2018-07-01 - July Dragon Release

[Sirithiliel]

9 minutes ago, Ran said:

Thank you to the spriters for their work on these two; disappointed but not surprised to see the drama surrounding this release for what seems like the umpteenth time, considering this is a free online game, for free, about fantasy creatures. For free.

 

I don't know if the artists receive commission for their work -- I am assuming they don't -- but they can't be expected to wait hand and knee to make sure everything is Perfect™ for releases. That's not their job.

 

the issue is that other people DO have to wait hand and knee to make everything is perfect if they want the chance for their dragon to be accepted and released.

 

THAT is the drama surrounding this release =P People who are not in cave yet are held to a super-high standard, but TJ sometimes releases older  work from already-in-cave spriters (i'm assuming older based on comments from in-cave spriters in this thread) that are not held to the same standard

 

so people who aren't in cave yet are expected to, as you put it, 'wait hand and knee' to get released into cave,going back and redoing every little imperfection in their sprites, but yet they see sprites of less quality than they're held to released into the cave. So it's bound to be frustrating

 

hence the drama.

 

a dragon request with hind legs like the Pyro would have been ripped apart and sent back to the drawing board. I've seen sprites in dragon requests heavily criticized for much less than that.

Edited July 5, 2018 by Sirithiliel

[angelicdragonpuppy]

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

Thank you to the spriters for their work on these two; disappointed but not surprised to see the drama surrounding this release for what seems like the umpteenth time, considering this is a free online game, for free, about fantasy creatures. For free.

 

I don't know if the artists receive commission for their work -- I am assuming they don't -- but they can't be expected to wait hand and knee to make sure everything is Perfect™ for releases. That's not their job.

 

I don’t think people are annoyed so much about the releases as the fact that the standards in DR seem to be higher to a crazy degree. Neither of the new sprites is bad (the Truffles have rather grown on me, and I like the other’s colors), buttt I’ve also seen requests in DR absolutely torn apart for much smaller issues than some of the things on the new sprites. Even one of the artists said it was an older work with flaws they notice now. So there is a disconnect.

[HeatherMarie]

1 minute ago, Sirithiliel said:

 

the issue is that other people DO have to wait hand and knee to make everything is perfect for releases

 

THAT is the drama surrounding this release =P People who are not in cave yet are held to a super-high standard, but TJ sometimes releases older in-cave spriter work (i'm assuming older based on comments from in-cave spriters in this thread) that are not held to the same standard

 

so people who aren't in cave yet are expected to, as you put it, 'wait hand and knee' to get released into cave, but yet they see sprites of less quality than they're held to released into the cave. So it's bound to be frustrating

 

hence the drama.

 

Exactly this. Also, just because it's a free game doesn't mean we can't expect/wish/hope that things would be more fair, or that the quality of new releases would be consistent across releases. When you play a game for a long time, and love the game a lot, it's disheartening to see this huge unbalance between already-known artists and artists that are trying so hard to 'make it'. It's disheartening to see such a loved game start to feel 'elitist', start to feel like it's biased towards older artists. It's disheartening to see people trying sooooo hard to polish their work 'just so' in order to meet some impossibly high standard while others seem to just skate by with imperfect sprites just because they've been in-cave before. I think a little 'drama' is completely understandable with all of that.

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, Sirithiliel said:

THAT is the drama surrounding this release =P People who are not in cave yet are held to a super-high standard, but TJ sometimes releases older in-cave spriter work (i'm assuming older based on comments from in-cave spriters in this thread) that are not held to the same standard

 

1 minute ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

 

I don’t think people are annoyed so much about the releases as the fact that the standards in DR seem to be higher to a crazy degree. Neither of the new sprites is bad (the Truffles have rather grown on me, and I like the other’s colors), buttt I’ve also seen requests in DR absolutely torn apart for much smaller issues than some of the things on the new sprites. Even one of the artists said it was an older work with flaws they notice now. So there is a disconnect.

 

This makes sense, and I agree, it would be very frustrating. Considering this is free content, this kind of behaviour seems both unnecessary and potentially damaging towards new spriters? Critique is fine, but excessive to the point of irrational critique does more harm than good.

