Remote Biomes

[injenn]

New dragons in the hidden biomes

 

Yes

 

Because we have SO MANY dragons waiting for release in the requests section, wouldn't it be nice to be able to have more come out. Yes I know it does seem a little unfair that only those with access to the biome can catch them - but its called a PERK. Again you can't have everything you want by whining about it. And trading, AP drops and glomping still happens with new release eggs, so why wouldn't it happen with the secret biome eggs - especially if they are common - people will likely AP dump em to get rid of them. (If you are not one of those people who AP dump or glomp eggs - then perhaps you shouldn't whine when it doesn't happen to you.)

 

It would be better for all those moldering ideas if they had a place to become real, I would love to see some of those dragons make it in cave, but at the present rate of release vs making, they will not and the person is likely gone by the time they do finally make it in. Faster turnover for the request to release ratio - i'm all for it.

.

I agree on the fact there's a ton of nice unreleased dragons that could show up in the veterans biomes! If all the dragons there are common it wouldn't be too hard to get them from other players, glomped or bred. Even then, there's nothing that states you'd have to want all the dragons in the new biome if you're on the the really low dragon people.

 

I've noticed that if you've been here for years and still are under 300 you probably are really picky about what goes on your scroll to start with, but being really picky just means slower growth not that 1,000 is impossible. I'm picky: I've been shooting for a CB pair of each species (within reason) and freezing hatchlings on the side. In under a year I'm up to 200 dragons. I know I could make it to 550 or even 1000 if I tried just by doing a breeding project or two. In fact, I recently started a project. 1,000 is high but not impossible.

 

Yeah... TJ has said over and over "no new egg slots, ever" and I can see his reasoning considering how many dragons are created each hour. This really would be something nice to work towards!

Edited March 20, 2013 by injenn

[~!~]

I doubt, however, that there are lots of people who grab eggs in the cave just because they think they HAVE to do it, unless they are taking part in a contest of some sort. I'd rather say it's people who want that CB Stone who grab it.

 

I've never (never in my life) caught an egg because of having to do it to free up the cave. oô People who need those eggs cach them, it's not necessarily because they are forced to. There is certainly some demand for commons, among people who have recently joined, are still building their scroll or collect dragons of a certain type.

If I thought I could get away with it, I'd only ever pick up new dragons and rares because I already have a zillion of the commons that I actually care for, and plenty of the ones I don't care for. The only reason I still raise blockers is because I feel like I have to. Also, sometimes I will go into a biome with nobody in it and just pick up whatever eggs are there really quickly in the hopes that it'll reveal something good. I usually hang on to these eggs until they hatch or are at low time so they'll be more likely to get picked up off the AP faster, unless something comes up (like a new release) and I want to get my scroll cleared immediately. Of course, I can't speak for everybody else. I might be the only one who does stuff like this.

 

You're treading into dangerous waters when you rely on new players to pick up the blockers. The popularity of fansites is probably causing DC to grow very slowly, if at all, because we aren't getting nearly as much offsite exposure as we would be without them. The last thing we want is for TJ to say "OH well if it's more new players that'll solve the problem of blockers, all I have to do is ban fansites and everything will be fixed."

[Shadowdrake]

If I thought I could get away with it, I'd only ever pick up new dragons and rares because I already have a zillion of the commons that I actually care for, and plenty of the ones I don't care for. The only reason I still raise blockers is because I feel like I have to. Also, sometimes I will go into a biome with nobody in it and just pick up whatever eggs are there really quickly in the hopes that it'll reveal something good. I usually hang on to these eggs until they hatch or are at low time so they'll be more likely to get picked up off the AP faster, unless something comes up (like a new release) and I want to get my scroll cleared immediately. Of course, I can't speak for everybody else. I might be the only one who does stuff like this.

You're not the only one. Half my scroll is frozen blockers, and although I'm somewhat picky with the rarer dragons I'm still raising armies for the sake of the ratios.

 

 

Like I and others have said before, this suggestion shouldn't be based only on amount of dragons, but also on how long you've been here. If you're a veteran in terms of time, that should also count. I certainly support this if it allows for more dragons (although I'd like to see what it's like with 2 new breeds every month first).

