Creating A Pet

Haopefully you'll find the information here helpful!

Navigation:
Introduction :: Creating a Pet VS. the Pound :: Choosing Your Species :: Limited Edition and Restricted Pets :: Further Customization of Your Neopet :: Stats :: Finishing Up

Why create a pet?

It isn't absolutely necessary to have a pet in order to participate on Neopets. However, your options are rather restricted if you don't: without a pet, you can't buy and use items from shops, you can't play games, you can't fight in the Battledome, as well as other things -- and we wouldn't want that, would we? Besides, it's really quite fun to take care of your own Neopet(s); you aquire a sense of responsibility, and even though your pets aren't real, it isn't hard to develop an attachment to them. Nearly all involved players on Neopets have at least one pet (you can have a maximum of four), and it's really almost self-explanitory as to why you should get one.

Don't discard the option of adopting a pet from the pound right away. You might be excited and all to have your own, customized pet, but taking a pet that someone else didn't want is really quite a nice thing to do. Not only that, but if you're lucky, you might find a pet that's painted. When you create a pet, you are only given four basic colors to choose as options -- red, yellow, blue, and green -- and there are actually quite a few more "colors" that you can paint your pet eventually: more expected ones like white, pink, orange, and purple, but also some rather strange ones like desert, Christmas, pirate, and baby (these are only a few examples -- if you want, you can head over to this page to find a complete listing of available pet colors and what the images look like for each available combination). However, paint brushes (what you use to change your pet's color) are generally extremely expensive and sought after in the Neopian world, and you're quite lucky to have a painted pet. Since newbies don't generally have enough neopoints (the currency of Neopets) to afford a paint brush, if you want a painted pet right away, your best bet would be to look in the pound (although it isn't by any means guaranteed that you'll find a painted pet -- or even one you like). Also, if you're lucky, you might come across a pound pet with better stat points (the numbers each pet has for strength, defense, movement, etc. -- you'll learn more about these later) than you would typically be able to create right away using the create a pet link.

It's your choice -- either option will get you a pet.

Keep in mind, though, that when you create a pet, you get to decide its name, whereas pound pets have already been named (and you can't change your pet's name, ever). Also, as a sidenote, you actually get neopoints for creating a pet -- 50 of them -- but you need to pay to adopt a pet. It isn't normally a huge amount, but you might want to consider this, especially if you don't have many neopoints yet or are on a tight budget. Of course, however, you'll be able to easily make those NP (neopoints) again by playing games or whatnot.

This guide is mainly about creating a pet, though, so let us move onto that . . .

Once you click on that, you'll be brought to an incomplete list of Neopets species to choose from. Click the "More Neopets" button(s) and keep clicking to see the complete listing. At the time of writing this guide, there are currently 49 species to choose from.

You will probably find eventually that you have a preference of certain Neopets over others, that owning a certain species can reap its benefits, and that some are more popular than others. So choose your pet species wisely. Neopets has nicely taken the time to create a full list of every species available (yes, I realize that the create-a-pet page has such a list, but some people can't view that one as they have four pets, and the one I'm about to show you has all pets on one page, rather than using that somewhat annoying "More Neopets" button) -- which you can find here. Also on that page, if you click on individual pictures of Neopets, a little window will pop up displaying a brief animation about that particular pet and its characteristics. This is definitely worth a look, especially if you're the imaginative sort of person who wants to know the "traits" of a certain species before adopting a pet of that species. For example, Chias are supposedly very loveable and friendly, Chombies are shy, Unis are vain, and so on.

That page is worth a look, as is this one, which shows how popular certain pets are in terms of how many pets of a species have been adopted so far. Don't let this influence your decision, though! Make sure to choose whichever pet you like best.

In addition, NNON has compiled a page of more informative links about pet species here -- check it out!

"If a Neopet says limited edition under it this means that there are only a certain number of them in Neopia. From time to time more limited edition Neopets are released, you just need to keep checking back."

