Finding Your Niche

Every day, thousands of Neopets users log on to the site and enjoy themselves. The way in which each user spends their time on Neopets is unique to them, and it can be an adventure to find your own place on the site. With so many options to choose from, one can spend hours, and even days, on Neopets! However, for some users, sometimes discovering your strengths and passions can be quite difficult. If you are one of those users, hopefully this guide can help you find what speaks to you.

Collecting

Arguably one of the most popular activities on Neopets is collecting. Since there is an endless amount of items scattered throughout the site, collecting is made extremely easy! Below are a list of some of the most popular items to collect, and a description of each.

• Secret avatars – Undoubtedly the most widely collected items are secret avatars. Avatars are 50px by 50px icons that can be earned by doing a certain task. Once you have added an avatar to your collection, you can use it on the Neoboards. Many people enjoy collecting avatars because completing such tasks is highly amusing or challenging, and others simply love to see their avatar count go up! Still, others compete with each other to see who can earn the most avatars. After all, there is a high score list for a reason, right? There is also a forum of avatar collectors on the Neoboards, found here.


• Stamps – Stamps are probably the second-most collected item on Neopets. You can buy stamps from multiple postage stores all across Neopia. Your stamp album consists of many different smaller albums, and it is a stamp collector's objective to collect every stamp. However, this goal is extremely daunting, as completely filling even one stamp album can cost over 100,000,000 NP! Because of the great expense, many people never collect very rare stamps. Nonetheless, collecting stamps for pure enjoyment is also common.


• Neodeck cards – Collecting cards for your Neodeck is also a fairly popular activity on Neopets. Unlike collecting avatars and stamps, when you collect Neodeck cards, you have the option of removing them from your Neodeck. This way, you are not really losing any neopoints by spending them on cards (assuming the price of each card does not change). Collecting Neodeck cards can be an investment for some players, because once a trophy is earned, you can sell them (or not)!


• Trophies – Trophies are earned by getting high scores, participating in site events, and earning some sort of recognition. Many users like to earn trophies to show off on their user lookups, because anyone who visits your user lookup will be forced to stare in awe at your collection of trophies! Contrary to popular belief, earning many trophies is not as hard as it seems. All it takes is practice, good timing, and a little bit of luck!
• Mass collecting – Some people collect items, just for the sake of owning a lot of them! While these tend to be cheap, "rubbish" items, users select one item they like for a particular reason and hoard them in their safety deposit box. Some people collect only a few hundred, while others collect thousands of the same items. Usually, mass collections are placed in your safety deposit box because your inventory cannot hold many items. You could also mass collect a theme of items, such as Fyora-related or plushies, and display them in your gallery.

Pets

Neopets, being a virtual pet site, obviously emphasizes its pets. There are many things a user can do with their pets, and many Neopians only log on to do such things!

• Characterization – Many users like to create characters for their pets. They give each pet their own personality, descriptions, stories, art, you name it! Some users even like to roleplay with their pets once their characters have been created.


• Customization – Since the revamp of 2007, users have been able to customize their pets with different clothing. From the release of the first wearable clothing, pet customization has become immensely popular. There are neopoint wearables, which can be bought with regular neopoints, and neocash wearables, which must be bought with actual money. Customization allows users to really show off their pets' characters, especially if one lacks artistic or written skill. Still, some people customize simply because they love to dress their pets up! Customization is so popular that people even trade their neocash wearables with each other!
• Pet trading – Many people strive to achieve their dream Neopets, and they like to do so by trading for them. The pet trading community has grown over the years, and every day hundreds of people trade their pets in order to add a permanent member to their neo-family.

Guilds

Guilds are small communities that a Neopets user can create or join. Members of guilds are able to chat exclusively with each other and participate in guild-wide activities determined by other members. Each guild offers its own uniqueness to the overall Neopian community, and allows places for members to get to know each other and form friendships. Some guilds are public, which means they allow everyone to join. Other guilds are private and require an invitation to join. These guilds may have their own sets of requirements to join, based on the owner's discretion. There is a guild for everyone; you just have to keep your eyes open! Because of the many advantages that guilds can offer, they are very popular within the site.

Spotlights

Many users find themselves competing for a coveted spot on one of Neopets' published pages. These varying contests test a user's abilities in art, writing or other miscellaneous skills. Often they reward items and trophies, but one notable feature is the publication of the work. The winners are kept forever in the Neopets archives so their entries can always been seen.

• Art – Certain contests gauge the user's creativity and talents through art-related challenges. These include the Art Gallery, Beauty Contest, User lookup Spotlight and Site Spotlight. Both the Art Gallery and Beauty contest accepts all types of art forms including digital, traditional sketches, painted art and even clay, while the User lookup and Site Spotlights tend to favour digital art and coding.


• Writing – There are plenty of different writing contests users can take part in, including the Caption Contest, Neopian Times, Pet and Petpet Spotlight, Poetry Contest and Storytelling Contest. While the Poetry and Storytelling Contest focus on two specific writing styles, the Neopian Times takes stories and articles, such as this guide you are reading, for submission.


• Other – There are a few miscellaneous contests users can enter in, namely the Random Contest or Neohome Spotlight. The Random Contest changes every few weeks and could test a user's creativity through writing, drawing or another form of art, or something totally different. Alternatively, you could choose to create a neohome to fill with furniture and submit to the Spotlight, which is also featured on the Neopets homepage.

Games

Neopets was created not only with virtual pets in mind, but hundreds and hundreds of games to keep users entertained and challenged. Games vary in difficulty and style, making them a challenge for those who play.

• Flash Games – There are hundreds of different flash games users can play, too many to name them all! Some involve clicking and precision with your mouse, others need specific letters on your keyboard or the directional arrows. Users can send 3 scores each day for any game and users that score among the top 17 will be awarded trophies.


• Non-Flash Games – If flash games are too slow on your computer, you can always play one of the non-flash games. While many are luck in nature, you can also play the storyline based Neoquest I and Neoquest II. Users can still earn trophies from these games, but many of these trophies are based on how far a player has made it in the game, rather than a particular score.


• Kadoatery – One notable non-flash game that many people enjoy is feeding Kadoaties at the Kadoatery. Kads, as they are known, become hungry and request certain food items to be made happy again. Users rush to shops to quickly purchase the necessary item and feed the Kad to increase their number of feeds. Since it is a very competitive activity, only a certain number of users tend to make it a fulltime hobby.


• World Challenges – Every day, certain flash games are selected from the different Neopian lands for the World Challenge. Players compete directly with those who enter the challenge for that game, where the user sends their best score in hopes of beating other players. Successful winners receive a piece of the specific Neopian land's map (different than the treasure map items), which can be converted for prizes.


• Key Quest – This is a specialty virtual board game where you can play against other Neopets users. You choose a starting location, play on one of several different board designs and roll a die to move along to collect keys. Once a key of each colour is earned, the first to the Door wins! Prizes are awarded depending on how well a player places in the game.


• Battledome – Many serious Neopians turn to the Battledome to test their pet's strength. You can fight other users or generic Neopets characters at three difficulties. It does require investment into weapons to use, which can cost anywhere from a few thousand NP to hundreds of millions. The Battledome is complemented with constant training from the Academy in Krawk Island and the Training School at Mystery Island. This is a longer term endeavor compared to many other hobbies, although anyone can begin at easier levels.

Though this guide has highlighted the areas of Neopia, you are more than welcome, even encouraged, to try multiple activities. Many happy and successful users love several different areas. You might want to start with one activity at first to improve your skills before taking on multiple hobbies. At the end of the day, you make your own Neopets experience – do what things you love!