Remembering What We Stand For

It has been roughly six years since I stumbled into Neopia as a beginner. Since then, I have watched Neopia undergo many changes. While some of them are for the better, some of them are for the worse as well. In any case, I quite enjoy telling the newer people about how things used to be. (Anytime I say we, I mean my friends and I. Mostly it is just my two best friends and me, but other people have graced our adventures as well. Of course, anytime I say people, I mean people I had to put up or deal with.) Any names I mention are probably my pets. The following shall be the fullest overview of my beginning times that I have ever given--so listen carefully.

Obviously the way Neopia looks has changed quite much. The whole layout is different (good job by the way), but that is not what I intend to focus on. My focus lies in the smaller things that younger players have probably never encountered.

Did you know that faeries used to wear pants, instead of dresses? It's true! I still have a picture with some of the faeries wearing pants on my computer.

I recall when Maraqua was above water. I also recall when it started to sink. And all the days and days that all you could do was watch it sink. Then one day it was under water and totally inaccessible.

It was common to get random events of plain color paint brushes, codestones, and neggs. This is not really something you see, per se, but back then random events were a lot more frequent. But I will get to why that was later....

There used to be a crack in the ice of the Ice Caves. If you clicked it, you would see a dinosaur munching on leaves, then you would be transported to Tyrannia.

The Grundo Gym! I still have my lifetime membership card, but it does not do me a whole lot of good now. What was the Grundo Gym you ask? ...Actually, it has been so long that I do not properly remember. Next!!!

The worst disaster that could ever happen: when Neopets was down, you got something similar to a 404 error page and could play games (not for points or anything). For neoaddicts like me, it was torture, not being able to play or explore when I wanted to!

There was once a poll asking if the Pant Devil should be allowed to steal things from your safety deposit box....

Magical plushies. Yes, nowadays we all know that if your pet plays with one it will turn into what the toy was of. However, way back when, we had no idea what they would do. My friend got a magical Meerca plushie and let his pet play with it. The next thing we knew, his nice painted pet turned into a red Meerca. Oops.

Have you seen my Faerie Kacheek and Desert Shoyru? I will tell you a secret. I did not actually buy paint brushes for them. I won the right to paint all four of my original pets from doing sponsor activities. Sweet.

The way of thinking in Neopia has vastly changed as well. The ideas and customs back then compared to now are quite different! That’s what makes *older* players and newer players clash so much, I think.

People judged your wealth by the number of pets you had, not by how much money in neopoints or items you claimed to own.

Having merely half a million neopoints was really really rich. Of course having more made you super duper rich.

The SDB was the only safe haven a person could trust.

When people started a conversation with you, they first mentioned your pets. They would say how nice they looked, or ask some random question about them before pestering you with what they really wanted.

Your Neopet always came before making money.

Finding the perfect petpet that matched well with your pet was more serious than how much profit your shop made (for my circle of friends anyway).

Newer players would actually ask for advise and not demand I give them... waiiiiit, that’s not true. I did have people bug me about giving stuff away. And I gave them the “I don’t do pity party charity” speech. In general, though, new players were not quite so rude as some are now! I say this because I was a new player. No, I do not say no0b or newb or anything of the sort because I know what the words actually mean. Do you? *evil laughter* NEXT!!!

Okay, here is the most fun part! There is no other way to describe it except to say this is the way things were. Plain and simple. Laugh if you must, but it is quite true.

The Haunted Woods was too scary to venture into at night. Yes, I am serious! My friends and I at least would go running away from it as fast as we could.

There was no submit button in the item drop box. That is how my purple Bruce accidentally drank a yellow Kacheek potion. *sighs*

The Pant Devil and Dr. Sloth were your worst enemies. The Pant Devil of course could steal anything he wanted from you (hence the SDB being the safe spot) and Dr. Sloth frequently would zap your items into piles of sludge. How rude! And now other... People... can run up and steal your items. Good thing we have galleries now!

The Treasure Map game used to be an actual game. It was a clue hunt. You followed clues all around the site and at the end of all the clues you would get a random piece of a map.

Neopets was virtually unknown. You had to literally explain what it was to people off the site if they were not already addicted. (Now it's uber popular and just saying the name gets people to respond!!)

We liked to pretend our pets were... real. People these days seem to think pets are not worth the time, money, or effort! *cries* Like I said, our world revolved around our pets. We gave our pets personalities and attitudes. Like, Brat is totally a lazy pet, but I love him just the same. Icy is the quiet and shy girly girl, Caleo is the practical detective, and Eyrie is my grateful little fighter. We made up adventures to go on with neofriends (before plots were so common), and played games with our pets all day long. Yeah. We used to play on neo all day long and have to be dragged away from the monitors. It is hard for me to believe that some people do not even take the time to play with their pets...

Of course, the cost of certain items that have skyrocketed were really cheap back then. I really wish I would have saved all my secret lab map pieces. I could have had a whole set that I FOUND instead of spending so much to buy them. Oh well, life goes on.

People did not rely so much on nonsense speak. People did use things like lol and brb, but for the most part people used words. You know, actual words. Nowadays I am lucky to understand any of the new players. Sometimes I wonder if their keyboards only have 5 letters each or something....

People could neomail you and bug you all the time and there was nothing you could do about it. I love the neo friends only options.

Well, how is that for a history lesson. Hey! Wake up! I wasn’t that boring, was I? Hope you enjoyed my little reminiscing. Feel free to mail me with comments.