True, the title might need to be changed to "quest-a-thon blues". But I would like to hear your thoughts on the quest-a-thon!

Maybe a choice of some of the Loyalty Box totems might make a good prize - then people could choose between a pet slot, one of the miracle potion totems, or really any of them except the GA totem (or maybe that too, but I'd be less inclined to suggest that).

I mean.. I know the forums are pretty dead nowadays. It's unfortunate. :(

Jasper hit the nail right on the head. Quests are boring and routine as are most other daily activities onsite, and the prizes give me no motivation to participate since I'm not really a pet person. Really what's keeping the site online is the custom wearable market (I'm assuming), and this event gives virtually no benefit to that aspect of the site.

I mean I'll do my part for today, just activated my loyalty GA medal. But yeah, I do think the site is dying. Things break all the time and take a while to get fixed since there's really only 1 programmer. And I can't say that forums are as active as they used to be either, aside from CW forums of course.

I agree with the poorly timed suggestion. Like sure I'm not busy and I can do it (okay...couldn't yesterday since I was abruptly greeted by the sidewalk and was on bedrest) but it's a holiday weekend. If I was able to see my dad, it's usually a two day trip and I wouldn't be able to participate as I have.

Honestly, pet sites as a whole are dying off. I see more and more people saying they hardly ever use a computer to get online. Its all about apps and mobile games these days. Pet sites are too old school for a lot of people and seem to be having trouble keeping up. Even Neopets is dying.

It sucks but it is what it is.

Though I will say, this Quest-A-Thon was super poorly timed. I can't imagine why staff would pick this week. Pokemon Go event to compete with, finals/school for some, and Father's Day? That's a lot to have going on at the same time.

Subeta always dies down this time of year though, it's nothing new.

Hmm... No thanks, I'd rather keep the loyalty box reserved as an exclusive prize for being a long-time user.

I would, however, be interested in having an untradeable/unsellable quest-a-thon bag with a pick-your-own-reward scheme, though the pet slot would end up outweighing all the other choices in overall value given that it's 20$ (and essentially priceless if you've bought up the other available pet slots). And it would be really difficult to make the quest-a-thon reward bag worthwhile for everyone without overshadowing the loyalty box rewards, given that quest-a-thons happen roughly twice a year.

Subeta's activity is indeed slower than it used to be, but I agree with most other respondents that it isn't dying. I think the main thing Subeta needs to be concerned about for its long term health is improving its mobile interface, since as many others have pointed out that's the way the market is trending at the moment. I would love to use Subeta on my phone while I'm out but there's just no nice way to do it. The mobile site is missing half the content but switching the desktop mode makes the phone, understandably, jump all over the place as stuff loads. Questing is not elegant, since the shop search is designed to be opened in a new tab which is gross on mobile, and most of the site's games are not mobile friendly (or play clunkily at best).

However, building a comprehensive mobile site with mobile-exclusive usability changes is near-impossible for such a small team, and writing games/apps for mobile is a different beast entirely to website coding so staff may not even have the required skill set to do so. But if it became clear someday that Subeta needed to take those steps to stay competitive I have faith that they would do so... and that I and many others would be jumping to help. I'm not a mobile programmer and my HTML limited but I would learn if it meant helping Subeta, and I wouldn't be the only one. Obviously there are good reasons Subeta can't just get random people mucking around trying to build stuff for them, but it still shows that the community here adores the place and are determined to keep it alive. I guess what I'm trying to say isn't just about mobile vs desktop, but that whatever comes we will persevere, because staff and user base alike are dedicated to keeping Subeta the best it can be.

Also adding to the Quest-A-Thon complaints/comments... if we were meant to be able to easily win every single one, we would just get the rewards without even being given a challenge in the first place. Losing is possible and should happen occasionally. The timing for this one was super bad for me too - I've just finished my exams and wasn't participating for the whole week before that as a result but I'm not that bummed, because you can't win them all and I'm sure we'll get it next time :D.

but it still shows that the community here adores the place and are determined to keep it alive. I guess what I'm trying to say isn't just about mobile vs desktop, but that whatever comes we will persevere, because staff and user base alike are dedicated to keeping Subeta the best it can be.

Also adding to the Quest-A-Thon complaints/comments... if we were meant to be able to easily win every single one, we would just get the rewards without even being given a challenge in the first place. Losing is possible and should happen occasionally. The timing for this one was super bad for me too - I've just finished my exams and wasn't participating for the whole week before that as a result but I'm not that bummed, because you can't win them all and I'm sure we'll get it next time 😀.

I am sorry that I am simply cutting and pasting what said, but I heartily agree with him, and I (obviously) couldn't say it better myself.

tbh I'm not sure why anyone would use a mobile phone to go on subeta, isn't cyber security on phones absolutely crap or is that just me misinformed? :0

Anyway, I don't think subeta is dying per se. I think the forum activity could use more work though. D: It's such a shame.

