Unique Pet Name Changes

It's happening! This change is a massive shift over what we've done for the past 15 years and we know upfront that this change will make some people happy, and some people upset. We're making this change to preserve the future of Subeta, and to keep excitement for new users as high as for those of us who've been here for the last 15 years.

We've listened to feedback on this for years, and have looked at how other popular modern games handle unique names like this. We've come to a decision and are implementing it today.

The goal at the center of these changes is to give everyone on the site the freedom to be as creative as they'd like, and build characters around their pets without having to scour for the name you want for months - and to honor those who fought for names and waited months.

Pet Names

From this point forward pet names are no longer unique. That means, for example, there can be two pets named Spot on the site at the same time. You can build stories and characters around a name, without needing to add numbers or strange spellings. We're looking forward to seeing a burst of creativity!

Changes:
The new URL structure for your pets looks like: https://subeta.net/pets/keith/AwesomePetName

And the sCode for linking to pets is: Code:
[pet=keith/AwesomePetName]
...where "keith" is the username of the pet's owner, and AwesomePetName is the (hopefully awesome) pet name!

All of the links around the site have been updated to reflect this change.

Changing Pet Name

You can now change your pet name once per month with a gold account. That means one name change per pet, per month. We'll have a way for everyone to rename their pets soon!

Legacy Pet Names

To honor those who have spent time, effort and money in obtaining unique pet names up until now, every pet created on the site up until this news post now also has a legacy pet name that links them to their names prior to this update. The old URL structure and sCode will still work, and will link to the pet with that legacy name.

For example, if I owned AwesomePetName before this update, then https://subeta.net/pets/AwesomePetName here will still link to my pet AwesomePetName for the rest of time!

If I change my pets name to "TotallyAwesomePetname" the legacy name will continue to be AwesomePetName. This status will persist even if your pet is transferred to a new owner.

There is a line on the pet profile designating the legacy name, and this can be removed targeting the .legacy-name class with CSS. For example, the following CSS will hide it completely:
Code:
.legacy-name { display: none; }

Other Changes

We will no longer be clearing old pet names - all old pets will retain those legacy names.

We will still be clearing usernames at the same time, as they continue to be unique. No pet names will be cleared.

Edit:
There is a helpful user-made FAQ here which compiles information from various staff posts/comments: Topic: FAQ about Legacy Names/Non-Unique Pet Names
User Avatar: 744

Posted by SubetaTeam

Load this on Kumos site
soren
THE MIRACLE HAPPEN
Hylian
Wow this is amazing
Written
@Saturnine it looks like they just don't have a legacy name field. For example: https://subeta.net/petinfo.php?petid=5996001.
RunningWild
Yes! Thank you so so much for this change! :D
Aquarius
So, with this change, are there plans for more pet slots to be added in the future? 0:)
Because I have way too many pets/characters/names I want!
Written
@Life you absolutely can change what it says in the legacy name section.

Code:
<style>
.legacy-name b {display: none;}
.legacy-name::after {content: "Suzie"; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; visibility: visible !important;}
.legacy-name::before {content: "My dear sweet "; margin-right: -90px; visibility: visible !important; font-style: italic;}
.legacy-name {visibility: hidden;}
</style>
I'm using Invalid user: kniga as an example. Note that her name was originally Suushie, and I'm not sure if it's cool to change the legacy name coding like this or not. Thoughts @Keith?
Saturnine
Excuse me for not reading every comment - How do pets with repeat names that were just made have their profiles look, has anyone made one? I want to see if it says something like "Spawn: [name here]"
beinagrind
Oh, i was about to feel bittersweet thinking about all the time and effort i've sunk into getting certain of my pet names (or failed - shakes fist @ Sausage) but then i read about legacy names, so now i'm all sweet. Unique pet names are by defintion limiting and not conducive to a growing site population. Now if only we could use non-english letters in pet names....
chris
how will the search page work now? Will pets that have same name be listed all next to each other?
i like to randomly look at pets by search random words/names.
Alfirin
Oh darn, just used CSC to change a name yesterday, lol.
Emrah
@Staff don't know if this was mentioned yet, but if I search for a name wich was created more than once and click on it, I still get directed to the legacy pet.
wyrm
Real non-unique pet names! Real non-unique pet names!!!! SCREECHES AT THE HEAVENS IN JOY.
Andrea
ONE LAST QUESTION.

Is the once a month rename account specific? Or if I rename a pet to RadJello and then give the pet to someone else can they also rename it? Curious as I have a handful of IDs I'll potentially be giving out to friends but if I lock them out of renames for a month I'd like to plan ahead.
Viking
Omg my Subeta life makes sense again. <3
Thank you for this awesome and needed change, excited for everyone who now can get names they always admired from afar. :)
Life
Catherine
Legacy Name: Catey

!!! That looks great :D
Emrah
I was hating the idea of non unique pet names, but everybody being happy about this, makes me happy too. Now let the music play.
Emrah
I was hating the idea of non unique pet names, but everybody being happy about this, makes me happy too. Now let the music play.
Rivalous
Well now if I encounter a "species and ID" named pet in the AC like afew times in the past, I can use the free name change on them with my GA.
Ryuu
I'm happy about it because I can get a few I've wanted & very happy for the couple users who kept looking up Cid & Weiss, only to discover that I'm never going to die & my crappy OCs already had those names & I do nothing new with them! haha.

On the reverse, dang, what do I need CSC for now, if not to rename a thousand old (& poorly named) pets into far more fashionable blobs? :(
Life
Congratulations!!! Your pet (formerly Catey) is now named Catherine!

