Forum Index > General Discussion > The Sylestia Times - September 2019
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Grapejuice
Level 70
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,899
Posted: 9/30/2019 at 8:14 AM
Post #1
This month was a fairly quiet one, with a couple of exciting updates and the end of the Summer festival so let's get to it!
~Summer Festival~
The end of the summer festival brought up some interesting issues to address. The sculpting of pets is something that happens practically every year, and our wonderful admins have always been very accommodating to those who haven't finished their sculptures by the end with a sitewide autocomplete.
However according to Krinadon:
"Additionally, these type of features (such as auto completing unfinished Sculptures or turning un-used items from the previous year into 500 Gold tokens, etc) are not meant to be like legitimate mechanics. They originally came about as just generous ways to help players out here and there. However, as time has gone on, they have become more and more taken advantage of and now at this point - players hoard a bunch of festival items just so they can get a big payday at the start of next year's Festival... or start a bunch of Catalysts at the end of a festival just to have them all auto completed w/o having to put forth the expected work of growing them. Unfortunately, since these things are kinda becoming more and more prevalent, I am going to have to adjust the specifics of the generosity because it's essentially circumventing how the features/mechanics are supposed to work.
That being said, of course I still want to try and be as lenient to players as I feasibly can be while maintaining balance. But the past few festivals have seen like almost 50% of all pets created from the entire festival occurring during the "auto complete" at the end of the Festival. When it began, it was maybe like 10%. I would be satisfied with around ~20% so that is what I am striving for this time around.
I do apologize for any inconvenience and I do hope my adjustments above will make it a bit more attainable. I do always try and stress though that these things are never guaranteed - that is why there is never an official announcement or write up on them as how the mechanics work for the feature. It is always just a last minute announcement based on how I judge the feature went during the festival."
This is quite understandable and with a bit of an extension and some extra Pick-A-Door games, many people were able to bring up some sculptures to the auto-complete requirements! Along with that many players in this generous community helped to boost any sculptures they say beneath 16%.
Hopefully, the next sculpting event will be much smoother with these new rules.
Misc. Updates Player Trades
-Accepting items in the player trade automatically stacks them in the inventory with other like items.
-a max 20 cap has been put on the number of trades the "Accept all" accepts.
Stables
- When adjusting the ranking of one's stables, players can now push the first stable all the way to the end of the list or, vice versa, the remaining stables will all shuffle down one or up one respectively.
Nytekrie Revamp
It's here, it's finally here, the next species to be revamped is the Nytes! Our lil' turkey's are getting a sleek new look. we have so far had three sketches shared with the community here is version 3.0:
and the one with the babies:
Please keep in mind that these are sketches, these are NOT lineart. They will be completely redrawn as actual lineart once the sketches are finalized.
Another short issue for the month of September but be prepared for next month's very special, spooky, article. Until October!
Edited By Grapejuice on 9/30/2019 at 9:07 AM.
Grapejuice
Level 70
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,899
Posted: 9/30/2019 at 8:14 AM
Post #2
Written by Limor & Watercolor, Edited by Grapejuice A few links to check out when making designs are: Themed pet reference pages by Xavion
Comprehensive Guide to Themed Pets by Lavelle
Guide to Themed Pet Contests by Scathreoite Hey guys so in this somewhat different edition of the Designer's Article we will be discussing Design Theft. I myself recently made a post about it, which you can read here.
Now first: A note on design theft by Krinadon,
"As an official recognition to "design theft" on a global Sylestia scale, we do not have an official statement on that because we don't recognize it as being an actual thing. A player cannot own a design and as such, it cannot be stolen.
However, in regards to official Sylestia contests, design theft essentially boils down to submitting designs that you are either not the original creator or owner of - which is strictly against the rules of all of our official Sylestia contests unless otherwise specified.
As an unofficial response, I would say that it is frowned up and I would ask that people refrain from doing it because it is disrespectful. However, as stated above, there is no official rule against it outside of our official contests. It would be virtually impossible to police such a policy and would certainly just open the door to all sorts of headaches as we attempted to enforce such a rule."
Now many people have some misconceptions about design theft. For example if two users made a 'Pumpkin Lupora',
That would not be design theft as the two designs are clearly different, even though they have the same general idea behind them.
What would be design theft is if user A made a design,
And then user B were to make this and claim it as they're own,
While although these two designs have different trait colors if you look at the four main colors they are copied exactly and this would be design theft. Now copying a design exactly is of course also design theft and another version of design theft would be to take the design and do something like this:
Now although the hex codes are different they are so close someone just barely altered them from the original.
Dealing with design theft itself can be difficult and a good way to go about it is to try to talk to the person who stole the design, try to keep it private and not publicly spotlight them. If you have further problems consider bringing it to an admin or to an older player who can perhaps offer you advice.
Below we have a small survey which you can feel free to answer in the comments, along with this here is a google document with some users submitted responses.
