I remember back when Maroon and Cinnabar were crazy bases... those were wild days LOL.
Or when they released the green mane type and people were like holy shit, green lions!

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Yeah, something like Hexaplex would have been completely unheard of and probably would have been received with an "is this an April Fools joke?"

Also everyone hating Maltese because everything seemed to pass it LOL

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I was legitimately so surprised to return and see the hexaplex, pulsar and ect markings/bases. I took a break for like one or two years so yknow.

I mean pulsar was already a base back then but the markings? Haliotis too... It doesn't help that I love colorbombs LOL.

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I think something that is interesting and amusing to me is that the Ice base is STILL incredibly popular despite being so old now! I guess it's like having an offbrand applicable Celestial, plus when it came out it was the first BLUE blue base, so people were excited over it.

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Ice is a pretty base imo, I'm not really surprised people still love it if I'm being honest

I definitely got it and slapped it on a king upon release though, ngl LMAO

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My memory is pretty hazy by now honestly, but I'm pretty certain that the first handful of accounts were paid - because at the time I wasn't willing to risk $ on another brand new game that might flop lol. I think around about the day I joined (in Oct. 2012) was the first time free accounts were given out, but those were still invite-only, and a relatively small quantity at first iirc. My side account ID is only just over 100 higher and I didn't create that until over a week later, so it grew very slowly at first. The March 2013 news post was when it went open beta, and before that it was still invite-only.

Those really early days I do remember there would often only be a handful of people online and it was much more comparable with other tiny indie sims I had played where there's like a few dozen actually active players in total..! It's fascinating to think why Lioden succeeded where so many others fail, and how it grew from relatively bare bones to the scale it's at now. Partly it's been able to reinvent itself and keep improving (adding stuff like events, genetics system, etc), which makes it feel more current.

But I admit part of why I roll my eyes at trends like the whole 'clean' thing atm is because so many others have come and gone. The full custom/half-custom/etc fad was a whole thing at one point, which I suddenly remembered out of the blue the other day. Like you'd see the most crazy '12.5% custom' ads in TC, and it really seemed to matter to people whether they'd used the customiser or not, even if the lions really looked just like NCLs by the time it worked down from great great grandparents or whatever. Not to mention the hype about Maltese base when it was added :') Simpler times!

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@Myriad

Yeah, there are SO MANY players now. Literally ten times the amount of accounts than when I joined. It actually feels really weird to look at new posts and the chatbox; it's like being in a foreign land now. I only see a few of the same faces I used to.

I don't think I've seen such specific "custom" ads, probably because once I joined raffle lionesses had become pretty commonplace at that point, so it was moreso people looking for BO markings just like they do now. It's also funny you mention the hype around Maltese, because as I previously mentioned by the time I joined people seemed to haaaate it because it ended up being passed so commonly :P I wouldn't be surprised if some of the hate was from people thinking they bred a Celestial at first only to realize it's just another Maltese.

I do think Lioden and Wolvden are great games overall. There's room to improve for sure, but for the most part I think they are still enjoyable.

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Right? So funny how fast things get overused and fall out of favour. Marozi was another one that went from loved to loathed soooo quickly!

The craziest part to me about how the game's changed is that in just the last 12 months - I did some digging and compared new account numbers created on this day in 2022 - there have been 165,000 new accounts!! Which is nearly 40% of the total, so the growth this past year is insane. Like 1/3 players (and maybe a higher % of all active players, since a lot of older accounts are abandoned) have never played the February event before! So there's a weird and mind-boggling way of thinking about the numbers

I never play WD anymore - haven't even logged in for months - so I'm totally out of touch with things over there. But although it started in a very different way from Lioden I'm guessing it might be a similar story now in terms of growth..?

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HAHAHAHA I ACTUALLY TOTALLY FORGOT MAROZI EVEN EXISTED, that's so funny. Yeah that one fell out of favor FAST.

I noticed that also, I was pretty sure last year when I was playing there was "only" ~300k accounts.

I actually didn't really play WD until recently and I'm having quite a bit of fun with it. It actually does have a surprising amount of accounts as well, I'm already seeing accounts in the 100k range.

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The newer players are making me feel old. I had one a few months ago saying 'Whoa... I didn't know 4 digit people existed' so they'd be blown away by those with 2 or less, like Myr and others.

But I also feel old because this will be my 10th year playing once March 22nd rolls around.

And now it boggles my mind seeing 400k accounts or higher I'm sure as the months go on.

However the only thing I miss about way back when, is when I was actually able to sell art. Those were the good days for me. Because I felt wanted, and that's difficult on a big game ^^;

And the lions weren't complicated to draw because we didn't have 20 markings back then and the bases were simple like fiery, lilac, etc. I remember getting excited over Lilac because it was the cool new thing.

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Oh yeah lions became quite a bit more rough to color sometimes, LOL so many new marks. it used to be like.... eehh maybe some Panther and Vit.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised to see Lioden hit 500k accounts by the end of the year.

I was actually thinking about this yesterday; Wolvden has SO MANY players now that I think about it. You look at it and you're like oh yeah this game is much smaller, but it's really not! Wolvden only allows you to have ONE account... so how many players there are there already is actually wild!

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I'm actually bumping this now that it's relevant again!

Are you guys excited for the anniversary?

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I can’t believe I’ve been here for 9 1/2 years now, I rember the excitement about the very first Halloween event and how people lost their minds over prune maroon and fiery, and vit 1 was the best marking to have and everyone and their mothers had razor mane ….now I feel old XD

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YEP. Check these out, cipher, you'll enjoy them. I made these a while back when I was... discussing the old days of Lioden. Now it's been even longer!





Incidentally, does anyone remember when Vit used to affect manes? I believe they said they were going to add Vit mane markings to make up for that, but never did. I assume they probably just put them on the backburner and forget since mane markings aren't the most desired, but I'd love to see it again.

Yeah, I was about to say I remember the first Halloween event but that's not true, because the first one technically would have been in 2013. I remember the second one, though, which is when I assume it was enhanced to fit Lioden's new (at the time) "standards" for events.

As mentioned, Inferno was too bright and wild for me, and people went CRAZY over Cobweb. Cobweb was a September NCL mark of course, but I kind if associate it with Halloween anyway, because of a lioness someone was seeking at the time and plus well, it has a spooky vibe

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Oh man the cobweb craze XD and YES! I do rember the mane vit thing I was so excited for it too. The first Halloween event was like only a week or 2 long and was only the zombies, and the shop was absolutely tiny XD

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