Anyone else hate lineages?

[Esdren]

:S I don't understand how it's hard for you to get the right dragons when, as a CB Prize owner, you can literally request anything you want.

Well... I don't think that just because someone is a prize owner it would mean that they automatically and consistently have a king's share of riches. They certainly can trade their 2gen prizes for things regular users usually can't trade for, but it would still need time and some owners have projects and lists they have to attend to. Some owners don't even want to trade their 2gens away like olympe kindly pointed out. Honestly if I was a prize owner and I threw IOUs for trades that had things I wanted all the time, I would end up with a list I could never finish and that alone would make a immeasurable amount of pressure. Of course it's never best to assume for others, so I apologise beforehand if I offended anyone.

 

Anyways, I don't hate lineages at all. When I first started out I didn't care about lineages much and just wanted all the dragons, I spent most of my time in the AP since it was much easier to find different species that way and seldom visited the cave, nearly missed a few events that way. :b

After playing for several years it became very boring to "just" collect dragons. S very small part of the market depends on ambiguous lineage trades and I found that certain lineages dragons are far more valuable than others, so I got into collecting unique lineages. To be honest I'm still like back in 2010/2011, I couldn't care less about lineages and only collect them for their value and for the sake of scroll completion.

[zaverxi]

I would've lost interest in the game a long time ago if lineage views hadn't existed. Actually for a while I *DID* lose interest, popping in only now and then to grab whatever it was I missed. Between Valentine's Day and Halloween in '09 I hardly did much of anything cavewise.

 

Actually I just looked at my scroll at stolen by dates for my dragons and there were less than 50 dragons picked up between those two holidays. Other years, I average about 150 new dragons. As an old person who's been around for years and years and years, I'd be 'done' if I was just collecting sprites. I have everything available except for spriter alts for obvious reasons. And until Halloween, I just need to keep an eye out on the forum for when new releases are happening and pop on once a month to collect new things. That'd be only 7 times. Collecting 7 dragons each time, 49? Yep, less than 50.

 

Lineages, however, will keep me breeding that whole time, as well as send me into the AP to try and find things. And some of my lineages are desirable by other people, especially one that I'm personally invested in because it involves my first ever dragon. I'd say it's pretty nice looking too.

 

Or at least, so long as this particular dragon doesn't refuse my OTHER Heartstealer. But the good thing about picking a common for the 'base' is that, huzzah, I can just BREED ANOTHER!

[MalakhGlitch]

When I started out I didn't care about lineage, I didn't even know what they were. I just wanted to collect certain dragons.

 

Like what has been said by several people, what I dislike about lineages is its dominance in trading. That's why I try to avoid the trading threads and stick to the gifting threads. The only trade I have ever made via the trading threads was for Valentines 2015 when I was looking for a very specific breed combination (thanks to Snowwall for that trade btw).

[Syphoneira]

Lol, like so many others, I cared nothing about lineages until TJ gave us the lineage viewers, and really only ever cared anything about that or inbreeding because I wanted to be able to gift people nice things - unlike some of the cringe-worthy horrors I've bred in the past, lol.

 

And the sort of mixed lineages which used to be acceptable are no longer in vogue, although personally I find the neater ones still interesting and do like the colours in some, depending.

 

But I find my tastes changing and becoming more limited as I go along and have now gone from admiring the pretty checkers of others to 'do want', in part because that's what others want, and I hope that the gifts I'm able to offer will be useful, and not cause a mad scrambling for polite excuses, as they still sometimes do, lol.

 

And as with many others, metals are still predominately valued by me as being useful for lineages, and Prize dragons as (hopefully) producers of gifts, as steps to my goals rather than as simply something shiny to collect.

 

Without lineages and the community, I suspect that DC would have become a pointless bore long ago for me, as for so any others.

 

But I daresay many of those not liking lineages have either not been much on and/or have other ways to occupy their time or other DC goals to set, so we all work out the ways in which DC makes a difference to us; if I can abuse the term in this way - vive la difference! (Or, whatever turns you on.)

