Get Rid of Name Exclusivity

[Tini]

16 minutes ago, Sextonator said:

What if we had a search function for our scrolls? Not only for finding dragons by name, but for specific breeds too?

you can do that if you go to add to group and type the breed in the search bar. (I think you might need the # in front of it) it would be nice to just have that without groups though.

[Pilauli]

2 hours ago, Sextonator said:

What if we had a search function for our scrolls? Not only for finding dragons by name, but for specific breeds too?

 

1 hour ago, Tinibree said:

you can do that if you go to add to group and type the breed in the search bar. (I think you might need the # in front of it) it would be nice to just have that without groups though.

 

It's a bit inconvenient to navigate to a group page every time you want to search your scrolls, so yes, searching your scroll would be really convenient.  This post TJ made a while back is related:

 

As I'm a fan of both of these ideas (scroll search and remove name exclusivity), individually and in combination with each other, so if I keep talking about a hypothetical scroll search function, then I'm likely to go off topic on this thread about name exclusivity.  So I had better shut up now.

[Fawkesian]

I was just thinking about this. It's strange to me that so many other restrictions have been lifted over the years, but name exclusivity has endured like a particularly stubborn fungus. It's frustrating, serves little purpose, and is the main reason why a large percentage of my scroll has stayed nameless. I'd absolutely support abolishing it.

[Aqub]

I haven't really come forward with my opinion since I'm not on the popular side of this thread and I don't want to argue with anyone, but I really like the way the way names are exclusive on DC. It's something I've appreciated about this site since I started playing. It makes me come up with creative names that I never would otherwise. Honestly without the naming restrictions I probably wouldn't have named most of my dragons. On sites where you can name your pets anything, I've always gotten bored and stopped naming. I love seeing the creative names of other people's dragons in lineages or requesting an egg from someone else's dragon that has a name I like. As for not being able to get a name I want, whether its a fandom name or a name for a lyrical lineage, the naming restrictions have never stopped me, I just add an extra word to the name or a dash or an extra space somewhere and I'm perfectly fine with that. Naming is something I really enjoy about the site and knowing that my dragons' names are unique is oddly special to me. 
I just wanted to speak up about my opinion on this because every time I see this thread I'm reminded that I would be really sad to see naming exclusivity go, so maybe it's worth making a post about. 

Edited October 31, 2020 by Aqub

[pinkgothic]

6 hours ago, Aqub said:

I just wanted to speak up about my opinion on this because every time I see this thread I'm reminded that I would be really sad to see naming exclusivity go, so maybe it's worth making a post about.

It definitely is! Thanks for chiming in.

 

I used to be in the "no big deal" camp, but naming has really gotten painful and disappointing for me in recent years, so our wishes on this are sadly incompatible, but it's good that you spoke up.

[Terces]

Agreed, it's good to hear from more people regardless of how they feel. You're probably not in as much of a minority as it may seem, forum posters are a smaller vocal chunk of the whole player population and folks are more likely to post in a suggestion thread they support. I enjoy naming too, sometimes I run into 'name is already taken' but like Aqub I don't have much difficulty getting around it. This would be a pretty big change so I'm okay with it if it's done right. Not to mention a suggestion getting a lot of support doesn't mean it will actually be implemented. Lots of good suggestions have been made about so many aspects of DC over the years and most of them will not happen unfortunately.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Terces

[_Charky]

On 10/30/2020 at 6:53 AM, Keileon said:

Obviously I can't know for sure as I'm not TJ and don't have access to the code, but I'd wager that surely the code can't be that old and bad that it would be impossible.

 

From what I understand, DC was built off of a framework that many other adoptable sites also use, rather than completely from scratch. Considering that these other sites don't have exclusivity, I don't see why it would be impossible for DC to remove its own.

Aside from the /n/name page, there's no good reason it should be impossible.

The only reason the site would rely on unique names is to do with the database, not the site itself. If the database used dragon names as part of their "key" (a unique identifier within the system) then it wouldn't be possible to have dragons with the same name. But it very clearly doesn't - the only reason for dragon codes to exist is because THEY are the database's unique key, which makes more sense anyway when dragon naming is optional. Anything else could just as easily use the code as the name.

TLDR; I would be very concerned if there was a "technical reason" against implementing it.

[RainDear]

My opinion. Just my opinion. I do not intend to speak for anyone else.

 

I have gotten used to the name exclusivity, I have learned what I need to do to get the name I want. I have learned to enjoy making names from codes or finding all the words for "orange" or "goldfish" to come up with new names. I don't know if I would feel differently if things were different.

