Update DC to the standards of newer pet sites

Primaltimediamond · February 17, 2017

Honestly i wish DC was more engaging, because sure it's low maintenance and that's fine but at the same time this makes the site also pretty forgettable all together. Lord knows how many eggs and hatchlings I lost simply because i forgot about this site for a few months.

Personally I'm not keen on sites that have a death/running away mechanic, I understand why Dc has this and yes it's a core mechanic but at times I wish it was more of an optional thing, I get it it's supposed to mirror real life where if you don't look after your pets or whatever they die. But I usually play these type of games to relax and escape from real life just a little while, so if I do not come to a site a couple months or even a year or so i'd like everything to be still there and not gone because the pixels ran away or "died" on me.

They made the events more engaging which is fine and fun, but again site is forgettable I missed out on the Halloween and Christmas dragons from last year and the valentine dragon this year. sure I can still do the mini games and get a cool little badge but I much rather have the dragons. So to fix this perhaps if you complete the mini game but have no eggs yet you get two eggs as a reward as well (the biomes would be randomly decided) or after the new holiday dragons mature they are allowed to breed once with their breed as a result and all eggs will go to the AP automatically (to keep with the 2 per new holiday release rule) and those who missed out the first time can grab 2 eggs and still have the dragons for that year even though they won't be CB's.

The store idea would also fix this, but yeah we don't know if TJ will ever implement something like this.

Another problem about this site being so forgettable is that names are wiped form scrolls after a certain amount of time, and you have to rename your dragons, and duplicate naming isn't allowed. Of course if you have a small number this is no problem but if you have over 5000+ dragons then giving all of them unique names is rather bothersome, sure you can give your dragons surnames or use special character/numbers in their name but not everyone wants to do this.

Sadly whenever a suggestion to remove this it's usually met with insults on how people are lazy and uncreative but that is a different matter.

And the final issue is the scroll lock feature, now thankfully there are only 2 breeds that have this so it's not THAT big a deal but it's still an annoyance to the real hardcore collectors among us or to those with a preference towards a certain sprite.

For example I love the snow angel with the red and green on its wings, but instead I'm stuck with the one that has gold and white wings. I can take a little solace in the fact that out of the 3 different variants it has a different colored tail ribbon so there's that.

In that instance trading adult dragons would help, it'd allow people to have access to the sprites they are not able to get. However even if people breed the other version any eggs hatched and raised on their scrolls wills till result in the version their scroll is locked with.

For example: I trade one of my white/gold winged snow angels for a red/green/gold one, I breed that one and I hatch and egg the hatchling will still grow up into a white/gold snow angel because that is what is locked on my scroll.

So yeah even if dragon trading can't work all over the board least allow us to trade adult dragons with scroll locked versions

HeatherMarie · February 17, 2017

Dragons no longer lose names for inactivity, and haven't for a long while now.

I do not support trading adults. To me, it takes away everything this game is about. You catch eggs, hatch them, grow them. That's the whole game, basically. If you can trade adults, why would you *ever* take responsibility for an egg/hatchie again? Opening up the site to trade adults would make this game a very, very different game, and I don't want to see it changed in such a big way.

I'm not sure how to make this site less "forgettable" in your case, especially if you forget about the big holiday events. The new holiday dragons drop for three days, which is plenty of time for most people to log on for a second to grab eggs even if they are very busy. Why don't you write a reminder for yourself? Eggs and hatchlings get seven days to grow up and/or hatch, so that's seven days where all you have to do is remember *once* to log on and put those dragons in a hatchery. You can breed, you can name, you can describe, you can trade, you can raise... I don't know how to make this game less "forgettable".

Fuzzbucket · February 17, 2017

If you forget the game constantly, Primaltimediamond, clearly it isn't the game for you. Why does that matter ? There are plenty of games you can play which may better engage you. But forgetting to show up for Christmas etc - anyone can remember Christmas. Do you also forget to buy gifts for your family ?

And a very much no for trading adults. I would rather have had a different snow angel too - but them's the breaks. It is one thing that differentiates scrolls, and - well, it is what it is.

Dragons no longer lose names for inactivity, and haven't for a long while now.

I do not support trading adults. To me, it takes away everything this game is about. You catch eggs, hatch them, grow them. That's the whole game, basically. If you can trade adults, why would you *ever* take responsibility for an egg/hatchie again? Opening up the site to trade adults would make this game a very, very different game, and I don't want to see it changed in such a big way.

All this.

Jazeki · February 18, 2017

Please no eggs as rewards for holiday event completion. I barely got a badge for last year's Halloween event and I spent two days trapped in a bush during this Valentine's event. If the reward of these games was a dragon, I might never have gotten them.

Indigo_Dragon · February 18, 2017

All my thoughts on this are:

No rollover, no banning the death or timer component. Keep those the same. No trading adults. Maybe cross-scroll breeding but NO trading adults. Need to figure out how to somehow collect adults of different forms that are not scroll-locked but that may be impossible at the moment and is best discussed on another thread.

