Introducing Paw Prints

After much brainstorming and discussion, we are finally ready to announce most of the details about the successor to our Custom Credit (CC) system. We’ve taken into account our players’ feedback from the many discussions on the topic as well as the responses to our CC survey, and have come up with a solution that will address many of the issues we have been facing with our current system.

Please be sure to read this announcement carefully and fully, as there are many changes to go over. While we realize that change can sometimes be intimidating, we are certain that this new system will serve our community much more effectively than its predecessor.

We’re nearly finished with the system, but we felt it was important to provide the community with an opportunity to read over and review the changes before we go live. We’ll move forward with this implementation by Tuesday at the latest, though it’ll likely be sooner. In the meanwhile, we’re happy to answer any questions you may have!

With the relatively recent addition of the sprout and edit queues, the term custom credit became a bit misleading. With that in mind, and because our new system is very different from the CC system, we are working on retiring the use of Custom Credit as a whole.

Previously, although gems and nuggets were relevantly named to fit with site lore, custom credit did not fit the mold. As such, Custom Credit will now refer exclusively to the account-bound USD equivalent collected under the old system. Our new currency will be called Paw Prints (PP for short!), and an explanation of its canonical application can be found below, for those interested! Just as CC before, Paw Prints may be used toward all of our queues — custom, sprout, and edit.

Instead of USD being attached to a specific account as with CC, it will now be attached to a specific order. This allows players to collect only what they need at a certain time rather than encouraging players to stockpile CC on their accounts.

Since it was unnecessarily complicated to have two methods of paying for an order (CC and/or USD), we have decided to consolidate so that all custom, sprout, and edit payments will be made in Paw Prints. One Paw Print will cost $5, and to further streamline the process, all orders will be priced in Paw Prints instead of USD. The edit pricing guide will be updated before release in order to reflect this change.

If you’ve ordered a custom, sprout, or edit in the past, the overall process remains very similar, with some added options and tweaks. Below is a walkthrough on how the process will work.

1. The customer creates a new custom/sprout/edit order. Just as before, a player may only have one order open at a time.
   • Similar to the past, a player may edit their custom order at any time before the order is officially accepted by an artist.
   • Paw Prints (PP) may only be purchased for and applied to already created orders.
2. When the customer creates an order, it is initially held outside the queue.
   • If a customer would like to accumulate Paw Prints before submitting their order to the queue, holding an order will give them time to do so. This is particularly useful for the sprout queue, which is often much shorter than the custom queue but still has a relatively high price tag.
   • An order can be held for a maximum of six months, at which point it automatically joins the queue.
   • At any time during this hold period, the customer may place their order in the queue. This can be achieved by clicking the ‘join the queue’ button.
   • Once an order has been submitted to the queue, it can no longer go back to being held. Players may still accumulate Paw Prints on an order that is in queue, but must be aware that other players will not be able to contribute any more Paw Prints to the order once it is accepted by an artist.
3. (Optional) The customer accumulates Paw Prints on their order over time.
   • 1 Paw Print costs $5 USD.
   • Paw Prints may be added to any order, whether it is being held or in the queue.
   • Any player may contribute Paw Prints to the customer’s order — including the customer.
   • Recall that Paw Prints are order bound. There is no limit to how many Paw Prints you can acquire, but it is in your best interest not to get more than you need. When an order is fulfilled or canceled, each unused Paw Print is converted into 4 gems. Therefore, if you are acquiring Paw Prints through trades with other players, once you have accumulated enough Paw Prints for your order, you would receive a better rate for your wares if you trade for gems or nuggets rather than excess PP.
   • To ensure one doesn’t inadvertently accumulate more Paw Prints than required, the customer may set an upper limit to their order. Once this limit has been reached, other players will no longer be able to contribute more Paw Prints to the order. An appropriate upper limit may be determined by requesting a price estimate on a custom, giving a player a clearer idea on exactly how many Paw Prints they will need to acquire for their order.
   • Similar to the old system, if players intend to fully pay for their order themselves, they will be able to buy the necessary Paw Prints to do so once an artist has accepted their order and set the price.
4. Once the customer reaches ‘within 10’ in the queue, they will be sent a notification.
   • This notification alerts the customer to their current standing and will encourage them to echo one of the artists for an official price estimate if they haven’t already, to ensure that they are on track with whatever their Paw Print needs may be.
   • For players who rely on trades with other players to accumulate Paw Prints, we strongly encourage you to get an official price estimate early on; this will ensure that you are able to accurately save up to pay for your custom when the time comes. An official price quote will always be honored by the accepting artist, so long as no changes that would alter the price of a custom have been made following that quote.
5. Once an artist accepts the customer’s order, only the customer may add more Paw Prints to it.
   • When an artist claims the customer’s order, other players will no longer be able to contribute Paw Prints to the order.
   • The customer, however, has up until one week after their order is accepted to continue adding Paw Prints, though paying as soon as possible is encouraged to keep the queue flowing smoothly.
   • Requesting an official price quote before this point is strongly recommended so that nobody is faced with any unexpected costs.
6. The order is either fulfilled or canceled.
   • A fulfilled order will consume any leftover CC first, and then Paw Prints after that.
   • Any leftover Paw Prints on the order will be converted to gems at a 1 Paw Print to 4 gem rate.
   • If the order is canceled for any reason, any Paw Prints attached to that order will be converted to gems at the standard 1 Paw Print to 4 gem rate.

