Blizzard Hints that Naxx Achievement Drakes could return

[cowmuflage]

Oh Vulpixen I see what you did there glad you liked my ideas XD. Spiritbinder thats too purple for what that drake would look like!.

On topic. I don't really care if the top raiders who be angry over this I mean the other raid mounts are still here I know why they took those out but then they did not do the same with the new ones.

[AdamSavage]

They did say there minds could be changed. I'm sure enough people asked them to do it they would. There pretty good at listing to what the players want if it's reasonable.

[SpiritBinder]

Spiritbinder thats too purple for what that drake would look like!.

... I always thought it was a violet/hot pink...

But yeah if it were a true chromatic the plates on its body would not be black as with the "what a long strange trip" violet proto, but that that beautiful teal/aqua color like the chromatic drakes...




Images courtesy of Fael in this topic http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=2646

Edit **removed a picture** seemed a bit too big

[cowmuflage]

Well those colours are to each there own I guess hehe.

[Vetiver]

I personally would love to see these mounts come back. After all, the only reason they removed them was because the content was "trivial" which is EXACTLY what Ulduar and ICC have become, and THOSE mounts are still available! The only difference is that Ulduar and ICC were challenging and sometimes downright hard when they were current content, but Tier 7 content could be done in level 70 T6 gear. Let's face it, the only thing that was hard about the two original mount metas was The Undying and The Immortal. Any raid guild worth their salt had the rest of it down pat. (except for those poor guilds who didn't have a warlock tank for 10 man 3D...BRING THE PLAYER NOT THE CLASS RIGHT GUYS?....GUYS??)

My own guild at the time was only lacking The Immortal for their 25 man drakes, and it was always that ONE GUY that would die on the LAST BOSS. It seems very unfair to punish 24 people for months of hard work and flawless play because one idiot can't pay attention. That really should have been a solo achievement, so if you died you were the only one out a mount.

[Bryndell]

I think they should come back. Because...in my way of thinking...it goes like this.

In Cata, there are already people with the raiding/heroic drakes and titles.

In Cata, and the end of Wrath, you had the LFD which made getting groups for heroics easier (maybe, but just hear me out) and FASTER. So you earned badges, and gear FASTER. Leveling in Cata is ridonkulously easy, and you can be 85 and slapping out heroics 2 days after dinging 85. Not so in early/mid Wrath. (LOL LF tank with GS of 8000+)

With Naxx, and the BEGINNING of Wrath, there WAS no LFD as I recall, I could be mistaken about time frames, so you had to hope like hell you could get guildies, or competent people from your server in a pug for heroics to get the badges to GET the gear to DO Naxx. The leveling was poorly laid out, and a pain in the ass. And took forever.

Naxx took WAY MUCH LONGER to get geared for, and there was WAY LESS TIME to get the achievements for the drakes.

I can still go pound out ICC and Ulduar achievements for drakes via PuGs, but when Naxx was the hot shit, I couldnt because our little guild hardly had the experience, or time that the raiders did. No one wanted to pug it.



Sorry, I know this makes better sense in my head. But I cant clearly explain what I mean.

[Cerah]

I started playing WoW halfway through WotLK, and it took me almost a year to reach lvl 80 on one toon. By the time I did, ICC was up, so not only were the plagued/black protodrakes no longer available, nobody on my server wanted to do anything *but* ICC. I never had a chance in hell of seeing these mounts.

If they bring them back, I'm all for it! If they don't, well, it's not like I'm missing too much. I have my Black and Blue Drakes, and my Razzashi Raptor -- I'm grateful for the mounts I do have. But yeah, I agree, if we still have chances at the Uld/ICC mounts, why not these ones too? Screw special snowflakes. I would never think of whining if they brought back the Razzashi Raptor. I'd be happy if more people had a shot at it.

I really don't understand the mindset of vindictive players who don't want anyone else to have their special toys. Is it really taking away anything if other people have mounts/small pets/whatever as well?

[Vetiver]

Sorry, I'm going to disagree. I never got either one (along with Amani bear, headless horseman, etc) and am fine with it even though I'm a huge mount collector. I also wouldn't complain if they removed the Ulduar and ICC achievement mounts even though I'm only 3 achievements away from getting one - but as I've dragged my feet I only have myself to blame if they decided to remove them. There's no reason for everything to be available forever nor to mock the people who did manage to get them... what's wrong with wanting to have something special?

the problem with these is that it only took one person to ruin it for the entire rest of the raid. would you consider yourself having "dragged your feet" if the only thing between you and one of these drakes was someone else's mistake on the last week they were available, and it had always been someone else's mistake every single week since the expansion came out? how would you feel then? the no death achievements were not something where you could say "damn, someone died. let's wipe and start over." if someone died, you were done for that entire lockout as far as your hopes for the achievement. it's something that blizzard realized was stupid, and so they changed the nature of no death achievements in ulduar.

[Chimera]

Yea i do not like one bit that you can lose a limited time only mount that came out the same time the raid was created/recreated and you only have a very small window of time to become geared enough for it and an even smaller window of time to find mature intelligent people who are geared for it and the second one person starts greifing, the whole raid crumbles. One greifer completely destroyed a 25man hard mode ulduar raid where all of us were lvl 85 and reasonably well geared in about 5-10minutes. If everyone left instead of yelling and complaining it would of been 2-3 minutes. At least those drakes havent been retired but its probably only a matter of time till they are sadly im sure.

