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MARCH RAFFLE 2024 WINNERS!

Posted 1 day ago :: Last edited 1 day ago by Sharky

The raffle winners for the March Raffle 2024 are:

#1 - Spring Time Bun - flyingwaysofducks
#2 - Spring Tea Party - aquapyrofan
#3 - Butterfly Garden - DarkfireVengeance
#4 - Bleeding Heart Doe - Daffupanda
#5 - Chocolate Lover - ShinPurple
#6 - Auspicious Spring - SuperLebunee
#7 - Spring Lamb - plumendra
#8 - Peony Ballerina - LizzyJun
#9 - Thawing Meadow - number11train

Rolling took place in our Discord in the #games_and_raffles channel today!

Thank you everyone for participating! We hope you bring you more events soon in the future! <3

March Raffle 2024

Posted 6 days ago :: Last edited 6 days ago by Starbask

Between now and next Sunday we will be hosting a short raffle for some premade kittom prizes.

Please read below for additional info on how to enter and rules.  You will need to submit a response to the appropriate google form, so please keep this in mind!

 


March 2024 Raffle Details

Eligibility:

  • To be entered into any raffle pools below, you just need to submit a response to the form including a few sentences in response to a question about what your favorite part of spring is! No one word answers since we're not doing a prompt to enter this time around!
  • Designs will not be raffled off to new or inactive accounts. (Accounts under 5 months of age on WoE or accounts with no recent activity. See this page for details on how staff verify user activity and See the Group TOS here for additional details.)
  • This raffle will be rolled on March 17th, with an exact time pending!

Submission Process:

The raffle form will close March 15th at 11:59pm PST.

Prizes being Raffled:

  • x9 Premade springy kittoms!

March 2024 Raffle

Restrictions/Warnings:

  • Designs will not be raffled off to new or inactive accounts. (Accounts under 5 months of age on WoE or accounts with no recent activity. See this page for details on how staff verify user activity and See the Group TOS here for additional details.)
  • Prizes will be raffled off to entrants, but each entrant can only win a max of 1 prize.
    • (For example: If you win a premade kittom early on, you will not be eligible for any of the premade kittom designs raffled off thereafter.)
  • These prizes are considered free gifts, so these prizes will have zero added resale value.
  • The prizes themselves can't be traded, gifted, swapped, etc. until appropriate cooldowns have passed.
    • Keep in mind you absolutely may not trade this prize for non-Berry-Bazaar designs whether it's for art, under-the-table, etc. If you do not want a prize any longer  and do not wish to swap or gift it, please submit a ticket on site and a masterlist moderator will remove it from your account and remove the related cooldown. (Specifics will be announced should this come up.)
    • If you are found attempting to trade a prize from this raffle prior to its cooldown being over, you will receive a warning and the prize will be removed from your account. If the prize is discovered to be part of any under-the-table trades, both you and the other party will receive warnings. You can, of course, swap or gift your elnin after the cooldown is over, but nothing should be part of a deal made prior to the cooldowns running their course.
    • Any group member found soliciting winners for their prizes will also be warned for doing so. If you win a prize and are approached by another group member to trade your prize, you are welcome to submit a ticket to the moderator team on site and we will handle it. We may take more severe actions than just a warning if a user is found to be persisting to solicit the same user or soliciting other winners. Please be kind to fellow group members. No one wants to be harassed for something they won.
  • Prizes in this group are free gifts. Any profiting or attempting to profit from them by way of trade is frowned upon and grounds for a warning. As users must enter themselves manually into these raffles, we will be taking this to mean you want the prize for yourself. Trading or attempting to trade implies otherwise and will not be tolerated as it is directly taking opportunities away from other community members that participated. Again, if you do not want the prize at a later time (before art is updated), you can always submit a ticket asking for the design to be given back to the group. At that time, a masterlist moderator will move the design to the Yggdrasil account.
  • These prizes have a 1 month cooldown!
    • This cooldown starts once the design is sent to the winner's account.
  • Additional Guidelines:
    • Please do not contact artists relative to the premade free raffle designs! Thank you.
    • No co-ownership
    • All designs may only be traded for other Berry-Bazaar CS/gifted after their specified cooldown.
    • These designs cannot be turned into the Sanctuary.
    • Cooldowns start once winners are rolled and confirmed.
  • Form entries must be submitted by March 15th, 11:59pm PST.
  • Entries that miss this deadline are not eligible for the prizes. No extensions, no exceptions.
  • If you fear you may have somehow entered the raffle form twice by accident (via being signed in through another family member's account or some other means), please submit a ticket! The form will be limited to 1 response per google account, so if we see names appearing twice, we will reach out via modberry prior to March 16th at 11:59pm PST time. If we do not get a prompt response before the time the prizes are raffled on March 17th, then any names found to have entered more than once will be entirely removed, both the initial entry and the duplicate entry. Email receipts are also on for this raffle, so be sure to check your email and junk mail too as an additional check to make sure form submissions go through! If you don't get an email or see an edit option when returning to the form page you can submit a ticket at that time to see if our team can check.

March 2024 Updates

Posted 1 week ago :: Last edited 1 week ago by Starbask

It's March already and this year is flying by.  So once again we're touching base with the community!

Discord Changes and Clarifications

We've made a few notable changes to our discord this month and we want to clarify a few things that we've gotten questions about.

Recent Changes
  • We've added a #writing_gallery channel to showcase written works to compliment our art_gallery which is primarily focused on visuals.
  • Emoji use in the #questions and #design_feedback channels on discord will now be restricted to moderator staff.
A Few Clarifications
  • The #art_gallery is a place for primarily visual arts, this includes drawings, crafts, and heavily curated photography.
    • We have gotten questions in the past on whether or not photography has a place in the #art_gallery, and the team feels that it does. If you're sharing photos though as an art piece, we do ask they not just be casually taken photos that may be more appropriate for other channels like #pet_appreciation, #cook_nook, #discovery_channel, etc.
    • No matter what medium you are sharing visual art of, please be conscientious of spam. If you wish to share many pictures of something drawn, photographed, or otherwise, we ask you to choose your best image or two and then link to a more robust gallery if you want to share more.
  • Only responses in #questions and #design_feedback from modberries, prompt team moderators and design team moderators are considered official responses to general questions.
    • We have many channels where other members casually try to help out, and occasionally moderators may respond in other spaces too with a best guess, but these are not to be considered official responses to questions regardless of who they come from.
    • Generally questions asked in #questions and #design feedback goes through more than just one staff member to try to ensure we're giving accurate responses. When any moderator or group member replies in a one-off fashion in general channels there is a risk that their feedback may contain their personal opinion in a casual way or misinformation, so we ask group members to take these answers with a grain of salt and know they may not always be accurate.
    • Only discord moderators may hop into any channel to address discord specific tasks or conflicts.
Moderator Changes and Current Queues

We've had some adjustments in our staffing in recent months and many of our mods have had some things cropping up in their daily lives.

Tatter and Leechi Are Off to Other Pursuits!

In the past few months here we've had a few of our prompt team staff step down due to work and family commitments taking priority in their lives. Moderating was an aspect they didn't feel they would be able to keep up with. As always the team is supportive of moderators prioritizing the things they need to do in life. While it is unfortunate we have to see the teammates we enjoy working with go, we're hopeful to continue to see them around the group and taking care of themselves. Tatter was among the older staff members on our prompts team and Leechi joined the team a few years after. We're wishing them some easier times in months to come even as some other things in life ramp up for them!

