Confessions of a Two Year Old Newbie

Still I did what I’d always done on Neopets: play games, chat on the newbie boards, waste neopoints, despair at overly expensive quest items... that sort of thing. For almost two years I behaved like a newbie. Then two months ago I decided I didn’t want to be a newbie anymore.

By this time I’d scraped enough neopoints for the Secret Laboratory Treasure Map and had been zapping away each day rather merrily on one of my pets. I didn’t have any neopoints at all really after this and hadn’t really started saving again. So I decided straight away I wasn’t cut out for restocking or gallery making. I don’t have the patience to wait for items to appear nor do I have adoration for any particular type of item. I didn’t even try.

Therefore I went looking at what I could do... hmmm.

Game Trophies...? I’ve always been average at games. I tend to earn as many points as I can, until I reach the total needed to get 1000 neopoints, and then quit. I can’t even do that sometimes. Like I’ve said, I don’t have a great deal of patience. So no, not game trophies then....

Contests...? I’ve yet to find the time to do my homework... let alone make something for the random contest or art gallery or something. As for things like the PPL, well some of them petpets are older than my account!! HTML... also a no-go area.

Avatar collecting... Yeah! This is something I can do! There are so many guides around and then those really helpful people on the Avatar Chat board... wait, what? Almost as soon as I opened the as yet untouched board, I was out of my depth. There were several topics based around the lending of some MSPP?! Of course, this is the malevolent sentient poogle plushie TGC or whatever, but at first glance... what is this?! Not discouraged, however, I went off in search for a guide. I must have found something of use, as I do know (roughly) what some of these strange encryptions mean now. I returned to the AC boards more confident and went straight for something that a newbie like me shouldn’t even dream of; I’ve forgotten what it was, however, but it’s of no importance.

I left, burned, and sought out some help from some poor souls that had the misfortune to be on at the same time as me. I quickly discovered that I needed to meet certain requirements, which varied from player to player, before I stood a chance of getting my recently discovered ambition to get an avatar for buying asparagus... or something like that. People mentioned showing evidence of *safe* trades and if I couldn’t, showing I loved my account. Painted pets, game trophies, rare items, beautiful lookups, site event trophies... the list is endless.

So this takes me back to that orange Koi morphing potion. You see, if you look at my unadorned lookup, you will see a lovely orange Koi. When making my pets two years ago, I wasn’t interested in trading them and their names were full of ambition of what they could become. My orange Koi was no exception; right from the start she was destined for morphing and I named her what I deemed appropriate for an orange Koi. My very first painted pet and I was so proud of myself. With the addition of the lab ray and I think an island paint brush, I gained three pets with equally ambitious/meaningful names.

Now the way there is a bit hazy, but somehow I ended up with the overwhelming desire to trade my pets for something better. To the Pound Chat board I went! The first surprise in store was the second language which everyone there spoke fluently... except me. To a guide I went and I kept it open in a second tab, for reference, as I ventured back to the PC board. The second shock was the sheer speed which the board moved at. I created a board and I swear within two minutes of creating it, lost it in the back pages of no return. The third shock was the worst; my lovingly named pets were worthless to everyone. There was no way I could get anything at all for them.

Somehow I did, and after much pain, lost three of my dearly loved pets, each for a better named pet. I still don’t know whether I got the best end of the deal or not. Unfortunately, orange Koi are not in high demand, it appears, and so sitting on my account, smiling, is my very first painted pet.

When I made my orange Koi, I was so proud of her. She wasn’t the painted pet I wanted, but she was worth everything to me. To find that she wasn’t worth a thing to anyone else disappointed me immensely. My other *worthless* pets have each found a new home. Call me a stalker, but I still check up on them. Yet my orange Koi still remains.

Shall I keep her... as a testament to my two years of newbie life? Or shall I keep hoping someone will appreciate her for more than she is? You see, one thing I’ve gained as a two year old newbie, if not neopoints, is affection for my pet. Are there other old newbies out there, still stuck with signs that they lacked knowledge early on? It’s taken me two months to learn my mistakes... if only I’d known them two years ago.

I’ve yet to make a million, and I’m yet to understand the languages of the boards. But in two years one thing is clear. I’m still a newbie and I have an orange Koi if anyone is interested.