I'm not in favor of this. Some of my reasoning was probably already covered by people but welp here it is again.

1. I don't think this would benefit the site financially. I saw some chatter on the last board about non-unique names boosting interest in the pet community again and it's possible that we might see that for a short time, but I don't see it contributing much to the sale of things like pet slots. There's a large number of users who already buy MC slots rather than CSC slots, use a free template instead of commissioning a profile and have a TC wishlist full of Cash Shop items or CWs instead of donating. If names were a free-for-all, there wouldn't be any incentive to hold on to a name you were iffy about- you can just ditch it and remake it later if you're feeling inspired. I think we'd just see more people recycling their current slots. I could possibly see renaming becoming more popular as there got to be more competition for IDs or if potions got to be Neopets-levels of expensive, but those aren't positives to me either.

2)I don't think finding names will ever really be that bad for newer users, especially if the addition of pet slots is slowed down. Clearings may cause some issues when popular names are freeing up - which certainly isn't every day or even every week - but they help ensure that "good" names will frequently be available. I watch these pretty closely and every month there are nice names left on accounts that don't get grabbed in clearings. We have boards in the Pet Forum where people post names like these for anyone to make. We have adoption threads that have a FCFS method or where people willingly offer up their pets to users who are looking.
It's a pretty big assumption too that new users even want all the same names that current members own when personal tastes can be pretty varied. Hell, I usually have basic name interests but "Skraye" was one of the first pets I made when I joined over a decade ago and I'd still keep him over nearly every other name I have.

3. I don't think it would help the pet community. This isn't to say that I think it would make it entirely worse- I believe if people weren't being petty about missing names, they'd be petty about X user snagging all the good IDs or trained pets, snagging all the overlay and profile slots, their pet Dave being too similar to user Y's pet Dave, they resell potions for too much, etc. I think for our community to improve we generally need to be more supportive of each other- give feedback on TC/story threads, comment on spotlight wins, maybe offer to help newer users find names if they want or consider adopting to them instead of someone who has 50+ good names already.

edit:

And for the other people who want to keep unique names: You guys don't have to feel selfish for liking the system the way it is. A lot of us have invested a ton of time, effort and money acquiring the pets we have because we were told this is how it works and it was never suggested before that it might change. In fact, a glitch once allowed people to make non-unique names and staff later changed all the duplicates when it was fixed. Some people don't like the game aspect of names anymore and want something easier but that doesn't mean you need to feel guilty for disagreeing.

I could possibly get on board with the nickname thing as long as it didn't impact the pet name urls and the original name still had to be displayed somewhere (people kind of do this already anyway). I just don't want to someday know that I liked this pet named "Matt" and then have to also remember who owned him because now there's 112 pets named "Matt" that I have to go through to find that one I half-remember.

😂 IMEAN it would fix the issue of the servers dying during some clearings! But you're right. It would also open a can of whole other worms. And I don't think it'd stop at just one can.

I'm not in the die-hard section of the petname part of the userbase, so I don't know which pages are being manically autorefreshed. I'm assuming it's the "create a pet" one. Maybe a soft-lock could be implemented after one too many refreshes? A 2-5 minute cooldown before you can try again. Or the link could expire after X-many refreshes like the seasonal links do? Ofc both of those would have a little note on the create a pet page telling people what's going to happen.

It wouldn't do much for the drama (I think nothing would do much for getting rid of drama completely), but it would tell people that hey, that refreshing thing you're doing an obscene amount of? Maybe chill a bit about it.

