Neopets Holiday AMA Livestream

On December 13th 2023, Neopets held a special Holiday Edition of their AMA Livestream, hosted by Kevin and featured Neopets CEO, Dom. You can view a recording of this livesteam on YouTube. This page is a summary recap of this livestream.

• November 2023
• December 2023
• January 2024
• February 2024
• March 2024

 

Livestream Timecodes

For your convenience, here's the various guests in the recorded live stream and their respective time codes

• Introduction 9:25 - 17:45
• Q&A with TNT Dom 17:45 - 45:20
• Interview with TNT Aesop 45:20 - 52:30
• Interview with Ben (Dev ambassador, Grundo's Cafe) 52:30 - 1:06:40
• Live Exclusive Code (1:06:55)

 

tl;dr & tl;dw

• Christmas campaign in a Hong Kong mall, being Dom's latest highlight
• New merchandise and new game experiences in 2024 to celebrate Neopets' 25th Anniversary
• Trying to improve policies and TNT is listening to recent feedback and polls
• Be civil and respect other people's different perspectives in discussions
• Seasonal Attack Pea originally released on Day 1, to be more accessible, and possibly useful in the upcoming battledome related plot, and the drop rate was reduced based on community feedback. It was not removed from the prize pool.
• New mechanisms being worked on to prevent botting
• Items will be re-released in the future once proper mechanisms are inplace to prevent botting, to be more accessible, balance the game and deflate item prices
• Neopets still growing and expanding
• NeoPass is being worked on to link accounts, replacing an old login system, and shareing items between accounts
• More details about NeoPass in early 2024 once it's more refined
• "neo_truths" has been helping TNT address and fix various security issues on the site
• Ambassadors have a high standard to collect community feedback based on their expertise in some part of the community
• One of TNT's merchandise licensing agency shutdown an unauthorized project.
• Creating merch is a time consuming process, and also gave a sneak peak of an upcoming plushie
• Fan Art program might be released in January 2024, Neopets will not make a profit off your artwork
• TNT wanting to bring back Neopets into its glory days
• TNT is reviewing various policies and rules

 

Q&A

Recently there was a lot of controversy surrounding the release of the Seasonal Attack Pea (SAP) in Day 1 of Advent Calendar. Could you provide some more context around that?

Dom stated "it's important to remember the common differences between players" and he understand the frustration, and how these are amplified, and recommends "to come together and share our perspectives and support eachother in the collective growth in the Neopets renaissance journey." He also recommend to be more civil, and not promoting hate speech or harassment when sharing perspectives or opinions.

Dom also clarified the SAP was originally added to the Advent Calendar's prize pool with a very low drop chance, to add a heavily requested item (especially during the festive season) and to allow newer users to obtain such a hard to find item. When it was first released, TNT was monitoring the community's feedback and their concerns for a potentially high drop rate (on Day 1). TNT wanted this item to be more accessible and to try out the deflationary mechanisms, to try to balance the game (in terms of Battledome power) and some community members might not know what's coming next. There have been many hints at the upcoming plot involving the Battledome, so this item release might be useful.

Dom also stated he's happy that the community was engaged, and happy many community members were happy for the item's release.

After many of these considerations, TNT did drop the item's rate but did not remove the item from the prize pool, to try to have a better balance of these items in the game. Dom also stated they did receive feedback on different methods to re-release rare items back into the economy.

He also asks for community feedback, advice and suggestions; but you should do it in a civil manner because it can be a lot of pressure for the team, moderators and the ambassadors, since it's hard to anticipate all possible outcomes when something new is done. TNT is trying to balance the game, fighting against bots, improve playability for returning users, and balancing long-term loyal users; which are difficult to do correctly and make everyone happy.

Recently TNT Willow and Tally were let go, what happened?

Obviously, there's a lot of things that Dom cannot mention in public, due to HR reasons, but Dom stated he takes responsibility for Neopets' slower growth to have revenue to pay for staff and grow the company. These tough decisions are never a good timing. Dom also wants to address the rumors of potentially removing US team and only being based in Hong Kong (or globally), but US & Canada still represents more than 60% of their team and a huge player base. TNT is indeed hiring globally, but mostly where "Neopets used to have a big presence."

The only office is in Hong Kong, and everyone else works remotely. TNT is still hiring and expanding, and states you can check their social media or LinkedIn if you are interested.

How do you plan to re-introduce valuable items into the economy?

