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Trader's Canyon

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My brain hurts.

 

I used to be OK with collect points BY PLAYING, spend points, with holidays only in season.

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Sounds like a reasonable idea, but I'd like to suggest a slight change:

 

If you unlock one of the rare sections, you can only one single egg from there before the section is locked again.

 

This, in itself, is a limit for every player - as in, you can only buy 1 prize every X months.

 

Of course, if you unlock a holiday section, that section stays open until the end of the respective breeding season, no matter how many holiday eggs you trade for.

This sounds pretty good to me - if I understand correctly, if you unlock the Valentine section you could buy your 2 CB Sweetlings, because it lasts until the dragons is available, but if you unlock the Metallic section, it locks after trading for a CB Gold and you'd have to use more points to get another one. This way there's be no need for points to reset each year, the unlocked Holiday section would become locked after the availability period runs out and the other sections would become locked after buying a dragon from that section.

 

The alternative to this could also be scroll limits of how many dragons of a certain type you could buy per year. A limit like being able to buy for example 2 CB Golds per year could also work well (the number is up for discussion, but I don't believe they should be too high).

 

 

My brain hurts.

 

I used to be OK with collect points BY PLAYING, spend points, with holidays only in season.

I'm perfectly ok with spending points for dragons directly, it's a simple and neat idea. I've been supporting it from the start and is my favorite idea for a store by far, but as far as I understand some players dislike points as a currency, because it supposedly devalues dragons, so we're trying to come up with an alternative.

 

This system isn't really all that complicated, you still collect points by playing the game, but instead of spending them directly, you do a little detour and use them to unlock a part of the shop that sells the type of dragon you're interested in buying when it's available. Then the trader says what they charge for that dragon, like Thuban presented.

 

This way there's be certain conditions to be met and no need for limiting how many dragons a trader has - the system would still reward player dedication and wouldn't depend on luck of being at the right moment at the right time to be able to trade for a dragon you need.

 

Of course, this is just another suggestion to be an addition to the trader system, there are probably even better ways, but this is what jumped to mind. :3

 

------------

How many points it would take to unlock certain sections of the store and what the trader would ask for a dragon is up for discussion.

 

My suggestion for unlocking prices (if 1 day of playing brings 1 point):

for commons/uncommons: free access

for Holidays/Metallics & Rares: 2-3 months worth of points

for Shimmers/HM prizes: 5-6 months worth of points

 

As for the prices, I believe that with the use of points, the prices the trader sets up needn't necessarily be very high, because we'd already be partly 'paying' him by unlocking a special part of the store, so there's be no real need for him to be asking for very hard to get dragons, like alts for example. I like Thuban's idea about the trader having randomized prices.

 

The reason I'm hesitant (not strictly against) about having the trader asking for alts is simply for the reason that alts are mostly harder to get then Metallics (you can get a messy Silver for a few hatchies, sometimes even a single CB one, but this is not the case for alts) and if a trader asks for an alt in exchange for a Holiday dragon that's only available for a week there's a very real chance many wouldn't be able to meet this price. Alts in exchange for dragons available throughout a whole year, sure, but not really for Holiday breeds or any dragon available only for a short period of time. Just my 2 cents. tongue.gif

Edited by stagazer_7

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I still don't think limits are necessary. The amount of points you can accumulate in a given time works as a limit. Egg space during holiday events works as a limit for holiday breeds, not to mention scroll limits. The price of an egg limits just how much you can buy.

 

For example, imagine the following scenario: With one year of playing daily, you can choose between the following:

One prize dragon.

Three holiday dragons. (Ideally, one Vday, one Halloween and one Winter Holiday).

One regular rare (gold, silver, copper...)

6 uncommons (unbreedables, trios, blusangs...)

52 commons (or 104 blockers).

Do you really want to prevent someone from buying their 104th blocker a year just for the sake of limits? Is it really necessary to make sure someone doesn't buy a 2nd prize of kind x in their 2nd year (after implementation), even though, at the same time, they won't be able to buy any of the other prizes or a holly?  Someone buying two hollies and one Val '09 won't be able to buy themselves a set of pumpkins, nor will they have any of the other shiny things in the shop this year. (Plus, they won't be able to do that again due to scroll limits.)

 

Is it really necessary to exclude commons from the shop? Or rares, even? Anybody buying a CB gold to complete their collection won't buy a prize dragon that year, nor will they buy a CB holiday.

 

As you can see from these examples, the pricing itself is the best limit, yet leaves everyone the choice to do with their points as they please.  Balancing the prices of the various breeds will be challenging, but this system is easy to understand (buy what you want and can afford), offers players maximum freedom or choices yet limits them through the amount of points available to them.

 

The only other limit I feel is necessary is that shop eggs should be locked to their respective scroll.

 

 

 

 

 

Personally I've been taking that, or something in that area, (since many members have all limited CB Holidays apart from Hollies, and might want multiple of one type of CB Halloweens for lineages) as a reasonable standard, together with something similar to:

 

fuzzbucket:

 

'My brain hurts.

