ur rly scary especially like on skype : c

Yeah the real struggle is between commissioners and artists as artists arent getting fairly paid if they charge a certain amount, but then if they do set their prices accurately then commissioners will never bring a profit. I do love your art a lot though ;-;. Its also extremely hard for most people to ever get slots with artists because usually (unless ur tathii) there are only a few slots ever open and they get snatched extremely quickly especially if they are csc!

yay kayla ur here, Yeah I think staff could do more with the discounting csc for like a few months to combat the hike as well.Hopefully they do ah!

Like you guys, I have a tendency to 1 batch items now because well nothing is filling and I don't want it to end up in pawn eventually. I'm not sure who suggested the removal of items from pawn after a certain amount of time, but that's a pretty good idea. I would say that its necessary because a lot of older cws have older art and are no longer as desirable anymore. Even when they sit there for years, there are cws that will never sell.

exactly it's like a lose lose situation though. When you do one batch you have people who miss out and are upset and junk. But yet when you do two batches it only half way fills and you come out of pocket ;-;

Sucks.

Yeahh, I hear you. I don't know how anyone really makes a profit off of CWs anymore since no one can put through multiple batches like we used to! ;_; And I'm sure it's extremely frustrating not being able to snag the very limited commission slots. I have been wracking my brain, but I can't come up with anything to incentivize more and/or new artists to come take a stab at the CW market.

Exactly! And it's not that I don't want everyone to be able to slot on my items, I just don't think it's cool to have to pay CSC to send something through when we had to pay to have the item commissioned in the first place. Hopefully, the staff will see this and take some action because honestly, if things don't get better, I don't see many people releasing CWs at all in the future. ;o; There's very few of us as it is, and Sub should be growing as community, not shrinking.

1. impatience
2. discouragement -> seriously, I don't understand how I can put something for 300-400 CSC on trades and not get any takers BUT if I pawn it and it gets there for 600 CSC, someone buys it within 5 hours!

I was surprised to see a lot of 1-batch / older items I liked in the Pawn Shop when I returned from my hiatus. The Custom Clothing boards seem to move more slowly, and there only seem to be a handful of artists left. I do love the items that they have to offer in the site, though I feel like the old variety seen in the 2012-2013 CW market was lost (not referring to artists but to the specific kinds of items that make it onto the site.)

Sometimes, there are items I'd rather not pawn but need to liquidate, so deleting for CSC seems like a good option. I'm cautiously in favour of the idea. I only worry about the reduction in the number of circulating copies on site backfiring -- it's a good thing if the CW is very undervalued, but if a few people who have the item leave the site and a newer player wants to buy it, they have less chances of buying it that way. I already regret selling some of my old, semi-private releases, and I imagine some might also regret the decision of deleting their item.

Dealing with CWs is daunting, mostly because of the drama, sometimes because artists seem to be intimidating to talk to you (and it's not your fault! You all seem friendly and accomodating, but I can be very awkward,) and sometimes because people might not like your ideas. I've considered sending all future, non-private releases directly to the Cash Shop because I've seen people struggle with filling the first batch of an item.

Apart from tutorials, I'm not sure what else can incentivise newer artists to take on CWs. I gave up on releasing self-drawn CWs some time ago (though I am considering giving it another shot) because I find trying to emulate Subeta style very daunting. The shading alone is a world apart from how I usually do art.

Sorry for my messy thoughts, English isn't my first language u__u

OKIEE im late to the partay cause I couldnt sleep till it was 6am in the morning and crap i was really flipping on my bed all night long thanks to some stupid caffeine thing

tbh ive always been so sad that the cw scene has been slowly dying cause its something that I love about this site so much. where else can we upload art that we love so much and make it one of the site items for everyone to share!! (and with such pretty and nice quality too!!)

And ive been lucky to be very inspired by artists here that I started picking up drawing slowly with the help of wonderful people here too.

anyways since we're focusing on what the site can do for us, we can also do some more things for the community too so that the cw community in general is more welcoming & not so scary for everyone?

