I absolutely love how Lorwolf allows users to contribute content to the site. Though I do wonder if the cost of CA might be a bit much, which I believe is heavily influenced by the creators needing to make back their cost spent in creation let alone a profit.

With so much of the customization content coming from CA artists both in apparel and even marking overlays (which is so cool!), I feel as though most people are looking to CA to decorate and purchase content to really help portray their wolves. That being said, I do feel like the cost to showcase rather simple edits is a bit hefty sometimes. Lowering the cost of the tokens would take off the pressure of the artists to price higher, and giving creators more control over the value of their creations. I also think it would help Lorwolf in a financial stand point, as I feel it would make things more accessible to more people.

I'm far more inclined to spend more MS and purchase more MS with money when I'm making smaller, but more purchases. I'd love to buy more, and both grow and decorate so many more of my wolves, but it's hard to justify spending roughly $10 a piece, and makes me far more reluctant to buy and spend more on smaller ones. I feel like having things priced higher causes more hoarding, inaccessibility, and less flow of currency.

That being said, I also don't know the full plans or roadmap ahead for LW - so I definitely understand if this is just part of growing pains.

Conflicted. I really like the idea of this, but it’s submitting your own art to the site- that can’t be cheap! I think once there’s more site apparel to use, CA won’t be as important.

Yet I still believe that a cheaper option could be good for smaller additions. Could make more trouble for the staff though since they have to decide what would count as “minor”.

Overall I would LOVE to see cheaper CA because then it would all become more affordable… but it could be trouble for the site.

The sales price wouldn't have to be adjusted for what's currently available, and I imagine they could also refund the difference of adjustment if they wanted to.

I believe the only people really negatively effected by this change would be members who've already purchased and might see items put up for cheaper after. But, personally as someone whose already spent money and liquidated and spent a LOT from other sim games - I'd rather eat a bit of a loss as a consumer to have more accessibility, options, and freedom to decorate in the grand scheme.

And while I agree a site needs a premium currency sink, I do believe there's good sinks out there already, and I don't think creating massive premium currency sinks (at all really) in a very vital part of a pet sim game with apparel is a great route. Ultimately there's not much to do with wolves given the mass amounts that can be produced, and hardly enough available decor for them. And users could still price how they wish and control rarity, so I imagine there'd still be hefty sinks for larger items.

In all honesty I don't think I'd have made the suggestion if we saw more of the decor and markings from lorwolf itself, but it seems that CA is utilized as a huge component for decorating and personalization content. It's unfortunate to see it so restricted behind large paywalls when pet dressing is such a huge component to pet sim games like this.

But that's just how I view it!

Ohhh, I like the sound of some of that @Reave! Definitely something I think could be expanded on/polished as a solution.

There absolutely isn't enough of official apparel and markings right now. There have been more apparel introduced, but so far complete sets have been tied to achievements (there's 3 but quite grindy to get, since they're soulbound) and events (soft retiring and you can only get them during limited time windows) and the armor set from crafting (fairly accessible and good, or at least the cheaper recipe sets are) and 1 moonstone set (fairly pricey, and it's a pain waiting for the pieces to slowly rotate in the MM) and 1 cooking set from the cooking camp profession shop (you can't even get the whole set in 1 week). The game is 8 months old and we have all of ONE fairly accessible clothing set and its recolors. CAs are absolutely picking up the slack right now for the casual players and the site in its current state is also not very attractive for those who like playing dressup wolves but are on a budget or free to play. This is because it's also very grindy getting multiple copies of these apparel sets (except the armor sets).

Lowering the CAT price or making a smaller cheaper lower coverage CAT type would both be good compromises. Though ultimately, it's still quite expensive to make a whole outfit from CA pieces.

Overall it seems like LW badly needs more accessible clothing sets or at least pieces that can mix and match to easily make a whole outfit. Perhaps we can have more contests in the future, though they still haven't turned the winners of the banner contest into actual site items yet

In my experience with Dappervolk, which has a completely free Pet Accessory submission process, approvals only happen once per month, if at all. Sometimes people have to wait many months for feedback on their Dappervolk submissions. More if there are multiple reworking rounds. DV is a slower pet site, generally about 100 players active, and still their Pet Accessory queue takes forever.

I am also not a fan of calculating coverage when I’m trying to get the right blueprint on FR. It would add so much more effort to calculate all 12 (soon 14) different poses and coverage. A smaller CA still requires labor to approve or send back to rework too, so it wouldn’t help on managing the CA mod’s labor front.

So I’m mixed on this suggestion. CA designers benefit greatly in fake wolf money for their efforts, but nothing tangible IRL. It’s not like I can buy real food with moonstones. My view on the CAT cost would be very different if the submission process had an “auto-approval now, ban rule breakers later” type policy that lightened the load on mods vetting every submission. That’s very against the grain of how custom stuff works on pet sites, though; they have approval queues and that’s the culture.

I also really want more people to buy my stuff, and easily, but I think that will only happen as moonstones become easier to obtain. So no, I don’t like the current CAT cost compared to the amount of moonstones players typically have at the moment.

I prefer not to be pinged in this thread, thanks for understanding! I wanted to address a couple issues that no one else was bringing up, is all.

Mixed feelings here. I'm certainly not going to complain about anything that makes life cheaper! I know the pain of not wanting to spend 100+ ms on a tiny accessory, especially with no way to try them on first! And I've pretty much decided that I won't buy anything that isn't available on all bases unless it's super cheap. Again because I can't try it on first, so I want to at least be able to use in on a different wolf if my original plan doesn't work out.

I really hope we get some actual site apparel, maybe even a real apparel store, but frankly the CA market must be a cash cow for the site so I don't see that happening any time soon.

On the other hand though... As a CA creator, the cost of the CAT is negligible. 20ms is the break-even point. Even if CATs were completely free, the most you would see is a 20ms reduction on prices in the shop.

Everything above the 20ms per piece is just the artist getting paid for their work. It's what the artist wants for the amount of time and effort they put into it.