Slower Responses and Queues this Month and Next Month

We just want to call some attention to regular group systems moving a bit slower on all fronts this month and potentially next month. We've had a few team members step down and several others are still helping out but currently experiencing some rougher times. Work has been strenuous on some of our staff while others are out sick or dealing with some difficult family matters. While we won't be going into many details, we did want to ask the community for a little more patience as the team works through things this month and next month. Please expect things to be a bit slower and try to recognize we're a bit of a skeleton crew during this period of time.

It is worth mentioning Starbask will be out of town for the last two weeks this month with little to no computer access. This means some more involved approvals, questions, or tasks may be on hold during that time and take a bit of time thereafter to catch up on. The team can usually handle many tasks and questions but some still fall to Starbask and Mana to confer on and clarify details on as needed.

A Raffle on the Horizon

We did a free kittom raffle back in December and we'll be hosting another small one this month. The raffle will go live soon, time permitting, and be open for a minimum of 48 hours with intent to be rolled some time Sunday March 17th, 2024 PST time. There will not be a prompt requirement to enter this raffle, however the form to enter the raffle will include a question about what your favorite part of spring is! So start brainstorming if there's some things you are particularly fond of during the springtime!

January 2024 Updates and Modcation

Posted 2 months ago :: Last edited 2 months ago by Starbask

Happy New Year everyone! We are officially in 2024 now, and efforts last week have been made to wrap up most work.

Winter Modcation

Modcation is upon us. We've wrapped up the first week of January and moderators have begun their modcation. Expect to see group functions halt on all fronts. If moderators wish to work during modcation there may be some movement but nothing is being required of the team during this time, so expect most things to not start happening again until early February!

  • January 8th-31st: Moderators will not be expected to work during this time frame. Users can still submit prompts and design approvals, etc. but please do not ask about turnaround times during this window as well. Staff may choose to work if they desire but it won't be a required thing. We want to make sure the whole team has a well deserved break.
  • February 1st-4th: Moderators will be slowly coming back. Responses may be slow during this time period but we'll be looking to get back to things at a more regular pace the following week.
Moderator Changes 2024

A few may have already noticed but early this January we've had changes to our moderator staff. We have one very bittersweet sendoff as a more senior moderator has stepped down, and a few new exciting additions to our staff team that resulted from applications reviewed this past year!

AliLV is Off to Other Pursuits

It's with a heavy heart the team is announcing AV is stepping down as a moderator with the group after working with us for five and a half years. We've had other very wonderful mods step down in the past to focus on their lives and other endeavors so this isn't entirely new to the team. As moderators, our time is often split between our day jobs, moderation work, and other hobbies and creative pursuits and sometimes we get spread thin. During these times, we need to consider if moderation work is the right thing to continue as it is still work, and while enjoyable can also be taxing at times.

AV for a number of years has made enormous contributions to the group in terms of keeping our masterlist processes and finalizing steps running. On top of those duties, her experiences as a more senior mod have meant sometimes on top of masterlist work she has contributed to design approval feedback, prompt feedback, questing feedback, and honestly there isn't much AV did not have some contribution to in the group during her time with us. When we transitioned to the World of Eyre site it's safe to say AV was what made it possible for us to have such thorough records of ownership histories, and she helped with most of the double checking of elnin data and entries imported to the site prior to its launching. It's safe to say the site would not be where it is today without her. So we're extending a big thanks to her. She has been an incredible mod and we can only be understanding and supportive as she gets some more free time to pursue things she may have put on hold for the group's sake in past years.

Shifting Roles

Prior to AV's departure from the team, we shifted some roles around a little. Alongside Sharky who has helped with masterlist task and guide updates in the past, our moderators FruitCrepe and wintry-chan have stepped up in recent months to help try to fill some of the big shoes AV is leaving behind. They have been doing a fantastic job. Fruit and Wintry are still helping the design approvals team, their jobs now extend to cover some finalizing steps both on that front and a few others.

New Moderator Staff Incoming!

As of this month, we've officially hired 3 new Prompt Moderators and 3 new Design Approval Moderators. We're hoping this will enable our teams to tackle the new quests and many design updates we're expecting to see in this coming year!

Please welcome these individuals to our staff!

  • Mild-arts, Nalico, and Strabi have joined our Prompt team!
  • Afrielzi, Becci, and Cynder are the new members of our Design Approvals team!

We're very excited to have them on board and we hope the community will be too. While we have onboarded them now, training and getting them up to speed on our internal workflows will be a task left for February. Their joining us in January should give them some time to get to know the existing moderator team during this quiet period and shadow any very limited work moderators may opt to do during break if they wish.

Reminders and Warnings about Soliciting and Trading Designs

We've posted some of these reminders in the past, but it has come to our attention that some users have been approaching people about buying/swapping their elnin when these owners have made no inclination that they have any desire to part with their elnin designs. We have also received multiple reports about users being approached with trades that break the group's TOS and Adopts TOS.

This is a reminder that users should not be harassing people about buying/swapping their elnin, or guilt tripping anyone at all. Users found in excess of this harassment may have their incoming trading privileges temporarily suspended, and if reports persist there will be heavier consequences. We put out public reminders and warnings like this as a first step to let people know that we're noticing these types of activities occurring, and if they are the ones taking these actions that they need to stop immediately. It is not ok. In general, if we see a single report of unwelcome behavior in the group or rule breaking, we may assume a reminder is needed to bring awareness to areas of the group in case some individuals may have forgotten our rules.

If we see multiple reports of actions persisting, even after public reminders, we will have to take further action. By that point we would've given users ample opportunities to refresh their knowledge of the rules, and will begin to enforce them. The group is not responsible for its members being made aware of the rules. Links to these rules and terms are accessible on the website, and are almost always linked alongside our events and sales. A lack of familiarity and awareness of the rules is not an excuse and warnings will be given accordingly if needed.

This is our second public reminder relative to these topics. We heavily recommend group members re-familiarizing themselves with the group's rules, etiquette, and policies.

These can be found at the following pages:

  1. Group Terms of Service
  2. Community Rules & Etiquette Guidelines
  3. Adopts Terms of Service

If someone has been harassing you about trading/swapping your elnin, please send the moderators a ticket with the details so that we can look into it. In the situation where a user has an older elnin and doesn't have a WoE account, you can send us a note to our Modberry account on DeviantArt instead.

We also want to mention that retaliation towards community members for not wanting to trade their elnin, or at those who've felt uncomfortable enough they had to report someone else's behaviors in the first place, is not ok. Please respect the decisions of others. Harassment in a retaliatory way is not tolerated here and there will be consequences for those types of actions as well. We are sorry this has to be said but we have unfortunately received enough reports that it is necessary.

An Update to Bonded MYOs

We wanted to include a mention here that when bonded MYOs were released, we stated that group members could not redeem a second bonded MYO (of the same type, either EC or SC) for 12 months after the last was claimed. We're now adjusting this to align more with how Special Quests can be done, where we will no longer be keeping track of the time between claim submissions, and just stating that you can purchase one bonded MYO of each type (One for EC and one for SC) each annual year.

So the ability to claim bonded MYOs will now reset with the end of the year wrapping up. This means as of January 1st, 2024 at 12:00am PST time you can submit a claim for bonded MYOs within the year of 2024. We hope this update makes it smoother for users as well as staff with a little less time tracking involved!

