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Contents
Ø Featured Article Turmaculus: The King of PetPets
Ø
Featured Game
General News
It has been a really
busy month on Neopets. They started off with a holiday (Labor Day) and seemed
to have kicked things into high gear when they got back.
For some reason,
auctions were running
slowly at the beginning of the month but are working again now. (September
3, 2002)
The Turmaculus
is Meridell's answer to the Snowager. He only talks to petpets, and if you manage
to wake him up (and he is in a good mood), he may do something nice like raise
the level of your petpet or give you some neopoints. If he is in a bad
mood, well... we won't go into that... Like the Snowager, you can only approach
him at certain times. (September 4, 2002)
Neopets has finally
listed the Pyramid
Scam as a freezable offense! (September 4, 2002)
Well,
this could get interesting…Now you can start your own Stamp Album by collecting
stamps from all over the site. (September 5, 2002)
Neopets
will be slowly releasing over the next few weeks a pink and orange paintbrush,
and re-coloring the existing pink pets to red. (September 6, 2002)
Now
is your chance to fold like a cheap deckchair... in our latest game from the
land of Meridell.. Round Table Poker.
It's you versus four opponents at a time - to see who can win the most money
over a certain number of hands. By the way, the poker players couldn't afford
an actual round table, so they had to make do with an octagonal one instead. (September 6, 2002)
Usuki Frenzy
and Dubloon
Disaster now come with 50% extra Neopoints. Neopets says they
do monitor the average Neopoints given per game, and these two were amongst
the lowest. (September 14, 2002)
The game
of Meriball
has just been added to Meridell. Yes, its squash, Meridell-style. (September
17, 2002)
A new
Neopedia
article featuring the lovely Lady Osiri has been added. (September 17, 2002)
You can
now see the list of most
popular games on Neopets every day. (September 18, 2002)
Looks
like Jelly World is no longer a myth…(September
18, 2002)
Neopets
has added a new Neopedia
Story about Matt the Wocky, sewage surfer extraordinaire…(September
20, 2002)
Two new
Neopedia articles, Krawk Island
and Dirt
Pies have been added. (September 24, 2002)
MERIDELL CASTLE
has just been added, its the third map for Meridell. It is home of
the King of Meridell, a Queen, a couple of princes and princesses, lots of
guards, a jester, a petpet battle arena, Meriball, and lots more. (September
24, 2002)
To celebrate
Skeith Day Neopets added a new game to Meridell Castle - Double or Nothing.
It only costs 10 NP a game, and there is a limitless jackpot. (September
25, 2002)
Another
new Neopedia article, featuring Judge Hog.
(September 27, 2002)
Lots of
Hidden Tower items
have been retired, and new ones are on the way - including the new Asparachucks. (September 27, 2002)
Special
Days for this month were:
- Sept 13th - Techo Day
- Sept 15th - The Annual Chocolate Ball (Not sure what
that is? Click
here to read about it and the Aisha Thieves.)
- Sept 19th - Poogle Parade (Poogle Day)
- Sept 20th - Faerie Festival. Rumor has it that this
is when the Faeries are most generous to Neopians.
- Sept 23rd - Annual Gormball Championships
- Sept 25th - Skeith Day
Pet Changes
Probably the biggest news for pet changes is the recoloring of red pets and the introduction of Pink and Orange Paint Brushes.
v New to the Rainbow Pool, the Shadow Tonu and the Starry JubJub. (September 3, 2002)
v Eyries now come in Island. (September 3, 2002)
v Aye, with the aide of a special paint brush, ye can now get yer scurvy hands on a Pirate Chia. (September 4, 2002)
v It seems Draiks can now be painted CLOUD at the Rainbow Pool. (September 4, 2002)
v Draik Eggs on sale at Merifoods. Neopets says Draik Day is going to be the 9th of Gathering and you will be able to hatch Draik Eggs. (September 4, 2002)
v You can now have your very own Baby Draik but I bet those diaper changes are murder…(September 9, 2002)
v If you have a Draik Egg you can take it to the Draik Nest to hatch it. (September 10, 2002)
v The Mystery Island Kougra is now available at the Rainbow Pool. (September 11, 2002)
v The Baby Techo has arrived for all you baby fans. (September 13, 2002)
v You can now paint your Techo Shadow and Rainbow at the Rainbow Pool. (September 13, 2002)
v Grarrls can now be painted Shadow at the Rainbow Pool. (September 18, 2002)
v The Lupe and Zafara have been added to our How To Draw section. (September 18, 2002)
v In honor of their special day, Neopets released 30,000 more Poogles. (September 19, 2002)
v Poogles now come in Baby, Island, and Rainbow. (September 19, 2002)
v Quiggles can now be painted Orange at the Rainbow Pool. (September 24, 2002)
v Skeiths now also come in Orange. (September 25, 2002)
v The Robot Acara has been updated. Click here to see the new look. (September 26, 2002)
v The Jetsam has been added to the How to Draw pages. (September 30, 2002)
PetPet Changes
Neopets has made one startling change this month that will greatly effect petpets: they can now gain levels to increase battledome effectiveness.
