Sad pets - opinions anyone?

[Azurablue]

Hi, everyone.

 

I've been checking around and noticed some very sad NeoPets out there in Neopia. I'm not an avatar collector, so I wasn't immediately aware that this is because of an avatar. My understanding is that you don't feed or look after your Pet for a long time to get this one particular avvie.

 

Okay, here's where I sound crazy and silly.... but this depresses me terribly. I'm not in a position to have a real pet of my own, so I have three NeoPets instead. It's the closest I can come. When I see all these sad and unhappy pets, it makes me feel awful. (Yes, I know they aren't real; they're just zeroes and ones in a computer.)

 

I think of it this way: little kids come here to play. They see that you get a reward for mistreating a pet. They take this into the real world and mistreat their own, thinking this is normal. Sure, I'm simplifying it, but if you have really little kids (and I know they're on NeoPets), this is a possible outcome. If I was caught doing this as a child, my mother would have given me all kinds of punishments because this is unacceptible behaviour. Yet, this is precisely what NeoPets is teaching kids is okay. It's a form of bullying.

 

My question is: am I the only one here who thinks that this is really a bad message and wrong? I tried to ask the question in the editorials, but they wouldn't print it. Probably because I was basically asking for a ban on that particular avatar hunt. I'm not trying to take anyone's passion away from them, so please don't misunderstand me. I just don't like to give the message that bullying is okay, even if it is just cyber-pets.

 

So, what do you think? ^_^

[dawnshine]

I was unaware that there was an avatar related to sad neopets. I've known about the grey one, but that is a color specific and not so much "mood" specific. What is the avatar called/what does it look like?

 

I have thought about this before with Neopets stuff and how some of the treatments towards pets that are encouraged are a bit.... crass. Habitarium is really just working and breeding p3s until they die, allowing them just enough rest and food to carry on with their tasks. (kind of like puppy mills IRL) It's encouraged to box your p3s' into little areas so all they can do is harvest resources until they croak. Just an example of one of the "games" on neopets that may not necessarily be good at teaching kids how to treat others.

 

So while we can't put the word "skill" in a neomail, we can certainly starve and beat our pets into submission/avatar prowess. I try not to take it too much to heart though. Kids these days are playing games where you are rewarded for shooting a stranger in the face and berating them in online play. I suppose this aspect of Neo is no worse, although I guess by this definition it's surely no better.

[beruichi]

Which avatar is that? I don't recall making my pets sad or starving them to get one (unless I got it before I returned from my hiatus).

 

In any case, I don't see it as a reward for mistreating your pets. I don't see how kids will get the message that there's an incentive to treating their real pets badly. It's not a logical conclusion for me. I think kids can tell the difference between games and reality. I keep thinking about it as I write this post, but I just don't see the harm, mainly because the avatars aren't necessarily awarded because of good things; there are some avatars (e.g., the Wheel of Misfortune one) that we get because of a bad event. So what I get from this is that the avatar is more like a commemoration of something bad happening to you?

 

IDK I better stop 'cause I'm rambling and I don't think I'm making sense anymore. XD

[light_star2]

Maybe what you're referring to is the gray paintbrush, which changes pets to a saddened expression. Even though I'm aiming towards this avatar too, I do understando your argument, especially in its influence on small children, who don't yet have distinguished in their minds right from wrong. Pets already become sad if not played with or, get sick, or go long periods without eating, and the paintbrush makes them permanently sad... It really isn't a very good pet colour.

[Mariposa]

As far as I know, there are no avatars that require you to deliberately starve or mistreat your neopets. If TNT did not print your editorial question, then this is probably why. ;)

You may have come across a couple of situations, though, that would have given off that impression.

The first one I can think of has to do with pet lending etiquette.

There are lots of avatars that you can only get by feeding your pet! In many cases, the avatar requires you to feed a specific species/color of pet a specific type of food (for example, the Elephante Surprise avatar requires you to feed a bag of peanuts to an Elephante; the Pink! avatar requires feeding any Pink pet a food with the name "popcorn" in it; and so on).

Because these avatars are color/species-specific, people who own the specific type of pet will often lend it out to others so that they can also feed the pet and get the avatar. But if the lendee goes overboard with feeding the pet, this leads to problems. If the lendee feeds the pet not only the avatar item, but also feeds it repeatedly until "bloated" (or if the lendee puts the pet in the Neolodge), then this pet will be too full to eat anymore. As a result, the pet cannot be loaned out to anyone else to be fed for the avatar until its fullness goes down.

Because of this, many lenders will request that the lendee please not feed the pet any additional items or put it in the neolodge. So if you're not into avatar collecting and you happen across a neoboard post that says "Please don't feed my pet any other food!" or "Please don't put my pet in the neolodge!" it might look as if the person is trying to deliberately starve the pet, when in reality they just want to make sure that the pet is not too full to eat the required avatar items when it is loaned out again.

You may have also run across someone looking for the Bori - Grumpy avatar. Getting this avatar requires you to visit the lookup of a Plushie Bori who is in a bad mood-- either because s/he is sick or because s/he has 0 HP. Neither situation requires anyone to deliberately starve their pet, since starving a pet will not result in the pet having 0 HP. In fact, a pet can be in perfectly good health and cozily set up in the neolodge with food and games, and still have 0 HP. HP is just a battledome stat, and without it the pet simply cannot participate in another battle.

