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| Dragon Cave [removed] | |
| 2008-12-02 22:42 | utopia.lv | http://dragcave.net/user/Yuddith
Server located in US, FLORIDA, ORLANDO Time zone: (EST) -0500 UTC |
| 2008-12-03 08:29 | diarree | I think dragcave is great, pretty big activity and should be easy to work with?
Only one little thing, does it work if you just visit the page with dragons, or would you have to view a dragon? |
| 2008-12-03 08:40 | world-champs | when i played it i found that just a simple visit to the main page was enough, however so many that have them then have multiple dragons and then how many links would they need to add, i think there are 3 types of visits as well, and would 1500 visits a day be too many? |
| 2008-12-03 20:26 | Arnhemia | With dragoncave there are several ways to have others pay you a visit:
1. using a general link, like you showed, Utopia: http://dragcave.net/user/Croidin. This link shows the 'scroll' with all the dragons the owner wants others to see (adult dragons, hatchlings and/or eggs). 2. using the link for a singular 'adult/hatchling/egg', like http://dragcave.net/viewdragon/IKhu. This link shows only 1 egg i 'own' (at this moment. but if enough persons click it, it might become a hatchling, or even an adult). at 1. A visit using this link, does increase the number of "Views" (and once a day the number of "Unique Views"), but NOT the number of "Clicks"!!! This might result in an egg, or a hatchling, to die before it can fully develop itself to the next stage!! at 2. In order to prevent 1. to happen, everyone should use these kind of links. "Clicks" are counted when using this link, as well as "Views" and "Unique Views". Only problem is, however... some of the active players (which i am not! LOL), can get hold of about 5 eggs per day, and thus should use 5 links EXTRA per day... untill a dragon is fully grown into adulthood (adult dragons do no longer be able to die when their links are clicked... neither using 1. nor 2. ... unless the owner decides to kill the dragon him-/herself)... it might lead to having several hundreds of links being added :-( |
| 2008-12-04 11:15 | utopia.lv | Thanks for info Arnhemia. I'll add the game soon. |
| 2008-12-04 14:44 | utopia.lv | Game added.
GMT -5 |
| 2008-12-05 03:46 | obama.biden | Another thing to consider is that the game also looks at the referral page to determine whether to give a view. The direct link (dragcave.net/viewdragon/xxxx) by itself will give clicks ONLY (no views) when the referral page is NOT the scroll* (dragcave.net/user/username) page.
Clicks are given if and only if the the IP used is new. The IP never resets for clicks but that usually isn't a problem since clicks seem to be less important than views and unique views until clicks > unique views, which causes eggs to develop soft shell and hatchlings to get sick. Getting unique views above clicks solves this problem. I've heard that IPs will reset daily for unique views but I haven't tested this extensively myself. I don't know if there's a specific time the IP resets or if it's a 24 hour reset. Someone else probably can clarify this. Additional views from the same IP count toward total views but not unique views. It's been my experience that loading the scroll link gives views only to all living members of a scroll; you still need to open the view link from the scroll or use the direct link to give a click. Another thing that is important in dragon cave is how fast clicks and views come in, especially within the first day after an egg is laid.There's no set threshold but I've noticed that something above 150 within the first few hours might make an egg go soft or die. Eggs and hatchlings seem to get more resistant growing sick or dying from too fast growth in views and clicks as they grow older, when they can take hundreds of clicks a day but maybe not a thousand. The cure for too many views/clicks for a given time is to hide** the egg/hatchling until it gets better. (or remove it from the exchange) Another important consideration is the ratio of unique views to total views. Eggs and hatchlings can sicken or die when unique views fall somewhere below 10 or 15 percent of total views. Again, there is no set threshold here. I've seen hatchlings and eggs do fine with less than 10% unique views but many more that do not. The sweet spot to avoid problems seems to be staying above 25-30% unique views. The cure for this is to increase unique views. Anyway, I'd test for the following when there's a problem. (does not apply to adults or frozen hatchlings) Soft shell/sick hatchling 1. Are clicks > unique views? Yes, then get unique views >= clicks, otherwise go to 2. 