[urgent] this site really is actually dying

[shepherd's dog]

i've been around cs awhile. now that i'm an adult outta college, i have time to play more like i did when i was younger.

i have definitely noticed a traffic difference based on events, and it does seem to be getting quieter around here. still, it is encouraging to see that people are still engaging with events, and enjoy them enough that they log back in for them. to me, interest in events is a really important indicator, and i'm happy to see that they're attended and still very well run and put together!

for my part, i like to play around in forum games sometimes, help in threads, etc. i'm still a loyal lights on/off participant. & i end up buying a little c$ every check & get the store outcomes.

i truly continue to be impressed with how engaging and fun the content on this site is, and all the incredible new stuff the artists/staff keep coming up with. my hope is that it will continue to stick around.

i also feel like this conversation crops up quite frequently across many websites. it's just the nature of the internet. i don't think we can predict anything either way.

[Reiemye]

I feel like we don't all have the same definition of a "dying website". To me, the death of a website isn't relative, as in it's not just because there's a decrease in activity that it's dying. I've been on actually dying sites, or even dead sites, and those were sites with barely 5 users active at a time, and you could go a full day, even more, without a single new forum post. That's not CS's case at all, there's just not as much activity as before, but that doesn't mean it's dying. I agree with Concept here.

It's been talked about before, but website games aren't popular anymore, especially since Flash died. A decrease in activity is normal, and not that alarming when you consider that CS is the literal opposite of what's popular right now (games with instant gratification, gameplay and a lot of content), yet still has regular activity, be it here or on Discord.

I'm also going to reiterate that if I'm on CS it's precisely because there's nothing to do except watch pets grow. I have a full-time job and hobbies, I don't need nor want CS to hold my attention for more than a few minutes a day (or more during events).

[FANTASIIIA]

I don't think this site is really dying, sure I've seen it more active before but I've used way smaller sites before & they were not cosidered to be dead at all! On one site there's maybe just one forum post a day, and probably no replies, but here? People are talking all the time- at least it seems that way to me! The amount of online users is definitely smaller than ever in years, but I think that's how most online pet sites are nowdays.

[Concept]

Last year's staff litter thread had 145 pages. This year's barely broke 100.

2015's staff litter? 250.

You can even look at other forum areas. For example, I work as an artist for an adoptable in the Oekaki Adoptables forums. We've seen posts on even simple contests absolutely tank in the last year or so. Things that used to get 30-40 entries now struggle to even get 20. That's a significant difference in activity to me.

raw number wise, even looking at currently active players should say something. we haven't broken the most members online since 2017, despite having the same returning re-release event every year and a site that still registers new members. I don't think we even got above 5000 last year for the 18th, but I don't have any screenshots or solid proof for that, so that's simply just a recollection.

Oh those numbers are interesting, and your right that that is a severe decline... I know you have to be careful about correlation implying causation because it can be a slippery slope, but now I can't help but wonder if maybe I was incorrect in some of my previous thoughts and that discord actually did have something to do with the forums losing activity after all, since a friend of mine reminded me just yesterday that Discord was established in 2015. There's no solid proof obviously which is why one has to be really careful, so it's all speculation at this point, but it also makes me more inclined to agree with Reiemye above that the definition of dying as a website is different for a lot of people. The overall picture is something that we as users probably don't have nearly so much of an idea of because this site is spread out over a huge presence online. It might have been a bit silly of me to get into this discussion in the first place but it has DEFINITELY granted some much needed perspective about how people play the game and how others want to play the game, and how much the forums has been a huge presence ON chicken smoothie, which has passed me by entirely since I only rarely took part.

-snip because you make good points-

And that's for a multitude of reasons, but it is something the site can definitely find a way to address through re-releases of some sort. Whether that be contests, or c$, or USD purchases.

Otherwise, like you said, people will leave in frustration. And I do honestly feel that the trading atmosphere and incredibly insane player values on some of these pets is contributing to the decline in player activity.

