Has WoW gotten "too" family friendly?

[Zodiark]

In Dragonflight. We have all these friendly dragons we deal with, a few who aren't so friendly but none that are truly terrifying. Dragons are supposed to be awe inspiring, terror inducing entities that radiate power, not your next taxi upon a quest-leg.

Look at movies like Dragonslayer from the 80's where it actually felt like Vermithrax (the name of the dragon antagonist), was something to be feared. When his anger was incited he bathed the countryside in blood and fire.

(Spoilers)

Look at season 2 of the new animated series Vox Machina in the first episode I was like now that's how dragons are supposed to be, as I watched a maruding band of 4 chromatic dragons obliterate the capital city.

All the while not sounding ANYTHING like the disney-fied dragons in WoW "Your monuments shall fall! Your civilization erased! Here me insects! You live out of mercy! Fight or flee and you forfeit that mercy!" All the while each dragon launched it's personal devestation upon the city and it's people.

One Dragon literally breathed gouts of poisons gas melting some from the inside. Yet another belched acid breath literally melting the castle ramparts. The frost dragon launched volleys of tremendous ice shards ripping apart the countryside. The leader's flame breath put Deathwing to shame. his fire basically turned into a giant molten beam of destruction vaporizing the main castle to it's foundation.

If anything close to this happened in WoW I honestly wouldn't know what to do. But instead we have nice dragons in WoW who help us plant flowers and find new homes for frogs...

[Ladey Gags]

Dragonflight is literally full of Pixar crap ripoffs. If you quested through this expac you can’t seriously tell me it wasn’t intentionally dumbed down to some dumbdumb friendly pile of happy rainbow sunshine friendship land. It’s nauseating, especially the voice acting. My god every time I fly over one of those Instagram river raft world quests and hear that blood elf talking about “fluffy animals” I lose 10 brain cells

[Adamas102]

We're nine expansions in. We've already had plenty of big, scary boss villain dragons. Black ones, blue ones, green ones, void ones, dead ones, a metal one so big we could only help by going around and killing tentacle parasites. Kinda gets old after a while.

[Stickiler]

In Dragonflight. We have all these friendly dragons we deal with, a few who aren't so friendly but none that are truly terrifying. Dragons are supposed to be awe inspiring, terror inducing entities that radiate power, not your next taxi upon a quest-leg.

Look at movies like Dragonslayer from the 80's where it actually felt like Vermithrax (the name of the dragon antagonist), was something to be feared. When his anger was incited he bathed the countryside in blood and fire.

(Spoilers)

Look at season 2 of the new animated series Vox Machina in the first episode I was like now that's how dragons are supposed to be, as I watched a maruding band of 4 chromatic dragons obliterate the capital city.

All the while not sounding ANYTHING like the disney-fied dragons in WoW "Your monuments shall fall! Your civilization erased! Here me insects! You live out of mercy! Fight or flee and you forfeit that mercy!" All the while each dragon launched it's personal devestation upon the city and it's people.

One Dragon literally breathed gouts of poisons gas melting some from the inside. Yet another belched acid breath literally melting the castle ramparts. The frost dragon launched volleys of tremendous ice shards ripping apart the countryside. The leader's flame breath put Deathwing to shame. his fire basically turned into a giant molten beam of destruction vaporizing the main castle to it's foundation.

If anything close to this happened in WoW I honestly wouldn't know what to do. But instead we have nice dragons in WoW who help us plant flowers and find new homes for frogs...

WoW's so called "family friendly" dragons were literally created to protect Azeroth, that's it. That's the whole reason they were created from the protodragons. It would be lore-opposite to expect some kind of hell-raising, world-destroying behaviour in any non-corrupted dragon. Protodragons are where you'll find the behaviour you're wanting, Raszageth has some really nice lines along with what you're wanting:

"Behold the storm that will cleanse the world!"
"But you will not survive to witness this new age."
"Your cause is hopeless! Soon this land will lie in ruins, just like your dragonflight!"

[Mysterymask]

I mean.....with the exception of like Deathwing and maybe Malygos they've ALWAYS been that way in wow? Dragons in Warcraft are more on the benevolent demi god side of things over the Malevolent creatures of destruction in other media. I mean Red Dragons have legitimately been the Dragons of life with green being protectors of nature. I mean if you see this now versus before you just weren't paying attention

[chrisisvacant]

I mean.....with the exception of like Deathwing and maybe Malygos they've ALWAYS been that way in wow? Dragons in Warcraft are more on the benevolent demi god side of things over the Malevolent creatures of destruction in other media. I mean Red Dragons have legitimately been the Dragons of life with green being protectors of nature. I mean if you see this now versus before you just weren't paying attention

Not true. We have had tons of draconic enemies from Vanilla on, every single expac has had dragon bosses.