1. Have you or someone you know been affected by design theft?
2. How do you deal with design theft, or how would you deal with design theft?
3. Do you keep your designs private for fear of design theft?
4. Have you personally ever stolen a design? If so, why, and how do you feel about it now?
5. What are your thoughts on design theft?
~ Designing with Watercolors ~
This time around me and Watercolors decided that in honor of spooky season coming up, we're going to make some zombie designs! Now as many of you know some of the species (fabled) are lacking in a zombie design so we took it upon ourselves to make one for two different species!
Watercolors
So when I start designing a pet, I dont always start with base colors. Sometimes, when I am going for a specific theme or idea, I will focus in on one certain gene or mutation to set the mood. In this design example the theme was zombie so I knew I wanted a bit of green in my design. So in the beginning my goal was to find a palette that worked well around a zombie green tone.
Once I had my general color palette picked out it was time to apply them to an entire design. A lot of the times, including this time, I end up shuffling the colors into different slots and even changing them a few shades lighter or darker. Sometimes I will stumble upon a color I really like for the mood of my design and I will redirect the palette to coordinate with that color.
That is what happened with the red on my zombie nyvene. Zombies are bloody and gross creatures, I wanted to represent that with orange and red. As a result, the green in my palette got shifted to be more gray than it was before. The beige I originally had was completely scrapped.
When designing for themed contests, my main focus is making sure the colors work well with all available traits. For this prompt however, I really just wanted to draw out as much zombie feel as I could. So I chose traits that I thought worked well for a zombie dragon and designed specifically for those traits. Out of habit I did go through and try it with different traits, but I dont think it works as well for a real themed pet as it maybe could if I went into it with a different approach.
So with this design, I almost went with a grey/blue themed zombie but I decided to go with the more stereotypical green/red based zombie.
When approaching this design I wanted to make a somewhat dull design, with one-two pop colors which will be much brighter and stand out. As with many of my designs I followed the same general strategy, I start with the base colors then work from there. I knew I wanted a very gray-green design with a bright yellow-green pop and some messy gorey red colors built.
Now as I was designing this as though I was going to enter this in a theme contest I went and checked through all the traits because remember once you make a design and enter it to a themed contest it is vital that you make sure all traits work with your color scheme.
Now for a red-green design you have to be careful to draw away from the Christmas factor (unless that is your intent!) so when doing this I make sure to change the design to greyer color fades, drawing away from the intense saturation of some designs.
Now with a new thing, let's see how you all take the 'Zombie' prompt! ping and post your zombie designs in the thread and our editor's favorites will be featured next time around!
Overall I hope you found this guide helpful! If you have any other questions ping me and i'll answer them next time about~ Remember also tell me if you'd be interested in being a part of the designing column as well!
Edited By Grapejuice on 9/30/2019 at 8:48 AM.
Grapejuice
Level 70
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,899
Posted: 9/30/2019 at 8:14 AM
Post #3
Congratulations to last months Sylestia Go Winner: Callii!
You can collect your prize right here and please send me a CoD for 150k
Also, great job to everyone who solved our Cryptogram, and our winner: Sylvauna!
You can collect your prize and send me a CoD for 150k
Due to the strain on our staff, we have decided to cut down the contests and games to our special "themed" issues. Hint: Be ready for the October edition ;)
Edited By Grapejuice on 9/30/2019 at 8:35 AM.
Grapejuice
Level 70
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,899
Posted: 9/30/2019 at 8:15 AM
Post #4
~Ask Sadie~ Written by Grapejuice and Sadie, Edited By Grapejuice
As the only sylesti on our staff Sadie has the inside look on a sylesti's life, so feel free to send in questions for her to answer! Just PM any questions to Grapejuice, and in the next issue, Sadie will answer them with a sylesti's perspective!
why are your eyes different colors? Oh! I'm not really sure actually, Grapejuice says it's because I'm a very special lupora, but I've had them since I was born. I guess it'll forever remain a mystery eh?
Do you prefer being fed by the handmaiden or your owner? Umm, don't tell Grapejuice but I prefer the handmaiden, she gives me just the right food!
Edited By Grapejuice on 11/1/2019 at 9:29 PM.
Grapejuice
Level 70
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,899
Posted: 9/30/2019 at 8:15 AM
Post #5
A Plea to Breeders Written By Orca2whale, Edited By Grapejuice
Hello Times readers! Most of you probably remember me as either the person who wrote about themes the last few months (did you guys even get that far???) or just as the random person orca in the Lost Grove chats or forum who hung around too much. But that's not the point.
I'm here today to talk about overbreeding.
Recently, I was wandering through the Archives and found an interesting piece from several years back. I filed the link away for future reference...until I saw a thread about the economy here in the suggestions box.
In the end, a lot of people (including me) started ranting/suggesting on the economy here on Sylestia and ways to improve it. (Thread here: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=80202
But it really took off when the chatter in the Releasers' thread got a little interesting.
So let me first show you the original article.....
The community on this site is astoundingly generous. We welcome newcomers to the site not only with open arms but with presents. We want everyone to have access to everything. I was given these gifts as a newbie, and I've given them out myself since them. The community is miraculous, and that is a wonderful thing. I only hope as the site grows it stays that way.
However, since I have been doing the monthly economic standing and even before then, I've noticed something that is, to me at least, a little sad. The depreciation of prices on hard to obtain sylestia such as Ny'Venes, Nephinins, and Puffadores.