 

I used to be OK with collect points BY PLAYING, spend points, with holidays only in season.'

 

 

If we don't keep this simple, I fear that we may not get anywhere with this...

 

 

 

Hi, stagazer_7,

 

if I could ask a few questions? smile.gif

 

 

Regarding: '... This way there's be no need for points to reset each year, the unlocked Holiday section would become locked after the availability period runs out and the other sections would become locked after buying a dragon from that section. ...'

 

 

Why exactly would points need to reset each year? unsure.gif

 

If someone was unable to get anything they wanted that year, or wanted to save toward something else, why would they have to lose their savings so that they couldn't use them toward a Valentine, Halloween, Christmas or Prize CB dragon later the following year?

 

Different people are going to want different things and have different priorities and people who already have their max of the limited CB Holidays apart from Hollies are in a different case from those who may have missed out on various of these.

 

So someone might want to get only a Holly, a Prize or, if available, a CB Alt at Christmas, or only get several of the same CB Halloween sprite for lineages at Halloween and already be unable to manage the points to do this that year - why couldn't they at least save what they'd earned toward this for the next year?

 

Wouldn't that be more likely to discourage people from participating, rather than providing encouragement to play more? sad.gif

 

Since the store point amounts were typically suggested so as to allow people to get only one Prize (or perhaps 2 if no Holidays,etc., were obtained, in some suggestions, or a Prize and a Holiday or two in others) during a very brief period once a year OR a limited number of CB Holidays also during very brief periods of the year, in my (admittedly amateur) estimation, this therefore has a built-in restriction which should require nothing further.

 

 

 

'... This system isn't really all that complicated, you still collect points by playing the game, but instead of spending them directly, you do a little detour and use them to unlock a part of the shop that sells the type of dragon you're interested in buying when it's available. Then the trader says what they charge for that dragon, like Thuban presented.

 

This way there's be certain conditions to be met and no need for limiting how many dragons a trader has - the system would still reward player dedication and wouldn't depend on luck of being at the right moment at the right time to be able to trade for a dragon you need. ...'

 

 

Could you pretty-please explain to me how paying a large portion of your points just to see what's available in any one section and how much it is actually works to reward payer dedication or reduce any postulated need for restrictions beyond the existing base conditions, apart from introducing a middle-man and a situation where you have to blow a lot, maybe most, of your points (since it's up to half a year's max points, not up to half of whatever you may have saved up) to find out whether you can afford a particular dragon, and therefore can't afford even to look at any others?

 

Sorry, I probably just haven't had enough coffee yet, (I need a LOT of caffeine laugh.gif ) but I really don't get that one at the moment, lol.

 

 

... My suggestion for unlocking prices (if 1 day of playing brings 1 point):

for commons/uncommons: free access

for Holidays/Metallics & Rares: 2-3 months worth of points

for Shimmers/HM prizes: 5-6 months worth of points

 

As for the prices, I believe that with the use of points, the prices the trader sets up needn't necessarily be very high, because we'd already be partly 'paying' him by unlocking a special part of the store, so there's be no real need for him to be asking for very hard to get dragons, like alts for example. I like Thuban's idea about the trader having randomized prices. ...'

 

 

 

But especially with randomized prices, the odds would be against people having enough left to get any dragon (other than Commons/Uncommons many might not bother with, especially since cutting into chances of possible others they couldn't otherwise get) that year, since it already seems to have been accepted by many of us that as a base requirement, the amount of capped points relative to the dragon prices and the extremely limited annual period of availability generally proposed would control what people would buy among the various categories of dragons people would be most likely to want when available.

 

Paying up to half a year's points (especially if you may already have splurged that year on a Holiday and have spent a huge chunk there) to unlock each section of the store in order to discover that there's nothing available that you want and can still afford frankly kinda strikes me as a rip...

 

 

And paying in multiple arduously collected dragons in a rush during Holiday breeding seasons as here suggested strikes me as being far worse, because at best it conflicts with RL holiday plans/family time and interferes with or forestalls potential fulfillment of lineage requirements for the coming year in the very short window of availability for each Holiday, so that a number of people are effectively shut out unless they sacrifice perhaps both family time and actual game-play of the type that keeps people playing long-term in prospectively losing a year's advance on various Holiday lineages.

 

 

Regarding the Trader idea, while I do like the concept, the more I think about the circumstances in which this would occur during the seasons when different Holidays were available (and if the trader, as in various suggested permutations, doesn't happen to have anything you want or if you're locked with undroppable and irreplaceable Holiday breds/gifts or need to save breeding room and can't make room to try to hunt down multiple dragons, in any event done rather than hunting for the Holiday lineages you need that year for the next) the more I think it unworkable for many of us.

 

 

Many people have family stuff or travel for visits at Holidays and may find it hard enough to get on just to catch the new Holiday dragons - a number already can't manage it at all.

