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2015-10-07 - Sprite Update (round one)

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I would just like to say that I do not have any us-vs.-them sentiments regarding the general userbase and do not agree with Verridith that playing the game does not require effort.

Edited by Odeen

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I know lineages aren't the only part of this game, but I don't really get the point of just "adding dimorphism" to existing sprites basically just for the heck of it, in a way that is bound to ruin lineages some players have been spending their time on.

 

Why not just put the same time and effort into making a cool new dragon instead of changing one gender of an existing sprite?

That certainly would have been the less controversial and less painful, and thus much better, option.

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I would just like to say that I do not have any us-vs.-them sentiments regarding the general userbase and do not agree with Verridith that playing the game does not require effort.

I don't think it's an Us Vs Them thing (oh no hello police academy saying coming back to me LOL), and I never said playing a game does not require effort. The artists and userbase are one; it's We Together, not Us Vs Them. We artists do things for the users, and the users in turn utilize our concepts in awesome and wondrous ways.

 

However, work and effort are not the same. Playing a game requires time and effort with any level of dedication or determination, I've already said that. Doing work is not playing a game.

 

Please stop twisting my words.

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Just a little disclaimer: no one artist's opinions by any means represent pixel people as a whole. Any beliefs expressed here belong purely to those who post them, regardless of whether they are or aren't an artist.

 

I know this is probably clear enough already, but given recent activity here, I just felt the need to throw it out there.

 

Carry on c:

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Not all artists don't into lineages, just to remind y'all.

 

I know I'd be upset if, say, this lineage I bred was changed too drastically.

 

Good thing there is an attempt to preserve them, generally speaking for upcoming stuff!

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I like the new Nillia sprites because they do what a lot of pygmy dragons struggle with: They have a dynamic pose w/o being too large of a sprite.

 

I won't comment on how the change affects their lineages since I don't have any pygmy lineages. But my view of lineages in general is that the color scheme is the most important part. The actual dragon's posture doesn't bother me.

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Just a little disclaimer: no one artist's opinions by any means represent pixel people as a whole. Any beliefs expressed here belong purely to those who post them, regardless of whether they are or aren't an artist.

 

I know this is probably clear enough already, but given recent activity here, I just felt the need to throw it out there.

 

Carry on c:

I would like to second (third?) this.

 

If anyone is getting heated, it might be best to step back for a little bit and take a nice deep breath and calm down. Sprite updates can be pretty emotional for a number of reasons!

 

It reminds me of my art history professor. "If something took time and effort to make it, and the person decided it was worth the time and effort to make it, it must have been important to them." I think this applies to many things!

 

Also lineages are hard. rip microsoft excel sheets. *slinks away*

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I would like to second (third?) this.

 

If anyone is getting heated, it might be best to step back for a little bit and take a nice deep breath and calm down. Sprite updates can be pretty emotional for a number of reasons!

 

It reminds me of my art history professor. "If something took time and effort to make it, and the person decided it was worth the time and effort to make it, it must have been important to them." I think this applies to many things!

 

Also lineages are hard. rip microsoft excel sheets. *slinks away*

Ha! Excel? I plan my lineages in Notepad because I'm a MASOCHIST.

 

Also, JS but on the lineage-making artist front I have a few:

 

Deep Sea x Val 09 (wub.gif)

Solstice x Sweetling ^^;

Gold x Deep Sea

Gold x Blusang

 

So yeah, I totally understand the work involve in lineages, especially on account of one of my favorite lineages being continuable only twice a year omg I'm so dumb

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I will say that yes, this is my opinion and mine alone. Others may agree with me. Others may disagree with me. My only point and biggest thing is that sprite updates will not destroy anything. Working on art and playing a game are two entirely different things. This is my opinion and I will stand by it.

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Ew. Sorry, I really don't like the new designs. I didn't say anything during the announcement since I knew my opinion wasn't going to change the fact that there would be updates. The new horse is super OTT, and looks really corny (my first thought was old skool fantasy smartphone game), and the nilias look like snakes and aren't cute anymore. sad.gif

 

I'm just glad I got screenshots of my hellhorse lineage before the changes took place. It used both male and female sprites, and I loved that the sprites were the same, because it added consistency to a lineage that used both male and female hellfires.

 

Please let us know if all sprites are expected to get dimorphosm eventually. Personally, I love having some breeds not be dimorphic, because then there's less agony over "This male sprite would look so good in a linage with that male sprite!" I just want to know what to be prepared for.

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Thing is, we can only play with what we see. There's a release, we get told, "Here's your shiny new Wotsit dragons! Enjoy them!" And we do, in the only ways we can - by collecting them, by breeding them with mates we deem "suitable", "thematic" or "complementary", by admiring them on our scrolls. We have no way of knowing (until someone kindly invents mass telepathy) of any shortfalls between what we see and how the artist envisioned the breed.

