Cross Breeding/Out Scroll Breeding/ User-to-User Breeding

[AztecCroc]

Alternatively, it could just be given to all the Valentine's breeds. It'd make sense with how most of them are described.

[LibbyLishly]

27 minutes ago, TCA said:

I mean, if it was going to be Teleport 2.0 for breeding, Script dragons wouldn't even be shoehorned if it was to be a BSA. They're magically powerful, kinda like Magi, so they COULD teleport other dragons around, and they have nice cozy living spaces they don't mind sharing with others and have an attitude that'd be very conducive to "Oh, you two dragons live pretty far away from each other and wanna meet up to mate? I have a solution, just don't mess with my crystals while you're visiting".

 

Saying this as the Script's conceptor/spriter.

 

I'm in love with the Scripts (and am so bummed that I missed their initial release and am currently trying to play catch-up with my collecting). Yes please.

 

6 minutes ago, AztecCroc said:

Alternatively, it could just be given to all the Valentine's breeds. It'd make sense with how most of them are described.

I do think it would also make sense for the Valentines to have it, but that's kind of lame for new players who will only have an opportunity once a year to try to get dragons with the BSA.

[HeatherMarie]

Ooohhhh @TCA I would love for the Scripts to have this as a BSA! That would be awesome. Total, total support there. And yeah, as much as it would "make sense" for V-day breeds it would really really suck in terms of getting enough of them to actually use since they are only available one week a year. I think it'd be completely unfair for users who, say, joined in March to have to wait an entire year before they could use the feature.

[Jazeki]

Hopping in to say that I would prefer Scripts or some other fairly common (available all year) dragon to have a BSA if this leans in that direction. I'm with @Marie19R and @LibbyLishly in that it would be really disheartening for people who don't have the Valentine's dragon to have to wait to acquire one to offer their own breeding options. People were super disappointed when they couldn't breed avatars right away as they had no GONs. No need to do this with a BSA that changes gameplay. 

[Zeditha]

I may be misremembering, but I think TJ has stated 'no Holiday BSAs' before. (Enrage/Pacify and Bite don't count.)

[Fuzzbucket]

I was GOING to say that a while ago, but I keep being told we don't have to take account of what TJ said  in case he changed his mind

[olympe]

Still, a game-affecting BSA for a holiday breed sounds like a rather bad idea. For some unfortunate souls, it could mean waiting 51 weeks to get access to the BSA in question.

[Fuzzbucket]

This too. As the creator of Scripts is OK with the idea, they seem the perfect solution.

 

But the communication side is still an issue - it needs to be done in forum. Clearly there can be a fan site backup, but...

[Tehya Faye]

There's another website I'm on with a separate game and forum setup just like DC has. Whenever they hold an event that requires people to be social the staff create a topic and provide a link to it in the game itself so people know where to look; a similar implementation here would help by giving people an official place to advertise and search, if that's the communication issue you're looking to solve. It's technically a bit less helpful since on the other forum Guests are allowed to post, but I never see Guests post anything anyway. 

[Fuzzbucket]

Geez - the very IDEA of people I have never had ANYTHING to do with being able to reach me through my scroll...

 

PLEASE can we just stick to teleport of some kind on the forum, and on fan sites who choose to set it up there.

 

Please note my noble attitude here; I don't want this to happen, but I am trying to help make it workable without being horrible for those who don't like the idea. 

Edited November 19, 2017 by fuzzbucket

[Tehya Faye]

...my suggestion was the staff creating a forum topic and creating a link to it via the game itself, like we currently do News topics.  At no point did I ever imply or outright state that I want the game to implement a messaging system in the cave itself. What communication issue were you talking about before, then? 

Edited November 19, 2017 by Tehya Faye

[Fuzzbucket]

Got you, no worries. But there are a lot of people who want inter-scroll direct communication. And I do realise that fan sites will be the only option for people who cannot use the forum - there are quite a few, believe it or not. Children players, people in places where all forums are blocked (schools, uni etc)

[olympe]

Personally, I think it's time that an in-cave marketplace gets implemented. I know there are some fansites that have that kind of thing, and it would be nice to have something more official along the same lines.

 

Plus, such a market place could also include any kind of stud offers (or whatever you want to call that cross-scroll breeding thing).

[Tehya Faye]

I'd be cool with an in-cave market - especially if it doesn't publish your scroll name, so it's easier to preserve your privacy. 

