ANSWERED:allow props on concepted Drake sprites/domesticated drakes

[KrazyKarp]

This isn't really a big deal either way in my opinion. As long as the item fits the lore of the dragon, I don't care about whether the sprite includes an item or not, so I'm neutral. However, the fundamental idea of this is that if we allowed drakes to have an item/prop that's less restricted than what non-drakes can have, they'll be more loved and popular. I don't think this idea would accomplish that purpose.

 

What would be more productive is getting more drakes in-cave.

[Windy]

I think it would be fun too, why not? 

[Shadowdrake]

I imagine part of the problem with few drakes being released is nobody wants to draw drakes. Why would anyone choose to limit themselves to designing something that is fundamentally a Western dragon but with far, far more restrictive gameplay? Lore doesn't mean anything in the long run. A large number of dragons and drakes don't have any more info than a paragraph blurb that could easily be changed at a whim on conception.

I've heard an in-cave artist mention that they regret making a drake a drake because there were so few drakes to breed with it, not to mention sprites that are conceived as drakes but are offered up or repurposed as westerns instead.

 

Making drakes optionally special as an incentive to make more drakes is a good idea, and people who say drakes are fine as-is misunderstand this very basic cause and effect circle of not having more drakes because creating drakes is unrewarding.

[High Lord November]

I disagree that drakes aren't fun to make. The limitations make them more fun and interesting - there are just fewer of them so people don't automatically think of them for a concept, and most organically-thought dragons probably don't immediately fall under the drake archetype. Honestly for me I've realized that all my DR concepts would be better as drakes. It isn't the first thing I thought of, but with some encouragement I think more people would gladly suggest more drakes. DR could even have a certain number of active spots reserved for drake, pygmy, and two headed dragons to encourage better distribution.

 

As a side note, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to seeing the drake body type expanded to include different limb configurations. We have a pseudo-wyvern drake, but I could see other drakes evolving out vestigal limbs - like having lyndwyrm drakes and wingless drakes, as long as they still have the horns, no thumbs, intelligence, and general sizing.

Edited February 18, 2021 by High Lord November

[HeatherMarie]

48 minutes ago, Shadowdrake said:

I imagine part of the problem with few drakes being released is nobody wants to draw drakes. Why would anyone choose to limit themselves to designing something that is fundamentally a Western dragon but with far, far more restrictive gameplay? Lore doesn't mean anything in the long run. A large number of dragons and drakes don't have any more info than a paragraph blurb that could easily be changed at a whim on conception.

I've heard an in-cave artist mention that they regret making a drake a drake because there were so few drakes to breed with it, not to mention sprites that are conceived as drakes but are offered up or repurposed as westerns instead.

 

Making drakes optionally special as an incentive to make more drakes is a good idea, and people who say drakes are fine as-is misunderstand this very basic cause and effect circle of not having more drakes because creating drakes is unrewarding.

 

But is the cause/effect circle actually because people don't *like* making drake concepts, or just because not many people *do* make them because it's well-known that they have a limited breeding pool and some people don't even collect them because of that? I understand what you are saying, but it seems to be a no-win concept. If creating drakes is 'unrewarding' because of the limited breeding pool, but we *need* more drakes created in order to fix the issue of a limited breeding pool... What to do?

 

Just to clarify, I don't disagree with the idea of making new drakes more diversified and special in different ways to maybe kick up more interest in them. I just don't think props will actually accomplish that (just as others have posted). Props are nothing more than a random item somehow fit into the sprite, it's not going to do anything to address the 'limited breeding pool' issue. I think other things could help in the long run, like a few drake hybrids and maybe some variation in concepts/sprites (I personally think drakes in general could use a lot more color diversity, all current drakes are rather muted in color except for the bright green Vremya). I just don't see how this idea of adding props actually helps the issues we have *now*, unless there are a ton of spriters who would jump at drake concepts if they could use props in the sprite. So far I don't actually see any reason to believe that.

