Please, Neopets Team, could we be allowed to donate NeoCash items to the used clothing shop? I understand that it is important that Neocash items not give users an advantage over non-users, so selling it for Neopoints would be unreasonable, and allowing one to give it to other users would encourage 'unofficial' sales . . . but every time I see the regulation Meridellian helmet that I got from a capsule, I feel bad. I'll never wear it, but I can't let anybody else enjoy it either. :-( Please let us feel good, instead, by donating it to a less fortunate Neopian through the official donation channels. ~happyhollydaze
You're very kind! Unfortunately, at this point, it would cause far too many problems. Because real money is involved, we have to very carefully track what happens to your Neocash and Neocash items in case something were to go wrong. If you gave it to the Thrift Shoppe, it would be randomly tossed out into the Neopian world. If the security of your account was ever compromised, your Neocash items are guaranteed safe since they cannot leave your account.

We are currently discussing a feature that might allow you to "gift" Neocash items to other, specific users, though. There's a lot of things to work out before we even know if we can start on it, but it is possible.

So last Editorial, you guys appeared to be saying that I've been breaking the rules when I send a score on a site game and then play the mirror game and send score on that one too. Which I had no idea at all was against the rules. Since it is, I'll quit doing it. But... if it's against the rules to send score on Mirror Whack-a-Kass after sending score on Site Whack-a-Kass, then why do the mirror games even exist, and why is it possible to send score from them, and why do they have different NP awards? ~peecefool
The "mirror" games are games set up specifically to be linked to from outside sources. There are a few sites that have permission to reuse our content, so we need to create separate instances of the games for tracking purposes. These games should not have allowed you to send score in the first place, but it's a glitch in the system that we're working on. So while you should not be abusing it technically, we realise there was no way for anyone to know this was the case and we're not freezing for it.

How many lottery tickets can you buy? Is it unlimited? ~sugargirl_kitty
You can buy a maximum of 20 tickets each day. Good luck!

We're really starting to wonder who that periwinkle paw belongs too...

I have just finished arguing on a board I made. I was asking if it was okay to restock on side accounts. Of course, there was an enormous amount of controversy. Some said that it was okay because it posed no unfair advantage, and it was still financed through your main. Other said it was earning NP on your side, and that was not allowed. I would appreciate if you could clear this up for us. (: ~rare
We think we already clarified this awhile ago so there's no point debating it on the boards. You may not restock on side accounts, even when your main account is suspended. Being suspended is a punishment, not just an inconvenience for you to have to play on your spare accounts. If your main account is frozen, you may play on side accounts fully, as you cannot know if the account will be returned.

Hey TNT! Okay, so I've always thought the site was great and contrary to some players beliefs, quite fair. One of my favorite things to do is Illusen's Glade quest. Now I've always gotten a little grrr when I have to find an item on the Trading Post and the person who has it isn't on and I'm put back at square one, but I know and respect that it's part of the game and if it was easy what would the point be. However I recently was asked for something that I was only able to find one in someone's gallery, no where else. Do you really think its fair for an item that's so rare that there may only be one to be asked for? I mean Trading Post items make the quest hard enough. ~sapphire1031
Illusen's quests go by item rarity, not how available the item is (and yes, those are different). This often means she could ask for an item of fairly high rarity that was only released days ago, and therefore may not have even stocked at all yet. She could also ask for something of high rarity that happens to be obtained quite easily as a prize, for example. Illusen and Jhudora quests offer insane prizes at the highest levels so the difficulty of the quests must match the rewards.

We also have no way of knowing how many of one item is out in the economy without doing HUGE queries across multiple database tables. (We'd have to check inventories, SDBs, galleries, shops, closets, etc., etc.) We do this very, very rarely since it is so resource intensive. There's no way we could do it on the fly every time someone attempted a new level in one of Illusen's quests. So, we have to go by the rarity number in the database and, if you're lucky, you'll get an item that isn't impossible to find.

