Egg Cavern Needs Your Help

Zac • 16 December 2013 at 2:32 PM

Hey everyone,

I've seen a number of posts regarding Egg Cavern, an EC fan site for those who aren't familiar. I'd like to address some of the issues that have been brought up with the site.

We're actively looking to improve the site and drive more traffic to our site. Unfortunately, a majority of our staff (including me) are tied up with other commitments due to jobs, school, etc. That means that our site's content tends to fall through the cracks.

What I'd like to do is open the floor to you guys. If you're a long time ECN user, I'd love to hear your opinion. Even if you've never heard of the site before, take a look (the URL will be at the bottom of this post) and let me know what you think.

More specifically, I'd like to know what you think about:

1. What do you like the most and least about ECN? what can we do to improve?

2. For each of our major features (viewer, cavedex, click exchange, wishlists) is there anything that you would change? Any obvious or helpful feature missing or any bugs that demand immediate attention?

3. Obviously customer service is not a strength of ECN, but we'd like to fix that. In your opinion what needs to be done. And particularly, what was your experience trying to create a cavernAccount?

If there's anything else you'd like to share, please do so. I'd love to hear your feedback. Let me know if you have any questions.

I'm planning on dedicating the next couple of weeks to tinker around with the site and sort of make sure it's growing along with EC.

You can visit Egg Cavern at http://www.eggcavern.net

boxofcrayons • 16 December 2013 at 2:37 PM

I've actually got no complaints about the site. The click exchange is great, and I've never had any issues with the site in general. I think the reason usage is low is that the services offered are limited of course- once you've clicked all the links there is nothing more to do on the site.

novrain62 • 16 December 2013 at 3:12 PM

I love the site as it is - though I'd love to see more raffles ❤️
Thank you for all you try to do!! Raffles bring traffic 😊

karamel • 16 December 2013 at 3:16 PM

@zAc I'm glad to see some communication opening up and going on; thank you! I love Egg Cavern and I'd hate to see it die. Hopefully my feedback somewhat useful. x3

1. The (up-to-date) Cavedex is probably the thing I love the most, as it provides all information about evolution and even suggested travels--must take a lot of time to go through every single travel and see which ones look good. xD I also like the Click Exchange and how you can set limits and clicks/feeds preferred, as well as the raffles. Obviously. 😋

Similar to what @boxofcrayons said, the thing I don't like is that it's not very interactive. Sure, you can comment on blog posts and use the Click Exchange and play around with every single (yes, quite literally, /every single/) creature + travel combination, but that's about it. Things like games (either replay-able minigames or long plots) or daily things to do would be nice, and maybe even a forum to bring the community together and attract more users. (Although I'm not sure how different it would be to EC's official forums. Maybe things like spoilers could be allowed in ECvern? Not sure.)

2. Not really any bugs or anything I would change, but a feature to add to the Cavedex is suggested creatures for travels. We already have suggested travels for creatures, but it would be nice to have the opposite as well. (I have spare travels and a lot of creatures that don't have travels, and I don't really want to go through 100+ different species and try out each and every travel, when I could narrow down the searching and use the travels I have now.) Just a thought.

3. More activity please! I completely understand that all of you have real lives, but there are /eight/ members and some noticeable activity would be nice. I apologise if that sounds harsh (although I know that won't soften my words), but that's my honest opinion. The cavedex is being updated regularly, though, so I'm happy with that; it's just that there hasn't been a blog post since the beginning of October.

Creating a cavernAccount was pretty simple; I don't recall any significant problems.

One last thing to add is that someone suggested adding more people to the ECvern team (in the most recent blog post). If your current staff can't keep up or update frequently, maybe it's time to add more people you can.

Thanks again. 😊

jazzyleia • 16 December 2013 at 4:26 PM

1. The best thing I love is the cavedex and wishlist. They make it very organized for me. No complants on the negative side. But could you guys update the news? I mean I love October but it is old.... oh and more raffles!

2. Could you add the suggested travels to each pet? I know there are some (mainly the new ones) that don't have this.

3. Simple...is updated (most places) every month.

@zAc

Zac • 16 December 2013 at 4:27 PM

@boxofcrayons @novrain62 Thanks for your kind words. 😊 I'm definitely looking at bringing raffles back. Unfortunately, its a little more difficult to do than before due to my inactivity on EC.

@karamel Thanks for your post, I very much appreciate your feedback! (Don't worry if it sounds harsh, that's what I'm here to listen to.)

You and other users have mentioned that there isn't a lot to do on ECN, which I agree with. However, my vision for Egg Cavern is more of a common-knowledge tool that users can use ALONGSIDE EC. The reason that we haven't implemented (or at least, no longer have) forums and the like is that these features already exist on EC itself. No sense in re-creating the wheel, am I right?

