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Last updated December 1, 2008
Greetings! Hello! Salutations! Welcome! *Insert long line of words meaning 'Come on in; we don't bite' here*! So. You've found your way to the WWOPB - one funny looking page headed with one funny looking acronym. But that really can't be helped, because the letters stand for
For those of you who just joined, or weren't on Neo for April 26, 2007, here's a quick history lesson (everyone else, have fun skipping ahead). One day, Neopets is strolling along, doing just fine. The sun's streaming down, the sky is clear, lalalala. Birds chirping, whatever you want, s'long as it's happy, cheerful, bright. And then the pretty picture goes "POP!" - like some sort of mega-balloon deflating - when TNT decides to go create this thing called 'customisation'. What is it? It's this snazzy new concept of buying clothing to put on our pets.
Sounds great, right? Yeeaaahh...
See, the catch was, our beatiful pets had to be converted into a new form so they could be customised. And guess what? Most of these new converted forms were downright ugly rather unasthetic. Eyelashes for girls, fists for everyone that stood on two legs, stiff poses more suited to cardboard cutouts than pets -- you get the idea. The once free poses of pets painted Faerie, and the cute poses of those such as Xweetoks, got totally... destroyed. Pets painted grey and plushie lost their quaint, mildly drooping charm, while those who were Royal were forced to grovel down on all fours (ugh! How demeaning!) in completely un-regal poses.
And so, of course, there was grumbling. A lot of grumbling. Many players didn't understand how TNT could do this - changing everything without even giving them a poll (yes, there was in fact a poll for customisation, but there never was one about the new pet poses), or some sort of warning, and only giving a priviliged few the chance to keep their pets in original format. How unfair.
The prices of paint brushes that gave the ever-so-stylish pieces of clothing skyrocketed, while the rest fell dramatically (a record number of non-basic paint brushes are currently in the 'buyable' range - though, we do admit, it could just be a result of Tarla playing around with her freebies).
So (okay, everyone back together now), the purpose of WWOPB is to give choice back to the users of Neopia - yes, even if it's nearly a year too late. (Yeesh, folks, whatever happened to the old adage, 'better late than never'?)
And exactly how do we plan to do this?
Oh yes. It sounds awfully cliche, but that's our mission: to bring unconverted pets back to the majority of Neopia one way or another.
This basic idea is to spread the word as much as possible, and to get TNT's attention. Get enough users to start mentioning this to family, friend, get enough people tostart bombarding the editorial (sorry Droplet!) - and this might all work out. You see, our goal is this, and it (seems) pretty simple:
Beneath converted pets, we want a button. A nice, cute, shiny button that says, 'unconvert' on it, in nice, cute, shiny letters. Bolded, preferably, too. But anyway, the purpose of such a button would be, as it suggests, to unconvert pets. One little mouseclick would feasibly have the power to turn the horrendous converted Royalgirl Aisha back to her original, graceful state.
And we would want this button to be avaible everywhere, to everyone. While painting, while labbing - on the Pet Quickref page, too. And below it, just like in the transition days between the old and new Neopets, a 'convert' button.
Choice.
But, why would TNT go through all of this trouble? Why should we, why should you? We're going to do some rather broad stereotyping here, so bear with us, but weren't you upset when you first saw the new face of your pets? Didn't you want to be able to change them back, with a flick of a switch, a wave of a wand - a click of a button? And even if you didn't, wouldn't you still feel a little uneasy knowing that you couldn't?
You see, folks like choices. A kid who only like a certain brand of chocolate - let's say, for instance, Hersheys - has two candy shops in his/her neighborhood. One of the candy shops only has two brands of chocolate, while the other has ten. Even though both stores have the brand the kid likes, this kid will pretty much always end up buying the same stinking brand (and so it doesn't really matter which store he/she goes to),and he/she'll pretty much always end up going to the store with ten brands of chocolate. Choices make us feel happy and important (sorry for the uber-extended analogy there, by the way). And choices, as far as conversion goes, is exactly what we want - and haven't been getting. It makes for rather disgruntled play - and isn't Neopets supposed to be a game, isn't it supposed to be fun? Do you see, then, how these two contradict?
