I'm going to cut right to the chase on this one as it's something very serious that the staff and I really need your feedback on. We have all been discussing the current way that we do the FA and are finding some issues that are difficult to overlook. At present the process to create, prepare and release a new FA set is not only tedious, but expensive. Paul has been working on a way to make part of the load a bit easier - allowing the staff to upload an item and have all the colors automatically generated. We've hit a lot of snags getting it to work properly and that's what has held up the release for this month's new set. I do believe we're close to getting it all sorted and when we do that will help a lot. (Previously the staff were having to save each color individually and it was very tiresome!)

But the other issues don't really go away with just that one fix. The main problem we're having is the sheer amount of items necessary to achieve the level of customization that we want. You've all seen the "accents" tab, now imagine that Jess has to draw all of those tiny pieces separately and we have to color and upload them all separately, too. We have a coding fix in mind for this, too, but it would be better aided by what I'm about to say...

We want to completely scrap the current FA and start over from scratch. But before you panic, please hear me out! This could be a very, very good change for the site and we would absolutely do our best to bring back revamped versions of the sets we have. Part of the problem is that most of the FA art was done ages ago when the site had no direction and so a lot of it just seems very out of place at present. Since we have Jess redoing most of it anyway, it's also costing us money that could be better spent elsewhere. For instance... Adding races that aren't an overlay of the main base, but are completely their own thing. Avatars would be done very similarly to pets, allowing you to collect patterns like you would genes. Different races would be like different pet species, with classes to further aide in unique appearances. Do you like CYO pets? What about CYO outfits?

There's so many possibilities that we don't have with our current system. There are some downsides however.
• If we do remove the existing art and start over we will have fewer options available until we bulk up our inventory.
• Facial features and hair will be tied to your race, allowing you to swap them out. You will also be able to swap out held items, but Sets will no longer have multiple items that you can mix and match. You will, however, be able to decide colors for everything (from buttons to ribbons) and as I mentioned patterns would be available to make sets even more customizable!
• We will need the help of crowdfunding to accomplish this change. I know we just had a Kickstarter not too long ago, but this is a change that was not budgeted for. However, the staff and I can't handle this alone. I can't handle it alone. For this site to be successful we need help from our fans. The Kickstarter would focus on allowing us to have start up art (races, outfits, and patterns) as well as modify the coding to allow for these changes. We would have a smaller goal than our first Kickstarter - around $1500.

One very important thing I want to note: Yes, Members would be compensated for whatever clothing is in their inventory! We're well aware this is a big, scary idea, but we have talked about it pretty thoroughly and we feel it's going to be better in the long run. Even still, we want your feedback and input on this so that we can make it as smooth on everyone as possible. We'll do what we have to in order to make sure any transition is an easy one.

Please direct your questions and comments here!

Thanks everyone for hearing us out! I really hope we can get things worked out! Please don't hesitate to post in the thread above!