Dom states there's many good ideas, such as having items in the hidden tower. But there's a huge botting problem on the site, and they're working on new mechanisms to prevent these issues and harder to bot. Once this is done, then more items will be re-introduced once these are addressed in new game play mechanism. A lot of balancing is needed, and a lot of work is required in the backend (SunnyNeo note: potentially in the source code, or database/server infrastructure) and sometimes the fixes are much more difficult than originally anticipated, so many of these items are not released yet.

There is a "wishlist" or "todo list" of items TNT would like to re-release to fight inflation, balance the game, and make things more accessible.

Can we PLEASE have the ability to link our side accounts to our main and transfer NC items within our accounts without using boxes?

Dom states this is a unique problem for having such an old and outdated login system, and returning users are having troubles knowing what they can and cannot do on side accounts without getting frozen. But TNT is working on a new login system called "NeoPass" and has been in development for 4-5 months, since the new leadership take over (one of their higher priorities). They hope to address security issues, potentially getting frozen, etc. TNT aims to release in Q1 2024 (sometime between January to March.)  More details will be provided later, closer to release, to review the technicalities first.

This new system will tie different Neopets experiences together, and being able to share items between your accounts. But they're not sure if they want all items to be instantly available to transfer between accounts when it's rolled out.

What is your stance on the user as "neo_truths" leaking your code and details from your database on Reddit? I thought security was a priority?

Dom states security is one of their top priority and continuing to improve it. Dom also stated he views neo_truths as a whitehat hacker (SunnyNeo note: this is a term for "ethical" security hacker, who may try to identify and report security issues for some system without serious malicious intent.) Dom claims that this person has been providing many suggestions to improve and resolve security risks, but he doesn't always agree with his leaks and "being too transparent" or sometimes may contain misinformation. And obviously doesn't want the user to know what TNT does or doesn't know.

How are ambassadors being held accountable while in their positions to avoid potential abuse?

Dom stated that ambassadors provide two types of feedback: they can gather feedback from the community (to monitor positive and negative sentiments), and to obtain "expert opinions based on their extensive knowledge in a certain category." TNT aims to have a standard for ambassadors and held accountable, based on their expertise they represent in some part of the community. They also hold monthly meetings with the ambassadors, and it's a voluntary job, no financial recognition for their roles. TNT also factors in internal team's opinions and TNT's monitoring of the community for feedback.

TNT is also planning on expanding the ambassador program into new areas, such as pet trading.

Recently a project creating Neopets-inspired plushies was shut down. Are Neopets going after the sales of unlicensed merchandise?

As a company, Neopets needs to protect their intellectual property, and licensees who have exclusive rights to produce merchandise, and these may take time to establish. This project was shutdown by Neopets' licensing agency. Dom also stated that he understands there haven't been a new plushie launch in a while, but these programs take a long time to take place, taking 6 to 9 months to sign up a licensee, identify a manufacturer and having it stocked on shelves.

Dom also shared a latest sample of a plushie that is currently being developed, and they want to have a robust program that has high quality merchandise. It's an Aisha, with a 25th Anniversary design, but it's NOT a finished product. It's just the 10th iteration from the manufacturer.
 

Dom also provided an update on the fan art program, being slightly delayed and possibly launching in January 2024. Dom states this program is to help support the artist community within Neopets. He addressed rumors and stated Neopets will not make a profit off of artists' fan art. Dom also states that digital artwork isn't the same as physical merchandise, which requires licensees, and this fan art program will help the community to contribute their love for Neopets and make a profit. This program would also help licensees identify (and recruit) community members for artwork.
 

Interview with TNT Aesop

• TNT Aesop, the Narrative and Creative Director, has been working at Neopets for about 4 years, starting off as a content intern (with TNT Jade) with the Neopian Times and various creative contests
• Oversees the narratives in Neopia, such as event storylines, character creations, comics (as seen in Advent Calendar), and various copy (from popups to full-blown April Fools)
• Supervises the Faeries' Hope, and working on the plot
• Also helps with various projects with licensees, such as the cook book, and various contests
• Leads the diverse narrative team to tell stories
• Managed the Advent Calendar in the past, but this year TNT Stone has stepped up for this year's Advent Calendar (for comics, prizes and showing heart-warming and diverse stories/comics)
• Cool prizes and coming will be coming up throughout the Advent Calendar
• TNT Miss Rainbow was responsible for this year's Stocking Stufftacular
• Gave an hint about the plot, "it's going to be an interesting plot when it comes to colour" and "the plot will take us to a new place we haven't been before"
• Hints about the plot have been dropped in various events, such as Advent Calendar, to build up to the plot

Exclusive Holiday Code

You can redeem this code at Grundo's Warehouse to receive an unreleased item, until December 16th 11:59 PM. One redemption per player. The code is, HOLIDAYMAGIC