Hello again!

You might remember my old thread - it's been a bit since then!

A lot of people have concerns about cws ; and let's be honest we can all agree that it's been pretty tough for everyone. Batches barely fill anymore (lots of items don't even make it to 1 batch), csc prices are incredibly high for the 'profit' made back from selling etc.

I remember cws back when I started 6 years ago and it was a different era. I can't pinpoint exactly what it was that made cws a must-go to, but that era is definitely behind us now. Despite this, we have a community of cw lovers who want to draw, who want to commission, who want to release and buy cws. It's just pretty tough to find a balance these days that doesn't imply simply tossing everything in a pit and crossing your fingers.

This isn't to say that there aren't new cws anymore! But there are so many recolors who don't make it onsite, so many new items that get pinged multiple times before they can be submitted (or scrapped off altogether). Filling batches takes longer, selling cws is just as tedious as it used to, pawn shop is still full of items. I see a lot of very pretty items that are being shelved because there arent even 8 people to have one batch submitted.

So let's brainstorm new ideas that would ideally imply little technical contributions from subeta, so that we can make them happen!

(because i know we all have great ideas and unrealistic expectations, but we're not the ones coding so let's be nice!)

New ideas!

1. Lower cost direct-to-shop (one day event?) | here

2. Very occasional double CSC bonus weekend | here

3. Recolor checkbox | read more

4. Recolor sales | read more

5. Easier sharing between creators | read more

6. Selling items back to site for half price (disappearing) | read more

7. CSC lottery (much like the potion lottery) | read more

8. Lowering submission size | read more

9. Pawn shop open at x time of the year only | read more

10. Half batches | read more

11. Restocking pawned item (subeautique style) | read more

12. Official cw shop (seasonal rotation) | read more

What's been done!

1. Friendly CW introduction guide | here ^ i still need to add a voice over tutorial on submission process!

2. CW Denial / Help Thread | here

3. daily w/ csc (Bathhouse Pools) | here

4. Monthly SubetaBox | here

I wish direct to shop prices wasn't so "expensive". Now don't get me wrong, 1500 compared to 4000 is not much if you're only submitting one design, but if you want to put a lot more through, you end up spending a lot of CSC. I don't know how the pricing was decided, but honestly I might have preferred it be just the 1k (without the "free/covered" copy) and then pick up that copy from shop when I have more funds. That way I can put several designs to shop and then pick up my own personal copy (and artist copies) after a few other ones sell.

Or I also think it would be interesting if there could be like a one-day or small event sort of thing where you could submit something DTS for cheaper. (Either that or more double CSC bonus weekends, that really helped me a lot and I know I would buy more CSC if there was another double CSC bonus weekend).

I just feel like for those of us who release rather regularly (aka the addicted ones) it ends up being more and more pricy especially when you have to push a design through because only 3-4 people slotted. cry Why is it so hard to get 8 people to slot on a design (it's not like the designs aren't pretty or good quality). And I know everyone's tastes are different, but there are over 250 people who are into CWs (and maybe 50-80 of them who are more regulars).

I'd love to see other ideas on how to boost the CW market. I think really unless it's a heavily coveted design, it's hard to slot on most things (from a releaser's standpoint).

Okay I literally know nothing about coding, so if anything is too difficult to implement, I don't mind it being skipped or ignored =P These are just a lot of things I've thought about lately.

Those are more for the Subeta side of things, and not so much users can really do, so I'm not sure if they're exactly what we're all looking for or anything :X But hopefully that's fine.

Please ping me if anything doesn't make sense / my wording is ridiculous / or I've said something unintentionally rude or disrespectful as that is not my intention and I'm unsure if what I've said makes sense / means what I think it does x'D

I don't think I'll add anything new to the discussion, unfortunately. =( I come from Neopets and when I started playing on Subeta, I was shocked by the CW prices; a wig or a long dress cost 7$ (even though I know that we get some free CSC if we buy more than 500), which is more than a month GA! I guess that this probably is one of the reasons people haven't bought many CWs lately, but I don't see staff reducing submitting prices... It also became way more difficult commissioning/releasing wearables that don't look similar to others already on site. Being creative is the key, but it's not easy. ;_;

I like a lot a couple of 's ideas: the first is about the price of recolours. If there were some 'recolor sales', items would cost less to be submitted and also slot prices would be lower. The second is about the WIP boards. They could help to avoid drawing items that may be too similar to some already on site. (Which is quite easy, considering the HUGE amount of CWs on site. xD )

Also, I don't see staff closing the CW pawn shop, but this doesn't help the market at all. It's something that was already said in the last thread, but it's really affecting the CW market, imo. ;_;

[edit] What if you could still sell items back to the site for half of the 'basic' price, but they just disappear and are not able to be bought by someone else, unlike now? Then staff could open the CW pawn shop like once every three/six months and people can grab what's in there for a limited time. (This last thing is optional, it's more important that the CWs aren't available every day like now, imo.)

