Neopets Paranoia

[twinklyspangle]

In nearly every single thread on these boards, someone is posting saying 'Well, hang on, can't you get frozen for that? Someone might report you'

In my personal opinion, there really is no need for such a stringently negative approach to almost every idea, every question that comes up.

I don't know if I am the only person that feels like this, but I like to think of things differently. As long as I am not directly breaking the rules, neopets is something to have fun with. I'm fed up with be told not to play games when neo is acting up because it MIGHT be seen as taking advantage of a glitch. I'm fed up of worrying about sending items to my friends in case somehow that's interpreted as cheating. I'm fed up with being told I should be scared to refresh whereever I feel like it in case someone somewhere thinks I am a bot, or submiting a really good score in case I'm thought to be cheating.

I have been playing neopets for nealy 6 years, and I only have one account. I never lend, borrow or chat on the neoboards (mostly). I follow the rules that neopets have set, but I have never been scared to try an extra spin at the fruit machine, to tell a little fib on the neoboards just to rile people up, to price my items how I like and take advantage of people being stupid on the trading post.

I have NEVER been frozen/suspended or even warned

Am I the only person that feels this way? Or is everyone really restricting their fun on neopets because they are so petrified of being frozen?

Last edited by twinklyspangle on Mon Jun 19, 2006 10:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

[Gondra]

Hasn't neopets only been around for 6 years? o.O

Anyway I am quite a paranoid person in ways when it comes to Neopets, only because my last account I had which would be around 4 - 5 years old now was unjustly frozen.. I actually had lost internet access and came back to find it had been frozen for "posting/discussing pronography" ugh and I have a feeling it was because I gave out too many personal password related details to certain people that I thought I could trust even after knowing them for a couple of years.. it seems I was wrong.

A lesson learnt the hard way.. lost a baby kougra, striped krawk, draik and ghost tonu, lab map access and nearly 4mil pure NP meh.. ive moved on

[twinklyspangle]

Hasn't neopets only been around for 6 years? o.O

Anyway I am quite a paranoid person in ways when it comes to Neopets, only because my last account I had which would be around 4 - 5 years old now was unjustly frozen.. I actually had lost internet access and came back to find it had been frozen for "posting/discussing pronography" ugh and I have a feeling it was because I gave out too many personal password related details to certain people that I thought I could trust even after knowing them for a couple of years.. it seems I was wrong.

A lesson learnt the hard way.. lost a baby kougra, striped krawk, draik and ghost tonu, lab map access and nearly 4mil pure NP meh.. ive moved on

yes, I just can do any maths in my head. I don't know why I thought that 66 months translated into 8 years.

[okamotosan18]

I hadn't broken the rules the first time I was frozen either. Someone was really angry at me for not letting him in my guild. I'm still unsure what rule he claimed I broke. He neomailed me later saying he had convinced many people to report me, and it worked :/

That really hasn't caused me to be paranoid about how I play on Neopets, I just don't talk with anyone on the site unless I know them personally, on this site or iDB, or close friends from my first account.

[Cranberry]

I've been playing for six years (come August 13) and have always followed the rules. However, I was frozen a couple years ago for "cheating on a flash game." It was Volcano Run and the game was buggy. A lot of good players got frozen because of a glitch with the timer -- the game thought we shouldn't be getting the scores we did in the displayed amount of time. I got my account back, but only after three months of e-mails back and forth with a staffer.

There have been several occasions where people taking advantage of a game glitch have been frozen, most infamously the "tower of turnips" fiasco that actually got the game removed from the site.

Also, yes, I said in the rubbish dump experiment thread that deliberately lying on the neoboards (to gain something for yourself, in this case to mislead a lot of people into refreshing at the dump so you have a better chance at rare items) can get you warned or suspended (I didn't say frozen). And I wasn't being paranoid; this was actually stated in an editorial not too long ago.

