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ThoseWhoWentMissing — TWWM Website Proposal
Published: 2019-06-12 22:12:53 +0000 UTC; Views: 7247; Favourites: 22; Downloads: 0
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TWWM Website Proposal
Hey everyone, Xaishi here! Over the last few weeks we've brought up the idea of creating a website with the community but haven't gone into detail yet, largely because we wanted to first get our ducks in a row so we could have a proper discussion with you all. We wanted to start off by saying we're so happy that the idea of making a website for TWWM was met with such overwhelming support. It will improve gameplay function and management for the whole community, both staff and players alike, so so so much. Not just because of the convenience it would provide, but because it would help save staff an absurd amount of time - time we could then put to use for things like planning events, adding new features, and writing expansions to the lore!
The concept of a website for TWWM is actually an idea we've been kicking around since the beginning of April 2018. It sat on the shelf all this time partly because TWWM hadn't yet reached a point where it was necessary, and partly because we worried it was ultimately more of a pipe dream. A year has since passed and we have a whopping 2,892 members as of writing this! A couple months ago (there's just something about April, eh?) we realized that having a site built with all the features we've been wishing for for a little over a year is actually more feasible than we realized.
Fast forward to now, our ducks have been rounded up and shuffled into line and we're excited to finally, formally put this forward to the community.
To be clear, the website is not intended to replace DeviantART!The community will stay on DA just as it always has, however we would like for all of the technical gameplay aspects to be handled over an automated website. A site would be instrumental in helping us manage the day-to-day nitty gritties of running TWWM, as well as provide a bunch of useful features for players. We have a coder we are excited to begin work with, and can tell them we're ready to hire once we have the green light from the community!
We need your feedback!
This is a big step and as such, we won't make any decisions without giving everyone ample opportunity to discuss what we're proposing. We want to take this time to welcome any and all feedback regarding the website and how we'll go about funding it. The below features are subject change based on feedback - none of this is set in stone yet. What I've written so far is what we as staff would like to see out of a website for players and ourselves.
When things get kicked off, I'll make a separate journal to record the website's status. It'll basically be a changelog players can check in on.
Now that all that's out of the way, here is what we've put together!
Basic Mockups
The general idea of what sort of layout we have in mind. Again, nothing's set in stone yet!
We already plan to make the website as mobile-friendly as possible, regardless of what the final result ends up looking like.
Core FeaturesThese features are what we would like the website to have at minimum. The priority indicates what we would try to fund and have up and running first.
High PriorityPlayer ProfilesPlayer profiles would essentially be player journals 2.0, with the added bonus of all your data being safe from the Apoceclipse. Profile pages would include everything that is currently required to be listed on player journals, displayed automatically! This means things such as player level and AP count, all owned esk, badges, treasures, a link back to the player DA, etc. No more hassling with DA journal formatting ever again. (Of course, players can still keep a journal if they want! Journals would no longer require specific info since it would be covered on the site profile, too.)
Player TrackersA player's profile will link to their tracker, which will be stored on a different page. The tracker itself will be pretty basic, most likely just a table with links to the DA submission, the scoring breakdown, and points total, along with the total score of all listed entries. Players can submit a form to be reviewed by staff to have new entries added and have their score automatically updated. This means that, hypothetically, we can now automatically approve all DA group submissions because we will no longer have to check scoring through DA's group submission review.
Medium PriorityEsk TrackersJust like the player tracker, but for esk. Additionally, there will be options to deduct GP from EE purchases, transformations, Wellsprings donations, and so on. This is not considered high priority because it is AP tracking that we run into the most scoring issues that subsequently cause us the greatest delay. Also, this will be the most time-consuming (and therefore most expensive) core feature to implement, so given the above, it just makes sense to do player trackers first.
Masterlist DatabaseWe will still use the ML account, however this database will let us link all trackers to their respective esk and everyone will finally have the expanded search options we all wish we had. Search by biome, trait, morph, all that good stuff! Whether or not we can display the actual esk art is unfortunately yet to be determined. We need to look into the legality of it and it may require artists to give us their express permission to display their artwork on this website if a website TOS statement is insufficient.
Low PriorityPlayer Milestone TrackingThis would cover tracking a player's current level based on their total AP and list a player's lifetime transformations (with links to the esk that were created) as well as available TF slots. We would also like to track esk creators, however this would only be able to apply to player-created and greenhouse-obtained esk. (Because players can choose a new creator when obtaining a premade esk, even if that esk had a creator chosen by its previous owner.)
