Neocolours

Kantark wrote:It's boggling that they didn't arrange someone to cover the NT while Droplet was away, as far as I understand it's a planned leave of absence. Especially since the NT is one of the main outlets for user-generated content on the site, it's not going to help the 'stickiness' of the site if that outlet is no longer there.

*nods* I don't get it either, and I find it even more frustrating that they have the ability to keep people informed via Twitter or Facebook, but they don't. They claim to care about their fans but seem to go out of their way to keep their distance. I can understand some more sensitive things being only for the site, but there's got to be some things they can answer without it causing too many issues.

The part of me that loved Neo died back in April 2007. It wasn't the new site and customization that killed it though: a lot of my lab ray friends had their accounts iced for some reason--no idea to this day what it was; and a friend in the group had gone and scammed several avvy items from other players and even those in our group.
Needless to say, we all ended up leaving Neo.

I wound up on Subeta (thank freaking god) while everyone else simply disappeared.

I'm back on Neo though--new account, with at least one pet I care about to paint and train--trying to stir up that love again. But I'm pretty detached, and the lag and errors ain't helpin'. And the lack of NT is slowly destroying me (the one tradition I expect every Friday, and now that's gone for who knows how long).

Say what you will about Subeta crashing or Keith's decision-making, but at least there's constant communication between staff and users. We may not see eye-to-eye or feel like we're being heard, but I'll take Keith & Co., over TNT any day. Hell, we're currently out-speeding Neo in page-loading.

Runic wrote:The part of me that loved Neo died back in April 2007. It wasn't the new site and customization that killed it though: a lot of my lab ray friends had their accounts iced for some reason--no idea to this day what it was; and a friend in the group had gone and scammed several avvy items from other players and even those in our group.
Needless to say, we all ended up leaving Neo.

I wound up on Subeta (thank freaking god) while everyone else simply disappeared.

I'm back on Neo though--new account, with at least one pet I care about to paint and train--trying to stir up that love again. But I'm pretty detached, and the lag and errors ain't helpin'. And the lack of NT is slowly destroying me (the one tradition I expect every Friday, and now that's gone for who knows how long).

Say what you will about Subeta crashing or Keith's decision-making, but at least there's constant communication between staff and users. We may not see eye-to-eye or feel like we're being heard, but I'll take Keith & Co., over TNT any day. Hell, we're currently out-speeding Neo in page-loading.

*nods* It's really hard when there's a lack of communication. It's even worse when arbitrary things happen and there's no recourse.

Regarding the NT: We recently lost a staff member at my work, unexpectedly. As much as we try to keep things going, business as usual, it's hard. Clients get frustrated with us for letting things slip through the cracks, and we don't really want to go into the details of why we're a bit scatterbrained. There's a fine line between too little information, and keeping personal things private.

I think it's crazy that they didn't have someone working alongside her for the NT that could help enough to keep things running, but it also sounds like they've had a lot of disruption with this whole JumpStart thing. I can only imagine they're reeling, even if we don't know exactly for what. I hope they find someone to step into those shoes, but in the meantime, I've got a lot of sympathy for sudden changes.

Yeah. I'm sure they're mighty frustrated, and I can certainly understand when things are like "yay this will be better!" and then it turns out to be a massive disaster. But it doesn't make me feel any more like waiting for pages to load.

And they're still rearranging/struggling with things. Like just tonight I checked on my Food Club bets - either they're having trouble with it, or the timing has changed on it.

And the usual gag of the day cancelled due to lack of interest - it's even more telling now, since they haven't updated the news at all since Thursday. We'll see when Monday comes....

Just gonna spread the word to hear now, according to a tweet from Snarkie, there was apparently a massive layoff at the Neopets HQ. Comastar and Viola are confirmed to have been laid off:

If anyone is looking to hire content geniuses, designers, monitors, producers, et al, please do tell. I have awesome folks to send your way.
https://twitter.com/snarkie/status/574003463534723073

On Neo's FB, there were supposedly some posts regarding the layoffs, from both users and now ex-staff, which was quickly removed by the page's admin. I don't have any screenshots of it, but I'm sure I can ask around.

thelonetiel wrote:Regarding the NT: We recently lost a staff member at my work, unexpectedly. As much as we try to keep things going, business as usual, it's hard. Clients get frustrated with us for letting things slip through the cracks, and we don't really want to go into the details of why we're a bit scatterbrained. There's a fine line between too little information, and keeping personal things private.

I think it's crazy that they didn't have someone working alongside her for the NT that could help enough to keep things running, but it also sounds like they've had a lot of disruption with this whole JumpStart thing. I can only imagine they're reeling, even if we don't know exactly for what. I hope they find someone to step into those shoes, but in the meantime, I've got a lot of sympathy for sudden changes.

Yeah, and if there are massive layoffs as stated, then they wouldn't want to mention them lest they cause a complete panic. This move seems to have been awfully rough on them overall.

Fjorab_Teke wrote:Yeah. I'm sure they're mighty frustrated, and I can certainly understand when things are like "yay this will be better!" and then it turns out to be a massive disaster. But it doesn't make me feel any more like waiting for pages to load.

And they're still rearranging/struggling with things. Like just tonight I checked on my Food Club bets - either they're having trouble with it, or the timing has changed on it.

And the usual gag of the day cancelled due to lack of interest - it's even more telling now, since they haven't updated the news at all since Thursday. We'll see when Monday comes....

*nods* It's strange because they have that new app game out now and you'd think they'd want to have that out on site news.

Runic wrote:Just gonna spread the word to hear now, according to a tweet from Snarkie, there was apparently a massive layoff at the Neopets HQ. Comastar and Viola are confirmed to have been laid off:

If anyone is looking to hire content geniuses, designers, monitors, producers, et al, please do tell. I have awesome folks to send your way.
https://twitter.com/snarkie/status/574003463534723073

On Neo's FB, there were supposedly some posts regarding the layoffs, from both users and now ex-staff, which was quickly removed by the page's admin. I don't have any screenshots of it, but I'm sure I can ask around.

That's distressing. I wonder if we should all start taking screenshots and similar for a Neopets memorial site now...

We don't really talk about anything as it is! (Then again, I'm not a subeta person, so maybe that place is a hive of activity and I'm just not with it?)

I've split off the posts regarding the layoffs and merged those into a general layoffs thread- I've left this as more a general thread about whether people are interested in talking about Neo, any specific things people would like to talk about, etc.

Jazzy wrote:I've split off the posts regarding the layoffs and merged those into a general layoffs thread- I've left this as more a general thread about whether people are interested in talking about Neo, any specific things people would like to talk about, etc.

Yet, strangely, the layoffs have generated more talk about Neopets than has happened in some time here.

Nothing reminds you how much you love(d) something quite like knowing it could be gone forever. There's a great comfort in the knowledge that ok, right now I'm not interested, but if I get interested again it'll all still be there.