Pet Pricing - Recent/Upcoming Changes

Xith

* On December 1, we're making some adjustments to the costs of pets and pet-

related additions. Being a very personalised item, the team has to spend a large 

amount of time discussing and designing pets, so we've got to increase the price 

to account for this.

Here are the updated prices:

   * Basic pets are now 750cr.

   * Package pets are now 1250cr.

   * Pet reactions begin at 50cr, more advanced reactions may be higher.

I'd like to understand why here, considering that there were complaints about pet pricing a while back (or Collar of Lupus).

The basic pet is currently 500cr, now 750cr. It includes:

1) the game object known as a pet, with these features

  - Resets to you so that it cannot get stolen or lost permanently.

  - Resets to you in the case of death.

  - The ability to order it to move about via tells.

  - The ability to order it to follow you.

  - The ability to order it to enter your inventory.

2) the 6 description fields (appearance, dropped, examined, entry, exit, death)

"Being a very personalised item, the team has to spend a large 

amount of time discussing and designing pets"

So, here are my next assumptions of what creating a pet details on the coding side:

- create the pet from whatever pet object template

- copy and paste description lines

- set features such as Sentience, Invincibility, Mountable to true or false

- any additional reactions, the 25cr ones being predefined patterns to everyday triggers

- set the ownership and starting location

So if anything, I would guess reactions take up the most time of anything. By discussion I assume the post meant for pet concepts that need approval like a steampunk pegasus from Clockwork Isle. But since pets don't come along that often anyway, and pets are clones of each other in terms of mechanics (the extra features already having their own pricing), what is the ACTUAL reason for increasing the price?

Am I missing something? Is it not this simple? For example, do you write every pet "from scratch" and if so, why and why should that punish the players?

I've had a pet scheme in the works for a while and it's simply a matter of timing that I'll now have to rush out before 12/1, but whether it affects me or not, I want to know what the logic is behind increasing the price of something that was already somewhat pricey. So, details?

Santar

Guess it's time that to stop procrastinating on the pet I've been "working on" for the last 6 months.

Xith

Mine's finished, I just have to introduce it in an in-game event that isn't ready yet.

Silas

Yeah, I dunno. It'd be different if everybody involved was paid, but considering that Achaea has a primarily volunteer staff, I doubt that there's $20 of time going into each reaction that's created, given that I imagine most of them are just cut and pasted. I also doubt there's $75 going into each basic pet, or $110 going into each package pet.

Seems like a strange and arbitrary change, though I will say that the people who handle pets are incredibly helpful. Every email I've sent has always been addressed promptly, and they'll generally do a lot of stuff to help make sure your pet meets your exact specifications, often redoing things several times until it's done just right.

Still not convinced tho, but hey, Achaea's credits are massively overpriced compared to similar game currencies anyway, so it's whatever at the end of the day.

Tesha

There are actually a lot of nuances with pets that tell me it is much more than just copy/pasting. Reactions are often different from cuddle pet -> purr cuddler, and are more advanced. From what I can guess, the reactions are the parts that take the most time, and since each reaction is 25 credits per, they aren't getting enough to justify the time picky customers ask for. Just something like making it summonable via a tell can introduce a lot of complexity - checking if it's mounted, if it's in the allowed list, elevation, probably more. 

It might be a little ignorant to assume everything is as easy as copy/pasting and setting variables to true or false, considering how little we actually know about behind-the-scenes stuff like that. I'm sure they work extremely hard, and everyone assuming it's all ridiculously easy must be very frustrating for them. No wonder Tecton said it was a largely thankless job.

Silas

There's a difference between assuming it's easy, and assuming that it's not $20 worth of work per reaction.

Tesha

Oh, no, I was posting that to the OP, I got the impression he felt everything was super easy. I have no idea what coders value their time at. 

Rinzai

@Xith one of the things I think is overlooked is the pet delivery. Not everyone asks for one, but I had an absolutely amazing RP introduction for Obaku. So all the coding and pet creation aside, the admin/team also took the time and effort to come up with a scenario to deliver him, and the time to execute it which was about a half day event. I believe this is the "the team has to spend a large amount of time discussing and designing pets" portion of Tecton's post.

