If I could highlight, bold, and send a copy of your bit about a newbie FAQ to every staff member I would. This is like... the very basics of getting new players to play for more than a few days. People are SO confused when they join up for Subeta. The few friends I've referred were completely lost, going on the very little actual "how to play" info provided by the site. That's why I made the What To Do on Subeta Guide, but even that is just the bare essential list and that thread can be hard to find unless you are actively searching which is ridiculous IMO. I freaking love making guides. I would love to help set up something like this for newbies. I'm sure there are others who would want to help too.

I agree 100% that this would be a nice opportunity for the site. As of now, most people have forgotten Subeta is a world -- as nice as questing, gaming and working on collections is, it all loses meaning rather quickly, since most of the backstory has been long forgotten. While new content gets people all excited and eager to participate in events, it's the foundation that should be responsible for keeping the players interested while events are planned. I feel like we could go quite long without any new major plot, as long as there were small activities here and there with a good storyline behind it.

(I feel like I've said a lot about the newbies' experience already, so I'll just agree with a more in-depth FAQ and - why not! - that little walkthrough video. Besides the help area on the forums, there are way too many user-run help topics. While the effort is highly commendable, it is also the reason why people complain information is all "scattered apart"! :( So many users are casual players who might not even touch the forums...)

I think it all boils down to "how", since this is a major project that sure feels very, very overwhelming for staff to tackle on while still keeping up with the regular schedule of events. Even if events don't have ANY plot, artists still have to draw all the seasonal things (maps and game layouts/settings included), on top of their pets / wearables / other items / CW approval duties! I personally believe the CD would have the skills to write interesting plots, I just wonder if they would have the hours to put into that. (Otherwise, it would be great to have a dedicated writer or at least someone who could regularly dedicate part of their time to writing!)

Honestly though, for the above reasons, I don't think we have too many artists (or too much artist hiring) at all, especially considering several have already left staff ranks... as much as I agree that a writer would be an investment.

I don't know how feasible it is, to have users help staff with this sort of project, but I do hope at least some effort could be done into adding content to the Subetapedia and making it more interactive! (Hey, I've seen some amazing petpages that looked like books we could actually flip the pages of; however, the cosmetic look is the least important aspect of this. Content is key.) If it's possible at all, I'm sure many of us would be ready to "volunteer" either for writing, proofreading or just brainstorming ideas.

I would rather not have a full plot requiring csc, but I don't mind seeing the VIP aspect come back, as long as things are planned around that. In that sense, it would be more like "buying a feature/perks", not "buying items"!

As someone who maintains her own wiki (Egyptian mythology ftw!), I would do this for free. Seeing the state of the Subetapedia hurts me. Let the users write articles and submit them, and a single person on staff could review them. A good way to get users involved!

YES YES YES YES

There was a thread a while ago that talked about how they wanted more happening with Maleria and Shinwa and such, but it ran out of steam and was locked (link is here)

Seriously, we NEED this. There are so many wonderful aspects of the site, old plots that could be elaborated and followed up on coughOmen Islander Plotcough so many characters we could know more about! Especially now with the fact that whenever anything pertaining to them is made a news post "by" that character, avatar and all. It would make it just so much more...encompassing? I desperately want to know more about Quentin and Dr. Ian Asmodeous and how they're apparently friends (I've never seen it I WANT TO SEE CUTE QUENTIN BE FRIENDS WITH PEOPLE OK) or his hatred of Elwood. Like, we are told these things but without seeing them it means nothing to us!! Plus like said, there's stuff we have no idea about as users who weren't here for the very start, like SAI. You could at least TELL US WHAT IT WAS DAMNIT. I've been here 6 years and idk what it is.

They had the start of a great thing with the cruise, helping us learn more about each continent. Now we need to go to the old stories. They started to flesh subeta out and then stopped!

I feel like having the users help would be a great idea. We have lots of wonderful, talented users who are dedicated and loyal to subeta! We love this site and want to see it improved. And honestly with all the craziness and updates that have been fudging us up, it'd be nice to go back to our roots a little bit, despite all the "new" stuff.

Though dear god I'd be honestly HORRIFIED with a CS plot. That would just be really uncool and messed up to me. The VIP tickets for the battle of the bands already gave me an elitist feel, a whole plot would be a big fat no.

I don't have anything to add, other than yes please xD I'd love to see more lore on subeta.

There are no writers on staff by named position because generally speaking, all of Subeta's Creative staff are... creative and can also write. Not all are employed in this capacity, but several are! Some of my favorite plots were brainstormed by staff and fleshed out by the likes of , , and . The Summer Cruise plot was actually brainstormed by and we all filled it in, myself included.

I have nothing against plot and story's in general. But I don't feel much enthousiasm of a standard discription in the pet page how a pet-specie is in general, like on neopets.

Sorry if I understand this topic wrong.

Edit:

Plot's about Pete, the old wizard, major drills and al the other characters can be nice, but I hope they don't become not too archetypical.

So I like it for example if major Drills is a gay and not only millitary, and the relation beteen Quentin and Elwood could be complex and not onley a simple hate-complot.

