Silent Wolf Kennelz (the origins of CS)

Although Chicken Smoothie is now a largely popular adoptable site, it wasn't always this way. There are no companies or businesses behind the site; just a tale of a grassroots-grown community, and the hard work of volunteers. It's a unique story that started from an unlikely place.

The Petz Community

In 2003 or 2004, Tess created a website called Silent Wolf Kennelz in order to host some of the custom skins she and some of her friends were making for a game series called Petz (Catz and Dogz). Petz is a series of PC games which were first released in 1995; the last version supported by Silent Wolf Kennelz being Petz 5 which was produced in 2002. During the time period the site first was created, a large community formed around the idea of altering their Petz files to create new breeds for their dogs and cats in the game. They did this through a method called "hexing," and Silent Wolf Kennelz soon became a hub for these pioneers in the art of modding. Tess and the (then) co-owner of the site would create adoptables as well as toys for people to use in their games.

Around 2006 and 2007, both Tess and the other co-owner of the site began to loose interest in the Petz game, and slowly the site became less active. The co-owner eventually retired from her responsibility, leaving Tess the sole administrator (then often called webmaster) to the domain. Even with a fading interest in the game, Tess still desired to keep her site up and running, keeping the creations of the Petz community hosted online, and allowing those who frequented the site to keep their platform for communication.

Early Adoptables

I was hosting [Silent Wolf Kennelz] on the chickensmoothie.com domain name even when it was called SWK because 'chickensmoothie' used to be my username, and after a while I just named the site after the domain so I could get rid of the SWK title (it embarrassed me) this is why the site's name has nothing to do with the content. - Tess

By 2008, the Petz games were getting quite old, although there community was still healthy. Even so, Tess wished to try out something new on her site. The trouble was that the Silent Wolf Kennelz domain was hosted by a free service, and Tess was having a lot of issues with stability. Eventually she decided to purchase her own domain, so she could continue exploring the world of web development. Thus, Silent Wolf Kennelz was transferred to the new domain of ChickenSmoothie.com in March of 2008, although its old name was still used on the site in most instances. Even if she was no longer very interested in the video game Petz, on which the site had originally been centered , Tess still liked the concept of adoptables. So, she created the first drawing for what we've come to recognize as Chicken Smoothie's pets today. There wasn't any way to store pets onto accounts, and in fact the pets were not even growable originally. People who passed by the page were simply invited to take the URL of the images and display them on other sites (with credit), be it on their own personal site or in their forum signature elsewhere (there were no forums on Chicken Smoothie yet). Dogs were the first species released to the site, soon followed by rats. Later on, the pets released during this period would become available again, after the creation of accounts. They can now be found in the archive under two massive litters, released as part of the 2008 advent calendar. A system which allowed pets to grow was quickly implemented, and Tess routinely released new content to the site when her busy schedule allowed. In June Silent Wolf Kennelz was officially and completely transformed into Chicken Smoothie. The old name was no longer used, and Tess decided to pursue the growing adoptable scene. Although the roots of the site would still be visible for quite a while, with the Petz assets still being featured for quite a while, Chicken Smoothie could finally being its own journey of self discovery.

The Creation of Accounts

July 2008 saw the addition of two very important things: individual member accounts, and individual pet ID numbers. Although pets could not be linked to accounts in anyway, upon adoption users could generate a stamp over their pet's image, displaying their name. The older adoptables were removed, and replaced with those that are now displayed in the archive under July 2008.

Accounts existed only for users to post on the forums at this point in time. There people could create lists of their pets in what is now the Adoptable Collections board. At this point in time, the site also had a built in chatbox that players could use to chat. The forum provided a more permanent host for messages, and quickly became a popular method of communication.

Members, both from the days of Silent Wolf Kennelz and new users alike, were pretty fond of the pet designs Tess had created. They did use the pet images for their intended purpose: as decorations in their forum signatures on other sites. Soon more and more people found the young site, interested in getting some of their own cute pets.

In September the site once again struggled with hosting issues, and Tess enlisted the help of her brother, Nick, to help keep things running smoothly. She also selected the first round of forum moderators, as the site was growing quickly and she needed the extra hands to make sure nothing too crazy happened while she couldn't get online.

In addition to stabilizing the server, Nick connected the pets to the forum accounts. Players could finally own pets! Tess and Nick helped move the July pets onto player's accounts, so people could keep their pets. They took these requests in good faith - there was no way to prove that anyone's pets had truly been adopted by themselves. With a small community, it is easier to rely on a system of trust, and it worked out ok for this instance. The pair even kept taking requests well into the next year, 2009, generously helping their very first users keep up with the community.

