Potential new hunter pets in WoD

[Slickrock]

Hope it's not my fault, lol, I had tweeted at him a few weekd ago wondering if a merger made sense...

[Equeon]

Yeah, I agree with Malackai...

"We decided to scrap the dragonflies because they were too similar to an existing family. So we're instead making a family of new chimeras instead of adding them to the old one, and calling them rylaks to fill the 3rd slot we promised."

Blizzard is missing the most obvious solution...

[Qraljar]

Yeah, I agree with Malackai...

"We decided to scrap the dragonflies because they were too similar to an existing family. So we're instead making a family of new chimeras instead of adding them to the old one, and calling them rylaks to fill the 3rd slot we promised."

Blizzard is missing the most obvious solution...

I'll say it again.. if the Dragonflies are scrapped altogether, I'll be very sad. Dragonflies are something we haven't seen before and probably won't see again. To just make them wasps is a huge shame


So I'll keep hoping that the Hook Wasp being added to the Wasp family is just an earlier iteration that they've decided to keep and add to the Wasp family just not to throw models away. While they've made a newer Dragonfly model, with the right animations and skeleton, that is more true to the Dragonfly concept.



Otherwise, the Gladiator Longbow will be a huge inadvertent tease.

[SylviaDragon]

wait so chimeras are going to be the third pet? o.0 that....that doesn't make any sense. they are making dragonflies wasps because they didn't seem unique enough, so they are splitting chimeras into two classes to fill the gap...made by a pet that looked too much like another pet?

I got really excited by all the pictures of the fluffy little feather dinos and speculation from other petopians but if they are just a fancy name for chimeras I will be eternally sad.

[Nachtwulf]

Well, now we can try to leverage them for herdbeasts. XD

[Xota]

I hope dragonflies aren't abandoned forever, maybe just put on the "TODO" list. In addition to being great pets, they'd also be an interesting Draenor version of the waterstrider mount (so new/returning players don't have to farm MoP rep), hovering over the water instead of running on it.

/agree on replacing two wasp families with two chimera families doesn't make sense.

I think the prehistoric birds as "rylak" on google images is because some prehistoric bird fan's surname is Rylak. I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up before finishing the thread (it's still not completely dashed). And if rylak is going to be a new family, does that mean outland chimera will be re-classified?

Well, now we can try to leverage them for herdbeasts. XD

If we do, they should be non-exotic (and hippos promoted to exotic). I don't think even the most ferocious antelope could be in the same category as a T rex.

[Vephriel]

Well, slightly disappointed that hook wasps are being scrapped, but honestly the new wasps look pretty awesome so I'm not too bummed out (as long as they're still added as WoD wasps or something, I don't see why not if they already have the models finished). I do agree it's a strange decision to split the chimaera family though, I'd much rather we get a unique new family.

[Xota]

If they were going to have a duplicate family, perhaps there should be a "proto-ravager" family, since they changed so much when Draenor was torn apart.

[cowmuflage]

I don't mind that hookwasps wont have their own family really. I think it's neat that they will be used as wasps and add some more spice to that family!

[SpiritBinder]

I'm just going off what we know and waiting. I jumped the gun trying to guess what a Rylak could be in the assumption that it is a new family. But after rereading the information provided, nowhere was it confirmed as that (my bad)

Muffi just tweeted "Rylaks now tameable (exotic). Hook wasps have joined the wasp family. Still no unicorns."

which means that Rylaks (which he later confirmed iron skyreaver to be) are now tameable. They could still be classified a chimera however (such as Birds of Prey contain Owls, Eagles and Parrots). The main reason i jumped the gun however, was in the same tweet, he said "Hook wasps have joined the wasp family" which in the way it's worded make you think, why was it not said as..
"Rylaks now tameable (exotic) have joined the chimera family. Hook wasps have joined the wasp family. Still no unicorns."
(and yes, I checked, it's not too long to fit into one tweet )

For now, until stated otherwise, I'm just going to wait until we have more information.

[Wain]

I've changed the main post to cover our info about rylaks, but also put them in a "uncertain if new family or just new model" category of their own. We'll await further clarification on that as a couple of people have already asked that explicitly. Anyway, thanks to our tweeters for teasing this info out of our Mr Jeremy Noah Feasel

As for the rylaks being a new family... there is room for ambiguity there. It's possible his tweet simply meant that we're now getting them (as a chimaera) where before he had said there was doubt, but it's also possible that he really did mean as a replacement new family. Twitter can be like that. We need to wait and see.

If they are a new family, I'd express a little surprise, just as I did with the hook wasps. In fact I believe that the rylaks are even closer in style to an Azeroth chimaera than the hook wasps are to old wasps. But maybe a new family would be necessary because of differences in the powers they use. We know that wild rylaks use fire and possibly lightning, while chimaeras have a frost breath. Maybe it requires a new family for that to translate to a hunter pet power. If so, it's a shame that family powers can't be somewhat customized to the model or skin. Say, let all chimaeras have a breath weapon, with equivalent damage, but allow the damage type and aesthetics to vary with the model so that rylaks can breath fire or lightning. There are other families I'm sure would really benefit from this as well (fire spiders doing flame damage, fireflies having a glowing poison related to their original colour, etc.) as long as none of the variations are in practice more beneficial than any other. But maybe that's a lot more work than they can justify the time for.

