Dragon Caveology

[TheGrox]

Dragon Caveology

 

So, what the hell is this thread about? Well, in a nutshell, it is a guide on how to get better at DragCave.

 

And, who the hell am I to be telling you all this? Well, I may not be a member with a 10-page scroll, but, since starting playing DragCave a few years ago, I have learnt a lot, and I wish someone had told me all this when I was a newbie.

 

Is this thread just for newbies? Well, I have targeted it primarily at newbies, but it wouldn't hurt for all you oldies to refresh your memories too.

 

So, How can I be a better DragCaver?

 

1. First and foremost use the forums! When I first joined, I just caught eggs, raised, and repeated. Granted, trading (as we know it now) didn't exist back then, but once I discovered the benefits of the forums, I never looked back.

 

2. Trade, Trade, Trade! It will take you an age to catch that special Purple Dino to complete your collection. Every Dino you catch will have to be abandoned because it will be the wrong colour. But what if that fourth Red Dino you've just caught is the one thing someone else needs to complete their Dino collection. And by sheer luck, they've just caught their fourth Purple Dino. Bingo! Set up a trade! Both players get what they want in half the time.

 

3. Generally, low-gen staircases, Thuweds, Dorkfaces and 2nd gen purebred rares are particularly valuable. If you can't trade something as an egg, hatch it and try again. Most people find hatchlings much more appealing, because they don't take up eggslots and don't take as long to grow up. Also, ER eggs and hatchlings are much more appealing, because they usually result in an instant hatchling/adult upon trading.

 

4. Know what people want. Blacks, Stripes, Metallics, Hollies, Neglecteds are all very sought after at the moment. Sure, if you are a complete newbie, you might not have any of these... But I caught a Dorkface Gold when I was a newbie, from the AP, so it isn't impossible. Some popular common/uncommon breeds include; Pillows, Nebulas, Whites, Seasonals, Embers, any BSA dragons. However, be careful when giving away BSA dragons, because you may need them to enhance your own collection. Anything, common or not, which has a word in it's code will also be very appealing. Unbreedables like Dinos, Papers, Cheeses, etc are rare, but they are not as appealing because they are, well, unbreedable. Most people only have one or two of each of these to make their scroll a bit prettier.

 

5. Be a good trader. If you're gonna trade, you need to at least follow a few simple rules. Firstly, do not ask for stupidly more than your eggs/hatchies are worth! The amount of trades I see offering a CB Pink and asking for a CB Metallic... You can ask, but you probably wont get many replies if you arent realistic about what you want.Secondly, reply to ALL trade messages. Even a simple "no thanks" is better than leaving the other person hanging... Thirdly, set out your trade post attractively. Something just as subtle as adding little images of the eggs you are offering (get them from DragCave Wiki) can make a big difference. Also, be clear about what you want. I find that just asking for just 'offers' is rarely as effective as asking for something specific from a wishlist. Which brings me neatly to my next rule...

 

6. IOU's. IOU stands for I Owe You. This means that the person doesn't have what they are offering at the moment, but will give it to you when they get it (this could be when they next breed the dragon in a weeks time, for example). Should you take them? Well, I do, but only from regular users, who aren't likely to leave any time soon, without me getting what I want.

 

7. Make a wishlist. Be it in your profile, signature, a Google Doc, this thread, whatever... It is a great way for others to see what you want. However, be realistic. Nobody is going to offer you a CB Metallic, unless you have something of equal value to trade. A wishlist gives you something to work to in DC. Set yourself goals, and once you reach them, set some more.

 

8. Prioritise. Keep your main goals in sight. It's no use being egglocked if you really want to catch that CB Black you need. And be patient. Signup for gifting threads, and wait for some kind gifter to pop one into your inbox. Remember to nominate them to be ARK listed if they do!

 

9. Be online as much as possible. Yes we all have lives to live (well most of us anyway). But try to get on for as many hourly drops as possible. And keep combing the trading and gifting threads on the forum. But DON'T stalk the Cave or AP when you are egglocked! This will only lead to disappointment when you see that CB Silver pass right by and you can't grab it. There may be some hatchlings on the AP, but they aren't very easy to grab.

 

10. Be part of the community. People are much more likely to accept an IOU from you for that crucial trade if you are ARK listed and have a few hundred posts to your name. And the benefits don't end there. Join in with any competitions, you never know what you might win.