Some Trait Updates

In preparation for some future changes to the group, primarily looking more at subtypes and eventually hybrid elnin, some traits are being renamed to keep things clearer as new traits and terminology are introduced.

Traits and Mutations being renamed, some with more adjustments than others:
  • Hybrid Tails will be placed under the "Overwild" tail style umbrella under a "Furred" variant.
    • For now, this is just an adjustment and a rename, but we are still getting clarification if users will be able to edit their Overwild (Furred) tails into Overwild (Aquatic) ones and vice versa.
    • This change is to avoid this tail style from being confused with hybrid mentions in the future that relate more to the hybridization of elnin with subtype traits.
  • Hybrid Crowns (2MP, 4MP, and 5MP crown styles) will have their crown style renamed to "Compound".
    • This change is to avoid certain crowns from being confused as having a subtype restriction when we start to clarify info on hybrid elnin in the future where hybrid refers to subtype related traits.
  • Sleek ears will now be called Pointed ears, to have a name that reads solidly opposite to the Rounded ear mutation.
General Trait Guide Changes:

(The following pages either needed updates to align with the above changes or they were grossly out of date compared to the trait entries themselves. So we've opted to ensure information has shifted to our trait entries. It is worth noting given Modcation is happening some examples are linked and the "Trait Examples" are all placeholders. This is not a bug. It's just very time consuming to crop and add examples so that will be a future QoL endeavor.)

  • Tail Guidelines and Crown Guidelines are now on their trait entries.
  • The Tail Guide Overview page has been removed.
  • The Crown Guide Overview page has been removed.
  • Our Elnin Anatomy Guide now links to entries more directly in these areas, and the crown size graphic has been added to this page.
There are still a handful of guide updates we need to make based on conversations surfacing in discord, such as:
  • Updates to include more elnin aging info and details about kittoms on our lore page.
  • Refining language and visual guides for decora anima and how it interacts with other mutations.
  • Clarifying some additional lore on the elnin lore page about corrupted anima shards and the role elnin play in being the caretakers of Eyre's mana systems almost everywhere. (These bits we intend to link to on related quest acts for added background.)
  • And more...

Unfortunately, we just haven't had time to really refine language and what needs to go where. December was a busier month than expected along with some staff traveling or having some real life things take priority. We apologize for the delay but at this time it may just take us a bit longer to get everything into place. We're still trying to stick to release timelines for other aspects that have been long planned, but quality of life updates are never ending so we try to slip them in where we can.

Questing Updates
Special Quest submissions from 2023!

Due to modcation, Special Quests submitted towards the end of 2023 that required edits may experience a delay in feedback since the moderator team will be out for the remainder of January. Edits to Special quests from 2023 must still be submitted in January on the submitter's side.

Usually we would aim to have all special quests wrapped up entirely by the end of January, meaning any back and forth feedback from the moderator and users' sides would entirely be sent within the month of January. Since staff will not return until February this means users already have more time this January than they normally would to make the edits. In a normal year we would expect no edits be made last minute, since if back and forth was needed in a normal year, mods would be doing those steps during that month. Last minute submissions would give the team no time to give feedback and work through things during that 1 month of forgiveness time for corrections, resulting in the special quest rolling over to the following year because fixes may be still needed in February.

In general, we're still encouraging users to try to submit their act fixes sooner this January, even if more time is being given due to the staff being out. This year we'll be aiming to wrap up all special quest submissions that need edits by the end of February, so be sure to make any requested edits to 2023 Special Quest acts within January and resubmit your claim before 11:59pm on January 31st. If any claims are resubmitted in February, we will consider the special quest submission to roll over and be considered a part of 2024. This is done with the intent to avoid a long drawn out several months long process for approving any special quests that were intended to be a part of the prior year.

Two new Special Quests have been added to the site!

Unlike our last round of quest updates where they were more focused on mutations, these two quests do have some specific requirements relative to the base MP of some traits before the quest rewards can be applied.

A few things worth highlighting:

  1. The new quests will appear on the Quest Directory page. If you're curious about them you can read more there!
  2. While these are Special Quests, these two specifically have a relationship with the MP value of an elnin's tail or crown and have some requirements related to those MP values that must be met before traits can be applied.
    • The Overwild Tail quest will require an elnin have a 4MP tail prior to the upgrade reward from this quest to be applied, but if your tail style is lower than 4MP, you can pay the difference to upgrade it to 4MP prior to applying this quest.
    • The Compound Crown quest requires an elnin to have a crown, it does not add one for free, and this quest will always add +1MP to the base crown currently present. If you want a higher Compound crown style then we recommend when you go to apply this reward that you pay to upgrade the base crown to a higher tier.

Reiterating some other helpful details to know about these Special Quests since it's been a while since we last added some:

  • These quests should not be compared to resonance quests in terms of workload, as they relate to more limited traits not typically accessible through resonance.
  • These quests will be available year round, and they will not require you to spend AP, but they might require you to upgrade your elnin's tail or crown in order to apply the quest reward.
  • The number of acts required to do these quests will be comparable to the number of prompts you would typically do to acquire other more limited traits or mutations, with an additional piece required beyond the standard amount.
  • These trait quests will generally reward an additional 1 AP (Any Region) that users can put towards other goals they have for a character. While these two quests are not mutations, we kept this bonus to a character-tied currency to match their mutation counterparts.
  • The number of times users can do a certain Special Quest will be limited on an annual basis. This may be adjusted later, but for now this approach seems to be working.
    • We will be counting this based on when the original quest claim is submitted. So if you submit a quest claim in 2025, it would count towards that year's annual limits, even if your acts were completed or submitted in 2024. There will be no exceptions on this, so please be mindful of when you submit your claims! At the start of the year there is about a month we allow for Special Quests to be entirely wrapped up. January 2024 will be a bit weird due to modcation (see info above).
  • Quests now exist for the following traits: Overwild (Aquatic or Furred) Tail styles and Compound crown styles.

All the new quests have been added for now, so users will be able to start working on them. Please give moderators at least a month after modcation to review quests submitted to the Special Quest category. We expect that approvals for these quests may take a bit. While we won't be aiming for these approvals to take a whole month, we don't want these approvals to compete too much with our regular monthly prompt approvals in terms of time commitments.

Addressing concerns about vague acts

With the addition of these new quests, we want to recognize feedback we have recently received that some acts are feeling difficult to respond to due to how vague and generic they are written. Prompts and acts being more generic or open ended at times has been an intentional choice within the group, as these are starting points for creative writing. The group does not expect prompts or acts to write and personalize characters for group members. By leaving them on the more vague side, our hope is that despite a generic prompt users have more room to delve into why their characters are there on their own. The elnin may take the journey, but what they get out of it is up to their owners.

As staff, we will take a hard look at trying to do quality of life updates to quests throughout 2024 to provide additional questions that group members can ruminate on and help with this process without limiting user's characters to the same reasons for doing a quest and ending up where they do in each act. We hope these efforts to existing prompts over time will allow group members to expand upon their writing or the angles in which they think about their characters and the experiences those characters have instead.

