Suggestions

While I couldn't agree more about the whole "not your lair, not your dragon" thing, I doubt that's their reason. There are a lot of nest rental groups out there (and I believe the one in their signature is one of them) where nest rentals are expected to be free. I have only once paid for a nest, and it was because I asked the nester to hold the dragons for a month. The only reason a nest renter would make a fortune was if they "stole" primal eye hatchlings from the people renting from them, but you couldn't do that for long before people stopped renting from you.

I think it could be good for even profit nest renters, actually. Sure, they're missing out on the repeated business of the minuscule percentage of users who are desperate enough for an OOF special type that they're willing to send out their pairs again and again for months or years. However, a lot more people would be willing to embark on such breeding projects in the first place if they knew that once they had a dragon of the proper element, they could adjust the type as desired.

I can't see the staff keeping things as-is solely so nest renting can benefit; after all, the staff themselves don't support nest renting.

Now, I fully agree we should have a mechanic on site to nest rent or 2P breed or change a nest's element. But that's a separate suggestion.

As Lara said, allowing players to customize eyes AND nest rent would work very well hand in hand. We shouldn't have to choose between the two.

Wanting the eye types to be lore friendly is fair. It does seem to be the original intention behind their introduction that Natural eye types would be for new dragons only, going forward.

However, maybe it's just that I grew up on very lore-heavy yet lore-breezy games like The Legend of Zelda and Sonic the Hedgehog, but to my mind, videogame stories and gameplay need to work together. Each game needs to find its own balance between being engaging gameplay-wise and being engaging story-wise: I've played plenty of games with gameplay I didn't really find that compelling but had an interesting story I wanted to see through, and I've played plenty more with little story or an incoherent story for a good bit of gameplay.

And then there's the ones that let you make your own story out of emergent gameplay, like The Sims. I think Flight Rising is closest to those kinds of games. The Sims games have some pre-baked families for you to play with if you want, but that's optional: similarly, yes, there is site lore, but it's not mandatory that any player follow it.

Exalting is in lore the highest honour a dragon can receive, but there's no ban on players interpreting it as dragons being sacrificed to the gods. Imperials and Pearlcatchers hate each other in lore, but there's no rule saying players can't have Imp/PC breeding pairs who are deeply in love.

Basically, I think that Flight Rising is one of those games where 'we are restricting this gameplay feature because lore' is... not that great an argument to my mind. Especially since the cat's kind of out of the bag already on that score, I feel - even without Scattervials or clanbound Goat vials, the divide between Natural and Unnatural eyetypes is completely arbitrary in terms of what designs are which.

ETA: And the other point I was going to make is this: this is a very, very easy thing to retcon. Like so: "At first it was only new hatchlings, but then dragon scientists/mages/alchemists reverse engineered the effect!"

If lore is the reason for disagreement here, well it's never been stated that adult dragons weren't affected at all. The story Aftershocks never states anything about adult dragons. In Aftershocks all we get to see is one nesting ground out of the entirety of Sornieth. Who's to say in some other place, say in the Scarred Wasteland or the Windswept Plateau or even other regoins of the Starfall Isles, a dozen adult dragons woke up to find their eyes had changed due the elemental rampage? Nothing in canon lore says something like this didn't or couldn't happen.
That's what I think is so great about FR's lore. It gives us a great frame to work with but at the same time it's loose enough to reasonably allow for contradictions, exceptions and parallel developments. And the eyes would have been such a great opportunity! But only here the lore is forced on everyone in the most narrow and frustrating way possible. It's really sad and infuriating at the same time.

Not everyone cares about lore or plays the game according to the lore. Locking game functions into lore only alienates many users and isn't a sound argument against these sorts of things. [emoji=guardian sad size=2]

I know it's been said at this point, but I agree with the idea that mechanics are always more important than lore. The reasoning is simple. You can make a good story surrounding almost anything. You can't make a good game out of every story.

If "because lore" is the reason staff has decided not to do eye vials, they should have written a novel, not a game.

I can completely understand about lore. There are things that I wouldn't want in game, mainly because of lore, as it would go directly against stated lore (being able to change a dragon's element comes to mind), but even then, it shouldn't be the *only* reason why something isn't implemented.

I think that FR should remain consistent with their own lore, but that is the beauty of FR: they have some very open ended lore, and it can be changed all the time.

Take this specific instance: Before the eye update, dragons were stuck with one eye type, period.

However, they found a way to work within their lore and give dragons different eye variants. Using BotE, they explained that it was the sudden increase in magic that caused it.

Another example (and I will try to tie the two together) is Baldwin. Previously, all dragons were created by the Deities. However, using Baldwin, they created the bogsneaks and gave them some unique lore to go with it. Bogsneaks are completely separate from the Deities, in that they were not created by any deity.

Last, in a way the staff have already gone against their own eye lore by giving us unnatural eyes. How do they fit into the BotE lore?

Those three things could give them the 'out' to create lore surrounding giving natural eye vials (and also explain why it took so long) to the site.

Something along the lines of: BotE created a number of unexpected results. Dragons just hatching were presenting previously unknown eyes to the world, while some potions were changed from simple healing potions into potions that could give the drinker a new 'outlook' on the world. Baldwin, being the scientist he is, started studying these new eye vials, and studied the natural variants that the dragons using his cauldron sported, and through a year's long study of the subject, finally mastered the ability to create eye vials that mimic natural eye types.

HOwever, this process doesn't come without a cost. It is very expensive, and very time consuming to create such vials.


Plus, as stated, it was never explicitly said that ONLY hatchlings were affected, and they have already gone against lore anyway with the scattervials (which I know they said they regret introducing them).

As said, I agree that FR should work within their lore, but fr canon is so open ended that there is quite a lot they could do to both retain the integrity of their lore and still give users the natural eye vials they want.

And there are already so many existing mechanics that break from lore, anyways. We can turn mage dragons like fae into physical fighters. We can breed imperials and pearlcatchers even though they hate each other. Nocturnes exist in lairs all over Sornieth throughout the whole year, rather than spending most of it in hiding like their lore says.