However, I've said it a thousand times I'll say it again, the RP introduction was priceless and one of my favorite moments in the realms so a huge thanks to everyone who put that together.

Nemutaur

My giant rooster got rejected last week anyway, don't want any other pet.

Penwize

Nemutaur said:

My giant rooster got rejected last week anyway, don't want any other pet.

...did you try to call it Foghorn Leghorn? Because that might have something to do with it.

Eld

Penwize said:

Nemutaur said:

My giant rooster got rejected last week anyway, don't want any other pet.

...did you try to call it Foghorn Leghorn? Because that might have something to do with it.

More likely, chose the wrong synonym for rooster.

Aktillum

Eld said:

Penwize said:

Nemutaur said:

My giant rooster got rejected last week anyway, don't want any other pet.

...did you try to call it Foghorn Leghorn? Because that might have something to do with it.

More likely, chose the wrong synonym for rooster.

I can definitely see Nemutaur asking if people want to "pet his c...rooster".

As for the pet price increase, I myself thought it a bit strange, but perhaps there really is a lot more behind the scenes when it comes to pets than we know about. Pets can sometimes take 2 weeks or up to a month to be delivered, so obviously it's more work than simply cutting and pasting into a template.

I requested my panda on Jun. 8th and received it on Jun. 29th, exactly 3 weeks later. My panda is a package pet with 7 reactions for things like being attacked, certain people entering the room, being given certain items, etc. I didn't have any RP event to go along with getting it. They threw in a free reaction for the long wait.

Sarapis

It's simple. We have a small staff and compared to almost everything else we do, pets represent an enormous amount of admin time for something that mainly benefits exactly 1 player. That's time we could be spending working on things to help a much wider range of players enjoy the game. There aren't enough pet orders to have a dedicated 'pet person' so pets represent a very literal trade-off between "getting other stuff done" and "working on a pet". Further, because they're bought with credits and credit prices haven't changed since the late 90s (when I cut them almost in half to what they are now), we're effectively selling admin time at an ever-decreasing rate due to inflation (pets are done by a paid person, fwiw). That's distinct from buying credits for skills or most arties, because those require no additional admin time. 

Silas

While I'm still not entirely convinced, it's not really something I'd get worked up about anyway. I do appreciate, though, the fact that threads like these are getting much more admin attention and response in the past few months. Really good to see.

Aktillum

The mini-pets are a great alternative, imo. I'd love to see mini-pets in the Delos arte shops.

Silas

I don't remember, was a reason ever given as to why the Theran pet shop got bombed? Those were a lot of fun.

Trevize

Silas said:

I don't remember, was a reason ever given as to why the Theran pet shop got bombed? Those were a lot of fun.

Right?

Peak

This is a fair addition, in my opinion. I was surprised to learn how inexpensive my pet was going to be, especially with all of the "Oh, and this!" emails I sent.

@Valnurana for your patience with me. 

Exelethril

Welp, 14 days to come up with a non-generic "omganotherminidragon!!1" pet idea.

Trevize

Exelethril said:

Welp, 14 days to come up with a non-generic "omganotherminidragon!!1" pet idea.

http://www.sciencedump.com/content/tiny-dragon-discovered-indonesia

Jules

Okay, so both the current and upcoming prices are based on their labor intensiveness.  So in addition to the truly custom pets, how about some generic pets sold in Delos for ~400 credits (basic pet) and 720 credits (package pet) respectively, customisable in description only (like mounts and other loyals), and of course with the option to purchase reactions at the new price per reaction?  

EDIT:  also, man, the humble creature thing has got to go.  I'd actually have got a pet years ago instead of collecting mounts, but the humble creature line is a huge turn-off, along with the often laughably inaccurate weights. 

Jurixe

I'm pretty glad I did end up getting my pet instead of a wand of portals now (although sometimes I kick myself when I need a portal). It's been a lot of fun for me (and hopefully other people), and even played a pivotal role in an RP event!

I have to admit I probably would never have gotten one at the current prices, it's just way too steep for me to afford. That being said, I do completely understand the issue with staff and have nothing but good things to say about how patient they've been with my 124235235 requests and questions - perhaps something to keep in mind is that they aren't just responsible for making the pet, they also have to approve pet concepts, answer pet-related questions, fix bugs if any, and edit grammar and such if it doesn't flow well. All of which, of course, involve time.

