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Search Options ►Welcome to December - Part II
Site Update
NaNoWriMo
National Novel Writing Month is officially over!
We hoped you had fun and accomplished the goal you set for yourself!
Aetheria (46) will be sending out your prizes, so contact her with any Nano prize-related inquiries.
The three items above are all very powerful battle/Adventure items that are better than, or on par with, the celestial items. They'll definitely come in handy!
Trivia
The trivia has been updated!
Weekly Raffle
This week's raffle crystal winner is:
FireFalcon (14872)
Who had 6 raffle crystals out of 24,290 total and won a Glittering Skull!
This week's prize is a PLATINUM BREEDING COIN.
But we're not going to tell you what it does yet. What can I say, I'm a tease. Let's just say it's pretty sweet.
Now lets get to some more monthly goodies!
If you have a birthday this month, you will be a lucky owner of a Turquoise Lunaris!
Here are your lovely December GP Shop pets:
And the adorable BP Shop pets:
If you created one of the pets above, please contact Visark (185) for your payment!
Important Note: If you entered a pet in the BP/GP shop contests and you don't see it up here, don't sell it or enter it in a contest or anything like that just yet. We had such awesome entries that we are accepting more colorations from these threads to be used throughout the month. I will be contacting you in the next day or so to let you know if you had a pet selected!
If you want to try your luck at a monthly pet with a potion, you'll need the Essence of December 2011, now available in the GP Shop!
You also might see these little things popping up around the site in various places soon.
Try using it and see what happens!
Have you put the Holiday Tree to use yet?
In the spirit of giving, here are a couple threads you might want to check out:
31 Days of Christmas
Every day this month, we are going to feature a user and give them a special unknown gift! But we need your help picking people out. We want you to nominate users you think have been great contributors to the site and helped make it what it is now.
Come nominate some deserving community members!
12 Days of Christmas - Santa Wishes
Starting December 14th, we are going to be granting some Christmas wishes!!! One person will be selected from this thread every day from Dec 14 - 25, and their wish will be granted. You can wish for anything you want - items onsite, pets onsite, designs, customs, stuff IRL, etc - and if you're chosen, your wish will be granted.
Have you been good this year?
Nets are currently unlimited in the Explore Shop!
We know there's a lot of bugs with Holiday Lane/Adventure right now. Crazy strong pets, getting a poaching fine for taking a common cuddly home with you, and nets breaking faster than toothpicks.
Yasu is fixing them.
Like, working on them as Slash and I glare at him with whips in our hands.
(We're not really that mean, but you get the idea.)
Everyone on staff is working extremely hard to not only make this an awesome December for you, but to get our site to where we want it to be. I know it's frustrating for things to not work as well as you expect, but trust me, we also know that feeling all too well and are going to do whatever we physically can to make things better. Thank you for your understanding and the words of encouragement and appreciation we've received--that helps so much more than you know.
I will have more fun updates for you tomorrow! :3
Meanwhile, don't forget to visit Santa Lunaris!
- Eri
Posted by Eri & --
(#17) on Thu Dec 1, 2011 10:48pm
Welcome to December - Part I
Site Update
It's that time of year again -- SNOWBALL FIGHT!
Snowballs are back and waiting to be thrown at your friends! Stock up on them in the Holiday Lane.
I told you about the Holiday Lane, right?
No?
BAM.
This is our brand new holiday explore region that will be open all of December! You'll be seeing some of our old favorite holiday items as well as some brand new ones.
I have a lot more pets to add to Holiday Lane and you will see new pets added to this region every week during December, so if there's something you would like to possibly see in adventure, stop by the Winter Wonderland thread to enter!
Snowflakes and Candycanes!
They're baaaaaack!
Your favorite seasonal currency items are findable in Holiday Lane and will be used in the seasonal shop this year, so collect as many as you can!
The Advent Calendar
Ho ho ho, I have returned for another month of merriment!
Click on our Santa Lunaris friend to go to the Advent Calendar! You may collect a prize once per day.
Today's prize is a very special item, a Bonsai Christmas Tree.
You can use the Bonsai Christmas Tree once per day for all of December, so choose your recipients wisely!
When you use this item on a friend, the tree will randomly send them a gift. :3
You cannot use the item on yourself or use it on the same person more than once. Please do not sell "uses" of the Bonsai Tree as the purpose of this item is to brighten 31 different people's days.
