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Site Update
Hello dears, I'm sorry to appear out of season but I've been sent to you with an important message from the Lunaris Council, the governing body of this corner of the universe.
It's very possible you haven't heard about them since they have been mostly absent during the seven years that humans have colonised here on Ay and Ara. You see there were a few problems they've had to attend to in order to keep you all safe here, and because of that we - the Lunarii and the Shapeshifters - have mostly been absent. We've sent down contacts on a monthly basis for a long time now, and a few Shifters - like myself and Tech - have recently come to make our homes here.
What enabled us to do this was the presence of some people you have come to know well - Kaz, Shoe, Chaos and the others. They came here from their own world to look after all that lived here, and guide you beings that are so like their form in becoming settled, and in accepting people such as myself who are both humanoid and creature.
Now that the worlds are safe again, and that you have accepted us as we are, it is time for them to return home. They catch their transport home tonight at midnight to return to friends and family who miss them dearly, and the lives they have so graciously put on hold for so long to be here with you all.
We thank them for their services, their advice, and their love, and wish them well going forward.
So what does this mean for you?
Well, now that myself and those like me are once again able to be here, we're hoping to keep things running for you as you know them. There may be a few small tweaks, a little personalisation by each of us, but we will try to not rock the boat too much while you become more accustomed to us.
We're all very pleased to be here, and look forward to speaking and spending more time with you. We sincerely hope you feel the same.
As for the Lunaris Council... they are rather hands off and don't like to interfere in interplanetary affairs, but they are watching over us from the skies, keeping us safe as always.
Take care, my loves, and I will see you in February if not before.
Staff just have a few quick notes to add on to what Eryn has said.
We want to give you a list of what the games have been known as and what they are becoming as of tomorrow (June 15th), along with any extra notes we think you might want or need to know about the updated games!
- "Xero's Pet Research" will become "Dylan’s Pet Project". The game remains the same.
- "Axl's Pet Research" will become "Naoki’s Pet Research". It has been updated to show if you have the pets or not, same as the Aywapedia, and the pet name even links you to the Aywapedia so you can go in search of one to buy! Be careful though - the button to give up shows in the same place as turning in a successful trio, so watch what you're doing!
- "Scavenger Hunt" will become "Miksa’s Pet Bingo". The game is the same, but will bring back the old game mechanism where you cannot use "Search" or the Aywapedia purchase options to find a Pet ID.
- "Talk to Xero" will become "Manju’s Musings". Your old data will be transferred to the new game - but beware, the mechanic that resets your BP amount if you miss a day has been fixed! The day is counted as 00:00:01 to 23:59:59, so you can check in with them any time of the day, just so long as you don't skip it!
- Free Food will now randomise between 1 and 10 items for you, but still feeds all your pets.
- "Tam's Item Quest" will become "Pablo’s Item Quest". This too remains the same, but again has a click through to the Item Directory page for the item they want to make it easier to complete!
- "Kaz and Shoe" will now feature Rowan and Minerva! Our cutest Aywas couple will throw plant pots and blow kisses, and you might even get an item out of it!
- "Tak's CDs" will become "Tech's CDs". Once again the item name will click through to the Item Directory so you can see what they gave you!
- "Rogue's Zapping" will become "Ambriel's Alterations". Other than a new caretaker of the random result, the game will remain the same.
There's also new NPC Plushies for you to collect... Some of them come from the updated games, if you're lucky...
We will have more on those at a later date!
Posted by Aywas Official
(#2) on Wed Jun 14, 2017 3:32pm
- Aywas Official
(#2)
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Posted on: Wed Jun 14, 2017 8:16pm
Wolfy wants mxm 1x1s (#35112) - I agree, there will always be people do things to characters that people might find objectionable, which is why none of the new NPCs are personal characters (unlike the old ones). I personally believe that people taking those characters and making them their own wasn't something that they had considered happening, or that they thought people would be respectful if asked to stop. Sadly that was not the case, which is why they have been withdrawn from the site, because there were some that were expressly asked to desist but refused to, stating they were public property now and he couldn't stop them.
As such, while we're all very fond of the new cast we have to play with, we're purposefully not taking them on personally and work as a group to give each of them a voice. That way if people do things we feel a little uncomfortable about it's not going to be as distressing as it can be when those characters are solely your own.
- Gale Falcon 🎐
(#74974)
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Posted on: Wed Jun 14, 2017 8:37pm
Woah, I've joined Aywas only a year ago, so I didn't knew that Xero game was bugged and w/o fixes for soooo long o.o I guess I'll be playing Manju's Musings till the 1st miss, haha X'3
With the new NPC crew we'll have some ladies on the website now, so that's a plus! The only thing I dislike about overall cute new NPCs is kinda hollow-ish eyes of those (no shine in their eyes looks weird to me).
My fav old NPCs were Xero (I liked that depressive grumpo), Chaos (his chara descrip on aywas wiki was the nicest) and Desmond (he looks like an anxious worrywart, to which I can relate XD). It's sad to see them go, I'll miss my fav chars, but life keeps changing. I hope Slash will do some comics/novel with those, hopefully :D
- KiRAWRa
(#11849)
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Posted on: Wed Jun 14, 2017 8:46pm
Oh noo I will miss Shoe, he's so precious <3 The rest of the NPCs were jerks, good riddance. lol!