 

They certainly wouldn't have time to try to hunt down multiple dragons, perhaps even at various stages of growth, (where obtained hard-to-come-by-in-time hatchies could grow up before the other trade dragons were obtained) in order to try to trade for even the dragon of their dreams, assuming they could manage it at all - plus, in this suggestion, perhaps half to most of their points would have gone just opening the area, to see what's there and how much.

 

 

People like myself and a number of people I know who spend the week of the Holiday breeding season frantically breeding, gifting, trying to swap lineages and hunting the AP for suitable lineages we can only hope to get during one week of each year are already perennially short of scroll space at this time, and must also save space for the new Holiday Release.

 

We're not necessarily going to blow our only chances every Holiday of trying to get what we need for lineage plans for the following year in order to keep scroll space empty for frantic hunting and trading to try to get whatever a trader might want for even the Holly or Prize of our dreams, because especially at that season, whatever random things the trader might ask for might be exceptionally hard/impossible to find and it might be for nothing that we set our lineage plans back a year - possibly every year - chasing a wild hope and likely having an all-round disappointing experience.

 

And I certainly agree with you regarding the Alts - they're generally very rarely seen even on the 6 fansites I often give Views to daily, several of which have Viewers I clean a number of times daily and therefore have some idea as to what's appearing on them.

 

Trying to find even specific of the more common dragons at Holiday breeding times would be far harder during such Holiday periods than it apparently is for some who state they've been looking for relatively common dragons for perhaps weeks without finding them in the Cave or on an AP NOT then half-or-more-full of bred Holidays and frantic hunters.

 

 

Granted, all this is only my perspective, but I'd personally rather not go back to half-dreading Holidays rather than simply enjoying them, as has been the case in recent years.

 

 

TLDR:

 

The built-in restrictions of pricing and limited annual availability for Holidays and Prizes already cover many of the additional restrictions people have suggested on this thread: smile.gif

 

having to miss out on family time at holidays and the once-yearly chances to gather bred Holiday lineages we need for the next year in order to collect dragons for a potential trade we may not be able to complete and which loses up to half of our annual points when just checking to see what's there/how much, rather than simply using points-by-any-name and having to only keep one egg-space clear, isn't feasible for many people; sad.gif

 

we need something that works overall for the general membership which we can present as a workable or at least adaptable suggestion. cool.gif

 

 

We honestly really do need to take the circumstances which will prevail into consideration and try to work out the most practical plan for getting where we want to go with the minimum of deleterious effects for the most participants. wub.gif

 

Can we come up with/go back to something that wouldn't conflict with regular game-play, especially during Holiday breeding periods, and which would enable people to have a reasonable chance of at least trying for whichever dragons they most want without losing their points for just shopping around? poptartFINALTINY.gif

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I liked the original idea better with the store open year round that we can use are points for what ever we want. Obviously Holidays would only be available during their season. Trading is already ruined by the raffle prizes as it is, so I don't think this could do anymore damage then what we have now. If anything, it could help even the playing field for the average player as trading has become very frustrating as I will never be able to get anything below a fourth gen prize nor would I be able to get a CB gold unless I catch it myself because I don't have a CB prize. I still think it should take a couple of months of playing to build up enough points to get one.

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Hi, stagazer_7,

 

if I could ask a few questions?  smile.gif

 

 

Regarding: '... This way there's be no need for points to reset each year, the unlocked Holiday section would become locked after the availability period runs out and the other sections would become locked after buying a dragon from that section. ...'

Why exactly would points need to reset each year?  unsure.gif

 

If someone was unable to get anything they wanted that year, or wanted to save toward something else, why would they have to lose their savings so that they couldn't use them toward a Valentine, Halloween, Christmas or Prize CB dragon later the following year?

 

Different people are going to want different things and have different priorities and people who already have their max of the limited CB Holidays apart from Hollies are in a different case from those who may have missed out on various of these.

 

So someone might want to get only a Holly, a Prize or, if available, a CB Alt at Christmas, or only get several of the same CB Halloween sprite for lineages at Halloween and already be unable to manage the points to do this that year - why couldn't they at least save what they'd earned toward this for the next year?

 

Wouldn't that be more likely to discourage people from participating, rather than providing encouragement to play more?  sad.gif

 

Since the store point amounts were typically suggested so as to allow people to get only one Prize (or perhaps 2 if no Holidays,etc., were obtained, in some suggestions, or a Prize and a Holiday or two in others) during a very brief period once a year OR a limited number of CB Holidays also during very brief periods of the year, in my (admittedly amateur) estimation, this therefore has a built-in restriction which should require nothing further.

Hi Syphoneira! :3

 

I hope I'll manage to explain this somewhat coherently (I'm terrible at explaining things). tongue.gif This is all just brainstorming.

