One of the wonderful things about this game is all the different ways it can be played. In my opinion, it would be very sad if some of these were eliminated or made difficult due to changes in the friend system.
Personally, I breed carefully, and try to ascend pretty much everything. I concentrate on breeding rares. I have over 20,000 Dragon Points, so I I think that counts as a lot of actual playing.
I'm grateful for my friends that spend much less time on the game than I do. They generally don't ascend commons, so I get quite a few commons from them, which helps me concentrate on rares. In return, I can share extra rares, and since I often have several days of ascension when I am done breeding for myself, I will breed rares to give away. I'm glad the game allows them to play in a way that suits them, and makes them happy.
I'm grateful for my friends that are active traders. I know I can count on them when I can't get a certain rare color into my pond, or I can't manage to breed that one last color combination. Their style of rapid trading isn't for me, but I'm glad the game is flexible enough to allow them to enjoy playing that way.
I really like being able to help out new and occasional players with clones or spare hatchlings. I hope that my occasional assistance will make the game more enjoyable for them, and will encourage some of them to continue playing, becoming ongoing members of the community.
All together, this adds up to over 20 friends I regularly interact with. Unfortunately, since we started having problems with the Facebook gifting system, my interactions with the last group I mentioned have almost completely stopped. As it is set up now, the new friend system will continue this, since it will be difficult to keep sending invitations and getting them accepted to send out fish.
I don't see much, if any, incivility in here. I do see people that feel strongly about the impact of these changes on their style of play. These people want to be heard by Landshark, and know their concerns are being considered.
I think that setting up a friend system is REALLY hard. I'm impressed that Landshark has anything out this quickly. I'm also quite impressed that the system WORKS as designed. There aren't complaints about fish going missing, of the game crashing when listing friends, or any other of a number of traps that would be hard to avoid.
Altogether, this system is a wonderful start to a new friend system. I'm still very much hoping that Landshark will continue to address our concerns, and to improve the system.