Holiday Rereleases

[olympe]

Personally, I think that a raffle kind of event for every holiday or a "choose one old holiday to raise as CB" kind of thing would be ideal. This way, everybody has the same chance or a guarantee to get one item they're missing. (Maybe two for Halloween, since those dragons have both genders available?)

[RecycledHeart]

Do you mean a site wide raffle with only a few winners or a specific raffle for each user?

[Starscream]

I think holiday Dragon CBs if purchased through in game earned points/currency would be a great solution to re-releasing these. Providing it is readily available to the site members.

 

The whole concept of calling people whiners, as someone posted eariler, makes me sad. We should not stoop to name calling.

[olympe]

Do you mean a site wide raffle with only a few winners or a specific raffle for each user?

I was thinking of something akin to the raffles we already have - but a raffle that "rewards" us with one of the CB eggs we don't have yet would be even better. Even if we don't get the egg we want NAO, we will get it eventually. However, I'd prefer the shop/choose your eggy version over any kind of raffle.

[CNR4806]

Personally, I think that a raffle kind of event for every holiday or a "choose one old holiday to raise as CB" kind of thing would be ideal. This way, everybody has the same chance or a guarantee to get one item they're missing. (Maybe two for Halloween, since those dragons have both genders available?)

While I'm still not really supporting it, if this is adopted, I think the amount of winners for these holiday-prizes can be a lot higher than the current amount of prize winners.

 

I don't have the exact numbers, but I'm inclined to think that since "toppling the trade system" is basically a non-issue with old holidays (at least compared to the prizes), there would be ample of space between "so few winners, most people get frustrated" and "so many winners, breeding ratios are disrupted".

Edited August 12, 2015 by CNR4806

[Nightwatcher]

I like this idea, I'd love to have some CB hollies.

[blockEdragon]

i support this 100%

it fits with the lore

and this game is not real life this game is designed for FUN not emulating real life if i wanted a game ot emulate real life i would go play a game called outside

theres a reason that a meme about reality being the worst game ever is out there

and its not a gimme gimme gimme you still have to compete for them and catch and raise them

its not like we are asking for them as adults to magically appear on our scrolls as adults

 

 

 

put yourself in newer users place for a second

you really like the uhhhhh shadow walker but since you where not there you are forever condemned to relying on other users to give you 2nd gens for outrageous prices

[Fuzzbucket]

put yourself in newer users place for a second

you really like the uhhhhh shadow walker but since you where not there you are forever condemned to relying on other users to give you 2nd gens for outrageous prices

Cobblers. Yes, 2 gens - but LOADS of us breed for free.

[CNR4806]

put yourself in newer users place for a second

you really like the uhhhhh shadow walker but since you where not there you are forever condemned to relying on other users to give you 2nd gens for outrageous prices

Old Halloweens are obtainable by the truck load.

 

Not even Hollies, the holy grail of old holidays, are that hard these days if you know where to look. For example, last year on the IRC people had difficulty finding someone who doesn't have a Holly to gift to.

Edited August 26, 2015 by CNR4806

[Jazeki]

Cobblers. Yes, 2 gens - but LOADS of us breed for free.

This. I breed my holidays for free and for those that insist that they have to give something in return, I just ask for a couple CB hatchlings of their choice in exchange. There's no point in asking for rares/shinies/whatever when someone else is offering to breed for free.

 

Editing to add that I'd be all right with Olympe's idea.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Jazeki

[stagazer_7]

put yourself in newer users place for a second

you really like the uhhhhh shadow walker but since you where not there you are forever condemned to relying on other users to give you 2nd gens for outrageous prices

Only 2nd gen Hollies go for really high prices, pretty much all other 2nd gen Holidays really are not all that hard to get - you either prowl the AP, where there are many floating around, you just need to be a little persistent (I collect 2nd gen Holidays for my checker projects so I'm pretty familiar with this - and my internet is not all that great) or you drop by one of the many gifting threads that open up during the holiday seasons and get an egg there - Breeding/Gifting even fulfills lineage requests.

