#now tnt release the attack peas for reals

[whoslaurapalmer]

I saw two posts of you freaking out about high-teir battledome items becoming available last year, and I gotta ask ..have you looked at the current Plot's prize shop?

You can get over 400 points per day, btw

NO FUCKING WAY, THEY ADDED THYORAS TEAR????? FOR REAL????? IN THIS THE YEAR 2024??????????????????????? look it's not even that i'm like, a hardcore battledomer, bc i am not and have never been, although i have been battling a little bit during the plot and it is fun, but like. i have played neopets on and off since, 2001, and, holy mother of fucking mercy, seeing all these items that were like. fabled! lore! legendary!! when i was a kid!!! come back into actual gameplay without having to sell your soul to some hoarder!!!!!!! incredible!!!!!!!!!!

(thyoras tear also felt fantastic and unattainable bc i loved reading the restock machine comic and there was that one about rs having to restock it...........god rosiethorns88 you will always be famous to me for neopets)

i'm SO glad tnt put it in the void shop, when they released it last year as just a random prize during the faerie festival i saw a few people on reddit get lucky and get it, but like. OH IT'S IN MY GRASP NOW. JUST TO HAVE A CUTE SHINY THING although i could actually have a good battle pet, as one does.........that too is attainable...........right now my best items are turned tooth and scroll of knowledge (as a combo) and i was kinda eyeing the thunder sticks too..........

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TELLING ME i hope you are blessed with all the fountain faerie quests your heart desires

[switch]

not sure if anyone's done this but i figured maybe i'd write up a post talking about which BD items in the void within prize pool are most worth it, if anyone's feeling conflicted or not certain:

you should absolutely get these no matter what tier:

wand of the dark faerie, thunder sticks, and thyora's tear. your order of priority could change depending on if you already have a 100% freezer like sleep ray, but i strongly recommend that you try to get all 3 of these at the end of the day if you don't already own them. the odds of any of these being directly powercrept or deflating enough to not wipe out the bank account of your average neopian is extremely unlikely, and there are no alternatives that won't leave you hurting for the real things, regardless of what level of BD pet you're interested in achieving.

you might need this, but be prepared to possibly replace it tier:

grapes of wrath. it's a straight upgrade on average to something like ghostkerbomb, though it deals 1 icon less than varia, but it can also be used more than once unlike varia. if you're lacking in literally any other multi-use weapons that can deal 24 or more icons on average (so, if you didn't get lucky with getting an attack pea), grapes will be an upgrade to what you have. however, if TNT follows through on what they said about wanting to make seasonal attack pea (which is 28 icons) available again after the advent calendar fiasco, plus assuming you get all three of the weapons in the above tier, you might also find yourself not having room for it sooner or later. but if you're hurting for a lot of icons right now, it's not a bad buy at all, assuming a plot weapon doesn't release that also deals 24+ icons.

situational tier:

extra loud techo fanatic megaphone. techo megaphone is good at what it does, which is dealing good damage while defending against air. whether or not you'd ever need this, especially if you have access to feel better soup + are going to get thyora's tear (you should), really really depends. could be a worthwhile pickup if you've got points to burn, but at risk of getting powercrept.

not worth it unless you're a collector:

literally every other BD item in the prize shop. i recommend ignoring everything else unless it's one of the non-HT items and it fits your collection theme somehow. if you want reif or something i’d just save up for a discount at HT.

[multiplekittens]

was looking thruogh the neopets seasonal attack pea insider trading notes and was having difficulty finding an explanation. as someone who used to be REAL into it but hasnt actively played neo in maybe 2-ish years i would love to hear what the hell is going on so much

Happy to oblige!! This is going to be a long post, so I'm putting my answer under the cut

Alright, so I think part of why you're having trouble finding an explanation is that there isn't a definitive answer yet! With that in mind, I'm going to divide this post into a fact-based description of what happened, followed by my personal speculation. I'm not someone who's big in the community, so all of this has come from me reading (mostly on the neopets reddit); my perspective is bound to be biased because of that, so take my speculation with a grain of salt!

The facts as I heard them:

---First day of the Advent calendar. People are shocked and surprised to find the seasonal attack pea is part of the prize pool for the hidden prize. For anyone who's reading this who doesn't have a neopets background, the seasonal attack pea is an extremely rare, powerful battledome item (the battledome is what it sounds like, and has both a PvNPC and PvP mode). Its going price before all this started was 2 billion neopoints; that is significantly more than the average player will ever make in their lifetime. Some (imo, most) people are excited that this item is going to be affordable (still steep, but possible to buy); some people, (I think?? Mostly long-playing wealthy players and/or battledome players) aren't happy because they're worried it'll break the neopets economy OR unbalance the battledome.

