Let's Revive EggCave!

Deleted • 7 October 2021 at 7:22 AM

@ida92

This suggestion was, well, suggested numerous time already, with various methods and ideas. It seems pointless to open another thread about it, it's just a matter of when and If a feature like this will be implemented. Code-wise, I'm not sure If it's an easy enough feat to accomplish or develop...

ida92 • 7 October 2021 at 8:22 AM

@sinthr oh, I didn't know it was already suggested. Well, I do hope it gets implemented sooner or later...

moonlight24 • 13 October 2021 at 2:08 PM

Oh my God, I missed SO much while I was gone doing - stuff. I agree with all of you, and I do believe it would take a very large and long script of code; it's overwhelming. Coding is hard as well, but I think now that the Halloween Fair has been lifted up EggCave will be a bit more active!

starshadowfire • 14 October 2021 at 3:58 PM

I just had an idea, but I don't know if somebody has suggested it before... you know how there are those CDWC writing contests? Maybe we can have contests where the egg cave mods already have a description, but they need artists to submit art for the creature. I think it would be a good opportunity for more artists to come to Egg Cave.

izziedragon • 14 October 2021 at 4:25 PM

@starshadowfire Heyyyy that's not a bad idea. I'm not artistically gifted BUT I see so many gifted artists in the forums who could really use a chance like that! Love this.

dragonii • 25 October 2021 at 1:25 AM

As a long time user, outside of just getting older and having to adult, I honestly noticed the getting rid of pinging as a form of advertisement really slowed down a lot of activity.
as someone who isn't super social, I honestly loved when strangers would ping me on some random form they made, and honestly wish that there would have been a [turn off pings from strangers in new forms, turn off pings in general, turn of pings in random forms, turn off pings from strangers.] instead of the outright ping ban.

I do wish we could have more activities that are community themed, like a puzzle that everyone can help work together and achieve. (2012-20013 easter egg hunt anyone?)

tetra • 26 October 2021 at 7:54 PM

@dragonii
I would love more community themed activities. ❤️ It would be fun if we have something similar to a Site Trivia but where we can help each other out.
I’ve recently went through all 220 pages for the site blog and ‘back in the day 😊’ there used to be hundreds of comments per blog post (too be fair, a lot of them were view my creature comments, lol) but still! It was very active.

If you visit the History page, recently there’s only 6 events that occur throughout the year, 
They happen from Jan to April, then October - Dec (if you include the Advent Tree)

That means from May to September, there’s a lull in activity. Perhaps we can have puzzles or contests then 😊 like @starshadowfire suggested.

I’m not demanding an event each month (that would be way too hectic, plus we already got themes), but perhaps something unique so the History page wouldn’t just be the same 6 things we expect plus a milestone every year.

EggCave’s birthday is in July which is right between May - Sept. It would be a perfect time for a small event (combine it with Ark Victory Day?), even if it last for only a few days, plus they give out CaveCash that day so more users would definitely show up (and maybe extend the giveaway deadline because I keep missing it xD)

Reading thru the other pages and:
@singasong99 funny you mentioned a pet battle, there was an plot back in 2016 and you used a creature of yours to battle! It was pretty wild maybe we could have a battledome one day in the Adeladonia Colosseum.

@pwuffy I like your chat box idea! In fact, that was what the site blog comments were like. Just people having quick discussions with each other. I don’t think it’s against the rules to chit chat there now, letting ppl talk about their day?

@chapus omg, I would be sooo into achievements. When you first make an account, they would get you to do Steps to Complete to settle in, but then that’s it. I would love a list of challenges we can do and rewards!

I also like the idea of adoption centres, especially to help out newer folks.
(I just did a full ramble about the Adoption Centre over here I don’t think I’ve ever typed this much in my years on EC. I drank too much coffee today lol.)

It can pretty overwhelming to start this game, trying to earn EC to buy the more expensive creatures isn’t exciting and you have no clue what their values are. Keeping creatures alive too would be difficult for a beginner with a lot of creatures.

What if we have daily achivements/tasks? And the rewards can be EC, increase happiness, or stat boosts (that would really help the beginners and encourage them to keep playing!)

