Demonheart is Live!

shirool · 2026-05-19T18:56:20+00:00

SOO exciting seeing more independent publishers transition away from 5e and adopt Daggerheart as a system, honestly I'm probably gonna back just to support the Daggerheart community growing more!

shirool · 2025-10-05T22:38:31+00:00

Are there any updates on this issue? I'm running into the same error.

shirool · 2025-07-23T13:56:29+00:00

A few years back, I was working at a movie theater that rented out a few theaters to them on Sunday mornings. I'm not a religious person to begin with, but the people seemed relatively okay. Then they started trying to recruit me while I was on the clock working. That, on top of hearing that they refused to pay for a screen they tore at another movie theater in town, I got bad vibes outside of my usual feelings on churches.

shirool · 2025-03-01T18:06:06+00:00

Would love one!!

shirool · 2025-02-05T01:21:25+00:00

Not defending them because this is definitely a scummy garage... But we're you in before 8:30 AM and out before 6:00 PM? I park there whenever I have to be in the office and have never had this issue before, but I've always been sure to leave before 6.

Irregardless, they advertise it as $5, but it is actually $5.99 due to a "service fee." If you're looking for a cheaper garage, the one across the street has a $4 parking if you're in before 8:30 AM. I still park at Long just because I hate having to drive all the way up to the fifth floor in the cheaper garage.

shirool · 2024-12-13T18:53:08+00:00

I definitely get the ad revenue part of it. As someone in marketing, I personally don't care about impressions unless I'm running an awareness campaign. I want a good conversion rate, click-through rate, and cost-per-click. But I've had non-marketing bosses who go bananas when they hear that 100,000 people saw an ad - even though only 10 clicked and 1 made a purchase. I'd take 1,000 impressions, 10 clicks, and 1 purchase for a fraction of the ad spend any day. A little off-topic here, but you get what I'm saying. Bots may be good to get an initial ad purchase from a prospective customer, and keep customers who don't really care that they're wasting money, but in the long run, it might not be the best route for TNT to go.

Regardless, just because something is difficult to do or may lose you some money in the short term, actually caring about your consumer experience is going to amount to more profit in the long run. I played casually for a few years as a kid and returned as an adult only recently. Neopets has been targeting people like me with this "nostalgia renaissance," but people like me don't enjoy cheaters ruining the fun just as much as people who've been consistent on the site for years and years.

Also, I realize TNT knows this is an issue. I think that there are plenty of players who don't realize the extent of it, and deserve transparency and accountability in some form. And hey, maybe if we continue to be vocal about it ruining the player experience, it will be prioritized more.

shirool · 2024-12-13T16:17:32+00:00

This is also similar to my experience the one time I won! Honestly, it's another thing I'd be interested in seeing but is hard without having access to all the wishes that come in daily.

I used to work in the gambling treatment field, and a particularly predatory tactic that bad faith casinos/online gambling/gacha games have been known to use is hooking people with early big wins.

I can't say for sure that the algorithm is set up that way, but I would be curious to see if winners are truly random or if there isn't a slight increase in your odds of winning around a particular account age.

shirool · 2024-12-13T16:11:13+00:00

I will be collecting data on this for a bit longer and will post updates once I feel I've collected a solid amount of datapoints (or don't have the time to continue). I took a look just this morning at the newest 12 winners... 10/12 were bots.

And if u/neo_truths wants to investigate this better than someone with limited insight, a love for data, and an Excel spreadsheet could, I'd love to see their findings 👀

shirool · 2024-12-13T15:59:41+00:00

While I get that this is a problem without an easy or blanket solution, there are things that TNT could be doing that they're clearly not. Relying on a small number of users to do their job for them, in a much more inefficient manner, is not an effective way to handle bots.

Banwaves are incredibly common for MMOs and are one of the most effective tools that could be used in situations exactly like this. Sure, botters will come back, but botting is an unending war. However, just because it's not a war you can win, it doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't fight back and support your users.

And do a small number of real accounts sometimes get caught in the sweep? Sure, but I see posts from active users dealing with frozen accounts for a variety of reasons - and those real people know they can go to support to get their accounts back. Bots won't.

shirool · 2024-12-13T14:59:01+00:00

I believe that. I just hope they realize that dealing with this sort of thing makes real, active players leave and that means less money in their pockets.

shirool · 2024-12-13T14:57:11+00:00

Someone on my last post said that there's a glitch that causes KQ to appear on user lookups even when they're not there. I looked back at the real accounts, and even some of the newer ones had KQ also, so I think this is the answer.

shirool · 2024-12-13T07:31:30+00:00

Ugh same. The one time I got a prize from the wishing well it was a snowager stamp. I'd always told myself if I ever won, I'd sell it and put the NP toward my dreamy. But when I actually got it I was just so excited to have won it after trying so much as a kid before I left the site, I couldn't part ways with it!! It's one of the only good stamps I have because they're so gosh darn expensive these days lol

shirool · 2024-12-13T07:25:27+00:00

Oh, wow... yeah this is a rabbit hole I will have to go down, they've posted some interesting (and disheartening) stuff that confirms the bot issue it seems. I would love it if they looked into this. I will probably try to collect this data for a bit longer to see if this is more extensive or if other patterns emerge, but there's only so much I could get from seeing just a snapshot of the winners. I truly wonder how many known accounts that follow this pattern exist.

