Flight Rising Discussion

I thiiiiiink its a case of site culture vs site lore. which isn't a bad thing, necessarily, but confusion of fanon and canon usually makes people unhappy. like, I'm seeing a lot of claims about what arcane Is or Isnt and, that's in part because Arcane isn't an actual, real world element, and its based in Ideals more than Concretes. From my perspective, it's about curiosity and dreaming, and it's pretty lighthearted; iirc in the lore the Arcanist was kind of a weenie, he was Scared of the world when he was first born but then just kind of curious and went out to go and play, to discover things, and THATS when he summoned the shade. the arcane flight itself is just kind of guileless and clumsy in its devotion to having a good time, that's the Theme that I'm seeing. [EDIT: I’m so sorry, I realized the last paragraph made it sound like I was saying “you’re all wrong about arcane” when that’s not what I meant to say [emoji=aether scared size=1] I meant to say “there are a lot of opinions on what arcanes theme is, and heres my different opinion that adds to the confusion”, but I didnt go about saying that very well and came off very derogatory and for that I apologize] The interesting part to make stories out of though, is of course the consequences. and it's built like that on purpose; site lore mostly hinges things on unresolved modifiers, like "the real threat is the aliens riding down from space" or "heres this scary portal that has beasts from another dimension pouring out of it", so people can make their own stories out of that, and thats a good thing! its good that players are being given framework to make their stories about, and its a good thing that people are MAKING stories. for a site like FR, the purpose of lore is to do exactly that: give you ideas and a groundwork to build off of. But, because thats what the talking point is, there's a sort of Confusion that happens with regards to how the idea of "arcane" is interpreted; the Eldritch Abominations is what a lot of people are here for, when that's...not exactly the principle of the flight itself. it's not even the makeup of the flight itself, the flight just summons them inadvertently. heck, if we want to take an extra close look at the lore, the Arcanist would [i]absolutely never[/i] make a dragon that in any way is some kind of space horror, because, yknow, he accidentally ended the world by summoning the shade, the Ultimate Space Horror, and he didnt exactly like that. [EDIT: I don’t mean to imply that it could never happen, just in a case of “religiously sticking to lore” which the site itself doesnt even always do bc imperials arent even ancients, so it’s not the be all end all. also ancients Can just be formed of high concentrations of magical energy and not on purpose I think] if you line these guys up side to side with the arcanist, they do look pretty similar. they have the same extra arms, secondary wings, long floopy tails, monkeyface...definitely fits. like this is raw what arcane looks like, in all three types of dragon (arcanist, fae, and aether). HOWEVER on the flipside, for arcane apparel you have stuff like the Shardhide and Feathery Fallout, which are mutations for interfering too much with Arcane Energies. and those again are the interesting things, the things that make for fun twists when youre dressing your dragons, so thats what becomes more associated with the idea of an Arcane Dragon. I'm capping this with what I mean as a lighthearted joke and I am not attacking anyone, but it's kind of really funny to me that the dragons described as being of mixed culture households are divisive to the community as "too cute to be scary too scary to be cute" as though instead of fitting into Both Groups, they fit into Neither. if u know you kno but also dare I say they are...alienated

Honestly I had no real expectations going into their release. Ancients have been really hit or miss for me, and Aethers are no different. I look at an Aether and get the same feeling as I would looking at your average moeblob anime girl. It's just... too cute to appeal to me? Like it leans a bit too far into that and gets into some weird uncanny valley thing. There's something about their mouths specifically that I just really can't enjoy.

That said though I guess it fits Arcane in really broad strokes; I feel like weirdly cute is Arcane's main aesthetic, leaning into both weird and cute in different measures at different times. I would've really enjoyed an Arcane ancient that actually did look out of this world, but Aethers very much look like they're from this planet. It fits the lore sure but I dunno... it feels like a missed opportunity to me.

Everyone join hands with me and we can manifest an eventual Shade breed that's really alien looking lmao

I like Aethers. They're cute, they've got a cool moth thing going on, and they have some fun lore. But I am disappointed they weren't more out there. The idea of alien dragons (though we later found out they weren't actual aliens) has so many possibilities that it's easy to come up with a bunch of interesting ideas. Because of that, what we got seems tame in comparison. Even tame compared to Undertides and Aberrations. Also, some kind of warped looking arcane dragon would be really fun for lore.

If the extra limbs were more noticeable, I'd be more okay with them as the arcane ancient. As is, they read more like a modern to me. A modern I really like, but a modern nonetheless.

TL;DR I like them as dragons, but a bit sad that they're The Arcane Ancient.

I am not sure. These guys are chaotic and I know that people were expecting some sort of eldritch horror but it's kinda our own fault for having hyped ourselves up this much. I for one thought we would be getting a new effort instead and I was disappointed for around 2.8 seconds but then I saw the mothlings and I was like HELL YEA.

Anyway, if we expect way too much, we're bound to get disappointed. There will be more Ancients to come, don't lose hope.

