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Search Options ►March Madness - Part I!
Site Update
Welcome to the first part of March! Are you excited to see what we have underway for you? You already got a taste of some of the fantastic new stuff we've brought out for this month, but we're going to make it even better! Put your seat belts on, and we'll begin our ride!
New Jeweled Pets
As with every month, the new Jeweled Pets have arrived. This month's artist is Hikaru (LLs) (#15577)!
If you would like to become an artist for the Jeweled Pets, check out the application thread. There's a new incentive to encourage artists to apply!
New FauxBox Theme
A new month always means a new Faux Box theme! So let's see what theme we'll have for March... how about Easter? Adorable rabbits, candies, eggs, chicks... let your imagination go wild with this month's edits!
Premium Item
Wow! You really cleared out the FauxBox! We're really proud of all of you, and happy to see that all those designs now have loving homes in your lairs. So to celebrate those 2,000+ fauxes finding homes, the premium item for this month is the Fox Pen!
If you don't remember what this item does, it allows you to add 10% edits onto your faux to make it more unique. Have fun!
New USD Bonus
There's a new item available as a bonus for purchasing GP or USD Items! That would be the Metal Trinket Box. You can get one Metal Trinket Box for every $5 spent in GP or the USD Shop. Keep scrolling to see why this is going to be extra fun!
This bonus will last until March 19, at 11:59 PM Aywas Time.
Goodbye, Paintbrushes!
After checking out the usage and popularity of the Commissions feature, we have decided that we will be retiring Paintbrushes from the USD Shop. The Commissions feature is easier for the Aywas Team to manage over Paintbrushes, and it also allows artists to collect more cash for less of a fee.
The Paintbrushes will officially be leaving the USD Shop on March 13, 11:59 PM. If you have any lingering Paintbrush transactions to complete, be sure to grab your necessary item before that date.
Despite leaving the USD Shop, existing Paintbrushes will be available to redeem indefinitely. The supply of them will simply cease as we encourage artists to move toward the Commissions feature.
Free Silver Art
We announced a few weeks ago that we were in the process of revamping the "Free Silver Species Artwork" part of Silver Custom Crystals. We will be revamping it to be similar to the GCC and MDT features, where artists can apply for the team and players can submit an item and select artists they want to take their commission.
While this feature is not ready to release yet (consider this an informational update), this is the plan for it and you can start to decide whether you want to join the future team! We hope this will streamline the feature and allow you the ease and accessibility of the existing ones.
Some Voting is A'Comin'!
We teased you earlier in this post that those Metal Trinket Boxes would come in handy near the end of this post... well, here's what's going to happen! We have a number of different pet genus lines that we have hoarded. YOU are going to be voting for your two favorite from the big batch!!
The First Place winner, with the most votes collected, will become the newest FAUX BOX pet! Though, it won't be called a Faux Box. It'll have its own separate box from the existing one.
The Second Place winner, with the second most votes collected, will become a brand new TRINKET species! So if you really, really love that second place winner, you can color it and upload with those trinket boxes to your heart's content.
When's this vote taking place, you ask? You want to see all the pets stockpiled? How's tomorrow sound? Yes, we'll hold our vote tomorrow and allow it to go for forty-eight hours.
And even the losing linearts will show up later as Raw Crystal pets, or for some other project. How's that for excitement?
Let us know which part you're most excited for in a comment below!
Posted by JAK
(#15) on Sun Mar 6, 2016 2:36am
- NyctiCorax
(#1965)
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Posted on: Sun Mar 6, 2016 4:17pm
Kita & Riri (#3988) Thanks for explaining, that's exactly the part I was missing! :)
Eevee 훗 Pichu [LL] (#50345)
Yes, normally you would set aside that money until you need it again. Do you remember the problem with the user who did multiple chargebacks though? Sometimes you come across situations where you just need it directly, and if it's available, that's basically the only option you have. Then if someone expects to be paid for their art (which they have a right to), but you haven't been able to build up the reserve again, that might cause trouble, because you'll have to cut it out of a budget for something else.
