WHY PEOPLE ARE QUITTING CS- A Discussion

[♥Princess of Lions♥]

Believe it or not, but hoarding doesn't change the value of pets very much. I hoard omg so rare UR lions and very rare Corgi store pets, and their values haven't changed much regardless of how many I've collected.

[Celozon]

this a genuine question that i am afraid to ask in fear of it sounding disrespectful and ranty. it is not meant to be disrespectful nor a rant.

do none of our suggestions matter because the only people capable of saying yes & implementing change no longer have interest in this site? and i really truly mean it. are we wasting our time right now?

from the few responses i've seen it sounds like the staff float suggestions to the admins and get shot down, or they have trouble getting responses(??) (last sentence in lacuna's post)

Admins are going to be the only ones who can give a go-ahead on a suggestion. Whether I or other mods or AA's want a suggestion to happen its still down to the admins if they want to or even can implement it. If there is a suggestion that we have been told by admins will never happen then we do communicate that to users (see the suggestion directory for declined suggestions). I believe Lacuna's last post was just in reference to the admins communicating more directly to users about suggestions/responding here.

I'm wondering about this too, while I know speculation gets us nowhere, it feels like a lot of the staff replies are within the breath of "I can't say this" or "I can't do that," so it definitely feels as though there are some things they don't at all have the power to implement, but I really am left wondering if they have any power at all beyond merely upholding the exact same system, without the ability to implement even the most mundane/simple requests. It's why my initial reply focused mostly on just "how staff responds when issuing warnings" because, hey, that feels like one small thing they might actually be able to do within their jurisdiction and I know nobody is trying to be deliberately mean or averse to helping fix problems that we're all seeing. Does staff (barring nick and tess) have any jurisdiction at all? It almost feels as though some are even apprehensive to write their own stances and ultimately avoid critiquing the way the site is run, which is probably why it feels we're being ignored. Would it put themselves at risk/at stake to speak out? This is ALL speculative and to be taken with a grain of salt, but it's not only disheartening in the grand scheme of things, but also worrisome if it is the case that they can't even so much as publicly criticize actions they disagree with within the administration.

See above about admins having final say on suggestions. I'm also not sure if users were expecting that someone like me could say an suggestion could or couldn't happen? The large majority of these suggestions involved completely changing the site or coding new features of which I would obviously not have the power to do. I don't think its odd that admins would have final say regardless.

The issue on how mods communicate to users in pms and warnings in particular is something we could change on a personal level, but as I've said before, I really don't think any major change is going to happen in that area when user's opinions and suggestions about it are scattered around a frankly giant thread. I just do not have time to read all of the responses on this thread and it would be much easier to me personally to know what user's would prefer and their suggestions on what we should change if it were on its own thread and I could more easily see individual user's opinions. I only ever saw a few posts actually giving specific examples of words users would prefer we use, but some of them I use already, so its really unclear to me if my own responses are considered 'too blunt' or not when I'm already doing some of these things. A more in-depth discussion with all the posts about it in one place would really help with that.

And on our own opinions on these suggestions, beyond the one about staff responses I generally don't give my opinions because I personally don't want to. Its not cause I feel like I can't I just prefer to interact with these threads more on the basis of providing info and explaining the reasoning behind things.

I definitely feel like the staff really have no power to change anything. This is why I was saying I don't blame any of them, it's really up to Tess and Nick I believe. I think a lot of people's frustration with other staff (including mine) came when they kept shooting down ideas and not contributing anything else so I'm super happy to see some of them, like Lacuna, giving suggestions and input now other than just "no, that's not possible." For me, this is kind of a last ditch effort to get Tess and Nick (or whoever can change the site) to hear us. But unfortunately, I feel they will continue to leave things as they are as Tireddd said earlier.

The majority of our responses are just clearing up information and explaining the reasoning why certain suggestions have not already been done. We generally do not even have the power to say if something isn't possible or say it won't be done unless admins have already confirmed that in the past. I don't think things like, "we haven't done this in the past because user response was very negative" is 'shooting down' a suggestion, its just explaining why it hasn't been done until now. It is entirely possible that could change in the future.