Please bring in the shop. I'd love this. Especially if you could get more points for it by catching eggs, raising them, raising hatchlings, breeding adults, and the number of adults that you have.

I really really want something like the mini games. Like we could cycle through them through the year, seasonally, but would have just one mini game that you can play. And for certain holidays, then the mini game would change to the new one the holiday is sporting.

I can't think of any "reward" for completing those seasonal minigames though. Maybe just something fun in general, or keeping track of your wins/losses if it's that kind of game?

If it had actual points that could be used for the shop or anything like that, I would think it to be terribly unfair for those who cannot spend much time on here. I'd rather the points for the shop to come from the dragons you're raising instead since that IS the main focus of this collector's game.

And if you are able to get rare CB eggs from the shops, then have a maximum of two of each shop-born adults. :3 Like if you accidentally kill the egg, it doesn't count in the total. The limit is the breeding adults, and perhaps a 3 hatchling limit in terms of frozen hatchlings? IDK just something to keep you from just getting tons of frozen CB hatchlings or something. We can work that thing out more later in the actual thread I think.

But for this thread, all I really support of the suggestions are the store and of the seasonal mini games that don't really affect anything and are just something you can do when bored, and not do if you're not in the mood to play it. :3 Something you can do over and over again, like the mana game or the virus game. Or even simple decorating. As well as getting rid of the hatchie lock or giving a special platinum trophy with 8 egg slots for those who have like thousands of dragons. Either one is good!

But that's just my two cents that is all!

Edited February 18, 2017 by Sapphira_Majoram

Primaltimediamond · February 18, 2017

oh yeah, how dare someone having other things to do outside the internet and forgetting about pixel dragons for a few months, such a shame! Clearly people like that can't play a game like this!

No, get out of here with that nonsense, don't tell me what I can't or can play I'll decide that for myself thank you very much

I life with my dad and only celebrate Christmas with him, and all we do is eat nice and put up a tree, we don't visit family or whatever, so it's pretty small, and we don't give each other gifts every year either but, thanks for stooping that low Fuzzbucket. appreciated :3

Now I remember why I don't come to the forums. Well sorry for having a different experience you guys

olympe · February 18, 2017

That was not the case. But if you say that DC is very forgettable and you often forget about it for months at a time and want to change some things rather drastically to better suit your preferences, then it follows quite logically that DC isn't exactly the game for you.

Also, re missing events:

They made the events more engaging which is fine and fun, but again site is forgettable I missed out on the Halloween and Christmas dragons from last year and the valentine dragon this year.

You said you missed the events due to the fact that the site is forgettable. You never said anything about being busy 24/7 for said events so you couldn't spare a minute to log in and catch what you need.

And I think you already decided what you can and cannot play - because, according to your own words, you quite often don't play DC for months at a time because it's so forgettable. However, you're always welcome to play - just don't try to change pretty much everything that differentiates DC from other games to better suit your own preferences.

Besides, even if adult trading was implemented - which I'm not in favor of, btw - it wouldn't be possible to get all three kinds of snow angels anyway. Because the sprite doesn't depend on the single dragon, but on the scroll it is on. So, even if you trade for a tri-colored snow angel or a black sweetling, they'd turn into your white-winged variety as soon as they hit your scroll. That's the whole meaning of scroll-coded.

Fuzzbucket · February 18, 2017

I didn't mean to suggest everyone has to give presents; I am really sorry if you took it that way. But - you have a tree; that's a reminder of Christmas, and it's hard not to notice Valentine and Easter and Hallowe'en if you ever enter a store.

I have a huge life outside the forums. I suppose the thing is that this is the only game I play. And because I am very busy IRL, I very much value its quietness and simplicity. I don't forget about it; I do do nothing for days at times. But I don't forget special events even though I'm 72 and do forget stuff these days; if I started to I'd put reminders in my diary. Special events would be the only possible problem with forgetting to play for a bit.

Nayelianne · February 18, 2017

I haven't read all the posts in the thread, but I'll give my thoughts regarding the main one at least:

1. Time mechanics:

I think the time mechanic with eggs is part of the core strategy here on dragcave, and something that necessarily encourages users to come back and not forget about the site so their eggs won't die.

I find 7 days to be sufficient time for an egg to survive even in the hands of a busy person who can only log in once a week. You can get it to hatch pretty quickly after they're hatchable, after all, so even if it has 1 hour left, it's not much of a problem usually. And the site works ok on mobile as well.

I'm not a programmer, but I'd imagine associating those timers with user activity would just add unnecessary complications for the coding/database end of the site. And, as mentioned by another user, make hatching neglecteds even harder to manage. Plus, I imagine it'd make them slower to hatch altogether which is also a big no-no-no for me.

Eggs in signatures:

I personally feel there's really no need to clutter signatures with those when we already have the hatcheries doing a much more efficient job.

2. Trading adults:

I'd rather not go into that, but this might prove to be unnecessary if the prize shop were implemented.

I would, however, definitely support cross-scroll breeding, some times there's certain dragons with special codes or names that would make perfect pairs to one of ours. Of course, both users would have to confirm the breeding before it took place, and not sure how the eggs would be divided (50/50 chance of it being on either scroll unless users come to an agreement?). Or 1 for each if it's a multi-clutch breeding.

