Flight Rising Discussion

Quick Edit just to clarify:
I'd not considered the fact that a larger scale prank would have gotten in the way of the festival! It was a good point and I understand that :)

Additionally, this is just my opinion! April fool's is a very small thing out of the entirety of FR, I'm happy that they're working on other things, I'm just disappointed in the pranks compared to what they have been in past years, not just because of the prank itself, but because it seems kind of uninspired and lackluster.

My biggest thing is at this point the prank felt more like an obligation than something they actually wanted to do, and it kinda made me sad?

I guess the word would be 'lifeless', it felt less like a prank and more like "Oh, it's april again...uh..ok, i guess we have to do something?"

I'm probably just getting old and cynical :) and I didn't mean to rustle any feathers (or scales) here, it was just my perspective on the prank for today. I did word some things badly in the post, and I'm not going to change them because I don't want it to look like I'm trying to cover things up.

> By lacking in quality and passion, i was mainly referring to the pranks! What they've done with the map is beautiful.

Edit #2: Ppl asking for toggles are absolutely valid, no matter how small you should be able to opt out of pranks if it affects gameplay or perception of gameplay in any way

Woo boy controversial post time.

So, uh, yeah, they rotated our dragons. Cool?

It probably took all of 30 minutes to think of, test, and implement.

Obviously, with COVID going on, things have been hard, this goes for any company, but I've noticed a pretty marked decline of passion and quality over the years from the devs here.

Remember the HD prank? Where Akiri badly redrew every dragon and even implemented the colors? That was GOLD! I still have the old pictures of my dragons from when that happened. It's widely regarded as the best April Fool's day prank on the site!

They might as well have not done anything this year, they rotated the dragons, they didn't give us any flavor text or a fun announcement, they just rotated our dragons.

It might seem like a silly thing to be upset over, but like, it makes me a bit sad that the team has either been so overworked, unmotivated, or disinterested that the best prank they can come up with is "rotato dragon"

Rant over, I'm not trying to start drama or anything, just wanted to get my thoughts out on how I feel about how the site's been going. I know I'm not too terribly active anymore but I've never missed an April Fools for as long as I've been on the site, it's my favorite day.

Following after the map revamp finally finishing up and the marketplace being redone, I think they deserve an easier April First. It's not the first simplistic type. We've had some eyes just pasted onto dragons before as well.

*shrug* Maybe these revamps are bringing them a lot of joy and satisfaction right now and that's what they want to focus on. Maybe a bunch of the devs are vaccinated and able to see family or loved ones again this weekend for the first time and thus can't be around to monitor anything big. Maybe they just really weren't in the April Fool's spirit this year. There's a million possibilities but I think it's important to appreciate the fact that they did something at all.

We all want different things out of the site, and you're entitled to your opinion! Personally, I'd rather they focus their efforts on big things like revamps and breeds. That being said, I hope that next year you have a satisfying April Fool's from FR!

At least they drew the eyes- and trust me, I get it, I love the marketplace and new world map!

But would it have really been that hard for them to, like, for an example, paste a little mustache over every sprite? Wouldn't have to worry about colors or making new lineart or even coding something intense.

Just something less static and lifeless.

[quote name="Reilata" date="2021-04-01 16:53:44" ] Following after the map revamp finally finishing up and the marketplace being redone, I think they deserve an easier April First. It's not the first simplistic type. We've had some eyes just pasted onto dragons before as well. [/quote] agreed plus these pranks aren't meant to be huge and impressive they are meant to be fun and I see a ton of people enjoying the prank this year

I strongly disagree that the quality and passion has gone down. There have been TWO major updates recently, that have been both necessary (for the MP) and something people have wanted for ages (map, which also required a lot of lore writing). That’s a lot of work, no wonder they haven’t planned something HUGE for today.

Also, I’m not a web developer but I strongly suspect that telling a whole website to rotate certain images in 3 different ways .... that’s not an easy, simple thing to code in. Especially not without breaking other things. Someone had to work are on the development of that, no matter how much you might think it looks like nothing.

At the end of the day, April Fool’s is just a fun little bonus. I prefer the smaller little things. As hilarious as the site-wide art change and Comic Sans were ... they interrupted the game a lot. So does this, for many people. It’s hard for th3 staff to strike a balance I think between ‘fun prank’ and ‘no fun game breaker’.

I also think maybe the devs don’t want to take away from Wind’s festival with this falling right in the middle?

[quote name="Lundlaeva" date="2021-04-01 17:04:52" ] I strongly disagree that the quality and passion has gone down. There have been TWO major updates recently, that have been both necessary (for the MP) and something people have wanted for ages (map, which also required a lot of lore writing). That’s a lot of work, no wonder they haven’t planned something HUGE for today. Also, I’m not a web developer but I strongly suspect that telling a whole website to rotate certain images in 3 different ways .... that’s not an easy, simple thing to code in. Especially not without breaking other things. Someone had to work are on the development of that, no matter how much you might think it looks like nothing. At the end of the day, April Fool’s is just a fun little bonus. I prefer the smaller little things. As hilarious as the site-wide art change and Comic Sans were ... they interrupted the game a lot. So does this, for many people. It’s hard for th3 staff to strike a balance I think between ‘fun prank’ and ‘no fun game breaker’. I also think maybe the devs don’t want to take away from Wind’s festival with this falling right in the middle? [/quote]

@ Ern (I don't actually wanna ping anyone lol)

Yeah! I am excited for a new breed, but devs aren't exactly transparent on those things so who's to say.

That's a whole other can of worms though-

I'm not saying any of this out of malice or saltiness, mostly just disappointment, feels like the life has been sucked out of FR a bit these past few years.

I'm sure they're working hard on something big :)

@ Lundlaeva

You're actually probably right with the Wind Fest comment :o I'd not thought of that.

the site isn't perfect, but with two big recent updates, i'm pretty okay with this april fool's being a bit less out there than the other ones. but i'm kinda biased anyway bc i really love looking at my upside down profile pic