Mating Rituals

[Mondat]

Answering your question, most people don't read what is written in the dragon conception, just what is written in the dragon page description - and there isn't much information there about the dragon habits in general. And, as LibbyLishly said, she already ignores on purpose a lot of things that the dragon creators put in their own creations. So, in the end, this "mating rituals" only will serve to give more things to be ignored by the players, which defeats the purpose of its creation.

...so....when people do not read it anyway it cannot ruin something...?

Also....please speak for yourself. There are players who would like to read it. I'd.

 

You do no like the suggestion, I got it. Still, it doesn't change the fact that DC has its own canon already. In my fantasy setting I am living in a mountain temple - medieval Japan - and there are some dragons which joined me, there are youkai as well. No cave, no scrolls, no pile of abandoned eggs, no stealing eggs, oops

 

ETA:

I still think that the place for accurate descriptions about feeding habits, mating rituals and all the stuff is the encyclopedia and not the breeding pages or any other scroll mechanism pages. I think the game pages should stay simple and those who really want to dig in accurate informations about the dragons should seek for these informations in the encyclopedia - which, as far as understood, it's being created with this purpose.

I have to ask you now...did you actually read the first post in this thread? I do not mean to be rude, but it is just one sentence we would exchange.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Mondat

[LibbyLishly]

Good point. Here I am referring to my mints rutting away - and if something came up when I bred one that said "Your dragon sings sweetly and does a graceful arabesque as it drops an egg" I would be decidedly displeased My mints are sex-mad and breed like rabbits. No daintiness about them ! But yours may do a samurai thing instead. Nice to have the choice !

Similarly, I don't have a problem with it if someone, say, thinks their White dragon tends toward aggression and picks fights because her daddy was a Brute, even though Whites are supposed to be pacifists. However, the description rules wouldn't allow that to ever be part of that White's official page. There's lots in-canon stuff that may contradict how someone wants to RP, and it's okay. Canon pairing John Watson with Mary Morstan shouldn't stop the many Johnlock shippers from writing their fanfics about John smooching with Sherlock, but the Johnlockers shouldn't try to stop a creator from expanding canon by, say, pairing Sherlock off with someone else. In the same way, I would like to see DC canon expanded even though it might contradict the way I play.

 

And yeah, maybe the best place for that IS the encyclopedia; I don't have a problem with that in the least. But I also don't have any problem with it appearing on my page after breeding, either.

 

(Btw, I'm tempted to start playing that my Mints breed with samurai rituals now because you went and planted the hilarious visual in my head. Thanks. )

Edited June 7, 2014 by LibbyLishly

[Rosedamai]

Not fond of this idea-too much work for too little satisfaction. Besides there are pairings that are unexplainable through this. How is a deep sea and say a turpentine ever going to meet by this logic? They wont meet at all and I hardly think their mating rituals would ever be similar, so no.

[LibbyLishly]

Not fond of this idea-too much work for too little satisfaction. Besides there are pairings that are unexplainable through this. How is a deep sea and say a turpentine ever going to meet by this logic? They wont meet at all and I hardly think their mating rituals would ever be similar, so no.

You're right - how DO they meet? They must if we're able to have these pairings. A defined mating ritual might actually help to figure out just how game canon handles that.

[danicast]

ETA:

 

I have to ask you now...did you actually read the first post in this thread? I do not mean to be rude, but it is just one sentence we would exchange.

If you know that you are being rude, then don't be rude. I deeply dislike rudeness. Being rude doesn't help to defend your idea, just make you look like you have no more arguments.

Edited June 7, 2014 by danicast

[Mondat]

If you know that you are being rude, then don't be rude. I deeply dislike rudeness. Being rude doesn't help to defend your idea, just make you look like you have no more arguments.

*sighs*

Please understand my position:

I post a suggestion. Then there are people coming in and stating they would like to have unrelated things to get implemented first. People can have their own opinion, it is ok.

I stayed quiet for the most part, but today I have more time so I decided to join. Without any intention to start a fight.

 

You bring up the point - which I agreed with(!) that people create their own world.

I agreed with you but brought up the part that DC has its own canon world. As everyone knows we have breed descriptions and people are required to post more information about their dragons when they suggest them.

You then said "why ruin something?"

I replied with "we would not ruin something which is part of the game anyway".

Then you came up with "people would not read it" (???)