[Lurhstaap]

I hear you on the inbreds. I believe all my dragons are sentient (and describe them as such), so even if, yes, it's still just little pixels with the same names appearing more than once, it makes me think of my characters doing incest and me no likely one iota. Distant relatives is obviously a lot different than closely related ones, but I avoid it because what the hey, I've kept it non inbred this long and would like to continue doing so. Plus, avoiding inbreeding takes more effort / is more of a challenge.

 

I STILL see people try to pass off deadlines as low gens, it irks me to no end. It's extra bad with Prizes. I hope no one's traded for one just to turn around and find it's not what they thought they were getting (in terms of offspring value) :/

 

Edits for sleepy typos.

And here I am, silly me actually went out of my way to snag a deadline because the idea of a prize with a dead-end lineage amused me for some inexplicable reason. It didn't occur to me it's probably much higher gen than it appears. Oh well, doesn't really matter, I didn't pick it up for being lowgen. But still, that's pretty funny that I actually went 'oooh! dead prizes!' when I saw it rather than 'ooh! lowgen!'

 

As far as inbreeding I personally avoid it because it makes the game more challenging, mostly, but I admit there's a little bit of squick factor involved, too. Not as much - they ARE pixels and I have too many to think of them all as characters these days - but at the same time, the idea of consanguineous breeding just strikes me as pointless and a little icky.

Edited February 25, 2015 by Lurhstaap

[bamabelle]

ACK! I have been blissfully ignorant, catching my dragons and breeding them not paying any attention. I originally started 2007 and then took a LONG break and just recently came back. NOW, after reading this thread, I am looking at all of my dragons and my OCD is in overdrive because of the lineages... OH MY GOODNESS!

 

I must fix this, if only just for my sanity, not for trading.

[morgianlefaye]

Lineages don't bother me much. I didn't get it at first because I was so excited to be picking up anything, but now I'm enjoying the work of building something up. My scroll goals for CBs is slim pickings now, and just trolling the cave for a CB Gold or CB Almandines/Spessartines isn't fun. I can go DAYS without seeing one much less clicking one.

 

Lineage building gives me a reason to stick around the caves more. I always need more of that type of dragon. It also allows me to build better trades too. Very little of what I have is worth a CB Gold or Pyralspite, and that which is worth it, I don't always want to trade away. But I can work on getting mates for holiday lineages or less difficult, but not easy for me to find CBs by breeding things.

 

The game mechanic I don't get is naming. I always think I want to name, but when I start getting into it, I realize all I really want is for all my dragons to be named generation breed gender (ex: 2G Sunstone the Male.) It makes keeping track of them for breeding projects so much easier, but it also means that instead of auto-accepting my trades, people will hold onto them incase an egg with better named parents comes around.

 

TL:DR When I started, DC was about collecting everything. Now lineages keep it interesting.

Edited February 25, 2015 by morgianlefaye

[Gusearth]

I think turning down something for a lineage is fine for Commons, and maybe some uncommons. but turning down a Golden Shimmerscale "because it's not 2G from a spriter's alt" is just plain rude. I would never do such a thing, unless I requested something specific.

[Kursedfire]

I Love lineages, Especially long even gen lines. Building lines is a lot of hard work and an achievement. After influence fails, breeding the wrong breed, refusals etc. At the end all that hard work is worth it.

 

Lines make the game interesting, without it to me DC is bland. CBs are nice an all but a lineage makes a dragon unique.

 

When I started, to me it was all about collecting each dragon. As time went on when I was just sitting there waiting for the next release, DC Lost my interest. Then Blacktips where released and I fell in love with the dragons. My new goal was to see what interesting creations I could make using these dragons.

 

When I finally completed my checker EG I was so relieved and happy to have such a beautiful (In my opinion. Lineage) dragon on my scroll. Someone then PM'd me offering a CB Metal of my choice for an offspring of the final product. So to this person a EG Bred dragon was worth as much as a CB Metal. But to others they wouldn't dream of trading a CB Metal for a bred dragon.

 

So, it really depends on the individuals scale of a dragons worth.

