Totally Not Advertising

Not trying to cover up Sergeant's recent blog post, so please scroll down and check that out.  Some great points are made for sure! But I want to raise some attention to a raffle being hosted by my pack.  Our members have been working really hard to pull this off, so we hope we actually get entries or we'll have to start doing auctions instead... and since raffle tickets are cheaper (2 points, to be exact) then even the lesser-known, not rich members of Wolf-Haven have a chance to win.  Please give us some support so we don't have to host an auction next time!

http://www.wolf-haven.com/Forum/Thread/17569
http://www.wolf-haven.com/Forum/Thread/17569
http://www.wolf-haven.com/Forum/Thread/17569
Just spamming this, no judging, shhh.

Here's what you could win right now...

        Welcome!

This blog is so active! I love reading the different opinions and looking at the different writing styles of each of the different authors. It's really quite enjoyable. Then again, we wouldn't even have an audience to write for in the first place if it weren't for you Wolf-Haveners. It's really nice to see the page view total rise in numbers every day. We sure thank you for your support!

        Forum Wise

 I've begun to notice an unhealthy trend starting in the forums.  Many users, especially in the sales board and recruitment threads, love giving advice on prices and how one can better their chances of getting into a pack. This is fine, don't get me wrong! It's just, sometimes the suggestions are unwanted or are taken the wrong way. Here are a few tips and tricks on giving advice to some of the newer member without hurting their feelings.
         
*If you are going to give them advice about prices, message them directly instead of posting on the forum. 
         I don't know about you, but I'd be a bit embarrassed if someone posted on my thread my prices were too high and began listing reasons. Not only does it take up reply space, but a lot of times users have a certain price up there for a reason. If you are really bothered by their high price, try shooting them a message that starts off something like, "If you'd like more bidders/sales, try lowering the price because..." Make sure to be polite and courteous and answer any additional questions that user may have in regards to your price estimate.

*If someone has already added a post about price changes/pack entry suggestions, do not post again until the author of the thread has replied.
        Have multiple posts about the same topic may appear as if you are ganging up on that one user. Wait until the topic owner has replied and gauge his/her reaction to the first post. If s/he is open to more advice, you can then reply covering all of the points the first user has missed. If s/he was quite closed off to the suggestion, just leave the topic alone.

*If you are going to post a suggestion, be polite.
        No one likes it if you are just going to criticize their choice of prices. Calmly explain to them why they might be too high and what they can do to help get more customers. I can guarantee that they will respond much better to a polite user than a negative one.

        Staff Wise

Please welcome Rabbit to the A/R helper squad!  I'm so glad to see her as part of the team and hope you will all be kind and encouraging as she gets her "A/R legs." Rabbit is certainly a qualified artist for this position and the extra paws will hopefully help get the A/R forum up and running again.

 That's about it. I hope you have a great week and remember, "Do not take life to seriously. You will never get out alive."

~Sergeant

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.

Elbert Hubbard

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/elberthubb104409.html#epdJl48regyfS1Iy.99

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.

Elbert Hubbard

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/elberthubb104409.html#epdJl48regyfS1Iy.99

"Time sure does travel

fast when your having fun!"

Hello Hello! Well- this is my first blog post; Akakios here, and I am going to apologise for not posting earlier! But exams are very much evil. I also would like to warn everyone in advance; that when I write, I'm not one for many words. I'm more of a short and snappy girl~ and I do hope that this is perfectly fine with everyone who reads. But, On other notes, back to the real important things, there are two things I'm going to discuss today! 

As of tomorrow, for me, maybe its already the 14th for you. It's going to be exactly one month to Valentines day, so have you got you're gifts ready, got that special wolf, or person who you can gift? Of course, maybe a months a little early to be talking about Valentine's day, but some gifts need care, love and time, and honestly, sometimes don't you ever feel sorry for Valentine's day, I mean it's hardly as festive and as celebrated as other holidays, and we're celebrating love. Which is one of the most important things for many people and even animals. So we should talk about it nice and early and get our gifts ready.

 I believe, that on Wolf Haven we should do something nice on Valentines day, like we do on Christmas, secret Santa, because love ranges more than just romance love. February should be another month of giving, what do you guys think? But then again, many people may think its too close to Christmas to be celebrating and giving again, but that's just my personal thoughts. Though I'd love to know what you guys think. 

Now for the other topic; this is more closely related to Wolf Haven. I believe that there should be a limit to side accounts. Now~ Hold your horses before you make the judgements. I'm going to talk about both sides of the argument first. 

