Last updated February 12th, 2008
Welcome! I'm Lexi. ^^ I assume you're here either because you're an established BCer who wants to listen to my inane ramblings, or you're a person just
starting out in the tricky adventure known as the Beauty Contest. Winning the Beauty Contest definitely isn't a cakewalk, but it doesn't have to be a
confusing week of pure torture, either. I hope that my experience can help point you in the right direction.
The absolute basics of the BC
The Beauty Contest is a week-long competition where people
can enter drawings of their pet. It starts and stops simultaneously
every Friday at 4:15 NST. There are trophies given out for the top
three placers in every species, as well as trophies for the top three
pets who win the most votes overall (in all species). Every Neopian
gets one vote per species every single week, meaning they could
vote for a Lenny, Aisha and Uni, but not three Unis.
The #1 thing that you need to know going in to the Beauty Contest is that it requires advertising to do well. Yes, entries that are never advertised can and do
win, but it's much too rare of an occurrence to count on if you'd really like a trophy!
If it's your first Beauty Contest and you have one of the species on my easy and medium lists (see below), I highly recommend that you start off with your
easy pet. I see a lot of people getting frustrated because they're new to the BC and they're entering Unis, Lupes and other popular pets. The competition is
extremely fierce in these categories and can be very discouraging, even for experienced BCers!
Many people have trouble when they start out in the BC, repeatedly failing to place and eventually getting fed up enough that they leave the BC and don't
come back -- at least for a long time. I can relate. I'd like to introduce you to my thoroughly pathetic past, to encourage those who haven't done well in the BC
-- your time will come!
I first entered the Beauty Contest in the spring of 2004. I somehow, by some bizarre fluke, managed to pull off a 3rd in the Uni category with my first entry
ever -- without advertising. That's all well and good, but it threw my ill-informed mind into confusion, and I proceeded to enter the Uni category almost every
week for the next 6 months without even placing once. It didn't even occur to me to advertise -- really advertise, I mean. I only made a handful of boards
throughout all that time because I was pretty shy and had no clue what to say to advertise my pictures. I just assumed my art wasn't getting enough votes
because people didn't like it, not because I didn't hang around making boards all day -- I mean, I placed once without advertising, right?
If you're not as stupid as I was back then, you're already off to a very promising start!
A year later, in the spring of 2005, I suddenly became confident and motivated enough to start creeping my way onto the Beauty Contest board. I discovered
that advertising doesn't have to be making an awkward "errr... umm... vote for my Uni?" board that gets 0 replies. I tried to become a part of the BCing
community, ignoring the impulse to be all gung-ho "vote for me," instead taking the time to just hang around peoples' boards and getting to know them. As
time went by, I made friends and many acquaintances, and I suddenly found that making boards wasn't awkward anymore. I started placing consistently --
not every week, but a heck of a lot more often than my early days in 2004. I unwittingly discovered the key to doing well in the BC - equal parts advertising
and chatting. You'd be amazed at how many votes you get just from hanging around and talking to people.
Almost three years after my abysmal start, I'm comfortable enough with my BCing success to be writing this guide. It would be pretty hard for a new BCer to
have a worse start than I did, so I genuinely hope that if you're struggling with not being able to place that you'll take heart and keep at it until you find a
system of advertising that clicks and works for you! It's all worth it in the end when you have all those pretty trophies and the satisfaction of knowing you
worked hard for them. :)
The Beauty Contest page is located in Pet Central. It's a good idea to familiarize yourself with the entire BC site. Make sure to read the official rules and
FAQ, which were recently updated in the fall of 2006 with new and helpful information. It's probably also a good idea to check out the "Previous Weeks
Votes" and "Past Winners" pages to get a feel for how the results look at the end of the week.
The overall winners for the week of February 9th.
The "Enter Contest" page is pretty self-explanatory, but I'll explain anyway. Click the link and you'll arrive at a page that lists all of your pets, with a space to
attach your picture and a text box for entering the pets "speech.
