2015-12-03 - Sprite Update (Round Two)

[Zovesta]

It seems to me that people are complaining for the sake of complaining.

The Silver dragons don't have wings. They have not been "westernized". The sprite, in my opinion, looks a lot neater now.

It seems to me that you're been contrary just for the sake of being contrary. What do you call this kind of dragon, then? It's wingless, but it's most definitely Western style. Likewise, what about this dragon? It's got wings, but that's definitely Eastern style. I can get what people are saying about the new Silvers seeming kind of "Western". They don't look so serpentine to me now, they look more like long dogs...

 

Artistically, they don't. Their shading was incredibly simple, the lines weren't the cleanest, etc.

 

The only reason they WERE considered "competitive" is because of the nostalgia and attachment that the player base had. Nobody was complaining about them, because they weren't terrible and were stylized. But compared to the type of dragons & the detail that spriters are able to put into their work now is way more intricate than what was shown on the previous sprites.

 

Nothing against our old silvers, of course, I loved them just as well

That's incredibly subjective. The shading was simple, the lines weren't clean... and these automatically make you think the old drawing was "bad"? What about woodblock art? What about sketches, or paintings with intentionally ragged lines? Is "realistic" shading and intricacy the artistic ideal everything should be held to? What's even the point of minimalism, then?

 

I can understand if you do not personally think the old sprites were as "good" as the new ones, but don't set that out as objective fact. Personally, the old sprites look much better to me in very different ways, and ways I appreciate much more. A big reason why I stopped drawing for the Dragon Requests board is because I got right sick of "more shading!!" "more realistic anatomy!! (read: more dog like anatomy!!)" when the fact of the matter is that loads more real life animals are much weirder looking than DC dragons, and I got real bored of the gold standard.

 

The new Silvers look boring to me. The old Silvers looked interesting. They were a bit cartoonish, and exuded personality. The new ones have some personality, too, but not the personality I ended up loving. The old female Silvers looked sly and devious to me, the old male Silvers looked haughty. They match their breed description more now, sure, but they aren't the babies I fell in love with 7 years ago.

 

Regardless, my opinion means zilch after all this time, since I'm not even active here anymore. Still, I can definitely understand why people are upset.

 

sene got it. If art is just shading, lines, and even anatomy, you're discrediting a HUGE portion of artwork, even classic artwork.

[NotBambi]

The old Silvers looked interesting. They were a bit cartoonish

I've no problem with the Dinos looking "cartoonish" but that isn't what I would expect from a flagship dragon breed.

[Zovesta]

I've no problem with the Dinos looking "cartoonish" but that isn't what I would expect from a flagship dragon breed.

Why?

[NotBambi]

Why?

Why not?

 

Edit: uhm... just read your title...

Edited December 6, 2015 by NotBambi

[tjekan]

Honestly? I like the new silvers. I feel like I dodged a bullet here. In the original silver update thread, there were two sprites I liked and the rest made my recoil in horror. I was fortunate enough for my tastes to align with TJ's, this time. At other times in the past, I have not been so fortunate.

 

Though I like these sprites and am personally fine with this update, for the life of me I can't understand WHY all this time and energy is being spent updating already-existing sprites that already have fanbases. The artist could have made a NEW dragon that looked similar to this, and then we would have gotten a new shiny thing that many of us think is beautiful without simultaneously taking away something that other people liked better for no good reason.

 

I am typically accused of disliking change for change's sake when I express sentiments like these. I just wanted to point out that I'm 100% cool with ADDITIVE change. Adding something new to the site-- a sprite, a feature, whatever-- is win-win. If I don't like it very much, then I just won't collect it or use it, and that's not going to affect the way I play. If I love it, then I will incorporate it into what I do, and the game will have grown. Great!

 

What I don't like is subtractive change. Coming through and deleting things that people had enjoyed and replacing it with something else seems pointlessly alienating. And yeah, I still feel that way even when the replacement is one I personally happen to like better, like this time.

[Krestel3]

Ooooh dang those Siolvers look great!

