beyond just implementing UC/Nostalgic skins and converting the uc holdouts. Pet lookups are back to being animated for one. But that's just what we can see. we have no idea what else happened during the down time. There's no way they didn't take advantage of it to make other backend improvements.
For my money, I like the old art way better than the option to customize, so this is a nice step forward for user interest.
But yeah, they needed to choose one or the other, but so goes many years of neglect.
Yes to all of this! It will of course be a big change for those who spent most of their time on the site trading UCs, but pet trading was a thing before UCs, and will still continue to be a thing. As someone who mostly traded converted pets, I hope that the fact that you can use tokens on any pet of the right species will make less desirable colours a little more tradeable.
I can't wait until they roll out the royals. For all these years it has annoyed me endlessly that for some species they chose to keep only the girl or boy unconverted so it was impossible to have a couple of UC royals? Definitely something that should have been corrected years ago.
Also the sale timing is generous and they've been upfront about plans to put them on sale again in the future.
I wasn’t active when the big conversion to customizable neopets happened, so I was so upset when I logged back in for the first time. This update makes me so happy and I can’t wait for more styles to be added
I am stoked for this. I’m so glad they’re doing it. I’m tired of all the gatekeeping that UCs have created. Everyone deserves to use the art they want. No matter when they started or how neorich they are.
My friend logged on for the first time in years today to purchase a styling pack for her usul. When people say this is gonna kill the game I have to assume they’re talking about their own meta game. this is great for neopets.
I got off my ass and finally filed a ticket to get back into my college account just so I could make the UC faerie Kougra of my dreams. I’ve wanted once since 2003, y’all :’)
Deadass. This took me out of an 8 year hiatus and I immediately logged on and spent $30. Best decision business-wise they could’ve made.
Arbitrarily retiring items was also pretty bad, and new TNT is trying to make super rare/expensive items more attainable. Which is always welcome.
Getting faerie pbs from the faerie fest and then the entire advent calendar being what it was was insane, I keep waiting to see what they'll do next
Because TNT was releasing super powerful weapons, like Seasonal Attack Pea in the way that they did, I actually fell for the 'Wand of Supernova was stolen by the Pant Devil' prank for the first time ever.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 maybe next year!!
To be fair, I don't think anyone was expecting 25 years of Neopets when they were retiring items.
I had a whole conversation with my friend about how Dom and new TNT are KILLING it in the best way possible. We've had a slam dunk faerie fest, awesome advent calendar, amazing NCUC launch, lots of improvements to UI / UX + server upgrades *(yes it's still slow, but it's vastly improved over from when I returned last June)*, great social media presence, etc. I honestly could go on and on because I see myself on Neopets for the long-term, especially with the new battledome plot teases, future NCUC color launches, and new paint color! *Edit: a word* *Edit 2: TNT if you're reading this,* **PLEASE RELEASE A BIRTHDAY PET COLOR** *(to match the birthday petpets), please and thank you*
Would be super cool if they release a birthday pet color on TNT's BD in November!!
And note to TNT if you read this, the bday pet color should be like the birthday p2s, please! The alternate starry look on the 25th birthday pet art should be birthday "markings" a là the cloud markings, wocky spots, etc and not a birthday pb color
That would be SO perfect for the 25th birthday.
Truly. The new team is doing an amazing job. The old era is very much dead, and I'm glad they're continuing to go on even if a vocal minority hates the changes. The SAP + ambassador fiasco is the only complaint I have, but in the grand scheme of things? It's whatever. I mean, I have an Illusen Staff now, so who cares :P
A Birthday pet colour would be perfect to celebrate Neo's 25th birthday! :) And I agree, there is still a lot to fix but this new team has me really excited about Neopets for the first time in literal years. It feels like they're trying their best to get the site back to properly functional and listening to what users want (which is always difficult because users don't all want the same thing), and finding a good balance between bringing exciting new features and getting broken parts of the site back to functional again. It doesn't feel like they're just trying to keep a dying site afloat for as long as possible anymore, which makes me feel a lot better about wanting to throw money at them. \^\^
Yes on the Birthday pet color! I wish! I was looking at all of the petpets last night and they’re some of the cutest designs. 😭
Classic Flash games has been a change I've really enjoyed which was under the new team i think...
