News
Search Options ►Holiday Breeding Coin Changes & Predict Caps
Site Update
This newspost is going to be a potentially upsetting one to some people, but please bear with as I explain some changes we are making to Holiday Breeding Coins.
As a result of raising the pay for contract breeding artists and giving them fairer wages for their work, a problem began with edited coins. Holiday Breeding Coins were a great way to breed Silver pets and other genuses without getting a hybrid, and for a cheaper price.
However, the fact that Holiday Breeding Coins typically produce two offspring regularly (instead of the chance of 1 or 2 via gold Breeding Coins) means that the queue, now quite large, competes with the regular Breeding Coin queue and clogs up artist time. This creates long wait times for offspring from both coins in the end. Because of the fact that they are also cheaper than gold Breeding Coins, the cost effectiveness of doing two offspring and paying out the same is not sustainable. We also do not want to lower artist pay for Holiday Coin artists either, since that also isn't fair.
So as of today, the Holiday Breeding Coin will only produce one offspring by the artist team. As a compromise, however, if the breeding has common/uncommon species parents, you are welcome to submit a second offspring via predict if you choose. This is retroactive and will affect all current breedings in queue that have not yet been assigned to an artist. Up until this newspost date you will also be allowed, for said retroactive breedings, to submit ONE predict for rare parent HBC breedings and TWO predicts for common/uncommon HBC breedings. Married pairs in this retroactive period can receive 2 predicts for rare parents, and 3 predicts for common/uncommon.
From tomorrow onward, however, any new breedings will get one artist baby for rares, and one artist baby+one predict baby for common/uncommon. Married pairs will get one artist baby + one predict for rares, and one artist baby + two predicts for common/uncommon.
I will give the Holiday queue a week as of tomorrow, May 10th, a time period that, if you wish to request a refund of your breeding due to the change, you will be welcome to ask me to do so personally. Remember that you can easily flag a breeding as having predicts to take it out of the assignment queue if you wish to put predicts without risk of having it assigned.
This is an inconvenience, I know, but the fact of the matter is we wish to be able to keep fair pay for the artists involved while also keeping ahead financially. We will have a dedicated Holiday Coin artist for a few months to see how this helps us as well, and ensure that the queue moves at a steady pace.
If you have any questions or other concerns regarding this, please don't hesitate to ask.
ADDENDUM FOR PREDICT CAPS
BC predict caps have been raised to 15 GP per one predict. HBC predicts are 25 GP per one predict.
For the tl;dr crowd:
- GP Predict cap for HBC has been raised to 25, as requested.
- Rare breeders with HBC can add an extra predict for free. Uncommon/Common breeders can add two extra predicts for free, meaning you get an extra baby that you expected with HBC. This is good for all breedings submitted before this news post.
- A new USD item will be added for $20 that will fund another 30% edited baby in an HBC breeding. Yes, it will work for rares too. It will also allow you to select which parent species you want in common/uncommon breedings.
Posted by Ash
(#90) on Sat May 9, 2015 9:24pm
- Sunny
(#41814)
-
Posted on: Sun May 10, 2015 2:43am
ChaosAzeroth (#43055)
Well said. I agree with that. :)
- Abso-is-Absent
(#873)
-
Posted on: Sun May 10, 2015 2:49am
Why don't you guys use some of that extra money from the USD pet auction to at least honor the breedings already submitted? Seems a bit unfair to the ones who have already submitted/paid for fees/etc. Or how bout you guys refund everyone's GP/BP fees that have already submitted, since I doubt everyone has the fees to refund? Or is that just a "tough luck" situation?
- Abso-is-Absent
(#873)
-
Posted on: Sun May 10, 2015 2:50am
Frey (#90) J.A.K. (#15) ^ since I forgot to tag.
- Minerva
(#23204)
-
Posted on: Sun May 10, 2015 3:07am
Dawh come on ;_; does that mean if I want two predicts for a common x common breeding I cannot do that anymore now? Do I NEED 1 predict + 1 artist baby to get two babies???
- Ezreal <3 Z
(#41618)
-
Posted on: Sun May 10, 2015 3:19am
I think now that I've calmed down some, let me hammer this out: I don't think ANYONE will disagree that the change from this point forward is fair. The coin is has to somehow turn a profit from the site and artists shouldn't have to be paid less.
Now my problem is that this should have been tackled long ago. The queue was not really moving for quite a long time (I was keeping track of my breeding and eyeballing dates) so I do believe that the change should have been made a while ago without the retroactive changes (thus affecting less users). Yes, I am aware that this might not have been noted till now. Still, I believe this is a site oversight and that users should not have to pay for the site oversight. Because you're essentially transferring the cost from the site to the user, and while you are within your right to do so I don't think that it is fair.
A second problem I believe many people have is that even with paying predict fees, there are few people willing to do predicts for HBCs so the resolution is not satisfactory per se (at least, to me). The free predict baby doesn't do anything for me if I can't even create it, and I can't create it if I can't hire someone, and I can't hire someone if there's no one to hire. And I'm useless with edits so I can't DIY it.
So that's my 0.02 cents.
- Moons 🌙
(#58686)
-
Posted on: Sun May 10, 2015 3:49am
Never thought I'd be glad to be too poor to get involved with things like this... This sounds like a hassle, wow. But I'm glad to hear artists can keep getting fair pay without putting the site out of business, and it's nice to see a staff team directly involved in a discussion to try and solve the problem as well as possible for everyone affected~ Thumbs up for that c:
- fern 🌿
(#22982)
-
Posted on: Sun May 10, 2015 4:16am
Being one of the players who submitted their HBC breeding last year (and now it’s May!) I want to leave my opinion too.
The idea is good for the artists, however, the fact that this change is active immediately does not appeal to me. The players who submitted a HBC breeding were counting on receiving 2 offspring and that is kinda unfair that they paid all the costs (HBC, addons, breeding fees) and will now be getting only one. I think it would be a lot better and not upset the players if this was active from today on for all the HBCs submitted now and in the future but the ones already in queue should be receiving the treatment which the owners thought they would get and on which they were counting while they were spending their money. I personally have no way of getting back the fees I paid even if I decided to cancel the breeding and get the coin back because the other player is not active anymore. We also should be taking into account that the queue was simply paralyzed for quite some time before this announcement and it wasn’t moving at all while the BC queue was.
We (the ones who have submitted before the change) also can’t choose which genus baby we want from our breedings. Instead we would have to buy a 20$ item. It would be awesome if Aywas would at least be so kind and give the privilege of choosing which arm we want to cut off and which we want to keep.
I understand that the average player can not influence what’s happening and that ultimately it is only up the other owner but this still leaves a really bitter feeling for so many people.
- Ezreal <3 Z
(#41618)
-
Posted on: Sun May 10, 2015 5:00am
PMed this suggestion but I also want to throw this here:
It would be nice if we could get something like the artist event but for HBC predicts. This would help artists because they can get USD and would help the users who do not want to pay 20 bucks because they only want the one predict.
Personally, I think it would go a long way to give me the reassurance that while this is a business move, the site is ensuring that everyone gets the help they need to find predict artists (and that its not just about the money).
- Honey
(#25910)
-
Posted on: Sun May 10, 2015 5:29am
Okay, I'm very new to the breeding and predict side of the site - but why is the HBC predicts so much more expensive than the BC predicts?
Posted on: Sun May 10, 2015 2:41am
These sort of things always happen when my breeding will likely be assigned next list :( Oh well, at least with the amount of hbc I have in queue I'll get a gazillion extra babies if I can muster the will to draw them myself.