I absolutely LOVE the pet pound idea. I wish there was something like that in place.

I didn't notice the change, but I think that 15-20g per pet is reasonable. I agree that a higher tier stablehand that has bonuses, maybe a % or point increase in stats? and then an incentive program might be good, or even an incentive for people who feed other people's pets, like 1g per fed pet or something. maybe the food cost could be increased per level or every few levels

there are quite a few options for the stablehand, most don't, but a couple do

Savynn makes a lot of good points here (when doesn't she!), and I agree on the crafting/guild ventures, that's something I'd definitely like to see, myself. Further, I would say I'd rather see some sort of FUN implementation taking place here, rather than a burden that improves nothing. I see the stable and inventory expansions as quite the gold sink, personally. New players in particular have seemed to struggle with those costs, but not -only- new players, also those who don't have too much time to devote to the game due to a variety of reasons.

Now, "fun" can be all manner of things, depending on what you are willing to do. Find out what the community wants, and consider how hard it would be to make it happen. Have you gotten any particular requests as of late, or perhaps recurring over the years, where people have said "please add this"? Aside from things that have already made it into the game/site, of course! Maybe review some of those old suggestions too, alongside accepting new ideas. :)

A few suggestions for stablehands:

- Option to choose one or multiple stables to use a stablehand for, rather than -all- stables or none
Some of us do have a LOT of pets, and to me it just isn't useful nor necessary to keep every single one fed, especially if costs are increasing. I don't and can't use all of them every day or even every week. Doesn't mean I don't enjoy owning them though!

- More stablehands to choose from
Currently, I only have the one. Maybe you could make more stablehands be unlockable - with gold, AP, diamonds, or other things like missions, exploration, battle, dungeons, arena, server events, festivals, recruitment, etc.

- Unique functions for each stablehand / Food buffs!
Let's say both of the previous points were already in place, then you could have Stablehand 1 feeding your mission pets in stable 1, Stablehand 2 feeding your battle pets in stable 2, and Stablehand 3 feeding your breeding pets in stable 3, 4 and 5. Why? Well. Imagine if stablehands give some sort of buff/benefit to all pets he/she feeds. A few examples of such buffs could be:

Stablehand 1: reduces mission time / increases mission success rate / gives a stat increase to pets who do missions / when hired to feed any stable, gives your account a small chance to get a bonus item when successfully completing missions / etc.

Stablehand 2: gives a stat increase to pets who do battle / gives active party pets an increased chance of encountering rare/themed pets / gives active party pets an increased chance of encountering pets of a specific species / when hired to feed any stable, gives your account a higher chance of finding useful items gained from battle / etc.

Stablehand 3: eggs from buffed parents take less time to hatch / eggs from buffed parents have slight stat boosts / reduces cooldown timer on breeding females / when hired to feed any stable, gives your account a small chance to provide a magical pie when nurturing / etc.

What if you want multiple buffs for the same stable? Then either allow several stablehands to feed the same stable, costing more - or allow just one single stablehand to become more powerful (level up?) through various means (gold, AP, anything that we can unlock as a player) and provide more than one buff. And as mentioned, the above examples are just things I came up with off the top of my head, they could be completely different attributes entirely. Either way, I could see myself (and probably others) spending gold to unlock buffs for specific pets/stables, or account-wide buffs.

Other ideas for fun or useful gold sinks:

Introduce a "Gold Shop" tab to go with the Diamond Shop/Festival Shop
Make more things available to buy directly with gold, and gather them all in one easy tab. This alone will increase the amount of gold being spent, pretty much guaranteed. Now for some ideas for what to sell in said gold shop:

- Traps: Make all traps buyable from this tab, rather than having to go to a specific vendor in-zone, or a specific city.

- Flawless Traps: Add a new trap type, more expensive versions of normal traps, that always succeed at trapping the pet, so long as it is of the correct quality (blue trap for rare pet, purple trap for epic pet, etc). Make ALL qualities (including the elusive legendary!) available for different prices. Perhaps even an infinite master trap can be sold either for gold, or diamonds. *would give her soul for such an item*

- Potions: Make all potions/elixirs available for purchase from one handy tab!