I think it's something we can start on ourselves ; more forum boards on cw things other than just releases yknow

• get to know the artist board (just intro-ing on the artist part & the artist can share tips/tutorials/wips along the way?)

• post refs board ( something like a freebie board where some people can post their refs and an artist or two might be willing to pick one or two up when they have free time - can be discussed with artist on rules such as if artist draws, person who posts reference gets free copy but profits up to artist since they did it for free? idk its something that can be discussed further along if someone is willing to do this / and involves both parties being okay with da rules !) ** this is cause I know some people generally just don't have the time/finances to commission people but they have wonderful ideas stashed away!!

• more cw related games hosted by different people (HA contests/idea generation contests/what elseeeeeee?! I know its hard to host an event and stuff but if more people started around maybe we could let people who were never into CWs join us overall and have small chitchats during games/mini games & would be more welcoming overall! )

• livestream board/subforum I know artists have different ping groups around when they feel like LSing but what if we had a livestream sub forum? where people can join this big ping group whenever they'd feel like looking at any LSes. Fact is, CWs or not, art plays a big part here since art can also be evolved into CWs when newer artists feel more interested in trying out Subeta style art/shading - -- > CWs (more artists -- more artists that might draw CWs -- more people involved- more active peeps in CW scene! )

I honestly don't remember how I got to this thread...

One thing I would like to point out though that I think causes CWs to fall in popularity is the site artists making similar, or, even very close replicas of CW items. Once they are released I feel like I didn't really need that CW I had been longing for anymore because I have a cheaper option. Having said that, I realize there is no real way to stop the site from doing this. But, it doesn't seem fair to the people who put so much money into commissioning something. There should be some kind of disclaimer when you pay to get something submitted that items (in some kind of broad range, example; submitting plain/solid colour heels/tights = the site cannot do the same) to help protect the commissioner/artist/submitter of the CW. It doesn't seem right. I have seen it happen with a number of items that never seemed to exist on site before until a popular CW like it came out.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this or not yet, I have not read through this whole thread.

Of course, I like having the option to buy a less costly item, but with regards to CWs and all of the work money put into them it doesn't seem fair to the submitters.

Does this make sense at all?

As much as I agree, I also don't. Staff has started to make these because a lot of their userbase started to complain about the obligation to buy CSC to get a desired item with a decent quality. It reminds me a bit of the whole Cash Shop quality over release debate that happened at some point. The thing is that cws end up being owned by Subeta - even if as an artist and a releaser has a "right" to it. So Subeta does not sees any issues with releasing a similar item to satistify the userbase via Cash Shop or regular shop release.

It also tickles me because a lot of pretty items are private and it causes quite the fuss from time to time. Not that I care, but the level of drama is already high enough lmao. Plus, if we think about it for a second ... Does anyone feel like a lot of Subeta items aren't as HQ as they ask a lot of custom wears to be? I don't know, it might be just me tbh.

Overall, I believe that the market has gone wild by itself (both cws and CSC). While I understand that staff needs income for the site, a fall in the economy is not going to help the wheel to turn. I still think that custom wears have shady policies and sometimes, I'm unsure about how it is taken care of (which again, causes drama)

I think you have some really good ideas, some of which others have echoed too. The inspiration and livestream boards seem like they'd be popular!

A thought about your event ideas: I wonder what are some ways we could rope in other users that aren't typically into CWs? Maybe we could try having events that are pet-related, or somehow connected to events on site or site characters, etc? Also, just had a thought, but I know most CW folk that host events tend to have them just on their shop thread in the CW board, maybe we could try venturing into the Giveaways thread or the holiday-related threads to have CW specific contests and such? I have to wonder how many users just straight up avoid the CW boards because of one reason or another, and never get a chance to be involved with the lovely CW community?

I agree that it's lame to spend the time and money to submit an item as a CW only to have it "copied" by staff and released to the wider public, but I feel like they make it clear that all CWs belong to the site when they're accepted and can be used for whatever. CWs definitely have a "make at your own risk" sort of feel to them on so many levels. Personally, I am happy that the site seemed to take inspiration from a few popular CWs, like the basic flats and heels that were HUGELY popular the CW market for a time....seeing the site release their own version with a billion colors was amazing, simply because those are extremely useful basic clothing items that a lot of people on site could benefit from, vs the few dozen at most that could enjoy the CW versions. For more "specific" fashions, though, it does seem kind of icky to have your original idea creeped on even though it's "allowed" by staff...but I honestly can't recall any really specific CWs that were copied at the moment.

