They used to send emails out as well warning about updates but that seems to have stopped as well
But surely the community manager knew about the update before it rolled out, didn’t she?
Yes, I find it highly unlikely that she wasn’t aware that it was coming, just like the other updates the site has seen.
Besides changing things - which we can argue is positive or not - is that they keep doing it with no prior warning.
If this site truly has users all over the globe, then nothing that is planned should just happen without warning to users. We shouldn’t have to beg for an update after the fact.
The community manager, @sierra, had a reply on another thread, where she acknowledged she hadn’t been the best at being a community manager and needed to improve: [quote=“sierra, post:13, topic:3088”]
Hi guys,
You are right. I haven’t been on here in way too long. I haven’t been a good community manager. In fact, I’ve been a terrible one and I apologize. I need to get better. I haven’t made the forums a priority and I need to change that. I could make excuses but I won’t bother. The point is I’m in the wrong and I just need to do better.
[/quote]
That was almost a month ago. There have been a few forum responses here and there, but personally, I don’t feel the presence of a community manager, especially since this is the official space Neonmob set up to interact with its users. I don’t expect a response to every thread - but I did expect a post here to announce the changes that are now fact.
And on the vote page, until just recently, it had been almost two weeks since I saw a series marked either in progress or disqualified, and it bugs me that there are still sets on that page that have over 50 likes with no status update.
- Tangent - is SkinnyAndy every going to get a set before the entire collection is on the vote page?
The main point is that once again many of us users feel like an after-thought.
-We used to get blog posts and email updates/teasers of upcoming features.
-We used to get messages about featured sets.
-We had an active admin voice in the forums and on the main website when things happened - good or bad.
I know that there can be some things you may want to “surprise” your user base with - such as increased free pack counts. But when you do it without warning, where your first users to encounter it feel it’s a system glitch - you’re not doing it right.
Even an email teasing “an update” or something was coming would give users a heads up when they encountered something new. That way, regardless of anyone’s time zone - you have users already braced for something different.
I’m sure it can be hard, when you are at the table for weeks, months, etc, planning and taking pride in your hard work to make these changes, but try to put yourselves in our shoes. For example we go from always having a set of free packs, whether it be the original 4, (or 5 with the FB link up), then 6 or to the 10 many are now used to - to some random counter that gives users a pack an hour. Why would anyone think that this was normal and not a glitch?
Please, just talk to us users, and not as a side thought, or to calm down mass user confusion.
TL:DR
- Stop updating the site without any prior warning/notice to users.
- Do better at communicating with the community as a whole before changes are implemented.
- There is no point acknowledging a problem if you don’t want to fix it.
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Sorry, sorry, misread. Can’t be perfect all the time. 
+1 to everything here. Granted my sarcastic title does open the question for people to say whether they like the roll our or not, but this is what I keep trying to tell @Sierra, and through her the Admins, and they just don’t get: Tell us shit up front or you’re being disrespectful. Listen to us, or you’re being disrespectful. Be here with us, or you’re neglecting us. The user base is frickin’ people, not cash cows.
And I’m getting sick of being disrespected with half ass measures taken after the fact only if we are loud enough long enough. I love the site’s concept, but there are other places I could invest my time and money into where I would also feel like my patronage actually matters.
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It doesn’t do us any good to have more credits if we can’t use them on our current collections.
The credits must be able to be applied to our current collections with an expanded allowance for the daily limit per collection.
I disagree. If you expanded the daily limit pack pull amount then the creators will be even more used! With this we just have to try to find more series to collect from and hopefully find more to like.
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My apologies if I was unclear. My response was almost entirely directed at those who might not have realized that with a little more attention to the site that they won’t be losing out on packs and will instead turn a better profit. As @nicodeamus mentioned, I’m not disagreeing with any other points made in this thread.
In fact, I’m in full agreement that the lack of forewarning provided before such major system changes are pushed out is honestly unforgivable. A community can’t foster properly and happily if the ones in charge keep pulling the rug out from under their patron’s feet.
Do I consider this update a downgrade? Personally, no.
Do I consider the lack of communication from the staff unhealthy? Most certainly.
