Holly Contest 2015

[Dracaena]

I have 3 holly hatchlings left, I'm putting them up on 2-way teleports. Just use a dummy egg or send me a PM (try again in a bit if it's full after I've had time to wake up) if you are egg locked and can't pick up a dummy (random egg from AP). I'm heading to bed and will check the teleports in around 6-8 hours from now.

 

8th even gen, influenced male with a cute code says he's "am TJ". Has some song lyrics and Doctor Who lineages in the ancestors. Holly (0AmTJ) Gone to Angel_Princess

 

6th gen spiral, influenced female to continue. This one started out as white with silver before the holly blood was introduced. Holly (4JzBa) Gone to Angel_Princess

 

9th gen two step spiral, influenced male to continue. Two step meaning the gender is the same for two generations before it switches. This one is an AP catch and older than the other two. There is a possiblity it may grow up before I wake up, just be aware. Holly (EMeOu) Gone to Angel_Princess

 

Angel_Princess was the only one who offered on all three of them. They were getting too low time to worry with trying to find more people interested in them to spread them out with different owners.

 

Edit: You're welcome, Angel_Princess!

Edited December 30, 2015 by Dracaena

[Lurhstaap]

FWIW I call that last type of lineage a zigzag because it makes a clearer shape than the spiral.

 

Unfortunately all of my remaining unclaimed Hollies have grown up. However, I still can breed plenty of G2 metals and other alternative prizes. Just say the word and I will breed.

[Angel_Princess]

Thanks Dracaena for the Hollies, I was afraid that no one would want to take them or they would die so I decided to give them a home.

Edited December 30, 2015 by Angel_Princess

[Lurhstaap]

So what's going on right now? Is it time to start discussing next year? Is there even enough thread staff to do next year or do we need some more volunteers? I love this project and I don't want to see it die because the people who usually run it are busy. I'm happy to step in or even take over if needed.

[Wiz]

We are just sorting out the alternative prizes. We will get back to everyone once that's done.

[Lurhstaap]

All righty. I've just been online long enough to know that sometimes good stuff dies off because the people who wanted to run it got caught up by RL and no one else stepped up. And I've been guilty of just watching it happen in the past. So I decided I'd try to do better next time. I'm disabled with very few friends or family so I have a fair amount of time on my hands. The least I can do is offer to use it to give a break to people with more to do. I'll assume things are okay from here on out, but if help is ever needed, please feel free to ask me.

[banban007]

I can donate my 4th-6th gen prizes as alternative prize if needed. Just let me know.

[Hawkster]

So while Wiz sorts out Alt prizes, Thank you Wiz and we discuss future of the thread internally. I was wondering how the collection of the Flamingo's went. This will be answered best by competitors who will have seen the impact the most. Plus fact I was not really active enough

 

1) We chose Flamingo obviously because it is common.

Did you notice an impact trying to collect them from the cave?

For example with Spitfires several years ago, towards the end we were still able to get them from the caves, it just seemed that they were less often caveblockers

 

Did you notice an impact trying to breed them?

For example with Spitfires, we noticed a much bigger impact on trying breed (which was frustrating for several us trying to complete our breeding projects lol). There seemed to be lot more outright refusals, and even when they didnt refuse, seen lot more results of no egg being bred.

 

2) We also chose Flamingo because we were curious to see since they share same egg description with Pinks, how and IF there were any impact on Pinks in the cave.

Did you notice in shared Coast & Jungle biomes, that this resulted in getting more Pinks instead of Flamingo's?

 

Or did you just see less of those egg description in shared Coast & Jungle altogether?

 

Or maybe did you notice just seeing Pink less often in all other non-shared (Alpine, Desert, Forest, & Volcano) biomes because they started being picked up more often in shared biomes?

 

Or not really seen any impact at all on Pinks?

For example really the only way to catch Pink is normally in non-shared biomes with Flamingo and this remained the case.

Edited January 2, 2016 by Hawkster

[Lurhstaap]

Absolutely there was a cave impact, but I think the impact was stronger in the AP. Because Flamingos share a description with the desirable BSA having Pinks, people have always been willing to quickly grab at that egg desc in the biomes. The issue for Flamingos specifically was, therefore, less being caveblockers in the traditional sense of this thread (stuff like the Spitfire or BBW that just plain is ignored in the biomes a lot) but rather that most CB Flamingos would end up AP'd for not being Pinks.

