There’s never gonna be a situation where everyone is happy, and I think the fact the CW community tried to appease complaints so many times should speak more than it does.

There’s always people on the outside demonizing CWs and there always will be, but at this point idk what we can actually do because we’ve been through these circles so many times and it never ends.

Someone is always upset they don't get a certain item, other people are upset the item has too many copies on site. Other are mad there's too many hairstyles on site, or too many pairs or shorts and it goes on a never ending loop.

In the end, the releasers spend their own money and/or time putting these items on site and it's their choice what they do with them, whether people agree with it or not, that's the way it is.

The market was never intended to be this way, but is because some people decided they didn't want to do just strictly friends only releases as staff thought it would be in the beginning. Maybe we all just should've been selfish and done all private items like staff thought we would and maybe CWs wouldn't get so much HATE thrown at them.

I love CWs, I love my shop and releasing things, but its exhausting to constantly see people insulting releasers and calling us names because people didn't get a copy of the items they wanted. I try and keep most of my releases public, but it gets to a point (and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way) where once you've seen so much hate thrown at the CW community you wonder why you're really trying to be nice and do public releases if we're still just gonna be demonized by some users.

I choose to spend my spare cash on Subeta because I love the game, and I love supporting the artists on here, and hey if they lowered the direct to shop price I'd be firing dozens of items in there ASAP! I know MANY releasers would and it could REALLY revamp the market but who knows at this point if staff will bother. I know it was suggested many times and still hasn't happened.

I'm with you very much on that - we're never ever going to make everyone happy, it's impossible.

And folks will always complain about missing something even if there are 3942034832 recolors including similar shades.

The biggest hurdle is just how much it costs to get the things on site to start with, and we can't control that, so prices are always going to be a deciding factor for some folks who have a very limited csc amount and look at one cw vs getting 5 pieces to a delish set or something else like that.

Yeah - anything I make that doesn't really have a counter item somewhere (be it another cw or something on-site that is close enough) I try to keep unlimited and keep hanging out in the shop even if it is a little bit of an ordeal (most of those items are near the bottom of my shop list though at least now after lots of retirements). I know that Bug has done a lot for us in terms of making that backend easier to work with, unfortunately I can't think of anything that would not lag the site that would improve it at this point that wasn't already suggested to staff.

But also yeah, I really think the discord situation, as helpful as it is for folks considering the clunkiness sometimes of forums (and also how we can't post twice in a row and sometimes they just go down and don't load etc etc)...I think it's just making it harder to actually keep track and catch items. There are some great things that have been released but I just cannot keep up with all the forum groups unfortunately.

Oh yeah - sometimes it's rough to deal with the forums from my cell phone - especially in regards to taking slots etc. I can do a lot more discussion easier on discord on mobile but I don't haha.

I've muted pretty much every discord group I'm in because the notices interrupt my ability to do things on my browser (for some reason my laptop believes that a tiny square notice at the bottom of my screen must actually need my entire screen's functionality to be halted for), and I can't keep up with the chats and everything when I'm still working full-time and only able to really get on once or twice a week.

Here's the perspective from a non-CW seller or buyer.

I own 14 CWs. Of those, 8 were given to me, 5 were bought in the pawn shop and 1 was bought in a CW shop.

The rare times I buy CWs I'm usually looking for something that will have high utility, because I'm just not going to spend 500-600 CSC on something I'll only wear once and be done. I'm a hoarder, once I buy something it pretty much stays on my account forever, so I'm not interested in resell value.

The single biggest frustration with CWs is not being able to acquire them. After trying multiple times, unsuccessfully, to buy CWs I just plain gave up. Even for someone who has been onsite since the beginning of CWs, the whole slotting process is weird, uncomfortable, mysterious and not something I can do. Which is one of the reasons that the majority of my CWs come from the pawn shop. Its easy! I'm not searching in vain for something I very much desire and suffering disappointment when I can't get it. Instead, I'm looking at existing items and deciding if they are worth spending CSC on.

Disappointment followed by frustration, piled on with more disappointment doesn't encourage me to fight harder for "exclusive" items and jump to slotting - it makes me slink away from the whole process and feel really ambivalent about CWs in general. It makes me feel like they are not for me. Even when the pawn shop was open, I still spent minimal time on the whole thing.

Due to exclusivity, limited batches, privates, etc, looking for CWs to buy by looking through CWs in the wardrobe or on SubetaLodge, just leads to frustration. Trying to find CWs to buy by looking at unlimited batches in shops is impossibly time consuming because I have to look through 100s of shops I can't even find, which when I do find them only have a couple of things in them each.

What would encourage me to purchase more CWs would be some "space" where I could look through a bunch of stuff that was actually buyable (like the pawn shop). Its not because the items are cheap that I've bought most of my CWs from there, its because they are all in one place and I know they're available.

I feel Lypsyl is pretty much on the money about this subject. I don't buy many CWs anymore mainly because the ones I want are capped (and I miss out because I'm not on Subeta more than maybe an hour or so a day anymore, except for holidays), set to "pinged first", or are private. I don't mind privates, I understand why they're there and I'm fine with that. But I'm extremely lucky if I find something from my CW WL (which has no privates afaik on it) on the r200 forums or in user shops, and I admit I don't go searching through the CW Release shops anymore either because I feel like most people don't use them to release their items. My CW wishlist is chock full of items I'm never gonna get because of batch limits. So if I buy a CW now its because I like the style - and I stick with the colors I'll use - and because I managed to luck out on being onsite at the right time, or because I have access to it, whether its through the Pawn Shop, or via Discord or whatever. I don't know if getting rid of batch limits will fix the low slotting issue, but I know if I was able to buy some of the harder to get items on my WL when its slotted, I'd be spending a lot more CSC on CWs than I do now.

