Remove the catalog

[Stefan Richie]

Hello Everyone,

While this may be a very controversial post i think it is one that is needed.

I'm sure everyone here is familiar with the Item Catalog that can be found on the Menu located at the bottom center of the screen.

I think this Catalog contributed to the closure of Small Worlds.. Though great for convenience i think that it has taken away from the user experience of going to Official spaces and hanging out and meeting people. Being completely honest with yourselves, would you not agree that the shops were empty after the installation of the Catalog?

I think there should be a experimental period where the Catalog is removed to see how players interact with one another and see if the number is greatly increased or not.

I miss the days of being able to go to Small Wear, Modern Living, Ace's Appliances & more and seeing them absolutely packed!

Aside from Small Verse & Small Worlds, we can all see the impact online shopping has had to our local shopping centers and people leaving their houses to shop. We need to all take a step back and think is this better for the good of Small Verse's longevity.

Please have a think and leave a response. We, the people are the only way we are going to make change.

Kindest regards

Stefan Richie

[Ligeia Tepes]

I am sorry I cant agree with this. It would be very inconvenient to mission makers as we shop as we set up our spaces for a mission and I do not want to stop making my missions to run all the way to a shop to buy a tree lol It would also be hard on artists and sculptors because we are locked in a space to create in peace and like to buy our boards and sculpts while we create in our personal spaces. I would hate having to run to a shop to grab a block only to be sidetracked by someone and then completely lose my inspiration. This is a huge no for me. Then you also have to take into consideration some people are on the spectrum or just socially awkward and may not like socializing outside their friend group of people they have known for awhile., forcing them to be more social is sorta not very considerate.

[Stefan Richie]

I understand and respect your views on this subject, while i agree that makes sense for missions & artist and probably the removal could be reduced to Wears & Rares/Clothing. I think that it would be good for anti-social people. The game never had the catalog originally and would make sense to help people talk. (you cant force someone to talk to people) but putting them in spaces where people are active could be benefitual.

But i see your points & appreciate the reply! i wish more people would.

[Orin Shillen]

I agree with Ligeia, I use it quite often

[Bunni Boomist]

i actually think they need to add more items to catalog - specifically all the clothes. theres a lot of clothes you can't buy from catalog which kinda sucks when you need to make an outfit in a pinch and gotta find the item in the physical store. i was lookin for a fishnet top a couple weeks ago, went to district, couldn't find, and got frustrated and left. i think it might've actually been a bug cause i noticed it's been added back, but still.

HOWEVER, i do think some prices on catalog should be adjusted to more accurately represent the gold to token ratio. e.g. a gun selling for 42k tokens vs 4.2k gold, when in reality 42k tokens will cost you like 1k gold.

[Stefan Richie]

its really great to see what people think and have to say about the catalog. though i do think its sad that people don't want to go out of their way to space hop for the items they need. it was kind of part of the charm back on the old days of SW. i think items like the monthly for example should never be on the catalog. we need to give more incentive for players to communicate more and be more interactive with the official shop spaces otherwise what is the point in having them?

Edit: I didn't know how to say what i wanted to say effectively so i had Ai write it for me.

The item catalog is definitely convenient, but it also removes one of the most important parts of the game — the need to actually visit public spaces.

When players can buy everything instantly, there’s no real reason to explore shops, and those spaces start to lose their purpose. But those shops aren’t just for buying items — they’re where people meet, discover creators, and interact naturally.

Once that disappears, the game slowly becomes more isolated. New players struggle to meet others, creators lose visibility, and the world starts to feel quieter.

We’ve seen something similar happen with SmallWorlds — when players no longer needed to visit spaces, the social side of the game declined, and that had a knock-on effect on the overall community.

The catalog isn’t a bad feature, but if it completely replaces the need for player-run spaces, it risks removing what actually makes the game feel alive.

It would be great to find a balance — keeping the convenience, while still giving players a real reason to visit and support public spaces.

[Stefan Richie]

what im trying to get across more than anything is to have something that draws the players to the public spaces. wether its items or god knows what. A discounted price for visiting the shop? im not sure

[Orin Shillen]

I know what you mean, but using the catalogue does not mean I don't go to the stores... I do, just not always - I don't think that is the problem why people don't use public spaces, I already noticed that too, that they are kinda empty... we already tried to bring ppl to towncenter , it worked though... maybe the staff should show more presence there?

[Damion Elvaux]

In my opinion it's more important to have an accessible and convenient way of purchasing items, than it is to have active shops. I think your proposal would of course increase the activity in shops - but that would only be through necessity rather than a genuine want from the community. The consequence of removing the catalog would be an inevitable decrease in creative output, such as missions and spaces, as most creators would probably become frustrated when having to interrupt their creative flow in order to hop back to the shop(s) to buy something.

