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[subetagossip]

Keith

KeithKurson: “We’re working on it.”

From the unique pet names fiasco post.

Tell us a fucking new one. Or better yet, Keith, how about you or someone on your staff actually talk about or show proof or literally anything about all of the Coming Soon shit that’s yet to happen?

The teahouse. The west side Centropolis map. Gardening. New pet profiles. An actual new redraw pet colour (haven’t had one in 5 years, Harvest doesn’t count). Actually making a statement on the unique pet names thread.

All talk, but nothing to show. Afaik anyways. I’m not a GA user, so if there’s been any beta-testing, how the fuck would I know?

[dramaticpopoko]

Tone aside, most of these complaints are valid and have been brought up on-site before, with nothing to show for it.  Popping in here to complain about people being “mean” to you is a weird choice, Keith.  People are frustrated with a lack of progress on many fronts. I think you already know this.  It’s not unreasonable for them to feel this way.

[subetaspeaks]

Re: CW Skins

you didn’t see any CW skins before Extreme Powder Puff because CW skins aren’t allowed. The artist of the puff is staff so it’s a unique approval. Pler my experience, please do not waste your hard earned money commissioning an artist, and likewise artists please do not waste your time creating a similar CW to Extreme Powder Puff, unless you are staff or a mod. You will not be given the same allowance.

[dramaticpopoko]

Does it count as a skin?  It doesn’t change the lineart or cover more than maybe 20% of the HA base, and doesn’t do much aside from add some deeper shading.  What makes it so different from something like Muscles of a Demigod or Jockstrap of the Galloping Muscles?

[subetaspeaks]

staff shouldn’t be allowed to (and shouldn’t have to) ask for money from users on the side just for doing their job,,,

[subeta-drama]

Where (ON SUBETA.COM) is a site member asking for tips?

[dramaticpopoko]

There was a link in Bug’s signature but I don’t see it anymore.

[subetaspeaks]

Why the fuck does Montre think it’s acceptable to send everyone in the SB one of her stupid fucking stories? No one cares about all ya’ll issues. 

[rileyxnala]

Just send Montre an SMail ahead of time stating that you don’t want the stories sent and she will accept your wishes on that.

[dramaticpopoko]

No one should need to preemptively message Montre about this.  They need to set up a system to let people opt-in.  Springing it on people is what caused this mess in the first place

[subetaspeaks]

In which we try to act like no one saw this coming

[ursa-warrior-blog]

its unfair to hold Subeta to the promises that they made years ago. they didnt expect an explosion of people, items, and currencies that prove difficult to sink. though, it was probably not a smart idea to have encouraged a hoarding behaviour that went into the tens of thousands. like Keith said, it was something he was stupid about, and admitted to be bad planning. as sad as it is, there are many things that have to change for the public benefit to outweigh the public detriment, especially if it wasnt (and was not expected to be) deemed a detriment until now. 

[dramaticpopoko]

It’s not even a promise, it’s a basic misunderstanding of user behaviors.  To say that vaults won’t become a problem because they haven’t been used much before, while also pushing a change that forces people to move their hoards out of their shops and into their vaults?  So many people saw what was going to happen and he dismissed them all.

[subetaspeaks]

I want to buy CSC because I have money to spend, but I don’t want to give the site any money if they are going to pull something like the gallery limit again.  I would be okay with just their assurance that they won’t, but I saw a bunch of people say that Keith actually did say that subeta would never have a gallery limit…?

Also, do you guys think subeta is making more, less or about the same amount of $$$ as a couple years ago? I think they must be making waaaay more with CWs. 

Also also, Bug better be getting fucking paid, he has done more coding for the site than Keith has in like 3 years I swear to god

[dramaticpopoko]

Hate to break it to you, but buying CSC from other users still supports the site.  It doesn’t manifest out of thin air.  It might not come out of your wallet, but someone else paid for it and you’re taking it out of circulation by buying from them, leaving a gap in the economy that directly encourages more people to buy and sell CSC on your behalf.

Totally agree about Bug though.  I hope they don’t get burned out and leave after only a couple months like Fletch did.

