Winter Holiday dragon Gift BSA

[Scrac]

A Present BSA would be great for Winter Holiday dragons.  A little Christmas magic! 

 

Much like how the Teleport BSA opened up gifting and trading to players without the high-speed internet needed for dropping and catching in the cave (do you remember those days? I SURE DO!), this BSA would be inclusive for the players who can't be online as much as others. There are a few variations of the idea that are based on the feedback I have gotten on this thread.

 

Plan A:

- The person receiving the gift could get a little icon over their scroll of a wrapped gift. When they click on the icon, they can accept or decline the gift.

- Gifts do not age while in gifting status.

- Maximum of five gifts can be accepted every two weeks by any one person. Although 8 would be more symbolic of Hanukkah, it seemed like a few too many. Should the maximums be 8 gifts with a 25 day cooldown instead?

- No limit on gift sending (other than dragon ownership and cooldown).*

- Two week cooldown for the dragon.

- The gifted egg/hatchling is untradable by the receiver. Think of it as being handled like a Market egg.

- If the receiver rejects the gift then the egg/hatchling is abandoned. The gift does not return to the gift-giver, to prevent possible abuse of the gifting BSA.

- Eggs from any multi clutch have the same rules as teleports.

- No messages with the gift, as it's meant to be a lot like sending cookies.

- People can opt out of receiving gifts.

- Gifts can not be sent to a locked scroll.

- Gifts can not be accepted by a locked scroll.

- Sent gifts do not count toward scroll limits. They sit in their own little snowy mailbox space until accepted or rejected*

 

Plan B:

It's like Plan A, but the components with an asterisk at the end has been modified.

- Gifts count against the scroll limits of the gift recipient, but do not show on the scroll until accepted. To prevent abuse and to be inclusive toward less active players, the gift does not take up space on the gift giver's scroll once sent.

- Gifts can not be sent if the recipient already has five gifts pending or if they have already accepted five gifts within the last two weeks.

- A 12 gifts limit per every two weeks for gift-givers. 

 

Plan C :

It's like Plan B, but with a little bit of a mini game.

- Scrolls get a a health-bar looking icon.

    - Instead of hearts there are five silhouettes of a wrapped box with a bow on top. As a person is sent gifts, the bar fills up. The bar decreases in fullness as gifts are rejected or two weeks pass since the gift filling a slot was accepted.

- The health bar of scrolls who have opted out of gift receiving and scrolls that have hit their two-week maximum on gifts will appear full.

 

Why Winter Holiday Dragons?

- It's a Festivus Christmas miracle!

- As the winter holidays are about spreading love and joy, it seems thematically coherent with the Winter Holiday dragons.

- As most winter holiday celebrations include gift-giving, this BSA again seems thematically coherent with the Winter Holiday dragons.

- As breeds that only reproduce in the winter, they already have an inherently snowy theme.

 

Could this instead be a BSA Winter Dragons enact upon an already existing one-way teleport that turns the teleport into a gift?

Sure! As long as the time-pause, the accept or decline, and the scroll slot not being counted against the gift-giver aspects are kept in place, this sounds fine to me.

Edited January 5, 2023 by Scrac
Modifying conditions based on feedback.

[Stromboli]

I think that a mechanic of having still-growing eggs/hatchlings put into a limbo space where they don't count toward scroll limits and aren't aging for the indefinite period of "until accepted or rejected" would have some unintended consequences.

 

Work together with someone, and you could squirrel away a bunch of limited release eggs to pop out of limbo for trading for weeks to come. 🤔

[Ripple_Tiger]

I love the idea of a gifting BSA, but maybe the gift has to be either accepted/rejected in a certain amount of time (48 hours maybe?) to deter abuse? I know it won't completely get rid of it, but it should help

[KageSora]

5 hours ago, Stromboli said:

I think that a mechanic of having still-growing eggs/hatchlings put into a limbo space where they don't count toward scroll limits and aren't aging for the indefinite period of "until accepted or rejected" would have some unintended consequences.

 

Work together with someone, and you could squirrel away a bunch of limited release eggs to pop out of limbo for trading for weeks to come. 🤔

 

One possible workaround is that even if the gift were rejected, and eggs/hatchlings selected would then be scrollbound.  Whoever accepted them would be unable to trade or abandon them, and if rejected they would locked to the scroll of the person who sent them.

