Suggestions

...or the ability to wear more than one skin on a single dragon at once, yeah

I think I've seen topics like this long ago, but now people seem to be obsessed with an idea of skins for hatchling (which is totally an idea I support, too!!!), but I think I wanna remind to about this possible feature

SO, why should we have multiple accent slots?

The most important thing, imo, is the appearance of ancients
Since they can not be dressed, the only way to customize them is applying accents
YEAH, I know about genes and colors :DD They have a decent amount of combos, but we depend on breeders for something nice, so there are lots of identical dergs from them (I don't say unique = good, tho, just thinking that people may want to have different dergs in their lairs. Or may not :D). We still may customize them and buy genes, but not everyone want to or don't have enough money. There are lots of unique dergs saved from exalt, but still - some color and gene combos won't be favored much, and that narrows the amount of combos drastically. And even when buying a truly unique dragon, you still may want to add something to complete their look. When speaking of moderns, we can just slap on some apparel, but ancients only have skins, and that really limits their look. You should choose carefully! And sometimes one is just not enough! Not only for ancients, but for moderns too, I believe... There are lots of accents that are simple and cool, which could supplement each other just right. On moderns, they just finish their look, but on ancients one little accent won't be enough

Also, consider skins! Some of them are heavily detailed, but some are pretty simple. Some people like simpleness like that, while some see a canvas for more customization, and personally I would slap some simple accent on
I think, even five slots will be enough (that's even a little more than needed, but we have 20 apparel slots and how many players are using them all???? not everyone for sure :D )

Also, if you are worried about CHAOS that many skins ontop of each other may cause - some users may cause chaos using only apparel. On six default slots. So it won't matter <DD

Moreover - new skin slots could work exactly like apparel slots and should be bought. So... basically, a new moneysink! More moneysinks won't hurt imo

Whew, what a huge post *sips kokoa* But, yeah, I wanted to bring it up for a while already - and I did, because it's a thing that I really wanna see on FR

Support, for purely selfish reasons.

As much as I would love to layer skins, I have to say no support.
The problem with layering isn’t that it would create visual chaos, it’s that there’s going to be someone who creates 2+ skins that look fine by themselves, but the moment you put them together it creates an offensive image. Unless the staff went through and checked every combination of skins, it would be impossible to moderate.

[quote name="Raptorflight" date="2020-05-29 13:03:38" ] As much as I would love to layer skins, I have to say no support. The problem with layering isn’t that it would create visual chaos, it’s that there’s going to be someone who creates 2+ skins that look fine by themselves, but the moment you put them together it creates an offensive image. Unless the staff went through and checked every combination of skins, it would be impossible to moderate. [/quote] This. Examples include four differently oriented L-shapes as four skins, or two skins, one featuring a sickle and another a hammer at the same spot. No support.

[quote name="Raptorflight" date="2020-05-29 13:03:38" ] As much as I would love to layer skins, I have to say no support. The problem with layering isn’t that it would create visual chaos, it’s that there’s going to be someone who creates 2+ skins that look fine by themselves, but the moment you put them together it creates an offensive image. Unless the staff went through and checked every combination of skins, it would be impossible to moderate. [/quote] Do you really truly reckon players would be willing to risk losing accents,their account and possibly IRL money needed to buy skins to be clever and make them into an offensive image? I think if people had that kind of motivation to do that then they would have already done it by playing off of already existing apparel/genes in some way or another Obviously I can't say if people would really try to create unnecessary chaos with genes. I can only speak for myself. But I really can't imagine someone realistically putting the energy into doing that

[quote name="Lino" date="2020-05-29 14:32:02" ] [quote name="Raptorflight" date="2020-05-29 13:03:38" ] As much as I would love to layer skins, I have to say no support. The problem with layering isn’t that it would create visual chaos, it’s that there’s going to be someone who creates 2+ skins that look fine by themselves, but the moment you put them together it creates an offensive image. Unless the staff went through and checked every combination of skins, it would be impossible to moderate. [/quote] Do you really truly reckon players would be willing to risk losing accents,their account and possibly IRL money needed to buy skins to be clever and make them into an offensive image? I think if people had that kind of motivation to do that then they would have already done it by playing off of already existing apparel/genes in some way or another Obviously I can't say if people would really try to create unnecessary chaos with genes. I can only speak for myself. But I really can't imagine someone realistically putting the energy into doing that [/quote] People possibly would, but Stormlight is legally at risk for liability by (temporarily) permitting such content to be generated.

You could probably check skins against the authors other skins, I don't think that's something people would collab on..?

I also don't think thats something people would spend many gems on in general, and something that would be pretty easy to pick up in a shop if they tried to get a better price by selling copies

Like its not... Hard to make offensive things without this either

I'd like to hope people wouldn't do that because I think the ability to layer ONE accent over ONE skin would be fantastic and would really drive sales for full coverage skins, which are totally dismal right now.

Like no to more than one of each, but one of each? Yes yes yes. Please

It would be neat but there are honestly a lot of cons and questionable things to consider with something like this.

It used to come up a ton as a suggestion and I'm actually surprised that this is the first one I've seen in a very long time about it

But anyway, a big 'issue' is copyright. Not only could someone take the offensive route as mentioned previously but it would also be fairly simple to get multi-skin accents/skins made that, when put together, would outright reference copyrighted material.

