WHY PEOPLE ARE QUITTING CS- A Discussion

[Infailia]

One thing that would be a huge commitment, but could be AWESOME, MERCH! Hear me out…: plushies of the most well known list pets and items?? T-shirts with cs pets and stuff on them?? Plus, that could help fund the site, pay our hard-working mods and maybe even hire more people to help build the site :)? Just a thought I had!

They actually had stickers WAY back. Here's a picture of them

Oh my gosh.. ADORABLE!!
Imagine the possibilities; stickers, enamel pins, plushies, sweaters, shirts, SOCKS! Heck, even figurines or sketchbooks would be awesome!

I would love figurines and/or pins of some of the pets on the site!

[Corals Art Studio]

I think that one reason why people are quitting is that they are maturing in the ir lives and adult life mostly gets in the way of online games.

[tiredddd]

"on CS, we would like to maintain a safe environment for all ages, regardless of how silly others may think that is. everyday, staff experience situations on this site that remind us of why we have these rules in place. it is important to understand that it is not to censor anyone, but instead to protect those who are vulnerable."
i totally understand this, but i feel like some stuff should still be lightened up on. for example, a signature link to someone's toyhouse which has a link to their twitter where they mention their age is like, 24 or something really shouldn't be something that can get someone into trouble. if they are a minor, i completely would understand that, but i feel like adults should be allowed to share things like their ages off-site without it being moderated due to being linked a few links from CS, those are the type of things that i feel are kind of unnecessary at this point, as i personally cannot see how that makes things any safer for the vulnerable people who do play cs /gen

i totally understand where you're coming from with this, and i think many people probably feel the same as you. the reason we moderate offsite links that contain age as strictly as we do, even if the user is an adult, is because many children may see that someone has their age a few clicks away and think that it is okay to do the same. yes, someone being 24 and revealing their age is much different than a minor doing the same thing. but the issue lies in children making examples of the adults on this site, therefore leading to us being unable to make exceptions. enforcing the rules for everyone, regardless of age, adds an extra layer of protection that many sites do not provide.

adult user here, supporting hellevi
is it annoying that i've gotten bonked for something 3 links away? yes, absolutely.
but i completely understand and support the rules being this way for child safety reasons. a minor annoyance for me is worth the safety of young CS users.

How far does it go though?

[Purgatory K9]

The issue is that I don’t think staff has the funds or time for that rn. Looking back at the issues the last time they did merch

What if they started a Patreon for ChickenSmoothie? I feel like they'd be able to maybe get the funds to make things like that for their user base.

[LittleMaple]

-snipped-
The issue is that I don’t think staff has the funds or time for that rn. Looking back at the issues the last time they did merch

What issues were there? /genq i didnt even know they had merch. Astounded rn

[woes]

I guess this is my chance to express my dissatisfaction for the site?

Chickensmoothie has felt like a ghost town for a while now. I don't know exactly when it happened, but ARPGs, user-made adoptables, and forum games all just... died out at some point. Any attempts to gather a community here feel pointless.

I think a big problem with CS is just how hard it is to get anywhere. If you want a super old pet, good luck! Your best chance at getting it is to win the lottery on december 18th, or to do a ton of art for enough c$ to buy it off of another user.

More re-releases would be amazing. Something akin to Roundsey's Roulette from FlightRising could do a lot to revive the site, and the idea of a pound event where the whole thing gets emptied out would also be amazing. Reviving the trading side of the site would just make everything function again, and I think it's the only real way to get CS out of the rut that it's been in for years.

In all of my years on this site, I don't think I've ever seen it this dead. This thread, discussing why people are leaving the site and the grievances users have with it, is the most active thing I've seen in ages. That says more than I ever really could.

I hope CS gets some sort of revival. This site and the people who love it deserve that much.

[angel23456]

Another thing about the site being friend oriented is that it's very difficult to get the pets you want. This isn't actually an issue controllable by the admins, but I know for a fact that there are users that have been playing for a while and haven't come close to their goals because other players aren't willing to trade away pets or even help explain what was wrong with a trade after it's cancelled. I've struggled with it myself and have kind of just given up trying to collect pets with complicated values.

Yes! I have been saying this the past few events. I don't pay attention really to token versus free pets. If I have a duplicate and you need it....and you offer any item on my wishlist you got it. If you offer me a free for a token...you got it since hello...there is no way to get more of those so to me free is better than token....but soo many people are sooo worried about their pet being "more valuable" than yours. Dude you have a duplicate I have something in your wishlist...its ridiculous. I don't think I have ever cancelled a trade sent to me by someone else. Clearly they needed or wanted it bad enough to take a few minutes to send the trade...I have it so why not? At the end of the day I get to mark something off my wishlist.

That's what I've been thinking! The free pets should really be worth more than token pets, since you can only adopt them one time! Honestly, I don't even know how the rarities don't end up lining up that way.

[tiredddd]

-snipped-
The issue is that I don’t think staff has the funds or time for that rn. Looking back at the issues the last time they did merch

What issues were there? /genq i didnt even know they had merch. Astounded rn

Mainly stuff with manufacturing costs vs sales and shipping if I remember correctly

[almondkitty]

This was years ago, so I could be mistaken, but I do believe Tess made an announcement in which she said that she was kind of stepping back from CS. I think it may have been a Q&A where she said that her and Nick made this site for fun and never expected it to get as big as it did and (once again, this was years ago so I could be mistaken) that she was not planning to be super involved, and may have said the same of Nick as well.

I believe there was also an announcement where she clarified that CS was not her or Nick's full-time job and the store pets basically just covered server costs and staff salaries. But again, this was a long time ago. I will look for the post and if I find it I will link it. If I find out I am incorrect about my info I will quote and say so so that no one is left with misinformation

i believe the higher-up admins (seasonal, lacuna, nick) pretty much handle things onsite

Unless things have changed recently it seems they dont. See other suggestion threads where this has been the response:

-snip-

Another issue is that many suggestions have already been denied by Tess, so all we can do as staff is parrot this information to you. I don’t think that denied suggestions should necessarily be set in stone, but regular staff can’t offer anything more since we do not have the power to do so. I know that my title has admin in the name but I have zero control over what is implemented; that falls solely on Tess and Nick. -snip-

Honestly I I love that everyone here is trying to give suggestions on how to improve but are any of those even ABLE to be implemented? It seems like Tess and Nick have mostly abandoned the site without any direction or leadership or giving real authority. Like, what's going on? How can things actually change if the staff who are most involved don't have any control over the actual website?

this is an excellent question

[blues clues]

The issue is that I don’t think staff has the funds or time for that rn. Looking back at the issues the last time they did merch

What if they started a Patreon for ChickenSmoothie? I feel like they'd be able to maybe get the funds to make things like that for their user base.

the patreon would need benefits, ie: stamps, maybe a badge to show you're a patreon member, and other things like that
??