[edit]OKAY SO I SERIOUSLY DIDN'T REALIZE that people were talking about this on another forum thread??? I was talking with a friend the other day and I remember that she mentioned seeing someone discuss this topic but I didn't realize it was here in the suggestions forum already fdgshjfdsgdhf SORRY

Before you grab your pitchforks, hear me out. I know this is going to be a controversial thought, and I don't even know if it's technically feasible anyway, but I'll try to explain my ideas as best as possible!

The relevancy of Subeta in the pet site world... When I recommend Subeta to friends, I usually do so by stating that it's a great outlet for character creation; a large chunk of the Subeta community loves to focus on pets/characters and the pet spotlight is further evidence that Subeta takes pride in its users' creativity. The only problem for new players is that we are now at a point where most "good" pet names are already taken, especially by users who have no plans of adopting out their pets anytime soon. We rely on people losing interest in the site, UFA posts, or account-freezing to get a chance at a name we desire. This is a fine system for players who have been here a long while, but to a new user whose only immediate pet name options are Neopets-esque misspellings*, this can be a bit of a turn-off. A new player might not want to wait months or years for a name to clear, and thus lose interest in the site. A huge draw for newer pet sites is a non-unique naming system, and I wonder if Subeta's current pet name system is hurting its relevancy in a world where pet sites aren't as popular as they used to be, anyway.

(*btw I know there's a thread in the pets forum for names that aren't taken, and a lot of them are good! I'm just saying, how many of us have characters that are named, oh, idk, Lucius or Marie or something, and how many of us have resorted to awkward misspellings just to get something remotely similar?)

So, let's think about non-unique pet names... This will make a lot of people mad. I know, I know. There's a lot of pride in having the only (your pet's name goes here) on the site - I'm quite proud of a couple of mine, too! But at the same time, I think to myself, y'know... if another player wants to have a pet named Totalitarian (an example of mine that I don't think many people are clamoring for, lmao), why not? If that helps them retain interest in the site and motivates them to work on their characters more, why not? I can't be the only one that loses interest in character development on Subeta unless the pet's name is perfect.

Damage control (aka trying to make owners of the original pet names happy)... I thought of a few ideas to make this idea seem a little more palatable to users who are just really, really attached to being the only owner of (your pet's name here):

1. Some kind of indicator on the original holder of a name, to denote its original status, on the pet's profile. Idk what this would be. A star? A trophy? Maybe just a text blurb, something small, like, "this is the original Totalitarian!". The downside is that people with pretty CSS-ed profiles would have to figure out where to put that line of text. Perhaps an indicator of name originality could extend to leashed pets and spotlight wins, too ("the original Totalitarian has won the pet spotlight!"). Duplicates of the name would look exactly the same as they are now ("Totalitarian has won the pet spotlight!").

2. Instead of subeta.net / pets / Totalitarian leading to a pet's profile, it instead leads to a page similar to the search feature for that pet's name. On that page, at the very top would be the original name holder and a link to that profile. Underneath, there would be a chronological list of all other name duplicates, showing the dates of each pet's creation, to show off how long the original name holder had that name all to themselves! : -D

3. A trophy, or indicator, or something, for the user. Maybe a profile trophy that says "this user is the owner of (x) original pets!", or something to that effect. Maybe when you hover over a user's name, below the forum post count and achievement count, there could be an indicator of how many original pet names are owned, too.

The problems with implementing this...

1. I have no idea what Subeta's current retention of new users is. Is Subeta even worried about getting new people to play at this point? This pet name system overhaul would appeal more to newer users (and probably old fogeys like me who would love to have certain pet names that just aren't available, haha), but if we're not concerned with making the site friendlier for more users, then there's no reason to add a system like this.

