I haven't been in chat recently, and I probably haven't for a year or so now,<br /> <br /> My thoughts reflect on what it was like before the issue hub was enacted (and I think you were around for that as well). I felt as if I was a lot closer to newer members because I'd message them personally and help them out with anything while simply chatting with them. Granted, it can still be done, but if they have questions, they HAVE to go to the issue hub. I got berated for helping someone via IM at one point. So through my own experiences as a helper, and what I've seen in chat, it was always encourages just to use the issue hub. Even for small questions I've seen people being redirected. <br /> <br /> I mean, I'm just not a fan of the issue hub in general, in any site xD For mod and/or admin issues, it works great, I'll definitely admit that. But I always felt like by having Helper issues involved with that, everyone jsut ends up seeing who can get there first. And that's what I'v seen with Pine Ridge Herding as well. People ask questions and there's an answer, and then that's it. Communication ends there.<br /> <br /> It's just my personal opinion I guess haha

"But as a newbie, I could see why it would be difficult to stay after the first day or two. I tried to get people to stay by creating a friendship with them, so that they'd want to stay and hang out. Therefore if they had issues, they could come up and ask me. But I feel like we're so strict with the "go to the issue hub for answers" that we lose that feeling of being personal with someone and instead it goes to whoever is awake or is quick enough to grab the issue.<br /> <br /> Now I'm not saying the issue hub is the problem, but honestly I feel like for "newbie helper" questions, it's more time consuming to have to constantly tell people to go to the isue hub than just answering the question right then and there. People don't like having to take the extra steps to get an answer to a simple question (that may or may not be in the help/FAQ). And if you're coming in as a new member, then you're less likely to want to stay if everytime you have a question, you have to read through a super long help/FAQ or go to an issue hub just to be told where in the FAQ it is. "<br /> <br /> -----------------------------------------<br /> <br /> I'm going to answer this as a newbie helper independent of the rest of the group as I can't speak for everyone here. <br /> <br /> I haven't really seen you around in chat Al, but usually with small questions we do answer them in chat and then add that the hub is there as a resource, but we do answer the question. The thing is, we want people to get used to using the hub because it's necessary when there is a, well, issue! Got a bug to report? Got a player to report? Hub! We want people to get used to using it and feeling comfortable with it. <br /> <br /> Now as for when we don't answer and direct to the hub, that usually happens when someone is asking a lot of questions or asked something more complex. If there's a lot of questions, its easier to help them one on one in a place where they can go back and reread previous answers. That's what's great about it, the answers are saved! I've gone back myself to reread answers and questions myself. That way, chat can also continue on to regular conversation.<br /> <br /> For complexity, well enough said. That is way easier to do in the hub. Back when tags needed html, I'd work with players in the hub and let them test in there with me so I can help them tweak it until it worked =). Those were always the best issues. But yes, if a complex question were attempted to be answered in chat, no doubt others would join in and the person asking would get confused. <br /> <br /> Two more reasons the hub is preferred:<br /> <br /> 1. Answers don't get missed in the hub. They are missed in chat quite a bit. I'll answer someone and they would have stepped away from their computer and missed it. Again, as I stated earlier, you can go back and reread answers in case you forget the answers. <br /> <br /> 2. It shows we as newbie helpers are doing our job and it gives a record of what was said. Any of our admins can come look at any issue if a newbie helper was behaving wrong while they were answering the question/s. <br /> <br /> The hub is not here as a 'punishment' to users, its FOR users. I don't know why it's being seen as such a negative thing. I know personally I try to be very courteous, respectful, and helpful to every issue I work on. I love helping others out and I will re-word and try different approaches to answering something if someone is having a tough time understanding. I love our players =) and part of the reason I wanted to join as a helper is I enjoy the moment where someone just begins to understand something ^^<br /> <br /> So yes, I really hope those who are reading this don't see the issue hub as a bad thing. It's a good thing! And you should totally use it to your advantage =) We are here for you!

