i have been on subeta for a little while at this point (abt 10 years) and the number of daily users seems like it's decreased significantly compared to where it was even just a few years ago. i want to see more users and more regular users! how do we get more people to engage with subeta? how do we get members who stick around long-term? i imagine a fair amount of subeta's revenue comes from cws, so i'm curious why there doesn't seem to be more of an effort to refer more users and incentivize users to stick around? i would love to see subeta growing. i know that there's a market for virtual pet sites if only because of the number of users i see online on other sites. i know that there is only so much that staff can do to increase traffic, but i wonder if there is more that can be done? are staff advertising? can we incentivize new users to join? can we have a summer event like vesnali? seems like between vesnali and morostide, there isn't much going on site-wise. maybe some kind of incentive for cw artists? a way to get new artists into the ecosystem?

This is all just my opinions and speculations.

I'm not sure if it's still like this, but when I first joined (11 years ago) you get 5ksp which ... doesnt get you much now, 11 years later. I sometimes see random events that drop 11k and it says something about "what things you'll spend on it". Again, 11ksp is less than pocket change with the sp economy.

Also, newer players instantly get locked out from items/challengers/past plots... a lot of subetas draw points (like pets, battling, concise avatars) rely on past items or currencies, to which new players might not know about. Now, I'm not saying to give newer players, say, 20 of every currency, but it'd suck to want something from the menagerie and need to wait until your first masquerade.

I'm also unsure of Sarah's payout, so I don't know how easy it is to make sP with her enough to get into other quests and be able to do them daily.

I think a decrease happened because there is now a lot of off site places where people talk (be it good or bad) which makes subetas forums stagnant. The necro rule also doesn't help.

And then, theres the elephant in the room with CWs and their exclusivity: look from a new persons perspective. Amazing items! Thousands of them! But... 90% of them are unavailable, because they're private, or unobtainable, or old enough that the seller isn't active anymore.

All in all, Subeta is daunting and rife with drama, with odd rules. I'm honestly not surprised at the decline. I'll stick with subeta until the end, but I do understand why people have been up and leaving. On, and offsite stuff draw into this.

These are just some thoughts I've had for a while, purely personal opinions.

The golden age of virtual pet sites is past. I remember when Limited Too sold Neopets merchandise.

Lucky for me and many of us here (the vast majority if I'm not mistaken), our teenage years and young adulthood coincided with the best years of Subeta.

I think that upcoming generations have more options and different priorities in terms of entertainment. For example, smartphones and social media were relatively new when I joined Subeta as a teenager. There are so many places online now to share and/or sell art, roleplay, write, battle, dress avatars, etc. I wonder if more highly trafficked pet sites are actually retaining new users or are just showing more activity among existing users?

The pool of regular users will continue to grow smaller because of the daily responsibilities that naturally occur with growing older, here and elsewhere. I think himself is a great example of this. He's obviously older now than when he founded Subeta, and he has a lot more going on in his life. Almost all of us have more obligations and more opportunities, just because that's part of the reality of growing up. I only ended up sticking around because of a forum group, and even the activity there is definitely slowing down.

Real engagement on Subeta takes free time, and it can be really difficult to find that kind of leisure time as an adult.

This has been a topic of discussion more often lately, here's some threads from past year about user retention and new user gaining. Ideas to Increase New User Retention Update the login page slideshow

I def agree that the rules play a huge role in user activity. There are still unlisted rules and this pisses me off to no fucking end. "Oh we expect you to report any activity that's against the rules" That's great! Please list these activities so that everyone knows what not to do. Otherwise, you're limiting important information to users who happen to be browsing a particular forum topic/news post at the right time, and that is really not user-friendly. I also find it shady that Subeta allows some items, pets and HAs with pretty obvious NSFW implications, but you want to have an m17 1x1 roleplay without the spicy stuff, or looking for grown up roleplayers in your age range? OHBOY, hope you're ready to get a warning and have your topic deleted!