The premium item for December is an adorable Decorated Phoenix Tree.
I'd maybe visit the Standing Stones to figure out how this item works. o:
(You can only obtain this item if you're premium, it won't show up in the seasonal shop or be given out by the Advent Calendar!)
What am I forgetting? Oh yeah, presents!
Visit the Holiday Tree to send gifts to your friends for them to open on December 25th!
No peeking, you can't open them until then. :3
We have a month full of festivities planned for you, but hopefully this will help get the holiday spirit going!
I will be back tomorrow with Welcome to December - Part II (GP/BP shop pets & more!).
Have fun while Yasu and I finally sleep. XD
- Eri
Posted by Eri & --
(#17) on Thu Dec 1, 2011 1:59am
SCC Hiring
Site Update
The SCC Team is hiring. If you would like to be a site-sponsored SCC artist, please fill out the following form and PM it to me (account #15):
Examples: Examples of 200x200 SCC artwork you have made, or full body drawings lined and fully shaded/colored.
Payment: How much per drawing you would want to be paid.
Availability: How many SCCs you feel you would be able to handle per week.
Time: How long it'd take you to complete an SCC request. Please try to be honest.
Thanks! And don't forget to check out the below news posts.
Posted by JAK
(#15) on Wed Nov 30, 2011 9:40pm
Conservation Week
Site Update
Conservation Week!
Brought to you by Pirate (#306) and a Slashbot!
As our population increases, we need more and more of the environment to support us and help us live our lives. But often this causes problems within the environment, deminishing its ability to sustain life and eventually sustain us as we exploit the resources to our advantage. Currently the earth is heading into a mass extinction event, on par with other natural events such as the ice age or the mass extiction that lead to the demise of the dinosaurs. Except this time the root cause is the action of humanity on the environment.
Conservation is one way we are trying to overcome the damages we have already made to our environment, to reverse the decline in populations of animals due to issues such as poaching, pollution, habitat loss due to urbanisation or deforestation, isolation of populations by monoculture for our crops and climate change (be it human or not, it is still causing damages).
This event is designed to raise money to help those charities out there that are trying to save many animals, plants and ecosystems from becoming extinct, they do this in a variety of ways, but each one does help, though they cannot do it alone. Each animal available is based off an endangered species, from the classification vulnerable to critically endangered. They all feature "spirit whisps" which show the spirit of the animal leaving the body and escaping them before their solid forms depart from this world forever. With your help they could return. -- Pirate
So, Aywas is running a conservation charity drive and offering some pretty nice incentives provided by Pirate herself! Let's take a look at them!
$5 Donation - Chinchilla Rat Bumble
Threat: Habitat loss.
$10 Donation - Gecko Lacer
Threat: Habitat loss and the pet industry.
$15 Donation - Bronze Adoptee Award Tier
Black Rhino SCC base.
Threat: Poaching for the horn.
$25 Donation - Hawksbill Sea Turtle Phanto
Threat: Shell harvesting, entrapment in fishing lines and pollution.
$35 Donation - Imperial Parrot Reve
Threat: Loss of habitat and the pet trade.
$50 Donation - Silver Adoptee Award Tier
Devil Ray SCC base.
Threat: Overfishing.
$75 Donation - Rainforest Cereus
Threat: Deforestation and monoculture.
$100 Donation - Queen Alexandra's Campe
Threat: Deforestation and monoculture.
$150 Donation - Gold Adoptee Award Tier
Snow Leopard SCC base.
Threat: Poaching and isolation by habitat loss.
All prizes above are STACKABLE. That means if you donate $10, you get the Chinchilla Rat Bumble and the Gecko Lacer. If you donate $50, you get the Bumble, Lacer, rhino SCC base, Phanto, Reve and devil ray SCC base. If you donate $150, you get the full set!
The site pets are listed as a "special" rarity, meaning this event is the only way you can obtain them (can't get them through potions, zaps, etc.)!
The adoptee award items are custom creators and let you create a silver custom using the base provided for your tier level (click on the pet image for the PSD!). We will allow up to 30% edits to keep them breedable with each other!
All donations must be made to a charity geared toward conservation.
