I've been thinking, and...
 

Please don't bite my head off.

I've always wanted a buy now/auction house here. And maybe a Bejeweled game with trisphee critter heads. Just throwing ideas out there. I love to play the market and it would make buying and selling much easier. The game would be something for people to do to win misc items and stick around, even though other sites have the game. But do they have our adorable critters to use in their games? NOPE! ;)

So what do you guys think?

My heart is sagging at how inactive most people have become. There's not much here to keep interest in the site. Maybe an avatar of the week winner with a prize being one of the current monthlies. A weekly raffle to win a current rune item. A monthly user-designed item contest? Just anything right now to keep the community active and engaged you know?

Also, referral contest please...

Also keep in mind that as the weather warms up avatar sites slow down, particularly smaller ones like ours it becomes noticeable. Fun features like games keep people here, new and old. So it would be nice for the staff to implement a game or two before they start advertising and at the beginning of summer break would be a great time to get the attention of Americans (not sure how things go outside the states).

Elsewise though I have nothing to add. Games like that never worked for me much. I like stories not collecting high scores and stuff like that.

I've been suggesting a monthly referral contest for a while now... The few problems with it is that it's easy to fake a referral, and that by even having a (must complete so many posts) we might have another instance of a user randomly chatting to themselves to not only fake out the contest but make easy Aurum as well. If we would use this idea we would have to think of an idea around this.

The only thing I see working is a Avatar contest system, but it would have to built on a better idea and functionality than Gaia online's system because if you ever been on Gaia you would know the 1 - 5 star rating system is too broken, and people who advertise their entry the most usually wins.

Now a auctioning system.. Here's my idea for it, make a weekly auction (or less; it would need trial and error) for new exclusive DI quality items. People can buy tickets for 1k each, or 1 per 1 rune (with bigger bundles that sell more tickets for smaller and smaller price reductions the bigger the ticket bundles you buy.) Now what this will do is to create rarity in items. Because lets face it, if you want a item on this site as long as there is enough people on and you have runes or a fair amount of Aurum you can easily get it. Having rarer items would help stimulate the economy because people will be selling items and start questing to get the rarer items. Making more users active because of their questing, and simply posting more in general for money for tickets.
And I say practice the length of the auction for 7 days or slightly less. We need questing on Trisphee, and because the Auction would run every week or so there will always be a chance to gamble for one of those rare items you've been drooling over.

And for games, we need games that can be used universal and can bring people to the site. I really liked the decision making choice game we had back during that Desert event, it was really original and fun. (Although people easily saw through some of the steps in a long run.) I rather see Trisphee invest time in making a editable quest/decision making game like you where users could edit and make their own story to send to friends on the site (or to link their game on facebook for their friends to come in and play without making an account. But they simply can't play any other story based games unless they make an account, they can only play the ones that you the friend post to facebook.) Also by completing the quest, that user can offer up rewards from their own inventory or money with a certain amount of funds you can edit and place into the game. Also if your friend finishes the story and there is a reward, have it say "Make an account and claim your reward for a jump start on trisphee" or something along those lines.
(And who's to say that staff can't run their events with this free user system as well? Using our main trisphee story and using this system would make reading and experiencing the story more fun as you could have a multiple choice system as you explore trisphee's story in your perspective.)

Also! It would be nice for a animal game, and re-use the items themselves and make a click-able pet game of them. With the bonus that you can wear any of the animals poses as they grow up or "evolve". So sort of like evolving items, but with more focus on simply making the creature themselves. You can make signatures where other users have to touch or love their animals, and people without Trisphee accounts can click and give their animals more love as well.

And finally, a monthly design contest? Eeeh.. Yes and no, we have a hard enough time to get people to participate in those during events. Because normally the person with the best drawing/pixeling skills tends to win, even though I've seen some people with crappy art skills but awesome designs brushed to the side. I've seen sites do contests like "Make you best art piece using only the spray can on MS paint" which limits the contest in it's own right. That and we needs contests like these FOR our events because that's what really keeps events standing out. To have events AND a monthly contest would overflow the site with too many contests, while it's nice to have SOMETHING in between big events. We would have to think of something that everyone could participate in, and to hide other people's entries so other people won't be intimidated to enter.

That's just a couple of ideas I thought of on the spot, but remember our 2 problems right now are member retention, and members joining. So think of ideas that would not only have people join, but to stay after doing so. Kill two birds with one stone.

