Having been on Subeta for well about a decade at this point, I will admit that Subeta in recent years has been feeling more and more lonely. There's still some recognizable faces from when I was first romping around, but there's not a lotta new faces to greet, and not a lotta lively events to look forward to. I remember my first Masquerade all the way back in 2013, when the plot surrounding the Rifts was going on. I miss plot-driven events like that, and the free gift we got during that time was really unique, because it was a book you could actually look at the contents of. I know we can't get plots like that all the time, but I really do miss when story events were somewhat more frequent.

Honestly, while I like that things have slowed down some and the hostility is not as frequent as before, I do miss the days when there were plenty of people to chat with on the forums and SB. Life goes on and on, people come and go, and the world never stops turning, but so long as this site still has folks to talk to, the smaller population of users doesn't irk me too much.

I agree

I want more users, but that is partially because I only know about Subeta from having been introduced to it almost a decade ago. As much as I enjoy it now, I wouldn't have heard about it in passing. I think there are a lot of people in the same situation. And that "daily support goal" is always so low, it makes me worried. I get really into Subeta for a little while, then life happens and I don't log in for a year. If I already knew more people who still played, it wouldn't be like that.

I found and stay on Subeta due to the helpfulness and interest of the people that run it, going all the way to the top. If some people no longer know about it that is their disadvantage. I figure it will build and drop as normal sites do and am not very worried about it.

I really miss actual plots. We haven't had any in years. We can't have an active, engaging site if there's nothing to entice players to log in and participate.

no. i am not. i've been a member of subeta for 7 years and have only logged on for maybe a month or 2 every couple years. nothing keeps me here long term. tbh it's not even about how many users there are. for me, it's about how active the site is.

i love the pets, i love the collections, i love the avatars. but after you do the dailies, what is left? the forums are pretty dead and restocking is slow (imo! if you have any tips please tell me i am desperate to make more $$$ LOL) because there is no one buying anymore. i come across a lot of users who seem really neat but when i go to their profile it's just a message saying they're not that active anymore and that's so disheartening lol.

there are definitely cliques on subeta. i've seen absolutely rude things said in discord calls and off-site that make it hard to want to be a part of the community too. especially the CW community lol. you would think allowing users to be creative and share their ideas with others would bring people together. all it does is turn into high school drama from grown ass adults that want a monopoly in the CW space. (this has nothing to do with slotting or privates!!!)

this site is so alienating to it's users. i genuinely enjoy subeta but there's not a lot of incentive to log in all the time.

idk maybe i'm wrong. feel free to explain if i'm not understanding something <3 i obv am not here a whole lot but this is just based on what i've seen throughout the years i pop in!

(also, why the hell can you see whose blocked you? that just seems like harassment waiting to happen)

Most (if not all) ways of contacting someone with you blocked are actively blocked by the site (e.g. trying to view the trades of a user who has blocked you will throw an error) but some more obscure things have slipped by in the past. I can't say if they're still happening but I know I've seen threads up from people reporting that the Morostide random ToT button sent them to a blocked user's house/the house of someone who has them blocked. I'm also not sure if pinging a blocked user throws an error...you can see their forum posts (intentionally, since guides for plots/events/etc. are typically user-made and duplicates aren't allowed even if the OP decides to go on a blocking spree) but it would still be against the rules to try and respond to the person

I'm not bothered by the number of users but that's because my interaction with subeta is mostly personal, I do things for myself and don't really interact with the community other than for holidays. During those times, I have a lot of fun interacting with users (especially during Luminaire)

For me, things sell in my shop fast enough, there are always people online, during the holidays there are a ton of people involved and quest-a-thons always reach the goals. So for my needs, it works just fine. I think like other people have said, pet sites just aren't really a popular thing anymore. For what it is, I think it does well.

I think the issue is that most of the people who are on Subeta these days are older because we kind of grew up with this. I'm certainly dating myself here but I remember going to this site when I was in high school because neopets was gross and this site definitely seemed more age-appropriate, was funny and had more things to do. Not as many games of course which sucks but things were lively and fun.