The first thing I would like is something Mesmer pointed out.. I don't know if it's a thing already, but CW artists trading designs.. I would love to release something drawn by somebody else, I'm far too slow to catch CSC comission slots on them and I don't have the funds to pay USD, so a CW design trade is something that would interest me a lot. I would love some more diversity in CW's I release :c

And the second thing is the pawn shop... trying to sell a CW that is in the pawn shop is impossible, so it feels like people end up pawning CW's that are already in there and then they just sort of accumilate in there and even if the odd person comes along and buys one, there are still multiple copies just rotting in the pawn shop. it's kinda sad ;-;

I am guilty of pawning one of my own CW's for this very reason^

:c guiltyyyyyyy

p.s. I also feel like prices are a bit too expensive.. maybe not if you're only doing it every so often, the one off occassion but if you're releasing multiples or recolours then it's impossible for me to get a few on site at one time because holy moly is it pricey :c

and the same for people buying them, because the submission price is quite expensive, the slots have to be too.. if you think of it in reality, $7 for a virtual clothing item is more than you spend in person, in real life.. and that just blows my mind! XD

-peeks in-

As a new artist, I can definitely say I am incredibly guilty of some of the points in 's post. While the help/denial thread has been incredibly useful as both a reference and help resource, I feel like new artists are still intimidated by everything. I know I was. Don't have much to add besides sorry for all the pings XD

Something I had thought of the other day. I often see people posting about stray amounts of CSC floating around - what if there were something like the potion lottery where you could buy like a total of 10 tickets (or some arbitrary max) for 1 or 2 CSC each and at the end of the day / week / fortnight / whatever, the gathered CSC could be raffled off? Add an achievement to buying into the raffle and you have incentives for people to move around CSC (even the small amounts from the bathhouse that honestly stay stagnant pretty often) to potentially allow for more people to enjoy CWs / CSC benefits. Maybe there could be multiple winners - 1 for each 500 raised or something.

(Or perhaps use the raffle system for some of the pawned items...? If the cost for potentially winning the CW was low and enough people bought in, it could work. Again, more coding >>)

Definitely coding heavy, though. Perhaps something else can be done about the stray amount of CSC floating around. I think the CSC value / high cost is what is grinding everything to a slow trickle - I have so many things I want but I have to balance out what I really need to purchase vs what I want to release. It's even harder / more cost-prohibitive as a non-releaser if you have to rely on cash to get all your CSC.

edit Also love the CW commission / design trading idea.

@ Mesmer The recolor sale is an amazing idea and would make so many lives easier. @ Coraline I am going to touch on one of the things you mentioned, but in no way is this rant directed towards you. ;w;

Honestly the whole "DO NOT REUSE REFERENCES" bit is one of the reasons I do not release many items. I hate having to be wary of everyone else's thing that I can rarely focus on my own. I cannot tell you how many ideas I have scrapped because someone else beat me to it and honestly it's not worth the stress...

I can understand when it is in regards to someone's OC or maybe a more personal tribute but when it's an everyday ref that someone can look up on pinterest or google it's highly upsetting, especially when each artist has their own style and one ref can look different between artists.

Folds, Strands, ornaments, placement, and now leg and arm modifications... all of these help vary one reference.

I think one of the best examples is the various SM wigs. Personally I don't mind there being so many variations, because each one looks different but are all based off of one reference... maybe others don't either?

idk if any of this makes sense but..

I understand the price changing thing, I don't think it's the biggest issue anyway. It just means making profit in order to make more CW's which I honestly don't mind. It's enough right now that I can buy CW's without having to spend a load of real money...

well I mean more CW's would always be nice XD but i'm not complaining! ^^

A change with the pawn shop would be nice though, I don't know if removing it entirely would be best because I do like to have a looksie in there and buy a few bits but maybe not open ALL THE TIME so we have a chance to sell and trade CW's without the pawn shop getting in the way! c:

But then you're also having to think about.. like.. if the CW pawn shop closes, would we still be able to pawn CW's? Because I have been in a sticky situation before and the pawn shop was my saviour.. but then it has its bad points too, so if it closes entirely we would need an alternative to get CSC fast!

someone suggested selling items back to the site (not to be bought by other people) for like half the price, that's also a great alternative to the pawn shop c:

the cw design trading is something i can implement (: Give me a day or two to set up a new thread and whatnot and I'll have that running! <3

I've also been asked about a sort of... 'mentoring' thing where you pair an artist with a new one. I don't know, is that something you are interested in? I've always liked the idea but also always thought it sounded pretentious to be called a 'mentor' (or so it is my perception lol)

thanks so much for posting here! I'm still waiting for more suggestions and I'd love to see even a few of them implemented. I totally understand how lowering prices can be dangerous for you, as a business. It's definitely not something that you do without a solid plan. That's why we have this thread - so we can find enough ideas and new features to give a boost to the economy!