 

The idea behind resetting points was just an suggestion to possibly avoid in-store limits, but rather then having points reset each year, I much prefer olympe's suggestion that you'd use your points to unlock the section of the store where you can buy dragons you're interested in and after buying the said dragon that section would lock up again and if you wanted to buy another dragon, you'd simply offer more points to unlock it again. For Holidays this would last the entire week they're available, which would mean you could trade for as many Holidays you wished (or scroll limits would allow) during that week. After that week is done the section would lock up and if you still wanted some more dragons from that section next year you'd need points to unlock it again. For other rares like Metallics/Tins/Shimmers/HM Prizes, the section would lock up after buying the desired dragon.

 

In the original suggestion you'd use points as a currency to buy dragons directly, which bothered some players because they don't wish to see any price tags on dragons and feel this would devalue them. This idea is basically the same thing in a slightly different package - here you're not paying for the dragon, but for a right to trade for that dragon, so there are no prices on the dragons themselves.

 

Basically, say you want to get a CB Gold dragon and you collect the needed number of points:

Original idea: Gold dragon = xx points; pay directly --> want another Gold? You need another xx points

This suggestion: Metallic section unlock = xx ponts; pay and you can then deal with the trader who says what symbolic price he wants for the dragon ---> want another Gold? You need another xx points to unlock the section and trade again (yeah, a bit more complicated, but at least nobody can say the dragons have a price tag on their foreheads cool.gif )

 

As for Holiday dragons - if you'd have to pay in points for each Holiday dragon you wanted to get, it would make sense to apply this to this idea too. Paying the trader to open up a Holiday section in points and having that section then permanently open is kind of like paying for 1 Marrow in full and then getting the rest for a severely reduced price. Hope that makes sense. :3

 

 

Could you pretty-please explain to me how paying a large portion of your points just to see what's available in any one section and how much it is actually works to reward payer dedication or reduce any postulated need for restrictions beyond the existing base conditions, apart from introducing a middle-man and a situation where you have to blow a lot, maybe most, of your points (since it's up to half a year's max points, not up to half of whatever you may have saved up) to find out whether you can afford a particular dragon, and therefore can't afford even to look at any others?

 

Sorry, I probably just haven't had enough coffee yet, (I need a LOT of caffeine  laugh.gif ) but I really don't get that one at the moment, lol.

 

But especially with randomized prices, the odds would be against people having enough left to get any dragon (other than Commons/Uncommons many might not bother with, especially since cutting into chances of possible others they couldn't otherwise get) that year, since it already seems to have been accepted by many of us that as a base requirement, the amount of capped points relative to the dragon prices and the extremely limited annual period of availability generally proposed would control what people would buy among the various categories of dragons people would be most likely to want when available.

 

Paying up to half a year's points (especially if you may already have splurged that year on a Holiday and have spent a huge chunk there) to unlock each section of the store in order to discover that there's nothing available that you want and can still afford frankly kinda strikes me as a rip...

I assume that the trader should have all dragons in every section of the shop on display, just not available for trading. For example, in the Valentine section you'd be able too see each of the Valentine dragons you'd be able to buy, from Val09's to Heartstealers. I suppose the only thing you wouldn't see are the prices, since these were suggested to be randomized.

 

And as far as prices for these dragons go, I suggest that they'd be affordable, symbolic even. We're already paying in a large part with points (and all the time we invested in gathering them). I see no real need for super rare dragons half of us can't afford as a price (I know it would make me miffed if I invested 2-3 months worth of points only to see I have to pay an alt Black for each Marrow I'd wish to get).

 

And I completely agree with you about everything you said about how harsh the conditions during the Holiday season would be (didn't quote that as my post is already getting too long tongue.gif). The scroll traffic during that time is insane on most scrolls (mine included). If we'd have to trade dragon for dragon vial the Trader I'd much prefer to see the Trader not asking for hatchies during Holidays, but that's a preference from personal reasons alone, because my scroll is just so super busy being egglocked with pretty lineages during that time. tongue.gif Also, it's been suggested that the trader could ask for other Holiday's in exchange for his CB Holidays. I think this could be very useful in the holiday season, when holiday eggs are easy to come by - some could even be bred on one's own scrolls and there are plenty of them to be grabbed from the AP and offered in exchange. If done right this could be as simple as going to the AP, grabbing a x-gen Snow Angel egg and exchanging it for a CB Ribbon Dancer, it wouldn't take more then a few minutes.

 

 

--------

 

 

I personally still love Thuban's original idea of exchanging points for dragons directly best, it's neat, simple and effective. Collect points, earn your reward and you're done. <3 With in build scroll limits of how many dragons you could have on your scroll and how many you could collect in one year, there really would be no need for limiting the number of dragons the trader/shop has or anything of a sort. This idea has my 100% support.

 

I simply don't get it why some people don't seem to like this... rolleyes.gif

Edited by stagazer_7

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I personally still love Thuban's original idea of exchanging points for dragons directly best, it's neat, simple and effective. Collect points, earn your reward and you're done. <3 With in build scroll limits of how many dragons you could have on your scroll and how many you could collect in one year, there really would be no need for limiting the number of dragons the trader/shop has or anything of a sort. This idea has my 100% support.

 

I simply don't get it why some people don't seem to like this... rolleyes.gif

Nor do I. It helps with my headache !