What's more, Nick also created a "gifting" feature, which users could use to give each other pets. This system was the predecessor to what we now know as trading, and is no longer around. However, it is still an important step in the site's evolution.

There were no adoption limits for the first few months. Players could adopt as many pets as they pleased, although generally people didn't want very many. Players weren't as concerned about completing collections. Having no adoption limits, pets were practically a free resource. Even so, some players made their own adoption centers on the forums, just for fun. Nick also created the deletion button during this period. Since there was no adoption limit, sometimes people would adopt tons of pets in an effort to get a small hoard of their favorite outcome, or create checkerboard groups. While this wasn't against the site rules, the server was very small and easily strained. In many cases players were happy to delete their excess outcomes in hopes of lightening the server's load.

The Pound

Now that users could adopt pets straight onto an account, and there was no adoption limit, there began to be a lot of pets on the site! Not all of them were wanted, but not everyone wanted to delete their pets. The old gifting system did not require the person receiving the gift to accept - the pet was just automatically sent to them. As such, people who no longer wanted their pets would just send them to Tess, which she wasn't terribly fond of. Additionally, with Chicken Smoothie's rising popularity, there were many users who hadn't been around to adopt the first litter with unique pet IDs. As such, come October 2008, Tess and Nick created a solution: they opened up the very first iteration of the pound!

The pound was, originally, just a forum thread and Tess and Nick would manually use to adopt out pets by user request. However, this method soon proved overwhelming, as CS was growing rapidly. It wasn't long before Nick created a system which automated the pound. However, under this method, pets were not displayed randomly. Rather, users could rush the pound as soon as it opened, and rush to the last page with the oldest (and presumably rarest) pets. This caused horrific levels of lag on the site, and put users with poor internet connections at a disadvantage.

Fortunately this system would see another improvement in 2009, creating the randomized and automated system we know to exist today on the site.

Adoption Limits

By November 2008, the site was really starting to pick up momentum. For the monthly adoptables, Tess released a batch of dogs, commonly referred to as the "Card Dog" litter. The four dogs designed after the suits in a deck of card, were the more common of the outcomes, but there was one very exceptional outcome, the Joker, which had an ever so slight chance of being adopted.

With the lack of an adoption limit, and a love for the joker outcome, one user adopted over 10,000 card dogs in a quest for a collection of jokers.

When Tess and Nick noticed how many pets the user had accumulated in such a short time, they realized that adoption limits were deeply needed, and promptly introduced them to the site. Chicken Smoothie was no longer just an image host, it was a game people began to love, and would devote hours of their time to.

The user who had amassed that epic collection later decided to give out their card dogs in an adoption center, an act which was very kind of them.

Not only were limits introduced, but so was the modern trading system! Now players could add pets to both sides of the deal, and no longer would they have to rely purely on trust.

The Final Foundations

Over the next year or so, updates continued to shape Chicken Smoothie toward what we know it to be today. The first items were released as part of the 2008 advent calendar, followed by many more to come in the new year, 2009. Players could dress up their pets.

The Oekaki was also integrated into the site during this period. The first version of Chibipaint brought a fun addition to the community, allowing users to express themselves artistically. Over the years the the system would be improved upon by Nick, bringing more powerful tools to the artists of Chicken Smoothie.

Chicken Smoothie also made the leap to become more professional, adding the in-site currency, Chicken Dollars (C$). C$ could be bought with real currency, and the fund were used to keep the server up and running. This also entailed the release of the first store pets on the site, which users could purchase with their C$.

Finally, in October 2009, rarity tags were added to the pets. They were listed as "Very Common" to "OMG So Rare" (OMGSC would be added years later), and helped allow trading to flourish on the site. Although countless changes have gone into the site since then to bring the site to where it is today, the foundation had been set. Organically, somehow Chicken Smoothie had risen from Silent Wolf Kennelz, bringing a simple fan site for an unrelated game to a popular site in the field of virtual adoptable pets.

Trivia

For Chicken Smoothie’s 11th Birthday, an item of the old Silent Wolf Kennelz adoption stamp was released, with a few minor edits to make it appear older and worn. The site's birthday has always been used to reflect on the long way the site has come, so this was a nice tribute to the very roots of the site, often forgotten now.