Old Lineage View URL Modifier

[angelicdragonpuppy]

Oooh, I see how people are having trouble counting generations now. It is trickier than it was before, since you can't just count across the boxes at the top. I like the idea of having the generation listed in the view lineage link, probably just as "View Lineage (Xth gen)". Would also be nice for telling more quickly whether a dragon you thought you remembered was a nice 2g is actually a messy 11g.

 

 

[Odeen]

There are way more reasons to not include a legacy view than just that I like it. If I didn't like it, I would still be against it. I have always been against legacy anything, and you can check my post history on that, so that last little dig at my position doesn't exactly hold water.

 

Your checker looks like a checkerboard to me, so I don't see your complaint there beyond the fact that it's simply not what you're used to looking at.

 

Give the new view a chance. Be adventurous.

[Obscure_Trash]

Honestly, I think a lot of checkers look a lot more like checkers now. A lot of the times in the old view, with longer lines or even shorter lines with long names, there was so much page stretch, I would really only ever see a some cbs and a few second gens, maybe a third gen. I can see a lot more even in longer checkers now, so I get the full checker effect. And I don't think the checker effect is lost on small gens either just because the third gen spacing is larger.

 

Oooh, I see how people are having trouble counting generations now. It is trickier than it was before, since you can't just count across the boxes at the top. I like the idea of having the generation listed in the view lineage link, probably just as "View Lineage (Xth gen)". Would also be nice for telling more quickly whether a dragon you thought you remembered was a nice 2g is actually a messy 11g.

 

On this note, I've created a different thread for counting gens: https://forums.dragcave.net/index.php?showtopic=174711

I thought about doing it as you described here but didn't (yet?) do a mockup for it. ^^

[TCA]

It doesn't have anything to do with not being adventurous. This lineage is specifically designed for there to be a significant difference between the paternal and maternal halves, and in the old view there was a very dramatic horizontal line between them that made it clearer. I had planned around that division.

 

Now, in the CB generation, that division that I was counting on to exist when I made this lineage no longer makes the switch between the halves notable. The shift from Mayuri Bastine to Lion Gunta doesn't look any different than the shift between two mates.

 

I don't tend to support most legacy options, but as the appearance of lineages is one of the few things that was in the hands of the players for so long, I think that they should get to keep the results of their work in the form they worked for.

 

I don't dislike the new lineage view, by the way. I think this looks a lot nicer than it used to. I just want to be able to view them in the old layout, for the cases where it matters.

Edited May 23, 2016 by TheCompleteAnimorph

[Cinnamin Draconna]

If the new lineage page is going to stay, I say limit to 5 gens showing, because anything over that makes it look STUPID!!!

 

The rest of you can be as adventurous as you want, but why should MY lineages suffer for it. I worked FIVE years on my 10 gen even gen stripe project and now it looks like poodoo. Mostly because you can't actually SEE IT!!! I was planning on doing another 10 gen even gen with horse dragons, but if this lineage view is permanent I might not.

 

I also say again... there is too much excess space... the text is too large... the word wrap doesn't always work properly.. and it looks like junk.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

Spacing and name length wise, it seems lineages (usually) fall into one of three categories: people who used really short names to make them very compact, people who used really long names to make them very spaced out (especially for song lineages), and people who don't really care either way. What if the current spacing was used for the average length names, while a more spaced out one is used for really long names (allowing a closer resemblance to old song lineages) and a more compact one is used for really short names? I'm not sure what the cut off for each category would be, though. Also while I'm guessing it'd be on a per-generation basis, like it was before, I wouldn't be against it being evenly distributed throughout the whole lineage for consistency (ie, you have a 5g checker with really long names in the 2g section, then your whole lineage is spaced out to that length).

[cbussiere]

I just want to say that if different spacings are used, I would very much prefer it be applied to the entire lineage. So if one name is very long, the whole lineage has wide spacing. It always bothered me with the old table view if the boxes were very different widths because one generation had long names and another had short names. The consistency is perhaps what I like most about this new view.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

I just want to say that if different spacings are used, I would very much prefer it be applied to the entire lineage. So if one name is very long, the whole lineage has wide spacing. It always bothered me with the old table view if the boxes were very different widths because one generation had long names and another had short names. The consistency is perhaps what I like most about this new view.

