Suggestions

I support, however I think the way its set up could be complicated. I do not think the site should guarantee even-numbered eggs, because people would then abuse this feature to avoid the chance of 1 egg. Besides which, there are plenty of people that would offer their dragons but don't want any hatchlings, just treasure/gems. I think the fairest way is to do this:

Whoever makes the request is the one that pays, and they enter the amount they are offering (and are allowed to set it as 0 if they wish.) They choose which user's nest is used (I think this should take up a nest spot, but it shouldn't matter much.) Said person also must choose from a set of If:Then statements. These statements would decide who gets what eggs. They'd look like this:

John made a request to XxRobotoxX.

First dropdown section is for If 1 egg.

-If 1 egg, then John gets 1 hatchling.
OR
-If 1 egg, then XxRobotoxX gets 1 hatchling.

Second dropdown section is for If 2 eggs.

-If 2 eggs, then John gets 2 hatchlings.
OR
-If 2 eggs, then John gets 1 hatchling and XxRobotoxX gets 1 hatchling.
OR
-If 2 eggs, then XxRobotoxX gets 2 hatchlings.

And so on and so forth until every egg number possibility is accounted for. Hopefully the game can run a check to see if 5 eggs is possible or not.

I think the nest should be manually incubated, but in the event that one player goes AWOL the dragons' nest will eventually time out so as not to lock people into never being able to breed/sell/change their stud-stuck dragon again. In the event of a time-out, the eggs would just not exist anymore. To make this fair, the price the requester pays isn't transferred until AFTER the nest hatches so no one can scam through this.

When the nest hatches, I think the agreed-upon hatchling numbers should automatically appear in their proper owners' lairs.

As an example, let's say John and XxRobotoxX ended up with three eggs. John set for it to be where he gets 2 and XxRobotoxX gets 1. Since he is the requester, he gets the first two hatchlings (by ID number) and XxRobotoxX gets the final hatchling.

This wouldn't help with picking out specific hatchlings, but hopefully the two could contact one another if they want to trade hatchlings after the fact. I think if the hatchlings had to be picked out before they were given to someone, it would cause a lot more arguments than if the RNG started things. At least then people would be mad at the website instead of at each other.

I think I covered all the aspects of nesting, but if I missed something let me know. Some of these ideas were listed in another 'stud' topic not by me (most notably the dropdown lists) so this isn't all my idea.

I don't really think that you should be able to have nests of 6 eggs, I can see that being VERY abused as that is more than someone can have normally in their own lair. so I would say that if the number of eggs MUST be even, only 2 or 4 would work.

I don't agree with the studded offspring list was separate. If two people want to breed their dragons together, things like naming should be something they talk about BEFORE they do it (I know I used the naughty word *should*, but I don't really see why a studded dragon's offspring list would be any different than other offspring lists, the dragon STILL hatched those eggs, they are STILL related to him/her so it should be treated the exact same way)

For the studding system, perhaps, if they were to put something like that into place, it could be like this:

When a person offers their dragon for stud or a person requests a stud, they are required to fill out a slight questionnaire.

The first has to do with where the dragon is being nested. The Requester's or the Stud's lair. IE, I request a stud, I would need to select where I want the dragons to nest, and thus what color eyes they would have

The Next has to do with offspring: Requester gets all offspring, 'Stud' gets all offspring (ie if someone is looking for a mate for one of their dragons to be hatched in their nest) or offspring are split, it would probably be best to have it first baby goes to Player 1, second to Player 2 etc..

The final question would be to do with price, which with Greyjoy's example could be already filled in, but allow some 'haggling' by the person who is filling in the questionnaire. IE they could give a 'counter' offer to what the person wants to stud the dragon (they might offer more if they want all the offspring for example, or might not have that much so they perhaps offer less, but decide to allow the other user to choose which baby to give)

The final point on the questionnaire should be to hammer out fine details on the forums and not just rely on implied statements.

The questions above are just examples and probably would need to be finetuned to whatever the most common 'negotiation points' are about nest rentals

EDIT: In response to GreyJoy's Edit

I think that should the usual 5 day incubation period passes and the eggs haven't been hatched yet, an option should perhaps open up that allows either user to 'discard' the nest and dragons returned to original owners and it would be as if it never happened except the dragons would be on cooldown.

I do not think that allowing a dragon who is studding to be sold or exalted or traded would work (think about if someone buys that dragon and wants to breed it then finds out the dragon is on a nest somewhere and that other user has went AWOL)

I also think that Drakel's method of handling people not incubating is a good way, especially the bit about where the money isn't transferred until after the nest is actually hatched.

