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Foreword

As one of the few people in my language area that willing to use an English translator to express our viewing points clumsily, I've seen a number of artists in my language community complaining about problems with the Custom Apparel ("CA" will be used as abbreviation in the rest of this article) system over the past few weeks and finally decided to talk about something here. Initially, I thought these issues could be fixed with updates by new patches, and since I've been living a busy real life lately, I didn't devote too much attention to everything online. Recently, I finaly got a break, and I made conversation to those artists who were having various problems.

The result made me a little uneasy: I realized that these issues could point to a lot of underlying contradictions, and I thought I needed to address them -- we cannot and should not ignore the elephant in the room (thank you very much to a user in Discord who told me that I could come here the on-site forum to express what I wanted to talk about). In order to keep the content of this article (yes article) within the meaning of our forum classification, I will also provide some suggestion from the practitioner's perspective to ensure that it is in the right place.

Before everything started, here are some basic positions need to be clarified

1. I am not a native English speaker, so it is inevitable that I will use a translator and have some problems with the expression and grammar which could be hardly avioded. I could only express my regret if there is any misunderstanding caused. But I don't think we non-native speakers should give up our express due to the possibility of such a misunderstanding. Maybe some tolerance or respect is needed for this group of users.
2. I do not raise these questions out of mere accusations and complaints and whimsical finger-pointing. For those of us who don't speak English, it takes a huge of time to sort through the questions and translate everything into English. If I just wanted to complain, I wouldn't have spent so much time energy making conversation with our language community members and asking them to describe what issues they have met, as well as asking them for the permission of writing down their experince, user #, etc. And whats more, translating everything then writing this article about it in English. I could do what a lot of them have done -- walk away without saying a word -- but I want us, no matter our language community members or other onstie members, to have a better LorWolf ("LW" will be used as abbreviation in the rest of this article), which is final reason why I'm writing this article.
3. Since most of our users don't want to make accusatory at first, many artists didn't take screenshots to save comments about rework requests as proofing evidence, and messaging systems lack a log function for checking or tracking. I had conversation with a number of CA creators and decided to respect their wishes, so some of the events I will only vaguely generalize or refer to a few essential keywords. All of the users directly nominated in this article are those who volunteered to provide their experience as well as account information through our communication, and I am very grateful for their authorization and help in improving this article.
4. We all do aware that our LW is under developing, whether the content of the rules or the way of managing or the strategy of operation. But most people are just users who post their subjective feelings based on events they actually experience. One does not see many adjustments or temporary changes to internal rules in advance, so all the events listed in this article are necessarily time-sensitive. In the process of sorting out my conversation logs, I tried my best to remove those problems that have been solved or clarified, but there may still exsit some outdated events. It is impossible for me to do these screening work perfectly. I am just a natural person, an individual user here at this time.
5. Some of the issues raised here may make one wonder if they are serious enough, but as a website game at this early stage in its development, as a practitioner I think it's important to identify some of the underlying principles' issues. In the face of them, we should not always choose to ignore or "tolerance and forgiveness" without limits. Blindfolding is not a long-term way of operation. Only by facing the problems and solving them can we make the product more healthy and sound development. In the last chapter of the article I have also listed some of the facts that make sense, but they would not provid a pleasant reading experience. What I hope is that this chapter does not lead to disappointing misunderstandings.
6. Although I don't want to mention it, I personally suffer from ADHD, so in the process of writing this article, sometimes the content may deviate from the topic, or come out with plenty unavoidable grammatical errors such as grammar and word order due to my identity of non-native speaker, for which I should apologize here in advance. But please don't ask me to double-check and edit as if I were writing an article in my non-native language or reporting on a multinational assignment. I'm here to play a game, not analyze operational problems and translate an articles full of jargons. Raising these issues and offering partial solutions is a voluntary, unpaid reminder. In fact, I have given up so much of my spare time so it might not be polite to making replys that focusing on minutias to deflect the conflict.
7. Respect and trust are mutual, so do expectation. Personally, I also hold some incidents with evidence that may cause serious public relations crisis and contradictions, but I decided to hold a trusting and expectant attitude in writing this article (actually, it is a communication request). I'm more than happy to communicate with the development team in a friendly and positive way, and I'm willing to do my best to help the team communicate with the non-native users. I don't want to divergent over thinking too much into those events in a negative light for now, so I'll stick to the facts in this article. However, if anything disappointing happens after the article is finished (or happened before), I will choose to publicize it on other platforms and engage in some unfriendly speculation. Repeating once more, respect and trust are mutual.

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Present problems and partial possible solutions suggesting

In these chapters, I will list the problems we community met in the past days. I tried my best to categorize the problems, but there are still some problems that are difficult to categorize.

Any way, lets have a check.

