Get Rid of Name Exclusivity

[Uther_Pendragon]

Removing name exclusivity, I believe, would be just basically the reverse of what we have now.
  If you were determined to have a unique name, you still could do so. If you wanted a common name or phrase, you could add the extra characters or spaces or add a surname, like we do now, to make it 'yours'
 

personally, I don't like having to get around the exclusive block. It's frustrating and time-consuming, as I don't want to spend my time naming things, I'd rather be catching things. Im not a big lineage builder or breeder or -except holidays- so investing chunks of time dreaming up names, just to find them taken is a drain instead of fun.
 It's not an either/or. There will still be plenty of uniqueness and interesting naming schemes to be had. Not every person will have a scroll full of Bob's. (I'd love to see that tho, lol)

 

  I wouldn't give a hoot if someone had all the same names as me, as it doesn't affect me at *all* in my regular play, unless I specifically went searching for it. (But I wouldn't care then either, really, I'd think it was cool, and feel honored that someone liked what I named something, and chose it for theirs. OR, I'd laugh knowing how great minds tend to think alike.)

  As someone, who IRL, is surrounded by a whole lot of friend and family Jessica's, name exclusivity just doesn't make sense to me, and feels quite limiting and stifling.

 

[Long_Before_Sunrise]

I want to keep name exclusivity. I don't want to catch AP eggs from numerous 'lol i'm a dragon,' 'Jojo's bizarre adventure,' 'Queen Elsa,' 'blu dragon,' 'Spiderman,' 'Yakuza Is A Dragon' or a entire checker of 'Brute Dragon' x 'Brute Dragon'.

 

There's tons of unclaimed names. Open a book. Find a phrase you like.

[Uther_Pendragon]

But that's the great thing about the ap, there's loads of dragons from different breeders, so you don't have to keep the ones with parent names you don't like, or are unnamed, or other reasons. same thing with trading hub, you aren't forced to accept anything you don't care for.

 

'open a book and pick a name/phrase you like' feels like minimizing the issue, and also feels dismissive. 
What about repeating song lyrics, for those who love making lyrical lines? What about common greetings, fandoms, memes or phrases (etc)?   What if, say, I wanted to name a dragon after someone in my family, but they have an extremely common first name and/or a very common last name? 

 

Just as I don't believe one person should be able to take over the ap, (for longer than a few hours at a time), I don't feel that one person should get exclusive rights to any name or phrase. There's thousands of us playing, why not move to make things more inclusive? Ex: the return of the past holidays, I'm so darn thankful I get to have those as cb's on my scroll! Did it harm anyone else that I was able to get them? If so how?

 

 

 

[Long_Before_Sunrise]

Some people will always abuse the game shamelessly and unrepentantly if there aren't rules and limitations. Like I don't think taking up the AP for 5+ hours with one type of egg crossbred with another is fair to other players. 

[Uther_Pendragon]

And I feel the same. But, I also feel that about the naming issue. One person getting a name above all the rest of us thousands of players feels just the same to me as one person taking over the entirety of the ap for extended periods.

 It closes out a big chunk of the player base from playing how they wish with their own scrolls.
 

Edited February 8, 2021 by Uther_Pendragon
Extra S snuck in there

[Give_my_Soulpeace]

Was making the dragon names and /n link names separate suggested earlier?

 

I agree with the arguments against name exclusivity. But I disagree that wanting to compete with other players for unique names is bad.

It is quite entertaining by itself and with the use of /n link, adds a bit of social element . You can look up fandom lineages this way, and if the owner name isn't hidden, can find other people who are fans of what you like. I always treated it as a feature of the site, however, as Alwerien pointed out, it can be considered a violation of privacy. I didn't see much discussion about it here.

 

As a very pro privacy person, I always assumed that if the owner enabled showing his username on the dragon page, it means that the owner is okay with finding him by the /n link. However, this option, as far as I remember, is opt-out, not opt-in, and that doesn't seem right. Especially since I often found links to dragon pages when I googled fandom related stuff. Even people who aren't dragcave users can look through your dragons this way. However, the /n link feature itself can be very useful for finding your own dragons, while not having access to your account, or to attract new users to the site by the awesomeness of the scrolls of experienced users.

 

What if we make the "coming up with a unique link that makes your dragons and your scroll easily findable by anyone on the Internet" and "name a dragon with a non-exclusive name that looks good on your scroll and lineages" two separate actions? And make the first one strictly opt-in?

 

This way:

• all users will get absolute freedom over naming dragons, additional space for creativity and also more privacy,
• "name hunters" still will be able to compete for unique names that show up on google results,
• it will be possible to create custom links for dragons, that don't have to look good on lineages, lineage breeders can make up their own codes for dragons.

