Get Rid of Name Exclusivity

[Caliscurum]

20 hours ago, kiramaru7 said:

 

I don't support wiping names of inactive players. I had a friend, who's sadly deceased, and her dragons are named. I would HATE having dragons on my scroll that are gifts from hers, with no names in the lineages. I like to visit her scroll on occasion and I get there by going through my dragons that are related to her scroll. While I'm not sure if her family still plays, I'm sure they look at her scroll & enjoy looking at all her named dragons. How sad would it be for them to look at the scroll & see one of the things that she enjoyed was wiped clean, because someone wanted a name she had.

 

I cannot believe I never thought of a situation like this before, and I'm very grateful to you for sharing it with us. I was leaning in favor of wiping names off old scrolls for a while as a compromise idea to free up unused names, but this convinces me that that can be an absolutely terrible/heartless idea in certain situations and I now see that wiping can really hurt people and damage important parts of the site's past. Mind changed. May your friend's dragons endure for a long, long time. ❤️

[Keileon]

On 7/25/2022 at 3:04 AM, Fuzzbucket said:

The "no -other site" argument` is one of the reasons I pay THIS game and not the other games out there,. THIS game is different from other games. Lang may it remain so.

This is one of the arguments surrounding ANY quality-of-life change in this game that I never understood and strongly dislike.

 

Sure, DC isn't other games. But it has more things unique to it than, frankly, outdated mechanics and restrictions.

 

The way other games handle these things shouldn't mean DC HAS to do it their way, but they aren't irrelevant either. Games gain longevity by adapting to what the playerbase needs, and one of the best ways to do that is... by seeing how other similar games respond to existing issues.

[Cal-ifornia]

I have a bit of a weird argument for name exclusivity, and a way I'd support non exclusivity. I name most of my dragons popular baby names - Jacob, James, Kaylee, Brianna, etc. But I give them a surname, or a title.
Some examples:

https://dragcave.net/lineage/1D3gx

https://dragcave.net/lineage/410BD

https://dragcave.net/lineage/QK6zl

 

And then the nonCBs have keyboard smash names.

https://dragcave.net/lineage/i9SyT

 

I find it fun to create new titles and names for my dragons, and even doing keyboard smashes don't always guarantee the name isn't taken - I can't tell you how many times I've keyboard smashed, changed it to a name, and been satisfied - just to see it taken. But it's part of my experience to find creative ways to get unique names.

 

I would support name exclusivity being gone if there's a popup that replaces the "X" that shows the name isn't unique. That way I could still work out a unique name, but someone else can get the name of one of my dragons. When Jesters were released, for example, I claimed a ton of jester related names. They're currently taken up by my Ash dragons, because I wanted to save those names. But I'd give those names up, free them up for someone else - IF I had the option to find unique names.

[kztory]

I didn't follow through the whole thread, but the parts I went through kept coming to the conclusion that there is no possible compromise.

 

But what if there would be a way to "lock" or "claim" some names to your scroll (let's say it would be some arbitrary number, depending on the trophy - 10 for the bronze, 20 for silver and so on).  That would let anyone to have their special names, but not ALL (or what seems like all) of them would possibly be taken.

 

Heck, it could even be a BSA for a new dragon.

 

I don't know, it definitely is not perfect, but I kind of think it would be so much harder to implement any kind of "all or nothing" solution.

 

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by kztory
EDIT: word

[kiramaru7]

On 7/26/2022 at 3:04 PM, Caliscurum said:

 

I cannot believe I never thought of a situation like this before, and I'm very grateful to you for sharing it with us. I was leaning in favor of wiping names off old scrolls for a while as a compromise idea to free up unused names, but this convinces me that that can be an absolutely terrible/heartless idea in certain situations and I now see that wiping can really hurt people and damage important parts of the site's past. Mind changed. May your friend's dragons endure for a long, long time. ❤️

Thank you for your kind words.  ❤️

 