Your entry's speech should be kept relevant. Many beginning BCers will write something like this for their pet's speech:
| Her name
is SusieQ_30394 and she's the best Uni in the world, she
loves reading and flowers and dancing
and is a very kind
pet. Please vote for her it would make us very very happy! |
Well, that's all well and good, but it isn't helpful! A more practical speech is something like:
| Yay,
it's Susie's first time in the BC! Please see her petpage
for a high-quality version. Picture drawn
with colored pencils." |
Try to keep your speech short, relevant and to the point -- it's a lot more eye-catching than another brain-numbing mini-biography!
As far as uploading your image file goes, remember that it has to be under 17 KB. The physical pixel size of the entry does not matter, even though the
official BC page lists 150 pixels. This is an outdated size that refers to the original BC which was based around modified official site images. The bigger you
can get your entry while maintaining reasonable quality, the better! Be aware that your entry *will* be yucky quality 9 times out of 10, so it's very
important to upload the high-quality version of your entry to an image host and display it on your petpage! Putting it on your lookup or your pet's lookup
is fine as well, but keep in mind that every pet's petpage is directly linked from the BC voting page, making it much more convenient for voters to view it there.
I highly recommend trying to keep the entry uncropped if at all possible. Sometimes people will just crop their pet's face and include the full view on their
petpage, but I personally dislike this method -- I'd rather see a low-quality full body than a high-quality cropped face. After all, if you win, the image you
entered in the BC will be immortalized in BC history -- wouldn't you rather it was a full view instead of a tiny fraction of your beautiful work?
How bad your image looks resized to 17 KB will depend largely on what you drew it with and the style of shading you used. Surprisingly, entries drawn with
soft shading such as colored pencils or realistic computer coloring resize pretty cleanly. The image quality is clearly reduced, but you can usually keep it at
a decent size (around 400 to 500 pixels wide) and have its main flaw be slight blurriness. Cell shading with the computer or with hard-edged media such as
markers absolutely kills your file quality, which is a shame since it's such a commonly used style. Recently I've been having to shrink my cell shaded
pictures to around 300 pixels wide with the image quality WAY down to even get them under the limit. Color contrast is another key -- an entry that's all
shades of purple will resize a lot better than a rainbow colored one.
If you don't know how to resize your entry to a good file size/quality, ask on the boards and include what program you're using to get resizing tips. I only have
experience resizing with Adobe ImageReady, so I'm not much of a help with other programs. If you don't have a program to resize with, ask around on the
boards -- there are many kind Neopians who are more than happy to quickly resize your entry for you! I'm more than willing to resize entries sent to me as
well, so feel free to drop me a Neomail if you need help.
There are several reasons why your entry may have been rejected.
-- Does your entry look like the intended species?
Be honest and view your entry critically. If you enter a Kau that looks identical to a realistic dairy cow with no Neopet characteristics, this may result in your
entry being rejected. The same goes for anthros who are nothing more than a human with pet ears -- many entries will be rejected if they look too much like a
real animal or a human. A good way to avoid this for anthros is to give your pet an animal nose rather than a human nose and to try to make the face
structure more like an animal's face than a human's face. Also be wary of anthro skin tones that look like human skin. For quads, extreme realism will often
result in the pet looking more like a real animal than a Neopet (i.e. if your Kougra is unrecognizable from a Siberian tiger).
-- What browser are you entering the BC from?
There is a glitch with Firefox and Safari that causes BC entries to show up blank on the contest judge's end. Since a blank image cannot be approved, these
images are rejected. It's always best to enter from Internet Explorer to avoid this problem.
-- Do you have any copyright symbols or links to outside websites in your entry?
You are not allowed to include copyright or trademark symbols, your email address, or links to webpages outside of Neopets (including deviantART) on your
BC entry. This will result in your entry being rejected, even if there's nothing wrong with your entry itself.
If none of the three apply to you, I recommend that you try emailing Amanda (amandaw @ neopets.com) and politely asking what's wrong with your image.
Include a link so that she can view the image, don't just ask "why did you reject my Peophin?" She is very good about answering quickly and fixing problems;
even though I enter from Internet Explorer, once in a while my image will keep being rejected until I email her and ask what's up.
