The Art of Neopet Maintenance: An Inquiry into Methods

This article is about neopet maintenance methods (imagine that: an article actually on topic... sort of). Unfortunately neopet maintenance and repair is not quite as simple as you think. Living systems are notoriously more difficult to comprehend and thus repair and maintain than any machine. But, never fear because I am here to help you out with all your health care needs!

(Run people, just stop reading right now and run. It's for your own good I promise. If you value your sanity start running. It may already be too late!) Hey, will you shut up, I'm trying to help people out here. Who are you anyway, and what's with the parenthesis and italics? (I'm your annoying alter ego. And I use them because... well, it annoys you and it's fun.) Whatever, anyway... may I continue now? (Umm.. yeah, why not?) You're too kind. (I know.) Just shut up already! (...) Thank you.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes... never fear I am here to help you with all your health care needs!

The first thing any responsible neopet owner should know is that it is far easier to keep your pet healthy through proper maintenance than to scramble about frantically trying to scrape up the Neopoints to buy that expensive potion of containment when little Fluffy comes down with the jitters. (Fluffy? We're not talking about poodles here.) All right, how about when Killer_369 comes down with down with the jitters? (That works) I'm going to buy a potion of containment for you in a minute. Anyway, maintenance! Yes, keep a pet well maintained and you will have many fewer worries about repairs. But how? That's the question I hear on your lips. (She's hearing things now folks. I warned you.) To answer this question I have a list of three simple directions complete with explanations for you to follow:

Step 1 - Finish creating your pet (Umm... duh.) A pet who has not yet been born cannot be maintained, let alone played with or anything else. And who knows what sort of degradation occur as a result of extended periods of time in limbo. This is just the responsible thing to do.

Step 2 - Feed your pet (Never would have guessed that one.) Another common sense sort of instruction but this can actually be more difficult than you might think. Underfeeding can have obvious drawbacks, but overfeeding them can also be unhealthy. This practice can lead to uncomfortable cases of bloaty belly if frequently done. However, regular feedings can keep your pet healthy and happy, especially if the proper balance of healthy staples such as omelette are combined with smaller amounts of sweeter items like jelly.

Step C - Play with and groom your pet (Shouldn't that be 'step 3'?) Following this direction will keep your pet happy and active as well as clean. Activity keeps parts from rusting with neglect and grooming keeps infections from spreading, so all in all a good direction to follow.

However, even the most well cared for pet will sometimes fall prey to the arbitrary caprices of cruel fate and succumb to an incapacitating affliction. (Translation: Everybody gets sick.) No matter how well your pet is maintained some tragedy will eventually occur at which time you will have to turn to one of the following options:

Buy the cure (Pure genius here people, stand back.) After visiting the hospital to ascertain the proper remedy for your ailing companion you can either visit the pharmacy or a privately owned establishment and purchase whatever item will help. This is a standard, albeit boring and expensive approach to neopet repairs.

Take a swim (Off the deep end for you.) Not as instantly reliable as the 'buy the cure' method, this repair option is nonetheless much less expensive and will work eventually. This common technique merely involves a visit to the water faerie and the hope that she doesn't have a backwash of potions she can't sell and is thus giving out to her frequent visitors. Eventually she'll get a flash of magical insight and cure all ills your precious pet is suffering. This can take a few visits though and is hardly a good option for those owners who are sensitive to their pet's pains.

Chance your luck (Isn't that how we got sick in the first place?) Another option, of even less surety, is to spend 150np, spin the Wheel of Excitement and hope light comes down in the form of a healing spell from the light faerie and not as a lightening bolt that will only make things worse.

Pick some shrooms These used to be found at doorstep to the healing springs but are now much more difficult to attain. Different colours of healthshrooms will do different things, but some are actually powerful enough to cure any malady. This may be a cheaper alternative to some of the more expensive remedies and is quicker than either of the options available in Faerieland.

But what about all those repairs that need to be done that aren't listed in the hospital's records? What do you do when poor Fluffy (Ahem) sorry, when poor Killer_369 falls and scrapes his knee? Is this covered in those intangible numbers called hit points? Possibly, and thus such repairs could be done merely by using one of the myriad of items that will gain your pet their hit points back. But I have an alternate suggestion for how to take care of this sort of thing. This is purely speculative though. My experimentation budget is somewhat low at the moment. So take these suggestions at your own risk. (Watch out folks.)

Paint them an appropriate colour and then repaint them back to their original colour! (I warned you.)The idea here is to get around whatever body part is in need of repairs.

Hurt knee? Colour them pirate and the hurt knee turns into a peg leg. Some quick woodworking and everything's great. Then you can repaint them any colour and the leg is fine! (Either that or the leg will have splinters in it.)

Scraped elbow? Colour them into a baby buzz or baby Pteri and your problem disappears in the complete lack of arms. When you colour them back their arm will re-grow anew complete with perfect elbow. (And you'll get to potty train them all over again.)

Broken wing? Transform them to a plain blue Kougra or other similarly wingless pet and then morph or colour them back. Voila, just like the elbow you are sitting pretty. (Unless of course you did this while they were playing aerial tag with their friends.)

Broken rib? Zap them to jelly then use last night's leftover dessert jelly to mold a new rib. Zap them back and you're good to go. (Or at least they don't have to eat dinner tonight.)

Or, if all else fails you can make them robot and then tinker with all the parts you need to. Just make sure you have all the utility fish you need. (Remind me to never let you near me with a hammer.)

So there you have it folks, some great (or not so great) ways to keep your pet well maintained and happy and how to repair them when the need arises. If you have comments I'd love to hear them. (Maybe you'd better not. You might encourage her. Unless it's hate mail. Yeah, send that. Then we won't have to go through this again.) Thank you.