Neopets 25th Birthday Celebration

[Pickles]

So, with the birthday coming this week, I figured it was time for a thread, because...who knows what might show up?
From the News and Updates page, there's an article titled Celebrating 25 Years of Neopets: What's Ahead for November and Beyond! About midway down, it has information for the On-site activities...

Neopets.com On-Site Birthday Activities

As we celebrate this significant milestone, we're excited to announce special releases and activities on our site! Be prepared for the introduction of our 25th Anniversary Mystery Capsule, filled with exclusive surprises available for purchase. Additionally, we're offering a free 25th Anniversary Celebration Goodie Bag starting on the 15 November 2024, which players can claim until 2 January 2025!

Try your luck on the Wheel of Celebration, where you could win exclusive items like the Birthday Paint Brush, Birthday Petpet Paint Brush, discounts on merchandise on the Neopets Shop, and a plethora of other prizes including NP & NC items, retired avatars, stamps, new gourmet items, and items from previous plots. For an additional spin, watch an ad—or skip it if you're a premium subscriber.

We're also introducing special 25th Anniversary Birthday Cupcakes add flair to your Neopets' birthday month celebrations. These cupcakes will be available for a whole year starting 15 November 2024.

I am very curious about these things! Okay, NC capsules and free goodie bag, no surprise. But the Wheel of Celebration? And a second spin if you watch an ad or are premium? Is it only 2 spins, or is it 2 spins daily? If so, for how long? I could kinda care less about the discounts (unless they're for the TCG cards), but...retired avatars? Stamps? Which ones will be available? New Gourmet items? Just what items from previous plots? I mean, are we talking like, some of the crazy ones from early plots? Man! Cannot wait to find out...and obviously that won't happen today since TNT is out of the office until tomorrow...and it might wait until Friday.

Also, curious about the 25th Anniversary Birthday Cupcakes, too. Will they replace the ones you can already get on your pet's birthday? And will these be like, super stat boosts? (Please, please, please be hit points or levels!)

So much to wonder about...

In the mean time, remember the following special things about this month:

*Buried Treasure is half off all month and free on the 15th.
*Likely, November 13-17 you can send 5 scores per flash game instead of 3 times
On the 15th:
*Most likely some free NC on the main page (has been the last couple of years - but it often delays in awarding, so don't panic if it doesn't show up right away)
*Free training at Swashbuckling Academy
*Visit the New Features for the Happy Birthday! Avatar if you don't already have it.
*There will be a higher chance of good results at Coltzan's Shrine and more tickets at the Ticket Booth.
*Everyone will have the Birthday Site Theme active, increasing the chances of REs.

Keep in mind that there are usually some decent Black Friday sales at the NC Mall, so it's likely that FQFC's will be only 50NC, in case you want to spend some of the potential free NC on them.

[Blue]

Thanks Pickles!

This sounds good to me. 25 years? Wow. Finally old enough to rent a car, and also have lower car insurance. It's a milestone for sure.

Ooh. 50NC FQFC'? Yes, please.

If I'm askin'... I would love to see the Battle for Meridell Mug make it into circulation!

[Siniri]

Hmm. I forgot you could get stuff on your pets' birthdays. I had just put my pets' birthdays in my calendar when my main was frozen, and then deleted them a couple years later when the reminders just made me sad.

*Trots off to set calendar reminders for all current pets*

Oh, and all that birthday stuff is pretty cool, too! I might actually get to use the birthday theme advantages this time; my actual birthday last Saturday was spent mostly offline, as it usually is, so I didn't get a single RE.

Edit: Of course 2 had birthdays in the past month, and 5/6 had birthdays within the last six months. At least the last one's birthday is in December. (And I did adopt three during the plot, possibly after their birthdays, anyway.)

[Pickles]

Update on that wheel:

TNT Luna — Today at 5:31 PM NST
Update Regarding Wheel of Celebration
Hi @everyone
We published an article on the Neopets website recently regarding our on-site 25th Anniversary activities. While there will be a Wheel of Celebration you can spin from the 15th to the 25th of November, there will be no retired Avatars rewarded.

