Boltgreywing

Um any idea when my pet site will be added to the indevelopment list?

I feel like I kind of fall into the same boat here. I just don't have that understanding as of yet.

On 8/10/2018 at 7:47 PM, Angel said:

I hope you don't mean another forum based "game" like Chickensmoothie which just allows users to upload their own posts (pets and items), and then just just change the ownership by rewriting the poster's id. To create a virtual world game, you need to literally offer users a world and not just make them imagine it and then create it for you. We all have such "worlds" in our heads, but none of us get money for this except the most talented artists and writers who work on them very hard You need to offer a variety of the gameplay and social roles as well, allowing users to chose who they want to be and what type of gameplay fits them. Otherwise that would be just an economic strategy / pet training game / forum / casual farm simulator etc. - put in the specific type of gameplay you offer. User generated content has nothing to do with this particular genre. All of the virtual worlds we know have such content only in the form of player built locations created with a construction wysiwyg and materials offered by the game (meaning that players are actually just playing, not doing the devs' work drawing tiles and objects, developing pets and monsters, calculating balance, writing lore etc.). It's a necessary part of the virtual worlds to provide users a possibility to build their own things through customized craft and visual construction engine. Virtual worlds don't exist without that, but this is not their only part. Think The Sims, Second Life, Starbound / Terraria, No Man's Sky, Minecraft... or even Skyrim and WoW, though they are kind of limited in these terms. A virtual world game isn't something that a single person or even a middle-scale studio can handle unless you're a genius and developing a new Dwarf Fortress.

@Angel: I don't plan on making it a chicken smoothie type site. Users will be able to take control of just forums and groups not individual galleries and the like. I don't think my site does the wysiwg approach. I probably can't call it a pet site but I can't call it a world either. Its just different.

On 8/13/2018 at 7:56 AM, Mobotropolis said:

Yeah. I took a look around your site when I did my audit in May and remember user-submitted content being the concept. 

In fact, it was one of the few websites I distinctively remember during the audit because it had an unusual concept.

Think that's a vital first step. 

Since I already decided I'm not going to do anything with this idea let me share a bit with you. 

During one of my Idea Dump/Jams I started comping something called MyVirtualWurld. 

It combines the the Virtual World concept with a Pet and God Game. 85% of the content (roughly) is User Generated.

It would be up to the staff to: 

• Provide Starter-Content so users understand how the mechanics work
• Provide an over-arching world that explains how something like this exist
• Provide the Hosting and Functionality so people can manage their own games, called Wurlds. 

Users are thrust into a Universe and assume the rule of a young God or Goddess who as a show of their power by their God-Parents must shape a healthy world full of little creatures and protect them from harm. They create a little Ant-Farm-like Universe and within one of the titular Wurlds where most of the action in the game will be happening. 

Within your Wurld everything; from the name of your Wurld to the creatures that live within it, would have been created by you -- or bought from the Marketplace which I'll get to in a minute. You name your Wurld and create/upload an Image Map that has your various areas. Or you can just have a list/series of links for a simple version. 

After that you create your creatures. 

You can either upload your images or buy artwork from the Marketplace. Then, you name them and can set the game to generate pretty much any stat, called attributes, at random upon the creature's creation. You decide how many stages the creature has. You decide whether it can be created by a link, discovered in an area, or unlocked through a quest. I actually think the majority of the programming work would be in here; allowing creators to only be limited by their imagination. 

Then there are the other things you can create: Items, Shops, Dailies, and Quests. You touch not a line of code with any of them but rather go through menus that link up with each other and allow you to get something working in a couple of clicks. 

I think the aim behind this idea was less about making a super special and unique game and more about the social aspect of creating. I wanted to create a social network-like community of creators who either played each others games or took part in the other major part of this game; the Marketplace where you could sell your work or buy the work of others. That (and selling add ons to the Wurlds) was going to be how the game generated money. You sell extra Wurld and Pet Slots and whatnot. You get a cut of whatever's sold in the Marketplace. Sellers can choose to either sell one-off rights (meaning if someone buys it no one else can) or they can sell unlimited rights (multiple people can buy an artwork). 

I didn't abandon the idea because it wouldn't work. 

On contraire; I feared that it would work too well. 

