Dragon Guide
This page is also available in: Deutsch, Espanol, Français, Italiano, Japanese, Nederlands, Polski, Portuguese
Congratulations on making it through a Release Event! Being a full size dragon is fun in many ways and surviving a release event and coming away with an egg of your very own can feel like quite an achievement. This guide will try to honour that achievement by highlighting the unique advantages you now have over and above the Hatchling and Wyrmling avatars.
Contents |
Key Points
Before we continue, there are a few general points to note:
- If you visited this page hoping for a more generalized overview, you can always take it From the Ground Up.
- If any of the terms used on this page are unfamiliar, please see the Second Life Terminology guide on this wiki.
- Words that mean something specific in SL terms will usually be italicised in this guide, e.g. to touch something in an SL sense.
With that said, let us continue on with this guide:
From Inventory to Avatar
So the lure of the adult Wyrm was just too great and you arranged your weekend around one of the Release Events and managed to brave the madding crowd. Those few moments between paying your L$3500 into the egg vendor and something actually happening are so tense and charged, but hopefully now you have a dragon egg and a HUD in your inventory. If not, my advice is to be patient. Daryth is very dedicated and very fair and she reviews her transaction logs diligently after each release event. You will either get your egg or get your L$ back so please try to relax after the event is over.
Unpacking Your Egg
As with the other dragon avatars, the first steps into your dragon form are to rez your egg and unpack the Contents. On release days it is especially true that doing this in the Cathedral will increase lag for everyone, so once you receive your egg you should take it down to the Sandbox to rez it. There will be IoW Guides, IoW Mentors and Guardian officials present there to assist.
When you rez your dragon egg you should touch it to bring up a blue popup with "Register" and "Unpack" buttons. As this is your first full size dragon, you should Register it and then Unpack it to receive a folder with the dragon avatar parts and an extras folder. Please remember to either take the egg back into your inventory or delete it when you are done registering and unpacking.
Wearing the Avatar
The procedure for turning into a full size dragon is the same as with the other dragon avatars. If the adult dragon form is somehow your first dragon form or you want to make a fresh backup of your human avatar, please see From Human to Dragon and Back Again for one possible backup solution. With that done, simply find the Dragon Avatar folder in your inventory and drag it onto yourself, making sure you are really dropping it on your avatar. After a few moments you will begin to morph into a huge dragon. These dragons are quite large when the morph is complete so you may want to give yourself a little room!
Being a Dragon
The adult Wyrm is the largest of the dragon avatars and is a mighty and fearsome beast, proud and noble too. While the sheer scale can be quite a surprise at first, you will get used to it. It is all part of the majesty of the dragons to tower high into the Second Life sky.
Movement and Camera
The great size of the dragon can make the default SL camera position seem awkward, but it is easy to fix this:
- If you have a "wheel mouse" - a mouse with a scroll wheel in place of a middle button - you can simply scroll the wheel backwards to zoom out. When zooming out like this the camera will remember the position even when you move about.
- If you don't own a "wheel mouse" style mouse, all is not lost: you can use the "Zoom" options on the View menu at the top of the SL client to zoom in and out.
The next thing you might notice is that the avatar is rather large with lots of pieces that jut out, such as the wings and tail. At first glance it might seem like it will never fit into some of the spaces your regular avatar would fit, but this is often a misleading first impression. Daryth in her wisdom made many of the avatar pieces phantom so that they clip through other prims and objects. In simple terms, most of the parts of your dragon that stick out will pass right through things as you walk and it is only the central core of the avatar that actually collides with things, so you should still fit into most spaces.
The HUD
The dragon HUD is a powerful tool that unlocks so much of the potential of the dragon avatars. As well as allowing your dragon to roar and breathe the breath unique to its type, as well as allowing the dragon to animate in some ways such as moving wings or coiling its tail, the HUD offers access to the colour and texture switching abilities of the avatar. This allows you to craft a truly unique dragon that reflects your personality and shows off your design sense to other residents and dragon owners alike.
Rather than reproducing the information here, please see the Dragon HUD page for a comprehensive breakdown of how it works.
Colours and Copies
With so much customisability built into the avatars it is easy to end up with more than one cool colour scheme per dragon. Perhaps you will have different schemes for different moods or different times of the week or different events. The good news is that the dragons have copy rights turned on, so you can make a copy of the whole avatar and keep different folders for each new style and scheme you invent. You can either copy the dragon folder in your inventory, or simply rez your dragon egg to unpack a fresh new copy. The latter method is useful if you lose a dragon part or something stops working too.
This is copy-enabled setting is true of the egg packaging itself too and many dragon owners like to use their egg as an ornamental display piece in their home while still keeping a copy in their inventory.
The Extras Folder
Each dragon comes with a series of extras, some of which are common to all dragons and some of which are specific to a particular type. You should always check your Extras folder to see what goodies have been included. Here are some of the common ones:
Posing Your Dragon
Sometimes it is useful to make your avatar adopt a certain pose so it will keep still. While there are many such stands for bipedal avatars on the open SL market, not so many exist for quadruped avatars. Fortunately one is provided: To use it simply rez it on the ground and then sit on it, by right-clicking and choosing the "Stand" option from the Pie Menu. This can be useful when you are switching textures and applying tints with the Dragon HUD, or if you start to make items for the dragon avatars. Please remember to take or delete your posing stand if you use it in a public place.
