Adoptable sites, old and new

[audrei9]

Oh my god!!!! I've taken a major interest in virtual pet sites lately. I just like them, I don't know why. Probably because of the lore they often have.
Here's a list I found of virtual pet sites both old and new, in case you were interested! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/ ... view?pli=1
I'm fairly certain that you mentioned several which aren't on that list.

My very first virtual pet site was Order of the Griffin, which sadly shut down. I remember a million page roleplay which I derailed since I was 11 years old and had no clue on roleplay ettiquite since it was also my first time. I still miss that site and the people there.
My second virtual pet site was Egg Cave, except the creatures there die if you don't go there to feed them, and eventually it utterly consumed my life and gave me a big fear of virtual pet games for a long time.
My third was chicken smoothie but it was blocked at school so I stopped going on after the school holidays
I had a couple more, but they ended up consuming my life with how much grinding was required, so I stopped.

[froglady]

I found some I used to play at least for a short while, 25 on that list besides the ones I listed already and more that I know were probably extinct before that list was made. I remembered one called Frog Life, which was an old ancestor of today's gangster games (played as a frog) and Kingdom of Loathing (a send-up of RPGs) and Forge of Empires/Rise of Cultures/Elvenar, which will suck your time ruthlessly after about a month of playing and getting hooked and thinking it's not grindy.

[Mochipet]

The only other one I play is Dragon Cave and I've been on it since 2013 so 10 years now! It's still going strong. I'm not nearly as active as I used to but still turn up for events.

I've lost track of all the new dragons at this point and have over 1k creatures on there. It's still going strong but my main issue now is that there are so many dragons that the egg catch system makes it overwhelming. On there you have 6 biomes with 3 eggs each on rotation. The problem is that you're only shown the description and the egg sprite is basically hidden. So you essentially have to memorize all the egg descriptions to be able to pick out what you want. I used to have them all memorized but like I said, there's so many dragon species now that I can't keep track anymore. There's also several eggs where the egg description is the exact same or very similar for multiple species.

I'm also not really a huge fan of the shard system. You're able to use the shards to buy eggs instead of catching them but you're capped at how many shards you can earn per week. You also can't buy dragons until you unlock them in the encyclopedia and the encyclopedia is a pain to fill out for me. Each growth stage is individually locked as well.

Furthermore, you can't trade adult creatures- only hatchies and eggs which have time limits before they die. Creatures have 7 days to hatch and then another 7 days to grow into an adult. So it really sucks if you forget you have eggs and it makes trading less fun when I can't do it with adults.

That said, I do like how they do egg/hatchie limits. You start off with a 5 egg limit. As you play and collect more creatures, your egg limit goes up until you hit 7. So you're rewarded for sticking around and playing in that way. For events, there's a period of time where all past event creatures drop in the biomes so if you are new or miss a year, you can get them again next year which is awesome. The gold/silver/bronze dragons also have monthly raffles- so if you grow x creatures, you can get a ticket for the raffle.

I also like how they do naming- there's no cost to naming/renaming your dragons but the catch is that no two dragons can have the same name on the site. ie there can't be two "Jim Bob"s on the whole site. Some people don't like it because it's gotten harder to come up with names but I like it because it makes me get creative and have fun with it.

You can group your dragons too but I personally prefer the tab system on magistream. Lineages are also better on there in my opinion because there's a link that says 'view lineage' which brings you to an entire chart with the generations marked. So there's multiple styles of lineages that make all sorts of cool visual patterns.

[Mochipet]

[Apologies for the double post- I was worried about length. Wasn't sure how much a post is allotted]

The other thing to note is that when growing creatures on there, your egg can actually get sick if it gets too many views/clicks when the egg is fresh. So you basically have to hit this sweet spot of posting your eggs around the 5 day mark to avoid the egg sickness.

There are dragons with breed specific actions (BSAs) that can take a day off the egg/hatchie timer so that is nice. Other BSAs include gender influencing, earthquake (gamble to hatch your egg early), trades (you have to have a certain dragon to initiate trades), bite (turn an egg into a vampire) and so on. The BSAs are equivalent to items on here- you just need to collect the dragons that have the BSAs. The BSAs are also on a cooldown timer.

There also aren't any quests on there either so the only thing to do is to collect/breed, trade hatchies/eggs, unlock the encyclopedia, and then the events.

All in all there's things I like and dislike about dragon cave and magistream. Some things I feel are more fun/done better here and others done better there. Both games definitely have their merits.

I've thought about trying the final outpost since I see those on here a decent bit but I don't know anything about it so maybe one day.

[Altairia]

I used to memorize all the egg descriptions too, now there are so many new species I usually just pick one that does not sound familiar. Sometimes I have checked the dragon cave wiki's egg identification guide. I like how they made acquiring event dragons much easier- back in the day there was an egg catching service to help people get their eggs by letting them log into your account I like that you can get the previously released ones every year, too. I also like the shard system as acquiring rare dragons, especially if you want a specific type, can be very difficult now. The encyclopedia is interesting but filling it can take some time, also I wonder why I have not unlocked some species I had raised several adults of already? The raffles and BSAs are also very nice. Trading is a bit of a pain, I must agree. I don't like having a time limit.

