Side accounts are essential for regular players that want to do more than the bare minimum in pet trading, but they have their other uses too! There are a lot of reasons to want and need to use them, but there are a lot and I mean a lot of rules when it comes to using side accounts. So, read more below to make sure that you know exactly how, when, and why you can use your accounts.

WHAT ARE SIDE ACCOUNTS?

Users are allowed to have five accounts on Neopets. Generally, users play on a main account and then have anywhere from one to four side accounts. The biggest difference between a main account and side account is that Neopoints and items can only be earned on main accounts. A main account is the account in which you play dailies, buy and sell items, and make Neopoints, as well as collect avatars and train BattleDome pets, among other things. That means you cannot do dailies, play BattleDome, or collect certain avatars (such as the Forgotten Shore Avatar, because you would be collecting items and Neopoints from the Shore while trying for the avatar), among others, on side accounts. So what can you do on your side accounts? Anything besides making neopoints and earning items! These accounts can be used for holding pets, using a lab ray, having another gallery, or chatting (especially if you’re silenced on your main account for any reason). A side account is not a primary account, and it won’t be used as frequently as a main account. Still, they can be super useful!

Before you start creating and using side account, it’s very important that you study the rules that apply to sides. This is particularly important because misusing a side account puts your main account at jeopardy of being frozen. TNT doesn’t mess around when it comes to multiple account abuse and neither should you!

SENDING ITEMS AND NEOPOINTS TO YOUR SIDE

This issue tends to be the biggest concern for people in regards to their sides. To get items/neopoints on a side account, you can do the following:

• Directly send items to your side account(s) from your main
• Send a piece of junk to your side account from your main, and then use that piece of junk to create a trade on the Trading Post between your main account and side account. Remember, you cannot use the Trading Post on your side account to trade with other players – only yourself!
• Set up a trade or auction and transfer neopoints from your main to your side(s), and then buy whatever items you like from user shops/adopt and pound pets/etc.

SIDE ACCOUNTS: DOs AND DON’Ts

The first rule of using a side account is making sure that you only do something on your side account if you’re certain that it’s okay! Otherwise, check out the lists below that list what is and is not allowed on side accounts:

▻ DO:

• Start a gallery! Storing and displaying items on side accounts is okay. Make sure the items that you’d like to put in your gallery are safely transferred from your main.
• Store pets! Let’s be honest – 4 or 5 (if you have Premium) pets is not enough. With new pet colors coming out regularly, you need to collect them all! Okay, well not all, but there’s no shame in wanting to hoard all of the Peophins. You can hold up to 4 pets on each of your side accounts, meaning that between a main account and four side accounts, users can have 20 or 21 (if you have Premium) pets. Feel free to adopt/pound/transfer pets.
• Pound surf! Looking for a new pet to love? Looking for a new lab rat? Whatever the reason may be, you are free to adopt/pound/transfer pets on side accounts, and this includes surfing the pound and hopefully finding your next permie!
• Have a lab ray! You are allowed to have up to five lab rays, meaning one on each account. You need to buy a new lab map set for each side account. Remember that you can only use Lab Cookies on a side account if you do not have a lab ray on your main account (see the Editorial response).
• Collect certain avatars! It is okay to collect avatars known as “clickables,” meaning all you need to do to earn them is to click certain pages. As well, you can collect pet avatars and most lendable avatars. That being said, some avatars come from dailies, playing games, restocking, and battling someone else’s pets, meaning they are not okay to do on your side account. If you’re considering doing some mild avatar collecting on a side, proceed with caution and double-check that the avatar you’re collecting is legal.
• Redeem and purchase Neocash! You can redeem Neocash cards or buy through the site (we recommend using the cards and only purchasing via paypal if necessary, for your own security) on sides. This is one of the best ways to get gift boxes to transfer your NC items between accounts.
• Collect NC freebies! Occasionally, the NC Mall will release free gift boxes and goodie bags. You are free to collect these on each of your side accounts!
• Join a guild! You are free to join a guild on every account you have. In fact, you can even create your own guild(s).
• Create a Neohome! If one Neohome is not enough for you, feel free to create a second (and third and fourth and fifth) on your side account. Make sure that the items that go in your side account Neohomes are safely transferred from your main.
• Complete random Faerie quests! You are allowed to keep items and neopoints from Random Events on side accounts, and this means you can also complete Faerie quests that may appear. Make sure the item(s) that you give the Faerie is transferred safely from your main account.
• Train your pets! It is okay to train your pets at the Swashbuckling Academy, Mystery Island Training School, and Secret Ninja Training School. Remember that any dubloons or codestones that need to be used as payment should be safely transferred from your main account. You can take advantage of free training on a pet’s certain day.
• Achieve pet awards! If you have a pet on a side account that is itching for a Book Trophy or a Gourmet Food card, you are free to send books/foods/etc. to your side account and help that pet achieve its goal.
• Enter certain contests! Some contests give no neopoint or item prizes, so you’re free to enter them from your side accounts. Notice that I said enter the contests – not vote!
  • Beauty Contest
  • Customization Spotlight
  • Pet Spotlight
  • Site Spotlight
  • Neohome Spotlight
  • Userlookup Spotlight
• Use your side as a main if you are frozen! If you are frozen on your main account for any reason, you are free to use a side account as a main account in the meantime. If your main is unfrozen and you no longer want to use it as your main account, you can continue using the side account as your new main. It is okay to transfer main accounts but it is not okay to jump between accounts (i.e. making neopoints on your side one day and your main another day). Use common sense with this one (see the Editorial response).

