So I was scrolling through the pound the other day and I found this poor unfortunate pet: igdiughisudhfugvishsdhfcisd

He's a common swampie, nothing fancy. But I don't really see him getting a good home with that name.

I don't have this thought out all the way through, but I was thinking there could be some sort of pound sweep where users can vote if a pet should get a new name if they're as terrible as the ones above. How does this sound to you guys? Worth doing or too complicated?

I feel bad for those pets too, doomed to wander the pound forever. I think staff deals with this by purging the pound when it gets too full of pets with crappy names.

renaming pets costs 500csc (with no sales reductions)

I'd love to conserve ID's but I'd be ditching pets in the pound for name changes if this ever happens, and I'd think it's borderline abusing such a feature when name changes are normally a feature that you have to pay for. In addition, I don't think that having large amounts of pets in the pound is a problem (problems seek solutions).

"Good name" vs "bad name" is also too subjective, for example "mister saiyan raynard" isn't a good name to me but somebody else might consider it a good name.

Everything said. Pound purges are the current way of dealing with this and they work well. Renaming is a whole separate thing; if it could be done in the adoption centre for free people may even start abandoning pets to avoid the fee and snatching them back up. And you mentioned a voting system: who'd get to decide what the pet's new name was, if that were the case? If we collectively decide that kjrekkgjtujdngrjthrig the swampie, who belongs to no one, needs a new name, what is that name and how are people made aware of it being available for adoption? What's the benefit of that, rather than someone who wants it just creating that name or changing the name of one of their existing pets? I think the key point here is that there is no reason to feel bad for any unwanted subeta pet. They're inanimate, when there are too many they'll be deleted, and that's fine.

It wouldn't be a feature you paid for, exactly but more like once every few weeks a pet is chosen that has a name that's primarily random numbers letters and symbols ("Αλφ" "Ω" and "fdasfsafdsafsa") and then have users be able to vote if that pet's name is truly awful and deserves a change. The only difference between this and a direct name change would be that you don't automatically keep this pet afterwards.

One idea that would involve paying, but would make it a little more challenging for the users would be sort of a donation thing. Say, if every user chips in some random amount of sp until they hit a million or two and then the pet would get a new name. If the money isn't raised, it would be refunded and the pet would go back into the pound. This would be more of a good deed than anything (perhaps offering tiered achievements could be involved to motivate people)

The names given to these pets that are in need of new ones don't have to be very fancy. But I doubt anyone will pass up a pet that has an elegant name for one with a jumble of letters.

Renaming pets is already a feature that costs CSC, and skirting around this diminishes people paying for that feature.

I think you missed my main point... I feel like we're tossing solutions to a thing that isn't a problem. I mean there's nothing wrong with some pound-clearing feature (we have pound purges already), but from the way I'm reading it I think you're putting too much emotion into pixels. (how does one pixel deserve anything more than another pixel? why do they need new names?) There's nothing inherently wrong with "unwanted" virtual pets because they have a name you might find undesirable. Sometimes I pick up pets from the pound with awful names with the intention of renaming them because they have a relatively low id - would this factor into your proposal?

Like also mentioned, if name changes become free, wouldn't more people be tossing pets into the pound? Also, how would the new names be chosen? Would it be like "oh you can pick it up from the pound and get a free name change on it!"?? because that's the only way I can see that working (solo-choice) besides staff choosing some weird names that somebody might find desirable but the pet will still sit in the pound for months before getting purged. I'm not trying to stomp on your suggestion, it's just that I don't see the sense of urgency of "poor abandoned pets with no owners MIGHT get a new owner if they had a subjectively prettier name". There are names that are nice in the pound and sit there because people don't have slots (or aren't looking) - there are many reasons people don't adopt and other reasons that people do.

I don't think pet name changes should EVER be free. Pets in the pound who have shitty names should be purged every few months, imo. They build up and cause strain on the servers anyhow.

i gotta echo the notion that this sounds like a solution to a problem that isn't there. what qualifies as a "good" name is entirely subjective, and there always exists a chance that someone out there will want that pet for its name. if it's truly undesirable, then the pet will be purged when there's too many pets in the pound. it's a good system as is, and what's being proposed here sounds unnecessarily complicated.

besides, the idea of introducing a feature for free that people are already paying for seems rife with the possibility of people abusing the feature to get out of shelling out five bucks to change a pet name. i can only see this ending badly.

It wasn't exactly a solution to a problem, I just thought it would be a mildly entertaining thing to do. I know that they're all masses of pixels anyway, don't get me wrong. Honestly, I think you were missing my main point when I said that I didn't exactly know a way this would work, and I was looking for suggestions. No one's tossing around solutions. In fact, no solution has even been offered here. I think some of you may have been jumping to conclusions that weren't there in the first place.

If the pet is a common color with a cheap elixir, and is a easily gotten specie, no matter the name, unless if it's someone's dream name, has stats or a nice ID/birthday that is meaningful, it's not going to be adopted.

Why pay for something you can get for free?

I'm talking about adoption, of course. I never got the interest to adopt generic pets rather than create one with the name you want.