Is This All Just a Coincidence?

As an avatar collector, I must say that I am appalled that avatars can be just given away because someone spent some neopoints and did a quest. I have worked very hard to receive many of the avatars I have. I have practiced games, spent many neopoints, and clicked for what felt like hours. I have done all of this in order to earn the thing I love collecting the most on Neopets, my avatars! While my count isn't that impressive, I am proud of each and every one of them.

Now, I would like to provide you with an example of how I felt when The Coincidence began giving avatars as prizes. One individual I know received a game avatar. While I am happy that she was incredibly lucky and received an avatar, I have mixed feelings. Seeing that avatar makes me nauseated now. You might ask why it would make me nauseous. Well, let me explain that to you. I worked for four months to get that same game avatar. I played the game daily; multiple times a day, to be exact. I read lots of guides for help and tips. Then finally, one day, I was lucky enough to get a score that was over the score needed for the avatar. A screen popped up that said "Something Has Happened! You are now eligible to use this avatar (I left the avatar name out so the individual who received this avatar wouldn't be identified) as an avatar on the Neoboards." I was ecstatic, my heart was racing; I jumped out of my chair! I even jumped up and down! I knew I had just worked hard and earned something I really wanted; specifically that avatar! Now, I see that avatar and I feel like it was just given away because this person did not earn it through the game. It makes me question why I ever "wasted" my time to practice this game and receive the avatar. Even though I know that I earned it myself, it is still upsetting and honestly, nauseating. I, along with many other avatar collectors, take pride in earning each avatar.

I will probably never get any of the stamp avatars. That is OK with me! I don't have the time or energy to put into collecting stamps that costs hundreds of millions of neopoints. However, it is not fair for someone to collect a few items and click a button then receive a stamp avatar. That same stamp avatar may have taken another player years to earn.

While I would love to have been able to receive avatars that are retired, I was not playing on the site when many of them were released. I do not believe giving retired avatars as a prize is fair to the older players who did each and every event and earned those avatars. I did not do the events; therefore, I do not deserve the avatar from those events. I did not do my part and earn these avatars, so why should I be rewarded with them as a random event? As an older player myself, I would be upset to see a newer player, who didn't even have an account when an event/plot happened, have an avatar that I worked hard to receive. I must ask how you, as an individual, would feel if this situation happened to you.

While I know it has been stated by staff members that these events are meant to be incredibly rare, one must ask how would you feel? How would you feel if you worked hard to receive a stamp avatar, spent 500 million neopoints, then all of a sudden someone who just joined the site has that same stamp avatar without the completed stamp page? I don't know how you would feel; but I would be very insulted.

Now, I will tell you what I feel would be OK for the event in regards to avatars. I feel that the random avatars, such as from the lever of doom (I just received this one a few days ago, go me!), would be ok to receive from the Coincidence. After all, these avatars are random and this is a random event. These avatars are based on luck, as is the prize you receive at The Coincidence.

I must also mention that numerous other members of the Neopian community feel the way I do regarding receiving avatars from The Coincidence. I recently posted on my guild that I was working on an article for the Neopian Times. One of the members stated, "Maybe if you wait until the next event they'll just give you the NT trophy." I think that about sums up the feeling of many players; this includes myself as well. Just being given something isn't earning it!

I know there are some avatars out there that are based on luck because they are random; once again, I mention the lever of doom avatar here. However, what happened to the skill needed for game avatars? What happened to years of collecting stamps? Now, with The Coincidence possibly giving out avatars, there is no need for skill and no need for collecting. It can all based on how lucky one is. If I received one of these avatars as a random event, I would not have the joy and excitement that I once did to earn an avatar.

I did not write this piece to make anyone feel bad about receiving avatars from The Coincidence. I know that those who did receive avatars were very lucky and I am happy for them. I also know that the avatar event was deactivated for the time being. I can hope that it will not be activated again; unless only random avatars would be potential prizes.

While I know there are differing opinions on this matter, I can hope that TNT will do what is best for the site. I also want to say thank you TNT for all your hard work! I know this was not the intention of this event. I know you have already received a lot of these articles. I do hope that everyone can state their opinions to you in a nice way. I certainly hope that this article was nice as being mean was never my intention. I will not even mention the extremely elevated prices on the junk items (Oops, I guess I just mentioned it!)!