Big yep on CW exclusivity. CWs are fun, but they're also very samey to me and they feel very repetitive and overall very unfriendly with the whole "private items" BS. And the drama. Can't get a CW that you want because it's private and you need it both as a wearable and a TC item? Hey-ho, shell out 50$ to make something similar to it! Nobody even knows what to price some items at because they were private releases. They're unbuyable and unpriceable. I need currency, but all I'm getting is people who want to swap CWs for other CWs and I have no use for more CWs. :'|

Subeta is also the kind of game where you actually have to dedicate time to it over a long period of time to feel like you're getting anywhere. You have to dedicate time to earn currency if you don't/can't sell CSC, you have to earn this, you have to earn that. Time is kind of a luxury for most people and Subeta has been prone to having lots of uptime issues in the past. I can't really fault anyone for wanting to spend their limited free time on other things.

It feels like Subeta's not putting in much effort to bring the old users back (when was the last time we had a newsletter???) and the site is severely understaffed as is. And then you add on the giant projects that end up going radio-silent (minion zoo/minion battling, new wardrobe, teahouse, forum search & probably more that I've forgotten) and you kind of have a recipe for a disillusioned old userbase. New users hear about this kind of crap through various offsite sources and go "nope, I'd rather play FR, they actually deliver their promises in a timely manner".

Editing to add that the above paragraph also feeds heavily into user spending & funding. People are more likely to spend money on something they feel is worth it. If something has disappointed them in the past, they're less likely to spend money there.

big post to select quotes but I totally agree. The remaining subeta populace can be really, really kind! But theres theres certain places offsite which I won't get into, or discords that show that, no, people aren't kind, so we can't bank on others charity to help newbies out.

and man, I dunno of this will be an unpopular opinion (probably will be), but I'm gonna say it. The way CWs were implemented was a huge mistake. There are probably thousands of mid length, curly brown femme coded hair, because one or two were unobtainable, or such a small batch and coveted after, that copycats became rampant. If they had done it so that all CWs made on site were available, and unlimited, we wouldnt of had this problem, or at least not as much so. (let it be know that i'm not dragging any cw artists and this is just my opinion!)

I understand and don't understand the NSFW clause and its oddness- as we /do/ have users that are too young for that content, but the recent age poll shows that most active users are in their 25-35's. I'm just unsure, I suppose it's a legal thing as this is technically a site for children and they'd want to skirt away from potential lewd things. The banning of 1x1 rp posts was a little odd, though. I don't remember/care to look back but I know that the terms yaoi/yuri (I myself am not a fan of these terms as they are more of the ... non/dubcon subtype of gay/queer relationships) are an automatic no? (feel free to correct me on this one)

I also agree that the site is understaffed majorly.

I think the item exclusivity/retired items issue is a big part of this. I can't speak for others, but I know that whenever I get into some new thing, like a new game or site or whathaveyou, and then discover there are lots of really cool items that are "retired" and have basically become either ludicrously expensive or straight up unobtainable as a result, I know its a huge hit to my motivation. CWs are one of the biggest offenders here, and while I don't want to sidetrack this thread too much here, I feel its worth going a bit more in-depth on that.

I'm another long-time user (10 years now, I'm pretty sure! got me into this site back when we first met and I've been on it with him ever since) and I can remember back to when CWs first showed up. At first, I was really excited for the idea! And I still think that - as a concept - CWs are great. I love creating things, and the chance to have something I've created go up on some big public site that other people can enjoy? That's a huge plus for me! And I have, over time, made a few CWs myself.

But as has been mentioned here, the way they were implemented was kind of... Bad. And now I think changing it would probably upset the "CW economy" far too much but the bigger the area gets, the more obvious the problem becomes. CWs have basically become a currency unto themselves, now. With big-name artists having a specific following for their items, and users seek those speicific items out - not because they actually want to use them, but because they just want to own them. The entire point of CWs was to have wearable items designed by users, but now days there are countless items sequestered away in pet treasure chests, galleries, vaults or in the corner of some user's wardrobe, untouched. Hell, I'm guilty of this myself! It's pretty unavoidable.

