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lol 58k np on SSW

Emphasis on "small" token of our appreciation

yup very small. lol.

Yeah I saw this and was like....okay cool thanks I guess

Some NC reimbursement would've actually been nicer imo

Thanks

l o n g f a r t n o i s e

a free book is a free book but in context this sure is completely missing the mark

& it was very funny (read: pointless) to see a message in my NM talking about "we apologise for lack of explanation!" & then--book, zero explanation

like what does that even explain or provide clarity on LOL

But the book *was* worth 4mil. You know, until they sent it out en masse to people, may of whom (hi) had no idea what the message was about.

I put the book in my SBD with out even knowing I had it. Considering the notification system is rubbish I saw the notice here before I saw it on Neopets. Says a lot about the site.

I guess we thank them for the disrespecting us while we pay then to continue to disrespect us.

"Have you considered getting a job?"

Really ruevian? You aren't even a Premium player lol

Had the book for a second and poof it was gone, unread.

Well.. Compensation is compensation. At least they didn’t completely ignore us, after we thought we’d get it but were denied it..?

I know what I'm about to write sounds like it's going into a satirical punchline, but I'm being serious here: I wonder what lesson TNT will take away from this?

* Will they now plan ahead for all paid passes to be automatically unlocked for Premium Players?
* Will they now have a "Premium Pass" in addition to the Free Pass & Paid Pass?
* Or will both Passes have bonus awards implemented onto them only Premium Players get?

@pikachu315111

The real one: No bonuses for Premium, it was actually a fluke that we got if for the AC cup and for us to compensate TNT for our transgression they will be removing 2 months of premium from subscribers, and if you're no longer premium since then you are in premium debt so next time you subscribe you lose 2 months and if you never plan to subscribe again within a year they will show up to your place of residence and suck 2 months of your real life from your corporeal body.

It's also funny that because I had a Faerieland Employment Agency Employee Handbook in my SDB, the "compensation" has actually caused me to lose several million NP from it's decreased value. Thanks TNT, very cool!

Oh i hadn't thought about those players already having it. That turns very little recompense into negative equity. Well played TNT, well played.

laughing my ayuss off oh my god.

lol. lmao, even.

I *did* get the email but no sign of the book. Hoping it didn't get sotlen via unseen Random Event or that I didn't accidentally donate it via Faerie Festival, which I was finishing up around the time the neomail arrived, but I didn't notice the neomail until 3 hrs after the fact. Also didn't notice the book while donating, but who knows; may've somehow gotten by me... Sent in a ticket to see if they can tell what happened.

What an absolute joke.

I've already canceled my premium and uninstalled both apps, and will be radically scaling back on my Neopets activity moving forward. No more $ to Neopets moving forward. Totally done with their greed, their FOMO tactics and their exploitation of our nostalgia and love of collecting. The Dyeworks thing was the last straw.

For so long I've been disgusted with how blatantly they've been trying to cultivate addictive behavior in users, but my love for this community and my nostalgia for Neopets has kept me active and paying. This has to end. It just has to. Such a predatory company. They've turned what used to be a fun, cute, low stress activity into a stressful, heavy investment (both financially and time-wise) fixation centered around FOMO and gambling.

Yup. I also cancelled premium and refuse to spend any more money on Neopets products. I am sure others will still do so and that’s fine it’s their choice. But this has been an absolute mess and the finger they gave to long time premium paying players was just it for me. I can’t in good conscience keep supporting them when this is how they treat us.

I also think make good is a huge stretch here.

I have the neomail but no book.

Off topic but I am getting an error 403 Forbidden when I try to click on my Dailies link to the Newest Items to look something up here on Jellyneo. It's been doing that for over an hour now

epic wiiiiiin.

If I wasn't meant to get it free why didn't they let me buy it? Also why aren't the NC recharges going through?

Dear TNT, I still canceled your premium from gaslighting. Get better.

I had been considering buying the glimmering pass and then was really excited when I read that it would be included free for premium. Their revoking that was disappointing and caused me to decide to not buy the pass and also made me not want to buy battle passes for future events either. I'm not mad to get the free book but it didn't really do anything to change my mind about not wanting to buy battle passes in the future.

