 |
Hi There! Sorry for Locking your thread, however most of your commentary is based on a massive misunderstanding about on how things work behind the scenes, so we feel it'd be good to take a pause here and respond with how thing typically work and what may be making you feel staff gets everything.
Most of the stuff that you are seeing produced for Staff with Staff and colorist Credits has been bought YEARS in advance -- we have some staffers who are owed breedings and customs that they bought in 2012! Though this is an outlier -- the majority of what's waiting is from 2014 on: As we are about to enter 2017, there are a lot of colorists and techstaffers who haven't gotten anything recently won if they can't make it themselves in their spare time. And we can't even pick up things from the yellow pages for other staffers until we have finished customer work, so they typically tick by a couple at a time.
There are tons of restrictions on how much and how often we can buy, with cooldown breaks required where we can't get anything unless we make more well above and beyond the call of duty. Customer Work is TOP priority, and always pushed ahead of anything done for staff. And we're constantly making adjustments for it. And in order to purchase anything, we have to finish the customer stuff we have picked up, including our quota. Every last bit of it. And we have to pick it up. But even when we finish quota, any access we picked up, and most of us do, we have to finish it all. Staff Credit typically does not count as Quota (except on rare occasions)
Typically we're making 6 to 15 soquili (For soquili colorists) to 6 to 25 Familiars (familiars) In a breeding before we're allowed to buy a single pony or breeding. Edited colorists doing edited work, and unedited doing unedited. For customs often times we're working on 5-10 separate customs, And twins, sometime fraternal, are frequent, increasing that number. That is a Lot of pets created in order to purchase one custom.
The Quota did used to be larger and monthly, but it burned colorists out and resulted in less work being done in general, and a larger amount of ponies getting shuffled about to new colorists, only for the new colorists to get overwhelmed and burnt out and quit as well. A smaller quota results in more customs and breedings more frequently, though those who are capable of taking extra still do. In addition, the current quota was picked to allow time for real life: Coloring Soquili and Familiars is a Hobby that we take as serious as a job, but it's still not a paying, real world job, and school, work, health, and family are far more important to make time for, and make for Happier staff. Happier staff means more giveaways, customs, and breedings, as well as some fun joke giveaways such as the recent BlackFriday, and the massive conversions of the CYO that we do every year. 2016 has been a year with the most amount of Breedings, Customs, and general freebie giveaways, in all of soquili's history as well! While most are unedited, it is in part because we have more unedited colorists, and most of our Edited colorists are busy at work working on Other customer stuff that they already owe: it takes hours upon hours to make some of the edited ponies we give out to the customers, frequently more time than that spent on SC.
Some Customers may win in great infrequency, but that is because there are almost TWO THOUSAND People involved in the shop. While only about 300 are active at any given time, there is still a much larger spread of customers to get ponies to than staffers working to get them out.
Recently we have run a hiring event for edited soquili colorists, to try and up our numbers, and plan on running another attempt soon in a different location as well to boost our amount of individuals submitting by advertising outside the shop.
In addition: Most staff are 100% incapable of being involved in major events (Such as the prehistoric event this year) to receive anything from it: We can't enter games, we can't enter the raffle, we can't enter the flatsales, if we were at all involved in the event itself (Making pets for it, running games, keeping lists updated etc), AND We're not allowed to enter Judged Contests at all, so no RP contests, Design-a-Pony, Make a mask, Cooking contests etc. Instead we get a free custom e to make up for the fact that we cannot enter. Most people have not gotten their prehistoric event freebie since the stuff from 2014 is still being caught up on behind the scenes and they aren't able to make the design themselves, or they can, but they are just holding onto it until they are finally caught up with breedings and customs for Customers. We're NOT allowed to buy pets from the event in most situations: We make the event pets, we produce them for all of you, and then after all is said and done, our work is done, we get a single soquili and a single familiar in exchange for setting something up that allows customers to win 3-4 ponies and 3-4 Familiars depending on how many different types of giveaways we have in the major event. Most tech staff still haven't gotten their tea event freebies, much less their prehistoric event freebies.
A lot of the time, if you see a colorist working on something for themselves, such as a custom, breeding, or a raffle pot, it is because they purchased it years ago and are taking a break to work on it a little.
Most staffers spend their credits to buy Customers things, as well... Which also tend to be picked first in the Yellow pages since, by instinct most often, we tend to focus on things that belong to those who are not staff.
In general? Customers get the cream of the crop, the majority of our attention, and generally get more pony then staff members do, it's just spread out on a wider scale. Using myself as an example, I make approximately 21 ponies per month, the majority of which go to customers. Whenever I buy a breeding (Which we are allowed to order one every other month, plus cooldown periods where we're not allowed to buy ANYTHING with credits at all, paying extra credits for edits, and frequently have to wait, if someone else makes it, a minimum of a year, though as it is I have some I've been waiting three years for as of this very moment) , typically it is a breeding of one of my ponies with a Non-Staff member's pony, and the third one also goes to a customer. So for, lets say 18 ponies made for non SC work, I buy something that, gets two more people who are not staffers a free pony. I frequently also spend my credit customs (Which are more expensive to buy Edited than it is to buy unedited) to buy CUSTOMERS quests that they can't normally get.
In addition: To work here requires passion. Every staff member that has shown no interest what so ever in attempting to win a pet, buy a pet, etc, and instead only in gold (which is now almost useless in the amount we ask for in customs, and now we don't even require you to pay for breedings) have never lasted more than a few months: they don't work because they have no invested interest in actually finishing, and we're always doing free work for a false currency when most of us have real world paying jobs and college educations we're spending loads of money on that we could be focusing on instead.
Tech staff answer all questions, search for certs and uncerts for customers, cert ponies and familiars, Managing rp, lists, updating owner list, setting up stats and teepees, moderating the forums and discord, Run contests, games, and massive events, manage lists that can sometimes span multiple pages in length, roll these lengthy monstrosities of lists, and generally work themselves to the bone to keep everything running smoothly so the colorists can color.
Unedited colorists are just as important to us as edited colorists: they are they're own category and are just as vital to the lifeblood of the shop. Edited colorists work readily, but it takes so much more time to DO edits that it's impossible to make at the production level of unedited, as it takes so much time and so many ponies in general are heavier edits. Sometimes though, we do end up rolling things that were minor to moderate, which often times we have no control over.
Sometimes people are unlucky in winning. We've been working hard to try and find ways to spread the love, and open things up to give people more chances of winning. Supply will Never be as high as demand, no matter how many people we hire...
I'm sorry you're upset. However everything you stated was based on misinformation, and would reduce the passion staff actually have for the shop, and they'd burn out. We had heavier quotas, and it literally made colorists physically sick and leave. We've already removed so many chances we could win in events. We're not even allowed near shop run judged contests or major events unless we were unable to be involved in it enough to earn a freebie, and enthusiasm for giveaways and free raffles are part of what keeps us excited for the shop. It's fun being involved in the games. This year has been the most productive we've ever been, and we're working on making it even more involved.
Pets are our paycheck: Gold is useless and frequently we don't get paid for our breedings: they're pay what you want and people often send nothing. We've refused to raise the prices of our customs, so they're typically affordable to everyone in the modern economy. In the last 3 months we've done 24 breedings and there are still more being picked up. We just gave away over 100 Pets in a Joke giveaway to make fun of black friday and The last three years we've given everyone who's entered the CYO a pony conversion and are hoping to do it again next month for the fourth year in a row. We gave 164 Ponies in the prehistoric event. And most of what you see being made for staff is 2-4 years in the waiting.
Hopefully this clears up some misunderstandings!
|
 |
