Martyn

Really liking the look of the Greek Tablets here @Travis, whilst I don't have any use for them I really hope that someone will swipe them up soon! 😁

Alright, I've thought a bit about what I could respond to this and I think it's only fair that you get a response from someone who is part of the staff here (considering that seems to be what you're wanting, although correct me if I'm wrong though). It appears that you wish to claim that we at TGL are continually trying to obtain VPL from Carlos, that has not been the case for many years now and if you have proof to the contrary then I would love to see it. Whilst I am all for any community being celebrated by its users, what I am not for is being pitting two different communities working in the same space against each other as if it is some kind of competition - as someone who previously worked alongside Carlos, I completely understand that he worked really hard to achieve impressive statistics that definitely helped VPL with its growth - however I admire your dedication to VPL and the high praise you give it. Regardless, there are things going on behind the scenes on TGL that you could not possibly be aware of and I ask that you don't come here to cause unnecessary discussion about who is better and so on. This forum is for the interest of Virtual Pet Sites, not for making petty comparisons on who is doing what. Regardless, all I ask is that you let people decide if they want to be on TGL or VPL or both. This thread will be locked in 24 hours as it serves no distinct purpose.

Happy Holidays & Merry Christmas to all members of TGL! ✨ May it be a good one for all of you. ✨ 2020 has been a very hard year for many of us, with people losing family members to losing their entire livelihoods, so it may be a relief to many that with the vaccine now available and 2021 on the horizon we can look forward to a year where we may be able to feel safe and be with our family and friends again. But for now please relax, take care and more importantly enjoy this time of year. We have all had it rough and so we deserve some space to breathe. - From the Staff at TGL

@Demona What game from this list are you talking about? ?

Many apologies to you guys ( @Demona @Issa @Herbal @MasterDaye ) for not responding to any of you for a long time. It would appear that the thread here hasn't informed me of replies so I just assumed that there was no responses. I'll update the topic with what you guys have added above! ?

@LIZ Sure, I'll just drop them below this message. ?

@LIZ Item Tutorial for Daelune by Elz-Art, it's a bit old now but her style is one I've always regarded highly and I think maybe looking at some of her other works could be useful. I could always provide you with items she did for me as reference points too, of course only if needed. ?

@LIZ Shoot, I'm so sorry LIZ. I didn't get your reply and had to forgot to even send you the tutorial. Do you still want me to send you a link to it? I'll see if I can find it for you if you do!

This topic is being locked now as it's becoming heated between both parties and unfortunately that will not help anyone. If you want to continue this then please take it off the forums, TGL is not a place for this kind of content (nor is the server).

@TonyWatkinsArt You can usually make a thread on their forums or open a support ticket, that's if you have an account. You can create a support ticket here, however you can also email them directly at [email protected]. I'd recommend contacting them via email first, then support ticket and as a last resort on their forums. Good luck and let us know how it goes! ?

Oh for sure, doing my best to stay safe. I've only been going out with my mum to get shopping when we need it, usually buying around 3 days worth of dinners so we don't have to go out as often. We are trying our best to go to small local farm shops in order to evade a lot of the crowds too. Hope all is well on your end just now since it's been a little while since I was free enough to get on here. ?

@Tmra I'm the same in that I have two chronic conditions which I believe would make me be classed as being at risk (Asthma and hEDS). Both my parents have conditions which would probably put them in the risk bracket, I'd originally been planning to travel to America at the end of June until halfway through July but this is putting a real strain on me wanting to even board the plane.

In my personal opinion I'd like a much more immersive and lore filled experience on Virtual Pet Sites of the future, the things I've found that causes me to lose interest in a game is usually the repetitive aspects to the game and the recycled event structures. I would love to see a game which utilizes new and innovative plot structures/tricks that might take inspiration from movies/tv shws/other games in order to give off a new vibe to the player.

Great pieces of art from both of you guys. ✨?

Back when I was working on Seripets between 2009 an 2014 I often found people through mutual friends, virtual pet site forums and DeviantArt. This applies to admins, moderators, programmers, artists and writers. It's an all encompassing way of finding people. Currently I don't have an active team as Seripets is in hiatus and thus not in development just now. But if I were to get a new team arranged (with some of my original members) I'd probably have a good percentage of people I class as friends/close friends hired as I'd trust them a lot more than people I don't know. I was rather naive back in the day and that caused me to lose money on a few occasions.

So as many of you might've seen around the world, there is a virus called COVID-19 (also simply known as Coronavirus) which is causing a massive problem for the world in terms of the health of the general population but also an economic issue which almost certainly will have a lasting effect on money in the business sector. Whilst this is all going on, I've not noticed many discussions about how it's been affecting people from a personal persective. So with that in mind I'd like to talk about how it's affecting me and would like to hear how it's been affecting you. I stay in the Northern area of Fife in Scotland which is fairly isolated in the grand scheme of things, but around 40 mins from where I am was the first diagnosed case of this disease in my country and since then there has been a few other individuals diagnosed. My college doesn't have any set idea of what their plan is if the Coronavirus starts to take more of a prominent role in the area and I personally haven't planned anything if it starts to strike locally to me. I guess I'd be more likely to decide what to do as things develop, what about you guys? What's been happening in your life in relation to the virus?

