Suggestions for Sweets

[BlueSkyy]

Since every seems to be concerned about people being able to have both sprites: has anyone actually done it? Has anyone with an alt sweet abandoned it and gotten a CB pink instead, and kept one of each? Even though I have a frozen baby alt, and I could dump him and get a CB adult pink, I would never do this.

 

I really think the option to "exchange" the dragons should have been given, and it would have been "all-or-nothing."

 

For example, if MissFloppySocks had two CB Alt Sweets and hated them and wanted pink ones, they should have a PERMANENT option to toggle their scroll to "pink" and those alt dragons would be turned pink. Same code, same dragon, different sprite. Yeah, if MissFloppySocks ruined a few lineages with his/her choice, maybe 3 people would be angry, but that would be better than apparently everyone being angry with how things are currently. Lineages being ruined by previous owners is not a new or unheard of thing. Or perhaps they could even show up alt for all past lineages, and pink for all future lineages. Or maybe they could only convert if they were unbred. Who knows. Just an idea that needs refined.

[Fuzzbucket]

3 minutes ago, BlueSkyy said:

Since every seems to be concerned about people being able to have both sprites: has anyone actually done it? Has anyone with an alt sweet abandoned it and gotten a CB pink instead, and kept one of each? Even though I have a frozen baby alt, and I could dump him and get a CB adult pink, I would never do this.

 

Yes. They have been cited in this thread, and a couple of people have come out and said so. Not many - but there aren't many around.

[Fuzzbucket]

 

2 hours ago, KrazyKarp said:

Edit: I'm basing this post off of TJ's post. The best solution is still releasing them to everyone, but because TJ is so set on them being unnecessarily rare, making them all pink is the next best option.

 

Absolutely not. (And I am a pink owner.) It would be totally unfair to wreck existing lineages. THe original thing TJ did would have achieved that, by preventing continuing lineages - which is what it was so very awful.

[JavaTigress]

18 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

 

Absolutely not. (And I am a pink owner.) It would be totally unfair to wreck existing lineages. THe original thing TJ did would have achieved that, by preventing continuing lineages - which is what it was so very awful.

RIGHT, and, as I said before... I am definitely against taking away something from people that they have had for EIGHT YEARS... and on top of that something that was a GIFT purely to smooth over people's understandably ruffled feathers that now one group can have two colors and they can only EVER have one. ESPECIALLY when people have wished also for years that they could have pretty alts, too... AND maybe legitimately prefer the alt color scheme. ( I know I have seen where some people have posted that) I am frankly unsure that even having the alts be totally unbreedable would totally take the sting out of that for some. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame the alt owners for the situation.... it is just that while I think I SORT of understand what TJ was trying to do, I also don't think it was handled well. IF it was a mistake made years ago... well, that train left the station once people started making lineages with them. IF they were meant to be like the spriter's alts ( and NOT breed true).... then that ought to have been fixed the year after, when those eggies started hatching out more alts, or before that if it was a known problem... not eight years on.

Edited February 14, 2018 by JavaTigress

[TempestSea]

I would love to have alts - would hate for them to go away - but I agree - if I can't have em - let it go back...

 

Ultimately all this fuss is silly - Tj is gonna do what Tj wants - and that has historically had NOTHING to do with what anyone else says or wants lol so quit griping and get back to playing the GAME!

[Dragon_Arbock]

(haven't read through all the posts after this yet, but just want to say)

11 hours ago, TJ09 said:

Okay, as promised. I've lost my typed progress several times, so hopefully I don't drop any details in this iteration... Most of this should be things I've said elsewhere anyways, just with more context provided.

 

To start out with some background info: Alt sweetlings are rare. Really rare. There were way more 2018 Valentine's eggs given out in the first five minutes of tonight than there are CB alts (the first few hours of drops have already dwarfed the total number of alt Sweetlings, bred or CB). Given their origins (only the first few people who grabbed eggs way back when were affected; not even a full drop), this should be pretty unsurprising.

 

So when I say alts are a niche thing, I really do mean it. Aside from the fact that the special-casing involved in granting the alts should've never happened in the first place, at the time, that exclusivity is pretty much the only reason why doing any sort of "special" thing was okay. This clarifies an important piece of information: the original intent of the alts was never meant to involve broad distribution, and respecting that intent is, IMO, important.

