Dance Groups!

June 23, 2025 8:25 pm

Get ready to revolutionize your Masquerade experience! I'm excited to announce our brand new Dance Groups system - a new way to dance, chat in the forums, and collect those sweet sweet dances with your fellow Subetans!

🤖 How It Works

Join a dance group and let the 🤖 Auto Dancing Machine do the work! Every 5 minutes, the robot automatically pairs up two participants who haven't danced yet, ensuring everyone gets equal opportunities for tokens - even when you're offline 🫨!

Dance Groups are regular forum threads at their core, but with a special live chat component that refreshes automatically (like the shoutbox). It's still just forum posts under the hood - but with real-time events to keep the conversation going.

These dances are on a separate timer from the legacy site so you're only increasing the tokens you're bringing in 😉

Fair pairing system ensures everyone gets their turn
Real-time group chat to connect with fellow dancers
Participate in up to 3 dance groups (5 for Gold members!)
Groups need at least 10 people to keep things exciting

🎯 The Goal

This system is designed to help everyone participate in Masquerade events, especially those who can only pop online for a few minutes at a time. You can still collect tokens and stay connected with your group even with a busy schedule, which I know is where most of us are these days.

We're also hoping that seeing those familiar avatars in your dance groups reminds you to say hi to friends and feel a little like you're hanging out together. The social connections are what make these events special! Leave that profile comment, say hi to your online friends!

✨ Special NPC Guests

Dancing NPCs may join your groups and bring magical powers:

⚡ Speed Boost: Reduces machine intervals from 5 to 4 minutes
👥 Group Dance: Enables threesome dancing with 3 participants
🍀 Lucky Charm: Reduces breakdown chances and improves repairs

NPCs will activate their powers when paired, and they might even leave to join other groups - so you'll need to experience different groups to see all the abilities!

🔧 Machine Maintenance

Sometimes the Auto Dancing Machine breaks down and needs fixing! When this happens, group members work together to repair it. Don't worry - it's just a simple button click, but it keeps groups active. The bigger the group, the more people will be needed to fix the 🤖.

🖌️ User Popover Improvements

Speaking of seeing friends - we've made some exciting improvements to user popovers based on your feedback! You can now:

Choose between hover or click activation at your popover settings
Customize your popover background color on the same page - this is how other users will see your popover!

Just a little bit of personalization 🎨

🎯 How to Join

Ready to start dancing? Here's how:

Visit the Masquerade Forum on Kumos
Look for topics marked with ♪ Dance Group
Join an existing group or create your own!

This system is currently in testing phase, so timing and features may be adjusted based on your feedback.

June 24, 2025, 5:58 pm by

[font=times new roman]Insomniac Dance Party! Let's max out the dance card! NPC Melody is keeping the club cool! ;)[/font]

June 24, 2025, 5:47 pm by

cool Idea, tysm for doing this. i wait with join till it works without error and -- Kumos site is not my favorite, sigh. i like subeta 🥀

June 24, 2025, 5:28 pm by

Thanks for the new way to dance! This explains why the old forums kept breaking. I've given it a try but I'm not sure if I've done it right. Ijoined the group but don't see anyone in my group that's online right now. I'm just going to let it sit and see what happens. Thank you for this new option, I'm sure it will be wonderful once all the kinks are worked out. In the meantime, I'm going back to legacy and Mystery dance with everyone. :D ❤

June 24, 2025, 5:23 pm by

I’m really enjoying how the new dance groups system works! I’ve been stubborn about accessing the site and forums via the new Kumos layout, but the dance feature has gotten me to start adjusting.

June 24, 2025, 3:32 pm by

I got an invite to a 3 person dance, but there was no 3 person dance when I accepted all the dances, so I'm not sure where it went! But it's a cool idea even if it doesn't quite work as I expected.

Agreed with much of the existing feedback: Please give us an easy way to see what dance groups we are in with links to each. Clarify in the instructions what to do to join a group (after clicking on the group in the forum, scroll down to the Join button and you can join it if it isn't full & you are eligible).

