Site News

Hello everyone!

The monthly prompt is now live! There's a lot of stuff going on this month and so I wanted to cover a few things. The event schedule on dA will be updated to reflect deadlines for the prompt shortly. This update will be cross posted on discord and dA too. ovob

Notables you'll probably notice this month as you look over the prompt:
1. The gift art prompt will only run until December 28th at 11:59 PST this month. That's 3 days earlier than the month's end so we can wrap up raffles between the holidays.

2. There is a MYO slot raffle component to this month's gift art prompt. That raffle will be rolled on December 30th. You will need to submit 1-2 google forms (depending on if you do one or both of the submissions this month)! Read the prompt as there's a lot more info there than I'll cover here!

3. You are able to earn up to 2AP for this month. AP submissions will be backgrounds/writing about a given region, and they will be submitted separately from the gift art itself. (There are benefits to this, like giving us the ability to wrap up the MYO slot raffle and remain flexible on edits for AP backgrounds/writing)
Please read the Regional Affinity section for this month's prompt to learn more!

We will be keeping an eye on submissions and keep the community updated if we have concerns or anything changes!

The guest artists have worked very hard to contribute some lovely elnin to the event! We don't want to undermine the effort and the time they've put into helping us make this event really pop with some truly beautiful designs. Therefore, please consider any moderator-run raffles held during this event to be a little something extra we wanted to add to the event. They will not be grandiose in terms of traits.

This event has definitely grown in scale as its progressed, so we greatly appreciate the continued support and willingness to work with us. Thank you for sticking with us as we've navigated this difficult year!

The "Festive Gifting Spirit" Prompt can be found here!

Hello everyone! The Winter Wonders Event schedule is now officially up. You can read more about it on our group deviantart journal!

View the Event Schedule here!

While Eyre itself does not get particularly cold during the miasma months, some flyers seem to be floating around that are giving elnin the chills! They're cool to the touch and still have a crisp smell to them as though they were hurriedly sent out from the far reaches of Strynhalde. It sounds like some marvelous guests will be gathering to put on a display of Strynhalde aesthetics that elseworlders would readily call "Winter Wonders".

Join us in greeting some wonderfully wintery elnin! Look forward to the event schedule going live on Deviant Art on November 28th. (We will be cross posting a link to the journal here via news post on that day as well.)

The first sale will be a flaffle on November 29th. The flaffle window will be open for 24 hours so there will be plenty of time to review the sale information and ask questions!

If you're just looking to get into the spirit of the season though keep your eyes peeled for the gift art prompt that will go up around the beginning of December!

(See the Eyre Script Key to decode the flyer)

Flyer by Starbask

Hey guys, we’ve been getting a lot of feedback on the approvals system since it opened, and a lot of people are feeling frustrated by the strictness of masterlist art approvals. We hear you, and we have some thoughts on improving the experience for everybody.

The main reason we have been so strict on masterlist art, is because the masterlist is the place most people go to see what traits and mutations look like. This puts us in an awkward position of knowing if we let things slide it’s likely to slowly push mutations, tail lengths, etc, further and further away from the standard Mana has set forth. We’ve been grappling with how to make approvals less of a pain without pushing Elnin traits and mutations in a direction Mana may not want.

Here is our plan moving forward:

• We’ll do our best to be more flexible on design approvals
• Guides and encyclopedia entries will continue to be fleshed out to give more details on traits as well as the best examples of the trait we can find (example: Starlit Anima)
• We’re still in the process of updating our resources, but as they are updated they will be the main point of reference for traits and mutations.

What you can help us with:

• Send in sketches for approvals before final art. We continue to get complaints when we request changes on final art, even though we received nothing leading up to it. Please save yourself and ourselves some pain and send in a sketch first.
  • This is not a requirement. It's up to you how you want to work, as long as you are able to make any adjustments needed. Just a strong recommendation - especially if you are newer to Elnin or are commissioning someone not super familiar with the species.
• If we let you know a trait or mutation is out of line and needs changes please do not go “yeah but this elnin has this! [link]”. We do our best to be consistent but we are human and inevitably there are going to be inconsistencies. Designs approved in the past don’t guarantee future approvals. It is fine to point out inconsistencies with the resources that may need to be fixed, but please do so in a separate support ticket.
• Please encourage your fellow community members to use the correct resources for reference (Guides linked in the Directory of Resources, and the Trait and Mutation encyclopedia). If people are pointing to outliers in the masterlist warn them that it should not be considered a proper reference and to follow the official resources.

