Hey TNT, just wondering one small thing... a bunch of sites that need user accounts to be used recently have had cases of the administrators (executives, site creators, call them what you will) banning and freezing people just because they felt mean that day, or something was said that they didn't like (but didn't break the rules). Does this ever happen (or will it ever happen) on Neopets? I don't want to get frozen because someone else had a rough day. Can you remove my name? Thanks. ~[username removed]
We don't tolerate such shenanigans. We've had many employees over the years so we can't guarantee it has never happened before, but stuff like that is NOT tolerated if caught by someone else monitoring or providing email support. Generally, if someone is frozen and probably didn't deserve it, it's because of a monitor misunderstanding or misinterpreting a statement or action made by a player and not because they were upset. If they don't realise their mistake (remember, we're only human here!) and don't correct it immediately, then it's up to email support to catch it and make things right again. So if you write in to support there are going to be two people making the decision about your account (the monitor and email support). This helps prevent the type of problems you are concerned about. Remember though, the situation we just described doesn't happen that often; usually when someone is frozen, they do deserve it. (We can't count how many times we've checked into accounts that were "unfairly" frozen only to find they were, in fact, frozen for quite a legitimate reason.) If you have been frozen and know you broke the rules, please don't email support and beg/harass/lie in an attempt to get your account back. Also remember that ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law - just because someone didn't know the rule doesn't mean it's okay to break it.

I saw in one of the more recent Editorials that you can only do certain things on your certain accounts (like you can only earn Neopoints on your main account). Why can't you be able to just earn Neopoints and join guilds and whatever you want on all of your accounts? It's just this question is kind of bugging me. I'd like to know what the point of having to do certain things on certain accounts is... thanks! PS: watch out, some people like to cheat and just make a free yahoo account or something so they can have even more accounts! ~thyssle
Don't worry, we've been aware since the early days of Neopia of that little trick. ;) The reason we ask that you do most activities with your main account is basically to keep the game balanced, and also to prevent inflation. We can't even express the mind-boggling number of Neopoints that are dumped into the economy every day by Flash games and other activities. Could you imagine if that was multiplied by 5? :X The value of NP would drop and the prices of items would just inflate even more. Also, for activities that give away items, their value would plummet even more, making things less profitable for you. We're sorry if you feel it is limiting, but consider what a positive thing it is that you are encouraged to focus and improve one account instead of spreading yourself thin to build up multiple ones? (Also, you're more than welcome to join/start guilds on your side accounts, just to clear up any confusion.)

I know I already sent one question, but what about those stinky flyers on the Altadorian Archives bulletin board? The mysterious Grundo plushie? Does the Lever of Doom ever do something OTHER than taking 100 NP? I can't answer these by myself, so please answer them. ~wertyiu102
*cough*Altador Plot*cough*
It's mysterious all right.
Aside from give the avatar? Who knows?!?

*evil cackle*

Hey TNT, If we have side accounts and are connected to a guild that allows donations are we allowed to earn Neopoints to donate to that guild? Just wondering. ~i_luvz_shopping_20
No, no, no. We're sure people could come up with 1,000 different questions like this, but the answer is always the same. Do not earn NP on your side account for any reason! Please use the Trading Post or Auctions to send NP from your main account to your side in order to donate.

How come in the Neorules it says "You may not discuss religious stuff" but yet you have an emo Usuki? I'm sure that, if someone made an Usuki of another religion, they would get frozen. So why do you have emo Usuki? And SO many Neoboards are "Emos come here!" Why don't the people who create those boards get frozen? I am not expecting a reply, but I REALLY hope it gets answered! Thanks for your time! ~[username removed]
oO Okay, this was just too funny to pass up. To quote one of the best movies ever, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." The exact definition of "emo" is a bit contested we know, but while it can be considered a musical style, an emotional state, or a fashion trend, it has never been a religion and no one is breaking the rules by talking about it. However, if the conversation moves into an area (such as hurting yourself in any fashion) that is sometimes associated with emo, that is NOT to be discussed or insinuated on the boards.

Alright, many months ago, I was reading people's Petpages and someone (I don't remember who) said that they would continuously adopt Neopets from the Pound and use the Secret Lab until that Neopet was a rare color. They would then put that Neopet back in the Pound so that the Neopet would get adopted quickly. Now that I have a lot of NP that I want to use, I’d like to know if this kind of thing is allowed. I don't see why it wouldn't be, but I want to make sure it's ok so that I don't break a rule if I do it. PLEASE HELP! Thanx (please leave my username out of this). ~[username removed]
Yep, it's perfectly allowed as long as you don't attempt to gain profit from it in any way. Also, we're afraid you'll have to wait until the Pound is back up to do your good deed. Sorry about that. :X

*Insert praise here* TNT, I was wondering, would it be allowed visit the Island Mystic on sides? I understand dailies aren't allowed on sides, but all this one does is give an avvie (and occasionally make me laugh). Thanks for your time! ~:) emily_loves_tyler__c
Yes, this is fine since you don't make any profit from visiting him.

