These are some updates that have been announced in the Discord server, but not put here as they should be.

First, we now have Gene Limits for genes being added to a Drakiri. This will be tracked in their notes.

This is genes added on to the base geno! Carried genes brought out with a Hidden Splendor do not count towards this limit, only applicators/ability potions/Mutagens added on.

The Limits are as follows:
Common Markings: Up to 10 common markings can be added

Common Abilities: Up to 8 common abilities can be added (This only counts for abilities added from ability potions, not earned from levelling or Rites)

Uncommon Markings: Up to 8 Uncommon markings can be added on |

Uncommon Abilities: Up to 6 uncommon abilities can be added on (This only counts for abilities added from ability potions, not earned from levelling or Rites)

Rare markings: Up to 5 rare markings can be added on

Rare Abilities: Up to 5 rare abilities can be added on (This only counts for abilities added from ability potions, not earned from levelling or Rites)

Mutations: Up to 4 Mutations can be added, with an additional 5 Magic Mutations

Legendary Markings: Up to 2 can be added

Legendary Mutations: Up to 2 can be added

Legendary Abilities: Up to 2 can be added

Coat Mods: Up to two of those can be added UNLESS you are using a Coat Modifier Bundle, then the Bundle counts as one.

This limit can be refreshed ONCE with an item! (The item is not yet available, but will be soon!)

A few more changes:

When adding genes or items, please explain what is being added in the comment! If a lot of stuff is interacting, explain what is interacting with what to make the approval staff's job easier! If there is no comment explaining things, your design will be bumped with a comment asking for clarification. This will make things a ton easier on the staff, and will streamline the approval process and allow the queues to be gotten through more quickly.

Tweaks to Disappearing Inks!

Disappearing Inks had a few issues that have been ironed out!

1 - They were meant to be more expensive/harder to get than Gene Erasers... but I failed at math and they ended up being the same price since erasers are 500 Aurics and Inks were 1500 for 3 uses... which boiled down to 500 Aurics for an overpowered item

2 - Their intention was so you could hide a marking or two on a Drak that you couldn't get to work with the design As such, Disappearing Inks have gone through some changes! Disappearing Inks are now 2000 Aurics apiece, and they now only effect a single gene! Like before, there is no limit to how many you can apply to a single Drakiri, but they are more expensive and less powerful now. 

MP Count Updates

A few little balance changes have been discussed and put into place!

-Master/Grandmaster/Elder/Ancient Drakiri MP bonuses no longer stack
-Leadership bonus no longer stacks
-Master/Grandmaster/Elder/Ancient bonuses have been clarified a bit to be easier to understand!
-A Gift Art bonus has been added! A Drakiri drawn as a gift receives +1 MP for themselves and for Drakiri around them. HOWEVER, you MUST have permission to use this Drakiri in a group setting for the bonus to apply to any Drakiri other than the one being done as a gift. This will either be as a note in the Drakiri’s profile, expressing that the owner is alright for them to be added to group pieces, or a comment made for this purpose as well. (The thread is located here https://drakiri.com/forum/43/~1776 )
-Gifts of Drakiri levels 0-2 will get an additional +1 MP on top of the Gift Art bonus for themselves and for Drakiri depicted with them. Like the original gift art bonus, the permission rules apply. This must be redeemed before the Drakiri is levelled up!
-Any stacking bonuses can only stack 4 times unless specified otherwise. The reason for stacking being removed once again is that the stacking actually ended up being way more overpowered than intended, and as a result was throwing off the level balance. We felt that getting rid of stacking was better than nerfing down the MP bonuses in the long run, and would still keep those rewards feeling nice and earned. If it ends up needed, the MP bonuses may get a boost to compensate for removal of stacking, but we will test how not stacking them works first.

