Boltgreywing

4 minutes ago, Anoua said:

This question isn't really easily answerable. 

I would say the main thing is for points you want to be able to achieve enough to buy things in game. And have it be balanced between fun and not too easy or hard. 

My advice would be to play the game with your proposed data, and see how it plays. Does it feel fun? Does it feel hard? Frustrating etc...? And then go from there changing things as needed. 

Once you are further along, then you can get other people to play test as well. 

@Anoua: I certainly can do that, but I think I will need others to test it as well. My sense of economy might not be the greatest and I don't know what users holding on this would be. I don't really have good grasp of user's stamina on this sort of thing.

So here is an idea have for my duelingpets economy, bare in mind I don't know if this will work. Any advice guys?

Colorscheme = 16 points(Only source available at start)

Blogs = 60 - 100 points(Only available after being purchased for 80 points)

Pouch limit = 4000 points

Each pouch upgrade is 500 points * upgrade level

pouch upgrade adds 2000 point limit

Pouch 0/4000

Emerald limit = 0

Emeralds 0/0

Emerald upgrade = 12000 points

Emerald limit increase = 8 emeralds per level

Donationbox 0/0 (Upgrade can be bought for 5 Emeralds)

Points to Emeralds cost = 8000 * 4.6(Will fluctuate)

On 12/31/2018 at 7:58 PM, Martyn said:

@Boltgreywing
I don't think we have done these game owner interviews in a long time Bolt, but I can look into this and add your name to the list if we plan to start doing them again in the future.

@Martyn: Thanks Martyn I would appreciate that.

On 1/9/2019 at 9:15 PM, Martyn said:

@Boltgreywing
Apologies if I should already know this (I'm probably dumb, lmao), but what is an Action 52 type of game? I've honestly never heard that term before so it's pretty new to me to see someone coin it.

@Martyn: Its okay. Action 52 is a collection of bad games that premiered on the Nintendo Entertainment System Console. It had glitches, bad collision detection, walls which you only had a fraction of a second to avoid. Games that crash, that sort of thing.

On 1/10/2019 at 8:29 AM, Mobotropolis said:

Action 52 is a Videogame Multicart that is infamous for the (poor) quality of its games.

I'm not particularly strong in Java or C++ but I do know JavaScript and Programming Theory ... 

... so I Threw Something Together in Construct, an HTML5/JavaScript Game Engine I learned. It's rough around the edges, but works from a technical perspective. It took about two hours start-to-finish yesterday. 

Bonus Round: The Hardest Parts were ... 

• Odd Results with attempting to flip a coin. It either always won or always lost. I got around it by rolling a six sided dice in the background and assigning Even to Heads/Win and Odd to Tails/Lose. 
• Score Misadventures. At first, it was rewarding plays an infinite amount of points in a matter of seconds for winning. After I resolved that I had to figure out how to calculate the score. I made a variable and event that looks up the old score and passes through the new score with a simple calculation. 

While I have the paid version I didn't use any of the Premium Features building this. Construct 3 is free with restriction for personal use and this has under 100 Events so I can send you the CAPX/source if you're interested in learning how this works.

 

@Mobotropolis: I am considering trying to implement this sort of game in java. I want it to take in points from User A through Ruby on Rails and pass it into java and then store the results of the game back into the user's pouch after he exits the game. On top of that to eventually draw graphics to the screen. I am guessing using a six sided dice is far more balanced than flipping between 1 and 0. The program that you just showed me is exactly what I am looking into doing, just I haven't figured out how to do this with java. I am planning on using spritesheets and a currency of Scillidons. Scillidons are the gambling currency for arcade games and card games for my site.

On 1/10/2019 at 1:26 PM, Hare said:

I agree, good advise above. 

As far as knowing when players are right, or when you're right, sometimes it can be tricky. The way we perceive wealth is relative to what you can do with it and other people's wealth. If people feel disadvantaged because they can't buy the things they want, add more things they can buy on a lower budget. If they feel disavantaged compared to rich players, add a way for them to compete against the rich players that doesn't involve money (so everyone's on even footing). If players feel that money is too easy, add more expensive rewards. 