Secondly. There are many folks out there who can't be bothered to take time to customise their pets. And yet, they still have to stick with the fist-bearing now-norm. You see how that could be a little annoying, right? And also - a look at some of the Customisation spotlight yields that a fair group of the winning pets have all been - you guessed it - unconverted. Because, even unconverted, pets can still be customised. Maybe not with so much variety or flavor, but a background and trinket - rightfully done - can easily bring out the personality of a pet.
And then there's the fact that - let's face it. The vast majority of converted pets aren't exactly beautiful, are they? And especially with those who can't be customised, and yet still have to deal with the fists and lashes (Aubergine Chia, anyone?), wouldn't they - or if this applies to you, then you - rather have the old version back? A peek at the Pound board instantly proves that unconverted pets are still wanted - badly - by quite a good part of Neopia.
Also, converted pets have really cost many players. In the early days of customisation, no one really knew what the redrawn pets looked like. Consequently, owners who were about to paint or morph their pets, or buy Draik eggs or Krawks, ended up spending into the millions for a pet that no longer held any charm, and no longer looked very nice, either. In the 296th editorial, this question/complaint was posed:
I was playing Bagatelle and won EIGHT million NPs. I was so amazingly happy that I went out and bought a Draik so I could paint it Darigan. However, I didn't know how it would look, so I went to the Rainbow Pool to see and it looked great. As a result, I painted her, but she came out totally different than what the picture shows in the Rainbow Pool. I am VERY, VERY upset because this is NOT the look I was going for! So, I thought maybe you could fix the Rainbow Pool pictures; this way others wouldn't make the same mistake I did. D: Thanks! ~bluecheeseworld
Though the Rainbow Pool has finally been updated, many people have wrongly painted their pets, wasting millions of points. No doubt, the victims of this are still extremely sore.
The somewhat insane writer of this page knows that, after spending a fair two million on a dream Faerie Pteri, and watching it go to waste, that she is.
And even for those players who do have currently unconverted pets, as lisemanta puts it: I have an unconverted Faerie Kougra that I will never convert -lucky me, right? Not exactly. If she ever gets Boochied, for example, she's ruined forever.
But, is this effort so pointless? It's true, the odds are stacked up against us, but we've gotten enormous support from the larger portion of Neopia. It shows that there is a point to this all - or that the insane writer, yours truly, is able to make them think they see there is a point to this.
And yes, we acknowledge that pettions don't work, as TNT has stated earlier. But we also know TNT can change, and user-made efforts can work. Take the NTAA for example. An act to raise awareness of the Neopian Times. Though no one may have noticed, for several days, the Current Event box on the New Features page linked to the Neopian Times. And the no-orange-spots-on-purple-pets pettion is another example of users changing Neopia.
And even though a few convincing arguments have come up that TNT would never unconvert pets because they would end up losing money, or to those who have argued TNT isn't being greedy, etc., well... yeah. They probably would have to spend money to get more servers to, you know, keep track of all the non-converted and converted pets. But since Neo's taken a bit of a economic turn - c'mon, NC Mall? Premium? Neopets plushies and item codes? KeyQuest? Petpetpet habitats? - it makes sense that TNT/Viacom has built up a fair-sized nest egg, even taking into account wages and whatnot. And unless they plan on exhibiting it in some art museum, well, what are they planning to do?
Additionally, disgruntled players, as mentioned somewhere in the above paragraphs, might leave. And if they leave, they can't exactly be buying Neopian merchandise, or clothing for their pets. Happy players, on the other hand, just might have a better chance of doing such things.
