Returning to CS has shown how the bad the trade system is.

[Inactive.]

While we’re still on the topic of letting trades sit, I just wanted to say that I’m guilty of it too, unfortunately. I get too nervous to cancel trades because I want to be polite and I don’t know what to say when I cancel them.

I understand the feeling x honestly best thing to do for you and everyone is to just cancel, a simple 'thanks for the offer but ill pass for now ' is more than enough, and really, whats the worst someones going to do ykno. If they send you a nasty message you can report/block. I get more than a share of cancelled trades and never take it personally, its part of the game!

I totally get being nervous about cancelling though, I used to be the same <3

[BlueEyedKite]

While we’re still on the topic of letting trades sit, I just wanted to say that I’m guilty of it too, unfortunately. I get too nervous to cancel trades because I want to be polite and I don’t know what to say when I cancel them.

Don't say anything I learned years ago it is 100% okay to just cancel with nothing in the chat box ^^ don't sweat it.

What I can't figure out is when users wishlist lock their trading groups but their wishlist is 2 pages and it's just July 08 dogs and the 2009 store pets ^^; What am I supposed to do when I just wanted to trade for a random 2012 rare? No one would trade a sunback for a 2012 rare right? So is that pet not actually for trade? Odd right.

[ButterflyChaser]

While we’re still on the topic of letting trades sit, I just wanted to say that I’m guilty of it too, unfortunately. I get too nervous to cancel trades because I want to be polite and I don’t know what to say when I cancel them.

I personally prefer to either give or receive a message like this:

"Thank you for offering, but (give your reason even if it is "I just don't prefer the pet being offered.") I've also canceled trades with the message I already got the pet if I get more than one trade offering the same pet. Or will let them know if I didn't have a spare to offer. I've also sometimes told someone I was saving the pet for the value to increase.

Canceling without a message can be okay or perceived rude depending on the situation. I figure a nice message like above is polite, shows that you care, are considerate, gave the trade some thought, but just weren't into it at the time.

[Solloby]

Not wanting to cancel trades or not knowing what to type in the message box is so relatable!

Don't say anything I learned years ago it is 100% okay to just cancel with nothing in the chat box ^^ don't sweat it.

What I can't figure out is when users wishlist lock their trading groups but their wishlist is 2 pages and it's just July 08 dogs and the 2009 store pets ^^; What am I supposed to do when I just wanted to trade for a random 2012 rare? No one would trade a sunback for a 2012 rare right? So is that pet not actually for trade? Odd right.

I do this, for me it was because I couldn't leave them open anymore due to greedy users. I would constantly get trades that were either begging for free pets, which people can't do to wishlist locked pets since it forces you to offer something, offering complex trades I didn't know if they were fair or not and didn't have the time to deal with, and offering underpay for their wishlist pets. Like I don't care about the non-wishlist pet you are offering, why on earth would I overpay for it?

So in the end I was forced to lock the groups to stop all the bad trades coming in. In the past I have opened them up again tentatively to try and allow trades, but the influx of bad trades would make me close them again. It's been many years since I last opened up my trade groups. It's simply too hard, especially considering the fact that those trades would purely be favours to other people, and I'd just be idly rotating my trading stock rather than getting anything I particularly want.

Now I use those pets for gifts, art payments, sell for C$ if I am getting low (I collect all items and there's been a lot of new store ones lately), or save them to offer for rarer pets that I might miss (based on the community poll that suggests we'll be getting more of those). So my pets are for trade, I just don't want to deal with greedy people who want me to give them free stuff despite the fact I worked hard on selling art to get a lot of those pets in the first place. So I wishlist lock them despite having a tiny wishlist. In the past I used to make little hoards to fill out my wishlist in order to make my older pets more accessible for trading, and that worked very well, but I don't really need any new hoards right now.

I hope this answers your question about why some traders have their trade groups largely inaccessible.

[Inactive.]

Not wanting to cancel trades or not knowing what to type in the message box is so relatable!

Don't say anything I learned years ago it is 100% okay to just cancel with nothing in the chat box ^^ don't sweat it.

What I can't figure out is when users wishlist lock their trading groups but their wishlist is 2 pages and it's just July 08 dogs and the 2009 store pets ^^; What am I supposed to do when I just wanted to trade for a random 2012 rare? No one would trade a sunback for a 2012 rare right? So is that pet not actually for trade? Odd right.

I do this, for me it was because I couldn't leave them open anymore due to greedy users. I would constantly get trades that were either begging for free pets, which people can't do to wishlist locked pets since it forces you to offer something, offering complex trades I didn't know if they were fair or not and didn't have the time to deal with, and offering underpay for their wishlist pets. Like I don't care about the non-wishlist pet you are offering, why on earth would I overpay for it?

So in the end I was forced to lock the groups to stop all the bad trades coming in. In the past I have opened them up again tentatively to try and allow trades, but the influx of bad trades would make me close them again. It's been many years since I last opened up my trade groups. It's simply too hard, especially considering the fact that those trades would purely be favours to other people, and I'd just be idly rotating my trading stock rather than getting anything I particularly want.

