Expand drake breeding group

[Fuzzbucket]

OK.

 

But I have NEVER said drakes are unloved. I make drake checkers, I love them so.

 

https://dragcave.net/lineage/pTCHB

https://dragcave.net/lineage/DCYpp

https://dragcave.net/lineage/0Y4ye

https://dragcave.net/lineage/2MlX0

https://dragcave.net/lineage/9b608

https://dragcave.net/lineage/sPkoy

https://dragcave.net/lineage/gcOXF

 

They're just fine as they are.

[Murkydepths]

I love drakes too, especially tatters and vryemas. I wish I had more options to breed nice lineages and I don't really want to wait another 5 years for 6 more drakes.

[MissK.]

I never understood the point of "DC drakes", it's a completely made up distinction, unlike all other dragon types that have some basis on real terms. It just seems weirdly limiting and I don't make lineages with drakes either because of it, so I can see where this suggestion is coming from. However, at this point I don't know if it's a good idea to undo all that. Changing lore and the descriptions of all existing drake species to fix the intelligence thing might give issues with copyright, and changing sprites would definitely do so. Plus any concepts in progress would have to be reworked as well, then probably re-approved etc...it's a bit of a convoluted process from what I understand.

 

While I wish the distinction of drakes had never existed, I don't know if it's possible - or better said, worth the effort - to change the whole system at this point. 

[Ruby Eyes]

32 minutes ago, MissK. said:

real terms

Um. Sure. We're still talking about mythical creatures here, no?

 

I do love Drakes. I do love the limitations of their group even though right now it's a bit too limited still.

However, I don't think throwing 200 other breeds at them won't really do them any good.

[Razalin]

Drakes have really limited color options for appeal: with browns and tans/yellows, blues and greens (plus black) being pretty much all you got. Not very diverse, no matter how pretty the sprites themselves are (and they are!). Pygmies and 2-Headeds have *way* more color options.

I think if there was an actual effort to release more and especially more different colors/themes of them, they'd appeal to lots more people eventually. Then they wouldn't need to be able to breed with 'normals'.

Personally, I was not excited for the last 2 Drake releases, because the Pseudo has a similiar color-scheme to the Howler just more muted and the Vremya is green when we already had 2 greens. Imagine the Vremya in Red/Purple/Multicolor, that would've been something! But really, browns and tans just don't appeal to *a lot* of people in collecting/breeding games and this group has a lot of that.

[MissK.]

54 minutes ago, Ruby Eyes said:

Um. Sure. We're still talking about mythical creatures here, no?

 

I do love Drakes. I do love the limitations of their group even though right now it's a bit too limited still.

However, I don't think throwing 200 other breeds at them won't really do them any good.

 

Yeah perhaps real wasn't the best word. Commonly used terms? As in, an amphiptere is a thing that "exists" outside of DC, not as a real creature of course but as a concept. Same goes for lindwyrm, wyrm etc.

 

But I kind of agree with the rest. Right now drakes are not at their best, but it seems better to try and expand their own breeding pool instead of changing the lore to fit them into something else.

[Murkydepths]

What do drakes have that make them worthy of a breeding group? Suggestions is for ideas to improve the site - it being how it's always been done isn't much of an argument. 

[MissK.]

Generally I agree with that, but as multiple people have mentioned, in this case changing it would require reworking a bunch of existing concepts. Changing something about one single dragon has been a huge issue in the past when the spriters were inactive etc.

[Fuzzbucket]

2 hours ago, Razalin said:

Drakes have really limited color options for appeal: with browns and tans/yellows, blues and greens (plus black) being pretty much all you got. Not very diverse, no matter how pretty the sprites themselves are (and they are!). Pygmies and 2-Headeds have *way* more color options.

I think if there was an actual effort to release more and especially more different colors/themes of them, they'd appeal to lots more people eventually. Then they wouldn't need to be able to breed with 'normals'.

Personally, I was not excited for the last 2 Drake releases, because the Pseudo has a similiar color-scheme to the Howler just more muted and the Vremya is green when we already had 2 greens. Imagine the Vremya in Red/Purple/Multicolor, that would've been something! But really, browns and tans just don't appeal to *a lot* of people in collecting/breeding games and this group has a lot of that.