[schenanigans]

That's incredibly subjective. The shading was simple, the lines weren't clean... and these automatically make you think the old drawing was "bad"? What about woodblock art? What about sketches, or paintings with intentionally ragged lines? Is "realistic" shading and intricacy the artistic ideal everything should be held to? What's even the point of minimalism, then?

 

I can understand if you do not personally think the old sprites were as "good" as the new ones, but don't set that out as objective fact. Personally, the old sprites look much better to me in very different ways, and ways I appreciate much more. A big reason why I stopped drawing for the Dragon Requests board is because I got right sick of "more shading!!" "more realistic anatomy!! (read: more dog like anatomy!!)" when the fact of the matter is that loads more real life animals are much weirder looking than DC dragons, and I got real bored of the gold standard.

 

The new Silvers look boring to me. The old Silvers looked interesting. They were a bit cartoonish, and exuded personality. The new ones have some personality, too, but not the personality I ended up loving. The old female Silvers looked sly and devious to me, the old male Silvers looked haughty. They match their breed description more now, sure, but they aren't the babies I fell in love with 7 years ago.

 

Regardless, my opinion means zilch after all this time, since I'm not even active here anymore. Still, I can definitely understand why people are upset.

 

sene got it. If art is just shading, lines, and even anatomy, you're discrediting a HUGE portion of artwork, even classic artwork.

Art & beauty are all subjective and in the eye of the beholder. I'm not at all saying the sprites were bad, or that I didn't like them, or that all that everything should be superbly intricate. I'm sorry, but I believe you're reading too far into what I was saying.

 

In pixelated art & sprites, clean lines are much better. Don't try to argue that a jagged dragon tale looks so much better on a sprite unless it is a characteristic to said dragon. To compare sprites with woodblock art, and paintings, or whatever else... they can be completely different realms of art. Not even touching that.

 

Otherwise, we have plenty of "simplistic" dragons in the cave, that don't have the crazy amount of depth that some other dragons have in terms of shading. But even they have slightly more in depth shading than what the old Silvers had. Even TJ said that the spriters originally were limited to what they could work with.

 

I'm sorry, but I guess I should have labeled this as more of my opinion, and not argue further.

Edited December 6, 2015 by Areous

[NotBambi]

Though I like these sprites and am personally fine with this update, for the life of me I can't understand WHY all this time and energy is being spent updating already-existing sprites that already have fanbases. The artist could have made a NEW dragon that looked similar to this, and then we would have gotten a new shiny thing that many of us think is beautiful without simultaneously taking away something that other people liked better for no good reason.

Why? Maybe because many of the people that are so vehemently opposing the update of the Silvers are exactly the same people that have been vehemently opposing new shiny rares. And at this point I'm wondering about the coincidence.

[georgexu94]

Well... you can't please everybody. Some people may still dislike the new silver.

 

I for one dislikes the new Holly dragons but adore the new lovelier Silvers. It's simply a matter of preference. However, I won't further complain about the Hollies. I just stated in the older post that I flatly don't like them but that's the end of it.

[JavaTigress]

Art & beauty are all subjective and in the eye of the beholder.

This. THIS exactly.

 

Thing is not everyone LIKES a minimalist look. Others do... it is really that simple, and tho I am repeating what a lot of others have said when I say it... You can never please everyone when it comes to art.

Edited December 6, 2015 by Silverswift

[sene]

And the Silvers needed to be updated also to reflect the the fact that the breed is one of the only two flagship dragons in the biomes.

Yeah...I guess people argue so much about the new silver partly because it is one of the two flagship dragons. We have higher expectations and higher standards for flagship dragons.

[NotBambi]

Yeah...I guess people argue so much about the new silver partly because it is one of the two flagship dragons. We have higher expectations and higher standards for flagship dragons.

Hey we got to agree on something!!!

[sene]

Hey we got to agree on something!!!

Finally!!

[Pyrowings]

Oh, nice!

 

Admittedly something about them does feel a bit off, but I don't think it's anything major.

[Zovesta]

Art & beauty are all subjective and in the eye of the beholder.

 

 

In pixelated art & sprites, clean lines are much better. Don't try to argue that a jagged dragon tale looks so much better on a sprite unless it is a characteristic to said dragon. To compare sprites with woodblock art, and paintings, or whatever else... they can be completely different realms of art. Not even touching that.

