(sorry apparently I'm posting a lot of suggestions threads lately)

I saw this mentioned in another thread - Subeta has pretty low new user retention (or at least so it seems). I personally have a few ideas that might help this, though of course I'm not a web designer or marketing expert or anything of the sort, so please take things with a grain of salt and feel free to tell me if I'm being silly and don't know what I'm talking about haha. I just really love this site and am sad to see it so inactive compared to how it used to be. I'd love to see it flourish again.

My first suggestion is to increase the amount of SP new users get upon account creation. 5,000 SP is less than peanuts. I noticed this a while back and actually had to do a double take. With SP inflation as it is, I think starting new users with even 1mil SP wouldn't hurt. If that's too high, at [I]least[/I] 100k. 5,000 SP is almost insulting haha.

My other suggestion is to change the forum necro rule. When Subeta's forums were uber active, the 'no posting in a thread that hasn't been posted in for 3 months' rule made a lot of sense. It was silly to see a year old thread suddenly at the top of the chit-chat forum. But the forums are incredibly slow now. There are some 6 month old threads that aren't even at the bottom of the first page now. It makes me sad to see new users posting on threads only to be told 'sorry we're locking this now', when the discussion was still valuable. I know I would probably be pretty put off from posting if that happened to me.

I also have one about pet trading but I think that might be a little Too Crazy. I might save that for another thread.

If anyone has any other suggestions for this, please feel free to post them here too!!

[edit]

Other suggestions:

• A buddy system for new users!
• More involved dailies, like Major Drills
• Have things like available pet species and colours on the site itself, instead of relying on third-party sites
• Remove 24 hour no-posting rule, as it discourages new users from posting during the time they probably have the most questions
• Update rules/guidelines in general, as most are very old
• Improve tutorials for new users
• More team events, like the old Restock Wars

is there a still-functioning Tutorial to the site? Because even with five thousand sP you can quest with Sarah to easily get yourself up and going and Random the game also gives out as much sP or more as you start with.

A buddy system? Set up a thing where you can sign up and get paired with another newish user. The two can support each other, discuss areas of the site they discover, or interesting items, etc.

I think one problem is that the site can be pretty overwhelming. Back when I started it was so much smaller, there wasn't even a wardrobe. It was easier to get into and not feel like you were missing a bunch of stuff, or feel too stupid not knowing things.

Talking about my own experience, I only settled for good when I gave myself a goal. Maybe give new users little timed goals like 'complete X quests', 'have Y beanbags in your collection'? Each with a time limit of a week or month for example. Obviously completing them would give you a reward like a small item or a bit of sP, or maybe even some temporary benefits for harder goals, like '24h of GA', 'X% bonus sP in quests for a week' which in itself would work as a motivator to keep people playing.

Sounds like a real pain in the neck to implement though.

I agree because new users still need to get 100 forum posts to access the Blue Building.

I think I'd play more myself with little goals to do every day. I set them for myself but a little graphic that follows what I'm doing would keep my far more motivated than my own stupid brain haha.

I second this idea completely, quests are nice but they can be done in 30mins. Maybe dailies that are site wide? "If 100 users donate a free beer to the food bank everyone gets an extra Pete quest" "1000 users beat challenger then all users get one free training session" I am not a coder so if this sounds impossible just ignore me but I love this idea!

When I first joined Subeta, nine years ago, the 5000sP starter amount was an insult even then. I almost quit Subeta several times before the Ultimate Game Cards became a thing and being able to buy and sell CSC made life so much easier.

Not everyone can dump real life funds into a game site but I was younger and stupid. That said though, the 5000sP starter needs to have another couple zeroes on the other end for like 5mil. "BUT sP SINKS!" "Too much sP on site!" Hun, just stop. I can't help your hoarding problems. When you're starting on Subeta, if you want the newbies around, make it so the newbies want to stay around.

I love the idea of a buddy system, honestly. I'd be more than happy to take part in that if it helped someone.

