Neopets

[pne]

So. Some of my friends play Neopets.

I've never really tried it, since it sounds vaguely like something that fifteen-year-old girls do, which doesn't sound appealing to me. On the other hand, some of my friends who are not fifteen-year-old girls play Neopets, so I guess I might be wrong.

So since I'm too lazy to try it out for a couple of weeks, I thought I'd post a poll instead. If you have comments about Neopets, please post those too!

Even basic stuff like what it is; I have a vague notion that you have a virtual pet and, um, that's about it. Which sounds boring. But then, people think that The Sims is boring when I tell them it's like a virtual dollhouse but I find it a lot of fun.

More useful comments might be what sort of things you can do and which of those you participate in, or what keeps you coming back. Or what put you off going there in case you used to play Neopets and no longer do so.

[Poll #489982]

Comments

[asciident]

Well, first you should know is that you can only have 4 pets per account, so someone would have to have a lot of accounts to have 10+ :)

As for what I do, I usually like to buy up a lot of items on half-price day (3rd of every month) and then sell it throughout the month for a pretty tidy profit. I like taking my pet to the lab ray (you have to complete the lab map game first). I like a lot of various games, like NeoQuest I/II, Fyora's Quest II: Faerie Caves, Hannah and the Pirate Caves, Sutek's Tomb, Whack-a-Staff-Member and Whack-a-Kass, etc etc. Pretty much all of the action and puzzle games. I'm not really into the luck (gambling) games.

I spin the various Wheels (Wheel of Excitement, Wheel of Mediocrity, etc) for prizes, I go gather up the freebies every day. I like to collect secret avatars. I like taking the poll every day, and talking to people in our guild sometimes. Battledome can be fun, but I haven't really trained my pets to be fighters.

I like the story lines and exploring the new areas.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Well, first you should know is that you can only have 4 pets per account

Ah. Didn't know that; I thought you could only have one pet per account.

so someone would have to have a lot of accounts to have 10+ :)

I wonder how many Gmail accounts some people have (having more than one used to be forbidden but I can't find anything like that in the current Policies)... it wouldn't surprise me to learn that people had multiple NP accounts.

[asciident]

It's not prohibited to have more than one account -- in fact, it's explicitly allowed -- but you aren't allowed to use them for multiple uses of "once per day" type things (like Tombola and the Wheels). Basically, you can't use them to make extra money, but you can to have more pets.

NeoPets

[pne.livejournal.com]

That reminds me; perhaps I should also have asked how much time people spend on NP in a sitting. Sounds like you do quite a bit.

I like taking my pet to the lab ray

What does that do?

you have to complete the lab map game first

Is that hard?

Re: NeoPets

[asciident]

I was almost confused by your first sentence -- in Neopian lingo, NP is the term for the Neopets money -- Neopoints -- and not Neopets itself. :) For the last 2-3 months I've only spent maybe 5-10 minutes a day on the game. In the past I've played for a few hours at a time.

When I take a pet to the lab ray, it "zaps" it and changes its attributes. It can change its species, color, gender, level, or other attributes (knowledge, defence, etc). The lab map is one of the treasure maps. You can get maps from random events while being on the site, but most people tend to simply buy the pieces. The lab is, I think, the most expensive one. It's been a long time since I bought it, but it probably costs upwards of 200k NP now.

NP

[pne.livejournal.com]

Ah -- sorry. Didn't remember what NP stood for, though I had probably read that at one point.

Re: NeoPets

[pthalo]

450k. But I was given 5 pieces of it while playing NeoQuest I so it only costed me 200k and I made all of that and more back with the cybunny transmogrification potion

Re: NeoPets

[asciident]

Good grief, I got the whole map for under 100k. Back in my day!! *cane shake*

:)

Re: NeoPets

[angelsk.livejournal.com]

Ditto! *feels old*

[kake]

I used to play Neopets; I've had an account since August 2000 according to the site. I stopped partly because there wasn't a really good way of communicating with other players - there were bulletin boards but they sucked. Actually that's why I stopped playing Vampires! The Dark Alleyway (free, donations solicited), Alien Adoption Agency (free trial then a small monthly subscription), and Gothador (monthly subscription; there's a free version but it's less fun), too. Spending time "levelling" a character just doesn't really appeal to me without a good deal of social interaction along with it.

Now I spend time on the Discworld MUD, mostly as a programmer (got hired about a month ago) but also as a player. It's easy to communicate with other players there, both in semi-real-time and via mudmail and the bulletin boards. I've met a few people there who are well on their way to being real-life-friends-that-I-just-haven't-happened-to-meet-yet.

I think you should give the Discworld MUD a go. It has a way higher proportion of intelligent and articulate people playing than any other online game I've tried. I'm "Slint", "Nue" and "nou" on there ("Kake" wasn't allowed for some reason) - if you do try it out and see me online then give me a tell.

[asciident]

Neopets isn't really about leveling your pets, if you don't want it to be. I have no idea what level 3 of my 4 pets are, actually, because it doesn't matter to me at all. I only talk to my guildmates.

Discworld MUD

[pne.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether MUDs are "my thing" (or interactive things in general), but then, I've never seriously tried one.

I'll try to keep it in mind; thanks for the recommendation.

Re: Discworld MUD

[lexabear.livejournal.com]

I played NeoPets a little bit, a while ago, but it didn't especially appeal to me. It was so long ago I don't really remember why I didn't like it, though, so I'm not much help in the "constructive description and advice" arena there.

I'd suggest Kingdom of Loathing (http://www.kingdomofloathing.com) for a fun interactive webgame. The intelligence level of other players varies widely, but you can play it as a completely single-player game if you wanted to; I generally had the chats running on the side of the screen but never participated. I liked the game itself -- very cynical and funny. I suppose it's a lot funnier if you've played the games it parodies (RPGs, MUDs, old adventure games, and so forth) but it's not entirely necessary.

[marikochan.livejournal.com]

I tried Neopets a couple years back when a bunch of my friends were doing it (replacing "Neopets" in that clause could make it sound very bad), but had trouble finding my way around and decided it wasn't worth the effort. Now I'm pretty glad I didn't get hooked, since I have too many hobbies taking up time as it is -- but they are cute.