Get Rid of Name Exclusivity

[Fuzzbucket]

And I remain as one wanting it NOT to happen....

[Ripple_Tiger]

I'm very on the fence about this one still. On one hand it allows people to come up with unique names or titles. On the other hand with the amount of new users this could be nice to allow people to even keep naming their dragons when we get to the point that there are barely any names left

[Keileon]

I'm sticking with my "there's no good reason to keep it" stance. It works just fine on other games of this genre, and while naysayers are likely to come out of the woodwork and complain that DC isn't those other games and shouldn't be compared, I will argue that that doesn't mean that DC can never change its mechanics based on how well relevant systems work on similar games.

 

It's just needlessly restricting at this point, tbh.

[Caliscurum]

I may be the odd one out here, but honestly (and very subjectively of course) I relish the challenge of finding names that aren't taken. When I find an unusual or rare name that nobody else has used, it feels like a real treat and like I've hit a secret gem. Millions of names are gone at this point, of course, but human language is vast and there are still whole horizons of naming that I feel haven't been explored or claimed. I've got an entire project centered around slowly claiming as many dragons as possible that have a specific style of name, and I've never really felt restricted or held back by being unable to use really common examples of that style, because stumbling on the ones that haven't been taken and pouncing on them is hugely exciting for me.

 

But I've been an avid "name collector" in other games before, so finding joy and excitement in finding rare names might just be me being weird. And I can fully understand why many find it frustrating and want it removed. Dragon Cave has been around for a very long time, and basically all one-word and common names are stuck on dragons on inactive scrolls that are a decade or more old. I can completely understand the viewpoint that it's restricting and unfair to newer players. If it were to be removed, I would be a bit bummed, but I would fully understand and I would still keep doing my project for pure enjoyment.

[Sketch]

I'm still in favor of removing name exclusivity.
It just doesn't make any sense to me why it really matters if a dragon you own shares the same name as another. If you want to be unique with your naming or you want to have a particular theme, then go for it; but the creativity and choice of others to name their dragons what they want shouldn't be restricted. It's unfair, unfun, and honestly very frustrating to have to find thousands of different, quirky names for dragons because so many names and variations of names have been taken and will likely never again be available.
People should of course be allowed to come up with fun, unique names - that's freedom of creativity and expression!
However they, in my opinion, should not have to come up with these names.
Half of the time, naming can feel like a real chore - especially if you've been busy and get behind on it. Name exclusivity is one of the reasons why I - and many others that I've spoken to - have dozens if not hundreds of unnamed dragons. It takes too long to sit there and try to come up with a dozen fresh, unclaimed names that fit your scheme or the lineage or the code or whatever you go by when you pick out a name for your dragon.
Not only is the existence of name exclusivity frustrating, it also poses problems for people that like to create lyrical lineages - as I'm sure has been pointed out before. It's already a challenge enough to organize a project and figure out where every lyric is supposed to go; but then people also have to think about whether or not someone else has created their own lineage for that song or poem or whatever they chose. Then they have to go through the process of adding spaces here and there, especially for repeating lines, or changing up the composition of the names entirely.

I will agree, I have gotten excited several times when I've stumbled across short unclaimed names - especially names that correspond to things I enjoy such as songs, games, or artists. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm like, "Oh wow cool! I didn't have to fight for five minutes with the disappearing ink to find a cool name!" But I really don't care that much about it - it's just a name, and I wouldn't care if there were 100 other dragons on the site that shared names with mine.

 

[Fuzzbucket]

3 hours ago, Caliscurum said:

I may be the odd one out here, but honestly (and very subjectively of course) I relish the challenge of finding names that aren't taken. When I find an unusual or rare name that nobody else has used, it feels like a real treat and like I've hit a secret gem. Millions of names are gone at this point, of course, but human language is vast and there are still whole horizons of naming that I feel haven't been explored or claimed. I've got an entire project centered around slowly claiming as many dragons as possible that have a specific style of name, and I've never really felt restricted or held back by being unable to use really common examples of that style, because stumbling on the ones that haven't been taken and pouncing on them is hugely exciting for me.

