Change Dragon Descriptions

[RainDear]

Apparently, when people describe their dragons, they sometimes assume that a dragon flies, when other people either assume or know it doesn't. Maybe this problem could be alleviated by indicating in the adult description when a dragon is flightless. The Dorsal Dragon for instance, is described as a hatchling as having grown its wings, leading some to assume that as it has wings it flies. If it doesn't actually have the ability to fly, perhaps it can be described as flightless in its adult description, or the hatchling description can be reworded to indicate that it has grown its back fins rather than wings to alleviate the confusion. There may be other dragons that this would be helpful for as well.

 

I did try to look for a similar thread, but between search being disabled and lag I just checked 4 pages of Suggestions/Requests before I gave up.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

I don't really think this is needed. In most cases it's pretty darn obvious that a dragon can't fly (Waterhorses, Magmas, Deepseas), and as such mentioning that they don't fly in the description is pretty pointless and silly. In cases where it ISN'T completely obvious, mods usually seem to give people room to have them fly or not fly as they wish.

 

I think Dorsals are one of the obvious cases. Their fins are modified wings, and don't look anything like the types of wings that would be capable of flight.

[Fuzzbucket]

But apparently people have actually had descriptions rejected because they said dorsals COULD fly.

 

Who says their wings don't look capable of flight ? It is well known (IRL) that bees cannot (technically) fly - by their anatomy it is impossible (something to do with weight to wing ratio.) But they do. And I had no idea dorsals couldn't fly till it came up in a thread earlier.... OK, colour me thick - but still.

[HeatherMarie]

Completely support. Especially if people are getting descriptions rejected because of unclear information, I think that right there says that the information *needs* to be more clear.

[DeathCry]

Completely support. Especially if people are getting descriptions rejected because of unclear information, I think that right there says that the information *needs* to be more clear.

For this reason, yes.

 

I do not write descriptions for dragons, but if they take so long to be approved (from what I've heard), the worst reason to have one rejected is for simply not knowing a detail that they *should have known or assumed.*

 

Edit for typo

Edited December 30, 2012 by DeathCry

[olympe]

Sure, I would have considered dorsals flightless - as well as stones (it's in their description) and geodes (because they're a lot like stones) - as well as all strictly aquatic breeds (water, deep sea, shallow water, water horse). I'm not sure about blunas, they remind me too much of flying fish with their wing-fins (or fin-wings), so I think they might be able to at least jump out of the water at high velocity and glide over it for some distance. Then there are magmas, female terraes, vines, mints and water walkers, of course. Silvers, however, should be able to fly, as they are standard Eastern dragons. But I'm sure that there are other people who see this differently.

 

But there are others where I'm not totally sure. What about pumpkins (and their tiny wings), yules, hollies (the mothers and fathers of all hangbutts), pillows (small wings), sweetlings (Eastern magic flyers or not?), sunstones (another case of the great hangbutt), male terraes (due to size) and who knows what else I missed. For them, a descritpion that includes whether they can fly or not could come in quite handy.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

I still don't think this is needed unless a LOT of people are confused (which I don't think is the case), and even then, only add it in for those dragons where people ARE confused. As I mentioned before, stating that something like a Magma doesn't fly is rather... unnecessary.

 

Plus, if you continue off of this thought process, things start getting crazy really quick. Does every single dragon's breed description need to list whether it can swim, whether it can write, whether it can use magic, etc etc?

[Ember_Silverly]

I would be in favor of more detail in the descriptions overall. A lot of times there seems like there's a lot more detail available to users in the forum that is available on the cave itself. Some artists have extensive information about their dragons that isn't readily accessible to a new user. Look at this year's Christmas release for example. Lots of extra information was given in the thread (including their official name) but none of that is listed on the site. It would make writing descriptions easier (for those who choose to do so).

[Xythus]

To be kind of honest, theres just some things I'm confused in general about descriptions.

 

Now, if there was a description that said "Mr Princess Lady likes to ride her unicycle to school while juggling ten bricks." thats going to be rejected because thats unrealistic and not medieval-like. If there was a description that said: "Mr. Dragun gusta pastel" thats going to be rejected because its not in english. Other things like going against the breed description, horrific grammar, cursing, anything that isn't a description is obviously going to be declined, but I don't understand why small things like "Purple Dorsal could fly" would be such a big deal. Is it because we don't want to accidentally disrespect the artists? How harmful is it to have a description there, its not like descriptions have a huge impact towards other things on the site (just something optional to be done).

 

For example, there was this time when I picked a dragon (one of the ones that are not violent and are peaceful) to describe, and said "She is much meaner than the others", and was rejected because of the "mean" part. I didn't say she went and burned down a whole village, or abused other dragons, just "meaner" (which could range from just a teeeeny bit mean to a lot) but apparently, all dragons of that breed must obviously be goody two shoes. However, later on, it was still approved (still dunno how that happened) by a different desc. mod.......so. I don't even know.

 

[DarkVioletCloud]

I'd like this to happen for dragons that would need the clarification if they could fly or not. For those which it's completely obvious (stones, aquatic ones, etc,) it's not needed, but for those like Dorsals and those that olympe mentioned, it should be specified. (I'm still confused about these Christmas dragons, honestly. )

In short, support.

[Fuzzbucket]

I'd like this to happen for dragons that would need the clarification if they could fly or not. For those which it's completely obvious (stones, aquatic ones, etc,) it's not needed, but for those like Dorsals and those that olympe mentioned, it should be specified. (I'm still confused about these Christmas dragons, honestly. )

In short, support.

