#I didn’t improve tha most this year but ITS OKAY. you know how it goes

[ganonboars]

Art summary for 2023.. i may have mental issues

(The guys in June and July belong to @eraofthirteen)

[dramarising-replacement]

And now, a better version of http://dramarising.com/post/171472034768/and-with-this-announcement-my-annoyance-with-frs now that I’m not so livid and can jot my thoughts down properly.

  So! Let’s get started here, this is just my opinion, and if you like how FR is currently,  good for you! But for me, I’m done with how mediocre the site is (to me and others I know), and this is how I personally think the site could improve greatly. Expect comparisons to both Lioden and Tattered Weave, as they’re both I think shining examples of how to do good in the pet site world.

  Drama Admin, if you could add a read more here, that’d be great!

  First off, the Coli: It’s…. a game, technically? I honestly think as a basic feature, the coli is fine. It’s a bit boring but some people have fun. The issue however is how the coli is deeply rooted as being THE ONLY good, consistent source of treasure. This is honestly a bad thing I feel for multiple reasons, the major one being accessibility. If you have issues with your hands like carpal tunnel, it’s already very very hard to go through the motions for hours (Yes I know, it doesn’t always take hours). But hey, we have keyboard controls now, right? Right. It’s a step in the right direction, but the issue here is you… you can’t go to the next battle with keyboard controls. Or do the Captchas, I assume. This pretty much makes the keyboard controls a waste. And speaking of captchas, that is where the main problem with coli accessibility now lies. There’s already many people saying the captchas are extremely hard if you are visually impaired. This wouldn’t be too bad of an issue if they happened less often, but it’s what, every 5 battles? For those who REALLY coli, that’s nothing! It’s both a nuisance and a hindrance, to those with or without disabilities.

  How would I improve the coli? First off: make it FUN. Make it an actual game! Add more variance to how enemies fight, and what we can do with our dragons! One suggestion I liked was making it more like Pokemon. The second thing would be making it easily accessible to anyone. Proper keyboard controls, the option for audio captchas, etc. Please FR, at the very least make there be different options for the captcha. Along with that, currently the most viable option for any coli team, the only thing that makes it worthwhile to earn treasure and level dragons, is eliminate- which has its own problems (Please fix the goddamn drop rate for it already- newsflash, when you add more rares to a venue, the chance of getting a specific rare goes down. I know, shocking.) Adding other viable options besides eliminate, even something as simple as a magic based eliminate or maybe elemental stones that are as strong, would be something that could be added to freshen the coli up just a bit without changing it drastically. Not only this, but it could make PVP something people actually want to do! Encouraging PVP could be a lot of fun, especially if rewards come from it. Let people be creative with their sets so we can see more than eliminate for every coli-trained dragon!

  Fairgrounds: Alright, this is the big thing I’ll be complaining about. Fairgrounds, where to start…..

  Okay, the main thing: we need more games, FR! It’s been YEARS since we’ve had any additions other than more jigsaw puzzles! Games are really important, especially since FR’s games can give treasure. If the fairgrounds was actually fun, we wouldn’t need to be so reliant on the coli, as we’d have two major ways to earn treasure.

  This will get flak, I know, but I honestly think it’d be for the best if the 75k limit was removed. “But then you could get millions!” Exactly! A few dedicated people can too. There’s no limit on training dragons in the coli, or exalting, why should there be a limit to playing a minigame? The limit makes the fairgrounds even more useless, since there’s no point in playing once that limit is reached.

  So, fairgrounds: It needs to update its games and fix any bugs in them. Add the option for choosing jigsaw puzzle perhaps. Make it a valid option of income.

  If there were to be more games, i’d also like to suggest: Solitaire (TW added this, it’s one of the best games there) as it is actually a lot of fun to play and earn treasure with, maybe chess or checkers, even a flappy bird clone could be nice. Even taking a look at some of the popular neopets games from back in the day could give some inspiration- a snake game, something akin to meerca chase, would be a nice addition- A friend of mine used to love Hassee Bounce and Ice Cream Machine as well, which both seem like fun games! Even something like breakout? Lots of fun potential with tha, you could do anything from powerups to levels of difficulty with more balls to keep track of.Ultimately though, having a variety of games would make the fairgrounds so much better- not everyone will like every game, but having a variety of options you are more likely to hit something nearly everyone enjoys.

