The Sylestia Times
September 30, 2013


View August 2013 Edition

Breaking News



A new month means a new avatar set. This month two are available for purchase: Dragon Guardian's avatar set and Seraph's avatar set. Get them while you can, because they will be unavailable for purchase after September 30th.

We also had a couple new fun games this month to help gear toward the upcoming FALL FESTIVAL. The games include: Design a Pet Gene, Design a Pet Mutation, and Design an Avatar Outfit.


Travel to Astryl's Tranquility, a new zone added to Astryl's Vale. This is the offical home of the kelparis, so have fun catching them. There also seems to be a disturbance in their rivers. There are currently four Named to be found in Astryl's Tranquility. They all have a chance to drop some new "water" themed avatar items, so be sure to check that out.


The merchants for Sweet Blossom Orchard and Astryl's Tranquility are now usable. You can purchase elixirs, health potions, or even avatar items limited to the merchants. The shop has a chance to restock special avatar items each hour.

A new layout is coming soon and I must say it looks fantastic from what I see so far. You can check it out for yourself on the homepage and Ethernia but keep in mind it isn't fully coded yet.


The Arena is back! It has finally been coded back into Ethernia and is returning with additions to the Ny'vene Shop. You can now buy ny'vene eggs with gold instead of having to earn them via the arena. A new shop has also been coded into Ethernia; the Puffadore Shop. Now, you can get a puffadore two ways, via doing tasks or by purchasing an egg with gold.



Five new genes have also been added in this month. These include the Western Saddle for Quitari, the Glowing Runes for Kelpari, the Bone Armor for Ny'venes, the Blue Dragon for Nephini, and the Cross Fox for Zolnixi.


Article by Cerberus

Behind The Scenes - On the Inside


Sylestia's Future Direction

It's hard to believe that it's almost been an entire year since Sylestia opened its doors last December. We never realistically imagined that it would come this far with so many great players logging in each and every day. For Faiona and me, it has really been a great joy to be a part of it and with Sylestia more popular than it's ever been, we can't help but look wide-eyed into the future at the possibilities that lay before us. Thus, it is with great pleasure that I get an opportunity to try and shed light on what we have planned for Sylestia's immediate future. So thank you to Everlost and the entire Sylestia Newsletter crew.

Short-Term Goals

Sylestia's New Layout
As hopefully all of you know by now, we are currently working on a brand new layout for our entire Site. It is something we've been working at for over a month now and unfortunately, due to the magnitude of the changes, will take quite a few more months to finish. There are a few reasons why we want a new layout for the site. The first one is performance. As our community continues to grow, we are starting to notice some trouble areas in performance. Unfortunately, a lot of these problems are deeply rooted into the foundation of the code I made way before Sylestia even opened its doors. So one of the main goals of the new layout is to give me an opportunity to completely recode how our Site works. And for those who have used our new home page, Ethernia, or the Task Log hopefully you have noticed a big increase in performance.

The second reason for the new layout is to improve the aesthetics of the Site. We feel that our original layout is a bit too retro and unfriendly. This is mainly due to my lack of experience when I created the layout over a year and a half ago. Creating a new layout will give us the opportunity to attract more players to Sylestia. And we have already noticed a difference just by redesigning our home page.

The last reason for the new layout is that by redesigning every page, we have the opportunity to easily add tons of new features. For example, the Forums are the next page on our list. When we release the new Forums, we will have a fully functional Ping system that no longer spams your Inbox, we will allow features like subscribing to threads, I will add many more 'admin tools' (yay for us), and some other nifty additions as well. So not only will the new Forums run more smoothly and look better, but they'll also give our players some much needed new features to play with. We plan on doing this for pretty much every page that we recode. While a new layout isn't necessarily new content in itself, it will bring some highly requested features into existence that you've been asking for.

New Exploration System
As some of you already know, we are working on implementing a new exploration system. For those who have reached the third region (Astryl's Vale), you have already had the opportunity to explore under the new system. For those who haven't, we will be revamping Viridian Meadows and Umbra Forest as soon as we can. The new system allows an open world exploration system (you literally can walk around a zone however you wish). The system offers much more in depth storyline progression, offers treasure chests that you actually have to find, offers the ability to find and defeat strong named with various unique avatar item drops, and much more. The system also is still under development, so look for more features to be added as we go. One example of this is traveling merchants, who were just recently added into the game this past week. Other future features include world bosses and dynamic events. However, everyone can look forward to the upcoming Fall Festival where there will be an explore-able version of Esior's Fields available to all players, which brings me to my next section: the Fall Festival!

