ANSWERED:Suggestions to improve the raffle

[Amazon_warrior]

What is it with the black/coal reference? I still don't understand it? I think my question about that was missed

It's a (northern European?) tradition associated with Christmas/the santa claus figure - good children get presents/sweets, bad children get a lump of coal.

 

(I would LOVE a coal Shimmer boyfriend for LC...)

[Sheriziya]

It's a (northern European?) tradition associated with Christmas/the santa claus figure - good children get presents/sweets, bad children get a lump of coal. 

 

(I would LOVE a coal Shimmer boyfriend for LC...)

Ah, kinda like the tradition with "Sinterklaas" (mainly in the Netherlands, Belgium, perhaps Germany as well? And I think the Netherlands Antilles.) where the good children get toys and candy and the "bad" children get the "Roe":

 

Now I understand

 

Oh, maybe the black "consolation prize" could function as a kind of "release" between Christmas and Valentine? Somehow?

 

Still, there's the issue for the breeders who like to make lineages with the original prize dragons. That issue of this thread won't be solved with the consolation prize, as was already stated earlier by several people who have created lineages with the prize dragons.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Sheriziya

[Wymsical]

I disagree with you. Between Christmas and Valentine we've got almost 8 weeks with nothing but waiting for the raffle announcement and hands out. The hands out is only for 150 people.

Since a few months we've got monthly releases. Why not continue that now, somewhere halfway between the release of the Christmas dragon and the Valentine dragon? Granted the timing would have to be figured out, running two active news topics can become confusing, but in general...... Besides the news topics "problem/confusion/whatever", somewhere in the midst between the two  holiday releases I don't see a problem for the users.

 

I can imagine this being a busy time for TJ with emailing raffle winners, redrawing winners where necessary, sending out the prizes, posting news topics AND a release.

Prizes typically get handed out late January (the first set of Prizes ever being handed out the day before Valentines) due to the time it takes for everybody to respond and waiting on any necessary redraws that need to be made.

 

It might not be a problem for all users, but you yourself just stated the thing that matters the most. It would be a lot for TJ to do at once, especially considering he has the rest of his life to attend to as well. All of DC's limited releases, along with cute little events that go with them, all happen from the span of late October to mid February. Late November releases are feasible because of the timing between Halloween events and Christmas events, but I do not think the same holds true for the time between Christmas events, the raffle, and Valentines.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Commander Wymsy

[cyradis4]

Still, there's the issue for the breeders who like to make lineages with the original prize dragons. That issue of this thread won't be solved with the consolation prize, as was already stated earlier by several people who have created lineages with the prize dragons.

No, a participation prize won't solve that, but what it will do is decrease the amount of bad feelings people get from the raffle. They will still have some sort of special dragon that can't be gotten from the cave or in CB version anymore but that can breed true year round, and there is so much ill-will because of the raffle that anything to decrease it is a good idea.

 

 

 

 

 

The only way to solve the other issue is to increase the number of CB Prizes even more, and make the CB versions have a more common ratio so they breed Prizes more readily. Most of the CB original prizes don't have very many Tinsel offspring. In fact....

 

The original 5 Gold Tinsels have produced....

Living in Sin: 24 shiny babies

Gold Epica: 13 shiny babies

Alexandria Aurelix: 10 shiny babies

Apollo: 26 shiny babies

AGYI: 20 shiny babies

 

And they've had THREE YEARS to do that, with the first year having JUST the original (5 Golds, 10 Silvers, 15 Bronzes). Taking Apollo, who has the most Gold Tinsel babies, that's one Shiny baby ever SIX weeks, at best. And by my count, 14 of them were in the first year of his life. Over HALF. Which is to say, the last two years? He's produced about 1 tinsel ever other MONTH.

 

The reason people get so hot and bothered by the tinsels is because they simply don't breed well. There are only 93 2nd gen Gold Tinsels from the original 5 CBs. Only 93. That is about 1% of the total of about 9,000 entries in that contest. And that's after three years.

 

Kinda puts things into perspective, doesn't it? Tinsels need to be more "common" (ratio wise) to really fix the fundamental problem of brutally rare 2nd gens and new Prize owners being flooded with PMs.

 

Cheers!

C4.