The lack of in-site credible official instant messaging channel

When a feature is developed, it needs to be fully utilized to ensure its existence. When a website game has a built-in forum function, intuition and common sense suggest that the forum should be the primary communication place for that game's community of users.

It should be noted that when a user is able to access the site as a player, we can assume that the user has minimal access to the forums on the site (setting aside the browsing restrictions associated with those images and firewall issues in some areas for now). Please don't ignore this basic understanding, as it is closely related to the issues I will discuss later.

As an on-site forum for all players, players should be able to get enough help to solve most problems, and their daily play needs should could be met with the help of the built-in forum.

Such play needs include but are not limited to: information acquisition, play guidance, trading, interpersonal communication, etc.

Unfortunately, we have discovered that the vast majority of communication in LW does not take place within the built-in forums. To put it in a more concrete way, if a player relies solely on forums for information, it will be very difficult for the player to keep up with all the changes in content.

As many of us know, a fair amount of communication happens in Discord. There is no denying that this software has more convenient functions in the face of a variety of needs, and a good existing platform is an excellent resource to use, this idea is logical on the surface.

But remember the access issue I mentioned earlier?

Discord can be blocked by firewalls in certain areas.

In other words, while players in this part of the world can access the LW site, they cannot access the LW's official Discord server for further help and getting information. We are well aware that it is illogical to blame anyone for an international gateway issue that the development team may not have known about, but perhaps the issue itself should not have to been a issue.

Yes, as I mentioned in the title of this chapter, we lack an in-site credible official instant messaging channel. Players can't get the necessary information they need just from the existing forums and bulletin system on the site. It's worth noting that when artists waited for too long in line, or don't quite understand some vaguely worded rework comment, they have no choice but to open Discord in some special way to connect with the staffs.

If anyone thinks that artists have the means to open Discord so why raise the issue? Then I have to stress one point: circumventing the firewall through special means is a legal risk in some areas, it is a high-risk cost of last resort, is not a conventional way.

Some may ask: why not wait a little longer for a response, or submit again to confirm the exact information? Problems can always be solved over time.

So I have to ask this question back: If the ability to use Discord to communicate with staffs is significantly more convenient and helpful, and if it can significantly reduce the amount of labor, time, and effort required to re-submit, is it possible to reflect a kind of invisible region-related discrimination against artists who can't access Discord or aren't willing to take legal risks?

To address the root cause of the problem, we need to define two directional strategies (Suggestions)

1. As a product development and continuous operation of the official, should have the subjective initiative to expand the use rate based on the built-in functions of the website, give full play to the forum system and announcement system timely update ability and audience high coverage characteristics, actively maintain a friendly and sincere dialogue with players in the site (in the current situation, the latter is more important).
   
2. In the current communication environment with abnormal information distribution, in order to avoid some groups feel abandoned or offended when more relevant important information only appears on the off-site communication platform but cannot be known on the official website, it is necessary for the official staff to strictly limit their disclosure of important content such as the future development planning and review content of the website during the communication on the off-site communication platform. In addition, as an official of the site, it must be strictly prohibited to respond to player inquiries or communication requests in any section of the site forum by directly using a message such as "Please use other communication platforms other than the official contact email/support system/forum/private message". This kind of behavior is a huge taboo in any Internet product with built-in communication forums and private messaging systems, because it can seriously affect the credibility of the official staff.

For the seriousness of the above problem, I will take an extreme example now. If an official member only publishes information related to important rule changes on the unofficial communication platform, but does not make an immediate and synchronous public announcement to users within the product, in addition to the existing problem of unequal information between different groups, which may cause discrimination or even offense. This behavior can also lead to the spread of untrue information. Someone with an ulterior motive can change their profile picture and username on other platforms to fake an official release and then distribute it to a select group of users who can't tell the truth (our minimum age limit is 13-16).

Due to the large amount of information lag that has occurred, some players have been acclimated to the false mode of communication that important news of official decisions can be learned from unofficial communication platforms at a time when no announcements have been made on official sites. For some users who have been trained but find it difficult to identify false information, there will be very serious property security risks, and the product operators that cause this consequence may also be held legally liable -- based on the composition of site users, or even the possibility of transnational disputes.

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CA rules relevant problems

Rule-making problems

As we saw in the previous chapter, a lot of instant rule changes are often only posted in Discord, which is flooded with new messages all the time (Both in the #questions and #costum-apparel-corner). Players who can't follow Discord at all times won't be able to see the changes visually on their site.

Rules are an important part of how they are implemented or used at any given time, and players have a right to expect that the rules they can find on the official site are up-to-date and explained in detail, at least not causing misunderstanding.

