Information should 100% be said on site first. That's an argument we had concerning Facebook, Twitter and IRC again. The site is used by a majority of users, while social media and Discord are not.

The big problem some users have with infos being dropped on Discord, is that well, there has been precedents in history where updates/important information was dropped on Facebook/Twitter, and before that, IRC.

However, if you want to make Discord an official way of communication, a link to access it should be added to the right side of the news page, so that everyone has equal access to it. Because I don't think a majority of the userbase know it exists, or how to access it.

That would actually help. I think.

Honestly I think I want to say thanks Keith for taking the time to talk through this and acknowledging that the feedback—even if we get crass and kinda brutal—is important in the grand scheme of things. While I don’t agree with everything about his responses, that’s perfectly okay since we’re all approaching this with different perspectives.

I also think telling us that things need to pushed back isn’t a massive breach of previous promises. It’s really nice when the staff touch base with us and we can know when to be more excited for things rather than wait out a period of silence. That being said, I do get where y’all are coming from when you’re pushing to meet deadlines you’ve set for yourself and I think that as long as you’re okay with giving us a heads up that logistics got hairy, most users will understand. I’m really sorry that you have to deal with the negative feedback, honestly. I appreciate the recalibration of knowing what’s coming because, sometimes, shit happens. Thank you for being patient with a sometimes nutty (in both good ways and at times kinda bad) user base and putting in the work to keep the site afloat for everyone to enjoy.

I think the roadmap is a really cool idea actually. While I’m not someone who’s bought CSC, I’d be happy to chip in every once in a while if we know what main efforts they’re going toward :)

How about this: we actually need LESS communication, not more.

I know, but hear me out. Apologize for unexpected errors/downtime, but stop announcing "Coming soon! We're working on this! Next week this will happen! Maybe I'll look into doing this! hint hint tease winky face" This just opens yourself up to users demanding more, more, more! and being angry when you fail to deliver.

Users expect holiday events, and look forward to them, but anything else - including new features, items, plots, etc. - should be a pleasant surprise. Keep mum about that stuff, stop promising the moon and then pushing it back, and people won't be angry and disappointed. Never, ever promise something will happen/be released/go live on a certain date until you are 100% sure that it will work properly.

And for the love of everything, keep your staff on the same page. If one of them says something, everyone on staff should know and agree with it beforehand. Maybe put that community manager to good use.

Also, Keith, some of your users have been with Subeta nearly 20 years and remember when you were an emo teen celebrating your 16th birthday, sticking with you and the site through everything (and financially supporting Subeta!)

Just saw this: flexing that you're the CEO and that Subeta runs on your whim is petty and holy crap hire a PR person NOW.

In the grand scheme of things for me it comes down to: why do I play Subeta? Why do I still spend money on this site after all these years?

And really? For me, no staff isn't perfect. I've been told off quite a few times when I've crossed the line with feedback and rightfully so. MANY of us have went way too far out of anger, and deserved to be called out.

I come here to unwind and escape RL when shit gets too much to handle and I just need to focus on pretty pixels. Are things perfect here? Nope! Somedays I say to myself why the hell am I still releasing CWs when I could be spending on other things... but then I always end up coming back and doing more.

There are always gonna be things that piss us off, but at the end of the day... I'd rather still have a Subeta to come to... Wouldn't you? And if not? Why are you still here?

The site isn't perfect, things need to be updated and sometimes it feels like it'll never be fully functional... but I CHOOSE to be here because I enjoy the people I chat with here, enjoy the CW system, enjoy battling and love that even after so many years I can still log in and escape.

Communication does suck sometimes but... Honestly after seeing some of the attacks staff have dealt with over the years, some which were VERY personal... I gotta give them credit, especially Keith because hell if I'd been told off the number of times he has and with some of the insanely personal attacks, I'd've said to hell with it a long time ago... And if any of us had said these things to someone working a public job IRL... we'd have been kicked out on our asses. If staff REALLY banned people for speaking their opinions my ass would've been fried a long time ago, along with many others...

But whether we agree with his choices or not... we STILL have a site to escape... Might not be perfect but its still here. Yeah some promises were broken but hell this place got me through 2 years of Covid nightmares, can we at least all agree we're glad its still aronud?

