[OOC] Wattplants General

[skinstealer]

WELCOME TO THE WATTPLANTS OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT THREAD

here you can find development for our fictional in-universe morbit petsite, wattplants! this is a neopets-like site

CURRENT CANON PETS: HERE

this gallery contains all of the canon (non-custom) pets your characters can adopt currently. more will be added over time- see discussion questions towards the bottom.

CURRENT ASSETS FOR CUSTOM PETS: HERE

here you can get at the PSDs needed to make your own wattplants customs. enjoy!
to get a trapling mini, scale down to 100x100 px with hard edge interpolation.

CURRENT CANON CONCEPTS/FACTS:

• the first wattplant species is the trapling, a flytrap inspired quadruped.
  
• wattplants come in 4 basic colors a la neopets: red, blue, yellow and green.
  
• wattplant colors can also be changed via special items changing their hue/saturation/value, affecting different areas of their body (such as body/leaves/eyes for traplings). these come in the form of plant food.
  
• special plant food also exists to add markings and extra features such as horns/wings etc
  
• wattplants can also use custom images for their profiles, generally with custom markings. this requires something Expensive and Rare
  
• petpet equivalents exist
  
• all wattplants are carnivorous, hence why they require food and water
  
• inspired by both morbit and earth plants, both carnivorous and otherwise
  
• 20 wattplants maximum per character, though you can have as many characters involved as you like
  
• breeding is Not a mechanic
  
• people often establish "relationships" in their pet bios/personal lore
  
• people like to explore personal aesthetics through their pet bios/profiles, as well as wattplant design
  
• creepypasta/horror is pretty common due to the predatory/carnivorous nature of wattplants
  
• you need to give them meat and water every day or they get sad
  
• there was some initial elitism on the site, but it got better over time
  

META STUFF

• new wattplant species will be added via commissions, raffles, and events/contests. they will all be designed by official team members w/ artistic liberty, though suggestions/prompts will be allowed when commissioning etc
  
• prompts for wattplants require a plant/fungus suggestion (fungi arent plants but do you think the devs of this game care. no), pooooosssssibly also animal/other prompt to help guide the unique design?
  
• commissions will be available both for USD and forum cash
  
• thinking at least 25 USD for a new species because its a fully lined + shaded design?
  
• 5-20 USD for an edited custom depending on complexity- may also establish new "items"
  
• item commissions will also be a thing (15 USD?)
  
• minipet commissions will also be a thing (15 USD?)
  

CURRENT QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

1) should there be a pet limit, like neopets? if so, how much should that be?
while a limit would be, well, a limit, it would also put character focus on specific site goals and what aesthetics they want in a pet, as well as the increased potential for an existing pet to change over time a la paintbrushes/lab ray/etc. what's the stance on this?  solved this

2) how should wattplant species be handled? we want to outsource ideas, but as per usual, we want the designs to be from official team to ensure full copyright etc etc- so, how should these be created? via commission both in USD and in forum cash? raffles/suggestion polls? what goes into inspiring one, what are the prompts like? are they as simple as critters/TCPs, or more involved? solved this

3) while wattplants has a custom image feature a la aywas or even select 4dopt stuff, what do we want the context for obtaining these to be in-universe? are these done by official artists? are they uploaded by the user themself? are they commissioned? does it require an item? solved this

4) what kind of world do we want to have for this? what kind of setting, what kind of overall vibe? how much of a focus on story is there? what do people make up fanon-wise in-universe?

5) what are creative trends within the community, such as art style choices, characterization choices, etc? what's the Vibe of the site? solved this

6) is there a story to wattplants? how well does the site upkeep lore? how messy is it?

7) what kinds of ways do you make money on the site itself? obviously im not implementing any actual games or anything but itd be interesting to give characters something to complain talk about. how are items earned? what is the economy like (if there is one)?

[skinstealer]

also id like to say that petpet equivalents are a thing because ive gone mad with creature design powers lately. adding those to the list

[King-Clod]

probably a good thing to note would be the all the plants are carnivorous? They're based on both Earth and Morbit specific plants, plus there's probably ones the site came up with wholesale, but the carnivorous nature is why you have to give them both water and food.

