Neopets Post-Mortem

Advice to TNT

In Parts 1 and 2 we discussed the premise of Neopets, versus the reality. In Part 3 we will consider what TNT could do to salvage this once-fabled game.

Click here for Part 1 Click here for Part 2

Clamp Down on Cheating

Cheaters ruin the game for everyone.

Detecting cheaters should not be difficult in most cases.

For example, look out for:

• People playing at all hours of the day.
• Requests that arrive at very regular intervals, for example, a user that spins the Wheel of Excitement precisely every 2 hours.
• Multiple requests arriving in parallel from different pages or IP addresses.
• Requests that are inhumanly and consistently fast.
• People playing Pyramids for 6 hours without a break (after all, this is humanly impossible without dying of boredom).
• Fishy values being sent in the haggle screen, such as NaN.
• Patterns in the haggle form submission, such as players consistently knocking a fixed percentage off the price.
• People frequently clicking on the darkest pixel in the haggle screen CAPTCHA (this a well-known technique).

Some simple measures could also go a long way towards preventing cheating:

1. Redesign the shop CAPTCHA. This has been thoroughly compromised, and offers little to no security these days.
2. Redesign the score-sending mechanism for Flash games. Have it send the user's inputs, so that scores can be validated later. Admittedly this is no small feat, but start with just one or two games, and I would be very surprised if the average scores on their scoreboards do not see a significant drop.

3. Track mouse and keyboard input.

Fix the Economy

Phew… where to start?

Addressing the Wealth Imbalance

This is a tricky one, and I don't really have a good solution beyond what TNT have already tried; while the imbalance of wealth is problematic, you can't just take Neopoints away from players because they're too rich. Adding expensive activities to the site doesn't really solve the problem either, as it further alienates poor players who are excluded from taking part.

The Wheel of Extravagance costs a whopping 100,000 NP per spin!

Global Reset

It is not unheard-of for games to reset the stats of all players periodically, known as a server wipe. This is a controversial but effective way of levelling the playing field.

I have no doubt that a lot of players would strongly object to a full server wipe, as many have invested years into their Neopets accounts, and may be attached to their wealth or their pets. However, at the same time I am sure many players would welcome it due to the excitement of a fresh start and the prospect of fixing the economy once and for all.

Some players have been around for a very long time

Personally, I think a full wipe would be a huge mistake. Players are just too invested. However, it may be possible to compromise; some ideas are explored below.

1. Start over, but preserve a read-only copy of everyone's accounts. This way, players' achievements are memorialised, not lost forever. Players could link to their old accounts on their lookup to show off their past accomplishments.
2. A partial reset, where players keep, say, their trophies, avatars, and pet colours, but lose their stats, Neopoints and items. A scoreboard could be created to recognise the wealthiest players (or strongest pets) at the time of the reset.
3. Start a fresh Neopets instance, that runs in parallel to the current one. This would allow some players a fresh start, while also allowing existing players to continue their current accounts. This does have a number of downsides, such as splitting the community, the confusion of two parallel economies, and the technical challenges involved.

AI Players…?

This was just an idea I had, but I mention it very tentatively because it could have terrible consequences if implemented badly.

To counteract the effects of the declining player base, TNT could implement bots that simulate real players in some limited capacity, like buying items from player shops.

Just to clarify, I am not suggesting that these bots should pretend to be real players; they should be clearly recognisable as bots. I just think they may be able to give the economy a little helping hand in the absence of real players.

Listen to Feedback

When it comes to responding to player feedback, I tend to side with Mark Brown of Game Maker's Toolkit:

Developers have to know how to interpret that feedback… the call might just be coming from a vocal minority; it might actually end up making the game worse, or create a knock-on effect that breaks another part of the game.

I am not suggesting that TNT should pander blindly to the whims of the community, but I do think that it would be wise for them to engage with their fans, gather feedback, and make data-informed decisions about the direction of the game. There are a lot of very experienced players out there who may have some very valuable insights.

Keep Going with the Redesign!

The current mobile beta seems like a huge step forward. TNT will undoubtedly face some resistance at first, as with any major change, but right now it seems to me that they have taken a very sensible approach (phased migration and a user-controlled feature toggle).

This seems like fantastic progress towards modernising the site, and I think making it mobile-friendly could entice a lot of old players to return. I just hope the aesthetic doesn't become too childish.

Summary

Well, I think I've rambled on about this subject for long enough…

Neopets, with its complex history and intricate economy, is an interesting topic for discussion. But it is also a game that remains unique in many aspects to this day, and a game that has the potential to live on for many years to come.

Published 2020/06/07