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Site Update
Hi all, I am posting to provide an update regarding the recode. Staff realise this is very overdue, and we are thankful for your continued patience and support.
Over the past year, we have been quiet about the status of the recode out of respect for real-life circumstances impacting our main coder, Yasu. Despite our attempts to reach out, we haven’t been able to contact Yasu and no longer have access to the recode files. The work was being done on a private sandbox server without shared access, which is a mistake we didn’t anticipate. It has served as a hard lesson for us, and we are sorry that it’s had to affect you all.
When coding responsibilities shifted unexpectedly, I stepped in to maintain the live site. While I can manage the existing website, a full recode is unfortunately above my skills. Currently, hiring a senior developer or firm to do the recode is out of our budget, as a site of Aywas scale and complexity requires significantly more funding than we have after our current expenses. We don’t have any plans to crowdfund at this time, though it has been discussed. Currently, it just doesn’t feel right to ask more of the community who has been along for the ride with us.
On a more positive note, we've recently connected with a developer who has kindly taken on the recode as a side project and has already helped us with some of Aywas’ many hiccups. They are starting from square one, using our previously established roadmap. The beginning of this roadmap includes mostly backend work, such as the Breeding Control Panel (BCP) Registration and Sessions.
While restarting isn’t ideal, staff will continue to maintain the site within the constraints of the current code while the recode progresses.
We would also like to thank Yasu for his work over the years and wish him all the best.
Note: This was orginally posted in Behind The Curtain 2.0
Posted by Kandria
(#111) on Tue Mar 10, 2026 10:24am
- Kandria
(#111)
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Posted on: Wed Mar 11, 2026 1:36pm
Saturn (#497)
smokeykit (#32113)
Yasu was a main coder for this site from almost the beginning, to my knowledge. The situation he had with the site owner on where code is stored or sandboxed was not made known to the admin staff, as it was not something we needed to know. Out of respect, we will not be getting into the situation that led to the disconnect that happened. Given that I am a very baby coder, there was never a need for staff to know or have access to the recode because it was beyond what any of us could have understood or collaborated on; it was fully in his hands. We did not use a github or similar storage for the same reason, as well as it's common for devs to not release code until it's done or paid for when there are not many hands in the code at the same time.
While yes, Yasu was paid for work, this project was yet unpaid again for reasons we won't be getting into publicly because it's between the owner and Yasu how all that is handled when it comes to the site Dev/coders and how the payments and scales work.
So it also would be unethical to take work he was not paid for yet, and keep working on it without contact and approval, which we do not have. On top of that, the new Dev would have to be comfortable with the framework and understand what the code was doing and re-work or even overhaul it if it wasn't the same way this Dev has for a vision for the site.
Code isn't as black and white as people think it is, and every Dev or coder has their own style, preferences to frameworks and libraries, and it is far easier and more fair to let a Dev who is coming in blind to the recode start at square one, given the situation.
That said, yes, we've made a few changes to avoid this in the future and will adjust as needed to keep the site going and safe.
Backups have always been something we run regularly, and recently increased how often they run and where they are stored. We've had the current code analyzed and confirmed the need for a recode over just patching the site code as-is. We have the new dev and me both comfertable is mainting the site in the meantime, so major bugs or issues can be adressed and the site will remain as stable as it can be given the age of the code.
- Fallout
(#61873)
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Posted on: Wed Mar 11, 2026 4:01pm
I worked for another pet site that fell apart due to things behind the scenes that our userbase weren't privy to (maybe some of you might recognize me, chances are most of you won't). I won't air our dirty laundry or talk about what went wrong because it's not necessary or relevant, but because of that, I absolutely understand and I'm not mad.
The best I can say is this is a lesson lived and learned. Just do your best with what you've got, and most of us will still be here til the end. And I don't know what's going on with Yasu, but I hope he's okay.
