I've done some game design (read: took a college course in it and designed all parts of a game except for programming it, nothing professional and certainly not an expert) and I'd be willing to throw my art abilities into the ring if the idea gets that far. That said, I have some concerns.
1)
The Quiz. I don't mind the notion of only getting access to a few pets at the start, but I'm not a fan of my pet being assigned based on a quiz (or, for that matter, anything else that doesn't allow my own input in the decision, and a quiz doesn't do that--all the available answers are written by someone else)... What's wrong with just picking one that looks neat, or reviewing the base stats and going by that if looks don't matter to me as a player? Would I also be able to dump this pet if I don't like it and pick a different one at the outset (as in, "Here's what we think will work best for you, but if you want, you can pick something else from this list")?
2)
The Stock Market. The reason the stocks in Neopets don't reflect buy/sell activity is because they USED to, until a guild got naughty and artificially inflated a single stock. They made millions, but the entire guild got frozen, and the stock system became randomized. Just food for thought; a system that works a way users can effect is one that users can and will abuse sooner or later. How would you plan on preventing that?
3)
Elemental Alignment. What would a pet's element bring to the table? Is it just yet another battle specialty? That goes right into being pokemon, in essence, and frankly, if that's all it's for, I don't see a need for it. You don't need to layer more and more customizable battle-related skills (especially not right at the beginning when no one's expressed displeasure with the battle system yet), because eventually that just gets complicated and everyone throws up their hands and walks away.
If the elements aren't supposed to be JUST battle related, then what exactly do they do? Does it just mean that you get a green pet? Does it mean their homes are decorated with tons of waterfalls? If you're going to ask for input on an idea, you can't just say "What about having elements?" You need to say what you intend them to be used for. This really applies to any suggestion; why is it a good idea? What's the intended result of implementing it? What makes it good to use from a player's perspective and not a creator's? That last question is vital--you have to consider how you would react to something if you had no direct ability to change it.
Edit: Since nobody's said anything else yet, I figured I'd just edit to add, NO CLICK-BASED EXPERIENCE. That's just going to encourage linkspam and there are way too many of those sites as it is. No clickwhoring, no viewwhoring, no vote-whoring. Just no. No, no, no.
Edited by cuddlydemon, 08 April 2012 - 05:42 PM.
