Neopets World Challange

[Matterbug]

You can still earn the pieces, but you couldn't use them to complete a map.

Once you complete a map, it can not be completed again. But you can still earn pieces and sell them.

This is just what I understand, so it would be great if someone could confirm this..

You can NOT earn the pieces after getting a reward.

And that is why you never trust me!

[Cranberry]

I posted a little overview at the top of page 4 that answers a lot of these questions. But NO, you cannot earn any more pieces once you've converted your map (OR if you have the full map completed but not yet converted). If you try, you'll get a Neomail that looks like this:

Congratulations! You have won 10 Neopoints by coming in 6th place in a World Challenge!

It looks you have collected all the pieces for the picture(s) in the world that this game is set in, so no piece has been awarded.

If you want to continue earning pieces after you complete a map, you MUST NOT convert it, and you must send the pieces to your inventory or shop or whatever first.

[Witch King]

Ok. So let me ask one more question involving this.

Let's say I have the Last Ten pieces in my Map area, and the first ten in my invo. Would I win pieces 1-10 then since I have 11-20 in the map?

Also, you can have all the pieces together in the map at the same time, but if you convert it you won't win any more pieces, correct?

[Duke of Earl]

Ok. So let me ask one more question involving this.

Let's say I have the Last Ten pieces in my Map area, and the first ten in my invo. Would I win pieces 1-10 then since I have 11-20 in the map?

Also, you can have all the pieces together in the map at the same time, but if you convert it you won't win any more pieces, correct?

Yes (and yes)

[thestarthatislucky]

*grinds teeth together*

I've won several world map pieces which is nice, but what is *not* nice is how the site keeps arbitrarily giving me "You have no outstanding challenges" errors whenever I try to submit a score that would qualify for High Score of the Hour.

The page says I'm in the world challenge, I use the updated link to the game from the challenge page, yet somehow the site keeps forgetting that I'm in the challenge when I have a high score. The low scores go through just fine of course. Apparently other people aren't having this problem, as they're getting credited for scores higher than what I'm allowed.

I probably would have completed a map twice over already if this didn't happen every time. I've gotten the nigh perfect 299 score in Splat a Sloth seven times over the past two days and none of them went through! (And yet again, two minutes ago.) It's really infuriating to keep losing the high score to scores lower than mine.

It says that message if your score gets reviewed and you have sent 3 scores. Your score will be reviewed if its to high and somtimes randomly

[Selelight]

It says that message if your score gets reviewed and you have sent 3 scores. Your score will be reviewed if its to high and somtimes randomly

Thanks, I was wondering if that was the World Challenge version of the 'reviewed' score. But that's terrible... unless they're planning on going back in time and giving people the map pieces for getting the high score afterall. It makes the games a heck of alot harder if you've got to aim for the tiny value that is higher than your opponent but less than what would trigger one of those reviewed scores. (And in SaS I start getting the errors at 250 which is also the bottom amount required to beat the score of a good/uber SaS player *mumbles to self*)

Apparently I'm just too good at Splat a Sloth for my own good, whodathunkit? Especially as I'm only considered a 'novice' player in ranking! <-- shrugging smily instead of hugging

[Witch King]

AH, I am very releaved now.

Now I know I can earn Twenty Maps worth, sumbit one and be able to sumbit the others.

I am a happy camper.

[Cranberry]

It makes the games a heck of alot harder if you've got to aim for the tiny value that is higher than your opponent but less than what would trigger one of those reviewed scores.

Yes, yes it does. There's a group of us who all play Volcano Run and have high scores in our lists of 4,500+ (mostly in the 4.7-4.9K range). However, the "review limit" is 4,500, so we all have to try to get as close to that as we can and then deliberately lose, which, if you've ever played Volcano Run, you'll know is very difficult because the counter is so fast. Normally if one of the others is playing and has a high score of 4,480+, I'll just wait until the next hour instead of wasting my time trying to beat that.

[Duke of Earl]

Yes, yes it does. There's a group of us who all play Volcano Run and have high scores in our lists of 4,500+ (mostly in the 4.7-4.9K range). However, the "review limit" is 4,500, so we all have to try to get as close to that as we can and then deliberately lose, which, if you've ever played Volcano Run, you'll know is very difficult because the counter is so fast. Normally if one of the others is playing and has a high score of 4,480+, I'll just wait until the next hour instead of wasting my time trying to beat that.

It's the same in Mootix Drop, though few of us there. There's an "easy" way to get 1998 points... It's competitoin to see who can do it fastest.

