The Wraith Resurgence

Plot Prize

Today has seen the release of an extra plot prize, the Potion of Healing. This is an extra prize for those who donated additional potions beyond the achievement requirements during the plot. It appears to be a once per battle healer, however it is not currently subject to the Equip One rule that normally applies to healers. It is unclear if this is a glitch or deliberate.


Additionally, there is a glitch with how it is awarded. Hardtotame has been on the Neoboards with an update:

Players who received the Potion of Healing will find two in their inventory. Do not move either item from your inventory until further notice. You can not sell, auction or trade the potions, nor move them to your SDB until this is resolved.

We have sent out a NeoMail with the same instructions. If you have moved it to your SDB/equipped your pet with it, move it back to your inventory and leave it there. If a random event takes it away, you can send in a bug report to get it added back to your account.

We're currently collecting information on exactly how many times you needed to donate in order to qualify for the potion. If you got one, let us know how many potions you donated across the event.

Altador Cup Avatar Changes

Additionally, hardtotame made another announcement about changes to the new team avatars for the Altador Cup. Initially, they were to be removed when the Cup ended, but this has now changed!

Have you read the updated FAQs? You can keep your team avatars after the tournament ends. Next year, if you decide to join a different team, the new avatar will replace the one from this year.

I hope you're enjoying the Altador Cup!

(I have no time to stick around and chat today. We'll talk next time I'm here! Hopefully.)

Additionally, she posted that the animation of the Altador and Faerieland avatars would be fixed so that they looped correctly.

It appears that Neomails are going out informing users if they were eligible for the "A Stickler for Time" achievement that some missed due to a glitch during the plot. This will only apply to those who missed Day 1 of the Fiendish Formations portion (as confirmed by TNT below). If the achievement pushes you up a trophy rank, your trophy will be automatically upgraded and you'll receive the prize you missed. You can also claim your avatar from the achievements page.

For most Neopians, this will likely mean an upgrade to the top trophy tier along with the Wraith Resurgence Stamp.

The Neomail in question:

Good news username,

We have verified that you are eligible for the "A Stickler for Time" achievement in The Wraith Resurgence, as you only missed Day 1 of Fiendish Formations. With this achievement, you have made it to the next trophy level. Accordingly, we are updating your trophy and adding an extra prize to your inventory.

We hope you like them!

The Neopets Team

We're still on the lookout for people who have completed the following # of achievements during the plot:

• 28 achievements (please confirm if you were Slick Psychic or Vapid Volunteer)
• 14-15 achievements (please confirm if you were Vapid Volunteer or Frivolous Fresher)

If you completed 28, 14, or 15 achievements (you can count them on the achievements page), please post in the comments on this post or send a report to let us know so we may update our guide!

UPDATE: TNT has posted a long message about who ended up being eligible for the achievement recount. The short version is, only those who missed Day 1 were eligible for the "7 out of 8 days" fix. If you missed Day 2, 3, etc. you were not eligible.

I'm sorry.
There was quite some confusion at office about the 'A Stickler for Time' achievement and what we had done to address that issue.
When I last gave you an update about this, it was common understanding that everything I said to you was accurate. (I verified with my boss before I posted on the boards.)

However, since then, the programmer that worked on it came back and asked us a few questions about the bug reports that started trickling in, which is when we realized that she'd been talking about a different issue all along. She thought the problem we'd been discussing was the bug that unlocked certain days in advance for some of you, and messed with your total count of days completed.

THAT was the bug that she insisted she had fixed way back then, NOT the issue with players who didn't catch group 1 on the day of release.

Now you must be wondering why I said we had fixed the issue by changing the requirements to finishing any 7 out of 8 days on the day of release - this was something that we had discussed in office as a solution way back then, but apparently never implemented.

The confusion came about because she was telling us she had fixed the problem (a different one) but that she couldn't remember exactly how, and another member on the team (who, like most of us, thought we were ALL discussing 'A Stickler for Time') said 'I remember this. The fix was that we changed the criteria to 7/8 days.' Somehow she didn't catch that, and therefore didn't correct him - but those of us that heard him all thought that was the explanation.

After we realized our mistake, we ran a script yesterday to update the achievement for those who completed 7 out of 8 days, with one additional criteria – the day you missed had to be Day 1. We think this is better than just handing it out to everyone that missed any 1 of the 8 days. This is the final decision on this matter.

I'm genuinely sorry about the inaccuracy of my previous post on this topic. I was truly mortified when I realized that I had given you the wrong information. In all honesty, I wanted to just keep mum about it and pretend like nothing was wrong, but it was pretty obvious that the NeoMails that were being sent out yesterday were very different from what I had told you would be happening with this achievement. I'm here to apologize and to request that you don't let this prevent you from trusting in me as a reliable source of information here on.

Neopets team member hardtotame has posted a couple of new messages this morning on the Site Events Neoboard.

Wraith Resurgence
First, she addressed last week's message about the Stickler for Time achievement:

The Stickler for Time achievement: The unexpected change from tradition in the release time of Fiendish Formations and the duration of Day 1 made it difficult for a lot of users to qualify for this achievement. Realizing this, we relaxed the requirement for this achievement while it was awarded. Users that only missed Day 1 of Fiendish Formations should have received this achievement.