So, in the Editorial from issue 308, you mentioned that the Neopets staff members were referred to as TNT. Does that include all staff, programmers, artists and such, or is it only those we hear about? I won't be able to sleep on my pineapple bed until I know. By the way, it's quite comfortable. ~uogy
When we say TNT we mean everyone who works for Neopets, Inc. Those nutty characters like Snarkie, El Picklesaur, and others from activities like the old Altador Cup staff competition are just a tiny portion of everyone who makes up The Neopets Team. :)

Okies, quick question. I have a Neopet that I zap regularly with the Lab Ray. I have wearable clothing on this Neopet. If I was to have an article of clothing on a Neopet that could not be worn on another Neopet, would it then be unable to be zapped into a Neopet that can't wear that item? Please, I need to know before I spontaneously combust.... ~psychopoet_srt
The Neopet would be zapped and would indeed change, but the item would not show up on the new Neopet. Rather, in would end up in your closet with all the other wearable items.

Now that Neopia has experienced the Customisation Celebration, don't you think a 'Dome Day is in order? The poor, old Battledome could really use an update or two (especially QuickFight, which seems to think every pet in Neopia "doesn't exist"). ~neo_knyghtmare
Heh, you don't need to remind us that the Battledome is older than mouldy cheese. Don't worry. We'll let you in on a little secret: a BD overhaul is on our big ol' list of things to do. We're letting you know this very, very early on so you can run around panicked, inflate random items, and post the quitting boards now so it'll be all out of your system by the distant day it actually happens. :P

PS: We only tease because we love you silly BDers <3 (And we'll look into the QuickFight thing.)

Not even Mr. Insane would eat cheese this ancient...
well, unless we didn't tell him how old it was. *giggles and puts on his desk*

Hello TNT. I decided to cut to the question instead of telling you about all that "you rock" stuff. My question is: what is up with the ratings? I just noticed that there are ratings on the Neopets' lookups! Are these ratings for only the Neopet lookups or for the Neopet lookup and the Petpage? I like the rating thing, but I do not know if it is for both or not. It doesn't matter if you answer this or not; I will not die from not hearing this! *waits for answer* ~babyjubjub4ever
The rating is there for others to rate your Neopet, and isn't meant to score either your Neopets' UL or Petpages. We added it for those who do enjoy rating and being rated but have also allowed players the option to turn it off if they aren't into the whole rating thing. Remember though, it's just for fun so don't get too caught up in it. The most important thing is making you and your Neopet happy with the way he or she looks!

I think it should be illegal for someone to buy an item in the shop out from under you when you're haggling for that item. What do you think? ~xavier1966
Sorry, haggling is a fine art and it would remove a lot of skill and game play from Neopets if all you had to do was click on the item then pay for it. :X

Let's say that someone (named Greg) allowed another person (Susan) to use his art on a Neopet lookup -- as long as she gave him credit. Soon after, Greg decides to report Susan because he is mad at her (we'll say Susan insulted his hair), and he claims that she stole the art and only put the name to make it look like she didn't steal it. Do you have any way of tracking this, or are we all in danger of dishonorable content loaners? ~quenosh
Ugh, what a nasty situation. In all honesty, there's really no way for us to know all the details in a situation like that. Whoever is looking through that report would look at the image and could probably tell the name wasn't added on after the fact (like most art thieves are wont to do), but really, there's no way to tell. The monitor would have to use their best judgment (which is why some art theft appears as if it's not been taken care of - the proof wasn't definitive enough, so the user is innocent until that proof is presented). So, we think it'd be best for Susan to take down the art until it blows over and to report Greg for his shenanigans (false reporting and abusing the system to try and get someone wrongfully frozen). The same goes for someone who hosts images and decided to change that image into something inappropriate without the user knowing. We're on to that little trick, too.