 

This is one place where we might come up against a "brick wall" in the form of TJ's view of and vision for his game. Sometimes it just doesn't matter what the player base wants or how we may see things if they run up against the views of the game's designer.

[HeatherMarie]

14 hours ago, RainDear said:

 

This is one place where we might come up against a "brick wall" in the form of TJ's view of and vision for his game. Sometimes it just doesn't matter what the player base wants or how we may see things if they run up against the views of the game's designer.

 

This is very true, and I'd love to see TJ weigh in on this. Name exclusivity is something that has always been around and it may just be 'that's how it's always been but it could change', or it could be a hard no for design or vision reasons. 

[aegagrusScholarship]

I remember, when I first came upon this site (granted, I was maybe 11-12, I don't remember), I was specifically put off due to the name exclusivity. I'm older and I have more creativity now, of course, but I'm sure there's a lot of newcomers like past me that were probably put off for the same reason. It also kind of feels constricting, too, because - okay, so there's some more creative names, that's cool. But I don't see the issue with someone wanting to have a scroll of dragons named Bob and Billy and nothing else, because that's how they want to play and if it makes them happy, that's cool!

 

As well as that, this game is pretty laid-back and relaxed; there's some competition over rares, lineages, etc. but it's still literally 'you HAVE to wait this many days no matter what'. With name exclusivity I feel like I need to rush to be able to get a name I've been planning, otherwise someone might take it in the interim, and that just makes me constantly check to instantly name my hatchlings as soon as they've hatched. And I really... don't want to do that. I'm not sure if that's selfish of me, sorry. 

 

Bit of a personal thing here, but: I just got an original fandom name, no titles, spaces, etc. yesterday, and that was cool, but I'd gladly trade that for everyone being able to enjoy having dragons named after simple silly things. I actually feel kind of bad for grabbing the name, too, since it means no one else will be able to get it, and given it's a fandom name I'm sure there's at least one other person that would've really liked it, you know? 

[Tini]

I was saving a bunch of fandom names for a project and while I did get some I thought for sure would be taken a million times over, (a whole fandoms main cast, somehow, I swear they used to be taken too, and im that mix of 'nice!' and 'i feel guilty') there were others I just couldn't get in a way that didn't look ridiculous. Which of course sent me back to the drawing board for the project.

[aegagrusScholarship]

Yeah. There's a sense of victory at the name exclusivity (heck, I posted on the 'holy sticks, I got this name!' thread), I can't deny that, but... I'm already aware it's coming at the expense of someone else, and name exclusivity really just isn't worth it, in my opinion. I think the 'exclusive to one scroll but not to the site' is a good idea; it might throw a wrench in song lineages, but if people really want to keep 'creativity', well, that's a nice compromise. 

 

I'll have to say, though, it did make me come up with an actual surname for most of my dragons, but... I'm not sure how much of a pro that is. In my case, it's just fairly uncreative names but followed by the surname. Nothing really special. 

[Windy]

To be honest, I really don't see the reason why keep the naming limit based on scroll. If the limit will ever be removed, I think it would make more sense to just let players name their dragons whatever (as long as it's not a swear word or something). 

[aegagrusScholarship]

Oh, I meant that it's been thrown around a few times in this thread. I'm neutral on it but some people argued in favour for scroll exclusivity- Oh. Right. I said 'in favour of'. I worded that badly. Sorry about that. I saw that some people would still like some degree of exclusivity and I thought it'd make sense for that to be a good compromise; again, I'm completely neutral on it but... yeah. You get what I mean. :]

 

But anyways, yeah. Someone else suggested that it could still display if names were unique with a checkmark, an O, etc, though, for the people who ARE concerned. And that is a suggestion I would actually upvote for real, not me going 'this word means a different thing than what I'm trying to convey haha oops'.

[Keileon]

3 hours ago, aegagrusScholarship said:

Bit of a personal thing here, but: I just got an original fandom name, no titles, spaces, etc. yesterday, and that was cool, but I'd gladly trade that for everyone being able to enjoy having dragons named after simple silly things. I actually feel kind of bad for grabbing the name, too, since it means no one else will be able to get it, and given it's a fandom name I'm sure there's at least one other person that would've really liked it, you know? 

I absolutely get this. I would totally trade the feeling of being special for having names like "Holy Grail War", "Vector", "Scorbunny", etc for the ability for everyone to name things whatever they want regardless of if anyone else has already taken those names.

[aegagrusScholarship]

Yeah, same here. Having that feeling of victory's definitely hollow when I remember, yeah, everyone else's locked out of it. And, again, for people who do want original names, I'm fairly sure a 'is this not taken yet' tracker could still be kept. I'm not 100% sure, though, I'm only amateur at programming so maybe it might be too much of a hassle. But it's still a possibility!

