Info obtained from http://neoland.ninomiya.org/screwyouneo.html
Neopets Is The Matrix
Ok, now think about what neopets is exactly. It's the Matrix.
It's a prison for your mind, body, and soul. You waste away hours a day, trapped in the Matrix. They feed off of your energy. The more you play, the more times they can display their ads, and the more money they collect from Mcdonalds, General Mills, Disney, etc. They want you trapped in the Matrix, and they feed off your time and your energy so they can live. Without you, the Matrix will die, and you will be set free.
How do they trap you? They make up a fake place, neoland, and have fake items, fake currency, a fake stock market, fake news, fake shops and most of all, a sense that it is real. You struggle and you worry, you stress over these items, making your more and more trapped in the Matrix. As you "leave" the Matrix each time, you are bombarded with products outside the fake world of neoland, and are encouraged to buy the TCG (Trading Card Game) or actual dolls created by neopets. You are just feeding the Matrix and making it stronger. You are giving in, letting it grow, and helping the Matrix to trap even more people.
Everything about neoland is fake, except all that time you spend there.
You are better than that. You are smarter than that, you have better things to do with your time than that. I know every person out there has the ability to break free, and enjoy life. Read the REAL news, invest in the REAL stock market, buy REAL items, get a REAL pet, make REAL money, make REAL friends where you know their REAL name. I bet you have "good friends" in neoland where you don't even know their REAL names (first and last names).
You can even watch TV or play other games that don't trap your mind the way the Matrix does. Games that you don't worry about losing everything you worked for because of some "glitch" or games where you don't stress out all day, thinking about fake items you are trading or putting for auctions. Trust me on this, there are better things to do with your time than play neopets.
It's a prison for your mind, body, and soul. You waste away hours a day, trapped in the Matrix. They feed off of your energy. The more you play, the more times they can display their ads, and the more money they collect from Mcdonalds, General Mills, Disney, etc. They want you trapped in the Matrix, and they feed off your time and your energy so they can live. Without you, the Matrix will die, and you will be set free.
How do they trap you? They make up a fake place, neoland, and have fake items, fake currency, a fake stock market, fake news, fake shops and most of all, a sense that it is real. You struggle and you worry, you stress over these items, making your more and more trapped in the Matrix. As you "leave" the Matrix each time, you are bombarded with products outside the fake world of neoland, and are encouraged to buy the TCG (Trading Card Game) or actual dolls created by neopets. You are just feeding the Matrix and making it stronger. You are giving in, letting it grow, and helping the Matrix to trap even more people.
Everything about neoland is fake, except all that time you spend there.
You are better than that. You are smarter than that, you have better things to do with your time than that. I know every person out there has the ability to break free, and enjoy life. Read the REAL news, invest in the REAL stock market, buy REAL items, get a REAL pet, make REAL money, make REAL friends where you know their REAL name. I bet you have "good friends" in neoland where you don't even know their REAL names (first and last names).
You can even watch TV or play other games that don't trap your mind the way the Matrix does. Games that you don't worry about losing everything you worked for because of some "glitch" or games where you don't stress out all day, thinking about fake items you are trading or putting for auctions. Trust me on this, there are better things to do with your time than play neopets.
The Story About Ad0
Ad0, the guy who hacked Neopets
There is a real hacker/cracker among neopets. He goes by the name Ad0. If neopets is the Matrix, then he is "the one".
Very little is written about Ad0 because Neopets doesn't want you to know about him. I myself am not Ad0, nor do I know him, but he does exist. One time around mid-2003, you might remember reading in the "Neopian Times" about a mis-firing lab ray that was destroying pet's stats. That was a lie. It was Ad0 who caused it.
My friend was there, and saw it first hand. Ad0 made a script that reset and lowered the stats of everyone who posted a message in the Battle Chatroom that day. And for good measure, he reset the "famous" players accounts, of featheralley, v_team (when neopets still liked him), etc. We all know Neopets has favortism, meaning they "favor" certain players over others, they help out the players they like and screw over the ones they don't. When Ad0 hacked neopets and changed pets's stats, of course they restored their favorite player's accounts.
However, for the thousands of other players, they simply did not want to, or did not have backups to reset those players' stats. Pathetic. To cover up the perpetual lie that "neopets was never hacked", they had to say something about these thousands of players who's pet's stats were suddenly erased. They blamed it on a "mis-firing lab ray", even though lots of the players who had their pet's stats changed didn't even have the lab ray. Just more lies from Neopets.
This was not the only time Ad0 hacked neopets. He's been a thorn in their side for a long time. This is the only time I had first hand evidence (my friend was there and saw it happening). There are more stories . . . but don't dare mention "Ad0" in neopets. The staff will freeze your account just for mentioning him . . . it's all part of their web of lies and cover-up. They ban free-speech and criticism of neopets is met with punishment of neo-death (freezing your account).
So yes, neopets was hacked. And when they do go down for hours and hours or even days at a time, you have to wonder. Are they "upgrading" or are they just "being hacked". Was it really a "glitch" . . . or was it a hacker. A hacker like Ad0.
For those who want to read a bit more about him, there was a discussion about this page over here
There is a real hacker/cracker among neopets. He goes by the name Ad0. If neopets is the Matrix, then he is "the one".
Very little is written about Ad0 because Neopets doesn't want you to know about him. I myself am not Ad0, nor do I know him, but he does exist. One time around mid-2003, you might remember reading in the "Neopian Times" about a mis-firing lab ray that was destroying pet's stats. That was a lie. It was Ad0 who caused it.
My friend was there, and saw it first hand. Ad0 made a script that reset and lowered the stats of everyone who posted a message in the Battle Chatroom that day. And for good measure, he reset the "famous" players accounts, of featheralley, v_team (when neopets still liked him), etc. We all know Neopets has favortism, meaning they "favor" certain players over others, they help out the players they like and screw over the ones they don't. When Ad0 hacked neopets and changed pets's stats, of course they restored their favorite player's accounts.
However, for the thousands of other players, they simply did not want to, or did not have backups to reset those players' stats. Pathetic. To cover up the perpetual lie that "neopets was never hacked", they had to say something about these thousands of players who's pet's stats were suddenly erased. They blamed it on a "mis-firing lab ray", even though lots of the players who had their pet's stats changed didn't even have the lab ray. Just more lies from Neopets.
This was not the only time Ad0 hacked neopets. He's been a thorn in their side for a long time. This is the only time I had first hand evidence (my friend was there and saw it happening). There are more stories . . . but don't dare mention "Ad0" in neopets. The staff will freeze your account just for mentioning him . . . it's all part of their web of lies and cover-up. They ban free-speech and criticism of neopets is met with punishment of neo-death (freezing your account).
So yes, neopets was hacked. And when they do go down for hours and hours or even days at a time, you have to wonder. Are they "upgrading" or are they just "being hacked". Was it really a "glitch" . . . or was it a hacker. A hacker like Ad0.
For those who want to read a bit more about him, there was a discussion about this page over here
Unfair Freezers
My biggest complaint about Neopets is that they freeze too many innocent people. The site is addicting, but me getting addicted is my fault. However, them freezing thousands of accounts of innocent people is their fault.
Think about the term "iced". The fact that so many people have had their accounts frozen, that people actually made a term for it, "iced", tells you a lot. The fact that when you tell people "my friend's account has been unfairly frozen", and no one is surprised tells you something about how many accounts were unfairly frozen.
Think about the term "iced". The fact that so many people have had their accounts frozen, that people actually made a term for it, "iced", tells you a lot. The fact that when you tell people "my friend's account has been unfairly frozen", and no one is surprised tells you something about how many accounts were unfairly frozen.
Playing Favorites
When I graduated from High School, I was one of the top students. I think I ranked 4th out of a class of about 250 students. I got pretty much straight A's, and on my SAT's I got a 790 math, and 620 verbal. Yeah, I know, I was a nerd. But I was never a teacher's pet.
