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Contents
Ø Featured Article Mouseovers and other Mysteries How to find secrets without losing it all.
Ø
Featured Game
Ø
Featured Food
Fortune Cookies
Ø
Featured Site
General News
TNE would like to wish all of our friends a Happy Lunar (Chinese) New Year. Why not take a look at the Neogreetings Neopets has created for the occasion? Also, be sure to check out page one and two of the special Art Gallery entries. In keeping with the spirit of the holiday, this month’s featured food is Fortune Cookies. (February 1, 2003)
Because Neopets has not added much to Happy Valley for a while, they have released Rink Runner, a game featuring a Bruce practicing for the annual Happy Valley skating competition! Use the mouse to collect the notes, watch out for the sharps and flats, and above all beat everybody else's scores. (February 3, 2003)
In addition to selling toys in Limited Too and Claire’s stores, Neopets Voice-activated Toys are now being released in Target stores throughout the US. They are also being released in WalMart stores throughout Canada. Not only that, but they are also working with Wizards of the Coast to develop the long delayed trading card game. Click here to read the news article. (February 4, 2003)
Valentines day is fast approaching, if you have decided to whom you want to send some romantic message of love, why not say it using one of the love-themed Neogreetings? (February 5, 2003)
Four new super toys can be made at the Cooking Pot. (February 6, 2003)
Now you can post suggestions to be added to the Spell or Starve dictionary. If you find a word that isn't accepted but you feel it should be in there, just click on the 'Submit dictionary suggestions' button and they will consider adding it in. (February 7, 2003)
Neopets has a new rollover featuring the adverts from Advert Attack on the front page. (http://www.neopets.com/index.phtml) To see it hold your mouse over the logo (if it doesn't appear the first time try refreshing the page). (February 9, 2003)
This is an interesting new idea: in the Auctions you can now specify an auction to be Neofriends-Only, that only allows your Neofriends to bid on your item. They have also increased the maximum auction increment to 2,000 NP due to inflation. (February 13, 2003)
You can now use your bottles of sand in the Cooking Pot to create sand sculptures. (February 14, 2003)
Neopets changed all the flash games so that they pop up as default for people viewing the site in 800x600 resolution. There are options to make the game 25% smaller, 40% bigger, and 80% bigger. They also have added a FULL SCREEN mode. When you open a flash game in full screen mode, use Alt-F4 to close it. Click here to see one. (February 18, 2003)
Neopets added some new icons to the Game Console that you see on some flash games.
If the game has a Neopedia article written about it, there will be a little book icon like the one above that you can click to read it. Click here to see it in action. (February 19, 2003) Now games that utilize the Neopian Dictionary have a link to the Suggest-A-Word page, and a pretty little icon. (February 21, 2003)
The latest sponsor game features Juicy Fruit and is called Moocher Scoocher. (February 19, 2003)
Neopets has uploaded an updated version of Potato Counter called EXTREME Potato Counter. Count the potatoes (and only the potatoes) as they fly past. (February 20, 2003)
Neopets has changed the way you give items. You no longer have to be someone’s neofriend to give an item; you can simply type their username into the box provided on the drop down menu. (February 22, 2003)
If you are good with anagrams, why not try the new puzzle game: The Castle of Eliv Thade. It comes complete with its own with a Neopedia Article. (February 24, 2003)
Florg, the mutant chia from the Feed Florg game, is on the loose and is part of a new rollover on the front page. To see it, just click here. (February 25, 2003)
With an “Aladdin” style plot, Neopets new Grand Theft Ummagine game will keep you on your toes. It also follows the new trend of having its own Neopedia Article. (February 25, 2003)
Neopets has updated the Catalogue so that it is better, you can sort your searches, and they say they will be adding more items in very soon. They tell us that there will also be a link on the front page to it soon. (February 26, 2003)
One exciting game note: Neopets is going to be changing all the high-score tables so that they are erased on the first day of every month. Once you get a trophy, you still get to keep it, but this way more people have a chance to earn a trophy. (February 26, 2003)
Neopets is celebrating one year of Limited Too-ness by holding a special promotion for the month of March! It is going to be $5.99 for the certain plushies and $3.99 for the plushie keyrings (but only while stocks last). Click here now. (February 27, 2003)
In addition to all the game news, Neopets has added a link on the games room page directly to the multi-player lobby.
