ANSWERED:Neglected Dragon Breeding

[Done]

Before we begin, yes I am aware of this line in the Neglected Dragon encyclopedia entry:

Quote

Adult Neglected Dragons are sterile; their bodies simply can’t handle breeding.

But, I'll try to suggest slightly altered lore that makes this work with minimal changes.

 

I was thinking that it'd be cool to be able to breed Neglected Dragons with other NDs (assuming they aren't ungendered ones), just as a kind of ultimate lineage goal seeing as even without being able to breed them NDs are extremely sought after. How I'd change the lore to incorporate this is by simply saying that in almost all cases NDs are far too frail to be able to breed, but in rare instances offspring are able to be produced. This willingness to breed (assuming they aren't too weak to do so) also can be explained by the shared trauma two NDs would have, which explains why they would still be hostile and completely unwilling to breed with any other type of dragon.

 

How this would play out in terms of game mechanics is that basically NDs would have the option of breeding with one another, but the likelihood of a refusal would be extremely high, perhaps something like 80-90%. On top of this, due to the aggressive and withdrawn nature of NDs Purple Dragons would be unable to perform Fertility on them, giving a message along the lines of, "<purple dragon name> attempts to make <ND name> more fertile, but is scared off by <ND name>'s bad temperament." Because of these additional factors, even once you managed to collect multiple NDs it would be a similarly difficult task just getting them to breed. If people really wanted to make it a challenge (which I'd be in favour of) the breeding cooldown for NDs could be two weeks instead of one or something like that as well. I feel like this would strike a good balance between being an awesome new (and difficult) goal for players to strive for, while also not dishonouring or changing the current lore too much. This doesn't really have any practical purpose in being added, I just thought it'd be a fun little update to have!

 

Let me know what you guys think, I'm open to any and all suggestions!

Edited December 1, 2017 by Satospes

[Sazandora]

I just can't imagine how something as sickly and weak and frail as a neglected dragon could suddenly be able to produce offspring. They're just barely even alive and active. Besides, not everything on the site needs to be breedable. NDs are like trophies, just some pretty sprites you could put on your scroll, a (admittably rather twisted) reward for a difficult task.

 

Just look at that thing. It's skeletally thin and crippled and just barely holding on to life -- and now you're saying suddenly it should be strong enough to produce offspring that wouldn't die shortly after birth, if it's not born already dead?

[Moonlight_Eevee]

No support. Neglected dragons have never been allowed to breed and for a good reason too, most of them listed by Sazandora.

[Ruby Eyes]

Shared trauma may sound romantic, but it isn't. It's typically something that drives affected people even further apart. Someone traumatized would build huge emotional defenses around themselves in order to protect themselves from more pain; it's not exactly easy to deal with *other* people's pain in addition to one's own. That only works in novels and hollywood movies.

Long story short, that's not a narrative excuse I could support.

[Fuzzbucket]

No support. Leaving aside all the reasons they ARE unable to reproduce, to my mind one of the special things about them is exactly that they can't breed.

[Done]

I'm getting a pretty clear idea of what the community is thinking... Which is good, I'm glad the community knows what it wants (or doesn't want) so definitively! Haha

 

I will just say one last thing though with regard to your comment, @Ruby Eyes.

3 hours ago, Ruby Eyes said:

Shared trauma may sound romantic, but it isn't. It's typically something that drives affected people even further apart. Someone traumatized would build huge emotional defenses around themselves in order to protect themselves from more pain; it's not exactly easy to deal with *other* people's pain in addition to one's own. That only works in novels and hollywood movies.

Long story short, that's not a narrative excuse I could support.

 

I'm obviously not a trained psychologist or anything of the sort, but I have heard of studies showing that pain (and by extension trauma) can actually strengthen social bonds between people. It's early in the morning and I have an exam I should be studying for, but right off the bat when doing a search of scholarly articles on the matter I thought this one looked promising. I do also agree with you to a certain extent though, I think trauma (especially when it's severe) can be very isolating to an individual who, rightfully so, has trouble coping with what they've gone through. Just didn't wanted to cross off the concept of "shared trauma" as exclusively some Hollywood trick!