THAT ONE I actually recall, and this is recollection since it was about ten years ago at this point, that the Dec. re-release used to be a fair number of pets (I can't remember exact numbers, I know the first had to be more than a few) but they cut it down to two on a single day because of severe player backlash over the concept. They only just recently started making it more than two available in different rarity brackets, I can't remember how many years it's been now that we've gotten two presents... But I know it was probably within the last three or four years. That or my sense of time is really messed up. It was another thing I missed in the beginning and only saw because of the announcement when I went to get pets.

I don't think anyone wants rare pets to become a pay to win option, especially since that will only alienate and frustrate more people. I'm not going to go into it but just the suggestion of it makes me immediately against that. I do agree that I would love a wider net of re-releases though, and I think almost everyone who plays the game casually would XD And I think it would also help to cut down on the small subset of players that might be tempted to take advantage of younger/inexperienced players, at the cost of shaking up the market (which probably needs shook tbh).

-Snip because again you make a lot of good points XD-

Also, the site does run ads. I'm fairly sure the ads support the site mainly, not c$ purchases. Not too many general people, especially kids, probably run adblockers, and there's no way through the site (like a premium account upgrade) to disable them otherwise.

I had completely forgotten about the site running ads! I filter them out automatically when I'm playing, hah. I don't know enough about them to say anything for certain on how that might affect costwise so I'll just say you've been lovely in finding some of the cracks in my arguments and giving me something to think about! I know I can get a bit into debates, and your counterpoints were well thought out and very professional! Thank you for taking the time to make them!

[Bilaz]

I think a large part of the broken economy (with regards to free pets, not store pets) comes from user perceived value though. People trading between years exponentially makes the 2008 pets feel rarer and rarer every year but... They're not. Their rarity is rising yes, but very very slowly. The Sorbets have been VR for years, and we know they're close to OMGSR because the pink one (I think?) has fluctuated up once. The nons, the Coontail and the Bengal cat only went OMGSR because the rarity system got changed in 2019. The 2009 staff litter has been just rare the entire time I've been on CS.

So technically I should be able to trade up a similar amount of current pets to trade up to a Sorbet now as I should have been able to in 2016, except the user economy makes this impossible. I need to trade 2 2022 pets to get 1 2021 pet and so forth, and for what? They're all random commons sheesh. I gladly give older commons for newer commons I want but it seems like nobody wants to return the favor.

So I don't think more rereleases will help that much when current pets are seen as pocket change.

I wrote this a while ago about my idea of a healthier trading system:

8 'recent rares' (2021 - 2018) = 4 'mid rares' (2016-2014) = 2 'old rares' (2013-2011) = 1 'very old rare' (2010-2009)
Which is pretty much how I myself would trade, it seems fair enough? I value rarity more so I do 4 rares for a very rare
So then you get
16 'recent rares' (2021 - 2018) = 4 'recent very rares' (2021 - 2018) = 2 'mid very rare' (2016-2014) = 1 'old very rare' (2013-2011)
not going to bother with very old very rares because we're getting into list territory then
Which I think is far more doable for everyone. You could grab 16 current token pets and trade it for a very rare dog from 2012, I think that's about fair?

[Wookieinmashoo]

-snip because you make good points-

And that's for a multitude of reasons, but it is something the site can definitely find a way to address through re-releases of some sort. Whether that be contests, or c$, or USD purchases.

Otherwise, like you said, people will leave in frustration. And I do honestly feel that the trading atmosphere and incredibly insane player values on some of these pets is contributing to the decline in player activity.

THAT ONE I actually recall, and this is recollection since it was about ten years ago at this point, that the Dec. re-release used to be a fair number of pets (I can't remember exact numbers, I know the first had to be more than a few) but they cut it down to two on a single day because of severe player backlash over the concept. They only just recently started making it more than two available in different rarity brackets, I can't remember how many years it's been now that we've gotten two presents... But I know it was probably within the last three or four years. That or my sense of time is really messed up. It was another thing I missed in the beginning and only saw because of the announcement when I went to get pets.