Additional FeaturesAs of yet, we do not have price estimates for any of these because they are secondary to the core features and are, at least as of writing this, considered "nice to have but don't need to have."
Energy ExchangeWe would like to essentially turn the EE into its own online shop where you can put in purchase requests (that would still need approval from staff exactly as it is now) and have the GP automatically deducted from your esk.
Transformation RequestsWe'd like to have a setup that works just the way it does now, except saving players the hassle of dealing with DA journals and comments by being able to fill out a form on the website instead. Another advantage here is that TF slots and GP costs would be tracked automatically. We aren't 100% sure on the feasibility of this feature yet, since the design process often requires a lot of back and forth commenting, so we don't know if this ultimately means TF requests would need to remain on DA.
Biome SignupsJust a page that displays your biomeless esk and lets you put in a request to assign a biome. Basically how it works now, but with the huge convenience for us staff having one fewer journal to maintain.
WellspringsThis would make Wellspring handlers lives so much easier hoamg. Players could see a list of all the wishes they've ever made and we wouldn't have to manually update a spreadsheet with links to every single wish and then go back and change the wish status to granted if/when a wish is fulfilled. (Coughequinoxcough... I about died. orz) There's a lot more quality of life stuff to be had with having the Wellsprings handled via website, but being able to ditch the spreadsheet is huge.
Badges / TreasuresThis would still work on an honor system. Basically, players can just click on which treasures they're eligible for to have them automatically displayed on their profile.
Points CalculatorWe'll be moving our existing calculator over to the website because that just makes sense, haha.
Lore, Gameplay, Info PagesWe are interested in taking all of the info on our Weebly pages (and whatever info makes sense to take off of journals and transfer to the website instead) and collecting it all in one place. Right now it's really scattered everywhere, and we want to make the finding and digesting of this information as simple as possible. I'd like to look into integrating a Wiki for this for easy linking to different articles and A SEARCH FUNCTION jdkafskl.
Monthly FeaturesSomewhere public to finally display all past and present features (artist, writer, esk)!
DocumentationBelow I've linked a copy of the full documentation we've discussed with the coder for those who are more technically inclined and/or wanting to know the specifics. I have enabled comments if players would like to add suggestions directly to the doc rather than on this journal. Please do keep in mind that this will show the display name associated with your google account, however!
Website Proposal Doc
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Funding
As of today (5/30/2019), we currently have $611 in our treasury thanks to our fundraising sales and generous players. Based on hourly estimates we have received, this is enough to cover the framework for user logins, player profiles, player trackers, the masterlist database, and milestone tracking. That's all of our core features except esk trackers - exciting stuff!
We've discussed how to raise funds the rest of the way, both as a team and with some players who have given us suggestions. Below are the options we're aware of, and the pros and cons of each. Most likely, we'll end up doing a combination.
More premade sales (flat, auction, or both) either by staff and/or playersPros:
• Very straightforward
• More money up front (as opposed to money over time)
Cons:
• We neither expect nor want to ask guest artists to donate their money from sales. In the past we used to take cuts (as is standard for just about all CS groups), but we did away with it and do not have plans to bring it back. Since removing it, we have received very few donations (amounts that could help keep the website running for a few months, but not nearly enough to get it built). Taking cuts goes against both Witherlings' wishes and ours, and there was a lot of pushback from the community over the topic of taking cuts again.
• Staff would have to use personal time to draw esk and receive no compensation, in addition to the time we already donate around TWWM performing our staff roles. Which isn't to say we aren't willing, but this means there's a tradeoff to finding enough free time versus putting a pause on our duties in order to draw.
• Sale profits can be very unpredictable. Auctions and PWYW-style sliding scale flat sales are a toss-up between receiving more than the minimum price or something higher ranged, and we aren't sure how comfortable we are with "inflating" base prices on flat sales or starting bids on auctions to account for that.
Donated player design salesWe could potentially hold fundraising sales using premade designs that players have donated, with the understanding that all proceeds would go into building the website. This way there is an option for artists to donate designs without having to wait in our very long guest artist queue. Currently waiting guest artists would NOT be skipped - we would schedule these sales around GA sales so as not to cause conflicts. Additionally, guest artists currently waiting in line could donate a design without losing their place in the queue.
Maybe if players and staff are interested, we could even do ML art collabs together?
Pros:
• Very straightforward
• More money up front (as opposed to money over time)
Cons:
• Could detract from regular guest artist sales?
• Would need to schedule around regular GA sales
• Profits would still be unpredictable
General donations, such as through Paypal and Ko-fiWe've received a fair amount of feedback on this, including making donate links/buttons easier to find. So, here you go!
