Saturday, February 5, 2011

Neopets: Remember that?


(pretend that we are at a Gamer Addiction Anonymous Meeting)
Hi, my name is Ling and I just got back into playing Neopets.



Yes, Neopets. Remember that website where you could keep virtual pets like Unis, Lupes and Ixis? Where you could complete faerie quests, do countless amount of things to earn neopoints and play tombola to earn a rare item? And everything was FREE! I revisited all of that in just a matter of days. In my case, I started playing late in middle school, dabbled in it a little in high school, but couldn't really, as drama rehearsals got more intense, and now when I'm in my last semester of university, I accessed my old account and got right back into it.

Not going to lie, but it's changed. (Well, it has to change in order to keep up with the generation that wants better graphics, more customization and 3D animated movies. I, for one, can't really stand wearing those cherry red/teal green glasses since I already wear glasses.) There's now an NC Mall where you can buy items (that move!) with cold, hard green MOOLAH! There are also new worlds, that were all discovered through adventure plots detailed in comics (which are fascinating because they're some sort of flash comic where you can only see the speech bubbles when you move your mouse over them.)

Update: It took me less than a week from start to be bored with Neopets once again, as I did in Middle School, and as I did the second time in High School. In class, the other day, we had a discussion about work versus play, and the word that came coming up to differentiate them was that work was an obligation whereas play wasn't an obligation. Play can sometimes be interpreted to fooling around and wasting time.

In this case of Neopets, I think that play slowly and gradually became work. Why you ask? Although I do sometimes prefer games with a routine like Harvest Moon (plant, water, repeat) and Pokemon (catch, fight, repeat), Neopets was...sort of an unhealthy rountine, or not an enjoyable one. It became a cycle where I wouldn't care about my pet anymore and just be concerned with the dailies, like getting an omelette, getting a jelly and visiting the Healing Springs. You can only do those things once a day, and well, it got a bit boring. You don't really progress that fast as you would with Harvest Moon and Pokemon games, and with that pace, I kinda felt like playing Neopets was work...

Anyone want to try and play Neopets for more than a week and tell me that they're not bored?

Ling

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