There is a difference between customers giving feedback and people giving unsolicited advice. :|

True! But it's feedback on technical issues that most appear to not have any background in. The feedback isn't viable because it just plain doesn't work. Doesn't stop you from giving it! Knock yourself out! But don't get upset that it can't be implemented in any possible way and that the guy in charge of it has be selective and says as much.

You don't get to tell people what they can and cannot get upset about though. Nor do customers need to have background in something in order to have feedback on it. I do not need to be a chef to know when I am served up poorly cooked food. I do not need to be a trained beautician to know when I got a bad haircut (even if I am not capable of fixing said haircut)

That's what you seem to be missing. Subeta isn't silly little internet game that was created as a hobby (anymore). It is an actual business. It's something people pay to support. And those people are well within their rights to speak up when the business they are consumers of is discussing making changes that will impact them. And that is what is happening here.

But it's changes that are being doled out and have already been said will be expanded once it's proven stable. Things like this get spooled out bit by bit to ensure the new code is working, rather than just do a blowout and either risk more server overload in the form of error pages or, worse, catastrophic loss of data (items! pets! HAs!) and having to do rollbacks. And rollbacks are MISERABLE in any game.

The things you're comparing this too are taster's choice and matter of giving critique on if it's aesthetically or tastefully pleasing. This is a matter of a technical craft that has clear solutions and clear limitations. I'm not gonna roll up to a guy who pilots planes for a living and go, "Hey, have you ever considered putting on FOUR wings to your rig and see if it goes EXTRA FAST? That'd be sick." Because I don't know anything about flying or making planes and have zero meaningful input on matters pertaining to it.

i don't think subeta can do at the same level as google. google is big, has a lot of money, hires the best people money can buy, many employee, excellent hardware, has many servers throughout the world etc.

and there is no such thing as unlimited. they can only design it high enough, probably no one reach the limit. but at a cost.

It seems to be only borderline bullying and didnt mean to make it sound like i was being specific as too who, i tried to keep it general. I apologize if I may have made you feel that i implied it was you directly. Comments on both sides of the issue are getting a bit harsh at times. I understand your view on the matter but I didn't expect this thread to become a debate forum like you briefly mentioned it became due to strong disagreements. Honestly, it can't be helped though, it often takes an argument in order for something to get done, no matter what the issue is. A debate was likely to happen. c:

I also want the conversations here to continue to be respectful. I know that tensions can run high when users are passionate (on either side).

You're welcome for the encouragement and i hope your long day at work has been great or improves. ^_^

[User=jessyta] i really enjoyed reading that comment. You explained a lot about how i feel and put it into much better words than i could. I dont have to know much about coding to know that there could be another way this issue could have been dealt with. They seem to be discouraging hoarding but then released more TC slots. The word "counter productive" is being used frequently. I think staff may have rushed and not fully decided what is their point of action, considering that now they may slightly be considering hoarding again with the TC improvement. Its like we're being told now...

stop hoarding. Oh wait you can now, but only do it here (TCs). But we'll still go through with shop changes to prevent less hoarding.

That's the impression i'm getting now and it's really making me a confused user. I know clearly stated that the TC improvement by no means is a fix/solution to the shops/galleries but it's difficult to avoid feeling confused and frustrated.

Thanks again for your comment. c:

The thing is, we were told not all that long ago that galleries would have no limits. Now we are being told that was "being silly about the limits" when that was said. Surely you can see why some of us are somewhat wary to wholeheartedly believe it when we are told the limits will go up once it is proven stable? Those of us that have played many years also remember other situations where staff has said that if they do something (changing servers is a recent example) that the errors would go away/the site would become stable. And, obviously, that wasn't the case. So, again, it should be clear why some people aren't ready to put 100% faith that these major shop changes will be the fix that makes Subeta 'stable.

Much of the.. attitude you are seeing from people is the result of things that occurred long before you were a member of Subeta.

You are missing the point: Feedback from customers is important, even if the customers are lacking technical knowledge needed to do the job themselves. If businesses take the attitude that their customers don't have enough technical knowledge for their opinions to be taken seriously, that is a business that is destined to fail.

Long story short: Subeta needs the players more then the players need Subeta, and hopefully the powers that be keep that in mind when they move forward with the coming changes.

I am glad there are people on Subeta that share my view on this. :)

Okay. I am upset with people criticizing the staff so harshly over this.

