Suggestions regarding DR

[hazeh]

3 hours ago, Quetzals said:

If someone with a topic already in DR submits another one, will it get rejected even if it meets the requirememts, or will it be accepted and put in queue, but only posted when they finish the one in DR? 

If it meets all requirements, it will be placed in queue. It will not come out of the queue until the current topic is completed or removed. 😄 

[deleted]

51 minutes ago, hazeh said:

If it meets all requirements, it will be placed in queue. It will not come out of the queue until the current topic is completed or removed. 😄 

 

Oh, I'm so glad! I have 2 concepts saved on my computer but it doesn't connect to internet at all. It needs to get everything cleaned including those concepts, so I'll be able thankfully to submit them from my phone and then send it to reparations

[SkyWolf25]

Update on schedules: We are planning on clearing out DR sometime on Monday, so that we can officially reopen DR on the 17th with all inactive threads gone. Splitting multiconcept threads will begin the day after reopening.

[Shokomon]

15 hours ago, SkyWolf25 said:

Update on schedules: We are planning on clearing out DR sometime on Monday, so that we can officially reopen DR on the 17th with all inactive threads gone. Splitting multiconcept threads will begin the day after reopening.

Oh.

That means I have only 3 days instead of 4 days to go through everything.

 

I assumed the 17 was clear day...

 

I feel like that should have been spelled out somewhere...

[Infinis]

2 minutes ago, Shokomon said:

Oh.

That means I have only 3 days instead of 4 days to go through everything.

 

I assumed the 17 was clear day...

 

I feel like that should have been spelled out somewhere...

This date wasn't decided until yesterday, which is why SkyWolf posted it in here only 15 hours ago. 17th is reopening day, so we have to clear it out before then, which makes the 16th the last day it can happen. If things like this happen in the future, we will definitely decide this beforehand so it can be posted the same time as everything else it goes with.

[Shokomon]

1 minute ago, Infinis said:

This date wasn't decided until yesterday, which is why SkyWolf posted it in here only 15 hours ago. 17th is reopening day, so we have to clear it out before then, which makes the 16th the last day it can happen. If things like this happen in the future, we will definitely decide this beforehand so it can be posted the same time as everything else it goes with.

In any case, I appreciate the heads up though! 

 

You guys are good at keeping us posted as soon as something changes. 

[HeatherMarie]

I know this might not be possible to know right now, but any idea exactly *when* on Monday the DR will be cleared? Even a morning/afternoon/evening would be very helpful. I mean there's a big difference between Monday at midnight (ie the very start of Monday) and Monday at 5pm, where people would still have much of Monday to do what they needed to do. (I totally understand if it's not possible to narrow the time down, just thought I might as well ask.)

[SkyWolf25]

10 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

I know this might not be possible to know right now, but any idea exactly *when* on Monday the DR will be cleared? Even a morning/afternoon/evening would be very helpful. I mean there's a big difference between Monday at midnight (ie the very start of Monday) and Monday at 5pm, where people would still have much of Monday to do what they needed to do. (I totally understand if it's not possible to narrow the time down, just thought I might as well ask.)

 

Time has been decided - threads will begin to be cleared after 8 p.m. DC time! Updating threads with new art or saving information to resubmit at a later date should be done before then(retrieving information can still be done after clearance, of course, but saving stuff beforehand is easier for all parties involved).

 

-

 

Also, to clear things up - concepts submitted while you already have a concept in DR will be automatically rejected. Sorry about any confusion that might have occurred!

[Eggy0]

So... It's the 18th of July now, and "Start New Topic" is still not visible in the Dragon Requests section, at least for me :(

My question is, is there a reason why we can't add new concepts to the queue yet? Is it just on my end? Or is there some other way of submitting that's different to how it was before? I had already put together the post for my DR that I really wanted to submit but I'm finding no way of submitting it even though it's been explicitly told that DR will reopen on July 17th. I'm just terribly confused and I find it really strange that the section still seems to be closed even after the date of reopening with no updates on if there were any changes to said date or the like.

[Fuzzbucket]

As far as I know any suggestion for a dragon has to be submitted to a mod before it will appear - just as it always used to. Maybe nothing has been approved yet.

 

It's only one day after it was supposed to reopen. Patience is a virtue.

 

Oh and of course there is a limit to the list now. If there are 50in there, you can't actually work on a thread;you will be in a queue.

 

And if you have a dragon in DR you can't submit another till yours is moved to CL. And you do - even though it was just closed. So you can't submit one anyway.

