Give us a regular cave during holidays!

[olympe]

With the discussion about limits, something occurred to me. During the Christmas drop and even - to some extent - the Valentine drop, many players will soon get their two eggs and be unable to catch anything else. There's nothing but the holiday breed in the cave, if only because, duh, it's the holiday season. And there won't be anything but older holidays in the AP because there aren't enough people able or willing to take the holiday eggs clogging it. This is especially bad around Christmas, where we have three days of nothing to do but catch two eggs.

 

What I want to suggest is that the old cave comes back for the holiday season - and that the old cave drops nothing but regular breed during that time. This would allow us - who already are at our limits for every breed - to actually do some catching instead of merely waiting for the drop to end (or continue with endless breeding projects).

 

Another suggestion from the thread: Enable people to view the AP without holiday eggs. This would be a way to enable players who already have everything to actually hunt during the Xmas/V-Day holiday breeding season. Or only allow holiday eggs to clutter the first three rows of the AP, while the other half still shows regular eggs. (Personally, I prefer the latter because it allows people to hunt for hollies as well as ER eggs from regular breeds. But that might just be me.)

Edited September 27, 2013 by olympe

[xeyla]

I would like the option to switch between a regular cave and a holiday cave. Maybe the holiday drops can be in a special biome, which only opens during Xmas and Vday drops? The little island on the main map can be the holiday biome?

[Fuzzbucket]

I would like the option to switch between a regular cave and a holiday cave. Maybe the holiday drops can be in a special biome, which only opens during Xmas and Vday drops? The little island on the main map can be the holiday biome?

I think only 3 at a time over holidays would be a nightmare... It was, in the dark old days; I remember them, well...

[Zaxian]

I would like the option to switch between a regular cave and a holiday cave.

I would support this.

 

Maybe the holiday drops can be in a special biome, which only opens during Xmas and Vday drops? The little island on the main map can be the holiday biome?

But not this.

 

A 'festive/scary/pink corner' (choose holiday theme as appropriate) in each biome would be great - so you can essentially see a filtered view of either normal eggs for that biome, or holiday eggs. Would also be good for the AP.

 

Can't comment on how much additional strain this would put on the server at an (already busy) time of year though.

[LibbyLishly]

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. While I can see the appeal - and it could help with the Magical Ratios >.< - I'm more concerned about how it would work. I've found the Christmas and Valentine's egg hunts to be relaxing, because every biome is full of the eggs. I can pick my two at my leisure (even shooting for unique codes if I feel like it), and then spend some quality time with my breeding projects. I don't want to see the holidays all relegated to one biome, where trying to grab them could be more stressful.

 

However, if there were an "Old Cave" biome (which I think is what you're actually proposing) that opened while the holidays were all in the other biomes, it could present a fun little challenge for people who want to hunt (i.e., not me) but allow for the peaceful, easy hunting we've come to expect for the holidays for those of us who would rather not have to fight for the eggs, just for a day.

 

Grammar edits.

Edited September 27, 2013 by LibbyLishly

[Syphoneira]

What kind of lag/glitches/crashes might possibly result from having mass quantities of people on for Holiday catching plus having an extra Cave running - and how much time/energy would TJ have to not only set up for the Holiday breeding and Release, but also for an additional Cave?

 

TJ ought to be enjoying the holidays, too...

 

 

Of course, if we were able to catch additional older Holidays in the AP, giving older players something to do after snagging their New Release Holidays, that would probably be less hassle for TJ to set up than an extra Holiday Cave and not add so much extra stress to the system at a time of high load...

 

(Speaking as One Who Knows Nothing About Coding Or Site Load Issues, of course, lol.)

[Pokemonfan13]

Let's let TJ decide if it would put too much strain.

 

I like the idea of a button/link in each biome that would revert it to normal [take you to http://dragcave.net/locations/5/2 or similar concept]. And DEFINITELY have a way to exclude holiday eggs from your AP view. If nothing else in this thread is done, this is an absolute necessity. Otherwise we will have massive AP egg death during the holiday breeding period, at least in xmas and valentines.

[Cinnamin Draconna]

Not even going to speculate on how to make it work... but I very much want to be able to pick up normal eggs during the holidays. Unless and until the limits are changed, I'm at my max for everything except a holly. So once I get my two new eggs I have nothing to do except wait for the holiday to be over so everything will be back to normal. Especially because of the way the AP gets flooded with holiday eggs, once that wall goes up it's impossible to catch anything else. So I wind up being totally bored for 3 days waiting on the holiday to be over.

Edited September 27, 2013 by Cinnamin Draconna

[Nectaris]

Not even going to speculate on how to make it work... but I very much want to be able to pick up normal eggs during the holidays. Unless and until the limits are changed, I'm at my max for everything except a holly. So once I get my two new eggs I have nothing to do except wait for the holiday to be over so everything will be back to normal. Especially because of the way the AP gets flooded with holiday eggs, once that wall goes up it's impossible to catch anything else. So I wind up being totally bored for 3 days waiting on the holiday to be over.