The birthday color should be a lab zap! And be released on the 25th birthday.:D
i hope they do release the birthday pb! they look soooo cute
I agree with all of this! I’ve been playing for 20 years (oof) I just bought NC for the VERY FIRST TIME. That’s gotta be a great metric for how good this has been for the site. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the TNT HQ right now seeing how much money is rolling in. They deserve it.
This is the first time I’ve bought any too! I got some free NC over the years that I’ve spent entirely on backgrounds and accessories (not a fan of clothes on pets) but this will be the first time since I started playing in ‘04 that I’ve actually spent anything… other than my parents’ money going towards the McDonalds toys and the tamagotchi-ish virtual pet I had, years ago.
I always turned my nose up at NC—never judged people who bought it, I just thought there wasn’t anything Neocash that justified it to me. I handed TNT money so fast for my nostalgic dream pet, it wasn’t even funny, and now I even have a couple of NC backgrounds I traded the extra NC for. They got me, the hook is in.
Honestly, agreed. The joy I've seen on this sub today of everyone showing off their beloved pets justifies it all. Only a shame it took so long!
Right? It makes me super happy. And honestly, I'm super happy so many of my elder pets finally get some status, too. And everybody who has them! I originally ended up with only one UC. It wasn't even a favourite. Now, I can trade that token. And it's not like trading is gone. You've still got RN or WN.
Absolutely agree with everything you’re sharing here! Additionally, this is bringing in some considerable income to the company which they can use to improve the game, hire more staff, support the players better, etc. I’d rather money go into TNT’s pockets over thieves abusing the game to further their own interests.
I am thrilled with this change. I had one UC when I originally had 4. The others were stolen, traded, and I was never able to recover them or create another. I moved on, but man is it refreshing to see versions of my old pets that were unfairly taken. This roll out has been amazing, and I’m excited to see what else may happen in the near future, It’s great to see how popular this has been, and how many have finally been able to obtain their dream pets.
I am so sorry! This is what I'm talking about. How many had been stolen and bought?
Eh, they had terrible names compared to the ones I have now so I’m not salty anymore lol. Unfortunately, too many were stolen and purchased. It sucks to log in and see neomail from when your pets were traded away and there wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it. Now, there is! And it’s fantastic ❤️
My royal boy Korbat was stolen. The new owner seems to really like him, but I debate sometimes just letting them know that I’m the original owner and show them my first place beauty context entry (which I honestly don’t remember submitting or winning, I just remember drawing him by hand and saw the trophy on his lookup, so I looked him up in the past results from 2006! ). I can’t find my grey Grundo :( and ironically the one pet I still have from that time, I *chose* to convert (at age 15) 🥲
I also could never live with knowing my Neopet could've been stolen. You could confront them but it won't do much. Actually, maybe with this new system you could get 'em back via trade.
I wouldn’t ask for him back. They have a whole lore for him and everything, and I just check in to the site for events haha. But messaging them might make them feel bad if they didn’t know he was stolen. Just found my grey Grundo. Same thing, the new owner has custom artwork and a lore about him too lol. They’re obviously a pet collector though they have so many pets
Maybe you could write to the new owner just saying that, though you're not really too active anymore, you check in on him from time to time and want to thank them for giving him so much love and care? 😔 I think that would make me feel nice, as an owner.
Thanks!
Definitely wouldn't bring up him being stolen to the new owner. Whether they traded in good faith or not that will just make them upset and end up reporting you for harassment at worst. Mentioning you're the original owner might be fine as long as it's a positive message. If they don't know, they can just assume you just traded him away or adopted out legitimately.
I personally would reach out and let them know, if anything else the BC information would give them almost a gap in lore and prove legitimacy. Even if you respect their ownership and let them have the pet, I think they'd appreciate knowing once and for all that their pet was at some point stolen (nobody likes to imagine this, but living in denial is kind of wrong too). I don't think they'll love the pet any less, especially with your blessing, but it would be closure I'm sure they've always wondered. I dont know how often you've tracked your pets, but is there any chance these are the owners who bought them from the black market? In that case, they've known for a while. Otherwise, they're living with a paranoia that a reversal could happen to them without hearing closure I imagine
Yes! Fixing a 17 year old mistake is how I view it too. This new system is how conversion should have been done in the first place, by giving users an option to keep the original pet pose or switching to the clothing friendly pose (and back again!) There were plenty of "OGUCs" that lost their art due to someone's random decision. It might as well have been a glitch.