@Jemadar

That was the point of my edit! c:

The stud dragon would never be 'on a nest'. They wouldn't be tied up to a nest like a pair of dragons in the same lair.

It would be a service, with a picture shown as an example at the requester's nest, but s/he would act like a regular dragon after the confirmation is pressed, able to be sold and exalted and whatever.

He or she would be subject to the usual cooldown, of course, so if they were sold they would not be able to be bred until the cooldown was up, but they would ultimately have the same status as a dragon that has just had a nest booned, despite the fact that the buyer would still be incubating it (think of it as them acting as a 'single parent' for incubation since it would take up one of the buyer's nests, not one of the seller's).

The stud (or whatever the female equivalent of a stud would be) wouldn't be 'on a nest', but they're on cooldown for the full duration appropriate to that breed.

I do not at all agree with the money only being charged after it's hatched, because you are offering a service to the person who requested to use your dragon for breeding. You should get the money when you agree to it, because once the nest has been laid, it would be entirely in the buyer's hands. All their responsibility, all their problem. You did your bit -- you pressed confirm, allowed them to use your dragon, got your money and have to put up with the regular cooldown.

I don't think that the seller of the service should have to be responsible for anything at all once their confirmation is done. I wouldn't want to have my dragon tied up in somebody else's nest! How is that different to just lending them your dragon? You're still giving a virtual stranger some say in what happens to it, which is what studding is supposed to eliminate.

@GreyJoy

Ah, I didn't realize that was the point.

I was thinking more that the dragon was still on a nest/

@Jemadar

Nah, as I just added in the above post, I don't think that the 'seller' should have to have anything more to do with the nest once they have confirmed the breeding.

They should confirm it, get payment when they confirm it and then suffer their dragon being on a cooldown. Incubating and stuff should all be handled by the person who requested the studding.

I don't think anybody wants their dragon tied up in somebody else's breeding, especially potentially indefinitely depending on the limitations.

I don't think a time limit is fair on the requester, either. If they paid, they should get to deal with their eggs as they see fit -- they bought them and should be able to incubate and hatch when they like, as they could with any other nest.

Studding should, ideally, work like a regular breeding, just with an 'absent' parent and a transaction fee.

It works much like that on my other pet game.

If somebody wants to use another user's male, they go to the page, request a breeding, get charged the amount set by the male's owner and then the male will mate with the female (at the expense of energy, which takes a while to build back up -- it would be the rough equivalent of a cooldown) and when it's done, the male's owner has nothing more to do with it and the female's owner gets the babies they want!

Biggest issue with having the 'studded' dragon separate and not treat like if they are on a nest is hatchling data isn't determined until hatching, therefore if the studded dragon is changed (breed, genes, colors) so do the hatchling possibilities. To avoid this they'd have to track the studded data for the duration the eggs are on the nest ((which could be quite a while)) which is why if something like this was added I'd prefer that if the nest isn't hatched in X days ((I'd say X should be a day or two more than the normal incubation period just in case something pops up, although 15 days should be the absolute maximum possibility as that corresponds with the length of a plentiful's cooldown)) then the clutch is discarded to prevent dragons from being stuck in limbo or possibly allow the other player to claim the nest instead of auto discarding

@DragonSage

That's a really good argument against it, really.

I could get behind that limitation 100%.

I admit, I forgot about when the hatchlings were generated and I didn't consider the gene/breed change possibility. A maximum hatch period of 15 days until discard would be absolutely fair in light of that.

@DragonSage and @Greyjoy, So as a recap- a working possibility of studding single parenting?

A dragon offers a fee in exchange for his or her DNA.
Another dragon pays out for the service.
A nest is created, with both dragons watching (to be able to track both parents genes).
The paying dragon incubates the nest.
THEN EITHER:

The nest is incubated, hatchlings hatched.
The money is transferred.
Both dragons are on breeding cooldown.

OR:

The paying dragon times out for incubation, and the nest is abandoned.
The money is not transferred and the dragons are not on breeding cooldown.

Does that adhere to all suggestions in this thread? I think I got them all?

@TokalaLupe
Breeding cooldown starts at time of breeding--so irregardless of if the clutch hatches or is discarded, the dragons should have been on cooldown. In the case of plentiful breeds, they will be RTB at the time of discarding; other breeds would still have part of the cooldown to go.

In addition I personally think the money should be transferred at the time of breeding. If the player who paid the fee doesn't incubate the nest and it gets discarded, that's their fault the other player shouldn't be penalized by losing the fee.