If group members feel that there is a lack of balance between written and drawn prompts, please recognize that both drawing and writing are options. Neither option requires anyone to be the best writer or artist to complete the base requirements. We do not require submissions to be purely digital drawings, and drawings on paper that are photographed or scanned are also options! Which option is better or worse, or easier or harder, is a very subjective area. Some individuals in our group will write more or less, and some artists will draw faster or slower. Ultimately it's up to you to choose what works for you and work within what the group has decided the balance to be.

If one option appears easier to a group member, we highly recommend pursuing that option, but subjective statements about how easy it is without actually doing that option could diminish what is a harder task for others who are doing that option with difficulty at times. We have many individuals in our group that have hit our word count cap many times over, and we can tell that, for them, that option may seem easier than drawing. We will not be adjusting word counts on acts to be lower for a number of reasons, which we outline a bit more in the section below. The things covered in this section are just a few of those reasons.

A Not so Brief History About Written Prompts and Acts

We weren't originally planning on going over this for this news update, but it is something we feel is worth clarifying because this history isn't one we've really discussed before. It might shed some light on the group's stance on where writing sits in the group and how we've balanced some things, as well as why we will not be adjusting word counts on prompts but other changes we'll look into.

Way back in the dawn of Eyre, written prompts were not an option that got certain bonuses and for the most part these prompts did not exist in the group aside from very few entries. There were a few side events that delved into flavorful text entries, but they were usually side one-off things that happened in a year, and not intended to come up as regularly. Some early prompts did have a written option but it was always less balanced with variable word counts, and initially very lacking in the ability to earn bonuses.

The fact that written prompts eventually saw a more structured regular option with full bonus opportunities was largely due two things:

  1. An uptick in expressed interest from the community in written prompts
  2. Some early proposals from staff joining the team years ago who also enjoyed writing and were willing to put in the time to review written prompts.

Our overall outlook was very different back when prompts were only posted every few months, instead of monthly, and things like questing didn't exist. Mana ok'd the staff's proposal to have more regular written prompt bonuses and some attempts were made to include them. Base EC earnings and bonuses as well as requirements fluctuated greatly in the early years. There was little to no consistency and a lot of experimentation both by Mana, and later, the team in the years between early 2016 and mid 2018.

It wasn't until mid 2018 that prompts started to become more consistent in requirements, but the bonuses and balance still felt a bit off. This was later revised in 2021 after Questing specifications had been released and that system had been reworked once. At that point, we could better grasp what Prompts vs. Questing might look like, and the ways in which they could be aligned and the ways in which they wouldn't, because their requirements, needs, and surrounding expectations varied.

A Vague Outline of Prompts and Variables Over the Years
  • 2016 July - 2018 February Prompts
    • Base EC Earnable: Varied between 2EC - 6EC
    • Bonus EC Earned varied between 2EC - 4EC
    • At times multiple submissions were allowed for lower value prompts.
    • Drawn submissions required everything from just only the elnin to someone else's elnin with or without a background, other Berry Bazaar CS or Elseworlders or gijinka forms.
    • Written submissions required at their base anywhere from 500 -1200 words at times. Bonus word requirements required prompts to hit anywhere from 1200 - 2000 words total to count, depending on the prompt.
  • 2018 March - 2021 June Prompts
    • Base EC Earnable: 6EC
    • Drawn submissions required the elnin and either a second elnin or background generally. Bonuses were: Background +2EC OR Including another Berry Bazaar CS/Elseworlder +2EC.
    • Written submissions required 600 words. A bonus was allowed but it required 1200 words for +2EC.
  • 2019 Questing was Introduced
    • Drawn submissions per act required the elnin and a full background. Mini-requirements submissions drawn separately were just the elnin, partial backgrounds accepted if included at all.
    • Written submissions per act required 1000 words. Mini-requirements written separately were 300 words.
  • 2021 July - Present
    • Systems were re-evaluated.
    • For drawn prompt submissions, there was no change. An elnin and background were required.
    • For written prompt submissions, the base word count was kept at 600 words, but the bonus was lowered to 900 words.
    • For drawn quest act submissions, there was no change. An elnin and background were required (give or take extra elnin dependent on if you're questing for a kittom or not).
    • For written quest act submissions, the base word count was lowered to 900 words.
    • Mini-requirements drawn separately saw no change. (Historically these requirements were intended to be a part of the 900 words in Acts, and many people still include them. Doing them separately is intentionally 300 words because it's another submission to review.)
    • Monthly Regular Prompts were introduced and don't require drawing elnin but generally "bonus" portions of content (ie. Drawn background or 300 words.)

Currently the balance introduced back in July 2021, is a balance we are content with. Adjusting some of our newer quests' base word count requirements would mean we have to revise questing page wording across the board to make distinctions between types of quests (Resonance and Special) that we feel reintroduce potential confusion. Additionally, while we have introduced many Special Quests, there are likely to be future quests that may be more involved in terms of requirements and bonuses that we might ask to be included. This would potentially come up with quests for subtype elnin or occupational training on combat or magic.

Historically, you can tell there were a lot of iterations in what things got changed between currencies awarded, base requirements, bonus requirements, whether written works received the same treatment as drawn art, etc. We understand that currently things may seem a bit lopsided with one very involved quest that has lots of act options (Resonance) and other quests that are a lot more restricted and have very specific paths and goals (Special Quests). Our aim is to not make changes that result in more changes in the future that require back-tracking and varying things further. Keeping things consistent, so we don't need to update as many guidelines overall across many sections of different pages, is what is enabling us to tackle these projects. So we hope for some understanding on why we're deciding not to change things again now.

Artificial Intelligence Recap and General Warning

In this news post we were also hoping not to have to cover this, but it's apparent that there is still some presence of AI use in written prompts in the group. After about 3 months of looking at prompts and acts, including those before that prompted that initial news mention, a chunk of prompts have stood out as sharing numerous word choice similarities despite being written by several different users. It's frustrating for our team in good faith to clarify that AI should not be used in the group to replace one's own efforts. Yes, it can be assistive at times but it's to the point where it's very clear from the redundancy of phrases AI writing predominantly likes to use, that some group members are using assistive technology to speed up prompt writing in ways we have asked members not to.

We review a lot of prompt submissions, many of which are very clearly well written with diverse language and a lot of character inspiration behind them, and we are sure that to a degree AI is used in these prompts to spell check or help with grammar. Spelling and grammar assistance are considered appropriate uses of AI tools relative to the group. That said, word choice and sentence formation is not considered appropriate use of AI relative to the group. Some of the submissions coming through that we have to review are reading as though autocorrect has suggested every other word. AI is using the same words and phrases over and over again, and it does not sound like a person wrote it.

It's easy to look at our quest acts and prompts and know they are vague. We acknowledge that we might see redundancy from users in an overall way because it's hard to reinvent the wheel without really digging into some additional questions. However, in the cases where AI use is too prominent, we're finding redundant phrases that have little to do with what the prompt's descriptions say the prompt is about, which is what we assume to be the underlying cause of redundancy in the average non-AI prompt submitted by group members.

We understand that there are a lot of group members that don't use AI this way, we still recognize that most of our submissions do not do this, but when we so blatantly see AI use in the group it's frustrating. We wish to be fair to those who have put in the time to refine their craft, be it drawn or written, and fear that users who turn to AI to do it for them diminishes the efforts of their peers.

