Dragon Cave

This Lens is about Dragon Cave, an online game where you raise Dragons from eggs by getting clicks and views. Specifically, it is also a place to share, display and discuss your dragons.

If you are an advanced player looking for advice on Breeding Dragons, try the dedicated lens DragonBreeding

(Graphic from WebWeaver) Originally I used one of my dragons as the lens image, but as I found it was being displayed elsewhere on Squidoo I have changed the image to prevent overexposure.

Other Relevant Lenses:
Free Online Hatching Games, Breeding Dragon Cave dragons, Types of Dragons in Dragon Cave, Valenth - Mystery Science Adoptibles, Magistream - Pet raising game, My Mini City

A Summary of the game

Dragon Cave is about collecting, raising and breeding dragons.

To play the game, you need to go to the website http://www.dragcave.net and sign up. Once you have signed up, you will be able to gain eggs. Eggs will appear on the front page, and you can collect them by clicking on them.

Finding Eggs are released once every hour on the hour. They will appear in threes, and you can grab them by clicking. You need to be fast as there can be several hundred people grabbing for eggs.

Abandoned eggs Other users will sometimes abandon eggs or hatchlings, either than they grabbed by accident, or that they bred but don't want. The front page will tell you when abandoned hatchlings are available, and you can go to a seperate page to grab them. If too many eggs are abandoned at once a message is displayed on the front page saying the "Cave mouth is blocked". Until some of the eggs from the abandoned page are taken no cave drops will occur.

You can only have four eggs and four hatchlings at any one time, so once you have four eggs, you will need them to hatch before you can grab more.

Once hatched, your hatchlings will need more clicks and views to grow up and gain their wings. If they don't get enough they will die, although you can "freeze" them to keep them at the hatchling stage.

If you get enough, they will eventually grow up into adult dragons.

Complications like "Soft Shell" and time limits on when Dragons can hatch make this more complicated than it sounds!

The full rules are available from the Forum at dragcave.net.

Getting Eggs

Given the scarcity of eggs in the game at the moment I thought I should add a quick guide to getting eggs.

Hourly releases
Eggs are released into the Cave once an hour on the hour. I have noticed it is a bit erratic, so it is worth checking between 10 to and 10 past. The eggs are displayed in rows of three across the screen. To get an egg click on it, but remember, they go quickly and it goes to the first user that clicks.

Abandoned eggs
The abandoned cave at http://www.dragcave.net/abandoned has any eggs or hatchling in it that people abandon. If someone cannot look after their dragon, they can abandon it. Also, if they have bred their dragon and produced more eggs than they can keep (you can only have four eggs, occassionally five) the extra eggs end up here.

When you adopt an abandoned egg or hatchling it gains an extra day to grow up.

Breed your own

If you can get a male and female dragon you can breed them to produce eggs. Each Dragon can only breed once a week, and each breeding produces 1-4 eggs. You are only allowed to keep one from each breeding - the rest go to the abandoned cave. If you raise that dragon you can slowly build a breeding stable.

This has the side-benefit of putting more eggs into the game.

Game Rumours

There be dragons here?

Buy at AllPosters.com

Now the game is back up, there are rumours of new abilities that might be added to the game - one notably started by TJ09, the game's creator.

Highlight the box below to read spoilers. Then click the link for more information or to add to the discussion.

Breed specific abilities
Ascension - a 4th stage adult

Killing your Dragons - DON'T!

You can "kill" dragons or eggs on your scroll. Don't. If you kill five eggs, your scroll can be "burned" - i.e. you are banned. (Eggs dead from neglect or time don't count towards this.)

If you pick up an egg you don't want from the cave be patient. You can abandon it 5 hours after you stole it.

Basic Guidelines

How to get started

Hatching Eggs: If an egg doesn't hatch in 7 days it dies. Eggs will not grow up if they have more than 3.5 days remaining on their time. It usually takes a couple of hundred views, at least fifty uniques and ten clicks to hatch, although this varies depending on breed.

Hatchlings: Hatchlings go from first stage (without wings) to second stage (with wings) and then adult.
They hatch at first stage, can reach second stage when they have around 4.5 days left and can grow up when they have less than 3.5 days remaining.

This is a second stage magi hatchling with wings.

Breeding: With a few exceptions, if you breed two dragons, you will get between 1-4 eggs. Each egg will be the same colour as one of the parents e.g. A Green dragon and a White dragon will produce 1-4 green or white eggs.

You can keep one egg from the clutch, and the rest must be abandoned.

You can only breed a dragon once every seven days, to the exact minute. For more on Breeding, see the new lens Dragon Breeding.

SoftShell
If you do something wrong raising your Dragon it will die. Before it dies however, a notice will be added to its text stating that its shell is soft. This lets you correct the problem.

Softshell: Too many views
If a dragon gains too many views in too short a time it will die. If this happens, hid the egg for a day or so. (Eggs over 3.5 days are more likely to hatch than get this softshell)

Softshell: More clicks than uniques This can kill your dragon quickly. To correct it, post the dragon's image somewhere without the URL, so that it can't be clicked on.

