Transparency in DC

[Naruhina_94]

34 minutes ago, Imzadi said:

Um, what, exactly, are the basic collecting rules as you see them?

 

the ones referring to common sense, like giving everyone the same chances to collect a certain sprite. I believe it is only normal in a collecting game that everyone would like to have CBs of everything so they can build/trade. I'm not saying they should be easy to obtain, but still. A very wide-recognized game rule is avoiding those kind of lineage-breaking risks that may happen with certain breeding abilities or BSAs, or retroactive chances to all the sprites. 

[Fuzzbucket]

But - rules ?

[olympe]

Actually, DC is pretty good about imposing as few rules as possible. KISS principle and all that.

[Naruhina_94]

Again? I already said that. Users do have some unspoken kind of rules. A dragon sprite is much more appreciated and loved if people know they can actually work in order to obtain it. TJ should be the first one to ask for any changes on something like breeding, BSA, Lineage view, Hybrids and rarity. Deliberately ignoring that and assuming users should ask Spriters first is counterproductive, shuts down treads, blocks conversations and slows everything down.

Can't an idea being discussed, analyzed and AFTER we find an answer we let TJ decide if it is best to contact the spriter or not?.

A basic collecting rule would be: don't make bad surprise out of blue  to people who invested time, energies and care to collect a certain sprite. Unless you are the site owner with a nice reason and you show it clear as day

 

Yeah Olympe, that's something I appreciate too: few rules well done. Let TJ and mods to decide what's best, they have been around for years, they know the userbase, they know the game and how a topic should be moderated... Game mechanics are a delicate matter that shouldn't be decided by a regular Spriter, especially if this involves the creations of small "elites" of people with more power trading than the rest of the userbase. Man, look at Prizes. Not so long ago it had to be created a specific topic to trade  them because they have become the currency of DC! People couldn't get them, everyone wanted a 2nd gen (me too) and basically everybody felt like fishes in a pond: fighting over some crumbs without doing much worthy to prevale over others. God knows how grateful I am of monthly raffles.

Can the wrong attitude make this happen again? yes.

 

[Fuzzbucket]

11 minutes ago, Naruhina_94 said:

A basic collecting rule would be: don't make bad surprise out of blue  to people who invested time, energies and care to collect a certain sprite. Unless you are the site owner with a nice reason and you show it clear as day

 

That's not a rule for players. You implied that playing the game has rules. Which it doesn't.

[Alrexwolf]

I think the rule thing is semantics. Perhaps replacing the word with standards or expectations would clear up your confusion/argument.

[TJ09]

9 minutes ago, Naruhina_94 said:

Again? I already said that. Users do have some unspoken kind of rules. A dragon sprite is much more appreciated and loved if people know they can actually work in order to obtain it. TJ should be the first one to ask for any changes on something like breeding, BSA, Lineage view, Hybrids and rarity. Deliberately ignoring that and assuming users should ask Spriters first is counterproductive, shuts down treads, blocks conversations and slows everything down.

Can't an idea being discussed, analyzed and AFTER we find an answer we let TJ decide if it is best to contact the spriter or not?.

The old BSA section used to specifically have some pinned content addressing this. When suggesting a change to a breed, it helps if it even makes sense for that breed. A BSA where vines give out pretty flowers wouldn't pass that test, because we've established that vines are actually pretty angry and territorial dragons. In additive cases like that, there's likely a different way to accomplish the end goal.

 

For more meta or mechanical changes, breed lore is less important (there's no canon around holiday alts, for example), since everything is abstracted away from the "lore" level. Then, the opinions of the artists and conceptors are useful (making day/night variants available at all times would probably get some pushback), but are not necessarily definitive, as Corteo has already pointed out.

 

14 minutes ago, Naruhina_94 said:

A basic collecting rule would be: don't make bad surprise out of blue  to people who invested time, energies and care to collect a certain sprite. Unless you are the site owner with a nice reason and you show it clear as day

I've already pointed out in my own responses that the timing of the Sweeting changes was a mistake.

 

1 minute ago, Alrexwolf said:

I think the rule thing is semantics. Perhaps replacing the word with standards or expectations would clear up your confusion/argument.

Some meaningful portion of this thread is semantics, so that's probably for the best.

[olympe]

Well, some unfortunate vine was made into a flower donor this Valentine... Just saying.  

 

Why don't we make up some admin  rules  guidelines?

1. No surprises that have the potential to ruin lineages. This includes but is not limited to:
   1. Drastic sprite changes (including dimorphism)
   2. Limiting breeding in any kind of capacity (like making holiday x holiday breedings impossible again)
   3. Changing certain breeding mechanics (like for alt Sweetlings or bred Mistletoes being able to gender male).
2. No drastic sprite updates. Seriously. (I love the new golds, but the formerly gorgeous gold x white lineages just don't look the same any more.)
3. No exclusives save for spriters' alts. (Only serves to create drama - see snow angels, sweetlings, prizes, formerly retired breeds.)