It's a vast oversimplification but it works as an example: One skin with a half circle in red and another with one in white and along with some 'stylistic' detail between the two and you have a combination that makes a pokeball.

Yes you could get around that by checking every skin submitted against every skin from the artist - but, ignoring artists that have hundreds of skins in their catalogs - you still can't expect them to check every skin on site. So someone taking a skin that already exists with a red half circle and slapping their own on top to get around the 'same artist' check is a possibility.

Which brings up another issue - using other peoples skins/accents in a way that the original artist didn't intend.

Currently, when an artist makes a skin it's exactly the way they want it. Granted, it turns into "FR property" but it's still their art on display. So what happens when another users finds a skin they like but want to 'improve'. They take the skin and overlay their own on top of it - trace lines, overlay sections, etc.

It might have cost them but they've freely 'edited' the other users skin. I'm sure many artists wouldn't mind but I'm sure others would very much take offence to their styles and artistic works being altered.

Not to mention that if it's done that way, it takes potential money from the artist. Since many skin/accent artists charge a blueprint + the art fee for making custom accents. Now you'd only need the cost of a blueprint and a fill tool to get your own. Granted, you'd also need artistic ability in most cases so I can't imagine it would hamper customes entirely but it's worth noting.

Would people go out of their way to create copyright or offensive material via a layering system? Probably. People go out of their way as is to do it and some people have plenty of money to burn or make plenty of site-currency without spending a dime.

Would it be the most rampant problem? Probably not. The problem though, is that it would be there to consider. So it's more of a "do the pros outweigh the potential cons" situation.

Would having to create a system that checks each skin against every other (or just the artists other) skin/accent - in every configuration be worth the benefit of layering skins?

Would the potential of angering artists who already submitted skins and now don't want them to be a part of the system - even if they don't technically get a say - be worth the good pr that layering skins would provide?

I don't know.

Heck, with only two skin/accent mods I don't think it's even possible at this point.

I do think it would be interesting. Combo skins would be cool (but pretty dang expensive at a certain point - not even going to get into the 'marketing' strategy of releasing multiple skins instead of one so you could double+ your profit).

But I'm not sure how they'd go about dealing with the cons/issues of the whole thing

As said, it is the issue of copyrighted and 'disallowed' content.

There are absolutely players who would risk side accounts or even mains, to do things like this for laughs, and depending on how many skins were able to be layered, it could be a nightmare to try to check.

If it were only two skins (or accents etc..), then it is a fairly simple, but tedious process to layer each skin over another (still, with the amount of skins available, it would also be a LONG process) to check..

When you start saying 'okay, lets have 3 layers', well, the process just got more difficult and longer. 4 layers? even worse.

Plus, the more layers you allow, the easier it is to get things by. Two skins would be pretty obvious that they were meant to be layered (though that doesn't mean that artists can't be clever and make it less so), because you would have 'half' a skin.

However, when you start having the ability to layer more than 2 skins, it gets less and less obvious that each skin is meant to be added to a 'whole' and that much harder to catch copyrighted material (and there are some big names out there that absolutely DO go after 'the little guys' if they percieve their property being used without their permission) and disallowed content (not just NSFW, but other imagery that FR doesn't want on their site). Look at things now: there was a issue just a short while ago about an artist's skins being removed, and it turned out that they were potentially not only against the rules (not NSFW) but also the original art didn't belong to the 'artist' who uploaded them. Those skins weren't caught by the team, because there are hundreds if not thousands of skins for them to go through and figure out whether or not they follow the rules, etc..

Needing to check skins against each other would just make it worse.

Then there is the issue of art theft and other players being 'inspired' by other skins.

Being able to break an image up into multiple layers would mean that art theft would be much harder to detect than it already is.

I have also seen players get upset when users who have commissioned them removed a white background to make the art have a transparent background without permission, so I definitely feel there are players who would get very upset at players 'changing' their art into something else without their permission, even if the one player doens't actually use their art, but just bases it on them.

I have also seen people start crying 'art theft' when two skins are similiar in theme and execution (ie two skins have wing silks layered almost the same way)

All in all, combined with the chaos issue, Ifeel that the cons to layering skins would far outweigh any pros you might get, because lets face it, with the tens of thousands of skins available and being made and that will be made in the future, there is only a relative handful of skins that would actually look good layered together, especially when we start taking into account they have to be made for the same pose.

So to me, it would be a lot of work, and bring a lot of problems, for very little return.

Regarding concerns for using double skins to be sneaky: Crude and hateful content is already against the rules. It's gonna be really easy to find and ban people who do this, because why go through the effort of making a troll set of skins only to keep it hidden? That is they succeed in getting the accents approved in the first place.

Should we entirely discount a useful feature because it could be used for trolling? by that logic lets get rid of the forums, because it can be used for trolling. /s
It's good to consider these possibilities (so that the admins can be braced for such issues) but lets not throw out the baby with the bathwater.


Moving on to reasons to support:
Being able to stack accents would be useful for people who like to make and use simpler accents. Simple accents would do well with this feature because you'll be able to pick and choose smaller elements to make up your dragon's skin. I like to occasionally make simple accents, like ones that only affect the manes of dragons, but sometimes those don't sell because people want greater coverage. With stacking accents, you can have a mane recolor accent in addition to a completely different one.