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Make Neopoints YOUR Way: Custom Tips for Success


by jazzehness

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I've been on Neopets for many years, and throughout the years I've seen one simple question on the neoboards: "How do you make neopoints?" Many users are more than willing to provide answers, but sometimes these answers don't satisfy the people asking for advice. What if their computers can't run certain games? What if their account isn't old enough to participate in certain activities? What if the user in question simply can't handle some of the tasks that a lot of users excel at? Simply put, there isn't one correct answer to this incredibly common question. It's always best to gather the opinions of many users and experiment to find a strategy that's right for you, and that may involve taking bits and pieces from other people's strategies and putting them together to form your own unique plan. Why not take my advice into consideration when you're trying to figure out what you can do to make a living in Neopia? Some of it may not be right for you, and that's okay! I encourage everyone to explore the possibilities and carefully craft a plan that works for them, but I hope that at least some of my advice can come in handy.

1. Dailies

Believe it or not, dailies can be an excellent source of income! You just have to be aware of which ones are worth spending your time and neopoints on. All of them are nice depending on what you're looking for, but if you're aiming for neopoints then there are a few I would recommend above the others.

Forgotten Shore - If you only do one daily per day, let the Forgotten Shore be your number one choice! The map pieces (named 'Forgotten Shore Map Piece') are just a few neopoints each and should fit into any Neopian's budget. All you need to do is check the Shop Wizard, Trading Post, the Money Tree and/or the Anchor Management daily for the map pieces and turn them in at the Treasure Maps page and you're there! Check the shore on a daily basis and click on any items you see sticking out on the map. Sometimes you won't find anything (don't worry -- the page will let you know when nothing of interest is around) but there's always a chance to find neopoints (up to 10,000!) or some sort of item. The items you want to find are the Pirate Draik Egg and Pirate Krawk Morphing Potion! Consider yourself very lucky if you find these items, because both items are worth well over 100,000 NP, which is more than what you can price items for in user shops. Take these items to the Trading Post or the auctions to give other users a chance to buy them to make a nice sum of neopoints for the day.

Anchor Management - This daily goes hand-in-hand with the Forgotten Shore daily, as it gives out the map pieces necessary to access the Forgotten Shore, but this place is worth visiting even if you already visit the shore! Among the cheap pirate-themed items you can get from this daily, you have a chance to get some valuable treasures! Dubloons are fairly common and can be sold for a quick handful of neopoints in your shop, and every bit helps! Some of the more notable prizes: Pirate Petpet Paint Brush, Pirate Paint Brush, and Magical Pirate Krawk Plushie. These three items can be sold for a pretty penny if you are lucky enough to get any of them. The petpet paint brush is under 100,000 NP, but it can still be sold for a nice chunk of neopoints if you put it in your shop at a competitive price and advertise your shop to draw attention to it. The other two items are UB (unbuyable, meaning they're worth over 100,000 NP -- I'll be using this abbreviation from now on) so they can be sent to the Trading Post or auctions to be sold to an interested user.

Fruit Machine - This is a classic daily that many users sometimes take for granted due to the fact that you don't often win anything from it, but if you happen to line up three Ptolymelons you will win a random paint brush along with a random battle muffin and 1,000 NP! You should keep trying the Fruit Machine daily to have a chance at being incredibly lucky and quite possibly leaving with something worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of neopoints!

Mysterious Negg Cave - One of the newest dailies is a fun puzzle that changes every day, and solving these puzzles can result in some neat rewards. The prize you want to try for is the Ultimate Icy Negg since it's highly valuable. More often than not you'll get cheap prizes, but this daily is worth the effort for the chance to get this great negg.

2. Battledome

Whether you're a battling veteran or a new fighter, the Battledome now has something to offer to everyone: neopoints and prizes! The amount of neopoints you'll get for defeating each enemy is miniscule, so the things you'll want to focus on are all of the great items you can earn. It's hard to list every single item you can win in one article, so I urge you to take a look at a list of prizes yourself, such as SunnyNeo's Battledome Beta Prizes page. This will give you a good idea of what items can be obtained from which arenas and challengers, and you can decide for yourself which items are worth your time!

