We can buy snowballs in readiness all year round - I've just bought two from the Avalanche Emporium. I'm over 70 now, though, so collecting 50K of them with a 5 second wait in between is something I'm unlikely to achieve in my lifetime. :)

I've never bothered trying for the Snowtapult acheivment but I'm wondering if the Snowtapult could be used all year in the past. If you click on it you'll get the message

This suggests that we weren't restricted to a particular time of the year when the Snowtapult was introduced. I don't know how old that message is but investigating the issue didn't result in solving the problem. :(

PS: Had a look at the vending guide on SubetaLodge.

Seeing as the Avalanche Emporium is currently active it might be possible to vend snowballs now.

So, this achievement would be possible if we were allowed to use the Snowtapult all year but fixing this Survival strain problem will be at the bottom of the list of things to do like fixing the broken mini-games.

The Snowtapult message suggests that we could use it all through the year in the past. Would it be possible to change the restriction so it's only closed during Survival until the Survival strain problem has been fixed? Also, could you ask if Frosty Claw is giving out snowballs now the Avelanche Emporium is open or whether it's only possible to vend snowballs when the Snowtapult is active? I don't want to waste Wizard Tokens vending worthless junk just to find out. (I'm wondering if the Avalanche Emporium being open now might be a bug. The two snowballs I bought are labelled Retired).

I think in past was easier to buy snowballs. Someone told me that buying snowballs was just refreshing the page! At least was "only" refreshing the page 50000 times lol

Now, I think it is really hard .-. And we need to spend to much time for win that.

i'd like to achievement hunt, i do it in every game, but it's difficult for reasons beyond "the achievements themselves are hard" (which is a thing i welcome).

the achievements page is difficult to use. i think changes to the achievement system should start with the achievement page itself. in particular:

• (the option to see) a very boring, unfancy, unresponsive page. plaintext lists. for me, the pretty scripts are an impediment. if other players like them that's great, but for a page that should just be a list of words, it feels both unnecessary and frustrating.

• clearer descriptions, maybe even outright links to the relevent page(s). i should be able to understand, from the description alone, which site functions/pages the achievement comes from, and i should have an at least vague idea of what kind of interactions are needed.

sometimes i EARN an achievement and, reading it, have no idea how or why.

What achievements have you enjoyed the most?

so far no achievement i've understood the goal of has been a fun challenge.

considering that's the whole reason i achievement hunt, it's disappointing. i hope the fun ones are buried on an inaccessible page, or beyond my current comprehension.

Would you like to see more achievements that can involve coordination with other Subetans, such as the SUPER USER achievements?

really dislike any achievement you can't earn (or, really, any activity that's impossible) without the help of others. harder without help? sure. impossible? hate those.

super user in particular is the perfect example of the Worst kind of achievement. if there's one thing i hate more than co-op achievements, it's time-specific achievements.

How do you balance achievements and decide which ones to pursue, and why?

on subeta specifically:

1. google title and description to hopefully find a forum thread or something referencing it

2. figure out how the to access whatever feature it's tied to

3. fiddle around with said feature until i understand how the achievement relates to it in a meaningful way

4. figure out if it's even possible for me to attempt it right now. if so, decide if i want to.

sometimes, the fun of an achievement is figuring them out rather than doing the task. in a way, this can be good; i enjoy this sort of puzzling in the right environment. subeta (and more to the point, google) is not the right environment. if the site navigation were better, and descriptions were clearer or bore better hints i think this could be a really cool deliberate feature of achievements.

as is, i'd say it's definitely unintended and is often more frustrating than it is fun.

in games and petsites generally: i get whatever i get through normal gameplay. when i feel i've exhausted most options for new content and am at the point of wanting a challenge, i check the achievements list and work my way through them.

usually i'll start out focusing on achievements relating to activities i enjoy, but once i'm through those i often just go through the list in whatever order it's in, skipping achievements that are either not currently do-able, or that i just Super don't feel like.

Does the rarity of an achievement make it more or less attractive to you?

if i knew what achievement rarity was, how to view it, and how it was determined, i could answer this. (see above: apparently this is an issue with the achievements page i didn't even know about. it doesn't display rarity)

Does the randomness of an achievement (like the Lizard Minion or Oofa Fruit, as examples) make it more or less attractive to you?

fuck that. heavily random achievements shouldn't exist.

When describing Subeta to others, how often does the achievement system come up as something that excites you? Does it bring people in to try the site themselves?

literally never.

What are some directions you'd like to see Subeta steer away from, achievements or milestone systems, that made other games and pet sites less fun?

especially in relation to petsites:

tedium isn't fun. achievements should not reward repeating the same action. an action is worth an achievement the first time it is done, or not at all.

no random achievements. random achievements are inherently tedious. repetition is neither fun nor rewarding. an achievement doesn't have to be 100% guaranteed, but it should ultimately reward something other than luck.

everyone should be capable of earning every achievement not just "technically capable" but Actually Capable. avoid achievements that can't actually be earned, or which it would be unreasonable for everyone on site to attempt at once.

i found an achievement earlier that was "be the richest player". i would have assumed that was in reference to a quest/minigame/something if i hadn't, by pure coincidence, seen my "you are this far below the richest player" number in my settings an hour prior.

is that the actual achievement? literally have more money than any other player? that's absurd. first, that really shouldn't be rewarded. and second, only one person can have that. that's not an achievement.

in my opinion, achievements should be all of the following at once:

not just possible but practical for everyone: attempting an achievement should be a player's choice. a player should not be able to say "i can never do this", especially if that reason is a variation of "i will never have this much (whatever)" or "i do not have a TARDIS"

no exemption for achievements along the lines of "be a staff member" or "do something really cool" or other achievements that have to be manually granted by staff. petsites are really bad for this. the achievements system is a series of goals for all of your players to work towards. if any of those goals aren't possible, it puts the entire system into question. there are plenty of ways to reward staff or other contributors without making it impossible for your players to 100% achievements

achievements should actually reward in-game activity and nothing else i'm looking at you, "put your flesh vessel on a plane to another continent"

TL;DR: achievements should NOT:

• require travel through time and/or space
• rely entirely or primarily on luck
• reward repetition and little else
• be impossible or impractical for every single player, on site, at once, to have

achievements SHOULD:

• be a list of goals all players can work towards
• encourage (or at least not discourage) achievement hunters
• value quality over quantity
• vary in difficulty and work to earn.
• be possible and practical for anyone to 100%