Most of the time though players can tell when there's an inbalance in the economy. I always examine the statistics and focus on the amount of disposable income people have. I usually try the psychological stuff first if I'm not sure. 

@Hare: Thank you Hare. I am kind of still new to the whole economy thing, but I do like your advice though. I guess as I get more experience maybe I will understand it a bit more. I think I will make a new topic about my economy idea and I like to see what you guys think about it.

On 12/31/2018 at 7:12 PM, Martyn said:

@Boltgreywing
Many apologies for the mass delay in replying, I've been busy in real life and unfortunately that stopped me from regularly coming onto the forums. I've now updated the post with your game and it's content.

@Martyn: Thanks Martyn and its okay I understand. I am currently working on getting my site up and running just its taking a bit longer then I expected it.

On 1/14/2019 at 4:14 PM, Leef said:

Hey, guys-- Leef here. For the most part, I've been working on a pet game silently. But it's come to the point where I need help, and I don't think posting vague job descriptions on TGL under a pseudonym would be very forthright of me. So, with much happiness and also extreme trepidation, I announce that I am returning to the pet site industry. I'm working on a game called Figment, and it's very close to being a real, tangible thing. I thought you all ought to know first, as many of you gave money to a Kickstarter campaign (& etc.) for Evocality, and most of you saw nothing in return. And, to be blunt, that's pretty crappy. I'm still, years later, trying to make it right. You deserve answers, so I have put together this FAQ. I hope it gives you some resolution.

 

FAQ:

 

1. What happened with Evocality?

 

About five years ago, during the production of Evocality, I fell into a huge depression that I couldn't shake. I wasn't online very often, and didn't do too terribly much when I was -- despite my staff working around the clock and investing their personal time and money into the project. It was a time in my life when I was not emotionally stable; I could see the downfall of my game - which was my passion project and my child - was coming, and I couldn't properly handle the pressure and responsibility. There are many intricacies to this story -- too many to go into, and that are redundant now. But it was never my intent to hurt or scam people.

My vision was very important to me, as it was to the members of my staff and many members of the virtual pet community who became invested in the dream. Tensions understandably rose when game production declined, but I don't fault anyone for their anger. I was 22, I made bad decisions, I had no business experience and had no reasonable right to think I could run a business off the ground cold - and ultimately the failure of Evocality was my fault.

Anger is justified. I offer you all a sincere apology for my actions, and for the downfall of our conjoined dream.

2. Why were you unable to make the game with all that money?

 

1. At the time we had a lot of art, but had no coding - so it was my idea to launch a Kickstarter campaign to fund it. The campaign was set up horribly. Much of the money made from it went into fulfilling the backer rewards, which, as you know, were never delivered anyways.

 

2. What coding I did order was never delivered. My naivety was taken advantage of by programmers who asked for huge upfront payments, only to disappear. Young, dumb, trusting me continued down this path with programmers, despite being scammed. By the end of it, we had a login page and not much else.

 

3. I did things I definitely shouldn't have, like selling account numbers and pets for USD, and then not recording what I'd sold. It wasn't a malicious thing; I was just stupid.

 

4. Again, young and dumb - and saw beautiful art, graphics, and other shiny, distracting things, and made purchases that were entirely unnecessary. So I completely mismanaged the money.

 

5. Evocality was an incredibly ambitious project that - I know now - couldn't have been made right for less than $100k.

 

3. Can you address the rumors between you and the game's proposed "buyer"?

 

* Did you try to keep the pet art for personal use?

 

Yes. The "personal use" project I wanted to continue using the art for was for a guild on GaiaOnline, where Evocality had already existed several years before it was ever a pet site in development, and where there was already a community of people who owned Evocality characters. Whether or not that was a sound decision (I understand both flips of the coin), the staff member/"buyer" who wanted to take Evocality rejected my proposal to retain some rights of the lines for Gaia - and though it saddened me, I ultimately let it go.

 

* Did you "sell" the game?

 

As for the "sale" of Evocality-- there was no such thing. The words "sale" and "buyer" were included in the proposed contract, as legal terms only. Given that taking on the project would incur the new owner a debt of several thousand dollars, I actually offered that individual money and support in the transition. I never, ever, asked to be compensated. Later I even created a thread on VPL asking for a new owner who could take on the financial responsibility to step forward and take the business "for free." I would have been giving away the game at a loss.