Most of the time, entries will be rejected before the contest starts, but it is possible to be removed before the contest ends. This can occur if the image is
reported with multiple complaints that it doesn't look like the intended pet, if you were cheating by trying to win votes with items or having someone advertise
you. The other reason for mid-contest removal could be if your pet's species changed during the contest. Never use the lab ray on your pet until the contest
ends! If it changes species, nobody will be able to vote for it, and it will have to be removed from the contest.
Every once in a while when you go to the Enter Contest page you'll be greeted with this melancholy message:
Don't worry though! It has been confirmed by the BC judge that all that this message means is that the maximum number of pending entries has been
reached. This means that the BC judge needs to go through them and approve/reject the pending images before any more can be accepted. Just keep
checking back -- it can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days (very very rarely!) for entries to open up again.
The BC never officially closes its entries. You could enter 10 seconds before the contest started if you wanted!
Keep in mind that since the Beauty Contest is weekly, every contest ends and begins simultaneously at 4:15 NST on Fridays. This means if you enter on
Friday at 4:20 NST, your entry won't show up until the *next* Friday when the BC updates. Basically, all you can do after entering is wait around for the
contest to start, and maybe start plotting your methods of attack.
Waiting for the BC to start is a great time to get everything ready for your pet's BC debut, even if you don't officially post it yet. Get ready to put your pet's link
and maybe an eye-catching advertising note in your Neoboard signature, resize an image to put on your user lookup, etc.
It is also very important to add a full-size, high-quality version of your entry on your petpage! The petpage can be accessed from the voting page with
one simple click, so it's the absolute most convenient way for voters to view your image.
The other thing you can do is go to the Beauty Contest board and post previews for your upcoming entry. This is a popular method of "pre-advertising" and
attracts a lot of attention, and sometimes people will hold their votes for you if they like your picture enough.
First off, stay calm and don't rush into things. ^^
You need to retrieve your pet's voting page first. You can find your pet's voting URL by going to any entrant's voting page and changing the pet's name to
your own, like so:
http://www.neopets.com/beauty/details.phtml?pet=YOURPETNAME
If you haven't already, update your Neoboard signature, user lookup, petpage and shop with a link or image to your entry.
One important thing to remember is that unlike most links pasted on the Neoboards, Beauty Contest links are 100% allowed and it's fine to directly paste
them in. Links to BC entries that start with http and contain the full URL are also clickable on the boards, opening in a new window and making them
extremely convenient to view. Lots of beginning BCers will make the mistake of leaving off parts of their BC link or putting spaces in it, making it a very
tedious process of opening a new browser window, pasting in the link and making the necessary changes before the entry can be viewed. If you make your
link easy to access, people will be much more inclined to visit!
Once your account is all decked out with links to your entry, it's time to start campaigning!
Making your own board
The first thing you should probably do is make a board with an interesting title. Interesting and eye-catching titles will draw in a lot more people than a board
named "vote for my Acara." For example, when I had my Faerie Aisha in the Beauty Contest, some of the board titles I used were:
Butterfly wings!
Have you voted for a pretty faerie yet?
Aishas have four ears...
We are Siamese if you please.
Leaves are falling -- it must be autumn!
Mewcat |
Notice the variety of titles. Something silly like "Mewcat" got just as many replies as the more logical "Have you voted for a pretty faerie yet?" It can be fun to
come up with creative titles, and much more beneficial in the long run. ^^
Another thing you can do to get people to come is say that you'll comment on, rate or critique peoples' entries if they do the same to yours. This is a great
way to get people to look at your entry, comment and possibly vote, and since people love to get comments on their art, they're more likely to come to these
types of boards.
An example of a board like this would be something like:
Board title: Rating and commenting on
entries!
Post a comment on my Aisha and I'll rate and comment on
your entries! Please don't spam or I won't look at your entry. |
Which brings us to the next important part of advertising: how NOT to spam!
How exactly can you spam in the BC?
I mean, isn't it about plastering your link everywhere?
Well, yes and no.
Here is an example of spam:
Cubby isn't really a spammer! She was "modeling" :)
The object of the BC is to make your entry available to as many people as possible, but this does not mean that it's okay to go to everyone's board, post
your link with a generic message like "vote for me" and leave. This is considered extremely rude and people almost always refuse to look at the entries of
"advertspammers," as they're known around the BC boards.
