Alright, here's a couple choice threads that got locked as soon as a staff member posted:

https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/919781/Questathon-prizes https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/919872/The-border-situation-isnt-great- https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/913178/I-disagree-with-the-foreign-language-rule-and-want-to-see-changes-made-to-this-rule/5 (not sure what's with this thread why it got locked there's no final post explaining, so I guess the OP got it locked? I don't know) https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/911094/Today-I-just-realized-a-Subeta-Appreciation-thread/2 (same thing, not sure what the deal is) https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/910154/OpinionsFeedback-on-the-new-Subeta-Layout/2 (locked even though the new layout is something being actively worked on?) https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/910152/For-those-who-stopped-spending-money-important (feedback you did not want at all and promptly locked it)

It's not the fact that they were locked with or without an explanation. They were locked when YOU decided the conversation was done and wanted to prevent anyone else from commenting further after your final posts on these threads. You didn't even give any of us a chance to say thank you for the updates, or anything. There was no reason to lock those threads imo. The tone on the border situation thread is especially cold. At least how it reads to me. =/

I don't word things the best. I never have, and never will. I'm sorry my initial post angered you, Keith. That was not my intention. My intention was to simply get communication going between all of us. I know you have your problems with me, that's fine. What we're all saying is please consider that not all of us use social media, and don't necessarily want to. Not everyone uses the forums, or at least knows where to look. We have a lot of newbies joining from the mass exodus of Neo, and we need them to stay. And if they don't know what's going on and see the poor communication from staff, they're going to leave. We don't need that happening, we need this fresh blood.

You want feedback but how am I supposed to give it to you and the team if I'm terrified I'm going to get chewed out or threatened? You gave a threat the minute you walked in. That was the very first sentence and what it means: "Step a pinky toe out of line and your ass is cooked." I'm doing my best to stay cordial here.

Apologies if none of this post makes sense, it's early, and barely have enough coffee in me.

Let's not forget this thread where OP tried to give Feedback via a ticket, was told to make a thread, and that thread didn't even last a page. That thread resulted in in this feedback thread where one of bigger sentiments was "wow, Staff sure shuts down conversations quick".

You created an expectation that feedback threads won't last long and it's not just Metroid's imagination.

I agree with a lot of what has been said here by users. I do wish we'd see more communication from staff, rather than constantly needing to beg for information.

That being said, I do want to add that there are some staff members who exceed my expectations on communication. Some of them this might just be 'part of their job' but I always feel refreshed seeing their posts or getting my ticket assigned to them so I just wanted to say TY to these people and maybe point them out to in case that helps understand more? (This isn't an extensive list of course, there are other staff members who do the same and I may just not have had the pleasure to work with them as often!)

is always incredibly helpful with my tickets. They always seem to be quick with getting info they don't already have OR letting me know there will be a delay. I never feel like my tickets are ignored or forgotten.

always has so much information and is so helpful around the forums. I always make sure to check their posts in the Admin Post area when I see them because they can include useful reminders or notes on stuff to pay attention to.

is on top of keeping the CW community informed. They're very thorough on giving out info and notifications and I am thankful that I don't feel like I need to constantly play a guessing game over there. This last year in the CW community has felt dramatically different than the past and I feel like this is 100% because of 's amazing communication with us.

It is 100% not easy to deal with old code. We see this on another site as well. So I can understand the frustration of staff there - I honestly never knew people where this disgruntled until this thread was shared (and the person who shared it was surprised too!)

I do wish there were more news posts and I don't stalk the forums to read staff posts, but I've never felt completely in the dark. I'd say the MM is probably the only one that felt like news just died out (after implying it was ready to go) recently.

So - I do agree, don't imply things are ready, or almost there etc until it's time. We learned elsewhere long ago, not to put timelines to the public because when you miss them time and time again (programming can have so many easy setbacks) the people lose faith.

