can you give player spotlight a look over?

Hello all and welcome to the player spotlight. Here below we have an interview with a returning player, Flute!
I would like everyone to give a warm welcome back to this wonderful player (and one time fellow rper) that many of us are excited to see!



1. What made you come back?

I had some free time and was curious about how Sylestia was doing! For a couple of days, I lurked on the forum to read up on where the site's development was on the News and Announcements forum and looked to see where the community was with the Player Guides.

What I missed the most were the choose-your-own-adventure-type games in the Games and Contests forum, they're my guilty pleasure to pass the time haha.

2. Are you excited to see everyone again?

Of course! While I knew that some veteran players would remember me and notice my return, I didn't realize that there were other players that knew me by my guides and an impact that I didn't think I made when I played years ago.

The warm welcome I received when I got online was surprising and humbling, and everyone's helpfulness to answer my questions to get me back up to speed makes Sylestia's community a unique, friendly, and proactive playerbase, which is a great hallmark for a virtual pet game to have.

3. Has the community changed much since you left?

Both yes and no! Where veteran designers, breeders, and contest runners have left, recent players have taken up the same roles with the same vim and vigor that I saw before I left. The outfits and the pets, and how players use them now, all seem creative and fresh!

What hasn't changed seems to be the close-knit community and the helpfulness of others -- it always seems to feel like a small world in the festival zone chats and forums, and those who have been playing for months or years are always happy to guide others onto the right path.

4. Anything else?

I'm happy to see Sylestia alive and well, with new content, new players, new designs, and new activity. This game has a special place in my heart after playing it through the years. The most interesting part is to see it grow: watching new features built from the ground up and seeing the playerbase respond to it and progress through their pets and adventures. Playing Sylestia for as long as I have is a unique experience, and I'd encourage anyone who likes this kind of game to play it!

and that concluded the interview! I hope you all will be as happy to see Flute as I am!

I can do it yep.
You'll just have to re-add the images

--

Hello all and welcome to the player spotlight. Here below we have an interview with a returning player, Flute!
I would like everyone to give a warm welcome back to this wonderful player (and one-time fellow RPer) that many of us are excited to see!



1. What made you come back?

I had some free time and was curious about how Sylestia was doing! For a couple of days, I lurked on the forum to read up on where the site's development was on the News and Announcements forum and looked to see where the community was with the Player Guides.

What I missed the most was the choose-your-own-adventure-type games in the Games and Contests forum, they're my guilty pleasure to pass the time haha.

2. Are you excited to see everyone again?

Of course! While I knew that some veteran players would remember me and notice my return, I didn't realize that there were other players that knew me by my guides and an impact that I didn't think I made when I played years ago.

The warm welcome I received when I got online was surprising and humbling, and everyone's helpfulness to answer my questions to get me back up to speed makes Sylestia's community a unique, friendly, and proactive player base, which is a great hallmark for a virtual pet game to have.

3. Has the community changed much since you left?

Both yes and no! Where veteran designers, breeders, and contest runners have left, recent players have taken up the same roles with the same vim and vigor that I saw before I left. The outfits and the pets, and how players use them now, all seem creative and fresh!

What hasn't changed seems to be the close-knit community and the helpfulness of others -- it always seems to feel like a small world in the festival zone chats and forums, and those who have been playing for months or years are always happy to guide others onto the right path.

4. Anything else?

I'm happy to see Sylestia alive and well, with new content, new players, new designs, and new activity. This game has a special place in my heart after playing it over the years. The most interesting part is to see it grow: watching new features built from the ground up and seeing the player base respond to it and progress through their pets and adventures. Playing Sylestia for as long as I have is a unique experience, and I'd encourage anyone who likes this kind of game to play it!

and that concluded the interview! I hope you all will be as happy to see Flute as I am!

I have a newbie interview and artists among us. Should I put them on here for editing?

yes please!

Here is a newbie interview with Dragonandwolflover! Anyone want to edit?

How did you find Sylestia?

While I was in Flight Rising I saw an add for Sylestia, and it looked cool so I wanted to try it out. I clicked on the banner and it brought me to Sylestia and made my first Sylesti Pet Queen.

How has your experience been so far?