[Sirithiliel]

It is damaging to new spriters. If you look at releases, and the artists associated, the vast majority come from already in-cave spriters. This is of course partly because they have more experience and can do good spriting work, but it also still feels heavily weighed in their favor vs new spriters who are doing comparable work (to my eye at least)

 

i did try my hand at getting in cave, around three years ago. Spent about two years working on three dragon concepts in Dragon Requests.  ANd this exactly situation is why i gave up and quit. Redoing my sprites over and over and over, even getting help from Mysfytt (though i doubt she'll remember haha), to improve them, and still told they weren't good enough. And meanwhile watching dragon breeds get released in cave with flaws that people even pointed out in each and every release (though often we're told to stop 'being mean' and just enjoy the dragons)

 

it drives people away from trying to get in-cave. I know this from experience. I gave up, it was a waste of time, a excessive amount of frustration, that i instead decided to turn to other artistic means that at least made me happy to do

Edited July 5, 2018 by Sirithiliel

[TCA]

7 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

start to feel like it's biased towards older artists.

 

others seem to just skate by with imperfect sprites just because they've been in-cave before

 

This is still approaching it wrong in my opinion? If it was this simple, we'd probably GET a lot more newer spriters...

[user560]

1 hour ago, TCA said:

 

This is entirely based on personal speculation about specific people's motivations, please note the "in my opinion this is what I think the deal is" in my post. But basically DR's also partly about making sprites and partly about applying to be an artist, in practice, so it's also kind of a "job interview" almost? That's what I think is part of what's going on.

 

Well, maybe it would be better to seperate those things? People applying to be an artist could have a seperated view from ‘one time’ spriters for example. Because I don’t think people in DR view it as some kind of a job interview, they just want to see the dragons they worked on for a long time get released I guess. 🤔🤔 

[Ran]

Hmm. One of the most critical things I learned as a writer and proofreader is that if your critique makes someone want to quit writing altogether (or spriting, in this case), then you, the editor, are doing your job entirely wrong.

 

The standards seem like they're far too high for the pay-off, if it means people are having to bend over backwards for so little in return.

[Fuzzbucket]

I do wish this discussion could be somewhere other than the new release thread. It feels as though the poor creators of our new dragons (which I happen to like, especially the Truffles) are being told that their work shouldn't  have been released, and that others should have been here in their place.

 

NOT NICE.

27 minutes ago, Ran said:

Thank you to the spriters for their work on these two; disappointed but not surprised to see the drama surrounding this release for what seems like the umpteenth time, considering this is a free online game, for free, about fantasy creatures. For free.

 

Right on.

Edited July 5, 2018 by Fuzzbucket

[HeatherMarie]

4 minutes ago, TCA said:

 

This is still approaching it wrong in my opinion? If it was this simple, we'd probably GET a lot more newer spriters...

 

Well then, how should we approach it? Fact: New releases often have flaws, flaws that sometimes even their spriters admit should be fixed. Fact: DR concepts are held to *very* high standards that wouldn't allow those sort of flaws. So... how should I be looking at this?

[Alrexwolf]

I remember very specifically in one of Mewtie's requests someone said one pixel was off and sent them looking for it - NOT that that wasn't valid criticism, but it shows the dramatic difference. If that's not a higher standard than Truffles and Pyros, I don't know what more of a stark contrast there could be. 

 

 

EDIT: 

Found it, just to prove I'm not spouting nonsense. 

 

EDIT EDIT: removed because apparently that could hurt a wonderful dragon's chances and I don't want to hurt their chances in any way; but I assure you there was a link to the actual real post heck 

Edited July 5, 2018 by Alrexwolf

[TCA]

8 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

I do wish this discussion could be somewhere other than the new release thread. It feels as though the poor creators of our new dragons (which I happen to like, especially the Truffles) are being told that their work shouldn't  have been released, and that others should have been here in their place.

 

NOT NICE.

 

hey guess what

 

you're absolutely correct

[Moonlight_Eevee]

Hey guys, we should move everything related regarding the Dragon Requests to this thread

 

Edited July 5, 2018 by Dalek Raptor

[cbussiere]

1 hour ago, Corteo said:

I can say completely honestly that I 100% believe that the pyrovars would have passed the public crit stage with flying colors.  I think that the problem most people are having (especially with the limbs) is coming from a lack of familiarity of foreshortening and perspective.  The anatomy really is spot on.