Dragon Riders
One cool feature of the larger dragons is the saddle. Now you can take your SL friends on a special dragon flight over the Dragon Isles, or any other part of Second Life for that matter. To use the saddle you should rez it on the ground and then sit on it. It is important for you, as the dragon, to sit on the correct part of the saddle. This part is usually the larger of the two pose balls, the one at the bottom of the saddle labelled "Dragon". Right-click on this ball and then click on the "Fly" option from the Pie Menu.
Once you, as the dragon, have sat on the saddle, you will automatically begin flying and your passenger can then sit on the pose ball at the top of the saddle to mount up. When you tire of ruling the skies, simply stand up to get off the saddle and remember to take it back into your inventory. If you have any further questions about the saddle, please see the Dragon FAQ.
Camera Option
The zooming trick described earlier in this guide can sometimes cause a conundrum with the larger dragons: if you zoom out far enough to see over the dragon's shoulder the camera often feels like it is very far away. For this reason a special attachment is offered in the extras folder which moves the default position of the camera, giving you a different area to zoom out from.
A Dragon's Horde
Dragons like precious metals and jewels to decorate their nests and homes with. A basic horde is provided with the adult dragons, which you can rez to create your own dragon scenes. Maybe you will make a bed from all the gold and silver, or create a mini Hatching Cave for your eggs.
Among the Isles
The fun of being a dragon does not end with the avatar itself, not by a long shot. Many would say that it begins with the avatar and moves on from there. Many helpful, talented and fun-loving dragons inhabit the Dragon Isles and there are a variety of fun things to see and do there:
Dragon Community
The community aspect of the Isles is strong and participation is often rewarding and fun. There is so much to see and do as well as cool places to hang out and chat. A lot of dragons seem to congregate in the Great Hall of the Cathedral, perhaps out of some nesting instinct, after all most were born there in a manner of speaking. The sandboxes too have a habit of attracting dragons, although it should be noted that they are provided for building first and everything else second.
As well as these places to hang out generally there are often specific events organised at certain dates and times. Notification of upcoming events can usually be found on the News & Events forum on the Council of Wyrms forums.
There are many contests held on the Isles too, sometimes in response to holidays such as the recent Halloween Costume Contest and sometimes held for the fun of it. There is an Isle Contests page on this wiki where such things can be tracked. They are often discussed on the forums too.
Other cool places to visit include the Marketplace and the largely residential sims of Lethe and Lyre where you may be able to rent a dragon cave if you're lucky!
Council Membership
The Dragon Council groups further the sense of community, with a group for each type of dragon avatar. The groups are not merely decorative and actually serve as a passport to certain features around the isles. This can include things such as the ability to:
- Vote in contests and on important dragon issues
- Have access to dragon avatar owners only content
- Receive occasional notices about important dragon issues and events
- Show your affinity for the dragons
- Purchase dragons of any size at any time and receive a discount on the Wyrmling and Dragon sizes! See Unlimited Dragons! below.
- Have access to extra special dragon avatars only available to adult dragons. See Special Dragons below.
The group for adult dragons is called the Council of Wyrms. Remember to Register your egg by rezzing and touching it and clicking the appropriate button on the popup dialog. If you do not receive an invite to this group within 24 hours of registering your egg, please contact a Guide or Mentor or Guardian in-world to assist you with registration.
Unlimited Dragons!
Perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of becoming a full size dragon is that you only have to go through the release event once. Now that you have your full dragon and once you have joined the Council of Wyrms you need never wait in line to buy a full-size dragon. Not only that but you can now get a L$1000 discount on the Wyrmling and Wyrm price!
Buying a Dragon As a Council of Wyrms Member
Once you are on the Council of Wyrms you can buy any of the three sizes of dragon at any time, regardless of the apparent availability of eggs. So if you like the look of any of the other dragons, now you can just go and buy them, with your special discount too.
In order for the egg vendors to recognise you as a full dragon, you should have your Council of Wyrms group set as your active group. Then you visit the Cathedral and use the egg vendors in the normal way right up to the point where you actually pay. Instead of clicking the "fast pay" buttons however, you should instead type in the price appropriate to the size of avatar you want to buy:
- Wyrm (Full Dragons) are now L$2500
- Wyrmlings are now L$1200
- Note: Hatchlings always cost L$650 regardless
Once you have typed in the appropriate amount you can Pay the egg and you will receive your inventory in the usual manner. It is worth noting here that once you have made it through one Release Event you are actually asked to not attend any further events as when you buy an egg during a release event you are only depriving someone else of the opportunity to become a full dragon. Using the method described above you can collect as many full-size dragons as you like whenever you like and for a discounted cost.
Special Dragons
Occasionally special content will be released which is exclusive to Council of Wyrms members. Some recent examples include the Tiamat Dragon and Teravus Ousley's special events benefiting Bone Dragon and Cave Dragon in the Marketplace:
All of these things together make it extra special to be a full dragon avatar.