 

They don't need to be able to breed with "normals". Some people just want them to which isn't the same thing.

 

There are quite a few regular dragons I dislike. So I don't breed them. If that's the way people feel about their drakes, ignore them and play with the dragons you do like. As they stand they appeal to plenty of people.

 

1 hour ago, Murkydepths said:

What do drakes have that make them worthy of a breeding group? Suggestions is for ideas to improve the site - it being how it's always been done isn't much of an argument. 

 

Well, the fact that their creators designed them to be a part of a separate breeding group would be one thing...

[Charu]

I personally never understood the point of the Drake breeding group. I also think I'm going crazy, but I think I remember at least Ocredrakes having the same egg sprite size as typical Dragons? I feel as if the Drake breeding group was abolished, we would need to double-look the Two-headed breeding group then. And what about Pygmies? I've always wondered about them as well... why are Mints part of the Dragon breeding group, but they are clearly Pygmy sized? The breeding groups are very illogical to me. While I'd be personally in favor of a full revamp of breeding groups from the ground up because DC is really freakin' old and even back in 2008 when I first joined, stuff wasn't always intentionally structured. I mean, old DC was literally copyrighted recolors that needed artists to conceptualize and revamp the originals. 

 

So with that in mind, the idea of expanding the Drake breeding group or merging it isn't necessarily a bad idea, but the wishes of the creators are held highly. Something like this might require asking the creators what they want. Not all of them might be down for this and it would either lead to the breeding group being shrank even further or some people being very unhappy as site changes go against their wishes. What about creators that aren't contactable anymore? 

 

Also if there's a mass change that makes creators unhappy, what if it leads to a repeat of what happened to the Frilled dragons years ago? It wasn't until years after their un-release and the wounds had time to heal that Lythiaren reversed that decision. I'm very glad the decision was reversed because the firestorm of drama leading to the situation was so absurd. I loved the Frilled dragon and it upset me with how people were treating Lythiaren over ratios being typical ratios, thus super finicky. Unless something changed, I don't see why it's unreasonable to assume that creators being upset could lead to another similar situation...

[High Lord November]

3 hours ago, Murkydepths said:

What do drakes have that make them worthy of a breeding group? Suggestions is for ideas to improve the site - it being how it's always been done isn't much of an argument. 

 

It adds a bit of diversity and lore to dragcave. I like having drakes, and it's the only way we can have more animalistic (intelligence-wise) dragons. The definition of "worthy" is a very weird word to use. I don't see what the cave would gain from completely retrofitting drakes to be full dragons (basically just adding a few dragons to the breeding pool of 200+), and I think the cave would lose some diversity if they were removed.

Edited February 13, 2021 by High Lord November

[Guillotine]

Drakes do have a problem with a lack of color choices (I remember being DELIGHTED when the Glaucus were added bc it meant there was Anything But Brown), but I'd much rather the issue be fixed by adding more drakes.

[Moonlightelf]

I have to agree with anyone mentioning the lack of choice in color when it comes to drakes. They are not as vibrant in the spectrum as one could hope... But I could see some good hybrids coming from couple of them. Day + Night Glory = Dawn/Twilight. Or Honey drake with Morphodrake... *hinthintwinkwink* But that would be more towards the Dragon Requests.

 

@Charu You're not being crazy, they used to have the same egg sprite size as the regular ones. In addition of Ochredrakes, the following also had the regular sized egg before the change in 2016: Howler, Greater Spotted, Glaucus and Night/Day Glory.

 

@Murkydepths Drakes had few guidelines that were there before there were updates to it (as recorded here in wiki). These previous guidelines mentioned that the drakes "tend to never forget training", even if it took a long time. This brings implication that drakes could be tamed and trained to be pets. Majority of regular dragons would never stoop as low level as drakes in that regard. They may be friendly to humans, sure, but you are not going to play fetch with them.

Another worthy mention of the previous guidelines would be that drakes actually shed their antlers bi-annually. I'm not sure why this was removed, but I personally think it as pretty neat bit of trivia.

Also... Heartseeker wouldn't work as candidate for Drakes. The forelimb that has been lifted clearly displays a thumb, which is something drakes don't have.

