Transparency in DC

[Dragon_Arbock]

I've been in and out, but just to say, I do think art updates are something that should happen. If anyone who wants to submit art to the site are going to be held to high standards, than the art on the site should also reflect that. Some of the sprites were also made at a time when the color palette was limited, and could use some reshading to really make them fit with the newer art. I do not support making something drastically different to the original sprites in pose or design, but something like the update the Silvers got could be done to some other old breeds.

 

This isn't really a transparency issue though, however..

[Brekke]

1 hour ago, laertid said:

 

Well, coins and stamps are another matter entirely. DC is better compared to something like Pokemon - if you transfer your Pikachu from older to new-er game, its sprite will inevitably change, there is no way to escape it.

lol!  That's an explanation for a generation after my own!

[Jazeki]

First post updated. I phrased the bit about sprite/breeding updates the way I did because there seems to be some conflicting opinions on the matter. Basically just no "tada, here is a new thing."

 

Also, @dragonstar, most of the drama seems to happen because of a huge change incited by TJ that usually happens to be a surprise to everyone else or mostly everyone and only TJ and a few select people know about it. I made this thread and it is in no way asking for this site to be a democracy. That's not the point. It's clear this is TJ's site. The point is to bring a bit more communication and openness to how the site functions. 

 

Regarding your questions: 

It doesn't matter what other games have polls or not.  The idea is to have more open communication because clearly there's a disconnect somewhere. I'm sure you've answered user surveys or left a review about a game at some point in your life.  The users here want to feel like their opinion matters. 

 

People are asking for a better relationship between mods and TJ because it leads to better communication with the rest of the userbase, less confusion, and less drama (which you mention happens a lot).

 

 No one is asking why Sock was demoted. She left. Some users know why.  She is simply being brought up because she left a mark on the site and happened to be a global moderator who was very active and served as a liaison between users and TJ.

[laertid]

2 hours ago, raindear said:

If I buy art from any artist out there and take it home to "put on a shelf", I can buy newer and newer representations of that artist's work and have a display of how they have grown and changed over the years. Once I buy something, I would never take it back to the artist and ask for a "newer, better" one. If I have several games in a series, certainly newer ones will look different from older ones, but that won't stop me from replaying the older ones. That is pretty much the way I feel about the dragon sprites I collect. Once I have it "on my shelf" I get very upset if someone comes in and changes it for something that isn't what I brought home. I do kind of feel like someone came into my home and messed with my stuff. I live with it, but I don't like it.

 

 

 

What I'm trying to say is - we're playing an online game here, so "stamps and coins" comparisons mentioned earlier, as the "arts bought from artist on my own shelf" don't really work. It's more like re-work of an MMORPG engine so it looks smoother and runs faster... maybe some people loved how the old game looked, because of nostalgia, or because they just thought it really looked better that way, but, hey, time goes on, and no new players gonna come to enjoy the MMORPG if it keeps the old pixelated textures. Here come the detailed polygons. Something like this.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

The comparison doesn’t quite fit, though, because whereas MMOs have many a thing to do DC has nothing to do BUT collect art, and make lineages with it. So updates can, if not done carefully, essentially undo years of progress. Imagine if you woke up and your favorite dragon, which you’d collected dozens of, had been changed to a sprite you hated.

 

Personally I’m neutral on the matter; some updates have been good, others feel something has been lost. The new Splits and Silvers are huge improvements over the old, from a general point of view... but it still feels like something got lost. Splits don’t feel half so bulky and the brighter new Silvers, while understandable, wrecked havoc with many lines that used them before for their softer color.

[olympe]

1 hour ago, Jazeki said:

Also, @dragonstar, most of the drama seems to happen because of a huge change incited by TJ that usually happens to be a surprise to everyone else or mostly everyone and only TJ and a few select people know about it. I made this thread and it is in no way asking for this site to be a democracy. That's not the point. It's clear this is TJ's site. The point is to bring a bit more communication and openness to how the site functions. 

 

Actually, there are two main sources of recurring drama: big changes that inhibit any one playstyle and exclusive sprites (save for SAs). Pretty much everything else can be discussed here without flame wars erupting.

[TJ09]

The discussion of "whether or not sprite updates should happen" has once again strayed from the topic of transparency and communication issues. On that topic, I've said it before and I'll repeat here: sprite updates will happen. It's pretty much guaranteed; incorrect anatomy and flawed shading are objective flaws with a sprite that can and should be corrected. Over the course of numerous updates, we've gotten much better at preserving the feel of the original sprite (pose, lineage silhouette, etc) while improving its objective quality. People still talk about the gold dragon update as a counterexample, but that was over six years ago now, and the list of updates that have gone over well since then is much longer.

