Random Event
Unexpected occurence while playing Neopets, they come in three (or four) varieties.
Types
Something Has Happened!
The most common random events are a small graphic that has these three words at the top. These events can be beneficial (such as finding neopoints or an item), neutral (such as having a draik fly overhead on the way to Krawk Island), or detrimental (ghosts stealing neopoints from you and putting them on the Money Tree.
Unlocking an avatar is a "something has happened" event, although these are not always random, since the means for obtaining avatars are widely known.
Local Events
A subset of the "something has happened" events are local events. These generally are neutral, and have a title like "Wintery Random Event" or "Tyrannian Random Event," as they only happen in a specific world.
Battledome Challenger
One-player battledome challengers are unlocked randomly (although certain opponents can only be unlocked in specific ways).
Faerie Quests
Faeries give quests to players in a completely random fashion. The quests themselves are alike in that they require the player to purchase an item (which vanishes at the completion of the quest) without the use of the shop wizard. The exact types of items, as well as the rewards, depend on the faerie.
Maximizing
Random events are mostly beneficial and sought after. Players are always comparing the number and quality of their events. Their very nature makes them impossible to control, but some theories have emerged about how to increase the frequency of events.
Pet Care
Keep your pets well fed (bloated, but not beyond that) and make sure they stay "delighted!"
If you have a food shortage other than the Soup Faerie for povity ridden players you can Eat For Free too.
To keep your pet happy play with them alot; with plushies, toys, etc.
Sidebars
Some special Neopets sidebars (like the birthday one, obtained and usable only on your birthday) will increase the probability of recieving a random event.
Generosity
Donate items to the Money Tree frequently.
fimmina10:it works, believe me
silverwolfleader:It works, it dosnt matter what you donate you just need to donate
Technical Explanation and Background
Just after the Wishing Well was added there was a new wave of an idea spreading about the on line game world and the idea was KARMA. Digital Karma measured your diservingness of bonuses and Neopets and AAA were the first few to add this as a feature although they both were very defensive about telling the users that this had happened. Generous users started getting more "good" random events and although the exact formula is (of course) secret it works like this:
- old: Number = Random_number(1 to 6); if Number = 6 do_random_event;
- new: Random_number(1 to 6) * Karma; if Number > 6 do_random_event;
I doubt the NeoFormula is quite that simple but that is the principle so the bigger you secret Karma score is the better... however each test/random (I'm not sure which) makes the Karma score slip back down... also time causes the Karma to decay too so you have to top it up.
As of yet the Karma system does not seem sensitive to value so donating 100 NP in 1 NP units would get you 100 lots of donation Karma. Karma also influences wishing well wishes (the original reason it was added).
--Lord Matt 06:51, 28 Oct 2005 (CDT)
Refresh
The more times you cause the screen to refresh, the more chances you have for a random event. Although a player can literally refresh the same page repeatedly, it's generally considered less boring to move about the site (preferably without using bookmarks, so that more screens are viewed). Playing non-flash games such as Pyramids and Neoquest also increase the chances. However, sometimes these games have fewer random events than other pages.
The reason this works is that you get a shot at a random event for the "world" you are in each page request (load) and refresh is a new page request. The best bet in this department is to simply explore and interact and get lots of usage out of the site. --Lord Matt 06:42, 28 Oct 2005 (CDT)