It's an unfortunate truth that the world is a very different place compared to even 8 years ago - people tend to value their time and convenience more, we are all a bit less patient because of the normalisation of quick dopamine hits.. Therefore pushing people back into shops by removing the catalog would probably not have the same nostalgic effect you've described. Maybe the answer lies in having a different reason for attending shops, as you've said!

[Stefan Richie]

appreciate you both

[Aribella Lafonte]

I’m a Smallworlds player from 2009, so I remember how it was before they decided to add catalog. There was something nice about these little shops because each had a theme to fit the items they sold and looking back, it’s very nostalgic taking us back to the “good ol’ days” But also, during this time, there would be some issues with some players trolling or begging for tokens that made the experience traveling to these shops less enjoyable. It wasn’t always so easy or a positive experience visiting them and meeting new people. And let’s face it, some of us aren’t really that social. We like to be by ourselves or gravitated to private spaces because of that or the experiences we were having. I know that I was one of them. It also was very hard to remember what shop sold what item so we could wind up hopping between two or three of them to find each item. I think SW saw these potential issues and inconveniences and recognized that we needed to have a more convenient and different option in place. Then link the more popular existing shops to Town Center trying to still encourage social interaction, we didn’t always have a Town Center, that came later in the game. I think SV staff here also recognizes the convenience of catalog but still trying to keep a shop for social interaction available, they put clothing not found in catalog at The District, which has had quite a few suggestions to add to catalog as players here are frustrated not finding the clothing they want or even know if it actually exists in game yet. Perhaps not having so many items available in catalog cuts down loading issues too, idk, but there I am sure there are reasons for it.

But I completely agree with Ligeia that this would be a big inconvenience for mission makers and other creators for having to shop; big time for the mission makers. We don’t want to hop around to multiple shops to find what we need.

The most important thing to consider is; that even though this and many others are social games, you can’t really force it upon people. It’s better to encourage it through social activities and events (Like the current Easter event) where players can choose whether or not to participate. And over time, from OG and even here, if you notice from popular spaces , socializing and travel has gravitated to private or player owned spaces and not only leaving official shops empty, but other ones as well like Cue Club and others that used to be more populated early game. (SW) This had/has nothing to do with catalog. Players will go where they want to go and times change. And catalog wasn’t a contributing factor to the closure of SW, the lack of financial support through Store was, as mentioned by Vince Gee when providing the reason for the games closure, that and realistically, people just got busy in life or moved onto other games which happens over time.

Removing catalog and restoring official shops will not help socialization in the game, it’ll just add frustration after being used to having catalog for so many years, on SW and here on SV.

I do not agree with removing catalog and believe social events and selected items be located to a special store, as they are now with The District. Maybe some frustration with some because not everything is available in panel, but it’s only hopping to one store and allows for what the catalog doesn’t, which is to be able to try on clothing with another piece of clothing to see the ensemble together. Now, if only we could get a longer reset time to view that look a little longer.

I do understand how you feel, I miss the old spaces and the nostalgia, I just don’t think that removing catalog is the solution or will give you the result that you want in the end.

[Ligeia Tepes]

I understand and respect your views on this subject, while i agree that makes sense for missions & artist and probably the removal could be reduced to Wears & Rares/Clothing. I think that it would be good for anti-social people. The game never had the catalog originally and would make sense to help people talk. (you cant force someone to talk to people) but putting them in spaces where people are active could be benefitual.

But i see your points & appreciate the reply! i wish more people would.

I get what your trying to do and I like the idea of trying to get the community to bond more , maybe more fun spaces where we can do activities would get people out and about. Like how they have food fight and so on, fun places we can play games together or other fun things.

[Stefan Richie]

I’m a Smallworlds player from 2009, so I remember how it was before they decided to add catalog. There was something nice about these little shops because each had a theme to fit the items they sold and looking back, it’s very nostalgic taking us back to the “good ol’ days” But also, during this time, there would be some issues with some players trolling or begging for tokens that made the experience traveling to these shops less enjoyable. It wasn’t always so easy or a positive experience visiting them and meeting new people. And let’s face it, some of us aren’t really that social. We like to be by ourselves or gravitated to private spaces because of that or the experiences we were having. I know that I was one of them. It also was very hard to remember what shop sold what item so we could wind up hopping between two or three of them to find each item. I think SW saw these potential issues and inconveniences and recognized that we needed to have a more convenient and different option in place. Then link the more popular existing shops to Town Center trying to still encourage social interaction, we didn’t always have a Town Center, that came later in the game. I think SV staff here also recognizes the convenience of catalog but still trying to keep a shop for social interaction available, they put clothing not found in catalog at The District, which has had quite a few suggestions to add to catalog as players here are frustrated not finding the clothing they want or even know if it actually exists in game yet. Perhaps not having so many items available in catalog cuts down loading issues too, idk, but there I am sure there are reasons for it.