[Murkydepths]

Well I'll throw my hat in as someone who would bump up my drake concepts higher up my to-do list if I could make some of the ones I've listed in the first post. I imagine if anyone has a concept that needed an item to really work (eg hoard dragon) they would then actually be able to submit it as a drake and it actually have a chance in cave.

 

Right now my problem with drakes is everyone I design one I think 'well this could just be a regular dragon, and then it'd be better received' so why shouldn't I make it a regular dragon? 

[Jazeki]

59 minutes ago, Murkydepths said:

Well I'll throw my hat in as someone who would bump up my drake concepts higher up my to-do list if I could make some of the ones I've listed in the first post. I imagine if anyone has a concept that needed an item to really work (eg hoard dragon) they would then actually be able to submit it as a drake and it actually have a chance in cave.

 

Right now my problem with drakes is everyone I design one I think 'well this could just be a regular dragon, and then it'd be better received' so why shouldn't I make it a regular dragon? 

This seems like a decision and not necessarily a problem. There are plenty of drakes being worked on in public suggestions right now. If people want more, they can make them.

 

Also, if a dragon concept really needs an item to work, TJ and artists will probably encourage the person to rework the request rather than using "but it's a drake" as a loophole to get around the no items rule.

[HeatherMarie]

37 minutes ago, Jazeki said:

This seems like a decision and not necessarily a problem. There are plenty of drakes being worked on in public suggestions right now. If people want more, they can make them.

 

Also, if a dragon concept really needs an item to work, TJ and artists will probably encourage the person to rework the request rather than using "but it's a drake" as a loophole to get around the no items rule.

 

Agreed.

 

Also, I can't really think of a dragon/drake concept that would *need* an item in order to work. The example of a hoard dragon isn't a great one, we already have plenty of breeds specifically said to hoard shinies in their descriptions/encyclopedia, that doesn't mean they *need* to actually have the shinies in their sprite in order to work or be interesting. I definitely agree, based on watching the DR section for so many years, that any concept that 'needs' an item to 'work' probably isn't going to be DC-level quality regardless. Adding an item doesn't automatically make a concept better or more interesting, and I can't think of any possible concept that would *need* an item to work unless it's just not fleshed out and detailed enough to begin with. 

 

edit: I want to be clear I'm not putting down spriters/conceptors who might think an item would add a little something to the sprite. I don't agree there, but that's not the point. Even if items *were* allowed in sprites, a concept that *needs* an item in order to 'work' probably wouldn't be accepted. DC is very lore-driven, we have this whole world built on mostly text, we have dragons with very specific personalities and dragons that are said to hoard/use specific things, etc etc. DR is a very strict place, honestly, and the bar is pretty high on what will be accepted in-cave at this point. A concept that can't stand on it's own without an 'item' probably isn't there.

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by HeatherMarie

[Keileon]

To speak of the examples, why do they have to be items? The lanterns could be replaced with glowing Mana in the antlers, the fish could be replaced with a natural lure on the tail. There are ways to do most of these ideas with a natural feature of the drake, meaning one wouldn't have to hope they can circumvent the "no props" rule for concepts and sprites.

 

It would make them work as CBs as well, as they wouldn't necessarily have to be bred for the purpose, just domesticated and trained for it, which are different things.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Keileon

[Shadowdrake]

2 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

But is the cause/effect circle actually because people don't *like* making drake concepts, or just because not many people *do* make them because it's well-known that they have a limited breeding pool and some people don't even collect them because of that? I understand what you are saying, but it seems to be a no-win concept. If creating drakes is 'unrewarding' because of the limited breeding pool, but we *need* more drakes created in order to fix the issue of a limited breeding pool... What to do?

Does it matter which reason is the initial problem? They lead into each other because having a limited breeding pool = low popularity = low positive feedback = less people being inspired by drakes enough to draw them despite the low breeding pool and restrictions = few DC-standard art drakes in the backlog to be released, circle back to step one.