The question I couldn't easily solve for was how I was going to moderate people loading their own pets and items onto the servers and into the marketplace. Free-Upload will be Chaos when you get up there in User-Count, but getting everyone's stuff up and approved at a reasonable pace would require around-the-clock staffing. 

 

@Mobotropolis: I think I can manage the upload traffic but will probably have to hire additional staff as it gets bigger but I think it will be worth the expense.

I am wondering what this site will look like once it is complete.

On 8/9/2018 at 6:01 AM, Mobotropolis said:

In my eyes, nothing. 

A Pet Site is a website who's main objective is capturing/creating/breeding monsters. You usually have to do some matter of busy-work to earn money and items to take care of your acquired pets. It could be farming dailies. It could be playing mini-games. It could be quests or special events. All designed to get you coming back to the site and putting it into your routine. 

I noticed about ... 10 years ago that a certain Pet Site began to refer to itself as more of a Virtual World than a Pet Site. That may be because it was technically part of a larger's company suite of gaming sites, and on a corporate level they referred to all of the games as Virtual Worlds. Yet that type of terminology spread, and games seemed to shift towards attempting to provide an immersive experience for its players. 

Again, in my eyes, it's the same thing. 

The vast majority of games out there today technically qualify as being a Virtual World. They explain the circumstances of their world to the players to help them understand why they need to do the things they need to do to progress in the game. Even games that don't technically have a map for you to explore tend to have story and lore. It helps you understand the creator's artistic vision. It also gives hopefully entertaining reason for you to do busy-work for hours. 

@Mobotropolis: That is a pretty interesting description that could definitely open up a lot of doors with a virtual world.

On 8/9/2018 at 8:56 AM, Aminirus said:

To me there's not much of a difference in terms of definition, but there could be potential differences in the choice of words and how they sound. 

Pet Site to me is pretty generic and I probably wouldn't expect much from it other than the basic aspects of a pet based game. When I read Pet World, that intrigues me a bit more as it sounds like they could potentially have lots of other options that go beyond just breeding and collection, and could maybe have more in depth and exciting material. 

Not everyone would think this way, but it's what comes to my mind when I read the two. I'd be more inclined to check out a game that said Pet World or Virtual World rather than one that just says Pet Site

@Aminirus: The more I look at my site the more it doesn't seem to fit the traditional role of a pet site.

On 8/9/2018 at 10:54 AM, Angel said:

The difference is pretty much the same as between the Sims and Cafe World. You either specialize in a certain type of gameplay (breeding and collecting in case of pet sites) or try to offer as much possibilities as possible basically imitating a world as far as it makes sense for your game. Atm there are no pet sites qualifying for the virtual world genre. I hope we'll get some soon.

@Angel: Who knows maybe my site might be the first to qualify as a pet world. Cause the way I am thinking of designing the site is along the lines of complete user content. Basically the user will be creating everything from items, pets, npcs and maybe several other things. I think my site will probably fit the pet world description.

What is the difference between calling a website a pet site vs a pet world?

Is there any really major distinction between the two or is it just a naming difference?

17 hours ago, ToyOwlet said:

@Boltgreywing Thanks!! ?

 

@ToyOwlet: Your very welcome.

14 hours ago, ToyOwlet said:

 

@ToyOwlet: This map feels a bit like pokemon but with a bit of a mix of Furcadia thrown in it.

6 hours ago, Bravefoot said:

It would be great if every area was buildable. In minecraft I often build landmarks to help me navigate around the habitats so I can find my way back home (I get lost so easily ?)

@Bravefoot: While minecraft is a level creator. Furcadia can also allow you to build landmarks as well. However Furcadia started in 1996 and its interface is quite good for an ancient game from the 90's. Having good landmasses is kind of important.

I am willing to lend a hand as well depending on what sort of code it is. Sent you a pm too.

When I saw the word prehistorica I thought you were meaning this old show.

Old cartoon during the 90s

Or this one that is an old kids cartoon.

Old cartoon during the 80s

Both are actually really good shows.

The content looks quite good though.

On 8/3/2018 at 8:05 AM, Mobotropolis said:

@Boltgreywing That is an interesting Rules Philosophy. 

