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Post by Reflet on May 24, 2023 0:53:43 GMT -5
Hi all! I'm currently planning a major overhaul to GenePoolz, and I'd like to hear from the community what level of gene editing is acceptable.
Please let me know what you think: Google Forms
GenePoolz 3 will allow easy viewing of pets’ ENTIRE genomes — this includes their looks, personality traits, and preferences. However, this begs the question -- what should users be allowed to edit? Some considerations: - There is not, and never will be, a surefire way to distinguish modified from unmodified genes. Safeguards are absolutely possible, but a determined individual could circumvent them if they were so inclined.
- Currently, anyone armed with the .pet file documentation, a hex editor, and PetzByte can edit whatever genes they want. It really is a trivial task for someone who's comfortable navigating files in a hex editor. GenePoolz 3 could potentially make that power accessible to absolutely anyone with even a shred of motivation.
- As with anything in life, there will be genuine use cases (such as eliminating that random orange eyelid mutation from an otherwise perfect line) as well as dishonesty. Then again, I recently discovered some pets I’d bought on PUGS had been painted to match prettier, recessive color combinations that the current version of GenePoolz undoubtedly made their breeders aware of, so…
Feel free to have a discussion/elaborate on your response in this thread!
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Post by CatCreature on May 24, 2023 21:57:03 GMT -5
I feel like, with the right amount of motivation, people are going to do things however they want. It seems like if there's not an easy way, they'll find a way on their own sooner or later. Not trying to say anything bad, just that keeping some things withheld would only be temporary, or slowing people down, I think, but wouldn't really protect much of anything. I think it would be great to be able to allow any of these changes! I see people -all the time- asking for easier ways to tweak personality in particular (since we know looks can be done, but personality is a whole other ordeal) and I think some people would love being able to fix or tweak their lines they worked so hard on.
There may be room for dishonesty, whether intentional or even accidental (if someone forgot they tweaked things, and didn't mention it) but...I kinda feel like we're already getting that now. xD I've bought some 'purebred' Petz who were very obviously not purebred, or Petz whose eyelids were hexed and I didn't realize that before-hand. (I prefer them not to be, and will sometimes even see about fixing them -back- to their original colors.) So I don't think it would make much difference if little things like that are already happening, and you already don't fully know what kind of pet you're getting when you adopt from people.
But at the end of the day, maybe I'm not one to talk. What I like best about my Petz is my Petz themselves. I don't really care where they came from, how they were made, what's in their lines, or whatever. It sounds cheesy but I just love my little pixel buddies the way they are, and I just adopt for the Petz themselves, not what they give me. So for people looking for very legit breeding stock, or pure, unhexed/unaltered lines entirely...it may be an entirely different matter.
But I guess my point is...if we already can't tell, what difference does it really make? xD I'm more excited to see what could be done with this kind of thing than anything...and I'll be left wondering and wishing if we never get to find out, ahh! I'm mostly interested in altering personalities. I'm unsure exactly how all of this would work, but I have some Petz based off characters or personal pets that have passed on...I would -love- to be able to tweak personalities to match them more, or to perhaps tweak their favorite foods! (I have a few characters that are big on all kinds of food, yet their Petz forms are MASSIVELY picky eaters, for example, and that makes me crazy xDD) So I hope whatever is voted in...the personality tweaks makes the cut, because that's what I'm absolutely dying to play with!! I can't currently figure it out on my own. x'DD
Anyway I ramble, but that's kind of how I see it. xD I voted to let Everything be tweak-able :X
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Post by Alex@Marvel on May 25, 2023 0:34:50 GMT -5
I don't really have an opinion on what should be withheld, partially because I'm curious to see how this ends up looking in the end. I like the idea of it being a more user friendly option, so at the moment it's a curiosity and intrigue more than anything else for me.
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nickystar
Petz Petter
Professional Illustrator and Animator
Posts: 44
Petz Versions: 5
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Post by nickystar on May 25, 2023 3:30:36 GMT -5
I understand the hesitation in wanting to make editing like this easier for people with bad intentions, but I think it would be really fun to be able to mess with my personal pet files in such an advanced way with some form of ease. And like CatCreature said, those with enough motivation will find a way regardless of our intervention or assistance. That being said, I can't wait to see GenePoolz 3 and what you've done with it!
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Post by Palecat5 on May 25, 2023 10:05:27 GMT -5
I'm all about this. If we could be able to edit their genomes that would be amazing! In the end people will find a way either way. Besides they're just pixels and it shouldn't matter if they were edited or not. I have so many pets I've had to edit to make them move right, it wouldn't make a difference if their genomes were edited too.
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Post by KeyGlyph on May 27, 2023 5:35:35 GMT -5
Really well said, CatCreature . This community already runs on taking everyone at their word on everything from honoring prefixes all the way to trusting the return of actual .pet files after playdates. I imagine that over time, folks who care deeply about unedited petz will get a feel for who is trustworthy and who is not, and then decide what level of certainty is necessary for them in whatever it is they're doing at the time. To be honest though, it's hard for me to imagine this community getting deeply offended or upset over discovering someone lied about tweaking or not tweaking a file. We seem ridiculously chill. Putting the concerns about dishonesty aside for a second, the core question of whether or not safeguards should exist specifically due to the ease of editing .pet files is making me think of the strict feelings some folks have about shiny pokemon. In certain circles there's a fixation on the idea of "legitimate" shinies, where legitimacy is almost always defined by how difficult the process of obtaining the pokemon in question was. Basically, folks have really strong opinions about what ways are "the right ways" for collecting shinies -- and it's this sort of right-way/wrong-way thinking that seems really inapplicable to the Petz community to me. I don't think the existence of a fantastic editing tool will make anyone here feel like the incredible talent of hexers or selective breeders is being undermined. We're not gonna be like, "Ugh, this is a BOX CAKE?? It's not a real cake unless you make it from scratch, so despite how delicious this is, I now deem it a terrible failure, and also I'm JUDGING you on this, as well as the food company." We're just gonna think the cake is cool. We're going to be thrilled for the person who made the cake, too! I actually think a tool that makes all this stuff easier to do is going to be awesome -- so awesome it's worth celebrating. Think of all the new things we're going to figure out from having this. Think of how many more folks will get into hexing, breeding, or just straight-up playing Petz games in general because of this tool. If it had existed when I was a teen, I would have gotten into hexing, no doubt! But it didn't, and I got overwhelmed quickly, and just stopped. tl;dr: Give everyone the power. Unleash it with your brilliance, Reflet. So hyped for GenePoolz 3.
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Post by Reflet on Jun 4, 2023 17:56:00 GMT -5
Out of 93 responses, an overwhelming majority of 82 respondents (88.2%) voted in favor of FULL EDITING CAPABILITIES. The people have spoken! GenePoolz 3 will feature a full-fledged editing mode for ALL chromosomes/descriptors in a pet's genome.
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Post by Palecat5 on Jun 4, 2023 18:01:20 GMT -5
You are so amazing!
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Post by CatCreature on Jun 4, 2023 20:40:00 GMT -5
Out of 93 responses, an overwhelming majority of 82 respondents (88.2%) voted in favor of FULL EDITING CAPABILITIES. The people have spoken! GenePoolz 3 will feature a full-fledged editing mode for ALL chromosomes/descriptors in a pet's genome. AHHH WOW!! I was honestly really worried that we wouldn't get that...I figured if we did, it would be a very close tie to one of the other answers...I didn't expect it to be that massively outweighed!! I'm so excited!! Definitely keep us posted, and let us know when it's ready to try out!!
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