Aqueous Draconas V2 - News, Plans, & Updates

[FateStoryteller]

Main ~ Trading & Gifting ~ MYOs, Customs & More! ~ Transfers ~ Bank ~ Archive ~ Mossy Nests ~ Artist Search

Dracones are shy, sweet beasts, a little larger than a horse when full grown, that live around swamps. They are quite obviously related to the dragon family but are not often found with wings or horns; instead, a common dracone will have a spiny sort of sail along its back. Also, they are different from dragons in that their skin is more amphibious. If frightened (which is easy to do since they're so shy) they will jump into the nearest pond for protection, submerging completely in order to hide.

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Concise (Hopefully) News
Hopes for the Future
Rambly Updates

So, I really like writing updates for AD, but I think I ramble a lot in them and I want to try to give actual news for the adopts that is useful while still getting to ramble a bit. I'd also like a record of plans I have for future improvements, both for myself and for anyone else who wants to see them. So I'm going to do all that here. ^^
Oh, and please do not post on here, thank you! ^^

[FateStoryteller]

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Main Post
Concise (Hopefully) News <- You are here
Hopes for the Future
Rambly Updates

- Mini FCFS event completed, yay! Thanks to everyone who's participated. ^^
- Created a stamp which is now available in the Staff & Affiliates post. (You can also edit in your own dracone if you'd like)
- Currently updating dracone pages so that owners can now create transparent versions of their dracones if they wish to.
- Hoping to soon create a discussion/'fan-club' thread so owners and non-owners have a place to chat and offer opinions.
- Getting started with prepping for the upcoming Spring Event in mid to late April.

- Several tweaks and changes have been made to the main thread
-- There is now a Staff & Affiliates post, yay!
-- There are now Trading & Gifting rules, yay!
-- Things have been moved around a bit to make the overall page hopefully nice, yay!
- There is now a functional Trading & Gifting thread! Link is above with the important thread links
- Artist rules have been edited and added to
- After posting this, I plan to post an announcement for another Mini FCFS event, yaaaay! ^^

- MYOs, Customs & More! page is complete and functional
-- Had our first custom, yaaay! Thanks, Wind, for ordering! ^^
- Mossy Nests is completely functional
-- Had our first breeding, yaaay! Thanks, Lost, for the request! ^^
- Hosted Fall Fest Event, yay! Thanks, everyone who participated! ^^
- Archive & Bank have been updated

-Pretty much finished MYOs & Customs page
-Started work on Mossy Nests shop

Edit: Finished Mossy Nests shop ^^'

-Wrote notes for MYOs & Customs
-Created Bank
-Fixed some links
-Created News thread

[FateStoryteller]

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Main Post
Concise (Hopefully) News
Hopes for the Future <- You are here
Rambly Updates

Ideas for Mutations

- Mushroom growths
- Butterfly wings

Ideas for the Adopts

- Weekly traveling mascot (See rambly update 06.09.24 for more information)
- Discussion/fan club thread
- Spring event
- Fun, permanent, lore/currency earning/prize thread

[FateStoryteller]

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Main Post
Concise (Hopefully) News
Hopes for the Future
Rambly Updates <- You are here

Been a bit since I've posted an update! But I'm happy to say that I haven't actually vanished, nor have I abandoned this project, 'cause I like it too much. x3 I have been super busy irl since my wife and I just adopted two kittens (three days ago already, wow! ) and its been a bit crazy keeping up with the darlings.
But anyway, just want to say that I'm still super invested in these guys too. I've updated the archives completely and I'm completely up to date with the lily pad event which is still running, by the way. ^^ Would love to work on more entries if you wanna get your own dracone. ^^
What I need to do is set up the Customs & MYOs page properly ^^' and get some more main adopts up. But what I want to do is add a mushroom growths mutation... its been in my head for a while.
By the way, if you have any suggestions for mutations, feel free to post them here. I love to hear other's ideas. ^^
That's all for now, thanks for reading! ^^

Yaaaay, Artist Search is up and I've finished work on the fourth lily pad dracone, woooot! So that means it is time. for. main adopts! Think I'm going to celebrate breaking out the coolest of my new mutations: the kirin. :3

Slow but steady progress being made. The first three dracones in the Lilypad event (see link above in main post) have been made! Also updated some info in the Mossy Nests and Updated the archive. Going to work on finish Mossy Nests then move to focus on finished Artist Search info so I can finally post that. And then I can finally get some main adopt dracones out there. ^^ Looking forward to it!

Whew! Got almost all the necessary threads up, though they're mostly all WIPs. Waiting on Artist Search till I can finish all the others and I have all the rules and guidelines written out.
However, I'm excited to say that I have nearly everything ready for our first event! You'll be coloring in a lily pad to get your first dracone! Unfortunately, I'm too exhausted just now to post it, but I'm hoping to have time tomorrow to get that started and maybe get the first dracones designed for people. Soooo excited! Its been ages since I last designed some critters for people and I'm especially excited to finally start using all these shiny new lines. :3 Hopefully see y'all tomorrow. G'night for now. ^^
Eight hours later (give or take): Woohoo! Got the event up and running! Looking forward to designing some dracones soon! ^^

The new lines have been posted at last! Still a lot of work to do before these will be fully functional but I'm excited I've gotten to this first step. ^v^

