Pink Poogle Toy Forum

Well, we've finally gotten our next Charity Corner. I felt we should have a post for it, despite how little I like this year's event.

Main Page

Once again, there's a "faster" way to donate. You can click the back button on your browser, unselect and reselect one of them and donate.
Quick NP item donate link

In other news, as of now, they have nerfed the sticky snowball (specifically) to be worth only 1 point. Given that 25nps is still "cheap" for a 1-point item, it's irritating, however, there is a LOT of anger about this. Mostly because of the next topic below. As of the time of posting this, though, the Icy Snowball is still worth 6 points, and is only 5nps in the Healing Springs shop. I had done some stocking up on these (a little over 600 compared to the over 1500 of the stickies) over the course of the year, so I donated them immediately before their value gets nerfed as well. I expect it's coming.

And then, there's this mess. The "prize shop." No, no perks this year, much to my dismay. I was looking forward to the bank and stock ones again, but I guess not.
NP Prize shop
Art work? Great!
Prizes themselves? All of the non-mystery capsule ones appear to be reasonable. The weapon is a 13-attack, 5 block, so it's not terrible. Glad the book is cheap - I'll probably get a few of those. (Bought a stamp with my donated icy snowballs and some of the other items I had stored up and put it in my album.)
But: the mystery capsules are quite frankly an insult.

From the FAQ:

So what this means is you have to donate 4,000 points worth of items for a 1% chance of getting something truly worthwhile...and even then, a lot of 95-99 rarity items aren't worth much. Most people that have risked this have reported back with junk items. Ummy did some math (here) to show that you actually have a 0.32% of profiting from one of the Tier 1 capsules.

Now, I understand that they have to be careful to "balance the game", etc, but if you're going to spend the time, effort, nps, and items to get one of those 4k capsules, they should have a MUCH higher chance of getting a R95-99 item than 1%. It's a slap in the face, especially when you add in the fact that the "cheap" way of obtaining points (sticky snowballs) has been destroyed. I am hoping that TNT will either drastically lower the price of the capsules, or drastically increase the chances of rarer items. I'm probably hoping for too much, though. As of right now, I'm kinda flabbergasted as to how TNT managed to take an already tediously boring event that had at least some decent rewards and managed to suck all of the (relative) joy out of it after promising to make it "perfect." Clearly, whoever set up the prize shop is completely out of touch with reality. No one in their right mind would willingly waste hours of their time for a 0.32% chance of profit. I certainly won't.

Oh, and despite them claiming they would not ever carry over points again, they did, and of course, nerfed them the same way they did last year. Apparently, despite me having used all of mine, they must've used data from sometime before my last claim on Right Round Round, because I started with 100 points.

If you want more in-depth of a guide, I suggest JellyNeo's Guide.

At this point, I've got the stamp. Unless they change SOMETHING, I plan on donating the 5k+ shiny obsidians I bought for 1np or got through dailies over the course of the year to bring my total donation points up to 10k (hoping the trophy tiers stay the same), and maybe buying a few of the books and another stamp. Anything else that is still in my SDB (and there's a lot), will sit there and wait for another potential CC - including the sticky snowballs. I could probably say a LOT more about this, but I'll leave it here. I've probably spent more time on this post than I should have as it is.

Thanks for the info, Pickles! Hmm... Maybe I won't participate at all. Or at least not beyond some stamps and books, anyway. Sounds terrible!

It's really a shame that this event is (at least currently) so poorly set up. I had saved over 34k items since last year. This included doing dailies, battling, getting items off the money tree, buying snowballs, and buying from other user shops. I'm really pretty disappointed that TNT clearly didn't look at the prize shop from an actual user standpoint. It's almost like they don't even try to figure out what the users would like.

The mystery capsules are a good idea...but in the old system, it was a 5-to-1 ratio for items. This is asking for essentially 4,000 items to get one. Yes, maybe 5-to-1 was too easy, but 4,000-to-1 is ridiculous, especially when the 1 isn't even guaranteed to be decent.

Over the years, I have tried hard to keep faith that TNT would pull through, and take into account the interests of their players. Yes, there was an interest in getting a chance for rare items back in, but it was SO BADLY thought through that clearly whoever made the decision isn't actively playing. With them having ditched two mobile games without really finishing either of them (one of which had a plot line that was left hanging), and are now focusing on another mobile game and supposedly updating the flash games (little faith in that at this point, and I'm fairly certain that my favorites will be left behind) and skipping fun events like Daily Dare and GMC, I'm just having a hard time believing that things will ever get better.