I don't know how feasible something like Daeir's suggestion would be, but maybe it would save time for the admins? Anything that allows the continued focus on RP events and improvements for the greater population is great, but one of the biggest attractions for me in Achaea is the degree of personalisation you can do for your character, and it seems a shame to make too much of a tradeoff either way.

Re: Theran pet shop, I'm actually not too sad that one went away. There were just so many random dogs and kittens and things running around, it was beginning to get a little crazy. There are still a whole lot now, but at least it's a lot less than what it could be. The training of tricks and stuff was fun though.

Cooper

You could implement a system that makes the player do all of the work for you, and just have an admin approve it (please not the same person who approved Eurilla, Bumblebeevie, that rainbow colored turtle, etc).

Sure it might Tecton or whoever a few days to make it, but in the long run it would save you more time than it took to make.

I'd honestly be really surprised if there wasn't an easy admin template for pet creation like was outlined by Xith.

I understand reactions being more time intensive, though, since there is probably semi custom code for those.

Skye

Is it bad I'm still wishing for Imperian's Taming skill?

Sothantos

I prefer the old Theran pets to the new, never-aging, never-learning crate pets we have now. I really like how they actually grew up and developed and eventually died, and I feel like they were less intrusive than the current armadillos and whatever. It was just a nice touch with everything.

Xith

Daeir said:

Could the pet request system not receive a similar overhaul to the customisation system? Working off a lot of assumptions here, but surely 1-2 days of coder time in exchange for streamlining pet requests and construction thereof is a marginally better tradeoff on both the administration's part and on the player's part. 

I hadn't actually considered that but now that I do, assigning a credit cost to the sentience add-ons etc. and simply charging for complicated reactions and/or "introductions" like the ceremony/ritual I'm thinking of.

Rinzai said:

@Xith one of the things I think is overlooked is the pet delivery. Not everyone asks for one, but I had an absolutely amazing RP introduction for Obaku. So all the coding and pet creation aside, the admin/team also took the time and effort to come up with a scenario to deliver him, and the time to execute it which was about a half day event.

This seems like it could be worth the extra 250 credits (~$80), but when you say they "took the time and effort", I don't know that I'd expect that or require it myself, since I already do design work. Having the "world emotes" for authenticity is probably all I'd need.

But not everybody needs a custom intro or one written for them for that matter. Why not just charge 250 and 500 respectively for something like that and leave most things the same? Reactions and intros excepted, it seems like a pet could take maybe a grand total of an hour if done from a template. An hour here and there and it's already 500cr minimum for each ($168.99).

So probably the last question:

Would it be feasible to add pets to the customisation system or create a similar one? Even going as far as to create a if/then reaction option that can be player-defined and admin-approved, for the basics, and scale the pricing when reactions require additional coding. Automation is a great way to save that time you mentioned and let the 'single player' affected do all the work.

Blujixapug

Skye said:

Is it bad I'm still wishing for Imperian's Taming skill?

Considering how obnoxiously popular Achaea's minipets are, Taming would be awesome and, guaranteed, extremely well-received.

Blujixapug

Daeir said:

I agree with @Cooper - if you released the basic denizen template in code or w/e I am fairly certain that most people who play Achaea more than casually and are vested in their scripting language of choice can scrape together the template in the stead of the token Celani/god who does it originally, saving you time, effort and allowing the people purchasing the pet to be utterly confident that it is to their liking. This is the sort of stuff abstraction was made for!

It's probs easier for them to just do it themselves than to read through someone else's work, pull it apart, and put it back together, to be able to guarantee that it works properly first time, and no issues will mysteriously crop up 4 months later.

Cooper

@Blujixapug

I meant a real template. It would tell you to input specific things - what is the long description, what is the short description, what is the short name, etc. You'd do all the work for the admin (save the reaction/custom stuff). All they'd have to do is spellcheck/approve it.

Sothantos

I don't think a pet introduction is standard. I know some people didn't get one.

Thaumas

I wanted an ordinary rottweiler who acts like an ordinary dog and now I'll have to pay 50% more because other people have flamboyant fantastic creatures.

I want the old price for simple pets.