 

The reason I think this suggestion (or one like it) is worth offering is because it'd help with the "inspiration" bit, potentially leading to a few more drakes and making the cycle less cyclical. Pygmies bypassed the cycle because Tj opted to release a large batch of pygmies, not to mention they're smaller and take less time/effort to draw compared to a full-size sprite. Two-headeds are kind of in the same boat as drakes, but they at least facilitate inspiration by being two-headeds with a lean towards duality. And both sub-types are much less restrictive than drakes.

 

To put it frankly, relying on people to draw drakes and keep them as drakes for the sole purpose of being drakes is a bad idea. There should be a reason to choose drakes over regulars, even if only rarely, because currently there are multiple reasons not to make drakes.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Shadowdrake

[HeatherMarie]

9 minutes ago, Keileon said:

To speak of the examples, why do they have to be items? The lanterns could be replaced with glowing Mana in the antlers, the fish could be replaced with a natural lure on the tail. There are ways to do most of these ideas with a natural feature of the drake, meaning one wouldn't have to hope they can circumvent the "no props" rule for concepts and sprites.

 

It would make them work as CBs as well, as they wouldn't necessarily have to be bred for the purpose, just domesticated and trained for it, which are different things.

 

I would *love* to see more drakes with natural features like that! We have plenty of in-cave dragons that use natural features in similar ways (like the dragons with mana on their bodies in some way, or the natural flames, etc). I think it would be great to see a more diverse selection of drakes that have different natural abilities like that.

[Guillotine]

Natural features would be far better, because it removes the issue of "but my Red or Antarean or Mint could do that?" AND provides a more flavorful jumping point for any lore. How they use their feature creates a lot of interesting potential, where a lantern is just a lantern.

[Silverwatermist]

23 minutes ago, Keileon said:

To speak of the examples, why do they have to be items? The lanterns could be replaced with glowing Mana in the antlers, the fish could be replaced with a natural lure on the tail. There are ways to do most of these ideas with a natural feature of the drake, meaning one wouldn't have to hope they can circumvent the "no props" rule for concepts and sprites.

 

It would make them work as CBs as well, as they wouldn't necessarily have to be bred for the purpose, just domesticated and trained for it, which are different things.

I think this is really neat, personally, and would prefer this. If the Drakes happened to have a natural feature that's highly useful for helping humans and doing tasks, that would fit into current lore and could still spark some new concepts.

However, it's a more general idea that would apply to any dragons, too, and it seems like the OP is trying to devise something extra that would only be allowed for Drakes (like Pygmies being such a tiny sprite size)  to drive more interest in creating Drakes in the first place? So I'm not sure if OP will feel this point is relevant. I still don't know if adding items accomplishes what they're after, but I also didn't know there were site artists that might be against creating Drakes because of their lower popularity and that some artists have no plans to do so when they could just make regular dragon. If that's true, I think that's a huge bummer. All Drakes need is a concerted effort to be given for even just a short amount of time, for a few new concepts/releases, and their popularity would go up.

[schenanigans]

I'm not particularly a fan of this suggestion. I'm in the boat where I feel that the items could make the game less immersive. We already have whites with their staves so immediately a classic dragon makes this "drake only option" NOT a drake only option - next you'll have people asking why normal dragons can't have props. After all, they are sentient and have intelligence, so I am sure the concept of tools are not foreign to them. I believe "item-less sprites" are a standard to keep the sprites clean and less cluttered, and seeing as they're relatively small and sometimes difficult to fit even dragon details into, that standard makes sense. 

 

I do not feel that drakes need anything extra to differentiate them from normal dragons - personally they have two aesthetics that I absolutely adore, being antlers and the wing membranes going down the tail - my hang up is no holidays and small breeding pool, not with the sprites or concepts themselves, nor with them not feeling like a different enough breed. 

[Jazeki]

11 hours ago, Shadowdrake said:

Does it matter which reason is the initial problem? They lead into each other because having a limited breeding pool = low popularity = low positive feedback = less people being inspired by drakes enough to draw them despite the low breeding pool and restrictions = few DC-standard art drakes in the backlog to be released, circle back to step one.