Even so, with just three different widths it'd be nowhere near as wonky as it used to be, where the spacing differences were near limitless.

 

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the standardization (some of my lineages that, like you mentioned, used to have wildly differing widths look so much better now!), but at the same time it seems rather extreme that if one person in a collaborated 6g short name lineage suddenly decided to give one of the CB dragons a long name, that the whole lineage would extend out.

[Pokemonfan13]

The problem is, you can't please everyone. I was going to suggest that if all names in a lineage are a similar length it put the name on one line and adjust the spacing accordingly, but there are plenty of people who have long names but prefer the wrapping. So I just can't see a way to please the long name people that doesn't remove the one big benefit of this new view to many others: the evenness of each generation and the fact that long names don't stretch the lineage.

 

However, I do see a benefit in compacting things if all the names in the lineage are similarly short. The lineage as a whole would still be consistent in spacing, but the people who want a compact lineage could still get one.

 

For the names that wrap at just the totally wrong place, a workable but admittedly imperfect solution is to add capitals. It's only a problem with a Namethatlookslikethis, since if it was a NameThatLooksLikeThis or even NamethatlooksLikethis it would break on a capital rather than the high chance of splitting up a word. I don't think there is any solution for names that are one giant made up single word name. They can't be left on one line or it would mess up the rest of the lineage, either going back to uneven spacing or giving the rest of the lineage the same spacing required by that one name.

 

Would it be better overall if, when there is no space or capital to show where to break the name, the name simply split in half (or thirds if it's that long)? It would remove the chance of just one or a few letters hanging off the end of a name that's just barely too long.

 

If there is a legacy option, I think it really needs to be a link modification system rather than an account option. It looks like most of the people who want the continued ability to use the old system do like the new one better for some lineages. An account setting would remove the easy ability to view those with the new style. A link modification system also allows them to link to their lineages using the intended viewing style for that lineage. A choice in account settings means only the lineage maker will be viewing the lineage as intended.

 

I also object to the account option method because it forces a choice. For a lot of changes, an initial "Hate it!" reaction mellows over time and may even change into "Love it!!". A lot of people have a strong negative reaction to any change, even though it may be objectively for the better, simply because it is different. But if they give themselves time to adjust it ends up not being so bad. (I've experienced this myself plenty of times) People who have a reason to choose legacy would never come to appreciate the new view because they would never see it. With the url modification, it might even be that they come to like the new view for lineages that they currently see as ruined by it.

 

I'm on the fence about a legacy for this. On the one hand, I can understand that the new view ruins lineages in some peoples' eyes because they based their lineage on a quality that is no longer there. On the other hand, I kinda agree with Odeen about legacy in general.

Edited May 23, 2016 by Pokemonfan13

[KageSora]

I support an option to use the old view.

 

Some lines look better with the update, some looked better with the old style, and some are about the same either way--and it's subjective.

 

But I would say that "I like the way it looked before better" is a perfectly valid argument and a very strong one at that--lineages are almost entirely about how they look, so it actually makes the most sense out of any argument for the option to use the old view.

[Starscream]

Rather than crusading for a legacy view, why not work on offering suggestions to tweak perceived issues you have with the new view? "I don't like it, I want what I always had" not productive thinking in the least, and while some things I can see (like the spacing between the name of one dragon and the tile of the dragon beneath it), most of the complaints I've heard people giving are just...not coming through for me.

 

Want a way to track generations? Why not a blurb somewhere in the dragon info that tells you its generation (Breed: Water Dragon (6th G) or something)? Want more space separating a dragon from its downstairs neighbor? I bet that's doable. Want changes to word wrapping? I bet that's able to be tweaked, too.

 

The old table style lineage view was the kind of stuff that would have been right at home on a Geocities play-by-post horse RPG back in 1999, but it looked dated and clunky and was nearly impossible to properly read at a glance with high generation lineages. Why not see what can be done with this new, cleaner view?

I quite agree with this statement.

 

I personally find this lineage view very nice, very clean and much more refined. which has been happening all over the site for the past few years. Refinements are being made. out with the old, in with the new. Lineages I have seen look nice, checkers look very slick with this new format. Simply put, it was outdated. Heck even candy recipes get retired or improved. Updates keep the site fresh.