And - our point isn't to stop customisation,honestly, if you haven't picked that one up yet. We're fine with customisation, really. We specifically say that we're cool with backgrounds and trinkets on UC pets. Let folks customise. Let them have wands and dresses and handbags. Let them have their shirts, their trousers, their obstentatious Fyora Wigs. The concept of customisation is fine (so stop harping on about it!).
The true drive of WWOPB is the pets -- no, wait, for some, it goes beyond the pets, actually. It's the fact that we had only a small window of chance, and now that window is closed, gone, locked up tight.
Many greetings to you, beloved Neopets Team. :3 *offers panda* Yeah, that's right, how many of these do you get? *giggles* I know you get bombarded with questions, and I just felt the need to send you guys one, too. Well, as you know, unconverted Neopets are becoming the talk of all Neopians both new and old. Now, this brings up a problem -- they seem to be becoming more difficult to find. You guys appear to be in need of making money, and I'm assuming that you make a decent amount (what with premium and the mall). However, I have a simple request of you that I think would benefit both you all and us. Would it be possible for you all to invent something to put in the NC Mall that could unconvert our beloved Neopets? Personally, for all I care, it could be a one time use only item. I would go back to buy more and more of them to keep unconverting my Neopets. It really is just a small request of you. You've provided us with many nice things, but this would be one of your best if you could go through with it. Thanks.
We admit that the thought did cross our minds, since this gets asked a lot, but that would be downright rotten of us to take away something from you guys and then make you pay to get it back. That was never our intent with the conversion. We still have no intention of allowing Neopets to be unconverted. We understand your feelings, but we really don't want to go down that road. As much as we can avoid it, we'd rather not have Neopets species with two different looks.
So. Ouch. It looks like this effort really is pointless, after all. Not exactly a great morale booster, is it?
Anywho, since TNT themselves have just put kibosh on the dream of UC pets returning to Neopia... Is it still worth the attempt to get them to change their minds? =/
That's your choice.
We know what the WWOPB thinks -- but what about you? What do you have to say about unconverted pets
If you want to tell the world want you feel, then neomail mithril_mithrandir with your message, and please, tell her very clearly whether or not you want your message up here -- otherwise she might delete it. And we don't want that happening.
Here's what we've said so far:
Most of my dream pets are Unconverted pets, so I planned to save up millions just for the paintbrushes to paint my pets my dreams, so I checked Sunnyneo to make sure I still could and to my eyes I saw this at the bottom of the page:
Neopian Times Issue 291' mentioned that if you are to paint your pet now, you will not have the choice wether you want to convert your pet or not. These pets will automatically receive the new look. "
I just froze. Just froze. My dreams were, gone. Striped away from my fingers like a cat ripping apart its prey. I just wanted to give up, but then, I saw WWOPB, I really wanted to be a part. I want my hopes back and my dreams, I really do hope WWOPB is sucessful in its quest!
~__pikachu_
I really, really love my Darigan Eyrie. But I really do have to admit, I love UC Darigan Eyrie more. I really dont like the new looks of Grey pets, Most royals (They have lost the elegance!) And well, Faerie Pteris. Those a only a few of them. There are lots more. The question we are all asking is 'Why, TNT? Why?' When I saw this petpage my heart lit up like a candle. I finally have some hope.
~
mouseamelia
I think its totally unfair! I've seen alot of boards lately and theyre all saying that the UCs haved turned C overnight! So many people will quit because of this!
~jessicagirl1001
Hello, I just want to thank you for your amazing page on Unconverted pets. For years I had saved up for the elusive faerie paint brush, stacking away my hard earned neopoints as I turned starry-eyed to the goal - the incredible faerie xweetok. I loved all the neopets, with their unique poses and charm, and then when they UN-customized neopia, all the neopets lost their originality. They completely stripped all the unique pets and made them downright boring.