 

I get the effort involved with creating something, I really do. I make quilts as a hobby and (barring one commission that's almost put me off for life), I make my quilts for free and give them as gifts - probably over 90% of what I've made to date has been given away. I really enjoy the creative process of quilting, but you wrestle a king-sized quilt through a domestic sewing machine and then tell me about effort. I feel ownership towards my quilts because usually I make them according to designs and colours I've chosen that I believe will suit the person I'm giving it to, I take great care with piecing, with pinning, with quilting, to the best of my current ability (only been quilting a couple of years, still a lot to learn). I don't always get it right (I'm pretty sure my mum doesn't dig fiery+blue batiks as much as I do, alas :/), but I try really hard to consider what the giftee will appreciate. But if I gave a good friend a blue-and-white quilt, then came back later to sort out a wrinkle with the binding and fix a couple of popped seams and also at the same time added hot pink applique flowers in the center of each block "because it better fits my original vision" but I didn't have the right fabric at the time, my friend could be justifiably annoyed, especially if turns out he hates pink and he'd tailored the decor of his room to match the style of the "old" quilt. And then if I got huffy because he didn't respect my artistic rights, I doubt we'd remain friends.

 

I look at some of my early quilts and I cringe, but the people I gave them to love them and use them (I hope!) and they don't see the places where I screwed up the point-matching and they don't know that I didn't find the perfect green so I had to make do with a different shade. They just see the thing as it is, and I can't blame them for that even as my toes curl at my horrible early attempts at free-motion quilting. Granted, one quilt for one person is very different to one sprite for thousands of people (quilts are harder to edit, for starters! wink.gif), but you can't get upset by people taking something at face value - they don't have any reason not to.

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I will say that yes, this is my opinion and mine alone. Others may agree with me. Others may disagree with me. My only point and biggest thing is that sprite updates will not destroy anything. Working on art and playing a game are two entirely different things. This is my opinion and I will stand by it.

A change is, by definition, the destruction of the old for the creation of the new--even if the change is quite small.

 

(Lol, this sounds like a GoN philosophy course)

 

And what you have to keep in mind is that, while artists obviously do a ton for the game, the game would not exist without users. As Cyradis said, we are all part of the same organism. However, the power to change our current dragons, those on our scroll, into looking different is entirely in the artists' hands. There is not an equal balance of power, even though both parts are important. So all we ask is that artists be very conservative with changes, because remember: even if the old dragon doesn't look quite the way you imagined, it might mean the world to thousands of players as it is. One person should not easily be able to flip thousands of peoples' work on their heads casually. So take care, please, and realize that you do not rule the game--you are just, like all of us, one piece in the whole.

 

Tl;dr speaking as an artist myself, remember that just being an artist and loving your concept doesn't mean you should dismiss the opinions of everyone else who loves your old work as being lesser than yourself. DC is a public game, not a private gallery, and the feelings of users must always be considered. If you're going to be emotionally devastated if something can't be changed at your whim, then consider only using concepts you are less deeply invested in (or, perhaps, simpler versions of your original ideas) for use in public games. Some artists on DC come across as viewing their own opinions as masses more important than those of thousands of users, and that's a bad viewpoint to have on a game so many enjoy.

Edited by angelicdragonpuppy

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I think this might just be an issue of semantics. Perhaps you should just mentally replace 'work' with 'effort', then. The meaning is the same. It's still hours of thought and preparation that is altered with the update of a sprite.

This. We all have our hobbies because we enjoy them. We put effort into them because we enjoy them. If I put a ton of effort into mastering a rollback turn into a jump while riding (horses), then suddenly show rules changed so that you now had to do a rollback jump a different way, I would be very upset. Yes, it is "JUST" a hobby, but that does not mean riding is not serious for me. It would have been a lot of wasted effort, which is exactly what people who are worried about their lineages are complaining about. Wasted effort. Wasted time. Time that they could have spent making lineages they actually do like, or learning how to sprite, or taking riding lessons, or any number of other things. It's human nature to regret and even be upset/angry by wasted time and effort.

 

People who play a game do so because they enjoy it, and it IS serious for them. If things change so much that they no longer enjoy it, they are going to be upset about the amount of time they put into something which is no longer fun. I've been there, done that. I have played a lot of SIMs, and when things change so much that it's no longer fun playing, honestly, I regret all the time I spent playing during the changes and wish I had just quit earlier. I think a lot of the people complaining are in that boat right now. They may be trying to decide whether it's worth staying and playing a game which is stressing them out instead of being fun. Is it worth ditching all of the effort they put in over the years. If people did not care, they would not spend so much time making the trades they need, collecting the sprites they love, etc. They would go do something they care more about.

