Caring For Your Human: Neopoint Uses by tdyans |  |
Greetings once again, fellow Neopets, from the Neopian Committee on the Proper
Care of Humans (NCPCH)! If you read our last guide, “Caring For Your Human:
The Basics” (as you ought to have done), you should now have acquired a suitable
human and trained it up into a happy and helpful pet. You should also have learned
about Neopoints — a human’s favorite thing to collect — and about the basic
amenities that you can train your human to trade its Neopoints for, such as
food, books, toys, and grooming items. However, by now, your human should have
amassed quite a collection, and despite its instinctual love for shiny things,
will be just salivating for something bigger, and perhaps shinier, to give them
away in exchange for. Hence, we present you this guide so that you may be aware
of how your human might choose to use its Neopoints and hopefully be able to
direct its attention to whatever outlet you find most desirable.
Paint Brushes
Once again, humans seem to be controlled almost exclusively by their eyes.
You’d almost think that they couldn’t smell or taste anything here in Neopia
— which might explain why some of them seem to think that Chewing Dung is an
acceptable treat to bring their hungry owners. Thus, it is important to keep
your appearance attractive in order to maintain the loyalty and interest of
these finicky creatures. Of course, a human’s idea of “attractive” might differ
greatly from your own, but we must all make sacrifices for our beloved pets
now and then. Don’t worry — eventually that Uni down the block will get tired
of laughing at you.
The most obvious way to go about altering your appearance for the sake of
your human is to get painted. In order to be painted, you will need to take
your human on a walk to the Rainbow Pool in the center of Neopia Central, and
your human will need to have a magical paint brush. Once in a while, a mysterious
creature named Jacko will appear out of nowhere and hand your pet one of these
paint brushes. (This Jacko’s species is not known, although human has been ruled
out since, of course, no human would part with so many paint brushes without
getting any shiny things in return.) As this is very rare, it is best to encourage
your human not to simply sit around expecting it to happen at any time. Instead,
in most instances, they will need to give some of their Neopoints to another
human in exchange for the paint brush of their desire. There are many places
where they can find other humans to make this exchange with — shops, the trading
post, the auctions…. But let your human worry about that. No need to concern
yourself with such matters.
What you should concern yourself with, however, is what paint brush
color your human picks out — it is your fur that’s going to be painted,
after all. Therefore, you should do your best to direct your human toward a
color that you like or that seems to suit your personality. Since humans can
be quite stubborn if they believe they’re being told what to do, you must be
subtle and still let them think that it is their decision. On the other hand,
you must also be firm when necessary — never forget who’s the owner and who’s
the pet here. It’s a delicate balance, and failure in either subtlety or firmness
has led many a poor Neopet into the horrors of babyhood or gelatinacity.
Of course, paint brushes are not the only means of changing one’s appearance,
but they are the safest and easiest to detect. It is highly advised that you
be cautious about any strange looking plushies or potions that your pet might
bring home with it — there’s no telling what kinds of things humans might drag
in. If you do, by accident, find your color, species, or even gender suddenly
and unexpectedly transformed by such sinister items, your human may begin to
think that it has the upper paw. And we wouldn’t want that, would we?
Petpets
We know — the idea of pets having pets of their own seems… well, ridiculous.
Nevertheless, petpets are all the rage in Neopia and show no signs of going
out of fashion, so your human is sure to feel left out if it doesn’t get at
least one. There are many shops — both official and human-owned — where your
pet can browse through barrels of available petpets, looking for just the right
one to shell over its Neopoints for. And there are also many, many different
types of petpets to choose from.
Once again, you should have some say in what petpet your human chooses and
try to steer it toward a breed that fits well with your personality and lifestyle.
The reason for this is that the idea of a pet having a pet is indeed as ridiculous
as it seems. Of course humans are not fit to care for a small, dependent, squirming
fellow creature. Instead, after your human has admired its new pet for a few
minutes and showed it off to all of its friends, it will essentially be left
to you to care for the little thing from then on. But not to worry — most petpets
are much easier to care for than humans (not to mention much better-looking.)