[woes]

i will say that, of the many times i've considered quitting cs, the mod team has never been a factor in that decision.

any time i find myself wanting to leave the site altogether, it comes down to one simple thing; stagnation.

there never seem to be any major changes to the site. sure, there's new pets and items all the time (and the artists do a lovely job with them!), but nothing massively different ever happens. there's no new methods of obtaining pets, no new additions to the pet lineup that really shake things up, nothing to change the status quo. the last things i can remember feeling very strongly about were the additions of snakes and a specific store pet that i almost became active again just to hoard.

in addition, the trading economy is just entirely out of control. it's something i've spoken to plenty of people about over the years, but it's only become more and more of an issue as time goes on. when i first joined this site in 2012, i wanted three pets; the mini huskies and a sunback. i had to give up entirely on those dreamies as time went on, because it slowly dawned on me that there is next to no upwards mobility in the cs economy. you either get lucky on december 18th and get what you want, or you stick to trading commons around until december 18th comes by again and you get another shot. the only reason i actually acquired the mini huskies is because they were gifts- i gave up on the sunback a long time ago, and with how things currently stand i find myself unable to suggest new players join because they, too, will likely never be able to obtain those old pets (unless they're especially good with art and running a shop).

the suggestions from this thread that strike me as the most doable and viable are the ones that address this stagnation; new ways to rerelease pets, new handling of the pound and of rarity, and new rarity tags to help the economy sort itself.

i really think cs needs some kind of raffle system. maybe have it take c$ to help get it out of the economy? i'm not sure how it could work, but just... something that helps bring old pets back into the system. something that's just as luck-based as december 18th, but much more frequent. you could have certain pets that will never be rereleased through the raffle, or even have it be built around player donations.

this has all been a big ramble, but i just wanted to put in my own thoughts as i'm seeing a lot of focus on the moderators and staff themselves, rather than changes that players want made to the site as a whole, or changes that we as a community can make within ourselves. i'm not the best at creating solutions and i'll never claim to be, but i do think there's some ways that these things can be addressed that will help with cs' longevity and keep the playerbase from leaving to find greener pastures.

essentially- to me, the reason i've considered quitting is all about a lack of change, major updates, new mechanics, or anything worth coming back to. i think there needs to be a lot of change regarding how players view and treat the economy, rarity, and their pets- but that there also needs to be some updates and changes made to the way players can obtain the things they truly want on the site.

[Joe Kerr]

i will say that, of the many times i've considered quitting cs, the mod team has never been a factor in that decision.

any time i find myself wanting to leave the site altogether, it comes down to one simple thing; stagnation.

there never seem to be any major changes to the site. sure, there's new pets and items all the time (and the artists do a lovely job with them!), but nothing massively different ever happens. there's no new methods of obtaining pets, no new additions to the pet lineup that really shake things up, nothing to change the status quo. the last things i can remember feeling very strongly about were the additions of snakes and a specific store pet that i almost became active again just to hoard.

in addition, the trading economy is just entirely out of control. it's something i've spoken to plenty of people about over the years, but it's only become more and more of an issue as time goes on. when i first joined this site in 2012, i wanted three pets; the mini huskies and a sunback. i had to give up entirely on those dreamies as time went on, because it slowly dawned on me that there is next to no upwards mobility in the cs economy. you either get lucky on december 18th and get what you want, or you stick to trading commons around until december 18th comes by again and you get another shot. the only reason i actually acquired the mini huskies is because they were gifts- i gave up on the sunback a long time ago, and with how things currently stand i find myself unable to suggest new players join because they, too, will likely never be able to obtain those old pets (unless they're especially good with art and running a shop).

the suggestions from this thread that strike me as the most doable and viable are the ones that address this stagnation; new ways to rerelease pets, new handling of the pound and of rarity, and new rarity tags to help the economy sort itself.

i really think cs needs some kind of raffle system. maybe have it take c$ to help get it out of the economy? i'm not sure how it could work, but just... something that helps bring old pets back into the system. something that's just as luck-based as december 18th, but much more frequent. you could have certain pets that will never be rereleased through the raffle, or even have it be built around player donations.

this has all been a big ramble, but i just wanted to put in my own thoughts as i'm seeing a lot of focus on the moderators and staff themselves, rather than changes that players want made to the site as a whole, or changes that we as a community can make within ourselves. i'm not the best at creating solutions and i'll never claim to be, but i do think there's some ways that these things can be addressed that will help with cs' longevity and keep the playerbase from leaving to find greener pastures.

essentially- to me, the reason i've considered quitting is all about a lack of change, major updates, new mechanics, or anything worth coming back to. i think there needs to be a lot of change regarding how players view and treat the economy, rarity, and their pets- but that there also needs to be some updates and changes made to the way players can obtain the things they truly want on the site.

i personally like that the site hasn't changed much, it's nostalgic to me.

i do agree *wholeheartedly* about the economy though.
it's so bad i'm not sure anything could even begin to fix it?
my dream from the beginning was to collect all the tess horses
unless i get lucky during the 18th, i don't think that's achievable.
it was barely achievable when i joined, and now that the economy
is this bad, well... it is what it is, but i miss how trading used to be.
but like i said, i don't know if there's anything that could be
implemented to fix it. i've seen this in almost every game i've played
consistently through my childhood into adulthood, and i haven't
seen a single one actually successfully combat it.