The Fall Festival of 2013
We hope to make the upcoming Fall Festival our best holiday event yet. For those who haven't seen on the home page, the Fall Festival will begin on October 25th. I can also happily say that we have already begun working on it. The Fall Festival will offer a brand new species, tons of new avatar items and outfits, an explore-able zone, forum games, and more. We are also working on some ideas similar to the Spring Festival Egglings (for those who remember), but hopefully more interactive. We really want the Fall Festival to be a fun experience for everyone and give all players tons of content to keep them busy throughout the festival. We can't wait until October 25th!

Long-Term Goals

Up until this point, I've mainly discussed our short term goals. Now I want to take a moment to discuss our long term goals. These include a complete revamp of our combat system, a crafting and gathering system, and a site-wide "world event".

Combat Revamp
As some of you may feel by now, our combat system is fairly lacking. It was a good system on paper, but in actuality it's a bit underwhelming and combat can become very repetitive. This obviously was not the intention. While we've already begun brainstorming for the new system, nothing has been finalized yet. All I can say is that the system will be much more reactive and much more customizable. Additionally, our stat system will be greatly simplified. There will no longer be Magical and Physical attacks - all attacks will be the same. Therefore, all stats will be meaningful to all pets (no more Strength for Physical, Intelligence for Magical, etc). For proficiency points, we will have a similar system but much more customizable. Right now, pretty much all lvl 50+ pets just stack Health, or stack Strength, etc. It's pretty boring and unrewarding. So the new system will fix that.

Crafting and Gathering
Crafting was meant to be a pivotal part of Sylestia from the beginning. Unfortunately, we haven't really had a good opportunity to implement it into the game yet. We feel that once we finish implementing the new exploration system and revamp the combat system, we'll finally be able to create the crafting system. With how complex and detailed we want crafting to be, it really isn't a system we want to implement and then immediately have to change or edit. Crafting will offer the best items in the game. I personally have always felt that games water down their crafting systems when they make the rewards no better (or even most of the times, worse) than raid gear, pvp gear, etc. Why would I want to invest all of that personal hard work for something that's not the best? So I can promise that in Sylestia, crafting will be the method used to create the game's best items. This isn't just going to be limited to pet equipment either. We plan on players being able to craft unique consumables, fuse essences, create avatar items, and so much more. It will be a mammoth system that we hope everyone will be able to enjoy and work on.

Additionally, you can't have crafting without gathering. While I can't offer many details about what we have in mind for gathering, I can say that we want it to be more involved than just... "You found a node, /collect". We want gathering to be a fun process to level up and a rewarding process. So we will do our best to make gathering seem as little as a grind as possible.

Site-Wide World Event
Once we've had the opportunity to do pretty much everything listed above, we will move ahead with the fourth region of content. I know that sounds like a really long ways away, but keep in mind that we will still be releasing the third region throughout, a new arena bracket, allow players to replay content once the first two regions are revamped, and add tons of new features as we redo the layout. Additionally, we will still be having holidays. So please don't think that there won't be anything new to do until the next region is released. We promise that there will be a good balance.

That being said, we plan on introducing the fourth region through a site-wide world event. For everyone who has played World of Warcraft, think the opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. We obviously can't say very many details about it yet, but it will offer the entire community a chance to work together towards a long-term goal. Battlers will have to battle, crafters will have to craft, gathers will have to gather, and so much more. The goal is to have the entire community working together to unlock the next region and every one will be able to participate. We're really looking forward to seeing this in action and to receiving feedback - as I don't think any browser game has really attempted such a thing in the past.


And that pretty much concludes our short and long term goals for Sylestia at this time. We hope you are as excited as we are for the new implementations. I know that Faiona and I can't wait until the day all of the above is finished. It will be a huge relief and I think Sylestia will be in a fantastic position once it's all accomplished. If you have any questions regarding any specific goals, please feel free to send myself or Faiona and PM. And thank you for reading!



