Santae

General Information

Santae is new virtual pet and avatar site that offers endless fun and discovery. It is currently in beta testing and isn’t fully opened up to the public yet.

Dive into an exciting experience as you explore the enchanting worlds of Aleriea and Valaria. Each realm is full of magic, mystery, and secrets waiting to be uncovered. Create and customize your unique avatar, adopt and care for adorable virtual pets, and embark on thrilling quests. Engage in a vibrant community, participate in events, and unlock achievements as you unravel the mysteries of these magical lands. Santae promises a rich and immersive experience that will keep you coming back for more adventures and discoveries.

Promises a lot, might eventually get there, but the owner is shady.

I played Santae for a handful of months and while the updates are daily, there really hasn't been much of any substance added. Mostly just more items and cash shop stuff. Even the newer features are just reskins of the old features. What there is to do is locked behind hours long timers that you have to lower with items, but they have so many events that you're expected to use these items en masse to get anywhere with little time to breath or save up. They stated early on to be anti-FOMO, but in practice they seem to be more annoyed by that statement than anything. When users expressed burnout, the threads were deleted and the owner said the game wasn't about people's feelings. They were caught using AI art and retaliated against the whistleblowers before finally admitting it was true. As soon as the outrage started to die down and new users were coming in the post about the AI was unpinned in spite of people asking for it to stay up and the art still being used. When things start to get tough the owner goes on gift bombing sprees with emotional quotes and complaining that he can't have fun anymore without upsetting people and that just feels very manipulative.

Maybe Santae can give what they've promised eventually, but as it stands right now I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I think the owner should step back and let someone else do the PR and that rather than constantly berating users with events, just release small and consistent updates to build up the game's base as the rpg it was promised to be. In spite of thousands of users signing up for beta only a couple hundred are on at any given time.

grey

Completely agree, I wish I was able to delete my review because many of the positives on Santae are completely overshadowed by the instability of the owner. The effects have had a negative impact on staff, users, and the feeling onsite as a whole. And when you can't voice genuine concerns, what's the point of a beta test phase? Or any phase really. Constructive criticism is how you grow, but Santae silences it any chance they can.

If they cared at all about this site surviving long term, they'd do as you suggested and hire any kind of PR.

Reactions: phalen

phalen

Pros: Frequent events, lots of mature and fun community engagement, dedicated development team constantly adding new content and updates. Kickstarter goal successful in under 30mins.
Cons: Its still in development, but updates and new features are constant and frequent
Review: I grew up on neopets, and very much disliked what it became. I love the frequent events, i love hoarding items for the events, because they make sure that you will use almost all features on the site for the events , i love gift-criming peeps (we send items to random ppl and call it a crime!), i love collecting items for my pets and my collections, and most of all, i love reading the stories that they write for the events. its gorgeous!