[skinstealer]

it'd be interesting if along with exploring more "typical" carnivorous plants both on morbit and on earth, we explored "what if [x] was carnivorous", like some kind of rose that eats bugs...it'd be weird and probably make spec evo/bio people go "what the fuck are you doing" but These Are Cartoons

also we need a mushroom of some kind

[skinstealer]

i know that mushrooms arent plants but theyd be cute ok

[AceOfNothing]

1) I'm not super familiar with neopets, just wasn't for me, so I'm working off other petsites. If it's limited, are you thinking like "over time you can gain more pet slots, with a very high ultimate limits" or is it more "You can only get 30 pets total, they're hard to get so this won't be a problem for now"? If you did do a pet limit, you'd probably have to balance it with like "pets need to be fed every other day or they can get sick and leave"

2) I kinda support all of this. I think opening them up for comms is just a good idea. I think suggestion threads are fun, and just because it's suggested doesn't mean you have to make it. I think it might be fun to run a contest sometime where people can "inspire" a wattpet, with understanding that if the design is picked its then yours to change and do with as you see fit, but I get if that's concerning in a way I'm not considering. I think it might be better to go with like... plant suggestions. Just to keep it different.

3) official artist commissions and items are my vote.

I'll think on the other things later, gotta do something so Ah

[skinstealer]

neopets has extremely limited pet slots, im pretty sure the limit is 5 per account and it was 4 for years, with people able to have...one main account and 3 side accounts, i think? so 20 pets total. neopets didnt leave or anything but did get a sad image if you didnt feed them- i think we do want to go this route over something like, collection-based like 4dopt, personally, but we're open to suggestions there

great suggestions for the design angle! a contest would be a lot of fun, and a suggestion thread would be good a la the thread we have for morb species/etc. i think along those lines, suggestions could be like...plant and Maybe animal/theme. just plant would probably be enough, though

official artist comms was how aywas did it, so that's a good way to go about it. there's also a fun to making up items and such- we need to figure out what would be a cute way of changing a pet's color...maybe plant food/formula?

[AceOfNothing]

Okay so I'm looking at this, I'm mainly going to talk about pet limit/pet site use for this comment. I'll talk about community a bit, but technically question 5 will get it's own comment so this isn't too much. So think here that I'm answering mostly 1 and 4 (I know I don't have to be strict about questions but to keep my head focused... ye)

So I will start with, personally, I lean a lot more towards pet breeding sites. I like the mystery of mixing traits, I like seeing what happens. This probably is due to the sites I first played/stuck with, but I also am someone who has always had a hard time focusing on games long. Things I have to go back to constantly everyday for a small chance at a reward and to play games till the coin limit? I will get over this very quickly, because there isn't much to do. Sites where I can go back everyday, waste some time coloring pets or exploring or breeding? I go back everyday. Probably for months.

I have tried a *lot* of pet sites, so Im going to briefly talk about them and what I think worked or didn't work. The ones I'm going to discuss here are; Ovipets (Played this on off for about 5 to 6 years, with at least 3 being me solidly playing), Flight Rising (on off 2 to 3 years), dragon cave (3 to 5 years, I poke at this like every few months in all honesty), wajas (2 - 3 years), xanje (2 - 3), and chicken Smoothie (1 solid year, I look at this still like... every few months when I remember). Ignoring 4dopt for now, but that is an art site with breeding site elements. I'll try to keep this brief, probably from most to say to least. I also will say if I consider the site more a pet site, breeding site, or art site.

Ovipets is supposed to be focused on talking on the forums/groups, but it's really more just a collection site. No pet limit, but species need to be fed (it varies, the gryphons I think it was like a week the were good and rats I think it was every other day (this also reflected how often they bred)). Paid users kind of ran the site, they made pets that were Pures (had a pure hex code in one of their color spots) and users would make projects. Pets started off basic with no morphs, but users could use credits (usually from real money) to buy and splice mutations onto eggs, and then that baby would have that mutation. People would make these long breeding chains to make pets called Projects, would give them a project name (Ex: Cloud Walkers, Citrus Dream, Angel Bites) and sell the final offspring to other people. Ovipets was great for collecting and for people who wanted to put in the time and effort (and money) for these projects, although without paying it might be harder on some players. (Also due to groups being like... self moderated by the owner, problems came up a lot with like... people being creepy.) There was also a huge rp community, not really focused on the pets but yeah. I have too much to say here, but tldr: No pet limit, but you had to feed the pets accordingly and this works *because* it's more a breeding then pet site.

