This is a guest post written by Oliver O., an 11-year-old Poptropica player in the community. In this post, he’ll be exploring the question of why Poptropica Original is still getting updates, while Poptropica Worlds is not. Enjoy!
Hello, I’m a person who’s never written on this blog, but hopefully you like this post. (By the way, I live in Alaska. Yes, we accept US money, and no, we don’t live in igloos. But enough about me.)
Let’s talk about Poptropica. Specifically, what’s up with it these days?
As you may remember, the Creators decided to build Poptropica Worlds in favor of Poptropica Original. The last island on the original Pop was Monkey Wrench in early 2016, three years ago, and even that was more of a tutorial than a full-length island.
So I have a question: why is Poptropica Original still getting updates? Why do they still have member gifts? Why did they update Home Island?
Keep in mind that apparently they were focusing on Poptropica Worlds, and originally claimed they wouldn’t be updating Poptropica Original any longer. As we know, that’s not the case.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love the new changes. The pets? Absolutely adorable! I have all five and love the colorization feature, although I really agree with Lucky Joker—pet clothes really would be cool.
And the clubhouses are a whole different thing. THEY. ARE. AWESOME!! (Although… I don’t understand why there are so few furniture items.)
But let’s not slander that stuff. Let’s talk about my question: why are there updates in the first place, when they said Worlds was the future?
My first guess: They meant no more islands. And although this is very sad for the original Pop, Poptropica Worlds did produce some new islands since Monkey Wrench—the latest one was Greek Sea Odyssey, released a year ago. Progress is very slow on this front, now more than ever.
Next thought on the list: Maybe they just forgot? I mean, it’s not unusual to forget. Raise your hand if you’ve ever forgotten something! *silence, no hands go up* Okay, maybe just me. Or maybe they didn’t forget, but liked their new plan (to update the original game) better.
So that’s what I think! Do you think different? Share your thoughts in the comments. This is a random person signing out. The end!
Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Oliver O.! If you did, you may enjoy another guest post by a different writer exploring the question, “Can Poptropica Original stick around?”
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I find your first guess more credible than the second. I mean, there’s no way they could’ve forgotten Pop Worlds. And I see no reason to update the original when “their” intent was to make a sequal that is better than the original.
I dunno, maybe they’re gonna make Pop original a Club Penguin or something for vereterans who’ve done everything they could. ALTHOUGH, if they truly are going to neglect Pop Worlds and add another island to Pop orignal, that would be a pretty dumb decision (not saying they WOULD; please don’t take this as fact 😕).
This is just a random idea, but what if the creators are doing pop original to “test” things like pets and clubhouses. Or maybe they had ideas for pop original and decided that they would do it now so that It wouldn’t be a waste. IDK I have always been really confused.
There really be no reason to test these stuff on Pop original, that might also show that they suck at Unity (the engine used by Worlds) which might show they’re unproffessional…
Wait, I might have another theory. Maybe they’re working exclusivly on original (I think it needs a code name by this point 😓) cause since they cut their dev team, the devs for Pop original are the only ones left and is only a few for this game.
I sort of speculate that there are two devs for games that run on different engines, but it’s only a speculation.
True, the team has been pretty small, or at least it seems to be.
I am not an expert at computer programming, but maybe it’s harder for them to “code” on Unity than on flash.
Or maybe they are just updating to try to make the fans happy. Maybe they don’t have any ideas for islands, or don’t have enough “hands on deck” to complete the task. I really don’t know.
I would really like it if we had a good conversation with the Creators. At least for the older players. It would be nice if the creators and PHB got a Q&A together.
OR…maybe it’s because FLASH is going down!😠 That seems to be all you’ve been talking about! Everyone’s worried. I’m not. I’ve got a solution.
Neither of us have been talking about Flash going down in relate to this situation. Me particulary because “they” said they are trying to find a solution to preserve the original, although they haven’t said anything on that since.
So, what are you talking about?
Oooh Alaska! I live in Southern Canada so I always thought Alaska was like the territories. Alaska is kinda near the North (of course unless you live in the southern part of it) Do you have half the year daytime and the other half night? Is there always snow? Are the cities/towns usually small? Sorry for all the questions. 😅
Alaska sort of is like a territory, as people don’t know much about it and we have the second least population (Wyoming has the least). However, it was made the 49th state in the 50’s (Hawaii is the 50th).
The ‘half the year daylight and half the year night’ myth is simply not true. Winter does last for about seven months here, but we still have a little light during the winter. However, I will say that in first period the sun hasn’t risen yet (my first period starts at 8:00). The summer is very bright (I swear, the sun never sets in the summer) and it starts getting darker around September. It usually first snows in October and doesn’t stop until around March or April.
No, there is not always snow. The summers are usually blazing hot (this year’s was 70 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit) and the winters USED to be around -20 to -30 degrees, however with the climate change it has only been 10 or 20 degrees.
It depends on how small ‘small’ means. I have two houses, and one is in an unestablished area of Alaska called Kenny Lake. This ‘town’ is pretty small, with only about 70 students in a grades K-12 school.
The other town I live in (and go to school in) is called Valdez (much more well known than Kenny Lake). The elementary school has about 400 students (this is grades PK-5) and the middle school (grades 6-8) has maybe 200? I don’t know about the high school, I’m not going to arrive there for a few more years, but I know the elementary school has the most students. Also, the population of Valdez is about 3,500 people; however, our biggest city Anchorage, which is 6 hours away, has a population of around 294,356 people.
Hope these answered your questions!
Making such an odd choice and especially with very infuequent updates that put fans being worried, confused, and suspisous… I really do think Poptropica needs to answer these questions, and maybe address them if they can. But** not make it vague or anything, we want to know what is going on and why.
I think Pop worlds was a good idea, but it ended up not working in the end. I think it got so much bad ref. that they might’ve decided to give up?
It sort of worked, they just need to tune up the mechanics to where it’s closer to the original. And they had some good consepts.
All they have to do is fix the bugs n’stuff, add some stuff that the orignal has, like costumizable mouths or heck stuff that it doesn’t have, like the ability to colorize the eyes.
For me, it worked well enough, they just need to make it better. I mean, it is a sequal after all.
Maybe… It kinda looks that way
Maybe if they held a new ‘ Create your Dream Island Contest’ , they would get more ideas for new islands. 😉
Just because they started Worlds doesn’t mean they’ve given up on Pop Original. 😐