Wajas

Wajas is a website "focus[ed] mostly around breeding wajas", wolf-like creatures. The name Waja is a derivation of the Cherokee word for Wolf, wahja or wa-ja though the words are not pronounced the same, the Cherokee language's 'j' is pronounced similar to a 'y'.

Unique to the virtual pet breeding game genre is the fact that players do not start the game with a Waja to breed. Instead, players must first win one in a game of luck, find a person generous enough to give one away, or play other games on the website to earn virtual money and buy a Waja from another player.

History
Wajas began as a wolf-like adoptable similar to a popular pet site named Pony Island. There were initially three breeds to choose from: Normal, African and Divine. Since this time, three breeds has increased to sixteen, including Normal, African, Aerial, Arctic, Divine, Plushie, Water, Corsie, Fire, Forest, Egyptian, Earth, Breedless, Bane, Tempest, Imp and Spitz, and Forest. Membership has also increased to over 300,000 accounts. This is approximately more than 145 000 people, as users are allowed a total of two accounts.

In September 2006, the site went through an extended period of downtime. During this time, the site underwent several changes including the addition of new breeds (the most recent two added in April, 2007, March, 2008 and November 2008) and items.

Another partial-downtime occurred from July 2007 to January 2008. Throughout this, no new members were allowed to join, but the current members were still active. Rykos, the coder was officially hired to work on Wajas and systematically recoded much of the website. During this time, many features were removed for a short period to be "re-vamped", such as the waja search, but were reimplemented temporarily. The website was updated with a new look, layout and interface, and many new items were introduced. In January 2008, dyes were introduced as an item to add markings on to existing wajas. The wajas community also contributed to the idea of a new breed. This included the look and the name. The newest breed, the Bane, was released in mid-November, but was erased due to the rollback of the late-November downtime (see below). It has been re-released shortly.

On January 21, 2008, registration was reopened via invitation. Each user was given the ability to invite sixty users, giving users the ability to register an account on Wajas. A new store was added in February to sell pets.

The site went down again on February 19, 2008, for a server upgrade. It reopened on February 28th, 2008.

Most recently the site was being upgraded but during a data backup, coders ran into some corrupted data. The site began downtime for repairs on November 20, 2008. Temporary returns from the downtime occurred on November 25th and 29th, and the site reopened tentatively on December 2, on the temporary URL wajasdev.com. It now is available in wajas or wajasdev, with no difference besides URL. However, due to the corrupted data, the site was forced to 'roll back' to November 7th, meaning that all activity after November 7th had been erased. To compensate, all users recieved an apology package containing, among other things, a Silver Token for the new breed, the Aerial. They were also granted two weeks of free upgrade time.

As of December 2nd, 2008, the invitation feature has been removed and registration to Wajas is now open to the general public. But Wajas is still undergoing some changes. They have had troubles with servers and the coders and admin team are working as hard as they can to get it fixed fast.

Currency
Wajas uses two forms of currency: Waja Credits (WC) and Crazy Waja Points (CWP).

Waja Credits are the main currency of the site and can be earned by selling items, selling wajas, playing games, selling CWP, or accepting a paid breeding request from another user.

Crazy Waja Points are the second form of currency and are more difficult to come by. They can be purchased by buying them with real money at an exchange rate of 1 for 1 American dollar or by buying them with WC. The exchange rate varies from WC to CWP, and can be valued from 1,500,000- 6,0099,799+ WC for one (1) CWP. It can also be earned by selling items for CWP.

The price that CWP sells for generally varies by day. Check the shop search before setting a price. The current value is around 6,000,000.

CWP can be used to buy an upgraded account, a custom waja, or special items offered monthly.

Items
Items are available in various shops and through the Leaf Exchange. Items are often given away by the site creator during holidays and as contest prizes. Players can sell items from their inventories in their personal shops, or post trades and auctions on the Forums. Items can also be trade or auctioned.

Pears
Pears are used throughout the website to increase wajas stats, change their gender, or assist in breeding. Pears can be purchased from the pear shop or from user shops. Users may also post on the forums advertising large amounts of pears to sell.


