Anoua

Owners Are any site owners doing anything fun for the upcoming fall season? Either for a holiday or just during the time period? Players Do you enjoy seasonal events or seasonal layouts? What would you like to see for seasonal events and specifically with fall, Halloween, or Thanksgiving? Would you prefer events be related to the season, holiday or things for both? What don't you enjoy seasonally? I have some upcoming plans for Eliyo and Animal Acres and it has me curious to see others thoughts, opinions and plans. I am still planning things out, but want to do a layout as well as some type of event that will be time limited. The layout will be default but don't plan to remove it after.

Animal Acres came with a pretty good community. I think what helps foster is has definitely been being approachable and open to feedback and different opinions. That has helped with Eliyo, but it's still not that developed yet. But I think people appreciate when you listen, give reasoning for decisions, and can take feedback constructively addressing concerns. Another thing is you have to monitor people to make sure people are following the rules, and I don't allow any type of bullying or being disrespectful, different opinions are fine, but no attacks on people for those opinions even if they aren't popular. Havent had much that's need corrected yet though, but respect is mentioned in the rules.

Hey @Martyn cool to see you becoming involved in helping the community here. I'm sure you'll do a good job to foster the community.

Agree it really depends on the different cases. If it's obvious someone is exploiting, I would ban them, as that has an overall detrimental effect on the game for everyone. If it's not as obvious, would need to make a judgement call then. And also depends on severity as well. Some minor issues people may not even realizing the are abusing and may just think that's how the game works. For me I haven't so far run into that, some minor things on Animal Acres that were reported, but nothing great. I have ran into issues that negatively impact players though, and try to fix and compensate fairly in those times.

I havent done much marketing overall, but I have facebook accounts I post to, and a twitter and tumbl for Eliyo. Doesn't get a ton of traffic I don't think, but some. I also used to use VPL for that, game I signature and news post. Now I use this site some instead. But my focus right now is more on getting a better retention rate, as we have steady sign ups for both games, but people don't always stick. If we get to a point or not having sign ups I'd probaby focus on marketing more.

Recently I've been pretty motivated to program and develop ideas for my games, though Eliyo has seen the most fruit so far, but I have a bigger update for Animal Acres in the works. My time is limited unforunately so I do have to balance between a full time job and general life too. But it's been good and exciting to make progress. I think what has helped the most has been my husband taking on a more with them, and just being a player and motivator which helps me stay focus on the goals and someone to finalize ideas with, which is a huge help. Some programming is challenging, but for money tasks it's not that so much as just figuring out all the details. So that's been great. Also planning to get some more done for Wild Howlz too, the latest explore progress was coming along well and want to get to battling more. That's not my game, but it's a cool concept and it'll be great to bring it to life.

@Kesstryl Good to hear. I do wonder though, what are you paranoid against exactly? Not a critique, just curious as to what exactly you are trying to prevent.

I think it's generally better to wait until you have something more polished. If you are able to release a study stream of updates releasing earlier can work too. But it's hard to keep up that pace even if it's your full time job. It can be good to get feedback though, but I think it might be better served by getting a smaller group to play and test things for feedback than just publically opening as people may just get bored and leave. At least until you have SOMETHING worth playing. After getting that base down though then I think having more public with options for feedback and ideas is probably more useful. Doesn't have to be a full featured release then, but just at least a base level. That is what I essentially did for Eliyo. Would have been a lot longer wait if I had to wait until the game was 'complete' as I have a ton planned for it. And it has been nice to have players and get some feedback and being able to make updates for players is motivating as well. For me though definitely wanted something more than just a login, chat, and forums. Still I do have trouble retaining people, because I haven't finished up features that give more long term goals. So that's something to keep in mind. A note on the low account security comment. Obscuring the account number doesn't really help with security. I think it could help with immersiveness however. But if you want things to be secure, then validate ALL user input (this includes url data, anything that comes from the front end should be treated as suspect). I think you need to have at least something complete. If nothing is really polished or complete the feedback probably won't be super useful, since it'll likely revolve around finishing things you were already planning to finish. It could be useful if you are wanting to discuss those plans with more people, and get feedback before finishing

Are you referring to your new video upload section? It's a neat concept I haven't seen before, though not sure I would have any particular use for it myself. Are the videos directly hosted on your site and viewed using your sites bandwidth? I could see that being expensive so that might be something to keep in mind. I think the general idea of being able to upload any creative endeavors to the site is an interesting concept and may appeal to more artistic people.

I'll take them if still available. Message me your paypal.

Nice introduction! Should be a good starting point for people who haven't used version control yet which is definitely recommend for any project that is meant to last longer than a day.