There can be harder tasks for experienced users and they can only be done once in a while or a month (like it would take a couple weeks to complete it?), the rewards there can be cove expansions (@sinthr @ida92)and maybe even retired items or 50cc (very rarely so the economy isn't in shambles ) ❤️
So basically the Advent Tree but throughout the year, and you have to put some effort in.
There's probably a big flaw with this idea, but I'm still very caffeinated atm 😊

structuresfromsilence • 26 October 2021 at 10:32 PM

Daily achievements would be great. I also think adding cc to the market would be a good idea. I like the site, but it's a bit too pay to win for my taste.

ida92 • 27 October 2021 at 2:09 PM

@tetromino I like the idea of Daily Achevements or Daily Rewards, but I think there would have to be a way to disable this on side accounts as some players might try to cheat. And this might be a difficult task. It can't be automatic as some people have multiple family members using the same IP address, so it wouldn't be fair to disable someone from participating just because they use the same IP as someone else.

tetra • 28 October 2021 at 4:21 AM

@ida92
Good point! I was thinking maybe there’s an ‘accept task’ button then? Similar to how you would have to click a button to approach the mysterious asteroid or the Advent Tree.

Maybe there can be levels of difficulty, like from easy, medium, hard, or tasks based on different activities. The more difficult the task, the better the rewards.
You have to choose what kind of task you want to do, so that way people can’t just accidentally complete a task on their side account.

@structuresfromsilence welcome to Egg Cave, hope you’re still enjoying the site! There should be an event in November called the Gobbler Hunt where you have an opportunity to win lots of CaveCash but it can be quite competitive; it would be nice to have more options to earn CC, even if it's just 50cc every bit helps, would make the site more active as well. 😊

structuresfromsilence • 28 October 2021 at 11:53 AM

@tetromino thank you, I'm enjoying the site for the most part.

speaking of the gobbler event, there's a bit too much competition on here as well. I'm guessing that the losers feel annoyed/frustrated and gravitate away from the site. Auctions are frustrating when people bid at the last second and then sell what they got at a higher price. And there's the lottery, the toy drive raffle, a lot of chances to lose at things. And the oasis is annoying too, I never get anything.

How about instead of a competition for cc, there's an event where everyone on the site is collectively scored, and different tiers unlock different rewards for everyone who participates. Like at 100k gobblers everyone gets an item, 1m gobblers everyone gets a random cave monthly from that year, 10m gobblers everyone gets 100cc, etc. I dunno, it might make people like each other and the site more. People like to win, so let people win more often and they'll be happier on the site.

And what is up with the asteroid? Why is it so unlikely to get creatures? Why not make it more likely and fill the prize pool with more common creatures? The Nyacos can still be rare, but let people win creatures more often. I've seen many threads of people feeling frustrated because it takes them months/years to get anything. That should not be the case. People should like being on the site, not be annoyed.

tetra • 29 October 2021 at 2:27 AM

@structuresfromsilence
Being on this site for so long I remember being excited for things like the Auctions and the Lottery because it does give you the chance to get creatures you might not otherwise get. 
I get so nervous near the end of an auction, most of the time someone does outbid me but that’s the nature of the game, only one can win the auction.

Oasis and Asteroid seems to be completely random.
I think for the Oasis a creature would show up and it’s first come, first serve. Just recently I found three creatures in the Oasis in less than a week.
I finally got my first asteroid creature in April and I’ve been trying for years.
I’m not sure it’s always a 33% chance of getting a egg, like if you pick the right egg of the 3 you get a creature, pick the other 2 eggs and you get nothing.

Maybe instead of having to choose between 3 eggs, you just have the option of approaching the Asteroid, and it’s a random Yes/No that you get a creature.

It has been a while since we had a plot/event where the community works together. I don’t know about giving everyone a prize, because ppl can try to cheat using their side accounts. 
I would like to see 50 CC / 100 CC in prize shops someday where you exchange points for rewards. It would require the most amount of points though.

