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I'm trying to squeeze in a few more features before launch. I'm a bit behind on pet art because I wanted it all to be done at relatively the same time for consistency. I've spent the last few months improving my art! (Here's a link to my deviantART.)
I'm working on more pet art now (finally). http://orig03.deviantart.net/b7f0/f/...as-d9m5eie.png As I think I may have said, my Novu don't evolve so much as... just... get bigger? Some of them may grow features that weren't there before but they're relatively the same throughout their entire lives. Anyway, this is, in case you didn't know, a Dezh. My inspiration here is hyena/dragon. Those in the image above all sport the Stardust pattern. The top set are Spice/Imperial, the bottom set are Amethyst/Mint. These guys will get one more final form after this at a higher level. Novu can be bred to have three different types of tails, wings, and a species-specific attribute. I'm thinking of adding in a 'fourth' tail type that rarely occurs when two different species are bred together - a tail that could only be obtained from having mixed parents. All this is subject to change (the species-specific attribute could become a male-female dimorphism marker, rather than a random occurrence, for example). Not all Novu will necessarily have tails (so they'll get other things) or may already come with wings (so they'll probably get upgraded, cooler wings). |
So exciting!
I'm curious, when breeding your pets will the outcome of the offsprings most likely derive primarily from the father's or mother's traits? Are some traits more dominant than others or all possibilities/chances of a certain trait being acquired are equal to each other (excluding for rare physical features/upgrades)? For example, you have it set up so the color orange appearing in the offsprings is a 50% chance yet for purple it's at a 12.5% chance of occurring. |
Both parents are taken into consideration equally. Novu don't technically have sexual genders, even though some may grow different features as adults based on their pre-determined gender. (Apparent gender can be changed with a potion that won't be any more expensive than changing a name.)
Baby Novu come from dust that falls off their parent's fur when they do a courtship dance. Both gender and species are irrelevant when it comes to breeding - so any two Novu can be compatible! (This was both easier to program and... well, I'm part of the LGBT community and don't at all mind catering to it.) Colors are relatively equal. Like on Flight Rising, babies are given a random color chosen from the range between that of the two adults. Colors exist not just on the body but also on patterns. Patterns have varying degrees of rarity and, yes, some of them are more dominant than others. There are tiers in place meant to keep rare patterns rare. But, further, patterns also come at varying opacity levels. There are also other interesting things such tail styles, wings, and gender variance. 
Spoiler: Breeding
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That's well thought out and interesting, especially the opacity idea. I recently was looking at cat genetics hence the main reason my interest in breeding outcomes for Novul was piqued.
Another question I'm going to throw at you! Will interbreeding cause infertility for Novu or lower the rate of success in offspring, or are Novu cool with interbreeding? |
I plan on preventing breeding with siblings, parents (and parent's siblings), and grandparents. I haven't put it in yet, but I'm already keeping track of both parents so I can map in a page where you can view a family tree that goes back and down two generations. It'll be fun to look at and it'll give you a reference all on one page who your Novu can't breed with.
So, to clarify, aunts and uncles are also off the table but greataunts and greatuncles will be fine. Much less of a hassle than some breeding sites. Of course, breeding isn't the only point to Novul! I want it to be enjoyable and I want people to want to collect things... which is why I'll be promoting user interactions. I'm keeping track of all interactions made with Novu in my own way. At the end of each month all players will be entered into a raffle - each interaction they made counts as one entry to the raffle. The more interactions you make the more likely you are to win something - a rare item or an extremely rare baby Novu that can never be obtained for free again (it can be bred for or perhaps bought for real money after that). Depending on how many active users there are, there will be a set number of winners drawn from the pool of 'entries'. In addition, there's a "currency" that you'll only get from visiting a Novu's page called Dreamdust. When you join the site, you'll be entered into one of four factions based on a simple personality test. Members of the faction collects the most Dreamdust at the end of every week will all get prizes. Other things will revolve around the collection of this dust as well - whenever certain thresholds are passed by the community as a whole, multipliers will go into effect that will allow everyone who logs in to collect even more dust than normal (at least for the rest of the day). At the end of each month, the top 10% of players who collected the most dust will be awarded the rarest of prizes. (The amount of dust collected is reset to zero at the end of each week, but the total will be remembered for players until the end of the month so winners can be calculated.) If someone doesn't have the time to invest in the site for a chance at winning a prize, many of the prizes will be able to be purchased with a real money currency for at least a few months. Most of the rare Novu that can be obtained as prizes (or bought) will be able to breed at some tier or another, so everyone should be able to obtain everything eventually, as the community itself slowly breeds thing into commonplace - even if they can't spend time playing and don't have real money to spend, they can still reasonably collect everything. (However, one or two Novu species may exist in a permanent state of un-attainability for ultimate bragging rights as status markers of either really old or really excellent players -- these will probably either NOT ever be sold for real money OR will represent owners of large donations during, I dunno, a Kickstarter fund.) |