This is pretty much true, of course, but there is actually more to it. When Neopets says that more limited edition pets are released "from time to time," what they actually mean is that such pets are only released on each limited edition pet's specified day (e.g. Chomby Day, Tonu Day, et cetera; each pet has a designated "day" on which different things related to that pet are released -- if you want to know which pet days are coming up, you can take a look at the Neopets calendar), as well as during a few random times during the year sometimes. You could do what Neopets suggests and "keep checking back," but that would really be a bit silly, because the releasing of limited edition pets other than on their special days is so rare that you simply can't tell when it's going to happen. The best thing to do is keep your ears open, since when more of a certain species is released, plenty of Neopets fan sites usually report it, and people on the Neoboards often know that kind of thing too (it's often put it the Neopets news too, but sometimes the news goes up after the pets are actually released, and by that time it's too late). Since word spreads so quickly, though, you have to be speedy. The easiest way to get yourself a limited edition pet is probably to prepare ahead and know when that pet's "day" is, and keep trying the pet from the create-a-pet page, hoping you'll end up nabbing one or two.

Limited Pets:

Chomby Cybunny Hissi Jetsam Kiko Koi Hissi Tonu

Thankfully enough for us users, most pets aren't limited edition. There is, however, another category of species which Neopets calls "restricted" pets, of which they say:

"If a Neopet is restricted this means that you cannot create it in the normal way. You will need to find out the secret way to create that particular Neopet."

Another good thing for us is that these secret pets -- namely the Krawk and Draik -- aren't really so secret after all. We know how to get them, although the methods to do so certainly aren't easy. NNON has two pages explaining the processes of getting these pets to you: firstly, the How to Get a Draik page, and secondly, the How to Get a Krawk page. Both should be of help to you if you're interested in how to get restricted pets, even if you can't afford one (don't worry, most Neopians can't!).

To make explaining things easier, I have taken a screenshot of the page you should be taken to next (your page will look different depending on which species you chose):

Now for the difficult part: finding a nice name for your Neopet that isn't taken. Take into consideration that millions of Neopets have been created, and no pet name is allowed to be used twice. Because of this, you might find it a bit frusterating finding a name you like that no one has already used. Surprisingly, however, it isn't too difficult if you put your mind to it. I recommend opening a new browser window with Neopets in it and typing possible pet names into the search bar near the bottom of the sidebar on the left of the page -- I would find that much easier than trying names on the pet creator.

You might be inclined to name your pet something like Usul2351235, but remember that your pet might not always be the same species. There are ways of changing a pet's species, although we won't get into that now. Also, the string of numbers at the end of the name isn't always attractive, but that depends mostly on personal taste. If you don't want a pet name with numbers or other non-letter characters in it ('_' is popular in pet names), then my suggestion would be to simply make up in your head a name that you like, and keep twisting letters around and such until you get something that isn't taken.

The gender of your pet won't affect its abilities or (in most cases) appearance in the Neopian world, or anything like that. You can, additionally, change your pet's gender later on using either the lab ray or an item called 'strange potion,' neither of which I will say much more about here, seeing as this guide is about creating a pet, not changing its gender.

As mentioned before, you are given only four basic color options: green, red, yellow, and blue. Upon selecting one of these from the drop down menu given, you should be shown a preview of what your pet will look like -- these four basic colors aren't excruciatingly different in regards to what your pet looks like, and you can, of course, change it later (although it is rather expensive).

The final three fields -- "Where does your Neopet like to live?," "What does your Neopet like doing?," and "How does your Neopet greet others?" -- are basically just for fun, since they don't show up anywhere at all after your pet's been created except in the pound, should you disown your pet (and hopefully that won't happen!). So, don't really worry too much about what you end up choosing for these. I have heard rumors that if you choose the "Hunting for Treasure" option for the "What does your Neopet like doing?" question on your active Neopet, then you get random events more often, but as far as I know this has not been confirmed.

You are probably wondering to yourself right now just what each of these statistics do. Well . . .

Now, of course, remember to feed your pet, take care of it, everything like that - maybe you'll want to create another, or two, or three eventually!

Do you have any questions or comments about this guide? Is there something that should be added? Please contact us at contact@neonuttersofneopia.com and let us know.