3. Prize Shop / Missions:

I super and utterly support the idea of the Prize shop and little casual "quests"/"missions" to go with them. We already have trophies, so a point system could be rather complementary to it.

Missions could work like trophies (as in, you can work on as many as you want at the same time) or could be picked by the user with a limitation (eg. A user can only have 1~3 active quests at a time, and could only try for another after completing or giving up on an active one).

Mission examples:

"Hatch an alt Vine"

"Hatch an alt black dragon"

"Have 49 Adult Red dragons"

"Grab # eggs from the cave"

"Donate # eggs or hatchies through one-way trades"

"Breed # times"

"Create a hybrid" etc.

Completing each one of those would awards points that you could use (provided you hoarded enough) in the prize shop to get special CB dragons, or older CB event dragons that are no longer avaiable. Which dragons would be in the shop each month would, of course, be up to the DC staff/artists.

4. Hatcheries vs. Active clicking:

Rather than finding that "the core design of DC is broken" (as stated by the OP) because it allows external hatcheries, I'm rather thankful for it, since it isn't another petsite that will destroy my wrists by forcing me to click a thousand and something eggs, I can just leave a few tabs open on hatcheries. It's rather passive, but it spares my frail little wrists for things like doing art instead.

Let's take Valenth for example, it was such a pain to hatch anything on that site, it was one of the reasons I never played it much.

On clickcritters I'd click to a certain amount, but my wrists suffered so much with the repetitive clicking that I had to use my keyboard to click instead. It wasn't fun, just time and health consuming. DC is a lot more reasonable in that regard.

5. Minigames:

With the above being said, I would enjoy something extra to do while waiting for things to grow. I'm so impatient with the time it takes with the eggs to hatch that I keep opening my scrolls, my friend's scrolls, random people scrolls, looking at trades, working on spreadsheets to organize my dragons, refreshing the AP even when I'm scrolllocked and know nothing will be hatching in days. So having something extra to keep me distracted would be lovely.

Those, of course, should definitely be something optional so not to scare away the users who like that the site is low maintenance.

Random ideas:

- BATTLE SYSTEM: I'm sure an optional battle system (even if I don't particularly care for one) could be something some users could appreciate.

- SCAVENGING: Sending off certain dragons to scavenge certain quest items, or items you could sell for points (eg. being able to send one dragon every # amount of time to a particular location to scavenge for treasures). Perhaps they could even have a rare chance (0.5%?) of finding you a summoning item (with limitations) for a particular dragon (could be one that hasn't been released yet, a holiday one that isn't currently available, etc) -> that could even serve as an alternative to the shop for getting limited dragons, if the staff feels it'd be easier to implement.

It could of course be something more complex like the Aywas adventure system, in which you could use your active pet to battle monsters, gather items, capture things, etc, but that would be way too major for someone to want to implement, I believe, so I'm sticking to slightly simpler suggestions.

6. Regarding caveblockers:

Deleting eggs that have been abandoned a certain amount of times is a no-no for me. Just because you abandon something doesn't mean no one will want i. Some times it's just because you found something better, or because you picked it up, saw its lineage and it wasn't exactly what you were looking for.

As a matter of fact, during the valentine event it has happened that I picked up the same exact egg several times by accident, only to realize it was one I had abandoned because of a certain lineage. Imagine if that happened to half of the users browsing the AP... a lot of precious eggs that in fact had people that would want them would no longer exist, and those users would have missed out on being able to get them.

However, if missions were implemented, particular caveblockers could suddenly have a purpose, because users would then have a bigger motive for catching them (which would also make them stop blocking the cave). Accomplished simply by gettings points for every # of that caveblocker that you hatch, to eventually be able to exchange those points for rarer eggs.

Another alternative, if missions didn't exist, would be an "Egg recycler".

You could throw certain types of eggs at it (the acceptable could change monthly, weekly, could be multiple eggs, whatever works for the staff) to get 1 of another type of egg instead (of course, not necessarily any egg, the limitations and whether or not those would be special eggs and how often those earned eggs would change would be up to the staff).

Disclaimer: I used "Egg recycler" for clarity purposes, but for those against killing eggies, consider it to be a "Dragon collector" NPC that really wants those eggies for their collection (sparing our scrolls of being filled with them), and is willing to give something we might want more for certain amounts of it.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Nayelianne

Obscure_Trash · February 22, 2017

Now that discussion has slowed and some feedback has been given, I'm going to go ahead and close this thread and request that unrelated ideas go in their own thread for discussion.

Based on the OP, here are some possible threads of interest:

Trader's Canyon (Store): https://forums.dragcave.net/index.php?showtopic=165916

Trade Adults and Frozen Hatchlings: https://forums.dragcave.net/index.php?showtopic=142551

Distributing Prize Dragons via Minigame: https://forums.dragcave.net/index.php?showtopic=165845

"Other things to do" topics:

Rewards for long term players

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