Suggestion: Dragon Gender.

[Tribunal]

My dragon is black and blue,

not because of what people look like after you beat the crap out of them... just because COME ON! how is that not the most hard-core color scheme known to man!??![H]

[Fireclaw]

Of course dragons have gender![;)][;)][;)]

Bipeds just have trouble telling our genders apart. The gnome scientist who was dispatched to investigate a way to tell was eaten.[:P][:P]

*BURP*

[Dragoniade]

This is something which came up a a long time before beta when it was revealed dragons wouldn't have gender. Presumably the lack of gender was so intertwined into their engine that it was more trouble then it was worth to change it. Ok, some unknown designer did an oops.Wouldn't be the first time.

The way I figure it, at this point it could take a lot of dev time to straighten everything out (change the database, change the models, change the client, change the creation screen, figure a way of modifying existing dragons on the fly, figure a way so that existing dragons can specify their gender, possibly change the network protocol, probably change something in the server, assign gender to all the NPC dragons, etc.). Do you really want them to spend that time on dragon gender when they could be spending it on something else? Would you rather they have externally visible gender or that they have lairs? Keep in mind that changing the appearance of the models in any way is probably not going to make some dragon players happy -- they like their dragon the way it is now.

So the official line has been what DB has said. It works andit avoids a huge amount of effort for very little gain.

I see nothing at all wrong with the gender of dragons not being identifiable.

I don't think why it would be that much trouble. Sure, it wouldn't probably be a day of work. But I don't believe that would require that much work too. For every race, except for a model change, there's isn't any difference between male and female. They got the same abilitie, skills and mostly the same animation as far as I noticed.

For a male and female dragons, it would only mean duplicating the database data for each gender and copy the model over, then tweaking the model and small things for it.

I believe they would even be able to do it fast, if they don't put any physical difference between male and female.

[Nisse]

Maybe make second emblem like slot that can only take 2 emblems, Male or Female. Once placed in the slot it is permanent and cannot be removed. If they dont put the emblem in the slot, no gender gets listed on /who, if they do, then their gender would be listed. Hand these out to all dragons, making them attuned, so they would have to delete the one they didnt use, but would not have to choose a gender right away if they didnt want to.




Oh and BTW, Tribunal, don't go by the dragon's color. My female dragon is dark blue and I know one male hatchling who is light purple.

I've been suggesting something similar, except that when dragons finish their ARoP they may choose either an ", the Matriarch" or ", the Patriarch" emblem. Free to be removed, like all emblems.

[Geoff_K]

My dragon is white and I am a male.

[Tribunal]

Well I'm mostly accurate of which is male and female mainly by color.

Or maybe I have an adept skill at picking which they are. I don't need anyone yelling at me here, I've only had 1 I can remember in game tell me about it out of the possible 4.

[Pharcellus]

This is something which came up a a long time before beta when it was revealed dragons wouldn't have gender. Presumably the lack of gender was so intertwined into their engine that it was more trouble then it was worth to change it. Ok, some unknown designer did an oops.Wouldn't be the first time.

It is even simpler than that. Pressed for time, they opted to not create two sets of art assets (models, skins, etc), and to just make them "neuter" in the engine, with the explanation that David gave above, so they could just use the one set of assets.

The way I figure it, at this point it could take a lot of dev time to straighten everything out (change the database, change the models, change the client, change the creation screen, figure a way of modifying existing dragons on the fly, figure a way so that existing dragons can specify their gender, possibly change the network protocol, probably change something in the server, assign gender to all the NPC dragons, etc.).

I don't think so. Some of the model work has already been done. Check your /Resources/characters/characters/dragonu_u/mesh folder. You will find three separate sets of body models there: dragona_u_m0_body01m,dragona_u_m0_body01f, and dragona_u_m0_body01n. The heads may need to also be made, I don't know. The database gender field can store 3 values: male, female, and neuter. Thus, no database work would have to be done. Specifying gender is as easy as adding one command with a single argument and two constraints: /setgender male|female. If the gender is neuter and the race is dragon(in the various forms), then change the gender to the one specified, otherwise, reject the command. Then all they have left to do is change the emotes, if they need changing at all. Chances are, they already support alternate genders (i.e., "its" is not hard-coded in the text strings), so they may not have anything to change in them at all. No, the network protocol doesn't have to change, as the same data field holds gender, no matter if it is male/female or neuter. The only thing that would have to be changed in the server is the command I just gave. Otherwise, the server doesn't care what gender the character is. NPC Dragons don't need gender, as they don't emote, which is the only way you can tell anyway. Plus, there is nothing that says they have to be male/female. There's nothing that says PC Dragons have to be, either. That's the whole point of the /setgender command. It's an option.