(In fact, anyone that completed 7 of the 8 levels on the day of release should have received this achievement.) With this in mind, we will not be changing the requirement for the top tier prizes and trophy for TWR.
If you feel that you should have received 'Stickler for Time' but didn't, you can write in to support and we will review your achievements.

Reward for the 'most generous donors' at the Infirmary: We had a word with Taelia and it appears that she's been taking her time with this, but hasn't forgotten. We did ask her to speed it up, so you can expect to hear from her some time soon.

This was not a recent change, it was done way back when the 'Stickler for Time' achievement was awarded. To clarify, if you don't have this achievement but believe you are eligible for it, you can write to us - if you are found eligible and you also have all other achievements, you will qualify for the top tier trophy and prizes as well.

In other words, she is saying that the requirements of Stickler for Time were only ever completing 7 of the 8 days of Fiendish Formations within 24 hours of release, rather than the full 8 the achievement stated. If you managed to do 7 days within 24 hours of release and didn't get the achievement, she advises you submit a ticket via the new email support system.

Daily Dare
She also posted a different board for those who have yet to be awarded the slushie final prize from the Daily Dare:

This is overdue, sorry about that. The plan was to identify a pattern in the users that have reported missing slushies, and award it to them through a script. However, we have not been able to identify a pattern here, so you can just respond to this thread if you've been affected, and we will award it to you.

Please do not respond here if you want to talk about something else, and I shouldn't have to say this but I'll say it anyway – If you are found to be reporting a missing Daily Dare Slushie while you actually received one, you will have to face the wrath of TNT! *Muhahahaha*

You may have gotten a Slushie already if you submitted a ticket, but if you didn't, you can post on the board and they will go through and award them. As hardtotame stated, only post on that board if you genuinely did not get a Slushie prize. They will be checking.

The staff member that posted many updates on the neoboards last week, hardtotame, has been back at it early this morning with more updates on multiple boards.

Battledome Updates
First, on the Battledome board, she has given an update on the progress of BD fixes:

A lot of you have been asking for updates about the Battledome fixes, and for an update on DoN.

DoN - This is easy to answer. We want to fix the Battledome first.

Battledome fixes - *sigh* Okay, so here's what's happening. We took a look at the results of the survey, and we made a list of things that we need to focus on. Our senior-most programmer is the one that's working on it. He's also the one that gets called in every time there's something 'big' that needs to be done. With the current situation we're in (having to optimize the entire website for mobile, looking for solutions to features that currently work on Flash, etc), that's fairly often. Which means, he has to put the fixes on hold and help us with solutions to these other issues, that come with grave consequences if they're ignored. So, he's on one such break right now, and he will return to the Battledome once he's done with his current task. For these reasons, it's very difficult to give you a timeline that we can be sure we'll stick to, but we can tell you that you ARE on our list of priorities, and we're working on it (just not at the moment, unfortunately).

Wraith Resurgence Prizes
Over on the Site Events board, she gave additional updates about the plot:

We haven't finished running the script for this, so if you haven't received your trophies or prizes yet, don't worry - it's coming!

I see a lot of concerns about some of the tiers and prizes (the ones that stand out to us are the users who missed the top tier by the 'Stickler for Time' achievement, and the users who donated a large number of potions in hope of a better prize).

We need some time, but we will be looking into these concerns and seeing what we can do about them. You can expect to hear from me again in a week's time about this (if they haven't been addressed already by then).

She later stated that there may be scope to changing the plot prize requirements to exclude those who missed the Stickler For Time (Fiendish Formations on day of release) achievement:

RE: Time-specific achievements affecting trophy tiers
We're sorry that you had to miss out on certain parts of the plot, but apart from 'Stickler for Time', we will not be reconsidering the tiers for this plot. Good point about the prize shop vs. prize tiers systems - awarding plot points takes a lot more planning and effort, and we did not feel ready for it with TWR.

And posted that those who suffered glitches with plot steps may have their issues looked into:

@lokiloku
If you got a response to it just hours ago, it will be looked into. I see another user that has reported the same bug in the bug report we got today. Again, this will take a while as we're still just awarding trophies right now, but it will be looked into.

She also made a general board asking for opinions on whether some of the plot weapons that were given out should have their icons reduced:

I have read a few arguments for and against nerfing plot weapons.

In the past, I have advocated for certain things because a few people were vocal about it on the boards, only to realize after it was implemented that there was another side to the argument that we hadn't considered, that you brought up after it was too late to change. I don't want to make that mistake again, so please voice your opinion here so that we can consider both sides of the argument before making a decision.

Item Fixes
And finally, she gave updates on item fixes (of which many have already been fixed!):

RE: Item fixes in general
I understand you want us to focus more on fixing things that are broken. Accordingly, we're making this a priority, and we plan to give you weekly updates about what we've fixed that week. We're thinking of doing this in the editorial. What do you say?

The prizes for the Wraith Resurgence are finally being handed out!

We're currently collecting as many details as we can. The prizes are being delivered by Neomail, so sit back and wait while the script runs.

If you received your prizes, we are currently on the lookout for people who have completed the following # of achievements:

• 28 achievements (please confirm if you were Slick Psychic or Vapid Volunteer)
• 13-15 achievements (please confirm if you were Vapid Volunteer or Frivolous Fresher)

Please also confirm (1) what items/avatars you received and (2) what trophy you received (name).

There is also a finale video for you to watch, which gives you a little more information on the plot's story.