[~!~]

I'll also point out that having a lot of dragons does not make you a rich player. Hoards of commons are really easy to get. If you maximize efficiency and don't care which dragons you're raising, you can get, it'll take some time (because everything on Dragon Cave is tailored to be slow) but it's not hard.

[Riverwillows]

It seems to me, and I could be wrong, but to have a biome or area that only older, or more dragon-owning players can access, kinda smacks of elitism.

 

And, there's enough of that here as it is, what with gold, silver, and shimmer owning.

 

I think that's enough.

[~!~]

I'm not describing a suggestion for change, here. I'm describing the way the ratios already work. If dragons of every breed were equally distributed across all the scrolls, everyone's ratio of rares to commons would equal what the site thinks it should be.

No, because not everyone will EVER pick them up according to the ratios. And there is NO WAY to make them do that without ruining almost everyone's playstyle. So it will never happen.

I don't know what you think I'm trying to describe to you. I am trying to describe how the cave decides which eggs to produce. I'm not trying to describe how the eggs are distributed across everybody's scroll, or how they ought to be distributed. I'm describing how the cave tries to distribute them across all users, and I'm trying to explain why the "I want the same number of every breed" is detrimental to the game.

 

I don't know the actual ratios, but let's say, for simplicity's sake, that the cave makes 100 Neotropicals for every Gold, and those are the only breeds there are. If you want to have exactly one Gold and one Neo on your scroll, there are 99 Neos left over. If everybody wants exactly one Gold and one Neo, there are 99 Neos left over per player. If only half the players have their Golds, and everybody has a Neo, the other half will never get a Gold because nobody will ever pick up a Neo again, and they'll sit in the cave and on the AP with nobody picking them up. If everybody wants one Neo and unlimited Golds, the problem gets even worse, especially if breeding ratios are still tied to cave ratios. (Is that still the case?)

 

If I ran DC, everybody would be able to collect whatever dragons they wanted, and it would have no effect on the way the cave generates new eggs. But I don't, and as it stands, the players have a lot more power over the state of the cave than they should, without serious incentives to do what would be best for the site.

[Dragonhatchling]

If I thought I could get away with it, I'd only ever pick up new dragons and rares because I already have a zillion of the commons that I actually care for, and plenty of the ones I don't care for. The only reason I still raise blockers is because I feel like I have to. Also, sometimes I will go into a biome with nobody in it and just pick up whatever eggs are there really quickly in the hopes that it'll reveal something good. I usually hang on to these eggs until they hatch or are at low time so they'll be more likely to get picked up off the AP faster, unless something comes up (like a new release) and I want to get my scroll cleared immediately. Of course, I can't speak for everybody else. I might be the only one who does stuff like this.

 

You're treading into dangerous waters when you rely on new players to pick up the blockers. The popularity of fansites is probably causing DC to grow very slowly, if at all, because we aren't getting nearly as much offsite exposure as we would be without them. The last thing we want is for TJ to say "OH well if it's more new players that'll solve the problem of blockers, all I have to do is ban fansites and everything will be fixed."

I'm in this boat. I often tread into the cave now just to free up the cave and raise the blockers so someone else newer might be able to get a nicer egg or something besides, say a Stone for seven egg-clicks straight of guessing.

 

I don't see why we can't go for different biomes for Veterans. I agree on the fact that if this shall happen it has to be a permanent thing and should have one for each (or a different biome) for each level (trophy, or whatever you wish to call it). By that I mean if you're new you get the "lake" biome and then you become a bronze level trophy instead of the lake biome you'd get a "lava" biome and maybe keep the "lake" biome too... though I think if we kept them as we got new ones it'd become too cluttered. *shrugs* just my jumbled two cents on that.

 

I also agree toward the managing system of going by dragon-dates caught (like how old is your first dragon) or how active you are (be it badges or if there's a different way to notice this aside from how many dragons you might have) or a mix of all of those in this paragraph.