You know those students in class . . . the ones who suck up to teachers, brown-nosers, kiss-ass, teacher's pets. The ones who always compliment teachers, and say nice things about them. Yeah, those . . . I hated those people. featheralley must be one of those people.
featheralley, (if she isn't a made up account by neopets, which is a possibility), is a total teacher's pet. Only says nice things about them, never rebels, never complains, just gets a really strong pet and does everything happy happy in this fake, fanatsy happy world of neoland. That's why she never gets iced.
My friend (as an April Fool's joke) made up the account, featherallley (three L's) and posted once in battle chat the word "hi". My friend was iced in a minute. Didn't swear, didn't post anything bad, just "hi". If there was any draconian system of rules, that silences everyone except the teacher's pets and suck-ups, it is neopets.
If you are a rich player, but complain about the neo-lag, the neo-glitches, the neo-scammers, the neo-nazi monitors, then you will get iced. Why? Cause Neopets doesn't want young kids and new players looking up to these rebellious "role-models". They only want cookie-cutter, plain, happy happy players like featheralley, garet_jaxx, and hrobi. Not rebels like duccatti or v_team who complain about Neopets. No no . . . they can't have people saying ANYTHING bad about neopets . . . there is no free speech in neopets.
Is that favoritism? No kidding. There is tons of favoritism in neoland. The staff restores accounts of players they like, and they ice accounts of players they don't like. It's just the way it is.
You know those students in class . . . the ones who suck up to teachers, brown-nosers, kiss-ass, teacher's pets. The ones who always compliment teachers, and say nice things about them. Yeah, those . . . I hated those people. featheralley must be one of those people.
featheralley, (if she isn't a made up account by neopets, which is a possibility), is a total teacher's pet. Only says nice things about them, never rebels, never complains, just gets a really strong pet and does everything happy happy in this fake, fanatsy happy world of neoland. That's why she never gets iced.
My friend (as an April Fool's joke) made up the account, featherallley (three L's) and posted once in battle chat the word "hi". My friend was iced in a minute. Didn't swear, didn't post anything bad, just "hi". If there was any draconian system of rules, that silences everyone except the teacher's pets and suck-ups, it is neopets.
If you are a rich player, but complain about the neo-lag, the neo-glitches, the neo-scammers, the neo-nazi monitors, then you will get iced. Why? Cause Neopets doesn't want young kids and new players looking up to these rebellious "role-models". They only want cookie-cutter, plain, happy happy players like featheralley, garet_jaxx, and hrobi. Not rebels like duccatti or v_team who complain about Neopets. No no . . . they can't have people saying ANYTHING bad about neopets . . . there is no free speech in neopets.
Is that favoritism? No kidding. There is tons of favoritism in neoland. The staff restores accounts of players they like, and they ice accounts of players they don't like. It's just the way it is.
Playing Favorites... AGAIN!
By Crow
For a while I've known about the favoritism on neopets and it just really sickens me. The whole thing with featheralley... I hate how she's become so loved by the NPT. I mean, I wouldn't really mind her as a person I suppose (since I don't even know her), but there was this one time when Majal Kita was in the beauty contest (entered with a fairly crappy picture might I add) and she was up against this other pet belonging to one of my old friend's. It was a shadow gelert, going in the lead by just a little (the picture of the gelert was awesome also). But then strange things started to happen as the contest began to become too close...
Her gelert began turning into a bruce; even though she never was using any special potions or even the lab ray on her pet. People were beginning to become angry because of this, seeing that she had to continuesly keep buying gelert potions just to stay in the race. But it just kept happening over and over, and by the time Tai (I think username Taisei according to Logofox) was about to win she was beginning to fall behind featheralley. Soon enough she just gave up and dropped out, just because she didn't have enough NP to buy any more gelert potions.
After I heard about that I was very upset. I actually quit neopets for a while, and I hated neopets with a passion. This wasn't the first time I ran into the NPT's (namely adam) playing favorites; there was this other time when a whole bunch of my friends were on a special "anti-list" created by a user named Mari_Jhane. They were just being thoughtful and telling others on the chat boards that Mari Jhane was a scammer and to avoid her at all costs (which was actually true). She would write their names down on an anti-list and then they'd be frozen shortly after... Why? Because adam was playing favorites *again*.
For a while I've known about the favoritism on neopets and it just really sickens me. The whole thing with featheralley... I hate how she's become so loved by the NPT. I mean, I wouldn't really mind her as a person I suppose (since I don't even know her), but there was this one time when Majal Kita was in the beauty contest (entered with a fairly crappy picture might I add) and she was up against this other pet belonging to one of my old friend's. It was a shadow gelert, going in the lead by just a little (the picture of the gelert was awesome also). But then strange things started to happen as the contest began to become too close...
Her gelert began turning into a bruce; even though she never was using any special potions or even the lab ray on her pet. People were beginning to become angry because of this, seeing that she had to continuesly keep buying gelert potions just to stay in the race. But it just kept happening over and over, and by the time Tai (I think username Taisei according to Logofox) was about to win she was beginning to fall behind featheralley. Soon enough she just gave up and dropped out, just because she didn't have enough NP to buy any more gelert potions.
After I heard about that I was very upset. I actually quit neopets for a while, and I hated neopets with a passion. This wasn't the first time I ran into the NPT's (namely adam) playing favorites; there was this other time when a whole bunch of my friends were on a special "anti-list" created by a user named Mari_Jhane. They were just being thoughtful and telling others on the chat boards that Mari Jhane was a scammer and to avoid her at all costs (which was actually true). She would write their names down on an anti-list and then they'd be frozen shortly after... Why? Because adam was playing favorites *again*.
WOW, Your Famous In Neoland!
Congratulations, you're famous in neoland! Everyone on neopets knows your name. You have the strongest pet, the most avatars, all the rare items and more neopoints than anyone. Good for you. But what does it mean?
Are you somehow special? What do these "accomplishments" mean anyway? It means that somewhere in Los Angeles, California, there is a Database Server with millions of rows. The one row that represents your account has a few more bits and bytes of data to record all your "items" and "neopoints". That's what it means.
It can be taken away by any of the staff if you break the rules, if they THINK you broke the rules, if they just feel like it, or if they accidentally erase your account. (Do people's accounts get erased on accident? . . . no, can't be . . . there's always a good reason why accounts get iced, hahaha).
But you're famous! All these 7 year old kids respect you and are impressed with your account. All those little kids, impressed by how many cartoon pixels you have accumulated. Do you feel like you've actually accomplished something important? Something meaningful? Ask anyone you know in "the real world" how impressed they are that you now have 500 million neopoints and your pet is the strongest pet on neopets.com. Don't mind them too much when they roll their eyes at you and give you a disgusted and disappointed look. They just don't understand! This stuff is important! . . . But is it? Or do you keep playing cause you've "invested" so much time in it?
You may want to stop playing cause it's a waste of time, but you can't. Think of all the hundreds of hours you spent "earning" all those cool things! But those hours are gone, and you can't get it back. But every hour from now on, you have control over that. Don't waste any more time on something that has already taken up so much of your time.
Don't get jealous of people who have lots of neopoints, items, avatars or whatever else is "cool". Just laugh at them, and at the same time feel sorry for them. Think "wow, they wasted so many hours for fake pixels. They spent so many hours on neopets, it's crazy. I mean I spent a lot of time on neopets, but at least I didn't waste as much time as that person."
Are you somehow special? What do these "accomplishments" mean anyway? It means that somewhere in Los Angeles, California, there is a Database Server with millions of rows. The one row that represents your account has a few more bits and bytes of data to record all your "items" and "neopoints". That's what it means.
It can be taken away by any of the staff if you break the rules, if they THINK you broke the rules, if they just feel like it, or if they accidentally erase your account. (Do people's accounts get erased on accident? . . . no, can't be . . . there's always a good reason why accounts get iced, hahaha).
But you're famous! All these 7 year old kids respect you and are impressed with your account. All those little kids, impressed by how many cartoon pixels you have accumulated. Do you feel like you've actually accomplished something important? Something meaningful? Ask anyone you know in "the real world" how impressed they are that you now have 500 million neopoints and your pet is the strongest pet on neopets.com. Don't mind them too much when they roll their eyes at you and give you a disgusted and disappointed look. They just don't understand! This stuff is important! . . . But is it? Or do you keep playing cause you've "invested" so much time in it?
