Hina Ahh okay good. haha. But, yeah.. o: A lower wait time would be very, very nice. I am tentatively optimistic about that at least!

I think, having let it sink in some and figuring out what numbers are (lol dyscalculia…), this system is making a lot more sense to me and I’m.. curious to see how it pans out. I do really appreciate the work and the fact that we won’t have to wait for a shop to open up for a couple hours every 4 months anymore though. aha.

My issue is: An order can be held for a maximum of six months, at which point it automatically joins the queue.

See when I gather any time of USD based site currencies it takes me YEARs. And with the prices charged here well. 6 months is way too short. Surely we can gather Paw Prints some way without having to put something in the queue?!

Corvani:  Yes, that’s a good thought about not getting a second hold time if you were to switch queues!

[@BrightEyedBeast]:  The primary reasons we don’t like to deal with Paypal and don’t use it as our main payment system is because their API (the way they integrate with other sites) frustrating and the fee they charge is not predictable; we only know after the payment has gone through what they took from the transaction.  Stripe, on the other hand, is super shiny and awesome in comparison (the system that we use).

The reason that many non-US payers must go through Paypal is not because Paypal fulfills certain legal requirements, but because our Stripe system is automatic whereas our Paypal system is manual, and we must fulfill many types of EU payments manually or be subject to a whole bunch of gross regulations (our original post about it was here if you’d like more details)!  Customs, and thus PP, may be exempt from this requirement though — I’ll poke around more to see if that’s the case.

Myla
Alright, thanks! I’m really looking forward to this new system! :D

Hina
Oops, sorry, I wasn’t meaning to imply this was more of a gamble. I actually think the CC shop was a much risky business as somebody whose relied on it in the past. I was only wondering if they were going to add more security while making the new system. Though I think this system is already much more secure by default. ^-^

LAsDarkFireWolf While CC could accumulate on an account indefinitely without an order, Paw Prints can only be gathered on an order; this is the primary difference between PP and CC, and what allows PP to be purchased without a cap. If we were to allow PP to be gathered without being linked to a specific order, we would have the same problems that we had with CC.

If the 6 months holding period + the additional queue wait time gives you concern, our best suggestion is to try to save up enough things to trade so that if there are enough PP sellers, you could arrange for all or most the trades you need and then enter the holding period or queue. A more in-depth explanation of this suggestion can be found here, and also in several other posts throughout this thread. We understand that saving up to a custom is challenging, but we hope this method can be helpful to your goals!

Alright, so! I realized that I replied to a comment a couple of pages back, but that I never actually weighed in on this.

This new system is absolutely fantastic, in my opinion! As someone that cannot afford to spend IRL currency on petsites, I think this is the best possible solution to the issues that we were having. This way we, as users, don’t have to stress out about a rapidly closing CC shop and making good on all of our debts, and the admins don’t have to stress out about owing thousands of dollars upon the instance of a site collapse. I mean, I can’t be sure, as I have not used this system yet, but I really think that this is going to solve all the problems with CC that I was having as a user. Sure, the deadlines could end up being a little tricky, but I think it’ll be easily fixable by setting up IOUs and saving up nuggets/playing the market beforehand.

Also, this is kind of dumb, but I love how the pawprints’ worth has been laid out, because for some reason 20 PP sounds a hell of a lot less daunting than $100. I mean, it’s the same amount, I know. But it feels like less and that makes me stupidly happy.