*For transparency, I ( Xaishi ) am the one who manages the group bank, hence why you might come across a page in my name / with my email. I don't touch the money in any way other than managing group costs such as subscription renewal and, in this case, future website construction.
We are working on adding buttons to more places around the group as well. Should we consider making a donation journal/page with these buttons as well as a general explanation of what your donations will help us accomplish?
Regardless, donations in this case will go toward getting the website built. Subsequent donations will go toward the monthly upkeep costs of hosting, domain registration and renewal, and so forth. Staff never has and never intends to use donations for personal gain. Money received will always go toward helping the game.
Pros:
• The most straightforward
• Players can donate more flexibly in amounts of their choosing and at any time they want
• Good option for players who want to help but don't want to do so by buying more esk
• Paypal has an option to set up recurring donations
Cons:
• Incoming donation amounts would likely be smaller and may be more of a one-time thing per player
• No way to predict how much we might receive, so progress on the website could be very inconsistent
PatreonRegardless of the other options we consider, we may want to take a stab at setting up a Patreon just to see how it'll go. Something to note is that we will not have special reward tiers because we do not want to promote exclusivity among players. We could still have different tiers for different amounts and stuff like that, but we refuse to offer anything special behind a paywall - any "perks" must be something all players can receive regardless of whether they are paying or not. The only exception could MAYBE be things like early poll previewing and discounts IF we ever did something like a merch shop.
Deciding on how to handle tiers would be a discussion we would hold with the community.
Pros:
• Very straightforward
• Players have the option of donating as little or as much as they want
• Money coming in that we can generally count on to be there on a consistent recurring basis
• Could function as a tip jar or safety net that does not require a lot of staff time to manage
Cons:
• Smaller amounts of money over time. Great for monthly upkeep of a website, but not much money up front, so funding the website this route will be much slower.
• No idea how many patrons we would receive, so it could be very hard to predict how much funding we can rely on until it's been running for a while, but "a while" could mean months.
• Patreon takes a cut and it recently increased
KickstarterA kickstarter has also been brought up a few times over the past couple of months. Like Patreon, we want to be sure that every "exclusive perk" that would be gained by the Kickstarter could be achieved freely by players that can't donate to a campaign. Because of that, we haven't quite been sure what kinds of rewards you as the player base would be interested in if the Kickstarter became an option.
Pros:
• More money up front (as opposed to money over time)
• Clearly outlined goals with live updates on money raised
Cons:
• One-time limited "event" fundraising with fairly heavy fees.
• What kind of rewards could we offer that wouldn't make it unfair to non-paying players?
• Seems like it might be a decent amount of effort to set up? Also need to look into the legal aspects of funding through KS.
• Potentially very risky way to go - KS policy automatically refunds 100% of all money raised if we do not reach our target goal, so there is a risk of raising no money at all via this route. To minimize that risk, we could set the goal amount lower, but then it's possible that even if the KS is successful, we might still come up short in funding the website the rest of the way. Might make more sense to forego this option in favor of one or more of the others due to KS' one-time event setup.
Merch ShopThis is actually already something the team has discussed lightly on and off for months, however this would be a whole 'nother topic in and of itself. To keep it brief, maintaining a shop would be a lot of work, whatever platform we run it off of would take percentages of our sales, we have no idea how successful a shop would even be (and therefore make it not worth the time sink), and it's again kind of a situation where staff needs to donate time and art for no compensation if store proceeds are expected to solely go to website funding. All this isn't to say we wouldn't consider a shop if there was strong community support for one, however this would need to be its own big community discussion at a later point in time.
Pros:
• Once it's all set up, a shop could be a good way to earn passive income for the group.
• There are many platforms that handle manufacturing and shipping for the seller, so we would not have to worry about production, inventory, or packing/shipping anything ourselves.
• Who doesn't like pretty calendars and cute stickers?
Cons:
• Webshop platforms that handle manufacturing and shipping automatically tend to take a pretty big chunk of sales profits. Unless the shop had very frequent purchases, it's possible that it wouldn't actually generate much money on a monthly basis.
• If we don't go with a platform that manages manufacturing and shipping for us, the profit vs. time spent having to manually fulfill orders would be wildly unfeasible for the amount of effort involved.
• The market for our merch (which would be yet another discussion with players haha) may end up being very unpredictable.
If you have any other suggestions for ways we can fund this thing the rest of the way, please let us know!
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FAQTo be added once we get some questions coming in!
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Comments: 52
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I'm so excited for this!! I feel like it'll be so much more user friendly, especially when it comes to keeping track of GP and AP! I'm looking forward to the finished product!
