Sometimes it's hard to keep up with the news on a day to day basis. Here are the highlight from the Neopets news page for this month...

 The Press Kit page has been updated with new images from the Hannah and the Ice Caves TCG expansion. (February 10, 2005)

More fun with product placement...the following is directly from the news page:

Thank you, McD and friends. We really need more ads on the site :P (February 11, 2005)

The Battle Faerie has been added to the How To Draw section. (February 15, 2005)

You can now earn an honorary member award for the Booktastic Book Club. (February 21, 2005)

Special Days for these months were:

• Feb 3rd - Zafara Day
• Feb 4th - Jhudora 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

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      The Maraquan Gelert is now available. (February 1, 2005)

v      Bori and Lennies can now be painted with the Christmas Paint Brush. (February 2, 2005)

v      You can now own a Maraquan Elephante. (February 7, 2005)

v      The Maraquan Shoyru is now available…and looks a lot like a turtle. (February 10, 2005)

v      You can now have up to 4,000 characters for your Neopet's description. (February 15, 2005)

v      You can now paint your Uni Checkered at the Rainbow Pool. (February 15, 2005)

v      The Plushie Bori is now available. (February 16, 2005)

v      Are you brave enough to own a Chia made entirely from Chocolate? (February 18, 2005)

v      Paint Your Chia the color of the sky with the aid of a Cloud Paint Brush. (February 18, 2005)

v      Tonus can now be turned Darigan or Glowing. (February 21, 2005)

v      Myncies can be painted Island and Grey at the Rainbow Pool. (February 22, 2005)

v      Kois can now be a very bright new Rainbow color. (February 24, 2005)

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        You can now paint your Uniocto, Turdle and Warf Snow at the Petpet Puddle. (February 2, 2005)

q        Wuzzles can now be created as Petpets. They are also paintable in three new colors - Ghost, Starry and Glowing. (February 7, 2005)

q        You can now paint your Huggy blue, ghost, plushie and halloween at the Petpet Puddle. (February 8, 2005)

q        Snicklebeasts can now be painted Plushie, Cloud, Black and Fire at the Petpet Puddle. (As long as you have the right brush that is). (February 9, 2005)

q        Erisims can be turned Yellow, Brown, Glowing and Rainbow at the Petpet Puddle. (February 15, 2005)

q        Baby Fireballs, Cadros, Bilguss and Abomniable Snowballs can now be painted Plushie at the Petpet Puddle. (February 16, 2005)

q        If you own a Snowickle, Feepit, Polarchuck or Ona, you can now give them a brand new Island look. (February 24, 2005)

q        Polarchucks, Warfs and Slorgs can now be given a spotty new look at the Petpet Puddle. (February 28, 2005)

I spent quite a bit of time sick this month. Updates were slow and I apologize to anyone whose comment may not have received a response.

The avatars section has been updated.

Work continues on the upcoming museum. This project is rather large, but at least you can get a quick look at it here. Note that these pages are still very much under construction. If you have anything you’d like to contribute, please send it to: Naomi_Tran@baylor.edu

Avatars have a broad based appeal that touches almost every aspect of life in Neopia. These are the avatars that were added this month. For a complete list, drop by the avatars section of the Chat FAQs. If you know of one that is not listed, simply fill out the automatic comment form.

Games on Neopets are in a constant state of change and these changes are often not listed in the news. Here are the changes for this month:

Here are the new games that were added this month:

a    New Game - A new and improved Ice Cream Machine has been released featuring an updated Adee the Chia. The soundtrack for the Ice Cream Machine has been added to the Music page. (February 1, 2005)

a    New Game - The latest addition to the Virtupets Space Station is this Strange Lever... Dare you pull it? (February 8, 2005)

a    New Game - As children young Skarl and Hagan loved nothing better than planning great war strategies with a game of Castle Battles and now you can play too. (February 21, 2005)

a    The Disney Records Music Bistro is back with a new game - Disneymania 3 Album Matching. (February 24, 2005)

Changes to existing games:

Neopia Needs You! - Two explorers have gotten into a spot of bother while diving amongst the ruins of Maraqua. Can you save them in the latest Defenders of Neopia? (February 1, 2005)

A baby cries. An old gate creaks. A werelupe, silhouetted against the moonlight is slowly eating a Strawberry Ice Cream cone... mmmm *drool* Ice Cream... And Ice Cream Factory is gone. (February 1, 2005)