1. Activity has decreased over time, yes, but maybe not enough since the last quest-a-thon to have a huge affect. 2. The guidelines for the quest-a-thons is very fluid, meaning that it changes every time. I feel like at this point it's just going to keep getting harder until there is a point where we don't reach it. Like they're trying to find that point and then from there, they know how hard to make it. Not saying that's a bad thing, but it is going to be disappointing the first time and the "oh we'll have another later" isn't going to help people (me included, I'll admit) feel bad that I missed out on an awesome thing now. 3. Prices may have an impact. I can't speak for everyone, only myself here but for the past quest-a-thons I've purchased GAs to make sure I could do as much as possible, but CSC was a lot cheaper then. The way they are now, I simply can't afford it, nor do I really risk any CSC purchases anymore considering point 1 and other reasons.... 4. Also, not just apps and mobile games, but also Steam... and humble bundle... and all those sites. 20 games for 5 dollars you say? WELL OKAY! :P

I don't think so. But like everyone has said, there were many factors in the quest-a-thon. I think it was really bad timing with the Pokemon go event going on too, aside from Father's Day.

Have faith, we can do it!

Just to throw my two cents in - the fact that this forum post is one of the liveliest & most engaged posts I've seen on subeta in a long time speaks to the relatively large number of players who are active and loyal, but only rarely - if ever - participate on the forums. I think it's a testament to the loyalty of the community that so many people have voiced their opinions on the topic of subeta "dying," and is, I think, proof that that just isn't true. I don't think you can draw an equivalence between activity on the forums and health of the site in general, especially since so much of the activities on subeta don't require participation on the forums whatsoever.

For what it's worth, mobile games that boast hundreds of thousands of users also tend to "die" or "slow down" eventually, and mobile gaming is an incredibly violent marketplace. I think the smaller, more engaged community of subeta is more valuable than the hundreds of thousands of casual mobile gamers that don't play a game for longer than a month at a time.

Okay so the title is a little melodramatic, considering we are just discussing the 'death' of finishing a quest-a-thon.

That said, it would thrill me if the site started investing in ways to encourage us users to stay long-term. When I came back from my most recent hiatus I was absolutely stunned to see that multiple users who, in my opinion, were the big names who were posting all the time, running some high profile boards and were just generally very present, were now completely MIA. It made me feel kind of uneasy about the future of Subeta. Why did they leave? Other than growing out of pet sites, did they leave because they felt Subeta was no longer living up to the values that it did when they joined? I wondered how much damage the gallery limit fiasco really caused. I wasn't here for any of it since I was on hiatus but it sounded like people were truly upset. I can empathize, I have spent hundreds of dollars on this site and I was so happy to do it whenever I bought csc, because hey this is a game I love and look at all the great stuff I can buy and wear and eat and I get to support this awesome group of people running a game that kicks ass and yada yada yada. I felt Subeta was a small business that definitely had my support. The staff and owner were ever present and involved, there were always cool things going on and great improvements made to the site. But now... don't get me wrong, I love the quest-a-thon and the baking contest, but I sort of feel the site is in a 'maintain' stage rather than actively upgrading and changing. Maybe it is just me who thinks this way? I am kind of scared though that just like people growing out of it the site, the owner might be kind of bored of it too? And if that is the case, where does that leave us users?

Maybe someone can tell me I'm crazy and that this is not the case at all? Ugh. I hate to be so negative and I don't usually post things like this but I think I just really needed to say it. Feel free to ignore me c:

People do everything from phones these days. Shopping, banking, Facebook, important emails, all kinds of photos... pet site security is probably the last thing most people think of.

I don't have a phone so I can't speak for what security on them is actually like, but yeah. Its really not a concern to a lot of people.

I think we almost didn't make the second Quest-a-Thon either. I don't remember why, though I think it might have been a combination of larger quest requirement and shorter time period. The first one we nearly finished in a couple days, so the staff set the bar higher and it didn't quite work out. There was much drama, blame, and finger pointing going on.

Pet sites as a whole just aren't as popular anymore, as said. But for a dying genre, subeta has maintained a good-sized, dedicated user base that still seems strong. So yes, it's fading just like all the sites of its kind but not dead yet by any means.

And if the current numbers on the quest-a-thon say anything, the answer is no.

I mean, if you want to see a pet site that's ACTUALLY dying, check out neopets lol

Also I find it interesting that on a pet site so many people talk about being uninterested in the pets, personally as a newer user who doesn't feel like spending $20 cash I'm pretty darn hype about this pet slot :D

An interesting topic, but I'm echoing what everyone else said about bad timing. I imagine some people are on vacation, it's a holiday weekend, and I think people just generally spend less time on their computers this time of year and more time outside.

I also agree that maybe some people aren't so interested in the prizes, so they don't really bother to do quests (which is kind of the same boat I was in, today was the first day I bothered to do all of my quests :x ).

I personally only ever really get on subeta when there's an event or holiday going on, so I feel like I can't say too much about the over all well-being of the site, but I also feel like there's a lot of people like me. We could just leave all-together, but we keep coming back, so... :P