The site still seems to be a little laggy. Better than before, but the lag isn't completely gone

I posted this on the gossip tumblr, but I think it would be wise to stop new items for holidays. You've got enough stuff to cycle for years now, and not overwhelm new players in trying to catch up on all this glorious content.

Take a page out of syndicated shows that only have so many episodes for a series; they make enough episodes that can be re-run for years and years without having to worry about making new content or running out of ideas. Else you end up like Spongebob or Simpsons, shows that are devoid of anything new to say, have questionable quality, or even start retreading old ground for plots. Don't be like them.

The focus on holidays has got to ease up, so then y'all can find new ideas to do without worrying about having to draw new items for each holiday, or having to do strained themes for holidays, especially towards the end of the year. The problem is getting everyone else on-board with the notion.

It would have been fun to see Subeta around for another 10 years, but if it isn't sustainable nor profitable anymore, and more users are leaving than staying...it might not be a thing that's happening.

The site had had a nice run, but the problem that it always had is that it was slowed down by its coding issues. This is akin to Iron Man's original armor - Subeta was coded in a cavern, with a box of scraps and this is what makes its staff great, the ability to do much with a shoestring budget.

But right now, this mentality is killing the site. People aren't interested in giving the site more money via CSC purchases, because the improvements aren't happening. Events are laggy and for casual players, it's not interesting anymore.

There is no way I'd recommand the site to my friends now - not when newer sites with stronger servers are around. Subeta is a fun site, but it's not a reliable hobby - and I gotta say that it never really was reliable because coded in a cavern with a box of scraps.

FR is lagging like hell right now, but it has 4 times the number of online users Subeta has right now, and has two limited-time events going on.

I don't know. I can't see Subeta having a great future, and I know it could have, and it sucks to realise that - I worked for this site, and I loved giving my time to Subeta, it was an amazing job experience and my first real step in customer service world.

But I don't know. We'll see how the improvements on the server go, but I feel like it's a conversation we might be having again in the future in 4, 5, 6 months.

I hope it doesn't. But I know it's probably gonna happen.

And I'm not especially happy or proud of it.

I am 100% on board with this. It would be much easier to cycle the items out now from year to year and make sure users can get them all with relative ease. Though based on what was said during Survival when people freaked because there were no new strains one year and only the vial things another, I doubt that'll happen ):

If staff just put their foot down and do it, then everyone will either accept it or just leave. Not the ideal situation, but we can't keep asking for new holiday items on top of wanting events and plots and whatever else. Something has to give somewhere.

It's not just staff that have their own problems to work out. We the playerbase also need to step back and reflect on our part in this mess.

Keith is saying that most staff are part time because Subeta is unable to pay them a whole living wage. That means that they don't have an unlimited amount of time to just mess with things.

Its most likely /a lot easier/ to continue making items/skins/whatnot for events that we already have themes in place for (Masq, Survival, Morostide, etc) rather than go back to the drawing board and create events that will probably need writing, coding AND art.

I really doubt its as simple as "ok we're going to stop making new holiday items, deal with it."

I'm aware. It's not easy for them, but it's not easy for users either. I don't appreciate being guilted for not being a GA user, or that I don't care as much as someone who does give money to the site. That statement from Keith earlier doesn't make me want to go support this site any faster; it does the opposite.

I'm only giving a suggestion since apparently staff are hanging out around here.

Randomly thought of something else that I had nearly forgotten about after all these years, so forgive me if this has since changed: is there still that 3 day wait period for a new user to be allowed to talk on the forums?

Running something that brings us personal joy, and puts something good and useful into the world.

Thank you for continuing your hard work and thank you for your dedication to this site. <3 I've re-read your initial post several times and, while I can see why some thought you were being passive-aggressive, I don't think that was your intent here. You do raise a good point with that, anyway - it seems slightly hypocritical to expect a site to run perfectly, 100% of the time, if you don't donate any money for the greater good. I know you're running with limited staff who have to work day jobs in order to sustain themselves, since, obviously, Subeta doesn't bring in the big bucks. Thank you for identifying the problem and for doing what you can to keep the site alive. Subeta means a lot to me and it makes me really happy. I'd love to see it live another ten years, if not more!