2. Unique view/Total view ratio < 10-15%? Yes, then increase unique views ratio, otherwise go to 3 3. Too many clicks or views for egg/hatchling for amount of time? If yes, hide egg/hatchling or remove link. The frustrating thing when testing obserations is that the stats don't always update on the scroll page or direct link before it loads, especially when the game server is slow or overloaded. The only sure way to check for changes in both views and clicks is to 1) log into your user account page, then 2) open your scroll page in a separate tab, then 3) change your IP, 4) do your test case and finally 5) Reload your account page (views from your account page don't add clicks or views). * No clicks or views are counted when viewing the scroll from the user account page (dragcave.net/account). You must be logged in at the site to see this page. **You can hide an egg/hatching from its action link on the dragcave.net/account page, but you must be logged in as this user to do this. |
| 2008-12-05 05:22 | Chevelle | clicks do not reset daily - there is one click per IP period. and if the pictures don't fully load on the scroll then the visit is pointless. as for Views - each IP can give as many views as it wants but only one unique view per dragon per IP. and this site just hung up on me because of a drag cave link - I love drag cave but I think it's going to be a disaster to have them here and just add to the horrible lag on the drag cave site - just my 2cents |
| 2008-12-05 06:46 | obama.biden | Some people were saying IPs reset for unique views, but I haven't verified this.
I think the other bit of confusion comes from the "Get Code" links too. The ones many people post around that has a .gif image link embedded with the individual link like this one: (The * is the initial [, I had to break the code for you to see the whole line) *url=http://dragcave.net/viewdragon/72uu][img]http://dragcave.net/image/72uu.gif[/img][/url] Many people don't know that it's the URL without the .gif that gives a click. Or don't understand that the "codes" only give clicks, as you said, one click per IP address, period. Get Code = direct link = 1 click per IP address However, there was a time last Spring, when it was possible to get 2 clicks and 2 unique views per IP. This may have been a bug that's since been fixed. It definitely wasn't part of the official rules but it was repeatable for many weeks. |
| 2008-12-05 08:49 | utopia.lv | Thank you very much for information.
I am now going to Brussels and will be back Monday evening. Then I'll see what I can do. Utopia |
| 2008-12-05 17:11 | Chevelle | to obama.biden --- yes - unfortunately it was a glitch - although TJ has talked about reworking the way clicks and views are given and possibly even making IPs reset daily - it hasn't been done yet. I am not a real techie and have no clue how this site really works here (although I love it and will be donating as soon as I possibly can)- but if those images don't load on scroll links - there is no point in clicking - and links to individual dragons such as your example - will kill a dragon very quickly as it would soon have more clicks than views which is deadly to any dragon except the adults |
| 2008-12-09 11:41 | utopia.lv | If dragon receives too many clicks it will die.
Removed ability to add direct links to dragons in order to avoid abuse. Still it is unclear for me how Dragon Cave clicks and views work. As I understand from the discussion if dragon link is accessed from the scroll page then it receives unique view, otherwise it receives click. I can workaround this with the new Supermode version which will have possibility to specify referrer link. Also is it needed to load Dragon picture in order for page view to count or not? And is there a point to keep the link in the exchange for more than 24 hours? |
| 2008-12-09 22:59 | Elfrida | It appears that Utopia has now been prevented from displaying Dragon Cave images. If you click on a Dragon Cave link here, it displays a small scroll bearing the message "This site has been banned from displaying Dragon Cave images".
It's not surprising considering that TJ09 (Dragon Cave Admin) recently banned sites where members used the Snaplinks add-on for Firefox to rack up thousands of views in a short time. Several large DC Hatcheries went down and at least one hasn't recovered yet. http://dragcaveforum.technoized.com/index.php?showtopic=30079 It's too easy to make DC eggs/hatchlings sick from too many clicks and views and then they die. I checked quite a few Dragon Cave links when I did my 'supermode' mass links visit earlier and at least half of them had sick eggs and hatchlings. Some of them appeared to belong to complete newbies to Dragon Cave who probably had no idea that they could kill their adopted dragons by getting too many clicks. You may like to review the situation about Dragon Cave in light of this? |
| 2008-12-09 23:43 | utopia.lv | I already removed possibility to add dragon links so no more clicks will be received.