We know getting things off the ground has had its share of bumps, and we appreciate everyone for working with us and letting us know how they are feeling. We hope this clears up the reasoning behind our approach to Design Approvals. We will do our best to make getting your designs approved more fun and less of a headache (it hasn’t exactly been a barrel of laughs for us either). We ask that you keep working with us and do what you can to make the process smoother such as sending in WIPs and pointing new members in the right direction.

Thanks again for the patience of everyone who has sent in design approvals so far, and to those who have provided polite and thoughtful feedback. We ask that you continue to have patience with your approvals since the mod team are volunteers, our schedules vary, and we juggle a lot of things. Thank you!

Hello everyone! The modberry team here with some more updates. ^^

Update on November's Monthly Prompt

November's monthly prompt is now live (you can find it here). This month prompt has returned to the format most of us are familiar with. As our attention shifts more to focus on event planning and our thoughts on next month's prompt we'll not be doing anything too out of the ordinary for November's prompt.

Upcoming Events / Event Planning

This year we'll be having a Wintery themed event in December. It will be a combination of Guest sales and possibly some other activity depending on what we can manage. Guest artists have already been picked for this event, all of which are familiar faces we hope you'll look forward to seeing back. We spent a chunk of last month planning this event, this month will be a lot of following through with design approvals for the event and current group approvals.

A few moderators will also end up pretty heads down in planning next year’s Kittsunami as there's more than a few months worth of work to be done. Timelines need to be put together and the event itself this year needs to be rediscussed, as we do every year, to try to ensure we're responding to changes within the group. There's also potential website development / features we're hoping to get running with enough time to test to ensure by Kittsunami 2021 we can rely on them to help us out. While the coding will be done by Cy (who continues to be amazing to work with) there's a lot of headspace that needs to be poured into making sure we're aware of how decisions will impact the community.

Approvals will be open during this Winter event. We're really trying to keep things open as much as possible with the knowledge that during Kittsunami 2021 approvals will be closed. We will be opening back up approvals promptly after Kittsunami, even if there may be a bit of slowness in our responses initially with event wrap up and recoup.

Limited Time Card Frames

Sometimes we wish it were October 31st every day of the year. You might notice the card frames weren't removed two days ago as promptly as expected. That said we had planned to give a bit of forewarning about their removal. With that in mind Limited Time Card Frames will be available for another 48 hours from this post. They will be leaving the Card Frame Merchant's shop on November 4th, at 6:00pm PDT.

EDIT: Due to the site being down for most of today (the 4th) and yesterday (the 3rd) we'll be leaving the limited time card frames up an additional 24 hours. So they will be removed November 5th at 6:00pm PDT. ^^b

Mindfulness

I just wanted to add in here a (possibly not so) quick thank you to community members for sticking with us as the group continues to grow and develop, even just by stopping in and chatting from time to time! There's a lot going on in the world right now and we recognize everyone has a lot on their plate. It can be difficult to read between the lines at times and fully grasp what each and every individual might be going through. Some are transparent about it, and others are not. Please be mindful of one another in our public spaces. As always supportiveness and positivity are encouraged.

And lastly be sure to take breaks when needed. Not everyone is good at this (I know I'm not most of the time) but it's important. If you're ever feeling stressed out within our group please take a break and take some time to be kind to yourself. There's enough pressure out there right now, so please don't let the things you feel you should enjoy add to that.

Hi everyone! The team is here with a few more updates this month!