A lot of the time, people are being paranoid. I know people who are scared to even have side accounts because of all of the rules. But many times, warnings (especially from older, experienced players) are justified, as we have seen many friends and fellow PPTers frozen because of game glitches, or posts they made on the neoboards (recently Shadow_Twisted got a warning because a mod misinterpreted his thread, thinking he was holding a contest when he wasn't), or other varied reasons that have nothing to do with deliberately breaking the rules.

[Gondra]

Oh yea another thing that happened to me before my account got frozen that sorta scared me was getting into an argument with someone who worked on quite a big neopets fan site (not this one and wont name the site or person) .. claimed she new people in Neopets and would tell them to warn me.. and next thing u know about 5 minutes later I had a warning from TNT, cant remember what the warning said exactly but she said that she HAD to recieve a warning aswell because the staff member had to be fair. It was about arguing or something... the topic we were arguning about was more fan site then neopet related though which bugged me.. it was totally unfair

[twinklyspangle]

Cranberry: I wasn't attacking you, or what you said personally. It's something I have seen a lot of around here, and I can see that many people do get frozen for things that are not their fault or are unintentional.

I guess the real point is that I think neopets need to work on the reporting system, because it seems so incredibly unfair that people are able to report people and scare them, or even get them frozen, for nothing at all. Perhaps people should be limited to reporting one person a week or something

[mogster500]

Angry people have reported me many times, just for not letting them borrow an item or pet. They call me a scammer, but my friends back me up. I would never do something stupid like that.

[Moonlight Flower]

I'm nine days away from 6th Neo-Birthday and I haven't been frozen yet. Honestly, back when I started getting frozen was a LOT harder.

But now that they have more players (a LOT more), they have less time to research things, so freezing happens easier. I have found myself being more careful on the site lately, but I haven't been too worried about getting frozen before.

The report system is definately something that needs a makeover, though I'm not sure how they'd even do that.

[Ms Manic]

I've been playing for about 3 years and I haven't been frozen, although to be honest that doesn't stop me being paranoid. I've heard too many stories about people being frozen over nothing not to feel that way, sadly

[Cerise]

However, I was frozen a couple years ago for "cheating on a flash game." It was Volcano Run and the game was buggy. A lot of good players got frozen because of a glitch with the timer -- the game thought we shouldn't be getting the scores we did in the displayed amount of time.

I had no idea that Volcano Run had been previously buggy. Up until 2 years ago, I pretty much lived under a rock when it came to Neopets stuff. Ive always been able to score over 4000 at VR, and a few years ago, I was frozen for cheating at the flash games also. I played very few games then, and Volcano Run was easy NP. I got my account back, but I wonder if it was for the same VR ordeal that affected a lot of other players.

Besides that ordeal, and maybe one warning for a political slip on the boards, Ive never had a TNT run-in in all my 62 months. I do play it safe though and try to keep to myself, and I think its completely okay to be that way with how Neopets enforces their rules. I shouldnt have to block items from non-neofriends, or be worried if I feel like sending a few codestones to newbies, but I like my account too much to lose it because of a stupid misunderstanding.

Just recently on the Altador Cup NeoBoard, people were going insane with worry that TNT was going to freeze everybody who played Round 1 games after midnight NST. It seemed plausible that TNT could freeze people who continued to play, because they had clearly stated in the News that the round ended at midnight. From the users point of view, it could've been a glitch just as easily as it could've not been.

I dont think anyone could forget Dupe Day either, where innocent and unaware users were tricked into spending their savings to get an amazing deal on a Thyoras Tear, only to have TNT turn around and freeze them for trying to resell it instead of realizing their mistake and apologizing in a Trading Post note. Saying that they should've known better doesnt make it any more fair. People were paranoid for a while after that, wondering if that dubloon they just bought might've been duped.

