Get Rid of Name Exclusivity

[Talisraye]

I quite agree. I despise name exclusivity. I find it unbearably foolish. There's no name exclusivity in real life. Not to mention it makes a war for names, messes up patterns, means newer players are s--- out of luck simply because they didn't hear about DragCave in 2006 or whatever, and means that players get to have something exclusive for exactly zero good reason.

 

I barely name my dragons and I still fully support removing name exclusivity.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

"For me, name exclusivity is important and part of the enjoyment of my scroll.

 

The dragons are all the same in appearance .. at least let us have  exclusive names."

 

Y'know, that's actually pretty spot on and probably a big part of the subconscious ew no feeling underneath my more rational arguments. 

[HeatherMarie]

2 hours ago, Keileon said:

I'm still in absolutely full support of removing exclusivity, for reasons I have stated and repeated throughout this thread. None of the reasons people have used to be against it hold much weight, in my opinion, to not have what is ultimately a quality of life update.

 

 

Same.

 

I'm not really interested in repeating everything I've already said here, but at this point it really seems like a stalemate that user-discussion alone just isn't going to budge. Those of us who want to get rid of name exclusivity have given plenty of reasons why, and in fact logically countered many of the posted arguments for keeping exclusivity. I'm not really seeing anything new brought up that hasn't already been hashed out extensively.

 

Will there be issues around the /view/n links? Sure, but multiple suggestions have been put forth to help with that (and honestly I'm sure TJ could work out something coding-wise on his own just fine). Will some people feel their dragons are less 'special' because they don't have a unique name? Sure, but the site has been steadily moving away from exclusivity in other areas and this change would help a *ton* of newer users and users who find it frustrating to name as it is. Would this change do anything at all to the *quality* of names compared to what we have now? We have no way of knowing that for sure, and we already have plenty of random/nonsense names as it is. Would it be harder to eye-check for inbreeding? Possibly, but name exclusivity actually only helps in that regard for a very tiny number of lineages now. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Dracaena said:

I have another idea that I don't think has been mentioned.

 

Make names case sensitive.  That would open up many names while keeping names exclusive.

 

I'd love this! Not sure it would actually help with the pro-exclusivity arguments, especially when it comes to the /n link.

[dragongrrl]

1 hour ago, Dracaena said:

I have another idea that I don't think has been mentioned.

 

Make names case sensitive.  That would open up many names while keeping names exclusive.

Best solution I've seen so far. That gives the most access to the same name without adding stars or numbers or some weird tag.

[Keileon]

I can get behind case sensitivity. I'd much rather have full removal of exclusivity, but if there's ANYTHING that can be a compromise, it's that.

[pinkgothic]

I wouldn't benefit from case-sensitivity, but I'm not opposed to it. It wouldn't solve the problem for me, but since it would solve the problem for others, it's indeed a good step in the right direction.

[Keileon]

43 minutes ago, pinkgothic said:

I wouldn't benefit from case-sensitivity, but I'm not opposed to it. It wouldn't solve the problem for me, but since it would solve the problem for others, it's indeed a good step in the right direction.

Oh, absolutely, it would only solve part of my problem with exclusivity (make lyricals easier) but wouldn't be as useful for people who want real/fandom names. That said, it would be better than nothing, and wouldn't stop us from asking for full removal later down the line.

Edited March 20, 2021 by Keileon

[Nine]

I don't think case sensitivity is a good solution. It's in the same vein as adding spaces between letters or extra numbers and letters-- do you actually want that name or are you settling for something different because you have to. If you didn't want "C a c o p h o n y", don't know if CaCoPhOnY is any better. It would actually make things even more annoying for me: trying Nine, NIne, NINe, NINE, nIne, nINe, nINE...

 

Worries about the function of /n/ view and inbreeding checking are solid concerns. I think they bring up some long-standing problems with DC in general, namely a lack of convenient ways to search up dragons on your/other scrolls and how unique names are a crutch for this. Even if official inbreeding checks will likely get the same answer they did years ago, I like the suggestion of making the code fade-in (and out) to replace the name when hovering over the dragon's picture or name in lineage view. Even better if it does so for all instances of that dragon in the lineage. Mobile could manage this with a click on the picture or name. Ways to search your own scroll are a much needed feature too, relying on /n/ is not always realistic or convenient... if you even name your dragons at all. Inability to search while breeding can be such a nightmare.