 * Age Pear: Use this pear to increase your waja's age by 20 days.
 * Ancient Love Pear: Allows your wajas to breed using the "old" breeding script. In this breeding script the colors of the pup will always be about the middle color between the two parents. So red parent plus blue parent always equals purple pups.
 * Gender Pear: A special pear that will change your waja's gender after he/she eats it.
 * Ice Pear: A pear that will reduce inbred percentage by 1-5%.
 * Instant Birth Pear: A pear that, when fed to a pregnant waja, will deliver her pups immediately. This pear is very rare and very expensive.
 * Love Pear: Allows your wajas to breed using the "new" breeding script. In this script the colors of the pup can be any color in between the two parents. So red parent plus blue parent could be purple pup, or blue pup, or red pup, or anything in between. Note that it determines the base color, eye color, and each marking individually, so it's not usually a good idea to use this pear with designs where multiple markings need to be the same color for it to look right.
 * Male Pear: A pear that will increase your waja's male gene percentage by 1-3%.
 * Normal Pear: A pear that will increase your waja's litter quantity percentage by 1-3%.
 * Strange Pear: A pear that will affect the mutation percentage in your waja by 1-5%.
 * Marking Pear: Puts a random marking on any waja that eats it.
 * Mutation Pear: Puts a random mutation on any waja that eats it.
 * Age Pear Crumbs: Ages a waja three days. Also very rare and expensive.

Static items
These items are static images that can be layered with your waja. The temporarily change a waja's appearance and can come in many forms from a cute pet to sit by the waja's side, to a birthday hat, to a pink nose or scars. All items can be removed in order to revert a waja to it's former appearance. They can be moved from one waja to another, or removed and saved in your inventory.


 * Wallpaper: Adds a background to the waja's image.
 * Accessories: Clothing and jewelry used to "dress up" the waja.
 * Pets: Cute imaginary animals to keep your waja company.
 * Monthly Items: Only available for a month, for CWP. Fancy rare items and pets.

Active items
The following items are coded. Some can be "used" on your waja, much like pears - the effects are not reversible.


 * Dye: Adds a permanent marking in the color of your choice to the waja. See 'Markings and Mutations' for a compete list of dyes.
 * Frog: Changes any waja into a Water breed.
 * Rock Waja: Changes any waja into an African breed.
 * Plastic Waja: Changes any waja into a Plushie breed.(can be won from the fish a waja game)
 * Lollipop: Changes any waja into a Normal breed.
 * Joker Card: Changes any waja into an Imp breed.
 * Hairball: Changes any Waja into a Spitz breed.
 * Shrinking Powder: Changes any Waja into a Corsie breed.

Seasonal-only
These only work on holidays, otherwise they are normal items.


 * Eggs: These open to reveal a static item.(from easter. Was recently updated, and now opens)
 * Pumpkin: Opens up into static items/wallpapers (from Halloween).
 * Skullbag: From inside a pumpkin, this opens up into wallpapers and static items, then can be used as a static item itself (from Halloween also).

Leaves
Leaves can be picked at the pear tree twice a day by upgraded users. They can be used to buy items at the Leaf Exchange which vary monthly and often grow to be quite expensive once they leave the Leaf Exchange. Users can also sell leaves in their shops, trade for leaves, or Auction leaves for WC or CWP.


 * Brown Leaf: One (1) Leaf Point
 * Green Leaf: Four (4) Leaf Points
 * Blue Leaf: Six (6) Leaf Points
 * Pink Leaf: Seven (7) Leaf Points
 * Red Leaf: Nine (9)Leaf Points
 * Purple Leaf: Ten (10) Leaf Points
 * Silver Leaf: Eleven (11) Leaf Points
 * Gold Leaf: Thirteen (13) Leaf Points
 * Rainbow Leaf: Fifteen (15) Leaf Points

How-to

 * How to Choose the Perfect Match for Your Waja at wikiHow
 * How to breed Rare wajas at eHow

General help

 * The Wajas Wiki
 * The Wajas Museum
 * Lady's Guide To Wajas