Ooops double post.

Well, uh, that's easy to catch. Just potentially time-consuming.

What kind of avatar contest system are we talking about?

That's...an interesting idea. I can't speak for the coders in terms of how feasible it'd be.

That is very much not true. (Coming from an unbiased I-don't-pick-contest-winners-but-I-know-how-they're-picked POV)

Broke your message up into questions if that's ok.

1. It is easy to catch, but I'm just pointing out that it is time consuming and the fact that things have happened in the past where it can go uncaught rather easily as well. So unless there was some sort of extra surveillance or precautions in place I can see where a referral system would go sour.

2. I believe Ginger was referring to a more traditional avatar rating system (avatar arena) and I'm saying that if we would have something to what Gaia has we would need to think of a better foundation for the voting process. Like either up-voting a avatar or down-voting, users can't see their current rank or place in the arena. But that's just one idea, there are many ways around this idea. But that's if we would take the users vote tactic. But even traditional submit an avatar and let admins/moderators choose their favorite could work as well, but that goes back to the same old overflowing the site with too many contests topic I mentioned before. The main difference between the two is user voting, and a traditional blue ribbon contest system. That's why I suggest to keep two different versions of said contest. But when we go to user voting contests my biggest concern is how many people coming to the site now to vote.

3. It was more from my standpoint of things; and it's hard to judge. Trisphee does a good job of having multiple tiers of winners 'Staffs pick' 'Users pick' and 'certain persons pick', things in that nature. So this is more of a standpoint of things no one is really right or wrong to this question as it's perspective. :/

-squeaks out from the bottom- o-o
Uh. Random two cents. I was thinking about maybe a daily thing where if you post at least 10 times per day (game forum not counting) you got a bit of bonus aurum or a random prize from a pool, or whatever.
Might say that could promote spamming to just get the prize, but then again, I can't think of any posting events or whatevers that don't promote spamming. And some kind of posting event might help. I don't know. x:

It's normal for the summer to be kinda slow on avatar sites. We've seen the same pattern every year since we launched, and sure as can be activity starts picking back up in the fall. (And we get the same worried comments of "Trisphee's slowing down, what do we do?" every year too.)

We have games in the pipeline. I know we keep saying that, and I know it seems like it's taking forever, but we actually ARE making progress. In the interests of stirring up some wild speculation: The idea I HAVEN'T told the rest of the staff about actually incorporates EVERY game idea mentioned in this thread so far... and the idea that I HAVE told the staff about (that has seen progress on both writing and art fronts) would probably satisfy Kenai.

We've talked about having an auction house / marketplace before. We're not going to have any sort of automated system. If you're wanting to see more user engagement, more automated systems is exactly the opposite effect. What we DO have plans for is a way to track the offers that are currently available in the marketplace forum, so that it's easier to locate other users who have the items you want (and avoid locating offers that are no longer available).

Summer (IMO) should be the opposite though; and that fact alone tells you that Trisphee needs to slightly break out of our demographic. (Or any new members to begin with.) A lot of members are out of college and working this summer, while others have always been working. So I understand that from that prospective, but normally summer is the busiest time for all websites because of people getting out of school (from my perspective.) So the fact that Trisphee the opposite is rather.. Bad.

You made me slightly interested, and worried at the same time. I'm all in for games, but if it doesn't have anything special to bring people outside of the site to Trisphee or people to simply stay to keep playing it, it would simply be pointless and doesn't add anything much to the cause. If you look at most IOS games they do have high playability at first but then skyrocket downward. There are other cases though, but most of them are because of how iconic they are or because they play the test of time extremely well. So I hope Coda that your awesome idea is something similar to what I think we need, and I extremely hope that everyone else listens.

And it's true automated systems do turn off user engagement, being able to have both or the fusion of the two is the way to go. And the plan to track offers is a VERY. GOOD. IDEA. No really that's brilliant! Very ingenius, whoever came up with that deserves a slap on the back.

Oww ;_: That hurts...

I like illusion's clickable evolving pet idea a lot, actually. I would definitely add them to my signatures on other sites. No other avatar site has done it like before I don't think. Plus, it'll attract more users to the site. I like to hear that more games are being worked on.

Summer should be active, not inactive. Every Gaian knows this for a truth.

