It's a little difficult to read that from your post when you've included no information about it.

I still think a large part of our community is unaware that price changes are coming.

And I really do get where you're coming from, wanting the community to be active again. I too want to see this happen. I really, really do. I'm bored out of my MIND over here not working, but I also feel a responsibility here to pressure staff to DO something. I really feel like our community gets treated like a bastard child that was never supposed to be. Part of the reason we're stigmatized is because of the absurd paywall locking people out of our community.

For me personally (and no one has to share my opinion, I get it!) it's time to stick up for the part of our community that has been stressing and penny pinching. The releasers who are struggling to submit things because they also have to provide an artists copy and it's too expensive if the item isn't popular. Sure it's easy for me as an artist to say "Better luck next time" when something doesn't sell and just take a few extra csc commissions to cover the loss, but what about for non-artists, and what about for people who are just here to slot on nice things?

I added a little extra paragraph in the first post addressing the price change uncertainty, but I do stand by my opinion that we shouldn't just abandon the CW market right now while we wait for proposed price changes to go through, if we can personally afford to. I know that not everyone can, and I understand your point of view about putting pressure on staff - I added my voice to the rule change thread to support you and Disasters because you make really good points. I just don't think abandoning the community is going to help in the long run.

And I put my CSC where my mouth is, because I'm offering to help get first batches on site for those that need it. I don't have a ton of extra CSC, but I can help out a few people and it will be money well-spent if it means the cw community can stay afloat until the changes come about.

I think calling it abandonment is a little unfair.

I realize that it may seem like people are leaving, but they're not gone, they're waiting. It's more like a hibernation than abandonment. The people I'm friends with are WAITING, not LEAVING.

To be 100% transparent and speak to you in a way that may help you feel some relief / less worry that I personally might be 'leaving', I want you to know that I am sitting on about 60+ designs that need to be submitted. I'm not even going to try to count the recolors I have planned. I've got two brand new MASSIVE and PERMANENT 'give backs' for my community planned, as well as a huge giveaway for when the pricing changes happen. I've got plans for every holiday, and for another massive Luminaire event.

All of this isn't being held back for selfish reasons. I've literally been here since day one of this community opening. I've been drawing 'custom wearables' before CWs were even released (drawing people's characters on the HA base). I want you to understand, and I hope it provides you some relief that this community is my home. Now, and forever. I've built myself a place here and the only way I'm leaving is if staff tears it from my screaming body. lmao.

But the amount of discomfort I feel, even just suggesting that people pay more money than they need to, makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. I just cannot, and will not do it. =/

Sorry, abandonment may be a bit strong, but it felt like the most concise way of putting it.

Honestly it is very reassuring to me to know that you and others who have withdrawn from releasing are still there, just waiting to return when the promises made by staff so long ago are finally kept. You and I have talked a little bit about this, so I feel like I understand your viewpoint and I know how passionate you are about CWs and about the community. But so many others have all but disappeared, and have no way of knowing if they've gone for good or are still lurking around, since I hang around the forums like an anxious puppy but am not in close communication with many people otherwise.

Honestly I was just hoping that this post would encourage those that are still invested, but lurking, to have a reason to hang on and stick around, and maybe pipe up now and then. If people feel like their needs aren't being served or that they can't in good conscience support the site right now, then I support those feelings too. I apologize if I come off as flippant or uncaring about the deeper issues, sometimes I feel like I can be kind of a "good vibes or else" bulldozer.

If everyone holds back and stops submitting and stops buying cws there won’t be a site left to support since we know the majority of the sites income comes from CWs.

I totally get holding back, and I’ve been slowing down my releases for sure, but full on stopping does nothing but effectively kill the market before there’s ever a chance for it to rebound.

There are those of us that have extra csc are and are willing to help keep the market going and keep things moving and that’s great! And there’s some waiting to see what happens, that’s fine too.

But I certainly don’t see the sense in being completely negative and turning a positive community building thread into a negatively derailed thread when we already have more than enough of those.

Let’s try and keep this positive and try and keep the community going instead of tearing it further apart.

Firstly: I love the idea of a community shout out and spotlight theme, so thanks for that :) I think that will be something really nice to help people get to know more artists and releasers in the future.

