Give future drakes smaller sprites?

[angelicdragonpuppy]

With the recent dragon subtype description updates, I started thinking about drakes again, and how, unlike two heads and pygmies, they aren't very visually distinct.

 

Which got me to thinking... they're described as being smaller than dragons, and their eggs are smaller. So what if in the future drake sprites were limited to, say, 80x80 pixels, roughly, in size? Would help make them more at a glance apparent and fit with their listed traits (and eggs!)

 

Ideally, this wouldn't apply to DR concepts / private concepts already started. And of course the current drakes would always be bigger--but we have pumpkins which do that, too, so it's not wholly unprecedented.

[Fuzzbucket]

Pumpkins are pygmy-small if you look at the dragon rather than the pumpkin.

 

But - well, mints. For one thing

Edited August 23, 2017 by fuzzbucket

[angelicdragonpuppy]

Nah, pumpkins are huge, even without

 

Mints are clear exceptions to the rule too, and if this happened, old drakes would be too. Still, I think it'd be a nice way to differentiate them (and match what we know of them better). Why have a smaller egg if the adults are the same size?

[Jazeki]

I'm going to have to say no. We have the smaller egg and the breeding restrictions in place. I agree that it makes sense, but please no more smaller sprites if they don't have to be. I have vision problems and oftentimes many pygmies ( and even some "regular size" adults) have details that I cannot appreciate because of the sprite size. 

[sh20000sh]

I agree with Jazeki. We should miss details about them. I thought resizing sizes of egg sprite was enough for them.

[Fuzzbucket]

13 hours ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

Nah, pumpkins are huge, even without

 

Mints are clear exceptions to the rule too, and if this happened, old drakes would be too. Still, I think it'd be a nice way to differentiate them (and match what we know of them better). Why have a smaller egg if the adults are the same size?

 

Um not eggzaggly:

 

Much of a muchness.

 

Still don't support. How is it really an issue ? They don't show in the same lineages anyway, so...

Edited August 23, 2017 by fuzzbucket
My image vanished :(

[HeatherMarie]

Please no. In addition to the fact that smaller sprites means less clear detail (one reason I put off collecting pygmies for so long, I simply can't see them very well!), it simply wouldn't make sense. The older drakes would be dragon-sized, but the newer drakes would be smaller, even though they are the same subtype? If drakes *had* to be smaller, for some reason, the older sprites should be changed to be smaller too, otherwise it simply won't make much sense at all. And I certainly don't want that to happen!

Edited August 23, 2017 by Marie19R

[olympe]

Although, from a lore perspective, this suggestion makes sense, I'm against it. Right now, spriters enjoy a lot of freedom when creating drakes, especially since the one-wing-finger rule has been taken down. Restricting them by decreasing max size for drake sprites seems like a bad idea IMHO. 

 

Right now, we have a tentative 100 x 100 pixels maximum for regular dragons, and a tentative 50 x 50 pixels maximum for pygmies. However, regular dragon sprites can be much smaller (see mint). Adding an extra restriction for drakes wouldn't really help with distinguishing them, plus there's the issue of in-cave drakes.

 

A much more interesting idea IMHO is to allow two-headed dragons to reach 120 x 120 pixels, just because it will make it easier to incorporate both heads...

[Zeditha]

A simple in-universe reason why the drakes' sprites are the same size even though the dragons are bigger? We're standing closer to the drakes.

 

As for the suggestion itself, I can't support. It wouldn't add anything, really, and I feel it would take away from the dragons we currently have.

[KrazyKarp]

Sprite sizes are not always a representation of the size of the dragons. Pygmies are probably the only exception to this. For example, Sweetlings are pretty small, but their sprites are big enough to think they're a "normal" sized dragon. So if someone wants to create a smaller Drake sprite, I'm sure it's not a problem, but there's no good reason for Drakes to have smaller sprites be a requirement for the breed.

Edited August 23, 2017 by KrazyKarp

[Confused Cat]

I'd rather keep the normal-sized sprites. They are small enough already, and I wouldn't like less detailed sprites for new Drakes.

I also think there are size differences between dragon breeds that can be more significant than between the average Drake and some dragon breeds. We probably wouldn't want the sprites to reflect that.

 

(It makes more sense with the Pygmies because their small size seems to be the most important thing that distinguishes them from dragons. Drakes on the other hand are described as a completely different species, not just a smaller category of dragons, so their size is not their main characteristic.)

[Sundew]

It'd be nice to have a more distinct way to visually separate DC drakes, but I think a smaller sprite size would be too limiting. While you could introduce different size limitations as a new standard and have everything that came before it remain an outlier, in my opinion there are too many small non-drake sprites for it to work very well at differentiating the subtypes at a glance.

[blockEdragon]

No, I think DC has enough discouraging limits on drakes, which already have overly particular guidelines that wall them off from a lot of diversity. The LAST thing they need is another limit to add to the pile of reasons someone has to never bother with them and just make a normal dragon instead.

 

Also, smaller sprites mean less space to detail and that generally leads to a lesser quality sprite.

(and just to avoid nitpicking, this is in a situation where a spriter is both a good spriter and putting the same effort into both a full sized sprite, and the limited drake sprite, the full sized one has much more freedom to be good)

[Stromboli]

I dunno. They have a different egg template, you know before it even hatches that it's a different group.

[FoxintheBox4]

On 8/23/2017 at 4:11 AM, Jazeki said:

I'm going to have to say no. We have the smaller egg and the breeding restrictions in place. I agree that it makes sense, but please no more smaller sprites if they don't have to be. 

I agree with Jazeki - I think the only sprite change any of the normal breedable dragons need are the eggs from two-heads ~ we can't distinguish them from normals...

[Fuzzbucket]

You can distinguish them by description when they are in the biomes - when all eggs are the same size anyway - and by appearance - as in the look of each egg - in the AP.

[Predat0rs]

No thank you. We have enough distinguishable traits for Drakes already. A smaller sprite doesn't necessarily mean a smaller dragon, either. Stones are supposed to be as huge as mountains, yet they do not have a super huge sprite. Smaller sprites = not as much detail. I actually only like two Pygmies because the lack of detail doesn't allow for much creative thinking or concepts. =/

[StormWizard212]

Personally, I'm not a fan of this idea. I'm not a huge fan of pygmies because they're too small for my taste but I love some of the drakes. I wouldn't want to risk people not liking them as much due to size restrictions. Sorry! Just my opinion!