Hey, TNT. In the Editorials and boards, there are always questions about self-freezing your account. I was wondering, though, how exactly do you self-freeze your account? Is there something you need to do, or do you have to submit a request, or do you just have to wait at the top of Terror Mountain in the middle of a snowstorm? Please and thanks for reading. ~akkigrl
If you need to deactivate an old side account or just really want to leave us forever *sniffle* you can go here to self-ice your account by entering your password. You'll need to write to email support if you'd like the account back after the fact. We're afraid that, if you try the Terror Mountain trick, you'll just end up with frostbite.

TNT, what if this were not a hypothetical question? ~darter330
Erm... uh... *brain a'splode*

We think this avatar says it all.

Isn't it scamming when someone on the quest board offers help on a quest, saying they'll search the Wiz, but then they buy the item and put it in their shop for an inflated price and post that they have the item? I ran into this during a faerie quest and when I was able to get the item cheaper elsewhere the person on the board Neomailed me and complained that they had the cheapest price, when it wasn't by a long shot. ~cupiedupiedoo
Ugh, the things people will do to earn a dishonest Neopoint... while putting it in their shop and informing you it is in there is rather tacky, it isn't scamming. If they tell you it's the cheapest when it really isn't, knowing full well that you can't check for yourself, then they are crossing the line. That's scamming.

I was playing Shenkuu River Rush the other day (great job on it, by the way) and I was wondering how long it took your game programmers to make it. Just a rough estimate of the time is okay. Thanks for all your hard work on the site! ~kittyshootingstar
We're glad you are enjoying it but we can't take all the credit. ;) We supplied the premise of the game, characters, etc., but the game itself was outsourced to another talented company. We don't do this often with our games, but we lack 3D animators and couldn't produce such a thing in house. We're not completely sure, but we think it took a month or two from the first phone call to the finished product (so that includes design and programming).

We are actually doing another 3D game with them that's in its early stages, but we already LOVE IT TO DEATH. OMG. We've not been able to stop playing a very, very early test version (pre-alpha) since they sent it to us. We hope everyone will love it as much as we do.

Has a regular account ever been recruited to become part of TNT? ~girls232323
We assume you mean a player who has a Neopet account? If so, then yes, many of our most dedicated TNT staffers were once players before they joined our ranks. Some of those players turned TNT are Dragona, Soup Faerie, and Snowbunny, just to name a few! That being said, many who only discovered Neopets while applying to work here have fallen in love with the site and enjoy playing as well. However, we always do our best these days to remember that we're staff first and players second, to make sure our enthusiasm for the site never overshadows responsible action (we get carried away sometimes).

**Special Notice of TNT Flubbing +1**

Sooo... there's no great way to say this so we'll start from the beginning. :P

The Support/Monitoring and Content departments had a total communication failure. While we (Content) do site stuff and write the Editorial, they (Support/Monitoring) have the thankless job of enforcing rules and dealing directly with millions of players, and it seems that somewhere along the line one head wasn't aware what the other was doing and... yeah. As such, we unknowingly gave you guys bad information on two rules we clarified here in the Editorial recently - rules we thought were correct but didn't verify. Yes, we know we stink because of it and it's really embarrassing to admit it, but we're happy to shame ourselves if needed to get the proper info out there. So, along with this rambling apology, we'd like to re-clarify some rules mentioned in a couple of Editorials. Here we go:

- "Hell" and "damn" are in fact NOT allowed, despite our big, babbling response in a past Editorial saying it was okay in certain forms. (Acronyms containing the words are also not allowed, just like acronyms containing profanity are not allowed.) While our answer was the rule at one point in time, the words have just been misused too much and the rule had to be changed to disallow them completely. So, regardless of how you use them, "hell" and "damn" are no longer allowed.

- Religious usernames are an outright no-no. Just having a username as such stirs up conversation when other users see it on the Neoboards, so these usernames had to be outlawed (same reason usernames of a political nature were already outlawed, as we mentioned in that same Editorial). This includes all religions no matter how large or small. Users with old, established accounts will be grandfathered in (meaning no worries!). Anything created recently will be looked into and we'll work with players broadsided by this, but anything created from here on out will be frozen.

- This wasn't stated in the Editorial before, but we'd like to clear this up, too. Using the word "sexy" in usernames is not allowed, either. This has been in effect for quite some time, but it's made clear now. Old usernames are again grandfathered in, but usernames of this nature will be frozen if they are created now.

So, that's it. We'd also like to apologise to the Monitors for causing confusion. Despite our attempts to help them out by clearing up the rules every week, we appeared to have made things worse this round. DX Whatever the Editorial has said in the past, they're the ones that need to enforce the rules and it's their call about what is and isn't allowed. We hope this clears things up!

And yes, they've checked other rule clarifications for inaccuracies. ;)

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