Thanks for your comment, and I do see the merit in it, I really do. But the shy recluse within me is having a little panic attack just thinking about the pings I might get if I do that. I already got nervous when I saw that you had pinged me here, lol! This is one of the reasons for liking the pawn shop. It is devoid of -human- contact and I can just buy what I want without slotting or throwing myself on the forums, which have not always been a good experience for me.

I think it would be fantastic if the Pawn Shop would exist, but then without the Pawn. Like, if you could buy CW's there that artists/sellers post for slotting price. Still without contact or waiting or having to think whether the item will be available for you. Would that not cater to -mostly- everyone's needs?

No matter how welcoming some of the ping groups/ public forums would be that doesn't mean much if someone DOES NOT want to use forums at all. I don't consider myself having much anxiety issues, I am using forums if I have to - i.e. for feedback on big changes on the site or few game spam threads solely for Raffle tickets. It still took me about a year to start doing that. And, IRL, I do prefer self check out shops over the ones you have to talk in. Similarly, wading thru forums for CWs, feeling "forced" to check the thread when pinged not at my leisure cause slots will be gone by then, having to talk to people or even worse, having to offer when someone sells CW secondhand - I just don't feel it being worth it shrugs I liked treating myself with a nice CW when I had the time, when I had funds, when I could easily search it and when all I needed to do is hit "buy". It wasn't even about the fact that Pawn shop had stuff cheaper. I realize the way CWs are sold, all the forums hassle and slots, and the organization of CW shops isn't the idea of CW releasers but Subeta itself, and I also realize the new solutions are proposed, but until they become reality for me that means no more CWs. I can live with that. I just hope there aren't that many buyers as stubborn as I am cause that would mean axing the Pawn didn't solve any problems.

I understand both your concerns! Believe me, the non -human- contact experience is something I wish were better formatted here as well. The pawn shop was just simply creating a problem by trying to solve that problem.

Keith has updated creators that there are changes planned to make searching for available CWs much easier and accessible without having to ever look through the forum - but first batches will still need to rely on forum slotting in order to get on site since many releasers don't always have 1400-1600 CSC to drop on a direct release.

Totally understand that pings are not for everyone (and lol sorry for this ping as well ~) but its just unfortunately how we have to mainly interact. It is possible to mute notifications from ping groups and only turn them on when you have CSC on hand! Again, not for everyone, but just giving out options haha.

Thanks for eliciting your concerns and hopefully in the coming month or so, your qualms with the pawn shop closing will be resolved ~

:)

- If creators and releasers can make the average user feel welcome (as in ones who aren't on 24/7, can't spend a lot on CSC, and isn't friends with everyone), then that would help a lot. Of course, there's still the issue of people not being comfortable with the forums at all (which I hope there's an organized option to purchase CWs without human interaction very soon). But, for the ones that are fine with the forums, feeling welcome is essential... The customer experience is just as important as the product. There's only one releaser I've felt comfortable with slotting.

's experience is similar to most of the release threads I've seen, which is not okay.

I think "most" is an exaggeration since I've trawled nearly all the active threads and most are certainly welcoming - however, I recognize my own bias as a releaser/artist.

What can we do to make it more welcoming? What in particular is not welcoming? There is nothing I can do about releasers offering private / group exclusives - that is within their rights as a releaser to do. However, for those who are open to all, what can we do to make the experience better?

I'm not really sure what else we can offer besides a well-laid out thread and friendliness in response - both of which I and many of my peer releasers do.

Would love to hear more thoughts on this as well ~ <3

- As an outsider, I don't like the existence of private items, but you're right in that it's a right to have them exist. One of my main problems is there's a lot of confusion as to what's public and private. There should be a distinct separation between the two.

Some thread improvement ideas:

-A more organized thread would be a great start. Instead of posting new releases in page 58, always posting them at the top of the first page or near the top would be great. Some do this but others don't. -Never using the term "pinged only" in a thread title. It makes it seem like the thread is always exclusive and gives and air of elitism to the CW market in general. -The main CW release forum should only be used for public releases. Private releases can be advertised in a separate thread within a forum group. -Perhaps having a time frame to slot for items. Say, a week. This would give the creator/releaser an idea of how much interest there is in an item. Then, make batches based on interest. I'm not sure how realistic this option is though.

I'll address your four points:

1. Organization is up to the releaser, but many public threads are already using the format you mentioned.
2. That is something that is also up to the releaser and cannot really be implemented as a rule. Also, it makes it easier to see which threads to avoid, so I'm not sure this would be a good idea anyway.
3. I like this idea but more on this later
4. Interest in CWs waxes and wanes depending on the time period and when people visit the forums. Most of us do a "Batches TBD" or "Batches MAX 3, TBD" kinda thing already.