[edit]EDIT BECAUSE I AM A DERP: the outcome of the poll would be absolutely predictable, yes. But a news post would draw much more attention, much more input and much more discussion than a lone topic on the forums does. I feel that it would test the waters more properly without actually diving face-first into them.

reading through the whole thread again, i think bean's idea with the nicknames would be the most agreeable one for everyone q v q

i did a mock-up of what it could look like maybe!!

boop

so if a pet has a nickname assigned it would replace the actual name and that name would show up underneath it! as its own paragraph class so people can edit it this wouldn't affect current profiles since the user would have to choose to assign a pet a nickname, and maybe that could be an sp sink too? (or csc but please don't make it csc i'll cry lmao)

i dunno how much it would help the site lag during clearings, since many people might still try for the "real" name rather than settling for something else and giving a pet a nickname, but it could be a solution for people who just really want certain names

That's so much more eloquently worded than I ever could - but this is why I'm not that fond of Bean's solution - a big majority of people are gonna settle for the original, rather than having a copy of the name (because of consistency - they'd want all of their pets to not have a nickname), so there will still be refresh-o-mania from a certain part of the userbase.

Man, now I wish we were in the ideal world where Subeta's servers are stable, so that I we wouldn't have to have this discussion now I'm getting sad over the wasted potential :(

haha yeah ;; but while this wouldn't help the insane refreshing (and i know it wouldn't really stop me tbf lmao), it could be an alternative for people who don't feel like there's any available names they like, i think o:

That's so much more eloquently worded than I ever could - but this is why I'm not that fond of Bean's solution - a big majority of people are gonna settle for the original, rather than having a copy of the name (because of consistency - they'd want all of their pets to not have a nickname), so there will still be refresh-o-mania from a certain part of the userbase.

Man, now I wish we were in the ideal world where Subeta's servers are stable, so that I we wouldn't have to have this discussion now I'm getting sad over the wasted potential :(

I really get why you want the site death during clearing hours gone, I really do. I know it's a pain in the ass, and I get grumpy too when it happens. However, again, is it too extreme to wipe out an entire system just for stability? Subeta has never been a very stable site. Sometimes, even when nothing is going on, it can get laggy. It always gets worse during events, and by this logic, should we just kill all the events because of the lag, should we limit the amount of users logging on during events, or should we find better server/infrastructure/technology to try to fix it first? I know the shorter name clearing lag is different than the longer event lag due to its unpredictability and frequency, but exactly how severe is this problem? On average, how often does it happen? How is it affecting the community? Is it turning new users away? Is it making older users quit?

I'm OK with a compromise. But a compromise is a compromise. It's not going to be perfect.

==================== Not directed at the quote or users above:

I know we are talking a lot about new users, but what about older users? 10 year+ paying users quit all the time even with good names on their accounts. What's causing them to quit? Is it something that we need to worry about? Or should we just give up and ignore these older users? Would new users eventually turn into these quitting old users?

PS. have you imagined what the search page would look like with non-unique? You'll get 100 Anthony and maybe 100 other names which include "anthony" on inactive accounts or with owners who are indifferent about names/not wanting to pay for the name change. The search page definitely needs more capacity for displaying all the Anthony pets because otherwise it won't be fair. How do you assume these Anthony are going to be ordered? Can we make sure we order them randomly whenever somebody searches it? Or are we going to make the Anthony with the lowest ID to be displayed first? Are we all perfect and kind enough to not make this a big deal?

I'm OK with most of the compromises, but not the greenlight/redlight, because not only people will harass redlights in a passive aggressive manner, but also eventually, I see it dividing the pet community into two groups. We have to remember not only redlights can't create/rename any names that's greenlighted, but they also shouldn't be able to adopt pets from greenlights, or from the pound if the name is greenlighted. This might create challenges for the coding. And what do you think the adoption forum would look like? Eventually the redlight users would form a group, and only adopt out and in pets within the redlight group. The funny thing is redlight people are probably OK because they will be OK with never getting a name they want (so having their fav name available is not really an incentive). In this case, nothing much is going to change for the greenlight people, because their goal mostly is to have all the names they want. And they only get to pick the names owned by greenlights (hey, maybe these names will satisfy them, and that's good!), but still will never get the names on redlights' accounts.