 

=> So how can it ruin something when according to you people do not read it (which is not true since I'd read it)?

 

Then you write

the game pages should stay simple

and I think "my original suggestion included an exchange of one line with another. If you do not like to read it you would not even see much difference on a small glance..."

 

And now - according to you - I have no more arguments?!

The fact that DC has its own canon world is point enough in my opinion but it seems to me that you and others just do not want to give this rather harmless suggestions any chance, it feels like I suggested reducing egg slots to 3 slots.

You all do not like it, I got it. Thank you very much reading and participating.

[danicast]

Not fond of this idea-too much work for too little satisfaction. Besides there are pairings that are unexplainable through this. How is a deep sea and say a turpentine ever going to meet by this logic? They wont meet at all and I hardly think their mating rituals would ever be similar, so no.

Actually I think you are more right than you imagine, ylangylang because the breeding action doesn't happen in the wild, it happens in our dragon farms so it's very possible that the dragons don't use the original mating rituals - it was never established if they breed in natural or artificial conditions. It can be that all this time the dragons are breeding through artificial conditions and in this case, they are not using any mating rituals, ever.

It's another reason why this should not be implemented.

 

Mondat

I'm not going to discuss this with you simply because I think the forum is not the appropriated place to discuss personal matters. If you have a problem with the way that I conduct my arguments in the forum, feel free to PM me. Thanks.

Edited June 7, 2014 by danicast

[irercha]

If you want to change one default line to another, different for each breed, then - after thinking about it - I'm too against it, because I want the message as clear as possible: egg (ok, this I can see myself ) - no egg - no interest - refusal. As I've written before I don't want to guess whether the message says that dragons, lets say give each other cold glares because they don't want to breed ever or they just don't want to breed now.

I don't know why but I thought the idea is to add something, so the page would look like: new ritual line and clearly stated result. If so it would be fine by me, but... as I say, I want the message simple. I just want it not to create any confusion concerning the final effect. I assume I'm in minority, but I'm not interested in my dragons habits, only the result and that is pretty lineage

[Mondat]

I don't know why but I thought the idea is to add something, so the page would look like: new ritual line and clearly stated result.

This is the idea, as stated in the first post and this were just examples I came up with quickly. I do not want to guess the results myself either...no no no no.

 

[HeatherMarie]

Not fond of this idea-too much work for too little satisfaction. Besides there are pairings that are unexplainable through this. How is a deep sea and say a turpentine ever going to meet by this logic? They wont meet at all and I hardly think their mating rituals would ever be similar, so no.

This is a good point. How are these "mating ritual" texts going to go when it's between dragons who really wouldn't ever see each other?

 

Re the whole thing about dragon descriptions, yes many dragons already *have* a mention of some sort of mating ritual in their descriptions. ... So why do we need that mention repeated when we breed?

 

This is a "frills" suggestion, wouldn't add anything new to the game, and I don't see why I should support it.

[olympe]

Yes, it would add something new to the game. A lot of - probably even funny - little Easter eggs to find when breeding our dragons.

 

"Male Deep Sea Dragon crawls ashore, half a whale shark between its teeth. There, he offers his kill to the nearest dragon lady, Female Magma Dragon. She seems taken aback at first, but accepts the unusual gift and the courtship of Male Deep Sea Dragon. Soon, Female Magma Dragon lays an egg." Or whatever. For lack of appropriate names, I simply put in the gender and the breed of the dragons involved.

[annageckos]

Yes, it would add something new to the game. A lot of - probably even funny - little Easter eggs to find when breeding our dragons.

 

"Male Deep Sea Dragon crawls ashore, half a whale shark between its teeth. There, he offers his kill to the nearest dragon lady, Female Magma Dragon. She seems taken aback at first, but accepts the unusual gift and the courtship of Male Deep Sea Dragon. Soon, Female Magma Dragon lays an egg." Or whatever. For lack of appropriate names, I simply put in the gender and the breed of the dragons involved.

I like that, it's very amusing. I do like this idea. I think it does add a little something to the game.

[Rosedamai]

Yes, it would add something new to the game. A lot of - probably even funny - little Easter eggs to find when breeding our dragons.

