Flight Rising

Flight Rising is a browser based multiplayer dragon-breeding game, in which players have lairs of dragons they can breed, dress, and battle against monster enemies to gain treasure and other loot. It has a rich in-game economy of players selling and trading items and dragons, and forums where people discuss game mechanics, look for trades, and have role-playing threads involving the dragons or the world lore. 
==Dominance==
Flight Dominance is a site-wide competition. Every week one flight will win "dominance" and two others get second and third place. All members of those flights get bonuses- extra gathering for supplies, extra treasure, and so on. Gaining dominance is a matter of "exalting" dragons, which means removing them from play completely (the developers are very emphatic that this is not the same as "death," but some players are less sure about that). In order to get dominance a flight needs to exalt more dragons in a week than any other flight, with the numbers adjusted based on activity levels. Small flights get more points per exalted dragon while large flights get fewer points per exalted dragon.
Each of the 11 elemental "flights" (Earth, Fire, Lightning, Shadow, etc.) has its own forum area to discuss strategies, offer each other rewards for participation, and coordinate buying, selling, training and exalting dragons. Fan-run raffles with donated (in-game) prizes are common; sometimes, fanart or other fanworks are prizes. There are contests and raffles related to dominance, and it has become tradition for each flight to take dominance for its annual festival. This is so solidly established that many players are surprised to discover it's not automatic. Rather, it's a player-devised tradition; all of the flight communities have tacitly agreed never to fight very hard against the flight that's about to have its festival.	
==Economy==
Just like other online games with a virtual economy, Flight Rising's pricing scale fluctuates and is solely dependent on its player base. Depending on how players view the value of their dragons, their dragons genes, and their items and familiars, the economy can see a dip or a rise in the average price in the auction house. There are money sinks set in place to help offset the accumulation of wealth, and buying high priced dragons aids this as well, but even a casual player can figure out how to drastically increase their wealth and thus lower the cost of any odd item in the game. 
Supply and demand can be observed when new genes or dragons are released. When a new gene comes out it is often difficult to obtain, meaning any player who gets a hold of a breeding pair can make quite a bit of treasure and gems from selling the children. If the gene is attached to a rarer dragon, such as a dragon with a longer breeding cool down, even better.
Players can use Baldwin's Bubbling Brew to grind for high priced and rare items. However, a player with enough treasure and gems can skip the grind and instead buy up the ingredients for the larger, more valuable crafting items. For example, if one craftable item needed six smaller items to craft it, each which could possibly take thirty minutes or an hour to obtain in Baldwin's Brew. A rich player could instead buy each item for cheap, and so long as the final craftable object can sell for more than the cost of the small items and the cost of the craftable item combined, the player can make a decent profit in half the time.
It is a common practice, when selling rare items in the auction house, to place an item one coin or one gem less than the item before it. So if an item was priced at 50000 gold the next player would price theirs at 49999 gold, making their item appear as first in the list when sorted by price. This can sometimes get competitive as players continuously try and one up one another in price without too much of a loss, and items will continue to drop in price until a player will no longer make a profit, in which then prices stop lowering.
===First Gens and IDs===
Dragons hatched from eggs in the hoard, as opposed to by breeding, are "first gens"- first generation dragons with no parents. They are considered much, much more valuable than other dragons, and there is an incredible amount of both economic activity and drama attached to them. For example, this mirror dragon named UnbreedGenOne was selling on the market for 14999 gems, a high price considering gems are the currency obtained with real money. Despite this value not every player sells their gen one dragons for high prices. Gen one dragons from this thread can be seen sold for less than 200 treasure, not even the price of a cheap baby dragon in the auction house.
Just as well, dragons with shorter ID numbers are considered worth more. The shorter the number the older the dragon, making it more valuable. IDs with certain numbers (such as having the same number three or more times in a row) can also be more valuable. 