I'm not saying we can't do any of the compromises or go full on non-unique. But it's definitely not as easy as a click of a button to switch the system overnight. If you look at the details of these non-unique scenarios, a lot of extra coding needs to be done all over the site to accommodate the change. Plus, I am merely speculating too like other users, but I just want to caution people who painted an utopian picture of post non-unique pet name era, you definitely will get the good, oh yes, I'm sure there will be lots of good, but you also get to live with the bad and the ugly just like the current system. People are different, just because we don't understand, or feel, or do something, doesn't mean other people won't understand, feel, or do it. Non-unique is likely not a miracle cure, and whatever new problems it brings, we all have to face and deal with it, and hopefully as an intact pet community.

[edit]

This^. For those who don't understand the fun aspect of pet name hunt...it's a part of this subeta game to a lot of us, at least to me. Like any other games, we practice and fail (being there and trying for clearings, or doing applications for adoptions), we do our homework on the game (searching names), and the stress and nervousness that comes with the clearing is part of the excitement. And like any other games, we are competitive, but most of us also accept the result of either winning or losing (I pity those who break friendship or sabotage users over names. Unfortunately sore losers exist in every game). Should we be blamed or feel guilty for liking this? Nope, because subeta as a site taught the way of the pet name game to us since the beginning. Some people want to change the environment (non-unique), and some want to to adapt (unique). There's nothing wrong with either sides, but it does make it difficult for us to understand each other.

You're totally right - the site has never been stable, and this punishes everyone. In my eyes, site stability should come first, because while I disagree with OP's saying that non-unique names will keep more users active, I believe that a more stable site WILL bring better user retention, and that's why I support the suggestion.

Staff honestly tried to fix the infrastructure, they changed providers, they tried a lot of stuff in the past, we had recodes, and it didn't change anything - the site is still unstable, and it shows no signs of getting better.

I think that as a player community, we've all been extremely patient, and things should change - less server stress is something that will benefit everyone.

Subeta never became a top player in petsites, and it had tons of opportunities to do so, because of how unsable it is. And this is terrible.

I know no one here actually supports keeping the site laggy and borderline unusable at times, this is something certain! We just are running out of ideas to go and make the site breath better - and that's alright - we can't think of everything,

But, I feel like non-unique names would remove a source of server stress and massive refreshing - and that's really why I want to see them gone - not to undermine anyone's achievements and hard work (and little bit of luck!) during clearings, which is why I'd also like to see some kind of display thing showing that you got the names AGES ago.

Of course, some people are gonna be upset, and I fully understand you. Even small revamps make the userbase queasy, so something that huge is going to get some mad uproar.

I'm not holding this against anyone, honestly. It's a good discussion, and I'm glad we're having it.

I think this is really the crux of it (though your whole post is very articulate and put into words a lot of points I was thinking better than I could)! If we really want to make sure new users - or old users who have been put off from joining the pet scene - feel welcome and included, we should make a concentrated effort to involve them in the community. Maybe non-unique pet names would have a sudden influx of people interested in the pet aspect of Subeta, but if they still receive crickets they're not going to stay for very long, even if they can suddenly have the pet names of their dreams. Unless a pet spotlight winner is a popular user, or the pet is a fan pet, the posts can go by with maybe two or three comments. That can't feel very good. I'm guilty of not posting on them too, but I think it would be nice if we started to interact with more users regarding their pets. I think that would have a much bigger impact on bringing life back into the pet scene than non-unique names would.

^This. It's absolutely true. I recently (around July) started working much harder on getting my pets spotlight ready and have been trying harder to try to comment on spotlight wins whenever I get a chance to actually check out the winners. Because no, it doesn't feel good that a character/story I worked so hard on goes entirely unnoticed even though my OC is right there on the front page, so to speak. Even if I didn't code the profile myself or draw the overlay, I still would love for people to look, take a second to say 'congrats, I can see you worked hard'. I know some of the stories can be lengthy, I'm totally guilty of not reading the stories, but I do try to at least congratulate the winner. I think we definitely need to be more supportive of other pet-obsessed people, if that makes sense. I'm not saying non-unique names would help or harm that, because I don't really think it has much of a bearing on it either way. I think it may hurt the spotlight overall, because someone mentioned they don't want to see 3 days in a row that 'Batman' won the spotlight, which I could totally understand. (Just an example). Anyway just wanted to toss in my two-cents on that, as someone who has had a spotlight win that only got maybe 5 comments on my news post, mostly from my two friends on-site (lol), and his 'likes' only go from 1 to 4, after years of having the OC. (I get the OCs are definitely less likely to get people to read or to get excited, but -shrug-) I'll stop rambling now >.>

