I think a lot of people, myself included, prefer to have a smaller group to belong to. There are so many users that i is easy to feel like you are lost in the shuffle and cannot really get to know people. I know for a fact that members of my cult have said they joined BECAUSE it was a smaller group, and likely would quit if it exploded. Don't discount people's longing for a small place to call their own.

In regards to cliques, that is a fact of life that isn't really avoidable. I remember before cults started even being used (pre-2009) Subeta was a much nastier place to be overall. People were mean and rude, and the userbase now is a far cry from where it was...

But this isn't really about cults, although for ME personally it is one of the reasons I still play on Subeta (I definitely would have quit over a year ago if it weren't for the people). I do sincerely hope that you take the feedback on this topic to heart and really truly do make strides to be more transparent and have open communication moving forward. There have been a few times I can remember where you started to communicate with people, and everyone was happy... but that inevitably didn't last.

Regarding the coupons, I still think it was kind of crappy to eliminate them without an alternative to replace them as it would have eliminated a lot of anger from the userbase. While I understand that it may not have been sustainable for you all as a business strategy, I do think that it gave the impression that your users are not appreciated for the money they pump into the site to keep Subeta running. Loyalty and appreciation both go a long way for a business.

: thank you for the honesty and transparency. These responses have been wonderful and definitely appreciated, and will (I hope!) be remembered in future discussions.
I'm incredibly impressed here (not that you should have to impress me in the slightest - but just so you know it's definitely noticed and appreciated at least by me!!)

Also I just want to say that cults aren't off the table. They've just never been at the top of the list (a lot of other structural stuff came first and with the stuff I'm going to bring up soon you'll see that I have a very different idea of Subeta in 2014) and so they haven't gotten a ton of work done on them. Pieces are done, and more importantly they're still part of the vision for Subeta. It's a lot of questions like how much content should they actually have if people are going to continue to use the off site methods, anyway.

Yeah, I agree that cliques will always be a thing. I just hesitate with things that actively support it vs letting them organically be a thing. I also realize that this is a lot less of an issue when being part of a clique is an easy as joining a set of forums off site, lurking in the Subeta tag on tumblr, and putting them on site would be a lot more beneficial for us.

It's fantastic to see staff coming in and offering more detailed replies to our questions (:

Everyone else already said pretty much all the relevant things about businesses, transparency and how people read this particular news post in a pretty bad way because only half of the important information was there. Like someone said, it's the site doing damage control... again. On something so simple.

But yes, it's really really good to finally get some more insight about what is happening on the other side! I'm hoping staff as a whole realizes it's extremely important to keep this up, even when major things aren't being questioned. Of course this means that, sometimes, we're not going to hear what we would like to, but I do believe honesty is the way to go and the userbase has proven they're willing to be supportive at all times.

Following the idea of Chelsea's point, sharing these sort of informations may help on many levels! It helps on brainstorming and trying to find different alternatives for situations; it helps ease the burden of having to take decisions that may or may not be well accepted by people; it helps avoiding topics like these, filled with heavy questioning that are most likely uncomfortable for staff to be on. It's like we're having to press you guys against the wall for "explanations" and that's awful for both sides :c Still, thanks for not walking away! We're all here because we do enjoy this place and no one wants to let it go c:

About cults, I'm personally not part of a cult, but I agree that cliques will happen regardless. I mean, just look at CWs, people claim cliques all the time and there's not even a cult around them. Wherever there will be a group of friends, there will be "clique" claims and potentially real cliques forming. However, most people aren't members of a single social group! Even if they are in a cliquey cult, they may also be part of "restock and chat", "sp sprint", etc. If they choose to be restricted to their cults... then oh well, it's their choice. As long as cults don't suddenly become one of the major focus of the site as a whole, seems fine to me! I'm lucky to have the friends I do, and even luckier that they're most likely still going to be with me even if I ever quit the site, but I know having them makes me more motivated to play (: Ultimately, I think people are the best strings to any site.

I don't really have much to say how I always manage to type so much, it's a mystery, but I definitely expect to see more from this in the future! If some discussions would be better suited for topics of their own, then I do expect to see those happening soon, and so on. It's super tiring and sad that communication always happen when users are upset, or complaining... seems like most of the time when we "talk" it's because we (users) took the initiative and we always feel like we're "calling you out" when the truth is that there's just a serious lack of information going on. Lol, I remember having this sort of situation with a friend and joking that 'my crystal ball broke last year'. It's about the same thing, we just want a two-side relationship because we ARE here and even if it's "a internet game" we DO care. c:

I think it's a great moment to start regularly discussing what sort of environment we want to build for the next year and the ones to follow. It just HAS to be one of those resolutions that everyone will keep and not procrastinate on until the end of the next year :x

Yeah, I mean, we're planning pretty major changes. Significant changes to the game, so, I hope that people will help us in guiding what happens there. Like I said, I'll have more to announce very soon(â„¢) on that front but it's something that will require a lot of feedback. :)

