On-site Hatchery

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

Not sure if this is already a thread - I apologise if so, but I didn't find anything.

 

I am aware that many collectibles websites have an on-site hatchery, where you can choose to add your own stuff, and they collect views. Dragon Cave is a large site with many users, and as such I feel like the hatchery would be able to sustain itself and hatch eggs/mature hatchlings without trouble. If some things struggle to get enough views, the under-4-days, or under-2-days ER system could be implemented, if it seems necessary.  (The traffic would also benefit TJ c: )

 

The on-site hatchery could work as you have a checklist of what you want to add to it, and it would require password verification. You could not add anybody else's things to the hatchery, only your own eggs - the user has to do it themselves. [As explained below, I propose the hatchery be usable even with a hidden scroll, and hope that it's actually possible for TJ to do]

 

-- The issue of Dragon Cave feeling more inclusive has been brought up, which the on-site hatchery would fix, as you could add your eggs/hatchies to them and not have to worry about keeping track of things on other websites.

-- The issue of lag has also been brought up, which TJ has addressed as a problem we should leave him to worry about.

 

---------

 

The original reason this suggestion was brought up was me thinking of a way to counteract viewbombing, as discussion of it has been going around a LOT recently, in many separate threads. It is a real problem, and an incredibly tricky one to solve. The on-site hatchery being an action against viewbombing has loopholes, but I'd really appreciate if people let me know what they think and how to get around them.

 

A problem brought up was that your stuff could still be added to outside hatcheries, and of course that still is the main concern. However, my solution at the moment is:

1) The on-site hatchery still works when your scroll is hidden:

    Users hide their scrolls, but if their egg were to be clicked on, their scroll couldn't be viewed from the egg page, and the scroll couldn't be viewed by anyone aside from the user if searched - this acts like normal hiding, except that eggs and hatchies can still appear in the on-site hatchery. I have no idea how scroll-hiding works, but I wonder if TJ could make it so that eggs and hatchlings can still accumulate views and unique views, just keep the scroll hidden from other independent hatcheries and the general public, as it usually works.

 

Regarding this, I want to see what exceptions TJ would be willing to make/what the website allows, as I'm sure he wants a solution to the problem too. I would really appreciate other people's suggestions of how to come around this problem, but I make this suggestion anyway as I feel like it is a possible way of alleviating one of the main issues users are experiencing as of late.

Edited April 4, 2018 by RealWilliamShakespeare

[HeatherMarie]

My first huge concern here would be lag and how much resources this would take and how much this would affect other parts of the game. A hatchery is a *huge* undertaking and most likely uses up a *ton* of bandwidth (or whatever the correct term is), with hundreds of users refreshing the hatchery every minute or so.... That could *severely* slow down the entire site if an entire hatchery was added to DC. I admit I know very little about the details of something like that, but we have severe lag sometimes already and I really can't imagine this wouldn't make things worse.

 

My second reaction is.... I really don't understand why this is needed or how on earth it would help viewbombing? Unless TJ just cuts off all access to the site from all other hatcheries, having an in-site hatchery wouldn't affect real viewbombing in any way. People could still add your things to outside hatcheries (or forums or sigs are wherever). An in-cave hatchery wouldn't affect that at all, unless users just constantly hide their scrolls and the in-cave hatchery can be used while your scroll is hidden as you mentioned.... But I very much think that is *not* a good solution to viewbombing, to have to constantly keep your scroll hidden and only use one specific hatchery. 

 

If the reason for this suggestion is to stop viewbombing I really think it's a rather poor and tedious work-around, instead of tackling the viewbombing itself.

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

14 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

My first huge concern here would be lag and how much resources this would take and how much this would affect other parts of the game. A hatchery is a *huge* undertaking and most likely uses up a *ton* of bandwidth (or whatever the correct term is), with hundreds of users refreshing the hatchery every minute or so.... That could *severely* slow down the entire site if an entire hatchery was added to DC. I admit I know very little about the details of something like that, but we have severe lag sometimes already and I really can't imagine this wouldn't make things worse.

