[urgent] this site really is actually dying

[Agent]

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[Kiddosneakybeaky]

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I totally see your points, cs is one game ive managed to stick to (other than a break shortly after joining) for the reason that if you cant log on your not really punished or put in a bind (other than the events, but even then its not horrible)
I dont think cs needs a daily reward system, or tasks to get rewards. it needs to keep its relaxed gameplay.

I also agree on the free rares and vrs for new players, it brings up a new temptation for cheaters to cheat and scammers to scam new players.

I dont believe people here are saying the site is boring as it is, at least that was not the reason this thread was made. I do think that in attempts to come up with ideas to help with the value of pets caused by demand and personal values, people are pulling from other games that to not appear to have major issues with game economy. BUT a lot of those games are based around a currency economy system where cs is based on a system that relies on user interaction. the economy side of cs was introduced to help keep the site funded and running. at this point im not to sure on how much income cs is still getting from users purchasing C$. but there is certainly plenty in circulation on the site.

CS absolutely needs to maintain a user interaction system, but something does need to change or be added to help change the mindset of many players that are aiding in the influx of pet values. I do believe adding more opportunities to get rarer pets will help. making them more available will make people less desperate to over pay for desired pets, eventually causing users holding these pets at high values to lower their expectations on what they can get for those pets. I do not believe it will mess up the rarities to much, and even if it does I dont think it will hurt their values like some think it would. As there are many high demand pets that are in high demand not solely because of their rarity status or age but also because of their designs. like the zodiac dogs. they were a monthly adopt but because of their design they are valued three times their monthly counter parts. and on the other end, the random chance omgsr zebras. they are a pet you can only get if blessed by the rng gods when we have our dec 18th boxes or a zebra litter. even though thats the only way to obtain them and they are an omgsr rarity, demand is poor because, well they are basic. they are your run of the mill zebras. heck there are plenty of event pets that were rare originally that were super popular because of their designs that have since dropped to uncommons and are still being valued at a rare or two.

jumping over to the store pet side of things, im not to sure if a store pet's rarity placement is going to affect its value to much, we did have some store pets step down from vr to rare, but the asking prices and offering prices haven't changed from what ive seen.

On the note of re-releasing store pets. it really depends. We really don't know how many users are still buying C$, and at that how many are buying them just to get store pets? I know I have not spent a single real world dollar on this game, but for the past few years have been able to make enough c$ to stay up to date on the new store releases AND buy some past stores from other players. I know a few years ago and back when i first joined and started looking at the art forums, seeing users discuss buying art or adopts with c$ but requesting for some time as they waited to get allowance or a paycheck so they could top off their account.

maybe before deciding on if stores should be re-released cs should have a site poll to see what the main intention is for buying C$. if a small percentage is still buying C$ to buy store pets, that I dont see to much harm in re-releasing store pets. Now I do not believe they should be free, I would want them to be a limited store purchase. like limit users on how many they may purchase, and maybe only have it available for a month or two. and only have re-releases occur once or twice a year(imo preferably once)

Coming up with things like quests give off the impression CS is boring to me.

There is already plenty of ways to earn rare pets, like the pound, events, free adoptions, art if you're skilled, or offsite trading (a good chunk of my collection came from this way). I can't really think of any other way to make rares more available? And I personally don't think they need to be, because it will hurt their values. If too many of one rare is in circulation, it's gonna be bumped down, and of course everyone would be upset, myself included.

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@ everyone who responded to my meaningful conversation comment
A good chunk of this thread is just trade-ranting, which is against the rules, or bringing up old ideas. As Bridgy1234, something like this pops up time-to-time, and it's always just the same points made over and over. I'm more than positive the CS staff knows how discontent the CS userbase is (like the Sell CS thread), this thread truly just seems like another rant thread (to me, anyways)

@ re-releasing store pets,
It is not selfish or "elitist" to want a promise to be kept. The promise of stores never being released again has been there since the beginning of store pet releases. It was part of what made me buy my stores, and yes it stinks they'll eventually become unattainable (I know I'll probably never own a skelebun), but every game has something like this. I never could understand why it's somehow wrong for CS to have such a thing. (I thought I saw an FR item go for like over $9,000+ mentioned here, and no one has a problem with that.)
I'd like to suggest recolors of older stores, or 2nd gen store pet litters! The promise is still kept, you can still own something similar to a dream store, and it's a new way to spent C$ too. I'd love a sunset-like Liontail!

And any kind of "box" where you get a random store will be a disaster anyway you paint it. Eldemore had something like this, and iirc, it was a nightmare.

Oh god no! Tbh I don’t think boxes should have stores- I personally don’t care, but a nice little gift from time to time around for example an account’s anniversary would be pretty neat imo. Mainly randomized, with limits perhaps, but still a gift nonetheless. (Common - VR, maybe? 2015 or 2016 - current date for a date range (past year might increase over time to stay somewhat fair) Event pets can be obtainable, as well as missed outcomes, but not store pets.)

Idk, hopefully that’d be a good enough compromise.