TOS Update

A message from Manaberry: "Hey all! I'm back into worklist things and first up this week was making some adjustments to the ToS wording in areas where there was some concern. Specifically a section regarding the revoking of designs. I just want to clarify a little bit that the original purpose of this rule was always a last ditch failsafe in case another member was doing things excessively and deliberately harmful to myself or the community (primarily speaking to a member trying to explicitly swindle people or profit from designs at the expense of others). In other words, it'd be pretty dang unlikely that anyone would ever trip over this punishment without doing some pretty obviously heinous things. That being said, it is never ever my intent to cause unnecessary worries so I've removed the revocation note."

The updated section now reads:
Violations to any of the terms listed on this page will first result in warnings from staff and clarification of rules if there are areas of misunderstanding. Repeated blatant violations can thereafter result in greylisting or blacklisting depending on severity.

​Greylist: Currently the greylist is managed privately. If you are on this list, it means that you are on a temporary ban from one or more of the following: purchasing or trading for new World of Eyre designs, joining community events, posting on the discord, and/or making use of payment plans on adoptable design sales. Penalties for each individual may be different depending on the type of activity that landed them on the greylist.

Blacklist: Blacklist will be made public in the event we actually have to add anyone to it. If you are notified that you've been put on the blacklist it means that you are henceforth permanently banned from participating in any World of Eyre community activities, including purchasing or trading to obtain new World of Eyre designs. Any existing elnins owned by a blacklisted member will still be transferable/sellable according to their individual transfer rules, but they will be considered "frozen" and unable to obtain new edits, growths, rank ups, etc until they have been transferred to a member in good standing.

Support Tickets

Next up... Support Tickets!

We now have a way to communicate with group members on site! The ticket system is intended for immediately actionable / resolvable issues like questions or requests for wording clarifications! The ticketing system is not for suggestions. Any tickets that have a suggestion in them we will redirect to the appropriate place to submit those suggestions. We will be touching upon where suggestions will live in this update below so please bear with us here. We will not respond to suggestions like we do questions, as they are not immediately actionable / resolvable and often include broader group considerations and follow up! We consider suggestions in aggregate to understand how the community is feeling, and don't necessarily respond or take action on each suggestion.

Support Tickets are broken down into the following categories:

• Community
  
  • Anything relating to our Discord
  • Questions regarding species, ARPG, direction of community, etc
  • Report issues / concerns with other community members
• Design Updates
  
  • Submissions / Process
  • Mutation or Trait Questions / Clarifications
  • Status of Submission (please wait 2 weeks before asking)
• Patreon
  
  • Issues with receiving Patreon rewards via the website
  • Questions
• Prompts & Quests
  • Submissions / Process
  • Regions / AP
• Masterlist & Ownership
  
  • Report issue or error
  • Rules regarding trading / reselling
• Website
  
  • Bugs, typos, usability issues
  • Wording improvements on specific pages (only existing content/wording, not
    suggestions for new resources / pages / features)

Please select the best ticket category that seems to fit what you're asking about when submitting a support ticket.

Suggestions

And on to...Suggestions!

We've been discussing how to bring back spaces for suggestions in the group. For now we're going to try a hybrid model. Our discord will have a public #suggestions channel, while our site will have a private suggestions form. This form can also be found on our Group Staff & Resources page. We're hoping that between these two spaces the community will have some way they feel comfortable submitting suggestions and feedback.

We will definitely read the suggestions submitted via public suggestions channel and private suggestions form but we will not respond to suggestions unless there's a need for clarification or we are pursuing a specific suggestion. This is not to be assumed that we won't consider suggestions, but replying to hypotheticals can take up a lot of resources we could better spend implementing features for the group. We do want everyone to feel like their voice is heard so please feel free to use the channel and form freely.

As the nature of both channel and form are for suggestions you'd like to see, please keep the conversations and feedback constructive. Different ideas and views are welcome, please just be respectful of everyone. If we observe conversations slipping into feedback that is not constructive or aggressive towards other users or staff we will be forced to re-evaluate how we handle suggestions for the group.

While the private form is up now, we will be adding the discord channel in the next day or two just to make sure we get everything set up right. Thank you for your patience on this!

October Prompt AP!