Keeping the users in the dark is what causes a lot of the paranoia. Younger players cant access the boards to find out whats going on that day, and the News rarely has updates about bugs that were fixed, or glitches to avoid while they work on it. Even that CG fiasco went largely unnoticed in the News. People had to get their information from the odd staff member posting in the Premium or BDC NeoBoards. It was nice when the News had more news than Art Gallery pictures, the latest sketch backgrounds, and what's currently available at Limited Too.

[twinklyspangle]

Keeping the users in the dark is what causes a lot of the paranoia. Younger players cant access the boards to find out whats going on that day, and the News rarely has updates about bugs that were fixed, or glitches to avoid while they work on it. Even that CG fiasco went largely unnoticed in the News. People had to get their information from the odd staff member posting in the Premium or BDC NeoBoards. It was nice when the News had more news than Art Gallery pictures, the latest sketch backgrounds, and what's currently available at Limited Too.

I totally, totally agree. The news used to be a lot more about what was going on than about new blogs and beauty contests, although I understand that people do want to know this sort of thing, I would like to know what they are planning and whats going on around neopia. The problam is that TNT tend to blame players rather than themselves for mistakes and glitches. I mean, everyone KNOWS not to take advantage of errors, fair enough, but 90% of the time, people don't KNOW they are doing anything wrong.

I guess there are just too many people out to cause trouble nowadays. Neopets never used to be like this. Now, I worry if I click "play Tombola" twice by accident. It's just not fair anymore.

[fredleymedley]

I agree, there is quite a "them and us" feel about the relationship between TNT and neopians. [short post ]

[Siniri]

I dont think anyone could forget Dupe Day either, where innocent and unaware users were tricked into spending their savings to get an amazing deal on a Thyoras Tear, only to have TNT turn around and freeze them for trying to resell it instead of realizing their mistake and apologizing in a Trading Post note. Saying that they should've known better doesnt make it any more fair. People were paranoid for a while after that, wondering if that dubloon they just bought might've been duped.

I never knew about Dupe Day... I rarely checked the news, neoboards, or outside sites until about the time I joined PPT, and I still don't read the NT. So what was Dupe Day?

P.S. Speaking of paranoia, I've been playing Dice-a-Roo by clicking into the game, then hitting F5 and enter (because I get the "page can't be refreshed without sending data" message) repeatedly instead of waiting for it to load and having to click the button. My neopet gets bored with the game after about 5 min. of playing this way. When I refresh from a game-over, it goes right into a new game, subtracting the 5NP from my account. Because of this, I would argue this is a legitimate way to play the game. After I'm done playing, I put the food (usually 1-8 items) in my SDB or shop. Sometimes I end with more NP than I started with, but I assume this is from winning the jackpot or a RE. I've been doing this for about 3 weeks now. Do you think this is freezeable? I'm still physically doing the work; I just found an easier way to play the game. (And no, my screenname here is not my username).

[Cerise]

I dont think anyone could forget Dupe Day either, where innocent and unaware users were tricked into spending their savings to get an amazing deal on a Thyoras Tear, only to have TNT turn around and freeze them for trying to resell it instead of realizing their mistake and apologizing in a Trading Post note. Saying that they should've known better doesnt make it any more fair. People were paranoid for a while after that, wondering if that dubloon they just bought might've been duped.

I never knew about Dupe Day... I rarely checked the news, neoboards, or outside sites until about the time I joined PPT, and I still don't read the NT. So what was Dupe Day?

Dupe Day, GASP.

Someone managed to make copies of extremely rare items, and then donated them to the money tree, sent them out, and managed to distribute them to the general Neopets population. I remember Thyoras Tear and Faerie Slingshots being two of the duped items. People who didnt know any better were shelling out their entire bank accounts to buy these things, and the people that knew what was going on were trying to get rid of the items they had before they got frozen for having them. Im not sure of the technical stuff, but I think the duping was possible because of a coding loophole somewhere?

It was a frantic time, and people were freaking out if somebody sent them a pile of dung, thinking it could possibly be duped and get them frozen. The Trading Post was literally pages upon pages of wildly rare items, along with notes to TNT that they didnt want frozen.