I don't know how many people here still use it, but Charahub is closing next month. Members of a massive RP-search Discord group I belong to were talking about it, and apparently the Charahub staff suggested Subeta as an alternative for character profile storage.

I understand trying to promote this site in the wake of losing Charahub, but I honestly can't see Subeta as a good place for character display when you have to find obscure alternatives to your characters' names, among other reasons. -shrug-

If a character has a first and last name, it would be more plausible - but a lot of characters (especially non-human characters) don't have surnames.

Obviously there wasn't going to be a massive exodus on the way from Charahub regardless of Subeta's naming system, but after stumbling across this I thought it would make an interesting discussion.

there is honestly no way i could ever suggest subeta as a place to display characters because of this. no site that is actually used for character storage limits what names you can use for your characters lmao you'd never go to a place like charahub or toyhou.se and have it go 'oh, your character's name is lucifer? sorry, another person already owns that so you better find an alternative. good luck!'

non-unique names need to be a thing before subeta can ever be considered a place to actually display characters proper.

Agreed. I ditched using Subeta primarily as a character bin because the anxiety of having a name that could work, but maybe not, if I pound this pet that name is gone forever though wasn't worth it for me.

Ok so, I'm going to put a few words of my own here, again, because I truly believe non-unique naming will only benefit Subeta in the long run.

Subeta already gives CSC for free in a ton of other ways. Morty Cards were a recent addition, but you have the Bathhouse daily with easy 10 to 60CSC per day.

This is looking into the whiners, but there are honest-to-good players that feel discouraged from playing Subeta at all because what's the point when you can't have the name you want? At the end of the day, Subeta is a pet site and everyone is playing to have fun in their own way.

Non-unique naming equals more people playing, which means more people that can possibly buy CSC.

Withholding something from others because you don't want anyone else to have that one special thing is childish behavior. Remember when as a child, parents and teachers told kids to share their toys and there would always be those that would throw tantrums because of it? It's a similar concept here. Except having the same name as someone's pet won't take anything from the pet you have.

Honestly, some people nowadays seem to get butthurt over any changes that benefit a lot of people.

I've been following this thread for a bit, and have been sorting out my feelings on it.

In the end, I've decided that I support non-unique names. I've watched names, snagged names, name changed, etc. My last snag and name change was just this past week. Names mean a great deal to me. But I think it's time to let go of unique names. I think almost all of the "compromise" suggestions are awful in that they won't make anyone actually happy.

No to red light/green light system. Peer pressure, toxic environment. No to nicknames. As someone who cares about names, I know it wouldn't be "enough" for me (and I'm assuming others). I still wouldn't really have the name I wanted? And that would bother me.

The only suggestion I've liked was some sort of "legacy marker" to denote that you were the first person with that unique name. I would even be fine without that, but I think it makes the most sense in terms of letting people feel special / like the "first".

I would hope that very few people would actually leave over it, and that it would hook others who could have the name(s) they wanted. I wouldn't be leaving. I also wouldn't turn into a low-ID hunter. My pets are special because of the other work I put into them (battling, TCs, storylines, etc.).

The only thing that would irk me would be having to link using IDs. And I'll get over it.

Tl;dr: I support non-unique names.

I love having unique names. I think mostly because it's how it's always been? I'd probably stay if the change happened. But I feel like it's more special as it is. Both for myself and for friends. I probably wouldn't care for my pets as much if the names weren't unique. Yea maybe I could have an exact name I want but how I value the pet would go down. I don't think it's wrong to put a personal value on my pets. I would feel really sad if "Alice" won spotlight and I had a pet named "Alice" that I wanted to submit to the spotlight.