===Dragon Flipping===
Dragon flipping has been a popular way to make money on Flight Rising for some time, based on a 2016 forum post discussing it.Opinions on Dragon Flipping, Flight Rising. Jun 23, 2016 (Accessed 7/12/2020) Dragon flipping is the act of buying cheap dragons to sell at higher prices. In the 2016 post discussing it, player ChescaCat said:
Most of the replies appear to say "yay," both from those doing the flipping and those who have had their dragons re-sold. A couple of comments are listed below.
While some players claim they've made quite a bit of treasure from dragon flipping, or have even made the bulk of their treasure from it, the positives of dragon flipping are debatable. For example, if the cost of the cheapest baby dragon is between 5,000-6,000 treasure and the cheapest adult dragon is between 7,000-8,000 treasure, then buying a baby at 5,999 treasure and selling it as an adult for 8,000 treasure only fetches a 2,001 profit, less of a profit than exalting it as a level 1. A player can make more money faster just by playing the site's minigames. Buying a 6,000 treasure baby then training it in the Colosseum when it is an adult will only make a profit if the dragon is level 4 or higher, but at level 4 will only make a profit of 750 treasure, at level 5 it would be a 2,250 profit, and so on. Some players have said that it only takes them between thirty minutes to an hour to train twelve dragons to level 7, though not everyone is as quick in the Colloseum, have the funds to purchase as level 25 dragon, nor the time to grind for a level 25 dragon.
When a player made a forum post in the general site discussion thread asking if dragon flipping was worth it, most dragon flippers said yes, but only if one has immense lair space. Overall, the consensus was that all the tiny profits add up if dragon flipping was done en masse. Some users did also acknowledge how quick and easy it was to gather 75000 treasure everyday just from playing the minigame Glimmer and Gloom, though, and that for players with smaller lairs dragon flipping may not be as profitable as said minigame(s).Is Dragon Flipping Worth It? Flight Rising. Jul 14, 2020 (Accessed 7/15/2020) For example, one user estimated that they made about 132,000 treasure per dragon flipping venture. However, if a player instead maxed out the treasure earned playing minigames for just two days in a row they would have earned 150,000 treasure, without tax (which is taken if selling the dragons on market), or 18,000 more treasure. Regardless, those who participate in dragon flipping still see it as an easy, quick, and useful way to earn money.
==Hatcheries==
Hatcheries are player-owned forum posts that are dedicated to hatching and selling dragons. Most hatcheries have a theme, and subsequently their dragon pairs have themes as well. For example, a hatchery called Everbloom Hatchery (run by Juanita) has a natural theme that includes gems, seasons, ans florals. As such, some of the dragon pairings are named the following: Frostbite, Woodland Spirits, Spring Flowers, Magenta Geode, Purple Garnet, and more.CHEAP Everbloom Hatchery, Flight Rising. Jul 14, 2020 (Accessed 7/16/2020)
Hatchery posts are more often than not lavishly decorated. They may include banners, custom bullet points, page dividers, breeding cards, meticulous formatting, separate replies for different functions (such as the breeding cards, current hatchlings, and affiliates), and specially designed signature advertisements. 
Some hatcheries offer discounts for various things, such as the hatchery Vibe Town (run by Tinyspacekid). For example, they offer a 50% discount for birthdays, a 50% discount for newbies, a 10% discount for wind flights, and more.Vibe Town | RETRO ARCADE, Flight Rising. Jul 8, 2020 (Accessed 7/16/2020)
==Discourse==
There are a handful of blogs on Tumblr dedicated to Flight Rising discourse and/or issues, such as dramarising-2, saltyflightrising-blog and flightrisingdramatica. These blogs usually function by allowing users to submit their Flight Rising drama, where it is then posted by the main blog. The owners of the blogs sometimes make comments as well. Sometimes the content of these blogs is subjective and arbitrary, such as comments on whether a player likes the design of an item. Other content is more serious or aggressive, such as outright hatred for another flight, complaints about other players, or call outs for the site staff.