▻ DON’T:

• Do dailies. Most dailies give (cheap) neopoint items or pure neopoints, and we know that is not allowed on side accounts; this includes but is not limited to spinning wheels, visiting Coltzan, Grave Danger, visiting the Lost Tomb, and playing Kiko Pop. You can do very certain and few dailies that give no prizes such as Deadly Dice. Use common sense!
• Purchase Premium. It is against the rules to have Premium on multiple accounts.
• Play games. Playing games earns neopoints by sending scores. If you want a nice trophy for your side account, you’re out of luck. Practice games and submit scores on your main account only. (This includes NeoQuest, Sewage Surfer, and the like.)
• Use the Trading Post or Auction House. It’s okay to use the TP or Auctions to transfer items/neopoints between your own accounts, but it is not okay to use the TP or Auction to exchange items/neopoints with other players even if the neopoints you are using came from your main account. If you have business to attend to in the Trading Post or Auction House, simply do it on your main account and transfer the item(s) to your side(s) afterwards.
• Open a shop. While you will not get frozen for having a shop on a side account, you can get yourself into trouble by selling items in it. Keep it empty! It doesn’t matter if the items you’re selling come from your main; sell them there.
• Open a bank account. It is not against the rules to store neopoints on a side account, but opening a bank account gives you the opportunity to collect interest on those neopoints. Remember: earning neopoints on a side is against the rules! While you theoretically could store neopoints there and avoid collecting interest, it’s better safe than sorry to keep your neopoints on your main account where you can collect interest.
• Use Fortune Cookies. While Fortune Cookies are super useful NC items, and while most NC items are allowed on side accounts, taking advantage of fortune cookies on side accounts is mostly prohibited. You cannot open Faerie Quest Cookies, can only open Lab Ray Cookies if you have no lab on your main account, cannot open Training Cookies, cannot open Upcycle Cookies (because they can give neopoint items), and cannot open Games or Wild Card Fortune Cookies. You are expected to open NC Fortune Cookies on your main account and send the items inside to your sides if you would like them there. That’s a lot of cookies to avoid!
• Play Trudy’s Surprise. This should come as no surprise: you cannot play Trudy on a side account because it earns neopoints. Even if you only want the boxes and you donate the neopoints to the Money Tree, you cannot play Trudy’s Surprise on a side account. Don’t look at me, I don’t make the rules. Disable Trudy from appearing on your side accounts under Preferences.
• Play in the BattleDome. BattleDome wins give neopoints and prizes, so this is off-limits for side accounts.
• Collect monthly freebies. You cannot get free neopoint items on your side accounts – stick to free NC only.
• Participate in plots. Plots may be fun, but they give out too many neopoint items to be completed on side accounts. Stick to your main where you can earn the applicable avatars and site themes!
• Restock. You should only be restocking on your main account. If you get temporarily restock banned, it is against the rules to continue restocking on a side.
• Enter certain contests. Some contests give neopoints and items as prizes, so they cannot be entered. This includes:
  • Better Than You
  • Lenny Conundrum
  • Caption Contest
  • Mystery Picture Competition
  • Story Telling Contest
  • Poetry Contest
  • Random Contest
  • Gallery Spotlight
  • Adventure Spotlight
  • Art Gallery
• Vote in contests. You cannot vote in any contests on your side account, including the Beauty Contest and the Customization Spotlight. If you want to vote, do it on your main! Advertising should be done on whichever account is entered in a contest.
• Use your side as a main when you are suspended. If you are silenced or suspended, all rules about main and side accounts still apply. Wait it out.

I ACCIDENTALLY DID A “DON’T” ON MY SIDE ACCOUNT – UH OH!