 

* Did you ask for 50-50 profits with the new potential owner?

 

I admit that, as it's been years and I was not in the best mental state back then, I could be misremembering this particular part. But I recall asking for a small percentage of net profit (like 1-2%) for the first few years of game launch to try to recoup my personal financial losses and to pay back my investors. Again, I never, ever "demanded" 50% of profits. That's absurd. 

 

I did ask for 50-50 legal ownership in order to protect myself against backlash, should the new owner fail to fulfill the backer rewards and leave me in a legal situation that I couldn't resolve. But after all the rewards were given out, the new owner would be transferred 100% ownership of the game. This proposal was wholly taken out of context and blown up to be something that it wasn't.

 

* Did you pay your artists?

 

100% yes. Everyone on my staff was paid in full. And if by chance I am not recollecting correctly, I implore my former staff to please reach out to me and we can discuss this privately. I have PayPal receipts of all payments - if there is a mistake, let me know so that it can be rectified.

 

4. Then why did you dodge questions & disappear?

 

I never *really* disappeared from this community; I've silently watched from afar for a few years. I was sad when VPL went down, but I was still in contact with some kind folks from the old days. I hid from the community for about three years because of the backlash against me; folks were understandably upset, but some of the feedback was hostile and a few individuals even went to my personal social media pages and stalked and harassed me there.

 

Any questions I didn't answer when the fallout happened were not addressed because of legalities. At the time I was being advised by a lawyer and many of the inquiries I had to find graceful ways of dodging. It wasn't at all because I wasn't listening or concerned about those same queries; I was just scared.

 

5. I was a Kickstarter backer. Can I get a refund?

 

The simple (and unfortunate) answer is, I cannot refund everyone for their pledges (at least at this point; we'll see what the future holds), BUT I do plan on giving the backers things of equivalent value to their former backer status, so that they are not walking away empty-handed for their generosity. These things cannot, at this point, be exactly what the backers were promised - and they will be related to Figment and not Evocality - but I have always intended on making things right, and I will.

 

6. I bought an ID and/or mutant from the auctions. Can I get a refund?

 

Unfortunately, no. But I will open a thread here on TGL where you can request an account number for Figment. If you purchased a mutant during the auctions, you may request a custom pet be made for you, in addition to the custom pet you get for having contributed to the Kickstarter. More on this soon.

 

7. My friend got their custom pet. Why did I never get MY custom pet?

 

In May of 2015, I was hospitalized. During that time, a member of my staff chose to kindly take up the payments of my colorists/artists. That person also saw that all of the customs ordered through Kickstarter were completed during my absence. When I returned, they approached me about taking on the Evocality project fully.

At the time we had just received art for a new human avatar -- it had been an expensive endeavor, but the lines were gorgeous and had the name of a distinguished artist behind them. We agreed that, in exchange for the debt I owed this staff member (payments to artists and the completion of the customs), I would give them the rights to this artwork for use in their own pet site projects. In return, the staff member would absolve me of the debt and release the Kickstarter customs into a Google drive that I could access for distribution. The latter never happened.

Still today, only about 30-50% of the 90+ custom backers received their pet art; the rest are within a Google drive I cannot (and may not ever) access.

 

That being said, I would like to make this right. Many of you asked for custom pet designs that meant a lot to you, for one reason or another. For those of you who never received anything - not even the artwork - I am offering customs for Figment. (If you did receive Evocality artwork, but, obviously, cannot use/play the pet, reach out to me and we can discuss options.) If you additionally won a mutant auction, you may also get a second custom.

 

Please bear in mind, fulfilling all 90+ custom requests will be at HUGE personal cost to me. I won't be able to commission them all very quickly; but, that said, they will be fully delivered within the next few years.

 

8. Custom pets: Where can I submit my request? Can I ask for a different custom design than I requested years ago?

 

I will open a Google form to Kickstarter backers in a few weeks. It doesn't make sense to start collecting custom requests before you've seen all of the artwork (+ know what the game's about), so that you can make an informed decision about which lines you want. We will be unveiling the art here in TGL in a trickle over the next few weeks, and I hope you will love it. : ) Please feel free to request whatever custom design you'd like, so long as they are not deemed inappropriate.