[demonicvampiregirl]

The only way I could support this is if it was time based and not based on trophy or amount of dragons. Some have pointed out others have different play styles than others. I collect when I feel like it anymore or breed when I need too. Others only collect one of each gender and a frozen.

 

We shouldn't let a biome based on the amount of dragons ever be put in on here. We'd lock out so many people it wouldn't be funny. I'd also like to see how the 2 dragons per month thing goes first before we try to add in a whole new biome to release more. I get that we should have one so maybe more of those wonderful sprites make it into the cave but we should see what TJ can come up with first before we try something like this.

[shikaru]

I do not at all like the idea of having more dragons giving you access to dragons that others don't. Having additional biomes to just ease the load on the ones that everyone can get to is okay I suppose, but not having entirely different dragons, CB Alts, or more rares. It doesn't seem right to say "Hey, only these people who have some insane amount of dragons can have these". Sure there's trading, but some people like to catch things themselves and not everyone is willing to trade the more "special" dragons. Limit that to only the people in those special biomes, and you have a very small pool of potential trades.

 

In general I don't like the idea of additional trophy benefits. Getting to gold is difficult enough as it is, and I don't like the idea of seeing even more ridiculous requirements to get benefits.

[Spelunker]

I agree with Shikaru.

 

As much as this might be cool, I cannot see it fitting with the "everybody's playstyle fits here" DC mentaility.

[injenn]

It seems to me, and I could be wrong, but to have a biome or area that only older, or more dragon-owning players can access, kinda smacks of elitism.

 

And, there's enough of that here as it is, what with gold, silver, and shimmer owning.

 

I think that's enough.

I agree that the gold/silver elitism is a bit crazy, but this wouldn't be the same thing. To get a gold/silver dragon you need to be fast, well-connected, or get lucky enough to have someone be nice to you. Tinsels and shimmers are a case of "the haves have it!" because there's no other way to get it.

 

This is not going to be like that! This will be a place for everyone who works for it. You don't need luck or to be well-connected. You could have a mint army or breed only common projects and get in. This is far more fair than the gold, silver, tinsel and shimmers could ever hope to be. This means that although initial release values will be high (they always are whenever anything is new) you will have a chance at getting these CB without outside help. That's a huge difference that makes me feel this is actually fair.

[~!~]

We shouldn't let a biome based on the amount of dragons ever be put in on here. We'd lock out so many people it wouldn't be funny.

The number of people locked out would be entirely dependent on the number of dragons required to unlock the hidden biome.

 

It really is not that difficult to get a hundred dragons. You can do it between the Valentine's day and Halloween releases, even with only four egg slots. If there were four biomes, each unlocked at 100, 200, 300, and 400 dragons, you could get that in under a year.

 

And another thing that everybody seems to be overlooking: These would not be biomes where just rares could be caught! In fact, if it were up to me, I wouldn't put any dragons that can be caught in the normal cave in these special biomes, and I'd make the new dragons uncommon at most. That way, it'll be easy enough to trade for them or get on gifting lists and stuff.

 

And why hasn't anybody pointed out bred-only dragons yet? As someone who rarely breeds, just because breeding doesn't interest me, I can imagine there are players out there who want only CB dragons and never want to breed anything ever. Or, there were, before alts and breed-only dragons came along, and now they have to settle. I don't see the site crashing down about our ears because of that.

[Spelunker]

The number of people locked out would be entirely dependent on the number of dragons required to unlock the hidden biome.

 

It really is not that difficult to get a hundred dragons. You can do it between the Valentine's day and Halloween releases, even with only four egg slots. If there were four biomes, each unlocked at 100, 200, 300, and 400 dragons, you could get that in under a year.

 

And another thing that everybody seems to be overlooking: These would not be biomes where just rares could be caught! In fact, if it were up to me, I wouldn't put any dragons that can be caught in the normal cave in these special biomes, and I'd make the new dragons uncommon at most. That way, it'll be easy enough to trade for them or get on gifting lists and stuff.

 

And why hasn't anybody pointed out bred-only dragons yet? As someone who rarely breeds, just because breeding doesn't interest me, I can imagine there are players out there who want only CB dragons and never want to breed anything ever. Or, there were, before alts and breed-only dragons came along, and now they have to settle. I don't see the site crashing down about our ears because of that.

