Don't do pet days if you aren't going to put effort in.

[Ollie]

Something that annoys me more than ANYTHING else on petsites is when they have "pet-themed days".. I mean, heck they are good ideas, I love them on neopets.. that's because neopets actually puts effort into their days, a nice poem, a new colour, plushies, an avatar, free training, a wonderful way to celebrate it.. But it seems sites these days don't want to put effort into anything. Here is a blog post Kira and I posted on Ichumon once - probably the biggest culprit of this.

"happy cirridle day!
lots of new items! yay!



...oh wait, that's only two. (recolors don't count, do they?)

like the poor cirridle, most other ichumon don't get much for their birthday. just a plushie, maybe a stamp, and perhaps a IttyBittyTeeniWeeniWhateverFigurineThing are all the neglected pets get for their special day. all tectowl got was a weird sticker thing.

hey, speaking of tectowl...


tectowl and polisis even shared a birthday because nobody loves them enough to give them their own.


but i wanted a pony!

poor pets. is this all they have to look forward to every year?


actually, not really.
there is one event...


elemental day!

what a bonanza! eleven new pets!
and to get your hands on one of them, you only need to shell out $15!
that's not a money-making scheme at all.


but even if it were, why would the rest of the pets have to get left in the dirt?
maybe because they don't generate revenue for that site.
(but that's all hypothetical, naturally.)


so happy birthday from ollie and i to the unsung heroes of ichumon, like the cirridle, who really make the site worth staying on. you deserve more."


Checking back on the latest pet days, this light-hearted blog post had literally no effect on the days, and they still seem lackluster. Come on Ichumon, and any other petsite.. it's ONE day out of the whole year.. surely you could make it just a tad more special?!

i

[clubanimon]

Yeah, when I was still on Neopets, I always really liked the pet themed days. I think one of the problems with them is that once a site gets over 12 pet types you can't do them once and month and you have to start worrying about where you will have two as well as the other holiday events.

[Ollie]

Yeah, when I was still on Neopets, I always really liked the pet themed days. I think one of the problems with them is that once a site gets over 12 pet types you can't do them once and month and you have to start worrying about where you will have two as well as the other holiday events.

I understand calenders get quite full, but if you want a good site then surely you would strive to push it to its best?

[clubanimon]

I think also as a site gets older it might be harder to push more items under the same theme, but then again you could just do it as set themes for each pet, like the year of cookies of that pet, the year of plants, plushies, cupcakes, balloons..

...no there really is a lot to choose from.

[Ollie]

They only really need a few items each year for them, if they have actual features like Neopets has in place, it really isn't that much to organise, poems, art.. just a nice day for people who have a favourite pet. Re-colours of one item is just really suckish.

[clubanimon]

A contest for them would be nice. Like 'that pet of the year' that users would submit art or stories of the pet to try and win.

[GGitzOle]

The reason I got rid of them in the first place on Ichu was because they are quite hard to organize for each week, especially if your art team is struggling to produce lots of content for you. Without having the pet days it allowed us to work more on special features and other content- we could still add the pet day stuff during random updates whenever it got done, instead of worrying about trying to get it all done for a certain date. I guess its a good idea if you've got the resources and team to get stuff done (like neopets)...

[Ollie]

The reason I got rid of them in the first place on Ichu was because they are quite hard to organize for each week, especially if your art team is struggling to produce lots of content for you. Without having the pet days it allowed us to work more on special features and other content- we could still add the pet day stuff during random updates whenever it got done, instead of worrying about trying to get it all done for a certain date. I guess its a good idea if you've got the resources and team to get stuff done (like neopets)...

Well that's why your decision to stop them was good, you knew you wouldn't be able to get them really good in time, so you didn't set yourself a level/bar to reach.. but right now they just palm us off with a plushie, and a stamp which is just the same art re-used in a frame..

[Slashmaster]

We have something like 80 species over at Aywas. XD
I don't think we could ever do pet days. SOMETIMES we will run a pet day, like we do Vion and Lunarises, and we did Lacers...but it's not a guarantee. It's a SURPRISE!

xD

[clubanimon]

God, I couldn't imagine Aywas trying to do a day for each and every pet, there is just way too many to try and plan for.
Really it works better for smaller lists of types, 12 and under being ideal.