The October "Ghoulish Gifting" prompt has been updated with information on how to earn AP for this month! If you do 2 gift art pieces and 2 region themed word searches you will be able to earn a maximum total of 2AP this month. Please read the prompt details closely to make all requirements to qualify for this month's AP are met. Word search solutions must be submitted through claims separate from their approved prompt submissions, but must link back to their corresponding gift art submissions. (Examples of what this should look like are linked in the prompt description.)

See this month's prompt here — Show details for more info.

With everything else unusual happening this year it seems some limited time Masterlist Merchant frames are being stocked too. They will be in stock for the duration of October (until October 31st 11:59pm PST). She probably told a fortune that supplies to stock these specialty frames would arrive on time months ago...but her fortunes are a bit...well you know.

You may want to head on over to her shop here to purchase a few before she foretells something else...

Hi everyone! Here with updates relative to verification emails and prompts from last month and this month!

Updates on Account Verification Emails

We're currently still struggling to get email verification working through certain providers (yahoo, aol, and hotmail mainly). We've contacted SendGrid customer support but have yet to hear back from them on if there's anything they can do to help us resolve this issue. So our hands are a bit tied on this.

The most we can do for now to try to accomodate is have you note the Berry-Bazaar group with an alternative email to try, if you're unable to verify with the email you used initially. Please also include your site username so we know what account email we need to try to update. We've been finding gmail seems to work the best. We know that may not be an option for some group members but so far it's been the most consistent. If gmail is not an option for you we can try any alternative emails you have to see if one might work, but we still may end up stumped until we hear back from support. We can also verify there aren't typos or anything in your current email if that's a concern, since it has come up a few times already.  ovob

If you are struggling to verify your first account do not create a second account to try to verify again. Please contact us through a group note! Let us help you, we would be happy to! Thank you.

Update on October's monthly prompt

October's prompt is now live! This month's prompt is a gift art prompt, since we heard the community might be itching to treat others to something sweet. ^^ Due to this being a gift art prompt AP will be run a bit differently this month. We're still setting up the activity a bit so we'll post an announcement about it in the next few days here. Feel free to read the prompt's details for more info on October's prompt here.

Updates For the August/September prompt

We've extended the deadline for submissions to the "Light Storms" monthly prompt by an additional week (7 days). This means the prompt will now end on October 7th at 11:59pm PST. We were hoping for news back from SendGrid much sooner but with no word back yet we're giving a little additional time to allow for submissions and get people up to speed on how we'll be addressing account verification problems during this time.

If you are currently a verified user you can skip the rest of this news post, as the information will not apply to you!

Updates on MonthLy Prompts for Accounts Unable to Verify

We understand that the account verification problems are quite frustrating, given gmail or creating an alternate email may not be an option for all users. We do want to provide a way to let users currently stuck in the middle of account verification problems submit their prompts on time with intent to redeem them later on site for currency. With currency tracking and prompts now living entirely on the World of Eyre site we will not be using old systems of currency granting/tracking via google sheets and comments.

How this will work:

• We set up a folder called "M-000 Holding" (here) on dA for prompts from users that have been unable to verify their account.
  