A note: Players will have the option to convert their Paw Prints to gems at any time at the 1 Paw Print to 4 gem rate.

Here is a preview of what the custom order page will look like!

What will happen to the custom credit that’s currently on my account?
Nothing. Any custom credit currently applied to your account will still be good. :) When your next order is accepted, your leftover CC will be used up first, before any Paw Prints are applied to the order. It’s important to keep in mind that your CC total will count towards your order, although any leftover Paw Prints on the order will be converted to gems, as is the new standard.

How will this change affect ‘artist freedom’ orders?
In essence, it won’t. :) We understand that this is an appealing option, and it’s one that we are keeping on the table. Like the old system, it’s best for players to give the artist a price for their order to meet. This way, players who rely on purchasing Paw Prints from others can avoid ending up with too little or too much Paw Prints.

Why do my unused Paw Prints turn into gems instead of carrying over to my next order?
This is to keep extraneous Paw Prints from hanging around the site. Having Paw Prints be order bound with a definite time-limit as opposed to account bound indefinitely will help cut back on stockpiling and keep our economy in better balance, while the ‘hold’ mechanic will still give players enough time to collect the funds they need for their order. This also helps to hold players responsible for the orders that they submit to the queues, by strongly encouraging them to have at least a semi-solid idea in mind before placing an order.

Why are my extra Paw Prints coming back to me at a 1 Paw Print to 4 gem rate?
Paw Prints are meant to be used on a custom, sprout or edit order, and this is the only reason a player should want to trade for or purchase Paw Prints. If Paw Prints could be exchanged for gems at an equal rate (i.e. $5 USD spent on 1 PP could be converted to 5 gems, just as $5 USD spent on gems results in 5 gems), a player spending USD would by default always be better off purchasing Paw Prints. To prevent Paw Prints from going down the same path as CC and becoming the only desirable currency, the 1 PP to 4 gem conversion balance was struck!

What is the purpose of a six-month maximum hold time, and having to click a button to actually get into queue?
This is to give players some extra time to accumulate any Paw Prints they may need, so that they don’t feel as though they need to rush into selling things off to ensure they can afford their order. While we realize that the custom queue is currently long enough that most players might not need to take advantage of this feature, it is especially useful for the shorter queues — specifically the sprout queue. Since the sprout queue is typically quite short and the price tag is relatively high, giving players the chance to hold their order until they’ve accumulated the required Paw Prints was necessary.

**Note: The hold time was originally set to three months. However, there was some concern that this would not be a long enough period of time for players to save up PP towards their custom. This is why we decided to change it to six months instead.

Why are you using only Paw Prints instead of a mixture of Paw Prints and USD, like with the old system?
There are a couple of reasons for this decision, the main one being that it’s much less confusing to refer to a single currency than to make a distinction between two different ones. It also gets rid of the distinction between players who pay for their order via trading for Paw Prints/CC and those who pay with out-of-pocket USD. Canonically, it makes the most sense, since USD does not exist within the Cave, whereas Paw Prints (and customs themselves) are being worked into the lore.

If I have as much PP as I need for my current order, can I make trades with other players in return for their promise to buy PP for one of my future orders?
We do not support or endorse these kinds of deals. If a situation arises where a deal of future-order debt is not held up, there is nothing we will do for you.

We are introducing a new currency for custom, edit, and sprout orders called Paw Prints (PP).  Paw Prints will be bound to a specific order, rather than being attached to a player’s account. Players can purchase Paw Prints with USD (1 Paw Print costs $5) for their own order or for other player’s orders. There is no limit to how many Paw Prints can be applied to an order. Once purchased toward an order, Paw Prints cannot be transferred between players or applied to new orders.