In my subsequent chapter on CA image content relevant problems, I will refer to a brush code conflict, but I will give a preview of the rulemaking issues involved in this case. (information was provided by @/Ambulocetus #3596 and authorized)

First let's take a look at everything that is currently in use (in fact, it can only be confirmed as an official announcement) that has rules referring (mentioned) to brush tools. (Using the Ctrl+F to search the key word "Brush")

2.4. Triggering or Overwhelming imagery: Artwork should not heavily use repeating patterns such as those from texture brushes. Themes should reflect the simplistic style of Lorwolf’s base art.

Quoted on 6:27 AM 2023/6/6 (LW sever time/UTC)

However, in the official discord server #questions channel, we can see this log at 2:48AM - 3:40AM 2023/5/16 (UTC+8) where @/Alaunis gave more restrictive explanations about brush tools and 3D models . Below are the quote from part of the responses.

...To clarify - using brushes/3D models from a piece that exists on another game that is significant to the design will not be allowed. Brushes that play a minimal part in the design are fine. It is hard to give a definitive answer without seeing examples. ...

Personaly speaking, I don't mean to take it out of context personally, but I need to limit the number of quotes in this article. In fact, I would prefer that people could go through the history to see all the information, including all the questions and context - the fact that I didn't get a meaningful response to some of my further important questions from @/Alaunis, no reply , but she was online and communicating with so many others, was really made me feeling ignored and offended.

If you think that I am blaming others, then I believe that in making this determination you are also confirming the fact that I have been ignored and offended, which is a causal relationship. What's more, shouldn't offending people be raised as an issue? And the people who taken offending should have the right and be allowed to say something, in stead of being muzzled.

Of course, this is not the main contradiction we are discussing here this chapter, and I will list the problems taken place with these responses as below.

1. The rules publishing platform problem. As mentioned in the previous chapter, important rule interpretations are only given on unofficial platforms, and people who do not have access to Discord or who do not follow all Discord chat channels at all times will not be able to get the fully complete and necessary information. I have already given the proposed solutions in the previous chapter, and I do not want to spend more words repeating this immature operation behavior that touches on industrial taboos.
2. Rule content missing problem. As we can see from the Discord transcript references, the discussion also involved the use of 3D models in CA design, and the official response also limited the rules for the use of 3D models. However, at the time this article was written and translated (7:30 AM 2023/6/6 UTC), the rules texture available to the website's CA system did not mention anything related to 3D models at all.
3. Rule timeliness problem. To be honest, I'm getting tired continue typing these you know? So please reconfirm all the information and timestamps I've mentioned so far in this chapter - almost a month has passed without any relevant improvements to the existing rules about what I have mentioned. Please don't bring up about the amount number of people in the team and the development pressure on the staff. Anyone who wants to communicate knows that this is a fantastic excuse to stop anyone who is trying to say something. As a system that is constantly being using, or requiring rework or approval or what ever, it is absolutely necessary to keep the rules updated in a timely manner, because it means that employees are working with the system every day and thinking: so why not improve the rules' content as they work, isn't that part of the job of running the website?

At the end of this section (yes not chapter but a section), I propose a possible improvement to the third of the above problems

1. here should be official staff of the website to record and announce the latest updates or adjustments at all times - based on the built-in functions of the website. Here comes a pretty straightforward and easy method to practice, and doesn't even require any coding relevant changing to the existing system: we users can see a update note thread created by an official stuff that gets a few sentences with a time stamp every time something getting adjusted (whether it's CA related or not, in fact many minor game data tweaks need to be more transparent to all). What matters is not too much textual embellishment, but that the act of change itself is exposed to the users, giving them a reason to trust again.
2. In the process of using the forum, as a user, I found the existence of the character ceiling. That's okay, it's not a problem, anything that takes up server resources should be capped, and I'm not going to make any unreasonable suggestions in that regard. But for long-term operational considerations, if the time is long enough and the content is updated enough, then the thread must reach the upper limit characters. So for this update record, if sending the home page or announcement at any time will cause information interference, then perhaps we dould choose to make this thread cannot be replied by non-administrator users. The official staff responsible for taking notes of updates can continue the thread via posting content in the form of replies.
3. Yes, as you can imagine, the suggestion I've made seems very heavy workload and might people raises the question of whether it really needs to be so detailed. Then I have to point out that it is extremely difficult to make up for the already overdrawn user trust, and the product operators is needed to show more sincerity - the most understandable content with a high conversion value is time and effort. I hope this statement clears up any misunderstandings that may arise.

Rule enforcement problems

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CA submitting message notification relevant problems

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CA submitting system relevant problems

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CA item details' copywriting relevant problems

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CA image content relevant problems

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Miscellaneous

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This chapter would not provid a pleasant reading experience to everyone, please weigh up whether to continue reading.

Few discussion from the practitioner's perspective

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Postscript

Replying slots occupying ends here.

Feel free to make any reply and pin me here, but I hope we could observe some principles of mutual respect in our communication c: