September Livestream: Faerie Edition
On September 4th, 2024, Neopets held a Faerie Edition livestream hosted by TNT Luna. TNT Stone gave updates on the upcoming Faerie Festival. TNT Dom and TNT Sperion discussed the upcoming Faerie Fragments relaunch that will go along the Faerie Festival. TNT Dom held a Q&A based on community submitted questions through Strawpoll. This livestream was announced a week beforehand, on August 27th. You can view a recording of this livestream on YouTube.
Livestream Timecodes
For your convenience, here's the important parts in the recorded live stream and their respective time codes- Introduction [4:45]
- Artwork for Upcoming "The Omelette Faerie" Novel [6:00]
- Interview with TNT Stone (Senior Narrative Designer) [8:50]
- New Faerie Fragments app with TNT Sperion & TNT Dom [21:10]
- TNT Dom's AMA [35:50]
- If you were not TNT Dom, would you choose something different for your alias? [38:20]
- Are there any plans to make the previous art versions of pets into nostalgic pet versions? [39:50]
- Are there any plans to update or overhaul the Altador Cup? [42:00]
- The new waves mechanic in the Battledome is great! Can we expect to see this used after the plot? [46:00]
- Will you ever make the odds of mystery capsules public? [47:00]
- Will the site be updated to a more recent PHP version? [47:50]
- Could you clarify the process for the upcoming pet purge? (Will pets on abandoned accounts be dropped into the pound or deleted so they can be remade?) [50:10]
- Clarifications on pound chat and account freezes [53:30]
Announcements
- The artwork recently featured in the Caption Contest and on social media is by the artist Heather Burns, who illustrated the upcoming Neopets graphic novel called The Omelette Faerie.
- The comic stars a Faerie named Seraphina.
- Every Neopets species is included at least one time in the book.
- The books are available online and where books are sold.
Interview with TNT Stone on the Faerie Festival
- Their alias (TNT Stone) was not related to Neopets, just whenever they played a game they chose “Stone” as their name
- Been with Neopets for three years
- Brought on to be a writer for Faeries Hope, then moved to working on content for the site. Would help with events (narrative) and with wearables (content).
- Now a senior narrative designer, works with TNT Aesop and other writers on the plot and other site events, such as the upcoming Faerie Festival.
- Faerie Festival:
- A semi-annual event to celebrate Neopia, held by the Faeries.
- It has been revamped to have daily Faerie Quests, spinning the wheel of excitement, getting soup from the Soup Faerie, and more.
- Recycling will make another appearance at the Faerie Festival, but it may work differently. TNT Stone said, “it will have a different purpose this year.”
- Jhudora and Illusen will be hosting the Faerie Festival again, but they will be working separately. You will be able to choose your side again.
- Queen Fyora asked Jhudora and Illusen asked them to work separately for a different purpose for this year, rather than working together.
- The Faeries deem it important to still hold the event again this year with the limited time and resources they have.
- Things will not be drastically different, but there will be a new story with new and old faces appearing.
- This is an important event to hold amidst everything going on right now, both in and out of Neopets canon.
- TNT wants to show the community how much work they are putting into Neopets right now.
- Prize shops are the same this year as they were last year. There will be a few new prizes in each shop.
- The “Free the Faeries” NC event will also return.
- Faerie involvement in future events:
- Faeries are integral to Neopia, so future events will have Faeries in it in some form.
- For the Faerie Festival, Jhudora and Illusen will not be the only Faeries to show their faces.
- Go get to know the Faeries of Neopia because they may show up again soon!
- The Soup Faerie has a name. She is “keeping it close to the chest” at the moment, but it will be known soon.
New Faerie Fragments with TNT Sperion & TNT Dom
- TNT Sperion (he/him)
- Chose his alias because he’s been using the same name for 20 years on other games
- Works with the product team, on product direction and design. Anything related to new games and experiences involves his team.
- TNT Dom will be picking Team Jhudora during Faerie Festival this year (since playing the TCG game, the artwork has been growing on him), and TNT Sperion will be picking Team Luxinia (note: not a real option)
- Luxinia plays a large role in the upcoming relaunch of the Faerie Fragments game.
- They are looking to expand the brand of Neopets not just onsite but also for audiences outside of the website, such as through mobile games.
- Faerie’s Hope was removed from the app store/google play store, and is being reworked as Faerie Fragments.
- They are looking to re-release the game with a better gaming experience.
