@dragonlove Won’t you need more land to put the dragons that you get form the events on?
I’m 2 gems away from my next island. All the offers right now are either scams or need me to buy something, and the surveys have ran dry. Guess I have to wait until tomorrow.

I wasn’t here from 2013-15, and my memory of the game from 2012 is very fuzzy. Although that might be because I got my first pokemon game in 2012.
Come to think of it, DC is a lot like pokemon. A small game launched on a platform on its way out that got popular quite unexpectedly, that is now very, very different from what it originally was.
Both started out very humble. Everything was made to fit together, and were built mostly from the ground up. They were trendsetters. How many “raise, collect and fight with dragons on your journey to be the best while keeping them in habitats on islands” games (it’s pretty much a genre at this point) can you think of that are as popular as DC? None. How many mon games are as popular as pokemon? None.
Both original DC and pokemon were something I was barely around for, yet still get nostalgic and wistful whenever people talk about it. They both had a clear vision that they followed and that was pretty much all they were. A while later, they changed. They added new elements/types, new dragons/monsters and new features. They started to do more event stuff. And those, in my opinion, were the haydays. Ones I was not around for, but still get very sentimental looking back on.
But after the haydays, major changes were made. They lost some of the original vision, and slowly became much more corporate. Yeah, the influences of the originals were still present, but if they were made with the current vision in mind, they would be wildly different. Sure, there were some golden bits here and there, but everything seemed so stagnant for a while. Special things were no longer so special, the legendaries felt less legendary. It was losing its soul, and eventually realized it. They tried to praise the originals without realizing what made the originals so great, and yet still kept insisting its new stuff was so much better. All the old and new stuff was integrated so strangely, all the designs and gimmicks that don’t fit together.
But what do you do in this situation: reverse the changes you made, good and bad, to maybe have a second chance, but lose a portion of the audience along the way? Or continue down your road and just stick to what you know, continue doing it, and ride it into the sunset? It’s less of a risk and, hey, you’ll always have SOME die-hard fans willing to splurge no matter what, and the eternally loyal who will stick with the game until the day it dies.
Pokemon did this. They eventually couldn’t keep up with what they were doing. They couldn’t meet the deadlines. The quality started dropping, and now they can’t continue supporting all of what they made. Now 90% of their fanbase is against them, old and new fans alike.
Pokemon has deadlines. They have an anime, a card game, and merchandise that they need to get out on time and they simply can’t sacrifice punctuality for their quality. But DC can. They don’t have these restrictions. They have altered and removed dragons and features a lot, and when they handle it right, they don’t make 90% of their fanbase angry. So much of what they originally stood for is still left intact, and they can go back to it without abandoning all of the good things they’ve made along the way. They’re still able to improve and please, and unlike pokemon which needs to do everything within a timeframe and is the only thing keeping gamefreak going, DC can put much more time and resources into improving.
That’s why I love posts like this. It’s like finding a bunch of old coins on the road, or a vintage toy at goodwill. It’s a reminder of the greatness of the past, but something we can still integrate into our present without sacrificing some of the things we’ve made in the meantime. Something older players can look back on and smile, and something new players can discover.
That’s how I think DC should be. Still remembering how it started and what it is, but still making improvements and new additions while preserving the greatness of the past, leaving behind their mistakes and growing pains. And, unlike pokemon, I think they can accomplish that. I’d go as far as to say they’re even on their way.
Sorry for such a long post. I’m not ranting here, just explaining why I love this thread and how it relates to the current state and history of DC. Also, I’m kind of tired right now and I might have messed up some stuff. TLDR: Posts like these make me realize how much potential DC has to become better, and how, unlike most other games, they can do that.

@bettina-löffler Dang! How did you get the special one and when? Are there any other differences?

@nynaevelan Could you dig up the old designs, if you could find them? I love cut/unused/altered content.

It means you have obtained or empowered a dragon since the last time you checked the collection.

@otamegane Decorate your islands as much as you want! At least that’s what I do when I have extra money. You’d be surprised at how much a path or statue can do for looks, especially if you have empty space on your islands that’s too small to put habitats in.

Sometimes, it says there are only one or two surveys and I get kicked out of both of them after answering two questions. I usually don’t get my gems, either. If surveys are really based off location, how come I live in a relatively normal and highly populated part of the US and barely get any surveys?
I also sometimes go hours without any surveys. I only think one survey ever actually let me complete it, and it was VERY long.

I know for a fact that Striking’s trained Pure move is weaker than the one it is born with. The rest of its trained moves are very strong, though.

@susan-mclaughlin Yeah, the breeding tree has no business being as big as it is, especially with all the empty space in the area it takes up. The extra space is needed on the Ivory island, as there’s no way to arrange habitats symmetrically on it!

I just want the food prize, as I already have the dragon and don’t want to waste my farms to grow 24-hour wait time food in the middle of a heroic race.