There is actually a random event that is designed to discourage people from starving their pets: your pet will turn blue if it is sad for too long. Of course, people should feed their pets just because it is the right thing to do, but having the threat of a Royal paint job turn to blue provides an added incentive! Nevertheless, I still see many sad pets around Neopia, and most of these are because their owners have not been active on the site in a while, or have forgotten to put the pets into the Neolodge...

The avatars that look most like "mistreatment" to me involve petpets: one requires you to feed a petpet to a jetsam, another requires the Turmaculus to eat your petpet... but then comparing this to real life, it is really no different of a situation than having a pet that is a large lizard or a snake that needs to be fed with real live mice; or having a cat that goes outside and returns with a dead bird or chipmunk.

I agree with you, though, that bullying is definitely not something that should be encouraged, so I doubt that Neopets will be releasing an avatar that requires deliberate neglect of a pet. :)

[agrinwithoutacat]

There is actually a random event that is designed to discourage people from starving their pets: your pet will turn blue if it is sad for too long.

 

 

Not to go off topic, but I have a question about that. How often does that actually happen? I have two painted pets that are almost never my active pet and thus don't get played with a ton. They tend to be sad, as a consequence, and it can be hard to get their mood back up. Should I make a bigger effort to always keep them happy, or is it very unlikely that they will change color? My Christmas Kyrii was zapped that way so I'm less attached to her color (although she wouldn't match her Christmas customization anymore), but my Faerie Lenny is just too pretty to lose.

[dawnshine]

You could occasionally play with them or make them active for brief periods of time? I tend to lean on one pet a lot because I'm training him for the BD so the others don't get *as much* attention but I don't completely disregard them. I will make them active and play games and I still read them books and include them in other stuff that you don't need to be active for.

 

It may be a hassle changing the active status of pets but the way I look at it, there isn't really any point in creating a pet and then just letting it sit there unhappy/starving. I guess people could think of reasons, but it's still ethically wrong (yes I know they aren't real but if we're all this invested in the site I'm sure some of us care to some degree).

 

I used to just have one pet active all the time that was my favorite. Over time I felt bad for my other pets and realized they were serving absolutely no purpose other than placeholders on a profile, and now I switch them. Sometimes it backfires and my non-BD pets get the stat increases, etc. that I would like to go to my Kougra, but so far I haven't been too bummed about that.

 

Also by switching my "less-favored" pets to be active from time to time, there is a chance they could get a random event and be turned into a different and more pleasant color. I wouldn't want to lose a Faerie Lenny (my favorite faerie pet BTW) but if you aren't crazy about the Christmas Kyrii AND you have the ability to zap your pets if they turn something unpleasant, it probably wouldn't hurt to make them active once in a while. The likelihood of them being turned an ugly color in a random event is slim anyways, plus you can easily fix it. The only time a random event color change goes REALLY wrong is when they go invisible ): Happened to me, was super bummed.

[agrinwithoutacat]

Well, at least I always keep them fed. Virtual though they are, I wouldn't want to starve them, especially when food is so abundant (omelettes and jellies, anyone?). I do kind of forget about them other than that sometimes, though. I suppose I should switch them out here and there, just to be safe. Plus, their pet lookups don't look so nice when they have that sad face on.

[lovedwallflower]

Not to go off topic, but I have a question about that. How often does that actually happen?

 

 

Well, my pet (whom I had painted grey) was deliberately left in sad mode. I figured, if he has a sad expression on his face, it doesn't make sense for his mood to be good. Apparently this didn't suit the ungrateful little bugger and he turned red (out anger??).

[Batman]

There is also another reason why you would leave your pet hungry and it is one that I am currently dealing with is the gourmet food club or feeding pets neggs for training. Both of them are getting good food but in order for them to eat a lot it is easier for them to be dying and feed them every two hour then spend the time it takes for them to go from bloated down. So just because pets are sad doesn't mean that they aren't being fed it could just have another purpose.

 

http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=515416&week=493

[Ember]

You know how pets tell you things at the side of the screen while you explore Neopets? Mine has been saying that I treat him bad and he should be painted grey repeatedly. I don't know what his deal is!

[leverhelven]

When he said that he is an avatar collector, I think he means that, as many avatars require you to check a determined coloured pet lookup, he's probably seeing a lot of sad pets this way.

[Azurablue]

Thanks for the info and opinions, everyone. I think I must have been misinformed. It was about a year ago that I asked this on a Forum and was told by a few people that not feeding your pets for about 6 months or so got you an avatar for it. Now I can't find any reference to it. I really would hate to think that NeoPets would condone bullying. I know that they're not always fair when it comes to stopping it, but at least they try to when they see it happening. (It would be nice if they cleaned up the Battledome Forum, which is where the worst of it seems to be.)

 

Like I said, I don't collect avatars, so I didn't know. Now I do. :woot:

[azurazebra]

You know how pets tell you things at the side of the screen while you explore Neopets? Mine has been saying that I treat him bad and he should be painted grey repeatedly. I don't know what his deal is!

I think you have an Emo pet.

And I feed and play with my pets, but always forget about my side accounts! I guess my main account pets (a Hissi, 2 Krawks and a Buzz) are my favourite and probably permanent pets, while I trade my side pets quite a lot, so I guess I'm just more attached to my main pets.