But I completely agree with Ligeia that this would be a big inconvenience for mission makers and other creators for having to shop; big time for the mission makers. We don’t want to hop around to multiple shops to find what we need.

The most important thing to consider is; that even though this and many others are social games, you can’t really force it upon people. It’s better to encourage it through social activities and events (Like the current Easter event) where players can choose whether or not to participate. And over time, from OG and even here, if you notice from popular spaces , socializing and travel has gravitated to private or player owned spaces and not only leaving official shops empty, but other ones as well like Cue Club and others that used to be more populated early game. (SW) This had/has nothing to do with catalog. Players will go where they want to go and times change. And catalog wasn’t a contributing factor to the closure of SW, the lack of financial support through Store was, as mentioned by Vince Gee when providing the reason for the games closure, that and realistically, people just got busy in life or moved onto other games which happens over time.

Removing catalog and restoring official shops will not help socialization in the game, it’ll just add frustration after being used to having catalog for so many years, on SW and here on SV.

I do not agree with removing catalog and believe social events and selected items be located to a special store, as they are now with The District. Maybe some frustration with some because not everything is available in panel, but it’s only hopping to one store and allows for what the catalog doesn’t, which is to be able to try on clothing with another piece of clothing to see the ensemble together. Now, if only we could get a longer reset time to view that look a little longer.

I do understand how you feel, I miss the old spaces and the nostalgia, I just don’t think that removing catalog is the solution or will give you the result that you want in the end.

Very appreciative of you taking the time to respond to my suggestion. I do agree that removing the catalog would be a huge annoyance to many people and i too understand the problems it would cause in the community. Its great how much of a response this post has gotten in just a few hours. Its such a shame that other posts are not getting the same attention because nothing will ever happen if people dont have their say. conversations like this are important to hear what players do and don't want. i made a suggestion about increasing rewards for inviting players to SV, Updating the UI colour scheme to match that of SV just to name a few. Would be great to get some responses there too.

I still stand by my point of there needs to be some insentive to get players to enter the stores, wether that be the prices are slightly cheaper or like they already have "exclusive" items.

i do also understand that we are now in a position where we are so used to the catalog that it would probably be impossible to go back, again same issue with real life shops and online shopping. sad times. WALL-E is an accurate representation of where humanity is going LOL. I understand the point of what people are saying about Anti-Social people and while i think that is great. I think regardless of wether people want to socialise or not. This is a online socialising game and that agenda should always be pushed above all. SmallWorlds was always about meeting people and trading etc. Though i don't mean to offend anyone.

Kind Regards

Stefan

[Stefan Richie]

I get what your trying to do and I like the idea of trying to get the community to bond more , maybe more fun spaces where we can do activities would get people out and about. Like how they have food fight and so on, fun places we can play games together or other fun things.

Exactly! this is what i want. i want the community to enjoy being together, less of this beef/drama and cliques and more of the community coming together and having fun. Space Jump used to be so amazing back in the day and people just dont have fun like that anymore.

We as the community need to push for more interaction from staff and not just mods, actual "Namehere SmallVerse" characters. On SmallWorlds Dan and Madison were very well known across the game. Where are the mascots gone?

This is a community game which is currently lacking community. First we need to push adverstisement to build the game more, build the tutorials and build a new community.

Store Prices need to be put down to help bring new people in who will be happy to spend less but more.

Add the game to steam like someone suggested to get a cult following!

Kindest Regards

Stefan

[Aribella Lafonte]

I get what your trying to do and I like the idea of trying to get the community to bond more , maybe more fun spaces where we can do activities would get people out and about. Like how they have food fight and so on, fun places we can play games together or other fun things.

We as the community need to push for more interaction from staff and not just mods, actual "Namehere SmallVerse" characters. On SmallWorlds Dan and Madison were very well known across the game. Where are the mascots gone?

This is a community game which is currently lacking community. First we need to push adverstisement to build the game more, build the tutorials and build a new community.

Store Prices need to be put down to help bring new people in who will be happy to spend less but more.

Add the game to steam like someone suggested to get a cult following!

These here are great examples to what can be a possible and better solution. I think it would help the community become more social, while being optional, and also potentially expand the game to new players. 🙂