 

My second reaction is.... I really don't understand why this is needed or how on earth it would help viewbombing? Unless TJ just cuts off all access to the site from all other hatcheries, having an in-site hatchery wouldn't affect real viewbombing in any way. People could still add your things to outside hatcheries (or forums or sigs are wherever). An in-cave hatchery wouldn't affect that at all, unless users just constantly hide their scrolls and the in-cave hatchery can be used while your scroll is hidden as you mentioned.... But I very much think that is *not* a good solution to viewbombing, to have to constantly keep your scroll hidden and only use one specific hatchery. 

 

If the reason for this suggestion is to stop viewbombing I really think it's a rather poor and tedious work-around, instead of tackling the viewbombing itself.

I agree with your first point. Naturally, I did consider it when making my post. This suggestion is one of the only things I've been able to come up with which might actually offer a stop to viewbombing - I know you say in your last point that we should tackle viewbombing itself, but how in the world are we meant to do that? It's such a hard problem. Which is why I suggested this. I guess the only way we'll know how laggy it might render the site would be if TJ could come in and give us an estimate of how the site would be affected by it.

 

Regarding your second point, I should have made it clearer in my post lmao, but this would help viewbombing because the suggestion works off the hatchery being usable with a hidden scroll (if that's even possible). So your scroll would be non-existent to the outside sites, and there would be no way of adding another person's scroll to the on-site hatchery. It may not be a good solution, but it is a start, I'd like to think.

[HeatherMarie]

I'd see this as a last-ditch, worst-case scenario, honestly. A new feature that would stop viewbombing only if you constantly kept your scroll hidden is not really a good solution. There are tons of other possible ways to combat viewbombing floating around on this forum (my personal preference would be some sort of simple cap on how many views eggs could get in a certain amount of time, possibly lifting the cap when the egg gets less then 1 day so neglected experiments could still happen)... There is also a very good suggestion to extend Ward's hours a bit so it's more useful to help sickness when viewbombing does happen. There are also different suggestions about different ways to fog dragons (like being able to fog while in teleport) that would help protect them. I'd honestly prefer pretty much anything else rather then a full in-site hatchery that only helps if you always have your scroll hidden.

 

edit: Also, in general I don't like the idea of a huge new feature implemented just to fix something completely separate... If an in-game hatchery were to happen it should be because we need an in-game hatchery, not because we could use it to prevent viewbombing.

Edited March 31, 2018 by HeatherMarie

[Stromboli]

Yeah, I don't know that an in-site hatchery would be the best solution to viewbombing.

That said, I would really like one. It'd be nice to be able to play the game entirely within the domain of DC, rather than depending on non-DC forums and fan run websites to get views.

[olympe]

As plausible as it seems, as long as any other hatcheries or click sites exist, it won't do any good against viewbombing. Maybe you could keep your scroll hidden, but as soon as you get an egg from the biomes that someone else wanted to grab, they've got the egg's code. And with that, they can viewbomb. And it's usually the CB stuff that's incredibly hard to replace. (Well, and a very select few bred eggs. But even those can be stalked through their parents' progeny page.)

[Starscream]

I am on board with it with the same concerns -  what manner of lag can be expected or produced with such a thing.

 

I could think of benefits to this, as being better able to track what IP's are viewing and listing. I can also think of a system that reads the help my stuff and don't help my stuff as a way of blocking people from attempting to list eggs/hatchlings on a scroll which is not accepting aid. For scrolls that are accepting aid, it might help to watch who or what is putting in eggs or hatchlings. If a person hides their scroll, some hatcheries need you to unhide that, with an integrated system, that might not be necessary as long as the owner of the scroll is the one doing the adding and is logged in.

 

it still does not solve the issue of view bombing elsewhere. But.. perhaps a flag that could be set by user that indicates that the egg will not gain views in offsite hatcheries.

 

I always felt it sort of odd that we did not have a hatchery on site.

[DragonLady86]

In addition to what everyone else has stated, I don't want to have to hide my scroll all the time.  I'm rather proud of all the dragons I've raised and want others to be able to see what I have. 