I think the main issues you have surround private / public status still and that's not something we, as users, can really control besides our own items. Subeta doesn't officially endorse private status (and there's already so many problems!) so there will not be a separate forum for them. Not everyone likes keeping a ping group AND a release thread active so it's their choice, still. (However, perhaps with the revamped ping group forums, this will change - I've already seen a few group exclusives move into their own ping groups.)

I'm sorry my response is probably not satisfactory! Let me know if you have more specific points to address.

<3

For me personally, one thing is ease of browsing multiple items. Each thread only slots on one or maybe two items at a time, which means that if I'm just casually browsing for what's out there, that's a lot of threads/tabs to open. And I'm not so into the market that I want a ping for every time a wearable gets released.

I feel like a solution to that problem would have to involve something on the admin/central end, e.g. the CW shop having a directory with a recently released CW section (goodness knows I love Subetalodge but some things really should be built into the site itself). Or a central system for showing all CWs currently taking slots (with of course, adjustments available for pre-release, pinged only, privates, etc.) Or a forum feed where creators can designate a post to show up in the central CW listing? Idk, I'm just producing word vomit at this point xD

Hm yes ~ This is a problem that has come up before on the makers thread. There is a newCW group for weekly (? forget the time range but it's not very often) pings on what is new - no information other than artist, however. The directory in works (or as so promised by Keith and staff) should have a filter for "added to site" similar to the wardrobe so you can filter things out easily.

As for designating pre-release / pinged / privates - these are all functions that the CW community has come up with themselves. Unfortunately can't really control all these without officially accepting them via Subeta approval.

Slotting in a central fashion is a bit more tricky - I don't know how many releasers would want to put their slots in a central queue or how much interest there would be or what the coding would be like for it. It has been brought up before, though, so if there is any viable solution the staff will definitely let us know.

<3 Hopefully I got all your points in there ~

- Thank you for addressing concerns. :)

I'm still not convinced taking away the Pawn Shop for most of the year was a good idea, but we'll see what happens. Hopefully the promised site improvements will help with the whole CW process for everyone.

I suffer from like terrible anxiety .. before it would affect just in actual daily life not it affects me speaking socially online. So it was very hard to try and get into the forums and like slotting because I was scared of slotting and getting rejected but after awhile it actually wasn't bad. I don't really have a problem with pings either so I do join all the public forum groups so I can get notified when their is a item out. The problem is that there is so many items and not enough time to think about it you basically have to jump or the slots will be filled and you will miss out. but not all the time do I have enough csc on hand so like with the pawn shop you have a while to gather funds because there is like multiple sometimes of the items left in there. I will miss the pawn shop but also I think like it was hard to sell any items and get back what you payed for an item because the pawn shop only offered you half of what you payed like 300 csc for a 700 csc item that you payed or like 600 csc or it only offered you 200 csc and I would make a thread on the r200 forum and no one would even look at it because they could just go get it in the pawn.

Oh so like my suggestion is maybe let people have a few days to try and gather enough csc to be able to slot on the item but like if they don't make enough then drop or make more batches and release one batch in that month and the other batch in another that way people can get items that they want.

I actually really love the idea of slotting on a central queue that brought up but I don't know how it would work on the releaser side. Especially as it seems more and more releasers are having trouble filling slots from what I've read from these and the news posts, would it be feasible to have a central area of the site that those releasers could then submit to where buyers could browse (in a fashion similar to the pawn shop - that browsing was ideal for me) and then click to slot?

It seems like it might be tricky on the releasers end because you can't guarantee that the item will be accepted and I don't know how the timeframe for slots filling works.

Sorry to ping you two about this and just jumping in your discussion there ^^;

Would actually love the pawn shop format for all items currently in user shops in general - part of why I liked the pawn was being able to see all the items readily available and browse, the layer and wishlist search, and being able to buy instantly. If all of that exact set up could be retained, except scrap the entire pawning concept and replace it with all items currently in the user/cw shop, I'd be a happy camper ;u;

But this is still a problem, since A LOT of releasers simply do a single batch on things. This doesn't allow the "average user" to see the item is available at all. This also plays back into some of the posts earlier, where users have a hard time filling slots, say it's single batch, then have people clamoring for more once they know it exists and not being able to get it.

The problem, it seems, is with the pricing for direct to shop. This should also be a focal point in the discussions. As has been suggested already, an "open market" type of shop, where people can readily see what's available to be slotted on seems like the best idea.

Slotting could get very complicated. I'm not sure it would be well received within the creator community. Without creators on board, the idea would never take off - creators would simply stop and turn towards slotting within their own groups. Not 100% sure on it though.

