What's the big deal about messy lineages?

[Santa07]

Someone please explain. People who have tried to explain in the past just make me think neat lineages are more and more pointless. Why is everyone so picky?

[Imzadi]

Someone please explain. People who have tried to explain in the past just make me think neat lineages are more and more pointless. Why is everyone so picky?

It's a matter of preference. I find it much more satisfying to make pretty patterns than to just breed whatever to whatever. It takes planning and patience. Frankly I'd have been bored and quit long ago if not for making what I want.

[SyrusAllen]

The big deal is just preference. Some people enjoy making/collecting nice looking lineages to give them something extra to do in addition to collecting the dragons. That's all there is to it really. Just something extra to do to make their game more interesting.

[Rhetsura]

Also, I believe it's a development that came along around the same time as trading tbh Like, if I take a look at my scroll, the dragons I have from before magi trading was a thing have very messy lineages. Now, after the implementation of trading, nearly all my dragons have very neat, pretty looking lineages. It just adds a little something extra to the game is all~

[TCA]

The big deal is just preference. Some people enjoy making/collecting nice looking lineages to give them something extra to do in addition to collecting the dragons. That's all there is to it really. Just something extra to do to make their game more interesting.

Yeah pretty much. It's like collecting codes or Thuweds, something to add an extra dimension of fun. With no difference between lineages, the only real difficulty in the game becomes obtaining a Neglected. Lineages is like challenge mode.

[Amazon_warrior]

Preference, challenge, rarity. Any dragon breed with a messy lineage is easy to come by, just look at the AP; one with a short, neat or well-planned lineage is more aesthetically pleasing to many people and may indicate considerable effort and care.

[DragonNighthowler]

Someone please explain. People who have tried to explain in the past just make me think neat lineages are more and more pointless. Why is everyone so picky?

It's not about being picky. It's that this, or this, shows a great deal more work, dedication, attention and care than this, which are pretty much a bunch of dragons bred without care or attention (and that is absolutely true in this exact case as I bred it because I wanted to build up a red army for incubates, lineages was not something important in this case).

 

As it happens with most products in our world, something that is os quality tends to be more expensive than something that's been assembled quickly to sell as many units as quickly as possible.

[OtomeKristinOtaku]

It varies from person to person. Some people likes a neat lineage because it looks...well, neat and pretty. Other people doesn't care both ways. As for me, I like neat lineages, not only because it's pretty, but also because of the trade value it has in DC market

[angelicdragonpuppy]

I could definitely be wrong, Santa, but it looks like you haven't been around for very long. I know that when I was a newer player I didn't care about lineages much either--I just wanted to collect all the pretty sprites. However, I've now been on the site for over six years, and have gotten every dragon there is several times over. Other than the initial need to catch up with just how very many breeds they are, however, this feat isn't very hard to do. If you spend much time on the forums, you'll soon find that even rare dragons like golds, silvers, and prizes are often given away for free or very cheaply if they have messy lineages, and sometimes even if they don't! So collecting soon doesn't become very difficult to do.

 

Now, some people don't mind that; they just like collecting masses of pretty sprites, even if doing so isn't very hard. But for me, personally, I wanted something a bit more challenging to keep my interest in DC, and I found that challenge in collecting (and creating!) pretty lineages. As DragonNightHowler said, working on a lineage like http://dragcave.net/lineage/95zaE or http://dragcave.net/lineage/rEkQ5 takes a lot of time--you have to collect a lot of unlineaged dragons to form the base, you have to make sure you get the right breed of egg from each pair to continue the look, and you have to plan things out. In contrast, things like http://dragcave.net/lineage/gBUNg can be done easily by just randomly breeding things together, don't require planning, and are generally less aesthetically pleasing to look at (although tracing through them can be interesting ).

 

Also, exactly because they take more time, effort, and planning to create--and because many people find them prettier to look at--nicely lineaged things tend to be rarer and fetch higher trade prices as well. So on top of the challenge of finding them to begin with, you have the extra challenge of trying to trade for them, and the possibility of getting nice things for their offspring in future. Win/win!

 

All that being said, just because other people enjoy such lineages doesn't mean you have to! If you just want to collect dragons in general or find crazy lineages more exciting or whatever else, that is entirely your own choice. The reasons above are my reasons for favoring them so much, but DC is very much a play as you want kind of game.

Edited December 13, 2014 by angelicdragonpuppy

[HawktalonOfRiverClan]

When I was a newbie I didn't care much about lineages, either. Like ADP all I wanted were the sprites, since lineages have absolutely no affect on the dragon other than its market value. Which worked in my favor because I was able to get messy rares to complete my scroll goals fairly cheaply.

 

But after a while, I realized just how big of a role lineages have in DC. Now I don't have any lineage projects (my main goal is describing, and breeding creates more work in that regard), but I found myself much more... attached, for lack of a better word, to dragons that had lineages I found pretty or interesting. In fact I went through my scroll and replaced all of my older messy lineages with neater ones. Now not all of the lineages I like are what is considered valuable by the general public, as is the case for a lot of people. Whether or not you like a certain lineage is entirely up to you. Some people really like deadlines. Others, like myself, like EG inbreds. I have a friend who actually likes messy lineages better than neat ones simply because they show more "character" and are always different.

 

And some people never develop a taste for lineages, preferring to focus on collecting sprites rather than breeding. Though it is important to note that if you intend to start trading, you'll want to collect dragons that can breed valuable eggs. And that means having neat lineages.

[Nine]

They're like achievements in games: fundamentally useless, but when you've beaten the game several times over it gives you something to work towards, making things less boring. And no one wants to play a game to be bored.

