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Site Update
Good evening everyone! It is with a heavy heart that I come to you now. Unfortunately we have to make several financial changes rather quickly. I want to be completely open about everything, so I am going to try to address all of the points that I feel need to be discussed.
I was discussing finances with Slash recently and he discovered a major source of the financial issues that we have been having are due to the site making 30% less income these past few months than in previous years. This is understandable, as many have noticed the active user count has gone down substantially last year, and many countries are in a pretty bad state economically and people are nervous about spending. There is a lot of concern about the stability of the site with how behind several aspects have become.
We have been working on catching up on these things to try to earn your faith back. We are in the process of more changes to help streamline background productivity (such as getting breeding helpers, the commission panel fees, etc). We know that it won't happen over night, and that many of our changes will also upset the user base. We do not want to disregard your feelings, but please understand that everything we do is to benefit the site in the long run. We have a lot of damage to repair, and it is a very long and tedious process. I personally spend almost every waking moment when I am not at my offline job, investigating options and discussing changes with the staff to keep pushing forward.
That being said, some of the changes we are making are:
- Alidae Egg, Transitional Fossil Egg, and Grand Edit Potion are having their Prediction Payout dropped to $10. When an Egg and a Grand Edit Potion are combined they will pay out $15. Any breedings submitted before Tuesday February 14th at 11:59 pm will not be effected by this pay change.
- Offering different payment options for USD breeding teams.
- Shrinking some of the larger USD breeding teams. (However, if we end up with enough artists taking different payments we won't have to do this!)
- The GCC and MDT teams will be shrunk. If you are on one of these teams and are interested in receiving GP or working out another payment system please pm me, Kaiyo (#489). If there are enough people willing to accept different payments I won't have to shrink them.
- The monthly site contests are going to have the USD pay dropped starting next month. It will still be offered but it will not be the same amount.
I appreciate everyone reading this, and I apologize again for these changes. Many of them will be temporary, such as the artists adjustments. Over time we may be making more adjustments, but we hope that these changes will be enough to cover the expenses, and we may be able to bring on another artist or two with the new payment methods for some of the backed up breeding teams.
If anyone has questions please feel free to ask, send me a PM if you would like, I will try to answer whatever I can. I want to be completely open about this situation, and withholding information does nothing for any of us. However, due to certain restrictions, there is some information that I am not permitted to share.
I do not come to you today with only bad news, however! The Commission Fee Panel is now live! You are now able to pay your own fees, select which ones you pay and when. There is a minimum of $5, so if you don't have that much in owed fees you won't be able to pay it yet!
It will work the same way it currently does in regards to dates, and all fees of the prior month must be paid within one week of the new month. So January must be paid within the first week of February, February within the first week of March, etc. Of course, this month is an exception since the feature is new and did start late, however please make sure January fees are paid quickly!
If you have any questions regarding your fees, please send me a pm! Only ping to the news comments if it is a general question about how something works.
Posted by 🐼Kaiyo🐼
(#489) on Fri Feb 3, 2017 2:19pm
- Tsuyu & Sia ToT
(#774)
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Posted on: Fri Feb 3, 2017 6:59pm
🎁❄Kaiyo❄⛄ (#489)
Since I don't know if a think tank thread is going to go up...I figured I'd put up a suggestions of a custom percentage adder.
An item that allows a person to add 1-5 or 1-10 percentage to a custom crystal/custom that, for example, comes back as 79% but editing it back is too difficult to do. Put it up for USD?
- Oiseau
(#1570)
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Posted on: Fri Feb 3, 2017 6:59pm
Would it help to space the story game out to bi-weekly instead of weekly, or is the feature just something that the user base isn't that interested in?
- Hyllin
(#72293)
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Posted on: Fri Feb 3, 2017 7:23pm
I've just recently come back to the site and I'm sad to hear it's in trouble but it's good to see you're taking quality steps to fix it instead of going for the quick bandaid fix in the long term they can do a lot more harm than good
- Mars
(#128)
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Posted on: Fri Feb 3, 2017 7:43pm
Oh yes, I vote for 🌈Allysun🍀 (#317) 's idea!!! (God how I hate those cloths lmao)
- Kazna (Pirate@142)
(#233)
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Posted on: Fri Feb 3, 2017 8:04pm
I second Tsuya's idea - a cstom item that could go beyond the 75 percent limit would be grand and just require psds to breed them else its declined. Like maybe require psd at upload
- Broken
(#1464)
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Posted on: Fri Feb 3, 2017 8:20pm
Being a long time player, I think a lot of users are leaving the site because of more and more things becoming only available for USD and very few things for site currency. Lots of users now only want USD for their work or items and very few take GP/BP anymore. Trying to find someone that will take GP for USD is even difficult at best. I know I can't spend USD on the site for digital items on a site that can very well close at anytime. I used to spend some USD on here, here and there as I knew I could get stuff designed for GP or BP that I earned in game. Right now I see no point in playing a game where game currency has pretty much become pointless/useless and the only reason I am still here is because I do the events but I find myself spending less and less time on the site. Even breeding has taken a backseat for me, I have an HBP and breedings for that have over a year waiting list. While I understand other breedings have slower ones too I believe the HBP/HBC has the longest wait time (next to PBC but I think even that queue is moving faster as I know a few PBC breedings that have come back before my HBP breedings that were submitted after them.) so this all but makes it pointless to use. So why my point is why continue playing on a site where most site currency is useless? Something needs to be done to make site currency worth having instead of making USD the prime currency for the site.
2nd thing that I think maybe making users leave is a lot of new features have been promised but have never come to light. You can't make promises to your user database and keep expecting people to stay.
- Oiseau
(#1570)
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Posted on: Fri Feb 3, 2017 8:35pm
Candy Raccoon (#1416) This. So much this.
It took me two months to find someone willing to trade me $18 USD for my 45 GP, because it's hard to find a buyer for GP. I got the GP by adventuring for BP and trading the BP for GP, which took longer than usual too, because not too many people want BP either.
Don't get me wrong. I love this site and want to stay. It just gets frustrating sometimes when I see all these other users getting all these customs and items so fast, and I'm left out because site currency just doesn't buy what it used to.
- Oiseau
(#1570)
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Posted on: Fri Feb 3, 2017 8:36pm
Candy Raccoon (#1416) Sorry, I mistyped and didn't meant to ping you. I meant to ping Broken (#1464)
- Broken
(#1464)
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Posted on: Fri Feb 3, 2017 8:41pm
Oiseau (#1570) I agree and that's what I was saying it's nearly impossible to do anything with site currency which makes playing on the site pretty pointless as practically everyone wants USD now.
Posted on: Fri Feb 3, 2017 6:22pm
Would it be possible to increase the benefits of doing your own predicts, and make it easier for predicts to pass? If the users are doing their own breedings more regularly, that'll take a loooot of weight off the staff.