 

"Male Deep Sea Dragon crawls ashore, half a whale shark between its teeth. There, he offers his kill to the nearest dragon lady, Female Magma Dragon. She seems taken aback at first, but accepts the unusual gift and the courtship of Male Deep Sea Dragon. Soon, Female Magma Dragon lays an egg." Or whatever. For lack of appropriate names, I simply put in the gender and the breed of the dragons involved.

See the thing is though, some of our dragons have very specific rituals-like dancing or flying in patterns in the air-and I dont see how that would work ever with say, dragons who cannot fly or dance, etc. Stones and Red finned Tidals for example. Or say, nebula and flamingo. These guys dont meet in the wild and have vastly different mating rituals. Unless as danicast said,

because the breeding action doesn't happen in the wild, it happens in our dragon farms so it's very possible that the dragons don't use the original mating rituals - it was never established if they breed in natural or artificial conditions. It can be that all this time the dragons are breeding through artificial conditions and in this case, they are not using any mating rituals, ever.

in which case there is no need for this anyways.

And olympe, your suggestion is cute and all, but then we also face the need to customize to a degree how a dragon acts with another dragon because that line would not work with, say, terrae or other dragons who are herbivores. So this is I feel a lot more work than people think that only satisfies a portion of the population.

Edited June 8, 2014 by ylangylang

[LibbyLishly]

See the thing is though, some of our dragons have very specific rituals-like dancing or flying in patterns in the air-and I dont see how that would work ever with say, dragons who cannot fly or dance, etc. Stones and Red finned Tidals for example. Or say, nebula and flamingo. These guys dont meet in the wild and have vastly different mating rituals. Unless as danicast said,  in which case there is no need for this anyways.

And olympe, your suggestion is cute and all, but then we also face the need to customize to a degree how a dragon acts with another dragon because that line would not work with, say, terrae or other dragons who are herbivores. So this is I feel a lot more work than people think that only satisfies a portion of the population.

The work should be put in by the people who actually want to see it happen - just from the player base - and that would be the portion of the population that would, in fact, be satisfied. As pointed out previously, the coding shouldn't take more than a few minutes or a few hours at the outside. You shouldn't object to this suggestion based on the work that people who WOULD appreciate it would put in.

 

Furthermore, the focus is on how different the mating rituals are, not how similar. A male from a species that flies may do a sky dance for a sea dweller. Expand your imagination - how DO two vastly different mating rituals work together? Clearly, if our dragons breed like they do, they must be able to reach a compromise somehow.

 

Finally, it's not about there being a NEED for this. There's not a NEED for an Encyclopedia, but we're getting one anyway - and I, for one, am geeking out about it (I know not everyone is; the point is that there is a precedent). Many suggestions are about whether or not that suggestion would enrich the game - which, for some of us, it would.

 

I'm winding up supporting this more passionately that I intended because many of the arguments I'm seeing against it are so heated and, frankly, illogical.

 

ETA before I make people mad:

There ARE valid arguments being used against this. For example, you might just not want to have this level of detail defined for yourself. That's fine. I disagree because of how the game typically goes and I personally don't think it should affect your gameplay, but it's at least a valid disagreement - it's not operating on a basis of fallacy. Perhaps you don't want TJ spending even 5 minutes on coding this because you'd rather see some changes to player options, like scroll sort and lineage view. That's totally valid too. What gets me are the arguments that actually are not following a logical path, that's all.

Edited June 8, 2014 by LibbyLishly

[Rosedamai]

Furthermore, the focus is on how different the mating rituals are, not how similar. A male from a species that flies may do a sky dance for a sea dweller. Expand your imagination - how DO two vastly different mating rituals work together? Clearly, if our dragons breed like they do, they must be able to reach a compromise somehow.

Personally I prefer that this be put to the imagination of every user. I quite enjoy danicasts explanation that they arent performing to the best of their abilities anyways because they are domesticated and so are living in an artificial environment in which case we dont specifically need these descriptions anyways. And I am very against any descriptions that focus on some random rituals that go against the creator's concept of them, which will inevitably arise if this is put in place.

 

If you'd like to see some random lines when performing an action at least make it so that ipeople can turn it off because I know that I at least will be very offput by this. And frankly all the arguments I see for this is "BUT IT WILL BE FUN" which unlike the encyclopedia that would have things like elemental affinity and so have some uses when breeding a GoN, isn't really an argument imo either.