[Eskimo]

Erm... what is the world challenge? o.O

[Tyrannitar]

The World Challenge is a big world-wide Challenge. Basically:
1. You pay 100 NP to sign up for the hour at a game. Games that are listed under their respective worlds are eligible towards the Challenge.
2. You play the game and score as high as you can. Once you send score, your challenge will be posted. The system will then automatically pair you up with another score in the same game for the hour, and whichever one of you won gets a point. If you lost, then you lose a point, and if you get a tie nothing happens at all. For example, if you had 6 points and you lost a game, you would have 5 points, and if you won a game you would get back to 6 points.
3. Once five people enter the Challenge, the Challenge is on for the rest of the hour. Just keep playing the game and sending score. The scoreboard looks something like this:
Rank Username Score
4. At the end of the hour, depending on how many people played, the users in the top 2-infinity ranks wins a map piece and a share out of the money earned from all the people that paid 100 NP to play the challenge. Once you piece together the entire map you get 2,000 NP for that specific world and a rare item. This could vary in value from 20,000 NP to over a million, it's completely random.

Now what was I going to say?

[Cranberry]

It can actually vary in value from 4K (a codestone) to over a million.

It seems someone asks what World Challenge is on every single page of the thread.

[everconfused]

The whole score review/no challengers/cannot send any more scores thing drives me nuts!

There's only a few games that I can even attempt to enter the WC for, I'm that bad at games. But to play your heart out and get that message that you've sent all your scores for the day and can't send any more challenge scores is just Argh! That and the odd (to me) arbitrary "high score" that causes a score review. For Carnival of Terror it seems to be 2,000 - and if your score is reviewed, you won't get a map piece or the np. At least I haven't. I've somehow gotten over 2,000 I think twice in CofT (luck, alot of clocks/ammo) and every time - score review, no np, no map piece.

[sir_michael]

Is it worth it to spend 400k on a full Haunted Woods Map and use it? Or should I resell it for more?

[Cranberry]

The prices seem to be steady around 400K right now, so I don't know how much more you could get. And if you decide to use it, it's just luck -- you could get an item worth 4K, one worth 40K, or one worth a million plus.

And great, now I have someone accusing me of cheating. His neomail:

Hi, I was just taking a look at your volcano run world challenge records and it just struck me that you were able to send two scores over 4000 within 3 minutes of each other. Maybe it's just me and my past experience, but how in the world could you do that?

I replied:

Easy -- I didn't actually send the scores at that time. Sometimes not many people are playing the game (especially at the beginning of an hour), and it takes a while for someone new to come along and enter the challenge. Sometimes I'll have two or three scores pending at the top of the screen, because there's no one for me to compete with. If two or three people come along and submit their scores within a couple minutes, all of my scores will be matched up with theirs, and it'll look like I submitted them all at that time.

I thought that was pretty straightforward, but he said:

Isn't that almost like cheating though?

I wrote back:

No, not at all. I'm playing the game and sending all those scores within the alotted hour. It's Neopets' own system that scores are "pending" until someone comes along to match them against. For example, take the game Whack-A-Kass. It's a pretty short game, so you could play maybe... let's say 10 high-scoring games in 10 minutes. Let's say I did that between 1:00 and 1:10 am NST. Neopets isn't very busy at that time, so maybe only one other person enters the world challenge for that game in those 10 minutes, and only plays 2 games. 2 of my scores will be matched against him, and 8 will still be pending. If 8 people showed up within the next 2 minutes and all sent scores, all 8 of my pending scores would be matched up against theirs, and it would LOOK like I had submitted them all within 2 minutes, when really I'd played only one game per minute earlier. Do you understand?

Apparently he doesn't, because he wrote again:

So you don't consider that taking advantage of the system?

And me:

No. There's no way it could be considered taking advantage of the system. I pay my 100NP to join the challenge at the beginning of the hour. I play a game and send the score. I play another game and send that score. I just keep doing that. Sometimes a bunch of other people will be playing at the same time as me, and my scores will be matched up with theirs almost immediately after we send them. Sometimes hardly anyone will be playing, so some of my scores will be pending (if you don't know what that means, it means that they appear in light purple at the top of the world challenge page for that game with "pending scores" in front of them*), and they will be matched up with other people's scores whenever they send them. If you check the world challenge records for anyone who regularly plays Volcano Run, you'll see the same thing you saw in mine -- sometimes it will look like they sent two good scores within three minutes, when really the scores just took that long to be processed. I'm getting tired of being accused of cheating, so I suggest you try to get hold of a programmer and get him or her to explain how this works, or at least go look at other people's records before you jump at me.

(*I realized later that it actually says "Your scores that are not processed and not going towards your rating yet:," but same thing, really.)

I hope that's the end of it. I swear, if I get reported and unfairly frozen when I'm not doing anything that could EVER be considered cheating...

(Also, I now have a full set of Tyrannia that I'd like to trade for a full set of anything BUT Faerieland or Meridell. If anyone's interested in trading, PM me! )