 

11. Breed. No, I mean your dragons, silly! It is all to easy to get caught up in trading, catching, etc, and forget that your CB Blacks can breed again today. And even if you don't want the offspring, someone else might!

 

12. Rares in the hourly drops go really quickly. If you miss them by just one second, all the goodies are gone. I'm serious. To help you with catching eggs, you should memorize key phrases/overall appearance of each egg description, and also memorize the appearance of the sprites. (Overall appearance means how many lines the description takes up on the page - I noticed that several uncommon species have 3-5 lines of egg description in the cave.) To alert yourself to when the egg drop is coming, you should probably make your computer announce the hour on the hour, or set up an online countdown timer. Just remember not to mute the volume.

 

13. On the AP, if you're looking for a good grab, try tinselfails (tinselfail whites and terrae seem to be quite commonly abandoned). Not all abandoned terraes are tinselfails, yes, but that's a good way to get nicely-lineaged commons. Also, if you miss an uncommon egg from the AP, then see it again a little while later, there may be a reason why the grabber passed up the chance to own that dragon. Although if it's your goal to complete your collection, and if you don't have that egg, then by all means, take it. Actually, a fairly good tactic is to grab things off the AP, check their lineages, then toss them back if you don't want them.

 

14. Use the IRC. It's a good place for trading, getting those extra views, gifting/being a giftee (some people give free goodies, especially to newbies), and just plain talking.

 

15. Ask. A lot of people put in their sig "I will breed anything on my scroll, PM me." If you don't ask, you won't get.

 

16. Collect the dragons YOU like. I wish I had collected more Frills, but I didn't, since they were so common. Many people wish they had got more of the old 'Bright Pink's' but they were so common too.

 

17. Aim for a Bronze Trophy quite quickly. Catching low-ish time eggs from the AP can speed up the process, as well as trading less for more... higher value eggs can be traded for a common hatchie or two.

 

18. Remember to gift! And don't just do it for the shiny ARK badge, do it because it feels right. These days when I've visited The Giving Tree, I noticed that many of the rare gift lists have been backlogged, and there are also people waiting for commons/uncommons. If you snag Nebulas for your gigantic nebula army, why not spare at least a handful for someone who has none? Gifting may not yield any material value like a trade does, but it does give you that warm fuzzy feeling knowing you've done something good for someone else, and lets you take a step back from all the hoarding and competition.

 

19. Use the Wikia! The Dragon Cave Wikia is a compilation of practically everything a newbie, or 10 page long scroll member, could ever need. It has egg types, dragon profiles, time lines, and information about new events/releases. I recommend that you use this Wikia page to memorize egg discriptions. It will help enormously in the long run, so you won't hesitate over that egg that you're not completely sure about.

 

20. Using clicksites and fansites is very helpful. Instead of just barely hatching your egg at 1 day left, you can often get your baby out at the first possible time. But beware, don't put your egg in every single site at one time; it will overload the egg and it can get softshell. If you don't treat this, the egg can die. To save an egg with softshell, use the "fog" feature found on the Actions menu.

Some breeds of dragons (mostly the rares) will need more views and unique views, so you should always adjust to your eggs' needs.

 

21. Most importantly, once you become a member with a 10 page scroll, remember that kind person who compiled that nice little guide, which got you to where you are now.

 

But, What if i've got a really slow internet connection?

Well, here's a few tips to help you out:

 

1. IF you still want to try and catch eggs as they drop, even knowing that people with much faster connections are playing, hang out in the less popular biomes. Pay attention to the number of players in each biome, which is shown on the screen, and go to the emptier locations.

 

2. Also, for egg-catching, you may NOT want to attempt it on the hourly drop. The hourly drop is when the most rare eggs drop at once, and so everyone with a quicker connection is usually waiting and ready to pounce. You may have better luck searching during the off-time. Occasional rares still drop throughout the hour, plus when a less popular biome doesn't clear out right away, its rares aren't always uncovered until a quarter of the way through the hour, or so.

