[urgent] this site really is actually dying

[halcyoncreature]

Just popping in to mention, CS did do merch once, and it was delightful and I wish they would do it again! Came across these guys while looking for thumbtacks earlier and I remembered someone had commented about it. I would absolutely love it if there was another merch campaign, especially if it was directly related to funding some kind of big site upgrade/overhaul. I'm picturing more sticker packs, tshirts/hoodies, maybe even plushies of some sort? Those smoothie cup pets from the cyber event would make excellent mallow toys. This site could certainly benefit from a bit of branding and it would be an awesome way to reconnect with the community

I'm never a fan of clothing merch but if they did pins and stickers i would absolutely be pulling out my wallet. Button pins would probably be a good cheaper pin as well because i imagine enamel pins can be pricey to produce (and for me to buy lol)

[×Seven of Nine×]

Remember to be nice to artists and their work in the sites official items and pets. This isn't about them. Everyone is allowed to dislike things, but this topic isn't about how something drawn here is liked or not.

Also, parroting any mods presence here, this isn't a rant thread of any kind. I'm aware we're all mad about how trading has been on here etc, but this isn't the place to be mad about it.

Finally, I'm glad this thread has stayed up so far. Remember to be civil and stay on topic!

[pearljam]

i really think the site has improved dramatically event-wise over the last few years, the artwork is getting better and better each event/year and you can really see the effort that has been put into everything, down to every single detail. i think this points out that they have a lot of potential if they wanted to branch out to draw in more regular players, instead of ones that pop in just for events. other users on here have mentioned the issues with trading at the moment & i wish i could comment on that, i haven't been a trader for years though.

the site hasn't seen a big change since i joined - i've been registered on here for close to half of my life now, i started on here just after i got access to a computer & started playing computer games. there hasn't exactly been anything new added game-play wise. there's been new pets and the same events, just different themes. i guess what i'm trying to say is that there's nothing to motivate me to come on here outside of events, you really have to create your own fun with trading. there's been new profile customisation options such as stamps & signature scenes being added but not very much to do gameplay wise unless you trade. that's my opinion on things at least ?

if they did something like have mini-events alongside the major yearly events they already have, i think site traffic & growth would rise massively. or have something else to do in-between events. if they made a simple event that included a mini-game with tokens & exclusive pets you could win with it only being around for a month or two, just a filler until the next major event, more people would want to log in. that's just an idea though - just.. anything that's a change i guess. i want more to do outside of trading! even more than what i said would be better, that sounds manageable though.

AND/OR A DAILY LOG IN SYSTEM. IMAGINE GETTING $CS FOR LOGGING IN 7 DAYS IN A ROW?? daily quests - like 'complete 1 trade', 'change your signature', 'comment on 5 forums' & you get a prize at the end. maybe a new currency? i can think of so many things they could add to the site & they'd get heaps of new & returning players back on here for sure. i know that it would be a time/money investment but i think it would be worth it in the long run.

that's my opinion on things. this site has the potential to be a lot bigger than it already is, i hope they end up expanding. i'll still be playing if they don't change though - i absolutely adore this site. they even have a name that draws people in by itself.

[Strange_Atoms]

i really think the site has improved dramatically event-wise over the last few years, the artwork is getting better and better each event/year and you can really see the effort that has been put into everything, down to every single detail. i think this points out that they have a lot of potential if they wanted to branch out to draw in more regular players, instead of ones that pop in just for events. other users on here have mentioned the issues with trading at the moment & i wish i could comment on that, i haven't been a trader for years though.

the site hasn't seen a big change since i joined - i've been registered on here for close to half of my life now, i started on here just after i got access to a computer & started playing computer games. there hasn't exactly been anything new added game-play wise. there's been new pets and the same events, just different themes. i guess what i'm trying to say is that there's nothing to motivate me to come on here outside of events, you really have to create your own fun with trading. there's been new profile customisation options such as stamps & signature scenes being added but not very much to do gameplay wise unless you trade. that's my opinion on things at least ?

if they did something like have mini-events alongside the major yearly events they already have, i think site traffic & growth would rise massively. or have something else to do in-between events. if they made a simple event that included a mini-game with tokens & exclusive pets you could win with it only being around for a month or two, just a filler until the next major event, more people would want to log in. that's just an idea though - just.. anything that's a change i guess. i want more to do outside of trading! even more than what i said would be better, that sounds manageable though.

