2018-07-01 - July Dragon Release

[Jack_Indivisible]

Not really a fan of either of these, like everyone is saying. I'm almost fine with the Pyros elbow spikes, but they don't line up with how the elbow is pointing, going every which way. The ones in the back are worst, as they seem totally unconnected from the elbow.

 

I also have a problem with the lore of the truffles. So the reason white truffles are so rare is because they're parasitic/symbiotic mushrooms we don't know how to reliably cultivate and have to dig up, grow only in italy, and which are going extinct. Not good for their price points. The reason musk deer are going extinct is because their musk gland is only active for a short window once a year, and hunters have to kill them to get access to their musk gland, and india and china are doing the "Let's extinctionate an animal for medicine that doesn't work" thing. As a note, there are chinese farms that harvest deer musk sustainable without killing the deer, but it's not even close to the demand for musk in either country.

 

Now, neither truffles or deer have anything to do with oil. Truffle oil is a synthetic alternative containing no truffles, while deer musk is made up of tiny solid grains of stuff, though it will be tinctured in oils like sandalwood for perfume making.

 

Now let's go to the truffle dragon. It's implied that you somehow have to kill the dragon to get an economical amount of oil off of them. Which just doesn't make sense. See, they're covered in musk. All you have to do to get the musk off them is wash them. Give them a hug and your entire front half will be coated with their oil. With the fact that there is no seasonal rush to extract as much oil as possible from them, and the fact that they are as un-finicky about their growing conditions as a dragon can possibly be (all biomes), how are they rare?

 

 

[featherwolf19]

I think the description might need to be fixed for the Black Truffle dragons. Currently it says “leading the dragons to be hunted near the point of . Now, these dragons live far away from humans and...”

 

Probably, I assume, meant to put “extinction”? 😆

Edited July 4, 2018 by featherwolf19

[blackdragon71]

I’m glad I didn’t trade off all my black truffles (9 so far), though there were several other things I wanted.  The truffles are pretty in form and concept and color.   I’m not a fan of the Pyrovar, but perhaps it was an early effort that finally got to have its day (even the world’s “greatest” artists have works that weren’t received fondly), and I do like the striking colors chosen for it.   Thank you, Mysfytt and JOTB, for your hard work on our behalf.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

Hey, I'm not losing my marbles! It's faint, but the Truffles DID get shinier:

 

https://dragcave.net/image/0Rj5p

 

 

Edited July 4, 2018 by angelicdragonpuppy

[Alrexwolf]

I think I prefer the duller version, myself, but I know they're supposed to look oily, so the version with more sheen makes more sense. It brings out a lot more of the blue-green on the dragon, too. 

[Kirono]

4 minutes ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

Truffles DID get shinier

 

xD I'm amazed you noticed that tiny difference

 

 

11 minutes ago, blockEdragon said:

I really hope this isn't gonna be "dis derg iz rar" *three of this "rare breed's" eggs block the biomes 5 times a day every day*

I absolutely hate when dragon descriptions say they're rare when they're actually not, it's one of my biggest peeves in a dragon concept.

  

 So i'm either gonna come to LOVE this dragon more than almost any recent release for actually being a rare for once or hate them more than any other breed because of the false hope and descriptions full of lies! I don't want to hate them so I hope it's the former.

 

Haha I love your ideas about the truffle dragon. I saw that line too, and now I'm worried it will actually be another rare? Lord knows I didn't pay enough attention to the zyus when they got released and that's been biting me since. But if it's not actually rare... words like "uncommon" and "rare" should be banned from the descriptions unless they actually ARE.

Edited July 4, 2018 by Azarkiel

[DigitalGarden]

7 minutes ago, blockEdragon said:

 

I don't like any of that "pure hearts only" nonsense either, it's one of the things I don't like about floral crowned dragons (even though that's just superstition) It just seems like a way to say MY DRAGON IS AMAZING AND YOU SHOULD LIKE THEM without actually doing that much.

Pure of heart means nothing these days, in the barest sense it is a biblical thing but these days no one really goes into detail of what they're adapting that into and everyone just uses it as some amorphous form of niceness, it's a buzzword basically.

 

Please note that the lore of DC =/= nowadays. It's more similar to what people in medieval times believed in. It's the best not to apply modern standards to DC dragons... otherwise we would already have reptile-shaped roombas breathing fire as a legit concept, aside from other things.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

7 minutes ago, Azarkiel said:

xD I'm amazed you noticed that tiny difference

 

I looked at them on my phone and it was a lot more noticeable when they were five inches from my eyeballs. I looked on my phone this morning and they were just dull and disappointing then. But now, WAZAM! (...although to be real, I moved back to my laptop and it really is hard to tell the difference on here... T______T)

 

@olympe when you said "Pyro" I went all "wait, they might not be as fab as their other xeno brethren, but but but!" And then I saw legs and wings and realized you weren't talking about pyro pryos.

