Has WoW gotten "too" family friendly?

[FelPlague]

2004 WoW had Onyxia and Nefarian, who looked a lot more menacing than anything this expansion. Razageth looks like a big chicken with horns. And this is the best they could come up with 19 years later. You'd expect them to improve, not go backwards.

Onyxia and nefarian were not protodrakes...
Also what kinda fucking chickens are you eating, or do you think all things with feathers are chickens?

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Malygos got corrupted by the Netherwing dragons.

Opposite, consuming the drakes returned his sanity.
he was perfectly sane when we killed him, he just was fucking sick of humanity at that point, and we couldnt let his plans come to be, cause yeah his plans were perfectly sane, but well remove all magic from mortal races is not something the other dragons, and ESPECIALLY the mages of dalaran, agreed with.

[TheRevenantHero]

Anything specific? What I read he woke up, saw netherwing drakes try to gain power from his nexus, he absorbed their magic instead and became more sane from it.

Yeah I read it wrong. Though he was initially driven to insanity as a result of being damaged by the Demon Soul. So....I was wrong about what corrupted him but he was definitely corrupted by something rather than just deciding to become a villain. And while he gained some of his sanity back, he still became a genocidal maniac because he was still somewhat batshit insane.

[FelPlague]

You are right about Dragons NOT being the same in ALL franchises. But lets look at this a little closer shall we. Vox Machina was created by Critical Roll. Which is an RPG company based on traditional tabletop games such as Dungeons and Dragons. The way the Dragons are in that game ARE how they more or less appear in the aforementioned tv series.

Dungeons and Dragons based the attitudes of Dragons themselves on forlklore and mythology. Dragons if ever there were such creatures would be much closer to the malevolent entities described in the tales of old. However with fiction you have a number of things going on. First is how the society see's the thing being described in the writing, second is what the writer can sell to the audience. These things change as society changes. 50 years ago if you wrote dragons the way they are written in modern WoW storylines it would have been a much harder sell. Now this generation is more accustomed to making the things we fear into the things we now call friends.

My point is that with storytelling in general weather it be in WoW or a TV show or anything might be better off narratively if they KEPT the villains actually villainous.
Instead of turning everything into an anti-hero first, then a Hero second.

Ok this is a very odd way of saying it

Critical role is a "show" of D&D, its literally D&D.
Dragons have two types in D&D, just like in wow

Good dragons= Mettalic dragons / The aspects
These dragons are good, they vary in how their "good" is, be it if they protect mortals, see them as things that should be kept safe but are basically on par with pets or animals, or just "overall good" as in "i dont care about mortals, I just dont want evil fucking about"

Bad dragons= Chromatic dragons / Primalists/twilight/etc...
These dragons are just chaos incarnate, ranging from seeing themselves superior to all things and want to own everything ,to "I MUST KILL EVERYTHING AHHAHAHAHA"


"If you told stories about dragons 50 years ago like how they tell them in wow now"... Speaking dungeons and dragons aint even 50 years old yet at this point, and back in the earliest editions dragons didnt even talk, if you told ANY story about dragons talking here in the west people would just be confused or call it weird, as 50 years ago ANY story about a dragon here would be a very hard sell... Dragons did not become a western thing till like the 90's or even early 2000's.

now if we talking the east, their version of dragons have always been a wide range, from the silliest shitstirrers to the most serious and deity like "better then you"
I mean literally look at mulan, how the dragon in that acts, heavily inspired off some of the easts "Dragons live basically forever, and are bassically unkillable, so why not just have fun!?"

[Hitei]

"If you told stories about dragons 50 years ago like how they tell them in wow now"... Speaking dungeons and dragons aint even 50 years old yet at this point, and back in the earliest editions dragons didnt even talk, if you told ANY story about dragons talking here in the west people would just be confused or call it weird, as 50 years ago ANY story about a dragon here would be a very hard sell... Dragons did not become a western thing till like the 90's or even early 2000's.

now if we talking the east, their version of dragons have always been a wide range, from the silliest shitstirrers to the most serious and deity like "better then you"
I mean literally look at mulan, how the dragon in that acts, heavily inspired off some of the easts "Dragons live basically forever, and are bassically unkillable, so why not just have fun!?"

You what?

The hobbit was published in 1937. There are talking dragons in the Oz series written 20 years prior, and the Jabberwocky in the Wonderland series 50 years before that. Earthsea in the 60s features dragons heavily, and the Pern series began in the 60s.

[FelPlague]

You what?

The hobbit was published in 1937. There are talking dragons in the Oz series written 20 years prior, and the Jabberwocky in the Wonderland series 50 years before that. Earthsea in the 60s features dragons heavily, and the Pern series began in the 60s.

Holy shit I forgot how old those were.

Jabberwocky is not a dragon is it?

Wow it is and I hate it.
it is even wearing a fucking button up shirt.

