[urgent] this site really is actually dying

[Moiraine]

Just want to offer my perspective that closed species is one of the main reasons I don't get involved with CS' art side more and barely post on that side of the forum. I personally dislike closed species (I don't hate them, I just have no interest in owning a closed species because I dislike how restrictive the rules can often be), and where there's a heavy focus on closed species, it's going to drive away users who aren't interested in them.

If so many people are into closed species, would it be possible to have a closed species that's specifically CS related- for example, introducing a new monthly adoptable pet that's a totally new closed species, and you'd have to be part of CS to actually adopt one. I don't know if this is practical or not, but it came to mind while I was typing this as maybe a way to drive interest back to CS- maybe new users who wouldn't have played CS before but are big into closed species adopts start to join because it's the only place to get a Magicfluffyfoxtail or whatever. Just an idea!

[halcyoncreature]

my issue isn't really trading. While it is very cut-throat, i dont feel it's something i have enough control over. I dont know if it could be made easier or how it would work so i dont have much thought on that.

My issue is the lack of things to do. Maybe its because i dont roleplay that i dont find as much entertainment on the site? im not sure. I can only spend so much time stalking trade forums constantly, i'd love for there to be some level of minigames or something. Just more to interact with.

There were a lot of points made on how to get the site active and i like all those ideas but im not talking about daily login rewards or anything. I mean like CS's version of snake during the internet event or site-wide goals (like pokefarm or something? like the goal is to reach a certain amount of trades as a community maybe), anything really. I use this site as a time waster but i want more stuff to waste my time on lol

[LiaTsu]

Okay so I wasnt crazy lmao. I’m a player from 2013 who has been on and off the last few years and up until this week I had not been online since late 2019. When I came back here I wanted to catch up on some cute pets I saw and the plushies since I collect plushies.

I got super confused as well by seeing the word MA and “horror’s list”. I was wondering why I wasnt seeing any main list or advent list lol.

Plus I decided to generously overpay in most of my trades to gwt my missed stuff with tons of old pets, yet some people still refused despite it all being wishlist and claiming its worth more which made no heckling sense lol


Plus I saw someone that had plushies that are 2009 which, yes, are very rare, but theyre not worth list pets?? I Litterally kept a 2008 very rare dog (which got downed to rare i guess?!? What happened ;-;) to offer for thinngs such as those 2009 items and the person told me their item was worth “2 MA” 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😔
That is not normal its a plushie 😭😭😭

[Pyca]

I have only skimmed a bit over this post and I also share the feeling of this site being past its prime wich is really sad... I love chickensmoothie.
maybe just opening the pound even more would be cool. I know a few times a day is a lot but sometimes I miss days because of work/school/other stuff. And in generall doing more with the pound. There are over 700.000 pets in there and sure loads of really valuable ones. Maybe once a month you could get a special opening where you get 20 rares or up pets chosen at random for every player and they get to pick one. you could combine that with the idea of daily tasks. like logging in every day and getting at least three trades awards you access to this special rares pound. it would be a great motivation to log in more often and a nice opportunity for even knew players ar older players coming back to get some rares without having the entire archive memorised.
sorry if any of this was already proposed

Huuuuuge agree on this front. I'm actually mostly active *for* the pound. If you look at my pound catches folder, you'll find over 500 pets from 500 different pound openings. and most of that is from the last year (I was pretty inactive from 2018-2021). The pound creates a lot of excitement for myself and many others. I know a lot of y'all don't like the discord CS communities but I find it to be so much fun hyping each other up when we get a good catch in the discord. Sure we have the pound catches thread, but that never really feels the same...

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I joined Chickensmoothie in August of 2010. I know my account says 2018, but that's because I had to make a new account and get my pets transferred to this one because I lost log in info for my old one (sorren fey did the transfer). I spent a lot of my preteens-mid teens on this site roleplaying and such, but now that I'm older I've grown out of that a lot. The internet event was ton of fun, and I really loved the Totoro Chase game. I would love to see more little things like that every once in a while.

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I saw someone mention do more re-releases in monthly litters, and I absolutely ADORE that idea. Like the Zebras. It doesnt' have to be a very high chance, heck you could make sure only 1-2 people get a rerelease a month and I'd still be happy to see it. I think something like this would really help new players stand a chance in the trade field.

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I think another good idea would be to rerelease some old items somehow, maybe with the december 18th RR? There are so many items that are IMPOSSIBLE to find (Like Animal eggs 1-4 ) that I know myself and others would love to get our hands on.

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EDIT:

Had another thought. The DIY cake. When that event happened, I was VERY young and wasn't able to participate in that event. I thought that was super cool and I wanted to participate so bad. Now that I'm an adult, I would love to see more little contests like this! I'm not sure what exactly what it could be, but I know that the CS staff are super creative and could come up with something.

[Birdy]

my issue isn't really trading. While it is very cut-throat, i dont feel it's something i have enough control over. I dont know if it could be made easier or how it would work so i dont have much thought on that.

My issue is the lack of things to do. Maybe its because i dont roleplay that i dont find as much entertainment on the site? im not sure. I can only spend so much time stalking trade forums constantly, i'd love for there to be some level of minigames or something. Just more to interact with.

There were a lot of points made on how to get the site active and i like all those ideas but im not talking about daily login rewards or anything. I mean like CS's version of snake during the internet event or site-wide goals (like pokefarm or something? like the goal is to reach a certain amount of trades as a community maybe), anything really. I use this site as a time waster but i want more stuff to waste my time on lol

agreed. i don't trade much anymore in general, but there used to be just something so exciting about CS. there were more users online in general, which meant it was easier to build communities, make friends, and entertain yourself outside of trades. now, with a lack of things to do, users have started to dwindle away leaving only trades as entertainment. sure, there are adoptables and roleplays and stuff, but that also relies on a large population of users to comit to.

i'd love to see something extra added- especially something with the intent of adding to our community. maybe something to catch the attention of older/inactive users, too? december 18th is still reliably the largest event to bring people back to cs, so maybe we need something just as exciting but more than once per year. i'd love to see this place get back to what it was.

[Boo & Shady]

I’m on much the same agreement. Those of us older players are growing up now and prioritising our lives over spending much time on CS.
I really only log in these days for the monthly adopts and only to swap missed outcomes. As someone who joined in 2009 and merged accounts with a friend then became inactive in 2011 until last year, I’m severely behind on my rarity knowledge as well so this makes me hesitant to trade my older pets and items when I’m still learning the value of them myself. When I rejoined last year, I was severely misled on a large item trade I made with a certain user who hoards items and so I’m reluctant to trade higher demand/rarer pets and items now!

I will admit, the only way I could collect the outcomes I’d missed from 2011-2021 was to overpay with my ‘09-‘11 pets. Especially event pets, and higher demands.

It’s also very sad to see the staff litter discussion thread lacking in hints and guesses… I suppose this is also because discord has taken user conversations away…

[Daxx]

I'm gonna chime in on the last post, in the comment about discord taking away discussion. I have a discord, but my pfp is of me. And when I joined the discord I was asked if it was a celebrity, in my pic. I said no ..why? They told me that if it isn't a celebrity, then I need to change it or get off the discord. I'm an adult, I don't want my photo to be of something stupid, it should be me if that's what I want. But because I don't want something different in my pfp, I'm not on the discord. And somehow, now most all discussion on CS is discord? It's weird seeing people say "oh yeah, the FTT will likely never respond to you, just post it on the discord, it's much faster/easier/more responsive" and that's odd to me. You never used to need to have other apps or sites just to get a FTT answer, or talk about events, or anything. But now it seems basically required, like it backs you into the corner. I know it isn't necessary, but it feels like you're left out if you aren't a part of the discord. And there's so many discords for CS I don't even know which one is the actual one. Idk, to me it feels odd, like we aren't supposed to use CS, as its own forum, when that's what it was originally meant for

[Goldstarwolf]

Just want to offer my perspective that closed species is one of the main reasons I don't get involved with CS' art side more and barely post on that side of the forum. I personally dislike closed species (I don't hate them, I just have no interest in owning a closed species because I dislike how restrictive the rules can often be), and where there's a heavy focus on closed species, it's going to drive away users who aren't interested in them.

