New plot: War of the Obelisk

[Silver Link]

Pride has been defeated too. Not sure when though

[Madge]

Is it just me or did they not really give us much time to fight? What was it, two or three days? =/ I'm really glad I slogged it out last night getting my last few victories because I kind of had assumed I'd also have another 24 hours from now at least? Am I just optimistic?

[Silver Link]

I think it was the same amount of time as any other wave but I think this one depended on the amount of players participating. It probably was a bit rushed, yeah

[Fjorab_Teke]

I didn't get quite half done. I adopted a pound pet with a long string of random letters to do the last of the battling and found that Apathy was gone. Ah well, somewhat appropriately named - i really didn't care enough to slog all the way through it over the last two days, especially as i wasted so much time over the first bit trying to do actual damage. I got all the rest of my bars and achievements done, though.

[Color Wheel]

Any ideas on Greed's species? He looks like a Meerca with no tail, or possibly a Wocky (I'm hoping Wocky, the whole 'fat cat' thing would be nice.)

He is a Wocky, and he does have a tail - I only realized it yesterday, in fact. It's made up of those golden swirls surrounding him, hence why you may not see it at first. (It's really obvious in this pose: http://images.neopets.com/dome/npcs/002 ... nd_249.png)

[Kantark]

Ah yep, that makes sense. I just assumed the swirly bits were just ethereal... stuff. And he definitely looks more like a Wocky in that pose.

[thelonetiel]

Okay, sooooo. That's not really it, right?

We battled, somebody won. And then the Obelisk will open and we'll have some intense puzzles, further fighting, more general ridiculousness, right? At the very least, can we get some decent explanation of what the hell the Obelisk is, why it is important and cool, what we were actually fighting for blindingly? And hopefully that explanation will include some interactive parts?

I don't remember the past wars very well, maybe they weren't actually longer than this. Maybe I'm remembering the Altador and Lost Desert plots that seemed to go on for weeks (and that still might be my imagination). Perhaps if I had fought more, I'd be tired of slogging through battles. But right now I'm thinking that I want a little more story as an explanation for a much needed Tyrannia revamp and a mysterious artifact popped up out of no where.

[Jazzy]

Well...maybe. War plots don't have to have puzzles (there were none in the Maraqua War if you chose the battling option, the Battle for Meridell, Champions of Meridell, or the HatIC war) so that's not guaranteed. Further fighting...if there's going to be anything the most likely option, based on previous wars, is that the Obelisk will open and a massive enemy will come out that all of the sides will have to work together to defeat. Like the Champions of Meridell war when the flaming version of Lord Darigan came out. But we've already had a similar sort of enemy for each of the teams, so I don't think that's likely.

Previous wars had more waves than this, but this war still wasn't particularly short by war standards. We almost certainly will get an explanation of what the Obelisk is; it will probably turn out to be some sort of site feature/daily too.

[Runic]

I assume there will be more plot to follow, considering the entire point of this war was to result in Tyrannia's map destruction and being "rebuilt" (updated) after all is said and done.
Whatever's in the Obelisk, it must be something grand and powerful, and capable of decimating the entire Tyrannian land. xD

[Bif]

I know think that it will continue because the editorial made a slight reference to those creepy twins waiting around for the prize shop to open. Although I would be happier with more plot I would still be ok if it was over. What I DO care about it is that it happens tomorrow. I'm getting impatient! After 2 (ish?) weeks of something new every 3 days, a whole week of nothing has me chomping at the bit.

[Kamil]

Yanno, the longer it takes for them to update this the more I begin to think it's really not finished. Yeah, sure, they had to draw a lot for the Negg Festival, but if all that remained for the plot was the release of the prize shop, surely they've had the prizes drawn up and approved for quite some time. Even if it differed slightly depending on who wins, still, I'd think they'd have all of the other items finished, and only the top level prize to finish.

But if there is more to do, they probably don't want to do it on top of the negg festival. Although it's not long after that to Daily Dare (or is it GMC next? I get them confused), and then AC after that, so I dunno. But it seems to me there must be something more remaining, or they would have finished it off already, just to stop the whinging about prizes.

I enjoyed it well enough (although I wished, almost daily, that Cran had been running the battles), but I'd like some idea of how I did, who won, etc.. And oh yeah, I WANT MY PRIZES. Now would be good. And I can't be the only one who feels that way, so there must be more, even if it's only a small few things, yet to do.

Maybe.

[Fjorab_Teke]

I remember seeing something about "taking a break" or something along that line. I'm pretty well convinced there's more to it.

[Tom]

I'm pretty sceptical to the idea that there is much more to come, just because there is absolutely no momentum. Any anticipation has been turned into boredom. To make something feel more than tacked on would have required a decent, continuous narrative. Though I guess I was disappointed early on and probably am a bit bitter that a cool premise has really been squandered away with the most uneventful plot/event/whatever. But to do more now definitely feels like too little, too late.

[Fury]

I'm pretty sceptical to the idea that there is much more to come, just because there is absolutely no momentum. Any anticipation has been turned into boredom. To make something feel more than tacked on would have required a decent, continuous narrative. Though I guess I was disappointed early on and probably am a bit bitter that a cool premise has really been squandered away with the most uneventful plot/event/whatever. But to do more now definitely feels like too little, too late.

I agree! I really don't think there's going to be any more user-involved steps - or at least nothing as exciting or challenging as people are hoping - but I would love to be proved wrong. I reckon we'll get a wrapping up, possibly in the form of a video or comic, an explanation of the Obelisk and a new Tyrannia reveal. The fact that it's taking them so long to announce gets my hopes up for something incredible but I'm not holding my breath.

I am enjoying browsing the Obelisk NeoBoard if I happen to be online when the news comes out. There are plenty of "OH MY GOD!!! STILL NO PRIZE SHOP!!!" topics to keep you amused.

[Cranberry]

From today's editorial:

Hi, TNT! *throws Neggs* So, the Obelisk War was about... three weeks ago, I think? Are those Tyrannians still having trouble counting up the points, or are things just pretty hectic around the office with the Festival of Neggs and other site events around Neopia? I'm just anxious to find out the results; this has to be one of my favorite site events by far! ~jackjack1234

Nothing's interrupting our efforts! We're just still running the numbers. We had the faction winner figured out in the first day or two, and we're just as anxious to get the results out as you are! It's the individual points that take a while to get right. To give you a bit of context, it works something like this:

We check on the massive amount of fight data we have and try to get a basic idea of the different buckets of participation we can put players in and what percentage of participants fall within these buckets. This is just a rough point we can start from, and then it gets crazy. We do a base set of point numbers, run sample queries and compare to various levels of participation, tweak numbers, re-run queries, run different queries to get more information on certain buckets, etc., etc. Some of those individual queries can take a while to run by themselves, so we work furiously, wait, work furiously again, wait some more... and that’s just for point values! After that, we have to actually price the prizes. During all of this, we're also working on building the prize shop and... some other things. We discovered long ago that to do it properly takes time. (Ask folks who were around for the Curse of Maraqua prize shop. ;_;) When we're comfortable with the numbers -- which we actually never are, so... comfortable enough -- and we think everyone will be justly rewarded for their efforts, then we'll release the prize shop. We definitely know it's a pain to wait, but we think that's better than being disappointed with your reward.

We don't have an estimate right now. We're really trying to finish up by next week, but we can't tell yet if that will happen.