.com Forum · Bug Reporting and Suggestions

On a few of the other sims I play there is an option to buy with real money - custom animals. Would love to have the option on SD to purchase "Custom Dogs" - you would choose the breed, sex, color genetics and traits.

There would need to be some type of limit on the traits to make sure a player couldn't come in and create the new #1 in the breed, but I wouldn't have a problem with the custom dog being at a competitive SOP for the breed or even lower than the current SOP. Maybe one price for a current SOP dog ($10) and a lower price ($5) for a source level dog. (Prices just thrown out there for clarity.)

As a color breeder this REALLY appeals to me for lost genes.
As a player who likes to play in less popular breeds it would help provide new bloodlines in limited gene pools.

Anyway, just a thought - a feature I would certainly be willing to pay real $$ for...

This is a strange one.
I get it for the source breeders but not for current competitive stats, no.

I don't see a beneficial use for this. It would cause contravery amongst those breeders who have done it from scratch. I don't see any real benefit or pro to this. Just cons.

My opinion,
Creed

I'm not sure I like this idea. Especially for dogs that are current sop or slightly below average.

Becky

I see no use. This game after all is based on real life and in real life you dont just create "custom dogs." Yes you create your own breed. But that takes knowledge and years of years of hard work and dedication. Just like the source breeders here or any breeder here that tries to improve the breed. For me it would be like cutting in and cheating. I dont like it.

Now this "custom dog" feature seems more for a rabbitdog fantasy game than showdogs.

Just my two cents

Shadowstorm.

I got an idea. What would be cooler is when getting your source dogs. You have an option of picking color instead of the machine (I have no other words to use) picking it out automatically. That way it wont be so useless if you didnt get the colors you wanted.

Shadowstorm.

I'm on the fence with the color idea. It's a good idea in theory, but at the same time, I see a serious issue with cheating here. Again, you would be taking away from the hard work people have already undergone in order to bring certain colors back into a breed.

Yet at the same time, we are all allowed 6 INITIAL starters, those of us in rare breeds could really use an option that allowed us to choose color (if maybe only on two dogs) to help and bring some back to life. I know in some breeds I have seen color percentages extremely rare and if those breeds are rare, who's going to ever that particular color built up without players. Yet, players are what keep showdog alive. I honestly feel that before anything like this was done or even administratively talked about, we need to work on promoting active ness here.

-Creed

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posted by †Creed†
I'm on the fence with the color idea. It's a good idea in theory, but at the same time, I see a serious issue with cheating here. Again, you would be taking away from the hard work people have already undergone in order to bring certain colors back into a breed.

Yet at the same time, we are all allowed 6 INITIAL starters, those of us in rare breeds could really use an option that allowed us to choose color (if maybe only on two dogs) to help and bring some back to life. I know in some breeds I have seen color percentages extremely rare and if those breeds are rare, who's going to ever that particular color built up without players. Yet, players are what keep showdog alive. I honestly feel that before anything like this was done or even administratively talked about, we need to work on promoting active ness here.

-Creed

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Creed. You took my idea and made it sound ten times better. Thank you! lol. But will agree with your last statement. Lets finish this layout first, then work on promoting (lets be honest, I've never seen an ad for showdogs, nobody will find this website unless you type in dog sims or through dog people on facebook. Plus I think promoting will bring in activeness), and lastly, adding any new features that would better the game.

Shadowstorm.

I'm not completely opposed. It can be hard to find starters for source or color breeding, particularly if you want to work in a rarer breed. I'm also not entirely opposed to dogs close to currnet SOP, at a very high cost. In RL you CAN get "starter" dogs at current SOP- say you want new blood, to broaden the gene pool, etc. You can, and many breeders do, go to great expense to import dogs from other countries. How do you think we even get new breeds in America? Nobody has to start with bad stock, rather you import quality stock from somewhere else. It's commonplace in rarer breeds, and not unheard of in more popular ones. Those dogs are not "starter" quality- they are nice dogs. Not always quite to our American standards, but sometimes such dogs go on to be multiple BIS winners.

Right now, if your gene pool goes stagnant in the game, you have to work it up from sourcies. Which is a valid strategy, but not entirely like RL. I would not be opposed to a reasonable method for importing new blood.

But do think it should be prohibitively expensive- at least several thousand dollars per dog I'd imagine as a start.

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posted by Lilliput
You can, and many breeders do, go to great expense to import dogs from other countries. How do you think we even get new breeds in America? Nobody has to start with bad stock, rather you import quality stock from somewhere else. It's commonplace in rarer breeds, and not unheard of in more popular ones. Those dogs are not "starter" quality- they are nice dogs. Not always quite to our American standards, but sometimes such dogs go on to be multiple BIS winners.