q If you have managed to get one of the new petpets, Ganuthor, you can now paint it Blue, Green or Brown at the Petpet Puddle. (September 3, 2002)
q Petpets can now gain levels! You can view their level on the Quick Ref page. (September 4, 2002)
q The Babaa and Doglefox have been added to our How To Draw Petpets section. (September 4, 2002)
q When you use your petpet in the Battledome your Neopet will now multiply the damage he or she does by the level of their petpet. (September 6, 2002)
q The Warf and Harris have been added to the How To Draw section. (September 11, 2002)
q The Nuranna has been added to the How To Draw section. (September 12, 2002)
q A new super rare petpet has gone on sale in Ye Olde Petpets - the Turmac. (September 13, 2002)
q If you a Karren, you can now paint it lots of pretty colours at the Petpet Puddle. (September 17, 2002)
TNE News
We now have our own domain. Starting today, we will begin transferring
pages to www.NeopianEducator.com
and officially launch the site by (hopefully) the end of next week.We will
use the existing site as the main page until the rework is finished, and then
most of the information will be stored on the Baylor server as a mirror site.
Featured Article
Turmaculus:
The King of PetPets
I
have recently been swamped with questions about Turmaculus. At this point,
I’m sad to say that most of my information is secondhand but from reliable
sources like the Neopian Times.
With that in mind, I have put together a type of “FAQ” for him,
and hope to add a special section on him when I have more information.
What/Who is Turmaculus? According to the information on the Turmaculus page, “Legends speak of a petpet a who had a gigantic appetite.
As he ate, he grew, and as he grew, he ate... until one day this colossal
petpet could not move any more. The Turmaculus can be found in the land of
Meridell, sleeping nearly 24 hours a day. If you can wake him up, chances
are he may be able to help you with an item, or a healing spell... just don't
catch him in a bad mood (we weren't kidding about his appetite!)”
Turmaculus is Meridell's answer to the Snowager. Like the snowager, he can do good things,
bad things, or nothing. Unlike the snowager, he only deals with petpets. That
means that to try to wake him, your active pet must have a petpet.
Where is Turmaculus? Turmaculus can be found to the right of Meri
Acres Farm at the bottom of the Cheese Roller hill near the top center of
the Meridell map. The direct URL is: http://www.neopets.com/medieval/turmaculus.phtml
When do you wake him? As far as I can tell, the time is randomly generated
each day.
How do you wake him? First, your active pet must have a petpet. Because
he is a giant petpet (turmac) himself, Turmaculus will only interact with
other petpets. Select an option from the drop down menu and cross your fingers.
The options are as follows:
Hit
him with a stick
Ring
a bell
Kick
him
Sing
to him
Tap dance
for him
Blow
your nose
Sneeze
Dump
cold water on him
Scream
Bang
pots and pans
The cute little turmac
What do you get when wake him? As far as I can tell, it largely depends
on how you try to wake him. When you wake him in a pleasant manner (like singing)
then you can get np, rare items, or the big prize (imho): have your petpet’s
level raised. On the other hand, if you wake him up by kicking him then he’s
liable to be in a foul mood and do something bad like eat your petpet. So
far, I haven’t met anyone whose petpet has been eaten so that may just
be a rumor…but I wouldn’t risk it.
 |
Asleep
|
 |
Happy to be awake
|
 |
Unhappy to be awake
|
If you are fortunate enough to wake him and he raises the level of your petpet, do not remove that petpet from your pet or the petpet’s level will return to Level 1. The level of your petpet now is important in the Battledome. The total damage your pet’s attack causes is determined by the attack multiplied the level of the petpet. For example if your pet would normally do 10 points (a.k.a. “icons”) of damage and owns a level three petpet, your pet will now do 30 points of damage.
