44 ms·

Neopets HTML Guide

120 points by exolymph 9y ago

napsterbr 9y ago
This is so nostalgic... I remember spending several days of my youth playing and, er, "boosting" my scores to earn more neopoints. Usually modifying the POST request with something like TamperData did the trick :)
- mwfogleman 9y ago
  That is some next level late 90's / early aught's action
- wccrawford 9y ago
  I actually went beyond that. There was a fun game that involved overlaying tetris-like shapes on a board to cycle images through a set. It started out easy, but soon got rather hard. I wrote a program to help solve them easier, and did quite well at first. Eventually, I think other people did the same, but better. That, or they were really, really savants at that kind of problem.
aylmao 9y ago
Low key, this guide is how I got into programming and probably plays a big role in why I’m now a Software Engineer. Throwback.
- bpicolo 9y ago
  Same here, amazing that the site is virtually the same now. Being acquired by viacom was terrible for the site. (Not to mention that it became product placement at every turn). Kind of sad that micropayments are the defacto monetization model for games now, it really kills all sense of accomplishment for finding cool items
  - stordoff 9y ago
    Neopets is probably the first place I encountered random item drops - I remember half the cybercafé freaking out when someone randomly found a Paintbrush.
- brailsafe 9y ago
  Same here. This and writing bots for RuneScape.
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  I never saw the Neopets guide. For me, it was Joe Burns' site: HTMLGoodies[0]. It was indispensable for me. That and a lot of help from FrontPage Express[1] & viewing the source code of whatever I'd just made. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/19990429010831/http://www.htmlgoodies.com:80/ https://web.archive.org/web/19990429010831/http://www.htmlgo... [1] http://www.jegsworks.com/lessons/web/html/fpx/fpx.htm http://www.jegsworks.com/lessons/web/html/fpx/fpx.htm
  - bstamour 9y ago
    I remember HTMLGoodies. Before coming across it I learned the basics from a site called Lissa Explains [0]. [0] http://www.lissaexplains.com/ http://www.lissaexplains.com/
  - uremog 9y ago
    HTMLGoodies helped me make terrible Geocities sites.
    - 52-6F-62 9y ago
      You and me both
  - stordoff 9y ago
    This is one of the first sites I recall using, around 2002: http://www.lissaexplains.com/ http://www.lissaexplains.com/ (I'm surprised it's still online TBH. Before that was a book from my local library (and a library PC), which I vividly remember because it took me _way_ too long to realise that "href" is not "herf".
  - aylmao 9y ago
    For me it was this Neopets guide and FrontPage too, actually (:
neonIcon 9y ago
This is a major throwback, and definitely one of the main reasons why I'm where I'm at today.
anon_mouse 9y ago
First time I saw a program written was when I asked my dad to help me get #1 on one of their mini games. He helped me by making a java swing app (at least I think that is what it was).. which I could put letters into to make words with. Made it to top 10 for in about a day & then got banned for 'acting suspiciously' :D. Definitely a throwback for me too.
chimmy_chonga 9y ago
Now you too can make web pages straight out of the 90's!
gertlex 9y ago
I too used this, and more generally credit Neopets as a source of a lot motivations to learn by solving interesting problems. I reproduced a couple of the site's games in my first couple high school programming classes, and then eventually had a minimal logic but very reliable "Battledome" fighting script using autohotkey partway through undergrad. That autohotkey experience was helpful senior year in very quickly automating data collection from a non-automatable program for estimating atmospheric radiation dispersal.
erikrothoff 9y ago
This got me into programming as well! The biggest problem I had was when I wanted to expand and build a forum, and tried to understand why Geocities didn't run my .php file (which was from a tutorial). Answer: PHP support was paid option AFAIK
- wjoe 9y ago
  Yep, back then it was very hard to get any free hosting that supported any sort of scripting language. Of course, as a 12 year old on the internet, paying for anything was unheard of. I remember wanting to set up some forum that required CGI. I had some sort of hosting account that required using their own dialup service to connect to their FTP. Probably cost more on the phone bill than some cheap hosting service, but it was easier to get that by the parents than asking to use their credit card when the internet was still a mystery to them.
  - krapp 9y ago
    Tripod offered Perl CGI scripting on their free service at one point. I wrote a terrible "messageboard" that only one other person ever used.
afrnld 9y ago
people still play this? :D
a_t 9y ago
And for when you wanted to dive a bit deeper and make your shop really pop, there was the Funky Chickens HTML Help Page (http://www.funkychickens.com/main.asp http://www.funkychickens.com/main.asp)
