Proto-Drake question

[Wain]

OK, first of all I'm moving this thread to general pet discussion as it's not a WoD thing.

There were some really good thoughts in this thread and it's a worthwhile discussion. However it appears that people completely ignored my request to not state your opinions as facts and your wishes as directives and that causes a lot of the tension.

Explicitly stating "x should not be a pet" may give a feeling of authority to your post, but it's a level of forcefulness that will only encourage others to escalate their responses too. But most of all, let's face it, it's an illusion. It's just your opinion and has no more validity than anybody else's here. You may have years of loving RP built up in your head surrounding a topic, and you may feel that is threatened when someone has a contradictory view of things, but it doesn't really give you any more ownership over that topic than anyone else. So please stick to "I don't/do believe x should be a pet because y". Also, citing real world mythology is great in the context of discussing the developers' influences, but remember it's just that. Creatures in game do not always conform to the real cultural myths that inspired them. Some share little but the name, in fact.

Anyway, please feel free to continue the discussion, but please cut back on the forcefulness. Also, keep in mind that nothing discussed here is really likely to have an effect on the game (unless Jeremy reads it and it gives him ideas!), so relax. The ideas aren't going to hurt, it's just an academic discussion.

One minor contribution regarding Cloud Serpents: they were all classed as dragonkin in the early beta. I know for a fact (communication) they were deliberately changed to beasts so as to distance them further from true dragons. I do wonder if the same would have been the case for protodrakes had they first appeared in MoP. Maybe, maybe not.

[Slickrock]

Here's a different take...

Assuming you accept Darwinistic evolution... in RL, protodrakes would be to dragons, as chimps are to humans. But of course, in WoW, humans come from vykrul as mutant offspring, and the dragonflights come from protodrakes that were touched by the titans.

So I fail to see why rules about dragons apply to protodrakes. We don't know all what the Titans did.

And the zoology of WoW is so mixed up anyway, there are far too many "laws" about various flora and fauna in the fan community in general that are well beyond whatever Blizz has actually thought up.

TD:LR.. It's being overthought.

[Xota]

...
Explicitly stating "x should not be a pet" may give a feeling of authority to your post, but it's a level of forcefulness that will only encourage others to escalate their responses too.
...
So please stick to "I don't/do believe x should be a pet because y".

I apologize. But there's an explanation. In high school English, I was taught to remove unnecessary phrases, including givens like "I believe" when expressing points of opinion or clear speculation. And to only use "I" when needed, as overuse looks egocentric (and a little bit authoritarian). My intent was to not be authoritarian, but to not make it personal.

I believe the grammar expectations expressed here are a little bit draconian (pun intended), but I'll try to remember to comply. Also, I believe chimaera as pets were a mistake because of their huge flappy wings and their similarity to dragons. In WC3, they were flying siege units, and I don't believe that translated well into an animal companion.

Also, citing real world mythology is great in the context of discussing the developers' influences, but remember it's just that. Creatures in game do not always conform to the real cultural myths that inspired them. Some share little but the name, in fact.

I believe citing real world mythology in a discussion of developers' influences is great too. I believe developers' influences are much more significant to what developers decide than what tags an npc has or had at one time.

And I believe that dragons are so iconic that they are the most iconic element of high fantasy, and I believe taming one to fight for a person is too extraordinary a feat to expect players to ever get (before the game jumps the shark, and note that jumping the shark is also a subjective view and not something determined by authority).

[Wain]

It's not a matter of grammar for the sake of grammar. Choose whatever specific wording you like. It's just that when a discussion becomes heated we need to draw a few boundaries if we don't want it to escalate and have to lock the thread. And there has been some interesting discussion here, I definitely don't want to lock it.

[Slickrock]

Well, to be a bit arguementative, I would say that much of WoW's lore turns "high fantasy" on it's head, and anything touched by the Titans falls out of "traditional" lore at that point.