Nowadays we've all grown up and have jobs/kids/hobbies and we're not getting any younger people interested, or interested for long in this site, let alone new people.

This site is old and it's not kept up with the times. Not just in terms of coding but in content.

I miss having discussing with people on here in the forums, it was good to talk to people. Now I'd be lucky to have someone reply to my initial post, let alone have a discussion.

That's half the number it was at the start of the month, give or take a few days.

Truthfully, I don't think it's a matter of needing more people - I think it's a matter of getting those of us who are here to regularly play again.

I'm a pet person, not a wardrobe person, so keep in mind - my opinion is largely based on what I've seen in the pet community here.

If I had to describe the current state of the userbase... I'd call it "apathetic". There's not much incentive to interact with other people here, outside of holidays and events. This is way different from back in Subeta's heyday - I remember how active the pet forums were! The cults/groups dedicated to character creation and sharing them with other people! The forum threads about how to make a pet spotlight-worthy!

That spirit of creativity seems to be gone (or much weaker than it was before, at least). Sure, we're all a lot older, we have lives and we don't have nearly as much time for Subeta as we used to. But I'm certain that a lot of us still love to create, and would be willing to create again here on Subeta, if it felt like it meant anything again.

Fixing the apathy problem doesn't have a clear solution, but I can tell you what would entice ME into playing Subeta again and interacting with its people:

1. More plots. A lot of people have said this already.

2. More effort put into acknowledging the creative community here. To me, winning the pet spotlight used to be cool... about ten years ago. Now it's just a thing that I largely ignore, because a) it's been happening the same way for about ten years, and b) my pets/characters that I love dearly and would want to revamp/show off already won eons ago. I wish that the pet spotlight was more... fun to win? Maybe if it had categories? Like, a spotlight for pets with great art, and a spotlight for pets with amazing stories, a spotlight for pets with really cool CSS... idk, this might just stir up more drama than it's worth, but I'm throwing it out there. Also, PLEASE let me resubmit pets that have already won the spotlight. My first spotlight win was September 9th, 2011. I can guarantee you that character has changed A LOT in eleven years.

More events for the wardrobe community would be super cool, too. Remember the cosplay contest we had ages ago? That was a lot of fun! What if there were themed avatar design contests hosted by the site? What if there was an avatar spotlight (more like the pet spotlight, not the one that shows a random person's avatar on the home page)? I'm starting to pull ideas out of my butt, now, but... I dunno, y'all. I just want to see Subeta do something, anything beyond the standard holidays to get us excited again.

... That cosplay contest was a joke and so incredibly clique-ish, hard pass.

Honestly? I don't even care about how clique-y something could potentially be, at this point. I'd take the clique-iest event in the world if it meant that Subeta was hosting something fun and new. Better that than a dead site, if you ask me! :)

hi! thank you for your reply!

maybe harassment was the wrong word. i was thinking more alienation from friends of a user you've blocked. and i guess it's not subeta's problem, but i know there's been bullying off site too. i could just be paranoid lol. i just see so much pettiness on pet sites 😓

maybe i'm misunderstanding, but i cannot see posts from users i've blocked. do you mean the blockee can see the blockers posts or is it supposed to be that both are supposed to be able to see each others posts?

i also understand how some parts of the site could make it hard for blocking but i still feel like having a list of people who blocked you is weird. i don't think it needs to be advertised? i guess you would have to go out of the way to check your blocked list but idk. i've never seen this from any other site so it could be just throwing me for a loop.

on the topic:

i'm not buying "people are older and too busy." of course there are people who have families and lives that aren't as active anymore, but i know tons of parents and college students and people who still spend a lot of time on similar sites. i don't think this is the problem.

