What's up?/General discussion

I forgot about this forum for a while but never GoPets. Anyways my laptop makes a beeping noises sometimes that is similar to the mewing noise the cats made in GoPets so I thought about revisiting here... And the forum is really, really dead.

I guess everyone is busy with real life or other games. I see other lurkers once in a while but almost no new posts at all. I wanted to post but I didn't want to necro an old topic so I decided to make this one after much contemplation. I guess it's basically a free-for-all. You can post what you've been up to and such if you want. Sorta like the b/s/t when there was no trading going on. Anyways with the general discussion, replies wouldn't be too awkward or forced if this thread got necroed.

I've never understood what was wrong with "old threads"--I guess I should throw out any books I have that weren't written in the last week, they're no good! XD

People don't come here much, but I have many GoPets friends on Twitter and Facebook, so it's not like I don't see GP people. It's hard to make a stand alone forum a "destination" these days, the huge social sites have more of your friends and family. So people are drawn to those, or mostly see the people they're currently gaming with.

I'm trying to cut back on Facebook games. They're very frustrating and demanding now, not the simple games that originally appealed to people so much. Like if you miss clicking one link one day, you miss the item or have to pay cash instead to get it, there's all different kinds of requests and gifts and it goes on and on, a million things you need to do every day. I still love my virtual pets there, but doing all that stuff is a waste of time. So I've been playing World of Warcraft a little more again, you don't have to play every day and you can pick up right where you left off.

I guess there's nothing wrong with the old threads. It's just I don't have anything to contribute to them but I still wanted to post something and talking to people.

Yah, I know what you mean about the state of this forum right now. There isn't really much to talk about but it's nice to see whatever has been up to lately. I try to stay off the online social radar though so I only use FB for work/school... though I did get really addicted to Pet Society for a while. I quit for the same reason you specified though. It became more of a grind to get more coins than actual gameplay. I haven't played any online games recently. Nothing seems able to hold my attention long enough.

Hey there everyone - has been pretty quiet around here lately. My daughter just graduated from high school (I find this very hard to believe as I am, of course, still VERY YOUNG). So we have been busy with family visiting for the graduation. She was valedictorian - we're so proud of her. She'll be going to the University of Chicago in the fall to study Astrophysics. That is, if I let her go - I think I'm gonna miss her too much.

As for games, I'm playing Happy Pets the most these days I think. If you just wait around until the cash animals get a little older then you can find them in the trader and not have to cough up the cash. I still play Pet Society too, but am frustrated for the same reasons Hodge is. It's hard for those of us who are collectors to have stuff come out that is available for just a 24 hour period - only on the fan page, or by visiting the mayor, or on the forum - how many places do they expect us to check each day anyway? So, I still play but have given up on trying to get everything.

I guess that's it for me right now.

Congratulations to your daughter! And good luck with her future studies and career. It sounds very exciting.

Congratulations to your daughter! Ah, astrophysics sounds exciting. When I was younger I always wanted to be an astronomer but I was never good enough at science. Anyways, I hope she has fun at university~

Never heard of Happy Pets before, but then again the only pet games I've ever played were GoPets and Pet Society. Oh, and of course Neopets, haha.

And yes, I used to compulsively collect every newly released item on Pet Society but then with the introduction of cash items and non stop flood of new items, it became next to impossible to keep up.

Congratulations to your daughter, M2M!

I'm playing Pet Society too. It has occupied most of my online time, and recently I've been cutting back my time spending on it. But because of the Romantic Garden, since 3 weeks ago, I was indirectly forced to play more because I want to get that garden.

I've actually been thinking a lot about GoPets again recently. Yesterday I went through several Google search results pages. I found several YouTube videos, reviews, blog posts, the GoPets Facebook page and the old GoPets Wiki at Wikia. A common trend were comments from people wondering what happened to GoPets or upset that it shut down (a lot of these comments are quite recent). I guess not everyone got the message while GoPets was still up and running. :'(

I find that the emotional attachment I have is not to the game itself but more to the people that made up the game. I watched the "GoPets - The Very End" video on YouTube for like the fifth time and it was so exciting seeing all the familiar usernames. *Sigh* I don't think I have ever or will ever again find such a community on the internet again.

Another interesting thing I discovered is that these forums don't show up when you do a Google search for "GoPets". That is a pity as it would redirect a lot of the lost souls looking for GoPets here. (It does come up when doing a search for "GoPets forums" though.

I can't believe its been a year and a half since GoPets shutdown. After writing this, I think I am suddenly depressed.

Back when GoPets closed, I put a link to this forum at the bottom of the Wikipedia page for GoPets, and it stayed there for a long time. I think that's how some people wandered in here. But it's been edited out now - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoPets

I just watched the "GoPets - The Very End" and noticed that I am not in b/s/t so I guess I wasn't on when GoPets ended. I can't believe it's only been a year and a half since it shut down. It seems like ages. As for the community thing, I totally agree. It's hard to find a game with a community as close knit and friendly as GoPets'.

I still have the original game files untouched on my external hard drive. It's too precious for me to delete, LOL.

So, a about a week ago I got another urge to read GoPets stuff. However, I am pretty sure I've already looked at every one of the 597,000 results that come up when you Google "GoPets" (okay, so that might be a bit of hyperbole). I instead came up with the idea to run a search for "Erik Bethke" and see what turns up. I discovered this page: http://casualconnect.org/lectures/2010-seattle-lectures/east-meets-west-virtual-goods-social-media/.