 

3. Trading may be your best option for getting rares and special holiday releases. Some good trading fodder that someone with a slow connection can still obtain: CB common *hatchies* (a lot of people won't trade for the egg, because they could get one as easily themselves, but if you save them the time of hatching it, they'll gladly trade), CB Magi eggs/hatchies (these don't get picked up as quickly as the Reds and Pinks do, I would guess because their ability renews faster, and is used less often, so people require less of them), eggs that have a chance of becoming an Alt like Vines or Blacks, or especially *hatchies* of Alts (those are a surefire trade!), BSA hatchies (many people will gladly trade a rare for 2 or 3 BSA hatchies), oh, and did I mention hatchies? Just having the patience to wait and hatch your eggs before trading will give you a huge leg up on the trading forum.

 

4. Plus, utilize the gifting threads! When a holiday release is happening, if you don't think you can refresh and click fast enough to catch an egg, check the forum and see if there is a thread devoted to distributing the special eggs. Many faster and more experienced players will devote several hours to catching eggs only to turn around and redistribute them to people who don't have any yet. Holidays aside, there are several very generous gifting threads. Just be sure to read and follow the rules on each!

 

5. Play the AP! The Abandoned Page is a very good place to find either what you're looking for, or valuable trading fodder. Plus, unlike the biomes, the eggs don't require any cooldown. So, you can pick up an egg, peruse it at your leisure, and then drop it again if it doesn't suit your needs, rather than having to wait 5 hours if you misclicked.

 

6. AP Tips: As many faster players tend to hover over the low-time spot in the upper left, I'd suggest waiting elsewhere; there are many egg slots, so if you pick one spot to wait in and refresh the page again and again, chances are you'll be first to click if something good appears in that location. Use f5 to refresh quickly, with your arrow already in place to click. The value of different dragons changes over time, but right now, some useful things you could pick up are: hatchies, Nebula eggs, Vine eggs, Tinsel eggs, Vampire eggs, Geode eggs, tinsel-fails, Dino eggs, and Stripe eggs. Also, while Bluna and Shallow Water eggs aren't in demand, their hatchies usually are.

 

7. Breed! If you build a pretty lineage of your own, in which all the dragons are named, you'll be able to produce your own eggs for trading fodder. Lots of people loooove even-gen lineages, especially 2nd-4th (since they're still small enough to combine with the other player's own breeding patterns). And even more so if they're BSAs!

 

8. Turn off Javascript, page style, and anything else you can. This will speed up page load times. To turn off the page style, in Firefox, click view, go to Page Style and click No Style. It still allows the images necessary for the AP, but stops loading the background images, which sometimes moves very slow.

 

9. Turn off images when you are hunting the cave. You need images on the Ap, but not the cave, especially if it is a Holiday drop, when only one type of dragon is being dropped. No images will increase page load times quite a bit for slower connections.

 

10. If you've got a bogged down computer (not one with low specs) and you know what you're doing, you can always boot up a live CD and use a completely clean OS for clicking. I WOULDNT RECOMMEND THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

 

11. Want to find out just how fast your internet is? Go here! Maybe it isn't as slow as you think it is...

 

12. Don't be disheartened with a bad internet connection. Speedtest rated me D- yet I can still catch uncommons fairly often in the cave. I even caught a Gold on the AP once. Connection speed isn't everything. Try testing your connection speed on multiple browsers, see which is best for you (for me it is Chrome).

 

OK folks, thats all for now. MORE COMING SOON! Any comments are greatly welcomed, as are any ideas for additional things I could add. (and somebody offering me a CB Gold for my trouble wouldn't be too bad either )

 

Thanks to everyone who has replied with ideas for additions! And a special thanks to Kelkelen for the 'slow connection' section!

Edited December 28, 2011 by TheGrox

[HollyTheColliegirl]

Great idea!

 

In #5, "Communtiy" is spelled wrong. Should be "Community."

[MissVampire13]

I agree; this is some very sound advice, especially the part about replying to PM'd trade offers. It's nice to know your message has been read and considered, even if the reply is still a "no thanks".

[chameleon-elle]

Oooh, I am bookmarking this thread. Since I'm still a bit of a newbie, I'm looking forward to the additional advice!

[Sunrise]

This is very well-written and informative. A lot of my strategies are the same way I do have some things to add, though.

 

One thing is to prioritize. Keep your main goals in sight, and plan them out. For example, if you're stalking a certain egg, make sure you have at least one egg slot open for it. I've been looking for a CB Black for ages; two of them passed by yesterday and I couldn't get them because I was egglocked. You won't finish your lineage project or get that rare egg if you're distracted with a thousand other things.

