Sen the problem with that argument is that it isn't necessary to explore. It just makes the game cheaper/quicker/easier if you do. If all you wanted to do was collect level 1 pets, you could. Why would you have to build the reserve to do that? You certainly don't have to build it through exploring. The game's new, but I'm sure soon there'll be plenty of food and leveled pets for sale. And once gold is available for purchase with real cash no doubt someone could buy their way to the top using it as well. Explore isn't mandatory except in leveling your pets. (Edit: Forgot the riding hall!)

RedRarebit you view underlaying problems, but that doesn't mean there actually are underlaying problems. I don't personally think there is.

Yes, exploring is a chore and a grind. I don't think it's fun either. Hopefully they'll add new maps or something more to make them interesting and adventuring. But, whatever, it's no worse than a typical pokemon game. In the meantime, other things are being added and Angel's making it so you can view pets in the reserve. I just don't see the problems you guys do.

You don't have to build the reserve. Putting a pet in the pound does the same thing: making it no longer your problem. You can also build a stable to house 200 pets. That's plenty enough to have a pet of every color.

No it's not ridiculous to change the diet. Diets just increase the chances of the stat being raised. It's no guarantee.
But hey, it was just a suggestion. People don't have to take it. If someone was exploring with every pet, they'd soon have enough food no matter the diet. But the pets you're not doing anything with but feeding and breeding/keeping because they're pretty, and which you obviously don't care that much about leveling: change the diets. And someone who was actually trying could always change the diet before logging off for the day and change it back before exploring/leveling. I know, it's more work than setting a diet and forgetting about it forever, or just being given the reserve.

Do you yourself set diets for your pets? Because if not could you please speak for yourself and stop making up imaginary players. I get that you just want the reserve handed to you but I'm finding it exasperating that you're refusing to even try and making up excuses and acting like you represent the majority of players here. The majority in this thread don't seem to mind the build requirements, but I'm sure if Angel sees them as too much she'll adjust it in the future. But I don't agree with you that it needs to be free. Or that having to build it somehow throws off the game balance. Now, that's ridiculous.

Here's an easier suggestion for you guys and girls: Put your food in trades for an insane price so your pets don't eat it all every day. Do quests to feed them with silver.

@Restless - There are underlying problems, but here isn't the place for me to list them all out. I doubt everyone is interested in reading how various things affect all others in this game leading to this issue. It's all interlinked, and thats the issue.

I do set diets for my pets. I think, though I could be wrong, I've gone through and adjusted each diet to make sure that the pet has the best chance of having its weakest stats boosted while the stronger ones don't get the same sort of treatment. The only ones that don't get this are ones I'm intending to sell. I think I've skipped one or two due to laziness, but for the most part, ones I'm keeping are diet-ed up.
So, if I, someone who doesn't place a huge amount of effort on exploring, has done this, I don't see how its a huge stretch of the imagination to see how someone who does watch the stats closely has done the same time. 

Saying 'oh just put it in the pound then its not your problem' isn't the thing I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the Reserve. We (as in, myself and a few others in this very thread) pictured it more as somewhere we'd be able to visit treasured pets that we'd worked hard on or had some other sort of sentimental value, like gifts or something.
If thats NOT what the Reserve is, which it isn't, then it shouldn't cost so much to simply delete the pet. Deleting the pet isn't just about it not being 'our problem' anymore. Its about trying to nip server issues in the bud before the problems start to happen. Its about wanting to be able to see old pets. 

The Reserve deletes pets, which is fine and something I support entirely - but I don't think I should have to work and save and spend to do something that ultimately does the server a favour. But other players (and I'm going just from what I've seen in this thread) also want a place where they can store old beloved pets for whatever reason, and this building doesn't do that.
Thats why your solution of simply sending them to the Pound isn't helpful, because thats not what these people want, as I understand it, and its not what I want either.

 What I, personally, think is needed is this;

• The 'Reserve' where players can put old, treasured pets and visit them when they want to. Not Free, has to be built, requires work, pets can be visited.
• A 'Release' option where Players can release old pets they don't want or need anymore, and will be of no use to anyone else due to max level and no more breedings avaliable / unsellable due to awful stats. Free, doesn't have to be built, pets cannot be visited.

The reason I think pets from the second option shouldn't just 'go to the pound' is because eventually (especially in the case of unlucky redstated pets) no-one will want them and they'll take up space. That is why I (and I'm sure others) would like both options, for different uses. Not only that, but if a player wants to delete a pet for any reason, new or old, green or red-stated, they should damned well be able to without having to slave away at it, when ultimately it helps the site.

As it is, what we have is a Reserve that does the same as Release, but with a cost thats stupidly high for what it does. Which wasn't what was suggested, unless I'm misunderstanding Ankokou?