Now I use those pets for gifts, art payments, sell for C$ if I am getting low (I collect all items and there's been a lot of new store ones lately), or save them to offer for rarer pets that I might miss (based on the community poll that suggests we'll be getting more of those). So my pets are for trade, I just don't want to deal with greedy people who want me to give them free stuff despite the fact I worked hard on selling art to get a lot of those pets in the first place. So I wishlist lock them despite having a tiny wishlist. In the past I used to make little hoards to fill out my wishlist in order to make my older pets more accessible for trading, and that worked very well, but I don't really need any new hoards right now.

I hope this answers your question about why some traders have their trade groups largely inaccessible.

Out of curiosity, did you find it got worse after you got a staff label/colored username? I've always wondered if you guys have a harder time because maybe younger players feel entitled to your stuff/feel you can just give them stuff since your a staff member?

[Solloby]

Out of curiosity, did you find it got worse after you got a staff label/colored username? I've always wondered if you guys have a harder time because maybe younger players feel entitled to your stuff/feel you can just give them stuff since your a staff member?

I've been staff for most of my time on CS, so I can't really say what it's like to not have the coloured name. You could be onto something there though. I think the Member list was a problem too, back in the day. When you click Members, it used to have a list of users in order of join date. I was 2nd on the list, directly under Tess, because I joined the site at the very start. So I think it's possible people found me there as well as through my forum posts, which may have resulted in me receiving a lot more trades that other people. Others on that first page had issues as well I think, so it was changed to not show any Members until you type something into the search first.

[shadowangelw]

I would like to say it's not just the list and rares that have an issue, i can not for the life of me get people to trade me uncommons and up now, without them trying to take both my arms and legs while also telling me it's only worth about 3 2023 very commons for a 2017 uncommon, and as much as i love gifting things, i have a huge wishlist with a bunch of missing pets from omgsc to omgsr and it seems people just slap stuff in to get the best deal on there end to re-sell it later at an inflated price. which becomes exhausting and makes me feel like trading is harder than it should be, i mean i do accept trades that would be out of the norm/unfair to some people more often now just to hope i can get a single common - uncommon. Also i don't mind just swapping a straight up uncommon for an uncommon and if it feels unfair due to date i'd be like maybe an extremely common or 2 as an extra but usually it's not overly pricy. i've ended up having to explicitly put up more rules because all i want is my regular wishlist and people just don't use it for some reason even if i have atleast over 5 pages of normal pets in regular ranges. my only hope is we can all eventually slowly move to a less greedy economy or it just collapses and we have to start a bit fresh. also this is coming from a person who ended up only getting list pets from giveaways or quitting users because i can no longer trade for anything above a rare without people asking for literally over 20-50 rares for something that could easily be swapped 1:1 on most occasions. sorry for the ramble and if it doesn't make too much sense i tried.

[Inactive.]

I would like to say it's not just the list and rares that have an issue, i can not for the life of me get people to trade me uncommons and up now, without them trying to take both my arms and legs while also telling me it's only worth about 3 2023 very commons for a 2017 uncommon, and as much as i love gifting things, i have a huge wishlist with a bunch of missing pets from omgsc to omgsr and it seems people just slap stuff in to get the best deal on there end to re-sell it later at an inflated price. which becomes exhausting and makes me feel like trading is harder than it should be, i mean i do accept trades that would be out of the norm/unfair to some people more often now just to hope i can get a single common - uncommon. Also i don't mind just swapping a straight up uncommon for an uncommon and if it feels unfair due to date i'd be like maybe an extremely common or 2 as an extra but usually it's not overly pricy. i've ended up having to explicitly put up more rules because all i want is my regular wishlist and people just don't use it for some reason even if i have atleast over 5 pages of normal pets in regular ranges. my only hope is we can all eventually slowly move to a less greedy economy or it just collapses and we have to start a bit fresh. also this is coming from a person who ended up only getting list pets from giveaways or quitting users because i can no longer trade for anything above a rare without people asking for literally over 20-50 rares for something that could easily be swapped 1:1 on most occasions. sorry for the ramble and if it doesn't make too much sense i tried.

Thanks for sharing your experience~!

This actually ties into a prevailing issue. I really think offsite sales/currency sales should be banned. Its encouraging a economy of 'selling' pets instead of keeping it strictly to C$ and trading. People are refusing to get rid of lower value pets for anything except C$ and other currencies (FR.ect). I don't know any other site like CS that actively allows the trade/exchange of in game items for another games currency. You can't regulate it or prevent scams, as well as it damaging the games 'economy'.

I've also noticed the difficulty trading for lower rarity pets, and the wishlist being one list as opposed to several separate ones is definitley a issue.

[lil rascal]

Not wanting to cancel trades or not knowing what to type in the message box is so relatable!