Here's a list of some suggestions if you're stumped on what charity to choose:
Born Free
Woodland Trust
MOTE Marine Laboratory
World Wildlife Fund
Zoological Society of London
International Union for Conservation of Nature
Care for the Wild
The International Fund for Animal Welfare
Greenpeace
Friends of the Earth
(Note: Something like the RSPCA, while a great cause, is not appropriate for this particular charity drive because we are focusing on conservation.)
This event will be running through Thursday December 8th at 11:59 PM AST, so you have about a week to participate! :3
Donations are listed in USD amounts, but you may donate in another currency as long as it is at least the USD equivalent amount. If you made a donation any time from October 2011 up until the present or consistently volunteer for a conservation charity, e-mail me with some kind of proof and we'll get you your pets! Volunteers get the full set. Anyone who has already sponsored an animal for 2+ years will also receive a full set of pets, so let me know if you qualify for that as well!
E-mail me at [email protected] with your proof of donation. A screenshot of your webpage receipt or forwarding me the receipt the charity e-mails you would suffice. If you have a question regarding proof, e-mail that to me as well.
Aywas is very proud to be able to host an event like this, and we're very glad Pirate brought it to us with her passion for animals. We're a site full of animal lovers, so lets show them our support. We hope you enjoy the event and learn a little something, too!
- Eri
Posted by Eri & --
(#17) on Wed Nov 30, 2011 4:35pm
Art Gallery & Plushies
Site Update
The Art Gallery has been judged!
Thanksgiving was the theme and we had some really adorable entries. n_n
Only four winners this time, though, due to lack of entries/art gallery rules.
Here are the cute entries that made it!
They won:
This week's theme is Winter Wonderland!
With it being December and all, the prizes are probably going to be really cool.
Just sayin'. :3
You can have another week to collect the plushies since you weren't given a second warning. You have until Wednesday, December 7th at 11:59 PM Aywas time to complete your collections!
Spenser will be back when we have a new set for you to collect!
Back to uploading things I go!
- Eri
Posted by Eri & --
(#17) on Tue Nov 29, 2011 8:11pm
SCCs & Offsite Artists
Rules
Public broadcast start!
Due to it coming up, it is important to let all of you know that you may not commission artwork for SCCs or customs outside of Aywas.com, nor may you sell someone else's artwork who is not an Aywas.com member as an SCC, custom, or SCC base.
The only exception is if the original artist contacts us at [email protected] and informs us that they agree to our Terms of Service and transfer full rights to the image(s) to us, as per our TOS.
Public broadcast ended!
Posted by JAK
(#15) on Mon Nov 28, 2011 11:38pm
Winter Artist Call
Site Update
You all know what these are by now. Another call for artists! The holidays have not been kind to our staff, as many artists have had to focus more on schoolwork or other IRL issues, and we are in big need of the above coin artists, specifically Holiday and Evil coins.
Holiday coins make pairings that are not hybrids, but can have parents that are hybrids in the set. If you enjoy editing and drawing on bases already existing, this might be the coin for you.
Evil coins, of course, make evil babies more often than not. These can include hybrids, but the catch is that they make one baby per pair. This can be good for people that like to draw evil, creepy, or gory things, but maybe can only handle a slightly smaller load.
And, of course, BC is the norm, making hybrids and sometimes other pairs (SCCs).
Ideally, I would like to see some applications for people that would solely like to take on HBC only or EBC only, but if you want to be a BC artist you will most likely get the above integrated into your list in smaller quantities. Note that each baby pays 10 GP each, and lists are 10 pairs per 2 weeks. I will be looking into contracts that we can afford, so if you are interested in contracts for cash when applying, let me know in your application and I will ask Slash what is feasible. Note that we may not be able to accommodate many, if any contracts, so keep this in mind when you apply!
When applying, you can use the BC Application, but cater it to your coin of choice. For BC, just do the application as normal; for EBC, take one or two pairs and make the babies evil, so I can see what your ideas for evil offspring are; for HBC, just do the application as normal.
We are also looking for LBC artists, and the application can be found here for interested folks. All info can be found there.
All applications go to [email protected], remember this!
For now as well, we are not looking for any more RBC, MBC, or Derp artists, just the above.
Thank you again, for all the patience you, the users, show lately; I know it can be a little tough to wait a long time for your breedings, but we hope to continue to expand the team. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to post them here or email me at the above address.