 

Niche shouldn't matter here- weren't there only 109 CB Hollies at one point? Yet they got a rerelease- so I don't think that alone is a very good excuse for why to not rerelease more CBs.

As far as never meaning to, well neither were Frills or Arias, or CB versions of Prizes or Holidays.

 

Regardless of that, you also didn't mention what you thought of the option of non-alts breeding alts. 

(I have to go somewhere, will read more when I get back)

[Naruhina_94]

I also strongly disagree with the decision taken.

Black sweeltings used to be rare, yes. Their CB population is very small and niche as you said. However they were never unbreedable, people loved to collect them and to breed them even if they only had 2 holiday slots. When holiday cap was removed everyone could benefit more from breeding and the thing whidespread, collecting 2nd gen without having to relase a CB opened a whole bunch of new possibilites and of course Black sweetling had an huge collecting value even for pink owners. Removing their ability to breed won't make them ever less asked for, on the opposite.

If you're thinking it is ok to shut them down only because there is a small number of black sweetling owners you aren't just damaging those few scrolls, but also EVERY other scroll in the game: everyone is denied to have not only the sprite itself, but also the dream of a sweetling son of an ALT, which is sad and limited.

Instead of seeing them die i would like to see them reborn. Take away the old (lovely sprite), do a rework sprite. Current alt owners could VOTE IN GAME between 3-4 definitive alternatives (without knowing the result). I would then relase the new breed on valentine 2019 and it would take the place of every existing black sweetling plus since it would have been relased everyone could get it.

I know, i know everyone loves black sweetling, they are cute, frail, balck and red, kawai face. But another amazing and more updated dragon could be made with these traits. I also belive it would be a nice way to give the current owners credit: let them choose the new aspect of their very old gift.

 

On a last note: being so attached to praise the past is the real opposite of the direction DC took over the past year and it really doesn't fit, not seems appropriate. There will still be questions and request, not because we ignore your words, but simply because your answer didn't meet many of our doubts.

An example of this is:

4 hours ago, Kelkelen said:

TJ, I'm still confused as to WHAT the problem is, WHY it's a problem, and HOW your current change addresses it.  I'm hearing you saying:
* CB Alt Black Sweetlings were a one-time special release to a small group of people -- so is it that you don't want to take away the "specialness" of their gift?  Or is it that you're afraid of giving them too much trading power?  Or is it that you think they deserve to have access to the standard dragon, and are being denied something that other players have?  In which case, why do they deserve two sprites and the other players only merit one? 
* We have to respect the original intent that they were never meant to have a widespread release -- Okay, but are we talking about your intent, or the spriter's, or both?  And why is the change happening NOW?  Why was it alright not to change it, before now?  Also, do you draw any distinction between widespread release of CBs, versus growing availability due to breedability?  Overall, why is the original intent not subject to change, taking the past 8 years into consideration -- what was bad about how it was?  WHY is it bad if Alt scrolls breed Alt dragons for their owners? 
* The end goal is complete retirement. -- Why?  Whether you do it all at once, or slowly over time, people are still confused as to why they have to be retired from breeding at all.  Especially since on one hand, you seem to be saying that their exclusivity needs to be preserved above all else, but on the other hand, you don't want them to have any effect on trade based on their exclusivity.  Plus, if they can eventually no longer breed true, I believe the demand for 2nd-gens from Black Atl Sweetlings will skyrocket, far worse than if they DO breed true, because getting a 2nd-gen will become the preferred way to have a Black Alt Sweetling in your collection -- if you can't have one on your own scroll, and less lineages are dropping that include them, the next best thing will be owning a 2nd-gen from one. 
* You don't want to break people's lineages, so you revised your change -- but why not just go back to how it was before?  The current situation makes it harder for Black Alt Sweetling owners to build their lineages, and created a tiny trade bubble where they have to depend on one another, segregating them from trade with other players. 

I don't understand the reasoning behind making a change that's not actually going to make anybody happy, if it isn't also at least an improvement of some sort.  I don't see who or what this benefits.

 

I bump the answer up for everyone to see:

 

11 hours ago, TJ09 said:

Okay, as promised. I've lost my typed progress several times, so hopefully I don't drop any details in this iteration... Most of this should be things I've said elsewhere anyways, just with more context provided.