I can remember distinctly a time, within the first two weeks after my friend and I had discovered this site, a received a phone-call from her (Roe). She was calling to tell me that'd she'd bought a female Ny'Vene for about 200k - a female Ny'Vene! There were only about seven others for sale on the site at that time, and all of them were a good deal more than the female she had bought, which was an untested lady with no visible traits. From then on, she and I monitored the Ny'Venes sales like hawks. I managed to snag an untested, no vis male for 35k, but I was so worried it had been a misprice that I PMed the previous owner to make sure! It wasn't because I was a newbie unaware of prices, as Roe and I, while new to Sylestia, are not new to sites such as Sylestia, but merely that Ny'Venes were rare and hard to obtain.
I can't describe how sad it makes me to see them going for prices little more than those of any regular Sylesti that can be captured in the wild. The same goes for the Puffadore and Nephini - since their release I've monitored the sales on them to track prices and watched as they dropped, and dropped, and dropped. Over-breeding, a distaste for releasing, a desire to price lower to sell quicker, and just the general generosity of the community have made these rare, hard-to-obtain pets that at one point had to be worked toward no more rare than any other species.
I may be alone, but I find that rather sad. It takes away from the excitement of being gifted one of these rare pets, or from finally managing to get one on your own. So this is my plea to breeders, and an oath I'll be taking myself from now on:
I will not price my pets low just because the market for them is low. I want to try and raise the market back up, and it has to start somewhere. I won't sell Puffs for less than the eggs that can be bought in the shop, and the same will go for Ny'Venes. As for Nephinis, I'll likely not price them lower than 100k. I won't add to the depreciation of value. If I have to release them, then so be it. And I also will not flood the market with all my cast-off hatchlings. I'll mark some of the ones I don't want for sale, auction others, and release the ones that don't meet my standards for sale or auction.
I can't honestly say I expect it to happen, but I do hope some other members will join me in refusing to add to the lessening of the value on these hard to obtain species and others as well that I haven't mentioned, such as Lighira and Ryori. ~Article by Selestial
To add on to this, there are the (terrifyingly low) selling and breeding prices of themes. Now I'm not totally against that 1-carry rainbow-scaled orca qit going up for a lower-then-usual price (because honestly, rainbow looks horrible on those orcas) but seeing that my Frozen Valkyrie pair is only worth around 20k is truly sad. What's worse is seeing that half the time themed pets that are underpriced are slapped those cheap stickers so their owners can get rid of them and in the end unintentionally bring down the worth of the whole theme, be it Ryori, Luffox, Qitari, or Aerindini. Even I was able to recently end up with a pretty purple puff that was worth much more than the asking price.
Designers work hard on their themes and collect many during the festivals, and it must be scandalizing to see that their hard work is being sold for dirt-cheap prices.
Which leads to another thing: Personal projects. Just, really pretty pets. There's no worth in them. Breeders just do it for fun or so they can make them max stats. I don't mind the dishwasher pets going up for a few thousand but why the pretty ones? 6vis? Offspring with no infertility philters, which means....unlimited breeding and trashing of someone's hard work (usually including an army of dyes).
So please. Support the call for a breeding tutorial/hatchery setting for limited breeding (at least until you know what you're doing). Don't take out your wrath at that pretty pet getting released by the Releasers on them. And please, raise the prices just a notch if you price a little low. A few thousand more on that exclusive fabled species won't hurt you and someone who really understands the true worth of the pet will appreciate that you as the original owner also appreciates the pet as well. But if you don't agree with any of the above, that's fine too. It's just important to make the economy of Sylestia a tad more stable for the newbies of tomorrow. Because what we do now...our actions will define the economy of the future.
Some flashbacks to 2013:
~Orca2Whale
Edited By Grapejuice on 9/30/2019 at 8:48 AM.
Grapejuice
Level 70
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,899
Posted: 9/30/2019 at 8:49 AM
Post #6
Grapejuice
Level 70
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,899
Posted: 9/30/2019 at 9:17 AM
Post #7
New Issue is out!
Krinadon
Level 75
Shadow of the Moon
Site Administrator
Joined: 12/17/2012
Threads: 1,119
Posts: 14,689
Posted: 9/30/2019 at 8:03 PM
Post #8
Thank you again to everyone involved for another great issue. =)
Katty
Level 75
Shadow of the Moon
Joined: 4/16/2018
Threads: 202
Posts: 3,973
Posted: 9/30/2019 at 8:17 PM
Post #9
The over breeding and destruction of pet values is definitely an issue. I breed ALOT but yeah xD so many are released i dont sell any of them as i breed to 6v
Silverkitsu
Level 75
Crystalline Cleaver
Joined: 8/24/2016
Threads: 143
Posts: 1,940
Posted: 9/30/2019 at 8:49 PM
Post #10
Overbreeding is such a problem. I've joined the releasers club and when I have time go through pets for sale for under 100 gold and release them. I do breeding projects and can never sell any offspring even though I price them lower than most breeders (30k for 6vis personal projects) because people can buy 6vis pets for one gold.
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