I wanted to make a guide for newer users because I was pretty lost when I first joined. Hopefully I can help make the beginning of your modneo journey a smooth one!

This site is still under construction and will hopefully be updated regularly to reflect the current state of modneo. You can see recent updates on the sidebar!

common terms

arcus: Eritque Arcus, a Grimoire that when used gives you a Rainbow Fountain use
energy: refers to Malevolent Energy, which can be purchased in the HT and turns your pet into the MSP colour
FEA: Faerie Employment Agency
flask: Flask of Rainbow Fountain Water
flasking: refers to using many flasks in order to get a certain colour of pet (often MSP)
GS: Golden Shells, one of the onsite currencies
HT: Hidden Tower
ISO: in search of
LE: Limited Edition (pets)
loco: Occultus Loco, a grimoire that gives you 3 random map pieces
mp(s): morphing potion(s) (or sometimes, map piece(s))
MSP: Malevolent Scentient Plushie
NC: refers to NeoCash items, which are obtained through mystery capsules onsite
NP: neopoints, the main onsite currency
NM: neomail
PB: Paint Brush
PPL: Petpet Laboratory Map
pure: trader is seeking pure neopoints, as opposed to items or a mixture of items/NP.
push: usually refers to "pushing" the Wishing Well, where users collaborate to donate enough NP to remove the rarity and/or specific item name cap.
retail: refers to the original, "vanilla" version of neopets
RS(ing): restock(ing)
SLM: Secret Laboratory Map
spatium: Spatium Procuratio, a grimoire that when used increases your shop, gallery, or inventory slots by 25.
SW: Shop Wizard
swirly: Mysterious Swirly Potion, which changes your neopet into a random Limited Edition species
swirlying: refers to using many swirly potions to get a roll on a specific limited edition pet
TP: Trading Post
UFT: up for trade
UW: Underwater Map Piece

You start with 20 pet slots (but if you're a Patreon patron, you get bonus pet slots!). Moderneo pets have unique names, but the neat thing is that you can add invisible characters to your pets' name on the pet creation page. Just press the +ZWC button as many times as you want! This lets multiple pets have the "same" name, even if the original name with no ZWC is already taken.

Some people don't like ZWCs in their pet names, and others don't care. Pets with unique names without ZWCs could potentially be valuable to certain users, much like pet IDs are.

Low digit pet IDs fetch a high price. I've seen low IDs go for up to 13 million NP on the discord trading boards. "Funny number" or aesthetically-pleasing IDs can also be valuable (like 42069 or 7777).

Animalis

There's no limit to the amount of pets you can have! In order to increase your maximum pet slots, you just need to get your hands on an Animalis. They stock in the Hidden Tower for 225,000 NP (as of July 3, 2023). You can also buy them on the shop wiz or get them from random events.

If you've never played neopets before, you can paint your pets using Paint Brushes, Flasks of Rainbow Water, zapping them at the lab ray, or using a dip at the Rainbow Fountain.

Paint Brushes mostly enter the economy through random events, winning dailies (Fruit Machine is a common source of PBs), and fishing at the vortex.

Flask of Rainbow Fountain Water

Flask of Rainbow Fountain Water, or "flasks," as they are mostly referred to as, turn your pet a completely random color with each use, and they can be fished up at the vortex. They start becoming available for catch after your pet reaches fishing level 85 (or 87, not sure - there's conflicting information).

The Rainbow Fountain can paint your pet (almost) any color. There are a few restrictions. If you're unsure, check the Rainbow Pool. You can look up any pet/species combo and it will tell you the methods you can use to get the the pet. You can use an Eritque Arcus to get a dip at the Rainbow Fountain. Arcuses are gotten through Random Events and dailies (the Tomb is one I know for sure can give them out). You can also technically buy them in the HT but as of now it's not really worth it because they're cheaper on the Shop Wizard

Fishing in particular is a great way to get paint brushes. For example, there are some users with hundreds of pets, and, because they fish 3 times a day, have a lot of opportunities to fish up PBs and flasks. This can get quite expensive, though, since fishing costs money, but maximizing your number of pets and fishing 2-3x a day is definitely a strategy many use. It's up to you whether you think it's worth it!

