by ToxicShadow » 12/24/2016 7:25 AM
1. How did you find Evelon?
Back during my Wajas days (which really didn't last very long), I happened across a Fellox displayed in another user's cave (profile) and it sent me to the old freewebs site. I spent a bit of time gawking at some of the pets, thought they were neat/cute, and just wound up finding the page with the link to the forums. As someone who was already roleplaying (though usually through Neopets and offsite with people I met on Neopets), there was hardly any question when it came to joining.
2. How long ago did you join Evelon?
According to the wayback machine's copy of the olden forums, I joined 30 Apr 2007. It'll be my tenth Evelonniversary pretty soon. Ten years. I can hardly believe it, but here I am.
3. What has kept you on Evelon for however long you've been around?
Evelon is my home. My home in the online world, anyway. At first, it was just a fun place to get together to write. Prior to Evelon, I had only roleplayed in Neopets and offsite free forums created for roleplaying groups and guilds related to Neopets. So it was just a wonderful place to meet, write, and connect with other people. And, let's be honest, even a number of old-art pets are adorable. I soon developed a number of characters here that I fell in love with, and I had so much fun working out new character ideas and such.
There was a point, for about a year, that I was scarce, around 2009, I believe. Much of that came from a falling out from a close friend in real life that I introduced to Evelon and heavily plotted with. She often said that Evelon wasn't really her cup of tea, but stuck around because I liked it so much. But a lot of my characters had stories deeply involved with some of hers and, afterwards, picking up the broken pieces and trying to rework my characters just kind of killed my desire to use them. My absence might have been a good thing, though, since that was when there was a big period of drama on Evelon that was grossly unnecessary and awful.
Eventually, my mind basically went, "Forget all that crud. Do whatever you want with YOUR characters." So, my love for characters and my wanting to keep writing stories drew me back to Evelon, and kept me here. That, and the friendships and stories of made, too. Overall, in spite of some drama, we're still a warm community, and that's hard to find elsewhere. I could never quite put it down, even when I wasn't around much, still checking in often.
4. What would you like to see for the future of Evelon?
I want the farms back, too, yo.
I also like the idea of more events, because who doesn't love those? Sure, it creates more work for us, but I love them, too.
Another KS sale for custom breedable pets. It happened only once, in the far distant past, but it was super nice for users that were unable to spend cash on Evelon. Now, I know that could put a larger workload on Baal and she's still catching up with orders from before. But, for this event, the art staff could be employed. Art staff usually creates the customs earn from A Licences and bred babies, so it's not as though they aren't capable of it. It would also be very limited, such as one of each species (or just three total, regardless of species) per user.
Or even just a regular sale. Half off sales used to happen, but it has been AGES since that time. Again, it could be limited to only a few pets per user, to keep from getting too swamped.
Other than that, actually... more user activity? From both a user and mod's perspective, our community is not anywhere as active as it once was. Not even close. Yes, part of that is because the majority of us are busy adults leading our adult lives, but as a staff person, a lot of my motivation comes from seeing users really getting out there and having fun.
A little while before becoming staff, I actually made a post in the chatter section that addressed our lack of activity and, at the time, that spurred some activity (which included the revamp of the breeding system that Omni came up with during the discussion), but it has, once again, faded off. Like I said back then, if we take the time to read a message, why not take that extra few minutes to reply, too? We kind of seriously lack visible, open user interaction, and I think it is that part that makes it all the more difficult for new users to feel included. Where do they go to get to know people? Often times, the IRC is pretty empty, even if they happen to find it. But chatting on the forums, well, it's always there. People can post, and then someone can reply an hour or two later when they see it.
Heck, we don't exactly have "Open," roleplays anymore. I see them everyone once in a blue moon, but then... no one joins them? I understand that plotting is nice, but just jumping out there is fun, too?
So... More activity all around. More user activity generates more events, more events generates more activity, and on it goes in a beautiful cycle, keeping us alive.
And, okay, full disclosure. Sort of. Keep in mind, I love being on the staff team, but I think the experience can be improved.