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Hi, stagazer_7!

 

Thanks, and I think you've done a beautiful job of explaining - I don't tend to get much sleep (often at least partly from staying up all night with my dragons, lol) and know I'm more likely to miss, or misread, things when I'm very tired, and I still am! (Despite two cups of coffee, lol.)

 

So pleeeeeease correct me wherever I'm mistaken, as it seems a good possibility, lol.

 

I'm very glad that we wouldn't have to pay just to see what was available or what the prices were - but if we went with the general area of (admittedly still unspecified) limitations already agreed upon for capped points and the ball-park of what they'd actually buy annually, we likely wouldn't be able to load our scrolls up with CB Marrows or other Halloween dragons, especially if we might want anything else that year, which covers the situation in a very straightforward fashion, *as there should then be no need for further restrictions*, especially since various people would want different things than would others and since so very much of what we might want could NOT (*sobs* lol) be managed in any single year on the points we'd be likely to collect.

 

We'd have to decide, perhaps thinking: gee, you'd just love to get a Holly or an older Prize at Christmas, if you could manage it - can you risk getting two CB Marrows or Desipis at Halloween, without our knowing what the prices would be or if we'd be able to come up with that much, especially if the prices were to be randomized, which would make calculations or even guess-work forever impossible. (Personally, I'd rather know and be able to plan, rather than missing out on something useful I could have obtained in order to still not have enough months later for what I'd hoped and been saving for, lol.)

 

But with the pay-to-unlock-for-trade system, fast traders who got in in time could likely fill their scrolls and it seems likely that limits would be imposed, only then shifted to the number of available dragons instead, causing a rapid run on a first-come first-served basis where the fastest got lots until the supplies ran dry.

 

 

I'm also glad the prospect of resetting points, which I'd missed the discussion of, seems to be currently avoided.

 

If the points were to be reset after Christmas, perhaps at New Years? obviously nobody would have points for a Prize, should they become available through this, or perhaps even enough at the time for a Valentine CB, should they be available though this, so obtaining those dragons could be moot even if TJ allowed them, since on the point system, we seem to be mostly wandering in or around the range of 2-3 months of points for a Holiday, 6 months to a year for a Prize.

 

Even under the pay-to-unlock-for-trade system as described, with a high entry price in points, I would suspect it ?might take months? for people to re-accumulate enough points to get in for anything after each re-set.

 

Resetting points after Valentines might not leave enough time to accumulate points for some dragons by the following Christmas, either, especially if somebody splurged on an older CB Halloween, so it would help in limiting dragon purchases there as well, but I have to admit that this is not a route I'd personally choose.

 

 

What about people having a choice as to whether they traded for, or used points for, any particular dragon?

 

The more I think about this, the more I suspect that I'd never try to do that sort of a trade during the Holiday breeding season myself, and I rather doubt that I'm alone in that, so that Trader option would actually be useless to people like me, who have too many Holiday lineage starts going to miss out on going through the AP lovelies in order to join the hordes who weren't into into lineages and were out looking for probably much the same dragons we'd be looking for, for their trades.

 

In part because, as mentioned above, another factor would be that of course the very fast people, under this scenario, would likely be able to trade for FAR more Store dragons than they'd be able to dream of under the more strictly limited point system, so then there WOULD need to be limited numbers of the Store dragons available, (certainly regarding Halloweens) typically meaning that only the fastest might be able to get these at all.

 

So slower people who tried this would likely miss out both on much of the AP hunting and on the dragons they'd been hoping to get, since they'd quite possibly be all gone long before they'd managed to get whatever was being asked for them.

 

If they were allowed to have a dragon held for them while they hunted for 24/48 hours, that would improve matters for those who got there in time, but latecomers might be be out of luck as the fastest might well have taken scroll-fulls of the limited dragons they were hoping for immediately, leaving none, except for those where people lost their unlock fee without being able to complete the trade, in which case someone would potentially benefit from somebody else's disappointment, which would especially suck at Christmas.

 

 

 

Is the problem with points/currency more with 'devaluing' dragons or more with both setting trade prices and with 'monetizing' pets/dragons?

 

I'm one of the people who would rather not 'buy dragons at the store' with earned currency, even if labelled as points - personally, I'd much rather accumulate mana and use a spell, which has an entirely different psychological impact.

 

Framing can make a huge difference to perception - and framing certain dragons as 'high-priced money-makers' has had a rotten effect on the site from which we're just recovering now, so I'd personally rather not see that further engrained in the DC culture.

 

The other thing is, of course, that DC is a magical world with often-magical dragons - we even transport them using the magical Magi Teleport - so earning the power in the form of mana, in order to operate various magical spells to obtain special eggs would fit perfectly - but some people apparently don't want magic involved in obtaining these eggs, even though it basically just boils down to the same thing in a different framing more consistent with the site mythology than with commerce.

 

No large group of people is ever going to agree on everything; heck, no two people will always totally agree on everything, so that's why we try to brainstorm on compromises.