I will be working on my Gachapon system at long last. <3
The front-end animation will be done with jQuery and CSS. For a live example, click here. My plan is for it to cost 50 tokens to operate. You can earn 10 tokens every week if you're in the top ~20% of active, participating players. Otherwise, the tokens are planned to be a real money currency. On the other hand, you might win tokens via other means or right back from the gacha machine itself (not much more than it cost to play, though). With this in mind, it's time start thinking about chests, since the premise is very similar. (The difference is that gachapon is a page that will grant a random item, while a chest is an item that will grant a random item. The code is similar, the location is all that varies.) I hope I can get back to everyone about this sort of thing soon. :3 |
More Phase 2 art done for Dezh (and these guys link to my beta site - the first you'll probably have seen of it - though because of the way these forums work you'll have to right click them to open them in new tabs.).
http://novul.99webs.org/share_26.pnghttp://novul.99webs.org/share_5.png ※ Lotus is Berry, with Lagoon Spots. She has the species trait (horns and solitary sickle claws) with a Luxury tail. ※ Ulii has Melanism over what would otherwise have been Amethyst, and is sporting Mint Stardust. She's got a short Alternative tail. Spots is my newest pattern. It's got quite a sheen to it, which differs from palette to palette. I need to get Stripes and Filigree completed for Phase 2, as well as add Spots to the Phase 1 Dezh. If you go looking you'll find glitchy things (like these) because my art isn't finished yet: http://novul.99webs.org/share_8.pnghttp://novul.99webs.org/share_2.png |
-o-... Leaving myself a to-do list since I need to quit early tonight:
**edit** Another to-do list because I need to help on these threads: - Giftboxes: http://www.mysidiaadoptables.com/for...3471#post33471 |
Your site's theme is absolutely stunning! The entire site is just beautiful! I'm very glad that the transfer went alright for you!
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Here today with some spur of the moment creature concept art! :happyc:
http://orig05.deviantart.net/8572/f/...as-d9nxbx2.gif |
The site looks even more amazing than it did when I last came on here! XD I'm excited for it :3
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This looks fantastic. q_q The layout looks gorgeous and all the features you're adding sound really fun!
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Alright, so I always wanted to have a Family Tree feature, since it's something many other prominent pet sites are lacking (and its always so tedious to have to do all that research yourself). Abronsyth actually asked on the forums for some help on how to achieve this - and it's a two part adventure that I'd already half started so I'm glad I was given the opportunity to finish.
When pets are bred, you have to keep track of the parents and the parents must be given a record of their babies. After a few generations, this'll flesh out nicely. You need to be able to pull that information and design a pleasing way of displaying that information. I don't want to go into too much detail and I'm not here to provide an official mod for this feature, but if you want to give it a shot, you might learn a thing or two from the thread where I helped Abron. Since the thread I took and moved my tree from the management side to the profile side and gave it it's own page so even if the pet's not yours and even if you're logged out, you'll still be able to track a pet's lineage. I wanted to be able to both link family trees together and still link to a pet's profile. To achieve both, I made it so that when a pet is hovered over, it's name and basic information are replaced with links - one to go to a profile, and one to go their family tree. http://orig07.deviantart.net/7934/f/...as-d9t0iw5.gif I'm very happy with the end result! I hope this feature will give my site the edge it needs to compete with other sites. :meow: (As a reminder, gender on my site is irrelevant to pet breeding and this is intentional because it's not "sexual" in the first place and gender and sex aren't really the same thing, anyway?) These are the next three features on my mind: Like System - Pressing a heart on a pet's profile will increase the number beside it, visually showing how many people have enjoyed this pet. The pet's id will be added to an array containing a list of all the pets you've ever liked. You'll be able to view a directory of all the pets you've ever liked in case you want to give them love later! (This does not correlate with Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr likes - just the same concept. Of course I'll want to help people share their pets on social media, later, but this is not related to social networking.) Random Name Generator - Isn't it tough to think of pet names? Even though pet names can be shared and you'll never be barred from using a name that's already been used by someone else, sometimes you just aren't feeling creative. Names will be generated by slapping syllables together from arrays, and each species will have it's own set of arrays, producing pets that culturally authentic sounding names that varies by species. Flip Pet Direction - This'll only be done with CSS on the front end of the site. Basically, if a user wants a particular pet image the other way, they can - and it'll be wrapped in a CSS class that'll flip the images inside. and also Quality of Life Implementations - Live registration regex checking, check if username is taken, username suggestions from friend list (while sending a new PM, a donation, or opening a trade), also check if user exists (before sending a new PM, a donation, or opening a trade). |
Helping people is taking a lot out of me... :desudesudesu: I'm probably going to take April and May off to work on my site exclusively because I still want to my summer beta release.