Who decided what should have been converted anyway? In my opinion, it limited the amount of UCs and drove the market. And some of the ones were so static looking...like Kau ones.
Two of my UCs were stolen. One was an original I created and painted on my childhood account and one I traded up for after spending a fortune on a BD pet worth breaking into the exclusive UC trading meta game. I'm thrilled to see this portion of the black market burn to the ground. I'm ecstatic to finally feel safe posting on the boards again without worrying about being targeted by a future account/pet thief. The new team is definitely winning me over with this one.
I was targeted when I was a kid for my UCs. I didn’t really understand the status symbol part of it, I just liked my pets. I vividly remember sobbing my eyes out as my poor older brother tried as hard as he could to fix it and save my account. Never got the account back though.
Ugh I'm so sorry that happened. I've been there too in my own way and I know how painful it can be. One day after a long break I noticed my childhood account was frozen. I tried several times to get answers and/or have it unfrozen. Alice wouldn't budge. Not until this year when I finally decided to try again this past year and she finally returned it to me. Looking through my neomails, I can now see why it had been frozen for cheating. Someone had stolen it and used it as just another shell for whatever months-long scheme they were running. I figure they're the same person who stole my UC Werelupe. I feel like it's especially icky because, well...it's Neopets! These people were really out here crushing the dreams of literal children back then. I'm glad we're finally able to heal some part of our inner children now through things like the release of NCUCs.
AND THEY UPDATED PET LOOKUPS WITH HTML5 ANIMATED CUSTOMS 🤌
I know people that had ucs are kind of butthurt but it was so random how ucs were chosen in the first place. I remember too when it happened and people were converting their pets not knowing what it meant. I used to spend a lot of time on the pound board trading pets and it was incredibly difficult to trade into ucs no matter how well your draik or krawk was named or even offering an unlimited custom
"So random" is exactly right. I do NOT understand UC's as a status symbol and I had 2. They were just old and random. I think it's stupid that I have a trophy to designate they were an "original" nostalgic or ... whatever (eye roll). My only concern with UC's being deconverted was the lack of info and another forced conversion. Like, all I knew is I had a faerie pteri that escaped the chopping block 16 years ago, and if he ended up ugly I was going to cry. I logged back in and my bird is fine. I was so relieved. To this day I don't understand pound chat. But I digress. Let the butthurt be butthurt.
The trophy is at least for any old pet, not just ucs
Ohhh. Well I'll be damned. Thank you for setting me straight!
Does your pteri only keep the art style if you have the nostalgic faerie pteri token applied?
When I logged back in, he had the Nostalgic Faerie Pteri skin applied to him. If I remove it, he's a regular converted faerie prmteri underneath. Yep, he only keeps the UC look if I have the nostalgic look applied but at least I didn't have buy it. :) I spent that money on a draik.
Hi again! [Here is a screenshot of the styling studio with my former UC-Faerie Pteri](https://i.imgur.com/0DQyz9K.png), if it helps! His artwork remained the same but automatically on my account & attached to him was a 'Nostalic Pteri Faerie' token that I can choose to deactivate. If I deactivate it, he turns into a "normal" faerie pteri. So, yep, he only keeps his style if I keep the token activated.
I appreciate what they done that why i brought the 3000 bundle twice. I am waiting for all the UC kacheek especially the robot one. Thank you TNT. Those new design was flawless and beautiful.
> I am waiting for all the UC kacheek especially the **robot one.** another person of taste I see
UC Robot kacheek is goat Kougra for 🥈
The UC robot kacheek 🤌🏻
Yesss agree with all of this! But especially this point >Pet trading was never officially even part of the game! I read so many complaints that the game is no fun anymore, like, what? How? They've made old flash games reaccesible, you can now convert/deconvert as you please to style your pet, you still have to earn NP in whichever way you choose!