 

Or at least locked from trading even if allowed to be abandoned, provided the inability to trade them transferred to whoever picked them off the AP.  To get rid if them they would need to be killed or frozen/raised to adulthood and then released

[Scrac]

Ooh, unable to trade the gift sounds great to me!! If the gift is rejected perhaps the only options are to select another gift recipient within 48 hours or the dragon auto-abandons, or to abandon it right then.

 

As for gift accepting time limits, there could be options for the gifter to choose from! 48 hours, 2 weeks, or does not expire if you're sending a gift to a dragon cave player who only pops on once a month?

Edited December 22, 2022 by Scrac

[Fuzzbucket]

There needs to be something to make sure that if the gift is never accepted, the donor doesn't get to keep it, no mater what. I don't think this: 

 

16 hours ago, Scrac said:

-Returned gifts only appear back on the gift giver's scroll when there is space for them.

 

is sufficient. If you genuinely want to gift - this won't bother you ! AND - you cannot gift extra eggs from a holiday multi clutch, either.

[Scrac]

22 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

There needs to be something to make sure that if the gift is never accepted, the donor doesn't get to keep it, no mater what. I don't think this: 

 

 

is sufficient. If you genuinely want to gift - this won't bother you ! AND - you cannot gift extra eggs from a holiday multi clutch, either.

Oh yes, that was brought up! What do you think of this idea?
 

On 12/22/2022 at 12:30 AM, Scrac said:

Ooh, unable to trade the gift sounds great to me!! If the gift is rejected perhaps the only options are to select another gift recipient within 48 hours or the dragon auto-abandons, or to abandon it right then.

 

As for gift accepting time limits, there could be options for the gifter to choose from! 48 hours, 2 weeks, or does not expire if you're sending a gift to a dragon cave player who only pops on once a month?

 

-Edit-

The more I think on it, the simplest solution seems like the best one. If a gift is rejected, then the egg/hatchling is abandoned.

I'm going to update the original post with the new ideas!

Edited December 23, 2022 by Scrac

[UnicornMaiden]

How would this be different from a one-way teleport?

[KageSora]

44 minutes ago, UnicornMaiden said:

How would this be different from a one-way teleport?

 

From what I can tell, this is basically a one-way teleport that you can send to somebody directly on-site rather than needing to have an off-site way of contacting them (such as on the forums) to send them a link via, with a few other restrictions (such as limited number you can accept vs being able to accept as many as you have space for, and things in gift limbo not counting towards either person's scroll limits vs counting towards the sender's limits)

[Fuzzbucket]

2 hours ago, KageSora said:

 

From what I can tell, this is basically a one-way teleport that you can send to somebody directly on-site rather than needing to have an off-site way of contacting them (such as on the forums) to send them a link via, with a few other restrictions (such as limited number you can accept vs being able to accept as many as you have space for, and things in gift limbo not counting towards either person's scroll limits vs counting towards the sender's limits)

 

Um oops - wouldn't that come under scroll to scroll communication - and therefore taboo ? Or could it be done like when we choose who to send a cookie to, maybe ? pick the gift and then get a "random recipient or pick a scroll" thing.

[KageSora]

31 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

Um oops - wouldn't that come under scroll to scroll communication - and therefore taboo ? Or could it be done like when we choose who to send a cookie to, maybe ? pick the gift and then get a "random recipient or pick a scroll" thing.

 

I think it might depend.  If you can enter a specific message, especially if they could respond back, that almost certainly would fall under inter-scroll communication and won't happen.  But if it's more like the cookie thing where you just pick a random person or enter a specific scroll and no message is sent along (or, at most, a stock "hope you enjoy this gift" kind of thing) then that probably wouldn't count as inter-scroll communication--at least not any more so than posting a transfer link in a free for all thread would be.

 

But TJ would have to be the final judge on that, I think.  There's some precedent, as you mentioned (and that was the sort of idea I was envisioning myself!), but there may also be a reason why TJ never implemented the ability to send a transfer on-site to begin with.  (That might simply have been "didn't think of it/didn't think there was a reason to since if somebody wanted to gift something to a person they presumably had a way to contact them off-site", or he may have had specific reasons to never implement that sort of feature.  We won't know unless he says something one way or the other, though.)

