Hello everyone! We’re here with our next update mostly focused around Kittsunami and guesting opportunities in the future!

Kittsunami 2021

As many of you might have guessed there are some changes to Kittsunami this year. We’ve thought a lot about these changes as well as the scale and scope of this event as a whole.

Notable changes this year are:

1. We’ll have two “Pools” this year, a Primary (Limited) Pool and a Secondary (Unlimited) Pool.
   Rules for posting a pairing…
   1. To the Primary (Limited) Pool will be:
      • A user may enter a maximum of 4 times in this pool.
      • The 4 entries do not have to be separate elnin! A user can enter the same elnin, at the same time, more than once, but only up to a maximum of 4 times for the entire duration of the event.
      • Once a user has 4 entries submitted to this limited (primary) pool they cannot submit any more entries to this pool for the duration of the event, even if one of their other entries in this pool is picked. They may submit additional entries to the Secondary Pool as long as the elnin are not currently in any pairing in the Primary pool.
      • Single elnin can be submitted to this pool as long as the above guidelines are followed.
      • Examples:
        • 2 pairings where you own all 4 elnin
        • 1 pairing where you own 2 of the elnin in the pairing, and 2 other pairings where you only own 1 elnin in the pairing.
        • 4 pairings with other users where you only own 1 elnin in each pairing.
        • 4 pairings with other users where you own the same 1 elnin in each pairing.
        • 4 singles with no partner listed.
      • We'll be monitoring pairs posted to make sure they don't exceed the limit. If you're found violating the pair limit, we'll contact you to determine which pairs will be removed. This may delay your ability to be selected for a breeding.
        
        
   2. To the Secondary (Unlimited) Pool will be:
      • An elnin can only be submitted in one pairing at any time for the Secondary Pool.
      • That elnin must not be in any active/unpicked pairings in the Primary Pool as well.
      • There is no limit on the amount of times an owner can enter this pool if they have multiple elnin and those elnin are not currently in an unpicked pairing in the Primary pool - the restriction is only tied to individual elnin.
      • After an elnin gets a finished breeding, if that elnin is in no other active pairings in either pool they may re-enter that elnin to the Secondary pool if time permits.
      • Single elnin can be submitted to this pool as long as the above guidelines are followed.
        
        
2. GAs will be allowed to do up to 2 litters per week for 7 weeks from the start of the event.
   1. Last Kittsunami this was not initially the case, we upped it with support from both the GA side and the moderator side, however the last Kittsunami did push the team. Not everything we thought would be easier was. While there were great improvements that enabled us to still follow through with the second kittsunami’s scale it definitely was not something we foresaw as sustainable.
   2. Things came up in personal lives and we were at times short staffed, which can happen. That has definitely impacted both above and below decisions in some way! We have a slightly bigger team this year but learning from last Kittsunami’s strain points we have not scaled the event to triple the size this year, our projection for the event’s maximum potential size is about the same as it was in 2019.
      
      
3. This year’s GAs will be picked from a pool of users who have guested for us before. (Please read our “Future Guesting Plans” section further down below for more info on why we made this decision please! We’ve made conscious choices about how much we can handle and we hope you’ll respect our choice.)
   1. Due to the potential large scale of this Kittsunami being in play we have decided not to have any completely new guest artists for this Kittsunami event. Some may be new to Kittsunami, while others will not be.
   2. We factor in a lot when deciding on GAs, and with newer artists there are a lot of pressures and unknowns for both the mod team and those artists. Especially with an event as big and as fast-paced as Kittsunami is! We do want to explore new guest artists but with that in mind we’re saving involving uninitiated GAs for later smaller scale events to alleviate potential pressure.
   3. We have already compiled a list of GAs to invite, however we will not be announcing who they are in a larger public way until the event officially kicks off!
      
      
4. Litter sizes will be smaller overall, 3-4 kittoms depending on which pool you enter in.
   1. The Primary Pool will have 4 kittoms per litter, the Secondary pool will have 3. Regardless of if you’re entering as a single elnin or not. 
   2. GAs will be required to pick their first breeding every week from the primary pool, after which they can choose a second breeding from either Primary or Secondary Pools.
   3. The Secondary Pool will also have slightly higher prices than the Primary Pool.
      
      
5. ‘Free for Use’ single elnin will have their own journal this year. This journal will be specifically for users who want to lend their elnin up for pairings for no charge but will get no kittom in return.
   1. This won’t count against a user’s limit to the Primary pool.
   2. This pool is purely goodwill for anyone wanting to lend an elnin to pair up with singles in either journal that couldn’t find a pair and if a GA does not like the options within those pools.
   3. GAs will not be allowed to pair singles cross pools. You won’t see a GA pair a Primary pool elnin with one from the Secondary pool. Pairings will need to be made within their respective pools, unless a ‘Free for Use’ single elnin is being used for that breeding.
      
      
6. Users will be expected to have an account on the WoE site to participate in this Kittsunami if they want to submit a pairing.
   
   
7. Pairing forms will be required to use WoE masterlist entries to be eligible for claim by GAs seeking to draw pairings this year.
   