Honestly, I wouldn't mind sharing names that she had with others. She loved Dark Green/Vine dragons & wanted to create a line with "Wheed" being part of the name like the Thuweds & Dorkfaces. I really need to find my Wheeds & breed them. Back on topic, I'm sure I'm not the only one with this "issue," plus I have over 10K dragons that are named, usually around adulthood, and the thought of coming back to a scroll after being away for whatever reason & finding them ALL unnamed is unthinkable. Sometimes people leave because, maybe they're bored, or it's possible their circumstances have changed & maybe they lost the internet, or they're in the hospital, or a job takes them somewhere where they can't sit & collect dragons, like someone in the armed forces. I would feel very upset if I came back to my scroll & found the names wiped cuz someone wanted to name their dragon "Billy-Bob" & my very first dragon was named that, but NOT anymore. I really believe that sharing names is a better compromise than wiping them. I honestly don't get why people are so enamored with the idea that their dragon should be the only one with a dragon Named "Princess Puffikins." I think dragons should be "known" by their codes as they're unique & the name function should be scroll specific. There's no reason why I should be able to find a particular dragon on someone else's scroll.

[Fuzzbucket]

A thought.....

 

If someone is planning to leave for a reason like that - and knows they plan to - maybe we could have something under account settings - a button for "remove all names" - with lots of warnings and an option to restore them if done within - say - a month ? It wouldn't do everything people want - but it could help ? (And if one of us knows someone who isn't coming back - we could ask them to do it for their scroll ?)

[lovely0331]

I support that name exclusivity be locked to individual scrolls, so that you would be able to use one name only once, but whether others have used it before doesn't matter. (I would also support no name exclusivitiy whatsoever, even within one scroll, but my preference is within-scroll exclusivity.)

Currently, lots of users use misspelled or tweaked names for their dragons, or have ownership tags on them (Doe's First Aeon, xoxo silvery oxox, Glorya Aeriz, etc.). Would those dragons have those names if names weren't site-wide exclusive? My answer is no, people just couldn't name the dragons what they wanted to so they found a way to go around. Even TJ substitued os for 0s with some of his thuweds. And in my opinion, they shouldn't have to do that. They're their dragons. They should be able to name them what they want.

 

Suggestions: (these may have all been suggested before)

 

If fake named dragons are a problem, there could be a blanket ban on using those specific names. Currently, all names already in use wipes out the ink; that comparison list could be shortened to verified thuweds, and maybe include a other well-known dragons like Midas Dorkface, Penk, or Jewel.

 

If the usage of name link to pull up that specific dragon is greatly missed, we could, instead of links, have a general scroll search function. Which, in my opinion, should have been implemented long ago. It would search for dragon name, breed name, and code (which is how the groups/fertility search works at the moment, I think). (I am aware that the search function is discussed in a separate thread, and just wanted to mention it here.)

If there are too many people clamoring for their names to be "special": Somewhere along the thread I saw a suggestion that the name link show all dragons with that name, across various scrolls. If this is implemented, the first dragon to be named that (not the oldest in terms of dragon age) could have a special spot on the top of that list.

 

On name wiping:

 

I don't think names should be wiped. If the scroll isn't burned, I think it should be exactly as the user left it, and if name exclusivity wasn't a thing there would be no reason to wipe names anyway. Personally, returning to the game full of nostalgia after years of inactivity to see all my names wiped - and I did spend hours finding pretty names, all those years ago - wasn't exactly exhilarating. (Not blaming anyone or anything; just stating my thoughts.)

I would support instead an option in the Accounts page that could wipe all names on my scroll, as quoted: with lots of warnings and a password confirmation. Also with a certain time window after confirmation, when the names aren't fully wiped yet and can be cancelled. I think this could be implemented regardless of name exclusivity: right now if I want to clear all my names I'd have to visit each of my dragon's actions page and delete the names, which would be tedious.

14 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

If someone is planning to leave for a reason like that - and knows they plan to - maybe we could have something under account settings - a button for "remove all names" - with lots of warnings and an option to restore them if done within - say - a month ? It wouldn't do everything people want - but it could help ? (And if one of us knows someone who isn't coming back - we could ask them to do it for their scroll ?)

 

[CaptainHarrie]

I'm greatly in favour of removing the name exclusivity and I'm of the opinion a little star indicator would do a lot of heavy lifting for maintaining the prestige of originality with exclusive names, as well as protect against scamming by people trying to trade hashtag #bootleggs (bootleg eggs) of famous lineages as you can then easily see if this is the real or a fake lineage. For example:

 

 

In regards to being able to check if this name is an original name, there already exists a check for this to determine if you can use the name at all, it would just need to be updated to the new star icon instead of using ✔/✘. I don't think this is a concern at all—there's no need to visit named urls to find out if it's already taken, the current check just needs a reskin.