AND/OR A DAILY LOG IN SYSTEM. IMAGINE GETTING $CS FOR LOGGING IN 7 DAYS IN A ROW?? daily quests - like 'complete 1 trade', 'change your signature', 'comment on 5 forums' & you get a prize at the end. maybe a new currency? i can think of so many things they could add to the site & they'd get heaps of new & returning players back on here for sure. i know that it would be a time/money investment but i think it would be worth it in the long run.

that's my opinion on things. this site has the potential to be a lot bigger than it already is, i hope they end up expanding. i'll still be playing if they don't change though - i absolutely adore this site. they even have a name that draws people in by itself.

Agree with all of this!!
I love CS because it's not like dragoncave or the other egg games where your creatures can die, and they don't need anything to exist! The oekaki is another unique feature, and is the thing that got me into digital art, and I feel like it's much more accessible than a lot of other art programs.

However, I do have some suggestions, based on my experiences on other sites, specifically Pokéfarm.
Pokéfarm has a daily log in reward, which is a reason for people to come in daily. On Pokéfarm, it's currency, but on cs it could be something else? Like an item or a token?
Pokéfarm has scour missions, where you can send a pokemon on a mission that takes several hours, but in exchange you get an item, currency or other stuff.

In addition, Pokéfarm has weekly dress up contests, something that I feel could be brought over to cs easily, considering we already kinda do that? But on Pokéfarm, the most popular dress up is chosen by voting, and the person who made it gets a prize if they win.

Pokéfarm also has large monthly challenges that involve user participation, which would be a great way to engage the site's traffic.

Finally, Pokéfarm has achievements, and I think cs could benefit from a similar idea. Achievements could be stuff like "Trade with others 50/100/200 times" "adopt from the Pound 75 times" "Like 300 masterpieces on oekaki" "color in another user's base 10 times" "Post in the forms 1,000 times" "have a piece of art be featured". And completing them could maybe give you an exclusive pet or stamp?

I love CS, and I'll definitely be willing to help so that it doesn't die on us!

[Bruja]

Agree with all of this!!
I love CS because it's not like dragoncave or the other egg games where your creatures can die, and they don't need anything to exist! The oekaki is another unique feature, and is the thing that got me into digital art, and I feel like it's much more accessible than a lot of other art programs.

However, I do have some suggestions, based on my experiences on other sites, specifically Pokéfarm.
Pokéfarm has a daily log in reward, which is a reason for people to come in daily. On Pokéfarm, it's currency, but on cs it could be something else? Like an item or a token?
Pokéfarm has scour missions, where you can send a pokemon on a mission that takes several hours, but in exchange you get an item, currency or other stuff.

In addition, Pokéfarm has weekly dress up contests, something that I feel could be brought over to cs easily, considering we already kinda do that? But on Pokéfarm, the most popular dress up is chosen by voting, and the person who made it gets a prize if they win.

Pokéfarm also has large monthly challenges that involve user participation, which would be a great way to engage the site's traffic.

Finally, Pokéfarm has achievements, and I think cs could benefit from a similar idea. Achievements could be stuff like "Trade with others 50/100/200 times" "adopt from the Pound 75 times" "Like 300 masterpieces on oekaki" "color in another user's base 10 times" "Post in the forms 1,000 times" "have a piece of art be featured". And completing them could maybe give you an exclusive pet or stamp?

I love CS, and I'll definitely be willing to help so that it doesn't die on us!

Piggybacking off this idea! Specifically, the idea of earning tokens through a daily check-in. Why not use this idea to kill two birds with one stone? Those tokens could potentially be used as trade-ins for a random rare+ adopt. Not cheaply, I'm thinking something along the lines of at least a month's worth (30-50 or so) to redeem for this function, but it might be a solution to the impossible-to-trade for rares? Another potential sink could be a "Store Back Room", where retired store pets could be purchased for substantially more tokens. I imagine the older the pet, the more tokens would be needed. They should also be a tradeable currency, so those who aren't so invested in collecting could still benefit by offering them in exchange for C$, art, regular pet trades, etc. A system like this would take a fair amount of work to get off the ground, but I could see it going a long ways toward boosting the economy.

[Loelya]

daily quests - like 'complete 1 trade', 'change your signature', 'comment on 5 forums' & you get a prize at the end. maybe a new currency?

I wanna say real quick, I totally vibe with your energy in most of what you said in your post, lots of good thoughts, but this specifically ^ I think could potentially be disastrous. :0 another petsite that I tried to play, called "Dappervolk," had daily task-based quests that made everything onsite feel terribly grind-y and unpleasant. I wouldn't want that to come here, personally.