[AislingNyht]

i will say that, of the many times i've considered quitting cs, the mod team has never been a factor in that decision.

any time i find myself wanting to leave the site altogether, it comes down to one simple thing; stagnation.

Besides the suggestion to add more rare+ rarity groups this is one of the few things I've seen on this thread that I fully agree with. Now that there's sites like Flight Rising, Lorwolf, and Lioden to compare to, it seems frankly shocking that CS has managed to go this long with so few updates and still keep a relatively steady userbase. It can be nice to have a more simplistic site that doesn't take as much time out of your day, but the fact that I can only think of a few noteworthy changes that have been made to the site since I originally joined a decade ago is a problem.

If you're someone like me who's not very active in the forums or oekaki it can be very easy for this place to become something you only visit once or twice a month. To me the main problem isn't hoarders or that the staff are 'monotone' or that a specific pet from '09 is hard to get; it's that all we get every year is the same events with largely the same mechanics and besides those, trading, and dressing up your pets there simply isn't anything to do. The economy wouldn't seem so bad if there were other ways to get C$, even if those ways were slow like it is on Lorwolf. It would also help if there was anything on the site that gave people new goals to work towards other than old pets. It could be simple mini games that are available year around and actually have a reward, or new ways to get forum decorations to go on your posts, or little contests and quizzes (I would kill for a mini game where you try to guess what month and year a random pet is from or what artist made it. Something to reward the knowledge of the oldies and the people who love browsing around the archives!). Really, just any updates or new features would go a very long way. Just knowing that the staff are working on a new feature even if it'll take months or years to be implemented would be nice. If we know about it in advance, we can build hype and make suggestions! Communication beyond just monthly pet and event announcements shows a certain amount of care and trust in your userbase, and it seems like that's what a lot of people feel is missing.

[christine,]

I'm new to the thread, but read the past few pages and didn't see anyone comment on this, so I apologize if I'm bringing up already-discussed topics.

As a now-adult player who has now spent about half of their life on CS, one major change I've noticed is the sudden vanishing of roleplays. Now, this is something that doesn't really have a clear fix, but I cannot seem to identify why roleplays just aren't getting off the ground anymore.

When I first started playing, there would always be 3+ pages of active rolepays in any category occurring at any given point. Now it's not uncommon to see several pages' worth of newly-started roleplays, usually with characters reserved, but without any actual roleplaying in it. There's always folks with ideas -- specifically, I see the thread that has people interest check their ideas being fairly active -- but when it comes to actual participation that's when things go silent.

Now, I'm not sure if this comes down to things like intimidation (unintentional, things like coding or literacy or things of the like), or the users who would usually be interested somehow aging out of roleplaying, but it does seem like people simply don't do it as often anymore. It does make me sad, because it's a large part of why I joined and stayed on CS in the first place, but it seems as if potential roleplayers/active CS members are being scared away from that section and I do not know why.

I did take a several year semi-hiatus from the site, mostly just logging on when I remembered to get monthly pets, but I will echo my agreement that seems to be shared by many that old pets and rare pets are simply too hard to get. I cannot trade away any that I currently have due to the fear that I cannot get them back, as well as being unsure if I will ever get something equally worthwhile in the rerelease pets I get that year. As an adult player I have the ability to purchase C$, but much of this site is geared toward young players who may not have that luxury. I also struggle with trading due to not truly understanding the rarity system. I'll admit, that one is mostly on me, but I'm sure there are others out there that would like either a simplification on the rarity system and trading values or some other sort of system to stabilize the blown-out economy.



Really, just any updates or new features would go a very long way. Just knowing that the staff are working on a new feature even if it'll take months or years to be implemented would be nice. If we know about it in advance, we can build hype and make suggestions! Communication beyond just monthly pet and event announcements shows a certain amount of care and trust in your userbase, and it seems like that's what a lot of people feel is missing.



I really agree with this statement. I will say that staff have done a great job stepping up communications compared to, say, 2013. But it still feels like there's a long way to go in terms of letting us know what's actually going on. It's understandable that a business doesn't want to release all that information, but giving us things to look forward to I think would give people hope that the site is continuing to grow and change to meet the needs of the people who use it.

[Kay11]

i will say that, of the many times i've considered quitting cs, the mod team has never been a factor in that decision.

any time i find myself wanting to leave the site altogether, it comes down to one simple thing; stagnation.

Besides the suggestion to add more rare+ rarity groups this is one of the few things I've seen on this thread that I fully agree with. Now that there's sites like Flight Rising, Lorwolf, and Lioden to compare to, it seems frankly shocking that CS has managed to go this long with so few updates and still keep a relatively steady userbase. It can be nice to have a more simplistic site that doesn't take as much time out of your day, but the fact that I can only think of a few noteworthy changes that have been made to the site since I originally joined a decade ago is a problem.