The best arena, in my opinion, is the Cosmic Dome. It's only available to Premium members, but this feature is one of the wonderful reasons why I think Premium is worth the money! It's very common for me to come out of the Battledome with one nerkmid per day just for fighting the Jetsam Ace opponent on the easiest difficulty. Nerkmids may not be worth as much as they were before they became available in the Battledome, but the amount of neopoints you get from selling them is nothing to shake your head at! If I win one nerkmid a day, I have a 100% chance of making a satisfactory amount of neopoints that day when I sell it. You can always choose to try your luck at the Alien Vending Machine with your nerkmids, but I find it much more enjoyable to sell my nerkmids for pure NP and use them to save up for the things I really want instead of letting luck and chance decide my fate. Good news, though: even if you aren't a Premium user, you still have a chance of getting nerkmids from the Battledome, so don't give up hope if you can't afford the subscription! However, the Cosmic Dome does give a wider variety of nerkmids, meaning you have more of a chance at getting at least one per day.

3. Random Events

A lot of users are familiar with random events that steal your neopoints or your items -- or random events that do nothing at all -- but there are some great random events out there that can present you with very nice items if you're lucky! You could get a few neopoints, a decent item that you can toss in your shop, or even UB items to help you save up for your biggest goals! It's all up to chance, which is why they're called random events, but there are ways to make random events more likely to happen for you.

Terror Mountain is a cool place, and not just because of its temperature. The land has its own set of random events that can give you special winter-themed items. Remember the Ultimate Icy Negg I mentioned earlier in the Dailies section? You can get this negg and other icy-themed neggs from the random events here if you're lucky, and you might even find a Christmas Paint Brush! Save those paint brushes up for the winter seasons and holidays to maximize the amount of neopoints you get from them.

Playing browser games is a good way to run into more random events. Games like NeoQuest, NeoQuest II, Dice-A-Roo and Gormball are played by reloading the site every few seconds, and each time you reload the site you have a chance of getting a random event. Play these games as often as you can to increase your chances!

Buying a Premium membership can give you the opportunity to receive Premium-exclusive random events! I'm always seeing the Space Faerie in my random event box, giving me a few thousand neopoints or some sort of neat item to sell, so I know for a fact that this feature of Premium is well worth my money. Again, if you're able to afford it, you may want to consider getting a membership so you can reap the benefits of this cool feature!

Keep in mind that The Neopets Team discourages constant refreshing of any page on the site, because it can slow the site down. According to the Editorials, refreshing for a few seconds is fine, but don't do it for way too long, and especially don't leave any objects sitting on your keyboard to help you refresh while you're doing something else. If TNT catches you doing this, you could get in trouble, so be smart when you're refreshing for random events or any other reason!

4. Habitarium

If you've asked for tips on how to make neopoints over the past couple of years, you've probably heard of Habitarium as a great way to make neopoints. This is true, except you have to put a lot of work into the game in order for it to be worthwhile. Also, some people may not be able to load the game or play it efficiently depending on a lot of technical factors, so it's definitely not a strategy that works for everyone. However, if you're able to load and play Habitarium and you think you can benefit from doing this, it is definitely an idea worth consideration. To learn more about Habitarium, you should find a guide on a petpage or fan site, or visit the Habitarium neoboard for advice and help.

You should first reach the max level, which is currently level 50, before even thinking about using Habitarium as a steady source of income. You do get neopoints for leveling up your habitarium, but you get the most out of the game when your experience points are converted directly to neopoints at max level. Each time you "level up" at the max level, you get a purple gem worth 500 NP. If you set your habitarium up just right -- which I would suggest using a guide or assistance from a fellow Neopian to accomplish -- you can make a nice amount of neopoints very quickly.

The Neopets Team discourages leaving Habitarium open for long periods of time, especially if you're not at the computer, so I would not recommend doing this. It can slow down the site, and you could possibly get locked out of the game if you aren't tending to it. Be sure to take a break from Habitarium once in a while. As with all things, moderation is key. You can still make neopoints from Habitarium even if you play in moderation!