Would also like a decent consolation prize for the people who were close but not able to win the cc, although I do understand limiting it to 100, it's quite the reward. It’s got to be a rough feeling to be the 101 person though. Maybe if you found a certain number of Gobblers, you can earn a special creature and/or unique item?

snowywinter • 11 November 2021 at 1:22 PM

@dragonii + @tetromino
"I do wish we could have more activities that are community themed, like a puzzle that everyone can help work together and achieve."
I do love some cooperative games and would enjoy something like that here. I remember there being some event plots in Neopets long ago. (I avoided anything community based on that site.) Sometimes it gets exhausting feeling like everything on this site is a competition. Even with friends. I'm constantly trying to find ways to help people out (like trading for specific creatures people are looking for.) To have something where we're allowed and encouraged to work together could help lift spirits. Maybe it would even be fun to have something with teams of like 4 or 5?
@structuresfromsilence I like the idea of being able to unlock awards together in a tiered event ^ - ^


@tetromino
Do you still have the link to the blog post about the Battle/ PvP? I remember someone mentioning it, and Ian didn't remember it at all.
See comment 23 September 2021 at 1:28 PM on page 1 of this thread.


@tetromino & @pwuffy re: Chat Box
THIS is actually what I came to post about in this thread today.
Nobody hardly ever uses the Chit-Chat section of the Forums anymore.
The Shoutbox was quite active when I arrived. I was too shy to use it because it seemed like a lot of private conversations I knew nothing about. Then i slowly started to join in. And now with so many people being inactive, it's fallen by the wayside. ☹️ It's pretty much turned into my own personal blog.
I guess I'm pretty much asking people to start using it for any random ol thought again. "These socks are musty." "I seen a weird looking gourd at the market today." "Loss #3072 at the Thief Shop." "Really?! How much EC have you spent there?!"
@izziedragon I know you all were probably talking about an old(new-again?) style instant messenger.


@sinthr
I thought it would take years for me to get to that point. But wow. And yes. We either need cove space doubled, or an extra account allowed ASAP. I did the math one day on how many cove spaces someone would need to have most species in three stages (rough est on user experience) each... and it's just not feasible w/o paying an extraordinary amount.


@stellalunagirl Agreed. Most of the people I've talked to who have left or on hiatus (besides being busy with life) have pretty much said the same thing... there's nothing else to do here much besides feed. (Some players find that comforting, but there are lots of people who get bored with it.)


Ooh... I like singasong99's idea about a Mystery egg. Sort of like the Thief Shop, but different. Maybe something we'd have to pay for in EC or CC, but we'd be guaranteed *something* (I mean we have that in a way with VEND. ...but I still like the idea.)


@starshadowfire I LOVE THE IDEA OF A REVERSE CDWC ! ! ! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ I totally love the idea of getting to vote on the artwork of new creatures and getting to see all those talents displayed.


Sorry everyone on slow replies, I've been running low on social spoons lately. Been having to resort to forks, knives and hashi (chopsticks.) And that melted spork from the back of the drawer.

((Yup. quick 5 minute post... 2 hours later.))


======

*facepalm* Just realized this is page 1 stuff. So leaving this here, but moving it to the bottom
(and just had no interest in replying to the subject before.)


@moonlight24 @prairie I WOULD LOVE to have an on-site item guide. I'm ever so grateful to the people that run Eggcavity, but it is outdated by nearly a year on what's retired/obtainable. (With exception of anything current that gets added.)
http://www.eggcavity.com/indexes

On my suggestion to (@singasong99 ? - my memory's hazy,) she started an items stock price list. It looks WAY better than mine. (There's a lot of work to put one together though.) ...but she's mostly on hiatus rn. If I can find the egg she started it on, I'll link to it.

I would really hate to see an item price guide in the style of Budgie's that bases it off user selling price. It just leads to inflation in my opinion. (While that's useful for Creatures, and much appreciated, I also see sellers abusing the community trust too often.) Personally I hope with Items it would remain just a list of what items are or were stocked at in the official shops.
I like how there's sort of a community accepted cap of retired travels only going for as much as a CC travel current price. (less or more based on the seller's own interest in it. More often than not though I find most people find the fair price of a desirable retired to between 100K-200K ec.)

