I don't just mean redoing the art. *shudders at the new creepy-eyed light faerie there now* Hear me out. Let me share one of my crazy ideas about revamping the Wheel of Excitement (because in my experience, it's not really that exciting), or if that's too far-fetched, adding it as another wheel entirely, even though there's a bunch in Neopia already.
First of all, do any of you remember the old game show
Press Your Luck? Remember that huge board with the rapidly-changing screens and the contestant's face in the middle? That's what I'm picturing the new wheel as, only simpler. (It would probably have to be, I'll discuss the drawbacks to this idea in a minute.) Your active pet's photo or happy pose would be in the middle, the randomly-changing smaller squares would be around it, and below that there would be a clickable button that stopped the wheel. Like the other Neopian wheels, there would be a small fee to spin it, and you could only spin it, I dunno, once every 6-8 hours or something. (I kicked around the idea of being able to buy more than one spin at a time, to make it a little more exciting, but the potential for abuse/cheating would probably be too great.)
Much like the game show I'm borrowing heavily from here, you could win moderate to huge NP amounts, random items, and free spins, depending on what square you landed on when you click the "OMGSTOP!!" button. Like any game of chance, bad things could also happen, such as landing on a Pant Devil and getting an item stolen, or losing half or ALL the NP you have out, or hurting your pet some kind of way. There could even be some useless gag prizes, such as a free trip to Mystery Island or a Dung Cookie. So far, not really different than the other wheels aside from design, right?
Well, here's the twist. You know those color-changing random events that happen on the site sometimes? Like Boochi, the invisible pet one, and the splash of color that falls on your pet or whatever? If I had my way, I'd have those taken off the site, effective immediately, because I hate them. Instead, I'd put them as options on this wheel. Boochi would have his own little pink square, there'd be a blank square for the invisible event, etc. That way, the people who actually want Boochi to zap their pet can actively try to get him here, and those of us who don't want him can stay far far away from the wheel (or change active pets).
Now, the drawbacks...I've never actually worked with Flash or Shockwave before, so I don't know if animating a wheel like this would be easy, doable, a huge pain in the rear, or impossible. Complicating matters, as always, would be cheaters. The Wiki article I linked to talks about a Press Your Luck contestant who actually memorized the patterns in which the lights darted around the screen, got on the show, and racked up a fortune. A Neopets player could possibly do something similar with my hypothetical wheel. I'm not sure a fee and time limit to play would really be enough of a deterrent; the changing squares on the wheel would have to be <i>completely</i> random - or as close to it as possible - which probably means extra work in the form of additional programming or animating a bunch of sequences. More extra work would also have to be done to make sure the flashing screens didn't cause headaches or seizures. Even though Press Your Luck's an old show, there might even still be some copyright issues to sort out (even though there's a bunch of Wheel of Fortune variations on the site already).
But like I said, this is just a crazy random idea I had. I don't know if it's even feasible. I thought about submitting this idea to Neopets, but I wanted some feedback on it first. No point in my submitting the idea if it's stupid or won't work to begin with.
Thoughts? Comments? And so this thread has more of a purpose, have any of you ever had game ideas for Neopets? Or ideas for worlds where there's not much going on, such as Kreludor or Geraptiku? (I've read people's ideas for new worlds on these boards before, and most of them are fantastic, but there's also a lot of unused potential in Neopian worlds that already exist.) I like reading other people's ideas, so come on, spill 'em!