EDIT:

Okay, I'm gonna be less snippy because that never helps and explain what's frustrating me. I agree with you that feedback is important. However, when people are pointing out that this recode is needed for technical reasons - and I strongly suspect it will allow a faster, smoother site with the same size galleries we had before - we're told that well shucks, google and all those other multi-billion dollar companies can have unlimited data storage! And right after that's followed up with, well, people have offered suggestions that would totally fix these issues and were turned down.

Obviously it's unfair to compare Subeta to multi-billion dollar companies. But this bit - "well, people have offered suggestions that would totally fix these issues and were turned down" - is what's frustrating me because it's a lie. People who have never seen Subeta's code and may or may not have coding knowledge are offering uneducated suggestions and getting upset when Keith says they won't work. Programming isn't magic! Whatever solutions people have offered, I am sure there are reasons they won't work, and the only way to confirm this would to be both a programmer and have access to Subeta's source code, which the people offering do not.

So when you said 'people are allowed to be upset' (which I agree with!) and 'you don't need to be an expert to give feedback' I got mad because it felt like you were saying that the Staff of subeta was totally incompetent and ignoring magical solutions from people who had never seen subeta's code but somehow knew exactly what was going on. And most of those suggestions are about servers! Guess what, we've moved servers like 4 times in the past year, and it turns out that's not the problem! We need a recode, and they're providing one to fix the site.

People are allowed to be upset. But people also need to understand there's no magic bullet solution here.

I dunno what seniority has to do with this issue being pretty black and white in terms of what can and can't be done. And nearly a year ago isn't really recent history; a ton can change in terms of what the site can handle, the server loads, the userbase size, the hardware available. Things change in games like this all the time. I played WoW for nearly a decade and stuff would change constantly. Little things, big things, stuff that impacted my class, raiding, gear and build. You learn to roll with it and generally trust that the people who created the game you're playing have a broader view of the inner workings and pipeline than you do. Sometimes it sucks for awhile, but it's the nature of the beast.

And acting like a statement made by Keith a year ago that stone cold isn't technologically feasible anymore indicates he's gonna fleece ya on expanding the new galleries is really...I dunno, paranoid? Petty? He knows you and other users are explicitly worried about it. Why would he just shrug and go, "Naw, nevermind. I decided I don't like galleries anymore. No expansion ever." You're acting like this is a slippery slope rather than an incremental adjustment back to status quo.

Naw, I wasn't concerned with being singled out and I don't feel attacked. I'm just saying; folks have been decent overall and I don't think anything's nearing a level of bullying in any capacity. We're cool.

I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that I spend so much time on a site that seemed to encourage hoarding, (i.e.unique hoard achievement) and then out of the blue, seems to punish users for doing just that.

While the shop/gallery debacle barely affects me I feel so sorry for those of you that it does affect!! :-(

Thank you very much for your input. ^_^

I saw one user mention that they hoard here so as not to hoard in real life.... now that user is who i am most worried for. To think that pixels could be saving someone a life of hoarding anguish is something to think about.

Sorry, but that's a little bit ridiculous. If a pet site is all that exists between themselves and their compulsive hoarding disorder, either they DO have a problem and are in denial or they're just not as helpless as they think. A website can't save you from yourself.

As for the limits, they're not going to be that low. They're ridiculously low right now because they're still testing the feature to make sure it works. They're going to scale it up a tiny bit more, then a tiny bit more, etc, until they're confident that everything is working as it should. THEN they'll pick the final limit, test it, and THEN the shops will go live. Then there will be things to tweak for a while. And, years later, the shops will be done and we'll all wonder what we were so worried about.

tl;dr - I have no idea why everyone's so panicked about losing gallery space when we don't even know that yet. They're not DONE.

Agreed. Subeta has suggestion and feedback boards, and IMO staff is pretty great about taking feedback into account. At some point though, it's their site, they're the developers, and they have the final say on how it's structured. I have no problem with them saying, you know what, this thing we said 10 months ago just isn't going to be feasible.

I hope you don't mind if I chime in here. I understand the frustration, my gallery also goes above and beyond the limit so I am just leaving everything where it is right now and creating an area in my vault for gallery items I might pick up later until this all gets resolved.

Looking back at Destiny's posts and the suggestions forum, it looks like staff are looking at all of our feedback, even if they are not communicating regularly to us that they are. It looks like this change is happening regardless, and again this could be from something in the new coding or something in the challenges they've struggled with as to why pick this option in the first place that we cannot see. What I find the most frustrating is that some people think that Keith and the programmers and all the other admins don't care and are just doing whatever they want. I know that's not how everyone that wants to keep the old galleries feels. If I was Keith and I was tired of the names everyone called me and accused me of purposely being malicious to the users and sabotage the site, I would just say "fuck it" and close down the whole site and not deal with any of this. He hasn't done that in all the years the site has been running and when other controversial decisions have been made. I think this should speak volume about his true intentions and that he is doing his best to keep the site running.