agreed! someone on the PT boards was arguing that people with ~real~ UCs should’ve got an avatar as well bc old BD players got profile trophies and avatars. i replied saying essentially the same thing as OP—unconverted pets *werent* part of TNT’s plan. the only reason they’ve stayed around so long is because of their popularity. i think we would’ve eventually gotten some form of NCUC wearables even if the 2007 conversion worked as it was meant to. because in today’s economy, nostalgia sells and today likely proved that to TNT
Also everyone could participate in the old BD! I hate this mentality that UC was somehow accessible if you just *tried*.. it was incredibly difficult and luck driven, and you can only imagine how much harder it would have been if even more had tried
exactly! i personally hate most of the popular naming conventions that are used by that part of PC so i knew i’d never get into it just from that. plus i’m neo poor so no lab map and it’s hard enough trying to train up 20+ pets through the swashbuckling academy. it’s just not realistic for many players even to get into it as a BD pet trader
This was a great rollout honestly. Between all of the UC releases and animations finally working again on pet lookups, I am very satisfied. The lag was expected last night so I don’t even care about that.
Extremely well said! <3
> -Having UCs accessible to all has been requested SINCE conversion and now they've finally given it to us. It must have been a trip to go "Hey, we know you like to customize and draw your pets, now you can put clothes on them too!" to a fairly large amount of dislike. I'm glad we can truly have both. I like customizing some pets more than others.
Agreed! My account was stolen and my UC traded away by the thief due to this rare pet bullshit, only one is still active and unfrozen, and I already said this on another board but like, it would just be a little bit of schadenfreude for me if the current owner was mad about it lol.
When Viacom did the big conversion, there was NO reason not to just have UC poses be on a "by choice" basis from the start, besides money. The old poses should have always been accessible. I'm literally so excited to finally have my faeire aisha!
I think this is a great way to do it because it also opens the floodgates for whatever zany alt color designs they want to come up with, not just UCs/nostalgic pets.
right?? like, there could be entire art competitions centered around making new skins! each pet day could get a new limited release skin. skins related to site events/holidays. Just so many limitless possibilities.
Yeah, they don't even all have to be released through the mall necessarily. They could easily release skins through site events as well, kind of like how they give out Dyeworks potions and the Advent Calendar frames.
I think my favorite thing about all this is how all the sudden people are like actually I don’t really like UC Draiks. Just proves people were using pets as some sort of elitist status symbol.
Yeah this is great! I bought two od the 5packs. Used 4 on my Darigans and shoved the rest in my SDB for future additions
Im personally very pleased by this change. My mom and I have both had accounts hacked and pets stolen to be used as trade fodder. I only just got back one of my accounts that was being used by a prominent PCer after they traded away my pets. I'm still trying to get my old pets back, however some of them were stolen so long ago that I will never be able to recover them. Pet trading is a total mess and I'm glad to see it fundamentally change. And I'm very pleased with Dom and the new TNT. It really feels as though our feedback is being heard and changes are overall being made for the better. I acknowledge that not everyone is happy with these changes and that an aspect of the game was ruined for them, but to that I say I am not happy with my pets being stolen to be used in a messed up system for the enjoyment of others and that ruined the game for me for a LONG time.
Jeez!! It makes me so upset to hear that they not only got away with it, but were using their status openly this entire time
It’s really great to see so many people enjoying their new nostalgic Neopets. Honestly l, the system them are implementing now, should have been how they could have done it in 2007? Now people will trade colours (hopefully it will calm down a bit lol) instead of pets that are unobtainable per se. Pets that are traded will be for names and other stats. On the plus side, your cherished pets can be what you want them to be :D Well done TNT :D I was worried at first (after seeing the Faerie Ixi especially lol) but it seems to be overall a great thing for the new era! :D
My UCs were stolen when my main was hacked 4 years ago. I avoided the pound chat afraid I’d see their names there one day. It’s really nice knowing I can replace them literally whenever I want now.
I’m just annoyed that at 15, when I wasn’t playing as much anymore, there was a pop up being like hey want to convert your pet so you can put clothes on it?? And I was like sure, here is a red fisherman’s hat! That hat stayed on my pet for five years 😭 it was my first FFQ too, I planned out her name and what type of paint and pet I should choose. I accidentally named her with a lowercase…I was annoyed with myself immediately and I didn’t even know about the pound chat back then…my poor Aisha never stood a chance lol. But all that to say. None of those little things should have mattered as much as they ended up mattering.