Another way to get painted pets is to use morphing potions or magical plushies. You can restock them in Kauvara's and Plushie Palace, respectively. You can also get morphing potions from random events. You can get Transmogrification potions (which turn your pet mutant) from the Poke The Meteor daily, or from REs as well.

Limited Edition and Restricted Pets

You'll notice that there are some pet species you can't create normally. I'll list the methods to get them below:

Limited Edition Pets can only be created during special events, or obtained with morphing potions or magical plushies. (For example, a total 300 Cybunnies were able to be created during Easter this year). The LE pets are Cybunny, Kiko, Hissi, Jetsam, Koi, Chomby, Tonu, Lutari.

Restricted pets can only be created with the use of an item (or with a MP or magical plushie). They are Draik, Krawk, Kitzen, Lulamu, and Motere.

Krawk petpets can be turned into neopets at the Fungus Cave.
Lulamu can be summoned with a Lulamu Whistle at the Enchanted Glade.
Kitzen can be created if you bring a Kitzen petpet to the Mysterious Fountain.
Draiks can be hatched with Draik eggs at the Draik Nest.
Motere can be created by bringing a Glowing Moltara Lamp to the Crystal Cave.

Often, buying a morphing potion or plushie will be much cheaper than using these items, so if saving NP is a priority for you, check all prices through the shop wizard before committing!

Myterious Swirly Potion is an item that, when used, will change your pet into a random limited edition pet (not restricted pets, unfortunately). This opens up all sorts of possibilities with regards to getting painted pets! For example, if you're after a relatively expensive painted pet (plushie or faerie, for example), you could buy a cheap morphing potion off the shop wiz, give it to your pet, and then swirly them to get a "better" pet. I did this to get my Faerie Cybunny, Poogle, and Tonu, by buying Faerie Nimmo potions and then Swirlying them. It took a few tries to get the species I wanted, but it was definitely cheaper than buying 3 faerie paint brushes (or the respective morphing potions).

Beware, though - if the Swirly gives you a roll on a LE pet that doesn't come in the colour your pet is currently, it will turn your pet into a basic colour. For example, if I'm Swirlying a plushie pet, and it decides to give me a Lutari, it will get rid of the plushie colour because plushie Lutari doesn't exist. So there is some degree of risk in using this method.

You can get Swirly potions through fishing (after level 85 [or 87, not sure. There is conflicting information]), or by trading Golden Shells for them at Pearl's Paradise.

Mutare Naturam

The Mutare Naturam is an item that lets you change your pet's name, gender, and attributes! You can get them from random events or buy them in the Hidden Tower or on the Shop Wiz. You can also use them to swap the names of two pets -- just enter the name of one of your other pets in the box when you're changing a name, and they will swap names.

Dailies

Dailies. Do them.

The end.

Lmao no but seriously, the dailies are pretty straightforward. Most of the time you won't win anything, but you do them every day because maybe like once every week or two you'll win something! And we love winning shiny virtual pet items.

You can probably skip Pick Your Own (I do), unless you really want Lulamu Whistles. Otherwise, do all the others. ESPECIALLY the Faerie Employment Agency jobs. Seriously, do these every day you possibly can! Each basic quest will give you ~13k NP. You get 10 quests a day (13 if you're silver patreon, 15 if you're gold patreon), so that adds up to ~130k a day just from FEA, or more if you're a patron.

You can find the basic FEA items on the shop Wiz. People will restock them for under 1k NP, usually, so it's easy to make a profit. You can also restock them yourself from the NPC shops, if you're so inclined! (I do, cos I think it's fun.)

Then, if you also do Tyranu Evavu every day, that's another 50k for 5-10 minutes of your time.

You can complete the Forgotten Shore Map to unlock the Forgotten Shore Daily, and complete the Secret Laboratory and PetPet Lab maps to unlock those dailies, as well.

I already talked a bit about fishing, but I personally really recommend fishing as often as you can. The page says every 2-6 hours, but if you fish earlier than the 6 hour mark, your pets aren't guaranteed to catch anything. So I recommend just waiting every 6 hours. A common strategy is to buy a scratchcard, fish, and then use the Winter Scratchcard Kiosk Wocky as a timer so you know when you can fish again. (Some people use Test Your Strength, because it also has a 6 hour timer). You can buy any scratchcard you want, but checking the winter kiosk will still work since you can only buy a scratchcard from there every 6 hours.

