World of Neopia

[Teelie]

I definitely want them to fix what's broken before they move onto something as time consuming as this is likely to be. If they can't get basics of the system to work (the pound being the most (in)famous example), how do they expect to get this running?

[fructy]

I definitely want them to fix what's broken before they move onto something as time consuming as this is likely to be. If they can't get basics of the system to work (the pound being the most (in)famous example), how do they expect to get this running?

I don't think that this World of Neopia is something that's being made Neopets self. Don't they usually outsource stuff like this, like they do with 3D games too?
Meaning, not doing World of Neopia might not inable them to spend more time on fixing the main site.

[Rakumel]

Huh...well, it certainly looks interesting, but without knowing how it plays, I'm going to have to be on the fence about this too. I also hope they don't stick with the name "World of Neopia" - even if there were no such thing as World of Warcraft, it's just kind of bland and uninteresting.

[smudgeoffudge]

I really hope that they will allow us to transfer our current pets over into the new world. That is, if you already have the perfect pet and the perfect name, you should own that pet and name. If they make a new world, and all names are open, then people will rush to get the good names, or even "steal" the names of the popular people on neopets. That would be so unfair. I mean, if you own a certain purple shoyru that happens to be very strong and has a unique name, then you should own that. So if they make a new world, someone else shouldn't be able to beat you to creating what is essentially your pet!

It would be too confusing to have like a Neopets classic and then a new version and then have two different sets of pets with the same names running around.

I hope they consider this. Wouldn't you be upset if someone made a pet on the new world and it looked like yours and they made it have the same color and the same name?

[Teelie]

I definitely want them to fix what's broken before they move onto something as time consuming as this is likely to be. If they can't get basics of the system to work (the pound being the most (in)famous example), how do they expect to get this running?

I don't think that this World of Neopia is something that's being made Neopets self. Don't they usually outsource stuff like this, like they do with 3D games too?
Meaning, not doing World of Neopia might not inable them to spend more time on fixing the main site.

If they can outsource the new game, why can't they outsource someone to help fix the coding?

[eilu]

new code usually breaks old code, or patching something breaks something else... like windows SP's and patches
but yes, they still ought to knuckle down and fix the code. and this world thingy should be in addition to what they already have rather than replace it, although implementation may be a bit tricky... I wonder if they do focus groups and actually ask the users on these things, isn't that a standard thing for businesses to do before they roll out products?

I like the site as it is, as I'm not much for interaction (I get that from here )

Anyone care to ask the NT editorial about this?

[Lee]

Anyone care to ask the NT editorial about this?

Yep, already sent.

[Mxytdvc]

Maybe it's neoquest 3....didn't they say a long time back it'll be flash based?

[smudgeoffudge]

http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/0 ... rld-2.html

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story? ... 812&page=1

http://promomagazine.com/news/nick_netw ... ebob_0407/

Actually, google news works rather well for finding stuff out.
There are more articles than I can list:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=w ... earch+News
Is this the same article everyone is referring to? Or a new one? I like all the kau dung about how they realize that some people are 26 and some people are children.

"These are all very different people that come together as a part of the same community," said Reppen. "It should be impossible to satisfy all three of them with the same site, but virtual worlds do the impossible by giving users the ability to use the world as they want to."

Really...

If we are already using the game like we want to, why mess with a good thing? The new world might mess it up. Instead of empowering people, it might run quite a bit of people away. And what if I don't want to socialize? What if I'd rather not "walk my pet around neopia?" Sure, it could grow on me. It could also be a disaster. I already get accosted by New Member on another game I play. Now I can imagine "Oh, you have this..you have that..how did you get it? Free stuff plz...I'm poor..your rich..so you can afford to give me something. Be my friend...plz!" Then you are constantly trying to run away. Running away a top speed is supposed to mean no, but apparently New Member don't get that.

I mean...do they really care about their older players? I don't think so, but who knows, maybe I will like this. I didn't think I'd like customisation, but I've grown to like it.

[averly]

http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/04/virtual-world-2.html

*sigh* I keep hoping I'll scroll up and see an April 1st date on that article. I keep getting mental images of Neopets in a SIMS world now. Not to say it might not be cool, but thinking of how irritating the glitches we have now are, imagine them in a more graphically intense set up! I think if Neopets could prove it to us that they could make this run smoothly without any major hiccups I'd be on board to try it out. It could make for some awesome new games!

I think I'd love to know how much intelligence Neopets built into their website and who they consider their target audience to be. Nowadays, there's software that can track exactly where you click and what you do. While its doubtful Neopets has that, I wonder just how much research they really did put into this idea? As a business you can't really fault them for wanting to make more money, that's what they're supposed to do and if they don't they won't be able to survive any longer which would leave us with bigger problems (though the new PPT Arcade is fast becoming a replacement for the neopets games for me already. GAH! The addiction!). But to do that they have to have the customer on their side.

And what if I don't want to socialize? What if I'd rather not "walk my pet around neopia?"

I whole-heartedly agree with that one. I refuse to network my PS3 just because I don't like to be sociable!

[smudgeoffudge]

I like to be sociable sometimes, but I really hope that I don't have to "load a world" just to shop. Imagine going to restock and you get

"Loading world 59 central U.S....50%...please wait"

and it just loads...and loads....

I mean, they obviously can't have 100000 people all trying to walk to a shop.

I sure hope there is a stealth mode, because maybe I don't want to be attacked by New Member.

[Rubywinged]

You just made my dial up cry with the idea of the horrible load time

[smudgeoffudge]

Ok, after picking apart some of the articles, I did find a ray of sunshine in all this...I think...

Well, instead of top banner ads, side ads, and ads ad ads everywhere, maybe they will get rid of some of them. So instead of seeing an ad for something, you can buy it in the virtual world. I still don't know if that will work on neopets though, because I don't know why my pet would want a book on investing money, or a bottle of rozerm sleep tablets...

[eilu]

*cough*second life*cough*

[smudgeoffudge]

Well, I never played second life, but I think have an idea how the immersive advertising works. The items just become a part of the site. While most adult players realize that they are just taking part in a big commercial...if your pet is reading a newspaper...you can at least pretend it is reading a newspaper...

I'd rather have that than the in your face ads we have now.

I don't know how they will do it, because most of the ads I see are for products a little too mature for neopets. Things like the cinnimon toast crunch and a few items like that that I see currently on the side ads, could easily make the transfer, but what about things like "Go to college online at the university of Phoenix?" I don't think that would translate seamlessly with the neopet world, it would stick out like a sore thumb.