Your jnAccount: Monthly Neopets AMAs with TNT
August 1, 2024
The August 2024 AMA took place at 5pm NST on August 1, 2024.
There was no July 2024 AMA, likely due to the timing of SDCC 2024 at the end of July. It is unknown if there will be a second August AMA towards the end of the month!
The AMA was first announced on July 23, about nine days in advance.
This AMA was dubbed "The Altador Cup Edition" and featured Neopets CEO Dom Law as usual. In addition, TNT Jewel attended to discuss Tales of Dacardia and the Altador Cup, which began the day before. TNT Fallie also joined to discuss various topics. TNT Luna returned as host for a third consecutive month.
Questions could be submitted in advance through a Neoboard post by TNT Luna.
How to Watch
The AMA was simulcasted on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter/X, and Twitch. It remains available for viewing on the first three of these platforms:
Rewatch on YouTube »
Rewatch on Facebook »
Rewatch on Twitter/X »
Rare Item Code
At the end of the livestream, Luna shared the code YOOYUAUGUST, redeemable at Grundo Warehouse until August 3rd at 5pm NST.
Recap
Luna started by playing a short trailer from G Fuel.
You can watch the full trailer in this Instagram Reel!
She described her love for the new Golden Berry G Fuel Tub.
Questions for TNT Jewel
Luna then brought out TNT Jewel to discuss the Altador Cup and Tales of Dacardia.
Introduction?
- Narrative Designer for Tales of Dacardia.
- Excited that Dacardia is now finally participating in the Altador Cup!
Share some backstory about Dacardia?
- "Newly rediscovered land of Neopia."
- Getting back on its feet after recovering from a storm.
- Sending their team to the Altador Cup as part of their recovery.
How many signed up for Dacardia?
- Doesn't know the exact number, but it was very popular.
Backstory on the team members?
- Tyrra Tamina: Captain. Kougra. Kept her team from going to the AC last year because she injured her leg tripping over a Crabby-bot.
- Magnus Byte: Defender. Grarrl. "Has a taste for Yooyuball equipment."
- Jarek "The Rock": Goalie. Chia. Loud and emotional.
- Camila Cardenas: Forward. Eyrie. Perfectionist and hardworking.
- Ruffaele "Rowdy" Roo: Forward. Gelert. Sensitive about being teased about his last name.
Note that if you are playing on Team Dacardia in this year's Altador Cup, TNT have mistakenly switched the positions of Tyrra and Jarek on the stats panel. The above explanations are correct!
Talk about the staff tournament?
- Jewel is a new participant this year!
- Luna said she wasn't very good at Slushie Slinger.
Anything else to look forward to this year in the Altador Cup?
- There have been rumors about "strange goings-on" at the Cup!
Any tie-ins between Tales of Dacardia and the Altador Cup?
- No tie-ins on the main site.
- Tales of Dacardia does have an Altador Cup themed quest line, with a second quest line coming on Monday, August 5th.
- Will also be adding a new way to earn pearly neggs involving Crabby-bots.
- Users who have connected their NeoPass accounts will be able to collect exclusive items on the main site.
When will there be new quests for Tales of Dacardia?
- "Mid to late fall, possibly early winter."
- Will be releasing smaller quests in the meantime.
Giveaway
Luna then held a giveaway to win an SDCC exclusive code. Viewers could enter by commenting what conventions or in-person events they would like to see TNT attend. The winners were:
- Bsu from YouTube: NYCC
- Lyss Báthory from Facebook: Fan Expo Denver
- MeganAnnBB19 from Twitch: SDCC and Palm Springs Comic Con
Questions for TNT Fallie
Luna then brought out TNT Fallie to discuss the Altador Cup.
What is a table top roleplaying game (TTRPG)?
- Fallie started by sharing a trailer for the game.
- Players engage in a "spoken roleplaying experience." Dungeons and Dragons is the most famous example.
- The Neopets TTRPG will feature all 55 species and can involve exploring, helping characters, "get up to mischief," follow a profession, collect craft items, and more!
- Includes a pacifist system rather than exclusively focus on combat.
You can watch the full trailer here!
What does it mean for someone to back the project on Kickstarter?
- Kickstarter is an international crowdfunding platform.
- The Neopets TTRPG Kickstarter got over 100% funding in less than six days!
- Currently has over 300% funding.
What are the stretch goals?
- Stretch goals are additional goals once a project has been 100% funded to earn additional support.
- Additional content, additional merch, additional stories.
