Ok the 502 and 504s (and lag) are getting annoying - the other day I actually gave up sitting at the computer and spent the entire day making Christmas presents(!). But communication on here has always (and still is) better than some other sites - we get updates on the status site to say if things are running smoothly (and some of the things that're being done to try and rectify the problems). One other site in particular (naming no names) didn't even admit to having server trouble, or that the site was lagging so badly it was impossible to use, let alone telling us how they're trying (if at all) to resolve it.

Subeta has always been a small site - whereas somewhere like Facebook has a massive building full of staff, it always seemed to me like Subeta was more of a room in a building in comparison. And that's what generally leads to a higher level of communication between staff and users. I'm not saying it's perfect, but in general, we get told more than most other sites even consider telling their clients.

I feel sorry for the staff trying to figure out the cause of the errors, and hopefully Tuesday's downtime will go a long way to resolving that. Certainly today, the site's been running incredibly smoothly, with the only 504 error being when I went to the user dashboard (one refresh and that cleared).

I have previously tried updating a website that was running on older coding, and it was a total nightmare (only about 20 pages or so to the entire site!), so I definitely understand how much of a nightmare it's likely to be, to try and get all of Subeta on modern coding.

Day 22, still laggy even after the event

I'm really glad I just hand priced every single item in my shop, only to get a error 502 page when I went to submit it. Now everything is unpriced uuuughh.

No... Just no. This would end up hurting the site even more. First of all, this would deter potential newcomers more than the constant errors would. This would also alienate the players that don't have a lot of money. People would be forced to quit playing because they can't afford it. Having less players would end up costing the site in the long run since less people would be buying CSC and GAs.

I could also imagine the news of a pay to play model would be a PR disaster and cause people to leave based on the news alone.

The site already doesn't make enough as is, and a pay to play model would be the final nail in the coffin.

I think the key terms there are than shut down completely. I am in no way advocating a pay to play option right now. But if staff was like oh we're shutting down the site for good, then heck yes, I'd like to see it still exist as pay to play as an alternative option to that. Makes sense?

Seriously, now that Freyalise is gone, we should not be getting so many 502-504 errors on 3 am subeta time.

I'm dreading how this will affect Morostide at this point.

Pay to play would be akin to completing shutting it down, as it would solve absolutely nothing.

We don't even make it to 25% of the completely non-mandatory goal right now on every day that's not collection day or sale day. If paying was mandatory, the site would die within a month because really few users are willing to use real money on Subeta right now.

We do not have the paying userbase to have a p2p site. We don't even have the paying userbase to support the daily goal on a normal weekend.

This is not a realistic suggestion and is 100% correct

PLEASE stop offering to work for free.

I mean, it's clearly not a priority to you, but users want it. Maybe users will give you more support if you guys pay more attention to the things that they are requesting get some attention from staff.

Because we totally don't have scheduled downtime to fix things, nope.

Like come on, yes communication is lacking, yes there are a lot of flaws but LMAO at "Nothing is being done"Hasn't happened yet. So technically, nothing but more lipservice has been done. Cause let's be real Sophie, if something happens and the people handling the downtime get sick or have a family member come to visit or they lose their laptop charger, it'll be rescheduled.

My bad, I forgot these types of threads are not allowed to have any hope. A+ confidence right there for giving me a specific time frame as well. Sorry for rather wishing the site tries p2p in the event of a shutdown. It may not be realistic, but that was and is my wish and my opinion, because I'd rather subeta exist as a skeleton than shut down completely.

That's not optimism. Or rather, it's optimistic, for people who can afford to pay a subscription fee per month. So little of the userbase now have GAs on a regular basis. I don't have exact numbers, but a couple years ago, seeing someone with a blue account was an oddity. Now, it's the majority of the userbase.

Right now, a gold account is 5$ per month, so I was using this as the price, since 5$ is the minimum amount where a transaction is profitable for Subeta (or really, any petsite. Flight Rising has minimal transactions at 5$, so does Misticpets, if I remember right)

Today, October 3rd, a monday, it's 14:15 / 2:15 PM right now, and we're at 22% of the daily objective. Meaning that if all goes well, we're going to be at 40% by the end of the day.