- Magical pies: Remove the 72 hour limit of using successive pies, and make them available in the gold shop. (People will definitely sink money into growing their pets up faster. Time is money!)

- Magical incubator: New item - when used on an egg, instantly causes it to hatch. Make it purchasable with gold.

- Limited Perfume of Flawless Themed Attraction: New item. Guaranteed to attract one themed pet on your next encounter when consumed, only works for -one- battle. Buyable with gold.

- Hatchling Costume: Make a new costume item that makes your pet look like a hatchling again while wearing it. Make it available to purchase with gold.

- Pet Equipment: Make anything from basic to advanced equipment for various levels available to purchase with gold, if something is meant to be rare or difficult to obtain, then make the prices reflect that. You might also include categories that match your new ability trees, simplifying the equipment choice further, especially for new players, or anyone who is having a hard time adjusting to the new system.

- Existing items that aren't available to buy directly with gold could also be added, such as pet dyes, experience orbs, etc.

- Anything from the Diamond Shop could be made available in the Gold Shop as well, though be aware that it might compete with diamond sales, at least until player funds have drained. Alternatively, Diamond Shop items might be made available to purchase with gold for a limited time.

- More Frequent Eggling Auctions: The eggling auctions seem to be a pretty big gold sink, so perhaps consider adding a few more in between festivals? They can be any old theme or newer or brand new themes, as needed/desired.

Housing Feature
This I am sure has been mentioned many times before, but it's a fun idea so I'm mentioning it. A personal house, stable, or other room/building where you can decorate the interior, place furniture (that can be bought with gold or gained through other means), see/interact with your pets and perhaps other peoples' avatars, etc. Kind of along the same lines as what was mentioned about a guild hall. All manner of items can be created and sold for a feature like this, so it can be as much of a gold sink as you want it to be.

New and improved Jinxie's Jamboree
I have felt that this little mini-game has been a bit lackluster, in that neither the risk nor the reward is very big, and for me it usually just ends up being a dull time-waster instead of earning, or spending, any gold. Perhaps it's possible to tweak it so that it costs a bit more to play, but can give you greater rewards? And if the rewards are changed from gold to items of various kinds, then it's effectively a gold sink. As long as clear information is provided about the possible rewards, and preferrably also the odds of obtaining them.

Those are my suggestions for now, I hope you find any of them useful. :)

~Moon

thats wonderful! And I'm glad the pricing won't stay at 25g 15g is an okay price.

I second some of the ideas that have been said here. A notification before a stablehand expires is the biggest one imo. Stuff like a gold shop (especially being able to buy traps all in the same area! I can't stand having to leave zones to refill on epic traps. So I'm often out when I encounter epic pets.) or benefits to keeping pets fed and so on would also be nice if implemented.

(I noticed that a couple people had mentioned guilds, though, and that's one thing that I have to disagree with. I have never been in a guild in any game and it always feels kind of lonely and exclusive, especially in games where guilds have levels and can compete with each other. This game has a great community, and it sounds like there'll be some community stuff when the MegaZone comes out. So I really don't think guilds are necessary here.)

But some of the other suggestions sound really cool, especially some of Moonsugar's :)

Thanks Som. :) Though I hadn't read the entire thread before posting, and it took me a good few hours of being distracted by RL and coming back to it before I finished writing the post... So some of the points were brought up by others as well, I can see that now. :)

So sorry if I posted something that had already been mentioned! And I want to say that I agree with SheVampire, as well. ^-^

Thank you so much, everyone, for all of the feedback! And sorry if I scared/upset anyone with the shock of the change; that wasn't necessarily the intention. =P

That said, for now, I have reverted the price back to 10g per unit. However, I will be increasing it to 15g in the near future. But before I do, I'd like to at least add in some sort of bonus/reward system for keeping your pets fed. I think that is very fair all around.

I will also look into adding in some of the ideas suggested, like a warning when your Stablehand is about to expire.

I will probably try to get this coded-in in the next week or two.

I will be writing a script here shortly that will refund the overpaid gold from overnight / today that you guys have spent.

ohhh!!! yes a reward system!! HOW COOL

Thank you Krin. It took me forever to find the stable hand when I started. It was really in a strange place. :P