Edited December 1, 2017 by Satospes

[Fuzzbucket]

Social bonds - sure, maybe. Witness all the support groups out there,

 

The desire to breed - not so much. Breeding is far more than a social connection. Most of the traumatised people I have known (and I worked for a doctor for years and in the health service in general for many more, and have spent a long time talking to such individuals) have felt that they were too damaged to cope with parenting at all.

[purplehaze]

Forgetting the emotional side of it for the moment, I still think that expecting such a physically damaged creature to be able to breed and produce viable offspring if they did is pretty far-fetched.

 

I see no reason to change the way they are produced and no logic that supports it. And it would spoil a lot of the mystique that surrounds them.

[The Dragoness]

I like to see new ideas from the community and can see how breeding NDs would definitely make cool lineages, but I don't think I can support this suggestion. Sorry. I don't think hostile, traumatized creatures would be interested in raising offspring. Plus they're pretty frail and sickly, like other have pointed out, so their bodies may not be able to handle it. Another thing is that getting ND's is supposed to be incredibly difficult, so even with a high refusal rate, breeding them would still change an intended mechanic.

[Done]

29 minutes ago, fuzzbucket said:

Social bonds - sure, maybe. Witness all the support groups out there,

 

The desire to breed - not so much. Breeding is far more than a social connection. Most of the traumatised people I have known (and I worked for a doctor for years and in the health service in general for many more, and have spent a long time talking to such individuals) have felt that they were too damaged to cope with parenting at all.

 

I definitely hear what you're saying and you clearly have way more experience than I do with this (or possibly ever will have), so if anyone here gets this topic it sounds like it'd be you. My previous response was more so to the notion of sharing trauma (and what comes with that) being almost entirely fictional, which I feel isn't true.

 

Getting back to NDs, I guess my motivation was that I wish you could do something with them once you got them. Some people don't even bother with unbreedables after getting one or two of each simply because you get them and then have them sit on your scroll for eternity, and that's it. The only thing that keeps NDs out of that is their involved creation process as well as just how plain rare they are (as well as the general mystery that surrounds them that @purplehaze mentioned), but I still would love to be able to interact or do something with them in some way. I'd like that for all unbreedables actually, not necessarily breeding (I'm not gonna start advocating for sentient pieces of cheese to start going at it), but something... The question is what though.

[Done]

3 minutes ago, The Dragoness said:

I like to see new ideas from the community and can see how breeding NDs would definitely make cool lineages, but I don't think I can support this suggestion. Sorry. I don't think hostile, traumatized creatures would be interested in raising offspring. Plus they're pretty frail and sickly, like other have pointed out, so their bodies may not be able to handle it. Another thing is that getting ND's is supposed to be incredibly difficult, so even with a high refusal rate, breeding them would still change an intended mechanic.

 

I know this sounds stupid, but I actually hadn't even really considered how breeding NDs (even if it were extremely difficult) would affect the ND economy... So that's a very good point.

 

This is a more general response, but I would like to stress one thing though, as I said in my original post I agree that 99 out of 100 times (or whatever ratio you think best illustrates the point) NDs would have zero interest in breeding. But as with everything in this world, there are exceptions, and weird ones with that. People are born with hearts outside of their rib cages in rare cases, so the thought that two frail animals who usually wouldn't (or couldn't) breed under any normal circumstances might by some miracle isn't that far-fetched to me. Also a couple people have brought up the point that they would have no interest in raising offspring, however in my eyes they wouldn't be. Any nurturing they would get would come from the scroll owner.

[LibbyLishly]

I guess for me I don't want to see NDs be able to breed for a purely practical reason: they are so incredibly hard to get. I've been here since 2011 and I still don't have one. We already have CB rares that are hard enough to secure; I don't want to add to my frustration about not yet having achieved an ND by being unable to continue lineages, cool as I think they would look.

 

For me, the involved process to produce them is enough, much like with zombies: they're a trophy, a badge you can name. I don't need more than that.