Featured Game: NeggSweeper
Have a guide you'd like to see here? Send it to: Naomi_Tran@baylor.edu
Do you want to
be a Negg Sweeper?
By Paul Tran a.k.a. hoby2199
I read really bad stuff that
someone had been paid to write…I can write just as badly and want to
get paid too.
ThemelessThoughts.com coming
soon.
It is a lot easier than you might think. All you have to
do is get use to the idea of an occasional bad negg smell.
That is the premise of the game. There is a field of neggs.
Scattered among the neggs are bad neggs…PHEW! Find all the good neggs
without picking a bad one.
How do you clear the neggs without clearing the room with
the reek of bad neggs?
The simple truth is no matter what you do the first move
and possibly the first several moves will be crap shots.
Here is the small negg field.
My strategy is to make the first move along the parameter.
This is what happens after the first move.
The blue highlight marks where I am going to select.
And viola….
Those numbers means that there are that many mines next
to that square. The one means there is only one mine next to it. If you
are fortunate enough to pick a square with no mines next to it, the computer
will uncover all the squares next to it. The computer will uncover all of
those squares if they too have no mines next to them or display a number.
This is what I call a “domino effect”. When you have a domino
effect, you get double points. Normally you only get one point per correct
guess.
I usually keep guessing till I get a domino effect. We
are lucky here to get a domino effect on the first move.
Now that you have some numbers on the field, we can use some strategy.
Look at either “1’s” marked in purple. The
yellow neggs indicate the only two squares next to those “1’s”.
I marked them in yellow because you are not sure which one has the bad negg.
Now the blue “1’s” have three neggs to them, the neggs in
yellow and green. Now here is where logic processor comes in. If you have
three possibilities and only two are guaranteed to be one of the bad neggs,
what does the third choice have to be…A GOOD NEGG.
Wanna see?
Remember when I told you I usually keep guessing until
I get a domino effect? Sometimes you exhaust all logical choices and have
to keep on guessing. That is what I am going to do now.
I am going to pick the green negg shown below.
Nope, no help yet. Ok…let’s push our luck again.
YES!!!!
Something to work with.
Now, here is our first chance to use the flag a bad negg.
If you ever forget, at the top of the screen Neopets tells you how to flag
possible bad neggs. The good news is that if you flag a negg you cannot
accidentally later select it and stink yourself up.
A note: for some reason the marking capability does not work at times. So you think you are marking a mine without choosing it and KABOOM. I usually stop playing for a while.
How do I know that a bad negg is there? Look at the blue highlighted “1” below.
See any other unselected neggs next to it? The cornered
“1” is one of the easiest ways to flag a bad negg.
Now, look for where mines can’t be.
The green neggs indicate where you know the neggs are good.
I will now prove it…
Every one of them is good.
Let’s do it again.
Am I good? HOOORAH!!
Not convinced. Well, third times a charm.
And we got a domino effect. YIPPEE.
NOTE: When you have several possibilities, picked the one
farthest from the bad negg first. This will increase your chance of a domino
effect.
So here is the basic strategy:
- Start along the parameter.
- Be bold and just go for it. You can do nothing but guess until you have a few good neggs and numbers discovered.
- Once you do.
- See where the bad neggs have to be and flag them.
- See where you know a good negg is.
- In your head flag where possible bad neggs are. This will help with finding good neggs.
- Repeat until you win or a bad negg blows up in your nose. PHEW!
- Now,
one last tip. There is no way you can advance to Grand Master which I
am by the way, let alone get a trophy which I have not done so yet, by
just getting just one point per negg or even double points for domino
effects. Neopets has hidden special neggs worth from 50 to 500 points.
So whether it is trophy or neopoints, you really have no reason to do
other than the easy level unless you just want the challenge. I prefer
the medium, a challenge but not so much so that I have to stress my mind.
The following screen shot will show how this game ends.
Happy hunting, and may the Easter Cybunny be with you.
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