But to a new user, coming onto the site and playing around in the wardrobe, they'll open it up and see thousands upon thousands of items, many of them really cool looking! And then when these new users reach out to try and find how to get these items, more often than not they're locked behind some super-exclusive, invite-only ping group, or they were part of some tiny release bracket and priced in the thousands for CSC, or worse still, they're old items by artists who are no longer active, their items now basicaly unobtainable even by those with money to burn.

Imagine coming to the site totally fresh and seeing that, then learning its not just CWs that are like this: There are battle challengers, wearable item sets, event-related items and so on. Some of that is always expected, sure. but on Subeta, I'd wager that the majority of the items are not readily obtainable without going through a third party market. And that's never appealing to new users.

But perhaps in this thread we can suggest some new ways to bring users in?

Personally - and I know this is a big ask, but bare with me - I think the site needs some major policy updates. We might not be able to do much about the item scarcity issue without ruffling some major feathers. But policy wise, I think its time for some updates. Subeta's userbase has grown a lot since the site's inception, the age poll alone was enough to show that. But I feel like the site's core ideals and rules haven't changed with it. As has also been mentioned already, there are a lot of nebulous things in the guidlines, a lot of vagueness, a lot of uncertaintainty, and a lot of unwritten rules.

Let's be honest, Subeta doesn't have a great reputation off-site, and I think a lot of that is to do with the site's general hands-off approach to things that occur outside it. That's fair enough for the most part, but I feel like there should be some responsibility taken when those off-site things are directly related to the site. I don't want to name names here, I'm sure many of us know what sorts of things I'm talking about. But allowing that kind of behavior to fester off-site causes attitudes and drama to bleed over into the site proper, and at that point I think its worth taking action.

Simply put? The site needs to change with the times, if it wants to hold on to a consistent userbase. I think there's still plenty of appeal to Subeta (I'm still here, after all!) but currently, to new users? It's far too daunting. There's too much strangeness about it, too many weird social politics, too many odd twists and turns in the economy. I think it can be fixed, but I don't think it can be fixed easily.

We have this topic or one like it at least once a season (This isn't a crack against you OP! Kind of feels that we're talking suggestions at a crumbling brick wall.)

Again, start with modifying the rules so people aren't afraid to post (Pretty sure we had this particular topic twice in spring).

This and the necro rule - for some reason which has never been properly explained, the necro rule can't be amended while the forums are in their current format.

Another thing planned for the future is a new layout which is going to include how pet profiles work. This was mentioned last year and I don't recall anything more being said about it.

I've got very cynical about the teahouse. I think we should have the Lower West Side map even though we don't have the teahouse yet. Would people have spent sP bidding on the latter if we'd been told it would take years?

I'm still hoping the Gunter story will be finished one day.

When old users get disillusioned it won't be too long before new users get disillusioned as well.

:/ I def agree on the clumsy odd way that CWs were implemented. There are somany of them. And tons of them are really lovely and beautifully drawn! But on the other hand... so much of it gets copied and watered down because the original isn't available for whatever reason. And there are so many old, outdated ones that are still sold, but don't work well at all with the new, updated wearables we have now.

I do get why because NSFW and minors = HUGE nono from all standpoints. But also m-rated posts are allowed on Subeta as long as you flag them in the title and don't go overkill with describing things. Except in the roleplay forum where they're not allowed, even mature non-sexual themes like alcohol, drugs, etc. We're all old enough as you've pointed out, and it's not like finding questionable things online is difficult for minors. There was user uproar involving yaoi/yuri forum groups that got banned in a site-wide skeevy content clearing, if I remember right. Those terms aren't allowed for roleplays, but it still kinda rubs me the wrong way that we gotta use foreign terms with broad and subjective meanings.

