HungryForNoms

I kind of disagree. I've seen stores empty in seconds in absurdly fast times, and I don't think a bunch of people playing legitimately make that happen every time.

My story? Still a legit player, with plans to become illegit in the near future. Played legit for years, probably had such a miserable time RSing because of all the ABers running rampant, but scraped together a set worth many millions over the course of several YEARS. then had everything stolen, and of course TNT refuses to restore anything (despite the fact that those items supposedly have no real world currency value and I'm an old customer with friends on the site to back my integrity).

Now I have a job, I'm a grown-up, and I realized I'd like to chill out with my guild every now and then and enjoy neo battles. But am I going to spend hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of hours of free time RSing and playing "legit" to recover what could just as easily be stolen again when I know TNT won't help because they don't give a rat's ass about customer service?

No way. My time is too valuable. I'd rather pay someone money for the items and NP and I want and enjoy the rest of my time in peace, or use programs to cheat and restore what I once lost. Frankly I think most of my competition will come from other auto buyers, because frankly RSing just isn't fun. It's incredibly boring, like playing the lottery even with a good connection because of how badly neopets lags when you refresh a lot, and it's not that rewarding even when you are successful. I never felt that great about myself even on a good RSing day because I had to dump so much time into making NP when deep down I knew it would have been more responsible to spend my time doing something creative or constructive.

Now? I'm sorry if I use an ABer and it messes up someone's life. The sooner I make them realize that neo is not a game where effort correlates to happiness nor success the better. ABers probably really interfered with my account back when I was RSing every day.

In the end, I can't even be that frustrated with them since everything got stolen anyway and TNT didn't care. So if I had made more.. what then? I would have had nicer items for a few months before losing it all.

I've started to think that the economy in neopets must run like a giant pyramid where the money flows up to a few on top from tons of low-level players constantly "producing" NP with drudgery like games. Tons of kids play really crappy games that they don't like that much to earn neopoints. Tons of them spend for items in shops for various activities on the site that feed money to people who AB, or people with malls, or just smarter players who know how to trade up. At the top of the game are 3 types of people:

1. Players who have been around forever and have been able to take advantage of major changes in neopets to make tons of money or gain advantages that will never again be available

2. Players who actually have no lives, AND are skillful enough to make lots of NP with their time (tons of players have no life but aren't good enough to even get a good account or make millions, so they just waste tons of time on the site hoping to make it big one day)

3. People who know how to cheat without getting caught, and these people can also make massive fortunes with a minimal time investment, thus enjoying the fun parts of the site without trading their lives to it.

TL;DR? Here's why I want to cheat and buy items:

Neopets is a game, play it in the way that gives you the most fun for the time you invest.

Neopets is a company that does not respect it's users, and therefore is not worthy of your respect.

TNT is an administration that does not care about customer service, and I no longer care about following their rules.