Hmm... never thought of the Passport aspect. (I could see that if someone has a travel that someone is specifically looking for. - but if it's off and just floating around, that's not a price I'm even remotely willing to pay if it isn't a Cash Shop travel to begin with.)

tetra • 11 November 2021 at 3:39 PM

@snowywinter
will be working on a longer response to your comments, but about the Battle/PVP, it wasn't Player versus Player but it was a group effort from the whole community to battle against aliens 😊 Plots require a ton of work to make so I can see why the battles weren't brought back, but for nostalgia:

This is the link to the site blog where the Asteroid Plot started, go to page 128, 127, and so on to see more details

also this link takes you to a specific blog, it includes a link to the Official Plot Discussion in the forum, also has a comment from a retired staff, Zac, who said "The battle system is experimental now, but may become a regular feature on the site. Feedback is appreciated"


Also for everyone, does clicking a Gobbler take you to a new page now? Where it says You have found a Gobbler as part of November's Find the Gobblers event! Congratulations!
Keep searching for Gobblers around Egg Cave.
And a Link to the Find the Gobblers HQ.

I would prefer the old pop-up version, but you can hold down the control button – or the command key on a Mac computer – to open the link in a new tab so you won't have to go back or lose your page.

snowywinter • 11 November 2021 at 3:49 PM

@tetromino Thanks! Going to lay down soon myself. Eyes keep closing.
wonder if someone had the Battle Mechanics saved on the Internet Archive somewhere (page doesn't exist anymore.)

Oops... I was wondering about that. And yes, I do get the re-direct on the Gobblers.
I'm sooooo sorry! I just did as the page instructed and reported some errors i was getting. (My gut told me not to. Just move on and go catch other Gobblers... but I literally had staff ask me to submit a ticket.)
So.. so sorry.
(Now who's facing the eggs, cabbage, and tomatoes eh? LOL. *hides* )

I already reported to Ian the new problem. (Probably good to have a new thread so they see others are having the same issue.)

naturegirl1999 • 20 December 2021 at 9:07 PM

@moonlight24 so how is the revival going to work? Also where’s the discord link?

witchxhunts • 21 December 2021 at 8:09 PM

I recently returned to EggCave and I was a little disheartened to see the lack of activity in the forums as compared to ~8 years back when I had started my first account ☹️. I suppose that's what happens once we all grow up, I started playing when I was 11 and now I'm in university struggling to meet my deadlines lol.

Compared to the recent generation, I feel that a lot of us would have grown up on sites like these where we talked to anyone and everyone using the forums, but that doesn't necessarily reflect today's youth who grow up on social media. There has always been something uniquely nostalgic about logging into a forum site where you could set your own signatures and roleplay to your heart's content but unfortunately that's not something kids today would have ever really experienced, and I think that's what really sets them apart EC and has possibly caused a drift in the activity the site experiences. As the intended audience grows older, there becomes a disconnect between the current userbase and the flow of new users.

If I had to guess, I assume this is the main reason as to why the dynamic here has changed. Kids just aren't interested in games like these even though they were revolutionary for us at the time, and those of us who do have an interest now have adult commitments and hobbies. Back in the day I could have easily spent my time on this site - often hours at a time every single day - but it's different when I'm being invited out by friends and spending time with my boyfriend, let alone if I'm finishing assignments and studying (and it would be even more difficult to justify for those who work). I can't find the same excuses to put so much time into the game as I could when I was a kid - even now I'm only really here to get rid of that nostalgic itch in my brain, chances are I'll have forgotten about EggCave again in a couple months time until I return next year to check on my favourite creatures.

My only suggestion is likely an unpopular one so please bear with me, but I think one way to encourage more activity (other than the aforementioned chat box) would be to develop an EggCave app. I feel that it'd be the most appealing format for new players as there's often a lot of convenience associated with being able to pull out your phone compared to logging in on your desktop or laptop. It would also make EC more of a "portable" game in that sense - I'm sure you'd agree that a phone is a lot easier to carry around than a laptop. Granted, you can always use Safari or Google to access EC on your phone but as somebody mentioned before, it's a little difficult to find EC unless you've already heard of it, so having it on Safari/Google wouldn't make a lot of difference. Additionally, an app would allow for more directed advertisements if that was a route Ian would consider taking. Chances are, people with games on their phone would be more likely to download other games from adverts. I've done it before with cheaply made apps and somehow managed to amass a library of games that slap on ads every 5 minutes. It might not be a route the community wishes to take but I think its one worth considering at the very least. Granted, if Ian and the team lack the resources and time to develop an entire app, I'm sure there would be other ways to bring attention back to EC, but it's the only one I can think of for now.