 

[sroo]

I checked for inbreeding and lineages even before the lineage-link was available. You can imagine the work and the excel spreadsheet I had for that. Usually I first checked just for inbreeding (I looked through dragons father-mother links until I found the cbs and looked if I had multiple of same dragons.). But then I started to look at the composition(?) of a dragon and that's when I invented my spreadsheet (It's a fill-in type, where I posted the code and breed of a dragon.). It used to sometimes takes hours to fill, so then I started to focus on shorter lineaged things just to save time

 

That being said I don't mind "messy" dragons. Sometimes they can be prettier than a part organised dragons. I prefer completely messy dragon to compination of 2 checkers. If one has a lineage, I think one shouldn't breed it to a cb or messy or a different lineage.

 

And by messy I mean the pre-lineage link messy as this one. But messies that contain different "lineage projects" like this, that has a stairstep x checker in it I don't really like them. But why keep those on my scroll? I traded for them or they are from a friend.

 

When trading I try to include to my want list something that's optainable to all so when I have a shiny some one with cb mint etc can trade with me. And I have traded for things (messies) I don't need but they were offered so.. My scroll goal is to get all dragons in cb form. I'm missing only metals, nds and couple others. But it's hard to trade for cb metals as all I have are lineaged goods, even though they are pretty lineaged goods .

[Rhynn Collins]

Back when I started it wasn't possible to view lineages yet, so I didn't care at all about prettiness - I actually tried breeding the highest gen I could possibly make, which I remember took ages to count and a LOT of tabs open

 

But everything changed when the fire nation attacked when the lineage viewer was implemented. I saw the eldritch horrors I'd created and picked up, and saw what pretty stuff was possible... yep, that forever changed DC for me.

[Phenri]

I like pretty lineages, but I do not breed an awful lot myself.

When I hunt for eggs, I do so mostly in the Ap which means I see a lot of diffrent lineages, but I tend to toss messy eggs away again, unless they are low-time or incuhatable, then I usually keep them.

 

I have tried a few times to make a lineage project for myself, but I always seem to fail at keep my own interest up

 

[olympe]

As I stated before, the "need" for a certain lineage depends on the situation. If I specifically ask for a red x val checker as a mate for one of my vals, I wouldn't want to take any kind of messy-lineaged red just because it's a red. If I need to boost an army that's not needed for breeding purposes, everything goes.

[gad786]

I guess lineages are good to be there once you have collected all the dragons and have hoarded all the dragons that you wanted a hoard of.

 

Its good when you cant think of anything else to do on dragcave.

 

 

[Lizzyluna]

While I think checkers and neat stairsteps are nice to look at, I'm not putting a lot of effort to find the "perfect" mate for my soon-to-be-bred holiday dragons. I'll build even gens, but not checkers, and imperfect stairsteps, save for one relatively easy to continue.

Why? Because I don't want to turn my gift into a burden for a poor newbie who couldn't continue a 5th gen Val'09/Black without begging and trading his/her little sister for the right mate (and risk inbreeding, because of the decreasing number of active CBs). I want my babies to be loved and used to spread more joy, not retossed or kept but never, ever bred because the new owner can't afford a mate.

 

So, if you find out your checker was used in an even gen where nothing matches nothing... that's me spreading carefree happiness.

 

 

[AGYK]

While I think checkers and neat stairsteps are nice to look at, I'm not putting a lot of effort to find the "perfect" mate for my soon-to-be-bred holiday dragons. I'll build even gens, but not checkers, and imperfect stairsteps, save for one relatively easy to continue.

Why? Because I don't want to turn my gift into a burden for a poor newbie who couldn't continue a 5th gen Val'09/Black without begging and trading his/her little sister for the right mate (and risk inbreeding, because of the decreasing number of active CBs). I want my babies to be loved and used to spread more joy, not retossed or kept but never, ever bred because the new owner can't afford a mate.

 

So, if you find out your checker was used in an even gen where nothing matches nothing... that's me spreading carefree happiness.

This logic is why I'm exploring stairsteps over checkers for my holidays. Stairsteps with a common-ish CB make for easy-to-continue lines - think this versus this. The first just requires somebody to have a CB Red or White to mate with. The second requires an immense amount of work and luck to find a mate for.

 

With that said, there are few things more spectacular than a perfectly done high-gen even-gen.

[Pippyspot]

I used to be in the same boat as you, I didn't care about lineages, I just wanted the dragon. These days, I find lineage building fun, but that's me

[Ribombee]

While I think checkers and neat stairsteps are nice to look at, I'm not putting a lot of effort to find the "perfect" mate for my soon-to-be-bred holiday dragons. I'll build even gens, but not checkers, and imperfect stairsteps, save for one relatively easy to continue.

