Too bad not all of them are being made a species over time, I will forever mourn after the chance of seeing an official Nightmare Sandcat.

I guess when I saw it I recognized it as a kind of cute sP sink. Players would potentially influence the next pet while at the same time helping keep the economy in control by draining currency. And I don't think it was such a bad one- these have to be designed to appeal to a wide range of users on the site (new pet) while being accessible to the majority (the 50k 'buy in'). But any time you do a currency sink players with less wealth will feel some resentment towards those with more because they're perceived as having unfair influence or getting unfairly rewarded because they have the ability to throw money at it. And this is Subeta and the 'poll' was over pets, so there will be salt, drama, blame, accusations, and general bitterness.

The downside, though, is that the winners might not actually represent the pets most people wanted. A few wealthy players might have skewed it so much that a great deal of artist effort will be spent on a pet that will be no more popular than the experiment version.

While I am happy to see some experiments get the chance to be promoted to a full pet species, I also wan't inclined towards donating much. I could gamble everything I had on the pet I wanted most, and not only waste my wealth but not get the pet I blew millions to support. I wasn't willing to sacrifice my long term plans on a chance.

I didn't donate mostly because I could see the one I would have wanted would end up losing and it did, the squid. (I could have actually changed Creator Destroyer to one. lmao My NationStates nation being run by their national animal, the Land Squid.) As it shows I would have just thrown away my hard earned sp for nothing.

I would have been more willing to vote if this was more a one vote= the voice of the users. As it is I really don't feel like this equals the voice of everyone than the voice of those who had the money. Actually, if this was like the other sp sink where they're going to be done in order I wouldn't have had any issue with voting. Though I didn't donate in that one either. lol

ngl another reason I didn't care for voting is because I don't want a species name for my . I wonder if it'll be ok if once the gets a name if I code back the Common (or any other color if I decide I like it) Experiment . He's never going to be entered into the spotlight.

I was also under the impression that this entire thing was something of an sP sink?

I think as an SP sink it is entirely successful if it got people who had millions or hundreds of millions sitting in their till to actually spend it. Not only that but it was much more of a community event than just staff releasing another random experiment as a pet.

People can be upset that their fav didn't become a pet, but I think expectations are what need to be changed more than the format of this poll.

cough actually more people donated for the peacock than any other pet cough

I think it was a decent sP sink, not a great one. Barely made a dent in the total amount of sP onsite, and my theory is that it's due to the sP totals being hidden. It was a gamble to sink in sP, and I'm glad I didn't spend any more than I did. I personally would have voted more if I knew the pet I supported was behind. But then again, seeing the totals might deter some from voting, so Speiro's idea was pretty good imo. Also agree that if there is a next time this kind of poll is implemented, should be for something less significant.

I was okay with the poll and the results because I, in my foolishness, figured there'd be a repeat of it some day. Another chance for these experiments to become pets if the ones we liked didn't win.

Now that I've read 's post, I'm really sad and disappointed that these are possibly the last experiment-to-pet conversions. D: Was hoping we could let the zapper keep the mutant, horror-like things like the 404 and the slushii 1337, 1102, 164, 8471. Turn the more normal-looking ones (squidkid, plantgoblin, 932, firefairy giraffe, 625 - <3 hello, dangerous-looking not-as-cuddly snek, etc.) into pets. So many of them are seriously amazing pet concepts that fill a lot of the gaps in Subeta's species list.

Ohwell. :c

Ah, that's comforting and reassuring! Thank you! :D So we might get another one like... in next year's summer lull? Or whenever there's time for the art staff to tackle a project this heavy.

maybe you should have made that information known on the news post, because a fair few people are just convinced that it came down to money.

I feel like concerns are being raised, but responses are glancing over the whole sP sink/people with less sP feeling crap and just focusing on justifying a blob's potential. Maybe that's just my interpretation.

That's reassuring to hear. I liked that one the most out of the choices, but from comments was concerned that only 5 or 6 people, including myself, voted for it.

I'm wondering if part of it is that the voting/donating (I agree there's a difference in those words that's important) didn't necessarily reflect the representation on the news posts. For example, I donated quite a bit toward the choice I liked best, which definitely wasn't one of the more supported choices in the news threads, but I didn't comment about it.

While I'm all for people being vocal for what they like best and essentially cheering on that choice, there are a lot more users behind the scenes who don't post and who may affect the outcomes.

Also, everything said. It was build as an sP sink which we already know generates some friction just as a matter of course, and add in pets...yeah, it's understandable people get salty.

That said, I know the site is trying hard to come up with interesting and fun sP sinks that don't set the players at one another, and I think this was a pretty neat one. I mean, the site didn't HAVE to offer up experiments as actual pets! This is pretty cool! And if it's explicitly in service of an sP sink, then...yeah, straight voting might be more representative, but would we have gotten this option at all if it were just flat voting? Not so sure.

Not really a complaint but what I honestly want to know is why we did this whole thing in the first place. Are some of the pet colours completely full? Is it a fun little excuse to fill up the remaining letters in the pet alphabet? Did someone just say "Hey, some of the experiments would look awesome as actual pets!" and it was thought to be a good idea?

I hope I don't sound salty. I just want to know the madness behind the method.

That's not really a problem though. Or at least it's not the same problem.

People are upset that one person could theoretically dump a billion sP and completely control the outcome, pushing an unpopular result to the lead. If they give their money to others to buy votes, then those other people have to agree to cast votes, and I can't see people willingly voting for something they don't like. If someone bankrolls a winner this way, then clearly the result was popular enough in the first place. (I don't think passing around money like that should be allowed or encouraged because it could be easily abused, but that's another issue.)

If we want this to be about popularity though, then we need to just make this "vote for your favorite" which will still come with salty users and it's still not that fun. I'm not sure about any of the stats about the contest, but I think there were opportunities to form "teams" to provide hype and support for other users who support the experiment you also support and encourage more donations. I didn't really see this happen (I also didn't look so maybe it did?) But things like that happened with teamblake and whatever the saggi team was called that I was a part of during the last plot. It took effort to donate a lot of sP. People could have still spread around sP for this so donations would go faster.

Honestly if any other experiment came in 2nd place, I'm not sure two of them would have been turned into pets. The blob has a lot of unique hype behind it. If it came in first though, I think 2nd place still would have been turned into a pet.

Well, I suppose it's comforting to know the peacock pet won both in popularity and in total money raised.

I think the issues with something like this being an SP sink have been well explained already, either here or in the news, so I won't bother with it here.

I would have much preferred the squid, since it fills a niche that is currently unoccupied in the subeta pet roster, but hopefully it can be filled with another, new pet. Some sort of uber-mollusc, maybe, combining traits of cephalopods and gastropods. There's some beautiful nudibranchs out there that would make for excellent inspiration.

I suppose my dislike for the blob comes down to the fact that it is something I would have hated to deal with as a staff artist personally. I did pet art for a few years on another website, and I always considered "joke" pets to be a waste of time and staff resources. That said, I also think the blob would have been best left as just an experiment -- a literal sentient blob of tissue from a gnarly zap. It's one of the most "experimenty" of the experiments, and I think making it a full-fledged pet takes away from that.

I think sums up what I've been feeling; so many people are completely brushing over the source of the frustration and defending the blob which, even though it's not the unanimous favorite, no one's vehemently rallying against. Though, to be fair, I'm sure it must feel like it to many blob-lovers. It's great to know that the staff is just as excited about the blob as many of the users are! But it's sort of condescending for others to dismiss people's legitimate issues with the way the poll was structured as users being "salty" that their favorite didn't win.