[urgent] this site really is actually dying

[Purgatory K9]

I agree with everyone here, I came back after a break to get better at art.
Honestly its really hard to make friends on here, Idk why some people are really nice and some arent... Kind of isolating on here low key idk why. I want to rant more but idk what to say. lol

As an adult, it's hard making friends who are also adults on here lol, may I suggest the CSTM discord server? There's adults in there and a lot of us adults are actually pretty active! Here's the link to the thread: click

But I totally agree...there's also a certain side to CS that is totally mean and really just out there. I wish there was something that could be done about it but you can only do so much. ):

[Alyssa99]

I used to trade like crazy, it’s why my wishlist is so small now compared to how it was when I first joined. But recently I haven’t been able to do that. People who say they’re trading will see a perfectly fair trade from me and just decide “nah”. It happens constantly and it never used to be like that.

[lunashire]

I just want to chime in and say I agree with people about how ridiculous the trading is nowadays.

I genuinely wanted to make it my mission to collect every pet, considering I joined back in 2009, so I had a pretty good head start, even if I was away a couple of moths here and there. But it's just impossible to get the older pets.
Like, for a re-released rat the person wanted 70(!) 2009 rare pets, and that's just crazy to me! For a drawing of a rat...
I've never been much into trading, so I don't know the fancy terms either, I am much less familiar with "list pets" but either way, I just think it's crazy to ask so much in return for 1 pet, especially similar dated ones.

And I have to agree, if I just started on this site, and I didn't have a huge collection already to keep me attached, I would not stay! The whole point of this site is to collect pets, so what's the point of it if people make it impossible for new members to collect?

[Genba]

I agree with everyone here, I came back after a break to get better at art.
Honestly its really hard to make friends on here, Idk why some people are really nice and some arent... Kind of isolating on here low key idk why. I want to rant more but idk what to say. lol

That is also one of the reasons this site gets boring for me after a while. All my friends have moved on from here and I can't find any new ones on here 😅
It really feels isolating here, like everyone just keeps to themselves

[Wysterinka]

I agree with everyone here, I came back after a break to get better at art.
Honestly its really hard to make friends on here, Idk why some people are really nice and some arent... Kind of isolating on here low key idk why. I want to rant more but idk what to say. lol

That is also one of the reasons this site gets boring for me after a while. All my friends have moved on from here and I can't find any new ones on here 😅
It really feels isolating here, like everyone just keeps to themselves

Personally, I think this is up to personal preference and approaches each person makes on their own. I don't have any issues making friends here and there are plenty of nice people, sometimes all it takes is write one nice message to someone ^^~ And if someone doesn't feel as good as messaging, gifting people (or doing giveaways for everyone to join) is also nice approach to making friends and works very well, at least for me
It's a community and this is something that each person decides for themselves, it matters what forums you are active in, how do you talk to people or what things yoi say in trades. So that my opinion on this topic...

[Wookieinmashoo]

I don't see anyone suggesting they be free. Just a single click raffle, and if you win, you get a link to a selection of store pets for purchase for the same amount that they were originally sold at.

This isn't a good idea at all. It would just cause a lot of upset because so many people wouldn't win. And the same amount they were originally sold at? What a great way to completely tank values, because even if only 100 people won, of course every winner would pick the skelebun, liontails, and cerberus dogs.

Eldemore had a store-pet re-release box. I remember it not going over as well as staff had planned. A couple posts from Eldemore (their "Stone of Random"): x & x
It looks like you had to spent $20 to buy their re-release, which was a gamble. There were lots of moderator posts asking for players to be civil, which I can only assume lots of posts ended up being removed. These kind of releases will never work out.

No gambling. Also a selection of store pets. I'm not suggesting that every selection would contain an OMGSR store pet. It's the same with the Dec. 18th re releases, not everyone will get the new UR pet. People get upset all the time on the site because the didn't get a rare pet on Dec. 18th or got a rat, or something they didn't want.