Considering this thread as a public crit stage, no the sprite hasn't passed at all. Release threads are generally very positive with the odd nitpick but this one has been majority negative. I highly doubt the issue is that the majority of DC users can't comprehend perspective - and even if strange perspective were the problem, if something looks unappealing to the majority, it should probably be changed regardless of correctness. But the criticisms haven't been primarily on the foreshortened areas (arms) or the anatomy. Mostly it's been on posing, especially that of the legs and torso. Personally I don't see any major flaws with the anatomy, I just think the pose looks awkward and unnatural.

 

 

50 minutes ago, High Lord November said:

I'd disagree. The closest arm is massive and is lacking a wrist (shoulder is also as large as the head?) the dragon has no pelvic bone, the blue on the far arm doesn't make sense, and I still can't figure out what those back legs are doing. Is the far back leg twisted towards us or away? Either looks bizarre. It's also entirely in shadow. I was very excited for the Pyrovars, I love the colour scheme and it's the 'type' of dragon that ends up being my favourite (Fever Wyverns, Tarantula Hawk Drakes - along that line). Still is a great dragon, but the anatomy is off. 

The dragon's big arms seem to suggest the powerful, grasping arms of a big cat to me, consistent with its pouncing pose. The near arm is also angled toward us and would would appear wider from foreshortening. What's wrong with the shoulder being approximately the same size of the head? Which do you think should be smaller? I see hip definition where the thighs start, what are you looking for to indicate a pelvis? The blue marking under the arm is a marking, presumably continuing from the blue ventral plates, we only see it on one arm because the other arm is only shown from the upperside. I do agree that the hind legs look wonky, they appear to have just pushed off something to launch the dragon but the soles-inward posture conflicts with that. The far leg looks like it's tilted slightly backward to be fully under the dragon. Light appears to be coming from above (for instance the underside of the near wing is in shadow), so the dragon's body would block light from hitting that leg. It does look like light is hitting from behind though, so it must be hanging backward enough to catch some light.


Also, I just realized that as an (intended) old rare, Truffles would have paired well with the old sitting Golds. Alas!

[Sirithiliel]

i wouldn't view this as a personal attack on the spriters and their dragons so much as a discussion on the issues at hand and how they could possibly be fixed. I'm sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings, i didn't mean to, but the fact still stands taht there is a double standard in releases and quality and this just happened to be where it began finally being discussed. If people want to take what is said as personal attacks then that's on them. The issues pointed out in the sprites are the same critique dozens of artists are dealing with in dragon requests, so viewing it as a personal attack is silly when it's artistic critique. I pointed out what issues i had in the sprite, i mentioned how i thought it could be fixed. But most of the conversation has been about the process of being released

 

calling us 'not nice' for giving critique on a dragon is rather silly as well. We're not saying 'booo it's ugly!', or at least most of us aren't, so i dont' see what the problem is. This ties back to the problem where no one is apparently allowed to speak their mind, even constructively, about a sprite if it isn't glowing praise and excitement.

[TCA]

24 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

Well then, how should we approach it? Fact: New releases often have flaws, flaws that sometimes even their spriters admit should be fixed. Fact: DR concepts are held to *very* high standards that wouldn't allow those sort of flaws. So... how should I be looking at this?

 

Okay, for one:

This argument is based on assumptions about "putting a sprite into the game from an in-cave spriter" and "putting a sprite into the game from a non-in-cave spriter" being equivalent processes. Now, I don't know for sure, and you can't take what I say as any kind of absolute truth, but we can extrapolate from the apparent difference in standards, and the observable difference in frequency of releases between DR and in-cave artists, and say that because of these differences, they're probably not equivalent processes and assuming that this is purely "elitism" or "bias to older spriters" is kind of... missing the point? A new spriter can finally get one release and then suddenly get lots of releases almost immediately afterwards, so it's not as though they're suddenly "an older spriter". No, they're still a new spriter.

 

Basically, I think a lot of people are focusing on complaining about the wrong things in an unhelpful way and the spriters who should get to be happy they got a release are getting caught in the crossfire.