 

PS: If someone wants to look up the number of offspring for each of the other tinsels and shimmers, that would give a much broader sample size to see the problem.

[olympe]

Yep, though by "everyone", I mean everyone who got a raffle ticket, if there was some way to code that. That way, its something you'd get because you participated, and those who didn't put any effort into it, don't get the participation prize.

 

Cheers!

C4.

Absolutely, that's the way I understood it. After all, you should need to "earn" it in some way.

 

Plus, I'd suggest making these "prizes" scroll-locked, if only to discourage multi-scrolling. Besides, you can have two of the same kind if you participate two years in a row.

 

Still, there's the issue for the breeders who like to make lineages with the original prize dragons. That issue of this thread won't be solved with the consolation prize, as was already stated earlier by several people who have created lineages with the prize dragons.

No. But it will lessen hard feelings somewhat. Especially if the coal variety is pretty, too.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

I knew they bred poorly, Cyradis, but that really puts things in perspective ;;

 

To put the idea up again; what if all CB Prizes were guaranteed to produce an egg every breeding, with 50% chance at shinies? Would reward the CB owners with less frustration at failed breedings, would allow lists to be cleared and thus refilled quicker, would increase the amount of 2gs out there drastically, and would (hopefully) see them going for lower prices, as breeders would be more confident in trading them for less if they knew they could trade more often. It's easy to say "4 CB Metals aren't enough for a 2g because no one went for my offer" (heck, I still think that most of the time), but maybe it's not so much they aren't worth it as everyone's lists are already full--and showing no signs of clearing out anytime soon.

 

The downside, of course, might be that the ratios were then skewed against the higher gen Prizes, but that might not be a terrible thing (although, what if all Prizes bred that way? Thought that would probably be a bit much...). Of, if people find the idea of no failures at all horrifying, maybe the breeding rate could just be upped (50% chance of an egg, 50% chance of a Prize--so around 25% success?)

 

In regards to coal versions / other releases around that time; I'm not opposed to the ideas, certainly, but I feel they'd not really fix anything / should only be considered alongside other things. Having a black Shimmer would be hella sweet, for sure, but it'd not reduce my desire to make pretty lineages with the more colorful prizes.

Edited January 16, 2014 by angelicdragonpuppy

[cyradis4]

I knew they bred poorly, Cyradis, but that really puts things in perspective ;;

 

To put the idea up again; what if all CB Prizes were guaranteed to produce an egg every breeding, with 50% chance at shinies? Would reward the CB owners with less frustration at failed breedings, would allow lists to be cleared and thus refilled quicker, would increase the amount of 2gs out there drastically, and would (hopefully) see them going for lower prices, as breeders would be more confident in trading them for less if they knew they could trade more often. It's easy to say "4 CB Metals aren't enough for a 2g because no one went for my offer" (heck, I still think that most of the time), but maybe it's not so much they aren't worth it as everyone's lists are already full--and showing no signs of clearing out anytime soon.

 

The downside, of course, might be that the ratios were then skewed against the higher gen Prizes, but that might not be a terrible thing (although, what if all Prizes bred that way? Thought that would probably be a bit much...). Of, if people find the idea of no failures at all horrifying, maybe the breeding rate could just be upped (50% chance of an egg, 50% chance of a Prize--so around 25% success?)

 

In regards to coal versions / other releases around that time; I'm not opposed to the ideas, certainly, but I feel they'd not really fix anything / should only be considered alongside other things. Having a black Shimmer would be hella sweet, for sure, but it'd not reduce my desire to make pretty lineages with the more colorful prizes.

The black version would be to reduce the hard feelings the raffles produce.

 

 

I think, if it were possible to have the CB Tinsels and Shimmers breed on, say, a 50% flat percentage instead of a ratio, that would solve the problem. So, half the time the CB owner would get a Tinsel / Shimmer, the other half the time, they'd get no egg / mate's egg. That of course would have likely ended up with the original 5 tinsels producing something like 390 2nd gens. Which considering that someone counted like, 9,000 entries into the Christmas tree contest, isn't bad! But its STILL only 4% of the total number of entries into said Christmas tree contest. If you consider the Silvers and Bronzes, the total number of breeding Tinsels that first year would be: 30 x 52 weeks a year x 3 years x 0.5 chance of a Tinsel = 2,340 2nd gens. Which sounds like a lot.... Until you remember that someone counted 9,000 entries into that contest! So, that means, that about a quarter of those who entered the first contest could have had a 2nd gen from one of those tinsels by now.