 

In regards to named URLs, /view/n/Cool Original Name would go to the first dragon to be named such, and any other dragons could append the code e.g. /view/n/Cool Original Name/ImoGo, or something to that degree.

 

---

 

In regards to scroll wiping, I'm very against that being brought back I stopped being active on the site in 2011 and while I still pop in occasionally, my dragons names have been lost to time. I had thought this wiping was still in effect, so being that my activity is sporadic I felt like there was no point in me naming 150 dragons if the names were only going to get deleted when I take a break again. I'm glad to hear this is no longer in effect and very much do not wish to see its return

[Stormphoenix42]

I think the star indicator is the first compromise I've seen that I'd actually be happy with. It keeps the visual element, so we could still easily check short lineages for inbreeding without having to use offsite tools, and it would maintain the "prestige" aspect - having a star next to the dragon's name would be pretty cool. (I think it would look nicer after the name, but that's minor.)

I could see this becoming a valuable thing on the hub, too. Some people already ask for named parents, now they might ask for "starred" parents. Building a lineage out of only starred dragons could be fun. On the other hand, it might bother people to have some dragons with stars and some without - maybe viewing/hiding the stars could be a toggle, if it were implemented? Then players who don't care for it could simply ignore it, and it would have no impact on their gameplay, while the rest of us could keep it as a tool.

I do agree that the /n/ link should still go to the first dragon with that name. That way, people who want to find exclusive names can still use the name links, and others can decide if it's more of a hassle to find a unique name or to remember their dragons' codes/bookmark every dragon they want to be able to find quickly/use a detailed group system. Using the star indicator would let you know if you'd be able to use the quick link or not.

(wait, is this just twitter bluechecks for dragons....? 😂 )

Edited to add: I do have one problem with it, though - what happens if someone renames a dragon? Like in the case of Serotina's jester nameholders above? If there's already another dragon with that name, does the star move to that dragon? does the star vanish entirely if there's already another dragon with the name? I also use nameholders frequently to "reserve" names for things that haven't hatched yet, and it would be sad if that meant the intended dragon could never have a star. I guess it's only a problem if someone else has already "taken" that name, which might not come up much for freshly named things, but if you ever wanted to move a name from an older dragon and found someone else had already copied it.... the only thing I could see to fix it would be to keep the star "locked" to that scroll for a certain period of time, maybe a day, before moving it to someone else's scroll. Hopefully no one would bother other users about this, trying to trade stars or get stars "back" after accidentally unnaming a dragon.

 

Edited August 11, 2022 by Stormphoenix42

[CaptainHarrie]

I hadn't thought about reserving names! But those suggestions all sound good to me—I know on Tumblr if you change your URL, there's a cooldown of iirc 24hrs before anyone else can take that URL. I think that could work with the stars too, after 24 hours the star gets transferred to the next dragon with that name unless you give that name to another dragon of yours. I also like the option to disable the stars for people who aren't bothered about it :)

Edited August 11, 2022 by CaptainHarrie
didnt want the emogie!!!

[ACDragonMaster]

I read through a couple pages of this thread, and as someone who's mostly in the "doesn't care" camp, I'm left with one big question: realistically speaking, other than an individual user's feeling of exclusivity, what benefit does continuing to require all named dragons to have unique names confer to the game?  Other than the /n/ urls, which honestly have always been redundant and unnecessary, I cannot think of anything.  The more I've sat and thought about it, the more I start coming to the conclusion that at this point in the game, unique names are, in effect, meaningless other than to extremely subjective individual user experience.

 

In other words, they don't contribute in any consistent manner to the overall game, and as there's more and more users and more and more dragons, it becomes increasingly likely to be a point of frustration, especially to new users.

 

And while sure it's nifty that I have the only white dragon named Gazebo on the site (raise your hand if you get the joke), to be frank that mattered a whole lot more when the userbase and dragon options were smaller and renaming wasn't an option.  Me having claim to that one unique name doesn't in any manner improve my experience with the game as a whole, especially as I get more and more (and more) dragons to attempt to think up names for.

