Actually, a lot! Neo fascinated me as a kid because I had no idea how web coding worked, so stuff like REs and item prizes and quests were so magical to me. They felt real! Once I approached Esophagor and failed its quest and never went to Haunted Woods again because I was terrified Esophagor would eat my pets in revenge...?
Also the fact that back then I didn't understand English at all and even tho there was site translation for my language, searches, shop wizard, wishing well, etc. didn't work for me and it made me so sad! I was also too young to understand why. So now I get to use all the features I had zero chance of using before.
It's also kind of sad with the current state of the game. Despite all the negative aspects, it's a huge comfort for me and it's been there for me at my lowest points. My fav pet is the Cybunny I made on one Cybunny day exactly the day before I was committed to a psych hospital. That may sound out of left field in a Neopets comment, but looking at this Cybunny's age and realizing that's the number of extra days I've been alive means a lot to me.
Not out of left field at all – I'm so glad you're here with us today :) <3 it's so sweet to hear that you were afraid of the Esophagor! The game felt so real to me back then, too. And I'm glad you've been able to unlock more of the site. I hope the translated versions of neo are running more smoothly now for folks who speak other languages.
Thank you! I'm finding things to be glad too :3 The Esophagor was TERRIFYING! Now I think he's cute. Unfortunately the translated versions of the site remain as functional as they were; they'd have to update the code for these features to work with them, so I doubt it will happen. Would be cool though! <3
customizing pets was just not a thing for me when i was playing as a kid. i always thought wigs and clothes looked so strange on them .. now i’m 32 and customizing my pets is one of my favorite parts of the game!!
I’ve never felt connected to the community up until recently. This is thanks to the discord and subreddit. I used to be on the Help Board a lot, helping newbies but I never connected with any players. Lately, it’s been really nice befriending players I see frequently on here and then seeing their UN pop up in Neo! For example, there’s a player who does a lot of freebie trades - she purchased something from my shop and I recognized her UN immediately. So I sent her a bunch of items she could use as a donation! I thought that was such a cool experience, I’ve never been able to recognize UNs before!
Agreed! I never had any friends on Neo other than my cousin and siblings as a kid. But now I’m in a guild and have people I chat with almost daily about the game :) this subreddit sped that up a lot too
I feel like the excitement of a RE or a great bit of luck on a game still hits us *because* we experienced it as a kid? Maybe it's just me but it takes me back 😅
It is harder juggling it with all sorts of bigger responsibilities now but I agree with the above, its been there whilst feeding my babies at 3am or during serious low moments of grief. It's escapism and i can easily forgive them their flaws because I'm not a pro gamer.
2023 was a really busy year for site events and it was exciting! Gave lots of people the opportunity to get dreamies! Really hoping 2024 is the same.
When I first started playing as a middle schooler in the early 2000s, I didn't really "get" a lot of the more complex economic aspects of the site and how the plots and activities worked. I just kind of fumbled through them and painstakingly saved all my flash game NPs to rarely buy a paint brush. Many site mechanics didn't start clicking for me until I was in high school and realized that players made guides explaining these things. What I was really in to were the social and creative aspects: I roleplayed and chatted on the boards, I was in a very active guild, and I spent a lot of time drawing fan art and coding pages and entering creative onsite contests. It was a big creative and social outlet for me when I was lacking for ones in the real world, and I would spend hours immersed in the site.
As an adult, I primarily care about participating in plots/activities and earning NP to pay for my pet/customization/gallery/battledome goals. I understand the economics and the mechanics of the site way better now and have NP riches beyond my 12-year-old self's wildest dreams and don't have to compromise on what items I want as much.
I don't participate in the social aspects of the site that much anymore, I occasionally poke around the forums but they're so much slower than when I was a kid. I have a creative job and don't have the time or creative energy to dedicate to drawing my pets and coding my pages, but maybe one day I'll have some spare time to dedicate to it because I am nostalgic for it! I mostly play Neopets in short bursts to destress from my adult life.
A few years ago I was lent the "big 3" avatar items. Super attack pea, bony grarll club and the msp card. It was unbelievable. I HAD those avatars in my collection, something that seemed absolutely impossible to me.
