WHY PEOPLE ARE QUITTING CS- A Discussion

[TheMythosCollection]

So I've been looking at this site since about 2021 (my partner used to play this gave very heavily) and have seen and heard a lot over the past couple years. When I decided to actually join I noticed just how harsh things we're. I think a good tribute to some people quitting is the lack of acessability with some people's trade rules or posts.
Things often are in huge bulks of text in hard to read fonts or pictures, sometimes they're colored in a way that makes it hard to read.

Another thing that people have been mentioning is the sometimes upright rude staff members. I honestly fear seeing staff in posts and outright avoid trading with them. I've gotten many warnings about signatures I've used in the past, I mentioned this in a reply but one was the "I hate chicken smoothie" blinkie that was tagged as hate speech. I'll admit when I read what the mod said I was in awe, I know we're protecting a children's site here but hate speech?? Really?? There are too many better examples of what hate speech actually is compared to a light hearted "I dislike where this site is going" message.

I try my best to avoid threads like these because usually right after a good post explaining things that have been wrong for ages theres a staff member saying that there's no way to change that or that their opions are invalid. I remember seeing a thread waaayyy back that was talking about how there should be an option to cencor snakes and spiders if you're sensitive to seeing them, I remember they even gave exact ideas on how to code something like that and I vidily remember a staff member saying that it would be impossible and that people are basically just gonna have to deal with it.

I could go on and on about this stuff and offline I honestly do, my partner has had to hear months worth of complaints about members being greedy and staff being unreasonable. I've even had a scare with my account being possibily hacked. It's not hard to see why people are quitting.

[Artemystery]

im a newbie, and the friends thing really comes into play for me. this isnt something staff can solve but ive had several rude encounters with people for just not knowing trading values, to the point where ive put it in my sig so people dont come at me (esp because i have rejection sensitive disorder and autism)
it makes me scared of even trading for freebies bc im terrified ill do smn wrong and get blacklisted and yelled at or declined with a rude message

your bio saying: "note: im a newbie and extremely stupid, sorry if i send unfair trades ^^''"
highlights another thing, these type of people make others feel stupid for not knowing a complex system of trading. i had a few people get mad at me for not understanding list pets and that just doesn't make sense, imagining a newer player encountering that irks me.

[benvyy]

also another thing that annoys me is how quickly the pound empties out, i've seen this mentioned before. if you're not there the minute it opens then the only pets left are typically less than a month old, and even then they still are taken quickly. it just sucks because the amount of people online spikes for the pound then quickly goes back down afterwards, and the pound only opens every so often so it just sucks for anyone who isn't able to have the site open for long periods of time.

[far]

Something I'm really struggling with on this site is the value of pets to C$ to USD to lists to whatever. The value gets really complex & it's really not rare to run into a dead end for weeks trying to find a certain pet for your collection. It doesn't feel like the user base is as big as it was last year at this time.

I try to open my art shop specifically to aid myself in getting some rarer pets to trade, but a specific problem I'm having is the conversion of USD to C$ to the pet itself. When I try to gauge the value of a pet to USD (to offer a fair amount of art) I use C$ to convert into USD value, but C$ is so inflated that often times I have to disagree with another player on the worth of their pet. Like they aren't wrong, they can get that amount of C$ for that pet, but I'm not willing to offer hundreds of dollars worth of art/hours of my time for that pet. It's makes it really difficult to gauge a fair amount of art for a pet. If anyone has a solution to this please lmk.

Honestly love this site/game, but it's been getting harder and harder to play recently

[Loelya]

I personally think Horror's list was a mistake and part of the reason why trading has gotten so difficult. Those new made up values make it so hard to trade for anything old. Oh and a certain player i won't name hoarding the valuable items and inflating their prices to make them unnatainable

I really have to speak up and disagree on this point, no offense meant at all, but whether or not horror's list is a "good" or "bad" thing, the values represented there are much closer to actual pet rarity and generally more realistic than they ever were in the past under the old "list." old list values rendered high demand pets at hundreds of thousands of old rares. I thing the highest demand pets on there now are like around 10,000-12,000 rares. which, yeah, still kinda nuts, but not approaching values in the millions.