[Fritzel]

Thank you Halloween. Your gift makes me want to give even more. The more we give, the more we help the new people. I have gotten quite a few of my very special pets because people have quit and I only asked for one pet. Not 5 or 10. One pet at a time helps others get a chance. Someday I will quit this site. I have some very special pets. Maybe not the rarest but… I will give to the people that don’t ask for more than what they really want.

[shinx.]

I've never been able to successfully trade people, other than monthly swaps. I've tried, and either get ghosted or canceled. Or no interest from the other end. I've tried auctioning off a couple rares before just to see how it goes...no luck, literally not a single trade trying. I'm done trying. I would love to complete my collection. But I really hesitate in trying to do anything other than monthly swaps and see how it goes I guess.i also have never been able to successfully get trade from others especially without getting rude people or my trades rotting, ive given up on bumping my trade/c$store and i never send trades bc most people demand so much for things

monthly swaps are easy somewhat [right now im not finding success at all in getting a swap done for the pps pup, its just ignored]
Then for any other trade, usually its the luck of the wishlisted pets thats how i find i get stuff even then though i dont have a lot of available WL pets for anyone since most were from my own wishlist and in NFT folders.

You make an excellent point that I had forgotten about. Trades rotting. I’m sorry, I know other users are busy, but if they are online, what is the point of letting a trade sit for days? I just don’t understand that. If they are bumping their trading thread once every half an hour, then they should be able to respond to a trade. I find it very rude. I ALWAYS respond to trades promptly, because I hate keeping others waiting no matter the outcome.

i know this was said quite a few pages back but i also wanted to add on that trades rotting is one of the majn reasons i’ve stopped sending trades myself. i understand people having a life and being busy to respond, but seeing people continually bumping their trade threads while i’ve sent them a trade a few hours ago is kind of frustrating, especially because from what i’ve seen it’s always the people who have very sought out pets who do this. a lot of the time when i see someone bumping their thread without replying to my trade i just end up cancelling it which may be hindering me but i also feel like it would’ve led to a cancellation anyways.

i’m someone who plays mainly for the trading aspect of the game and what some of the people have said have resonated a lot with how i feel and obviously how many others feel which is quite saddening. but i do love some of the ideas made my people, like the daily rewards or mini games but i heavily doubt that’ll happen.

[Lanayru]

I'm going to preface this with a disclaimer that it's all intended to be GOOD FAITH genuine critique, I just struggle with tone and wording things. Please don't take any of this to be hostile or combative.

I agree with most points made here - the trading economy is horrible and the general userbase feels significantly less approachable than in the past. The C$ economy especially is super inflated and the store as it stands right now is not effective at removing excess currency from the circulation. However, I am gonna have to bring up a point no one really mentioned yet.

The current CS staff team is... as much as I hate to say it, kind of inconsistent and unapproachable. I'm certain all of them are lovely as individuals (and I've had good talks with some staff one on one!) but as a collective there's a massive detachment between staff and the community. I've done modding in bigger communities, I truly do understand it can be difficult to balance moderational work and keeping up with community happening, but it's very hard for a community to trust a staff team who feel separate from the community. It also feels like the rules or guidelines used to make moderational decisions are somewhat outdated and out-of-touch with the community - decisions often feel inconsistent with both general community consensus but also other mods. I cannot make any claims or assumptions about internal mod communications but the communication with us regular users certainly is lacking at the moment.

I sincerely hope that again, this doesn't sound unpleasant or rude as that's absolutely not my intention! This is NOT a jab at the staff as individuals on any level and my goal is genuinely to criticize in good faith - I've been on the site for an awful long time and would hate to see it fail due to often-preventable issues. :]

[barbwirebrat]

I'm going to preface this with a disclaimer that it's all intended to be GOOD FAITH genuine critique, I just struggle with tone and wording things. Please don't take any of this to be hostile or combative.

I agree with most points made here - the trading economy is horrible and the general userbase feels significantly less approachable than in the past. The C$ economy especially is super inflated and the store as it stands right now is not effective at removing excess currency from the circulation. However, I am gonna have to bring up a point no one really mentioned yet.

The current CS staff team is... as much as I hate to say it, kind of inconsistent and unapproachable. I'm certain all of them are lovely as individuals (and I've had good talks with some staff one on one!) but as a collective there's a massive detachment between staff and the community. I've done modding in bigger communities, I truly do understand it can be difficult to balance moderational work and keeping up with community happening, but it's very hard for a community to trust a staff team who feel separate from the community. It also feels like the rules or guidelines used to make moderational decisions are somewhat outdated and out-of-touch with the community - decisions often feel inconsistent with both general community consensus but also other mods. I cannot make any claims or assumptions about internal mod communications but the communication with us regular users certainly is lacking at the moment.

