WHY PEOPLE ARE QUITTING CS- A Discussion

[blues clues]

^^ i only want this site to prosper. i joined cs when i was still a kid and here i am still playing lol,,

cs means a lot to me and i just wish the community was heard more!!

[trickyLA]

This thread is moving so fast, tried to keep up reading but only got 10 pages in before deciding to just hop on. Hey! I'm a 2015 player, joined for a friend and got a few friends on as well but most of them don't really play either. I took an unplanned hiatus in 2018 when I forgot about the site and came back at like the end of 2022? I don't bother trying to trade anymore, I just try to fill my collection as best I can from kind users who run adoption centers or by taking pets off of quitting players hands.

The thing is, I've been doing that since I joined the site trying to fill my collection so that I could start separating my doubles and work on trading for some especially rare pets I've had my eye on.

That is never going to happen as far as I can tell. The longer it takes, the more rare the pets become and unless I want to memorize pet values and become super cutthroat about it (spitting in the face of all those users who really helped me getting started and beyond) there's just no way I'll have the pets to trade. Maybe if I didn't care about having a complete collection it would be easier, but lol.

I have bought C$ in the past when I feel like I can, but I've never felt justified to buy multiple full sets of store pets for trading. Anyway, just thought I'd throw my perspective in the mix. :>

[triangulum_mori]

also i feel like there should be a bit more ninja and scam moderation..?
i have no hard proof this was a scam, but once i was contacted for a commission of someone offering one of my dreamies, the s'more
i said i would be willing to do a half to fullbody for it since its just one pet, omgsr dreamie or not
to which they replied cancelling saying that someone else had offered them multiple pieces for it
and i just dont know, i feel like most artists wouldnt undercut themselves like that, that's hardly a payment for likely days of work
it feels like they were trying to bait me into undercutting myself further

I'm not discounting your experience at all because that sounds awful and I'm sorry you got undermined like that. but it is true that people do often offer multiple pieces of art in exchange for very high-value pets, and it's actually a bit better now than it used to be. ^^' I never saw this happen in person, but I used to hear about this phenomena where people would offer to be an "art slave" for x amount of time in exchange for extremely high-value pets. sounded like a nightmare.

oh my god thats awful
but i feel a little bit comforted knowing that it at least was likely not a scammer, but its still kinda bad that someone was underselling themselves like that

[Syracard]

I disagree slightly but not about the sentiments behind this! just that the very low maintenance aspect of CS is something that I think is a vital part of the experience here; a lot of people who have jobs, families, etc still come back and log in just about every month because the participation costs tend to be so low.

if more activities were created I think they'd do best being things that only add personal flavor to the site, rather than require more account maintenance. I do like the idea of a live chat room, that'd be pretty cool, and would purely be a social thing rather than a game thing. another suggestion I've heard before that I really like is for staff to create a little "game room" or "arcade" where they can post the little minigames they've created for events (like "feed the camper," or that snake game from the internet event). that way there would be cute, CS-customized games on-site to play and people could do things like chat about highscores, without impacting the playability of other areas of the site.

I agree with the sentiment that low-maintenence is very appealing, because I have so little free time anymore and I've started many other games and just...quit...because the pressure to log on every day is so stressful that I get overwhelmed and then if I miss a day/days and lose out majorly because of it, I just stop...it's not worth it. I literally just started PokeFarm last month or so and I'm already getting burnt out on getting daily clicks in...a lot of pet sites, and "casual" games promote a "do you dailies" lifestyle, and I can barely do my "dailies" in real life successfully so...

The arcade idea is great though I would especially love something like that right now when I'm trying to hang out and just wait for new tokens to spawn >.<

[Artemystery]

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

this!!!! the amount of accounts i come across that are so wealthy but just dead is crazy. I think there should be a reasonable time limit (10 years or so) and if there is no activity the pets should be put in the pound. I dont think the dec 18 system takes into account the pets that are sitting in ppls accounts never to be used again. so things are just getting even rarer as years pass by when ppl quit.

i dont think the solution should fall on inactive users, theres other ways to implement changes without deleting peoples acc.

[melti]

I really hope this thread doesn't get locked. The feedback on here could exponentially help if the admins/coders take a look and see what could happen.

So in all fairness to CS, most trading based games have experienced something like this. Looking at you Animal Jam. So I think if it was more than a trade based game and they had some minigames that would change out esch month, it would really help the traffic flow of people online.

A fun thing could be monthly scavenger hunts, a few users gets a starting clue to search around the site. They find another clue and post it, and so on until the mystery is solved. A reward at the end could happen but the interaction between users could be the reward in itself.

that sounds like an adorable idea! and maybe, daily spins to get items/pets and maybe a slim chance at a rare/list pet sounds intriguing? and yes, i agree that mostly every popular trading game has inflation, regardless, i hope theres something to fix it. seeing most pets are hard to get unless you are super dedicated/dedicate years of your life for one valuable pet.