I'm not hugely into the CW scene, as I just don't have money to spend either on releasing CWs (or art talent lol) or purchasing them. That said, I do have multiple on my wishlist that are simply unobtainable simply because the batch size WAS so small.

Again, I don't know how the CW market really works, so I don't know if it's more expensive to put, say, 40-50 copies in your shop versus making the CW unlimited. If anyone could enlighten me on that, I would be appreciative. If there's no price penalty, then I would say releasing a larger amount of copies would be better than just making the item unlimited. That ensures that your item isn't ALWAYS available or too readily obtainable (which means there's a market for it), but at the same time, it's quite a bit less exclusive than just releasing 10-20 copies.

I know certain CW creators (especially of series items) who keep their most basic/popular CWs unlimited and release limited copies of recolors, such as and (which are unlimited as they're basic, whereas their recolors are limited release).

[edit]And after posting this, I saw 's post and definitely agree. The whole CW process is just downright scary to an outsider. I own maybe 10 CWs, most of which were gifts; and I don't really venture into the CW side of Subeta very much. I love CWs, but without knowing what goes into slotting a batch as a creator, or being very active in the whole CW area, it just makes me uncomfortable overall. Part of that may also come with the exclusivity that CWs in general entail, and part of that may just be ignorance on my part from not being very active within this community.

A lot of thoughts incoming. I'm a lil bit sick rn so apologies if my rambling is a bit incoherent. Sorry if I repeat y'all a lot! I've thread everyone's amazing and thoughtful posts but my mind is kinda soup at the moment. Thanks for for starting this interesting discussion thread!

RE: batch limits I haven't been a releaser for a long time but I usually slot around 5-15 copies of the items I release. I usually adjust my batch limits based on that but every once in a while there are items that sell waaay over that. And I will readily admit that it's really hard for me to predict the buyer behavior. Sometimes items that I expect to sell maybe a few copies have a demand way over the batch limit I set and sometimes an item I think would do decently well only sells a few copies.

As many other users before me have said, this problem is mostly a creation of the buying/selling patterns within the community. Not selling enough copies is bad but selling too many copies is also bad in the current environment. It's really hard to gauge case by case what is the happy medium.

RE: value&cost At the core I think most of these problems stem from a) high cost of CW and b) resale value. I think we can all agree that the price of CW are quite high and the topic as been brought up over and over again. There isn't really much to be done on that regard, ultimately it's up to staff what they decide to do in the future and they'll have to evaluate if it's ultimately worth it. Lower submission cost and subsequently lower cost of CW would most likely allow the increased volume of the amount of CW released and lower the entry level to people interested of CWs and in the optimistic scenario this would be able to bring in more engagement in to the CW aspect of the site as well as stimulate the existing market. But we can't really know for sure. It's a daunting route for Subeta to take because there's always the possibility that they will end up losing money instead.

When it comes to resale value it's really a self perpetuating problem. In a perfect world people would just resell their unused CWs for a reasonable price for people who would use them more. As of now there are a lot of items on lock down in people's shops labeled as trade only. This pretty much leads to people wanting to own valuable items and preserve the value of those items so that they might have a chance to obtain another valued items through trading. So people grumble about this behavior and yet partake in it themselves to get their slice of the pie and I can't really blame them for it.

RE: cw shops I've done a few releases where I've just aimed slot the 1st batch and then chucked the rest into my CW shop without a further fanfare. (This is pretty much how also releases a lot of her items and I personally really dig this style of releasing.) They sell okay, nothing fancy but since I'm not a huge releaser I don't sell that much anyway so the difference isn't really that huge. xD The profits in that case are more trickle in and I don't really expect or rely on anything selling if I put it in my shop. I would love if I could see who is buying items from my CW shop. It would really help me gauge how much the buyer base differs forums vs. cw shop ie. how many people who buy from cw shops aren't active on forums etc. I'm a nerd who loves spreadsheets and keeping records and statistics but I have no stats on this. xD Really the only way to know who buys my stuff is if I keep it locked and people ask for invites. And if I'm not waiting for anyone to pick up their invites I would rather not keep my items locked. I very distinctly remember how daunting it was to ask for an invite for a locked items when I was not really involved in the CW community. To be honest it still is sometimes haha.

That being said:

RE: discord&community First of all I'm not pointing any fingers here or saying anyone is this or that, I just wanna tell a lil bit off my personal experience of become more active in this community and making some friends here on Subeta. Sorry if this is a bit off-topic. ;-;

So at the start of the year I had one (1) friend on Subeta who I already knew irl. I knew no one and talked to no one. I occasionally slotted some items on the forums and participated in some evebts here and there. In all honestly I was 100% convinced that my existence on this site was pretty much invisible.

The way the CW community looked to me who considered myself as an outsider at the time was that there really weren't many opportunities to make any connections with people inside the community because I had nothing to offer. I got into CWs through pawn shop, I only occasionally slotted things and I never sold or traded anything. The CW people seemed generally nice and shared a lot of the same interests on the site as I did but it felt like the community and the friendships inside it had already formed and been set in stone. The community aspect of CWs is HUGE. Over the year I have gotten to know many of you and made amazing friends. I love this community so so much but for an outsider it just looked and felt really scary.

I had short smail and forum conversations with a few users before I really got into the community. I truly appreciate these few amazing people that I had these lovely conversations with but it's still extremely easy to feel like you are bothering someone by sending them smail. :''D At least to me personally the forms of user-to-user communications that Subeta as of now offers feel a bit clunky.

