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Site Update
Allo'! Long time no see folks. I just wanted to take today to address a few changes based on interactions I have had with artists over the past few weeks.
Design Panel Changes
We are only hiring artists who are accepting GP or Artist's Credit as payment from today on wards. This may be changed in the future, and artists may be contacted about pre-pay as well, but the base pay will only be GP or AC.
I have had several artists express that they would love to just be able to grab a design when they have time and finish it, as such we are no longer requiring artists to finish 1 design a month. We have been loosely monitoring it as is, so we are officially removing that requirement. The only timeframe is if you grab a design you must have it complete within 2 weeks unless there is an agreement between the artist and user.
I have also revamped the old Design Ticket Catalog KB and it is now the Design Ticket Feature KB article, it still contains the previous catalog along with additional information.
Due to these new rules you must pm me, Kaiyo #489 stating what you want as payment and what team you have applied on before I will process your application.
As such with these changes, I probably just denied your application if you had previously applied to be on MDT or the Design team. If you are interested in applying with these changes then please reapply!
If anyone is still planning to turn in any sets for the Mayday sale, this is your last reminder that the due date to have all sets turned in to Mayday Marie (#11) is tomorrow, May 12th!
In case anyone needs a refresher, the Mayday Sale will run May 16th through May 20th, with May 21st being the normal credit day. The item needed to nab an Exotic pet is the Exotic Spring Egg, and for those of you who are new to the sales, "Special Credit" is credit that you can only accumulate during the sale by making purchases! The details for the days themselves are as follows, so be sure to plan accordingly:
Thursday, May 16th at 11:00 PM AST
"Special Credit" begins USD Purchases count towards Special Credit 50% more GP with purchase GP Shop and USD Shop have a 3% chance of duplicating your purchase, doubling your order! 10% OFF THE USD SHOP 20% OFF THE GP and BP SHOP! (30% for Premium) Double Premium!! Exotic Spring Egg will be available under the 100 USD Special Bonus Credit Tier Exotic Spring Egg will not be usable to claim Event Exotics yet. This is a good time to sell in the forums!- - - - - - - - - -
Friday, May 17th at 12:00 AM AST (this begins exactly one hour after the previous one!)
USD Purchases count towards Special Credit 50% more GP with purchase GP Shop and USD Shop have a 3% chance of duplicating your purchase, doubling your order! 10% OFF THE USD SHOP 20% OFF THE GP and BP SHOP! (30% for Premium) Double Premium!! Exotic Spring Egg will be available in the 100 USD Special Bonus Credit Tier Exotic Spring Egg is now usable!- - - - - - - - - -
Saturday, May 18th at 12:00 AM AST
USD Purchases count towards Special Credit 40% more GP with purchase GP Shop and USD Shop have a 2% chance of duplicating your purchase, doubling your order! 5% OFF USD SHOP 15% OFF GP and BP SHOP! (25% for Premium) Double Premium!! PBC/PBC Talisman will be available in the USD Shop Exotic Spring Egg will be in the 75 USD Special Bonus Tier- - - - - - - - - -
Sunday, May 19th at 12:00 AM AST
USD Purchases count towards Special Credit 35% More GP With purchase! GP Shop and USD Shop have a 1% chance of duplicating your purchase, doubling your order! 5% OFF GP and BP SHOP! (15% for Premium) Double Premium! Exotic Spring Egg will be in the 50 Special USD Bonus Tier FU Pendant will be available in the USD Shop The added USD Shop items will be removed after today.- - - - - - - - - -
Monday, May 20th at 12:00 AM AST
Today is known as GPalooza! GP Auctions Special items in GP shop Exotic Spring Egg will be in the 25 USD Special Bonus Credit Tier The bonus GP and BP Shop items will be removed after today.- - - - - - - - - -
Tuesday, May 21st at 12:00 AM AST
Special USD Bonus Credit will merge into the original USD Bonus Credit Exotic Spring Egg will be available in the 25 USD Bonus Credit The tiers will be cleared at 11:59 PM AST (The Spring Exotic Egg will remain in the tiers until this time as well, even if there are no more Exotics available, so that collectors can obtain them.)- - - - - - - - - -
While not all of the sets have been turned in, feel free to indulge in a little bit of a sneak peek at what lovely pets will be available this year by visiting the Event Exotics Box!
To simplify it: The Sweater Egg is still showing but it is not the egg that will be used! If you buy a sweater egg you will not be reimbursed
Posted by 🐼Kaiyo🐼
(#489) on Sat May 11, 2019 3:13pm
- Kozmotis
(#48993)
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Posted on: Sat May 11, 2019 6:34pm
This is a really fun system! Will help when I have the few hours of art motivation
- Voluspa is on Hiatus
(#67552)
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Posted on: Sun May 12, 2019 6:19am
🎁❄Kaiyo❄⛄ (#489) this new claim system sounds interesting but I don't get why there are 4 design tickets and 3 coloring tickets where the only difference seems to be the payout to the artist? Do they apply to different pets too? like silvers, hybrids and common? Why would an artist choose any of the lesser paying tickets if the pay is the only difference?