I didn't have many expectations- I don't use Ancients very often anyway, after all. I came in believing they were sort of neat, little fuzzy guys- not really my vibe, but not against it either.

But... they are not growing on me. I do not like them as much as I would have liked to. I didn't have expectations, and while a Silly Goofy dragon is a ton of fun to have in the game, I probably won't have any.

I guess its just the "what could have been" for a lot of people? The fact that it could have been something super cool like aberrations, something eldritch from the stars... and we got funny guys.

this is absolutely a case of user expectations differing from staff intentions, honestly the same issue happens in shadow a lot too. a major theme of that flight is trickery and deception and its represented by circus themes, i won't pretend like my site experience can speak for everyone but i very rarely come across shadow lairs that include their own troupes. i won't pretend like im also not the problem, im pretty avoidant of site lore but i have to wonder if people were more engaged with it these kind of topics would appear less? the reckless pursuit of knowledge is what leads to the horrors like the shade and forbidden portal, yeah sure they have really neat designs and implications but the message is these things are the consequences of research without precaution/understanding of the gravity of the situation and are kind of like... bad. funny moth dragons who accidentally got trapped in space and ate all their research is pretty on point for arcane themes (but im not and have never been in the flight so eh its an outsider's opinion)

I was honestly expecting them to go all out, just because of the lore of arcane. Like, the Arcanist appeared from a magical reactor explosion, right? So many tropes around reactors and things going wrong are strange/unnatural mutations. Things that just look extremely out there, that sort of thing. That on top of the heavy arcane theme for the Forbidden Portal and space ship image kinda gave the impression of an out there look.

I mean I'm not mad. I love moths. Seeing a moth dragon brought to life is amazing, and I know they're gonna surpass my Banescale collection in the making because of it! But the potential of having a multi-limbed, perhaps opposite eye effect of aberrations with a cyclops eye lens constantly staring at the stars, completely focused on watching and recording the cosmos with their many arms, wings mostly made for gliding in low-gravity areas just feels kinda lost in this breed. Like it is definitely there with the big eyes, six legs (hardly visible mind you), and smaller wingspan, but it almost feels toned down.

This won't stop me from hoarding them like a goblin, but yeah. Definitely a "What could've been." moment. And the last two flights left to get a second breed before we hit the free for all don't have much potential for the sort of eldritch horror vibe (Lightning I have serious doubts, Nature maybe if Aberrations weren't already so out there and don't want a rip off of plague's ancient when glademom poked fun at their design in canon). Maybe a neutral element breed like Bogsneaks could pull it off, but yeah.

[quote name="Temere" date="2023-03-22 16:06:32" ] I was expecting something more mold breaking and unsetteling. Space is pretty weird and not many flights can have the crazy look without feeling out of place. Plauge got aberrations with a testing design and I kind of expected arcane would have amped it more Also kind of sucks since light is probably going to get the eldritch (god) ancient, they already have plenty of stuff going on with imperials, emperors and a unique "mascot". It feels a bit stuffed and would have loved seeing some more crazy stuff in other flights. [/quote] ^This Don't get me wrong, I love the moths, and planning on gening a lot of my dragons to be moths in the future, but I have to agree 100% with this.

Look, all I know is I've never ever been this disappointed in a breed release before. Actually, I've never been disappointed in a breed design before. I still like them well enough (not the babies though - I hate their faces lmao) that I have four so far, but I keep regarding them with a bit of bitterness.

People keep talking about how the breeds can't be too far from the norm, in order to appeal to general audiences. And this concept disappoints me greatly. We're really going to axe creativity because some might not like them as much? I know no staff have confirmed this idea, and it's just headcanons, but it's enough to get to me. I love Aberrations, but even with them I sometimes wish they had something more. More skeletal features, more protrusions on the body, longer claws, I don't know. Something to make them more... Plague abomination.

Here, we had an opportunity for Arcane eldritch horror. Like what we see at the Forbidden Portal (Chacmas, Sparksylph, the Wyverns, stuff like that). Or even something still cute, but with all the alien features I'd expect of an Arcane Ancient lost to time in space. Instead we get... Tundra deviation #3. Like someone mixed a Tundra and a Spiral together.

Again, I still like Aethers enough to have a few. And I adore the Space gene - give us more genes like that for them! But they're just so... cutesy. And another thick-maned dragon that echoes the Tundras a bit too much. I defended Obelisks looking somewhat like Tundras in body plan back when they were released, but another breed? So soon? I don't know...

I'm just really hopeful that the next Ancient breed is something truly fun and cool, cuz for me this whole release has been really lacklustre.