Edited December 23, 2022 by KageSora

[Stromboli]

I'm still not super sold on this. Even if you scroll lock the egg, having things that you can put into a state where they both aren't aging and aren't counting toward your scroll limits seems too easy to misuse. And we do have one-way teleporting to facilitate gifting. 🤷‍♀️

[Scrac]

No sending direct messages.

No messages needed at all.

No forum account required.

No shared language required.

Does not expire.

Does not require the receiver to be on every day.

Opens up gifting to a greater number of players.

 

I can't think of any ways it can be abused that we haven't already closed off, but please put on your thinking caps and share what you can come up with!

11 hours ago, UnicornMaiden said:

How would this be different from a one-way teleport?

I guess it's kind of like teleport, but in the same way that teleporting is kind of like the old school method of arranging a cave drop and grab with another user.

Possible for some, but not most.

[KageSora]

55 minutes ago, Scrac said:

I guess it's kind of like teleport, but in the same way that teleporting is kind of like the old school method of arranging a cave drop and grab with another user.

Possible for some, but not most.

 

?

 

This suggestion is literally "existing transfer function of Teleport with slightly more restrictions in exchange for the ability to select the target recipient on-site instead of sending them a link off-site".

 

Attaching it to the winter holiday breed allows the regular transfer function to remain untouched to avoid dealing with the added restrictions, which is good if people want to bounce eggs to each other to remove BSAs or something (the egg then being locked to one persons scroll, forcing people to use dummy trades to achieve the same function they can do now with transfers would not be good).  Honestly, if you remove the idea about "things don't age or take up space on either scroll" you could literally do away with every other restriction and just tweak the existing transfer option to allow you to select from "no user" (only claimable if you post the link somewhere/send it to somebody off-site), "random user", or "specific user"

[Fuzzbucket]

9 hours ago, KageSora said:

think it might depend.  If you can enter a specific message, especially if they could respond back, that almost certainly would fall under inter-scroll communication and won't happen.  But if it's more like the cookie thing where you just pick a random person or enter a specific scroll and no message is sent along (or, at most, a stock "hope you enjoy this gift" kind of thing) then that probably wouldn't count as inter-scroll communication--at least not any more so than posting a transfer link in a free for all thread would be.

 

That was exactly what I was suggesting, as it would be like the cookies, which are allowed !

[Katann]

I like this idea and I hope it can be worked out and than added to the game.

[Scrac]

Based on the feedback and possible abuse scenarios, I have updated the original post! ♥️

[KageSora]

On 12/21/2022 at 10:24 AM, Scrac said:

   - Magi dragons don't have any sort of icy theme to them to explain the temporary freeze the egg/hatchling will go through.

 

Out of the 16 winter holiday breeds there currently are in the cave, only 1/4 of them have an ice-type affinity.  Blizzard Wizards do mention having skill in creating cold weather despite not having an ice affinity, but not all of them have additional lore that indicates they have any of that sort of skill--nor does creating snow mean they are capable of inducing reversible cryostasis in an egg or hatchling.  So this doesn't seem like it would be able to be a universal BSA for all of them if you're using that criteria.

 

Honestly this would make more sense to be argued as an ability for a time-affinity dragon.  (But then, I don't think any of the current time-affinity dragons have any kind of lore about them that would indicate they possess this sort of ability.)

 

On 12/21/2022 at 10:24 AM, Scrac said:

The thawing upon acceptance is hard to explain with an icy dragon, unless you want to also give a "Thaw" BSA to a fire-type dragon. I think a Thaw BSA has a better application

 

And not all of the winter holiday dragons have any kind of indication they have a thawing ability to go along with a freezing ability (and, as mentioned above, not all of them indicate they even have the ability to safely freeze things).  So I'm not sure how that's a strike against ice-affinity in general but not against a generalized winter holiday specific BSA.  It's inconsistent.

 

On 12/21/2022 at 10:24 AM, Scrac said:

- Gifts count against the scroll limits of the gift recipient, but do not show on the scroll until accepted.

 

No support for that.  They should count against the scroll limit of the sender not the receiver.  If you want to send something to somebody who might never log on again and claim it, that should be your burden to take up and let it eat up one of your slots indefinitely.  Also abuseable--you could grab a bunch of stuff from the AP (or breed a bunch of random stuff) and send it to somebody to clog their scroll limits up, forcing them to reject a bunch of stuff they would never have wanted before they can do anything.  Also think of the problems that could cause if somebody was selecting a dragon to breed and in the time they spend looking at the breeding mate screen deciding somebody sent them a gift that took up their last egg slot and now the egg they were trying to breed got auto-abandoned because they're "overburdened" through no doing of their own.

