[urgent] this site really is actually dying

[Caelus]

I've been here on and off since 2009 or so and the sharp, sharp drop in activity these past couple years is really obvious and really worrying. Everything I have to say has pretty much been covered in previous posts, but I thought I'd chime in anyway.

My little tangent: What's happening with store pets now is something we were predicting upon their introduction over a decade ago. Frankly I'm very disappointed that seemingly no lessons were learned from this, but also a little bit shocked that it took this long to reach critical mass. It's only going to keep getting worse and there's not really a way we can dig ourselves out of this hole we've created since the "no rereleases ever" rule will seemingly never, ever be challenged.

Besides that, CS is a relic of early 2000s internet and has grown increasingly niche over the years as forums went out of style. There isn't really a fix for that, it just isn't really something a lot of people are interested in these days. Add to that a community that can be outwardly hostile to new players, an overwhelming amount of rules surrounding interactions on the site, and a very complex trading economy with thousands upon thousands of pets, and... yeah, it's not shocking that CS isn't popping these days.

Something needs to be done about store pets and rereleases need to be more frequent, in my opinion. At the very least that would breathe some life into the trading side of things.

[azemyc]

I've been here on and off since 2009 or so and the sharp, sharp drop in activity these past couple years is really obvious and really worrying. Everything I have to say has pretty much been covered in previous posts, but I thought I'd chime in anyway.

My little tangent: What's happening with store pets now is something we were predicting upon their introduction over a decade ago. Frankly I'm very disappointed that seemingly no lessons were learned from this, but also a little bit shocked that it took this long to reach critical mass. It's only going to keep getting worse and there's not really a way we can dig ourselves out of this hole we've created since the "no rereleases ever" rule will seemingly never, ever be challenged.

Besides that, CS is a relic of early 2000s internet and has grown increasingly niche over the years as forums went out of style. There isn't really a fix for that, it just isn't really something a lot of people are interested in these days. Add to that a community that can be outwardly hostile to new players, an overwhelming amount of rules surrounding interactions on the site, and a very complex trading economy with thousands upon thousands of pets, and... yeah, it's not shocking that CS isn't popping these days.

Something needs to be done about store pets and rereleases need to be more frequent, in my opinion. At the very least that would breathe some life into the trading side of things.

this perfectly summarizes a lot fo the issues that cs faces
store pets, the c$ issue, and the lack of updates to 'keep with the times' will be the death of the site, if it isn't already

sad thing is, the store pets being re-released has been challenged, but its by users. not at all by staff.
if you look at other sites with such frequent 'never again' type releases, like goatlings, they also have insane economies that are daunting and impossible for users. unlike, cs however, their basic currency is farmable.

[BlueEyedKite]

I've seen the roleplay forums dwindle and I've seen the player engagement in events dim, but I think what hurts the most in this site dying is the oekaki forums.

I owe whatever art talent I have to the oekaki community. You could see amazing photo realistic drawings, or funky sketches, or closed species that rivaled in popularity to the Beatles! You could get serioualy good art of your characters with pets and not huge sums of c$ or real money as today. Now the closed species community is almost a ghost town, Edible Oekaki has a free base added once a week unlike its heyday of several lines to choose from posted in a day, shoot even the Recent Oekaki shows the amount of people drawing is not what it used to be.

So what killed it? Well every artist knows the Oekaki is not intuitive, even if it has been updated some. Maybe it was the splitting up of simple divisions? Instead of a beginners, intermediate, and advanced forum you have Anthro, Human, Landscape and on and on. Artists are scattered. And it's a shame the sketches board was retired.

How do we draw the artists back? Much like the CS writing competitions perhaps an oekaki art competition would incentivize artists to draw in the oekaki again. Other than that anyone else have any ideas? If artists stop posting drawings that's just one more part to the site gone.

[Sorrell]

i've been on again off again on this site since 2016 and so many of the issues listed in this thread i felt, but i couldn't quite put my finger on it. coming back now, the atmosphere feels so much more hostile than it did when i first joined. everyone is only interested in high-value trades and all the trade rules i see are just berating people for having hoards/paperclips/unlocked. the trading system itself is way more complicated than i remember it being, and at this point i have to check the worth of any pet with five different forums before i can even make a trade for it.

there's also the thing about the search function earlier that someone mentioned, which is a really good point. trading is exhausting because there's just hundreds of pages of pets you have to sift through, with no way to find the ones you want. it's kind of expected that everyone only goes for the old/list trades because those are the ones that are easily findable on everyone's accounts. for me, as someone who doesn't use forums a lot and just got into it, learning how to use them was a lot harder than it should've been. it's partially me just not being familiar with it, but i also think there are ways the user interface could be improved to make it more intuitive.

i started out as a COPPA user and i remember that even though there was a lot i couldn't do on the site, the community and atmosphere made it fun enough for me to stay. i just can't imagine anyone with those same restrictions staying on now, because besides an incredibly broken trading system and pet adopts, what else is there for them to do?

sorry if this becaue a bit of a rant but i really do love this site and this community and i don't want to see it go like this.

edit: to the re-release issue, i agree that it would be nice and would incentivize people, but also i think the site has become way too hyperfixated on rarities, which i'm guilty of too. so many of the pets released are stunning but get completely ignored because they aren't rare. i don't think it's something that's likely to change any time soon, but i wish there was something that could be done about it.