 

9. Why not bring Evocality back into production instead?

 

Evocality was meant to be a beast of a game. What was initially thought to take around $6,000 USD to make would realistically have taken something like $100-200k to do right. I made a lot of promises back then - expensive promises - without having the proper business know-how to execute them. I know now what is feasible for my budget, and what is not. I would much rather make a different - perhaps more simple - game that is LIVE now than continue chipping away at a project that cannot launch for years to come. Rather than downgrading the game I promised you all, I will continue to work on the beast that is Evocality (silently) in the future years, and I hope to eventually bring you something that we can all be proud of.

 

10. Will you ever run a Kickstarter campaign for a pet game again?

 

No. But, I will sometime soon launch a Patreon for the purpose of tracking and filling "rewards" to my former Kickstarter backers. Bear in mind, the rewards you get from this Patreon are given in addition to what is owed to you from the Kickstarter. They will include special updates, behind-the-scenes & first looks, polls/decision-making opportunities for features, and - of course - free monthly item packs, skins, and forum vistas for Figment. This is just my way of saying thanks, and sorry. Anyone who backed the Kickstarter (or helped Evocality monetarily in any way) of ANY amount will have access to this reward tier. Also please bear in mind that Patreon does not allow for free tiers, so I must set the price of the tier to its minimum of $1 USD (sorry). We will use an honor system for those who claim these rewards; if it is taken advantage of, I will require proof (screenshots) of your KS contributions - so that it is fair to all involved. There may be additional reward tiers that you may choose to select, but note that - although these contributions do help in the development of our game - they are not necessary and the game will be made regardless.

 

11. What sets your new pet game apart from Evocality?

 

The first and most important fact is, Figment already exists. The code is 95% done and we are in closed alpha. At this point, open beta is expected by about August 2019.

 

While Evocality was set in a harsh and post-apocalyptic world, Figment is light, imaginative, and themed around nostalgia and whimsy. Think "early days of Neopets." Our pets are dogs and cats designed by the fabulous artist Kiboku. The world of Figment is a place where pets are hard to come by, and every pet has value. There are currently 17 art bases representing different breeds (or coat types) of pets. Each pet's coloring/design is one-of-a-kind & hand-designed by a site artist; no pet looks alike. This makes breeding your pets especially fun, since the site artists get to design the offspring to "look" like a mixture of their parents' colorings.

 

Figment, much like Evocality, involves quite a bit of heavy lore & frequent roleplay events in which you can earn pets. And like Evocality, our plan is to include a weather and readable books feature (where players submit stories in exchange for premium site currency). But beyond that, there is so much new; crafting, recipes, professions/areas of study, adventure, skins & customs, collections, and more. I'm excited to share more with you over the coming weeks, and I hope to meet you there in-game.

 

---

 

Thank you everyone for your time. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me here or via PM. My love to you all. ❤️

 

- Leef

@Leef: When planing a site that will involve money transactions its very important that you make sure that the nonmember functions work first. If you plan your game around getting money up working first you wind up with a site that might become inaccessible. The other part is you need make certain that nonmembers have the chance to grow. Give them enough rain that they can do a variety of different things. Don't limit the user's to only two pets for free accounts.

You will probably lose some money while running it for free but until you are sure that nonmember functionality works correctly you can't go forward with member items. Try to avoid giving your user's points to start out with in large amounts such as a thousand or more. The larger the amount the greater the inflation that comes from creating mulitple accounts. If you give the user 0 points or negative points then inflation will less likely happen.

Make your users pouches modular by placing a cap on the points they can have stored. For example say your user's pouch has a cap of 500 points. The user has 300 points saved up. Offer the user an upgrade option where they can spend 250 points to gain a bigger pouch. Once the pouch upgrade is bought set the limit to 1000 points and repeat process till you hit your maximum limit.

This adds an additional sink to your game but also makes your game more modular as well. Try to be more like Zelda Orcania of Time.