If you are someone who is using AI in your work as more than just a translator or spell checker, and we continue to see the redundancy of phrases that AI tends to write, or writing in ways that don't feel human, we will approach with revision requests. Ultimately, we want to make it clear it brings us no joy to consider having to do this. In general, we try to be more relaxed on prompts and we will still try to where possible, but we've already seen so many submissions that feel definitively AI influenced that we are ready to start addressing AI submissions more directly. If you continue using AI, despite the group's policy not to, please expect a lot of feedback from us requesting substantial edits to future submissions. If you aren't using AI, please continue submitting written pieces as usual; the team will try our best to avoid false positives for AI.

If you have concerns that your submissions may be reading as AI due to the use of a translation tool, please submit a ticket with a google document to your untranslated content, and a link to the tool you have been using to translate your content as well as the name of that tool. We are mindful this could be an extra ask for those who do not use English as their first language, so we want to be extra clear that submitting a ticket is not a requirement, so don't feel a need to do this right away. You may still hear nothing from us in the future, but if you do and you suspect it's due to AI translation, we can work through it and cross compare tool options to see if there's a pattern. Doing this at that time would help not only you but also the community as a whole.

December Raffle 2023 Winners!

Posted 2 months ago :: Last edited 2 months ago by Starbask

The raffle winners for the December 2023 Premade Free Kittoms are:

#1 - Latte Hearts - Starbask
#2 - Snow pine tree - Kaethus
#3 - Yule Cat - CantaloupeTrash
#4 - Winter Lights - LadyPipen
#5 - Snow Owl - Nekoyang
#6 - Vanilla White Chai - Lizzara (This kittom as an outfit! Check dA notes please!)
#7 - Sweets by the fireplace - Shanyume
#8 - Sunlight in the Snow - Vontier
#9 - Diamond Dust - Keilin
#10 - Arctic Rabbit - Nyxilei
#11 - Paw De Deux - Orangeish
#12 - Wintertide - wintry-chan
#13 - Frosted Cranberries - katsuki
#14 - Frosty Mornings - Giz
#15 - Frostbitten Blooms - LizzyJun
#16 - The Spire - Casteds

FTO MYO Kittom winners:

Kittom MYO #1 - Carame_Candy
Kittom MYO #2 - jennie
Kittom MYO #3 - starimaga
Kittom MYO #4 - seiso_gremlin

Rolling took place in our discord #games_and_raffles channel today!

December Raffle 2023

Posted 3 months ago :: Last edited 2 months ago by Starbask

From now until the end of December, we're hosting a raffle for some FTO MYO and premade kittom prizes.

Please read below for additional info on how to enter and rules. Completing a required prompt will not automatically enter you for this raffle. You will need to submit a response to the appropriate google form, so please keep this in mind!

 


December 2023 Raffle Details

Eligibility:

  • To be entered into any raffle pools below, you must have completed a submission for the monthly prompt ([M-072] Endearing Exchanges) OR the monthly regular gift prompt for the month of December ([MR-002] Gift Giver).
  • This raffle will be rolled on January 7th, with an exact time pending!

Submission Process:

If your submission is soft-rejected, the mod who did so will explain the requirement you missed and you will need to fix it before re-submitting it. We will not be giving leeway for edits this month relative to the raffle. If your edits are not made and submitted before the 5th of January at 11:59pm PST, you will not be allowed to enter the raffle. The raffle form will close January 6th at 11:59pm PST.

  • Complete your prompt piece.
  • Submit your prompt piece to this prompt by 11:59pm on December 31st.
  • Once your entry is approved by a moderator on site please fill out the form for the raffle you are eligible to join:

    • 2023 December Raffle Form
      (Requires your prompt submission to be completed and approved for the monthly prompt, [M-072] Endearing Exchanges, OR the monthly regular gift prompt, [MR-002] Gift Giver!)

Prizes being Raffled:

Anyone who has completed a submission for [M-072] Endearing Exchanges, OR the monthly regular gift prompt, [MR-002] Gift Giver within the month of December 2023 can enter for the following prizes (just keep in mind the MYO prizes this time are for First Time Owners only):

  • x10 FTO Kittom MYO
    with the following guidelines:
    • A 3MP crown style or lower crown style
    • A 4MP tail style or lower
    • Two Common mutations (must be hereditary mutations with a region listed)
    • Two Uncommon mutations (must be hereditary mutations with a region listed)
    • One Exotic (or lower) mutation (must be hereditary mutations with a region listed)
    • Note for MYOs: Crown and tail styles must follow standard elnin options. Hybrid traits and sub-type traits are not available options.
  • x16 Premade seasonal kittoms!

December 2023 Raffle

Not a prize but a little treat, a few of these kittoms come with a little bit of flavor text...(yum)

  • #3 Yule Cat: A playful but mischievous kittom who loves pouncing in the freshly fallen snow. They love to hoard new socks and mittens, though no one knows why.
  • #11 Paw De Deux: You swear you hear a music box playing when you look at this kittom.
  • #15 Frostbitten: This kittom has braved the unforgiving snow and come out through the blizzard as a changed 'nin. No one but they know what lurks beyond the icy tundra...

Restrictions/Warnings:

  • First Time Owner is defined as never having owned an elnin ever before. If you have ever owned an elnin and have traded that design away, even if you do not own an elnin currently, you would not be considered a FTO! If you're unsure if you qualify or not, you can verify your status on your own user profile on WoE. A true FTO user will have the FTO tag in the top, right-hand corner of their user profile. Your account must also be verified (ex. Having a Deviantart account attached), and any account with the FTO tag but is unverified will not qualify!
  • Prizes will be raffled off to entrants, but each entrant can only win a max of 1 prize. The FTO MYOs will be rolled first, and then the premade seasonal kittoms.
    • (For example: If you are a FTO and win an MYO, you will not be eligible for the premade kittoms.)
    • You must be a first time owner to enter for any MYOs this event.
    • If there are less than 10 FTO entries, then the remaining FTO prizes will be rolled as part of a different raffle in the future.
  • If you win a FTO MYO prize (not a premade kittom), we will be following up via modberry note on dA with winners after this raffle is rolled to confirm how the winner wants to use their prize. If a response to the note sent is not given within 1 week (7 days), we will roll a new winner for that prize.
  • These prizes are considered free gifts, so these prizes will have zero added resale value.
  • The prizes themselves can't be traded, gifted, swapped, etc. until appropriate cooldowns have passed.
    • Keep in mind you absolutely may not trade this prize at all whether it's for art, under-the-table, etc. If you do not want a prize any longer, please submit a ticket on site and a masterlist moderator will remove it from your account and remove the related cooldown. (Specifics will be announced should this come up.)
    • If you are found attempting to trade a prize from this raffle prior to its application or cooldown being over, you will receive a warning and the prize will be removed from your account. If the prize is discovered to be part of any under-the-table trades after its use, both you and the other party will receive warnings. You can, of course, trade your elnin after the art is updated and cooldowns are over, but nothing should be part of a deal made prior to the application of the prize and cooldowns running their course.
    • Any group member found soliciting winners for their prizes will also be warned for doing so. If you win a prize and are approached by another group member to trade your prize, you are welcome to submit a ticket to the moderator team on site and we will handle it. We may take more severe actions than just a warning if a user is found to be persisting to solicit the same user or soliciting other winners. Please be kind to fellow group members. No one wants to be harassed for something they won.
  • Prizes in this group are free gifts. Any profiting or attempting to profit from them by way of trade is frowned upon and grounds for a warning. As users must enter themselves manually into these raffles, we will be taking this to mean you want the prize for yourself. Trading or attempting to trade implies otherwise and will not be tolerated as it is directly taking opportunities away from other community members that participated. Again, if you do not want the prize at a later time (before art is updated), you can always submit a ticket asking  for the MYO to be removed. At that time, a masterlist moderator will permanently remove the unused prize and any related trade/gift locks and associated cooldown.
  • These prizes have a 1 month cooldown!
  • Winning any of the above prizes will cause the new MYO (or elnin/kittom) to be temporarily unable to be sold/gifted/traded if the art is not complete.
    • So for MYO prizes, those must have their art done and only then, once art is updated, will the 1 month cooldown be applied to that elnin. This cooldown starts when the design update art is finished and approved by the moderator team via design updates.
    • For premade kittom prizes, the cooldown would start once the kittom is sent to the raffle winner's account.
  • Additional Guidelines:
    • Please do not contact artists relative to the premade free raffle kittoms! Thank you.
    • No co-ownership
    • All designs may only be traded for other berry-bazaar CS/gifted after their specified cooldown.
    • These designs cannot be turned into the sanctuary.
    • Cooldowns start once winners are rolled and confirmed.
  • Prompt entries must be submitted by December 31st, 11:59pm PST.
  • If your prompt entry has been soft-rejected, the fixed entry must be resubmitted by January 4th, 11:59pm PST at the latest. After your prompt is approved, you may enter the form.
  • Entries that miss either of these deadlines are not eligible for the prizes. No extensions, no exceptions.
  • If you fear you may have somehow entered the raffle form twice by accident (via being signed in through another family member's account or some other means), please submit a ticket! The form will be limited to 1 response per google account, so if we see names appearing twice, we will reach out via modberry prior to January 6th at 11:59pm PST time. If we do not get a prompt response before the time the prizes are raffled on January 7th, then any names found to have entered more than once will be entirely removed, both the initial entry and the duplicate entry. Email receipts are also on for this raffle, so be sure to check your email and junk mail too as an additional check to make sure form submissions go through! If you don't get an email or see an edit option when returning to the form page you can submit a ticket at that time to see if our team can check.