Meanwhile, the artist I thought I had has given me zero of the items I asked for three months ago. It's just not going to work out. I need a certain quality level, and I'm willing to pay $2 to $4 per item. At this point I'm willing to find a sketch or lineart only artist and I'll take it from there, but I'd only pay between $1 and $3 per item in that case. It's not like I can't make my own items, I just don't have time. I did work on items tonight, and ended the day with these (sorry for the atrocious watermarking, I just want them well protected): http://orig09.deviantart.net/74a5/f/...as-d9us7z8.png |
Those look amazing Kyttias! *o* Ugh... especially the paper type items, and that backpack! ;o;
Might I suggest looking for artists on VPL (http://www.virtualpetlist.com/forums...arketplace.53/) Unless you already tried here, that is lol. |
I'm so excited. *^*
I really like the texture and colors. |
As tahbikat mentioned you definitely should be able to find an artist on VPL who would be able and willing to do the work you need! Good luck finding someone!
I really admire how much you've built upon the script- your site looks incredible! |
I'm glad I've got you guys supporting me. Helping you guys can take a lot of effort sometimes but it all pays off when it's a feature I was wanting anyway, or something similar. I've learned a lot and I'm so grateful for the community here. :meow: Aaaack that got sentimental, sorry~~
Anyway, I'm here to ramble a tiny bit about a new feature I'd like. I still haven't implemented my item drop system (I decided the existing mod just isn't going to fulfill my needs) but I did find an artist to help me keep up with making items. So my plan is this: While visiting pets, there's a chance for you to find items. Most of it will be junk, but if you collect enough of it you might use these things for alchemy/similar recipes. But I had an even greater thought - rare materials! These will be so rare they're account-bound and will be given over to a special NPC. There will be several item 'sets' that need completed but the items can all be turned in separately whenever they're obtained. (Duplicates can safely be sold, but not to other players.) Once an item 'set' is completed you will obtain a rare pet! I'd like to keep my rare pets rare, so some of them won't produce babies of themselves through breeding -- but they may produce some other unique kind of offspring (like in Pokémon, Manaphy > Phione). When a rare item set is completed I'd like to display it on user profiles. They're proof of a user who has put forth a lot of effort participating in the site by visiting lots of user's pets. Certain site-wide events and items may temporarily boost the chance to find rare items like these. |
That's great you found an artist to help you! :happycbig:
Oh, the idea sounds really cool! So it's going to be based on luck? Is it also possible to get the same rare pet if you got the same materials for it? Is the rare pet tradeable or will it be bound to the account as well? |
Yes, entirely based on luck. But, as I said, certain items and events will increase luck chance overall and should stack in some way. The idea of the needed being account-bound is so more active players don't flood the market with them.