Most of the time, you'll fish up junk, but you can do things with the junk! Fishing junk items often get cycled in as FEA items, so you can tuck them away in your SDB and pull them out for jobs later. You can also donate them (discarding also works) in exchange for Golden Shells. You're automatically compensated for donating or discarding the items, so no need to do anything else. Then, you cna trade in your golden shells for items at Pearl's Paradise in Maraqua.

Pearl sells random paint brushes, petpet paint brushes, and transmog potions. You can also buy Flasks with your GS, and newer paint brushes are usually in stock, too.

oh, it's an underwater goodie bag smile

Making money on ModNeo is pretty easy. I spend probably less than a half hour doing my dailies every day. The hard part is actually saving, because it's tempting to spend all that NP!

NP and the Economy/Trading

Speaking of NP, the economy on MNeo is a lot different than what you're used to if you play retail (or even another fansite, like Grundo's Cafe).

Items that would be profitable to restock on retail are often very hard to sell on mneo, or move slowly. I'm talking things like morphing potions or stamps. Morphing potions can still be worthwhile to restock, as long as they're a desirable colour. I'm gonna be straight up: most MPs are not worth buying from Kauvara. Limited Edition pet MPs, Faerie/Plushie/Darigan/other expensive colour MPs are worth it, but otherwise, there is a good chance you'll just end up losing NP by buying them. This might change when/if the site gets bigger, but for now, be aware that if you're trying to make NP through restocking big np items, patience will probably be needed.

I don't want to make restocking sound pointless, because it isn't! A lot of people still restock MPs and more expensive items like petpets, stamps, etc. And they probably make a lot of money. It might just take longer to sell these items. Plus, people really appreciate users who keep a wide array of items in their shop, because otherwise, trying to buy that random item you just discovered exists and REALLY REALLY want for your collection would be a huge pain.

And I'll be honest, I was never a huge restocker on retail, so I'm not super privvy to items that are likely to be hot sellers, even on here. So don't take my word for it, this is kind of just what I've observed over a couple months of playing, and not being a huge restocker.

But anyway, what Mneo lacks from a small economy, it makes up for in other ways. You can get pretty much any colour/species combination (besides Sponge, MSP, or other Fountain-restricted colours) by buying an Arcus, which currently run for about 800k NP. Which you can buy after 4-5 days of saving. Things are extremely obtainable on this site, which is in my opinion, pretty great. All the fun of neopets, without all the blood, sweat, and tears! Woo!

Another thing I want to note is that if you're trying to trade, pure NP will always be more desirable than items. I often see people trying to trade all these morphing potions they spent all their NP on that no one wants to buy (it's happened to us all). So be very wise about how you spend your pure!

Grimoires and Hidden Tower

Hidden Tower is located in Faerieland. I'm guessing most people know how to get there, but if you don't, well... just google it. :] It's the same as on retail.

The stock changes on every odd-numbered calendar date. So 1st, 3rd, 5th, etc. You can only buy one item a day from the tower, so choose wisely!

Grimoires are one of the biggest things that make MNeo unique! They're great fun. You can buy them in the Hidden Tower, or get them from random events. (Speaking of that, it's recommended to always carry at least 10k on you in case you get the traveling library random event that gives you an Arcus or Animalis).

Here's a brief list of what the grimoires do:

Animalis: Use to obtain +1 pet slot
Eritque Arcus: Gives 1 use of the Rainbow Fountain
Occultus Loco: Gives 3 random map pieces (any except Forgotten Shore)
Spatium Procuratio: adds 25 slots to either your shop, inventory, or gallery
Mutare Naturam: Lets you change your pets' name, attributes, gender, etc.

After a certain point, it will be much cheaper to solely upgrade your shop and gallery by using Spatiums. Uh, I'm too lazy to do that math at the moment, but it doesn't take long for manual shop upgrades to not be worth it.

Occultus Loco

Both Animalis and Locos restock in the Hidden Tower for 225k. I definitely recommend buying these, maybe not every day, but often! You can either to use them for yourself, or resell them. People often make a profit by reselling them on the Shop Wiz. (Be sure to check the prices before buying, though, because sometimes they are the same as in the HT.)