I got (or am rather still getting) into it with someone on a certain Sim site about exactly this. They are adamant the game should have a Block/Ignore Feature because they dislike one annoying but still rule-abiding user who has a knack for derailing a thread. I explained that Block/Ignore would not only not solve this issue since said user can easily bait users who did not block them into derailing threads but it could do more harm than good with users blocking over any or no particular reason. I think intentionally ignoring someone (block-as-a-feature or not) can be just as toxic of behavior as demanding to be the center of attention. Either-or doesn't really promote healthy community growth.  

My response to them was simple.  

The game had a community that involved boards that were both open to the public, boards hidden behind a paywall with mostly adults, and boards that could be considered private as you can invite your friends and close them off to the general public. When posting on the public boards available to most users anyone whom the Moderation Team deems worthy of posting should be able to post. Should a user be too toxic/dangerous to keep on the public boards then it should ultimately be the Moderation Team/Game Owner's decision to remove them, not the users. And that should ultimately be done as a last resort for repeat offenders and/or users who are unlikely to change their behavior. 

I don't have a game currently but have owned and managed over a dozen games/communities in the last 15-20 years. I ultimately feel like the goal of a community should be to create a place where all of its users feel welcome and (hopefully) get along.

A user generated block/ban list seems to get in the way of that.

@Mobotropolis: Thanks. I was actually told by another user on another site to use the block/ignore feature but like you said it didn't help matters and instead made the situation more volatile. Another person jumped in avoiding the ignore I put in place to prevent the previous person from comments from being viewed. I decided to stop going to that site because of that type of situation as there was absolutely no mods available to keep the issues from getting worse.

This has kind of made me resent websites that only have one type of forum, cause if people don't agree on things they have to go else where. This is why my pet site will always have multiple forums. Removing users should only be done by mods not by users.

I have decided that in the interest of my website that I will have pre-moderation on every user submitted content to prevent inappropriate content from being viewed by other users. Comment sections can become quite vile so I have decided to not show any comments to guests except for the public forums. The site is designed this way to prevent guests or returning users from getting easily triggered.

I am considering have shouts on the users main profile being pre-modded as well. I don't know if this is a good idea but I feel the user's shout page should be kept as clean as possible. The downside to pre-moderation is that content needs to be reviewed first before it ever shows up to the public.

I'd rather go this route rather then let unapproved content have to be retroactively removed as by then the damage has already been done. Automatic approvals/disapprovals is also a very bad idea as bots can be cheated causing users videos or content to be taken down just because one person doesn't like them or a small group doesn't.

I also know that I can't premod every user comment cause that would slow the website to a crawl. So I am choosing to focus on one particular section. User shouts are not group restricted. Every other comment section is user restricted. PMs will not be premoded cause pms only go between two users. No other user can see pms.

11 hours ago, Mobotropolis said:

I think there might be a misunderstanding? 

When I did the audit back in May I looked at over 200 different Pet/Sim Sites.

I wasn't looking for all four criteria on all sites/games. Having just one of the four was a Pass. Your game Duelingpets initially failed the Test because the last news update was February 2017 which makes the game seem to be inactive/abandoned. 

Advice? Just update your News Page if you can. 

The first (and main) criteria I was looking for was a game that had updated since New Years 2018. It was five and a half months later when I did the first audit so that should be enough time to have at least one update. Since this was a "first impression" Test where I in many cases acted like a New Users I had to tell that the game had been updated without registering or signing in.

How do I tell that? If it's not on the front page, I looked for the News or Forum. Many games presumably built with Mysdia failed the test because the News and/or Forum Pages were only accessible to Registered Users by default. Since so many games were failing the first three criteria I did another sweep while adding a fourth; looking for active users.  More than two dozen people online would mean either the site was still being updated or offered something else that made people come back.

Still. only 2-3 games met that criteria while failing the other three.

@Mobotropolis: I see, I thought there was going to be more that succeeded than that. As to my site its a bit inactive  due to problems involving spambots, and unrepairable configuration errors which I goofed up. Not to mention that I didn't implement activity tracing till much later. So there is a lot of problems with the original site which I am fixing up in the new version.