So enter Discord. At the beginning of the year I joined a few CW focused Discord servers mostly out of curiosity. The instant communication nature of it offered the possibility of fast paced casual conversations. I started to participate in the group conversations a little bit and I actually got to know some people. I made some actual friends! And as it turns out, I hadn't been as invisible as I thought on the forums either. I felt like I was more on an equal footing in Discord conversations and despite having nothing to offer I made connections with people and got to know them in a more casual setting. It's really easy to get caught up thinking that someone is "too big" for you. Of course there is person behind every forum handle but big releasers and artists can seem very daunting for someone who has very little involvement in the community.

I know mileage will wary person to person but in my case I can say for 100% certainty that I would not be releasings CWs today had it not been for Discord. Pawn shop was my low entry level to buying CWs and Discord was my low entry level to getting to know people and gaining the confidence to start releasing CWs. In my personal experience Discord has been a great way to get to know the people and do be a part of the community. I am not super active in the chats on the server's I am on but it doesn't really matter. The is really not a certain activity quota you need to meet to be part of a Subeta Discord server because just the virtue of being on the server made me feel more part of the community than I ever did just posting on the forums.

I think Discord is a wonderful venue for building community and creating connections. I don't think it's necessarily taking active users away from the site. At least for me my involvement in Discord has made me more active on the site too because I care more about this site and its users now. It's really not about slotting CWs behind closed doors. It's more about people who like and care about same things being able to chat and get to know each other in a more casual setting. Subeta and Discord servers are platforms that offer different opportunities and allow different forms of community involvement. Rather than taking too much away from each other I think their coexistence can ultimately benefit both because ultimate what you do on Discord is very different to what you do on Subeta. Especially has been doing wonderful work on her Discord server to both build community and encourage activity on the main site.

I know people can be a bit apprehensive of the idea and the experience can and will be different for everyone. I would still wholeheartedly recommended everyone to join a server and check it out for themselves instead of grumbling over what they think Discord servers are like. Your experience won't be my experience but it's a great opportunity to have your own experience and to form your own opinion based on that. It's not for everyone and that's 100% okay. We are experience our community in different ways. I think it's still good to recognize the opportunities that Discord allows. It really is open for everyone. For me it made a huge difference.

Here's my take.

I think everyone who posted on this thread has an accurate take and I don't see anything we can do to fix it that's easy.

Some things that would help: 1) when an item is searched for in Shop Search, it should show up if it's available from a CW shop and the link should take you to the right page in the CW shop to buy that specific item. Or even better, make it buyable from the shop search page for the specified amount of CSC from the user's store.

2. Allow releasers to adjust batch numbers after initial announcement if demand exceeds their expectations, as long as they offer to allow anyone who slotted in anticipation of a different number to back out if the number changes. (So it would have to be before anyone actually bought their item - before it was actually submitted, probably)

3. Allow store owners to set a timeout on purchases (so they can prevent one user from buying multiple items to try to resell at a markup)

4. I 100% agree that the price for putting an item directly into the shop as unlimited is too high. It should be no higher than the same as the purchase price for two single items (basically cost exactly what the artist copy + the releaser copy cost). So for the typical item, 1200 CSC. That should cover the site cost for the item and then any additional sales represent profit.

5. CW pawn shop price should reflect number of items held on accounts that aren't frozen + number in pawn shop. The more items, the lower; the fewer items, the higher. The range should be like...1-5 items found, slot plus 100; 5-10 found, slot price; 10-20, slot price minus 100; on down to the current pawn shop prices. That way items that are in shops but unbought wouldn't count against rarity, and for items that had been bought fewer than 5 times (thus not recouping costs at all yet) they'd be cheaper from the user shop than from the pawn shop (encouraging buying from the seller).

And as for discord, the issue with the Subeta forums is that they are unsearchable. They don't get indexed by Google. They have no search feature. It is impossible to find things in the Subeta forums. That's why discord is much better. Searchable. :)

I need to sit down and take the time to reply because there's a whole bunch I want to reply to!

But just for this one, because I wish it were simple but it isnt :

This used to happen and lead to a lot of issues. After a while staff simply decided to enforce this rule and it is officially considered scamming to do as such, even if you ping people to ask for their "permission". Releasers used to simply submit more batches and sell them for extra profit, or pull extra copies without anyone knowing to sell them quietly. I don't imagine this will ever change because there's too much of an abuse potential on this one.

If people were honest : x

Edit : after re-reading your post, you are suggesting it be done before it is actually submitted, which would prevent the "abuse" of submitting extra batches. Technically staff says it's against the rules to change anything from the initial post so it isn't possible either, but I also just.. think it would be unfair for the users who slot too : /

(on another note, I completely agree that there should be an easy place that gathers every buyable cw - like a directory. It's pretty hard to find anything in the cluster of foums. That's not counting that lots of people are turning to discord to slot. It's super hard to see what is going on!)

As a buyer, batch limits (or lack thereof) don't really affect whether or not I personally buy CWs. I just can't afford the quantity of impulse buys I used to make anymore, so I stick a lot of the time with recolors or items that can replace ones on my WL

I will say that I agree the slotting process is intimidating at first, and that I wish there was an easier way to browse available CWs. Even the CS CW shops are confusing to look through if you're not searching for something specific

I also don't use discord for slotting at all. I'm not comfortable chatting in the big groups and I feel guilty sticking around just for items so I just...don't use it. I don't have a problem with people taking slots on discord, but I have mixed feelings on any kinds of exclusive items, so I do prefer seeing items available for slotting onsite even if they got preclaims from discord or something

Hey buddy, I'm right there with you. I know how tiring this conversation is to have, I guess I just keep trying to be a people pleaser and try to find some way to please everyone. XD I love the CW community and I respect the time, money, and love its members pour into this hobby and this site. I think I've been feeling a bit anxious about the health of the site itself lately, and knowing how important CWs are to the site financially as well as to my own + others' enjoyment of the site, I keep circling back to try and make CWs even better. I wish more people than just our little community, as awesome as they are, could have access to CWs and feel as excited as I do about them.