Article by Krinadon

User Spotlight




Ketaneo is our chosen User Spotlight this month! Congrats to Ketaneo! She was chosen this month because she offers to use her Exceptional Gene Tester on others pets for FREE! She has inspired many others to offer Testing Services for free as well, I have personally counted about 5 different threads on the forums that match hers. This huge act of Generosity has set her apart from the rest of the community. She is a true Sylestian.


Everlost: When you bought an Exceptional Gene Tester, did you already have a plan to let others use it for free? Or did that idea come later?

Ketaneo: I did actually! I saw that people paid for the testing service and was like, well....I don't wanna continuously pay for it so other prolly don't either. So I bought it and was like here ya go free testing!

Everlost: How long did it take to get enough diamonds to buy the Tester? Did you just buy them in bulk? Or did you buy the diamonds from a different player?

Ketaneo: I work a lot so not much time...I think it was maybe a week of playing before I thought about it. Once I had a plan I bought it. I almost always buy my diamonds in bulk from the store simply because I like supporting the site

Everlost: How many Sylestis do you think you've tested so far?

Ketaneo: Easily over 300-400 not including my own. If you check out my forum there are multiple people who post about 50 sylesti ever few days or so.

Everlost: Has anyone actually paid you for your services?

Ketaneo: Yes, they usually pm me and I let them pick a price they are ok with paying. I have gotten 200- 50,000 gold, art, items, pets including Ny'Vene from some special people ^w^ I do not require payment but if you want a whole stable done that's quite a bit of download and time so I ask people to PM me so we can work it out, I have done a whole stable for free before for those who simply can't pay or are very new.

Everlost: Are you glad you did this? Do you have any regrets about it?

Ketaneo: Yes! I'm so happy to have offered this. There are other posts on the forums with the exact same idea now. I feel like I started a revolution! I have no regrets.

Article by Everlost

Newbie Spotlight


Everlost:How did you find out about Sylestia?
Lauyfeson: I found about this site from a few friends over on another pet site called Subeta. My name is the same as it is on there, just in case anyone is familiar with the site or frequents it as much as this one.
Everlost:What made you want to join?
Lauyfeson:For a while I have been searching for another pet site to add to my repertoire of slowly deminishing list of 'time killing' sites. To be honest, any site that I can get lost in for an hour or two is a home run for me. The breeding mechanics caught my attention pretty early on. After my first egg creation, I was hooked.
Everlost:What were your first impressions?
Lauyfeson:Slight confusion, as I would say anyone would have joining a site for the first time. The pets were simple but the color variety was refreshing. You could having a walking rainbow if you so wanted! And hell, the Zolnixi actually has that option! The breeding program really stuck out to me though. Not only is it realistic in terms of genes being carried or visible, but the cooldown time for the next breeding was the cherry on top. Some other sites allow breeding every 5 minutes. Those female pets haven't recovered from popping out a baby, let's shove another one in there! >o< ...
I feel their pain, and I would like to thank Sylestia for thinking about the poor female pets and allowing them recovery time. A+.
Everlost:Do you like the community on Sylestia?
Lauyfeson:Sadly, I have yet to meet the community, but since I haven't been heckled for being new or fallen victim to an attempted scam for pets or gold, I will say that it is promising and I can't wait.
Everlost:Do you plan to keep playing for a while?
Lauyfeson:Yes. You can expect me for quite some time. I may be in it for the long haul.




Article by Everlost

Newbie Tips


Flute's Notes!
Hi Sylestians! Welcome back to the Sylestia Times and the tips column. c: With the Fall Festival coming around the corner, I think the tips I'm providing will help with prepping you guys not only for the festival, but for making your gameplay more substantial.


Newbie Tips
Several newbies might not know what to do when they first come to Sylestia, either being bored or genuinely clueless how to get from the bottom to the top (or the best they can be). I compiled several guidelines to follow, so that you're prepared for what Sylestia has for a long-term player (which we all hope you'll be!).