- Full information is on the Kickstarter page.
- Target release is July 2025.
Updates on the Neopets e-Shop?
- Just relaunched.
- Code
NEOSHOPis good for 10% off through August 15th. - Luna wanted "This place is a freakshow" merch but the idea was not accepted.
- Want to have community art represented on merch in the future.
Questions for TNT Dom
Luna and Fallie then brought out TNT Dom a bit early so they could discuss SDCC 2024!
Thoughts on exclusive plushies?
- Dom comes right out the gate assuring those who were upset about missing out on the exclusive Aisha Plushie and Shoyru Plushie that there will be a "whole line" available in retail stores later.
- Exclusive ones are "slightly different" but similar.
How was SDCC?
- Had a bigger, higher quality booth that represents the revitalization of Neopets.
- Had lots of opportunities for brand activation with fans.
- Also professional networking opportunities were leveraged by TNT for merch and marketing.
Tell us about Gen Con?
- Today was day 1 of Gen Con.
- Neopets itself does not have its own booth, but Upper Deck is attending to promote the new Neopets TCG. Several TNTers, including TNT Dom, are in attendance.
- Neopets TCG tournament is being hosted!
Any other conventions this year?
- Fan Expo Canada will be later this month in Toronto. This is TNT's first Canadian appearance in a long time!
Talk about today's server issues?
- Team has already resolved most of the problems, and continuing to work on fixing the issue for remaining affected players.
- Plan to share details of what happened and what they will do to make sure it won't happen again.
Luna and Fallie then transitioned to ask community questions collected from Luna's Neoboard.
Any fixes for Battledome prize issues and item stealing bugs?
- Acknowledges that some expected prizes are not being awarded. "We will be updating the prize pool very soon."
- Will fix item stealing mechanics "as the plot progresses...won't be overnight."
Would you all consider allowing the user base to come up with a list of what needs to be fixed?
- Always want to listen and collect feedback from the community.
- Already have over 100 items planned to fix, but limited by their smaller team.
- Hope to expand the development team.
- Community Ambassador program has been helpful for collecting feedback to prioritize their large backlog of fixes.
Are there plans to bring back previous art versions of pets as nostalgic pet styles? And will any pet style tokens that have been for sale return back for sale?
- Will definitely rotate all colours back in.
- Also want to expand previous colours to apply to all 55 pets, even if they did not have that colour before customisation.
Many users have expressed concerns about the recent release of the NC tiered backgrounds, some of which have higher prices. Meanwhile, the customisation process is still laggy and buggy. What is being done to improve the experience?
- Price increases are part of a broader effort to update the entire site. TNT has never changed their Mall pricing in its 17 years, so the tiered prices for more complex items was chosen.
- The tiering should help both users to understand the variety of items, and for artists to understand the expectation of effort.
- TNT has decided to insource all of their NC artwork. They now have a team of six, all in North America. In previous years, it was outsourced all throughout the world.
- Agrees that the Neopets customisation experience is not "up to par" compared to other games both in terms of shopping and application.
- Working on backend fixes to make it less laggy, as well as finishing Flash conversion and addressing layering issues.
- Working closely with DTI on workaround solutions, possibly with direct integration with DTI.
For context, the first tiered backgrounds were released on July 29:
 Summer Day at the Waterfall Background (wearable) 300 NC |
 Dreamy Summer Beach Background (wearable) 500 NC |
 Summer Night at the Waterfall Background (wearable) 500 NC |
When will the promised changes to Premium membership happen?
- Updated scratchcard prize pool went live today.
- As part of 25th anniversary, will have a special "gift bag" for loyal members. This will be monthly starting in August.
What is the longer term plan for games on the site? Quite a few of the games are still broken using Ruffle, and other pages like Kelp do not use Ruffle.
- "We are definitely working hard to keep our games up to date with Ruffle."
- Games that aren't compatible with Ruffle would need to be converted to HTML5, which is frankly not a priority for TNT.
- Some new minigames will be introduced as part of the plot. (Dom mentions that sometimes creating something new is easier than converting something old.)
Will you utilize the Hidden Tower more for stamps and collectables? Rather than relying completely on Quest Log?
- "Something we're looking into."
- Not a current top priority, but maybe in the future.
Could you please increase the frequency of new stamp releases for old albums and release their respective avatars?
- "Old albums are not forgotten."
- Exploring ways to increase the frequency of new stamp releases.
- Wants stamp collecting to be "fair and fun."
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