Address the pound lag + C$ sales transparency

[softpaw]

Huge support !

I can't wait for the promised Pound update, and hope it's partially about the lagging. You can't prevent hundreds of people from logging in right before the pound goes live, but I assume there could be a way to prevent pages from taking ages to load, especially once you clicked a pet (only to get a message it's already adopted).

As for C$, transparency would be nice but it's really not the norm for user-based websites. I always assume it's to pay for the server and some of the people

There must be some sort of programs people are using to get the pets from the pound instantly. I get in the very second the pound opens with no lag and click "ADOPT" on the first pet before I can even see what the pet is and somehow it will already be taken by someone else...

I didn't take a look at the pound page structure, but if every pet is displayed in a "box", and considering the oldest pets are generally top row, writing a program to automatically fetch the first box when the pound is open is not too far fetched. Especially since doing that programmatically, you could avoid lagging by simply fetching the results of the page without waiting for the graphics to load.

I don't think too many people would use that though.
Most are probably just spamming F5 + clicking on where the first pet would be.

I can confirm I spam f5 to refresh the pound - I actually remapped a button on my mouse to F5 refresh to make it even faster (I initially did this for Neopets restocking but it comes in handy here too)- I imagine hundreds of people refreshing the page at once makes pound lag inevitable... it is a bid odd since I don't remember it ever being this bad when there were easily 2/3x more active users on the site a decade ago. I am also really hoping whatever new pound changes are coming help improve the situation!

[bark]

Bumping this up ^

[ferretjuice]

been wondering about the ‘pound update’ they announced was coming soon, as we have heard anything since

[Darni]

-snip- from page 1 original

You bring up some good points. I thought the "Pound update" was them making c$ pets happen more often. Every "update" is very vague like when the hacking incident happened last year and we had basically no communication for 3+ months even though TONS of forums were going up about them. I hope with this discussion about asking for them to explain in a bit more detail about updates and stuff that they will finally listen. I personally love Flight Rising, Neopets, and other forum games that sneak peek or explain what the next update will be. I really wish we had more transparency about everything especially since I only joined a year ago and that's been a huge thing being talked about.

[~sekii♥rei~]

Support. It has been getting frustrating having absolutely zero communication happening for anything. Just very vague "we have updates coming soon!" especially the one today... and then to hear "in the next few months". Without any indication of what it's about. Where is the funding going, where is a public roadmap of plans? There is just 0 transparency about anything, and it turns me away from wanting to keep playing. I'd want to play more if there was something to look forward to - even some events we have no idea when they are starting until a week in advance, minus ones that always start on specific days (advent, dec 18th, etc.)

I suggest a roadmap for website plans - be upfront with your users about what is going on, what you have in mind - then you can get feedback, get people excited for future updates to the site, even if it isn't about adopts. Explain what is happening - not just vague "pound update". Will it be lag reduction? A total overhaul, or minor improvements? Give details. Give dates. It is exhausting for users to hear "update possibly in the next few months" and then total silence, and then sometimes the update never even happens!!

If development and/or funding is falling behind due to the need to push out so many new adopts - maybe lessen the amount of monthly pets there are? I personally am of the belief that not every species needs a new design every single month, let alone several different releases. I could be wrong here, but coming up with that many designs is hard every month + paying the artists I am sure costs a ton(would also like transparency here too? but I get it if not.) but it's just a thought.

Lots of users buy C$ - we know this, the market is overinflated with C$. There are users that buy hundreds of the store pets every month, which is a lot of C$ spent even if they weren't the ones to buy it, someone was.

Anyways sorry for the disorganized ramble lol. Just wanted to share my thoughts since I agree a lot with this thread and have been drifting interest since the lack of communication, updates, , involvement, and transparency from site owners is very disheartening. It didn't used to be this way.

[cheetahss]

posting to support! i don't have much to add as what I would say has basically been said aside from the rest of this.


the main thing I will add is my thoughts as a professional in the information technology field. while it's obvious that CS is on a pretty okay server, considering (as of the time I'm posting this) there are about 800 folks online and cs isn't crashing and burning. like someone else said though, not all 800 of us are the same exact page on chicken smoothie.

one thing we have to consider is not just the server, but also whatever bandwidth cs admins pay for. it makes sense that the pound will lag when that bandwidth is being significantly overclocked, and is really the only reasonable explanation as to why it lags. the only solution i can think of is some kind of bandwidth / server upgrade.

[♥ mizu]

support!

[Sofia]

Support. It has been getting frustrating having absolutely zero communication happening for anything. Just very vague "we have updates coming soon!" especially the one today... and then to hear "in the next few months". Without any indication of what it's about. Where is the funding going, where is a public roadmap of plans? There is just 0 transparency about anything, and it turns me away from wanting to keep playing. I'd want to play more if there was something to look forward to - even some events we have no idea when they are starting until a week in advance, minus ones that always start on specific days (advent, dec 18th, etc.

This. Another interesting thing to note is that for most businesses in a number of countries, their tax returns are public information yet I haven't been able to find anything. I wholeheartedly avoid spending my money on here and instead spend it at Flight Rising and cross-trade the gems for C$ on here. In the years I've been here, the site hasn't changed much AT ALL, which is fine tbh. But one thing is keeping it as it is with proper lag control and upkeep, and another is stretching out any site fixes MONTHS into the future. I would really like to know why this is?

I could be wrong here, but coming up with that many designs is hard every month + paying the artists I am sure costs a ton(would also like transparency here too?

Do artists get paid? If so, how much of their revenue goes into paying them? How much revenue do they have left over to go into the actual quality?

[winx]

I could be wrong here, but coming up with that many designs is hard every month + paying the artists I am sure costs a ton(would also like transparency here too?

Do artists get paid? If so, how much of their revenue goes into paying them? How much revenue do they have left over to go into the actual quality?

Simon has answered the question on staff compensation here: Forum/viewtopic.php?f=119&t=4730606&start=20#p138384489

I will quote them both for more visibility.

To clear up any misconceptions, CS artist is a volunteer position to allow artists freedom to create when they are able/want to. There is no regular salary/wage, and therefore the position is considered unpaid. Artists receive compensation in C$ when their free pets and items are released. Store pets and items are subject to additional agreements and compensation.

Chicken Smoothie isn't a large profit driven company, and our volunteer staff aren't employees. We are a group of individuals with a shared passion for art/adoptables/etc. who take time out of our every days lives to help create content and run this website. We historically didn't disclose information about C$ compensation because we didn't want that to be the focus of applications (as it is site currency, we still consider this a volunteer position). Non-admin staff are not at liberty to discuss details of compensation, so their answers may have appeared vague. All information about a particular CS role is shared with staff when they are hired.

To further clarify, store pets and item sets are fairly compensated beyond C$.

[Seasonal]

I could be wrong here, but coming up with that many designs is hard every month + paying the artists I am sure costs a ton(would also like transparency here too?

Do artists get paid? If so, how much of their revenue goes into paying them? How much revenue do they have left over to go into the actual quality?

CS artists are volunteers, so the amount of pets they create has no effect on any back-end development that Nick is doing.