I wouldn't say that a website can't save you from yourself. Consider the hundreds or more websites and hotlines that are designed to help people. Of course this site is by no means at all designed in such a way but for some it has become that.

I admit it sounded like an extreme case and I wish the same for the user who wrote that. They may need to consider professional help.

Have staff or keith made an apology yet? I truly would appreciate them stating something along the lines of "we deeply apologize for any statements we made some time ago regarding limits to galleries but, we must go through with this change." I would really think it professional of them to own up to the statements they could not stand by.

Please do correct me if they did state an apology though. I may have missed it.

Agreed. Hoarding is a crippling mental illness and a website isn't going to fix that for you. Someone who struggles with the compulsion to hoard needs to seek professional help, and acting like this change is now going to endanger individuals' mental health is ludicrous. Subeta is not therapy or a coping tool and is not responsible for your well-being; it's a game.

(Disclaimer: Games like this and many others can indeed help you stay positive, make you happy, and be a form of rewarding your own good behaviour or development, ie treating yourself! But it and any other form of entertainment/distraction should never be the sole source of mental succor you're seeking or obtaining. Because it WILL get pulled out from under you at some point or no longer be enough to placate you and your mental health will stagnate or deteriorate. If you feel you're self-medicating with this game or any other, please seek professional help! This is not a put-down, this is an honest plea. Please take care of yourselves.)

I suffer with the same problem in my job more often than not. We will meet about a project, set due dates and deadlines to meet in the beginning and pray for no scope creep, lol. Of course, the deeper you get involved in a project or start testing, you run into bumps you could not see months ago when you first started and sometimes you have to move out your deadlines or change up the test plan because certain tests failed. Even for me to obtain resources or keep the project on track, I always have to set up meetings with all of my stakeholders or resources and get every to sign that yes they have read through the test plans and yes they agree to the dates we have set otherwise it's all hearsay.

I think some people are comparing Subeta to the practices of big businesses like Google, Intel, IBM or Nike, but what some fail to realize is that Intel has 18,000 employees at just one of their facilities where everyone works their hardest because they know they can be easily replaced. Even before the finally release to the public what their big plans are and what promises they are willing to make, this is only after they have consulted with their team, created internal plans that were signed off by stakeholders, only after they completed tests and documented results, and only after they have signed off and released the white papers. What the public sees and what the public is told is only on the surface. If anything Keith is jumping the gun and announcing before he even has test results.

I haven't seen an apology. Keep in mind, not even the staff knows what the outcome of this testing phase will be, in terms of limits. It's premature to assume that the end-state limit will actually negatively affect gallery owners. I will draw your attention to this post:

Eh, fine. Let's say that somewhere down the road Subeta is able to up the limits high enough that everyone with a large gallery can have one again -- and that this opportunity is truly open to everyone and not behind a paywall/GA feature/etc.

Why, then, inflict the intermediate stage: drag everything from your gallery to your vault, because that's the only place that can hold your items, then stick around a site you no longer enjoy because someone says maybe the limits will go up, then when they eventually do, drag all the items from your vault to a gallery.

Why not perfect, and tweak the feature while it's still in testing so that the site can announce, "We've recoded the shops and galleries, and worked on them until we could eliminate limits on galleries. You'll have to move items over to the new galleries, but once that's done, thing's will be like they were before"?

Instead, what they're doing is: "We've got this new feature, and on April 17, come hell or high water, we're going to make it mandatory, even though maybe down the road we'll be able to improve it a bit."

Keep in mind, , that Subeta is a business. Would you accept that behavior from some other business? "Buy our car! It doesn't go any faster than 30mph, and the radio only gets AM, but we're releasing it now, and we're thinking about upgrading it later on, but we're not going to make any firm commitments. You're helping us test this car! (And please forgive us for being silly ten months ago, we never meant that!)"

Subeta may be rushing this change out of a sense of necessity, but it's unprofessional of them to do so.

I saw that post recently. It's not an apology like you stated but i suppose it could be all we get. He seems to grasp that it was a mistake to talk in such a way before they actually began testing the shops.

I'm glad to see Keith really getting involved and answering most user questions.

Thanks by the way.