 

It was mentioned that the "hard to check inbreeding in lineages" issue can still happen with unique names, so that's not a key issue. Maybe there could be an option to change whether names or codes or link names are shown in lineages. I think if there also were a /n links market and non-latin character support for names on the scroll, it would be ideal for everyone. But it's already too much to code.

Edited February 8, 2021 by Mutare
putting emphasis, making the text a bit easier to read

[MissK.]

1 hour ago, Long_Before_Sunrise said:

I want to keep name exclusivity. I don't want to catch AP eggs from numerous 'lol i'm a dragon,' 'Jojo's bizarre adventure,' 'Queen Elsa,' 'blu dragon,' 'Spiderman,' 'Yakuza Is A Dragon' or a entire checker of 'Brute Dragon' x 'Brute Dragon'.

 

There's tons of unclaimed names. Open a book. Find a phrase you like.

 

On the flip side of that, people like you who care about names in the lineages they pick up have that problem already. Because of name exclusivity we see tricks such as typing l i k e  t h i s, adding 'CB' after the name, or a bunch of numbers, or several spaces between words; these things often come across as visually unappealing to some. Obviously this is highly subjective, just saying this is already the case for plenty of people. 

[Shadowdrake]

34 minutes ago, Long_Before_Sunrise said:

Some people will always abuse the game shamelessly and unrepentantly if there aren't rules and limitations.

That's lovely that you think people showing their love for something would be abusing the game just because it's more common. 🙄

[Arcy]

1 hour ago, Long_Before_Sunrise said:

I want to keep name exclusivity. I don't want to catch AP eggs from numerous 'lol i'm a dragon,' 'Jojo's bizarre adventure,' 'Queen Elsa,' 'blu dragon,' 'Spiderman,' 'Yakuza Is A Dragon' or a entire checker of 'Brute Dragon' x 'Brute Dragon'.

 

There's tons of unclaimed names. Open a book. Find a phrase you like.

what MissK said. the ap is already full of "silly" and "stupid" names, tag names, and unnamed. exclusivity doesn't equal creativity.

and the issue is not that people can't find good names, it's that they can't use the names that they like

[Long_Before_Sunrise]

20 minutes ago, Shadowdrake said:

That's lovely that you think people showing their love for something would be abusing the game just because it's more common. 🙄

Sarcasm noted. 

You're far more optimistic about human nature than I am.

I'm being realistic.

The name exclusivity exists to encourage people to be more creative than 'This is my pretty dragon'. 

 

Also you have too many names of trademarked characters on a game site and the owners of those trademarks might take note and issue a cease-and-desist.

Disney, in particular, is noted for suing over minor things. 

[KrazyKarp]

3 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

I want other people's dragons to have exclusive names too, so not entirely, no. And I do consider others. And you know very well that calling someone out as "selfish" is an unpleasant thing  to do. As a matter of interest, saying that you want it changed to the way you prefer is just as much your being concerned chiefly with your own personal pleasure. You called those of us who would like it to stay as it is selfish. That is accusatory. I am not alone. You would like it to go your way; I would rather it stayed as it is. We are either both selfish or neither of us is.

It's not my own personal pleasure. Because of how I personally name things, I won't run out of names; this suggestion doesn't relate to me at all personally. However, I see how people struggle to find names, and have empathy about that. I don't believe my point of view is selfish, because it's allowing more opportunity for everyone to name. That greater opportunity is hardly selfish.

 

4 hours ago, dragongrrl said:

I still get new names every day without any problem and I am continually amazed at the names I can get. I don't see what is selfish about that. Everyone, everyday, has a chance to find great names.

This is great, but again, there's an empathy issue. Not everyone is like you, and lots of people struggle to find names.

 

15 minutes ago, Long_Before_Sunrise said:

The name exclusivity exists to encourage people to be more creative than 'This is my pretty dragon'.

This creativity argument has been disproven multiple times. I'd suggest backreading to get the full picture, but claiming exclusivity exists to help creativity as a general statement is a false generalization. In specific instances, it has spurred creativity. In other specific instances, it has hindered creativity. You actually can't claim it being completely true either way.

Edited February 8, 2021 by KrazyKarp

[HeatherMarie]

1 hour ago, MissK. said:

 

On the flip side of that, people like you who care about names in the lineages they pick up have that problem already. Because of name exclusivity we see tricks such as typing l i k e  t h i s, adding 'CB' after the name, or a bunch of numbers, or several spaces between words; these things often come across as visually unappealing to some. Obviously this is highly subjective, just saying this is already the case for plenty of people. 