I don't think we can uncouple that from a real discussion though about how no changes are being made and how that is affecting the community from artists to releasers to buyers.

I agree with what Feral has said - I'm holding off on submitting because I cannot ask people to pay more for something when we've been promised quick changes to the pricing scheme and then just...ignored. Especially not when we're in a global pandemic and millions are jobless and struggling. I just cannot, in good conscience, as people to spend $5-7 at a time to hep put things on site. And I cannot cover releases myself - I'm making less money than I was before the pandemic started and I too will be struggling sooner rather than later. Luxury spending has been drastically stunted for a lot of people, and these are a luxury that are supposed to be getting more affordable, so asking someone to spend $7 now when maybe in a week or two it'll be $2 isn't really...fair.

We really really need the community as a whole to stand together to get changes made.

Every time things like this happen, we end up having to call on all our groups to start pushing staff to make the changes/clarifications they've promised us. It's really frustrating we have to do that but also, I can't see just acting like they'll get it done and continuing the same levels of support and spending - that really doesn't encourage them to change. I don't know how many folks here remember when staff tried to basically tell a user they were going to be banned from CWs because they did something almost all of us did with low interest items (they had announced 1 batch back when it was 10 copies and then did direct to shop on it because they couldn't fill the batch, only allowing the number of copies they'd initially stated to be sold). That user was about to be banned for life for scamming when almost everyone in the community had done that - we had to come together as a group and call that out to staff publicly and say we'd all have to be banned before the rules were fixed, the old "violations" forgiven. The best way for us to get staff to actually be serious about any of this is to show them we're serious about the changes. We shouldn't have to basically point out that they'll be losing what they continuously claim is their biggest cash influx for them to make the promised fixes, but that has, historically, been the only way they actually followed through and fixed things.

Nobody here is wishing the market dead - for most of us that's where we've gotten our most socialization on site. We're trying to say that the community needs to stand together and show the staff that we're serious and that we expect them to follow through. If we keep going business as usual, it'll be years again before they even finish finalizing the council, let alone make changes - we've already been waiting over a year for this "rules rewrite" we were promised =/

I get people are scared and care a lot about the community. I am one of those people. I am scared for what's to come, and also I care more than anyone will ever know.

But critique for a system doesn't mean I want to kill it. In fact, it means I want the opposite of killing this community. It means I want to see it improve and thrive. And having questions, and holding people accountable doesn't mean I'm being negative. It just means I'm not willing to sit around with rose colored glasses anymore.

I'm not asking anyone to join me if they'd rather not, you're all your own people and I respect that. But I personally cannot sit around idly anymore, and I do think this needs more people to be aware of it.

I am so glad you are such a great speaker for the community Tart. You really do know how to try to brighten someone's day. THANK YOU for offering to help fill batches when some people can not afford the extra csc to do so. You really are an inspiration. I know that if we have faith in subeta and our fellow users we will see the change we have been looking for.

I agree with you

Thank you Tartelette for trying to be a light in the darkness for all of us instead of letting it consume us all <3

This is a great post! Thanks for being you, and an inspiration to all of us. Let me know if there's anything I can do to support this initiative!

I did apply for the council but I don't expect to be chosen, although I think I would be a good pick in terms of a) sharing more of Keith's goals than he might realise and b) diversity of opinions. I'm blunt and loud and not everyone likes that ;) but I appreciate those of you who do so very, very much.

Like , who is awesome, and who I bonded with over Transformers, the Yeet Fleet, and colour schemes, I'm also getting a lot more shop sales than I used to.

I sold a whole lot of shop items the week after the subscription accounts were announced, so I definitely think that the vouchers are affecting sales, because in addition to selling a lot of my recent, popular items like the walking skirts and Marangatu the Maned Wolf, I also sold thylacines and even some rose blouses, which have historically been my least popular release.

I think I made 2000 CSC that first week, which is still pin money compared to the cost of paying for art--even though I usually do fill my batches--but it was more money than I have ever in my life made out of that shop before.

The market is definitely worse in some ways than it used to be, and I'm sad to see so many artists and releasers self-freezing and closing up shop.

But I do think it is going to get better.