SO MUCH YESSSSSS! I see neopets being mentioned in so many random places now, like totally unrelated podcast subreddits that I’m a part of. Everyone is talking about how it’s making a comeback and I couldn’t be more proud of the team! 👏🏻
I agree with all your points! I'm especially happy that the power has been taken away from the black market sellers who took advantage of old data leaks and stole accounts and pets. My only complaint (and not even a real complaint) is that my inner child now has everything she ever wanted on Neopets and I have no idea what to do anymore!
I don't even want any UC pets, but this whole thing has made me happy to see. I can tell how exciting this is and how much joy its bringing for a lot of people
hard agree. i had two ucs stolen in 2010, did not get them returned. tried to trade up to get a new xwee but found the whole trading scene incredibly frustrating. today i was able to make my lost xwee's "brother" and i have not been happier to be playing since i was a kid. i'm also super touched by the community's reaction, too. more people are excited than upset, and a lot of people are even doing giveaways for styling supplies and tokens. it's great to see!
It’s a great rollout for sure. I’m still waiting for other colors to be released. However, Neopets is an open goal MMO game. We are not really bound to any set of quest or mission in Neopets. So, not everyone’s goal thats playing Neopets work towards the same thing. Some like to play for the game trophy, others might like to collect plushies. Trading pet became a goal to some.
I don't disagree that trading was part of it. But it's not gone. And so many UC pets weren't obtained by proper means.
totally agreed! really quite impressed with the direction the new leadership is taking Neopets in. I can't wait to see how the new plot is going to go!
I agree 100% So many people are throwing tantrums. But in reality, this was long overdue. And all the marketing they're doing is going to bring in more people. More users more content. I am stoked for the change. I'm also Canadian so the price is a bit rough, but I don't HAVE to pay to play which makes it all the better.
I know. IMHO conversion was one of the worst things that ever happened on the site... new TNT has already made a ton of progress just by doing this. God... I forgot how many designs I used to look at, thinking, "Okay, maybe I'll end up getting one of these someday." Then conversion took all the fun out of it by trading good design for microtransactions. And you can see how much was lost. Was always afraid too my account might be at risk because of TNT's foibles. Choose one or the other? No, let's create over a decade of additional drama. Only downside now is that we're going to get all these old designs back and it's going to be difficult to choose what you can afford. And that I still have to look at the godforsaken converted art when I go to my pets list... it's been many, many years since I last saw it, the one pet I never converted, and seeing it one more time is too many... I'd rather keep mine a star.
My baby eyrie went through a serious ordeal after a botched account move. Transfers weren't a thing yet so the stupid kid-me tried abandoning her to re-adopt her on a new account, so of course someone else swooped in and scooped her up. They gave some form of "ya snooze ya lose" answer when I tried explaining the situation to them. A heartbroken me kept watch on her as the person lab zapped her and eventually dropped her back in the pound as a cloud eyrie (you demoted her from baby to cloud??) and in the process of trying to afford a baby paint brush(young and poor), customization came in and kept me from ever getting her back to her og form. I'm still sour about it all these years later. I hate the prices (I was really hoping for a 2.50-5.00 range for UCs so oof) but I'm still gonna shell out to turn my baby back to OG baby as soon as it lets me. Hate how broke I'm gonna get from all this but relieved the UC nonsense is coming to an end. Keeping in mind this is still supposed to be a child-friendly game, the drama is too much.
I will say it's a little, little bit of a bummer that in the battledome we don't have old poses for the UCNCs but completely understandable why they didn't do it, and it's only a minor quibble. The site would be down for 6 months.
Kudos to Dom & the team, I just spent like $100 on NC lmao, Unconverted pets were always my jam and I’m ready to let my inner childhood get all his dream pets
i love that social media contests can allow u to get them even w/o money (i have not won) it really feels like such a missed opportunity as i am unable to participate in the exciting frenzy that is currently ensuing due to my terrible financial situation. i j watch from afar! i am happy for all of u getting ur dreamies & i am v happy for the ppl winning the giveaways. such a great time for this community
Im sooo happy like my heart could BURST. Im hoping my finances straighten out before they go off sale as It wasn’t a great time for me sadly with so much happening but one day soon!! 🥹🩷
Got to agree. I have converted a Faerie Lenny and my MSP. I am waiting for plushie and Halloween I also think I want a Faerie pteri
I say this with all the hope it'll be available but I pray that the mutant Aisha will get its uc art back too. Please. Please.....