You may want to stop playing cause it's a waste of time, but you can't. Think of all the hundreds of hours you spent "earning" all those cool things! But those hours are gone, and you can't get it back. But every hour from now on, you have control over that. Don't waste any more time on something that has already taken up so much of your time.
Don't get jealous of people who have lots of neopoints, items, avatars or whatever else is "cool". Just laugh at them, and at the same time feel sorry for them. Think "wow, they wasted so many hours for fake pixels. They spent so many hours on neopets, it's crazy. I mean I spent a lot of time on neopets, but at least I didn't waste as much time as that person."
The Deleted Wikipedia Neopets Controversy Section from 2006
The Deleted Wikipedia Neopets Controversy Section from 2006There was a Neopets Controversy Section in the main Neopets page in Wikipedia, then it was expanded to its own full page. But one day Wikipedia took down that page and erased all traces, even from the updates section. All I could find is the archived remains from 2006, that I found using http://web.archive.org.
The page I'm describing used to be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neopets_controversy and if anyone knows why Wikipedia took down this section, please let me know, thanks.
The online game Neopets has been involved in many controversies. Off the website, issues have been raised from its immersive advertising methods, gambling-based games, and its connection to Scientology. Users have complained about various security holes or glitches and problems with user interaction.
Groups of people believing that Neopets treats users poorly and who are also against the immersive advertising have formed anti-Neopets websites expressing their views. These groups have bought domain names for their movement, talked about their movement on the Neopets forums, and have even reported Neopets for what they believe to be potential copyright violations. AntiNeopian
===Advertising and revenue===
Neopets is sometimes seen as a liberal placement and promotion of their sponsors' products, a technique sometimes dubbed "immersive advertising".
Much of the company's revenue is gained through promotion of sponsors and their products and they had long accomplished this without a single banner or pop-up advertisement. However, in October 2004, a considerable number of banners that link to external websites such as EBay (instead of linking to various areas on the Neopets website itself as they had previously) were introduced. These banners are displayed on many site pages in several places: one at the top of the page, and one at the bottom, and on the sidebar, making avoidance of advertisements increasingly difficult.
The primary method of advertising is still through creating items based on sponsor products (such as "Baby Bottle Pops," a real candy found in many stores worldwide) or offering rare items, Neopoints, or, in one case, a special pet (the "Ice Bori") in return for downloading a free sponsor's toolbar for Internet Explorer. Neopets also features many games for sponsors, such as "The_Incredibles Split-Shot".
While immersive advertising is doubtlessly effective, some believe this constitutes subliminal advertising and is therefore immoral, particularly considering the targetdemographic is children, although the initial demographic was college students. Others disagree, pointing to the fact that not only are many of the sponsors' offers now grouped on one page and are somewhat avoidable, but that no user is ever required to sign up for these offers. Neopets claims these offers and sponsor ads are only to keep the site free.
Controversy also surrounds the creation of various Neopets features that users must pay in order to use. It has made more people worried about the possibility of Neopets becoming "Pay_to_Play" in the future, although Neopets has announced many times that they will always be "free." In the editorial for Issue 12 of the Neopian Times, Neopets stated, "We do not want to start charging people for any activity on the site as it is not fair to those that do not have access to credit cards or cannot afford to pay for it... and don't worry as you will NEVER have to pay for anything on NeoPets!"
The first of these pay features was Coco Roller, a game that users could purchase for their cell phones. Some users were upset that a secret avatar was released that could only be obtained by using a code from the Coco Roller game. Later, Neopets Premium was released and caused more controversy, due to the extra features paying players receive, giving them unfair advantages.
More controversy was ignited when the long-awaited "other side of Neopia" was released, and it was revealed that the land it contained, Lutari Island, can only be accessed by paying a monthly fee for "Neopets Mobile." Many users felt this was unfair, especially since the service is available only to Americans who own certain types of Cingular cell phones. Some users also became upset that a "Lutari Talisman" was placed on the info page (called the "user lookup") of all users. Many view the Talisman as merely an advertisement encouraging people to sign up for Neopets Mobile, and feel it does not belong on user lookups because previously the only things placed on lookups were trophies that the user earned.
===Australian gambling controversy===
In October of 2004, while McDonald's was promoting Neopets plushies in their Happy_Meals, a story on the Australian Tabloid_television show ''Today_Tonight'' featured a nine-year-old boy claiming that the site requires one to gamble in order to receive enough Neopoints to feed one's Neopet, or else it is sent to anOrphanage. While this is factually incorrect (gambling is not required, nor are pets ever sent to an orphanage if they are not fed), it is true that the website has a number of games of chance that are directly based on real-life games like Blackjack, Poker, and even Lottery scratch cards. Neopets had prohibited users under the age of 13 from playing most games that involve gambling. However, there are neither blocks to prevent a child over 13 from accessing gambling games, nor any safeguards to prevent a minor from creating an adult account.
This article sparked a nationwide controversy as concerned parents voiced their complaints about the website, prompting McDonald's to pressure Neopets into temporarily blocking Australian accounts from accessing games of chance for the duration of the promotion, which ended on November_5,_2004. When this happened, a flurry of complaints appeared on Neopets itself when even Australians legally able to gamble could not access any game of chance on the website. Complaints quickly died down after users realized that by merely changing the country setting on their user preferences, the temporary ban could be bypassed.
===Accuracy===
Some dispute Neopets' registered users count, which has reached over 120 million, a figure Neopets often cites in promotional campaigns. A large percentage of these users are multiple secondary accounts owned by one person, frozen accounts or accounts no longer used. On "very rare" occasions, the Neopets staff cleanout frozen accounts, such that many frozen accounts are never deleted. Some accounts that have not been accessed since the creation of the site still linger. In their Press Kit, they state there may only be as many as 60-70 million players.
===Scientology===
Neopets CEO Doug Dohring is closely affiliated with the controversial Church_of_Scientology. Dohring has been quoted as saying "Having used his technology in every business activity... Mr. Hubbard's organizational concepts are always with me" Hubbard College of Administration. In December 2005, a self-proclaimed former Neopets employee said that Scientology had impacted the administration of the company and staff, but had not affected anything on the website itselfInside the Cult of Neopets - Kotaku.
===Accused plagiarism===
There has also been some debate over Neopets possibly stealing games or game ideas from other sites, such as Orisinal. Games, such as "Turmac Roll", "Warf Rescue Team", and "Nimmo's Pond", are similar to Orisinal's "Panda Run", "These Little Pigs", and "Hydrophobia" respectively. The Orisinal founder briefly noted a similarity between his game "It Takes Two" and the Neopets game "Hasee Bounce" on his news section. Some games from PopCap, such as Typer Shark and Bejeweled, have similar Neopian equivalents too.
===User criticism===
Some users believe that they are poorly treated and considered nothing more than mere Statistics, that the site has lost its friendliness over the years, and that the quality of Customer_service has degraded considerably. Some users believe that the Neopets staff freeze accounts too often without good reason. One problem results in families in which more than one person plays Neopets. If one member of the family downloads and uses an illegal program and is caught, everyone in the family is frozen because they use the same IP address. Users that have had their accounts frozen may be able to recover their accounts by filling in and submitting a form.
Accounts may also be frozen because of actions performed by others when they gain access to a player's account. The staff at Neopets state that their site has never been hacked; they argue that users can only be tricked into giving out their passwords, or have their own computers hacked and their passwords stolen viakeyloggers.
The Neopets rule that slash, shounen-ai, or any other type of Homosexual relationships cannot be roleplayed (or even mentioned) has been criticized as discrimination, although Neopets does state that ''all'' types of romantic content are against the rules. More recently, Neopets has published multiple editorials in The Neopian Times to remind players that romance is forbidden. In addition it has also been made clear that the only content allowed on the site is that relating strictly to Neopets; romance as well as other subjects, such as religion or pop culture, are not to be discussed on the site.
Religion, in all shape and forms, is entirely banned from the site. This makes certain users unhappy that they cannot put any religious symbols, such as crosses, on their User Lookup. Neopets claims that this is the easiest way to make sure there are no disagreements.
