Cave Feedback

[Starscream]

3 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

... who often actually takes the feelings of his artists seriously.

 

Why does everything have to be available to everyone anyway ? Part of the old entitlement culture ?

I am thinking that is the case.

 

I am on the fence with regards to them. I would prefer if they did not breed true because, I have an alternating sweetling stair.

 

Should CB alt sweets be in the cave? - No because the limits would mean some people cannot get them because they have two of the pinks already- or two of the alts -  also how would it be determined one has an alt egg? or would it be decided that one egg becomes pink/black automatically when grabbed? I think its fair enough -  its a very limited release. As frustrating as it is, I have encountered a number of sites that do limited release.

[Dragon_Arbock]

@Starscream I have already thought about all this. The CB limits for all hoidays should be raised to at least 4 as it is.. but I'd make separate limits for normal and alt sweetlings. I would also make a separate egg sprite, and tweak the description (like the luminas and dark luminas). And as to not make any current mixed lineages impossible, give them a chance to breed each other, but like a 3:1 ratio. 

 

And it's not entitlement. The thing is in the game, and it was given out only by chance, rather than something that can be earned. Exclusives just for the sake of them are a marketing tactic in real life- and my money can get me these things in real life, if I so want them. But this isn't marketing in this game, and I can't get them even with my wallet.

[olympe]

I guess the randomness of Snow Angels and Sweetlings was nothing but a preset to the randomness of Prizes. *sigh* 

[Starscream]

Many games are played by chance - so I don't see the argument you are putting to the table. Sometimes things are given out by chance -  many times things are given out by chance. its a case of being right time, right place. In IRL (and I know you don't like irl things being brought up,) I collect Starscream figures. I have a large collection. there are on occasion lucky draw figures. figures that is just a matter of being in the right place, at the right time. I have not obtained a lucky draw figure yet, and I know many people will never have that chance (myself included) - is it fair? Yes. Is it frustrating? Hell Yes. But with only 5 in existance... even if I had the cash to buy it off one of the current owners, it would be a lot. Sometimes one needs to accept that things do not always go in their favour. With many limited edition things you cannot get them, even with your wallet if all items are sold out.

Edited February 5, 2018 by Starscream

[Dragon_Arbock]

@Starscream I know I did have this conversation with you before. I can someday soon make serviceable fakes. If I want, say, a doll of a pokemon that the company doesn't make, I can go order one of somebody from etsy. If people want a pokemon gamefreak is withholding from them, they hack it (and I'm not condoning hacking, but I wish they too would stop with the event-exclusive stuff). And yeah, you can say that about the lucky draw figures, but I'm sure people have made replicas. They're not worth the same as the real things, but that would only matter for resale value, or for sentimental value.

See, I *could* just use a script to replace all the sprites of the sweetlings I own with alts. But while that may solve the problem for me, that doesn't really fix it for everyone else. Why cover up the problem with smoke and mirrors when it can actually be fixed? And unlike making a replica, replacing their sprites with a userscript doesn't change their breeding behavior and isn't something someone else can see.

Ultimately though, when a game can be reprogrammed to make things more fair, I see it as separate to real life. There's no financial reason for making things unobtainable, so I don't see why they should be. It's impossible to produce real life toys and cars and whatnot until the end of days, but it's not impossible to code a game to do the same.

And we do still have limited-edition stuff in this game. Our badges are proof of that. But unlike our badges, dragons affect the gameplay.

[Fuzzbucket]

There's no financial reason for golds to be rare either. It isn't something that "needs fixing", nor is it a "should" that holiday CB limits should be raised. It's what you want - there's a big difference. I want a lot of things, including a change to my snow angels but I don't expect the game to change so that I can have them. And what is this about smoke and mirrors ? No-one is covering anything.

Edited February 6, 2018 by Fuzzbucket
unintended line break

[Aalbiel]

1 hour ago, Fuzzbucket said:

There's no financial reason for golds to be rare either. It isn't something that "needs fixing", nor is it a "should" that holiday CB limits should be raised. It's what you want - there's a

big difference. I want a lot of things, including a change to my snow angels but I don't expect the game to change so that I can have them. And what is this about smoke and mirrors ? No-one is covering anything.