I got a decent amount of thoughts on this matter. Of course my immediate response is "no, I want my names for me!", so I looked more into "why".

The majority (obviously not all) of those for non-unique names seem to be saying stuff like "well I don't really care if my names are unique". And that's all fine and good. I'm 50/50 with names. The special ones I have, like Geno, Garret, or Asher, I feel proud for having and it gives me a lot of joy. No, it doesn't make me selfish, childish, or what have you for enjoying being the only person to have those names. Then I have other pets, like some of my transformers. I couldn't get just "Drift", so he's "Autobot Drift". As someone who is proud of unique names, I also don't mind having to make slight adjustments or find other words. I'm not a fan of real word names, so I usually try to find something else.

I compare it to CWs. I do not care about CWs. I think I own 5 of them, several of which were gifts. I joined this site before human avatars even existed. That said, I would never support something that was like, "surprise! All private CWs are now public for everyone and cost [any amount, really]". People aren't selfish for wanting private CWs or special things for themselves. I personally don't care about CWs, but wouldn't want some weird system where someone else's Thing That Makes Them Happy is messed with. Sure, some people would probably be fine with it. But a lot wouldn't, and I think it's important to consider the feelings of those who would be negatively impacted. I don't think it should be as simple as "well majority says this so this is how it is" for something this big for the site.

Would I LIVE if someone else had Geno as a pet name and he wasn't super unique anymore? Well, duh. But I think names can very easily be things that people work hard for. I've waited for tons of names to clear. Lots of things are easily obtainable on this site - money, even CSC, since it can be bought with sP, for example. I think working toward a goal is fine. Making really hard stuff easier like the antique shop? Sure. Making everything available to everyone with no effort? No.

I can absolutely see both sides of the argument! I'd love to have the name "DiMA" instead of having used the RW "Prototypical" for him. But also, it's kinda fun to have that different name. But but also also, I wouldn't settle for another name for Geno, whose name I stalked in a clearing and felt very proud of getting!

So yeah while I see both sides, I think "everyone should be able to have every name they want, because people who are proud of their names and don't want copies are selfish and silly" is flawed reasoning and should NOT be the alternative argument..

I'm not good at making points I'm just blabbing my thoughts.

Link to the Charahub shutdown post, for anyone wondering!

As someone who has a Charahub account but forgot I even had characters that I didn't back up on there, I'm way more disappointed that no reminder e-mail or even an official Subeta announcement was made to let users know and get them to back their stuff up before everything gets deleted. ._. I'm sure plenty of users used it together with Subeta to link to their characters, so it's going to suck a lot for those users that just set it and forget it, so to speak. FFS, I wouldn't have known or checked Charahub if I didn't see a topic about it in the Help forum.

I get why they plugged Subeta in that post, but still. If staff is going to try and get the Charahub userbase to stick around and get more invested in the site, I hope they're at least considering the nicknames option to start paving the way & testing the waters for non-unique petnames. Maybe when the new pet profiles go live? ?

I... had no idea that other users were dealing with that too. :'| I thought it was just me being me, holding on to some pet names because "but what if I get inspired and this is the perfect petname and it gets taken by someone who logs in twice a year but literally never does anything at all on the site besides logging in???"

I feel like this is a losing battle here but no support. And no support to the ‘their original names are under the nickname.’ I don’t like this idea for really similar reasons to what bean said, but if you’re going to have a nickname system, the real pet name should be first and more largely displayed.

i would honestly buy way more csc to max out my pet slots if non-unique names were a thing. right now i don't because, uh, why bother? i'm not going to spend actual money (or sp earned for that matter) on a 'maybe i can fill this with something i only vaguely want'

My opinion: Let's just make pet names non-unique and then go on with our lives. I doubt I will die an instant death even if there are 12553 Pets named Adam next year. Every Adam would have his own story and background after all, just like in real life. shrugs