~rachel4evarules
Hi! First of all, LOVE the petpage and when I first saw 'customisation' in the news, I thought: "Oh my gosh, what a great idea!" But then, as we got later and later into it, it just became too much. What happened to the baby Lupes with scarfs? What happened to free faerie pets? what about the sad, droopy greys we all know and love? I miss the old neopets. I want it back... ALL of it. Old layout, old everything. Can't we choose? One, tiny click, and make it all go away. I hope WWOBP's plan works.
~hampokefriends
Hi! I support your efforts to have TNT unconvert our pets. I started playing Neopets way before customization and stopped about a year before there was custimization. When I found out that what happened to some of the pets, like the royal ones, I was really upset. So I think that we should be able to unconvert our pets and would like to be put on that list. Thank you.
~alyshanor
I LOVE the idea of having a button to unconvert pets. If they could change everything so drastically, what makes it so hard to allow us to have some how we UC-lovers want them, and some how the C-lovers like them? I'm sure it wouldn't hurt TNT that bad. And I'm sure that everybody desperately wants their old babies back.
~lizzy_beth_750551
Hi, I totally support the WWOPB. I love your petpage by the way. When I saw the new looks for the pets I actually quit for about three months, I was really upset. I miss everything about the old neopets because I consider neopets a part of my childhood. Like you said the the new pets are downright ugly, I mean the grey pets just look like the color grey and the faerie and royal pets lost all their elegance and charm. I hope your plan works.
~babygirl123717
Right now, I'm applying to adopt an UC Plushie Zafara. But I wouldn't be happy if someone just turned around and converted her? I wouldn't be too happy. I think they should BRING UC PETS BACK!
~spyglert
Hello. I just stumbled upon your BRILLIANT page today, and I would like to be added to the list. And, who knows, it could work! TNT had said (for YEARS) that we would never be able to put clothes on our pets, but guess what happened~! ;D
~pizza48
Hello and I don't mean to bother you. I know you must get a ton of neomails a day. I support what you are doing. With supporting the UC pets. I saved a long time to get an UC Grey Mynci. By the time I went to paint her, she had changed. Neopets had changed the pets. They were no where and cute as they had once been. I was so upset and I still am. Just recently, I traded my UC Plushie Zafara for an UC Grey Mynci. But I had to stoop to trading a dear pet for a dream pet. It shouldn't be that way. Anyways, I'd love to be added to your list. Sorry for the long winded story. Just sharing. Take care and have a wonderful day. Good luck.
~caqueen1738
Just wanted to say that I'm totally up for the idea. I hate the converted pets- what happend to the cute REAL-LOOKING plushies, or the grey pets that truly look sad? To me, all the converted pets are the same- fists and stiffness. My dream pet is an uncoverted royal uni, but those beautiful pets don't even exist anymore! My dreams were dashed, ripped, ruined. And then I saw WWOPB- I really hope you succeed...no, we succeed. I'm going to advertise the best I can, and I urge members to do so as well.
~elstar14
I agree about the pets, and I hope TNT finally decides to let us have a choice. Though I didn't really like the customization, I didn't mind it. But the new poses I can't stand. It just makes me feel sad that such beautiful and graceful pets now look stiff without the users of Neopet's choice.
~heirloomofthestars
They converted my krawk... and he used to be so handsome. They also converted my first pet- Goodraven. I came on thinking, "Where is his collar?" It really saddened me as I used my Faerie Fountain Quest on painting him baby. I'd love to have his little blue collar, tiny moehawk, and my krawk's pose back. I think your cause is well worth fighting for.
~princessraven
On an account I used to have on neopets, I had a gelert that I loved.neopets were I was looking for a color for my gelert. I saw a gelert on an adoption page, and it was grey. I wanted to see If I could paint my other pets grey to, so I went to the rainbow pool. But when I searched grey pets, I saw a completely diffrent pet! It didn't have the cute, sulking look with drooping ears. Now it was simply grey with little sniffly eyes. Eventually I painted it christmas, a color that I loved, but I really wished that I could have painted it with that great color that I had seen.