 

To start out with some background info: Alt sweetlings are rare. Really rare. There were way more 2018 Valentine's eggs given out in the first five minutes of tonight than there are CB alts (the first few hours of drops have already dwarfed the total number of alt Sweetlings, bred or CB). Given their origins (only the first few people who grabbed eggs way back when were affected; not even a full drop), this should be pretty unsurprising.

 

So when I say alts are a niche thing, I really do mean it. Aside from the fact that the special-casing involved in granting the alts should've never happened in the first place, at the time, that exclusivity is pretty much the only reason why doing any sort of "special" thing was okay. This clarifies an important piece of information: the original intent of the alts was never meant to involve broad distribution, and respecting that intent is, IMO, important.

 

On top of that, retroactively tacking new mechanics onto a single eight-year-old dragon out of a decade worth of event dragons increases the overall cognitive load. Some of the same could be said for several of the Holiday dragons, but those don't actually directly affect hunting (there's no "you can collect two of every Snow Angel," etc). Things should be moving away from that, not towards it.

 

So, no: even after reading through this discussion, I do firmly believe that alt Sweetlings should not be given a wider CB (re-)release.

 

Outside of that, I have already addressed the topic of a non-CB release (e.g. in the form of alts breeding more alts). With such a limited base of CB dragons, availability of low-generation eggs would be super limited. Definitely way worse than prizes before regular raffles became a thing (there's fewer alt Sweetlings, *and* they only breed true once a year—multi-clutching helps a bit, but not enough).

 

That addresses one direction. It still leaves two others: narrower distribution or no change. Here, a lot of the points in Tiki's post are legit:

 

 

They're so rare to begin with, and not going to stop being rare. All of the changes to make holidays more accessible have also done weird things for alt Sweetlings—I've talked about how they should've behaved like spriter's alts before, and similarly it feels particularly wrong to allow people to get new CB alts when the point of the CB alts is based on something that happened from all the way in 2010. On top of this, some of these people are stuck with alts when they'd rather have had normal dragons.

 

From this, moving towards retirement is indeed the goal. I initially chose a path that moved straight to the finish line with no notice (obviously a mistake). Since then, it's moved to something that will, over time, move closer to the goal while breaking substantially fewer lineages.

 

I guess at this point I'll leave it there and open the floodgates for the inevitable disagreement and/or requests for clarification.

[Nine]

So if I am understanding correctly, a bad decision from eight years ago is continuing to be exercised by further bad decisions?

 

If if it were me, I'd stop the cycle of bad decisions to perpetuate a choice from eight years ago, realize it didn't work out as was originally intended, and adapt to a decision that benefits and compliments the whole userbase. Sometimes things don't work out like planned and that's fine, but I don't believe in abiding by poor decisions simply because they were decided upon so long ago. Especially when it is to the detriment of those who had no choice or were unaware of what the true intent was.

 

I'm struggling to play devil's advocate here, since the crux of the decision appears to be digging deeper into a problem instead of alleviating it. I do not agree that the rarity of an exclusive thing makes/made it okay for this site, nor that respecting original intent is okay when it was so badly implemented and not a good decision to begin with. You can wipe the slate clean and learn from past mistakes, but can do so by making users overjoyed instead of breaking hearts. There are shades of grey to every side, but this one is as black and white as it can get imo.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

@Nine very well said. 

 

Yes, the original alts were a weird case, but it's been eight years. It's a sprite that people see when fishing through the AP every year, and that people would love to collect and play with. Just because it was originally a mistake doesn't mean it always has to be. I don't think Prizes were handled well at all when they were first introduced, but look how far we've come since! Imagine if Prizes had never been given another re-release because the original limited release wasn't handled well. It'd be awful. (And yes, we do have an alternate color of the Sweetlings, unlike Prizes... but the Sweetlings are so very different appearance-wise that it might as well be a whole different dragon).

 

People want to collect and use another pretty sprite. The intents of 8 years ago aside, would it really be so horrid to re-release them? CB Hollys were pretty darn limited until this Christmas, too...

[Siliskor]

This thread kills me. I was all set to enjoy another Valentine event, only to get kicked in the face by the initial announcement. Then the change to that announcement, which alleviated one worry & instilled another. Pretty much all of my lineage projects & plans are shot now. Why bother continuing any of them?