Reminder that the site wouldn't be the same without all the non-paying players. We're still part of the community and things would be much quieter without us. We still buy CSC from players who do spend money directly on the site, keeping the economy going. There are other ways of supporting Subeta without directly pouring money into it. We're not leaches.

I'm not going to say the site would be nothing without us, but to say that non-paying players have no right to complain is honestly kind of insulting.

I'm an old age pensioner with limited pocket money to spend on fun things. I have spent some real money on the site but usually buy CSC gift cards from users who spend real money to sell them

I got on Subeta at 6.40 am (UK time) and the site was running properly. I had a couple of dances then went away to have breakfast and check my email. Came back at 7.40 and the site is horribly laggy again even though there are only 401 people on.

Looks like it might be another day of struggling just to get a few basics done. :(

Yeah...I doubt if the creation of new content is the core of the issue here. I don't think refusing to give us new event items/skins/whatever is the solution at all...that would just make events super boring and more people would leave. I've seen a lot of users say they make more of a point to play around event times...what would be the incentive for them to come back if there's no new content? What would be the incentive for anyone to stick around? A lot of us have been here long enough that we pretty much already have everything we need from previous years; "reruns" of old items aren't going to sustain us. If this site does one thing well, better than any other site I've seen, it's cranking out amazing art. Why stop doing what the site does best, and arguably the main factor that keeps people here? I'd be down for more focus on new pet recolors and stuff like that though. We could probably even do with fewer events (at this point I wouldn't be too sad to see Neugarten go away and I'm a vegan; that was just a mess last year and it's not worth all the butthurt it generated). But there are certain beloved events that everyone looks forward to all year (I'm thinking Masq, Survival, Lumi and Morostide...maybe Vesnali) and not keeping those traditions going would be a huge, disappointing mistake.

I agree that communication is a bit of an issue. More transparency and some comforting words during issues (even if staff think they're a waste of time) would go a long way. And the lag this past week was simply excruciating, but I don't want to yell at the staff for that. I do believe they are doing the best they can with what they have (and they definitely don't deserve any abuse). But ya know, I'm on here like every day, and for the most part, for the majority of the year, the site does run all right. When it crashes, it crashes hard and it's super frustrating, but it does recover and it's not like it's always unusable. It's usually fine.

I do have to say it's pretty disheartening to see Keith come right out and say "that Subeta is not sustainable" though. I guess I'm going to keep buying CSC and GAs because I like CS things and supporting a site I enjoy but that just...kind of makes me feel a little uncomfortable about it. Oof. I'm not going to threaten to withhold donations as some sort of punishment but at what point does it turn into throwing good money after bad? Or are we there already? 😟

Y'all made Keith mad and I'm laughing a lot

The site has been this way for over a decade, it's not going to magically, or monetarily become a smooth running site ... Probably ever. I left for 3 years, and it seems the lag is worse than ever now. Keith is right, this corner of the internet is basically dead and I'm shocked subeta has been hanging on this long. Enjoy it for what it is folks. Also, opening the code for people to work on is a literal joke, and would be way too big of a risk for subeta, and is probably (I'd guess) not legal.

Think of it this way: Do you feel bad about buying a real new shirt just because it's going to fall apart one day? Do you feel bad going out to see a movie or to have dinner with friends because that money doesn't buy you a lifetime pass to the movie theater, or to that restaurant? If not, don't feel bad about spending money on Subeta c:

Subeta is guaranteed to go away one day. There's no way the site would last 50 years - it's rare for any business to last 50 years, and the internet in particular is ephemeral. That doesn't make whatever money you've spent here worthless! You're paying for an experience, and by paying that money, you're simply extending how long that experience will last.