 

Edit: Oh, and make sure it's an extra optional step to publish it to that page after you make the teleport/breed link, of course. 

Edited November 19, 2017 by Tehya Faye

[Lurhstaap]

I would really like to this happen. Frankly, every other "pet game" I've played had some mechanism for this. I do mean EVERY SINGLE ONE. People figure this out. It's not as hard as some seem to think.

 

Here's the system I'd like to see for Dragon Cave, FWIW, based on systems I've seen in use and working fine on other games.

 

Scroll owners would have a global option, settable through Account Settings. If on, dragons are considered open for breeding requests in general, and vise versa for off. However, there would ALSO be individual switches on the profile of each dragon, in their Actions menu specifically. This would allow players to, for example, be mostly open to breeding, but turn off certain dragons, such as a CB Prize or other specials that the person wants to reserve for themselves or otherwise doesn't want available to public breeding.

 

When breeding is on, dragons would have a button on their page: Request Breeding. The player viewing a dragon not belonging to them would see this button. (People viewing their own dragons wouldn't, of course, since they have the existing breeding function.) 

 

Pressing the button brings up a list of all opposite sex adult dragons not on cooldown on the viewing player's scroll. For example, let's say I find a CB Prize male listed as open for breeding. I click his request button, and a new page loads, showing a list of all my eligible female adults appears. Ideally this could be, at minimum, searched like the standard breeding page. I'd like to see it also allow you to narrow the list by using a pull down menu showing your scroll groups.

 

Let's say it's Halloween, so I choose my Halloween Caveborns group and pick a female Omen Wyrm. (I think that x silver shimmer would look amazing). 

 

Once I've chosen my female, I click the button beside her just like normal, only it says Request instead of Breed. (Ideally, a pop-up asks me to confirm or cancel. In this case I confirm.)

 

Now, let's jump to the perspective of the prize owner. She, knowing that she has her male CB Prize up for stud for Halloween, decides to check her options so far. So she goes to her Account Settings and clicks into the same page that has the master on/off switch for breeding requests on her scroll. Below the toggle on that page is a header reading Current Requests. (This would be paginated, sort of like the Recent Actions page is, and sortable by time requests were received or by dragon. You could also go to the individual dragon, click into their Actions menu, and there would be a new Active Requests header you could click on to see current requests for that given dragon only.) 

 

Among the requests, she thinks mine would look the best. 

 

Now, here's where it potentially gets complex. Normally, dragons only make one egg if the breeding is successful. Off scroll breeding would be the same as on scroll breeding in most ways - there is a chance of rejection (so for God's sake use Fertility) or no egg, exactly the same as normal for the two breeds involved. If successful, both dragons go on normal breeding cooldown. The female gets pregnant and the egg is born on the scroll of the owner of the female. End of transaction. Now, people could negotiate agreements on the forum or elsewhere - say, to breed the pair at least twice, with the second egg being Teleported to the owner of the father. Or to offer something in return for the breeding - "I'll give you this Rarething if you'll let me send my female X to your male Y." I assume that would become the norm. Ideally there would be in game messaging, but that's another topic. One can argue that essentially requiring forum use to get the most out of the feature makes it a bad idea, but the same can be said of Teleport, and IMO the solution is to add in game messaging rather than not allowing features because they work best when people can communicate. 

 

Anyway. So normally the female gets the egg. This could be balanced a few ways. Maybe males should have two breeding cooldowns - one for studding and one for local breeding. Realistically, males recover to breed again a lot quicker, so both having the same cooldown was always a bit odd. Females wouldn't be allowed the same privilege because their equivalent energies are being used on being pregnant and laying the egg. OOCly, it means the player who owns the male doesn't have to give anything up for allowing this, which makes up for not getting the egg. 

 

Alternatively, one could set it up so that the requesting scroll is the one that ultimately gets the egg regardless of the sexes of the dragons involved. 

 

You could also simply leave it basic, with both dragons having the normal cooldown and the female getting the egg by default, and leave it to players to work out deals that are agreeable to them, just like with trading. 

 

With multi-clutches, my ideal would be to have the female's owner get first pick and keep one egg, then the male's owner get to pick one egg, with any spares going to the AP as normal. Alternatively, the requesting player may get to pick one egg, and all the others go to the AP, just like normal. 