So my advice (for what it is worth):

• Don't make users rely on reading forum posts for updates if it is something the community overall is waiting on answers for
• Don't rely on outside resources in the same way (discord etc)
• Don't give Users a timeframe if something is broken or planned to be added. You can let us know it's on your list, but cannot give a deadline since other things pop up too often to do that. Honesty is important - moreso than deadlines that keep getting pushed. I've given up on Richest User working (Chase, here I come!) I'm not mad. I'm sad, but I understand. (This was literally my entire purpose and goal on the site since I joined).
• Don't give up on us - I appreciate knowing Subeta had the chance to sell out and you didn't. 20 YEAR OLD CODE IS NOT FUN. Digging into that is a headache, I appreciate you doing it when you can.
• Communication is the absolutely most important thing on a site like this, where there are long delays / lack of content, but people are here out of nostalgia and love for the place. Don't shut us out. Be honest, be open, and keep it where we can all see it. Create a single thread for small updates - Bug had one up before they left, and having a Small Update thread with stuff that isn't news worthy in one place is handy. Sticky it, keep it closed minus those posts. A central location on site to get information...
• Hire more staff? Even if not programmers - someone to help organize, people to communicate more, people to help keep the moral up.

Thank you Subeta Team for putting your heart into the site.

I got really heated about things at the end of Morostide and basically left the site for a month and cancelled my subscription due to the site breaking and how staff handled that. During that time not really being attentive to Subeta, I did take the time to lower my expectations. I've also accepted that when Subeta doesn't meet my expectations, I can spend my time and money doing other things. It's not worth getting pissed off or upset about something I do in my free time for fun. I just wanted to let you know as I know that I haven't always gotten off on the right foot with staff in the past. I'm trying to adjust my responses and reactions to be clear about my point of view, but empathetic at the same time.

Now, moving on to the actual topic at hand...

THIS. PLEASE DO THIS. Don't release any new items. Put a pause on a holiday like we were told would happen ages ago to help, but never happened. We, your userbase, will survive those three months if we know about it ahead of time and know what to expect during that time frame. We'll be okay without new foods and beanbags and stickers and battle challengers. There are still plenty of things to bring back in the Cash Shop to encourage people to spend money. I'll even bring back my subscription if I know my money is going toward this plan.

Also, I'm not experienced in coding or anything like that, but I am more than happy to volunteer some of my time on weekends to go through and fix item/page reports for spelling and grammar! <3

"THIS. PLEASE DO THIS. Don't release any new items. Put a pause on a holiday like we were told would happen ages ago to help, but never happened. We, your userbase, will survive those three months if we know about it ahead of time and know what to expect during that time frame."

But the real question is - is Subeta going to meet that 3 month deadline? Because that's what I fear - we're gonna be told that it's only for 3 months, and then it will turn from 3 to 4, and 4 to 6, and 6 to 9...

That's not a Subeta issue. That's a perpetual IT issue, there will always be delays.

I don't know. If staff are 100% sure that the 3-month deadline is gonna be respected, sure. But 3 months is still an eternity in the Internet world. It's gonna scare casual players for sure.

I...think we've kind of lost the plot here.

Let's walk it back to the thing that I'm guessing prompted this thread. I personally have no issue with how the beanbag went out, even though it was kind of a weird decision - I've seen worse. What I do have an issue with, and why people have a right to be at least a little upset, is because one thing was said and another was done without any correction in between.

The only thing that had to be done to avoid a lot of this was to say, "Whoops, Plan A isn't going to work, so we'll have to go with Plan B/some other way instead."

I'm not asking people on staff to be flawless angels who can do no wrong. Plans will get screwed up and have to be changed, things will break, stuff like that is just going to happen no matter what. People understand that. What I am asking - and what it looks like a lot of others have been asking for a long time now - is to just be open and honest about it all.

This isn't the first time where an issue was made much worse than it should have been, or a non-issue was blown out of proportion, because of confusing language or mixed messages from the people who are supposed to be in charge. I've been here long enough that I know that people on staff are good, work hard, and try their best. But y'all, you have GOT to get it together as far as communication goes, especially the people who are more in the public eye. Every time this gets brought up, it gets a little better for a while, but nothing sticks.