I feel compelled after looking through the videos of the game that well, I want to create my own action 52 like game. I know it will be hard but I like to work with a good team of programmers. It be one of my dream games. yet I feel its more important for me to kind of learn the basics. I like to start out with a coin flip game if possible to learn how to design a good engine. It might be a while before I realize this dream. Can someone help me build a coin based game together in java or c++?

This will take time out of the day, but I feel I learn better with someone's help especially since I am just getting started.

bump

I discovered a way to change buttons sizes, and colors without the use of bootstrap by css.

In fact I can simply store the color inside the database itself and when the user wants to change the color of their colorscheme then bam it changes the color of everyone who uses it. Want to change header colors? No problem. All you have to do is type: #ffffff and this is all you need. Just change each of the ranges from 0 - f and you are golden. It can be any color you like. please remember before making any modifications that you turn it to alpha mode first. The reason being is so that no additional users will be bothered by your changes.

I don't know if you still do game owner interviews but I like to throw my name in the list even though my game is not yet done though.

On 12/13/2018 at 1:05 PM, Matthew said:

The syntax has changed, you need to use

User.find_by(vname: some_value)

https://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/FinderMethods.html#method-i-find_by

@Matthew: I discovered what the problem is. Turns out it was a validation error involving this statement.

belongs_to :user

In previous rails build such as rails 3 and 4 this worked.

However in rails 5 it turns out that they added a required field to this.

So to get to work like the old way you need to do belong_to :user, optional: true

This creates problems with populate as it doesn't always jump to users first.

The syntax change wasn't the issue though. While I find the syntax okay I prefer to stick User.find_by_vname as opposed to User.find_by(vname:) I feel the first one is easier to identify what you are talking about then the other one is.

Hopefully my discovery helps out some other users.

On 12/10/2018 at 5:20 AM, Feuerqueen said:

Well in my case it makes it definitely more maintainable. And what do you mean of "can't add any new features"? I was always able to add new features because my code worked. I did this 6 years long. I was always adding new features, even bigger ones and doing new events and stuff. But now it is so much easier for me to add new features. And also the PHP 7 compatibility was a huge factor for me. I had to touch every script anyway to make it work on PHP 7, so why not do a complete recode then? For me, it worked out. 
Before I did the complete recode I sometimes refactored some scripts when I couldn't find the bug. That helped a lot along the way too.

@Feuerqueen: Basically what I mean is that say for example in order to add this new feature I need to jump through the hoops of a then I need add said code to b then to c, then all the other features available and so on. Other times the code can be written extremely badly and not be able to see how to get it to work.

So I am having a bit of an issue. I have a user_id that is filled with the string bbones.

Yet when I try to search for it using User.find_by_vname it results in a nil value being returned.

What weird about this is that the vname actually does exist in the sql table itself.

In Rails 3.2 this worked fine and I had no issues, but with rails 5.2 it doesn't seem to work.

I could really use some help with this issue as I have no idea why this is occurring.

This is a snippet of the code from my colorscheme helper

def displayColorOwner
         value = "Colorscheme List"
         somevalue = params[:user_id]
         if(somevalue)
            userFound = User.find_by_vname(somevalue)
            if(userFound)
               raise "I am found"
               value = (userFound.vname + "'s colorschemes")
            else
               raise "I am not found even though: #{somevalue}"
            end
         end
         return value
      end

On 12/8/2018 at 8:14 AM, Claws said:

Keep an eye on things and listen to your players about the economy, adjust as needed in new and existing features with supplying or demanding more of the items or currency. Learn about fiat money, currency created from nothing. Think of the long term with every push or pull added to the site. 

@Claws: That is pretty good advice. How do you know if your players are wrong or you are wrong in the way the economy works?

On 11/30/2018 at 9:50 AM, Digital said:

Thanks @Anoua and @txtsd for the feedback. I really asked this question as I see this happen a lot when a site is purchased, or new programmers come into an existing project. All the sudden you have this "this is junk, lets redo it all", and then you see the sites suffer.

I personally like small refactors that improve how something works. I have had to do a lot for novilar over time, to improve or adjust a function. I have not yet had a full case where I have had to point blank redo. Cross my fingers.