 

The 2nd gens and higher gens would then produce offspring based on their ratios. So, basically the 2nd gen and higher would be a different "breed" from the CBs as far as the ratios were concerned.

 

Cheers!

C4.

[Imzadi]

Especially if the coal variety is pretty, too.

Like anthracite rather than bituminous. That could be quite nice.

[Vhale]

I was surprised there wasn't one between the two holidays. I figured there's be a single common egg like between Halloween and Christmas. I think there was a help thread that popped up the first Sunday asking about it as well.

[tjekan]

The reason people get so hot and bothered by the tinsels is because they simply don't breed well. There are only 93 2nd gen Gold Tinsels from the original 5 CBs. Only 93. That is about 1% of the total of about 9,000 entries in that contest. And that's after three years.

That's why I liked TJ's generation-scaled multiclutching idea so much. It would make there be many more 2nd-gen and 3rd-gen prizes without also increasing the number of messy 7th-gen prizes. This would effectively improve the dearth of low-gen prize dragons without running into the overall ratio problem. :-)

[angelicdragonpuppy]

That's why I liked TJ's generation-scaled multiclutching idea so much. It would make there be many more 2nd-gen and 3rd-gen prizes without also increasing the number of messy 7th-gen prizes. This would effectively improve the dearth of low-gen prize dragons without running into the overall ratio problem. :-)

Not necessarily. If the ratios aren't tweaked, even with multiclutching, most of those extras will just be fails, and those that are prizes will mean less prizes bred later...

[tjekan]

Not necessarily. If the ratios aren't tweaked, even with multiclutching, most of those extras will just be fails, and those that are prizes will mean less prizes bred later...

No, because he was discussing up to 4 eggs for a CB's offspring, up to 3 for a 2nd-gen, up to 2 for a 3rd-gen, and only 1 for 4th and higher. The effect of that would be to skew prize production in favor of more short-gens and fewer longer-gens, compared to how it is now (which is strongly the opposite.). :-)

[Sarah864]

I'm intrigued by multiclutching and I have no idea what will happen to the shimmer/tinsel ratio as something like this has never been implemented before. I don't like multiclutching as a BSA because it would replace fertility, we don't even know which dragon should get it, and it seems to be a lot more work than the other options. I still stand by that more raffles are the solution. A summer raffle would be perfect whichever number of hm prizes, tinsels, shimmers, or new dragons are awarded because it's something to look forward to. There's a long stretch of time where there are no holiday releases or any events plus I think it will lower the whole begging for 2nd gens done whenever someone is suspected of winning a prize.

[lorimmel]

First of all, as a CB tinsel owner, I must say I LOVE the idea of better odds of CB prizes producing shiny offspring. Just look at this:

 

http://dragcave.net/progeny/Epic

 

This is the "score" after 3 years of regular breeding, except a three- or four month long semi-hiatus a while ago, when I had a lot of things happening in real life. In practice, this means I cannot take new requests, I cannot gift eggs to my DC friends and nice strangers, and I cannot create new pretty lineages for myself. Why? Because I'm paying my debts. Very old ones. There are people on my list who have been waiting two years for their egg. And not because the list is long. In fact, if you check, Epica produced ONLY ONE shiny egg between July 2012 and July 2013. That's no egg for the whole year. I don't even want to think how it feels to wait so long for something you paid for. And unless the odds are improved, any new request would mean three or four years of waiting time (that's the optimistic scenario). I'm definitely not going there. So if anything can be done about it, please do it. It would make many people very happy

 

As for the idea of multi-clutches, I don't mind it at all. Whatever makes the 2nd gens more available to players is a good solution. I don't mind them becoming more common, losing value or whatever. They are just pretty, and more pretties is a good thing!