This really sucks. I wanted to have the pass so badly, there are multiple items I am dying to get. But I don't want to give TNT more money and support these kinds of terrible business practices. It was literally a bait and switch and they should have sucked it up, honored what the original FAQ said and changed things going forward. I don't understand why they are choosing this stance, it is TERRIBLE optics for them.

Wait, are TNT telling me to get a job with this book? XD

I pay for membership for the ads and monthly goodies, so I'm not too torn up about not also getting access to the premium pass (I'd certainly not pay for it though, too pricey for my budget). But would it really hurt them to give us some NC from time to time through things like the premium pass? We'd still have to actively work towards unlocking it anyway.

TNT literally just said sorry go get a job, neopians

"make good" poor people that where actually struggling selling the item and now their book value is gone, pretty bad of TNT making atleast a new book sheesh

I'm probably going to cancel my premium after this. I understand they need to make money but they've really overdone it with being greedy lately.

id complain but my premium has been free for 5 months XD

lmfao honestly

I love Neopets, I have felt strongly about supporting the site. I have been excited to see the revitalization of the site and community, so much new merch, new features and approaches - all of this has been exciting to see.

However, TNT has absolutely annihilated any goodwill they had with me through their creepy, shady business practices. And I've looked the other way for a very long time, because I have wanted All The Things. I've wanted those album items, I've wanted the shiny prizes, I've wanted the new cap items, etc. etc. I've paid for premium, I've bought event passes, I bought plot boosters, I've bought NC and Pet Day caps, I've bought tokens and widgets and yadda yadda yadda.

But I've watched how all this has changed my experience of Neopets. I've watched how I've gradually been spending more and more time on grinding out dailies on the site and in both apps, participating in events on the site and in both apps, etc. - all because of FOMO and my desire to fill my album, get the latest customization items, etc.

And it's not fun! None of this garbage is fun. "Donating" items isn't fun! Grinding isn't fun! Reskinned, endlessly rehashed events are not fun! Grinding out the same 700 levels of a match 3 game isn't fun. Farming pearly neggs isn't fun. It's total Ground Hog Day time-wasting, make-work tasks, with prizes, timing and incentives INTENTIONALLY designed to make us feel like if we don't do such-and-such, we're missing out. "Don't you want that stamp? It's been on your wishlist for years!! All you need to do is go into this boring, utterly phoned in app and grind out these tasks every day for a few weeks, and at the end of it, the stamp is all yours!!!"

Hours later, still no book.

Every time there's something good or exciting, TNT find another way to inject uncertainty and anxiety into it. They did this with the quest log, they do this with the events, they do this now with the FF prize shop, they did it with pet day items, they're doing it with every event, they are doing it now with Dyeworks, turning a gamble into an even bigger gamble - an even bigger money sink - while simultaneously making the new colors seem rarer and harder to get .... all of it increasing the sense of FOMO and 'need to have'.

THIS IS TOTALLY INTENTIONAL.

They are finding more and more ways to get us more hooked on the site and apps, spending more and more time with their IP. Integrating everything with each other, so that in order to complete all your tasks you have to be participating in all of their properties - the site, both apps - and increasingly, no doubt, the new companion app.

They churn out a constant tsunami of reskins, gamble caps, MME, style items, etc. with a sense of scarcity to make people feel like they 'gotta catch em all!' The styling chamber used to be a simple 'pick your color with a DSSS, roll the dice with a SSS' and now we have those items, we have prismatics, restyles, style meter, etc. etc. Every chance they get, they inject more chance, extract more cash.

At some point a principled person has to stop, take a look at what's happening, and make ethical choices. But instead, unfortunately we keep rewarding this behavior and being further sucked in by these tactics. I've been among the worst for doing this, I fully acknowledge.

The battle passes are among the worst. I had a detailed analysis of why here a while back and that comment got nuked because I spoke up against TNT apologists. But I think it's important for people to understand WHY these things are widely hated by gamers.