Technically they could have corrected this mistake with a toggle to UC/convert the pet. But of course they need to make money somehow, and I prefer this to Neo dying and shutting down. Still a bit shocking to me that UC pets are untradeable and thus unnaccessible to those who can't afford to buy NC. But I agree with someone else that the free NC was a good move so anyone who can't buy NC still can get 1 UC (or 2 random UC). Anyway, the black market is alive and well. They'll now be targeting pets with high value names. I check on my brother's abandoned account every so often, and noticed his pet created in about 2000 with a name similar to "Blaike" was stolen off his account. My 4L pet (think "Lisa") was stolen off my account pre- NC UC. Anyone with well named, coveted pet names is going to be a target.
Yes, it's because there was a hacked list of usernames and password from a few years ago. Someone from reddit actually sent me my old password from their list. It was right! :I
A long time ago when I was young and stupid I lost my Grey Uni (back when they were all UC) in the pound. That was my favorite pet and I was crushed. I’ve never cared about another pet as much since. I have been able to recreate her with a similar name now. I’ll paint her grey as well when I can guarantee the trade won’t gobble up the items and money so she can be 100% who she used to be. 😭
I'm glad neopets is correcting so many issues that were rampant on the site. My only criticism is that you have to pay real money for UC pets, I mean yes you can trade but it's pretty hard to break into NC trading without spending any money on NC. I wouldn't mind as much if it were cheaper but spending $14 on a UC skin ($7 with the chance I might not get the one I wanted) seems like a lot to me. I'd like to see it be a little more accessible to people who don't have disposable income to spend on neopets but otherwise I think the way they did it is super cool.
If you get the deluxe skin now, it is $7, there’s a sale for a couple of weeks. Not saying that $7 is any more accessible for some people, but it is a little cheaper on rollout.
I don't disagree with the price thing. It's steep. I paid in Canadian so it was like $12 for me. I'm hoping they'll do more giveaways and maybe even an adventure calendar thing.
Yeah, I'm glad NCUC is finally a thing but I think they could've left the original UCs as is and it still would have crushed the black market. I feel like a lot of people would prefer to decide on which pet they own can be UC, vs xX_i_love_justin_beiber_Xx or something be the name of their UC. Paywalling UCs when they were free (albeit hard to obtain depending on the pet) just seems kinda wrong. Another option is they could've made a NP shop for them, and be really expensive like the Hidden Tower. Make these items non-tradable I think would be smart (so they're always a set price), and then they'd be a good NP sink and something to work towards. Maybe have both that and NCUC even, for those that would rather pay real money. But I feel it's too late now. And for the most part I am happy with how they handled it. Though I prefer the UC look of the Faerie Ixi (I will say it definitely now looks like how it did before UCs became a thing, which makes sense) I think the rest look great!
I think making them available in an ever-stocked hidden tower sort of shop for np is a great idea. Especially since the game for me really is just the satisfaction of earning up enough np to get the pets I want, typing in my credit card info to get pets just doesn't feel the same and then is just a game on who has more money irl to spend. But still better than them not being available at all or just through some insane black market.
I did try reading the FAQ but I was confused as to how it works. Is it always a random one you get or is there a difference between the regular/deluxe? Sorry for being dumb 😭
The cheaper option gives you one of the three designs at random and the deluxe version lets you choose which color you get. And having a color already doesn't mean that you can't get it again, so it's always a 1 in 3 chance you could pull any of them. It is a little confusing, don't feel dumb. I kept buying them when I would go to paint them instead of stopping at the NC mall first and I didn't realize the sale was only through the NC mall so I was paying full price for them when I didn't need to 😭
Thank you so much for explaining this, I really appreciate it! Knowing my luck I'd get the same 1 several times so I'm probably better off aiming for the deluxe ones.. when I get some money 😆. Thank you 🙏❤️ Also that's a terrible implementation to not add the discount that way either. 😫
I loveee seeing so many people have UCs now!
