Returning to Neopia

Written by: Pudding

It’s been almost two years since I was particularly active on Neopets. I’ve logged in once or twice since then to play games (and guiltily feed my pets) but mostly I kept away. I joined back before Neopia went corporate. I am an oldbie who might well be a dinosaur by now.

Memories

It was December 29, 1999. I was a ten year old girl who had nothing to do until school started again after winter break. My sister had left an email open on the computer. It was a link from a friend of hers that I admired and wanted to be just like, as ten year old girls often do. I clicked it, and wound up on a page with a cute yellow sidebar. I signed up, and created a blue Uni, followed closely by a yellow Chia.

I played games, talked to people who would go on to become Neopian legends, and generally amused myself that day. Neopia was a smaller world back then. You could know almost everybody. In many ways, I think it was a lot better back then. I asked people three times my age with a few thousand times as many NeoPoints for advice and got it.

This was pre-COPPA*, so there were actual chat rooms on most of the pages. I remember specifically one chat where three of us were the only people in the Food Store, and we all had dog names. We barked at each other in the chat for a while, and then the other two left. Yes, I was once the only person in the Food Store in the middle of the afternoon. This will never happen again. It was cool to be able to ask someone what a good thing to buy would be and then be able to get it—with dial-up.

Perhaps I sound like one of those nostalgic people who remember the 1950’s as perfect. I acknowledge that a lot of things have gotten better since 1999 on Neopets. The graphics back then were pretty rough, but they did have a certain character. Things took forever, and there weren’t nearly as many games. And it is awesome to run into people on the street wearing Neopets merchandise. I love that Neopets has become a giant community. It’s just strange to come back to a small town you left that’s become a metropolis.

I’ve had a lot of adventures on and off Neopets because of the game. I met some of my best friends through it, I created some items, I had a lot of fun. The game was a passion of mine for quite a few years. The site is still among the best online after all these years.

I left for a lot of reasons. I was getting bored with the game. I had a small fortune in NeoPoints and nothing I really wanted to buy. I didn’t feel like users were being respected by the staff at all. I gave away almost everything I had in Neopia to friends and the Money Tree, had fun with the NeoPoverty for a while, and then left.

But now I want to return, just to see what’s changed and what’s stayed the same. Hey, for all I know, that junk I left in my SDB is incredibly valuable. So, I’ll be writing a few articles on what it’s like to return. PPT has always had a community of members who quit Neopets and stuck around because they love PPT. If any of you are inspired to rejoin Neopets, or have any ideas for someone who’s going back, drop me a line.

Week One, or: My Password is So Secret, Even I Don’t Know What it Is!

One of the first things I notice is that security’s gotten beefed up a bit. This was starting even back in my day. Honestly? It seems a little complicated for a virtual pet game, but people do go a little nuts over Neopets. (Says the girl who wound up dragging her whole family to the toy launch in NYC while on vacation. I’ve got some awesome staff drawings, though.)

I create excellent passwords. I’ve never had anyone else guess one of mine. Normally, I take a weird word, turn it into 1337 sp33k, and then throw in some other random numbers, symbols, and capitalization for kicks. Being a bit of a grammar nut, this is my way of rebelling against myself. However, while I can at least tell that I haven’t had my account broken into, I have no idea what my password is anymore.

Seriously? I’m not even sure what email address was attached to this thing.

Later:

It turned out to be my main email address. I was so security obsessed when I played that, honestly, that never occurred to me. It took me a while to find it, because my spam filter grabbed the lost password email. I’ll have to do something about that.

Finally logged in, I started checking out my surroundings. Neopia Central has not changed at all in the two years since I’ve been gone. My first trip from there was to the All Pets page, to see if there have been any new pets that I don’t know about. There are four. I have been gone a long time. The Yurble, Bori**, Ruki, and Hissi are all new. The last three are also members of a club I declined to join in junior high for girls whose names end in i. I have to get a Hissi. It’s so ugly it’s cute!