I sincerely hope that again, this doesn't sound unpleasant or rude as that's absolutely not my intention! This is NOT a jab at the staff as individuals on any level and my goal is genuinely to criticize in good faith - I've been on the site for an awful long time and would hate to see it fail due to often-preventable issues. :]

your wording isn’t harsh at all! i completely understand this and i also feel the exact same way. unfortunately i’ve felt this way for a while and it’s super disappointing that in all of my time on cs i’ve never really seen much communication between staff and other members of the community. a lot of the time i feel that the staff is more intimidating than approachable, maybe that’s just my anxiety but it could also be the lack of transparency. and also receiving board warnings for silly things but that’s a completely different story haha

[snubmoth]

i joined in 2013, went on hiatus around late 2018-early 2019, randomly popped in a handful of times since and have been active again since this years event. the vibe is pretty different from when i left, and trading is a lot more complicated n confusing n stuff,,

i let trades rot bc of anxiety but to approach sending a trade myself is really intimidating with long rules, codewords, hyper-specific groups and whatnot x_x’ it’s hard to gauge what’s fair anymore, and i know there’s resources and forum posts specifically made to combat and address this, but it’s all really technical sounding! nothing just “looks right” trade wise, there’s a whole bunch of aspects to take into consideration now haha. that’s just my experience tho!!

[Foxes81_of_Anime]

its really interesting to hear everyone's stories tbh
personally, I joined late uhh.. 2018, I think? I'm pretty sure my account says 2020, but I joined 2018, exact date idk, but when I first logged in, I had no idea how to use the site. it just, made my head spin sjklkalksl
so I left it, (mods, I'm not alting, I lost the e-mail connected to the account so I couldn't log back in) and re-found the site in 2020, and actually understood how it worked.
also this was an excuse to mark so I can see everyone's responses

[Wookieinmashoo]

However, to sort of counter other people on this post: Saying you don't want store pets re-released is an elitist mindset and is part of the problem, in my opinion.
I've literally gone through something similar myself: On Final Fantasy XIV, there was a limited-time special release car mount from FFXV. It was only available for a short time, and Square Enix literally told us: "THIS MOUNT WILL NEVER BE RELEASED AGAIN." Jump forward about 2.5 years later, they re-released it. I'll admit, I was absolutely LIVID at first and ranting on Twitter, Discord, etc. all about how angry I was...but now I've come to terms with it and I'm happy that so many of the newer players had the chance to get it, and I can see them flying around with it.

I know it's a completely different game, but I just want to make a correction. it was mostly the players assuming the mount wouldn't be available again. And even if the developers did say it wouldn't be available again, they are very wish washy and change their minds all the time.

I agree with the FOMO being bad. I don't see a reason why store pets can't be re released. I feel that Dec 18th alone is way to infrequent to release retired pets. Re-release items please. A lot of people don't even care about a complete collection, they just want a neat skeletal bunny to complete a skeleton collection and that's pretty impossible now.

The improbability of getting certain pets is chasing new people off. What I want to see is the site relying on what it does best, which is customization. Flight Rising has a limit behind its customization and it's behind a pay wall. Have a way for people to dress up their forum spaces, have a way for people to enter a contest and create a unique item or pet. There are plenty of people on site who would be happy to contribute to making unique lineart for people to color or item sets. I've seen plenty of people that I would like to see make something for the site, but limiting people a chance to get accepted to make something to once every few years isn't helping.

[Shooting Stars]

i love the idea of second gen stores!! i agree with store pets never being rereleased, it feels very scummy to me to have a site promise that a pet (which will require you to spend real life currency on) will never be rereleased - only to them rerelease it. that is just lying for money

I wouldn't call it "lying for money" because I highly doubt they ever imagined the demand for these pets would be crazy after 10+ years. Lying? No. Hurtful? Sure, I'll agree on that much.
But my point still stands. Hurt the feelings of a few players, or continue to hurt the CS & C$ economy and make players unhappy with trading, eventually possibly quit, etc..
Pick your poison. :)

I'm not gonna touch of the "it's fine to hurt some players' feelings" thing, as I feel anything I say will earn me a board warning, which I certainly don't want.

But I believe, that releasing stores again will hurt the economy in the long run. Sure, everyone will be happy for a few weeks, and values will drop some. Then some people will only want "true-date" stores. (I also won't touch how much I hate true-date culture, as it would be trade-ranting)
TD stores value will increase, especially the 09-14 ones. A RR skelebun might be say, 6 non, but with how stores are bought with real money, double that 6 for TD. All of a sudden, we're back at values before the re-release.

More and more people will want TDs so it "fits neatly in their collection", and the demand for them will rise.
Just like regular rares & lists, the value of RRs will be seemed as less/not equal to TD counterparts. RRs from 2017 onwards will slowly begin to rot in trade folders, just like regular RRs do now. Only the few people now, who don't care about dates, will trade for them, if they haven't already bought/traded for them when the stores came out before.

RRs of incredibly old stores won't have this problem as much, like how RR Sunbacks are still traded around frequently. It will still be prevalent though, and it will only add more stress to the trading community. Especially if RRs end up being worth the same as stores now, while the TDs rapidly shoot up in value.

This has happened with regular pets, and I know it will happen with store pets. If store-pets are re-released, I truly think it would be the reason CS would close down a couple years later. I'm glad several people liked my idea of 2nd gen stores and recolors! I think it would be the best solution, and a good compromise. They could be released along side our normal bimonthly store pets, to encourage more C$ be spent too.