Do you really want them to spend that time on dragon gender when they could be spending it on something else? Would you rather they have externally visible gender or that they have lairs? Keep in mind that changing the appearance of the models in any way is probably not going to make some dragon players happy -- they like their dragon the way it is now.

Mute point. They already have spent time on it, and they have already committed to spending time on it at some point. Personally, I don't care to have externally identifiable genders. The main complaint that people have had (that I understand and agree with) is they don't want their emotes saying "its". As far as I am concerned, they can copy all the art assets into whatever file names need to be present for male/female genders for the client, change the emotes (if they need to be changed at all) on the server, give us the command to choose once and for all, and they are done. No, I don't want them working on that instead of Lairs or other, more pressing issues, but if Smeglor can spend a few lunches implementing PvP Arenas, surely he can spend a lunch or two implementing basic Dragon gender.

[Guaran]

It's probably something for the pony list.

But the technology to change the appearance is in place it would seem, after playing with the costumes on blight.

If it could be easily coded, would be a nice option. I wouldn't expect lots of time dumped into it.

[Goriax]

I don't want this to be put ahead of schools. I figure we'll be waiting too long as-is.

[Pharcellus]

Schools for Dragons are a pipe dream at this point. Dragon gender is quite a bit more concrete as a conception that could be implemented.

[Goriax]

I think AROP and lairs are going to be it for dragon related stuff for some time to come if ever. I think we'll be lucky if they do anything at all on anything dragon related beyond maintenance for at least a year. If they do deign to spend some time on dragons, I want that time to be on direct gameplay stuff which will enhance the longetivity of being able to play a dragon in HZ. I.e., the ability for ahigh level dragon player to be able to log on and develop himself in some way. Something which will add many hours of gameplay as opposed to something where you say "cool, I have gender" and then move on exactly as before.

There' s too little effort going into dragons for it to be diluted.

Sure if they can do it in a few days, (heh, if they'll do it at ALL regardless of how long it takes) it would be welcome. I'd love to no longer be neuter. But I don't want them spending 5 minutes on it if it will delay schools or any other solid gameplay advancement for dragons.

It's hard to say how tough the modifications will be without seeing their code, but I find it a bit hard to swallow that it'll be that easy. There's too many things which have to be touched and all it takes is one thing being a bear to bog downthe whole effort.In any event, all that matters is if THEY consider it too much work, which they apparently do since they've never spent any time on this even though it's been an issue since long before even beta.

I agree with you in principle that it would be nice for them to make the change and give dragons gender in-game. I just don't want that to be the one dragon related thing they do for the next year.

With 20/20 hindsight I now kind of wish they'd settled for a very modest AROP instead of the beautiful extravaganza they didsince whether modest or elaborate it's something that's completed in a few hours of gameplay. Instead I think it would have been better to have a more modest AROP with just a few quests and no new areas and used the freed up dev timeto give us schools at the same time. I can't really get too upset about that since I didn't say anything at the time, but I kind of wish things had gone that way with my 20/20 hindsight. As-is I'm beginning to have serious doubts I'll be able to maintain interest until schools come out. MAYBE lairs will do it. Maybe.

[Pharcellus]

Sure if they can do it in a few days, (heh, if they'll do it at ALL regardless of how long it takes) it would be welcome. I'd love to no longer be neuter. But I don't want them spending 5 minutes on it if it will delay schools or any other solid gameplay advancement for dragons.

There have been quite a few things they have been resistant to doing mainly because they didn't know how to approach them, but when they spent a little bit of time looking, they've figured out an easy and quick way to accomplish it that works. The most recent example is Libraries. Thus, just because they may be antipathic towards the idea doesn't mean that they know for a fact that it would be hard to do. Remember that most of the development work was done by people who aren't there anymore, and those who are there now are having to go back and learn what was done and why.

