The silence is deafening.

Brother it's the holidays, the Staff have lives outside of of this website. Consider for a moment that the staff are in fact taking in all of these comments and all of this feedback, are internalizing the messages which have been shared, and are working on ways to address and do better in the future, and are balancing that with the fact that they are people who must, necessarily, spend time away from the keyboard to deal with visiting family, animal obligations, and all the other sundries of life which take one away from work. What do you expect your message to do other than make people feel like shit?

Yeah, this Melody was rough. The site's been rough for a while. That's the fate of websites from the old, better internet, and it's a miracle that Subeta is still here going into 2026. Kumos is different and change sucks, too. But also it's the only way Subeta is going to be here come 2027, so people are going to have to come to terms that it's either we have Kumos, or Nothing. It is what it is. Shit can be implemented better and worked out better than it was this time around for sure. No present on Christmas? C'mon. But also, OG Subeta is running off of code that predates the existence of Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook, and making changes to the site to make it suck less? Can only happen on Kumos, because changing anything on OG Subeta makes the whole thing stop working.

Let's be honest: the Staff love this site. They would have to, because that's the only reason they'd keep working on it; no one is getting rich off Subeta. Keith could've shelled this site for any value that remains in the IP years ago and walked away before the enshittification of the internet as a whole made sites like this a relic of a bygone era. Instead, he and Amber chose to keep the thing alive, and more incredibly, they have chosen to keep working on the thing and trying to make it compatible with the world the rest of the internet is currently inhabiting, in the hopes that- eventually- people will be able to interact with the site in a way that is intuitive, cohesive, and fluid once more. Unfortunately to get there we have to deal with growing pains, but consider! The alternative is Subeta dies.

I get it. Subeta has sucked increasingly over time. Things don't work, events kill the site, releases are thin on the ground. Saying "we have to endure more suck to make the game good" sounds like some bullshit, but it's not like clear and obvious progress isn't being made... on Kumos, which will one day simply be renamed "Subeta", because legacy Subeta is literally, actively, dying. Not because there aren't enough players, not even for financial reasons, but because webhosts don't even want to HOST a site running on code as old as Subeta, and because until Subeta is remade in a form that people other than Keith can look at and understand, the whole site is in a state of limbo where nothing can move forward. The site IS moving forward. It IS improving. It's just not doing it in a way that's cohesive yet, because it's all being done Over There, and we're all Over Here.

I do not envy the people working on this site. As frustrated as we might get when shit breaks again...I imagine it's even worse for the staff who KNOW things are fucky, and cannot do much to make things less fucky, because they're already doing everything they can to keep the site alive through this transformative period, and they want to be working on new shit as much as everyone else wants them to implement new shit. Pointing out that things are bad and that they're nothing doing enough isn't helpful because, believe me, They Are Well Aware. (That doesn't mean criticism isn't welcome, there's plenty of good feedback in this thread -- sans the person I'm quoting, and yes, I mean that full offense.)

I do not know the people running this site, but I do know that every website as old as Subeta is struggling to stick around if it didn't wind up with mass adoption ala facebook, et al. It's precisely BECAUSE of facebook and their ilk that the rest of the internet is dying -- people think Subeta is already dead, the same way they think Newgrounds is already dead, the same way they think that so many other parts of the internet which still exist out there died off because they got left behind in the Great Centralization. And the majority of them cannot make that transition to something more sustainable- because the creator has other obligations now, because they can't cover webhosting, because the owner died and the domain lapsed. God knows my home site died off years ago! That's why I'm here being a nuisance to the rest of the community now, because holy shit: at least the site's still here.

Keep giving worthwhile feedback. There's plenty to say. I, too, wish people could volunteer their time, effort, and energy to help smooth the site's transition into the modern era. There might be legal reasons why that isn't possible -- companies generally are obligated to compensate people for work they do (and for good reason!,) which leaves Subeta in a bit of a catch-22 when it comes to accepting help. But I think there could be a way to find a middle-ground, especially in the avenue of crowdsourcing the help, like when everyone came together to reclassify the all the Hair in the HA-Gen. It's worth a shot to try!

The people running Subeta obviously love the site, and the people who've stuck around through its downturn clearly love it just as fiercely. But we all want the same thing in the end -- Subeta's survival -- so I don't think there's a need for the antagonistic tone some have taken over time. No one is sitting here rubbing their hands together gleeful that the users had a bad time during the biggest event of the year. No one wants anyone to have a bad time on the site, in general -- players and staff alike. And while I enjoyed much of the things that worked this year (enjoy your Lurbies, everyone, I cannot be stopped) I also recognize that many other things were broken, missing, or didn't trigger properly (see: reasons Subeta has to be recoded,) and that sucks. Being stuck between two sites is a pain in your ass, my ass, everyone's ass. Many things on Subeta don't work, and a bunch of things on Kumos also don't work, and the things that don't work are different on each side of Subeta. It sucks real bad and it's why I don't recommend the site to anyone right now, too -- it's Not Functional enough to even begin trying to onboard new players. But... I know, too, that everything that CAN be done about that, IS being done about that, so all we can really do is point out the most egregious of the pain points and wait for them to be ironed out. Because I know that they will be, in time... there's just so much work to be done overall.

