Dragon Name Change and Capital Lettered Pet Names Thread

[Joey]

This is exceptionally stupid. Adding weird double constants that make no sense does not make you cool, it makes you pretentious.

I see the main problem here is it's always staff making the choices. How hard would it be to put a poll up and ASK if people want species names capitalized or not? Why not check and see if your users like having Halloween be Halloween and not Halloween with a fake name? Right now all these recent changes have been what the staff wants, not necessarily what the users want.

[Wingsrising]

That is not to say that we can't attempt to explain our choices, and I hardly think Rah was attempting to take away your right of free will simply because she, as a staff member and a regular member of this forum, expressed enthusiasm for the name.

I don't recall anyone suggesting that she did.

Although lately I even question the choice of sharing our reasoning with users when we make a choice.

Well, I guess that depends. Do you want users to give you money?

If you don't want users to give you money, then no, you never have to share the reasoning when you make a choice.

If you want users to give you money, then we're your customers. That means, yes, you have explain your reasoning. (I can only speak for myself, but you've lost any chance of my giving the site more money for at least several months just with the ONE post I'm responding to.)

To be frank, I find myself bewildered over the volume of users, specifically members of Neocolours, who are put off and even disgusted by this new name, considering the vast multitude of this community turned its back on the species in favor of the mahar over a year ago. Why does the name continue to matter this much when the pet was already on everyone's Poop List?

So, wait... the fact that the staff made an unpopular and (IMHO) aesthetically poor choice about Dragons once already means we shouldn't complain when you make ANOTHER unpopular and (IMHO) aesthetically poor choice?

[Goldenchaos]

No, not because Neopets is doing it. I should reword that to "Generic Pet Site" capatalized their pet names because they are important and not just things.

I see double r, I think ..the double r in the latin spanish language..like peRRo.

Now I keep hearing the word Rreign in a deep rolled out r in a Inigo Montoya-ish voice.

[Monkeyguy]

Frankly I could care less about the name chosen for the Dragon, because I ignore them as it is. However the lack of capital letters does bother me a little.

My suggestion is a poll. If you all really want to let the users voice be heard, (see the double blocking poll) give us the opportunity.

[Luxe]

Why bother explaining though when the outcome is not any better than had we just kept quiet? That's my particular point. If our goal is to get users as excited about a change as we are by sharing our motives and logic, and it instead serves to incite people to further disgust and outrage, why should we continue to to masochistically spoon feed our reasoning to users?

In this case, I think it all could have gone down much more smoothly had we simply said, "The name "dragon" was blatantly unoriginal, so we changed it to rreign," and left out the whole bit about us being inspired by the Welsh language's use of double consonants. I personally feel that explaining things further has hurt Subeta more than it has helped. It gives naysayers more to say than simply, "I don't really like it at all," and moving on.

I'm not saying this to be disrespectful, although I'm sure someone will point out how I could have phrased the emotion better. It's just how I feel, and I've never been the sort of person who doesn't express my emotions.

I'm not saying you shouldn't complain either, least of all on this site which is separated from Subeta entirely. This is your home; by all means, do as you please. I'm saying I am genuinely surprised that it continues to be this important when I was under the assumption that this community didn't care for dragons anymore anyway. And again, without intending to be rude or disrespectful although I am sure this comment may rub some people wrongly, while under that assumption that dragons were inconsequential, seeing so many complaints about it makes me feel like some people (certainly not all, nor only including this community) will complain just for the sake of it, without actually caring that much.

Frankly I could care less about the name chosen for the Dragon, because I ignore them as it is.

Case in point. This is more of the sentiment I was expecting from this community.

[Cranberry]

Rreign, with a capital at the beginning, looks okay to me. rreign with all lowercase letters looks weird. I think that the capital makes the spelling look more intentional, and it also makes me mentally stress the R sound more. I don't know if that makes sense... but I hear "Rreign" and "rreign" differently in my head.