You're more or less contradicting yourself here. =P Sprite art isn't just adoptables art, it has a huge amount of variety and style. Even stating that a smooth as opposed to jagged line in sprite art is very subjective: how do you know that I don't prefer messy sprite lines? Heck, one of my favourite pixel artists (mmm, they did a very short-lived adoptables site several years back) has characteristically rough, messy, uncleaned lines and large blocks of colour. It was a very eye-catching style and was both very unrefined and very sophisticated.

 

Art can be compared across different mediums, there's no reason why it shouldn't be. Sprites themselves have gone from 8-bit to much larger, more painterly works of art as technology allows.

 

But yeah, again, I don't have a problem with you just stating your opinion, but as long as you mean it as just your opinion and not hard fact, I'm fine. But I do take somewhat personal offense to the new sprites as being called objectively "better" because I do so firmly disagree.

[tjekan]

Why? Maybe because many of the people that are so vehemently opposing the update of the Silvers are exactly the same people that have been vehemently opposing new shiny rares. And at this point I'm wondering about the coincidence.

That's a weird theory. The introduction of the xenowyrms was met with pretty resounding positivity. And though people may have voiced some frustration with the scarcity of the almandines, they were still received quite enthusiastically.

 

Furthermore, the same people who've been objecting to the silver updates have also objected to updates of commons in the past. I seriously doubt this is some kind of anti-rare crusade. It may seem incomprehensible to *you* that some users might genuinely prefer the silver sprite they already had... but with something as subjective as art, it would seem stranger to me if tastes *didn't* vary, personally. :-)

[Sir Barton]

This. THIS exactly.

 

Thing is not everyone LIKES a minimalist look. Others do... it is really that simple, and tho I am repeating what a lot of others have said when I say it... You can never please everyone when it comes to art.

But why must the minimalist fancier always take a backseat to those who want everything updated, polished, streamline, modernized, ... and frankly, in my opinion, boring? One of the reasons I've enjoyed DC for the last seven years is because there was a wide variety of styles when it came to art work. There was something for everyone. With TJ's announcement (read that as threat to me) of more updates in the future, all the uniqueness vanishes. DC ends up the same as every other collecting game — games many of us don't play because they lack individuality.

 

Updates change the spirit of the original artwork. While they are prettier, it seems that they end up stripped of what made them special in the first place. They lose their "soul", as it were.

 

I understand the desire to improve your work as your skills increase, but feel that is better shown through the addition of new work instead of reworking the old. I'm no artist, but I am a writer. Once I have given a story to the public, I would never dream of taking it away from them so I can improve it. I have, and likely will always re-read my work and see things wrong with it that I would love to correct or simply say in another "better" way. Instead, I write a new story for my readers to enjoy while fulfilling my need to continually improve my skills.

 

Personal opinion, just being thrown out there as a reason for my dislike of updates.

 

Edit: *raises hand* I'm extremely opposed to updates to the few old commons who still remain. I could care less about rarity since I'm not into trading and only have the few I have for gifting purposes. *Validating tjekan's statement*

Edited December 6, 2015 by Sir Barton

[NotBambi]

But yeah, again, I don't have a problem with you just stating your opinion, but as long as you mean it as just your opinion and not hard fact, I'm fine. But I do take somewhat personal offense to the new sprites as being called objectively "better" because I do so firmly disagree.

I doubt that the opinion of Areous is just his/her opinion. For sure that's the opinion of the owner of the site, it is the opinion of several successful spriters and the opinion of the majority of the people that posted here. It happens to be the opinion of a few that didn't want the update or wanted a different update. So I don't think it can be easily dismissed vs the opinion of a (vocal) minority.

 

That's a weird theory. The introduction of the xenowyrms was met with pretty resounding positivity. And though people may have voiced some frustration with the scarcity of the almandines, they were still received quite enthusiastically.

Really? Would you compare the demand-fueled rarity of the Xenos vs the rarity of Silvers? And at the time the "garnets' came out there was no idea how rare they would be. Pyropes are common, Spessartines uncommon and Almandines are not considered rare unless they are CBs. A completely different situation from Silvers.