What I want to know is why is it that the suggestions that many good people have given to this site, including the one's Ginger offered up, which cost the site NOTHING, like an avi contest, why is it that NONE of these suggestions are acted upon?

Hmmmm?

*Points at my post*

If you want a avatar contest, then make one yourself. Problem solved.
You want a monthly site run contest? Would you enter the 3rd, or 4th, or 5th, 6th, 7th consecutive contest in a row? That's my reasoning; if you overrun the site with the same thing over and over again it gets less exciting and more boring with each re-entry. Especially when the prizes aren't exciting; I remember there was talk to have avatar's on the homepage (and I believe Ginger once suggested before to have avatar contest winners feature on the site's homepage.) That would make an exciting monthly contest in my opinion if that was the reward, but you have to admit that a 12 month executive avatar contest will feel exhausting after a while. It's a good idea, we just need to work around it a little more to make the month after that more exciting for so and so reason.
But overall we do need SOMETHING. A monthly contest of any kind would be great; as long it's not the same thing over and over again.

I really do not understand why you should be telling me to run an avatar contest myself. I was not even talking to you. I have nothing to say about your posts. I am making my own post, to the owners of the site.

Except you're making said post in a community discussion thread. The fact of the matter is, everything Illusion said is right. (Shock! Horror!) It didn't have to come from a staff member just to be blessed as Word of God for it to be right.

The site staff can't do EVERYTHING. We can, at best, give the community a set of tools. It's up to the community itself to be active. The real secret sauce to a successful avatar site is for the community to be self-sustaining. We can give you everything in the world to talk about and play with, but YOU have to talk about it if there's going to be activity on the site.

That's not to say that we're not going to do ANYTHING. We've got plans and we're working on things.

I think this need to go up in a frame somewhere. xD Everyone needs to read this at least once.

Also, I'd be all for monthly contests or what have you.
And I'd like to say I'm not too bad at coming up for different ideas for such. I just lack the funds to give out prizes worth getting. xD (considering how little I've been here)
So I guess if anyone wants to go up and try out a monthly thing, I don't mind offering help, assistance, and ideas. I'm willing to try.

Like I said, rest assured that we are in fact working on plans. These comments and ideas and suggestions and concerns haven't gone unnoticed, and we're going to do our best to bring some stuff out in the short term as well as in the long term.

Oh gawd. A avatar contest EVERY WEEK...? All staff judged? Nothing will ever get done on this site then. Like I said, if you want a contest like that make one yourself, and pay for your own runes to give out as well.

A raffle.. MAYBE. It would HAVE to be self automated though, or at least run by someone who... Actually this gives me a great idea?

Why doesn't the site have any community managers? You know; those snazzy people who runs all the contests, games, talk shows, videos, and stuff? Most of the staff are doing coding, pixeling, moderating, or snazzy jazzy stuff like that. So why can't we have people who are specifically in charge on contests and upcoming news/announcements?
(Granted a lot of these jobs fall into the hands of most staff members, and moderators. So it would be something that you guys would have to decide to yourselves on what are Trisphee's jobs and what roles does those jobs follow.)

Weekly IS a bit excessive, although if it were to be implemented I would say it would be more likely to end up with "one admin picks a favorite" than "the staff gets nothing done." We usually give ourselves a whole week to vote on contests in order to accommodate staff schedules.

Automated raffle... I don't really like the idea. Well, that's not true, it's a GOOD idea, but I don't think it would work for Trisphee. To me it feels too much like a gamble that would get dominated by a couple of wealthy buyers. The first raffle we did was a success just because we gave away SO MUCH STUFF, put a limit on how many times someone can win, and manually made sure to prevent mules from participating. Automating this on a regular basis would end up flooding the market with items and would be at risk for abuse.

We DO have a community manager. That job is, technically, Sei's. And he is in fact working on an event as a response to this thread.

Coda I don't see why you can't feature a weekly or fortnightly avatar on the front page. It's fun and it is a totally simple way to make your member-base feel great!

We change our avatars all the time so you would have a neverending supply. Also, you don't need a big staff decision to do it. Delegate it! Delegate it to the members. Let the members point out good avatars in a thread and let them do the work for you.

A week is too short. Full stop. We don't have the activity level to maintain that. And even if we did, it either turns into announcement overload (winners announced every week!) or into just one more changing picture that might as well be completely random.