- Faerie Fragments will not keep progress from Faerie’s Hope. There was not a way to keep the data. Additionally, Faerie’s Hope was built in part by some entities that were legacy NetDragon/JumpStart, and they had to rebuild the game in some areas because they did not have access to all the old resources.
- They are designing ways to reward players through NeoPass to receive on Neopets (similar to Tales of Dacardia.)
- The team is working on mobile games because they are looking to expand the Neopets IP and get access to more resources. There is a barrier to entry for new and returning players to start playing a 25-year-old game, but these new experiences are beginner-friendly.
- The game will be available for pre-registration on the App Store and on Google Play on September 24th, 2024, as part of the Faerie Festival celebration.
- The game will be launching in October.
- Depending on the number of users who pre-register, more rewards will be unlocked. More details will be announced when pre-registration opens.
- More details will be released later, after TNT finishes polishing the game
- Several screenshots from Faerie Fragments were shown:
Q&A with TNT Dom
Some things from TNT Dom:
- He is currently weathering a typhoon in Hong Kong
- Was in LA and went to the Neopets warehouse.
- There is a giveaway currently happening on Neopets Instagram where they are giving out some items from the warehouse.
1. If you were not TNT Dom, would you choose something different for your alias? [38:20]
- Dom is short for Dominic.
- He used to use Altador in the discord, but wanted to go for Dom because it feels more personal.
2. Are there any plans to make the previous art versions of pets into nostalgic pet versions? [39:50]
- There are plans to bring back the previous art versions, especially VERY OLD versions.
- Popular pet styles (ie: Faerie, Royal, Grey, Dariagan, etc) will be rotated back.
- Some super old versions (ex: when Bruce was a caricature of British entertainer Bruce Forsyth) may not return for legal reasons.
3. Are there any plans to update or overhaul the Altador Cup? [42:00]
- Day to day game play was “unfulfilling” for some players and too grindy.
- Because of the tradition and the prizes, some people still play on. They did rebalancing but did not have resources to do a full overhaul.
- They want to try to do a big overhaul for next year.
- TNT didn’t have much resources this year to fix all the issues and give it an overhaul, so they’re debating if its worthwhile or if they should build something new from scratch. They would like community feedback
4. The new waves mechanic in the Battledome is great! Can we expect to see this used after the plot? [46:00]
- TNT is experimenting with the plot to see what features can be improved to keep things “fresh and engaging” for the future.
5. Will you ever make the odds of mystery capsules public? It is against the law of many countries to not address this due to the predatory mechanics of gacha (or loot boxes). [47:00]
- TNT is aware of these regulations, and that players should be aware of the odds.
- TNT will be moving toward that direction (as other games have done the same for their loot boxes) to comply with regulations and be more fair.
6. Will the site be updated to a more recent PHP version? Currently, it’s running on PHP 5.4, which is outdated. [47:50]
- Neopets is in a similar situation as other companies are in, where things are on old legacy versions.
- To upgrade things may cause things to “fall apart”
- TNT is upgrading things piece by piece, such as a new login system, new payment system.
- Upgrading PHP is not a high priority item, but TNT sees it as an important task but very time consuming.
7. Could you clarify the process for the upcoming pet purge? (Will pets on abandoned accounts be dropped into the pound or deleted so they can be remade?) [50:10]
- A lot of design is needed to balance the purge criteria, such as how long has the player been inactive for, or whether they’ve been a premium user.
- They need to decide if it will be done over a matter of days, weeks, etc. If they do it too quickly, the site will probably crash.
- A big reason for the purge is to improve the lag onsite as well as free up old pet names.
- There’s a lot of internal and community discussion ongoing to ensure this isn’t a huge mess.
- The names will become available when creating new pets.
- They are trying to determine what to do about potentially creating additional pet slots so users have space for new pets on their accounts.
8. Clarifications on account freezing [53:30]
- There is a lot of discussion in the Pound Chat around recent freezes.
- It is not true that there is a freeze first, ask questions later policy.
- They do not make freezing decisions lightly, all are made on a case-by-case basis.
- Only a handful of accounts have been frozen in the last week or two.
- TNT is investigating claims of accounts that were wrongfully frozen and will update the community as they learn more.
- They are re-evaluating the freezing policy and unfreezing policy.
- They are investigating ways where they will be able to reveal why a user was frozen - but some of these policies are in effect to prevent bad users from being able to gain access to frozen accounts.
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 September 6th at 5PM NST. You can redeem this at the Grundo Warehouse using the codeFAERIESEPTEMBER 
Faerie Petpet Paint Brush
See Details
{{ loadingMessage || 'Loading, one moment please'}}