I think we all have different expectations on what and how often it should be communicated. I read this thread completely oblivious that there was something that should have been communicated in the past 2 weeks.*

I also agree with Sekhmet and Chocolate. While I understand the method behind it, knowing how fraught project management is both here and other places, hints or the s-word ("soon") does not inspire confidence. We're not obligated to the entire plan for everything. Especially when we can't be sure the site will be working on x day at x time.

I guess my assumption isn't that events and features are 'forgotten' if we don't have a weekly update. I just want updates if large portions of the site are inoperable and someone can slap a banner up with "We're working on it!".

*Truthfully I'm still not sure if there is. But that comes from me just hanging in the wardrobe, not anywhere else.

100% agree with this and what I meant in my original post. It's the communication between staff themselves that's poor and a huge disconnect between what's going on behind the scenes. Someone like a project manager or the community manager that needs to come up with a schedule and make sure everyone is aware of the expectations and what is going on. Subeta is a small team (not some large corporation) where this is not only possible, but necessary so that everyone could help out in some capacity to meet deadlines.

This claim is logically equivalent to "We ban up to five players a year just for 'giving feedback' or 'stepping out of line'."

I know you're trying to be open, but that's a really chilling claim. Lesser penalties are available for wrongthink.

I'm honestly kind of appalled at the disrespect being shown to the users here and the demeaning way we're being spoken to. The majority are only asking for transparency.

I have seen several instances where users have cited posts/comments from staff explicitly stating one thing only to do something else entirely out of left field. I won't pretend that the comments don't often turn into a shit-show, but I have seen people express their concerns courteously. Lumping everyone together and calling it air quotes "feedback" shows clear disregard even to the people genuinely seeking communication.

Regarding MM, I reiterate - if there had been an update stating honestly that someone was not only sick, but sick with covid, the majority of the userbase would have been understanding and appreciative of the update and would have offered well wishes. If someone had come forth in screamy all caps shouting how dare you catch the plague, sure - go ahead and blast 'em for it.

Even as a compromise, if there could have just been a news post or one of those little headers directing users to the forum post about the delay in this instance and not just relying on the forum group ping, it would have helped. I'm honestly chill if MM gets skipped all together until next time around, it's not about that itself, just that the news for something so many people were waiting to hear on was so hard to find.

I had a temper tantrum about the loot boxes, so I'm not immune to getting worked up about Subeta. But when people say stuff like Subeta's going downhill, I just don't get it. I remember at least one reset, which was distressing, and several months where we couldn't get on for days at a time and then you might be able to grab a minute before it was gone again. Recent event lag is no fun, but it's certainly loads better and happens way less often than in the past. And the site-wide art is just beautiful now. There's so much to work on...pets, collections, battling (the final frontier for me), HAs...the amount of items we have is insane. I'd be quite content to not get any new releases for months, if staff needed that time to work on a big project.

I get that people would be annoyed if staff said one thing and did another, but none of the stuff that has happened, including those damn loot boxes, seems unforgivable or even all that egregious. Just briefly annoying. It's fun here and I'm glad it's still run by perfectly imperfect people.

Excited by this! I think an external facing Trello board (separate from any actual task tracking to keep things clean) would be a great way to show a little roadmap for what's actively in progress, what's on hold, or what's blocked by something else. Obviously not every little feature should be included in this because it'll very quickly become overwhelming or difficult to manage, but for bigger ticket items, I've really enjoyed teams that went this route.

Agreed. For example, we didn't need to be told about this before it was ready to be introduced on the site. (The topic is dated 07/21/20)

Upcoming: Rarity Squish!

What made it more confusing is the opening post which says

Also, the Teahouse, revamped gardens and Lower Westside map should have been ready to go on the site before we were asked to bid on which we wanted first. That way, players who took part in the bidding wouldn't have wasted their sP.