[Mournlore]

been here since 2010 and i think the biggest issue is the way cs users have created a fake economy and blown it out of proportion as compared to back then. i don't expect it to change but watching my girlfriend try to navigate it (even horrors version) makes me realize how bizarrely complicated understanding the rares list is. they often talk about how they never expect to achieve their dream pets and i remember it was so much less cutthroat back in 2010. people were more lenient on rarities, not counting every single pet down to the exact amount for 'fairness'.

i worked HARD getting all Those store pets and after that i was totally burnt out. economy is convoluted, people see it less as a fun trading game and more as a 'have all the rares and be cs wealthy' game, and lots of users are kinda mean for no reason

i love this site and love the pets, events, and sharing a hobby with my gf but i will 100% attest that the user base is drastically different and a lot more focused on rarity math than making friends and helping collections.

THIS!! YES!! I joined in 2014 and even then the community was pretty open, accepting, and lenient. Not it feels like a haggling market. I came back on after two years of hiatus during college and was slapped in 2019 by how the nature of the site (or users) had changed. I feel better knowing others think the same.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Deciding to share as well on why I quit long ago.

1 reason I quit is because I also have dealt with rude people. Unfortunately I dont remember my experience probably because I wanted to forget about it in the first place because it mustve been really bad 😭 I do know someone was rude to me in dms once and I have my pms closed ever since. Ever since those experiences ive been too afraid to send trades to people and only like when people send trades to me. I know only some basics about values. Majorly just ask for advice in a cs discord server (Lovely people <3).

I only send trades to people a little, and even when I do im still afraid of a potential angry/rude message because I wasnt fair and didnt know that I was being unfair.

2nd reason was I was too obsessed and stressing about trading that it wasnt good for my mental health. I got burnt out.

3rd reason is friends stopped playing out of losing interest and I missed giving them gifts and I struggle with socializing so there probably would be no way of me making new friends. Im not too well at it and still working on it.

Im now playing again because I miss the events, joined a cs discord server that I enjoy so much the people are so sweet and the Owner is awesome. They make me love playing cs and I find myself enjoying cs again and recollecting pets. Even though I dont have friends on here anymore I still enjoy peacefully dressing up my pets and getting sent trades instead of trading myself. I just wish wish there was more improvements on the site. Overall though I still like it.

I don't know what was in the 2013 water, but people were mean back then!!! Up to 2018 I was still receiving some pretty nasty messages and interactions. However, this is a site largely occupied by children. They are going to behave childishly. I personally have seen a positive change in the CS culture since covid; there are a lot of returning adult users who have mellowed out and a lot of the new kids are just a lot nicer than we were at that age. I think there will always be a few bad apples, but the majority of people on CS are very nice.

[Loelya]

The only thing that I liked that they changed is the art area like, there use to be beginers, something in between and than Intermediate and it was just of separting, just didnt feel good for the art community on here just felt very not togetherish if that make sense I really like how they did humans, anthros and so on just feels better in my opinion like we're actully a community of artist despite skill levels because everyone's different.

BIG AGREE with this one, I am seriously so relieved they changed this aspect of the site. much more welcoming.

[VanillaIce-Petz]

I've been here since January of 2009, and tbh, I've always felt like the comminuty was too overwhelming to really interact in. Maybe it's just me being autisitc, but as you can see, I have basically no posts lol. It helps a lot that I know other people here from elsewhere, but I don't use CS to talk to...anyone lol. Even talking about setting up a trade or something I do off site and not in the discord, which I also find overwhelming. I'll admit as an oldie, sometimes I fall into the usual of not saying much as to why I don;'t want to do a trade. I should put in my trading rules that if you want to know why and I didn't mention it, to just message me. I'm pretty chill, I just also sometimes don't have the mental energy to explain at that moment and don't want to leave you hanging either :X I also will readily say that trading is rough, I've learned to do it fairly well in ways that usually gets me what I want and gets the other person things they want as well, but like for example, one of my friends is sending me stuff to trade for them as they have a lot of trouble trading and they've been here as long as me.

I genuinely didn't realize a bunch of this stuff was going on, I've noticed little bits but certainly not as bad as everyone who is more involved is saying. Just...oof. I'm going to have to read through this whole thread cuz...wow. Who knew.

That being said, if anyone wants someone friendly to trade with, I have massive trade groups and while sometimes I may take a few days to get back to you, I'm usually pretty easy to work with and have loads on my wishlist that's recent even <3

~Vanilla