-Save up your gold as best you can!
As you play the game, things that you may probably want will increase in price. You should foster some saving habits now, so that in the long run, you'll have more gold to spend. Here's some easy ways to cut down on costs:
1. Try not to splurge on pets. A lot of pets in Pet Auctions forums and other people's stables are pretty looking, but you don't want to overload yourself with them, not to mention have more mouths to feed day after day. You can buy one or two pets, but don't buy too many!
2. Do missions! Mission satchels provide not only gold, but potions and elixirs, so that you don't have to buy so many when you're exploring. The more missions you do and more satchels you open, the more likely you'll have too many items to count stacked up in your inventory, which are invaluable to you when your pets are low in health in battle.
3. Explore and battle! Battling has a chance to drop equipment for your pets to use or sell if you have too many, both of which build up to make your team better and increase your gold count. Not to mention there's a chance that experience orbs can drop from monsters, which can help in leveling your pets faster, OR essences of a species if you're lucky, which you can sell for more gold!

-Nurture fabled threads!
Or any "nurture ______" thread, really. Check the end pages of those threads, because the front pages are probably filled with full-grown pets already, and click on the pet's links and pictures to nurture them. This helps both the owner of the pet, who probably will use the pet for breeding again, and it helps you, for gaining scales or possibly an essence!
Scales are used for buying items from the Scale Shop (under the Shops section of the Sylestia interface). Valuable items include genetic mutators and dyes, both of which are in demand and can be sold for profit.
Essences of a certain species can drop from the same species you nurture (ie Puffadore Essence from a Puffadore Egg/Hatchling). The rarer the species, the more valuable the essence is, and you can either sell it, or generate your own pet!

-If you're around, take part in official forum games and learn how they work.
The Fall Festival, held by the admins, may have Official Games and Events that run by different rules. Some may require speedy replies, knowledgeable trivia, or gold. Others probably only require participation, which is the easiest and doesn't hurt to try. I recommend checking the Official Games and Events forum to see past events, and read into how they work, so that you can tell which games you might be good at.
Definitely look into the new festival when it goes out though, in case there's a contest you can enter and possibly win. It doesn't hurt to try any game!


Advanced Advice
My experience with Sylestia is either to be busy or be bored. xD I do numerous things while I'm online (and many other users probably do more than what I have listed here!), so here's a couple of things that I do that can build up in little ways, like in gold or your enjoyment. (Plus later, you may need the gold to buy stuff from the Fall Festival, so why not?)

-Play Jinxie's Jamboree on the side of exploring.
Jinxie's Jamboree (under the Games section of the Sylestia interface) is a simple slots game that is made to make more money than you put in. All you need to do to play it is have gold (not even a lot, you start at increments of 5g or 10g) and click Jamboree with Jinxie. That being said, it's easy to make gold by just clicking it. You can do it while exploring and battling (while waiting between turns), browsing the forum, or even surfing other sites like Facebook or Tumblr!
[urllink=http://gyazo.com/f986245c915d482d6ebe7393d88a5b4b.png]This is the setup I have in windows for Jinxie's Jamboree and my other window.[/urllink]
As you can see, I hid my gold amount, my rewards, and even the pictures of the actual slots. This is so all I can see is the Jamboree button. I just click it, and I play regardless of whatever I win or how much I win or whether I get staves or not. Jinxie's Jamboree is always going to make you more money that you put into it IF you play it long enough. So if you keep clicking Jamboree for days and days, you'll have a slight increase of gold, which builds up. You never know though, you might get an extra essence/philter/dye/mutator/treasure chest as a prize later down the line. c:

-If you have time, make a habit of doing daily quests/hourly tasks.
I used to do this back when I constantly had enough time to do them. xD; I used to do all the daily quests from Saerielle, and I made it a goal every day to finish them all. It netted me at least 5k a day, not to mention the equips and possible drops I get. It builds up.
With the introduction of Astryl's Vale came HOURLY TASKS, which can net you 2.25k a pop just from killing things in the zone, or finding things at random. Make it a goal for yourself to finish them before the hour, then at every hour, return to Ethernia to get MORE tasks and finish those, and so on when you have the time. It builds up gold and badges, both of which you can use to buy more things. c: (Puffadore hatchlings are pretty cute too, that's a bonus.)

