Do we need a revival?

[MoonTiger]

Well maybe for the trade threads, consider cleaning them out? What we can do is have one thread for lineage trades, one for rares/uncommons, one for gendered hatchies, one for commons, and a prize/prize kin thread due to the nature of their demand. By having one thread per category, you can better condense things into one spot and give users a larger pool to pick from instead of spreading a bunch of trades out and forcing people to look through thread after thread after thread.

[pinkgothic]

I've been reading this thread with interest. I don't know what's happened to dull popularity lately, though I think the theory that Pokemon Go may have a lot to do with it has merit - I personally don't play, but it's the first game in a long time I seem to be unable to avoid hearing about, which tells me something about its pervasive popularity.

 

That said, I see a lot of concerns here that I generally agree with, so I reckon I should post. Specifically, about how surprised I am that when people mention the birthday release and the problems with it, the new description feature doesn't get a mention.

 

I really loved much of the birthday release, especially the return of the lovely frills and the introduction of the Arias. I'm one of the people who love the new lineage view something fierce (though I nonetheless winced seeing it announced because I know some people put much effort into the aesthetics of their lineages based on the old view). I am completely in love with the two new drake species. I find the zombie change a wee bit excessive, but nonetheless both refreshing and pleasing.

 

But the change to description system really shocked me.

 

I realise that's a harsh word to use, so let me try to explain why it's made me feel dejected as a user:

 

For years, the people who write descriptions have been trying to get the description system tweaked so that the mods don't have to labour through it so much any more and people don't have to wait so long for approvals. You'd think I'd be happy that TJ has stepped forward to make a change to the system. But here's the thing: The change is to let people opt-in to viewing user descriptions that are accepted by other users. Who is going to set that option? People who write descriptions. So we've basically been kicked off into our own site niche to play with each other and congratulate ourselves for our fancy descriptions.

 

I am absolutely sure that this was not the intended effect of the change, that it was genuinely supposed to be an improvement, so I lay no blame on TJ for the effect. (I'm genuinely and deeply grateful for the attempt, even.) Nonetheless, it feels incredibly isolating. More so, it feels like since a change now has been made to the system, further changes aren't likely to happen - certainly not for another few years of labouring.

 

So I've lost all hopes that the description system will be fixed, and that takes a lot of enjoyment out of the game for me personally. It felt like a band-aid being put on a problem to keep the grumbling quiet. Rationally, I am absolutely sure that this is not intended, but it's hard to shake the feeling, and I... don't have the energy to fight that feeling.

 

So I go quiet instead.

[MoonTiger]

I fully agree with what you say about the descriptions. I did find that tweak rather useless to the over all mechanic and issues with the system.

 

That fact of the matter is that there's nothing we can do for the game itself, and I doubt anything will be done unless it's at TJ's leisure and discretion. We can however control the forums so we should focus on what we can do to revive and revamp the forums.

 

I would suggest starting out with cleaning out the forums. Close down and fully delete threads that are no longer in use at all that way the forums aren't so clogged up.

 

Another step would be to condense the trading threads like I mentioned before.

Edited July 27, 2016 by LoveOfTheMoonChild

[TJ09]

So I go quiet instead.

I can't fix problems that no one's talking about. If it's actually the case that no one's turning on the option (a quick look shows that it hasn't seen much use), then it's likely the option can be removed (everyone who is logged in sees pending descriptions, at the cost of the threshold for descriptions showing up being increased). Alternatively, if the issue is that no one knows the option exists, a simple message like "This dragon has a description but you don't have pending descriptions visible. click here to view the description, or click here to always show pending descriptions" could solve that.

 

This is, of course, one of the downfalls of "optional" features that I have mentioned.

 

(though the continuation if this tangent probably best belongs in Suggestions).

[Lurhstaap]

I for one missed that part of it, so count me in as someone who had no idea that was a thing. I bet the under-utilization of that feature is partly due to people not knowing it's there.

