Account Improvement 101: User Lookup & Account Stats

     This is the first part of a two-part series that aims to give an overview of account improvement for newbies/returning players, as well as point out some resources and useful guides.

     1. Lookups

     One of the first things people see when they look up a user is, well, the user lookup. Many people keep the default layout for their user lookup, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, I truly like how clean and neat it is. However, if you want to get a little fancy or show off your creative side, there are lots of resources you can use to customise your lookup to your liking. Even if you’re not much for coding, there are plenty of premade templates available out there.

     Various recommended fansites such as SunnyNeo and The Daily Neopets have created graphics and coding that are available for everyone to use. Many lovely users have also spent a lot of their time and effort to make templates to share with everyone. Some of my favourite templates come from petpages such as Whitespace (/~Xaia), Jinx (/~Fiziwhig), Floral (/~Niwi), and Silent Serenity (/~Tines). Be sure to check out their affiliates as well, there are lots of talented artists and coders that I haven’t mentioned in this article.

     Most of the aforementioned resources also offer templates for pet lookups, which is what people see when they search for your pet. If you’re feeling particularly dedicated (or, like me, are a stickler for consistency) you can customise your pet’s lookup too.

     Remember, the most important thing to do when using someone else’s template, whether from a fansite or a petpage, is to credit the creators. All these wonderful people spend their personal time and effort on these projects, so the least we can do is give credit where credit is due. Stealing is a no-no!

     2. Account Statistics

     Now, you don’t have to have 350 avatars or a gazillion stamps, but having some decent numbers on your user lookup goes a long way. For most people, having a good avatar count is more than enough. If you’re a completionist (or crave the serotonin boost from achieving arbitrary numbers on Neopets.com), you can consider increasing your stamp, NeoDeck, and site theme numbers too. As for the Key Quest tokens and one-player BD wins, they’re not as important. Key Quest is no longer a thing (RIP), and you can’t increase the BD wins anyway, since it’s tied to the old Battledome.

     (a) Avatars

     These are the little icons you see next to your post on the Neoboards. You can change your avatar on the Neoboard Preferences page. There are a number of default avatars that are available to all players and hundreds more that you can obtain through various methods on the site, such as by clicking on certain pages, interacting with certain items or owning certain pets.

     The easiest way to check for which avatars you are missing would be to use Jellyneo’s Avatar Checklist Tool, which generates a list of avatars that you need and includes the methods on obtaining them. Another helpful guide is /~Avatiers, which ranks the avatars based on their difficulty to obtain. It hasn't been updated in a while, but it's still very useful when you’re trying to decide which avatar to go for next.

     For some avatars, you may need to use expensive items (e.g. the ‘Queen Fyora’ avatar, which requires your pet to play with a Faerie Queen Doll), or own a certain pet/petpet (e.g. the ‘Whee!’ avatar, which requires you to have a Snowbunny attached to your pet for 364+ days). Don’t fret, kind users on the Avatar Chat of the Neoboards often lend out the required items/pets. Many lenders will check out your account to decide whether to lend to you, so it’s always a good idea to spruce your account up a little before seeking lends. For example, make sure you’ve obtained all the easy-to-get avatars (like the clickables), and take good care of your pets (i.e. they’re not hungry or sick).

     When seeking item lends, it’s always good etiquette to offer collateral, either in the form of pure Neopoints or items of similar value. This serves as a form of insurance in case something goes wrong. Keep some Pant Devil Attractors and/or other cheap junk in your inventory too, just in case an item-stealing random event occurs. Nothing more painful than losing someone else’s Bony Grarrl Club to the Pant Devil!

     Also, a PSA: Flash will be retiring at the end of this year (December 2020), so get your flash game avatars before then!

     (b) Other numbers:

     Stamp collecting is a popular activity to do on Neopets, but it can get really expensive, especially for stamps that are required for stamp avatars. For example, the famous Coltzan Stamp (which is needed for the ‘Stamp Collector - Lost Desert’ avatar) has been known to sell for hundreds of millions of Neopoints! However, if you just want to collect stamps to increase your stamp count, there are many, many affordable stamps out there. A brief search on Jellyneo’s Item Database shows that there are around 274 stamps that cost less than 5,000 NP apiece. When you’re looking for stamps to buy, Jellyneo’s Stamp Checklist is a useful resource and the Jellyneo Item Database is very handy too. You can search for all the stamps available in Neopia by setting the ‘Shop/Category’ to ‘Stamps’ and ‘Status’ to ‘Active’ (you can sort by price or limit the price range too if you’d like).

     Collecting NeoDeck cards is not quite as popular as collecting Stamps, but if you have Neopoints to spare, you can consider filling up your NeoDeck as well. As always, the trusty Jellyneo has a NeoDeck Card Checklist for you to see which cards you are missing, and you can always use the Item Database to quickly check prices.

     Another number on your user lookup is ‘site themes’. These alter the appearance of the Neopets interface (you can change your theme on the Site Preferences page). Many themes are available through participating in site events such as plots, while others are obtained by doing certain actions at certain times of the year. The easiest way to increase your site theme count is to participate in the biweekly Battleground of the Obelisk. If you side with the winning faction, you will be awarded that faction’s site theme and an avatar. There are also several seasonal site themes such as the Winter Holiday theme (awarded through the Advent Calendar in December) and the Altador Cup theme (awarded for participating in the yearly Altador Cup).

     That concludes this week’s edition of Account Improvement 101! Stay tuned for the next edition, where we will learn about taking care of your pets and earning trophies.

     Author’s Note: Credits to the various fansites (Jellyneo, SunnyNeo, and The Daily Neopets), which I used to fact-check this article and which are indispensable to my Neopets experience. Shoutout to Mexxy (owner of Whitespace at /~Xaia), Gnome (owner of Jinx at /~Fiziwhig), Sunlit (owner of Floral at /~Niwi), Simple & Fly (owners of Silent Serenity at /~Tines), and Kait (owner of /~Avatiers) for creating such wonderful resources for the Neopets community!