 

But I've been an avid "name collector" in other games before, so finding joy and excitement in finding rare names might just be me being weird. And I can fully understand why many find it frustrating and want it removed. Dragon Cave has been around for a very long time, and basically all one-word and common names are stuck on dragons on inactive scrolls that are a decade or more old. I can completely understand the viewpoint that it's restricting and unfair to newer players. If it were to be removed, I would be a bit bummed, but I would fully understand and I would still keep doing my project for pure enjoyment.

 

I am TOTALLY with you, and I don't want to lose name exclusivity.

[Caliscurum]

It's a controversial topic and I fully understand the opposing viewpoints - I only stake my flag in the camp of "don't remove it" for purely subjective reasons of me enjoying name hunting and finding fun in it. In my mind names are just another cool rare thing to collect on the site, and if I happen to score a rare one, I consider it equivalent to grabbing a dino or a rare dragon and feeling really nifty for having scored it first. If that specific type of rareness was removed, I'd be bummed but I would just find some other rare thing to focus on. I don't want the thing I find fun to be bumming out everyone else.

[KageSora]

4 hours ago, Sketch said:

I'm still in favor of removing name exclusivity.
It just doesn't make any sense to me why it really matters if a dragon you own shares the same name as another. If you want to be unique with your naming or you want to have a particular theme, then go for it; but the creativity and choice of others to name their dragons what they want shouldn't be restricted. It's unfair, unfun, and honestly very frustrating to have to find thousands of different, quirky names for dragons because so many names and variations of names have been taken and will likely never again be available.
People should of course be allowed to come up with fun, unique names - that's freedom of creativity and expression!
However they, in my opinion, should not have to come up with these names.
Half of the time, naming can feel like a real chore - especially if you've been busy and get behind on it. Name exclusivity is one of the reasons why I - and many others that I've spoken to - have dozens if not hundreds of unnamed dragons. It takes too long to sit there and try to come up with a dozen fresh, unclaimed names that fit your scheme or the lineage or the code or whatever you go by when you pick out a name for your dragon.
Not only is the existence of name exclusivity frustrating, it also poses problems for people that like to create lyrical lineages - as I'm sure has been pointed out before. It's already a challenge enough to organize a project and figure out where every lyric is supposed to go; but then people also have to think about whether or not someone else has created their own lineage for that song or poem or whatever they chose. Then they have to go through the process of adding spaces here and there, especially for repeating lines, or changing up the composition of the names entirely.

I will agree, I have gotten excited several times when I've stumbled across short unclaimed names - especially names that correspond to things I enjoy such as songs, games, or artists. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm like, "Oh wow cool! I didn't have to fight for five minutes with the disappearing ink to find a cool name!" But I really don't care that much about it - it's just a name, and I wouldn't care if there were 100 other dragons on the site that shared names with mine.

 

I mean the same can be said to you--it doesn't make any sense to us why you'd want your dragon to have a name 5000 other dragons have.  You want to know what makes our fun more important than yours--but what makes your fun more important than ours?  The problem is that there's not really a solid middle ground here--either one side gets their way or the other gets their way.  Any "compromise" will just have people whining about "but I don't LIKE that, it's not FAIR!" pretty quick.  This isn't really one of those suggestions where people can either use it or leave it if they don't want to.  Either everybody can use the same names we come up with, or nobody can--and if you pull away exclusivity you remove our ability to control that.

 

I'd also like to mention--if we do away with the unique naming system, how do you think we can possibly still come up with unique names?  No, really--if any person who sees our dragon can go "Oh, sweet, I'm using that name, I like it" how do we preserve our ability to come up with creative and unique names?  What is your solution to that?  Removing the ability to lock names as unique means you completely remove the ability for people to come up with unique names because the first person who decides to copy that name removes it's uniqueness.  And that's not something we have control over.

 

I'll be honest, while I don't name every dragon right away--you take away name exclusivity and I won't bother naming anything ever again because there's no dang point.  Especially if you remove the /view/n/[name] feature and don't give some sort of equivalent to replace it, and force me to deal only with codes anyway if I want to go right to a specific dragon's page?  Might as well just remove names entirely at that point as far as I'm concerned.

