Hi Gs,
I’m touching on something mildly controversial today, and some people will hate me for it – glitch trading. Poptropica’s trading community has become a monster. No, I don’t want your weird hat that looks like a football got shoved into an ostrich’s mouth.
Seriously, guys. What is cool about having weird looking costumes? What does that prove? I get messages every day asking me if I want to trade some of my “rare” items in my costume closet – which by the way, are uncommon, not deformed. For someone who knows how the game works internally, it’s sorta useless to try to trade these things with me.
(By the way, if you have any rare pepes to trade, that’s a whole nother ballgame. Contact me for more info 😉 )
But for real, I don’t see why it’s such a big deal nowadays. However, that’s not what I’m here to talk about. Instead, this is my opinion on how to fix glitches – glitches like the Avatar Studio glitch, the SUI Costumizer glitch, and the eye expression glitch.
I want to talk about a little game called Terraria, which if you didn’t know is one of my favorite games. They recently came out with an update involving 800 new items, new NPCs, better artwork, etc – but that’s beside the point. The point is, in the update before that, a game breaking glitch had come to the surface – hoiking. It was a way of transportation that exploited the game’s way of making sure players wouldn’t get stuck in blocks. It was the fastest way of travelling ingame – until the new update. They literally made it so minecarts could go even faster than hoiking, therefore making it obsolete.
This is what Poptropica needs to do – instead of having a glitchy reputation, have a smart one. Make a card that allows you to have different eye expressions, make costume trading possible, and make more things costumizable. Make glitches obsolete not by fixing them (some of which can’t be fixed without extensive redesign), but by making them unnecessary in comparison.
TAFN.
-HPuterpop
🏝 Poptropica Help Blog 🗺 
Hmm HP, I have to agree with you on this. I’m a huge member of the trading community and I’ve traded some stuff over the past few months. Yes it’s a little out of hand and it’s funny how some people go so far over items.
I agree with you nearly completely. The “Gltiching” comunity is way too out of hand. I’ve been wanting Poptropica to make the changes like in-account trading and eye-selecting, etc.. I think that Poptropica’s thing is, if they don’t have the “Glitching” community, they lose a lot of players who only come for that (A lot of whom I know, but I don’t know them all. There are bound to be more people who play just for that who don’t trade on Xat or WordPress,). I’m probably misspeaking what I want to say at this point, but I think you know what I mean.
Poptropica making these changes could help, but they’ll probably still lose a number of players. Some of which they may want to keep instead.
that is a great idea, but i think creators will make the cards members only…
To keep myself from mentally confusing myself while typing this comment, I’m going to glance over the whole glitch solving thing and focus on something that’s in my head for a while now: JoUAS, or Jealousy of Uncommon Attire Syndrome. (I personally am not a rare object user, and I probably won’t ever be, but that doesn’t mean that I feel my character looks empty. There are quirks I really like about my avatar, and I don’t need no stinkin’ rares to emphasize it.)
—
Dear Poptropica players who don’t have direct access to these rares yourselves,
There’s no need to beg for rare items at all. That beard may look fancy, but it’s uncostumizable. However, that doesn’t mean that your character would suck without it. There are many ways to make your character you without undergoing JoUAS.
Poptropica is full of great costume choices, and there are some great possible combinations out there. Try pairing that shirt you found on an island with a neat jacket. Find a cool hair bang to make your hair stand out. If you want, you can even try to be inspired by looks from characters from other media and stuff you see around. Be who you want to be in-game. It might be difficult and it might take a bit of effort to find the outfit combination that works for you. However, you can feel proud of yourself for coming up with how you want to look, and not just flashy stuff when, if taken too far, can leave some characters becoming a plethora of randomness. If randomness is your style, of course that’s fine. Come up with a crazy hair and skin color combination. There are even some wacky outfits out there too that are not always rare.
I can understand how JoUAS may come to be, and how you just want to look cool in the myraid that is the Poptropica crowd. However, would it be more of an accomplishment to swipe a piece of uncommon attire away from those who earned it, or to compose your own look in the game all by your own effort?
Yours truly,
Brave Tomato
PHB Author
User that doesn’t use uncommon attire
—
Tl;dr, you don’t have to rely on “rares” to look cool all the time. You can compose your own outfit, and at the end of the day, it can distinguish your identity much better if you have your own outfit combination.
my outfit was to hide my identity here, but it was worth it. a simple red dress, a golden heart necklace, wavy orange hair, and simple bangs. in my opinion, i think she lools good enough. no rares needed
YES. YES!
