Hey guys, I've been on Subeta for a little over 13 years now with breaks here and there. I've noticed recently that it seems like the site barely gets past 400 members, when around a year ago it was at 900 or so? Was just curious how everyone thought the site was doing in general. Have you noticed a popularity decline, does it seem less active, does everything still work and function fine? Stuff like that!

No. i didn't notice a decrease in popularity. I find it constant. It's during events that there are more people online. If you referred to Masq having fewer people on, it most likely has to do with the maintenance/server move right in the middle of the event which made the site impossible to access. :/

Last week, during Masquerade, I was surprised to see over 800 people online. I guess it depends on what event is going on... On Free Shop week we were so many that the Shoutbox had to be automatically disabled. If I recall correctly that's because we've reached more than 1000 online people.

That's impressive for a site like this to be relatively this popular, and to reach such numbers to be honest. I thought virtual petsites were a thing of the past, I've been proved the opposite.

I feel like the site isn't as exciting as it used to be outside of events. I'm sure back when I first joined there used to be more news posts per day, but now it's usually just one or even none, excluding the Pet Spotlight and Weekend Quests. And if we're lucky enough to get two, it's usually one in the morning and one in the afternoon. There was one day when there were two news posts within a few hours of each other, and since one of them was the monthly Cash Shop challenger and it was nearly the end of the month, it felt a bit like an "Oops, we forgot we were supposed to be releasing this today." I don't know it just seems slow. Maybe because there's less staff than there used to be? Another thing that makes it feel slow is that they only seem to release one new pet colour at a time now unless it's a brand new colour. And they only seem to release one new item at a time unless it's part of a set. That might be because of the artists, though. They said they were behind on pets at the moment but they're planning to release some event-only colours outside of those events (I hope Steamwork is one of them because we only had one last year and it would be a shame to have to wait two years for another).

Anyway, sorry for the rant, what I'm saying is that it doesn't seem like the site is that exciting anymore unless there's some kind of event going on. I like the events, yes, but it would be nice if we had some more things to keep us interested, even re-releases of older items, we have a whole thread of asking for those, but it's been a while since we got anything in the Crystal Shop and it's only had a few things added since it was cleared.

I think the dullness might be attributed to the fact that the staff has to spend a lot of time fixing glitches and errors. Either we need more coders or completely scrap the current code for the site and make one that is more attune to the modern day site. In other words, a complete redesign of the website.

Now as to what a complete overhaul of the site might entail....

It would mainly mean features re-arranged or removed entirely. Maybe shoutbox wouldn't be a sidebar widget anymore. And your on hand amounts of sp and CSC might be next to the dropdown tabs like Neopets.

I've been here since before the last time Subeta was practically DDOS'd to death. It's been better on here, it's also been a whole lot worse. But that said, I'm an adult player, I don't have hours upon hours to train pets on here for the battle oriented events and I don't have such a disposable income to dump in here (I've already spent an embarrassing amount.)

But that said, these past weeks have been trying and I've been very tempted to leave so I can keep my losses to a minimum.

I think petsites as a whole are on the decline. But, petsites have always seemed a little more niche compared to other online games imo. The only reason I got into them in the first place was because Neo made enough money to manufacture toys lol.

I just logged back in after a year and since the Covid-19 situation has my butt in front of my laptop 24/7 I've noticed the changes. Quests are so much easier to complete now compared to 11 years ago and even with all of the glitches and down time I don't hate it. I wasn't expecting to join during Masquerade which is one of my favorite events of the year and I'm glad they extended it.

I've been through a lot with Subeta and I joined when I was in High School. Now that I'm an adult I appreciate it way more even though I don't pay as much attention to my pets as I used to and I completely forgot how to code.

I'm still waiting for the Masquerade battle challengers, the graveyard pets this year, the steamwork pets this year, the games revamp that was supposed to be rolled out last summer, and of course the teahouse. I'm still waiting for something interesting to draw players back, I guess.

I love subeta and it's the website I spend the most time on, but I gotta say it hasn't been doing too well for the past 5, coming up on 6 months. It really has been one thing after another.