 

Uniqueness is more difficult to address. Sprite collecting games aren't really known for emphasizing uniqueness as opposed to virtual pet games, but things like marking your dragons with an icon or adding notes would be nice. There could be some kind of monthly description writing contest type-thing, top 10 get a shiny star on their dragon's page. It'd be neat to have more options.

Sticking with the old because no equal middleground can be found would've meant no CB prizes returning, and as flawed as the raffles are that would've totally sucked. Figuring out what exactly contributes to unique names being so attractive for some people and trying to solve some of those underlying issues would be great even if nothing is ever acknowledged about names.

[Fuzzbucket]

10 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

Same.

 

I'm not really interested in repeating everything I've already said here, but at this point it really seems like a stalemate that user-discussion alone just isn't going to budge. Those of us who want to get rid of name exclusivity have given plenty of reasons why, and in fact logically countered many of the posted arguments for keeping exclusivity. I'm not really seeing anything new brought up that hasn't already been hashed out extensively.

And the same applies to the arguments against losing exclusivity. The fact that you see nothing logical in them doesn't mean there is any more logic in the arguments for getting rid of it. But discussion cannot - can never -  change feelings. That is the biggest issue here.

 

10 hours ago, Keileon said:

I can get behind case sensitivity. I'd much rather have full removal of exclusivity, but if there's ANYTHING that can be a compromise, it's that.

 

I could too, if it means keeping a degree of exclusivity. So - see, that's from MY side of the feelings involved !

 

11 hours ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

"For me, name exclusivity is important and part of the enjoyment of my scroll.

 

The dragons are all the same in appearance .. at least let us have  exclusive names."

 

Y'know, that's actually pretty spot on and probably a big part of the subconscious ew no feeling underneath my more rational arguments. 

 

Exactly this - and the /n/ thing which IS crucial for me, whether others "get" that or not.

 

I wish @TJ09 would speak...

Edited March 20, 2021 by Fuzzbucket

[Falorni]

One thing that popped to mind last night is that if we can't yeet name exclusivity, freeing up the names used up by dead dragons (e.g. failed zombifying attempts) would be a minor tweak that I'm sure would benefit several of us.

[MissK.]

Personally I wouldn't mind names being case sensitive, and it might help the situation to a degree without interfering with view/n/ links since the urls are already case sensitive anyway. However, I don't know how big of an effect it would have in the long run, so to me it's not an alternative to removing name exclusivity but just a much smaller-scale change.

 

3 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

And the same applies to the arguments against losing exclusivity. The fact that you see nothing logical in them doesn't mean there is any more logic in the arguments for getting rid of it. But discussion cannot - can never -  change feelings. That is the biggest issue here.

 

I disagree with this completely. At first when I saw this thread, my reaction was negative, because as I've explained before I very much enjoy the feeling of nabbing a cool name (I even have a group of names I'm proud of). However, by reading the existing pages of discussion my feelings changed enough that I was ambivalent, and with more time I came to actually support this suggestion. I'm not saying that this will or has to happen for everyone by any means of course, but it's possible, and it's definitely not the first time someone has had a change of heart along the way. 

 

I do think that this thread would benefit more from discussing people's interests and not just repeating the same positions though - sure, you can say "I want my dragon names to stay exclusive", but where does that come from? Do you legitimately not want anyone else to have a thing that you have, do you want an indication of which names are still unique, do you just want the joy of being the first to think of a name? People will still be for or against, but at the very least explaining the reasons behind why each "side" wants certain things might help others understand better, and even come up with more suggestions to accommodate each other.

[Fuzzbucket]

I stated my reasons way back; I do hate repeating them over and over - in other threads I've seen people saying "you already SAID that". Tough one.

On 9/30/2020 at 6:53 PM, Ruby Eyes said:

But it means that everyone who has linked to ONE dragon with that /n/ function would have to deal with the fact that it would no longer actually BE THAT DRAGON they intended to link to.

Did you notice that the /code/ page nowadays creates the /view/n/ link automagically if the creature has a name? I for sure would be pretty miffed if I had to go and change all these links back to bare code.

 

This is a NEW big one. The /n/ thing is HUGE for me; so is checking for inbreds without having to go offsite to do that.