 

To say that the effort and time spent on a game is not worthy is much like people who say the effort and time spent on a painting is not worthy. It's wrong. Just because it's not something which can be converted easily into a monetary value (most artists aren't going to make a solid living on their art) does not mean it does not have value. To the people who enjoy making lineages, it has worth. To the people who enjoy painting, that has worth. Spriters would not sprite if they did not get anything out of it.

 

To deride one hobby and say it is less than another hobby is just...not cool. It's many people's opinion that spriting for a game is a worthless past time, too. I have people tell me that making a webcomic is not worth the effort, not real work, not a good use of my time, and that getting upset over non-constructive negative comments is stupid. I could be doing something more productive, and sure, if people want to say that [insert activity] is more work, more worthwhile, and more effort, they certainly will. That doesn't mean it actually IS. I think that riding horses is way more effort than a lot of sports. You are not just having to worry about your own body, mind, and abilities, but also that of a huge animal. Yet plenty of people tell me that horseback riding isn't a real sport and isn't real work, even some people who ride. Maybe for them it is not. Maybe they are a casual rider. For me, it is. It's serious, it's work, it's DIFFICULT, it takes time and effort, even though it is fun. They are not me. They cannot speak for me. The people who say lineages or artwork are not work, well, maybe it isn't work for them, but it IS for the people who pour their heart and soul into each activity. For some people, artwork is casual and not work. For others, it is a lot of work. For some people, lineages are casual and not work. For others, it is a lot of work. That more than anything, honestly, is what people are getting upset over.

 

That being said, as I have mentioned before, I LIKE updates to sprites. All except the female nilia look awesome! If the sprites are good, even if I have some lineages ruined (yes, ruined, because the lineages are made for MY sake, not for anyone else's, so if I no longer like the combination, the intent of the lineages is ruined), I might find the new sprites work really well in new combinations. The issue I have is that people are essentially saying, "Get over it. It's JUST a game. It's JUST a bunch of pixels. Your effort isn't worth anything." Oh sure, it's "just" a game, but when people spend a significant part of their life on something (many people spend hours a day!), denying that it affects them just because it doesn't affect everyone the same is just crass. The current sprite updates don't affect me AT ALL. I don't have pygmy lineages or male horse lineages. The sprites could all be horrendous, and it would not affect me in the least other than having to look at them on my scroll (there are sprites I really dislike, and I still have them on my scroll, so it would hardly change anything for me). I have no personal stake in horses, hollies, or nilias. That does not mean I cannot understand how it DOES affect others. There are hundreds--probably thousands--of collective hours spent on lineages, and the fact that we have an entire subforum devoted to them attests to how important lineages are to the game.

 

I don't think it is an artist vs userbase scenario so much as a few very opinionated and outspoken individuals.

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Most of what I'd say has been said by others in the last few posts, but I do feel the need to thank the other artists for speaking up about their personal views. Its very easy for a single strong opinion to appear to represent all of a small sub-group, particularly when the sub-group holds significant power. Just look at the current US politics!

 

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I'm glad that other artists are speaking up and showing, in a tangible way, that they DO respect the opinion of those who feel changing the sprite can destroy the lineage. And that they, at least, do understand that you can have an emotional and time investment into a lineage.

 

Other than that.... All I can ask is that the artists keep in mind lineages and the feelings of others when they make changes to existing sprites. And then that they have a thick skin when it turns out some people are (justifiably, in my opinion) upset about a change destroying lineages.

 

Cheers!

C4.

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I'm sure Lineage Creators on DC feel that they are creating art! Lineage building is their tool of art. It's how they create and express themselves. They chose the original Nilia for a reason, they fell in love it it visually before anything else. Bred them to other dragons, cultivated lineages. Cultivated names based on the original sprite, maybe even cultivated lineages that only looks great because it wasn't dimorphic, ex: Chevrons with the outsides matching. Whatever the reason, it's their art and their effort. Their time. Most importantly something they visually thought of as good.

 

It's too bad the Nilia doesn't work like the Old Pinks. Those that have the original look can keep it and any new lines will have the new look.

 

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But if I gave a good friend a blue-and-white quilt, then came back later to sort out a wrinkle with the binding and fix a couple of popped seams and also at the same time added hot pink applique flowers in the center of each block "because it better fits my original vision" but I didn't have the right fabric at the time, my friend could be justifiably annoyed, especially if turns out he hates pink and he'd tailored the decor of his room to match the style of the "old" quilt. And then if I got huffy because he didn't respect my artistic rights, I doubt we'd remain friends.