FR I think a lot of us know. Simplified breeding mechanics, still make really pretty pets. Colors can't be changed but scolls can change dragon types and markings. A lot of it is more based on FR personal lore and forum communication, but it was still fun to see people make elaborate stories for their dragons. I don't remember the limits, I know you could have 5 nests and there was a cave limit that you could increase over time. Think it was like 150 total or something? Minimum story/exploration. I'm calling this one an art site with heaving pet site elements, as you are supposed to attach somewhat to your dragons.

Wajas is a wolf game. There's some story, and you can explore daily (40 explore points) and there's a couple games, but it's all dogs and wolves. There's like... 16 or 17 species. This site is mainly for breeding, but people will make really elaborate pet projects with the items used for markings and mutations and layering the markings. It's very similar to 4dopt with this, and honestly this site made some of my favorite pet projects. Items could either be bought from npc shops, found exploring, or gained from the occasional quest, and I think the markings were called tattoos? There was a limit, but you could forever increase it I think, and you were allowed two accounts (often: One for playing, one for selling babs). The site was also forum based, and a lot of the rp was like... warrior cats but wolves (because of the pets... also the anime rp stuff but that was usually romance based so no). This is a breeding site/art site, with it really depending how you played.

Xanje is all about collecting pets. There's some story, there's a lot of species lore, there's a couple games, none of it matters. Collect pets, breed them, I don't remember much else. They regularly release new pet species and species variations. Big big Halloween event, there's a big livestream where they listen to scary stories and watch... a movie. I forget the name ah... Time Warp with me movie. No pet limit. I would count this as a breeding site.

Dragon cave and Chicken Smoothie are really collection sites. Dragon cave has a bit more to do with the whole clicking aspect and finding dragons, and the holiday events. Chicken Smoothie releases new pets at the start of every month, and during holidays (huge chrimbus/holiday event, huge huge). Both of these are art sites.


Okay so, ignoring all this.... what is wattpets becomes very important. Is it an art site? It needs a higher limit because people need to have some freedom. Is it a breeding site? Honestly, a lot of breeding sites just... don't have limits. Might have stops like "can you feed all these pets" and "they can breed once a week" but still. Is it a pet site? Low limits can work here, however...

I have to be a bit blunt and point out that this is exploration of a fictional site. This is not supposed to be a real site, and with that is the reality that like, part of this is you want to possibly be able to get commissions for pets. Actual money. A low limit on the amount of pets becomes kind of disheartening in this sense. I can fund six species, but I can only have one of each? If that even? While I understand you want there to be heavy character focus for wattpet, which can be a lot of fun, it also is very limiting in a commission sense. I like having a few characters to work with, I like being able to also like... use the species I buy for things. I hope you know I mean well saying that.

So my thoughts lead to: I'm not opposed to a limit. If this is more an art/pet site, limits are a great idea. But I feel it should be on the higher end (ex: Neopets was 4, make it... 50). No one will probably need 50 but it's still enough that you don't feel restricted. If we want to add breeding (ex: This is Butterscotch and Stripey, and this is their new seedling Bumbles) you might have to raise the limit a bit more just for lore to work.

Anyway, that's a breakdown of some pet sites. I'm up for anyone else's thoughts or questions... yeah

[skinstealer]

first off: i am not sure about breeding mechanics because there is potential on my end for aywas-y shenanigans...but do i really want to do that to myself lmao

i think im leaning No on breeding and go more the neopets route of you define the relationships between pets in your own lore if that's something that matters to you. like, you could totally have two pets be "sisters" by just, putting that in their bios or something (oh god are we going to need another forum subsection??? maybe???? itd be cute. maybe ill make you all make neocities pages instead though hahahahahaha )

with that said: let's get on to the concept of a low limit

so there's actually something here i think is being missed when we're talking about a low limit, and this is going to go into neopets' mechanics, at least from the perspective of a former player who got Really into stuff for many years. neopets' low pet limit is a double edged blade, with some aspects of it encouraging creative expression and defined goals ("i only have so many slots and i want to fill them with stuff that makes me happy, so i have to pick things carefully and work up to them...") and others causing Problems ("i dont have enough room for all the cool stuff i want, there's not enough space for me to creatively express, and now that my goals are over with idk what to do")

with that said- this is a roleplay, as you said, not an actual site. we dont have to be worried about making The Perfect Game, and if something doesn't work in-universe, that's just something for characters to complain about (lmao). HOWEVER i understand your feedback on how to make this work on a meta level, especially regarding commissions, and as someone who i know and trust as a client especially, i really value where you're coming from on this. you want to be able to have a big pool of characters to work with and are willing to fund stuff, and a limit feels daunting with that