Aaaahhhh finally, my heart :heart:
Miette
Dang literally a few weeks i changed my pets name from her the name she got "cleared" to
SpectrumSurfer
Awsome! <3
Pipkitten
I liked the unique names and am kinda sad that the ones I've collected aren't one-and-only's anymore, but it will be nice to be able to choose any name I want for future pets.
Makani
omg this is amazing.
Now I just need more pet slots for all the pets I want.
Life
Is there a pet named AwesomePetName? There really should be.
past
Galaxia
Congratulations to all the Sailor Guardian tribute pets who will be able to get their names! There is a Moon or Jupiter or Pluto for every time anyone has looked up at the stars, their own personal shining moment or prayer, and it's good that people will be able to name their inspirations accordingly.
Life
Ok cool, there is one name that I've been stalking for years and have missed twice.

The only thing I don't like is the wording/format of the Legacy Name line on the profile. I can probably change the format but just having it say ORIGINALLY PETNAME looks weird imo?

Like on my pet Hopes it says

Hopes
Originally Hopes

I wish there was a better way to say that. Even Original Name or Legacy Name or something.
Sincere
thank you for doing legacy names too
Aries
I appreciate this as years ago a pet name I wanted was taken and I am not the creative type
Mime
This is such an awesome change! I've felt guilty about having some real world nouns and other properly spelled words as pet names but not having the energy to develop a pet profile, so I'm glad other people can use them now as well! Great development, staff!
WindKitsune
This is great news! I've lost count of how many pets I gave up on because the name I wanted was already taken and no other fit whatI wanted. Now I can finally get those :D
Andrea
Very excited to see the note about extra name changes for a fee as well.

I was just having some heartburn over the inability to swap names around as a few of my names need to go on other IDs. Glad to know if I rename a pet to a random name for now I can potentially fix it sooner than a months time.
Fluttershy
I’m not sure how to feel about this. On one hand I can correct some names and maybe get a name for an old irl pet but on the other I’ll miss the uniqueness. Guess I’ll have to think on it a bit more.
Andrea
@Keith

Fantastic, thank you for the answer and for doing this. I really believe it's a good big step in a more positive direction for the site and for the pet people. Very excited about this change!
elliott
@Keith

idk how i missed that per pet part, what is reading comprehension LOL but thank you for clarifying! eager to see what you guys have in store
Keith STAFF
@Satyr Bug fixed it!
Metaphor
*outweigh

sorry the excitement has me using terrible grammar oops
Keith STAFF
@pierce You get one name change per pet per month, so right now you can only change a pets name once per month! We're working on the non-ga version of this, which will including purchasing extra name changes for a verrryyy small fee, and GAs will be able to do that as well
Cuddle
This makes me so happy! As a player that's been here for most of those 15 years, it's such a good idea to continue to foster growth on this site. Now I'm gonna need more pet slots!!
Satamoru
As someone who spent a lot of time and money stalking the names I wanted, sometimes spending months diligently checking an inactive account, counting down the minutes to when the names I wanted would go up for grabs -- I would like to say Thank God, and Thank You. Honestly, for me it's never been about having a Unique Name, it's been about having the Name I wanted, and that's the only reason I invested so much time into stalking accounts. Now that I can get whatever name I want, anytime I want? I see myself spending twice as much money getting pet slots. Thank you so much Subeta Team, this is an amazing change I'm thrilled to see!
Keith STAFF
@Andrea Yes to all of those things! This is the first step of us investing in pets :heart:

And, we've written the code for upgrades and downgrades - we just wanted to launch the subscriptions without complications and then add them, so you'll probably see that this week
Damon
Congratulations!!! Your pet (formerly Lets Go Eevee) is now named Eevee!

I'M NOT CRYING... YOU'RE CRYING
elliott
hi! i have a question about this

from what i understand so far, you get one free name change when you have a gold account, right? does this mean you only get one name change per month no matter what? will we be able to change a name more than once a month?

this is a pretty neat change though, i've missed out some names i've wanted during clearings so it's nice to have this as an option to revisit some old names i wanted
Skrett
Oh, this is a welcome change! As someone who wanted to create their real world pets on Subeta, trying to find Subeta names similar to real world names was not easy. Thank you for this change!
Hael
Oh hey a legitimately great update! Glad to see this finally happening. I like the inclusion of legacy urls as well for those that care about having the ~ original ~. I think it's hilarious the amount of people that will quit or threaten to quit over a change that benefits the community at large.
Zay
This is awesome, I know I'm going to be changing a few of my pet's names around later for sure. Awesome job!
Andrea
I'm absolutely glad to see this happen, I think it's an amazing step in the right direction for the site!

Super glad to hear clearing pet names will no longer include pets too A+

I've had seven stages of grief over the GA renaming but a friend walked me through it (it's late and Sunday so I'm slow atm ok) so BEFORE I bounce on a subscription I have a question or two:

Will subscriptions be updated to include pet stuff at some point?

If so, if I hit go on like the $10 one (ex) and later wanna change to a different tier... is that doable?
dovahqueer
Speaking as someone who has both "desirable" names and names I had to fudge/expand to get close to what I wanted, I feel this is a positive change and the legacy name feature is a fair compromise to preserve the prestige of names for people who care about that.
Metaphor
I'm honestly so excited! I will kind of miss having the only Cloud, Flame, or whatever, but I think the benefits of this new system totally outweighs the specialness factor. It's just better for Subeta as a whole. There are so many pet ideas I have and TCs I want to build. I am really excited to see how this shapes our pet community.

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