Pretty much this. As long as we are limited to two, it makes the cave really boring for the week leading up to the release, and the release itself. The release is so easy that getting your two for the year is a breeze and then you are left with nothing to do until normal eggs appear. I don't care how it is done, so long as something is offered to give older players a way to participate in the cave/AP during holidays.

[aangs-sister]

Not even going to speculate on how to make it work... but I very much want to be able to pick up normal eggs during the holidays. Unless and until the limits are changed, I'm at my max for everything except a holly. So once I get my two new eggs I have nothing to do except wait for the holiday to be over so everything will be back to normal. Especially because of the way the AP gets flooded with holiday eggs, once that wall goes up it's impossible to catch anything else. So I wind up being totally bored for 3 days waiting on the holiday to be over.

I agree with this. I honestly thing the best solution to this is some kind of change in the limits that allowed user to grab holiday eggs from the walls. If people are constantly taking eggs the walls will break down as fast as they appear. We know this works by Halloween breeds: Halloweens don't wall, they can fill up most of the AP screen if you're there at the right time, but they are all taken in a few minutes and regular eggs are never hidden for long.

 

Either that, or I'd like to see holidays NOT go to the front of the pile and instead pop up as they are bred like other breeds. But even then, if fewer people could take the eggs then there were eggs being produced it would still plug up eventually.

 

As for a separate cave? Not a fan. When I've been holly hunting in the past, since I had room on my scroll I would grab ER commons that bubbled to the surface and hatch them until I was nearly scroll-locked. If hollies (the one people will spend the most time hunting) were in a different place, I wouldn't have been able to see them. However, a separate cave isn't something I'd fight against.

[Ha-Ki]

And DEFINITELY have a way to exclude holiday eggs from your AP view. If nothing else in this thread is done, this is an absolute necessity. Otherwise we will have massive AP egg death during the holiday breeding period, at least in xmas and valentines.

This - if we can't have regular cave drops during the holidays, it would be awesome to still be able to catch all those ERs that would otherwise die behind a Holiday wall in the AP. Assigning half of the AP space for holidays and the other half for regular eggs would do the job.

 

Or maybe with the new AP, bred holidays will also appear there only a couple of days after they were bred?

[olympe]

I think that a holiday-less AP view would be a great idea, too. I'll add that to the OP.

[xeyla]

A 'festive/scary/pink corner' (choose holiday theme as appropriate) in each biome would be great - so you can essentially see a filtered view of either normal eggs for that biome, or holiday eggs. Would also be good for the AP.

 

Can't comment on how much additional strain this would put on the server at an (already busy) time of year though.

Ack, you are right. I was only tossing out an idea. Seems it was not right for this situation.

Anywho, I like the idea of filtering out the holidays from the AP.

[Pokemonfan13]

No matter what, something has to be done about the AP during the holidays. Otherwise there will be massive death of eggs, and eggs that people would pick up if they could. Either split the AP or have an abandoned/2 that would only show normal eggs, but something is needed.

[HeatherMarie]

Another suggestion from the thread: Enable people to view the AP without holiday eggs. This would be a way to enable players who already have everything to actually hunt during the Xmas/V-Day holiday breeding season. Or only allow holiday eggs to clutter the first three rows of the AP, while the other half still shows regular eggs. (Personally, I prefer the latter because it allows people to hunt for hollies as well as ER eggs from regular breeds. But that might just be me.)

I'd definitely support either of these AP-suggestions for holidays!

[Syphoneira]

I agree with this. I honestly thing the best solution to this is some kind of change in the limits that allowed user to grab holiday eggs from the walls. If people are constantly taking eggs the walls will break down as fast as they appear. We know this works by Halloween breeds: Halloweens don't wall, they can fill up most of the AP screen if you're there at the right time, but they are all taken in a few minutes and regular eggs are never hidden for long.

 

Either that, or I'd like to see holidays NOT go to the front of the pile and instead pop up as they are bred like other breeds. But even then, if fewer people could take the eggs then there were eggs being produced it would still plug up eventually.

 

As for a separate cave? Not a fan. When I've been holly hunting in the past, since I had room on my scroll I would grab ER commons that bubbled to the surface and hatch them until I was nearly scroll-locked. If hollies (the one people will spend the most time hunting) were in a different place, I wouldn't have been able to see them. However, a separate cave isn't something I'd fight against.

 

 

 

Lol, I'm all for the first suggestion, but as for the second:

 

people who need the older Christmas dragons need to be able to pick up and hatch the previous Holiday eggs prior to the New Holiday Releases coming out,

 

and people who've missed the actual Holiday dragon Drop due to festivities or religious injunctions need to be able to immediately see and obtain the remaining new Holidays (which have 'overflowed' into the AP due to people hammer-clicking and picking up extras that they drop or have auto-rejected) before they give up and go away, thinking that they're just out of luck.

