Starter Pets - Think Positive and Consider the Big Picture

After viewing numerous threads to gather a general idea of how everyone feels, I'd like for you to take a moment to consider a few things in the coming wall of text.

There has been a lot of debate over the novelty of having starter pets as a stretch goal. Many people argue that it is not suitable as a stretch goal because of how basic it is, or appears to be. They are angered that it is presented as being a "worthy" stretch goal of 1 million in sales. Some people have even gone as far to say they will not pre-order on the basis of this pets existence.

Let's review some facts about these pets, and the game for a moment.

1. Prevously, none of these additions existed. The game was poised to not include starter pets, or fossils, or Novakids at release. These additions were intended to be bonuses if the correct amount was obtained, and are being provided to you at no extra cost as a consumer. No-one could predict the amazing support they received.

2. Before the fossils and starter pets, Novakids had a hefty 500k, being the most important part of what they wanted to include. Everything after that is afterthoughts and fun additions that don't affect the gameplay, just enhance and prolong it. 250K goes a long way towards future development, and expansion, and the pets are a simple addition. The starter pets being their furthest goal yet shows that they wanted the most important stuff to be implemented into the game first.

3. The pets were a decision largely based on public feedback. If you did not like the idea, you should have been voting not to include it.

That all being said, let's get something clear:

It is okay to not like this new stretch goal. It is normal to dislike things. It is fine if you want to be upset over it.

However:

It is not okay to spam this forum about your distaste with this Stretch Goal.

If you are upset over the Starter pets, PLEASE make Chucklefishes lives easier by promoting changes and ideas, instead of being verbally volatile of their character or defamatory towards the team. It goes a long way to try and help, instead of throwing tomatoes and garbage.


I would personally like to invite you to post different ideas or changes to the pets in this thread if you want change to happen. If you like things the way they are, please promote this thread elsewhere so that others can join in.

Thanks! ~Moose

 

I dig dictators.

 

i just want a corgi to follow me around!

 

This is fate.

 

No. I'll think however I want to think. Thanks for the lesson though =P

 

No.

Oh man I need to type at least 14 characters. I was hoping I could just post a firm "no".

 

No one made you overlord of the forum universe.

If people wish to voice their distaste.......it should be ok as long as it's done in a non-provoking manner. Both sides gotta pretty annoying in that massive mess of a thread.

Personally I voted nay and know for certain quite a few others would of changed to no if they read into it a bit more (many stated this in the mega thread themselves). I think it would of still gotten a "yay majority" but of been bit closer then 35% no.

I'm actually ok with pets....just not at the start. Vanity items should be earned IMO. This goes for all games of this "type" IMO. It also cuts down on the cuddle-spam fest we will no doubt see.

I'm more inclined toward a super decked out space-overlord sitting in his throne-of-Pwn within his massive put-together fortress stroking his furless cat in a sinister manner....instead we will now have Joe Mc Blow from the destroyed planetoid "LOL WE GOT PWNED" with his companion, Astro the space dog, bumbling around the universe from day one.

I'm kinda not ok with this

 

You can do whatever you like. I'm not demanding anything, just forum crawling and trying to help.

 

I firmly believe chucklefish did it wrong, they should have started with the less hyping things like the starter pets first then go for the most hype inducing things like Fossils and NovaKids. Most people feel disappointed that the 3rd stretch goal feels so... Meh. It's cool and all that, but not as cool as Fossils or the Novakids.

 

While I agree with you OP, I think the mods should become a bit more aggressive in trying to reduce spam and simply merging threads like this one with others to reduce clutter. If people want to argue, they will argue. If the mods start banning or suspending people left and right, the more volatile of the community members will see the mod actions as abusive and iron fist like rather than something that is meant to maintain and improve the overall health of the community.

Another thing that forumers like us seem to forget is that webspace owned by a company, any company can set their own rules and dictate what they believe is acceptable and unacceptable on their servers. Even if we assume that their servers are located in America, it does not mean they are forced to follow America's Bill of Rights. They allow us to freely discuss things to a point, because they can learn from the feedback and consider the state of the community.

