Here are a few suggestions that I think would make the site more enjoyable:

1. Since there’s a discord server that seems to be taking away from the forums, maybe offer an incentive to post on the LW forums - like pebbles each time you post or a random event - a prize like food or something every time you visit the forums.

2. Arena - the arena takes about 20 minutes or more to complete. When you get 4th place or below, getting one or two tickets isn’t worth it. It feels like a waste of time. I think there should be food, pebbles, and shards that are randomly added to the prizes. It doesn’t have to be much, but something a little more exciting to make it feel worth it.

3. The professions are fun, but I agree that it costs too much to expand say the kitchen and mining cart at such early stages. I understand them costing more later on and at higher levels, but not so early on. Also, we should have the option to pay in pebbles.

4. Custom Apparel - as an artist, if I make a design, I would like the apparel sent to my inbox after approval so I’m free to list them when I like, take them down when I like, keep how many I want at anytime and just be free to change my mind regarding my designs - like list one at a time if I like. We should have the freedom to put them up and take them down when we wish. The way it’s set up now doesn’t feel right.

I can’t think of anything else atm, but if you have anything to add, please do.

I don't think an incentive is needed for posting on the forums. The smaller community is quite nice, in my opinion; things don't need to be moving at 90mph every second. Adding an incentive would also promote spam especially if you got pebbles every single time you posted.

I'd like to see Arena have smaller brackets, but additional rewards would be nice too.

I understand your point, and I don’t mind the small community myself. However, I have seen many people say that the forums here feel too dead to them and thought this might be a good incentive. I’m not supporting spam in any way, but I have seen other gaming sites offer incentives for posting of forums. I’m fine either way honestly.

I think that smaller brackets in the arena is a very good idea. ^^

Were you aware that you can reserve custom apparel to get it sent to you when you first get it approved? Or do you mean you want relisting to work that way, too?

I fear that adding some sort of reward for posting in the forums isn't going to help in the long term to genuinely increase the forum traffic. Another game I play, Dappervolk, gives up to 8000 potatoes (their pebble-equivalent, although I reckon 1 potato would be closer to about 100 pebbles in term of value) or even12000 potatoes if you have a premium account for posting in the forum. In the end, people basically spam the forum to get their potatoes and still use the discord for actual interactions.

So I have to say no support for that. I originally thought that they only added a trades channel prior to launch because the forums weren't available at the time, and they would discontinue it once the site (and thus the forums) was accessible. But now that the trade's channel still exists, I can definitely see the pros of using that instead of the forums. I don't reckon it'd be popular, but I think removing the trades channel would already cause more people to visit the forum.

I will admit I don't really know how else forum interaction could be improved, although I will also agree with Ninetales that I personally am not too bothered by the small community. Although it can be frustrating when you are trying to sell something and the forums move slow as molasses.

As for the arena: I 100% agree here. The amount of time investment required to play, your dependence on the luck of the draw (yes there is some skill and strategy required, but if you are just unlucky, you can still end up bottom 2! I often get first but I am no stranger to ending last either) really should amount to substantially higher rewards. I need to consciously remind myself to play it because there is some exclusive companions to be had, but I definitely don't enjoy it as much as I did during beta, because at this point, I've figured out which combos work well, and it is just a long, tedious game on repeat over and over again with too low payouts. Increasing the amount of pebbles rewarded, and adding chances for moonstones shards and other drops sound like an awesome idea in my opinion

With regards to the expansions, there are already quite a few suggestions regarding this in the forums, so for visibility it might be easier to add your support to those. I still agree though; I think it is too p2w to have the expansions locked behind premium currency. I have a professions balancing suggestion where I suggest getting extra slots naturally through level up (say every 5 levels or so) and being able to purchase them via pebbles. There's more out there tho!

As for the CAs, I'm neutral on it, cause as a... not so artistically abled person I can't really imagine what it is like!

@Desnik

Yes, I am aware of that. I just feel that an artist should be in control of the listings. What if an artist changes their mind later and decides to keep another of their designs than they initially posted or wants to sell their items at a later time instead like Halloween or Christmas or whatever.

@Gaia

“people basically spam the forum to get their potatoes and still use the discord for actual interactions.”

This is a conundrum then. That definitely makes sense about the trades channel. And yes, the lack of activity really shows in the flea market sales. I know it will take time for the site to ramp up with players, so hopefully that will change with time.

I will check out the info regarding expansions. Thank you! I like your professions balancing suggestion for sure. It’s very fair. I’ve always felt if you put in lots of time into playing, you should be rewarded by how much you play. Those who like instant gratification or who aren’t playing as much as others can have the option of paying.

The forums just need some type of appeal to make it better than Discord. I think part of the issue is the userbase size. Look at FR, for example: its forums are very active, and while they don't have an official Discord server, there are tons of user-run servers that most people who do use Discord will be in at least one of them. FR also has 3000-4000 players online at any given time outside of big releases, but meanwhile Lorwolf seems to have ~500-700 players (it seems to be creeping downward as time goes on) on whenever I check in.

So I think a big problem is just the userbase size. Less people around means less people to post on the forums. You can incentivize forum usage by having site-run contests exclusive to the forums, perhaps, but even then, people always go to Discord to chat because instant messaging is that much more convenient than typing out lengthy posts on the forums.

Also for me personally I experience an issue on the forums that make them obnoxious to use, so I don't even like posting on the forums right now.

@Ninetales

I definitely agree that part of the problem is the user base size. Hopefully it will start growing here after holiday events/festivities which I’m hoping they’ll have.

I’ve noticed the styling of text changing too. It’s weird.