A fun website for all ages! (neopets.com)

Member Name: KMello

Product:	neopets.com
Date:	05/03/07 (384 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun, educational, and an escape from everyday life

Disadvantages: Can be addictive and can teach how to gamble. Some restrictions with the site as well.

Introduction
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With all the internet websites floating around these days, it is hard to tell which ones are suitable for children. We must worry about whether the site’s content is “kid-friendly”, and it would be nice if it held some educational value as well. Even more impressive would be a site which guardians can monitor their children and also have fun. Neopets.com is a rarity in this aspect, providing entertainment for people of all ages through virtual pet ownership.

History
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Neopets.com was created by British college students Adam Powell and Donna Williams back in 1997, and went live on November 15, 1999. Since then, the small project turned into a giant company which now houses many graphic artists, administrators, writers, programmers, sales associates, and many more professionals. With every day that passes by, Neopets.com grows into a fascinating tycoon of the times.

Registration
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A wonderful thing about Neopets.com is that the basic use of it is free. Anyone 8 years old or above can have an account, but those who are under the age of 13 must have parental consent. Upon registering for an account for the site, you are asked to submit a username and password. Then you reach the page where the fun begins. You are now ready to “Create a Pet”. You choose from 43 “species” which are unique in their own ways. Many of them resemble actual animals, such as the Poogle and Gelert which look like dogs, Kougra that looks like a tiger, and the Kau which looks remarkably like a…you guessed it, a cow. They also come in four different colors when you create them; blue, yellow, red and green. Of course your pet wouldn’t be complete without a name, now would it? After you have undergone this process, you are now ready to verify your account and play! The nice people from TNT (The Neopets Team) are even kind enough to give new users “Newbie Packs” which contains food, some “neopoints” (which is the neopets monetary unit), and other various items.

There are currently 135,686,179 pet owners, 199,585,134 pets, and approximately 1.471 neopets per owner. It is estimated that 20,000 new accounts are registered every day, so there must be something worth visiting this website for?

Play
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One of the main reasons users are so addicted to this site is because of the games. Neopets.com offers approximately 75 games, with more being added every so often. These games are separated into 15 categories, including: Action, Adventure, Arcade, Board, Card, Educational, Kids, Luck/Chance, Most Challenging, Multiplayer, Puzzles, Quizzes, Sports, Strategy and Word. No matter what kind of games you like, there is something for everyone.

Neopets even has its own version of the stock market. What better way to teach kids about economics than by integrating it into a website they love? Faerie Quests are another way users occupy their time in “Neopia”. Pesky faeries ask you for an object and you must go fetch it for them, and get a reward in return.
There are many items users tend to collect too, including (but not limited to) stamps, snow globes, cards, and something called avatars. Avatars are little icons next to a users name on chatting boards. You can get them by completing certain tasks.

One thing many users look forward to doing are the various “Plots”, in which you must follow a storyline and complete many puzzles and tasks. It is a more long-term task, which takes about a month or so to finish. In the end points from the tasks are tallied up and the participants get a prize. Unfortunately, it can take triple the time it took to do the plot to receive the prizes.

If you are into more creative ways to entertain yourself, practice your Feng Shui and build your own Neohome. It can be placed in a number of different neighborhoods and you can arrange your gardens and rooms to your liking.

There is also something called the Battledome, in which pets can fight other user’s pets with various abilities and moves. If you are worried about the violence aspect, don’t be. There is no gore involved. It might show your pet with a black eye or something like that, but it is not very graphic by any means. This brings us to the next topic…

Graphics
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Neopets.com offers two ways to travel throughout Neopia: Flash and HTML. Flash can be more interesting (animations, sounds and high detail), but it may not work on older computers. Also, some browsers may have problems viewing Flash if they don't have a plug-in. You can easily access the plug-in, however, through a link provided by neopets. The HTML maps are slightly smaller in size, and more compatible with older computers, but less fun if you ask me.

