Daily Support Goal!
I just put up a new page: the Daily Support Goal. It's the (very, very) long version of the little bar on the news page, and it's the honest account of what it costs to run Subeta in 2026 and how close to the line we actually are. If you've ever wondered how a site like this keeps the lights on, that page is me answering it. Please read it!
And to support the goals on the page, two updates went up alongside it. Cash Shop Collections has its own page now, so you can browse every monthly collection going back to 2006 and either buy the sealed set or pick the one item you want out of it. For this week only you can browse and choose from every week, when the sale is over it goes back to being just the ones released in the current month.
And Billboards got rebuilt with a banner maker, so you can design your very own drag and drop 480x90 ad right in the browser instead of uploading one. Please, make something weird and fun!
For one week, both are on sale. Every collection is open right now, all the way back to 2006 👨🦳, and all but June 2026 are 100 CSC each. Billboards are 75% off on every size. The sale ends Sunday, and the prices and the collection selection go back on their own.
If the goal page makes the case to you, the sale is the easy way to help but there are lots of other suggestions on the page. Bump your old bug reports (they're getting fixed!) and make those suggestion threads.
me! in 2026, still clutching that Kumos plushie 💗
And to support the goals on the page, two updates went up alongside it. Cash Shop Collections has its own page now, so you can browse every monthly collection going back to 2006 and either buy the sealed set or pick the one item you want out of it. For this week only you can browse and choose from every week, when the sale is over it goes back to being just the ones released in the current month.
And Billboards got rebuilt with a banner maker, so you can design your very own drag and drop 480x90 ad right in the browser instead of uploading one. Please, make something weird and fun!
For one week, both are on sale. Every collection is open right now, all the way back to 2006 👨🦳, and all but June 2026 are 100 CSC each. Billboards are 75% off on every size. The sale ends Sunday, and the prices and the collection selection go back on their own.
If the goal page makes the case to you, the sale is the easy way to help but there are lots of other suggestions on the page. Bump your old bug reports (they're getting fixed!) and make those suggestion threads.
me! in 2026, still clutching that Kumos plushie 💗
Posted by Keith
Vehliayn
I know its comepletely unrelated but... man I want a lil kumos plushie!!!
Is there an easier way to upgrade my subscription tier other than cancelling my current sub and manually resubbing when it runs out?
@Keith
I have had a thread up in P&B: https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/944525
I have turned off auto updating to prevent them from reloading right now. I can sMail but I have limited time to be on here this week from a computer and I'd prefer to do so when I can see about copy/pasting the inspect errors I was getting in full (they're in my email at this time)
I have had a thread up in P&B: https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/944525
I have turned off auto updating to prevent them from reloading right now. I can sMail but I have limited time to be on here this week from a computer and I'd prefer to do so when I can see about copy/pasting the inspect errors I was getting in full (they're in my email at this time)
Keith
STAFF
Hey everyone, sorry, the sale ended a little bit earlier than it was supposed to! I'm pushing out a code fix now, and extending it out a day :) sorry about that!
This transparency is honestly so refreshing, and I'm also honestly relieved you're refocusing on the legacy site. I just couldn't get used to Kumos, as much as I wanted to, it just wasn't the same and the changes came so fast it was hard to get used to them or keep up with them in between irl stuff.
@Keith
Using my phone as a hotspot did not work, switching browsers did not work, removing all customcss did not work. I had to remove 3 security updates and then it worked. I refreshed my IP, I turned off every extension and every possible blocker. Nothing worked until I dropped the updates. I do not personalize any security settings or access settings, I go with what the recommended setting is. As of now it is sorted
Using my phone as a hotspot did not work, switching browsers did not work, removing all customcss did not work. I had to remove 3 security updates and then it worked. I refreshed my IP, I turned off every extension and every possible blocker. Nothing worked until I dropped the updates. I do not personalize any security settings or access settings, I go with what the recommended setting is. As of now it is sorted
@Keith i think a lot of people will not understand that (from my outside perspective of your explanation) the "AI" you're using could also be described as "algorithm based translations" to update 2000s web code without a full rebuild. i understand that "simple" automation (what used to be hundreds of manual hours of a junior dev rewriting a plugin...) is being approached with an "AI" methodology now, and i understand you are using the correct terminology, but because people don't understand backend development i think you're fighting an uphill battle trying to explain that what you're doing is (in my opinion) fairly reasonable and does not come anywhere near directly stealing or threatening livelihoods. it also sounds like since you're using an instance you made yourself it is not using (or is only minimally using, as part of whatever model you've based it on) any data acquired through morally ambiguous means.