The site seems to be moving a lot better now, so I don't really have any complaints. I've been playing subeta for over 13 years now, and sadly, the site has always been having these technical difficulties. I hate being pessimistic but I don't think there will be the perfect fix ever, and even if there was, I don't think it'd necessarily bring in more people; the traditional "pet site" and "avatar website" seems to have been going to the wayside.

I joined subeta when I was 10, almost 11 (before the site was even PG-13!), and now I'm 24. I'm going to college and finishing up my degree, with a boyfriend and plans to move out with him sometime in the nearish future. He's finishing up his degree this semester to be a teacher. A lot of people I've grown up with have since gotten married and have had children, too. A lot of people during that "boom" have simply lost the free time they had as teenagers and young adults; the generation that has been the primary main force behind sites like Neopets, Gaiaonline, etc. have simply moved on, either from lack of interest or time.

At the end of the day, I'd rather have a laggy-but-functional subeta over no subeta at all. No matter what happens down in the road, hopefully years from now, I'll always appreciate the time & friendships I've made on subeta, though.

I'd consider putting in money to pay for the experience if new content was more than just new wearables. We have those polls, put'em to use. Gauge what WE want. Hone in on that.

Especially new players. Figure out how to keep them from leaving. Since I'm still waiting on a response from Jovi, if that 3 day wait period to use the forums is still a thing, get rid of that shit. That right there is potentially killing interest in new players if they can't do something as simple as interact with other players. I don't know if that is still a thing though, cause been here so long now. It's easy to forget what it was like being a new player.

From my own experience with recommending the site to friends, I think the main issue is that there's so much to do scattered across the entire site that they're overwhelmed and don't know where to start. The friends I was able to sit down with and walk through the site have stayed; the ones that had to jump in without me there to fix their sidebar, haven't.

Two things that have helped the friends that have stayed:

1. Setting the sidebar to dashboard, not Smart. The events are overwhelming, and the information on the sidebar is more useful than the events to begin with.
2. Adding the Quests widget to the sidebar. This should be the default. None of my friends have been able to find the quests hidden on the map.

Maybe an informational video or an overlay that walks new people through the layout would help? I should make a post about this tbh.

fwiw, I think Subeta has one big thing going for it that all the smaller petsites don't: it's the best mix of Gaia and Neopets. As long as nostalgia for either of those things exist, Subeta has a bit of a lifeline for itself. Neo & Gaia were both sold and they've gone to shit rapidly after that. Subeta still has people behind the scenes who do what they do because they love the site and not because they want to milk the site for all the dolladolla bills while ignoring user feedback, ignoring users in general and automating everything.

I sincerely hope that the layout changes, new API and whatever other bits and bobs the team's working on behind the scenes help with the lag because this site has potential if it can shake that one big issue. I appreciate you actually sitting down and telling us what's up and how things are standing.

You're making the assumption that we don't know. Every action you take on the site is logged, and we know what users are spending the most of their time doing. What they hop on for two minutes to do, what they spend thirty minutes doing, and what the last actions they take are before they stop coming on the site. We know what people dedicate themselves to doing, what achievements they work toward, how many pets they are training at one time, what quests they do the most of, what item prices they are willing to pay in a wizard quest that'll have a payout of x. Data is a lot more useful to us that polls. Nahhh. That info seems worthless. We need MOAR POLLS! Also that means you know just how much I spent on my pet TC last week. The horror.

But seriously, everything you just said x1000. Whenever people complain that a collection box has too many wearables, this has always been the response. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean the rest of the site shares the same opinion.

also, I love polls...

Beautifully put. That sentiment is why I've started spending money on the site in recent years. When I joined, I wasn't really in a place to do so, but now? Sure. I'm fortunate in that regard. I just celebrated my 12th anniversary with Sub. I've spent more than enough time online to justify a few bucks a month. I've met so many people, and appreciated so much art. I'm by no means a big spender, but I appreciate the time I've been online, and would like to see it continue.