[urgent] this site really is actually dying

[determinationss]

someone mentioned it a few pages back, but i fully support the idea of introducing merch again. i think a lot of us were too young to purchase it when it first came out and now those of us who love this site and grew up on it would love to have something like that. it would be good for the site because they would make profit on it and the users would get something they love from a site they love too.

i think trading is also an issue of course, however i don't know fully how bad it is since i have been known to only come on for events where people are usually more tolerant and open to trades during.

[FauxFeather]

I myself have had like a hiatus spanning a few years because I got very caught up with education. But I think that it’s a combination of people growing older, getting jobs, going to higher education (ex. College/university) as well as the hostility/rudeness or just difficulty in trades and the necessity to overpay for pets that in the end aren’t even worth that much. Though I personally have had pretty decent trading experiences, the ‘worst’ was the other person saying “no thanks/sorry” lol.

It’s a lot of lack of time for cs & trying to get an item or pet with little to no success/reward. I think it’s hard for newer players to adapt to the site since they might want cool old pets, but “not have anything worth it” and feel like the only way they could afford it is by soending real money on C$. Otherwise it would be through a player-run adoption centre that they can adapt to the trade market, but even then several really big player-run adoption centres have shut down because it became too much to manage/handle.


I don’t really have a solution, but this is just kinda how I view the problem/situation of the site dying.

[BlueEyedKite]

someone mentioned it a few pages back, but i fully support the idea of introducing merch again. i think a lot of us were too young to purchase it when it first came out and now those of us who love this site and grew up on it would love to have something like that. it would be good for the site because they would make profit on it and the users would get something they love from a site they love too.

i think trading is also an issue of course, however i don't know fully how bad it is since i have been known to only come on for events where people are usually more tolerant and open to trades during.

Literally can't say enough how much a physical merch store, even temporary, would be a boon for CS. Please take my money!!

[.euphoric]

someone mentioned it a few pages back, but i fully support the idea of introducing merch again. i think a lot of us were too young to purchase it when it first came out and now those of us who love this site and grew up on it would love to have something like that. it would be good for the site because they would make profit on it and the users would get something they love from a site they love too.

i think trading is also an issue of course, however i don't know fully how bad it is since i have been known to only come on for events where people are usually more tolerant and open to trades during.

Literally can't say enough how much a physical merch store, even temporary, would be a boon for CS. Please take my money!!

agreed!

[FauxFeather]

someone mentioned it a few pages back, but i fully support the idea of introducing merch again. i think a lot of us were too young to purchase it when it first came out and now those of us who love this site and grew up on it would love to have something like that. it would be good for the site because they would make profit on it and the users would get something they love from a site they love too.

i think trading is also an issue of course, however i don't know fully how bad it is since i have been known to only come on for events where people are usually more tolerant and open to trades during.

Literally can't say enough how much a physical merch store, even temporary, would be a boon for CS. Please take my money!!

For real! I would kill to have a(n official) CS dog plush! Or of any of the pets really! Greyscale pins? Lost city snow globes or something. Even just a pen with like a bouncy Totoro or Tess on a spring.

[Ray of Sunlight]

I feel there is also the issue of a lack of interactivity. For example, I play flight rising. There is a bunch of games you can play during free time, things you have to log in to collect (bonding with familiars/gathering/trading post), stuff that requires teamwork with other players (clans), competitions for skin designs for upcoming events, etc. All we have is the forums, the pound and waiting for pets to grow-up/customizing said pets. There is a lack of motivation to log on and stay on the site since what can you really do?

[Caelus]

I haven't had any hostile trading experiences, but definitely difficult ones. As a newer player I've had older players attempt to blatantly scam me, or have otherwise had a difficult time trading for pets that aren't even all that old or valuable in the grand scheme of things. It's a little demoralizing at times, though I don't let it get me down too much. I'm a reserved person so I'm not super affected by forums dying, but it does make it harder to trade.

This is one of the other things driving away new players imo.
If your account is under a year old and you get your hands on a semi-valuable pet you're practically guaranteed to be drowned in scam trades, especially around the 18th, and the official stance has always been "we can't/won't act on this" even though it's blatantly obvious to everyone who's been around for a couple years or longer when it happens.

[BlueEyedKite]

I haven't had any hostile trading experiences, but definitely difficult ones. As a newer player I've had older players attempt to blatantly scam me, or have otherwise had a difficult time trading for pets that aren't even all that old or valuable in the grand scheme of things. It's a little demoralizing at times, though I don't let it get me down too much. I'm a reserved person so I'm not super affected by forums dying, but it does make it harder to trade.

