Voice of the Neopian Pound Circulation: 193,800,643 Issue: 715 | 15th day of Sleeping, Y18
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Mysteries Of Neopia!


by indulgences

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I'm puzzled by many aspects of the Neopets site, and decided to make a list one day of all the mysteries within the land of Neopia. To do this, I canvassed the Neoboards for the opinions of my fellow players. I got many interesting replies!

One popular mystery that people discuss often is: pet colors and the regions they're from! For instance, Darigan pets hail from Darigan, and Faerie pets hail from Faerieland. However, there are also many pet colors that aren't associated with a specific region in Neopia. People are itching for TNT to create an 8-Bit land, for instance, and I wholeheartedly agree!

Many people insist that the decidedly low-tech approach that TNT has towards the world of Neopia is a great mystery. There are no planes, trains, buses, subways, or even space shuttles. There are no cell phones, no computers, and no televisions. Why did TNT choose such a low-tech approach when creating the Neopets universe? It's a mystery, for sure!

What puzzles people often is the Secret Laboratory Ray. On the zapping page, our pets cry and plead for us to stop. Some popular objections are "I'm very scared!!!" and "What if I turn into a frog?" Yet the Ray is my favorite part of the site! After having zapped my active pet for 8 years, his Health is now over 1000, and I'm looking forward to the day his Health is over 2000. The Ray has been super helpful towards raising his stats, and I can't understand why the pets should be so scared on the zapping page. Plus, it's super amusing to see him change form every couple of weeks. Although the paint jobs are transient, I take true delight in seeing him change from a Zombie Flotsam to a Chocolate Xweetok, for instance.

What interests me about this site is that a lot of times, TNT introduces new elements that are surprises to us players. For instance, most recently, TNT introduced Pastel colored pets without any prior notice. They didn't canvass the Neoboards for our opinions, and they didn't inform us ahead of time that they'd be introducing a new color. I think this is really mysterious of TNT! Other gaming websites will conduct polls and surveys when they're thinking of introducing new elements to their sites, but on Neopets, TNT is always springing surprises on us. I think this is cool! TNT's secrecy is one of the biggest mysteries of Neopia!

Speaking of secrecy, players also adore TNT for introducing new plots without prior notice! I have to agree! Every couple of years, TNT introduces a new plot that sparks our imaginations and encourages us to play for hours on end. TNT has said in previous Editorials that it takes years and years to fully create a plot, so I get pretty thrilled (and grateful) when the latest plot finally takes place. How does TNT come up with such amazing plots? It's one of the great mysteries of Neopia! It's practically impossible to predict what the storylines will be, or what the Battledome opponents will be like. The prizes are the biggest mysteries of all, with some of them being worth over a million Neopoints. The possibility of a new plot is what keeps me logging in every morning, scanning the New Features page and deducing whether something plot-like is afoot.

Another mystery of Neopia is, why are pets and Petpets with the same number of characters in their names unable to bond? For instance, a pet named "ASDF7" can't bond with a Slorg (since both have five characters). I can't even begin to tell you how often I've had to change the site language to Korean to force a Petpet onto my reluctant pet. Why does this occur?

One popular observance was that our customizable aspects of the site, such as pet lookups and petpages, aren't allowed to host music anymore. I remember customizing my pet lookup a long time ago to play the Time Tunnel music track, only to discover later, while trying to edit it, that the music track was now banned. I wonder why music became discontinued? One can still buy the "Time Tunnel Music Track" from the NC Mall for 100 NC, but still… I'd like to have some variety, and there are only four music items at the NC Mall. Hopefully TNT introduces a "Bouncy Supreme Music Track" and a "Meepit Juice Break Music Track" sometime in the future!

Another mysterious aspect of the site is that, while some records are vigorously kept track of, others are not. For instance, game high scores have their own pages, and people can monitor the pages for four weeks to see who earns the latest gold trophies every morning. However, the Poetry Contest has no such searchable records, and neither does the Site Spotlight. I wonder why some contests are searchable and others are not? Food for thought!

One exasperating mystery is when certain avatars will finally be obtainable. The Beauty Contest avatar was revealed months ago, for instance, but no one has received it since its release. The Site Spotlight avatar was also revealed months ago, but the Site Spotlight seems to be on hiatus right now, barring people from achieving the avatar. And the Lottery avatar is currently being awarded, but only to the first person on each day's list of winners. How annoying!

And finally, the last mysterious aspect of Neopia is: school supplies! There is no such thing as a Neoschool, and the supplies can't be used, worn or eaten, so why does TNT continue to roll out with more school supplies every year? The only value that the supplies have is for collectors who want to complete their galleries. I think that school supplies are the biggest mystery in Neopia, and I'm not the only one who thinks so!

Thanks for reading this article, my fellow Neopians! And thanks for offering your insightful and interesting ideas! I never could have written this lengthy article without your help, and you opened my eyes to what the weirdest and most mysterious aspects of this site are.

Stay tuned for more articles by yours truly, and have a great week!

 
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