Enjoy the rest of the holiday season- all y'all. As someone who had to WORK on CHRISTMAS DAY, I do not want to see anyone doing anything remotely approaching a job-related task before January if they don't have to, because I don't even celebrate Christmas and it sucks to be dealing with things this time of year. Send in tickets for your missing stuff, continue documenting where shit either didn't work or wasn't fun when it did work, and give the staff the grace to be offline with their families in the one time of year most corporations agree to let their workers have a moment of freedom from the wage cage.

There is no DeAfEnInG sIlEnCe, just a bunch of people doing what they can within their means to keep a dying site on life-support long enough for it to start breathing on its own again.

Man I'm tired of the old refrain of "The staff have lives!". Yes, you're right, they do. And yes, it's currently the holidays. And yes, the site is technically free. That doesn't make Subeta any less of a business. They do encourage a membership, I've been a member in the past, and god forbid they be answerable to the people who pay for this site.

• They clearly talked about this on the back end of things long enough for Keith to code a whole new page for it but yet they dropped it on us on December 1st? A change this big is something you need to ease your userbase into. They made the choice not to do that.
• This thread has been going on since December 7th. Aaaaaand nothing.
• This is the first year in the 18 years that I've been playing that there wasn't a 'Merry Luminaire check your trees' post. In fact I went back and checked the news archive, it's the first year since they've been doing trees/stockings in 2007 that there wasn't a post.

I'm not asking for a disseration responding to the very valid concerns and disappointed feedback stated in this thread, I'm saying that we're three days past the holiday and that there hasn't even been a Merry Luminaire news post is odd. Ok? It's odd.

(Editing several hours later to revise my account's age. It is only 18 years old. I don't know what the hell I was thinking saying 21. Sorry about that.)

The lack of news post on December 25th really threw me off! I couldn't even find my gifts under the tree. I needed instructions. Even now I worry there's somebody out there that thinks they didn't get anything under their tree, because they are unaware of how to access them.

Link to Presents

I think a quick/short news post at some point on the 25th would have been nice. It really felt very cold and anticlimactic to not have the well wishes to the userbase. On top of being very confused about how to open trees this year. I put a lot of effort into gifting and it was just really sad

omg! Thank you for the link! I had figured that since things were scaled down and there was no news post that it meant nothing was placed under the trees by Melody! So I didn't even think to look. I just decided to click that link for some random reason. I totally would have missed that a few others gave me gifts as well.

I genuinely DID think I just hadn't gotten any presents this year until I saw other people posting asking where to find their gifts. The lack of newspost or alert or anything really threw me off and I would've missed all the lovely presents I did get (and totally didn't anticipate omg!) if it wasn't for user posts.

And I agree 100% with ... I don't think anyone's asking for a big response or changes to be made right now this minute... but to go this long without even a "we've seen this and will reply to it when we're not so swamped" kind of reply to this thread.... it's concerning.

I'll try not to go on too much of a tangent here but I did want to address this one...

Man, I am SO TIRED of this argument. I've seen it on other sites that are trying to revamp old codebases too and it's getting reeeeeeeally old.

I don't think anyone here is saying "Keep the site on the ancient half-dead codebase". I'm certainly not. Yes, it needs to be recoded to survive! I'm not disputing that! What I'm saying, and I think what most of us are saying, is that Kumos sucks (to use your phrase) because it's not being simply recoded (which to me would be taking what we already have, and moving it into a modern format that's not going to explode at any moment), it's being changed from the ground up for no apparent reason other than "because Keith says so". Quests are completely different. The layout's completely different. Luminaire's been changed drastically with no warning. Etc, etc. I think when most of us say we don't like Kumos, it's because it seems like the aim is to make a completely new site - not just remake and fix up the one we already have, which is what most of us actually want.

And for what it's worth, your post is the only "antagonistic tone" I'm seeing in this thread... I thought everyone else was being remarkably civil and reasonable.

Just drifting by again to agree that there really should have been a news post on the 25th, if only to say that trees are open and explain how to get to the presents (especially since apparently, Melody's gifts can only be collected through the presents link on Kumos, whereas gifts from users can be collected on legacy).