SoftShell: Too many views to unique views If you have more than a ten to one ratio of views to unique views, the dragon's shell may be soft. To correct this post somewhere like a forum with lots of unique members who will give unique views. This ratio is now capped at 15, so you cannot have more than 15 views to 1 unique. Until you get more unique views, further views won't count.

Happy Dragon raising!

Saving threatened Dragons

How to get enough clicks.

Don't forget to post your dragons on your website, or possibly on profiles for pages like Facebook and myspace. If you are active on a forum, you can add the BBCode to your signatures for extra views.

If you only have a hundred characters for the signature you can get the Dragon in to recieve views only by missing out the URL portion of the code - e.g. [img]http://dragcave.net/image/2IeS.gif[/img]

If you can't get enough clicks for your Dragons there are a number of fansites where you can post Dragons to get extra views and clicks. A new feature, coming soon will also allow you to request help for your dragons from more experienced players.

1) "Egg sitters"

Intensive Care Unit (Emergency Eggs/hatchlings)

These are people willing to look after other people's eggs to make sure they hatch by putting them in their signatures on high-traffic forums where they are active. This is also called "fostering".

They can be found on the Dragon cave forum. The rules are given in this thread Intensive Care Unit (Emergency Eggs/hatchlings).

To request an eggsitter, register for the forum, and then PM a sitter your egg request in this format (taken from the first rules post):

Username:
Scroll link:
Emergency Egg/Hatchling Codes: [4 Letter dragon code]
Amount of Time Left: [If your egg has more than 1.5 - 2 days it won't be accepted as an emergency]
Places Posted:
Other: [Any other problems or requirements for the egg, EG Sick].

Do not post it in the forum. It will be considered spam and may result in your registration being revoked.

2) Hatchery Sites
Some fansites allow you to post your dragons for clicks. Unfortunately I haven't found a way to let users post their dragons on this lens yet, or I'd add a specific guestbook! There is a full and maintained list of Hatcheries available on the forum:
Hatchery fansites

The best hatchery on the web!

http://www.thedcfansite.com/ deserves a special mention. They have a daycare and hatchery for eggs and hatchlings, and emergency room for dragons with less than 3 days left.

3) Abandoning the egg
Finally, if you can't get anough views or clicks there is always the option to abandon your egg or hatchling. If you have less than one and a half days to go, and have less than 100 views, abandoning it may be the best option. When it is picked up after being abandoned, the egg gains an extra day to get the required hits.

It might not be yours any more, but it keeps the egg or hatchling alive, in the game, and gives someone else a chance to raise one.

Incubators

Show off your scroll

Polls, lists and incubators are now available from your scroll once you register.

Incubators allow you to generate an image that links to your scroll. It does not count as a view or a click in itself but if someone clicks on it they go to your scroll, which counts as views for your dragons. You can choose what dragons to show (up to 60), and what order to display them in - the sample below is in breed order.

If you need more help, here is a full guide to incubators.

A Sample incubator:

The CDN option is useful as when you generate a new incubator the URL does not change. This means if you put it in your sig, you only have to refresh it on your scroll and it will update everywhere automatically.

Personal Incubators

Some sites will allow you to make a personal incubator, which takes a bit of skill e.g. DC Fansite.

For a really personal incubator try build-to-order boards!

Naming and Describing Your Dragons

and review other people's descriptions

When your dragon becomes a hatchling you gain two extra actions, the ability to Name and Describe them. You can only name or describe a Dragon once - and these cannot be changed or updated, so think hard about it.

Names
Names are purely vetted by the moderators, and unsuitable names may result in the dragon being killed, so name them carefully.

Descriptions
Descriptions are vetted by other players before they go to the mods, due to the volume of data. To give your dragon a description, type it in. Again, these can't be edited or changed once accepted and offensive descriptions may get your dragon killed.

Description Rules - this is the list of rules for describing your Dragon.

Check the link above for the latest rules, but in summary some of the top ones are:
* No first person references (I, my and me are not allowed)
* Describe your dragon (not whatever it is named after)
* Don't overpower your dragons (e.g no Ruler of the Universe descriptions)
* Stay true to Dragon type e.g. a vicious white dragon would need a good explanation
* Proofread!!

Reviewing Descriptions
If you'd like to help out with the game by reviewing others descriptions, check your scroll. You may find the "Review User Descriptions" option which was originally reserved for experienced members.

Please review the submitted descriptions against the rules in the link. You have options to Approve, Reject or Abstain, and leave a comment. If you abstain or reject, please leave a comment telling the person why you did, and how to improve the description. The user may make the changes and send it back corrected.

Once it has enough "Approves" against it, the description goes to a moderator who has the final say and approves or declines it.

Remember some players do not speak English as a first language, or may be very young, so be kind! The option to review other's descriptions may be withdrawn if you abuse it.

Dragon cave Scrolls

Add your scroll here!

Add a link to your scroll here! Sorry, due to spam submissions are now moderated, and will be added once a day, so if your link doesn't show up immediately, don't panic!

Dragon Cave - the online hatching game