Neopets 15th Birthday Celebration

[Pickles]

Figured we could use a topic for this. Will update first post as the week goes on and put in other reminders as well.

Daily Updates:

15th Birthday Celebration - Happy Birthday, Neopets! Actually, it isn't our birthday until the 15th of this month. We can't wait to celebrate, though! Since we will be reaching such a special milestone, we wanted to observe our birthday all week long. Check back every day for a new surprise! We have a super special one in store for you at the end of the week...

Grave Danger Update! - Today's reveal is all about Grave Danger! Now when you send out your Petpet, he or she could bring you back some brand new items. On top of that, you can also visit this daily directly through the map of Neovia!



The NC Mall is getting in on the 15th birthday fun with its own update to Grave Danger! You can now take in the Ghostly Wand of Spades to Grave Danger for a chance at all-new NC item prizes! Also, make sure to visit the NC Mall to pick up the Neopets 15th Birthday Celebration Goodie Bag, featuring a fun prize! And while you're at the mall, make sure to use the limited time Discount Code! Only available through November 15th, type the code Y16BIRTHDAY into the discount box at checkout and receive 150NC off any purchase of 1000NC or more! Happy Birthday Neopets!

15th Birthday Celebration - Happy Birthday, Neopets! Actually, it isn't our birthday until the 15th of this month. We can't wait to celebrate, though! Since we will be reaching such a special milestone, we wanted to observe our birthday all week long. Check back every day for a new surprise! We have a super special one in store for you at the end of the week...

Avatars and Themes! - Today we have three new Avatars for you as well as five new Site Themes!

*Themes - You can visit your preferences page (that is under My Account) today to start using a new theme. There is one for Kiko Lake, Roo Island, Gadgadsbogen, Tyrannia, as well as Grey Day. If you don't know which one to pick, you could always use a new one every day this week!

*Avatars - These are a little trickier. If you win the Site Spotlight and Beauty Contest going forward, you will now be able to win a new avatar! If you are super lucky and win the Neopian Lottery, you can also earn a special avatar, as well. Hooray!


New Themed Backgrounds! Grab one of the all-new site themes and coordinate it with your Neopet! There are 5 all-new backgrounds that match the brand new site themes now available. These backgrounds can be found at a great low price of only 75NC and will only be available for a limited time. Visit the NC Mall today!

15th Birthday Celebration - Happy Birthday, Neopets! Actually, it isn't our birthday until the 15th of this month. We can't wait to celebrate, though! Since we will be reaching such a special milestone, we wanted to observe our birthday all week long. Check back every day for a new surprise! We have a super special one in store for you at the end of the week...

Daily Prizes, Trading Post, and Auction Update! - Four select dailies will now give out new prizes (from a pool of existing items). Additionally, the Mystery Island Trading Post and Neopian Auction House now have new maximum values!

*Daily Prizes - Don't forget to visit either Tiki Tack Tombola, Anchor Management, Forgotten Shore, or the Lunar Temple today. You might get a different prize from usual from one of these four dailies!

*Trading Post and Auctions - If trading and bidding is your thing, you are in luck! The Trading Post maximum is now 2,000,000 NP, and the Auction maximum is now 50,000,000 NP. (That means those who might use a certain Oracle boon will see an even higher value there, as well.)


The Birthday celebrations continue! At the NC Mall, Functional Fortune Cookies just got better. Open the Faerie Quest, Game, Lab Ray, Training, Upcycle or NC archives Fortune Cookies and receive better chances at ... well, good stuff. For example, Faerie Quest Fortune Cookies now allow you to get one bonus Faerie Quest a day for 9 days instead of 7. Upcycle Fortune Cookies now have a lower chance of having you donate 4 NC items. (That means a higher chance at only having to donate 2!) These changes, as well as others, will be effective for any of the aforementioned Fortune Cookies opened today and going forward. Visit Noda here!