   
8. Strange Coin Merchant Potions
   
   1. These potions will be undergoing a little repricing, rebalancing, and renaming. We’ll also be adding an additional potion to the shop that allows you to permanently adjust your elnin’s sex if they are below noble rank, tentatively called “Everlasting Effervescent Potion” until we decide on renaming things.
   2. Potions will be renamed in hopes of separating them out a bit more! Just so they’re less easy to confuse / don’t all end in the word “Potion”
   3. Potion roster this year:
      • Scintillating Potion - 10SC
        • This potion will not be able to be bought with EC
      • Unstable Potion - 14SC
        • This potion will not be able to be bought with EC
      • Effervescent Potion - 10SC or 10EC
      • Everlasting Effervescent Potion - 14SC or 14EC
   4. Potions will still functionally either boost or add mutations, or adjust an elnin’s sex (temporarily or permanently) depending on which potion you’re using.
      
      
9. This year we will be requiring links to your WoE elnin masterlist entries on pool forms.
   If we require links to dA masterlist entries we’ll notify individuals when the forms for event pools go live but until then just the WoE ones should suffice. ovob
   

Things that will stay the same or very similar compared to previous years:

1. Event Journals will be on dA for this Kittsunami. We had some ideas about shifting the event off of dA more, however given timelines, cost, and long term goals for breedings at this time we’re not in a position to be implementing the number of features required to host something like this event fully on site.
   
   
2. The Secondary pool is primarily directed towards users that want to submit more breedings than they would otherwise be able to in the Primary pool and functions more similarly to our pairing pool for Kittsunamis in past years. Given the numbers crunched to try to balance goals for this event though the Secondary pool is not intended to be the focus for this event.

Future Kittsunamis and Guesting

2022 & Future Kittom Breeding Plans

After much deliberation and assessing the group’s growth over time as a team, we have decided this will be the last large scale Kittsunami we host. This doesn’t mean there will never be another Kittsunami but this will be the last year we are able to make a good faith attempt to try to reach as many group members as possible with pairings. While not a guarantee, we will try to encourage this! Future Kittsunamis after this upcoming one will be limited and downscaled significantly to leave room to work on other plans in tandem.

There are about 340 users on our website. We understand not all of our group members may have adult elnin, however, if we paired up each of those 340 group members (assuming they have at least 1 adult elnin) with unique owner pairs we would have about 170 pairings. If all of those pairings were 4 kittoms each (the largest litter size for this Kittsunami) we would have about 680 kittoms. We have factored in as well that many users own multiple elnin, and at times have queued them up with secondary (or more) pairings. When you start to do the math and double that number for group members hoping to get 2-3 breedings either per elnin or across even 2-3 of their elnin the numbers scale to anywhere from 1360-2040 kittoms.

Needless to say, as the group grows the goal of trying to “spread the love” across elnin in the group owned by our users becomes significantly harder. It will not be sustainable next year. We also recognize that creating 800 kittoms every year is also not sustainable for the group.

Future Regular Guesting Opportunities

With the above in mind, we will be planning smaller scale guest breeding opportunities, as well as more regular guesting opportunities in the group as the year goes on. We have a 2 month long Kittsunami ahead of us, a modcation following for any mods that need it, and then plans for summer/around June or so already, though they are not finalized. Starfall Faire is predicted to return as normal this year as well. So it will likely be significantly later in 2021 that we do more guest breedings, if not 2022.

We enjoy the large Kittsunamis and the excitement they foster, but we want to try to pursue other endeavors too. The moderator team has a tendency to be ambitious and our year is already quickly booking up with ideas of what else we would like to do volunteer time permitting. Events regularly take at least a month or two to plan and implement, so aside from modcation you can imagine we’ll be out of one event and quickly back into another given the timeline. That is a lot of how our behind the scenes works, keeping as much going as we can sustain while still doing more by adding events on top. It’s a lot. We’ll continue to see improvements but it will take time.

This past year we’ve tested what keeping approvals open for “smaller” large events looks like with this past Winter Wonders event’s planning, implementation, and execution phases. Assuming the events we do in the future aren’t as large as Kittsunami typically is, we're hoping we can do more in other areas. Exactly what yet we aren’t entirely committed to. We have some ideas of things we know the group (and the mod team/Mana) have wanted to see come to fruition for a long time so likely we’ll focus there first.

Until then we hope you’ll be patient with us for this last larger scale Kittsunami. Improving guides and implementing new opportunities and features in the group will likely be a larger more arduous goal. It will not be quickly accomplished but we’re looking forward to it, and hope the community is too!

(And a small note Resonance Questing will be open during the event but we will be considering approving claims for Resonant status as a low priority item for the duration of the event. If we find ourselves short on time and resources it's possible we may not approve any resonance quests during this time so please be patient with us on those!

Transfers for eligible elnin will also still be open but again please do not rush staff on these. We have intent to check regularly, but much like we ask community members to wait minimally a week before asking us if a design approval has gotten feedback, we ask you not follow up the day of on a transfer. It does not typically take us multiple days to follow up, but we'll be pretty busy! Thank you. ;v;b )