These are a bunch of Neopets questions folks were kind enough to send my way, reposted from my old Tumblr days. The original questions were all asked and answered when I still worked on the site, though I’ve added some updated info here where relevant. ?

I couldn’t tell you either way. I mean, we have plans to update all the lands eventually, of course, but giving away the when or why or how ruins the surprise.

Sorry!

Hi!

I don’t think I can say more about the Neocam than it’s a privacy issue. You’d have to ask the Editorial for an official answer.

The “Random Pics” section is now kinda obsolete since photos of that nature have found a new home on the Neopets Facebook page. 🙂

[Ed. note: I couldn’t really say more on my blog at the time because Lawyerbot, but I can now! Ha! When we moved to Viacom, the new hire paperwork changed over to their official stuff, which did not include anything about being on a webcam during work hours. As more and more people were hired, it became harder and harder to make them aware of the cam, let alone insure they were cool with it. We also had people visiting from Nickelodeon regularly and there wasn’t an easy way to let them know about the cam either. Plus, stuff started going up on the walls that we couldn’t show on the cam. Eventually, we just had to take it down so that everyone was comfortable at work and we weren’t spilling any beans.]

Hello!

I don’t think I’m knowledgeable enough on the subject to help you, sadly. We very, very rarely get interns in my department and I’m not involved with selection for other departments. We just help annoy and taunt the interns once they’re here! 😛

There are several departments that regularly have interns, though, and there are the other properties besides Neopets, so there are plenty of spots available usually. Unless you’re a surgeon or rocket scientist or underwater welder or something. We don’t have a department for those.

I think that’s about as helpful as I can be. Sorry! I hope you apply, and good luck!

is not afraid.

This may have been planned a long time ago for filming this Friday and I may or may not be trying to convince people that we missed the boat and you can only get away with it now if you’re the Miami Heat or the cast and crew of Supernatural. I could win the argument, or maybe not, in which case we might soon be up on YouTube making fools of ourselves… more than we usually do. Perhaps.

I could, but then I’d have to relive those dark times and subsequently hate you forever for putting me through that again.

In all seriousness, a real answer would require certain information on our processes that I couldn’t really get into on my personal blogthing lest I feel the wrath of Lawyerbot! Try the Editorial. *nod* We could definitely answer it there all official-like, assuming we’ve run out of questions about whether or not you’re allowed to trade 4 Petpets, a codestone, and a Bazooka Joe for a Rainbow Tuskaninny.

Outside of that, I’ll say that when it’s something big like the BD being a buttface during a war, it puts your brain into this weird overdrive mode for hours on end and then good luck getting to sleep that night. It’s how I would imagine Professor X’s head to feel after a rousing game of hide-and-telepathy with Magneto.

[Ed. note: Hrmm… well, most of the stuff I couldn’t talk about is now stuff I’m not willing to talk about. ? Sorry! Even though I don’t work there anymore, it would require revealing things that they likely still use so I don’t want to compromise anything. But when it was something big like that during an event, or just something that was harming people or the site (like an exploit or dupe bug or something), work pretty much stops dead for the Creative department, too. We’d either be helping collect information or finding repro steps or testing solutions… anything to assist. And then, at the same time, discussing what we would be doing about it after a fix was out — so extending time on events or handing out apology gifts or whatever we thought was necessary, if anything, to remedy the situation. So yeah, it was always pretty hectic.]

We’ve thought about it. Maybe some day.

But in the meantime, the Facebook page has that behind-the-scenes stuff.

[Ed. note: We did it! But now it’s gone because it apparently got hacked after I left. I usually could only run it in my spare time, so I’d check it in the morning when I got in and then stay a bit late afterwards to post stuff too, but it was really fun to post random stupid stuff on it. I was quite fond of our dumb Tumblr. RIP.]

Mr. Insane says, “Thanks! The first seventeen revisions of Baby Insane™ had problems with balance and following instructions, so we had to return them all to the factory. This one sure looks like a keeper!”

He hasn’t worked for Neopets for a while, but we’re still totally bestest buds. Plus, he’s the only one who owns a copy of the 5-6 player expansion for Settlers of Catan.

