WHY PEOPLE ARE QUITTING CS- A Discussion

[iheartdonny]

The only thing I really want to add to this is a piggyback off of those talking about inflation and how hard it is to get certain high value pets. I have been saving up my valuable pets and c$ for years now for the cinnabun. A couple years ago, I would have more than enough c$ and high value pets to trade for a cinnabun. Now, apparently, I don't even have half of what it's worth. I always joked that I would donate all of my other pets to the pound once I got the cinnabun... at this rate, that will never happen

[barbwirebrat]

i also want to add that there isn’t anything that mods can do about people hoarding list pets. hoarding culture is going to exist no matter what and with that comes people hoarding valuable pets. it would be unfair to take them away or put a limit on them just because you want them— a lot of time and effort can go into obtaining these pets. i don’t personally have any list hoards but i have respect for those who do. at the end of the day we need to remember this is a pet sim forum game and it ultimately isn’t a huge deal

[FERALMACHINE]

now, just a heads up, I will say this. too many daily activities can overwhelm people. maybe 3 times a week at most for dailies. the reason I quit lion den was because I was overwhelmed

Big agree. I was turned off from from Lioden for the same reason actually, despite it being a good petsim. I have so many other things I could be doing that checking that game just felt like a chore, and I feel like CS needs a bit of a balance on this front. I still pop into FR daily to do dailies and Baldwin, but here? Maybe I pop on to see if the pound is open or bump my trade threads, but there's just not really a whole lot for me beyond that when there isn't an event going on. Most days I'm only popping in for a few seconds, if that. But I will echo the sentiment that this site has VERY fun events, even if looking for the banners can be a bit tedious imo.

(Side note: appreciate the staff response! Not ignoring it, everything just moves really quickly)

^^! also, monthly events? if we had more coders this could possibly be achieved!

[asterrific]

Thank you to Lacuna for replying! I agree that we as a community can also do our part to help by being as welcoming as possible. I have very severe anxiety so I can find it hard to interact one-on-one, but going forward I'll make my utmost effort to be kind when trading and interacting with people-- especially new players.

If someone is confused, I'd love it if they could get the help they need! Even if someone is an old player, try not to assume that they know everything. Some things are difficult for people even if you may thing they're easy. Suggestions for the staff side are useful so they know what to work toward, but some things are simply not enforceable and are up to us to try and change.

Thank you everybody for listening!

[Cloverstream]

yep yep, its seems that the people who grew up on this site/appriciate the pets side of it, have been joining the team more and more. each event the outdo themselves,
which makes me sad that their work is less valued than older pets, a rare should be a rare to matter the year, their work shouldn't be viewed or valued as lesser

respectfully disagree. I'm pretty sure the staff themselves don't value new outcomes the same as 08 rares. there is nothing wrong with wanting more valuable pets, and it doesnt mean people dont appreciate the newer pets as well.

I don't see what some of these conversations have to do with improving cs. enforcing all rarities be valued the same? that would be a mess to me. again I just think the pound and re-releases instead of over policing. sorry to contributing to how fast this thread is moving. Im skimming casually. (:

[Nasarath]

Maybe a buy back, community directed program for pets would be an option?

Picture a pool of C$ at around 50k, where year+date=worth, the pool is limited to that amount and players can buy at the same rate as another player sold to this pool? Limitations to quantities of a particular coloration to 1, And 1 year+ minimum to keep it open in the general trade sense, but it relies on people buying the pets to replenish the 50k limit for other players to sell their pets? so C$ re-enters the game and becomes a more attainable currency but players who can or will pay can?

[Xesei]

This! I joined around 2016 but forgot my account name/password cause I was young and stupid so technically I'm a 2017 baby.
But that was the peak of CS but all I can remember is that the art community was so active and very fun to bid around in but generally never anything outside of the art forums was "fun." But I feel there isn't many events or stuff happening on the actually petsite part of CS, there is literally only the simple monthly pets and the summer/christmas events? So why would anyone want to get on? I stayed cause of the art community but even then that place is as dead as the actual forums now

In short, CS does nothing to make things fun. If you weren't here from day one you work for everything people got for free and it's all chance of maybe you'll find someone quitting with a pet you want. There is nothing for you work at to get C$ or pets. simply log in monthly to grab some pets. Trade those for swaps. Good luck getting the last 10 years worth of pets with a few extras you might get from swapping each month. Other collection/trade games have incentives to create a bond to the website, so you log in everyday to do said thing for as long as you want to get something out of it. CS just does not do that. So it's gets boring after the first 5 minutes of every month. It's more like, beg and steal to get pets and try scamming people so you can get a rare from like 2014. And the staff doesn't even try to secure people from the only way to get stuff in the game. Super hard to get pets you want but they don't care at all any account security? Like at least make it fair if you are gonna make all of these goofy rules~ And multiple threads speaking on it have been locked so I simply think this site would need 2 simply things just to stay afloat to keep people from leaving.