The spambots and bugs is what caused the site to fail along with my own inexperience in designing a functioning pet site. I still want a site that can cater to slow connection such as 56kb/s or less while providing access to higher bandwidth users. The reason there as still users that have slow connections like this and I need to make certain I don't affect my slower users too much.

I also really hate ignore/block buttons and I know I don't want to have them on my site but there are certain circumstances that call for them. I feel my bias with the ignore/block button is getting in the way cause I have seen this feature abused all to often by people blocking others for no apparent reason. I also don't believe in permabans or perma ignores as I see them as causing more harm then good.

I want to have a feature called an apology letter if one of these features does indeed get used for circumstances of users putting aside their differences and becoming friends again.

On 6/19/2018 at 4:34 PM, Martyn said:

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you guys.
To my understanding (forgive me, I've been doing a lot of stuff recently and thus might have remembered some things incorrectly), due to the traffic on here not being as active as it once @Digital had said that it wasn't worth the extra cost for features like the Marketplace, Game Directory and such. I'll message him and ask him to have an input on this topic as I don't want to speak for him.

Although on a more positive note, I am currently working on a replacement to the Game Directory in the form of a thread version.
Similar to what I had on Virtual Pet List, one for In Development and Public Games whilst both focus on RPGs/SIMs/Virtual Pet Sites/Mobile Applications. But it's not anything final yet, so it may not come to much.
 

@Martyn: It just that I kind of worry sometimes as the traffic is not as strong here as it used to be. I am happy that the indevelopment list is there and a public one is as well. Maybe I just worry a bit too much.

On 6/13/2018 at 6:17 AM, Mobotropolis said:

@Boltgreywing I was doing some research in May in regards to design.

Specifically, I was mulling over what should be on the front page of a game to create a good first impression. To consider that I looked at the front page of about ... 200-some games to see if I could see a pattern.

Since there were so many games between the Wikipedia Page and the Game Directory I attempted to use some matter of criteria to narrow down the list. I decided to focus only on games that were still active. 

How I Defined " Active " - 

 

The game had to meet one of the following criteria in descending order: 

 

- Have a News Post released since New Years 2018 

- Have a Forum with a post from a Staff Member since New Years 2018 

- Have activity from the games' members that happened since New Years 2018

- Had over 25 active users when I checked the site 

 

Oh, and I had to be able to tell this without logging in. 

 

Things That Did Not Fool Mob - 

 

- Having a 2018 Copyright (you can code it that way) 

- Having Today's Date on the Front Page (you can code it that way) 

 

Things That Almost Fooled Mob - 

 

- I removed a game that, upon further inspection, appeared to have fake stats.

Went to the same game twice on different days and the stats were the same. 

 

The results were ... actually pretty good. There were over 50 games that met the criteria. 

@Mobotropolis: There are a few things that I still don't really know how to code. Having 200 games on the front page is a bit overwhelming for those on slower connections, so I am opting to just have three images per section. Its not the greatest idea but I am hoping it works. The first three options are kind of hard, but the fourth one is easy. I am looking to have a stats page that lists everything.

On 6/19/2018 at 4:38 PM, Martyn said:

Hello @Boltgreywing,

I addressed the missing Gaming Directory on another topic, please feel free to see my reply here.
Sorry for leaving reply this long, I've had some other things in real life that took up my time.

@Martyn: I will check that out.

On 7/28/2018 at 5:02 PM, Martyn said:

@Aminirus
I've added your game to the list now, apologies for the delay as I thought I'd already added it. ?

@Boltgreywing
Could you provide a small description of your game, what category it fits into and more social media links (if possible)? :)

@Martyn: I have tried to do social media links but have been unable to keep them consistent and up to date. Duelingpets is a virtual pet site where the object is to create your very own pets and monsters and do battle with them. The pets and monsters will be added eventually in another beta. Currently the site will be able to support art content, music content and video content. There will be a forum available that will allow users to subscribe to topics, moderators, and be able to chat with other users. Forums can be taken over by other users if the time that the owner is gone exceeds a specified threshold.

I don't have any form of ignore/block feature for forums or other users. I just don't see any need for it, cause it tends to be abused for all the wrong reasons.

On 7/11/2018 at 12:32 PM, instantz said:

Are there any tutorial/read on how the items should be priced in-game economy? I am assuming there must some sort of formula to calculate the price based on the rarity and chance of items being obtained.