Edited July 3, 2022 by KageSora

[Keileon]

2 hours ago, KageSora said:

I'd also like to mention--if we do away with the unique naming system, how do you think we can possibly still come up with unique names?  No, really--if any person who sees our dragon can go "Oh, sweet, I'm using that name, I like it" how do we preserve our ability to come up with creative and unique names?  What is your solution to that?  Removing the ability to lock names as unique means you completely remove the ability for people to come up with unique names because the first person who decides to copy that name removes it's uniqueness.  And that's not something we have control over.

If you come up with the name on your own, regardless of whether or not it's the first time that name is used or if someone sees it later and decides to use it, then the name is by definition creative as you used it.

 

What other people do has zero bearing whatsoever on how creative or unique you personally can be.

Edited July 4, 2022 by Keileon

[Ripple_Tiger]

3 hours ago, KageSora said:

I mean the same can be said to you--it doesn't make any sense to us why you'd want your dragon to have a name 5000 other dragons have.  You want to know what makes our fun more important than yours--but what makes your fun more important than ours?  The problem is that there's not really a solid middle ground here--either one side gets their way or the other gets their way.  Any "compromise" will just have people whining about "but I don't LIKE that, it's not FAIR!" pretty quick.  This isn't really one of those suggestions where people can either use it or leave it if they don't want to.  Either everybody can use the same names we come up with, or nobody can--and if you pull away exclusivity you remove our ability to control that.

 

I'd also like to mention--if we do away with the unique naming system, how do you think we can possibly still come up with unique names?  No, really--if any person who sees our dragon can go "Oh, sweet, I'm using that name, I like it" how do we preserve our ability to come up with creative and unique names?  What is your solution to that?  Removing the ability to lock names as unique means you completely remove the ability for people to come up with unique names because the first person who decides to copy that name removes it's uniqueness.  And that's not something we have control over.

 

I'll be honest, while I don't name every dragon right away--you take away name exclusivity and I won't bother naming anything ever again because there's no dang point.  Especially if you remove the /view/n/[name] feature and don't give some sort of equivalent to replace it, and force me to deal only with codes anyway if I want to go right to a specific dragon's page?  Might as well just remove names entirely at that point as far as I'm concerned.

I fully agree with this, I love the search for a name every time I sit down to name my new dragons and I don't think it'd be nearly as fun if I could name them anything or have to search through all of my dragons to make sure I didn't already name someone that 

[KageSora]

1 hour ago, Keileon said:

If you come up with the name on your own, regardless of whether or not it's the first time that name is used or if someone sees it later and decides to use it, then the name is by definition creative as you used it.

 

What other people do has zero bearing whatsoever on how creative or unique you personally can be.

u·nique

/yo͞oˈnēk/

 

adjective

adjective: unique

1. being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.

The second that another person uses the same name, it ceases to be the only one of it's kind.  By definition it is no longer unique.  Therefore, even if it was unique upon creation it does not retain that status if other people copy it.  That means that you cannot both allow duplicate names and protect the playstyle of those who enjoy the aspect of unique naming.

 

Literally, other people copying your name does prevent you from being unique because you no longer have the only dragon with that name.

[Keileon]

4 hours ago, KageSora said:

u·nique

/yo͞oˈnēk/

 

adjective

adjective: unique

1. being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.

The second that another person uses the same name, it ceases to be the only one of it's kind.  By definition it is no longer unique.  Therefore, even if it was unique upon creation it does not retain that status if other people copy it.  That means that you cannot both allow duplicate names and protect the playstyle of those who enjoy the aspect of unique naming.

 

Literally, other people copying your name does prevent you from being unique because you no longer have the only dragon with that name.

There's no need to be condescending by pasting a definition. I know what unique means. There's a reason I specified "creative" for the first part.

 

But as for uniqueness, if we want to split hairs, there's no such thing in this case. Being the first person to name a dragon after a new fictional character doesn't make one unique. Being forced to rearrange words or add extra spaces or dashes or what have you doesn't make one unique.

 

What's more unique? Two people naming their dragons "Coca Cola" or two dozen people naming their dragons variations like "Coca Cola", "CocaCola", "Coca-Cola", "Coca  Cola" (two spaces), "Coca'Cola", ad infinitum?

[Atalante]

9 hours ago, KageSora said:

I'll be honest, while I don't name every dragon right away--you take away name exclusivity and I won't bother naming anything ever again because there's no dang point.