 

 

Where is the hard evidence for any of this? I've seen people shy away from making holiday breeds for this reason, but there are people making and submitting them anyway. And just because we can only see the public dragon request section doesn't mean there aren't many being made. We've had quite a few drake releases over the years. Regardless, this is a slippery slope to argue with. Not everyone likes every dragon breed or type, but there's no reason to take a stance that fewer of a breed means they're unpopular. It just perpetuates the misconception. Really, people should be making dragons because they want to, not because a breed is popular.

 

Also, I would much prefer natural augmentations over the addition of man-made, job-specific items.

[Fuzzbucket]

52 minutes ago, Jazeki said:

Where is the hard evidence for any of this? I've seen people shy away from making holiday breeds for this reason, but there are people making and submitting them anyway. And just because we can only see the public dragon request section doesn't mean there aren't many being made. We've had quite a few drake releases over the years. Regardless, this is a slippery slope to argue with. Not everyone likes every dragon breed or type, but there's no reason to take a stance that fewer of a breed means they're unpopular. It just perpetuates the misconception. Really, people should be making dragons because they want to, not because a breed is popular.

 

Also, I would much prefer natural augmentations over the addition of man-made, job-specific items.

 

Applauds Jaz. My view precisely;

[Naruhina_94]

I agree with you that DC Drakes would benefit from a better lore. The Encyclopedia potential on that is tremendously huge, meaning that it could potentially describe their hole sub-types and if TJ says so there could be potentially future drakes that are domesticated and such. The presence of mythical creatures and the kind of interactions between human and dragons in Valkemare is a topic that is up to be added with lovely informations. However we can't decide from the beginning to add another peculiar trait to drakes and make them automatically treated as pets, as each dragon has a peculiar lore behind. Drakes have many traits in common already, taken from wiki:

Drakes are smaller and less intelligent than their cousin species, though both dragons and drakes sit comfortably near the top of the food chain. They are always found bearing antlers and leathery wings. Drakes share many of the same habitats that dragons do, and typically hunt in packs.

 

DC drakes are kind of "game-made" meaning that they do not correspond to any common definition of a fantasy drake, therefore I would lore to see a page dedicated to theme in the Encyclopedia (this means that also two heads and pigmies would get one aswell). If a specific page is added for them it can store any kind of approved sprite, image, text or lore information. According to the world lore and the lore of every single breed displayed there could be extra infos like the one you stated in your post.

Extra spriting on the dragon we collect would be too restrictive to be required each time a dragon is requested. It wouldn't be forbidden, the example you made with whites' wand or even the sphere Soustones hold allows us to create a concept of a dragon holding an item. however making it a prerequisite for an entire sub-type would be too much of a work.

The encyclopedia would only benefit of a deeper lore on some topics, and drakes are one of them.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Naruhina_94

[Murkydepths]

2 hours ago, Jazeki said:

Where is the hard evidence for any of this? I've seen people shy away from making holiday breeds for this reason, but there are people making and submitting them anyway. And just because we can only see the public dragon request section doesn't mean there aren't many being made. We've had quite a few drake releases over the years. Regardless, this is a slippery slope to argue with. Not everyone likes every dragon breed or type, but there's no reason to take a stance that fewer of a breed means they're unpopular. It just perpetuates the misconception. Really, people should be making dragons because they want to, not because a breed is popular.

 

Also, I would much prefer natural augmentations over the addition of man-made, job-specific items.

 

Holidays have salts, THAT is encouragement enough, and they're limited by time of year - not how many submissions there are. 

 

-------------------------

 

And to address people saying 'why not make the features natural', Silverwatermist is right. Yes you could stretch the ideas to make them natural, but the whole point is to give drakes something special to incentivise people to make more of them and to make the breeding group in general more fun/special. Plus, if a feature needs to be 'stretched', it generally doesn't turn out as well. Like the hoard dragon mentioned earlier. 