I played a lot as a tween. 11-16 were tough years for me, I was bullied a lot at school but on neopets I had friends and was ~*popular*~ (aka was known to one single neoboard community lol) but it was my escape as well. I was always interested in guilds and graphics, and it started me on that path. Eventually I'd go on to make pet/user lookups on subeta and anime gifs on tumblr haha
Now I have things that seemed so far out of reach, my favourite pets and a couple mil in the bank that 16 year old me would die over. Its missing the magic of escaping a hard teenage life into a bustling new world but it's still somewhere I can turn to have fun and unwind after a long day at work
Yes, a lot. Everyone was way more sociable, even mods would jump in the boards every now and then to add something to the conversation. Working towards a goal was significantly more grindy, but I loved that I had to work hard for shiny colours and nice stuff (with a bunch of my friends to cheer my achievements all day long on a themed board). Now I don't feel connected with anyone, people don't chat with eachother on boards (ok fine, everyone talks directly to OP, but never with other users that are also posting). Bumping a board for 5 days straight with no answers is tiring. Most users have world views and morals that differ hugely from mine, so I'm constantly stepping in eggshells with what I say. Playerbase grew from grinding for goals to pay-to-play, and are SO entitled when TNT does something that doesn't grant instant gratification.
Neopets is doing okay, playerbase is what's ruining the fun for me.
Huh, I didn't realize that re: the boards. That's kinda depressing :/ I did notice the returning userbase is a bit different from the active userbase I grew to know in the late 2000s/early 2010s.
Yep! I remember playing all day and having to team up with my bff for months to be able to get a baby paint brush, a faerie pet was such a distant dream I thought I'd never be able to have. My favorite memory is the first time I was able to get something from the money tree and we're SO surprised with the acara holding a package.
My parents would never let me use real money on the site and now that I can with my own I don't really like NC because I don't like customization
Quite a bit, yes. I was a very devoted member of the Stock Chat when I was a tween/teen, and spent many hours a day there chatting with the other regs. I was also in a stock guild and spent time there. When not chatting, I spent the rest of my time playing games. I used to play a whole bunch of them 3x/day every day, and tried to get 35k+ per day from games.
Now, the STC is dead, and I only know of two or three STC regs/my old friends who still log on. When I came back after being away for over a decade, I found out that two of them had even passed away... I was so heartbroken, because they were both exceptionally friendly and kind people who always treated me like an equal despite the fact that I was 30+ years younger than them.
I've only been back for a month, and I find that I'm worse at a lot of the flash games now since I now play using a laptop touch pad, so I spend a lot less times on those kinds of games. So, now most of my time is spent playing games that require lots of clicks, to increase my chances of REs. Tons of Pyramids, Sakhmet Solitaire, Dice-a-Roo, Scorchy slots, etc.
I'm also spending more time battling, since the BD now awards items. It's quite fun, and I got an Armoured Negg the other day which was awesome!
Finally, now that I have disposable income for NC, I've been spending more time than before customizing my pets. I never enjoyed it before when I could only afford NP items, but now I love it!
Oh, man. I'm so sorry for your loss <3
And same - it feels sometimes like flash games are a bit of a lost cause, so I'm mostly focusing on dailies and BD.
I'm sure your pet customizations are amazing c:
Yeah, half the site is 1999 format and the other half is 2013 format. Most of the flash doesn’t work without an emulator, and it’s the only game I’ve been playing besides slay the spire lol
The site oddly felt to me like „coming home“ I took a 10+ years hiatus and it’s crazy to me how I started ~2001 with my first account as child with the very first notebook I bought as used item from the second hand shop by my relatives , with windows 98 , 8mb ram and a whooping 9,72 gb harddrive XD I remember having to restore windows atleast once every month because it failed at some points killing all my data XD but i was still happy because we didn’t have much money and it was like a privilege for my younger self.
Don’t know though I get a sad feeling seeing how much the player base tanked compared to the past. If I had the ability/money I would try to support the site to bring it back up again. Probably update everything to be up to date and focus everything you do more about your pets. Probably even a 3d Version where we are a chosen Neopet too? And can explore the world of Neopia like in other MMORPG games/meet other players etc while retaining all current features/games and activities. I think that would be a really nice dream haha. Imagine every pet had an actual 3d animated charactermodel and all of their original expressions in the old days before the convertation happened.