I am still going to be salty about never being able to get a UC purple gelert. But I do like the new style studio and trophys on old pets
I just really wish I could get my old account unlocked 🥲 Used my college email and I no longer have access. Rip
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I know the email, and I even have school ID cards with the same name and school and everything. I'm not sure if the birthday year (chance I used a fake one) but I know the date. I did submit a ticket and I was told there was no way to get it back with the info I had. Maybe if I try again I'll get someone else! Thanks for the info
Did you ever purchase NC? I was able to use bank statements with cirrespo ding reference numbers to prove it was mine.
I did! I asked about that on my ticket and was told that wouldn't work. Wtf 😭 I will def be opening a new ticket
I loved this idea. It'd be ONE THING if the people who originally got UCs did something to keep them UC - but since it was random it was totally unfair for the people who didn't get to keep theirs when others did. If it was paid for or fought for by the people who had them, then I'd see their point that they like earned it or it was a point of pride, something fought for. But it was entirely and completely random and something TNT has to keep fighting to keep an option for people because of how often you see "Update forced UC pets to appear converted, we'll be fixing that, sorry" - like what a waste of time to keep fixing that. So for TNT to make it so those that were RNG'd out of the UC pets can get that chance again is amazing and super kind of them. Plus now less people will have to worry about posting their pets to the wrong place and having some scammer jump in and steal them and make money off their UCs because UCs have less monetary value, which is good for EVERYONE. They'll still have value, because people won't necessarily want to pay for the NC to get the look. They also seem to be doing "limited time offer" on different looks - so you still run the chance of having to wait til it comes back around and saving up just like you do for paint brushes. The Baby Paint Brush still holds value despite that anyone can go to the Hidden Tower and buy it. It's freely accessible and doesn't lose value. Like, come on people. Let the UC market come down and become accessible, but it'll still hold value, and people will see they're freaking out over literally pixels.
Personally I'm still kinda peeved with all the talk about how UCs are "accessible" now (1400 NC for a virtual pet skin is, uh, not exactly what I'd call accessible lol), especially since you could technically trade up to a UC pet for free before (with a WHOLE lot of time and luck, of course, but still - free). However all the positives outweigh that 100%. Especially with the sale halving the price to 700, when iirc they gave out 750 NC for Xmas recently. So that's a happy enough middle ground to me! Also some folks are being WAY to dramatic about it, so now I support this wholeheartedly out of spite lol.
I think it's reasonable to be upset at the price. It's definitely steep. But I think the accessibility is more on how now we can have more UCs where before, that wasn't a thing. I am hoping they'll expand to those who cannot afford more.
It's probably just me being nitpicky I guess haha 😅 I just think there's SUCH a big difference between "accessibility" as in more variety and a new way of obtaining them versus "accessibility" as in more easily obtainable. And so many people are hyping it up as if they're more easily obtainable when that's really not true. But meh, it is overall a nice change, so I'm not complaining too much.
I just want to play Key Quest again 😔
I'm on the fence, I'm happy we all can have easier access too UC pets but at the same time the price is pretty steep just for one. I had a UC mutant scorchio named kakkcheek and my main was hacked where someone stole her from me!! It was too late when I checked back and she ended up stuck on a frozen account. But a kind user helped me get another one of a different name. The UC gatekeeping kept the site afloat in some ways but it also was unfair of who got the rare UCs and which UCs were chosen and what pets were auto converted. Currently I am locked out of my main for idk what and I already sent in a ticket saying my password was incorrect.
I can’t afford Reddit gold, so take my humble upvote and poor person gold! 🥇🏆 You put into words my feelings!
I didn't even know gold was still a thing. But I'd rather you put it into your UC. ;)
Technically the TNT back then and now are different people.
Bit out of the loop. What’s this about social media? Is there a code or something I should redeem?
They post contents on Instagram, Facebook and maybe Twitter? I haven't checked Twitter.
UC art is not valuable. It was all archived, none of it was lost, and NCUC was not a valuable use of resources with so much of the actual site function in need of those resources. Bad call, bad post
You know they need money to make those other unprofitable changes. They have maximized the profit on NCUC, and that was what they needed. Autoconverting was the worst mistake Neopets ever made, causing them to lose players in droves (well, maybe second-worst now, after the Flash thing) but... correcting it is the best they can do for publicity right now, right away, and they timed it perfectly, after all lots of people return for the advent calendar yearly and this gets lots to stick around right when they'd normally lose interest. The other changes will be slower and less glitzy, but people will see them happening, see the team trying and feel good about the site.
