Does anyone else feel like Demand is killing CS?

[Asvoria]

I could be wrong, so I would love it if someone could verify this but I seem to remember reading somewhere before that the cs rarity system stops counting pets from accounts that have been inactive for more than a certain length of time. If that is so it would not completely refute the concept that there are more inaccessible old pets within the rarity but it would certainly weaken it.

Inactive accounts and their pets are not counted towards rarity, that's correct.

But it's pretty much as Dioxeon said - with newly released rares you can usually still find a good amount of them in people's trade groups, because they just came out and a lot of people wouldn't have traded all their extras away already.
But the more time passes, the more of people's trade fodder finds its way into others' collections and hoards. Those pets are on active accounts, so they still exist as far as the rarity system is concerned, but their owners are usually intending to keep them, so they're not in circulation any more.
Additionally, more and more users will join who weren't around to adopt those pets themselves.
Most people who stop playing also never give away their collections before they quit, so you'll have a lot of people who collect pets, take those pets out of circulation and then quit, taking them out of the rarity count alltogether. And that is when it will affect the rarity tags eventually. So that's where old pets take the double hit - they've become scarce in people's trade groups as it is, and slowly get stuck on inactive accounts.
If it weren't for the re-release, that effect would be a lot more drastic, and the older a pet is, the more you'll notice it.

I was wondering why Tess and Nick never thought about sending an e-mail to the owner of an inactive account after they have been away for more than a year, asking to login just once otherwise their account will be deactivated within a month or so.
That's something that I have seen on various other sites and it helps to keep the member base a bit cleaner.
I would also dare to say that if someone was still interested in their account, the'd log in once a year anyway (for Dec. 18th at least) or upon notification. You have to enter a validate e-mail anyway and will be notified there if you can't be contacted via CS.
I kind of believe that it would reduce the struggle of obtaining older pets. Just throw those pets from inactive accounts into the Pound and release them back into the market.
It would certainly affect the rarities and make some more pets less valuable than they were before (especially if rarity tags change) but it doesn't quite affect the whole system, as those older pets will be still rarer anyway.
Although I doubt that this will ever be an option.

[Shinryu]

I regularly see people come back to CS after years of hiatus, and they always seem quite relieved to see that their pets and items are still safe.
Personally I despise it when sites delete accounts after inactivity when those accounts have actually been used to play. The fact that CS won't ever punish people for not playing in a while is something that I greatly appreciate.
Taking inactive accounts out of the equation keeps the site 'clean' as far as making sure the rarities are kept accurate is concerned.
Pets getting rarer as they get older isn't accidental, it's been a predicted effect since the start of the game, or else CS wouldn't do releases the way it does.
There are games where rarities are meant to somewhat reflect the probability of obtaining a pet or item (Aywas and FR come to mind), but on CS, rarities are meant to reflect the overall numbers, and the limited releases/availability of pets intends to create a finite supply of them.
Re-releases are just there to make sure those pets never become entirely unobtainable^^

[XxFlamepoolxX]

I regularly see people come back to CS after years of hiatus, and they always seem quite relieved to see that their pets and items are still safe.
Personally I despise it when sites delete accounts after inactivity when those accounts have actually been used to play. The fact that CS won't ever punish people for not playing in a while is something that I greatly appreciate.
Taking inactive accounts out of the equation keeps the site 'clean' as far as making sure the rarities are kept accurate is concerned.
Pets getting rarer as they get older isn't accidental, it's been a predicted effect since the start of the game, or else CS wouldn't do releases the way it does.
There are games where rarities are meant to somewhat reflect the probability of obtaining a pet or item (Aywas and FR come to mind), but on CS, rarities are meant to reflect the overall numbers, and the limited releases/availability of pets intends to create a finite supply of them.
Re-releases are just there to make sure those pets never become entirely unobtainable^^

What about store pets then and the “retired” list for dec 18? Eventually those will become unobtainable with the amounts growing lesser and lesser the more forever homes and inactive accounts arise. What do we do about that?

[Shinryu]

What about store pets then and the “retired” list for dec 18? Eventually those will become unobtainable with the amounts growing lesser and lesser the more forever homes and inactive accounts arise. What do we do about that?

Tess never intended for store pets to be considered officially a part of having a complete collection.
They're rewards for the people who spent real money to support the site, and that's especially true for the 2009 and 2010 sets, because the store was added precisely because Tess couldn't afford a server host to run the site any more. So basically, those store pets were a way of thanking the people who helped to keep the site running.^^
There is unfortunately also just no way of re-releasing store pets again that wouldn't be massively unfair. Can't release them for free because people back then paid for them. Can't release limited amounts on a first-come first-serve basis because it'd not work out timezone wise. Can't release them as a paid dec 18th style box because that's basically a lootbox.

Store pets are the only pets that never get released again. The december 18th "UR" pets get released every year on the 18th, they don't get retired at any point^^

Personally I just don't think "inactive users have store pets" is a justification to take away someone's pets just because they haven't felt like playing for some time. Punishing people for not being motivated to play just doesn't sit right with me, especially knowing that users returning from long breaks is far more common that people seem to expect.

[Loelya]

What about store pets then and the “retired” list for dec 18? Eventually those will become unobtainable with the amounts growing lesser and lesser the more forever homes and inactive accounts arise. What do we do about that?

Tess never intended for store pets to be considered officially a part of having a complete collection.
They're rewards for the people who spent real money to support the site, and that's especially true for the 2009 and 2010 sets, because the store was added precisely because Tess couldn't afford a server host to run the site any more. So basically, those store pets were a way of thanking the people who helped to keep the site running.

