My Take on Neopets in General. (Whats yours?)

[dbzlabrat]

I was frozen about two years ago. I had an awesome account as I had been playing for about 2 and a half years by then. I had a guild with over 2500 members! Times were great. Then I attempt to log on one day and see that my account had been frozen.

GOD! Why me? This was insanity. I emailed neopets repeatedly (every day for a month, then weekly for a year afterward.) All I got was copy and pasted garbage.

Often what was sent to me didn't even partain to the situation I was in.

I did get a personalized response one time from someone named jin. I forgot what she said (its wasn't much..) but I was not satisfied.

Neopets has been going downhill over the past few years. Remember when you could actually post messages without them being blocked? Sometimes I try to post a message in my guild and it says the following input was blocked : " ". And then I get a warning for posting sexual terms and get treatened to be frozen. Overbearing. Neopets has become that mother that wont let her child have caffeine after 6pm.

I dont know the credibility of the "neopets staff" member who posted a message earlier, but they seemed highly intuitive (aside from her many typographical errors) so I will assume that they were, in fact, credible.

Opinionsurveys.com cant afford to hire more than 25 computer personel at a time?.. Surely to compensate for the MILLIONS of users online at any given time they would hire more people. One person cannot look after millions of members at a time, as well as do other work (art, work on games, fix bugs, etc.) Thats why we have a problem.

There is a problem. Its obvious. You people who dont notice it must not have experienced it.

We as members want more customer service. We want more personalized responses. We want more access to staff.

Give us a toll free # to call. 1-800-4ne-opets would be awesome. Heck, half of us have been looking for your lawyer's number too (its in the press kit if anyone wants it.)

So in conclusion - EXPECT members to complain, EXPECT long time users of 4 years or more to start calling your sponsors. It is inevitable. If this doesn't work slowly but surely your most loyal members will start quitting neopets one by one. Then all you will be left with is 1 week newbies who know nothing about whats going on.

But you wont care will you? Well you staff members might.. but you have no say in this matter really.. its up to your parent company and your sponsors. You would think that since your getting more sponsors and more merchandise that you could afford more staff now. Tisk Tisk. Where exactly IS that McDonalds funding going to? Why did I buy that baby lupe plushie exactly? To help what? Heck.. I didn't even get a rare item code for it.

Anyway.. thats all I can complain about right now.. Im just really disappointed at how neopets is running.

LOL funny thing is I am like 95% more likely to get a personalized response from neopets in this forum than if I had sent this on a neopets form.

Last edited by dbzlabrat on Fri Jul 02, 2004 11:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Keith]

I completely agree with you!

[Paulisacretin]

Shroomy is a real staff member, I remember her from last time she was here.

[.ccy]

Shroomy is a real staff member, I remember her from last time she was here.

eek! better be carefull

*shoves away 5 accts.

[Arka]

My opinion is that we play for free. I don't feel that we have a right to demand anything.

We can request, politely.

[dbzlabrat]

We can play free, granted, but the fact is - we are paying them. Every pageview is another fraction of a cent added to their paychecks. And for this we should be respected more. Some of us waste over 12 hours a day everyday at ungodly hours on neopets. Then after years of this get frozen.

I think I have the right to complain.

Last edited by dbzlabrat on Sat Jul 03, 2004 12:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

[ahoteinrun]

We can play free, granted, but the fact is - we are paying them. Every pageview is another fraction of a cent added to their paychecks. And for this we should be respected more. Some of us waste over 12 hours a day everyday at ungodly hours on neopets. Then after years of this get frozen.

I think I have the right to complain - unpolitelty.

And you wonder why you don't get a response?
You'd be amazed at how fare being polite will take you in life, they're providing you a free service. And do you know how small the fraction of the cent is? Probably incredibly minute. I doubt it's anywhere above 1/16th of a cent per page view.
To be honest, I don't think any of us can really say how much the staff makes, and to be honest, I doubt it's a whole lot.
I don't think it's fair to make all of these accusations about the money thats in the site, because we can't really say for certain. Sure theres "projections" in magazines and newspaper but i'll put it this way.
My dad works for a multi million dollar camera store. They do a whole lot of business.
He couldn't support our family on our own. He makes probably 13 bucks an hour plus commision.
Thats how much trickles down to him. Most of it's put back into property rites of the 7 locations of the store. Paying staff, buying more merchandise. IE It's mainly invested back into the store.
I like to think of that before I go and accuse Neo of anything to do with their "millions" of dollars.

