Pet Dragons; an appreciation, part one.

A picture for Wisdom Like Silence, my Pet Dragon for PD1

More than twelve years ago I joined an application called Pet Dragons on facebook. Not sure exactly when, but the earliest picture of my Pet Dragon has a date of 22 November 2008. By then the dragon was called Wisdom Like Silence, and the reason I know that is the watermark on the picture, proclaiming that I was a member of the Order of the Rose.

Pet Dragons One was a fairly simple fighting game. People 'adopted' a pet dragon, as far as I can remember each day the dragon's trainer received points to spend on their pet. They could grow the dragon, train it for fighting, or collect gold. The fighting statistic was limited by how big the dragon was, and dragons would also gain fighting strength by losing in fights. The fighting mechanism involved someone raiding another dragon, if they won the raid they would gain treasure, and the defender would lose treasure. There was also a mechanism  so that only dragons in a certain weight range could be attacked. Finally there was a mechanism whereby a dragon under attack could be aided by a facebook friend who also played the game. Attacks took a certain amount of time before they landed, and friends could help if they sent their dragon before the attack 'landed'. The amount of help that could be given was 'capped' and once a capped assistant was in place they could not be bumped, before then stronger dragons could replace weaker dragons.

Dark Lord was one of the strongest t assistants in PD1

The assistance mechanism led to the setting up of a number of unofficial clans, groups of people who would help each others dragons when they were attacked, and who also swapped hints and tips. Because they had to be facebook friends it also led to people connecting via the game. I have a lot of 'Dragon Friends' on my facebook list because of that mechanism. When one was a friend of a dragon under attack you could see the fact that they were being attacked, but not when the attack would land.

I know I had been playing PD1 for some time when I joined the Order of the Rose (hereafter the Order). The game had a lively forum attached to it. In the forum I was recruited to a small group of dragon trainers who would help each other out and try to spread fun and chaos across the game. They had no indication on their dragon pictures that they were a group, had set up their own forum, and knew a trick whereby a dragon could assist another dragon without being facebook friends. So the group were not necessarily all facebook friends. This group wanted me to join the Order and so I did. Nothing nefarious ever came out of that, and I quickly went native as an Order member. One of the main things was to fill in a database of which dragons were being attacked, and try to find out when the attacks would land. The Order had members from around the globe and it was very rare for an Order dragon to be unassisted.

Once Pet Dragons 2 was launched I  became less interested in PD1.

In part two I will do a brief personal history of Pet Dragons Two.