Animalis are ALWAYS be in demand because people are always wanting to make new pets. Locos are slightly less popular, but there are a good amount of map collectors, and map pieces are consumable, so Locos need to be used to keep cycling them into the economy.

Animalis and Locos are items that people will commonly accept in trades instead of pure np. So they're useful to keep on hand!

I already mentioned this, but don't buy Arcuses from the HT. They're available on the Shop Wiz for much cheaper. (Hazer has hinted that in the future they may become less available, though, so keep that in mind.)

It's not worth buying Spatiums or Mutares from the HT, either, because these get handed out often from REs.

For even more info on the grimoires, check out cocoa's Grimoires Guide!

Malevolent Energy

Malevolent Energy is an item that stocks in the Hidden Tower for 15 million NP (13.5 mil with the HT discount). When used, it turns your PLUSHIE pet into the MSP colour. So don't try to use it on any other coloured pet, heh.

There's some debate in the community whether it's better to buy the Energy or to flask for an MSP pet. I recommend doing some maths to figure out whether it's a smart idea for you or not.

For example, if we want to flask for an MSP Acara, if we spent 13.5 million NP on flasks, that'd be about 60 flasks. There are 47 total Acara colours, so each time you flask, there's a 1 in 46 chance (or 2.1739%), (not counting the current colour of your pet, ofc), of getting MSP.

If we do some statistics (I just used this probability calculator), we will find that after using 60 flasks, there would be a 73.252% chance of getting an MSP roll.

Of course, these odds are not a guarantee. You might get MSP after 3 flasks, or you might not even get it after 60 tries. So it's really up to you whether you want to take the gamble or just buy the Energy outright. There is no right answer - some people really enjoy flasking, and others prefer to just save and then have the guaranteed outcome.

Games

Unfortunately, there isn't much to say about the games. There are... a few. Hazer is apparently working on Cheat!, and Meerca Chase should be coming back eventually.

Tyranu Evavu is your main money-making game (50k a day). Then you can earn an additional 5k a day by playing the flash games. Potato Counter also gives you a fair bit of NP and is quick.

If you manage to get on the high score table, you'll be rewarded with Arcade Tickets! They don't have a use (yet), but Hazer is planning to eventually implement a shop where they can be redeemed.

Maps

Maps technically fall under the games category, I guess, but they get their own section, because they're cool. Maps give good rewards on modneo! Like Paint brushes! And site themes!

You can complete both the Secret Laboratory and Petpet Lab maps for up to 10 zaps per day, each. That's a lotta zaps. Afterwards, completing these maps will reward you paint brushes and petpet paint brushes, respectively.

The Space map is another popular one that rewards paint brushes. Underwater gives out Maraquan, Maractite, or Water paint brushes, and the Spooky map gives out Halloween or Darigan brushes.

You can find a complete list of map rewards by reading this guide or going the #bot-commands channel of the discord and using the !maps command.

You can easily see your progress towards completing your maps on this page! It can detect pieces from your SDB, inventory, and gallery, which makes it super easy to keep track of everything.

If you want to know more about the maps, I recommend checking out cocoa's map guide, as she goes into much more detail on her site.

Trading and Community

I really, really, really recommend joining the moderneopets discord server.

So much of the site's activity goes on through the discord, and imo, you're missing out on a lot if you aren't on there. People are constantly trading pets, items, etc. People announce money tree drops on there, or give away items or pets.

There's a dedicated pet trading channel, if you're into buying or selling pets. (They're commonly traded for flasks, because people put up their flasked pets they don't want so they can get their NP back and flask again). You can get questions answered within minutes. People are always willing to help!

There's a map trading channel, too! It's much easier to trade on there than through the trading post.

This is not to say that you can't play and enjoy the game without using the discord. I just think that it adds a lot of depth and fun to the game, being able to interact with other users so quickly. The community is honestly, really really nice, and unproblematic. People are very willing to help one another, and if there's ever miscommunication (which, to be honest, there is -- but only because the chat is fast and lots of people have trouble reading tone [myself being one of them]), people are nice and understanding.

So yeah, I definitely recommend at least checking out the discord! And hey, if you don't want to chat, you can just use it to buy and sell things.