The luck events are 'organic' in that they will occur automatically - triggered with a mathematical algorithm based on how active the community is. I haven't been able to flesh out the 'community bonus' events very well without a player base yet. ^^;; I'm really inspired by Pokéfarm's bonus counters (info on their wiki)! Anyway, no, the legendary-status pet I was dreaming of in my last post won't be tradeable, neither will it's materials. However, I can imagine the NPC that exchanges these materials into pets for you has several pets at a variety of rarity tiers! Some of these materials (and pets) will be tradeable, and some won't. I'm thinking that you should be able to upgrade or fuse together some of the materials so if you don't happen to get the super rare one you need you might be able to eventually collect (or purchase) enough of the smaller (tradeable) versions. This would allow you to "pay to win" rather than rely on pure luck, but not in a game breaking fashion. If you collect another set of the needed materials you should be able to make another copy of the pet, yes. And, if I ever put a limit (soft or hard) on how many pets a user can have, non-tradeable pets will never count towards the limit. I think that answers everything. :happyc: This is my rough draft of the new species (some things are subject to change): http://orig01.deviantart.net/a389/f/...as-d9w4pv7.gif ... In other news: My gf's got some amazing talent and recorded a bunch of purrs, trills, chirps and squeaks for the creatures of my site. It'll really help flesh out the bestiary and games in the future~! As an example, I really like this sound clip in particular. ... edit: Also, woot, post #100 on this thread! |
Wow, Kyttias! Your site looks amazing! O.o That new creature though... so pretty!
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How goes the site? :pleased:
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really good ideas .. amazing. :pleased:
I like your site. |
I love it!
Will so join when you have the site up. ^^ |
Summer has been busier than expected. :hmmm:
I've got a couple of things I'd like to rethink before I continue. I wish I had someone who was particularly good at UI/UX design. I'm good at programming but I'm struggling to redevelop a new trade system that isn't tedious to click through. edit: followup September 5th, 2016 - I've narrowed down the base number of species I want to just eight for the first year. Three species will be available as common starters, two will be won from experimental player rank events, one will be an experimental seasonal pet, one will be available to kickstarter participants, and one will be available to anyone who donates within the first year. |
Hiatus Over? I'm back!! The last three months were really stressful - I've never worked retail before at a shopping mall during the holiday rush. I often didn't get breaks when I should have, and it was, all in all, hellish. I came home too exhausted to really think about my own pet site, let alone be around to help out the community here. I'm really sorry if I was particularly harsh to anyone who attempted to contact me during my absence - for the sake of my mental health I needed to spend my free time very much elsewhere other than here. Things I DID Do I bought myself some nice hosting for three years during a Black Friday deal so now I have a stable test environment to build my site. I can even implement cron jobs - this allows me to schedule code to run a specific time. (I hope to write up some features that will make use of this that I can share/tutorialize for the rest of you.) New Visions There may be some major changes to the world map and minor changes to the context of the world as overarching 'plot' sorts itself out. I had an older site idea that I wanted to implement that was highly story driven, and the only real element this adds to the game right now is a human avatar. The focus is still very much on caring for your pets with emphasis on playing with anyone and everyone's pets as you come across. Map and Combat The world map will be something you can physically explore with human avatar. I've been working on coding this in my free time and it's finally getting close. You can choose to engage in battle using any one of your pets. Individual pet level does not matter for combat -- meaning you can use any old brand new pet without having to train them at all. The total level of all your pets combined determines your level, and as such, your combat stats. But it's largely activities outside of combat that actually level your pets, so you don't have to engage in combat to get better at combat? So, while the story plot may ask you to fight a few things, if you put it off for a while and just love your pets instead, it should be a breeze when you come back to it. Pet Moods The site will keep track of a pet's level of care for the current day and the prior two days. This level of care will determine the pet's mood. A happy pet is more likely to give you presents while you're playing with them, an increased chance of items being found after combat, and may land critical hits in combat. A depressed pet will be less likely to give you presents, will look physically sad, possibly dirty, and you may get occasional notifications about it looking distressed. |
Nice idea :pleased: continues to follow
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Ahhh, glad to see your back Kyttias! ;u;
I myself have been thinking about getting some kind of animation software, specifically spine but it's pretty expensive. Looking forward to Novul as usual. :usedusedused: |
Here's my latest snapshot:
http://orig14.deviantart.net/63d0/f/...as-db71g62.gif For unknown reasons, my user profiles aren't working since I reuploaded my site, so I guess I'll be reformatting them, probably from scratch. >w>; The family tree and genetics is still working out great, though! http://orig15.deviantart.net/12c0/f/...as-db71hwy.png I recently switched over from merging images in PHP with the GD Library to using HTML5 Canvas to merge and tint images from a single Atlas file while referencing a JSON file unique to each pet so everything gets layered correctly. I'm also going to convert these canvas-generated images to base64 and save them so users can link directly to them. Plus side to canvas - I will be able to animate these guys! Down side to canvas - I actually need WebGL canvases to use Atlas textures and tinting, and apparently, a browser can only open 16 WebGL canvases at a time before deleting the context from older ones. Which isn't a huge deal, it just limits the max number of pets I can display per page. If I want more than that, at least I'm also saving static images. tl;dr - Less images, more programmatically generated pets. Atlas files look like this (just one per species): http://orig12.deviantart.net/c28e/f/...as-db71j5h.png And that's the only image I need to make as many unique pets as I want: http://orig01.deviantart.net/284d/f/...as-db71jtz.png The transition in how I'm displaying my pets has taken up a lot of my time, but in the meanwhile, my art has improved. :'3 Buuuuuuut my secrets are still largely my own. |
Looks absolutely fantastic, Kyttias! The UI looks very smooth and user-friendly. Using HTML5 canvas is a great idea, and it looks like you're having some great success with it!