It's extremely easy to tell if someone is spamming, too. If someone creates a board asking for a critique of their Gelert entry, and someone comes in, posts
"Vote for my Pteri!" and leaves, this is obviously spam since they said nothing to contribute to the conversation of the board. In this same scenario, what
would be perfectly acceptable is to post a comment about the board creator's Gelert, followed by a polite note asking if they would please return the favor and
comment on your entry.
Remember that even though the Beauty Contest board is for advertising, you are talking to real people who appreciate a little common courtesy. We're all
competing, but that doesn't mean we can't take the time to be polite and make friends with each other. :)
Visiting other boards
Example:
As noted above, it's always a good idea to comment on the entry of the board creator. If the creator doesn't have an entry in, still try to directly address them
in your post to let them know you're a real person who isn't just pasting their link on the board in hopes for a vote.
As strange as it may sound, it's actually a good idea to never directly ask for a vote. Some people may (a bit irrationally) take offense to someone asking
"vote for me please?" and instead prefer to just have the link provided -- since everyone knows you're only showing your link to get votes anyway!
When I post on other boards, I sometimes don't even reference my link -- it's there in my signature, and people look anyway. If I want to reference it, I may
ask something like "Would you mind checking out my entry?", since while this is drawing attention to my entry, I'm not demanding a vote. I always make it
clear to voters that I only want them to vote if they genuinely like my entry, and people seem to like this approach. I know I certainly appreciate it when
someone politely asks rather than demands a vote!
Free vote boards
Example:
The term "free votes" is used in the BC to indicate that the board maker is willing to vote for pets that post on their board. It is a great idea to keep an eye out
for these types of boards, since many are "first come, first serve" - which requires you to be there fast!
When I'm posting on "normal" boards, I'll often have a separate window with the main BC board open, refreshing once in a while to see if any free vote boards
pop up. If one does, I'll go, read the first post quickly, and then post. You don't have to be the fastest typer in the world to not spam -- a brief note such as
"yay for free votes!" is enough to prove you're not spamming, after all.
It is very important to read the first post, however, since many times people will post a "code word" that you'll need to post to prove you're not spamming, or
have some other requirement such as commenting on their entry before they'll view yours. If the board is not first come first serve, you can obviously take
your time and not feel as rushed in posting. ^^
Some people who think that the BC should be based purely on art make derogatory comments about free vote boards. My mentality is that if good art doesn't
post on the free vote boards, "bad" art will anyway, so you might as well try to snag whatever votes you can!
Rating & critiquing boards
Example:
These boards are very popular, but if they're not handled carefully and politely by the board owner, they can often lead to irritation and hurt feelings if your
entry is torn apart.
If you are creating a rating/critiquing board, please remember that you're talking to real people who are often very happy with their art, and by tearing it apart
or intentionally being rude/mean about it you can hurt their feelings very much. Sadly enough, I've seen even longtime BCers make these types of boards who
post uncalled for things such as "it's horrible" and "learn to draw and then try again." This is not to say that you can't provide honest and helpful comments
with constructive criticism. Trying to explain to someone that their Uni's leg doesn't bend right and providing examples to help them in the future is a far better
alternative to saying "fix the leg, it's hideous."
If you are considering posting on a rating/critiquing board, consider how you'd feel if the board maker posted hurtful or offensive comments about your art. If
you know that you would get agitated from having your art be rejected, it's probably a good idea to avoid these types of boards altogether. If you decide to go
against your better judgment and post on them anyway, be prepared to be as polite as you can if you get hurtful comments -- don't make it into a personal
fight! Just leave the board. Some people abuse the chance to critique others art and use it as a power trip.
However, if someone politely provides comments and criticism that are genuinely helpful (even if at first they irritate you since you think your picture is
perfect), try to take them to heart anyway - unless it's about something intentional. For example, I've had people give me "critiques" on how I shouldn't always
draw my Unis with long leg hair; this is not something that can be critiqued since it's an intentional design choice. If someone told me that I could improve my
Unis by changing the way I drew knees, however, I would listen.