 

To send a breeding request, you'd have to have an open egg slot. While the request is outstanding, your scroll will act as if you already have an egg in the slot, the same as when you go to incubate it doesn't show eggs that are in trades. This also limits the number of requests a person can send at any one time, preventing extreme harassment or spamming.

 

So, in my ideal scenario, the prize owner accepts my request. Since this is an example story, they do not reject each other (though in real life I would use Fertility and be so anxious until the breeding went through!) As this is a Halloween breeding, it's most likely a multiclutch. 

 

Let's say there are three eggs. All of them initially appear on my scroll. Because people won't necessarily all be online at the same time, this needs a longer cooldown than normal. Let's say 24 hours. So I have one day, from the time the prize owner accepts my request, to choose a single egg. (As with normal multi clutches, the extras can temporarily take you over your egg limit; it doesn't matter because you aren't keeping more than you have room for in the end anyway.) 

 

When I pick my egg, or when the cooldown is up and I've failed to pick one, the eggs hop to the prize owner's scroll. If she doesn't have any open slots, they auto. (Stud owners expecting multiple eggs should keep this in mind.) If she has an open slot, she gets 24 hours to pick one egg. (Again, long cooldown because she may not be online or even awake when I pick my egg or my time runs out.) When she picks her egg, or fails to in time, the remainder go to the AP. 

 

Now, what if this same breeding were done at another time? 

 

If it were successful, I would get a Prize egg. The prize owner, by default, would get nothing. She may be doing this to be generous, or I may have already given her some other egg(s) or hatchling(s) to pay for the egg, or it might be an IOU situation. This is where having on site communication would really come in handy, but for now, as with trading, we could use the forum. People could even have a thread in which to post their lists of breedable dragons and their "stud fees" and other rules. For example one person might require you to give them a CB rare up front to breed to their male prize, but will allow you to keep requesting until you get a Prize egg, where someone else may let you try for free, but if it fails, you have to let someone else try and don't get another turn for a while. That'll be down to individual players to decide for themselves, if they even want to do off scroll breeding.

Edited November 26, 2017 by Lurhstaap

[Fuzzbucket]

I would have thought that a teleport-type offer/request to breed placed in a thread (or an offsite fansite) was a LOT simpler.

 

And I still hate the idea of inter-scroll communication and buttons on the scroll page for this.

[Ruby Eyes]

30 minutes ago, fuzzbucket said:

I would have thought that a teleport-type offer/request to breed placed in a thread (or an offsite fansite) was a LOT simpler.

 

And I still hate the idea of inter-scroll communication and buttons on the scroll page for this.

Likewise, on both statements.

Basically, I'm a friend of "keep it simple", both for mechanic and for scroll layout.

[Jazeki]

2 hours ago, fuzzbucket said:

I would have thought that a teleport-type offer/request to breed placed in a thread (or an offsite fansite) was a LOT simpler.

 

 

I'm in favor of this sort of thing over waiting for buttons or dragons  to appear or figuring out stud fees or any other multi-step process.

 

 

[HeatherMarie]

8 hours ago, fuzzbucket said:

I would have thought that a teleport-type offer/request to breed placed in a thread (or an offsite fansite) was a LOT simpler.

 

And I still hate the idea of inter-scroll communication and buttons on the scroll page for this.

 

Yeeessssss. I'm still rather against this in the first place, but why on earth make it so complicated? We already have Teleport in place to transfer dragons between scrolls, I don't see why a similar mechanism wouldn't work for breeding between scrolls.

[spatio]

I'd be in favor of cross-scroll breeding, and really don't care how it's implemented, but with one caveat.  It's too easy to fall into the whole "Person X promised me a ______ if I accepted their breeding request, but now they have an egg and have stopped responding and I don't think I'm going to get paid" quagmire.  Thus I would only be in favor of the two-egg outcome, i.e. if the breeding is successful, both players get one egg. (in the case of multi clutches, either ignore the multiclutch chance altogether and only give two eggs, or only give an even number of eggs)

 

If you want to figure out a separate payment/trade, it's still possible. But for just vanilla breedings, no support unless both scrolls get an egg.  We don't have any form of site currency, so there's no way to ensure the owner of the stud/dragon open for requests gets anything out of the deal.  

[maratrekkan]

Well I have played a few horse games that allow you to breed with other people’s horses... 