[quote name="RheoTastic" date="2023-03-22 19:38:24" ] I thiiiiiink its a case of site culture vs site lore. which isn't a bad thing, necessarily, but confusion of fanon and canon usually makes people unhappy. like, I'm seeing a lot of claims about what arcane Is or Isnt and, that's in part because Arcane isn't an actual, real world element, and its based in Ideals more than Concretes. From my perspective, it's about curiosity and dreaming, and it's pretty lighthearted; iirc in the lore the Arcanist was kind of a weenie, he was Scared of the world when he was first born but then just kind of curious and went out to go and play, to discover things, and THATS when he summoned the shade. the arcane flight itself is just kind of guileless and clumsy in its devotion to having a good time, that's the Theme that I'm seeing. The interesting part to make stories out of though, is of course the consequences. and it's built like that on purpose; site lore mostly hinges things on unresolved modifiers, like "the real threat is the aliens riding down from space" or "heres this scary portal that has beasts from another dimension pouring out of it", so people can make their own stories out of that, and thats a good thing! its good that players are being given framework to make their stories about, and its a good thing that people are MAKING stories. for a site like FR, the purpose of lore is to do exactly that: give you ideas and a groundwork to build off of. But, because thats what the talking point is, there's a sort of Confusion that happens with regards to how the idea of "arcane" is interpreted; the Eldritch Abominations is what a lot of people are here for, when that's...not exactly the principle of the flight itself. it's not even the makeup of the flight itself, the flight just summons them inadvertently. heck, if we want to take an extra close look at the lore, the Arcanist would absolutely never make a dragon that in any way is some kind of space horror, because, yknow, he accidentally ended the world by summoning the shade, the Ultimate Space Horror, and he didnt exactly like that. like, if you line these guys up side to side with the arcanist, they do look pretty similar. they have the same extra arms, secondary wings, long floopy tails, monkeyface...definitely fits. like this is raw what arcane looks like, in all three types of dragon (arcanist, fae, and aether). HOWEVER on the flipside, for arcane apparel you have stuff like the Shardhide and Feathery Fallout, which are mutations for interfering too much with Arcane Energies. and those again are the interesting things, the things that make for fun twists when youre dressing your dragons, so thats what becomes more associated with the idea of an Arcane Dragon. I'm capping this with what I mean as a lighthearted joke and I am not attacking anyone, but it's kind of really funny to me that the dragons described as being of mixed culture households are divisive to the community as "too cute to be scary too scary to be cute" as though instead of fitting into Both Groups, they fit into Neither. if u know you kno but also dare I say they are...alienated [/quote] You might be right, considering "the purpose of lore is to give you ideas and a groundwork to build off of" has been a focus lately. Which means you are probably correct it's a site culture versus site lore: a communication issue. Whatever the staff's idea is, they aren't telling us what that is. I don't think that can be argued. Heck, they just changed the rarity of an eight-year-old gene without a hint of warning or word of explanation. That means that they players are left floundering in a mire of corn kernels that they drop via item descriptions and teaser images to discern what this "story" is that they're telling. And, frankly, due to the large number of kernels there are, everyone who expected something was probably right to do so: you can't foreshadow with a hundred thousand "hints" all pointing in different directions. I think maybe I just need to remember they aren't hints. Every release has been always been self-contained to greater or lesser degrees (that is, you need no prior knowledge of anything in the game to understand it perfectly, and nothing is ever intended to point to something in the future). Basically, I don't think they're intending to build on the ground they lay. I stand by that the teaser was misleading, though. Your theorizing about things the Arcanist would never do is just that: a theory. It could just as easily be said that his response was to create things that were powerful (the Fae dragons are some of the most magically powerful dragons there are - if not the most powerful) and scary because he was scared. Some people might run away from the thing that scares them and never want to see it again. Some people might try to prepare themselves to become just as scary so they never have to be scared again. The fear of being afraid doesn't sound like a non-Arcane theme. If anything, the thing they represent is very much in line with that idea. It's a matter of taste whether a scared Arcanist dealing with his fear of the Shade making something just as scary to fight it is better than a scared Arcanist pretending like scary things don't exist and making everything cute. I could probably make just as good an argument that the Arcanist would absolutely not do the latter: the pursuit of wonder (which is what I'd argue Arcane is about) inclues fear. I personally don't care whether a dragon looks like it comes from its element or not (and I have a very low visual imagination: I was certainly not imagining what I thought this dragon should look like... and I think I can safely say that something "other-wordly" is vague enough to fit lots of things). I think Guardians are a perfect example of how aesthetic and element doesn't really line up in the minds of a lot of people as far as whatever the staff was thinking when they decided to make the dragons aligned to such-and-such an element. Maybe it was because they have fish-like fins, even though they don't look functional? Maybe it was simply because they got to the end of assigning some of the breeds they'd made before they came up with the "eleven deities" thing and Snappers made more sense as Earth dragons so Guardians were left to Water. We'll never know. The point is that I feel like most of the time the staff is speaking a very different language (metaphorically speaking - I'm not sure what they thought they were saying with the teaser) from the one I am. I'm kind of glad I'm not the only one that has this experience (as demonstrated today), but I don't think it's really a problem either way.