Neopian Elders: What were some of the features the old Neopets had, and were they better/worse than now?

[lilshadowdweller]

I actually missed the "General Chat". They used to have a chat feature (before Avatars even came about), where you could just chat about anything - even if it wasn't Neopet's related! Obviously, that part caused a lot of problems. People would post spam, or start debates, but as I'm a talker, I liked it.

 

And of course, there was this cool thing I had mentioned before were you could obtain "Fountain Passes" to bathe your pet in the Faerie Fountain and choose ANY colour for FREE. (Basically, you had to sign up with Neopet sponsors. ) I had painted most of my pets this way. Unfortunately, I recall TNT stating in an editoral that they will probably never do it again.

 

Also, some users could DESIGN their own pets; they would submit their idea if their idea won, their pet would be official! Zafara was created this way. They rid of that due to legal issues. They changed those pets too so they couldn't get into trouble.

 

And of course, I miss a lot of the Unconverted pets. I know that putting clothes on your pets is awesome, but I liked their unique poses. I'm sure we all know this line, though.

 

I'd say I miss TNT being more personable with their users. But now they're more "stable" and official.

 

I may be misremembering, but I don't recall near as many people getting in trouble for minor offenses like setting off the filters.

 

I totally remember this being an issue in my earliest days of TNT. They may not have been as strict, but I still remember being warned or frozen was a big possibility.

 

Things I don't miss:

 

Cookie Grabbers! More hacks/ways to get into people's accounts. (It's a littler more safer now.)

[rainbowdream]

There are some things that are a lot better, like for example the fact that they don't have human pets like they did in the very early days haha. Also in general the art is better now, with the exception of some painted pets (Royal especially) that got pretty much ruined when they converted.

 

But I would say I miss the most how items were in general more valuable back then, as well as Neopoints. This could be me remembering things weirdly since I was barely 7 when I started playing, but now there are literally so many 1 np items from the dailies and so on that my inventory usually gets flooded with them. There were still cheap items back then, but now I could probably get a pet up to master genius or so in intelligence on a couple hundred neopoints, and I could feed all my pets on all my accounts from dying to bloated with much less. It just seems there are so many items that are just worth so little? It gets annoying when I clean out my inventory after all the dailies: I don't think I ever used to hit the 50 item limit.

 

There were also some other changes I was upset about. I spent a good amount of money to create a neohome in Maraqua when it was first discovered, then it got destroyed and when it came back the classic neohomes were never put back there. I don't like living in Neopia Central and the new Neohomes don't really appeal to me that much.

 

That and on an old account I had a Glass Quiggle that got turned into a Tyrannian one <_<.

[lilshadowdweller]

hat and on an old account I had a Glass Quiggle that got turned into a Tyrannian one <_<.\;

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I totally remember when they retired the Glass pets! It's a shame, since they could have simply turned them into Ice (same thing). But they only brought Ice in later on. AT LEAST you got your pets transformed into a decent colour! I think at one point, before I joined, they had "Unicorn Pets", and when they retired the Unicorn ones, they simply turned all of the users pets to Red! @__@

[KaylaTheHedgehog]

I totally remember when they retired the Glass pets! It's a shame, since they could have simply turned them into Ice (same thing). But they only brought Ice in later on. AT LEAST you got your pets transformed into a decent colour! I think at one point, before I joined, they had "Unicorn Pets", and when they retired the Unicorn ones, they simply turned all of the users pets to Red! @__@

 

If that ever happened to my Darigan Aisha or my Pirate Eyrie...

 

It would probably be enough to make me rage-quit the site and never come back. You guys never got a warning that it was going to happen?

[rainbowdream]

I totally remember when they retired the Glass pets! It's a shame, since they could have simply turned them into Ice (same thing). But they only brought Ice in later on. AT LEAST you got your pets transformed into a decent colour! I think at one point, before I joined, they had "Unicorn Pets", and when they retired the Unicorn ones, they simply turned all of the users pets to Red! @__@

Oh wow, I don't think I remember the Unicorn Paint Brush! That's really sad that they just ended up with a red pet :(. To be honest though, even though it's more valuable than a basic color, I hated the Tyrannian Quiggle, so really it was still very upsetting to me to have my pretty pet turn into something I didn't like at all.

 

 

 

If that ever happened to my Darigan Aisha or my Pirate Eyrie...

 

It would probably be enough to make me rage-quit the site and never come back. You guys never got a warning that it was going to happen?

No, I don't believe so. I've read that apparently there was a user poll beforehand that said the colors were "boring", but still I'm pretty sure I logged into a nasty surprise that day >:[. I've long lost the side account I had that pet on, so really it doesn't matter as much to me since the pets on my main account have been safe from changes like that. Also, I doubt they'd completely change a paintbrush color nowadays since they all are so established as items and such around the site. At most, they might change the art like they did with conversion, but I doubt it would be very drastic, and that's unlikely now with all the Neocash items.

[Crystalline]

I haven't been around as long as some others (I joined in 2001), but I have taken a lot of long breaks from Neopets so it's fairly easy for me to notice the differences. I think most of the big points have been covered already, but I do think that there are a lot more site events than there used to be. Maybe I'm misremembering, but I remember that major site events that give out trophies (wars, plots, etc.) only happened maybe once a year or every other year. Now they have a Daily Dare and an Altador Cup every year, while still producing wars and plots. I think it's a lot of fun to be able to participate in these kind of events, but they're also pretty exhausting. The fact that these trophies are one-time deals makes me want to participate, but the sheer frequency of them just eats up too much of my time.