[StormWizard212]

I could get behind the idea of an on-site hatchery because it would certainly be convenient. I agree that it would be good to be able to play the game entirely at DC, without having to use other sites to hatch and grow dragons. I'm just concerned about the lag that this would potentially cause. This would be such a huge area of the site that I can't really imagine how it wouldn't cause a bit of lag elsewhere. If it's the choice between fast-loading biomes and an on-site hatchery, I'd choose the fast-loading biomes, personally. 

[Fuzzbucket]

7 hours ago, DragonLady86 said:

In addition to what everyone else has stated, I don't want to have to hide my scroll all the time.  I'm rather proud of all the dragons I've raised and want others to be able to see what I have. 

 

THIS - but if we could hide growing things,just as now (for some weird reason) we can hide all adults) we could still show off.

[LadyLyzar]

I will,be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about running a website and managing traffic so I could be completely off base.  However, I expect that having an on-site hatchery would make lag on the servers skyrocket.  If that's the case, I would only be in favor of an "official" hatchery if it was hosted on completely different servers than the actual game.  However, I don't know how much of an investment that would be.

 

For example, I am fairly certain that the reason you can't post eggs on this forum is because of the massive amount of lag it would create when everyone had their eggs posted.

 

I would be in favor of a "Read a random scroll!" button to give views to others, however.

 

 

[Whirlaway]

Dragon Cave’s lag has been notoriously atrocious enough as is, and I can only imagine a hatchery would make that worse. I don’t think an on-site hatchery is worth the lag, to be honest (especially when one considers the game was always moved by getting clicks offsites and I doubt that would change anytime soon).

Edited April 2, 2018 by Dorchet

[Fuzzbucket]

I think the lag would be a killer. I would be happy to be proved wrong, but...

[olympe]

I'm pretty sure TJ could set up an off-site hatchery that would work the same as the proposed on-site hatchery, but without the lag. Of course, he could also cut off all other hatcheries to make view-bombing a little bit harder to do. (Note: A little bit harder. Not impossible. Probably not even hard.) But is that really somethin we'd want, and would it actually accomplish anything? Personally, I doubt it.

[Fuzzbucket]

I doubt it too. We all have our hatchery preferences - in the way that they work, not a favouritism thing as such.

[Whirlaway]

I agree, I have my hatchery preference and I would rather not have them all closed for an “official” one.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Dorchet

[Alrexwolf]

Shrug, I think if everything was in one place this game would be a lot more user friendly. 

 

Honestly I would just put up a poll and ask the userbase (on the website AND on the forums, averaging the two) what they like about their chosen hatcheries. It's not like the lineage tools etc. of the hatcheries would have to go away - and it would be easier to get eggs hatched and hatchies grown. 

 

Part of the problem I have with DC is that it all feels so disconnected. The forum is separate, you have to find outsite websites to hatch, you can't communicate with users in any way on-site, describing dragons can take ages and is really unrewarding at least to me, and there's not really any other ways to interact with your sprites. 

 

Definite support for a less segmented site. 

[Guillotine]

There's a distinct difference between having the option to use the on-site hatchery available and completely removing options that players are already using.
 

[HeatherMarie]

10 minutes ago, Alrexwolf said:

Shrug, I think if everything was in one place this game would be a lot more user friendly. 

 

Honestly I would just put up a poll and ask the userbase (on the website AND on the forums, averaging the two) what they like about their chosen hatcheries. It's not like the lineage tools etc. of the hatcheries would have to go away - and it would be easier to get eggs hatched and hatchies grown. 

 

Part of the problem I have with DC is that it all feels so disconnected. The forum is separate, you have to find outsite websites to hatch, you can't communicate with users in any way on-site, describing dragons can take ages and is really unrewarding at least to me, and there's not really any other ways to interact with your sprites. 

 

Definite support for a less segmented site. 

 

Funny, those are some of the things I love most about DC. You aren't forced to interact with anyone, if you want to talk to people the forums are there, linked on the header of every single page in the game, but if you aren't a social person you can simply play the game by yourself and not even think about any other users. 