Summarized, my main advice about these types of boards would be to approach with caution -- either creating or visiting. They can be great fun if handled
correctly and very hurtful if handled incorrectly.
Advertising on boards aside from the Beauty Contest board
It's against the rules and considered spamming to post a topic on a board such as the Help Chat with the sole purpose of advertising your entry. It's also
against the rules to lend avatar items or other "help" in exchange for votes. Giving items for votes is a potentially freezable offense.
However, it is often a good idea to visit outside boards and chat. You'd be amazed at how many votes you can pick up just by talking to people. The Help
Chat is probably best for this type of advertising, since if you know the answer to someone's question you can post it, instantly providing a conversation
starter. It's recommended not to rely too heavily on this type of advertising though, but it can be a nice outlet for votes if the BC board is going slow or you're
tired of seeing the same BCers day in and day out. :P
It can also be considered cheating if you post a lending board on the Avatar Chat and ask people to vote for your pet if they want to borrow an avatar item.
This is considered to be buying votes and is a freezable offense. However, there's nothing to stop people from making lending boards with their BC link in
their signature -- it can be looked upon as shady by many BCers since not everyone has 11 million NP to lend for the Adam avatar, but it is technically not
against the rules.
Premium advertising
The only exceptions to the "no advertising on outside boards" rule are the premium boards. If you have Neopets Premium, you're more than welcome to go to
the Main Hall or Charter and make a board to advertise your entry.
It has been confirmed by Greg, the TNT member in charge of premium, that it is 100% allowed to make a Beauty Contest board on premium. Some premium
members like to make offensive comments about how BC boards are "spamming up the boards," but people with BC entries have just as much right to make
a board as anyone else on premium does.
It's often nice to make one single board (best make it a good title!) and bump it up all week long. This is a nice compromise, since nobody can possibly
accuse you of spamming if you stick to one board all week, and it also helps draw attention to yourself if your board has lasted for so long.
I recommend making your personal BC board on the Main Hall, since Charter is more prone to accusing BCers of spamming -- and even though you know
you're not breaking any rules, who wants to get in a fight over it? However, lots of times there will be "group" BC boards on Charter, where it is "accepted" to
go and advertise your entry. I tend to dislike the group boards though, since if three people are advertising their Aishas on the same board, inevitably the one
who posts on the first page will get the most votes -- which seems pretty unfair. This is why it's best to make your own board and not rely too much on the
group boards, or feel guilted into only advertising on them.
There are several big no-nos to BC advertising. Some of the more commonly seen advertising errors are below.
Attempting to "steal votes" from the competition
Once in a while, ultra zealous entrants will decide to make the friendly competition of a normal BC into a personal attack.
There is no excuse for behavior such as going to the board of someone who has your same species and blatantly advertising your own pet. When I had my
Tonu in the BC one week, there was another Tonu advertiser that literally followed me around to all my boards posting nasty things about my entry and
saying "vote for MINE instead! It's better!" What's really awful is that at the end of the contest, my Tonu placed second to theirs. What an underhanded way
to win!
This is not to say that you can't converse normally with your competition. Sometimes the reverse of the above scenario will occur, and people will flip out if
their competition innocently comes to their board to chat. There is a clear difference between chatting and advertising! If one of my friends has a Uni in and I
do too, I'm not going to avoid talking to them all week -- but I'm also not going to say to vote for my Uni instead of theirs.
Just remember that you should treat users with the same respect that you would if they weren't your competition. The BC is a
game, not a blood sport.
Claiming your entry is "better" or insulting your competition
Advertising via personal attacks never works. I've seen people make boards about how you should vote for their pet because it's not in a certain style that
they "hate" or because its "the best Chia in the whole contest!"
Claiming that you have the best pet in a category can be very hurtful and rude to the competition.
If you have in a quad Aisha and despise your anthro Aisha competition, it's not okay to post about how you should vote for a REAL Aisha and not those
horrible anthros, nor is it okay to bash Photoshop art and say to only vote for "hand drawn" art. These types of topics normally start huge fights and harm you
a lot more than they help you, since the BC is a close-knit community from week to week in that we get to know and recognize each other quite well. If you
make a horrible impression by insulting others entries and starting fights, your fellow BCers aren't likely to forget it during the contest, meaning less votes for
you and more for your competition.
