Misticpets Back Up?

[cpvr]

Misticpets is playable if you’d like to play the game in its current state, the main domains are Misticpets.com and mistic.pet. There’s also a discord channel for Misticpets players: Join the Misticpets Survivors Discord Server!

There’s currently no indication that the owner of Misticpets will ever be returning. She has been missing in action for a long time.



Misticpets has been going through a lot over the past few months and quite apparent that a lot of their staff members have resigned & there isn’t anybody currently working on misticpets.

Here’s the news from the former staff members of Misticpets:


Ghost Town - Posted: October 7, 2019
Hello Misticans! It's Raichurules.
It really is hard to stay away from MisticPets, and even though I stepped away as the last active staff member back in what, August '18, I still miss this place. I'm sorry I can't come back with any good news.
I haven't had any contact with Zara, and as far a I know, neither have any of the rest of the old staff. I was sending emails monthly for a while, but I never got a response to any of them... I sincerely hope she'll reply eventually, even if it's with bad news, but so far nada.
So what are you doing, Raichu? Why the news post? Well October was always my favorite month around here. I'm a sucker for Lanturnacht. And like I said, it's hard to stay away. So I'm planning on doing a few things just because I still can.
- - - - -

Let's start with the Weekly Raffle. I've written out the list of winners from September '18 through September '19. I plan on having them all sent out by the end of tonight. There's a lot. BUT, winners will only get one letter for the entire period that lists the dates/earnings. No spam from the Raichu!
- - - - -

I'll go dump some fresh stock in the Credit Shop at some point before the end of the week. I'm not quite sure what all I'll put in just yet; leave suggestions in the comments/mail me if you're looking for something specific. I'll update when new stock is in.
- - - - -
OTHER HAPPENINGS
x Spooky stock to roll out across Mistica Shops by the end of the week
x Random events to give out candy / candy bags (tomorrow/day after?)
x Forum event possibly? Depending on my free time!
x Costume Contest (Gotta look into if Legendaries are working first, no promises)
- - - - -
WHAT WILL NOT HAPPEN
Unfortunately, this is not all good news. I'd mentioned before that the staff struggled to roll out content without Zara due to many things not being in the Control Panel, but accessed somewhere different. That only she had access to. This includes:
x Trick or Treating
x Jasper's Circus
x Chamber of Evil
And that's it for now! If you have any questions just shoot me a MisticMail and I'll get back to you. This can be for things outside the news post too, however I'm not sure what all I might be able to fix...

A Lonely Staff Member
~Raichurules
All the Best... - Posted: August 20, 2018
Hello Misticans,
I’ve had to think for a considerably long time on just what to say here. And I still don’t quite have the right words. I’m so glad I was able to help keep Misticpets going for the year and a half that I’ve been a member of staff, especially considering how things were already looking when I was brought on. I, and the other members of staff who have since stepped down, managed to scrape a few events together with what limited access we had, and in December we had hit some of the largest numbers of users online that I’d seen in a long time.
But things have been very, very quiet since then. In March, the entire staff team stepped down. We said no new art, no events, nothing. I’ve been quietly keeping things going in the background (sending raffle rewards, updating the Credit Shop, and other small tasks) to keep the site from completely dying, but my motivation has just… run out. I haven’t seen anything progress-wise, and I can’t keep fighting this battle by myself. Especially with our Big Holidays quickly approaching, and everyone’s (especially my own) desire to see something, anything, happen for them.
I’m so sorry, because I know what this means for MisticPets as of now, but I have to step down too… completely. I’ll be finishing out the month of August, sending rewards and stocking the credit shop one last time, but after that, there will be no active staff members here at Misticpets.
What this means come September:
Raffle rewards will no longer be sent out, regardless of what the news posts say (as they are automatically generated and can not be turned off).
I will update the Credit Shop one last time for anyone that may still want to spend their MP. It will have stock from various seasons with a large quantity, but once it’s out, it’s out.
The Crystalized Toadstool will not be updated, meaning Kohal will only take on one appearance regardless of the month. I have put up a poll, and come September 1st, whichever color has the most votes is what I’ll switch it too. If no one votes, I’m defaulting it to July.