 

A bit about this raffle:

The group hasn't done many FTO prizes this year so we've added some here. There will not be any free-for-all MYOs this raffle since our last event had quite a few that were open to anyone to enter. There will be many other opportunities for free-for-all raffles in the future, and the premade kittoms for this raffle are ones anyone can try for this time around. ^^b

December and 2024 Ahead

Posted 3 months ago :: Last edited 3 months ago by Starbask

Happy December everyone! I'll be covering our plans for December and maybe a light mention of some reminders and plans for the New Year.

The 2023 Feyhallow Raffle

We are still getting information for winners of certain prizes and distributing participation prizes. We are hoping to have everything distributed or detailed out in the next few days here. We want to thank everyone for their patience until then!

A Winter Raffle

For users who participate in either [M-072] Endearing Exchanges or [MR-002] Gift Giver prompts this month, you'll have the opportunity to enter for some free raffle kittoms this miasma season. Maybe a bit of good will will rub off on you!

More details about this raffle will come sometime this upcoming week on how you can enter and what kittoms will be available. Doing at least 1 of the prompts mentioned above will be needed, but doing more than one prompt will not grant additional entries. It will be 1 entry per person!

Winter Modcation

As mentioned in a previous news post, the moderator team will be taking a break this winter season as the holidays get nearer. Below we'll outline the rough plan for the upcoming weeks!

  • December 18th-31st: This will be a slow period for moderator staff.  Please don't ask about turnaround times during this window as this is included within the expected "break" time the mod team is receiving. (The same goes for the first week of January noted below.)
  • January 1st-7th: The Moderator staff will be focusing on getting feedback out for December prompts and Special Quests. Ideally if any edits are needed to prompts or acts, they will be made at this time and we'll address things that are resubmitted after Modcation is over.
  • January 8th-31st: Moderators will not be expected to work during this time frame. Users can still submit prompts and design approvals, etc. but please do not ask about turnaround times during this window as well. Staff may choose to work if they desire but it won't be a required thing. We want to make sure the whole team has a well deserved break.
  • February 1st-4th: Moderators will be slowly coming back. Responses may be slow during this time period but we'll be looking to get back to things at a more regular pace the following week.

The Winter Raffle is planned to be rolled early January after all of the December prompts have been reviewed and approved. (Quests/Acts are not included in this.)

PG-13 Content and Some Lore Clarifications

It seems like this has come up a bit more topically this month on several fronts, but we wanted to put out a reminder that this is a PG-13 group. This goes for content that surfaces on-site and in our discord. Due to elnin being adorable fluffy little residents of Eyre, they may have a draw towards younger audiences, and so we're aware that our content needs to be appropriate for younger ages. This is what Manaberri expects as well! We know there are many group members that are adults and interested in more mature content, but we want to be clear that this should not be depicted in prompts and official group spaces.

Mature Content Off-Site

While we do not moderate content off-site, we also ask group members to be considerate of how they're publicly depicting characters from this group in other spaces when it comes to more mature content. If you can tag your content as explicit if it might go beyond PG-13 in other non-official spaces, that would be appreciated. We just want to try to avoid anyone stumbling into anything explicit that they didn't expect to view/read when this group comes to mind, because we're just not that kind of group. There are plenty of private communities and spaces to explore content above PG-13, but we strongly request group members to be mindful of what goes out on the internet.

A Bit About Kittoms

It was brought to our attention recently that we may need to refresh the group's understanding of kittoms and lore surrounding them. Kittoms are considered to always be children in terms of physical and mental age. Size-wise, in gijinka form, kittoms sit about hip height at their tallest when compared to even the smallest of adult elnin, and they are even shorter if an adult elnin standing next to them is on the taller end. (View the elnin size-guide here.) Kittoms do not have a teenage phase or around early adulthood romantic exploration sort of phase like you might see among humans. There should be no romantic relationships for kittoms or any implied physical/sexual relationship depictions for kittoms in this group. That does not fit the PG-13 standard the group has, as it would be viewed as depicting a romantic relationship between children, or an adult and child in alternate cases. It's worth mentioning kittoms can still be very close friends, but the meaning behind "I like you" between kittoms as something like a childhood crush would be considered as the friendly sort of like, not a romance that starts to dive into more adult themes/dating.

We're bringing this up because we had some questions asked privately about kittoms on this front. Some people were curious about where they sit in terms of things like physical and mental age, and trying to figure out what's appropriate to portray. When growth occurs in kittoms, they experience a steep growth in both physical aspects, like mana, as well as mental maturity. It's not as gradual as some people may have been thinking it was, and to be clear, even if a kittom has lived many many years, they are not a several hundred year old adult stuck in a kittom's body. Their mental maturity would still remain child-like until they experience growth. Actual age has very little to do with it!

We want to be clear that no one is barred from depicting friendship between kittoms, or adult elnin looking out for kittoms to make sure they are safe, but we expect those types of relationships to not be romantic or sexual in nature. Group members are not restricted from ideating about what two grown elnin might be doing with their lives in the future, but as long as a kittom is a kittom on WoE and being used in these spaces, they need to be treated as children.

We suspect some time in the shift of resources to the WoE website years ago, some of these details about kittom lore may have been left behind in some old side posts. We'll be looking to add these bits of information on kittoms to our lore page, but for now it felt relevant to clear up in light of these recent questions and observations in the group. If you want romance between elnin, please keep it PG in group prompts and only between adult elnin.