I really liked having a newbie tutorial. That was very helpful. When I was done with
the tutorial I had problems trying to do quests because I had to buy the traps and they are 1000 gold at the marketplace at Esior's Haven. After that, I was almost out of gold buying traps and I didn't even understand how to use traps properly. I never caught any Sylesti Pets after using the tutorial. I had to end up killing them instead of trapping them and I hated that.
It has been very hard as a newbie to not know how to get gold as a person who can't pay real money into the game.
It has been very nice to have people in the forums to help me. Scathreoite is the one who has helped me the most. I really appreciate how he even wrote up a whole page to help me with things I needed help with.
Without the people on the forums to help me out, I would still be trying to figure things out myself. lol One thing I have a problem with is finding the threads I have posted in again. I wish there was a way to add that specific thread to a list that I can click on in my profile so I can get back to it more easily. Unless someone pings me most times I can't find it again to know if someone has even answered my question,
or if it is about a pet I am looking for etc.

What do you like most about Sylestia?

I love to explore and do battle, then it is always fun to find a wooden chest with gold in it sometimes. My younger pets get especially happy when they find that for the first time.
I also like to get to earn more gear while being victorious in battle. It helps to be able
to get my pets to have more gear on them when I use them for missions, or exploration and battle. Right now I am trying to encounter the fairies for a quest.
I love my pets and finally have gotten a few pairs. it will take a while for the eggs to hatch so I can see if they did well or not. I don't know if it helps with breeding to level them up or not.

Any questions you have for the Times?

Do you like to write IRL? Or is this the only time you do writing?
I like to write also on Wattpad. It is nice to talk to another writer.

Anything else you want to add?

Just that if anyone is new out there don't give up, if it is hard, get help in the forums.
ask questions, lots of them if you have to, look in the forum Guides they have.
Make sure to go all the way through the tutorial too. It might take a while if you don't have the time right away but do it. It is a very comprehensive tutorial, the best I have ever come across. Then when that is done it still helps you after by directing you to the next things in the game. I love how things are like that.

Thank you for the opportunity for this interview. I have never been asked to do this
before for anything. Have fun writing.

Dragonandwolflover

Here is the artist interview with Byteme96! Its ready for editing.

When did you start doing art?
A billion years ago. I honestly don't know.

What is your favorite thing about art?
Isn't is just amazing that one can transform plain objects (blob of clay, paper etc.) into something people will admire and love?

What do you love making art of most and why? (people, animals, sylestis, etc.)
DRAGONS!!! A trillion, billion, quintilian dragons! Why? Isn't it obvious? BECAUSE THEY ARE AWESOME! (Yes, I am crazy.)

What is your favorite style of art and why? (Digital, pixel, painting, etc.)
Probably traditional. (Because that's the only type I've ever done.)

Any tips for new artists?
Even if you can only draw stick figures, as long as it's original, you're (maybe) going to be SUPER famous. A dude got tons of money by selling a ripped canvas. It was his 'art'. Not kidding.

Anything else you want to add?
DRAGONS!

Examples of art:

Hey all, Letsplay has left the group would anyone be able to take over her section for book reviews?

Can you edit golden breeds?


For this month's Golden Breeds I interview Xavion, who gave us all a wonderful interview on their projects, a good list of which are found here! Now without further ado, lets get onto the interview!


1. When did you get into projects?

Immediately!

Okay, maybe not immediately-immediately, but I joined the site 10 days before the Fall Festival of 2013 started and as soon as the first Ryori theme was in, I was hooked. I threw everything I had into hunting those gorgeous little Spookies down with every intention of breeding them to 6-vis glory! And that was extremely rare to find back in the day - we didn't even have tags on our themes or a fancy advanced search to make them easy to find for sale or breedings!

Then they came out with the Blood Scream Ryori shortly after, and I decided to do both! (And the Full Moon Lupora as well, but the Ryori were my primary focus.)


2. What was the first project you finished?

The first project I finished was the Blood Scream Ryori. There was a bit of friendly competition between myself and a few other players who were all in on the 6-vis craze, and since my lovely lady was the first, I named her Sweet Victory. Not bad for a player who had only started 6 months before! And shortly after, I cleared the first 6-vis Full Moon Lupora and 6-vis Spooky Ryori as well.