It's hard to say how tough the modifications will be without seeing their code, but I find it a bit hard to swallow that it'll be that easy. There's too many things which have to be touched and all it takes is one thing being a bear to bog downthe whole effort.In any event, all that matters is if THEY consider it too much work, which they apparently do since they've never spent any time on this even though it's been an issue since long before even beta.

Well, you and I don't tend to see eye-to-eye on how things should/could be done in development anyway, so I don't think either of our points of view are any more valid than the other on the surface. The one fact is that they HAVE spent some time on it, and HAVE said that they were looking at it. Until either they do it, or they talk to us about doing it, no one will know anything for certain.

I agree with you in principle that it would be nice for them to make the change and give dragons gender in-game. I just don't want that to be the one dragon related thing they do for the next year.

Projecting difficulty in doing a task, if it is really that hard to do, then I wouldn't expect anything as complex as schools to ever see the light of day.

[Phillip]

just give the male dragons a bigger head and females a bigger butt.

it's all about resizing.

[Tribunal]

I don't want this to be put ahead of schools. I figure we'll be waiting too long as-is.

I doubt they'll even do anything about this anyways, games gotten along just fine without genders for dragons.

[Pharcellus]

The game has gotten along "just fine" (whatever that is) with a lot of things.

Oh, just in case you missed it, they HAVE BEEN and ARE "doing something about it".

[Lethosos]

// There is a way to deal with it right here and now;

FindGeometry("dragon", polygons("SpinalCrest"));
if (player.Gender == "female")
setGeometry = "hidden";
end if;

[Tribunal]

The game has gotten along "just fine" (whatever that is) with a lot of things.

Oh, just in case you missed it, they HAVE BEEN and ARE "doing something about it".

hmmmm, that was... coo.

Apparently you're getting very upset by the fact you can't tell a lizard from a lizard, if its male or female, unless you go througha degree ofexamination (Lets not get into that).

No offence, but this is very trivial. This isn't even all that important. What possible bonus do you get from this? A guy who wants to be funny and make a female dragon, when he could just walk around and tell everyone that anyways?

If this is ever a big notice I'm going to laugh, "Dragons now have genders!"..."ok" They still look the same. You can still guess what they are by the way they talk.

Because seriously..... this is rediculous, I'm at a lost for words how useless this little feature would be.

*scratches the back of his neck*

I can't think of a reason why it's important, but I guess I wont have to... I'll wait for you all to tell me.

[Dhalin]

Well, when I wrote the suggestion itself.. I was referring more to Player Searches and Emotes... I mean.. being called an "it".... gets 'bleh' after awhile.... as far as visuals... those were just an add-on suggestion....

The main core behind my suggestion was to improve Player Searches (have us listed as Male/Female instead of Neuter) and have him/her he/she in the emotes/battle text.

That way, when you talk to someone, you have an idea if they are male or female (I've seen a few names I honestly thought were female, then after a few min, I realize 'hey, this is a male...') ... I think Nalii was one of them... that... to me sounds female. But yet, I think that they are a male instead....

--Dhalin

[Pharcellus]

Apparently you're getting very upset by the fact you can't tell a lizard from a lizard, if its male or female, unless you go througha degree ofexamination (Lets not get into that).

No, the only thing I get upset about are people posting incorrect info, downplay suggestions that don't affect them, or otherwise just be ignorant twits towards other people.

No offence, but this is very trivial.

..to you.

This isn't even all that important.

..to you.

What possible bonus do you get from this? A guy who wants to be funny and make a female dragon, when he could just walk around and tell everyone that anyways?

Well, when people like to Roleplay (a foreign concept to some), they sometimes don't like to be categorized as something they are not. They also don't like to be ridiculed repeatedly (as some have in the past) for their RP choices.

If you dig through the Dragon forum, you'll find multiple instances of people who don't like the fact that the emotes paint them as neuter when they RP otherwise.

Because seriously..... this is rediculous, I'm at a lost for words how useless this little feature would be.

So? There are LOTS of "useless" features being put into the game all the time. Emblems? Weapon dyes? TOOL dyes? Hello??? How useful are any of these? Hmmm?

I can't think of a reason why it's important, but I guess I wont have to... I'll wait for you all to tell me.

That's why the forums are here. To make sure the devs see more than just one side of a discussion. You don't agree. Fine. You don't HAVE to agree. Everything is cool. [Y]

[Phillip]

tell us how you really feel, dude...