Blizzard has been doing corny voiceovers in other games too. It sounds like shit.

[arkanon]

DF doesnt appeal to me at all, but thats not the reason. Personally, i think wow has ALWAYS been extremely....family friendly. They have dabbled in darker themes, but even their expansion specifically about death and the afterlife was mostly very, very tame.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

In Dragonflight. We have all these friendly dragons we deal with, a few who aren't so friendly but none that are truly terrifying. Dragons are supposed to be awe inspiring, terror inducing entities that radiate power, not your next taxi upon a quest-leg.

This is a problem that goes back to when dragons were first introduced in the Knaak novels, when dragons were established to be good beings. That isn't conducive to a long running MMO that revolves around killing things, particularly 10-30 players killing giant bosses. Dragons obviously make for appealing bosses, so now Blizzard's writers had to contrive reasons for why all of these good dragons were being fought. Cue the ever so, so tiresome corruption gimmick. Eventually Blizzard did get around to introducing evil dragonflights, like the Infinites and the Twilights, but those are treated as one off dragonflights and most stories are centered around the main five. 20 years later and the 5 dragonflights being good is foundational to the WoW lore so it is far, far too late to retcon them now, not that would stop NuBlizzard given the lore-abortion the Lich King just got last expansion.

[Calfredd]

Not true. We have had tons of draconic enemies from Vanilla on, every single expac has had dragon bosses.

Blizzard has been doing corny voiceovers in other games too. It sounds like shit.

You somehow missed the post above the one you quoted where it was said that we don't generally fight non-corrupted dragons; Onyxia? Black dragon that was corrupted when Deathwing was corrupted. Nefarian? Same deal. The Nightmare Dragons? Literally in the name that they were corrupted by the Emerald Nightmare. Murozond? Again, Old God Corruption. Sindragosa? Reanimated by the Lich King. The only dragons you could argue were evil that weren't corrupt were probably Malygos and his faction of blue dragons. You could list a few dragons we fight that were evil by their own choice though. I certainly don't remember every dragon enemy we've fought over the years.

[ablib]

DF doesnt appeal to me at all, but thats not the reason. Personally, i think wow has ALWAYS been extremely....family friendly. They have dabbled in darker themes, but even their expansion specifically about death and the afterlife was mostly very, very tame.

The eternal damnation (hell) concept of the Maw, and Torghast was some serious, dark, shit. It made Jack Bauer's torture tame. I was shocked at how dark the path Blizzard took.

To the OP:

Expect it to get worse. We live in a world now where people are over sensitive to every little thing.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

All the while not sounding ANYTHING like the disney-fied dragons in WoW "Your monuments shall fall! Your civilization erased! Here me insects! You live out of mercy! Fight or flee and you forfeit that mercy!"

So...did you just miss the villainous dragons who we're fighting against? The one who has been summoning raw elemental power to devastate the Dragon Isles?

[Lolites]

In Dragonflight. We have all these friendly dragons we deal with, a few who aren't so friendly but none that are truly terrifying. Dragons are supposed to be awe inspiring, terror inducing entities that radiate power, not your next taxi upon a quest-leg.

dragons in warcraft were ALWAYS like that, if it took you almost 20 years to notice you are REALLY not good observer...
come on, name feew that were "terror inducing entities" in warcraft, MAYBE Deathwing and Sindragosa, MAYBE... and neither of them was like that simply bcs of being dragon...

Look at movies like Dragonslayer
Look at Vox Machina

this is your problem, "in other movies"... there are fantasy movies that dont have dragons at all! so why warcraft have them? they should be removed!! /s
wow have 20 (and warcraft 30) years, how about comparing dragonflight to that instead? and in wow dragons are pretty much the same since vanila the time...

that's how dragons are supposed to be

no, thats how YOU PERSONALY WANT THEM TO BE, you are free to want anything, but for fucks sake, dont tell us how its "supposed to be" as if your opinion matters to lore or authors...
dragons (or any other race or character for that matter) are supposed to be the way the author wants them, period, you are free to not like it, but jeez telling your opinion about it as if its some fact is INCREDIBLY arrogant...