[lexi_]

29 minutes ago, aegagrusScholarship said:

And, again, for people who do want original names, I'm fairly sure a 'is this not taken yet' tracker could still be kept.

 

havent been paying too close attention to this thread lately, and i certaintly havent said much because i'm kinda on the fence, but what do you mean by this..? if the name is not taken at the time they name their dragon, but then someone else who comes along who doesn't care about having unique names comes along and takes that as well, then their name isn't unique anymore. how would they know that? they'd need to check every single one of their dragons regularly to check that it's still unique. i'm not sure if thats what you meant by this, but it seems VERY extra and extremely irritating to me, if that is what you meant by that

[Tini]

30 minutes ago, InvaderAlexis said:

 

havent been paying too close attention to this thread lately, and i certaintly havent said much because i'm kinda on the fence, but what do you mean by this..? if the name is not taken at the time they name their dragon, but then someone else who comes along who doesn't care about having unique names comes along and takes that as well, then their name isn't unique anymore. how would they know that? they'd need to check every single one of their dragons regularly to check that it's still unique. i'm not sure if thats what you meant by this, but it seems VERY extra and extremely irritating to me, if that is what you meant by that

Just at naming is what anyone's talking about. Just the same way it tells you it's taken now, only you can still name it anyway.

[lexi_]

23 minutes ago, Tinibree said:

Just at naming is what anyone's talking about. Just the same way it tells you it's taken now, only you can still name it anyway.

 

yes, i understand that, but what im saying is for the people who care about giving their dragons unique and personal names, what if someone else happens to take that name as well? it'd be very irritating to the one who might have had it first and thought that it was unique, only for it to suddenly become a duplicate after the fact.

 

might be a very minor complaint, but it would be a nuisance. i might be biased, since i'm someone who's in favor of name exclusivity, but hey. just my two cents.

Edited November 2, 2020 by InvaderAlexis

[aegagrusScholarship]

1 hour ago, InvaderAlexis said:

 

yes, i understand that, but what im saying is for the people who care about giving their dragons unique and personal names, what if someone else happens to take that name as well? it'd be very irritating to the one who might have had it first and thought that it was unique, only for it to suddenly become a duplicate after the fact.

Well, maybe there could be some way to check on your dragon’s status screen. I remember the original person who had the idea said something like that. That could mitigate some of it.

 

Also, yeah! It’s nice to see an opinion from someone on the other side. This is a discussion thread after all, I’m sure we all come with our own biases— heck, I’m definitely biased towards “non-exclusive names”, but. Yknow.

 

IMMEDIATE EDIT: Wait, is that what you mean by “have to check every so often” wait sorry—

Sorry! I took that as having to manually hunt down if there’s any other dragons on the site with the name. Crap. Either ways, if there being a status screen indicator is what you meant please disregard me.

 

wow barely two days on this forum and i did two whole misunderstanding blunders already 

Edited November 2, 2020 by aegagrusScholarship

[lexi_]

i can see the side of not wanting names to be exclusive. personally, i think it makes it much more fun. i don't really mind not getting to name my dragon something, even if it were a name i really wanted, but i'm okay with workarounds if i really have to. that's a bit besides the point, though. i'm in favor of name exclusivity because it makes the dragons feel more special. i agree with a lot of what aqub said. i have a few dragons with fandom names, and ones that i'm super excited i got to grab. but even if i didnt get to grab them, i love getting offspring from other people with names that i like. 

 

but at the same time, i do feel a bit bad for the people who did want those specific names. and i also sympathize with people who make the point that they should be able to play the game to their own tastes, whether that entails naming their dragons something completely unique or naming every single one of their dragons "Dragon". i dont think my preferred playstyle of giving my dragons unique names should affect what other people do with their dragons, but at the same time, if i were really set on giving my dragons a unique name and someone else came along after the fact and copied that, i'd be a little bit upset!

 

also, i'd just like to add that i've started making lyrical lineages, and there could be some issues sometimes when it comes to common lyrics, but i think that's the fun about making those types of lineages: finding ways to fit them all into one page in a unique way. not hard to find workarounds there. i had some pretty common lyrics ("don't close your eyes" "a sleepless night" "feel my love" , all names that probably would be (and were!) taken) in the song i chose, but i didn't find much issue in just adding extra spaces or changing the formatting of parts of it. 

