Welcome to Gaia! ::

Sorry for the late response, I've been busy developing a new way of balancing the breeds out. Because right now, the site sees all dragons of a breed as the same. This means that, come time for winter dragons, the site will see all of the summer and autumn dragons and decide that there's plenty of season dragons, and that they don't really need to be especially common, even though there would be very winter dragons.

Instead, the site will know which specific alts of dragons are not available, and thus won't bother considering them when trying to balance the numbers of each breed.

But none of that (even it it does have to do with alts) is related to this.

This occurred because someone asked why alternate dragons exist. And when I stopped to ponder this, I recalled that the feature was created because the site was too "linear." You see an egg, and you know which adult dragon that you're getting. The first steps away from linear hatching sequences were the two breeds with gender-specific sprites. When you pick up an egg from one of those two breeds, you may generally know which dragon you'll get, but not which sprite you'll end up with.

And upon knowing why the alternates feature was implemented, it follows that separate egg sprites for alternates do not make sense.

Alternates are the same breed as the original breed. Just as the possible silvers are the same breed, so too are the possible vine dragons. Different eggs generally denote completely different dragons. Even some of the current alternates that use different eggs (E.X. summer and autumn) result in completely different adults.

And now, commence flaming while I go get some sleep (Only to wake up in 4 hours. =/)

I concur, though I'll admit I kind of like the idea of not knowing if it's an alt till it hatches. I like the idea that SOMETHING is a total surprise about the eggs when they hatch. It would make it more surprise and joyous when one turns out to be an alt. Besides, then you would, in theory, be wanting that breed regardless of alt or not.

But it won't stop people from mass breeding them, it'll just make them be more careful about choosing and keeping an eye on their clutch that they let go, and maybe even working with others to keep their clutch close (IE: someone breeds three eggs, they keep one and get two friends to catch the other two so if it's an alt it's still kind of in their possession). Plus, it won't cut back on the abandons. If anything it'll increase them, as everyone will be abandoning the normal hatchlings when they want alts, so instead of a massive amount of eggs, it'll be hatchlings.

Okay...blacks and vines are explained....now can someone explain tome what he was on about with the seasonal dragons? o.O; please?

Someone already asked his reasoning behind it.

He actually related it to something in the real world: snakes. Sometimes snakes are albinos, sometimes they're born with two heads, etc.

You can't TELL this will happen just by looking at the eggs. The clutch is all of the same species regardless of how they hatch to look like, which means the eggs will all remain the same in appearance. He also stated that his original purpose was to have it be a 'surprise', and that he doesn't know how or why the alt eggs came to look different.