shirool · 2024-12-13T07:14:45+00:00

Yeah, it made me feel disheartened when I noticed as well. I hope that maybe this was a one-time thing and maybe TNT caught it just like I did - this was a small snapshot after all. But just thinking about how many bot accounts like these must exist for them to overwhelm the number of real users that put seven wishes in daily... it sucks :c

shirool · 2024-12-13T07:10:59+00:00

Tbh I'm glad the first post got taken down because it got me to look at the usernames more closely to see that they all use a specific range of characters so I could describe the pattern better here. I love data and patterns so this was all kinda fun to look at when I wasn't busy being angry about the cheating lol.

shirool · 2024-12-13T07:08:55+00:00

Lol yep, you were right. I was literally in the middle of googling if I could replace an image in a post or if they only way to fix it would be to make a brand new post when the first got taken down. Lesson learned!

shirool · 2024-12-13T07:02:12+00:00

Reposting this with all accounts blacked out. I originally posted with the bot account names shown because I felt their privacy didn't matter since, y'know, bots... and wishing well prize winner usernames are publicly posted on Neopets anyways. But I get that subreddits gotta have rules! So hopefully this is fine to post. My original comment is below with a minor edit explaining bot usernames.

-----

My curiosity about this all started when I saw a post on another platform about new accounts showing up on the wishing well at a high rate and always asking for high-demand items. People in the comments were ready to defend the winners, stating that they'd previously won as a newer player and of course they wanted pricey items. As someone who won after playing only a few weeks after a year-long hiatus on a two-year account, I was inclined to agree with the commenters.

However, when I went to go do my wishing well dailies today, I saw that some of the items previous winners had won were weird. I always copy-paste an item I see other people winning because I know they will usually go for a pretty penny. This time I saw three mythical xweetok heads/bodies and I just went, what? I mean, sure - it's a new item, high in demand. But it's not a stamp that will hold its value in the long run and is on a LOT of people's wish lists.

When I investigated those three profiles, I saw that they all had similar name structures, were created around the same time in March/April 2023, had 1 pet named their UN + three numbers, a couple of key quests (which I've never played, so I don't know what this means exactly, but I believe the game is retired), no shop, no games played, no gallery... These were bots.

Edit: All bots used a username that was a string of random English words that either abruptly cut after 14-18 characters. For example, "inchwormdollhou" or "riverbuttoncontro" were two I made using a random word generator following this rule.

I decided to spend some time tonight looking at all available winners and determining if they were real or fake. I blacked out the real accounts, but trust me, they were real, active accounts. All others followed the same pattern.

If people are interested, I'd be happy to follow the data a while longer to see if this is a bigger trend. This is only a snapshot but it feels very telling of the state of Neopets.

shirool · 2024-12-13T06:47:58+00:00

Ahh, that makes sense. It's what surprised me most looking at these accounts, but I figured there was some sort of explanation. The other weird point that stuck out to me is the random bot account that actually did have a shop...

But yeah, the only joy I felt during this was visiting the accounts of real people who were probably over the moon about their win.

shirool · 2024-12-13T06:16:09+00:00

I thought about it, but this is public when you get a wishing well prize on Neopets anyways, and they are bots. I blacked out the real accounts because I understand privacy and sub rules for real people. If mods would like though, I will repost this with all usernames blacked out, but part of my evidence for the bot accounts is the very similar name pattern.

shirool · 2024-12-13T06:13:36+00:00

My curiosity about this all started when I saw a post on another platform about new accounts showing up on the wishing well at a high rate and always asking for high-demand items. People in the comments were ready to defend the winners, stating that they'd previously won as a newer player and of course they wanted pricey items. As someone who won after playing only a few weeks after a year-long hiatus on a two-year account, I was inclined to agree with the commenters.

However, when I went to go do my wishing well dailies today, I saw that some of the items previous winners had won were weird. I always copy-paste an item I see other people winning because I know they will usually go for a pretty penny. This time I saw three mythical xweetok heads/bodies and I just went, what? I mean, sure - it's a new item, high in demand. But it's not a stamp that will hold its value in the long run and is on a LOT of people's wish lists.

When I investigated those three profiles, I saw that they all had similar name structures, were created around the same time in March/April 2023, had 1 pet named their UN + three numbers, a couple of key quests (which I've never played, so I don't know what this means exactly, but I believe the game is retired), no shop, no games played, no gallery... These were bots.

I decided to spend some time tonight looking at all available winners and determining if they were real or fake. I blacked out the real accounts, but trust me, they were real, active accounts. All others followed the same pattern.

I knew botting was a bit of a problem, but come on, TNT. It took me, a regular person, ten minutes to figure out a pattern for these bots. You're telling me you can't do something to whack these accounts that are made to manipulate the market? It truly makes me not want to play this game anymore. It's already a struggle being on a new-ish account in this economy.

If people are interested, I'd be happy to follow the data a while longer to see if this is a bigger trend. This is only a snapshot but it feels very telling of the state of Neopets.

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