Unique Ways To Celebrate On Neopets!

Neopian birthdays are the days that celebrate the very first day we played Neopets. For instance, my own Neopian birthday is May 21, 2007. So every time May 21 comes around, I happily realize that I'm another Neopian year older!

It always gives me a thrill when I come across someone who's celebrating his or her 10th Neopian birthday. I worship veteran players, and try to help them towards their goals, which are always waaay loftier than my own. For instance, reaching 4,000 hit points for their battle pet, or reading 1,000 books to their bookworm pet.

Inspired by this thread, I thought I'd write an article all about the unique ways in which we can celebrate things on Neopets, ways that aren't even sanctioned by TNT! To do this, I asked the Neoboards about the things they celebrate. I got a lot of really cool replies!

Many players think there should be an avatar for reaching the one year anniversary of our accounts. I think this would be an awesome way to celebrate our Neopets careers! Many players also think that there should be a special site theme to celebrate our one year anniversaries, as well. I like this idea too!

A lot of players on the Pound Neoboard admitted that they created pets on the players' birthdays. I thought this was a really interesting and creative way of celebrating one's birthday! I was so inspired, in fact, that I decided to create a Blumaroo next year on my birthday. I'll dress it up in goth clothes, which is how I dress in real life, and consider it my doppelgänger!

I happen to be quite proud about how I reached the 100 month mark this month. Players now look at my account and consider me to be a semi-veteran player, and I love that! I wish there was a site theme or avatar for finally being 100 months old!

As it turns out, there are lot of things to celebrate on Neopets, things that aren't even recognized by TNT! For instance, one of my friends is a Scorchio-loving role player who leads her own Scorchio guild. She recently celebrated her guild's 3 year anniversary by giving various Scorchio-themed items to her beloved guild mates, and I had a lot of fun helping her decide what to give her friends! (Thank you, Jellyneo's Item Database!)

There are also a lot of goals that aren't recognized by TNT, such as having 50 gold trophies on one's lookup, having 500 Kadoatery trophies, or having 200 Neopian Times trophies. Yet the players still try! I remember my old goal of having 50 articles published in the Neopian Times, then got more ambitious and am now aiming for 100! I'll never get any special rewards for having published 100, but I just happen to like the number, so 100 it is!

I love the idea of having interesting milestones! Many were already mentioned earlier in this article. Don't get me wrong, I love the players who celebrate popular goals, such as getting their final dream pet, or reaching 300 avatars. However, I have to admit that I prefer to read about players' "weird" goals, which are always unique and compelling, such as collecting 1,000 Neofriends, or aiming to get 50 questions answered by the Editorial. Those are the goals that make me think, and smile, and think some more!

There are a lot of ways to celebrate on the Neopets website! TNT did the right thing by making Starry Cupcakes available for our pets' birthdays. I hope they take it one step further and make cupcakes available for our Petpets! As someone who once agonized for 4 days straight about what Petpet to give my Ice Hissi, I think the Petpets deserve some attention! Perhaps they could earn a cupcake for reaching 1,000 hours while attached to our pets. And perhaps that cupcake would do something truly unique, like a random paint job.

My foremost goal right now is to give away 100 pets. That's right, 100! So far, I've given away 85 pets, whose painted selves I achieved through the Secret Laboratory Ray. I'll celebrate my 100th giveaway by retiring my lab ray and devoting all of my attention to my first Site Spotlight entry. Trust a Neopian to create a new goal as soon as the old goal is complete! (Aren't we ambitious?)

Some players sadly mentioned that the Neoboards get no love. There is no avatar based on our Neoboard activity, which is kind of ironic, since the Neoboards probably constitute 60-70% of our Neopets activity. One player suggested an avatar for having written 1,000 posts. I thought this was a really creative way of celebrating the Neoboards! The Neoboards would see new life, since everyone would be posting like maniacs, trying to get the avatar. And since spammers get reported and warned, only genuine and relevant threads would remain. What a great way of energizing the Neoboards!

Many players also bemoaned the fact that there was no avatar for customizing our pets. That made me nod in agreement! I think it would be cool if we could customize our pet with a Neopoint wearable, save it, and then look at the pet's lookup to get an avatar. It would be a great way of celebrating customization!

Speaking of customization, one player suggested that we get an avatar for using a Paint Brush for the first time. Though I didn't like the idea personally (I dislike anything that drives inflation), I had to admit that this was a creative way of celebrating our pets!

One player made me seriously laugh out loud! She suggested that we celebrate every time TNT activates an item. TNT has a bad habit of announcing new items in the New Features page, yet they don't activate them until 6 months later. I love you, TNT, but your habit drives everyone crazy!

I love the fact that we have a plethora of goals that we've created out of sheer imagination, instead of having the usual goals of pets and avatars. It was absolutely delightful to talk to you all on the Neoboards, and in the process, I created a lot of new goals for myself!

I'm hoping that by writing this article, I bring attention to how much we love Neopets, and how there's always cause for celebration! Maybe TNT will read this article and take it to heart. I would love to have influenced their list of holidays and celebrations!

Thanks for reading this article, my fellow Neopians! Stay tuned for future articles by yours truly, and have a spectacular week!