Considering it's running, I am at least happy with that.

I would love if we got some new stuff. New pet species, colors, PLOTS, we need more things to do. This website seems to be at an almost standstill. The CW creators are keeping this alive, that's not going to last for long. Adding new stuff instead of just here and there, instead of revamping old items, we do need some new stuff.

When was the last time we even had a restock war? The thing with I believe it was Gunther that never had any follow up? It was left hanging this entire time.

There are 103 users online rn. And we have an event going on.

Meanwhile, FR, who also has an event going on, has 2975 users online.

I don't know for you guys, but if people are satisfied with that, this isn't a good sign :(

Even in the middle of the night a year or so ago, we were around 250-300 users at a given time. And, with no roadmap showing us what to expect for the future, it's kinda hard to motivate users to stay and invest in the site.

I wouldn't trust the users online counter. I've seen it speculated that it isn't counting people who are signed on via the new authentication. Checks out for me at least - the dip seems to be a bit too drastic, especially with little controversy.

The users online is currently inaccurate

I thought our counter was indeed broken?

I've enjoyed what Subeta has had for years, but I'm largely a solo player. I don't care about socializing with others all that much (I only came across this thread because I was looking for a guide about the community cake, lol).

I mean, more content is always nice. I'd love to see new pets and new colors, new jobs, and a plot. And a Renaissance Faire--people have been asking for one of those for years.

But I'm happy collecting items during our holiday events, building up my pets, and filling my wardrobe. Part of my likes that Subeta isn't so demanding all the time. FlightRising has events every month, and I am so ridiculously sick of their Coliseum I want to puke. I don't feel that same burnout with Subeta.

Subeta also has one of the least toxic playerbases I've seen, which is really nice. I've never had to endure an 18-month harassment campaign here. No one has ever PM'ed me, demanding I owe them my pronouns. No one here has ever told me I'm going to "die alone" because I refuse to sell them something.

But if the feedback is on how to build Subeta up? Finish the code revamp that has been going on for forever. Srsly. Then advertise. If there's one thing I learned from Roller Coaster Tycoon--advertise, advertise, advertise. Create a good plot, and then advertise and get players on during the plot--then hope they like the games and pets and avatars enough to stay. (And I would love to see battling get a major revamp to be user friendly, but that's another long issue.)

I also agree--the user online count is likely not counting people logging in through the new method.

Some users are mentioning the online counter is not working correctly, and it might be off. However, the site still needs more paying users to continue to exist in business terms/reality.

I support more short plots/worldbuilding-type stuff, but we also kind of had that with Gunter, for example...it wasn't a plot, just some backstory/worldbuilding information, and we were told that while it was going on, and there are still people several years later asking, "Why didn't that go anywhere?" I've seen users even months/years afterwards with that specific thing claiming to just not believe Gunter even though everything we were told was presented at face value and it wasn't meant at the time to lead into anything : So even if the resources are there to write up and run that kind of small event-type stuff, will the userbase be receptive to it? And how fun is it to be the person writing up small, one-off stuff like that if a vocal chunk of the userbase will just not believe you or whatever? (and here is a thread that provides the relevant story links on all that, just for reference)

I mean, Darkrai, there are people in this world who believe 9/11 wasn't real, the Sandy Hooky shooting was an inside job with actors and no children actually died or that the Earth is flat. :| It's not surprising if there are people who don't believe Gunter is guilty even with clear facts and undeniable proof before them.

Agreed but I wouldn't mind a few more users, activities, pets but I am happy when the site works

Thanks--but you don't have to ping me.

I feel like after the new log-in thing the user numbers have dropped to sub 100 a day.

Counter is apparently broken, but it doesn't mean the site is thriving.

Neugarten is not an exciting event, granted, but it feels weird to see so little activity during a site event

Counter is apparently broken, but it doesn't mean the site is thriving.

Neugarten is not an exciting event, granted, but it feels weird to see so little activity during a site event

wait there's an event? as in right now?

did my adblocker hide a banner or something? i see no indication that today is different from any other day

Yes, Neugarten, but it's the most boring of all the events. I love the items/themes but hate the format.

It's just an sP sink. There's nothing to actually do. You just buy the items you want and congrats, that's it.

I understand that advertising isn't free and it'd take time and money to invest in. But I think that some kind of advertising campaign to introduce Subeta to new players or to re-introduce Subeta to older players is needed. Inevitably, people will leave the site (permanently or for hiatus) and will take their spending with them. If there aren't many people to fill the gaps, that poses a problem.

As seen by user counts on Flight Rising and the continued popularity of Neopets despite their numerous issues, people are still interested in pet sites. But interested people won't come to a site if they don't know about it.

I wonder if another issue has to do with newbie retention. I notice that many users here have been around for a long time. I've been playing for over 9 years at this point. Maybe it's not just an issue of lack of sign-ups and/or lack of old Subetans sticking around, but also, a lack of sign-ups sticking around to try Subeta out for longer periods of time.

In my case, I didn't really think about Subeta until I got an email saying that a password reset would be coming soon. It reminded me - hey, Subeta's still around, you haven't been back for a while so why not check it out? And here I am again, back from hiatus.

Newsletters (Which, yeah, do cost money) would be great to remind people to visit. Simple curiosity like 's could entice people to come see what they missed. The last one that came out was....what year? Not this one. Not 2021.

The last newsletter was in 2019. 3 years ago.

Another interesting fact: Subeta isn't in the first 10 pages of results on Google when I search for "virtual pet site". Neither is Neopets, interestingly enough, but a basically dead petsite (Verpets) is on the first page of results. The only thing that even mentions Subeta if you're just browsing results is a site that lists 10 best virtual pet sites. That's the only mention of Subeta in those 10 pages for me. So I'm... kinda not surprised that people aren't finding this place. :x

If no money is invested back into the site, the site will die.

Advertising costs are a normal and expected part of running a business. If staff feel advertising is too far, honestly we're just waiting for the site to shut down. Bleeding older users dry until they quit is not sustainable. If staff want Subeta to continue, we need new players coming in.

There are two things related to this backstory. Some people want to know how Burkhard became a zombie after he was drowned because the Unliving became zombies after catching one of the infections. (It's not like we've heard of other inhabitants of the fictional Subeta world dying from various causes and coming back as Unliving.) Also. will Anne ever find her father and stop telling her customers about the letter? Answering these questions during some Alegarten event wouldn't need a long, involved plot.