- ko-minuu
(#82748)
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Posted on: Wed Mar 11, 2026 5:08pm
I would highly encourage going through with crowdfunding. Many people want to help and it is frustrating that you are not letting us do so because you feel guilty asking that of the community.
- Kandria
(#111)
-
Posted on: Wed Mar 11, 2026 5:30pm
Also, an overall reminder from staff to keep debates, comments, or replies following the TOS of the site.
We understand feelings may be mixed about this, but we will still be enforcing the following (but not limited to) rules
"Users are expected to conduct themselves in a mature fashion at all times. Excessive rudeness or a hurtful, ridiculing attitude toward any player (user or staff), site feature, or site amenity will not be tolerated. When discussing a sensitive topic (such as religion, politics, sexuality, etc.), users must remember to remain respectful and should keep any criticism aimed at the issue instead of each other. Voicing dislike for a political/religious figure or group is allowed, but personal attacks and insults toward Aywas members is not"
- Sandy
(#50007)
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Posted on: Wed Mar 11, 2026 5:48pm
How about a poll on crowd funding? I live on a fixed income, so I don't have a lot to offer. But I'd give some if it helped!
- Sunny
(#41814)
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Posted on: Wed Mar 11, 2026 7:14pm
I'm with the crowdfunding people who want to help. Like Sandy, I'm on a fixed income as well, but I'd definitely give some, if I know it'll help.
And Authello (#48184) - LOL - very fun numbers to have - I love palindromes, as well. :D Feel free to send me a message if you want! :)
I also want to emphasize that the staff here are doing a great job maintaining the site, even with a missing coder, barely knowing the code, and now finding someone who's willing to start from square one and fix Aywas. I totally appreciate the hard work that you all have done!
As for the artists doing the site pets, the breeding stuff, whatever takes the artistic flair on this site - you're doing awesomely and I wanna tell ya that I appreciate all of you, too - you all create majestic work. Thank you for keeping Aywas so beautifully artistic!
- AremRae
(#3998)
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Posted on: Wed Mar 11, 2026 8:09pm
If some form of fundraising is done, I could help contribute some art (and I'm sure many artists would). The site's important to a lot of us, even those of us who can't really be that active anymore.
- Vixen + Ash
(#66196)
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Posted on: Wed Mar 11, 2026 8:58pm
When hibernation was pitched to the aywas community, the general concept was “Instead of closing down the website for a few months to recode and then reopening, we will do a hibernation. The community gives up some things now, so that we can focus all of our resources on the recode and not break anything at the same time. Then once the recode is done, everything will be better and the sacrifice will be worth it.” Some major sacrifices being no more USD contracts for breeding artists and shop submissions, breeding coin stock being severely limited or not sold at all, and no “new” events that aren’t the copy and paste ones we do every year.
It has been years and the only update users have been given on the recode up to now is that there was "no shareable progress". Now the coding whatever it was is gone, there isn't money to hire a senior coder, there isn't a motivation to crowdfund, we have to start from scratch, and the person starting this from scratch is doing so as a side project. So what exactly is the plan on hibernation moving forward? Can we expect to receive more frequent updates?
~vixen
- vladthebad
(#8672)
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Posted on: Thu Mar 12, 2026 4:15am
Thank you for the transparency, and for everything you guys are (and have been) doing to keep things running. <3 Obviously this is not the update anyone wanted, but your efforts are appreciated. I hope Yasu is okay. After an earlier life spent on MANY pet sites, Aywas is the only one I've been active on for years. I'm in it for the long-haul, and happy to contribute to crowdfunding, if you decide to go down that route.
Posted on: Wed Mar 11, 2026 10:13am
Thank you for the update. I truly hope that the other coder is okay. I'm glad that you realized that a few areas had the "dropped the ball" oops with the game that everyone could have done or will do on any project. I'm hoping that you can get a full backup of the full site coding - old or not - to work on with your new coder person. Please remember to keep a monthly "backup" in a safe spot as a "just in case, we have the coding from this date back to start with again if needed". We all learn hard lessons at times. =^-^=