Wow... extremely long. 8o
I don\'t reply very well to such lengthy posts but there are a few points I want to reply to.
First of all, I got the impression that you\'re saying \"everyone would have a familiar, without exception\"? I think people should be able to choose whether they have a pet or not. PlaneShift, as a whole, is going to be all about freedom to play however you wish. If you don\'t want to fight monsters, you can do something else, such as crafting or trading. I think the same should apply to pets- if you don\'t want a pet, you don\'t
have to have one.
About changing their appearance: I think this should be limited to magically summoned animals, not ones that have been trained from the wild or raised since birth. A magician would perhaps be able to \'transmute\' the animal into a different species, but I\'m not sure how much I like that idea. Either way, you shouldn\'t be able to do it to natural creatures.
The \"Magic Kennel\": I think this could be an alternative to a normal kennel which should also be in the game. The magic method would be for players who are constantly on-the-move; that is to say, not hanging around a single town for more than a few hours. However, for those of us who tend to congregate at a particular location in the world for most of our characters\' lives, a normal kennel should be provided in each town, where pets and beasts of burden can be kept safely (for a fee).
I agree that the number of pets you are allowed to have should be kept to a minimum. This, imo, would serve two purposes:
1. Eliminate the need for pets to be extremely expensive to buy/train/raise/equip.
2. Lower server-side CPU usage, allowing room for slightly better AI scripts and more functionality.
And, quickly going back to the very first point you made in your post, I agree that many creatures should certainly resemble Earthly animals, but I do not think they should be limited to this. PS would, I think, tend to have more original creatures than those we are already familiar with in the real world.
[Edit: And by the way, nice thread, it was interesting to read.
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