Relative to Depictions of Gore and Death

Currently, this is a space that could use a bit more fleshing out lore-wise. At this time, we'd like to request content (art or written, etc.) depicting gore or death of elnin be kept private. There's a lot that Mana needs to get down on paper relative to how these types of things work as far as elnin go. They're essentially mana constructs, so how blood and death may be experienced could differ from our experiences on earth. At this time, since we don't know what's canon and what's not in these areas, these works should not be publicly posted in official spaces at this time. Also, we are not certain about what may go beyond PG-13 at times, so until some clarification and lore can be noted down officially, these are areas that will just have to be avoided or explored in an unofficial sense off-site and in private.

Relative to the Darker and Sketchier Parts of Eyre

Theft/swindling is about the only sketchy more casual activity confirmed in Eyre that staff might expect to see in prompts at this time. Miasma poisoning/mana flaw stuff does exist, and it is hard on elnin in terms of health, but even that hasn't been expanded upon or encouraged outside of specific mutations and questlines. We've still tried to keep things fairly light when we can.

We know there's been light discussions of things like contraband but depictions of severing body parts of elnin (even hair) illegally, or slavery or trafficking of elnin/kittoms/other races in Eyre is not something that the group is okay with having depicted in prompts. We understand maybe there are gruesome stories group members want to tell out there, but this is not the place to do so. As a group, we're not policing negative personality traits that might aid in some character growth, but darker subject matter that reflects heavier more, earthly topics like death, abuse, etc. shouldn't be a common thing we see coming through prompts.

The team does not want to be forced to review this subject matter and things that may breach the expected PG-13 rating of content submitted to this site. Consider not just other group members that might stumble upon this content on our site, but also our staff that have to read through this or see it day in and day out. No one knows what anyone has been through in their lifetime. Being interested in darker themes to the point of potentially harming peers or wanting to discuss heavy and dark topics through art is not appropriate here. This group is intended to be a creative and predominantly positive space. Eyre does have its dark alleys and aspects, but Mana has been pretty careful historically not to be on the nose on most darker topics. Yes, it's a bit fun to hear about how elnin are different, but even in that there's a recognition that it's just not a common thing.

Sorry if this section has come across as a bit heavy in itself, but as a group, we really hope to not have to discuss boundary pushing in these areas like we have had to here. Being a sensitive subject, we wouldn't want any potential trauma to surface for anyone, even if no one is intending to. It forces us to be more serious than we like to be in the group.

Looking Forward to 2024

On a lighter note, there are a lot of things we're hoping to dive into in the new year. Things we're hoping to work on and release in 2024.

  • Some new faces on staff
  • A few more trait quests
  • Tackling some of the remaining subtypes that have yet to be released
  • Working through hybrid elnin and how they work in the group
  • If the above things can be accomplished, we're hoping to get back to elnin breedings in some form, though this will not likely happen in the spring since it is heavily contingent on working through some of the things listed above.
  • More fun raffles and activities in the next year

We're excited about a lot of the things on this list, but it will take time. The above list reflects our goals, but it is not a promise that everything on the list will happen for sure if things come up. As usual too, there's always a few quality of life tasks mixed in, so timelines are a bit uncertain, but above is our initial roadmap! As always, we appreciate the support and patience as we work through adding on and improving aspects of the group.

Feyhallow 2023

Posted 4 months ago :: Last edited 4 months ago by Starbask

Feyhallow has begun! Check it out!

Bellmoril's Bounty

The main event post can be found here!

The post contains info about what sales will be happening and there's additional info about other things happening right now too.

Such as a spooky puzzle where you can follow the adventure of a few kittoms~

Come join us for some chilling fun in Bellmoril this year. ^^

Starfall Faire Raffle 2023 Winners!

Posted 5 months ago :: Last edited 5 months ago by Starbask

The raffle for this year's Starfall seasonal raffle has concluded, and our winners are:

MYO/Growth/Upgrade Winners:

1. Noble : Nalico
2. Adventurer: missdevichi
3. Adventurer: Ayxoi
4. Adventurer: synicals
5. Kittom: Knife
6. Kittom: Alterial
7. Kittom: Keilin
8. Kittom: Strabi
9. Kittom: northfarer

--------------

Mutation Winners:

1. High Tier Limited (Bonded): Mewwsic
2. High Tier Limited (Bonded): Shadonut
3. High Tier Limited (Bonded): SmolPeep
4. High Tier Limited (Bonded): MewWolf
5. High Tier Limited (Bonded): Alibastar
6. High Tier Limited: CandyChameleon
7. High Tier Limited: Najishio
8. High Tier Limited: Milim
9. High Tier Limited: Casteds
10. High Tier Limited: Becci
11. Lower Tier Limited (Bonded): wander
12. Lower Tier Limited (Bonded): goomy-king
13. Lower Tier Limited (Bonded): ShinPurple
14. Lower Tier Limited (Bonded): ceruleansblue
15. Lower Tier Limited (Bonded): binghu
16. Lower Tier Limited: tara-elani
17. Lower Tier Limited: Katsuki
18. Lower Tier Limited: emacodo
19. Lower Tier Limited: Nekoyang
20. Lower Tier Limited: bisflorescentia
21. Exotic: Erilidae
22. Exotic: adgerelli
23. Exotic: Wila
24. Exotic: ghostaris
25. Exotic: KelpiePie
26. Rare: osteoh
27. Rare: SYLSYL12
28. Rare: umbral-wind
29. Rare: 404msg
30. Rare: Llew
31. Rare: blankshi
32. Rare: wolvesstrife
33. Rare: ForonGur
34. Rare: Yumehaeya
35. Rare: Giz
36. Uncommon: Kloana
37. Uncommon: Chickolates
38. Uncommon: DearRyufur
39. Uncommon: Malis
40. Uncommon: jahpan
41. Uncommon: BlackMajixCat
42. Uncommon: Vontier

DA notes have been sent out to the raffle winners for the MYO/Growth/Upgrade slots! The mutation winners will see those mutations added under each specified elnin's note tab in the next 24 hours or so!

Rolling took place in our discord #games_and_raffles channel today.

Anyone who didn't win a prize has received the 8 EC participation prize! Thank you everyone for your participation in this year's Starfall Faire Seasonal raffle!

Late September Update!

Posted 5 months ago :: Last edited 5 months ago by Starbask

We're almost through the month of September. So we're popping in with a few reminders and updates!

Starfall Faire Activities

The activities for Starfall Faire this year are still ongoing. You can read more about them in the news post here, but we wanted to mention word search 1 has a typo. The search itself says "festivites" but the key reads the correct spelling "festivities" so there's a missing letter "i" in the search itself. If you circle "festivites" it should be fine.

Masterlist Art Accessory Clarifications

Recently there's been a bit of confusion internally about costs associated with accessories being added later on to approved base art. This is an area we've clarified once in the past, but recently have realized there was still a bit of ambiguity in the language surrounding accessories and outfits. Unfortunately, this has led to a few users being charged for accessories being added to base art that should have been part of a one time "free" allowance.