Thinking about this and what other people have said, it seems like so many of the problems and negative feelings CW creators/releasers have would be solved if the site didn't charge a huge premium for every item. I mean, logically why wouldn't they charge as much as they could for people to have the "privilege" of having their custom wears on site, but.........it's crappy for everyone. It fosters a feeling of preciousness that makes creators/releasers feel bad when their CWs are "misused" (resold, pawned, copied, etc) and encourages people to favor "rarity" just so that the item maintains value, discourages new people from testing the CW waters, encourages CWs to be quite expensive from an average players' point of view, and so on. I don't really see staff dropping the price to submit a CW, but it does seem weird that the site expects us to PAY them such a large amount of money $50 is no drop in the bucket for most people for one puny virtual item.

Idea: maybe the cost of submission should 1) related to the size of the cw, like it is now, and 2) put on a sliding scale so that the smaller the batch size, the smaller the price. $50 for 10 copies of something is a lot, after all.

Took me a while to decide whether I'd like it to be a completely anonymous plot or not (until I give out the CW prizes, which would give me away to those who know how to snoop around CWs.) Now that I mentioned it here, I probably can't do it anon, haha :(

I doubt anyone who participated in my old plots remembers them + me, and I'm not really well-known in the CW subcommunity so there might not be any takers. I've also had to scrap the characters involved in the original stories due to various reasons...

The anonymous plots I held a few years back were adapted from my own stories, but for Subeta, I overlayed them against Shadowglen in particular (it was the closest in "feel" to my story's world. Both places also had an uprising led by a marginalised group.) I feel like a good part of the appeal of the plot was the connection to existing Subeta lore and a fan-based expansion of sorts. Of course, it's easier for an event's host to find appeal in a story that might not have any links to Subeta, though...

Still, I'll see if I can do something during the term break. My biggest problem is finding someone who I can commission -- those people I have in mind either always have their slots filled before I can claim them, or have left the site... :(

I really liked that staff released a lot of staple shoes, so that they are available even to those who cannot afford CW. Items submitted to the site are considered property of Agoge, so they can make derivatives if they please. As Tartelette said, it's a "make at your own risk" deal.

mkay I put off reading this and now it has 4 pages DDASJHGFDSH GOD I read most of it but now i'm skipping so sorry if I repeat this. Also I wrote this as I woke up and didn't reread so I hope I don't sound aggressive or anything. LOVE Y'ALL AND I LOVE THIS THREAD

1. THE PAWN SHOP. I agree this doesn't work AT ALL. But guys seriously if a copy ends in the pawn within 24h of release it's probably definitely the artist's copy unless we have one serial impulse purchaser. That aside, I think items should stay there a very very short time before being deleted. Like a week. I also like that we could delete items for CSC because sometimes I have extras of all my old privates and I don't want to pawn them.

2. Item restrictions.

2.1 As someone who makes a lot of privates, I believe that a 'private' should be something you offer your friend with the understanding that they'll sell back to you. This is, obviously, at your own risk. But when I came back from hiatus I saw that privates had somehow evolved into a million different offsprings, most notable, the 'friend exclusive' which implies that their friends can sell, but in truth, any time I heard of someone selling, the releaser got mad. I think people started being afraid of making items 'private' so they gave them different names and expected different results. Obviously this leads to incredible drama and while I don't necessarily want subeta to police this I wish we could agree as a small community that this is ridiculous. Items are private or they're public and it's confusing to everyone (I can't imagine to new members) to have to keep track of 'fake' privates.