I think this is a great analogy for what's going on here. Honestly, I can see the points on both sides - for people who are creative I don't think the urge to tweak and fix and change ever goes away. I know many writers who have said that they can't reread their work once it's published because they pick out all the things that they don't like. It's just that once they've put their work out in the public, they can't really change things - or at best, they can only make small changes, not huge ones. JKR and Harry Potter is a good example - some people love hearing more info from her, but some people worry that she's going to say or do something that ruins their mental image of her world and characters. So usually there's an understanding that once a writer has published their work it's no longer entirely theirs, and they relinquish it to the public.

 

Which just made me have a thought, actually - I think that's where DC is a bit unique in that way, giving artists the chance to change and update sprites and have them implemented. Sprites are simultaneously given to the community but artists still retain artistic governance. I think that's where a lot of the back and forth comes in the DC community. Users love the sprites the way that they are and don't necessarily look at them and see anatomy errors and poor shading, they just love them the way they are.

Edited by kerrikins

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Most of what I'd say has been said by others in the last few posts, but I do feel the need to thank the other artists for speaking up about their personal views. Its very easy for a single strong opinion to appear to represent all of a small sub-group, particularly when the sub-group holds significant power. Just look at the current US politics!

 

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I'm glad that other artists are speaking up and showing, in a tangible way, that they DO respect the opinion of those who feel changing the sprite can destroy the lineage. And that they, at least, do understand that you can have an emotional and time investment into a lineage.

 

Other than that.... All I can ask is that the artists keep in mind lineages and the feelings of others when they make changes to existing sprites. And then that they have a thick skin when it turns out some people are (justifiably, in my opinion) upset about a change destroying lineages.

 

Cheers!

C4.

I do want to poke you about perceptions on my words and opinions; I never said, in any way shape or form, that I did not respect what the users wanted. Yes, I do know that people can have time and effort and emotional investment into lineages, as anyone can get emotionally attached to any game (do not talk to me about Final Fantasy XII's end I will cling to you and cry).

 

We work our absolute hardest, in 95% of cases, to try and preserve the lineages that would be affected by the art updates. Trust me when I say that, because I watch these marvelous miracle workers and know that most of my own lineages will remain perfect, just modified to look much better.

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I can go along with that. And that's very true - half of the userbase things yay new sprites! The other half... not so much. We cannot please 100% of the people 100% of the time, I'm sad to say.

I can also strongly agree with this. It is impossible to please everyone, and that goes with everything in life. I personally appreciate the effort TJ and the Spriters make in an attempt to improve our gaming experience. I'd say the majority prefer the updates.

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I can also strongly agree with this. It is impossible to please everyone, and that goes with everything in life. I personally appreciate the effort TJ and the Spriters make in an attempt to improve our gaming experience. I'd say the majority prefer the updates.

I really appreciate your sunny disposition. I hope you are satisfied with all the coming updates, friend. n_n

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Now that I've read through the posts others have made:

 

I do understand what it is to make something for someone, not be satisfied with it, but giving it to someone even though you feel it's not your best work, and then later offering to update it for them so it's more in keeping with your original intentions. I've done this. I used to give away lots of art and handcrafted things. But whenever I later offered to "fix" what I gave them, they always strongly refused, saying they loved it as it was! Whether this was because they wanted to make me feel better about my work, or if they genuinely loved it as it was, I don't know. But I respected their wishes. I didn't wrest it from them and fix it anyway.

 

If I'm not happy with what I've made, I just try to do better next time.

 

Even the "minor" changes to the sprites have really altered my perceptions of them.

 

The original nilia made me think of a kitty sitting on it's haunches. The new nilias look like a floppy sandbag snake or lizard like they sell at fairs.

 

The original male horse looked like...well, a horse. I collected it and used it in lineages because it had a nice, clear, bold profile. Now in lineages the male horse doesn't look like a horse. It looks like half of a mottled purple and blue juniper bush. (I do appreciate that the spriter was considerate enough to keep almost the same pose and coloration, but making it visually crazier while using colors that dark makes it honestly really hard to tell what I'm looking at.)

 

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be harsh. I do appreciate that these things take loads of time and effort. I promise didn't make up my mind to dislike the updates beforehand.

 

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It seems i'm one of few who actually likes the Nilia update...i certainly will be collecting more of them now. I dont have a lot of them.

And i actually hope, the Other Pygmy breeds will get updated in the near future too.

 

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I really appreciate your sunny disposition. I hope you are satisfied with all the coming updates, friend. n_n

Thank you, friend. I'm sure they'll be great smile.gif

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