 

Similarly, you can show them off to other achievement hunters and swap war stories about how long it took you to get that shiny thing. The more blood, sweat, and tears that go into something, the more shinier it becomes (though maybe not literally).

 

Supposed that makes messy lineages like hidden achievements. Came out of nowhere, no idea what you did to deserve it, but I'll be damned if it isn't beautiful...

Edited December 13, 2014 by Nine

[lilysally]

collecting sprites vs collecting lineages - that simple

http://dragcave.net/lineage/FrEv

http://dragcave.net/lineage/W8yOF

[Dracofilia]

I'd explain it as the site's members keeping themselves busy between releases. When you've got every single breed there is, there isn't much to do between new releases, so people find their own way of passing time. People who really, really like the site and want to spend a lot of time on it just don't have anything to do for long stretches of time, so they make up their own goals.

 

I've only recently started planning lineages myself, despite having been on the site since 2008 - I've been keeping myself busy by making up stories about my dragons instead (... and releasing a whole cave full of dragons a few years back, because I'd forgotten about the site and they all lost their names, so I started from scratch). It's all up to preference.

[blah]

At the beginning I didn't care about lineages either. Then I ran out of dragons to collect and started collecting CBs. Then I had all the CBs... you see where this is going.

 

It's just a way to have something to do on DC.

 

They're also pretty to look at

[Ytak]

It's a way to play the game. If you want to play just to collect sprites and don't care about lineages, that's fine. I've collected a number of dragons that way myself. But, as I collected more and more of the sprites, I changed the way I played. I like breeding to create patterns. It's just a game and you can make up your own rules for how you play.

[Isuzu]

It just adds a new layer to the game itself. Collecting all the sprites can be pretty easy, so to add more challenge or just have something to do once that goal is reached (and you're in between new releases) lineages give you something else to do. They don't influence the dragon itself, just it's trade value and even then just as others said it's a matter of preference. Some people like certain lineages more than others.

 

Like others sated before I too started the game not caring (or at one point not even knowing) about lineages, but when my scroll started getting bigger and the number of sprites I needed lower I started looking for other things to collect.

 

But yes in the end it's just a matter of preference, just like having certain codes, or a certain number of each breed or freezing.

Edited December 13, 2014 by Isuzu

[Syphoneira]

Personally, I just like looking at lineages I think are pretty and have enormous respect for the work that goes into many longer/more complex lineages.

 

But some I love may not be even-gen or patterned at all - Wow, man, I see colours...the colours... lol

 

As stated, it boils down to personal taste, but since the greatest demand regarding bred dragons for breeding and in gifting/trading IS for neat, pretty lineages, the capacity to produce them from your dragons is important in that area as well.

 

 

 

Edit: back before TJ gave us our lineage viewers, I also had little to no idea about lineages.

 

We used to be able to look back at the lineage of our dragons only one step at a time, so I never really bothered, although I did eventually find out about a now long-defunct fansite which allowed people to see their lineages, so I knew and cared nothing about them when I first started either.

 

It was the lineage viewers becoming available on our dragons which made so many of us generally aware of 'ooooo, that's pretty' or 'Uck, what a mess' lineages, and opened up a whole new aspect for DC to the community.

Edited December 13, 2014 by Syphoneira

[Katie]

It's all about preference and how you like to play the game. For me personally, I don't mind messy lineages but it is nice to look at the pretty lineages that I have on my scroll.

[Ruby Eyes]

You're right, there's no big deal about them. Like, no deal at all, for me, because I don't like them. I prefer symmetry when looking at lineages.

 

That's basically what others have said already, just in different words: preference

[Flaviel]

Well, basically it is just a preference.

At first, like many here, I just wanted to get as many dragons as possible in the shortest time imaginable. This lady here is one of my earliest dragons and she is a good example of the lineage every single dragon of mine had back then. Since then I released most of my messy-lineaged dragons, except those who have some kind of sentimental value to me or have a practical use (like reds).

 

Now I couldn't care less about the collecting aspect of the game. If I don't really like a sprite there can be weeks and months before a new release will finally find a home on my scroll and sometimes I just never bother to get a specific breed unless I need it for some sort of lineage.

Thus the only thing keeping me here (besides the people) is creating lineages. They are like extra challenges for me. You have to plan them, carry them out; for more specific lineages one might have to arrange trades. Also, depending on the breed they can be very time-consuming (especially if you are working with Seasonals or Holidays). And well, at the end you are rewarded with a pretty lineage other people may also like .

[Swissalo]

I like both, the messy lines are just like life, the mutt breed. There's nothing wrong with them and most of my dragons are messy lines. When you grab a neat lineage from the AP, you know that it took the creator a great deal of time and effort to create I like them as well. Of my few neat lineages that's just something to do to keep me interested in the game, challenging myself.

 

I don't trade, I breed most of my dragons for myself, so I do what I do to keep having fun.

[Nalyua]

At the beginning I didn't care about lineages either. Then I ran out of dragons to collect and started collecting CBs. Then I had all the CBs... you see where this is going.

 

It's just a way to have something to do on DC.

 

This basically sums everything up

[Banyanpan]

Of course lineage doesn't actually matter, they're just pixels on the screen. But once you collect a bunch of every dragon things can start to get boring, so creating and collecting pretty lines gives users something to do.

[Ruby Eyes]

Of course lineage doesn't actually matter, they're just pixels on the screen.

As is each and every dragon you can collect here: just pixels on the screen.

[dragontamer44722]

I dont breed dagons in lineages simply because most of my dragons are AP pickups who are messy to begin with. I really only play the game for collecting purposes so I dont have an interest in lineages, but if I find a dragon with a decent lineage I either won't breed it or will breed it o continue the lineage if I can.