 

But I do think that things which have the capacity to interfere with normal game-play should at least be optional, with some alternative available.

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But with the pay-to-unlock-for-trade system, fast traders who got in in time could likely fill their scrolls and it seems likely that limits would be imposed, only then shifted to the number of available dragons instead, causing a rapid run on a first-come first-served basis where the fastest got lots until the supplies ran dry.

Hi Syphoneira! :3 You brought up a good point and this is a scenario we should definitely consider.

 

Hope I'm not misunderstanding, but I assume this mostly considers Holiday dragons, Halloweens the most, since they are the only ones that are not limited and players can get several of. Other rares, Shimmers, Tins and HM Prizes are not faced with this problem, because the section they're sold from would lock up after getting the desired dragon.

 

Now that I think about it, in the original suggestion you'd pay for each dragon in points. So 1 Holiday dragon = x points. That's fair and also limits the number of dragon you'd be able to get.

 

Say a Halloween holiday dragon is worth 15 days of gameplay points (just a made up price, I'm not suggesting it should be worth that much tongue.gif). In the original suggestion if you saved up the entire year worth of points only for this occasion you'd still not be able to get more then 24 Halloween dragons. When using points for unlocking a Holiday section of the store, players would actually be able to get more dragons, because it would only take 2-3 months worth of points to gain access to all Holidays of a certain type. And assuming that the trader's price could be a swap for another Holiday dragon you can get from the AP in 30 sec, that's not exactly very balanced.

 

In this case we could maybe make the system the same for all dragons, rares, Prizes, HM's and Holidays alike - give points to the trader to be able to trade for 1 dragon, the section locks up - want another? ---> use more points, unlock it and trade for another dragon.

 

I'm also glad the prospect of resetting points, which I'd missed the discussion of, seems to be currently avoided.

Agreed. smile.gif I don't think there'd be any need for resetting points if players would need to keep spending them if they wished to get rares from the store.

 

Is the problem with points/currency more with 'devaluing' dragons or more with both setting trade prices and with 'monetizing' pets/dragons?

 

I'm one of the people who would rather not 'buy dragons at the store'  with earned currency, even if labelled as points - personally, I'd much rather accumulate mana and use a spell, which has an entirely different psychological impact.

 

Framing can make a huge difference to perception - and framing certain dragons as 'high-priced money-makers' has had a rotten effect on the site from which we're just recovering now, so I'd personally rather not see that further engrained in the DC culture.

 

The other thing is, of course, that DC is a magical world with often-magical dragons - we even transport them using the magical Magi Teleport - so earning the power in the form of mana, in order to operate various magical spells to obtain special eggs would fit perfectly - but some people apparently don't want magic involved in obtaining these eggs, even though it basically just boils down to the same thing in a different framing more consistent with the site mythology than with commerce.

I do believe if this idea for a store is accepted, TJ and others who are involved in the site will think of a nice way to include it into the game. wink.gif I like the idea of gathering mana and summoning dragons (which would fit the original idea nicely as points = mana).

 

I also like the idea of a traveling merchant who brings his dragons from faraway lands. I believe that's why the Trader idea was introduced, to avoid putting prices on dragons directly. He doesn't ask for points, he's asking for other dragon eggs. But I do believe some sort of limits of what and how much you can get is also desperately needed here.

 

One way could be that the trader could get a limited number of rares at random times, a luck based system...

 

...or we could utilize the point system. The trader could ask for proof that you're an experienced dragon handler - and what better way to prove it than with points, earned by playing the game?

 

But I think the purpose of this thread is to suggest how the system of trading would work, just a base model the site creators could build from. It's all framework, the decorations will come after. wink.gif

 

No large group of people is ever going to agree on everything; heck, no two people will always totally agree on everything, so that's why we try to brainstorm on compromises.

I agree, this is all brainstorming and I hope we can come up with a solution that would make a majority of people happy. ^^

Edited by stagazer_7

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...or we could have scroll limits, something like olympe suggested:
For example, imagine the following scenario: With one year of playing daily, you can choose between the following:

[*]One prize dragon.

[*]Three holiday dragons. (Ideally, one Vday, one Halloween and one Winter Holiday).

[*]One regular rare (gold, silver, copper...)

[*]6 uncommons (unbreedables, trios, blusangs...)

[*]52 commons (or 104 blockers).[/list

Uhm, I did not suggest scroll limits - only that this might be a way to price things - and that it should be up to the players whether they buy one rare, or maybe 6 uncommons, or 3 holiday dragons, or 1 holiday dragon + 4 uncommons or... whatever they can afford, really. The limits are already there because of how many points you can earn in a given time. I don't see any need to put up further limits. Because, given that scenario above, people won't be able to buy everything they fancy, they just can choose between pretty much anything there is.

