Nine

What's bad about guillotines? Other than they are regretfully out of vogue.

Oh, I guess it was the breed from the Jungle after all. They do have fewer heads and more limbs than they should've, but I didn't want to be presumptuous and assume =o

I think something is wrong with my hatchies. They're not hatching grey or tan, they're hatching green =/

Think I recognize the new two-headed as well. Wonder if that means a new zombie type will be added. Egg slots are tight, hope these remain easy enough to catch throughout the week.

Yep, that happened. It was something like any egg collected in the previous 24 hours got deleted. After 10 years I finally re-collected the ~8 eggs I lost after the rollback-- odd to see all those sprites in the basket. Glad everyone has the opportunity to get old eggs now.

I think so too. That's the real trick, people who are self sacrificing thinking they are letting someone else get a Mint... are just self sacrificing =o Would be nice if the MSPaint dragon sprites came back every year. DC takes itself too seriously, goofy stuff like this is plain old fun for everyone. Even when there is a hideous lack of consummate Vs, smh my head.

It was a Zyu so it makes some sense. I've ER'd plenty of Zyus before but seeing sickness pop up as low as 3d20h is new to me. I guess I got a particularly wimpy dragon.

How does an ER egg manage to get sick (when not a Sunrise/set)? Isn't sickness from too many views for its age and ER is not enough views for its age?

Don't think these have been as radically changed as say, the golds or silvers. But I'm not digging the Thunder. I think it's an example of how you can't 'modernize' a design and also faithfully keep all the best of the original. Hatchlings are pointier, and the color shift from new shading and less noticeable lightning color I'm not fond of. The horns are busy and remind me of hair. While I can appreciate small details like the leg/feet gaps being kept in the same spots, I think a new, bigger, shinier, dino-inspired Thunder 2.0 would have been nicer as a new breed. Not surprised about the Sakuhana update. The Slytherin change was unexpected though, maybe it's related. Thankfully doesn't look too different in the lineage tile, though the white appears more dull on throat and wings. I like the less beefy Snow. I didn't mind the old wings, they looked like they were dusted with gold. I think the Magi would have looked great with the frill spines made orange/yellower like the original's. The wing finger things on the original also created nice contrast with those head and tail spines. For me, Holly still holds the gold standard when it comes to major revamps. I notice a subtle arrogance of the "it's newer and more standardized; therefore it's always better" mindset. You can add all the propatagium and highlights in the world, a dragon will not suddenly become 'correct'. Some suspension of disbelief is needed for dragons in media-- a little grounding in reality is good-- but if you want to dictate which artistic designs are right v.s wrong for a mostly fantasy-driven idea you're just picking from personal preferences like everyone else. Nostalgia doesn't even have to necessarily factor into it-- it's not objectively wrong to find old sprites superior.

I don't think you understand what I was trying to say. I'm not saying the ratios haven't changed over the years because it seems only consistent that they have in some form. What I'm saying is you can't look at data, raw numbers, and come to any sort of conclusion that X or Y is what made the difference. There just isn't a good method of testing that sort of thing on DC, not when unaccounted variables like time, additional breeds, mechanics, other breeders, etc. exist. If you breed 500 Leodons and start seeing more rares being bred towards the end, that can be entirely coincidental and not related to ratios changing. There is a heavy bias towards the whole line of thinking, "I haven't been getting X dragons from my breedings, but after Y massbreed I saw more X's. They're related". It's a problem humans have when looking at any sort of data; we like to see parallels and relationships when they may not exist. Do mass breedings do something to the ratios? Again they probably do, just because it seems only logical. Are they the reason prices went up? Debatable, the prices may have gone up regardless but there's no way to test that on DC. Are massbreedings why I got 10 gold eggs from my breedings when a month ago I got 3? Highly debatable since that may be the random nature of... well, random! Collecting raw data can be interesting and fun to look at in a casual way, but in this case it shouldn't be used as conclusive evidence for any argument. This is starting to go off on a tangent, but raw number data and casual inference can have some merit in certain appropriate circumstances. Many years ago vampires were bugged and had a near 100% kill rate on their bites. I remember people were testing hundreds if not thousands of individual cases for months and it was all almost 100% kill rate. I think the vampire topic in Site Discussion might still have those posts. There were some excuses thrown around that nothing was wrong with vampires (until it was stealth fixed one day lool), but this situation was novel in that the vampire bites had little variance. They either died or didn't, breed didn't matter, mate didn't matter, vamps don't give a "no interest" or "no egg", vamps don't occur naturally, so it's easier to measure success. This is one of those cases where observational inference can be pretty accurate with enough data, because alternatives and variance is low. It's not entirely conclusive, but the shift was so dramatic that it can be good enough to assume. Breeding/ratios are unfortunately more complicated and likely never going to be as simple to come to any conclusion about.