See, now that post is fantastic and I applaud you for taking the time to do it. Now please do it more often, because seriously all it takes to forestall the angry mob of pitchforks and torches is to talk to us. I appreciate honesty, (and that you're scrapping that design because so many people thought it was hideous :X ), even about my pet-gripe of cults. (and bonus points for adding the very soonâ„¢ haha)

When you tell us things, it leaves us a lot less room to imagine you taking our money and spending it on IDK Britney Spears look a like super parties or w/e ;)

Adding more RE: cults

If it were not for the small group bonds created by cults, I wager that many of us would not be here. Honest to god the only reason I have stuck around the past year is the friendships I have made in my cult. Not the forums at large, not quests, not anything but my cult and cult mates. Big social groups are a giant fail. You cannot have the same personal relationship with a 500 member group as say a 50 member group. That is why Kindred Spirits has always been about wanting active members. We do not care if we are the largest group on site, we care that our members actually know each other. Many of our members do not use the main site forums because they're huge places full of strangers basically. It's rough asking a question to a large group of strangers. It's nothing to ask a group of people you've known for years something.
And regarding cliques, the worst cliques I have encountered on the site are not affiliated with any particular cult. Don't put that evil on cults ;) But cliques/tribe mind/ small group dynamics are a real human dynamic, they are natural. We're not a species that functions well outside of small groups, in my opinion.

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHEN I'M GOING TO SEE BRITNEY IN VEGAS YET OR IF I AM.

And yeah, it's just really hard to be like "Yeah, you know that new layout I've been showing off a lot / have been putting a lot of time and effort into working on and testing... I don't think that is the direction we are going in anymore" and that is a personal problem and something that I want to get better at. We do have a lot of useful code from all of that work though, and some of it we've been incorporating already (like I mentioned in my post).

I can totally respect that. I am the same way. I'd rather cut my arm off than admit I need to change my mind on things haha (but seriously, so much joy at no rounded corner-twifaceblr subeta future with NO MORE ORANGE)

But throwing it out there when you do come to those conclusions really does help us. It's easier to be disappointed over something we've been expecting for weeks/months vs the realization that we're probably gonna be in a retirement home before it actually happens you know?

Keith, I just wanted to say that I'm pretty sure many many users were gleefully clapping their hands when they heard that the redesign is no longer going to happen. Should have told us about that ages ago :P I am glad the experiment wasn't a complete waste though and that some of the code was salvageable at least.

i will say i'm happy to hear a little bit about what's actually going on, and i just wish statements like these came around willingly and not just when users start setting fires, so to speak. now i can only speak for myself in this, but i for one am more than willing to be patient with things like recodes and bug fixes, as long as i'm being kept up to speed with said work. when it's just prolonged periods of silence and vague, unkept promises, we're kind of left to fill in the blanks for ourselves. turns out that we never fill those blanks with anything flattering.

communication helps. it's been said many times that subeta seems to go through communication cycles, where we're kept up to speed nicely for a little while, then subjected to months of silence. if i had one suggestion to make, it'd be to focus on keeping a consistent, ongoing communication pathway between the staff and the userbase, at least regarding things like the recode and some of the bigger bugs. there's nothing more disheartening than seeing bug threads earn page after page of reports over days or even weeks with absolutely no response on the staff's behalf. sure, programmers might be working their fingers to the bone to patch whatever problem there is, but we only know what we are told.

of course, my biggest wish is for less talk and more rock, but i know that rocking and rolling all night whilst partying every day is not always practical. so, in lieu of that (which is to say, busting out the recode and fulfilling related promises), i'd just like some regular communication.

Yeah, just that after really looking at it and looking at the feedback, it was a project that was doomed because no one really loved it. A lot of people posted that they liked it, or they'd get used to it (or OH GOD WHY) but no one really took to it in the way that you want someone to take to a complete reskin. You can account for "change sucks" for some of it, but not nearly the amount that we had.

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The new "new" new Subeta will still draw from current design trends... but actual current design trends. And instead of it just being an excuse to make site look "so 2013" I'm really focused on tightening a lot of our features and removing things that just don't need to be there anymore, so the new designs focus will be on mostly just making Subeta 8239745928734983274% easier to use. I found that a lot of the things I was working on for a long time (I spent an embarrassing amount of time on trying to make the feed work. Trying pinterest style layouts, trying twitter style feeds, etc) were just trying to move existing features into a new sort of look, and instead we need to be looking at those features and trying to figure out the value that they add and if they even need to be features, which, tbh, the feed isn't a super important part of Subeta (even though I wanted so badly for it to be!) and I spent way too much energy and time focusing on it.

: Have you considered maybe having an open forum/livechat to discuss the ideas you have for the cult revamp and maybe let people share their thoughts on the ideas? They might spark something you haven't thought of yet or help you find the direction Subeta users want to go which might give you a clearer vision if you're uncertain right now. I can completely understand the fear of cliques, and perhaps if you let the users know they can help find the best ways to resolve that. Just a thought!