I don't see why this change was necessary, anyway. Will pet-related item names be changed? That wouldn't make sense, as all words in all item names begin with a capital (Adorable Blueberry Easter Cupcake, Autumn Leaf Earrings, Book of Happy Rainbows, etc.). Where exactly will the lowercase be used?

[Luxe]

In places where the title capitalization doesn't apply, i.e., news posts, item descriptions, lore.

[stinkbomb]

Why bother explaining though when the outcome is not any better than had we just kept quiet? That's my particular point. If our goal is to get users as excited about a change as we are by sharing our motives and logic, and it instead serves to incite people to further disgust and outrage, why should we continue to to masochistically spoon feed our reasoning to users?

In this case, I think it all could have gone down much more smoothly had we simply said, "The name "dragon" was blatantly unoriginal, so we changed it to Rreign," and left out the whole bit about us being inspired by the Welsh language's use of double consonants. I personally feel that explaining things further has hurt Subeta more than it has helped. It gives naysayers more to say than simply, "I don't really like it at all," and moving on.

Well see, that is exactly why I still go back to Subeta even though I have disagreed with choices the Staff have made. At times disagreed to the point of being well and truly pissed off. I may not agree with everything that is decided, no one will agree with everything, all the time. The thing that continues to lure me back in to not only playing, but spending my money on the site is the fact that while decisions may not be up for debate, they are typically explained. That is the single most important part for me. Not the nifty art, not the community, not any of it. It is the simple fact that to a point user concerns are listened to and in some instances decisions have been rethought or retooled to make it more agreeable. Not all the time. I mean let's face it you can't and won't please everyone all the time. But for the sake of cheese please don't take a Neopets turn and decide that listening to those same users is now just not worth the effort. I spent more than I care to admit to paying for premium membership and stupid stuffed animals just for the item codes. And yes I even staked out a Limited Too at the mall to make sure I was able to get the free code way back when. But that changed and I never spent another dime on the place once it became clear listening to the users was 110% out the window. I have no problem feeding my addictions with my wallet until it becomes clear that my wallet is the only draw, and that instead of being a user based community it is instead a Neopetesque dictatorship of "You will like it because we tell you to and if you don't we don't care we have enough kool-aid swillers who will that we no longer need the individual."

Or something like that.

Anhyhow.. off subject, as I tend to spend my life... just saw that part of your post and was moved to.. well.. that *points upwards at the ramble fest*

[Sunwolf]

I can't believe that you are amazed that users are upset over this. The new name is fine, long overdue. But the capitalization change is stupid and pointless. As other people have pointed out, it makes no sense. It makes news posts look lazy. It tricks the eye into thinking that "reign" is misspelled instead of recognizing it as the name of a pet.

Why not a poll? This affects a great deal more people than double-blocking did.

Perhaps if you have to justify a change to angry users over and over, then it isn't a good one.

The thing that upsets me the most is the "I just can't understand why you're upset!" vibe that I'm getting from Staff. Really?

[bonecrivain]

I'm amused by the pronunciation guide in the news. "The name is pronounced much like our word rain with a guttural growl-like sound at the beginning."

...how about, "the name is pronounced much like our word reign with a guttural growl-like sound at the beginning"? I think that's what irritates me the most. It's as though they're attempting to pretend "reign" isn't already a word.

[Sarivonne]

I think the whole 'We're using double constenants (however it's spelled)' is a little out there. Personally I greatly dislike the new name, and it's not really something the 'dragon' needed (on top of all the other things it's gone through). I think it sounds a bit, sorry to be blunt, dumb and you're trying to make it sound interesting by saying you're basing it on the welsh.

I think the name "Reign" itself would have been perfectly fine, in fact I would have liked it a lot. It's kind of like if I wanted to name something 'awesome', but that isn't good enough. So I'm going to name is "Aawsome".

