Felisfire is practically running on borrowed time. I rarely ever see more than 20 people online at any time, and most of the time it's just barely pushing over 10 players. The fact it's still going and being developed, as someone who used to play when it first started and there would be 300+ users on at any time, is a miracle.
Felisfire started in October 2010. I used to be a mod there and was very good friends with the first dev of the site.
I'm not sure where everything went wrong as I left way before things became this sad, but I can sum the start up like this:
I don't know if they're still the current owner, but the person who created Felisfire also created Aywas and Furvilla, which if you're in any way knowledgeable about petsites are all sites that are fucking dying or life support because the creator is a shitstain on the world who cannot manage anything to save their life. Slash - the creator - has serious fuckin' ego problems, which I can attest to as someone who used to work for them both as mod and artist and has been friends with many of the artists who have since left the site. Their mismanagement runs every site they create into the ground sooner or later, especially because most of their sites operate on free or horribly underpaid labour from their userbase.
The artist behind Dappervolk (once named Syncline, now... q something, actually also a shitstain from The Aywas Times as a professional AND a person and got away with it because they were friends with Slash) and one of the artists for Flight Rising (osiem) also used to work for Aywas. Many other high profile artists have left Aywas because they deserved better pay and work environments.
Felisfire was the first site made by Slash that DIDN'T rely on free work, and that hindered it MASSIVELY. The first artist for the site left because Slash abused them, which left the site with only two breeds of pets for MANY years. The second artist ghosted because - again - abused. Because the site ran on very few features with shallow function for many years on top of the lack of promised species, it withered significantly in playerbase. The only people around now are people who have their heart in it. I tried to apply as an artist recently and they will only pay in their site currency, which... man, for the quality of art they expect (which is detailed and painterly), it's not worth it.
Just a quick question. Is it confirmed that Slash started Furvilla?
When I left it was a vehemently denied accusation, but one that persisted, but I am only on the player side, not the moderator/developer side.
Do you also know what other sites slash started? To be honest Slash is starting to sound like Donna and Adam from neopets.
They had such great ideas, and their games were great, but BOY could they not run things well. I have resolved that if I ever hear about a game being made by Donna and Adam, no matter what the game is, how good it sounds, I am NOT going to get invested in it, because literally everything they started, EXCEPT neopets is gone. Neopets is only around because they sold it early.
Slash is starting to sound like that, only Slash seems to just abandon sites, or sell them, instead of hanging on to them. So, I definitely want to avoid sites that Slash has started.
Yes. It was created by Slash. Whether it's still owned by him is another matter, but it's a strong guess that he is because he's known to refuse selling his petsites unless he gets ludicrous offers. He has been on record saying he'll only sell Aywas for a million and nothing less to several of his ex artists.
Slash, to my knowledge, has only created Aywas, Furvilla, and Felisfire. He's a huge nightmare and you're correct in that he just fucks off and leaves everyone else to do his work for him for free or subpar pay. All he does is finances behind the scenes to pay for site upkeep and maybe guide the site's progression but he leaves literally everything else in his unpaid administration's hands, and is more than happy to throw his current administration under the bus instead of taking actual ownership. He's even faster to do this if a site is no longer making him money.
Yeah, I knew Slash was Bad News TM. Just wondered if he had created any other sites.
I thought I had heard of another very small site, but can't remember what it is now. But, I wasn't sure as I never got that deep into things and usually years after when no one wanted to talk about ancient history.
It's a pretty common payment for petsites, unfortunately. The ones that do offer actual real life currency are often extremely underpaying, unless your art style is SO GOOD they MUST have you OR you're going to be the site's ONLY artist or one of their EXTREMELY FEW artists.
For example, I once worked for misticpets and was offered 15$ for a site pet, but considering the absolute level of perfection they required of you to match their site style without a style guide to follow, and amount of hours I had to put in in order to match it, it was not worth it, either. One pet I worked on took me 5+ hours to do because it never seemed to fit their extreme standards, nor would they teach me how to make it fit their standards. At that time, I was also making 20$ an hour when I was doing illustration work, so like. Contrast and compare. I could have made 100$+ in that time, and it's very commonplace in the petsite industry to so severely undercharge because its workers are more often than not doing so on a passion-project basis.
Sites that Slash owns almost never offer real life currency positions, and when they do, they are not guaranteed and nor are they permanent. You can absolutely have an RLC paying position on the site, but at any time, they can approach you and say "hey, we can't pay you anymore, so either accept items/site currency or find something else." Currently, Aywas is paying their breeding artists in items as opposed to site currency, and breeding is a MAJOR part of their site function. Unless you are an artist who works specifically during their "Prediction Pool Party" event where you can set real life currency prices for art (any other time of the year, you can't), you're not going to be making any RLC from working on Aywas.