[queenhoneybee]

i dare concur w your statement; i feel like cs always had its own loyal fanbase and always will. just look at this forum, you've emmassed some 41 pages of replies! like half of these are just responses but-- still!
users grow up and move past their old hobbies, that's just how life works. especially sites as old as this one is, i think that deserves a celebration in and of itself. but then again, show me one of these similiar old websites that are firstly, still alive today, and secondly, still alive *and* thriving (what i mean by thriving is that is has the same amount of users using it as it had in its prime day).
instead of going "this site is dying" every two months, let's look at it from the other side and be grateful it's still up. the mods are still here, so are the artists! and while i udnerstand how heartbreaking it is to think of cs one day disappearing for good, again, that's just how things unfortunately go.
anyways this was just a stream of consciousness/my opinion.


i'm going to include this as a quick little add-on thought because i'm afraid people might misunderstand it, but i'm neurodivergent and do not know how else to write it down so please bear that in mind ajsjds;
it's not like you look at your grandparents and go "wow, you're about to die huh" (or if you do, that's your business i guess), you try to be there w them and enjoy what may be your last moments together, at least from my experience. that's all there's to it, i think.

[MIDIraptor]

i dare concur w your statement; i feel like cs always had its own loyal fanbase and always will. just look at this forum, you've emmassed some 41 pages of replies! like half of these are just responses but-- still!
users grow up and move past their old hobbies, that's just how life works. especially sites as old as this one is, i think that deserves a celebration in and of itself. but then again, show me one of these similiar old websites that are firstly, still alive today, and secondly, still alive *and* thriving (what i mean by thriving is that is has the same amount of users using it as it had in its prime day).
instead of going "this site is dying" every two months, let's look at it from the other side and be grateful it's still up. the mods are still here, so are the artists! and while i udnerstand how heartbreaking it is to think of cs one day disappearing for good, again, that's just how things unfortunately go.
anyways this was just a stream of consciousness/my opinion.

I honestly agree with the gist of this; I'm shocked it's lasted this long and still has a big stream of daily activity. Compared to the many other other sites I used to play back in 2015 when I first joined, this is one of Two that haven't started drying out yet.

The simplicity of the format means that people who stay know what they're staying for and we only expect monthly pets and a few events. It also draws in a Lot of different sorts of people looking for a slower paced, simpler game to play. It's not just kids here (who by nature want something fresh and new often, and get bored easily); we have parents, university students, loads of people who visit CS daily (including myself) who like the fixity and having it as a little part of their routine, who probably won't be leaving anytime soon.

Yes it may be quieter than before and I get the longing for earlier times and how it was back then, but with that said CS is definitely still going and for such an aged style of game, I think it's got a while to go. It's definitely sad seeing things move on and long-time players retiring, and a saddening concept for the site to dry up and even close one day, but equally I've seen a lot of newer players recently and seen them stick around.

I returned after a Long hiatus along with a friend of mine and we've gotten so much done with our collections, which is only possible with an active community

[Nexius]

This is my own message copy pasted from another thread that was similar, I just wanted to chime in and share some thoughts

----

I don't have much to add only that I've been feeling the same way that many people here have and just wanna vent. When I joined in 2011 it wasn't too hard as a newer player to work my way up and eventually get some list pets to play around with. I eventually lost interest in the site around 2014 and have only come back for short periods since. I gave away most of my older pets, list pets, and older items since they were mostly just wasting away and I knew there were people who'd appreciate them a lot more than I. Now that I'm back I regret giving away so much because I just don't see a way to obtain any larger goals without that high value trade fodder. Right now the method that's been getting me the best pets and items has been the pound. Which is crazy! How is trading with users and participating in events less effective at getting high value pets than rummaging through scraps?

Events are the only thing that's fun here anymore. I came back for this year's Easter event, then left again once the fun was over. I came back for the internet event and now that it's over I just don't feel anything keeping me here. Trading just isn't fun since I feel like I'm constantly on the backstep trying to not get ripped off rather than moving forward and having fun and making progress towards goals. Dressing up pets is fun but there doesn't seem to be a big community for it and there doesn't seem to be any value in it (I would love if the submitted dressups had actual winners and prizes, so it'd be something to work towards/get excited about).

----------

In my completely unqualified opinion, here's what I think would make the website more fun:

(1)

Have a monthly rotating CS store rather than being having the same stuff year round. Something I always found fun on Club Penguin was checking in every month to see what was in the clothing and home catalogues for the month. This doesn't mean having to make new stuff every single month but rather having a selection of existing items with occasional new stuff that rotates every month. I would love if this included some items from previous events. Currently there is no way that items are rereleased which is hard for those who like dressups since high demand items are already with people who really want them. Good luck trying to get someone to trade you the valentines 2011 butterflies or the April 2013 scenery set, but if I could just go to the C$ store and buy them I would in a heartbeat. Many of us who played as kids are now adults with disposable income who would be happy to drop a few bucks on something we really like. We just don't (or at least not often) because the C$ store is stale and the items we like are often way too expensive to buy from fellow users.