Hm. The problem with the single batch item being popular after it exists is actually more related to people not knowing it existed rather than direct to shop pricing. Many users choose to make public single batches because it gets them filled. If the market were better, nearly everyone would choose to release more batches if they were guaranteed to fill better. Having the single batch prevents people from just slotting later and gets the item on site faster. The issue is actually super complicated since it combines the current market, private/public release, and knowledge that something is being released.

I think the "average user" is not necessarily who we as releasers target anyway, unfortunately. Truthfully, CWs are a luxury item on Subeta and they will never be as accessible as on-site items to everyone. We TRY to make it MORE accessible through events, giveaways, etc etc. But the average user will not be the one who most consistently slots on CWs. Those who are interested in slotting add themselves to ping groups + browse the forum. Those who are not used to use the pawn shop - this is being replaced by the directory / user shops eventually. Of course, the forums are certainly not perfect, but it is what it is - those who want to slot on the single batch item will see it through their pings.

Pricing for direct to shop is something we as creators have also brought up many times. Unfortunately, people do need to spend huge amounts of time approving things and creating the actual item code onto the site. These people deserved to be paid. DtS is honestly more of a courtesy to us than anything and asking for lower submission costs would seriously impact those approving the CWs. I would love to have it cheaper but I doubt it will be possible in the near future / far future.

An open market type of shop would essentially turn CWs into the Cash Shop and again, I'm not 100% sure creators will be for this idea. The forum group customwear gives a pretty good indicator of who is slotting - the pings are just part of getting used to it. I recommend joining it and just muting pings until you want to see what is available.

I mean this all in the best of ways please don't be offended / whatever by it, just providing a releaser's point of view on the issue. We have discussed most of these points at length amongst ourselves as well. ~ <3

Well, I had seven paragraphs explaining everything but my page refreshed. Joy.

Alright, summary: Take all the power of rules away from creators and make a set of rules for everyone. Give warnings for public blacklisting and blacklist sharing. Make private items a cheaper option where only one copy of the item is ever produced, period. You've given all the WRONG kinds of control the creators while keeping reasonable prices and options out of reach. I think if they're upset? They'll get over it like the rest of us did with our 10yo, unobtainable items being re-released or like I do when a design I created is resold without ever being used. The R200 User Shops are the control people need and will dictate the market based on demand. There is no debate with me about whether or not private items promote elitism, they do. If you don't do it, don't defend yourself. Denying that it's happened and trying to jump in front of the bullet that was never meant for you has turned a LOT of people against creators.

In reply to a news comment I got that clearly needs to be said here: NO, the forums are not a fix, they're the problem the Pawn Shop was brought in to help with. They need to go asap. Ping groups, all of it. I agree with the comment at the top of page 2: Let it all die. It's not working and it never did.

Staff: Release complete revamps or don't bother. Don't tease us and make us scavenge for comments, sb posts and far-flung forum replies. Any customer of any business in the world would consider an incomplete publicity report absolutely unacceptable and I hold you to those same standards. You need a much better and more professional corporate image. You need to hear: An idea of a solution is not a ready solution. A news comment or a sb quip is not an announcement. No one would even know about the R200 shops idea if we hadn't all separately ended up getting a response from Keith. How much more time did replying to random people and hoping they relayed your intentions to others take than just adding it to the news before it was released? I want to throw my whole support behind these changes, but if I only take the news post at face value I can't. That post gives us NOTHING. Pretend everyone is stupid and explain what you have on the table.

The problems with the CWs are separate from the problems with news and changes, but both are equally important to me and converged here. Give use the whole pie, not the crust with no filling or pan. Fix the problems and stop being scared of letting us know what your ideas are. It's utterly demotivating. You have to get us excited! I want to be excited, I want to say I hope the changes lead to me actually investing in the new market. Right now though? I'm confused at a sloppy admin move instead.

Gonna agree with that a tentative plan/solution to counter the pawn shop closure should have been mentioned more in the news posts. Trawling random news comments and forums can be a pain. Big corporations can sometimes get away with vaguer news announcements, but as most site members have conveyed before, we really love more communication rather than less from Subeta.

No problem, happy to have more people jump into the discussion.

Thanks for your reply. Appreciate that you seem to be the ambassador between the CW creator forum and the public. I don't mind Subeta formally accepting privates, pinged, etc., just think coding may be the primary issue. Pardon my ignorance on the details of the process, but direct to shop is an option that releasers are able to check off y/n, right? I was thinking you could have something similar for opening slotting to the central queue. Then privates/priority slotting can take place on forums first and then you go check off for "central queue" similar to checking off "direct to shop."

I'm sure there are more intricacies I'm missing, but I see coding as the possible main obstacle. You mentioned "I don't know how many releasers would want to put their slots in a central queue or how much interest there would be" - could you elaborate? I'm seeing that single batches are most common right now because they're guaranteed to fill but a central queue would perhaps generate more exposure and interest? I'm not sure what the reservation is but again, not an expert on the process.