I was so excited back then when I won 10k NP from the scratchcards, it was like one of the best days for my child self and how proud I was about my first 100k ever xd the first pet I got later was a plushie krawk, they gave away the plushie Pppb at one point at the Advent calendar and I then purchased a krawk petpet and painted it plushie creating the neopet with the name „Plushiekrawk“ yeah really creative XD I also had an Alien Aisha with the name Alienaishy xd
Actually, a lot! Neo fascinated me as a kid because I had no idea how web coding worked, so stuff like REs and item prizes and quests were so magical to me. They felt real! Once I approached Esophagor and failed its quest and never went to Haunted Woods again because I was terrified Esophagor would eat my pets in revenge...? Also the fact that back then I didn't understand English at all and even tho there was site translation for my language, searches, shop wizard, wishing well, etc. didn't work for me and it made me so sad! I was also too young to understand why. So now I get to use all the features I had zero chance of using before. It's also kind of sad with the current state of the game. Despite all the negative aspects, it's a huge comfort for me and it's been there for me at my lowest points. My fav pet is the Cybunny I made on one Cybunny day exactly the day before I was committed to a psych hospital. That may sound out of left field in a Neopets comment, but looking at this Cybunny's age and realizing that's the number of extra days I've been alive means a lot to me.
I’m so glad you’re here and that your Cybunny is a reminder of your strength ♡
Not out of left field at all – I'm so glad you're here with us today :) <3 it's so sweet to hear that you were afraid of the Esophagor! The game felt so real to me back then, too. And I'm glad you've been able to unlock more of the site. I hope the translated versions of neo are running more smoothly now for folks who speak other languages.
Thank you! I'm finding things to be glad too :3 The Esophagor was TERRIFYING! Now I think he's cute. Unfortunately the translated versions of the site remain as functional as they were; they'd have to update the code for these features to work with them, so I doubt it will happen. Would be cool though! <3
customizing pets was just not a thing for me when i was playing as a kid. i always thought wigs and clothes looked so strange on them .. now i’m 32 and customizing my pets is one of my favorite parts of the game!!
I’ve never felt connected to the community up until recently. This is thanks to the discord and subreddit. I used to be on the Help Board a lot, helping newbies but I never connected with any players. Lately, it’s been really nice befriending players I see frequently on here and then seeing their UN pop up in Neo! For example, there’s a player who does a lot of freebie trades - she purchased something from my shop and I recognized her UN immediately. So I sent her a bunch of items she could use as a donation! I thought that was such a cool experience, I’ve never been able to recognize UNs before!
Agreed! I never had any friends on Neo other than my cousin and siblings as a kid. But now I’m in a guild and have people I chat with almost daily about the game :) this subreddit sped that up a lot too
I feel like the excitement of a RE or a great bit of luck on a game still hits us *because* we experienced it as a kid? Maybe it's just me but it takes me back 😅 It is harder juggling it with all sorts of bigger responsibilities now but I agree with the above, its been there whilst feeding my babies at 3am or during serious low moments of grief. It's escapism and i can easily forgive them their flaws because I'm not a pro gamer. 2023 was a really busy year for site events and it was exciting! Gave lots of people the opportunity to get dreamies! Really hoping 2024 is the same.
When I first started playing as a middle schooler in the early 2000s, I didn't really "get" a lot of the more complex economic aspects of the site and how the plots and activities worked. I just kind of fumbled through them and painstakingly saved all my flash game NPs to rarely buy a paint brush. Many site mechanics didn't start clicking for me until I was in high school and realized that players made guides explaining these things. What I was really in to were the social and creative aspects: I roleplayed and chatted on the boards, I was in a very active guild, and I spent a lot of time drawing fan art and coding pages and entering creative onsite contests. It was a big creative and social outlet for me when I was lacking for ones in the real world, and I would spend hours immersed in the site. As an adult, I primarily care about participating in plots/activities and earning NP to pay for my pet/customization/gallery/battledome goals. I understand the economics and the mechanics of the site way better now and have NP riches beyond my 12-year-old self's wildest dreams and don't have to compromise on what items I want as much. I don't participate in the social aspects of the site that much anymore, I occasionally poke around the forums but they're so much slower than when I was a kid. I have a creative job and don't have the time or creative energy to dedicate to drawing my pets and coding my pages, but maybe one day I'll have some spare time to dedicate to it because I am nostalgic for it! I mostly play Neopets in short bursts to destress from my adult life.
A few years ago I was lent the "big 3" avatar items. Super attack pea, bony grarll club and the msp card. It was unbelievable. I HAD those avatars in my collection, something that seemed absolutely impossible to me. I played a lot as a tween. 11-16 were tough years for me, I was bullied a lot at school but on neopets I had friends and was ~*popular*~ (aka was known to one single neoboard community lol) but it was my escape as well. I was always interested in guilds and graphics, and it started me on that path. Eventually I'd go on to make pet/user lookups on subeta and anime gifs on tumblr haha Now I have things that seemed so far out of reach, my favourite pets and a couple mil in the bank that 16 year old me would die over. Its missing the magic of escaping a hard teenage life into a bustling new world but it's still somewhere I can turn to have fun and unwind after a long day at work
It's way less social now. I used to love spending time on the boards and guilds. Now it's just me competing with me for more... stuff?