That would be a huge problem if there were different dragons for every biome, and the biomes weren't cumulative. :/

[Completely Different]

Personally, I think this would be a pretty fun idea, if;

 

a) It was based not exclusively on number of dragons, but also active scroll age. (It being an either/or situation would be fine, too).

All the "unique" biome dragons were common.

 

I really think that if you had thousands of people with access to biomes continuously pumping out commons, with the ability to breed, trade and abandon, and the fact anybody could get access to it with time and/or effort, there really isn't a problem of exclusiveness.

 

If I were a new user, someone who joined the day after this was implemented, I would probably love it. Why? Because it gives me something to aim for- either getting access to the biome, or getting my hands on eggs that are a little more difficult for me to find. Also, it would mean there are more dragons to collect, and I feel like for a dragon collected site, that's never a bad thing.

[shikaru]

I agree that the gold/silver elitism is a bit crazy, but this wouldn't be the same thing. To get a gold/silver dragon you need to be fast, well-connected, or get lucky enough to have someone be nice to you. Tinsels and shimmers are a case of "the haves have it!" because there's no other way to get it.

 

This is not going to be like that! This will be a place for everyone who works for it. You don't need luck or to be well-connected. You could have a mint army or breed only common projects and get in. This is far more fair than the gold, silver, tinsel and shimmers could ever hope to be. This means that although initial release values will be high (they always are whenever anything is new) you will have a chance at getting these CB without outside help. That's a huge difference that makes me feel this is actually fair.

It can be seen as another form of elitism though, because only those that "work for it" or that have been around long enough to even be capable of getting there would have access. So even if people don't intend for it to be a form of elitism, it still has that connotation around it.

 

This idea is only fair in the sense that theoretically everyone can get there eventually, but it's not fair to shut people out of an area just because they're new or don't have as many dragons as someone else.

[whitebaron]

That would be a huge problem if there were different dragons for every biome, and the biomes weren't cumulative. :/

Why? Please dont only say "nay", but put some arguments or facts behind your opinion.

[~!~]

That would be a huge problem if there were different dragons for every biome, and the biomes weren't cumulative. :/

I don't see why the biomes wouldn't be cumulative.

[Vhale]

It can be seen as another form of elitism though, because only those that "work for it" or that have been around long enough to even be capable of getting there would have access. So even if people don't intend for it to be a form of elitism, it still has that connotation around it.

 

This idea is only fair in the sense that theoretically everyone can get there eventually, but it's not fair to shut people out of an area just because they're new or don't have as many dragons as someone else.

It's not fair people can't teleport without an orange either.

 

It's also pretty unfair that people can influence only if they have pinks.

 

Or incubate if they have reds.

 

Or bite IF they have vamps.

 

Or breed colored stripes unless they have the proper dragon to mate with it.

 

Or blunas, or seasonals, or shallow waters, or being able to summon, or ultra violets, or geodes.

 

But it's also a goal for people to work for and gives those dragons a little value.

 

MEDIUM value. Not rare value. But people can either trade for them, catch them in the ap or cave, or join gifting threads.

 

I don't think people who have the above are considered elite. I think we are over-using that word a bit. Vamps are probably the only thing that was slightly elite for awhile until they became very common. Now people don't even want them unless they are CB. (Which is extremely weird to me as they can't breed.)

[purpledragonclaw]

If the biomes aren't cumulative, that means some members won't be able to get access to certain ones from the start. I have a Gold trophy, which means if this is implemented I can't access the Bronze and Silver biomes, right? That means the only way I'll get CBs from those biomes, if the dragons in them are different than the rest of the biomes, is if I trade for them or someone is nice enough to gift them to me.

 

I don't trade at all, so this is an inconvenience for me. It's just an aspect of the game I don't take advantage of because I choose not to.

 

I prefer a system where everyone has access to everything, with no exclusivity, so the playing field is more level.