Hina

that wasn’t inherent in the system, though. it was an unfortunate side effect, this is true. but people who used CC as a bank (aka buying a little at a time as they saved up) did not have to gamble, and before the CC cap no one had to gamble either.

you also didn’t lose anything under the previous system (unless you weren’t smart about trading i suppose). if you built up ious and didn’t have enough to pay for your custom once you got to the front of the queue, you got to keep your CC and just go through the queue again.

i’m not saying it’s impossible, and it’s not even going to be a problem for me i doubt, i’m just concerned for the players that build PP up slowly. it seems to punish them more than the hoarders. it also makes them completely reliant on other people to not lose all their hard work. yes,  you’re somewhat reliant on people in the first place, but it just adds an extra layer of uncertainty when you not only have to rely on people to GET PP, but to not LOSE it either. and yes, you can try and just buy it all at once, but that means there have to be enough people willing to drop that much money for all the people trying to buy CC and i just don’t know if the market can support a system like that? obviously we’ll have to see. i’m just worried about someone losing all their hard work. i just do not like the idea of a cash shop currency “timing out” and people losing what they have bought.

that said, i did think of a possible solution last night that i’d love everyone to weigh in on.

my primary concern is, as sandhill pointed out, people who manage to gather 45/50. if you have anything above that, you can at least get a base custom and then edit it more later. if you have at least $50, you won’t lose your money because you have enough for a base custom. but if you have $45 you can’t get anything, and therefore lose all your work and have to start over.

what if the system worked so that if you have LESS than $50 and you get all the way to the front of the queue, you’re reset to the back of the queue and still have your money? this would save poorer players from losing all their work, but still prevent hoarding—if you have more than $50, you can’t go to the back of the queue.

a similar alternative could be: you’re allowed to hold up to $50 indefinitely, but any more than that and the clock starts counting down.

is this a viable solution? i think it would prevent the situations we’re talking about in which someone works hard but doesn’t quite make it in time and therefore loses everything. but it wouldn’t allow people to hoard PP for future customs either.

now this is solely based on how the custom queue works. i’m not entirely certain how it would work for the edit queue or the sprout queue. but i thought i’d put the idea out there because i think it would solve the concerns i have.

My dreams have came trueeeee! finally! now its was easier for me to get to my goals! ;D (Loving this newwww system!)
also question: if we put a custom in queue, will the new system be in it? Or will be just a wip right now?

[@Past-tato]
Any order placed at this moment in time will come under the current system, as the Paw Print system is yet to be implemented. However, we intended to release the new system in the very near future, so keep any eye out!~

Regarding the commonly expressed worry of not being able to gather enough PP by the time an order reaches the front of the queue: As mentioned previously, we recommend considering any order you place carefully and beginning to save up towards any needed PP trades before placing it. We trust in the law of offer and demand for PP and believe the market will balance out in a while, and we hope you will be willing to give it a chance.

If a situation arises in which a player has gathered a large amount of PP towards a sprout order (i.e. enough to cover the cost of a basic custom), but has not reached the 20 PP mark by the time their order reaches the front of the queue, the player can contact staff and we will try to work something out before any conversion to gems occurs. This will also help us get an idea of how often this occurs in practice, and if a long-term solution is necessary.

With the custom queue, the 6 month hold period plus the current custom queue length equates to approximately 8.5 months of time to save up. These 8.5 months, or approximately 255 days, allows a player to collect 765k nuggets from games, which at the current rates would cover a highly edited custom. From our experience, we do not believe that situations where dedicated players are only able to earn ~9 out of 10 PP toward a basic custom will be a common occurrence, and feel this is a situation that can easily be prevented with the aforementioned suggestion of saving up before placing an order. If, in practice, the market looks vastly different, we will look for other potential solutions that would alleviate this problem.

In general, should sufficient PP be unavailable on the market in the long run, or any other big problems arise, we are more than willing to find a solution!

Juney Thank you for your reassurances. Glad to know staff is open to working something out re: sprout queue in particular. I think you’re right though… best thing is to just kinda play it by ear and see how the new system functions? I think even just.. posting that you guys are open to adjusting as we go is helpful. I think like… I mean, I know you guys normally are, but having it plainly spelled out is helpful somehow? lol. In the case something like what baekhesten suggested is necessary though in the future, it does sound like a solid safety net feature for the custom queue at least.

