Soviet Republic of Neopia

[moon_custafer]

This is a repeat of a posting I attempted a couple of nights ago, to say I'd been sucked into the online world of http://www.neopets.com . At first I thought, "oh, this is like a cross between The Sims and tamagotchi," - you pick a virtual pet and have it interact with an online world (with its own virtual economy). Later I figured that this is what trading card games are probably like - the game is full of objects which are only useful if you've been sent on a quest to find them, so you collect what you can find and sell or trade it to other players for stuff you really need/want. However, what it's really like is a scavenger hunt in Soviet Russia - none of the stores ever seem to have more than a dozen of anything, and with literally thousands of players most of the stores are completely empty. Which means you have to go find someone who got there before you and pay them 10 or more times the original price for that chocolate bar, or whatever it is you've been given an hour to find (and it's always something really specific, like a large salmon-rasperry smoothie).

At least my little blue lizard guy is hardier and better-tempered than a tamagotchi.