Log in, cheat, log off, brag! Doesn�t it sound familiar to those older players? You may know how Neopia used to be during its beginning stage. Come on, don�t snug your shoulders, you have cheated once or twice, haven�t you? Myself, I have cheated quite too often. I remember when the Advent calendar came out. Boy, was I on fire! I had 30 paintbrushes, 30 T-shirts, everything thirty times more than I was allowed to have. I was not the only one at that time. Who wouldn�t cheat considering the fact that the staff rarely froze anyone at all? Cool, you may say. Not really. I got frozen. Same thing with the stock market. I got frozen.

Then I started over again. I had one account left that I rarely used. I started from 400 NP and soon reached half a million. This time without cheating! I painted one of my pets Faerie and the other one Desert. I spent 300,000 NP on my wonderful house. Cool, huh? Not really. I soon got frozen because the account once used to be indirectly involved with my previous cheating accounts.

It was really sad, but again, I started over again, with 300 NP, this time. I never cheated on that account, either. I built a new house and spent another 300,000 NP I earned from scratch. In fact, I have two houses now - one in Neopia Central and one on Mystery Island (when summer comes around , so my pets are closer to the beach). I painted the mom Striped, the dad Star, and the children I will later (in fact, one of them is still in their mommy�s belly).

In fact, I think the humble fact that I�m taking care of a Scorchio family is sweet. It�s good knowing their house is furnished, even though I only have a couple of thousands in my account. I don�t own a big guild like I used to with 2000 members, where I get 200 neomails a day and everyone expects something from me. In fact, they complained about me last time I went there and nobody knows me anymore. I don�t have three millions and don�t spend one million on the notice board per week just to advertise for a guild, and I�m not the freak I used to be to stay up until three in the morning buying zillions of codestones to make as much profit as I can. In this case, you have to be selfish and think about yourself. I�m glad I don�t have to pull my hair out thinking where I will get a million neopoints to have a contest.

I recently talked to another player that has been around Neopia for almost three years, just like me. He runs a millionaire guild. I noticed he had put up a sign saying "Earn 1 million NP in 10 days and participate in our 1 million NP contest". I walked up to him, and asked him how all that is possible. He told me that you need to create about fifty accounts, play the stock market and get the freebies every single day. When I asked him how he got the neopoints for the contest, he told me "The same way I told you to make one million neopoints." Not to make enemies, but I regularly report scammers, hackers, and all the bad guys to the staff. I did not report him, but I joined his guild to confirm that he is a scammer. One week later his account got frozen and half of the members left. Oops. Better luck next time, I guess. That�s what I was told, too.

More and more people stopped cheating, because the staff has been tightening the borders for them to cross. Cool, you may think. Not really. Now there are cheaters who cheat the �legal� way. For example, have you ever entered a shop with an item that looks like a real item, when in fact, it is just a picture that takes you to a fake log-in screen when clicked on? I know, I have entered such shops way too many times, and I am aware of their consequences. However, newbies and other players may not be. They lose their account, and report the scammer, but it is too late when the cheater erases the webpage, picture, and your bank account. I do not know how the Neopets system works, but something needs to be invented that will differentiate between pictures and real items. Have you ever shopped for something at the shop wizard, stopped and said �Wow, what a price!�, and once you entered the shop, suddenly bought the item, but only to realize that an extra zero was added on while you were entering the shop? This is only one of the �legal� cheats that cost me most of my fortune. I once entered such a shop and bought a 999-NP codestone at the price of 99,999 NP. I admit, my fault, but it�s still cheating, so I e-mailed the Neopets Staff. I got the explanation that the person may have priced the codestone so that nobody buys it. If you want to make an item unbuyable, you do not price it at 99,999 NP and don�t make the background match the font color, but at least spare to add at least one neopoint to the price and make the colors contrasting, I thought, but again, I got the famous answer - Better luck next time. I hope there is no next time, because I had to force my pets to eat at the soup kitchen for one whole week, and I only had 2,000 NP left after I got robbed. I�m still recovering today, and I still do not have what I used to have. Pretty ironic, huh, that the person did not ask back for their codestone if it is soooo rare and they wanted to keep it.

I am not sure what the staff will do about the �legal� cheaters, but I hope somehow they find a way to freeze their accounts. Cheating is very bad, and I would not advise it to anyone. If you ever cheated, don�t worry. No matter how you think you got the staff fooled, they will always get you. Instead, stop being a material maniac and get real. Think about your pets. Are they really happy with your millions sitting in the bank and having two rooms with dung furniture? And do you feel good robbing someone and making them bankrupt? I don�t think so.