Cenopets

[Twofold Black]

Allow me to preface this by saying that there is basically nothing to do on Cenopets right now. You can make pets, breed pets and use the forum, but there's nothing to explore and there are no official shops. I noticed the site a while back, and didn't say anything then because at the time there was even less stuff -- there were only two or three species of createable pet -- but I performed my monthly check-in this morning and there's some stuff in the most recent news post that I think is promising, at least insofar as it speaks to the attitudes of Cenopets' creator (and this is apparently a one-man band, with art done on commission rather than under contract).

vT and sV changed

Since many new users were not immediately realizing that the "vT" and "sV" values shown in the sidebar are units of currency, the names have been changed to "Notes" and "Coins", respectively. I hope this will provide new players with a clearer understanding of our virtual money system and will also help users remember which unit is larger.

This is hilarious to me; 'vT' and 'sV' are the kind of currency notations a coder dreams up when they're so deep in the code they can't see out to the real world anymore. This is good -- lots of programmers never really learn how to step back and make things genuinely user-accessible.

Correct plural forms used

The proper plural form of words is now automatically detected in some areas of the site, in order to eliminate sentences such as "So far, you have created 1 pets through this tool" and "1 replies". Although this is a minor change, it still helps to increase the usability of our virtual pet website.

I love you.

Garden feature planned

A garden feature, which will allow pets to grow food, plants, and a certain type of pet, is currently in planning. When this is released, it will mean that pets will be able to create a farm as a business and grow their own food rather than having to purchase or win it.

This is the least idiosyncratically interesting part. Farm! As a business! Impossible to say at this point what the tedium:profit ratio will look like, but as an idea, it's grand. Comments in earlier news posts suggest to me that Cenopets is fixing to have maybe the single most interesting virtual pet site economy to date:

Business System Released

The core elements of the Cenopets business system have been released! If you are a virtual pet owner, you may now create a shop, transfer items into it, sell these items, or buy from other shops. Although this core feature is completed, we still have many other features which will be released soon, such as:
Hiring other users
Automatic job assignments
5 other business types
Item manufacturing
Item condition/quality

There are many, many ways in which this could go terribly wrong -- the phrase 'item condition/quality' sends me into a cold sweat -- but I am optimistic; Tezeti has already demonstrated an ability recognize when something isn't working for the users and change it, and even if only half of this is as good as it could be, it will be awesome.

Also, the art's pretty good:




At the start you can create or adopt five pets and get another three through breeding (a system I do not fully understand); 'after [you have] shown that [you] can take care of [your] existing pets' -- I don't know how that works -- you get more slots, up to a total of sixteen.

If you register, use my referrer link. Because I say so.

[Goldenchaos]

Pretty pets. I made an account. I probably wont stick around..D: ..just like every other new pet site, I forget I have an account on it

[oogabooga]

I made an account too (rachelkachel). Looks interesting, but there's not enough there yet to really be worth visiting.

[Huggles]

Interesting. Very interesting...

I'd like to know how the farming thing works out. I still think restocking is fundamentally flawed but firmly ingrained into the part of our brain labeled <insert virtual pet here>. I'm finding it very hard to come up with something comparable to Neopets restocking outside of the virtual pet world.

I'm also curious to see how Cenopets' traveling pet compares to other sites active pet.

Oh dear Bob.

Traveling Pet

Species: Karpien (w/ Karpien Ancestry)
Gender: Male
Parents: Unknown
Children: None

Mood: Happy
Status: Willing to breed!

Uh? No. I just don't like the idea of breeding creatures that can talk and run a shop. Eww.

Oh, and I demand that you people post more on the thread in my signature. Demand! *shakes fist*

[Cranberry]

Interesting. I created two tecerians and bred them. I wish the resulting pet started out as a baby, though... it's so unrealistic to end up with this full-grown animal immediately. I probably won't play the site unless they add a bunch of other unique stuff, but it's nice to have an account just in case.

[Huggles]

Is it just me, or is there no part of the explore map you can actually explore? I mean, I didn't think you meant that there was literally nothing to explore. Is it even out of alpha testing yet?

[Cranberry]

And there's no way to disown pets, is there? I don't actually want to keep the "puppy."

[Goldenchaos]

Lol I keep taking Pokemon names, ..Skarmory, Staraptor, Fearow..D: ..Ill probably abandon the Skarmory whenever we can do that

[Twofold Black]

Is it just me, or is there no part of the explore map you can actually explore? I mean, I didn't think you meant that there was literally nothing to explore. Is it even out of alpha testing yet?

Literally nothing. There is a giveaway tree thing, but it's not actually linked to from the Earthlike planet it is nominally a part of.

Looking that up reminded me: my referrer link is http://www.cenopets.com/register?from=Twofold Black, and I haven't an ounce of shame in my body so I'm putting it in the first post too.

[mellaka]

i registered earlier today (didn't know about the referral thing, sorry), once again as aud. i made one of those wolf-looking pets and named it demonic.

[Griffin]

The ideas are promising, but I don't expect it to go much further than Lunapets did. And while the pet art is high quality, the concepts are more what I'd expect from petpets or minions.

When looking up names I found these, probably old, de-released pets:


Edit: and these:


Hmm, I might stick around if I can create a flower.

[Huggles]

I lurve the flower. The other thing, not so much. The first few globs you posted look like palette test splotches.

[oogabooga]

Maybe the flower is the one you create by farming.

I'm disturbed to see that I can breed a pet with its own mother...

[Twofold Black]

When looking up names I found these, probably old, de-released pets:

What I gather is that those were drawn by the programmer (who I assume also did the map images) and are being gradually redrawn by a, you know, artist.

[Helmcargh]

I like the concept of a number of separate distinct planets as the explore map. It's a cool idea which will hopefully be usable soon.

I don't like the idea of breeding pets, especially since you can breed them with their close relatives. Also, why do a certain number of a users possible pets have to be bred? I don't see the point and it could easily mean that there will be an excess of pets in the pound (whenever they get one) that no one can adopt.

edit: And I'm Helmcargh on Ceno (as usual)