[LibbyLishly]

Personally I prefer that this be put to the imagination of every user. I quite enjoy danicasts explanation that they arent performing to the best of their abilities anyways because they are domesticated and so are living in an artificial environment in which case we dont specifically need these descriptions anyways. And I am very against any descriptions that focus on some random rituals that go against the creator's concept of them, which will inevitably arise if this is put in place.

 

If you'd like to see some random lines when performing an action at least make it so that ipeople can turn it off because I know that I at least will be very offput by this. And frankly all the arguments I see for this is "BUT IT WILL BE FUN" which unlike the encyclopedia that would have things like elemental affinity and so have some uses when breeding a GoN, isn't really an argument imo either.

I am all in favor of pretty much every single Dragon Cave change being made optional, with a huge list of toggle-on/toggle-off switches in your player settings. So yeah, I'd like to see this be optional if it were ever to be implemented... along with a ton of other options I want.

 

And yes, I agree 100% that the rituals would need to be okay with the spriters and concept creators. I think a lot of them have some details already set out, but if one protested the way their dragon was detailed, it should be changed promptly.

 

Finally, "But it will make it more fun" is a perfectly good argument when it's only being countered with "But it won't make it more fun".

[Rosedamai]

Finally, "But it will make it more fun" is a perfectly good argument when it's only being countered with "But it won't make it more fun".

I find this very ironic because for someone who advocates for fun none of you have come up with how to address people whose headcannons and thus fun while playing the game will be hurt by this. You keep saying "get creative" etc but none of you have addressed how to console people who for example think of their dragons eating together around a candlelit table or dress in a ball gown and dance a waltz etc who will be upset that their headcannons will be hurt by officially setting in stone how a dragon mates with another. Maybe they have kinky nsfw fun we dont know. But as long as they stay in the realm of personal headcannons I am fine with that.

 

But for a few people to stamp out that creativity because they think it is fun for them...no, I am not for that. Not to mention that I think that youd have to stretch how believable this sort of official description would be for certain dragon pairs that I personally think should be left to the individual's imagination, not the site's.

 

TL;DR: I feel like you are forcing your interpretations on other people and in the process hurting the very creativity and fun that you say you stand for and I find this hypocritic.

 

ETA: as danicast said-

THIS. Some things are better when you leave to the imagination. There are users here who enjoy to think that their dragons are madly in love with each other and picture romantic experiences to them and not exactly "mating rituals". I remember that I saw once a deviantart of a user with several draws of romantic situations involving their dragons. They were very humjanized and did things like giving flowers to each other and have romantic dinners. Who can tell that this user is right or wrong? She created her own personal way to play the game and her personal world makes her happy. I think that if we decide to define "mating rituals" we will be actually restraining other user's imagination because we would be saying "THIS is the way that all gold dragons mate" instead to leave to the users to build their own RP alternatives. I think it would be more fair to all users to leave the breeding messages as they are now and leave open the alternatives to each user to imagine their dragons relations as better suits them.

Edited June 8, 2014 by ylangylang

[LibbyLishly]

I find this very ironic because for someone who advocates for fun none of you have come up with how to address people whose headcannons and thus fun while playing the game will be hurt by this. You keep saying "get creative" etc but none of you have addressed how to console people who for example think of their dragons eating together around a candlelit table or dress in a ball gown and dance a waltz etc who will be upset that their headcannons will be hurt by officially setting in stone how a dragon mates with another. Maybe they have kinky nsfw fun we dont know. But as long as they stay in the realm of personal headcannons I am fine with that.

 

But for a few people to stamp out that creativity because they think it is fun for them...no, I am not for that. Not to mention that I think that youd have to stretch how believable this sort of official description would be for certain dragon pairs that I personally think should be left to the individual's imagination, not the site's.

 

TL;DR: I feel like you are forcing your interpretations on other people and in the process hurting the very creativity and fun that you say you stand for and I find this hypocritic.

People with headcanons (like me) already have to ignore actual canon in order to think their dragons are wearing ballgowns or sitting at romantic candlelit tables in a restaurant. I seriously don't have a problem with that, but they must know (I know) that they ARE ignoring canon. I don't see how a simple line would "hurt" someone - at worst, it would be an annoyance. Because of that, I agree with you that it should be toggle-on/toggle-off.

 

Following this line of logic, concept creators shouldn't be able to provide more information on their dragons except that which is on the breed page (or is that even okay?) and the Encyclopedia is going to be a headcanon disaster. Again, I know some people are already unhappy about the Encyclopedia, so I understand. But do know that many headcanons already throw out canon and the expansion of actual canon won't hurt people who are already doing that.