====Hacks and glitches====
Although scams do often occur, Neopets has had glitches and vulnerabilities since its beginning.
One of the first cheats to be used to any great extent was programs that submit fake scores for Flash-based games on the site. After almost a month of uninhibited use, Neopets finally took action in December 2000 and froze the accounts of at least 200 membersNeopets' New Features for Dec. 2001 known to have been using the cheat. Cheating in Flash games has become harder since then.{{fact}}
Neopets has also used legal threats against those creating and using cheat programs, adding clauses to their Terms and Conditions requiring authors of cheats to pay damages of US$50,000, and users of said cheats to pay US$500 per use. Neopets' Terms and Conditions (See "Miscellaneous").
On July_25, 2005 (now known as "Dupe Day"), a coding issue allowed items to be duplicated by users by sending specially modified requests to the server. The timing and the duplication and release of cheap, common items (supposedly to implicate innocent users) fueled speculation of a concerted attack. Hundreds, possibly thousands of users were frozen, but accounts were not returned.PinkPT forum, "Item Duping" In October 2005, a glitch in Neopets Premium (involvingmathematically valid but non-existent bank account numbers) allowed hackers to get free premium service. The glitch caused the temporary removal of EFTpayment{{citation needed}}.
On Friday April_4, 2004, (now known as the 4/4/04 disaster) a bug in the lost password request form allowed anyone to view the email address and password for any account. Many accounts were logged into by intruders. Neopets did not correct this until the next business day, Monday, April 7th. The staff tried to fix the problems of stolen accounts and items, but there was still the problem of privacy; some players used the same password for different websites or had their email addresses exposed. Neopets News for the Week of [[April 5] 2004] Image:Neopetslockedscreenie.PNG
A user with the name "Ad0" once was able to hack into the site, and alter many pets' statistics, something Neopets said was caused by a misfiring lab ray{{fact}}.
Between November 2005 and January 2006, a hole in the filters allowed users to include JavaScript on customizable pages such as shop descriptions and user lookups. A group of users, spearheaded by two Crackers under the alias of "Kaos" and "InfamousX241", used this to read the login cookies of anyone who viewed those pages, which allowed them to log into those accounts. The hole was patched, but over the next month "InfamousX241" found another way past the filters, and the same attack happened and at one point, took over a moderator's account and abused the forums locking powers.Thread from PPT on the cookiegrabbing issue
Third page of legal letter sent to "InfamousX241" The apology letter written by "InfamousX241" Sound clip of conversation between "InfamousX241" and the angry father of a 15-year-old girl
A very powerful HTML filter to stop cookie grabbers and other malicious scripts was implemented by Neopets on April_26, 2006. The filter ensures that HTML syntax is followed correctly by checking coding such as brackets and quotes. This filter is said to be impossible to bypass, but known ways of bypassing the filter to include links to outside websites have become increasingly common. Being able to include links in a forum post is essential in using a Cookie Grabber on the forums, and this shows just how close some programmers have came to another Cookie Grabber incident. Help page on the HTML filter
Also, on and around the weekend of June_17 and June_18, 2006, a series of glitches occurred. These include auctions that took days to processPinkPT Thread for auctions that would not process and game scores that would not return NeopointsPinkPT Thread for game scores that would not give NP. Also, Neopets stated in their news page for 20_June that "If you have noticed a few quirks with the site over the weekend, they have been fixed!"Neopets News for the Week of [[June 19]]
On August_26 to August_27, 2006, some component of Neopets webpages was infected with a virus called value[1].wmf and a trojan downloader called bl4ck.com. This caused Neopets to be temporarily blacklisted in Australia by some ISPs. All viruses were localized to Temporary Internet Files folders. News post from PPT on the infected virus issue with links to screenshots
====User experience====
Several complaints state that the site has become too focused on merchandising, with many of the recent plots having trading card game (TCG) tie-ins, and some online items and avatars being obtainable only through the purchase of real-world Neopets merchandise. Neopets also began to refer to their world events as "plots" rather than "something happening in Neopia", which may affect users' Suspension_of_disbelief. {{citation needed}}
The creators of Neopets had promised never to allow pop-up ads on the site{{fact}}, but as Neopets uses third-party advertisers, some pop-ups have appeared due to Neopets' inability to control what external links may be shown to its users.{{citation needed}} Some of the ads may contain inappropriate content, and while Neopets advises users to report such things to them, there is the possibility of a delay before removal.
Other examples of user experience complaints include: *Items/pets/Neopoints lost due to a glitch. *Trojans being found in banner ads from 3rd party companies. *Delays in certain aspects of an event, such as rewards being released months after the event took place. *Sponsor Flash games showing inappropriate content, such as a sponsor game for Le_tea that showed girls getting thinner and prettier as they collected bottles of tea. *New rules to prevent scamming placing a hindrance on users, such as a 4 month age limit to use certain aspects of the pound, or an HTML filter preventing certain HTML codes to be used on user lookups.
====Formatting issues and disorganisation of new features====
There have been accusations of Neopets' disorganization, including pages that show pictures of previous, outdated versions of Neopets, spelling mistakes, and broken links. The site has been criticized for delays and for not telling users about activity behind-the-scenes. For example, in the "Lost Desert" plot, the prizes were not distributed until January_30, over two months after the end of the plot. Neopets has said that they were triple checking every account's amassed points in the plot to be certain of accuracy. {{citation needed}}
The newest world release, Altador, was delayed for unknown reasons. In the Neopian Times issue 199, Altador was said to be "the other side of Neopia", and the description was accompanied by a promise that the entire Neopian world map would be redrawn to include the mini-worlds. In Issue 115, a land called "Talador" was described as "the continent on the other side of the globe". Talador and Altador were confirmed to be the same place in April 2006, when Neopets said the name change was due to legal reasons. The other side of Neopia has been mentioned several times, and the first detailed notice on its release promised it for summer 2004 along with a major plot, neither of which materialized. In issue 139 it was hinted that the other side of Neopia would be released in 2005. In late 2004, Neopets claimed that a completely redesigned map would be released in the coming months. It would allow users to "spin the globe around and see the other side". In early 2006, Altador turned out not to be the other side of Neopia after all, but rather a small city with shops and a few places designed solely for the accompanying plot. Neopets still claimed, in issue 229 of March 2006, that "the other side of Neopia (and a few other surprises) are coming very, very soon" OnJune_23 2006, the other side of the world was introduced and the whole map was redrawn. However, besides Altador, the other side of the world contains an area called Lutari Island, which users can not access unless they pay a monthly fee to sign up with Neopets Mobile.
Scurvy Island, a place "where only the nastiest pirates in the land visit" was set for release in 2005 to coincide with the return of Maraqua, but never appeared. Inissue 178 of the Neopian Times, Neopets made it clear that the island was to be very different from the existing pirate-themed "Krawk Island", and that users "will be seeing quite a bit of it very soon". Scurvy Island was set to be a dark contrast to the light-hearted Krawk Island, and Neopets had insisted there was a need for both. Yet, in issue 180, they announced the scrapping of Scurvy Island due to its similarity with Krawk Island: "It doesn't really make sense to create Scurvy Island as a map when we have Krawk Island already."
"Neoschools" are a believed to be cancelled feature, for reasons unknown to users. The URL for the Neoschools ishttp://www.neopets.com/neoschool/class_info.phtml. Neoschools are mentioned as early as issue 91 of the Neopian Times, when they were said to be released "very soon.". In issue 95 (Summer 2003) Neopets added "Very soon we promise... I know its been a while but we are just finalising the artwork and making sure they are loads of fun at the moment," in response to a question about the release date. In issue 106 Neopets announced that users would be able to register their pets the following week and that the term would start on "The 8th day of Gathering" (September_8, 2003). In issue 119 they claimed to have been too busy to release it in September, despite having supposedly only a week's worth of work remaining, and promised a January 2004 release. Five months later, in issue 139, they said they would be "back on track with it soon". In issue 164 (about 18 months after the first mention), they said that the project was "on hold" and would not happen in the near future, but also that it had not been cancelled. In the Neopets video game for Playstation 2, The_Darkest_Faerie, a tombstone can be seen which reads "Neoschools."
