Longer Answer section:
Personalities / free will
Each beast has a unique personality that is partially established at birth depending on its genetics, but primarily shaped during its childhood. (The best way to positively shape a young beast's personality is to assign an older, wiser beast as mentor.) A beast's likes, dislikes, relationships, and memories can be influenced by every independent action it takes, random events, and interaction with the player.
Beasts can interact with each other without the player's direct input within the city. (This area has no graphical representation, and events that take place within it only appear as notifications on the player's social wall.) Here, beasts can make friends or enemies, visit businesses run by other players, and fall in love.
The player is able to influence a pet's behavior in the city in four ways:
- Have the beast get acquainted with something new, such as a new location, profession, or another beast. This allows the beast to interact with those things in the future. Doing this has no direct effect on the beast's personality and doesn't spend authority points.
- Order the beast to do something it wasn't going to do itself. Spends authority points.
- Order the beast to do something it was already going to do. Doesn't spend authority points.
- Perform some other action that requires resources other than authority points, such as materials or money.
See also:
Breeding
The genetics system will be more complex than Beastkeeper, and a beast's genes will affect not only its appearance and skills, but also its personality. Beasts can breed in two different ways:
- Passive breeding - Every player's manor has a gene pool of beasts that produces a few babies each day. (These beasts are "inactive", and cannot be controlled by the player in any way.) The player can select a newborn from this pool depending on what genes are desired, at which point it becomes an active beast under the player's control.
- Active breeding - Two active beasts may fall in love and decide to have a baby. This process takes much longer due to the time required for the parents' relationship to form before having a child, but can be directed and accelerated by the player arranging social interactions and dates for their beasts. A beast born in this way has an advantage over beasts born via passive breeding, in that its parents will teach it family skills, pass on crafting recipes unique to its lineage, and shape its personality.
Explore
The explorable world will be a single, infinite area featuring various biotopes, objects, NPCs, and monsters. Players will explore it using a party of beasts, and will be able to meet up with the parties of other players, communicating via a real-time chat feature. While exploring, players will be able to battle monsters, tame wild beasts, gather items, and trade with NPCs, although their party of beasts will need to rest and restock supplies periodically.
See also:
Authority Points
Each player has a certain number of authority points, which are spent by giving direct commands for your beasts to do or not do specific things. This will alter the beast's behavior, as well as cause the beast to learn and draw conclusions from the situation depending on its existing personality. A player can gain more authority points by raising their overall ranking in the player base, winning user challenges or beast contests, crafting certain items, and occasionally, by finding them in quests or Explore.
Eons
At the end of every eon, the explorable world will be wiped and procedurally regenerated, although the city and player manors will remain untouched. Every eon, players will be able to participate in a global quest, the result of which will affect the explorable world generated in the new eon and the new global quest for that eon. Eons will vary in length, but are currently planned to last around 1 to 4 months.
See also:
Professions / Shops
Beasts can learn different professions, and may be better suited for one over another depending on the perks and skills in their genetics. They can also run shops in the city that cater to other beasts, such as restaurants, flower shops, or alchemist stores. The player can earn money from these shops when they are visited by other beasts.
Alternatively, some beasts may learn to craft items, although many patterns will require them to achieve a certain skill level in a particular profession. At a high skill level, they will even be able to make custom recipes and items, including wearables and consumables.
Other lore