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- Ryuusama's review
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| Ease Of Navigation | 7.7/10   |
|---|---|
| Value for Money | 6.6/10 |
| Reviewer Rating | 7.3/10 |
| Overall Rating | 7.1/10 |
By Ryuusama on 19th Dec 2007
| Ease Of Navigation | 4/10 |
|---|---|
| Value for money | 0/10 |
| Overall value | 1/10 |
 Ryuusama's recommendation | |
There are a few good points about Neopets; the site is free, and there are a variety of pets to choose from when you first sign up.
First off, although there is a variety of pets, all of the revamped pets are far too cute for my tastes. On my previous account on Neopets, I had a mutant hissi, because it was cute in it's own special way. However, when they revamped every single pet and color without the consent of the users, I was horrified, the mutant pets were cute. Should that even be possible? Also, many of the grey pets do not look sad at all, they are merely the base pet with a colour change. With the new re-draws also came the downfall of Royal pets, because all pets now had to share a base so they could all wear clothes (to make it less of a strain on the artists). All of the poses were basically eradicated, and the Royal pets were no longer as special as they had once been. They were merely a colored pet with clothes on.
Neopets also claims to be a family site, but I have found some facts that make me doubt this. First of all, many of the pets and items are far to cute to be aimed at the older crowd, much less males, if I had to guess, I'd say they're aiming for pre-teen girls. But then what am I to make of the Battledome? This arena where pets can fight one another promotes violence, something that I don't think the younger children that play this "family site" should be exposed to.
Before you can even consider doing much on the site, however, you must establish yourself financially by earning neopoints, the site's currency. Even I, an experienced player, had difficulties with earning neopoints, so I cannot fathom the frustration this can bring to a new player. There are two legit ways to earn neopoints: games and restocking. Good luck playing games if you have an older computer, and even then, you aren't missing much judging by the maximum of 1000 neopoints you can get per play, with a maximum of 3 plays per day (which is a measly amount considering the prices of many items on neopets). If you have a slow computer don't bother with restocking, or buying items from the main Neopets shops and selling them in your own for a higher price, therefore earning a profit. These shops clear out quickly, and even then, most of the items aren't worth buying. Overall, if you have a slow computer, you're out of luck when it comes to earning Neopoints.
I have been frozen and suspended for what I consider to be, completely ridiculous reasons. (Once I was suspended when I hadn't been on my computer for a matter of hours), If you wish to contact TNT (a nickname for The Neopets Team) about your falsely-frozen (or deactivated) account, you have to send in a form, first specifying information about your account to prove that it is in fact yours, and then telling them why you believe you should not have been frozen. In my case, I've had to wait weeks for an e-mail reply, and even then, it was an automated message that only told me why I was frozen and basically that I had no hope of ever getting my account back. If you send them another e-mail, hoping for an actual person to look into your problem, most of the time you will not even get a reply. If you do, you may just get another automated message, or one of the staff members telling you "that you know what you did." And what becomes of the accounts of the rule-breakers? They usually take longer to disable their accounts than they take to falsely freeze the account of a person that has legitimately earned everything on it.
I could go on and on about (what I consider to be) the other flaws of this site, but then this would become somewhat of a book, so I shall address one more thing; Neopets is extremely homophobic. You cannot use the words gay, lesbian, or homosexual without fear of getting frozen, let alone even say that you yourself are homosexual. I have seen one example of a well established user getting frozen for merely stating that he had a partner of the same gender, and then having to suffer through the horrible CS that I explained above.
My point overall? There are much better ways to waste your time.
I played Neopets on and off for the past 6 or so years, until I finally quit for numerous reasons. I'm not telling people who play Neopets that it's a terrible site and that they should no longer use it, I'm just expressing my opinions which are based on my years of playing. Overall I have grown very angry with this site and the staff that run it.
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