 

Compare this to, say, Pokemon, or almost any other game out there that allows collecting and trading of critters.  Enforcing unique names for each critter is simply not a thing because at the end of the day, it's mostly just sentimentality on the part of the individual player, or a feeling of accomplishment for having 'grabbed' the name first.  None of which really has anything to do with the point and purpose of Dragon Cave.

[KageSora]

2 hours ago, ACDragonMaster said:

Other than the /n/ urls, which honestly have always been redundant and unnecessary

 

Please, do tell what's redundant and unnecessary about direct link to a dragon that is infinitely easier to memorize than case-sensitive alphanumeric gibberish, especially for those of us who have issues with our memory making it impossible to keep that kind of utter gibberish in our brain once we look away from it but we can remember a specific name that we gave something?  Go on, I'd love to know what's unnecessary and redundant about a feature that makes the game more playable and accessible to me and players like me!

[ACDragonMaster]

13 minutes ago, KageSora said:

 

Please, do tell what's redundant and unnecessary about direct link to a dragon that is infinitely easier to memorize than case-sensitive alphanumeric gibberish, especially for those of us who have issues with our memory making it impossible to keep that kind of utter gibberish in our brain once we look away from it but we can remember a specific name that we gave something?  Go on, I'd love to know what's unnecessary and redundant about a feature that makes the game more playable and accessible to me and players like me!

 

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.  Are you saying you always look up your own dragons by using the /n/ links, relying on either having short, memorable names or otherwise memorizing hundreds if not thousands of dragon names?

 

That doesn't sound very accessible to me.

 

There's a suggestion thread for a better fix to the "I can't find the link to my dragon" problem, too, which is searchable scrolls.

[Stormphoenix42]

I don't frequently need to look up thousands of my own dragons, but the memorable ones that I will need to look up... tend to have memorable names, yes.  Others I can put in a group, but if I want to go directly to a certain prize dragon, or a dragon with a pending description, or a dragon I have listed as a potential mate, I know the /n/ link will take me directly to it without having to check "is that an I, an l, or a 1? why isn't anything coming up? oh the second letter was a capital K, let me try again." Similarly, if I want to look up a friend's dragon - I likely have no idea what the code is, and I'm not going to bookmark it, but it's nice to be able to pop over and see if it's bred recently by heading to the /n/ link.  Sometimes I'll write down the code in my spreadsheets if I think I'll change the name later,  but if there's a name listed, I'll almost always try that first. 
 

I'm not sure what the current alternative is. Do you memorize your dragons' codes? Is your group system organized enough that you can find things quickly that way? (Mine certainly isn't - I have too many caveborns to find a particular one quickly, so it's guesswork to get to the right page and then scroll.) 

[Sketch]

Well I'm up to almost 1k unnamed now so it's time to open this thread again.
 

On 8/11/2022 at 10:33 AM, CaptainHarrie said:

I'm greatly in favour of removing the name exclusivity and I'm of the opinion a little star indicator would do a lot of heavy lifting for maintaining the prestige of originality with exclusive names, as well as protect against scamming by people trying to trade hashtag #bootleggs (bootleg eggs) of famous lineages as you can then easily see if this is the real or a fake lineage. For example:

 

 

In regards to being able to check if this name is an original name, there already exists a check for this to determine if you can use the name at all, it would just need to be updated to the new star icon instead of using ✔/✘. I don't think this is a concern at all—there's no need to visit named urls to find out if it's already taken, the current check just needs a reskin.

 

In regards to named URLs, /view/n/Cool Original Name would go to the first dragon to be named such, and any other dragons could append the code e.g. /view/n/Cool Original Name/ImoGo, or something to that degree.

I was hesitant about saying anything regarding this suggestion because I have very mixed feelings on it. On one hand, it seems like a great compromise. If the stars were maybe only visible on the view page and were smaller to avoid clunkiness of the site (imagine progeny pages, large lineages, etc), it could potentially satisfy people who are against ending exclusivity. However, this could also stir up the market in regards to people wanting starred or prestige-name dragons because it's unique or they like the visual effect of the star. This may potentially drive up the value of original names or the value of their offspring, as observed by another user... which is something that doesn't quite sit right with me when we are talking about ending exclusivity.

On 8/11/2022 at 11:22 AM, Stormphoenix42 said:

I could see this becoming a valuable thing on the hub, too. Some people already ask for named parents, now they might ask for "starred" parents.