[FateStoryteller]

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Been crazy busy and got pretty badly sick over the past week. Whoops! Kittens continue to be adorable, good medicine kitties.
Buuuut anyways, to the dracones! Currently updated the archive and I created a bank at last! I'm also really starting to iron out what I want Myos and customs to look like + some other items that can be purchased for customizing already existing dracones. Wanted to do that so that I could figure out a second place prize for our most recent adopt since those entries were soooo good! I absolutely love the creativity in both and both deserve to get something, though they can't both get the egg. ^^'

[FateStoryteller]

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Concise (Hopefully) News
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Whew, its been a hot second since my last official update! Yipes! Been kinda crazy busy with rl still and also dealt with a bit of a depression spell. I am sorry to say that that might only get worse as we get into the autumn and winter months, though I am hoping that the kittens will make that easier. ^^'
Anyway, about our lovely ADs. I am so happy that, while our community is pretty small, all of you have been enjoying your ADs and that the lillypads keep expanding into a lovely pond of new ADs for users to enjoy. I'm thinking about opening the event up more so that people can request a second Lillypad design, since I enjoy making those so much. We'll see. ^^'
So, to give a general update: been making more main adopts and lilypad dracones and I've worked alot on the MYOs & Customs page, which now includes extra things like Artist Entry claims and other customization options. I think I am actually done with that page, though I'd like to wait to open it until I can get an event put together around it. Possibly also one related to the fall... we'll seeeee :3
So now I'm working on the Mossy Nest shop and I decided that the genetics passing rates were too harsh, so I changed those to hopefully mean more of the mutations and such will pass. ^^
In addition, I'm slowly working on being better at drawing ADs myself so that I can be more comfortable at making them in general. I'm hoping to be able to make some giftlines at some point so people can make more art of their ADs
And I need to go through and add some consistency changes like mentioning that artists can be compensated for their entries if people claim them or change the page navigation to reflect that the MYOs & Customs page has more to it. Also want to add proper navigation sections for each of the pages in general. Probably gonna work on that after posting this since its easy, busy work I can do on my laptop. ^^'
Oh, oh! Also have this idea of creating a 'traveling mascot' where our mascot AD (the orange and red friend on the cover) would 'travel' to different owners each week. During that week the owner could pick a name and pronouns and write stories about them. The next owner to win the raffle for the week would get to pick their own name and pronouns (this could either be considered canon to the mascot's preferences or just an alternate form of the mascot) and create their own stories. They could have them interacting with their ADs or other characters and even create a storage page for them if they wanted. In this case, the page would be linked on the mascot's main post. Gotta work out the specific details still, but its been bouncing around in my head for a while.
If you've read any of this, please feel free to comment on it in the main thread, either about your opinions on the ideas I've mentioned or any critiques you have for the MYOs & Customs page. Or you can feel free to pm me about it too. ^^ Also, if you've read this far, thanks so much for your time! See you around! ^^

[FateStoryteller]

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Sooooo, nearly if not more than half a year since my last rambly update. Whoops! Like I said in my last post, winter kind of kills my motivation for things. 3:

However, I'm very pleased I managed to host a small event over the fall and I'm still here even if dracones aren't super popular (not at all complaining, by the way, I figured that would be the case though I'm not sure of the exact reason other than they must just not appeal to everybody in general and I'm not super active or consistent. I could definitely see those being the main reasons which are completely fair ^^").

Anywho, altogether, I'm pleased about where we're at. I've gotten to do two breedings, which was a lot of fun :3 Thanks to Lost and Blueberry for those opportunities and I got to do a custom too for Wind which was a lot of fun as well. ^^

And now I feel like we have all the basics established so now its time to consider more improvements. I think I'll be making a discussion/'fan-club' thread because I'd really like to encourage those participating and interested in the species to chat and, especially, to let me know what they'd like to see for the species. I might even see about making that thread right after updating the updates after this post. ^^

Then there's the spring/easter event that I'd like to host in late April, I need to get some things set up for that :3

And in the later future I'd like to set up a thread for lore building/story writing. Its something that Audaxity suggested in their first artist entries and I thought it was an excellent idea. Something where owners are encouraged to write about their dracones, where they live, who they're family/friends are, etc. and they get some kind of compensation for it.

I think where I'm stuck is 1. what would be worthwhile to earn the compensation for. I would offer things from the MYOs, Customs & More 'shop' but those don't actually seem to be very popular... I gave them away as prizes for the fall fest event and no one's used them at all (again, not meant as a complaint though it sounds like it, I'm just a little confused ^^"). So I'm not sure what people would consider to be worthwhile to put effort towards getting. I definitely would ask about that in discussion thread.

And 2 (because I haven't forgotten there was a second part... yet ^^') I haven't a clue how much of said compensation (I'm actually thinking some kind of currency like 'pebbles' or maybe 'gilded pond weed'. Hmm.. suddenly my brain is wondering about doling out a certain amount of water from a magical pond which, when you have enough, can be administered to a dracone to create some magnificent effect... hmm... Saving that idea to think about more later...). Anyway, I'll definitely ask about that in the discussion thread as well.

But, first thing's first: discussion thread and then the spring event. Let's see how those go first. ^^

And that's all for now, folks! See ya next time. ^^