They have indicated that more multi-player games are on the way. (February 27, 2003)
Special Days for this month were:
- Feb 1st – Lunar (Chinese) New Year
- Feb 3rd - Zafara Day
- Feb 12th - Lenny Festival (Lenny Day)
- Feb 14th - Valentine's Day and Neopians everywhere are sending each other messages of Lurve!
- Feb 18th - Chocolate Chia Day (Chia Day)
- Feb 21st - Tonu Day
- Feb 22nd - Mynci Day
Pet Changes
Pets are painted at the Rainbow Pool (on the Main Shops page) with special magic paint brushes. Click here for a list of all pets and their available colors.
v Zafaras can now be painted with the Striped and White Paint Brushes at the Rainbow Pool. (February 3, 2003)
v Kois can now be painted a Pink color. (February 4, 2003)
v Get hold of a Brown Paint Brush and you can now paint your Tonu. (February 7, 2003)
v Ixis can now be painted Rainbow at the Rainbow Pool. (February 7, 2003)
v Lennies can now be painted Orange. (February 12, 2003)
v Bruces can now be painted with the Pink Paint Brush. (February 13, 2003)
v You can now paint your Kau with a Rainbow Paint Brush. (February 14, 2003)
v Chias can now be painted Island and Starry at the Rainbow Pool. (February 18, 2003)
v In honor of Chia Day, Neopets has added some new Fun Images. (February 18, 2003)
v Gelerts can now be painted with an Island Paint Brush. (February 19, 2003)
v Some new Tonu Fun Images were released. (February 21, 2003)
v Tonus can now be painted Orange and Starry at the Rainbow Pool. (February 21, 2003)
v Myncis can now be painted Rainbow. (February 22, 2003)
v Krawks can also now be painted Rainbow at the Rainbow Pool. (February 25, 2003)
v Kacheeks can now be painted an ELECTRIC color. (February 26, 2003)
v You can now paint your Zafara with a Island Paint Brush. (February 27, 2003)
PetPet Changes
For those of you looking for the Petpet Puddle, it is part of the Rainbow Pool. When you are on the Main Shops page, click on the Rainbow Pool. At the top of the next page is the link to the Petpet Puddle. Click here for a list of all petpets and their available colors.
q Petpet Battledome is here. Yes, in Meridell Castle Petpet Battles are taking place. (February 3, 2003)
q You can now draw the Polarchuck using our How To Draw Petpets section. (February 4, 2003)
q Raindorfs, Yullies and Powtrys can now be painted at the Rainbow Pool. (February 4, 2003)
q Baby Fireballs can now be painted Blue, Black, Green and Yellow at the Petpet Puddle. (February 7, 2003)
q Now you can draw Felfs with help from the How To Draw Petpets section. (February 13, 2003)
q Neopets fixed a bug where if you wanted to paint a Fir, you could paint a Baby Fireball instead. (February 17, 2003)
q Krawks can now be painted Red and Yellow at the Petpet Puddle. (February 25, 2003)
q You can now paint your Bearog black. (February 25, 2003)
TNE News
It was a busy month for TNE. We are slowly moving everything to the new domain. Let us know what you think so far.
Thanks to some help from my_hero, we now have a nice little search engine for our site.
Because of the addition of both a better clock and a search engine for the site, the portal page was updated. Click here to take a peek. You may be particularly interested in the clock…
Many of our game guides have been uploaded to the neopianeducator domain and the Game Reviews page now reflects those changes. One of the especially difficult ones, the Cliffhanger guide, has also been updated. If you find any errors, please let me know. Include which list you found the mistake on (alphabetical, numbered or both) so I can correct it as soon as possible.
The Tyrannia portion of the Tour has been finished. Next stop: The Lost Desert
Featured Article
Mouseovers and other Mysteries How to find secrets without losing it all.
You’ve heard the rumors, seen the teasers, and caught the excitement: There are secret areas in Neopia! Before you get too excited, though, don’t forget to think things through. Yes, there are some “secret areas” in Neopets, but there are also people wanting to trick you. So…how do you know what are real secret areas, how do you find them and what is just a trick?
