Memories of a Trade Chatter

     December 1, 2020—you hastily log into Neopets.com, the front page beaming with an ever warming glow of nostalgia. Another one of the quick usual checkups to avoid the abyss of inactivity? No, you’ve come with a purpose—to successfully make it through the advent calendar this year. With friends flaunting their real-life advent calendars with awe, you decide to go with a more humble, less expensive option. With such a goal in mind, you find yourself back on Neopets, trying to absorb all the changes and re-integrate into Neopian society.

     It’s been what, seven—maybe eight years since you last made it through the whole month of December in Neopia? Nonetheless, you find yourself slowly getting hooked and drawn back into the wonderful realms the site has to offer. The last thing on your mind from before your extended hiatus was having chosen a losing faction in the Obelisk War—not a great note to end on. After settling into the norms of Neopets once again, you venture back into where you spent a chunk of your youth: the Trade/Auction Chat, or rather just the “TC” (short for Trade Chat). Oddly, the TC and other Neoboards feel especially barren. Scanning around, you no longer see the bustling centre of commerce that you were once familiar with. A few buying and selling boards are present, moving at a snail’s pace with little to no avail. Dejected, you decide to engage in an old staple pastime of many a TCer: restocking. Of course, you also note the changes to the system you were once used to.

     You recall how it all started—wandering into the Auction House at random, which was bustling with activity on a warm summer’s day in 2009. A Starry Scorchio Plushie stood out as it was moving quickly through the pages, with bidders updating every so often. You quickly checked the TP on the plushie—350k valuation. With a stroke of luck and quick decision, you managed to snipe up the plushie for just shy of 80k Neopoints. A rush of adrenaline and giddiness started to fill you as you’d sufficed up until now with making a meager living off of dailies and a handful of games such as Meerca Chase. But where to start? Do you just throw it up on the TP with all the others? Thoughts started racing through your head as you decided, “maybe I’ll check the Trade/Auction Neoboards”. You did not realize at first that you were entering into new uncharted territory, a place where you would spend the next three years becoming one of many “TCers”.

     As you perused the TC that day, you began to realize just how developed this board was and found yourself sucked into a new world to explore. Up until now, you’d been on the Neoboards just a handful of times, mostly on the Help Chat for reasons you cannot remember today. After some brief lurking, you concluded that there appeared to be three main categories of Neopians who called themselves TCers: resellers, snipers and restockers. Resellers would use “pure”, lingo for Neopoints (as opposed to items), to buy low for the purpose of gaining large profits from resale. Snipers would spend their time in the Auction House, looking for cheap entries to snatch up, often put up for auction by unassuming newbie Neopians. Restockers would spend their days refreshing away in any of the vast Neopian shops, in hopes of restocking “unbuyables” (anything over 99k in those days). Of course, one person could be any combination, but usually everyone would have their favourite, or most proficient choice. Whichever categories they might’ve fallen into however, one consistency remained—buying and selling with other Neopians. Your conclusion from all this was that Neopets was more serious than you thought. You learned that the scorchio plushie you had your eye on was from a series of what people dubbed “Fun Auctions”, where people start an auction for an item at much lower than their TP price in hopes to spur interest in bidding—risky, but usually effective, albeit perhaps not in the case for the scorchio plushie’s owner. Fascinated by the prospects of earning Neopoints through these various methods, you began to revisit the board regularly and decided to make this your home base on Neopets.

     Picking up on the processes quickly, you decided to join a TC guild, choosing reselling to be your method of trade, and started mingling with the likeminded individuals on the boards. Joining a guild back then seemed to be a must-do for all dedicated TCers, and a great way to familiarize yourself with the people around you. Thus, you ended up joining a newly formed guild with somewhat lax requirements. Prior to this, you passed by a multitude of options, some asking for base requirements that are unfathomable to you even today. Through this chosen guild, you would meet some of the greatest Neofriends you ever encountered in Neopia. The days following would be spent chatting away about random topics in the guild board, hosting joint buying and selling boards on the TC, starting gallery collections, playing Keyquest even, and overall having a fun time under a collective roof. Sadly, the TC was no stranger to dramatic incidents between other TCers, and even other guilds. Your beloved first guild was soon retired and deleted, but the spirit of the TC and those bonds stayed with you. Over the next two years, you would join a couple more guilds here and there, have brief stints in the guild councils and even act as a temporary leader for one.