 

Honestly?  This would make far more sense if you created a new breed based around the BSA idea.

[Fuzzbucket]

2 hours ago, KageSora said:

No support for that.  They should count against the scroll limit of the sender not the receiver.  If you want to send something to somebody who might never log on again and claim it, that should be your burden to take up and let it eat up one of your slots indefinitely.  Also abuseable--you could grab a bunch of stuff from the AP (or breed a bunch of random stuff) and send it to somebody to clog their scroll limits up, forcing them to reject a bunch of stuff they would never have wanted before they can do anything.  Also think of the problems that could cause if somebody was selecting a dragon to breed and in the time they spend looking at the breeding mate screen deciding somebody sent them a gift that took up their last egg slot and now the egg they were trying to breed got auto-abandoned because they're "overburdened" through no doing of their own.

This so very much, about the potential abuse and the giver effectively breaching scroll limits.  Except that the case you cite wouldn't happen if you have to click to accept the gift. It should be like any teleport - it counts for the giver's scroll until the recipient wilfully accepts it.

 

2 hours ago, KageSora said:

Honestly?  This would make far more sense if you created a new breed based around the BSA idea.

This too.

[Scrac]

A Present BSA only makes sense with Christmas dragons out of the current dragons that exist. If a specific Birthday Dragon existed then they would make sense too, but I'm still a much bigger fan of the Winter Holiday dragons getting the BSA.

There could be a snowy present-giving dragon - but that sounds suspiciously like a Christmas dragon. If it was limited to just some of the Christmas dragons, that would be fine with me. Or if two Winter Holiday dragons with different elemental affinities had to team up to send a gift.

 

When I mail someone a gift, they don't have to come to my house to get it. It goes to them. I have no support for the "gift must stay on the gifter's scroll" idea.

Edited January 5, 2023 by Scrac

[Fuzzbucket]

Well, sorry - but as that would be a way to bypass scroll limits, until it leaves your scroll for theirs, it is on your scroll.  I would not support it in any other way. Just like any other gifts we offer right now.

 

And it is very rare for an existing dragon to get a BSA, and thus far no holiday one has one unless you count vampires. I really can't see this happening as a BSA - I could see it happening in the same way as the cookies are gifted, but they have to be wilfully accepted, unlike cookies. Just as any other gift has to be.

 

If you send a friend a parcel, they can refuse it when it is delivered, BTW.

[Scrac]

That's an interesting thing

6 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

Well, sorry - but as that would be a way to bypass scroll limits, until it leaves your scroll for theirs, it is on your scroll.  I would not support it in any other way. Just like any other gifts we offer right now.

Far too easy to abuse if it stays on the sender's scroll. It also discourages anyone from interacting with less active members, who are the inspiration for this entire idea. I'm not going to support exclusion.

 

6 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

And it is very rare for an existing dragon to get a BSA, and thus far no holiday one has one unless you count vampires. I really can't see this happening as a BSA - I could see it happening in the same way as the cookies are gifted, but they have to be wilfully accepted, unlike cookies. Just as any other gift has to be.

Is it? BSAs were touted as a way to increase interest in existing common breeds- giving it to new breeds is a very new thing. Reds, Pinks, Whites, Magis, and Purples all existed before they were given BSAs.

 

6 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

If you send a friend a parcel, they can refuse it when it is delivered, BTW.

The right to reject a gift has been part of the package from the very beginning.

[purplehaze]

14 minutes ago, Scrac said:

Far too easy to abuse if it stays on the sender's scroll.

How so?

[Scrac]

1 hour ago, purplehaze said:

How so?

Anyone could make a second account and send gifts to themself that only count against the scroll limit of the dummy account.

[Fuzzbucket]

You are now showing additional reasons why this is a bad idea. Te BEST way is simply to set it up like the cookie gifting.with the option to refuse - and it has to stay on the sender's scroll until accepted. And go to the AP if declined.

 

As for interacting with less active members - if they are less active, that may make no difference at all. I can think of a few friends who have dropped off - if I sent them a gift, chances are it would just sit till it died. If members are less active that may be a quite deliberate choice, and this may not be welcome at all.