This leads to a conundrum that I haven't yet been able to solve. I'd like users to use ECN as a reference every once in a while, but without an active community, it's difficult to spread the word and let users know that Egg Cavern is out there.

I'm planning on talking with the other staff about getting ECN's news updated more frequently. From what I understand at this point in time, the difficulty lies in formatting the posts since a basic knowledge of HTML is required.

I'll also consider opening some positions on the ECN team. In the past however, the applications were far and few between and those we did get weren't the highest quality. Perhaps with a bit more activity we'll be able to attract more applicants.

Thanks again for your feedback, please let me know if you have any other thoughts! 😊

aedia • 16 December 2013 at 5:28 PM

@zAc
I love the click exchange, wishlist feature for creatures, and cavedex. I think that the creature of the week is a nice thing there as well. I haven't been there long enough though to experience the raffles, but I'm sure that those would be fun. I think that one suggestion I'd like to make is a travel wishlist feature, kind of like the creature wishlists? Since people seem to be trading travels a lot, and it might be nice to view them as wishlists since I can't always remember the names. But maybe that wouldn't be a necessary thing to have, just thought I'd make the suggestion. 😉

yileen • 16 December 2013 at 6:27 PM

***When I first saw the site, I thought it was dead because of the lack on updates on the front page. I'm sure people here without studies etc can help with that. I'd love to see some positions opened 😊

***And we can advertise it to new users that introduce themselves 😊
As a fairly new player myself it's a great tool to level up my creatures.

***A travel wishlist like #aedia suggested yes. And maybe a page to view all WITHOUT a creature.

***A travel checklist? for those who like to collect all?

***What i'd like to is a checklist for the creatures(and stage) I own and to view 1 travel on them all so I can see on which it looks best in 1 click.

***The reversed suggested travel thingy @karamel suggests has my +1 too.

***More raffles, every 2 weeks, they don't need to be the most retired/limited creatures, but have raffles, also better to have 5 raffles with 1 creature than 1 raffle with 5 creatures.

***Let us vote for new monthly's on ECN! Give us 4 choices,( use user suggestions more often too, I see a lot of great suggestions) and 1 vote, would definitely get more people to use ECN.

***Whats with the badges? How do I even get one besides being the creature of the week. Do I get one on 10k clicks? 25k clicks? That would be cool 😋

***Click exchange, I click AND feed ALL in the exchange. There aren't a lot. It would be bigger if we could add more creatures to the exchange.

***Creating an account on ECN was a pain
It took several email changes and logging in/out more email changes to get mine activated.

Thats all for now 😋

bubblez • 16 December 2013 at 8:24 PM

@zAc

1) I really like the click exchange. It helps keep my creatures alive while I work on immortalizing them. I wish more users used it but there's no way of fixing that. There's no feature I dislike ;p All the features we have are useful.

2) I haven't found any problems/bugs with the major features. They are work perfectly! Although, having like "past history" of the winners of creature of the week would be pretty cool ;p

3) I had a minor problem (I can't remember what it was, this was a year ago ;p) when joining but I had help fast.

Additional notes: I think the first thing is obvious, updating the blog frequently. Someone mention it before, but you mentioned where the problem there lies. So I hope it can be solved soon.

I think more Egg Cave/Egg Cavern plots should come & just more plots in general. Like last Halloween, where we had to the find the ghosts. And if you completed the search you got to see the creature. That was fun, and it brought users to ECN. You don't always have to give out creatures/EC/travels as rewards. Just having a plot can be fun. And not all the time, like you said you don't want ECN to be another side but moreof a tool for EC. Which is understandable but at the same time, you should want users to make the site a little more active. And like, talk about a new creature (Similar to how y'all did the Scorbis) That way users stalk both sites to see updates on the new creature! It was really fun. xD

For advertising to make more users learn about the site, as a lot of people don't know about ECN, why not ask Ian to make a blog here advertising it? Like, revival of EggCavern! ;p I dunno, just a suggestion😊

sprite • 17 December 2013 at 10:17 AM

@zAc

I love Egg Cavern and do my feeding mainly through there when I have time.

1. Having donated in the past would love to see a badge or something for this. A little something that gives more incentive. Not for commons of course.

2.Not monthly but maybe every 3 month or so a day where we have a chance of earning more Blue passes or something similar.

3. The Creature of the Week could be extended to Creature of the Month too. With a badge too.

4. I'm fine with limited raffles. To me that is what keeps them more fun then having them all the time. Sure it brings traffic in but rather keep them limited. I do think having at least a yearly one around Christmas would be nice.

