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Glitch and I are excited to announce that a baby will be joining our family this spring – eta is end of April/beginning of May! We’re thrilled about this addition to our family, but we also recognize that this will impact Mycena Cave, and so we want to give all of you some additional information about how we’ve been preparing Mycena Cave to operate smoothly while we’re on parental leave:

Some key highlights:

• I will be taking an art hiatus for 6 weeks after I give birth. I’m hoping to add some very light artwork back in after that, but I don’t expect to be doing too much art for at least three months.
• glitch will be taking a similar hiatus for coding work. For him, that means he’ll still be maintaining code and helping to get e.g. events up and running but won’t be working on new features or significant changes.
• We will continue to be available to staff and for some light administrative duties that would be hard to pass on.
• We’ve identified staff willing to absorb key duties and are in the process of detailing out information to help staff while we are mostly away.
• We’ve identified some areas we may need to scale back, add flexibility to, or change, in order to accommodate our lack of direct involvement.

The main areas we’ve identified that will be impacted by this accommodation are the queues (and Mycenangelo) and site events.

Currently, the queues often need my direct involvement in order to avoid getting stuck, so we’re making a few changes to help streamline the process, to smooth out the workflows, and to help prevent them from stalling.

• The Edit queue: this is a very demanding queue: it tends to be fast paced, it requires fluency in (and use of) multiple art programs, as well as being able to dive into and work on pets and files that the artist didn’t originally create. Currently this queue is very dependent on my direct involvement taking orders, and so to be able to keep it open and operational in my absence, we’re adjusting it in the following ways:
  • Sometimes, players envision changes to their pet which involve multiple trips through the edit queue. In these cases, we have offered the option to hold off on updating the site coat until it has completed this process. Going forward, we will no longer offer this option, and any trip through the edit queue will result in the coat being updated as soon as the order is complete. If you need to make more changes to a pet than will fit in a single edit order and you want it to be updated all at once, you will need to put it through the custom queue instead.
  • Sometimes, players make requests for specific artists to handle their order, even if their status is not fully active in that queue (i.e. not “green”). In practice, this tends to slow the queue down significantly, and to keep it open we need to prioritize keeping it moving, so going forward, we ask that you do not request any artists in this manner whose status is not green in the edit queue. If there are currently non-green artist requests in the queue, that’s fine, but please do not create any new ones from here on out.
  • We’ll be keeping an eye on the edit queue. If it’s too difficult for the artists to keep up with, we will consider putting it on a hiatus until we can figure out if there is a way to make it more sustainable.
• The Custom queue: we expect this queue to be largely unaffected. However, like with the Edit queue, we ask that you do not make any new requests for non-green artists to work on your order. If there are currently non-green artist requests in the queue, that’s fine, but we’re asking no new requests are made from here on out.
• The Sprout queue: we also expect this queue to be mostly unaffected. However, we will be modifying the order form to add the option of opting-out of the sprout text (sprout text is the little blurb of text that their profile is initially set to). Opting in or out of the sprout text won’t affect the price of your order, but including it will add some extra time to the order delivery over our current targets. Sprout text is currently something that many sprout artists struggle with and often involves coordination between several people, so this change will provide them with a little more time to get it sorted out.

Related to the queues are Mycenangelo’s services, which include custom order price estimates, image retrieval, and edit donations. This is an area that I currently cover, but other artists will be stepping in to help out. In particular:

• I will continue to aid in pricing estimates but other artists will be helping me.
• Image fetching will be done by other artists.
• We will be suspending edit donations. The process for donating an edit is fairly complicated, often tedious, and there are a lot of steps to getting a donated edit into a shop. As such, we’re hitting the pause button on this until we’re properly back. Anything that is on our current edit donation list will be converted to items this month.

We’ll also need to be flexible about events and activities – they may need to be scaled back, moved, or otherwise changed, but they will continue to happen in our absence. We’ll be focusing mainly on running events that do not require new code to be implemented, and likely reusing older event art, making item recolors and so on. As for running the events themselves, our coordinator team is fantastic, and glitch and I play more of a support role in these areas already, so they are already well equipped for these changes!

And finally, on the topic of regular releases, we’re hoping to keep up with schedules for things like the Out of the Shadows shop, seasonal coats, and seasonal shops. If we lack coverage for any particular release, we’ll be sure to let players know ahead of time.

All in all, you wouldn’t be seeing any major changes while we’re gone, though you’ll likely notice us making some adjustments here and there to make sure that Mycena Cave can continue to run smoothly while our access and involvement is limited. We deeply appreciate your patience as we learn how to navigate parenthood and get to know our new addition!

- Glitch and Myla

BIGGEST OF CONGRATS <33333

A LITTLE BUFFALO!!!!!!!!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!

Yay babies!!! : D Congratulations! You two look so cute with your matching mugs! <3

Ahhhh I’m so excited for you both! That spoiler tag made me giggle, I’m so happy for you! What an exciting change, we’re all here for you both!

Staff jumping ahead in the sprout queue smh.

 

(Congratulations!)

Wahhh congrats! So excited for you both. Please take plenty of time for yourselves and New One!

Congrats! <3

AWH CONGRATS!!! 

Awww!!! Congratulation you guys!! Take as much time as you need! This is so exciting!

Aaaahhh congratulations, how exciting!!

I’m getting all choked up over here - congrats guys!!!!! I’m so happy for y’all!!!!!

this is gonna be the luckiest baby in the world because not only do they have YOU GUYS as parents but also a cave full of weirdos on the internet who love them lmao

Oh my goodness congratulations you two! ♡♡♡

Congrats!! I’m really happy for you!! Best of luck raising your little one!

Congratulations!!!!!

This is such wonderful news, congratulations!!! I’m so happy for the both of you! ;O; <3333

!!! A New Bean Approacheth!

Congratulations on the little sprout, I’m happy for you guys! <3

Congratulations! That’s such exciting news! I hope you both take all the time you need to adjust with the new little one.

Awwwhhhh Congratulations!!!!! *sleep as much as you can, and then nap with baboo once they arrive ^,^

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah congratulations!!! That is awesome! Babies are amazing, kids are amazing, you’re gonna have so much fun!!!

Congrats, what happy little news! :’)

Ahhh congrats you two!  That’s so exciting!!  Best of luck with the new addition to your family, and we all totally understand whatever needs to be scaled back as you adjust!

Congrats on getting your own irl sprout! :D

Congratulations! Take as much time as needed to adjust with your new bundle of joy!

Ahhhh!!!! Yayyy!!! Congratulations!!!!

Ohhhhhh congratulations! Wishing the two of you the best, such exciting news!! ^^

awww congratulations!!!!

Congratulations! Those are really cute mugs! <3

Definitely take all the time you need to get ready for the new arrival! :)