 

Don't tell me to quit griping. Don't presume to tell me anything. I have alt sweetling lineages I've worked on since 2013, when we became able to keep bred eggs thanks to raised limits... 5 years of work that I was proud of every time I finished a line. I sent many eggs to the AP, hoping they'd make their finders happy. I didn't care if they turned pink on a non-alt scroll because I used to think that they'd be welcomed as much as members claim. Saw most of them rushed to the trade threads instead. 

 

I can probably understand why alt owners were given the ability to collect pinks. It is my assumption that, with the alts retired & no longer breeding, if alt owners stayed coded for alts, they'd never be able to collect sweetlings again, ever. So there's that, even if I don't necessarily agree with that change. I'm not dumping my alts, but I'm not sure whether I'll continue breeding them now.

 

This debacle has taken what used to be a fun little diversion & turned it into the single most... unpleasant experience I've ever had here. Not even my acquisition of Valentine 09s, the only holiday release I was still missing, has any happiness in it.

 

I have so much I want to say about this, but instead I just think I'll sit the rest of this battle out. I never thought I'd be part of a site that's willing to hamstring its userbase, &I'm tired of feeling punished.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

16 minutes ago, Siliskor said:

Don't tell me to quit griping. Don't presume to tell me anything. I have alt sweetling lineages I've worked on since 2013, when we became able to keep bred eggs thanks to raised limits... 5 years of work that I was proud of every time I finished a line. I sent many eggs to the AP, hoping they'd make their finders happy. I didn't care if they turned pink on a non-alt scroll because I used to think that they'd be welcomed as much as members claim. Saw most of them rushed to the trade threads instead. 

 

I know it's just one small matter among many, but I know personally I'd gift or trade alt sweet lines if I found a nice one simply because I didn't want to dead end the line by keeping it on my scroll. So while some people might only have viewed alt offspring as trade fodder, please know that others might have been doing the same as me. I usually note down the user who bred the line and ask for a non-sweet sibling later on, so it feels less like I'm wasting something <3

[Fuzzbucket]

I COLLECTED alt sweetling checkers for their beauty.

 

Things like these

 

https://dragcave.net/lineage/zBzg0

https://dragcave.net/lineage/qv4vm

 

which I can't continue, but still love. I shall miss them terribly.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

Wait, I’m confused. Aren’t Alts going to keep breeding true?

[cerimonster]

I'm there with ADP, I love alt lines, but if they're checkered lines, I couldn't continue them and didn't want to suddenly have them turn pink midway through, which is why I always liked 2nd gens, because then it could be alternating, or at least have the base one solid colour.

 

Anyway, I digress, I believe everyone has already started everything I could say in this matter. I'm going to go back to nursing my durgs that I did get.

[Ruby Eyes]

13 minutes ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

Wait, I’m confused. Aren’t Alts going to keep breeding true?

Eggs going to pink scroll will turn pink, still.

[Fuzzbucket]

14 minutes ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

Wait, I’m confused. Aren’t Alts going to keep breeding true?

 

I hope so - not sure, really. I just have this gut feeling of pending disaster !

[Imzadi]

16 minutes ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

Wait, I’m confused. Aren’t Alts going to keep breeding true?

As it stands now:

alt parent  to alt scroll = alt sweetling

alt parent to pink scroll = pink sweetling

pink parent to alt scroll = pink sweetling.

 

[Fiona]

7 hours ago, Brekke said:

I don't mean the following question to be sarcastic or snarky in any way.  I always thought of art here as bought and paid for by TJ.  Why should Kila's opinion matter at all?  Again--I'm totally ignorant about this issue--it's not an attack on spriters.  But I don't understand--why does her opinion matter?  I'm looking for information not a confrontation, I promise.  

 

As a site artist I can answer this. TJ does not buy the art for the site. We give him permission to use it but it is still owned by the respective artists. We have a written agreement with him regarding use so he can, to a degree, do what he wants with it on the site but he's always been very respectful of the fact that we own the art. He's not going to do anything that disrespects her wishes, partly because he does respect his artists, but also because he doesn't want to cause any of us to exercise the clause that would remove the art from the site. That's complicated and I'm not going into it, but a copy of the agreement is attached to the spriting topic pinned in requests.

 

I have wanted alt sweetlings on my scroll since they were a thing, since I like the look of them better than the pink ones. I was not part of the glitch, so my sweets are pink, even though mine were caught in the first hour of release. Scroll coding has proven to be immensely unpopular so I had hoped TJ would approve wider distribution rather than less. However, I see his point. If the intent really is to retire them, which makes sense to me intellectually, even if emotionally I'm disappointed, then I think the current plan is as good as we can get.