 

I feel the same way. Being the first one to grab a name is as much a part of playing this game as it is collecting and raising dragons for me.

 

I understand the opposing viewpoint, I also get sad/frustrated when a name I want has been grabbed already, but personally it's been something that has been part of DC since I've started playing, what with my naming schemes usually putting me in "competition" with many other users, which I find fun. I don't want that to be gone.

 

At the end of the day, there isn't a way to go about this that will please everyone, so I'm just adding my voice to the "don't get rid of exclusivity" side and leave it at that.

[Caliscurum]

5 hours ago, Atalante said:

At the end of the day, there isn't a way to go about this that will please everyone, so I'm just adding my voice to the "don't get rid of exclusivity" side and leave it at that.

 

I agree with you there. It definitely seems to be one of those issues with no middle ground. Keeping it makes a group of people happy, and removing it makes another group of people happy - there will not be a compromise that satisfies both groups of people or that both groups of people fully and completely agree with and support. It might be doomed to stay that way until the issue is decided for us by a site-wide change, so I'm content to respectfully express my view on one side and leave it at that. It's not the end of the world if I end up being overruled, and I still love the game and respect the people who have expressed opposing views here.

[DragonLady86]

20 hours ago, KageSora said:

I'll be honest, while I don't name every dragon right away--you take away name exclusivity and I won't bother naming anything ever again because there's no dang point.

This amuses me. Why would anyone care if you didn't name anymore? No one seems to care about the increasing number of people that refuse to name now because its too much of a pain. And yes, I fall into this group.

[KageSora]

15 hours ago, Keileon said:

There's no need to be condescending by pasting a definition. I know what unique means. There's a reason I specified "creative" for the first part.

 

But as for uniqueness, if we want to split hairs, there's no such thing in this case. Being the first person to name a dragon after a new fictional character doesn't make one unique. Being forced to rearrange words or add extra spaces or dashes or what have you doesn't make one unique.

 

What's more unique? Two people naming their dragons "Coca Cola" or two dozen people naming their dragons variations like "Coca Cola", "CocaCola", "Coca-Cola", "Coca  Cola" (two spaces), "Coca'Cola", ad infinitum?

Ensuring all parties in a discussion/debate/argument/etc. are using the exact same definition of a word is critical to situations where one or more specific words are key components of it--that's not condescending, that's basic misunderstanding avoidance.  We are clearly operating off different ideas of what "unique" encompasses.  You feel there is an element of creativity to it, a sort of sliding scale where "2 things with the same name is more unique than a dozen things with similar names."  I am operating on the idea of "one exact combination of characters."

 

And let's turn that back around on you, what's more unique--a dozen people using variations to name their dragon some version of "Coca Cola" while still being the only person to use that exact combination of characters, or 500 people naming their dragon "Coca Cola" using the exact same combination of characters?

 

3 hours ago, DragonLady86 said:

This amuses me. Why would anyone care if you didn't name anymore? No one seems to care about the increasing number of people that refuse to name now because its too much of a pain. And yes, I fall into this group.

By that logic why should anybody care that some players feel so entitled to what others have that they're throwing a fit about it?  Honesty I'd laugh at the entire topic's nonsense if it didn't mean you are actively arguing to rip away a key feature of the game that I use every single time that I go to breed my dragons.  The view/n/name feature.  That won't work if 5000 dragons have the exact same name.

 

13 hours ago, Atalante said:

I understand the opposing viewpoint, I also get sad/frustrated when a name I want has been grabbed already

Same, I view it the same as hunting for an egg--I get sad/frustrated when I see a CB egg that I really want, especially if it's something ultra rare like a Stat, and somebody else grabs it first.  Accepting that you weren't the first is sometimes just part of the game.

[DragonLady86]

You're calling me entitled while saying no one else should ever be allowed to use a name you happened to type first?  A common example in this topic was "I named this dragon after my mother so I don't want it available to anyone else." So, my mother has the same name but I can't name a dragon after her now?