- fenwick67 9y ago
  11-year-old me used the hell out of Funky Chickens HTML Help. I'm so glad I'm not the only one who used this.
- Chromozon 9y ago
  Also, http://www.lissaexplains.com/ http://www.lissaexplains.com/ was really big at the time. Taught me everything I needed to know to code up petpages and the like.
zoba 9y ago
Neopets is the reason I’m a software engineer. Along the way looking for “cheat codes” for Neopets, I discovered some people hacking the games. I eventually ran a forum on hacking Neopets, made money from ads, got into PC World Magazine, and had a great time along the way. Sorry to Adam and Donna for any headaches I caused during my teenage years. <3
- ravenstine 9y ago
  One of the first "real" programs I wrote was a thing in Visual Basic 6 that would navigate to the giving tree page and quickly snatch up stuff. It was extremely primitive, requiring me to manually sign in to Neopets through an IE webview, and most of my code was ripped from other projects on planetsourcecode.com(that site was epic to my 12 year old self), but somehow I made it work for a short while. Trust me, I didn't really understand what was going on or even what a GET request was. Also, pushing the limits of the HTML and styling you could have on a store page helped me learn those things, and I'm sure some of the knowledge I use for my career in web development today came from those days on Neopets. I wonder if I came across your site back then.
  - Delfino 9y ago
    Ha, thanks for reminding me of Planet Source Code. I remember winning a Superior Code Award for a submission I made on there when I was a teenager and feeling incredibly proud. I even included it on my resume when applying for internships during college.
- fenwick67 9y ago
  Neopets was where I first discovered hacking. There was a user named "blueyoshi82" or something, I wanted to see if I could get into their account (I don't remember why). So I tried guessing their password, and lo and behold, it was just "yoshi"! Being the white-hat that I was, I tried to PM them a message saying "hey you really need to change your password, it's too easy to guess", but the word "password" was blacklisted so I couldn't tell them.
  - 9y ago
cnees 9y ago
Every once in a while I run into another programmer who started on Neopets, and it makes me happy. :) When I interviewed for my job, they asked me my “programming story.” I remember struggling to make my petpages compatible with Firefox, Safari, and IE5. I remember learning Dreamweaver so I could apply to adopt cool Neopets. I wrote tens of thousands of lines of HTML in TextEdit to make an interactive Lite Brite, and more recently I built Neopets-compatible Minesweeper. (http://www.neopets.com/~wire http://www.neopets.com/~wire) These are the projects that made me give CS a shot even though I had no idea what it would be like and even though I was nervous to enter a field with a bad reputation for its attitude towards women. I’m so glad I did. So many people learned the joy of coding from that site. Sadly, it can’t be that for the next generation because its code filters are almost as obsolete as this guide. HTML5, CSS3, multiple classes on an element, and the word “position” in a stylesheet aren’t supported. TNT, if you’re reading this, please take some time to invest in the part of your site where people learn and create.
- seangrogg 9y ago
  To this day I will still cite how Neopets' pet pages were my introduction to the creator's web; later MySpace would help me accumulate some spare lunch money. The good ol' days. =)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
tn_ 9y ago
The bandwidth at which they produced new flash games was amazing. They were pretty detailed too. I can't think of any html5 gaming community website that even comes remotely close to them. One of my favorite events with Neopets was participating in a global takedown of enemies during war. I spent so many hours with that website.. from tending my shop, training my pets and tricking out their pages w/ HTML, to collecting map pieces (I remember the economics w/ Secret Laboratory Map Pieces exploding when people realized how valuable they were)..
stjarnljuset 9y ago
Chiming in as another person who got into web development thanks to Neopets.
red_admiral 9y ago
> If the user viewing your page is using Internet Explorer, your music can play in the background when the page loads. This brings back memories ...
mcx 9y ago
I got introduced to HTML through Neopets as well. I remember joining a Legend of Zelda guild. Another member and I decided to start our own guild. He showed me how to use an image tag so we hotlinked a bunch of sweet images and created a bunch of new accounts to boost our member count and that helped us organically get members. Good times!
Raphmedia 9y ago
I know a handful of developers started to code thanks to Neopets. Personally it was bbcode that got me interested in what was going on behind the scenes.
5ilv3r 9y ago
Ah neopets.... your character limits forced me to ditch frontpage and actually learn how to make html with notepad.

