Dragons, Progression, and What it means to us! OH MY!

[Loxmardin]

The Frostbrand back in the days of Wrath took down one dragon, once. It was a blue dragon named Mithrigosa who was attracted by the guild because of their reckless use of teleportation magic near Northrend. It took us around three events to take her down and she was very hard to kill.

Like we've already said, no one has said that it is impossible. We do ask, however, that people ask permission or at least notify us for the "small" fry if you ever intend to use them in your RP, for your guilds, or your events. It's really not a lot to ask. If the point of this discussion is to let people feel empowered by killing whelps, that people are trying to argue are "not a threat"? Then what is the point, really? They're babies. Are you going to run around killing dragon whelps to feel powerful? You'll still need to notify us. Because if you attack a whelp close to a group or to a nest, then no, you're not going to get away with that unnoticed. You can come out of it alive, but not without them noticing. The dragons are going to know that their children are hurt or killed. This includes the Black Dragonflight.

People need to stop looking at this as a way for us to stop you from doing things, and more as a way for us to get involved in what you're doing. Because, really, that's what we're trying to accomplish. Getting involved with dragons of any age or size is going to have consequence, and we'd like to let the world dish these consequences out, whatever they may be. That's part of what we're here for; making the world come alive and react to what you're doing to it. When it comes to dragons, as opposed to most other kinds of monsters that are also significantly powerful, we've seen so many people abuse this in the past that the rule had to be put in place so we could still let these things happen. ... As long as we were aware of it happening and could react appropriately.

We'd love to get involved if you were planning on something else. Gnoll herds, for example, just to pull something up that was mentioned in the Skype chat.

But, again... People need to start looking at it like us wanting to be involved, rather than trying to choke your roleplay opportunities or shots at heroism and glory or whatever people are looking to get from this.

[Kage]

But that's the thing. Is it okay and stuff happens? Or does it suddenly become an OOC discussion and the fun is sucked out after ten or so minutes of going over all the details and variables? There is no set staple for assassinations. And what happens with a GM isn't around? Then it's even harder and just not worth it. I would love to play an assassin. I've made events in which people had to be stealthy in enemy territory to kill just one man. It was great fun and didn't take much preplanning. In fact I made it up as I went.

As I type to myself about this I see a clear answer. Simply control the variables yourself to avoid confusion with other players.

[Delta]

...Doesn't matter.

[cartoonkarl]

If I can say one thing, if you are going to quote lore please give me the sources! Not calling you a liar, but I want to see where it came from.

[Reigen]

Everything that I quoted comes from Wowpedia! The first section of the Dragon page.

Right here.

Same info can be found on wowwiki but wowwiki links turn to wowpedia links.

I'm trying to find the bit on whelps I saw ages ago, but I think it might have been in one of those corners tucked away that you have to click on like 10 links to find. Or it was removed. Or I was dreaming.

Happens a lot.

A few of the examples of whelps, however, show them as being able to speak fluent common when...they feel like talking to you.

This guy and this one and yes, this guy too.

Again, though. We are not saying you cannot kill them. We are saying you need permission. Does it mean it can't be spurr of the moment? Yeah, it might, but good things come from planning.

[Kage]

I'm simply pointing out their power level. Nothing about how if we can kill them, but how easy/hard it would be.

[Thoradin]

Because each creature has an intimate connection with the world around it, the death of a dragon is never a simple thing; it is a metaphysical event, driven by the creature’s natural connection to the spirit of the world. A dragon’s death can cause massive upheaval in the natural surroundings — earthquakes, surface lava explosions, a new lake flooding forth from a sudden crack in the earth‘s crust, and so on. Even young dragons, those who have not established as close a bond to the spiritual world, still make ripples in the fabric of reality when they die. Although these ripples are not always seen or felt by other races, a young dragon’s death nonetheless garners the attention of other dragons in the area — and creatures particularly attuned to the natural state of being that surrounds them.

Let me show that part again.

Even young dragons, those who have not established as close a bond to the spiritual world, still make ripples in the fabric of reality when they die.

Ripples in the fabric of -reality-. Not to mention any dragon nearby will know and come charging to the location. This is lore, folks. This is the sort of stuff you don't see in the game because the game gives you herosparklespecialness.

Not to mention they're smarter than our characters will ever be. They're not just mindless beasts.

The dragons of Azeroth are far more intelligent even than the humans who hunt them; they struggle to reconcile their metaphysical nature with the reality of the savage world they inhabit. While each dragon is a powerful entity, dragons also represent the origins of the world and were given care over various parts of Azeroth’s creation since time immemorial.

http://wowpedia.org/Dragon#cite_note-3

http://wowpedia.org/Manual_of_Monsters

Manual of Monsters is part of the RPG, considered 'Non-Canon'. If we are a server that follows WoW Lore, might as well stick to that policy. That bit is entirely non-canon unless it is stated somewhere in-game.