The most concrete suggestion for improvement that would benefit both releasers and buyers seems to be lowering the cost to submit - I haven't seen any other suggestions that would benefit both. I'm sure staff has seen our suggestions, but I'm sure it's a numbers game and is more complicated than just lowering the price and saying tada. :| I don't blame the site for being hesitant. I do wonder if all the recent discussion about site improvements might get the idea turning in their heads again, though! :O

I do think the shops function decently well, even on the backend, but I wonder if some kind of categorization or something on the management page would help? So there's not just a long unbroken list of items available to manage.

Thank you for your perspective! I am really glad to get some outsider commentary. Definitely understand not wanting to sink large amounts of CSC on something you don't love! I have seen similar complaints about the slotting process and realize it can be a bit daunting, but I'd love to help dispel any confusion or mystery around it if you want to talk one-to-one in my comments, or I can send you an smail? Once you've found a few shops and joined their ping groups, slotting is really just as easy as getting a ping, seeing an item you like, and then posting in that thread to say that you want a slot. If you don't want to join a whole bunch of individual ping groups, most releasers ping customwear as a big umbrella group when they release things.

If you're only interested in buying items after they're already on site instead of slotting, the CW Shops don't have quite as much variety since not everyone puts their items in there, but I think the CW Shop Search can simulate a bit of the ease of the Pawn Shop. Just select a layer you want to look through (ex. backdrop) and press the Search button, and all the available backdrops available for sale in the CW shops will come up. Then you can just buy a copy directly from a shop without having to interact on a forum thread.

Lypsyl, Trying to buy items after they're already on site, if not via the CW shops, is difficult, and I can understand the frustration of seeing something added to the wardrobe or subetalodge and then knowing it's difficult or impossible to get. The problem is, CW releasers take slots on items in their threads so that they can get up front payment in order to submit their items to the site. Very few releasers can afford to submit an item on their own dime, then just put the item up for sale in their CW shop and hope people come get copies. For the most part, it's not intentional exclusivity, it just ends up that people who put the time into navigating the CW community via the forums end up getting access to items because they're willing to pay up front. So, I guess the best way of having access to the majority of CWs is to participate in the community. I understand that's not attractive to everyone, or even possible due to various constraints (time, mental health, etc), just explaining the process.

Lady_K, when you say that your WL is full of items you'll never get because of batch limits, is it because slotting for things was already over by the time you were able to see a ping? I've seen criticism of the pinged-first system, as well, but usually those items go up for public slotting too -- pinged first is just a perk for friends or your personal ping group, or has that not been your experience?

Anyway, I really appreciate your input and taking the time to comment here so we can get lots of different perspectives. Thank you!

Thank you for your comments! I know we all have items on our WLs that we missed out on, and it's frustrating. :(

As for your question, no, it's not more expensive to submit your CW as say, 40 copies vs submitting it as 20. Each batch of 5 (which is how we have to take slots) costs the same, no matter how many copies will ultimately be on site. If you have a chance to read through some of the feedback on the first page of this thread, there are multiple reasons why releasers will submit their item for less than that - mostly to do with slotting demand and trying to maintain resale value. But I like your comment about releasing just a bit more, if possible, vs releasing as unlimited. I do appreciate releasers like Celestial and Reaper who try to keep their basic CWs available, too!

If you're open to it, I'm happy to help explain how CWs work and help make the market a little less scary! I know there's sooo much to take in and it can be daunting. I'm always open to helping if I can, you're welcome to comment me, or I can send you an smail if you want to talk more. :)

Oof, sorry you're not feeling well, but thank you for all your insightful comments! :)

Batch Limits - as a newer releaser I'm sure this is daunting, not knowing what will be popular and what won't be! I'm old hat and still don't get it right all the time. What's helped me gauge is to do pre-claims on a small group of my friends and core buyers, and see how the interest is there. Someone else made the suggestion on this thread to try an unlimited 24/48h release for a new item, and see how many copies go so you can better figure out the limits for recolors! :)

I agree with most everything you said, so I won't go line by line. Thank you for spelling everything out so thoughtfully! I would also realllly like to see who's buying from my shop, I wonder if anyone's posted that directly in the suggestions forum? It would be so handy to be able to see if my buyers are familiar faces from the cw community who didn't have time to slot earlier, or new people.

RE: Discord Thank you for your really valuable feedback on this, I'm not on discord so I don't really know how it works! I had a feeling that it was easier or more fun to use than the forums, otherwise why would people be using it vs the forums, ya know? I just personally have trouble keeping everything balanced, so I haven't gotten it yet (though I have a few friends trying to cajole me, hahaha). I had seen some mention of it here and there as a place where pre-slotting or private slotting was taking place, because of how dead the forums are in general (not just the CW forums, I mean), I had been concerned that using Discord was taking away from the general interest in the site itself. But reading through your comments is really encouraging, because it sounds like that's not the case at all! The CW community is really important to me, and I am so happy that it can come together in different ways and even encourage new members like you to feel more at ease. :)

You're right, there's no easy fix! But thank you for putting your two cents on the thread and keeping the conversation going. :) You've got some great ideas!

RE: shop search. is right! Items that are available in CW shops do show up in shop search with a link to that shop. It does still show things that are locked, though, I believe. So sometimes not everything in SS is actually freely available for purchase.