I'd like if the new dance requests hid who asked you to dance but instead said what group the dance request was from. And open in the same tab rather than a new tab, like others have said above, that would also be very helpful.

June 24, 2025, 2:44 pm by

thank you for fixing the robot and this new group dance is awesome because I am always busy or in town shopping so ya it helps alot

June 24, 2025, 2:28 pm by

Not sure what is going on with the robot! I just repaired all of the groups automatically, and have turned off the code that makes the robot break until I get a chance to dig in more!

The legacy site (subeta.net) cannot get new features added to it. It's code base is too old, and it is literally not supported. Only new features will be added to Kumos.

I'm really sorry - I'm a single person working on a website with a code base that's been around for 20 years, this is what we've got. I'll continue to make improvements to Kumos, and try to address your feedback specifically, but hundreds of users use it a day :/ It's where I will be writing new Subeta features.

June 24, 2025, 2:15 pm by

- one of the groups I belong to needs repairs, and says it needs 6 people, but when you click in to repair it, it says 0/0 and won't let you join repairs.

June 24, 2025, 2:14 pm by

More feedback: I'm getting a javascript error when clicking on the 'repair the machine' button. I can give more information about the error if needed.

June 24, 2025, 1:27 pm by

This new dancing mechanic is neat - it helps us get more tokens and engage with the other dancers. I'm afraid that the event battle opponents may have been forgotten in the process, though. That's what I was looking forward to most about the holiday. Hoping they still are released for an extended period even beyond when the masquerade ends so that we have lots of time to make it through the gauntlet!

June 24, 2025, 1:13 pm by

Be alot better if kumos didn't keep logging me out it takes forever to log back in to be the 3rd person to help repair the machine

June 24, 2025, 12:43 pm by

I'm really enjoying this event so far! I agree that it's nice for those of us that can't spend a ton of time in groups manually posting every day! The only thing that would make it better is not having each proposal from the dancing event open up a new tab each time! Not sure if that's possible!

June 24, 2025, 12:13 pm by

I can't even get into my wardrobe to put a mask on XD I also missed a lot of the event since I have been swamped with work so this is neat but still need a mask I am guessing.

June 24, 2025, 11:44 am by

This is really neat but also frustrating. The kumos site is sooo laggy for me. I get the notification to fix the dance machine right away but thankfully the group I'm in seems to be quick on it because by the time I get anything to even load they've fixed it. Managed to get in a couple of times though so I'm trying. I feel like I've gone back to dialup.

June 24, 2025, 11:43 am by

Any chance of joining the event off Kumos? :,(

June 24, 2025, 11:42 am by

The dance machine is staying broken and wont let anyone repair it in my group.

June 24, 2025, 11:14 am by

for some reason the timestamps on the messages of the live chat are set to GMT (without DST), I'm currently in GMT+2, so those timestamps don't line up with my nor with subeta's timezone.. kind of confusing

June 24, 2025, 10:42 am by

Interesting!

June 24, 2025, 10:31 am by

Just want to say, this is something that really makes me happy as a longtime subetan who has seriously struggled the last 5+ years with some of these holidays I love but require a massive online presence, dancing, TOT and kissing being the main things. I'm hopeful that this will work well and be replicated in some form for future holidays so us working/parenting/ trying to stay afloat humans can participate and not feel so behind. :)

June 24, 2025, 9:40 am by

I hate all the tabs that open when you accept a dance. Can there be a "Accept All" dance button that tally how many dances you've accepted?

I noticed the repair bot breaks down during inactive times, when dance members are sleeping. Is there not a way to have the dancing feature break when everyone is active?

I tend to avoid Kumos because the site is harder to navigate and it doesn't feel like legacy st all. I wish it were easier and faster.

I'm loving the group event. I hope we see this again during future holidays!

June 24, 2025, 7:26 am by

Wow, I absolutely love this new feature. I hope we continue to see group activities like this in future events (especially if it's not all on the Kumos site!). :-)

I also second what some other users have mentioned: find the kumos site a bit harder to navigate and also it is so slow that I avoid it at all costs right now.

June 24, 2025, 7:16 am by

This seems fun!