Hello, some time ago my caption was entered into the Caption Contest. It had the same use of capital letters, ellipses, creativity and way to describe the settings. Everything. The credit went to someone else though, and now I see people being entered into the competition more than once per competition. Is there any kind of competition bias going on here? I can understand if it was a mistake, or if for some reason the same caption, to every detail, was thought of by another user... but it would be nice to have an answer. Thank you. ~vulpes_terminus
Honestly, we don't bother even looking at the usernames, so there is no bias. Some people just get lucky getting their captions in twice. Their jokes probably just tickled the judge's funny bone that day. As far as the mystery of your caption goes, that's really odd. The way our side of things is set up, a player's caption and their username are basically fused together and there's no way for us to mistakenly assign an entry to a different author. Did you perhaps post your caption somewhere else before submitting it to us? Someone might have copied it. There's also the bizarre chance that someone really did come up with the same caption as you. (This happens more often than most people realise, but your description sounds like it was a pretty specialised entry.) We do modify formatting sometimes so that the captions look unified. For example, you may have submitted:

Chia: And that is why I no longer eat hot dogs.

The other person could have submitted:

The Chia says, "And that's why I no longer eat hotdogs."

We saw the second one first and edited it to look more like your example since that's how we stylise all the entries.

Basically, there's not much we can tell you. If you didn't put it up somewhere else, you must have had the same idea as someone who entered before you.

Somehow we know the Caption Contest judge will be staring daggers at us next competition after receiving hundreds of hot dog jokes...

Hello TNT. Just asking, are we allowed to store NP on other accounts? (Just in case we get frozen). Also, can you please leave my username out?? ~[removed]
o.O We'd prefer you play and follow the rules to the best of your ability to insure you simply aren't frozen in the first place. If an account investigator finds multiple accounts of yours with large amounts of Neopoints in them, it might warrant them looking closer into your account and activity to determine where those Neopoints came from and that they weren't earned illegally. While that doesn't mean they'll take action if you've done nothing wrong, it normally makes us a bit suspicious.

I painted my Krawk Desert, but he never got the chin-piece that was shown in the News when they were released. Apparently everyone is having this problem. Could you possibly fix it? Thanks :D ~splenetic
Sorry! We know. Unfortunately, we currently have no way of giving the chin piece to the proper owners without exploding our databases. >_< We're working on it, and as soon as we have it figured out, we'll add it to the brush and give one to all those who currently have a desert Krawk. Unfortunately, if you've painted your Neopet since, you won't get one. There's no way for us to know that you once had a desert Krawk without doing some of that item searching we were talking about in the question above.

I see people's comics made by programs and even a scanner. But all I have is the old-fashioned paint. Do you accept these? ~serena_101_best4
You're perfectly welcome to create comics using traditional mediums, but you'll need to scan them (or take digital photos of them) and submit it to us in a digital format. We don't take mailed in comics. We hope this answers what you were asking!

If you [TNT] wanted could you go on someone's account and ruin it? An example of what I'm saying is, could you go on an account and just throw away their paint brushes or Neopoints? Not that I'm saying that you would, but if the Meepits made you do it could you? Also if I get in the Times this is me: :) If I don't then this is me: :( ~scofmunch
o_O That's an odd question. Technically speaking, we guess we could delete the entire contents of your account. We store all the data for your account in our databases, so we could wipe everything if we wanted to. THEY'RE OUR DATABASES, WE DO WHAT WE WANT! There's really no reason we would, though, and very few people have that kind of access. Generally, the only time we ever delete items/NPs from an account is if there is some type of abuse going on with the items, they were sent to an innocent account by a scammer, we've unfrozen an account but forcing them to start over, etc. All these are rather rare occurrences, though, and anyone with access to do so is also monitored and tracked themselves. (Yes, we monitor the monitors. We also monitor support staff, programmers, lawyers... Neopets may be a game, but those who work here have real, serious jobs. We have very strict rules on what people can and can't do to accounts.)