-Take up a tiny breeding project to pass time along.
If you're just doing nothing while you're here, but like a certain pet or want to put as many genes or mutations on a pet as possible, you can adopt other pets from other players (you don't even need to spend too much, just buy free ones or simple ones that you like) and breed with other pets that players provide. You can aspire to have a dream pet and dye it when you have all the visible parts that you like (which is what I'm doing c: ), or you can just make a conglomeration of genes and mutations on a pet and sell it to others that may either use it for breeding or just love its design. You can start with free pets that breeders sell for free because they have no space, and make something out of practically nothing. o: It's a good time-passer, since breeding can take days upon days, and aging the babies would take weeks, but it doesn't hurt since you have the time.


I wish you all the best in following my advice and playing Sylestia! I hope to see you all participating in the Festival if you do, or exploring the zones, or breeding awesome pets. Thank you for reading! c:

Article by Flute



Ask Isabell






Isabell says: Sorry, but we didn't get any questions this month. If you have a question that you would like answered, send a pm to my owner, Cerberus. Thanks!

Custom Design Spotlight

This month, we decided to spotlight the wonderful Phierlon's custom designs! Since we spotlighted a pet trait last month, this month we're switching it up with avatar customs. So far the thread has been wildly popular, but unfortunately, despite the popular the funding is far from what is needed to make the items show up in our wardrobes. To rectify this, we've highlighted a few select items from Phierlon's custom thread.





Check out Phi's thread, linked above, for plenty more awesome avatar customs! And if you want to see any of them on your avatar, there's only one thing to do: Donate!


Article by Selestial

Economic Standing


Once again this month, pet pricing will focus mostly on those new or hard-to-get pets with prices that fluctuate by the day. As the site expands and new places and pets are added, prices are bound to changed.

Ny'Vene: Since last month, Ny'Vene prices have dropped even farther. With the addition of the new Ny'Vene shop, it's much easier for members without pets specifically for the arena to obtain them, and the combination of that with the overbreeding that has taken place as of late, average price for a Ny'Vene with a couple visible traits has fallen to little more than 100k, even for the females.

Nephini: Just as the Ny'Vene, Nephini prices have dropped drastically since last month, since all captured in the wild and created Nephinis are maturing. However, the drop in price is specific only to those with one or two carries, leveling our between 50k and 100k. Even a single visible trait can spike the price of a female up to 400-500k, and one with multiple visible traits can go for even more than that.

Puffadore: As predicted, puffadore prices have dropped and leveled out around what their prices in the shop are. No visible traits can drop the price down to 30k or lower, but a few visible spike it up as high as 100k for a male, close to 200k for a female, and higher the more visible traits there are.

Kelpari: The newest species of Sylesti is the hardest to pin down price-wise. Though prices are dropping with the addition of Astyl's Tranquility, making them far easier to find, multi-vis are still hard to come by and expensive. One with no carries or visible traits that is captured can sell between 500 and 1k, while even a couple carried traits are enough to bring the price up to about 5k-6k. One visible trait brings it up to 10k-12k, and multiple visible traits up to 50k-60k.


Article by Selestial

Vevina's Araceli

Many users on the site competed in the site-wide eggling auction about a month ago. out of all those who bidded, only a scant few managed to snag an egg. Vevina was the lucky winner of the prized Nephini egg, and rather than hoard her prize, she's decided to give back by offering the hatchlings of her beautiful Araceli and her mate, Kresimir, to anyone who wants them.



The hatchlings take after their parents, and despite the gold spent in the auction, Vevina has set up the system so it's name your own price - so literally anyone why wants a baby can have one, as long as they're willing to wait, no matter how much gold they can offer! All babies are guaranteed two vis one carry, and look like this:



Out of curiosity, we asked Vevina a few questions about her generosity.

What made you want to offer Araceli's hatchlings to anyone who wanted one?

I wanted to do this because I know there must have been a lot of people who were hoping to get that special Nephini eggling in the auction! I feel grateful to have been the lucky one to win it, so I wanted to do something extra special with what I got. Giving Araceli a nearly identical mate and breeding her is my way of being able to provide people with the next best thing, and I'm hoping all the people who wanted her will be able to get her offspring, at any price they'd like!

How long do you plan on continuing to breed her?