Cathii already mentioned the scamming rule about increasing batch limits, so I won't go on about that, but I did want to pipe up and mention that in my experience, allowing users to change their batch limits later wouldn't really help much? For me, there's only been a couple of cases were I misjudged batch size so that all my slots were filled AND I had people coming to me after it was filled to ask for a slot. Maybe with more popular releasers, this is a more common problem, but in general I've very very rarely had users coming to me after an item was slotted for or released asking for a copy. I do wonder if more people who want to buy CWs but find them hard to get were more active in the community if the problem would take care of itself, because they would see when an item is released and either be able to claim a slot, or express interest so that the releaser can increase the number of available slots for the next recolor. If releasers don't get direct feedback from people who want an item, then we have no way of knowing that we're not releasing enough copies. Does that make sense?

Allowing store owners to set a timelock is a really interesting idea, and could help with reselling if more releasers were willing to use the CW shops more vigorously. I'd like to see that suggested to staff! I'm not really sure how staff arrived at the price for submitting direct-to-shop, but I would like to see this lowered, as well. Most people on this thread seem to think that lowering submission costs in general would help make the CW market easier and friendlier to newcomers. Your idea about pawn shop pricing is really outside the box, I like it! I think having the pawn shop open only briefly during the year has helped with resale value in general, so I'm not sure if it would really be necessary to alter pricing, but your idea sounds valid.

Also, thank you for the comments about Discord. Since I don't have it myself, I'm still learning about it! Lack of forum search is definitely a bummer. x_x I know staff is working on the forums, but I know there's no guarantee when that will get overhauled.

Thank you for your feedback. Even if you're not super active in the community anymore, your voice is still valuable. :) I too wish there was a way to browse available CWs (the cw database that Bug has talked about might help in that regard!), and that taking slots on threads wasn't so convoluted for everyone, newcomers especially. I've always thought that everyone having their own shop thread was part of the fun of the CW community, getting to discover the different threads and how people run their shop, with their own personality, is interesting. But it's kind of a lot at times, if you don't know where to look, and some people (myself included at times) aren't great at keeping everything transparent and organized. :/

I personally release normally 10-20 copies. I have some unlimited items from when I first started but batches were hard to fill. Even with 10-20 copies...if say I slotted 1 total batches and moved the remaining 15 copies to my shop, someone who bought from the first batch might put it in their shop and then of course the other 15 don't sell until that one copy sells. I check my shop sometimes with some of the bigger batches still left...and if its buyable on the shop search I lock the items until that extra copy has sold.

Also for me personally I'm happy to fill 2 batches. That covers my copy and covers my artists copy and makes me a tiny bit of profit. If things were cheaper to DTS I would do that more (probably still limited to some extent as I want my items to hold their value). For example if it was say 500 to DTS and I got one copy for me that I could give to my artist I'd be more happy with that option. OR I would LOVE a DTS option that includes TWO free copies because let's face it most artists would like a copy of their items (which is fair) and then at least I have two copies for both of us and whatever happens to the rest happens. I'd probably prefer a 500 DTS option with one copy though as I could get a lot more of my items on site with a lower submission cost.

I have a ton of recolors just waiting to get on site. Most of the time I put them in my group for preslotting. And whenever I'm looking to release something new that week I'll look at my boards/items and the ones that seem most popular go first and then I normally cap based off of my preslotting board. Example: An item on my preslotting board has 2 batches filled...I'll put it up with 4 batches total (aka 2 being available). Sometimes I'll do TBD for new items on my CW board to gauge interest and then cap after a few days has gone by. I've done that and then higher capped the same item/different recolor but then those batches don't fill as well so its all a guessing game for me.

I do normally have all my items for preslotting on discord (could be months before they go up) but I always ping/recheck with users when releasing if they are still interested. I don't think I've done any discord releases but I have done releases specific to my two ping groups (one public and one private). And honestly for me...sometimes its difficult to see what I still have to "release" so having them all on discord reminds me like "Oh yeah, I forgot about THAT item." so for me its preslotting there, preslotting on my public group and gauging interest that way.

And like many others who have commented, I would be THRILLED with a lower cost to submit because I could submit a whole lot more stuff. A lot of times if two batches don't fill I'm stuck buying my own copy of my release so I can normally cover my artists. And unfortunately I don't have a million dollars so mine tend to be "If I can't fill two batches do I have enough to cover mine/artists?" lol :)

Thank you for that link, that's exactly what I want. How did I not know that existed? And how do I navigate there without the link?

Thank you for pinging Dikat to this, because I wouldn't have seen it otherwise!

My last few releases have their batch limits dictated by interest in the item during the first 48 hours of its availability. Anything that fills less than 10 copies (including my copy + artist copies, when applicable) is defaulted to 10 copies. Like many releasers in the CW market, my items rarely ever garner interest exceeding 20 copies. When they do, however, it's usually too late (i.e. the item has been submitted with the batch limits in place.)

The CW market of today is very different from when it first started, when it was plausible to cap items at 50 copies (my CW shop still has one item that I've capped at 100 copies because I wanted it to be accessible even in the event that I left the site for whatever reason.) I still submit some items I think might garner more interest in the future as "unlimited", but disclose this on the get go and only release copies as needed.

I do agree that a lot of people seem to find CWs outside of the forums, especially through CW shops. I'm one of those people; I will go on a buying spree on a CW shop whose thread I've never followed, since the shop is the first time I've seen the items in question. As such, there is a certain appeal to releasing items directly to shop (if you can make back the submission cost, that is.)

P.S. I don't really consider myself a "CW person" despite dabbling in the market since the feature was initially released in 2012, so I can understand where Lypsyl and Lady_K (hello, fellow early adopter!) are coming from!

I navigate the CW forums when I'm on Subeta (which equals out to about the 1 hour a day or sometimes every other day lately) and I miss lots of them because I don't see the pings/slots until they've already filled to the cap. Happened to me the other day in fact -- with a bow. Didn't see the ping until all the available slots had filled. And I understand the pinged first system, its just with my limited availability to be onsite - I miss out because by the time I get the public ping the above happens. Slots fill. And I don't have an issue with the pinged first system, its just my largest gripe is I miss out because I can't be online more than that hour or two a day or every other day.