It's hard for me to give any feedback because most of the cult interactions I do are actually on our thread in the Cults Forum - which is neither here nor there in the discussion of cult-exclusive forums or offline. We use both, but I'm more privy to just our thread. Sorry I don't have any helpful suggestions! :(

There's a thread freebs in Brainstorming which was a bit quiet, so I guess it could always use new input and ideas, if you're looking for somewhere to sound off. :)

About the codes: I don't really care that they're gone. I make the bulk of my purchases during the yearly sales, where you can't use the coupon codes. I buy gold accounts, where you can't use the coupon codes. And otherwise I buy research notes and collections, where it feels like a waste to use a 20% code and the others just feel insignificant. The 'reward' periods are much more interesting to me at the moment, if a little limiting (and yes, I did buy 10 x $5 recently and swam in pearly fascinators. which is a strange reward system to me).

: Ahh thank you :) I don't have many ideas of my own at the moment - but I'm sure reading over some of that brainstorming might help me be a more productive contributor to the conversation - so thanks!! ^-^

I thought about this, and after this new announcement, whatever it may be, do you think it would be a good idea to have specific site feedback forums? Sort of split the site into separate things. Have one for games, forums, cults, whatever else is needed. If you make the options vague enough, and in an opening post tell us what features might be on their way out, or what ones you want to bring in. You want to shrink the site map and I know we can help you. This way updates or questions can be answered in these threads as well. This keeps things together and gives everyone a place to communicate that won't take topics like these, or a million little topics in suggestions/feedback forums as things are slowly implemented. You can get almost-on going feedback in a concise place.

Yeah, we're working on a more permanent reward system to replace bobbleheads that isn't as silly. Something that like, you know exactly what you're going to get as you progress through it. I don't have anything to announce on that right now other than it's something we're paying attention to :)

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Yeah, it's going to get it's own feedback section. It's a pretty big undertaking and will require all hands on deck, really!

...aaand my internet -has- to keep failing me. Ah well n_n

Lol, looking forward to the very soonâ„¢! xD I think it's great that there are already new ideas coming to replace the recode that was getting worked on, and that it also wasn't an entire waste of time/effort! Indeed, I don't know anyone who was even a little bit excited about the new layout so it's good that it's being trashed, haha.

Yet it's totally fine when you guys don't have any big news to give us! I feel like this may have behind the "spurs of communication", at least partially. Maybe nothing exciting is going on, or nothing big is about to happen anymore, but it'd still be cool if we got a post from time to time telling us generally what's going on. Even if it's just to say "hey guys, these past few weeks sucked and we don't have any outstanding big news but we've been working on -this- and -that- and we got pushed back but we're still making sure things get done!" or something like that. Just keep talking to people xD

Just saw Chelsea's idea about specific site feedback places and that sounds nice!

Yay. Well, I suppose with that my happiness and fears are all equally quelled for now! ❤️ I look forward to everything 2014 has in store for us and I'll hush now, haha. Thank you, again, though. This level on communication really means the world. c:

First I really want to say thank you for that long post. It's interesting to know what's going on behind the scenes (or in this case, probably isn't happening because not everything pans out as planned) and it better explains why some parts of the site are getting fixed (I remember being kinda like ... huh, what? When the vending machines were changed like of all the things to change on the current site -laughs-)!

I also hope if vaults are changed, you make a discusion board about it (if you're talking about item vaults, that is). I really like vaults because they lag less than shops/galleries and it's waaay easier to just move things from point a to point b and check what you want and how many of them-- but as it stands now vaults are very replaceable because there's no means of easily moving around them (like I can't just see all the books, or all the food, like I can in a gallery). Anyways blah blah that's not what this board is about but since you mentioned vaults I hope if you were considering doing away with them or changing them you'd consider some user feedback about that one xD;

Lastly-- I have no idea what you're planning with minions, but the very thought of categorizing them for something is both nostalgic (I remember when I first joined minions were like the top percentage thing, instead of being considered basically non-wearable companions these days) and exciting.

My first thought really makes me want to hoard so I can't wait to see where that goes u! I'm also very interested in the catagorizingness and I hope I have free time -cough weekend cough- to burn sorting minions ❤️

Following up on the bobbleheads because I feel like that was a big thing to post! With bobbleheads you get a lot of useless ones with every purchase that end up being deleted/donated/sold for very little sP/hoarded because they're super cute. They're also random and you don't get a lot of satisfaction from completing the set besides a "finally, I got that last stupid one that I needed". So we're working on something to get rid of those downsides and keep the reward for purchasing from the CS there :).

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Yeah, with vaults for example, it wouldn't just be like VAULTS ARE GONE NO MORE VAULTS EVERYTHING IN INVENTORIES. It'd be like "Well, why do we separate the two? Why not just have bigger inventories that you can sort through and have all of your items in? Or, if it's a safety thing, just drag (or send) items to your vault and then have it be a separate tab on the items page where you can search/look up items by type, instead of it being a separate page super far away). I think a lot of discussion about how/why we have features is super important to the near future :)