There are a few more notable creator updates today:
Recolor items: The recolor items have been given the new find item selection UI. This UI is still being tested and may need more tweaks. It will be necessary as the site grows to prevent lag (the old dropdowns have been replaced due to this).
Item/Species Notifications: There is a new system in place to allow creators to notify players of updates related to their species and items. This feature can be found currently in the Release panel. You can send a notification once every 3 days at most (to prevent spam). This should be used for things that may affect or interest players such as layer fixes, new colors, settings changes, and other types of announcements!
These notifications will only go to players who have the species/item. Also, players can turn these off in their notification settings.
Notes: The news and notifications system still need work. We know it's a bit messy right now, so we're still working on making these systems a bit more organized and lessy spammy. More updates to come later!
Just to everyone knows, the Apply for Artist link has been moved to the Plaza (bottom section) and is only visible to non artists. So if you are bringing friends to the site, be aware this is no longer in the sidebar.
Some updates have been made to the art panel and crediting. We are working towards enhancing ability for creators to collaborate using the crediting feature.
Easy access to contributor species - The 'my species' page will now list species that you have art credit for at the bottom of the page, with a link to that species' art panel. This will make it easy for non-creators to find the species they are helping out with.
Improved error messages - If you cannot view a species you were credited on, make sure to sign the license agreement. License agreements must be signed before the art panel can be accessed by contributors. The error message for this has been updated with this information.
Creator-only crediting - Contributors can no longer add credit, the ability to add credit to a species is strictly meant for just the creator. This will make it safer for creators to add contributors without the risk of having their species hijacked.
Further restrictions - There are now THREE levels of permissions on art panel access for contributors. This is also being added to give creators the ability to collaborate with less risk. The default permission is NO ART CP ACCESS, so make sure to edit this in the future if you want other artists to have access to your art panel.
No Art CP - This is the default option and will prevent contributors from accessing your species completely. This is meant to be used when you intend to upload their artwork on their behalf. All artwork that is not yours must STILL be credited to the respective artist, and the license agreement MUST be signed by them to adhere to the 4dopt Terms of Service. Do NOT use your own credit if you did not draw the artwork yourself, and do NOT attempt to sign a license agreement on behalf of another artist—this will result in an account ban.
Upload Only - as it sounds, grants only permission for contributors to view and upload files. No replacing, editing, deleting, adding new file names, or accessing the species mascot. This is the default setting and the safest way to allow others to add artwork
Full Access - This option gives contributors full access to your art panel, sans the ability to add/edit/remove credit!
All current credit has been given Full Access permission (even though No ART CP is the default) to minimize changes to older accounts, since this is how the site used to function! The heavier restrictions options are new.
Please post bugs in the bug report forum, and thank you all for your feedback!
Tags have now been re-added to adopt search.
You can now also edit tags on item pages and species profiles.
The Spotlight Contest is back and can be found in the Plaza!
There is currently no contest running at the moment, since no adopts have been entered in the current contest, but you can now enter your adoptables for the upcoming contest next week!
How entering works: You can enter up to one adopt per species. There is a 1,000 PTS entry fee.
The entry fee is a bit higher now in order to encourage quality over quantity entries, for the sake of voters.
Voting: Voting will be limit to one per species (so you can use up your species votes) but also with a new overall limit that's based on level (this is listed in the guide). '
The overall account level voting limit will help ensure that voters don't feel obligated to agonize over voting for every single species in the contest, since 4dopt has a potentially unlimited number of different species on the site.
There is also now a small account EXp bonus for voting! So if you remember to check in on the contest once a week, you can get a little bit of EXP for casting your votes.
Contestants: Adoptables are still listed in of EXP (level), with highest level adopts showing at the top, so you can boost your odds of being seen by leveling up your adopt.
In order to make species voting a bit easier, voters will also be able to sort by species if desired.
That's it for now. For more information, you can find extra details in the Spotlight Contest guides!
This feature is very new and may need additional tweaks and balances, we will be keeping an eye on it to make sure everything is working out alright.
The UI for selecting transform and container items has been updated on both the species Transform panel and items Distribution panel.
Instead of a single dropdown, you can now type in a word that will bring up relevant items. This runs a quick search for any items that contain the word or phrase in its name, description, or tags. You can then view and easily select from those items.
This also now includes the item's image, and how many things the item is already being used for.
You can also now select up to 100 items, since the site is now prepared to handle larger quantities of items.
While the old dropdowns were cumbersome and would have crashed the site eventually if enough items were added, this new UI can handle unlimited items existing on the site and will prepare 4dopt for heavier traffic in the future.
We are working on adding this UI to recolor items as well. Stay tuned!
The collections page has been redone to address issues with lag. This page was already lagging from how many items are on the site, and will continue to get worse as the site grows.
To prepare for site growth, this has been converted over to realtime so it can handle larger numbers of items.
Also, a fix has been made to the collections counter for achievements. The fix will take affect when you put an item in your collection from your inventory (any item). This same counter is also used to display how many items are in your overall collection on the new collections page, so if you are having issues with this, you can fix it by sending an item to your collection.
Eventually, we will be adding pagination to collections and other areas of the site such as the respawns and what lurks here buttons, to make sure the site will not be affected by how many items are created.
Species Transforms are now back and have been fully recoded!
Multiple transforms + realtime - The new system allows a species to have multiple transforms, so you can now select up to 10 transforms in your species panel. The selections for this have been converted to realtime for ease of use.
Shadow system: The old Shadow items are available to use as transforms, but this is no longer a main item function—it is now officially a secondary function that, like before, any item can have depending on the creator's settings.
Marking transferring when transforming: A small tweak has been made to allow species creators to get markings transferred while transforming (if a Spikey Wolf with a white base marking is transformed into an Understuffed Kitty, the white settings are transferred). We are currently working on finding a way to make this feature more widely available, but for now, it allows this if you are the species creator.
Unfinished: Parts of this feature are still unfinished. We have yet to add transform information to species and item profiles, this is still in the works. The bugs that were posted have also not been fixed. We are still working on species transforms, but this recode was a big step forward!
Please report bugs to the bug reports forum.
There is a new quality of life feature in exoplore called 'Shoo All' which can bed used to shoo all of your closed spawns in any given area. The amount of account EXP you get for this is less than what you would get for manually shooing things, but it's much faster! This may be especially helpful in the Seeker Isle. This has now been added to the explore guide.