This site was recommended as an interesting avatar-based community so I decided to try it out tonight. I don't think I've ever run into a website that has instilled such a sense of intellectual vertigo and confusion.

First of all, I have not even gotten to the point of making an avatar before I am recommended to complete a walkthrough. This walkthrough has me choose a pet and swiftly introduces responsibilities. Before I even have a motivation aside from curiosity, I am told to devote my attention and care to a pet I did not necessarily want outside of obediently following the tutorial.

After that, I am asked to complete a "quest" to earn currency. This quest is simple but perplexing: Spend currency, get item. Certainly, the reward far outweighed the cost, but I did spend some time scratching my head as I had no way of knowing this to be the case. A leap of faith is rather uncomfortable when no faith has been instilled. It is worth noting that as of yet, I have not found the place for checking my currency. I could be a millionaire, for all I know. I sure hope I am, since this Sarah mentor character insulted my sense of fashion before I even had an avatar and thus wasn't wearing anything at all. It was fairly generous of her to lend me a full set, I'll concede, so I went to the wardrobe to try it on.

The marvel at seeing the heaps of items available, and the satisfaction at my quite dapper choice of clothing, was quickly mitigated by one teeny, tiny, inconspicuous but ever so important unchecked checkbox, stating something to the effect of "show only items that you own". Like the Emperor, my big dreams of fancy attire left me, in simple terms, naked. For although I was wearing almost exclusively items that were not in my possession, there was a readily available button for wearing and displaying the outfit publically. I would have expected pressing it to prompt a warning about the non-existing items, but alas - I was allowed to do the full Monty. It took me a while to confirm my bareness, as I had troubles finding a place where one could simply view the avatar as seen on the site, rather than in the wardrobe that we may as well refer to as Dreamland.

Speaking of the items, even if they had been as available as I first believed, navigating them was no easy task in itself. Who would have thought that an icon depicting a cute duck was meant to symbolize a lovely pair of shoes, or that a snake would mean hair (and not the gorgeous gorgon kind, either - regular, human hair)?

I am intrigued by this website, it is certainly unique and has an identity of its very own. However, before I proceed with exploring the finer intricacies, I must know:

Is it just me? Am I just too dumb for this? What am I not getting?

EDIT: Oh, look at that! <-- My avatar, as seen publically. What joy!

Welcome to the site! Subeta is a game like any other and the fun of being a new user is figuring it all out as you go! That is what the tutorial was for, to help streamline the process a little. They weren’t trying to nag you, just teach you some basics. The site will make more sense once you’ve invested more time into it, but we’re here to help if you have any questions.

My friend helps moderate the newbie forums. This is the post she gives to new users:

Welcome to Subeta! Don't worry, it's not just you. On one hand Subeta has a huuuuuuge amount of items and part of Subeta's charm is discovering and acquiring items, whether it's for your pet, your wardrobe, or other parts of the site. It's a lot of fun and that sense of discovery never quite goes away. There is an achievement for getting 15,000 unique items in your wardrobe, for example- it takes ages.

On the other hand much of the site hasn't been updated to meet more modern standards because of the small team that works on it- so the site's tutorial is a little out of date and I think it's unskipable. I joined before they even added a tutorial so I don't know what all it entails, just that there have been plenty of people trying to get around it instead of finish it but you're best completing every task it gives you and don't worry about the details. There are lots of quirks like this that you will have to learn, but don't feel like you're missing out on anything during the learning curve. This site can be a slow burn and you can play at whatever pace it takes for you to learn without any penalty.

Do you have any style in particular you like? I can send you some wardrobe items to get started! Also in my shop here I am giving away any items worth 60k or under (you can tell the price by hovering over the item and looking at "price today"), if you see something you like leave me a message and I can send it over! :D

Also I think you can abandon your pet if you don't want it, but I've never tried having 0 pets so don't hold me to that haha. There is no penalty for completely ignoring your pet so don't feel burdened by it.

Wow! Thank you for a very reassuring response, for your very generous offers of help and for the gift boxes I woke up to! I'm into both a darker aesthetic (on that note, I love your avatar!) and frilly, bright princess-y styles, I'll be checking out your shop and let you know if I find anything ^^

Happy to help! Making avatars is so much fun but it can take a while to get enough in your wardrobe to make it worthwhile. I will look thru my vault and see what else I have laying around I can send you.

Hopefully I’m not rambling too much but here are some good community links if you want to explore the human avatar scene some more.

https://subeta.net/forums.php/forum/30/Human-Avatars">The main HA forum has loads of helpful threads that can help you find items, and you can make your own asking for items in specific styles. Always good to browse if you’re looking for new stuff.

You can check out the https://subeta.net/forums.php/forum/121/ ">avatar contests and games forum, there are sometimes contests that allow you to use any items on the site not just the ones you own, and have good prizes to help you keep filling that wardrobe up. My fav is https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/902859/Stimulate-Your-Style-Weekly-CSC-Prizes">Stimulate Your Style: it’s a weekly contest where all participants must use a particular item to make an outfit. You don’t need to own all the items you use in the contest, and it’s a raffle to pick the winners so it’s worth entering as often as you can. Winners get premium site currency, Cash Shop Credits, which you can keep to buy fancier cash shop items or sell to fund items to buy with sp.

If you join their human avatar upload site http://style-file.org">Style File, which I recommend because it’s really fun to keep track of all your favorite avatars you’ve made and share them with other HA lovers, you do need to own all the items of any outfit you upload.

Here is another giveaway contest, https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/904162/SUMMER-BIRTHDAY-GIVEAWAY-AND-HA-CONTEST-Hosted-by-Daisy-Fairies-3-">Summer Birthday Giveaway, that ends on Friday. It is free to enter, you can use any item on the site, and has some cool prizes! One of the requirements of entering is to ping a friend, you can @ me if you want! These kind of events and contests pop up all over the place, so while a lot of the forums here move slow it’s always worth it to keep an eye on what’s happening. :D

You can also check out the https://subeta.net/forums.php/forum/27/Custom-Clothing">custom wearables part of the site, I am not a very good guide here but lots of people into custom wears are friendly and will help if you have questions!

I can see how the intro to the site could be overwhelming if you were only interested in avatars but that's only a part of the whole site. :) (I came here for the pets!) Just take things one at a time, and don't be afraid to make mistakes, you'll be fine! :) I see that you were linked on how to organize your dashboard. If you want to see what your avatar looks like other than in the wardrobe adding the "Your Avatar" widget is perfect for you. It will allow you to see in real time what your avatar looks like without being in the wardrobe or finding your posts in the forum.

I just opened more packages from you, the items are so beautiful and spot-on for my aesthetics. Thank you so much! And those are great tips, I'll be sure to check the challenges out and look into possibly joining Style File as well! (Feel free to @ me in the future if you also need an @ for, well, any purpose really!)

Thanks! I've added the recommended widget and can now see the avatar whenever I need to.