Store pets are the only pets that never get released again. The december 18th "UR" pets get released every year on the 18th, they don't get retired at any point^^

I think this point is extremely important. It would seem a lot of players feel that having some pets be potentially out of reach defeats the purpose of the game, but it has been stated that the store pets are not technically considered part of the game.

people who could afford to support the game (especially back then) got a special reward. people who aren't able to, then or now, should rest easy, because by game standard, those pets don't technically "count." a player isn't failing to have a complete collection by not obtaining all the store pets.

[Shinryu]

I mean, I can understand fully why people are frustrated, it's not unreasonable that a lot of users would count store pets as parts of a full collection seeing how they're in the archive and all.
It's just worth remembering that this was never how it was intended to be, and back in 2009, when CS legitimately was in danger of shutting down due to increasing costs, Tess didn't even have the year 2020 on her mind. Our community was so much smaller back then, I don't think many of us even considered the site could be around and we would be still playing in the current year :'D

People did catch on fairly quickly that it may be a good idea to buy extra store pets for later trading, but it is as it is.

At most I could see a change to future store pet releases where you could reasonably throw in a disclaimer a la "do note that we intend to re-release these pets in the future" or something like that.
But applying this to store pets already retired under the assumption that they would stay retired would be more of an issue.

And as far as inactive users' pets go, there's only so many store pets on those accounts, too. Eventually the supply would run low once more, there's never been enough of them to begin with^^

[XxFlamepoolxX]

Its just kinda disappointing to know that eventually it will be impossible for people to get their dreamies because there aren’t anymore in circulation. They sit in accounts owned by people who have no plans to return gathering dust. It’s not very fair to newer users who see these gorgeous pets in the archive and desperately want one.

I support the whole sending an email to check if they still intend to return because sometimes people forget their passwords/emails or they simply dont think to give the pets to active people who would want them. Maybe something happened to them and they’re no longer even around which is a sad thought, but they would probably want the pets to go to people.

I say send an email after two years of inactivity. If there is no response within a few months, assume they’re perma-inactive and move the pets to the pound. Maybe even send one more email beforehand just in case they missed the first.

It’s not punishing them if they are given plenty of notice beforehand. It just makes sure that certain pets stay in circulation. If they return late and are upset, it’s their fault for not checking in like they were asked to. The site could even have a warning upon signup stating that this could happen so it isn’t a sudden shock to people.

[Anastasia]

Its just kinda disappointing to know that eventually it will be impossible for people to get their dreamies because there aren’t anymore in circulation. They sit in accounts owned by people who have no plans to return gathering dust. It’s not very fair to newer users who see these gorgeous pets in the archive and desperately want one.

I support the whole sending an email to check if they still intend to return because sometimes people forget their passwords/emails or they simply dont think to give the pets to active people who would want them. Maybe something happened to them and they’re no longer even around which is a sad thought, but they would probably want the pets to go to people.
I say send an email after two years of inactivity. If there is no response within a few months, assume they’re perma-inactive and move the pets to the pound. Maybe even send one more email beforehand just in case they missed the first.

It’s not punishing them if they are given plenty of notice beforehand. It just makes sure that certain pets stay in circulation. If they return late and are upset, it’s their fault for not checking in like they were asked to. The site could even have a warning upon signup stating that this could happen so it isn’t a sudden shock to people.

maybe this could be a condition for new accounts created going forward, but it’s unfair to the members who signed up for CS not knowing their accounts had the risk of being deleted. I took a two year hiatus almost from CS and don’t use the email I signed up with anymore, so my account could have easily been deleted and I would have had no idea, even tho I intended to come back when I had time. Unfortunately, life after high school is very consuming.

[FOUND VERDICT]

i think the problem is that pretty much no "high value" pets are added to the game.
sure, we have the new urs in december but demand dies down rather fast for them and i don't think any from the last couple years are valued at anything higher than 2-2.5 nons.

there's just no way for newer users to even attempt collecting a lot of the older pets unless you get really lucky on dec. 18 or spend a lot of real money on C$...


if you're super lucky you can get an omgsr zebra from the monthly adopts or an list from the pound but that's it.

[XxFlamepoolxX]

Its just kinda disappointing to know that eventually it will be impossible for people to get their dreamies because there aren’t anymore in circulation. They sit in accounts owned by people who have no plans to return gathering dust. It’s not very fair to newer users who see these gorgeous pets in the archive and desperately want one.

I support the whole sending an email to check if they still intend to return because sometimes people forget their passwords/emails or they simply dont think to give the pets to active people who would want them. Maybe something happened to them and they’re no longer even around which is a sad thought, but they would probably want the pets to go to people.
I say send an email after two years of inactivity. If there is no response within a few months, assume they’re perma-inactive and move the pets to the pound. Maybe even send one more email beforehand just in case they missed the first.

It’s not punishing them if they are given plenty of notice beforehand. It just makes sure that certain pets stay in circulation. If they return late and are upset, it’s their fault for not checking in like they were asked to. The site could even have a warning upon signup stating that this could happen so it isn’t a sudden shock to people.

maybe this could be a condition for new accounts created going forward, but it’s unfair to the members who signed up for CS not knowing their accounts had the risk of being deleted. I took a two year hiatus almost from CS and don’t use the email I signed up with anymore, so my account could have easily been deleted and I would have had no idea, even tho I intended to come back when I had time. Unfortunately, life after high school is very consuming.

The problem with that though is that it doesn’t solve the current pet issue. That was the main reasoning behind suggesting it. There would most likely be an announcement post on the first page and maybe even send some emails out to let everyone know about the new change