[subetaspeaks]

idk if you could make this anonymous or not, idk how to submit anonymously.. i just wanna say im rly sad to know ppl actually hated march (my entry for the NPC contest). most of their behaviors are ones i have as someone with ADD/depression, that, with research, i realized are behaviours autistic people have too. i like taking aspects of myself, that i relate to, and giving them to people who aren’t like me when i make characters. the chewy stim toy, the bouncing when happy, touching favourite textures, hugging a comfort item, feeling sad for disgaurded inanimate objects(implied via the beanbag hospital bit), etc these are all things that i personally experience, but im sad to hear it comes across as stereotyping ;-; i mean it doesnt matter of course, people will forget about them in a bit since they didn’t win, and I can just develope them on my own time and make them better, but it always sucks when you try to dance and just end up breaking toes.

[dramaticpopoko]

I think it’s a matter of tokenism.  Since March is essentially defined by her autism and everything relates back to it in some way, she has no personality outside of that.  Everything from her interest in beanbags to her physical appearance was somehow determined by the fact that she was autistic. The result is that March is The Autistic NPC rather than an NPC who happens to be autistic.

The same can be said for Shanti:  She’s in a wheelchair because she was involved in human trafficking.  She relates to abandoned beanbags because she was trafficked.  She helps orphaned kids because she was trafficked.  There didn’t seem to be anything beyond that, so again she feels like a token character that exists so we can point at her and say “yes, we have a disabled character.  We’re so inclusive.”

The character designs aren’t necessarily bad, and I wouldn’t expect an in-depth character study in a contest like this, but they are very one dimensional.  The fact that they’re defined almost entirely by their minority status makes them token characters, which many people find disrespectful.

[subetaspeaks]

Hmmm....

I can understand that respecting people’s pronouns is just basic politeness, but Quentin is not a person.  Pixels are devoid of feeling and can’t get offended. So why does it matter?

[dramaticpopoko]

Because there are real people on-site that feel disrespected.  It’s not just about a  fictional character.  They see you disrespecting this NPC, so how do they know you’ll use the right pronouns when you refer to them?  They don’t.  And you can say that you totally would, but then how is it any more difficult to be respectful toward this NPC when it’s so easy?  Why pick and choose when it’s so easy to apply the rules across the board?

[subetaspeaks]

What Happened to Hippogriff?

Hey everyone, I had a ton of friends on Subeta and most of them I have no other way of letting them know so I hope you see this here.

My account, Hippogriff, has been frozen. My husband and I share a computer and he hasn’t played Subeta in a long time. He tried to surprise me one day when I came home by making an account to hang out with me online since I love Subeta so much. Unfortunately, he should have said something instead of surprising me.

He already had an account he forgot about (but I remembered) from a couple years ago. Immediately my account and both of his were frozen.

Yes, I submitted a ticket and talked with a moderator but they said there was no way to really confirm anything I was saying.

It really does hurt to lose my pets that I worked so hard on and loved so much. I may come back to Subeta in a couple years on a new account after my suspension but it may hurt too much to come back.

I’m not at all mad at my husband, he was trying to do something sweet and he has felt really bad about the whole thing.

Thanks so much, Subeta, for all the wonderful years we had together. Despite it all, you helped me grow a lot as a person and an artist.

[dramaticpopoko]

Were you trading items between the accounts or doing something else that would make your situation look suspicious?  You’re allowed to have multiple accounts in a single household, so I don’t see why they’d just freeze you both outright.  Him having an older account complicates things, but I thought protocol was to freeze all but one of his accounts and let him continue playing.  This makes even less sense if he really hasn’t logged into the other account in years.

[subetaspeaks]

Ugh, so.

I’ve been waffling between submitting this and not, and now Survival’s here so my irritation has caused me to waffle over the line and post it.

Several months ago I was given a warning for a topic I made on the forums.  The punishment was the warning and that my thread was entirely deleted.  I made a Ticket to inquire about the validity of the punishment (please no side-lining of what the topic was about and whether or not I deserved it, kthx, because I’ll have to argue that I didn’t, and this will just get really side-tracked) and was rebuked.  Then Keith took over and added another punishment:

“… your forum privileges have been revoked by me.”

I asked for how long, because the tone sure sounded like forever.  Reply:

“It’s forever.  You’ve broken our community guidelines enough times on and off-site that we just aren’t interested in having you communicate with other users.”

Keywords to note here:  “and off-site.”

Considering that before this I had exactly one warning (for a PM I sent clumsily attempting to befriend someone, you may remember that debacle but if not again pls no side-line thx), then having only two warnings - and only ONE of them on the forums - really do not equate to having broken community guidelines “enough times” to merit a forever forum ban.  So obviously really what he’s saying is that he reads the Subeta Speaks blog and that’s entirely what he’s punishing me for.  Off-site behavior.  Entirely.

So, apart from the brief lapse-in-judgment I made above to get that second warning, I don’t post on the Subeta Forums.  The only thing I do there is gift-a-person-above threads, because I know my tendency to get in arguments and get banned.  Thus I limited to venting my frustrations here (something I would have never done at all if someone hadn’t attempted to humiliate me here in the first place) and don’t even visit the Subeta forums if I can help it.  I’ve tried to follow Subeta rules rigidly since my first unfair warning and, well… the punishment came anyway.

I found this odd, really, because Keith has always held himself carefully aloof from this blog and never joined in on any side of the crap that comes out of this blog.  You know he reads it, and yet he’s never once commented on any argument, nor any post of mine or about me, as if he values his objectivity and keeps himself above this blog on purpose, recognizing himself as an authority figure who should do just that.  Realizing he was objective was what made me give away my Subeta name when asked, because I knew nothing would come of linking the two accounts.  And yet… here’s the opposite.  Here’s him admitting that it’s my off-site behavior that’s gotten me punished.

Unexpected.  But still, thinking I might have a chance appealing to that objectivity, I wrote a big long thing on the Ticket saying that if Keith was going to take my actions on other sites into consideration while allowing me Subeta privileges, then perhaps he should consider other factors.

I… well, I’m not gonna post it here.  It’s super-long and quite possibly boring, but the essence is that in general I am a good friend and I help people.  (Well, people and animals.  Mostly animals.)  Yes, I argue on Tumblr, but I’m not friggin’ Stalin, is the point of my big long thingamajig.  If you want to punish me simply for being a bad person, consider that I’m not.  That was the argument.

I received no reply and that was the end of that, I guess.  So I’ve lost forum privileges forever for getting in arguments on a site that has no affiliation with Subeta.  Sigh.

Of course, many of you hate me and are probably happy to see me punished for something that has no relation to what I’ve done to piss you off, simply for the sake of that sweet, sweet justice.  But even you must agree, in your heart of hearts, that this is unrelated and thus not justice.  If I cursed out a priest, would it be right that the power company shut off my lights because they witnessed it?  I don’t think so.

So while I don’t expect a leaflet campaign or a boycott of CSC purchasing until my Forum privileges are reinstated, I hope we can all at least agree that this is unfair, because unfairness sticks in my craw.  Banning from this Tumblr or all Tumblrs for arguments I’ve had here?  Fine.  But from Subeta?  Oooh it grinds my gears, unfairness does, even when it happens to enemies that I want to see suffer.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is twofold:

One:  To complain.  Survival is upon us, and being banned from the forums means I cannot participate.  I have a nice cache of candy hearts, luckily, but this still annoys me because they are finite and I may not be so lucky in the next event to have a store of currency from last year.  I want to complain and I am complaining.  Boooo waaah!!

Two:  A warning to the rest of you.  I used to look upon anonymous posters, who post anonymously things like “Fuck Keith and his stupid staff they suck” as, well, a bunch of pathetic cowards.  Who cares if you’re criticizing the staff, it’s not a Subeta site so just do it outright you jackwagons!  Now that I myself have suffered on Subeta for what I’ve done here, well I guess what I’m saying is… holy shit they were right.  The paranoid cowards were right!!  GOD SAVE US ALL.

…

And taking that into account, I’m a little concerned I might be outright frozen for this post.  It’s not breaking any rules, but, well… you see how little that matters.  <.<

I’m also feeling really fucking sick and anxious posting this, and losing the resolve even as I type, because while as usual I expect it to go over so that people see my side and sympathize I’m starting to imagine that all I’m going to get is a slew of “suits-you-right"s.  Oh jesus fuck what am I doing, don’t click Submit…

*Submit*

[dramaticpopoko]

I’m curious what happened that was so bad they had to escalate the ticket to Keith.  I’m not sure I’ve heard of that happening before.  Did you flip out on the first admin or something?

I agree that Keith probably shouldn’t be using offsite activity to justify punishments when that goes against official policy.  They even edited the community guidelines because the first draft mentioned offsite activity, and people weren’t happy with it.

That said, I can’t really feel sorry for you with your track record.  I’m sure you’ve said and done enough onsite to justify this punishment, and I’m honestly surprised it took this long.  Weren’t you the one that sMailed someone and encouraged them to go on a shooting spree and commit suicide-by-cop? 

[subetaspeaks]

Fontgate

It’s almost like one unnecessary font change messed the entire site up. 

Woops.

Better blame users for not using Custom CSS to fix what I fucked up!

/K

[dramaticpopoko]

If you think that's bad, just wait for the site revamp.  Keith's been talking about it more and more recently and I have a strong hunch it's coming soon.  It's no coincidence that the theme this month is about revamps.  I think that’s why fonts and other formatting issues (hello notepad widget) keep popping up with no explanation.  Why they’re working on the live site is beyond me, but it’s not like they haven’t done this before.

It’s coming, and I’m already bracing for impact because you know it’s going to be a rough transition.

[subetaspeaks]

I don’t know why Subeta insists on having events that encourage people to crash the site.  All the refreshing during the ravine, vines, fallen log, and scattered map obstacles is enough to trigger a lag spike, and now two donation drives with more to come.  They can’t not know what kind of an effect these things will have on the site.

502s and extreme lag are just not fun.  Why not design an event that doesn’t intentionally break the site?

[acidsbeats]

For example?

[dramaticpopoko]

Literally anything that doesn’t rely on refreshing and mass item movement as a game mechanic.  Look back at either of the Masquerade plots (murder mystery, time traveling), most of the Survival plots, Tempest’s reveal, or Blake’s excavation in the Sacred Lands.  They all gave us plenty to do, with none of this donation drive nonsense.

But we’ve had like 6 donation drives in the past year.  They’re not fun, they’re not interesting, and they're killing the site.

[subetaspeaks]

I’m not the person who posted the thing calling out Keith for not fixing the Wardrobe before moving on to other projects, but I agree. Idk about you guys who aren’t having issues, but I haven’t been able to remove items from the Wardrobe for over two months now, and a lot of people on the Forums have mentioned the same issues. Plus it takes forever for items to appear in your Wardrobe after you add them. So yeah, there are still problems, and it’s frustrating when Keith ignores them to work on other things like pasting stickers onto selfies. 

[dramaticpopoko]

These issues have been reported, repeatedly.  Keith stopped working on the wardrobe for a year (or more?) and basically ignored all bug reports, and his response last month was “well, we knew v3 wasn’t ready, so now I’m just going to rewrite the whole thing again”.  And then yeah, we saw some teasers, but the last update was over a month ago.  I’m probably jaded after all the broken promises over the years, but I’m not convinced he’s still actively working on this new, v4 wardrobe.  They’re down a programmer, and we’re heading into holiday season when major updates like this are always put on the backburner.

I wish I could be more optimistic about this, but I haven’t seen anything really convincing yet.

[subetaspeaks]

things I don’t come to Subeta for: Watching 3 men have a graphic discussion about sex dungeons and what they would do to their victims. All because Empty can’t seem to keep his dick in his pants. Why is it that the Admin never do anything about him?

[dramaticpopoko]

Did you report them?  If the admins don’t see it and no one reports it, they can’t do anything.