[Daish]

i think most WoW players are 20 years and older

like a massive % of the community like more then 90% of the players are 20 or older but theirs no content for older users no servers for older users

everything is made for children everyone is treated like a child in this game

[Lolites]

Not true. We have had tons of draconic enemies from Vanilla on, every single expac has had dragon bosses.

and pretty much all of them were "corrupted" or something similar and none of them was "terror inducing"...
lets say for example vanila:
Onyxia, Nefarian other black dragons? corrupted by old gods
chromatic dragons? results of twisted corrupted experiments
Eranikus, 4 dragons of nightmare? corrupted by nightmare
Vaelastrasz THE CORRUPT in bwl? well, i think the name speaks for itself

all corrupted, now which "induces terror"? i was 13 when i started with wow in march 2005 and none of them did ever induce terror in me...

[Zodiark]

dragons in warcraft were ALWAYS like that, if it took you almost 20 years to notice you are REALLY not good observer...
come on, name feew that were "terror inducing entities" in warcraft, MAYBE Deathwing and Sindragosa, MAYBE... and neither of them was like that simply bcs of being dragon...



this is your problem, "in other movies"... there are fantasy movies that dont have dragons at all! so why warcraft have them? they should be removed!! /s
wow have 20 (and warcraft 30) years, how about comparing dragonflight to that instead? and in wow dragons are pretty much the same since vanila the time...


no, thats how YOU PERSONALY WANT THEM TO BE, you are free to want anything, but for fucks sake, dont tell us how its "supposed to be" as if your opinion matters to lore or authors...
dragons (or any other race or character for that matter) are supposed to be the way the author wants them, period, you are free to not like it, but jeez telling your opinion about it as if its some fact is INCREDIBLY arrogant...

No before WoW in any fantasy literature Dragons were bad asses. Not these nicey nice life giving good hearted creatures. I remember watching one of the Nixxiom videos. He was talking about the Dracthyr race. He was saying they are OK but he always wanted to kill dragons not BE one. Look it is what it is, I don't want to go off on a tangent but Dragons in lore have always been evil. Some dragons from eastern culture had benevolent ways but by and large even going back to the Bible dragons were bringers of doom. Terrible Winged nightmares to bring about death and calamity. Movies and TV shows in the past 20-30 years have tried to make dragons kid friendly ever since puff the magic dragon.

[Thestrawman]

i think most WoW players are 20 years and older

like a massive % of the community like more then 90% of the players are 20 or older but theirs no content for older users no servers for older users

everything is made for children everyone is treated like a child in this game

You're telling me that the game with multiple repeatable quests that revolve around the collecting and throwing literal feces may be a bit childish?

[Zodiark]

and pretty much all of them were "corrupted" or something similar and none of them was "terror inducing"...
lets say for example vanila:
Onyxia, Nefarian other black dragons? corrupted by old gods
chromatic dragons? results of twisted corrupted experiments
Eranikus, 4 dragons of nightmare? corrupted by nightmare
Vaelastrasz THE CORRUPT in bwl? well, i think the name speaks for itself

all corrupted, now which "induces terror"? i was 13 when i started with wow in march 2005 and none of them did ever induce terror in me...

Yeah exactly. Which is why I actually shortened my initial post. I was saying how WoW kind of was making their game and Dragons by proxy more kid/family friendly since when. I'm not saying that the game has to go full Elden ring or something but to me it's kind of bland and play-it-safe storytelling to make all these dragons so neutered within the narrative.

- - - Updated - - -

You're telling me that the game with multiple repeatable quests that revolve around the collecting and throwing literal feces may be a bit childish?

Say no more.

[Nadiru]

WoW's pretty much always been PG-13, I don't know how you could have avoided noticing it.

[LemonDemonGirl]

DF doesnt appeal to me at all, but thats not the reason. Personally, i think wow has ALWAYS been extremely....family friendly. They have dabbled in darker themes, but even their expansion specifically about death and the afterlife was mostly very, very tame.

I don't know about that, Revendreth and the Maw are pretty dark.

And while I prefer games with 'lighter' themes, Dragonflight is just too 'kiddy' for me.

[Kathranis]

I don't know how people could look at the art Samwise did for these games, or click on a peon a few times and hear its silly voice lines, and think that this series is some grimdark fantasy. Warcraft has always counterbalanced whatever darker tones it has with bright, colorful, and cartoony characters, scenery, and dialogue.

DF is really no different tonally from anything that's come before, apart from generally having a bit more of a chill adventuring vibe compared to some of the more recent storylines focused on world-ending threats.