1. Have two main festivals and two mini ones.

This would take off the stress of having four large festivals per year, plus all the site updating that's been going on, so you guys could focus on getting the site out of beta and maybe just take a breather every now and then. :P

The large and small festivals can be every other fest, and will switch every year. So one year the main festivals would be Spring and Fall, and the next year it'd be Winter and Summer. The main festival would be what we're accustomed to for festivals, and the mini being much more down-played. A little explore zone with past years themed so that we can get new traits on old themed, maybe a forum game or two, and that's it. Maybe have a little something special so that people still buy diamonds, but nothing fancy or difficult.


2. Cut down on exclusive and themed pets

Having a new theme for every single pet, four times a year, has to be expensive for the site and time-consuming, picking a theme and then a design based on all the suggestions the site members give. So rather than have every single species every time, only do a couple species each fest, based on the season. So for this coming winter the prime species would be morks, griffi, vulnyx, draeyl, and qits. Done this way, each festival would only need five new themed, with one festival having six. Or if you only use old themes for the mini festivals, ten species for one main festival and eleven for the other.

Games During Festivals:

I also suggest adding a staff member to the team - a person who will take over dealing with the forum games and all those stressful things so you two can focus more. In addition, perhaps someone to deal with disciplinary issues? Someone trustworthy, who has a level head and is active (aka Hundenelsker).

Other - exclusive/ themed:

I know you currently have it set that zone themed are change every three years, so two fests per themed. As was said before, perhaps we should cut down on these new themes for every single pet. Perhaps keep things to like the wheel - fabled pets are exclusive. In addition, have things like the Trick or Treat; one exclusive there.

Fall Fest was by far my favorite fest - I'd love for this one to stay that way. HOWEVER, I worry that you guys are stressing too much to give the adequate attention to the fests. I rather prefer the idea of having a new zone, some new fabled themes, a trick or treat theme, and maybe a fun little game for items. It'd be plenty to do without flooding the game.

It'd be nice if exclusives were something you reaaallly had to work for for a change. Not just "I turned in x amount of [item]". And folks would walk away from fests with maybe 1 or 2 exclusives, not handfuls. Make it feel like an achievement rather than just "better get busy so I can get all these"


There's over 1,000 exclusives up for sale right now, meaning that they are not wanted as much as gold. It'd be nice to see pets rare enough that folks dont want to just toss them up for sale

I almost feel like I have to point out the obvious on this thread.. things like monthly items, and festivals, make the sites income. The site has to have an income, or it will go away. The reason that festivals make money in the first place? Largely themes.

Less themes would probably have a negative impact on the income made from a festival. Less festivals would absolutely have a negative impact on the income. Less monthly items would as well. If we want more content in the future, the site still needs to make money in the meantime, or there will never be any new content.

I could agree that perhaps a lesser fest like Festival of Love could be skipable this coming year to make more space and time for the Megazone, but some of these suggestions make very little sense for the wellbeing of the site.

(Zelly posted before me so this is going to sound a lot like what Zelly said only more rambling since it's me and I can't keep anything short.)

I personally prefer there being four full fests. And larger zones not smaller. I don't mind if the old maps are reused like they've been with the fall/winter so long as they're not tiny. The only thing I've heard people not liking about the larger maps are the water sprites. But I think the larger maps make it where people feel like there's more to do. It's harder to feel bored which is a common complaint regarding the week of love/luck fest zones. And going out collecting themes and fighting bosses all give people something to do. It's when much more of the site is active and I'm thinking it's probably very good for site income.

I think that so long as themes are maybe switched back to every couple years or at least gone back to occasionally that we shouldn't have to worry about running out of themes. Still, at least one new theme of some type a year helps generate excitement. Judging might be a bit time consuming but I don't see how it would cost the site money plus with the excitement generated that probably helps with the income generated from the fests. I also worry that only having a few species each fest done would make those who like particular species feel disappointed with a fest.

Regarding the monthly wardrobe items, so long as the site is getting a positive gain on income then I think they should keep doing it. If need be it could be slowed down.