[noxlyx]

Dropping my two cents in here pertaining to trading, as a casual player of DC what really gets me about trading is the fact that everything rare goes well above my range. >____< I've played DC since 2010, and I can count the number of times I've seen a CB gold/silver egg on one hand in all of those years. Hell, I have yet to see a CB Almadine or CB Spessartine when I hunt in caves anymore. It kind of kills my interest in the game when I can't do breeding plans I really want, when from trading ratios are something like 15 Almadine/Xenos being roughly worth 1 CB Gold. (I read this on pg. 430 on Question about a Trade? And was absolutely floored by the ratio.)

 

I honestly just don't bother with trading because ratios are insanely awkward to deal with, and seeing ratios like that makes it so that breeding pretty common lineages or pretty but long prize lineages just doesn't feel worth it.

Edited July 28, 2016 by noxlyx

[StormBirdRising]

I think that is hugely unfair to people like natayah, who runs the events thread, to live wires like cyradis4, predatorfan who I can't spell... , Lantean Pegasus and Applemango, who run two big projects I'm in, to socky, _Z_, other mods I meet rather less, olympe - I could keep going for hours.

 

Assuming rubyshoes is gone and not just on hiatus, it's sad that you miss her. But much as I like her too - she isn't the light that kept this place going - it is still alive; if it weren't, we wouldn't have this thread.

 

From the first page:

"I have noticed the game seems to have lost a lot of players.

... but it just seems so "dead" on there now."

 

 

This thread was started to address the issue of how dead it has been in here.

 

Perhaps another reason so many people have stopped posting in the forum is because some people don't listen, and when they do, they don't respect other people's opinions. They are too busy telling everyone else what they're opinion is supposed to be or how they are supposed to feel.

 

I've seen people posting in the open forums that they are leaving, I've seen it on people's scrolls that they quit and are not coming back, and I've received pms from people who would rather bite the legs off a live frog than post here.

 

People generally don't leave a place where they feel comfortable, respected, and listened to.

They do however stop visiting sites where they encounter disrespect, snarkiness, people arguing over nothing, cliques, and just plain rudeness.

 

By elevating Rubyshoes I'm not being unfair to anyone. It is my OPINION. I really believe that she was the lucky star of this place, and I really do feel the darkness falling because she is not here.

Edited July 28, 2016 by StormBirdRising

[Fuzzbucket]

I for one missed that part of it, so count me in as someone who had no idea that was a thing. I bet the under-utilization of that feature is partly due to people not knowing it's there.

It is indeed Shall switch on in a minute

[Tango]

I still maintain it was the lose of the raffle, and the subsequent silence on it that lost a lot of players. If there's no chance of getting what runs the trading market why bother? You'll never get any rares.

 

 

Which, now TJ has responded to this thread, I have to ask again - why didn't we get informed on why we didn't have a raffle? If there's going to be more raffles? I'm not trying to be rude, even though I agree the forums feel a bit dead I appreciate any update, but even telling us that he CAN'T tell us why there wasn't a raffle would help.

 

Is there any situation where he couldn't tell us that he can't tell us? I suppose it could get hopes up for an update? I don't know.

[MoonTiger]

From the first page:

"I have noticed the game seems to have lost a lot of players.

... but it just seems so "dead" on there now."

 

 

This thread was started to address the issue of how dead it has been in here.

 

Perhaps another reason so many people have stopped posting in the forum is because some people don't listen, and when they do, they don't respect other people's opinions. They are too busy telling everyone else what they're opinion is supposed to be or how they are supposed to feel.

 

I've seen people posting in the open forums that they are leaving, I've seen it on people's scrolls that they quit and are not coming back, and I've received pms from people who would rather bite the legs off a live frog than post here.

 

People generally don't leave a place where they feel comfortable, respected, and listened to.

They do however stop visiting sites where they encounter disrespect, snarkiness, people arguing over nothing, cliques, and just plain rudeness.

 

By elevating Rubyshoes I'm not being unfair to anyone. It is my OPINION.  I really believe that she was the lucky star of this place, and I really do feel the darkness falling because she is not here.