Sounds interesting to me. I was never big into Teripets but I am pretty sure I had an account. Other than that don't remember much about it. Would be interesting to see the original preserved and for it to have it's own world to play in redone.

Well that's good you were able to get most of it then. Always frustrating to have to redo what's already been done.

Oh didn't realize Felisfire was still Beta too. Yeah bugs are common. It's amazing how many bugs I've fixed, and still find and fix, on Animal Acres that just went unnoticed or at least unfixed. Some are hard to believe they have just been sitting there with no complaints, and it's not like people aren't playing. We aren't big, but get plenty of traffic and regular players too. It's nice you have found programmers willing to work on fixing and updating instead of just trying for a recode. Sometimes recodes are needed, but often it's better to just refactor as areas are touched or you have time. Especially if you have a active site already that people are using and enjoying. It can be a pain to go this route, but has been worth it for Animal Acres so far. Yeah I can imagine that would be. Mostly I have just worked with new artist for mine, but most of the art was player submitted anyway at this point. So just been working to update and get things more consistent overall. Yes it is nice to run into someone else doing the same, definitely agree. A ton goes into these games and in some ways taking over can be even more stressful.Having an established community has some advantages, but also disadvantages in that people have their own opinions and desires for the site. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk more or ask questions.

Hello @Elding welcome to the Gaming List!

Oh wow that is too bad and super frustrating I am sure. Definitely second using a version control system of some sort. Really helps with something like this so you can get your work back. It's also great if your hard drive fails or other disasters. I know when I was in college my professor used to say something doesn't exist unless it's replicated in 3 places. Obviously not literally true, but a good sentiment to keep backups of everything.

Yeah I relate on both counts for gaming. Well that's cool. It'd be pretty cool to be able to purchase a site you are already interested in as a game. Do you have a lot of plans for the site? I have a ton of things I want to do with both of mine, just takes time. Of course Eliyo is still Beta anyway. But Animal Acres I am more focused on revamping current features and bringing them up to date. I do have some new feature plans too, but my main focus is the refactoring at this point. Well that's great you have two programming available to you. I think having a second programming would help out a lot myself, but at the moment just put any extra money towards art. My husband is learning programming though, so we are hoping he'll be able to start helping build as well. But at the moment he is just helping me with the ideas and what needs improvement.

Hey Welcome @Flexa Are you involved in the pet site community much?

Nice! I am the owner of Animal Acres and Eliyo. I don't have a ton of time to play in general, but have an account pretty much everywhere including FelisFire. Has been a bit now, but will still check back in on Sylestia, Wajas, and Flight Rising from time to time. Others I check too, but with less frequency. I like to keep up to date on what's going on. My play style in general though tends to be binge play for a bit, forget about the game for a while (or just get busy), come back and play for a while again. And that is for any games I play virtual pet and console games. Most recently I have been enjoying playing my own game Eliyo though which has been pretty cool. It's taken a bit to get to the point where I can play it without just wanting to go back in and update things. I do still do that some (I am the programmer) which has been great too, but have actually been able to just play as well. Were you a FelisFire player before the purchase or is it new to you? I bought Animal Acres but hadn't heard of it or played it before buying it was interesting jumping in learning things afterwards.

Hey welcome to the gaming list. Are you involved in any current pet sites?

Nice to see the progress so far. I really like the Phantasia Griffon and the Lambkin even more. It's super cute. Very interested to see how the many worlds ends up playing out.

Yes I was. I remember your name from there (TheTeen) but I don't think we personally interacted much because I can't remember much besides the name.

Hey Welcome @Mazumi I am from VPL as well. The community here is a great and definitely nice to have some others find this place.

I think it could be cool depending on how it's implementing and well just a lot of different variables really. That fox is really cute though and going 3D could give a lot of options overall. The 3D model could even just be used to then output 2D images, but with 3D you can make many different poses easy without having to redraw which could be really cool. But animation might be cool for some things, but that seems like a lot of work too, and it'd need to look good for people to really like it, plus not look out of place or feel out of place. It also might be hard or/and expensive to find an artist to do textures. It also feels a bit of place to have the animations going, without having any noise. Atmosphere AND the fox itself.

Minimum I like to make sure I am checking up on things, seeing if there are any reports (thankfully this is usually no) and checking out the forums for new posts, responding to those I can right away or need to. I also check my email and try to respond to that right away. If there are any major bugs I try to get to those right way, others I usually respond and mark to get to them later. On Animal Acres specifically I sometimes have to remove spam posts and ban the user since some bots tend to get in right now. There really isn't much checking on there. There's also a chat on Animal Acres so I check things there and the logs. I don't check social media that often, I mean I normally get any direct mail right away, but other than that I just post when I have something note worthy, and sometimes less. But I'd like to post more, just depends on time constraints.