Nah. They don’t have a nose, so no nostrils. The protuberance is mostly bone, with different ‘Roos having different shaped ends to differentiate them and give them personality.

Why? No reason in particular. Neopets aren’t from Earth, so they don’t always have features in line with Earth anatomy. 🙂 Maybe they can hold their breath for a while so they don’t need to breathe with their mouths closed! I don’t think that’s actually true but it’s a reasonable explanation. 😛

I refer you to the Editorial in issue 525 of the Neopian Times. 🙂

TNT, I just want to say that I enjoyed Treasure Keepers so much and I wish I’d started playing much sooner. I don’t suppose we can hope that TK will come back one day, even in another form? Anyway, I loved being able to organize and arrange my shop and merchandise, but I especially loved having my little Babaa following me around! Thanks again for TK! I’ll miss it. 🙂 ~kentuckyfrychickenrl

NTK was built for Facebook, so there’s no way to move it to Neopets.com directly without, essentially, rebuilding the entire back-end. This, as you can imagine, would be quite a project. So, at the moment, no, there are no plans to bring it back as it existed. We agree with a lot of players, however, that Meteor Games did a fantastic job with the game’s production value – items, characters, illustrations, music, design, etc. The game had a wonderful look and feel, so we’re in the process of going through and archiving all those assets to maybe use in a future project if we can. No promises! We have no real plans at the moment; we’re preparing for the future, just in case. 😉

I really did love that game. Hope we can eventually do something with the assets.

I have no idea what you’re talking about………………

[Ed. note: A&D put it there as a joke, though I don’t know what the impetus of that joke was since it was done before my time. But it’s been there ever since the Book of Evil was released very, very early on.]

Well, if they’d had udders in the first place then your dream wouldn’t have been disturbing. I would blame us for NOT adding udders. I think that’s fair. *nod*

Yes. I mean, we have to eventually, right? I’m not sure how else to answer this. 😛

[Ed. note: We got this question a lot. Early on, we kind of had an unspoken rule set by A&D that we’d never “finish” a paint brush. The best example is Invisible. People were always so confused about why we didn’t just give Invisible to all species. That was why. We would add more species before we finished a paint brush, dammit! But then we realised that rule was kind of dumb? So yeah, we intended to release every colour for every species. By that time, though, we only had enough resources to release paint brush colours on special days and it would be a while before we finished out any colours whether we liked it or not, so the whole thing became moot.]

Co-workers, hands down. We definitely like to show the fun side of the office to y’all but, like any job, it can get very stressful. We work hard and put in a lot of hours. Without my cohorts, I would have cracked long, long ago. I love those maniacs. Don’t tell them I said that.

Second would be creating things that make people happy. It’s cheesy and all that, but it’s true. We hear some amazing stories from all different kinds of people and it’s super awesome.

[Ed. note: There was a point where I’d gotten kind of tired of creatively leading Neopets. Not because of Neopets itself, but because it was clear that Viacom wasn’t interested in furthering the brand (and my guess that they were trying to sell was confirmed soon after I started feeling that way). At first this was an interesting challenge, trying to do new things on the site using the limited resources we were given; resources that kept dwindling over time. We did some fun things while being forced to work in smaller and smaller boxes! But eventually I got tired of not having support and I was thinking about moving on to something else. What kept me there was the people I worked with. They were and are some of the best people I’ve ever known, and they were amazing people to work with and learn from!]

Maybe… depends on the actual question!

Are you wondering how a Skeith and Zafara can have Ixi, Lupe, and Gelert children, for example? They just can. 😉 There is no canon answer for how Neopets come to be. (Though we do have a few rules just for ourselves… that I won’t share.) Players can decide for themselves if it’s important to their story.

If you’re wondering about something else, please feel free to clarify and I’ll see if I can answer!

Do you mean in user-submitted code? We have a very specific white-list to combat malicious code and it was created a while ago. We can add some new stuff but my guess is that it would take a while to implement.

Anything specific anyone needs added that can’t be done with what’s currently allowed?

[Ed. note: Erm, don’t answer that. Obviously I can’t help with that anymore. Heh.]