What bothers me about this thread is that it's six pages of opinions which is perfectly reasonable, to be expected, and encouraged, but no one seems to be willing to come up with feasible ideas. We CAN NOT change the game. That is under TJ's control. No matter how many ideas we come up with for the game, they won't fix anything because only TJ can make changes. We need to focus on the forums where we do have control and we can do something about the nature of the forums. Wouldn't that be more productive than worrying over the game itself (something we can't really control)? Perhaps we could start a different thread that is forum specific...

Edited July 28, 2016 by LoveOfTheMoonChild

[Amaterasu-sama]

I feel that I haven't' given my POV on some of the "disappointing" things and I think TJ's post kinda made me realise, is silence actually agreeing to everything said on the thread? So I'll just like to post about these points in nutshell:

 

- Birthday release: No problems on my end, I had actually quit DC partly due to my interest dying out and partly due to silver dragon update (to be fair, I don't dislike the new sprite as a standalone, I disliked that it replaced the silvers. Anyway, bygones be bygones). The birthday release actually pulled me back into the DC world. I was like OMFG Look old pink! and OMFGGGG IT LOOKS EVEN BETTER. So yep, more or less. I also loved the zombie updates, I spend so much time planning for it that I don't actually care it only happens once an year.

 

- The description update: As a player I never really did care about these. If I am looking at a specific dragon and it so happens to have a description, I'll read it. I won't go looking for one specially though. In all my years of playing, I've described only 1 dragon. I do not review pending descriptions either, probably never will. It's a part of the game I don't touch. I don't mind the occasionally badly written descriptions, the page contains warning anyway. It's better than not seeing them at all. I can understand people being upset with it if description makes a good part of their game play. Personally for me, I don't mind the update at all - it got me reading some descriptions I would have otherwise not known even exist. I also think description modding is far more pain than gain the way it's now.

 

- Suggestions: Now this is a bit touchy for me. I've made suggestions too and participated in many that I want to see implemented. But I can't always say update X will change the game for better. I can't also say just because I haven't heard anything, a suggestion hasn't already been saved in pipeline for if and when it's needed. I can understand and personally feel the frustration of not seeing some of the really needed things like a way to obtain past CB holidays, but I can't just support the idea nobody does anything around here because nothing is ever implemented. Maybe those suggestions aren't good enough or possible to implement yet but will be in future if they're fleshed out more. For e.g. I know many will be upset at this too because it's not the same as heal and not what we asked for, but I've been using STUN BSA left, right and center to prevent view bombing and sickness. I also saw some other people using it in trades. Like I said, it's not heal but it's not useless either. So I'm really happy with July release! I don't know why we haven't got heal though, if it's still not implemented, is there a major issue or concern behind it? Like a game without any risks (death) will become boring? Maybe viewbombing will be abused for ratio competitions? I don't know, some hints now and then would be nice as to why certain things aren't getting implemented if they're planned or if they're in pipeline or if they're not technically feasible as of yet but are left open ended for future.

 

 

As for the cons, to sum up:

- Trading section needs revamp - fewer threads, more clean up, better organisation, slightly more flexible

- no regular events, raffles, lotteries etc. - I don't care if I win an effin trio that I reflex click and dump to AP, it's not about rarity. It's about fun! People love winning things, it doesn't matter what they're! There's really nothing that gives people chance to win in-cave dragons (cb metal-cb blocker types with all year round availability) - no need for complicated events requiring a lot of artwork, extra work what not, even a simple forum thread based lottery will do.

- no holiday raffle for prize < - major discontentment contributor - please bring it back or bring the store#

- scroll sorting is still pretty painful - lots of suggestions already posted for what people want, just need some implementations

- mobile skin all but neglected (doesn't even show all eggs in one page in biomes for many devices) - maybe a dedicated bug report and development thread for mobile skin only? Does one already exist?

- not enough onsite activity (polls etc) to bridge the gap between forum and site - this used to happen before if I remember correctly, I don't remember the exact content of those polls. But something along these lines will be fun and you get to collect data in numbers while you're at it.