1. A way to interact with the site for a daily use! Have ways to get pets/items/C$ without waiting for 30 days!
2. Fix the Security System. I saw some progress on this so maybe they are getting ready to change the right things.

Even though the current system isn't "fair" it could be fixed with the add-on of if you spend time on the site and interact with the community you get something out of it. But as of right now the only way to get anything on the site involves, chance, real money, and scamming/bribery/cheating.


I don't mind responses to anything here, I'm not the most informed so I also don't mind if you'd like to correct me on anything. This is simply my opinion on how I see things. I don't mean to hate on CS for it's current work in the past few years, simply wish they try to consider new things, respond directly to the community more, and put more work into the pet system they haven't changed ever. Personally I'll be staying for art but other then that anything site related is worth nothing to me.

[LokisTrick]

I’ve been on this site a long time, I love it dearly and it makes me happy that staff are close to the community and respond, it also makes me happy to see that people care about this site and feel comfortable expressing the ways it isn’t working for them. I was on a hiatus when the old list was gotten rid of, but I remember how crazy things got before it was. I think that the idea of more re-releases spread out over a year might be a practical one, and some kind of login reward like a monthly or bi monthly item set could be cool to see. The player design challenge idea also sounds really cool to up community involvement.

I have one suggestion!
this might be a bit out there, but Collection “guilds” could be a cool concept, almost like the flights on flight rising to create more of a team feeling. Maybe you like collecting dogs so you join the dog collection guild and there’s a forum just for that guild where you could talk to other players with a similar interest, and how many new dogs you obtain are tracked somehow and monthly there’s a reward for the “guild” that achieves the most new “You own this pet” of a certain species or something. Sorry it’s late and I’m just spitballing but this could help increase the trading economy and get older players interested and invested in interacting with newer players.

[Loelya]

I really, really appreciated getting to see your message, Lacuna, that really meant a lot seeing your personal feelings laid out as such. There's one topic that I'd like to touch on/get more clarification for if possible:

Even if we wanted to, I can't even fathom what it would look like to constantly warn and reverse trades because people didn't follow the "approved" way to trade.[/list]

I completely understand how difficult this would be. but I'm wondering if I could ask; is this a reference to what people consider to be "ninja" trading? if so, I'd really like to implore staff to consider ways to address ninja'ing even if it seems difficult to moderate. of course, there will always be gray areas in different trading values, but it really does create so many problems when an older player who very clearly does know their pet values, is able to deceive a newer or more inexperienced player out of their rares as long as they don't type a direct lie in their trading message. I fully agree with you that as players we can uplift and encourage each other and contribute to the good vibes of the site, but it often feels like two steps back for every one step forward when this type of scenario happens on the daily.

[sweathie]

Honestly, as someone who's been around on this site since 2012, the amount of people quitting CS and leaving isn't alarming to me. There were always people leaving, aging out of the site, etc etc.

It's upsetting that users are leaving because of offsite harassment and on-site security concerns, but the biggest issue is that CS is not generating enough new users to make up for those leaving. The internet has changed since 2008, and forums are dying out. A lot of adult users joining the site in 2023 have never interacted with a forum before and are not used to the format. Younger people on the internet are being funneled towards video-based platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.

I wonder if an advertising campaign on these video-based platforms (even something grassroots) would do CS some good.

now, just a heads up, I will say this. too many daily activities can overwhelm people. maybe 3 times a week at most for dailies. the reason I quit lion den was because I was overwhelmed

Hard agree on this. CS is the only petsite that has maintained my interest. Lioden, Flight Rising, Everskies, and many others have all lost my interest because of the upkeep of dailies. Even now, I get distressed that I'm falling behind on the Summer Event, but it's comforting to know that I have all the time in the world to trade for the pets/items I missed and the only hindrance will be the gradual demand/rarity shift of the pets.