 

 

12 hours ago, KageSora said:

 

Please, do tell what's redundant and unnecessary about direct link to a dragon that is infinitely easier to memorize than case-sensitive alphanumeric gibberish, especially for those of us who have issues with our memory making it impossible to keep that kind of utter gibberish in our brain once we look away from it but we can remember a specific name that we gave something?  Go on, I'd love to know what's unnecessary and redundant about a feature that makes the game more playable and accessible to me and players like me!

 

11 hours ago, ACDragonMaster said:

 

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.  Are you saying you always look up your own dragons by using the /n/ links, relying on either having short, memorable names or otherwise memorizing hundreds if not thousands of dragon names?

 

That doesn't sound very accessible to me.

 

There's a suggestion thread for a better fix to the "I can't find the link to my dragon" problem, too, which is searchable scrolls.

Definitely agree that searchable scrolls are an easy fix to the issue of being unable to find dragons you want. The /n/ feature's only current purpose regarding our own scrolls is to search for a dragon with a specific name but only if we remember it. I remember a lot of my dragons' names, but typically if I'm trying to find them on my computer (and I know plenty of other people do this) then it's a quick Ctrl+F to locate one. Why not just make it easier on the entire fanbase and just add an in-scroll search function and remove the /n/ link? If that's done, then honestly the only other use for it would be to go and snoop around dragons with specific names or other peoples' scrolls; there's nothing wrong with that, I just don't think it's especially useful when there are other better options. I hadn't heard about that suggestion before - that's great, and if the site were to get a rework then I would be quite happy getting this function if it meant giving up or better-yet seeing adjustments made to /n/, as people have suggested before in the thread such as CaptainHarrie.
 

On 8/11/2022 at 10:33 AM, CaptainHarrie said:

In regards to named URLs, /view/n/Cool Original Name would go to the first dragon to be named such, and any other dragons could append the code e.g. /view/n/Cool Original Name/ImoGo, or something to that degree.

Yes you would still need to memorize the case-sensitive alphanumeric gibberish to look up a dragon, but that's literally a part of the dragon's identification.
 

11 minutes ago, Stormphoenix42 said:

Similarly, if I want to look up a friend's dragon - I likely have no idea what the code is, and I'm not going to bookmark it, but it's nice to be able to pop over and see if it's bred recently by heading to the /n/ link.  Sometimes I'll write down the code in my spreadsheets if I think I'll change the name later,  but if there's a name listed, I'll almost always try that first. 
 

I'm not sure what the current alternative is. Do you memorize your dragons' codes? Is your group system organized enough that you can find things quickly that way? (Mine certainly isn't - I have too many caveborns to find a particular one quickly, so it's guesswork to get to the right page and then scroll.) 

^ This was posted as I'm typing. If you're on a computer, then I recommend going to their scroll on the right page and then using Ctrl+F to search the page. Honestly, I really think that scroll searching and fertility searching are becoming more and more of a good idea. If we can get that, then we would hardly have much use for /n/.

Look, I've been on this site off-and-on since about 2013. It wasn't so bad then, but now there's hundreds of thousands of dragons across this site. There's constantly new users joining and wanting to grow their hoards and give them pretty, silly, personal, or memorable names. There's new lyrical lineages being planned out with all of the gorgeous new things we've gotten over the years, and the owners are meticulously planning how to name each dragon. They can't. I can't. We can't.
I would love to have a naming scheme, and I have one picked out! The issue is that I have to give six thousand dragons this name, and I still have to fight name exclusivity. I'm not in favor of exclusivity within scrolls. I literally would not care if I had two or three dragons amongst my thousands named something like Lord Shrek. Wouldn't care; I picked that name for my dragon, it's hilarious, why does it matter? Exclusivity within scrolls also affects lyrical-lineage makers, poem-makers, joke-writers, and outright general expression of the owner. Maybe make it an option in the account settings if some people really don't want to have repeat names on their own personal scrolls, but across the board I think that name exclusivity needs to go for good with no indications of whether or not a dragon has "an original name".