 

However, as odeen stated, if there are issues, then how about constructive crit,suggestions to improve what has been given to us - outside of go back to old. Saying something such as a new dragon replacement, that some spriter probably has spent many hours on getting it just right, ruins it for their lineage, is, in my mind, simply mean.

 

TJ, and the spriters/artists staff who put many months of effort into this project should be shown a little more respect than people demanding stuff to go back to the way it was. Give the changes sometime to sink in. its culture shock, this I understand - it is human nature to resist changes, this I also understand.

 

And, I would not object to a legacy being added, I do not see the point. I want to see how people can make new pretty lineages with this system.

[silver_tiger]

Going with one of the suggestions Odeen came up with, I'd love it if there could be a way to add generation number to the dragon info. Sometimes really long ones are so long you can't see all the gens, and that has been a problem for a *long* time. It would definitely help counting the messier lineages too, for whatever reason you need or want to do that.

Edited May 23, 2016 by silver_chan

[Cinspawn]

I just want to say that if different spacings are used, I would very much prefer it be applied to the entire lineage. So if one name is very long, the whole lineage has wide spacing. It always bothered me with the old table view if the boxes were very different widths because one generation had long names and another had short names. The consistency is perhaps what I like most about this new view.

I share this view. The best part of the new one is indeed (in my opinion) the consistency, and it is what has bothered me most on the old lineage: the various sizes of boxes.

 

I'd rather have very wide lineages (with perhaps, bigger sprites so it doesn't look empty) than word-wrapped names. I don't mind at all when Names Like This get word wrapped, but I certainly wouldn't want a Namelikethis to be cut in half (or thirds or whatnot).

 

Perhaps the spacing could be set to the widest name in the lineage (if that's possible)? That way, people with long-name-lineages still get their wide lineages, short-name-lineages are less wide (like before) and we still get the consistency overall.

 

Edit:

If it's possible for DC to calculate what gen a dragon is, a simple mouse-over over the sprite of a dragon in a lineage could show the generation.

Edited May 23, 2016 by Cinspawn

[AGYK]

In addition, someone else mentioned that without the boxes, checkers don't really look like checkers. This is very true. This looks nice, but without the dividers it doesn't have the partial-checkerboard look anymore, the pattern looks more like interlocked lines, which is problematic because that's not the aesthetic I bred for.

It still looks like a checker to me. Actually, it looks spectacular to me, and I'm pretty sure it looks better to me than it would have under the old layout. Clearly beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 

A legacy view doesn't hurt anyone, but it allows people to view lineages for which they prefer the old view as they were originally planned and curated, sometimes at great expense or effort. I don't see why "I like the new view, so you shouldn't get a legacy view" is a good argument.

I think the arguments laid out are more along the lines of

* Some things are glitches and can be fixed, or simply need a bit of tweaking; give it time

* It takes time to adjust to the new look, let's not knee-jerk reject it

* A lot of lineages look better with the new layout (pretty subjective)

* A legacy view/per-player rollback option means double the work for TJ

 

If the new lineage page is going to stay, I say limit to 5 gens showing, because anything over that makes it look STUPID!!!

Disagree, actually. A pretty long-gen EG still looks spectacular. A little hard to read the CBs, perhaps, but that's fixable. Stairs look even better (and another). Long spirals aren't bad either. The messies don't exactly look nice but gen doesn't help with that and neither did the old lineage view. Perhaps you could link examples so I could see why it looks bad to you past 5g?

 

I also say again... there is too much excess space... the text is too large... the word wrap doesn't always work properly.. and it looks like junk.

Most of that is fixable imo. The only part that isn't fixable is your statement that it "looks like junk", which seems highly subjective to me and which I have to disagree with. It's just different, and it's quite pretty to me.

 

For the names that wrap at just the totally wrong place, a workable but admittedly imperfect solution is to add capitals.  It's only a problem with a Namethatlookslikethis, since if it was a NameThatLooksLikeThis or even NamethatlooksLikethis it would break on a capital rather than the high chance of splitting up a word.  I don't think there is any solution for names that are one giant made up single word name.  They can't be left on one line or it would mess up the rest of the lineage, either going back to uneven spacing or giving the rest of the lineage the same spacing required by that one name.