♫ A-hunting we will go ♪
One of the main reasons for “secret areas” is the thrill of the hunt. Try to find it using the clues Neopets provides…after all, if it is real, there has to be clues somewhere, right? Sometimes the only clue is a change in your cursor when you put your mouse on a certain spot, sometimes it’s an actual link. Once you know where it is, the mystery is gone. It becomes more or less just another page. It might have nice stuff, but is it really different from any of the other pages with nice stuff? Finding it for yourself can be great fun, though. Are you a good enough detective to track down the leads, stumble down the wrong path, but still find it on your own…oops, I digress…
All legitimate information is available for free
If you have to “pay” for the URL with neopoints, items, or Beauty Contest votes, that person is trying to trick you. Ask the Newbie Chat or Help Chat, and if that place really exists, they will happily supply the information. This was on the news page for September 4, 2002: I have a secret... Anyone who has one of those annoying 'I have a secret to make NP, give me an item and I will tell you' scams will now be frozen immediately. If you have one in your shop, trading post, user lookup, pet lookup, auction, guild etc I suggest you remove it pronto!
If it’s not neopets.com… it’s not a Neopets site
People talking about “secret staff-only pages where all the staff can go to get millions of neopoints” or where you can go to get Hidden Tower items for 1 np will want to direct you to pages that are not on the neopets site. Often these exist only to trick you out of your password. If the URL doesn’t start with: http://www.neopets.com/ then it is not a Neopets site, which means it cannot possibly give you any neopoints or neopets items.
Consider the source
You’ve received a neomail or seen someone on the chat claiming to have found this great place where you can make all of your neopets dreams come true…but have you heard about it on the News page? What about in the Neopian Times Editorials? When new areas, even secret ones, are released there is at least a hint of it in the news.
If it sounds too good to be true…
The best defense is to think it through. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is… Learn to ask “why”. Why would Neopets create a “secret” area for you to buy a super expensive item for next to nothing? People would go there, buy a ton of them and flood the market with them, which would drag everything down in a chain reaction. Why would Neopets have pages set up on non-Neopets sites…especially other virtual pet sites? Why risk being frozen for taking advantage of a bug? If Neopets limits the number of times you can visit the Giant Jelly, don’t you think taking advantage of a bug in the system for unlimited access will come back to haunt you when they track down and freeze those who abuse it?
One last question: Why should you have to pay to find out the answer
to your questions when Neopets has said that all legitimate information is
available for free somewhere on the site? If you can’t find it based
on the hints that Neopets provides, then ask someone for help. Not only are
there many fan sites that will tell you about the “secrets”, most
of us will be more than happy to point you in the right direction. We list
the ones we know here.
Featured Game: The Castle of Eliv Thade by StaggPub
Have a guide you'd like to see here? Send it to: Naomi_Tran@baylor.edu
Feel like The Castle of Eliv Thade is too evil? If you drop by this haunted mansion, don’t be like Gilly, a poor Usul who only had a lantern to help her. To beat this game without fear or stress, you need Andy. Who is Andy? He’s your new best friend for this game.
Andy is an anagram solver. More precisely, Andy is the programmer who created the anagram solver I found while searching on AskJeeves.com. You can find this page at: http://www.ssynth.co.uk/~gay/anagram.html and I find it really helpful in making my way through this game. Once you have this page (or any other anagram solver you prefer) up, the rest of the game is a snap.
For those of you who haven’t come across a fancy word like “anagram” before, an anagram is just a jumble of letters that you use to spell out a word. In other words, all you have to do for this game is take the mixed up letters and make them into a real word. If you saw the anagram: agme, you could make the words game or mage from it.
Beginning
Go ahead and pick the Super Brave level…after all, we’ve got a friend to help us. You’ll get more points this way, too.
You start off with three lives. That means you have three chances to goof. “Goofing” includes taking a chance on the cracks and falling through. If you try to stand on a square with cracks on it, you have a 50% chance of falling through to the basement, which will cost you one life. Entering the wrong word will also cost you one life. If you enter a real word that doesn’t match the one he wants, it still counts as a “wrong” word.
In the beginning of the game, the rooms are “hazy”. Once you visit a room, you will be able to see it clearly on the board.
The Dining Room
The first room to visit will be the dining room. It only takes two turns to get there.
Type the letters gcryuen into the anagram solver. Limit the search to just one word (and Massive English if it’s not already defaulted to that). The solver reveals the word is URGENCY. Repeat with 2 spaces to get into the dining room. If the solver lists more than one possibility, use the “Letter Hint” option to point out which one is the one he wants. Remember, even real words that match the letters are wrong if it’s not the one he wants.
