neopets.com

Update

When I wrote this review not all that long ago I was not expecting anything to change in the near future in how I see neopets. I have been a member for long enough that I tend to roll with the punches. Oh, how wrong was I? In the last week the Neopets Team have shown themselves to be pig headed, arrogant and completely incapable of paying any attention to 90% of their users.

As I mentioned below the Altador Cup is a main attraction of the site, occurring once a year and a highlight for many of us. So TNT in their almighty wisdom decided to mess with it and break that which didn't need fixing. They changed the entire main game of the tournament to a game that is slow, laggy, and completely unsuitable for people with hand disabilities such as arthritis, even originally impossible to play for left handed people. It used to be mouse controlled and easy enough to play; considering to get the all star rank you need to play it 2000 times over a month this makes sense. And they broke it by turning it into a poor substitution which is honestly the worst game I and many others have ever played.

Now, anyone can make a mistake. And when you've got well over 3000 people screaming at you to change it back or at least make it less awful you'd think they might just get the message. Within 12 hours 1500 had signed a petition, people were baying for their blood on their Facebook page, sending in multiple complaints through their official complaints page and generally screaming the house down. Any sensible company would accept that something had gone seriously wrong, particularly when people start revoking premium membership and quitting the site.

So, what did they do? The battened down the hatches and tried to weather out the storm. In fact they completely ignored us. After 25 hours when it was obvious we weren't shutting up they sent out a generic, patronising response to all of us basically telling us that 'Mummy knows best dear, and you'll have to deal with it. Needless to say this merely provoked more fury. But, after that nothing. And unfortunately any good Mummy knows when to give in and give their screaming infants ice cream. So, people start sending in complaints to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), to Viacom who own them...just about anywhere and still they treat us like ignorant children who don't know any better. And to make things even worse they then started deleting comments and silencing people of the boards to shut us up. I have never seen this amount of people this inflamed and I have never been this furious. A group have even located their fax number and business phone number to keep hammering the complaints in.

I have never been more furious with a business in my lifetime. I have never written so many letters of complaint and I have never been so disgusted by the customer services of any group of people or company. I understand that they were somewhat ploughed in by complaints but that alone should say enough. But instead of actually doing anything to fix the problem they just stuck their heels in and demanded that they were right and that we should leave them alone now. I have been disgusted, disappointed and appalled by the behaviour and bad decision making of The Neopets Team. This could have been a small issue, easily solved by compromise but they have allowed it to spiral out of control because they were determined to weather the storm. Instead they have just offended everyone.

For the minute I am sticking around to see if they will see sense. If they don't then they don't deserve my custom and I will be out of there. I refuse to be patronised and I refuse to put up with such appalling lack of common courtesy. They still haven't given us an answer. I'll leave the site with many happy memories, but I will also leave with the bitterness, distaste and anger that this has left me with. There is also a high chance that I am going to log into hotmail shortly and find that my account has been deleted as they don't like people who make their lives difficult and often find it easier to freeze them for some made up reason. And I have been making their lives difficult; I have just had an email from the BBB saying that my complaint has been accepted and forwarded and I have been very vocal about my disgust...including linking them to every review I have written, informing them of every complaint to outside organisations I have made and joining the campaign to ensure they have 8000 faxes on their desk on Tuesday morning.

New conclusion: Unless you like a company destroying the most important parts of the site, refusing to respond to complaints, refusing to back down and generally behaving in a patronising manner to its clients then I would stay well away. It is a fantastic place until something goes wrong. Then it is atrocious.

Beware the meepits...

Before I start this review I probably ought to make it very clear that yes, I am just a large child! I started playing neopets nearly eight years ago, and have played it on and off since then, although somehow I managed to keep my original account even after being absent for over two years on one occasion! It is an oddly addictive site and can provide many hours of amusement for players of any age.

The Basics

In the simplest of terms Neopets is a digital pet website based around flash-games that was created on November 15, 1999 meaning that it is now coming up to it's twelfth birthday at the end of this year. Since then it has expanded massively but the basic idea is still exactly the same; you own a pet, you earn neopoints and you expand your user profile by trophies or buying things with neopoints.

The first thing you will be directed to as a new member of the site is to the page on which you can create your own pet. Here you get to pick your new pets species, name, colour and basic attributes and personality. As a Neopian you are entitled to own up to four pets on your account and you can pick out of 54 species as to what you want, although some of these are limited edition and can only be created on a certain day, and others can only be created by hatching a VERY expensive item. But there you go, you have your very own neopet to love and to care for.

From that point onwards it is your mission to collect neopoints (the in-game currency) by playing games, restocking items at shops to sell for higher prices, investing in shares or winning contests. You can then choose to wisely invest your neopoints in the bank and watch as it blooms into credit of a generous amount (sorry, couldn't resist!), or of course you can blow it all on collectables, clothing or anything else you fancy.