For as long as I'm able to! If I reach a point where I get through the entire list, then I might make a new thread to sell off the babies at set prices, where people can buy as many of them as they want. Until then, my waiting list has a one-per policy, because I want to make sure absolutely everyone who wants one can get one, whether they're new users, experienced members, or anyone inbetween!

So head on down to Vivina's thread and put in your request for a hatchlings as soon as possible! The sooner you do, the sooner you'll get you baby from Araceli and Kresimir!


Article by Selestial

Shoutouts


In case you didn't notice, a thread was recently created by JazzyXP on the General Discussion Forums. It's titled "SHOUTOUTS!" and is a thread where you can give a 'shout out' to certain people in Sylestia. These should be people that greatly affected your Sylestia Experience, either indirectly or directly, and that you want to say thank you to.

JazzyXP and a few others have decided to make this a monthly activity. The user who gets the most Shout Outs will be the User of the Month.

Each month will have a different Shout Out Thread, so be watching the forums for a new one every month. Also, be thinking about who you want to say thank you to. When you think of someone, head on over to the thread and give them a shout.

Article by Everlost



Cookie Craze

This is Reporter Chi, Bringing to you the latest news on the latest Sylestian Craze
...Cookie Clicker! The site that sweeped Sylestia and dragged all brave enough to check it out into it's endless, Cookie Black Hole!
Cookie Clicker was brought to Sylestia by Mariposa, who, sadly, I was not able to
reach. Mariposa began sucking users in with her thread "Cookie Clicker Annonymous", where she had a link posted that sucked in many a user, (Myself included.) One such user was Edibbs.
Reporter Chi: Hey there Edi! Would you mind answering a few questions?
Edibbs: Oh, oh man. Am I on TV right now?? >//< Hi MOM!!! /fangirlcraze
Sure, I'll answer some questions. x3
Reporter Chi: Alright! First off, How exaclty did you come across Cookie Clicker? Your First Impression of it?
Edibbs: I first became addicted when I saw the "Cookie Clicker's Annonymous" thread in the off-topic forum. I clicked on the link and thought, "This is stupid..." but before I knew it T^T I couldn't stop playing the game!!
Reporter Chi: I know what ya mean. Next Question! How many of each Item do you currently have? About how many Cookies do you make per second?
Edibbs: I made it all the way to 110 of each items and I had almost all of the power ups. I was making over 20mil cookies/second and then.... THE WEBSITE COOKIE WAS DELETED!!! QAQ Now I have to start all over!!
Reporter Chi: Ouch! Talk about a low blow!
Edibbs: QAQ
Reporter Chi: Alright, Last question! How many users would you say you influenced, whether directly or indirectly? How did you spread the Craze?
Edibbs: I spread the madness through the General Chat, and I influenced countless victims... ._.
Reporter Chi: Aha, I know all about that! (Darn you Edi, Sucking me into the craze.)

I also managed to get ahold of a few others, and here are their Cookie Clicker Stats!
Lostwords13: I have 181 Cursors, 134 Gramma's, 121 Farms, 108 Factories, 101 Mines, 100 Shipments, Alchemy Labs, and Portals, as well as 72 Time Machines. I make 988,721,024.9 Cookies Per second. Mariposa, I BLAME YOU.
Cerberus: 100 Cursors, 50 grandmas,30 farms,35 factories,37 mines,32 shipments,39 alchemy labs,36 portals,19 time machines, and 1 antimatter condenser. I make 3,487,710.1 Cookies per second. Mariposa, I didn't know about this until you posted that thread!
Sylvette: Day 35: I haven't touched cookie clicker in 1 hour. Following instructions from my doctor and taken my extra dosage meds. I don't know how long I can last.
Don't think about the cookies, don't think about the cookies, don't think about-*Buys another time machine* Oh god help me. (A warning...don't listen to Mariposa, don't! ;u; ) (My-my life is ruined ;u; )

What do I predict will be Sylestia's Next Craze? Well, I can't really say! Our Community is so unpredictable, who knows what'll pop up next! But I CAN say, that if you've been hanging out in the general Chat lately, you'll have noticed a lot of talk of "Pokemon: Reborn". Does it have the potential to take over Sylestia?
Reporter Chi, Signing off!


Article by Chidori