TLDR: The last staff member has stepped down, meaning Misticpets no longer has any active staff. Things will no longer be updated and rewards for raffle will no longer be sent out come September.

I’m really sorry. I love this site so much, but I just can’t do this anymore.
~Raichurules

Source: Misticpets.com - Virtual Pets - Home

Does anyone here know what exactly happened to Misticpets or not really? Also, are you currently a player of Misticpets?

 

[Raichurules]

I would love to shed some light on what happened to lead to Mistic's decline and the eventual exodus of the entire staff. (Apologies if this gets ramble-y. I've been running on fumes all day)

For those that don't know me, hi! I'm Raichurules. The same Raichurules who made the news posts above. I was brought on as a Moderator for Misticpets in... early 2017 I believe. I'd been a steady player for a couple of years, not the most active socially but pretty much always online. But even by that point things were a little rocky for the site. Our user-base was slowly vanishing, with maybe 10-20 as the high point of members online at once. And I wanted to see the hustle and bustle I remembered from 2012 (50+ users online).
There were a handful of "complaints", maybe not the best word but the only one I can think of right now, I recall being strewn about in the Suggestions forum on what needed to be improved. And honestly, I felt the same about a lot of these points. These are some of the bigger issues I recall:

• Repetitive Holidays- MisticPets had 3 back-to-back holidays I lovingly referred to as the "Big Holidays": Lanturnacht, Feast of Giving, and Mistmas (Oct / Nov/ Dec). While there were other holidays and events strung in through the rest of the year, these three were the back-breaking, all month long investments that everyone looked forward to. New items, NPC interactions, giveaways, story heavy. But members mentioned the stories were getting repetitive. Jasper goes crazy, Boreal does something mean, the day is saved, whoo~ People weren't getting as invested in the stories being produced, and I don't blame them. There wasn't much planning behind some of them simply from lack of direction for the site's lore, the writing staff being stretched between readable books and other one-off events, and general overwork. Sometimes one holiday would suffer to make the other more cohesive.
• Pay to Play - With the introduction of Graces (items that transformed your pet into a special edition pet), we saw more and more people mentioning that they felt the site was turning to Pay to Play rather than being a free site with pay options. These graces were special recolors of previous recolored pets, and not only did they change monthly, but they were also only obtainable with purchasing $50 worth or more of the premium currency, and they were LIMITED. I believe it was 20 max, so once they were sold out, they were gone. This came along with the option to convert the free currency to premium as well, also with a low monthly limit. One member broke down that it could take upwards of three months to be able to get a new Pet Slot to adopt a new pet (after the 5 free slots); which was obtainable with a premium item only.
• Economy - I have the exact number because I still have an old message saved; the last time I'd logged in I had 45+ million points and NOTHING to spend them on. The MisticPets economy had gotten very bad, and the points were practically worthless except to hoard and convert into premium currency. Unless you bought into the weekly raffle, which had unlimited/nearly unlimited number of tickets you could buy, in order to get a Grace, premium currency, or other premium items. This lead to the same handful of people winning the lottery every single week. Random event items flooded the donation feature and left nothing of value.

Shortly after I was brought onto staff, we started losing connection to Zara (the owner). She would be offline for days, and a majority of my training was spent just messing around in the admin panel on my own. I'd keep a log of my time and eventually I got permission to pay both myself and the rest of the staff (virtual currency only). When Zara did come back, it was sparingly and for short periods of time. I'm not one to speculate on reasons for her absence. I've always believed that one's personal life comes before the internet. from what she told me, there were family emergencies, new jobs, and finally medical issues. Then, nothing. We tried messaging her, calling, texting, email. And never a response. So with the staff on it's own, we planned events and released what we could to keep things running.

Until things started breaking. We learned that MANY of the site's critical features weren't controlled in the admin panel, but were locked away someplace in the code that we couldn't get to. We couldn't submit new pet colorations, change out revamped items, turn on seasonal activities and locations. The safebox for inventory items gained some sort of corruption and made it impossible to get to other pages in it or withdraw items. Wearable items for avatars were glitching out. It was issue after issue with no way for us to fix them on our own. We struggled together holiday events with the features we could get to, but it was clear that things were on a downhill trend, and there was still no word from Zara.

