Welcome to Gaia! ::

Types:

butterfly wings

beetle/cicada wings

dragonfly-like things?

firefly?


Butterflies and moths:
Butterflies during the day, moths at night. Attracted to different kinds of flowers...more apt to be caught with different types of horsies?

Ideas for ways to collect butterflies:

RPG events - the obvious, events held in the thread in which RPers are awarded butterflies (with a rare one being the ultimate goal) based on quality and/or amount of RP. Rpers could also be offered individual prompts as the phases of an event progress, allowing people to have individual activities.

Non-RP thread events - scavanger hunts, art contests, charity events and other things that offer owners butterflies for completeing tasks or participatings

Random thread appearances - posting a butterfly randomly in the thread which will go to the next owner to post after the butterfly is posted.

Journal RP - people awarded butterflies for RPing their horsies in a journal/guild setting.

Flowers - the most complicated idea, but the one that makes us the most money. It adds a whole other level of complexity to the 'game play' but its kind of neat. The idea is that flowers attract butterflies. Different flowers attract different kinds more frequently, and the more flowers the more butterflies want to hang around you. The idea is that butterflies will randomly 'appear' in your journal - with a frequency based on your number of flowers and your thread activity (how much attention you pay your horsie XD) - once they appear you have 24 hours to 'catch' them. People would have to BUY flowers you see (or get them in events and such) so the more flowers you bought the more butterflies you could potentially get. The idea is kind of like "if you REALLY don't want to RP or hang around, you can BUY butterflies...SORT OF". And...you know...flowers are neat.

Things butterflies can be traded for -
-With other players for more impressive butterflies?
-For items for your horsie (tack as well as...possibly magic and accessories?)
-After a long a** time with lots of butterflies, a portrait of your fairy character that is bonded to the horsie?
-Other critters to hang out with your horsie like...beetles or fireflies or dragonflies or...uhm...mice...I'm having a hard time thinking of small things that don't eat butterflies XD

Thoughts:
The butterfly files would need to be individually numbered to prevent cheating.
Flowers/butterflies and all would need to be presented in a neat 'collectable' way with a nice certificate for display to make them something to want to show off. Maybe like a character select menu on a video game where there are greyed out boxes for characters that haven't been unlocked and question marks for new/surprise characters. Maybe with the flower gardern above that? Dunno.


I think people can have as many horsies as they want - but they'll have to bear in mind that more horsies won't really increase the number of butterflies they get - so they'll have to spread them out between more horsies (because no matter how much money you dump on flowers, you can only be SO active as just one person XD)
I think people do not HAVE to collect butterflies, or RP or anything really, its just another level of the shop. You can just get a horsie cause you think its shiny and wonder off with it if you want. That way we don't alienate the pretty pet lovers population.

Go with one of those methods some shops have of offering a potion to keep the pet a baby? They're cute little buggers as foals. XD Maybe suggest that this keeps you fairy character in a child-like form as well?