And... I had already picked up the Arctic Storm Griffi and the Reindeer Griffi once they were released as a new species during the Winter Festival of 2013...

I've always been ambitious.


3. As an avid project breeder how much income do you get from your finished projects?

That depends on the project and the time period of the project itself. I started off with 6-vis themed pets back before they were even a major marketing factor for pet sales; it's been so long I don't even remember what I sold the finished offspring for, but I do remember how much they had costed me! This whopping 300k breeding fee used to be the standard for breedings to exclusive fabled pets! And that's not to buy the pet, that's just a single breeding! I think I had set them between 150k and 300k.

These days the investment cost for 6-vis themes has dropped drastically, and with it so has the value of the pet itself. So I turned my attention to maxed stats pets instead since they have a more solid value retention. No matter what the cost of the project basis, be it next-to-nothing or expensive, it still takes a few million gold and plenty of time and dedication to build those stats up!

With a ridiculous amount of time put into averaging out my investment cost per project, I calculated that 300k was a price I saw as fair for an infertile maxed stats pet. And... then years later I had to lower it to 250k for my projects that were lacking maxed mana when Krinadon made it possible to raise mana to 200, while setting the upgraded / newly made 200 mana projects to the original 300k value. ( My work is never done ;__; )

As for my highest value projects, it's all about those supers! Breeding these lovely beasties is all a matter of hitting the RNG jackpot, both in getting access to a tamed pet with high wild stats, and in getting that perfect breeding between the tamed and the maxed pet. My pricing system was all over the place in the beginning, with a set of pricing tiers based on a rough look at the wild stats, but once the first Legendary/Mythical THEMED pets came around, I knew I had to make a change. They had practically doubled what was possible with non-themed myths and legends!

So back to the mathematical calculations I went like the nerd I am, and after a few days of debating myself about the details and gauging how close I was to my original structure of values (mostly so those who had spent 550k on a pet in the old system would have paid roughly the same amount with the new system, and so it didn't throw just any +700 or more health superstats pet to a whopping 1 million price tag since that was the next tier) I set up this.

Less than 200 mana - 250k
200 mana - 300k

+ 1/2 Wild Health (rounded down where needed) (x 1000)
+ Wild Mana (x 1000)
+ Wild Strength (x 1000)
+ Wild Intelligence (x 1000)
+ Wild Dexterity (x 1000)
+ Wild Agility (x 1000)

This ensures that people get exactly what they pay for down to the last wild stat! And in doing so it gives a broad range of values. 460k, 525k, 615k, and as high as 992k because my lunemara wild stats are insane!

As for what I spend my earnings on, it all goes back into buying more project supplies! A minimum of 24 pet dyes to get a single pair made is not cheap, and it tends to be more like 36 per pair because lesser dyes are awful. And whenever possible, I'll accept project supplies as a direct trade for a stats pet! Buyers can save their gold, and it saves me a trip to the trade broker! :D


4. Out of all of your project designs which is your favorite?

o__o

*stares at the hundreds of project designs*

...

*finds an answer*

...

I'm so ashamed of my pride.

Of all of my project designs, the Blue Lotus Aeridini has risen to being my favorite now that I'm able to raise them to superstats. The Blue Lotus is one of my Themed Pet designs so its very existence is something I'm quite proud of. I bred them to 6-vis, to Maxed Stats, to Maxed Stats with 200 mana, and with the help of some dyes since I can't get wild stats on purebred Blue Lotuses, I now have Pseudo Blue Lotus Aeris in superstats.

I feel that this project is my greatest personal achievement, so on that merit alone (because I cannot choose based on design aesthetic alone) the Blue Lotus Aeridini wins.



5. Anything else?

My ambitions will never end. It is my goal to have every species and every trait cleared for superstats, so that every player will be able to get their favorite trait on a gorgeous battle beastie that will devastate all in its path!

And for those who would rather breed their own stats project and don't know where to begin, I'm always happy to answer any questions or lend a few tips. With 16 species cleared for maxed stats, I have plenty of experience and I'm always willing to share it :)

Um...I said I had to quit before, and I'm really sorry. I've been receiving pings from this group although I said I had to quit. I'm really sorry. But if you desperately need it, I can try editing for just this article.