Bring back Black and Plagued!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[erwil]

I missed out on the Plagued Drake, and I absolutely adore the model. I'd love to see them return (I'm a huge fan of proto-drakes).
(everything considering the special snowflake syndrome and elitism has already been written down, so I'm not even going to bother. But I agree with Moonlost and Veph completely. ^-^ )

[peanutbuttercup]

Slightly off topic: I chose to play devil's advocate earlier because I question this mentality of "cry more special snowflakes" when let's face it, many players want their toons to be special in some way. So why is it a bad thing? In more hunter related terms, isn't that why some players chose pets with unique graphics? Because it's special?

I've had players spit on my toon and send nasty hateful tells because of some random item or mount I have out while sitting in town afk. Are these pixels that important that that type of behavior is okay? But that's precisely what happens when the above mentality is taken to the extreme.

That said, I'm not saying anyone here got anywhere near that point at all. It's been very civil so far.

And no, I'm not one of "those elites." I don't look up to them or think they're somehow better people just because they press buttons better than me. Some of them may be jerks but me being a jerk back doesn't make me a better person. I accept that they will get things that I can't have due to skill or dedication or whatever, so congrats to them.

Back on target: obviously this is a desirable skin for a lot of folks so I'm sure it'll make a reappearance at some point. But maybe they could link it to a different set of achievements instead because I don't want to go back to Naxx

[cowmuflage]

They should just put it back to the Naxx achievements as that's what they first where for not make a new set of achievements for them.

[Silivren]

Spiritbinder thats too purple for what that drake would look like!.

... I always thought it was a violet/hot pink...

But yeah if it were a true chromatic the plates on its body would not be black as with the "what a long strange trip" violet proto, but that that beautiful teal/aqua color like the chromatic drakes...




Images courtesy of Fael in this topic http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=2646

Edit **removed a picture** seemed a bit too big

So beautiful :3

[Comett]

Hmm, interesting! Personally, I'm very on the fence about it.

Like a lot of people here, I can count the number of black and blighted Protos I have actually seen as mounts in-game on one hand. I absolutely adore the blighted Proto look (second only to Time-Lost or maybe Blue) and at the moment I think a lot of us agree that there aren't enough Protodrake models in-game... or accessibly so.

Those people who earned their drakes, by now, have had a very long time to bask in the glory of that unique mount. Many of them have moved on to the purple Phoenix mount until more raid mounts are released later on. There will always, *always* be something shinier and newer for those who want their unique rewards. I personally don't think it's unreasonable for serious players who *can* and *do* devote their time to the game to get special or unique rewards... For that reason I won't be bothered if they don't make a comeback.

Having said that, though, I also think it would be nice if they did. I'm also not a fan of retired mounts (despite owning a few myself) because while the "yey shiny!" aspect is great for, I don't know, the first week, you quickly realise that someone out there still has it; your mount will never be 100% entirely unique, and eventually you stop using it and it just sits on your mount list and occasionally you'll use it or add it to a random mount macro... I could be wrong here but I think many people have a selection of mounts or minipets that they prefer above all others and will use most regularly? Whether those retired mounts are included in that selection is up to personal preference... but many many collectors just let them sit there and add to their mount count (nothing wrong with that at all, just fact as I see it). Considering this, is it really a bad thing to re-introduce unique, beautiful models to the game?

I'd personally propose a happy medium... Make a slight change to the skin or something (such as mouth/eye glow colour, perhaps a brand or marking, or more drastically armour) and re-introduce them to the same level of raid content. A small change will keep the original ones unique and shiny, but give everyone else who adores the skin a chance to get one. Just an idea.

Sorry for the novel. 3:

[Vephriel]

Well put Comett, I like how you illustrated things. ^^

[cowmuflage]

I'd rather have the mounts look the way they do now. I like the look off them and would want one that looked like what they do now.

[peanutbuttercup]

I'd personally propose a happy medium... Make a slight change to the skin or something (such as mouth/eye glow colour, perhaps a brand or marking, or more drastically armour) and re-introduce them to the same level of raid content. A small change will keep the original ones unique and shiny, but give everyone else who adores the skin a chance to get one. Just an idea.

I do like this idea and now that I think about it, it's entirely possible that this would be the solution Blizz would propose since they're already going that route for ZA and ZG. But it'll always be controversial because it's always either A) the original looks better to most people and therefore, the new recolor is insufficient (ie new ZG tiger versus old) or B) it's still not the original and therefore, isn't good enough.

[cowmuflage]

If they did that then the people who have the originals would complain that they could not get that new mount or people would complain that the people with the originals would beable to get another new mount. It would be best just to bring the originals back.

[Cerah]

Slightly off topic: I chose to play devil's advocate earlier because I question this mentality of "cry more special snowflakes" when let's face it, many players want their toons to be special in some way. So why is it a bad thing? In more hunter related terms, isn't that why some players chose pets with unique graphics? Because it's special?

The difference between Hunter pets and mounts is, with very few exceptions (i.e. spirit hydra), having a rare pet doesn't exclude other hunters from having that same rare pet. When I see someone else in Orgrimmar with Skoll, Loque or Chronomaggus, for example, I usually /cheer them. They've obviously put the same amount of time and effort into getting their rare pets as I have (or have been really lucky), and I feel a kind of kinship with them for that. I would hope that they feel the same way, that their accomplishment was enhanched, not cheapened, by the fact that others can enjoy it as well. So why can't it be the same with rare mounts?