Don't say anything I learned years ago it is 100% okay to just cancel with nothing in the chat box ^^ don't sweat it.

What I can't figure out is when users wishlist lock their trading groups but their wishlist is 2 pages and it's just July 08 dogs and the 2009 store pets ^^; What am I supposed to do when I just wanted to trade for a random 2012 rare? No one would trade a sunback for a 2012 rare right? So is that pet not actually for trade? Odd right.

I do this, for me it was because I couldn't leave them open anymore due to greedy users. I would constantly get trades that were either begging for free pets, which people can't do to wishlist locked pets since it forces you to offer something, offering complex trades I didn't know if they were fair or not and didn't have the time to deal with, and offering underpay for their wishlist pets. Like I don't care about the non-wishlist pet you are offering, why on earth would I overpay for it?

So in the end I was forced to lock the groups to stop all the bad trades coming in. In the past I have opened them up again tentatively to try and allow trades, but the influx of bad trades would make me close them again. It's been many years since I last opened up my trade groups. It's simply too hard, especially considering the fact that those trades would purely be favours to other people, and I'd just be idly rotating my trading stock rather than getting anything I particularly want.

Now I use those pets for gifts, art payments, sell for C$ if I am getting low (I collect all items and there's been a lot of new store ones lately), or save them to offer for rarer pets that I might miss (based on the community poll that suggests we'll be getting more of those). So my pets are for trade, I just don't want to deal with greedy people who want me to give them free stuff despite the fact I worked hard on selling art to get a lot of those pets in the first place. So I wishlist lock them despite having a tiny wishlist. In the past I used to make little hoards to fill out my wishlist in order to make my older pets more accessible for trading, and that worked very well, but I don't really need any new hoards right now.

I hope this answers your question about why some traders have their trade groups largely inaccessible.

Out of curiosity, did you find it got worse after you got a staff label/colored username? I've always wondered if you guys have a harder time because maybe younger players feel entitled to your stuff/feel you can just give them stuff since your a staff member?

I don’t think it’s just the staff label, though it probably doesn’t help. I’ve wl locked my lower rarities in the past for the same reasons as Solloby. Whenever I have no lower rarities on my wl but leave them open with the idea of helping others get pets they were looking for I get the vast majority of these types of trades.

[Yaeli]

I really feel this cause I was really active a few years when this site seemed fun. I remember trading a whole bunch of pets up for a purple Tess horse and yes, it was hard to find someone to do it, but not impossible. Now, I wouldn't even have the energy to do that stuff. Like people these days are like "no I need exactly 6.1 meganonpoolfloatiebears and they need to not look like horses". Plus like you can't find old users that even are on anymore with good stuff to trade. And when I find stuff on my WL it's usually marked for FR gems only which I don't even play and have no interest in. Like the only reason I even come on this site is because I already have dreamies and can dress them up or organize them. I can't imagine trading for those same things NOW. It's no surprise that everyone who plays seems to be from 2018 or earlier because if you're from later it's near impossible to get anything you want. Idk what needs to be done but I can see staff working on solutions such as the updated rarity system, which I think was a good thing. I think the issues aren't with the trade system, per se, but with what naturally has been happening as the site ages.

The site has aged. Older users have more, and newer users have less. There is more divide between users as old pets get rarer while new users get newer (that doesn't make sense lol, what I mean is there's a bigger gap between the old/new user years as the years go on). The older users only have extreme dreamies left, and their second-tier valuable pets aren't getting traded to newer users because they only want their dreamies for them.

Old store pets are never ever getting released again and becoming rarer and rarer, yet people still want them as their dreamies and some want complete store collections. This sets people up for disappointment and unrealistic expectations. But people still want to play like it's a few years ago. People want to be able to achieve any pet they want on the site if they work hard enough, because that's been the status quo of this game. Yet this is becoming less and less possible, so people are losing interest and becoming upset. Personally I think it's tragic that this is happening on a game that I literally got into because it was possible for me to achieve my dreamies without paying hundreds of real life dollars.

Like I'm not a mean person usually, but I'm reluctant to trade my more valuable pets, and it's not just because of "culture," it's because I know valuable stuff is hard to come by these days, and if I trade away something for something slightly less valuable, it's likely that I'll never get that value back, whereas back then there were way more giveaways and trading was easier.

I can only think of two actual solutions to this problem. Either release a ton of old pets, including stores if you want to fix everything, I mean something way bigger than one or two Dec 18 events. Make the market pool back to where it was a handful of years ago. The other solution (I don't like this) is to get rid of "dreamie culture". Convince the user base they can't get these old pets anymore. Not really a great solution as people will still see old, active users having pets that they ideally would want. So why not do the first one? Why be so stingy with rares+? It's not gonna break the market, it's gonna fix it to where it was back then. Back when, you know, people actually played the game. What's wrong with that?

tl;dr it's not trading culture's fault, it's the result of the market getting older