I personally feel like communication has improved the last year or so, and by checking the news frequently and doing the bare minimum of paying attention the forums and admin posts, I've always gotten all the information I need. Have a few nuggets of info escaped my notice? Sure. But anything that affects the site at large and/or majorly affects gameplay is pretty much always talked about prominently somewhere on site. Newsposts should be for important info that effects everyone, right now (or in the very near future). Too many newsposts for minor things just pushes more important info lower on the news page, making it less likely that players will see it, especially if they don't play every day. Don't like to check the forums? I don't know what to tell you, but it's on you if you want to ignore a major communication venue of the site. You don't have to read every post, but it's pretty easy to spot the ones that are important (check the Announcements, Site Feedback, and Problems & Bugs if you're looking for the posts that staff might interact with).

I think it's unfortunate that staff sometimes say one thing, and do another, but people are imperfect and I like to think that staff are trying their best using factors that we might not have thought of. They don't have to explain every single little thing, though I appreciate when we're kept in the loop about big changes. I doubt that any staff member who still works here ever does anything with the intent to upset people. I could be wrong, but I imagine that the handful of staff that remain here, keeping the lights on, do so because they have a deep personal connection to the site. I think is right that we should lower our expectations. Subeta is like a hobby that a few stalwart people are getting paid for - we've been told that they have other jobs outside of the site. How many of you like to come home from your full time job and spend hours every single day working on another project, even one that you love?

I'm happy they keep doing at least the minimum to keep the site running. It sounds like other, bigger projects are still moving, albeit slowly. Most of us probably have experience with getting excited for a big project, gushing about it to someone, and then being unable to keep up with the scope of that project. There are things I planned literal years ago that I never even started, and still quietly simmer on the backburner of my mind. It's embarrassing that I told people that I was gonna do that stuff, then never did. I'm happy I don't have a hoard of people keeping score of all the times I got in over my head.

seconding all of this. quite a bit of what was said in that post, and the ones preceding it, feels more about being combative or at least asserting dominance than problem solving -- which is interesting, given that was immediately suspected and accused of acting the same way and thusly derided.

i'd like to be clear that i don't know anyone here very well so i don't have a dog in this fight, and i also don't typically pay enough attention to know if this is particularly out of character for Keith, but the CEO of the site itself making it very apparent that he holds a grudge against a specific user in a public feedback thread is so unprofessional it's astonishing. at this point i'm not sure saying "give me a break, i'm not going to ban you" even serves as the reassurance its meant to -- i'd wager forum-banning someone or at least locking their thread from the outset would be far more civil (and one could even argue far more kind) than only allowing them to continue speaking solely so you can repeatedly, in every one of your posts, quote them to demean or dismiss them or make sarcastic remarks towards or about them. you can dislike what they're saying or even dislike them as a person, that's anyone's right -- but as a site owner speaking to a site user here, you have other private and professional options to deal with that, and opting for turning it into a drawn-out public debacle like this (disrespecting other users bringing up legitimate concerns, offering legitimate solutions, and asking legitimate questions in the process) is beyond unnecessary. if holding on to someone's past actions just to shame them for speaking in the present is the way any member of staff is going to approach any user in a public forum, i want no part of it. i was going to take a hiatus after seeing what happened in this thread, but now that it's escalated to this point, i can definitively say these choices and decisions (among others) are not only ones i don't want to provide payment for or attention to, they're ones i find completely unacceptable and just plain don't want to be around. i'm not so arrogant as to think that my leaving actually matters (and Keith has, in fact, stressed that it doesn't) but as someone who came here post-neo hoping for a fresh start, loved it a lot, and very much wanted to stay and invest in it long-term, this is incredibly disappointing to say the least.

this is not to publicly implode, though i'm sure it may be taken that way, but more to spell out how unreasonable and unwelcoming this is coming across; i'm honestly not too hopeful it will change anything, but i do genuinely hope that moving forward there's more positive change overall for the sake of everyone else who's staying and pleading for it. much love to all the users who make this site a wonderful place to be and have been incredibly kind to me while i've been here. i've appreciated you. 💕

I have a couple issues with the communication around here, mainly that a lot of it can sometimes be found in the comments. Depending on what news post it may be, those can be seriously buried to the point I don't have the patience to find them. Maybe if they was highlighted in a better way or maybe there was a staff comments page like the forums, it'd be helpful. The other part, a couple mentioned it a while ago, was "soon". If something is honestly not close to being ready, maybe not mentioning it may keep peoples hopes from getting up just to be let down. If it's a serious issue, say it'll take a while or give us updates on it but no time frame. Just point out the problem, how you're working on it should be more helpful than saying "it'll be fixed soon" and we're stuck waiting for a lot longer than what soon should actually mean.