tl;dr, maybe a dedicated AI disclosure page where you outline how you've been using it and bluntly dispelling misconceptions is a good idea?
tl;dr, maybe a dedicated AI disclosure page where you outline how you've been using it and bluntly dispelling misconceptions is a good idea?
Honestly, I hated the Kumos site, so I stopped coming. Glad you scrapped it, maybe I'll come back. I've been coming back every now and then to see the changes. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much money I can give. I'm having a rough time, possibly headed for divorce, so I need to pinch my pennies. But thank you for the transparency.
Keith
STAFF
@Mackenzi I'm sorry you feel that way, I genuinely am. I'm not here to defend my use of it, the same as I didn't in the linked thread. I've tried to do this the most ethical way I know how, as an expert in this field. It's a tool pointed at Subeta and only Subeta: our actual code and twenty years of history, not a generic thing pasting in generic output. No AI company is on the receiving end of what I put into it. It runs on my own computer here at home.
It's let me reach back through twenty years of requests and start fixing bugs and building small things people asked for and never got. There's finally a roadmap and a known issues page. I used it to uplift our oldest, clunkiest games and make them keyboard accessible and usable with a screen reader. I'm not just "implementing things people asked for" to look user-friendly. I'm knocking out bugs people have been asking us to fix for years, in code that used to be in such a state that fixing them meant a full rewrite (again: hence Kumos).
The changelog posts on code changes happen now because writing them no longer eats a whole evening; they happen alongside the code, which I'm still writing myself. I can finally read the battle code I wrote fifteen years ago, understand it, and change it without being scared I'll take the site down doing it. I was able to turn that into a set of battle guides that break down how battle works in a way that we haven't been able to in years. I wrote the first automated tests Subeta has ever had, because I was able to generate the thousands of lines of boilerplate the testing system needed first.
This is work I could not have done on my own in the time I (or anyone!) have for Subeta, and work that would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to hand to someone else. It's also work that needed to happen for the site to be able to continue to run. You can look up what a programmer costs, look at the daily goal, and do the math: Subeta is not going to be able to hire another one, probably ever. I don't get paid for this. I love this site and want to keep building it, and this is the thing that makes that possible in a way I feel okay about.
I'm not hand-waving the rest of it. I understand the labor side of this conversation. I've started two tech labor unions, and was a leader in the first recognized tech union. I'm not a booster, I'm not selling anyone on it, and I'm not asking anyone else to use it. It is not replacing the labor of anyone except for myself, on the pages and things that I've always been responsible for. I'm really not trying to say that there isn't a problem with the AI industry, overwhelmingly I agree that there is. I just don't think that the technology (transformers with access to buckets of data) is the enemy here and has useful applications like uplifting a 20 year old codebase into something that can continue to run on modern hardware.
It sounds like you're out either way (which I don't hold against anyone) but to be clear, I'm responsible for all of the 'pages'. This one, the forums, the gardens most recently. Game pages, explore pages, things like that. Items, pets, and NPCs are uploaded and written by the artist who makes them. That isn't changing, and I don't want it to.
It's let me reach back through twenty years of requests and start fixing bugs and building small things people asked for and never got. There's finally a roadmap and a known issues page. I used it to uplift our oldest, clunkiest games and make them keyboard accessible and usable with a screen reader. I'm not just "implementing things people asked for" to look user-friendly. I'm knocking out bugs people have been asking us to fix for years, in code that used to be in such a state that fixing them meant a full rewrite (again: hence Kumos).