HOWEVER

for you, the players, there is no limit. the limit only applies to your characters- and you can put as many as you want into the RP. by having a lower limit, it pushes people to try new things based on their different characters, and to vary things up a bit- this may be aggravating to people who just want to focus on one or two player characters and a lot of wattplants though, so i'm totally up for discussion on this. but personally- i think a low limit would create a laser focus on "what does my character want? what do they want to do with their pets, what are their site goals, what makes Them happy" and encourage you to pursue that with multiple characters. i do think a limit of 20 maximum per character is absolutely my first offer on this, and i think if people have feedback here, i want to hear it. gimme your thoughts!

[AceOfNothing]

Okay okay, I think I see now. Completely fine with the no breeding, but the perspective there helps me personally just... figure the site out. Still gonna have little families with the pets probably, just for my characters head canons.

I think understand where you're coming from/going with this now, or at least have a better perspective. What this becomes more is what do you think your characters would do with such a petsite, what they find important for their wattplants and what they prioritize when collecting items and... mutations(?). It's more about the rp, less about the actual site. Can even think about things they'd have problems with then, like you said. Limit I will admit helps then in this sense.

I do appreciate you considering my thoughts as a commissioner, I'm excited to hopefully help with this soon (think once we have the site figured out a good bit). Might have got a bit too caught up on limits, honestly now this just opens up the idea of "what would my characters want me to commission" and that just makes me happy. Feels like I can give them gifts then.

Thank you, really appreciate the read on what it was like for someone who was really into a different kind of pet site.

So I'm going to slightly shift to other topics here, ideas for items for customization. I plant food/pellets is great, I think this would be good for body colors. I think for Flower colors you could add a second thing, colored water just for a quick term, that players can get two uses out of. Using once/half gives you fainter/pastel colors, and twice darkens the color. Just makes me think about how you can dye flower petals. I also think markings should be a third mechanism, maybe something like "pollen bomb" that adds a mutation (ex: Stripes, longer tail, unicorn horn).

Also, I think the site is heavy about personal aesthetics. A lot of people probably draw the pets very cutesy, but some go into talking/drawing about their pets being mean or even drawing borderline horror or them since they're predator plants. It's heavily encouraged for people to decorate their pages and use themes that complement their pets. I think it probably started out being somewhat mean to new comers, but over time it's relaxed a lot and everyone is very helpful.

[skinstealer]

yeah im glad that the commission thing helps you feel better now! i still want to open up forum cash avenues of funding things as well, but having some more design outlets for commissions that dont require me to do dex/wiki work also helps a lot...

i think considering it as "what would my characters want" would be really cute. right now for comms im considering
-wattplant species
-mini pet species
-customs of either (commissioned from "in-game artists" canonically in the case of one of a kind customs???), can be pretty much any edits but ones established in the game already will probably be cheaper

thinking like...you get to decide whether the pet is a Super Special One Of A Kind Custom or something your character was able to earn through the various game mechanics, i dont want to define things too much so i think having that wiggle room would be nice

i really like the idea of the colors on wattplants being individually modifiable! that's a really unique twist, and would encourage people to find interesting justifications for their simple color changed ones. markings would definitely be a rarer thing, with additional features such as horns/wings/etc being the rarest- and then people who get super custom stuff probably spent Real Money™ on the site or really busted their ass trying to get that one of a kind goodie.

personal aesthetics sound like the way to go- every petsite has people who go more into horror angles, and i think predatory/carnivorous plants in a morbit setting no less is ideal for people to make dumb creepypasta bullshit. pet pages and bios are definitely good for this, and some elitism in the community would definitely being Realistic, esp early on

[AceOfNothing]

Forum cash avenues is a good idea, encourages people to keep interacting. Makes sense too that this is a design outlet without the whole wiki page. It's about personal lore, not about "this species is from blah blah and they solitary creatures"

Considering item commissions? Like "here's what this basic tool looks like" and "This is one of six backpacks your pet can have, this one looks like a frog". Do wattplants have items? Assuming they have little individual storages, I will give my Trapling a stuffed animal to gently chew on.