I will admit that I have some old ad items stored up in my photos and some friends with lovely handhelds in their closets, but they aren’t there because they’re “rare”; it’s because I liked that outfit and decided to rock it for an island or two. And it’s far, FAR more rewarding to craft your own look, something that’s APPEALING TO THE EYE (unlike many rares) and expresses pure YOU, not some strange glitch that you want to show off because it looks “cool”. NEWSFLASH: I, along with many of my fellow players, think it’s cooler if you show off your own creativity, a look that you’ve crafted yourself while traversing all the islands that this game has in store.
Ha – ironically this whole “rare items” issue is happening in another game I play called Animal Jam 🙂 [I hope this isn’t offtopic] Much like Poptropica, Animal Jam’s rare items have a longer (and some say darker) history than Poptropica’s rare costumes. Animal Jam was once a peaceful game before items became rare, and people became ravenous for those ugly color combinations on clothes and spike collars (would you really want a spike collar in real life?), and thus began “scamming”, stealing items by tricking people, or even hacking for the items. I hope Poptropica doesn’t become as horrible as what Animal Jam has been reduced to.
This is basically happening in Poptropica – people steal accounts using Poptropica’s customer support, and lots hack for items.
I was a victim of this. :C
Woah, you play Terraria too!? I usually play mobile and am waiting for an update. I assume you play PC. Right?
I do play PC. I’ll play with anyone who wants to. 😉
All hail Skeletron Prime.
This post set me on my path to the Terra blade.
It’s your fault that every time I look at a pink flower, plantera comes to mind.
All hail Skeletron Prime.
I played animal jam too. Someone scammed my rare bow and arrows. I think that explains why you don’t need rares at all.
When it comes to the “trading community” on Poptropica, I think of rapacious newcomers thirsting for quick power and status. It is somewhat appalling to see people on Poptropica (that are other intelligent human beings by the way) lower themselves to begging, despairing, and even being so attached to something so non important such as computer graphics in the most unhealthy way. It is sad and sickening to see friends resort to trickery, scamming, cheating, or even hacking other people’s accounts just to get that “rare” item so they can later parade it on their account inspiring others to do the same thing. What’s even worse is there is aggression and high levels of selfishness once that person has that item leaving that other person feel worthless. This trading community is now becoming all about possessions and is plaguing people’s hearts and minds. These examples and descriptions may be extreme, but I have seen this countless of times and I have been witness to these cases myself with numerous people in the trading community. I cannot believe a game like Poptropica offering a safe environment where kids can explore, have fun, and create be plagued by a Poptropica based community filled with greed and heartbreak. Also not to mention atrocious styling and poor tastes by mish-mashing “rares” together and calling it valuable.
It would be best if Poptropica would be less glitchy and be more expanded with a vast variety or customizable options, costumes, and powers to feel the experience far less limiting as HP has stated. However, those things wouldn’t come cheap as we have seen recently with the new membership islands such as Red Dragon or Nabooti and the many other things that require being a member in order to access those items or abilities. If the new abilities and items were to happen instead of a glitchy game, we would see an increase of more things with the members and the non-member would have barely anything. Keep in mind that Poptropica is not only a game but a business too. I know and understand how they could find ways to make some more money by putting more limitations on the non-members and giving more options to the members. However, this is a different topic. Anyway, it is sad to see people fight over things and become greedy in the trading community. In order to keep the trading community from going out of hand, Poptropica needs to change their glitchy game and improve more on the abilities and costumes/items for everyone to enjoy, to have fun, and to be more creative.
(P.S- I have a controversial idea. It is possible Poptropica did this on purpose and wanted a glitchy game to gain popularity, people, and profit to keep the game interesting and not jaded.)
well said.
I don’t think I have anything much to say because Hp and the commentators above me have phrased properly those things which I always wanted to say.
Yeah, I really don’t like those people who mash up all the rare items and make it seem like it’s really valuable. What’s even interesting about just a bunch of rare items randomly combined together and made valuable? I know they are rare but most of them were once common! Doing all those doesn’t even make your poptropican look a poptropican, more of a like looks like someone just pressed the Ctrl+Shift+R button and ended up getting a random rare poptropican (yet weird) as a result.
I myself prefer my poptropican (My main account. ) to wear casual clothes yet to make it look interesting , I would love to make it more fashionable (in a proper way). I travel to various island to find various pieces of clothes for my poptropican and combine them and make a good outfit. I mean my potpropican seriously looks better than those who have their complete outfits which are just made of complete glitches and cheats mismatched together randomly! Yeah too much use of the word ”randomly” !
I seriously don’t know if they are anymore proper to call poptropicans due to that style. . o.o
Having rare costumes or outfits doesn’t care at all. Poptropica has a huge variety of costumes you can use. Look around you and use your creativity. Don’t ruin the game by trading or changing how the game goes. 😀
Wanna know how? 1. head to a SUI. 2. costumize a store item. Find out what happens later.
lol Good Point
but poptropica would be really lame and alot of people would quit it if it wasn’t for the glitches
Games aren’t supposed to be glitchy.