The changelog posts on code changes happen now because writing them no longer eats a whole evening; they happen alongside the code, which I'm still writing myself. I can finally read the battle code I wrote fifteen years ago, understand it, and change it without being scared I'll take the site down doing it. I was able to turn that into a set of battle guides that break down how battle works in a way that we haven't been able to in years. I wrote the first automated tests Subeta has ever had, because I was able to generate the thousands of lines of boilerplate the testing system needed first.
This is work I could not have done on my own in the time I (or anyone!) have for Subeta, and work that would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to hand to someone else. It's also work that needed to happen for the site to be able to continue to run. You can look up what a programmer costs, look at the daily goal, and do the math: Subeta is not going to be able to hire another one, probably ever. I don't get paid for this. I love this site and want to keep building it, and this is the thing that makes that possible in a way I feel okay about.
I'm not hand-waving the rest of it. I understand the labor side of this conversation. I've started two tech labor unions, and was a leader in the first recognized tech union. I'm not a booster, I'm not selling anyone on it, and I'm not asking anyone else to use it. It is not replacing the labor of anyone except for myself, on the pages and things that I've always been responsible for. I'm really not trying to say that there isn't a problem with the AI industry, overwhelmingly I agree that there is. I just don't think that the technology (transformers with access to buckets of data) is the enemy here and has useful applications like uplifting a 20 year old codebase into something that can continue to run on modern hardware.
It sounds like you're out either way (which I don't hold against anyone) but to be clear, I'm responsible for all of the 'pages'. This one, the forums, the gardens most recently. Game pages, explore pages, things like that. Items, pets, and NPCs are uploaded and written by the artist who makes them. That isn't changing, and I don't want it to.
Keith
STAFF
@Reaper This is going to be very annoying, but can you use your phone to tether? If so, can you tether your computer to your phone, and try accessing it that way? I'm not sure what the issue is, but it sounds like more connectivity to me than anything else, or like you're blocking content on Subeta. To be very clear, nothing has changed that would prevent you from loading the site, and it sounds like you're hitting some kind of Cloudflare connectivity issue. Another option is for you to google "what is my IP" and on the first result, it'll give you your IP and you can sMail me with that - and i'll see if I can see anything in our logs. I'm sorry this is happening!
@Keith So, apparently whatever you've got going on for updates on the site is completely incompatible with updates to Windows 11. I had to uninstall 3 updates to windows 11 to make this site function correctly again and it was fine before the most recent updates to Subeta. I'm not sure what the issues are, if it's a script issue that is being blocked by Win11 security (because those are the updates mostly I had to uninstall) or if it's your AI crawler that you're using only here that is being blocked by Win11 protections - but this is the only site I had issues with. Literally every other site worked. Just updating so you know I managed to fix it even though I got no help here or on the help thread.
I mean, hey, you've finally implemented updates people have been asking for since the site was actually in growth, according to the graph you've provided. So the AI is definitely the key to keeping the business going, not having a functioning staff. This is my last comment on the matter, subscription is cancelled.
"Every creative hour we have is already spent on holidays and items, and I can't buy more of those hours right now (see: daily goal), so that writing lands on me the way it always has. I'm not saying that for sympathy. I chose these responsibilities, and the line I've drawn is one I know some of you won't accept.
I've also seen the worry that this is a slippery slope toward AI plots. It isn't a slope. A plot written by this tool would be a landslide, and it is simply not going to happen here.
If using a tool to write the instructions on a feature page, or scaffolds a feature so that I can shape it is the thing that makes Subeta a place you don't want to be anymore, I understand that. I'm going to keep building the site, and I'm going to keep reading here even on the days I don't post."
