You're right about the unrecognizable part x'D

I did not realize the design was based off of my Ny'vene design until a few days into fest only after someone had told me I'd been credited as the designer in WildCatBlue's 2021 Winter Fest Theme Guide.

I personally apologize to any Vulnyx collectors out there who could have had a number of wonderful vul designs summited that were actually intended for the vuls traits. I also feel as if my original design was totally butchered when it was 'edited' onto the Vulnyx base. It shares almost none of the colors I originally used and has a totally different color palette than intended. It doesn't even look like a Frosted Rose to me-- on my Ny'vene I used a blue as the frost part, on the vul? The only thing there is to show for it is the g2 color.

The g2 color as well came completely out of nowhere, and I see that in the mutation slots two of the same hex was used. Its personally embarrassing to me to see my design so sloppily edited onto a species it was never intended for and I have to take credit for that. I'm so happy to have a theme picked, but I'm upset that for vul collectors and for myself the palette was completely butchered on my first theme.

Just look at this g2

Whats with the weird teal?


And this green. And the pink?? I never used pink?? Trust me if I was going for a pink rose I probably would have named it "Frosted Pink Rose."



UPDATE: Went ahead and made a redye plan for the project I want to do. I don't think Krin will adjust the color palette since it's so long after winter fest (and it's such a drastic change), but I may pm him anyway just to see if itd be possible.








Its embarrassing. Embarrassing and upsetting that I don't even want to collect my own theme, and that I have to put my name on this when I know my designs are *so* much better. None of the colors on this are even close to what I originally wanted or intended. It looks bad, im sorry, this vul is just bad.



And I hope the admins dont take this as a message to never pick my designs again, as pointed out by limor, this has happened to lots of other designer's designs. And I love designing, but if you're going to pick a design pick it on the *species* it was intended for and don't go mucking around with the colors.

A designers' design is their own vision, I highly doubt anyone would appreciate changes to that. And if the admins want to make a change because of a technical issue, like color blobbing-- I would honestly suggest just picking a design instead that does not have those issues instead of trying to 'fix' them.


---

As a Bulbori collector myself, on the topic of the multitude of brown themes, I have been severely disappointed to see brown Bulboris get picked year after year, fest after fest-- multiple fests in a row!

Just this year there have been at least three new brown Bulboris picked. The sunken treasure, flying fox, and the tundra sunrise. From last year we have the Darling deer.

Now, the designs themselves aren't bad, but just looking at the pie chart there's just *too many* already and I'm so so tired of waiting until the next festival, hoping, just to see that I have to collect another brown Bulbori when there's already a multitude of them! They're pretty, and good designs, but almost 30% of all Bulbori designs are brown-- please no more.

Maybe they should just do mini contracts with some of the designers before each fest to make the 'admin' designs. Still have the contests as there are good submissions, but have the designers help them go through those too. Though that would have it's own issues I am sure.

would you mind elaborating on how this would work in your opinion? I think it's an interesting idea :)

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=101232&page=1#3 Author: Vampory Time Posted: 12/22/2021 at 2:06 AM You're right about the unrecognizable part x'D I did not realize the design was based off of my Ny'vene design until a few days into fest only after someone had told me I'd been credited as the designer in WildCatBlue's 2021 Winter Fest Theme Guide. I personally apologize to any Vulnyx collectors out there who could have had a number of wonderful vul designs summited that were actually intended for the vuls traits. I also feel as if my original design was totally butchered when it was 'edited' onto the Vulnyx base. It shares almost none of the colors I originally used and has a totally different color palette than intended. It doesn't even look like a Frosted Rose to me-- on my Ny'vene I used a blue as the frost part, on the vul? The only thing there is to show for it is the g2 color. The g2 color as well came completely out of nowhere, and I see that in the mutation slots two of the same hex was used. Its personally embarrassing to me to see my design so sloppily edited onto a species it was never intended for and I have to take credit for that. I'm so happy to have a theme picked, but I'm upset that for vul collectors and for myself the palette was completely butchered on my first theme. Just look at this g2 Whats with the weird teal? And this green. And the pink?? I never used pink?? Trust me if I was going for a pink rose I probably would have named it "Frosted Pink Rose." UPDATE: Went ahead and made a redye plan for the project I want to do. I don't think Krin will adjust the color palette since it's so long after winter fest (and it's such a drastic change), but I may pm him anyway just to see if itd be possible. Its embarrassing. Embarrassing and upsetting that I don't even want to collect my own theme, and that I have to put my name on this when I know my designs are *so* much better. None of the colors on this are even close to what I originally wanted or intended. It looks bad, im sorry, this vul is just bad. And I hope the admins dont take this as a message to never pick my designs again, as pointed out by limor, this has happened to lots of other designer's designs. And I love designing, but if you're going to pick a design pick it on the *species* it was intended for and don't go mucking around with the colors. A designers' design is their own vision, I highly doubt anyone would appreciate changes to that. And if the admins want to make a change because of a technical issue, like color blobbing-- I would honestly suggest just picking a design instead that does not have those issues instead of trying to 'fix' them. --- As a Bulbori collector myself, on the topic of the multitude of brown themes, I have been severely disappointed to see brown Bulboris get picked year after year, fest after fest-- multiple fests in a row! Just this year there have been at least three new brown Bulboris picked. The sunken treasure, flying fox, and the tundra sunrise. From last year we have the Darling deer. Now, the designs themselves aren't bad, but just looking at the pie chart there's just *too many* already and I'm so so tired of waiting until the next festival, hoping, just to see that I have to collect another brown Bulbori when there's already a multitude of them! They're pretty, and good designs, but almost 30% of all Bulbori designs are brown-- please no more.