 

It's a busy time of year, and many people have limited internet access/time to play games in this Holiday season, as badly as they may want the dragons.

 

So I'd be against delaying the appearance of Holiday dragons in the AP.

 

 

Also. you do make an excellent point regarding Holly-hunters filling in spaces with AP eggs - it would be even more boring, and reduce opportunities, looking for Hollies in a situation where only previous Holiday dragons you already had your limit of appeared.

[aangs-sister]

 

 

Lol, I'm all for the first suggestion, but as for the second:

 

people who need the older Christmas dragons need to be able to pick up and hatch the previous Holiday eggs prior to the New Holiday Releases coming out,

 

and people who've missed the actual Holiday dragon Drop due to festivities or religious injunctions need to be able to immediately see and obtain the remaining new Holidays (which have 'overflowed' into the AP due to people hammer-clicking and picking up extras that they drop or have auto-rejected) before they give up and go away, thinking that they're just out of luck.

 

It's a busy time of year, and many people have limited internet access/time to play games in this Holiday season, as badly as they may want the dragons.

 

So I'd be against delaying the appearance of Holiday dragons in the AP.

 

 

Also. you do make an excellent point regarding Holly-hunters filling in spaces with AP eggs - it would be even more boring, and reduce opportunities, looking for Hollies in a situation where only previous Holiday dragons you already had your limit of appeared.

 

My apologizes, in re-reading myself I realized I worded myself poorly/confusingly. What I meant was not ALL the holidays go to the front immediately. I was think more along the lines of, say, only 1 per clutch goes to the front or only X go to the front at once and the rest flow in as time passes. In other words, I'm asking for a delay to most eggs so they don't all show up at once and plug things up and instead spread themselves out.

 

Again, my bad not yours. Whoops .

[Ashes The Second]

I would love to see eggs spread out -- very useful.

[Pokemonfan13]

Aren't they naturally spread out? I mean last xmas I remember huge clogs that would then clear to reveal ER eggs and then clog up again as more people bred. Near the end it was just a huge clog tho.

 

Given the added day, I think the holiday eggs shouldn't be forced to stay in the AP any longer than they have to, since added time makes it harder to raise as many eggs as you want in the limited timeframe. Just give the rest of us access to the rest of the AP eggs, and ideally the biome eggs too.

Edited September 28, 2013 by Pokemonfan13

[whitebaron]

My tactic for this christmas is clear:

1: catch two holidays, gift them to some unlucky souls later.

2: after those 10 minutes are done, my holiday is done, too.

so, 3: hunt before xmas, breed while xmas, ignore ap till new year.

 

Since we saw tj implementing not a single change for the last while, i'm pessimistic enough to say: dont expect changes for christmas and gear yourself up to do other stuff while both cave and ap overflows with unneeded holiday eggs.

[olympe]

My tactic for this christmas is clear:

1: catch two holidays, gift them to some unlucky souls later.

2: after those 10 minutes are done, my holiday is done, too.

so, 3: hunt before xmas, breed while xmas, ignore ap till new year.

 

Since we saw tj implementing not a single change for the last while, i'm pessimistic enough to say: dont expect changes for christmas and gear yourself up to do other stuff while both cave and ap overflows with unneeded holiday eggs.

That's what's probably going to happen, yes. Although I am considering to catch some holiday eggs, abandon them, catch some more, abandom them and so on.

 

The problem with ignoring DC is that there's usually some event that has us scrambling to collect things. Which means that every 5 to 10 minutes, some little goody turns up. Which gets boring pretty quickly if you don't have anything to do but wait for these things.

[Rafaela22]

Since we saw tj implementing not a single change for the last while, i'm pessimistic enough to say: dont expect changes for christmas and gear yourself up to do other stuff while both cave and ap overflows with unneeded holiday eggs.

Yep.

 

I'd like another cave. Other then raffles, if I can't catch, I may as well not bother coming to DC during the holidays and that's bad for business. Sure, I can breed, but I'd rather catch anyday.

[Princess_Pinkie]

Yep.

 

I'd like another cave. Other then raffles, if I can't catch, I may as well not bother coming to DC during the holidays and that's bad for business. Sure, I can breed, but I'd rather catch anyday.

is catching really the ONLY thing you do? do you not know the AP exists..? if three days is really too long for you, then maybe you really should just not come on lol i don't see why three days is such an enormous amount of time that you can't find anything at all to occupy yourself with.

[dragongrrl]

I just dropped about 20 nice reds to the AP. There is always something to do. The three day holiday drop is fine with me.

[Ha-Ki]

Princess Pinkie, take a look at the date of the post you are referring to. That was written when we still had a limit of 2 for holiday breeds. Back then there was a wall of bred holidays in the AP and it was not possible to hunt for anything else there (which you couldn't pick up because we still had a limit of 2).

 

Edit: typos

Edited February 15, 2014 by Ha-Ki