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I mean, there are so many wonderful people here and super motivated. I believe together as community we can totally do that! I am super sure that there are many people who would be up to donate designs! Personally I would be 100% there if needed, just let me know! ^^
This would be so amazing TWWM to have the website. <3
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Reading through this journal, I've thought up of something that could help organize and regulate the guest artist vs donated designs for sale.
As a minor in TWWM, I've been restricted from participating in GA sales, and I've always wanted to be a guest artist myself and donate the designs to the group. I probably speak for many of the minors out there, but I'd kill (not literally) for a chance of being a guest artist and have all the money go to TWWM. So, what you can do is hold normal GA and staff sales and have minor-only donation sales in tandem to that. Or, minor-priority donation sales and have other, older players also donate designs but with a lower priority and host it in a way that we wouldn't touch the money and that it will all go to the game itself.
I feel like this way, you won't have to worry about staff or guest artists to donate their time.
I think patreon is another great way to gain money for the group over long term and use many of @/teknogeddon's ideas from last year for patreon-specific greenhouses or nurseries for people who work and may miss the greenhouses.
Good luck with the website, I love this community and cannot wait for this to happen <3
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I strongly agree! Also as a minor in TWWM, it's been one of my dreams for so long to be a GA artist and I have so many ideas- it would be so much fun to be able to participate and donate designs and have all the money go to TWWM.
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Yes!!! It would be such an honor to donate a design ;V;
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big upvote on this haha
I first applied for ga before the rules about age, (but then wasn't able to) so I'd really love to just be able to donate a design (for a free end of month raffle even)
thank you so much for working on this website, I really appreciate all of you guys's hard work <33
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Im not sure where to comment this, but I had an idea just now and i feel like implementing something like this would be INCREDIBLE! Basically, once the masterlist would be set up on the site, there could be a small checkbox on every esk's page that only the owner can check or uncheck, it would be "Available for offers" and then there would also be a page that would display all esks that have that box checked! This would make it super easy for someone interested in trading to be able to basically browse esk that are potentially available, and then contact the owner or check their page for details!
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I‘m literally so hyped for this!
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This is so awesome, I really look forward to the website! I'll donate what I can to kofi but I have a suggestion:
Maybe you guys could do some special nursery sales without AP reqs and figure out a set price? I for one would be super into the pre-determined nature features and the prompts, and you guys wouldn't have to draw the designs!
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The first three of the funding options definitely sound the best to me. The player donated designs sale especially sounds like a great time, while the direct donations sounds like a nice and direct way for people who are able and willing to help to just do it.
Kickstarter seems like a dodgy route, and esk merch seems like an incredibly niche thing and a bad way to make profit. Patreon's probably fine but I'm salty about their policies and have a natural aversion to recurrent spending.
The website seems really neat and I'm hoping the fundraising goes well because the part that excites me most is the idea for the badges/treasures system. I love them conceptually but I find them really slow, messy, and difficult to keep updated. Having this easier to do would be super satisfying, and also encourage me to go back and get some of the treasures that I missed. I assume that these are low priority because they're a convenience for the players instead of the staff, who are the ones who desperately need the streamlining.
I'm enthused to see how this progresses!
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Has selling MYO slots been considered? That would be easy to set up without as much time investment as drawing whole batches for sale.
It would also not necessarily take away from anything regarding sales or gameplay - free MYO slots can still be earned ingame, and people that prefer to buy premades can wait for the guest and mod batch sales.
I think that would work well for a limited time/amount funding drive. Old and new players would love an opportunity to design their dream esk.
It would also offer a chance for an easy entry into the community for those that are interested but don't have the time and drive to earn a nursery esk. (I know I struggled with that because of lack of time, and the idea of having to stick to a restricted set of nursery themes didn't appeal to me. So I've been mostly looking out for batches and resales, which have been out of my reach for the most part as well. I kind of hoped that there would be at least a few MYO slots for sale sometimes, much like in other closed species.)
Alternatively, you could also sell a few other things that can alternatively be earned for free in game. I'm thinking Energy Exchange traits & accessories.
I'm in another ARPG group that had a similar funding drive for a website not too long ago and we managed to scrape together 2000$ in under 2 weeks - in a community of roughly 500 members that aren't as used to spending money for content.
(That ran without kickstarter, by the way. All via donations to a paypal pool.)
(That said, if you'd prefer to do this via a crowdfunding website, maybe look into indiegogo. Afaik, they have more flexible campaign setups that don't refund all of the money if the donation goal doesn't get met.)
