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judda

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Posts posted by judda

    Bare Necessities - Pet Site Features

    in General Game Development

    Posted

    On 6/2/2021 at 5:03 PM, KingofCrows said:

    My primary issue is my ADHD, haha. I just get soooo easily distracted and then completely forget I was even working on something. I really need to just try building a site from the ground-up to "learn on the job," since that's what works best for me.

    My hope is that eventually I'll secure the funding (again...) to hire a professional programmer who won't vanish on me, to help me in actually getting the bare-bones done, and then learning by modifying what's in place as needed.

    LMAO - I know this feeling all too well.  Doing that is a great way to learn - as long as you go in knowing "things will need to change" based on performance, bugs, etc.

    That's a great goal :) if you can make sure that the programmer has unit/integration tests in place (that actually cover the code).  This will allow you to download the code locally and change things to see if they break which will further enhance your learning experience!

    Why Virtual Pet Sites Vanish

    in General Game Development

    Posted

    It is very much a rabbit hole, but a rabbit hole I dive deep into every so often.  As you said, so much hard work just lost to the world.  WaybackMachine can only do so much.

    Last year, I built up a second version of VirtualPetDirectory.com and rebranded it to OnlineGaming.Directory.  One of the big issues I had with VPD was we didn't have any "offline storage" of the content, thinking that the owners should manage their own.  This was mostly in keeping with "we are a simple directory of information".  But now, with OGD, and GameSiteArt.com (linked with OGD) I've started the journey to revive the images as best I can.  Of course, I need people's help for that.

    I have the assets for Icepets (which is still up and running), Misticpets, Kuepets and Cyopets available to me (I was either the owner, or was given consent by the owner).  That being said since the site didn't build a lot of traction, I stopped uploading content to them unfortunately because it was a fairly time consuming process for me.

    I've tried to reach out to PaulSonny a few times in regards to Boopets because that was another site I really liked the art for, but similar to the whole development situation with him, where I just got no response unfortunately.

    A much more recent loss of a game site is Verpets.  My hope is that it is still possible to revive but it may be dead in the water too :(

    I can't explain "why they don't sell off the material", maybe they think it's not worth the hassle.  Basically at that point they are probably at the end of the ropes with the site and just want it over.  I know that Misticpets is a bit of a special situation.  Basically the server is still intact, it's just at a data centre and not turned on (and unable to be turned on remotely), so we are just waiting on a trip there.

    I absolutely loved digging a bit and seeing that Mythodreas still was up and running.  Unfortunately over the years I lost touch with the owner, I'm hoping that their story is preserved.

    The lost content is absolutely brutal.  It's my goal to dig as much of it as possible out of the graves that they currently are in to hopefully showcase the work that was done.  One of the future plans for GameSiteArt.com was to add in art attributions to the because it's the artists that lose out even more.  They used to be able to use the sites as a showcase for their artwork, but when they are gone (which is normally outside of their control) they lose their hard work.

    Bare Necessities - Pet Site Features

    in General Game Development

    Posted

    13 minutes ago, Sunfang said:

    I consider these barebones:
    - User x user trade system, along with a way for users to sell items on a market be it a market house, user shops, or guild traders, and as well a way for users to list items in a public market space they are seeking offers/specific things for.

    - Pet interactivity such as: stats, or dressup, or directly interacting with player (feeding fave foods gives "I love hummus!" or going to a certain location "It's really hot here, can we go to [other city]?", or "Don't forget to play [daily game/activity] with me today!"), just a way to make pets feel more alive and 'yours'.

    - A way for users to make their pets their characters. Wajas and Flight Rising have on pet's page text boxes for customization, Subeta and Neopets one can use code to customize a pet's page, and Chicken Smoothie has a forum-focused way for users to create characters, draw, and use them.

    - A collection system, of some kind. Most popular seem to be tcg, plushies, parody/reference items, books, and desserts.

    - A map with multiple biomes with region specific activities and npcs so users have a reason to not only visit different areas, but develop favourite areas that could be used down the line for events and plots.

    - Achievements of a good variety.

    Barebone+:
    - In world pets, such as petpet/minion/buddy/etc. They are also popular for users to want to collect also.
    - A way for users to form groups, such as Neopets abandoned guilds or the better version, Flight Rising's Flights.

    Not barebones, but seems to be split when it comes to if a vps will have it:
    - Arenas/battledomes. Seems 50/50 if a vps will have them, and many big vps don't have it (Chicken Smoothie, Wajas, come to mind)

    - Garbage npc, to cut down on users flooding the marketplace with items the community considers 'junk/worthless'.  Some communities can avoid these npcs, but most sites need a garbage collector npc who offers rewards/points for unwanted pets or items. I would say, if this is a pet breeding sim, you WILL eventually need such an npc so that users can "send off/release" unwanted pets so that your pet market isn't cluttered - many breeding sims have learned this the hard way. If it's a more traditional pet site, you can probably get away with it, and if it's a collec-a-thon like Chicken Smoothie you won't need it since there should be no reason for users to want to get rid of items/pets since there is no pet/inventory limit in true collect-a-thons ((if there is, it could create an issues of rarity fixing in those types of games)).

    Great suggestions :)

    On 5/26/2020 at 2:43 PM, KingofCrows said:

    When deciding to join/check out a VPS, what do you consider the "bare minimum" of features that make it worth it?

    While I have a rough grasp of PHP, I am still working on learning (and doing so self-taught fashion) so things come slowly, and I do prefer to focus most of my energy in developing story and artwork. So I'd like to figure out what features people aside from me consider to be the bare necessities for a petsite (and I mean besides the basic login/register.)

    Appreciate your insight!

    How is your learning coming along? Are there any issues you are having?

    VPL has returned!

    in General Game Development

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Sunfang said:

    Gotta say, I used to lurk VPL a lot years ago and enjoyed discovering new vp sites and just groaning at vp dramas. When I found it was back last year, I was kinda shocked. And now, it seems to be gone again for about a month now. I have no clue as to why, but it was giving "account suspended" redirects, indicating some kinda issue between the webhost and the site. Now it's just it can't be reached. Kinda sad to see. I'm glad I found this site, as my husband and I are starting to create a vp mmo and I enjoy burrying myself in vp content to get inspired or motivated to do the art. I hope to see it again, as it was a big part of my early life even if all I did was lurk.

    Yeah it's very unfortunate that it went down again.  I think part of the struggle was the community has changed a fair bit over the years and Carlos didn't have enough time for the filler threads.

    We are here, and have no plans to give up anytime soon so @Sunfang I'm really glad you were able to find us!  Hopefully we can become your new home for lurking and hopefully posting :D

    • Like 1

    What's your forum?

    in Coding and Programming

    Posted

    It wasn't until I took over TGL that I realized all of the amazing tools that are built into it that make making your own forum feel even less useful.  I know there are a few people on Fiverr who would be willing to do SSO (single sign on) implementations for forums with your own site.

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