Anywho. The reason why the roleplay forum grates me so much in particular is because I've met some of my best friends through casual, silly roleplaying. I want to try and meet new ones because I need friends to keep me on-site! And right now, I'm afraid to post there looking for new friends because hey-ho, gotta have it all be kid-friendly and super nice and innocent. It's also a fantastic way to get into shit. You start a 1x1 roleplay with someone, you end up not meshing well as rp partners, and they can prettymuch use anything you've posted offsite, twist it around and get you an official warning for using Subeta to find users for non-pg13 offsite roleplays. It doesn't matter that you're both well over 18 and that you've both confirmed with eachother that you're over 18 and okay with mature but not sexual themes in writing. It's super encouraging, very fun, and really helps nourish creativity, community and writing. (I'm being snarkastic.) Buthey, phallic flowers, questionable pet stories and BDSM gear are a-ok because they're not a direct interaction between users and minors I guess? I don't even have the foggiest.

And yes I'm also still kinda salty that they've used Charahub's shutdown to try plug and fish for new users for Subeta. Those sites are two very different worlds and Charahub feels like another victim to a company (Agoge inc.) that has so many interesting ambitions, but so little manpower and what it does have is already spread very very thinly.

In the end, this topic feels like like a deja vu and that's not the OP's fault. Everything's getting repeated severy couple of months: update & clarify rules, clean up forums, new newbie-friendly and user-friendly content that isn't going to take 3+ years to complete, etc. And with everything else going on that badly needs staff attention & the site's shoestring budget, I'm sad to say that I don't see that happening any time soon. Staff are doing a good job as it is, imo. Before anyone takes it that way: I'm not mad at them. I'm disappointed at this situation and how often it's repeating itself lately. I'm scared that this site is gonna up and vanish, together with all its potential, beautiful artwork and hardworking people.

Heads-up: we're getting new pet profiles before we get the new layout though. They're separating pet profiles from the current layout so they'll work more like user profiles do.

Everything else, I agree with. And having yet another new forum format makes me worry that all the old topics are going to get wiped or glitched to all heck. If I remember right, a wipe happened when we switched to this format? I don't remember super clearly, it's been a decade, so don't take it as gospel.

Theres also the wardrobe, that's currently in beta, but we also have another newer wardrobe that's also in beta.. Honestly, this topic had brought a lot of thoughts about subeta to me that I didn't realise.

And yeah I adore subeta for its art content and do have a genuine fear that one day I'll log in and there will be a goodbye message with no way to back up saved avatars, or anything like that. I know they wouldn't spring that on us unless it was dire dire dire but it's still a fear I have.

And honestly before you mentioned it, I had forgotten about the teahouse and the new map.

(and yeah, there was a forum wipe, you aren't tripping)

Deja vu post. Still relevant as always, maybe the staff will actually take note of one of these posts...

:'/ Yup. Last (offsite) update on v4 wardrobe was on July 21st this year. And also pet profiles (that I completely forgot about until brought them up), and other fairly low-intensity things like the map. It's not like the map can't be edited when more spicy things are added to it later, but I think that right now it's more the pressure to stick to the order of things that the Vesnali poll decided. We decided what we want, in a way, so it's being handled in order of priority. 'Cept that Subeta is old, so other things are also piling up and it's starting to feel like it's smothering both staff and users.

Now I'm half-tempted to make a list of all the big projects Subeta has going on because holyshit, if I get lost in it I can't even imagine what it's like for the programmers. And that's not even taking into account various smaller QoL updates that we get over the month, or bigger projects that are likely on the list to get a tiny bit more polish and TLC (sMail and forum groups, for example).

(Thank you! I wasn't sure if they were archived or wiped.) The old wipe makes me kinda worried about any new forum versions because so much info is currently scattered all across the forums (including unwritten rules!).