     As the days went by, you learned the works of the TC, the jargon used, the dynamics between other boards such as the Battledome Chat, and small things such as restocking or sniping with “1337” intentionally within the bid amount to show off your prowess in the field. After some time, you eventually realized you’d been doing the whole reselling thing all wrong by reselling to other resellers (who knew people bought at near full price on the TP if you just waited?). At one point you felt as if you’d been a fraud in the TC and the imposter syndrome nearly overtook you. But you found solace in the fact that your best TC Neofriends could’ve cared less if you were the most successful person on the boards—the community and friendships were based on more than that. With support from others, you diverged and became a restocker. To this day, nothing will beat the feeling of restocking your first basic morphing potion at Kauvara’s Magic Shop on a murky autumn night, 9 years ago. You were excited. Restocking successfully in the Magic Shop felt like somewhat of a rite of passage as a TCer. Your restocker guild mates were also excited. They now had another one of them among their ranks—for comparing restocks and for some friendly competition. The fun never lasted forever however, as the guilds you once loved slowly disbanded over the years for a multitude of reasons, sometimes resulting in people leaving the site for good. You eventually caved into an invitation to join one of the most reputable TC guilds, one which has stood the test of time—the guild which you considered to be the original competitor of your very first. Although grateful to the leader, you never felt that sense of belonging you did as your closest TC friends remained absent. At some point, you couldn’t take the losses anymore either, and slowly drifted apart from the world of Neopia.

     Flash forward to today, you purchase a Strawberry Wocky Morphing Potion in what appears to be a walk-in restock, only to find out it is worth less than 10k now. Slowly, you learn about certain events such as Charity Corner, and an overall deflation of many once valuable goods that occurred in your absence. Taking a loss on the Wocky morphing potion, you restock a Fire Kyrii Morphing Potion sometime after—a rarity 99 potion, which you think surely must still have retained its value. Ultimately you end up with a mere 60k profit, which is better than nothing you suppose. You bemuse that in October 2011, Water Draik Morphing Potions were released for sale at Kauvara’s. Among your guild were jokes of who would restock one first, followed by you making a declaration that you would be the one to do so, despite only having just restocked your first morphing potion not too long ago. Playing along, your guild mates bought that confidence and set those expectations with high hopes for you. Nine years later, you consider the fact that you still haven’t restocked that Water Draik Morphing Potion, but wonder if any of your old Neofriends ever did succeed in beating you to it. Restocking, despite fully individualistic in nature, always felt like a group activity in the past. Even when not engaging in friendly competition within a guild, you would half expect one of your best TC Neofriends to neomail you with an eager invitation to restock “together” at any moment. You now gawk at the empty “None of your Neofriends are currently online” to your left, as if a mockery of the past, and sadly resume refreshing.

     Over the course of the month, you visit the TC intermittently, in hopes of some excitement like that of the days gone by. You post messages in a few boards, low key hoping that someone you once knew would show up under a new persona and reconnect, but no such luck prevails. You do recognize a few big names originating from the same era, some also returning to Neopets just recently, and wonder if they would remember you too, although they’ve hailed from different walks of life and different guilds back in the day. Despite hopeful posting, you feel a tinge of awkwardness as you no longer fit into the new framework of the TC, and wonder if that sense of belonging has escaped you for good. Ultimately, you spot a couple of fun auction boards as if a blast from the past. Surprisingly, having successfully sniped only a mere secret lab map piece once or twice in your life, your hopeful click-bid for a Zafara Double Agent Plushie auctioned at 1 Neopoint increments actually manages to go through at the last second—competition virtually nonexistent. Nonetheless, the feelings from the past returned for a brief second.

     A certain sadness wells up inside of you as you relive those moments from a decade ago—ones that feel like they happened just yesterday. You recount how your days on the TC might have translated to real-life successes in your absence. Surely the complexity of Neopian economics prepared you for your economics courses and business degree overall. Or perhaps your hours dedicated to restocking were crucial to buying those elusive concert tickets that one time, moments as they appeared for sale. Either way, the days spent on Neopets with the community has partly shaped you into the person you are today. The lessons and values gained from the community and dear friends have stuck with you despite the passage of time. Although the community of the TC may be a fraction of what it was before, you hold onto these memories as to not forget the important lessons you’ve learned along the way. You do your best to remember even the little things, because then at the very least, the TC you once knew will live on in your memory. The people you once bonded with might have gone their ways, but you’re sure that they must hold similar sentiments towards the TC, with the rich history it holds, no matter where they are today. After all, those precious times and the wonderful community meant so much to you, there’s no way it didn’t mean anything for others too.

     As the month’s end draws near, you wonder what the New Year will spell for Neopets, the TC, and for yourself as a Neopian, without the advent calendar reasoning you initially had for revisiting the site. Despite the frequent hiatuses over the years, and often only momentary visits, you know that you’ll find your way back here eventually for whatever reason. And who knows? Maybe next time you’ll happen to reconnect with that old Neofriend you haven’t heard from in 10 years, or finally restock that elusive Water Draik Morphing Potion.

     Before signing off for the day, you throw a Starry Scorchio Plushie, now found for just 7k by the Shop Wizard, into your gallery for good measure—to keep it as a memento and reminder for how far you’ve come since that fated day when you first stepped into the TC.