The forum necro rule is... an interesting point. I mean, for the first 24 hours, you can't even post on Subeta which is kind of a mood killer right there. In the first 24 hours, if you have questions, you're kinda crap out of luck for finding solutions because you can't post. Forget the necro rule for a while, just make it so that the new users have to verify their email and be done with it. What's going to happen? We get bots? We've had that before.

Personally, I think doing away with that "Newbies can't post within the first 24 hours" would do a lot better than taking the necro rule away. Or we're looking at a huge potential of any post within the past several years being zombiefied.

At the risk of sounding too wild, could we get a place on site that shows all the available pet colors by pet and/or color type? the easiest way to keep people coming back is to give them goals to work toward, and understanding what those goals could be might go a long way.

Using third-party sites when you're new to a game is super unintuitive and a bit of a turn-off, at least in my eyes. But having a page on subeta itself that would say "hey, here's what the pet you chose would look like if you changed its color, and here's the item(s) you'll need to do that," well that might inspire some of the newer users to stick around and potentially find that niche that keeps them coming back.

dude seriously?? I had no idea that was a thing! why is that a thing. It shouldn't be a thing.

I should clarify the necro point - I don't think we should get rid of it entirely. More change it to 'please don't bump threads past the third page' or 'please don't post on topics more than a year old'. Heck I've seen some sites that auto-lock threads at a certain age. I just think at this stage in Subeta's life span 3 months is way too short a time frame.

Yeah, that was a thing when I joined. I don't know if it's still there honestly.

I think Subeta has an issue with keeping both new and old users. I will be soon turning 10 years old on this website and the novelty and the fun has worn out about 2 years ago.

There are definitely things that can be done to keep these newbies interested!

• Remove the 24 hours to be able to post rule. What if you have no idea about what to do and navigate? Last I've know, the tutorial doesn't work for everyone (if at all).

• Give more sP upon signing up and explain how you can get more (and other currencies as well). It will not affect hoarding issues. It has existed for a while and it won't change.

• I love the idea of a buddy system and would sign up in a heartbeat ❤️!

• Remove the necro rule. It is both annoying for new and old users. What is the point if the thread itself isn't spam? We could keep the no-spam rule and remove the necro rule to certain part of the forum.

• Stop using third party website involving Subeta in order to keep things on Subeta itself. Just like said. I have nothing against SubetaLodge. What a saviour! But isn't Subeta supposed to do that?

• Explain how the Cash Shop works and what are custom wears and their values (or at the very least, redirect to various helpful threads on our forums).

• Users could create tutorials for the site. If there aren't enough staff members to fullfil the task, we could help.

• More team games! Or small contest! Things to keep us alive on here. Dailies are boring as hell!

I will stop myself now but will try to come back and add a bit more if I can find anything.

I'm almost certain the 24 hr posting rule was an anti-spam measure, but with activity the way it is, I think it'd be more prudent to repeal that. Are spammer accounts still an issue in the pet site world?

Popping in to add that information to explain what forum groups are and can be used for would also be really good newbie information. (And where to find a forum group's forums [below all the other forums] if that group uses them!)

Maybe pointing them in the direction of the 'Forum groups' forum so they can more easily find people interested in related topics to their own interests. :)

If I signed up, was told I couldn't post for 24 hours on the forums, and when I finally could, found that they didn't load, I wouldn't be back.

I am seconding the guides; There's stuff that I didn't know about, and I've been here for nearly ten years.

Some great ideas here. Indeed, I find the forums fairly unwelcoming to new and old users alike (and I didn't even know about the 24-hour no-posting rule...that's pretty harsh). The necro rule irritates me to no end and I would love to see it changed. I see tons of new users posting on threads that are maybe just over the 3-month limit, trying to jump into the community and work on their post count, only to get scolded for it immediately. Yeah, I'd probably give up and leave too. It's not like there are that many active threads to join in and starting your own new topic, especially as a newbie, is intimidating as heck.