Edited July 18, 2018 by Fuzzbucket

[Fiona]

I would say they haven't quite finished clearing DR. There are still more than 50 open threads. The last shown there hasn't had actual art updates for about a year, though sprites were reposted 3 months ago. Our mods are only human and I'd expect clearing DR took a little longer than they expected.

Edited July 18, 2018 by Fiona

[Eggy0]

If I can't post a new DR just because I technically already have one despite the fact I decided to get it closed and/or removed, then that's extremely disappointing and strict in my opinion, especially since no one told me that before (nor do I remember seeing this specific statement anywhere, i.e. "A thread in DR, closed or not, disqualifies you from a new one until it's completely gone from the section) and I had previously asked for my thread to be closed 3 days in advance without it being closed until I contacted another staff member yesterday morning. Even then I expected it to be removed instead of just locked (which was what happened to my previous concepts that I chose to close), though I thought a thread getting locked is virtually the same as being removed. Apparently not, and I was so excited to post my new dragon idea as I don't currently like my other one as much anymore...

Seems like it's back to working on it in private.

[Fuzzbucket]

All I know is that the new rules said quite cl;earl;y:

 

On 7/12/2018 at 1:55 PM, Quetzals said:

If someone with a topic already in DR submits another one, will it get rejected even if it meets the requirememts, or will it be accepted and put in queue, but only posted when they finish the one in DR? 

 

On 7/12/2018 at 5:49 PM, hazeh said:

If it meets all requirements, it will be placed in queue. It will not come out of the queue until the current topic is completed or removed. 😄 

 

So you should be OK to have one in the queue, but... it is silent on closed ones. I think you need to ask for your current one to be REMOVED rather than just closed as it is now. But as Fi says - they are clearly still working.

[deleted]

18 minutes ago, Eggy0 said:

If I can't post a new DR just because I technically already have one despite the fact I decided to get it closed and/or removed, then that's extremely disappointing and strict in my opinion, especially since no one told me that before (nor do I remember seeing this specific statement anywhere, i.e. "A thread in DR, closed or not, disqualifies you from a new one until it's completely gone from the section) and I had previously asked for my thread to be closed 3 days in advance without it being closed until I contacted another staff member yesterday morning. Even then I expected it to be removed instead of just locked (which was what happened to my previous concepts that I chose to close), though I thought a thread getting locked is virtually the same as being removed. Apparently not, and I was so excited to post my new dragon idea as I don't currently like my other one as much anymore...

Seems like it's back to working on it in private.

 

DR isn't fully ready yet. There's concepts that just had sprites reposted ans asked for crits. The multiple concepts in one have to be split. I think your closed request will disappear soon, mods are human beings that need a bit of time. Perhaps they didn't think it'd be this time-consumming. 

 

Even so, you have to wait until DR hits 36 topics left to see a new one in, which might taks a really lot. There are 70+ concepts and some will be soon splitted. Your request will sit in queue until then.

[Eggy0]

Thanks! I didn't notice there were still multiple concept threads sitting around and all that jazz (not much of a DR comber haha). The impression I had gotten from the announcement was that any and all threads whose last art post was older than 3 months would be removed and that the "Start New Topic" button would appear on July 17th (which was announced as the reopening date), but I didn't realize there's more than just initially removing threads on the 16th and that it may still take a while until it's actually opened. I guess what helps is that no one said there might be delays (leaving me, as I mentioned earlier, terribly confused) but I can see it's probably because the mods are too busy to notify us at the moment. I really hope I didn't come across as impatient or anything, there was literally no extra announcement so I just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing something.

I'm not overly worried about my thread sitting in the queue for a long time; I'd just like to get it in there whenever I can (the earlier the better) and then patiently wait until it's finally in the DR section

[hazeh]

1 hour ago, Fuzzbucket said:

All I know is that the new rules said quite cl;earl;y:

1 hour ago, Fuzzbucket said:

  On 7/12/2018 at 5:55 AM, Quetzals said:

If someone with a topic already in DR submits another one, will it get rejected even if it meets the requirememts, or will it be accepted and put in queue, but only posted when they finish the one in DR? 

 

1 hour ago, Fuzzbucket said:

  On 7/12/2018 at 9:49 AM, hazeh said:

If it meets all requirements, it will be placed in queue. It will not come out of the queue until the current topic is completed or removed. 😄 

 

So you should be OK to have one in the queue, but... it is silent on closed ones. I think you need to ask for your current one to be REMOVED rather than just closed as it is now. But as Fi says - they are clearly still working.

 

@Infinis, was this correct? Or was this the part that I misinterpreted? I don't want my misinformation floating around if that's the case. ^^;

 

[Infinis]

On 7/13/2018 at 11:36 PM, SkyWolf25 said:

 

Also, to clear things up - concepts submitted while you already have a concept in DR will be automatically rejected. Sorry about any confusion that might have occurred!

