News for September 8 & 9

[Meer]

I hope it's okay I posted the news. I've never posted the news before. But it wasn't posted and I really wanted to comment on it. So.... I'm just posting it myself.

8th and 9th September - Draik Day (Early)

* To start off draik Day in style, Draiks can now be transformed into Pirate and Split versions.



* This week's Neoadventure Spotlight goes to xandurh for The Chocolate Ball Challenge.

"An invitation to the Annual Chocolate Ball has arrived in the mail for your sister Lisara! You turn the gold-foil envelope over in your hands and check the mail box again. Surely you'd earned an invitation this year... "

* If your Neopet is happy with their current colour maybe they would enjoy one of these new plushies from the Plushie Palace.



* For your reading enjoyment the Poetry Gallery presents... Draik Poems.

* The newest issue of the Neopian Times has been released! Keep your eyes open for great stories and adventures like The Faerie's Revenge and 5 Simple Ways to Be Unlike Wallace.



* Draiks will be looking quite dapper with these fine new clothes!






And how do you do?

* Draik art is the highlight of our latest Art Gallery!



* Brighten up your Petpage with this Maraquan Draik Tiled Background.



* The next round of the Beauty Contest is about to begin! Head on over and vote for your favourite.

* Kauvara has been busy to have created two new morphing potions that are now on sale in her Shop.



* If you have always wanted an ice draik you should see if you can snag one of these eggs from the Meridell Food Shop.



* Awww what adorable Draik Fun Images!



* The latest videos are out and ready for you to view on Neovision! Why not take a look at some of these great videos like Skooky: The Fangirl or JubJub. Congratulations to the winners!



If you want a chance to have your videos viewed by others on Neopets why not submit them?

* Well done draagul, you have just won this week's Faerie Caves Spotlight award.

* Mmmm... the Chocolate Factory seems to be sending the smell of chocolate all over town.



* Six inch Plushie Acara plushies are wandering into Limited Too Stores! This limited edition plushie comes with an extremely rare virtual prize code.




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OMG! New Draik egg!

I'm kinda disappointed in the clothes though. I've been looking forward to Draik day ever since the revamp and they started releasing species specific clothes on pet days. I was hoping for some really awesome clothes I could get for my draik. The archer outfit is neat, and the socks are funny, but none of it would fit my draik's personality. I was hoping for some shenkuu themed stuff like Hissies got. Oh well. Woot for free training anyway!

[Teelie]

Unfortunately they goofed up the Neopian Times update so we can't read that. I'd love to get the new Draik egg or any egg but they are so hard to get and sell so fast I'm not even going to bother.

[Lee]

Good! I'm going to the mall and I can go to Limited Too! Buahahahahaha!

[B55B55]

Unfortunately they goofed up the Neopian Times update so we can't read that. I'd love to get the new Draik egg or any egg but they are so hard to get and sell so fast I'm not even going to bother.

I'm glad that I'm not crazy for being unable to read the editorial this week. I checked back an embarrassingly large number of times before thinking to come here.

[May]

I really like the new Draik colors they've released, especially the pirate version! The new clothes are pretty spiffy too.

[Byakuya San]

The new NT still isn't up...*le groan*

[Xerophyte]

There's only one thing that matters to me ...
Free Training.

[draconis]

I really like the new Draik colors they've released, especially the pirate version! The new clothes are pretty spiffy too.

I agree! I find myself wondering how the Royal Draik would have turned out pre-revamp, though..

[Meer]

I really like the new Draik colors they've released, especially the pirate version! The new clothes are pretty spiffy too.

I agree! I find myself wondering how the Royal Draik would have turned out pre-revamp, though..

You mean Pirate Draik right?
I agree, I was wondering that myself. Pirates are still made of awesome, but they've lost some of their unique charm since the revamp.

But I'm thrilled to death that I get two whole days of free training, since my BD pet is a Draik.

[Teelie]

The new NT still isn't up...*le groan*

Probably won't be until sometime around 10 minutes to Wednesday NST at the speed they're going these days.

[bettywales]

Thanks for posting, Meer! I'm just back from a weekend at the lake, and left too early to put up Friday's news. You did great!

[Alex]

That Pirate Draik?

I WANT.

[Unitylejean]

The second clothing set gives me Little Red Riding Hood vibes.

And the pirate draik is made of win. The clothes are similar to tjose on a pirate peophin - the coat and the hat. Which is good, because I own a peophin and am going to own a draik, so they would be a perfect match. I was going to paint them royal, but now I have to seriously reconsider that decision

[beanmommy]

The new NT still isn't up...*le groan*

Probably won't be until sometime around 10 minutes to Wednesday NST at the speed they're going these days.

It's up now! <-- reading glasses

[Byakuya San]

I particularly enjoyed this response:

Hi TNT, would you possibly be able to explain the process that you follow to create a plot and the amount of work a single plot represents? I am sick of people complaining because they haven't received prizes and saying that you are lazy when you obviously have a lot of work. Thanks for all the hard work you put into making Neopets a great site. ~viking_munchkin
Hrmm... well, it basically starts out with an itty, bitty idea. Someone usually says, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if there was a plot where Meepits took over Faerieland and stole all the faerie magic?" Everyone else says things like, "oh, splendid" and "yes, yes... excellent" and "I serve our Meepit overlords!" Then, *several* meetings are held where the creative team (which consists of dedicated creative folks, but also staff members from all around the office) gets together and fleshes out the story. This takes quite a while. We fill plot holes and generally finish concepting the story outright, as if we were writing a book. From there programmers, writers, and artists enter the fray and work out puzzles, timing, battles, chapter outlines, comic layouts... anything and everything that's included with a full-blown plot. We then schedule everything, which isn't as easy as it sounds. We want to leave enough time for folks to finish bits before we release the next chapter, but we also don't want to wait weeks and weeks for stragglers, so scheduling is a tedious process. We're always changing things, even through the plot -- we may have better ideas come up, or we may have hidden a clue *too* well and have to leave more time for its discovery. (Oops!) When you're dealing with a group the size of y'all, it's hard to lock things down.

And, of course, there's prizes. We hear about this one a lot. Basically, we don't do ANYTHING about prizes until the very end of the plot (or, more commonly, after it's over). There are two major reasons for this. First, we have no way of knowing how well people will do. You guys are waaay too fast, and clever, and we've always had our expectations exceeded for how you'll perform. So in the past, when we've tried to do prizes before the plot was over, we've gotten things all wrong. We end up with points being out of whack, prizes and trophies not being fair, items being too rare or too common, etc. Secondly, we never know how popular certain aspects of the plot will be until we release them. (For example, we had absolutely no idea that the symbols that were assigned to players during the Lost Desert Plot would become so important to the plot-goers. We'd even thought of getting rid of them at one point, but you can imagine how glad we are that we didn't!) So all the inside jokes you see in the prizes are thought up *while* we watch you go through the plot. We take the parts you like the most and we put those toward the prizes. In short, we learned quite a few plots back that we were doing things all wrong and that if we didn't wait and do the prizes *after* the plot was over, they wouldn't be as good or as fair as they could be. So no, we don't "have prizes ready at the beginning" like most people suggest on the boards. And it's not just some simple math to figure out scores and points. We really do wait and troll through scores, retool things, find ways to reward those who went above and beyond, recap what was popular and what worked, and go over feedback before we finally release prizes.

And yes, Altador Cup prizes should be coming any day now. *fingers crossed* We're basically just waiting on one or two finishing bits and we're ready to go.

It explains why the Hannah and the Ice caves prizes were so bad, among other things...