 

Now to my favourite idea: the consolation prize for every raffle participant. Whoever came up with this is a genius Please don't hate me for what I say, but despite being a cb prize owner, I still rush to check my e-mails with pounding heart every year. And I do feel a little disappointed when I see "Sorry, you didn't win" message. Now, for someone who never won it must feel much worse Having a "black prize" eggie to care for would be such a nice thing! Not to mention the exciting possibilites of creating lovely checkers with them

 

Midsummer raffle is another good idea. As we don't have any events between Valentine's Day and Halloween, it would add a lot of joy and excitement to the game

 

And one last thing: the HMs. In my opinion, the number of HMs should be MUCH bigger. At least twice as many as prizes in a given raffle, maybe even more. It's a great way to reintroduce the almost extinct CB hollies to the game, and adds a lot of diversity with all the CB hybrids. 120 prizes and only 30 HMs doesn't make much sense to me. I feel the proportions should be different. But again, it's only my opinion

 

[Sirithiliel]

I'd be excited about a consolation prize =) I'd be happy enough with that, even if I didn't win a true prize, because I'd at least have a CB shimmer to work with lineages on. Maybe not the ones I had planned, but I know i'd enjoy coming up with new ones for my special baby ^.^

[11th]

PS: If someone wants to look up the number of offspring for each of the other tinsels and shimmers, that would give a much broader sample size to see the problem.

I did some, if only to finally do something beyond lurking here. :B For the sake of keeping the list shorter, I'm not going to list by individual dragon. Vampires are assumed to be non-Tinsel/Shimmer. Frozen hatchlings were counted.

 

2010:

Silver - 11/11 CBs Known - Tinsel: 180 // Non-Tinsel: 347

Bronze - 15/15 CBs Known - Tinsel: 326 // Non-Tinsel: 542

 

2011:

Gold - 2/5 CBs Known - Tinsel: 6 // Non-Tinsel: 2 **One has no offspring**

Silver - 10/10 CBs Known - Tinsel: 58 // Non-Tinsel: 89

 

2012:

Gold - 9/10 CBs Known - Shimmer: 72 // Non-Shimmer: 108 **One of them has only one offspring**

 

I don't have the time to gather the rest at the moment, but it's worth noting that these numbers might not be completely accurate. Several dragons had a noticeable lacking of Tinselkin/Shimmerkin in their progeny, which either means that their owners were extremely lucky or that non-shinies were "removed".

 

Edit: Also, all holidays were counted, despite clutches being between 2-4 eggs and possibly skewing the numbers as well. So I guess it sorta' evens it out?

Edited January 17, 2014 by 11th

[HeatherMarie]

I absolutely *love* the idea of a "consolation" prize for all the participants! And I think a black Tinsel would look *adorable*.

 

When it comes to people getting miffed about not winning, I'm thinking that's the best solution I've heard yet. We'll *all* be winners, really, just some with different colors. lol

 

I should be surprised by those breeding numbers, but I'm not. I know the Prize Dragons didn't breed true very often... But yeah, that's a little on the ridiculous side. Guaranteed breedings for a certain amount of time would probably help that significantly, even if "guaranteed" just means "an egg", it'd still end up helping in a big way.

[whitebaron]

Unless we can interview every cb owner, those stats are a little misleading - some breed very regularly , others whenever they think of it, or not much at all.

 

But yes, 2nd gens are far and between, that much has always been clear.

 

--eta--

almost forgot to mention, there has been a user running around killing his second gens. thus far I know of at least 5 of them.

Edited January 17, 2014 by whitebaron

[Sheriziya]

Prizes typically get handed out late January (the first set of Prizes ever being handed out the day before Valentines) due to the time it takes for everybody to respond and waiting on any necessary redraws that need to be made.

 

It might not be a problem for all users, but you yourself just stated the thing that matters the most. It would be a lot for TJ to do at once, especially considering he has the rest of his life to attend to as well. All of DC's limited releases, along with cute little events that go with them, all happen from the span of late October to mid February. Late November releases are feasible because of the timing between Halloween events and Christmas events, but I do not think the same holds true for the time between Christmas events, the raffle, and Valentines.

I guess I should have said I don't agree with you completely

 

Of course the main part of work would be for TJ. And that can be a pita, I imagine. There are two sides to the story: the admin/programmer side and the users side. For TJ it would indeed a hell of of work. For the users it would be a logical release of sorts in between the holiday releases.

 

Perhaps it's chosing the least bad one from two worst? Right.... does that make any sense anymore?

 

almost forgot to mention, there has been a user running around killing his second gens.

