New release Feedback

[Fuzzbucket]

I must admit that I hate to see creativity and selection being cut off by closing the ability to add  new dragons to the Completed section, although I can see that the backlog may be creating issues for those attempting to deal with with this.

 

But, as I see it, the problem is that so few dragons were released for so many years - and we still have about 6 months of each year in which new dragons will apparently not be Released at all, due to 3 Holidays being Dropped during this period,

SIX months? I make it three. (+ October it seems...)

 

That is still at LEAST 16 new breeds per year....

Edited September 27, 2013 by fuzzbucket

[whitebaron]

SIX months? I make it three. (+ October it seems...)

 

That is still at LEAST 16 new breeds per year....

Last release before halloween: september. Next release after holidays: likely march. Thats 6 months in my book, too.

[Fuzzbucket]

Last release before halloween: september. Next release after holidays: likely march. Thats 6 months in my book, too.

Who says none in January ? We can only wait and see.

[Wookieinmashoo]

I voted less, because I think 2 is the perfect number unless there's a hybrid, then I can understand 3.

 

I am also with everyone else that we need mass drops again. Because the biomes move so slow, it's difficult to get the new dragons when you just don't have the time when they're released. I am still trying to catch up from the birthday event. I missed out on a lot of dragons because I couldn't be there at the drop and am having to pay for that afterward. I keep hearing about how people never got their quota on opals because of how short the drop was. Sometimes these drops are pretty much the only time some people can get them solid 2-3 days of new drops would help a lot of people.

[Syphoneira]

Who says none in January ? We can only wait and see.

 

 

I've heard people say that Jan is no good for a Release because it's too soon after Christmas...

 

And even if we got one then, that would still be 5 months out of the year - either half or nearly half the year - with no new Releases, which is hardly working toward getting much of the Completed backlog into the Cave, or making any indent into the over-supply of our various Blocker breeds...

 

This because of Holiday releases in only 3 of those months?

 

This is why I'm suggesting that it would be sensible to have at least single-dragon Releases, with decent Floods and heavy Drops for at least a week afterward, (to allow for two scroll-fulls to be quickly collected and hatched before Holiday breeding periods begin) of single Commons being added into the spaces at the beginning of months where we don't have Releases until the end of those months, such as at Halloween and at Christmas, so that we only miss new permanent Releases (and opportunities to reduce Completed backlog and begin to tackle the Blocker overproduction issue) in months where we actually have a Holiday Release.

[aangs-sister]

Who says none in January ? We can only wait and see.

Tri horns were also released in late November. All we know for sure is that there won't be another one until Halloween is over since he said so in the September/13 release thread.

[Syphoneira]

Tri horns were also released in late November. All we know for sure is that there won't be another one until Halloween is over since he said so in the September/13 release thread.

 

 

 

Ooooo, good point!

 

Just peeked and we DID have a single-dragon Release in November and, oddly, in March.

 

Not sure why we don't get one in Oct., though...

 

 

Edit: tossed the word-salad a bit, lol.

Edited September 27, 2013 by Syphoneira

[HeatherMarie]

Personally, I'd still suggest the Release of even a single Common at the beginning of months where Holiday Releases at the end of the month are occurring, provided that they Flood and Drop in sufficient numbers for at least a week following, to allow people to load up on them and hatch a couple of scroll-fulls prior to breeding periods for upcoming Holiday dragons.

I'm sorry if I'm being dense here, but I honestly don't see how releasing even MORE guaranteed-Commons is going to help anything at all. I get the point about having a bigger variety of commons, which will obviously mean seeing different "too-common" breeds in the AP instead of the same ones we've had for years...

 

But "commons will be commons", right? I mean, if ratios have to accommodate for multiple new commons, it seems only natural that ratios + normal user behavior = newest-commons become newest-blockers.

 

I'm logically aware that any New Release may contain commons, but I don't understand how specifically putting more commons out there will help.