Pets

As I said earlier there are 54 species of pet in Neopia, and most of them are cartoon versions of real world animals. For example the Lupe is a stylised wolf, the Lenny is like an ostrich and the Elephante...well, you can figure that one out for yourself! You also have the fantasy style pets such as Draik's and Shoyru's which are like dragons, Uni's which are obviously unicorns and Grundo's which are...short, squat alien things!

As part of the game it is your responsibility to keep your pet well fed and happy, and although neopets will never die through malnutrition or run away due to sadness, it would be very cruel of you to keep them in such a state. It is also seen as very bad form, particularly as there are plenty of ways for you to get free food. But you can also dress your neopet up in fancy clothes or paint them fantastic colours if you save up enough neopoints. You also have the choice to train your pet for the Battledome and there are two different areas on the world map to train your petsin HP, attack, defence and agility. This has largely fallen into disrepair over the last couple of years as there is no real use for it, it's only really my obsessive side that keeps me training my pet and the hope that they'll bring out another Battledome based plot! Plus there are massive kudos points in having a very strong pet.

Your world

One of the best things about neopets is that it truly is your world. You choose what pets you want, what you want to collect, and what you want your pets to look like. You can even code your userlookup and gallery to look pretty if you understand coding and HTML. The site offers a wide variety of choices and a wide range of options that you can follow. Another person's neopets account will be completely different to mine, as they will each have different pets that are customised to their tastes, different trophies from site events and games, different avatars, galleries and priorities. Although you are playing the same game as millions of others around the world, it also seems like your own unique little world.

My main focus with my pets has been tdub my Kougra, and I have worked very hard to paint him faerie, read him lots of books to raise his intelligence and have trained him for the Battledome. My eventual aim is to have him at the trophy standard of books read (only 3500 to go!) and able to destroy anything in the Battledome which isn't going to happen any time soon. But I also collect trophies, plushies and stamps and have built my gallery around my plushie collection. Neopets has always kept me interested because there is always something more I can do, and it is entirely based around what you want to do or collect.

Games

This is a huge section of neopets as the majority of the site resolves around the games. These are mostly played on Adobe Flash Player or Shockwave, so if you don't have these installed on your computer you will struggle. Each game will earn you neopoints once you have sent your score and this is the main way of earning neopoints. There is a very large selection of different games on the site and more are constantly being added, they also have a large range of different types of game on the site so that everyone can find something that will keep them occupied. This includes action, adventure, luck, puzzles and arcade games. You are allowed to send scores three times in a day up to a maximum of 1000np per game played – this is to attempt to slow inflation in Neopia.

The World

All of these games and activities are set in Neopia which is a planet involving many different lands and which is orbited by a moon and a space station. The lands of Neopia are typically themed after places or era's in Earth's history; for example Tyrannia is the stone age, and Meridell is the medieval period. There are some exceptions to the rule such as Faerieland and Maraqua which is set as a land under the sea, but that is the general gist of it. In total there are 19 visible worlds for you to play with and a couple of hidden lands such as Jelly World...which doesn't exist I promise and if you say anything to the contrary the meepits will kidnap you and eat your soul.

Plots and Events

Every so often The Neopets Team (the omnipotent deities in charge of the running of Neopia, and the ones who keep the meepits under control) give us citizens of Neopia something to really bite our teeth into, in the form of events or plots. Now, some of these events come round every year such as the Altador Tournament in which you pick your land to support and desperately play the qualifying games to boost your teams score, the Daily Dare in which you have to beat a different games score each day and the Games Master Challenge which is similar. There are others which may include games or quests and for each you will get items and possibly a trophy for competing.

Other events are called ploys and they tend to change the history, and possibly the very landscape of Neopia forever. During the plots The Neopets Team release a series of comics following a set story and set steps for user participation. Some steps are Battledome orientated with your pet having to try to take out waves of enemies (impossible unless you've taken the time and effort to train your pet, which a lot of people don't as it takes a lot of neopoints), others are puzzles which have to be solved and still more are group tasks where you have to work with other members of Neopia to gain a set goal. After the plot there are always prizes relating to how much effort you as the player have put into the plot, but to get the best of them you really need to put your heart, mind and soul into the game.

Whenever a plot or event is released the citizens of Neopia all get very excited and it reaches fever pitch on the boards and other areas of the site. The last plot caused the crash of Faerieland into the ground after a betrayal of the worst kind, leaving the faeries to rebuild their beautiful landscape. Because am very, very sad I devoted a lot of hours to the plot...and did rather well out it if I do say so myself!

Updates

Another fantastic thing about neopets is that there is something new every day excluding weekends. The Neopets Team are excellent at incorporating new items, plots and events into the site and most days there is something new for you to look at/buy/play. This is particularly noticeable on pet days where new items relating to the pet will be released. Recently they introduced the Habitarium as a new long running game which has truly fascinated many of us as we get to look after tiny little bug critters and set them to work or nest etc. I could do an entire review on Habitarium but then you would probably either kill me or just stop reading! But overall new clothing, plushies, stamps and games come out fairly regularly and that is interspersed with the Neopian Times (newspaper) coming out weekly and all the contests starting and finishing.