 

As far as sprite updates intersect with communication, the "recent" updates (the last round was actually two years ago) have been pre-announced (including what was about to change—dimorphism, shading tweaks, whatever). There is also precedent for small fixes on top of the new sprite after receiving community feedback.

[JavaTigress]

7 minutes ago, olympe said:

 

Actually, there are two main sources of recurring drama: big changes that inhibit any one playstyle and exclusive sprites (save for SAs). Pretty much everything else can be discussed here without flame wars erupting.

AND, to be FAIR Olympe... i am pretty sure I have seen requests for changes on SAs and their wings as well.

That said... I DO think you are right about the two things you mentioned being the two MAIN causes of forum drama on DC.

[Moonlight_Eevee]

I do have a question about some of the dragon descriptions. Are they going to be updated as well? Right now the red dragon descriptions make no sense at the moment due to them being a fairy tale dragon but isn't the setting of Dragon Cave located in a fairy tale world? @TJ09

[Dragon_Arbock]

1 hour ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

The comparison doesn’t quite fit, though, because whereas MMOs have many a thing to do DC has nothing to do BUT collect art, and make lineages with it. So updates can, if not done carefully, essentially undo years of progress. Imagine if you woke up and your favorite dragon, which you’d collected dozens of, had been changed to a sprite you hated.

 

I've sort of had that happen, but in a roundabout way. Maybe I'll get hate for this, but Luminas were my favorite dragon. Then for some reason, Dark Luminas were added. Their unpredictable breeding along with their art not being quite to the same standard has pretty much made me stop breeding my Luminas. That is a gameplay change that we weren't informed of, and just sort of happened, with no clear way of avoiding (unlike the Solstices which were fixed to be time of day dependent).

It wasn't a change that ruined the sprite itself, but it ruined their breeding behavior.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

9 minutes ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

 

I've sort of had that happen, but in a roundabout way. Maybe I'll get hate for this, but Luminas were my favorite dragon. Then for some reason, Dark Luminas were added. Their unpredictable breeding along with their art not being quite to the same standard has pretty much made me stop breeding my Luminas. That is a gameplay change that we weren't informed of, and just sort of happened, with no clear way of avoiding (unlike the Solstices which were fixed to be time of day dependent).

It wasn't a change that ruined the sprite itself, but it ruined their breeding behavior.

 

This is a good point too. Luminas are among my favorite dragons, while I'm far less enthused about the dark version--so having darks now dominating most breedings means most of my lumina lineages don't breed properly anymore. It's frustrating. 

[Whirlaway]

Would it have been better to have Dark Luminas and normal Luminas breed separate of each other? Should new breeds that associate with an already released breed not compound the breeding of the original breed?

 

I can understand the frustration from such breeding, honestly.

[Millennium07]

1 hour ago, Dorchet said:

Would it have been better to have Dark Luminas and normal Luminas breed separate of each other? Should new breeds that associate with an already released breed not compound the breeding of the original breed?

 

I can understand the frustration from such breeding, honestly.

 

The Dark Luminas aren’t new. Their Spriter mentioned that the lights and darks were designed/sprited together, and lights released first for some reason.

 

The current state of affairs was the originally intended one.

Edited February 19, 2018 by Millennium07

[Dragon_Arbock]

28 minutes ago, Millennium07 said:

 

The Dark Luminas aren’t new. Their Spriter mentioned that the lights and darks were designed/sprited together, and lights released first for some reason.

 

The current state of affairs was the originally intended one.

 

That's not the point, though. For 4 years, they worked one way, and now they work another way. Also, to be technical, I'm pretty sure I heard that the male Lumina was originally designed as a christmas dragon.

Either way, when they were released we didn't know this was going to eventually happen, and in general, breeds like them and gemshards are a headache. Fire Gems are much preferred as their breeding outcome is controllable.

[Jazeki]

@olympe and everyone else: I said "most" instances and was referring specifically to dragonstar's comment about how there is drama every holiday. The major changes outside of pulling frills and arias, retiring raffles for a time, and sprite updates all do tie to decisions concerning holiday dragons where TJ kinda just surprised the rest of the userbase with a new mechanic or decision. I'd appreciate if y'all didn't "actually" my reasoning behind making the thread when exclusivity and things that affect play style  still fall under the umbrella term of  "a huge change incited by TJ."

[Fuzzbucket]

 

10 hours ago, Dalek Raptor said:

I do have a question about some of the dragon descriptions. Are they going to be updated as well? Right now the red dragon descriptions make no sense at the moment due to them being a fairy tale dragon but isn't the setting of Dragon Cave located in a fairy tale world? @TJ09

 

Who says dragons don't tell fairy stories to their hatchlings even in a fairytale world ? It just says it is LIKE a story book dragon, not that it is in a story book. We humans often refer to people in terms that are linked to the world we live in. "My real-life friend"....