[subetaspeaks]

Is anyone else concerned about the number of staff members leaving Subeta lately? Now that Scarsdale has left that means Subeta has ONE full time programmer. Cilan and HellHound are no longer UAs, Darling is no longer an artist. Are these staff members leaving because they know something we don’t?

[dramaticpopoko]

Is he really gone?  This is the first I’ve heard about it.  I see he hasn’t posted in a while, but that doesn’t confirm anything and he’s never been super active on the forums.  On the flip side, I see he still has a red icon, but then so does alx and he’s been gone for years.

Keith has been talking about hiring a new programmer for months, but I assumed (hoped?) it was an addition to the team rather than a replacement.  And let’s not forget that Amber was supposed to be trained as a programmer (http://subeta.net/forums.php/gotopost/54525255) but I think the biggest thing they’ve let her do so far was to write up the coliseum guide.

[subetaspeaks]

@Kbobb in the news comments and others; seriously laughable you and all the others that are saying lets just get along and its one prize one for all! when you know you’d be among the bitching if this were the battle-thon that happened not long ago, or any battle event we’ve ever had. like you wouldn’t be annoyed or anything about people just letting you do dozens of battles and them only doing one, just to reap the rewards of your efforts? please. this is just a pixel site, but get off your high horse everyone saying that the people pointing out how bogus it is those that only have to do one quest, are being unfair or being ridiculous or too reactive. you would do the same thing, and have. all that time and effort put into your precious battle pets, achieving all that HP and skill levels, only to have people who “Don’t or won’t or can’t” battle swooping in to get the same exact prizes and rewards you do? if the last battle-thon had ended the way this one is, and had given everyone all those prizes you’d gotten, you’d have thrown a fit right along with all the other people who are probably bitching right now about this thing. to questers, this is finally their chance to get a top prize for doing something they do everything and it does take time and effort. for those that “Don’t won’t or can’t” do quests, this just screams unfair and hypocritical of staff to do. i don’t care about either, but don’t act like you’re above it all when you’ve been in the forums and throughout the site saying that its hard to be a battler and you should get rewards for it. good for you, you should, but so should questers, and they shouldn’t have to do all the work for others prizes, either. just as i as a non battler wouldn’t expect and wouldn’t want to be rewarded for no participation, those that don’t do any quests or only do one, shouldn’t expect anything either. live your busy lives and go about your business, but those that have or make time for both shouldn’t be bitched at for not wanting to do all the work.getting really tired of all the bickering and bitching every single event or -thon this site has.

[dramaticpopoko]

Two big differences:

1. Wars (not battle-thons... those don't exist) have always been presented as competitions, pitting players against each other to see who can do the most damage. People battle bosses for 10 hours straight to try to score high.  The two quest-a-thons we've had were explicitly non-competitive, and it doesn't take more than an hour to finish your quests for the day.  If you don't feel your effort is being appropriately rewarded, then either try to motivate your fellow players to help out, or stop trying so hard and try to relax.  You knew what you were getting going into this.

2. Battlers prepare for wars by spending hundreds of millions of sP on boosters, training, and weapons, and spending hours upon hours doing unprofitable battle quests.  Wars prizes and high-tiered loot drops are their big payout, and they don't come around very often.  If everyone got the same prize from a boss regardless of effort, battlers would be understandably pissed.  As a quester, you earn an immediate profit on pretty much every quest you do.  If you've been doing all your quests every day before this event, you're already way ahead of your peers.  Asking for more rewards on top of what you already earn sounds pretty entitled to me.

[subetaspeaks]

I love how subspeaks gets randomly silent when the staff have been behaving themselves. I would like to take this time to give a shoutout to Grishiu, who instantly brightens my spirits whenever the shoutbox lights up with their pale green. :3

[dramaticpopoko]

There are some shop bugs going on 3 weeks since they were reported, and they haven’t been addressed.  It feels like staff has moved on to another project and left shops unfinished, just like they always do.  I don’t know if I’d call that “behaving themselves”, but I guess it’s par for the course.