Battle passes are hated because they are predatory, psychologically manipulative, and terrible value for money.

* They take content that would have previously been a free reward for in-game activity, and put it behind a paywall.
* But it's not just a paywall, it's a GRINDWALL too. Because when you pay for the pass, you don't actually get any of the items!! This is the crazy part. You get a chance to GRIND the items out through make-work tasks and engagement in the game.
* And if that wasn't enough, it's also time-limited, so that you aren't even getting a guarantee of those items - you're getting a chance to grind for those items within a limited time window.

It generates FOMO, anxiety, and a sense of obligation, and distorts people's normal in-game behavior so that rather than engaging in the kinds of activities that drew them to the game in the first place, they're doing a bunch of grindy, repetitive daily tasks that they would never have otherwise chosen to do.

So their engagement with the IP no longer resembles the activity or behavior they want to do - that they'd prefer to do - it's channeled down this narrow path of activity that the developers want you doing to pad out their numbers and inflate their marketing stats.

And at the end of the day, you're just paying these scumbags for the privilege of doing stuff you don't want to do - that in fact, you totally hate doing - because of FOMO, a carrot on a string, and a 'chance' to get some big payoff in the end.

This is what Neopets has become.

I invite everyone to do an inventory.

* How much time are you spending on Neopets/Neopets apps?
* How much money are you spending?
* What percentage of that time is spent doing things you genuinely love to do?
* What percentage is spent doing things you genuinely hate to do?
* Are you driven by excitement, or by anxiety? Out of desire to participate or out of fear of missing out on something?
* If the expense is increasing, is the joy increa

* If the expense is increasing, is the joy increasing alongside it? Truthfully?
* Be honest: how is all of this affecting your life outside Neopets? The money spent, the time spent? Is any of it better spent elsewhere?

This is my thought process. Walking away is always an option, and drawing boundaries is healthy - is *important*.

Rather than walking away, I am continuing to participate on Neopets, doing the things I like doing. As an experiment. Things that are free. Things that are fun and diverting. Playing Ice Cream Machine feels quaint after so many months of wasting my time on FF and ToD, but it's FUN. Stepping out of the FOMO is a load off my mind.

I enjoy Halloween, and the advent calendar. These things, I'm looking forward to, even though they're going to be hot garbage for me as a non-premium subscriber who now chooses not to give this unethical company money anymore. It will be weird getting dung after years of getting all the extras paid for with real money, but I prefer that to giving them more money.

And I'm hoping I can maintain some of my joy for Neopets, but if it fades, I'll just walk away after 25 years of daily, uninterrupted participation. And I'll be fine with that.

How you spend your time is how you spend your life. I want to spend mine doing things that bring me joy, or that enrich my life. Not 'whatever all this is'.

I agree with everything neolodgeism said. This game feels more like a Facebook app game these days. Pay to play 100%! It really stinks and it is a baffling choice to me. Neopets users are REALLY loyal, why not reward that loyalty instead of trying to EXPLOIT it? Terrible decisions.....

Thank you neolodgeism for that. Though I don't spend all that much time doing things I don't enjoy on neo (or generally that much time at all) and I don't really care about the financial aspect because I'm very well off irl, I have noticed myself sometimes doing things I don't really enjoy just because they offer a reward that's not actually worth my time. I've never been big on NC items so that part doesn't affect me much, but I'm huge on collecting many different collections of NP items so I get quite FOMO-y whenever a stamp, plushie, tcg, neodeck card, book, gourmet food, etc., is release/rereleased, and I've noticed myself getting somewhat anxious over it. I hate the apps and all things phone related because I'm a desktop player (have been for 25 years and won't ever change that) so the increased piush towards apps is really annoying to me...
I've been a loyal premium user ever since it was introduced but lately I've been doubting that more and more...
I think I will also be cutting back my neo time for a while... Sad.

TNT handled all of this so incredibly poorly and giving out a free “get a job” book because premium users are rightfully upset about them pulling a bait & switch is just rubbing salt in the wound.