I know people would be interested in more content. I think once the site has the new version things will probably go much faster. But there's still things that need to be done in the meantime to keep up interest.

Not sure if I can put this well. Regarding exclusives, there's people in a variety of situations. There's those who can spend lots of real money and get baskets and such. (These people are of course awesome for the site.) There's those who have lots of time on their hands but can't spend much (like me). Then there's those who don't have that much time and can't use real money or can only use money sometimes. I think that a regular player who has an average amount of regular time should be able to create some exclusives without having to resort to spending real money on the site and that these players need to be considered.

Regarding mods, I do think that mods (at least ones that are volunteer) could be useful to the site at least during fests.

I'd like to add my two cents that honestly we seemed to see a lot of complaints that the last fest was too small - recycled map, no maze, etc. making it smaller still to make it a "mini fest" I'm not sure would be enough to keep the users who only log in for festivals logging in.

On that note yes, it would be nice if we had more foundation stuff coming out. My issue with this point though is that we already know that Krin is tackling some of these things. The Megazone is coming, that's not just filler, we know that the site coming out of beta is in the works and we know that in order to reduce the number of different themes coming in that the plan is to have themes run for two years.

I don't think changing the festival set up (especially considering they bring the income required to actually keep the site going) this close to bringing in the MegaZone and the rest of the site is a good idea.

Sorry, some of this will be repeating what others have already said...

I think four strong festivals (but maybe without the mini fests for the time being) is a smart move for them as far as their income stream is concerned. I don't know about the monthly avatar items, if those on the whole make more money than they cost to create, then keep them. If not, I think the number of people who get excited by them is relatively small, and it's easy to miss that. All of this is a number game behind the scenes to make sure they can pay rent and keep the site going... we are only seeing part of the picture so it's difficult to say what works best for the site as a whole.

I will say though, that I think using smaller maps for a "full" festival the last two fests has proven to be a mistake. I also don't mind the map being recycled, in some ways i kind of would prefer that each season had not only its own map used every year, but also its own boss (like Tyrriell in winter, for example, or the Horseman in Fall). This could cut down some of the costs by being able to recycle their gear and such, but you cold easily re-dress them with one or two new items each year, so instead of doing a full compliment of new gear you could do one or two for the main boss. There would still be the excitement of fighting her for her new gear, it would just be harder to come by that one piece you are missing.

I have a different take on the themes than most too I guess, but I think I will start a new thread about that. In a nutshell, I would actually like to see themes recycled every couple of years, not just twice, but every couple of years go back to an old theme. This allows the new genes not available when they first came out to be included in those old themes, making "redos" of the projects associated with those themes more tempting. I'm not saying I want to see them every year, or maybe not even every other year, but I think limiting each theme to a two year run is in the long run going to make the whole list of themes unwieldy, and also make old themes seem stale compared to newer ones.

The special "wheel" pets are another story. I like that the trend seems to be toward something we can build ourselves personally, what I don't like is that it seems that now, to be able to get the legendary ones, you now seem to have to buy lots of something random (this last fest it was the baskets), in the HOPES that you MIGHT get something to drop you want. This leaves scads of "common" ingredients lying around as the people that can afford it buy tons of those baskets and get little in return for them. All this is basically gambling with your money, which I have a personal problem with to begin with, and at the same time creates a kind of Haves and Have-nots within the game that I personally find rather off putting. The wheel was just as bad in a different way...

I don't know what the answer to this is, I know Krin and Fai have to be able to find something we want badly enough to buy a bunch of with real money, whether in the fest or whenever, I just am getting sick of the Legendary pets only being available through some pretty random and expensive methods. I personally think the Exclusive Legendary pets are getting a little TOO exclusive in all the wrong ways, myself. I would rather things were a little more achievable, and not so expensive. As a new player coming in I would look at an 8mil starting price on some of the exclusive fish (that's just the ingredient, not the actual egg or pet) and I'd pretty much assume I was never going to get to that level.

Creating a revenue stream in an online game is difficult at best. I don't think making the festivals smaller is the answer. Simpler, maybe, but the content still needs to be engaging and varied enough to attract a wide range of interests.