Shop Stock Update! - We know everyone has been frustrated with shops and the way items have (or haven't...) been restocking in them. Well, we have great news for you! All shops, from the Neopian Fresh Foods shop to the Ugga Shinies shop, will no longer keep old stock around. That means shops will clear out more regularly so that you will have more opportunities to purchase the items that you want. Happy shopping!

Happy Birthday to us, Happy Birthday to us...

**HAPPY BIRTHDAY NEOPETS!**

55th Neopet!!! - Neopets has been around for 15 years. Can you believe how time has flown? Well, we wanted to memorialise this big event with a special reveal: the 55th Neopet! (And if you have been wanting to complete the Neopian alphabet we have good news - it starts with a V!)

Neopia, please welcome the Vandagyre. The Vandagyre is ready to meet you at the Create a Pet page. Why not stop by and say hello?

Also, stop by the NC Mall to pick up your Vandagyre Goodie Bag filled with not one, but two Vandagyre themed items! Visit the NC Mall!

Birthday Pet Lookup! - We know how important it is to honour birthdays, Neopets included! Now when your Neopet has a birthday, you can celebrate by visiting their Pet Lookup. Your Neopet will receive a birthday surprise, and it comes in one of three choices! No matter what you pick, your Neopet is bound to be pleased!


To make way for the Vandagyre, who will be unlimited, we have made the Ruki into a Limited Edition Neopet. If you were meaning to create a Ruki soon, please make sure to check back on Ruki Day!

To keep the celebration going, the NC Mall has some great news! Starting Sunday, 11/16 through Saturday, 11/29 at Target stores in the US get 20% OFF the $25 Neopets Cash Card!

Other things that have surfaced:
Madefire Comic Book
Press Release related to said comic book.
Neomail that came out with it: (spoiler due to image size)

Pet Birthday gifts (thanks to JN having found them already):
Starry Blue Birthday Cupcake
Starry Yellow Birthday Cupcake
Starry Red Birthday Cupcake
Description on all three reads: "Happy Birthday! Feed this to your Neopet and get a special birthday surprise."

Red: Hit Points +5
Yellow: Strength +5
Blue: Defence +5

Reminders:
All month, Treasure of the Black Pawkeet is only 150 nps instead of 300nps, is free on Neopets Birthday. It can be visited once every 3 hours.

Scores Galore Started on 11/12, and ends on 11/17 (send 5 scores).

For those doing training (level 40 and lower only), there will be free training at the Swashbuckling Academy on the 15th.

Everyone will have the Birthday Site Themeon Neopets Birthday, increasing your chances of random events!

Get the Happy Birthday Avatar by going to the News page on the 15th.

Brain Tree quest awards may also be increased by 25% and Coltzan's Shrine is said to be luckier on the 15th. note: Coltzon is supposed to be luckier on the 15th of every month, not just this one.

On the 15th the Concert Hall might increase its number of tickets on sale by by a factor of 5.


Neopian Times Editorial info:
Happy birthday all! I'm excited that there is a new 'pet out in the Neopian wild, but how exactly do you pronounce Vandagyre? ~handball002
It's pronounced with a hard g sound: van-duh-guyr.

Are the new themes only for this week or are they permanent? ~geminixcreations
Permanent. You may enjoy them from this day forth until the end of time.


That's kind of a long time...

TNT, pleasepleaseplease with the most delicious Cherry Bori Lolly on top consider making the Site Spotlight avatar available for past winners! It's a once a week event and there's only one winner each week. Unlike the Beauty Contest, it's not easily achievable again. ~semmy_genius
We have been getting many of these requests this week, and we totally understand. We are planning on implementing a workaround for this, so please bear with us. Hopefully we can get this to you soon!

TNT Neoboard Posts:

Another year older with even more surprises up our sleeve! Will you be joining us as we countdown to our 15th BIRTHDAY? From Goodie Bags and NEW items to site themes and more, surprises galore will be available throughout all of next week, leading to the BIGGEST news to hit Neopia in quite some time - stay tuned!