If you're someone like me who's not very active in the forums or oekaki it can be very easy for this place to become something you only visit once or twice a month. To me the main problem isn't hoarders or that the staff are 'monotone' or that a specific pet from '09 is hard to get; it's that all we get every year is the same events with largely the same mechanics and besides those, trading, and dressing up your pets there simply isn't anything to do. The economy wouldn't seem so bad if there were other ways to get C$, even if those ways were slow like it is on Lorwolf. It would also help if there was anything on the site that gave people new goals to work towards other than old pets. It could be simple mini games that are available year around and actually have a reward, or new ways to get forum decorations to go on your posts, or little contests and quizzes (I would kill for a mini game where you try to guess what month and year a random pet is from or what artist made it. Something to reward the knowledge of the oldies and the people who love browsing around the archives!). Really, just any updates or new features would go a very long way. Just knowing that the staff are working on a new feature even if it'll take months or years to be implemented would be nice. If we know about it in advance, we can build hype and make suggestions! Communication beyond just monthly pet and event announcements shows a certain amount of care and trust in your userbase, and it seems like that's what a lot of people feel is missing.

I feel like the easiest way of getting mini games /quizzes anytime soon (realistically) would be in Forum games run by users, but it's sadly getting harder and harder to keep interest in these kind of forums going sadly. There used to be loads of "guess the pet year" games back when I started but there aren't any really going now.

[Loelya]

I feel like the easiest way of getting mini games /quizzes anytime soon (realistically) would be in Forum games run by users, but it's sadly getting harder and harder to keep interest in these kind of forums going sadly. There used to be loads of "guess the pet year" games back when I started but there aren't any really going now.

I agree with this! and I think a potentially really good resource for users to run minigames or quizzes would be by incorporating drawn resources from the oekaki. (text-based games are great too! but, similarly to some comments here about “modernization,” don’t tend to hold interest for as long as visual games) (I do personally prefer the overall forum-based nature of CS to sleek-ified websites trying to modernize, though. it’s comforting and familiar to me.)

I’ve had loads of ideas for different kinds of games or activities to run on oekaki, but I always scrap those ideas because a) it’s often a significant investment of time and effort when I don’t know for sure if anyone would play them, and b) it’s actually a thing that people often criticize other users for; if you’re an artist on oekaki but you color-in someone else’s editable (“same-base-oekaki” criticism), then you’ll likely lose followers if you do it on a frequent-enough basis. which probably seems like it shouldn’t matter since of course CS doesn’t display “follower” count like social media (gosh wouldn’t that be wack if it did?) but having people following/liking/commenting on your art is still very valuable feedback to a lot of artists.

I’ve thought before that maybe this kind of thing would be easier and feel less nerve-wracking to participants or make people feel less self-conscious if there was a way to select or deselect what forum boards you “follow” an artist on, like say maybe deselecting “colored-in” as a way to avoid same-base designs. I made a suggestion board about this in 2020, and it’s seen a fair bit of support from artists and followers alike.

(all that said, there was huge participation in a “friendship bracelet” game I did on oekaki for this current event and it has been nonstop joy for me seeing all the bracelets everyone has made. so to me, that’s super encouraging evidence that there are gonna be other fun ideas for more games for everyone on the oekaki and I’m gonna start trying more things. I absolutely love seeing community hype like that)

[Kittyuwu88]

So I joined cs December of last year (December 2022)

I find it really hard to actually collect the pets whether it be not understanding value or just ppl canceling trades but not explaining why

I mostly end up focusing on the uma community but I really do want to collect more pets (especially events and cats)

Also yeah, Cs needs to work on security sure, but most pet sites that are still up suckat that so idrk

[macintalk]

Believe it or not, but hoarding doesn't change the value of pets very much. I hoard omg so rare UR lions and very rare Corgi store pets, and their values haven't changed much regardless of how many I've collected.

actually, i know for a fact that the UR lions value has upped drastically over time due to hoarders over-offering for them. the UR lion is technically still only 2.5n, but because of demand and the amount of people overpaying it, it commonly goes for 3+ non. the fact that some people hoarding them were offering 4 non, 5 non, and even higher, some overpaying to the point of 6-7 non, really caused a huge value spike for a few months where it was even regularly fetching 3.5-4 non. this is visible on the successful trades thread. even still due to the amount of people hoarding it and overpaying for it it does not commonly go for it's actual value of 2.5n. while i'm not against hoarding as a concept, it's simply not true that it doesn't change the value of pets much - the less supply there is a pet, the more sought after it becomes and harder to find, leading to more people having to overpay to get it. also, depending on how much those hoarding the pet pay for it, the more value people think they can get out of the pet, which ALSO leads to more people having to overpay, driving up the value of the pet.