Thank you, I don't know how useful a spotlight thread will be, but at the very least it will motivate me to pay better attention to what people in the community are up to.

As I said to Feral, I just can't agree that withdrawing all activity in the cw market is the right answer. I think logically you're right, that hitting staff in the wallet where hurts the most would be a good motivator, but what happens when the like 3 people on staff that can help with CW decision-making/coding are tied up with "more important" aspects of the site, like wardrobe fixes or upcoming holidays, and the decisions we've been asking for get pushed back another few weeks or months? A dead market for an extended period of time will drive people away, and demotivate those that are left.

Also, before this I had no idea that there was some kind of concerted effort to withdraw new CW submissions as a way to take a stand, I merely thought that everyone was afraid of losing money if the price changes suddenly materialized.

I'm hoping that the recent posts on the rule thread will encourage staff to address the pricing issue ASAP at the very least, but historically, changes take a long time. It was weeks or possibly months before the rule for multiple threads was changed so that Subetabox could get off the ground, and that was just one straightforward rule. Now that staff is deadset on using the council to provide input and process ideas, we'll need to wait for multiple levels of feedback and discussion instead of a few staff members conferring.

I apologize for seeming flippant or making light of the gnarly situation we're all in. The world is a dark place right now and most, if not all of us are struggling on a lot of levels. Most of us enjoy subeta and the cw market as a social activity and stress relief, and it has saddened me to see the activity drop off so starkly of late. I just wanted to provide a pick-me-up and encourage people to stay as active as they can. I never intended to suggest that anyone pump dollars they can't afford into the market at my behest - just that, if they can manage it, to be present here on site and wait for the better times to come.

I'm writing way too much as usual, but I wanted to say that I'm not mad at you or feral, or wanting to make you feel poorly for your opinions, because you both are two of the most passionate members of the community and I respect you for your work. I just know that we've all shouted til we're blue in the face, asking for changes to be made. The ball is in staff's court now, though. I think it's time for the users in the CW community to just shuffle on and enjoy ourselves as best we can with what we have.

Thank you guys for the kind words. <3 You two are pretty good at brightening others' days too! ^_^ (Also, I'm saving that gif immediately, it is amaziiiiiing.)

Thank you, I hope it was encouraging! Very excited about doing a little spotlight post once a week or so. At the very least it will keep me engaged and looking for new releases and shops and events that are going on! Events in particular, as I feel like it's hard to get the word out unless you have a really big ping group.

A few other people have mentioned an uptick lately in their shop sales, which is awesome! I bet it does have something to do with the new cw vouchers, which is great. I truly do think that if we can just make it through this slump, good things are on the way. I've been very encouraged by all the changes and positive investments in the site as a whole, of late.

for sure all opinions and especially, feelings are valid! I'm glad you made a positive thread though, because people tend to voice negative thoughts more than positive ones, and it ends up giving the impression everyone is giving up when its not necessarily the case. as someone said here, we've been seeing so much "leaving the site" announcements, it gets disheartening to see! I'm just glad there are still people hopeful for the future of the site.

Another artist who I am so happy to see releasing all the things you are releasing!! All your cws you draw brighten my day! One talented person right here!! So many creative and exciting new ideas bringing life to new releasers!

When it comes to the financial issues, I think that it's easy to forget that if you're doing all right, that doesn't mean everyone else is. I am truly blessed and recognise that if I were in any field other than health care, I might be unable to afford CWs. and if I were on the frontline rather than in the administration, you'd probably all be wondering if I was dead because I'd have no time to post in the forums, let alone release CWs.

There are people who can't afford food. (Please donate to food banks--they're supporting more people than ever!) People are really hurting right now.

I don't want to go negative on this thread, but I wasn't aware that, if I understand correctly, the history is that the base price of CWs already on site is not lowered when the base price for new ones is lowered.

This sounds to me like another bad decision made in service of the "collector" mentality that the rarity and resale price of CWs should be conserved so that people don't feel "scammed", rather than managed to benefit players, make money, and serve the interests of the site as a whole. I hope that if they really did that before, they will not do it again.

I assumed that if the base price of an animal companion was 500 now, making it 600-700 in your shop, and it was lowered to 300, the base prices on Cordelia, Cinnamon, Sabrina and Tiana would also go down to 300, and I could change the prices in my shop to 400-500 without penalty.

