NC Pet Styles Edition AMA Livestream
On January 17th 2024, Neopets held a special NC Pet Styles Edition of their AMA Livestream. It is hosted by Kevin and features one of the 2023-2024 Community Ambassadors, Sosu, along with old and new TNT. You can view a recording of this livestream on YouTube. This page is a summary recap of this livestream.
Livestream Timecodes
For your convenience, here's the various guests in the recorded live stream and their respective time codes- Introduction [5:00]
- Interview with TNT Fae and TNT Ivy [7:00]
- Interview with Sosu and TNT Luna [23:00]
- Q&A with TNT Dom [37:20]
- Which UC pets are being released first? [42:50]
- Did a TNT Staff Member give away items equivalent to trillions of Neopoints to some users? [44:15]
- What is the stance on neo_truths? [45:27]
- Are you planning to have more events internationally and change shipping fees? [48:35]
- Is there any chance that stuck pet searching will be restored? [51:20]
- Would you ever consider setting up a legitimate NC trade system? [53:15]
- When will the new TCG card be released? [54:45]
- Live Exclusive Giveaway [57:00]
tl;dr & tl;dw
- Upcoming Fan Art Program to sell your artwork, has some important guidelines to protect players
- Neopets might allow you to become a merchandise licensee if you have a big idea
- UC Pets in the NCMall will be released January 23rd, 2024, more details will be revealed upon launch
- Confirmed faerie, darigan and grey pets for initial launch; more in the future
- Lots of work to ensure consistent art style and revamping old and unreleased UC pet art
- Neopets has had major growth over the past few months
- TNT has been fixing lots of issues
- An outside security consultant firm has been hired to audit the site, resolve security vulnerabilities.
- Working on major performance issues & site lag
- Working on fixing the trade system, and making auctions more trackable for high priced valuable items
- Currently prioritizing fixing the site instead of releasing new content (with respect to trading NC)
- Conducting an internal investigation in regards to TNT Staff member giving out many valuable items
Interview with Sosu (Community Ambassador) & TNT Luna (Community Coordinator)
- Luna is banned from club penguin.
- Fan Art Program spearheaded by TNT Faellie
- A platform to support artists and have Neopian artists be known within the community.
- Let everyone to sell digital art to other players (from previous live stream, TNT Dom mentioned they would not take a commission.)
- As far as when to hear back from TNT after submissions, it is unknown. Over 100 submissions have been sent in so far and there are still 2.5 weeks left to go before the deadline.
- Artwork will be reviewed to prevent AI generated artwork in the program.
- Authorized Sellers:
- Read the guidelines, has key points in application
- Setup a shop, only dedicated to Neopets (due to COPPA law) for everything except for NC Cards, at least 3 listings.
- Your shop would be linked from the site, cannot risk linking to NSFW content from Neopets and potentially children
- Mainly for players on a smaller scale, fan art.
- If you have larger ideas (ie: merchandise) that you want to include other than fandom graphics, you can become a Neopets licensee.
Interview with TNT Fae (Artist/Art Coordinator) & TNT Ivy (Marketing Coordinator, Graphics Designer)
- "Our official launch date of the UC pets is Tuesday of Jan 23rd"; announcement was made prior from when she worked there (2 years+ ago)
- Styling Studio is the official item for it
- Timeline of UC Pets as told by Fae:
- Originally started a couple years ago with a design and talk about it. A lot of initiatives took over and put it on the backburner.
- They dove deeper and made integral changes from the original thought which is why it had taken a long time.
- It has changed and evolved over time since the initial announcement, there are much more UC pets than anticipated.
- Outlines have been improved, and older UC pet art has been improved to match the artstyle and site branding, scrutinizing the artwork to ensure perfection.
- Confirmed faerie, darigan and gray pet styles (for the initial launch)
- There will be new and old UC art in the future
- There might be some unreleased UC pets available
- What is happening to the UC pets that already exist on the site?
- They will be undergoing a change, but they will not be taking them away.
- They will have skins that you can take on and off.
- During this process, all of the UCs will receive a replacement item that relate to their pet.
- Particularly old pets that are UC get a shiny new trophy.
Some previews of different pets with improved art style:
Interview with TNT Dom
- More than 100% increase in active user base and engagement, received a new peak in December.
- Still some issues, such as performance, but upcoming improvements to fix performance.
- A security auditing company has been hired to audit the site for security issues.
- Another pet purge will be coming up in the future.
Q&A
1. Which UC pets are being released first? [42:50]
Survey sent out last year, TNT found an optimal tradeoff and all details about UC pets will be released next week.
From TNT Fae and TNT Ivy's interview, they discussed faerie, darigan and gray pet being available upon launch.
2. Did a TNT Staff Member give away items equivalent to trillions of Neopoints to some users? [44:15]
Most events happened prior to 2022, before the new leadership team. TNT will be having an internal investigation, and there are many logs they will have to go through to understand. They don’t want to have an internal witch hunt with the team.
3. What is the stance on neo_truths? [45:27]
- TNT treating it as a serious matter, many vulnerabilities have been addressed, and an external security auditing team has been hired to review the site.
- Stance being taken is similar to other companies, similar to a bug bounty program, receiving many tips from community members and neo_truths has reported many issues through the tickets.
- TNT has no direct relationship with neo_truths but they have been acting on the various reports (ie: Faerie Festival generating items, SAP reports during advent calendar.)
- Many accounts doing these actions were frozen, based on these reports.
4. Are you planning to have more events internationally and change shipping fees? [48:35]
- South America is the 2nd largest markets, Australia and Brazil in Top 5 along with UK.
- TNT needs to prioritize where they can go for advents, most TNT members are based in North America so it’s more convenient to have events there.
- Experimenting with a new online shop, aiming to be able to ship globally with more affordable shipping costs.
- Expanding the licensing program, to be around the world and not just the US.
- Could take 6 to 9 months for a new product to be developed and released.
5. Is there any chance that stuck pet searching will be restored? [51:20]
- Pets should not be stuck in the pound and they are working on bringing them all forward in the pound.
- More of the highly sought after pet names and such will be available again through a purge, but unknown when that will be.
- Last purge in 2015 or 2016. Need to plan the foundations properly, and is a priority task, additional details will be available in the future.
6. Would you ever consider setting up a legitimate NC trade system? [53:15]
TNT is prioritizing fixing issues with trades, increasing Neopoint limit for trades to be easily trackable, fixing the account freezing policy (to prevent witch hunting in the community), modernizing the trading system. These are higher priority compared to adding new site features.
7. When will the new TCG card be released? [54:45]
- A lot cannot be talked about right now, details still confidential with their partner, Upperdeck.
- Neopets will be attending San Diego Comic Con and Gen Con this summer.
- Finalizing year long plan and more details about the TCG Deck in the future (possibly in a live stream)
Live Giveaway Code
As a reminder, you may only use this on your main account as its only one redemption per player. It will expire January 19th at midnight.
{{ loadingMessage || 'Loading, one moment please'}}