 

If your goal is to complete your collection, my advice is not to get picky about lineages from the start. That only slows you down and gets you frustrated. It's great if your first gold tinsel was a 3rd-gen stairstep, but a messily-lineaged one snagged off the AP works just as well; after all, they're the same breed. Once you have as much of your collection as you want, then it's time to start getting picky.

 

Also, I find that in the trading threads, low-gen staircases, Thuweds, Dorkfaces and 2nd gen purebred rares happen to be particularly valuable. In general, hatchlings get better deals than eggs, because 1) they don't take up an egg slot on the other person's scroll and 2) you don't have to wait as long for them to grow up. ER dragons also look more appealing, because they usually result in an instant hatchie/adult upon trading.

 

In terms of rare breeds, everyone seems to want blacks, stripes, metallics, tinsels, hollies, zombies and neglecteds. Some people want Trios, but I don't see people asking for those as often anymore.

 

Popular common/uncommon breeds include: pillows, nebulas, whites, seasonals, embers, and any BSA dragons (except purples, because Fertility is useless). Anything with a word as a code may also net you a good trade. However, you should be careful when giving away a BSA dragon because they have special abilities to help you with enhancing your collection. Unbreedables like dinos and chickens are rare, but they're not very popular because they're, well, unbreedable.

 

Third thing: the rares in egg drops go by really quickly. If you miss them by just one second, all the goodies are gone. I'm serious. To help you with catching eggs, you should memorize key phrases/overall appearance of each egg description, and also memorize the appearance of the sprites. (Overall appearance means how many lines the description takes up on the page - I noticed that several uncommon species have 3-5 lines of egg description in the cave.) To alert yourself to when the egg drop is coming, you should probably make your computer announce the hour on the hour (I did this with my Mac), or set up an online countdown timer. Just remember not to mute the volume.

 

Lastly, on the AP, if you're looking for a good grab, try terrae tinselfails. Not all abandoned terraes are tinselfails, yes, but that's how I got most of my nicely-lineaged commons. Also, if you miss an uncommon egg snatched from the AP and then tossed back, don't take it; there's usually a reason why the grabber passed up the chance to own that dragon. Although if it's your goal to complete your collection, and if you don't have that egg, then by all means, take it.

 

Well, that's just some stuff from my own experiences. Your guide was excellent, but I just wanted to throw this out there.

Edited November 25, 2011 by Sunrise

[GiratinaOF]

Sounds really good! I'm sure this is quite helpful for new users here.

[TheGrox]

Great idea! 

 

In #5, "Communtiy" is spelled wrong. Should be "Community."

Corrected, thanks!

 

This is very well-written and informative. A lot of my strategies are the same way I do have some things to add, though.

Sunrise, your advice was great! I will add this to the main post, if that's alright with you?

 

Thank you to everyone for the great comments. I just wish more people looked at Site Discussion rather than just skipping straight to Trading.

 

MAIN POST UPDATED WITH NEW ADDITIONS!

Edited November 26, 2011 by TheGrox

[TotallyDrow]

Thanks for the help

 

Im new to DragCave. Joined on the 19th only

 

Ive got more Uncommon then Common eggs/hatchlings at the moment

 

Also managed to get a Chicken and a Gold dragon .

 

I was just wondering. Since my only two adult dragons are Skywing and Deepsea, and they can breed Two finned bluna's. Should I breed them as soon as I have an egg slot open, or should I breed them later on, after I have a few more adult dragons?

[Misha]

A very nice idea however I do have to disagree a bit with this: Firstly, do not ask for more than your eggs/hatchies are worth! . Depending upon the scroll needs of the player they might be willing to do a trade that outright seems like a mismatch at first. But it depends entirely on what they have on scroll (assuming a multiple year large scroll) vs. what their priorities are. If they're working some involved pink project that might be of more worth to them then others. I, myself, have given up what some might call mismatches to get what I need on my scroll because I was having no luck obtaining them myself. So it does tend to be individual to the situation I've found during my trading.