Wow, I can;t believe I didn't see the response, my apologies!<br /> <br /> As for change, I do agree. The game had been set a certain way for an extended period of time, and suddenly it was bein turned over very quickly. I felt like eveytime I logged in, there was something different. Trials got taken down, and suddenly we're sitting on piles of cash with nothing to spend it on because the monthly shop isn't open. I already bought all that I want from the main shops, and the artists here aren't enough for me to dish half a mil to. So what do we do with it? We just let it sit in our banks and accrue interest. To be honest, with these changes to help the economy, I feel like it's made it worse. People aren't going to want to buy bones at mass quantities if it costs so much for a single one.<br /> <br /> The economy was in a bad state, I understand that. But whatever is going on isn't going to help much.<br /> <br /> Like wow, we have great danes and all, but that doesn't seem to be boosting the activity on alacrity much. The forums are still dead. I still haven't seen the users online hit 100 in a long while. Because what's the point of spending all this money on danes and breeding them to create the highest TP ones if you can't do anything with them. Or even worst, there's a possiblity you'll lost the ability to use it when the time comes.<br /> <br /> As for what you mentioned with alacrity being difficult, I completely understand. It is difficult, I worked as a newbie helper for about a year or so and it was a lot of working considering the site hadn't even hit 10,000 users at the time. Granted, the site is inactive at the moment, but when the site is thriving and active, staff needs to increase a lot. If I site with 1000 users can have 10 or so mods, I don't see why a site 30x the size of that should be as understaffed. Flight Rising is a good example of that. There are so many issues that go on within the game that people's issues and bugs often go months without notice because they can;t handle it. <br /> <br /> But as a newbie, I could see why it would be difficult to stay after the first day or two. I tried to get people to stay by creating a friendship with them, so that they'd want to stay and hang out. Therefore if they had issues, they could come up and ask me. But I feel like we're so strict with the "go to the issue hub for answers" that we lose that feeling of being personal with someone and instead it goes to whoever is awake or is quick enough to grab the issue.<br /> <br /> Now I'm not saying the issue hub is the problem, but honestly I feel like for "newbie helper" questions, it's more time consuming to have to constantly tell people to go to the isue hub than just answering the question right then and there. People don't like having to take the extra steps to get an answer to a simple question (that may or may not be in the help/FAQ). And if you're coming in as a new member, then you're less likely to want to stay if everytime you have a question, you have to read through a super long help/FAQ or go to an issue hub just to be told where in the FAQ it is. <br /> <br /> It's just the little things that don't help, and honestly I plan on using this to my own advantage when I develop my own game. One's failures can be someone else's successes and I plan to learn from this. Because I'm sure if things manage to fix themselves ala will be thriving again, but unless thy find a way to fix it for the longterm, it's just going to crash and burn again :p

Here is the thing about sim games: They are created and built on a concept, usually. Alacrity was based on the concept: train, breed, and trial your dogs while experiencing real-life scenarios. Alacrity can’t and shouldn’t change that concept, because it’s what the site is about. But what happens with everything in life? People get bored. People lose interest. They outgrow old interests, one of which might just be Alacrity.<br /> <br /> That’s a reason for a decline in its popularity.<br /> <br /> A second are unfavorable changes.<br /> <br /> When I joined: affordable monthly shop, trials, beauty shows that gave you more than a hundred bucks if you won, an opportunity to “get-ahead” and improve, and games around the holidays that spiked the economy and stimulated trade.<br /> <br /> Now: a monthly shop with items I have no use for and wouldn’t dare waste a dime on, trials that have been down for months, beauty shows which aren’t worth the time, a new fear that I oughtn’t to use my Prairie dog lest I have wasted months training a new trialing dog, and holiday games that spit out $53 bucks, or nothing whatsoever.<br /> <br /> That’s another set of reasons: people don’t like change, especially change that affects their wallets, and limits their basis of activities. <br /> <br /> Now, I do have experience with sims. I played one for three years, actually, and only left it last April. That game was incredibly popular and successful... hmm. But can you guess why it suddenly wasn’t? Changes. They enacted new rules, tried to control “commerce,” and took away the features of the game that people joined to do. Now I’m not saying that Alacrity has made changes to dictate how money goes around, or put forth awful rules—but what I am saying is that the changes I’ve seen recently haven’t been beneficial. It takes away the game’s draw quite easily when there is either nothing left to do, or nothing of what you used to do left.<br /> <br /> PLUS, the game isn’t exactly new-user friendly. In fact, it’s downright confusing. Try a tutorial? The videos and read-a-webpage aren’t doing it. You need to get people to understand, or otherwise they just quit. Why waste time? I’ve had several of my friends join, and then automatically quit because they couldn’t get a handle of the game.<br /> <br />

I doubt it. I'm sure they are aware of the userbase slowly dwindling, but there's not really much to comment on from a staff position that hasn't been said here already.

I still hope some from the staff decide to post here. <br /> <br /> I am considering to somehow get a virtual buyers system going outside an official set up. Like using the dogs so bought as equipment dogs or something, so they would only be retired when they are old and sick - but it would probably require way more dog slots than I have available and cost quite some cash. <br /> <br />

Agreed, agreed!