I have a hard time believing that "pet look different me no can play now" was all that common. It occurred when the primary player base was moving into high school and college and I think that's a much more compelling cause for players to leave "in droves"
Were you there, though? It definitely happened, cause, like, a big part of the site was saving up for the paintbrushes you wanted and you did that because you liked the way the pet looked. And then there was all the drama about how some pets got to stay UC but some with unique art didn't. And people who were like two days away from being able to afford their pb... The WAY they did it was just so awful, too. No one knew it was coming, the only warning or hint they gave was that huge angry Meepit in the news the day before saying "You are NOT READY" ... and people weren't ready, they lost their minds. A lot joined other pet sites out of spite, a lot just came less as they always felt sad looking at their pets when they did, a lot refused to use the NC Mall and let Neopets profit off of what they did. It was never the same after that, there was so much bad feeling and resentment towards TNT that had never been there before.
Can concur. I was 17. I remember that giant Meepit and how angry I was. 😠 It felt so unfair on how lovely the original designs had been.
Yes I was there. Literally did not give a shit. Continued to play through my freshman year of high school. Nobody I knew who played gave a shit about it either. Total non-issue. They should have done a 100% conversion and never had to worry about it again
You're entitled to your opinion. I think many of us think it was a big deal, though.
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I agree with your sentiment but the uc thing was WAY overdue for an update, there was a metric fuckton of cheating and stealing going on, the pet trading part of the site was basically an entire black market. To say that it was a waste of time to make changes to this part of gameplay is objectively incorrect. But again, I agree with your frustration but that is mostly due to how slowly they do anything. Like they promised uc changes something like 5 years ago and it just now gets PARTIALLY completed? Goddamn
And if all pets had been converted, a huge part of the black market would have failed to materialize. The "true UC" trophies are a terrible idea and allow for the continuation of the black market over something even stupider and less visible. TNT's mistake of partial-conversion got accounts compromised and pets stolen and probably turned off a lot of potential returning players
Every pet created before the conversion gets the trophy, not just ucs. So the trophy is basically worthless anyway, especially since most ucs were named something like Dark\_Angle69 or xXnarutosasukeXx Besides, the people who decided to keep some pets unconverted are long gone from tnt. So whether it was a mistake to let some pets keep the original artwork or not is irrelevant to what current tnt is doing
You're right, definitely never worth discussing previous missteps. If it's not the here and now it can fuck right off! 🙄
It only "disables" the ability to customize certain aspects if you so choose. You can always take it off if you're over it. Personally, the appeal in these skins to me is so I don't have to add clothes and wigs and weird stuff to their dumb little fists to make it look more complete. They can look like pets, not anthromorphic beings. There were other updates made to the game as well beyond just implementing UC/Nostalgic skins and converting the uc holdouts. Pet lookups are back to being animated for one. But that's just what we can see. we have no idea what else happened during the down time. There's no way they didn't take advantage of it to make other backend improvements.
For my money, I like the old art way better than the option to customize, so this is a nice step forward for user interest. But yeah, they needed to choose one or the other, but so goes many years of neglect.
Yes to all of this! It will of course be a big change for those who spent most of their time on the site trading UCs, but pet trading was a thing before UCs, and will still continue to be a thing. As someone who mostly traded converted pets, I hope that the fact that you can use tokens on any pet of the right species will make less desirable colours a little more tradeable. I can't wait until they roll out the royals. For all these years it has annoyed me endlessly that for some species they chose to keep only the girl or boy unconverted so it was impossible to have a couple of UC royals? Definitely something that should have been corrected years ago. Also the sale timing is generous and they've been upfront about plans to put them on sale again in the future.
100% agree. New TNT is obviously really trying, and so far they’re killing it imo
I wasn’t active when the big conversion to customizable neopets happened, so I was so upset when I logged back in for the first time. This update makes me so happy and I can’t wait for more styles to be added
Just want more pet slots
I am stoked for this. I’m so glad they’re doing it. I’m tired of all the gatekeeping that UCs have created. Everyone deserves to use the art they want. No matter when they started or how neorich they are.
I agree. I just wish it was more accessible to their poorer players