[Nureyev]

Great guide. I did want to give an opinion on this though:

 

"Also, if you miss an uncommon egg snatched from the AP and then tossed back, don't take it; there's usually a reason why the grabber passed up the chance to own that dragon. "

 

Yes that's usually true. But sometimes the person to grab the egg 1st is very picky and has few egg spots open... or it was a reflex click... So really I think that it's worth trying for the egg again, it never hurts to check. I have gotten some nice ones, even hatchies, this way. ^^ I've clicked on many many nice eggs that I wish I had room for but decided to throw back as they were not a priority for me and I need to conserve space! If I miss a very low time egg or a species I want I will referesh the "egg not found" page for 20 seconds or so in case they toss it back!

[TheGrox]

A very nice idea however I do have to disagree a bit with this: Firstly, do not ask for more than your eggs/hatchies are worth! . Depending upon the scroll needs of the player they might be willing to do a trade that outright seems like a mismatch at first. But it depends entirely on what they have on scroll (assuming a multiple year large scroll) vs. what their priorities are. If they're working some involved pink project that might be of more worth to them then others. I, myself, have given up what some might call mismatches to get what I need on my scroll because I was having no luck obtaining them myself. So it does tend to be individual to the situation I've found during my trading.

I understand what you mean, but I am talking about the really stupid trades I have seen sometimes, with people offering a couple of CB Commons and asking for a CB rare.

 

I have altered the original post to make it a bit clearer.

 

Great guide. I did want to give an opinion on this though:

 

"Also, if you miss an uncommon egg snatched from the AP and then tossed back, don't take it; there's usually a reason why the grabber passed up the chance to own that dragon. "

 

Yes that's usually true. But sometimes the person to grab the egg 1st is very picky and has few egg spots open... or it was a reflex click... So really I think that it's worth trying for the egg again, it never hurts to check. I have gotten some nice ones, even hatchies, this way. ^^ I've clicked on many many nice eggs that I wish I had room for but decided to throw back as they were not a priority for me and I need  to conserve space! If I miss a very low time egg or a species I want I will referesh the "egg not found" page for 20 seconds or so in case they toss it back! 

 

I have also altered this part slightly. I agree with you on this one.

Edited November 26, 2011 by TheGrox

[Kelkelen]

Hi! Lovely post -- very useful! I only joined back in October, and learned a lot of your tips through trial and error, plus reading the Wiki, the FAQ, the forum, etc... It's a *great* idea to put so much useful "newbie info" in one place like this!

 

I do agree with the above poster -- sometimes an egg gets thrown back over and over because it's a tinsel-fail, for instance; other players would love to have them, or else save them and gift them to tinsel-fail fans, or hatch them and trade the hatchies as nicely-lineaged. Or, it's a messy-lineaged Vine Egg or Nebula; a player could still catch and hatch it, and if the hatchie is an Alt, it's valuable trading fodder!

 

I have an idea for another section you could add: Tips for Newbies with a SLOW Internet Connection! I've seen a lot of people commenting on this, particularly around Halloween, and it's not really addressed in the FAQ or elsewhere. Here's some of what I've gleaned:

 

1) IF you still want to try and catch eggs as they drop, even knowing that people with much faster connections are playing, hang out in the less popular biomes. Pay attention to the number of players in each biome, which is shown on the screen, and go to the emptier locations.

 

2) Also, for egg-catching, you may NOT want to attempt it on the hourly drop. The hourly drop is when the most rare eggs drop at once, and so everyone with a quicker connection is usually waiting and ready to pounce. You may have better luck searching during the off-time. Occasional rares still drop throughout the hour, plus when a less popular biome doesn't clear out right away, its rares aren't always uncovered until a quarter of the way through the hour, or so.

 

3) Trading may be your best option for getting rares and special holiday releases. Some good trading fodder that someone with a slow connection can still obtain: CB common *hatchies* (a lot of people won't trade for the egg, because they could get one as easily themselves, but if you save them the time of hatching it, they'll gladly trade), CB Magi eggs/hatchies (these don't get picked up as quickly as the Reds and Pinks do, I would guess because their ability renews faster, and is used less often, so people require less of them), eggs that have a chance of becoming an Alt like Vines or Blacks, or especially *hatchies* of Alts (those are a surefire trade!), BSA hatchies (many people will gladly trade a rare for 2 or 3 BSA hatchies), oh, and did I mention hatchies? Just having the patience to wait and hatch your eggs before trading will give you a huge leg up on the trading forum.