Regarding sweetlings and their breeding mechanics, not to mention some of the pretty alternating lineages out there: Would it be possible to code that sweetling eggs with an alt anywhere in their lineage will hatch black on a black sweetling owner's scroll, even if its father is pink? (This should take care of said alternating lines. And sorry for going off-topic, but since there's no other thread for this open any more, I didn't know where else to post this.)

 

[Starscream]

13 minutes ago, olympe said:

Would it be possible to code that sweetling eggs with an alt anywhere in their lineage will hatch black on a black sweetling owner's scroll, even if its father is pink? (This should take care of said alternating lines.

I actually like that.

[Alrexwolf]

With the caveat that I expect "no surprises," just means TJ needs to tell us or get input from the community + spriters before making a change, I wholeheartedly agree with everything olympe is proposing. 

[Naruhina_94]

Corrected my post for more clarity.

TJ are you sure it is not possible to create some kind of "pools" in game? I think it would be very cool to implement a survey system for hard decision, something that would be fast and easy for everyone to see and vote without having to come to the forum. Did you ever found yourself in the case of having a couple of alternatives in your mind and wasn't very sure about what to do? I think that it would be greatly appreciated if you show to value us this way

 

[olympe]

Well, surprises can be fun. Like figuring out the breeding mechanics behind lunar heralds and, to some extent, luminas. Or how stripe breeding with nocturnes works. 

However, if a newly introduced mechanic has the potential to wreck existing lineages, I'm definitely not a fan. Remember when we could breed Solstices for the first time, and all bred Sols turned out to be blue-winged? That was bad, too. (And remedied very quickly. The rosy-winged CB also would have been another exclusive on top of that.)

 

@Naruhina_94: There used to be site polls when I started, but they got discontinued. *shrugs* And forum polls can be rather misleading. (Imagine this: There were several gorgeous frill varieties to vote on - red was positively striking, brown looked pretty good, too - and people actually voted for the green one.)

[Alrexwolf]

Oh, that's what I meant @olympe; making changes to already existing mechanics. New mechanics are always fun, so long as they don't affect old established mechanics negatively ^^'

[pinkgothic]

I don't know if it's quite all right to post a meta-observation, but I hope so, since I wanted to say:

 

Thank you for letting this thread exist and engaging with it, TJ. I am only reading, and I have little to contribute to this particular topic, but I am reading with interest, and I appreciate the discussion going on here, and by proxy that it's being allowed to happen. I imagine it's probably very frustrating to deal with, but for what it's worth, the engagement warms my heart, and there are sites that would not be this open to this level of criticism, much less willing to engage with it. So, thank you.

 

(Also thanks to everyone who is giving input here, of course - but admittedly that part is less unusual. )

Edited February 18, 2018 by pinkgothic
Typo fix~

[JavaTigress]

1 hour ago, olympe said:

(Imagine this: There were several gorgeous frill varieties to vote on - red was positively striking, brown looked pretty good, too - and people actually voted for the green one.)

REALLY? I don't recall seeing this at all?

[olympe]

Someone once got permission to use the red frill as their avatar, and I PMed Lythiaren about it and got shown the rest. (I'm not sure if there were more variants, I just know that the dark red was my favorite by far.) That's when she told me about that. However, it happened before either of us joined, back when frills were still in DR.

[Millennium07]

8 minutes ago, JavaTigress said:

REALLY? I don't recall seeing this at all?

 

It was back before the Frills were introduced the first time.

[JavaTigress]

10 minutes ago, Millennium07 said:

 

It was back before the Frills were introduced the first time.

OH! OK! That was well before my time, then!

[Wolfs_Bane]

3 hours ago, olympe said:

Well, some unfortunate vine was made into a flower donor this Valentine... Just saying.  

 

Why don't we make up some admin  rules  guidelines?

1. No surprises that have the potential to ruin lineages. This includes but is not limited to:
   1. Drastic sprite changes (including dimorphism)
   2. Limiting breeding in any kind of capacity (like making holiday x holiday breedings impossible again)
   3. Changing certain breeding mechanics (like for alt Sweetlings or bred Mistletoes being able to gender male).
2. No drastic sprite updates. Seriously. (I love the new golds, but the formerly gorgeous gold x white lineages just don't look the same any more.)
3. No exclusives save for spriters' alts. (Only serves to create drama - see snow angels, sweetlings, prizes, formerly retired breeds.)

Regarding sweetlings and their breeding mechanics, not to mention some of the pretty alternating lineages out there: Would it be possible to code that sweetling eggs with an alt anywhere in their lineage will hatch black on a black sweetling owner's scroll, even if its father is pink? (This should take care of said alternating lines. And sorry for going off-topic, but since there's no other thread for this open any more, I didn't know where else to post this.)

 

 

I like making purebred pumpkins during Halloween though. Please don't ditch that.

 

WB 

[olympe]

Those weren't suggestions, just examples of things not to do. (Pretty please with cream and cherry on top.)

Edited February 18, 2018 by olympe

[Wolfs_Bane]

32 minutes ago, olympe said:

Those weren't suggestions, just examples of things not to do. (Pretty please with cream and cherry on top.)