"the younger generation don't care about pet sites." i don't think is completely true either. i can think of at least 2 other pet sites that are active and have a lot of traffic that also has a good sized younger audience. i firmly believe there will always be a decent amount of kids and teens that are interested in these types of websites. i don't think that demographic is lacking.

subeta isn't doing it's part to entice new people and keep current users playing imo.

again, maybe i am completely wrong lol! ¯(ツ)/¯

If I blocked you, I would not be able to see your posts, but you would still be able to see mine (so if I then go on to make an event guide or something, you can still read it)

IDK I kinda like the list for a site like this so I can see a thread and just avoid it instead of having to wait for an error to pop up or to get in trouble for trying to communicate with someone who's blocked me or whatever

i see! thank you for explaining it to me! i appreciate it.

that's fair! you make a good point 😊

Right. You know what wildly popular game has a pick up and play component where you're not expected to do everything at once?

Animal Crossing.

Having a place to poke around for a few minutes a day isn't bad! It certainly doesn't have to be a AAA title. Besides dailies, there's not a ton to entice anyone new to stay besides "wonder if the person will respond to your selling board before the heat death of the universe."

I agree with a lot of what said.

I'm a pet person and I like to use Subeta as a creative outlet. I know the act of creativity itself is a reward, but on-site it'd be really nice if there was more incentive to be creative and share it.

The pet spotlight doesn't give you much and even if you win? You're going to have to wait what feels like YEARS to actually see it because there's such a massive backlog (iirc). I just wish there was more to winning it? I like the suggestion that there can be different categories to win in with a variety of rare special prizes! And maybe by the end of the month or the end of a quarter period, users can vote on their favourite pet spotlight winner and that one can win a mega prize! (Yes, I'm sure this could potentially cause drama but that is always bound to happen when it comes to contests ((even contests in the real world encounter it))). Or imagine if there were specific theme pet spotlight contests every now and then where folks could create pets/characters that revolve around it, and win thematic prizes.

Edited to add: And yes, please let past winners re-enter!! Some folks won AGES AGO. There has to be some way to verify that the new entry for a previous winner is not the same as what they previously won with. Maybe via a screenshot or something? Just SOMETHING because it's almost a punishment to win if you can't ever win again with the same pet later down the road (or if you adopt a pet that already has a trophy).

I really liked how CW folks years ago had the opportunity to create actual Subeta items that were prizes for a plot or something! That was a great way to get the creative community involved in something.

I like the idea of another cosplay contest too!

I feel like these kinds of contests and events do help encourage more community and engagement with one other here. I know there have been user-run attempts over the years that were so much fun and helped encourage site participation and created communities.

I am definitely in that "apathetic" boat. I mainly just log in and click on the bathhouse and bounce out of here because there isn't much to do, or anything that encourages me to do much. I really love my pets, and I don't ever want to see them go, but I don't really have an incentive to be active here. Sure, I've got pet colour goals and want more pet slots. But that involves grinding for sp and after awhile, one gets burnt out if that's the only thing to do.

I do know that creative contests and such totally get me fired up though! Not just because I'm a competitive person, but it gives me a really fun goal to put my energy towards other than mindlessly grinding out quests.

Honestly, we need SOMETHING other than these holidays where all you do is spam on the boards for flowers or hearts and then just buy items.

It's 10.45am in England as I write this and there are 67 users on. I know most of the users seem to be in the US and Canada but I've never seen so few people online at this time before.

As others have said, there is little to do here now we no longer have plots. We're still waiting for the Tea House and more pet jobs.

I just come on for the Bathhouse Pools and the occasional visit to the galley. I've got 57 pets so don't want any more until there's a collect all option for pet wages. I've got billions of sP so can't be bothered doing quests and I've got more clothes in my wardrobe than I'll ever wear.

PS. It is ow 12.30 and number of users on is down to 55.

I could care less how many users are on the site at any given time. My disappointments with the site have nothing to do with plots, or boards, threads, or the activities. I've always found there is more to do on this site than I have time for.