Aywas Official (#2)
I hate to add to the comment pile here already, but I can see why people are upset about the BP streak change. Apparently I wasn't around when it worked "properly", so I had no idea the feature was even broken. The "miss one day and it's all gone" thing DOES sound harsh, and I can really only see two outcomes with that kind of game setup:
1. Loyal user builds up a large streak which will inevitably end and be seriously upsetting. A user could play the game for three months straight but the moment they miss a day, suddenly they have nothing to show for it.
2. User without the ability to visit every day never gets a strong streak going, finds the game not even worth it and doesn't even bother playing.
Both of these scenarios pretty much result in unhappy people. Granted it's not like this is the core of Aywas, but games should at least be inviting and worth playing. Might I suggest something a little less high-risk low-reward, such as reverting a day backward for every day you miss? Or even reverting a week backward? This way there's still a drive for getting people to play continuously, but it's not as soul-crushing as a month's worth of work ending in a single missed day. In this situation, the most loyal users have the most to lose and stand to get burned the hardest.
I think the general result will be: people aren't even going to bother playing this game if the only option is "all or nothing", because without a reasonable streak, the base amount is too low to really bother about. As pointed out previously I don't think there's anything wrong with a reduction in reward for missed days, but a complete reset to zero is ridiculous, especially for the most loyal of users which this game is meant to pertain to.
Re: "its how the game was always meant to be played" - I would be making this point about anything that had a reset to zero after one missed day, regardless of how this game used to work.
Re: "its not even that much BP" - I think the concern here isn't really the amount of BP you get, but the fact that a game based on "rewarding loyalty" really doesn't reward loyalty all that well, considering missing a single day is crime enough to remove you of all your previously loyal days. It gives the general feeling that unless you are able to log in continuously for the rest of eternity to keep your streak alive - which you can't - you don't deserve it.
- singingbadgerLLovesU
(#30385)
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Posted on: Wed Jun 14, 2017 8:56pm
as far as Xero's daily goes, I've been on long enough to remember getting clotheslined by it a few times - just taught me to be careful...and philosophical, lol. many sites have a locked-in daily bang, if if you miss, you miss. free cake is nice but not a guarantee. it WOULD be nice if it had a bye due to site downtime though, or, as some othe sites do, a way to buy a retro pass or lock it temporarily.
whilr I'm not a fan of the new guys' appearance (sure their charactes will shake down over time), I resigned myself to the inevitable a while back. still think the old guys took on a life of their own here, but they're Slash's toys and he is the only one who gets to decide their fate.
"some people like to use them without permission in ways that makes them uncomfortable despite being asked to stop" - that rocked me back a bit, as I have quite a bit of fanfic using them...don't ever recall being asked not to do so, though. is personal profile stuff using/referencing them now verboten as well? and what about site "books" that use the old NPCs as characters?
- bd84
(#2783)
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Posted on: Wed Jun 14, 2017 9:32pm
I don't have time to go through all the pages ATM but does this mean the metal birthday chance uploads for kaz and shoe is gone too?
- SacredAngel
(#42850)
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Posted on: Wed Jun 14, 2017 9:33pm
honestly the only old npcs I'll really remember and miss are chaos and xero. the old NPCs always felt out of place, and I' really appreciate this switch, thanks again to the staff for all your hard work! <3
- Aywas Official
(#2)
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Posted on: Wed Jun 14, 2017 9:36pm
singingbadgerLLovesU (#30385) - We obviously can't stop you choosing to use the characters in personal work for your own enjoyment, and we cannot speak for Slash, but it would probably be best to not make the fanfic available on site.
bd84 (#2783) - Yes, that is correct, but we are replacing it with another free custom event later in the month.
SacredAngel [LL] (#42850) - Thank you, we hope a much more diverse cast will mean there's an NPC for everyone to love!
- Conium
(#39365)
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Posted on: Wed Jun 14, 2017 9:38pm
They've also said they're killing that. They say they'll have tomorrow and as usual, but after that this will be something they do "from time to time" with no set schedule or frequency.
So. Tomorrow everybody better do the thing, because that's staff talk for "might as well never come back"
- Conium
(#39365)
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Posted on: Wed Jun 14, 2017 9:40pm
....whoops. I mean to say "sometime this month" for the Dec. So. That's even more nebulous.
Posted on: Wed Jun 14, 2017 8:10pm
Talk to Zero/Manju Musings: You guys can't say this isn't punishing the user base when countless users are seeing it that way. I agree with what everyone else has stated on this, it seems that most users didn't know this was a glitch and now to say (for lack of better words) tuff crap (ya I gotta be PC that's not what I'm thinking) we WANT to fix it so we ARE gonna fix it and your are just gonna have to suck it up. Too many changes are happening to Aywas and most are NOT good ones. The staff keeps making changes and not good ones and yet can't figure out why the user database is leaving in DROVES. Umm...let's see you make changes promise things will get better and yet they don't just more unpopular changes come along. With this changes things are promised over and over again and yet NOTHING. SMDH This is making me less and less likely to continue to play on the site. More and more new items are being introduced to the site but more and more are USD or high dollar GP items so they might as well be for USD.
----I also know how business sites go like this one, who cares if we loose users there will be more and more where they come from. Except for the fact you tick off enough users and they spread the word they will stop coming. 1 person tells 5 people who in turn each tell 5 people and each of them tell 5 people before you know it word gets around that the site is a sucking money pit that loves to screw over it's user base.