120 points by exolymph 9y ago

This is so nostalgic... I remember spending several days of my youth playing and, er, "boosting" my scores to earn more neopoints. Usually modifying the POST request with something like TamperData did the trick :)

mwfogleman 9y ago
That is some next level late 90's / early aught's action
wccrawford 9y ago
I actually went beyond that. There was a fun game that involved overlaying tetris-like shapes on a board to cycle images through a set. It started out easy, but soon got rather hard. I wrote a program to help solve them easier, and did quite well at first. Eventually, I think other people did the same, but better. That, or they were really, really savants at that kind of problem.

aylmao 9y ago

Low key, this guide is how I got into programming and probably plays a big role in why I’m now a Software Engineer. Throwback.

bpicolo 9y ago
Same here, amazing that the site is virtually the same now. Being acquired by viacom was terrible for the site. (Not to mention that it became product placement at every turn). Kind of sad that micropayments are the defacto monetization model for games now, it really kills all sense of accomplishment for finding cool items
- stordoff 9y ago
  Neopets is probably the first place I encountered random item drops - I remember half the cybercafé freaking out when someone randomly found a Paintbrush.
brailsafe 9y ago
Same here. This and writing bots for RuneScape.
52-6F-62 9y ago
I never saw the Neopets guide. For me, it was Joe Burns' site: HTMLGoodies[0]. It was indispensable for me. That and a lot of help from FrontPage Express[1] & viewing the source code of whatever I'd just made. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/19990429010831/http://www.htmlgoodies.com:80/ https://web.archive.org/web/19990429010831/http://www.htmlgo... [1] http://www.jegsworks.com/lessons/web/html/fpx/fpx.htm http://www.jegsworks.com/lessons/web/html/fpx/fpx.htm
- bstamour 9y ago
  I remember HTMLGoodies. Before coming across it I learned the basics from a site called Lissa Explains [0]. [0] http://www.lissaexplains.com/ http://www.lissaexplains.com/
- uremog 9y ago
  HTMLGoodies helped me make terrible Geocities sites.
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    You and me both
- stordoff 9y ago
  This is one of the first sites I recall using, around 2002: http://www.lissaexplains.com/ http://www.lissaexplains.com/ (I'm surprised it's still online TBH. Before that was a book from my local library (and a library PC), which I vividly remember because it took me _way_ too long to realise that "href" is not "herf".
- aylmao 9y ago
  For me it was this Neopets guide and FrontPage too, actually (:

neonIcon 9y ago

This is a major throwback, and definitely one of the main reasons why I'm where I'm at today.

anon_mouse 9y ago

First time I saw a program written was when I asked my dad to help me get #1 on one of their mini games. He helped me by making a java swing app (at least I think that is what it was).. which I could put letters into to make words with. Made it to top 10 for in about a day & then got banned for 'acting suspiciously' :D. Definitely a throwback for me too.

chimmy_chonga 9y ago

Now you too can make web pages straight out of the 90's!

gertlex 9y ago

I too used this, and more generally credit Neopets as a source of a lot motivations to learn by solving interesting problems. I reproduced a couple of the site's games in my first couple high school programming classes, and then eventually had a minimal logic but very reliable "Battledome" fighting script using autohotkey partway through undergrad. That autohotkey experience was helpful senior year in very quickly automating data collection from a non-automatable program for estimating atmospheric radiation dispersal.

erikrothoff 9y ago

This got me into programming as well! The biggest problem I had was when I wanted to expand and build a forum, and tried to understand why Geocities didn't run my .php file (which was from a tutorial). Answer: PHP support was paid option AFAIK

wjoe 9y ago
Yep, back then it was very hard to get any free hosting that supported any sort of scripting language. Of course, as a 12 year old on the internet, paying for anything was unheard of. I remember wanting to set up some forum that required CGI. I had some sort of hosting account that required using their own dialup service to connect to their FTP. Probably cost more on the phone bill than some cheap hosting service, but it was easier to get that by the parents than asking to use their credit card when the internet was still a mystery to them.
- krapp 9y ago
  Tripod offered Perl CGI scripting on their free service at one point. I wrote a terrible "messageboard" that only one other person ever used.

