Secre

Well, I've done some of them. No draik egg, lab rat, wheel of monotony, King Skarl, kadoaties, Turmy or concert... I do keep trying Skarl and Turmy mind you.

I'm mainly games for day to day winnings - depending on how much time I have I can pick up 40k to 70k on games a day (far less if I actually have to work, I admit). Add that to the money from the GhoulCatchers game which is an additional 50,000np, my bank interest and Trudy and it's not a bad immediate pick up. Particularly if the Forgotten Shore pays up as well. I then do dailies and sell off random stuff in my shop - Igloo Garage and the Second-Hand Shop is my main haunt for that in honesty, along with the mostly crud items that come from dailies. I tend to try my hand at the story telling and got a petpet worth a (small) fortune last time I won... not that I've managed to sell it yet! I have stocks but I had been selling them off too soon according to others here - I'd been waiting for them to hit 20np from 15np and taking that as a win. I'm going to sit on my shares longer and see what happens. I hadn't thought about the Food betting - just put in a couple of bets and we'll see!

Whoop whoop!! My scores have all been accepted AND I’m still first in Kreludor Caves. Hopefully nobody else grinds like hell at that game and gets approved by midnight tonight. I don’t think it’s fair that you don’t get the trophy regardless but there’s not much I can do about that! I think they just have a single cutoff point regardless of what you have scored previously. Otherwise my Crisis Courier scores wouldn’t keep on getting reviewed as it’s clear I can now hit 12,000 without any issues. That’s a relief, if a little late for my pets! I mean, it was one hell of a shock. And my pet hadn’t even been painted for all that long as I recall! It was less than a year, I think. Most aggravating. Thanks! I moved a couple of pets across from my side on realising I could have more than four now, so the lutari and shoyru need attention before I think of re-painting tdub!

Sorry, my fault for not checking my spelling. Tdub used to be painted faerie but he is also my neoquest pet. During the ridiculous amount of clicking to get around the map, he got hit by a random event turning him invisible. I now have him painted cloud and have attached wings to him in the closet until I get Neoquest gold trophy and have the wherewithal to repaint him. Admittedly faerie paint brushes are way cheaper now by almost two million, but it's still a hefty amount of points to spend... particularly when you already did it once! I have not made the mistake twice mind. My royal lupe is NEVER my active pet!! But his old paintjob is in my signature and I hadn't seen that in a looong time! I love the look of the oilpaint or the relic peophin and the maraquan lutari, so I suspect that will be my next paint job... eventually. I'm currently collecting neopoints and hopefully trophies, building up my gallery and a couple of other bits and bobs so I may take a while to get there. In terms of the scores, I have always been approved within 24 hours before so the two day wait took me by surprise. But yes, it wouldn't surprise me if I didn't get that trophy now!!!

Also keep an eye on the current issues. I got accepted twice in the past and once was because I focused on a particular issue linked to the site plot going on at the time. But if you look at what is published at any time, it tends to link to events or news if there is any - another example would be the news that Fyora was stepping down as Faerie Queen; near enough the entire Times issue was dedicated to stories about Fyora or the faeries. So if something is announced and it sparks an idea in your head, jump on it! I keep meaning to give it another shot now I'm active again, but that means getting my backside in gear and actually writing something.

I think the site has a different member base now - whilst a lot of players have fallen to the wayside, there are a significant amount of members who log in for nostalgia and the member base is probably ten to fifteen years older than it once was on average. The site still mostly works for me although it took me a long time to figure out how to enable flash, I admit. The only things that really don't work are minor aspects like the Splat a Sloth. There are definitely less people on the site - that shows in the game scores and how much easier it now is to get trophies. But there's still a significant following I think. Without an overhaul, I suspect the site will just keep on limping along. If they get rid of flash and bring it into the modern age it could have another run though easily. The basis is all there.

I have been trying to improve scores and aim for trophies recently in light of the working (or not) from home and I now have 6000NP squirrelled away in the neopian 'your scores are being reviewed by staff' bank of no return. Five are for Crisis Courier and my scores aren't even that awesome yet - about 13,200 on average up from 10,000 last month so I'm getting there slowly - and one is the Kreludan Caves of doom where grinding for two hours got me a mighty score of 110,000 which would have been enough for a gold at the time but if others have done the same, might not now. Anyway, the caves one was submitted Tuesday afternoon and the Crisis Courier yesterday and today... what do you think my chances are of actually seeing my hard earned neopoints again? (Also seeing my Faerie pet makes me sad. He got his by the invisible event whilst playing Neoquest and so about 4 million neopoints went down the drain... I knew there was a reason I stopped playing for so long...)