If that's not true...then I'm also concerned, because my shop is full of body mods (the walking skirts) and exotic pets, all of which are on the 500 base-700 shop price tier, even tiny Tiana.

Now to throw in some positivity... I'd like to point out that even if some of Subeta's favourite established artists have closed the doors to their shops, whether this is permanent or temporary, there are plenty of artists who are working their asses off to get you gorgeous new CWs.

has already been mentioned but deserves further kudos. Emyon is the source of almost all the stuff Disasters puts out these days, does all my Ape Repellent makeups, and is generally also an amazing, friendly, productive and all around awesome person.

is the go-to for any kind of realistic animal CW. Most of my exotic pet CWs (thylacines, fossa, serval) were drawn by her. She is also the most fun to talk to late at night about the weirdest topics.

Obviously you, , deserve mention.

is really coming into her own and is starting to do fancy steampunk/lolita/historical stuff.

is also an amazing animal artist and the artist for Marangatu the Maned Wolf, an item which in this shitty economy managed to fill three entire batches during slotting.

is also out there bringing the cuteness every day.

I am definitely not saying that anyone we love isn't going to be missed. That's not true. But there are still a lot of people on this site who are taking commissions and selling designs, and they all do really good work. I think 90% of the items I've purchased in the last 3 months were drawn by the 6 people I've mentioned here, and I love them.

you're the sweetest ;; 💙💙💙💙

Due to the massive growth of CWs, it's literally impossible for staff to go back and retroactively correct the pricing for previously accepted cws. (There are over 40k cws right now, that's an insane amount of work).

If you are submitting CWs right now, you are running a very, very high risk that it will be locked into that price point. This is 100% why I am so concerned. We have no idea what prices will change to, but by the way Keith has talked about it, it sounds like a pretty decent drop. I don't want to lock people into prices forever. =/

(And yes, as a full confirmation, all items that were made before the different pricing categories came into play were locked permanently into their 5k category [now 2.5k with the half batches])

I'm not withdrawing submissions to make a stand, so maybe I wasn't clear. I'm not submitting because we were told months ago that the number one priority after fixing the subscriptions was to reprice CWs. Then we were given statements that implied it was coming soon weeks ago again. I put my submissions on hold as I don't want people to overpay for something when the pricing is supposed to be changing. My point about calling for staff to acknowledge what's going on in the past and now is not that we abandoned ship, so to speak, but that we stood united in demanding clarity and action as this affects us all.

I was trying to say that we need to come together as a community and start holding staff accountable when they say that X is happening and then doesn't, as that's the only way changes happen. If we go about business as usual and keep up the same level of submissions, etc, then there is less motivation for them to follow through. It's also going to run the risk of leaving a bad taste in customers' mouths if we decide to push ahead and submit all our slotted items and then in a week staff is like "haha that item is now only $2" when we were begging folks not to drop and to stick with us.

I've spent a lot of money on CWs I didn't want and wouldn't use to help people get items on site - a lot of us have honestly - but I'm not in a position to keep doing that. I'm still slotting on other peoples' cws, but I'm not getting new comms and I'm not submitting mine because we've had 0 updates entirely on rules and pricing changes after months of being told this is one of the most important updates for the site. The site itself is barely making dents in daily goals since they dropped the bonus sales and announced that there would be changes to make everything more affordable and then...didn't follow through.

And rule changes don't necessarily take a long time. I'm not sure why you're under the impression that the rule change for CW Forums was related to the subetabox, but that was actually something several of us were discussing with staff via tickets long before the subetabox became a thing. My thread that I was allowed to open, then had closed on me, then had reopened via ticket and discussion is the one that prompted the rule change about how long people had to wait to start a new thread and helped push additional changes. I'm trying not to get irked that a lot of the changes that I and others have fought for and gotten made on this site are ignored by so many people when we're trying to actually help everyone have a better experience and asking others to join us in making sure that staff actually listens.