JOIN DISCORD /ahem I'm just lurking don't mind me

as someone who pretty much never resells the CWs I buy, and i buy tons, I really get discouraged over great CWs I miss out on an can never get later. And I won't pay more that 100 csc over shop price--because people who buy at slot price then resell at inflated prices really get to me. And a lot of the time i miss CWs because i work crazy hours and just miss the ping or can get on line for ages. Then i find them when i am playing in my wardrobe... so if i can find what i want in the CW shop of the person who drew or commissioned it, that is a great thing... because I personally would rather buy from them and help offset their time or costs. Anyway, that's my two cents, for what it's worth and i hope i wasn't too much on a soapbox. <3

I’m with Eleandra. I don’t resell too many of the CWs I buy but when I do, I sell for slot price or less because it can give the CW a home where it will be loved. My CW resell shop are priced around 450 CSC. If they don’t sell I will eventually pawn these items.

That said. My last item I released when DTS. I will retire it soon. Lol. If I remember to do it.

I have put off posting here for a few reasons (I am new to the market, new to releasing, and have quite different thoughts about some of these things than some others who have posted), but decided to be brave and just do it anyway lol.

Also, it's late at night and I've had a heck of a week, so sorry if there are typos, grammatical errors, or other nonsense going on in my post. T-T

From a buyer's perspective, I don't care a lick what the batch limit is. I truly don't. If I want an item, I want it. For me it's as simple as that. I buy things that I like the look/versatility/style of and want to use. I don't buy things hoping that they'll resell well later. In fact almost everything I sell, especially lately, is for slot or less. When I first started, I saw things being resold for higher and thought that was what you just do, but learned that it doesn't have to be that way and have adjusted how I sell CWs I no longer have use for. For this reason, I don't worry about unlimited items that I buy losing their value.

About CW exclusivity from a buyer perspective, it is certainly kind of sucky coming in to the CW scene sooo late (I only came back to Subeta about a year and a half ago, and there weren't CWs when I was here before) and seeing so many beautiful things that are practically unattainable, HOWEVER, it's not the end of the world, and most things I can find a substitute for. That's just my take on it, though.

From a releaser's perspective, I can now absolutely see how having lots of unlimited items that I release could devalue my items in the eyes of others. I didn't even know that this was a THING until I started talking to some of the long standing releasers who have been here since the beginning of CWs.

I try to find a good balance when it comes to trying to release enough copies, but not so little as to make an item unobtainable or so many that I inundate the market and devalue my releases. I have friends that help me gauge interest in items and their recolors, and then I typically try to release double the amount of interest I receive. Example, if I have 21 friends that are interested in an item that I am going to release, I typically would slot 40 copies, or 8 batches total, to give the public roughly the same chance as I gave my friends. The exceptions to this being if the item is kind of niche, or the color is an odd one I don't foresee selling well, if the item is personal and special to me, or if the item is of very similar coloring to a recolor I already have on site but wanted to tweak juuust a bit. I learned pretty early to gauge interest first so as not to make the number of slots too low, as my very first item was more popular than I thought it would be and several people expressed their sadness to me about not being able to catch a copy. It still hurts my heart when I think about it. However, getting into releasing was a sudden decision of mine and it was quite the whirlwind- we're not all perfect and the market can be hard to gauge. I just try my best now and hope it's good enough.

Touching back on the topic of CW exclusivity from a releaser perspective, I think it's a struggle. There are certainly items that feel as though they are incredibly unobtainable, elusive, and exclusive. But as I mentioned earlier, in my mind that's not the worst thing in the world? Some items are special, and don't need to be mass manufactured to everyone on site (this may be an unpopular opinion, but it's mine and I'm owning it). I'm certainly not saying everything that is released should be small batch and unattainable to the masses, but I'm saying I TOTALLY understand when an item or a recolor isn't available to me due to the CWs special meaning, importance, or WHATEVER to the releaser or artist. While I don't have any private items on site currently that I have released myself, I totally respect other releasers' private/limited items, and there are a few items that have very small amounts of copies on site that I have some say in. For example, a CW that a close friend of mine drew for me to cheer me up when I was in a really crappy place personally. It's a very personal thing to both of us! All of the colors have 5 copies on site, and that may be all there ever is tbh. I own one of each, the artist owns one of each, and the others are with other random people who slotted on them when they were put up for grabs (or, in the case of two of the items, they are with people with whom I've not previously had interactions with, who just happened to ask about them and comment they were interested, so I personally sold them the copies simply because they asked). Because of the tiny batch size, that item seems exclusive af, even if we didn't hand pick who gets them. But I think that's okay. Sometimes items have special meanings to the releasers and artists, and that should be understood and respected.

On the topic of unlimited releases for 24 hours outside of bonus weekend I just did a release this week, which I think everyone can agree is just about the opposite of bonus weekend (lol) that I figured might get up to 40 copies (since I had around 20 preslotted). However, it filled 13 batches outside of the copies for the artist, my board co-owner, and myself. I am learning that, as I've seen several people here mention a few times already, 24 hour releases, when used occasionally and planned well, can certainly be powerful. I had quite a few slotters that I'd never seen before, and even got a thank you from someone for making the item unlimited so more people had a chance (which totally made my heart happy, and made the whole release worth it). I certainly won't be doing a 24 hour release for my super niche items that don't sell well (like socks, or slippers, or odd things majority of people don't love, but I do) or doing them SUPER OFTEN, however when there seems to be repeated demand for more of a certain item than I planned to release, it's nice every now and then to make a new color unlimited so lots of people can have a chance. I know as a buyer, it's certainly helped me when people did occasional unlimited releases when I was first getting into CWs! Heck, even now!! So I say totally experiment with a 24 hour release here and there. :)

From a n00b to CWs, regarding the CW community, it's intimidating as hell. AT FIRST. When I first got into CWs, I literally had to ask how to slot/pay on an item because it was my first ever CW I was slotting on and I knew NOTHING about the process other than 1) I had to cry out SLOT PLEASE! really fast and 2) I had to have CSC to somehow pay for the item. Trithie had to have [user=cresenta] pop over to the board and explain to me how it all works (bless both of them!!).