Also... it's not too late for that post to be made! I'm afraid Lumi is going to end without some users ever knowing that trees are open, and they'll miss out on all their gifts until next year :(

This link takes you to claim gifts on Kumos that are the Anniversary presents people have specifically been asking about and there was no news post. If I hadn't read 's post I wouldn't have scrolled back up to this. I opened my tree on legacy. Because no one told us different. Because no one told us anything. So, click the link. Even if you don't think you need to. Six stinking wishlist items for me. I wish I could convey this laughter over text.

[edit] Formatting

I don't mind there being less Melody items this year. Getting to choose two older years to get items from felt enough for me. I do wish we could pick the items though. Maybe next year there could be option to get two random items, or one item you get to pick. I've been picking the same two years all month, and I still haven't gotten the items I was going for. I got plenty of repeats though. Despite being a long time player, there are still a number of old Melody items I need. Mostly the wearable foods.

There definitely should have been a post on the 25th linking us to the trees.

Happy New Year Everyone 🎉 I too was shocked and saddened that there wasn't a news post about trees with a link to them. I hope everyone looks at their trees 🥺 No one should have to feel like they might have been skipped this year, because it wasn't posted 😢❤️

Edit:They really should drop presents instead of click if their not doing a news post about the opening day in the future.

I do have a question. i was out for a week came back and coulden't get to my tree. Are the gifts just gone for every or am i missing something?

NVM JUST FOUND IT Edit: Nvm. tells me "Presents cannot be opened yet!"

I don't think it would hurt to make a ticket, especially since they didn't remind anybody to go to their tree.

The lack of a post on opening the presents this year felt... insulting.

Then having to go a very roundabout way to get to them to even begin to look because others were like, "TY FOR THE PRESSIES!!!" And you're thinking yours are stuck in a weird Subeta limbo or worse: skipped.

Kinda ruined the experience for me.

I get the lack of daily Lumi items, I get the lack of updates in general due to less staff, but if you want the site to survive to be pouring whatever funding into it, you have to make an effort and it doesn't get to solely be from the members.

We're just that. Members. Users.

We'll keep the site going if there's something to keep going or we have an idea that someone behind the wheel is vaguely interested in being there.

Very upset and disappointed with how this is still being ignored - it really wouldn't have taken five minutes to make a quick post about the Lumi trees. Yeah, it's the holidays, I understand that, I don't expect daily updates or anything (I don't in general!), but seriously STILL no post about the trees??? After so many people are still asking about it?

This is another thing that concerns me about the Kumos thing. It feels like anyone not clapping and approving of it is ignored completely. It doesn't feel welcoming or like our opinions are valued or desired.

The trees thing has been fixed (thanks to Angelina!) No news post, of course, but here's a link!

https://kumos.subeta.net/explore/arctic/tree/presents

EDIT: Apparently, it's going on and off, and working only when it wants to . . .

Also, more feedback - users shouldn't have to ferry information back-and-forth when there's an issue like this. I don't mind helping others, but it's really staff's job to keep on top of things, and to make a NEWS POST regarding any errors. A NEWS POST should have been made on Christmas Day explaining how to open trees (I've been here 20 years and 5 months, and I had to have someone on the forums explain it to me, as stocking/tree opening has always been automatic before.) Failing a Christmas Day post, the New Years post should have cleared things up, but failed to, which leads me to believe that nothing here is being read at all.

It is very demoralizing to realize.

Angelica is the only staff member who has any idea, as some users have reported not being able to open their presents as a bug.

On retrospect, it makes sense that hardly anything on Suggestions and Ideas is being used - no one's reading it.

Except for the users!

Yeah my presents are all still trapped by the "Presents cannot be opened yet!" message. :(

(emphasis mine) So the reduced holidays will be standard going forward then? Hm... forewarned is forearmed, I suppose.

It's frustrating that a lot of the communication in this and the other thread is just the same old excuses that have been repeated over and over when issues with Kumos are raised, and a lot of our concerns are still - still! - being ignored. You say you want our feedback but it really does feel like a lot of the time, if it doesn't align with what you want to hear, it's ignored or handwaved. Disappointing to see the site go like this but I guess I'll just make the most of the Legacy site while it's here :( Sad since I want to support Kumos.

Something that would feel like an improvement to me for next time is to be able to ask Melody for a certain item type. It would feel more like roleplay with the site's "santa". She asks what kind of item you'd like to receive. I'd say food, and then get a random old food. This maintains the random aspects while actually making it feel delightful in getting something you want and ask for. Because this whole lumi felt like Melody going "here's a random piece of junk you don't want/already have!!" It made me feel like the "santa" doesn't know me at all by giving me ill-fitting gifts. It's just hard to get excited over getting a sticker I already have vs potentially trying my luck in getting something I don't have from a type of item I'm pursuing.