 

If there really was any need to demolish the drakes from being their own group, I wouldn't see them being merged with the regular breeding group. If we wanted to stay somewhat true to lore in regards of size, I would combine them with the pygmies, which generally are referred to be same size scale as domesticated animals (common pygmy has been referenced as the smallest pygmy in DC, being the size of a house cat). The drakes as well have been referred to be size of large dogs lore wise at the lower end of it (as answered by TJ here as well). In previous guidelines (as stated in wiki), they are stated to be "between size of a cat and as big as a husky". With this, we probably don't need to even revise the size of the egg to reflect this. Making them cousins to pygmies or something... I wouldn't be sure of the details personally, just something I wanted to throw into consideration.

 

As for Mint dragons that some people said should be a pygmy, I recall mentions of them being size of a car. I might be wrong in that regard though (though I have weird habit of remembering bizarre trivias of games I love).

Edited February 13, 2021 by Moonlightelf
Typoes/grammar

[Murkydepths]

Restrictive breeding groups for the sake of diversity? Arbitrary restrictions just make the game worse for me, this is a collecting and breeding game after all. Having less to do with my dragons is not a merit, especially when it doesn't come with any sort of trade off. Pygmies are cute and small, two-headed's are unique. Drakes are the same as every other dragon. I wouldn't mind 2 or 3 breeding groups, but drakes just aren't interesting enough to merit one. Just because that decision was made a long time ago, doesn't mean it can't be reversed.

[camelia2]

The less limitation to play the game how I Want, the better!

Suport! All gor you, my precious unapreciatrd Glaucus 😢

 

And present guidelines for dragon species are a mess. I still ask myself how is Mint a DRAGON or how they breed with Colossus for example....😂

 

(Also it would be really cool if a dragon hybrid would grow to be a 2 headed, opening a gate to dragon-2 head breeding)

[aegagrusScholarship]

7 hours ago, Ruby Eyes said:

I agree with @Moonlightelf as well, especially on the observations of "What do Drakes lack that the other groups have?"

Granted, I may be quite a minority to be enjoying breeding projects like this:

https://dragcave.net/lineage/AjR5c (one of EVERY Pygmy sprite in existence right now, and ONLY ONE)

 

Oh hey! I own one of the misbreed offspring to that lineage! https://dragcave.net/view/QMwdu says hi. Ignore the name, she's holding it for later.

 

Anyways. I'm on the fence about expanding breeding groups. I honestly think they're not too bad as a concept, but the real issue here is the lack of diversity in breeding groups that aren't normal dragons. It'd probably be less of a problem if there were more variety in drake/pygmy/2-head dragons.

On the other hand, I would love to breed some of my special dragons freely, most of which are pygmies and two-heads. It stings to have a lack of options for the dragons I actually care about. 

[pinkgothic]

If I recall correctly, the initial old argument for keeping Drakes separate was the low intelligence trait and consequently not wanting to imply bestiality. If their intelligence was indeed tweaked as suggested, presumably that problem would go away.

 

Independent of that observation (I personally am not fussed about it): I'm very mildly in favour of this suggestion. I definitely don't oppose the demolition of the barrier between Drake and Dragon breeding, but I don't have any burning urge to see this implemented, either. I do see quite a few people in this thread enthusiastic about the prospect, though, and other people's enthusiasm often nudges me toward supporting a proposal - and is doing so here.

[KrazyKarp]

I'm kind of confused at the amount of no support for this. It's not a bad thing, of course, I'm just confused.

 

I mentioned before that lore is only selectively applied to breeding For example, Mint x Plated Colossus makes just as much sense (or rather, lack of sense) as Ochredrake x Sandwaste lore-wise, both have different reasons for not making sense, but they're both not logical. Numerous dragons would never breed with each other due to behavioral differences, too. Nevermind the fact that there's multiple inconsistencies between lore and game mechanics anyway.

 

Here's my questions: why should we continue to selectively apply lore to drake (and pygmy, and two-headed) breeding, but not to other breeding and features of the site? It seems arbitrary to pluck out restricted breeding groups to keep consistent with lore and mechanics when many other things do not.

[High Lord November]

That's because of the history of the game, and the fact it's a game.

