Neopets Live Stream: August 2025

On August 7, 2025 Neopets held another livestream hosted by TNT Luna. The Neopets Team took a break from hosting these livestreams for a few months, so it was quite a surprise for some. TNT Dingo, TNT Aesop and TNT Dom joined the livestream to discuss some things behind the scenes and respond to community submitted questions. Many questions were submitted and voted on during the stream, using the third-party service Strawpoll. You can view a recording of this livestream on YouTube.

Livestream Timecodes

For your convenience, here's the important parts in the recorded live stream and their respective time codes

• Introduction & Announcements [0:20]
• Team Introductions [2:08]
• 1. What are some of the recent top bugfixes and how have they impacted users of Neopets? [6:10]
• 2. What were notable things that went wrong and how did you fix them? [8:50]
• 3. How has the Neopets team committed to addressing missteps and feedback? [11:40]
• 4. Now that the plot has launched a bit later than intended, how did the extra time help with the release? [13:00]
• 5. Can I trade you fanart for Battledome cards? [15:50]
• 6. Who are the teams’ favorite Neopets villains and why? [16:25]
• 7. Which real world events and conventions did Neopets participate in? What events are upcoming for the team? [18:50]
• 8. What is something in the current narrative you are excited about? [21:10]
• 9. What was the most challenging thing to work on Neopets this year? [22:05]
• 10. Will there be any more lore drops for Iyana the Earth Faerie (trading card character) in the future?  [23:50]
• 11. When will Lord Kass be back? / Hannah x Kanrik canon when? [24:45]
• 12. Will we ever know the fate of Lutari Island? [27:10]
• 13. Are there still plans for NeoHomes? [28:30]
• 14. Can we release old con merch? [30:40]
• 15. When are we going to get the Varwolf event? [32:20]
• 16. Please please please tell us you are making a Battledome app [34:20]
• 17. How many more new pet slots are we getting? [35:00]
• 18. Have there been any recent changes to the Battledome? [37:40]
• 19. Any updates to purging old and inactive accounts and pets? [40:10]
• 20. Will you ever get the staff account pound_release so it puts pets into the Pound again? There are thousands of pets trapped there!! [42:50]
• 21. Is The Void Within from the very beginning quest locked despite the event reopening? [44:10]
• 22. Will TNT deal with the active item generation exploits? [45:50]
• 23. Can we get a Goth Paint Brush? [48:40]
  
   

Questions & Answers

1. What are some of the recent top bugfixes and how have they impacted users of Neopets?

• The Grundo Warehouse prize code error was fixed so codes can redeem again.
• Over 100 more classic games have been restored.
• NC Mall purchases now immediately update NC balance on the user accounts.
• Paypal callback system was improved
• Battle log fixes
• Improving auction house
• Fixing issue with pets not using items
• The battledome challenger for rare codes (space faerie) is activatable again
• Check out the release notes page for more!

2. What were notable things that went wrong and how did you fix them?

• TNT Dingo:
  • Misinformed removal of the quest log skip/reroll - fixed it with adding the reroll
  • Trudy’s Surprise glitch - added new gift boxes, some bugs lingered longer than intended
  • Promised certain features that are still in development for longer than anticipated - the team is working really hard behind the scenes and appreciate your patience.
• TNT Dom:
  • Trying to improve communication towards community and transparency
  • Committed to doing a monthly update (the blog posts previously mentioned) as well as increasing the number of livestreams
  • Short-term roadmap (what will be worked on in the coming month) + longer-term roadmap (what will be worked on in the coming year)
  • Clearly communicating what is being released so the community knows what is being done

3. How has the Neopets team committed to addressing missteps and feedback?

• More accountability on teams working on certain features
• Trying to stay committed to promises:
  • Roadmaps are not something they have done in the past,
  • TNT used to just say when things were released, not what was being worked on.
  • This lead to things falling off and the team not communicating when something was no longer being worked on (or why it was no longer being worked on)

4. Now that the plot has launched a bit later than intended, how did the extra time help with the release?

• The call to delay the plot was hard to make but the team is happy with the changes they made and how the community has received the changes.
• One comic every few days was rough, being able to release half of a chapter on one day makes it easier to digest the story
• A bit worried that people would have forgotten the characters during the hiatus, but the community has really embraced the return and it seems to have been received positively. The call to delay was good in retrospect.

Upcoming Item Release: The upcoming Meerca day capsule has a hamster ball item because the staffers' cameras were in a circular silhouette, which reminded Luna about this upcoming item. :3  

5. Can I trade you fanart for Battledome cards?

• TNT Dom: We always love to receive fanart :)
• TNT Luna: It's a verbal legally binding contract, so TNT Dom must comply.

6. Who are the teams’ favorite Neopets villains and why?

• TNT Aesop:
  • Darkest Faerie and Lord Kass are close runners up, but nothing can beat the classic villain Dr Sloth
• TNT Dingo:
  • Vira. She’s always had a special place in their heart. She’s more of a mischief maker, but she seems to be doing evil stuff right now. 
• TNT Dom:
  • Dr Sloth - the most mysterious one, had a huge impact in Neopia but now is missing. Also not a Neopets species
• TNT Luna:
  • Hot Dog Hero the game

7. Which real world events and conventions did Neopets participate in? What events are upcoming for the team?

• Trying to balance trade shows with community events
  • TNT Dom typically goes to the trade shows in an attempt to find new merchandising partners
• Went to SDCC and hosted a party, which was great
• Neopets will be at Gamescom in August
• Excited to go to more events later in the year and continue to grow the brand
• Even if Neopets doesn’t attend a convention, they want to organize spaces and events for fans that do go. 

