Flight Rising Discussion

In my case, I played Lioden for a while, but I disliked that everything I owned -- lions, decorations, etc. were all temporary and either died or ran out of uses. It felt like my time was wasted because all of my "stuff" would eventually disappear. I collect old dragons here on FR, you can't do anything like that on Lioden. And I'm not too thrilled with the staff either, but I won't go into that.

What initially drew me to FR was the amazing artwork and, of course, dragons. It feels open-ended but at the same time doesn't require a whole lot of daily busywork to keep relevant. I love seeing the creativity that the site community comes up with, whether art or lore or things like fandragons (which I admittedly love).

I agree with everything that's been posted above me!

The one thing I'd add is FR had the common sense to not introduce custom pets. Skins and accents are amazing and fulfill the need for advanced pet customization perfectly but for the love of the gladekeeper NEVER introduce custom pets/ pet breeds. The minute you allow people to pay for the ability to draw their own pets the standard site pets become utterly worthless. Celestial equines and Khimeros both do this and the pet economy is null.

I've played probably every pet site out there, from Howrse to Lioden, LuckyLapine, FelisFire, and many more.

• The site is new-player friendly. There is very little FR specific language used, anyone can get any species fairly quickly, and although all the elements of the site work well together, no one is forced to use any aspect in order to further their goals. Some games, you have to be decent at the mini-games or you have to participate in (often expensive) on-site auctions or save up for the best of something to be able to afford anything else.
• The site is friendly in general. Other games I've been on I never made a friend, and was actually picked on for being new and asking questions.
• Premium currency is gained through normal gameplay, not just behind a paywall. In FR, you can get Gems through chests or swap it for Treasure.
• Aside from some attributes, all dragons can be good. None of them have been bred to have better coli stats, all colors can be bred for, all species are available at any time, etc. Instead of some being available perhaps only during certain days of the year, or a "starter" dragon being incapable of doing well in the coliseum.

Those are some major factors I've thought that make FR one of the best petsites out there.

One word: Customization. It beats any other site I've tried

One of the biggest reasons I think FR is so successful has to do with the fact that they built their game around the idea that players are, y'know, people who have lives to live outside the game.

I can't remember if it was from a QA or some article, but I remember the devs talking about how when they were developing FR they wanted a game that took into consideration players with who would not be able to play every single day for whatever reason. Players who are parents, who have demanding job hours, who go off on military tours, who don't have frequent/consistent access to the internet, or who have a sudden emergency come up in their lives.

So FR structured a lot of its gameplay elements around the idea of letting the player progress at the pace they want to. FR acknowledges that a player might not be able to log in every day and that's okay. You can incubate your nests at your own pace. You can level your dragons at your own pace. You bond with your familiars at your own pace. You can pop something into Baldwin's Brew and pick it up whenever you want. You can choose the pace you expand your lair and Hibernal Den.

Nothing is gated in FR. You get to determine what your goals are and how and when you want to accomplish them. There's no gating system that prevents you from accessing any the gameplay elements FR has to offer; everything is available to all players at all times regardless of how old their account is. Similarly, there's no system that forces you to interact with a gameplay element or mechanic if you don't want to. Don't want to breed dragons? Cool. Don't want to use the Coli? Cool. Don't want to level Baldwin? Cool.

And most importantly, any progress you make on FR is never lost. If you decide that you don't want to play FR for a few days or few months or even a few years, hey, no problem. Everything on your account will be exactly as you left it when you next decide to log in.

FR's focus on a casual gameplay style that is forgiving to players with busy lives is what makes it so appealing. You can log in and talk on the forums all day if that's what you feel like doing, and nothing about FR will make you feel guilty of not progressing game-wise.

I've only been playing Dappervolk for about two weeks and I'm already feeling burnt out over the fact that if I want to progress in the game I have to be playing everyday. If I don't, I'm losing out on improving the stats of my character, which in turn stalls my progress in the game, and I'm hamstringing myself monetarily since daily quests are currently the only consistent source of income (and you don't get a lot since there's a limited number of daily quests you can do, if you're even able to do them).

I stopped playing Furvilla several years ago because I just couldn't get over the fact that they were using the threat of limited time items during limited time events to force me to play their game. It's a shame because there were things I enjoyed about Furvilla (it has a great PM system and PVP was fun despite being horribly balanced), but it just demanded so much time--and on its schedule, not mine--that I had to drop it completely because it was just too stressful to keep up with.

Not once in my 6 years of playing FR has it ever made me feel like it was necessary to log in and play every day. Even during festivals and even when FR retired festival items! And that's why I (and I suspect a lot of other players) have stuck around for so long. FR's a relaxing, accessible, and flexible game that doesn't demand anything of you and it's really special in that way.