I just.. get very anxious about change, especially when it has to do with money. >>; Thank you, though! Despite my anxiety I am looking forward to the new system overall.

what if the system worked so that if you have LESS than $50 and you get all the way to the front of the queue, you’re reset to the back of the queue and still have your money? this would save poorer players from losing all their work, but still prevent hoarding—if you have more than $50, you can’t go to the back of the queue.

a similar alternative could be: you’re allowed to hold up to $50 indefinitely, but any more than that and the clock starts counting down.baekhesten

I just wanted to jump in and say that I really like this idea, or something to the extent of this idea? :)

I do know that it has been mentioned a lot that it might be best to wait and see how situations pan out/if the extra code work involved would be needed before more seriously looking into alternatives for those that end up with x/10 or x/20 PP needed for the base cost of the order they’re making. And I mostly do agree with this! Because, yeah- it hasn’t been implemented yet, and so no one knows how this will end up working out. We don’t know how many people will end up selling and buying. While I personally do think there will be plenty of people willing to sell PP, I also think there will be more than plenty of people willing to buy PP. And as Juney mentioned, I guess that’s just going to have to be up to time to let the market settle down and stabilize for that.

Although because it is such a concern to so many people posting here/surely a concern to other’s that haven’t posted, I also… Don’t entirely think it’s something that should be put into a “well, lets see how it all works out first”, because theoretically I can see the number of people buying/who exactly is buying changing based on whether or not this system is put in place first. Without an “at least you will get something of what you want and can work on it later”, I think a portion those that need to completely rely on getting PP from others will be too uncomfortable to even try. If there could be some “at least you are allowed to get the base price covered” safety net, it would bridge the gap in comfortableness that people who might risk saving up and losing all the PP because they can’t pay the last bit off and people who will be able to outright buy their custom (and therefore not worry about lacking the PP) feel.

On top of making people more comfortable… That makes PP less rare? If we’re wanting it to be less rare, that is. There would be less people panicked and trying really hard to get that last 1 or 2 PP, because there is no fear of “I just lose all of this because I was just a few, or even half, short”, and out of desperation potentially buying PP and higher and higher prices. That will maybe keep PP from shooting up more than the regular 20k per PP that CC always fetched and become some sort of “dominant currency”, which I think we’re also wanting to avoid here? Since you do at least get some gems back, even if they’re typically valued the least. Since I don’t think that PP shouldn’t be the same “I want this and nothing else (no gems/nuggets)” that CC was (which of course, already making it available all of the time should help fix I think!). There could even be a “pre-hold” system for gathering PP up until the base price (although people could still jump into the queue anytime they wanted, for those that didn’t need to earn all that PP from outside sources) and once the base was met, it automatically went into the hold space with a limit of 6 months if they wanted to try for more than a base price custom, and then into the queue. I’m not sure how crazy that would be to code though with the current system. ^^;

I wanted to comment on something else too but I uh, forget… So I might poke back around to add in a different two cents if it was something I felt worth rambling about ahah. I hope any of the above doesn’t sound too silly and stuff, if I’ve make a weird fallacy in my thinking process there I’m open to someone pointing that out whoops. Overall though, I do really like the PP system, and more so than the previous system, especially because CC wasn’t very sustainable for MC/for users trying to grab the CC when they had a chance. I’m glad that MC is still willing to let all users have some chance at getting customs/sprouts if they’re unable to buy one themselves directly, and that you guys are all willing to listen to opinions and suggestions on the new system! Thank you guys :)

I’m very rambly I’m sorry, but TL;DL: A “safety net” system sounds very nice, if that would work out well for MC in terns of IRL money “floating around” on site. Maybe we do just need to wait and see how things work as-is out first, but I also don’t think it’s bad to highly consider if that would be an option within the first week or two coming up then? Just to help with comfort levels/potential economy stuff. :O?