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Wow, this is some exciting stuff! I'm especially hyped for the possibility of merch, but the website sounds absolutely cool, too.
I myself think it would be completely fair if people could earn treasures or badges by donating something to the group, be it money or designs or something else, as long as there are at least a few options on earning them. Patreon for example sounds like a pretty reasonable idea, but for example I would rather use one-time donations like Ko-Fi due to my own financial situation, so it would be great if they both gave you the same treasure/badge. Treasures and badges don't after all affect the gameplay in any way, so earning them wouldn't give unfair benefits to anyone.
Other than that I don't think I have anything new to add. Oh, but one question I do have! I just started setting up a spreadsheet tracker for myself and my Esk, so do you think I should put that on hold for now or continue working on it? I would rather not do work that turns out to be pretty useless in (near?) future, but I can of course do it if you think the benefits are great enough.
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PLEASE do this! This ARPG is the most amazing thing on the face of DeviantArt!
A few notes! ^^
-PLEASE MAKE IT AVALIBLE ON AN IPAD/PHONE!!!
-A great idea to spread the word and potentially gain more members, watchers, and donators AND without spending money is to gather as many members of the group as you like (I guess it would be preferably be me beers with a large following and high activity on the group) and have them paste or write an advertisement! They can share it with their watchers, and help spread the word! Now, I said an advertisement, and while that sounds like it wouldn’t do much, let me explain. It is technically an advertisement, but if the people help spread the word, the people could gain something out of it, overall increasing the chance a Deviant would want to spread the word! For every 10 Deviants they share it with, they get a ticket to enter a raffle for a prize! You could have it that also every group you submit it to (and it gets accepted) you get another ticket. Yes, I admit, this whole plan sounds time consuming, and I’m not going to lie, it would be very time consuming, but if it’s goes well, it’s could increase your members, watchers, donators, income, and donations substantially! With enough support (which I assure you, you have plenty of support) I bet you could pull this off! Overall, my idea is to reach new people. Yes, there are probably better ways to reach new people and those other ways are perfectly fine if it saves you time!
-(Yes, another idea based off of reaching new people...) Host events that appeal to a large group of people (Example- the LQBTQ+ community). A person is more likely to support a project/group if they feel like they are connected to them in some way, even if that connection is just a bunch of people drawing their esks holding Pride flags!
FOR THE TL,DR PEOPLE-
My overall message is that one of the best ways to increase your members, donators, watchers,income, and donations is to reach new people! Only a sliver of the DeviantArt community knows about this amazing ARPG, and those people give you their full support. By reaching the right people and taking on some challenges, you would be able to raise money substantially quicker due to the more people willing to donate.
I hope you consider my notes, and just know that ThoseWhoWentMissing has inspired me to improve my art and more! Have a beautiful day, and I will leave you alone now! ^^
Oof this was a long comment...
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oh, I don't have anything meaningful to contribute except *eeeeeeee* this is SO exciting!!! Lots of fun thoughts shared here, I can't wait to see how this blossoms for you guys :^D
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oo this sounds great, really!
i like the idea of having player donated design sales, it's a really unique idea. it could be a one-time event, i think, so that it doesn't mess up with the sales calendar too much
i think a patreon and merch sales would be nice as well (i do believe players would buy merch, even if i personally wouldn't, oops!). a KS doesn't sound that great, but i believe there are alternatives where you keep all the money you get, no?
as for tiers and such, how does having player-donated rewards sound? idk, i think options where players can help out with art and such when they can't literally donate money are good ideas for people who wanna do something but can't straight up spend cash
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Oh also i've seen a few sites like this proposed one, but that...its all locked behind registering
I agree we'd need to register to use the site but like, I think the full site should be viewable to the public, so people interested in the game can explore it, see the lore, check out user pages and esks, and so on! 
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Oooh yeah I hate that. :c Definitely don't want any blocks, everything should be 100% visible imo, and the only thing you need to log in for is the actual management of your personal trackers / EE purchases / stuff like that. ^^
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cracks knuckles
I'll go point by point cause i'm heccin excited yo
Basic Mockups
These both look amazing, the idea is really cool, and having a central hub would be amazing.
Lore info on weebly
functions on dA
raffles on discord
most of the chatting and community on discord it feels like
its like oTL i can just feel how desperate all the stuff wants to congregate lol
Player Profiles
This would be really neat! Having everything automatic and lined up all clean and nice and space-saving would be great!!
I think a good thing would be to have all the badges and stuff be the same general height or whatnot too, so everything lines up nice.
you know? so it...lines...up... *twitches*
carry on.