We've granted a few users back EC that they were incorrectly charged for the single time free allowance recently, but we recognize we may have missed others. If you believe you've been wrongly charged for an accessory addition in the past and not seen any sort of a refund, please submit a ticket with a link to the relevant elnin and design approval where you were charged for the accessory, along with any info you can provide, and we'll double check if EC needs to be granted back to you. Please note this is only applicable if you submitted the design approval yourself, and the elnin is currently in your ownership!

The recent confusion surrounding these costs has also led our team to discuss some different scenarios, like if the one-time allowance applies to an elnin for the rest of its time. For example, if an elnin's gone through other revisions over the years that were paid, is the allowance still considered limited to the first time it was done years ago, or is there ever a case we'd allow other accessories be added for free? With that in mind, we've adjusted the language slightly to add a bit more flexibility for small accessories between paid edits. Consecutive accessory edits will still have a cost to value review time and avoid abuse (we're opting for this approach over a time gate), but there should be a little more opportunity if someone's revisiting an old design to add an accessory on after the fact for no cost if they forgot to initially.

Regional Affinity Reminder for Prompts

We've been bumping into more prompts missing enough regional features or language lately, or cases where elnin are covering up more than half of the background so features are difficult to see. If anyone has had a prompt kicked back in recent months for missing enough regional specific features or elnin obscuring too much of the background, please be sure to revisit our Regional AP guide page. That page goes into detail about art and written guidelines for earning AP. Thanks for your patience and willingness to work with us in this space!

Prompt Rule Clarifications and Problems with Artificial Intelligence

This month we've been looking to clarify the group's stance on artificial intelligence (AI), as it relates to work submitted to the group. We'll also be covering some general expectations within the group that have been around a while.

The topic of AI hasn't been talked about much in an official context, so we're doing that now. As of this news update, we’ve added language to the group's TOS and a few other prompt-related areas on the site to be more explicit that AI should not be directly used in the creation of prompts submitted on site. These additions reinforce existing language that work must be your own. (Additions to several areas in this news post will be in bold.)

The World of Eyre Terms of Service states:

  • Your Content must be your own and must not be infringing on any third party's rights. World of Eyre reserves the right to remove any of Your Content from this Website at any time, and for any reason, without notice. Work of any kind directly produced through the use of Artificial Intelligence is not accepted in this group. This includes slight modifications to work produced by AI.

The Community Guidelines state:

  • Do not trace, copy, reupload, or otherwise steal another artist's work
  • Do not plagiarize, copy, or repurpose another writer's written material
  • Do not use direct output from generative AI for works submitted to this group (excluding translation tools)
  • Do not heavily reference another person's art in order to create your piece. Even if it's not strictly traced, lifting the whole composition, color scheme, poses, or the like would still be against the rules

General Prompt Guidelines will now include the following note:

  • Prompt submissions must be your own work, and cannot be commissioned, collaborated, or completed with the assistance of artificial intelligence. The only exception to the use of AI is for the use of translations (ex. Translating a written prompt initially written in French into English).

And Prompt Specific Guidelines state:

  • Please only submit newly created art. Please do not submit commissioned works or previously-created art or art done on reused bases.
  • Collab pieces are not allowed for prompt submissions.
  • All submissions must be your own work. Works produced through the use of artificial intelligence are not accepted in this group.

Based on those guidelines and our recent additions, AI should not be used in the group to replace the efforts taken to create art and/or writing within this group. Please treat AI as a tool if used and use it responsibly. We just want to be extra clear on what expectations are for this group. Prompts must be drawn or written by you. They should not be created through collaboration with other group members or through the use of AI or via commission. All prompt art should be newly created and not traced or recycled. Commissions are not gifts, and art trades where users are obligated to finish "their half" are not gifts. We understand it's different if you want to reciprocate by giving gift art to others who have kindly done gift art for you in the past, but gift art should never be discussed as a trade of any kind. Please keep the good will in gifting!

We also want to be clear that we understand there are times when AI is a tool and being used as one to help people out. We know some users in our group use translation tools (that are likely AI) to take something they've written with their own hands and get it translated to English so it can be reviewed by our team. This use case is fine, since individuals are still writing the prompts and translation is not the type of AI we're worried about. We also know some people like referencing images, and as a group we recommend using sites where users can verify they are allowed to reference those images without infringing on any copyrights. This goes for AI too.

If you're using AI to help ideate compositions, absolutely do not trace any reference (AI or otherwise), but in good faith try to verify where certain sites or tools are sourcing their image data from. Make sure it is ethically sound. We do not condone infringing upon other people's copyrights or seeing other artists hurt by this movement. We also want to reiterate that while you can use AI to help you with ideating something (as long as it is done in good faith), any image or writing containing any amount of direct output from generative AI should be treated as personal and would not be allowed to be submitted to the WoE site as submissions.

Please note: these rule clarifications do not apply to prompts that have already been submitted to the WoE site at the time of this posting, including those that are still awaiting feedback or approval. If submissions created directly through generative AI have been approved in the past, this does not condone the use of AI-generated content moving forward.

Feyhallow 2023

Planning for Feyhallow is underway! This year, we plan to have the event run throughout November and there will be some guest artist sales as a part of this event. We also would like to do a myo/trait/mutation raffle for the broader community outside of sales during the Feyhallow event. (Entry requirements are still being determined for the raffle part of this event.)

A few notable details about this year's Feyhallow sales:

  • This Feyhallow's sales will be kittom-focused.
  • There will be two standard kittom sales and a subtype kittom sale (which will include faenin and djinnin subtype kittoms).
  • All sales will be flatsale raffles (flaffles).
  • The subtype kittom flaffle will be the first flaffle (earlier in November/within the first half of the month).
  • Standard kittom pricing will not exceed $100, and subtype kittom pricing will not exceed $375.
  • Artists are allowed to do payment plans, but not required to. (Some artists may do them, while others may not.)
  • The event overview post will go live early November with design name and pricing details, as well as payment plan info (if applicable).
  • Some of the standard kittoms may sport more limited mutations typically only available during special quests or patreon sales.
  • Standard kittoms will not sport any subtype traits or mutations.
  • There will be a cap of 1 kittom per user, so for example, if you end up winning a subtype kittom, you would not be eligible for the other kittom flaffles.

While we can't post all details currently since event work is in progress, we did want to give some advanced notice for anyone that's interested in subtype kittoms or standard kittoms and might want to save up!

Moderator News

Due to event planning, hiring of new moderators will be a bit delayed. The team needs to focus on wrapping up Starfall Faire 2023 as well as preparing for and running Feyhallow 2023. Onboarding new moderators while juggling the event planning and event itself in the next two months would be a lot, so we'll be circling back to hiring after the events have ended. Applications have been reviewed and we're confident we'll have time to properly onboard and train new moderators closer to the Winter months, hopefully around December or early next year.

In other news, the team will also be slowing down during the winter months for a well deserved break. Some staff are likely to have family obligations around that time and after back to back events (or planning) this fall, the team will need the rest time. We recognize if we onboard new staff around that time, it will be a bit slow for the new staff. That is intentional, aswe would rather be able to take the time to train new staff when the turnaround times are a little more relaxed.

As we get closer to December and the winter months, we'll include some more specific info on how long the break or slow period will be for, and give the community a stronger idea of when the team is back fully. While prompts will continue to run each month, we may still do small things, and quality of life work is still ongoing in the background, even with the events occurring. Patience in these upcoming months will be appreciated, since some mods will be encountering some of their real life job workloads increasing as the year starts to wrap up.