And we really don't know what influences the developers have, and going further, influences are NOT lore.

I also don't recall anything like protodrakes in traditional lore.

All that aside... For sheer playability, whelps would make more sense than anything else. A grounded adult protodrake would look silly.

And finally, for the whole taming issue, I find it silly that we can slaughter, skin, eat, and ride, but somehow taming is forbidden.

[Wain]

A grounded adult protodrake would look silly.

This would be my main concern, too. If they hopped around like rylaks do I think it'd be pretty bizarre. And if they were flying, their wingspan is so huge it could become annoying very quickly. Maybe this is why they grounded rylaks :/

[cowmuflage]

They could make more trinkets that summon them. That would work better I think.

[Castile]

A grounded adult protodrake would look silly.

This would be my main concern, too. If they hopped around like rylaks do I think it'd be pretty bizarre. And if they were flying, their wingspan is so huge it could become annoying very quickly. Maybe this is why they grounded rylaks :/

This would be my feeling...without getting into theory's as to why or why not we could tame dragons I think it would just look abit silly..imagine them in a BG! Or pissing off melee behind a boss in a raid lol! The practicality of them just isn't there. We have one as a mini pet so if you really wanted get some pet buiscuts and walah instant proto pet!!

[cowmuflage]

I'd kill for more mini pet colours or a black smith buildable mount!

[Wain]

I'd kill for more mini pet colours or a black smith buildable mount!

Mecha-proto-drake! o.0

[cowmuflage]

I'd kill for more mini pet colours or a black smith buildable mount!

Mecha-proto-drake! o.0

Yeah I mean Razorscale was a metal Proto-drake so I was thinking along that line as well.

[Xota]

I'd kill for more mini pet colours or a black smith buildable mount!

Mecha-proto-drake! o.0

Yeah I mean Razorscale was a metal Proto-drake so I was thinking along that line as well.

Razorscale/Ironbound is exactly the minipet skin I was thinking of too. If not as BS crafted, then as a Ulduar drop (assuming they continue the whole minipets from old raids trend). They might have to tweak the skin on things like that, the glowing white/blue mouth might not look as cool scaled down.

[Lisaara]

Just a note...thanks to this topic, I used this in my Paper 2 for english class....the Complex Rebuttal. XD

[Nick]

I noted that there were a few who where saying that Proto-Drakes weren't being enslaved by the Vrykul to be used, but there's NPCs in Utgarde Keep that are specifically labeled as "Enslaved." Maybe that's not true for all the Vrykul encampments around Northrend, but I wouldn't say that the Proto-Drakes are siding with the Vrykul because they're being treated correctly.


As much as having them as pets would be cool, I don't think it would work very well, even with their animalistic nature (especially with their size and the shrinking, like others have brought up). And Cloud Serpents are revered by Pandaren and their culture and are much more sentient than Proto-Drakes, so I don't think taming them would work either.

[cowmuflage]

I noted that there were a few who where saying that Proto-Drakes weren't being enslaved by the Vrykul to be used, but there's NPCs in Utgarde Keep that are specifically labeled as "Enslaved." Maybe that's not true for all the Vrykul encampments around Northrend, but I wouldn't say that the Proto-Drakes are siding with the Vrykul because they're being treated correctly.

Anit UK and Up their capital? I mean that's where their king is. If they are enslaving them there I'd assume thats what they do everywhere. Those guys never seemed like the kind of people who loved things >.> Just look what they did to humans!

*shrug* I dunno.