[TheRevenantHero]

Ok this is a very odd way of saying it

Critical role is a "show" of D&D, its literally D&D.
Dragons have two types in D&D, just like in wow

Good dragons= Mettalic dragons / The aspects
These dragons are good, they vary in how their "good" is, be it if they protect mortals, see them as things that should be kept safe but are basically on par with pets or animals, or just "overall good" as in "i dont care about mortals, I just dont want evil fucking about"

Bad dragons= Chromatic dragons / Primalists/twilight/etc...
These dragons are just chaos incarnate, ranging from seeing themselves superior to all things and want to own everything ,to "I MUST KILL EVERYTHING AHHAHAHAHA"


"If you told stories about dragons 50 years ago like how they tell them in wow now"... Speaking dungeons and dragons aint even 50 years old yet at this point, and back in the earliest editions dragons didnt even talk, if you told ANY story about dragons talking here in the west people would just be confused or call it weird, as 50 years ago ANY story about a dragon here would be a very hard sell... Dragons did not become a western thing till like the 90's or even early 2000's.

now if we talking the east, their version of dragons have always been a wide range, from the silliest shitstirrers to the most serious and deity like "better then you"
I mean literally look at mulan, how the dragon in that acts, heavily inspired off some of the easts "Dragons live basically forever, and are bassically unkillable, so why not just have fun!?"

Dungeons and Dragons was released in 1974, complete with talking dragons. As was said by Hitei, The Hobbit was published in 1937. Neverending Story was published in 1979. Pete's Dragon was released in 1977. Dragons capable of speech have existed in the West since the fucking High Middle Ages. I have absolutely no idea where you got the thought of "Dragons did not become a western thing till like the 90's and even early 2000's." because that's so incredibly inaccurate that it sounds more like satire than an actual serious comment. For fuck's sake Beowulf has him defeating but killed by a talking dragon.

[SoulSoBreezy]

Calling it "family friendly" isn't quite how I'd put it, but since the RTS the franchise has never taken itself too seriously.
And not a lot of folks on this thread seem to acknowledge that this friendly dragon vibe comes after most of the flights have been decimated and they're trying to get themselves off the endangered species list.

[Calfredd]

Yeah I read it wrong. Though he was initially driven to insanity as a result of being damaged by the Demon Soul. So....I was wrong about what corrupted him but he was definitely corrupted by something rather than just deciding to become a villain. And while he gained some of his sanity back, he still became a genocidal maniac because he was still somewhat batshit insane.

I only have the wiki to go on but War of the Ancients had his flight almost completely wiped out which drove him mad in grief because he helped Deathwing get powered up with the Dragon Soul. He sort of snapped out of it when he was convinced to help against the orcs in Grim Batol and destroyed the Demon Soul (Dragon Soul's new name) but then nothing much was said after that until the comic with the nether drakes
and Nexus War in Wrath. So he was still insane from War of the Ancients until his death in Wrath, I guess, and is probably one of the few dragons not corrupted that we fight.

[TheRevenantHero]

I only have the wiki to go on but War of the Ancients had his flight almost completely wiped out which drove him mad in grief because he helped Deathwing get powered up with the Dragon Soul. He sort of snapped out of it when he was convinced to help against the orcs in Grim Batol and destroyed the Demon Soul (Dragon Soul's new name) but then nothing much was said after that until the comic with the nether drakes
and Nexus War in Wrath. So he was still insane from War of the Ancients until his death in Wrath, I guess, and is probably one of the few dragons not corrupted that we fight.

The Demon Soul also severely damaged him, causing damage to both his body and his sanity.

[Efcharisto]

The Demon Soul also severely damaged him, causing damage to both his body and his sanity.

I don't think Malygos was insane. I just think he had a job which gave him a particular perspective and attitude, and both those things made him look at the events over the past 10,000 years in regards to magic and made him say "Wow, fuck these mortals. They're taking the stuff I am supposed to be the aspect of and making a huge mess of things all over the place. Anyone who helps them be damned."

He was honestly one of the most compelling villains the franchise has ever had BECAUSE of his sanity. He was sane, but horrified by the way mortals use the arcane, and was too cynical to be reasoned with.

Now mind you I think they rushed it a bit and didn't let us EXPERIENCE Malygos going from insane, to sane, to full on anti-mortal magic authoritarian enough. But that's forgivable given they were still working on telling stories through their game at the time. Besides him, the most compelling character motivations for villains always seems to revolve around doing far more terrible things believing that ends will justify the means.

I do believe that part of the reason we have such limited, less compelling villains is actually partly due to the direction blizzard has taken in making the game more approachable for children and specific kinds of women. As well as diverting too much attention to conveying certain messages as opposed to just focusing on more important things for the story's sake.

[Flutterguy]

I just don't feel threatened at all by shiny proto-drakes. Raz was probably at least top 3 worst first tier final boss in the game's history.

[Goat7]

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

and on top of that the "new zones" are just re skinned old zones, new class is re skinned demon hunter meta form. whole thing is a joke imo

[FelPlague]

and on top of that the "new zones" are just re skinned old zones, new class is re skinned demon hunter meta form. whole thing is a joke imo

Neither of those are accurate...