  • This folder is considered a holding folder, meaning it will just be a place for us to cross check the requirements listed below were met when a user is able to finally participate on site.
  • Submissions to this folder will not have any AP/EC tracked/granted for them. At most we may record down that requirements for a certain region's AP are met, however no currencies will be granted until the submission comes through the world of Eyre site itself.
• In order to submit to this folder on DeviantArt you must meet the following requirements:
  1. You must have a link to your World of Eyre site account in the description of your prompt entry. (This is so we can verify you have signed up for the site, agreed to the Site Terms of Service, and are currently unverified. You do not need to wait to be verified to submit to this folder, though we request users only submit to this folder if they are unverified and are unable to verify their account.)
  2. Any monthly prompt submitted must meet our General Prompt Entry Rules and Guidelines as well as the quick rules listed for the corresponding monthly prompt, and Regional Affinity Guidelines if you're trying to earn AP!
  3. Any monthly prompt submitted must be submitted during the corresponding time window for that prompt. This means you'll need to submit it to this holding folder before the deadline for the prompt you're submitting it for.
     • Moderators will be approving submissions into this folder, so if your submission does not appear right away in the folder don't be alarmed. You may ask a moderator to check your submission is pending review/approval into the holding folder. This can be done by noting the group or asking in the discord #questions channel.
     • If your submission was submitted last minute moderators may not be present at the time of prompt close, so please plan to submit it in advance to give moderators at least 24-48 hours if you're wanting to request this sort of double check.
• Once your submission is in the folder you have until the end of the following month to contact us in some way to try to seek help for verifying your account.
  • Please do not wait until the last minute to contact us if you're having trouble verifying your account. We want to help and we're leaving an entire month of leeway just to try to determine what your verification problem might be, and attempt to fix it.
  • If we find the problem to be something we cannot fix, specifically you are unable to use an alternate email for any reason or do not wish to try alternate emails, then we'll leave your prompt submission in the holding folder on dA until you are able to verify your account. This will mean waiting for the third party customer support to get back to us, which we have no ETA on and likely won't be able to give an ETA on.
  • We will not be creating workaround systems/solutions for accounts unable to verify beyond this holding folder. This means you will not be able to track or spend currencies, or use any of our existing systems on site, until your account is verified. If this concerns you, then you may want to refrain from submitting prompts until you are able to work with us to try to verify your account.
• If you were able to verify your account and currently have a submission accepted into the holding folder, please note the group! We will work with you to make sure your prompt gets into the correct submission folder on the World of Eyre site.

We hope this clarifies our plans relative to future prompts and unverified accounts. Thank you for working with us as we muddle through getting these email problems resolved! We hope this won't have to be a long term solution to this problem, as not having a definite solution is not ideal for anyone involved. >^<b

Hey folks! The mod team has been hard at work chugging through as many design approvals as we can. Since the site was opened we've approved 91 design updates! So we're making great headway on the approvals queue. We just wanted to give you guys a bit of a summary on recent issues / changes that have come through the approvals pipeline since site launch.

Updates on Allowing Outfits in Masterlist Art

We have updated our design submission rules to allow for outfits in the masterlist art, since a lot of people were really wanting to show off their Elnin's swag in their masterlist card. ;)

Cost Breakdown for Masterlist Updates:

• Accessories or Outfit that was part of an Official Guest Art Sale = Free
• Accessories with Visible Markings = Free
• Outfits Submitted with Design Approval = Free
• Consecutive Outfit Submissions = 2EC

Regarding Outfits Submitted with Design Approval: Please be aware that for record purposes we require the first image framed from the design approval to be the naked (or minorly accessorized) version of the elnin where the markings are unobscured. As only one image upload can occur at a time through the design approvals system, we will then allow a free update (limit one) after the approval so that the clothing version can be displayed in the masterlist frame.

Since there have been a lot of design submissions already, we are allowing those who have already gotten their design approved to submit a design update with an outfit for free (as long as it uses the same art as the existing masterlist art!). We're leaving this open for a 1 month window, so if you want to have your outfit art in the masterlist free of charge please submit it via a design update prior to Oct 27 at 11:59pm.

Delays on Certain Design Updates

We've already run into a lot of design updates where we've needed clarifications on mutation and trait details, and have been working with Manaberry on nailing those down. If you're still waiting to hear back to us on a priority submission this is probably why. However, getting these clarifications is taking a while, so we have started sending back design updates that were pending review from Manaberry to let the owners know what the hold up is and give them the option to just change the art rather than waiting. We usually err on the side of not requesting changes unless we're sure it's an issue, which is why we've been checking with Manaberry on some of these things instead of just sending them back, but we understand some people might rather just alter the art rather than wait to get a definite ruling on it. If you get a feedback like this it's totally up to you if you'd rather wait in case Mana gives you the OK. However, waiting does not guarantee you won't be asked to make changes even after Mana does review it.

Here is a brief summary of some rules clarifications and decisions we're currently working on. Just so you know if you submitted a design update with this mutation or trait it's likely the reason it's being held up.