[Stormphoenix42]

1 hour ago, Sketch said:

I was hesitant about saying anything regarding this suggestion because I have very mixed feelings on it. On one hand, it seems like a great compromise. If the stars were maybe only visible on the view page and were smaller to avoid clunkiness of the site (imagine progeny pages, large lineages, etc), it could potentially satisfy people who are against ending exclusivity. However, this could also stir up the market in regards to people wanting starred or prestige-name dragons because it's unique or they like the visual effect of the star. This may potentially drive up the value of original names or the value of their offspring, as observed by another user... which is something that doesn't quite sit right with me when we are talking about ending exclusivity.

I think having the added value is a good compromise. From what I've seen, the prestige is something that really only matters to the pro-exclusivity folks - most of the people pushing to open things up are more concerned about convenience or their personal projects. There's always going to be people on the hub looking for arbitrary naming conventions like "no tags" or "no gen markers" or "nicely named" (whatever that means). This would just be an optional thing for players that enjoy the prestige element. I think Harrie and I both agree that players who don't care about it should be able to turn it off.  (And adding stars wouldn't make it any harder to get original names - it might actually be easier for a bit as people rename their old dragons to things that have now become unexclusive. Anyone who wanted a starred name would be able to get one as easily as naming a dragon under the current system.)

 

1 hour ago, Sketch said:

Definitely agree that searchable scrolls are an easy fix to the issue of being unable to find dragons you want. The /n/ feature's only current purpose regarding our own scrolls is to search for a dragon with a specific name but only if we remember it. I remember a lot of my dragons' names, but typically if I'm trying to find them on my computer (and I know plenty of other people do this) then it's a quick Ctrl+F to locate one.
------
If you're on a computer, then I recommend going to their scroll on the right page and then using Ctrl+F to search the page. Honestly, I really think that scroll searching and fertility searching are becoming more and more of a good idea. If we can get that, then we would hardly have much use for /n/.

I would love it if we had searchable scrolls. Huge support for that suggestion. But it's been suggested for years, and until we have it (or at least some indication that it's in the works), we can't treat it as if it were already here.

Ctrl+f is great if you know which page a dragon is on. I usually don't. I can get there with some trial and error (or just searching every page if the user is sorting by anything other than breed...) but it's much clunkier than just going straight to the /n/. 

 

1 hour ago, Sketch said:

I would be quite happy getting this function if it meant giving up or better-yet seeing adjustments made to /n/, as people have suggested before in the thread such as CaptainHarrie.

I like this version of the /n/ link, but only if there's something to tell you if you'll be able to use the simple link or not. That's why I think there should be some kind of indicator, like the star. If my computer's going to autofill the link, I want it to go to the right dragon every time. If I accidentally name two dragons "Captain Bob", I'll have to go sort by name or something to track down the second one to change it. I know there's plenty of people in this thread who wouldn't be bothered by something like that, but there's plenty of people who would be, too.

 

[Fuzzbucket]

17 hours ago, ACDragonMaster said:

I read through a couple pages of this thread, and as someone who's mostly in the "doesn't care" camp, I'm left with one big question: realistically speaking, other than an individual user's feeling of exclusivity, what benefit does continuing to require all named dragons to have unique names confer to the game?  Other than the /n/ urls, which honestly have always been redundant and unnecessary, I cannot think of anything.  The more I've sat and thought about it, the more I start coming to the conclusion that at this point in the game, unique names are, in effect, meaningless other than to extremely subjective individual user experience.

 

In other words, they don't contribute in any consistent manner to the overall game, and as there's more and more users and more and more dragons, it becomes increasingly likely to be a point of frustration, especially to new users.

 

And while sure it's nifty that I have the only white dragon named Gazebo on the site (raise your hand if you get the joke), to be frank that mattered a whole lot more when the userbase and dragon options were smaller and renaming wasn't an option.  Me having claim to that one unique name doesn't in any manner improve my experience with the game as a whole, especially as I get more and more (and more) dragons to attempt to think up names for.

 

Compare this to, say, Pokemon, or almost any other game out there that allows collecting and trading of critters.  Enforcing unique names for each critter is simply not a thing because at the end of the day, it's mostly just sentimentality on the part of the individual player, or a feeling of accomplishment for having 'grabbed' the name first.  None of which really has anything to do with the point and purpose of Dragon Cave.

 

14 hours ago, KageSora said:

 

Please, do tell what's redundant and unnecessary about direct link to a dragon that is infinitely easier to memorize than case-sensitive alphanumeric gibberish, especially for those of us who have issues with our memory making it impossible to keep that kind of utter gibberish in our brain once we look away from it but we can remember a specific name that we gave something?  Go on, I'd love to know what's unnecessary and redundant about a feature that makes the game more playable and accessible to me and players like me!