As the website allows one visit to each scroll page per day, it should not cause problems. I don't think it is possible to block Supermode because website admins can not see the difference between it and normal web browser. It is strange they banned this website (based on referral info) without contacting me first. Dragon Cave admins should upgrade their servers and should be happy their user base grows. It is logical that users start to use fun sites and exchanges to make visits. As user count grows, the same does the visit count. |
| 2008-12-10 10:38 | Elfrida | Well, obviously I can't speak for TJ, the DC Admin, because I'm just an ordinary user. But each time someone views a scroll, it adds a view to every dragon on that scroll. If someone gets a new egg and immediately posts it to a click exchange site, it can get too many clicks/views too quickly and die of soft shell in a matter of hours.
Actually, a new server is in the pipeline according to TJ. Its due to come online late this month or early next month. But I suspect that DC has grown hugely over the past few months and it's a tough (and expensive) job maintaining and upgrading the hardware capable of servicing that kind of growth. A few rough stats - one popular Hatchery contained about 5000 links to images of eggs and hatchlings. So every time someone visited the Hatchery, it took several minutes for the DC server to send that many images to that single browser. Multiply that by several hundred users every twenty four hours. Then multiply it by several hundred or even thousand extra pages required as those users employed Snaplinks to open blocks of images to give each dragon a separate click. That was only one of many DC fansites with Hatcheries. You can understand why TJ asked members not to use Snaplinks. So it's not surprising that the DC server was buckling under the pressure and its users were unhappy with the level of lag and downtime. So it's also reasonable to suppose that TJ would decide to block Utopia because it is capable of providing 1500 - 2000 clicks per day (according to Diarree) to any scroll in its links list. I know people are eager to rack up as many clicks as they can for their Dragons/Valenths/MiniCity etc but there's quite a big difference between Dragon Cave and MiniCity. Anyone can set up a click exchange link to a MiniCity and go through the process of registering enough clicks of their own to bring in return clicks to their city. They just sit back and let their computer get on with it, watching their city grow almost effortlessly. There's much more complexity to Dragon Cave - a wide range of different dragons on offer, some common, some rare, some seasonal, the challenge of clicking fast enough to grab them as they appear on the main DC page at the scheduled (and sometimes unscheduled) egg drops, then there are males and females, the option of breeding to get more eggs, the uncertainty of knowing if you will get rare eggs or commons, the suspense of waiting for the eggs to hatch and then for the hatchlings to gender (a minimum of 3.5 days and a maximum of 7 days so it's not an express process) the option to be generous and gift your eggs to others and the possibility of killing your eggs and hatchlings with kindness by getting them too many clicks or views ... I guess it's up to the Admins of both sites to try and work it out together, if possible, and I can understand if you're offended by the ban on your site. But it's worth noting that some members of Dragon Cave forum did express reservations when Diarree made her initial posts inviting DC members to join Utopia. Sorry this is such a long post :-\ |
| 2008-12-10 10:52 | utopia.lv | Thanks for explaining it. I disabled Dragon Cave on the exchange.
Please inform TJ about it. Also tell him that he is welcome to contact me here http://utopia.lv/exchange/?do=help through feedback form. Supermode does not download images or scripts and it does not use much bandwidth. Also he can not block Supermode because it retrieves the pages in the same as web browser does. I will put Dragon Cave back when they have a new server and I come up with a solution to limit daily visit count to Dragon Cave server. Warm regards, Utopia |
| 2008-12-16 18:40 | Quido | > Supermode does not download images ...
And that's the basics of the problem. Views (unique views, clicks) aren't counted without displaying images. You must download image of egg/dragon & some small images too (it's one part of control mechanism against proxy servers). So downloading just HTML has only one effect - inefficient overloading of DragCave :-( Regards Quido |
| 2009-01-14 09:23 | Falzar FZ | Dragcave's new server is up now |
| 2009-03-27 17:40 | Kariano | http://dragcave.net/account
is this thread open? if yes, here is my scroll :D |
| 2009-03-27 18:10 | utopia.lv | Sorry, dragcave.net is no longer supported on the exchange. |