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So, you think neohomes are pretty boring? Well, let me tell you never to underestimate a neohome. For who would have thought that the question of entering a room could be so challenging?
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Hi, I am Tankanoien, the adventure-loving acara of chaotizitaet. In fact I love adventures this much, that my dear owner promised me my very own adventure-garden at our neohome, but that is still one of the future projects. So in the meantime I decided to explore the neighbourhood and try if I could find any adventures out there. And boy, did I find adventures… |
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 Adventure #1 – Where by thunderturtles is the entrance? 
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Strolling down a random street I soon came to a very pretty looking neohome and felt it worth visiting. So I walked up the front yard with the intention to knock on the entrance door in order to be let in. But… there was no entrance door!
Maybe, I thought, they only have a backdoor at the kitchen?
But circling the whole home I could find not one single entrance!
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| (layout of that home missing an entrance) |
Obviously they didn't want visitors and never left their home either. Really a pity! And it definitely spoiled my adventure for that day and I returend home a little broken-spirited.
So you see, exits as main entrances are most important, especially if you want to receive visitors!
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But exits are not only important when it comes to entrances, as my adventure the next day would show me.
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 Adventure #2 – The sudden encounter with a wall
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I set out once more in quest of new and interesting neohomes. This time the home I picked did have a front entrance and on my knocking I was invited in by a friendly ghost poogle. He even offered to show me around, which I thought really nice of him.
It all went well, that was, until we came upon an exit which was blocked very effectively by a solid wall. The poogle, being a ghost, of course never noticed and simply glided through the wall. After waiting a few minutes for him to return, which never happened, I once more returned home dissatisfied.
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So, notice, exits are also important when one wants to be able to walk from one room to the other. Okay, maybe all your pets are painted ghost and are therebye able to walk through walls, but most likely the majority of visiting pets like me are not. Therefore, please, design your neohome with corresponding exits.
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bad example |
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Of course you are more than welcome to have secret doors, hidden behind a tapestry or a book-shelf, where you have to pull a book or push a secret panel in the wall in order for the book-shelf to swing open, or whatever. That of course would be rather thrilling. But don't forget to show the secret-door in some way or another.
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| example of a hidden tapestry-door |
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Back at the friendly poogle's home I had hoped for such a hidden door, but no matter how thoroughly I searched the walls, no secret door revealed itself.
So you should really take corresponding exits of some kind into consideration so that your pets and your visitors can move freely from room to room.
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Nearly the same applies when it comes to moving freely between the different floors.
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 Adventure #3 – I don't have wings
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The next house I stopped by was inhabited by a cheerful faerie kau and once more I was invited to come in and have a look at all the rooms. In addition my kind host even offered me refreshments, and as it was a rather warm day I accepted it gratefully.
Maybe I shouldn't have drunk so much lemonade, because soon I felt the urge to use the toilet and at last told the kau so. Of course I was told to feel free to use any of the bathrooms the house had. The only problem was that those bathrooms were all located on the upper floors, there were no stairs and I had no wings with which to simply fly upstairs.
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Hence in the name of all wingless neopets that are potential visitors to your neohome, build some stairs in your home, so that we can reach the upper levels. For I can assure you, we were both (my host and me) quite embarrassed when we had to knock at the next house so that I could use the bathroom there…
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There even exists a really inspiring petpage, which is completely devoted to stairs:
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Yet the most fascinating adventure was still out there waiting for me!
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 Adventure #4 – Alien Invasion
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I always knew that Neopia was a special world. But I never realized how special it was, until I encountered the 'floating rooms'. Yes, you can really have a room floating in the air.
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| first floor |
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floating
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| second floor |
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The first time I saw one, I was so excited I nearly fainted. But of course I'd never do such a foolish girly-girly thing.
Chao later explained to me how such floating rooms are created. For instance by placing a garden underneath or that there once were rooms underneath, but those were demolished later.
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So now I knew, how such rooms were created. But another question remained: Why would one build such a room? I pondered the subject for serveral days, and in the end came up with three possible reasons. And at least one requires a garden underneath. So here we go:
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Number one would be a balcony. Such a room may have a garden underneath but not necessarily. But such a room always is attached with at least one wall to the main house, so perhaps a balcony is not really really floating. (Oh, and don't forget the exits ^^)
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balcony
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| first floor |
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(And this is how such a balcony may look like. Very pretty, I think... This particular balcony belongs to avatarh and she was so kind as to give me a permission to show you a screenshot of it as an example.)