Also, this isn't to say the neoboards are worth forgetting about. I try to post there every once in a while because I know there are people who don't use discord, and it's nice connecting with the neoboards people.

Events

Sometimes, the site will host events where you can get NC Item Capsules. These capsules, when opened, give you a few NC items. Currently, this is the only way to get NC items, unless you wish for them at the well.

During June 2023, there was a month-long pride event where Rainbow Mystery Capsules were in the Money Tree. There was also an Easter event, and I think a Halloween one, too (I wasn't here so idk the details).

During these events, it's a smart idea to stock up on the capsules. You can open them yourself or try to resell them! There's quite a market for NC items. The items themselves usually go for 10k a piece, or 15k if they're animated. There is an nc item trading channel on the discord that's pretty active, so you can buy and trade there. Or just check out the TP, because people put lots of NC items up there, as well.

What's the point of NC items if you can't dress your pets? Well, a lot of people just like collecting cool looking items. A lot of people want them to give to their pets as held items, too. There's actually a really big market for these items, so don't miss out!

Gameplay Cycle

I want to talk about what I personally think of as the modneo gameplay cycle.

Step One: Do Dailies. Jobs, Tyranu Evavu. You now should have about 200k.
Step Two: Either buy stuff with that money, or save it. If you're newer, you probably want to buy Animalises and Paint Brushes for a few weeks to get your pets looking spiffy.
Step Three: After a month or two of this, you might have some of your dream pets achieved, and may be running out of things to do on the site. Here is where you can start spending your NP on other things (or just continue to save). A lot of people put a lot of time/np into maintaining their shops or galleries, stamp collecting, map piece collecting, book or gourmet food collecting, etc. Some people just keep spending their money on getting more and more pets, or start flasking for rare pet colours.

Step Four: Repeat!

So yeah, the fun thing about how much money you can make on the site is how many things you can spend it on! There are SO MANY options on things you can do on the site. Make yourself some goals, and then start working towards them! The best thing about it is that basically anything is achievable, as long as you show up to the site every day and do the dailies.

And this is what, for me, makes mneo so addictive and worth logging into every day - the ease of achieving things. You can make progress towards your goals (whatever they may be), from just taking 30 mins to do your dailies every day. Then you can play with all that money. I think it's great fun. :D

Settings

One of the first things I recommend doing after creating your account is heading to the settings tab. Here we can personalize some things to make the site easier for you to use.

Click on Account Prefs.

Here, you can change your password and your username (the first username change is free, and from then on, the cost goes up in increments of 10,000 np. You can also set your gender and pronouns, and customize your userlookup.

If you want to customize your lookup or petpages and don't know CSS, I recommend checking out sketchedneo.com – they have some templates to get you started. There is also a channel on the modneo discord where people share their lookup codes and you can ask for help with your own coding! Another thing to note is that Modneo uses BBCode instead of HTML.

Anyway, you can also change your e-mail here – something to keep in mind is that, if you're a Modneo supporter on Patreon, your email here will need to be the same as your patreon email in order to keep the benefits. Likewise, your discord email must also be the same as your patreon email if you want the discord perks for being a patron.

When you're done with that tab, click on Site Prefs.

Here you can change the Modneo theme: you can go with the moderneo layout, or default to the classic neopets look. You can also center the layout, or use night mode. Night mode will darken the entire site, including all images. Night Contras is my favorite-- it keeps the default brightness on all the images, to make things easier to see while also letting you use night mode.

You can also change the Input Font Size. (This is especially helpful for mobile players!) It'll make text easier to see when you're doing things like pricing your shop or naming a pet. This may make it easier to not, for example, miss a 0 when you're pricing an expensive paint brush.

There are also some other accessibility options but they're pretty self-explanatory.

Take a look at the other preferences at the top of this page and make a note of all the things you can do here. You'll be coming back here now and again!

the end...?

Well, I think that's about all I have to say for now. I'll keep updating this page, and if you think of anything that would be good to add, you can neomail me or shoot me a DM on discord!

I really love moderneopets, and I've only been on the site since April 2023, but it's quickly become one of my favorite little hobbies. The community is great, and the site is actually, y'know... fun. I hope that this guide helps other people feel comfortable and answers questions I know I had when I first started. ^_^