The staff came together and made one last outreach to see if there were future plans for the site, any potential for it to sell to a new owner, proof of development behind the scenes we'd been told was "in the works" and coming along. When we didn't get anything, we decided as a group that we couldn't scrounge together a dying site on our own. It was unfair to the users to keep making promises of fixes and features that would never be able to come, and making excuses for an owner that was not coming back. And we never heard anything back. So in March 2018, everyone left. Except me (kinda). I stayed to make sure the premium shop was stocked, raffle rewards were sent (as the news post for them was automated but not the actual reward), and keep an eye on the forums for anything overtly bad. And I did it for a while, until I just couldn't bear to look at the site I once loved visiting. That lead to the August 2018 news post above.

Obviously I couldn't stay away completely since I came back and did more work in October 2019, but that was the last I'd been on, and the site's hosting went down shortly after that. There were issues with the server and it was eventually unresolved for, as I've been told, non-payment. And that's where we stand today. The site itself is currently in-accessible, and I'm not sure where-all everyone strayed off to.

If anyone has any further questions or wants some more explanation (since I may not have done the best in the second half here) let me know and I'll see if I can answer them.

 

[Boltgreywing]

I would love to shed some light on what happened to lead to Mistic's decline and the eventual exodus of the entire staff. (Apologies if this gets ramble-y. I've been running on fumes all day)

For those that don't know me, hi! I'm Raichurules. The same Raichurules who made the news posts above. I was brought on as a Moderator for Misticpets in... early 2017 I believe. I'd been a steady player for a couple of years, not the most active socially but pretty much always online. But even by that point things were a little rocky for the site. Our user-base was slowly vanishing, with maybe 10-20 as the high point of members online at once. And I wanted to see the hustle and bustle I remembered from 2012 (50+ users online).
There were a handful of "complaints", maybe not the best word but the only one I can think of right now, I recall being strewn about in the Suggestions forum on what needed to be improved. And honestly, I felt the same about a lot of these points. These are some of the bigger issues I recall:

• Repetitive Holidays- MisticPets had 3 back-to-back holidays I lovingly referred to as the "Big Holidays": Lanturnacht, Feast of Giving, and Mistmas (Oct / Nov/ Dec). While there were other holidays and events strung in through the rest of the year, these three were the back-breaking, all month long investments that everyone looked forward to. New items, NPC interactions, giveaways, story heavy. But members mentioned the stories were getting repetitive. Jasper goes crazy, Boreal does something mean, the day is saved, whoo~ People weren't getting as invested in the stories being produced, and I don't blame them. There wasn't much planning behind some of them simply from lack of direction for the site's lore, the writing staff being stretched between readable books and other one-off events, and general overwork. Sometimes one holiday would suffer to make the other more cohesive.
• Pay to Play - With the introduction of Graces (items that transformed your pet into a special edition pet), we saw more and more people mentioning that they felt the site was turning to Pay to Play rather than being a free site with pay options. These graces were special recolors of previous recolored pets, and not only did they change monthly, but they were also only obtainable with purchasing $50 worth or more of the premium currency, and they were LIMITED. I believe it was 20 max, so once they were sold out, they were gone. This came along with the option to convert the free currency to premium as well, also with a low monthly limit. One member broke down that it could take upwards of three months to be able to get a new Pet Slot to adopt a new pet (after the 5 free slots); which was obtainable with a premium item only.
• Economy - I have the exact number because I still have an old message saved; the last time I'd logged in I had 45+ million points and NOTHING to spend them on. The MisticPets economy had gotten very bad, and the points were practically worthless except to hoard and convert into premium currency. Unless you bought into the weekly raffle, which had unlimited/nearly unlimited number of tickets you could buy, in order to get a Grace, premium currency, or other premium items. This lead to the same handful of people winning the lottery every single week. Random event items flooded the donation feature and left nothing of value.