Edited July 5, 2018 by TCA

[Shokomon]

26 minutes ago, Alrexwolf said:

I remember very specifically in one of Mewtie's requests someone said one pixel was off and sent them looking for it - NOT that that wasn't valid criticism, but it shows the dramatic difference. If that's not a higher standard than Truffles and Pyros, I don't know what more of a stark contrast there could be. 

 

 

EDIT: 

{Link removed}

Found it, just to prove I'm not spouting nonsense. 

Could you remove the link to an active DR please?

It might decrease the chances of getting it released with a direct link to the actual thread.

[Alrexwolf]

Just now, Shokomon said:

Could you remove the link to an active DR please?

It might decrease the chances of getting it released with a direct link to the actual thread.

 

Oh, sorry Shokomon... I had no idea that was even a thing? why is that even a thing.

 

I love those guys, I'll remove it right now. 

[High Lord November]

11 minutes ago, TCA said:

 

Okay, for one:

This argument is based on assumptions about "putting a sprite into the game from an in-cave spriter" and "putting a sprite into the game from a non-in-cave spriter" being equivalent processes. Now, I don't know for sure, and you can't take what I say as any kind of absolute truth, but we can extrapolate from the apparent difference in standards, and the observable difference in frequency of releases between DR and in-cave artists, and say that because of these differences, they're probably not equivalent processes and assuming that this is purely "elitism" or "bias to older spriters" is kind of... missing the point? A new spriter can finally get one release and then suddenly get lots of releases almost immediately afterwards, so it's not as though they're suddenly "an older spriter". No, they're still a new spriter.

 

Basically, I think a lot of people are focusing on complaining about the wrong things in an unhelpful way and the spriters who should get to be happy they got a release are getting caught in the crossfire.

"New" and "Old" refers to first time or not. So if you're trying to become an in-cave spriter and don't have a sprite in yet, that's what is being referred to as "new".

Edited July 5, 2018 by High Lord November

[cbussiere]

4 minutes ago, Alrexwolf said:

Oh, sorry Shokomon... I had no idea that was even a thing? why is that even a thing.

 

I love those guys, I'll remove it right now. 

Is it a thing? I see people link their active requests in their sigs all the time.

[Shokomon]

2 minutes ago, cbussiere said:

Is it a thing? I see people link their active requests in their sigs all the time.

It's more of the the fact is that the dr is close to being done. If they were still in progress, that wouldn't be an issue.

 

Edit: But we are getting off topic.

 

Congrats Mysftt and JOTB on the new dragons!

Edited July 5, 2018 by Shokomon

[Merlot]

Thank you TJ for once again giving us a great release and Congrats Mysftt and JOTB on the new dragons

[Imzadi]

4 hours ago, Mysfytt said:

As to who the dragon deems has a 'pure heart and selfless spirit' - your own thoughts and inclinations betray you in your comments - if you think it's selfish for a dragon to hold back what is its own property, you are probably a greedy person at heart and would shoot it if you met one and steal all you can lay your hands on because you deserve it. The oil and wax it dries into has other uses than just perfume (its polishing properties for instance would turn a basic leather armour into something only the wealthy nobles could afford, wood too treated with the oil would shine like metal), and yes can be sold or the products it makes sold making a poor man's life a little easier, and if you approach the dragon and actually ASK instead of TAKE - it is more likely to GIVE than to chew your butt off. Being a reasoning sentient Being, politeness goes a long way - as does fair trade or free gifts. Dragons love gifts.

 

 

I just snorted coffee out of my nose.  It is usually best to ignore haters, but sometimes one has to do what one must.  

[Aviatus]

I think an issue with this kind of discussion is that it's nearly impossible to separate critique of a process (that being the creation and release of new dragons) with the critique of the results of the process (that being the truffles and pyrovars). It's a shame to me that these two dragons and spriters are getting caught in the middle of what ultimately is an argument about something different, but in the end if people were perfectly happy about the results of this process, they'd have little reason to complain about the process. While I personally like the sprites, particularly the truffles, I can understand why people are frustrated with the perceived double-standard. I just hope the spriters don't get too discouraged or upset by what seems to have become a very thorough, public, critiquing session and understand that the controversy is about more than these particular sprites. 

Edited July 5, 2018 by Aviatus

[Shajana]

I really like the new release! Thank you spriters for your work. Try not to get your happy feelings about your release go down, even if you read so many negative posts here!