@jakdacrowe God, these are really well done. ? How much would it set someone back if they were to commission you for one of these?

@DaRule VPL is benefiting because they still have members within the community (which we helped keep afloat) who hear about it's return through here, their FB page isn't massively active and there isn't many other places to find out about its return from. The fact it's posted here and we're fine with it being posted here allows others to check it out for themselves.

@DaRule It wasn't only through Twitter that we reached out to people, I reached out to people I've known in the community since before I was even on Virtual Pet List and informed others who I became close friends with through it. They chose to pass that information on to others through the word of mouth. Digital wasn't ignoring the efforts Carlos had put into his forums, but neither is he obligated to list them all. Also while I'm here, as much as I don't want to comment on your copy of VPL comment, I'd like to raise a question. If we're using that logic then isn't the majority of Virtual Pet Sites just copies of Neopets?

@DaRule If you took what me and @judda said as being some level of bitterness then I do apologise as it was not intentional, we are more upset at the fact that it actually got to the point of Virtual Pet List going down for 3 years rather than any of our anger being directed at Carlos himself. We view him as a good guy and in my case a friend considering I worked alongside him for well over 5 years. I know what went on prior to Virtual Pet List going down as well as what went on during it's time down for at least a year after it, although I'm not at liberty to divulge information as it's between me, Carlos and a few other individuals. Just let it be known that there was many ways in which the forums could've stayed up, it just so happened none of those were taken on board. In some ways you are correct that this community wouldn't have existed without Virtual Pet List going down, however you are incorrect that it was as simple as "a large amount of those members moved here". They didn't just move like that because me, Digital or any of the other staff just clicked our fingers and they trotted after us. We actually had to go out of our way to get in contact with people through other means since the quick and easy private messaging service that Virtual Pet List had provided was no longer in action. A lot of the reasons why people are on here is through networking and informing people that whilst their main forums is down, there is a way of staying connected and not letting the community fall apart. Our main focus wasn't to take for our own gain, but rather make sure that we didn't lose the level of community that Virtual Pet List had grown. That being said, I don't take kindly to being accused of trashing another site publicly. I don't care either way if people join Carlos' forums, they can do what they want and I can express my opinion on it. I have my reasons for not being terribly excited about the return, most of them consisting of how much time and effort I put into not only the site when it was active, but more so trying to keep it up at the cost of my mental health and what little money I had. I'm rightfully allowed to be hurt by what went on behind the scenes and I wasn't the only one who got hurt by what went on either (I won't name names, but they can come and comment on that if they wish). I wish Carlos the best with the revival of Virtual Pet List but I simply won't feel comfortable rejoining it until I'm provided with some clarity as to why it went down, why it took so long to return and why what me and others did back then wasn't good enough.

I'm honestly not excited about this, he treated previous staff members like myself (and a few other moderators) like dirt when he just vanished and allow VPL to go down. He was offered a year of free hosting from another moderator and money from myself to keep it up and he still took it down without reason. He's yet to offer an explanation for it and it's been 3 years since it was around, I put so much of my time into those forums and many other people did the exact same as me. The least Carlos could do is provide an explanation as to why VPL vanished.

@tavsangel I think the person who'd be able to give you an update would be @Onyx. Hopefully he'll have news for you!

@LIZ That's a really good book, Elz is a friend of mine and a very talented artist. You could use some of her works as a guide for the level a lot of people like! ?

@Pepper-Head I'm honestly surprised that Photobucket have managed to stay afloat after this entire fiasco. I mean it's great that they lowered the price but the fact that they thought they could charge that to their customers for something which should not be classed as a luxury just shows what of company they've become in recent years.

@Boltgreywing I guess it depends on what your own personal views are on the definitions of the terms in development & not in development are, as that would affect what way in which you choose to use them on your own site or any which you play. In my personal opinion.. a game which is classed as in development means that they're continuously working on said game whether that's on a semi irregular basis, like monthly or weekly, but can be still open to the public in order to allow bugs to be found. Whilst a game which is classed as not in development can mean that it's either ceased development before opening/as a result of opening or it is currently on hiatus/being put up for sale. Take my game Seripets for example, it's been on hiatus for a number of years now and yet I still do a bit of development on it. Would I class this as a game that's one of the terms above? No, I probably wouldn't. I'd say it's an in-development game (currently on hiatus) which alerts user to the fact I intend at some point in the future to resume development. So yeah, it's rather subjective but I hope this clears up the definitions for you a little. Even if it is my own view point.