Flight Rising Archives

Documenting both the site and community history of Flight Rising. Ran by Saturnpunk #555510

[flightrisingarchive]

Hi all! A few years back, I worked with a few others to create a flight rising iceberg and today, I realized I have a lot more knowledge of Flight Rising history than the average user. And unless something's changed, I don't know of any place specifically dedicated to preserving both flight rising's site and community history, so I figured why not do it myself?

At this current moment, I'll be posting more stuff that requires less explanation (probably gene errors and some old assets at the moment), but after finals I'll get to the cool obscure stuff. Please feel free to send in anything you think should be archived. Hope you'll stick around while I archive all of this and hopefully, you'll learn something new!

[flightrisingarchive]

Unused Icons

On top of the unused items I showed off a few days ago, there were icons that didn't make the cut either that we don't know a ton about. Here they are. All images are from the Flight Rising Wiki.

Likely for the coliseum

Likely for the runestones of the arcanist game

Unknown, maybe for the Trading Post?

Rainbow human hand-like print (doesn't confirm earlier versions of FR had humans, remember we have several Beastclan groups with human hands). Maybe an item.

Dragon going into the sunset, No idea, Dragon meet or Adventure mode maybe?

While these icons never made it to the game, I still think they're pretty cool.

[flightrisingarchive]

Familiar Candles

From 2010-2014, Undel, under the alias NeonDragonArt, would often sell her art and things with her artwork on them at cons and through Etsy. Some of the designs on the candles she sold look a bit familiar...

Images from NeonDragon on DeviantArt

She also made pins and pendants with the familiar designs

Images from NeonDragon on DeviantArt

Beta Flamecaller is also in here but that's for a different post

All of these images were posted in 2010

It's unclear if Undel intended for the familiars to well, be familiars on Flight Rising when she created them or she just used what she made. Maybe she was selling them to help fund the project? If anyone knows, please let me know! If you still have items Undel made pre-flight rising, I'd love to see and maybe feature it!

Editors note: Oh my god there's actually a ton more familiar merch I missed I'll post when the queue runs out

[flightrisingarchive]

Latest News Glitch

On November 14th, 2014, a glitch occurred that allowed users to create threads in the announcements section of the forums. This allowed users to essentially post to the front page. It immediately turned to chaos.

Images from Acornrising

The issue was patched and users who has posted threads in the Announcements & News topic received warnings

Image from flightdescending

Did something like this ever happen again?

You better

Image from QuaeMac on reddit

(I'm sorry it's almost 2 am when I'm writing this and I desperately wanted a way to include this meme in this and this is the best I could come up with)

On June 16th, 2015, another user thread popped up on the front page.

Image from acornrising

As it turns out, a volunteer moderator accidentally moved the thread to the Announcements section of the forums when trying to move it to the a different section.

No similar incidents have happened since

[flightrisingarchive]

Hatchlings with apparel

At some point, there was a glitch that allowed hatchlings to equip apparel and skins. The apparel would show up as it would on their adult counterparts. The glitch is long patched, but it still looks funny on the dragons it remains on

Steel's Qatar

I don't know much about when this glitch occurred or how it happened. If you have more information on it, I would love to hear it!

[flightrisingarchive]

The Training Dummy

If you were to look at the IDs of the Coliseum enemies, you'd realize there's no enemy associated with the ID 83. However, if you were to change the ID of an enemy image to 83, you'd get represented with this wooden totem.

The exact purpose of this enemy is unknown, but many theorize that it's an unused training dummy. The dummy was discovered in 2021.

[flightrisingarchive]

I've actually decided to switch off anonymous questions for the moment. In the future, I will be requiring topic requests to be submitted off anon, especially for user drama. Most other things I have enough knowledge of the thing or know where to get leads. User drama is probably the hardest to find info on (and consequently the most important to archive, but I need something to work with). Asks off anon will not be posted unless I'm told otherwise

With this change, I will expect users to be ok with me reaching out through this blog or @saturnpunk to ask questions. This will probably only happen for user drama because I need something to start with. There's a real human behind the screen, I can't go looking through every drama blog I can think of to try to find a specific drama. I need to ask.

