Oh, I like the idea of being a Rancher (which is why I signed up for it
) and I definitely like the idea of being able to have as many pets/creatu as I want - at least I like it from a selfish perspective, it does seem somewhat unfair to the other classes that they can only have two(?)... I'm guessing this is probably the real reason why, when you look at each planet's stats, Rancher seems universally to be by
far the most popular choice out of the classes. (It might be nice if, in the future, the number of creatu you could adopt depended on, say, your proficiency at your class - this being an indication of how many you could support, or had need for.)
However I'm just not seeing at the moment why most people would choose to spend money on a creatu from a Rancher rather than hatching their own egg. My plan is to spend some time actually
training the creatu I've hatched, before I try to sell them - which I thought was the point; it's logical that someone might want to buy a ready-trained pet, but from clicking randomly around the Rancher shops, I do get the impression that the majority of people simply hatch the eggs and then shove the creatu straight into their shop. Which seems to rather defeat the purpose of being a Rancher. Get an egg free/cheap and be allowed to customise your pet (name, sex, personality) as you like; or, pay money for a pet of someone else's design? I know which I'd be more likely to go for. On the other hand, as so many people do it, that presumably means it
works for some reason I've not yet fathomed; this however makes me wonder if spending the time (and money, for food/healing) training up the creatu I've hatched is going to be wasted; perhaps nobody will be prepared to pay for a more expensive pet, training or no, when they can get a cheap newly-hatched one.
I know I've seen a couple of Rancher shops that are overflowing with creatu that have lovely real word names, and I suppose this is one way of going about it. I can't quite bring myself to do this though (I try to give my hatchlings nice names, but they're generally ones I've made up myself or that I feel aren't too obvious) - I'd feel was potentially depriving someone of their dream name for a pet. Because the odds of them finding (and if they're new, possibly of them being able to afford) any specific creatu in the shops would be slim, not least since the only way I've found to search Rancher shops is by species, rather than by any other attributes (name, gender, stats).
...But, I've only been on the site two days so I assume I'll come to understand it better in time.
I do like the whole idea of the class system, it was possibly the main thing that drew me to the site. Out of Merchant/Rancher, I think Merchant is also probably the better choice for people with more time on their hands (like myself), 'cause (so far as I know...?) you can restock all day long if you like, whereas I'd need literally about a hundred pets before I ran out of the time to train them all every day. I haven't yet sussed the [dis]advantages of being Society/Troupe (admittedly I've not been trying to) - is it even possible to join Troupe at the moment? I do know only Society can dig for artefacts in the caves up by Relcore market, but beyond that...
I'm interested to see what new classes will be developed and perhaps I will change class at some distant future point. I have one friend who's more or less agreed to sign up if/when a fighter-style class is added ("...and in the mean time, you can train up a nice strong pet to sell me").
(...I didn't mean to write that much and it's probably all rubbish...)