[Spelunker]

I meant to say it would be a huge problem if the biomes weren't cumulative, because then you would have everyone swarming over newbies asking them to get you x, x, and x dragons from their newb-exclusive biome. I stated the same thing in another of my posts in here a page or so back, I think. :3

[whitebaron]

I meant to say it would be a huge problem if the biomes weren't cumulative, because then you would have everyone swarming over newbies asking them to get you x, x, and x dragons from their newb-exclusive biome. I stated the same thing in another of my posts in here a page or so back, I think. :3

Ah, ok, then you quoted or bolded the wrong person. ~!~ has never said anything like this.

[~!~]

It can be seen as another form of elitism though, because only those that "work for it" or that have been around long enough to even be capable of getting there would have access. So even if people don't intend for it to be a form of elitism, it still has that connotation around it.

 

This idea is only fair in the sense that theoretically everyone can get there eventually, but it's not fair to shut people out of an area just because they're new or don't have as many dragons as someone else.

I just don't see it. The only prerequisite for getting into this "elite group," as you and so many others think of it, is to play the game. If you play the game, consistently and well, and you don't quit, you will eventually get to the point where you can get into these biomes.

 

For a group to be "elite" it has to be closed. It has to have some criterion restricting who can get in and who can't. A group of "people who have over 200 dragons" can't be elite because anybody can get into it by doing nothing but raising dragons, which is what this game is all about. You don't have to donate money, you don't have to work for the site, you don't even have to play some side game. All you have to do is play Dragon Cave.

 

EDIT

Ah, ok, then you quoted or bolded the wrong person. ~!~ has never said anything like this.

What I said was that each biome would have dragons unique to that biome. The only reason this would be a bad thing is if you could no longer access the "bronze trophy" biome after you got a silver trophy, which was an idea that was batted around earlier in the thread. It's not something I'm in favor of, for exactly the reasons purpledragonclaw and Spelunker bring up.

Edited March 21, 2013 by ~!~

[Spelunker]

I was stating it was only a problem if the biomes weren't cumulative, which I wee is not a popular idea. So, I have no problems with this if the biomes are cumulative. :3

[Pokemonfan13]

The biomes not being cumulative is an interesting idea IF everyone was a member of the forum and participated in trading [or there was a trading system internal to the site]. But that's not how it is. So some gold trophy member who doesn't have a forum account would never be able to get eggs from the newbie, bronze, or silver biomes unless they got lucky in the AP.

 

What it would do, actually, would be to encourage multi-accounts, where the person would make a new account so they could hunt the biomes they can't access.

 

So basically non-cumulative special biomes = very bad idea.

Edited March 21, 2013 by Pokemonfan13

[demonicvampiregirl]

The number of people locked out would be entirely dependent on the number of dragons required to unlock the hidden biome.

 

It really is not that difficult to get a hundred dragons. You can do it between the Valentine's day and Halloween releases, even with only four egg slots. If there were four biomes, each unlocked at 100, 200, 300, and 400 dragons, you could get that in under a year.

 

And another thing that everybody seems to be overlooking: These would not be biomes where just rares could be caught! In fact, if it were up to me, I wouldn't put any dragons that can be caught in the normal cave in these special biomes, and I'd make the new dragons uncommon at most. That way, it'll be easy enough to trade for them or get on gifting lists and stuff.

 

And why hasn't anybody pointed out bred-only dragons yet? As someone who rarely breeds, just because breeding doesn't interest me, I can imagine there are players out there who want only CB dragons and never want to breed anything ever. Or, there were, before alts and breed-only dragons came along, and now they have to settle. I don't see the site crashing down about our ears because of that.

And the people who don't want to play like that? What about them then? Should they be forever locked out because they don't play like others?

 

I agree with Pokemonfan. If that gets put in what would be the point in me even vising those caves if I cannot access all of them. That is why I am against anything trophy or amount based. This would be better if it was based only on the amount of time you have played. That is only fair to everyone so their playing styles do not get ruined and are forced into playing another way than they intend. I don't play like those who obtain only CBs or breed only even gen. Why should I force them to play the way I do (by collecting whatever I want, whenever I want) just to let them into a new biome?