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Uhm, I did not suggest scroll limits - only that this might be a way to price things - and that it should be up to the players whether they buy one rare, or maybe 6 uncommons, or 3 holiday dragons, or 1 holiday dragon + 4 uncommons or... whatever they can afford, really. The limits are already there because of how many points you can earn in a given time. I don't see any need to put up further limits. Because, given that scenario above, people won't be able to buy everything they fancy, they just can choose between pretty much anything there is.

Oh, sorry I've misinterpreted your post, thanks for explaining. tongue.gif I'll make an edit. :3

 

I agree with you on the prices, they are reasonable. One would have to decide on their priorities - do you want more holidays or more dragons of other sorts, can't have everything at once. And not everything should be easily available.

Edited by stagazer_7

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ATTENTION!

____________________________________________________

Before I try to flesh this out more thoroughly though, I have questions for YOU ALL.

 

What eggs do you want to see made available? (why?)

 

What eggs SHOULDN'T be available? (why?)

 

Are there changes that you would like to see before considering if "Trader" is better than "shop"?

 

Would making a point to make sure that rares are definitely harder to obtain (as in combinations of multiple breeds and stages in the RNG pool) help convince those of you who don't want them "easy"?

all eggs, excluding alts, hybrids & GoN's, should be in the store. With respect to breed seasons and limits.

 

one change i think i'd like to see from what has been mentioned

 

- trading Mana for the eggs (whether its at a shop, just a traveling trader, or both)

 

 

 

 

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Nor do I. It helps with my headache !

I'm pretty sure a store system would be easier to code than a trade system as well. I don't know why people think that dragons would be devalued with a store system... Especially when other options are becoming increasingly complex.

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How about this?

 

A limit on the "mana" you can earn from games daily. Such as enough to buy a common, but no limit from the "mana" you earn from raising dragons.

 

Dragons you raise up from egg to hatchling would net you 500 "Mana"

Dragons you raise up from hatchling to adult would net you 500 "Mana"(this excludes frozen hatchlings)*

This would include all dragons bred or caveborn.

 

Since you don't have to raise the hatchling to adulthood to get points, people who don't like the dragon won't be hurt by raising the dragons to hatchling and can instead toss them to the AP where they are likely to be picked up. Getting points from bred eggs means people working on projects can continue without having to have egg slots used for eggs they don't want/need.

 

I would hope this would give more reason for people to pick up commons because raising them would bring them closer to getting a rare dragon.

 

I think the prices should be as so.

 

1000 "mana" for a common(You can earn this daily from games)

 

10,000 "mana" for a uncommon. 10 adults/20 hatchlings raised. 10 days gaming.

 

100,000 "mana" for a rare(Could included CB Holidays durning their season)*2. 100 adults/200 hatchlings raised. 100 days gaming.

 

1,000,000 "mana" for a prize dragon and/or dragons not availible in cave*3(Could include holidays not durning their season)*2. 1000 adults/2000 hatchlings. 1000 days gaming.

 

I would hope it would give people more reason to raise common as they are easy to get and wouldn't "waste" a slot anymore. This might help keep rares rare, and let people not fast enough/not have a lot of time still get them. This also means new players can get a silver/gold before they even have their silver trophy. The game part of it would allow people who don't want to collect more dragons be still able to get golds for scroll completion.

 

Yes it would set standards for what is rare/uncommon/common, but that is already in the trading market. How many people do you see offering golds for Trios? Sadly I doubt you can even offer Silvers for golds anymore. The only things I usually see when I look is people wanting to trade their golds for 2gen tinsels/shimmers or many hatchlings of the new release.

 

*excludes frozen hatchlings as they do not take the same time as adults take to raise.

*2 Holidays would still be limited to 2 CBs of all but Halloween

*3 Limited to one of each dragon a year. GONs would be limited to one overall.

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I'm fine with a Shop/Trader, and I think that being able to buy CB Holidays is a wonderful idea (I love Snow Angels so much, if only I joined site two weeks earlier, I would have a CB one smile.gif ). Earning points by raising dragons is also good for me - that's exactly what I'm doing in DC, after all smile.gif

But playing mini-games...it's not something I like. I don't have quite enough time for it, nor do I like mini-games at all. I only hope that if this idea is implemented, those games won't be the only way to obtain mana/currency.

And I agree that having a travelling merchant or a summoning spell would be way nicer, than just plain old store with eggs bought for points.

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No mini games. No mini games. NO.

 

Mini games despite a cap would still create an unfair advantage to those who do no or cannot play them. Those who would dedicate their time to playing mini games could lets say earn the max cap of 300 mana points or whatever in a shorter time than it would take a casual DC player to earn. In the hour or so they spend grinding for points on a mini game, a casual player with only a few hours might not earn as many points unless the points rewarded were increased so only a few minutes to an hour of interaction could make you reach that cap.

 

No I would personally rather see dedication and focus to be placed on the game we already play to earn any points. I would rather see our normal actions rewarded than to have some alternate that users could use to grind out for points.

 

In terms of the workings of it all it would be nice to see some summon scrolls or something similar that you would be able to use to summon these creatures. Like you would already own them all or have access to them through some other part of the site and once there are allowed to use up your mana to summon a dragon or egg.