Temporary Activity Limits

You can now have three activity rolls in the Queue at a time. However, this will cover all the Draks in the image that you own, allowing them all the be rolled! Please wait 24 hours before submitting three more if they are rolled. It is no longer a limit on how many AR's are submitted weekly, but rather by ARs in the queue at once. As for why this is, this means that when staff are more active and have more time, more AR's can be done, BUT, if they are less active or have less time, they won't be overwhealmed. This is also MUCH easier for player and staff alike to track. Players can see active/pending submissions and staff can as well. I hope this is easier on everybody! As a reminder, this is NOT a permanent update! This is only in place until the automation is complete, which will be a while. Combat and the Level/Stat system is going to be completed first, and then Automation, so that both systems can be worked on together for that; it will make altogether less work for the coder working on it. Note that Artless Activities are not effected by this! You still can do three of these a month. This is temporary!

Artless activities will each need to be done in a separate claim due to a bug in the roller connected to Artless. Any Artless activities submitted after the shut down will be rejected if they have more than one being claimed at once

Items now required for updating your Drakiri

Since Drakiri's bases are stable, as are the markings, Makeover Tokens and Beautify Potions are now required for updating a Drakiri's design! Items that have been there for ages are now finally in use! Beautify Potion - Minor tweaks, or changes to the design. These will be used for minor tweaks that do not effect the Drakiri's genotype. ABeautify Potion is not required if you are adding an accessory to your Drakiri via an item! This is only required for updates to the design. As a rule of thumb, if the Drakiri's design is staying mostly the same aside from tweaks or improvements, or you are updating an accessory already there, a Beautify Potion is required to do so! This can also be for small stylizations of the mane, tweaks to improve it, or similar. Again, a Beautify Potion is not needed if you are adding a cosmetic item! Makeover Token - Major tweaks, major redesigns. This will need to be added if you are adding markings or mutations to existing imports! Anything that greatly changes the Drakiri's appearance or effects a Drakiri's genotype (Even if you hide the marking using a Disappearing Ink) will require a Makeover Token. A Makeover Token can allow you to completely redesign a Drakiri from scratch, transfer their design to a different breed, or similar. Note that if you are updating your Drakiri from an old base to a new base, neither item is needed to make this change UNLESS there are noticeable differences in the design! This being intentional changes, not a difference in style or a marking having to look different for a different base. (Minor changes will need a Beautify Potion, major ones will need a Makeover Token) Just mention in the comments that it's a base update in this case!

Monthly Closure

For the first 7 days each month, claims will be closed to allow any outstanding stuff from the month before to be completed, and then some time for the staff to just chill without having to worry about more stuff pouring in once it's all done.

Gratitude Tokens have been Discontinued

This has been a long time coming, something I've been thinking about for over a year. Gratitude Tokens were always meant to be a nice little reward you got for being generous, but no amount of balancing will make it so they can't be farmed.

It has made gift art, and gifting in general, very transactional which ended up being really uncomfortable and meant that instead of people gifting folks just to gift folks, it turned into people exploiting other people’s Drakiri, without their permission, for the returns gained…this made a lot of people uncomfortable, and made people who wanted to do gift art afraid to do it because of the transactional feel of the entire thing... and that was never, EVER the intention.

Additionally, what is and is not a gift is very nebulous, and it is way, way too easy to trick the system for further exploitation. There really is no way to FULLY make sure, for every gift given, that it was gifted to be a gift. Which boils down to all “gifts” being turned into a transaction. It wasn’t healthy, and it was damaging our community.

As of now, Gratitude Tokens can no longer be earned. The system is being taken down and removed entirely.

The gratitude Token shop will remain, BUT, only to spend the GT you already earned.

What does this mean for all of you? There's a few choices on what you can do with your Gratitude Tokens.

1 - Trade them for Arcanium. $1 Arcanium for every 5GT. Use the "Other" claim to do this.
2 - Trade them for Aurics. 500 Aurics for every 1 Gratitude Token. Use the “Other” claim to do this.
3 - Trade them for Background Tokens. 1 Background Token for each 1 GT Use the “Other” claim to do this.
4 - Spend them in the Gratitude Token Shop, which isn’t being deleted.
5 - A combination of all of the above.

What does this mean for gifting slots and Draks, or donating slots and Draks? A new special currency is going to be added with a different purpose and different ways to get it. This currency will be paid as an option for donating genos or imports to the adoption center or releasing genos (With boosts for certain markings, starters, or genes in general that are oversaturated to encourage getting them out of the gene pool) - The system is mostly finished (I have notes down) but I am blanking on what this new currency should be called.