Super interested to see how you guys design your in-game economy.

@instantz: Well designing a good working economy is a bit on the tricky end. Depending what you are trying to create this can be easier or harder. When I was developing my Duelingpets website I didn't really take this into account and so I made the amount of points that a user received quite small compared to how much the items cost. Basically the pets kept dying and users ran out of points to bring their pets back to full health to fight monsters.

Originally I was giving players 10 points for each submission they created be it art, music, or story. I also gave users 3 points for each item to created. However the cost of healing items was about 65 points. On top of that the players got no reward for posting on the forums. Monsters destroying the pets basically caused a lot of users not to stick around as the 200 point limit on initial user accounts was not enough to cover the cost of multiple pet battles failing.

On top of that there was a lot of bugs that plagued the old site. So yes not my strongest effort but it was my first interaction with creating a virtual pet site. There was a lot of variables I didn't take into account.

Now with the new way I am designing the site I am giving each user 0 points to their initial account. However if they create an artwork, music, or video they will receive 200 points after it being approved. On top of that the users will receive points on top of that for each follower.

Hi Marten,

Can you add Duelingpets to the in development list?

http://www.duelingpets.net

I am currently working on adding the finishing touches to the site for its first beta. Currently none of the new has been uploaded to the site but it is on github.

On 6/4/2018 at 5:28 AM, Mobotropolis said:

Ah. That's odd. 

Last month I did an audit of active games using two lists; the wiki and the games list here. It looks like the Game List is gone. 

Your site is over here, but I did not initially mark it as active because it failed the simple four-prong test I was using. 

@Mobotropolis: I kind of noticed this. What four pronged test exactly?

It kind of makes me question this site.

On 6/8/2018 at 9:23 AM, Anoua said:

Why was the games directory removed? There is still a link under the gaming news forum items, but it goes to a page not found error instead.

This is exactly what I am talking about. Its just weird.

Hey guys where did my duelingpets site go to? Now i can't find it.

Hi I am Boltgreywing and I am looking to work with someone who is designing a game project.

I am proficient with C++ and Ruby on Rails languages but am looking to learn about game programming as well as design.

I'd like to create a simple game in C++, Flash, or Java with someone that has more experience than me so I can learn how to develop games eventually on my own.

I am looking for some volunteer work that I can fit around my schedule.

Plus I'd like to gain some confidence in my own coding skills as it has been kind of lacking as of late.

I have kind of been not as active as of late here. Though there sometimes I leave a topic unanswered cause I sometimes feel that I don't know as much as I should know.

Hi guys I opened up a virtual stockmarket on the below linked website. I am using this time to test out a virtual stock idea where users start with a limited amount of points available as well as a slightly high amount of initial min price. I don't know how well this will work but I could use your guys help in testing this out. I need feedback as I have a lot to learn still.

https://www.marketwatch.com/game/battystock

@Anoua@DerpWolfie@Kesstryl

This certainly has given me a lot to think about. I am hoping to have several different methods to get pets past the initial one so that users have a good chance to find the method they best enjoy.

I used to do the pokemon starters for the older site but I think maybe a quest would be a better option to connect with the users.

Welcome whisper.

I don't know how to use the gameowner tag so I listed a bit of people I thought might help.

@Game Owner: How do you guys decide on how pets get adopted?

I notice that some of you opt for the neopet approach where you choose from a big selection of adoptables, others choose the pokemon approach with limited starters but opens up to more pets later, then there is the questers where you give said npc a specific item and you receive your first pet, then their is the random ones where you get a random pet by moving around the pet map.

What are the advantages of each approach?

What are the disadvantage of each approach?

Is one system better than the other?

How does one choose which one from the other?

I am trying to get a consence first before I start coding my pet layout as this needs to be addressed before I start beta two building.

@Anoua @Digital @Aminirus @Nalkaria @Niabi @Bingo @Cassandra1891 @DerpWolfie @Elfen @Feuerqueen @goatsey @Hare @Hasi @Imperial @InuMimi @jakdacrowe @Jackalune @kami @Kesstryl @Vega @Leef @Lady of Baskerville @Martyn Thoughts?