The last anon post will be deleted on Monday probably, because I have a little travel upcoming.

From research, I am guessing "Vore" was actually one of two different users.

Carnivore: I can probably cover them.

Rhea: Honestly, I don't think I can call this a FR community archive unless I talk about Rhea. However, trying to essentially make a master post of all of Rhea's shenanigans is not a one person job. I do not want to even think about attempting that until I have help. And that will probably be a month where that's the only thing I post.

Thanks for y'alls patience while I figure this all out

[flightrisingarchive]

hello! would you consider making a post about flight rising user Vore? I don't have a set one post with the information about it and sometimes I feel insane trying to recollect all my notes. thank you so much for this blog, I've been hoping someone would do something like this!

EDIT: See this post

I can't even lie, that made me do a double take.

Anyways, onto answering your question. I will note that as of writing, I have not looked into this drama and probably will not be able to for several days.

So, it's a maybe. There's a few things I'm going to consider before making a decision, which isn't going to happen for a little bit because of life. I figure this is a good time to share my current guidelines for user drama (these will be their own post one day, just need to workshop them a bit.)

1. Is this petty drama?

Basically, is this a petty dispute between friends or is this something that actually had an impact on the site and/or the community. Considering you've mentioned that's there's information across multiple posts, it likely passes this check.

2. Is this user dangerous?

As much as I love the site, I don't love it enough to risk my safety. Does the user in question seem likely to retaliate? Will they attempt to get my account anywhere banned? Will they try to dox me? Stuff like that. I am not risking my future over pet site drama.

3. What's the actual subject of the drama?

I will not cover drama that was clearly the result of someone having a mental health crisis. I will not cover drama that involves unproven accusations.

4. Is the drama ongoing?

If it is, I'm not going to cover it at that time to avoid causing unnecessary bias and giving a complete picture.

5. Severity of accusations

Is the user being accused of doing something or promoting something abusive/illegal? The topics that are coming to mind are rape, incest, abuse (especially towards a minor or animal), grooming, pedophilia, zoophilia, etc. Those need intervention from law enforcement, not archiving. And also, my personal comfort with the topic and my ability to stay objective is a factor.

If I don't feel comfortable covering it myself, I would still consider a link hub/text image archiving

For this topic Anon, I'm going to need at least some points to start off of, both out of concern for my browsing history and not even being sure where to start because of the username. Please feel free to DM me. I won't be attaching your name to any of this, I just need to start somewhere.

[flightrisingarchive]

Jelly Thighs

When Aberrations were released on March 1st, 2022, many players noticed that there was an inconsistency with Capsule on Aberration Females. Unlike every breed before it, the capsule extended onto their thighs

Females vs Male capsule on release. Images from the Flight Rising Wiki

On March 2nd, 2022, a revision was pushed that removed capsule from Aberration female's thighs.

Abby F Capsule female 'fix.' Image from the Flight Rising Wiki

The fix was reverted later that same day because both Undel and the community agreed it looked worse.

So, we kept our jelly thighs. But there was a moment where we lost them.

[flightrisingarchive]

Just wanted to make a note that I'll probably drop down posting frequency to like 2 times a week or something for my well-being and sanity. Also, scheduled posts will drop later in the day. To be honest, magpie dropping 10 minutes before the scheduled post about ghost and points was supposed to go up and having to rush home and adjust it kinda took a lot out of me. It's more coincidence than anything else I saw magpie before the post went out. Also, very intense internship coming up and school. I just need to figure out how to balance my well-being and keeping info flowing out. I know this isn't that big of a deal but it matters to me, so it is a big deal.

[flightrisingarchive]

Points, Ghost and Magpie: The genes that took years to come

In a video uploaded September 13th, 2012, a ton of genes were teased. All of these genes ended up being available on site launch, with two notable exceptions: the tertiary genes Ghost and Points

Ghost (and Magpie)

Ghost was teased as a gene that created a skull marking on the head of a dragon, a gradient down the neck of a dragon and a few splotches of color on a dragon's wings with a slight gradient

Image from the Flight Rising Wiki of the version of Ghost presented in the September 2012 preview video

Ghost would not release until February 12th, 2018. The release gene creates skeletal markings all over the body of a dragon and lacks gradients.