[shroomy]

I dont know the credibility of the "neopets staff" member who posted a message earlier, but they seemed highly intuitive (aside from her many typographical errors) so I will assume that they were, in fact, credible.

...Yes, because my writing was so gosh darned illegible, wasn't it? Sorry 'bout that.

And, as a sincere concern to those who spend 12 hours a day on Neopets, don't spend 12 hours a day on Neopets. I spent 12 hours on Neopets yesterday, yes, but that's because I was working the entire time- you need to take a break, step away from the computer, and forget for a second that you have virtual pets waiting to be fed... It is seriously unhealthy to be that addicted to a website, and I would gladly discourage people from coming to Neopets if it meant they would get out and away a bit more.

-C

[dbzlabrat]

I think I said it wasnt really up to the staff, but rather the parent companies and sponsors.

Also, for the record I have never harassed TNT or sent unpolite messages directly to them. I do not condone this either.

Edit: Shroomy, I understand your view. Believe me, I have read everything you have said and have taken everything into consideration. I also respect you and your work and realise that you are a very good artist and have provided a lot of time and effort to neopets.com and I commend you for that. I also realise that neopets isn't a freeze fest where staff members just go trigger happy icing everyone who says ***. I also shouldnt have said the thing about typographical errors but I was steamed at the time.

I realise that the staff isnt the problem. Its the lack thereof. If you had to work such long hours then there is some sort of understaffing problem. I honestly think that a staff increase would solve everything. The more personal experience we have with staff, the more we understand their views and reasonings for doing what they do.

Please understand that I am not directing any of my rants toward individual staff members, or the staff in general. In fact, I commend you for being open and coming to PPT to give us your opinions.

I just ask for more customer support. Its a big issue nowadays.

Last edited by dbzlabrat on Fri Jul 02, 2004 11:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Fiddelysquat]

I understand that they're overwhelmed by e-mails. I can't imagine how many people e-mail them a day. It's easy to get upset, however, when you e-mail them about a wrongfully frozen account, explaining politely what happened, and get nothing but an auto-response.

[ahoteinrun]

Also, for the record I have never harassed TNT or sent unpolite messages directly to them. I do not condone this either.

I think I have the right to complain - unpolitelty.

Could've fooled me.

[dbzlabrat]

I know the basics of business, ahoteinrun. I realise the "trickledown economics" that goes on in big corporations. And I did think of that before I posted, actually.

[twinklyspangle]

I don't think anyone has the right to complain impolitly about anything.

Unlucky, you got frozen. Hundreds have been there before, many will be there again.

To quote my usual idiom: "If you don't like it, don't play it"

[dbzlabrat]

Okay! forget about the impolitely thing! I was just countering the other guy's post..

and im WAY over my account getting frozen 2 years ago.. I dont even care about it anymore..

I believe the topic on hand was neopets customer support/general takes on neopets.com

[Paulisacretin]

Well shroomy that opens up a whole new kettle of almonds, because neopets has evolved in such a way that in order to actually succeed at the game, you have to put in a lot of work, and a lot of hours in. Unless you are an unbelievably good restocker who can just come on for an hour, bag 5 morphing potions in the magic shop and make 1.4 mil in 60 minutes. The weapons, and i mean the weapons that you need if you are going to defeat 70% of the 1P opponents and most of the war opponents cost from between 5 million neopoints and 65 million. The average being around 10 mill, realistically. That's jsut individual weapons. It takes months or even years to build up a decent account. Which can all be taken away.

Also, some time ago, before christmas i think, Adam was here and he promised us an updated, much much much more concise and informative list of rules to help make play safer. That was at least 5 months ago. Could you ask him whether or not that is actually happening?

Personally I have absolutely no problem with the ads or sponsor games - The ads only annoy me because somethings they slow restocking down, but that's all. They make me NP, and very rarely I see something of interest. The ads are a system that have worked and have made neopets shine out from a lot of other sites, so I personally have no problems there. I just feel that the staff ought to pay a lot more attention to the players, and not apparantly try to build up a non-friendly wall between them.

Twinkly, have you ever actually been frozen? I find that often peoples views change if they have. Eg someone who advocates allowing citizens to carry guns might not find the idea so rosy if he gets shot.