Neopet

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This article is about the creatures. For other uses of "Neopet" or "Neopets", see Neopets (disambiguation).
Several Neopets - clockwise from top, a Bruce, an Aisha, a Lupe and an Ixi. Also present is a Petpet.

A Neopet (from Ancient Greek νέος meaning "new", and "pet") is any one of 55 sentient, sapient species of a virtual animals yet discovered to inhabit the world of Neopia.

Players on the Neopets website can adopt, raise, and play with these creatures. While different types of Neopets are classified into different species, the Neopet community is not divided amongst species boundaries. They are capable of home building, operating a market economy with currency, building and utilising tools and technologies of a range of complexity, and complex social interaction. Neopets enjoy art, sports and physical competition, and play.

Each user account can have up to six Neopets associated with it, Premium accounts are allowed up to seven for as long as they keep paying their subscription.

Biology

Painting can make aesthetic differences...

Neopets are categorised into 55 different species. While the word species usually defines a group whose members can breed with each other to produce fertile offspring, different species of Neopets have been shown to have families with each other. Neopet species often varies wildly within a biological family (as Neovian Genealogy notes, "Skeith plus Zafara equals... Ixi?"). Any given Neopet may change into a different species through exposure to certain potions, magical plushies, or the Lab Ray while retaining the same essential identity. All species have two sexes.

The form of any given Neopet can change due to what colour it is painted. These changes can be as small as re-colouring a red Neopet blue to drastically changing a Neopet's biology - they may gain wings, become aquatic, or even forgo organic bodies entirely. Except for the Grundo, who can also begin as brown, purple, or white, all Neopets begin coloured red, blue, yellow, or green. Counterintuitively, Neopets do not begin life coloured as babies.

The primary means of altering a Neopet's colour is at the Rainbow Pool in Neopia Central with a paint brush or through the Lab Ray.

... or radically alter a Neopet's form.

Most new Neopets come into existence when a player creates them using the Create-a-Pet feature. However, some species have been shown to hatch from eggs - the Draik - or metamorphose from a different creature - a Krawk petpet into a Krawk Neopet.

Neopets are vulnerable to a variety of diseases and some species are allergic to certain foods (for example, Kyriis get Itchy Scratchies from anything with apple in it). Other species, by contrast, can eat non-food items, and may even do so spontaneously.

Neopets as owned by players do not die, despite the existence of Ghost Neopets, and can only be removed from the world if deleted for being given an inappropriate (e.g. profane) name, or if their current owner is frozen.

Origins

It is unclear exactly how Neopets evolved. While the Tyrannian paint colour shows what seems to be less-evolved versions of Neopets (reminiscent of variously cavemen, sabre-tooth cats, etc) the Neopedia article on Dr. Frank Sloth suggests that Neopets began to come into existence from flashes of light. The presence of faeries and faerie magic may explain the existence of Neopets, or they could have been brought to Neopia from other worlds by technologically superior powers. At least one species of Neopet, the Grundo, was brought to Neopia this way.

Species

A chart of Neopet popularity (at creation), 2011. Inset, Draik, Krawk, and Lutari's populations, which are too small to be seen on the main chart.

The fifty-five known species of Neopet are:

Characteristics

Each individual Neopet has a name. Neopets taken by players have names that are unique amongst all the other Neopets on the website. Each individual also has other statistics that may be viewed by a player through the Quick Ref page - in the case of their own Neopets - or an a Neopet's look-up. Individuals also have a height, given in centimetres, and weight, given in pounds. A Neopet's weight can change in response to the foods it is fed.

Neopets can be trained to improve their strength, movement, defence, and hit points. While a Neopet's age is recorded, the main indicator of their experience is their level. Higher levels allow strength, movement, defence, and hit points to be trained to higher degrees. Strength, movement, and defence points can be trained by up to twice the points of a pets level, and hit points up to three times level. These statistics may be increased by random events, Coltzan's Shrine, or the Lab Ray to beyond these restrictions, however further training through the training schools - the Mystery Island Training School, the Swashbuckling Academy, and the Secret Ninja Training School - will not be possible until the Neopet's level is increased again.

A Neopet's level also affects what faerie abilities it can learn. These abilities, strength, movement (to a modest extent), defence and hit points come into play in the Battledome. Having a high level does not itself make a Neopet more powerful - it is only useful insofar as it means their other statistics can be trained higher.

Individuals also have a fishing skill score, which reflects its experience at Underwater Fishing and what types of fish it is capable of retrieving, and an Faerieland Employment Agency rating, featuring their rank and completion statistics.

The intelligence statistic of a pet is influenced primarily by how many books it has been read, and can affect which books it will be willing to read in the future.

Personality

When a Neopet is created, the owner is asked to describe its nature: what the Neopet most likes to do (e.g. gathering food or making friends) and how they typically react when meeting others (e.g. smile sweetly or run away). These attributes do not have any effect on gameplay. After creation, they could only be seen if the Neopet was put up for adoption, however when the site was revamped in April 27, 2007, it was shown on the Neopet's look-up as well.

Pets that were created before this date all had their personalities set to gathering food and acting friendly while those that were created after show what their creator chose instead. The Neopets Team did acknowledge this glitch but have not fixed it yet.

Likes and dislikes

Neopets may reject certain items - this may include refusal to eat certain foods, play with certain toys, or adopt certain Petpets. A Neopet's dislikes are based on his or her name. A Neopet will refuse to eat something, saying "Yuck! I'm not eating one of those!", if it has the same number of characters (including spaces) as that Neopet's name - for example, a Neopet called Thyassa will refuse to eat any food with a name seven characters long, such as a Bagguss. He will eat foods with longer or shorter names, however.