On top of that, I first felt as though I was a smoll little nobody, much like said in her post. There are some really cool, big time releasers here, and everyone seemed to be head over heels whenever they pinged, and everyone seemed to know each other and already have their strong groups of friends. I would see conversations they'd have with others about things that I was like 'omg I like that too!' but I was too afraid to try to make their acquaintance, even though we could have totally hit it off. Their releases would TOTALLY line up with my style, so I figured we at least have that in common, but I was too scared to talk to them about it. There were special groups that I knew nothing of, but knew I didn't belong to. Trithie was really the first releaser that I talked to comfortably (thank you for loving me T-T), and even then, I felt like she was out of my league. I know it's totally silly now, and all of my close friends who I've admitted this to think it's so funny that I waited SO LONG to talk to them. It's just that it was super intimidating to, similar to what Bunshroom said, feel as though I am going up to someone who has all of these amazing things and here I am with nothing to offer. Some of my best friends now are people I only dreamed of being able to talk to when I first saw them on forums, and they are amazing humans and I am SO SO thankful for all of them! However, I can absolutely see how, to people 'outside' of the CW community, it feels like there is a gate that is keeping outsiders 'out', regardless of if there actually is or isn't. I certainly believed this to be true, and am so incredibly glad that I stepped out of my comfort zone and found out that there was no gate up after all.

Again, my experience is certainly different from that of others on the site. But I think that's okay. I don't have the insider knowledge that others have because I wasn't here to experience the market from the beginning. As a newbie, though, this has been my experience with the CW market and community.

Wow that was longer than I anticipated.

TL;DR I buy things no matter what their batch size and am okay that some people's releases are exclusive. I try pretty hard to release things so that they're pretty readily available to slotters, but still sometimes fail because I am human. I've had success with 24hr releases even when it's not bonus weekend and totes recommend an experiment. The CW community seems intimidating af to newbies like myself at first, but if you fully immerse yourself and just go for it and be yourself, it's actually a lot of fun and filled with some really amazing people.

Oops, I missed you! I tend to agree that CWs aren't really that exclusive, other than the occasional private-only item (which isn't really all that much, compared to the thousands of other available items on site), and of course just the built-in expense of items. However, there are endless complaints about exclusivity, so I really wanted to try and understand how the market functions as it does and see if there's any way to make items easier to get for everyone. You're right though, there's never going to be a way to please everyone!

Yes, I think I understand. :)

I like your strategy of saying "if y'all claim X or more copies, then the limit will be Y, if not it will be Z" - I've done something similar a few times when I wasn't sure if I could even get a first batch filled, by leaving the option open of a direct-to-shop submission. But, I think that might be a nice way to leave room for increasing the batch limit on something if it ends up really popular, too. It's only happened a couple of times that I can recall, but I was so bummed when I ran out of slots for people that wanted an item! If people are actually engaging on my thread and trying to slot, I don't want to turn them away.

RE: discord, I'm definitely learning more about it and I can see why it's attractive to use, and now that I think about it, probably easier to access on mobile which I assume most people in this day and age really like. Bunshroom has some really insightful comments about her experience with discord and the cw community on the next page, which seems to counter the idea that it's drawing traffic away from the site. Interesting points to think about, all over!

You're the same as me, I normally manage 10-20 copies, though some things have less and I move the remaining copies to my shop. I've tried not to go looking for copies for sale elsewhere, personally, but I suppose I'll end up retiring items eventually instead of letting them sit there forever if there are other copies in user shops going unbought.

DTS option with 2 copies would be really handy, I think!! If releasers weren't too worried about making a profit, or just wanted an item on site without having to take slots, it would be nice to have both your own copy and the artist copy covered. I also agree, DTS as it is (one copy) would be awesome to have the submission cost lowered. I wonder how many other users would be enticed to try out submitting a CW if they didn't have such a high submission cost looming over them!

Thank you for the insights into how you do slotting and end up choosing how many copies to release. I'm loving everyone's different processes. What you said about Discord helping you keep track of what items you have yet to release is interesting. I think I'm coming from a place of privilege, since I pretty much draw all my own items, I guess they stick in my head. Andddd I benefit from being to make recolors one at a time instead of having a bunch already made, usually.

I'm glad I could help! Just go to the Cash Shop menu, click on the CW Shops link, then the Browse/Search link at the top of the page. ^_^

I was hoping to attract a few people that weren't involved in Cws, and Dikat was the only group I could think of that I was a member of. ^_^ I'm glad you had a chance to post some thoughts!

There have been some others on this thread expressing that not having a concrete batch limit number at the time of release is a turn off, and those releases seem to get less interest. :/ I hope that hasn't been the case with you! I am in the same boat, however, as most of my releases only garner 20 copies or less' worth of interest, even though I DO generally state batch limits when posting publicly.

I'm so interested about your experience buying with CW shops! I really hadn't used them much at all before this year, and I think I (mistakenly) assumed that no one much used them, but I don't think that's the case at all! I really think experimenting more with the shops and trying to be more mindful of shoppers that either 1) don't like to slot or can't slot, or 2) just like to go on buying sprees like you, is a good idea moving forward.