 

4) Plus, utilize the gifting threads! When a holiday release is happening, if you don't think you can refresh and click fast enough to catch an egg, check the forum and see if there is a thread devoted to distributing the special eggs. Many faster and more experienced players will devote several hours to catching eggs only to turn around and redistribute them to people who don't have any yet. Holidays aside, there are several very generous gifting threads. Just be sure to read and follow the rules on each!

 

5) Play the AP! The Abandoned Page is a very good place to find either what you're looking for, or valuable trading fodder. Plus, unlike the biomes, the eggs don't require any cooldown. So, you can pick up an egg, peruse it at your leisure, and then drop it again if it doesn't suit your needs, rather than having to wait 5 hours if you misclicked.

 

6) AP Tips: As many faster players tend to hover over the low-time spot in the upper left, I'd suggest waiting elsewhere; there are many egg slots, so if you pick one spot to wait in and refresh the page again and again, chances are you'll be first to click if something good appears in that location. Use f5 to refresh quickly, with your arrow already in place to click. The value of different dragons changes over time, but right now, some useful things you could pick up are: hatchies, Nebula eggs, Vine eggs, Tinsel eggs, Vampire eggs, Geode eggs, tinsel-fails, Dino eggs, and Stripe eggs. Also, while Bluna and Shallow Water eggs aren't in demand, their hatchies usually are.

 

7) Breed! If you build a pretty lineage of your own, in which all the dragons are named, you'll be able to produce your own eggs for trading fodder. Lots of people loooove even-gen lineages, especially 2nd-4th (since they're still small enough to combine with the other player's own breeding patterns). And even more so if they're BSAs!

 

Just a few extra ideas, there, because I think gameplay changes if you can't be a speed demon in the Cave. :-D

[TheGrox]

I have an idea for another section you could add: Tips for Newbies with a SLOW Internet Connection!  I've seen a lot of people commenting on this, particularly around Halloween, and it's not really addressed in the FAQ or elsewhere.

 

That's a great idea! I couldn't write about this myself, as I have a fairly good internet connection, but I can see how hard it might be if someone doesn't. I haven't got time now, but I will add this to the main post, if that's alright with you?

 

I'm thinking that I should have reserved the second post now... I can see there is going to be more advice than 1 post can handle.

Edited November 26, 2011 by TheGrox

[Kelkelen]

That's a great idea! I couldn't write about this myself, as I have a fairly good internet connection, but I can see how hard it might be if someone doesn't. I haven't got time now, but I will add this to the main post, if that's alright with you?

 

I'm thinking that I should have reserved the second post now... I can see there is going to be more advice than 1 post can handle.

Of course, it's fine by me! And yeah... my connection's really good, too, but I was new at Halloween and I saw how very, very frustrated some of the people with slower connections were. Again, I think this is a great post!

[Misha]

Also another note that might be useful for newer to the game traders is that if a trade offering that you are looking at has a very specific request(s) i.e. want CB Stripe, CB Black etc. defined as part of the trade, respect that, and don't use the teleport link to send them something that obviously wasn't something they were looking for.

[miladyz]

Nicely written! This will be a very helpful resource for people who are new to the site.

[Ashes The Second]

The problem with ARK is, I see random newbies just getting in, and I've been here for a year and never got in. It makes it feel pointless because it's an elitist system designed to get rid of the 'bad eggs' per se. And no one really cares. >->

[baconNeggs_2022]

The problem with ARK is, I see random newbies just getting in, and I've been here for a year and never got in. It makes it feel pointless because it's an elitist system designed to get rid of the 'bad eggs' per se. And no one really cares. >->

Well ARK listers are nominated by someone they gift random gifts or offer great help to (more details are in the thread itself). If you are not listed yet, that means no one has thought about nominating as a way of saying thanks or no one whom you have helped knows about ARK

 

The ARK thread mods are not the ones to pick who gets listed, they base that on the nomination.

[Tawanda001]

Well ARK listers are nominated by someone they gift random gifts or offer great help to (more details are in the thread itself). If you are not listed yet, that means no one has thought about nominating as a way of saying thanks or no one whom you have helped knows about ARK

 

The ARK thread mods are not the ones to pick who gets listed, they base that on the nomination.