Player trackers
This would be a really nice thing!! Part of me feels like there needs to be a way to edit entries before they are seen by mods though, because theres been several times where I'll score something, submit it, have it all done and then 5 minutes later I'm like, OH my gosh i completely forgot the 17 elementals that are in that... so i have to go back and edit it all. If theres a way for us to fix errors, or cancel and re-submit scores, that would be really good, because i'd hate having to constantly DM staff and be like "you know that entry i made on tuesday at 4pm? yeah its not right at all..."
Esk Trackers
I think if these aren't added I wouldn't be sad, because they're so subjective. Each esk has so many different possibilities. So my suggestion would be, on our pages, where it lists our esks, they would each have like little symbols that we could link to their tracker, score breakdown, and of course their ML number. That would let everyone link their stuff to the esk while its in their ownership, and that info would be wiped clean if the esk was traded for example.
Player Milestones
That would be fun! A easy integration into the profile probably, but not super important. Way more important than treasures though!
Biome Signups, yes, i think since this perminently sets an esk biome that doesn't change on ownership change, that could reasonably be added!
EE and TF requests.
Automating those would definitely be cool, but yeah, theres so much back and forth, idk how that would work.
You could possibly have one of the slots be "How to contact you about slot"
and then if its approved, or needs work, a staff member could Dm or note or even email the user, work out the details, and then just save a screenshot of that conversation along with the request approval for recordkeeping.
It might be easiest though to just make a forum part of the site, and let people post their requests in there instead of on dA, in threads sort of, then they could be locked after being completed even!
Point calc
Well yea, you could just make it a page on there, or build it into that submission scoring thing.
Badges and Treasures
Could make it just a check box type thing to display, that might be fun!
And all the amazing lore and info pages, definitely 100% yesssss <3333
As for funding, I have a couple things I want to do if i can get the energy soon, and I'd also be interested in some donated designs if you want!I mean, donating designs, to be sold XD
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Ditto to like, everything you said hahaha. I'm so excited you're excited! xD
Good point about editing tracker entries before tracker updates are submitted to mods! I will make a note of that. c:
Yesss definitely would like a way to have the esk's site tracker include a link that owners can specify to point to like, a dedicated bio page or what have you. I feel like I explained that poorly. xD Basically like... twwm.com/esk/1234's page could have a lil linky that you can have direct to like, a wix page for example. Sort of like how the current ML has a comment section for linking trackers!
Hmmmm using a forum to handle TF requests is an interesting idea! Also made note of that one hehe.
And thank you for your interest in donating a design! <3 So far this option seems to be the most popular I think haha, so I'll most likely be looking into setting up some kind of signup form soon after I have the chance to discuss with the team how we want to set it up. ^^
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XD awesome!! Thanks for taking notice of my feedback!!
If a forum was integrated, there could totally be official areas for TFs/EE/FAQ even for frequently asked Askstaff questions ect, And a general area that could be used for chatting off of the discord, and maybe even RP areas that lots of people have sort of wondered about here and there
As for the donated design thing, I'd be able to donate several! just let me know if i'll be needed!
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This is all so exciting!
I favor esk sales, as both a contributor and a potential buyer. A small side-application for guest artists could be put together, perhaps, so you aren't suddenly drowning in donated designs that may need revisions 
Straight funds-wise a minimalistic patreon could be set up as a recurring tip jar -- no rewards, just a bit of money in the bank each month. Easy for staff to manage, as another donation option on top of the ko-fi.
Good luck guys! I'm excited to see the team working so hard for TWWM's long-term future! <3
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Ahhhh that's so nice of you yes thank youuuuuuu! <3
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Hey there! So I wanted to ask about the website, would all the features of TWWM be on the website stated above, or would there be a duplicate on here? Cause I think things like wellsprings makes sense to some degree to be on DA (As people can grant other people's wishes). Other than that I'm excited~
I honestly agree with your tier list. It very spot on~
Also I do like the idea of GA or pwyw low teir stuff rather than free is a good idea (maybe only free on special occasions sorta deal so the goal gets met?) Either way, I do love this a lot.
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Right now I'd say most of what's on DA will stay the same and the site would mirror the information / present it more cleanly / come with some bonus features (like a proper masterlist search haha). We'll look into migrating and condensing a lot of our info pages where we can, but anything that's more community based will probably be kept on DA as much as possible. So things like the Wellsprings like you said. o: The goal with the site is to act more like a useful toolbox and less like pet-site sort of thing.