@Digital: The way I handled my code was to add features when the code base was good. However when I ran into issues when I got to 14 controllers something had to give and so I had to refactor the code so that it was cleaner. This worked for a while but once the major bugs cropped up, I had to do a major overhaul of the entire code base meaning I had to rework everything. However by doing this I was able to add new features to my website and the code base way more stable then it used to be.

On 11/30/2018 at 8:18 AM, Anoua said:

I generally lend towards in place refactoring. 

The cases where a rewrite might be better. 
    - The code is really bad to the point of being broken.
    - The code is incomplete with no significant amount completed
    - The code is really, really bad, not just spaghetti but serious architecture issues that affect the ability to refactor in place as well as the correctness (i.e. works but buggy). Case in mind, new table created everytime a user joins the site and the code relies on that table being in existence.

Refactoring
    - The site is live with users
    - The codebase is siginificant
    - The codebase is more or less working    

Most sites are going to fall under the second set and so to just scrap it would be a waste of resources. It may seem like a great idea to just start everything over, but really it's a significant time investment, time that you aren't working on new features as well. And it is often the case that there is more to the code than your realized/remembered, so the refactor takes longer than you thought too.

Refactoring allows you to work towards this better code base without starting over, so you can allows have the live site without having to manage two different ones. And you don't have to finish it all to see improvement. Working on pet profile? Okay refactor that when you make your change. 

This is the route I went for Animal Acres and I think it's been working out pretty well. There are some quirks to the code now having different paradigms ongoing, but there are so many features and sometimes even ones I don't realize about until I get into the code (was a purchase initially). Had I went the other route, I would still be working on it and new features would have been hard in that time. I'd either have to not have realized them or code them in the old poor style and in the recoded version. Instead I just code it one way which can then be released right away on the new site.

It's not quite as nice as working on Eliyo, but it's really not bad either. Was able to pull in eloquent and blade, so much of it is 
 

@Anoua: You should only rework the entire code engine or refactor it if you can't add any new features to the site, otherwise you should touch the code all that much. If you have major bugs a recode of the entire engine from the ground up might be worth investing in. I know its something to not be taken lightly but if you have extremely bad bugs this is kind of your only option. Your on the right path though.

On 12/7/2018 at 11:21 PM, Claws said:

I'm not a programmer, but owned a few petsite developments. Leave it be if it works and use your time to provide the players a better experience vs same or similar experience reworked for your own back end experience.

We serve the players experience.

We often see the "this is junk, lets redo it" from people who really mean "this is outside my ability to operate, lets waste time and resource to fit it for me".

@Claws The big question is what is junk? It can mean many different things to different users.

On 12/8/2018 at 5:31 AM, Feuerqueen said:

I completely disagree, to be honest. I take my game which is online for over 6 years now as an example. The last 2 years I was working on a relaunch to upgrade my complete codebase. When I started 7 years ago I knew nothing about programming and learned a lot in the following years. The code is a weak construct on an even weaker foundation. It won't run on PHP 7, is completely coded procedural which makes it hard to maintain and is not responsive. Does it work? Yes! Should I leave it like that and build more features on this foundation? No! 
Most of the work won't make a difference for most of the players that is true. But I got them excited for the new version anyway.  I developed the new version completely separate from the current version and they were still able to play on what we call version 3.0. There weren't regular updates but still a few and also continued our event schedule (eastern, summer, Halloween, Christmas), so they still got stuff to do on the working 3.0 version. 
What do they get from this new version? First of all, an upgrade to PHP 7 makes the game run faster. Upgrading to OOP makes it more maintainable for me and easier to implement new features and therefore the users will get new features more frequently. Also, the new layout makes it easier for them to use the site on their smartphone. So yes most of the time I invested in the relaunch ist nothing they can "see" but it will make an overall better experience for them. Of course, the time I invested could have been invested in tons of new features instead but then again my game is already very feature-rich and not just starting out. So I feel to update the complete code basis will only bring benefits. And with screenshots of the new layout, you can get the users excited along the way. The launch is in February and we are almost done. I'm very happy that I decided to go this route and would recommend to everyone which is in a similar position.