 

I agree.

 

All of this talk of "it's just a few lines of code" and "there's no financial reason for this or that to be inaccessible"....  Yes, it's an online game, it's all code, none of it is real. We could just have the Cave have a page for each breed where you're guaranteed to be able to click whatever you want, get whatever CB, alt, rare or special release you want and then breed from there. Would we play ? Would that even qualify as a game anymore ? The whole point of collecting is if there is some difficulty to it, and honestly you don't know me but I'm a bit of a compulsive completist so this is saying a lot. But when you can't have something you want (for instance, I would've loved to have all 3 types of Snow Angels and will forever be a little bitter about it), if the only way to get it is to badger whoever runs the system until they change it and give you what you want.... Then that's not even satisfying anymore, for me. I just mean, where is this limit of where things "should" be fixed and limits "should" be raised ?

(Also I agree with respecting artists' wishes - even if I wish more "unknown" artists got their designs approved over established artists, which is another topic I guess. I don't care what copyright law or whatever is in place. We're not a corporation. We're not - or at least I hope we're not - stuck in some cog of capitalism where if you didn't read the fine print, you're screwed. I like to think this is a fun community where maybe we can respect artists for the work they've put into their concepts and their art, and agree they deserve a say in what happens to it.)

[DigitalGarden]

Regarding alt Sweets - I wasn't there during their release, and I gotta say that, for me, at least for now they should remain unobtainable as CBs. The breeder pool is shrinking with time, yes, that is natural to happen. But I still find it quite exciting to obtain offspring from them, as it feels special to me. Like 2Gs from Prizes, upside down Mints (are they actually valuable? Lol?), heck even like spriters' alts but that might be a little extreme comparison. It's one of those little goals that keep us still here<3

 

An argument may possibly pop up - that we can't properly continue the lineage if the alt Sweets will breed regular Sweets for non-affected scrolls. https://dragcave.net/lineage/0nz9u This depends on one's preference, but I don't think it's that bad, mright?

 

I won't mind if the alts actually end up in the cave, but yeah. The current situation isn't dramatical enough to change it just yet.

 

32 minutes ago, Aalbiel said:

I don't care what copyright law or whatever is in place. We're not a corporation. We're not - or at least I hope we're not - stuck in some cog of capitalism where if you didn't read the fine print, you're screwed.

Actually there's an artist's contract you sign up once TJ decides to release your art. There are consequences - if you break it, and it's proven, you may, or WILL be kicked out of the team and your sprites pulled. There's no financial punishment on DC, thankfully, but I think this is painful enough.

lol at least I hope that's what you meant

[Aalbiel]

Close enough to what I meant ^^ Anyways I didn't know specifically about the contract and it's fine that that exists, as long as it's balanced both ways. I'd be interested in knowing what exactly the contents are but I guess it makes sense it's not necessarily public knowledge.... Oh well.

[Fuzzbucket]

There is a contract. Now. There wasn't at the time the disputed sprites were added to the cave.

[Dragon_Arbock]

Eh, people miss the point. Golds are rare, yes, but a game needs challenge- a game however, does not need physically unobtainable stuff. That is simply, as I've said in the past, bad game design.

And for a game where a lot of people's continued interest hinges on lineage building, it does actually cause problems to not be able to continue the lineage; for Alt Sweetlings and Snow Angels both. Both scroll-exclusive variants were a horrible mistake, in my eyes.

 

That's really all I have to say on the matter. Level the playing field, TJ.

 

@Aalbiel It s public knowledge

Edited February 6, 2018 by Dragon_Arbock

[Fuzzbucket]

It's level already -  it's the same for everyone.

[Dragon_Arbock]

10 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

It's level already -  it's the same for everyone.

It's not the same for everyone with Sweetlings, because the populations of the variants are not equal (which thus creates unequal trading value). You can argue it's equal with Snow Angels, but that doesn't change the fact that the mechanic is flawed, and that there was nothing like this in the game before 2010.