I don't think anyone wants rare pets to become a pay to win option, especially since that will only alienate and frustrate more people. I'm not going to go into it but just the suggestion of it makes me immediately against that. I do agree that I would love a wider net of re-releases though, and I think almost everyone who plays the game casually would XD And I think it would also help to cut down on the small subset of players that might be tempted to take advantage of younger/inexperienced players, at the cost of shaking up the market (which probably needs shook tbh).

This is one of the issues I have. The amount of re-release pets really hasn't increased to meet the amount o players actively playing the site. It's nice that we got in increase from 2 to 3, but I feel there should be more. I'm not asking for a sudden leap to 10 or something, but a steady increase based on the number of active users for that year would help. There could be added brackets for pets of different years.

Also, I don't want to make a real life reference, but I feel like sending out trades is like sending out job applications. I read trade rules, send out trades, only to have 80% of them sit there and be ignored. That's not something anyone can help though, which is why I just send out trades in bulk even if they're all for the same thing.

I personally don't want mini games if they serve no purpose. FR already has a currency so the games there serve a purpose. If they're just games for the sake of being games, then there's plenty of sites that already have those. I chose CS before because it didn't require upkeep.

[critter]

As someone who is actively quitting at the moment, I definitely want to pitch my 2 cents.

I have outgrown chicken smoothie. It's common in sites like this, your hobbies don't align anymore and you drift off, the problem is for the people who stay are suddenly losing valuable people in the community. Roleplay partners, friends, and people they can turn to for advice. If not just because players are changing, the site is stagnating. There would be less of a decline in active players had the site kept up with irl trends, news, and important and interest benign add-ons. Staff is more worried about protecting COPPA players, and I'm extremely grateful for that, but kids today are more outgoing, they are less of homebodies now because the pandemic has made them itch to be social. Humans are social creatures, we can't dispute that. There are plenty of people, kids included, that also like to stay home, but it's not a significant enough number to offset the decline.
Nothing is new or exciting anymore, the novelty completely wore off years ago. The summer events are very rinse and repeat, the only thing that truly changes in the plot of the event. We haven't had an engaging summer event since the Egypt, candy, or space event. Players are struggling to determine values because everyone has their opinions on the value system, even though it's laid out very simply with their rarity tags and dates. Value has become totally arbitrary.
This site needs a hail mary. A big one. I remember the boom when I joined, forums were BURSTING 24/7. People wanted to be social, and those who struggled going out and had the option to stay in were welcomed and flourished here, now that going out was an option stripped away, growing up suddenly became difficult. Now that going out safely has become an option, I've seen my generation WANT to socialize outside of the internet. People in the past flocked here for the community, they ate it UP. People were kind, not gifting during holidays for show but gifting random players extremely rare pets just cause they saw their user on the forums. I was gifted a red rose dog when I first joined by a stranger I had never interacted with, and I will never forget that.
The discord was... ok. I recently left as I am quitting, so I don't see the point in getting any more notifications. The discord is treated more as a bulletin for knowing when the pound opens, or what something is worth. It doesn't seem very welcoming.
Discord is also not made for COPPA players, so theirs a bit of a wall there. COPPA players are just as sweet as other players, if not sweeter. Granted, they can't yell at me like normal players can but they tend to be way more polite and don't immediately try to scam me.
I had a player trade me a store pet from the month prior for my liontail when I had it, telling me "I don't value the list anymore so this is fair and you should accept" while HOARDING plenty of list pets and DEMANDING proper list trades. It's the worst experience I've had thus far in my 8 years of playing.

Chicken smoothie needs a modern overhaul, and that is going to take SERIOUS manpower. I play more on goatlings now, and staff run donation events that swap exclusives each month. This month is the 3 new flights, and the next would be the 2 originals. They are limited to 1 gacha box for the original month and 2 for the new per player. This is a PHENOMENAL way of paying manpower, engaging players, and getting the means to fund work on the site. They update new features ALL THE TIME. New items, new avatar items, inclusive items for disability, sexuality, gender identity, memberships, daily gacha, and so much more. Their value system is set with shops that can be searched and compared on the same page, which helps balance the item economy and keep values in check. They openly talk and express opinions on world news, encouraging donations to charity, even with prizes.
They continue to pump out exclusives every month and they are very well managed. They've been hacked before and the site has dropped a few times, but they ALWAYS bounce back and even make commemorative items to honor their resilience.
I don't play flight rising that much, but it's definitely an older community that works hard to keep values in check to avoid scamming.