 

(edit as well) don't worry about misunderstanidngs, they happen. i do it all the time >w<

Edited November 2, 2020 by InvaderAlexis

[Paintra]

The lyrical lineage thing is actually a big reason I'm majorly in support of this thread. I was planning one out recently, and I realized that one line fits perfectly in the space- 32 characters, all on one line... and the name was taken, despite no other lyrics from the song being taken. It was so frustrating that I had spent so long under the impression that I would be able to get the names, just to have my entire planned-out line ruined because of a harmless action someone took naming their dragon. I just gave up on it after finding that out. I feel like it's unfair that, if someone had malicious intent, they could snipe out the lines from a song of an in-progress lineage if that person didn't have the foresight or extra dragons to save the names on. That might even happen completely unintentionally!

 

A lot of people seem to be making others in the thread out to be greedy, for not being able to "name things the way we want," and that really agitates me, especially when those people have tons of popular names they probably were able to grab before someone else got to them. Like, I don't know why it's greedy to want to have a name that someone else has; why would that be an issue in any situation other than how it's perceived in this one? 

 

I also want to address something that's come up a couple times in this thread: "Lack of name exclusivity means people can fake Thuweds, Spriter's Alts, or Dorkfaces!"

1. How the heck do you fake a spriter's alt?

2. There are already fake Thuweds out there. That's why the "Verified Thuwed" button exists; and if you're familiar enough with the pairings, you can spot a fake one regardless.

3. The Dorkfaces are the only one that have some merit here, but really, I think it's not a problem, because their scroll owner ladiefare is listed on their profiles, and they haven't been bred in many, many years.

 

 

And a final note about Lyrical Lineages- I would really, really like Name Exclusivity to not exist within scrolls either- a marker that I've already named a dragon that during the naming process would be fine, but I really, really wish I could name multiple of my own dragons the same thing, because if I have to do this again I think I might go crazy:

 

[Tini]

I mean there's a few alts that are really subtle (Walkers, winter magi, at least one more), but that's why I always check the ones I'm not sure of against the encyclopedia, and most of those have scroll names visible. A glance at the progeny would also help, mates you've seen in other lines, or names referencing them being 2g alts. The pedia would be the easiest way to tell.

I've never understood the dorkface thing honestly.

 

I feel you on the lyrical, I wait until my line is done to name just for that reason. I'm hesitant to even say what songs I'm trying to do because I don't want anyone sniping the names.

 

If those pipio were bred i'd be hard pressed to tell they weren't inbred lol.

 

My other gripe is some really nice names are on dragons that haven't been bred in a decade, and I don't have a chance to even get a kid from in place of having the names.

Edited November 2, 2020 by Tinibree

[MissK.]

I agree that if name exclusivity is to be removed, it should not be enforced within each scroll. It would be perfectly sufficient to have an indication of having used a name before as it might be confusing to some people (and an indication for whether the name is unique site-wide at the time is fine too), no need to put another limit in. 

 

7 hours ago, Keileon said:

I absolutely get this. I would totally trade the feeling of being special for having names like "Holy Grail War", "Vector", "Scorbunny", etc for the ability for everyone to name things whatever they want regardless of if anyone else has already taken those names.

 

Agreed. It still blows my mind how many simple or fandom names I've managed to get over time, I even have a group with a bunch of them. But it does feel unfair that nobody else can name their dragon for example Frog, or that another Harry Potter fan can't also use the name Hedwig if they want to.

 

I've been playing on and off since 2008, and the current system is definitely biased towards those who were here early enough to nab most of the good names, a bias which the site has been steadily moving away from (re-release of CB event dragons, now also the older Trick or Treats). I think this suggestion is in line with these changes. 

 

Edited for typo. 

Edited November 2, 2020 by MissK.

[Fuzzbucket]

 

8 hours ago, InvaderAlexis said:

 

havent been paying too close attention to this thread lately, and i certaintly havent said much because i'm kinda on the fence, but what do you mean by this..? if the name is not taken at the time they name their dragon, but then someone else who comes along who doesn't care about having unique names comes along and takes that as well, then their name isn't unique anymore. how would they know that? they'd need to check every single one of their dragons regularly to check that it's still unique. i'm not sure if thats what you meant by this, but it seems VERY extra and extremely irritating to me, if that is what you meant by that

 

How you would find out is that when you use /n/ as I do almost every day - you'd see several..... It's not a matter of checking every dragon - it's the annoyance of having trouble finding that single one you wanted to find among a load with the same name..

 

6 hours ago, aegagrusScholarship said:

WAlso, yeah! It’s nice to see an opinion from someone on the other side. This is a discussion thread after all, I’m sure we all come with our own biases— heck, I’m definitely biased towards “non-exclusive names”, but. Yknow.

 

There's a majority in favour of the change in this thread - but there are quite a few of us on the "other side" - I, for one, want to keep the exclusivity. Just saying. And I'm not alone. In a minority, yes, but not alone.