Then on May 13th, 2026, the tertiary gene Magpie released. The gene is likely a redesign of the wing gradients of 2012's version of ghost. They're very similar, but not 1 to 1.

The fact this post released on the same day magpie dropped is coincidence. This was scheduled almost a week in advance and of course magpie dropped about 10 minutes before this post was scheduled to go up.

Points

Points was teased as a gene that added fades to the points of a dragon - those being the muzzle, ears, top of wings, tail and the bottom of the legs. Similar points of coloration are found in real animals, notably in siamese cats

Image from the Flight Rising Wiki of the version of Points presented in the September 2012 preview video

Points finally released on October 10th, 2022, over ten years since it was teased. In the final version, the color coverage on all areas was extended.

So, what took so long?

Quite honestly, we don't know. It is worth noting that in the beginning, genes had be recolored by hand. Now, (most) genes are colored using a recolor engine and a base template with sections marking where each color should go.

Image of the template for Lionfish on Imperial Hatchlings from a February 22rd, 2023 gene fixing livestream.

Since the colors had to be done by hand and gradients can be finicky, even in a good art program, the decision may have been made that it wasn't worth the effort at the time, since the original plan was to have them obtainable using features outside of the marketplaces, which weren't implemented at the time (notably Ghost was supposed to obtainable from Baldwin's Bubbling Brew). In the end, both ending up being purchasable in the treasure marketplace

Undel on when Ghost and Points would be released

Today, the wait for ghost and points is still joked about by those who remember and all players now have access to these genes.

[flightrisingarchive]

So, in honor of magpie dropping and forcing me to remove the Siamese cat I had in the original post, let's compare the genes to real counterparts! NOTE: Skeletons will be shown in this post. No animal corpses or taxidermy will be shown. Regardless, post break to avoid people being exposed to skeletons.

Ghost

We will be using a male pearlcatcher for this comparison.

I unfortunately don't have the time to break down how accurate I feel each piece of the skeleton is to a real reptile. However, there are two things I will say quickly.

First of all, the hole in the bottom of the lower jaw leads me to believe the skull is based off of a modern reptile rather than a dinosaur, as no dinosaur skeletons I could find in my admittedly brief research I did had the hole in the lower jaw, but modern reptile skeletons did!

American Alligator skeleton, image from Philadelphia Museums

Second of all, the the wing structure varies by breed, but mostly seems to be based on bats rather than birds (In terms of evolution, this would be incorrect as mammals and reptiles last shared a common ancestor likely between 315-320 million years ago, while reptiles and birds last shared a common ancestor around 230 million years ago according to wikipedia (yes I know there are more reliable sources out there this was a pain to research as it))

Image from understanding evolution

I'd love to go more in depth about inspiration for Flight Rising skeletons, but that's going to require a LOT more research and probably a trip to a museum with skeletons. Thankfully the other two are simpler.

Magpie

The wing patches and underbelly markings appear to be inspired by the markings on real magpies. The color on the muzzle is likely inspired by the bird's beak and the tail markings by their long, green plumage.

Images of an Eurasian Magpie from Wikipedia.

Points

Likely based off of the coloration of real animals. In animals, some genes can restrict the distribution of certain pigments to only the "points" of an animal. Point's distribution is likely based off of a cat, likely Siamese and Himalayan cats. For these cats, their point coloration is caused by the Himalayan gene, which causes a mutation in the gene sequence for the melanin-producing enzyme tyrosinase. This mutation causes tyrosinase to denature at normal body temperatures, but the enzyme can function at the temperature of the cooler areas of the body, aka the points. The functioning tyrosinase in the points causes the darker coloration found in the face, lower legs, ears and tail.

Image from the Cat Fancier's Association

This concludes my unnecessarily detailed post into the inspiration of these genes.

Now I should study for a final I have tomorrow

[flightrisingarchive]

Points, Ghost and Magpie: The genes that took years to come

In a video uploaded September 13th, 2012, a ton of genes were teased. All of these genes ended up being available on site launch, with two notable exceptions: the tertiary genes Ghost and Points

Ghost (and Magpie)

Ghost was teased as a gene that created a skull marking on the head of a dragon, a gradient down the neck of a dragon and a few splotches of color on a dragon's wings with a slight gradient

Image from the Flight Rising Wiki of the version of Ghost presented in the September 2012 preview video

Ghost would not release until February 12th, 2018. The release gene creates skeletal markings all over the body of a dragon and lacks gradients.

