Thank you so much for making those mockups! I've been trying for so long to think of a way to give users CW shops that they could control and just haven't been able to visualize it. This helps a lot. :)

THIS IS SO HELPFUL. I find the method we have now (selling through the forums) so hard. I think I've bought one CW that way because I was pinged there, and otherwise it's just a bunch of really confusing mess to me.

I'm going to shoot a ping too just so that she knows to look at this at some point and we can talk about it in hushed voices behind the scenes ❤

I fixed that last week - you can join more now regardless of what kind of account you have.

What I'm talking about in this thread is how we can reduce the total number of ping groups to a sustainable number. If we can get rid of CW ping groups which make up the vast majority of them, we'd be making a lot of progress into the way that ping groups are used.

Cult related groups are actually the focus of the new group system (hence why they can create forums, have banks, etc, obviously all current cult features that are being folded into the new groups) and are meant to stick around. Same as the ones that people "have" to join; the official ones, which will likely be excluded from the eventual total that you can join.

Yes, it's a simple method of communication but it is already broken by being a system without limits and the rate that it is growing (people making groups for their CWs) is unsustainable.

And unrelated to that post, but we've been talking a lot internally about CW shops. We love the idea, and we've started working out rough ideas on how we'd handle it. Obviously it'd pretty much replace the ability to push your item to the CS (because why would you bother if you could set your own prices?) so we have to figure out how to recoup some of that either with like a 10% "tax" or whatever. Otherwise we've just got tons of CSC going back and forth in the system and that isn't super healthy for us (the company).

Otherwise, I'm really into the idea. I started writing some basic programming for it but we're so busy right now with Morostide coming up!

Yeah, but why keep the CS around if it'll be pretty much exactly the same (list of new items, click to see items from a particular creator, etc). We're working on how to incorporate the direct to idea into the shops (as well as potentially lowering the number of slots needed on the initial batch).

Basically if the CS is going to exist there for like, 30 items ever, it's not worth having up and we should find a way to incorporate those items in the user shops.

Yeah, the idea is that you will almost entirely only be able to sell items via the shop. Getting rid of batches entirely (outside of the first one) and you just putting things in your shop. In my head we make it so that if you want to sell items to a specific person (aka you've had an item reserved for someone) you can give them a special code that we generate to buy the item, or something. Or have a special page, I haven't really thought that hard about it.

I mean when an item is purchased from your store (lets say you set a wig at 800CSC), Subeta would take 10% of it, or something.

Right, so you'd pay the 5K initial batch fee (or less depending on the type of item) and then you would have the same amount of items as usual for the first batch.

After that, you would have to sell the item via your shop (which means setting however many you want in, setting the price yourself, etc) and we wouldn't take any of the CSC from the "batch", just the 10%* of the sales there. You wouldn't have to pay 5k upfront that time.

Does that make sense? Creators would actually be getting more CSC with the shop system than the forum system, after the first batch.

• Not a real number right now.

Yeah, the 10% is just for the purpose of this conversation. We're running a bunch of numbers but there are a lot of factors to consider, like! If buying a CW is considerably easier (which it would be with shops / searching / etc) would more users purchase cash shop credits (that eventually make an exit by the CS at some point or another) in the long run? If so - we need to find the sweet spot to entice creators to keep making awesome CWs and keep them cheap enough for users to buy. If we take a smaller cut, the prices stay lower because creators get more (we hope) so maybe the % will be tied to how much your charge.

Anyway - the numbers are a long way off, but this is the general idea that we're working with now! ;D

Just wanted to post that I've made some progress on the CW shops. Right now it doesn't fulfill all of the things that were asked for here, but it does have:

1. You move items from your CW page (where you currently move them to the CS) into this shop. You must still get the first batch done.
2. When you move an item to your shop, it can never be moved back. You can put it down to 0 stock and just take it out, though.
3. You can add categories and sort the items, and add messages to each of the categories.
4. You can set the prices (but not below the minimum for that type of item)
5. Items that are in a CW shop (and have stock left) show up in the shop search.

What I'm currently writing for it:

1. The ability to "follow" to a cw shop, so that when a new item is added to it you get an event.
2. The ability to send out messages to the people who are subscribed to your shop.

Coming along!

I'm hoping that the following system will be enough.

There just wasn't actually a good way to replace the initial batch requirements. We just don't have the resources to get items through the system that are only going to be purchased by two people / keep going back and forth on items that couldn't muster initial interest but we're spending time to critique.

It's a really hard balance and the initial batch is still the only / best way we've been able to come up with to keep that balance :(

We aren't telling anyone to get rid of ping groups. If you find use in a group (like the general ones) then keep them.

it depends on how you price your item :)

Yes, you'll get the 200CSC. If you price it at the base price, you'll get 15% of the purchase instead. So there is a balance there where until a certain point it's actually more beneficial for you (and your buyers) to set it to the base price.

And, when it goes through you'll be able to move your "batch" items into the shop as well, but you won't have control over the number of them to put in the shop. You can make the price 0 and they won't show up for other users, but you'll have to sell only the number left in the batches (so if you have 3 batches left, you won't be able to set the amount less than or more than 30). That was a really weird description, but hopefully that made sense.

You can set items to 0 in price (or 0 in stock) and they won't show up to people viewing the shop, just the owner.

And yeah, I'm trying to work out a way for the slots :)

Not any more than it's already in the system :) This just sets a "is this in the shop or not" toggle.

Yeah, I'm still trying to work that one out. The CW itself is still "on" an account. I'm thinking because I've given a lot of freedom on the message, you can just link to a specific category in a friends shop. Not an ideal solution, but it's much easier than changing the entire system to have "shared" CWs, those thats a possibility in the future!

Right - so groups like newcustomwears or w/e are all totally fine - they can stick around. I think that they'll be a little bit redundant when you can go into the new wardrobe, choose custom wearables for sale and sort by newest, and buy directly from there, but we'll see.

Yup, and thats why I said I'm working on a solution for the first slot :)

And and If you have your item set to be purchased, without a password, then anyone can buy it. It'll show up in the shop search. If that makes you uncomfortable, then you should probably stick to just taking slots for it.

I think that people will really appreciate the ease to buy stuff - so if you're making things that are similar to other wigs/accessories/etc, people will probably always go for the ones sold easily. That means being able to buy them directly from the wardrobe, shop search, etc.

What I've been describing in these posts is the system as it stands right now, completely coded :). As I've said in the past few posts, I'm working on a method to get around exactly what you're talking about which is getting people signed up for those slots outside of the forums.

Yeah, right now I'm testing a few things which includes a system to replace the password where you send out "invites" to users in particular that have a randomly generated code in each (so that the item can only be purchased once with that code) and the user pays when they use that code. That way you can send out 5 invites (or 3 invites) and that is essentially the same as making a batch of 3, but you don't need all of the CSC to come in at once.

Does that make sense?