This is a really good tread. Makes me reflect on all the things FR does do right that I think can be taken for granted.
If it’s okay I’d love to give a shot out to some peeps who shared their opinions here.

@StarkHarkness
You are so right about the flights. Now granted, I haven’t interacted with my own flight, it feels like my community is almost non-existent (though about changing over). But I like that it is even an option. But your points still stand especially those in regards to comradery. It really does give you a sense of community and even on a basic level that it gives the player more options for different styles and play. That is really unique to Flightrising a I can’t think of any other social site that does that.

And oh my goodness they really did nail keeping pet numbers under control. I was a big Waja player and even when I was older I felt so sad to get rid of a pet. At least in FlightRising there is incentive with money and also it’s played up as a good thing in universe to essentially remove a pet from play. The only other pet site that has a good solution that I have played was Gryffs. But that’s because nothing was automatically tracked with pets on Gryffs. And if you remove a pet from play no one will really miss it but you. That has its own downsides. At least on FR you can still view that pet.


@Sorel
Custom pets. Oh my goodness this is also a really good point. FR’s Skin system is really flipping clever and honestly I can’t think of anyone who implements a better system for custom pets more than FR. But dividing the system into skins and accents it also gives options for the best of both worlds. Accents allows players to keep the original art of FR (so the colors of the pets are still in tact) while the dragon can have a unique look to your pet. And skins are just a customizable pet and can be freely taken on and off. Plus the secondary market skin creation and selling creates. It’s really clever stuff.

FR has a strict art standard. There might be small differences between artists work, it's never really glaring. You can tell who made which familiars, but they all are very recognizable as FR style. Same for apparel.

Same quality goes into designing dragons. Yes, there are art errors, and not every gene is a winner, but a triple basic dragon will always have a high quality cohesive look. The limits set on accents and skins help maintain the look.

Same for our avatars and vistas, and limited use of code on our dragon bios. No CSS and super wild HTML coded bio pages.

High standards of behavior on the forums, and quality moderation. Anything too crazy gets nipped quickly, but no power modding either.

All that attracts a different type of user. It's Myspace vs Facebook in ye olden days.

I think its the fact that FR is so user friendly and has a lot of different things to do within it that appeal to a larger group of people. While a lot of other sites do have mini games to earn currency or something similar, FR has a variety of minigames that have simple controls (for the most part) and other aspects like the coliseum that allow players to 1.) gather items 2.) earn currency and 3.) apply the completion theory by leveling a dragon until the get that much coveted "Max Level" bar.

These aspects combined with the fact that there is so much communication within the community and the interaction from the creators keeps this site always feeling fresh and always evolving. The fact that we as players can suggest improvements or new ideas and have the creators respond to those ideas and even implement some of them creates a feeling of being appreciated rather than just being a consumer.

FR is also really consistent on quality control and if there are ever mistakes made, it is usually pretty simple to message one of the artists/creators and have them respond to the issue (even if it takes time sometimes).

Another idea is the fact that the community itself is so open and able to help each other. From what I've seen when I tried other pet sites, a lot of other communities are less helpful and more rude than the community here. While there are always the outliers, it seems that the FR community is helpful when they can be and they are welcoming to new players with advice, care packs or even free dragons to help new players get a start.

The lore potential. And, the fact you can dress up and focus on your dragons.

If it counts, here's the input of someone who doesn't like pet sites at all but loves FR:
I think part of FR's success is because it's not just a pet site. The focus isn't that your dragons are your pets, the focus is that there's this whole fictional world and the dragons in your lair inhabit it. There's lore and flights and festivals and so much sheer potential. It doesn't feel like a pet site to me. It feels like a game world. Like Skyrim or DnD. A whole world you are free to interact with and live in - or in this case, have your dragons live in. Not to mention its unmatched customization. All genes colors breeds and apparel would be insane on their own - but with the addition of skins, possibilities are quite literally endless.

I wasn't looking for a pet game when I heard of FR, I was looking for a dragon game, preferably a 3D game where I could create a dragon and fly around. I found FR by accident. The flights and customization mesmerized me upon hearing about them and I joined immediately (I'm so darn glad a registration window was open). I've been here for almost 3 years now and I don't plan on leaving.

I think that's what much of the userbase feels too. That FR is not just a pet game. It's its own world, and its own thing. I think that's what makes it so successful.

edit: AND THE FACT NOTHING IS COMPELLED TO BE PREMIUM. Premium currency being openly traded between players is SO IMPORTANT as a factor of why FR is so good. People buy premium currency often anyway but it can be used not only to buy site elements, but to buy services and items from other players, which 1) makes players who can't afford premium currency able to enjoy the entirety of the game without missing anything 2) serves as further motivation for those who can buy gems to buy more, since there's a high demand for them and multiple player-made services that can be acquired with it.