The Right Way to Adopt by tdyans |  |
There seems to be a general consensus in Neopia that adopting
is a good thing for an obvious reason--it gives homeless pets a new lease on
Neopian life. The purpose of this article is to show some other reasons for
adopting that you may not have thought of before, and to inform you of the right
way to adopt. Okay, right about now you're asking yourself, "The *right* way
to adopt? Is there a wrong way?" Well, yes there is. While I know there are
tons of you out there who know the right way and have found great new additions
to your Neopian families because of it, I also see plenty of people out there
going about it the wrong way every day.
But before I go into that, let me offer a little preliminary advice. If you're
going to adopt, it's of course necessary that you actually have room in your
family for your new addition, since you can only have four pets in any one account.
In light of this, as well as other considerations, I think it's best to follow
the advice that NeoPets gives all new Neopians--start out with just one pet.
I see many Newbies who've already filled their accounts with four pets, but
I also see many Newbies who soon discover that they can't support this many
pets and have to give some of them up. It's understandably difficult when you
look at all of those cute NeoPets on the Create-a-Pet
page to choose to stick with just one for a while. But give yourself time to
get a good footing before you give yourself too much to handle. Once you feel
relatively secure financially and are happy with how your first pet has developed,
go ahead and get another one, and eventually a third and a fourth if you really
want them.
Again, give each new pet careful consideration, especially when you're coming
to a decision on that fourth and final pet. What if NeoPets releases more limited
edition pets (it happens more often than you think) or what if they create a
new pet that is extremely cute and popular? Will you be content with the pets
you have or will you dump one of them to get in on the latest fad as many people
do at such times? You might want to leave at least one space in your family
open for just this reason.
When you have gotten a significant amount of Neopoints and the pet, or pets,
that you already have are older and have had their stats boosted, maybe you'll
suddenly find yourself wondering what there is left to do in Neopia? Many people
run into this problem, suddenly realizing that they've earned plenty of Neopoints,
played all the games, raised all their pets' stats, and now they're bored. This
is another reason that you may want to wait to adopt more pets, and this is
exactly the time when you should begin considering it. The reason is that a
new pet can reinvest you in the game. If you've run out of things to do, getting
a young new pet suddenly gives you a full plate again. With a new pet come plenty
of new responsibilities and things to do. There will be another mouth to feed,
you'll need to save up money for a paint brush (if you want them to be painted
of course), find them a PetPet, make up their description, work on their homepage
(if you're so inclined,) figure out how to fit a new room onto your NeoHome
and buy furniture to fill it with, save up your codestones and Dubloons to take
them to the training school and academy, and many other things.
So, getting a new NeoPet can be like starting the game all over again, and
adoption is a great way to find a new addition. You've most likely heard a lot
of reasons to adopt already, but here's one more: as many people find out when
they go to create a pet, it's difficult nowadays to come up with new and interesting
names for pets. By adopting, however, you may just find a pet with a wonderful,
interesting, or funny name that you would never have thought of yourself.
So now that I've thoroughly convinced you of how great it is to adopt a new
NeoPet, it's time to talk about the right way to adopt. First of all, the right
place to go when you want to adopt a new pet is the Neopian Pound on the Pet
Central page. This may seem pretty obvious to some of you, but day after day
I see people looking for pets to adopt not here, but on the chat boards. Hanging
out on the chat boards and posting questions such as, "If you're giving a pet
away, please post here and I'll adopt it," is probably the least likely way
to actually find a pet to adopt. Go to the pound and look for yourself and you
will be able to find tons of great pets, and eventually you will find the one
that is right for you. Asking around the chat boards won't accomplish this task
nearly as fast, especially if you're looking for a specific type of pet.
You may also occasionally see people on the chat boards who say that they are
selling a pet (usually a limited edition, painted, or high level pet at that.)
As tempting as this may sound, ignore such offers. Selling NeoPets or accounts
is against the rules of the site, so don't encourage these people to break the
rules by making them offers. What's more, this may in fact be a scam in many
cases. Once you give these people whatever amount of Neopoints or items they
are requesting in payment for their pet, you have no actual guarantee that they
will give you the pet rather than just keep it, and your Neopoints, for themselves.
If someone wants their NeoPet to find a good home, they don't need any payment
for it. Even if they are honestly intending to give the pet to you, the only
way to transfer a pet to a different account is to put it in the pound and hope
the person you are giving it to adopts it before anyone else does. And the likelihood
of someone else snatching up a painted or limited edition pet before you is
extremely high.
The last "wrong" option that people turn to for adoption is an "adoption agency."
In case you didn't know, there are many different adoption agencies in Neopia;
the general idea is that these agencies adopt plain pets from the pound, paint
them and raise their stats, and then try to find homes for them. Now don't get
me wrong, I mean no offense to anyone who runs an adoption agency; most of these
people definitely have their hearts in the right places--they really want to
help pets find homes. The problem is, by taking these pets out of the pound
they actually keep them from finding a home as soon as they might have. Even
the plainest pets with the worst names often get adopted fairly quickly from
the pound, but by taking pets out, (and usually the pets that actually have
good names and would therefore have found homes very quickly,) adoption agencies
actually delay these pets finding good homes. Also, while the intended goal
of these agencies is to encourage adoption, they are actually encouraging people
to adopt only if a pet is painted or high level. But no matter how many adoption
agencies there are, there will always be plain, low level pets in the pound,
and they are what adoption is all about. Part of the satisfaction of adoption
is getting pets like these and improving them for yourself, and in this way
the pets may get better owners who care more about the pet than about its stats
and paint job. So, there's technically nothing wrong with adoption agencies,
as long as they don't charge for their services and are efficient at making
sure *you* get the pet from the pound before someone else does, which is difficult,
but consider trying to find a pet for yourself before you turn to them.
Now maybe you'll counter that you ask on the boards or offer to buy pets or
look at adoption agencies because you don't want just any pet--you want a limited
edition pet, or a painted pet, or a pet with high stats, or just a pet with
a good name, right? I've seen plenty of people complain that these pets can't
be found in the pound, but when I see these people saying this, it only assures
me that they have never actually tried. Sure, there are lots of common pets
with low levels and bad names in the pound, but I visit the pound often enough
to know that the exact opposite can also be found if you have enough patience
and diligence. And who usually ends up adopting the painted, limited edition,
and high level pets that I see in the pound? About 90% of the time the people
who snatch these pets up are Newbies, who unlike the older players have obviously
not dismissed the idea of finding an amazing pet in the pound and have been
rewarded for not giving up before even giving it a try.
But say you look and look day after day and never find one of these rare pets
that everyone will be jealous of. As you're looking through the pound, even
if you have one of these in mind, don't completely discount the idea of falling
in love with one of those normal pets that you find yourself wading through.
Look at each pet in the pound no matter how plain it may seem to you at first.
Maybe it has a neat name or a sweet smile even if it's not painted or limited
edition. Give the idea of this pet a chance. Don't forget as you're looking
through all of the possibilities that you can always change your plain pet's
species and colour with a morphing potion, magical plushie, or paint brush if
you still want to have one of those "special" pets, or even if you just want
a different species or different plain colour. Like I said, although it may take
some work, improving your new pet for yourself rather than getting one that
is ready made for you is one of the things that makes adopting so satisfying.
If you follow all of these tips on the "right" way to adopt, I hope you'll be
able to find the perfect new addition to your Neopian family. It may take time,
but you'll know when you've found the right one--the one that you just can't
help but take home with you and make your very own. |