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That makes sense! (sorry I was just giving a teeny bit of opinion there but good to know!!)I do think the tracker/lore stuff should be put on the site though so yeah! ;v;/
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No need to apologize! I just wanted to explain our reasoning. Sorry if it came off as off-putting somehow. <3 And for sure about putting tracker and lore stuff on the site, I'm so excited for that hahaha.
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ah yes Canadian genes, saying sorry is in my blood
anyway no prob and no you werent being off putting, I just tend to apologize a lot.
and cool! Cant wait to see it in motion!~
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Hello, not sure if some of the mods might already be aware of this, but my friend corowne recently started up a patreon to make a framework for ARPG tracking and offsite masterlists - thought I'd link this because she's a very skilled coder who has creds on other ARPGs already and this option might be considerably cheaper and faster than building up a new ARPG tracking framework from scratch! The final code is in fact going to be free, but the patreon subs have been giving her more time to work on it, and subbers get the benefit of previews and future early access to certain features.
She's got info in the journal below and the direct link to the patreon is here, for convenience: www.patreon.com/corowne
Lorekeeper! + PatreonI've started a coding project to build a closed species ARPG masterlist framework! The goal is to make a website skeleton that ARPG owners can copy and use to manage a masterlist. For an example of what I'm talking about, check out the Stygian-Shade site (which I also worked on) - it'll be something like that, but with generalised features so that it can accommodate (hopefully) most ARPGs out of the box! (Or just be a masterlist, really)
The good news is that it will be free. (Aside from the webhosting I mean.) Open-source, coded in PHP.
The bad news is that it might take a while to finish (on the order of a few months, maybe?) - I'm balancing both school and a web dev job at the same time, so I can't afford to spend all my time on it. But if you're interested, I'd appreciate if you could take a look!
I've set up a Patreon page for it here: https://www.patreon.com/corowne
There's a more detailed introduction o
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Ooh yes, I've been eyeballing that a ton and had considered becoming a patron in fact!
The main deciding factors were
a) having no idea how long it would take until Lorekeeper was far enough along for public use and
b) the advantages of having something custom tailored just for TWWM, though the fact that Lorekeeper will be open source and very customizable is definitely nice.
That said, it's still entirely possible that we might try to use things from Lorekeeper depending on how things progress on our end and Corowne's. A big one could be the raffle system for the Wellsprings for instance! Do you happen to know how far along Lorekeeper is currently?
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Cy's let me know she's open to it if you or others on the mod team would like to contact her directly and privately to ask about more specifics!
For your initial questions, though:
a) this is the public to-do list and it's a thorough breakdown of the current lorekeeper plans and features: link to google doc
She would have a better idea of the actual completion date for the full project, though, if you had a specific date in mind.
b) For what it's worth, Lorekeeper is intended to be a toolkit where you could adjust and build on, and she's also mentioned to me that she's actually considered exactly how a game like TWWM would run on her framework (as a lot of other ARPGs, including the one she's already coded an AP tracking system for, use very similar systems). Her comments were that Lorekeeper would only need minimal tweaks to accommodate TWWM, and those are more like small additions rather than changes to the framework - for example, adding the user ranks based on AP. Again, if you need specifics you're welcome to ask her! I'm not a coder myself so unfortunately I can only parrot back what she's told me as well as what's on that to-do list document.
I just bring it up since it seemed like a lot of extra work and funding to code a site from scratch when Cy's been planning this project for exactly the intention of saving ARPG community this level of work and extra cost! If you check it out and decide it's not for you or you need something done more quickly (I imagine it'll take some time for TWWM not only to decide on the funding method, but also to raise the funds, and then do the coding from scratch, but I'm not sure on what your ideal completion date would be) then totally understandable, I just wanted to let you guys know this option was available because I know how much extra/repeat work that Lorekeeper might save you. I can 100% attest to Cy's professional creds on top of her being very reliable to work with and a lovely person in general!
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Ooh thanks so much for all the info! This is all great to know and the doc you linked looks especially promising. I should be in a discussion tonight with our coder and webmaster so that'll be a good opportunity to bring Lorekeeper up again. Based on that I'll see about potentially contacting Corowne soon!
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I just came to post the same thing! @ corowne's work! That way you can hire someone to maintain/update the code/ have something to work from, which is much more mangeable as well! It has from the checklist of stuff you're looking for:
- Ability to upload pets + update profiles
- Complete tracker system and approvals system
- Inventory and items system
- Points system
- Admin system @ backend updating stuff
- Easy to add information pages to once everything is set up
- Raffless/ raffle manager!
