Market

The Market was a feature released as part of DC's 12th Birthday Release. With it, a new (and optional) in-game currency, called Shards, was introduced to the game, which players can earn by raising eggs, breeding their dragons, and participating in other site activities. Players can then save up these Shards to purchase eggs they're having trouble finding in the cave. Players can earn 100 Shards at most per week, and these limits reset every Sunday.

TJ09 has stated that the following principles apply to the Market's concept values:


 * The market sh﻿ould never supplant the cave/hunting in the cave.
 * The market's primary value is smoothing out the randomness of the cave.
 * Getting currency should not be a "grind" or require crazy levels of activity.
 * Things not in the cave are not currently available in the market.
 * Breeds with location-specific alts are not currently available in the market.
 * Market prices will roughly respect cave over-/under-population. It's not a 1:1 match to "rarity" (especially when comparing breeds—breed A being more expensive than B does not necessarily mean there are fewer breed A eggs made in the cave), but it does mean that prices will go up as a breed becomes more overpopulated.

Every egg in the Market costs at least 100 Shards. If the player chooses to buy an egg from the Market, they'll be taken to a screen to confirm their purchase. Eggs are nonrefundable, are not immune to sickness, cannot be traded and have their habitat listed as "Market".

A market watch has been set up at the DC Forums, where users discuss price changes and log price data in a tracker on a weekly basis. On August 26, 2018, an update to the Market was released; several previously-unavailable location-specific breeds are now available for purchase in the market. These location-specific alts may not behave like their counterparts from their respective biomes when breeding due to being clearly marked as from the "market."