 

My current, and long held view, is that I don't collect Sweetlings, entirely due to the scroll coding issue. I'm fine with other people loving them and collecting as many as they want, but decided soon after the limit on bred holidays was lifted that as long as I couldn't have both I would have no more than I already had. I don't collect lineages that contain Sweetlings. This goes for Snow Angels as well. I know the case for those is different and I sincerely hope that a different kind of decision is made regarding those. That's the sort of personal decision each of us has the right to make.

[Brekke]

1 minute ago, Fiona said:

 

As a site artist I can answer this. TJ does not buy the art for the site. We give him permission to use it but it is still owned by the respective artists. We have a written agreement with him regarding use so he can, to a degree, do what he wants with it on the site but he's always been very respectful of the fact that we own the art. He's not going to do anything that disrespects her wishes, partly because he does respect his artists, but also because he doesn't want to cause any of us to exercise the clause that would remove the art from the site. That's complicated and I'm not going into it, but a copy of the agreement is attached to the spriting topic pinned in requests.

 

 

Thanks for the info! 

[Fuzzbucket]

9 minutes ago, Fiona said:

 I had hoped TJ would approve wider distribution rather than less. However, I see his point. If the intent really is to retire them, which makes sense to me intellectually, even if emotionally I'm disappointed, then I think the current plan is as good as we can get.
 

 

But it is a step backward from what we had, in that those who had these very special dragons can now dump one and have a choice. They can make spectacular lineages as a result - which are not possible for the rest of us. It was better as it was in the first place.This will go nowhere further towards retiring them,..

[angelicdragonpuppy]

As a writer and artist with a cast of characters I’m extremely attached to, I understand why DC artists get similarly attached to their created breeds. At the same time, however, I feel concepts submitted to DC should defer to what’s best for the game (within reason). We aren’t proposing they get drastic sprite changes or merchandise or even a sudden increase in numbers, because they already DO increase in numbers every year. We’d just be spreading those numbers throughout the userbase. It would be great if Kila could be reached, and hopefully convinced, but since she has left the game behind I think it’s time an eight year old restriction gets left behind, too.

 

(although again, did she for sure say she didn’t want them spread anyway?)

 

And as a related thing—as much as I’d hate it—if it really does boil down to artist’s wishes and TJ treading carefully, then it would probably do a lot if he came out and said so. I would still be disappointed, but knowing he doesn’t want to spread them out of respect and legalese is more understandable then the rather objectionable reasons given now (which seems to be just wanting to erase a past mistake).

[Grandmother_cathie]

I have wanted an Alt Sweetling on my scroll for a long long time.  Since they came out.  But it is not to be.  And that makes me a little sad.

I'm glad that the Alt owners have the chance to have the Pinks.  Good for you.  I wish we could all be as lucky, but we can't. 

And suppose that's the way things are.  No use crying over spilt milk.

[Brekke]

3 minutes ago, Grandmother_cathie said:

I have wanted an Alt Sweetling on my scroll for a long long time.  Since they came out.  But it is not to be.  And that makes me a little sad.

I'm glad that the Alt owners have the chance to have the Pinks.  Good for you.  I wish we could all be as lucky, but we can't. 

And suppose that's the way things are.  No use crying over spilt milk.

Spoken like a grandmother!  And I mean that in the kindest, most respectful way!  

[RainDear]

25 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

But it is a step backward from what we had, in that those who had these very special dragons can now dump one and have a choice. They can make spectacular lineages as a result - which are not possible for the rest of us. It was better as it was in the first place.This will go nowhere further towards retiring them,..

If they were actually intended to act like artists' sprites then that (in my understanding at least) would be unintended behavior. I am not aware anyway of any artists that have 1 artists' sprite and 1 normal CB. If I am right about this TJ may correct it at some point.

 

Edit: I stand corrected. I always thought the Spriters' alts were only the original CBs that the spriters caught and that any that they bred would be normal for the breed.

Edited February 15, 2018 by raindear

[Fiona]

raindear, I have both regular and alt Shadow Walkers, caught the year of their release. Spriter alts are not scroll coded, so any bred Shadow Walkers, plus the new CB I collected this past Halloween, are regular.