So just, AI to write descriptions, instructions, NPCs etc going forward? I'm kinda with feral on this one. It seems like you're attempting to implement a few things that users suggested years ago to make it seem like you're being user friendly. I say this as someone who ran a guide listing all items available in the monthly collections. The thing according to your new page, has been like, one of the only things that generates money for the site. This was never a priority before? Why? And did you use AI to create the new page?
Now all of this feels like optics. And my brief thought that the site might be improving is crashing down.
I've also seen the worry that this is a slippery slope toward AI plots. It isn't a slope. A plot written by this tool would be a landslide, and it is simply not going to happen here.
If using a tool to write the instructions on a feature page, or scaffolds a feature so that I can shape it is the thing that makes Subeta a place you don't want to be anymore, I understand that. I'm going to keep building the site, and I'm going to keep reading here even on the days I don't post."
So just, AI to write descriptions, instructions, NPCs etc going forward? I'm kinda with feral on this one. It seems like you're attempting to implement a few things that users suggested years ago to make it seem like you're being user friendly. I say this as someone who ran a guide listing all items available in the monthly collections. The thing according to your new page, has been like, one of the only things that generates money for the site. This was never a priority before? Why? And did you use AI to create the new page?
Now all of this feels like optics. And my brief thought that the site might be improving is crashing down.
JFC, the AI thread has me reconsidering the subscription now. Keith, can you actually say there is not AI writing on the site?
It's about respect at this point. Might as well make an AI me to play the site if that's really what we're going to be working with here. There still has not been a response from Keith that sounds like "AI won't be writing any parts of the site moving forward" and I do not mean code, I mean the written words, items, instructions, descriptions, NPC interactions? You say in one breath that there is no place like Subeta and then you are writing this stuff with AI?
It's about respect at this point. Might as well make an AI me to play the site if that's really what we're going to be working with here. There still has not been a response from Keith that sounds like "AI won't be writing any parts of the site moving forward" and I do not mean code, I mean the written words, items, instructions, descriptions, NPC interactions? You say in one breath that there is no place like Subeta and then you are writing this stuff with AI?
Also, lmao. " Cash Shop Collections has its own page now, so you can browse every monthly collection going back to 2006 and either buy the sealed set or pick the one item you want out of it. " The one thing keeping me here during the bad years, thank you for finally making this a reality.
I have been here 20 years and I didn't know Amber and Keith are related. xD I will continue being oblivious for the next 20 years, don't worry about me. xD
Enshittification is such a huge, overwhelming bummer. It isn't enough to just not be involved in the overwhelming flow of garbage, you have to defend against it too. Glad you guys are still going. The past few months have felt a lot better to be on subeta than like, the last 3 years have. I hope that momentum can keep going. I'll try to get some extra CSC this month.
Enshittification is such a huge, overwhelming bummer. It isn't enough to just not be involved in the overwhelming flow of garbage, you have to defend against it too. Glad you guys are still going. The past few months have felt a lot better to be on subeta than like, the last 3 years have. I hope that momentum can keep going. I'll try to get some extra CSC this month.
some things that may or may not be helpful. when using inspect:Code:
Alert: This page is in Quirks Mode. Page Layout may be impacted. For Standards Mode use "<!DOCTYPE html>".
Alert: Layout was forced before the page was fully loaded. If stylesheets are not yet loaded this may cause a flash of unstyled content.
Alert: The value of the attribute "expires" for the cookie "_ga_175R5E9PHF" has been overwritten apparently i was quick on the trigger because actually now none of the site at all loads on either browser . just blank unending losding oages saying transferrinf data drom cdnjs.cloudflare.com at the bottom.
@Keith asking here because I've gotten 0 reaponse... can't actually bump my problem board. Roughly a week or so ago I had 0 issues using rhe site from my actual computer. Suddenly, after all the weirdness, I cannot load on my computer, which means i cannot upload CWs among other things I do exclusively on my pc. I have the most up to date windows 11, most up to date firefox, and most up to date chrome. I can only access from my cell which is not ideal and also locks me out of the part of the sites I use and spend money for. I made a post 4 days ago and have gone ignored. Again, the site worked fine completely a week or so ago, it was only after the strange update pushes and rescinds that it no longer works for me (and I'm on the same wifi when on my phone).