It’s already clear they have the ability to communicate via announcements as I did receive one after the update had already occurred. If they simply took the time to post said announcement a week beforehand then I’d imagine things would be running a lot more smoothly with time for the user’s understanding to settle in.
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I’m with you on the creators being more used (both as is and with the suggestion to expand the daily pulls per series)
IF WE WERE STILL ON A LIMITED PRINT SYSTEM (#nostalgia), then I could see how this would translate into more cash, because more people collecting a series means the packs run out faster. I was surprised how fast that Mythic Dragons I ran out, since the card limit was fairly high. And it’s because so many people were collecting it. The old print system combined with this new pack system would create additional rush and urgency to buy before the cards run out, meaning more sales faster. When you have 6 months of unlimited prints though, there’s just no urgency. More prints will be made no matter how many people collect in a given time frame. I think this further devalues the worth of cards if anything on an unlimited system, because, like I said before, there are more cards to trade on the table.
But again, it remains to be seen. Could go differently.
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Sorry for being so salty, I’m just a little tired of seeing this lack of communication happen time and time again.
Agreed, the update will result in increased traffic for the site, as most active users will be visiting the site more than once a day, and those users will end up with more than 10 free packs they were getting before, so it’s a win-win for both parties. However, it is also punishing those users who, for whatever reason, are unable to visit more than once a day. I think the maximum packs should have stayed at 10. Even cutting down to 8 wouldn’t have been so drastic.
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I agree - but I bet they set it at six for maximum user visits per day.
If it was 10, then likely users would only visit once or twice, and 8 would only be two or three visits every 24-hour cycle.
Six is a great number, as the site is likely to get three visits minimum, regardless of the time zone, and some will have the compulsion to visit that forth time just to get as much free stuff possible.
Hence why I figure it’s setting us up for ads on the site soon.
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Ugh, that’s a depressing thought, but I guess they’ve gotta pay the bills somehow. 
They could be trying to up the traffic so the site looks better to potential buyers. They certainly aren’t trying to make any money by giving away 260% more free product per day.
I like it.
I don’t mind checking in twice in a day, and that nets me more packs than 10.
They really do need to pay the bills. It’s going on 4 years I think now? I work in the San Fran startup ecosystem, and it completely mystifies me how NM is still in business. Not complaining, but it is surprising to me, because I can’t make the numbers for paid pack sales work.
Im pretty sure the were doing a lot better before the August 2016 update. They just ended up making 1 big mistake and haven’t really recovered from it
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Care to put some hard numbers to back your claim? Tell us how much money and traffic NM lost, exactly.
There is a thread somewhere with some analytics data showing that Neonmob suffered from the infamous August Update, though I cannot find that specific thread atm. We do know that creators were complaining about lack of sales post update, and since pack sales is the only way Nenmob makes money… well. Example below:
That was in October. We haven’t heard much since, but many of the creators and would-be creators (thumbs to self) bailed on making series, especially since the royalties were dropped to 30%, which was a problem in and of itself. I’m not sure how many people from the old days can comment still on how that update has continued to affect sales in the recent months.
For more hard core numbers:
From September 2016, not sure where the numbers are from
The more recent data is somewhat more damning if you look at the graph:
Again, I don’t know how the aggregate sales have changed, but when you combine the loss in traffic, users leaving the site and the claims from pre-update creators about the abyssal sales, it does not look good.
I’m pondering @marquaaaa’s line of thinking that Neonmob is looking to inflate their traffic values to sell and run. New ownership could do this site a lot of good or else finally kill it dead in any case.
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I can tell you that I’ve only sold 2 card sets since October. Not worth my time nor energy to create new series even though I had a list of 7 potentials that I wanted to explore.
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http://forum.neonmob.com/t/users-leaving-neon-mob/2937?source_topic_id=3178
This might be the one? NM’s traffic rank had decreased 48% (over a 3 month period) by October which is shown pretty clearly on your graph. There were an estimated 146k users at that time and now 108k, idk how many there were before August unfortunately. Source: http://www.statshow.com/www/neonmob.com same site that was used in that post.
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