Edited March 20, 2021 by Fuzzbucket

[HeatherMarie]

On 9/30/2020 at 10:53 AM, Ruby Eyes said:

But it means that everyone who has linked to ONE dragon with that /n/ function would have to deal with the fact that it would no longer actually BE THAT DRAGON they intended to link to.

Did you notice that the /code/ page nowadays creates the /view/n/ link automagically if the creature has a name? I for sure would be pretty miffed if I had to go and change all these links back to bare code.

 

@Fuzzbucket (and anyone else for whom this would be a big issue) What if, hypothetically, that old /n link *did* still point to *that* specific dragon? Putting aside the other pro-exclusivity arguments for a moment and focusing specifically on the /n page, I honestly do believe there *must* be a solution to that that both sides could agree on. What if the 1st dragon to use that name (ie, the one using it now, the one linked in the example) would *stay* the one shown when using that link? There could be a little link somewhere on the page like 'other dragons with this name' that could go to a separate page listing all the dragons with that specific name. Would that solve or at least help the issue? 

 

I agree with @MissK. that more discussion of *why* people see certain things the way they do, and more open discussion of any possible compromises or different ways of doing things, would be more helpful than continuing to go around in circles with the same arguments. 

[lexi_]

On 3/19/2021 at 6:33 PM, missy_ said:

ETA: This is only one of many reasons I support name exclusivity.

 

On 10/29/2020 at 2:52 AM, orphaned said:

For me, name exclusivity is important and part of the enjoyment of my scroll.

 

The dragons are all the same in appearance .. at least let us have  exclusive names.

 

i agree completely with this. thats why i enjoy dragon cave at all, and dont really use any other adoptable sites. i am against removing name exclusivity and this is exactly why.

this is why ive been playing dragon cave since 2013 and why i KEEP coming back, and why im not interested in any other adoptable/sprite collecting sites. thats just my two cents on this.

 

i think case sensitivity would be nice, it's definitely the closest thing to a compromise that we have.

[Fuzzbucket]

2 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

@Fuzzbucket (and anyone else for whom this would be a big issue) What if, hypothetically, that old /n link *did* still point to *that* specific dragon? Putting aside the other pro-exclusivity arguments for a moment and focusing specifically on the /n page, I honestly do believe there *must* be a solution to that that both sides could agree on. What if the 1st dragon to use that name (ie, the one using it now, the one linked in the example) would *stay* the one shown when using that link? There could be a little link somewhere on the page like 'other dragons with this name' that could go to a separate page listing all the dragons with that specific name. Would that solve or at least help the issue? 

 

 

That would seriously annoy anyone else trying to find their OWN dragon.... I would bet MANY of us use /n/ to find dragons; the codes are much harder to remember. But that new feature is only something that makes it MORE of a problem for me.; the /n/ thing is still very important in my play style.

Edited March 20, 2021 by Fuzzbucket
I wish I could find out why my PC thinks it can do predictive text so I can tell it to stoppit !

[angelicdragonpuppy]

I think the pro / cons have been pretty clearly hashed out with no clear "winner."

 

However, what compromises would people want if things don't go their way?

 

As someone who LIKES unique names, I'd want:

- view/n/ to direct to a page with both the first dragon that received that name, any dragons on your own scroll that have that name, and an option to continue to another page showing all dragons with that name

- A way to still quickly check short lineages for inbreeding. Maybe different dragons with the same name in a lineage could have a symbol next to their names to identify them, or there could be a toggle to show codes as well.

[HeatherMarie]

1 hour ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

 

As someone who LIKES unique names, I'd want:

- view/n/ to direct to a page with both the first dragon that received that name, any dragons on your own scroll that have that name, and an option to continue to another page showing all dragons with that name

- A way to still quickly check short lineages for inbreeding. Maybe different dragons with the same name in a lineage could have a symbol next to their names to identify them, or there could be a toggle to show codes as well.

 

(bolding for emphasis) Actually I'd love this in general, regardless of name exclusivity. As I've pointed out there are plenty of lineages with nearly-identical names that really do look completely identical, and in general because I focus on messies I've found that noticing repeated *codes* in messy lineages is a lot easier than noticing repeated exact-names. It actually takes me a lot longer to realize something is inbred if the repeating dragons are named and not showing codes. I'd love to be able to see the codes maybe under the names.