Many players have strong opinions about certain flights, and some flights may even see themselves as being in a rivalry with other flights pertaining to dominance battles and mass exalting.
===Dragon Naming===
Around 2014 there was drama surrounding the naming convention of some players' exalt fodder (dragons only bought to be exalted in order to help win dominance). This was due to how these players used the names to harass other users. According to a 2014 forum post by Charaquan this includes the names Mulch and Sacrifice being banned as dragon names. To get around the name filter one user named their dragon "Snackrafice" and was subsequently suspended, leading some some players becoming worried that they could be banned for naming dragons certain things. Other users pointed out that that specific player admitted to getting around the filter knowing that "Sacrifice" was a banned name, thus was what resulted in the suspension.The 411 on all the naming drama, Flight Rising. Sept 29, 2014 (Accessed 7/16/2020) A player named Eoskara said of the event:
Another player named Cranberry commented on the name "Mulch" being banned, suggesting that the name-ban didn't happen because of harassment, but rather because one player just didn't like the name.
The forum post goes on for quite some time with varying opinion and discussion, with some upset at the admins and some defending them. Those who supported the name bans saw them as necessary to keep the website comfortable and fair, others saw the admins as being nitpicky and wished they'd draw a "hard line" by making a list of all banned names. A few more comments are below.
==Fanworks==
In addition to the fanfic and fanart that are common to many fandoms, Flight Rising has "dragon lore," which includes details about the dragons that may not connect at all to gameplay. Dragon lore is often recorded in a dragon's profile page. Some fans develop "lore templates" that are designed to fit with the site's layout and formatting options. There are also "fandragons," dragon-versions of people's OCs or favorite fandom characters, based on the colors of the dragons, the official lore (e.g. Pearlcatcher dragons are haughty; Spiral dragons are flighty), and available apparel and other decorative options. 
===Fanart===
Art includes player-drawn pictures of individual dragons, various characters (original or not) re-imagined as Flight Rising dragons, and small pictures designed to fit in the signature field in the forums, often consisting of stylized cartoonish versions of a player's favorite dragon(s). The latter category has gotten popular enough that it has its own subforum, Adoptables.
===Fanfic===
Fanfic takes two main forms: Stories about players' individual dragons, and stories about the 11 elemental dragon deities and other NPCs on the site. RP stories in the forum threads are commonly about players' dragons. There is also, rarely, crossover fic of various types.
* Mismatch's Adventures, from the "Battle of the Clans" raffle contest, a round-robin story about a dragon who moved from clan to clan.
* Have Your Dragons Spayed or Neutered by sabinelagrande - the Avengers (or at least some of them) discover Flight Rising.
* Lore of the World by 9r7g5h - one player's collection of background stories/worldbuilding about their dragons.
* The Poker Game And Associated Side-Effects (orphan account) - Windsinger wants a party, and tries to trick the other dragon deities into attending.
===Zines===
*Creator Uprising on Tumblr
*Sornieth Zine on Tumblr
==Fandragons==
Image:IronMan (FR Dragon).png| IronMan by AshtaraSilunar, a crimson-and-gold dragon with electric apparel including a "robot" mini-dragon, based on Iron ManIronMan at AshtaraSilunar's lair, link accessed Mar 10, 2019
Image:Sans (FR Dragon).png| sans by SansTheSkeleton, a black dragon showing its skeleton (via the "ghost" gene), wearing a blue sweater and white furry collar, based on Sans from Undertale.sans at SansTheSkeleton's lair, link accessed Mar 10, 2019
Image:Robin (FR Dragon).png| Robin by squidsquire, a Robin Hood themed dragon wearing several pieces of "forest rogue" apparel.Robin at squidsquire's lair, link accessed Mar 10, 2019
==Resources==
* Flight Rising works at AO3
* FlightRising on DeviantArt
* r/flightrising on Reddit
* Flight Rising wiki at Fandom, formerly known as Wikia
 
==References==
Category:Fandoms by Source Text