-Firestar-'s Collection

[Shian]

I don't know whether to leave him in there or not, so I'm kinda undecided to list him with the alt account or put him in my personal trades.
He was traded for a chunk of old store pets. Theoretically, the alt account is getting store pets because I buy two sets for it each time they come out- one to keep and one for trading, but the store pets I traded were from my own account technically.

[Ashara]

Ahh I see. Good luck with it anyway ^^ If I ever have some of its goal pets I'll see if I'll come and trade with it :3

[Taako]

That is a wonderful project! You are making great progress. Good luck!

[Shian]

There's certainly something to be said about the 'gotta catch em all' attitude and style of playing. There's so many awesome pets that I've found that sometimes gets lost in the mix.

This guy for example. When he came out, I bought him with candy and moved on to finding the next pet in that month's collection. He was an easy rare at the time and also at the time I didn't really appreciate his design. At first glance his design was rather goofy so I just flung him in a folder and never gave him a second thought because there were other, more difficult pets to find in the Haloween hunt.

Starting over and having fewer pets, I'm noticing a few details on him. From the gold eyes and gold swirls to the maroon stripes, (Which, ironically enough are my favorite color. Specifically 330000) and the little pumpkins on him that seal him as a Halloween special, this guy is king of my alt account.

It's way waaay too easy to become so focused on 'the rares list' when trading and looking for collection pets that such majestic and well designed dogs are simply overlooked. Maybe in a different time in a different place, I could just collect the ones I liked. The ones I thought had the best designs instead of having pets simply to have them.

Not all of my pets are like that though. There's very few designs on CS I wouldn't have ended up collecting anyways and once you have the majority, doesn't it just make more sense to get the rest and have something complete? Just in case of pets like this one where at first you don't notice it, but later it becomes one of your favorites? It's like a CD you bought for the cover but over time, you develop other favorites. I wish I had more time in the day and enough patience to give every single one of these dogs a story.

[k!tty]

Love your collection, story, and I love how some of your hoards/pets have back stories to them. They have more meaning then just being 'appealing' to you. That's so great.

Thanks for being so awesome. ♥ c:

[ferretleaf]

I'm being serious here, the next time CS gives out applications for being moderators, you should be first on the list. You have and know every thing

[Shian]

I'm being serious here, the next time CS gives out applications for being moderators, you should be first on the list. You have and know every thing

Heh. There's more to it as far as being a mod goes. Moderators generally have to be courteous at all times. Otherwise it reflects poorly on the site as a whole to have a rude or short-tempered poster on staff because they're in the spotlight all the time. Being precise and clear when posting, especially when trying to help others is also a good quality and to be honest, my grammar skills are not that great. At least, that's what I would be looking for if I were choosing mods. Not the size of their collection.
I've applied each time applications pop up and will continue to do so, but there's so many other great applicants each time that it's very difficult to not say to myself, "Yeah, they're probably a better pick..." Last time applications went around I had made up a list of who I would think would get moderator position if I was the one hiring. I ended up being 16th or something so I have a ways to go. XD

No sweat. There's fun in being a regular member too and not have that spotlight on all the time. For one, I don't have to worry about posting in a rant thread, whatever it is or ever saying exactly what I want to say and not have to ask myself each time I post, "Is this an appropriate thing to post as a representative of the site"? and have to edit or mince my words so it is appropriate. Not that I would mind doing so as I've done that in the past too, but there are perks to both sides. I do have to say, reporting posts that are just in the wrong area gets old. It would be nice if I could move it myself.

[ferretleaf]

I'm being serious here, the next time CS gives out applications for being moderators, you should be first on the list. You have and know every thing

Heh. There's more to it as far as being a mod goes. Moderators generally have to be courteous at all times. Otherwise it reflects poorly on the site as a whole to have a rude or short-tempered poster on staff because they're in the spotlight all the time. Being precise and clear when posting, especially when trying to help others is also a good quality and to be honest, my grammar skills are not that great. At least, that's what I would be looking for if I were choosing mods. Not the size of their collection.
I've applied each time applications pop up and will continue to do so, but there's so many other great applicants each time that it's very difficult to not say to myself, "Yeah, they're probably a better pick..." Last time applications went around I had made up a list of who I would think would get moderator position if I was the one hiring. I ended up being 16th or something so I have a ways to go. XD

No sweat. There's fun in being a regular member too and not have that spotlight on all the time. For one, I don't have to worry about posting in a rant thread, whatever it is or ever saying exactly what I want to say and not have to ask myself each time I post, "Is this an appropriate thing to post as a representative of the site"? and have to edit or mince my words so it is appropriate. Not that I would mind doing so as I've done that in the past too, but there are perks to both sides. I do have to say, reporting posts that are just in the wrong area gets old. It would be nice if I could move it myself.