It would also do good for the ridiculously inflated demand of previous store pets if they started being released in the store. Maybe you have 1 new store pet set every two months as usual but also have an old set come back once a month?

I feel this would both be a good C$ sink to help combat C$ inflation and also give people more of a reason to come to the game when there's no major events happening.

(2)

Rerelease old pets more than once a year. If a user starts in January then it can be a whole year before they get anything of value to work with. You could do it midyear so it's evenly spaced, call it Christmas in July or something. Maybe you only do 2 pets in July then do 4 in December for 'real' Christmas?

(3)

I know this is more of a pipe dream but I would love something like the areas of neopia from neopets as a permanent instalment. ChickenSmoothie already does it for the summer events (having an image with different areas you click on that take you to different places/NPCs) and it's the most fun we have here all year.

Maybe have:
- A vendor that will transmute pets into other pets at random once per day or week (put in 3 uncommon pets and get out one random uncommon pet, put in 4 commons to get one random common, etc.)
- Have a NPC whom you must show a specific pet to every day consecutively and receive a prize at certain points (similar to Illusen's and Jhudora's quests). Example, they ask you to show them a spider from 2011 once day, then an uncommon dog from 2017 the next day, and so on. At day 3, 7, 13, 20, 25, and 30 you get an item or pet prize. Then it resets at 30 days.
- Wheel of excitement rip off where you can get tokens from the NPC stated above, maybe you can sometimes find them randomly when adopting pets, and they give you a spin of the wheel. Have the biggest prize be C$50 and then a C$10 prize. Have the rest be pet and items prizes.

I'm sure people could come up with much better but these are just things I thought of. It's probably too much work for CS to implement but the site needs a change.

----------

These are all just random ideas and thoughts I've been having. I think I'll be back for halloween but in the meantime there's just nothing to do here that's fun.

[Seasonal]

I think that a lot of productive discussion is taking place here! Thank you for bringing these issues up and for continuing to be respectful to each other throughout this conversation.

First and foremost I wish I saw this topic sooner but I’ve been out of town since the day it was posted. I saw some posts that were concerned with staff engagement so I want to acknowledge that and let you guys know that I’m here and I hear you. I have spent the last 1.5 hours reading over this thread to hear what everyone has to say. I think that there have been a lot of valid points being made.

I keep coming to a crossroads because a lot of suggestions being made tend to unintentionally combat each other. For example, two things that I’ve seen come up multiple times are 1) C$ sinks, and 2) daily incentives to log in, like C$ rewards. Implementing the second idea would make the first issue even worse. The problem with a lot of large suggestions like this is that they can be game-breaking, and there’s no way to undo them once they are added.

I also don’t think that changing CS drastically is a good idea. CS has always been a casual game at its core. A complete collection may not be considered casual but CS is a game where you can log in on the 1st, adopt all the pets, and come back whenever you feel like. If I leave for a week I can come back and I didn’t miss out on anything. Even with something like the Advent Calendar, I only have to visit for a few minutes. It’s always been quite fundamentally simple and I personally don’t want that to change.

Another issue is that many suggestions have already been denied by Tess, so all we can do as staff is parrot this information to you. I don’t think that denied suggestions should necessarily be set in stone, but regular staff can’t offer anything more since we do not have the power to do so. I know that my title has admin in the name but I have zero control over what is implemented; that falls solely on Tess and Nick. However a lot of the permanently denied suggestions, like re-releasing store pets, have many good reasons on why they will never be considered.

It seems like a lot of issues are stemming from trading and I think the store price adjustments and monthly item packs have helped a bit. A good C$ sink will not be visible overnight and will take time to truly see the effects of. However I do agree that there is a glaring issue with the trading economy and I don’t think these issues could have ever been foreseen.

I can’t speak for other people directly but I am here because I care. CS has been a passion of mine since I was a kid and I am so grateful to have the opportunity to give back to this community that has given me so much over the years. I’ve been here since the beginning and I will be here until the end.

ETA (this may be a bit more concise but I want to get these final thoughts out as well) I do think that the Internet is changing and forums are losing popularity to things like Discord. Forums existed long before instant messaging and even social media. I will always enjoy forums because I enjoy the slow-paced discussion but I can understand why mediums like Discord are taking over.