- Koaf
(#57119)
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Posted on: Sun May 12, 2019 11:12am
Hoping I can buy some stuff for my Birthday from this
- Conium
(#39365)
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Posted on: Sun May 12, 2019 11:29am
I'm sad to see the old system go, but admittedly I hadn't really done work for awhile. Mostly because as a graphic artist my going rate is around 17-20$ an hour, depending on what needed to be done. Often I'd work for 5+ hours (largely because I was trying to resize to something workable, make sure the highlights and shades were still good when upscaled, then resized back down to make sure they were still visible and good). Often this involved talking to the commissioner about what they want, researching the design, and double-checking that the design is what they wanted.
All of this, for 4 bucks.
Let's be real here, I've put up my services for proper commission, but that rarely got a hit, if ever. The big names got the expensive tickets, the big names got the ability to charge- and get- a working wage for their work. People like me and many others? We got 4 bucks.
I drifted away from the site because... well, first the login game getting "fixed" meant I lost my streak, so I didn't feel compelled to visit each day. (And also that despite saying that 400px site psds were going to be forthcoming, they really never did) but also I realized that no matter how many of these 4$ jobs I grabbed or how quickly I did them, they wouldn't be able to keep me in house or to get me enough food to live.
"Its not meant to be a real job, it's a side gig!" But it's a side gig that takes up half a day of work sometimes. That much time spent could be used for job searching, applying for benefits, getting medical or mental care, or even just enjoying the outside world or engaging in self-care. And considering most of staff are artists or are friends with artists... you all know that.
So I don't know how I feel about this change. On one hand, since this isn't tied to real money anymore, you could up the rates to something pretty good! And on the other hand, these items are still bought with real cash, with the intention to pay artists real cash for their time, and yet now they don't. And on the other other hand, no amount of fake money can be used to pay the bills, keep a roof over one's head, or food in the fridge.
- 🐼Kaiyo🐼
(#489)
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Posted on: Sun May 12, 2019 11:51am
♑ Voluspa ♑ (#67552) I am going to be brutally honest to you, I have no idea. The tickets have existed before I took over as community manager and was done by previous administration so I don't know exactly why there is the difference but none of them have species regulations.
Conium (#39365) I definitely understand where you are coming from, I was one of those artists myself, which is why I was so receptive to this, so that artists can turn it into more of a hobby. So that when they have extra time and just wanna color something or draw something they can grab it up and do it. We may in time see an increase in pay, but for now we are just taking a step to seeing how the current artists work with it.
- vladthebad
(#8672)
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Posted on: Sun May 12, 2019 4:40pm
Quick Mayday sale question: Will the PBC/PBC Talisman only be released into the USD shop in limited numbers?
- AremRae
(#3998)
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Posted on: Sun May 12, 2019 6:52pm
The differences in ticket levels sort of gave a way for users to pay the artists a little more, while also using higher tickets for more complicated prompts. A lot of artists basically tiered it like this: the lowest tickets = no control from the users, the artist just follows the prompt and delivers the product, middle ticket would be similar but potentially more control and then the highest tickets were more incentive for artists to work 1 on 1 with the user and allow them more control. Part of that was also edit level, lower tickets artists generally would go to about to about 50% where the highest tickets would give incentive to the artists to go all the way to 75%+.
It was just sort of a tier level to allow users/artists to decide what level of work they would do for what ticket type, and a way for users to give more pay to the artists. Worked out pretty well back when it was usd based and had a lot more artists on the team. Some artists would do full 1 on 1 with any ticket type, but the intent wasn't to ever be like that exclusively. The job was follow the prompt, deliver the product and the artist had control over how much back and forth they wanted to do with the user. The users submitting extremely detailed full commission style prompts would likely get passed over if they were submitting something that in depth with the lowest/lower tickets etc.
A similar scenario is things like fully scenery painted style pets would generally be with higher tickets, but it was ultimately up to the artist and what all involvement/work level they wanted to accept for the different ticket types.
- AremRae
(#3998)
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Posted on: Sun May 12, 2019 7:10pm
"The Design Ticket and Metal Design Ticket features are getting a slight revamp to accommodate higher and lower paying customers. Artists will be able to select which tickets they want to work for. Look forward to the release of all the Design Tickets within the next few days!"
Unfortunately the original KB has been mostly re-written at this point, but that's one quote I could find from an old news post about the original introduction of the different ticket types. I also found mention of lesser tickets being good for 30% edited pets and the like. Just to add on a bit to what I mentioned above.
It was a great system when the site was a bit more active, gave users and artists more control over what they requested/worked on/etc.
- AremRae
(#3998)
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Posted on: Sun May 12, 2019 7:15pm
Right about now I wish there was an edit button eh XD
I was on the gcc/mdt teams for a long time, my personal setup was generally only doing painted pets/incredibly detailed lace/orbweavers with complex orbs/75% edited + edit packs etc on my highest tickets, some prompt based edit packs and generally everything else on the middle ticket, and basically only really simplistic requests on the lowest. It worked out really well for artists to judge how long a request would take and decide which tier they would be willing to do a job for. Sometimes I'd get pm's asking about prompts and the user and I could work out which ticket their request would work on as well.
Posted on: Sat May 11, 2019 4:00pm
:D Thank you for the Mayday listings! I can now budget accordingly, lol!