• The writing contest was announced, postponed, then never mentioned again, due to the...
• Site had downtime in November that ended up being disastrous that has spoiled every holiday since.
• writing contest, spooky carnival, black friday, fireside, the crystal shop clearing were all pushed back because of the lag and errors
• due to the lag and errors it was very difficult to find time to buy lumi presents in december
• daily features were barely resetting properly throughout all of this so people were losing out on quests, etc
• the free shop compensation wasn't working properly (linked because idk how else to describe it)
• pet spotlight broke for a while
• survival was delayed and the forums were unusable when it finally started
• then when the dust was finally starting to settle from the horrendous lag and errors since november... the wardrobe fiasco happened and the whole "people getting items deleted from their whole accounts because of it"
• also finding out that there had been no site backups for 4 months, yay.
• then the site had downtime again! and the lag and errors might just have been worse than the november downtime that kickstarted this decline. not to mention this is all happening during masquerade, another holiday spoiled.

Sorry if it all comes off as harsh but I just want to get it all lined up and still probably forgot a few stumbles. I swear I've tried to be positive and get through it (I'm still here aren't I?..) but my limits have seriously been pushed. It has been a ROUGH six months. I wouldn't be surprised if there are less active users than before all this. I don't know how bad or good subeta is doing compared to other pet sites but I feel like I've seen subeta doing better.

Like, thank you staff for all the compensation throughout this, I'm still here and playing, but also being real - some people probably did leave. 😔 I'm bracing myself for vesnali...

At this point I find Subeta is like a roller-coaster.. there's... a lot more dips than rises but there's still enough of an enjoyment to keep you in your seat... I know that's probably lame and dumb but I'm sticking to it.

Yes so much has happened within a span of about close to 5+ months? It's disheartening but I still find myself wanting to stick around. I just go do something else if Subeta goes down and becomes an issue but I always seem to be drawn back.

Honestly I'll be shocked if it recoveres after deleting an unknown amount of wears/CWs from an unknown amount of users wardrobes, but tbh... I'm fine with that. After losing interest/changing their minds/lying about non-unique pet names I'm... basically logging in to be petty.

i try to stay positive tbh! i know it's just a me thing™ and def don't expect anyone to think this way too, but i honestly didn't really mind the lag and errors? i remember being a teenager and subeta being down for hours/days at a time and i just kinda learned to shrug it off and do something else haha

plus i get the feeling staff are still trying to fix and improve the site! which is nice q v q

ultimately i don't see it thriving or making a comeback or anything but i mean, that's just the way pet sites are nowadays no? but idk man, i try to not get too wrapped up in the 'subeta is literally dying the site is gonna be gone in a month' mentality lmao

also i'm in the same boat as tbh the idea of non-unique names got me really excited but that excitement waned off since rip

I keep forgetting about the writing contest and then remembering it. At this rate, it probably won't happen until next Fireside. Though I guess it could be used to make Neugarten more interesting.

The only thing that annoys me about the Tea House is that it's delaying the Garden revamp and Centropolis Lower West Side map, and the staff don't want to ignore the votes and do those first anyway. I hope the Tea House is ready this year, it's been nearly 3 years. If not, maybe they should just ignore the vote and release the other two anyway.

I don't think they're going to have the Masquerade challengers this year now, they don't always bring back challengers for events, like how they didn't have the Pirate challengers last year (which people complained about, and I complained about not being warned about it, another communication issue). But I am disappointed that we haven't had even just one Graveyard or Steamwork pet this year. I made a feedback thread about the former after someone had done a similar thing about the lack of Angelic pets the winter before last which resulted in a whole month themed around it, and one of the artists said they're "behind on pets" but they are planning to release some outside of holidays. I can see a Graveyard pet being released during Morostide, but I don't know about the Steamwork pet. I was a bit frustrated when they released a Rift pet on the last day of Masq instead because they release those all year round. I'll be very disappointed if we really do have to wait a whole other year for a new Steamwork pet, especially since we only got one last year. I'll be satisfied even if it's a Blob, I want to know how a Steamwork Blob would work anyway (would it still be considered blobby enough or would it be more like one of those disc machines that clean floors?), but yes, it is frustrating to wait for things without being told whether they're happening or not.

Not meaning to seem entitled or anything, I just like having certainty, even more so during a time where there's a lot of uncertainty going on at the moment. And some of the people I enjoyed talking to in the Shoutbox are now only really online for events and I miss them when the events are over =(

I haven't been super active for the past 5 years. For very passive playing it does the trick.

I don’t think it’s doing so great to be honest, which makes me very sad. Our forums are painfully dead and lack free speech. A lot of promises have been reneged. Financially, there is a real bind.

I do think change is coming, but I'm not sure it'll arrive in time.