[Suzaku]

I am all for removing name exclusivity.  Imagine the broad new horizons of name-based breeding projects that are no longer contingent on someone who hasn't logged in for 10 years.  It removes the trouble of having a naming pattern that suddenly doesn't work because someone happened to get to a certain name before you.  And I know I've been disappointed when a name that I really really want is taken by some inbred messy lineage dragon on an abandoned scroll - I'd love to be able to reclaim those names and give them a better lineage.  Having name exclusivity is only good for searching with /n/NAME and there have been some good suggestions for refining that.  It's like if I get a dog and want to name it Max, but I can't because someone else already did.

 

Name exclusivity, in my opinion, only leads to feelings of superiority.  I guarantee you that more than one dragon exists with a fandom name that is ill-fitting to the breed just because the owner wanted to snag the name and grabbed the first dragon they could just so they could take the name and say that they have it and no one else does.  Allowing dragons to share names gives everyone a balanced playing field, whether they've played for 15 years or 15 minutes.  It shouldn't matter how old your account is - you should be able to name every dragon something that makes you happy and not worry about whether or not someone who discovered the site 10 years before you had the same idea.

 

Basically, I feel it's an unbalanced competition that a lot of people have already lost before they realized they were playing.  There's absolutely no need for it to exist.  Remove name exclusivity, please.

[Tawanda001]

I find it sad that my daughter rarely comes to DC anymore unless I ask for her help with something. The biggest reason for her loss of interest is that she cannot give her dragons names that have any special meaning to her.

If you find value in your ability to use a unique name I don't understand how you can't appreciate the affect of not being able to use a meaningful name at all.

For me personally, I rather have ten different lineages that all have 'Pete' as a lineage name than to have Pete1, Pete2, Pete3, ad infinitum because people are desperately trying to find some way, any way to use the name Pete because it means something to them.

[MissK.]

7 hours ago, KageSora said:

[...]

By that logic why should anybody care that some players feel so entitled to what others have that they're throwing a fit about it?  Honesty I'd laugh at the entire topic's nonsense if it didn't mean you are actively arguing to rip away a key feature of the game that I use every single time that I go to breed my dragons.  The view/n/name feature.  That won't work if 5000 dragons have the exact same name.

[...]

 

About this part specifically, there have been suggestions to keep searching by name if name exclusivity is removed, mentioned in the first post. I think even a lot of people who don't care for exclusive names use that feature, and would hate to see it gone (edit: including myself), that's really not the purpose of this thread. 

Edited July 5, 2022 by MissK.

[KageSora]

5 hours ago, DragonLady86 said:

You're calling me entitled while saying no one else should ever be allowed to use a name you happened to type first?

From my perspective, this is what anybody who argues for removing name exclusivity is saying "people who enjoy the game as it is--including those for whom the current mechanic is a key competent of how they play--deserve to have their enjoyment of the game damaged, by ripping out the mechanic they enjoy with no compensation, no recourse, and no way to approximate it because I personally think I deserve to have my way instead."

 

For the record--I would also be calling it entitled if the game did not have name exclusivity and somebody made a topic all about how they think that would be better because they like it more.   That is what I consider entitled: the insistence that current play mechanics be 100% completely inverted to make you happy with no regard for people who would be actively made unhappy by the change, because you don't think their enjoyment matters as much as your own.  You signed up for a game with name exclusivity.  If that was a huge issue, you didn't need to start playing in the first place.

 

There's plenty of games I've taken a look at over the years and gone "Oh, the current mechanics, which are something players enjoy, are the exact opposite of what I'd want--I won't play this game then", instead of going "okay, so I've decided that you should flip the game to cater to me instead now".

 

(*general you, this is my view of everyone arguing that we need to kill the existing ability to play in order to make their preference possible.)

 

There have been some suggestions attempted as a sort of compromise but I'll be honest:  The only real "compromise"-ish options are also highly likely to lead to confusion and annoyance among players and therefore I can't imagine them being implemented.

 

31 minutes ago, MissK. said:

About this part specifically, there have been suggestions to keep searching by name if name exclusivity is removed, mentioned in the first post. I think even a lot of people who don't care for exclusive names use that feature, and would hate to see it gone (edit: including myself), that's really not the purpose of this thread. 

 

I'm aware of the suggestions.  However, that is only one component of the name exclusivity.  It's a very important one to me, but there are other components to my enjoyment of name exclusivity that can't be fixed with some modification to the view/n/name feature.  Especially as some of the suggestions would make the feature useless for names that have many dragons using them.  Or they have other complications to them.

