ARE WE READY FOR APRIL FOOLS?

In fact, after some time playing Neopets, the more experienced players start to WAIT for the April Fools prank to happen. Contrary to what one might think, the fact that we already know in advance that TNT will try to play with us, does not diminish the joy of the April Fools prank. All the magic lies in seeing how far TNT's creativity can go (and it’s also a reason to get out of the Neopian routine).

On the other hand, it is not possible to say that all players are already waiting for April Fools to happen. There are users who started playing recently and are still not familiar with some traditions of the site. That being said, these users will probably believe in the April Fools prank. The best thing is that at the end of the day, everyone has fun no matter whether you are an experienced player, or someone who is new to Neopets. Neopians just wanna have some fun.

So, what do you think is going to happen this year? It’s certainly very unpredictable. I have no doubt that TNT’s minds are working at full speed right now to give us the most fun (and also the most deceiving) April Fools prank ever. Since we cannot actually guess what to expect, I’ll tell you the coolest pranks that happened in previous years so you can keep your eyes wide open when the time comes.

YEAR 18 – HOW MUCH IS ACCOUNT WORTH?

Last year TNT decided to create a machine named “Neopian Net Worth Calculator”. It would evaluate the value of your account and depending on the result, the machine would say you would be able to join a special club. Five different clubs were available and they offered different rewards that any Neopian would. Just for instance, by joining one of the fictional clubs, you would be able to dress UC pets, get any stamp or avatar you needed (retired ones included) and even get access to exclusive new paintbrushes.

YEAR 17 – BRIEF SHOCK

Let’s say that in year 17, TNT took it easy on us. In late march and towards the beginning of April, JumpStart had just taken over Neopets. Do you think they would stop our millenary tradition? Of course not! And they didn’t. The main Neopian globe map was changed for a random one related to Jumpstart’s other game. Most people probably thought it was some kind of bug at the time because after clicking the map once it would return normally to the Neopian world.

YEAR 16 – PETS, PETS AND MORE PETS

The retirement of Dr. Death (a.k.a. the evil orange Techo that runs the Neopian Pound always with a maleficent smile) was announced. Many pets were suddenly homeless, and because they had no owner, occasionally users would be shown a random event to feed and play with them. Later, users had to vote to elect a new Neopian personality to run the pound. Rosie, our very charismatic lady Graal won the position, but at the end of the day Dr. Death was sitting right at the corner and came back to his business. Sad, huh? TNT gave us the chance to get rid of a villain and… they took it away.

YEAR 11 – YOU LIKE GARDENING?

That year was crazy. TNT said Neopets would be over the way we know it. They would start a similar site named “Neoplants”. The name is very suggestive and I bet you can imagine what it’s about. Pets would no longer exist and we would have to interact with plants. The default theme also changed to green to get us in the “plant” mood. They created an entire description for the new site, how it would work, picture of the plants, names for the games, and other details. For instance, there would be no more “Neopia”, our beloved planet would be then called “Plantopia”. We may laugh now, but some Neopians really worried at the time.

YEAR 08 – NOTHING IS FREE

In year 08, a Neopoint tax was created. This tribute made users pay a certain amount of NP every time they opened a new page at the site. TNT said that was necessary to prevent players from loading too many pages and avoid lagging the site. It would also help stabilize the economy. Although the tax had a low value, something like 10NP per page, we sometimes visit MAAAAANY pages in a single day. That being said, the player that couldn’t afford the tax would have their access to some part of the sites restricted.

YEAR 05 – WE ARE JUST NOT AS COOL

In year 05, TNT decided to change the site’s name. It would be called “Neopetz”. According to the advertisement banner: “Neopets is totally changing to a crazy new extreme style”. The site became very colorful, with no more shades of the iconic yellow. Also, Neopoints would no longer exist:, everything would be free. If we had to change our themes to get free items, it wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

Well, now that we know what happened in the past years, we certainly can recognize TNT’s prank, right? Wrong!!! This site belong to TNT, you think they won’t be able to bring up a brand new idea to fool us? They will, my fellow. They always do. Let’s wait!

Happy April Fools!