Monthly is plausible but it won't last. People will be excited for the first one, sort of trickle into the second one, and the third one will be basically ignored. It's just not compelling enough, especially if there's no prizes and if there's not a fair panel of judges to give everyone a fair chance -- peer judging is NOT fair, it turns it into a popularity contest instead of an avatar contest.

I'm not saying we're not going to do avatar contests. What I AM saying is that we're not going to put them on a regular repeating schedule because that wouldn't help.

My opinion: If you want an avatar contest with cool prizes, make one. I have supplemented prizes before for contests and held a few myself. The turn out is lack luster and I get upset at handing out good items because only 4 people joined and I had a first second and third place prize. Some of these contests were held over a 2 week basis, some over a month long basis. None of them had spectacular turn out, and if they were under a weekly crunch it would be crazy. Make an Avatar, judge, and deal with handing out prize trades. Let alone having staff do it. They are doing things behind the scenes, and just because you don't see it doesn't mean they don't do it. Artists are sometimes months ahead on making DI's and RIGs, let alone event stuff. Writers have there own work also.

Also, yes the avatar of the _______ on the front page would be cool, but what if someone won for 4 whatevers straight? Wouldn't the other ones feel discouraged? Seriously, I know after losing a couple of contests that I worked really hard on because my avi style wasn't theirs I went into a funk. Also how often do you see the front page? I don't unless I log out. My saved link is straight to the Forums, and I wouldn't want my saved avi on the font page, where I wouldn't see it.

Tiva knows what's up.

So I pitched this question to the admins, but I realize it's actually fair game to ask here in public:

How do we add value to the idea of an avatar contest? What would make it compelling, yet fair? What would prevent people from losing interest?

These are the questions that need answered. I'm keenly interested in hearing suggestions that will add depth to the concept.

I can see why an avatar contest would not be fair. Especially on Trisphee because you have no avatar creator system. So I can see where the value of that type of contest would be low, compared to other competitive Events. That being said, you can do them more fairly by restriction, for example, restricting a person to using commons only or say restricting to 5 items total, or a total cost. Those are a few ways to equalize things across the board and there are other ways too.

To add more value to the contest it would have to probably be item-based. Win an item type of thing.

But it seems to me that if you want to attract interest and give out some items you would be better off doing something alternative rather than an avatar contest.

After reading the posts and thinking about the comments, I think you all are right about avatar contests on Trisphee.

Hmm, yes, a challenge scenario is a good idea. I'll definitely put that on the list of ideas.

Ok great, here is the idea, it is a grid-based challenge game with prizes at certain grid coordinate points. To get a spot - a chance at the treasure you would have to do one of any number of various challenges. For example (and these are examples only):

1.) Post in this thread twice for 1 spot
2.) Post 5 times for 2 spots
3.) Post a haiku on the them of "A storm" without using the word "storm" for 3 spots.
4.) Wear pink for 24 hours for 1 spot
5.) Post 2 times anywhere for 1 spot
6.) All classical sonnets entered win a common AND a spot
7.) Make an avatar for Uma and win various spots depending XD
8.) Play the Crane Game for 1 spot
9.) Post in Uma's Avatar thread for 1 spot [[[Advertise YOUR thread here and we'll GIVE you 2 spots]]]
10.) Buy an item in the Marketplace for 5 spots

It is an easy game to host, people can be on the honor system if posts are used as spot criteria. Someone just has to update the thread. It is fun because the prizes can differ. You could limit how many spots a person gets in any given game set.

Thank you for your consideration.

Ehhhh... zantarni did it but it fell flat
in theory its awesome and fun
But unless you have a full team commited to working on it
it will just be really lame

If you want it to be successful i would suggest looking at how unifaction deals with having clickable pets. They have separate sites for it and then they bring pets from there to the avatar site to be in avatars
Of course they have donation pets which brings in extra cashflow. (I mean look at that art uguuu)
They even make legendary pets that are only in the donation shop once and never return whichever makes people *need* to buy many. But they dont over do it. They do like one a year.

I mean seriously look at that art.

Also here's an example of how they use the pets from their pet site on avatars… also separate donation items for the avatar site (pretty great idea)


What im saying basically is. Don't be zantarni. Dont bring in clickable pets just to have them. Its really only fun for the first month and then it becomes lame. I would really advise against it unless you have a full team devoted to clickable pets. (:

I like the idea of an auction house or whatever.