2. A lot of current users would potentially be angered, for multiple reasons. First, some people are really proud of being the only owner of (your pet name goes here), and that's cool! I get it. I seriously have nothing against people who really want to keep pet names unique, because I can see their point of view, too. Second, users would likely be pissed because they'd want to change their pets' names from an alternate spelling to their true name, but now they have to spend lots of CSC to do those name changes. (Although, there are probably people who would readily be willing to pay CSC to do just this. I have, and would again, spend money to remove the period I put in some of my pets' names because they were already taken!).

3. Is this even remotely possible????????? Seriously though I don't know diddly-jack squat about running a pet site and I don't even know if this could be DONE. So maybe I just wrote all of this for nothing lmao

ANYWAY

Thanks for coming to my pet name TED talk... Sorry for being so long-winded, but I wanted to make sure my points were clear enough!! I've been mulling this over for a little bit... I'm kind of scared to post this in the suggestions forum, but hopefully maybe it'll get some support? Or start a discussion? Or if you guys just want to murder me for even suggesting this in the first place, I guess that's okay too

since I was talking to you about this not too long ago, hope u don't mind the ping ;;;;;

I supported this on another board involving pet slots, and I still absolutely support the idea of non-unique names.

My primary reason for support is largely:

If I was joining today, there's very little chance I'd stick around very long.

I also support it because it would cull the daily DDoS attack from people killing the site with 50 tabs and autorefreshers running in every one of them. Nothing is more frustrating than having the avoid the site for an hour a day because of the lag and crashing.

I posted in the thread linked by , and I will say I wholeheartedly support non-unique names. It is, to be frank, an outdated game mechanic which really isn't necessary anymore. It's very Neopet-y, and at the end of the day doesn't make sense to keep up with. Multiple people can have the same sentimental attachment to the same word/name, and it's limiting that only one person out of thousands of users should be allowed to have said name. There are plenty of pet sites/sims/etc. where names are not a limiting factor and they are thriving.

Not having unique names anymore would also help retain and re-interest otherwise inactive users who do come back after a year's time. Many times I've seen upset users because their names were "stolen", as they put. Despite their account itself being in tact, and the free renames, these users have bad tastes in their mouths and rarely return again. Sure, there may still be upset if a username was taken instead, but this is a lot more rare in comparison. There is potential for these users to become active again and even spend money on the site if nearly everything was left in tact as they remembered them being.

I'd like it for the sole reason of having my cat's name on my memorial pet. I found a name that's close to what I've called her, but I would also like to call her Molly and call it a day. I'm sure that a lot of people would also want to have the names of their passed pets/loved ones too. It kind of sucks to have settle on a pet that's meant to be a memorial.

I fully support non-unique names. Considering it seems to be impossible to snag 'good' names any more, you have to either be super lucky or well yeah super lucky.

Ohhh god I feel really stupid, I didn't realize that there was another thread already in the suggestions forum that kind of touched on this topic!! Thank you so much for the link!!

I don't really support this, but I don't have any logical reason for that. Just remembering pet name clearings back before they were an automated thing. I fought the lag and the clearings not going through at the right time and other players for those names, dammit! It's dumb and selfish, but it does feel like losing something.

What if you could change a pet's display name? So the url would always say the pet's original name, but when you visited the pet's page, you could have the name show as whatever you wanted. Or you have the pet's real name under it? Like :

Totalitarian the Common Kumos (aka kumos123456)

The aka wouldn't show up on the original Totalitarian's page.

i supported this on the other thread it came up in and i'll support it again here just kinda over the whole 'i can be the only one!!!!' thing tbh; i'd rather just have everyone happily own whatever name they want without having to fight over it

also as pointed out, unique names kinda suck for new players... i know subeta doesn't have the same overgrown pile of name3278478234 pets that neo does, but when users are able to have upwards of 100 pet slots, it's not long til it becomes a slog to find a good name for anyone

I think this would be a really good compromise. That way there's still a little bit of pride for the person who owns the first pet, but for all intents and purposes, anyone can have any name they want.

