Tarot: PP only converts to gems if you have any left over from your order. 1 PP = 5 CC = 5 USD. The gem conversion is to prevent any excess from building up on site and allowing people to ‘stock up’ on it. If you need 20 PP then get only 20 PP whether by your own purchase or someone else’s. The 3 month hold time is to allow you to gather up funds without the ‘clock counting down’ to your order. So you can collect 20 PP while in hold and then go to queue.

Shizuo: I’m afraid I don’t understand your “any option to pay in USD are no longer available”. 1 PP = 5 USD. You can only get PP by USD. It’s just not written straight out as “CC” (which wasn’t accurate with the sprout queue existing) or “straight USD”.

It’s literally just “Your order will cost 10 PP” —-> “Buy 10 PP with USD”. It’s the same concept as how gems work. “10 gems” —-> “Buys 10 gems with USD”.

Condor I was actually suggesting for PP to be able to be purchased with both gems and usd. Because if a user doesn’t get enough PP in time for their custom, it gets converted straight to gems at a lower rate than what it was bought for. Therefore if you have a surplus of gems with no use for them, but you still want your custom and you want to try again - you’re basically going to have to spend 2x the amount of money than you did before with the old system.

Amaterasu Before this new system, you could buy your custom without any CC at all - but now it’s limited strictly to using PP which is a bit harder to do than to just use straight USD when your custom is accepted.

Amaterasu

But if by 3 months’ time if enough PP is not accumulated, it is converted to gems and one would need to start collecting again?

I think you kind of glossed over the actual issues I have with this.

Jacq
1. We are actually ironing out the final few details of how you will be able to identify an order for sending Paw Prints. We have kept the desire for some anonymity of orders in mind, and will release a summary of the system once we’ve made a final decision on how this feature will work!

2. I’m uncertain what you mean here! A user can still raffle off PP, the winner would just need to have an open order to be able to receive the prize PP. The goal is to only have PP be purchased with a purpose rather than arbitrarily ‘collecting’ it for future needs!

3. You do not have to prepay before entering the queue. The hold period is simply intended to provide you with more time to collect any funds you may need, particularly if you’re worried about finding sales. With the current average queue time (3 months) and the ability to hold for 3 months, you would have roughly 6 months on average to collect finances toward your order. When an artists accepts your order, you will no longer be able to have other users contribute PP, but will still be able to purchase them for yourself to finish paying for the order

Tarot, you may already know this, but I believe you also get the additional time that you are waiting after you’re off “hold” and in the queue, but before the artist actually picks up the order, to gather funds. Which, considering the length of the wait at this point should be a pretty big chunk of time?

On the other hand, I’m also a little freaked out by the “goodbye money” aspect if you aren’t able to get enough funds in time. Sort of wish there was no time restriction on the “hold” option, though I don’t think it should be too big of an issue overall.
Actually, yeah, I’m a bit curious: is there a reason that there is a time limit on the ability to hold an order?

Nyfeaena

Glitch had a really good idea of saving nuggets/gems whatever else before you even enter the hold. That way if you are worried that 3 months plus wait time isn’t enough time, you can already get a head start on saving!

Condor
You can’t use gems/nuggets. And I can’t imagine anyone trading PP for gems which will now be only a dime a dozen :’ )

Here, in seriousness, just imagine. There will be WAY more people looking for PP than gems. It’s going to be like CC all over again tbh except worse bc at least 1 cc didn’t give you three quarters of a gem after three months.

Dove
Thank you, but does this mean we have to pay in PP? IE - we have to buy the “PP” on site instead of the option to receive a paypal invoice? Doesn’t that mean that people in the EU suddenly can’t buy customs at all? I feel like I must be confusing something.

(ps, just for the record, y’all keep picking names with troublesome acronyms! cc = custom credit = credit card. pp = pawprints = paypal)

Nyfeaena
I believe the hold time is to keep people from stock-piling PP on their account under an order they may not intend to get for a long period time/they do not know what they want and are only hoarding for future use, not knowing that they use is.

Tarot What I think Glitch meant by that, is you save the nuggets/gems to trade with others for PP still others buy the PP with real money, but if you have been saving nuggets to buy from other players, then you are that much closer when you do finally make your order.

His post is on the first page, I would link to it, but I’m on mobile right now so it’s difficult.

radio The PP market is much smaller now than it will be, considering the system doesn’t even exist yet.

[@deddo] Jacq also have a point. unless you devote your live to mycena, I don’t think it’s possible to accumulate PP in three months for a custom without shelling out $.

Losty
You’ll have longer than 3 months to save up for your custom. The order automatically joins the queue after three months (unless you choose to join it sooner), so you’ll have ~90 days (depending on the queue length) to raise funds after the order goes into the queue.

Edit: Ah, didn’t account for the sprout or edit queue, which I believe are much shorter?

[@Deddo] You would purchase PP the way you purchase Gems from the site currently if you live in Europe. Nothing regarding those transactions has changed. The only thing we’re changing in regards to purchasing customs is that you will now be purchasing any PP due at the time your order is accepted first before using all of the PP attached to your order to pay for the custom.