But now Tess is Giving out more applications for general helpers! You should really apply when you have the chance! Like Tess says 'the only difference from a general helper and a normal player is the colour of their username' Except for being able to Post on the help system. I mean, Minimanta posts a lot of the time. You can act as normal as long as you don't swear or anything, you will still be a good role model as a general helper. I wish I could apply but I'm not an older user, so you're lucky! Take the opportunity!

[Shian]

Thanks, but I don't feel the need to have a colored name in order to be helpful.

[Shian]

The ALT ACCOUNT

The alt account was a folder created from a mixture of boredom and someone screaming at me that I had it easy and didn't know how a new user feels having such a hard time trading for pets. Challenge accepted.

Okay, so how does a new user feel? I believe I can get the alt account a very decent collection in just a few months. I plan to continue this experiment up to June 2013 where my goal is to have at least 9 decent, non-store rares list pets. I don't think it will take that long though.

How to start? and how to keep it fair?

The experiment started on May 25th 2012
I locked all of my trade folders and gave it whatever extras from this month that I had on hand along with a few trace pets leftover from my adoption agency that never got adopted- mostly 2010 horses, but the oldest pet is from Dec 2009. It's starting collection is 23 pets and 56 trade pets.

That's a fine start, but let's throw in a handicap.

• It gets only half of the monthly adoptables. I get the other half.
• It will collect only dogs and use the rest as trade fodder
• It will not have items
  
  That seems reasonable along with getting no other help from me. I can even simulate events like Dec 18th for it. I will roll a dice and give it a pet from my trade collection: From a 2008 toxic to a 2011 easter bunny.

At the end of the experiment the entire folder and it's contents will be given away

Check out the Alt account's progress here, here and check out it's trades here
Pets with the name Gift ^_^ are pets that I received as gifts
Pets with the name Adopted means I got them from an adoption center
This will make it easier to track what percentage of my collection came from the generosity of other users

Current dream pets/goals to work towards:

(Note to self: please put more pets here)

Milestones and great trades!

• May 25th- got the full salmon dog litter Yay!
• May 26th Got a blue grinner, my first rares list pet on my second day from a user that was quitting
• May 26th Got my first goal pet for free o.O
  
• May 26th Got my second goal pet from a "wish thread"
  
• May 26th Got my third goal pet and (almost) it's entire litter for a store dog
• May 29th Fourth goal pet
  
• June 2nd fifth and sixth goal pets
  
  With one goal pet left, I'm going to grab 5 new ones.
• June 3rd New goal pet. This one is a favorite of mine.
  
• June 3rd Got an amazing gift along with another goal pet
  
• Another very large gift came today. Got a very lovely goal pet in it. My collection is almost big enough to start looking for the rarer 2010 pets. I almost completed the dragon dog collection and 2 other pet litters from this gift ^_^ What a milestone!
  
• June 13th. Got the last of the dragon dogs with this message:
  

  Hey.
  I was just going back through my trades, and I saw that when I first joined, you were one of the first people to trade with me. You gave me advice and tried to help me out. I just wanted to say thank you, and I wish I would have done this sooner. You're truly a great person, and you deserve to be thanked. So thank you.

  
  It is a good reminder to have and to keep patience. It can pay off.
• June 17th Got another goal pet. One of the "a bit hard to find due to popularity" ones.
  
• June 23rd Got this lovely rare from the pound. Haven't been that active in trading the past few weeks. Been busy since I got back from con.
  
• July 1st Got a bunch of rares and a few VR store pets from a user that was quitting but the trade got wiped in the "Friday reset" D: Thankfully a kind user helped me out and replaced two of them.
• July 4th Got one of my last goal pets for the 2nd list
  
• July 18th. First good trade in a long while. The others have been people asking for my 2009 rare pets or card dog for free -_- Need to get to the adoption boards so I can have more trade fodder.
• July 31st. Last dream pet from that list WOW!
  
  I'm on vacation and still need to set aside some time to go to the free boards to get more trade fodder and set up a new goal list

Experiment ended early on Sept 15 2012- just a few months after it started because it just way too difficult to manage two accounts and I'm taking 18 credits this semester
I ended up with 5 store pets, 3 rares list pets and 785 pets in my collection and 68 pets for trading.
Several "sets" were obtained including 2011 and 2010 staff litter sets, a near complete collection of CNY dogs and
Currently working on giving them all away. Not bad for only four months worth of work!
Thank you all so much for helping me out with it.