2.2 Policing public items. In my mind when you release items publically, they're no longer yours to police. And yet, it seems to me more and more artist put in additional restrictions on them, like that they're not to be resold above slot price. People are mentioning that CWs deflate fast after release and we as a community are actively trying to keep them from inflating? I know a lot of people will disagree with me but I just don't get it. Plus yes there's talks of things being so expensive but how many people in our community have been here for years? (lots) How many have hundreds and hundreds of CWS? (lots) Why would they sell something that's popular for slot price as opposed to just... hoard it? What's 600 or 700 CSC to a lot of players today? In an ideal world they would sell because it's the nice thing to do. But look at the r200 market and you'll see that's not the case. IMO this is keeping the market down, but also creating a shortage of in demand items that people who really want to buy now have no access to. I'm very grateful for anyone who slots on my items or the items of my commissioners because I know how hard it is to fill batches now and it's sad to see us put restrictions onto those buyers as well.

3. The subeta art market. Now this thread is great but it's in the CW creator area and I feel like we could benefit from making a thread in the art market. Like ask people if they've thought about drawing CWs, if they need help, have questions and such. We could also make a thread in the Human Avatars forum and ask people if they buy CWs, have questions, have a hold up of some kind. Maybe we can make a ticket first to make sure it's okay but I think at this point I don't see why we can't try to bring more members to our community ourselves. We are kind of the ones are intimidating and scary and shit so maybe we could reach out ourselves instead of waiting for staff to bring us more peeps.

[quote=]

1. THE PAWN SHOP. I agree this doesn't work AT ALL. But guys seriously if a copy ends in the pawn within 24h of release it's probably definitely the artist's copy unless we have one serial impulse purchaser. That aside, I think items should stay there a very very short time before being deleted. Like a week. I also like that we could delete items for CSC because sometimes I have extras of all my old privates and I don't want to pawn them.

"mkay" It takes a lot to piss me off, but this concept makes me see red. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the scenario I interpret from your statement:

Someone commissions you to do a CW and they pay you in USD. They then have to BUY you a copy you don't really want. Unlike , who is upfront and will tell us if she wants a copy or not, you accept the unwanted copy (which cost them money/the chance to break even) only to turn around and pawn it BEFORE they have even filled their batches? Pawning it within 24 hours then makes the CW appear to be undesirable, therefore, devaluing the item and undermining your commissioner's ability to sell more copies.

If this is the case, it is reprehensible, deplorable, disgraceful, discreditable, despicable, wrong, bad, shameful, dishonorable, objectionable, opprobrious, repugnant, inexcusable, unforgivable, indefensible, and unjustifiable

Buyer Beware.

The End.

If I remember, also deny a copy of something if they are not interested in it with an extra $.

The thing is that we cannot policy artist to "treasure" a copy of said item that they have drawn. And yes, I have seen regulars customers claim a slot on something to only realize that they are not into it at all. Which leads to sale or pawn. An artist may want a copy because o1. they like the item, o2. they like to keep their own items as a "portfolio". The lack of rules/policies from the site itself may have caused this. Who knows at this point.

I also know that Odduckoasis will tell me if she does not want a copy. I can't see her throwing away an item like that 😊 I

BUT if it is happening, shame on them :/ At least wait until the releaser has all of their copies sold??? or I don't know. Just doesn't seem right but yeah, we cannot compel an artist to keep copies they don't want. sigh Is there an ok answer to all of this?

Yeah I definitely think you make a lot of valid points because there is a sense of discouragement it seems like for new people that want to become artists and sellers in a lot of cases.

YOU'RE HERE WOO.

That's a good idea about a getting to know board and could also be the compilation of tutorials and include commissioners/sellers if people need help with like shop related questions as well?

The Freebie board is interesting, but I feel like it puts strain on artists to constantly pick commissions. I do like when or just let users post tons of ref and pick a few for a free commission or where the user who suggested will get a portion of profits/submits the item.

Events are good and I think they do help rope people in. It would be interesting seeing if multiple shop owners and artists would be willing to contribute somehow to host a big event for individuals and draw people in with their groups?

The livestream board is also a good idea!!