Edited March 21, 2021 by HeatherMarie

[angelicdragonpuppy]

4 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

(bolding for emphasis) Actually I'd love this in general, regardless of name exclusivity. As I've pointed out there are plenty of lineages with nearly-identical names that really do look completely identical, and in general because I focus on messies I've found that noticing repeated *codes* in messy lineages is a lot easier than noticing repeated exact-names. It actually takes me a lot longer to realize something is inbred if the repeating dragons are named and not showing codes. I'd love to be able to see the codes maybe under the names.

A side note on that--if codes are visible I want it ONLY as either a toggle or a scroll setting. I intensely dislike seeing random codes in lineages, they're very immersion breaking for me and showing them 24/7 would, and I'm not exaggerating, kill the game for me.

[pinkgothic]

1 hour ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

or there could be a toggle to show codes as well.

For what it's worth, I really, really like this idea - so e.g. /lineage/FoObR would show the lineage as we're used to and /lineage/FoObR/codes would show the codes (or both codes and names, I'm not fussed). Agreed on liking this independent of this suggestion, even - might be worth making a thread for it!

Edited March 21, 2021 by pinkgothic

[MissK.]

11 hours ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

As someone who LIKES unique names, I'd want:

- view/n/ to direct to a page with both the first dragon that received that name, any dragons on your own scroll that have that name, and an option to continue to another page showing all dragons with that name

- A way to still quickly check short lineages for inbreeding. Maybe different dragons with the same name in a lineage could have a symbol next to their names to identify them, or there could be a toggle to show codes as well.

 

I really like both of these suggestions personally. @Fuzzbucket would the first one help with the link issue? Supposing this was implemented, the links currently in use would still work, and anyone looking for their own dragon could still easily find it even if it wasn't the first one with that name. 

[Falorni]

10 hours ago, pinkgothic said:

For what it's worth, I really, really like this idea - so e.g. /lineage/FoObR would show the lineage as we're used to and /lineage/FoObR/codes would show the codes (or both codes and names, I'm not fussed). Agreed on liking this independent of this suggestion, even - might be worth making a thread for it!

Neutral on the view/n topic since I really don't use that feature at all and don't really have much to say on it, but would love this, actually!   Either a separate page (so lineage/xxxxx vs lineage/xxxxx/codes) or an option to toggle in account settings or something would work for me.

[Fuzzbucket]

1 hour ago, MissK. said:

 

I really like both of these suggestions personally. @Fuzzbucket would the first one help with the link issue? Supposing this was implemented, the links currently in use would still work, and anyone looking for their own dragon could still easily find it even if it wasn't the first one with that name. 

What I want is for the /n/ to take me to my dragon. Not a whole page of dragons (extra step.) As for finding it on that page - if I can't remember its code, which I usually can't, how would I find MY "Redwinged Azure" among any others of the same breed with the same name. If it went that route MINE would need to be the top one on the list. But then I wouldn't know if mine got it first, so that doesn't fully work either.

[MissK.]

51 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

What I want is for the /n/ to take me to my dragon. Not a whole page of dragons (extra step.) As for finding it on that page - if I can't remember its code, which I usually can't, how would I find MY "Redwinged Azure" among any others of the same breed with the same name. If it went that route MINE would need to be the top one on the list. But then I wouldn't know if mine got it first, so that doesn't fully work either.

 

As I understood angelicdragonpuppy's suggestion, the /n/ link would take you to the first dragon with that name, but then (possibly underneath?) also your own dragons with that name. And finally there could be an extra link along the lines of  "show all dragons with that name", but that would not interfere with finding yours. So if your dragon is the first with that name, the /n/ link would take you and anyone else directly to it, and if it isn't you'd still find your own dragons with that name after whichever dragon was the first. Unless you own dozens of dragons with the same name, it would be very easy to find each of them, and also it would be clear if it was the first dragon with that name from the link (though personally I'm also not opposed to a different kind of identifier for that on the dragon's profile or so if people want such a thing).

[Fuzzbucket]

Still not wild about it (to put it mildly.)

[Stormcaller]

On 3/19/2021 at 8:43 PM, angelicdragonpuppy said:

"For me, name exclusivity is important and part of the enjoyment of my scroll.

 

The dragons are all the same in appearance .. at least let us have  exclusive names."

 

Y'know, that's actually pretty spot on and probably a big part of the subconscious ew no feeling underneath my more rational arguments. 

 

I still agree with this.  Can't really say I like anything else.