Update: I've spent a little bit on CSC in a few days...-.-
but it's to make everything pretttttty....
but it's to make everything pretttttty....
Hi! I'm very asking to be very specific on timing, can you please verify, "sale ends Sunday" - does this mean the sale will end Sunday, Jun 14th at 1159pm (right before midnight)? This way I can plan to enjoy my birthday Friday the 12th and then celebrate again on here, hopefully buying some CSC and splurging on more collection items (I've already spent all my onhand CSC!) :P
Keith
STAFF
@Warrior That CSC being passed around plus the CSC we give away for things like quests, plus the absolute hoard of CSC that people have stored up from over the years. it's not the same csc passed around forever, but it is a lot more than you would think! I'd say that peak in 2017 was when the most CSC purchases were going directly to buying or making CWs, now it's a lot more of spikes around CS releases again (like the monthly collection) or when we have big sales (like now!)
@Keith
please dont mind me cuz im just being 1000% nosey lmao. to piggyback off of asterisk. As someone deeply inbeded into the cw side of things, (shout out to Violin for poaching me from neo many moons ago) I've always kinda wondered if we all were playing a big game of hot potato with our csc. I release a thing, get csc, in turn spend that csc on other peoples things, and so the cycle repeats endlessly for all of time. xD Typically I get less than I spend on a cw from someone else, so at some point, wouldn't that force cw people to buy csc? Or is there just a enough other people in the mix to kinda make the cycle just... work the way it does?
please dont mind me cuz im just being 1000% nosey lmao. to piggyback off of asterisk. As someone deeply inbeded into the cw side of things, (shout out to Violin for poaching me from neo many moons ago) I've always kinda wondered if we all were playing a big game of hot potato with our csc. I release a thing, get csc, in turn spend that csc on other peoples things, and so the cycle repeats endlessly for all of time. xD Typically I get less than I spend on a cw from someone else, so at some point, wouldn't that force cw people to buy csc? Or is there just a enough other people in the mix to kinda make the cycle just... work the way it does?
I really appreciate the new daily support page, it really puts things into perspective!
I somehow did not actually notice the wishlist search thing in the new collections page at first but now I used my eyes better and oh my god that is life-changing, THANK YOU. It would have taken me sooo long to figure all these items out and remember to buy them in the right months lol.
I somehow did not actually notice the wishlist search thing in the new collections page at first but now I used my eyes better and oh my god that is life-changing, THANK YOU. It would have taken me sooo long to figure all these items out and remember to buy them in the right months lol.
Love this. You guys have always been pretty transparent for most things so this is just a bonus. I starting playing forever ago (almost 18yrs). Now I may have to subscribe that I can financially support that :D
Side note: freaking love the WL search on the collections page. I was thinking i wa going to have to spend HOURS on subetalodge. Thank you!!
Side note: freaking love the WL search on the collections page. I was thinking i wa going to have to spend HOURS on subetalodge. Thank you!!
Thank you for sharing this. I work in an adjacent industry and I don't think sometimes we all realize how much each little part of a place like this requires in time and resources. It's easy to get comfortable in a space and not remember or realize how difficult it is to "keep the lights on". I joined subeta in my early 20s 17 years ago. I now have a daughter who loves and plays on subeta almost daily. We really did all grow up together, and I think that's why I feel emotional reading this.
For all the wild rides and bumps along the way, the heart and love for the site and the users as a whole really has been felt, @Keith. I've never been able to support the site financially how I wish but I am rooting for Subeta and for the next 20.
Also, I would support subeta merch or a way to just direct donate somehow to the team if that wasn't more work than it might be worth to the site long term.
For all the wild rides and bumps along the way, the heart and love for the site and the users as a whole really has been felt, @Keith. I've never been able to support the site financially how I wish but I am rooting for Subeta and for the next 20.