 

I misread that. Sorry about that Olympe. ^^;

 

WB 

[XiziX]

I gave up a long time ago being part of the forum community. Mostly because the users can make amazing suggestions for changes and the threads gain weeks/months/years worth of discussion, and are then left to rot because there's no TJ responses - if they are, they tend to also be vague. Which, is fine. I get the guy has a life and is busy with things. But...If suggestions are not gunna be looked at or considered half the time, why even have us waste our time typing out ideas if it's going to be left to rot. I get sometimes the guy wants us to convince him that the idea is good, but a thread should not have years worth of discussion by passionate players go left in silence. Why even bother have a section if a majority are gunna be ignored in the first place. Just close the threads and say why you don't want to deal with it. Then let the mods deal with dupes I guess? Or maybe open up suggestions a few times out of the year when they can be looked at and responded to?

 

I've been playing DC forever, had this account forever. But to say that the normal players around here are cared about in terms of suggestions/concepts/ideas would be kind of a lie. Why waste everyone's time. Especially the sprite threads that are left to rot for who knows how long. All this artistic work for nothing...

 

I dunno. I guess I am just jaded by the lack of transparency in general and given my years being on here. The only thing that would blow my socks off would be actual action taking place.

 

Edit: Just to be clear, I am glad that maybe something will end up improving. Fingers crossed. The last thing I want is this awesome site to fail.

Edit: And, yes, I agree that some spriters really do need attitude checks.

Edited February 18, 2018 by XiziX

[dragonstar]

I’m only around for event releases and it’s honestly baffling how literally EVERY holiday there’s something you guys have to complain about. 

 

I understand you want the game to stay the same but you really think TJ does this stuff like changing Sweetlings for no reason? Literally every holiday there’s drama about this. He knows this by now, and unless he finds it amusing to read these threads, there’s no way he does this on purpose. But really, guys, it’s like clockwork.

 

What I DON’T understand is why DC has to be a democracy for some reason. What other game has userbase polls for a select minority? Why are people who aren’t mods/spriters saying they wish mods/spriters and TJ had a better relationship? Why are people asking why Sock was demoted? That should stay between staff. 

 

While I would love more replies in the Suggestions forum about game mechanics and he should have put an explanation for stuff in event threads (I’m not quite sure why he didn’t provide a reasoning for retiring Sweetlings immediately, because quite frankly at this point it is quite obvious you guys will freak out over anything changed), I love the way DC is moving foreard. We have rereleased holiday CBs and monthly raffles; these both show that TJ09 is listening to the playerbase. I’m not sure why a lot of these posts here assume that this site is a democracy when it’s one man’s hobby.

Edited February 18, 2018 by dragonstar

[Naruhina_94]

I don't think anybody is convinced that DC is a democracy. However there has always been a huge user-interaction in this forum for many years and I assume that it was like this since the very beginning. The particular thing of this game (which I didn't saw in other collectibles I played) is that the playerbase actually interact a lot, both with the owner and between each player, I think there has always been this kind of close relation. All of this helped the site to grow and improve. I know many people have left because of old argues/issues, but a lot also joined because of the interest showed by others. People fight passionately about this game and help spread it, I think it is pretty well know that if someone shows sorrow/anger is still better than showing indifference. It means they are attached to the game and don't want it to end.

 

The simple fact a collectible game this simple as: catch-breed-collect has already almost 11 years is IMPRESSIVE to say the least. TJ always pushed us to suggest new things, propose new breeds and stuff, I believe he recognizes the value of it, in this tread we're simply asking for him to show it more clearly. 

 

[Shadowdrake]

I want to note that TJ has changed things before without any official notification, which I don't think is the best way to go about things. For examples, no one knows when the leetle tree got the name action, the announced end date of new Valentine drops was edited mid-way through drops without further mention, there was a mistletoe sprite update never officially announced AFAIK, issues in the help threads are only addressed in the help threads (like the flagging update which had gotten at least one person to accidentally report something), and there are probably several other small changes made over the year not important enough to address in individual newsthreads. I'm not saying a full changelog is necessary, but it'd be nice to get some centralized update info when it's not enough for a whole announcement.

 

Forward warning is nice, but so is being able to see what's already been changed.

 

 

 

@dragonstar Presumably, people have strong opinions because they have invested time and emotional effort in this site, and start feeling bad when to their perspective the site owner seems not to care about them and their investment as players (particularly since this is the suggestions forum, where they're expected to suggest things). At least that is how I read things.

 

Also, they would like mods and TJ to have a better informational relationship because while TJ is only on so often, it's the mods who talk and interact with players and the forum, so if the mods don't know what's happening everyone has to wait for the only admin when he has the time and energy to explain.

Sock was a reassuring and well-known fixture to DC forums for a very long time, and it's not strange for people to want answers or be angry about what drove her off when she always put so much effort here.

 

1 hour ago, dragonstar said:

unless he finds it amusing to read these threads

tbh it's probably not amusing; in my experience these things are 10x worse to read if they're addressed towards you (in general) or things you made. Admittedly I don't think I could read through 100 threads of "your site isn't good enough!" let alone have the energy to reply to every one.