News

Posted on: Wed Jan 4, 2012 11:34pm

Ugh.....my pendant was regenerating at midnight.....well the first one anyway (or its supposed too though the last month it did it at 31 days instead of 30)....the second is near the end of the month so I don't really care about that one.....just....man, I spent gp for the plushie collection to get the sp in the first place....my gp is bought with real cash....I don't quite remember, some of them were retartedly priced.....and the second I bought from someone in gp....which again....I bought with real money think...I mean, I partially understand this I do....but taking it out on us because of a staff mistake? Nope sorry end of story. I usually try to keep my comments to myself....mainly because there is no point wether its suggestion forum or here....what aywas lacks most is one really important thing.....and that is insight. There's no thinking before taking action, there's only action....sit down and talk things with the whole admin staff before doing something....think of what benefits there are and also try and think of what could potentially happen that might be like a giant red flag, have a contingency plan that you can use BEFORE things get out of hand. This whole issue did not need Einstein, or whatever other genius to see it would happen. If you can see how many LBP's there are (or the breedings whatever same idea) then you were well able to monitor this on a regular basis.

I can't speak for other people on this. I TRY to get as many predicts in as I can, but I don't want to pepper babies/predicts to a bunch of people, I've found a person I absolutely adore for predicts but she is one person and I like giving her a bit of breathing space when I've asked for a predict (not to mention I can't always afford to buy the gp all the time either despite how incredibly affordable her rate is....if you ask me she under-prices herself)..but I'm usually happy if I can at least get predicts for one of the lbps, it's at least that much that I can pat myself on the back isn't being dumped on the breeding staff (still have to be checked but at least the actual art people can take a breather from that one particular breeding). Anyway, I'll just zip my trap, just been boiling for a while site wise and needed to finally vent a bit. No disrespect meant if things were taken the wrong way. I don't always phrase well -.- *smacks self in case*

Posted on: Thu Jan 5, 2012 12:26am

I'm really truly sorry to you, Frey. You bust your butt making sure that breedings go out as quick as you can when you're clearly short staffed. Between glitches in the cron and too many chances at SP (many of which were simply because coders weren't around to stop them and many of which rely on honesty of users with extra SP to give them up) you had to make a really hard choice. I'm sure you knew the responses would be ugly, but having read through all ten pages of the angry and hateful responses, I just want to hug you for taking all of that.
These pendants, like most everything else we can get without spending any real money (yes, I earned not just my LBP but enough SP for a second without spending a single dollar or exploiting glitched SP) are gifts from all of the staff and admins. You guys make it possible to get tons of customs and breedings just for being active users. The fact that you can't keep giving at the rate you had been is hardly something to be condemned. Thank you for everything you've all done to make this site an enjoyable place. Thank you for all the opportunities at awesome pets, breedings, prizes. Thank you for rewarding many users all month with both on and off site wishes. Thank you for hiring a whole new set of staff members for these new PBC breedings. Thank you for giving us a chance at the PBP regardless of how small. Realistically, I'm not getting enough candy canes for that pendant but seeing it in there was awesome. It was a tiny chance but a chance none the less. Thank you for that and everything else you give us and especially for dealing with the flood of people complaining and shouting "not fair!" and completely forgetting the last month of constant giving you all have done and the constant work all year long you put in for us. Thank you.

Posted on: Thu Jan 5, 2012 1:04am

I think its probably a necessary choice, but done harshly... A good way to temper it would probably be a straight refund option. Basically the item that people have paid for has changed into something else; people should be able to say well, I don't want it anymore then, I'll have my SP back please. That way as well you'll be taking more out of the system. If you don't want them to turn around and spend it straight back on a RBP then you could always put a couple of limited special potions or something in the shop to soak up some of the sudden influx of SP.

Posted on: Thu Jan 5, 2012 1:34am

Hm...another change out of the blue. Can we begin to get warnings about these? .-. not just BOOM done. it's irritating no matter if it effects you or not xD It's just nice to know something is coming. Even if nothing can be done to change it, it's still nice to know when it's coming. Just be like "hey, tomorrow all LBP's will no longer take 30 days to recharge, they will instead take 60." not just "BAM they're all changed. haha. bye. -zooms off-" x.x"

Posted on: Thu Jan 5, 2012 1:49am

I'd like to add my two cents here, even though I don't have a breeding pendant - or any pendant.



First off, I doubt most people got their SP from taking advantage of glitches. I have a few SP, but I've earned them, thank you very much. I'd also like to point out that not all SP is 'free' - from collections and games - some people more than earn it, as payment for site pets they've submitted. The SP - and the things in its shop - are not free, they're paid for in one way or another. I have to say that if I'd gotten my site pets paid in SP, bought the pendant, and then had the pendant's recharge changed, I'd be more than a little angry or upset - it's basically saying "I know we promised you 12 LCB a year for the work you put in, but sorry! It's too much work for us! You'll only get half as many a year instead, you don't mind, do you?" Of course I would!