[snoesiepoes]

So question. Why aren't the cave blockers ratio's being lowered, just a little?

Or, the suggestion was made earlier, why not ship out an egg that sits in a biome more then X minutes? (5 minutes would be a little early in my oppinion. 15 would be more of my choice)

Then the new releases would pop up more as well.

 

If you have a solid drop though, the first 24h, then the ratio's of some rare breeds would make them not appear, ever again. So if you can't be here the first day, forget about getting them ever CB!

 

But if the number of dragons caught in the first 24h, would NOT count for the total ratio's though, they would still be obtainable and much easier then it is today. Because the ones who want just a couple, would have their couple. And the ones who want more, can still hunt as many as they want.

 

Just my 2cents...

[xeyla]

If you have a solid drop though, the first 24h, then the ratio's of some rare breeds would make them not appear, ever again. So if you can't be here the first day, forget about getting them ever CB!

This is incorrect. The ratios reset every year. That is why each year, usually for about a week, you will have a great influx of metals in the biomes/ great influx of alt blacks/vines. A couple of months back, we had an influx of alt black dragons. People were complaining that they wanted the regular sprites to come back so they could finish lineages. Thread...

[Ashes The Second]

I just want ot know where they all are, and since I can't be as active anymore, I feel like I'm really missing out on this and am falling behind. I would rather be rewarded for having my collection, not forced to stray behind others. I just want all my breeding pairs, gosh.

[Syphoneira]

I'm sorry if I'm being dense here, but I honestly don't see how releasing even MORE guaranteed-Commons is going to help anything at all. I get the point about having a bigger variety of commons, which will obviously mean seeing different "too-common" breeds in the AP instead of the same ones we've had for years...

 

But "commons will be commons", right? I mean, if ratios have to accommodate for multiple new commons, it seems only natural that ratios + normal user behavior = newest-commons become newest-blockers.

 

I'm logically aware that any New Release may contain commons, but I don't understand how specifically putting more commons out there will help.

 

 

 

*IF* they're designated as being in groups of so many Common sprites in a specific pool, (rather than merely dumping a specific number of truck-loads of certain ultra-Commons over our heads, far faster than we can ever hope to dig them out before they bury us) so that new commons *replace* some of the excess Blockers as they're added, this would reduce the Blocker over-load with each new addition of Common sprites to the Cave.

 

Granted, it would take a lot of New Releases to reduce these to manageable levels even in any one biome, but at least it would become gradually more so, especially if in conjunction with Blockers getting DIRECTLY booted to the AP after 5 minutes sitting time, rather than people having to sacrifice their hunting spaces to hold them ALL for 5 hours in order to to carry them there, where they ultimately come up to become much more desirable incu-hatchables.

 

(And if time-of-capture/death was more logically used in the AP to determine what appeared first, the AP hatchies would appear to survive on scrolls and be counted in the ratios as well.)

 

Then there would be an increasing variety of different Commons to hunt through, with increasing chances of somebody present during Drops actually not yet having enough of one of the eggs in any one of the biomes and wanting/being able to use more of that sprite, if having space/being willing to spare the room and not searching for something specific other than that particular egg for a single spot reserved for that purpose.

 

And if all of the biomes moved more, there would be a greater chance of all sprites/colour variations appearing, enabling an actual BALANCE among groups of sprites/eggs that are uncommon but where some among them are considered rare in actuality, because their biomes fail to move enough - due to over-abundant Blockers - to uncover them for capture at intended rates, so that they rarely appear, even though they're not intended to be rare.

 

And ultimately we could hunt through eggs for whatever we individually wanted (rather than refreshing on/picking up Blocker eggs that very few people want/are willing to pick up at full time and becoming bored/frustrated, while gradually giving up on the Cave outside of New Releases in increasingly many cases) and we could play an actual game.