 

Also kinda a general PSA is anyone is worried--I see in the wiki that people are worried about TJ not considering the gusties ready yet when they've seen the DR thread and deemed them very worthy, but I'd guess they were only "not ready" in the "whoops they weren't announced and planned to go live just yet" sense, not the "they aren't gorgeous enough" sense. So hopefully we'll see them very soon.

 

While we wait for THAT mystery to be solved, I wonder if Truffles got a one-off sprite update, or if they change sprites throughout the day, ala Spirit Wards... Super shiny rainbow oil dragon please??? *w*

Edited July 4, 2018 by angelicdragonpuppy

[MiserablePileOfSecrets]

i have to say that i really love the Truffles, they're very cute and i love the bit of rainbow sheen to them. As such i've already begun to collect them~ (with 6 already to my name)

[Shadowdrake]

To those arguing about the pyrovar legs: what, you can't turn your chest 45 degrees from your hips? Animals are plenty flexible and it just looks like it's pushing off with a back leg to lunge at something beside it. Much more realistic than the common straight-line walking/standing/sitting poses, even if it doesn't look as aesthetically nice at first glance. The wings are fine unshaded like that too: they add an illusion of depth perception better than a lot of wings onsite, especially since they seem to come towards us.

 

The truffles are... okay. I guess. There's pretty much no shading depth or differentiation to the point the neck looks like a flat bevel in Word, but I guess the rainbows look okay, sort of. 

 

Also feel free to try to get a hug from truffles for those oils when they're big angery wild animals. Like really, just because they give off a lot of it doesn't mean it's easy to get other than by hunting and thus having the body right there to get it. Just look at those snails that got cooked for having royal dye mucus.

Edited July 4, 2018 by Shadowdrake

[Alrexwolf]

Idk, I think jumping straight up in the air with my chest facing all the way to the left or right would be rather uncomfortable. 

[High Lord November]

The truffles are neat. The description seems a bit ruffly but it doesn't really change anything in the end. Something bothers me about the head/neck proportions but I don't quite know what. I loved the Pyrovar hatchlings and I love the color scheme and face of the adult. Those back legs and the size of the shoulder kind of ruin it for me though, it just looks awkward! Really sad because I love the rest of the dragon. Thanks for the release all!

Edited July 4, 2018 by High Lord November

[Jack_Indivisible]

17 minutes ago, Orchi'dea said:

Please note that the lore of DC =/= nowadays. It's more similar to what people in medieval times believed in. It's the best not to apply modern standards to DC dragons... otherwise we would already have reptile-shaped roombas breathing fire as a legit concept, aside from other things.

Except that saying that the lore of DC exists independent of the viewers is kind of a weird thing to say. Not questioning whether saints, priests, and the nobility were benevolent and moral was enforced with literally lethal force. For better or worse, we have a much more complicated view of morality and character in this day and age, and we can ask questions like whether the people giving out bull**** morality tests have ulterior motives.

 

2 minutes ago, Shadowdrake said:

Also feel free to try to get a hug from truffles for those oils when they're big angery wild animals. Like really, just because they give off a lot of it doesn't mean it's easy to get other than by hunting and thus having the body right there to get it. Just look at those snails that got cooked for having royal dye mucus.

"Big angery wild animal" capable of giving morality tests. Dragons aren't wild animals, they're sophonts that we can breed at our whim. Their owner giving them a bath isn't a crazy concept. Snails have a shell and size problems that make harvesting their dye gland problematic, and they aren't coated in their dye.

[Predat0rs]

I was so excited for the Pyrovar Adults because the coloration was something I've wanted for a long time... but they're just not for me. I guess the only thing I don't like is the "pose" it was made in. If it were to have been "posed" differently, I would like it a lot more. *shrugs* But since they ARE pretty cool/pretty as Dragons themselves, I'll still collect them. Just not a fan of the pose very much.

 

As for the Black Truffles, OMFGGORGEOUSAF! The purple horns makes them, I swear. xD They're very purrrrdddyyy. :3

[PaintdGryphon]

I've seen cats push off that same way, the Pyrovar may look awkward, but the pose is entirely valid. 