Be sure to read the below posts too, they're really important as well!
Posted by Ash
(#90) on Mon Nov 28, 2011 8:08pm
MBC Reminder and Refunds
Rules
Hello Everyone!
Just wanted to let everyone know that we're going to be going through the MBC (metal breeding coin) queue and refunding anyone who has bred a pairing that was old x new lines and has not yet submitted predicts. Of course any newer breedings will be left alone to give users substantial time to submit predicts.
So if you receive a refund notice for a MBC breeding, that would probably be why!
On a similar note, we've been seeing quite a lot of pairings that don't meet Metal requirements. Such breedings will be removed from the breeding queue without a refund, so be careful and make sure the parents are within 5% difference of each other before submitting! Having the exact same lineart for both parents is the safest bet, but that 5% allows for very minute differences.
Here are some examples of valid MBC breedings with 5% or under differences in lineart edits:
x Any un-edited old lineart melo
x Any un-edited standard line Suune
x Any un-edited old line soli
Also please remember to read the Breeding Tutorial before submitting any breedings. Some species cannot be bred with certain coins, so be careful! Metal Breeding Coins can be used with all Common and Uncommon genera, which includes Silver Custom Crystal species, and the Quil, Cirrus and Ornaga who both breed as commons. It does not work with Hybrids or other Rare species. Please also remember that Alt lines x New lines and Alt lines x Old lines are not MBC compatible.
Be sure to read Eri's news post under mine, it has a lot of interesting tid bits that you might be interested in. (And a super creepy bug :c)
- Mauri
Posted by Kyu & Mauri
(#1010) on Mon Nov 28, 2011 4:38pm
As snug as a bug in a rug! Aka, updates.
Site Update
Memcache Error
You probably haven't seen that pesky debug/memcache error in a while thanks to the efforts of Aggie & team, so I just wanted to acknowledge that. :3 Aggie has also been assigned a list of ten fixes separate from what Yasu is working on to try and address some longstanding bugs (lair sorting, item uses, regen issues, forum preferences, etc.), so I'm really hoping that with his help we'll be able to smooth out a lot of issues!
Breeding Prediction Bugs
If you're a frequent breeder and use predictions or are a breeding artist, you might've had some trouble uploading offspring images lately. I'm very pleased to announce that Yasu fixed the issue today, so please let us know if you experience any further problems, but you should be able to re-upload your predict images just fine now. He also fixed some artist-side bugs, which means the breeding staff will be able to now address any breedings in need of refunds. :3
Staff Changes
Rage (formerly a moderator) has been promoted to an administrative position alongside Aetheria (both of #46) to help in the copyright and user issues departments. She will also be picking up other tasks (as we all do XD) as they arise, like special event payments, event custom uploads, etc. We will be working on the Titbird custom thread together, so keep your eyes out for those!
Kyu and Mauri (#1010) now have a temporary administrative position to assist Frey with breeding-related jobs and to handle weekly explore pets and payouts. They will also be helping with other tasks as detailed above, and Kyu and Visark will be working on the Cancer Event custom thread together, so watch for those as well!
We will also be getting our moderators some more tools, which might not be that exciting for you, but it's a big help to us and will, in turn, help things on the site work more efficiently.
Event Threads
You only have a couple more days to get your submissions in for the GP Shop, BP Shop and December Monthly Customs!
If you're not a pet colorist and want to potentially add to the pets we'll be seeing this winter, don't forget to post them in the Winter Wonderland thread! (I'll be going through it soon to do the first wave of accepted pets!)
Oh, and don't forget to finish up your Nano writing. :3 Good luck!
I'll have some more updates for you tomorrow. Have a good night!
- Eri
Posted by Eri & --
(#17) on Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:36pm
Free Art - Caticus Results
Contests
Curious who won the free art icons made by Cat?
Winners:
1. Fairy (#289)
2. Shiori (#2372)
3. Kai (#403)
4. Fyrewise (#13681)
5. Swiftfire (#7039)
6. Rabbit Talon (#9498)
7. Mechanical Cerberus (#9484)
8. R.B.H - Lights Out - (#209)
9. Aila (#3175)
10. Nova (#8407)
Congrats to the winners!
Posted by JAK
(#15) on Sun Nov 27, 2011 1:46am