Why? Because I don't want to turn my gift into a burden for a poor newbie who couldn't continue a 5th gen Val'09/Black without begging and trading his/her little sister for the right mate (and risk inbreeding, because of the decreasing number of active CBs). I want my babies to be loved and used to spread more joy, not retossed or kept but never, ever bred because the new owner can't afford a mate.

 

So, if you find out your checker was used in an even gen where nothing matches nothing... that's me spreading carefree happiness.

I, personally, like to continue checkers. However, I don't care at all if someone takes my checker offspring and breeds it to another same gen. Sometimes double checkers look really cute, even! If the person who gets it is happy with it, for whatever reason they enjoy it, I am happy. I don't care if they never breed it and just like having it, if they breed it and AP all the eggs, if they breed it and keep all the eggs. Whatever. If it made them happy to get it from me, my mission is accomplished.

[Blueocean]

When I first started (and I think this is the case for a lot of people) I didn't care about lineages. I didn't know to. I just wanted to collect all the dragons, and maybe get a bunch of the ones that I REALLY liked (Nebula Dragons, in my case). Once I got all the dragons, the allure of having at least one or two of everything on my page was getting boring. What's left to do when you get all the sprites, aside from collecting more and more of them? If that's all it is, then the game gets boring after a while.

Enter the allure of lineages. There is endless fun to be had by building and creating fun lineages. I've seen some neat ones out there, and am working on a few myself. I have lots of prize dragons. Low gens have more allure to me, but I also like long stairstep lineages that I can continue. Now, even those have lost the allure of novelty.

So, Yes, I can understand wanting low gen and CB dragons, or other "clean" lineages. There's just so much more you can do with them.

[Carmelita-Fox]

I started when lineages didn't matter much, but now they are everything to me. I went through two purges of my scroll. First I got rid of everything inbred and messy, then I got rid of everything that wasn't CB, stair, spiral, even gen, or other pretty combos.

 

For me, I'm on DC mostly for the lineages. Building something beautiful is what keeps me interested in DC and even active on the forums. Working on projects is also how I've met people and gotten to talk to them. It's fun

 

I also have over 3000 dragons. There's almost nothing for me to do between releases. I get proud when I finish a project. I also love admiring and collecting other people's projects. I see combos I never would have imagined.

Edited August 30, 2015 by Sister of the Dragon

[elynne]

I started when lineages weren't shown on the site, and silvers were relatively easy to breed. I loved the way silvers looked, so I bred mine a lot. and ended up with about half my silvers being *spectacularly* inbred.

 

personally, I really, really don't care about lineages. there's a very few I find amusing, and I've tried my hand at a couple of breeding projects (which generally fade out after a generation or two when I lose interest), and if I get a prize dragon or something that has a lineage I'll generally try to follow it, especially if I'm trying to breed something to trade with. I've marked my inbred dragons so I don't produce too many of them accidentally, because I know some people strongly dislike them. that said, I have no problems massbreeding my inbred reds, since I know there's plenty of people who will appreciate the BSA without giving a darn about the lineage, and when I'm massbreeding to reduce the egg times on the wall I don't really care what happens to the eggs anyway. and I'm always happy to accept inbreeds on my own scroll, especially reds or rares!

[Seghs]

I honestly can't stand lineages. My OCD goes haywire and I get super stressed, I'm super picky when it comes to non CB dragons (prizes, holidays, etc) parents' names. It's why I only collect CB dragons whenever possible.

[NotBambi]

I do not "hate" lineages, I just do not make any effort to build any.

[Firedda]

I, personally, like lineages a lot because they give me a goal to accomplish. Either to find/obtain a mate for the stair-step/spiral, or build/breed a mate for a checker. It makes DC be more than just catching and trading eggs, for me. But I only work for and continue ones that contain dragons that I like the sprites of. Other dragon lineages are just like, "Oh, that's nice. Moving on…."

Edited August 31, 2015 by Firedda

[MessengerDragon]

I like lineages, because they can be pretty or interesting. However, I don't mind having some typical longlineage-messy-inbred dragons as well.