The Tiki Tack Man has managed to get hold of some new booby prizes to give away on his Tombola Stall. (February 8, 2005)

They have added a sound off/on button to Spell or Starve. (February 10, 2005)

Three new levels have been added to the Ice Cream Machine. Look out for Tigersquash, Rainbowberry and Garlicy Bratwurst! (February 10, 2005)

They have updated the Lenny Conundrum trophies. (February 11, 2005)

Dieter can now happily munch snow in all available languages... (February 11, 2005)

Hasees now Bounce in all languages. (February 18, 2005)

Lots of games have been translated into all available languages including Freaky Factory, Escape to Kreludor, Moon Rock Rampage and Chemistry for Beginners. (February 22, 2005)

You can now play Faerie Caves II in any language you like. (February 28, 2005)

Beating Punchbag Bob

I’ve recently received a lot of questions about the “odd doll trophy” in my profile. That’s the trophy you get for beating Punchbag Bob. Punchbag Bob, the poor patched up doll-like punching bag, exists primarily for battledomers to test their weapons and equipment before taking it into the real arena. He’s basically a “test dummy”. Because of this, Punchbag Bob has an insanely high number of hit points. If you are willing to stick it out though, you'll be rewarded with a trophy for your patience. Depending on your connection, this may take a looooooong time, so be sure to take a bathroom, snack, or whatever type of break you prefer before you get started.

Aside from the length of time it will take, there is only one drawback. Punchbag Bob never fights back. Instead, he sadly sits there and absorbs hit after hit after hit. He has a twin though who likes to sneak into the battledome in his place. Punchbag Sid is not the pushover that Bob is when it comes to fighting. Sid will not sit there and take it. He lacks Bob’s “turn the other cheek” approach and can defeat even seasoned veterans with one well placed ultimate attack chives of death or similar move.

Punchbag Bob is made of cloth sack and straw, and is the perfect sparring partner to test out all your cool Battledome weapons on! Because he doesn’t fight back, his difficulty level is 0. His beginning hit points, however, are 5000. Be prepared to stay put for a while if you want the trophy for defeating him.

Punchbag Sid is made of cloth sack and straw, and is itching to take you down a peg or two! He may randomly pop up instead of Punchbag Sid. His difficulty level is 100. His beginning hit points are 2000. Unlike Bob, he has no problem fighting back.

Assuming that you meet Bob rather than Sid, this may be the easiest (although rather time-consuming) trophy to get.

Press Kit explains commercialism.

On February 10, 2005, Neopets added updates to its Press Kit. Out of curiosity, I took the time to go through it again and see what is now included in it. (Note: If you haven’t read it yet, you really should. You can find all sorts of interesting things in there.) As I went through it, I discovered some of the reasons behind some of the recent trends in Neopia. Since my research also came up with a possible explanation for the recent deluge of advertisements, I thought I would share it with you.

“Immersive Advertising” Neopets brought in its first paying advertiser in April 2000. Their press kit explains Immersive Advertising like this:

 In early 2000, when Neopets.com was in its very early stages, the Company envisioned a new form of advertising to support the growth and development of the website; advertising that would be different from the pervasive, and oftentimes offensive, pop-up and banner ads that were the norm throughout the Internet advertising industry. This new integrated advertising method incorporates the advertiser's brand, service and/or message directly into entertaining site content, thereby creating brand affinity with site members, rather than brand rejection that can result from offensive pop-ups and banners. The Company's integrated advertising, trademarked Immersive Advertising®, is an evolutionary step forward in the traditional marketing practice of product placement used in television and motion pictures. The Company's Immersive Advertising permits Neopets to integrate advertisers' products, services, and brands into highly-customized activities within the Neopets.com website.  In other words, they realized that traditional ads were considered a real turnoff and decided to use a modified form of product placement. In fact, a December 2001 article in Business Week Online stated the following: UNOBTRUSIVE ADS?  Still, Dohring is constantly walking a fine line between harmless advertising and offensive commercialism. Too many products sprinkled throughout the site could spark a backlash from NeoPets fans -- or their parents. Already, Ralph Nader's Commercial Alert, a consumer advocacy group that opposes persuasive selling tactics aimed at children, has criticized NeoPets' approach.