The colour purple for Neopets has the unusual quality of also including orange. The orange is usually included as spots, but can also be used in manes, stripes, or other features. Some users feel that the color should not have spots, or that the spotted pets should be renamed as another color. The plot that was supposed to explain this strangeness was postponed for the Hannah and the Ice Caves plot, since allegedly many users had lost interest in the plot. The plot was to be named "The Return of Dr. Sloth," and was to include a war on Neopia's Moon, Kreludor, between the purple and the orange Grundos (an alien-like Neopet). When both groups of Grundos realized they should not be fighting each other, they united to fight their true enemy: Dr. Sloth. Neopian Times Issue #217 Editorial.
Controversy has arisen from the changing of the addition sign (+) to a "dagger" (†, †) in most of the places for users to post messages. The character can be seen as a Cross of the Christian faith, though in fact it is a typesetting character used like an asterisk for footnotes. The change was meant to break any script or exploit that uses the + character, though it is ineffective. The + characters now do not show up at all on most areas where users can type descriptions and the forum.PinkPT forum, "Argh, Neopets messed up my profile AGAIN..."
== References ==
Category:Neopets
The page I'm describing used to be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neopets_controversy and if anyone knows why Wikipedia took down this section, please let me know, thanks.
The online game Neopets has been involved in many controversies. Off the website, issues have been raised from its immersive advertising methods, gambling-based games, and its connection to Scientology. Users have complained about various security holes or glitches and problems with user interaction.
Groups of people believing that Neopets treats users poorly and who are also against the immersive advertising have formed anti-Neopets websites expressing their views. These groups have bought domain names for their movement, talked about their movement on the Neopets forums, and have even reported Neopets for what they believe to be potential copyright violations. AntiNeopian
===Advertising and revenue===
Neopets is sometimes seen as a liberal placement and promotion of their sponsors' products, a technique sometimes dubbed "immersive advertising".
Much of the company's revenue is gained through promotion of sponsors and their products and they had long accomplished this without a single banner or pop-up advertisement. However, in October 2004, a considerable number of banners that link to external websites such as EBay (instead of linking to various areas on the Neopets website itself as they had previously) were introduced. These banners are displayed on many site pages in several places: one at the top of the page, and one at the bottom, and on the sidebar, making avoidance of advertisements increasingly difficult.
The primary method of advertising is still through creating items based on sponsor products (such as "Baby Bottle Pops," a real candy found in many stores worldwide) or offering rare items, Neopoints, or, in one case, a special pet (the "Ice Bori") in return for downloading a free sponsor's toolbar for Internet Explorer. Neopets also features many games for sponsors, such as "The_Incredibles Split-Shot".
While immersive advertising is doubtlessly effective, some believe this constitutes subliminal advertising and is therefore immoral, particularly considering the targetdemographic is children, although the initial demographic was college students. Others disagree, pointing to the fact that not only are many of the sponsors' offers now grouped on one page and are somewhat avoidable, but that no user is ever required to sign up for these offers. Neopets claims these offers and sponsor ads are only to keep the site free.
Controversy also surrounds the creation of various Neopets features that users must pay in order to use. It has made more people worried about the possibility of Neopets becoming "Pay_to_Play" in the future, although Neopets has announced many times that they will always be "free." In the editorial for Issue 12 of the Neopian Times, Neopets stated, "We do not want to start charging people for any activity on the site as it is not fair to those that do not have access to credit cards or cannot afford to pay for it... and don't worry as you will NEVER have to pay for anything on NeoPets!"
The first of these pay features was Coco Roller, a game that users could purchase for their cell phones. Some users were upset that a secret avatar was released that could only be obtained by using a code from the Coco Roller game. Later, Neopets Premium was released and caused more controversy, due to the extra features paying players receive, giving them unfair advantages.
More controversy was ignited when the long-awaited "other side of Neopia" was released, and it was revealed that the land it contained, Lutari Island, can only be accessed by paying a monthly fee for "Neopets Mobile." Many users felt this was unfair, especially since the service is available only to Americans who own certain types of Cingular cell phones. Some users also became upset that a "Lutari Talisman" was placed on the info page (called the "user lookup") of all users. Many view the Talisman as merely an advertisement encouraging people to sign up for Neopets Mobile, and feel it does not belong on user lookups because previously the only things placed on lookups were trophies that the user earned.
===Australian gambling controversy===
In October of 2004, while McDonald's was promoting Neopets plushies in their Happy_Meals, a story on the Australian Tabloid_television show ''Today_Tonight'' featured a nine-year-old boy claiming that the site requires one to gamble in order to receive enough Neopoints to feed one's Neopet, or else it is sent to anOrphanage. While this is factually incorrect (gambling is not required, nor are pets ever sent to an orphanage if they are not fed), it is true that the website has a number of games of chance that are directly based on real-life games like Blackjack, Poker, and even Lottery scratch cards. Neopets had prohibited users under the age of 13 from playing most games that involve gambling. However, there are neither blocks to prevent a child over 13 from accessing gambling games, nor any safeguards to prevent a minor from creating an adult account.
This article sparked a nationwide controversy as concerned parents voiced their complaints about the website, prompting McDonald's to pressure Neopets into temporarily blocking Australian accounts from accessing games of chance for the duration of the promotion, which ended on November_5,_2004. When this happened, a flurry of complaints appeared on Neopets itself when even Australians legally able to gamble could not access any game of chance on the website. Complaints quickly died down after users realized that by merely changing the country setting on their user preferences, the temporary ban could be bypassed.
===Accuracy===
Some dispute Neopets' registered users count, which has reached over 120 million, a figure Neopets often cites in promotional campaigns. A large percentage of these users are multiple secondary accounts owned by one person, frozen accounts or accounts no longer used. On "very rare" occasions, the Neopets staff cleanout frozen accounts, such that many frozen accounts are never deleted. Some accounts that have not been accessed since the creation of the site still linger. In their Press Kit, they state there may only be as many as 60-70 million players.
===Scientology===
Neopets CEO Doug Dohring is closely affiliated with the controversial Church_of_Scientology. Dohring has been quoted as saying "Having used his technology in every business activity... Mr. Hubbard's organizational concepts are always with me" Hubbard College of Administration. In December 2005, a self-proclaimed former Neopets employee said that Scientology had impacted the administration of the company and staff, but had not affected anything on the website itselfInside the Cult of Neopets - Kotaku.
===Accused plagiarism===
There has also been some debate over Neopets possibly stealing games or game ideas from other sites, such as Orisinal. Games, such as "Turmac Roll", "Warf Rescue Team", and "Nimmo's Pond", are similar to Orisinal's "Panda Run", "These Little Pigs", and "Hydrophobia" respectively. The Orisinal founder briefly noted a similarity between his game "It Takes Two" and the Neopets game "Hasee Bounce" on his news section. Some games from PopCap, such as Typer Shark and Bejeweled, have similar Neopian equivalents too.
===User criticism===
Some users believe that they are poorly treated and considered nothing more than mere Statistics, that the site has lost its friendliness over the years, and that the quality of Customer_service has degraded considerably. Some users believe that the Neopets staff freeze accounts too often without good reason. One problem results in families in which more than one person plays Neopets. If one member of the family downloads and uses an illegal program and is caught, everyone in the family is frozen because they use the same IP address. Users that have had their accounts frozen may be able to recover their accounts by filling in and submitting a form.
Accounts may also be frozen because of actions performed by others when they gain access to a player's account. The staff at Neopets state that their site has never been hacked; they argue that users can only be tricked into giving out their passwords, or have their own computers hacked and their passwords stolen viakeyloggers.
The Neopets rule that slash, shounen-ai, or any other type of Homosexual relationships cannot be roleplayed (or even mentioned) has been criticized as discrimination, although Neopets does state that ''all'' types of romantic content are against the rules. More recently, Neopets has published multiple editorials in The Neopian Times to remind players that romance is forbidden. In addition it has also been made clear that the only content allowed on the site is that relating strictly to Neopets; romance as well as other subjects, such as religion or pop culture, are not to be discussed on the site.