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

2 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

Who says dragons don't tell fairy stories to their hatchlings even in a fairytale world ? It just says it is LIKE a story book dragon, not that it is in a story book. We humans often refer to people in terms that are linked to the world we live in. "My real-life friend"....

But the problem is, why would Valkemare - a place where dragons exist - have the same fairytales we do about dragons. To us as players, yeah, they’re fictional. But to the human you play as in the game, the dragons are real. So why would they be writing descriptions describing fairytale dragons? It’s rather like Ash Ketchum saying “I wish Pokémon were real...”

 

But yeah, I strongly approve of description updates too. 

Edited February 19, 2018 by RealWilliamShakespeare

[deleted_account]

I believe it's more like the reffered dragons simply don't exist on Valkemare, are made-up. It's like on Earth telling a fairy tale about a sparkle dog that could glow in the dark and speak Chineese. 

 

It also wasn't very nice (delicately speaking)  that there was a public Vampire update thread, people were working for quite a while, but noone warned them their efforts are pointlesss because one of the on-site spriters (or in-cave spriters in general) got the job in private (btw; WHY, there WAS a thread for that already!). These people DESERVED to be warned Vamps are worked on in private by on-site artists. This was disrespectful of their time and efforts... No matter how great the private*chosen sprite is, that was an expected common courtesy to let people know... and it didn't happen in ANY form... (And there were a few ways to do that... only ONE involving a reveal of the sprites...)

[Fuzzbucket]

16 minutes ago, RealWilliamShakespeare said:

But the problem is, why would Valkemare - a place where dragons exist - have the same fairytales we do about dragons. To us as players, yeah, they’re fictional. But to the human you play as in the game, the dragons are real. So why would they be writing descriptions describing fairytale dragons? It’s rather like Ash Ketchum saying “I wish Pokémon were real...”

 

But yeah, I strongly approve of description updates too. 

 

But we don't know that it's the same fairytales we do. OK we know there's a red dragon in there, but there may also be wombats. krakens and a colour we have never seen in this world. Just because our stories have one thing in common doesn't mean they are all princess meets dragon stuff. (BTW it does refer to storybooks, not fairytales... Just pointing out, as I can't actually think of a traditional FAIRYTALE that has  dragons in - not Grimm or Perrault, that's for sure - though I'm sure there are some.)

Edited February 19, 2018 by Fuzzbucket

[olympe]

17 hours ago, JavaTigress said:

AND, to be FAIR Olympe... i am pretty sure I have seen requests for changes on SAs and their wings as well.

That said... I DO think you are right about the two things you mentioned being the two MAIN causes of forum drama on DC.

I meant SA as in "Spriters' alts", not as in "Snow Angels". Snow Angels are one of those instances where drama most definitely does occur.

[JavaTigress]

4 minutes ago, olympe said:

I meant SA as in "Spriters' alts", not as in "Snow Angels". Snow Angels are one of those instances where drama most definitely does occur.

Ah! YES. OK.My mistake then XD. If that is the case then you are right.

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

6 hours ago, MhKhu said:

It also wasn't very nice (delicately speaking)  that there was a public Vampire update thread, people were working for quite a while, but noone warned them their efforts are pointlesss because one of the on-site spriters (or in-cave spriters in general) got the job in private (btw; WHY, there WAS a thread for that already!). These people DESERVED to be warned Vamps are worked on in private by on-site artists. This was disrespectful of their time and efforts... No matter how great the private*chosen sprite is, that was an expected common courtesy to let people know... and it didn't happen in ANY form... (And there were a few ways to do that... only ONE involving a reveal of the sprites...)

I completely agree with this. It’s something that crosses my mind frequently and something I meant to address earlier in this thread but forgot. It was a real issue of transparency and is, imo, inexcusable. If sprite updates are announced as TJ said they often are, then it wouldn’t have been giving anything away to just tell the artists in the thread and stop all their hard work going to absolute waste, which it unfortunately was. It was an instance where just telling the community that a change was already happening would have been appropriate and necessary, and this is the sort of stuff that needs to be changed on the site. 

[olympe]

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Just stating that the update was being taken care of would have been enough. 

[Cinnamin Draconna]

Most definitely, because even if we 'knew' something was in the works, we'd still be surprised when it actually happened. And with my memory, I would have forgotten all about it anyway by the time it happened, lol.

[Fuzzbucket]

That was bad, indeed.