@Feuerqueen: One of the big things when using OOP is to remember that OOP doesn't make your code more maintainable. OOP for the sake of OOP is bad code and you better off in writing procedural. Its the way that you use OOP in the way that it makes the most sense. Here is my question to you what if you can't add any new features to your website due to the way the coding structure is written, how do you wind up handling it? Do you say lets rewrite the whole thing from the ground up or do you refactor the code?

One problem is that if you keep all the animals alive then you run the risk of running out of space in your database.

I am sorry that this happened to you guys. Its quite strange he disappeared like that.

On 11/7/2018 at 9:53 PM, Dinocanid said:

Thanks! I had help making the system, since I'm not skilled in javascript/ajax and couldn't do it myself.
Don't give up though! I've only been at this for about 3 or so years, so there's still a bunch of stuff I need to improve.

@Dinocanid: Its just that I have been working on mine for about 5 years and still I am kind of unsure. I second guess myself whether I really know what I am doing because I see it work on paper but have no basis to say it works in practice. The original site does work but the new one I am not sure about. I am working on creating a dragon hoard at the moment. Still I am not planning on giving up on it just yet. Javascript is a language i know next to nothing about but will eventually have to attempt it on my own.

The site that you built does look really good, mine is not that flashy and is a bit more meager. I am trying to build something closer to older fashioned graphics from the 80's. I need the site to be fast in performance and bandwidth, but by doing so I have weakened the amount of content I can display. My homepage can only display 3 images per section, and only have 8 sections total.

This is as good as i can get it while making things good enough for slower connections 56k or less. I have to sacrifice a lot of images on the other pages because of this, including the user's profile. Still I am hopeful that things will work out well.

On 11/8/2018 at 4:05 AM, Mobotropolis said:

The Survey or the Concept? 

I think I can see how the Concept can seem complex, but would need context on what you are concerned with. 

@Mobotropolis: For me its the survey itself. There so much stuff there that I get easily lost.

8 hours ago, Mobotropolis said:

Thank you. Every response helps. 

I'm going to wait until the poll closes to share my findings, but it's helped me decide on a few things: 

• The Initial Shop-List and Items Offered
• How things the user can buy will work
• Starter Species (obtaining pets is a bit different, however) 
• How I'll shape and keep track of decisions the player makes 
• How the Shop Mechanic will work and compare/contrast to the Raising Mechanic 

There is one response that surprised me; What type of pet that users like? 

I was planning to offer a variety of pets but see that tastes do run across the spectrum. That may call for a runoff poll further along in the progress to get some feedback on some of the designs. 

@Mobotropolis: The survey does look interesting but it feels a bit too complex for me.

On 9/18/2018 at 10:57 AM, Shinobu said:

I love the idea of being able to offer low account IDs for game money! I hadn't thought of that at all but it would be fantastic for players that aren't able to buy low ids with credits or USD; definitely going to implement this into V2!

I had also thought of a way to control both population and economic flow by means of the pet store; each player is currently given a specific number of horse credits to buy horses with (each horse costs $2000), but I had thought of making it so players could buy an unlimited number of horses, but for each horse over their purchase limit, the cost for the horses goes up by $500 or so.

Taxes seem to be a good way of controlling income flow as well; do you tax players based on how much money they currently have (richer players pay more in taxes) or is it a flat 3% across?

That's why I like sites like this; I can ask for advice from people who've been there before and have more experience they don't mind sharing ;w; Its great learning different methods for all sorts of things from more experienced site owners and developers.

@Shinobu: That's true, still I am bit worried that I am so far behind everyone else that I might not be able to catch up. I just don't have all the knowledge that you guys do. I am trying to do the best I can with what I have, but games is going to my biggest problem and barrier. I lack the knowledge to create java and c++ games, let alone flash. Unless someone is walking me through it by holding my hand I don't know if I will ever get it.

59 minutes ago, Dinocanid said:

(300 HP for the hare is temporary. It's normally 30 and dies in 1 hit...if you can catch it!)

The base hunting system is now complete!

While exploring it is possible to find prey. After clicking "chase" it shows the hunting screen. In this screen you have the 4 different moves (with room for more in the future). Depending on your stats and hunting skill each has a chance of success or failure depending on what you use them on. Higher stats affect the success and strength of your attacks, while a higher hunting skill only affects success. So you could have very low attack and not do much damage, but rarely miss if your skill is high enough.