 

Drakes were established from the beginning as a separate species that couldn't breed with dragons. Technically we could have had it so only wyverns would breed with wyverns, amphitheres with amphitheres... but it's not possible now, because that would make a stunning amount of lineages suddenly ineligible, and it would make breeding way more complex and limited overall. I'm happy having the three special breeding groups we have at the moment, even if they are limited. Removing the drake breeding group wouldn't add anything to the game, and it's unlikely that any other unique breeding pools would be added ever again, so why cull the ones we already have?

Edited February 13, 2021 by High Lord November

[KrazyKarp]

47 minutes ago, High Lord November said:

That's because of the history of the game, and the fact it's a game.

 

Drakes were established from the beginning as a separate species that couldn't breed with dragons. Technically we could have had it so only wyverns would breed with wyverns, amphitheres with amphitheres... but it's not possible now, because that would make a stunning amount of lineages suddenly ineligible, and it would make breeding way more complex and limited overall.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting your post, but I'm not really seeing any supporting arguments, just statements of how things currently work. Just because something happened previously in DC history does not exclude it from any change. We've seen this many times, from the addition of trophies to the return of CB holidays and such. But again, I'm not completely sure I'm interpreting this part of your post correctly.

 

55 minutes ago, High Lord November said:

I'm happy having the three special breeding groups we have at the moment, even if they are limited. Removing the drake breeding group wouldn't add anything to the game, and it's unlikely that any other unique breeding pools would be added ever again, so why cull the ones we already have?

This is more of an opinion piece, and of course your opinion is completely valid! I just disagree, I think it would add to the game. The fact that removing the restricted breeding pools opens the doors to more lineage possibilities adds quite a lot to the game in my opinion.

[HeatherMarie]

6 hours ago, High Lord November said:

 

It adds a bit of diversity and lore to dragcave. I like having drakes, and it's the only way we can have more animalistic (intelligence-wise) dragons. The definition of "worthy" is a very weird word to use. I don't see what the cave would gain from completely retrofitting drakes to be full dragons (basically just adding a few dragons to the breeding pool of 200+), and I think the cave would lose some diversity if they were removed.

 

Agree with this. Honestly the whole idea that Drakes aren't 'worthy'/don't deserve/aren't special enough to be their own breeding group is very strange and not at all universal. That is very much an opinion thing, not any sort of fact based on actual Drake descriptions/lore/etc. I also think Drakes would lose some of the appeal they do have if they were just tossed into the normal 200-ish-breed pool. Then there *definitely* wouldn't be anything special/unique about them, they'd just be more regular average dragons. We have plenty of those.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, KrazyKarp said:

I'm kind of confused at the amount of no support for this. It's not a bad thing, of course, I'm just confused.

 

I mentioned before that lore is only selectively applied to breeding For example, Mint x Plated Colossus makes just as much sense (or rather, lack of sense) as Ochredrake x Sandwaste lore-wise, both have different reasons for not making sense, but they're both not logical. Numerous dragons would never breed with each other due to behavioral differences, too. Nevermind the fact that there's multiple inconsistencies between lore and game mechanics anyway.

 

Here's my questions: why should we continue to selectively apply lore to drake (and pygmy, and two-headed) breeding, but not to other breeding and features of the site? It seems arbitrary to pluck out restricted breeding groups to keep consistent with lore and mechanics when many other things do not.

 

This is a very good point, so I'll explain my outlook on this: Breeding on DC *is* illogical and weird in many ways. The Mint/Colossus is a great example. Also the fact you can breed pacifist/'good' dragons with murderous/evil dragons (if they are intelligent creatures wouldn't they refuse to go near such opposites?). And the Pumpkin being a pygmy despite it's sprite-size. 

 

What I don't understand or agree with is changing Drakes and only Drakes. If the arguments here are more breeding opportunities, just eliminate different breeding groups altogether (or make more Drake concepts!). If the arguments are selective lore and/or drakes not being different enough to be a separate group, fix the lore and make it all consistent. ALL of it. Not just Drakes. Either different body types and intelligence can breed together or they can't, full-stop. Either make everything breedable together or separate everything. 

 

I'm not so much against this suggestion per-se, but more against the idea that Drakes are the Big Issue here.