Again, it doesn't matter much to me since I'm only a casual player nowadays. But it's awful sitting here watching y'all make more work for yourself and add to your stress levels when none of it is necessary because simple little things like being clear can prevent it.

We don't know what requires programmer attention in day-to-day operations, so we can't really offer any useful suggestions to tide players over while nothing else happens. Like, how involved is running Vesnali and Neugarten, adding new items to the site, or doing throwback challengers?

Raise your hand if you are still here after the massive server upgrade of 2007?? raises hand That took about 2 months to put in place while the site had very few working functions. (it's what got me into battling, because that, and random were basically the only things that worked) But we came out on the other side with a faster/better site!

If not having new things and/or having limited functionality for 3 months is the trade of for getting new and functioning things in the future, I am for it.

BIG AGREE. People need to chill. Because I also agree with this:

BUT I think what we really need is more empathy from the users FOR STAFF. There are only like a handful people getting paid to regularly work for the site! Why have some of us decided that our ability to play a game, and to have status symbols like finished collections in that game, at the expense of the handful of people who work here? “Communicate better—“ okay, us first. Instead of 90+ comments on a news post about a challenger complaining about one of the prizes, think of it this way: maybe a longtime battler is just now getting into plushie collection and that’s the most expensive plushie they’ve got their hands on so far. Maybe that plushie got someone to believe they have a shot at a complete collection.

That said, I really think ZERO information should be shared exclusively on Discord. If a user asks a question on Discord and gets an answer from staff, that information should be posted on Subeta as well.

Just took bits 's post.

I can't agree more. I saw that one thing was said on forums and then another action was done. That's a complete break of trust (not that this site has ever done that or communicates well). I have a right to be upset (and so do others) over a beanbag that was supposed to be released as a Melody item, but was released on a super hard challenger and thus makes it, unobtainable when it was supposed to be a free item. If a Holiday item can't be released, why not save it for the next year's Melody's Gifts?. That would be so much better instead of having many people upset. Also, please don't release items on site if you do not intend on releasing them. No one will know and a fiasco will be avoided.

I've been on site for a very, very long time and back in the day, 2-5 items would be released collecting Melody's gifts (Melody 2009, 2010, 2011) What happened to that? It was cool and I loved it.

Communication really needs to improve and trust needs to be built again. When I see something like "We'll talk about MM and get things working" it's like, "sure, whatever" because I know we won't be doing it.

Agreed! I feel that things have gone steadily downhill during the last 4 years. I'm running out of patience but I choose to stay because I've spent money on my pets and their art.

I started typing something out & it ended up being too long. And, man, no one wants to read all that. So, here's my main things (still too long but whatever):

I'm fine with the amount of communication we get. This game communicates with player so much more than any other game I've played, web-based or whatever. We get news posts, forum posts, there's a page dedicated to staff posts, server information page, you can join forum groups if you want more niche information, & there's always filing a ticket or just asking other users in the help forum. I can't think of another game (except maybe a couple indie games) where the person who created the thing actually communicates with players. Usually it's some mod who'll pop by, not the game creator & people who maintain the game engaging with the userbase. (I still think it's nuts that Keith came on here to tell everyone he has COVID. Like, we don't need to know his personal health business, but he told us anyway.) Sometimes I think staff talks to us too much. Like this thing with the sloth plushie? I presume Amber was just telling people what the idea was at the time for that thing & that changed. Am I happy about it being a loot drop on a limited time challenger? No, but I'll deal with it. (& there's always the free shop or maybe drills or just waiting for more battlers to get more of them won & selling them off.) Or when staff tries to reassure people that things are being worked on? There's a handful of people working part time on these things. Things will either happen eventually or not. In the meantime, I'm just doing what I do. Could things be better? Of course!