@hazeh @Quetzals @Eggy0

 

Eggy: your thread has been removed 

 

As far as actually posting topics in the section i do believe that is something tj has to reenable - i gave him a ping yesterday to let him know he could open it.

 

 

[Eggy0]

Huh, so indeed a thread has to be completely gone for it to actually count as "you have a free DR slot" and not just locked. From that sentence I had assumed that it applied to an active, open DR only and that locked threads did not count. Thanks for confirming this is the case (and for removing my thread proper) Infinis!

[HeatherMarie]

2 hours ago, Infinis said:

@hazeh @Quetzals @Eggy0

 

Eggy: your thread has been removed 

 

As far as actually posting topics in the section i do believe that is something tj has to reenable - i gave him a ping yesterday to let him know he could open it.

 

 

 

Maybe the sticky could be updated to show that it will be reopened when TJ gets around to it? While I totally get that TJ has a life etc etc, it does state, in bold, that DR would be reopening the 17th. If there will be a wait that should be posted in the sticky.

[olympe]

Not any more - the statement that DR would be re-opened yesterday has been striked through at least hours before you posted.  

[HeatherMarie]

4 hours ago, olympe said:

Not any more - the statement that DR would be re-opened yesterday has been striked through at least hours before you posted.  

 

No, when I posted the thread had not been updated yet. I posted at 10:22, the thread was updated at 10:35. 

[Infinis]

One more big thing: the ultimate DR guide has been updated with the newest changes and hopefully made more readable (bullet points are FANTASTIC you guys). dead links have (hopefully) all been removed.

[Ruby Eyes]

5 hours ago, Infinis said:

more readable

Just one tiny thing, if I may:

In the "Characteristics to avoid in a sprite/sprite concept are:" section, the second bullet point is strangely formatted that makes it a bit tougher to read. Removing that formatting may be good.

 

Besides that, the whole guide looks great

Edited July 19, 2018 by Ruby Eyes

[hazeh]

Thanks for clearing that up, @Infinis! I apologize if I caused any confusion ^^;;;

[JavaTigress]

On 5/2/2018 at 11:29 PM, Infinis said:

public DRs have a waiting period before they can be released. even if a request was accepted right this second, it wouldn't even see the light of the cave for at least two months. 

 

i'd actually like to see the entire completed subforum hidden from public view - that way the waiting period can start immediately, even before a request is accepted, so that release can be accelerated. if it's going to wait an indeterminate period of time for acceptance/rejection, it may as well do it in hiding where it can get the wait period over with ahead of time.

 

i know people like to see the completed stuff but i don't feel like it's doing any good to leave them there and then wait a protracted extra period after acceptance simply because it was public for so long.

 

as far as crits and standards go, if you look at the majority of the released since mid 2015 (at least) there are at least two commonalities to be found: a strong grasp of anatomy and polished shading. anatomy in that the dragon was drawn as if it were real, with realistic articulations, ranges of movement, posing, etc. polished shading in that it doesn't look unfinished - flaws minimal, light sourcing well done, etc. i also look if your textures are done well, if you have done any.

 

this is the standard i hold people to when i crit them. i don't know if it helps anyone, but from my view the released dragons seem to have been converging on a consistency for some time, so i hold people up to that. 

Hmmm... I think @Infinis makes a good point here.

 

Now I am not an artist,myself,but it DOES seem to me that ONCE the actual work on a dragon concept and all the spriting and such are done,t here shouldn't be any reason it NEEDS to stay visible. I can say that I ALSO sort of agree with waht others have said that MAYBE TJ needs totake a more active role in shooting down concepts he knows will NEVER pass muster. ( It really isn't FAIR tot he artists to let them go through all the work of developing their sprites, after all, if it is an idea that TJ either doesn't LIKE for whatever reason, or feels won't fit in the cave. IF there is a fixable reason they won't work, why then MAYBE the idea can be tweeked a bit so it actually stands a chance of seeing the light of day. The BIG problem is that iartists are often guessing, from what I have seen, what he might accept as far as concepts of ( THOugh he has givenus some deffinite things( Must fit in with a medieval setting...no technology dragons or such like that...). I do think crits from TJ might help a LOT? Again,not an artist speaking here, but given that TJ is the one, in the end, that select which ideas get used, his thoughts might be helpful. I will comment here that there are SOME that feelDR is basically pointless as none of those ideas are ever used ( I don't believe that myself, mind) and I think that A bit more involvement from TJ might help dispell such ideas?