 

 

This isn't an extended hunt on a quest-type game where we're fighting monsters and following clues to find things to finish a game, where finishing the individual hunt too fast might kinda spoil things.

 

And frankly, I doubt that spending hours refreshing a screen while waiting to see if another step might be possible would go over as an integral part of one of these game-types either, because that's not fun or 'challenging', just a boring waste of recreational time.

 

This is a multifaceted, long-term, forever-type game, very slow-moving overall, with breeding attempts, hatching/growing and BSA functions often taking around a week or even two, as with Incubate cool-downs.

 

This is an ongoing collection game, in which the eggs are often not only wanted for collection purposes/scroll goals, but a stepping-stone to basic game-play, such in finding CB mates for breeding, with many building lineages requiring multiple specific CBs, or looking for eggs to gift or trade in the process of doing something else that, if involving breeding, will likely take a couple of weeks just in breeding and raising eggs for the next step - eggs which may take weeks or months to be produced at all, if unlucky, every step of the way.

 

(Although the lineage View change, as it currently stands, has rather spoilt even-gen lineages beyond the 4th gen, and I do wish that we had an option at getting back the classic lineage View for which these even-gens were designed - especially as very few people collect/View lineages which extend over multiple pages and therefore require adaptation to be viewed on a single page.)

 

 

The hunting is the only part at all fast-moving, and is often too fast for the many people unable to afford fast puters/connections or who may have physical disabilities or other issues, so that their chances of obtaining wanted dragons decline with increases in these dragon's rarity, so that extreme Blocker slow-downs in various biomes chronically reducing the appearance of merely uncommon eggs to a point of rarity effectively shuts a large percentage out of the game in many areas extending far beyond hunting, collection and trading into lineage and other breeding.

 

 

 

In summation, (TL;DR version, lol) the Blocker issue adversely affects virtually everything within the game, and could be alleviated over time if a sufficient influx of new Commons (also reducing the Completed backlog) was permitted to dilute into suitable variety the pool of ultra-Commons spoiling Cave hunting for so very, VERY long, especially if in conjunction with the proposed auto-booting of eggs sitting in the Cave for five minutes, so that players don't have to waste limited egg spaces and hunting chances on carrying each and every one (as they can't possibly, considering the vast Blocker numbers as compared to Cave hunters) to the AP to allow other eggs to appear.

 

 

But, as has been pointed out, we actually DID get a single-dragon Release last November, so there may be a sprinkling of more hope that I'd initially realized, although I do find it a pity that we didn't get an 'Oct.' Release of a Common dragon at the end of this month, as a high rate of Flooding and Dropping over the following week (of October, by Tuesday) would have given us a chance to load up on a couple of scroll-fulls of new eggs and hatch them in time for Halloween breeding season...

[Guillotine]

Or, the suggestion was made earlier, why not ship out an egg that sits in a biome more then X minutes? (5 minutes would be a little early in my oppinion. 15 would be more of my choice)

1) The cave cannot tell how long any one egg has been sitting in the biomes.

 

2) Fifteen minutes is far too long; despite what you may think, people do pick up blockers before 15 minutes pass. The problem is that it just unveils more blockers. I know, I pick up and dump eggs for the purpose of kickstarting biomes rather frequently. Fifteen minutes is absolutely glacial and is not enough to get the biomes moving the way that automatically kicking the leftmost egg every two minutes would (174 eggs/hour, assuming that the hourly drop is exempted).

[Ashes The Second]

 

 

Ooooo, good point!

 

Just peeked and we DID have a single-dragon Release in November and, oddly, in March.

 

Not sure why we don't get one in Oct., though...

 

 

Edit: tossed the word-salad a bit, lol.

Because of the new releases in October?

[Syphoneira]

Because of the new releases in October?

 

 

Because we get a Holiday Release at the END of October, with Holiday breeding opening, I believe, a ?week? (I hope, lol) before that? or only a few days?

