Novul

[parayna]

The site looks even more amazing than it did when I last came on here! XD I'm excited for it :3

[pachoofoosh]

This looks fantastic. q_q The layout looks gorgeous and all the features you're adding sound really fun!

[Kyttias]

Alright, so I always wanted to have a Family Tree feature, since it's something many other prominent pet sites are lacking (and its always so tedious to have to do all that research yourself). Abronsyth actually asked on the forums for some help on how to achieve this - and it's a two part adventure that I'd already half started so I'm glad I was given the opportunity to finish.

When pets are bred, you have to keep track of the parents and the parents must be given a record of their babies. After a few generations, this'll flesh out nicely. You need to be able to pull that information and design a pleasing way of displaying that information. I don't want to go into too much detail and I'm not here to provide an official mod for this feature, but if you want to give it a shot, you might learn a thing or two from the thread where I helped Abron.

Since the thread I took and moved my tree from the management side to the profile side and gave it it's own page so even if the pet's not yours and even if you're logged out, you'll still be able to track a pet's lineage. I wanted to be able to both link family trees together and still link to a pet's profile. To achieve both, I made it so that when a pet is hovered over, it's name and basic information are replaced with links - one to go to a profile, and one to go their family tree.



I'm very happy with the end result! I hope this feature will give my site the edge it needs to compete with other sites.

(As a reminder, gender on my site is irrelevant to pet breeding and this is intentional because it's not "sexual" in the first place and gender and sex aren't really the same thing, anyway?)

These are the next three features on my mind:

Like System - Pressing a heart on a pet's profile will increase the number beside it, visually showing how many people have enjoyed this pet. The pet's id will be added to an array containing a list of all the pets you've ever liked. You'll be able to view a directory of all the pets you've ever liked in case you want to give them love later! (This does not correlate with Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr likes - just the same concept. Of course I'll want to help people share their pets on social media, later, but this is not related to social networking.)

Random Name Generator - Isn't it tough to think of pet names? Even though pet names can be shared and you'll never be barred from using a name that's already been used by someone else, sometimes you just aren't feeling creative. Names will be generated by slapping syllables together from arrays, and each species will have it's own set of arrays, producing pets that culturally authentic sounding names that varies by species.

Flip Pet Direction - This'll only be done with CSS on the front end of the site. Basically, if a user wants a particular pet image the other way, they can - and it'll be wrapped in a CSS class that'll flip the images inside.

and also

Quality of Life Implementations - Live registration regex checking, check if username is taken, username suggestions from friend list (while sending a new PM, a donation, or opening a trade), also check if user exists (before sending a new PM, a donation, or opening a trade).

[Kyttias]

Helping people is taking a lot out of me... I'm probably going to take April and May off to work on my site exclusively because I still want to my summer beta release.

Meanwhile, the artist I thought I had has given me zero of the items I asked for three months ago. It's just not going to work out. I need a certain quality level, and I'm willing to pay $2 to $4 per item. At this point I'm willing to find a sketch or lineart only artist and I'll take it from there, but I'd only pay between $1 and $3 per item in that case.

It's not like I can't make my own items, I just don't have time. I did work on items tonight, and ended the day with these (sorry for the atrocious watermarking, I just want them well protected):

[tahbikat]

Those look amazing Kyttias! *o* Ugh... especially the paper type items, and that backpack! ;o;

Might I suggest looking for artists on VPL (http://www.virtualpetlist.com/forums...arketplace.53/) Unless you already tried here, that is lol.

[Bexasaurus]

I'm so excited. *^*
I really like the texture and colors.

[Abronsyth]

As tahbikat mentioned you definitely should be able to find an artist on VPL who would be able and willing to do the work you need! Good luck finding someone!

I really admire how much you've built upon the script- your site looks incredible!

[Kyttias]

I'm glad I've got you guys supporting me. Helping you guys can take a lot of effort sometimes but it all pays off when it's a feature I was wanting anyway, or something similar. I've learned a lot and I'm so grateful for the community here. Aaaack that got sentimental, sorry~~

Anyway, I'm here to ramble a tiny bit about a new feature I'd like. I still haven't implemented my item drop system (I decided the existing mod just isn't going to fulfill my needs) but I did find an artist to help me keep up with making items. So my plan is this:

While visiting pets, there's a chance for you to find items. Most of it will be junk, but if you collect enough of it you might use these things for alchemy/similar recipes. But I had an even greater thought - rare materials! These will be so rare they're account-bound and will be given over to a special NPC. There will be several item 'sets' that need completed but the items can all be turned in separately whenever they're obtained. (Duplicates can safely be sold, but not to other players.) Once an item 'set' is completed you will obtain a rare pet!

I'd like to keep my rare pets rare, so some of them won't produce babies of themselves through breeding -- but they may produce some other unique kind of offspring (like in Pokémon, Manaphy > Phione).

When a rare item set is completed I'd like to display it on user profiles. They're proof of a user who has put forth a lot of effort participating in the site by visiting lots of user's pets.

Certain site-wide events and items may temporarily boost the chance to find rare items like these.

[Bexasaurus]

That's great you found an artist to help you!
Oh, the idea sounds really cool! So it's going to be based on luck?
Is it also possible to get the same rare pet if you got the same materials for it?
Is the rare pet tradeable or will it be bound to the account as well?

[Kyttias]

Yes, entirely based on luck. But, as I said, certain items and events will increase luck chance overall and should stack in some way. The idea of the needed being account-bound is so more active players don't flood the market with them.

The luck events are 'organic' in that they will occur automatically - triggered with a mathematical algorithm based on how active the community is. I haven't been able to flesh out the 'community bonus' events very well without a player base yet. ^^;; I'm really inspired by Pokéfarm's bonus counters (info on their wiki)!

Anyway, no, the legendary-status pet I was dreaming of in my last post won't be tradeable, neither will it's materials. However, I can imagine the NPC that exchanges these materials into pets for you has several pets at a variety of rarity tiers! Some of these materials (and pets) will be tradeable, and some won't.

I'm thinking that you should be able to upgrade or fuse together some of the materials so if you don't happen to get the super rare one you need you might be able to eventually collect (or purchase) enough of the smaller (tradeable) versions. This would allow you to "pay to win" rather than rely on pure luck, but not in a game breaking fashion.

If you collect another set of the needed materials you should be able to make another copy of the pet, yes. And, if I ever put a limit (soft or hard) on how many pets a user can have, non-tradeable pets will never count towards the limit.

I think that answers everything.

This is my rough draft of the new species (some things are subject to change):

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In other news: My gf's got some amazing talent and recorded a bunch of purrs, trills, chirps and squeaks for the creatures of my site. It'll really help flesh out the bestiary and games in the future~! As an example, I really like this sound clip in particular.

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edit: Also, woot, post #100 on this thread!