Honestly, I think you brought up a point that I , along with many others, was thinking about. Because its true, people have a tendency to release cheap knockoffs whether it is onsite or through cws. People will literally use cws as reference to make knockoffs simply because something is rare/hard to find/valuable. I think this is definitely a problem. But the site itself does the same thing and I think that this has to do a lot with art quality. When cws first came out, everyone blamed the site artists for making quality that was not comparable to cws onsite. As a result, site artists are forced to make items that are higher quality and have a tendency to emulate the styles and CW items themselves. It isn't right, but unfortunately they will never enforce these rules because its how they make individuals happy= more money.

If this is indeed true that artists are pawning items then I totally agree that this needs to stop. Because I feel like any commissioner would much prefer the artist be like " I don't really want my copy, do you mind paying me ___ csc"? instead of simply unloading them into pawn. Its very hurtful because I know that sometimes myself and others upon seeing items in pawn will assume [I] oh its the seller's fault [/I]. But I think that artists should really then tell the commissioner because it really isn't fair to anyone.

Oh and in regards to your art market thread, I totally agree and sorta had the same idea earlier! yay!

I dont recall doing this (admittedly I havent sold that much yet anyways) but in most of our rules it states that if we dont want a copy then we ask 5$. I personally don't feel like asking people for more money because I dont want something and even more often I just dont think about it. I give people the files and sometime later I get a ping for a slot and don't think further because it's so standard.

Usually a batch covers 2 slot (commissioner and artist) so the commissioner doesnt spend out of their pocket for the artist's slot. I always thought I'd bother the commissioner if I asked MORE money or CSC because quite frankly they're paying me to draw really tiny things and I already feel it's fair enough to me but I see your point.

Thanks for your input!

You both mentioned that the items essentially belong to Subeta... I never really thought of that before. I mean... physically (if you can call it physically), yes they do I suppose. But as long as we are on site, they are ours to sell and such :D

I do agree that the price for submitting an item... maybe AT LEAST for the people who already have to pay to commission an artist just to have the item... could stand to be lowered. But, heh, it seems to be one of Subeta's biggest pay sources at the moment so I don't see that changing either frankly.

Having said all of that, I've always been leery of spending money on these sites because you never know when they could just go down and then you're screwed. But I guess that's the chance you've got to take. :P
I think it's pretty awesome, to be honest, that Keith has stuck around for as long as he has with the site. I've been here for over 10 years... it kind of blows my mind sometimes when I realize how long this has been here steady, and not just a passing thing.

Way off topic, but yeah, just reasoning with myself why I pay as much as I do on the site x)

Wish I could be more constructive here... but I guess I'm mostly wondering what others think of these things.

Ah okay, I understand where you are coming from as an artist. It would be frustrating to some commissioners and maybe even hurtful to say that an artist doesn't want a copy because of course it would lead to extra cost on the part of the commissioner. However, when an item is pawned, it immediately devalues the items. Whoever is pawning pawns for a very specific reason perhaps they don't want the releaser/their friends to know or the item doesn't sell on its own. I just don't really see a need for why an artist would need to pawn though. There are plenty of things they could do, I actually commend artists for opening r2000 threads because at least they try to not devalue the item immediately. And in worst case, they could just simply tell the commissioner beforehand like "I am not going to need a copy on the teal balloon dress with a checkered pattern". Its just extremely sad to me if artists do this because they don't have to!!

Artists if there is some reason that I don't know, please let me know. I really want to understand!

I'm sorry you're so angry and I haven't done this myself but I always just assumed that's what happened? Like at the rate this happens I thought it way more likely it was the artists' copies rather than buyers.

God, there's a lot to keep up with hahah I have pretty much thrown my two cents about everything so LOL

- I will have to disagree with you on the restriction thing. I am one of the people who asks others not to sell for a higher price. It's extremely disheartening to me, to see people slotting on your 1 batch items just to profit off of it later. I like the fact that buyers who couldn't slot on it have the chance to snag the item from someone who slotted for the slot price and not a ridiculously inflated price later on.

- GURL idk if I misunderstood you but like, when an artist refuses a copy and asks for csc, the commissioner won't really pay extra. It'd be the same as paying for the artist's slot but in csc, since that CSC slot once reserved for the artist will be probably filled by another user who wants a copy