[HeatherMarie]

Furthermore, the focus is on how different the mating rituals are, not how similar. A male from a species that flies may do a sky dance for a sea dweller. Expand your imagination - how DO two vastly different mating rituals work together? Clearly, if our dragons breed like they do, they must be able to reach a compromise somehow.

I just can't wrap my mind around how these differences might be addressed. If a flying species does a sky-dance for a sea-dweller, the sea-dweller obviously *isn't* going to be impressed since a sky-dance is *not* a part of sea-dweller-mating. So.... What's the text going to say? I can see my own personal sea-dweller/flying pairings happening simply because of some fluke, but I *can't* see them being impressed by each other's "mating ritual".... So I'm very confused how this would all work.

[olympe]

Our dragons aren't stupid beasts, they're sentient beings with an intellect that equals or even surpasses our own. So why couldn't a sea dweller be impressed with a sky dance? Many of us who're overweight still like to watch people at ballroom dancing or belly dancing or a number of other kinds of dances. Or doing martial arts stuff. Or ballet. Even if we'll never be able to do any of these things ourselves.

 

So, why should a dragon be any different than that? Maybe there are sea dwellers which are especially impressed with sky dancing - and flyers that are most impressed by a show of water dancing, jumping out of the water or being offered a kill of sea animals?

 

 

On how this could be implemented:

I'd say that all breeds should get their very own mating ritual description for

1. Male courtship (when you use the breed action on the male)
2. Female courtship (when you use the breed action on the female)
3. Male courtship acceptance (when you chose this male as a mate from the breeding list)
4. Female courtship acceptance (when you chose this female as a mate from the breeding list

Also, we'd need a refusal message ("Female Dragon and Male Dragon hiss and growl at each other. It seems like a good idea to keep these two apart from each other.") and two different "no interest" messages - one for dragons with very different mating rituals ("Chosen Mate is confused by Bred Dragon's display of affection and turns away.") and another one - maybe even the current "no interest" phrase - that can pop up in any case of pairing.

 

 

Then, I'd suggest creating different groups of breeding rituals - like "sky dance", "offering kill", "fighting display" or some other kind of display that our dragons are supposed to do. If we then breed dragons with the same kind of courtship ritual, we shouldn't be able to get the "confusion" message for "no interest".

[irercha]

Also, we'd need a refusal message ("Female Dragon and Male Dragon hiss and growl at each other. It seems like a good idea to keep these two apart from each other.") and two different "no interest" messages - one for dragons with very different mating rituals ("Chosen Mate is confused by Bred Dragon's display of affection and turns away.") and another one - maybe even the current "no interest" phrase - that can pop up in any case of pairing.

I'd like to keep current messages, including the keyword refuse. People are really used to it. Add a phrase or two before it if you want, but do not make major changes in the result phrases... pretty please? If someone doesn't want to read it, they can simply skip the introduction and still know the outcome.

[olympe]

Maybe making it optional is really the way to go. *sigh* I mean, a message telling you to keep these two apart is pretty straightforward, isn't it? Especially if you see the next week that they don't turn up in each other's breeding lists.

[Fuzzbucket]

Maybe making it optional is really the way to go. *sigh* I mean, a message telling you to keep these two apart is pretty straightforward, isn't it? Especially if you see the next week that they don't turn up in each other's breeding lists.

I'd rather see that word REFUSE, too.

 

Not everyone here is totally fluent in English, but REFUSE is in the wiki and everywhere.

 

But I REALLY don't want to see this stuff at all. I'd so much rather imagine for myself. What the dragon who refused in an important lineage this morning looked like as he thumbed his nose at me (not at the intended mate, at ME ) would NEVER appear on a scroll message, and what I did to him in my imagination afterwards, well, never mind....

[olympe]

Well, you can always stab him in the heart - not just in your imagination.

[irercha]

I mean, a message telling you to keep these two apart is pretty straightforward, isn't it? Especially if you see the next week that they don't turn up in each other's breeding lists.

It is, but still people who are used to 'refuse' (and I think it's the majority here) may be confused. After all those phrases have been here for years. Of course, after a week one can be sure what the message said, but one can also use this week to try and find a replacement mate