 

I'm not much in support of an on-site hatchery simply because it's just not actually needed at all, but if there were to be an official hatchery I would HATE for it to be on the same site/server/etc. I can't see any possible way that that wouldn't cause major lag, way worse then what we have now (which can already be pretty unbearable sometimes). 

 

I'm also not sure how it would be *easier* to grow dragons just because the hatchery is on the same site? You'd still have to actually add your dragons to the hatchery, so it's not like it would save tons of time or anything... It takes me literally one minute to add my scroll to the three hatcheries I use (literally, just tested that). I don't understand how it would be 'easier' at all.

[purplehaze]

I really don't see how there would be any advantage to this.

 

If it didn't replace the hatcheries I already use and didn't cause worse lag than we already have then I wouldn't really object, I guess. But I would most likely not use it, either.

[TJ09]

I think I've said this in response to similar attempts at shutting down suggestions, but "would cause lag" is a baseless claim that's best to let me worry about, given that there's enough complex factors (like the entirety of how things are built and run) that are required to really evaluate such statements. In this particular case, for example, the vast majority of load from a hatchery comes from the individual images. Except that's something that currently already happens—all of the eggs out there already get viewed many times, and I expect that an on-site hatchery would (at least at first) only shift existing volume around.

 

This sort of thing would represent a pretty fundamental shift in the site, though. Dragon Cave was originally created in service of forums and other online communities. It's certainly possible to take steps that make the site more self-contained, and it's also reasonable to say that the online landscape has shifted in such a way that it's necessary (there are definitely fewer standalone message boards than there were 12 years ago, and many communities now exist within existing services such as Facebook/Reddit). Similarly, "mobile web" was barely a thing back when the site started (iPhones literally didn't exist yet), whereas now phones represent half of all web traffic.

[Fuzzbucket]

I have to believe you about the lag issue - but I also have to say that it very often happens that players all over the world suffer huge lag and ask about it, and you come in and post that there's nothing wrong on your end. That's nice for you but very frustrating for us....

 

But I'm otherwise very much with HeatherMarie.

 

Quote

Funny, those are some of the things I love most about DC. You aren't forced to interact with anyone, if you want to talk to people the forums are there, linked on the header of every single page in the game, but if you aren't a social person you can simply play the game by yourself and not even think about any other users. 

 

[TJ09]

22 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

But I'm otherwise very much with HeatherMarie.

 

Quote

Funny, those are some of the things I love most about DC. You aren't forced to interact with anyone, if you want to talk to people the forums are there, linked on the header of every single page in the game, but if you aren't a social person you can simply play the game by yourself and not even think about any other users. 

 

 

I'm not sure how this even applies. Hatcheries today don't inherently require interacting with other people. I don't see how having one onsite would potentially change that.

[Fuzzbucket]

HeatherMarie was responding to this:

 

Quote

Shrug, I think if everything was in one place this game would be a lot more user friendly. 

 

Honestly I would just put up a poll and ask the userbase (on the website AND on the forums, averaging the two) what they like about their chosen hatcheries. It's not like the lineage tools etc. of the hatcheries would have to go away - and it would be easier to get eggs hatched and hatchies grown. 

 

Part of the problem I have with DC is that it all feels so disconnected. The forum is separate, you have to find outsite websites to hatch, you can't communicate with users in any way on-site, describing dragons can take ages and is really unrewarding at least to me, and there's not really any other ways to interact with your sprites. 

 

Definite support for a less segmented site. 

 

- with which I disagree; but it is fair comment that the game is in a WAY segmented - hatcheries and trading are both outside the cave; I was just saying that that's fine by me !

[StormWizard212]

If a feature like this is possible and logistically feasible, I'd be happy to see it. It would make the game a lot more streamlined and intuitive. It would certainly be easier for new users, I think. 

 

@RealWilliamShakespeare Other than a checklist of what you want to add to the hatchery and it being available to hidden scrolls, did you have any other specific ideas in mind about what you would like to see?

 

Does anyone have any creative ideas about what the in game rationale for it would be? Would you leave your dragons temporarily with some other youngsters to help them mature? Or something else? Likewise, does anyone have any suggestions about how it would look or whether it would be a different part of the world, etc.?