:( I'm not sure where the attitude is coming from, but I'm going to just state one thing: there are no CWs without its creators. Forget the pawn and whatever - if the environment becomes so stringent and inhospitable for creators to do what they would like to do, CWs would cease to exist. All releasers do it because we love to - doing as you say would really take the fun out of most, if not all, of what releasers do. I understand your frustrations with the problems we currently have, but this is not a problem that only involves what admins would want to control.

I'm sorry this issue has made you frustrated but please understand that creators are very much users / purchasers as well and I've seen a lot of my fellow releasers really upset that those outside of the community fail to have any kind of empathy for what we are struggling with. Subeta is a hobby for all of us - make it into a tightly controlled corporation and what's the point?

I do, however, agree that more transparency about what is planned to replace the pawn shop should have been announced with its closure. I'm sure staff are working on announcing something soon when they figure things out.

I'm just hoping to open up even a little more communication since I feel like that's the root of the problem. It's frustrating for all of us :(

So direct to shop is the other option besides slotting, yes. And ah, I see what you mean. If that's the case, I wouldn't be opposed to it being another option since yes, it would allow more exposure and interest. I thought you meant to have the central queue replace the slotting / DtS options completely. As for my quote there, I meant that releasers who choose to slot friends / ping groups / VIPs whatever would probably not want to only have the option to submit to a central queue. As I said, I misunderstood your intent :)

It's an interesting concept and one I can try to bring up again in the creators forum once I think about it a little more but yes, it would be very coding heavy and would require a very long time before being implemented at all. :)

Glad to see a good handful of people posting here! It's cool to see both viewpoints on the matter.

I have to say, I am currently a casual player on Subeta. I've had this account for nine, almost ten years, and at one point I left Subeta for a while, back before CWs, forum groups and achievements were even a thing. Coming back to Subeta three or four years ago, I was overwhelmed with the idea that user created items were allowed on the site!

But being a non-social and casual player, I gotta be honest and say I still don't totally understand the concept behind the processes. It might be helpful if there was a way to tie all of the information together on the same page? Unless I'm mistaken, if a user wants to create a CW, they have to first find the Custom Wearable link under Cash Shop, then click the Create CW page. None of the information here breaks down the process or pricing, but the FAQ in the Custom Wearables thread does? I'm not sure how reasonable this request is, but I would also like a way for the average user to understand some of the common terms: Private, Slot/Slotting, Batch. The latter three terms, I don't see a mention of them in the FAQ, nor on the Custom Wearable page.

But otherwise, I have always been intimidated with some of the user shops for CWs. I've browsed the r200 advertising board but a lot of users are looking to exchange their items for recolors, popular/limited CWs or csc that I consider to be out of my price range. And if I do see an item I like in a CW shop, it's often a locked item, which comes with a lot of rules/qualifications. Either I have to be friends with, or part of a ping group, or be invited to a group. All things I am just... not comfortable with. I would have to set myself up for rejection or harassment, or be bound to rules just to use an item I want to buy. Even if this is a rare occurrence, the chance of it happening will always be there so long as there are private/exclusive items, which is what always scares me off from delving into the CW community.

And in terms of the CW Pawn shop, I was able to use it as a way to bypass all of those guidelines. I was able to quietly buy an item and not have to worry about being questioned as to why I had it.

Also, don't get me wrong, too. I appreciate the work that the artists put in, I like that there are a ton of CWs to buy from and I always hope that they too don't get the short end of the stick. I'll be sad to see the pawn shop close, sure, and I can only hope the plans in the works will help both artists and buyers. But until things totally settle, I'll just watch to see how it all plays out.

Edit: ; 3; Oh my, thanks for the peppermint giftbox Anon!

THIS DOCUMENT is something that a lovely releaser has been working on. It has a lot of the answers to what goes into CWs and a VERY detailed breakdown of what it really takes in terms of cost / profit in the market.

Hopefully this will help! ~

I know the pawn shop was a favorite for users who were not frequenting the forums, and we also hope that the promised alternatives are truly implemented so it benefits all of us. :)

I think I'm getting a bit lost in the information here, but I was thinking of the central slotting page as an addition to the forums not as a replacement, so privates and pinged only cws could still be slotted like they have been in forums but for those with public releases that are still waiting for their slots to fill, they could then have the option to submit to the central slotting page with the number of slots they still need left to fill, the public could browse that without approaching the forums and the releasers could get a notification once slots had filled or something.

At this point I feel like while the discussion of alternatives like this is interesting, I'm really just curious and anxious about what the actual features and solutions are that staff are working on from what they've hinted about and whether they'll actually be implemented by the time the pawn shop is closed. It would have been nice to have both news presented at the same time - could have stemmed a bit of the unrest.