Yes, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. Your bullet points are pretty much the TLDR of my suggestion and what I feel should be done.

The reserve, as it exists now, isn't what was suggested and what people were supporting, judging from this thread that's pretty clear.

And I'm mystified as to why we are paying to do something that both helps the economy and server in the long run right now. Nearly every other site I play sees just how essential deleting useless pets is and actually provides incentive for people to do it. Instead of us paying for the "privilege" they actually give small bonuses to the players for doing it.

I'm not asking to be paid for deleting pets, it's just absurd to me we have to pay, and so much.

I don't mind if it has a dual function and does both of these things but we have to pay for it, that's fine. It's just the way it works right now I have a problem with.

To be honest, if the Reserve ends up having the dual function, I'm probably going to pair up with another player who has it and just pay them to occasionally delete my pets for me by sending on to them. Its not worth all the hassle to me just to occasionally delete pets - I'd rather two seperate things that have the two seperate functions.

according to the tread that was linked to early the reserve will end up being the retirement we suggested. the devs just wanted to get the first half oft he featuer out too quickly for US.

Koben is correct, Angel is working on adding the other features to the reserve. Just give it time and hold on to your pets.

I don't see how someone can have a whole lot of pets they want retired yet (and still be able to visit) anyways seeing as how you'd have to have done a whole ton of breeding to wear a pet's breeding limit to 0 and if they have red stats, typically they at least have a couple of good genes that can be bred out so even if you don't want them, someone probably will -- so pound them.

That is good news, I wish it was in the news post. It would have spared a lot of confusion.

Also, since you are wondering Irrimn, you can have plenty of breeding's left but no use for a pet any more. Say for example you are breeding for genes; if you breed a pet or two better than the parent pets, you now have very little use for that parent. Breed to many offspring from the same pair and it becomes harder and harder to avoid inbreeding. It's gene's will no longer improve your line, only drag it down. At that point it can be sold or pounded, which I actually have a mini-sale going on right now of some of my "obsolete" creatures.

But please understand some of us get attached in some way to these things, for whatever reason. We don't want to get rid of them once we have no more use for their genes. Maybe they are based on a character, or we made them into a character, maybe they have a neat ID, maybe they were your first pet and you want to have them forever.

But once they've outlived their usefulness, or in a couple years of playing you've accumulated too many "dead weight" pets whom you are fond of... that's why I suggested the reserve. What about the "collect 'em all" people who just want one of each color too, to admire?

Yes, maybe someone else can make good use of them, but sometimes we want to keep them nearby.

• The 'Reserve' where players can put old, treasured pets and visit them when they want to. Not Free, has to be built, requires work, pets can be visited.

• A 'Release' option where Players can release old pets they don't want or need anymore, and will be of no use to anyone else due to max level and no more breedings avaliable / unsellable due to awful stats. Free, doesn't have to be built, pets cannot be visited.

                ^

         This is my view, too. This will help solve some underlying problems, but I don't have time to talk about them right now.

Restless, you said in your previous post that if we don't get enough food, we aren't exploring enough. Then when challenged, you said that we, the people who have a different playing style, don't have to explore as it's just there to make our game easier.

Though I appreciate that you understand that we all have different styles of playing, you have confused me as to what point you actually want to bring out. You tell us we don't explore enough and then later on you tell us that we are not liable to explore as it is an optional thing. I do admit it is an optional feature and we can completely shy away from it if we want to, but when the game requires people to gather 200 of each food to build a reserve when food gets used up every day and levelling the pets to get more breeding slots, that's basically forcing people, people who simply catch and breed pets as their play style, to go on explore. It's not as optional as it seems. Even if battling is another source of levelling, it just cannot compare to exploring the islands.

Collecting pets is not as simple as catching level 1 and leaving them as that. I for one am very particular with the genes passed down by my pets and have spreadsheets (thanks to Star for being my breeding partner and actually coding a functional spreadsheet) for my breedings. I actually have gone so far as to planning the next breedings and the breedings of the next generation and the next. I HAVE to level my pets so they get more breedings, especially when they don't produce the offspring I have in my plan. With my timezone, where most people are asleep, I am definitely forced to go on explorations since not much people are up for battles. Even if the feature is there and we can choose not to get on it, with how levelling and gathering to build necessary buildings, exploring cannot and will not be a fully optional feature. And I don't want that to change. I'm just simply saying that it might seem optional as we can definitely not click the explore tab, but if you want to get by, and get by efficiently, then it is imperative that you go on islands to explore.

