I am thinking a couple different kinds of animals, maybe with each having its own genes and color possibilities... Although I might do a slow intro of new pets if the site gets off the ground.
ok so i've never been into pet sites, but i do love pokemon-type collect-and-fight games. and your ideas here sound super fun, but i am wondering how you get the critters in the first place. because if you go exploring and capture them, that's my jam.
Usually on pet sites the main pets you get through breeding and buying, but things like familiars for those pets can be drops from battle arena type things. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to make getting familiars a pokemon-like mini game but it would be a question of needing to code something like that + art assets.
My idea was you get a base pet, you can collect via breeding OR you can explore and have a chance of finding a pet in the wild. There would be a fighting/battle element, both while exploring, and I believe PvP if people seem to enjoy that part. Already I can tell there will need to be a LOT of art assets. A LOT. So many.
I really love Subeta. The thing is, the thing I'm most invested in about it isn't the pets (although I like all my pets), but the 'human wardrobe' system. I also like the plot events!
I like when the pets have designs suited to all kinds of users, not just the majority. Most users like pets with cute or cool designs, but some people like gross and weird designs and pet sites either don't make them or phase them out : (. Personally I like cool and gross stuff, but not cute stuff. I also loved the thing on Rescreatu where you got eggs randomly and when you were in different parts of the website you would get different eggs. Also there were some eggs exclusive to the planet you started out on, but I think they got rid of that feature. I thought it was cool. The thing I liked about Neopets plots wasn't the story but all the little steps users had to take to participate and how everybody had to figure out how the steps worked. That was neat. When I was a kid I memorized the solution to the Lost Desert Plot even though I didn't participate and I told it to any family member willing to listen. Also I love clickables websites. I was a huge Valenth fan while it was still going and I just got over a Pokefarm phase.
I tend to have little to no interest in the human element beyond "you exist in the universe", I really wanna focus more on the pets than the people.
that sounds really fun! hm, something i really like in 'one piece treasure cruise' (another collect-and-fight game) is that each of the characters has a little story you can click on and read, even the generic cannon fodder ones. like, even the ultra common lowbie 'navy cabin boy' type characters that you just sell because they're not worth even using for level-ups, they'll have a little story like "can't wait to get promoted because they always make him swab the deck and he hates the smell of soap." it's silly and cute and i haven't seen it anywhere else. so i guess i'm saying, what if the monsters had silly little one-sentence bios?
Well! I actually was thinking about having each critter have a randomly generated personality, that will affect flavor text for its interactions with stuff. Like a spunky personality will have different text than a lazy personality or a mischevious personality! There will likely be npcs with fun stories and lore to them too! And aliens. I love me some aliens.
The other thing I would say I like a lot are subcommunities - for FR, this is flights, but planets would also work (solar systems?) On Neopets this wasn't really present, save for two exceptions: the regular posters on the different sub-boards had their own communities, and the different teams for the Altador Cup (do they still do that?) had their own communities as well. (I was always Lost Desert, back when I played. Right now my problem is that I totally have my password, but I haven't logged in in a long time so it's asking for my birthday, and not only was I not 13 when I signed up so my bday's weird, but I also recall that I accidentally put in the day incorrectly as well, so... not sure if I'm ever getting into my main Neo account again.)
Oh my god, I finally found the file archived in my dropbox that lists my neo accounts' birthdays. (It was labelled security.rtf. Not super memorable, some five years later.) Also, apparently the day was correct after all (it was incorrect on one of my other neo accounts) but I had signed myself up with a 1986 birthday. Which... why?? It wasn't even to make me 18 - if I was aiming for 18, 1989 would have sufficed. Of course, I've also heard about how sad Neopets is now, so I'm not sure if I'll really be making use of this new access to my Neo account past tonight. (So far I've seen some rather unlively forums (compared to how they were when I was a regular user, at least) and that of my Neofriends, all but a handful are either frozen or haven't been on in years.)