[triangulum_mori]

ive been on and off this site since 2013. i quit before due to quite a few reasons, but the biggest were
- horrible trading system. i have always hated the list pet demand stuff and never understood. a vr is worth a vr and so on. why should years and "demand" matter?
- i wont name names, but some of the staff (mods?) have been VERY abusive to me and others.
- the community was lowkey toxic half the time

i know maybe these are petty reasons, but for teenage me, they were valid. and tbh, as an adult, i still feel like they are. i also agree that they need interface updates. more/better staff, maybe a slightly different site design (tho i dont mind its current one; its very nostalgic <3).
still, its just... a sad situation. i love this site dearly, and i dont want to see it gone, but if one day it crashes and burns i wouldnt be surprised.

i feel like dates make sense bc theres only like 6 diff rarities so having years matter to some people isnt the worst thing, but lists and stuff like that are suppperrrr confusing to me and a lot of others im assuming

[freepan1]

Honestly I'm scared to trade any of my older pets, not because I'm scared I won't have enough for MA or Non trades but because I'm scared once they're gone I'm not getting them back, or at least not without a lot more work. The fairness I got them before was already difficult not being a much older players and having a few breaks but now it feels impossible to achieve again.

Granted, I take long breaks on this website, some lasting years, but when I first got back online in 2020/2021 after being inactive for years, I had a lot of people take advantage of my lack of knowledge in my older pets. Apparently a bunch of them were friends and helped eachother out, I later found out in discord, and were not honest with me. Lost a good handful of older pets that way. I wish CS would have more rereleases to help with that. So many returning players get taken advantage of, and it’s unfortunate.

I am so sorry this happened to you

[parx]

I joined in 2008 and have been active/unactive on and off through the years.

I think the saddest thing is all the old players that will never log on again. On my friends list I have so many people who have these huge collections of pets (rares+) and the collection is just sitting there. It hasn't been active in years, like 10+ years.

I think if those pets were introduced into the pound system that a lot of players would have a lucky break with an old rare. I know it may seem unfair, but honestly these players will never log on again.

Idk, just my thoughts as I wish the people I used to play with were still here. But they're not

while i do see how some ppl would consider it unfair to just delete old accounts, i think it makes sense. maybe an account would have to be completely inactive for a certain amount of time (5+ or even 10+ years) before the acc is removed and the pets sent to the pound. for a comparison, as a child my pet site of choice was webkinz. u had to pay money (buy a plush) just to join, but if u didn't adopt a new pet within a year, ur account would be deleted. they've since changed this ofc after the addition of deluxe and free accounts, but i think cs doing something like this with much more leeway wouldn't be a bad idea and would definitely be a lot less insane with the site being free to play LOL.

[melti]

just watching this thread. ive only been here for a couple months at most, so of course i dont know how CS used to be years back, but this honestly makes me upset.

it seems like most players only come online for events. before this event, there were maybe 600? people (at max) online each day. causing myself to see the same exact trade forums, art shops, etc. everyday. i love this game, i really do, but i feel like its already crumbling.

as people are saying, the trading economy is a complete mess. also with inflation, inflation that doesnt make sense. it is incredibly hard to get high value pets/pick yourself off the ground when you start. i, myself, wouldnt even be where i am if it wasnt for my friend and doing art for pets. then again, majority of people try and lowball you for your work, its insane.

lots of people quit from just the offsite breach, which was heartbreaking to sit there and watch as multiple quitting posts popped up every now and then. i love this site, but all of this makes me honestly upset and i hope things, and people, can get better.

[lana del rey ♡]

also another thing that annoys me is how quickly the pound empties out, i've seen this mentioned before. if you're not there the minute it opens then the only pets left are typically less than a month old, and even then they still are taken quickly. it just sucks because the amount of people online spikes for the pound then quickly goes back down afterwards, and the pound only opens every so often so it just sucks for anyone who isn't able to have the site open for long periods of time.

Exactly! I hate having to wait 10 hours which means I'd have to stay up all the way until 9am which, Im not going to do. Only for it to be open for a minute or two whenever I'm available since every decent pet is taken