At least then I don't have to haggle...I can go see what it's being sold for and either buy it or not. (I've been on a ton of websites, this one included, where I want to buy stuff....and either I'm ignored, or no one wants to sell to me D: Not sure which D: )

And games. All the games. (Would it be hard to get Snake up? Or something like it? Idk)

Gaia has announcement overload. There's no way to actually KEEP UP with them, nor to ensure their relevance.

well i think i want to get this started ;3; if it takes a member to do it instead of staff then my first day will be spent encouraging you guys to do what eryna has been doing very successfully for a very long time

by the way though, that rotating thing on the front page would be perfect for displaying site-related stuff, winner of an contest could fit very nicely up there

For the first post concerns -
I think a market place option would be a lovely idea, it gets tiring looking through the market threads to locate someone selling the one item your seeking.

As for the games, it would certainly get me more interested in coming back if there was other ways to earn au than just posting.

For the clickable pets, in disagreement with Asami there. I don't think that was what really caused Zantarni to flop. I think it was more the change of pixels and the fact the last owner didn't put the time and effort into the actual site and the pets were a cute idea, that like with the animated items, were ideas that came too late to actually do the site any good. Also, most people instead of raising their own pets, just bought the pets off of other people which defeated the whole purpose of them. I think for this idea, making the pet only capable of being equipped to the owner's avatar or offering rewards for each stage of evolution the pet receives, like on KoFK, where each level the owner receives a small amount of site currency.

My only fear with an active market place is how quickly things on trisphee will get inflated. There isn't any one really keeping up with the price guy and I always read that people do not know what to charge. Once something like that goes live, its up to the users to determine the price of items and even still it does not guarantee, that A you are paying a fair price and B circulation of old items.

I agree with the games.

I am still not sure how I feel about the process of leveling up. It is one of the reasons why I have not bothered with clicky sites and KoFK. I was horrible at keeping up with my Neopets and powerpets.

This is exactly why we don't want to automate the process of buying and selling, and why what we'll be providing is essentially searchable classified ads rather than an online store. (Closer to Craigslist than eBay, essentially.)

well as it stands the market setup we have is a shambles and is a big detterent to new users, i dont feel comfortable buying things or even /wanting/ things since i have no idea what they are worth, if there are any at all or what quite a few of them look like. trisphee is a store with no price labels, much of the good stuff locked away and untouchable and with several things that look like they ought to be acquirable but are not because those who'd sell them cannot get their inventories to work once you get a certain amount of stuff


also i have found the lack of games a deterrent since there is very little incentive to visit i can also tell you that summer is when /more/ activity is normal. if this site goes into a lull over the summer there is something wrong

also, one last thing, it is all well and good that you are talking about trying to fix it but noone is actually actively doing anything and of the half dozen people who joined(that i know of) since i came back i don't see any of them being active and i myself would have left days ago if i had not promised a contest, once i hand out prizes i am leaving too. there is nothing here to keep me except my own dogged enthusiasm and that barely lasted two weeks. you have people who really want this place to thrive but if you do not take care of them they, like a potted plant in a shady corner, will die

I can understand both of your opinions on the marketplace and that it is true it might cause inflation cause prices on things are not set but than again, the same should happen using threads since the price guide we have is just an estimate on prices.

The good thing about Neopets is your pets don't die if you don't feed them, I actually was giving some of my pets away on there and downsizing to two accounts cause it was too much hassle logging on to the other two accounts to fully take care of five - six other pets.
On KofK, most sponsor contests and more to get clicks for their pets, this may be older knuffels (which newer people want cause they are rare to find randomly), donation currency, etc. This might aid with getting more people active in the long run, cause to be honest, who doesn't like contests?

And in agreement with zosa. I pop back in and out cause I like to see what is new on here and unless you start doing something to keep people interested and coming back, your not going to fix the issue.

Maybe the marketplace could have a max price set on items? Like you could only ask up to X amount of money for a particular item?
Or maybe all items could be bid only? No auto-buy option?
Or perhaps staff gets together and determines a set price for certain items and makes an frequently updated price guide?

Chloe; So out of curiosity then, what exactly are some things that you would like to see that would keep you coming back to the site?