There is no good argument for locking sprites to specific scrolls. Even Prizes breed true, as flawed of a system as that is.

[Fuzzbucket]

I know several owners of black sweetlings who are equally desperate to get pink ones. And trade value - no; as they turn to whatever your scroll is coded to; and as MANY owners of blacks are quite happy to breed them for you for free, it really isn't that huge a trading issue. I have loads of lines with them on my scroll - many I asked for and got for free.

 

It's just as specious to bring up trading value at every turn as it is to want to respect the wishes of artists. Alt sweetling lines don't command huge "prices", they really don't.

Edited February 6, 2018 by Fuzzbucket

[HeatherMarie]

I can honestly say I have never seen a huge demand for alt-sweet lines. I've recently gone through my entire scroll checking every single lineage for group purposes and I actually have a *lot* of alt-sweet lines, literally over 100 of them. I never asked for, or was gifted, any of them, I just got them accidentally over time. They really honestly are not that rare.

 

I see Prizes and alt-sweets as completely different, I don't think comparing them is really possible. CB Prizes are exclusive dragons that have been, and are *still* being, handed out through a completely luck-based system. It's current. It's still going on. Alt-sweets, on the other hand, were a *one-time* thing handed out as an *apology* for a very upsetting glitch years ago. Not the same at all imo. I mean, if you really want to go there with the whole 'everything should be available to everyone', then what about Spriter's Alts, and 2nd-gen Thuweds, and TJ's joke eggs, and that pancake thing? Most people accept that those are things that they'll never have, and are not entitled to.

[Dragon_Arbock]

Well for one, 2nd gen thuweds were.. the list has been closed a while, but most of them are just normal dragons with a special name. That's like asking for a second gen dorkface- neat, but not actually special.

Pancakes can't breed, joke eggs can't breed.. therefore no actual impact on the gameplay exists.

Spriter's alts were quite possibly a mistake as well- as they certainly do command trading power, but at least they were given as a reward for service to the cave. Not randomly.

 

And harsh or not- so what? A glitch happened so they got something special? Where's my apology for trying to grab eggs this past holiday release and getting the 'overburdened' message due to a glitch? Or where's my apology gift for the cave failing to spawn any holiday eggs for hours at a time? He shows favoritism one time, then never again.

And I can't very well call their existence a one time thing when new alt sweetlings can still be created on still-active users' scrolls.

 

Also, I have seen people trying and failing to get 2nd gen offspring from alts. There is actually demand for it- whether it's for free or not doesn't change the fact that demand is greater than supply. Yeah, I too own sweetlings descended from alts, but not 2nd gens, and it would be almost pointless for me to continue them.

 

Taking away the 'artist's wishes' debate (which doesn't matter because they're gone), and the 'but real life' pointless argument (this is a game and a game that didn't start off with scroll-exclusives, so that holds no water to me)- if people would like to be able to have both varieties, they should say so. The cave has moved forward one step by rereleasing CB holidays, but there is still progress to be made.

 

And you can call it entitlement- but it is more entitled to want something to remain special to you, than it is to let others have it as well.

Edited February 6, 2018 by Dragon_Arbock

[olympe]

IHOP (the "pancake thing") isn't breedable and thus irrelevant to most of us. Spriter's alt are a reward for spriters. Some people love them, others ignore them. 2nd gen Thuweds are pretty much like CB prizes: Pretty much luck-based, but available to everyone, at least in theory. Black sweetlings, however, were an apology gift for a site malfunction.

 

For others of us, if we lose something due to site malfunction (time getting set back after content has been lost, glitches, datamonster attacks, weird site behavior...), we don't get anything, not even a sorry - whether we lose a CB gold or neglected or (in at least one case) yulebuck to stupid things happening on DC (aka site glitches). Which is why I think that the black sweetling apology gift is way over the top.

[Fuzzbucket]

@Dragon_Arbock

  Did you actually fail to get your CB holidays ? And everyone got caught in the no breeding thing - very level playing field. But when your holiday dragons completely vanished after you had caught them and left your scroll secure in the knowledge that all was well, and came back after they were no longer dropping,  to find - nothing - that's a lot worse than thing you could see happening and fix before it was too late.