[LadyLyzar]

Even if NDs could breed, due to their sickly state I doubt they could produce viable offspring.

[Sazandora]

1 minute ago, LadyLyzar said:

Even if NDs could breed, due to their sickly state I doubt they could produce viable offspring.

This right here. This is what I tried to say in my first post. Yes, the world of Valkemare is a magical place with dozens of magical creatures living in it, but I just find it way too hard to believe that "some miracle" would suddenly happen and make sterile creatures, with very weak and frail constitutions, suddenly be able to reproduce viable offspring. Not to mention the trauma they have suffered getting in the way.

 

To me there's just no plausible way to justify how a skeletally thin, sickly, malnourished and traumatized and spiteful beast would suddenly be able -- or even willing -- to mate with something and produce offspring. Sure, I guess I wouldn't mind adding SOMETHING to do with unbreedables, but making them breedable is not the one for me. I'm very strongly against this suggestion.

[Fuzzbucket]

32 minutes ago, Satospes said:

 

I know this sounds stupid, but I actually hadn't even really considered how breeding NDs (even if it were extremely difficult) would affect the ND economy... So that's a very good point.

 

 

I am well known for my loathing for the idea of an economy here. But I note you seem to be good at neglecting; maybe you want to keep the "price" high "? (I'm lucky - all mine were gifted or won in raffles here... I have yet to neglect successfully !)

 

32 minutes ago, Satospes said:

Also a couple people have brought up the point that they would have no interest in raising offspring, however in my eyes they wouldn't be. Any nurturing they would get would come from the scroll owner.

 

The scroll owner isn't the parent. I don't believe they'd breed just to give up their offspring for others to raise. If you are running with the traumatised idea - they would NOT give their children up and risk traumatising them. That's the kind of reason traumatised individuals decide NOT to reproduce.

[Done]

33 minutes ago, fuzzbucket said:

 

I am well known for my loathing for the idea of an economy here. But I note you seem to be good at neglecting; maybe you want to keep the "price" high "? (I'm lucky - all mine were gifted or won in raffles here... I have yet to neglect successfully !)

 

 

The scroll owner isn't the parent. I don't believe they'd breed just to give up their offspring for others to raise. If you are running with the traumatised idea - they would NOT give their children up and risk traumatising them. That's the kind of reason traumatised individuals decide NOT to reproduce.

 

So basically those who have experienced severe trauma tend to not want to reproduce because they feel neither they nor others can adequately raise their children, right? I didn't expect this to become a psychology lesson of sorts, but I'm all for it.

 

I actually traded for the two NDs on my scroll, I have yet to even try neglecting... Although I intend on doing so soon (I've gotten some good tips on the matter)! Also could you elaborate as to what you mean when you say that you loathe the idea of an economy on DC? It's a collecting game, so, outside of some idealistic scenario where everyone treats and wants everything equally, I find it hard to see how an economy of sorts NOT forming is even practically possible.

[Fuzzbucket]

NO - they woudln't reproduce because they (feel they) would be crap parents and couldn't cope anyway, and they wouldn't want to give children up for adoption because that might traumatise the children (A lot of adopted children claim their lives were ruined, after all... )

 

But even so, I can't support this on all sorts of grounds. I'm not actually arguing the trauma thing - you brought it up and I disagree big time; socialising with others of life's victims is not the same as breeding - but I don't think they could breed successfully, and game wise, I don't want them to anyway.

[Done]

2 minutes ago, fuzzbucket said:

NO - they woudln't reproduce because they (feel they) would be crap parents and couldn't cope anyway, and they wouldn't want to give children up for adoption because that might traumatise the children (A lot of adopted children claim their lives were ruined, after all... )

 

But even so, I can't support this on all sorts of grounds. I'm not actually arguing the trauma thing - you brought it up and I disagree big time; socialising with others of life's victims is not the same as breeding - but I don't think they could breed successfully, and game wise, I don't want them to anyway.

