To All Returning Players...

     Step one - getting those sweet, sweet Neopoints.

     With most of the Neopets games gone, how does one earn np on the site? Step one is definitely Trudy's Surprise. All you need to do is log on and spin it every day for that bonus multiplier. Trudy's Surprise also reminds itself with a little notification (unless it's been turned off), which is really helpful in case one doesn't remember to spin it. The activity also sometimes awards gift boxes that can be used to send NeoCash items, and it awards cool and unique items every seven consecutive days that you play, prizes range from wearables to other exclusive things. If you manage to spin it every day for 25 days, you get 100k Neopoints! That's really helpful in saving up.

     Next up in saving comes the Battledome. It can be a little too much if you're new to it, so lets look over the basics. You can earn up to 1500 NP and 15 items per day from the Battledome. The items are random, they depend on the arena you battle in and also the difficulty of your opponent, but the most sought after items are generally codestones. There are two types of codestones: "Regular/beige" and "Red". The red ones are usually worth a little more. Codestones are pretty "easy to sell" items and are usually gone from your shop in a day (depending on your pricing). The Battledome also offers dubloon coins, books, foods (including neggs!), collectible items, equippable Battledome weapons and much more. All this can be sold for a nice profit. If you really want to rake in some NP, then consider getting premium. With Neopets premium you unlock a special arena - the cosmic dome, in which you can battle two different challengers: Jetsam Ace or the Giant Space Fungus. Both of them drop exclusive arena prizes - Nerkmids. Nerkmids are very sought after and can sell for up to 200,000 NP and more. You can also try your luck at redeeming them in the Alien Aisha vending machine for a chance to win a paint brush. Few are lucky enough to win a paint brush and so, the rest of us have to settle with gross food.

     Once the Trudy's Surprise has been spun and all the Battledome battles for maximum items and np has also been done, consider gambling. Now this comes last for a reason. With gambling you can never know if you're going to win or lose so it's cautionary to have some back-up np and never bet more than you can afford to lose, so starting small might be a good idea. A lot of Neopians get their np from Food Club. What is Food Club? It's a daily gambling game on Neopets. There's a set of pirates in a set of arenas, which changes every day. And they eat: whoever eats more courses, wins. All there is to do, is to choose the pirates and bet, however it is important to note that older accounts can bet more and win more and also lose more. Neopets shows the odds as well, making the choice easier. There is really no need to make food club difficult for oneself, as it's possible to just copy someone's ready-made bets since there are a lot of people out there who post their bets daily. And all there is left to do is profit!

     Now that a start to np collecting has been made, what else is there to do to? Setting goals is a fun thing to do, because once a goal has been set, it can be challenging and fun to try and complete it! It can be a fancy paint brush for a pet or a cool stamp for stamp album. Maybe a Petpet has caught your eye, but it is too expensive? A goal can be anything you want (except maybe some stamps that no longer exist in the market). Feeling purpose can give a whole new meaning to Neopets, something to strive for, something to look forward to. Starting out with smaller goals and working up to bigger ones is definitely a considerable thing to do.

     But if one already owns all of the things they want, what then? Trading pets can be a fun past time. Pound Chat is one of the most active boards on Neopets, there is always someone looking to trade or adopt pets. The abbreviations can be a little tricky at first, but there are plenty of guides to explain them. Even asking on the boards usually gets many helpful replies. A lot of people adopt pets from the pound, zap them with the lab ray and adopt them back out. There are also many petpages listing people's up for adoption pets and up for trade pets. Now if you don't have a pet to trade, you could first try looking through the pound itself. Sometimes you can find very well named pets with cool colours in there. If there don't happen to be any, one can always create one! There are also Unconverted pets, pets with old artwork and they are very sought after as they can't be made anymore (until tnt releases NeoCash unconverteds, that is).

     This about sums up the fun past times one could do upon returning to the site. There are a lot more things still available to do (Guilds, pet training, Neoquest, NC trading etc), but listed here are just some more popular examples of activities. There is still a lot for everyone out there on neopets.com and hoping there will be a lot more in the future.