 

Something like a hidden library accessible to everyone where certain scrolls work year round and some (holiday dragons) only work during specific times of the year. You select a scroll you want for the dragon you'd like to summon and sacrifice some of your built up mana to summon a dragon who then bestows you with an egg of its breed before returning to where it came from. A mana bar could be made to track daily gain and some display tracking the overall mana earned. Seeing as there is no true cap to how much you could save up it would make no sense to track the over all saved up mana with a bar.

 

Not only would the summoning tie in nice to the RP aspect of this site, it would make this honestly feel a little less like a store and more like an aid.

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I like your take on the flavor for it, AnanoKimi. :u That's a really nice way to present it and keep the "feel" of DC.

 

And no minigames should be involved in this; it's grindy and provides too much benefit to those willing to grind. Normal actions should be quite enough for this.

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... In terms of the workings of it all it would be nice to see some summon scrolls or something similar that you would be able to use to summon these creatures. Like you would already own them all or have access to them through some other part of the site and once there are allowed to use up your mana to summon a dragon or egg.

 

Something like a hidden library accessible to everyone where certain scrolls work year round and some (holiday dragons) only work during specific times of the year. You select a scroll you want for the dragon you'd like to summon and sacrifice some of your built up mana to summon a dragon who then bestows you with an egg of its breed before returning to where it came from. A mana bar could be made to track daily gain and some display tracking the overall mana earned. Seeing as there is no true cap to how much you could save up it would make no sense to track the over all saved up mana with a bar.

 

Not only would the summoning tie in nice to the RP aspect of this site, it would make this honestly feel a little less like a store and more like an aid.

 

 

 

Yup, do like your idea, which fits the site so much more nicely than a store where you buy eggs. smile.gif

 

And that scenario (especially as opposed to a cold-blooded commercial transaction) would really add to the occasion.wub.gif

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If you guys will reflect back (or read back except lots of pages...) this isn't the first time that "spell" thing was proposed. So, since I was toying with that sort of idea then, of course I think it's a good idea.

 

As for the mini games, the suggestion that did meet with some approval was that the "mini games" would simply be the event games opened up for this. Yes, with a cap of how many points you could for them each day. I'm not married to the idea but there were a lot of people who wanted the events opened up again anyway.

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Yes I do remember the scrolls or spells idea having been brought up befre and honestly in the though of opposing minigames I just decided to try and refine it a bit since no solid version of it seemed to have been made at that point.

 

Now that you mention the holiday minigames, how wonderful would it be if those times of the year were like bonus weeks? Like the weeks that the events are present are week in which earning points through normal actions and through playing the event games would earn you maybe 5% or 15% more mana with the cap raised to accomodate. It would bring in a lot of interest for this seeng as these summon scrolls would of course be used for dragons as common as terreas and as rare as prize dragons. So giving users a little bonus during these times would be nice.

 

So I think honestly the scroll idea is a far better version of this over the store or the trader. The store is complicated with prices as well as the trader. I think the feel of this system would be better if instead the points/mana/currency was spent on a means to obtain the breed desired as opposed to the breed itself. Of course as discussed previously these dragons would have no biome and be listed as cave as well as untradable meaning there will be no way to benefit from obtaining this other than on a very personal goal level.

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Oooh, I like that variant! And maybe the time around the DC birthday week could have an old game return for a little bit with similar caps? Although I don't know how complicated that would get... That's a definite barrier to part of the idea.

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If you guys will reflect back (or read back except lots of pages...) this isn't the first time that "spell" thing was proposed. So, since I was toying with that sort of idea then, of course I think it's a good idea.

 

As for the mini games, the suggestion that did meet with some approval was that the "mini games" would simply be the event games opened up for this. Yes, with a cap of how many points you could for them each day. I'm not married to the idea but there were a lot of people who wanted the events opened up again anyway.

 

 

 

Lol, I know, and I've been promoting it, too.

 

And of course very true about some people wanting the Event games re-opened, (or variously some little games, and I have to admit that I'd have liked a time-waster myself,) although most of the older Event games don't really lend themselves to a lot of repetition, in my view, but then I'd probably never bother redecorating anything while others might have a lot of fun with that, so, whatever, lol.

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I say lets just stick to bonuses on the holidays. If a bonus were to happen on the DC b-day, then why not just make it so that through out a week during that time we just get bonus mana for playing the game?

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I say lets just stick to bonuses on the holidays. If a bonus were to happen on the DC b-day, then why not just make it so that through out a week during that time we just get bonus mana for playing the game?

 

 

Lol, sorry, it's after 5 AM here and I'm too tired to sleep - could you please explain in detail for the drowsy-minded as to whether you mean that mana used for obtaining dragons could only be accumulated during an Event, period, or whether only the games accumulation part of it is being applied, as well as to gaining mana through playing?

 

 

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She means that you acquire mana regularly through play, and can get a "bonus" (=extra mana) by playing the mini games that are available for specific events.

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