Reinstate Honorable Mentions

[LibbyLishly]

So, while we have a myriad of threads dedicated to discussing Prize dragons in raffles and other ways to obtain then, @LadyLyzar recommended taking discussion of reinstating Honorable Mentions to raffles and ideas surrounding that to its own thread - and here it is.

 

I would like to see Honorable Mentions restored to either one or two raffles a year or added to the monthly raffles (and for all HM prizes to also be available in Trader's Canyon, should that ever be implemented... but that's its own thread).

 

[Dragon_Arbock]

The only reason I mention bringing back Honorable Mentions is, I'm pretty sure Trader's Canyon thread says Hybrids are not to be part of it. So if we do get Trader's canyon, that still won't solve the problem of a few people having CB Hybrids with no new ways to get them.

[olympe]

Personally, I think we're better off without them. Yes, some people got a female holly or CB hybrid/alt. But they're few and far between, so that they don't affect the game as much as they could. Adding more will only serve to increase their impact on everything, especially trading. Otherwise, CB hybrids/breed-only variants will undoubtedly become the new "super-exclusive". Thanks, but no thanks.

Edited January 8, 2018 by olympe

[Dragon_Arbock]

I'm neutral on it all. I feel like, from a gameplay perspective, it's not really fair for one a few people to have them, but it is true that the more there are, the more 'valuable' they will be for lineages.

If we get Trader's Canyon, however, I would love for the raffle to have a possibility to give out other rares though, such as Golds and Silvers.

[Fuzzbucket]

I'm 1000% with olympe. And also remind people that TJ said (and this one I think he meant for ever and ever) that we would never ever ever again have CB hybrids or alts.

[Jazeki]

I am in support of this. I am aware of TJ's post that they were never intended to be a real thing and that they would possibly create a new exclusive to go after, but their reintroduction would alleviate the breeding pressure that the active hm winners feel. And well, too late, they exist.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Jazeki

[Lovecats]

From a lineage-building point of view, I support it since honourable mention dragons have the potential to make some really quite interesting lineages. I don't see how it would work though; would there be like 100 monthly HMs in contrast to 60 overall monthly CB prize winners or would this be an annual thing occurring only on DC's birthday?

 

 

 

Id have to agree with olympe, though, that i'd be worried they'd just become the new exclusive dragon and end up causing a lot more stress on trading as people ask for expensive offers (e.g. 2g prize, CB Gold) for a 2g from Hybrid. Sadly, I don't see TJ re-releasing HMs any time soon, but if they were to, wouldn't a wider distribution of HMs than that of CB Prize owners eventually lower the value of eggs from CB Hybrids to less than a 2g prize and therefore make them easier to trade for?

 

Edited January 8, 2018 by lovecats99

[Sazandora]

TJ's already said no so I'll say no as well.

[Paradisiske]

i would like it

 

tjs said no to things before but then changed his mind later on

[KrazyKarp]

2 minutes ago, Sazandora said:

TJ's already said no so I'll say no as well.

Just because TJ says no doesn't mean that you should say no. Craft your own point of view and argument.

 

Really, HMs shouldn't come back. CB hybrids, CB female Hollies, and CB Black and Dark Green alts should NEVER have been allowed. I don't know why they were in the first place. And honestly, this is how it's gonna go down:

HMs are back! Yay! --> Hmm, we probably need to fix the HM system. --> New threads: "Make CB Hybrids and Other HM Prizes Be Obtainable in Other Ways" and/or "Increase the Number of HM Winners"

 

Sound familiar? This is exactly what we're trying to fix with CB Prizes. This is exactly what went wrong with them. So let's not.

[olympe]

There are 6 different CB prizes, not counting the spriters' alts.

However, there are way more options for CB specials: blue-winged solstices, female hollies, male mistletoes, vine/black/undine/spinel alts, 4 different colored stripes plus 14 hybrids (three avatars, carinas, geodes*, risensongs, setsongs, shallow waters, blunas, soulpeaces, ultraviolets, hellhorses, dusk pygmies, stormriders). If I didn't forget anything, that's 25 different "special" dragons you could request. Meaning: We'd need a lot of HM prizes for them to exceed the numbers of shimmers/tinsels. And, thanks to the monthly raffle and the big raffle before that, they'd have a lot of catching up to do.

 

*: Yes, I know, technically geodes aren't really hybrids...

[Sazandora]

Just now, KrazyKarp said:

Just because TJ says no doesn't mean that you should say no. Craft your own point of view and argument.