What's fun with the "worked for or bought" is you can look at your characters that are stuck at home (*coughs* Streamy) and it gives them something they probably spent a lot of time doing, so they'd have somewhat complicated pets((Streamys page would be a mess for the record, but makes sense to him)). Also means I get to judge my characters and decide who picked up the game for five days, bought a fancy pet, and has never looked back.

One of us is going to have to write a creepypasta or at least part of one. Hyper realistic eyes is making me giggly because tcp eyes are Not so what will it mean.
Pastel Goth I think would also be a huge theme I think. Cutesy site/stuff, but your pet has teeth and a spikey collar and will bite someone. No aesthetic is unwelcome

[skinstealer]

this is all great stuff, thank you so much

and yeah id be down for item comms! i need more practice drawing little objects, especially for forum goodies. i think they make for excellent profile/signature decor, and i think if i could stock up my comms with more little easy design things, it could be really lucrative- and they'd be easy enough that people could earn em too.

[AceOfNothing]

I am tired, and sadly have kind of an early day so
Yay about items! Would be great for signature decor, have to think of ideas.
I will maybe respond more tomorrow... today.... later

Whole conversation was a lot of fun though, I am pretty happy I got to just... ramble about pet sites a bit. Excited about progress so far.

Anything else we should focus on/talk about more? Any new questions?

[skinstealer]

id say the discussion questions are still open for anyone else who has any, i'll think on the rest overnight myself

ty for the contributions!

[skinstealer]

okay! updated the main thread with all of the new info we developed yesterday, and added some new discussion questions. have at it!

[AceOfNothing]

So can I like... spitball a whole idea? I'm gonna spitball a whole idea, really hope to get some add on ideas.

Maybe like, it started off really small. Like the creator just made it to test some stuff for college, and originally it was just them and a few classmates/friends, and it leaked somehow. Even with the limited creatures/items it blew up, so then the creator tried to like "fix the flaws" and added a bunch of lore, with heavy push back from the community. Since it was so empty, people had made a heavy fan lore, and the things the creator added kind of contradicted things.
So creator had to kind of, appease this they made the lore a lot more basic from that point on, and it all heavily encouraged people to make up their own ideas. Some players are still mad there's lore at all, but a lot have embraced this since it means they get site updates

[skinstealer]

that actually lines up with how a lot of petsites get started iirc- im pretty sure neopets was a similar story? idk if there was a Leak involved but i am like 75% sure it was some kind of college project, so that absolutely fits. i will have to make up a creator or dig around in our character pile...

heavy fan lore conflicts with canon, i think that's also something that crops up...i think i can work with this

i forget what the stance people have is on the neopets lore but also im pretty sure jumpstart/viacom/whoever the fuck owns it doesnt bother anymore too busy making NFTs

then i guess my next question is what Tone did they go for with the lore...because we have established that both cute and horror stuff is prevalent in the community- maybe they tried to go for a more scientific spin, and people got mad because they like the fantasy aspects?

[AceOfNothing]

I'm a big fan of them trying to make it scientific for lore, but fans being like "but we wanted them to be aliens" or something.

Think it also fits with the items we talked about, like plant food pellets and the colored water. These are experiments to test on the plant creatures

Maybe like... "Wattplants were created by a scientist who made some sort of "youth serum" and accidentally brought the plants to life. The serum contained some sort of dangerous chemical Maybe like extracted horror slime or something? and some of the plants went rogue and escaped. Now you, an intern at the lab, have been trusted with your own wattplant(s) to capture the escaped plants and bring them back!"

You get money and items from doing missions and "capturing" wattplants (you don't actually get to keep any of the wild plants, but you can use money to buy more pets in shops)

[skinstealer]

i'm thinking like...big plant nerd. loves plants. echer is already thinking about making his snuglin, prickle, be the dev. gonna let him have the floor

(echer speaking)

prickle loves weird plants and experiments with them, is even a gardener in real life- people even suspect that the sort of like...pokemon professor-y character in wattplants is a self insert, which he'd vehemently deny (it's true) if asked. he definitely mixed some chemicals together and had a huge accident, but he loves his new plant friends and wants to help them find homes. some did escape, yes! i imagine the escape feature could be similar to the pound on neopets/the shelter on 4dopt where people can adopt "escaped"/"abandoned" plants.

i want to say for money... missions for sure, which could vary between achievements and actual goals to story missions (people get bitchy about these), and i do like the idea of a capturing game with sort of NPC wattplants...maybe you could have something like that with the minipets?