This is not a theory. I guess you didn't read the threads I read, the threads where those few people would vehemently oppose new Rares.

Edit: and the new release threads had a bunch of posts by people wishing that those would not be rares.

Edited December 6, 2015 by NotBambi

[Sinion Kabe]

I must say, I am really shocked to see how disappointed some people are in regards to the Silver update! The Silver sprite change is definitely a vast improvement! I liked the old sprite but I always thought it did not have much of a Silvery look to it and wasn't on par with the Gold dragon sprite. Now, I can say they both match up and are in equal status to one another visually. When I first read the Silver sprite was being updated I was so glad for it! Linages with Silvers in look mmmmmuch better! So surprised people cannot see that!

[OceanSecrets]

The splits are great!

 

When I first looked at the silvers my thought was "Ew!" but the more I look at them and notice their fine detail the more they grow on me. It is an adjustment after being used to the old design but I'll get used to it and enjoy it just fine. I really appreciate how the poses are kept the same. Great work to the artists!

 

EDIT: I agree on the lineages Sinion Kabe. Look at this! So pretty.

Edited December 6, 2015 by OceanSecrets

[NotBambi]

The splits are great!

 

When I first looked at the silvers my thought was "Ew!" but the more I look at them and notice their fine detail the more they grow on me. It is an adjustment after being used to the old design but I'll get used to it and enjoy it just fine. I really appreciate how the poses are kept the same. Great work to the artists!

 

EDIT: I agree on the lineages Sinion Kabe. Look at this! So pretty.

Wow, I'm not a breeder but I'm so impressed by that beauty!

[tjekan]

Pyropes are common, Spessartines uncommon and Almandines are not considered rare unless they are CBs. A completely different situation from Silvers. This is not a theory.

Almandines are SIGNIFICANTLY rarer than silvers. That's not a theory either. I offered a CB gold for trade a few weeks ago, requested a CB almandine, and got exactly zero CB almandine offers. On a CB gold. I haven't even seen a CB almandine in the cave in months. They're probably the rarest CB out there right now. And no one objects to the sprite because of it.

 

I've had no reason to stalk you or your threads, but every site suggestion I've tried to make in the past has been shot down too. I'm sure it's not a conspiracy. :-) People are just realllllly wary of the possible flaws in suggested ideas on this forum, that's all.

[NotBambi]

Almandines are SIGNIFICANTLY rarer than silvers. That's not a theory either. I offered a CB gold for trade a few weeks ago, requested a CB almandine, and got exactly zero CB almandine offers. On a CB gold. I haven't even seen a CB almandine in the cave in months. They're probably the rarest CB out there right now. And no one objects to the sprite because of it.

 

I've had no reason to stalk you or your threads, but every site suggestion I've tried to make in the past has been shot down too. I'm sure it's not a conspiracy. :-) People are just realllllly wary of the possible flaws in suggested ideas on this forum, that's all.

No, they are not. If we are going to invoke our experiences: I easily caught several Almandines, offered them on trades of Alt-vines or Alt-undines and they got declined. I ended gifting them. So now I'm not even making the effort to catch them. And if you do not believe me, I can ask the giftees to PM you.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

No, they are not. If we are going to invoke our experiences: I easily caught several Almandines, offered them on trades of Alt-vines or Alt-undines and they got declined. I ended gifting them. So now I'm not even making the effort to catch them. And if you do not believe me, I can ask the giftees to PM you.

When? Almandines used to be catchable for a while after release, but have since gone almost non-existent. Also, pyropes and almandines look strikingly similar as both eggs and hatchies, so it's possible the players didn't realize they weren't pyropes, or naively assumed almandines weren't worth as much as they are. Because I agree 100% with Tjekan, I have seen CB Almandines trading for crazy high prices of late on the rare occassions they're offered.

[tjekan]

No, they are not. If we are going to invoke our experiences: I easily caught several Almandines, offered them on trades of Alt-vines or Alt-undines and they got declined. I ended gifting them. So now I'm not even making the effort to catch them. And if you do not believe me, I can ask the giftees to PM you.

Next time you want to trade a CB almandine for an undine, gimme a PM. ;-)