I think that is a big part of it. I've been around a while and didn't really know about ARK until I noticed that a couple of really helpful and/or generous people had a banner in their signature and I looked it up because I was curious.

I made my first nomination a couple of weeks ago and I think if more people were aware of what ARK is there would be more nominations.

 

So if anybody has done a good deed for you NOMINATE them for ARK!

[Sunrise]

Sunrise, your advice was great! I will add this to the main post, if that's alright with you?

 

MAIN POST UPDATED WITH NEW ADDITIONS!

Of course you may Thanks!

 

And yeah, because ARK is based on nominations, it's not always the biggest gifters who get in. You could gift 100 dragons, but not get in if no one nominates you. However, if a person gifts 10 dragons and a bunch of their giftees nominate them, they might get on the list.

Edited November 26, 2011 by Sunrise

[Ashes The Second]

Eh, I don't really gift, I try to, but no seems to appreciate it when I do. I'll live, though. :3

[jerusha]

Would it be worthwhile at all to classify the trade value of eggs? I thought it might be helpful, since new people haven't had a chance yet to learn what any given egg's trade value would be.

For example, just speaking of CB breeds, Alts, and Tinsels, I would break them down into general trade categories like this:

 

Extremely Valuable:

Gold

Silver

2nd or 3rd gen Tinsel

Neglected

Holly

2nd Gen Black Alt

 

Highly Valuable:

Black

Ice

Magma

3rd, 4th gen Tinsel

 

Stilll Pretty Valuable:

Stripe

Thunder

Nebula - somewhere between this category and Medium Value

 

Medium Value:

Red

BSA Pink

Dino

Chicken

Cheese

Alt Vine

5th, 6th gen Tinsel

White?

Harvest?

Ember?

Tan Ridgewing?

Vine?

 

Low Value:

Everything else

 

Generally speaking, you can trade 1:1 for eggs within their own category. If you want to offer lower-category eggs to get higher-category eggs, add 2 - 5 eggs per category jump. Example: 3 - 5 CB Blacks, or 5- 10 CB Stripes, or 20+ low-value eggs, to get one CB Gold.

 

Other rules of thumb:

 

CB is always more valuable than bred.

The lower the gen (closer to CB), the more valuable the egg.

PB is *usually* more valuable than mixed lineage.

Patterned lineage (even-gen, stairstep) is always more valuable than chaotic lineage. The more structured the lineage (2-breed stairstep, PB or checker even gen), the higher the value.

Offspring of Spriter's Alts are usually more valuable than offspring of non-Alts of the same breed.

Values change as ratios change. Sitting Black Alts used to be worth CB Gold, when most Blacks alted curled. Now it's the sitting alt that's more common, and going down in value... while the curled alt has practically disappeared and is now quite valuable.

 

These are just loose estimates based on what I've seen in the Trades thread and experienced myself (in the limited amount of trading I've done ). By all means, every category and which eggs belong in it are up for discussion/debate.

Edited November 26, 2011 by jerusha

[Dark_Necros]

"And, who the hell am I to be telling you all this? Well, I may not be a member with a 10-page scroll, but, since starting playing DragCave a few years ago, I have __learnt__ a lot, and I wish someone had told me all this when I was a newbie."

 

yea....

[Kelkelen]

"And, who the hell am I to be telling you all this? Well, I may not be a member with a 10-page scroll, but, since starting playing DragCave a few years ago, I have __learnt__ a lot, and I wish someone had told me all this when I was a newbie."

 

yea....

What's the issue? It's an acceptable form of the word.

 

Also, I'm confused by some earlier posts... how did ARK originally come up, in this thread?

 

As for the egg values list, it's definitely of use to a newbie, but there's already at least one "What is my egg worth?" thread. Maybe Grox could include a link to it, though.

[Imbecamiel]

"And, who the hell am I to be telling you all this? Well, I may not be a member with a 10-page scroll, but, since starting playing DragCave a few years ago, I have __learnt__ a lot, and I wish someone had told me all this when I was a newbie."

 

yea....

Actually, "learnt" is a perfectly acceptable variation, particularly common in UK English. :3

 

("Yeah" on the other hand, can not be spelled "yea" - that's a different word, a very old-fashioned/formal synonym for "yes." I.e. "voting yea or nay." Sorry, pet peeve. )

Edited November 26, 2011 by Imbecamiel