Then on May 13th, 2026, the tertiary gene Magpie released. The gene is likely a redesign of the wing gradients of 2012's version of ghost. They're very similar, but not 1 to 1.

The fact this post released on the same day magpie dropped is coincidence. This was scheduled almost a week in advance and of course magpie dropped about 10 minutes before this post was scheduled to go up.

Points

Points was teased as a gene that added fades to the points of a dragon - those being the muzzle, ears, top of wings, tail and the bottom of the legs. Similar points of coloration are found in real animals, notably in siamese cats

Image from the Flight Rising Wiki of the version of Points presented in the September 2012 preview video

Points finally released on October 10th, 2022, over ten years since it was teased. In the final version, the color coverage on all areas was extended.

So, what took so long?

Quite honestly, we don't know. It is worth noting that in the beginning, genes had be recolored by hand. Now, (most) genes are colored using a recolor engine and a base template with sections marking where each color should go.

Image of the template for Lionfish on Imperial Hatchlings from a February 22rd, 2023 gene fixing livestream.

Since the colors had to be done by hand and gradients can be finicky, even in a good art program, the decision may have been made that it wasn't worth the effort at the time, since the original plan was to have them obtainable using features outside of the marketplaces, which weren't implemented at the time (notably Ghost was supposed to obtainable from Baldwin's Bubbling Brew). In the end, both ending up being purchasable in the treasure marketplace

Undel on when Ghost and Points would be released

Today, the wait for ghost and points is still joked about by those who remember and all players now have access to these genes.

[flightrisingarchive]

Updated to include Magpie. They can throw me off, but they can't take me down. I'll also throw in a comparison of the modern genes to an animal counterpart in another reblog as compensation for having to remove the cat to fit Magpie

[flightrisingarchive]

Devs choose to release Magpie at the worst possible moment because it looks like the wing part of the original ghost shown in 2012 which is what today's post is on which I had to edit in quickly

I will edit Magpie in when I get back to a computer

[flightrisingarchive]

Points, Ghost and Magpie: The genes that took years to come

In a video uploaded September 13th, 2012, a ton of genes were teased. All of these genes ended up being available on site launch, with two notable exceptions: the tertiary genes Ghost and Points

Ghost (and Magpie)

Ghost was teased as a gene that created a skull marking on the head of a dragon, a gradient down the neck of a dragon and a few splotches of color on a dragon's wings with a slight gradient

Image from the Flight Rising Wiki of the version of Ghost presented in the September 2012 preview video

Ghost would not release until February 12th, 2018. The release gene creates skeletal markings all over the body of a dragon and lacks gradients.

Then on May 13th, 2026, the tertiary gene Magpie released. The gene is likely a redesign of the wing gradients of 2012's version of ghost. They're very similar, but not 1 to 1.

The fact this post released on the same day magpie dropped is coincidence. This was scheduled almost a week in advance and of course magpie dropped about 10 minutes before this post was scheduled to go up.

Points

Points was teased as a gene that added fades to the points of a dragon - those being the muzzle, ears, top of wings, tail and the bottom of the legs. Similar points of coloration are found in real animals, notably in siamese cats

Image from the Flight Rising Wiki of the version of Points presented in the September 2012 preview video

Points finally released on October 10th, 2022, over ten years since it was teased. In the final version, the color coverage on all areas was extended.

So, what took so long?

Quite honestly, we don't know. It is worth noting that in the beginning, genes had be recolored by hand. Now, (most) genes are colored using a recolor engine and a base template with sections marking where each color should go.

Image of the template for Lionfish on Imperial Hatchlings from a February 22rd, 2023 gene fixing livestream.

Since the colors had to be done by hand and gradients can be finicky, even in a good art program, the decision may have been made that it wasn't worth the effort at the time, since the original plan was to have them obtainable using features outside of the marketplaces, which weren't implemented at the time (notably Ghost was supposed to obtainable from Baldwin's Bubbling Brew). In the end, both ending up being purchasable in the treasure marketplace

Undel on when Ghost and Points would be released

Today, the wait for ghost and points is still joked about by those who remember and all players now have access to these genes.