hinokazes • 2 January 2022 at 5:28 AM

Hello everyone 😊

I didn't read everything because it's kinda long and I'm tired, tho I read a good part of it and, if there's one thing that helped me to see that the site lacks activity, it's the click exchange. My pets are barely clicked, my amount of XC don't really drop... I remember a time when 1K XC were dropping real fast... :c My pets can already take years to evolve, but if even the XC doesn't help me anymore, at this point the website will close and some pets I got my first year of playing will still be eggs...

I'm getting worried for the valentine event if not a lot of players are active...

audrei9 • 8 January 2022 at 8:21 PM

@leafmelody I searched up boaf and it's kind of shocking for me to see that the last mention of this thing was from so long ago!

I think there's a few problems with egg cave, namely that it's repetitive and mainly focuses on collection and bargaining rather than anything else. The way I had to feed my entire cove of 100+ creatures back in 2014 or so was why I left, it was too time consuming. I think that it would be awesome if there were mini games you could play that fed your cove for you, that were less time consuming than feeding them one by one.

cryogenics • 9 January 2022 at 1:48 PM

hi - could you please share the discord link again - https://discord.gg/98ybggfmQj is giving me the 'invalid invite link' message

audrei9 • 9 January 2022 at 8:39 PM

@cryogenics you probably need to dm or ping them

noxura • 23 January 2022 at 1:59 PM

I think eggcave just needs to tweak a few things. Some pet games like Flight Rising still have an active community! I think it's because eggcave doesn't have a lot to do, and it pressures you to spend real money. For a game who's premise is based around obtaining creatures by a magical cave, a large amount of creatures are retired and usually require cc to obtain.

idol • 18 February 2022 at 8:39 AM

Is this still up for discussion?

I skimmed over a lot of texts and agree with most but the bottom thing sites like Eggcave and Neo are lacking is an ACTIVE user base.

Eggcave needs to advertise itself.

As someone who has also been on this site for over 10 years been here through updates and numerous hiatuses that is always something I have seen lack especially here.

Neo pets used to be so popular because they advertised to KIDS on TV (and Nickelodeon of all places.. huuuuuuge target audience or just an audience for that matter)which is fine a lot of us were kids and people joining still are but you need a huger base.

I have personally honestly never seen Eggcave advertised as a game I think people usually discover it by “word of mouth “. Unfortunately one person at a time probably won’t make a huge difference especially if older users still keep quitting or taking a hiatus making it not only impossible to find or complete trades it.. results like this

Sites like this aren’t appreciated because they aren’t advertised and kids today are at home moooooore than ever lol if anything this is really the time to invest in some advertising and work on the market to get a higher user base.

If you add more things to do of course that will improve the experience overall for everyone but you can’t have experiences and good updates with people and support 😊

I’m not saying sell yourself out to make the site terrible or flooded with ads but there has to be some in between..

Neo is owned by jumpstart now and have to start there whole buildup again marketing with REal world plushies keychain etc. People love showing that off and representing what they like to do.
If Eggcave started offering official plushies of the creatures to sell and could get them seen by other kids, teens or people would go crazy..


Imagine going to target and seeing a plushie (a good one! NOT like the cheap one Neo are remaking) but actually good ones would you not buy it? Or a sticker or button?
Anything to advertise what the site is about and help get the word out I think is the most helpful ^^

Then if the site updates to a lot of these other features maybe a 4.0 could be in the works too?
Because we have soooooo many creatures the trade area for just the search criteria is a little crazy lol there has to be a visually more appealing way to present a huge number of pets like that. I mean we have just as many pets as Pokémon now!

It’s time to change the game up a little I think ^^

Also thank you @ian for being so kind and just taking care of the site through so many years. Kinda hard for you to hiatus when it’s your responsibility so seriously thank you for not only creativity a place for all of us to beable to be a community but thanks for sticking around through even every criticism and choice and stayed through even when times were hard. In case no one said in awhile
Thank you =)