~marzo14
I would love to be added to your list of supporters. I, like many, am not making millions of neopoints a day, but I kept on trying to get that dream grey pet. And over night, It was not allowed, taken from me. I felt like a kid and someone took my lolipop and crushed it on the ground. So instead of buying my own paintbrush and painting my own pet, I had to stay on the pound boards day and night to try to offer a custom for a UC Grey Jetsam. Finally I found someone, so I did achieve that dream pet. It's just not the same, having someone else do your dream for you. I want to be able to create, name, and paint my own dream pet. Thankyou for creating such a great page with an amazing cause.
~neocat841
I just wanted to say that I'd like to be part of the WWOPB. I was not neopetting in April, but I remember when I went to SunnyNeo when I first joined Neopets, I looked at the converted and unconverted pets. I was very unhappy with how my pets looked. For example, the Aisha's eyes didn't look like they had overload eyeshadow back then.
~happypiggy123321
I totally agree, we should have a choice, I want my old pets back! -cries-
~madprincess97
When I first joined Neo in 2004, I dreamed of painting my Kougra baby. Unfortunately, I was a horrible saver and bought the lab map before the PB so I didn't get there very fast at all. Then, as I came within 50k of my goal, IT happened. They changed the once adorable, pouting Kougra into a wide-eyed, sick beast. I was mortified. I realized that to get one of those beatiful pets, I'd have to get my hands on a Draik or Krawk just to have a chance at one. The conversion caused me to give up on that dream pet and many others too.
~chooper303
I really support the Unconverted Pets because their poses are alot better than the ones we have now; EVEN THOUGH it is great to be able to customize our pets.
~flying4you
I just found you're petpage and it gave me a glimpse of hope. My dream pet has always been a Darigan Aisha, which I admired for their brilliantly, evil pose. But since the conversion, they are downright hideous. I was heartbroken when I saw them. But thanks for the hope!
~cocopack
Although I am only 2 months old on my old account, I'm about 4 years old. My dream was getting a faerie Xweetok. I thought it was so pretty! But now, with this drastic change, the faerie Xweetok has no pose! Not flying, not in a different position, but sitting, as if it's gonna punch someone. Now, I never want to paint my neopet. Why, why did TNT put so much work into converted pets when many want the old version? I hope TNT puts the unconverted button too.
~snoopie_gel
I absolutely despise the converted pets, and I really want the unconverted pets back! I wasn't here when TNT decieded to convert the pets, but I was here for the unconverted pets. The converted pets look so stiff, and what's with the fists? The pets look so weird, and mean with the fists. Not to mention they look ugly. The Grey pets lost their sad, droopy eyes, the Plushie pets don't really look like Plushies at all, and the Royal pets don't even look Royal anymore! I could go on forever about the flaws of the converted pets, but I will stop ranting about them. I really hope this petition works, and I wish everyone luck!
~heminaku
I spotted your page just the other day and had to think back when I was just starting out on neo. Despite the fact that my account says months instead of years, I was present to enjoy the free poses of pets for a year or so. My dream was to have four of my dream pets; christmas lupe, desert lupe, marquan lupe, and christmas shoyru be painted in the time I had other then school. Imagine my dispair when I came one day to find my pets in all new poses, and realized that their painted forms would no longer be the same. TNT made a big mistake when they changed Neo.
~commander_lj
Hi! So I've seen your page...and as a veteran player of Neopets, I'd been playing for 8 years, been accustomed to the old pets for so long, so I want the old pets back as much as anyone.
And I've also got an idea. You know how TNT said they wanted to avoid how the same pets looked dfferently? I've got a thought of how to go around that. Currently there are unconverted pets that look different to the converted ones. There are only a few of them. How about if we are only allowed to unconvert those pets? Plushie Zafaras, Faerie Draiks...etc. I've contacted TNT about this and sent questions to the editorial. No replies yet, but I think it'll take more than one person.
~ilinga
Credit goes to Sugarfeed for this one. =)
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