 

# I think the whole thing with raffle absolutely sucks. If there's one issue that really upsets me it's this one. Either don't start, or if you have done it, then don't just end it without explanation and leave everyone hanging. I looked at EVERY single post of the holiday release threads to find any information on raffle because I wasn't there, and to date still have no clue what really happened. I can absolutely buy the point that lack of raffle made people leave and it will make more people leave if it isn't either re-introduced or a way is provided for people to get CB prizes. Not bringing in more cb prizes into the pool only makes an already abused trading ground even more unfair for people who have to trade a limb for these low gen prizes and also for those people who want rares, they can't get any because everyone with ultra rare stuff wants prizes (myself included). We're all victim of this never ending cycle; this is one problem that isn't about to get old and let go of anytime soon. And to people who just say deal with it and stop whining. NO.

 

I'd also disassociate myself from any person specific talk. I believe all members come here to have a good time and because they love the game, all staff and admin come here to do a good job, no one wakes up in morning and say I'm going to do a bad job today. I've never had any issues or complaints with any of the staff.

 

 

[MoonTiger]

I just realized, can't we do our own raffles on the forums?

[silver_tiger]

I just realized, can't we do our own raffles on the forums?

Of course, I think a lot of people do. But that won't introduce new CB Shimmerscales and Tinsels into the game, which is what people want from the Christmas raffle... not to mention all the other things you can get from that. People have gotten CB Hollies in the past, for example.

[Amaterasu-sama]

I just realized, can't we do our own raffles on the forums?

TJ has the capacity to give all in cave dragons, and without the need to go through the catching routine. Player run raffles are different thing, many players generously gift even the rarest of stuff but what I'd like is an event where everyone can participate and pick in cave dragons.

 

For eg.

 

X number of people won 1st prize and get to pick 1 "tier one" egg (cb gold, cb silver, cb copper, leetle)

 

Y number of people won 2nd prize and get to pick 1 "tier two" egg (cb xeno, cb pyralspiter, cb trio)...

 

..so on, the first place winner can choose anything from cb gold to blocker, but say, a fourth place winner can only choose tier 4 prizes.

 

And people will still cry about it, but since none of the prizes are exclusive to event, it's not putting anyone at a disadvantage.

 

The prizes should also be scroll locked and non transferrable so that they can't be used as trade fodder. So many players only dream about cb rares and never get any, this will give them a chance to gather some of those wanted dragons without the need to rely on others for it.

 

And just to be clear - this is not replace the holiday raffle that gives shimmer/tinsel and cb holidays, this is just like "mini games" every now and then to keep things exciting in forum/site

Edited July 28, 2016 by Amaterasu-sama

[gigglymonkey12]

^

 

I like that idea.

I love user run raffles because it shares the love of beautiful lineages or cb that they find

but I would also like a raffle ran by TJ or the mods (that doesn't replace the holiday raffles)

[Rally Vincent]

- no holiday raffle for prize < - major discontentment contributor - please bring it back or bring the store#

In my opinion, not having a raffle last Christmas was an improvement. The raffle stirred so much unrest, I always disliked how there were the same discussions about Prize Dragons and not winning them over and over.

 

It's true, though, that a simple statement beforehand that there would be no raffle would have been helped overall acceptance.

[MoonTiger]

Should I start a thread about a forum specific revival? I don't want to be annoying on this thread, but I do really want to take some action for DC...

[cyradis4]

If someone walked up to me and said:

"what do you find most frustrating about DC? That might make you leave?"

 

My answer would be as follows:

 

1. Breeding commons

- There are multiple BSA, multiple suggestions, to deal with this problem. In a nut shell? When breeding common x common or blocker x blocker, one breed severely dominates the other. 30+ breedings resulting in 30+ Falconis before the first Sunrise? 35 Olives to get one Albino? And what was it...... 62 Black Teas to get a *Pebble?*

- My preferred way to fix this issue is the BSA for Sunsongs, so you can affect the breeding you actually need to and let the normal ratios handle the rest. But anything that levels out the breedings of commons would help. Breeding and lineage building is a huge thing, and this issue caused major headaches. People don't breed commons because of it, so the commons get more common and turn into blockers.

