Is SBF Dead?

Heather · Joined: 28 Nov 2006 Posts: 5915

I'll join in a little while!

Alabama · Site Admin Joined: 13 Aug 2008 Posts: 383

Sorry guys, I've been without internet since April 27th when the tornado hit my town. I promise I really didn't want to be away Very Happy

Before then, I'd check in about every day or every other day, but as y'all have mentioned, there is rarely anything going on so I tend to not post.

I stopped taking exams quite a while ago when there didn't seem to be any purpose to it since no one was buying or selling animals. Now, I'm flat out afraid to because I know I'll need to replace 99% of my animals and just cannot get up the motivation to do so.

I've messaged Nef about the turns issue again, hopefully, with me back to stay on her, she'll remember to at the very least update once a day.

KaylaBlue · Joined: 13 Mar 2007 Posts: 949

Kayla is here... ish.

I'll be here a lot during this summer. I'll stay if more people stay/come. (:

Can't wait to talk to you all!

Kayla

firebird! · Joined: 22 Nov 2009 Posts: 3266

i check in every once and awhile. i think nef and john need to advertise, or atleast bring the site up to date... if not, might as well give it up, in my opinion.

her · Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Posts: 480

Saati · Joined: 09 Aug 2010 Posts: 48

I'm still here but only getting on sporadically because, as people have said, the market is stagnant, exams and breedings aren't refilling, and as my animals age I'm losing colors and variations as I've been relying on public studs, and there are none available of the higher rarities.

If the game was well run that'd be great.
I'm not giving up but we need help lol

wolfgirl159357 · Joined: 07 Aug 2009 Posts: 19967

I'm still here Marls is coming back, Bratt pops into roleplays, as does Heather and Sandtiger, I refuse to accept death of the site.

redrusty66 · Joined: 16 May 2007 Posts: 86

well i just came back after a long long hiatus, player 17870, i made a lot of species and variations back when I played. (Especially ants). I am glad I didnt buy any tokens to restart a collection or I would be EXTREMELY angry right now. It is sad they are letting it sit broken. I came looking for the forum when I noticed the lack of activity and no turns/exams refilling. Very unprofessional aof Orbis as if they have decied to let the game die then TAKE IT DOWN, as letting it sit broken runs the risk of plp wasting their time or heaven forbid spend money on it. If it remains stagnate fine, but NOT broken, they should at least fix any problems like the Exams and so forth even if they don't add new features. Either fix it or take it down, which I shwta I'll tell them when I write them, as I would suggest everyone else do the same.

wolfgirl159357 · Joined: 07 Aug 2009 Posts: 19967

The GAME might be dead, but the forums are still clinging to life, not to mention, we are starting to try and get this back to being the way it was before the game died

odinsdottir · Joined: 12 Sep 2007 Posts: 2856

I'm as back as I can be but desperately need low end animals lol... so it'll be slowish before I'm back in stride...

I added two new beasties... and revived two... hope I can get some stuff going soon to help.

odinsdottir

wolfgirl159357 · Joined: 07 Aug 2009 Posts: 19967

Check me out hun, I may be of help Smile

NeonRainbow · Joined: 20 Jul 2010 Posts: 132

I, also, refuse to let this game die, ill b breeding all the little besties that i can to try keep this game alive, and keeping all the rest of the breeds i have alive too Razz

Orbis have been very pathetic about the way they are performing, anybody here knows that if you re-do the design of the site, maybe even turn it into a better game, where you could maybe interact with the animals ect, and maybe physically be in control of the animal in an event, like make a horse run around barrels, it probably wont even need to be a good quality use of pixels or whatever, but they shouldnt just let this game die, not for those who enjoy playing it, its a waste of money to keep it running, id say we should all write an email to johnarras complaining, even send the same message multiple times until he gets annoyed with the emails, WE NEED TO GET NOTICED AND PUT OUR MESSAGE ACCROSS!!

WE WANT THIS GAME TO LIVE, NOT DIE!!

Whos with me?

Razz

Thanks, Neon.....

Alabama · Site Admin Joined: 13 Aug 2008 Posts: 383

John Arras doesn't own the game, Orbis Games does and Orbis Games consists of Shannon Cusick. John was the person who managed SBF, however, about three years ago he started taking other jobs because SBF couldn't pay him and that leaves SBF mostly in Shannon's hands.

SBF does cost Shannon to run, it doesn't support itself. Most other owners would have shut down SBF long ago. The cost for keeping SBF running is mostly covered by VHR. And even VHR isn't performing enough to pay the bills. She sold Virtual Pups a little over a year ago to keep the other games running. Legendera is still up, but rarely does it see any activity, so doesn't take a lot of server space. VHRII hasn't been running for many months. Shannon has had to take outside jobs to keep all the remaining games up and running.

The recent problems with turns, breeding, etc not being updated is because she had to move the games to a cheaper server and something with SBF code isn't working with the new server. Since John did most of the design and coding, Shannon is having problems figuring out where the problem is and fixing it.

Yes, it would be very nice if the site was redesigned and more options added. This has been asked for and contemplated for many years. However, because SBF doesn't even begin to support itself, the game that supports SBF, VHR, is the game that keeps her attention. She cannot afford to devote months of time to a game that can't pay its own server bill. Especially now that she only has a few hours a week to give to any of the games.

If you feel you need to contact her, by all means you can e-mail her.. shannoncusick@hotmail.com

I would suggest that you would get more attention though if more people actually played the game. Invite your friends, help new players get going and encourage them to stay around.

She obviously doesn't want the game to die, or else she would have already shut it down. It's been suggested to her that the games that aren't being played much/aren't making money be shut down, she doesn't want to. But, she can't afford to let VHR go slack because then the money really stops coming in and they all die and she's only one person and can't afford to hire help.

NeonRainbow · Joined: 20 Jul 2010 Posts: 132

Okay, thankyou for that, I understand a lot better now, maybe she could start with fixing the buy tokens link? I'd pay mOney for tokens Smile

I've always wanted to make my own breed, but the button doesn't seem to work, and I'm sure that by making that work, the money would come in more ?? Maybe I'll email her suggesting this if I have time to Wink

Alabama · Site Admin Joined: 13 Aug 2008 Posts: 383

If you put it in the Report Bugs section or create a ticket on Orbis Worlds, it's usually faster if I or another Op can catch her and tell her there's a problem than to e-mail. She gets hundreds of e-mails every day and honestly, probably doesn't get a chance to look at all of them.