In this case, changing the value of something AFTER you've bought it is a pretty nasty trick - and while I understand that yes, the staff is overloaded, there's too many breeding pendants, etc - that's not the fault of the users who saved up and bought them. To change the value of something someone's bought - AFTER they've bought it - is pretty poor marketing. And pretty blasted unfair to the people who worked hard to get their pendants!



Nor do I believe people selling their pendant slots are taking advantage of anything - they're selling something they earned, and there is nothing in the rules against it. And if the slots are cheap, well - that's part of economics, the law of supply and demand, and the 'supply' part isn't the fault of the users at all.



Considering there's STILL the issue of the over-worked breeding staff, I think the easiest - and most fair method - would be to refund a percentage of the original SP cost of the pendant. The value was reduced from 12 breedings a year to 6, so basically half of the SP should be refunded. It's still not ideal, but nothing about this situation is really ideal, is it?



And before people say "But people will turn around and use it for Radioactive Breeding Pendants!" I'd like to point out the RBP is WAY more expensive than the LBP was, with largely unbreedable babies, mutant babies are the quickest to produce except for maybe derp babies, and isn't always successful. It won't destroy the economy to have some extra RBP out there.



And that's my two cents (and some change). I'm sure it'll just blend in with the other people clamoring, but I'm simply trying to point out what is FAIR, and try to suggest a reasonable solution.

Posted on: Thu Jan 5, 2012 2:10am

My two LBPs were not free. They cost me months of long hours struggling to stay on the leaderboards for games I wouldn't have spit in the general direction of if there hadn't been a profit to it and plushes I bought with GP and BP I earned through various things onsite.

It's extremely frustrating to not only have the things I worked so hard for devalued, not to mention the general tone that honest players 'abused the system' by buying and using a product the site offered. It feels like the player base is constantly being punished for the site's shortsightedness. Why can't you come up with a more positive solution? Find something really awesome that might tempt pendant owners into trading for something else the site's better equipped to handle, hire more breeding artists, something that doesn't penalize players for playing in the way the site allows us to play? Most of the playerbase doesn't want to cause problems for the site, we just want to have fun with the resources offered to us. All these negative changes aren't fun.

I understand the people behind these decisions are human too, and they can make mistakes, be too impulsive or not be able to predict problems before they happen, but surely there's a better way to solve problems like this than taking away things players have earned fairly.

Posted on: Thu Jan 5, 2012 2:28am

Er... guys? Aywas is far from the first site to have released something and then later nerfed it. MMOs do that all the time because sometimes something does get out of hand. It's something to avoid as much as possible, because it does suck for those who spent time/money/effort on the feature/item, but it's something that happens on every site.


As for the "just find more artists" suggestion--artists with the skill, time, and dedication to get breedings done every week don't grow on trees. Yes, more will be found as the site grows larger, but we can't just wave a wand and have 10 reliable, high-quality artists materialize out of thin air. And due to the nature of Aywas pets and edits, it's harder to outsource artists, since even a good artist needs practice to make something that matches the custom style.

Posted on: Thu Jan 5, 2012 2:56am

Just wanted to say that it's really ridiculous to say the LBP breeding are free. Most of the users worked very hard every month to get on high score boards and stay there, or worked very hard to scramble together the gp. Of course this was all done in the past, but it sure was a lot of work >.>

And this: "Hm...another change out of the blue. Can we begin to get warnings about these? .-. not just BOOM done."

Don't get me wrong, I love this site, I understand the decisions, but all of it's sudden changes are more and more irriting.

Posted on: Thu Jan 5, 2012 3:10am

>.> I know I was one person to say hire more artists, but I do not in any way...think they grow on trees. However I won't comment on quality of artists cause that tends, as I've seen, to depend on peoples personal opinions. I just think that perhaps more time can go into maybe...nurturing some artists who are on their way to becoming better. Perhaps post tips and tricks or something for better predictions and the like, then those who HAVE the time, willing to take the effort, can develop the skill to meet the "site quality". I'm sure none of us believe that artists are EASY to find. Just like coders. Neither are easy to come by even though both are always needed everywhere. Sorry if I've ticked someone off but...felt like it needed to be said.

Posted on: Thu Jan 5, 2012 3:23am

As far as I can see, applications for the breeding team are open. Artists are always free to apply. As for tips--definitely; there are tutorials for custom making, coloring, .psd making, edits and more. If there isn't a tutorial for it, you're free to make a thread asking for help; more often than not, you'll get plenty of good suggestions. If you can think of a way to encourage more artists to apply, I'd definitely make a suggestion thread; however, I don't think 'encouraging people to apply for breeding artist positions' is going to counterbalance the current length of the queue.



As for the 'free' bit that people keep taking up issue with; no, it's not saying that you didn't have to work for your LBP. We're not talking about that sort of cost. Looking at it from an economic standpoint, each LBP is doling out breedings that are bringing nothing into the site, practically speaking. It's like being handed an LBC each month. Compared to purchasing an LBC, where you're definitely exchanging currency for the item, you can see how it's not doing anything for either the breeding queue or the Aywas economy.