Also, maybe this is just my pet peeve, but...starting an event about an island needing to recover from a storm less than two days before a hurricane is about to hit near where the last one did is in VERY POOR TASTE!

Thanks Pickles for creating this thread. It is good for historical purposes. I do see a lot of traffic of people "looking at the past", so it is great to have as much as we can do.

I "tried" during last year's event and appear to have carried over 900 points into this year. That's good, I guess. However, I have not been hoarding items (any more than usual), so not entirely sure how much I will do this year. I was originally thinking of going for the perpetual bank boon, but that is right out now.

I just picked up 26 points for recycling whatever happened to be in my inventory

Okay, so apparently they listened, and have done a LOT to fix the prize shop points now. The capsules are no longer 4,000 points (but 400). The stamp is 2500 points now, and the book only 100.
All of the items that were not capsules were cut in half, while the capsules were reduced by a factor of 10.


My Problem:


Apparently, they need to fix my prize points left. I would assume by their obvious relatively quick response (about a day) that they're reading the boards, so I'm guessing they'll fix it soon? I hope?

I wouldn't mind as much gambling on a 400 prize point capsule as a 4,000 point one.


ETA: Still waiting to see if we get the points back. Not sure if I'll gamble on a 1% chance or not. Hoping maybe the'll up the chances a little. It's still pretty bad odds.
However, I've made my over 10k in donations (went with mostly R101 items. Will see if/what they do with the capsules before I donate any more. Hoping 10k in donations will be enough for a gold trophy again.

Thanks Pickles! It sounds like TNT not only listened but also acted. How 'bout dat?

I may now actually put some effort into donating more stuff this year.

My points are currently sitting at 926. (900 carried over - unchanged from yesterday plus the 26 I earned from donating my on-hand inventory... whatever it was )

Well, my faith in TNT is being restored. They're making an obvious effort. Once a day updates are actually quite reasonable, all this considered.



They've credited me back the 2600 points that were the difference...but added it to both my "points left" and "total points earned" columns. Meanwhile, my quick donate page has the correct amount for how much I've donated. I'm not in a hurry for anything at this point, and the fact that they're clearly paying attention and making updates is admirable. I feel a little bad for being so hard on them two days ago. They are clearly trying, and clearly reading the boards.

Waiting to do anything else for a few days since I was involved with the refund and the numbers aren't technically correct, including redeeming the free 500 points. Except buying 5np Icy Snowballs every half hour and selling them for 1k. Makin' up for how much I spent on the Stickies over the year... (I'm at 5k out of 17.7k)

P.S. Siniri, thanks for the suggestion last year on stocking up on Icy's just in case they reverted to the old style donation and the R100 items wouldn't have counted. That's the only reason that I bothered collecting the over 600 that I had!

I think y'all are probably good to donate/buy though, if you want. I wouldn't claim the extra 500 points yet - there seems to be a bug with it at the moment.

I wish I'd taken my own advice, Pickles! They've nerfed other things before for this event. I'm just meh about collecting dailies for junk. The site needs a major overhaul.

And I guess I should have read your thing about the 500 free points, but at least mine seems to have credited properly. I'm at 2800 and some change (thanks to 42 points in donations). Had waaaay too many carry over.

Quick donation is currently broken. Is that an ongoing thing? It's way too cumbersome to donate without it. I have Friday off. Hopefully it'll be fixed by then and I can get to 10k (except I probably can't...). Meh. I don't care about trophies on this account anyway, remember self?

Of course, I actually love all the prizes... At least I have enough for the stamp. I'll accumulate points before spending.

When does the event end?

Oh, and if you're looking to gamble on capsules: http://www.neopets.com/neoboards/topic. ... =160743990

(tl;dr: 25 NP/item is the max you should be spending. Sticky snowballs will net you on average 69 NP for the best capsule. And yes, these are based on the new prices. That's a very tiny profit margin for a very high risk/low probability.)