As far as I'm concerned, forcing people to create a whole new thread about a topic for which there is already a thread creates way more spam than just letting them add their input to the existing conversation. What even is the harm in reviving a "zombie thread"? If the conversation is picking back up again after a lull of a few months...fine? So what? And if one person tries to revive it but no one responds again for a while...fine, so what? Better that than a dozen locked threads about the same thing cluttering the place up...makes the whole forum look sad, dead and off-putting.

god i hate the necro rule. the forums are DEAD, i remember years ago how many people there used to be posting all the time, and now rip if you try posting basically anywhere in the creative corner/social scenes forums. honestly i can't even believe that a new advertising thread only gets made once every few days, i remember there used to be at least half a dozen new threads every day. I totally agree that a 3rd page rule is more acceptable.

I think the fact that there is less chit-chatting has kind of made the site more isolating... i feel like I have no friends here because forums are so dead, so sometimes i take a step back and i'm like 'what am i even doing here if i don't talk to anyone' and i've been here for 10+ years so if that's how i feel lord knows the newbies will probably feel that even more.

i know users always complain when there are plots but i really think the site just needs to have more "in-the-moment" things to do (like plots or holiday events). 6 months at least out of the year are dead event-wise, and it always sucks that there never seems to be anything to do filling the space. users have kind of taken to hosting their own 'plots' and such but maybe new users don't always see those because they don't get a giant news notification about them or don't know where to look. all i'm saying is i REALLY miss peka-boo and also some of the pre-2015 plots, but ever since amber said plots take years to plan i've given up on something like those happening again

i just think the site is at an impasse, they're not generating enough money to hire more people, so they can't actually do all of the things they promise for years and years (like said about the pet colors database, or the tea house, or the million other things that seem to be 'worked on' but never seem to come to fruition). but then because they can't do all those things, there is less being generated for the site because no one is enticed to stay and it just gets worse and worse.

I suspect the 24 hour rule is a holdover from when Subeta had... problems... with bad actors. That was years ago though and it should be safe to rescind that now. If an influx of trolls pops up, it could probably be reinstated but with a more reasonable time limit - an hour or so should be plenty of time to discourage someone from creating accounts in bad faith.

For zombie threads, I've always found that weird. If someone has something fresh to add, why shouldn't they? Granted, a lot of zombie threads aren't that but just people trying to get into the Blue Building, but all that tells me is that entry requirements to the Blue Building should probably be revisited.

Yes please. The only time I see a bump in forum activity is when a newbie needs 100 posts for the BB. And half the time, they don't add anything constructive beyond 1-3 word replies just to get the post count up. If you're going to have a rule against spamming, maybe don't have something that, in the current state of things, requires spamming to unlock.

I would also like to see a trim down in Subeta's activities and dailies. This is just my two cents, but there are simply too many things to do even to keep track of without using the actual dailies page. Things that need new content because users get bored of them. Features that could do with an overhaul, QoL updates, or some general TLC (gardens, job agency, Major Drills, Shengui Guo as a whole) are nudged aside in the name of new and shiny things like the teahouse (when???), new[sup]TM[/sup] wardrobe and things that I've prob forgotten.

The Rules also need an update. Badly. I've asked about a list of words that are considered "inappropriate" for Subeta back when the filter was removed, only to basically get eyerolled at. 😒 Lo and behold, a new user got a warning for making a pet with an "inappropriate" name and they're now worried and asking what they can do to avoid getting into more trouble.

I always found it weird that Subeta is relying on a third-party to make their content more available to everyone else. Hasn't Subeta always been a pet site? Why as it taken like 10+ years to make that information available on-site? Subetalodge should just be about the checklists and making things easier, not be the go to for pet colours.

I also second the necro and the 24 hour thing. I know somebody has been here for almost a year now, and what seems to keep him going is having a group of friends. He joined in time for Survival, so it's not like its hard to find a group of people who are there to answer your questions and show you around the site. Now we're a forum group, and it's even made me more social than ever.

Finding a group like that can be hard when there isn't an event though, and I can only image what it's like to think you've found a group, only be reprimanded for it because it was a necro.