 

39 minutes ago, Arcy said:

what MissK said. the ap is already full of "silly" and "stupid" names, tag names, and unnamed. exclusivity doesn't equal creativity.

and the issue is not that people can't find good names, it's that they can't use the names that they like

 

 

This is one of those things I don't understand about a lot of the pro-name-exclusivity arguments brought up in this thread. Some people seem to think A or B or C 'bad' thing would happen if there was no name exclusivity, without understanding that those exact same things *already* happen. People taking 'special' names and/or making fakes of well-known names? Already happens. People naming dragons with totally random nonsense phrases and numbers and such? Already happens. People making lineages with every single dragon having the exact same name? Already happens (seriously, it's very very easy to make a same-name lineage that looks 100% real just by putting an extra space somewhere...). People feeling like their dragons aren't special anymore because of a game-change? Already happens (look at all the uproar over the raffle coming back!). 

 

Honestly at this point it feels like those who want to keep things the way they are have a distorted view of how the game is with name exclusivity. These people seem to think there will be all sorts of issues if we didn't have exclusivity, without acknowledging the fact that those very same issues already happen. Which is why, to me, the *only* argument I've seen here that actually makes *sense* is the very basic 'I like feeling special and would feel less special if others could have this name'. Which.... Honestly, it's a valid argument, if you put that much importance on having a very specific spelling of a very specific name. But at some point, what would be best for the majority of users should take precedence over keeping older users feeling 'special'. Imo. 

(And in case it's not clear, I am one of those older users and I do have some really great older names and I still feel this way.)

Edited February 8, 2021 by HeatherMarie

[Shadowdrake]

18 minutes ago, Long_Before_Sunrise said:

The name exclusivity exists to encourage people to be more creative than 'This is my pretty dragon'. 

You can either want people to make up their own names as "creativity" or you can tell them to steal from someone else's "creativity" (your hilarious book suggestion). You can't have it both ways, unless you want to sound hypocritical.

[Uther_Pendragon]

37 minutes ago, Long_Before_Sunrise said:

The name exclusivity exists to encourage people to be more creative than 'This is my pretty dragon'. 

 

It should be *my* choice to name one (or 10+) dragons 'this is my pretty dragon' if I wish! Or 'I have a blue dragon' *It's my scroll*.
  What's considered creative to you and me may be entirely different ideas, which is absolutely ok, because we each have our own dragons to name. Neither of us should be forced into the other's play style, or naming schemes. I shouldn't be limited just because someone dreamed up a pun, or whatever, before I could. Odds are, no one would even know I had the same name, unless they went deep diving through my entire scroll.

 

Karp, HeatherMarie and Shadowdrake are saying what I mean, but far more eloquently. Y'all are so good at words! 😆 

[Long_Before_Sunrise]

You've lost sight of the fact that this is a discussion to persuade the DC staff to listen to your concerns, not to convince other players that their opinions on it are spoiling your game play. It's not the players that you need to win over.

 

 

 

 

[Natayah]

Yup, my Elitism. Honestly, all I care that is that people have fun here. If people want it and TJ makes the changes, it will not upset me. It will make me happy that other people are happy. I think actions speak louder than words, and, on balance, I would say my actions and words here are generally very pro-benefiting the player base and encouraging others to embrace that, share that, and pass it on to inspire others, just as I was inspired, and it all makes this place a better place. Very 133t. Man, Dragon Pixels and their names. They are the real currency of the Illuminati!

 

You know, sometimes people can disagree or like not really be that invested and slightly differ and have far more in common than not, and disparaging comments are really unnecessary. 

 

I hope you all get your hearts desires and even more than that in all aspect of your lives. Including in Dragon Pixel Land and more so in real life. That is sincere. If dragon names make you happy, TJ might do something in the future with it. Sometimes he is willing to change, and it happens right away, and sometimes its a slower thing, and sometimes he doesn't. I would just recommend positive influential ideas focused to TJ, as stated in a post just a few ago. 

[Tini]

5 hours ago, Mutare said:

It was mentioned that the "hard to check inbreeding in lineages" issue can still happen with unique names, so that's not a key issue. Maybe there could be an option to change whether names or codes or link names are shown in lineages. I think if there also were a /n links market and non-latin character support for names on the scroll, it would be ideal for everyone. But it's already too much to code.

I have been waiting for an excuse to post this dragon https://dragcave.net/lineage/MQnTb

 

4 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

This is one of those things I don't understand about a lot of the pro-name-exclusivity arguments brought up in this thread. Some people seem to think A or B or C 'bad' thing would happen if there was no name exclusivity, without understanding that those exact same things *already* happen. People taking 'special' names and/or making fakes of well-known names? Already happens. People naming dragons with totally random nonsense phrases and numbers and such? Already happens. People making lineages with every single dragon having the exact same name? Already happens (seriously, it's very very easy to make a same-name lineage that looks 100% real just by putting an extra space somewhere...). People feeling like their dragons aren't special anymore because of a game-change? Already happens (look at all the uproar over the raffle coming back!). 