I am a breeder and that is my style of playing. My main income are from quests, studs (really cheap too) and selling the pets I've bred. And since this is how I play the game, I have only a handful of pets I can dedicate to exploring. If they don't gather enough food (I make sure I have 300 of each a day to lessen the fees), I send out my females and studs to collect the remaining food, but on limited energy as I have a plan to push through. Exploring takes up about at most 3 hours of my day, just exploring. And I still pay for food.

I cannot eradicate my "free loaders" as most of the times, they're taming or aging. Right now I haven't played much, but last week, I had about 8 taming and 10 aging and you can't really gather enough for these free loaders or boot them out. I don't explore the ones I plan on selling, so that's an added 5-8 pets that aren't of use to me. With about half of my pets not being of use to me, clearly it is difficult to make ends meet. And the fact of the matter is, even if I had 40 functional pets, I would not explore all of them for if it takes me 3 hours to explore half of those, it would take about 5-6 hours to explore all my pets. This is a problem as even if I do have the patience to explore all my pets, I do not have the time.

I allocate the stats depending on what is needed and most fitting for the pet. Prioritizing Strength for my breeders and its variants (Courage and Constitution), Damage (Courage and Strength) and Defense (Constitution and Strength) for my Explorers and if I see potential for pets to become builders, I will allocate depending on their stats. I do not improve red marks as I see it useless to improve the weak stats. Instead I work my way around it. If I have a red stat on Agility, I put 5 stars on Strength, 3-4 on Courage and Constitution, 1-2 on Agility, Intelligence and Intuition. This goes the same way if the red mark is on Intelligence and Intuition and vice versa if it is on Strength, Courage and Constitution. If there is a green mark, I will improve on it and its variants. If there is no marks, I look over the recessive genes and their innately strong stats and allocate accordingly. I do not change depending on food as, as previously stated, I do not gather enough and I just simply pay. I also do not see the point of constantly changing the allocations if I will have to return it once I start exploring them.

With my playing style, since I continiously gather new pets to add to my lines and breed constantly, the reserve building will be a valuable addition to my manor as it provides me another outlet to remove the pets I do not need. Pets that will not sell because of extreme red stats, pets that have no more breeding slots and maxed level, pets that are simply not going to benefit me and my game plan. I cannot and will not hold the pets I have forever, that is not a goal and though I don't have problems sending them to the pound, my biggest worry is that the accumulation of data of all these pets that cannot be removed from the system would slow the game down.

I am glad that there is a resolution of a Delete only reserve. I am not glad about paying for that one feature that would help the site over-all as it makes me feel like it's a penalty for helping the site clean itself. I should not be penalized for helping the site remove data that is not necessary anymore. I am not saying I should be gifted for it, but having it as a free option is more than enough. This is the problem we are trying to point out and hoping to solve. We have provided information to help the developers improve on their game, and we hope that they take our suggestions and if they cannot do what we want for their own reasons, I can at least hope they do something similar.

I am certain that in the future, people will sell food and the economy will provide for those who do not play through the Explore feature. Which is why, as of now, if the Reserve is meant to simply delete pets, then it is not worth it. At the moment, I gather enough income to pay for my pets food and I can definitely gather enough to build this reserve. I just don't think that paying to simply delete pets will be an efficient choice for me considering my play style. I also refuse to be penalized by purging resources I do not have and need when over-all, I am helping the server and the site.

I am glad to hear that they are building up the code. They could have announced it to avoid confusion as Ankokou said, but it is great news. Once they improve on it, I will definitely get the Reserve as I will definitely use it to delete pets I have no use for and put my level 50's with no breedings left in.

I cannot eradicate my "free loaders" as most of the times, they're taming or aging. Right now I haven't played much, but last week, I had about 8 taming and 10 aging and you can't really gather enough for these free loaders or boot them out. I don't explore the ones I plan on selling, so that's an added 5-8 pets that aren't of use to me. With about half of my pets not being of use to me, clearly it is difficult to make ends meet. And the fact of the matter is, even if I had 40 functional pets, I would not explore all of them for if it takes me 3 hours to explore half of those, it would take about 5-6 hours to explore all my pets. This is a problem as even if I do have the patience to explore all my pets, I do not have the time.

[...]

I am glad that there is a resolution of a Delete only reserve. I am not glad about paying for that one feature that would help the site over-all as it makes me feel like it's a penalty for helping the site clean itself. I should not be penalized for helping the site remove data that is not necessary anymore. I am not saying I should be gifted for it, but having it as a free option is more than enough. This is the problem we are trying to point out and hoping to solve. We have provided information to help the developers improve on their game, and we hope that they take our suggestions and if they cannot do what we want for their own reasons, I can at least hope they do something similar.

- Red

I agree with this, especially the bolded part.

Red basically said everything I would have said - good sum of how I feel. I just didn't have the patience to write all of that out when the math seemed so self-evident to me. 

Full support.