 

Also, and I know this is beating a dead horse, but I really wish they had given us more of a choice in customization (or let us create new unconverted pets if we wanted). Again, maybe I'm misremembering, but it seems like one day the pets were unconverted and overnight everything changed. If they had given us more warning, then I would have a UC Royal Girl Kyrii right now. Still pretty upset about this, tbh. >:[

[KaylaTheHedgehog]

No, I don't believe so. I've read that apparently there was a user poll beforehand that said the colors were "boring", but still I'm pretty sure I logged into a nasty surprise that day >:[.

 

Ooh, you all have my sympathy. I can't imagine how that must have felt. It may not be very likely to happen again, but since there is a precedent for it, it still makes me a tad bit nervous.

 

Maybe I'm misremembering, but I remember that major site events that give out trophies (wars, plots, etc.) only happened maybe once a year or every other year. Now they have a Daily Dare and an Altador Cup every year, while still producing wars and plots. I think it's a lot of fun to be able to participate in these kind of events, but they're also pretty exhausting. The fact that these trophies are one-time deals makes me want to participate, but the sheer frequency of them just eats up too much of my time.

 

Also, and I know this is beating a dead horse, but I really wish they had given us more of a choice in customization (or let us create new unconverted pets if we wanted). Again, maybe I'm misremembering, but it seems like one day the pets were unconverted and overnight everything changed. If they had given us more warning, then I would have a UC Royal Girl Kyrii right now. Still pretty upset about this, tbh. >:[

 

Feh, I'd like to see AAA take a stroll through the Anubis Toxicology Reports looking for a few specific scrolls. Then, he can brag about just how smart and clever he is.

[GlitteryCupcake]

I might be wrong about this, but wasn't there a way to train your pets by playing some type of gym game?

[Crystalline]

I might be wrong about this, but wasn't there a way to train your pets by playing some type of gym game?

Wow, I forgot about that game! I don't remember if it actually trained your pets' stats or not, but I remember my sister played it so many times that she got a gym membership card or something like that.

[cleomiele]

I think I first started playing in late 2000 or 2001, but I agree with basically everything that has already been said! My very first account and several of my sides have been swept for inactivity, and my second-wave account still stands but I can't remember the birthday I used (I can't be the only one that's been "18" since I was 10, right?) which is a shame because I still have a UC Darigan Scorchio there :(

 

The biggest differences between my first days of playing Neo and the present are the NC Mall and the customization aspect of the site. I vividly remember the pre-NC Mall 'protests' that went on and reluctantly subsided when we were assured it wouldn't be a huge deal, nor would you HAVE to pay money for anything on the site. However, now they're implementing NC cash into plots and random events (crafting faerie) and such, and it felt sort of funny to me during the Obelisk plot, for example, that you earned the casks from fighting but they could only be opened by purchasing keys. I know we didn't HAVE to buy them but it just really struck a chord with me to show how different the nature of Neopets is in the present day. As for customization, I like some of the clothes and backgrounds, but like others have said I really wish we had the option to use UC art. They've really changed some pets so much that they just aren't appealing to me anymore, or even true to their original design! Grey pets don't look as grey as they used to, Darigan pets don't look as mean as they once did and, in particular, I remember a lot of the Faerie and Maraquan pets had such majestic poses and now they're just...exactly like all the others. That's a pretty petty complaint, I guess, but it'd be nice to just have that option, you know?

 

Not having ads was also nice back in the day, and I liked knowing when stores would restock. I feel like the community might have been more open back then; I used to frequent several boards and it was always easy to be a part of the conversation and make new friends, etc. Now it seems like there are more divisions, I guess, and there are a lot more private guilds with a lot of requirements to join...I'm not sure how to describe how it's different but I think that has changed too! Like someone else said, I do think it's a LOT easier to earn NP now, though; I recall it taking literally a couple YEARS for me to make my first million NP (literally! and I played quite frequently!) and now that can be done in a month or two if you really want it to happen. I also remember petpets being SOOO expensive! It blew my mind when I came back after I think 5 years and found that you could buy dozens (if not hundreds) of petpets for 1-100 NP! I think it's easier to get your hands on rare-ish or easy to sell items now too, which is a plus.

 

The other thing I think I miss the most about the old neo was the older plots. This Obelisk plot really confused me because I wasn't really sure what was going on outside of skirmish after skirmish, and it took so long for the results to come out that I had already forgotten about it and I'm STILL not really sure what happened...I wasn't totally dedicated to reading updates on the forums or boards or anything, but the old plots just felt more...cohesive, maybe. I loved the comics they used to use that gave you some context if not an entire backstory for the conflict and what you had to defeat or do, and I think that made me feel more invested in them. I feel similarly about site events now; a lot of them just feel like endless clicking to participate and get prizes now, but I don't think it was always that way. I rather miss the classic neohomes too; saving up to live in Faerieland or Maraqua also took a long time! Speaking of which, I miss Faerieland being on a cloud as well :( but of course that's another minor complaint.

 

With all that said, nostalgia plays a part in how we remember things as well, so I could be wrong about a lot of this :P still, interesting thread!

[Bright ^_^]

Oh my gosh, I just ran into this! The neopets cam!I

http://www.neopets.com/neocam.phtml

 

I totally remember being little and pressing the refresh button so that I could see the people walking through the office and working at their computers. I think in the old days there was a closer connection between the users and the creators/employees of Neopets. Now it all seems so impersonal.