While it may appear like mass breeding efforts have made a dent in the ratios, the simple fact of not knowing the mechanics-- in addition to unaccounted variables such as passage of time, newly released breeds-- means that the data can never be determinate. After all it may be that celestial numbers are the ones shifting and not blacktips, or that the changes are just the random nature of statistical fluctuations. Statistics is tricky and not as simple as looking at number counts; while breeding can be inferred to have some effect, to what extent can't be accurately quantified.

A dark colored VDay, very cool to see. Maybe there's hope for another Halloween that isn't black, orange, or purple this year! The thing about repeating color themes for so long is that not only does it become predictable, but it decreases how stand-out older sprites are. Arsanis are pretty sweet, yet this year I kept forgetting they exist. Even worse when I have Arsani lineages to work on =o The color and shading on the sprite is well done, but really the whole package looks quite nice. The head/face are profiled and unambiguous... flames are prominent but not distracting, nor are they hidden by the wings or pose like some other sprites... details don't clutter or feel extraneous. If you forced me to nitpick I'd say the thin line at the end of the tail, but that's too pedantic even for me. Looks great, a top VDay sprite, still can't remember any of these new breed names longer than 4 letters. I'll probably end up calling it an Animagus.

I don't think people making neglecteds in the backlog behind holidays count as an 'exploit' or bug, lol. That stuff dies anyways, it's people recycling tossed bottles and turning them into pretty flowerpots. Very expensive flowerpots that mostly end up on the flowerpot trading hub. It's a good change regarding those annoying walls, which one could argue don't help ratios anyways because statistics are a tricky thing, though I do wonder if this will prolong the length of time holidays are in the AP for. Curious to then see how prolific "holiday fatigue" becomes, or if eggs end up dying due to disinterest.

A nontraditional valentine dragon would be refreshing to see.

Whether the topic is productive or not is up for interpretation. The suggestion itself is innocuous and, imo, worthy of open discussion to anyone who has something worthwhile to add. If two people want to talk about the same thing ad nauseam then whatever, they can be asked to take it to PM, doesn't mean the discussion should end for everyone else. Methinks some people develop thin skin from the confrontation of differing opinions =o Regardless, mods shouldn't be babysitters-- warning the offending people serves the goal of ending conflict, making them aware of what lines were crossed, and spares a good discussion. If you think the suggestion was meaningless anyways then... well, don't know what to tell you.

You mean this topic? Doesn't look like it's been updated in decades, but may be what you're thinking of.

DC holidays have hit critical mass for me. The AP is full of old breeds I've been collecting for years, things post-2016 are uncommon and will likely never be wallers or sit for long due to rarity, thus the continued exponential growth of early breeds marches on and... gee, is sure is boring around here! It reminds me of the old days when Hollies in the AP were once in a blue moon and the hottest commodity. I suppose DC has come full circle.

That's interesting, could also explain why certain rare breeds are ungodly scarce to find in the biomes; they're not only fighting against the ratios to spawn, but get stuck behind commons and baleeted each hour. A vicious cycle.

Why did mods lock the 'remove name exclusivity' thread instead of just warning the people doing whatever it is that's against the rules? Shutting down an entire topic hardly seems productive. The suggestion board is pretty much useless anyways since there's rarely any admin feedback or concrit, might as well let people discuss the philosophy behind idealistic changes. What constitutes a heated topic anyhow. Is passive aggressive use of italics and capitals heated, or sarcasm? Were the offending posts deleted? Sometimes it's hard to follow anything on the forums these days, alas.

Is that true? During releases, the biomes get emptied but are filled at the five minute mark in small quantities. Same seemed to happen to the holiday biomes. Are you saying that if there was an effort to grab every egg from the volcano at :00, there would be no more eggs in the volcano for an hour?

Oh, ok, then all is well. Ty

I can't seem to find the invisible list of trading hub rules that exist somewhere, so I figure I should ask here: You can't get banned from the trading hub for saying "see forum post" in your trade right?

Really? I guess at one point there was another Guardian hybrid concept floating around out there. Suppose I shouldn't be too surprised since they are an old breed. Does make me wonder about all those old, completed concepts from like 2014-- perhaps forever lost to the void.

So the hybrids are an old DR concept from years ago after all. Pretty sure I remember the centipede tail-shield and the male's pose. That's a long time to be in limbo! The color is nice; reminds me of zerg from Starcraft. The shield on their heads blends in a bit too much, but these are some great sprites with a refreshing design. The other ones are ok, the confetti feels superfluous and distracts from cooler details on the sprite.

The thing I like about the Siyats is how forgiving they are. Even if you incubate you can still get blue and purple, just have to wait it out. I can definitely see how the mechanic for purple is undesirable for those who need space ASAP and don't want to hold eggs for longer than needed, but for me it feels a lot more relaxed and intuitive. I can always look at the time remaining on the egg/catch date and see what I'm going to get, even for trading. It's of course subjective since I am the kind who will grab eggs then not log in for days, so purples and blues are simple for me, but I gotta say Siyats do the BSA thing better. Actually let's give "best BSA mechanic" crown to the Xol, since the generous fellows change egg color when incubated.