In the past, created orders were automatically submitted to the queue. Now players can hold their orders out of the queue for up to six (6) months if they wish in order to save up Paw Prints.  If an order has leftover Paw Prints, they are converted to gems (1 Paw Print to 4 gem rate). Unlike CC, there is no overall site Paw Print limit, so players can trade for and buy Paw Prints for orders freely.  Many of these factors were designed with player’s feedback and requests in mind, and also designed to help Mycena Cave’s economy stay strong and stable!

Overall, we are very excited about this new system. We feel that it addresses many of the problems we’ve been facing with CC and that it will do a much better job of serving our growing community. As with all new updates, we ask for your patience and understanding as we work out any kinks and adjust to these new changes together. :)

Love this for a new system! Really good way to balance the amount of PP (rip CC) a single user can have, while also not making PP the ONLY currency people want. Needless to say, I’m really impressed by how effectively balanced this sounds.

Also, will the powerful sorceress get a pretty custom one day, like the other NPCs? I’d personally love to see her!

Lady
I believe she will! :D I am personally pushing for her and Bruc to get together.

Loving this idea!

If we have more CC currently than what our current custom costs what will happen to the extra CC? Can it be applied to the next order (let’s say a sprout) until it is used up or will it be converted to gems? Can we buy PP with gems or will it still be a trading thing like it was for CC?

What happens if we have a custom order and then change our minds while we are in queue to a different order, like if I decided I wanted to wait on Malis and get my Arakkoa concept instead. Can we stay in queue and just adjust the specifics? Or maybe if we find out we can afford slightly better edits part way through, is the custom locked down entirely upon entry into the queue or is it after it reaches artist acceptance?

Sorry if it was already mentioned. Reading from the phone so it was a little confusing.

What will happen to the custom credit that’s currently on my account?
Nothing. Any custom credit currently applied to your account will still be good. :) When your next order is accepted, your leftover CC will be used up first, before any Paw Prints are applied to the order. It’s important to keep in mind that your CC total will count towards your order, although any leftover Paw Prints on the order will be converted to gems, as is the new standard.Q&A

Very excited for this change in the system, will definitely help us that rely on others to obtain customs. Also, love the lore behind it. Can’t wait when it’s fully implemented. /wiggles

Huh.  I gotta admit I was pretty scared when I saw things were changing drastically, but this system actually sounds pretty fair.  I really like the idea of only getting as much as you need, instead of people just hording CC whenever the can.  Though I am a little bit intimidated by the idea of not getting all the PP I need in time :<  I make it so sparsely. 

However! I’m assuming that, with this system, the ability to buy PP would never be closed off?  I don’t think I saw anything about that, so I apologize if it was mentioned :‘D But that should help dramatically with not being able to get my hands on enough in time.

Either way!  Good job y’all.  I know this has been a big problem for the staffers and I’m really impressed with how you managed to work it out :>

It is a long post with a lot of information, and initially it sounds somewhat more complex then needed. But in the end I think it does a pretty thorough job addressing several problems.

To be honest, I kind of like the hold instead of just jumping straight into the queue. The current queue time is pretty long. It can admittedly be a rough wait. But even so there have been people in that time having trouble getting the needed CC to pay since they can’t use RL funds. This hold sounds like it will address two issues; giving players who need more time the chance to get what they need, and a decent shot at keeping the wait down by trying to prevent backlog in the first place. With fewer people stuck with the tough decision of canceling and order or trying to rush in a week to get PP orders should be able to be finished quicker, artists can claim more orders and keep things moving.

I do have one question I might have missed in the wall of text. If PP are order locked and you need to cancel the order before it’s claimed or even hits the actual queue, are they automatically converted to gems or can you retain them still? I can understand converting one or two extra after. But if your order never got that far and you had 15 already gathered it seems a shame to loose so many

Nephele
CC will retain its dollar value standard, so essentially, yes — 5CC would be equivalent to 1PP.

Malis
Any CC left over after purchasing a custom will remain on your account so that it can be applied to your next order. This will continue until the CC is used up. Paw Prints are a USD only currency, just like CC was.

You may still edit your custom order at any point before it’s accepted by an artist and that final price is set (which is essentially when you get to the front of the line). :D

We’ll move forward with this implementation by Tuesday at the latest, though it’ll likely be sooner.Crow

“We’ll move forward with this implementation by Tuesday at the latest, though it’ll likely be sooner. ”

So very, very soon!

I am a little bit intimidated by the idea of not getting all the PP I need in time :<

If you rely on nugget/gem trades to obtain the required PP for your order, you could always choose to save up towards those PP trades for a while before placing the order, if that makes you feel more comfortable :) Once it’s placed, you also have the up-to-three month hold period plus however long it takes to make your way through the queue itself in which to collect PP on your order.