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Number two and perhaps the most famous would be a tree house. For there was a time in Neopia, when TNT had yet to release tree houses as a garden-item. By now you can buy them, but still you are free to create one yourself.
Now, the tree house definitely has to have a garden underneath, for where else is the tree to grow, that houses the tree house? So don't forget to have something in this garden that resembles a tree-trunk.
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(This beautiful tree fort is a creation by kaibryon and though it has no garden underneath, I am really glad she allowed me to use it as it looks just like I would have a tree house look like. And kaibryon being a true neohomer even added ladders and bits of 'tree trunk' to make it even more realistic.)
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Now to number three, which would be some purposely flying object like a zeppelin or an ufo or other.
Maybe something like this:
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(This marvellous room belongs once again to avatarh and though it is no floating room itself, it resembles pretty much what I would imagine an ufo to look like on the inside.)
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So now you have seen all three kinds of 'floating rooms'. But other than that such unattached rooms are pretty useless, for how is one to enter them?
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 Annex Adventure – The Stampede
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This adventure is a special one as it actually happened at our neohome. It took place when Chao worked on our library which was my brother Species' heart's desire. And as you can see, it turned out to be a really nice and comfy library:
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The only problem was the layout of our home:
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Pavilion
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Library
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Kitchen
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| ground floor – original layout |
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As you can see, Chao was clever enough to take corresponding exits into consideration (so no sudden encounters with walls ^^ ), but to have all traffic pass through the library is not really perfect. For a library usually is supposed to be a haven of peace and tranquillity…
Which of course our library was not, as jeshele, Ruediger and I all the time galumphed through this room, whenever we wanted to go outside, or when we returned, or when we wanted to play 'chase the dust' in the study (which back then was not yet done according nice furnishing). Species really was mad with us, because we continuously interrupted his quiet reading. Finally he complained this bitterly, that my dear owner had the construction team come to our home again. They demolished a few rooms (yay, floating rooms *giggles*) as this was the easiest way to solve the problem, and then built them anew with better fitting exits. And though you can still pass through the library to reach the study or the central room, you can now also go to the sitting-room from the entryway and reach the study via the dining room.
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Much better, don't you think?
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Anyhow, such a 'stampeding room' seems to be far from being uncommon, for I found several neohomes while exploring the neighbourhood, where the general layout and the designated purposes of the rooms didn't go along very well.
For example, in one home the inhabitants and their visitors constantly had to pass through a bathroom to reach the living room. I don't know how you feel about it, but I would prefer a little privacy when using my bathroom…
In another home a bedroom was between the kitchen and the dining room… And with all the toys littered on the floor in said bedroom, meals brought from the kitchen far oftener landed on the bedroom floor than being actually served at the dining table.
And then there was the one neohome that had a disco next to the library. And though in this case the rooms were not connected directly, I thought the loud music coming from the disco highly disturbing while being in the library, browsing the shelves to see if I might find any book Species might want to read so that I could perhaps persuade him to come with me on the next visit. Well, I never suggested to him visiting that house with me, but I went again, as I am more of a dancer than a reader…
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So when planning your neohome and deciding how to use each room, you should perhaps take the probable traffic and the noise-level into consideration, unless of course you want any private rooms to be purposely invaded by stampeding pets.
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Final note:
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I hope I was able to show you that exploring a neohome can sometimes really be an adventure and that you had a nice time while reading this.
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Disclaimer:
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All layouts and the screenshots of the secret-door-rooms are completely fictitious. I only made them up for this tutorial. The only exception is the current layout of our home used in the annex adventure. And of course the library shown in the same adventure is the actual library in our neohome…
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Special thanks:
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- To Eeuk for starting the idea of such a page and helping me with the graphics for the title and the link back down below
- To avatarh and kaibryon for allowing me to use the screenies of their rooms
- To TNT for having given us crazy people our most beloved tool: the neohome ^^
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Link back
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For Thelma
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