June 24, 2025, 7:10 am by

I've just realized that the dance bot is still able to break even if it's already broken. So after a few hours, if repairs aren't complete, it basically just gets reset back to 0. I've had a couple of groups now where we only needed one more member to repair and didn't get it.

Exactly how is this "inactivity" system supposed to work? Do inactive members get automatically removed from the group? If so, when? If not, are leaders expected to remove them? Is there any way for the leaders to even track who's been active and who hasn't? Doesn't this ultimately just hurt the active players more than it blocks the inactive ones? Considering that members have to log in and choose to join these groups in the first place, and dances have to be claimed while the event is still running, is there even really a purpose for this system? It's supposed to help members who don't have time to play events completely, aren't members who have the time to log in and join but not to come back frequently kinda the target audience? But they're the least likely to help with repairs so if there is an auto-boot system they get the worst of it.

Also the bots seem to break on a fairly regular basis and so far I've seen it happen twice (each, in all of my groups) during low-activity times on the site so no one's winning.

June 24, 2025, 6:59 am by

+1 to stars_water, San, Pinocchio's comment. I'd love to have a list of groups I've joined. For now I'm using the notifications on legacy, or my profile "Recent Posts"

June 24, 2025, 5:57 am by

@ Treeboa - you can just neglect the Kumos site after having joined dance groups and accept on legacy. The new tab is a tiny bit annoying, I agree, but I usually just let dances accumulate (delete the events) and accept all dances in one or 2 goes daily, just backtabbing from ballroom to the accept button - this will one by one work down the list of your invitations until you get to the end with a "you haven't been invited" result.

June 24, 2025, 5:50 am by

... I found the repair button! Scrolling way down to underneath all the member headshots!

Kumos again lacks "usability" in the forums as well.

The initial post already takes up the whole screen, then srolling more than a screen past all the headshots, which, as everything on Kumos are widely spread, taking up wayyyy too much space for every participant, then user chat side by side with system events, next screen size holds the dance log - which is redundant, given that is part of the event log.

June 24, 2025, 5:25 am by

I love the idea just mine says Machine Needs Repair n I'm the only one helping repair it

June 24, 2025, 5:02 am by

This is a mess with having to try to log in to Kumos, to make everything there watchable, only to be sent back to Legacy and then back to Kumos. Clicking the repair button isn't working, or it takes 10+ minutes, by which time others have already fixed it, new tabs opening all the time that you have to adjust one by one to make it watchable... It is a nice idea, but it isn't usable when done on Kumos, at least not for me. Now I'm trying to leave all the groups, but I have no idea which ones I joined. :p I should have known better then trying out new Kumos features. It's the same every time. I really can't understand why you keep adding new stuff to it instead of making it working for everyone. So many people have problems with it, it's full of half-working stuff and still you keep adding more stuff that's only working half, or is working for some people and not for others...

June 24, 2025, 4:40 am by

The machine (at least ours) brakes A LOT. I think it was at least 3 times within an hour. I followed the event link (which means I need to change my browser, because Kumos layout still doesn't work on Opera and Seamonkey). Except for once, I beleave, others had already repaired it. Last time I came to the group (on mobile, because I was in bed already - had to tilt the phone for viewability, but at least the transition to Kumos worked) I would have been the 7th of 8 dancers needed, however could not click the button - or what I thought was the button.

June 24, 2025, 4:33 am by

Was on board til I saw it was on the new site. It’s far too glitchy and migraine inducing for me. I’ll pass. Rather stay here and get less dances/tokens. Happy for everyone else though. Seems like a very cool idea

June 24, 2025, 3:39 am by

Some feedback: When you get an event that you've been selected for an auto-dance, the link opens in a new window, which is inconsistent with the behavior of links in other Masquerade events. I had quite a few extra browser tabs by the time I noticed. I'd prefer not the event links spawn a new window.

June 24, 2025, 3:37 am by

I would agree there’s a lot of tokens for the price of items, but some of us have like 18+ pets and want them to gain as much intelligence as possible so I have to buy all the books for all my pets lol then it barely feels like enough currency.