8. What is something in the current narrative you are excited about?

• TNT Aesop is excited to get to Baelia and Nyx's character arcs.
• The characters' stories will develop well towards the end of the plot.

9. What was the most challenging thing to work on Neopets this year?

• A lot of things needed to do, but little resources available to get them done. A lot of backend stuff had to be redone for the quest log and plot.
• Had to rebuild the quest log from the ground up because it was making the entire site lag
• When emergencies like that pop up, it delays other projects, which sucks, but they got it done and the site is running much smoother

10. Will there be any more lore drops for Iyana the Earth Faerie (trading card character) in the future 

• The team is looking into some new concepts that would explore more characters in the future
• Can’t make any promises about any specific characters though

11. When will Lord Kass be back? / Hannah x Kanrik canon when?

• Lord Kass is awesome, and he can understand why people want him back. Can’t make any promises, but those who stare deep into the void may be rewarded.
• Hannah x Kanrik had a feature in last year’s Advent Calendar and Aesop considers them canonized :)
• Always want to bring back old characters and see how they are getting along. Hopefully there will be more opportunities in the future. 

12. Will we ever know the fate of Lutari Island?

• "I hope so!" ~ TNT Aesop
• Lutari Island was something the team toyed with when they were brainstorming potential plots (assuming this means before they settled on The Void Within)
• The team ultimately went into a different direction, but there’s a possibility they may return to the idea for a smaller plot in the future.

13. Are there still plans for NeoHomes?

• NeoHomes were mentioned in the roadmap further out,
• They have started to explore, but it doesn’t seem much progress was made, and other projects have taken priority over it.
• It’s still on their minds but the scale of the NeoHome project demands a lot of resources that aren’t available at the moment. 

14. Can old convention merch be re-released?

• The team would need to look into it.
• Convention exclusive merch may not be able to return due to the agreements at the time. Example: SDCC items cannot be re-released exactly as they are, but it’s possible they could tweak it and re-release it.
• The survey that was recently sent out was to gauge which characters players are interested in
• They are going to start working on Lord Kass merch confirmed

15. When are we going to get the Varwolf event?

• Coming soon-ish
• Something mysterious is definitely brewing
• When things get a little spookier……………. 😉
• The Varwolf is something TNT Dingo pushed for and they love it, so they are very excited

16. Please please please tell us you are making a Battledome app

• No current plans, but if there was enough demand for one, maybe?

17. How many more new pet slots are we getting?

• TNT Dingo:
  • We do have plans to release one singular extra pet slot.
  • This will test the load on the servers.
  • Once they get a better idea of the impact, more may follow.
  • Unsure when this is happening, but it will happen.
• TNT Dom:
  • This is only possible because of the continued work on the foundations of the site/server.
  • The last time that the site was down was in June.
  • This is the first time Neopets has had 30 consecutive days of no downtime in at least the last decade.
  • The database optimizations continue to improve site stability and reduce load times.
  • In the past, adding a pet slot added almost unlimited additional calls that would almost certainly crash the site.
  • They believe they have fixed this, but that is the reasoning why they want to start with adding just one to make sure all is good. 

18. Have there been any recent changes to the Battledome? 

• Several significant improvements after the plot was paused
  • Rebalanced prize pools
  • Raised caps for strength/defense stats
  • Added retired Battledome challengers
  • Payouts were increased - more NP from fighting
  • Mechanics fixes - some still in progress, but some have been addressed
• The team is doing their best to improve the BD!!! 

19. Any updates to purging old and inactive accounts and pets? 

• A lot of data from the old database (not user accounts) had been purged already
• A lot of former lapsed users are excited to claim their accounts back, and the team is hesitant to remove accounts if users want them [in the future].
• Users who are surprised to learn Neopets is still around are thrilled to learn they can potentially get their childhood accounts back.
• They want to run a reactivation campaign in the future.
• The team is aware that there are hackers and malicious users who may attempt to access old accounts that have desirable items or pet names and have put in protections during the account recovery process to prevent this. 

20. Will you ever get the staff account pound_release so it puts pets into the Pound again? There are thousands of pets trapped there!!

• They have looked into it. It’s currently a low priority.
• They thought the account was releasing pets, but it might just be working slowly.
• If it’s something highly requested, it will be bumped up on the priority list :) 

21. Is The Void Within from the very beginning quest locked despite the event reopening?

• TNT Aesop:
  • I believe the one where you had to complete something within the first week of the event is locked.
• TNT Dingo:
  • That should be the only one that is locked, but they can discuss to see if they can make it happen again.
  • The team does want people to be able to earn it, so they may revisit it to see if they can reactivate it.
• TNT Aesop:
  • The format that the plot is releasing in has changed, so they may revisit it in the future

22. Will TNT deal with the active item generation exploits?

• They are aware of offsite behaviors and are trying to prevent it as much as possible.
• They have been able to stop some of the offsite purchasing of pets and items, and have stepped in to freeze accounts that have engaged in offsite activities.
• A lot of these people are hackers and cheaters that have done other things against the rules (including botting)
• They are still working on the botting problem, and believe it is not as severe as before, but the battle is ongoing

23. Can we get a Goth Paint Brush?

• TNT Dingo: "I wish"
• TNT Luna: 
  • Creating a whole new paint brush is a very heavy lift, so it’s unlikely we will get one anytime soon.
  • However, if you have any wearable ideas or paint brush ideas, there is a monthly thread created by TNT Adler for suggestions. 
    
     

 

Live Giveaway Code

As a reminder, you may only use this on your main account as its only one redemption per player. It will expire August 9th, 2025. You can redeem this at the Grundo Warehouse using the code DOMELETTE