Side accounts are a great way to make profits on Wolf Haven for some people, as some people can make art, some people can donate to the site and then some people have the time to level up accounts and sell them for high amounts of points or donations and this may be their only way to make some sort of profits on Wolf Haven and therefore the limit to side accounts may stop this, and many people may be unable to gain points or donations to spend on other items on Wolf Haven, or just hoard them, and this in turn may stop, or lesson the flow of points that we have going at the moment, and may cause a in fluctuation in points again, which we are only just recovering from. I don't know if any of you can remember back to when points meant nearly nothing, due to the sudden surge in amount of people who could afford them, and to be honest, I don't think many people would want to go back to that. As even though some people are moving away from Wolf Haven currency now and onto USD/ GBP, for those of us who still rely on points, it would be horrible and very annoying. 

However~ I personally find it very annoying when people have so many side accounts, 10+ , although its understandable that you may have many characters that you may want to express, show of and role-play with, its very difficult to see how many people could manage that amount of accounts, with a lot of them becoming inactive and in some ways, 'blocking' up wolf haven. We have around 43,000+ members on Wolf Haven now, and have you ever stopped to wonder, 'How many of these accounts are new people' I have. 

Now, don't take my word for anything, these are just my own thoughts!

Good Evening too all~
Love Aka!

'Updates, accounts and art, oh my!'

Too all of you who got that movie reference, I congratulate you! So this blog entry will not be as long as I had hoped, as I am short on time tonight and honestly, it's not anything I can discuss for many paragraphs. There are just a few small things I'd like to talk about tonight. They are as follows: Update ideas, accounts and art. Sheri has covered a few things in her last post that I was meaning to discuss anyhow, which is another reason this entry will be regrettably shorter than the last.


Update Ideas: No, these ideas are not anything to do with the Idea Box on Wolf-haven. Actually, the following ideas are personal things I'd like to see Wolf-Haven commence in it's many future years. Feel free to comment on any of the ideas that spark your attention.

• Seasonal Layouts: This being, as I would like to see Wolf-Havens colors/layout/template changed due to the seasons. For example, winter would have the snowy mountains, snow and clouds on the site BG, maybe with lighter colors for the layout. Fall would have autumn leaves, a turkey or two. Spring would have flowers, etc.
• Default Change: By 'default' I mean the starter wolf template we all received upon joining. I think we should get a new one, as the other is outdated and old, not that it isn't adorable. Or maybe, keep the one we have, and add in a few the joiner can choose form upon signing up? 
• Video: I don't know exactly how we would do this, but maybe Wolf-Haven can throw together a promotional video for the site sometime? I think it would be awesome.
• Chat: I love popping in on the chat from time to time, of course. But I think a lot of people don't pay attention to the chat, because the option is so small. Perhaps if we took out the chat option, and simply coded the chat on the side of the screen someplace, with an option to hide/show, as well as volume.

Accounts: For this topic, I suppose it could count as an idea, somewhat, as well. But I'll discuss it anyhow. I'm not sure how many, but I know we have tons, upon tons of accounts on Wolf-Haven (just look at the new members account numbers!) I think, after a certain time frame, the Staff is able to go through accounts and delete the inactive ones. I bet you my furry butt that it would increase the speed of the site itself.

Art: Art! Yay! We all love art, don't we? Though, as much as we love having it around, I do think Wolf-Haven has become so coiled up in the idea of art, that that's all anybody ever wants. It's an RPG site, not an art site. Also, Sheri discussed this already, but the site should be hiring a new Staff panel, or rather, adding to it. I particularly am excited for this! Cross your fingers that my skills don't fade away.

Love,

                            your friendly neighborhood weirdo

                                      ~ H y l o t h e ~

Causes for Annoyance

Before I start, I just wanna say that I'm not intending to complain a whole bunch here.  I was just brainstorming potential blog ideas, and instead of going in depth and picking apart site features or things in that manner, I thought I'd point out some of the many things that I find frustrating.  Maybe you agree, maybe you don't.  Always feel free to comment to voice your opinion! If I didn't mention something, you should. :3

"Oh, this username sparked my interest... let me check out their profile."
<insert computer explosion>

If that hasn't happened to you, you must either have a really good computer, or never clicked the profile of a person with their top 3,000 favorite songs embedded as Youtube videos.  You know what I'm talking about.  Quite frankly, it's annoying as hell.  Do they ever check their own profiles? You think they'd be more considerate about how hard that must be for users to load.  I've got a brand new laptop and I have high speed internet both at home and school, and it's a hassle for me load pages with 4 or 5 videos on them.  I honestly don't even know if anyone in the far corners of the earth sitting in the depths of a cave still has dial-up, but I mourn their souls if they do and fall victim to one of these profiles.