 

And the Release of a single, easily-stocked-up-on Common could be interposed, to be caught and hatched to the satisfaction of most well prior to any of this beginning.

 

 

Then, too, it had been suggested we'd be unlikely to get any New Releases in November, although I'd forgotten, (as evidently had others,) that we did indeed have one sprite introduced last November, giving us something to hope for there, rather than a 6 month straight moratorium on New regular Releases due to the 3 Holidays we get during that 6-month period.

 

This does slow down getting the backlog of Completed dragons out and prospective additions of more new Commons into the Cave, which I hope would be allowed to gradually replace the currently grossly over-high ratios of the Blocker breeds fouling up Cave hunting and access to various CB sprites less over-commonly produced which many people still want/want more of.

[whitebaron]

Because of the new releases in October?

One of the reasons of monthly releases would be to clear out,the completed list. If you,do that only half of the year, its impact is not,really as high, as holidays are typically done in secret and extra. As for the black friday release: its essentially a december release, and was back when there were no regular new releases (last before was blusans in august). But since tj arbitrarily moved the date for dec. back 1 week due to his new rule (dec 1 aint the first sunday of the month anymore o.o) it might be a good choice to see black friday again.

[djengis]

My thoughts exactly. I especially like the idea of getting more egg/hatchling slots.

Love the more slots idea too! I'm always (Close to) egglocked because i try to pick up a lot of AP eggs and give m a home.

[Dolphine]

2 new are perfect to handle

 

but i agree with the 24h solid release. hen everyone even on slow pc have the possibility to catch them.

 

 

[HeatherMarie]

Honestly I think a 24h solid release for new releases is SERIOUS overkill. There has to be some middle-ground that we can agree on between "less then an hour" and "24 hours", isn't there?

 

Blusangs are already considered "rare", can you imagine if they had gotten a 24-hour solid release? There would be NO Blusangs in the biomes or bred, probably the entire year, just in order to make sure the ratios are balanced.

 

Coopers, most of the newer 2-heads, there are quite a few breeds that, because of their "ratios", simply would be COMPLETELY EXTINCT in the cave until the ratios re-set, if there were a full 24-hour solid release.

[LibbyLishly]

Blusangs are already considered "rare", can you imagine if they had gotten a 24-hour solid release? There would be NO Blusangs in the biomes or bred, probably the entire year, just in order to make sure the ratios are balanced.

 

Coopers, most of the newer 2-heads, there are quite a few breeds that, because of their "ratios", simply would be COMPLETELY EXTINCT in the cave until the ratios re-set, if there were a full 24-hour solid release.

This is why a lot of people are requesting a solid 24-hour drop which, just for that first day, wouldn't affect the ratios for the rest of the year. If just that one day can be off the record as far as the ratios are concerned (and I don't see why that would be terribly hard to code; I know just enough about it to know that it can be done), then the rest of the year they can easily return to their intended rarity, rather than total extinction for the rest of the year - a very real possibility if that first drop is allowed to affect the ratios.

[CNR4806]

Honestly I think a 24h solid release for new releases is SERIOUS overkill. There has to be some middle-ground that we can agree on between "less then an hour" and "24 hours", isn't there?

 

Blusangs are already considered "rare", can you imagine if they had gotten a 24-hour solid release? There would be NO Blusangs in the biomes or bred, probably the entire year, just in order to make sure the ratios are balanced.

 

Coopers, most of the newer 2-heads, there are quite a few breeds that, because of their "ratios", simply would be COMPLETELY EXTINCT in the cave until the ratios re-set, if there were a full 24-hour solid release.

I'd gladly let them go extinct for a year as long as it means we all get solid chances to get them on the first day.

[Wookieinmashoo]

Did the trios have a solid 24 hour drop? I remember coming back from a year break and I was able to get them easily as a practically new person. I don't think a solid 24 hour drop is really going to affect the ratios that much. Blusangs were supposed to be uncommon from what I remember seeing on the original thread, and them being on one of the slowest moving biomes doesn't help.