As someone who also collects Bulbories (and very avidly, I might add), the lack of colorful Bulbories these fests have kind of been a discouragement. Combined with the already mostly lackluster Grove Themes for bulbs - not to hate on them, they are pretty, but 2 of them are very brown, and 2 of them are also very blue. There also happens to be a problem of brown *and* blue for Bulbories - Forest Shadow, Frosty Soil, Sunken Treasure, and the newest Tundra Sunrise all suffer from this very problem. They look so similar, I swear I cant tell half of the 0vis ones apart when looking for Bulbs on the AS. @-@
It worked for the Forest Shadow, and okay, maybe also the Frosty Soil, but it shouldve stopped there. The Sunken Treasure has some really ugly browns (even for brown standards), and the Tundra Sunrise does not look like a sunrise. It looks like a dead tundra tree with some sort of indigo that doesnt go with the rest of the color scheme at all. @-@
I realize Bulbories arent cared about so much in the grand scheme of things - except for some hardy collectors, and maybe someone whose theme got picked, they arent very coveted. This also happens with some other species - mainly Morkkos, Draeyls, and Faeloras.
But for all of those themes - making worse color schemes does not fix their problems, and neglecting them tends only to make it worse. Faeloras are getting a revamp (woo!) and the others (other than Bulbories) have all gotten revamps, but it kind of still screams of neglect.

I feel like I strayed off my point a little bit. It just frustrates me that these underrated species are getting far more underrated by becoming something that even the people that already like them cant like. There were so many good designs for all of them for this fests submissions, and instead what was picked (no offense to anyone who did design them) were incredibly lackluster. It was really disappointing.

There has to be something we can do to fix the way that themes are chosen, especially when they are modified against the permission of the designers.

It could potentially work in 2 ways that I can think of.

The first way would be how they are contracting out for the updated artwork they are commissioning where they work out a 2-4 week work contract with designers who apply for the position and pay them in real currency.

The second way would be to have a loose agreement with trusted designers and offer them in game bonuses such as choice of pets, diamonds or other similar in game payments for services rendered.

In either case The designers could test out the submitted designs to find flaws or see the ones that work to help the Admins make better informed theme choices. In the event of there being no working designs the designers would then work with the admins to make one for the species that needed it or maybe even work with players on designs that the Admins would like slightly changed.

In the case of the species swap the designers could reach out to the player who submitted the original and work with them to come up with a workable swap. That said I personally I don't feel like this is a practice that should continue at all as it takes away from players who worked on the first species and the players who worked on the species it was swapped to.

This would have several benefits if done these ways. It would lessen the workload for the Admins and allow them to focus more on site infrastructure. It would in theory lessen the amount of 'bad' themes and hopefully balance out against the brown and blue themes. It would create a bridge between what the community needs and what the Admins find acceptable.

I'm not 100% sure my ideas would work, but I'm hoping that it can be a baseline for someone to spring off of and come up with a workable long term solution.

https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=91217&page=1#1

The above link is to my theme guide. While doing this guide a lot of interesting facts have come into light. There is definitely a repeated color scheme on most of the species. Whether its the blue and brown of the bulbs or the grays and browns of the vorps. There are so many good designs submitted that are different yet time and again they are overlooked for unknown reasons. I know the admins are busy and I can't help but to wonder if maybe they don't have the time to truly go through the themes and instead rely on other means to get the themes picked. (Ie having four or five designs picked from the same person). No offense to those who get picked, mind you.. a lot of your themes are awesome.. but at the same time some of what's been picked is just blah. This particular fest I was overly disappointed. Everything just felt lackluster and.. sad.. in a way (if that makes sense). Then again it could just be the presentation because I haven't had a chance to really dive into each individual theme yet.

I think the best idea for how to tackle this:

ONE: The admins make a group of people 10+ that help pick themes. Those people each pick a theme. they narrow down the designs to 5 each species and those are submitted to Krin.

OR

TWO: The themes submitted are loaded into a page on site where you can rate it out of ten. The themes can be submitted into the page so there is no themes that are shown till the submissions are closed and voting begins. The voting will be blind, even if you share all your designs with all your friends thats still going to not be alot of people to skew the votes. The top 5 of each species again can be picked through by admin.

These options i feel would take alot of work off admin's plates, opening up alot of time usually spent picking and creating themes for other things.

I'd like to add, if I may, that it would be helpful to have more transparency in the process with which themes are chosen. I've looked around a little and couldn't find any thread or post detailing how themes are chosen; maybe there exists one, but even if that's the case, it isn't made clear and easy to access for players who are curious and want to know more.

As Shadowized mentioned, it does seem like a lot of themes each fest are created by the same handful of designers, and while I agree that their designs are gorgeous, I believe there are many other pretty designs out there; it raises the question of whether or not the process is fair. Especially when designs from past years are being picked - it's hard to believe that out of all the submissions for the present year, there isn't one that is decent enough for a species.