[Luxe]

But for the sake of cheese please don't take a Neopets turn and decide that listening to those same users is now just not worth the effort.

Oh, no no! It's not that listening to the users isn't worth the effort to me. And again, I know it's hard to accept, but I'm speaking from a personal standpoint, not on the behalf of all staff. Do not blame my peers for my actions. It's that sometimes I don't feel like my explanations help a situation at all. If explaining things seems to make it worse, yeah, I tend to rethink the choices I made. Does that make more sense? I don't want us to stop gathering user feedback at all, and I know that we won't always please everyone. I just don't want to make things worse all the time when I intend to make them better.

...how about, "the name is pronounced much like our word reign with a guttural growl-like sound at the beginning"? I think that's what irritates me the most. It's as though they're attempting to pretend "reign" isn't already a word.

Not everyone speaks English and knows that the 'g' in reign is silent. That's like telling people who aren't familiar with Dutch names that something rhymes with Stijn. Rain was just a simpler word to use.

[TCStarwind]

I'm going to butt in for a moment and say that, frankly, I really don't care. As a typically lazy typer, I've never capitalized colors and species, anyway. So this change neither effects nor annoys me (although, I also have to say Rreign does look aesthetically better than rreign, even though both are hard for me to type. Reign? Sure, no problem. Rreign? Stop the thought processes! Am I spelling this right?)

Actually, I'm glad for the name change. It means I'll know what to call it, rather than "that dragon thing with the antennae". I could never tell the dreagon pets apart before. Although, I also think that "rreign" is a bit overlord-ish for a pet you say no one likes.

I do see why people are complaining, though. Sure, no one cares about the rreign, but they do care about their precious *insert other species here*. And, in the same vein on what Wingsrising brought up, there aren't several different subspecies of, say malticorns, running around. There isn't the River Diving Malticorn, which has extra camoflauge and uncloven hooves, in Riverside Valley or the Arctic Malticorn, which has two horns and is extra fluffy, in the Arctic Frost. They're all just Malticorns (there's no need to diffrenciate them besides color), and as such, it seems fit to capitalize that name. Afterall, a Golden Retreiver is a dog, but dog isn't capitalized, because it's a group term and not a specific name. It's the same kind of logic.

But, again, like I said, I'm a lazy typer, so I won't capitalize them anyway, reguardless.

[Twofold Black]

If our goal is to get users as excited about a change as we are by sharing our motives and logic, and it instead serves to incite people to further disgust and outrage, why should we continue to to masochistically spoon feed our reasoning to users?

The real solution to this problem is to stop making changes that exasperate your users. When was the last time one of us said 'This is awesome, but here's an itemized list of why your reasons for doing it suck'?

[AngharadTy]

If our goal is to get users as excited about a change as we are by sharing our motives and logic, and it instead serves to incite people to further disgust and outrage, why should we continue to to masochistically spoon feed our reasoning to users?

When the motives and logic (and change) are all things that we question, I guess you could see it as masochistic. Rreign is a dumb word. It is not pleasing, it looks like an accident, and because it's obviously not an accident, it comes off as pretentious. So that's bad already. And then you guys say it's inspired by Welsh, and all that does is give us more ammo--because, why, double Rs aren't Welsh! Bad + bad = bad.

Maybe it wouldn't be masochistic--we wouldn't complain and be irritated and irritating--if the things staff did were better changes for the site.

Changing the Dragon's name: good.

Changing the Dragon's name to rreign: bad.

Saying all species name will be lowercased from now on*: bad.

Complaining when we don't like the changes: reinforcing my decision to not give Subeta money.

* - I've taken a hell of a lot of biology classes. Sure, colloquially, no one capitalizes it when they write, "I saw a horse today," but for almost all wildlife, informal (e.g., not Latin) names are capitalized in biology. Yes, people do say Black Rhinoceros, Giant Panda, Long-whiskered Owlet. To say otherwise is either ignorant or disingenuous.