[Murkydepths]

2 minutes ago, Naruhina_94 said:

 

Extra spriting on the dragon we collect would be too restrictive to be required each time a dragon is submissed. It wouldn't be forbidden, the example you made with whites' wand or even the sphere Soustones hold allows us to create a concept of a dragon holding an item. however making it a prerequisite for an entire sub-type would be too much of a work.

 

 

Nowhere in this suggestion is it said items would be required, only optional. Right now the only items allowed are tiny things like a soulstone's pearl, and even that is a risk. Officially items are not allowed, white dragons would not get through today. I am suggesting removing that ban on drakes.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Murkydepths

[Naruhina_94]

I didn't even know there was a ban on themm having items. I thought any kind of sub-types could have them. It's ok for drake to have props, ss long as it is motivated by their lore and doesn't stand out too much from the rest of the game I assume no harm is done in making all dragon sub-types equal on this. 

Honestly I think it is approved on a case per case base. I generally dislike them having an item at all, I prefer the more "wild" side of their lore, but I wouldn't forbidden it per-se

 

 

[Jazeki]

25 minutes ago, Murkydepths said:

 

Holidays have salts, THAT is encouragement enough, and they're limited by time of year - not how many submissions there are. 

 

-------------------------

 

And to address people saying 'why not make the features natural', Silverwatermist is right. Yes you could stretch the ideas to make them natural, but the whole point is to give drakes something special to incentivise people to make more of them and to make the breeding group in general more fun/special. Plus, if a feature needs to be 'stretched', it generally doesn't turn out as well. Like the hoard dragon mentioned earlier. 

TJ can only select from the submissions he is given in an allotted amount of time for holidays.

 

Yes, regular users can only have one active submission in requests at a time. But they do have the option to submit to TJ or work on things in private. And we don't even get to see what goes on in the artist section. 

 

Again, natural objects (pearls, Mana, flowers, lightning) are less of a stretch than a lantern or a harness or a shiny thing. But still not the ideal.

 

I really do not see the point of making drakes more special than any other breed because there are less of them.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Jazeki
Clarification

[High Lord November]

Yeah, a lot of people lately seem to be hung up on "they look like regular dragons so they aren't special, we need to make them visually special somehow." I don't think we do. They already have specific traits and a place in the lore. I don't think allowing items would encourage people to make or submit more drake concepts. 

 

The best solution I see to this is to have a certain amount of posts/slots reserved for drakes only, in DR. If you want to make a regular dragon, there's a longer queue. If you make a drake or pygmy or two headed, then there's likely fewer concepts and proportionally higher amount of slots. This helps avoid drakes and other dragon types being drowned out by regular dragon requests, and encourages people to make those less populous dragon types as they're likely able to work on it sooner.

 

So for DR the split could be something like 10 drake, 10 pygmy, 10 two headed, and 20 dragon.

Edited February 19, 2021 by High Lord November

[Murkydepths]

51 minutes ago, High Lord November said:

Yeah, a lot of people lately seem to be hung up on "they look like regular dragons so they aren't special, we need to make them visually special somehow." I don't think we do. They already have specific traits and a place in the lore. I don't think allowing items would encourage people to make or submit more drake concepts. 

 

The best solution I see to this is to have a certain amount of posts/slots reserved for drakes only, in DR. If you want to make a regular dragon, there's a longer queue. If you make a drake or pygmy or two headed, then there's likely fewer concepts and proportionally higher amount of slots. This helps avoid drakes and other dragon types being drowned out by regular dragon requests, and encourages people to make those less populous dragon types as they're likely able to work on it sooner.

 

So for DR the split could be something like 10 drake, 10 pygmy, 10 two headed, and 20 dragon.

 

It's totally understandable why people would not want to make drakes though, even with a larger population they can't compare to the sheer variety of regular dragons and there's nothing that sets them apart as special. And your proposed suggestion is already somewhat in effect, if you submit a drake you have far less competition and more chance of getting in cave. People know this and would still rather submit regular dragons. I think rather than putting more limits on what people can create, we should be incentivising making drakes? Maybe by...giving them a feature unavailable to other groups? I think it's odd to try and force a userbase to love a breeding group with obvious flaws for a visual-based game. 