[kunigund]

I am also on DC, actually since 2009. What I find most frustrating is the long list of dragons (90+ pages in my case) and no way to sort/move them easily. I really like the tab system here on MS, it's nice and tidy, I know where certain creatures are and there is no danger of mixing them up, the trading system is much better organized here and quests are wonderful if one wants more than just collecting/breeding. I sometimes miss that creatures cannot be deleted/killed permanently here on MS (I use this a lot on DC). What I do not use at all on DC is the Market; having only cave born dragons is more important for me than having all the (e.g.) gold/silver dragons I need for my collection.
What I like very much on DC is the great detail of the pixel art and the dragon's poses feel much thought of and optimized - I think the discussion threads of new dragon development add to this (I miss this here somehow... for me, some creatures here are a colorful mess I can hardly identify the head in or they seem oddly unbalanced in some ways etc.) and the fact that very old pixel artwork is eventually updated (this I miss very much here too). I think both of the latter were part of the reason that I stopped being here for many years and I sometimes still struggle with it.

[Mochipet]

I am also on DC, actually since 2009. What I find most frustrating is the long list of dragons (90+ pages in my case) and no way to sort/move them easily. I really like the tab system here on MS, it's nice and tidy, I know where certain creatures are and there is no danger of mixing them up, the trading system is much better organized here and quests are wonderful if one wants more than just collecting/breeding. I sometimes miss that creatures cannot be deleted/killed permanently here on MS (I use this a lot on DC). What I do not use at all on DC is the Market; having only cave born dragons is more important for me than having all the (e.g.) gold/silver dragons I need for my collection.
What I like very much on DC is the great detail of the pixel art and the dragon's poses feel much thought of and optimized - I think the discussion threads of new dragon development add to this (I miss this here somehow... for me, some creatures here are a colorful mess I can hardly identify the head in or they seem oddly unbalanced in some ways etc.) and the fact that very old pixel artwork is eventually updated (this I miss very much here too). I think both of the latter were part of the reason that I stopped being here for many years and I sometimes still struggle with it.

Very much agree about the sprite art! I noticed that several creatures on here are hard to make heads or tails of visually. That said, the best I can do is stick figures so I'm not in a place to critique much.

I have mixed feelings about sprite updates on DC. It can be jarring to be used to one design for several years only for it to change all the sudden. Plus I feel like the old sprites had their own charm and it was visually cool to be able to see the progression of sprites over time where you have some sprites around from the 2010s vs now. But I also find it interesting to see how sprites get updates so I'm not too bothered by it.

[kunigund]

@Mochipet: I agree, it also took me a while including some bittersweet moments to get used to the new ones, but after a while I would have never wanted the old ones back; so for me spite updates are usually exciting and they rekindle my interest in some of the older dragons. The original/first sprites I know from the dragcave wiki only, but during the first 2 years they changed a lot. When I joined in 2009 most sprites were already very similar to what they are now. Most updates improved the shading and only small details on the anatomy, as far as I remember (unless the sprite artists somehow were banned and the dragons completely redrawn).
For example, I never understood why people were so crazy about the Holly dragon [scroll down to see the old sprite] (this was before it was possible to get old cave borns every year), its original sprite was just nothing I really enjoyed (curve of the neck, shading). One of my all-time favorites is the Split dragon and when it was updated I loved it even more. The only one I do not like so much is the 2009 Valentine dragon, its fat body always reminds me of a grub or maggot and I cannot get this picture out of my head.

[Brynmala]

My first was Dragon Cave. I don't go on there very often now, only to grab event eggs really, but it will always have a special place in my heart

After that I got involved in Howrse - not sure if that can properly be described as an adoptables game. My account there is pretty much defunct - it cost too much real money and too much time to do well. I've forgotten how to play now too, so can't see me going back.

I was on Order of the Griffin (hi, audrei9!) which was great - animal colour genetics is a bit of a pet subject of mine so breeding griffins with genetics that actually made some sort of sense and followed rules was brilliant. The limits on numbers of creatures was a down side though. I was sad when it shut down.

MS of course - I arrived here when the game was a few months old. I had quite a long hiatus but been back for a good few years now

I saw artwork on people's signatures for the next lot, went looking and ended up joining, all within the last 3 or 4 years:
ChickenSmoothie - love the horse, pony and cat lineart which is why I stay, and things grow up without any effort
Final Outpost - horse, cat and sheep lineart. It seems rather more adult than some other sites but I wish the genetics were less random.
GothicatWorld - been on this for less than a year and still not sure if I will stay. My French is non-existent and like Howrse (also French, is it a coincidence?) I find it rather money-grabby. It costs to get 'all the stuff' which I won't/can't do.

[Solarium]

I am pretty new to these kind of games, not sure how long I will stay interested in all of them tbh.
I play dragon cave and flight rising both because I think dragons are really cool, but I also have a final outpost account, and MagiStream obvs.
I am looking for other sorts of these games, and there is one that I am hoping to get in during the next opening for beta testing, so we will see how that goes.
I mainly play to satisfy my hoarder instincts, and because I like the sprite art, and as long as these outweigh my dislike of the click systems I guess I will just keep playing.

I hear a ton of people talking about neopets, and have seen ads for it for years, but it never interested me because I wasn't a fan of the art style or content.