[Shadowdrake]

14 minutes ago, Jack_Indivisible said:

"Big angery wild animal" capable of giving morality tests. Dragons aren't wild animals, they're sophonts that we can breed at our whim. Their owner giving them a bath isn't a crazy concept. Snails have a shell and size problems that make harvesting their dye gland problematic, and they aren't coated in their dye.

We're not *supposed* to be able to breed them at a whim. That's game and story segregation, because the world of dragons would make no sense if we as humans somehow actually raised massive personal armies of immortal dragons that take years to mature. And anyway we steal their eggs from wild nests: the originals that were hunted aren't domesticated animals a person can just go up and ask for bodily secretions, and the ones we have are just a small number. We're sapient too and do you know how weird that is to ask another human for their sweat??

 

It makes perfect sense that the fastest and easiest way to get oil, especially by people who want money aka not likely to be moral in general, is killing. And dragons canonically take a long time to breed, hatch and mature, and only pop out a few eggs at a time max so therefore hard to farm, not to mention being *sapient* and therefore likely to get unhappy being a glorified oil well.

 

Like... you can tranquilize and carve off the horns of an elephant or rhino presumably, but do poachers do that? Nahhhh.

Edited July 4, 2018 by Shadowdrake

[cbussiere]

Does anyone have a screenshot of the original Truffle sprite? The images in ADP's post are the same.

 

I still wish they were shinier. It looks like they just have rainbow markings since iridescence is typically in a different hue range and doesn't occur in thin stripes. And the low-contrast shading doesn't at all suggest the glossiness oils have. Maybe they're not actually intended to look like they have a thin coat of oil on them, but the hatchling description suggests that their whole hide is oily.

Regarding the hunting discourse: Clearly they don't like to share their oil. It's not stated why they have it, but given the lack of apparent practical purpose and exclusivity with which they share it, I would expect it has some significance in partner selection. Meaning random humans are not those with whom they'd want to share it, and letting their oil be harvested could decrease reproductive success. Given that, you'd probably have to restrain the dragon to scrape it off the hide, and given that they're large and powerful and will fight back against that, it would probably be safer and easier to kill it from a distance with, say, crossbows or something. Though I wonder how much perfume the people of Galsreim were using, a small bit of oil goes a very long way. Maybe it was very commonplace in the culture of that time to use scented oils for more mundane oily tasks like caring for leather, cooking, etc. Black Truffle oil must have been very popular.

 

v We won't know until they're dropping normally for a while. Some people thought they'd be rare since it seems they were particularly hard to catch, but others suggested that was because they're spread across 5 biomes and because the gusty -> musky conversion messed with their ratios. I wouldn't trust the release rates too much since this release was pretty buggy. We'll just have to wait and see.

Edited July 4, 2018 by cbussiere

[elderberrysyrup]

I have no real opinion on the sprites (they look fine to me, and at the size of lineages the colors on the Pyro will stand out better/the post matters less) but I want to know does anyone know if Black Truffles will actually be rares?

[DigitalGarden]

28 minutes ago, Jack_Indivisible said:

Except that saying that the lore of DC exists independent of the viewers is kind of a weird thing to say. Not questioning whether saints, priests, and the nobility were benevolent and moral was enforced with literally lethal force. For better or worse, we have a much more complicated view of morality and character in this day and age, and we can ask questions like whether the people giving out bull**** morality tests have ulterior motives.

 

"Big angery wild animal" capable of giving morality tests. Dragons aren't wild animals, they're sophonts that we can breed at our whim. Their owner giving them a bath isn't a crazy concept. Snails have a shell and size problems that make harvesting their dye gland problematic, and they aren't coated in their dye.

The DC universe isn't even set on Earth lmao, why are people even trying to force all possible real life standards on a made up fantasy world is something that I can say is weird. Too much raw logic is just as unhealthy for the concept as complete lack of it (or, as we say, "just game logic LOL"). As well as reading too deeply into a couple of paragraphs under a pixel pet.

 

welp I'm slow at posting but Shadowdrake pretty much summed up what I also wanted to say, bless

Edited July 4, 2018 by Orchi'dea

[HeatherMarie]

1 hour ago, blockEdragon said:

 

I don't like any of that "pure hearts only" nonsense either, it's one of the things I don't like about floral crowned dragons (even though that's just superstition) It just seems like a way to say MY DRAGON IS AMAZING AND YOU SHOULD LIKE THEM without actually doing that much.

Pure of heart means nothing these days, in the barest sense it is a biblical thing but these days no one really goes into detail of what they're adapting that into and everyone just uses it as some amorphous form of niceness, it's a buzzword basically.