 

2nd gen from alt sweetlings - I have quite a lot. I found people who have alts and asked. I didn't even have to "pay" for them. Sam has gone for most of the 2 gens from spriters' alts actually. Most artists gave me them just like that. Actually Kila - knowing that nepherim was no longer active, actually also bred me a 3rd gen so that I'd have both, as she knew what I was trying to do. I find it's a lot happier to try and get what you want rather than asking the game to be changed to make it easier.

Edited February 6, 2018 by Fuzzbucket

[Dragon_Arbock]

@Fuzzbucket I didn't fail to, but I have time on my hands. There were definitely people saying they could not catch Hollies this year.

And so..? Their eggs disappeared. All TJ had to do was give them back normal eggs. It's not some traumatic event. That would be like if I demanded something special from nintendo because a glitch in their servers made one of my pokemon get deleted during trading (yes that happened).

 

And no.. I will never get what I want without the game being changed. I don't want second gens from alts. I want Black Sweetlings. I want alt owners to be able to get normal Sweetlings. I want everyone to have all three colors of Snow Angels. I want all normal users to have access to all the same things.

I don't know why the point of it goes over your head and why people are stubborn to bring up things other than gameplay as excuses for why it couldn't be changed in the future.

[HeatherMarie]

Seems different people just see these sorts of things differently. @Dragon_Arbock sees certain arguments as 'pointless' or not mattering, while others think those arguments are very valid and should definitely be considered. Neither of us are right or wrong in that instance, we just see things differently. 

 

The way I see it, so what if alt-sweets were a mistake? They were an *old* mistake, very much in the past. Sure, still-active users who got them then can continue to get more, but that doesn't directly affect anyone else because it's impossible to trade for an alt-sweet so those users really don't have any special power. Some people want and search for 2nd-gens from alts, and to those people the 2nd-gens are valuable, but they are *not* rare or impossible to get in any way, at least not from my own experience and what I've seen around the forums. I personally think it's pointless to argue over something that happened so long ago and is not being actively done any more in-game. No new players are getting alt-sweets while some of us don't. No new alt-sweets are being handed out. The users who originally got them can make more, yes, but only for themselves. 

 

There are a *lot* of things that happened in the past on DC that I could argue about as wrong or unfair or a mistake. I think it was totally wrong and unfair to have Prizes be handed out for that stupid tree-decorating thing, but I'm not demanding that everyone get Prizes to make up for it. I think it really sucks that the old Bright Pink was completely replaced with the Aria, we no longer even have old Bright Pink sprites on our scroll anymore, and I really hate that because I really loved those sprites. But I'm not going to try to convince people that everyone is entitled to a Bright Pink. It's in the past. It's over. I've moved on. 

 

Of course, all of this is just *my* opinion, just as others have opposite opinions.

[Dragon_Arbock]

@HeatherMarie Eh, the old sprite artwork needed to be updated anyway. A lot of the old sprites on the site do, but people won't allow that to happen, because 'nostalgia'. I will continue to be annoyed with that, when new dragon requests have to meet a level of quality that some currently-existing sprites on the site do not.

 

It's not in the past. Every time I pick up a nice sweetling or snow angel descended from a color I don't have, it breaks my heart. I can keep it, but my scroll will ruin it. It makes no sense to have dragons color based purely on your scroll. 

 

I don't see why it would be 'oh so bad' for them to be attainable by everyone.

[Terces]

While I don't necessarily see scroll-coded sprite variations as a mistake, I think it would be fun if there was some method of obtaining both Pink and Black Sweetlings - even if it's only for bred ones and CBs remained coded by scroll. Same thing for Snow Angels. Overall, I think it would do more good than harm if we had a bit more freedom with those breeds.

I'll still collect offspring from them even if I can't continue the lineage perfectly, but I would definitely be happier if I had the opportunity to do so.