The userbase is not willing to spend real money on a free site, on a voluntary basis. I don't think the same userbase is going to spend real money on the same site, if it's mandatory. Most of the casual players will leave, and the site does not have the same hardcore fanbase it had years ago.

Subeta will not survive if it turns P2P. You're going to have a zombie website, for a couple of users who can afford it...and the rest of the userbase will have moved on to competitors. Or just leave petsites in general.

And, like the forementioned Kickstarter, a lot of foreign currencies are not worthwhile to convert into USD right now, namely the Canadian Dollar, due to terrible exchange rates.

The Golden Years of the site are behind us, and it's true for all of the petsite market, not just Subeta. It might be fearmongering, but I don't think the site will still be around when I turn 40.

At one point, we're going to have to let things go. It's going to happen, hopefully not soon. But it will happen. The site is going to have to close down, and we'll have all of these anecdotes and memories. We will have seen an era, its start, its glory, and its fall.

Forcing people to throw money at the site and hope it works won't cut it

Jessie.

How fucking dare you make me spit Canada Dry all over this desk. It was delicious too. All sparkly and gingery.

+5 friendship points (but you owe me a delicious soda. rip my soda)

Also: Subeta would not survive a month as play to play.

In it's current "free to play but pay money for an upgraded account" state, many players are losing patience with the errors and downtime. But there are still those willing to remain hopefully that better coding and communication are coming. There are still those that are willing to overlook and/or just deal with lag and errors, cause it's not like they paid anything to play.

Make the shift to fully "pay to play" and people are going to have even higher expectations couples with less patience for staff's mistakes and neglect.

xoxoxo

I agree. If people had to pay to play they wouldn't last past their first subscription if the site didn't run properly. Every website has the occasional hiccup, including Facebook, but none of them are sheer misery to be on a lot of the time.

I've seen the site go through a lot, especially since I've been there since the beginning and there's definitely a lot less GA players now than there once was in the site's heyday.

It's a pet site and part of the reason why people are still willing to come here, indeed a huge reason why people are still playing, besides the features is that it isn't pay to play. If it was suddenly shifted to a pay to play model, or if it was a pay to play model in the future than the site would probably lose the majority of its clientele. There's a lot of people who either don't have the means or aren't willing to pay for a pet site so expecting a pay to play model to work at all is optimistic in the extreme, and I don't mean for just subeta, I mean for the majority of pet sites in general. The site would lose pretty much all its players in one go if it became pay to play.

actually summed it up pretty nicely.

Pet sites are nowhere near as popular as they once were so expecting people to pay for the service when they're not willing to pay right now for those same services is expecting a lot from a user base where many aren't willing to pay in the first place.

[post database update?] - Still getting a mouthful of 502-504 and we are 559 users online.

Seems like nothing is working anymore.

Looks like today's maintenance didn't solve anything. :(

Hopefully today's maintenance fixed SOMETHING. But the 502/4's are still pretty visible. I had hoped it would cut down on those. It's been such a bummer to use the site, constantly having to refresh just to do anything. I hope it gets fixed, especially before Morostide

I hope you don't think we're all 'pissed off'. Yes, answers are nice, but most of us know you're working on it the best you can! Trust me, I for one would buy you all coffee if I could. I'm sure you could use some right about now.

- You're allowed to have optimism, but you presented an option that would kill the site. There's people that will agree with the pay to play model, but I feel like that's in the minority... which isn't enough to keep the site running even as a skeleton.

I'm positive that the people that have been complaining about the problems are optimistic as well. Why would they still be around if they had no hope for the site?

I haven't seen anyone say "I don't care, let Subeta burn to the ground". What I've seen are people asking why there's a lack of communication and constant errors. I think the user base wants to trust the staff and the site again so they can be confident in buying GAs and CSC.

So much for not making things worse...at least, it doesn't seem like things got better. The site still seems a bit laggy to me