I would love to see a sort of savings fund that is set aside that we can periodically go look at/donate to. Even if it takes a few years to get to the stated goal. Have the option to donate underneath it with a little blurb about what its for. You don't need extravagant gifts for high donations because then you have to ultimately pay for them. A couple special achievements/forum titles/maybe an item or two. And if someone really does go crazy and donate huge amounts list the highest donators in a news post everyday.

Another thought would be to give people the option when submitting CWs to donate back. As an example they check a box that ups the base price of a CW and the little extra made which would only be a couple cents goes straight to this "savings fund"

I think everyone here just really want to be able to help, and it's always nice to see how we're helping.

In all seriousness, it seems like a recode has been talked about for so long that I'd be ecstatic to see some sort of forward momentum on it. Even if it is just the staff asking those tough questions and gauging what the answers might be.

So... There's no plans on the shelf, on the basis that the user base has become so entitled from being spoon fed that you're afraid to move to fix a site that has been bordering on unusable, or HAS been unusable for some people this month. Not even /actually/ fix it, but come up with ideas, put forwards ideas, even on a public forum, anything, despite how many people are begging for the site to be fixed, who are willing to throw money at you, because some people can't adapt to the need to stabilize the site, can't even adapt to the conversation.

Your site is breaking, but people will whine so lets not make any plans.

Whelp.

I hope people know what they're putting their money towards =| I'll just keep my shop open and take what I can until the forums break completely for me again.

Fair enough. I get where you're coming from. It's just disappointing to know that something that has been talked about for this long and has this much support has very little chance of becoming a reality at least at this point.

We have been told year after year that Subeta exists on a foundation of broken code. You have said that it would take a team of programmers and about $40,000 to fix that.

Why would you even need to think about changing anything in terms of the game, when all users are asking for is a site that is stable? If by changes you mean adding limits, that's different. But your post really reads like you are looking at this as a 'Let's revamp the game completely' when all players really want is the sitty backend coding to be fixed so things like the wardrobe work that way they are supposed to.

You are like the person that has a 1985 Corolla and instead of saving their money to buy a newer car, you keep wasting $100 here and there repairing a turd that will never do anything but depreciate further.

, you are the owner of the site! You get to tell others how it's going to be! Sure they'll be a lot of people whining some will probably even leave until they realize they're bored without it, but guess what, everyone will get over it. You can't please everyone and honestly I'm sick of all the whiners lately, literally its all I see! I don't want subeta to be come the hub of self entitled brats! /rant I battle I'm not a huge battler but I will say this: Will I be upset if weapons are changed/gone maybe....if it makes the system better/fighting more fun...NOPE a big fat NOPE.

But you saying that does shed some light on why you seem to think that adding new features will "polish the turd" when it's clear as day that a polished turd is still just shit...

It really does sound like you're so afraid of pissing off your current (spoilt, lets face it) userbase, that you're willing to let a site everyone but the most blinkered users knows needs fixing. Badly. You're not keeping new users, and older users (the ones who're making up the real personality of the site often) are drifting away. Then you have the old vultures like me who take up server space filling their bellies without putting anything into the site. I'm really shocked, for the first time on this site you've shocked me, that there doesn't seem to be any direction for the site. It just seems like it's going to die. Maybe that's hyperbole, but without a direction to move in, without plans, how is a site built on code this shaky going to survive? Are people going to complain about a new [x] system? Sure. Right up until they forget about it cos the new version works better.

Staff need to sit the hell down, brainstorm, or whatever the politically correct term is these days, draft up a plan and decide: are we going to make the site what we think it should be, or are we going to communicate with the users? If you choose the latter then make your plans public and test the waters, what are people happy or not happy about and are those things IMPORTANT? I stress the importance of each point because quite frankly, fuck the people who are more interested in the few million FICTIONAL points they've invested in [x] item, than actually having a working site they and others can enjoy. Maybe it'll be months or years before the plans are in a final form and recoding can go ahead, but wouldn't it be better to have the cash saved up IN TIME for that, not after the effect?

How long before the people who are already contributing, who would donate, get fed up of the broken wardrobe, events, edits, forums, minor coding issues, major coding issues, the lag, the seasonal crashes, the... whatever else I've not seen... give up and go?

[edit] If this damn edit works >_> Nice to know you are discussing it, if nothing else.

A functional site would be ideal and I'd be way more willing to pitch in toward that than anything else.

Functional site should be priority but I do totally agree that game mechanics are important and horribly lacking recently. Our doll-maker is gorgeous, and the slick buttons and popups are nice, but this decade-old petsite has never ever ever had the most important petsite feature: a player-versus-player battling system. What the heck is up with that?! And the economy makes it impossible to play the trader/restocker/econ side of the game, another notable shortfall. The state of the site (gameplay-wise) is pretty hopeless at the moment and it probably wouldn't be much fun even if the existing features worked as intended.

HHAHA THE USERBASE IS SPOILED. We are.

However as a user who seems to be most interested in the aspects of this site that're already capped and/or based on luck (pet slots, pet stats, pet names are pure lucked based...) I can't say I really feel pitty on the aspects of the site whining. The (stat) cap has been talked about being raised for a solid year or so now, and from the get go we were told it wasn't set in stone-- even then it's taken quite a while until we finally got up in arms about it.

We are spoiled, though, but I think a lot of that also comes from staff not actually following through with anything.