 

Nah but thanks for the offer. I'll still gonna be upset for a while, now that they implemented the pets over the heads of a whole third of the current playerbase who clearly didn't want them and said so in the poll.

I'm also gonna be upset about people going "blah blah majority likes it shuddup". So I guess if the poll came out 49.9% to 50.1% it would be totally okay to piss off half the playerbase, although they could have done stuff that would satisfy close to everyone, huh?

The word here is opporunity cost. They could have added something else which wouldn't bother so many people! Look at the first two stretch goals - almost everyone liked them so there should have been plenty of other things they could have added insted of pets, and which would have been much more popular across the whole player-base than bloody critters ruining the space-mood all the time because now every second player will constantly take out their space-dog for an indefinite space-walk. In space. This is supposed to be a cool space-game, with mining, building and shooting not nitendogs for sissys.

Worst thing is that they announced them to be "useful", so many players will almost feel forced to use them just for their in-game benefits and then every bloody player you run across will drag a silly companion with them - constantly. After all, if something is actually useful, then in the end it's really just semi-optional for competitive players. It will be like the crazy-cat-lady-cancer infested your computer screen I tell you.

 

Shame that's not how it happened right? What happened is that at least 33% of people said no. Now that is not a number to toss aside. Still a majority of people said yes. I was ecstatic about pets. I knew they wouldn't be vanity from the start. They have a purpose but, not a game breaking or huge purpose. They might just have and extra 7 slots for holding items or they may point to an object within its vicinity, say 50 pixels or less. Who knows. If you don't want to use pets then don't use them. The devs added plenty of other things into the game. I've followed this game from the start and this is my first post because I'm tired of all these people who are just "butthurt" over starter pets being added as the 1 million$ stretch goal. I mean yeah it's not the greatest one but it won't delay the game. The game has been delayed plenty of times before. Why delay it more with a stretch mark. Also if the pets are useful which they will be in one way or another why will players feel forced to use them? No one is forcing them to use pets. No one. Competitive players will obviously have pets off. If you don't realize that then . At the end of the day and when you finally have the game if you are still upset about it then you have little hope for the future. If you are so upset about this game having starter pets for a 1 million$ stretch goal after the devs listened to the community since it's beginning and did its best to please us and make sure we would enjoy this game, then I don't know what type of human to classify you as, because I know plenty of people who are more than happy to have what they are putting into this game without the goals. Including myself. I mean I introduced this game to most of my school mates back in early 2012. I have never been more excited for an indie game in my life. Let alone a video game. I give props to this team who are much more concerned with their community than your average developer. So you have your opinions but I think they are very childish. I'm not sorry if I upset you.

 

Please... don't call it... that's not... what you think it means.

 

True I'll edit that.

 

Rarity darling, you should be more generous with the nice game developers

 

And there I thought I was upset. lol



Dude please stop writing before you hurt yourself, I'm actually not in the least upset about:

- The 1M$ stretch being something that's lame in my subjective opinion, I pre-ordered before there were any stretch-goals and the two first ones are really swell, too. I love this game.

- People being able to use pets for themselves, I don't mind them having fun if that's what they want.

- Occasionally (!) seeing someone else run around with a pet.

Those are all things you think I think, but which I actually don't think at all - which could be concluded beforehand because I said nowhere that that's what's bothering me.

What I actually dislike is a thing, which I (actually) wrote here (and also somewhere else):

...which is exactly what will happen when pets actually have a truly useful advantage for players, which is what the devs said they were aiming for. If it's truly useful, everyone and their dog will have a dog and it will kinda ruin the immersion and feel of the game for a sizable portion of players. If the devs limit pets to the homeworld and spacecraft I'll rest my case, but if they give players combat bonuses (even small ones), or just more storage space, everyone will have them around at all times and it will suck.

 

It's a freakin pet!

If you don't want it, shoot it in the face and move on.....

 

If i can have a shih tzu pet , im all in !

 

You can't tell me what to do!

(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

 

Do want.