When you’ve been in the game for a while, your addiction may start to reach levels you couldn’t have previously imagined. Too much of your brainpower goes into this hobby, but you don’t quite care because it’s just so much fun! Here are some things I’ve experienced during my avatar collecting career that I know (hope, think, wish) I’m not alone on – A.K.A. you know you’re addicted to avatars when…
You consider Typing Terror the source of your excellent typing speed and accuracy.
You’ve seen Faerie Bubbles or Destruct-o-Match when you’ve closed your eyes to fall asleep.
You’ve spent 100,000, 1 million, or even 10 million Neopoints on the Rich!, Richer!, and Richest! avatars… a sizeable portion of your bank account for literally nothing but an icon.
You’ve spent days, weeks, or months calling out to strangers on the Neoboards to lend you their most prized possessions.
You’ve done something a little extreme – I bought a mouse for my laptop just to be able to play Snow Wars II!
You’ve made a mess of your entire house during the process of creating your Random Contest submission.
You’ve gotten out a pen, paper, and calculator to sit down and think through the Lenny Conundrum.
You’re constantly making new goals… “once I get this avatar I’ll be done” – but it never stops, does it?
You haven’t used even a third of your avatars.
You’re still not over Bonju.
…or the wishing well.
Missing those one-day-only retired avatars hurts more than anything :’(
Stamp avatars probably seem like an unobtainable, far off dream.
There’s that one game avatar we think we’ll never get… which later (hopefully) becomes our pride and joy (I’m looking’ at you, Ice Cream Machine)!
New avatars in the new features are like Christmas and your birthday all wrapped into one.
You wasted a fountain faerie quest on making a buzz (sorry to buzz lovers)… and then didn’t know what to do with it.
Random avatars will be the death of you. Clicking the same button every day for years on end, and nothing? Come on.
Borrowing other people’s pets for a day is just an ordinary occurrence.
You’ve at one point or another vowed to never play NeoQuest II again.
You’re disappointed at the Meerca Brother avatar you got (red, if only…).
No matter what, you make sure to always complete every single step of every single plot and event, because who knows if there will be an avatar and what the requirements might be?
You accidentally lose your Usuki Shopkeeper avatar once in a while… or are stuck with her on your user lookup for the rest of eternity! (Or, you’ve lost your Daily Dice avatar. I promise, you’re just tempting fate!)
You’ve made King Skarl feel a lot of feels… and a lot of nothing at all.
You’ve transformed your pet into a hideous mutant with Neopoints you’ll never get back.
You pray every single day that the Snowager will not only blast your pets but also be so kind as to give you a little avatar gift.
When you look through your avatar list, you realize you have ones that you forgot even existed! Sorry, guys!
You will never ever enter the chocolate shop ever again… and you probably bought a lot of worthless junk thinking it was rare on your way to the avatar.
But why does the Darigan Pteri have to be exactly 644 days old??? Am I missing some kind of reference here?
You played all of Sewage Surfer just to quit at the end :(
You may have swapped genders to get a different Royal Korbat avatar… or you may have realized you could have done this too late *raises hand*
Let’s face it – once a packrat, always a packrat. You’ll never get rid of all that junk, and it’ll just keep accumulating. Truth be told, my Safety Deposit Box has about 14,000 items worth of junk.
We all have that one avatar we got way too late in the game (embarrassingly, Techo – Cheesy was my 310th…).
And that one we got way early, possibly lucking our way into it, maybe not realizing at the time how rare it was. Go us!
If you’re old like me, you’ve gotten avatars from games that have since been completely changed – maybe way harder or easier. (RIP Deckswabber, Jelly Processing Plant…)
And you might not have ever even played the new version of the game, because you have the avatar – what’s the point?!
The only time we want a visit from Sloth is so that he can “deem [us] worthy” of using his image on the Neoboards! (Otherwise, please stay away…)
You have spent hours upon hours clicking a button on a lever or refreshing at the Game Graveyard, and you question why you do all of this.
You’ll never forget your first avatar! …unless you’re me and got it by accident before you knew what an avatar was. Thanks, Dr. Death.
Finally, you have spent way more time, effort, and Neopoints, than you’d ever like to admit collecting these little guys. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have infinite pride for your lovely collection!