Hina

If PP are order locked and you need to cancel the order before it’s claimed or even hits the actual queue, are they automatically converted to gems or can you retain them still?

If you cancel your order, any PP applied to the order is converted to gems at the 1 PP : 4 gems ratio. So you are advised to only start collecting PP on orders that you are reasonably sure you want.

Hawkins
Since it looks like we missed a part of your question — unlike with CC, the PP shop will not be closing down! :) Once we release the system, you will be able to purchase PP for an order at any time.

*throws all of my YES onto the thread* 8DD

Ahhhh, I’m excited for this to be implemented! And I like that this will make it feel more like a site currency like gems/nuggets - CC felt like just another name for USD haha.

But yay because I’ll be able to get my sprout soon! And for having PP purchases available at all times from now on! (and hopefully this system will declog the custom queue a bit, though I personally have no immediate plans to use it, but a friend of mine does)

Some other thoughts I had:
A) I hope this lowers the value of what was 1 CC from 4k to 3.6k like gems. So 18k per PP.
B) People aren’t going to try to make deals for CC that’s not in increments of 5. :D
C) Our staff is amazing. <3

Arintol
It has never been possible to buy CC other than in increments of 5.

glitch
I know, but there were people who kept trying to trade for 6CC, or 17CC, (it was mostly on Offsite trading forums or new users). And I/others would always have to explain how CC only came in increments of 5. :‘D
Now people won’t make that mistake ^-^

Losty  What will happen is when they make an order there will be a direct way for you to purchase PP towards that specific order. But it’s no longer possible to simply buy general PP in hopes that your friend someday puts in an order.

Addendum: “Queue” is a bit misleading to say as an order, once created, first enters a “hold” period where they do not exist “in line” yet, but can still collect PP. Once they have enough PP or are confident enough to enter queue, there will be a button for them to move from hold to queue.

The only times you cannot buy PP for them is:
1. They have not created an order at all
2. An artist has accepted their order

This seems really awful and unfair to the buyer. I don’t think it’s an improvement over CC, so I think I’ll be staying away from the system I guess. Why the reduction in gems compared to PP when converted? This is just…... really not fair. As someone paying in Canadian currency, I’d be buying a paw print for 7$ and if my order would be unfiulfilled in 3 months I’d be getting 5.50 back on each PP. Sorry yall but i’m not made of money and I don’t see myself buying into this system. And because it’s now manditory, I’m happy I just paid for my custom to be done since it will probably be my first and last.

to put it in perspective:

a 100$ custom would cost me 20 PP or 140 (canadian)$. this 140$ investment converts to a scant 80 gems (109$ cad value).

Not to mention, gems are already low value anyway. You’re converting it into low value currency at a low rate.

I haven’t read the other responses, but my initial thoughts are:
1. This is fantastic! It’s confusing, but I’m sure once all the errant CC leaves the system it will end up working very well.
2. I love the lore application. This has always bugged me about CC.
3. I feel like the ability to hold an order from entering might actually end up making the custom queue shorter too. Neat! :D

And two questions/merbles/vague-hand-flailing
1. I’m not sure how giving Paw Prints works under this? Do you have to search by the geness number for a sprout? If you search by username, the only thing I worry about is being able to “peep” on other users to see who’s in the queue.
2. This does kinda put a kink in raffles. It’s not the biggest deal I guess, but it’s kinda sad. I don’t think CC raffles were really supported anyways.

edit: Wait, something Amaterasu said is giving me….pause (eh hehehheh)
Does this mean we have to prepay for customs before entering the queue? IE - if I want to pay for my custom straight out of pocket I have to do it 3 months in advance? Instead of right when it’s picked up and I get a quote? I think I must have misread something…

Oh dear.. This is really complicated. And the fact that any options to pay in USD are no longer available is really really hard for me to swallow. I mean, CC had it’s problems - and the wait time to buy them tended to be overwhelming, but at least you could still pay for your custom with USD if you didn’t have enough CC to cover it by the time that it was accepted. But with this new system, it’s almost as if the purchaser’s being put on a time crunch in order to collect the funds for their custom. Because if there isn’t enough PP to pay for it, then that buyer is now stuck with a surplus of gems at a lower rate than they paid for the PP in the first place. Perhaps this wouldn’t be as much of an issue if PP could potentially be purchased with gems AND USD.

Is there any way to possibly solve the problem of users that don’t get enough PP in time for their custom to still be able to purchase said custom? The PP replacing CC is fine - but I feel that taking out that ability to pay with USD is a really hindering decision.

Shizuo

I believe that PP can only be purchased with real money, not with gems, so that hasn’t been taken away :)

But when you get to the end, if you don’t have enough PP, you will need to purchase more with USD