Shortly after I was brought onto staff, we started losing connection to Zara (the owner). She would be offline for days, and a majority of my training was spent just messing around in the admin panel on my own. I'd keep a log of my time and eventually I got permission to pay both myself and the rest of the staff (virtual currency only). When Zara did come back, it was sparingly and for short periods of time. I'm not one to speculate on reasons for her absence. I've always believed that one's personal life comes before the internet. from what she told me, there were family emergencies, new jobs, and finally medical issues. Then, nothing. We tried messaging her, calling, texting, email. And never a response. So with the staff on it's own, we planned events and released what we could to keep things running.

Until things started breaking. We learned that MANY of the site's critical features weren't controlled in the admin panel, but were locked away someplace in the code that we couldn't get to. We couldn't submit new pet colorations, change out revamped items, turn on seasonal activities and locations. The safebox for inventory items gained some sort of corruption and made it impossible to get to other pages in it or withdraw items. Wearable items for avatars were glitching out. It was issue after issue with no way for us to fix them on our own. We struggled together holiday events with the features we could get to, but it was clear that things were on a downhill trend, and there was still no word from Zara.

The staff came together and made one last outreach to see if there were future plans for the site, any potential for it to sell to a new owner, proof of development behind the scenes we'd been told was "in the works" and coming along. When we didn't get anything, we decided as a group that we couldn't scrounge together a dying site on our own. It was unfair to the users to keep making promises of fixes and features that would never be able to come, and making excuses for an owner that was not coming back. And we never heard anything back. So in March 2018, everyone left. Except me (kinda). I stayed to make sure the premium shop was stocked, raffle rewards were sent (as the news post for them was automated but not the actual reward), and keep an eye on the forums for anything overtly bad. And I did it for a while, until I just couldn't bear to look at the site I once loved visiting. That lead to the August 2018 news post above.

Obviously I couldn't stay away completely since I came back and did more work in October 2019, but that was the last I'd been on, and the site's hosting went down shortly after that. There were issues with the server and it was eventually unresolved for, as I've been told, non-payment. And that's where we stand today. The site itself is currently in-accessible, and I'm not sure where-all everyone strayed off to.

If anyone has any further questions or wants some more explanation (since I may not have done the best in the second half here) let me know and I'll see if I can answer them.

It was certainly an interesting website, still I didn't really know much about the troubles that went on behind the scenes. I am building a website of my own, and maybe I can use this as a bit of a learning experience as to what to not do. For me I kind of want to make sure that there is enough to do for everyone whether they are free or members. I am going along a route with pet customization that will be entirely user generated and will be up to the users themselves to set the rarity of the pets. I am happy to have some of the older pets from this on my website since the site is no more, as kind of a tribute to the fallen website. I am sure you have a ton of knowledge on how to run a website and I could indeed appreciate the expertise when my website does open up though. I am sad that the website is gone though, Frodinn was one of my favorite pets.

 

[Pesticide]

Sorry to necro this thread but I've been curious to know if anyone here has the misticpets discord for the fans who still stuck around. I was in it for a while and then I closed it when I thought the site would never come back. I see that it's back up right now but it's in bad shape and I'm wondering what's going on. For those who don't know, hi, I'm Pesticide, and I was one of the artists. I was around for about three years before the site shut down.

@Raichurules - In case you might have any info.

 

[KiRAWRa]

Hey all, I happened to type Misticpets.com into my browser today just for the hell of it, and to my immense surprise, the site loaded?? As far as I was aware, the site was dead. Offline for over a year, no contact with the owner Zara, and all the staff and users left. I see a post on [this previous thread about Misticpets] from March 2022 noting the site was live again, and there's a news update on the site itself from December 2021, so it looks like it's been back up for at least 6 months.

I guess there has been a [Misticpets Discord] - maybe everyone banded together to get the site back up? I would love to know some more details about what's going on here.

 

[cpvr]

I wonder if misticpets is still under geekgirl’s servers. Since there hasn’t been any news from zara since mistic came back online.

 

[judda]

Piper and I are still around and hosting Misticpets. We plan to migrate it to a slightly different server at one point (virtual instead of physical) we just have a few kinks to work out 🙂