This is one of the other things driving away new players imo.
If your account is under a year old and you get your hands on a semi-valuable pet you're practically guaranteed to be drowned in scam trades, especially around the 18th, and the official stance has always been "we can't/won't act on this" even though it's blatantly obvious to everyone who's been around for a couple years or longer when it happens.

I hate ninja traders with a passion but I feel staff's hands are tied. They'd have to endorse an official values guide so they can pass a judgment "Ah clearly this is a scam". I know what you mean though, Literally screaming inside when I see it. It motivates me to answer in the How Much Is This Pet Worth forums because I don't want those lowball trades to happen to anyone else.

I have to admit the 12/18 is this a fair trade was a godsend and just the additions we need to combat the ninja trades. We need more tools like that. Maybe there could be a staff position where all they do is give trade advice? Those worth threads are typically a ghost town for replies, can it be someone's job please ^^; they say the general helpers do their best to give advice but in my opinion we could use a staff member that absolutely knows the trade market and is active in replying to trade questions!

[snowdrake]

I feel there is also the issue of a lack of interactivity. For example, I play flight rising. There is a bunch of games you can play during free time, things you have to log in to collect (bonding with familiars/gathering/trading post), stuff that requires teamwork with other players (clans), competitions for skin designs for upcoming events, etc. All we have is the forums, the pound and waiting for pets to grow-up/customizing said pets. There is a lack of motivation to log on and stay on the site since what can you really do?

honestly, that's what keeps me on the site! on FR where I also have an account, even the fact that you need to keep your dragons fed is too much. add up all that other stuff and it's even worse. don't get me wrong, I don't dislike FR or anything, but for a person like me who has a child, needs to take care of a ton of irl stuff and can only really be online around 2 hours a day and maybe a few seconds in between to bump a thread, it's just not happening (especially when you also have other things you like to do in your free time).

CS doesn't have much to do except watch some pets grow and perhaps be active in the forums if you want to, but I feel like that is what makes it popular and its own unique 'experience'!

[Lacuna]

Hey, just wanted to pop in because I'm seeing some things discussed that we are actually doing, but you might have missed the news about! A lot of these changes were based on suggestions given here or in other similar threads, so I do want you to know we are listening. However, it can be hard to do anything with posts like "the overall community doesn't trade in a way that's welcoming" because there isn't much we can do about people who are asking high value for things or not being as nice and understanding as you wish they would be. Of course, if people call you names, attempt to mislead you about values, or are actively hostile we can and do deal with that when we get reports (and please do submit those reports!), but it will honestly have to be the initiative of a lot of people to be kinder overall or a large movement of people agreeing to compress the value structure. Us trying to do that artificially probably wouldn't work, and that's nearly the same reason we don't have a CS endorsed value list or a moderator who answers trade value questions (as their answers would then be taken as fact, and we don't want that). We are leaving this thread open to discussion, but please remember to be as constructive as you can.

Anyway:

- An older one, but we implemented mid-month updates with a featured dress up, and standardized our rarity updates to coincide with those updates.
- Most know, but newer users may not: We used to just release bi-monthly store pets and very occasional new permanent store items. We implemented monthly rotating store birthstone items and bi-monthly rotating limited store items in an attempt to keep the C$ economy circulating. I hope we'll be able to add more permanent items soon but that's not something I have explicit control over!
- We have celebrated a lot more small holidays recently, and we do have a staff chat/thread with plans for more. If there is interest, perhaps we could have a suggestion thread just for small holiday releases, separate from simple pet/item design suggestions? I would especially love this for lesser-known holidays that might have a cultural food component or something similar to our past Eid release, and to keep any suggestions together so threads do not have to be bumped as much. Let me know and I can probably make that this weekend if so! Do remember though that an extra release every week is probably not in the cards, that is a lot of work and our artists would probably get burnt out quickly.
- There were some comments about Pride Month specifically, we have celebrated it with free pride flag item releases two years in a row (you can get them here as well as multiple pride litters. I personally have been making a yearly pride month litter for even longer than that.

Onto newer stuff:

- We held a poll and comment thread to discuss CS Sponsered writing comeptitions and when we received good feedback, we implemented them. There were also a lot of affirmative results for more competition types, and I hope we can introduce those soon because the writing contest doesn't seem to be the perfect solution, as there haven't been a huge number of entries.

- We held another poll here to get user input on our New Year's release, and (credit to Aaron I believe) even tallied the comments to show that cat was one of the top favored species to make that change. That pet was released! I hope we can add more user input in this way in the future as well.

I just want to reiterate that we are listening and doing our best! I was very excited that we were able to release Dark Mode as part of the Summer Event, as I know that's something people have been asking for for ages. I have also directly suggested merch and that is something a lot of the moderators would love to see in the future too!