A limit to how many videos can be on a profile would be nice, but you know what would be nicer? People having more common sense and decency and only putting up one or two videos at a time.  Not sure how many of you will remember some of the old profile coding we had.  Not talking about HTML, that's a whole different story.  But the codes that would display your PvP and PvA wins/losses as well as, my personal favorite, displaying the username of the person that clicked your profile.  I always thought it was neat.  Click a profile and it could say, "Hey <username>, welcome to my profile!" I guess it freaked a lot of players out though.  Maybe that's why the feature didn't come back with the update? Actually, it's more likely it was just a minor thing to code and a waste of time, but I can see Youtube videos going this way eventually.  Sure, they're neat to have.  But people abuse them, and they don't even realize it.

Don't even get me started on the blinding blues and reds people use for their colored text.  Y'know, that's probably because the FAQ doesn't tell them all they need to know.

http://www.wolf-haven.com/Forum/Thread/12385

This should probably be fixed sometime.  Heads up, you can use [hex=#hexcodehere]Text Here[/hex] instead and it works just fine + you get a wider variety of colors.  Judging by profiles, many players know this.  But on the chance you're a blog reader that doesn't, you've learned something today! Go forth and experiment... preferably with colors that don't burn out eyeballs.

It'd be really nice if pack and user profiles were changed so that the coding doesn't convert to HTML which is unusable when saved.  That's certainly an annoyance.  I know you can save the profile in a Wordpad document or the like on your own computer, but coming from a person with rotten computer luck, I lose my files all the time.  Three laptops in a year, help me.  I have to message my profile coding to myself on Facebook to keep up with it, which is a bitch to change all the time when I get new sexy art I wanna show off.  I end up just not having a profile most of the time which probably confuses users that need staff help from me. *ashamed of my laziness*

The next annoyance is more of a personal one.  There's two sides of it, one of which I think more of you can relate to, and that's the side I'm guilty on.  The other you probably haven't considered or have but didn't care, but that's the part that bothers me.  I'm talking about the acceptance or rejection of customs.

For the first part, I know the staff haven't been doing an amazing job of keeping up with the A/R thread or Kessie.  I do apologize for being apart of that, as I've had no computer up until recently so I haven't been able to participate in critique much.  This is going to be the busiest semester of my life so I'm not sure how much that will change, but I'll try to hop on and provide my opinion every once in a while.  I'm sure hiring more art staff and A/R helpers is on the agenda, but if you've read Karlos's profile...

"I am currently working on a new staff panel for our wonderful volunteer staff to allow them to control the website more effectively as well handle issues with increased ease!"

 ... well, you'd know there's a lot on the plate right now.  I think hiring more staff will likely come after this update.  We may get some earlier, who knows.  But just be aware that the staff do know that we need more hands on deck.  We're not that oblivious!

The second part is probably caused because of inactivity on the staff and helper side, but people haven't been posting in the A/R thread or messaging Kessie.  It sucks to have people sending in customs for upload that might be rejected, when they could have had that checked ahead of time.  Even worse - people selling customs that they didn't get accepted.  That's low.  Dirty even.  At least put on your threads a warning. "This custom has not been accepted, buy at your own discretion!" or something like "This custom has not been accepted.  I will, however, make any changes needed until it is." Buyers tend to trust that the artist got their custom work accepted before selling.  Even if the custom looks amazing, it's better to be safe than sorry.  Be very aware when shopping like this, because wouldn't it suck to drop some cash on a custom only for it to be rejected and the artist not be willing to fix it? Ask questions.  If you want to buy something, ask staff members if they think it would be accepted.  Ask the artist if they are willing to make changes for free to get it up to par if needed.  In my mind, there's nothing worse than an artist with no sense of responsibility - out to make profit regardless of if the customer suffers because of their greed.  If they didn't check to get it accepted, there's a good chance they don't care.  They may have forgotten or just assumed the A/R was too inactive to be worth their time.  But if you're a buyer, take some action to make sure you don't get ripped off just in case.

I think another big annoyance is the Idea Box.  It was a great idea for a site feature, but the community has trashed it.  Not only does it load really slowly, but the things people suggest... bah.  You guys are lucky the staff deletes the worst of it before you have to see it.  Not going to go into a ton of details about the content, but you can read what I've said about it before by going to this link.

Proper Usage of the Idea Box

It'd be good to read that over before suggesting ideas if you haven't already.