I also dont necessarily think that lowering the price of cws will fix everything. We just need more people, and a better economy. We used to fill 4-5 batches and that worked well. At the moment we're using the same system but with 1 batch only, that's what hurts. We just need to bring that up again!

I would love design trading, I just hope it would work.. because we don't have THAT many CW artists that might participate :c We need more artists!! anyone got any artist friends they can introduce to subeta XD that would be lovely

And what sort of mentoring thing? do you mean like, giving advice/pointers on making CW's?

and also something else I would love is to collab with another artist, I've only ever collabed (like passing a CW design back and forth) with jpeg for a little head symbol thingy but it would be nice to try a dress or a wig with somebody ;-; But I don't know if people would even like my style.. owh haha

Please mentor me senpai .u.

But in all seriousness the design trading and mentoring both sound awesome. I would also be very interested in getting paired with someone and releasing a collaboration ors (tho I guess that would mean less profit/bigger slot price .-.)

I'd be willing to help mentor people! Half of my stash / PB is nothing but help edits for people x'D I also certainly don't mind making tutorials but I don't know what to make tutorials OF.

I would be honored to collab with you and / or do a design trade with you. Your art is cute as heck. PRECIOUS.

The pawn shop really is the most toxic thing to CWs IMHO. I see items get approved and then less than 24 hours later they're in the pawn shop. That said I don't think it needs to be removed, but perhaps restrictions placed. I'm sure my following opinion is an unpopular one, but perhaps a monthly limit on what you can sell to the pawn shop (but keeping purchasing unlimited since that helps!) I also think in addition the direct sale to the site as a way to actually 'delete' the item permanently would be good. Even if it only gives the same amount as the pawn shop, it would be nice to simply delete copies of items that aren't selling well / etc.

To be honest, this last year I lost my job. I was simply 'forgotten' with a change over, and now my income is gone. This really limits how much I can try to put on Subeta. Right now if I'm lucky I could get maybe 20-40 max onsite a month, but at this point with the price of CWs, what's the point? For me that's a lot of money, but that barely means I could afford to direct to shop an item and lose money on it, after doing all the work myself in the first place. If 20 bucks stretched more, I'd be far more likely to put it on site. (That said, if we could get back the in store cards I'd spend as much as possible, since those are my preferred method and it's so much easier for me to save change and spend it on cards irl OTL sobs)

Lowering the cost is something I've been skeptical on (but obviously not against), but what about lowering submission size ? A lot of things aren't submitted because they get about halfway there and then interest kinda goes away. If the limit goes from 10 to 5, the only one that doesn't go past the direct-to-cs price is the lowest category, and even then it means the submitter only has to pay 100csc for it to be at least even. So if it's done, it could be coded so that we have to at least meet the base cost. This might drive up some more interest/selling for a small time.

The pawn shop was a nice idea, I loved it. But it really hasn't worked out and has messed the CW community up. "Why buy it now if it will be in the pawn shop later?" is an all-too-common thing I've read. I'm personally all for it being gone, or basically gone.

I wonder how a cash shop CW contest would fair ? Similar to how the previous ones were done, but the resulting items would be in the cash shop. I wonder if that would help raise CSC sales (and possibly result in some more CW interest). Although the setup would have to be worked on a bit.

I think a lot of users prefer having a place to get some quick CSC for older pieces they may no longer want or ones they might not be able to sell (myself included). I think just removing the buying part for most of the year (and have it available at set times of the year or something) would really help - at least from how I can see it. Getting rid of it altogether would probably inject life back into the r200 forum though unpopular items will still sit around?

I agree with Pika, having the option to sell any time of the year would be good, and removing the buying option would make people think twice about selling them to the pawn shop anyway (since it'll be a while until they will be able to buy it back).

I'd be down with only being able to get items FROM the pawn shop during Black Friday or the Summer sale or what have you. That might help a lot, actually.

I agree with , , and . Having that ability to pawn items is beneficial for those who need it, but having the ability to buy CWs only during a certain time (Mesmer's idea for a Black Friday Sale or Summer Sale) would be greatly appreciated. It would help both the sellers and the customers.