 

2. Stagnant Biomes

- Seeing a biome recycle the same 4 breeds is depressing

- Something to help level out the ratios would really help. Things like the Holly Collector Contest have made real, lasting impacts over the years, but some way for the cave to self-correct when a breed becomes really blockerish would be nice. I favor the Kick to AP, because it does many nice things.

 

3. No normal releases from September to March

- Summer months are great, but that huge 6 month down-time can be a real biter.

- The holiday releases are nice, but because of their limited nature only affect things for about two weeks and then they basically sit for the next year. Having even a breed released every month (especially if its a hybrid or other non-standard breed) would really, really help keep interest up over those dead months when most people have more time to play.

 

4. Few substantive changes to game play

- Basically, things that give you more to do, or let you do more with what you have. Like BSAs. We've had a couple released recently, but only Stun has any real affect on game-play.

- Something like the Royal Blue BSA to mark eggs in the AP you already picked up. Modifications to teleport. Multi-clutches.

- Refusal reversals / resets! That's a huge one. Its incredibly frustrating to sweat bullets for months to collect what you need for a dragon..... only to have it refuse the mate you got that you can't replace.

- The BSA sub-forum is seen as a graveyard for ideas. Once a thread goes there, its the kiss of death. Who wants to make suggestions or discuss something that almost never happens?

 

5. Frustrating trading

- I have my own reasons for breeding only my own dragons to my own, but sometimes that's not possible

- The trading market is dominated by the ultra rare, and trade threads are hard to follow and can be real pains.

- Most of my stuff trades best on EATW's trading forum, because its a lot easier for someone who doesn't want to scroll through tons of posts to spot what they want.

- An in-game trading feature that doesn't require posts and such would be fantastic! Select the dragon you want to trade, select a dropdown of what you want, and boom! Especially if it had a filter / search feature. I honestly think a lot of the problems with trading is finding each other.

 

 

Other than those problems, areas I think would really, really help keep things active would be the "store" and its attached blocker-contests. People are naturally competitive... and competing by raising blockers would get people picking them up even more. Also, a way to get prizes again would be super fantastically desired and help in a lot of areas, first and formost trading.

 

Cheers!

C4.

[olympe]

>_> I guarantee if he sells DC to someone, they absolutely ruin it.

 

Also because I've seen the sentiment "10th birthday was fail" about a hundred times now... wat. We got a bunch of new releases, the rerelease of two breeds people only dared to dream about, and some extra site features. Sure, it wasn't the release of every feature we've ever asked for, but it was certainly very enjoyable.

Agreed. I think the 10th birthday release was a good one, even though I'm most definitely not much into non-standard dragons (drakes, pygmies and two-headed), but I'm very thrilled about the return of frills and bright pinks. I totally liked that birthday release much better than the "7 eggs in 7 days" release for DC's 7th birthday.

 

The July release wasn't too bad, either - just the timing was less than ideal. I expected a release by the end of June, not sometime in July.

[pinkgothic]

I can't fix problems that no one's talking about. If it's actually the case that no one's turning on the option (a quick look shows that it hasn't seen much use), then it's likely the option can be removed (everyone who is logged in sees pending descriptions, at the cost of the threshold for descriptions showing up being increased). Alternatively, if the issue is that no one knows the option exists, a simple message like "This dragon has a description but you don't have pending descriptions visible. click here to view the description, or click here to always show pending descriptions" could solve that.

 

This is, of course, one of the downfalls of "optional" features that I have mentioned.

 

(though the continuation if this tangent probably best belongs in Suggestions).

But, see, from my perspective, people have talked about it for a long time already. (That said, I went ahead and bumped the thread, since there's little harm in that.)

 

As for why no one's talking about it now, I honestly just assume(d) that's because I'm more or less the only one not happy with it (though some uncertainty on whether I was just maybe not hearing about it is what made me post about it here - I figured if it turned out that there were significantly more people disgruntled by it, it was worth uncovering). That's another aspect that feeds into the whole sense of isolation, on a different level.