 

Also. Flamingos are relatively popular in breeding. I know there's at least one person who's obsessed with Flamingo x Black Marrow, and I also often see Flamingo with the various Valentine's dragons. So while Flamingos have never been much of a biome clogger, they were once a common sight in the AP and were not often picked up quickly there.

 

However, I can tell you that during the contest, there were many fewer CB Flamingos hitting the AP to begin with, so that most of the ones I saw were now bred, very different to the past. The ones that I did see were quite competitive. Not nearly as much so as the really nice stuff that sometimes goes through, like bred metals or prizes, of course, but at least as much as a BSA egg or Nebula or other popular uncommon. I made a point of grabbing at them often, and unlike before the contest, I was not always fast enough, showing that others were grabbing for the same eggs. Whereas before the contest and in the early parts of it, if I wanted a Flamingo, it was never a competition. I just waited until I saw one - which never took long - and picked it up. Very simple. But during the contest, hunting Flamingos was similar to hunting Gemshards or Nebulas. They dropped often enough but didn't stay long, ever.

 

I also noted that when the contest ended, Flamingos were suddenly much more common in the AP again, within days. That too is a significant indicator of the impact we have.

 

I did not do a lot of Flamingo breeding since I just tend to forget that's a valid way of doing the contest. I almost exclusively get mine through the AP, the biomes, and trading. But the few I did breed didn't seen any more difficult to breed than usual - yet this was often an established pair or a holiday/rarer mate. So I find it hard to say on this point. Someone who bred more of their Flamingos would have more useful observations on that point.

 

I didn't notice a change in the actual ratio of Flamingos to Pinks in the biomes. For me, it was like before - an egg picked up in the Coast was a Flamingo about 75% of the time and one from the Jungle (which I saw far less often than Coast for some reason) was Flamingo about 60% of the time. However, it did seem to me that pinks spawned a little more commonly than before in the non-shared biomes, funnily enough. That may have simply been an unrelated fluctuation in Pink spawning based on their own ratios, of course, but the timing is suggestive if nothing else.

 

I think the major impact on pinks was mostly that people were much less likely to balk at grabbing Coast and Jungle eggs, since if it turned out to be a Flamingo and not a Pink it could be used for the contest, so it no longer felt like a risk of an egg slot the way it did to many before. Speaking for myself I can tell you that I was actually often disappointed when a shared-biome egg hatched out pink. So I think the major difference was just that people were more willing to grab at that desc in ANY biome rather than just the non-shared, and much more likely to keep whichever egg they got rather than always AP-dumping any Flamingos. In short, in my view, the contest equalized the value of Flamingos and Pinks, or at least brought them much closer to equal.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Lurhstaap

[Hawkster]

Ah yes, forgot about that aspect. It was always easy to get CB Flamingo from AP. Because like you said so many were dumped there while trying to get Pink's. During the contest, they were more often being kept and/or traded to people in this competition instead of being dumped. So lot less CB ones in AP, that makes sense.

 

As to it being far more competitive hunting them in AP than caves. Yes it was same way with Spitfires. This implies to me more about hunting habits of participants.

 

I didn't notice a change in the actual ratio of Flamingos to Pinks in the biomes. For me, it was like before - an egg picked up in the Coast was a Flamingo about 75% of the time and one from the Jungle (which I saw far less often than Coast for some reason) was Flamingo about 60% of the time. However, it did seem to me that pinks spawned a little more commonly than before in the non-shared biomes, funnily enough. That may have simply been an unrelated fluctuation in Pink spawning based on their own ratios, of course, but the timing is suggestive if nothing else.

 

I think the major impact on pinks was mostly that people were much less likely to balk at grabbing Coast and Jungle eggs, since if it turned out to be a Flamingo and not a Pink it could be used for the contest, so it no longer felt like a risk of an egg slot the way it did to many before. Speaking for myself I can tell you that I was actually often disappointed when a shared-biome egg hatched out pink. So I think the major difference was just that people were more willing to grab at that desc in ANY biome rather than just the non-shared, and much more likely to keep whichever egg they got rather than always AP-dumping any Flamingos. In short, in my view, the contest equalized the value of Flamingos and Pinks, or at least brought them much closer to equal.

