How to Implement Shinies

I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure what Staff has in mind for shinies. They've made the obvious comments that they'd be allowed eventually. This is a good sign, because it means they want to have a steady flow of content to keep us all interested in roleplaying together.

But I just want to ask that we keep in mind that, if we're going to add shinies at a later date, we should allow members to buy a shiny/recolor for pre-existing pokemon. I'm not saying they shouldn't spawn in the wild, but I'm saying we should have the option to pay our way to shinies.

Now I know this seems unhealthy, we would all be grinding to pay for shinies. But honestly, imagine if everyone got a shiny of a pokemon they already had, and then had to grind it all the way to their other pokemon's levels? It would be even worse in terms of grinding going on.

But also it's a way to help deplete some of the massive wallets some of our members are boasting. Obviously we want anyone to have access to these shinies, and it's not quite fair to make them inaccessible based on wallet depth, but I think there would be a multi-step system to help make sure everyone can get shinies.

1.) Have shiny recolor as an item in the Shop. (It could be expensive, but shouldn't break a bank per pokemon. Just enough to put a serious dent. 20 PD might be reasonable.)

2.) Have them spawn in a person's wild threads at a very random rate.

3.) Have the option to buy a 'rare pokemon bait' or lure, which would basically allow someone to buy an item to attract shiny pokemon in their wild thread. It would be guaranteed for at least one shiny to show up, but everything about them would be random. Cost could be about 5~10 PD I'd say.

4.) If we're going to allow shinies, why not allow personal color changes? It would be taking us a few steps away from the anime, but honestly, there are some pokemon whose shinies I just can't stomach. But I would still love to have my own personal skin for them. These would obviously be required to have a sprite made for them, so they would be few and far between, but if someone could make them that'd be sweet. (If somebody would actually recolor sprites really well, you could make these personal skins some really, really fancy event rewards. Especially for Coordinators, I suppose. And Rangers could have their pokemon recolored to blend in with certain environments better. I love this idea the most but I realize the complications involved.)

5.) Maybe allow non-rare starters to be shiny, perhaps at the cost of an egg move.

So yeah, I've been really hoping to get some discussion on shinies. I was never able to collect any in the games beyond a Shiny Gyarados, and honestly I would love to have shinies. They're honestly in league with rares, if you ask me, in that I would almost rather have shinies of certain non-rares than rares themselves. It would help some members feel less overwhelmed by someone's rare collection to whip out a shiny collection.

This is just my thoughts on the matter, I don't think I have much else to say. I just wanted to express my feelings around shinies and hopefully get a gist of how everyone else feels towards them. Hopefully we're all on the same page but, eh, diversity is the spice of life.

Also I hope nobody takes this as a "I want shinies and I want them NOW!" sort of deal. Like I've said above, I really am impressed they've managed to keep them off the site for now. I bet the temptation to have a shiny or two at start really appealed to some people. I'm glad they showed restraint enough to think ahead for the sake of calamity!

Thanks for reading!<3