Ten Reasons Why You Should be Playing Flight Rising!

Flight Rising is quite the interesting, albeit sometimes addicting online F2P (Free to Play) game. Full of Dragons, Lore, and a incredibly welcoming community, it's no wonder that the game that started out as a Kick Starter and only opened in June of 2013, has a ton of players on the site. Here's ten good reasons why you should play the game.

1. It's Neopets Grown Up

Ok so let's be real at least: Neopets is super old, and for little kids (also it's now owned by Yahoo I believe?) and the way that it's being run is just not suited for you anymore. This is why Flight Rising is perfect for you. It's an online pet game, where you get to gather items, convert some to food stuffs, and keep your dragons alive by feeding them. They don't die if you don't, but their energy bar will go from 100% to a big fat 0% if neglected for too long. And well-fed dragons will provide you with one Gem (a type of currency) per day. You can also add on familiars to them (like petpets in Neopets), dress them up with apparel, or change how they look with skins and accents.

2. Dragons

Yes, Flight Rising is about dragons. But the odd part is, you're not fighting the dragons, but owning them, expanding your lair, and can have a varying degree of dragons. There are four primary dragons as a new player that you start out with: Fae, Guardian, Mirror, and Tundra. These breeds are the "Plentiful Breeds" meaning there's a lot of them and they're not too expensive.

The Plentiful Breeds as both adults and hatchlings! The tiniest full grown one is a Fae, the more traditional dragon looking one is a Guardian, the one with multiple eyes are Mirrors, and the furry looking ones are Tundras.

Next are the Common breeds, made up of Pearlcatchers, Ridgebacks, Snappers, and Spiral breeds.

Common breeds here, with Pearlcatchers holding their pearls, Ridgebacks with spikes on their spine, Snappers are the large, squishy ones, while Spirals spin their bodies into spirals and are very snake-like.

After that are the Uncommon breeds, which currently only entail the Skydancer breed of dragon.

Skydancers in all their glory!

Then you have the Limited breeds, which are only Imperials and Nocturnes. Nocturnes are a fairly new breed that came out for the first time this year.

Imperials (shortened to Imps) are beautiful and based off of eastern stylized dragons!

Nocturnes look slick and are a favorite breed on Flight Rising.

Finally are the Rare breeds, which are Wildclaws and Coatls on the site. These are the most expensive to buy.

The Rares! Coatls look more snake-like and have their tongues out, while the Wildclaws a large claw toe on each foot (kind of like a dinosaur!)

3. Genes

That's right, you would have never guessed that was coming. Not only are these dragons not plain like the ones above (though you can have plain ones if you want), you can find ones with genes on them. There is a set of genes for three parts of the dragon: Primary (the main body), Secondary (the wings), and Tertiary (miscellaneous). These genes can get mixed and matched.

The cool thing about this too is that Flight Rising programmers are always adding new genes for members to have on their dragons!

4. Coloring

Yes, there's more to it than just genes and breeds, you get to include colors on the dragon as well. And considering there's three parts gene wise that can affect the dragon, it also gives you a chance at having three different colors on a dragon. The color wheel is also something that you get to play with in Flight Rising, and depending on your dragons, you may get different mixes. Again, just like with the genetics, the color wheel is also always expanding in Flight Rising thanks to the staff.

5. Breeding

So you must be thinking, "Do I just get these and they sit in my Lair the entire time? What's the whole point?" Well, Breeding is your answer.

Want to make cool dragons with different genes and different colors? Then you definitely want to try breeding on Flight Rising. Taking a female from one breed, and a male from another (or the same if you want no inter-species breeding) will yield a nest from one to five eggs. And different genes and colors will get mixed. For instance, if you have a dragon with a tertiary of Red and Gembond, mate with another dragon with the Blue Smoke tertiary, you'll get a color range between the Blue and Red on the color wheel, along with different chances at the genes. Smoke is a more common gene than Gembond, meaning more likely your dragon will have Smoke than Gembond.

Flight Rising works a little on the principles of Mendelian genetics, and even in the scrying center, you can use the Forsee Progeny to view possible outcomes of babies in a Punnett Square like setup. There are even teachers using the website to teach students about genetics.

An example of genetics and coloring via my hatchery's Ravenclaw pair. Primary colors are similar, with a Navy-like color, and the tertiary is also exact with Rust. However, the secondary colors will range from Ivory (left) to Platinum (right) and all in between because the two have a different varying color. Genes will also vary due to rarity.

6. Varying Flights

Congratulations, you now get to basically be in the dragon version of the Avatar world but upgraded! With 11 different flights (sort of like a clan or country) you can join, this will affect you in varying degrees. Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Nature, Ice, Lightning, Shadow, Light, Plague, and Arcane, your dragons that are born in your hatchery will have certain colored eyes based on your flight allegiance. It also provides you with two semi-private forums you can be on when in the forums on the site: Your flights's private Forum, and a specific sales forum dedicated to your flight only. Finally, it affects your gathering, the money you make, and the amount you spend when it comes to who's winning and placed in Dominance (a weekly sort of game where your flight exalts the most dragons to their patron dragon, and in turn climbs the scoreboard).

Yes by the way, you get a patron Dragon, which many nickname. For instance, the Earth Flight's patron, Earthshaker, is nicely named "Earthdad" by the members of the community, while those of the Plague Flight conveniently call the Plaguebringer "Broodmother". 

7. Community

Needless to say, this is probably the biggest part of the entire site. The community of all together is great, and a lot of people are friendly. What's even more awesome though, is the chance to become incredibly tight knit friends with those in your flight thanks to the private flight forums you can get in with due to your specific flight. And while Dominance can be cutthroat at times (I've known members from varying flights be Informants for different Flights that are not theirs even) but generally everyone gets along with everyone.

What's also great is that the people who run the site often use the input that players give in the forums and such to greatly improve the website, be it glitches, genes, more games, and other things.

8. Games are Offered and provide Treasure

Just like Neopets, you can play games on the site to earn treasure, one of the two currencies on Flight Rising. You can play multiple games, and earn up to 75,000 treasure a day through multiple games on in the Fairgrounds. What's great is that it's an easy way to make the treasure you need to buy new dragons or other items you might want to have, while not working too hard except by playing puzzles or guessing games.

9. Yes, There are Two Types of Currency

Having two currencies that are interchangeable on the site. These two currencies are treasure or gems. Gems luckily, you can purchase on your own with real currency, or if you keep your dragons well-fed each day you get one gem for free. There are other ways of getting gems as well. For instance, you can also buy gems from players in the forums, for a certain ration of treasure to gems. You also can open certain chests and crates to get gems. 

Treasure is also more common than Gems to make, so that means more players focus on having and using their treasure over their gems. But two currencies makes it an easier and harder way of getting what you want.

10. Other Varying Options That You Can Use

Want to dress up your dragon? You certainly can with apparel, by choosing armors or bows or capes that you might want to have your dragon wear. Perhaps you want to change the skin of your dragon, without changing color? Then the Skins and Accents are definitely something you can do to change the looks of your dragon. What about collecting items? That's entirely possible? Are you a social person? Forums are the best choice for you. There you can talk to a variety of people and make totally awesome new friends. Want to be a breeder? Own certain types of dragons? That's something most people do, so you totally can too.

A skin entry for the Flameforger's Skin Contest that could be used on Snappers.

Overall, Flight Rising offers you a wide variety of experiences while providing a fun environment for all ages. If you are interested in joining, registration for Flight Rising is happening January 12th through the 15th. You can sign up by going to the site by going to this link here.

Hope you have fun!