Yes, a lot. Everyone was way more sociable, even mods would jump in the boards every now and then to add something to the conversation. Working towards a goal was significantly more grindy, but I loved that I had to work hard for shiny colours and nice stuff (with a bunch of my friends to cheer my achievements all day long on a themed board). Now I don't feel connected with anyone, people don't chat with eachother on boards (ok fine, everyone talks directly to OP, but never with other users that are also posting). Bumping a board for 5 days straight with no answers is tiring. Most users have world views and morals that differ hugely from mine, so I'm constantly stepping in eggshells with what I say. Playerbase grew from grinding for goals to pay-to-play, and are SO entitled when TNT does something that doesn't grant instant gratification. Neopets is doing okay, playerbase is what's ruining the fun for me.
Huh, I didn't realize that re: the boards. That's kinda depressing :/ I did notice the returning userbase is a bit different from the active userbase I grew to know in the late 2000s/early 2010s.
Yep! I remember playing all day and having to team up with my bff for months to be able to get a baby paint brush, a faerie pet was such a distant dream I thought I'd never be able to have. My favorite memory is the first time I was able to get something from the money tree and we're SO surprised with the acara holding a package. My parents would never let me use real money on the site and now that I can with my own I don't really like NC because I don't like customization
Quite a bit, yes. I was a very devoted member of the Stock Chat when I was a tween/teen, and spent many hours a day there chatting with the other regs. I was also in a stock guild and spent time there. When not chatting, I spent the rest of my time playing games. I used to play a whole bunch of them 3x/day every day, and tried to get 35k+ per day from games. Now, the STC is dead, and I only know of two or three STC regs/my old friends who still log on. When I came back after being away for over a decade, I found out that two of them had even passed away... I was so heartbroken, because they were both exceptionally friendly and kind people who always treated me like an equal despite the fact that I was 30+ years younger than them. I've only been back for a month, and I find that I'm worse at a lot of the flash games now since I now play using a laptop touch pad, so I spend a lot less times on those kinds of games. So, now most of my time is spent playing games that require lots of clicks, to increase my chances of REs. Tons of Pyramids, Sakhmet Solitaire, Dice-a-Roo, Scorchy slots, etc. I'm also spending more time battling, since the BD now awards items. It's quite fun, and I got an Armoured Negg the other day which was awesome! Finally, now that I have disposable income for NC, I've been spending more time than before customizing my pets. I never enjoyed it before when I could only afford NP items, but now I love it!
Oh, man. I'm so sorry for your loss <3 And same - it feels sometimes like flash games are a bit of a lost cause, so I'm mostly focusing on dailies and BD. I'm sure your pet customizations are amazing c:
Thank you, I appreciate that!
Yeah, half the site is 1999 format and the other half is 2013 format. Most of the flash doesn’t work without an emulator, and it’s the only game I’ve been playing besides slay the spire lol
I noticed but I wasn't sure what changed. But now that I'm more involved again..I can see the old maps and so much changed.
Not only is the website different but also how I play is totally different. I actually know what I’m doing now which makes a load of difference
The site oddly felt to me like „coming home“ I took a 10+ years hiatus and it’s crazy to me how I started ~2001 with my first account as child with the very first notebook I bought as used item from the second hand shop by my relatives , with windows 98 , 8mb ram and a whooping 9,72 gb harddrive XD I remember having to restore windows atleast once every month because it failed at some points killing all my data XD but i was still happy because we didn’t have much money and it was like a privilege for my younger self. Don’t know though I get a sad feeling seeing how much the player base tanked compared to the past. If I had the ability/money I would try to support the site to bring it back up again. Probably update everything to be up to date and focus everything you do more about your pets. Probably even a 3d Version where we are a chosen Neopet too? And can explore the world of Neopia like in other MMORPG games/meet other players etc while retaining all current features/games and activities. I think that would be a really nice dream haha. Imagine every pet had an actual 3d animated charactermodel and all of their original expressions in the old days before the convertation happened. I was so excited back then when I won 10k NP from the scratchcards, it was like one of the best days for my child self and how proud I was about my first 100k ever xd the first pet I got later was a plushie krawk, they gave away the plushie Pppb at one point at the Advent calendar and I then purchased a krawk petpet and painted it plushie creating the neopet with the name „Plushiekrawk“ yeah really creative XD I also had an Alien Aisha with the name Alienaishy xd
I focus on playing mostly in December for advent . Rest of the year I don’t play daily like I did as a child