Yes please to a writer, or at least an editor who can look over submissions. There's a lot of untapped potential with both characters and the world, and it's almost never used except in the occasional plot. Even then, the characters usually don't get fleshed out very much - they're pretty much just there for your avatar to talk to and advance the story. (Which the avatar usually does in a needlessly smart-ass fashion which completely, utterly, and ab-so-lute-ly gets on my nerves, but I digress.)

Posting again just to add that, if user participation is possible at all, I'd rather see users participating in brainstorming ideas, with actual staff members writing them out and adding to Subetapedia. We have fantastic writers in the userbase, but if everyone is allowed to send in an article, I feel we're really likely to end up with several contradictory concepts. (Each of us has a different idea about how things should be / different headcanons...) It's sadly not just a matter of reviewing text like reviewing art for a CW :/

Writer(s) could still be "hired" like BAs (for csc/perks), because I'm against people doing this much work for free, but I feel it would have to be a red icon on it. :x

I completely agree to more lore!!! Also an improved map would be nice in the future for example Omen Islands.....there's more then one so what are all their different names? Or how about the land bridge between centropolis and arctic frost? What are the whole land masses called (continent names)?

I just think that more background for subeta will give it and its NPC's more life^^

I'd be more then happy to help! Actually it be cool if a contest/poll could help create the world.

I agree, more lore please. explained wonderfully how lore can make a solid foundation. I also agree about hiring a writer. While not every talented writer on subeta would choose csc/perks as compensation, I'm sure someone talented enough would. This is in no way a diss at current creative staff. I mean, if they can handle writing so much lore, that's great, too. I just don't think it would hurt to get someone whose sole purpose on staff would be to come up with this stuff. :)

I'm less for poll's and contests people can fote on that. Because you can admire more writers at the same time and actually there can be more "winners". Besides a poll or an other way to vote in a contest can gife a winner who is actually bambo and mediocre but not really the winner, because there are very different admirations by all people who vote.

I would be more then happy with just csc/perks to be able to help flesh out subeta, so I'm sure we can get a even better writer then I to help.

I would love to take on the job, even suggested this myself before subetapedia was revamped (pretty sure and idea of mine was used), but if there's someone out there who'd do better then by all means let them have at it.

I want this site to grow and be even more awesome!

- As a pet enthusiast, I really want to know more about where the species of Subeta come from. I would LOVE explanations on how the colours came about as well. Dark Matter, Hydrus, Steamworks, Nostalgic, and Nucleur are easy ones to start with. But what about Marsh? Or are Graveyards akin to zombies in the Underground? What about Reborns?!

I would also like more lore. It would be nice to know the general personalities of each pets (and where they come from). I would love to know more about our friendly neighborhood dragon slayer Dominic Saggitarius, or even to know more about those battle challengers that seem to only have relevance in the battle coliseum (is Prodigy anything more than a really hard challenger?).

To be honest, I'm more interested in your own interpretation about this, than in an unpersonal standard discryption about that kind of subjects.

I really love to read a lot of stories of what others write to marvel at their own depth of imagination.

Who cares it as two completely different stories about a same specie or a same color are as beautiful of different users?

thanks! That explains why I had no idea.

This is also what I had in mind. We have lots of creative potential as a group, but it would work best as brainstorming/idea contributions. A series of contests (tell us a short story about Veta Lake in couple hundred words, where you think the Wizard came from, describe the mates for the different regions etc) leading to voting would be a lot of fun. There have been quite a few art contests lately, why not hold a writing one? Staff should of course, have the final say.

For example, a group of 2-3 staffers ("senior archivists" maybe) and 5 users (assistant archivists?) to help out with the idea thread, proofread, bounce ideas, whatever the senior archivist needs help with? It would be a great way to bring back the Helper achievement, maybe some new forum titles.. plus we all get to help the site.

We just want to help bring the site back to life, and a project like this could really help. It will take time, and it won't be easy, but that's where the users could really could help. I'm sure lots of us would want to.. and like I said with all the holidays that are coming, I think it's a great place to start - without being a "plot". A thread could go up, oh idk "The History of Alegarten" and we could discuss some similar irl traditions, what has already been establised about how it's celebrated in Subeta, what groups of people/pets celebrate, etc. Popular ideas get reviewed by staff, ones they like go into a poll, poll results in additions to/creations of Subetapedia pages by staff. These could even lay groundwork for future plots, and those plots would be both easier to follow and more consistent for newer and older users.

, you can learn little things about species from some item descriptions and from here: http://subeta.wikia.com/wiki/Kumos That's the kumos for example and that site gets their info from descriptions and such too^^

This is what subeta needs on site and more in depth!

IF Subeta PTB decide to hire anyone new to do this, be it for RL Money or CSC, I really think it needs to be people that have been around for a long, LONG time. While there isn't much lore that is well defined on site, some has been started and I think it is important to stay true to that.

What is even MORE important though, is that staff are all up to date on whatever new lore IS created, which is why I am wary of the idea of member-submitted/created lore. There is no value to creating lore if 6 months or 3 years down the road a plot is done by staff that contradicts the existing lore.

Sadly, many people that would be great at this aren't very active anymore.