 

 

[DragonLady86]

Reworking the lore to make more groups would be worse. Mints aren't the only small regular dragons anymore. Sweetlings are smaller than mints. And i don't know how big Stripes are supposed to be but it cant be very much if their diet is mainly insects.

 

To be honest i never understood the drake distinction in the first place. It doesn't match lore anywhere else, something that dc normally tries to keep in mind. It was literally ONE person decided this is a new definition that I made up and TJ decided to implement for whatever reason. And at the time it was for one breed, that said artist wanted to be special. That was the only reason. But is the ochedrake actually different than other dragons at the time? I can only assume the idea was to get the very plain, (boring imo) Sprite more attention amongst all the more colorful ones. And, it honestly backfired. Yes, some people collected them, but many avoided because of that completely arbitrary restriction.  Its just yet another example of a mechanic that never should have happened in the first place.

[Silverwatermist]

I feel like one of the main, important points has been ignored or glossed over whenever it was touched on in this thread, which is: In order to remove the Drake breeding group and change the lore for all Drakes, wouldn't you need to obtain permission from every single artist/concept creator who made every single Drake, due to art contracts? Correct me if I'm wrong or off, but doesn't that mean that trying to change this would come to a screeching halt if even a single artist/creator said "No, I designed these sprites with certain lore in mind and I want it kept that way"? Because the lore for Drakes right now isn't just "they have animal-level intelligence and Dragons don't", but also includes that they don't interbreed. It's not only a game mechanic, it's part of the lore that artists built their concepts around, so they would have to agree to revamp their work/to let it be revamped to fit new lore, right?

 If so, I think we should hear from some site artists on this. If not, and my assumptions are wrong, then what WOULD hypothetically have to happen to make this change? I feel like this thread is going in circles without addressing this aspect.

And for the record, I like Drakes and their breeding group, but if it changed, I'd get used to that too... I do understand people wanting to do lineages with them + regular dragons (I'd certainly join in on that if it was an option) but in games, books, comics, etc, there are allowed to be limitations, world rules, and distinctions that simply fit the creator's vision with no other justification beyond "it simply is". You are also allowed to not enjoy those limits or wish they were different and discuss it! But for me right now, I simply see Drakes as part of the world-building for DC, which I have no claim on what's right or wrong in, so I just accept it as normal for this dragon world and in the meantime, I hope more Drakes will be released.

[Murkydepths]

6 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

What I don't understand or agree with is changing Drakes and only Drakes. If the arguments here are more breeding opportunities, just eliminate different breeding groups altogether (or make more Drake concepts!). If the arguments are selective lore and/or drakes not being different enough to be a separate group, fix the lore and make it all consistent. ALL of it. Not just Drakes. Either different body types and intelligence can breed together or they can't, full-stop. Either make everything breedable together or separate everything. 

 

I'm not so much against this suggestion per-se, but more against the idea that Drakes are the Big Issue here.

 

 

 

The reason I picked drakes for this is because of all the breeding groups, Drakes have nothing that sets them aside visually that regular dragons do not have. Truthfully, I'd like it if two-headed's could also breed with regular dragons, but they have slightly more of a reason to be a separate breeding group since all of the group has two heads which no regular dragon has. Pygmies have a much smaller sprite style (aside from pumpkins, which are super old) which gives them a visual reason to be in a special group, and they wouldn't be terribly effective for lineages with regular dragons anyways because of the size disparity. Plus - pygmies are super cute, so people will adore them regardless of restrictions. I'm suggesting drakes (and maybe two headeds in the future...) get merged with regular dragons so they get MORE love. Right now for the Drakes, being special is actually a hinderance. People keep referencing regular dragons as if they're below the other breeding groups because they're numerous, when they're actually the most popular form. 

[Moonlightelf]

38 minutes ago, Murkydepths said:

I'm suggesting drakes (and maybe two headeds in the future...) get merged with regular dragons so they get MORE love.

Merging them with the largest breeding group doesn't guarantee the love. When was the last time one actually meant to breed Water Walkers? Or Waterhorses? Whiptails? Albinoes? Blacktips? Or any other somewhat forgotten dragon that is in the pool of 258 options because we got something new, prettier and popular? Sure they would gain love for a moment out of excitement, but then some of the sprites would go to void of semi-forgotten dragons because they are not "enough pretty".