I'd rather see uneven spacing than a one-word name broken. That just seems messy.

 

For a lot of changes, an initial "Hate it!" reaction mellows over time and may even change into "Love it!!".  A lot of people have a strong negative reaction to any change, even though it may be objectively for the better, simply because it is different.  But if they give themselves time to adjust it ends up not being so bad. (I've experienced this myself plenty of times)  People who have a reason to choose legacy would never come to appreciate the new view because they would never see it.  With the url modification, it might even be that they come to like the new view for lineages that they currently see as ruined by it.

Agree. I'm going through this progression with the new lineage view right now. Started off pretty meh, starting to like it more and more the more I see of it. It's quite elegant.

 

Going with one of the suggestions Odeen came up with, I'd love it if there could be a way to add generation number to the dragon info. Sometimes really long ones are so long you can't see all the gens, and that has been a problem for a *long* time. It would definitely help counting the messier lineages too, for whatever reason you need or want to do that.

Thread for that suggestion is here. Your support might be better placed there, where TJ can more easily see it.

 

If it's possible for DC to calculate what gen a dragon is, a simple mouse-over over the sprite of a dragon in a lineage could show the generation.

Not a huge fan of this on two counts: lag and JavaScript. Lag because the gen would have to be calculated on every mouseover (imagine the lag if you open a 12g messy and accidentally mouse over an 11g). JavaScript because your mouseover tag would have to be done via JS, and I'd much rather leave that off to speed things up.

[Obscure_Trash]

Disagree, actually. A pretty long-gen EG still looks spectacular. A little hard to read the CBs, perhaps, but that's fixable. Stairs look even better (and another). Long spirals aren't bad either. The messies don't exactly look nice but gen doesn't help with that and neither did the old lineage view. Perhaps you could link examples so I could see why it looks bad to you past 5g?

Yes, please do not make lineages any shorter! 5g is just not very large. I have quite a lot of lines longer than that and enjoy being able to see all or least all of their lineage on the same page.

[TCA]

Honestly, I don't think the new lineage is objectively better and can be called pure refinement. It's a different aesthetic with a different purpose: to look more like 'traditional' heritage trees.

 

And different aesthetics are fine, but this isn't like a sprite update where the aesthetic changes are an objective improvement. This is a shift to something that is an improvement from some standpoints, but doesn't serve everything as well. It does make patternless, 'messy' lineages look nicer, it's great for spiral lineages, some even-gens still look great, and it's easier to immediately see, in lineages that aren't too big, which dragons are parents of which.

 

But for arranging dragon image tiles in a manner that pleases the user creating the lineage, the old view still retains a very important purpose: providing a specific aesthetic experience that people have planned around and worked in for years. Some things really do look better that way to the creators, and because aesthetics are a matter of personal taste, just because one person doesn't see a difference or even thinks it looks better does not invalidate the person who steps back, looks calmly at their lineages, and says "This is not the aesthetic experience I cultivated."

 

Taking the old view away entirely is a loss of functionality, plain and simple.

[Daydreamer09]

Has anyone done an old vs. new comparison? I missed the first few days of the change and I've been seeing reactions mixed about even gens and checkers.

 

Old & New

 

My personal opinion. I like the old style better. And I don't feel like my opinion on this is going to change. So if there's a possibility of being able see the old lineage view again, I very much support it. An option in account settings would be awesome and time saving as a url modifier (although that would be nice as well) would have to be typed in ever single time.

[Aqub]

I would love any change to be able to see the old lineages again.

 

I feel like the new style is a lot less neat, almost awkward to look at. It's harder to count lineages, and anything but low gen EG lineages looks very unorganized and definitely less aesthetically pleasing than before.

 

Less common lineages, even stairs, don't look nearly as special or organized anymore.

 

Double Arrow

 

This Mirror

 

Spiral

 

Circles Look nothing like the way they used to, just like a reversed arrow.

 

There's also the problem of names. I understand the effort to even out every generation so it takes up the same amount of room, but the differences in name lengths gave variety to the shapes of the same types of lineages, which I found very interesting. Having a steeper stair lineage when the names were shorter was a nice little difference that made the lineage unique. Long names taking up three very small lines doesn't exactly look nice, then there's names like these: 1 2

 

I could type about how much I don't enjoy these new lineages forever, but instead I'll just say yes, I support this idea, and any other idea that proposes a way to view the old lineages, or even reverting back to them completely.