It's wonderful, as always, to see your updates! |
This site is going very incredible so far :BIGO:
Hope it will open soon |
I am looking forward to this site opening. Do you have any updates?
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@ goofy
look at the first post :ti: no Novuls ... |
The reason for this is the harassment I've been receiving from some members of this site. I can't go six months without someone contacting me feigning interest in Novul, before immediately asking for free help with their own site's tangle of code. I'm fairly certain some of them have been the same people under different usernames, so, beware.
Someone literally emailed me "so if you aren't using Mysidia to develop anymore, can I have your source code?" - look, I shouldn't need to explain how rude that is. First, anything I custom wrote I can still use on my custom framework. Second, it's not for sale. Third, and most obviously, it most definitely would not be free. My source code for old Novul is the same as all of yours - Mysidia's core. I released plenty of addons that have been proven to work and those that have them working are more than capable of helping anyone figure out minor installation hiccups. I left you all with very good instructions. My custom code, the stuff developed for Novul specifically, has not and will not ever be offered as an addon or put up for sale. It's been a joint effort between my girlfriend and I to develop not only a breeding system, but the means to swap out parts and customize colors while not making entirely separate breeds. It's far beyond the original scope of Mysidia which is why I choose to keep it to myself. That isn't to say I haven't helped people who are already successful in their own endeavors and have had the means to pay. For example, an ARPG from DeviantArt commissioned me to create this template generator and it cost them $600 in total: https://wyngro.xyz/MYOgen/ I also coded their breeding system, another $500, and a random chance game, yet another $150. I will not go any lower than $12/hour and I like to complete coding commissions within a month of starting, but before I can even start I need the person commissioning me to know what they even really want. I'm mostly just upset that I have been contacted in unsolicited ways under false pretenses far too many times. If someone came to me directly about their own site and waved real money at me, that would be one thing, but no one from Mysidia ever has. It has always been "can't wait for Novul" and not even a minute later "hey so can you help me figure this out...?" that usually has nothing to even do with my addons. Just because I offered free addons does not mean I'll do free charity work for you. I am not interested in your site, and if you don't have the means to pay me to be, stop wasting my time. It is besides the point that Mysidia, as a framework, is dead in the water and six years have passed without so much as a security update. I lost any fire I had to make addons for abandonware. As for the rest of you? If you are PHP savvy, beware of those that want your help without offering compensation. If you are not PHP savvy, please try learning to code, you will be doing yourself a favor. And to both: I do highly recommend anyone serious about developing a pet site to learn PHP and build their own custom framework. Even by just using up to date coding best practices, you will immediately make your site so much more secure. For copyright reasons, I no longer post updates here. Novul is still in development but definitely not with Mysidia. I will gladly come back to investigate should the owner actually release a new version, but until then -- -- Best wishes! Good luck with your projects! |
I am sorry that you have been harassed, Kyttias.
It is wonderful that you and your GF are working on your project, and I wish you the best of luck with it! |
@ Kyttias
I'm sorry too ... I was always glad that you helped all the others. including me :happyc: I hope, you tell us sometimes, when Novul is available :happycbig: |
Well dang, sorry to hear you've been harassed about this. :catfish:
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Has it really been 6 years?
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Good luck in your endeavors Kyttias! I support everything you've said here. (: Can't believe it's been so long! I appreciate all the help you gave users here throughout the years. And shame on the people harassing you. :/
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