Alright, let me put it this way then: I agree with TJ in this case. He pretty much said that CB hybrids/alts should have never been a thing, and because of that I don't think he'll make them available again.

 

Hybrids, while as pretty as they are, just feel like something that should have never been available as caveborn. After all, a hybrid is a combination of two different creatures. If you look at a caveborn dragon's lineage, there are no parents listed there. It looks like something that just... I don't know, fell out of the sky one day or something. Appeared from thin air, instead of being the result of an union between two different beings.

So how can you have a hybrid that's not really even a hybrid of anything? It's not really a hybrid then, it's just its own thing.

 

Alts... I don't think we've ever been given a reason as to why some bred Undines/Blacks/Vines are born with different colors instead of the usual ones. CB alts could make a whole lot more sense than CB hybrids, but I really don't think they should be made available as caveborns. That would just open a colossal can of rotten worms.

[Ruby Eyes]

Regarding all your number-crunchings: Isn't this a long-term game?

 

I'd love HMs coming back, I'd even play for the next 100 years to get a CB Avatar of Change!

 

Narratively, caveborn dragons are just those of which we don't know who the parents were. Do you think your CB Gold came out of thin air? Some wild dragons bred it!

(Abandoned eggs probably have their lineage stuck of a sheet of paper and glued to their shell.) Considering how many individuals of each breed have already been released into the wilderness, it would actually make sense to find hybrids without an official lineage in the cave as well - the only dragon described as really depending on their owner for protection are Neglecteds (which were excluded from HMs anyway.) What makes hybrids special is that you can breed dragons of two different breeds to get a third breed's egg. This is something that cannot be taken from them, even if they are given out as HMs.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Ruby Eyes

[LibbyLishly]

Discussion of CB Hybrids aside, which is apparently a much more controversial subject than I realized, what about HMs that are literally just "Pick a breed from the cave, like a CB Gold or Silver"?

[Dragon_Arbock]

I find it annoying that Hollies and Mistletoes are gender-locked at all. If limits for them are lifted or upped in the future, I should hope the gender-lock is lifted as well. Potentially the same for Blue-Wing Solstices.

Hybrids should probably never have been distributed, but well, too late now. As for Alts, I still have a hard time understanding why some breeds can alt as CBs, yet others cannot. Some form of consistency would be nice. They don't need any specific parentage to be an alt, so it's iffy to me.

 

Even if none of these 'special things' are allowed back in the Raffle, I don't think it would hurt anyone to have HMs that let users pick, say, a Gold or a Silver or a Copper.

[MissK.]

34 minutes ago, LibbyLishly said:

Discussion of CB Hybrids aside, which is apparently a much more controversial subject than I realized, what about HMs that are literally just "Pick a breed from the cave, like a CB Gold or Silver"?

 

Or a CB mint.

 

Seriously though, this shouldn't hurt in any way and would be a nice surprise even if someone just needs a specific Xeno, or a tan Ridgewing or something. Not all prizes need to be something extraordinary, "pick any egg from the cave" would make plenty of people happy.

[Rekha]

This whole thread again feels to me like the conversation about Prize dragons. People want what they either can't have or what is really difficult to get and they want it made easier to obtain such things as well. This kinda feels like in grade school now a days giving kids a trophy just for participating, in truth the dragcave does give you trophies just for participating in the form of an actual trophy on your scroll rather than in the form of a dragon which seems to be what people want instead. Honestly I enjoy there being things that I will never be able to obtain thus making the offspring what I go after. I will never ever have a 1st gen Thuwed because it wouldn't be a real Thuwed. I will never ever have a 1st gen Spriters Alt (Unless by some strange miracle when I am spriting something it is chosen and is one of the few dragon types that are allowed to have spriters alts.) I will never be able to get an Upside Down Mint, a CB Alt or a CB Hybrid, and that is fine, it gives me something to chase after in terms of breeding. This game is not all about the CBs. Sure it would be easier to make the lineages I want to breed if I had everything on my own scroll and that could be an enjoyable goal to work toward but I accept that it simply isn't going to be like that. I want to make an EG Prize which is going to take me a lot of trading to be able to do, I would have loved if I had been lucky enough to get a CB Alt that would have been amazing.

 

That being said, I don't think it would be wise to bring back those things that are being asked for in the terms of a gift for an HM, however I think HMs could be brought back and then instead of the whole Traders Canyon idea, maybe as an HM you are allowed to get a CB Gold or CB Silver or something like that. Something that is obtainable in the cave but difficult to get. I think that could be a pretty nifty system of a way to try and meet those scroll goals that you might have. 