 

Generally only the males can be used from other players. Thus the owner of the female gets the foal aka egg in our case. Players offer their stallion’s services publically. Some games allow you to see the stallions lineage or abilities others not at all. 

 

So I would suggest something similar in that only male dragons can be put out publically for others to breed with if an owner of dragon chooses to do so, the owner of the female dragon would get the egg, all the same breeding issues would exist (such as rejection, no egg produced and so on) and extra eggs go to AP. The owner of the female dragon should be allowed to use their BSA for fertility on the female dragon. I don’t think stud fees are appropriate for this game as no such fee system exists already. The owner of the male dragon should be able to use the fertility BSA if they so desire as well. So like the AP page there would be a link to say Publically Available Breeding Dragons you would click that find a male you like available for breeding and hit a breed option button and then select your mate from your scroll and hope for a healthy egg. 

 

It could be tested first using Wild Male Dragons... those could always be available publically. 

 

I do agree that the economics of this might cause issues. or maybe people who offer their dragons publically get something like breeding points that allows them to then spend those points to breed their females? Thus no egg glut with too many eggs being produced by double egg production. Or maybe it is just an option people can do with no strings attached.

 

Just some thoughts.

 

 

Edited December 27, 2017 by maratrekkan

[HeatherMarie]

1 hour ago, maratrekkan said:

Well I have played a few horse games that allow you to breed with other people’s horses... 

 

Generally only the males can be used from other players. Thus the owner of the female gets the foal aka egg in our case. Players offer their stallion’s services publically. Some games allow you to see the stallions lineage or abilities others not at all. 

 

So I would suggest something similar in that only male dragons can be put out publically for others to breed with if an owner of dragon chooses to do so, the owner of the female dragon would get the egg, all the same breeding issues would exist (such as rejection, no egg produced and so on) and extra eggs go to AP. The owner of the female dragon should be allowed to use their BSA for fertility on the female dragon. I don’t think stud fees are appropriate for this game as no such fee system exists already. The owner of the male dragon should be able to use the fertility BSA if they so desire as well. So like the AP page there would be a link to say Publically Available Breeding Dragons you would click that find a male you like available for breeding and hit a breed option button and then select your mate from your scroll and hope for a healthy egg. 

 

It could be tested first using Wild Male Dragons... those could always be available publically. 

 

I do agree that the economics of this might cause issues. or maybe people who offer their dragons publically get something like breeding points that allows them to then spend those points to breed their females? Thus no egg glut with too many eggs being produced by double egg production. Or maybe it is just an option people can do with no strings attached.

 

Just some thoughts.

 

 

 

I see some definite issues with this implementation idea. For one, only allowing males to be offered for cross-breeding would be *very* limiting, especially considering that there are female CB Prizes and such that would certainly want to be included in this suggestion. I don't see the logic in only allowing males to be offered, honestly. Females can be just as wanted breeding-wise as males.

 

Also I'm almost positive the Wild Dragons would be a no-go, since it's been stated officially multiple times that adopting dragons from the wilderness will never happen, and I can't see breeding Wilderness dragons being that much different.

 

Also, I just want to gently point out that DragonCave is *not* other sites. This is not a horse stud game, and in general trying to apply a different game's mechanics to DragonCave isn't going to work very well because they really are fairly different games. The horse stud games that I'm aware of are almost completely focused on the stud aspect, that's a very large part of the game... That's not a very large part of DC. DC is a collecting game, not a breeding-between-users game. Whether or not this suggestion ever gets implemented, it needs to be implemented in a way that will work for *this* game, not in a way that works for a totally different game.

 

[Starscream]

I would be opposed. On the grounds of, I don't want people attempting to contact me to breed my dragons with their dragons. I am sure some sort of system would be put up for finding a "stud" if a person wanted to do that, But as it stands I get enough PM's regarding breedings (inspite of my efforts) that I would not want to contend with having to brush off people wanting mates for thier dragons in this manner.

[blockEdragon]

Why not have it be a BSA or something else that functions similar to teleport, where suitors are offered up once a link is posted (the term suitor is being used for either gender here btw) and then a mate is selected, that way you can't be flooded with requests without PMing which can be dealt with through a mod on the rare occasion that it crops up, same with trades, you are either offering or asking for offers and therefore WANT to breed that dragon.

No more or less than two eggs of the same species could be produced on a successful breeding to make it fair for both users, with the ratios halved to accommodate the twin egg system.