 

As a supporter of the in-Cave store idea, I wouldn't mind if this suggestion would be accepted either, because they're similar at heart - as years go by and older players drop out of the game, there won't be as many of them to breed their CB's and some breeds could become obscure and therefore expensive and hard to get. We really need a solution to keep these types of dragons circulating among the player base as CB's instead of them just gradually vanishing, leaving active players at that time to work with only their X-gen descendants.

Edited August 26, 2015 by stagazer_7

[Kiya_Felixea]

As a newer player who has none of those pretty holiday dragons, I'm not sure I support this. I'm happy to hunt the AP for those that i don't own or work hard at obtaining rares I can offer as trades for low gens and pretty lineages.

I say this not only as a new player, but has someone who has very slow, awful internet. There are days where I struggle to catch commons

 

I wouldn't be opposed to the raffle idea. Done properly i think it would work better than re-releasing old holidays to the cave

[olympe]

Don't worry, holiday dragons will be bred aplenty. It's so bad that, for several days, we don't see anything but holiday eggs in the AP. You just have to pick through quite a few eggs in order to find the 2nd gens or other nice lineages - but it's worth the effort.

 

If you need anything bred, though, I should be able to provide you with 2nd gens of most breeds - just let me know exactly what you want/need.

[FoxintheBox4]

I would give anything to own past CB holiday dragons but I wouldn't want to see them in the raffle we have every year ~ I would rather want to win a CB hybrid or prize in that a raffle than these ~ maybe they should have a raffle or something just of their kinds, but I'm still for the past CB eggs dropping 1 week before new dragon gets released in cave.

Edited August 29, 2015 by WoLfgIrLyS

[Pixxelation]

Personally, I think that a raffle kind of event for every holiday or a "choose one old holiday to raise as CB" kind of thing would be ideal. This way, everybody has the same chance or a guarantee to get one item they're missing. (Maybe two for Halloween, since those dragons have both genders available?)

The intent of this thread is to combat the shrinking holiday breeding pool through typical gameplay, rather than give every user an equal chance of getting a new CB of an old breed. This is a nice suggestion, but I believe it belongs in its own thread, as it is separate from this suggestion in both reasoning and function.

Edited August 29, 2015 by PieMaster

[olympe]

The reasoning - getting more CB old holidays into circulation and thus increase the breeding pool for 2nd gens - is still the same. Only that the emphasis regarding the target group might be different. (Yes, "everyone" instead of "the fast and the wealthy".)

 

I'm wondering, though, how you imagine a fruitful discussion if everything that's either against your suggestion or offering a different solution to the same problem is anathema.

[Pixxelation]

I never said anything negative about your suggestion, so please don't assume I think it's "anathema". All I said was that it was more suited for a separate thread from this one, as it is a very different solution with different reasoning/targets; essentially, you're suggesting to bring back honorable mentions, but for only holidays and all holidays, which is an entirely separate discussion from limited releases back into the cave, as there are many pros and cons that have nothing to do with this suggestion. I'd rather not have too many suggestions being discussed here at once, which is why I think it's better suited for a separate thread.

[helix9]

After the multiple pros and cons, I'd say that as an old user I'm pretty neutral on the subject. As in, if it wasn't implemented it would be business as usual, and if it were implemented I'd join in and get that second CB Yulebuck I never grabbed.

 

Either way, I would start wanting to see more CB's in circulation once 2nd and 3rd gens became harder and harder to find in the AP. You can point at the way the HM prize Hollies have helped out that population in a noticeable way, even in small quantities. But even this year, I was able to scrounge around the AP for a 2nd gen Val '09 after grabbing some even 3rd gens. So as the years pass, I'll probably start liking this idea more and more.

 

As far as the idea of "limited editions" is concerned, I always think about CB Vampires. You can get a CB Vampire at literally any time of day by biting any CB egg, so there's tons of them. But what makes those very first ones special, like the two females I own, are because they say "Egg Stolen on: Oct 31, 2008" and have four-digit codes, two things can can never be obtained again. It's proof that I was there and got them, and that's special enough for me at least.