If you have to take time to fix an issue and have less time to push out items, ect. Just say there is going to be limited stuff being released for a bit so you can focus on a major problem. If you're worried about users being bored, do something like an item drive, restock war, something we can work on without you having to do much. If you want to put rewards out for them, find items that are extremely rare and hard to find, make sure people understand there will be no new items (or maybe just one or two) for said event so people don't expect some major drop of new items. '

Otherwise, I'm fine and happy things get communicated. I'm not so irritated that discord is being used and within an hour or so, that information is here. I don't have a discord, don't intend on having one but if nothing major is being left over there only, I'm not bothered by it in the least. I'd appreciate more news posts over issues rather than having the admin post page sometimes, but that's more laziness on my part than an issue the staff are doing.

just wanted to pop back in and mention a potential aid that i also mentioned on the discord: a server bot with a tweet command for mods/admins on the server to use. this way, when they respond to a site related question they can also make it a tweet with whatever the bot command is set to. the subeta twitter could be embedded on the admin posts page or made into a new tab at the top of forums so that it's easily accessible to everyone without visiting an outside website. this has the added benefit of making the subeta twitter more active, potentially attracting new users without having to actually use or monitor it for interaction (the description can be set to say it's a bot for clarity) [userid=605589] also mentioned potentially linking the server status page on the admin posts, which would be a great idea. hopefully these ideas, in combination with the site roadmap mentioned by , can be transformed into an informational hub linked on the front page where the admin posts are currently linked. it can be referred to as live announcements or the site status hub or whatever else you want to call it, but it would be easy to implement in steps/piecemeal so that there's at least something while the aforementioned site roadmap page is built.

edit: something i've always intended to suggest but never got around to is making the news posts more searchable. right now it can be a little difficult to pin down when information was released in the past via posts (e.g. when new pet slots were added to the millionaire center and how much the slots cost) and it would be nice if each announcement going forward had a tag prefixed/appended to it, with important announcements being linked for posterity on the admin posts page.

honestly, i think the real issue at the heart of the matter is inconsistency & occasionally a lack of tact.

being consistent in communication is hard; knowing what is important, which details are pertinent to users, how much to say, how much even needs to be said...there's no way to know that with every single update, there just isn't- however, i think it's time that staff put out feelers and figured out what users want. that's obviously a broad statement, but getting to know things like: how often do users want to be updated (weekly, monthly?), what is considered 'newsworthy', how much do users need to know about the goings on to feel satisfied, is hearing 'there's been no progress because xyz' better for users than hearing nothing? there's never going to be a total consensus or a right answer to questions like these but getting an idea of what the bulk of people's expectations and wants are in terms of updates and information from staff would go a long way.

i completely agree with that a (cleaned up) outward facing trello (or similar) would be of great benefit to users & staff in terms of easily communicating 'hey so what's going on', or even something like a brief blog (post?) once a month that simply lists what's been going on and worked on. this would require a little input from all staff/devs/programmers, but easily then falls to a community manager to compile the notes they get into a 'here's what's going on lately!' formatted post to keep users in the loop. i really do believe updates coming out consistently on what's going on (no matter how banal it may seem) would help establish reliability, transparency, and trust...not to mention, i think it would foster more appreciation for what staff get accomplished.

handing off updates of this nature to a community manager i think is completely necessary at this point, as well as having them handling feedback (at least for a time).