We are SO excited to celebrate our 15th birthday with you all next week! Can you believe it's been that long since we all came together to start exploring Neopia? Whether you've been here for years or you're still using the Soup Kitchen to get by, we want to hear your Neopets story!

How did you get started? How old are your pets? What keeps you coming back everyday - favorite, pets, games and more? Let us know next week!

We are just days away from our 15th BIRTHDAY! Can you feel the excitement spreading throughout Neopia? We can barely contain ourselves; so much so that we actually prepared a very special surprise to help get the celebration going, a LIMITED-TIME discount code!

From now through November 15th, use 'Y16BIRTHDAY' to receive 150 NC off any purchase of 1000 NC or more. Happy shopping, Neopia!

Are you ready to join in the celebration as we countdown the days to Neopets' 15th birthday? Expect a number of surprises around every corner, this week! After all, only 5 days remain until we announce our biggest birthday surprise to date.

Until then head to the catacombs to enjoy the first in a series of presents that we have lined up for all of you - updated items in GRAVE DANGER!

Are you ready for a few more birthday surprises? Well this is only the beginning for what we've got planned this week, Neopia! Starting today, you'll find 5 NEW site themes and 3 new avatar features available for you to help us ring in this major milestone in Neopets history - our 15th birthday!

Learn how to redeem these birthday specials at the New Features page now!

Last edited by Pickles on Sat Nov 15, 2014 2:55 am, edited 7 times in total.

[Jelani]

Other things that have surfaced:
Madefire Comic Book
Press Release related to said comic book.

Wow, nice catch. The dynamic frames and music make it quite enjoyable to read (I think whoever did the music owes a bit to Saint-Saëns and Gershwin, though! ). I hope plot comics in the future will look like that.

[Pickles]

Wow, nice catch. The dynamic frames and music make it quite enjoyable to read (I think whoever did the music owes a bit to Saint-Saëns and Gershwin, though! ). I hope plot comics in the future will look like that.

Hahah, yeah. I'm hoping that maybe they'll continue the story of Brynn and Hanso tracking down artifacts and/or King Altador looking for the Darkest Faerie Statue.


@Today's news. HOLY COW. 3?! Avatars? and 5?!?!? new site themes! Wow! (On top of a new site theme last week?!)


ETA: Totally missed the 5 NC backgrounds for 75NC each. Added them to the post. Clearly I needed to read further.

Last edited by Pickles on Wed Nov 12, 2014 3:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

[Blue]

Wow. 5 new site themes... for "free"! Wow. I'm liking the grey day today

[Jelani]

I'm totally digging these new site themes! I wonder if they were made specially for this birthday, or if they were left over from something else and never released.

[Pickles]

Holy cow. My jaw is kinda hitting the floor right now with today's update.

It's like...TNT is making it EVERYONE's birthday! Some of those updates (particularly the trading post and auctions) have been requested for YEARS.

I'm going to admit to being pretty impressed so far. Even if the biggest news on Friday is "only" the new pet, I'm still VERY happy with how much they've done already!

[Siniri]

Yesterday's update:

14th November

15th Birthday Celebration - Happy Birthday, Neopets! Actually, it isn't our birthday until the 15th of this month. We can't wait to celebrate, though! Since we will be reaching such a special milestone, we wanted to observe our birthday all week long. Check back every day for a new surprise! We have a super special one in store for you at the end of the week...

Shop Stock Update! - We know everyone has been frustrated with shops and the way items have (or haven't...) been restocking in them. Well, we have great news for you! All shops, from the Neopian Fresh Foods shop to the Ugga Shinies shop, will no longer keep old stock around. That means shops will clear out more regularly so that you will have more opportunities to purchase the items that you want. Happy shopping!