Tarot As I mentioned above, we are going to address your concerns with a more detailed response; there are a lot of questions that we are trying to answer at once without having ten people answering everyone at the same time. :)

Tarot Shizuo [@Deddo] Nyfeaena Losty

Direct USD payments will continue to be available! Edit: I apologize, this isn’t strictly accurate. Paw Prints are purchasable through USD, but this is an indirect USD payment. Essentially, the breakdown is:

1. All queue orders (custom, sprout, edits) must be paid in Paw Prints.
2. Like CC used to be, Paw Prints are purchasable for only USD.

I’ll use myself as an example to illustrate how this will work in practice! If I am relying purely on trades with other players purchase a custom, I will need to save up enough PP through trades before my order reaches the front of the queue. If I am worried that the estimated queue length will not give me enough time to acquire all the necessary PP, I can “hold” my order for up to three (3) months in order to give myself extra time, plus I can continue to make trades for PP after I enter the queue, right up until the moment an artist accepts my order. Given our current average queue length, this results in roughly ~6 months of saving time.

If I intend to fully pay for my order myself, I can skip the optional three month hold and immediately enter the queue. I do not have to make any payments until my order is accepted by an artist. When my order is accepted and payment is requested, I can at that point purchase however many PP I need, and apply them to my order.

The time limit on holding an order exists because with this new system, we are encouraging users to be responsible for informing themselves on how much their orders will cost, and therefore, knowing beforehand how much PP they will require. Excess PP converts at a 1 PP to 4 gem rate in order to keep our economy stable by deterring players from acquiring more PP than needed and having it accumulate. This should actually help raise the value of gems, rather than lowering it further, as gems will not have to compete with PP at a 1 to 1 rate.

If an order reaches the front of the queue but does not have enough PP to cover the cost, and the player cannot cover the rest of the balance, it’s true that all the PP thus far accumulated on that order will be converted to gems at the 1 PP to 4 gem rate. However, with the combination of our queue lengths and three month holding period, with diligent saving, this should be an unlikely occurrence. If the three month holding period appears to be too short, we are open to taking another look at what the ideal length should be!

(If I’ve missed your concerns, please know that other staff members are currently working hard on a follow-up reply! Many posts are appearing quickly, and we’re working as fast as we can to address them. We really appreciate your patience!)

Dove
I think my concerns will be addressed in the more detailed post incoming. I’m still pretty confused and don’t understand why we can’t just pay for an order instead of converting it to PP first.

(Or is it just the name that’s changing? If my custom costs $100USD do I still have the option of getting a paypal invoice for $100USD with the note changed to say “20 PP” instead of “$100 Custom”? Because that raises concerns with the EU laws, if I’m not mistaken)

edit: I share [@deddo]‘s concerns as well. We might be asking the same question in different words but I’m confused enough I don’t get it.

That… Wasn’t really my question. I’m saying it’s already inconvenient to buy in-site currency (gems) - and now customs are being made inconvenient as well and that’s just eh. It’s not really the end of the world but it just feels like EU players were never even considered when drafting up these plans to remove USD purchases (for the custom itself) in the first place?

EDIT: Concerning EU laws, would a direct PP purchase not apply - so EU users could pay by card lawfully? I’m very confused sorry it is a really complicated law.

EDIT2: Yeah, I think we are asking the same question Jacq, we can be confused together :D.

Condor, heh, I did see that. It’s part of the reason why I’m not too concerned. The fact that PP will always be purchasable will probably also help increase that market so that they’ll be a more steady willingness to trade for it - sort of forgot about that until just now.

Arintol, ahh, thank you. I hadn’t considered a “faux” entry of sorts just to stockpile.

Excess PP converts at a 1 PP to 4 gem rate in order to keep our economy stable by deterring players from acquiring more PP than needed and having it accumulate. This should actually help raise the value of gems, rather than lowering it further, as gems will not have to compete with PP at a 1 to 1 rate.

Except players who probably need PP will not have a surplus. They’ll be trying to scrape up funds to get their custom. You’re converting PP to gems and essentially making it a waste currency. Gems are not desirable. Gems are worthless. You can buy OOTS with them and that’s all. They cannot be readily converted into other currency like nuggets can. Gems can be generated with USD and Nuggets at any time. THAT is why they are common and undesirable. You are punishing users who cannot purchase 100 dollars worth of currency at once by converting their PP into the most worthless currency.

I’d really dig this idea if there wasn’t a limit on the hold. I don’t get it. If my order isn’t even in queue while it’s on hold, why is it a problem? If canceling the order converts the PP into gems, why is it a problem? There’s been a custom I’ve wanted to make for a long time, but considering all of my other goals that I save for, even a six month period isn’t going to be enough.

If I save up enough nuggets/gems to trade all at once, there’s still technically no guarantee I’d be able to trade all of it before my order is accepted. Yes, unlikely that it would happen, but it can still happen. I don’t like having that worry, no matter how implausible it is.

I’d really rather just have an order on hold so it’d be available to save up PP until I had enough, rather than it just sit there for 3 months and then automatically convert. I don’t want to pay more money for fewer gems, especially since gems are virtually useless to me.