Hi TNT! I was looking at old and new pics of Neopets, and I realized that while most of the old pets faced left, the new poses are mostly facing to the right! Are you trying to put us lefties down? Because lefties are awesome. This is discrimination, that's what it is. *shakes head* and I was just thinking of sending you a cookie... Anyway, why did they switch sides? ~dj_khen
Mmm... cookies. For the old Neopets, the artists who designed the earliest ones typically drew creatures facing left. Throughout the years, left just became the norm and though some of them strayed, everyone just started drawing them that way. With customisable Neopets, we had to design things a little more consciously. Making them all face the same way makes it easier on the artists and the programs that place the objects in the image. Also, with the Neopet displayed on the left on every page, it'd be really odd if they were constantly staring at the edge of your monitor.

What are you looking at? Neopia's this way! *points right*

I've been wondering this for a while now, and it's really been bugging me! You could, for instance, have chosen TNA (The Neopets Association), TNB (The NeoBots), or even TNC (Tea And Cookies)! So, my question is, did the nickname "TNT" come into existence by accident? Or was it deliberate? ~this_is_a_long_thing
You guys gave us TNT, actually. Prior to that, we just called ourselves The Neopets Team. (Though, from that, TNT isn't really much of a stretch.) If you're asking more about "The Neopets Team" name itself, well, we feel like a team. We even had a softball game going a few years ago but it failed. (Once we realised we're all computer nerds, it was easy to figure out why we weren't very good at the whole sports thing.)

Have the almighty TNT ever considered making an item or some way for us to be able to change a pet's species while keeping the same color? ~luat11
Considered it, yes. Then we decided against it. :) If you only had to buy one Royal Paint Brush ever, and could just keep swapping species around whenever you liked, there wouldn't be much of a challenge!

All right, so I know you can report people for harassment, but normally when you report them, it's because they harassed you not someone else. But I've been seeing a lot of insults directed toward TNT and quite frankly it's irritating (I don't know how you guys stand it! o_o) I was wondering if we're allowed to report people when they decided to insult you, if it's not counted as harassment, couldn't it at least be considered as spam, because I think it's totally pointless and extremely rude. (After all, they're still using the site, so they really have no room to complain, am I right?) Thanks! ~hpiscute400
Ahh, if only more Neopians thought like you! Though no managing body can ever make everyone happy all the time, we do try our best. We're used to the criticism, and we're a big TNT, so we can take it most of the time. ;) (Though honestly, when you spend weeks of overtime working on something then watch people scream and rant about it claiming we "don't care" -- it really does hurt.) Anyway, we'd normally say to let them be. If it's simple complaining in general, we don't really care to delete or warn for it since everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, in some cases, it just goes beyond the norm. If someone is saying something crude in regards to our team members or encouraging others to harass our employees personally, we really need to draw the line.

Also, everyone, please don't take that as an invitation to run rampant around the site. ;) It's still our site, and you do not have the privilege of "free speech" here. You agreed to the T&C when you joined, and you have to abide by those rules when posting. If we feel you're breaking those rules, your posts will be deleted, plain and simple. Just because we generally feel that it's alright for you to complain about us doesn't mean we won't change our minds if you're spamming or running amok.

You know how some items in the NC Mall are over $500? Are they actually 500 REAL dollars? ~courtney1412
The NC to dollar ratio isn't 1:1. 100 NC is $1. 150 NC is $1.50. 500 Neocash is $5. Basically, move the decimal over to the right two places and you've got your dollar amount. So no, nothing in the NC Mall is $500. We do have one item worth $50 (5,000 NC) that we thought no one would ever buy, but some very dedicated (insane) users have actually purchased this item. Maybe they'll buy us a pony next! ^_^

This is really kind of random... but hey, I'm sure you've seen more random. My question is this: How do you choose the order of the stories, comics, and articles seen in the Neopian Times? Somehow I'm guessing it's not about how good you think they are (or is it?)...but people might get the wrong idea if you don't answer my question. :O ~haannsolo
The great NT editor says:

"We consult the Geraptikan Book of Days and roll twelve-sided dice.