5. Other Tips

The suggestions I've made in this article have been incredibly helpful in my personal journey to earn neopoints, and I highly recommend them to someone who is able and willing to follow in my footsteps. However, some of these tasks might not be suitable for everyone. In that case, there are plenty of other things you can do to make neopoints, so don't worry! You might want to ask others how they make neopoints, but I'll touch on a few of those suggestions myself, although I personally don't rely on them to make neopoints. I can say that many other users rely on these methods, so they're worth mentioning!

Restocking - Stalking the shops for valuable items to buy at cheap prices and resell for profits is one of the most common strategies Neopians use to earn neopoints. However, because it's a common method, you may find it difficult to get some momentum if you're new to reselling. There are guides on petpages and fan sites that can give you tips on how to start, and there are usually neoboard topics made by users who restock for a "living" that you can post on to get some pointers, but you may still find it difficult if you don't have a nice computer, a reliable internet connection or the natural speed required to beat other users to the items you want to purchase. Additionally, some items may be more difficult to resell than others, so you may have to be patient before you see a profit from restocking, but there are millions of neopoints to be made if you have what it takes to be a pro restocker!

Sniping - Sniping is a lot like restocking, except you take advantage of great deals in user shops instead of the other shops around Neopia. It won't cost you as much to snipe as it does to restock, and if you know which items to look for you can make a quicker profit than you would with restocking, but sniping and restocking both heavily rely on speed. Look for easy-to-sell (ETS) items on the Shop Wizard, such as codestones, dubloons, neggs, paint brushes, petpet paint brushes, or nerkmids, or you can look for hard-to-sell (HTS) items like rare items, unbuyables, and more. If you see one selling for way less than it's worth and buy it before anyone else does, you can sell it for a profit! Some people don't like sniping because they're buying items at lower prices from users who might not know the true value of certain items or have accidentally mispriced something in their shop, but sniping isn't against the rules in any way. If you can push your conscience aside for a while, you can definitely make some neopoints this way!

Food Club - It pays to be an older member of Neopets -- literally! The Food Club is a gambling game that benefits users more as their account gets older, because you can bet more neopoints if you've been around longer. Plenty of Neopets veterans rely on the Food Club for their income, although you need a mix of strategy and luck when you decide to play. You'll also need some neopoints on hand already, so this isn't an ideal way to make neopoints if you don't already have enough to put towards the game. As with anything else on Neopets, there are guides on petpages and fan sites that can help you make the most of your Food Club experience.

Stock Market - If you've got neopoints to put into the stock market, you might be investing in an opportunity to earn more neopoints than you put in! The Neopian Stock Market works a lot like the stock market in the real world -- with less consequences, of course. Look for a guide on a petpage or a fan site if you aren't sure how the stock market works, and be wise when choosing which shares to buy. If you're patient, the results might surprise you!

Last Minute Tips - Remember to put some research into the values of items you're wanting to sell or buy. While selling, price your items competitively -- people won't want to buy your items if you're selling them for more than what others would sell them for. You don't have to haggle, but it's a good idea to consider other offers on certain items you want to get rid of. While buying, make sure you're not paying more than what something is worth. You can't make a profit if you're buying items for higher prices and selling them for lower prices. Even if it sounds like a good deal, look into the worth of the item before putting any neopoints towards it! Do plenty of advertising on the Shop Ads and the Trading/Auctions neoboards to draw attention to the things you're selling, and keep an eye out for site events that make it easier to earn neopoints, such as Scores Galore, which makes it possible for people to play games up to five times a day instead of the usual three times a day.

Hopefully I've given everyone some ideas on how they can make neopoints for themselves based on my personal experiences and the experiences of others I've met during my time on Neopets. Remember, if something doesn't work for you, just move on to the next idea. Never give up! If you put your mind to it, you can make as many neopoints as you want. Save up for that fancy paint brush for your favorite pet, or get some expensive items to show off in your gallery. My goals haven't been met yet, but with the tips I've packed into this article it won't be long until I reach those goals!

 
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