The Average Neopian: Nine Years Later

As I got older, though, I found it harder and harder to keep up. When I entered high school three years later, extracurricular activities and new hobbies filled up the free time I had once spent playing Gormball, chatting on the boards, and writing terrible Neopian Times submissions. Although I was able to hop in every now and then, I ultimately stopped playing, only logging in every two years or so to keep my account from getting purged.

In the last several weeks, finding myself with an unusual amount of free time, I logged back on to happily discover my account was still accessible. Since then, I've played almost daily. I'm now a 20-year-old college student, and Neopets has the hold on me it did when I was 12.

There's a certain stigma for users who joined before 2002. When users see these lookups, most expect that these accounts have either been abandoned, or if active, then the owners are filthy rich and full of lively stories from the olden days. In reality, many of them are. Most of these users are well-known and highly regarded, as they should be - it takes an immense amount of dedication to remain active on the same website for 10 years.

However, for every intensely dedicated user who has missed six days on Neopets in 10 years, there's another user who joined the same day who's missed 100 times that. There are those who joined on a whim years ago and became active after getting older, or those, such as myself, who were active years ago and became caught up in life, only to return again later on.

Now, after an extended absence, I find myself playing catch-up with new and old users alike. I lurk the avatar boards looking for lenders, though I'm beyond embarrassed to ever directly ask for anything. When people see '112 months' next to your name, they often expect you have millions upon millions and the network to get anything you'd ever want.

Not necessarily true, unfortunately.

When you start at an early age, you oftentimes - not always, of course - forget to think about what your account's future will hold. Will you become more competitive? Will you lose interest? Will you earn your first 100,000 Neopoints, only to waste it all on junk and have to start from scratch?

I didn't foresee any of the aforementioned scenarios, and I'm paying for it years later. Take it from me, a long-time player who's made many mistakes throughout her Neopets career:

1. Find a balance between real life and Neopets life. The easiest way to avoid missing large amounts of time and to maintain your interest is to use Neopets moderately. Spending all day, every day on Neopets will cause you to lose interest and potentially disregard your real life obligations. Keep it to a designated hour or two during work/school days, and another set number for your days off. I assure you that those wildly successful people you see don't play 30 hours a day.

Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy spending entire weekends on Neopets as much as the next person, but take it from someone who’s done that for extended periods of time: it will, eventually, wear you out. It's a sad day.

2. Follow plots. I stopped following them after the introduction of the Lost Desert. As a result, my profile is sparse; I missed out on several avatar opportunities; and, worst of all, I have no idea what people are talking about when they're mentioned.

3. Build up your Neopoints, THEN start spending. In my first three years of play, I never had more than 115k. This is a result of a myriad of problems - a terrible dial-up connection, being terrible at games, other lame excuses, etc. - but the worst problem was that I couldn't control my spending. Every time I'd get up to 100k, I'd go and splurge; as a result, I have a bizarrely built Neohome with randomly upgraded features, a decent-sized shop with nothing in it, and battle items that are now worth next to nothing. I don't battle.

4. Focus on YOUR goals. While it is inspiring to look at highly-respected users and want to emulate them, it's important to keep things in perspective. If you've got 150k in the bank, you're probably not going to have that cool faerie snow globe collection overnight. I often forget how easy it is to earn Neopoints now, but becoming successful DOES require work. Don't think about how much more successful other players are; focus on how to make yourself successful and your definition of success.

This was important to me when I was younger, and all it did was cause me to waste Neopoints, work towards goals I didn't particularly care about, and delay my potential successes.

5. Make friends... and enemies! (Eh, maybe not the enemies.) I've been very introverted my entire life, but I've always made an effort to chat with people on Neopets. It's helped me in countless ways -- thanks to the kindness and generosity of fellow Neopians, I've been able to acquire many things I never would have on my own. Though there are many people who choose to keep to themselves and still have amazing success, making connections when you're starting out can be a great way to reach your loftier goals.

Of course, this does NOT mean you should go out harass powerful Neopians. That’s just creepy. Make friends like a normal person, geez.

Overall, I haven't been the luckiest Neopian. I've had my successes, but I've encountered a lot of difficulties, too. Though as I sit here, working to rebuild my profile, I can't help but enjoy myself. Sure, asking for things from a 9-year-old account is a tad embarrassing, but rediscovering the site is much more rewarding at 20 than it was discovering it at 11. I find that no matter how hard I try, I can't run out of things to do.

I was an average Neopian when I was starting out, and I remain an average Neopian today. I'm not swimming in millions or using every avatar available; I'm trying my best to get by and to reach my personal goals, one at a time. If nine years has taught me anything, it's to focus on what you want - not the hot trending items or winning every competition.

Although the changes to the site have been fascinating, what makes me happiest are the things that haven't changed. Even though my life is very different than it was when I was started, I can still return to Neopets and do the things I once loved: I can play Gormball, I can chat on the boards, and I can still write terrible Neopian Times submissions - though these days, I think I've grasped using the right form of 'your.'