 

14 hours ago, ACDragonMaster said:

 

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.  Are you saying you always look up your own dragons by using the /n/ links, relying on either having short, memorable names or otherwise memorizing hundreds if not thousands of dragon names?

 

Actually - yes. In combo with a database.

 

14 hours ago, ACDragonMaster said:

 

That doesn't sound very accessible to me.

 

There's a suggestion thread for a better fix to the "I can't find the link to my dragon" problem, too, which is searchable scrolls.

 

We effectively have those, if people take the trouble to filter.

[Sketch]

46 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

We effectively have those, if people take the trouble to filter.

But a filter is not the same as a specific name-based search function. A filter is used to look for a specific collection of things such as dragons available for Breeding or a BSA, or a list of dragons that is easily accessible from the Groups page too.

If I take the trouble to filter, then I'm not going to find my Tinsel unless I have her in a specific group or unless she happens to be on the front page. If I search for her though with a new possible search function, I can find her immediately.

[Fuzzbucket]

And I bet you know her name anyway.

[KageSora]

20 hours ago, ACDragonMaster said:

 

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.  Are you saying you always look up your own dragons by using the /n/ links, relying on either having short, memorable names or otherwise memorizing hundreds if not thousands of dragon names?

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.  Oh, I don't keep hundreds or thousands of names in my memory at once--but when I work on lineages I work on a handful or three of specific pairs and it's very easy to keep a couple dozen or so names in my memory that I go to week after week after week while I try to get the correct eggs for my lineage.  Meanwhile there is no way in heck that I am gonna be able to keep several dozen randomly generated alphanumeric case-sensitive codes in mind.  It's also very easy to remember specific names of specific dragons that are very important and special to me.

 

Please, do tell me what's more accessible about memorizing hundreds if not thousands of codes?

[Skadi]

The usefulness of the /n/ function wouldn't be required if we had a decent search function, which should be implemented regardless of name exclusivity. Decent ux/ui design should be implemented regardless of whatever decision comes here. No, groups are not a proper response to bad scroll design.

 

To respond to the person whose friend died: I'm sorry for your loss, but so long as name exclusivity exists, I'm against inactive accounts keeping names for any reason. If we got rid of exclusivity, I wouldn't care about purging names because it wouldn't be necessary.

[bonvoyage]

Honestly while I've posted in support of keeping name exclusivity before, having thought about it more since then, I also reckon one of the best compromises is to remove name exclusivity but implement some kind of symbol next to the name on the scroll/dragon page showing that that dragon was the first to be named it's particular name. People who like name exclusivity because it promotes creativity and makes dragons feel more 'special' could simply go for a scroll which has only dragons with the symbol, and personally I wouldn't be bothered at all by the existence of dragons with the same names as mine which were named later, I just don't want to lose the challenge of coming up with original names.

Edited August 20, 2022 by bonvoyage

[Fuzzbucket]

9 hours ago, KageSora said:

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.  Oh, I don't keep hundreds or thousands of names in my memory at once--but when I work on lineages I work on a handful or three of specific pairs and it's very easy to keep a couple dozen or so names in my memory that I go to week after week after week while I try to get the correct eggs for my lineage.  Meanwhile there is no way in heck that I am gonna be able to keep several dozen randomly generated alphanumeric case-sensitive codes in mind.  It's also very easy to remember specific names of specific dragons that are very important and special to me.

 

Please, do tell me what's more accessible about memorizing hundreds if not thousands of codes?

 

What KageSora said. I agree 100% - I DO search by /n/ - it's easy.

[Tawanda001]

1 hour ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

What KageSora said. I agree 100% - I DO search by /n/ - it's easy.

So, it's more about convenience than about actual exclusiveness? If a system was implemented that was just as easy to use then it would be okay to do away with exclusive names?

[Fuzzbucket]

If I could be certain sure that when I search for /n/ NO other dragon by that name would show up but MINE, and that mine wouldn't get stars or such nonsense attached to its name, I could live with it. I do actually like exclusivity for its own sake; I think it's fun scrabbling for unused names, but I reallse others disagree.