  Lioden’s system of giving item rewards for its minigames could also be a fun thing to consider with FR too. No genescrolls or the like, but chests could be a great incentive to play. Hey, even festival currency!

  Festivals: I didn’t really mention them in my mega rant, but I think it’s important to say something about them. Let’s be honest. The festivals are a boring event now where it feels like nothing exciting happens. They need to be spruced up! The current system of gathering hoping for currency and then, once again, going to coli or wait for ages in baldwin is just plain boring. Shouldn’t festivals be fun? A celebration of the flight?

  In-game events tied in with festivals could be great. Some kind of quest, maybe? They would give festival currency and also provide lore! Looking at Lioden mostly for this, but if you aren’t familiar, Lioden has monthly events. These last the entire month. Midway through, an event NPC appears, and everyday you do quests with them in order to gain lores and get story. It’s a lot of fun and a great incentive to keep playing! FR having a feature similar to this would be AMAZING. It provides lore, makes festivals fun, and gives potential options to get event currency if Baldwin or the coli isn’t an option for you. Players already do stuff like this every month to try and make festivals fun. They’ve come up with some great headcanoned lore. Why not give them the opportunity to see these things become a canonical event? In general actually, the Lore could be improved greatly. FR’s base lore is great, I love it! But having more lore events every few months would be a blessing, rather than this once in a blue moon wave of new information. (Also, maybe it shouldn’t happen right during a flight’s festival, hm?) I was not around for when the Beastclans were introduced, but more events like that would create new content for old and new players alike to enjoy, and keep people playing. Taking from Tattered Weave here, along with Lioden’s monthly events. This wouldn’t need to happen every month, but perhaps bi-monthly lore events could be fun? From information about the NPCs at the trading post (Tell us about Tomo! About Swipp and Baldwin, and Pinkerton and Crim! We know nothing about them!) to lore about flights and dragons, this could be a lot of fun and keep players returning.  So much of the playerbase of FR is in it for the lore, and it’s probably one of the biggest selling points. Adding more of it would be great! Even the return of Q&As could be great, that at least gives SOME kind of content and answers player’s questions. The suggestions forum. Alright, this is the big thing for me. I’m sure everyone here is familiar with the suggestions forum and its reputation. I’m not here to talk about that, but instead: FR’s admins need to listen to suggestions. They need to at least acknowledge they are being read. Lioden and Tattered Weave both very consistently listen to user suggestions. People wanted lesbian lionesses in Lioden’s february event as an encounter? A week later, lesbian lionesses were added! People wanted some recolors of apparel in Tattered Weave? It took a few months, but they got added! Listening to popular suggestions from users shows admins care, that they listen to their player base, and it gives satisfaction to the players. Seeing a suggestion you recognize become a real thing is amazing.   So, the big suggestions that FR should REALLY be at least considering at this point: Pose change scrolls, the ability to rearrange battle stones (although this might be happening in the coli rewrite), layering skins and accents, uses for perma babies from skins and accents to the coli, locking awakened familiars in the bestiary, and lair tabs. All of these things range from creating fun content, to quality of life improvements, which would surely improve the site somehow. These final thoughts aren’t completely related to any one topic, but I think I’ve gotten my major gripes across with the above paragraphs.

FR, think of accessibility. Before doing a site-wide unannounced forum revamp, don’t use blinding colors. Don’t do captchas many people can’t properly see. Think of lore, how players want more and more often, and it’s one of the appealing things through the game. Think of actual new content! We don’t need more cluttered apparel sets and premium boons, we need new games and features! Just…. Flight Rising, you can do so so much better. You’re more than 5 years old. It’s time for some major changes I think, or your playerbase is simply going to become smaller and smaller on a site stale from lack of worthwhile updates and nothing to do without waiting a month. Be transparent. Host forums asking for feedback on certain topics. Tattered Weave does it with great success, Lioden does polls at the very least! Ask the players “Hey, do you want a forum revamp?”. Acknowledge bugs happen instead of deleting threads when people suggest you to fix rampant bugs. Looking at you, blocked users could still send friend requests issue! Maybe act less like robots. Respond to ‘Contact Us’ messages so players aren’t left in the dark! The admins are so important for the site. Lioden and Tattered Weave’s are both successful with being friendly with players and joking around with them, and listening to what they want. Why can’t Flight Rising at least try to be like this?

And for the love of god add a new breed, September of 2016 is too long a wait.