Hello waterdog lovers! Happy August!

We hope everybody has been enjoying their summer so far, we have some updates to go over with everyone today, as well as discuss some of our future goals in mind to keep everyone in the loop and keep you all excited for what's coming up for the site and species' future. 

August Monthly prompt

Apologizes for our lateness, but our new prompt for August is now live! For this prompt you will be drawing/writing about how your watercritter, a friend’s, or one of our NPCs is spending their last month of summer as summer comes to an end and we enter into fall. 

Last Days of Summer - August monthly prompt

Due to the lateness this prompt will end 9/4 rather than at the end of the month. Next month should return to our normal schedule of ending on the end of the month.

ARTFIGHT PROMPT

Since artfight ended after our artfight prompt ended, we have extended the artfight submission prompt til 8/11! You can turn in your artfight pieces [HERE]. Don’t forget to look over the rules on how to turn in your pieces for SD. Once closed artfight pieces can still be turned in to the regular Sand Bank.

Tide pool rules UPDATE

Due to some confusion surrounding the tide pool rules, we have updated our rules on the Tide Pool’s page as they weren’t put anywhere solid. These will hopefully help everyone going forward on the functionality of the Tide Pool. 

Rules Update 

• You can only surrender characters that have been owned for at least 30 days (1 month)
• You cannot add on items to Tide Pool submissions to by-pass the trait limit. Designs must follow the prompt guidelines: Dogs only, up to 1 rare trait max
• You cannot purchase your own designs/submitted characters from the pool. You can, however, purchase designs/characters you previous owned, as long as they were not submitted by you

Community poll results

Here's the results of our last community poll!

trait updates

As per our community poll, the following changes and updates are going to be made:

Matching/Mismatching Eyes

• Matching has been renamed to ‘Matching Eyes to Water’
• Mismatching has been renamed to ‘Non-Matching Eyes to Water’
• Non-Matching Eyes has been bumped down to Uncommon
  • This makes it available to freely use on MYOs and Tide Pool submissions without the use of a rare trait!

Users will be compensated with 500 SD for the downgrade. All users currently with Non-Matching Eye tickets can directly resell them from their inventory for 500 SD each.

Blank Eyes

• Will no longer require Matching, Non-Matching, or Colored/Dark Sclera
• Can be made of water but cannot flow unnaturally without the need for the Body Horror trait (ie waterfall effect)

Snow

Due to confusion surrounding this trait, we have redefined how this trait functions for consistency and clarification. The new definition can be found under the trait’s definition along with a visual guide [HERE]. **

• Snow can be placed on both the sand and water
• Must have a visual distinction different to white sand, ie; texture/shapes paired with sparkles/shimmer/snow crystals effect
• Textures and shapes used for snow do not require the Shaped Sand trait
• Snow can now have a ‘food dye’ effect:
  • Doesn’t have to be exact, but general placement and colors must stay the same
  • Dye is treated like markings. To change colors/freely move will require color changing sand
  • Dye markings need to visually look like dye, ie; soft/blended edges and/or watercolor effect + sparkles/shimmer/snow crystals effect
  • Changes to Dye through redesign will still need to follow our redesign guidelines

**We will not require any already existing designs with snow to be changed with this update.

Visual Guide below by G0DSYNDR0M3

Sand to Water Ratio

Due to confusion on the 50/50 sand to water ratio rule, we have updated the guidelines regarding it for clarification. **

• 50/50 ratio is the Maximum amount of sand allowed on the body to water. Waterdogs should not have more sand to water
• This ratio applies to Only the ‘body’. The list below outlines everything that applies to the body. Anything outside of this is considered an ‘extra’ and does not apply
  • Body = Head, Torso, Legs, and Tail
  • NOT Body = Hair, Wings, Horns, etc  

**Just like with the snow trait update, already existing designs will not be required to change with the new guidelines.

Short term and long term goals

We’ve been hard at work brainstorming ideas and what we’d like to see for the future based on what we’ve heard from y’all, our community. A lot of us have been very busy with our own personal lives and other obligations, so while we can’t promise a set release dates/timeframes for some of these, this is the list of what we have currently in development. We thank you all for your continued patience as we continue to build upon the species.

Short Term Goals

These should hopefully be completed within the next few months.

• Trait compensation:
  • This one is pretty self explanatory, going through what we already have to compensate with the discontinued traits so they can be cleared off the ML. We are, however, concerned how much to actually compensate and we feel we’ve heard y’all have the same sentiments. We will most likely post a community poll on what truly feels like it needs compensating and what can be bypassed with the future changes.

• Site clean up:
  • There’s still a lot of outdated information on site that needs to be changed or condensed for better clarity. Those pages will be cleaned up as well as updating any rules we added/changed to their corresponding pages.

• Revamp shops:
  • Looking into giving Archie’s Emporium, The Tidal Parlor, and the Sand Shop+Sand Bank an update to functionality, item prices, submission payouts, and layout. This is a soft short term goal that’s teetering towards long term.

Long Term Goals

These are what we are hoping to implement, but are still very much in early development as we hammer out the finer details. 

• Crafting and Pets
• New Traits/Condensing Current Traits
• Character Leveling (we’re considering using this as a way to regain SB slots for WDs)
• Coding for Tide Pool monthly user purchase limit
  • This one comes from some of the concerns we’ve heard regarding designs being gone almost immediately upon dropping in the Tide Pool, leaving others unable to decide if they’d even connect to a design at all before it’s gone. This goal will take some time, as it will most likely require entirely custom coding from scratch. We’re hoping by that point the ‘newness’ of the shop will have died off and it will have evened itself out without the need of the coding, but as of right now we’d like to implement this to make sure everyone can enjoy the Tide Pool.

Final Notes

We have been looking over all the feedback you guys have given us during our last community poll regarding these ideas, and will absolutely be taking suggestions and your ideas into account to keep in mind. While we cannot do everything that was suggested, we will still be doing our best to make sure everyone's satisfied with the outcome once these features come into place.

We know there's been a lot of concern as well with all the trait changes being made, especially when it comes to the eventual compensation (which we are hoping to start on soon!) We've been brainstorming ideas and ways for all the items sent out to be used, including new traits for purchase, and the crafting mechanic we plan on implementing for the site. 
We will do our very best to make sure we still keep everything exciting for everyone and try to maintain balance when it comes to the site economy and overall enjoyment. I know there's been a lot of concern, and we cannot promise that all these issues will be fixed right away- there is always room for improvement and we are constantly looking into suggestions and brainstorming ideas on how to help solve these kinds of problems.

As always, we thank you guys for your patience and never-ending support. The species is nothing without it's community.