[AceOfNothing]

Okay! Hi Echer, thank you for embracing this thought train!

I'm loving that Prickle just wanted to make some plant pets and now has a whole site with people who are not happy he went science-y with lore. Trust that he's still going to try and make this a fun game for everyone.

Agree with a like variety of missions/achievements. Keeps things moving for people. Assuming achievements may be a way to get better items? Could still have some minigames as well.
Ooh I do like the idea of the mini pets being npc/enemies. Maybe a rival scientist created these?

Also idea with the mini pets: Bugs. Plants and bugs for the site! Since bugs are usually the main prey of predatory plants, and technically a lot of bugs eat plants. Weird symbiotic relationship stuff

[skinstealer]

oh i lovethe idea of mini pets being bugs- rin was having trouble conceptualizing what they'd be!

achievements would be a way to get better items, yes...especially rare stuff!

rival scientist sounds fun! i like that.

hm...with the science theme, i feel like there would be different "realistic" biomes world-wise. but! but!!!! this is morbit! "realistic" is such a wide definition!

[AceOfNothing]

Yay! Bug buddies for the plant pets!

Yesss absolutely. "Realistic" biomes for morbit probably vary pretty heavily. Might be useful to look at an already existing morbit flora, and base some biomes around that. Like the Heartsea flower and what kind of environment that lives in, probably have a biome similar to that. And the Wildsnare (plant I bought for a Fallows Island town), so something that fits that environment.

You know, probably have to hit the basic biomes (something foresty, jungley, flower fieldy, beachy, rocky/mountainy, and deserty) but if you can work with plants that exist you should

[skinstealer]

yeah hmm...i think with our current workload we'd probably need to have any additional wattplant species funded atm but!

trapling (flytrap + ambiguous quadruped), urban environment?
wildsnare + ???????, jungle biome
heartsea + ???????, beach biome

are really good prompts (and we are totally open to suggestions in this thread- we could put them on the bounty board if we vibe with them, even!)

...we really need more morbit plants. i think rin had some kind of plant that works with blood magic explored in a bellows vignette? that'd be prime material here.

[AceOfNothing]

Yeah absolutely on the funding thing. Just spittballing the like... two plants I remember honestly. Figure it's important to have at least one based on a fully morbit plant

(Idea I suggest: Wildsnare and lion or other big cat. Think just... with the mane, and the slappy stems..
Yee)

I fully support a bounty board. I'll help come up with cool plants even (like I think you could cheat and have an anemone, which are technically an animal but You Know Thats Like TechnicallyTechnically)

Oooh if there's a blood magic plant that has to be added. I do not remember off the top of my head

[skinstealer]

anenome would be soooo cool and we could totally fudge stuff here and there

panther or lion with wildsnare would be really good...heartsea could be a little bird, maybe?

[AceOfNothing]

Sometimes you gotta play with the rules a bit. Maybe for the anemone either like... sea slug or a lion fish. Just feel the frills could overlap with either.

Heartsea bird I support. Maybe a long legged bird, like a crane or flamingo. Or a tiny one, like the superb bird of paradise (this is a bird, it has a science name but this is what I remember).

[skinstealer]

...i am projecting but i want a succulent. or a cactus. or both!

[AceOfNothing]

Yessss I support! Feel like both is fine, but I'd say at least a succulent

[skinstealer]

what about those succulents that look like little colorful rocks? what are those called again...

[MarxzVulpez]

Lithops!

[Pichi2214]

succulent would be cute....

also biased in that i want a festuca (which is essentially a vaguely grass ball looking plant) which isnt even remotely carnivorous but.....itd be cute

[skinstealer]

a festuca and its softer companion, the marimo....

[MarxzVulpez]

Is it okay if i post some liike
potential inspiration designs? not saying they all or any have to look like this but just like a direction they Could go

[skinstealer]

do you mean doodles, or just ref images? we want to have artistic freedom on stuff, but ref images would be cool

[AceOfNothing]

I think if the plant isn't carnivorous to start with we could kinda .. cheat and say "morbit version".

[Pichi2214]

festuca + marimo who have like design similarities/pull from similar animals as a base would be so cute......

land and water variants

[skinstealer]

...rin actually has an idea for the marimo design so we may do that one free of charge

[MarxzVulpez]

I was thinking ref images yeah
I have a couple of Fan Wattplant species that I've doodled (Cattail spies my beloved) but I was thinking like, ref inspo for new ones

[skinstealer]

yeah in that case go ahead marxz!