Religion, in all shape and forms, is entirely banned from the site. This makes certain users unhappy that they cannot put any religious symbols, such as crosses, on their User Lookup. Neopets claims that this is the easiest way to make sure there are no disagreements.
====Hacks and glitches====
Although scams do often occur, Neopets has had glitches and vulnerabilities since its beginning.
One of the first cheats to be used to any great extent was programs that submit fake scores for Flash-based games on the site. After almost a month of uninhibited use, Neopets finally took action in December 2000 and froze the accounts of at least 200 membersNeopets' New Features for Dec. 2001 known to have been using the cheat. Cheating in Flash games has become harder since then.{{fact}}
Neopets has also used legal threats against those creating and using cheat programs, adding clauses to their Terms and Conditions requiring authors of cheats to pay damages of US$50,000, and users of said cheats to pay US$500 per use. Neopets' Terms and Conditions (See "Miscellaneous").
On July_25, 2005 (now known as "Dupe Day"), a coding issue allowed items to be duplicated by users by sending specially modified requests to the server. The timing and the duplication and release of cheap, common items (supposedly to implicate innocent users) fueled speculation of a concerted attack. Hundreds, possibly thousands of users were frozen, but accounts were not returned.PinkPT forum, "Item Duping" In October 2005, a glitch in Neopets Premium (involvingmathematically valid but non-existent bank account numbers) allowed hackers to get free premium service. The glitch caused the temporary removal of EFTpayment{{citation needed}}.
On Friday April_4, 2004, (now known as the 4/4/04 disaster) a bug in the lost password request form allowed anyone to view the email address and password for any account. Many accounts were logged into by intruders. Neopets did not correct this until the next business day, Monday, April 7th. The staff tried to fix the problems of stolen accounts and items, but there was still the problem of privacy; some players used the same password for different websites or had their email addresses exposed. Neopets News for the Week of [[April 5] 2004] Image:Neopetslockedscreenie.PNG
A user with the name "Ad0" once was able to hack into the site, and alter many pets' statistics, something Neopets said was caused by a misfiring lab ray{{fact}}.
Between November 2005 and January 2006, a hole in the filters allowed users to include JavaScript on customizable pages such as shop descriptions and user lookups. A group of users, spearheaded by two Crackers under the alias of "Kaos" and "InfamousX241", used this to read the login cookies of anyone who viewed those pages, which allowed them to log into those accounts. The hole was patched, but over the next month "InfamousX241" found another way past the filters, and the same attack happened and at one point, took over a moderator's account and abused the forums locking powers.Thread from PPT on the cookiegrabbing issue
Third page of legal letter sent to "InfamousX241" The apology letter written by "InfamousX241" Sound clip of conversation between "InfamousX241" and the angry father of a 15-year-old girl
A very powerful HTML filter to stop cookie grabbers and other malicious scripts was implemented by Neopets on April_26, 2006. The filter ensures that HTML syntax is followed correctly by checking coding such as brackets and quotes. This filter is said to be impossible to bypass, but known ways of bypassing the filter to include links to outside websites have become increasingly common. Being able to include links in a forum post is essential in using a Cookie Grabber on the forums, and this shows just how close some programmers have came to another Cookie Grabber incident. Help page on the HTML filter
Also, on and around the weekend of June_17 and June_18, 2006, a series of glitches occurred. These include auctions that took days to processPinkPT Thread for auctions that would not process and game scores that would not return NeopointsPinkPT Thread for game scores that would not give NP. Also, Neopets stated in their news page for 20_June that "If you have noticed a few quirks with the site over the weekend, they have been fixed!"Neopets News for the Week of [[June 19]]
On August_26 to August_27, 2006, some component of Neopets webpages was infected with a virus called value[1].wmf and a trojan downloader called bl4ck.com. This caused Neopets to be temporarily blacklisted in Australia by some ISPs. All viruses were localized to Temporary Internet Files folders. News post from PPT on the infected virus issue with links to screenshots
====User experience====
Several complaints state that the site has become too focused on merchandising, with many of the recent plots having trading card game (TCG) tie-ins, and some online items and avatars being obtainable only through the purchase of real-world Neopets merchandise. Neopets also began to refer to their world events as "plots" rather than "something happening in Neopia", which may affect users' Suspension_of_disbelief. {{citation needed}}
The creators of Neopets had promised never to allow pop-up ads on the site{{fact}}, but as Neopets uses third-party advertisers, some pop-ups have appeared due to Neopets' inability to control what external links may be shown to its users.{{citation needed}} Some of the ads may contain inappropriate content, and while Neopets advises users to report such things to them, there is the possibility of a delay before removal.
Other examples of user experience complaints include: *Items/pets/Neopoints lost due to a glitch. *Trojans being found in banner ads from 3rd party companies. *Delays in certain aspects of an event, such as rewards being released months after the event took place. *Sponsor Flash games showing inappropriate content, such as a sponsor game for Le_tea that showed girls getting thinner and prettier as they collected bottles of tea. *New rules to prevent scamming placing a hindrance on users, such as a 4 month age limit to use certain aspects of the pound, or an HTML filter preventing certain HTML codes to be used on user lookups.
====Formatting issues and disorganisation of new features====
There have been accusations of Neopets' disorganization, including pages that show pictures of previous, outdated versions of Neopets, spelling mistakes, and broken links. The site has been criticized for delays and for not telling users about activity behind-the-scenes. For example, in the "Lost Desert" plot, the prizes were not distributed until January_30, over two months after the end of the plot. Neopets has said that they were triple checking every account's amassed points in the plot to be certain of accuracy. {{citation needed}}
The newest world release, Altador, was delayed for unknown reasons. In the Neopian Times issue 199, Altador was said to be "the other side of Neopia", and the description was accompanied by a promise that the entire Neopian world map would be redrawn to include the mini-worlds. In Issue 115, a land called "Talador" was described as "the continent on the other side of the globe". Talador and Altador were confirmed to be the same place in April 2006, when Neopets said the name change was due to legal reasons. The other side of Neopia has been mentioned several times, and the first detailed notice on its release promised it for summer 2004 along with a major plot, neither of which materialized. In issue 139 it was hinted that the other side of Neopia would be released in 2005. In late 2004, Neopets claimed that a completely redesigned map would be released in the coming months. It would allow users to "spin the globe around and see the other side". In early 2006, Altador turned out not to be the other side of Neopia after all, but rather a small city with shops and a few places designed solely for the accompanying plot. Neopets still claimed, in issue 229 of March 2006, that "the other side of Neopia (and a few other surprises) are coming very, very soon" OnJune_23 2006, the other side of the world was introduced and the whole map was redrawn. However, besides Altador, the other side of the world contains an area called Lutari Island, which users can not access unless they pay a monthly fee to sign up with Neopets Mobile.
Scurvy Island, a place "where only the nastiest pirates in the land visit" was set for release in 2005 to coincide with the return of Maraqua, but never appeared. Inissue 178 of the Neopian Times, Neopets made it clear that the island was to be very different from the existing pirate-themed "Krawk Island", and that users "will be seeing quite a bit of it very soon". Scurvy Island was set to be a dark contrast to the light-hearted Krawk Island, and Neopets had insisted there was a need for both. Yet, in issue 180, they announced the scrapping of Scurvy Island due to its similarity with Krawk Island: "It doesn't really make sense to create Scurvy Island as a map when we have Krawk Island already."
"Neoschools" are a believed to be cancelled feature, for reasons unknown to users. The URL for the Neoschools ishttp://www.neopets.com/neoschool/class_info.phtml. Neoschools are mentioned as early as issue 91 of the Neopian Times, when they were said to be released "very soon.". In issue 95 (Summer 2003) Neopets added "Very soon we promise... I know its been a while but we are just finalising the artwork and making sure they are loads of fun at the moment," in response to a question about the release date. In issue 106 Neopets announced that users would be able to register their pets the following week and that the term would start on "The 8th day of Gathering" (September_8, 2003). In issue 119 they claimed to have been too busy to release it in September, despite having supposedly only a week's worth of work remaining, and promised a January 2004 release. Five months later, in issue 139, they said they would be "back on track with it soon". In issue 164 (about 18 months after the first mention), they said that the project was "on hold" and would not happen in the near future, but also that it had not been cancelled. In the Neopets video game for Playstation 2, The_Darkest_Faerie, a tombstone can be seen which reads "Neoschools."