[flightrisingarchive]

Helpful blogs + people

I just wanted to highlight blogs and people that have helped me out with research and/or let me use their images. These people are what let this blog exist, and I want to give them the proper acknowledgment. If your name/blog is on this list and you would like it removed, please let me know and I'll remove it.

Also please keep in mind you should still ask before using these individual's resources, as they may not be comfortable with people using their images/testimonies for non-archival purposes. I always ask when possible.

Blogs

While these blogs aren't solely dedicated to archiving FR history, they still have tags and such that do and they've given me permission to use them as sources of information + images. Please note that I won't usually link to the version of their blogs with CSS unless I think it's essential for navigation as I usually just find the default blog a little easier to use .

@radiant-flutterbun's archive tag - Has posts and reblogs archiving from various points through FR's history.

@acornrising's FR: A History - An incredibly detailed overview of site changes and drama from the kickstarter to mid 2015, often from the perspective of someone who watched these events unfold. Text heavy.

@flightdescending's a funny thing happened on flight rising tag - Another set of posts written from someone who watched early events unfold in real time. Not as detailed as FR: A History, but contains more images and fun little factoids/glitches. Also contains more recent incidents.

Users on site

Users on site who were willing to talk with me through dms and give me insight into events that weren't well documented on tumblr or other sites. A lot of these people helped answer questions about the beta or very specific incidents.

I have a user I'd like to feature here, but I need to check in with them to see if they're still ok with me sharing their name and recounts.

Iceberg Contributors

The group of people who I worked with to identify events and gather info when I created my Flight Rising Iceberg in 2023. This blog exists because of these individuals. None of them have a FR blog as far as I'm aware, so I'll credit them to their onsite usernames.

Glitchbird #214648

Forager #543857

Cometstrike #282532

Websites

Good sources of info for out-of-use/unused images and items.

Flight Rising Wiki

[flightrisingarchive]

Purble

On December 15th, 2015, a user anonymously submitted a rant to the salt blog DramaRising, going on a very long rant about how they had been trying to save up for a XXX purple Ridgeback. Before they could buy the Ridgeback , another user had bought it and according to the anonymous poster had "[turned] it into a shitty joke." What egregious thing has the buyer done? Put purple apparel on the ridgeback, named him Purble and wrote in his description "he purble."

Image from DramaRising

The backlash towards the anonymous poster was strong, with a lot of people pointing out how much the user was overreacting. Many simply reblogged and wrote 'he purble.'

Purble was exalted in 2017, but his legacy still lives on.

RIP purble king

Link to an archive of the original post. A copy and paste of the original text will be available under the break

I hate this. I hate this so much. Are you FUCKING kidding me, S from Plague?! You wasted a perfectly good XXX dragon. I wanted this dragon. I saw it in the auction house and was saving the money for it. It was 25 gems, which yeah is pretty expensive but I guess worth it for a triple color I guess. But I come back to find that he’s already been bought!! Ok, whatever, someone beet me to him…but then I see that THIS is what they did to him?!?!! Why not let someone who wants to give it good lore and actual nice apparel have it?! Instead you hog it and give it a shitty name and cover it in shitty purple apparel for your little joke. What, is this dragon just some kind of meme or something to you?! I sure wish I could have the treasure and gems to just throw away on a perfectly good triple color irifacebelly dragon for no reason other than to turn it into a shitty joke. You probably did this to spite me and players like me! Buy the fancy dragons we want just to turn them into dumb jokes?! FUCK YOU!

I can't even lie, I'm mildly concerned about staff getting on my case about this but like also many other flight rising blogs have reblogged the original post

[flightrisingarchive]

Doofy Dragon

On December 22nd, 2007, Undel posted this image of a dragon to the website Art Wanted titled 'Doofy Dragon'

The caption read 'A doofy little guy I'm working on for the Flight Rising project." Nothing else is known about why this dragon was scrapped or if it influenced the development of any other breeds

Image from the flight rising wiki