[SylviaDragon]

I've changed the main post to cover our info about rylaks, but also put them in a "uncertain if new family or just new model" category of their own. We'll await further clarification on that as a couple of people have already asked that explicitly. Anyway, thanks to our tweeters for teasing this info out of our Mr Jeremy Noah Feasel

As for the rylaks being a new family... there is room for ambiguity there. It's possible his tweet simply meant that we're now getting them (as a chimaera) where before he had said there was doubt, but it's also possible that he really did mean as a replacement new family. Twitter can be like that. We need to wait and see.

If they are a new family, I'd express a little surprise, just as I did with the hook wasps. In fact I believe that the rylaks are even closer in style to an Azeroth chimaera than the hook wasps are to old wasps. But maybe a new family would be necessary because of differences in the powers they use. We know that wild rylaks use fire and possibly lightning, while chimaeras have a frost breath. Maybe it requires a new family for that to translate to a hunter pet power. If so, it's a shame that family powers can't be somewhat customized to the model or skin. Say, let all chimaeras have a breath weapon, with equivalent damage, but allow the damage type and aesthetics to vary with the model so that rylaks can breath fire or lightning. There are other families I'm sure would really benefit from this as well (fire spiders doing flame damage, fireflies having a glowing poison related to their original colour, etc.) as long as none of the variations are in practice more beneficial than any other. But maybe that's a lot more work than they can justify the time for.

I don't see why the breath weapon would be a big problem. chimeras already breathe lightning and frost. (see frostorm and frost breath.) the animation for frost breath is a bolt of lightning and although the name is frost breath the description details that one head breathes lightning while the other frost. Also the outland chimeras are known for spitting bolts of poison but revert to frost/lighting upon being tamed so the introduction of fire breath should have no major effects on anything since they could just revert to the old system upon tame or the family could be tweaked during the ability revamp.

[Wain]

I don't see why the breath weapon would be a big problem. chimeras already breathe lightning and frost. (see frostorm and frost breath.) the animation for frost breath is a bolt of lightning and although the name is frost breath the description details that one head breathes lightning while the other frost. Also the outland chimeras are known for spitting bolts of poison but revert to frost/lighting upon being tamed so the introduction of fire breath should have no major effects on anything since they could just revert to the old system upon tame or the family could be tweaked during the ability revamp.

I forgot that about them! That's another case where customizing the power to the model would be nice

[Aettis]

@RBryant_8 It's got ground anims, and in practice doesn't look at all like a Chim, hence the new family.


So there we have it, new family. Kinda disappointed by this response. I find it looks very much like a chimera. But oh well.

[Wain]

@RBryant_8 It's got ground anims, and in practice doesn't look at all like a Chim, hence the new family.
So there we have it, new family. Kinda disappointed by this response. I find it looks very much like a chimera. But oh well.

Thanks Must look that tweet up.

Feels to me like an inconsistent reason. The new ravager not only has flying animations and non-ravager running animations but also bears very little resemblance to the old ravager. By that criterion it's a far greater candidate for a new family than the rymaera.

[Aettis]

@RBryant_8 It's got ground anims, and in practice doesn't look at all like a Chim, hence the new family.
So there we have it, new family. Kinda disappointed by this response. I find it looks very much like a chimera. But oh well.

Thanks Must look that tweet up.

Feels to me like an inconsistent reason. The new ravager not only has flying animations and non-ravager running animations but also bears very little resemblance to the old ravager. By that criterion it's a far greater candidate for a new family than the rymaera.

I thought so too. Anatomically, the Rylaks and Chims are identical. 2 heads, same horns on each head, same wings with claws and tattered backs, maned necks, same ears, only 2 legs, and split tail. But alas.

Retweeted him with your point, and some others(basilisks, owls/parrots, boars).

[SylviaDragon]

Ah. that's really, really disappointing. I just cant agree with their reasoning behind this at all. Its painfully obvious that these guys are chimeras and they will later evolve into outland chimeras. Ravagers look WAY different in wod than they do in outlands but they are still ravagers. Then there are existing families that blow the argument out of the water. Just look at how many different models and animations there are in the silithid family. as for flying/ground animations just look at serpents. we have normal cobras and flying ghost snakes. Not to mention the blizz store pet is called a chimera.
I feel like they just spit on my cake and called it frosting.

[Aettis]

Muffinus's use of "significantly different" is quite unique. I still don't understand how this warrants a new family VS the other mishmashed families we have.

[SpiritBinder]

Ok, last update on this concerning similarities on the new and previous tameable families....

We're open to feedback, guys/gals, that's what beta's for Play with it and light up the forums.

It's fair-ish call, easy to pass judgment from a visual perspective without physically testing them, so we'll have to wait until we can get our "testing" on, then go from there.

[Wain]

Yeah. Good point. Beta isn't open yet so we still have loads of time yet!