The colour purple for Neopets has the unusual quality of also including orange. The orange is usually included as spots, but can also be used in manes, stripes, or other features. Some users feel that the color should not have spots, or that the spotted pets should be renamed as another color. The plot that was supposed to explain this strangeness was postponed for the Hannah and the Ice Caves plot, since allegedly many users had lost interest in the plot. The plot was to be named "The Return of Dr. Sloth," and was to include a war on Neopia's Moon, Kreludor, between the purple and the orange Grundos (an alien-like Neopet). When both groups of Grundos realized they should not be fighting each other, they united to fight their true enemy: Dr. Sloth. Neopian Times Issue #217 Editorial.
Controversy has arisen from the changing of the addition sign (+) to a "dagger" (†, †) in most of the places for users to post messages. The character can be seen as a Cross of the Christian faith, though in fact it is a typesetting character used like an asterisk for footnotes. The change was meant to break any script or exploit that uses the + character, though it is ineffective. The + characters now do not show up at all on most areas where users can type descriptions and the forum.PinkPT forum, "Argh, Neopets messed up my profile AGAIN..."
== References ==
Category:Neopets
What Will It Take For You To Quit Neopets?
Ask yourself, what will it take for you to quit neopets? I personally played for 6 months, and then quit. Some of you have played longer, some shorter, but what will it take for you to quit?
What will it take? For them to make your weapons downgraded? Change the pretty petpets into ugly ones? Have a glitch take away your items? Make the site go down all the time? Make it super laggy all the time? Have more advertisements than "news" in the news updates? How about being ignored by the support staff every time you want something, and only getting their attention when you do something minor and they send you "warnings"?
How about you not even enjoying the time that you spend playing it? How about you getting frustrated more times than you actually have fun? How about you getting scammed of your "items"?
Ok, assume one day the neo-nazi neo monitors freeze your account unfairly. Will you quit? Or will you just make up a new account and come back for more punishment? COME ON! Sometimes I think this whole site is just a psychological experiment to see how much people will take and still come back. I think they are just messing with you, to see how much the human brain can take before it finally stops and thinks "I think I've had enough of this crap".
Don't be a victim. Quit neopets.
What will it take? For them to make your weapons downgraded? Change the pretty petpets into ugly ones? Have a glitch take away your items? Make the site go down all the time? Make it super laggy all the time? Have more advertisements than "news" in the news updates? How about being ignored by the support staff every time you want something, and only getting their attention when you do something minor and they send you "warnings"?
How about you not even enjoying the time that you spend playing it? How about you getting frustrated more times than you actually have fun? How about you getting scammed of your "items"?
Ok, assume one day the neo-nazi neo monitors freeze your account unfairly. Will you quit? Or will you just make up a new account and come back for more punishment? COME ON! Sometimes I think this whole site is just a psychological experiment to see how much people will take and still come back. I think they are just messing with you, to see how much the human brain can take before it finally stops and thinks "I think I've had enough of this crap".
Don't be a victim. Quit neopets.
You Are More Than Neopets
You are better, smarter, and stronger than Neopets. You don't need bits and bytes of data to be happy. You don't need useless pixels of color to be happy. Happiness doesn't come from having neopoints and neo-items.
Years from now, I don't think this is what you want to be telling your friends, or your children: "yeah, I wasted my whole childhood earning 'neopoints' and collecting 'paint brushes' on this website neopets.com". Is that what you want your youth to be about? Making a fake pet strong and "earning" neopoints?.
Stop wasting your youth on Neopets. Get out there and have fun in the real world. Don't use neopets to escape your problems, cause not only will your problems still be there, but you will have wasted a lot of time as well, causing more problems. Get a boyfriend, get a girlfriend, get a job, volunteer, call up your friends and go out.
At the very least, play other games that don't cause the stress that neopets does. When you are playing neopets, are you actually having fun, or are you just getting more and more stressed out? Do you like thinking about neopets, worrying about your trades when you are at school or while you are at work? Doesn't that bother you and make you sick?
You can beat this addiction. It won't be easy, but you can do it. Just don't play. If you feel the urge to play, watch tv, draw, read, do something else. Who cares what color a Kau or Pteri can be painted this week, who cares what "new item" they are releasing this week. Who cares that you never fed your "pet" or collected your bank interest. It's all useless, don't stress about it.
Do you want me to give you 1 million neopoints? How badly do you want that million neopoints? How about 50 million neopoints?
Your enthusiasm and desperation to that question should tell you how hopelessly addicted you are to neopets. That's ok though, I was addicted too. I haven't played in months, and I feel great. I spend way more time with my real friends, go out more, have way more free time, and enjoy life more.
However, the only way to quit is to totally quit. You can't "semi-quit" or "kind of quit" neopets. That just means you are playing less. How can you "kinda quit smoking" or "semi-quit drinking" or "sort of quit gambling"? You can't. You have to totally quit. You can try cutting back and over time quit, and that is a good way to do it. Trust me, your life will be better.
Years from now, I don't think this is what you want to be telling your friends, or your children: "yeah, I wasted my whole childhood earning 'neopoints' and collecting 'paint brushes' on this website neopets.com". Is that what you want your youth to be about? Making a fake pet strong and "earning" neopoints?.
Stop wasting your youth on Neopets. Get out there and have fun in the real world. Don't use neopets to escape your problems, cause not only will your problems still be there, but you will have wasted a lot of time as well, causing more problems. Get a boyfriend, get a girlfriend, get a job, volunteer, call up your friends and go out.
At the very least, play other games that don't cause the stress that neopets does. When you are playing neopets, are you actually having fun, or are you just getting more and more stressed out? Do you like thinking about neopets, worrying about your trades when you are at school or while you are at work? Doesn't that bother you and make you sick?
You can beat this addiction. It won't be easy, but you can do it. Just don't play. If you feel the urge to play, watch tv, draw, read, do something else. Who cares what color a Kau or Pteri can be painted this week, who cares what "new item" they are releasing this week. Who cares that you never fed your "pet" or collected your bank interest. It's all useless, don't stress about it.
Do you want me to give you 1 million neopoints? How badly do you want that million neopoints? How about 50 million neopoints?
Your enthusiasm and desperation to that question should tell you how hopelessly addicted you are to neopets. That's ok though, I was addicted too. I haven't played in months, and I feel great. I spend way more time with my real friends, go out more, have way more free time, and enjoy life more.
However, the only way to quit is to totally quit. You can't "semi-quit" or "kind of quit" neopets. That just means you are playing less. How can you "kinda quit smoking" or "semi-quit drinking" or "sort of quit gambling"? You can't. You have to totally quit. You can try cutting back and over time quit, and that is a good way to do it. Trust me, your life will be better.
If You Are Addicted To Neopets, Accept Responsibility!
I know most people who visit this site are around 12-16 years old, so you may still view yourself as a "kid". A lot of you feel that you are addicted, and want to stop playing neopets, but feel you can't. I'm here to tell you that you may be a kid, but you have to accept some responsibility for yourself. You voluntarily play neopets, so it's your own fault. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's the truth. Neopets isn't a chemical addiction like drugs or alcohol, and if you decide to play neopets rather than do homework, or rather than hanging out with your friends at the mall, that's your voluntary choice. Don't try to blame anyone or anything else.
Don't blame neopets itself for making the game "addictive". Don't blame neopets for making the pets "cute". Don't blame your town for being "boring". You could be doing a hundred other things with your time, but in the end, it's your choice. To play neopets, or not to play neopets. Seriously, there is nothing forcing you to play, except yourself.
If you try to blame anybody or anything else, you're just making excuses. You just want an excuse to play neopets cause you want to play neopets. You say you have nothing to do, or that you have no friends, or that you learn computer skills from playing. But those are just excuses, when the truth is that you just want to play, and need some rationalization other than "I want to play". So you make up things to justify why you spend hour after hour, and day after day playing this silly game. Again, I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but it's the truth. If you're addicted, and want to quit, you have to take responsibility for yourself, and not blame anything else for the addiction.