---Second day. Someone on Jellyneo, an extremely popular fansite whose mods have some level of communication with the neopets team (TNT), makes a note on their advent calendar guide saying that the seasonal attack pea has been removed from the prize pool. This note is now deleted, so I don't know what exactly it said; I saw some people say that it indicated the pea was removed because of ambassadors complaining to TNT directly, but since I never read the post I can't confirm that. (I don't really understand what ambassadors are; I think they're long-running fans that can communicate to TNT in order to bridge the gap between the fanbase writ large and TNT, but I'm not 100% sure about that).

---People are FURIOUS. Some people are saying they'll cancel their premium subscription because of this, others are saying they'll leave the site entirely. Some people are saying this is proof TNT can act fast, but only will when rich players complain (previous snafus in events have taken TNT like a week to react to, so hours/days is out of character). People who got the pea and sold it for 20 mil because they thought it was about to be deinflated to hell are devastated. People's posts on the subject were getting deleted off the neo boards by the neopets team, who have not released a single statement. People were going to John Legend's Instagram to ask him to fix the neopets economy. (I saw at least one person post something along the lines of "look, I still got a pea today," but I don't think a lot of people saw that; maybe they just assumed that person was secretly getting last day's gift.) It was a mess!

---Third day of the Advent calendar. People get the pea as a hidden prize.

---Now people are upset AND confused. It's highly unlikely that TNT would be so fast-moving (and wishy-washy) to remove the pea for exactly one day and then put it back, so people start speculating if the pea was even removed in the first place. They start turning on Jellyneo, since the website quietly deleted the post saying that the pea was removed from the hidden prize pool. This is where the insider trading accusations come in; I'm going to talk more about that in the speculation section.

---JellyNeo releases a statement, shown here (picture stolen from satansboyussy on Reddit)

---People extremely do not trust this post.

---Day 4 (today): talk about this has died down a lot, especially since TNT put a Kadoatie in the normal prize list for today's Advent calendar. Most people are kind of just joking about it now

Speculation:

Most of what I'm about to say is unsourced, outside of "this is what people on Reddit said," so don't believe everything I write here! But here's why people are thinking of insider trading specifically:

---ive seen people say that the "complaining ambassadors" I referenced earlier might be either someone on JellyNeo's mod team or someone close to JellyNeo's mods; the calls might have been coming from inside the house, as it were

---ive also seen some people saying that they saw someone on JellyNeo's team buying up cheap peas and selling them for a gigantic markup, but I have seen absolutely no actual proof of this. I'm absolutely sure people have been flipping peas like that, but I don't know if that's insider trading specifically or just neopets economy being neopets economy. Huge if true, though!

---I find it extremely strange that someone would, in good faith, see no one posting peas on the trading post for two hours between 12 and 2 AM PST and decide that definitively meant that peas had been removed from the pool, then post that as fact on an extremely popular fansite. The majority of neopets players are US American, so that seems like a natural dead time to me.

--- On a side note, People seem to buy that the pea chance has indeed been lowered by TNT; I'm not really sure if I do, just because TNT historically has not reacted that quickly ever since the new team was founded, but who knows!

I hope this answers your questions!! Please let me know if you have any more; you can ask in the replies and I'll do my best to answer. I think a lot more info might be able to be found on the Neopets discord, but I refuse to join any more discords lol

[millennialneopian]

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Time to get back into regularly posting. I participated in the Faerie Festival (missed out on 100% completion but I'm just playing for funsies! and I got THREE Fountain Faerie quests, which is insane) and now the Trick or Treat bags AND the introduction of Daily Quests is ramping us up toward the Advent Calendar where there is a very real chance TNT is giving folks an Attack Pea or Candychan Stamp or something insane. If the King Coltzan Stamp becomes available in 2024 I will lose my GODDAMN mind.

Additionally, I hit another milestone:

Crazy to me. I haven't even been consistently keeping up with Food Club or stocks, but I also haven't been buying anything. I'm sitting on a couple opportunities for a few more avatars, but I just have to pull the trigger! It's nice seeing this hoarded wealth. :') But with TNT saying fuck it and fighting inflation like their lives depended on it (which, honestly, it kinda does?), the next year looks to be even more interesting.

But I mentioned Daily Quests!

I love it! It's not a new idea in terms of games but it makes everything feel fresh again AND there are some sick weekly prizes to win. Even the tutorial quests have some great NC prizes the further in you go. My interest has re-piqued in a significant way, so I hope TNT is able to keep this momentum going.

I'm sure I wrote something similar previously, but Neopets in 2023 is no longer about having that sick, exclusive avatar or trophy or whatever. People are on there paying real money to customize fake pets and want to have a good time doing it. I see no need to make so many facets unobtainable for people who have restarted or simply can't realistically afford something. An item costing 10 million? That's a goal to shoot for, especially with so many valuable items being re-released, making it easier to sell those items and turn a profit. An item that costs 500 million or literally no longer exists but is still required to achieve something? (*cough stamps cough*) Well, that's no fun. And it's not to "punish" the people who earned those items through the original means. I refuse to believe the mentality that someone else having the same thing via different methods makes it less special. That... is just stupid. And selfish.

But like I said, I really want that King Coltzan stamp, so maybe I'm a little bias.