The blue bar is your energy, and the prey gets away if you run out. Most prey will also constantly try to escape, so try to bring them down in the quickest way possible!

While I haven't added aggressive (and potentially lethal) prey yet, it is possible to lose health, get injured, or die while hunting if the prey retaliates. If things are looking grim, save yourself and give up!

While not completely polished (only hare is available, wolf sprite doesn't match character, background is a placeholder), the system itself is complete. Later down the line I'll work on pack hunts, which involves the alpha picking a large target and all those with the hunter rank help bring it down. I'm going to take a break with hunting though, and focus on other features for a while.

That's all for this update, and I hope it gets you all excited!

@Dinocanid: I wish I could do something like this but I just don't have the skills just yet. I feel like I am a bit behind everyone else in terms of game design, I am just getting started with what I can do. Still all and all it looks like a pretty good feature.

Here a list of the features that are currently built for Duelingpets in the newest build, as well as the features in development.

Features in development:

Bookworlds allows users to create various different universes

Books allows users to create books based out of their respective universe

Generalchapters provides a generic chapter profile for multiple chapters

Chapters allows users to create a story line for which their characters will follow

Current Features:

Maintopicmoderators allows users to moderate a maintopic [Complete]

Maintopicmoderatorrequests allows users to become maintopic moderators [Complete]

Containermoderators allows users to moderate a topiccontainer [Complete]

Containermoderatorrequests allows users to become container moderators [Complete]

Forummoderators allows users to moderate a forum [Complete]

Forummoderatorrequests allows users to become forum moderators [Complete]

Faqs provides information of common features to new users [Complete]

Soundvisits keeps track of when a current user visited another user's sound [Complete]

Radiostationvisits keeps track of when a current user visited another user's radiostation [Complete]

Artvisits keeps track of when a current user visited another user's art [Complete]

Artpages displays a picture of an imaginary creature to get the site a bit more flavor [Complete]

Containersubscribers allows the user to subscribe to a topiccontainer [Complete]

Maintopicsubscribers allows the user to subscribe to a maintopic [Complete]

Subtopicsubscribers allows the user to subscriber to a subtopic [Complete]

Channelvisits keeps track of when a current user visited another user's channel [Complete]

Movievisits keeps track of when a current user visited another user's movie [Complete]

Galleryvisits keeps track of when a current user visited another user's gallery [Complete]

Alerts informs the user of friendrequests, foruminvites, colorschemes and pms that have been just received [Complete]

Webbanners allows the admin to change the website banner [Complete]

Foruminvites allows users to invite their friends to an invite type forum [Complete]

Foruminvitemembers allows users access to post on an invite only forums [Complete]

Pastforumowners allows the forumowner and the users members to either take over the forum or be appointed as the successor of a particular forum [Complete]

Forumtimers keeps track of the activity of when a particular user visited the forum itself [Complete]

Pagetimers sets up timers for each individual page of the website [Complete]

Uservisits keeps track of when a current user visited another user's profile [Complete]

Blogvisits keeps track of when a current user visited a particular blog [Complete]

Watch allows users to watch others and receive alerts on new content [Complete]

Friendrequest allows users to befriend other users [Complete]

Friends shows who you are friends with [Complete]

Pagesounds allows the webadmin to change the various music of the site around [Complete]

Forums allows users to communicate with the community [Complete]

Radiostation allows users to create their very own music [Complete]

Gallery allows users to create their very own art [Complete]

Channel allows users to create their very own movies [Complete]

Suggestions allows users to suggest new features to site [Complete]

Contact page allows users to ask question or report bugs about the site [Complete]

Donation box allows users to store points received from other users [Complete]

Private messaging allows users to send messages between specific set of users [Complete]

Shouts allows users to comment on another user's profile [Complete]

Blogs allows users to create a set of news that users can comment on [Complete]

Colorscheme allows users to change the colors of the site to whatever they wish [Complete]

Active allows users to see if one of their friends is online at the moment [Complete]

Stats allows users to see the state of the economy as well as other stat related info [Complete]

Sitemap allows users to travel from one section to another with relative ease [Complete]