For bigger companies it's not a problem, because they probably have another couple thousand dollars to spend stored somewhere, but for small business like aywas the leeway most likely isn't going to be a couple of thousand dollars, or maybe not even a couple of hundred dollars. I have no clue about any actual financial numbers, but I"m kind of assuming aywas is not really big, and so those taxes and unpredicted extra expenses can make a huge difference.
- Gone x2
(#550)
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Posted on: Sun Mar 6, 2016 4:28pm
If monthly taxes is an issue, instead of removing it all together (and I understand this idea is not without argument but in my mind it's better than nothing) why not introduce a new paintbrush that expires after 30 days to yeild the gp equiv of what you paid for it? (so... You bought a gold new paintbrush, the timer struck 31 days, you get 20gp (or 40 if we're going 2x usd store price)
- Wolfy
(#35112)
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Posted on: Sun Mar 6, 2016 5:08pm
OMG! Bunny themed fauxes, I may have to buy a net or box! *A* I'm a sucker for bunnies X3
- [MIA]
(#222)
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Posted on: Sun Mar 6, 2016 6:45pm
Because, in the end, it's too much work, and human error/life unexpectednesses can mess up a timed item.
I.E. Say someone buys a timed item today, they plan to use it, they have 31 days. Then say, something happens, they get busy, they have an emergency, they can't get online to take care of their business. So, they come back like maybe two months later after everything has finally settled down, but their thing expired. So now they are sitting on a useless item that has absolutely no value that they shelled out USD for. It's not their fault they got busy/forgot potentially that the item was there, stuff happens.
This is part of the reason timed items won't work, and users get their panties in a bunch when something that /doesn't/ cost USD is timed. It basically means people won't buy them unless they are absolutely sure they can get their stuff within the month.
Also, it brings up another issue. What if you commission someone and they don't get the art done within the month? Say you agree to buy it the day that you commission them, but you don't pay upfront, but you gotta have proof you have it? Then what if something happens in the artist's life that they can't control and it takes them... three months to do it? Then who's at fault? The timed item or the artist?
Timed items are kind of a double edged sword, and they kind of depend on a 'perfect' system, aka usually not human error. Also, it works the other way too. Say you commission someone, you buy the item, you send it to them. THEY CANNOT REDEEM THE ITEM UNTIL THE ART IS DONE. So, say life happens, it takes them three months to get the art done. Who pays? The item is now useless/worthless, do they ask the commission to essentially pay twice for something they couldn't control, or do they eat the lost funds? It would be a messy system.
I'm not like backing up the site since this doesn't effect me and I couldn't care less if the brushes stay or go, but timed items are flawed from the start and it will just cause more issues than it really solves in retrospect. The only one who would really win on timed items would be the site, the users and artists could both (potentially) lose on them, so /shrugs.
- Kalid [hiatus]
(#49104)
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Posted on: Tue Mar 15, 2016 9:13pm
JAK (#15) - Can the easter sets have Christian Elements, or just commercial ones?
Posted on: Sun Mar 6, 2016 4:05pm
Kita's got it right. The problem is taxes, unfortunately. Since the gov expects taxes paid out on a monthly basis re:money made, buying pb's means the site needs to pay extra money for that reported income, and THEN down the line needs to pay out to the artist. Any form of 'commission currency' introduced would run into the exact same issue.
The reason the commission panel works is because people are paying the artist directly, meaning the site only sees income when they invoice the artist for license fees, and thus only pay taxes on that bit of the money (15%) the commissioner paid, instead of the full commission price (100%).
Honestly, the only way I can see it working for non-USD direct users is if commissioners/artists could somehow 'presell' certain services for a voucher that users could then sell to other users for GP. But that runs too much risk of artists then poofing with the money and never completing artwork.