not everyone is suited to speaking tactfully, tone can be EXTREMELY difficult to pick up on in text, and i can hazard a guess that there's some level of burnout when it comes to dealing with the negative aspects of feedback. this isn't the fault of staff or users specifically, but there's been a lot of...i'll say, history, between staff and the userbase. not all of it is bad!! far from it! but there is history, and it might be time to pull back a little on direct communication and instead let it parse through a community manager, if only to take time to let the relationship heal some. i personally have absolutely no hard feelings for anyone on subeta staff (or even former staff), however at times there can be flippant, bitter, or blunt responses. the feelings behind responses like this are obviously valid, because this is the internet and people really, really, really are not always kind or respectful when voicing their feedback but unfortunately it still looks bad, and it feels bad, to see a staff member not being respectful, even if it's warranted or valid because a user was rude as hell. taking that 'edge' away and handing it off to designated staff that are comfortable being calm, cool, and collected while dealing with (at times, not always) verbal abuse from users would also, i think, go a long way to heal the bit of a rift that has formed between staff & users. it's an awful job in a lot of cases, but it's unfortunately the brunt of what community managers face in the current internet climate.

finally, and this is specifically to other players: i think a lot of people forget that most members of staff are fundamentally strangers to us. that is to say-- we know them, we know who they are and what their role is! but the majority of us don't know them personally or as friends. a lot of folks on the internet as a whole have taken to speaking very, very casually and flippantly with complete strangers, and it's often not appropriate and tends to become...rude. friends & loved ones are able to give us the benefit of the doubt if we mess up what we say, if we come out the gate strongly, if we get too heated and say things we don't mean. we have a rapport with our familiar people that is totally absent with unfamiliar people, and stepping back to re-examine how we address 'strangers' is sometimes very necessary. if it's not how you would talk to a clerk, dentist, waitstaff, professor...take a second, change trajectory. there are a lot of well-worded and polite posts in this thread alone that exemplify this-- getting their 'grievances' across, but in a way that is not verbally abusive, baiting, or said in bad faith.

this is very very very dorky of me, but the director of final fantasy 14 recently did an interview addressing this type of verbal abuse towards the developers on his team, which is posted online in a lot of places but summed up in this article. hearing some of the key points he said, i immediately thought of subeta and it broke my heart a little. specifically, these two parts:

"... staff members will feel really down after getting those words when they gave their absolute best into trying to create something where everyone can enjoy, and this may end up making them no longer create things that are fun from there on."

"That's why, it will result in staff members getting gradually hurt and it's especially evident when the staff member worked so hard on it, and this doesn't help anyone, neither the staff members nor the players either. This will completely drain away their motivation and worse, they'll end up quitting because of it, which is why I hope that everyone can understand that. Considering things have been getting really extreme lately, and with staff members putting their all to make it work...I mean, of course I don't mean everything should be given praise. Mistakes are mistakes of course and they should be notified, but I’ll appreciate it if everyone can give careful thought in their thoughts and feedback before sending them over."

there isn't much to add on to those points but basically: i do worry that at some point, subeta will just not be fun anymore or worthwhile to staff members who have been here for the long haul. and that would suck and i'd hate to see it come to that.

i don't have a way to wrap up this post and these are all my thoughts that i own, so i hope we all have a good week ahead of us 💖 ✌ thank you for wading thru this post if you do, and i promise that i have nothing but kindness in my heart for everyone in relation to this topic

Just want to say how exciting this is. I love watching the innerworkings and that sounds neat! I don't think we NEED it all, but I'm also not going to complain. ;)

All I can say is I’m sorry for my past words and incidents. Like I said, you have your problems with me but this is not the place to bring it up. If you want to fight, then mail me or whatever. I’m done talking to you otherwise since nothing I say matters. No point in going around in circles.

i never meant to say otherwise, sorry! my point was simply there are areas (with all companies, not just subeta and certainly not just petsites) where the personal aspect isn't necessary, and sometimes it isn't constructive to have it. it's why i suggested it as a thinking point; it was in no way personal to you specifically, or your tone(?). subeta would not be subeta without your presence, and if i had a problem with that i wouldn't be here & wouldn't spend an hour on heartfelt feedback.

i agree with this so much, and after your post i understand MUCH MUCH more what the goals for sub is for having a community manager 💖 i wrongly assumed it would be the corporate-twitter-please-handle-our-customers-plzkthx approach, though in hindsight obviously that doesn't make sense for a site like this, so i should've been more openminded about that