Staff salaries? At this point, staff motivation is literally seeing the user base happy. Which, that's great. I always wanted to be on the staff team for Evelon. I'm happy to do it. But, again, less activity tends to equal less motivation. (Poor RE2 worked hard to revamp things and make hunts more accessible, and users like the wild pets, since I have seen many Lost Pets on wishlists this year, but the number of hunts hasn't really increased, so I'm sure their motivation wanes terribly.) However, I can't think of any other website/forum that I worked on (there has been a few) that didn't give some sort of semi-consistent compensation for work, even if it was strictly basic site currency. Well, okay, to be fair, we each get a Lord Baal tooth once a year, which is a neat pet customization item, but...that still boils down to one extra custom pet for a year's worth of whatever work we do.
I think that art staff should get the GT/KS used for the pets they create, or at least a chunk of it, since they're putting in the time to do it. I've always thought this, even prior to being on the team. Back in the day, when Tick-Tock was the one doing custom pets, she was the one that got the cold, hard cash (since GT hadn't even been introduced yet), and the price for custom pets was far more expensive than now, with a base price of $15. And the art staff does get to keep the KS or GT they earn from running an add on shop, so... why not when they make the customs?
In the past, there was an instance of regular users that were temporarily hired to update ownership records when they were a mess and were paid in KS for their work.
I'd be happy with something like a small KS allowance for a month or a few GT. Like, hot dang, I can go buy myself a Breeder Booster with the GT I earned from working? What a happy day! Or, as my husband has said, "It'd be cool if you guys got paid even $5 bucks here and there. Cover the cost of kitty litter after a bit or stash it into the little one's savings." Of course, cash is always a stretch, since that is only generated on Evelon through users buying customs or other cash pets/items. But, then again, every staff member has created at least one custom pet by now, including the non-art folks. I honestly find the Lucain and Soveris files the easiest files to work with and fastest customs to do, since all the markings are preset. And just selling two custom breedables a month would net $5/5 GT per staff.
There really aren't a whole lot of perks to being on the staff team, outside of getting to design our own breeding litters (which is a super brand new thing for non-art staff) and the Lord Baal Teeth, but we give up hours of our time working on Evelon instead of enjoying it as our hobby in an attempt to make it enjoyable for others. All while also being regular functioning adults, be that jobs, parenthood, housework, etc.
(EDIT: I mean, look, I just spent over an hour giving well thought out answers for 100 KS.)
5. What do you think we could do find and retain new members?
When I was actively advertising on ChickenSmoothie as a roleplay and pet adoption site, there was definitely an increase in users creating accounts. However, I don't think any have really stayed. So, it's not exactly advertising that is our problem, although advertising is super scarce. At this point, it might be worth looking into placing actual ads? Of course, that requires money.
Another factor is that random people (non-Evelon users) aren't just seeing our pretty adoptable pets, collecting them, and throwing them up somewhere for all to see. Like that random person whose Waja's cave had a Fellox that drew me in. Nor do I believe that the majority of us spend a lot of time on other sites, where advertising it makes sense. I certainly don't spend any time in any other community primarily dedicated to roleplaying.
And I absolutely agree that the sign up requiring activation from staff makes signing up for Evelon a chore more than anything. There has got to be a better way, like making the automatic message sent to new users request that they reply to the e-mail with even just a single sentence as to why they want to join Evelon or how they found it to show proof that they are, in fact, human? Then, BAM, we can activate them right away, and they feel more included in the process instead of just blindly waiting for something to happen.
I think general activity may help to retain new members. You know, if users roleplay with them and chat with them, but that requires getting out there and creating new threads and posting in threads. We just need to be more inclusive, over all.
And, let's face it, starting at 100 KS doesn't really... pay for much of anything on Evelon. So they have to work, a lot, right away to accomplish anything. There isn't any "instant gratification," like someone else mentioned in their post.
I'd seriously move to making a new user's first regular custom pet free, since designing the custom, picking out the pet species they really want, and the colors and markings, it automatically gets them involved in creating something from the start. It would likely help to pull them in and, after the pet is created, they'd likely be excited to get out there and roleplay with it.
Come to think of it, having a "welcome PM," sent to every new user would also be a step to including them. Right away, they've received some form of interaction, even if it's just a "Hey, welcome to Evelon, here are the things you may want to look at to help you get started!" And, if we give out a free newbie token, it could be delivered with the message. Just stepping out into the wilds of Evelon, blind, without direction, is hard and not every person is comfortable with a lack of direction. I'm a person that is usually comfortable with being self taught and learning on my own how I should do things (so that made me perfectly fine back when I joined Evelon, with no directions), but that's not the case for everyone.
[KS sent!]