There are a lot of good points here. I think it's definitely a combination of all of the stuff mentioned here, and just the fact that some people may lose interest over time as well. People get busy with other things, interests change, maybe you're having a better time doing something else and you can't justify spending hours on a website game that you're just not having fun with anymore. That's fine.

As far as the "maybe staff will listen this time" sort of thinking, I think staff definitely do take notice of these posts, but they're such a small team and there's only so much they can do at once. It does get frustrating seeing and hearing about so many big projects being worked on, and things that have been "coming soon" for ages, but I don't know what a good solution would be. I doubt they can afford to just hire more programmers or site developers while they try to solve all of these issues and get everything perfect the way they want.

I still enjoy Subeta, but even I find myself not doing as much as I used to lately. Questing occasionally, mostly participating during events, chatting sometimes. I'll probably stick around until it doesn't let me log in anymore as well, and I like to try to stay optimistic, but it does get hard seeing some of the same issues being brought up again and again and not knowing what to do about it.

If they are going to do a forum wipe when/if we finally get a new version of the forums, I'm thinking there will probably be (or at least should be) some sort of warning of maybe a week or so at least so people can have time to save any forum posts that are really important to them. Like CW info, various guides posted on the forums, or other lists and posts of things they keep up with. To at least copy and save the text of those posts so they can re-post them in the new forums if they want to.

I'm pretty sure staff want the site to be successful and keep trucking just as much as we do, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're just as antsy and worried about it tanking as we are. Subeta is a part-time job for many of them, so it's not like anyone's getting rich, cackling in designer clothes while lighting a cigar with a 100 dollar bill while we squabble over rules updates and CWs.

I also really hope that, if the forum update happens, they let us make backups, or at least provide an archive of sorts for a period of 6 months. Not everyone is online daily and the e-mail notification system is a bit flaky. You're definitely right there - Subeta now is way different from the version where everything got wiped. Though even then, people were likely rightfully pissed about it. :'D I remember the chaos and rage when the first big layout change happened and all the pet profiles got wiped. We got them back thankfully, but OOF.

Yeah, I understand that sometimes things being wiped is a risk, even if it's not intentional. That's why I would hope they'll at least give us some sort of warning or even make their own backup (if possible) before changing anything just in case. That way even if people would have to make a ticket to get an old forum post/thread restored, they'd be able to.

I think that's something they would at least try to do, since we usually do get advance warnings for other things like items retiring, events ending, stuff like that.

There's a matter of whether the site can handle more players. As it is now it's fine, but get around 1k people during events and the lag begins. If I'd be new player and was hit with such lag, I wouldn't bother. All of us who stay just have the patience of a saint, I guess.

I also think that the referral requirements made it that people refer less, I know that they are not that impossible requirements, to adopt a pet and make 25k are pretty much nothing, but when you see a list of pending referrals is discouraging, the last time I referred a person was like 4 years ago, I just didn't bother anymore..

I don't think a lot of people use desk tops/lap tops for the internet anymore. I think most casual internet users are only using their mobiles. I find the mobile version of the site very difficult to navigate and only use it for daily things such as the bath house if I can't get on my computer. Unless I'm missing something, I think the mobile site is very unwelcoming to new users. I have friends who spent hours playing mobile games but I wouldn't recommend Subeta to them as they wouldn't be able to use it easily.

2 major things here, imo (this is from a user who has been here 13 years)

.) Forums are an issue. The fact that the rules were changed so everyone has to be super sugary sweet all the time and can't have debates, etc is a problem. There are HUNDREDS upon hundreds of forums out there that you can have debates and poke fun at each other in a more adult, slightly sarcastic fashion, and now Subeta can't compete with ANY of them. And the necro rule on a dying forum discourages anyone from sparking any kind of new conversation. Necro rule should be changed to no necroing a thread that's a year old.

.) The game room has always been a problem. I have left Neopets like literally almost 15 years ago and can STILL remember some of the fun games that were there. I love Subeta to bits but the games here CANNOT compete with other game-oriented web sites.