Spoiler:

[Reigen]

Actually, the rule is in-game trumps RPG. So unless its countered via in-game lore, its useable. That, and we cannot take classes from it.

[cartoonkarl]

So essentially we are using something that is not canon, and we are told to not even really consider. More of a nice casual read that does nothing to our world. And now you are saying the opposite? I don't want to accuse or anything, but this sounds like cherry-picking. Cherry-picking is bad.

Last I heard was that the RPG books were not canon at all, so lets treat them as such as we are told to do.

'Do as I say, not as I do.'

[Grakor456]

A lot of RPG lore is take or leave. Even I've admitted that it has some decent flavor bits that can be used for RP. Just the classes, abilities, and spells within it need to die in a fire, since most of them are just re-spun Dungeons and Dragons abilities and not actually relevant to Warcraft.

That said, it's not canon and so it's one of those things that, as said, is take or leave. Use it if you like. Nonetheless, I do feel that this is side-tracking, and passive-aggressive snipes at people over the authenticity of the RPG lore is not needed and honestly not truly relevant to this discussion. I'm going to ask that this particular thing just be dropped.

[Thoradin]

So, essentially, even though you stated that we follow Lore as best we can, you'll go ahead and ignore it for the sake of your argument? That's what I am picking up, at least. Just about every time I've tried to take things from the RPG it's been shot down or ignored because, well, it simply doesn't exist in-game. Unless, of course, it does.

Also!

Named NPC's, regardless of how small or insignificant, are lore figures. They have all the right to be all powerful and unkillable. The No-names, the faceless creatures and whatnot are the ones you kill. Anyone man or woman can kill anything. Yes, they may suffer grievous injury, hell, they might even die, but they can kill it. By themselves, too. Saying that you need forty people to kill some unnamed dragon is ridiculous. I'll agree that a single, matured dragon is powerful. One person alone, spur of the moment, surely could not kill one. However, given time to plan and prepare? Oh hell yeah, one person can more than do that job.

Whelps are infants, and the ones you linked?

A few of the examples of whelps, however, show them as being able to speak fluent common when...they feel like talking to you.

This guy and this one and yes, this guy too.

Named. Infact, one of them is a Major Lore Figure. That is not fair in any sense.

[Grakor456]

To be more clear, I'm going to ask that people be polite and respectful when discussing this. Disagreements are fine, but passive-aggressiveness will cause a thread lock.

If you want to argue that the power scale on CotH should be different: great! Speaking personally, I'm actually open to considering adjustments in that area. But don't resort to attacking the opposition personally: that's bad debate tactics and will just get people in trouble.

Again, I am going to simply suggest that both sides just drop the RPG lore conversation. It's an interesting bit of flavor but not wholly relevant or needed.

[Reigen]

To be fair, do you really see non-named NPCs doing anything beyond standing there staring at walls?

[Thoradin]

Well, Grakor, I will go ahead and say 'Sorry' if I am hurting feelings, as I tend to do for some reason. I generally don't mean to do so... in the event that was directed at me, any way.

Another thing is that, well, I believe the RPG thing to be very relevant, actually. Small bits about lore should be fine, but when it comes to something to the scale of this ageless, time-worn argument about Dragons? It should be left out completely and any 'Lore' that is from the RPG should go with it.

I do feel like we are holding Dragons far too high, and I can prove it by comparing all manner of creatures that one can kill that are comparable to Dragons and their subdivisions. I can do that, but I feel it would be wholly unneeded for this post, at least.

As it stands, people can freely go out and kill anything in the world. I simply think that it is a bit 'strict' to say "there is no way in Heaven, Hell, or Earth that you can kill that by yourself." I agree that one person might get stomped in a sudden fight with a mature dragon, but the chance is always there that they could slay it and come out alive, maybe injured, but alive and victorious. There are things even -more- powerful than dragons out and about that players can kill.

For example, in one of the Tol Barad events, Mathias can back me up on this; the Horde Players killed a moderately powerful Faceless One. Granted several nearly died and one went blind, but they did it. Now, I am not saying "Ban the killing of the Faceless", I am simply stating that we may have a little bit too much of a... "hard-on" for Dragons and their ilk right now.


Edit: Reigen, that's where the RP comes in. We take what we know from the Named and Non-named NPC's. There are the good and bad of all races, not every dragon is smart and powerful.

[Rosencrat]

I will say this as simply and clearly as I can.

This issue boils down to responsibility. The argument against the current state is that players are responsible enough to play as more powerful, more combat-efficient heroic figures. Some players want the administrators to trust them to play their characters reasonably.

But, no matter your stance on this issue, you can agree that a player’s power can be abused if not tightly monitored. The site administrators need to observe power and abilities, from the profile all the way up to day-to-day role-playing, because there are people who will abuse this ‘freedom’.

Responsibility is earned, however. And I will say this: The ugly, personal attacks in this thread are doing nothing to soften the administrators (Or even the players) sympathy towards the argument.