 

The mod madness dragons had a solid 24 hour release and though nebulas were a bit tough, it was because they were more popular than the other breeds. Most people agreed at that time that that drop was pretty perfectly laid out, though some people still had a hard time with it. There was just enough challenge to keep people interested, though not difficult enough to be frustrating for most.

[Pikabubba]

Im not sure but I think trios dropped for weeks

[olympe]

Oh no, they definitely didn't have a solid 24 hour drop. (I was there before the 24 hours were done, and they were already interspersed.) And, although it's true they dropped at a slightly higher rate for a while, it was just slightly higher - and competition was awful because we only had one cave back then. No biomes.

[Syphoneira]

This is why a lot of people are requesting a solid 24-hour drop which, just for that first day, wouldn't affect the ratios for the rest of the year. If just that one day can be off the record as far as the ratios are concerned (and I don't see why that would be terribly hard to code; I know just enough about it to know that it can be done), then the rest of the year they can easily return to their intended rarity, rather than total extinction for the rest of the year - a very real possibility if that first drop is allowed to affect the ratios.

 

 

You see, THIS makes sense.

 

The ratios were altered following a Release where we were flooded with the same dragons for weeks, which was too much for most people - but then switched too far the other way.

 

 

While some people with fast systems may want more challenge, since they may regularly deal with little or none with regard to catching at speed, (although Blockers spoil it for virtually everyone, of course) it must be borne in mind that population levels in many countries now consist of a large number of out-right poor and a large number of steadily-poorer, as compared to a relatively small - and shrinking - group able to afford such non-survival issues as hot puters and fast connections.

 

Without correction to the forces affecting global economic conditions, this situation is likely to continue to worsen.

 

These are facts that affect virtually everything.

 

DC is played by people of all ages and income levels around the world, and it's evident that the great bulk of players (including those currently no longer playing regularly or at all, due to such discouragement issues, but who might otherwise come back) do not have access - except perhaps at university or college, or while visiting - to expensive, super-fast systems, and that many among the pool of DC players have older/slower systems and are challenged trying to catch even commons in particular demand.

 

If people are unable to catch even at New Releases, having missed sleep or rearranged their lives to try to be present for a Release, with the initial Flood regarded as being potentially their only opportunity to catch these dragons for possibly weeks, months, years or at all, they will continue to be discouraged - rather than having fun they came to DC specifically for - and more likely to give up on playing DC at all, having been effectively shut out of the game due to financial/physical circumstances beyond their control.

 

If the first 24 hours of each Release had extended Floods and heavy Drops on all dragons, without this counting into the ratios during this period, where necessary, and if opportunity remained high for even slower people to catch over the week following such Releases, at least slower people would have a chance to catch their own on these occasions.

 

 

Gifting is great and many kindly do this for others, but people usually really want to have the fun of catching their own.

 

 

The player base predominately consists of people without hot catching systems, who typically joined DC in great part because they could play this (typically very slow-moving in many respects) game without having to be able to afford/access expensive systems.

 

But you still need a variety of CB dragons necessary even to breed lines/lineages...

 

The player base typically does NOT have fun (even when they put a good face on it) when they can't catch dragons, especially when this occurs during New Releases - one has only to look at the pertinent threads to see this, although probably most of the discouraged tend to never post at all for fear of having their feelings dismissed or scorned.

 

They are more likely to express this in private PMs to those they feel likely to understand how they feel, whether hopelessly wasting time trying or why they feel like giving up in discouragement - usually on the Release, sometimes on the game itself - and perhaps to say good-by, to say they might not be on for a while, maybe never again...

 

 

We play DC to have fun - what would it actually hurt to make DC more fun for more people, often coming here to get a break from stressful RL, and unable to cope with yet more frustration and fail during their leisure 'fun time'?