This rule also governs what Petpets a Neopet will be willing to own - e.g. Thyassa would not accept a Magaral. If the Petpet was painted to change its name's length - for example, a Pirate Magaral - then the Neopet would accept it.

A Neopet will reject a toy to play with if its name is twice as long as their name, but will accept a toy with the name the same length.

One work around for Neopet dislikes is for the player to change the site language. Names of items in foreign languages may be different lengths and therefore not cause the Neopet to reject them. Once the Neopet has accepted the item the language can be changed back.

Neopet care

A Neopet's owner can care and provide for their Neopets. As well as customising them with clothes, accessories, and other paint colours, they can improve or lower their pet's mood through their actions, feed it, and cure it of diseases.

A range of different emotions. From left to right; Happy, sad, crying, sick and angry

Mood

A Neopets mood, being happy or sad, is changed by user actions around the website. There are ten levels of happiness, from least to most happy:

  • Depressed
  • Very unhappy
  • Miserable
  • Unhappy
  • Content
  • Happy
  • Cheerful
  • Extremely happy
  • Joyful
  • Delighted!

There are numerous ways to change a Neopets happiness, such as playing with a toy, grooming them, riding the Roo Island Merry Go Round or eating a Happy Negg. The happiness of the user's active Neopet is shown in a table of statistics on the left of most pages. The happiness of the user's inactive Neopets must be checked on the Quick Ref page.

If a Neopet happens to be sick when checking the Quick Ref page, its happiness will be lowered. It also lowers if the Neopet has had less than full hit points for extended periods of time.

There are three rare Random Events that relate to an unhappy Neopet. These change a Neopet's colour to blue if really sad, or red if angry, or green if sick. If a Neopet is unhappy or sick, they appear sad or sick on the Quick Ref page, the Neopet's look-up, and on the player's user look-up.

Hunger

Just like real life creatures, Neopets become hungry over time, and must be fed to become full again. Neopets can be any of the following levels of fullness:

  • Dying
  • Starving
  • Famished
  • Very hungry
  • Hungry
  • Not hungry
  • Fine
  • Satiated
  • Full up
  • Very full
  • Bloated
  • Very bloated

Neopets can be fed any food item - subject to their likes and dislikes, see above - to reduce their hunger and make them more full. A food item does not always reduce the Neopet's hunger enough to move it to a different hunger rank, however.

If a user does not have enough Neopoints to buy food for their Neopet - currently under 3,000 NP - they can go to the soup kitchen to feed them instead. Food is often given out by certain daily activities like the Giant Omelette and the Giant Jelly. The Healing Springs may also make a Neopet bloated.

Grarrls and Skeiths can eat any non-food items, and Jetsam can also eat Aquatic Petpets.

Hunger affects whether a Neopet can fight in the Battledome or not. Being hungry for a long period of time can also reduce a Neopet's mood. While the name of the most desperate hunger level is "dying", a Neopet cannot actually die of hunger.

If the Neopet is hungry, their hunger status shows up in red text. Occasionally, a Neopet may have the rank of "not hungry" appear in red: they must be fed again to make them actually not hungry and allow participation in the Battledome.

Pet Spotlight

First started on August 29, 2000, the Pet Spotlight is one of the many competitions run on the Neopets website. Users submit a short story or description (limited to 500 - 2500 words) of their Neopet of choice accompanied by a self-created drawing of the pet. Trophies for the spotlight began to be handed out on October 17, 2000 and are displayed on the pet's lookup.

Site Spotlight

The Site Spotlight is a regular competition on the Neopets website where players can submit petpages that they created on a variety of topics and receive a trophy in return if their submission is selected. Site content ranges anywhere from profiles of their pet to guides for various Neopian-related topics such as Faeries, games, or morphing potions.

The Site Spotlight started on August 29, 2000 and trophies began to be handed out two months later on October 17, 2000. Due to a decline in popularity, the Site Spotlight ceased running on August 12, 2010 but was revived nearly two years later when it began again on July 12, 2012.

Trivia

  • A user's Neopet would send its user an e-mail wishing them a happy birthday when the time came after January 27, 2000.
  • Level 181 is the minimum level a Neopet must have to receive the rank "Too High to Count".
  • Users could rate the look of another user's Neopet via a five star rating from their Neopets Lookup as of September 12, 2007.
  • Users were given the option to send photos of their Neopet to another user on September 21, 2007.
  • Since site update from Neopets 2.0 and Neopet Customisation, Neopets were unable to show emotions and other battledome poses as they were used to. This changed with an update on December 21, 2007, and a Neopet's facial expressions could show when they are happy, sad, angry, or sick.
  • The most popular Neopet is the Shoyru.
  • The active pet, when seen on the left-hand module, will occasionally communicate short sentences while the user browses the site. The following 16 phrases, written directly below the pet's image, are rendered as (Pet name) says:
  • A Tiki Tour sounds good right about now!
  • AH! BEHIND YOU! Just kidding!
  • Destruct-O-Match sounds like fun right about now.
  • Do you think you could buy me a toy? Please?
  • How can I show my face in the Battledome like this?
  • I think some strength training is in order, don't you?
  • Is it time for training yet?
  • Know anyone who's up for a fight?!
  • My puny arms can't even hold an Attack Pea!
  • Seen any good concerts lately?
  • Today doesn't seem to be a very good day.
  • When's the last time we visited the Techo Master?
  • Why don't you just paint me grey if you're gonna leave me like this?
  • *ho hum*
  • *sigh*
  • *yawn* Is it nap time, yet?

See also

External links

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