This is just bad news. Why would you kill your 2nd gens? To make it appear the 3rd gen is a cb? But it shows the deceased parents in the lineage, so where's the logic in that? Anyway, let's hope there's only 1 user who kills 2nd gens.

I have seen more prize dragons are being killed/zombified, but the ones I found in lineages were higher gens. Or at least the zombified ones were, those are the ones I could check. I can only hope the other 6 from that particular lineage "1st generation" were indeed also long lineages.

[mpolo]

A consolation prize is a nice idea. It wouldn't really affect the whole DC economy, as those would essentially be commons at the CB level, and probably rarer at the breeding level. They wouldn't be things that command a huge trade value except for people building up lineages (and even then, likely just blood-swaps). Otherwise, I am actually pretty satisfied with my totally non-trading-fodder tinsels and shimmers. It takes me 6-8 months to get a new prize dragon, and then I'm not willing to waste a lot of time playing hardball to get a super lineage. But that's my play style. I end up giving away a lot of them, or accepting "bad" trades in the general rule.

 

<slightly off-topic, so probably not worth discussing here, but I want to get it off of my chest>

I have complained before about the current "economy" on Dragon Cave. As it is, trading is pretty frustrating for us 99%-ers, but there's not a lot that either we or TJ can do about it. The market will demand the prices that people are willing to pay. There's probably no reasonable way to create a forum for "low rent" trades that would actually get our offers seen by someone who might be interested. And so it is likely to stay.

</slightly off-topic>

[Sheriziya]

<slightly off-topic, so probably not worth discussing here, but I want to get it off of my chest>

I have complained before about the current "economy" on Dragon Cave. As it is, trading is pretty frustrating for us 99%-ers, but there's not a lot that either we or TJ can do about it. The market will demand the prices that people are willing to pay. There's probably no reasonable way to create a forum for "low rent" trades that would actually get our offers seen by someone who might be interested. And so it is likely to stay.

</slightly off-topic>

This is absolutely not off-topic in the basis, cause the current high status of the economy is one of the reasons this thread was started in the first place: players being unable to get a low-gen prize dragon or any prize dragon at all, due to the high prices in the market. Several suggestions have been made that might (on the longer run) effect the trade market, including a combo suggestion (by me) where in the end the prize dragons even end up in the cave as rares (in the fifth year after the first release). There are ways to influence the market (a bit). Of course there are people in favor of those suggestions and people who are opposed to those suggestions (the last especially because of the exclusivity of the dragons).

[tridymite]

Do you ask in the Lottery too to get a consolidation prize??

 

A Raffle is a Raffle.

 

There are winners and loosers!

 

And if the lotto Millionaere wants to trash his money or hide it - we cant do anything! We cant ask for 5 bucks just because we played!

 

 

 

Why do we need to have this conversation every year? over and over? Probably until TJ is sick of this and there wont be a raffle again. I would be sad to see this over and over and over!

[tjekan]

This is just bad news. Why would you kill your 2nd gens? To make it appear the 3rd gen is a cb? But it shows the deceased parents in the lineage, so where's the logic in that? Anyway, let's hope there's only 1 user who kills 2nd gens.

Spite. We're not really supposed to discuss it any further than that. But yes, it was only one user.

[whitebaron]

Actually, after thinking on that a little more: an increase of 2nd gens, would mean an increase of second gens on people's scrolls who can hunt cb metals.

 

Prizes go down, I pay only 3 instead of 10 metals, yay, cool, can get 3 2gs instead of 1. So I don't see very much increased chances for "the poor", whatever that means - We all can collect dragons, so we all can do whatever we want - with or without prize dragons.

[Amazon_warrior]

Do you ask in the Lottery too to get a consolidation prize??

 

A Raffle is a Raffle.

 

There are winners and loosers!

 

And if the lotto Millionaere wants to trash his money or hide it - we cant do anything! We cant ask for 5 bucks just because we played!

 

 

 

Why do we need to have this conversation every year? over and over? Probably until TJ is sick of this and there wont be a raffle again. I would be sad to see this over and over and over!

The discussion is a LOT quieter than it was last year, though. And I expect it will be quieter still next year. And eventually, the raffle will (I hope!) become just one of those things that happens each year, not vastly dissimilar to the Holidays.