[Dragon_Arbock]

@Rekha Wanting something to be fair is not comparable to participation trophies. You didn't win your prize by being the best at something- you got lucky. It's not some great symbol of achievement that only a select few should be allowed to have- because they did nothing to deserve it.

 

You can have a first gen thuwed. Just name your dragon 'thuwed'. All thuwed is, is a name. Most of TJs dragons (besides from the hybrids) are not some magical species we, as users, cannot get as CB.

This game may not be 'about' CBs, but CBs have proven themselves a big enough deal for CBs of past Holidays to be rereleased- leaving Prizes from raffles as the only exception to the rule that everything is obtainable CB (Prizes not only referring to Tinsels and Shimmers, but things like hybrids as well).

 

Trader's Canyon needs to exist alongside the raffle. Trader's Canyon has already stated that it would not be offering CB Hybrids or Alts, so that is why this thread exists. Most of us still favor Trader's Canyon, but honorable mentions would be nice in addition, not as a replacement to it.

[Jazeki]

1 hour ago, LibbyLishly said:

Discussion of CB Hybrids aside, which is apparently a much more controversial subject than I realized, what about HMs that are literally just "Pick a breed from the cave, like a CB Gold or Silver"?

I would be okay with this. And I was under the impression that this is what original  HMs were: "pick a dragon from the site"  with the exception of certain things like bright pinks and  some holidays. Just that people picked hybrids. 

[Rekha]

Just naming my dragons Thuwed would be pointless, and it wouldn't be a real Thuwed. So no I simply cannot agree with you there. I will never be able to have a CB Thuwed and I am okay with that, just as I am okay with not having any special CB at all. I would have been fine to not have won a prize, I think its awesome that I did and I am extremely lucky but that's what it is, is luck, and I am okay with luck. Though this thread is not about CB Prizes and you seem to be very focused on the idea of CB Prizes here so lets try and steer away from that and talk about the hybrids and things like that. I still stand by my thought that maybe HMs should be used for things that CAN be found in the cave and would be a great alternative for the store which I am still opposed to.

[LibbyLishly]

3 minutes ago, Rekha said:

[...]maybe HMs should be used for things that CAN be found in the cave and would be a great alternative for the store which I am still opposed to.

I would very much not want this to be an "instead of" Trader's Canyon. My ideal would be for both to exist concurrently. I know you disagree, and that's fine, but I wanted to make it clear that my making this thread was not in order to propose another alternative to the store suggestion.

Edited January 9, 2018 by LibbyLishly

[Dragon_Arbock]

22 minutes ago, Rekha said:

This whole thread again feels to me like the conversation about Prize dragons

 

2 minutes ago, Rekha said:

Though this thread is not about CB Prizes and you seem to be very focused on the idea of CB Prizes here so lets try and steer away from that and talk about the hybrids and things like that.

You brought it up in the first place, so I responded.

And most of us are not okay with luck, when luck is the only way to get something. Being lucky and winning a CB Gold or Silver or anything normally obtainable in the cave? Fine and dandy. I can get behind that. Winning something not normally obtainable..? That's what's not okay.

I mention Hybrids because some people feel that is also unfair- but at this point, do we ignore their existence because only so few have them as to not really impact trading? It's hard to say.

In-cave obtainable honorable mention dragons would be nice, however.

[Rekha]

3 minutes ago, LibbyLishly said:

1 minute ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

 

You brought it up in the first place, so I responded.

And most of us are not okay with luck, when luck is the only way to get something. Being lucky and winning a CB Gold or Silver or anything normally obtainable in the cave? Fine and dandy. I can get behind that. Winning something not normally obtainable..? That's what's not okay.

I mention Hybrids because some people feel that is also unfair- but at this point, do we ignore their existence because only so few have them as to not really impact trading? It's hard to say.

In-cave obtainable honorable mention dragons would be nice, however.

I am totally okay with in-cave obtainable honorable mention dragons. 

 

I did mention it, I tried to keep my mention of it brief so as to not make this conversation about CB Prizes is all and thats why I suggested we stay off of that topic. 

[Guillotine]

I'm mostly of the opinion that they already exist, so denying them on that basis alone isn't very good.

 

Old-style HMs, where you just pick a dragon out of a list containing all current breeds, would be preferred by me (at least if they can't be added to the Trader's Canyon, which I find to be ideal).
 

[Starscream]

I'd sooner have an ability to pick the code than the H.M.