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I know in my breed (Beaucerons), we encourage a lot of importing from France. Although we are gaining (ever so slowly) popularity within the states, we still find that the few breeders we do have, are traceable back to other breeders lines. So, although not directly related like most dogs on SD, we often need to broaden our gene pool with some fresh, available blood. So I completely agree with this quote.

-Creed/Tuff

Thank you Lilliput, that's exactly how I see the option.

I also see it as a luxury - it would help some players tremendously (color breeders, rare breeds) and it's a viable source of income from the game for Jeff.

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posted by rhondacline
On a few of the other sims I play there is an option to buy with real money - custom animals. Would love to have the option on SD to purchase "Custom Dogs" - you would choose the breed, sex, color genetics and traits.

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If we're talking with RL money then I'm completely opposed (see my comments on the buying SD money with RL money for details of why).

If we're talking with SD money then it depends on the details.
- If the dogs would be on par with the breed-specific current SOP then absolutely not!
- If it was (A) very expensive (>$5,000/dog) and (B) SD-wide average SOP then MAYBE - I need to think about it more carefully.

If the dogs are breed average SOP then the result will be a widening of the SOP gap between popular/winning breeds and unpopular/non-winning breeds.
->Explanation: if the feature costs money (SD or RL) then it will be more available and used more often by breeders in popular/winning breeds than breeders in less popular/non-winning breeds. Regardless of whether the dogs are randomly generated or user designed they will introduce new traits to the breed (for instance a 10.0 at a new trait) if they are of competitive SOP some by chance will be good complements to the current dogs in the breed increasing the rate of improvement in the breed - because breeding to something close to 10.0 is more efficient than breeding two of the same distance together.
In contrast, if the dogs are SD-wide average SOP they will help close the gap between the breeds since they will be better than most dogs in low SOP breeds and worse than most dogs in high SOP breeds. However, it will increase inequality within low SOP breeds since the breeders who can afford the most "custom dogs" will get a huge advantage. But by making it very expensive breeders are unlikely to beable to afford enough of the "custom dogs" to avoid inbreeding issues by themselves - they will have to work with other breeders thus sharing the benefit. Only major problem would be superkennels.

grif,

I timed out above.

If you want a RL-ish justification for using SD-wide SOP as opposed to breed-specific, then I would argue than breeds have different popularities in different places so breeds that are rare in "The Nation of SD" are likely to be more popular in the rest of "Fictional-Planet" and likewise the very popular breeds are likely to be less popular elsewhere thus giving the balancing quality property.


Humm.. I didn't really explain that very well, hopefully someone gets what I'm getting at...

Essentially I'm saying if this is implemented with breed-specific average SOP, I'll spend my 25K from show winnings trying to get new dogs with traits complementary to all the traits which are nearly fixed in my breed or get some 10.0s which have so far eluded me to try and catch the other top SOP breeds.

grif,


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Last edited by griffin on 8/13/2013 11:59:29 AM

Disregard the specifics and consider it this way -

I would appreciate (and be willing to pay for) the opportunity to purchase dogs from admin with specific color genetics.

For me everything else is flexible.

I could see the use for colours but don't like it for traits, what would be the point of playing the game if you could just click a few buttons pay some money and there you have the dog you want with no work or effort breeding it. The whole point of the game is to 'breed' better show dogs after all.

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posted by PPvallhunds
I could see the use for colours but don't like it for traits, what would be the point of playing the game if you could just click a few buttons pay some money and there you have the dog you want with no work or effort breeding it. The whole point of the game is to 'breed' better show dogs after all.

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You can already do this- by buying dogs from other users. It's also why I'd like it to be prohibitively expensive. I've seen breeds enter stagnation in traits, and then an injection of new blood can be very helpful, and really, breeding up from source, is not particularly realistic to RL (although I do enjoy it).

It happens in RL and it happens here already- if you have money, you can buy better dogs.

I do not like the idea of buying it with real life money, unless perhaps it was ALSO accompanied by a substantial in-game fee. (ie, say, $20 per dog to Jeff, and $2000 or more of your SD money to admin- fees are just thrown out there as examples) and perhaps a limit of one import a calendar year or something. Or even one import per breed for the whole year (that is, only one dog of that breed would be allowed to be imported by ANYONE in the breed). Just random ideas to make it difficult, not particularly thought through.

I think it should be an option, but I think it should be a very costly, difficult to use option, just as it is in RL, and to prevent overuse

yes you can buy dogs form others but the difference is the other player put effort into breeding that dog.

I just think it another way to make the game easier (like the buying money) for people who cant be bothered to put the work in.

Just the way I see it.

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Last edited by PPvallhunds on 8/18/2013 3:27:58 PM

That's the main reason I want it to be a VERY expensive option- so it can't be used often or as a strategy unto itself. If it's not super expensive, in SD money, then I too am opposed.