SNRK BLG

Heya, I'm called snarkie. In no particular order, I'm a gamer, dress-up enthusiast, FUN-gineer, plushie maker, LA Kings fan, physics lover, awkward introvert, not a proper grown-up... and other stuff I can't remember right now. Visit my webzone at snarkie.com. NOTE: Opinions are my own and are not reflective of employer.

[shencomix]

[shencomix]

For sharing:

Long-ways | Box-ways

[snarkie]

Thank you for your work on Neopets Snarkie! It was me and my sister's favorite game growing up! Sad to see you go, but cheers to growing up!

I’ll never grow up, nyah!

But thanks. ;)

[snarkie]

hi snarkie! are you still associated with neopets at all? do you do any work with them? do you still play? what about the people you met there, are you still friends/in contact?

Noper! Don’t do any work, nor do I still play. Don’t follow along with it at allexcept the few customisation and art blogs I follow here. (I still like seeingwhat people make!)

I talk to a small group of ex-Neostaff every day. We still hangout in a chat room and talk about dumb stuff like how Mr. Insane was tryingreally hard not to see anything at all related to Rogue One before it came outso that he could go into it completely blind. Also, there are a lot of puns in that chat. Like, a lot.

I keep in contact with alot of other people, with varying frequency. We’re all a big family, which ischeesy, but it means that even if we don’t talk to each other in 8 months, itdoesn’t matter. They’re awesome people who are all very supportive of each other. I lovethem all.

[snarkie]

Might be ahead of time but I got really excited when I saw the neopet plushies. Would you be okay with selling the meowclops? I've always looked on eBay but they're a tad expensive

Yup, those are in the “for sale” group! I just… haven’t gotten around to going through everything and organising/pricing them yet. It’s been tedious and I’ve been pretty busy. (Also, I’m lazy so there’s that.)

Hopefully I get to it soon. I feel bad that people have been asking about their favourite plush, and my computer desk has been surrounded by Neopets stuff for over a year.😭

[snarkie]

((SNARKIE I'm sorry to bother you about Neopets stuff because I'm sure you get a lot of Neopets questions but I just wanted to say YOURE AWESOME! I still love Neopets to this day! :D))

❤️ Thank you, you’re swell.

[snarkie]

Seeing you're a huge mass effect fan has made my life complete omg

ANDROMEDA IS COMING! *flails around*

[snarkie]

dear snarkie, do you remember how tchea fruit is supposed to be pronounced?

No idea! We used to say “TCHAY-uh”,the short t sound said with your tongue at the front of your mouth behindyour teeth, instead of a regular “ch” sound with your tongue in the back at theroof of your mouth. Does that even make sense? Like “tsu” in Japanese.

[snarkie]

Where do you work now? I assume your background will get you many offers. Since you were multiple professions on Neo what are/were you applying for? Web developer, game designer, content creator, etc.

I took a year off. Then another few months because we moved toanother state! Now I’m consulting.

I’m not sure what I would pick if I went back to the real world. (I shouldn’t say “real”. Consulting is real! It’s just very different. I wear a lot of hats, just like I did when I was Creative Director, but I don’t have the control. I’m there to give my insights and help guide, not to make decisions.)

I’m certain it would be something creative where I can be hands-on making things that people enjoy. That was my favourite thing at Neopets, besides the people. But I’m not sure if it’d be game design or content creation or story/IP development or… what. Some part of my Creative Director side, though!

Definitely not my tech side! I can still do actual web development/programming work, and have even consulted and done some freelance programming so it’s passable. But I’d say it’s more of a hobby now. I’m not sure anyone should trust my code. I’m pretty far out of practice. 😛

[snarkie]

I hope you don't mind me asking, but are the rumors true that the TNT team didn't like Shoyrus? Is that why they didn't appear at all in The Darkest Faerie video game? Sorry for bothering you!

There were some legal limitations around the Shoyru early on because our lawyer at the time(not Lawyerbot) was concerned about it having been a user-created species. So that *may* have affected it being in something off-site like a video game, but it’s unlikely. The majority of Neopet species weren’t in that game! There was just a limit to the body types/assets that could be made, is all. 🙂

[snarkie]

If there were a lot of unsold/not mass produced plushies, do the old members of TNT still have some? What do you guys do with them?

There weren’t a lot. I think they usually got sent back to the manufacturer, but the head of merchandising kept some of them.