It's not that us spoiled users just started this habit overnight. Staff say "the shoutbox is a void of rulebreaking we should really shut it down or find a way to control it" and then users throw a tiff and staff go "meh fine we'll leave it alone". Then it happens four more times and what've we learned? That staff will cave as long as we stomp our feets (as long as it's not stat or pet caps, that's cement, yo).

We act like a 5 year old who wants a cookie before nap time because we KNOW for a fact that if we act like that we get our way. Why wouldn't we act like that?

STaff need to learn backbone sometimes (no I'm not saying that staff is always right or that user's opinions aren't warranted, helpful, or whatever) when it comes to things that're 100% better for the sites ability to function and say "no, tough tits shops and galleries are getting capped I'm sorry this upsets you but it's not like we're deleting your items so sorry but not sorry". Instead of just saying it in passing, and giving in to hissy fits. Do you see anyone bringing up more pet slots like they used to? No. Do you see constant boards about the vending limit? No. Because when you put your foot down about something that is for the better, people get over it.

HOWEVER this is saying nothing about "this is a free card to completely change the site!" because no, people want to donate to fix -THIS- subeta. Not some other subeta, and thinking like that is what really causes businesses to go chapter 15. If you want to do something different with weapons and the battle system that board belongs in battle and specific pings to people who it effects the most (godly holders, etc). It's one thing to say galleries and shops will be capped, but it's an entirely different thing to say WE'RE DELETING ALL THE MEGA SHOPS WITH EVERYTHING IN THEM AND ALSO HALF THE ITEMS ONSITE BECAUSE THERE'S JUST OT MANY. Also pets are sooo 1990s we're deleting them all, but you'll get super cool achieves and elite wears so it's cool right??

That's apples and oranges.

PS:

Only you forgot about the mods people add to their rust buckets like that 24" airplane tail is going to make that off-balanced squeaky toyota any better.

PSS: I'm glad this is actually being tossed around and thought about behind the scenes, as I think everyone wants to see the site suddenly get that unicorn of a recode it really needs so it can always be sailing smoother.

Correct me if I'm wrong but....wasn't there a Subeta V2 already planned? I seem to remember screen shots for it. This was before it was stated that subeta couldn't afford it ofc, but why not go back to that?

Regardless of what subeta LOOKS like shouldn't the focus be on subeta's backend broken coding? The, as put it, "Rotting Core"? I would personally like a site where all its functions worked properly and a place where we could once again have events like we used to. I would love another rift event or a plot with some substance to it, not these shitty mini things. But we can't have that as long as the site is stuck with its shitty "rotting core."

Umm a subeta with game mechanics that keep people playing for longer periods of times sounds like the ideal subeta V2 to me... And We very obviously need limits. NO ONE is benefiting from shops so big that you cant do an item search in them, let alone a wishlist search, that's pretty broken. Achievements that encourage people to hoard so much that pages don't load are broken. Battle opponents that whether purposely or not where designed to require a weapon that only ~20 (I have no ideal how many actual ostaffs there are, I'm guessing) exist in order to get 10 wins on it, is broken. I have probably 5b+ in weapons and scrolls, and if weapons and scrolls where made to mean less, I'd be ecstatic, literally ecstatic, they're obviously brokenly OP right now, so much so that the entire battle community acknowledges 100% that top weapons would never be viable in pvp. Of course, that also means that there would 100% HAVE to be pvp. Sorry Keith but we can't wait for the sporadic events with battling in them, we need a basis for our own user run events :).

But pretty much staff needs to stop trying to please everyone because its plain obvious in any game, in any situation in any anything anywhere, people HATE change. HATE it, even if it's for the best and has literally no drawbacks. Even when it doesn't even make any sort of difference either way. Pretty much just have to decide what;s best for the site and accept the fact that people will hate it until they get used to it. That's how life is everywhere else :) Subeta will survive.

Presuming the current staff will manage the recoders and what they're doing / getting familiar with the code they're writing from the get go, I don't see any important objections to game mechanic changes coming later? That would give people more time to adapt, instead of coming back to a game they might not even recognize.

Right now people only want the same thing, recoded to work smoothly. Shouldn't be too hard to implement limits or tweak how certain features work a few months/years down the road, I hope. The recode isn't supposed to suppress all coding needs for years to come ;)

I don't think anyone's asking for a Subeta V2? The forums frequently have issues (major lag, issues with pings, and now editing posts); the new wardrobe has been in beta for a year now and still doesn't function properly; the achievement recode still has some bugs in it. None of these need to be changed, they just need to be fixed.

What coding needs to be, "Just fixed" and what needs to be recoded, "Entirely?"

I think the original goal of this thread was to fix the broken core of the site and get it functioning and stable. Then add bells and whistles. I don't think we need to do a whole site concept revamp, just fix what we currently have. People have stuck around so long because they like what the site offers. If we can get a stable and functioning framework, I'm sure new users would be more likely to stay as well.

After all that is taken care of you can do all the fancy stuff you want. Though like a few other people have said, you're gonna have to be the boss here and flat out tell users this is how X is going to be and it's for the good of everyone. Sure there will be backlash there always is, but we'll forget about it eventually. When someone new comes along to bitch about :P

I agree with Seerow.

Mechanic changes should be postponed, imo. What is important is having a site that people can, you know, actually use.

I wouldn't give money to change what is on the site. I don't have the knowledge of what works and what doesn't.

I would give money to change how the site works internally. This is different.