Okay, I see what you mean! Having limited time really does make it difficult to slot on things, particularly popular items that move fast. For the most part, items I release in my own shop don't fill particularly quickly, if at all, so users have multiple days to come and slot on something they like. Have you reached out to any shop owners about your issue with items filling too fast for you to slot on? It would be really nice if releasers of more popular/fast moving items would be willing to release recolors with a higher batch number so that there'd be a longer slotting period – but they might never know you missed out if you don't talk to them directly.

LOL :p

Thank you for commenting! I know you've been a huge supporter of my releases and I really appreciate that. :) I know it can be a bummer to miss out on items, and I feel like releasers are missing out when there are people like you who are active in the community and WANT to buy, but aren't able to because batch sizes are small/run out quickly. I don't know the solution, other than what I suggested to Lady_K about approaching releasers directly and asking for future recolors to be a high batch limit, so that slotting can take place over a longer period of time.

I'm like you, too, I'm not much interested in paying much above slot price if there's something I missed/want in the future. I don't spend too much time on the r200 forums because I'm generally content with what I'm able to slot on, but there have been some comments on this thread suggesting that holding copies of items at a high price/for trade has become something of an issue in the resell market. So, I wonder if trying to keep batch limits low to maintain resale value is actually causing harm to the resale market. I don't know, but there's some really interesting things to think about!

Yes, I'm with you! In the past, I've tried auctioning a few old/highly-desired items, but honestly it made me feel really bad! So now, I try to price anything I decide to resell at slot price or below (if it's an older item), so that if someone wants it, they can get it and enjoy it. :)

Hey buddy! I'm glad you decided to post, I really enjoyed reading your perspective! Thank you for giving us a look at the mix of experiences you've had. :) Even though you're newer to the community (and even if you weren't a part of the community at all!), your voice has a place here. :)

You and I are the same in terms of not caring about batch sizes! Since I'm not very active with reselling, low batch sizes don't matter much to me because I don't care about maintaining resale value – and if I do resell, I try to sell for batch price or lower (Hahaha as I was saying to Julie above you, I tried selling some older items for high prices once after a long hiatus, and honestly just felt terrible during the whole proces sooooo never again! XD) I also just buy what I like the look of and think will match with my style.

After reading through so many insightful comments on this thread, part of me wonders if we (in general, as a community) aren't accidentally or subconsciously reinforcing the idea that unlimited or larger batch size items don't maintain resale value. I'm not sure how we could counter this without a community-wide push for change, but it is an interesting idea. And I'm glad you expressed your thoughts about how exclusivity isn't always a bad thing – there are so many reasons why a release might be small, including special meaning. Even though I've only toyed with private items in the past, I totally understand that some items on site are there for a special reason, and I wish some of the complaints about exclusivity that I've seen would account for that. Maybe that beautiful, highly-sought after item was a special birthday gift, or a reminder of a lost loved one, or maybe even a special gift between friends. It's pretty great that the CW system allows for items like that, instead of everything being 100% unlimited.

RE: 24 hour releases outside of bonus weekend WOWWWWW 13 batches?! Haha that's amazing! Maybe I've been getting too doom and gloom about people only spending during bonus weekend, I'll try to be more chill about it. And it's so great that you had people coming to you to thank you for the chance to buy! I absolutely love 24hr releases and I'm glad they've become a regular occurance throughout the community, and I am excited to do more of them myself. Though, like you said, sparingly. ;)

As for your final thoughts about coming to the community as a noob, I'm so grateful that you did! I got into the CW community right as I joined subeta about 7 years ago, because I specifically joined to make Cws. So I've always been in this to win this, and even though I do try to be cognizant of the struggles from an outsider perspective, I can always use more insight. :) I'd love to pick yours an 's brains sometime about your experience coming into the community later, and maybe brainstorm about how to make the CW community more welcoming and approachable. I've had similar conversations over the years, and there have been pushes by the community to help (Cathii and Reaper, in particular, spearheaded some great ideas a couple of years back), but it's hard to tell if anything is helping.

This is a little off-topic, but I had conceived of some kind of ambassadorship program, where grizzled CW veterans like myself could help newbies one-on-one, or be available to answer questions. I don't know if that's something that would help but – like I said, I'd love to make the cw community easier to access and more welcoming to everyone!!!

You can make items easier to get by setting the price at the lowest possible cost and making batches unlimited, essentially flooding the market. However, that will come at a loss for you and poor aftermarket value. The way the market is now, people are forced to sell items they no longer use anymore so they can obtain newer items for their wardrobe without spending real money. It allows for the opportunity to circulate items that were once not obtainable. I want to say 90% of the items on my WL were impossible to buy in the past, but has more items come out I have eventually been able to find someone selling a copy. Flooding the market with an item depreciates its value and makes it hard to not sell at a loss, forcing someone to buy CSC every time they want something new.

A lot of the complaints I see about exclusivity come from people who don't release or commission CWs. Buying a design alone costs real money and you still need to pay subeta CSC to release batches on site. Agreeing with that the price to upload items to the site is expensive and not something we can change. CWs are just one of those things that you won't be able to afford as a new player or something that you need to choose to invest your sP/CSC/real money in.

I myself will never release private items, but I respect when a person wants to keep things private. It seems unfair to the buyer of a private item. What if after a couple of months you no longer wear the item. Do you just let it sit and rot in your wardrobe if no one else in the private group wants a copy? I find it better when people do "friend release only" but then give them the ability to sell if they no longer want that item. It's like if I give a friend a gift for their birthday and they have no use for my gift or it's not exactly what they were looking for, I am not offending if they return the gift and use the money for something they will really use.