I really do hope that the staff does not believe we are out to get them in this thread, I've got nothing against Alacrity and I wish it no ill will. <br /> I think that threads like this (this one is going good! Nice and neat and not hostile) is beneficial to help a site grow.

Sorry Shroom, took your statement apart as the ideas came to mind lol<br /> <br /> <i>I completely agree about the blocking/no sell list issue. I appear to be on some people's no sell list and have no clue why, except for one case (because I used to retire low TP cheap dogs a lot). It would be cool to have a notice when you are put on any such list, with a reason given. </i><br /> <br /> I was annoyed with this because I was put on people's blocked list because I was a corgi breeder and therefore people didn't want me buying from them. Which sounds smart and all, but to be put on someone's <b>BLOCKED</b> list because you do something similar to them was rather harsh. I used my list for people who bought and retired dogs without giving it a second though. But I always took it personal when someone had to block me so that I couldn't buy their dogs.<br /> <br /> <br /> <i>Even if you pump cash into Ala - as I used to do a lot - you aren't necessarily counting for much. At least it doesn't really feel like it - best example was when I was offline just after Halloween in 2012 and couldn't exchange all the points I had collected, and then be brushed off rather rudely when I asked to still get the items. All other sites, major space sim included - were willing to help me out, except Ala where I put the most cash in. That's not thinking ahead - if I could have managed to sell my accounts for at least a little of what I put in, I would have left. And not looked back. </i><br /> <br /> I was hoping to sell my account about a year ago, or so I don't even remember, and I couldn't because the one thing stopping me was my days played. I always logged onto ala because I felt a small victory everytime I reached some hurdle in my "days played." Now, at the time I had been aware that there were a small number of users who had bought new accounts and managed to transfer their days played over to the new account. So I was all excited about it, until I either messaged Robyn or asked in the issue hub or in chat if we were allowed to do it, and I got a number of "no's" in response. And yet, here were some users who had the ability to do so (of course I found out it was a matter of who knew who, and unfortunately I didn't know the right people I guess).<br /> <br /> <i>Things like the above give the appearance that members don't count, which is sad</i><br /> <br /> Which is why they like to have the different polls and ask for opinions in the forums and such, but I feel like it's not enough. I mean look, the one poll that was up about releasing daes I feel was up for like a few days. That's not enough time to get the whole opinion of the site, if you ask me. I don't get why that one poll was up for so short when others are up for weeks. (I'm just annoyed because I voted to wait til items were done :p )<br /> <br /> <i>Like has been said before, i also feel like i have to constantly watch what i say or else my accounts might be frozen.</i><br /> <br /> As was said by DaDwarf, I feel more vulnerable every time I post here for some reason. I think it's because we don't have any interaction from a staff member (mod or admin) in this thread, so it just feels like a bunch of people planning to overthrow the alacrity government lol

Even if you pump cash into Ala - as I used to do a lot - you aren't necessarily counting for much. At least it doesn't really feel like it - best example was when I was offline just after Halloween in 2012 and couldn't exchange all the points I had collected, and then be brushed off rather rudely when I asked to still get the items. All other sites, major space sim included - were willing to help me out, except Ala where I put the most cash in. That's not thinking ahead - if I could have managed to sell my accounts for at least a little of what I put in, I would have left. And not looked back. <br /> <br /> It's fine that I didn't, but knowing that this could happen again any time with how little time we are given to exchange stuff is kind of freaking me out a little - I'm most of all an item collector and losing out on items is a major turn off. <br /> <br /> Things like the above give the appearance that members don't count, which is sad. And yeah, the majority of my available-for-games cash goes into another site now. I'll still donate, most likely, just not nearly as much. <br /> <br /> I completely agree about the blocking/no sell list issue. I appear to be on some people's no sell list and have no clue why, except for one case (because I used to retire low TP cheap dogs a lot). It would be cool to have a notice when you are put on any such list, with a reason given. But that would probably a lot of code work so it's not a major factor for me. I just find it rude in general. And annoying because for some strange reason, it is not only that you can't BUY a dog for sale, you can't even LOOK at it if you are on a no sell list. Which I find incredibly silly. <br /> <br /> I wouldn't know if anyone has blocked me, I know I have blocked people before but then it was usually after bad encounters, mainly to avoid trouble. <br /> <br /> I do have fun on Ala, but in a different way now than before. I don't care as much about it, and am trying to work on slimming down my account's dogs/items etc so I won't need to spend as much time on here. But I am so bad in letting go of dogs hehe. <br /> <br /> <br />