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Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:24 am
by Lisaara
hah! That'd be a neat trinket.

Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 9:40 am
by Qraljar
I'll say, over the few days I've read everyones arguments pro- and -con probability Cloud Serpents and would like to say that yes, as it is speculation, none of it should be seen as fact. In fact, we know very little about them. As such, I thought speculation about them was more wide and free without trying to take everything literal and as a fact.


One argument I saw come up multiple times was the sentience of dragonkinds. I partially agree because the first lore subject I ever studied was dragons and their respective dragonflights.

Yet, the argument has me a bit tickled and I find it slightly silly for the reasons underneath:

1. As mentioned before, we know very little of these creatures. In WoW-context, are they even supposed to be classed as full dragons? Maybe an offspring of Wind Serpents of sorts? It could be anything.

2. Azerothian (let's say native) dragons are extremely intelligent and sentient from the moment they crack out of their eggs and later on they even manage to take on humanoid guises and lead the mortal races into quests. This fact I respect and regard, but as I said, and I'll emphasize this not to seem arrogant or anything, but to make sure it gets read:

I have seen some screenshots of the Wandering Isle which had an area with wild Cloud Serpent in them, plus corpses -That- paired with the fact that they get bred as mounts and seem relatively wild has me thinking they may not be near the intelligence of our ol' Azerothian dragons.

3. Dragons have their own category (Dragonkins).. well yeah. I really have no argument against that. I guess it really depends on how Blizzard handles them and it'd have to mean: "Fingers crossed" for some hunters that would love the ability to tame them.

4. Nether Drakomania!

Ow.. where to begin? Truly, Nether Drakes are as sentient as their Azerothian counterparts, but if my memory serves me well, their origins were relatively unknown besides the assumption that they were somehow the offspring of Deathwing, back when he had his little trip to Outland. Still, even if all current drakes were sentient, that still does not mean it has to account for chinese dragons/cloud serpents.

5. Sentience!

Wow, I eh.. I wholeheartedly agree here. Taming highly creatures is slavery and should naught be condoned in any form. YET!

We have silithids (my favorite pet family, as some people may know), which are also extremely sentient and highly intelligent, and could easily be more so than Cloud Serpents. I really don't think we should count them off merely for that.

( Since I roleplay, it always makes me feel better thinking that my hunter didn't "tame" his silithid, but rather befriended it over the course of months)


Phew.. my post is probably very confusing and very likely a huge mess, but I just had to give a quick reply, now I had some time.

Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:32 pm
by Lisaara
Ah....see Silithids....they're not quite sentient like their Nerubian ancestors. They are intelligent but a lot of beasts are. Intelligence alone doesn't make a creature sentient. Self-Awareness is what defines sentience and well...silithids aren't self-aware in that sense. They're merely a hive-mind type creature, much like the Collectors in the Mass Effect series.

http://www.wowpedia.org/Silithid

Could they become sentient someday? Absolutely. They're pretty close. I'd probably consider them borderline depending on the silithid.

Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:38 pm
by cowmuflage
Jessibelle wrote:Ah....see Silithids....they're not quite sentient like their Nerubian ancestors. They are intelligent but a lot of beasts are. Intelligence alone doesn't make a creature sentient. Self-Awareness is what defines sentience and well...silithids aren't self-aware in that sense. They're merely a hive-mind type creature, much like the Collectors in the Mass Effect series.

http://www.wowpedia.org/Silithid

Could they become sentient someday? Absolutely. They're pretty close. I'd probably consider them borderline depending on the silithid.
Silithids are the ancestors of the Nerubians not the other way around. Nerubians are from the Aqir who came from the Silithid and all that. BUT some sources say they are from the Qiraji XD Eh.

Basicly theres no proper bit of lore theres like 3 bits that counteract the others XD So you could be right I could be wrong or the other way around. We are bound to never truely know!

Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:05 pm
by Lisaara
Not a lot of lore is on the silithids, only that they're just like most insects...a hive mind, which is often misconceived as sentience.

Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:14 pm
by cowmuflage
The Qiraji control them most of the time I think and the C'thun controls them. Or something like that.

Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:15 pm
by Lisaara
cowmuflage wrote:The Qiraji control them most of the time I think and the C'thun controls them. Or something like that.
Yeah. Thats the hive mind bit. Kinda like in Mass Effect, Harbinger controls the Collectors.

Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 6:08 pm
by Galaxy
Loque is the mate of a Har'koa, a goddess. I wonder if he is considered sentient or if Har'koa just has a certain taste in mates?

Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 6:42 pm
by Lisaara
Galaxy wrote:Loque is the mate of a Har'koa, a goddess. I wonder if he is considered sentient or if Har'koa just has a certain taste in mates?
I would say he isn't sentient(but this is just my opinion. I have no firm proof lore-wise one way or the other). Though I've often found myself, rp wise, just befriending them, not actually 'taming' them.

Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 10:38 pm
by Wain
"Dragonkin" seems to be a fairly broad category of a bunch of creatures that share a common ancestry. It seems to me that some are probably no closer to each other than humans are to monkeys (at least in the real world... humans and monkeys seem to have very different origins on Azeroth).

The standard dragonflights were created by the Titans (from proto-drakes), so their abilities and high levels of intellect could well be ascribed to that act rather than it being an ancestral trait of the group. Proto-drakes themselves never seemed especially smart. Then again, fey drakes are obviously quite intelligent. So it seems like a mixed bag and I wouldn't take anything for granted.

As for silithids, the quests always gave me the impression they were clever beasts that were under the sway of the Qiraji, rather than individually highly sentient. The Qiraji clearly are more than that, but the lore on Wowpedia states that they were created by the Old Gods using silithid material. The reference to this point was a WoW forums post, but the link no longer works, so I can't confirm it.

Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 10:42 pm
by Lisaara
Dragonkin is a rather broad term The Protos definitely are kind of in the....dog intelligence category inyet the fey dragons as well as the dragonflights are sentient and highly intelligent creatures. It does seem to be a mixed bag. The Cloud Serpents.....we don't know anything about them just yet. I'm going more based on the chinese dragon and if I recall, they were sentient, god-like even in some stories.

Silithids are crafty bastards, arent they? :P

Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 10:51 pm
by Chimera
Qraljar wrote: Ow.. where to begin? Truly, Nether Drakes are as sentient as their Azerothian counterparts, but if my memory serves me well, their origins were relatively unknown besides the assumption that they were somehow the offspring of Deathwing, back when he had his little trip to Outland. Still, even if all current drakes were sentient, that still does not mean it has to account for chinese dragons/cloud serpents.
I read the everything you said but im not gonna beat the topic up with my thoughts since i already did in a nice way earlier in the thread but this.. it is confirmed that Deathwing brought his children and eggs into draenor when he was kniving with Ner'Zhul. Its completely confirmed that the black dragon eggs brought over were twisted by the magic of the nether when draenor was ripped apart and created the subrace of Netherdrakes ^^

His current-died-then-reanimated mate Sinestra is seen in Shadowmoon taking eggs from the Dragonmaw Orcs and theres dialoge that supports it. We find out in the book Shadow of the Dragon that shes creating the twilight dragonflight with nether drake essence. Since its a book i wont tell what happens to her but i will say that it was Sinestra who created the twilight dragonflight, Deathwing picked up after her when she was removed from the picture :3

I is total Netherdragon geek.

Like totally.

:lol:

And Twilight dragons. God are they sexy.

Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 10:58 pm
by cowmuflage
I could of done with out some of the colour combos Twilight dragons have but thats just me. XD

Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:03 pm
by Lisaara
Xakaal wrote:
Qraljar wrote: Ow.. where to begin? Truly, Nether Drakes are as sentient as their Azerothian counterparts, but if my memory serves me well, their origins were relatively unknown besides the assumption that they were somehow the offspring of Deathwing, back when he had his little trip to Outland. Still, even if all current drakes were sentient, that still does not mean it has to account for chinese dragons/cloud serpents.
I read the everything you said but im not gonna beat the topic up with my thoughts since i already did in a nice way earlier in the thread but this.. it is confirmed that Deathwing brought his children and eggs into draenor when he was kniving with Ner'Zhul. Its completely confirmed that the black dragon eggs brought over were twisted by the magic of the nether when draenor was ripped apart and created the subrace of Netherdrakes ^^

His current-died-then-reanimated mate Sinestra is seen in Shadowmoon taking eggs from the Dragonmaw Orcs and theres dialoge that supports it. We find out in the book Shadow of the Dragon that shes creating the twilight dragonflight with nether drake essence. Since its a book i wont tell what happens to her but i will say that it was Sinestra who created the twilight dragonflight, Deathwing picked up after her when she was removed from the picture :3

I is total Netherdragon geek.

Like totally.

:lol:

And Twilight dragons. God are they sexy.
Yey! I'm not the only dragon nerd around here. XD

Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:31 pm
by SpiritBinder
I doubt they will end up tamable myself, but I would not mind if they were by any means, they look beautiful.

As for them being "Sentient" and Dragons and what not, I going with what blizzard called them, Cloud Serpents. I mean, if they where meant to be dragons, why didn't they just call them cloud dragons or drakes or whatever is meant to have "self awareness"?

That said, they could be a subspecies or something, who know? Meh, we will just have to wait and see I guess.

Re: Cloud Serpents, possible new pet family?

Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2012 4:25 pm
by Silverpeal
It would be nice if they could fit into the serpent, wind serpent category or have their own. Dragonkin debate aside, if it did happen we could compare them to being able to tame Cats and ride them as mounts at the same time what with Night elves having them as mounts. :)