Edited May 23, 2016 by aqub

[Guillotine]

Honestly, I don't think the new lineage is objectively better and can be called pure refinement. It's a different aesthetic with a different purpose: to look more like 'traditional' heritage trees.

 

And different aesthetics are fine, but this isn't like a sprite update where the aesthetic changes are an objective improvement. This is a shift to something that is an improvement from some standpoints, but doesn't serve everything as well. It does make patternless, 'messy' lineages look nicer, it's great for spiral lineages, some even-gens still look great, and it's easier to immediately see, in lineages that aren't too big, which dragons are parents of which.

 

But for arranging dragon image tiles in a manner that pleases the user creating the lineage, the old view still retains a very important purpose: providing a specific aesthetic experience that people have planned around and worked in for years. Some things really do look better that way to the creators, and because aesthetics are a matter of personal taste, just because one person doesn't see a difference or even thinks it looks better does not invalidate the person who steps back, looks calmly at their lineages, and says "This is not the aesthetic experience I cultivated."

 

Taking the old view away entirely is a loss of functionality, plain and simple.

Bold mine.

 

While I am aware that my using an archaic browser (old!Opera) can always break things and acknowledged that that could have been the issue in my posts, it doesn't change that this basically removes the one aspect of the game I was really working with since near-completing my sprite collection. My lineages were built around the expectation that the tile format would remain, and many, many lineages simply do not look right in this new format, even ones that would initially seem untouched if you don't know what to look for (like long EG Alt/CB hybrid containing lines).

 

A lot of lineages broke with this, even discounting browsers that the new look just doesn't work on.

[Tawanda001]

You have to remember that the table layout is the aesthetic people have planned around for years, and any changes to that layout do change the aesthetic in a way that does not work for some people's plans and lineages.

...

A legacy view doesn't hurt anyone, but it allows people to view lineages for which they prefer the old view as they were originally planned and curated, sometimes at great expense or effort. I don't see why "I like the new view, so you shouldn't get a legacy view" is a good argument.

I agree totally.

I simply don't like the new style, the aesthetic does not appeal to me at all. I prefer the lineage to look like an actual portrait if you will, a snapshot of the dragon's lineage that is artistically pleasing to my eye. In my case I prefer form over function.

While I guess it's interesting to know how many gens there are at t a glance that's not the reason I LOOK at lineages. I feel like this has been done to my lineages, and while it's interesting and not unattractive, it's not what I intended or wanted in creating lineages -> http://theinspirationgrid.com/wp-content/u.../03/634-art.jpg

[alci]

I really hope we get an option to switch between new and old lineage views, because I have several lineages that I worked long on that do NOT look at all good in the new view.

[Vhale]

I like the tree view, though I would like less space in between the tiles. It's pretty spread out. I imagine much of the debate may be connected to the size of a person's monitor and the screen resolution they are running. That multiplied by the new spacing would make a huge difference in whether or not the lineage is visible.

[Dragon_Arbock]

I suppose to throw my two cents into the ring- don't fix what isn't broken. The old lineage view wasn't broken. I don't like the new one very much.

 

If TJ needs something to do so badly, try adding new features, not messing with old ones.

[gloryKAT]

while I love the new lineage view, I think it's a great idea to have the option to switch back to the old one. as people have said, the new view messes up some names, like this Xeno I bred just before the birthday event. the names looked fine before, but now they've kind of messed up.

Edited May 27, 2016 by gloryKAT

[velvet-curse]

For me, I believe the new tree makes messier lineages easier to read, as it easily shows the parents in relation to the child.

 

However, I believe it spoils the look of lineages such as checkers and stairsteps as it splits the dragons themselves and creates gaps meaning that the lineage looks more disjointed and removes the affect created by the original look.

 

As a huge checker supporter, if given an option, I would immediately switch back to the original view.

 

I would personally like an option (perhaps on account settings somewhere) where the lineage could be changed to tree view or traditional view so everyone could pick the lineage view that suits their scroll.