Also this one is relavent https://dragcave.net/lineage/DaDJR 
 

4 hours ago, Long_Before_Sunrise said:

Also you have too many names of trademarked characters on a game site and the owners of those trademarks might take note and issue a cease-and-desist.

Disney, in particular, is noted for suing over minor things. 

You can't trademark a name, its far more likely they'd come after the lyricals than a million Jasmines and Tony Starks and Luke Skywalkers imo.

[Stormcaller]

49 minutes ago, Tinibree said:

I have been waiting for an excuse to post this dragon https://dragcave.net/lineage/MQnTb

 

I love the names on this one; very clever.  It checks out clean too.    I don't care for your second one as much, but that's just my preference.

 

My point is, however, that there is still room for creativity in naming despite what some may say.  While these schemes are elaborate, it's still possible to create more simple ones.  I still support first come, first served naming.

 

[HeatherMarie]

Creativity is completely subjective though. What's 'creative' to you may be 'random thing pulled out of nowhere' to someone else. What feels like encouraging creativity to some feels like stifling creativity to others. There is no possible way to say name exclusivity increases creativity or encourages creativity across the board. And honestly I don't think creativity should be a deciding factor regardless, since again creativity is subjective and usually comes from a place of artistic freedom, not being *forced* to get 'creative' to find a semi-suitable name. Imo it's really not fair to act like getting rid of name exclusivity would do *anything* negative to 'creativity' since there is simply no way to prove that, and many people in this thread have expressed the exact opposite. 

 

Now, if the idea of 'name creativity' is simply 'name uniqueness', that's different, and yes getting rid of name exclusivity would affect the 'uniqueness' of some names. 

[Fuzzbucket]

13 hours ago, Tinibree said:

I have been waiting for an excuse to post this dragon https://dragcave.net/lineage/MQnTb

 

That exactly makes my point. Making inbreeding OBVIOUS  Otherwise one pretty much has to check on an extemal site. And if names weren't unique - you'd have to check every similar (say, silver and desipis !) line using the name to make sure which you wanted to - ask for an egg from...

 

Quote

You can't trademark a name, its far more likely they'd come after the lyricals than a million Jasmines and Tony Starks and Luke Skywalkers imo.

 

Actually Disney and others go after the most extraordinary stuff. Another interest of mine sees it happening all the time. And Benson and Hedges once tried to copyright a particular shade of purple.... (So that they could get around tobacco ad bans by simply erecting solid purple hoardings...) Cadburys objected as they use it too. Corporate nonsense is alive and kicking.

Edited February 9, 2021 by Fuzzbucket

[camelia2]

2 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

That exactly makes my point. OBVIOUS inbreeding. Otherwise one pretty much has to check on an extemal site. And if names weren't unique - you'd have to check every similar (say, silver and desipis !) line using the name to make sure which you wanted to - ask for an egg from...

That dragon is NOT inbreed.

And is extremly simple to check externally.

Eye-checking is unrelyable. I showed something before, but I'll say again, I could get to at least a 4G of deception, naming parents Lolo Minolo and Lola Minola and you would never be able to tell

[Fuzzbucket]

1 hour ago, camelia2 said:

That dragon is NOT inbreed.

True; corrected my typo.

1 hour ago, camelia2 said:

And is extremly simple to check externally.

Eye-checking is unrelyable. I showed something before, but I'll say again, I could get to at least a 4G of deception, naming parents Lolo Minolo and Lola Minola and you would never be able to tell

 

We shouldn't have to go to an external site to check. And if you want to deceive people, fine. (Really.) But exclusivity does make it EASIER to check.

[HeatherMarie]

18 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

True; corrected my typo.

 

We shouldn't have to go to an external site to check. And if you want to deceive people, fine. (Really.) But exclusivity does make it EASIER to check.

 

Only up to a certain point. Name exclusivity does *nothing* to eye-check if a 12-gen messy is inbred (to say nothing of the 30+gens I often get!). I'm sorry, this doesn't seem like a good argument for name exclusivity when it's only true in very specific circumstances. Sure it might be relatively easier to eye-check an even-gen with all similar-but-not-same names, but eye-checking something like this is not easier just because of name exclusivity.  (It's an awesome argument for having some sort of in-game inbred check though!) 

[Keileon]

And then you get lineages like this. If I could name 11 generations of siblings/mates this exact kind of thing JUST using spaces (which aren't as noticeable with long multi-word names like this), someone else could easily do the same with 8 CB pairs to make a 5G. It's something that already can and does happen. Removing name exclusivity would not worsen it enough to warrant that being a reason to shoot down the suggestion.

Edited February 9, 2021 by Keileon

[purpledragonclaw]

Since this thread is getting heated again, after discussing this with other mods I'm going to close this down again for a time. We'll discuss whether or not it should be re-opened since this is the second time this has required mod intervention.