Saying Goodbye to the Kougra

MYSTERY ISLAND – I thought there was something fishy going on last month when the Neopets Team gave us all of that free food and drink for our Neopets and started giving out “starter” paintbrushes to new accounts. It turned out that I was right... I found out recently that they had more in mind than just trying to be nice - they were trying to get our spirits up to prepare us for one of the most tragic, unexpected events in Neopian history.

Yes, unfortunately the title of this article meant what you thought it might mean – the last Kougra day ever is going to be on April 22, and immediately afterward, the Kougra is going to be removed from Neopia. Not given a makeover, not given a bad haircut, removed—the different Kougra characters, our Neopets, and all. The Neopets Team hadn’t planned to break the news to us until a few weeks from now, as they were going to allow us to celebrate one more Kougra day first, but a staff member accidentally leaked the news to some of us participants in the most recent TCG tournament game – specifically, when one of my fellow competitors made a comment about how there were barely any Kougras in the set, she responded with something like, “Oh, there aren’t going to be Kougras anymore. We’re replacing them.”

Why the third most popular Neopet in Neopia? Well, remember when the Neopets Team did the makeover on all the Kougras a few months ago and people were unhappy with it? Well, according to that staff member, it is the fault of those long and angry mails the Neopets Team kept getting about it. No one I’m sure meant for their protests to cause the Neopets Team to eradicate the species from the face of Neopia, but that was what they felt they had to do based on the circumstances:

When the Kougra was in its original form, people complained. When the Neopets Team gave it a makeover, people complained even more about that. Even after the Neopets Team listened, set up a vote for the new look, and retouched everyone’s Kougras according to the results (as well as hung a giant gray meteor over the planet to “help us along in liking it”), people complained about that makeover. In the end, the Neopets Team felt that the best solution would be to just get rid of the Kougra altogether and replace it with something else that hopefully everyone will like (although they thought the meteor they sent looked pretty good right there so they kept it and named it Kreludor).

And so, just like old looks of Neopets in the past, we’re going to see all Kougras disappear from Neopia – from the haikuing Kougra and Grand Bogen of Mystery Island to our Kougra Neopets (which will be changed to another species) to, inevitably, all the different Kougra characters we’ve come to know in the Neopian Times.

So what do we do now? There are a few different reactions we could have… we could send in hundreds of letters to the Neopets Team asking them to change their minds...

...but that probably won’t work, especially since that’s how the Kougra got into this situation in the first place.

Or we could go into a frenzy of taking pictures and screenshots of our Kougras and all the different Kougra characters...

...which wouldn’t be a bad idea, but it really won’t be much comfort either.

No, probably the best way we could get over our grief is to look towards the future. The staff members at the tournament told us that they are currently getting some new, unique species in line to possibly take the Kougra’s place. At first, the Neopets Team was going to change all the Kougras into Lupes for they feel that there aren’t nearly enough Lupes in Neopia, but then they changed their minds. They decided to replace it with a new Neopet species- a totally new and never before seen Neopet species, since they also feel that four new Neopet species in the last year was not nearly enough.

Specifically, there are two new species that the Neopets Team is considering to take the place of the Kougra, each of which they are planning to release anyway at some point but will be part of a Neopiawide vote (one similar to the vote over the new looks of the Kougra, Mynci, and Gelert) to determine which will replace the Kougras in our accounts. I’m now going to detail what these will be, and this will give you more time than you would have otherwise had to make this very big decision:

Both of them will follow what is evidently going to be a trend of new Neopets being larger “adult” versions of already existing Neopets, evidently a result of the popularity of the Krawk and a past poll about whether we would like to see the Slorg as a Neopet.

The first one, the staff member said, is intended to be something totally different than any Neopet that has ever existed, just like the Ruki was when it was released a few months ago, but would contain some characteristics in common with the Kougra, specifically large ears, a long tail, and a very keen eye.

Say hello to Petpet Contestant Number One:

Yes, it will be an adult version of the Turnali, one of the spooky Petpets. The staff members even drew a few pictures of what it will look like in different poses for us at the tournament:

The Turnali Neopet will obviously originate from the woods southwest of Neopia Central. If this is the chosen Neopet, one will be put in place of each Kougra Neopet. Those people who don’t have a Kougra would have to get it through having the Petpet, just like the Krawk, and doing something like feed it pumpkin cookies.

The second possibility I don’t have a sketch of because the Neopets Team isn’t exactly sure what it will look like yet, but it will be a full-grown Neopet version of the Meepit. Yep, the Meepit is Petpet Contestant Number Two:

Not a surprising choice, since the Meepit is a fairly popular Petpet. However, this Neopet won’t exactly be like the Meepit we know... the Neopets Team feels the need to alter the Meepit significantly from the way it has been as a Petpet. They feel that the current version is way more scary and sinister then they would like for Neopet characters to be at this time and desire the Neopet to have, among other things, much bigger, cuter eyes, and a younger appearance. All around it will be like a baby Petpet without a Baby Paint Brush. Once this Neopet is released, whether in place of the Kougra or at a later date, the Neopets Team will change the Petpet Meepit to reflect the adult.

Well, there are your choices. Now before I end this article, I would like to thank the staff members I talked to at the TCG tournament for telling me and the other players this information, without which this article would not have been possible and everyone would have to learn the information much later.

And in turn, there are some things the staff members would like to say:

First, don’t believe everything you hear,

Second, they hope that you didn’t believe any of that about the Meepit since they would never in a million years do anything like that to the Meepit,

And finally, APRIL FOOLS!

Yes, your Kougras are perfectly safe. Now go play with them - they’re probably hungry.

Author's note: I would like to thank Tdyans for the idea for this article and ICKessler for drawing the awesome pictures of the Turnali "Neopet". And to all the readers of the Neopian Times this week, have a great Month of Eating, and tread carefully this April 1st, as you never know when someone might try to play a trick on you...