Dohring isn't concerned. The advertising isn't overly obtrusive, he says, because the products are featured in ways that don't upstage the pets themselves. In the recently posted game Attack of the Plaque, for example, players use a new Crest battery-powered toothbrush to clean Grarrl the dinosaur's teeth. Brush too slow, and Grarrl's teeth fall out, causing him to react with hysterical grimmaces.

"This is better than blatant and ugly banner advertising," says 18-year-old NeoPets fan Ravi Bhikhi, who logs onto NeoPets from his home in the Netherlands and spends about seven hours a month on the site. "I have no problem with it."

Sadly, they seem to have lost sight of that. Of course, they have an explanation here, and if you missed it, you can get this handy avatar:

Merchandising – it all started with the online sale of “Limited Edition T-Shirts”…Then they had some “Limited Edition Plushies”. After the “test marketing” in three stores in Southern California on November 10, 2001, things mushroomed from there. These items must be promoted somehow, so there were ads created for them and the stores that sell them. Today, you can find Neopets items not only in specialty stored, but even in national department stores like Wal-Mart, Target, etc.

So…expect more and more ads and product placement. Next step: Ads on your profiles and pet pages. Yes, I know they recently assured us that this wouldn’t happen, but I still think it's only a matter of time.

My solution? Invest in good spyware/ad blockers now. It’s only going to get worse. From the little that I have been able to gather, even the premium accounts will not be safe from these ads.

On the other hand, nothing says that you have to support those who advertise. A good spyware/ad blocker will take care of most of it and last month we discovered how to get rid of that Godzilla sized banner across the top. As for the product placement games…at least you get neopoints for them, which you can use to spoil your pets. If a sponsor comes out with a game you like, I say enjoy it as much as you can.

The important thing to remember is that the executives at Neopets see this as a business. Businesses exist to make money. An article in Media Life Emagazine had the following exerpt:

Created by a British college student in 1999, NeoPets.com has been owned and operated since April 2000 by Dohring Market Research, a Glendale, Calif.-based firm that previously earned its keep providing custom market research to the automotive industry.
    The folks at Dohring think of NeoPets as an enterprise to be run much like any other.
    "All our executives are business people," says Lee Borth, the chief operating officer.
    "We come in every day in suits and ties. We’ve all worked together for years. We run it as a business and are always trying to improve the user experience, and that includes selling and delivering advertising."
    The original NeoPets had no advertising. 
    The new management started selling ads as soon as it took over, and the company reports that it began turning a profit as of July 2000. 

Be a smart consumer and make sure you get something out of it, too (like neopoints or promotional items). That (in addition to the use of ad blockers) will help keep Neopets a fun and rewarding place to visit. Who knows? Maybe if enough players do not click on the banners, Neopets will rethink their approach.

As always, play safe and have fun!

~StaggPub~

Name: Valentines Muffin
Available: From the Bakery
Neopet’s Description: Chocolate, strawberries and fresh vanilla icing make this a treat your loved one will adore.
TNE’s Description: This tempting treat is as much fun to make as it is to eat.

Ingredients:

·         2 eggs

·         1/2 cup oil 

·         1 cup milk 

·         1 tsp. vanilla

·         1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 

·         1/2 cup sugar 

·         1/4 cup cocoa 

·         1 Tbsp. baking powder

·         1/2 tsp. salt

·         1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips 

·         24 ripe strawberries with the stems removed

·         1/2 cup red cinnamon heart candies or “red hots”.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 F (200 C) and prepare muffin pan.

Grease muffin pan or fill with paper liners.  A nonstick pan requires no greasing. 

In large bowl add and combine well eggs, oil, milk and vanilla.

In smaller bowl combine well flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, salt and chocolate chips.

Combine wet and dry mixtures and fold together gently until just mixed.

Spoon mixture into prepared pan.  Bake at 400 F (200 C) for 20 minutes.  Remove from pan and cool on rack.

Once cool, decorate with white (vanilla) frosting. Place one ripe strawberry on the top. 

Sprinkle some cinnamon heart hard candies on top to finish.

MeepitFiles.com

Looking for an out of the ordinary Neopets fan site? This may be just the place for you. It’s mainly articles and discussions, but it’s still a great place to check out to get a feel for what is going on in Neopia. It is full of great articles and you can offer feedback and comments on those you read. Be sure and drop by if you have a little free time.