Posting important site information off site? I have been trying to think of when this has been the case: where something important was said offsite that wasn't already mirrored on the site or wasn't added to the site soon after. They never use the tumbr anymore. I don't check facebook so idk about that one. The twitter is pretty ignored (RIP). The discord is just users messing around. Is there something specific you guys are referencing but not mentioning what it is? Since it's been brought up so many times, something with the discord? What information was that that was only posted there? Are people just concerned that it might be happening because they're not using it or was there something major I'm just not thinking of? I'm on the discord about every day & I'm drawing a blank here.

Here's what I could think of: Sometimes Amber stops by when she's doing a news post, just to get quick feedback on what she should remember to add to the news post before pushing it. (ex: event information that's useful) Then, that news post is on the site in ~30 minutes. Personally, if I think something could be useful that wasn't in the news post, I'll just make my own reply with that info because it's real easy to forget things.

She has done a sneaky eyes emoji when she adds items to the directory, ex: right before Luminaire. Which, anyone on site checking out that page would get to see too. You would know is going to happen, because it was right before the monthly event started up, & because the items need to be added to the site before they can be used on the site. Sometimes I'd just stalk the page before an event (& before the discord was a thing) because I knew staff does that.

Keith has asked for a quick check of something that he's working on, like when the wardrobe wasn't working, he just needed regular players to go check it out & see if it was working for us now or not. Or when he was working on the login page for the new site, he asked for anyone on to try logging it & let him know about any issues so he could iron them out before everyone was trying to use that page. (not to claim that I know what Keith wants/needs or anything. haha.)

Or with lag during events? Galaxia did respond to people's concerns about it on the discord, as he was updating the Status page on site, which anyone can see on site. Normally, if you go ask about... anything on the discord, another regular site member is going to be your reassurance that it's not just you. It's no different than having a friend to ask, except you've got 30 friends who might pop in and let you know. (whereas, if you tweet about something, well, I'm probably going to see it & might tweet at you, but no one mans the official twitter.) I don't know about the rest of you, but I can usually tell when subeta's having issues because the rest of the internet is working just fine. I don't need that reassurance that, yes, site's broke. Is there an event? Site might be broke for a bit! I'll go do something else & check back later. History has show that's the case (& users always bring it up too) & we almost always get an extension, every time. Is it good that it happens? Nope! No one wants that, no one's trying to make it happen, & that's why I just deal with it (& keep hoping for the rewrite to get done).

Anyway. Mostly the discord is users being nice to one another & posting pictures of our pets. It's not where all the information you want/need to know is being secretly posted. That being said, consider joining the discord because we desperately want to see your cat & tell you how much we love them~ https://discord.gg/jRa9Z56w9Z If you don't want to join it? Man, in all seriousness, nothing of value is being lost by not looking at it.

I won't be able to formulate as good of a reply as many that are already here... But I also want to echo - news should NEVER be offsite on a discord? At least solely - and it shouldn't be buried in the forums. It's beating a dead horse at this point, but there absolutely should have been a news post about MM weeks ago. I cannot believe the userbase is being called entitled for wanting communication. It's what the news is for. We aren't being greedy - at least, all of us aren't. I promise, if there had been an official news post saying "hey, Keith is sick, we will likely have to postpone MM this year..." that is ALL we would have needed!

The userbase has been begging staff to communicate with news posts for years. I know this for a fact because I'm one of the people who has been begging staff to just use the news for all updates/issues/etc.

I'm genuinely at a loss for what else we can do at this point. Its been made very clear that a lot of users want staff to communicate openly and honestly through the news, not hard to find forum posts or offsite tweets or hidden-from-public-view Discord messages. The fact that users are being treated this way at all, much less over something that has clearly been an issue for years, is really concerning and demoralizing.

I really hoped the community manager thing would help with these obvious problems, but I guess not. Apparently that's my fault for having the expectation that staff saying they plan to listen to users would actually involve listening to users.

ABSOLUTELY! I couldn't agree more. There's been such a loss of respect over the years and no one listens to us. Why ask the user base their opinions if they're going to disregard them?

^ this. I don't think we're greedy about wanting more communication. I don't even know what's happening with MM and at this point, I don't want to participate.