The bug with the 500 free had something to do with it poofing after people donated...possibly through the quick donate link? I didn't spend much time reading up on it last night, but I saw a board on it before I went to bed, so it seems to have been taken down after the bug with the 500 free was being reported. They do seem to be actively working on things, though, so I'd hope they'll have things working again soon.

Event ends on the 24th, so we've got a week still.

I don't plan on spending any nps on the event at this point, but I can/will certainly pull more stuff out of my SDB to donate if it appears it'll be worth it. Most of it is junk, but I do still have 4k+ shiny obsidians, most of which I paid 1np for if I didn't get them from dailies, along with a lot of other junk I found for 1np in user shops. I would guess that I would eventually profit off that.


ETA: Wow. Apparently earlier today, everyone's points disappeared completely...and now we've got the infamous Red Pteri. Rough day for Neo.

Hmph. I have a few minutes to do dailies now and... yep.



At least PPT is up and has been pretty stable lately *knocks on wood*

It's back up! My numbers are now correct, too!

ETA: Some people are reporting incorrect numbers. Also, the 500 bonus can't be claimed right now. Probably they're working on the bug for it still.

Then there's this from the news:



No event can run perfectly smoothly, I guess, but at least they're extending the time for it to make up for the issues and downtime today?


...in the meantime, I've now sold enough Icy Snowballs to make up for what I spent on the Stickies over the year and then some.

Well, let's see if that 500 is still credited properly...

You have earned yourself 4326 points in donations.
Total Prize Points Earned: 6,606

So that's... 2280 points difference. Hmm. That definitely seems to be 500 less than it should be. *sigh* Hopefully they're just resetting everyone for the 500 free points? It's blank for me. Is that how it looks for you? Should I submit a ticket?

Sooooo apparently the Tier 1 (400point) capsules are giving out the Tier 3 (150point) capsules prizes and vice versa. It has not been addressed in the news or by TNT, but the boards are flooded with people gambling on the 150-point caps and getting R90+ items.

I went ahead and claimed my extra 500 points and then spent the points I've earned.
I've now gotten: Dacardian Swords of Valor, Rebuilding Dacardia Stamp (bought earlier), Island Rebuilding Background, Ancient Dacardite Necklace, Seaglass Foreground, and Discover Dacardia (bought earlier). This totaled 10,600 points. I still have 1 point left.

I'm waiting to see what happens with the capsules before I donate anymore. The chances on the 150point capsules might actually tempt me to do some gambling on them, if they don't get changed around.


ETA: A neomail is going out to people who had bought Tier 1 capsules before. Apparently they've acknowledged the issue and given everyone with a Tier 1 capsule a replacement capsule to make up for it (they're showing up in peoples' inventories). Capsules are supposed to now be fixed correctly. No guarantees on what the rates are. Kinda a shame - the 150 point capsules were tempting while they were broken, but I figured that'd be abusing a glitch, so I didn't.


ETA2: This was in the editorial:

That seems pretty open to me. Wow.

I don't have the option of buying the 500 points again, and they're still missing, so I submitted a ticket. I have a feeling there are a lot of us...

Anyway. Does anyone know whether the 10,001 points must be acquired through the event (i.e., donation total)? Or do the points applied from last year transfer over?

I want to buy basically one of everything because BEACH! but I also don't think I have enough stuff or time/patience to do so... I will say, I surprisingly had a lot of stuff from test your strength, the wheels, and Grumpy Old King. (I already try to do Wise Old King because of the rare book drops.)

I would assume that if the minimum for gold is 10,001, you have to do it through the event. I'm also just guessing that 10,001 is gold - it's been that way the last few ones, but who knows if they'll keep it the same or up it? I just aimed for that as a minimum. I'll see how I'm feeling next week, whether or not I clear out some more junk from my SDB. Saving the R90+'s that I have left for now.

ETA:
Gutterfoot was on the neoboards last night, chatting with users about a number of things (and having a hard time keeping up - the board was moving pretty quickly, but she was doing her best to answer things.) However, there was this one thing of note in regards to CC:


JN has kindly pulled out most of the info here. There's a LOT. I do think it is important to note, though, that the discussion was very civil on both side! (The users posting questions were polite with their concerns for the most part, rather than accusatory and rude). The thread was an interesting read.


ETA2: Also, I'm still giggling about the fact that TNT got censored trying to post that original update about the sticky snowballs.