I Like The Reference To The 1,3 Update Of Terraria, The Part of the minecarts going faster is reference the new Mechanicsl Minecart. Right or the new updates to certain levels of it ?
PRAISE THE MOON LORD!- Lunatic Cultist
The Armor Is Vortex Armor.
That the dude is wearing in the photo? Correct. 🙂
😀 I loved that the boss was a combination of past bosses.
Your right – Mechanical Minecarts go even faster than hoiking. However, regular minecarts go as fast as hoiking does.
Okay Thanks,
Me Too I ecpicially Love That they Made The S.D.M.G. Obatianable now. from the Moon Lord Boss.
Yas! But back to topica. 😉
Okay.
How do you get the mermaid tail?
by hacking- WHICH WE SHOULDNT DO!!!
Apparently I’ve been sleeping under a rock, because I’ve never seen anyone in game with items like those, nor do I see the majority of the fanbase looking like that monstrosity on top, nor racing around to get “super rare items” like a pack of ravenous hyenas with poor fashion sense. I feel that HP is overblowing this issue a bit – is it so bad to want to stand out among the bland hordes of players, or try to obtain items that are uncostumizable? It doesn’t help that the Creators seem to be making many, many new outfits and NPCs off limits.
Offtopic: I’ve always wanted to get a goatee like the one HP has. How’d you come across it?
I used a little something called the ‘CEG’ glitch. 😉 Check Keith’s blog. And no, I’m not being hypocritical, as I stated that by making more things accessible, these glitch trading problems would go away. My character isn’t a freak of nature by any means – other than perhaps the skin color. 😉
Good points – I can see the appeal of wanting to appear more “rare” (for status reasons), but I also agree that often these “rare” outfits end up looking like fashion atrocities (or in your words, “a football got shoved into an ostrich’s mouth”, lol).
As others have pointed out, it is quite possible to make good outfits without resorting to glitches, and for every Poptropica player whose favorite method of character dress-up is “trading glitches”, there is probably a player who enjoys assembling nice costumes in the game through the more conventional Costumizer tool. However, when they come across something that can’t be copied, that’s when the “rare” comes in – and with it, the aforementioned competition it breeds. But for those determined to get a rare costume part only obtainable with a glitch, wouldn’t it have been easier and more user-friendly to have made that costume part obtainable without the glitch in the first place?
The solution suggested is definitely the right track for Poptropica to consider (making glitching obsolete by designing the game in a way that defeats the purpose of glitching). However, it might be a little more difficult than simply making every costume part ever to exist customizable by all players because of various reasons, including the fact that there may be some sort of property ownership agreement with the franchises Poptropica advertises that gives reason for ad items to be temporary (and as the glitchers know, retired ad items are novelties!), that making things less exclusive would limit their appeal, and subsequently, that the crowd primarily interested in ‘trading’ may decide to move away from Poptropica.
A suggestion would be to make some items/costume parts ‘rarer’ than others by making it more challenging to obtain (though this already exists to some extent – for example, you would have to do well on the Shrink Shot mini-game from the Store to earn prizes like the Soda Pop bottle), and make the challenge something that appeals to the ‘trading’ crowd. Trading in the ‘Poptropica black market’ involves chatting with people, showing off what one has, and perhaps a feeling of superiority for being able to do ‘cheats’ that others don’t know about. Unfortunately, the idea of in-game trading runs the risk of scammers, but perhaps there is another way?
(On a different note, I’ve heard some players cite reason for Poptropica being ‘boring’ in comparison to other games is the lack of free chat – while pre-scripted chat is the safest route, Poptropica may also want to consider a free chat option, or at least one that approves only certain daily-use words, perhaps as a feature that requires parental approval for younger kids.)
Another idea that may creep into Creators’ heads as they read this is to make some things exclusively members only, or make some things more expensive in the Store – but that would be a wrong turn considering the backlash that tends to come with any emphasis on membership (see also: Seven islands becoming members only, which also won the title of “Worst Poptropica Moment” in the Poppies).
Anyway, well-made post, and hope this comment was insightful. 🙂
tl;dr – Mashing rares together for rarity’s sake often ends up looking trashy. Good outfits do not require glitching. Less exclusive items are less appealing. Could make some items more challenging to obtain, but please don’t involve membership.
Who Would Want Rares When You Can Be A Steam punker Link:http://prntscr.com/7yj3i4
Best argument.
Thanks and great Post too.
PREACH, HP, PREACH.