Again, this is just a suggestion of how it could be done, not that it will ever happen. One of the big reasons people get discouraged is that the designs they like are nearly improbable to get. Why bother if they can't get the things they like at all? Not that it would would be difficult, but that it's becoming more improbable as the years go on.

[immortality]

From the standpoint of a new-ish user who has paid quite a lot of real life money (to buy C$ or FR gems) in order to acquire store pets, I do think that there should be some way to get a "re-release" (or whatever you want to call it) of older store pets. I understand they are special, but I don't think that their value would decline unless they were re-released en-mass, and even then, IMO you'd likely still have a high demand because you'd get people hoarding them who might never have in the first place.

I don't see why new users have to miss out on store pets from way back when. I collect merch for some fandoms and yes, there are some things I will never acquire unless I win the lottery. But those are actual physical objects that would be difficult or impossible to make more of, so the high price/unattainability is understandable. But these are just pixel pets. Their scarcity is just whatever TPTB want them to be, honestly.

I'm NOT saying it should be easy for people to get old store pets, and none of it should involve gambling. But I don't think that a RR of them on say, Dec 18th, would be the end of the world.

I'm sure people won't agree, but that's just how I feel.

ETA: Forgot to mention, but I also agree with the idea of having them re-released in the C$ store and having there be a purchase limit.

ETA2: I know what the staff has said about store pets and honestly, I really think they should reconsider. I've bought real life stuff that was limited edition and then it got re-released years later. I really don't care about the value because I bought the things in the first place because I wanted them for MYSELF, not because of their potential value. If people buy things just because of their perceived future value or whatever, then that's their problem.

[SquishyZebra]

From the standpoint of a new-ish user who has paid quite a lot of real life money (to buy C$ or FR gems) in order to acquire store pets, I do think that there should be some way to get a "re-release" (or whatever you want to call it) of older store pets. I understand they are special, but I don't think that their value would decline unless they were re-released en-mass, and even then, IMO you'd likely still have a high demand because you'd get people hoarding them who might never have in the first place.

I don't see why new users have to miss out on store pets from way back when. I collect merch for some fandoms and yes, there are some things I will never acquire unless I win the lottery. But those are actual physical objects that would be difficult or impossible to make more of, so the high price/unattainability is understandable. But these are just pixel pets. Their scarcity is just whatever TPTB want them to be, honestly.

I'm NOT saying it should be easy for people to get old store pets, and none of it should involve gambling. But I don't think that a RR of them on say, Dec 18th, would be the end of the world.

I'm sure people won't agree, but that's just how I feel.

ETA: Forgot to mention, but I also agree with the idea of having them re-released in the C$ store and having there be a purchase limit.

completely agree 100%. Otherwise, they're pretty much completely unattainable unless you win the December 18th lottery and have enough to massively overpay. But like I mentioned earlier, I think even having a random adoptable (like a random lion from cat litter, zebra from horses/ponies, etc.) that turns out to be VR or OMGSR would be enough to start shaking things up and getting the website popping again.

[Foxes81_of_Anime]

i’d love to see smaller events focused around items ^_^ like, they wouldn’t be summer event level or anything, just a week or two with new items you can get through banner tokens maybe. something that wouldn’t put too much pressure on staff, but would still be engaging!

there could be a floral+plant mini-event, a plushie one, an effects/bg one, one for dress-up items for/compatible with certain pets (like, items compatible with spiders, rabbits, monkeys, chickens etc, bc most only tend to work with canines and felines). y’know? that’d be cool :^)

I do agree with this tbh, maybe just more events in general so there isn’t as big of a gap where the only thing to do is wait for monthly’s to grow and try to get trades

