Misadventures in Neopia @snowberrytea - Tumblr Blog

reputayswift

In the 2000s you sat a kid in front of a Neopets pet page and they’d learn the fundamentals of html within the hour

danatdf

THE FUCKING NEOPETS TEAM BASICALLY MADE SAM AND DEAN INTO NEOPETS I CANT BREATHE

heckyeahponyscans

how are neopets users so funny

shoomlah

Oh gosh, if you're taking questions I have like, a bajillion. The neopets "style" has been pretty loose over the years but... What sort of guidelines did you have to follow? Were there any hard "no"s? Was there a style guide or bible? In terms of design, what were you most proud of? Anything that was rejected that was disappointing to not see come to fruition?? Pardon my excitement!

From my recollection there was no official style guide, which I'm sure is pretty apparent from the art on the site—we'd run things by our art director Anthony/Tigercatcher for feedback, or by Adam or Donna to get their stamp of approval, but otherwise it was relatively lawless. It is fun to be able to look back at the old art and immediately tell who drew it, though!

A couple memorable anecdotes:

There was this brief phase in the early years where we had anthropomorphized neopets, but we hadn't really standardized how we drew them. They eventually got fingers and fully rendered eyes BUT I do love this transitional period where I just drew a bunch of sexy aishas with nub hands and dot eyes:

At one point there was a moratorium on giving the anthropomorphic characters helix piercings. It had become a kneejerk instinct to just toss a couple hoops onto a character's ear as you were designing them and it got: wildly out of hand

the worst notes were the ones we'd get on the Neopets Magazine covers, hands down. We could have so much fun with the on-site art, but anything public-facing like merch and the magazine were under way more levels of impenetrable scrutiny. The feedback was always to make the smiles BIGGER and B I G G E R

#oh the little hoop earrings. I'm still guilty of that lmao #I love these little peeks behind the scenes so very much

shoomlah

OH DANG they're bringin' back the old UC art over on Neopets!🙌🏼🎉

My last summer working at Neopets was 2007, which was riiiight on the eve of the big conversion—I rarely kept track of my more basic paintbrushes (purple, rainbow, checkered, etc), but I sure as heck kept track of all the PBs I designed that required full redraws:

I do not think I realized until this moment how many ixis I drew, apologies to all other pet species 😔🙏

shoomlah

GOD I forgot I also kinda pre-designed the Gnorbu? We'd occasionally have the entire team churn out ideas for new pets, and some of my designs got looped into the 2005 April Fool's joke:

People liked the llama enough that it got plussed up by Anthony and turned into a proper pet the next year👍🏼

#fae blum is probably still my favorite blum it has such fun energy #also I was never big on grey pets but I still ADORE grey yurble so much #such a sopping wet pathetic beast with its droopy unrolled cinnamon bun ears you just want to give it a hug

rudeboimonster

LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOO

i'm watching the trading post as the fucking price PLUMMETS. 3mil, 2mil, 1.5mil for 2, 650k, 500k. lets fucking go. thank you for the chaos, tnt. this rules.

rudeboimonster

CRY HARDER YOU JERKOFFS (context: this is the neopets boards, there are people complaining about everyone getting what was once a really expensive item is being handed out to everyone, and others laughing along with me)

rudeboimonster

LET THE [PRICES] HIT THE FLOOR LET THE [PRICES] HIT THE FLOOR LET THE [PRICES] HIT THE FLOOR LET THE [PRICES] HIT THE

#I am LIVING FOR THE VIOLENCE lmaoooo

pseudomantis

There are people doing insider trading ,on neopets

pseudomantis

SAP = Seasonal attack pea btw this is the item they're talking about and it's at the center of this entire thing it's a pea with a hat on and you can use it to battle

crimeronan

god i wish i wouldn't have to explain the intricacies of the neopets economy to you guys to give the full context for this but. the new neopets team that took over from jumpstart pledged that they were going to curb the inflation of rare items, which is great because a lot of rare items are worth literally hundreds of millions of neopoints, they are unbuyable unless you've been playing actively for 20 years. they did this earlier with a site festival that included random loot boxes, some of which had Unbelievably Fucking Rare And Precious items worth 200 million neopoints apiece.

well.

today they have gone a step further. by releasing this year's trick-or-treat bags. and having the trick-or-treat bags be stuffed to the brim with unbelievably fucking rare stamps, weapons, paint brushes, defense magic, and other unbuyables. (all prohibitively expensive and in-high-demand types of items.)

jellyneo, the premier neopets website, has recorded prices of some items plummeting from 2,000,000 neopoints to 4,000 neopoints IN THE LAST THREE HOURS. this is when most people haven't even heard about the event or OPENED THEIR BAGS YET.

and of course. cherry on top. 20-year-old account holders are crytyping on the site events neoboard about how mean and cruel it is to make rare stamps part of the prize pool, because their entire identity hinges on being part of the neopian bourgeoisie, and they are having MELTDOWNS over their assets being devalued until they're part of the lowly proletariat.

this is a children's game for children btw.

none of the money is real.

i'm having such a good time.

riftclaw

oh fuck yeah this is the coolest

#my 20+ year old account having ass sitting back and BASKING in the chaos lmfao let the economy die #luv 2 see people being able to afford things

dilfosaur

the neopets economy vs one silly meow meow doing a bit

#I'M LOSING MY MIND LMAO

lvkaitlyn

this is my meal, i call this ✨girl dinner✨

conarcoin

neopets forum posts i reference all the time but nobody gets

conarcoin

here are some more really good neoboards screenshots

hellyesbro

how could you forget

#The Neoboards Incident

wibreth

A summary I saw posted on discord! I did not write this ❤️

ok here's my effort at collating all the high-level updates.

Neopets is now a standalone entity after JS's closure.

New head of said entity is Dominic Law (staff name probably Altador...that's what he goes by in NMC server), who previously headed NMC and saved Neopets through a "management buyout deal"

New TNT has raised $4M from external investors to be used for rebuilding the brand/site.

Plan to incorporate Ruffle to save Flash content. 50(!) games will be returning via Ruffle on July 25th!

Plan to launch new mobile app "World of Neopia", "a social life-simulation game in which you live your ideal Neopian life from the perspective of a Neopet"

Plan to increase communication. "releasing monthly updates, hosting regularly scheduled AMAs, and launch an exciting new brand ambassador program"

New unified home page launching July 20

Plan to relaunch Island Builders

Plan for "a virtual concert"

Plan for a new plot (called "The Void Within" per the youtube video)

Launch 2M NC giveaway, which ends Aug 6

Neopets Metaverse has been cancelled. Some assets will be used for World of Neopia, but world of Neopia will have no crypto/NFT elements. Collectibles continue to exist and can be traded on secondary markets but have no utility.