It seems he spoke at a game conference of some sort last year. His presentation was entitled "East meets West: A Post Mortem of GoPets". I was hoping to get some insight into how the company went from having several employees and producing content regularly to virtually bankrupt in what seemed like less than a year. Unfortunately, he was very vague and mostly talked about stuff I already knew (being a GoPets user and all).

It was still interesting though and brought back a lot of memories. However, I get the feeling that if GoPets was ever started back up it would be not be the same game we knew and loved. Erik seems to think that social games like the ones Zynga produces are the way to go.

He is probably right - social games are hugely popular and I am sure they generate tons of income. But I hate Facebook games. I hate how my feed is filled up with FarmVille and MafiaWars requests and how you need to force these games down your friends' throats in order to get anywhere in the game. I fail to see how they are "social" except that they ride on the backs of social networks to gain users.

I think GoPets in its old form was a lot more social than any Facebook game currently out there. If GoPets was turned into just another flash game that runs on a social network like Facebook, gone would be the tightly-knit community and everything that made GoPets unique. All the features we had become accustom to (like the custom item maker) would likely have to be dumbed down or removed. It would be a different game that I don't think I would be interested in playing.

Of course this is all speculation. And perhaps I am the only one that feels this strongly about "social games". But I would almost rather have GoPets stay lost forever than have it reincarnated as some "social game".

Anyway, enough of my ranting. The presentation is interesting to watch or listen to. The video is not particularly great as you cannot see any of the slides on the projector but you can download an audio file and the PowerPoint and just page through the slides as he speaks - this is what I did.

I'm not going to watch it, but here is my take on games today - Facebook games have taken a huge dip, the last time I looked at the number was quite a while ago, but many of the most popular games had like half the number of players they'd had before. I think they've peaked, and the rest is down hill. The reason flash games became popular was their simplicity. It didn't take a lot of time or brain power, it was fun to play with friends and just click a few links. But now it's crazy! The industry needs a major reboot in their thought process designing these games.

It started when Facebook made some changes that impeded games (they have this snooty attitude they're too good for games, even though it's actually their bread and butter). These games are all owned by huge companies now that have a million games, so they are not heavily invested in any particular game. If one is not raking in enough cash, they'll dump it for something new, their are always some people who will try a new game even if it's bad so that's always a way to generate interest. So each game division was scrambling to make more money from the smaller number of people still playing their particular game, hence pushing the customers to spend more in both subtle and not so subtle ways. This tends to piss people off and the number of players continues to dip. When the inevitable drop in Facebook revenue came after those changes, they backpeddled, started to squawk again about being such a great gaming platform, and made new changes to attract games again. But those new changes just increased the newsfeed clogging posts and made the games more of a pain to the actual players, even though some of the changes the gaming companies might have been happy about.

The combination of all these forces has left us with games that want you to add a ridiculous number of friends or get a ridiculous number of clicks, make you log in every day or lose out on special items, among other stupid ideas, and often have an option to buy anything you missed with cash. I hear all the time that people have quit games, I never hear people raving about a new Facebook game that you just have to try. I don't think social games as they currently exist are the thing of the future, more a thing of the past. People are sick of it.

I'm not currently playing Pet Society or Happy Pets, in fact I have them blocked. If I unblock them, I'll be flooded with requests, requests I can't ignore because if I'm playing, too, I'll need people to click all kinds of links. I'd like to stop in and see my pets once and a while, but it's just not worth it. I wish it was still simple and fun, and I could look at the cute little graphics and smile. In fact I might even still be spending a dollar here or there, if a dollar could actually buy you anything in these games anymore. But it can't! They want a crazy investment of time and money for a silly flash game.

I've gone back to playing Warcraft because my husband and best friend play that almost exclusively, and because unlimited play for a set monthly fee is easy to budget. WoW certainly isn't perfect, but it's a lot less of a hassle than Facebook games!

If GoPets comes back in whatever form, I'll probably try it. But I don't know if I'll like it.

I would weep if GoPets came back as a "social game."

I forgot about this forum too! Sorry!

I was thinking about GoPets recently on my rare visit to Facebook (attempting to leave Facebook behind), and realized how much I missed the community. While I enjoyed the game, it was the community that really stood out for me.

What's everyone doing these days?

I went back to school and am now in my first year in a nursing program. During the summer, I started playing Maple Story again. This was the game I had been playing around the same time I started playing GoPets! Actually, I think it was because of Maple Story I went on my first hiatus. lol. Missed all the summer premium items due to that.

Before that I spent a lot of time on Goodreads. Since classes started, I've returned to my first love, reading, and slowly getting active in Goodreads again. I'm hoping to catalog and organize my e-books, both in Goodreads and in Calibre. I intend to keep my Maple Story account active by logging on occasionally.

If anyone plays, PM me (I should still get email notifications, I think)! I'm on El Nido.

Happy (belated?) New Year's, everyone!

School started as well and it's crazier than ever. The workload is ridiculous. :I How's nursing? I've heard rumours that nursing programs are usually a lot of work... Speaking of reading, I've been getting back into it too though I've been mostly reading non-fiction. Do you have any recommendations? I haven't played MS for years now. I remember joining when it first came overseas. I played for a week before the grind became too much.