That's not a bad compromise at all, honestly! In fact, it might open up new creative opportunities with picking names - I can see some people trying to do something along the lines of:

Totalitarian the Common Kumos (aka Total Asshole)

In general, this is such a fascinating debate, because I'm curious as to what matters more to Subeta at this point in its lifetime? Are we more concerned about keeping revenue from longtime players, or gaining revenue from new players? Everything depends on what kind of user base Subeta wants to have, going forward.

I support non-unique pet names. Fullstop.

Just because it was a task and hard to get pet names at clearing in 2011 doesn't mean we have to stick with the old system - no new petsites are using unique petnames anymore! They're all using unique IDs as identifiers, and that's good.

So many things changed since the last ten years, we didn't think that we could quickstock beanbags and plushies, or that we could actually sell things directly in shops for CSC (even if it's just for CWs!) or that we could actually customise the number of items we have on a specific wardrobe layer, or that we wouldn't get so-or-so and now - we actually have this stuff!

Yeah, there is going to be backlash at first, but it's a period of adaptation. I struggled to get names during clearings too, I know what it's like.

But, it would be nice to not kill the site on a daily base.

I really feel like unique pet names are a relic of the past, and something that we should leave behind.

I support a compromise.

Maybe pets with the original name have their name in a normal font, and duplicates have an italic name.

Maybe it costs CSC to change your pet name to a duplicate name? "Crown of Duplicity" or something haha.

?‍♀️

100% in favour of non-unique pet names. Multiple people are going to have OCs named the same thing, or want to make fanpets of the same character, or whatever else. Sure, there's a certain satisfaction in being the one to have the name, but I think opening things up to let as many people own "Fluffy" or "Mike" or "Sherlock Holmes" as wanted is going to cause less drama in the long run than name-sniping and having to use "compromise" names does.

this brings up, unless it won't be retroactive, the original owner of a name. Say, pet name 'Alex'. The original owner, back from 2006, had the name. Then, someone grabbed it in a clearing, (so now that'd be 2nd Alex) and so on and so forth. How would that work? Would it retcon to the original owner having the first name even if they're off site/non active?

hmmm i'm gonna have to admit i'm not a fan of this idea 😕

That's a good question; I imagine it wouldn't be retroactive, since the original Alex would then be Alex_234 and no longer an instance of the same pet. But that's literally just my guess on how it would go down!

I suppose my question for the compromise idea is, how much of a compromise would it be? Would leashed pets show the chosen display name, or the actual name linked to the pet? Would the chosen display name be universal across Subeta except for the pet profile itself? Because I don't think a compromise would be quite as tempting if a leashed pet's name shows up as "0_0alex0_0" instead of "Alex", or if notifications still say "0_0alex0_0 is back from the resort!".

I'd definitely be more inclined to support unique names if Subeta is not doing well in new user retention, to keep the current userbase happy, but then I have to wonder how much new user retention would change if the site went ahead with the name overhaul, anyway.

I support non-unique pet names. If newer pet sites use the ID system, Subeta needs to move with the times.

As for the cost of name changing, here are some suggestions

1. A free name change as one of future Quest-A-Thon prizes

2. We can buy 15 pet slots from the Millionaire Center so why not let us buy some name changes from there as well?

3. Reduce the CSC cost of changing a name.

i already said it on the other thread but i'll restate my support for this~

like i'm rly happy to own emil and kafka but if someone else had pets named that as well?? literally wouldn't change the enjoyment i get from my pets |D plus i'd def change a couple of mine to their actual character names rather than rw's/nicknames so there's that too haha

i also really like 's idea with the aliases! mostly because it would still make https://subeta.net/pets/name and {pet=name} (though for this one the alias rather than real name should show under the headshot) links unique so showing pets on profiles and whatnot is still doable without having to use the actual pet widget or link through id's

I support this and think it would be a good compromise.

As mentioned in my previous posts, I do not support non-unique names.