 

I'd also argue that it is part of the purpose of this thread--if people want to completely invert the current mechanics it is necessary that they address as many issues resulting from doing so as possible, including the removal of the current ability to go directly to a dragon's page by knowing it's name.  That hinges on name exclusivity in it's current form, and you cannot separate it from name exclusivity as such.

Edited July 5, 2022 by KageSora

[MissK.]

11 minutes ago, KageSora said:

I'm aware of the suggestions.  However, that is only one component of the name exclusivity.  It's a very important one to me, but there are other components to my enjoyment of name exclusivity that can't be fixed with some modification to the view/n/name feature.  Especially as some of the suggestions would make the feature useless for names that have many dragons using them.  Or they have other complications to them.

 

I'd also argue that it is part of the purpose of this thread--if people want to completely invert the current mechanics it is necessary that they address as many issues resulting from doing so as possible, including the removal of the current ability to go directly to a dragon's page by knowing it's name.  That hinges on name exclusivity in it's current form, and you cannot separate it from name exclusivity as such.

 

What I mean is that the purpose of the thread is not to remove the search by name function, in fact it is trying to find ways to preserve it. I also use it for the dragons I breed regularly and would not be happy with this suggestion if it didn't still allow for that option. Showing us our own dragon(s) first when searching by name should cover this functionality, especially since those who prefer exclusive names are not likely to name 50 of their own dragons the same thing anyway. 

 

But of course I do understand that there are other components to this, and agree that the enjoyment of strict exclusivity vs not is very black and white without much middle ground. Well, perhaps aside from some way to still see which dragon used a certain name first, but that doesn't make it fully unique in the technical sense. I was only talking about the /n/name function because that has been addressed and will continue to be if more people have ideas to offer.

Edited July 5, 2022 by MissK.

[Atalante]

9 hours ago, KageSora said:

Same, I view it the same as hunting for an egg--I get sad/frustrated when I see a CB egg that I really want, especially if it's something ultra rare like a Stat, and somebody else grabs it first.  Accepting that you weren't the first is sometimes just part of the game.

 

Yup, I don't think it's a stretch to say that accepting that is pretty much what DC is all about. The base mechanic is that you have to be the first to click on an egg in order to get it. If you're the first then yay, you got it!... Aaand everyone else who tried to grab it will be disappointed.

For me, naming dragons follows that exact same principle. It's been that way since I started playing and it is a part of the gameplay that I enjoy as much as egg hunting.

[Tawanda001]

^ Well, except for the fact that when someone else grabs that stat first you realize that it doesn't mean you will  indeed never have a shot at a stat, because there are after all other chances to get one JUST like it, so I don't think that's an apt comparison.

This is an adoptables game, a very large part of adopting is naming. I doubt 16 years ago when people began playing they thought so far ahead that they understood that it would become nigh impossible to assign names to their 'pets' without resorting to all sorts of contortions of standard spellings, or making up nonsense names in order to get a name at all.

Edited July 5, 2022 by Tawanda001

[Stormphoenix42]

1 hour ago, Tawanda001 said:

^ Well, except for the fact that when someone else grabs that stat first you realize that it doesn't mean you will  indeed never have a shot at a stat, because there are after all other chances to get one JUST like it, so I don't think that's an apt comparison.

Imagine it's a word code instead of a stat, then. No one else will ever be able to get that perfect Dergs code, but we don't call cave hunters entitled for getting an egg they "happened to click first."

 

4 hours ago, KageSora said:

That is what I consider entitled: the insistence that current play mechanics be 100% completely inverted to make you happy with no regard for people who would be actively made unhappy by the change, because you don't think their enjoyment matters as much as your own.  You signed up for a game with name exclusivity. 

Exactly this. I've said it before in this thread - I don't understand why people will set themselves goals that are incompatible with the site's mechanics, and then insist that the site change to suit those goals rather than the other way around.
I do agree that there's nothing wrong with updating the game to make things nicer for players (I love the new "filter by: Available for Summon" feature!) but that should be for quality of life upgrades like filters and the search bar, not the removal of one of the core mechanics.