On to my inventory to feed my pets. Amusingly, every item in my inventory is either special, rare, or retired. That wasn’t true when I left. I fed my lab rat, Danairy, first. I remembered that Danairy was a Peophin when I left, but I’d totally forgotten that Danairy was also male. Ironically, I got him/her when his old owner got rid of him because the lab ray turned her male.

Next stop is to the Explore page. No new worlds, although Kreludor is official now and Maraqua’s had a facelift. I’m surprised by how little things have changed.

I’ve got a lot of dusting off to do, so I head to my shop to see what’s there. I have some NeoPoints in my till, which is a welcome surprise. Another cool surprise is that now there are officially sanctioned galleries. It got so annoying going to a shop to buy something and having to wait for a background and 10,000 items that weren’t for sale to load. Prices for most of the stuff in my shop have held steadier than I expected. When I’d taken shorter breaks from Neopets, most of the time I had a few valuable items that became worthless, and a few worthless items that became valuable. I have seen a few of those so far, which is like finding a $20 bill I left in my coat last winter, but mostly things are the same. At least I don’t have to completely relearn the economy.

The game room is pretty much the same, with a few minor changes. For some reason, a lot of my old favorites are listed as new games. I’m not liking the way this is going, but so far most of them just seem to have new graphics, and it’s an improvement.

I’m actually liking most of the changes I have noticed so far. The page thing on my shop stock is convenient, and I like the new graphic style I’ve seen. The active pet and how many NeoPoints I’ve got being at the top of the page has thrown me off a few times, but I’ve gotten used to it. I’m never going to get used to the ads at the top of the page. I remember when I first joined, one of the first pieces of news I read was that Neopets was now ad-free. Adam and Donna seemed so proud of that. I guess that wasn’t meant to be.

Week Two: Getting Back to Business

I find myself making newbie-ish mistakes. I just got a Faerie Quest from the Earth Faerie, and I almost did it. I will probably do a lot more silly things until I’m back in the Neopian mindset.

I feel more out of the loop now than I did last week. Usually when I took a break from Neopets, I would go back and read all the news. I’m not really in the mood for two years of new plushies and paint colors right now, so I’m just going to muddle through as well as I can.

On the other hand, I am still very much in the honeymoon phase of this. I’m enjoying being back, and it is a lot of fun.

Later that week:

I’m starting to feel like one of those people who dropped out of society in the 1960’s. While I’m not tie dying everything I see, I have retreated a bit into the parts of the site I’m used to. I am kind of annoyed by the way things keep changing so fast. The Xweetok just came out and it’s pretty darn cute, but just another thing I have to get used to.

I’ve been having amazing luck, though. I’ve had loads of good random events, including three Faerie Quests so far (counting the one from the Earth Faerie). Many have observed the phenomenon that it seems like you get more random events and good luck when you’re new or have been gone for a while. I always assumed it was just perception, but I’m starting to wonder.

Neopets still isn’t the all-consuming obsession it once was for me. Don’t get me wrong: I still love the game, but I am glad I don’t get mad at myself anymore for missing a lab zap every now and then. I think the game is about a thousand times more enjoyable this way.

Conclusions

Going back isn’t as hard as I had thought it would be. It is actually fun where it used to be a chore to play. Taking a break was very good for my Neopian life. The way some people act, two weeks off is basically destroying your chances of succeeding in the game. But I honestly doubt that I would be half as happy with the game or have been nearly as productive if I’d stuck around during that time. I think I have accomplished more in the game in two weeks than I would have in two years. It’s a good feeling to be doing well and having fun.

Notes

*I like COPPA. It’s a good law, but it does have some drawbacks. If it prevents even one kid from getting into a bad situation, I support it. However, it has severely limited a lot of online communication that doesn’t involve minors or kids under 13 at all.

**I remembered during the editing of this article that the Bori was around just before I left. Still cute, and new in my head, though.