The graphics really come into play with the 13 different lands in Neopia. These lands range from the Haunted Woods to Faerieland, where you are immersed in clouds. In each area, there are vendors who sell specific kinds of foods, Battledome equipment, etc. Perhaps the most interesting things that are sold are petpets, which are the pets of your pets. There are too many of these little tykes to list, but they are adorable and can even help you out if you are in the Battledome.

All in all, the graphics are enough to keep children’s eyes flashing, but not so sophisticated like those of the movies or games of today. This is probably best so that the pages load quickly. Unfortunately, the pages don’t load as fast during certain Plot phases, due to the high volume of players on the site at that point.

Players are also able to practice their own HTML skills in their user profiles, Guilds, shops, galleries and even their fonts on the chatting boards.

Navigation
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Navigating Neopets.com is very simple. The site is organized very well, consisting of a sidebar that has the main uses of the site listed. At the top is another menu that has other places frequently visited throughout Neopia, such as shops and Guilds.

Neopets also offers a toolbar to download, which provides you with quick links to your favorite Neopet features, no matter where you are on the web. It alerts you when you have “Neomail”, Neopets version of email from “Neofriends”. A bonus to this is that you can receive numerous Neoitems for free at any moment. Note that these items are only available within the site and are not actual items.

Educational Value
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As aforementioned, Neopets.com has some educational value to it. Kids can learn about the stock market, test their wits and figure out various problems in games, and even learn about supply and demand. Neopians can own shops and sell their items. Prices fluctuate as a result of how popular an item is versus how many of those items are available. There is even a month long game that uses this concept called “Plushie Tycoon”.

Neopets also has a Newspaper for users to submit their work to. Works include poetry, comics, short stories, or even more “News Worthy” items that happen throughout Neopia.

Fun for Adults Too
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Children aren’t the only ones who can appreciate all the site has to offer. Many adults also frequent the site. The best part is, there is even a place where people of common interest, such as adults, can congregate. This area of the site is known as a Guild. There are Guilds of every type you can think of, from Pokemon and Hilary Duff, to Fantasy and Adults Only. This is a great way for members to meet new people and share common interests. It also separates the more mature players from the little ones. Even if a child were to join an Adult Guild, TNT puts certain rules into place that stops vulgar content to be posted.

Negative Side of Neopets
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As Neopets.com has many positive features, it also has a few negative ones. As it is supposed to be a virtual pet site, the pets don’t grow. Sure their statistics do, such as age, defense, strength, intelligence, etc., but they don’t grow from being a baby into an adult. You can, however buy a baby paintbrush which turns your pet into one, but that is a poor substitute, especially since the paintbrushes are so expensive.

Also, the site has a lot of useless items such as clothing. The only thing the clothing is worth is whatever a faerie gives you as a result of a Faerie Quest. The pets themselves cannot wear the clothing. The same thing applies with school supplies. Vendors within the game sell them, but the pets do not go to school. Therefore the site is limited in a lot of ways, but I have no doubt that they will try to work on this for the future.

Where the site is careful to block strong language, the site also blocks silly words and abbreviations such as secs (seconds), Myspace, as good as, and a few others. Sometimes this makes things a little difficult when on the chat boards.

Lastly, Neopets.com can be very addicting for both children AND adults. You can easily spend hours at a time playing games. Some of these games can even have a bad influence on people and get them into gambling. Though you do not lose any real money, it has potential spill into real life and get you into trouble.

Miscellaneous
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The Neopets Team also offers as much help as possible to their users. If any disapproving content slips by their blockers, it is usually caught very fast, especially with the help of other users who are able to report it. Problems with the site itself are also addressed, though not as quickly.

If you fall in love with Neopets, they have something known as the Premium Package for $7.99 a month (£4.11) See http://premium.neopets.com/default.aspx for more details.

There is just so much that Neopets.com has to offer. Many of it will go unnoticed throughout this article because there are so many things to list. If you are into escaping the real world from time to time, Neopets provides a fun and as safe as possible place to do so.

Summary: Overall, a wonderful place for both kids and adults to have fun