Chicken smoothie needs a hail mary. Whether it be a gacha system for the pound that funds the work behind the scenes(such as 5 USD for 5 pound "rolls" that give you 5 random pound pets or something in that vein) or even more thrilling events that bring something new to the table. The events are beautiful, don't get me wrong, but they're getting stale. Chicken smoothie needs stability, interest, and trend to bring back the booming community.

Without giving the concrete needs of the site such are true pet values that aren't arbitrary, interesting lobbying for forums, and adjusting to the needs of the players without deflecting with "some forums are still popular" and "list values don't exist". A human being likes stability and a lot of us need it in order to continue frequenting the site.

Chicken smoothie will continue to pull in new players for as long as the site is up and running, but old players are leaving, and when the new players get old, they probably will too. Chicken smoothie just isn't interesting anymore, and plenty can argue that I'm wrong, the site is bustling, but there is far less community and more niche subdivisions now, and if you don't fit into one of them, you feel isolated.

Also, chicken smoothie doesn't have community-wide inside jokes, and that's a true shame. Maybe I want to giggle about stupid stuff like I am 14 again, this is a site that's very nostalgic and youthful, I want to feel it too.

edit to add: the only reason I bring up paying for more things other than currency is that I truly believe those involved with the site need payment, I don't know how the staff world works, but money makes the world turn, unfortunately. Perhaps instead, c$ could be used more than just paying store pets and items, I see a lot of collectors with heaps of c$, and a very small number of folks want to actually sell really rare lists for pennies to the dollar.

[Purgatory K9]

*cracks knuckles*
Before I get into this discussion again, I just want to say that it is currently 6:30 AM at the time of me writing this so please bare with me lol; I just woke up about an hour and a half ago.

I've read a couple pages back [pg. 52+] and I just want to say that Concept made me realize how much money has been put into this site. Which has made me this question: Where does all this money go? The reason I ask this question is because I feel like if this site is truly making that much money + ad revenue, I feel like there should be more done to this site. This brings me to the post I've made in the past mentioning that there needs to be more coders to help modernize/update the site.



I feel like we don't all have the same definition of a "dying website". To me, the death of a website isn't relative, as in it's not just because there's a decrease in activity that it's dying.



I believe that this website is dying in way; the activity has decreased but also the fact that the site hasn't been modernized that much at all...with the site not becoming more modern, the less that people will join as the years go on because who wants to join an old website when there's tons of newer and much more improved ones? I've taken a dip into Flight Rising and honestly? I think CS could really benefit from just taking a glance at FR and get some inspiration.



i have definitely noticed a traffic difference based on events, and it does seem to be getting quieter around here. still, it is encouraging to see that people are still engaging with events, and enjoy them enough that they log back in for them. to me, interest in events is a really important indicator, and i'm happy to see that they're attended and still very well run and put together!



I agree! I believe the events have gotten better and better over the years, this year's summer vacation event was an absolute blast and I frequented the discussion forums during that time because of so many people engaging--I just wish it was like that more all the time. There's got to be a way to make this site more engaging like that all the time but I'm just not sure how...does anyone have any ideas?

[yharnam boy]

Something I've noticed also well are the categories in the stamps and the item sorting are off. Stamps aren't organized in any way I can see and we definitely don't get new stamps enough.

there are many stamps. what i really want are stickers. STICKERS.

[Purgatory K9]

Something I've noticed also well are the categories in the stamps and the item sorting are off. Stamps aren't organized in any way I can see and we definitely don't get new stamps enough.

there are many stamps. what i really want are stickers. STICKERS.

Just curious, what would be the difference in stickers and stamps?