Well, that's certainly exciting for a lot of people. It might hurt the black market boon (for those who can take advantage of it at midnight, anyway), but it might make the chocolate avatar easier. Eventually, after everyone else gets it, anyway.

Also, Scores Galore started yesterday. I think it goes through the end of Sunday.

The one thing I would like to see this week is the BD fixed (at least back to how it was pre-transition), though I understand that probably takes more time. Long-term, I'd love to see more functionality added to the SDB and especially the closet. And the BD moved out of beta, with things like stealers fixed.

[Pickles]

Sorry I didn't get a chance to update yesterday!

I'm excited about the stocking changes! And the birthday gifts! (Of course, ALL of my pets had birthdays in August or September, so I've got a while to wait to get any of those).

I've updated the first post, and included a section with editorial questions that came up today.

[Jelani]

In my mind they will always be the Vowl, simple, letter loving folk.

Someone from Reddit has created one called Owlgebra, which is pretty good.

I've thrown together an article on the Neodex for them, but there's not much to say yet.

[Pickles]

Finally found what the Birthday Cupcakes do!

Red: Hit Points +5
Yellow: Strength +5
Blue: Defence +5

They are no trade, so it's not like you can buy/sell these, thankfully!

Also, wow, Jelani! That was quick for putting together the article! And Owlgebra. Tee-hee!

[Siniri]

The birthday cupcakes are pretty cool. I'll have to add my pet birthdays to my calendar so I don't forget. (It doesn't hurt that my two oldest share a birthday with my grandma). Still, since I planned to stock up on item trainers in case TNT ever increases the max boosts (and/or there's another war), these will help me not have to stock up on too many (especially if we go as long between max boost increases as we did the last time). I can already see a few ways that people will try to abuse them (or actually, abuse other parts of the site, to get more of them), but I don't want to give anyone any ideas. And I'm certainly not going to try it myself!

I'm going to be totally swamped tomorrow, so I guess I'll have to wait until next year to see if the birthday theme is fixed for me. Happy Birthday, Neopets!

[Blue]

Aww. Tony's birthday is 10 November...

But.. Sev's is on 23 November

ETA: Free Vandagyre Goodie Bag in the NC Mall today

[Jelani]

They've released an extra day's news this week with a bunch of Vandagyre stuff. Morphing potions, plushies, and two outfits.

Also, the Daily Puzzle for today is worth catching - Whose birthday is it today? Neopets! - for 1,500 NP and Chocolate Birthday Medallions.

edit: They've made an old-style circle image for the Vandagyre:


http://images.neopets.com/pets/vandagyre_red_baby.gif

That endears me to them quite a bit.

[Pickles]

Blue, looks like you'll have the first shot at getting a cupcake! I can see ways of abusing them, too, Siniri. I'm hoping this won't be too much abused. I'm sure TNT will be on top of them.

So, today we have the Birthday site theme, right?

Mr. P just got the following while doing dailies:

Captain Limebeard says, "Arrrgh! Yer not eatin' yer fruits an' vegetables! Ye better take this Magical Pea Chia Pop b'fore ye get scurvy!"

I'm admitting to being pretty jealous.

...especially since I've had no REs yet today.


Also, someone pointed out on JN (I think?) or the neoboards...in this one week, TNT has done more pretty-major-updates than they did in years. To me, this bodes pretty well for Jumpstart, even if the transition was rough!

[Siniri]

Dang. That's an amazing RE for Mr. P! I always cross my fingers when I visit Coltzan's Shrine -- forget about 1M NP; I'm always hoping for a King's Lens!

My bad birthday-theme luck broke today when I was checking the monthly competition. (Was going to paste the quote, but apparently my computer decided to clear my clipboard on me... I won over 16k from Captain-somebody-or-other, I think.)

And that was before I'd done my dailies or anything... maybe I'll try to battle and NQ2 tonight (though I was writing much of the day and my thumb's a bit sore -- but I don't think either requires my left thumb, so tallyho!).