If so many people are into closed species, would it be possible to have a closed species that's specifically CS related- for example, introducing a new monthly adoptable pet that's a totally new closed species, and you'd have to be part of CS to actually adopt one. I don't know if this is practical or not, but it came to mind while I was typing this as maybe a way to drive interest back to CS- maybe new users who wouldn't have played CS before but are big into closed species adopts start to join because it's the only place to get a Magicfluffyfoxtail or whatever. Just an idea!

I honestly like that idea tbh, I also don't like the fact that people are on ban list from a species. I think it's a little harsh in my opinion I understand if they break rules but there has to be a better way of doing it maybe put them in time out or something.

[Shooting Stars]

I think another good idea would be to rerelease some old items somehow, maybe with the december 18th RR? There are so many items that are IMPOSSIBLE to find (Like Animal eggs 1-4 :( ) that I know myself and others would love to get our hands on.

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EDIT:

Had another thought. The DIY cake. When that event happened, I was VERY young and wasn't able to participate in that event. I thought that was super cool and I wanted to participate so bad. Now that I'm an adult, I would love to see more little contests like this! I'm not sure what exactly what it could be, but I know that the CS staff are super creative and could come up with something.

I agree with both of these!! A different RR date for items would be better in my opinion though, just a day with pets is already hectic enough! Maybe December 8th? Or June 18th could be cool, but easy for most people to miss since it's just a random day!
The '09 Animal Eggs (along with 100) are the only ones I need, but like you said, basically impossible to even find, and I don't even have the guts to even attempt an offer for one (assuming I had enough trade fodder to begin with)

I wasn't here for the Cake Contest, but I would have loved to participate if my mom let me! (I was just a lil thing when I signed up <3) It would be a great way to bring the community together <3

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Another thing I've noticed, is how late the Mid-Monthly Updates have been coming out. It's the 19th CS time, and still no update. It hasn't come out on the 15th for a couple months now, and it just keeps coming out later and later, if it's even going to come out at this point at all now. Even if the update was small, it was still nice to know the staff is keeping everyone informed, with rarities being updated and all! And I always look forward to see who'll be featured. Maybe I'm just a little impatient, but a part of me kinda expected this to happen someday.

[barbwirebrat]

I'm gonna chime in on the last post, in the comment about discord taking away discussion. I have a discord, but my pfp is of me. And when I joined the discord I was asked if it was a celebrity, in my pic. I said no ..why? They told me that if it isn't a celebrity, then I need to change it or get off the discord. I'm an adult, I don't want my photo to be of something stupid, it should be me if that's what I want. But because I don't want something different in my pfp, I'm not on the discord. And somehow, now most all discussion on CS is discord? It's weird seeing people say "oh yeah, the FTT will likely never respond to you, just post it on the discord, it's much faster/easier/more responsive" and that's odd to me. You never used to need to have other apps or sites just to get a FTT answer, or talk about events, or anything. But now it seems basically required, like it backs you into the corner. I know it isn't necessary, but it feels like you're left out if you aren't a part of the discord. And there's so many discords for CS I don't even know which one is the actual one. Idk, to me it feels odd, like we aren't supposed to use CS, as its own forum, when that's what it was originally meant for

100% agree. i had my age in my bio but was asked to remove it. maybe the discord should be 16+? idk, totally just throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks. i know this site is family friendly but it really caters to the younger side of its audience and leaves pretty much nothing for the adults which really sucks. i don’t really know what else to say that i haven’t already, just that it can be a pain to be an adult on this site sometimes lol