[Aweena]

read as much as i could of this i like the idea of having a mount that is also your pet i got one of the armored raptors for this reason the role play in being a troll with a raptor mount that is also your pet is rather fun

but in my personal opinion the proto drakes are very like the other dragonkin i have found one elf male that seemingly is a protodrake in humanoid guise the argent crusade hold near dalaran there is a quest line where you ask for help to this npc and he answer (shortened up cause i don't remember the entire text) "my kin will help" i took this as him being a proto drake in guise like other dragons are known to do

i figure either way the dragons we use as mounts will in some way if we had to keep it lore and role play specific have befriended us enough to let us use them as transportation or all drake riders in azeroth are evil slavers honestly i have been thinking on how to integrate my black and twilight drakes in to an rp story and its very hard to find the right aproach so to this topic i dont see why we would ever get them as pets but i dont think its impossible to befriend them most pets we have are loyal cause they befriended us ofc there is the spell tame beast but i figure that is game mechanic rather than lore true

my personal idea for all pets are we build a mutual friendship with them trough weeks months and years of working to gain trust in vanilla we had to feed them to keep them happy witch would again mean we build friendships with the animal i figure its possible to do the same with dragons or other creatures the question is how hard will it be for blizzard to give us the ability i doubt it will happen cause they would have to label the creature as beasts or let us tame dragonkin

basically im not for or against the idea i just dont see it as something blizzard would do

[Lisaara]

read as much as i could of this i like the idea of having a mount that is also your pet i got one of the armored raptors for this reason the role play in being a troll with a raptor mount that is also your pet is rather fun

but in my personal opinion the proto drakes are very like the other dragonkin i have found one elf male that seemingly is a protodrake in humanoid guise the argent crusade hold near dalaran there is a quest line where you ask for help to this npc and he answer (shortened up cause i don't remember the entire text) "my kin will help" i took this as him being a proto drake in guise like other dragons are known to do

i figure either way the dragons we use as mounts will in some way if we had to keep it lore and role play specific have befriended us enough to let us use them as transportation or all drake riders in azeroth are evil slavers honestly i have been thinking on how to integrate my black and twilight drakes in to an rp story and its very hard to find the right aproach so to this topic i dont see why we would ever get them as pets but i dont think its impossible to befriend them most pets we have are loyal cause they befriended us ofc there is the spell tame beast but i figure that is game mechanic rather than lore true

my personal idea for all pets are we build a mutual friendship with them trough weeks months and years of working to gain trust in vanilla we had to feed them to keep them happy witch would again mean we build friendships with the animal i figure its possible to do the same with dragons or other creatures the question is how hard will it be for blizzard to give us the ability i doubt it will happen cause they would have to label the creature as beasts or let us tame dragonkin

basically im not for or against the idea i just dont see it as something blizzard would do

If you're talking about the mount drops, my fiance puts it that because we defeated them in honorable combat, we've earned their respect, thus they choose to help us.

[Aweena]

yeah i figured something similar or the strength we showed when facing their leader impressed them enough to make an uneasy friendship with them and over time they grow fonder of you even tho black dragons are supposedly insane due to the corruption of their leader anyway its my plan to work on my rp story more and somehow fit them in with out making it to impossible

[Lisaara]

yeah i figured something similar or the strength we showed when facing their leader impressed them enough to make an uneasy friendship with them and over time they grow fonder of you even tho black dragons are supposedly insane due to the corruption of their leader anyway its my plan to work on my rp story more and somehow fit them in with out making it to impossible

When in doubt, make it a magic thing. Like a spell or maybe an enchanted item...

[Yoruko]

Not quite sure if replying to this thread counts as necroing yet, but here goes my two cents into the coin jar:

From what I understand, Blizzard decides what they let players acquire based on what they want the classes to "feel" like. That being said, letting NPCs tame (/own) beast companions (/slaves) that are out of the reach of players give them a certain kind of edge. "This NPC is badass enough to subdue this drake, they are a worthy opponent!" If every run-of-the-mill hunter ran around with such beasts as phoenixes and dragons, they would lose some of their allure and status.

Player mounts, however, I feel Blizzard treat more like "trophies" (game mechanics-wise, not lore-wise) and having a certain creature as your mount usually signifies to other players you've accomplished some, more or less, impressive feat. After all, these are things all classes have access to and aren't part of actual combat mechanics.