Sounds like than that because Pinks were being grabbed more often in shared biomes as result of people now hunting for both Pinks + Flamingo's there, this did indeed impact Pinks indirectly in non-shared biomes. Pinks were now being grabbed in far greater numbers in shared biomes so they had to destabilize themself by appearing less often in other biomes.

 

Merely speculative, but I was also wondering why dragons sometimes seem to appear more or less often for each biome. For example you noticed seeing description less often in Jungle than Coast. I had noticed this before we picked Flamingo too, among many other dragon examples as well. Which made me wonder if 1) was either due to different % set amounts for each biome. Or 2) if was just more due to what all is available in those biomes. In other words in this case Coast which only has 35 different types of Dragons avail as opposed to 46 Jungle. Plus more importantly of those 35 that are in Coast more of them are uncommons and rare and not nearly as many different common types, than say ones in Jungle which have more commons (Anagallis, BBW, canopy, couple pygmies, fever, neo, etc). So by default Flamingo is having to compete with lot more commons in Jungle, than it does in Coast.

 

If any of that made sense, lol. Anyway sounds more like it is second one.

 

[Clya]

So once I started actually trying to Flamingo hunt (which I can say I wasn't trying very hard.....) I continued to grab CB pinks from the cave a lot more often than I would see a Flamingo.

And I still feel that I see a lot more Pinks than I do Flamingos.

[Lurhstaap]

@Hawkster - Well, the thing is, those explanations aren't mutually exclusive. It could easily be a bit of both - ratios at work PLUS the fact that there are more commons in the Jungle.

 

@Clya - Flamingos only drop in Coast and Jungle so if you're hunting all biomes, naturally you'll find more pinks. But in my experience Flamingos outnumber pinks in the shared biomes. Was this not your experience?

Edited January 2, 2016 by Lurhstaap

[Wahya]

1. Not really, no. I collected most of mine from the AP, though I was less disappointed when I saw them in the Cave, since I was collecting them for a purpose.

 

I didn't breed any that I can think of myself, so I didn't personally notice an impact.

 

2. I can't say I saw fewer of the description, but I always took notice when I did see it. I normally only AP hunt as long as the AP eggs are under 5-6 days or so, thus I'm not in the Cave as much as I could be. However, they certainly moved faster wherever I saw them.

 

 

[The Holly Contest]

All PM's for alternative prizes have gone out. If you chose to have an alternative prize and you do not have a PM listing your choices please can you message me on my Personal Account.

 

Also we decided to try something different this year and let you guys help choose the dragon we will be collecting. So keep an eye out for the poll coming soon!

 

~Wiz.

[AppleMango]

All PM's for alternative prizes have gone out. If you chose to have an alternative prize and you do not have a PM listing your choices please can you message me on my Personal Account.

 

Also we decided to try something different this year and let you guys help choose the dragon we will be collecting. So keep an eye out for the poll coming soon!

 

~Wiz.

Can we make suggestions?

 

Terrae please hahahaha.

They are my fave <3

[MessengerDragon]

May I suggest water walkers?

[The Holly Contest]

Sorry I added the poll before I saw the suggestions. We have tried to give a nice range of choice though so hopefully there is something for everyone.

~Wiz

 

[AppleMango]

Sorry I added the poll before I saw the suggestions. We have tried to give a nice range of choice though so hopefully there is something for everyone.

~Wiz

That's alright

 

Honestly I think that it would be a bit unfair to take my suggestion because I really love terraes and would be more motivated to get them than people who don't like them as much. I mean I'm sure that happens all the time, but yeah. Also I think they would be a pain for you since they hatch from 3 different eggs and therefore go all over the place on people's scrolls.

 

I think the range you chose is good.

[Hawkster]

Ha ha, my old mentor water_angel loved terraes too.

[Skyal]

I mostly forgot about the contest until the beginning of December. With my kids' help I was still able to get 21 Flamingos, mostly from the cave & AP. We did all try breeding several times, but mostly got failures.

[Wiz]

Don't forget to vote for this year's dragon if you haven't done so already!

https://forums.dragcave.net/index.php?showtopic=172815&st=0

[rubyshoes]

Going to go ahead and close this thread as we have the "new" 2016 one open now (PM me if I've closed this to soon and the Holly Contest 2015 thread needs to be open a bit longer).

Edited January 7, 2016 by rubyshoes