Welp, I think that's enough rambling for now! I knows there's plenty more annoyances to talk about, so comment and we might feature your pet peeves next time. :D

Edit: I just now noticed the news post on WH's homepage.

"...and of course we'll be hiring more Staff Artist! So if you've ever wanted to work for Wolf Haven start ptracticing. There is no date set on hiring, just tossing it out there for now."

'A wild Hylothe has appeared!'

Goodness Gracious! Look at this beautiful blog! I am so happy to be able to come on in here and write to you guys, as I love to type but.. never really find anything to write about. No worries though, as I will be here for a long while, ready to drive you all nuts! So I would personally, and officially, like to announce my arrival onto this blog, more than prepared to help out and spread the good word of Wolf-Haven happenings.

Moving on, I would like to discuss a few different things in my first blog posting. And while some, or a good amount of you already know what I'm about to talk about, I would like to share my thoughts anyhow. (I'm a loud mouth like that.) Here is a brief list of the things I would like to discuss today; customs, 'Looking For..' and commissioners.


Customs: Okay, so I know you've all been uber excited to see the new customs we've been getting up lately, though I'm sure many of you already have Yes, another blogster has covered this, but I would like to announce the customs I have always 'fangirled' over. They are in no specific order in relation to how much I like them.

'Looking For..': So, as you all should know, we have both an Art Thread and a Competitions page on the Forums. Lately, I've noticed a lot of people asking for custom work, such as emotions, SV's, templates etc. While this is not against any rules, I find it rather irritating, personally. If you are looking for SV's or other custom work, there are PLENTY of free things to use. They are the following;

Undwing's Free Side's

Undwing's Free Template

Syrric's Free Template

Commissioner's: As many of you know Wolf-Haven has several artists that are.. well, known. As much as we all love and adore their work, as well as templates, gifties and more.. PLEASE, do not bug them if they aren't open for commissions. I've noticed this going on recently. Please, be respectful of these people, they are our friends and fellow wolves.

Lastly! I would like to say Happy New Year, and please enjoy this

song from one of my favorite movies; 'The Garden of Words.'

Click Here, Pal!

Sergeant Here

I'm actually really excited today. Not only is this my first blog post, pretty much ever, but Wolf-Haven's activity has been at an all time high the past week. All week I've seen the number of users online hit one-hundred. I don't know about you, but it makes me so happy to see that many people online.

I know this happened quite a while ago, but I think it's appropriate to bring up Krampus' "Nicest Wolf" competition he had running through the holiday season. It ended about a week ago (January 1st), but if you didn't get involved, you really missed out. Users had the chance to nominate other users who they thought fit the category of "nicest wolf." All of the nomination paragraphs (or sentences) were sweet and from the heart and I really think this competition brought WH together.

The winner? Unsurprisingly, lXxLostxXl was chosen to win the award of "Nicest Wolf."
Lost has been comforting our community with inspiring gifs on his profile and an attitude that’ll make you laugh no matter how blue you are feeling. He’s goofy, polite and patient, all great qualities that truly make him one of the nicest wolves on Wolf Haven. Congratulations, Lost!

Community wise...

Wolf-Haven's got a new sexy porcupine. Sheri recently had a very beautiful custom uploaded for her side Blink.

Syrric's free template is coming along nicely and the emotes should be done within the next few days. His side views have already been accepted and can be found here.

 If you have Steam and can't afford the game Skyrim, you're in luck. Shara's extremely kind and giving nature has prompted her to hold a Skyrim give away. Make sure you read all of the rules here before entering.

That's about it, really. Stay safe, all of you experiencing dangerous weather. Oh, and a few words of wisdom. "It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."

Down to the Nitty Gritty

Hey everyone, Sheri here! Let's welcome aboard our two new writers - Akakios and Sergeant! I've had quite a few people tell me they were interested in applying, but less have followed through with sending me an application.  So let's lay down some specifics.  If you're hired, you're not forced to keep on doing it if you ever decide you're bored one day.  You can retire and we'll open up room to hire someone else.  No long-term commitments, yay! I've had at least another three great people tell me they were interested in applying, but we're not gonna wait around forever.  Just send me over about two paragraphs of what you would write as a blog post.  Adding an end date to applications to hasten things up a bit.  Applications close on Saturday, January 11th, 2014.  --OR-- Application will close when five writers are hired.  Whichever comes sooner!