Take a deep breath. We’ve all accidentally done something we weren’t supposed to do on a side account. It’s important that you learn from this mistake and be extra careful not to do it again. That being said, there are steps you should take to make sure that TNT knows you are not abusing multiple accounts.

The first thing you should do is donate any items and neopoints you’ve accidentally accumulated to the Money Tree. At least something good will come out of your mistake!

Otherwise, very infrequent slip-ups won’t get you frozen. TNT understands a few human errors, but do understand that multiple errors will arouse suspicion. Take precaution against making these mistakes by changing your site theme or setting PINs different from your main.

Neopets make mistakes too…

NOTES

• If you want to know about experienced/loyal/aged user perks on side accounts, check out our Loyal Users Guide.
• You cannot use the Neopets Referral Programme to create your side accounts. Click the link to learn more from our guide.
• If you think anything about side accounts is vague or dangerous, let TNT know by sending in a question to the editorial! Get your friends to do it too, for a quicker response.

If you’ve ever wanted to hear about the happenings of Neopia, read some original comics, or perhaps ask TNT a question, you’re in luck because Neopia has its very own newspaper — The Neopian Times! This user-based “paper” is released every week by Saturday and is full of many informative and entertaining goodies. Read below to learn how to access the times, get published, and more!

The Neopian Times mascot— the White Weewoo!

THE NEOPIAN TIMES: A (SHORT) HISTORY

The Neopian Times began being published in Winter 1999-2000. It looked much different than it does today! Before its revamp, it was a white page with simple bolded headers, and there were far fewer featured articles. Here is a snapshot of how The Times looked in its second issue:

6 February 2000 issue, edited by “Josh” a.k.a. Mr Shankly

It included puzzles, comics, and stories/serials, all user-submitted, which is not too different than much of the content used today! As The Times became more refined in its design, it also added new regular articles like the Guild Spotlight.

The Times has gone through many revamps since becoming the slick and organized paper it is today. Its other notable format included a table of contents and this famous banner:

And of course, we cannot forget this fantastic and nostalgic layout!

Back when some entries were sent via email!

Today, this is what The Times looks like!

Issue 172 right in time for the holidays, as you can see!

There is a navigation bar in the top, right corner of the screen that can take you to the articles, short stories, and more if you’re looking for something specific. We’ll get more into those sections soon!

Past editors of The Times include Mr. Shankly and Felicia, a.k.a. Snowflake. Darcy, a.k.a. Droplet, is the current editor.

The Mascot

The White Weewoo is The Neopian Times mascot. It has been the unofficial symbol of The Times since 2003. In 2002, a user was adamant about achieving a White Weewoo petpet for one of her pets, to resemble Harry Potter’s white owl Hedwig. The user and her friends submitted tons of content to The Times, subtly and sometimes not-so-subtly mentioning a White Weewoo — which had yet to exist in Neopia — in order to push TNT to create one. The user achieved her goal on 28 October 2003 when the White Weewoo was officially released!

CONTENT

The Neopian Times is a newspaper that features opinion and advice articles, stories and serials, comics, spotlights, and an editorial, all user-submitted. It is important that articles be entertaining, useful, informative, appropriate, and within the diegetic universe that is Neopia. There are important guidelines that need to be followed for every submission, otherwise a submitted article will be rejected. These guidelines are not content-based — you can certainly let your creativity run wild when it comes to submissions!

Articles

Articles in The Times cover a wide-range of informative content and activities in Neopia. These are non-fiction guides, streams of advice, and various information. Game guides are very popular articles, as well as guides on how to obtain certain tricky avatars such as Bon Appétit (from the Kelp restaurant) and guides on how to peruse different Neoboards with their particular lingo. These articles should always be truthful and verified, involve as much necessary information as possible, and be accessible for readers of all levels. This is a site for all ages, and it’s up to those who write articles for The Times to make some of the more difficult aspects of gameplay simpler so everyone can understand!
NOTE: Article word count = 1,000 minimum / 50,000 maximum

Short Stories and Serials

The Times features short stories and series of single stories, all fictional and written by users. The content of these stories must be completely within the world of Neopia and, with few exceptions, cannot involve anything that wouldn’t be found there; for example, if you were writing a story and a character was scared of a spider, they would actually need to be scared of a Spyder, because plain old spiders are not found in Neopia! It’s important that these stories be entertaining, whether they be happy or sad or funny or anything in between. Most importantly, they need to be original! There have been a lot of issues of The Neopian Times, and if a story is not original, it will easily be forgotten (if it can even get published)! Short stories are one of the original and most popular aspects of The Times.
NOTE: Short story word count = 1,200 minimum / 4,000 maximum
NOTE: Series word count = 1,5000 minimum per part / 50,000 maximum per part