 

Implementation-wise, it really depends on where the site wants to go in the future. Something like the store makes a points system seem the most logical, or a super-BSA-for-ALL-the-dragons kind of game would have all the holidays work like Vampires (can you imagine? ). Looking at where the cave is right now, this suggestion certainly fits the best with the existing biomes.

 

[CursedFlames]

As far as the idea of "limited editions" is concerned, I always think about CB Vampires. You can get a CB Vampire at literally any time of day by biting any CB egg, so there's tons of them. But what makes those very first ones special, like the two females I own, are because they say "Egg Stolen on: Oct 31, 2008" and have four-digit codes, two things can can never be obtained again. It's proof that I was there and got them, and that's special enough for me at least.

The other thing about original vamps is that they don't have "Bitten By". It's no longer possible to get vamps without this, which is the main thing that attracts me to the idea of holiday rereleases, oddly enough.

 

Making vamps (and all other dragons) deadlineable would also be nice though. I wish dead dragons were still deleted...

 

I'd personally prefer to have a raffle for each holiday where a few people get old CB holidays, since they'd still be hard to get if you weren't there for a release. Although I'm probably in a minority wanting CBs stay rare after the release.

[NotBambi]

I'd personally prefer to have a raffle for each holiday where a few people get old CB holidays, since they'd still be hard to get if you weren't there for a release. Although I'm probably in a minority wanting CBs stay rare after the release.

But... as PieMaster said, that is a different suggestion and should be in its own thread.

The intent of this thread is to combat the shrinking holiday breeding pool through typical gameplay, rather than give every user an equal chance of getting a new CB of an old breed. This is a nice suggestion, but I believe it belongs in its own thread, as it is separate from this suggestion in both reasoning and function.

 

[Natayah]

I like the idea of a HM spinoff idea for this. I'd be glad to support it, I just don't want to start a thread, so hope you will consider starting it. I like both ideas, mostly because... the holly ratio has just gotten WAY too low. I tend to find that people can find 2Gs of most anything else if they want to ask. Not that it shouldn't give people a chance to win or find or trade for a CB they'd really love to have (other breeding stuff), but I agree, over time more stuff is gonna go rarer and rarer and we do need to replace it.

 

I kinda like to live by a rule that I never want to own something so rare or special that someone would want or be highly tempted to attempt to hack my account or something. But with CB Hollies, its kinda gotten to the point where they really are that valuable. No pixel should be quite that rare or unable to meet demands. Higher trade values are fine, but there is a point where its beyond silly. When that happens, time to figure out a way to get some more of them in the system. So I'm glad to see these ideas!

[Syphoneira]

I suspect that we have to figure out whether we want to play a game of collecting dragons which we can swap for ones we want if we like, or if we want to play a Wall St. game where relatively few people can catch/have dragons that many/most other people can't get so that the fastest/luckiest can have extra fun in the market-place, because that's going to determine the direction many decisions will take, since those decisions will determine the direction the site takes.

 

The second of the two has a far more limited appeal, especially to me, lol, so I wouldn't personally place trade value over the dragons themselves and the membership. (Your experience may vary, which may affect your point of view, lol. Not that we'll be making the decisions, but that TJ does seem to take user demand into consideration.)

 

 

Holidays are, whether dedicated to sharing or sheer greed, typically times where people get to stuff themselves silly on DC Holiday dragons - I can't see where it hurts to let everyone have 2 CBs of each existing type of dragon, as well as the Special Releases and breds.

 

People not having these are also shut out of various lines and lineages. (I've just had an angel gift me a fabulous AP find at 4D 1H because she couldn't continue the Holiday line - although this was to my benefit, this actually sucks rocks and it really seems silly that older Holidays should dwindle away through attrition while so many people either waste beautiful dragons or can't keep them because of not ever being able to have these previous Holidays as CBs.)