Also, I would support subeta merch or a way to just direct donate somehow to the team if that wasn't more work than it might be worth to the site long term.
seeing some staff on that list that literally helped me when i was first registering 18 years ago and been around since before human avatars
maybe more than I realize if there have been multiple username changes over the years
thanks keith and i think this is really going back to subeta's roots. the petsites rpg stuff isnt as poplular as it was y2k - 20teens ... subeta is a lot more like what it felt like when i first joined.
i gotta say though it amazes me that the cw indudstry isnt sustaining subeta cuz i honestly thought it would have with how much there is seemingly every day
maybe more than I realize if there have been multiple username changes over the years
thanks keith and i think this is really going back to subeta's roots. the petsites rpg stuff isnt as poplular as it was y2k - 20teens ... subeta is a lot more like what it felt like when i first joined.
i gotta say though it amazes me that the cw indudstry isnt sustaining subeta cuz i honestly thought it would have with how much there is seemingly every day
Sigh, still no ability to delete old billboards that have broken images. Love all the changes but wish for one more, sigh, never satisfied. <3
@Balloon it is soo surreal to me to have actual core childhood memories centered around subeta (also going back to an even older account than this one) while im a full, working adult. THAT is some longevity
@Jigglypuff I now feel ancient. I first started using Subeta when I was in graduate school for my master's degree :P (And that was on an account even older than this one that got deleted when I quit playing for a few years... that was back when accounts actually got deleted instead of marked inactive! I made this account when I was back in grad school for my PhD... obviously seeking escape from academia!)
my 'ive been here forever' story for the day is that when i was in 5th grade we had to write a persuasive essay to our parents on the topic of our choosing and mine was about why they should buy me 500 csc
Amber
STAFF
@Jigglypuff the code for them was hilarious too! that was when they were all weighted. Keith and I would discuss (argue) which should be the rarer of them. I think way back then, there was something that Keith had to manually do before throwing them in the shop. WHAT A TIME
I just went through and grabbed the item ranges for all the DPs that use that same image (you can tell the early 2006 late 2005 used the same item because of the file url haha). I was 12 when I added some of these!!
I just went through and grabbed the item ranges for all the DPs that use that same image (you can tell the early 2006 late 2005 used the same item because of the file url haha). I was 12 when I added some of these!!
Thank you so much for keeping this community running! I had an old account from back in the 2013ish era and rejoined a few years ago when things were rough and i needed something comforintg. Watching the site grow and develop while the rest of the net gets eaten up by ai and social media... its been an amazing refuge. I am all for supportnig more indie web projects and as soon as I'm stable financially- you've made a supporter of me for sure! Keep doing what you're doing, we love this place so much. <3
wait amber im dead i had no idea that was the lore for the early 2006 DPs LOL. the early coding on this site is so iconic
Thank you for the transparency that a lot of the Internet seems to be lacking lately. I've been around here for almost 20 years (god I feel old saying that ☠️) and stick around because its such a cozy comfort to check in with what is going on here. 'Clubhouse' is a nice way to put it. I'm not the most active or social here, but I see the work the team puts in and am excited about some of the changes and features since the scrapping of project kumos. Adult life gets in the way sometimes, but I will gladly keep my eyes open for the oracles requests for help. I'd be happy to give back some time to the place that has brought me joy for almost two of my 3ish decades ❤️❤️
Amber
STAFF
@Norn Hi! So, waaaay back in 2006 we were using the SAME box for all the donation presents, we'd just change out the range of items inside. That's why for black friday and other sales when I bring back all the collections, I have to usually add the individual items from those collections into the Cash Shop. I'll talk with Keith about how we can solve this on this page specifically, though!
Keith
STAFF
@Marlboro They all end up taking just about the same amount (with some introduction period to get you hooked of course). It settles ~3% for most processors, and then we have additional things on top of that (e.g. most require you to pay for additional fraud and chargeback protection. We had a couple of years where people would steal credit cards and come spend $5000 on Subeta - we'd get charged back and have fees and in some cases had moved the money around)