[Cyrinus]

Besides that, CS is a relic of early 2000s internet and has grown increasingly niche over the years as forums went out of style. There isn't really a fix for that, it just isn't really something a lot of people are interested in these days. Add to that a community that can be outwardly hostile to new players, an overwhelming amount of rules surrounding interactions on the site, and a very complex trading economy with thousands upon thousands of pets, and... yeah, it's not shocking that CS isn't popping these days.

I really think this is the main problem with the activity drops on the website. Forums are just not very popular anymore. It seems that petsites in general are not popular anymore. I can't even count how many websites I used to be on that just do not exist anymore. It's really sad. I have lots of fun memories of many wonderful petsites. There are only a handful around that I used to frequent, and this is one of them. I think video games really took over.

[yharnam boy]

i don't think it's videogames that took over, videogames were popular decades ago already.

it's more that people don't feel like using sites that aren't social media anymore, or don't even know how to use them.

[Hollypaws]

Someone else on a thread about C$ inflation described it well—the site "coddles" rare-chasing, older, and dedicated trading users. Rereleasing of store pets is decried as "unfair" to those who paid real money when the entire concept of Chicken Smoothie is "unfair." Unreleases are unfair, Dec. 18 is unfair, outcomes are unfair, store pets are unfair. What about those who pay real money to get C$ only to realize that C$ has been inflated to hell and back, making it so that you have to buy the highest amount available in the top-up section multiple times over to get a non pet? What about those who paid 5 bucks to get a set of store pets in the old days, only to realize that pet is being resold at multiple times its USD value?

If it's unfair, why don't we apply the "unfair" argument to everything else? Or is this to keep things rare enough to satisfy hardcore players in the rarity game, but far enough so that casual players have zero chance of obtaining it without joining hardcore ranks?

I personally think that CS needs a big update. Whether it be at the cost of a big summer event, I think that's okay for the long-term. It's something CS needs to survive. I understand if this is harsh. But I do think CS needs a lot of change. Because I want to see it living. Not surviving; living.

agreed, the demand for older store pets is outrageous- i think it's safe to say it's unfair to casual players both new and old when these days they're expected to go for 5k+ c$ or hundreds of pets, and even if you did art or sold your own pets to work up for it with it being that expensive people will be too discouraged to try in the first place. rereleasing them in a gacha like dec. 18th pets would be a bad idea, but if they were to say, have a rotation of a handful of different sets each month, or even every other month perhaps the worths could be more manageable. i also agree about more rare rereleases in general, the only reason i even managed to get a few of my dreamies is because i had older pets, i can NOT imagine a brand new user being able to say, get a malk mutant without someone being incredibly charitable and gifting them it/pets of equal worth or if they got good pulls from the pound or dec. 18th. maybe it's because i was a child at the time, but i swear waiting for the pound used to be worthwile because even if you didn't get the rare/vr/omgsr you wanted you could at least get a decently old uncommon to trade with. now, if you dont immediately refresh when it opens and snag the best pet you see you only have commons to pick from, which isn't exactly helpful especially for newer users.

another thing that could boost morale is irl merch, i couldn't buy any since i was 12-13 at the time if i remember right lol, but i was SO hyped to see the merch that was going to be sold at anthrocon even if i couldnt go (which you can see here -> https://i.imgur.com/oSIQQ.jpg), especially the unreleased sunback plushie, i even remember being hyped up for the cs mall when it sold stickers (https://www.chickensmoothie.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2088229). even if it was a limited release, selling sunback plushies or other pets like the moonswirl, ce or be galaxy, or even avian and totoro could go a long way, heck if i saw some of my favorite pets on a mug or something i just might consider getting one.

[BlueEyedKite]

@Hollypaws I said pages back if staff put up a temporary merch shop they could make money hand over fist!! Like please!! My CEG charm fell off into the unknown a week after I got it! I even said if shipping were a barrier there are state side shops that can print badges or buttons!

[Wheeze]

I agree with most of everyone here that trading has become much harder and a lot less people are willing to trade down. Getting rares has become incredibly hard. Either you have to be artistically inclined to win art competitions or do commissions. I myself am slightly above average I would say but even then that's not enough to place highly in a competition.

I feel like a cool fix for rarities would be to include site wide competitions, monthly ones where it would be a rotation.

Of course you have your monthly dress-up, well you could include a small prize such as an old item or pet.
There could be writing competitions and prompts with selected prizes or just simply participation prizes ( as judging would take quite a bit of time) fitting a theme and word requirement.
Art competitions, which would be easier to judge and give placements with participation or placement prizes.

[BlueEyedKite]

-snip-

There is a CS Writing Contest! Only there aren't participation prizes =/ and I am waiting to enter when the prize is worthwhile. The prizes are random and not guaranteed to be older pets. I'd be in support of more monthly contests like an Oekaki art competition and a dressup competition!