Spamming!
As addressed above, spamming is the WORST thing any BCer can do! It's the most horribly offensive thing to have someone repeatedly spam your boards
with the same "vote for me" message. I have never voted for a spammer and I never will.
Having a friend advertise for your entry
This is NOT ALLOWED! In extreme cases it can even result in the freezing of both parties or the removal of the entry from the BC. Only the owner of the pet
who drew the entry is allowed to advertise for the pet.
This includes having your guild leader post your BC entry on the guild main page or having your friends link to your lookup where a huge advertisement for
your pet can be found.
There is only one "wrong" way to vote, and that is if you attempt to bribe/scam people into giving you something in exchange for votes. This includes trading
votes, which is extremely against the rules. In general, though, there are five main ways to vote, though many people do any combination of the methods.
Manual voting
Manual voting refers to the act of "manually" sifting through the entries of each category and voting for the one you like best of each species. This way of
voting has its merits, but it isn't foolproof, since lots of really nice entries can be overlooked by the thumbnails.
Making manual voting boards, however, is against the rules, since it's considered to be advertising for others. It doesn't matter if you list the name of the pet
or just describe it -- it's not allowed. Making such boards will result in a deleted board and either a warning or an account suspension.
Silent voting
I personally find silent voting to be a bit silly and suspect. There's certainly nothing wrong with voting and not telling people -- but making a silent voting board
is truly pointless, and it just seems odd to me when people flat out refuse to tell who they voted for even when asked. The advertisers have no way to know if
the "silent voter" is really looking at their entries or is just trying to draw attention to their own entry.
I silent vote a lot, meaning I'll be browsing a category or a dead board and vote for something I like -- but I'd never withhold who I voted for from anyone. That's
just creepy. :P
Free voting
We know all votes are free, but as discussed above, free voting indicates that you're intentionally setting aside time to vote for a large number of entries at
once. Making these types of boards is a good way to get a large group of entries to sift through.
Random voting
Random voting is only random in the sense that you aren't intentionally setting out to vote for others' entries. This is the way that most Neopians vote. They'll
vote for entries that they like, but almost never use up all their species votes this way.
It can be nice to vote this way, since it frees you up to vote for appealing entries that you see being advertised throughout the week.
Making vote lists
Some people will keep a list of the entries they like and vote for the "best" one of each species at the end of the week. Though I can understand the point of
the lists, it also seems like a bit too much work. You might as well manually vote, but some people like keeping the lists and find it fun, so if this method
appeals to you, go for it. ^^
All votes are created equal! I think one of my biggest pet peeves is when people act is if their vote is somehow the most important thing that will
happen to you in the contest. One single vote very rarely makes any difference in the BC, so try not to stress out trying to get votes from these types of
people. These people normally function in one of three common ways:
The ritual method
Often, people will make a "voting" board that winds up forcing people to participate in bizarre rituals. It often starts out innocently enough: "post the word
banana so I know you're not spamming and I'll vote for the entries I like!" There's nothing at all wrong with this sort of board, but you know you have a psycho
on your hands when their demands start changing. "Well, I like the Buzz and the Aisha... hm, I wonder who I should vote for..."
When intelligent people inform the board creator that they can vote once per species, they normally get an angry response such as, "I only want to vote for
ONE!!!" These people are pretty much beyond hope, and honestly, it's probably best to leave the board before you encourage their mind games and power
trips by participating in their board. They'll often pretend to be leaning towards one entry, only to vote for another at the last minute just to be mean and post
"board closed" before the refused entry can protest. These types of people can cause hard feelings and rivalry where there is none -- a Buzz and an Aisha
should not be judged against each other.
The condescending method
Less malicious than their power-tripping cousins, these voters still have a superiority complex. I have nothing whatsoever against manual voters who wait till
the end of the week to vote, but the ones who think it's necessary to make condescending comments throughout the week tend to get on my nerves.
I think it's pretty simple -- you either comment on someone's entry without a voting reference, or you just vote if you like their entry. Comments like, "I love
your Uni, but we'll see how it matches up to the competition when I vote!" or "I'll vote for your Uni unless I find something I like better" just plain offend me. If
you genuinely like an entry and consider it to be vote-worthy, why is it so important to try to find a "better" entry to vote for in its place?