The changes to the Custom Wearables management pages (both the main submission ones and the CW Shops) were pushed and advocated for by those of us that everyone else seems to ignore. Retirement section on the Management page? My push and suggestion. Being allowed to retire items from the CW Shops? My suggestion and push. I don't go around demanding everyone credit and thank me because I pushed for the changes for all of us. I've literally let all of this go for years, when people act like they've got a new idea that's sitting on old forum threads and suggestion threads, ideas come up with by users who've finally given up and left because nobody listened until a "big name" member of the community brought it up. Hell, I had to ping Cathii to help support a suggestion because staff and half the community literally ignores any of us that aren't churning out thousands of items a month.

I could dig back through my archived posts and thread topics and probably point directly to quite a lot of things that came out of my mouth first via suggestions and tickets, but I don't actually care about the credit except when someone is going to try to tell me that pushing the users to come together and expecting promised changes isn't necessary - because I pushed for those things, I called on the groups to get in there and voice themselves, and us coming together after that is the reason why there were changes.

Always happy to help provide some good vibes when I can. ^_^

I must have been on hiatus when the pricing changes in Ye Olde Days went through, because I do not remember old submission being locked in at old prices. I had been working under the assumption that prices across the board, including previous submissions, would be altered - akin to how prices are lowered in CW shops during Black Friday. If staff does choose to keep everything submitted before X day grandfathered at the old pricing scheme, then yeah, that would be pretty darn problematic. :O Since I don't know for sure, though, at the moment I still don't want to see the cw market grind to a halt. I will continue to participate on the rule change thread to see if we get any definite answers.

I'm sorry, it's obvious that you're feeling pretty frustrated and underappreciated right now. I don't have a perfect memory and while I have done my best to stay abreast of various CW suggestion and discussion topics, I obviously haven't seen or been a part of them all. I would never suggest that you haven't been a major player in driving the CW community and its policies forward from day 1, so please don't mistake me on that front.

I only mentioned the subetabox thing because I was helping Cathii set that up, and I specifically remember that she had to submit a ticket asking about whether it was allowed because she and I each had our own shop threads already, so opening the box thread would be against the rules. I assume you also had your own ticket going at the same time, so the rule was changed sometime after that (from what I recall, it took several weeks for Cathii to receive a response, so you must have been waiting too.) I can only comment from my own perspective and experience, and since you and I don't talk much outside of discussions like these, I have no idea what exactly you went through over the years RE: rule changes, etc.

I do understand where you're coming from about leaving a bad taste in people's mouths if they have to pay $5 for something one week, and $2 the next week, which is why I've said again and again that users should continue to submit and buy CWs if they are able to do so (which implies also that they be willing to do so!) Perhaps it would be best to include some kind of disclaimer on releases that a price change may be imminent, in case users aren't aware of the impending changes. If you read my comment to Feral and Valiska above, I've been wholly unaware of a potential negative aspect of price changes that might have steered me away from my initial comments had I known.

I understand that we need to stand together as a community, I am advocating it myself in that we should stand together and support each other instead of just disappearing. If that means just posting on each other's threads, hosting activities, and being a part of pertinent discussions and NOT spending money/csc, then I support that too. Honestly, other than a select few people (yourself and myself included), there has been very little input from CW community members on staff announcement posts. I don't know if nobody cares or if everyone is off talking about things on discord or tumblr or private email servers or what, but from my perspective no one is paying much attention to site happenings, and that's what I'm advocating against in this thread.

[edit] Thank you for all your dedication and work toward making the cw community/market better for everyone, sincerely. I don't mean to undermine your opinion (or anyone else's) by making this thread, I'm just also trying to support the community in my small way. I can't control what staff does or doesn't do, and I'm just trying to find ways to help that don't involve their input because I don't know when or how it will be offered.

The problem is, that we've also asked for them to re-consider the pricing scheme. So that a 'small companion' doesn't cost the same as a 'large companion' or a 'short wig' not the same as a 'full body wig', etc. There is no easy way to retroactively apply those kinds of changes in pricing to 40k wearables. If they kept all the categories the same, then maybe yeah, but otherwise... absolutely unlikely.

I will be absolutely AMAZED if they do retroactively apply things, but I feel incredibly confident they won't. They didn't before, when there were only a few hundred/thousand on site. This is 40k we're talking about. I cannot even fathom asking staff to go back through to do this, if they're already lacking a person to manage the queue and everything?