I think people are getting a little too hung up on the Discord thing. I'm in the Discord group myself and like Ryuu said, there hasn't really been anything posted in the Discord that was any sort of major news that wasn't also posted here either in a news post or a staff post on the forums. It's a lot of the same handful of people who really even hang out in there, and most of the time we're just chatting about random Subeta stuff or even off-topic stuff, but there can also be long stretches of time with nobody posting anything at all. Staff join in the conversations sometimes, but it's usually not really with news, it's just to chat about whatever or getting excited about new items as they're being added to the directory before events. So I feel like the people who aren't in the Discord aren't really missing out on much, but you are free to join if it's something that interests you! You don't have to though.

That being said, I do think individual staff members can be very good at communicating when asked directly. Because yeah Amber, for example, is pretty good about answering questions in news comments and giving what info she is able to give when people ping her directly. When it comes to informing the userbase as a whole, not everyone reads all of the news comments or staff posts in random threads (even though I know there is an Admin Posts page where people could do so if they wanted to). So yeah, it does sometimes feel like there is still a disconnect when it comes to the userbase as a whole being informed, but I'm not sure what else could be done about that if people aren't using the resources that are already available on-site (not even in the Discord).

I come to subeta to escape the real world. All the bickering, all the politics, the virus, the lies, all the usual bs. Sometimes it's not much of an escape, you know? I don't discord, I don't facebook, I don't twitter, no tik tok, no instagram, no nothing. I do subeta news several times a day. I figure if there's subeta news that's where it is, or should be. I do check staff forum posts but honestly, information front and center on the news page would be great. Then if users don't read the news they shouldn't complain about not being informed. However, I shouldn't have to get out my ouija board to find out what is posted where.

But seriously, I feel this statement so much. I've been on here for, what, close to 15 years. And this has been the one truth that entire time. Communicate a negative- people complain. Communicate a positive- people complain. Release an item- people are offended. Ask for feedback- people are upset. Now, maybe there are some very distinct groups of people in each scenario. But the point remains that no change or update is ever going to make anyone happy.

Y'all, I want to know about MM as much as anyone. My reasons are that the achievement loot was added, and I need quite a few of the items for my collections. It annoys the heck out of me to have them in a wishlist and not be able to get them. But oh well. I'll get them eventually. What could've solved this issue- not adding loot to the directory early.

That could have also solved this ludicrous beanbag debacle. It was added to the directory early, and the powers that be changed their minds for how it was going to be released. But at the end of the day, it went from not released to released. Isn't that what people WANT?! It's not even that expensive!!! jfc I don't think it exactly matches with Hoarfrost's loot, but meh.

Ugh. I'm tired of these threads popping up that truly only exist to shit on staff. Because that serves to just piss everyone off. I don't agree with staff a lot. I think there are a lot of improvements that are available. (eg, don't put melody items into the directory all at once. don't make clear cut promises on forums unless there is actually no chance it'll change (eg, the beanbag going out. or all the achievements we've been promised through the years (more book tiers, goddamn baking when, etc))) And there are a whole lot of things that have happened on this site that I think are atrocious (loot boxes, hello.)

But omfg, what outcome are y'all hoping for on this thread? Just to vent? Do you want staff involvement here just so you can argue some more? Saying "you want more communication" is vague as hell. There are people who want periodic updates or more use of the siteupdate ping, and there are others who need a breakdown of every event and agenda item.

I'm tired y'all. If you can't accept the site for what it is- an aging pet site with some amazing features, communities, and art, but albeit with lessening involvement over its 20yr tenure- then you need to reevaluate.

Also going to add that I don't really remember anything super important that happened on Discord that didn't happen on Subeta later. We see things early, but not exclusively. Snowball achivement poll made it the main site, Bug's filled wardrobe fix made it to the main site... all in less than an hour.

I muted half the channels though, so maybe I've missed something. Maybe a couple of "Keith is running up another server to help with lag" might not have made it to Subeta but that's it.

I may have grievances but credit where is credit due.