[HeatherMarie]

54 minutes ago, Murkydepths said:

 

It's totally understandable why people would not want to make drakes though, even with a larger population they can't compare to the sheer variety of regular dragons and there's nothing that sets them apart as special. And your proposed suggestion is already somewhat in effect, if you submit a drake you have far less competition and more chance of getting in cave. People know this and would still rather submit regular dragons. I think rather than putting more limits on what people can create, we should be incentivising making drakes? Maybe by...giving them a feature unavailable to other groups? I think it's odd to try and force a userbase to love a breeding group with obvious flaws for a visual-based game. 

 

You are still working under the assumption that simply allowing props would actually affect these things. There is no proof whatsoever that allowing props in drake sprites would mean more drake concepts and more spriters interested in making drakes, *or* that the general userbase would be more interested in drakes just because of a little item added to the sprite. Right here in this thread are people saying they *wouldn't* like drakes having items and it wouldn't change how they looked at drakes. Except for your own posts, there is nothing to indicate that spriters would actually be more interested in spriting drakes just based on being able to have items.

 

I personally don't think drakes *need* anything 'special' to make them more interesting, but even if we say that okay yes maybe drakes could use a little sprucing up in some way, why are you so convinced items are the way to go? I think a lot more could be done for drakes by expanding their lore, expanding the things we can do with them (hybrids please!), expanding their breeding pool in general, rather than just assuming that adding an item to a sprite is going to change so much. 

[Murkydepths]

26 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

You are still working under the assumption that simply allowing props would actually affect these things. There is no proof whatsoever that allowing props in drake sprites would mean more drake concepts and more spriters interested in making drakes, *or* that the general userbase would be more interested in drakes just because of a little item added to the sprite. Right here in this thread are people saying they *wouldn't* like drakes having items and it wouldn't change how they looked at drakes. Except for your own posts, there is nothing to indicate that spriters would actually be more interested in spriting drakes just based on being able to have items.

 

I personally don't think drakes *need* anything 'special' to make them more interesting, but even if we say that okay yes maybe drakes could use a little sprucing up in some way, why are you so convinced items are the way to go? I think a lot more could be done for drakes by expanding their lore, expanding the things we can do with them (hybrids please!), expanding their breeding pool in general, rather than just assuming that adding an item to a sprite is going to change so much. 

 

Generally, less restrictions is always going to increase submissions or interest. Adding the option to add items isn't going to dissuade people who were already making drakes, but it may bring in new people who'd like to make a dragon concept with an item. Regular dragons are the most popular because they have the least restrictions. And no offence, but the suggestions forum is a little infamous for any change = bad. But I'll ask some actual spriters/concept creators and see what they think.

 

My reasoning for items (and the domestication) is this: Drakes are not a great breeding group because they have nothing physically special that separates them from regular dragons. This is an art based game, you collect art. It'd be pretty pointless for me to suggest 'people should make more drakes', that's not so much of a suggestion as an opinion. I'd rather incentivise people making drakes than force them. How? Give them something unique that is physical. Why items/domestication?

 

Drakes biggest features are:

 

- small (doesn't show up in sprite size, would have to re-do old sprites to emphasise this)

- Antlers (regular dragons can have antlers)

- leather full length wings (regular dragons can have this)

- no thumb (not...terribly exciting)

- animalistic and easily tamed <- this seemed like the biggest potential to me.

 

Domesticated animals have so much variety that doesn't appear in nature. And the item idea came from the relation to domestic animals to human items.

 

Hybrids, expanded lore, more species, are found in every other group. Those things will happen naturally over time, but likely much slower than the other breeding groups because if you make a drake, it can automatically also be a dragon, and then you have more lineage options. If you make a two headed, it by it's definition, can't be a dragon. Same with pygmies. 

Edited February 19, 2021 by Murkydepths