I agree all the way. I’ve never “traded” with people, and it’s definitely gotten out of hand recently. Even though I’ve been busy and haven’t gone to the PHC recently, at least once every time I visit someone asks if I have rares. I do have one or two costumes saved with them, but that’s it. I don’t see what the big deal about them is, either — you get to wear something that usually doesn’t look good and some people don’t even know is rare? Either way. I think it’s great this was addressed, since not many people talk about how big of a problem it is.
Yeah,I’ve never really gotten the obsession with ugly looking rares like that. I’ve tried making a few (they turned out ugly) but mostly I try to collect full sets of rare costumes (eg.the creators) or make my own original costumes (like the obsessed fan or the librarian). Heck,look at me right now!
http://www.poptropica.com/avatarstudio/avatar.html?a=bU1Z6UXd6ZUhCc2RYTXg%3D
See? I actually look like a villain with a lot of rares,but I DON’T LOOK UGLY. Honestly,that’s my thoughts on the whole thing. Either make original costumes with the rares you have that look good,or don’t use them at all.
You know, back when I joined Poptropica and I first assembled my outfit, I added a belt with a gun in it. This belt has been, and still is, a part of my normal outfit on Poptropica. Somewhat recently, I discovered that the Creators made it so you can’t customize this belt from NPCs, therefore making my belt ‘rare’. However, I totally agree with you on this issue, HP. Customizing rare items just to be rare isn’t the best idea. In fact, I’ve always seen creating a character as a way to express yourself, to show who you really are. I say this because I don’t keep my belt on my normal outfit as a way to show off, but rather as a way to express how I love action and adventure. But yes, I do love how you presented your argument here. It’s very well thought out and certainly needed to be said.
Anyone play Minecraft? 🙂
Man, I totally agree. In fact… [swoops in, plops down my Poptropican, and flies away]
http://www.poptropica.com/avatarstudio/avatar.html?a=bMVJwTG1uVUdsdWEybGxjR2xsTXpRPQ%3D%3D
Not going to lie- I’m a little rare-crazy (as you can see), but the problem is that there are a lot of cute uncustomizable items that I frickin’ want. Those ears? I took one look at them and said “mine” (I’m a total sucker for pointy ears, fight me). But ha, joke’s on me, you can’t get them without that one glitch- same with that top, bottom, and tail. Allowing more items to be customized (especially handhelds, dang) would open up a new world of customizing options, especially if more items and costumes were made unisex. Like, I want some fangs for my character, right? I have my eyes on that one mouth that comes with the one of the boys’ vampire costumes. Problem is, my Poptropican’s a girl. The struggle is so real, man.
Also, does anyone know why handhelds were never customizable on the non-SUIs? I never understood that; it always seemed so stupid. Anyone remember when customizing MOUTHS was a big deal? ‘Cause I do. If we could get mouths, why didn’t we get handhelds, hmmm? So frickin’ annoying.
Anyway, TL;DR- POPTROPICA Y U SUCH A BUTTHEAD ABOUT CUSTOMIZING
I get it, some things look cool. I actually am guilty of stuff like this as well. But when stuff starts to get deformed, that’s just weird. :3
As the Quakers at my school say, “that friend speaks my mind”. You have to keep in mind that those deformed, rare accounts? I’m SURE that the owners of those accounts know they look hideous. They go with that look for status; you see someone in a multiplayer room wearing a bunch of glitched items, no matter how random or cluttered, and you instantly want to friend them, because they might have some (gasp!) actually customizable items in their closet or something that you can steal.
But really, I’m mostly just offended that they don’t have the decency to put their stuff on a dummy account so we can steal the rest of their items.
(What do you MEAN “dummy accounts are really rare”?! That’s no excuse, dang it!)
i have a seraphim top hat, if anyone’s interested.
my account’s name is bronzewing1138
Looking back,I’m surprised Sam never responded to this xD
Glitches are not bad, i think that people should be aloud if they have the intelligence to preform them.
The difference is that glitches were unintentional on Poptropica’s part. The end goal is that people want certain things – in particular, uncostumizable costume parts. Instead of making no way to obtain them through proper means, the point is Poptropica should allow some way for us to obtain them, otherwise we have people resorting to glitches, which is what’s happening. We recently released the Avatar Studio Gift to allow people to enjoy those uncostumizables, but unfortunately a glitch is the only way people can get them at all.
Why did they make a glitch like this?
Wow there is like a whole new side of Poptropica. Glitch trading!!!!!
Looking back once more,the ASG really did fix these problems. I remember when people were making shady deals in the comment section over what rares you want. Really creepy.
And of course,I still agree with my comment from over a year ago. If you have rares,use them to make a good costume!