This new currency will only affect donated genos, imports or slots, rather than gifted ones. This will be the new way to get nice items (Markings, Mutations and Abilities) as well as a couple exclusives (Adoption Papers, maybe the occasional Advanced Adoption Papers) without having to pay USD or Arcanium, and without having to acquire them from other players via purchase or trade.

I know some of you might not like this update, but it’s been a long time coming. There is no way to make this system work without a few people farming it instead of using it as it was originally intended. This is one of those ideas that is wonderful in theory, but terrible in practice. It is, unfortunately, a case of we can’t have nice things because if something can be exploited and farmed, it will be. I have been wracking my brain for solutions, for ways to not have to get rid of the Gratitude Token system, but nothing clear came up.

This may seem drastic, but this is the only choice I can see. We want to encourage generosity, we want to encourage being nice to folks and brightening people’s days, but the transactional feeling of gift art because of the Gratitude Token system put a huge damper on that. It was always meant to be a nice little reward for being a nice person; not a resource or a currency to be earned. I am not going to be taking suggestions on this matter, this is something I’ve been thinking about for a LONG time. And it’s honestly necessary.

I am sorry for anybody who is upset with this change, but sometimes changes like this are necessary for a healthy game moving forward.

Double Uterus Tweaks

Double Uterus is going back to how it functioned before the site. This means that items/abilities that increase litter sizes no longer effect Double Uterus breedings. Making it no longer disable fertility abilities/items was experimental, and I think it's better balanced if it overrides those! It is being modified so the breeding doesn't fail if the item is added in, but rather outputs that the item was not used due to so it can be refunded back to the player

HOWEVER! There is a Double Uterus Disabler item that's gonna be added to the Auric Shop and to the roller, allowing you to use fertility items INSTEAD of Double Uterus if you prefer! This can be useful if you added DU, but have lore reasons not to have it take effect for a certain breeding, or if you want to control the number of genos a Drakiri puts out.

Beauty in Simplicity Pageant Event

Beauty in Simplicity Beauty Pageant

A special event in Drakiri, a contest of sorts!

Sometimes, beauty comes in simpler designs; one doesn't need brilliant colors and intricate markings to be beautiful!

Depict your Drakiri (Written or drawn) showing off their beauty! This event has a few special rules, however!

This will need to be a fullbody flat colored image with at least a simple background, or 800 words written showcasing the Drakiri's beauty.

1 - The Drakiri may not have more than 6 visible markings (Disappearing Inks count as visible markings for this contest), and can not have more than 2 mutations!
2 - The Drakiri can not have a legendary gene (Marking or Mutation)
3 - No more than 2 color mods can be visible on the Drakiri

Enter using the "Beauty in Simplicity Beauty Pageant Entries" claim!

Prizes

First Place
$150 Arcanium
100,000 Aurics
A Double Uterus mutation added to the winning Drakiri. HOWEVER, if more markings are added, the mutation will be removed. They must remain simple to keep this prize! (There will be a note on the mutation)
Roller Breaker Item

Second Place
$80 Arcanium
50,000 Aurics
Ancient Fertility Statue

Third Place
$50 Arcanium
25,000 Aurics
Lucky Rabbit's Foot

Five Runners Up
$25 Arcanium
15,000 Aurics
3 normal Breeding Items of your choice

All entries will get 3000 Aurics and 1 normal breeding item in addition to the aurics earned by general art!

HAVE FUN!!!!!!!

And finally, our October Trick or Treat event!!

ANY artwork (That has at least a flat color, or a literature of 500 or more words) will have a loot table added; this loot table will give you 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 Halloween Candy, which can be used in a special Halloween shop!

In this shop, you can get the Halloween genes, Wraith mutagen, Corruption mutagens (With a few Entropy thrown in), and Nightmare breed changes!

While you can't redeem art for it YET, I will sell bundles of these Halloween candy for 10 candies for every $5 USD (No Arcanium at this time, since they will be perfectly earnable once everything opens back up. This is just for those of you who are impatient)

This was a lot, but now it is all in one place. Thanks for reading!