How to come up with thousands of items?

[PlayBall]

Hi,

I am in the midst of a big pet site project, I'm preproduction and have come up with the general concept of the site, features, story etc but the hard thing for me is thinking about how to create a large sum of unique items. After finding out neopets has close to 60,000 items, how can I or anyone I hire come up with anything close to that number? How does neopets even have that many items, many big MMORPG's dont even have that much.

This is really the biggest hurdle I have at this moment..

How much unique items do other virtual pet sites have?

[Kyttias]

Well... themes help! On Neopets, of course, there were many different themed locations - fairy location, egypt location, pirate location, etc. Food and toys themed for each area makes a bulk of items. Next, there's holiday items. The more holidays you have (one for every month, maybe) the more items you need. Each themed area may also have one or two items for each holiday as well, so then you have themed holiday items. A very pirate christmas, or something. x'D

Some items come in with functionality that may increase pet stats, change their form, etc. Maybe even wearable items. This doesn't even get into any collectible items, quest items, and limited time items.

Variety is the spice of life, but I wouldn't feel too pressured to make a ton of items from the get-go. So long as holiday items feel 'fresh' every year, creating new, normal items shouldn't need to happen very often at all.

[PlayBall]

Originally Posted by Kyttias

Well... themes help! On Neopets, of course, there were many different themed locations - fairy location, egypt location, pirate location, etc. Food and toys themed for each area makes a bulk of items. Next, there's holiday items. The more holidays you have (one for every month, maybe) the more items you need. Each themed area may also have one or two items for each holiday as well, so then you have themed holiday items. A very pirate christmas, or something. x'D

Some items come in with functionality that may increase pet stats, change their form, etc. Maybe even wearable items. This doesn't even get into any collectible items, quest items, and limited time items.

Variety is the spice of life, but I wouldn't feel too pressured to make a ton of items from the get-go. So long as holiday items feel 'fresh' every year, creating new, normal items shouldn't need to happen very often at all.

Thanks for the reply, do you know how many items sites like Marapets have?

[Eagle9615]

The thing to keep in mind about Neopets is that they've been online for about 15 years, so they've had a lot of time to come up with that amount of items.

You could also work on batches of items for features. If you're working on an explore feature then make some items that the player can find while clicking around the map. Or if you're adding a new area, work on some themed item for that place. New Npc, make some items themed after them.

Springhole also has good generators for more general items.

[PlayBall]

Originally Posted by Eagle9615

The thing to keep in mind about Neopets is that they've been online for about 15 years, so they've had a lot of time to come up with that amount of items.

You could also work on batches of items for features. If you're working on an explore feature then make some items that the player can find while clicking around the map. Or if you're adding a new area, work on some themed item for that place. New Npc, make some items themed after them.

Springhole also has good generators for more general items.

Awesome site, and thanks for the advise!