• Luminous Markings
  • Can these appear on the tail?
  • Do these have to use existing markings or can you add new markings? What about Elnin with little to no markings?
  • What counts as "markings" vs "base coat"
• Sectoral Heterochromia
  • Clarification on how much of the eye/horn it should occupy, and also when stacked with other kinds of heterochromia
  • Clarification on allowances for icons / symbols such as hearts and stars
• Hybrid Crowns
  • Just more information in general since they tend to allowed to be "more fancy" than the regular version of crowns and Mana has been the only one approving them until now
• More details on what Mana considers allowable as "natural progression" for growths without having to pay for edits

There are more special cases that require manaberry's input, but these are the main contenders for the hold-ups.

Updates to Mutation / Trait Resources and Guidelines

As part of the process of getting these mutation and trait clarifications from Manaberry we are being sure to update our guides to reflect that information. We're working really hard to make our mutation entries and trait guides cover more ground, and head off any potential issues you may run into in getting your design approved. We're also adding examples from existing Elnin that we feel exemplify the mutation or trait best (click the thumbnail to see the full size image!). Here are some of the mutation and trait guidelines that we've updated so far.

As a general note to find the most up-to-date information for mutations be sure to refer to the Enclycopedia entry. This can be found either by going to Browse -> Encyclopedia or "Mutation List" in the Directory. The end goal is for the Encyclopedia entries to have all the nitty gritty details, and for the guides to be more generalized information / how it works.

• Fauna Crowns
  • Added: “A small fantasy tweak can be added to the creature, but overall it should be a recognizable real-world animal. If you are submitting a fantasy-esque creature design please be aware that, if approved, it would be accepted into the canon of Eyre and considered a part of the World of Eyre. Any fauna crown creature design would be able to be drawn by other community members in prompts and activities.”
  • Added: “Rule of Palm: The creature in a fauna crown should be able to fit in the palm of your hand in its real-world equivalent. So something like a deer would obviously not fit in the palm of your hand, even if it's drawn to be miniature it would still not be allowed.”
• Starlit Anima
  • Added: "The sparkles / stars need to be white or near-neighbor to the anima color."
  • Added: "Exception: If Elnin has starlit suffusion it can match the starlit suffusion color"
• Cloudlet Crowns
  • Added: Should be only one cloud / piece of cloud
  • Added: Hybrid cloudlets can contain multiple clouds / clumps of clouds
• Hybrid Crowns
  • Added: Only faerie orbs can display a sparkle effect on the crown without any extra mutations affecting the crown
• Trinket Crowns
  
  • Added: Must either be 1 material OR 2 colors

This is definitely a constant work in progress for us, but we plan to keep documenting these changes and sharing them with you guys periodically! As well as rule updates we'll be going through each trait and mutation entry and adding good examples for you to reference when working on your designs, like you can see in the entries above. It will take us a long time to get through the whole list but we'll work on it slowly but surely!

With the site launch a lot of folks are getting stuck on similar issues, so this post is to cover common things you'll run into when first trying to set up your account and banks!

How do I submit my legacy prompts so that my AP shows up in my character's banks?

• You can find the instructions for this in our Legacy Prompts, Acts, and Participation Walkthrough
• Please be familiar with the rules you can find in the Prompt Archive

How do I claim my EC?

• Go to your Profile Settings and hit the "Update Logs" button at the bottom.
• If there is an error or it doesn't work, please ask us for help in either in #questions in discord or by noting the group on dA. Also please let us know if you have updated your DeviantArt username in the past few months since that is most likely the issue!

How do I claim my SC?

• Go to your Patreon Account info in your profile settings and verify your Patreon Account
• There should now be a button at the bottom of this page to claim your SC
• If there is an error and it doesn't work, again ask us for help in #questions or by noting the dA group. Again, if you've changed your Patreon name or deleted your Patreon account etc please provide us with any information you think is relevant.

How do I claim my Undine Tail / Patreon specialty items?

• These will be distributed manually and may take up to a week to show up in your banks. No need to contact us or do anything, just check your bank in a week and if you're still not seeing it then you can let us know in #questions or dA group note!

How do I claim my Patreon Lifetime Rewards / Noble Growth?

• You can claim your Noble Growth slot (and any future Patreon Lifetime Rewards) by going to your Patreon Rewards tab in your account settings