afrnld 9y ago

people still play this? :D

a_t 9y ago

And for when you wanted to dive a bit deeper and make your shop really pop, there was the Funky Chickens HTML Help Page (http://www.funkychickens.com/main.asp http://www.funkychickens.com/main.asp)

fenwick67 9y ago
11-year-old me used the hell out of Funky Chickens HTML Help. I'm so glad I'm not the only one who used this.
Chromozon 9y ago
Also, http://www.lissaexplains.com/ http://www.lissaexplains.com/ was really big at the time. Taught me everything I needed to know to code up petpages and the like.

zoba 9y ago

Neopets is the reason I’m a software engineer. Along the way looking for “cheat codes” for Neopets, I discovered some people hacking the games. I eventually ran a forum on hacking Neopets, made money from ads, got into PC World Magazine, and had a great time along the way. Sorry to Adam and Donna for any headaches I caused during my teenage years. <3

ravenstine 9y ago
One of the first "real" programs I wrote was a thing in Visual Basic 6 that would navigate to the giving tree page and quickly snatch up stuff. It was extremely primitive, requiring me to manually sign in to Neopets through an IE webview, and most of my code was ripped from other projects on planetsourcecode.com(that site was epic to my 12 year old self), but somehow I made it work for a short while. Trust me, I didn't really understand what was going on or even what a GET request was. Also, pushing the limits of the HTML and styling you could have on a store page helped me learn those things, and I'm sure some of the knowledge I use for my career in web development today came from those days on Neopets. I wonder if I came across your site back then.
- Delfino 9y ago
  Ha, thanks for reminding me of Planet Source Code. I remember winning a Superior Code Award for a submission I made on there when I was a teenager and feeling incredibly proud. I even included it on my resume when applying for internships during college.
fenwick67 9y ago
Neopets was where I first discovered hacking. There was a user named "blueyoshi82" or something, I wanted to see if I could get into their account (I don't remember why). So I tried guessing their password, and lo and behold, it was just "yoshi"! Being the white-hat that I was, I tried to PM them a message saying "hey you really need to change your password, it's too easy to guess", but the word "password" was blacklisted so I couldn't tell them.
- 9y ago

cnees 9y ago

Every once in a while I run into another programmer who started on Neopets, and it makes me happy. :) When I interviewed for my job, they asked me my “programming story.” I remember struggling to make my petpages compatible with Firefox, Safari, and IE5. I remember learning Dreamweaver so I could apply to adopt cool Neopets. I wrote tens of thousands of lines of HTML in TextEdit to make an interactive Lite Brite, and more recently I built Neopets-compatible Minesweeper. (http://www.neopets.com/~wire http://www.neopets.com/~wire) These are the projects that made me give CS a shot even though I had no idea what it would be like and even though I was nervous to enter a field with a bad reputation for its attitude towards women. I’m so glad I did. So many people learned the joy of coding from that site. Sadly, it can’t be that for the next generation because its code filters are almost as obsolete as this guide. HTML5, CSS3, multiple classes on an element, and the word “position” in a stylesheet aren’t supported. TNT, if you’re reading this, please take some time to invest in the part of your site where people learn and create.

seangrogg 9y ago
To this day I will still cite how Neopets' pet pages were my introduction to the creator's web; later MySpace would help me accumulate some spare lunch money. The good ol' days. =)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

tn_ 9y ago

The bandwidth at which they produced new flash games was amazing. They were pretty detailed too. I can't think of any html5 gaming community website that even comes remotely close to them. One of my favorite events with Neopets was participating in a global takedown of enemies during war. I spent so many hours with that website.. from tending my shop, training my pets and tricking out their pages w/ HTML, to collecting map pieces (I remember the economics w/ Secret Laboratory Map Pieces exploding when people realized how valuable they were)..

stjarnljuset 9y ago

Chiming in as another person who got into web development thanks to Neopets.

red_admiral 9y ago

> If the user viewing your page is using Internet Explorer, your music can play in the background when the page loads. This brings back memories ...

mcx 9y ago

I got introduced to HTML through Neopets as well. I remember joining a Legend of Zelda guild. Another member and I decided to start our own guild. He showed me how to use an image tag so we hotlinked a bunch of sweet images and created a bunch of new accounts to boost our member count and that helped us organically get members. Good times!

Raphmedia 9y ago

I know a handful of developers started to code thanks to Neopets. Personally it was bbcode that got me interested in what was going on behind the scenes.

5ilv3r 9y ago

Ah neopets.... your character limits forced me to ditch frontpage and actually learn how to make html with notepad.