 

I also don't see why this would require cutting back, or at least cutting back much, on clutch sizes for Holiday breds, certainly at least allowing for 3-egg clutches to remain.

 

Apart from all else, Holiday lineages have become a major thing for many people, locking in loyalty for planned years ahead, setting a noticeable basis for people now routinely thinking of DC in the very long-term. This psychological shift, certainly in great part the effect of looking at building Holiday lineages on an annual breeding basis, has resulted in some people discussing DC in terms of a decade or more ahead.

 

 

I also would think that it would make sense to Release CB Old Holidays at the beginning of the breeding season although I'd actually rather see it as perhaps a 2-day Flood which would reduce breeding time and limit people to breeding their best and, I suspect, reducing any real need to cut back on Holiday breeding clutch size.

 

With more people gaining CB's of the older Holidays, would most people bother breeding long/messy Holidays which many people wouldn't want, just to make sure that the sprite at least is available, even if most people wouldn't have them on their scrolls, because the nicely lineaged ones go so quickly?

 

Some new people/people who don't know/care about lineages might, but a lot of us breed our best, and as we get better lineages, our best gets better.

 

I suspect that it would work out in the end.

[olympe]

I suspect that we have to figure out whether we want to play a game of collecting dragons which we can swap for ones we want if we like, or if we want to play a Wall St. game where relatively few people can catch/have dragons that many/most other people can't get so that the fastest/luckiest can have extra fun in the market-place, because that's going to determine the direction many decisions will take, since those decisions will determine the direction the site takes.

So very, very true.

 

The introduction of prize dragons was a step in the general direction of the Wall Street approach, even if unintended. Looking at the annually recurring prize drama on these boards, I'd say you can get an idea of how well that goes down with many players. We also know from the positive reactions to the last raffle (regarding the number of prizes handed out) how many people think about the other approach.

 

 

Thus, I can say this: Most of us seem toagree that getting old CB holidays back in some way or other is a desirable outcome. However, we also need to discuss which way this "re-release" is supposed to happen. A regular cave-drop? If so, common, uncommon or rare? In all biomes or in a special, temporary biome? Maybe in the AP, along with the bred eggs? During the drop of the new dragons, the breeding period or after the new holiday release? An in-game shop? If so, how do we "pay" for the dragons we "buy"? Do we do it by regular playing activity, by playing (temporary?) mini-games (like the respective event games we usually get for a holiday event) or by paid-for currency, or maybe a combination? Some kind of raffle, where either everyone gets one random old CB egg or where a certain number of people gets to choose? Will there be limits? To the number of CB eggs you can have, to trading and/or abandoning?

 

[Syphoneira]

I must say that my personal preference would lean toward people gaining mana points toward Summoning dragons.

 

Dropping older Holidays as UNCommons or rares brings back the high stress levels of yesteryear, when many people used to dread Holiday Releases and many others lacked time to catch them, due to family and other commitments.

 

We are seeing a return of stress and dread of the probable situation with other colours in the current Release and this is not doing the regular connection-speed members or the site any good; bringing this back to the Holidays would definitely not be anything I'd support; apart from anything else, some people only return for these and spoiling the Holidays would not be a good idea.

[DragonNighthowler]

I must say that my personal preference would lean toward people gaining mana points toward Summoning dragons.

 

Dropping older Holidays as UNCommons or rares brings back the high stress levels of yesteryear, when many people used to dread Holiday Releases and many others lacked time to catch them, due to family and other commitments.

 

We are seeing a return of stress and dread of the probable situation with other colours in the current Release and this is not doing the regular connection-speed members or the site any good; bringing this back to the Holidays would definitely not be anything I'd support; apart from anything else, some people only return for these and spoiling the Holidays would not be a good idea.

Agreed. I wouldn't mind if they started dropping in the cave, but not if this means they're going to be cause of more drama. Holidays are supposed to be a happy event, and holidays are stressful enough as they are already with preparing all dinners and stuff.