[AceOfNothing]

I think we should somehow figure out a tree pet. Maybe with like dangerous fruits?

Just feel like we gotta have at least one that's just a whole tree

[Pichi2214]

a dragonfruit dragon is like. the most obvious combination but

[MarxzVulpez]

okay so with the mention of the Anemone one, it reminded me of the Moheek from Metroid 2

In Game Sprite art
 

and the official art

[MarxzVulpez]

as for more general inspo potential: I was reminded of the yu-gi-oh archetype Predaplant, Granted Wattplants are more than likely not going to be As Menacing

Some examples are Predaplant Spinodionaea


and Predaplant Heliamphorhynchus


and Predaplant Verte Anaconda

[skinstealer]

consider

[MarxzVulpez]

last batch for now are

Biollante from Godzilla


and Sylvanos from Rivals of Aether


and if we wanted to do a like, Bipedal wattplant or two, perhaps a classic Shambling Mound/Sargassum Fiend/Swamp Thing/The Rotting Root Lord from Berserk (pictured here->)


also I don't know what exactly to call this Biome besides like, strange and alien but perhaps an environment like this one from Metroid Fusion?

[MarxzVulpez]

consider

HOOUGH!!!! Shrimp Buddy...

[King-Clod]

Ok! a bit late to this, but, thoughts

I was a big neopets fan growing up, so I'm probably leaning towards more of a neopets vibe, though, I hope Wattplants doesn't go down the same route Neopets has in-universe


4) what kind of world do we want to have for this? what kind of setting, what kind of overall vibe? how much of a focus on story is there? what do people make up fanon-wise in-universe?

What I loved about Neopets most of all was that...the entire world was theirs. Their lore, the important figures, all neopets. A whole Neopet society, run by neopets, for neopets. It was technically a petsite in mechanics, but beyond playing for, feeding, and having your pets in the battledome, they were sorta their own little guys. They had their own taste in food, books, etc, and that's something I'd love to see in this. Like if Wattplants came up on their own out of the ground, no intervention. Though, it does kinda clash with what's been set up so far, and with typical petsites, so I get if you don't want to go that direction.

I do think it'd be fun if the Wattplants were wholly their own people, and less so pets. Who can make comments on things and the like. And who's personalities may be more of an annoyance to some players.

6) is there a story to wattplants? how well does the site upkeep lore? how messy is it?

I also loved the in-depth lore and events that Neopets had that ended up causing lasting effects to the map, like when the Fairyland fell from the sky and never...really returned to the sky. Or like the one area that's in eternal war? I love having a world that seems too vast to know every bit of, and while they don't do lore on neopets as much any more (and more NFTs rip) I love how varied it is. I love the one time events, and ideas that were intended for the phone app that never happened so they're just unaccesible islands in the sea. Ideas that had a lot of heart that ended up being limited or breaking, along with the indepth lore. Clashes a bit with the minimal lore before lore was added later idea though.

Maybe there was always lore, in like, in universe books and stuff? that people didn't know about/didn't read, then got upset when it didn't match what they thought up? Not sure.

7) what kinds of ways do you make money on the site itself? obviously im not implementing any actual games or anything but itd be interesting to give characters something to complain talk about. how are items earned? what is the economy like (if there is one)?

Neopets does minigames and item shops, though, many of the minigames broke because of flash, rip. I'm trying to think of what other websites do as well...though I keep coming back to minigames and item shops. It'd be fun if there was a haggling system like in neopets, but maybe on Wattplants you can use it on player shops as well? And there was a lot of discourse on that before it was removed.

Honestly... not part of any of the questions, but I think a fun thing I could steal from 4dopts a little would be stats. But more uniform for all the pets. Maybe it's like Petz in that it affects their personality as well, leaving a wide range for how snarky your pet is, but maybe some stats could make them better at haggling! Who knows!

[Pichi2214]

my one worry with how much personality they have in game and if theyre able to talk is like... the whole similarity to friendzoo and the fact that theyve become a construct species in turn so id be worried that theres too much overlap

[King-Clod]

oh I don't mean that they can like, carry on a conversation! I mean like, stock phrases and stuff. Not anywhere close to a construct species, more so just like, different sliders.