Comics

The Neopian Times has its own page of comics that is arguably its best and most popular content every week. These comics are often very funny and make fun of some of the sillier happenings in Neopia, such as the behavior of trolls in the Pound Chat or feeding those troublesome kads. Controversy and light teasings are not off-limits and this mockery can be seen in the comics every week. Drawing talent is not necessary — as long as you try your best and the quality of the scan/image is nice, it doesn’t matter if you draw like a 2-year-old or if you draw like M.C. Escher. For those players that do not speak English as a first language, make sure the text in your image is grammatically correct since TNT will not edit the comic .jpg/.gif to fix spelling or grammar edits; post on the boards or ask a friend to double-check your image before you submit it!
NOTE: File size max = 2oo KB, 470 pixels maximum / .jpg and .gif only

Editorial

The Editorial is a very important part of The Neopian Times. Here, users and TNT can finally be on the same page about some things every week. Users can submit questions and Country Queen (CQ), the current Editorial editor, will pick and answer some questions for the following week. Because the editorial comes out every single week with The Times, many of the questions are very current and about current glitches or miscommunications. CQ generally does not answer questions that have been answered in past issues (such as inquiries about KeyQuest, which is a very popular question). If you ask a question but do not want your username to be displayed alongside the question, for whatever reason, simply mention this at the end of your question and your UN will be removed.
NOTE: While getting an article, story, or comic published in The Times will get you a trophy for your lookup, having a question answered in the Editorial does not award a trophy or count towards the avatars.

GUIDELINES AND SUBMISSIONS

There are very important guidelines and rules when it comes to what sort of content makes its way into an issue of The Neopian Times. While I mentioned the word limits above, there are a lot of other rules. Some brief guidelines can be found on the submissions page. Otherwise, let’s go over some of the DON’Ts in depth!

• All Neopets rules apply to The Neopian Times.
• Mild cartoon violence is acceptable, but no blood, gore, etc. is permissible.
• All content of stories, serials, and (most) comics needs to be realistic to the Neopian universe. This means that things/people/Neopets/items/etc. that do not exist in Neopia should not be part of stories, including but not limited to male Faeries, most technology outside of the Virtupets Space Station (this includes video games, telephones, and televisions), vehicles like cars and planes, police, incurable disease, non-existent pet colors, Neopia origin stories, and any animal, hybrid, or creature that could not be found in Neopia.
• All spiritual and political topics are not allowed, including but not limited to religion, politics, seances, cults, and origin stories.
• Adult topics are not allowed, including but not limited to child custody battles, excessive death, prisons, and romantic relationships.
• Any mentioning of the existence of Jelly World is not allowed.
• Users should not mention on-site penalties like being frozen or silenced, unless they are mentioning it off-hand or briefly in a guide. Rules should also not be listed or explained, as it is up to users to read the official rules and not rules that have been summarized by others.

Once your appropriate submission is sent in, you will receive a word from the editor in 3-10 days with a neomail that explains if your submission has been accepted, rejected, or held over for a possible future issue. The reasons for rejection will be listed, and you do have the option of “fixing” your submission and re-submitting. If your article is being held over, you do not need to re-submit; rest assured that they have it, and you’ll hear back about it (again) soon!

You can co-write articles with your NeoFriends. Simply add their UN to the authors’ box when you are submitting your piece and you both will receive eligible trophies and avatars if the piece is published!

TROPHIES AND AVATARS

Being published in The Times definitely pays off! Any published author gets a shiny golden trophy for their lookups:

Neopian Times Champion! Good job!

If you get published multiple times, the amount of trophies you have won’t grow, but underneath your trophy will say x2, x3, x4, etc., based on how many times you’ve been published.

There are also two beautiful avatars that can be “won” from submitting to The Neopian Times. But don’t get your hopes up too quickly because these are tough to get and take a lot of dedication and patience!

Get published in The Neopian Times 10 times.

Get published in one of The Neopian Times’ every 50 issues,
i.e. issues ending in ’00’ or ’50’ (beginning since Issue 200).

Getting published in “landmark” issues like #300, #350, etc. can get those authors some other interesting and special awards, such as the prized Neopian Times White Weewoo Plushie!

NOTES

• You can access past issues in the The Neopian Times archive, and issues 1 to 150 at this archive.
• Chet Flash is a name you might see in The Times. He was created by the Neopian Times Writers’ Forum for really no reason besides to have a never-before-seen-nor-heard character that could be namedropped every once in a while. You may see his signature line, “Chet Flash wuz here,” but you’ll never see the man himself!
• The editor and artists pick the images that are displayed with the stories and articles in The Times. The images that are displayed with the stories are generally original, unique images never before seen!