Flaws

Well, in a site as large as neopets there are bound to be some problems and surprise, surprise, there are. From a personal perspective I have to say that I have had very few problems myself, with the exceptions of some of the meepit attacks, which luckily aren't quite so common these days.

The Neopets Team. The small(ish) group of people who run the site, update it and keep order in the world (both from citizens and meepits). And here is where a large proportion of the of the complaints and issues with neopets come in. The customer services are very, very slow and often send back generic messages which don't actually solve your problem. I can say that this is definitely partially true, but it seems each area of customer services is run by a different person and it really depends on which area you are asking about as to what response rate you will get. Currently I do have a 'ticket' which I placed a month ago, have chased once and still have no response on the gaming side of things, but equally on a plot 'ticket' I had a response within 48 hours. Many people blame this on Viacom who bought neopets out on the 20th of June 2005, and are seen as viewing the main users of neopets as nothing more than statistics. Likewise it is a fairly common complaint that those who buy Neocash (in game currency that you pay for in real money) or a premium account (you pay a subscription fee) are given a higher priority. I can see this being an issue and not likely to go away any time soon as neocash items are given a far higher priority and it is becoming more and more regular that things are released on a neocash only basis. People see this as Viacom turning the site into a soulless money making machine, and not what the site was originally aimed for.

Another related issue is with people being frozen, which means that your account is locked until further notice. Now, The Neopets Team does state that nobody is frozen without good reason, but my personal opinion is that they are perhaps a little more trigger happy on the freeze button than they are willing to admit. There are too many people frozen for 'cheating' or for their own 'protection', who either have no idea what they've been frozen for, or have been told why but are certain that they have done nothing wrong. I recognize that people do cheat, but I am well acquainted with many people who have been frozen and like me they value their accounts far too much to put it in jeopardy. And we're back to the customer service issue, as once you've been frozen you are going to have hell's own game getting your account back, even if you have done nothing wrong. And although it sounds ridiculous, I would be devastated if I lost my account having put so many years and so much effort into it.

Neocash and premium. I touched on this before. This is the bane of our life for players like myself, who refuse to put real money into a virtual world. The existence of it doesn't bother me at all, although others are put out by the very notion of it. As far as I see it, it you're idiotic enough to spend real money on VIRTUAL clothes for VIRTUAL pets then be my guest, but don't expect me to join in. What I find irritating is the precedence that people paying premium or for neocash get as The Neopets Team puts far more of an effort into making items for that much smaller minority, than for the majority of us who actually own brains. This does however leave many of us feeling a little bit neglected, and a little bit bitter.

The focus on America. Now, this really winds me up. Prepare for the rant. I fully understand that neopets is an American site originally, it was set up there and most of the employees are based there. However, it has been running for over a decade now and surely they must recognise that a large proportion of their players are from places other than the USA. But still they insist on putting up promotional offers and free stuff that is only available to players in the US, who aren't even paying their own money for the privilege of being special. To many of us from outside the US, who have been long term, loyal members of the site this is a complete slap in the face, particularly when it happens again, and again, and again. And for those of us who refuse to pay for neocash and live outside the US, we are even more neglected!

There are of course other niggles including the advertisements (get Ad-Blocker Plus and be done with it), the fact that the site has become more child orientated (well, what did we expect really?), and constant glitches (blame the meepits). What amazes me is that people have even set up anti-Neopets websites including stories and rants – although some some did amuse me as they were childish, petty and unfounded!

My Views

Aside from the niggles expressed above, I have always thoroughly enjoyed playing neopets and found the site to be well managed, well organised, and constantly updated with enough site events to keep everyone engaged and interested. I also appreciate how the The Neopets Team have a sense of humour which very clearly shows in many of their additions to the site, particularly on April Fools Day...I can still remember 2006 when they introduced something called Neocharge, to cut down on inflation by charging neopoints on every single page you visited. This was fine if you didn't meander round the site too much, but if you were playing a refresh game like NeoQuest then you kept on building up massive debt. This seemed realistic as they had been trying to cut inflation for a while and brought it in on March 31st, when they threatened to freeze accounts if the debt wasn't paid. It caused uproar until we figured out it was an April Fool!

After eight years on the game I still haven't run out of things to do, which is really quite impressive. I still have many more aims and many more ambitions for my empire on the site, including completing both versions of Neoquest on InSaNe (the hardest, near impossible difficulty), completing my stamp album (some stamps in themselves cost over 50 million neopoints!), completing my book collection read to my pet (same issue as the stamps), building on my plushie collection, gaining more game trophies (which means I actually have to be good at some of the games!) and having a neopoint account balance of over 50 million. As you can see I have quite a few goals, and can see myself quite happily continuing to work at them for many years to come...if I haven't been frozen by then!

Conclusion

Well, now you can see what I've been up to in my long absences from here...I could go on for a lot more words but I'm running close to 3000 as it is and I'm amazed if any of you have made it this far. But, go on, check it out. It's free, fun and could well be your next obsession.