The vicious method
Sadly, lots of people seem to enjoy trying to hurt each other by making unwarranted malicious attacks on their art. Comments like "I won't vote for something
that ugly" are completely unnecessary. If you don't want to vote for something, that's your right, but be aware that outright insulting the work of others comes
dangerously close to personal harassment and can be freezable if you're vicious enough. What a silly thing to get frozen over!
First be aware that there are two trophies you can win per BC -- a species trophy and an overall trophy.
As you might expect from the name, overall trophies are won by the pets that get the most votes out of any species at the end of the week. Species trophies
are the easiest to obtain of the two.
For species winners, 1st place gets 20,000NP and a gold trophy, 2nd place gets 10,000NP and a silver trophy, and
3rd place gets 5,000NP and a bronze trophy.
Overall winners get an extra 50,000NP for 1st place, 25,000NP for 2nd place, and 10,000NP for
3rd place, along with an extra trophy to go along with their species one. Overall winners also win a "rare item" which can apparently range from a hard to sell
stamp worth 5,000,000NP to a codestone.
As of April, 2006, we are no longer allowed to enter pets from side accounts. You can, however, move a pet that lives on a side account to your main account
at any time, or use the lab ray on your pet to change its species if you want to BC a variety of species but don't want to move your pets. Keep in mind that all
pets must be on your main account from the second the BC begins to the second it ends.
Recently, there has been a lot of confusion about what is and isn't allowed when it comes to transferring pets to BC them. I talked to Amanda fairly
extensively about the topic and therefore hope I can bring to light what I've learned.
Ask yourself this: Are you transferring your pets for the enjoyment of the BC, or to gold ban all of your
pets?
I love the BC. I can hardly stand when I'm not in for a full week -- it's so boring not having an entry to advertise or a future entry to plan. I don't enter for the
prizes, and I plan out my future entries (including entries from side account pets that I plan to transfer to my main) far in advance -- sometimes months.
According to Amanda, this is 100% allowed.
If your Aisha wins the BC and you transfer her off your main and replace her with your Poogle to BC for fun, this is allowed.
If your Aisha wins the BC and you transfer her off to be replaced with your second Aisha, this is a bit more risky and could potentially land you in trouble with
TNT, since it can be viewed as trying to avoid the gold ban. It would therefore be best to wait quite a while between BCing pets of the same species -- unless
one permanently lives on your main account. My Uni, Elysien, never leaves my main account, so if he wins and then another of my Unis wins while on my
main account, it's obvious I'm not attempting to avoid Elysien's gold ban by replacing him with another Uni, since he never leaves.
The same goes for if you have a main account full of all Unis or all Lutaris that aren't transferred off -- all four could be BCed in a row without a problem,
unless you started transferring them off and replacing them with the same species, since this would obviously be trying to dominate a species by gold
banning all your pets.
Keep in mind that the number of pets you transfer off will also make it obvious if you're trying to cheat or not. There's a difference between moving one of your
gold banned pets off to replace it with a new pet and moving all four pets off to replace them with four new pets to BC.
If your main goal is to gold ban all of your pets, you have gone beyond the limits of BCing for the enjoyment of it and have gone directly into only caring about
the prizes. Even though BCers like to claim they don't care about the NP awards from winning, everyone likes a trophy for their pet, and the trophies are the
prize. If you're BCing for the trophies and not for fun, you're likely doing something wrong, not to mention risky.
Basically, don't try to take advantage of the system. The gold ban is there for a reason, and TNT is being flexible by allowing us to BC transferred pets at all!
Amanda told me that if you feel like you're being sneaky by transferring your pets around to win, you're likely cheating -- whereas if you're just transferring
pets for the fun of it and BCing for the enjoyment of having an entry in, you're likely within the rules.
Don't take my word for it though -- if you ever have questions about anything BC related that is potentially "dangerous," it's likely best that you email Amanda
(amandaw @ neopets.com) yourself and make sure you're not doing anything that could get you in trouble :)