 

Sorry, I think we're actually on the same page. Like I said before I gave that study just to show that sharing trauma and growing closer or more trusting because of it (NOT breeding) is a thing, that was quite separate from the topic of NDs breeding. Your "NO" confuses me a little as well, as far as I can tell I said something quite similar to what you just stated: the parents feel there is no way they can have a child and be ensured that they will be raised as to not me traumatized or neglected themselves in some way (sorry if I wasn't clear on that originally).

[TCA]

As much as I'd love to be able to have a lineage that includes my darling ND Ion, I'm not fond of this suggestion for reasons others have already stated. Heck, I'd be more inclined to support NDs being able to breed but not with other NDs and only producing the partner's breed, but even that has Problems.

[olympe]

I don't really like this idea. I'd much rather see different neglected sprites similar to undeads for each type of dragon than have NDs be breedable.

[IVIandy]

Hmm..I don't know. ND are already incredibly rare enough as it is. Want to trade for a ND well you better have a 2G Spriters Alt you can trade for or are able to make your own. Now throw in offspring, oh man. I don't even have a Neglected. But aside from that, I just don't see a frail and sickly dragon able to produce eggs that are not dead when the female lays them. Or maybe even wanting to have offspring due to the trauma but that's getting into psychology and would be pretty silly to apply that to pixels. I would imagine the chance of the female actually producing an egg to be very low. Like, summoning a Guardians of Nature low.

[Jazeki]

I don't really see this being viable in DC gameplay--even if the idea was to "share the love" by giving offspring to players without their own neglecteds. Neglecteds are hard to obtain. We can't even talk about how to get them on the forum. They're mostly hard to trade for (some people gift, yes).  With a low percentage rate of breeding success, how many people will even get to experience the chance at making cool lineages anyway? 

 

Also, I'm not really comfortable with the idea of shared trauma making them willing and able to produce offspring. 

Edited December 1, 2017 by Jazeki

[angelicdragonpuppy]

42 minutes ago, olympe said:

I don't really like this idea. I'd much rather see different neglected sprites similar to undeads for each type of dragon than have NDs be breedable.

 

Oh God please please please NO. Having such slight extraneous gender differences in NDs when getting just one is already so hard was horrific enough, if that got multiplied across even more sprites I'd want to rip my hair out. Zombies are horrible enough and they're EASY compared to Neglecteds.

 

As for the original ND breeding suggestion--I'm neutral on it. Sickly and abused people still have kids all the time, and as this is a game instead of reality we have a lot more leeway to handwave logic to some extent when gameplay is at stake. Personally I finished collecting NDs years ago, but I remember how aggravating it was at the time to have to trade so much for what was essentially a glorified scroll trophy with no chance of having any further use down the line. Giving NDs a chance to breed (preferably a rare one) would alleviate that to one extent. I'm not really fond of the purebreeding only or super high rejection rate + no purples allowed ideas, though. All that being said, I'm so used to them being unbreedable that I don't particularly care if that changes.

[HeatherMarie]

Yeah, no thanks. I think there could possibly be arguments in favor of NDs being able to breed, some of which have been mentioned here, and their encyclopedia page does says that "health is fairly stable at adulthood". *However*, I don't think that's enough, and it honestly would make me uncomfortable if they suddenly were able to breed. It just doesn't really make sense for them. Yes, neglected/sickly humans can and do have sex and even have kids, but that doesn't mean NDs should. They are traumatized, they are aggressive, they are anti-social, it's hard to imagine them *wanting* to breed, and while it's logical that a rare few individuals may want to, I don't think a very rare individual wanting to breed should be the basis for allowing all NDs the ability to breed. And while the encyclopedia says that their health is "fairly stable" as an adult, that certainly doesn't mean their body could handle the sex, let along be able to produce another living thing. I would think that *if* a ND bred, the resulting offspring would mostly likely not survive.

[Sazandora]

And, y'know, the encyclopedia also very clearly states that NDs are sterile. Utterly incapable of reproduction as their bodies can't handle it due to their weakened state. "Fairly stable" does not mean perfectly fine and healthy and strong.