I agree, the only thing you can do during the month is maybe play a few forum games, or depending on what you want, do some art or look for 1x1s (which I usually do). and i'd love a plushie event, but hey, that's just my opinion. maybe even more interactive mini-games, sorta like FR but just during events, and you could win stuff like items, plushies, or maybe even pets. plus turn the banner pet drops up a little bit more, i rarely get one, maybe 1 out of 200? i've only ever gotten one on a single event, which was uh.. halloween last year i think.
maybe a claw machine event or something, an arcade? where in the claw machine area, you have to help fix the claw machines and if you turn in the tokens, you get cool stuff like plushies and maybe plushie-themed pets.
prize area, you could get cool stuff when you turn in tokens or play a matching game to restock the shelves, and get a plushie themed pet or something as a prize, etc

[sunnysnake]

i read through much of the thread, it's good to see the discussion! i had an older account from 2017 but when i didn't really use it anymore i gifted all of the pets away. regained interest and now here i am!

my two biggest questions for y'all:
1: i do like the daily rewards system idea! what would the reward be? pets or something every day would absolutely flood the game, i think. and items would end up being super common and nobody would want them lol. c$ every day would also be too much for a daily thing for every single person that logs on. perhaps another kind of currency, like c$ but worth less?
2: if there was a change to make things better for older players, what kinds of changes would those be? as far as things that can actually be implemented, not just wishing that younger people would leave you alone lol.

both are /gen, my apologies if i'm coming off rude. i'm very bad with tone. also sorry if i missed a consensus on one of the questions i asked; i didn't get through every page before posting.

trading is difficult, people sometimes have very specific rules that are either buried in a character limit block of text or not even explicitly stated and then get mad when i make a mistake rather than just cancelling and moving on. or they log in but never check their trades and don't give any sort of warning about letting trades rot. i feel bad randomly cancelling, but i also don't wnat to have my trade request sitting in their box forever and not be able to do anything with the pets i've offered in the meantime.

as far as inflated pet values.. yeah lol. some of the most popular pets on the game are, if you convert, worth hundreds of usd when they are literally little pixel pictures that someone clicked a link to adopt for free a while ago. i understand attaching value to things, obviously this entire website is based around adoptables with different rarities, but i do worry for people that are *super* into the highest value pets because they are either spending a ton of their own actual money to get the stuff to trade for them or they must be stressing themselves out with hour after hour of bargaining on cs and other websites (why does everyone trade offsite?) to get a little leg up and get closer to what they want. that itself isn't a problem with staff or anything, just a comment that the extent to which people care about getting all of the "best" pets on the game concerns me because of the connection to a rather significant amount of time and actual money.

this is my most valuable pet, and he is nft but not because of rarity. i just really like his design! all of my favorites are based on design, not really the given rarity and certainly not what some random post from someone else says the subjective value is. the game is for collecting what you like!

Pet's name: Aloysius Pendergast

overall, the type of website that cs is just isn't something that's super popular anymore. people like fast paced flashy games, which is fine, but it does give a good reason for why cs is not as active anymore. the original userbase has mostly moved on in their lives because they're all grown adults with adult responsibilities and less time or interest, and the new users are probably looking for something a bit more interactive than adopting pets once a month and watching them grow. to a certain extent, that's just how it is and i'm glad cs isn't trying to turn into something completely new in an attempt to attract new younger users. just worth noting.

i have a free adoption center, i gift people sometimes, and i overall do my best to be friendly. it does make a difference! collecting pets is fun, if items are your thing that's cool too, but remember that it's just a game and it's okay for y'all to take a break whenever you want if you ever feel overwhelmed. or just trade things for fun without stressing over which month of the same year and same rarity is worth more and how in-demand the design/species is. it's easy to get sucked into "but if i'm not there i'm missing out!!" or "if i trade down my pets at all, even if i actually like the "lower value" pets better, i'll never get ahead!!" but there are actually no real life consequences if you miss out on a month's litter or your collection that you love the pets in isn't considered to be worth as much as what you traded away to get there.

very long post lol, my apologies