 

I'm just... not going to make a suggestion if it appears like I'm the only one (or almost the only one) that's bummed about something - I just... don't expect this game to cater to my whim? The game should try to be fun for the majority of people in it, not me in particular. If it happens to be fun for me in particular, too, then that's great for me, of course, and that's the sort of thing that keeps me personally playing, but it's mostly a question of what sites I choose to visit and less what the sites choose to do with themselves.

 

Basically, if I get the impression I'm the odd one out, why would I suggest a change to the game? While there are possible answers to that question, I'm just... really not that kind of person.

 

----

 

On the broader topic, I like cyradis4's break-down, so I'm linking to it here since I've landed on the top of the next page.

Edited July 28, 2016 by pinkgothic

[purpledragonclaw]

One thing I would really like to see is more egg slots. Even with the maximum allowed of 7 eggs, with so many species in the cave now it seems like it's not enough space to raise all the dragons I'd like.

[Clya]

 

3. No normal releases from September to March

- Summer months are great, but that huge 6 month down-time can be a real biter.

- The holiday releases are nice, but because of their limited nature only affect things for about two weeks and then they basically sit for the next year. Having even a breed released every month (especially if its a hybrid or other non-standard breed) would really, really help keep interest up over those dead months when most people have more time to play.

^^^ This.

Last year I was barely on from Halloween to Christmas, then Christmas to V-Day. I wasn't busy, I was just booored.

 

I signed up in February (2015), a week before the V-Day release, I had no clue what was going on. But the releases after that made me have so much fun, I was so excited to collect these new breeds! But once there wasn't releases anymore, I was bored. I had gotten more used to the site by then, but I was still at a loss as to what to do. Only now am I starting to do lineages, breeding projects and other things.

 

 

Now completely separate idea here, bear with me

The person who introduced me into DC?

 

She quit before the Xeno release, and so did her brother. She was barely on during the Xeno release to grab them, but she outright told me that "the magic wasn't there anymore". Her brother wasn't too interesting in the site as it was. She almost came back at the Silver Revamp, but her favorite breed (the Nilias), she couldn't stand to look at.

 

My brother? He joined months after me because he wanted to collect dragons with me. He lasted 4 months then said he was bored of it. The same dragons all the time, and he didn't have patience for lineages.

 

I have introduced 3 people (not counting my brother), only one still "plays" and she is on maybe 3 times a month. The other 2 people lost interest, and one of them said that she likes slow paced games that don't require much attention. Later she told me that she felt it was too slow paced, and the dragons she liked the most (Graves, Hollies and the Silvers), she couldn't get because they were retired or too rare.

 

I agree with most of cyradis4's suggestions, and while I don't have anything to offer, I do hope that little bit of insight from those who have stopped playing helps.

[purplehaze]

One thing I would really like to see is more egg slots. Even with the maximum allowed of 7 eggs, with so many species in the cave now it seems like it's not enough space to raise all the dragons I'd like.

YES! And TJ teased us by asking about an extra slot, based on the length of time we had been playing I believe, but nothing ever came of that and frankly I have quit hoping for that. I know he didn't promise it, but the response was overwhelmingly positive, so it feels like a slap in the face to have it ignored.

 

I would love to be able to breed more, but with only 7 spaces for eggs I am almost constantly egg-locked. I look at the "breeding plans" threads for each of the new breeds that come out and I oooh and aaah at the beauty of them, but I know that I will never be able to realize the majority of them. I can't even build one single lineage with each new breed.

[gigglymonkey12]

Yes to the egg slot.

I understand having a limited amount of slots vs just grabbing all you want, but like purpledragonclaw said...there's more species in the cave now so I would love for the ratio of egg slots available to be a bit more in balanced.

 

I would love to be greedy and ask for 10 slots because there's been so many new releases vs when it first started...and also because 10 is an even number.

Or...at least 8.

Having an odd number makes my breeding plans go wonky when there are new releases.

 

 

[silver_tiger]

I would also love an extra egg slot. It would help so much with getting my Halloween goals, for example, but most of all I'd just love an even number of egg slots.

 

(I'd also love a corresponding bump in the amount of hatchlings we're allowed to have on our scroll at one time, but the egg slot would be fine by itself...)