Introducing 'Effects'! | Announcements & News

February 12, 2025 13:06:18

We’re thrilled to introduce Effects, a brand-new system of optional, animated cosmetic enhancements that let you add a touch of magic, mystery, or majesty to your dragons.

Players sensitive to motion can also turn off these effects in a new accessibility setting found in Account Settings here.

Click here to read more about this update.

A New Dimension of Creativity
Dragons all over Sornieth come to life like never before! Whether you’re dreaming of a dragon surrounded by fluttering butterflies, glowing with an ethereal aura, or shimmering with holographic brilliance, Effects open up a whole new world of customization possibilities.

Effects are designed to complement your dragons’ existing genes, skins, and apparel, giving you even more tools to bring your creative visions to life. We’re pleased to say, that as of this posting, they’re available to all players!

These new item are available in the Gem and Treasure Marketplace under the Specialty categories:

STOP

The rest of this post contains previews of the new Effects options released today.

If moving images, colors, or lights are an accessibility concern for you, please navigate to your Account Settings now and turn off the ability for the animations to run.

You can also set your browser to reduce motion on websites that respect the prefers-reduced-motion setting inside your operating system:

Windows 10: Start > Settings > Ease of Access > Display > Show Animations in Windows
MacOS: System Preferences > Accessibility > Display> Reduce Motion
iOS: Settings > Accessibility > Motion> Reduce Motion
Android: Settings > Accessibility > Remove Animations

Effects respects this flag, even when you aren't logged into your account.

How Effects Work
Effects are a new type of cosmetic item, similar to apparel, skins, and familiars. You can equip them or remove them from your dragon by way of expanded options on their dedicated Customize pages. Here’s what you need to know:

All-Over Effects: Transform your entire dragon sprite (body and apparel) with immersive themes like underwater bubbles, spooky hauntings, or waves of pastel color.
Dragon-Only Effects: Add beautiful new details only to your dragon’s body (under their apparel, but above their skins and genes) like shimmering scales, holographic foil, or glitzy sequins that catch the light.
Apparel-Only Effects: Enhance your dragon’s outfit with dazzling details (NOTE: the normal restrictions still apply to Ancient breeds and all hatchlings, who cannot currently equip apparel).

Easy to Use
Simply navigate to your dragon’s Customize page, tap the Effects button, and choose the perfect animation to match your dragon’s personality. Like apparel, every effect item is a unique instance to itself and to its wearer. (eg. If you would like to display the same effect on two dragons, you will need to acquire two copies of it)

A Wide Variety to Show Off
Because Effects are optional and don’t affect breeding mechanics, they really can be as diverse as your imagination! We’re launching with a wide range of fun options today, just to elaborate on a few. Some include:

Bold and Immersive

Effect: Beryl Plunge: (All-Over Effect) Submerge your dragon in an underwater scene, complete with light refractions and bubbles.
Effect: Dearly Departed & Effect: Possessed Possessions: (Dragon-Only Effect & Apparel-Only Effect) Turn your dragon (or their armaments!) into a haunting spirit with eerie, ghostly visuals.
Effect: Pastel Pulse: (Dragon-Only Effect) Surround your dragon with waves of rich, pastel colors that slowly pan across their sprite.

Subtle and Elegant

Effect: Shimmerscale: (Dragon-Only Effect) Add a delicate shimmer to your dragon’s scales, reflecting a spectrum of hues.
Effect: Flecks o' Foil: (Dragon-Only Effect) Create a dazzling holographic effect that glimmers as light moves across your dragon.
Effect: Glitz: (Dragon-Only Effect): Sprinkle your dragon with tiny, glittering sequins for a touch of glamour.

Augmenting and Playful

Effect: Flutterby: (All-Over Effect) Let a friendly swarm of butterflies flutter around your dragon.
Effect: Sunrise, Moonrise: (Dragon-Only Effect) The days just fly by as your dragon experiences sunrise and sunset.

Behind the scenes, Effects are powered by webGL shaders, a growing web-based technology that allows for stunning animations and visual effects. Shaders have been used in game and film development for years, making them a great option for us to explore as a powerful tool for evolving Flight Rising’s illustrative art. While this marks a fairly new technical milestone for us, we’ve also worked hard to ensure the system is as accessible as possible.

Technical Notes & Accessibility
As exciting as today’s release is, and even though we’ve designed Effects to be as compatible and user-friendly as possible, there are a few things to keep in mind:

Performance Considerations: Effects are built using webGL shaders, which may not be supported on very old devices. That being said, if your device doesn’t support webGL, don’t worry—your dragons will simply render as static images instead.
Animation Toggle: To accommodate players with visual sensitivities or performance concerns, you can disable animations in your Account Settings. When animations are toggled off, Effects will appear “paused” by default. While in this mode, you still can manually preview individual Effects without toggling them all on.
Restrictions: Technical constraints in sprite size and the graphic-heavy nature of our game prevent us from rendering Effects in every area (e.g., Coliseum battles, Auction House listings, Crossroads trades, Search results, Lair/Hibernal Den indexes, and forum avatars). However, we’re actively exploring ways to optimize and expand support for Effects in the future.
Page Limit: To avoid overtaxing older devices, only a limited number of effects on a single forum page will render. We have manually limited this to 16, but this may change in the future as we gain a better understanding of the feature’s performance. Additionally, some browsers may impose an even lower limit.

Gleaming Gifts
From now until February 19, 2025 at 6:00 server, Galore has a Glorious Gift for every dragon clan!

Pretty, Pretty Previews
To give you a sneak peek at what’s possible, we've prepared a preview of every effect we've launched today. Check them out below!

Glitz

This dragon is displaying an animated effect: Puttin' on the ritz! Applies bright animated glitter spots to just the body of one dragon.Like apparel, skins, and scenes, effects are purely cosmetic items that can be added and removed from dragons at any time.

This dragon is showing off…

Effect: Glitz

Beast is displayed as a fallback image due to an error while loading Effect: Glitz effect.

Shimmerscale

This dragon is displaying an animated effect: Sometimes, you just gotta practice your scales. This item applies a scintillating pattern of reflective scales to just the body of one dragon.Like apparel, skins, and scenes, effects are purely cosmetic items that can be added and removed from dragons at any time.