Actually, entries appear in the order that they were submitted."

*clears throat* TNT, in Illusen's Glade, my high score is in the 36 thousands. This random person's score was in the 7 thousands and they have the trophy but I don't. How come they have the trophy and I have a higher score? Please leave my name out. ~[removed]
They most likely got the score and trophy shortly after reset. The Illusen and Jhudora quest scores can be confusing because of that. Someone could have passed all 50 levels and only have a small score and not even a trophy because of resets if they take their time with the quests. That is because resets drop the score to 0, but don't reset the level the person is on. (For example, if you're on level 20 with a score of 10,000, your score will be reset to 0 on the first of the month but you'll remain on level 20.) Also, each level is independent of the points someone earns playing. It's the time it takes for you to complete the quest that earns more points, not what level you're on. Okay, we've blithered long enough about this. We hope that all made the slightest bit of sense. Most likely not, but here's a cute picture to distract you from that fact.

*shifts around nervously*

Hey TNT! *chucks plushie rock* I was wondering how the Neo-staff works. Do you all have separate jobs, or are there teams, or do Meepits rule the world....? Thanks :D Oh, and how do you pick through all of these NT submissions? ~gerilyn20
We all have our separate jobs, but are grouped as departments within the big team. For example, there are five writers, with one of them being the lead writer, and they form the Writing Department. Each department has their own leader, and all those departments together form The Neopets Team.

As for your second question, we mostly read them to pick through the submissions. We tried closing our eyes once and throwing darts at the submissions to pick for us, but the management got angry when they had to buy new monitors, so we just stick to reading them now. D:

Dear TNT, here's a cookie (it's asparagus flavored!) I had this idea, and I was wondering if it's allowed, I was thinking I would go on the boards, ask people what Neopets item they want for Christmas, then use my Neopoints to buy the gifts that a few asked for. There is no scam or anything, I just wanted to make sure this is allowed. Is it, or will I get frozen? I would not ask for anything in return, I just thought, since it's Christmas, it would be nice to do. Thanks! ~[removed]
Another kind Neopian! Very cool.

This is basically a giveaway, which is not allowed. You'll also be spammed with beggars requesting super-expensive items and the like, which we wouldn't wish on anyone (that's why we removed your username). So, we would advise instead searching the Neoboards for users you think are nice or helpful and checking out their user lookups or wishlists to see what they like. We've found this to be quite fun in itself, and the fact that you're giving gifts to other good Neopians instead of random people makes it even better.

(We realise that simply giving out items to people like we suggested sounds an awful lot like a "giveaway," but there is a difference. For example, kinduser123 posts that they're giving away free items and asks for users to post what they'd like to receive. Other generous Neopians will jump in and give kinduser123 items as thanks just for being so nice. In reality, though, kinduser123 never actually gave anything to anyone. It was a ploy to try and get free items from the real generous Neopians. That's why Neoboard "giveaways" are banned completely. Simply giving items to your fellow Neopians, however, is still definitely allowed.)

Hi TNT. I have been going to the Qasalan Expellibox ever since it has opened and I find my self-esteem is slowly getting lower with every visit. I am always getting yelled at, even though I have come right next to the proper tube at least six times. Today they gave me a mummified banana along with another insult to my abilities! I seem to recall on other occasions being accused of using fake scarabs (like I can really find a fake scarab that's affordable through the Shop Wizard.) Can't you tell the Qasalan officials to lighten up? I seem to recall wandering aimlessly through a maze for hours to help them in their last plot... Okay, okay, maybe I didn't move a lot of sand or furniture, but c'mon, how can they be so rude? ~chocjones
Alas, being turned into mummies for a few centuries will make just about anyone grumpy. Maybe in another hundred years or so they'll finally learn to lighten up again!

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