All they really require for their survival and happiness is to be allowed to
cling to you every minute of every day. They also make wonderful conversationalists.
When your human is frustrating you with incomprehensible phrases such as, “CF
is offering a PB on my DBD in the TP,” you will find it refreshing to turn to
your — er, its — petpet and hear something whose meaning is as crystal clear
as “Brrrflp.”
NeoHomes
Not unlike a Kadoatie who figures that since she likes mangled Miamice,
you should like mangled Miamice and appreciate having them dropped at
your paws, many humans seems to think that because they like to live
inside stuffy, box-like structures (or “houses” as they call them), their owners
will also. So, your human may choose to use its Neopoints to buy building materials
to make a NeoHome for you, not to mention to fill this NeoHome with strange
things such as chairs and beds. The intended uses of these items are not known
for certain, although some have speculated that humans like to sit and sleep
on them. This theory seems incredible since, after all, that is what the ground
is for; but then, we must remember that with humans, you never know.
In any case, you must once again humor your pets — after all, they mean it
as a gift, even if you find it to be just as tasteless a gift as a mangled Miamouse.
Besides, most humans will not even take notice of the fact that you never set
paw inside of the NeoHome that they spend so much time building for your benefit
and instead choose to sleep outside, under the stars, like any normal creature
would.
NeoHomes may seem like a useless pursuit to allow your human to engage in,
but if your human is determined to build one, it’s best not to try to reason
with it (which can be said for just about any situation.) And besides, there
are some benefits. Designing these odd structures allows humans to exercise
their tiny minds and flex their creativity — and it can keep them out of your
fur for hours at a time. Of course, some minor supervision on your part is still
necessary. Since even if you won’t actually be living inside of it, your human
will still be put off if you don’t at least spend some time near your NeoHome,
you will be affected by the location and building materials that your pet chooses.
If you’re overly concerned with silly things like the laws of physics, for instance,
you may want to make sure that your human doesn’t try to build a NeoHome out
of stone on a cloud in Faerieland.
The Battledome
Deep down (or sometimes not so deep down), nearly all humans love violence.
Unfortunately, with their flimsy, frail bodies and soft, thin skin, they’re
not exactly cut out for fighting themselves. After all, they’d snap like twigs
at the first tap from a stone snowball, and they can’t even be magically healed
by drinking strange-looking potions or taking a dip in a Faerie’s swimming pool!
That’s why you have to do it for them. Yes, the Neopian Government has kindly
provided an official way for you to entertain your human and satisfy its aggressive
tendencies in the form of the Battledome.
In the Battledome, you will fight against other Neopets. Not only will your
human find this very entertaining, but it will also get to play an interactive
part in the battle. Since you are essentially fighting in the place of your
pet in an effort to relieve its pent-up aggression, you should allow your human
to decide what moves you will make in the fight. He or she will yell out directions
to you from the sidelines, and you will follow them — yes, even if it expects
you to take on the Snowager with nothing more than a wet snowball. Speaking
of which, that is where your human’s Neopoints come into play: weaponry. A good
human will use its Neopoints to obtain weapons for you to use in the Battledome.
Unfortunately, many humans are reluctant to part with their beloved Neopoints,
and will often try to get by with bringing you less-than-satisfactory weapons
at first, often resulting in matches that they will find more disappointing
than entertaining.
Hopefully it will be an educational experience, your human will learn from
its mistakes and improve. On the other hand, it may just continue to cling rabidly
to its hoard of shiny things and keep advising you to get yourself pummelled
over and over in the hopes that at some point it will magically begin to work.
In this case, just make sure that you teach your human another of the many uses
that its Neopoints can be put to — acquiring healing potions. And if watching
its owner get pounded into the ground doesn’t motivate it to develop some strategy
and obtain some better weaponry, perhaps this loss of its precious Neopoints
will. You see? They really are useful things.
Well, now you know some of the ways in which your human can put its strange
Neopoint-collecting habit to use — some of which you can encourage and assist
it in… and others which you may want to avoid (unless you are an extremely devoted,
patient, and pain-tolerant owner.) Until our next instalment, once again, here’s
to happy humans!
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