Unfortunately this was a mistake on our end, and we’re so sorry for not catching it sooner. We know how excited the community has been, and it’s definitely something we are looking into in the future.

While we understand this news may be disappointing, the Wheel will still offer a brand new avatar, Anniversary Paint Brushes, retired plot items, and more goodies!

The article has also been amended to reflect these changes.

Thank you so much for your patience and understanding as we work to make the 25th Anniversary special. Moving forward, we are committed not only to being transparent and candid with you but also to getting ahead of potential issues to prevent misunderstandings like this in the future.

More info, but also, bummer, no retired avatars.
A little concerned about the new avatar potentially only being available as a 22 spins chance (at best? Maybe only 20, depending on if they count the 25th or not?) spin chance. That's...interesting. Maybe it's the same avatar from in person events? Or maybe you get it from just spinning a certain number of times? I guess we'll see...

However, at least they let us know before hand, admitted the mistake and corrected expectations (and gave us more info while they were at it).

[Siniri]

Hopefully everyone gets the avatar for spinning at least once a day. Otherwise, they'll have to make it a pretty high chance to make sure the vast majority of us get it, and then we'll be getting no prize for several spins.

I must have had an RE while I was tapping quickly through cheese roller, because I had three items in my inventory afterwards:

Birthday Best
10th Birthday Ice Cream Cone
Snowflake Holiday Compact

I also got an RE granting me 4.5k NP that I saw. I realize it's not a 25th birthday item, but still, two birthday items in a handful of refreshes seems like a really random coincidence, and that's a lot of REs in a short time. (I've also gotten the free clothes RE twice in the past few days, and other REs that didn't have an effect either way.) Is the increased risk of REs applying to the whole week, or should I buy a lottery ticket? (Wait, I was actually given one of those, too!)

[Pickles]

Siniri, all 3 of those are prizes for the new daily quest log now. Is it possible that's where they came from? I haven't seen any reports of birthday-related items being given out any other way at this time.

Thinking on the original post vs the update - I think someone got mixed up between the new avatar and retired avatars. Easy enough mistake. People are going crazy about it on the boards. It's not like anyone even got a single retired avatar and they didn't. For goodness sake, typos happen, and they did correct it as soon as they realized it was there. And it's not like there's not enough exciting other things to look forward to, anyways!

ETA: Scores Galore (scores x5 for flash games) has indeed started. Old-style Fashion Fever x5, wohoo!

[Siniri]

Haha, yep! That's exactly where they came from! I forgot that I had picked up the last few of my quests after doing the dailies.

I mean, it hadn't even started yet, and they've already corrected our expectations, so I'm not mad at all about a typo. There are so many actual bigger things around here to get angry over, but they're trying to fix years of neglect. Some of their choices have been misguided, but a typo?

I'd really just like them to change lunar temple from flash to something that shows us the pic. I'm not going to take the time to cheat the answer by looking it up, but I got it correct 90+% of the time when I could actually see the image. I feel like an expert coder could fix that in less than an hour. And get Kiko Pop running again, though that could take longer.

Woohoo! Time to go play some Roodoku and get back on the hs table in Word Poker!

[Blue]

I picked up a Neopets 18th Birthday Cake from today's QuestLog.

Hmmm. Word poker? I don't remember that one. Might need to look it up and give it a go.

ETA: I now remember this one. It had been a while. A little trickier to play on my phone, but still fun.

[Siniri]

I can't imagine playing it on a phone! I just sent 5 scores, 4 of which were higher than anything currently on the HS table, and the last would have still been a first place trophy (though of course there are likely other higher scores in the queue to be approved, too).

One more day until the wheel! I'm excited! And I might actually be able to use the birthday theme for some REs this time, too!

[Pickles]

Whew, everything new dropped while I was busy giving my boys haircuts.

