   Combining pet capturing/breeding and mmo marketplace
  In a pokemon game or typical single player animal breeding sim, one of the player's major goals is typically to acquire or produce one of every type of pet monster.  I love this type of play.  But in an MMO environment it would be demotivational to hunters and breeders if every possible type of pet could be bought cheaply.  So I was thinking about ways to allow pets to be sold without devaluing them.First thing is simple - make the 'scorebook' of pet capturing only count pets you capture yourself, not purchased ones.  Breeding is trickier, because buying two of a pet type and breeding them to produce one of your own would be way too easy, basically cheating.  So I was thinking, what if all pets which are traded are automatically neutered?  So anyone can sell their captured or bred pets, and these would be bought by people who wanted the pet's looks or functionality but didn't want to do capturing/breeding gameplay.  But supplies of pets which required higher levels of capturing and multiple generations of breeding would be in limited supply so they would be a bit more valuable.  Also, capturing or breeding all pets of a 'set' would give a set completion bonus, basically a quest reward.Opinions?The alternative would be that pets cannot be sold at all, instead only the resources produced by harvesting pets could be sold (such as wool, horns, scales, and clothing crafted out of them).  The disadvantage of this is that players who don't like doing capturing/breeding would have severe limitations on what pets they could obtain (NPC-sold ones or ones given as quest rewards, or the lowest level of easily capturable ones.)   
  Mix Master has a system in which you combine monsters to create new types.It's F2P, so you can try it out if you want some ideas for your design.I'm not sure if you can trade or sell monsters, but I'm pretty sure you can trade their cores.It's been a while since the last time I played, though.I don't really like the system you're proposing, to be honest.I'd much prefer that two players can choose to breed monsters with each other, with each player recieving a resultant 'egg' that is contained within an on-screen incubator, so that players can only have one egg at a time.This way the breeding process is more social, as you can breed monsters without owning monsters.The incubator could be powered by steps taken or battles, it's up to you.But punishing people for idling with incubated eggs by causing the egg to maybe hatch a weak monster or even cause it to die would be a good idea.If you're going to sell pets, just make them tier one. Like starter pets.Their evolutions and such stay tier one, but resultant breeding would change up their tier.And only monsters within their tier range (one above or below) would be breedable.Unbreedable pets would be tier zero.This could create enough possible breeding trees to keep players playing for a while.I guess there's also the consistencies, how can players hold hundreds of pets?Where can they breed them?How can you downplay the generally sexual theme of the game so it's suited for all ages?And what is the key to predicting successful breeds and incompatible pairings?   ;  I'm no expert on these kinds of games but artificially limiting the trade in an MMO is a big no, after all, trade is its own minigame :).I agree with you that the higher level pets would be more valuable on the market and these would probably be in limited supply due to requirements of breeding and such (meaning, they can't be found 'in nature'). With this in mind, I would allow trade to be free, people could buy pets of all levels, however, there ought to be some mechanism for the sellers to neuter their pets, that is, they can be sold neutered or not neutered. Most high-level sellers would probably neuter the pets they sell anyway to maintain a demand for their pets. Consequently, the not-neutered high-level pets would probably be going for a very high premium price due to further potential of breeding and selling offspring.The lower-level pets would probably flood the market in the beginning and the price of these would go way down due to the ease of which one can acquire them by hunting.The market would stabilize itself in essence. The hard part will be instead to balance hunting/breeding.About the score book, yeah, only count the captured ones, not the purchased ones. However, do count breeding, since higher-level 'breedable' pets are more expensive, the risk of people just buying them and breeding for scores are lowered. You could also make it harder to breed bought pets (unless they come neutered), the pets bought could come with a higher 'stress level' making them less likely to breed (just throwing out ideas here). The stress level would go down by time if you take care of the pets.   ;Quote:Original post by Cpt MothballsMix Master has a system in which you combine monsters to create new types.It's F2P, so you can try it out if you want some ideas for your design.I'm not sure if you can trade or sell monsters, but I'm pretty sure you can trade their cores.It's been a while since the last time I played, though.I don't really like the system you're proposing, to be honest.I'd much prefer that two players can choose to breed monsters with each other, with each player recieving a resultant 'egg' that is contained within an on-screen incubator, so that players can only have one egg at a time.This way the breeding process is more social, as you can breed monsters without owning monsters.The incubator could be powered by steps taken or battles, it's up to you.But punishing people for idling with incubated eggs by causing the egg to maybe hatch a weak monster or even cause it to die would be a good idea.If you're going to sell pets, just make them tier one. Like starter pets.Their evolutions and such stay tier one, but resultant breeding would change up their tier.And only monsters within their tier range (one above or below) would be breedable.Unbreedable pets would be tier zero.This could create enough possible breeding trees to keep players playing for a while.I guess there's also the consistencies, how can players hold hundreds of pets?Where can they breed them?How can you downplay the generally sexual theme of the game so it's suited for all ages?And what is the key to predicting successful breeds and incompatible pairings?I did try mixmaster, you can sell pets but they don't have a world marketplace so it's too annoying to sell anything.Allowing two players to cooperatively breed pets is interesting, I'll consider if I can implement that without it turning into game-breaking power-leveling. But personally I find tying the hatching to combat or breeding to be repulsive.  My intent is for monster-breeding to function like crafting, as a minigame the player can play as much as they want whenever they want a break from combat, and an activity that fighting-focused players don't invest time to master.  I also have strongly disliked tier systems (or egg groups) in games which have them.  I'd go with a simple genetic system instead, everything breedable with everything to mix and match body shape, and have a standard set of maybe 20 textures available for all pet models.  So for example you could capture a brown wolf, then use it to breed a blue wolf.I see no problem with designing into the game a reason why each player has a pet storage area and breeding area.  Perhaps pets not being used could be magically stored in a book or disc like in the monster rancher series.  This could double as a gallery to show off one's pet collection to other players.  I definitely don't want to limit the player's ability to store pets, I want to encourage the player to work toward owning one of every pet.   ;Quote:Original post by nem123I'm no expert on these kinds of games but artificially limiting the trade in an MMO is a big no, after all, trade is its own minigame :).I agree with you that the higher level pets would be more valuable on the market and these would probably be in limited supply due to requirements of breeding and such (meaning, they can't be found 'in nature'). With this in mind, I would allow trade to be free, people could buy pets of all levels, however, there ought to be some mechanism for the sellers to neuter their pets, that is, they can be sold neutered or not neutered. Most high-level sellers would probably neuter the pets they sell anyway to maintain a demand for their pets. Consequently, the not-neutered high-level pets would probably be going for a very high premium price due to further potential of breeding and selling offspring.The lower-level pets would probably flood the market in the beginning and the price of these would go way down due to the ease of which one can acquire them by hunting.The market would stabilize itself in essence. The hard part will be instead to balance hunting/breeding.This is the way they did Dragoturkey breeding in Dofus and it sucks.  Sellers don't neuter what they're selling because neutered ones are worth a lot less.  The market on a given server starts high then enters a perpetual crash until it finally stabilizes... with the mounts worth less than the effort it takes to breed them and the cost of the items necessary to breed them.   ;  Well the way I see, it punishing players for being social seems to be a bad idea.I understand you don't want 'power breeders', but the solution to this is either limiting breeding, in either amount or by species exclusion.Punishing players for actively seeking other players to extend their collections seems to defeat the purpose of it being an MMO.You can add breeder points gained through breeding as opposed to buying/trading, that designate who a player can trade with and who they can breed with and what monsters they can control. I mean, if breeding is just a mini-game then, why restrict it so harshly?I think balancing the battling and working on the logistics of monster raising should take priority in that case.I mean there are much simpler solutions to balancing the way breeding, trading and battling work together.Having trainers choose to allow traded/bought monsters in battle could just fix the whole thing.Even those traded in origin (parent was traded and not partner paired).   ;Quote:Original post by Cpt MothballsWell the way I see, it punishing players for being social seems to be a bad idea.I understand you don't want 'power breeders', but the solution to this is either limiting breeding, in either amount or by species exclusion.Punishing players for actively seeking other players to extend their collections seems to defeat the purpose of it being an MMO.You can add breeder points gained through breeding as opposed to buying/trading, that designate who a player can trade with and who they can breed with and what monsters they can control. I mean, if breeding is just a mini-game then, why restrict it so harshly?I think balancing the battling and working on the logistics of monster raising should take priority in that case.I mean there are much simpler solutions to balancing the way breeding, trading and battling work together.Having trainers choose to allow traded/bought monsters in battle could just fix the whole thing.Even those traded in origin (parent was traded and not partner paired).I really don't think auto-neutering all traded monsters is a harsh restriction.  It doesn't limit what can be sold at all, the only thing it disallows is buying breeding stock.  Breeding is supposed to be a do-it-yourself type of fun, and allowing breeding stock to be sold would destroy much of the enjoyment of being a breeder, and breeders are the only ones who would want to buy breeding stock anyway so the restriction is for their own added enjoyment.  It's not any kind of punishment - breeders aren't being penalized. Selling stuff in a world marketplace is not terrible social anyway, for the most part you won't even know the person you are doing business with.I don't want to balance breeding with battling, I want to separate breeding from battling (except for capturing, and that's not true battling because it doesn't produce loot).  Generally the people who want to play a breeding minigame and the people who want to fight all day are not the same people - I want to allow each type of person to do what they enjoy without being forced to do the other types of activity.  The overall design goal for the MMO is for almost every activity within the game to be optional so everyone can pick and choose what they do and when they do it.   ;  So basically, to battle without breeding you buy the bred monsters, but miss out on filling out of the scorebook.Which is by your first post, the main goal of the game.So, really, you're giving players an option that betrays the original vision of the game in attempt to please everyone.Which is the first flaw I see.The next flaw I see is that by not allowing traded/bought monsters to breed, you're allowing breeders control of the marketplace. As their stock increases so does their potential income from materials.Meaning you're giving priority to what is an 'optional' exercise from the beginning.Because only breeders can make money.Then there's the obvious opening for gold farmers to exploit the game by supplying battle ready pets to people who are that lazy.So, just for a second, I think you really need to flesh out your design and just find what you want the game to be and stop worrying about anything else.   ;  What if instead of breeding you have genetic engineering?Player who want engineer buy the mad scientist kit and dna sampler and then go out into the world ad acquire dna samples from the various creatures.  You might night need several samples from the same creature to fully map their DNA pattern, but as you decode it you gain access to more creature building blocks.Then you can use your dna collection build the creature you want.  You could mix the body of the wolf, with the colouring of a panther, with the fire breathing qualities of a dragon, to create your own fire breathing black wolf.Engineered creatures can’t be DNA sequenced so they don’t add to your DNA database, only regular creatures can do that.In this way you can create a whole new social and economic activity based around customer creatures competitions and trading.  Want you very own pegaus but don’t want to go to the trouble of building one?  Just post a request on the mad scientist message board and another player can build and sell you one.;  I'd allow fully unrestricted trading of pets, However for the breeding program to be worthwhile, i'd set up (if technically possible) unique benefits for having a pet and a certain level of breeding skillfor (a pretty lame) example, say you had a monkey style pet that can fetch things or attack things, if you buy the pet he can do the above, but if you have say, 50 skill points in breeding, he gets a special attack, or he can fetch things that are out of the reach of normal 'bought' pets.Could be tricky to implement, depending on how everything is set up, but i'd say it'd be worthwhile as it would let everyone buy and use pets but if you want the most out of them you need to do a bit of tradeskilling. If you get a decent benefit from it you'll end up having more people doing the breeding tradeskill (even people that won't find it that fun, but depends if you're aiming for a totally fun MMO or a MMO like all the others that you always end up doing stuff you don't enjoy that much for a tradeoff) which means more people playing for longer, arguably what you want from a MMO.   