 

Actually these dragons are probably hypocrites when you think about it. How many poor people trying to keep a roof over their head have come to them only to get judged for minor things and turned away, while the dragon that literally secretes a way to help them with no apparent use for it calls THEM selfish and impure?!

...

Actually that's kind of perfect for dragon lore, considering the greed and all, head-cannon forged

 

Maybe they're actually just like those unicorns from gravity falls and use "purity" as a buzzword to avoid giving out the oil:

 

"Oh I would give you some this stuff I have a ton of buuut....*brainstorming excuses to get rid of the annoying apes*...You have to be...Pure! Yea, Pure. Can't give it away to anyone who isn't pure of heart and selfless and considering that you came to me for material gain and mildly annoyed me in the process i'd say that you're not pure 1-dimensional kindness OR selflessness beyond anything survivable so no oil for you!"

 

(Though constant harassment for some stupid oil humans have no use for other than perfume and money is also kind of a terrible life so I understand where the truffles would be coming from when doing this kind of thing)

 

 

Oh I love this. Head-canon accepted! It honestly makes a lot more sense to me then just their description.

 

I love how majestic and regal the Black Truffles look, and I agree with the alt-Black comparison. That will be a very nice lineage (if a hard one to make!). The Pyrovars... I really like the colors, but I agree with others that the pose just looks awkward. I'm not saying it's an impossible or unrealistic pose, it just looks strange to me, and not very appealing in terms of collecting a lot of them.

[blockEdragon]

29 minutes ago, Shadowdrake said:

We're not *supposed* to be able to breed them at a whim. That's game and story segregation, because the world of dragons would make no sense if we as humans somehow actually raised massive personal armies of immortal dragons that take years to mature. And anyway we steal their eggs from wild nests: the originals that were hunted aren't domesticated animals a person can just go up and ask for bodily secretions, and the ones we have are just a small number. We're sapient too and do you know how weird that is to ask another human for their sweat??

 

It makes perfect sense that the fastest and easiest way to get oil, especially by people who want money aka not likely to be moral in general, is killing. And dragons canonically take a long time to breed, hatch and mature, and only pop out a few eggs at a time max so therefore hard to farm, not to mention being *sapient* and therefore likely to get unhappy being a glorified oil well.

 

Like... you can tranquilize and carve off the horns of an elephant or rhino presumably, but do poachers do that? Nahhhh.

People buy hair all the time for hair extensions and the like. So potentially the dragons could get something in exchange, meat, some shinies, ect.

 

Plus a glorified oil well is a bit much, it's more likely that someone would want to adopt a dragon and just pick the one with the added bonus of oil, that's a thinking being you have to raise like a child, children are awful so someone would really want to commit to that. Most people can't avoid getting attached to something like that and cruelty would be counterproductive to the goal since having a dragon that loves you is infinitely better than one that hates you.

 

Dragon that loves you:

-someone to talk to

-someone to do fun things with

-likely to willingly give oil

-likely to protect you from harm

-a family member that is also a dragon on the side

 

Dragon that hates you:

-likely to fly away never to be seen again

-likely to kill you

-would die before letting you have it's oil

-Won't be a good BFF

-an enemy THAT IS A DRAGON

 

Why dose anyone have children again? Just adopt orphaned dragons! (well I guess because dragons are expensive and dangerous and all but your child could grow up to be a wizard that needs mana so either way the dragon is the better choice)

 

 

Though the hunting thing is something I don't doubt would happen, people are racist jerks to different shades of skin so a dragon is probably subhuman to some and psychos would likely have no qualms about murder.

Edited July 4, 2018 by blockEdragon

[sorenna]

There's a missing-word error in the description of the Black Truffle dragons:

 

" leading the dragons to be hunted near the point of . Now, these dragons live far away from humans" 

[Syiren]

Wait....Truffles are rare?! .....(iz suddenly glad she grabbed as many from the midnight drop when she did.) ;

I'm surprised the Trufflesended up being my favs, but really happy. I love them both tho. 😁

[Cottoncat]

1 hour ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

Hey, I'm not losing my marbles! It's faint, but the Truffles DID get shinier:

 

Oh wow, I wouldn't have noticed without seeing this post - I enjoy this change a lot! What beautiful, rainbow patterns. 

[Jazeki]

1 hour ago, Orchi'dea said:

 

otherwise we would already have reptile-shaped roombas breathing fire as a legit concept, aside from other things.

I would like this. I mean I pretty much have a dog-shaped Roomba who scours the kitchen after every meal, so....

 

I also noticed the rainbows on the Truffles. They're kinda neat...even if I've never seen oil pooling on any animal. The sheen sort of reminds me of those pretty rainbow snakes.