We had a merch closet in the office that we used to raid to givegifts to visitors, or when someone wanted to be a hero for their friend’scousin’s brother who loved Neopets. But that was all released merch. From whatI understand, there was a whole storage space off-premises that housed tonsmore stuff. The rest of it was probably there. Dunno what happened to it. I’mpretty sure it went with the sale, mostly because Viacom wanted to get rid ofit. :P But I don’t think JS wanted it. I think it might have been destroyed.(Because donating it is some sort of licensing concern or something? Don’tquote me. I don’t know how any of that works.)

I don’t have any unreleased stuff. I also regret not buying some of the rarer stuff when I had the chance. Super bummer.

[snarkie]

You've answered a bunch of long-time 'burning questions'... but are there topics you're not allowed to discuss (re: secrets you're not allowed to divulge) since you no longer work at Neopets? I'm talking contractually obligated to keep quiet, not just morally obligated.

Nope! Haven’t signed a thing.

[snarkie]

There was rumor that TNT kept a Neopian Canon bible, and between that and Jellyneo you all wrote the lore of Neopia. Does Jumpstaff have the bible now? I'm just concerned about the quality of the writing from here on out.

Two bibles. One for the world and one for the site. That duality of the brand – site vs world – was a hard thing to explain to people. The world lore didn’t have humans, Neopets tookcare of themselves, Neopia Central didn’t actually have a movie theatre in it,things like that. The site bible explained human involvement, who TNT was,which parts of the site were canon, etc. The upkeep on them was REALLY tough,though, so they weren’t very up-to-date. (That’s kind of what the Creative team was, collectively: Living Brand Bibles.)

But… I did have to condense them both, over 260+ pages, downto a “bite-size” 40-page PowerPoint to try and explain the brand to potentialbuyers when it was up for sale. I give you page 10:

How about page 22?

Good times.

Anyway, that would have been the most recent versionof a brand bible that existed when I left.

Does JumpStart have them? They bought all assets (code, art, documentation, etc.) and the servers those assets werestored on. *nod*

I’m not sure what you meanby Jellyneo writing lore? They never made any content for Neopets. Unless youjust mean they recorded the lore in one place for people to see? Then yeah, fansites had goodrepositories. TDN, SunnyNeo. Great sites. Even we used those sites all the time to lookstuff up.

[snarkie]

Hi Snarkie! Why was the active Neopets user counter removed from the website? Is it because of the dwindling userbase or did it take up too much server resources? Please let us know.

I don’t remember this, so I assume it was done after I left? In which case, I have no idea. :( Both your guesses sound plausible, though!

[snarkie]

dancinghare replied to your post: Have you ever been to the Harry Potter theme...

Nonsense I remember you wizard dueling to decide your house!

Shhh... we’re not supposed to talk about that bit.

SERIOUSLY, THOUGH. I feel like we fell into our houses pretty well? Not even really attempting to represent each house that first time. I remember you immediately grabbed Hufflepuff, of course. 😉 And I want to say Soupfaerie was Slytherin with no questions asked? And then y’all pegged me as Gryffindor and Viola as Ravenclaw without much debate, too. (I was just fighting it because I preferred Ravenclaw colours.)

But it was so long ago that, to me, we’ve just always been these houses... so maybe I’m just remembering it that way.

Anyway, memorieeeees~~~

[snarkie]

That’s the first of many queued asks that are like a year old that I never answered. It’ll post a few a day.

Sorry I’m so late. 😑 

[snarkie]

Have you ever been to the Harry Potter theme park/do you have any plans to ever go? I got to go shortly after graduating high school and I remember seeing pics of some of the Neo staff dressed up for (one of) the last movies. For a while I wanted to try to use the old Neopets snail mail address to send a genuine, Hogsmeade-postmarked postcard.

Yes! The beau and I went in… 2013, I want to say? Definitely wantto go again for all the new updates!

For the photos, it was probably these? Back before the sale to Nickelodeon, the big bossman of thecompany would take everyone to a movie for Neopets’ birthday every year. Ithappened to coincide with Sorcerer’s Stone the first time (2001), then Chamberof Secrets the next, so it became a tradition of sorts. (Skipped Azkabanbecause that was the summer, but then Goblet of Fire was back to November and,after that, we saw every one courtesy of Nickelodeon, regardless of when it wasreleased.) Those of us with a penchant for dress-up decided early on make thata thing, too. I think this was the first time we dressed up for it!

In short, we would have loved your post card! Although, ifit was after we moved to Nick, we probably wouldn’t have gotten it because thePO Box we had was a nightmare. We missed so much mail. 😥

Fun Fact: I wanted to be Ravenclaw for the colours but wasoutvoted 4 to 1 that first time. They ganged up on me, saying I was obviouslyGryffindor, and I have been ever since.

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Sorry it took me a year to answer you. I’m a jerk.