Oh lawdy this new system is a trainwreck that doesn’t address the biggest issue many of us sellers had with CC, i.e, the reason people wanted it more than any other currency, which made it difficult to trade using anything else. Any currency that can’t be used to buy customs is NATURALLY going to be a lot less desirable than a currency that can be; this new system doesn’t fix or even do anything to change that. You seem to be assuming that most people who seek CC don’t already have any firm custom plans in mind. The huge number of customs already on this site should tell you otherwise. People are never going to want gems as much as CC or whatever else you want to call your “custom-buying currency,” no matter what exchange rate you try to set. Now we’ve got a system that’s even more complicated than before, with an added severe risk of loss compared to a system that was only really annoying for logistical reasons.

There’s no way in hell I’m selling or trading PP if there’s any possibility of it becoming a lesser and utterly WORTHLESS-to-me currency due to circumstances I may not be able to control. “Oops, sorry, you weren’t fast enough, so there goes all of your super expensive points! But here’s something you neither need nor want in exchange!!” That is completely absurd and unreasonable. If there’s no guarantee that I will get what I pay for, then there’s no sense in paying at all. I am cancelling my custom order, regardless of the fact I was going to pay for it entirely out of my own pocket anyway, because I refuse to support this system as it currently stands.

Raja The issue with the old CC system was that it had become a very desirable currency and evolved into something that we had not been expecting to support. CC was originally created as a means to eliminate multiple people paying for one order. Naturally this made it easier to for it to become a tradable good and erupted into a part of the market we had not been prepared to accommodate. As such, limits and caps were put into effect to try and control the amount of CC any one user had on their account and thus try and keep the economy in balance. Obviously these tactics did not work, and so we created the survey in order to see how we could best fit the needs of the userbase as a whole. CC being the most desirable currency was one of many problems we are attempting to address with these changes.

These changes are not meant to make PP easier to obtain, but to make the system as a whole more sustainable. They will also result in PP being more accessible, by not having to keep the caps in place and being perpetually available. While PP will remain sought-after as you have mentioned, a couple mechanisms will help keep the balance in check: the 1 PP to 4 gem leftover conversion rate, as well as the PP being attached to orders rather than accounts (so that players are limited to what they currently need).

It is impossible to strike a balance that leaves everyone feeling 100% happy, but we believe that this system is much more sustainable in the long run and will help keep PP accessible in the way it was originally intended. We understand it does not work with everyone’s work flow and, while unfortunate, pre-purchasing PP may not be for everyone.

Regardless, an open PP shop is empirically better than a closed CC shop.

[@sillohette]

The reason that CC was limited in the original system was because the admins didn’t want to loan out more CC than they could immediately pay for in the case of a site-wide shutdown. They didn’t really need to do this, from a legal standpoint (from what I understand, at least) but they’re good people and didn’t want to feel like they were cheating their userbase in any way. PP has no purchasing limit because of the added order locked element and the time limit factor. PP is either “quickly” (6-9 months, based on queue time) redeemed for customs, or converted into in-game currency, which takes out a bit of the risk factor for the admins. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s the purpose.

Another big concern I had is… if you trade for PP, and that PP ends up not being used in time, then part of the trade isn’t really… fulfilled properly?  Like, for example, if I trade 10 PP for a Glowing Changingshroom, and I get my PP, but the PP ‘expires’ since it isn’t used in time and I get gems back… then I’m not really getting what I paid for.  In turn a ‘usable’ item was traded, which means that you can’t reverse the trade, if the person decided to use the ‘shroom.  It means it goes at a loss for the person who wanted the PP for a custom/sprout/etc. because they get back gems — not what they initially traded for.  Haven’t I essentially lost out on half of a trade bargain?  Or am I thinking weird about this?  The expiration date is a little scary imo.

I’m extremely uncomfortable with the stringent rules — the idea seems alright at first, but the fact it converts to gems, it ‘expires’, and all that… that’s making me very afraid to use the system else I ‘lose out’ somehow, even if I buy it all myself. The wait time for customs is pretty long right now, and I wouldn’t want to be stuck with gems if I buy the PP over time…

[@sillohette] I’d be happy to address your question!

The issue with allowing PP to be held indefinitely is that it represents an unfulfilled debt on the part of the website. This post provides a more detailed overview of our reasoning.