I was going to buy the Glitter Pass or whatever they want to call it because I really wanted the doll and stamp. When I tried to purchase it, it would not let me. I checked THEIR OWN FAQ and it said it would be free to premium subscribers. So, I waited. Then the FAQ changed and the The Darkest Faerie Stamp situation happened.

TNT added a new stamp the the paid track… from the Maraqua album. It was the last stamp I needed for that page, but why the heck are we adding inflated stamps from the Maraqua page to the paid track of the FAERIE FESTIVAL?!

Anyway, I decided against giving TNT $11 worth of NC for the pass. The NC is sitting on my account already, so I’ve already given them my money, but I’m not spending it on that!!

500 pages of who gives a dung mote

Neolodgeism took every word out of my mouth. thank you.

people who are upset with modern neo... have u considered playing neo fan clones? *wink*

not naming which ones obviously, but there's enough for you to choose. i was like this too and ever since i played a neo clone my life got so much better lol

so literally why are you here metallica. JN is for neopets, not the fan sites

@neolodgeism appreciate your rant as one of the more recognizable usernames. Look up "en***ttification", that's what's happening to the site in a nutshell. TNT isn't the first and won't be the last.

Or they could have just refunded the NC people spent on the pass :/ like almost 12$ for a r101 item whose value will instantly deteriorate after sending to all premium users, could have picked a 200M+ stamp at this point even that isnt worth 12$ of real money tbqh.

They should have doled out a "We FAQ'd Up" Avatar!

Listen. We are at an important crossroads, TnT.

Do you value your premium members and give them premium tracks with their bonus items like you already were doing or do you seriously peg your loyal base for every ounce you can manage?

If you were to secure features like Premium members getting those paid tracks for free for being active during events I am CERTAIN you would get more customers signed for Premium.


We also want a monthly allowance of 150 NC. That’s enough to do a couple of small features around the site monthly or to save up for something special.

You want consistent players( active around the site and eager to participate in the economy.


This is how it is done. You don’t even have to worry much about resource allotment because it’s all pixels.


Do what’s right.

while the token effort is appreciated, it's really not even the minimum.
they need to proofread and check anything relating to premium or neocash before it gets sent out.
i've been a player in other games with gacha mechanics and when there was an error on a banner or something that incorrectly informed players they would actually refund them. THIS INCLUDED THE FTP PLAYERS. yes, they would have lost some money with that error, but in the long term they likely gained more due to the goodwill and trust of the player base.
if you muck up and do something wrong, it is on you to make it right. they really should never have had that the pass was free for premium if it wasn't. but what would have been right would be to give neocash or the pass.
TNT are doing better with some things (releasing more wearables outside of gacha (although they still should just remove gacha altogether imo (i would spend more money on neo that way)), listening to feedback about events, adding more colours for pet days that aren't just invisible, etc), but yeah. there's still a lot to work on with making it a safe, fun and accessible place for players of all ages. Gambling with real world money (that is what Neocash is and it is arguing semantics to say otherwise) should NOT be in a game you are trying to also market to children. ://///

I agree that honestly( the gâcha aspect should be removed altogether.

But it just occurred to me that if I’m correct.

Every item in Neopia takes data. Data is energy storage. Constant.

This even is cleaning up data. It just gathering the trash from the game and cleaning up the data.

Yes. We should get properly compensated for that( honestly.


But I get it and honor the tradition better.

I think I did a pretty good job of removing as much of the junk data as I could this year on my account. Hopefully that lightens the load.

But taking the time out of my life which is not easy as I try to build my learning center business…

Well I am premium, pay my dues every month and have for months.

We should either get our own premium track for every event or the paid track automatically. I stand ten toes down on this.


Even though this is a game. It’s their lives. And it is our lives.


We should all find a way to be properly compensated for our time.


Because no. Sitting there clicking and clicking and clicking items every day was not by any means fun.

Some people are neeeever satisfied.

@xoxofate: All of your suggestions are SPOT ON. I wish they'd implement them all. Especially 150 NC a month.