Don't blame neopets itself for making the game "addictive". Don't blame neopets for making the pets "cute". Don't blame your town for being "boring". You could be doing a hundred other things with your time, but in the end, it's your choice. To play neopets, or not to play neopets. Seriously, there is nothing forcing you to play, except yourself.
If you try to blame anybody or anything else, you're just making excuses. You just want an excuse to play neopets cause you want to play neopets. You say you have nothing to do, or that you have no friends, or that you learn computer skills from playing. But those are just excuses, when the truth is that you just want to play, and need some rationalization other than "I want to play". So you make up things to justify why you spend hour after hour, and day after day playing this silly game. Again, I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but it's the truth. If you're addicted, and want to quit, you have to take responsibility for yourself, and not blame anything else for the addiction.
Steps To Quitting Neopets
So you want to quit neopets but don't think you can? Think you are too addicted to quit? I'll try do my best to help you, but I can only give advice. If you don't want my advice, or don't want to quit, that's fine. Seriously, if you do NOT want to quit neopets, then DON'T quit neopets.
I think casual players are ok. This is more for the totally addicted player, spending 4+ hours a day, everyday (and 10+ hours on weekends). But yeah, I'm not going to force anybody to do anything that they don't want to. I don't believe in it. But if you do want to quit, read on.
1) First of all, like any other addiction program, you have to admit that you do have a problem. If you feel you aren't addicted, or if you feel playing neopets is not a bad thing, then you can't quit. You may not want to quit, in which case you shouldn't be here. This is only for people who want to quit.
Anyway, if you do want to quit, admit to yourself right now, that yes, you are addicted, and that you do want to quit.
2) Make a list of all the things you would be doing if you were not playing neopets. I'm serious, make a real list, on paper, of what you would be doing if it were not for neopets. This doesn't have to be all "work" things like doing homework, studying, or getting a part time job. This can include fun things, even video games, TV, calling friends to talk, etc. You aren't a robot, you aren't expected to "work" all day long. So include everything you could and would do if you were not playing neopets.
3) Acknowledge to yourself that you did have fun in neoland. That part of playing was fun, that's why you did it. At the same time, realize that although it was fun, you do have better things to do in life than continue to play for hours and hours a day.
At this point you really do want to quit neopets. You can do it either in one of two methods.
4a) Cold turkey, by just logging out and never logging back in. That's hard, even for me, but if you can do it, more power to you.
4b) Make up another account, and log into that one. Never log into your main account, just use this fake account. Then look at stuff that you used to, but don't participate. Trust me, it will help you a lot. Go to the chat rooms, look at the auctions or trades, and even read the news if you want. It's just you can't do anything that would make you neopoints.
Don't play games, don't buy from shops, don't make trades or post in chat. Just lurk, and that will be kind of your gradual quitting of neopets. You haven't quit yet because you can't "sort of quit neopets" or "half quit neopets" or "partially quit neopets". At this point, you are just lurking. Do this for a week or two, and eventually (since you can't play), you will get bored, and see what a waste of time neopets was.
Also, you should be doing your other fun activities, like TV, calling on friends, playing sports, joining clubs, volunteering, getting a part time job, spending time with your boyfriend/girlfriend, playing non-addictive video games, stuff like that. This is the method I used to quit. Trust me, after a while, you won't even want to check the latest prices for battle items or paint brushes, cause it won't matter.
5) I know it sounds easy, but it's not. You will think about neopets all day and night because you aren't playing. But trust me, never log back into your main account. The moment you do, it's all over. You can lurk and visit any site you want from your fake account, but don't do ANYTHING that would earn you neopoints. Remember, you are trying to quit, so neopoints doesn't matter to you.
6) You probably have friends in neopets, and you can keep in touch with them through chat programs or email. From experience though, most of your friends will truly be "neofriends". You won't have much to talk about outside of neopets, since that's what your relationship was built on. I know it's sad to lose friends, but if all you could talk about with these friends was neopets . . . I don't know how good of friends you guys were.
7) The main thing to ask yourself, is do you want to be sitting in your chair, 5 years from now, still worrying about making neopoints and making your pet strong? Do you? That's right, I didn't think so. Best to quit now and save all that time.
You may have goals like you want to make 1 million points before you quit or get a certain item before you quit. Why? Who cares? Getting that item is meaningless if you are going to quit, you are just making it harder to quit because you spent so much time "earning" items to just quit now. And trust me, there will always be another goal to get, like got 1 million? You want 5 million. You got a rare item? You'll want a rarer item. Think of it this way, your time is valuable, and it's real. How much more of your real time do you want to spend getting these fake items?
I think casual players are ok. This is more for the totally addicted player, spending 4+ hours a day, everyday (and 10+ hours on weekends). But yeah, I'm not going to force anybody to do anything that they don't want to. I don't believe in it. But if you do want to quit, read on.
1) First of all, like any other addiction program, you have to admit that you do have a problem. If you feel you aren't addicted, or if you feel playing neopets is not a bad thing, then you can't quit. You may not want to quit, in which case you shouldn't be here. This is only for people who want to quit.
Anyway, if you do want to quit, admit to yourself right now, that yes, you are addicted, and that you do want to quit.
2) Make a list of all the things you would be doing if you were not playing neopets. I'm serious, make a real list, on paper, of what you would be doing if it were not for neopets. This doesn't have to be all "work" things like doing homework, studying, or getting a part time job. This can include fun things, even video games, TV, calling friends to talk, etc. You aren't a robot, you aren't expected to "work" all day long. So include everything you could and would do if you were not playing neopets.
3) Acknowledge to yourself that you did have fun in neoland. That part of playing was fun, that's why you did it. At the same time, realize that although it was fun, you do have better things to do in life than continue to play for hours and hours a day.
At this point you really do want to quit neopets. You can do it either in one of two methods.
4a) Cold turkey, by just logging out and never logging back in. That's hard, even for me, but if you can do it, more power to you.
4b) Make up another account, and log into that one. Never log into your main account, just use this fake account. Then look at stuff that you used to, but don't participate. Trust me, it will help you a lot. Go to the chat rooms, look at the auctions or trades, and even read the news if you want. It's just you can't do anything that would make you neopoints.
Don't play games, don't buy from shops, don't make trades or post in chat. Just lurk, and that will be kind of your gradual quitting of neopets. You haven't quit yet because you can't "sort of quit neopets" or "half quit neopets" or "partially quit neopets". At this point, you are just lurking. Do this for a week or two, and eventually (since you can't play), you will get bored, and see what a waste of time neopets was.
Also, you should be doing your other fun activities, like TV, calling on friends, playing sports, joining clubs, volunteering, getting a part time job, spending time with your boyfriend/girlfriend, playing non-addictive video games, stuff like that. This is the method I used to quit. Trust me, after a while, you won't even want to check the latest prices for battle items or paint brushes, cause it won't matter.
5) I know it sounds easy, but it's not. You will think about neopets all day and night because you aren't playing. But trust me, never log back into your main account. The moment you do, it's all over. You can lurk and visit any site you want from your fake account, but don't do ANYTHING that would earn you neopoints. Remember, you are trying to quit, so neopoints doesn't matter to you.
6) You probably have friends in neopets, and you can keep in touch with them through chat programs or email. From experience though, most of your friends will truly be "neofriends". You won't have much to talk about outside of neopets, since that's what your relationship was built on. I know it's sad to lose friends, but if all you could talk about with these friends was neopets . . . I don't know how good of friends you guys were.
7) The main thing to ask yourself, is do you want to be sitting in your chair, 5 years from now, still worrying about making neopoints and making your pet strong? Do you? That's right, I didn't think so. Best to quit now and save all that time.
You may have goals like you want to make 1 million points before you quit or get a certain item before you quit. Why? Who cares? Getting that item is meaningless if you are going to quit, you are just making it harder to quit because you spent so much time "earning" items to just quit now. And trust me, there will always be another goal to get, like got 1 million? You want 5 million. You got a rare item? You'll want a rarer item. Think of it this way, your time is valuable, and it's real. How much more of your real time do you want to spend getting these fake items?