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Yessss also replied to Crowlets above, but this for sure is all very appealing! Biggest concern was how long it would take Lorekeeper to be functional in all the aspects we'd need, whereas paying a dedicated coder means we could get something custom-tailored and done much faster even though it wouldn't be free. I could imagine we might still look into using things from Lorekeeper though, especially if it has features that are closer to being finished than we realized. Either way I'll still bring it up with the coder just to have all our bases covered!
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The idea of a fleshed out TWWM website is very exciting! As someone who cannot pay for patreon or things of the such for personal reasons, the second fundraiser idea sounds ideal. Especially since I've seen many players who do not have a paypal, credit card, etc and I'm sure they'd love to help in any way they could. I would propose a sort of form they'd have to fill out, though, since you'd probably get overwhelmed by the amount of designs sent in..
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Yesss, very exciting times! And good idea about the forms. I can see about setting up a google form or something to keep it clean and simple. A lot easier than a flood of DA notes ahah. Thanks for the suggestion!
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No problem! I wish ya'll the best of luck!!
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As slow as patreon is, it would be ideal for long term. There's a fee, but PayPal and such do too, and you'd be able to get a pretty clear picture what gap you have to bridge if any month to month with it.
To keep it fair to non payers, just don't offer anything that can't already be obtained: things like small raffles for myo premades (a pay to enter greenhouse for those of us that work and miss them a lot of sorts), unique traits, or small 'allowances' of AP or GP.
I'm a big fan of patreon raffles, people can come and cancel whenever they want, and it's less stress on the mods. Just plug the payers into a list and randomize like always, same as GA raffles.
In the meantime, you could just do GA auctions like normal but maybe instead of 'free' raffles, turn them into low pwyw. So a bit of both. Just make sure the artist is comfortable with it, and when I say low, I mean no higher than 30-50. You don't want to detract from the main auction or sales.
Same with the donation esks, and you'll probably get FLOODED with them, so maybe take applications for those instead of just a free for all. Could be very busy and y'all seem busy enough.
I personally probably wouldn't use KS or a merch shop so I don't have thoughts on them. I guess itd depend what was sold. Prints of the wanderers would be kinda cool if wither is up for it, but putting a tax on her for that wouldn't be fair to her.
Thank you for sharing all this with us!! It's really exciting! We're going from a twig to a tree and it's super cool to see it happen.
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Yeah, in general I'm pretty interested in looking into Patreon for this! Alongside at least one of the other options to help boost funding.
Unfortunately we can't do any kind of raffle, as they're actually against Patreon's terms. blog.patreon.com/patreons-stan… Contests are allowed, but I worry that might be another can of worms in and of itself haha. ): Are the Patreon raffles you mentioned frequently occurring? Is there something that makes them legal or are they just taking place under the radar?
Ooh I agree, offering low PWYWs could be a really good route. In general it seems like it'd be a really good idea to make sales available at multiple price ranges to increase the ability to provide something for everyone. <3
And yeah for sure haha, player donated designs seems really popular with everyone so far so we'll probably just need to start a line similar to the current GA queue or something?
Grow little sapling, groooow! \o/
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Probably under the radar. I'm not too sure what goes on behind the scenes. Maybe just a seasonal thing and not an exclusive perk. I'll try to find an example again and go creeping on it.
With design donations I'd worry about overload, as there's already such a wait list for the GA... doing double up means people may pick and choose what to bid on and that doesn't really seem fair to either. Once a week is pretty stressful for someone who only has the funding for one- who would you choose?
Granted that's a 'them' problem. Not sure how it'd go in practice, but no matter what the mods would have more work for sure
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Thanks!
Yeah, it admittedly hadn't occurred to me that it could bring on a desire to flood in donated designs haha. orz So far it's just been a handful of people who have offered to donate though, so it's possible we could set up a couple fairly manageable batches? Dunno, will need to discuss with the team!
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(we comment here, correct?)
I'm a fairly new player so I can't really comment on a lot of this, BUT just from looking over everything it looks amazingly impressive so far. The mock-up looks like a standalone pet site almost and that's awesome.
That said, I think a combo of Patreon and something LIKE Kickstarter may be best to both keep it maintained + off the ground. I've heard from quite a few sources that KS is just.. not. ideal. As the cut it takes is fairly massive and isn't all that flexible. I think some sort of crowdfunding alternative that's less restrictive might work better for you guys.
I'm not sure about rewards/tiers either. For a KS thing though, I know small physical merch things are always fun. Even if there something as small as pins and stickers (don't care much for round pins though, enamel are more interesting). The intangible stuff the group works with I don't have enough of an idea of the value to comment on if they'd make any sense in these w/o being unfair.
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