The Christmas ones say they can't - their creator has written them up on the wiki.

[HeatherMarie]

The Christmas ones say they can't - their creator has written them up on the wiki.

The wiki isn't official, though.

 

I would LOVE if all this "creator said this, creator said that" would actually go into the *on-site* descriptions. Anyone who isn't on the forums aren't going to know "creator said this" and such.

[brairtrainer]

As the person who posted the dorsal thread in help trying to find out if they have wings or not, I have described one of my dorsals flying and she got through the system. But I noted that later one of the mods, (I think Ruby Shoes) said they don't fly nor have wings.

 

But a dorsal hatchling that I had said, "Look its grown wings..." so I'd like clarifications on dragons who have wings being flightless or not and if the dorsal doesn't have wings for the description to say "Look its grown fins..."

[rubyshoes]

As far as dorsals are concerned, I did ask the artists at the time it came up and was told that they don't fly and that on the adults, those are not wings they are fins used to regulate temperature and attract mates.

 

It would be nice if on the s2 stages of hatchlings of those dragons that don't have wings that it didn't say they had grown wings though.

 

[Daypaw]

I do not describe my dragons, but I can see how this would be helpful for those that do- minor clarifications here and there would not drastically change anything (for example, just one sentence on the Dorsals explaining what Ruby just said and stating that they cannot fly) so I would support this.

[TheGrox]

It would be nice if on the s2 stages of hatchlings of those dragons that don't have wings that it didn't say they had grown wings though.

Yes, I think this is definitely needed.

 

I've never really thought about it that much (the few dragons I do describe, I don't tend to do it in the conventional way, and don't tend to talk about flying), but now that I do think about it, there are some dragons which I'm not sure could fly or not. Clarification would be nice.

[mozers]

I support this, and it would be awesome if they also describe the size of the dragons.

[TheGrox]

I support this, and it would be awesome if they also describe the size of the dragons.

Surely we can see the size of dragons from their sprites?

[KageSora]

Surely we can see the size of dragons from their sprites?

Not really. I mean, are we to assume that everything that's not a pygmy is roughly the same size? I would imagine that different dragons have varying sizes, really.

 

So we don't really have any way of telling how large they are in relation to each other.

 

That aside, are they all the size of cars? Huge trees? Mountains? What are the relative sizes compared to the world around them?

[TheGrox]

That aside, are they all the size of cars? Huge trees? Mountains? What are the relative sizes compared to the world around them?

Cars wouldn't be in the world around them, descriptions can't have that sort of thing in. Description guidelines say "This site takes place in a medieval setting." But I agree that it would be helpful to know their size relative to everything else that would be around them at that time.

[KageSora]

Cars wouldn't be in the world around them, descriptions can't have that sort of thing in. Description guidelines say "This site takes place in a medieval setting." But I agree that it would be helpful to know their size relative to everything else that would be around them at that time.

Mostly I was just using it as a quick object I picked out of the air. I'm sure something of comparable size that did exist in the world of DC could be thought up

[HeatherMarie]

I remember, way back when, that some spriters were working on in-depth descriptions for their dragons... whatever happened to that?

 

Just... some things I think *need* to be explained in a dragon's description. Like the fact that Daydreams can't control their power or aim it at a specific person/thing. WE know that, from Lyth pounding it into our heads... But the description doesn't say that. So I can easily imagine people writing dragon descriptions with that kind of information, and getting bombarded with "Daydreams can't do that!" reject messages, and the user is like "what?? Where does it say that?"

 

That's only one example. I really think all those "things" that "creator says" should be in the description. Because otherwise, as far as the cave is concerned, it's not true, is it?

[Nectaris]

Personally I would rather description moderators not enforce anything not explicitly stated in the description. For example, if a user describes a dragon as using magic and the official description doesn't say whether or not it uses magic then it should be accepted providing there are no other factors that would get it rejected.

[ShorahNagi]

Personally I would rather description moderators not enforce anything not explicitly stated in the description.  For example, if a user describes a dragon as using magic and the official description doesn't say whether or not it uses magic then it should be accepted providing there are no other factors that would get it rejected.

I agree with this - I would like to think that within the official description - there is some wiggle room for artistic license ad user preference.

 

For example - I'll use Sunstone and some fake descriptions:

 

Official Description:

 

Sunstone dragons are named after the orb on their tails, which resembles the gem of the same name. Their social structure resembles a lion pride, with one dominant male and several females banded together with their young. They prefer arid climates where they can blend in and dig for minerals and gemstones that they not only collect, but eat. The more gems they consume, the larger their tail stone grows. They are an aggressive breed; it is not uncommon to see two males battling for mates and territory.

 

Nowhere does it say that they can or can not fly so when it comes to writing the description of mine, I can go with:

 

Sunstone is the best flyer of his pride. It is him who all the lady dragons look to for protection.

 

OR

 

Because the stone on his tail grew so large, Sunstone can no longer fly - but he still defends his clan with all his might.

 

The same goes with many others (Silver - doesn't have wings, yet many Eastern style dragons are shown to fly)

 

Thus - you can see how we have a problem. It's not fair if one person's description is shot down because they made the Dragon fly while another's get accepted based on who reviewed it.

[Pokemonfan13]

I agree for any situation where it is ambiguous a little extra sentence giving clarity as to the flying ability of dorsals and such. Other things like magic too. Some dragons are described as being magic users, but does that mean that any dragon that does not mention magic can't?