 

Harassment doesn't seem like that big of a deal, yea it exists but I haven't really heard of anyone being harassed in a while. It just seems like a small menace and no one seems to be demanding or even considering removing trading despite the same possibility being present because if it's existence. 

Edited December 27, 2017 by blockEdragon

[maratrekkan]

Well I was considering how similar things are done in other games simply because it works. Marie 19R you are correct this is not a horse game and yes males are unfortunately over focused on in horse games. I know of one game that has a female work around but that game’s solution is simply not appropriate for DC in concept so I decided not to go into that. I was only considering how such a thing like breeding between people could be implemented. I am neutral on this idea myself, so just was spit balling based on games I have played. I really like most folks do not want to see game currency concepts introduced to DC as I think that would forever drastically change the game.

 

I disagree this is a collecting only game though, if that was so we would not be allowed to breed. This game has a collecting, trading and breeding aspect. Currently we are cross breeding between scrolls it is just an multi step indirect process.... We contact each other privately and arrange for someone to make an egg and then transfer said bred egg to the other person... then the receiver of the egg  can breed to that once it grows up, or we score an AP egg with lineage we like... so we simply have extra steps to do what happens in other games much more directly, so I don’t see how some sort of more direct breeding option would change things much. As we are already breeding dragons. 

 

Folks are right some dragons only occur in female form. However theoretically having 2 eggs drop Auto all the time so both players get an egg is simply too many dragons flooding the game in my opinion.  If we had a public available for breeding area both genders could be on it with the mechanic simply being the person who clicks on the publically offered dragon gets the egg if one is produced or choice of one egg if more are produced with extras going to AP. This would be the easiest fix for both genders being used. The reason I suggested this system used elsewhere is it allows people not to be harassed, you put or do not put your critter out there and then random person finds your critter and breeds no fuss, no PMs, no need for threads, no demands, just critter X can be bred all game mechanics applying to the breeding.

 

We currently have a trade based economy a sort of barter system... I have X egg will trade for Y egg. It is possible publically offered breeders could disrupt that, but probably not. People who control large numbers of highly valued dragons will still have those dragons and would be under no obligation to put them up... people do breed dragons and give them to others now at no request for an egg in return, pretty much all that is happening is a step being streamlined. The old way of doing things would probably still happen, but for those folks participating in DC economics I can see why they would be a concerned. Of course other options could exist like an approve breeding option or something like that, but that does complicate things and I was trying to keep things simple. Honestly we are already cross breeding, some folks do transfers all the time others hardly at all, some do mass breedings for the AP others not at all or rarely so I don’t think dragons will loose value if we did this. People who are okay with it will do it, people who are not okay with it won’t.

 

I know the Wild Dragons are a long shot idea but none the less an option to toss out there. The worst TJ can say is no. However it could be that a Wild Dragon breeding section could be cool, the game could randomly choose x number of dragons every so often that become available to attempt to breed with maybe once bred they drop out of the breeding pool till an x period of time has passed... or the pool resets once a year or something... but only Wild Dragons can be bred with in this manner, just thinking on the long shot option, just a thought. 

 

The suggested BSA idea is another good idea, so the dragon breed with the BSA would need to be collected (that is much more DC, less horse game like) than that dragon’s BSA has to be used on a dragon that person owns and then the breeding like a transfer is offered for an x period of time to another person who then receives the egg if they accept the breeding offer. This would hopefully be no more harassing then the existing system. But Starscream is right people will get PMed I am sure, but people could put up a thread on the forum stating what they are looking for or if they are open to breeding their dragons... we do that now. A don’t ask me to breed to you banner could be created too. 

 

The way I look at the general idea of someway of doing direct breedings is just people want to streamline what we are already doing... in the long run it would not really change things as we are already breeding, this is why I am a neutral. If we want to get X dragon in our lineages currently, we hunt for it in bred dragons in the AP (that won’t change), or we contact someone with said dragon or a dragon with x dragon in the lineage and then arrangements are made or not made. So I don’t get at all how either offering public breeding page or BSA based direct breedings is a big change, It isn’t not really. I do think the BSA option suggested by blockEdragon is most DC like, mine is less so but meant to keep it simple. Also blockEdragon’s suggestion would be less upsetting to people very active in trading as it simply can be handled the same as current trades are done. 

 

Happy egg hunting, trading and breeding.