Flightrising is the highest, the pay ranges from $1,150 - 2,500 based on your contract. Source: applied and received an offer letter under my legal name
Pesticide has a post on her instagram she only makes $24/hr and sells stickers? or something on the side.
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Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-12 04:42 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-13 05:28 am (UTC)(link)Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-13 06:01 am (UTC)(link)I'm not sure where everything went wrong as I left way before things became this sad, but I can sum the start up like this:
I don't know if they're still the current owner, but the person who created Felisfire also created Aywas and Furvilla, which if you're in any way knowledgeable about petsites are all sites that are fucking dying or life support because the creator is a shitstain on the world who cannot manage anything to save their life. Slash - the creator - has serious fuckin' ego problems, which I can attest to as someone who used to work for them both as mod and artist and has been friends with many of the artists who have since left the site. Their mismanagement runs every site they create into the ground sooner or later, especially because most of their sites operate on free or horribly underpaid labour from their userbase.
The artist behind Dappervolk (once named Syncline, now... q something, actually also a shitstain from The Aywas Times as a professional AND a person and got away with it because they were friends with Slash) and one of the artists for Flight Rising (osiem) also used to work for Aywas. Many other high profile artists have left Aywas because they deserved better pay and work environments.
Felisfire was the first site made by Slash that DIDN'T rely on free work, and that hindered it MASSIVELY. The first artist for the site left because Slash abused them, which left the site with only two breeds of pets for MANY years. The second artist ghosted because - again - abused. Because the site ran on very few features with shallow function for many years on top of the lack of promised species, it withered significantly in playerbase. The only people around now are people who have their heart in it. I tried to apply as an artist recently and they will only pay in their site currency, which... man, for the quality of art they expect (which is detailed and painterly), it's not worth it.
Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-13 04:15 pm (UTC)(link)When I left it was a vehemently denied accusation, but one that persisted, but I am only on the player side, not the moderator/developer side.
Do you also know what other sites slash started? To be honest Slash is starting to sound like Donna and Adam from neopets.
They had such great ideas, and their games were great, but BOY could they not run things well. I have resolved that if I ever hear about a game being made by Donna and Adam, no matter what the game is, how good it sounds, I am NOT going to get invested in it, because literally everything they started, EXCEPT neopets is gone. Neopets is only around because they sold it early.
Slash is starting to sound like that, only Slash seems to just abandon sites, or sell them, instead of hanging on to them. So, I definitely want to avoid sites that Slash has started.
Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-13 06:41 pm (UTC)(link)Slash, to my knowledge, has only created Aywas, Furvilla, and Felisfire. He's a huge nightmare and you're correct in that he just fucks off and leaves everyone else to do his work for him for free or subpar pay. All he does is finances behind the scenes to pay for site upkeep and maybe guide the site's progression but he leaves literally everything else in his unpaid administration's hands, and is more than happy to throw his current administration under the bus instead of taking actual ownership. He's even faster to do this if a site is no longer making him money.
This is how Slash ALWAYS has been.
Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-14 01:48 am (UTC)(link)I thought I had heard of another very small site, but can't remember what it is now. But, I wasn't sure as I never got that deep into things and usually years after when no one wanted to talk about ancient history.
Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-14 05:11 am (UTC)(link)Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-14 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)That is pretty much my thought about anything touched by Donna and Adam :P
Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-13 07:52 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-13 08:18 pm (UTC)(link)For example, I once worked for misticpets and was offered 15$ for a site pet, but considering the absolute level of perfection they required of you to match their site style without a style guide to follow, and amount of hours I had to put in in order to match it, it was not worth it, either. One pet I worked on took me 5+ hours to do because it never seemed to fit their extreme standards, nor would they teach me how to make it fit their standards. At that time, I was also making 20$ an hour when I was doing illustration work, so like. Contrast and compare. I could have made 100$+ in that time, and it's very commonplace in the petsite industry to so severely undercharge because its workers are more often than not doing so on a passion-project basis.
Sites that Slash owns almost never offer real life currency positions, and when they do, they are not guaranteed and nor are they permanent. You can absolutely have an RLC paying position on the site, but at any time, they can approach you and say "hey, we can't pay you anymore, so either accept items/site currency or find something else." Currently, Aywas is paying their breeding artists in items as opposed to site currency, and breeding is a MAJOR part of their site function. Unless you are an artist who works specifically during their "Prediction Pool Party" event where you can set real life currency prices for art (any other time of the year, you can't), you're not going to be making any RLC from working on Aywas.
Re: Pet sites
(Anonymous) 2022-02-13 09:17 pm (UTC)(link)Pesticide has a post on her instagram she only makes $24/hr and sells stickers? or something on the side.