Now that you have visited this room, it is clearly shown on the game board:
The Kitchen
I suggest visiting the Kitchen next. It can also be reached in two turns. Solving this room will give you:
The Library
The library is our next stop…how brave are you? If you still have three lives left, you can always risk one on the cracked squares. Remember, if you solve it (to move to that square) you can still lose a life if you fall through. The less adventuresome may want to avoid the cracked tiles all together. The choice is yours, and risking can reward you with more points. Solving the Library will give you:
The Bedroom
This is our last stop as far as collecting items. Once we have solved this one, we can return to the beginning and make our escape through the only other room we haven’t been in: The Crypt. How are your lives holding up? Hopefully you still have at least two. That will give us a bit of a “fudge factor” or “safety net” when it’s time to solve that last word. Solving the bedroom will give you:
The Crypt
The game has pretty much been solved by this point. Your game board should look something like this:
As you can see, all four rooms are clear and all four items have been collected (lower right hand of the screen). All we need to do now is head to the crypt. Taking the shortest route leads to the kitchen and across to the crypt. Those wanting more points can doubtless retrace their entire route back to the library and kitchen first, but I haven’t bothered doing so. However you choose, make your way back to the crypt to see this screen:
8
letters? No fear here…thanks to Andy. What’s this? Andy doesn’t
know!? Yes…there are times when even Andy doesn’t have the answer…because
Andy doesn’t play Neopets. With a little work, you can see that the
last anagram: kasarvua is none other than our beloved potions expert: KAUVARAS
Having
finished the game, you should be able to collect your points and escape:
For the curious, some of the other anagrams in this game are:
The Castle of Eliv Thade: Live (or Evil) Death
The Sword of Skardsen: Darkness
The Shield of Pion Troecc: Conceit Pro (and lots more)
The Grimoire of Thade: Death
The Amulet of Thilg: Light
I hope you enjoy this game as much as I have…especially with that extra 100 np added for solving it on the hard level. At 600 or np for up to 3 games, this can be a great little neopoint makers…thanks to Andy.
Name: Fortune Cookie
Weight: 1 lbs.
Rarity: 50
Available: From the Main Food Shop
Neopet’s Description: What does the future hold for your pet? Give it a tasty snack and a snippet of advice.
TNE’s Description: Even though fortune cookies are actually an AMERICAN creation, you can add a festive touch to any meal…especially for the Lunar New Year!
Special Note: This requires special care when
folding. If you do not work fast, the cookies will harden before you finish.
Ask for adult help. This may be hard for young cooks, so delegate the fortune
making responsibility to them and the folding to you.
Ingredients:
· 2 egg whites
· 2 Tbsp. water
· 1/2 tsp. vanilla
· dash of salt
· 1/2 c. sugar
· 4 Tbsp. melted butter
· 2/3 c. flour
Before you begin, print out some small phrases on slips of paper to use as fortunes. If you write them out yourself, be sure to use NON-TOXIC ink. Sample Fortunes from the Island Mystic:
You will be assaulted by a pack of psychotic Scorchios.
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You will mistakenly crush your best friends items in the Haunted Woods.
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You will rapidly realize that you must play Poogle Solitaire.
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You will defeat in single combat scores of huge Faeries.
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Your sense of direction will alter unexpectedly.
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You will have incredible fortune at the Wishing Well.
|
You will be assaulted by scores of flying Shoyrus.
|
You will have excellent luck in Maraqua.
|
You will slowly decide to feed your Neopet a Green Negg.
|
Heat oven to 350. Grease 2 cookie sheets. Put egg whites and sugar in medium sized bowl. Add water, butter and vanilla and mix. Add flour and salt; stir. Drop teaspoonfuls of batter onto greased cookie sheets. Swirl the batter around with the back of a spoon until cookies are spread very thinly and are almost transparent. Bake 5-7 min. until lightly browned at edges. Remove cookie sheets. Remove 1 cookie. Return sheet to oven to prevent other cookies from sticking. Place a fortune in the center of each cookie. Fold cookie in half and bend slightly in the middle to make a half-moon shape. Makes about 24 cookies. Repeat procedure with other cookies.
Featured Site
TNE Teacher’s Pet
Award
I’ve recently discovered a help site with lots of good information. This site covers general information as well as providing ready-made blogs, backgrounds, AIM buddy icons, and tutorials on how to make your own. It is a guild-sponsored site, so note that some areas will only interest members of that guild, but even if you aren’t a member (and I’m not, so I know what I’m talking about) it’s still worth a trip over to check out. It’s easy to navigate, well designed, and very viewer friendly. It also has, one of my favorite features: no annoying popups.
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