Bare Necessities - Pet Site Features

[KingofCrows]

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

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

Appreciate your insight!

[Sunfang]

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

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

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

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

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

- Achievements of a good variety.

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

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

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

Edited May 31, 2021 by Sunfang

[judda]

13 minutes ago, Sunfang said:

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

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

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

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

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

- Achievements of a good variety.

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

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

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

Great suggestions

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

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

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

Appreciate your insight!

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

[KingofCrows]

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

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

[judda]

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

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

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

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

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