Please hear me out! I'm a game developer, I have my degree in game design so my suggestions come strictly from there.

I've been on subeta since 2011 and I was one of the ones still mourning the loss of unique pet names-- however I fell in love with the idea of legacy names. It doesn't take long for you to notice that Legacy pets are the ones that are the most coveted in the community. In game design, this is a phenomenon similar to that of Shiny Pokemon-- when there is a finite amount of one pet, it has a perceived value greater than that of the base form. You can see this already playing out on forums and the adoption center.

With many legacy pets being lost to the sands of time, I would like to suggest there be a cash shop item to give your pet a unique legacy name, similar to the past unique pet names. In all honesty, this is one thing I would consider buying regularly and I know many other subetans would love to support the site this way as well.

I really would like to find new ways to support the site and I feel like this would not only be a big revenue generator for Subeta (Since unlike premium potions and overlays does not require an aesthetic preference) but would also improve user experience by feeling their pet has a bit more personalization that nobody else would have! I'd really love to support subeta in this way if possible >w<b

[edit] To clarify, I am mainly advocating for unique names to be a purchasable trait, using legacy names as an example to combat the scarcity in pets. I suggest Legacy names because they already exist within the context of subeta, but I'd also be open to suggesting another distinction separate from that. Just trying to find new ways to support Subeta!

This is an interesting idea that I have mixed feelings about. If I understand correctly, the proposed item would allow a user to give one of their pets a name that currently does not exist as a LN, and the name would be given the LN designation?

While I do support the idea of ways to bring more funds to the site, like having ways to make pets unique, and completely also feel the "pain" of LNs lost to time, I think personally I'd rather see some other kind of distinction being able to be purchased than the LN title. LNs are such a significant part of Subeta's story and it feels weird to me to consider the meaning / Subeta-culture meaning of LNs to be changed / made kinda moot.

I don't think it's fair to be able to "attain" the specific pet ID from the inactive account, because if the inactive user does come back they should still have the pets they made (even if the names had changed). But buying just the LN title feels like it removes the "meaning", just like buying the "legacy" title would.

Perhaps instead of being able to buy the "LN" distinction there could be a different distinction for the "first" of a name after the 2020 swap to NUNs and this distinction could be "unlocked" with a CS item / with a subscription? "Legacy" is just so specific to the point in time in Subeta history, but this new distinction could be likewise specific to a new time period. This would mean there are "Legacy" pets (the title disappears if they leave the account), "Legacy Names" (can swap accounts), and the new distinction (can swap accounts). It expands the amount of "unique" names (via the titles) but does not take away from what "Legacy Names" mean.

To be fair Legacy names only become lost of someone removes it via the Bathouse pools. Otherwise the legacy names merely stay on an inactive account.

Hmmm I dunno how I feel about this suggestion, as it feels weird to want buy legacy names. But that's just me.

Oh, my brain is tired but this makes sense as well as far as what the proposed idea is. I'm definitely against being able to "buy" the LN distinction in a way that removes it from a current pet / account. Granted, I know it's better for the site to cater to active users and it's "fair" in a way to create opportunities for active users vs inactive ones, but people can and do come back and it seems inappropriate to take something from one account and give it to another. Especially something tied specifically to their journey on Subeta (vs a random item).

I think a new distinction that can be unlocked would be the right way to implement the idea and could perhaps re-create some of the push to come up with truly unique (post-2020) names which some people would enjoy.

That's a fair viewpoint! I'm moreso advocating for unique names for pets a la legacy names in a boiled down sense to combat the scarcity of unique names! I personally don't mind if it's under a different distinction. I personally am not nostalgic for the legacy names in Subeta history, but if others are I can understand that! Hopefully that clarifies what I'm suggesting a bit more I'll edit my post :)

This suggestion sounded familiar so I took a peek and you made this suggestion before, before you edited the OP.

I'm still staring at the tweaked suggestion here and... I really don't understand the point of putting unique names back into the system under a different label.

The only reason legacy names exist to begin with? Giving users who went above and beyond to get petnames in the era where petnames were actually one-of-a-kind a sense of accomplishment, and making their efforts at getting those names feel less wasted once the site switched to non-unique names. That's it. That's the whole "value" of these legacy names.

Reintroducing "unique names" in addition to the existing non-unique name system feels pointless. Why reintroduce unique names again when the system was already found to be incredibly restrictive, buggy and tedious? That's the whole reason why they did away with it to begin with.

And then there's the drama regarding old unique petnames, their very buggy clearings, and people literally being bullied into quitting the site (or giving up their pet) because "how dare you get this petname first after the clearing, I/my friend/my great aunt Gertrude is the only one who deserves it!".

So... no. No thank you. I've lived through this era and I don't see the point of tacking unique names back on under a different label. I'd rather see Subeta's programming efforts being nudged into something more fun and fruitful, like the homesteading feature.

[edit]Edited for clarity.

... No.

Some of the legacy names you will pry from my cold, dead fingers and then, I'll haunt you for it.

Now, the TL;DR: The unique name issue was that we were running into peats and repeats of names, variations thereof, and misspellings therein. It was absurdity. I don't want to see the unique names return to the site because now, it's lost that spark. The system we have in place now has a far greater number of variations than just adding in a letter or omitting one here and there.

The unique name system was like unique IP addresses: you're going to run out eventually or have identical ones eventually and that's not a good idea in any way, shape or form.

So, as I said at the start...

no.