[HeatherMarie]

26 minutes ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

It's not in the past. Every time I pick up a nice sweetling or snow angel descended from a color I don't have, it breaks my heart. I can keep it, but my scroll will ruin it. It makes no sense to have dragons color based purely on your scroll. 

 

 

But that doesn't just happen with alt-sweets and snow angels. Gemshard and Nebula lineages are also often 'ruined' because of wrong colors. Pick up a really pretty Nebula lineage from the AP, it hatches as the wrong color, it's 'ruined' and you can't continue the lineage. Sure, those are permanent year-around breeds, but that doesn't mean you'll ever be able to get a replacement for that lineage. I honestly don't understand how alt-sweet lineages are so much different then that. 

[Dragon_Arbock]

@HeatherMarie um.. those breeds aren't scroll-locked? I can get them. Yeah it might take a few tries, but I will eventually get the color I want from the pair I want..

 

Also, thanks Terces.

[Fuzzbucket]

41 minutes ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

@Fuzzbucket I didn't fail to, but I have time on my hands. There were definitely people saying they could not catch Hollies this year.

And so..? Their eggs disappeared. All TJ had to do was give them back normal eggs. It's not some traumatic event. That would be like if I demanded something special from nintendo because a glitch in their servers made one of my pokemon get deleted during trading (yes that happened).

 

And no.. I will never get what I want without the game being changed. I don't want second gens from alts. I want Black Sweetlings. I want alt owners to be able to get normal Sweetlings. I want everyone to have all three colors of Snow Angels. I want all normal users to have access to all the same things.

I don't know why the point of it goes over your head and why people are stubborn to bring up things other than gameplay as excuses for why it couldn't be changed in the future.

 

It doesn't  go over my head. I see what you want to happen. I just disagree that it;'s something that "needs fixing" just because you want it. I want my snow angels to go all white, but I live with what I have.

 

And how would you have felt if you'd woken up on Feb 15th and found you had no new Val eggs at all after you'd taken the trouble to catch them?

 

39 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

Seems different people just see these sorts of things differently. @Dragon_Arbock sees certain arguments as 'pointless' or not mattering, while others think those arguments are very valid and should definitely be considered. Neither of us are right or wrong in that instance, we just see things differently. 

 

The way I see it, so what if alt-sweets were a mistake? They were an *old* mistake, very much in the past. Sure, still-active users who got them then can continue to get more, but that doesn't directly affect anyone else because it's impossible to trade for an alt-sweet so those users really don't have any special power. Some people want and search for 2nd-gens from alts, and to those people the 2nd-gens are valuable, but they are *not* rare or impossible to get in any way, at least not from my own experience and what I've seen around the forums. I personally think it's pointless to argue over something that happened so long ago and is not being actively done any more in-game. No new players are getting alt-sweets while some of us don't. No new alt-sweets are being handed out. The users who originally got them can make more, yes, but only for themselves. 

 

There are a *lot* of things that happened in the past on DC that I could argue about as wrong or unfair or a mistake. I think it was totally wrong and unfair to have Prizes be handed out for that stupid tree-decorating thing, but I'm not demanding that everyone get Prizes to make up for it. I think it really sucks that the old Bright Pink was completely replaced with the Aria, we no longer even have old Bright Pink sprites on our scroll anymore, and I really hate that because I really loved those sprites. But I'm not going to try to convince people that everyone is entitled to a Bright Pink. It's in the past. It's over. I've moved on. 

 

Of course, all of this is just *my* opinion, just as others have opposite opinions.

 

Not to mention the "upgraded" Gold sprite.... But that tree thing was - yes - dire.

 

3 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

But that doesn't just happen with alt-sweets and snow angels. Gemshard and Nebula lineages are also often 'ruined' because of wrong colors. Pick up a really pretty Nebula lineage from the AP, it hatches as the wrong color, it's 'ruined' and you can't continue the lineage. Sure, those are permanent year-around breeds, but that doesn't mean you'll ever be able to get a replacement for that lineage. I honestly don't understand how alt-sweet lineages are so much different then that. 

 

This too is very true.