June 24, 2025, 3:12 am by

I agree - even reading about it made me anxious. 😬

June 24, 2025, 2:44 am by

Ten friends? .... .... ...... :'D At least there's always the possibility of joining a group open to all. Not sure we really need this for this event currency, but I suppose any attempt at injecting the forums with more active is a good thing.

June 24, 2025, 2:29 am by

OOh might be time for me to actual figure out why I can't get into Kumos properly.

June 24, 2025, 12:28 am by

This sounded interesting until I read at the bottom that you have to be on the new subeta. Sorry but I don't like it. Oh well no group dances. That's OK.

June 24, 2025, 12:16 am by

threesome dancing OMG I LOVE IT

June 23, 2025, 11:53 pm by

I'm sorry, this is cool for other people, but my gosh this stuff feels overwhelming to me. It reminds me of the Melody group gift exchange, I get how it works, but feels like a lot, even though not supposed to be. For Masquerade, I click to do mystery dances, then accept on the rare occasion someone invites me, but that's it. The chat feature makes me anxious, talking back and forth in real time, I understand we don't have to do that, or any of this, just to say how considered.

As I have said, I don't like the Kumos layout, I'm sorry, but it does not feel intuitive to me, especially for mobile. Among other things, I don't understand why we can't see all our pets on our profiles, why there is no option for YouTube video, or why our profile doesn't carry over (I realise we could copy and paste, but still confuses me, and still other points). Perhaps, as it changes, will get to where like setup, but that is how I feel at this point.

I am mentioning because along with this not being my type of thing, I am avoiding going to the Kumos site as much as possible, and if/when I eventually have to stay over there, I will decide whether it is worth it for me.

Sorry for somewhat negative post, just reminded me of frustrations I have with direction of site.

All that being said, I'm glad most people are enjoying this!

June 23, 2025, 11:33 pm by

this has been a really nice feature to have! i was able to wake up, go to work, and come back with like 30 dances all done for me. it feels balanced and fair; 30 dances is probably what I would have managed on my own in that same time frame tbh

June 23, 2025, 11:21 pm by

I'm not sure if the idea's already been tossed out there, but it'd be nice if the sidebar alerts told me what dance group just partnered me. The Auto Dancing machine just tells me what players I've been paired with, and not what group. ^^

June 23, 2025, 11:14 pm by

I was literally just thinking we needed something like this!

June 23, 2025, 11:12 pm by

I've joined some groups, have already forgotten what groups I've joined, don't know how to re-find them besides clicking forum posts and looking for my own name, and I couldn't find a button to leave once I'm in. :) But that's ok I'm having fun.

June 23, 2025, 10:55 pm by

been in a group for a bit and it seems to be working

the only thing is i wish i didn't have to manually refresh the page to see dancer updates

June 23, 2025, 10:32 pm by

Is there a way to leave hearts on other users avatars on kumos yet? I love that feature as a way to pay a quick little compliment, especially while dancing on the og forums. Also perhaps an avatar contest to get our NPC friends dressed for the occasion? I'm really excited about the dance groups! They seem fun!

June 23, 2025, 10:24 pm by

Dang it! It loaded once I posted. There is an actual Join button once you scroll past all the headshots in the "Dance Card" section that you click on to join. There's so much text that I always miss stuff here.

June 23, 2025, 10:21 pm by

Instructions unclear. Is there a BUTTON or Link to press or click to actually Join anything. Do you just click on a thread title and just leave that page open to count as "Joining" a dance group?

June 23, 2025, 10:12 pm by

Think I found where the smaller groups are not better. When the bot breaks, if your group is smaller, there is less chance people will be online to fix it Maybe a time cap on broken dance bots, Keith? If the idea is to get people who are not online a lot some dances and what not I mean. Or perhaps less people needed to fix them in smaller groups?

June 23, 2025, 10:03 pm by

Where can I see the groups I've joined?

June 23, 2025, 10:02 pm by

I love this! However I agree with that having a list of what groups we're in would be great, and confused why smaller groups are better but the default is 50 people?

June 23, 2025, 9:54 pm by

...I am so confused @

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