To our current writers and anyone that gets hired later, start posting when you're ready! No need to run it by me first.  But do know, that if anything ever gets too drama-related or hateful in any way, your post could be removed and you could lose your position.  This isn't to say you can't criticize or critique things; it's just to keep the peace.  There's a pretty clear line, and if you're not sure, ask me beforehand.  Saying you're upset because, for example, pack member slots are still unavailable for purchase - fine.  Striking out against another player for personal vendetta reasons - nope.  We're here to entertain an audience so I don't expect you to be entirely goody two shoes all the time, but don't behave badly is all I'm saying.

Now onto some actual blog content!

I always like to feature customs I think are particularly fabulous, so here's my current obsession and I hope you all can share it.

Nathan #7530

Hamina hamina hamina, am I right? But since this blog hasn't been updated in forever, how about I feature some less new ones too?

LamentConfiguration #20545

Viceroy #9722

 Just gonna stop for a moment and say that I just now realized how similar those poses were, ffff.  Ok, carrying on with the sexy.

Calvyn #7830

Caiden #16848

Just some random select few - by no means the only good ones! I usually try to mention some new uploads that use the older template too in a lovely manner so expect to see some of that next time I feature customs.


Now for a serious discussion matter.  It's been bothering me for a long time now, and I brushed upon it earlier as an example.  But the lack of the ability to purchase pack member slots. .___. This is just one of many features that we've been expecting back for a long time.  Heck, my blog hiatus was a shorter wait! Now don't get me wrong - I'm not upset particularly at how long it's been taking to get the feature back.  I mean, I'm not thrilled about it.  But I understand Karlos is a busy person and has other priorities.  My real bone to pick is with the effects it has caused.

If you haven't noticed, you must be blind.  The current top 10 packs aren't there because they earned it.  They have an unfair advantage.  This isn't to say the packs didn't work hard, per say.  I helped rise Warfangs up out of the ashes, and I love those guys. <3 But packs that were able to get extra member slots before the feature was lost will always be ahead of the game by default.  Just look at the top 10.  Most of those packs are dead! There are some great active newer packs that belong up there *cough* Haveners *cough* but how are they supposed to excel with the site built against them?

I, for one, don't think it's right to have the top packs unchallenged as the others struggle to get by with their limitations.  I know it's just a game, but I can't stand it.  The current top 10 get the glory while the packs that would have succeeded so well in v1.1 are withering.  It's leading to less pack diversity.  They spring up and wilt in such a short period of time.  Packs are one feature of this game I loved so much back in the day.  But now when I see them, it just makes me sad.

Well, I could probably go on, but I think I got my point across so no need to extend my rant of the day.  Sorry if I offended anyone.  Just my honest thoughts, not trying to be insulting to individuals. <3

2014? Woowee!

 First post in over a year.  Yeah, you heard me right.  OVER A YEAR.  Dang.  Things are looking a bit different around here, eh? I gave this place a face lift.  You might vaguely remember it looking like this before...

Haha, except that post is so old that the URLs for the custom images have changed, leaving ghosts behind.  And that iaza/ezimba photo is loooong gone.  Oh how things change - c'est la vie.

Bold colorful text, oh my... this must be important.

Got your attention? I'm hiring writers for this blog! All the Wolf-Haven blogs go inactive a lot.  But with more than one person to man the sails, maybe we can keep this thing going.  I wouldn't expect writers to post all the time (unless you wanna ;D), but something like once a month per writer would be satisfactory.  If you want to apply, please message me an example of the first blog post you would make.  It doesn't have to be long, and it can be silly if you want, so long as it has an aura of professionalism to it - AKA good grammar, etc.  You can feature cool site mechanisms, customs, new packs; you can talk about site updates or what you wish the site would do next; you can share artists you like or give advice on things, whatever! Just try to make it pertain to Wolf-Haven for the most part.  We all go off on tangents, so that's ok in moderation.

Please don't hesitate to apply if you're interested! I'm willing to give most anyone a chance, and I'll hire more than one.  You can has your own "Behind the Screen" on the side too.

And not that I expect anyone to do this, but if you like reading this blog or if you become a writer and want your hard work more widespread, you can put this on your profile and link it to here.

http://i1223.photobucket.com/albums/dd520/midairdodge/blogtag_zps03380142.png

I have more to talk about.  I mean, of course, it's been a year since I've said anything.  But in order to give writer applications a ton of things they can mention without being repetitive, I'll hold off.  If no one applies *silently weeps* then I'll get on that myself.

Oh, and happy new year! Comments on my blog posts are always welcome, so to kick it off, wanna comment with your new year's resolution? I plan to host raffles in the future for art, putting in the names of our frequent commenters. *nudge nudge*