Not sure of anything else to add. Since a lot has been stated already.

fakeworld • 17 December 2013 at 10:58 AM

@zAc


I love everything Egg Cavern has to offer, I don't have much to say due to everything being said above, but I would like to see a few things updated. Awhile ago, I've noticed the Helpful Article Listing to be a bit off, well as far as the Egg Cave Events and such. The Site Mechanics can also be updated due to Egg Cave latest improvements and should include pictures to be a tad bit more detailed for a better understanding. Overall, Egg Cavern is perfect. 😊

karamel • 17 December 2013 at 12:14 PM

@zAc Your point about the forums does prove a point and I completely understand your problem--I definitely wouldn't (and don't) know what to do about that! It's tricky to get the right balance. Perhaps some plots every once in a while would be nice--just something fun for people to do occasionally.

Frequent updates do help, though. If knowledge of HTML is an issue, perhaps use an online visual (WYSIWYG) editor, then paste the HTML source code? (HTMLEditor.in, onlinehtmleditor.net, etc.)

I noticed your comment on raffles: "I'm definitely looking at bringing raffles back. Unfortunately, its a little more difficult to do than before due to my inactivity on EC."
Since there are three other people on the 'Management' team, is it possible to spread out the raffle responsibilities? In my opinion, bigger things like raffles shouldn't just be organised by one person. That's the whole point of having a team. 😋 I'm not saying that you should suddenly just pass the resonsibility to some others and forget about it, but sharing it out may be helpful if doing it on your own is a little inconvenient.

It's (sort of) a vicious circle with the applicants--if you haven't got much staff, there's not much activity, not many applications, not much staff, not much activity... etc. x3

@bubblez's suggestion for "past history" is pretty neat--I'd love to see that!

@fakeworld brings up good points as well about the helpful articles and updating the site mechanics.

All that said, I'm so glad ECvern is getting back on its feet and has some updates in the pipeline already. Thank you again for running this lovely site~! 😸

Zac • 17 December 2013 at 12:39 PM

Thanks for the notes, guys! I'll do my best to respond to each of you. If I miss something, just let me know.

@yileen I'll definitely look at getting some of the features you mentioned implemented. As of the moment, we actually do have a way to view a specific creature stage with every travel on our creature viewer. I'm not sure if that's what you meant. There are plans in the works to make badges a bit more transparent. Some small stuff to work out, but shouldn't be long.

As for the click exchange not having enough links, that's a major problem for us as well. Unfortunately, this means that not enough users are using the click exchange. Hopefully this will change once we reintroduce raffles.

@bubblez I like that idea of viewing past COTW winners! I'll look into that. 😊 We actually have a small number of plots in the works but unfortunately, I don't see them coming out in the near future due to the amount of work they involve. We'll see though.

I don't really think it's Ian's place to officially endorse a specific fansite. Although he does provide us with unreleased news every once in a while, I'm sure he'd do that to any established site. There aren't many though lol. We'd love for ECN users to advertise a bit for us, however! I know that personally, I get kick out of seeing Egg Cavern mentioned on newbie threads or on random profiles when I'm browsing the site. ^^

@luvmykids244 I agree that users should be compensated a bit for donating. I like the idea for having a badge; I'll see if I can get one created.

It'd be cool to see "special days" on the click exchange, but I don't really see that as a possibility until it gains a little more popularity One problem that no one's mentioned yet is the large amount of tickets that dedicated users have "saved" up. I'll have to think of ways outside of raffles to sink the ticket economy a bit.

I agree with your points on the raffles themselves.

@fakeworld Ah, I was waiting for someone to mention content. I personally would love to get that section all tidied up. It's kind of a mess right now. We DO have an updated newbie guide in the works right now, however.

@karamel You introduce a lot of other problems once you begin using WYSIWYG editors, which is why I'm not a huge fan of them. I've considered it, though.

I'm sorry that I may have misspoke regarding those raffles. I am not the only staff member that has the ability to create travels, but the others are unfortunately just as tied up as I am. Sharing responsibility is a great thing, I agree. The timing is just a bit unfortunate. We're working on it!

One definite theme is that you all would like regular updates on the frontpage and at least semi-regular site updates. We can do that. 😊 Let me know what other ideas you've got.

karamel • 17 December 2013 at 1:13 PM

@zAc Oh, no, I didn't mean things like spontaneously creating travels (and certainly not creatures!) for the raffles. I was talking more about spreading out the creatures--perhaps share out the creatures in @eggcavern's account between the staff accounts, and then get them to organise the raffles? *shrug* Just a thought.

sprite • 17 December 2013 at 1:52 PM

@ zAc

I always forget about those who hoard. Have a decent amount myself but sure many more have gobs of them.

Lots of suggestions could be used to get tickets out of the system. For me it would have to be worth it to give up tickets. So how it would stack up getting a creature (s) from a raffle.

It will be interesteing to see what is done and looking forward to it.

krazykat1980 • 23 December 2013 at 3:32 AM

I'd use Egg Cavern more often, but I'd rather just use another method of leveling my creatures up where I can add more than 5 at one time (unless this has changed since the last time I checked)