[TrueNeutral]

I like the more happy setting rather than darker expansions like Shadowlands and Legion, although Broken Isle was pretty nice too and I don't mind going back to Legion, but the afterlives theme in Shadowlands was kinda depressing.
My favorite expansion since starting in Cata is probably MoP.

[exochaft]

After reading through a bunch of this thread, I think the OP's issue is a little misworded... or rather a better case can be made as it comes to the writing, not necessarily the art style (though it can impact it).

Ever since I started playing WoW back in vanilla, the friends I played with constantly had a discussion as to what keeps people invested in the game. To simplify years of arguments, we came down to always going back and forth about a game being mechanically fun to play and whether the story was actually good. Now this will vary based upon the type of game and what audience you're targeting, but when it comes to an MMORPG like WoW... both being fun to play and having a good story are likely important to the players as a whole. Some players may value one aspect over the other, but for many players it's a bit of both.

Why does this matter? It helps when there's something wrong with one of the aspects of the game to keep people interested and engaged. Again, to oversimplify: if the gameplay kinda sucks, you can default to the story and lore as a source of enjoyment. If the story and lore sucks, you can fall back onto the gameplay. Ideally you want both to be good, but despite my vigorous arguments about this subject with my friends, we all agree that the recent history of WoW has had the gameplay either mediocre or terrible for various reasons on top of the story going to hell. To give an analogomous simplified situation: if the raiding scene is terrible, you can default to M+ or PvP (basically if one or two of the main endgame activities is bad, there's a third option); if they all suck, you gotta look for something else in the game to become attached to (such as the story, collecting pets/toys/xmog, etc.) or you'll likely make yourself miserable and/or quit.

Ultimately, it comes down to what your definition of "family friendly" really is. It's not an exclusive rule, but it's quite common that "family friendly" gets associated with content that's terrible in quality because creators can't figure out how to make something accessible to a wide audience without dumbing things down to the point where everything is boring, oversimplified, not entertaining, inconsistent, or doesn't make sense on a fundamental level. To be fair, it's a hard thing to do... but that doesn't mean one should just give content creators a pass when they miss the mark when doing something hard. Constructive criticism is the key, as long as the creators are willing to accept such criticism and not gaslight or be beligerant to their audience. It's kind of funny, as this can not only be applied to WoW, but a lot of other games, TV shows, movies, etc., because it's not necessarily just a Blizz problem.

If we adjust our definition to that of a tonal issue only instead of quality one, that gets a little more subjective. However, I'd submit that if other aspects of the game are solid you can more readily overlook the flaws of a game. This is also why there's was a LOT of backlash in Shadowlands: the amount of content that was considered acceptable couldn't offset or let people overlook everything that was wrong with the game, whether it was gameplay, story, or what have you. Greatness will suppress the flaws, but incompetence will amplify all the flaws.

As a slight aside, there's another aspect to this, and it reared it's ugly head in Shadowlands: I think the sheer amount of hubris at Blizz doesn't help the situation either, as well as having their priorities not align well with what players want out of the game. Dragonflight has pushed this balance a bit towards the player's favor, but there's no indication this is a long-term or continuing direction (in fact there's aspects that show this could all revert back to the way it was going). However, as long as that hubris remains, don't be surprised if aspects of the game feel dumb-down or just don't jive at all or lose appeal to the broad audience of the game. Even the smartest people can get things wrong as no one is perfect, but you need creators that will accept that they can be wrong and course correct instead of doubling down on their mistakes.

[Hightotemz]

and here i thought this thread was going to talk about some of the non woke stuff that was removed in the past (Excluding the names of the guys complicit in the sexual misconduct at Blizzard)

Dragonflight is great, one of the best Blizzard has done so far. Certainly on par if not better then Legion at this point.

[FuxieDK]

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.

Well.. Dragons got old, over a decade ago.

Since 3 expansions ago, we have been slaying GOD LEVEL enemies, and suddenly we're back to dragons? It's a level of enemies, we had in Vanilla and TBC.

[Cynical Asshole]

Meanwhile the game has a significant focus on consumption of alcohol, both glorifying it and using it for funny themes, while the audience is +12.

Good thing stuff like nudity is "inappropriate", but teaching kids that drinking booze is ok is not "inappropriate".

[username993720]

Meanwhile the game has a significant focus on consumption of alcohol, both glorifying it and using it for funny themes, while the audience is +12.

Good thing stuff like nudity is "inappropriate", but teaching kids that drinking booze is ok is not "inappropriate".

What are you talking about, they changed all the alcohol refrences from the Monk so that all the "pure kids" wouldn't get corrupted.

[Hightotemz]

Meanwhile the game has a significant focus on consumption of alcohol, both glorifying it and using it for funny themes, while the audience is +12.

Good thing stuff like nudity is "inappropriate", but teaching kids that drinking booze is ok is not "inappropriate".

The Karens and Kens already sorted this out for us.

Luckily for the people that still play they don't really care about the quests of these now bland charactors.

The professions and general end game is really good in dragonflight which makes the game worthwhile playing.