First, go to the main page to redeem your 1000NC (!!!) - There will be a delay in it showing up on your account, so be patient.

Free wheel spin here (can give +10 stats to your active, so make sure who you want to get that possibility is active!)
Second spin free if you watch an ad (may have to disable ad blocker if you're using one). This is daily for 10? 11? days.

Free goodie bag in the NC Mall:
Neopets 25th Birthday Celebration Goodie Bag
It contains a 25th Anniversary Star and Pet Garland, and:

Only available through November 30th, type the code Y26BIRTHDAY into the discount box at checkout and receive 250NC off any purchase of 1000NC or more!

If you combine the code with the free NC and any Black Friday deals, you can do some serious stocking up! (They really were generous with NC and NC discounts this year - in the last two years it's only been 750NC - which was up a lot as is - and a 150NC discount.)

Three new avatars! (Clickable)
Aisha or Aisha
Kacheek or Kacheek
Shoyru or Shoyru

...My first two spins were both the 25k slot. Boo hiss.

[Siniri]

From the Wheel:
25th Anniversary Paint Brush
+10 strength! (had to disable the ad blocker) -- hopefully that helps if they raise the max boost

Still waiting for the 1k NC to show up. Grabbed the NC mall gift and the avvies -- thanks for the links!

And first RE of the day: 10k NP from Illusen!

[Pickles]

The ad for the second spin is not working for all players. Many (my family included) are having trouble getting the ad to even start to load, no matter what browser/disabling of ad blockers/extensions, etc, is done. I spent multiple hours trying to get it to work on multiple different machines, but no such luck. Hoping whatever is wrong, TNT is able to get it fixed. The only reason I got my two spins in easily was because I do actually have premium. (Also hoping I get better spins tomorrow than another double 25k, because wow.)

1k NC took 5-6 hours for me before it showed up, but it did arrive.

[Blue]

1st spin = 25th anniversary paint brush (maybe i'll paint my shoyru so others can get the avatar... lol)

Thanks for the avvie links!

2nd spin... ad will not load on computer (firefox) or phone...

... Chrome works to see the ad (but it won't load the wheel... of course). BUT, you can watch the ad on chrome and then go back to firefox and spin the wheel.

2nd spin = Sparkler Birthday Cake

1st (only) RE: While out for a stroll, MyPet looks down and finds 15,221 NP on the ground. Today looks like a lucky day!

Nice!

Still waiting for the NC, but I did click the link. Patience is a virtue.

ETA: Received the 1k NC

[Siniri]

I finally received the NC while I was sleeping.

It took me a while to get the wheel to work in chrome yesterday, too, but not too too long. Trying it on my phone now, if I can find it... *Clicks Pickles's helpful link above*

First spin: +10 defense
Second spin: well, the ad frame loads, but mobile Chrome is missing an extension needed to actually load the ad. Didn't work on desktop mode, either, so it'll have to wait until after work.

[Pickles]

At least today's spins were better for me:
First spin: NC item slot - Sparkly Closed Eyes Makeup
Second spin: Avatar!

Whew, the avatar was the one and only thing I was really worried about missing out on. Now watch, I'll hit it like, 5x more during the event and get essentially end up with bum spins because if you already have it, you get basically nothing...which I feel like was an oversight on TNT's part for such a limited time wheel.
The stamp and P/B's would be nice. Maybe the Celebratory Confetti Cannon or Sparkler Birthday Cake....or stats. I mean, I'd take +10 levels or +10HP for my battle pet any day. That being said...I have forgotten both times now to make her active before spinning so...good thing I haven't hit stats yet?

That being said, I saw this on discord as possibly the chances of each of the wheel spins (like 4th hand info at this point, so take it as such). In spoilers in case you don't want to see:

plot prize: 10%
PB: 5%
PPPB: 5%
retired item: 8%
25k: 20%
stamp: 9%
NC item: 5%
weapon: 9%
avatar: 9%
+10 stat: 10%
merch discount count: 2%
gourmet food: 8%